23355	----	THE LITTLE VIOLINIST. By Thomas Bailey Aldrich Boston And New York Houghton Mifflin Company Copyright, 1873, 1885, and 1901 Weep with me, all you that read This little story; And know, for whom a tear you shed, Death's self is sorry. Ben Jonson. This story is no invention of mine. I could not invent anything half so lovely and pathetic as seems to me the incident which has come ready-made to my hand. Some of you, doubtless, have heard of James Speaight, the infant violinist, or Young Americus, as he was called. He was born in London, I believe, and was only four years old when his father brought him to this country, less than three years ago. Since that time he has appeared in concerts and various entertainments in many of our principal cities, attracting unusual attention by his musical skill. I confess, however, that I had not heard of him until last month, though it seems he had previously given two or three public performances in the city where I live. I had not heard of him, I say, until last month; but since then I do not think a day has passed when this child's face has not risen up in my memory--the little half-sad face, as I saw it once, with its large, serious eyes and infantile mouth. I have, I trust, great tenderness for all children; but I know that I have a special place in my heart for those poor little creatures who figure in circuses and shows, or elsewhere, as "infant prodigies." Heaven help such little folk! It was an unkind fate that did not make them commonplace, stupid, happy girls and boys like our own Fannys and Charleys and Harrys. Poor little waifs, that never know any babyhood or childhood--sad human midges, that flutter for a moment in the glare of the gaslights, and are gone. Pitiful little children, whose tender limbs and minds are so torn and strained by thoughtless task-masters, that it seems scarcely a regrettable thing when the circus caravan halts awhile on its route to make a small grave by the wayside. I never witness a performance of child-acrobats, or the exhibition of any forced talent, physical or mental, on the part of children, without protesting, at least in my own mind, against the blindness and cruelty of their parents or guardians, or whoever has care of them. I saw at the theatre, the other night, two tiny girls--mere babies they were--doing such feats upon a bar of wood suspended from the ceiling as made my blood run cold. They were twin sisters, these mites, with that old young look on their faces which all such unfortunates have. I hardly dared glance at them, up there in the air, hanging by their feet from the swinging bar, twisting their fragile spines and distorting their poor little bodies, when they ought to have been nestled in soft blankets in a cosey chamber, with the angels that guard the sleep of little children hovering above them. I hope that the father of those two babies will read and ponder this page, on which I record not alone my individual protest, but the protest of hundreds of men and women who took no pleasure in that performance, but witnessed it with a pang of pity. There is a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Dumb Animals. There ought to be a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Little Children; and a certain influential gentleman, who does some things well and other things very badly, ought to attend to it. The name of this gentleman is Public Opinion.{1} 1 This sketch was written in 1874. The author claims for it no other merit than that of having been among the earliest appeals for the formation of such a Society as now exists-- the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. But to my story. One September morning, about five years and a half ago, there wandered to my fireside, hand in hand, two small personages who requested in a foreign language, which I understood at once, to be taken in and fed and clothed and sent to school and loved and tenderly cared for. Very modest of them--was it not?--in view of the fact that I had never seen either of them before. To all intents and purposes they were perfect strangers to _me_. What was my surprise when it turned out (just as if it were in a fairy legend) that these were my own sons! When I say they came hand in hand, it is to advise you that these two boys were twins, like that pair of tiny girls I just mentioned. These young gentlemen are at present known as Charley and Talbot, in the household, and to a very limited circle of acquaintances outside; but as Charley has declared his intention to become a circus-rider, and Talbot, who has not so soaring an ambition, has resolved to be a policeman, it is likely the world will hear of them before long. In the mean time, and with a view to the severe duties of the professions selected, they are learning the alphabet, Charley vaulting over the hard letters with an agility which promises well for his career as circus-rider, and Talbot collaring the slippery S's and pursuing the suspicious X Y Z's with the promptness and boldness of a night-watchman. Now it is my pleasure not only to feed and clothe Masters Charley and Talbot as if they were young princes or dukes, but to look to it that they do not wear out their ingenious minds by too much study. So I occasionally take them to a puppet-show or a musical entertainment, and always in holiday time to see a pantomime. This last is their especial delight. It is a fine thing to behold the business-like air with which they climb into their seats in the parquet, and the gravity with which they immediately begin to read the play-bill upside down. Then, between the acts, the solemnity with which they extract the juice from an orange, through a hole made with a lead-pencil, is also a noticeable thing. Their knowledge of the mysteries of Fairyland is at once varied and profound. Everything delights, but nothing astonishes them. That people covered with spangles should dive headlong through the floor; that fairy queens should step out of the trunks of trees; that the poor wood-cutter's cottage should change, in the twinkling of an eye, into a glorious palace or a goblin grotto under the sea, with crimson fountains and golden staircases and silver foliage--all that is a matter of course. This is the kind of world they live in at present. If these things happened at home they would not be astonished. The other day, it was just before Christmas, I saw the boys attentively regarding a large pumpkin which lay on the kitchen floor, waiting to be made into pies. If that pumpkin had suddenly opened, if wheels had sprouted out on each side, and if the two kittens playing with an onion-skin by the range had turned into milk-white ponies and harnessed themselves to this Cinderella coach, neither Charley nor Talbot would have considered it an unusual circumstance. The pantomime which is usually played at the Boston Theatre during the holidays is to them positive proof that the stories of Cinderella and Jack of the Beanstalk and Jack the Giant-Killer have historical solidity. They like to be reassured on that point. So one morning last January, when I informed Charley and Talbot, at the breakfast-table, that Prince Rupert and his court had come to town, "Some in jags, Some in rags, And some in velvet gown," the news was received with great satisfaction; for this meant that we were to go to the play. For the sake of the small folk, who could not visit him at night, Prince Rupert was gracious enough to appear every Saturday afternoon during the month. We decided to wait upon his Highness at one of his _matinées_. You would never have dreamed that the sun was shining brightly outside, if you had been with us in the theatre that afternoon. All the window-shutters were closed, and the great glass chandelier hanging from the gayly painted dome was one blaze of light. But brighter even than the jets of gas were the ruddy, eager faces of countless boys and girls, fringing the balconies and crowded into the seats below, longing for the play to begin. And nowhere were there two merrier or more eager faces than those of Charley and Talbot, pecking now and then at a brown paper cone filled with white grapes, which I held, and waiting for the solemn green curtain to roll up, and disclose the coral realm of the Naiad Queen. I shall touch very lightly on the literary aspects of the play. Its plot, like that of the modern novel, was of so subtile a nature as not to be visible to the naked eye. I doubt if the dramatist himself could have explained it, even if he had been so condescending as to attempt to do so. There was a bold young prince--Prince Rupert, of course--who went into Wonderland in search of adventures. He reached Wonderland by leaping from the castle of Drachenfels into the Rhine. Then there was one Snaps, the prince's valet, who did not in the least want to go, but went, and got terribly frightened by the Green Demons of the Chrysolite Cavern, which made us all laugh--it being such a pleasant thing to see somebody else scared nearly to death. Then there were knights in brave tin armor, and armies of fair pre-Raphaelite amazons in all the colors of the rainbow, and troops of unhappy slave-girls, who did nothing but smile and wear beautiful dresses, and dance continually to the most delightful music. Now you were in an enchanted castle on the banks of the Rhine, and now you were in a cave of amethysts and diamonds at the bottom of the river--scene following scene with such bewildering rapidity that finally you did not quite know where you were. But what interested me most, and what pleased Charley and Talbot even beyond the Naiad Queen herself, was the little violinist who came to the German Court, and played before Prince Rupert and his bride. It was such a little fellow! He was not more than a year older than my own boys, and not much taller. He had a very sweet, sensitive face, with large gray eyes, in which there was a deep-settled expression that I do not like to see in a child. Looking at his eyes alone, you would have said he was sixteen or seventeen, and he was merely a baby! I do not know enough of music to assert that he had wonderful genius, or any genius at all; but it seemed to me he played charmingly, and with the touch of a natural musician. At the end of his piece, he was lifted over the foot-lights of the stage into the orchestra, where, with the conductor's _bâton_ in his hand, he directed the band in playing one or two difficult compositions. In this he evinced a carefully trained ear and a perfect understanding of the music. I wanted to hear the little violin again; but as he made his bow to the audience and ran off, it was with a half-wearied air, and I did not join with my neighbors in calling him back. "There 's another performance to-night," I reflected, "and the little fellow is n't very strong." He came out, however, and bowed, but did not play again. All the way home from the theatre my children were full of the little violinist, and as they went along, chattering and frolicking in front of me, and getting under my feet like a couple of young spaniels (they did not look unlike two small brown spaniels, with their fur-trimmed overcoats and sealskin caps and ear-lappets), I could not help thinking how different the poor little musician's lot was from theirs. He was only six years and a half old, and had been before the public nearly three years. What hours of toil and weariness he must have been passing through at the very time when my little ones were being rocked and petted and shielded from every ungentle wind that blows! And what an existence was his now--travelling from city to city, practising at every spare moment, and performing night after night in some close theatre or concert-room when he should be drinking in that deep, refreshing slumber which childhood needs! However much he was loved by those who had charge of him, and they must have treated him kindly, it was a hard life for the child. He ought to have been turned out into the sunshine; that pretty violin--one can easily understand that he was fond of it himself--ought to have been taken away from him, and a kite-string placed in his hand instead. If God had set the germ of a great musician or a great composer in that slight body, surely it would have been wise to let the precious gift ripen and flower in its own good season. This is what I thought, walking home In the amber glow of the wintry sunset; but my boys saw only the bright side of the tapestry, and would have liked nothing better than to change places with little James Speaight. To stand in the midst of Fairyland, and play beautiful tunes on a toy fiddle, while all the people clapped their hands--what could quite equal that? Charley began to think it was no such grand thing to be a circus-rider, and the dazzling career of policeman had lost something of its glamour in the eyes of Talbot. It is my custom every night, after the children are snug in their nests and the gas is turned down, to sit on the side of the bed and chat with them five or ten minutes. If anything has gone wrong through the day, it is never alluded to at this time. None but the most agreeable topics are discussed. I make it a point that the boys shall go to sleep with untroubled hearts. When our chat is ended, they say their prayers. Now, among the pleas which they offer up for the several members of the family, they frequently intrude the claims of rather curious objects for Divine compassion. Sometimes it is the rocking-horse that has broken a leg, sometimes it is Shem or Japhet, who has lost an arm in disembarking from Noah's ark; Pinky and Inky, the kittens, and Bob, the dog, are never forgotten. So it did not surprise me at all this Saturday night when both boys prayed God to watch over and bless the little violinist. The next morning at the breakfast-table, when I unfolded the newspaper, the first paragraph my eyes fell upon was this:-- "James Speaight, the infant violinist, died in this city late on Saturday night. At the _matinée_ of the 'Naiad Queen' on the afternoon of that day, when little James Speaight came off the stage, after giving his usual violin performance, Mr. Shewell {1} noticed that he appeared fatigued, and asked if he felt ill. He replied that he had a pain in his heart, and then Mr. Shewell suggested that he remain away from the evening performance. He retired quite early, and about midnight his father heard him say, '_Gracious God, make room for another little child in Heaven._' No sound was heard after this, and his father spoke to him soon afterwards; he received no answer, but found his child dead." 1 The stage-manager. The printed letters grew dim and melted into each other, as I tried to re-read them. I glanced across the table at Charley and Talbot eating their breakfast, with the slanted sunlight from the window turning their curls into real gold, and I had not the heart to tell them what had happened. Of all the prayers that floated up to heaven, that Saturday night, from the bedsides of sorrowful men and women, or from the cots of innocent children, what accents could have fallen more piteously and tenderly upon the ear of a listening angel than the prayer of little James Speaight! He knew he was dying. The faith he had learned, perhaps while running at his mother's side, in some green English lane, came to him then. He remembered it was Christ who said, "Suffer the little children to come unto me;" and the beautiful prayer rose to his lips, "Gracious God, make room for another little child in Heaven." I folded up the newspaper silently, and throughout the day I did not speak before the boys of the little violinist's death; but when the time came for our customary chat in the nursery, I told the story to Charley and Talbot. I do not think that they understood it very well, and still less did they understand why I lingered so much longer than usual by their bedside that Sunday night. As I sat there in the dimly lighted room, it seemed to me that I could hear, in the pauses of the winter wind, faintly and doubtfully somewhere in the distance, the sound of the little violin. Ah, that little violin!--a cherished relic now. Perhaps it plays soft, plaintive airs all by itself, in the place where it is kept, missing the touch of the baby fingers which used to waken it into life! 
20080	----	[Illustration: "I say, Pollie, how many have yer sold?" Page 8.] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- LITTLE POLLIE OR A BUNCH OF VIOLETS BY GERTRUDE P. DYER Author of "Armour Clad," "How Hettie Caught the Sunbeams," etc. NEW EDITION John F. Shaw & Co., Ltd., Publishers, 3, Pilgrim Street, London, E.C. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CONTENTS. PAGE I. POLLIE STARTS IN BUSINESS 7 II. WHO HAD THE VIOLETS? 17 III. HOW POLLIE SPENT HER MONEY 27 IV. MRS. FLANAGAN 36 V. THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 42 VI. ON WATERLOO BRIDGE 52 VII. THE LOST ONE FOUND 65 VIII. SALLY'S FIRST SUNDAY AT CHURCH 73 IX. CRIPPLED JIMMY 81 X. NORA 95 XI. CHRISTMAS EVE 104 XII. IN THE SPRING-TIME 113 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- LITTLE POLLIE. CHAPTER I. POLLIE STARTS IN BUSINESS. "A penny a bunch; only a penny, sweet violets," cried a soft little voice, just outside the Bank of England, one morning in early spring; "only a penny a bunch!" But the throng of busy clerks hurrying on to their various places of business heard not that childish voice amidst the confused din of omnibus and cabs, and so she stood, timidly uttering her cry--"Sweet violets!"--unheeded by the passers-by. She was a fragile little creature of about ten years old, small for her age, with shy yet trustful eyes, and soft, brown, curly hair; and as she stood there, clad in a black frock and a straw hat, well worn, it is true, but free from tatters, with a piece of crape neatly fastened around it, had any one amidst that busy multitude paused to look at the little flower-seller, they would have wondered why so young a child was trusted alone in that noisy, bustling place. "I say, Pollie, how many have yer sold, eh?" exclaimed another girl, coming up to her--quite a different type of girlhood, a regular London arab, one who from her very cradle (if ever she possessed such a luxury) had battled through life heedless of all rubs and bruises, ready to hold her own against the entire world, and yet with much of hidden goodness beneath the rugged surface. "Only two bunches," replied little Pollie, somewhat sadly. "Only two!" repeated the other. "My eye! yer won't make a fortin, that's sartin!" "The people don't seem to see me, not even hear me," said the child. "'Cos why, you don't shout loud enuff," explained the bigger girl. "If yer wants to get on in the world, yer must make a noise somehow. Make the folks hear; never minds if yer deafens 'em, they'll pay 'tention to yer then. See how I does it." At that moment four smart youths came strolling leisurely along arm-in-arm, trying to appear as though merely out on pleasure, though they knew full well they must be in their office and at their desks before the clock struck ten. These were just the customers for Sally Grimes, and away she rushed full upon them, her thin ragged shawl flying in the wind, and her rough hair, from which the net had fallen, following the example of the shawl; and as she reached the somewhat startled youths, who almost stumbled over her, she held her only remaining posy right in their faces, screaming out in a harsh grating voice, rendered harsh by her street training-- "Now, then, gents, this last bunch--only a penny!" Polly looked on in utter amazement. It is true she did not understand Sally's logic, but she saw plainly that the sweet violets were sold, for presently back came the girl, crying out-- "That's the way to do it. I've sold all mine; now let's see what you've got left. Why, ten more bunches! Come, give us two or three, I'll get rid of 'em for yer; I'll bring yer back the money. Look sharp, I see some folks a-comin'." And without further parley she snatched up several of the dainty little bunches tied up so neatly by Pollie's mother, and rushed off in pursuit of purchasers. She was certainly very fortunate, for in spite of a stern-looking policeman who was watching her movements, she sold them, speedily returning with the money to little Pollie, who by this time was getting almost bewildered with the noise around. "There, my gal," said the kind girl, "there's the money for yer; look, six pennies. My! ain't yer rich. Now I'm off to Covent Garding to the old 'ooman--mother, I means, yer know. There St. Poll's a-strikin' ten; good-bye." So saying, the friendly Sally Grimes darted off amidst the crowd, leaving the child to manage for herself, and very lonely she felt after her good-natured ally was gone. It was Pollie Turner's first attempt at selling flowers, and this her first day. No wonder the poor child felt shy and sad, for she could remember the time when "father" used to come home at eventide to the small but cosy cottage in that green lane, far, far away in the pleasant country; and she used to stand at the gate to watch for his coming, sometimes running half-way up the lane to meet him, and he would perch her on his shoulder, where she felt, oh! so safe, and bring her home to mother. Or she would climb his knee as he sat by the fire, and watch dear mother get the nice supper; but father was dead now. She had seen the pretty daisies growing above his grassy grave in that distant churchyard; and the mother, who had come up to London hoping to do better, was so ill and weak, scarcely able to do the needlework with which to gain food for them both. And Mrs. Flanagan had proposed the plan of Pollie starting in business. So this is how it had all come about. Pollie stood silently thinking over these events of the happy times gone by, when some one touched her arm softly, and then she looked up into the sweet face of a lady, whose kind eyes were bent half-sadly, half-pityingly upon her. "Are you selling these violets, my child?" she asked; and her voice was so sweet. "Yes, ma'am." "Then will you let me have three bunches?" Pollie with a smile put them into her hand, and the lady, after thanking her, placed the money for them in the child's basket, and went towards a carriage that was drawn up near the Royal Exchange. The child, lost in admiration at such a nice lady, followed her with her eyes, never thinking to look at the money she had given for the flowers, until glancing into the basket to see how many bunches were still left, she beheld a shilling shining amidst the dingy coppers. Eager to return the money to its rightful owner, little Pollie darted amongst the people who thronged the pavement, ran across the road at the risk of being run over, and reached the lady just as she was stepping into her carriage. "Please, ma'am, please," she faltered quite out of breath, and at the same time pulling her violently by the dress. "Let go, you little vagabond!" exclaimed the indignant footman, taking Pollie by the arm to pull her away. Fortunately the lady turned on hearing her servant speak thus, and saw the child struggling in his grip. "What is the matter?" she asked. "Please, ma'am, this," cried Pollie, holding up the shilling. "That is for the violets you sold to me." "Oh no, ma'am, it is all wrong," exclaimed the child excitedly; "those flowers are but three-pence--a penny a bunch; that's all. Here is your money, ma'am!" The lady gazed earnestly into the little girl's flushed face, as she asked-- "Why did you not keep that shilling?" "Because it was not mine," was the answer. "I should not have known but that the money was correct. You did not say the price of your flowers, my child." "God knew the price," said Pollie reverentially, "and He would have been angry with me for cheating you, ma'am." "Who taught you of God?" asked the lady softly, as she bent down to the little one. "Mother!" was the reply. "And is your mother dead?" she questioned, perceiving for the first time the child's poor mourning. "No, ma'am, but father is, and mother is so ill and weak," and the shy brown eyes filled with tears. "Poor child, poor little child," murmured the lady compassionately. "What is your name?" she asked after a pause, "and where do you live?" Pollie gave the desired information. "Well then, Pollie," said her new friend kindly, "here is the money for the violets; and take this shilling: it will buy something for your mother, perhaps. I shall come and see you one day." So saying she patted Pollie's thin cheeks with a soft loving touch; then stepping into the carriage was driven away, leaving Pollie in a state of wonderful happiness at so much kindness from so nice a lady. "Oh dear!" she thought, "I am rich now. I must make haste home to mother, and I've two bunches of violets still left. Mother shall have one and Mrs. Flanagan the other." CHAPTER II. WHO HAD THE VIOLETS! Pollie tied up the money securely in the corner of her clean pocket-handkerchief, and with a light heart proceeded towards "home," which was situated in the neighbourhood of Drury Lane. It was a long way for so young a child to traverse alone; but the children of the poor early learn to be self-reliant. Therefore she heeded not the dangers of the London streets, but threaded her way along; and if at times she felt afraid of a crossing, or some hurried foot-passenger hustled her roughly, a sweet text, taught by her dearly-loved mother, came to her mind, bringing a feeling of safety along with it. This was little Pollie's comfort--"Fear thou not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of My righteousness." And so she pursued her onward way, in her child's faith, trusting in Him to safely guide. As she was turning up Drury Court she met Lizzie Stevens, a young woman who lived opposite to them, and who earned a scanty living by working for cheap tailors. Often had the child looked from the window, and across the Court watched the poor girl bending her pale face over her work, never pausing to rest, but for ever stitch, stitch. However, the young seamstress had seen her little neighbour watching her, and once or twice had nodded to her, and so a sort of acquaintance had sprung up between them; indeed, on several occasions they had met, and the child's prattle had cheered the lonely work-girl. "Where have you been, Pollie?" she asked as they went up Drury Court together, the poor girl staggering under the weight of a huge bundle--the child kindly keeping pace with her, though longing to run home with her budget of good news to mother. "I've been selling violets. Mrs. Flanagan got them for me, and I've sold them all but two bunches--see!" And she lifted up a cloth which she had placed over the sweet flowers to prevent them fading too quickly. "Oh, how sweet they are!" exclaimed Lizzie Stevens, and she stopped, and putting her heavy bundle down on a door-step, bent her pale face over the flowers to inhale their perfume. When she raised her face it was whiter than before, and on the violets something was glistening. Pollie at first thought it was a dew-drop, but when she looked up into her neighbour's eyes she saw they were full of tears--_one_ was resting on the flowers! "Why are you crying?" asked the child softly; "are you ill?" "Oh no, Pollie," she sobbed forth; "but those sweet flowers recall the time when I was a little girl like you, and gathered them in the lanes near my happy home--before mother died." "Is your mother dead, then? Oh dear, I am so sorry," said the child with earnest pity. "Yes, I am all alone in the world; no one to love or care for me," she exclaimed passionately. "Ah, I wish I was dead too." "Don't say so," said Pollie soothingly; "God cares for you, and loves you dearly." "I sometimes think even He forgets me," moaned the poor girl, "when I see rich folks having all things they desire, and such as me almost starving, working night and day for a mere crust." "I once said so to mother," remarked the child, "but she opened our Bible, and bade me read a verse she pointed out. Shall I tell you what it was?" "Yes," was the reply. Pollie folded her hands, and repeated-- "Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me, lest I be full and deny Thee, and say, Who is the Lord? or lest I be poor and steal, and take the name of my God in vain." And then she turned to another to comfort me, and this is it-- "Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." When the child ceased speaking, she looked up into the face of her listener, whose head was bent in reverence to God. "O Pollie!" she said at last, as again taking up her heavy load she proceeded slowly onwards, "I wish I had a good mother." "Come over to us sometimes," said the child, eagerly. "Will your mother let me?" was the question. "Yes, I am sure she will; she is so good," was the reply. And then the two friends went on up Drury Lane, not speaking much; but as they were parting Lizzie stooped down, and kissing the child lovingly, said softly-- "Good-bye, and thank you, little Pollie." "Would you like a bunch of violets?" she asked. "I can divide the other between mother and Mrs Flanagan." The poor seamstress was unable to speak from emotion, but held out her hand with trembling eagerness for the flowers. How glad was the child in being able to give a pleasure to her lonely neighbour. She felt more joy in seeing Lizzie Stevens' glad smile than even in the magnificent sum of money wrapped in her handkerchief; for she experienced "it is more blessed to give than to receive;" and after seeing her friend disappear through the dingy doorway which led to the garret called her "home," she turned with a light heart into the entry which led to her own place, eager to see mother and tell her all; but in doing so almost fell over a little cripple boy who sat crouched on the door-steps. "O Jimmy! did I hurt you?" she asked in alarm. "No. Everybody knocks me about; I'se used to it," was his answer. "Poor Jimmy!" said the little girl. "Where's your mother?" "Down there, drunk again," he replied, pointing his thin finger in the direction of what in other houses would be the kitchen, but which was his "home," if it could be dignified by so sacred a name. Pollie looked sorrowfully on the poor boy, whose thin, wizened face, with large, hungry eyes, was placed on a shrunk and distorted body. His mother was the pest of the court, always drunk, and in her drunken fury beating her wretched offspring. Half-starved and half-clothed, he passed his time on the door-step, gazing vacantly at the passers-by, uncared for, unloved amidst the many. "Poor Jimmy!" repeated the little girl. "Would you like some of my sweet violets?" The boy, unused to even a breath of kindness, gazed some few seconds at her with his eager eyes. "You be Pollie Turner, bain't yer, what lives upstairs with yer mother?" he asked at last. "Yes," she replied, and repeated her question, as she took some of the flowers from her last bunch. "Would you like these?" He held out his claw-like hand--so dirty that Pollie almost shrank from touching it as she gave him the violets. He took them without a word of thanks, but as she was moving away he called out-- "I say, did yer make these?" "No, Jimmy," she replied, as she came back to him; "God made them." "God!" he repeated, "Who's He; Him's mighty clever to fix up these little bits of things, bain't He?" The little girl was for a moment shocked, then she felt a tender pity for the poor boy. "O Jimmy, don't you know who God is?" she gently asked. He shook his head; so she went on-- "God is our Father in heaven," and she pointed upwards. "He made these sweet flowers, and us also, and He sent His dear Son to die for us, so that all our sins should be taken away. And when Jesus (that is the name of God's dear Son) was here on earth, He gave sight to the blind, healed the sick, and was for ever doing good; but now He is in heaven, and still He loves us, oh, so dearly, and wishes us all to come to Him." "Does He want me?" asked the outcast doubtfully; "He don't know me." "Oh yes, He knows you, Jimmy, and loves you too; once Jesus blessed little children like you and me, and said, 'Suffer little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.'" "The kingdom of heaven!" repeated poor benighted Jimmy musingly--it was the first time he had ever heard those blessed words--"where be that, Polly?" "It is where God lives, and where we shall go when we die if we believe in the Saviour and love and pray to God." "How do you pray?" he asked, fixing his keen eyes upon her, as though hungering for the bread of life. But before she could reply, a loud, harsh voice was heard uttering frightful oaths, and a lumbering tread came stumbling up the cellar stairs. The poor boy knew full well who was coming, and with a terrified look started up and hobbled off, supported by his clumsy crutches, round the corner of the house, whilst Pollie, who went in terror of the drunken woman, ran hastily up the dirty staircase, which served for all the inmates of the crowded house. CHAPTER III. HOW POLLY SPENT HER MONEY. The first two or three flights of stairs were thickly strewn with mud and dust from the feet of the different lodgers; but when Pollie reached the last landing she felt it was home indeed. The stairs were as clean and white as hands could scrub them--no dirt was to be seen here,--and outside her mother's door was a little mat on which to rub the shoes before entering. It was quite a relief to reach this part of the house. There were only two rooms at the top part of the tenement--one inhabited by good Mrs Flanagan, the other by Pollie and her mother; and though the apartments were small, and the narrow windows overlooked the chimney-pots and tiles, yet they felt it such an advantage to be up here, removed, as it were, from the noisy people who lived in the same dwelling; each room, in fact, was let out to separate families, some of them very rough and boisterous. Pollie tapped at her mother's door, and then peeped merrily in. There sat that good and gentle woman, busily working close by the narrow window, so as to get as much light as possible for her delicate needlework. The tea-things were already on the table, which was spread with a clean white cloth, and the kettle sang a cheery welcome to little Pollie; for though it was only three o'clock, it was tea-time for them, since dinner was an almost unknown luxury to this poor mother and child. "Here I am, mother dear!" she cried, putting in her bright face, which was as sunshine to the lonely widow's heart. "O Pollie, I am so glad you have come home; I was getting so anxious and afraid, and the time seemed so long without you, my child." Then the little girl ran in and threw her arms around her mother's neck. "Only look here!" she cried delightedly, when after a loving kiss she proceeded to display her riches; "see, mother," she said, arranging the money all in a row on the table, the bright shilling flanked on either side by five brown pennies; "are we not rich now? sixpence must be paid to kind Mrs. Flanagan for the sweet violets she got for me, and then we shall have one shilling and fourpence left, and I shall buy lots of things for you, mother darling," she concluded, clapping her hands in glee. The widow smiled cheerfully as she folded up her work, and prepared to get their simple meal of tea and bread, listening the while as the child related the events of the morning. "And now, mother," she pursued, "I must divide these dear sweet violets between you and Mrs. Flanagan." "Then here are two little cups which will be just the thing for them," said the happy mother, whose pale face grew brighter as she gazed on the delighted child. With the greatest care Pollie divided the flowers equally, and when putting theirs in the window, so that they might still see some of the blue sky, as she expressed it, she looked across the Court towards Lizzie Stevens' home. Yes, there she was, Pollie could see, busy plying her needle, and there were the violets also, in a broken jam jar close by her as she sat at work; and raising her pale face towards them, as though they were old friends returned to her, she caught sight of little Pollie arranging _her_ bouquet in the window; so with a bright smile (unwonted visitor to those wan lips) kissed her hand in token of recognition, and then pointed to the flowers. Pollie quite understood this little pantomime, and nodded her curly head a great many times to her opposite neighbour in proof of her so doing. "Come to tea, my child," said the mother, who had cut some slices of bread for the frugal repast, but which she had no appetite to eat. "Wait a bit, mammie dear, I must do some shopping first," exclaimed Pollie; "I shall not be long." And away she ran, gaily laughing at her mother's look of surprise. Down the stairs she went, then out into the Court; and just round the corner in Drury Lane was a greengrocer's shop, in the window of which hung a label "New-laid Eggs." I fear that label told a fiction, but Pollie believed in it, and thought the eggs were laid by the identical hens she saw earning a scanty living by pecking in the gutters and among the cabs and carts; so with a feeling of being very womanly, and tightly grasping the precious shilling in her hand, she took courage to approach the shopkeeper, who stood with arms akimbo in the doorway, flanked on one side by potatoes in bins, and on the other by cabbages and turnips in huge baskets. "Please, ma'am," said Pollie, "will you let me have a new-laid egg for mother?" The woman took an egg from a basket and gave it to her. "If you please, is it quite fresh? because mother is so poorly, and I want it to do her good." The shopkeeper looked at the earnest little face, and somehow felt she could not tell an untruth to the child, the brown eyes were raised so trustingly. "Well, my little gal, I can't say as it be quite fresh, but it's as good as any you'll get about here." "Then I'd better not have it," said the child, giving it back to the woman again; "only I did so want to get her something nice for her tea,--she can't eat much." And the lips quivered with suppressed sorrow at the disappointment. "Why don't you get her a bit of meat instead?" asked the woman; "that'll do her good, I warrant!" "Will this buy some?" questioned the child with brightened eyes, and opening her hand she showed the shilling. "To be sure it will. Here, give it to me; I'll go and get you one pound of nice pieces at my brother's next door, if you'll just mind the shop till I come back; you can be trusted, I see," replied the mistress of the place, whose woman's heart was touched by the little girl's distress. Pollie stood where she was left, guarding the baskets with watchful eyes. Fortunately no mischievous people were about, so the vegetables were safe, though it was with no small relief she saw their owner return with such nice pieces of meat wrapped up in clean paper. "There," said the greengrocer's wife (whose name was Mrs. Smith, by the way), "these are good and fresh; my brother let me choose them, and have them cheap too, only fourpence a pound!" "Oh, thank you, thank you, ma'am!" cried Pollie, holding up her face to kiss the kind woman, who, totally unused to such affectionate gratitude in the poor little waifs about Drury Lane, bent down and returned the caress with a feeling of unwonted tenderness tugging at her heart. "And now, please, I should like a bunch of water-cresses for Mrs. Flanagan," said the child. "I know she is very fond of them with her tea." "What are you going to buy for yourself?" asked the shopkeeper, as, after handing Pollie the freshest bunch in the basket, she stood watching her tiny customer. The little girl hesitated; at length she said-- "Well, if I don't get something, mother will want me to eat this meat, and I mean her to have it all; so I'll buy two little pies in Russell Court,--one for me, and one for poor little crippled Jimmy." "You're a good gal," exclaimed the woman. "Here, put these taters in your basket; maybe your mother would like 'em with the meat, they boil nice and mealy." Pollie was so grateful to Mrs. Smith for the kind thought, and held out her money to pay for this luxury; but to her surprise she told her to put it back into her pocket--the "taters" were a gift for her mother, and patting her cheek, bade her run home quickly, and always "be a good gal." CHAPTER IV. MRS FLANAGAN. As Pollie reached her mother's door at last, after all this amount of shopping had been accomplished, she heard a well-known voice inside, and knew that Mrs. Flanagan had returned from work, and was now having her usual little chat with Mrs. Turner. Good Mrs. Flanagan, who had been so kind to the widow and her child from the first moment they came to lodge in the room opposite to hers--good old woman, with a heart as noble and true as the finest lady's in the land--a gentlewoman in every sense, though not of the form or manner in which we are accustomed to associate that word. Years ago she had been a servant in a farmhouse, where she was valued and esteemed by all as a sincere though humble friend; but Mike Flanagan won her heart, and she joined her fate to his, leaving the sweet, fresh country in which she had always lived, and cheerfully giving up all the old familiar ties of home and kindred for his dear sake. Mike had constant work in London, with good wages too, as a carpenter, so though at first London and London ways sadly puzzled her, yet she soon became used to the change, and they were so happy--he in his clean, tidy wife, she in her honest, sober husband. But one day, through the carelessness of a drunken fellow-workman, some heavy timber fell upon poor Mike, crushing him beneath its weight, and when next Martha Flanagan looked on her husband's face, she know he was past all suffering, and that she was destitute, and her sweet baby Nora fatherless. But time soothed her anguish; she must be up and doing, and for many years she struggled on, working to keep a home for herself and child; and proud she was of her darling, her beautiful Nora, who grew up a sweet flower of loveliness from a rugged parent stem, with all the beauty of her father's nation and something of the sweetness of English grace. Well might the poor mother be proud of her only treasure. What delight it was to see this rare beauty brightening the lowly home! But the mother's idol was of clay; in worshipping the creature with such fond idolatry, she almost forgot the merciful Creator. One sad night, on returning home from Covent Garden, where she was constantly employed by a fruiterer and florist, she found the place empty, no one to greet her now. Nora was gone, lost in that turbid stream which flows through our city. Oftentimes, as the lonely mother wended her way at night through the streets on her return from work, would she look with a shudder into the faces of those poor wretches who flaunted by fearing yet hoping to see her lost child. But the name of Nora never passed her lips. No one who knew Mrs. Flanagan imagined of this canker at her heart; that page of her life was folded down, and closed to prying eyes; it was only when alone with God that on bended knees she prayed Him to bring the poor wanderer home. "Ah, my bird!" she cried, as Pollie came joyfully dancing into the room. "Here you are, then; I thought from what your mother said that such a lot of money had turned you a bit crazed." Pollie did not reply, but pursed up her lips with a look of supreme importance as she placed her basket on the table, and proceeded to take out its contents. "There, mother dearie," she exclaimed with delight as she displayed the meat; "that's for you. You must eat every tiny bit of it, so let us try some directly. See, dear Mrs Flanagan, I bought these water-cresses for you. Shall I fetch your tea-pot? For let us all have tea together to-day, like on Sundays; this is such a happy day." And she ran across the landing without waiting for a reply, to bring the little brown tea-pot, which on the Sabbath always found a place on Mrs. Turner's table; for that day was hailed as a peaceful festival by these two lonely widows, who kept God's day in sincerity and truth. When the busy child came back, she set to work to carefully wash the cresses, arranging them afterwards in a pretty plate of her own, and then, placing them and the violets she had saved in front of the kind old woman, lifted up her bright face for a kiss. But Mrs Flanagan was unable even to say "Thank you, my bird." Her face was buried in her blue checked apron. She muttered something about her eyes being weak, and when after a little while she looked up, and lovingly kissed the child, Pollie feared they must be very bad indeed, they were so red, just as though she had been crying. "Ah, my little one," she said in a husky voice "may God ever keep you pure and simple in heart; yea, even as a little child!" By this time the meat was fried, the tea made, and everything in readiness for this wonderful banquet--at least so Pollie deemed it. How happy they were! Mrs Flanagan had recovered her usual spirits, and indulged in many a hearty laugh at the child's plans of what she should now do for mother, and the widow looked on with her quiet smile, happy in her child's happiness, glad because she was listening to her merry prattle; and though the meal was but scanty, no dainty dishes to tempt the appetite, yet the wisest man has said,-- "Better a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith." CHAPTER V. THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. Well, the days passed on, and little Pollie pursued her work of selling violets; for those sweet flowers are a long time in season, bearing bravely the March winds and April showers, as though desirous of gladdening the earth as long as possible. All honour, then, to these hardy little blossoms. So day after day found Pollie in the same spot where we first saw her, until at last the little brown-eyed girl became well known to the passers-by. Kind old gentlemen, fathers, or it may be grandfathers some of them, thought of their own more fortunate children, whose lives were so much easier, and so thinking, stopped and bought of the shy little maiden, speaking kindly to her the while; girls on their way to the city workrooms gladly spent a hard-earned penny for violets, and worked more cheerfully afterwards, gladdened by the mere remembrance of Pollie's grateful thanks. A sturdy policeman, too, whose beat was at that place, and where he seemed to hold stern sway over all the omnibus and cab drivers, took her, as it were, under his lordly care (perhaps he had a little girl of his own), and would shield her many times from the jostling crowd, or take her safely over the crossings. Indeed, he was so kind, that one day, when she was going home, she summoned up courage enough to overcome her shyness, and offer him some of the violets she had not sold. To her great delight he accepted them, saying kindly,-- "Thank you, my little woman." And all through that day he kept them in his pocket, sometimes, however, taking them out to smell their fragrance, and then, somehow, the remembrance of Pollie's wee face as she looked when timidly offering the flowers, carried him back to the days of "auld lang syne," those happy days when he and his little sister (long since dead) had rambled through the green lanes of his native village, searching for sweet violets, and this memory cheered the poor tired policeman, made him forget the ceaseless din around and the never-ending wilderness of bricks. Even the London sparrows looked less dingy, and the sunbeams falling across the dusty pavement recalled to his mind how fresh the green was where he used to play when a boy, and how the shadows seemed to chase the sunshine over the uplands on such an April day as this. Yes, Pollie's violets were not useless, they were speaking with their mute voices----speaking of the past with its brightest memories to this poor man. Not that Sally Grimes had deserted her little friend, far from that, for somehow she "took to her," as she herself expressed it, and was always hovering about the child in case she needed protection. But Sally's movements were inclined to be erratic; she dashed in and out among all sorts of vehicles in search of customers so recklessly, any one less experienced would have trembled for her safety; but she knew no fear, and dared the dangers of the streets most bravely. Sometimes Lizzie Stevens would walk with Pollie as far as the Bank, then leaving the child to sell her flowers, would proceed to the East End with her own work; but on her return, the little girl was always ready to join her, and they would all three go home together. A great friendship existed between the hitherto lonely seamstress and Pollie's mother, whose kind heart was touched by the account the child gave of their friendless young neighbour; so she sought her out, and finding how good she was, and how bravely she struggled to earn her daily bread honestjly, gradually won her confidence; so that now Lizzie felt she was not _quite_ alone in this wide wide world. There _was_ a kind motherly love in which she could rest, and life was made brighter for her; even the days were less dreary than before, for as Mrs. Turner's room was nicer than hers, she invited her to bring her work over, and they stitched hour after hour at their ceaseless work, yet still they did not feel their loneliness so much, and were a comfort and help to one another. All this was a happiness to Pollie, as she felt her mother would not be sad during her absence (as she very often was), for the child's "business" had become more extensive, her ally, Sally, having persuaded her to sell flowers in the evening also; and as her mother and Mrs. Flanagan had offered no objection to this plan, Pollie was only too glad to earn more; indeed the little girl's gains, small though they were, helped to get many simple comforts for the humble home. One evening about six o'clock she came home, swinging her empty basket in her hand and singing softly a merry song from sheer gladness thinking also of the dear face upstairs that would brighten up to welcome her, as it ever did, when, as she entered the doorway, she stumbled over poor little Jimmy, crouching as usual just inside the entrance. "There ain't nobody at home, Pollie," he said; "yer mother has gone to help Lizzie Stevens carry to the shop a real heap of work." "I daresay Mrs. Flanagan is in her room," said the child. "No, she ain't neither," replied Jimmy, "for I see'd her go out to the market; I know, 'cos she took her great basket with her." "Oh then!" exclaimed Pollie, laughing, "I must just let myself in, and wait for mother; I know where she puts our key. Good-night, Jimmy dear." And she was going up the stairs when she felt the little cripple boy gently pull her frock to detain her. "I say, Pollie," he said hesitatingly, "I be so lonesome here, will yer mind biding with me and telling me about the kingdom of heaven, and that good man what took such as you and me in his arms--like you told me t'other day?" "Oh yes, Jimmy, that I will," cried the little girl; "here, let us sit on this lowest stair; I don't think many people will be passing up now, and then I shall see mother when she comes in." The poor ragged outcast crept near to his tiny friend as she requested, and then sat looking up into her bright face, whilst in simple words such as a child would use she told him that sweet story of old--of our Saviour, a babe in the manger of Bethlehem--His loving tenderness to us--of His death upon the Cross for our redemption--of His glorious resurrection and ascension to heaven, whither He has gone to prepare a place for those who love and believe Him. "And does He want me in that beautiful land?" asked the awe-struck boy, almost in a whisper. "Yes, Jimmy, even you," was the reply. "But I be so dirty and ugly," he said. "God made you, dear, and He makes nothing ugly," replied the little girl soothingly. "And you say we shall never hunger or thirst in heaven, and never feel pain any more. O Pollie, I wish I was there; nobody wants me here." His little friend took his claw-like hand tenderly in hers and stroked it gently. She knew what a wretched life was his, and could not wonder at what he said--"nobody wants me here"--but her heart was full of sympathy for his loneliness. "Shall I teach you a prayer to say to Jesus, Jimmy?" she asked after a pause of some length, during which her companion had been silently gazing up at the only piece of sky that was visible in that narrow court, as though trying to imagine where heaven really was, the child having pointed upwards whilst speaking of the home beyond the grave. "What is prayer?" he asked. Pollie could not explain it correctly, but she did her best to make it easy to his benighted mind. She gave him _her_ idea of what prayer is. "It is speaking to God," she said with reverence. "And will He listen to the likes of me?" was the question. "Oh yes, if you pray to Him with your whole heart," was her reply. The boy paused awhile, as though musing upon what she had said. "Pollie," he presently entreated in hushed tones, "please teach me to pray." And then at the foot of the stairs knelt those two children--children of the same heavenly Father, lambs of the dear Saviour's fold--alike and yet so unlike; and the poor outcast cripple, following the actions of the little girl, meekly folded his hands as she clasped hers, and with eyes raised heavenward to where a few stars were now softly shining, he repeated after her-- "Consider and hear me, O Lord my God! lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death; for Jesus' sake!" He murmured the blessed words over two or three times after she had ceased to speak; then in silence they sat down upon the stair again, to wait for mother. The daylight faded quite away, only the stars were shining. The court at this time of the evening was always very quiet, and the peace of God was resting on those little ones. By degrees a calm had fallen upon the poor boy's soul. Never, never so happy before, he laid his weary head upon the little girl's lap with a feeling of perfect rest, murmuring to himself-- "For Jesus' sake." And so Pollie's mother found them fast asleep, with the star-light shining on their upturned faces. "Of such is the kingdom of heaven." CHAPTER VI. ON WATERLOO BRIDGE. "I say, why don't yer come with me on Saturdays, Pollie?" asked Sally Grimes one Thursday evening as they wended their way homewards. It was opera night, and the sale of their flowers had been very good, so that Sally, who had "cleared out," as she termed it, was elated with success. Even Pollie had only a small bunch left. Truth to tell, she always liked to keep a few buds to take home with her--just a few to brighten up their room, or those of their two dear friends. She was tying up her blossoms, which had become unfastened, so that for the moment she did not reply to her companion's question, who asked again-- "Why don't yer come on Saturdays, eh? I allers does a good trade then." "Mother likes to get ready for the Sabbath on that day. So we clean our room right out, so as to make it nice and tidy. Then I learn my hymns and texts for the Sunday-school, and then mother hears me say them over, so as to be sure I know them well; and oh, it's so happy!" "Sunday-school!" repeated Sally; "is that where yer goes on Sundays? I see yer sometimes with books, eh? Lord do yer go there?" "Yes; would you like to go with me?" Pollie suddenly asked, looking up at her friend with delight at the mere idea. But Sally rubbed her nose thoughtfully with a corner of her apron, uncertain what to say on the subject. "Don't they whop yer at school?" she asked, after deliberating. To her astonishment, quiet little Pollie burst into such a merry laugh. "No, indeed!" she exclaimed, when her mirth had subsided. "The teachers are far too kind for that. Oh, I know you would like it, so do come." "Well, I'll see about it," was the rejoinder. "My gown ain't special, but I've got such a hat! I bought it in Clare Market, with red, blue, and yaller flowers in it--so smart!" "Oh, never mind your clothes," said Pollie, somewhat doubtful as to the effect such a hat would have on the teachers and pupils; "come as you are, only clean and tidy--that is all they want." For some time they walked on in silence, but their thoughts must have been on the same subject, for suddenly Sally asked-- "What do you do at Sunday-school?" "We read the Bible, repeat our texts and hymns. Shall I say the one I am learning for next Sunday to you?" "Well, I should like to hear it," was the reply. "Suppose we go and sit on Waterloo Bridge--it's nice and quiet there--I'll pay the toll." Pollie, however, would not consent to her friend's extravagance on her behalf, so the two children paid each their halfpenny and passed on to the Bridge. It was a lovely evening, and though April, yet it was not too cold, so they seated themselves in one of the recesses, and for a time were amused by watching the boats on the river, chatting merrily, as only children can. "Now, then, tell me yer pretty hymn," said Sally, when at last they had exhausted their stock of fun, and putting her arm around her little friend's neck, they cuddled up lovingly together--the gentle little Pollie, and sturdy, rugged Sally. Then the child repeated to her listening companion-- "Abide with me! fast falls the eventide; The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide," &c. She went on unto the end, the bigger girl listening the while with almost breathless eagerness, and when it was finished they both remained silent. Evidently those beautiful verses had struck a chord hitherto mute in the heart of the poor untaught London waif. "Oh, but that's fine!" she murmured at last in hushed tones. "Tell me something else, Pollie." However, just at that moment the attention of the children was arrested by a young woman who came and sat down in the recess opposite them. They had both noticed her pass and repass several times, but as they were almost hidden by the stone coping of the bridge, she had not observed them. With wild gestures she threw herself upon the stone seat, and imagining she was alone, burst into piteous moans, alternately clasping her hands tightly together, as though in pain, then hiding her pale but lovely face, which showed traces of agony; swaying backwards and forwards, but with ever the same ceaseless moaning cry. "Oh, poor lady!" whispered Pollie to her friend. "She ain't no lady, though she be so smart in a silk gown and rings on her fingers," replied her companion in the same low tone. "What is she then?" asked the child. Poor Sally Grimes! her education had hitherto been confined to the London streets, and that training had made her but too well acquainted with life in its worst phases; so she replied-- "She's only some poor creature---- I say!" was her exclamation, as suddenly she started up, "what be yer going to do?" The latter part of this sentence was addressed to the stranger, who had sprung upon the stone parapet, and was about to throw herself into the deep waters beneath. "Let me die! let me die!" she cried, wildly struggling to free herself from sturdy Sally's strong grasp. "No, I won't!" was the reply. "Here, Pollie, you hold hard too." "Oh, in mercy, in pity, let me die!" sobbed the unhappy creature in her agony. "Oh, if you only knew how I want to be at rest for ever!" and again she struggled franticly to escape from the saving hands that held her. "Now, if yer don't get down and sit quiet on this seat, I'll call that there peeler, and then he'll take yer to Bow Street," exclaimed the undaunted Sally. "Ain't yer 'shamed to talk like that? Now, come, I'll call him if yer don't do what I say." Frightened by this threat, or perhaps seeing how fruitless were her feeble struggles against the strong grasp of her preserver, the unhappy girl--she was but a girl--shrank down submissively on to the seat, still trembling and moaning, whilst brave-hearted Sally stood over her to prevent any further attempt at self-destruction. Pollie looked on in bewildered surprise at this sad scene, not knowing what to make of it; but she still kept her hold on the woman's dress, as if her small strength could be of any service; but Sally had told her to "hold on," and so she obeyed. The woman was now sobbing bitterly. It was more than the child could bear to see any one in tears, so laying her little hand tenderly upon the sorrow-bowed head, she said very gently-- "Please don't cry, ma'am; it makes Sally and me so sad." At that soft touch and soothing voice the woman looked up, and then the two children saw that she was very beautiful even now,--mere wreck as she seemed to be of all that is pure and lovely. "Child!" she cried, "do you know what you touch?--a wretch not fit to crawl the earth much less be touched by innocent hands like yours." Pollie shrank back in terror at these words, and the tone in which they were uttered, but Sally was equal to any emergency. "Come, come," she exclaimed, "don't yer talk like that, frightening this little gal in that way; you just quiet yourself, and then we'll see yer safe home." "Home!" was the response. "I have none, only the streets or the river." "Stuff and nonsense!" cried practical Sally. "No home!" repeated little Pollie; "how sad!" "Now what's to be done?" debated the elder girl, somewhat puzzled as to the course to be pursued; "here's night coming on, and we can't leave you here, yer know." "Let us take her home to my mother," exclaimed the child; "mother will know what to do." But Sally hesitated. "Perhaps she might not like it," she observed. "Oh, I am sure mother won't mind, she is so good and so kind." All the time the children were discussing what was to be done, the unhappy creature sat there, never heeding what was said, but still sobbing and moaning, and apparently utterly exhausted. "Well, then, there's nothing else to be done that I see, so come along, young woman;" and so saying, Sally Grimes grasped her firmly by the arm, thus forcing her to rise. "Where are you taking me?" she asked, gazing wildly around. "To Pollie's mother," was the reply. But the woman hung back and strove to free herself. "I will not go!" she cried; "let me stay here, leave me to myself." However, there is much to be said in favour of strength of will. Sally Grimes, young as she was, possessed it in a wonderful degree; therefore, without wasting another word, she compelled the forlorn creature to go with her, little Pollie still keeping hold of the poor thing's dress. CHAPTER VII. THE LOST ONE FOUND. Mrs. Turner sat alone, busily sewing, but she heard her darling's well-known step come pattering up the stairs; so she put on the tea-kettle directly, for she knew the little one would be tired and hungry; and forthwith it began to sing cheerily, filling the room with its homely melody, as though it would say "Pollie is coming," "Pollie is coming;" and somehow the mother felt cheered. It may be the kettle's fancied greeting was but the echo of her own loving heart. Time was too precious to be wasted, so the widow continued her work, and the light from the one candle being centred to the spot where she sat, the entry was consequently dark; but on looking up with a smile of greeting, expecting only to see Pollie, she was surprised to see her hesitate on the threshold, apparently clutching some one tightly by the dress: but directly she saw her mother, she seemed to feel she might let go her hold, her charge was safe; so running in, she threw her arms around her neck and whispered-- "O mother, darling, this poor lady has no home; let her stay here to-night." The widow rose from her seat in some surprise, but before she could say a word, trusty Sally Grimes led in the woman, and then in a moment Mrs. Turner comprehended it all. She saw a poor lost girl, and she thought of her own innocent little one; then came into her heart those merciful words-- "Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more." With womanly tenderness she took the poor shivering creature by the hand, seated her close to the fire, saying gently-- "God help you, my poor child, you are welcome here." Then the flood-gates of the unhappy girl's heart were opened, and leaning her head on the widow's shoulder she sobbed aloud. Meanwhile Pollie, assisted by her faithful friend, was busy getting the tea ready, thinking it would refresh their strange visitor; and whilst Sally cut some bread-and-butter the child arranged her violets in a cup, to make, as she said, "the table look pretty." But the stranger was unable to partake of the simple meal; she seemed utterly worn and weary, for, leaning her head upon the arm of the chair, she lapsed into an apathetic sleep, as though completely exhausted. Whilst she thus slept, Sally Grimes (who had been invited to remain) told Mrs. Turner in a whisper all that had taken place that evening. "May God bless you, my dear," said the widow fervently; "you are indeed a good girl." "But Pollie helped me," exclaimed the warm-hearted girl. The mother looked at her delicate little child, and smiled to think of those tiny hands doing their part in saving this woman. Then she turned for counsel to Sally. "I have but this one bed," she said hesitatingly, "and--and--I should not like her to sleep with Pollie; what shall I do?" "Let us make her a nice bed on the floor," suggested the child. "That's the thing!" assented Sally, and the widow agreeing to the plan, they soon had a comfortable bed ready for the stranger. The poor creature suffered them to remove her hat and dress, then they laid her down, and she rested, thankful for the shelter so cheerfully given, humble though it was. She was still very beautiful. Her golden brown hair, released from its massive braids, fell in rippling waves around her; the long black lashes, now that the eyes were closed, lay like a silken fringe upon the pale and wasted cheeks. Yes, she was very beautiful; and as the good Samaritans stood looking at her (the children with wondering pity), the widow thought of the time when this lost girl was tenderly loved by parents, who perhaps were even now sorrowing for their erring child. It was getting late, and as it was Pollie's bedtime the mother and child prepared to read their evening chapter. Sally, too, sat down by the fire to listen, wondering in her own mind what they were about. It was all so strange to this poor London waif, this cleanly, peaceful home, this simple worship. The appointed chapter for this evening was the parable of the Good Shepherd, and the girl's attention was riveted by those words of Divine love and mercy. "And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd." Would _she_ be gathered into that fold also? could there be room for _her_? Yes; the seed was sown on that hitherto rugged soil; it would take root and bring forth fruit for the Lord of the harvest. * * * * * Just as Sally had put on her time-worn shawl, and was bidding her kind friends "good-night" before going home, heavy steps were heard ascending the stairs, and soon the portly form of Mrs. Flanagan entered the room. "Well, here I am again," she exclaimed, "and right-down tired, I can tell you; why don't cooks know what they want, and order things in the morning? Dear, dear! what a walk I've had, to be sure--all the way to Grosvenor Square, and with such a load too!" "Hush, please," whispered Mrs. Turner, pointing to the sleeper. "Who have you got there?" she asked in surprise. In a few words, spoken in a subdued voice, the widow told the sad tale, and also of the two children's brave conduct. "What be she like?" was the natural question; "is it right to have her here, think ye?" she added. Then, as if to satisfy herself on the first point, she stole softly to where the poor wanderer lay sleeping. The light on the table was but dim, not sufficient to enable her to see distinctly, so that she was compelled to kneel down to scan the face of the sleeping girl. At that moment a bright flame shot up from the flickering fire, and lighted the corner where the bed had been made for the stranger. There was a quick convulsive gasp. "My God! oh, can it be?" the old woman cried in a hushed voice. "No, no, I've been deceived too often. Quick! quick! a light!" Mrs. Turner hurried with it to her side. She almost snatched it from her in her eagerness; she gazed long and earnestly upon those wasted features, her breath coming thick and fast, almost as though her very heart was bursting. In silence she gave the light back into the hands of her wondering friend, then laying her head down on the pillow beside the fallen girl, and folding her arms around her, she sobbed out-- "My darling, my Nora! you've come back at last to your poor old mother! Nothing but death shall part us now!" CHAPTER VIII. SALLY'S FIRST SUNDAY AT CHURCH. A feeling of Sabbath peace stole over little Pollie as she issued forth from her humble home on her way to Sunday-school. All was still, so quiet; the very court, usually noisy, seemed hushed. None of its uproarious inhabitants were about, only poor crippled Jimmy was sitting on the door-step warming himself in the feeble sunlight that flickered down from among the crowded chimneys. The little girl paused to speak a few kind words to him. "I wish you could come with me," she said; "it is so nice." "What! be school nice?" repeated the boy, who seemed to have the same horror of learning as the more enlightened Sally Grimes. "Yes," she replied; "indeed it is. They are all so kind to us there, and teach us such beautiful verses and texts about God and our Saviour." "Be that Him you told me on?" he asked. "I ain't forgot what you told me afore--'Consider, and hear me, O Lord my God! lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death.'" "Oh, you are a good boy!" exclaimed the child encouragingly. "Now I will tell you my text for to-day, and when I come back you shall hear what my teacher says about 'The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.'" "'The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,'" repeated the crippled boy with reverence. "I'll not forget it, Pollie," he added, as the little girl prepared to start again, fearing to be late for school. As she turned into Drury Lane, to her great surprise there stood Sally Grimes, looking strangely shy, but tidily and, above all, neatly dressed. The well-worn cotton gown was perfectly clean; indeed, for the last two days Sally had been wearing a jacket over a petticoat whilst the dress was being washed and dried. Her hair, usually rough, was now smoothly brushed behind her ears, and her face and hands were as clean as soap-and-water could make them. Evidently she had given up the idea of the gaudy hat, for a neat bonnet covered her head. Altogether she looked quite neat and respectable. "Good morning," cried Pollie, joyously glad to see her kind friend. "Where are you going?" Sally hesitated "May I come with you?" she stammered bashfully. For the moment little Pollie could not reply; she felt too happy to speak. "Oh, I'm so glad!" she said at last, and taking her friend's hand in hers, she proceeded onwards, the happiest little girl in the world. What a contrast they were!--the sturdy, self-reliant London arab, willing, ay, and able, to battle through the world unaided; the timid, fragile Pollie, strong only in her efforts after good, firm only in her love of truth. You may imagine with what delight and pride she introduced Sally to her kind teacher; what happiness it was to have her sitting by her side, to see her rapt attention as the text was explained in simple words suitable to the comprehension of the listening children; and when was read the parable of the Good Shepherd, which had been the lesson on that memorable evening when Sally first felt the eager longing to be gathered into the Saviour's fold, Pollie instinctively grasped her friend's hand, as once again the blessed message was repeated. Happy indeed are they who gather His children in, shielding His little ones from future harm, feeding His lambs with the bread of life. For Sally Grimes this was all so new: the quiet Sabbath school, those happy children; a light was dawming upon her hitherto clouded mind as she heard of Jesus, who came on earth as a little child, endured a life of poverty and sorrow, then died a cruel death to save us from eternal misery. Never before had she heard the glad tidings of great joy, and her heart was filled with unexpressed thankfulness and peace. When class was over, the little scholars went their way to church, happy Pollie with her friend's hand still clasped in hers; and the bells rang out their peaceful chime, "It is the Sabbath! it is the Sabbath!" Even the usual noisy bustle of the Strand was hushed in deference to God's holy day. The busy world was calmed to celebrate the day of rest; the peace of God seemed resting upon the earth. How beautiful the church appeared to Sally, who had never until this day entered a house of prayer (dear old St. Clement's Danes, hallowed to us by many memories), and when the organ pealed forth, and the voices sang "I will arise," she thought, "This must be God's house, and those the angels singing." There was some one else in the church that Sabbath-day who also thought it must be heaven of which little Pollie had-spoken, and that was poor crippled Jimmy. Mrs. Turner on coming downstairs to go to church had found the neglected boy as usual lonely and desolate. His drunken mother had gone in a pleasure-van with a party of friends like herself to Hampton Court, leaving her child to amuse himself as he could; and kindly Mrs. Turner had carried him up to her own room, washed and dressed him in one of Pollie's clean frocks, given him some wholesome bread-and-butter, then brought him with her to church. He sat so still and quiet by the widow's side, his eyes intently fixed upon the clergyman, listening eagerly to every word that was spoken, every hymn that was sung, realising in his untutored mind a foretaste of that heaven of which his earliest friend had told, where hunger was unknown, and where sorrow and sighing should flee away. Once only, when the rector gave forth his text, "Consider the lilies of the field," the boy grasped the widow's hand, and whispered-- "Be they the flowers Pollie give me?" Heaven and Pollie's violets filled his heart. * * * * * Many were the happy children who issued forth from St. Clement's on that Sabbath noon; some hand-in-hand with loving parents, wending their way to homes of plenty, where kindly faces would be waiting to greet them; but of the many, none were or could be happier than those three little ones who gathered round Mrs. Turner when service was over, and, walking side by side, went home to squalid Drury Lane. No well-filled table awaited _their_ coming, only the plain and scanty fare the poor widow could offer to her child's young friends; but One hath said-- "Whosoever giveth a cup of water to one of these little ones in My name, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward." And this was Sally's first Sunday at church. CHAPTER IX. CRIPPLED JIMMY. Many days and weeks had passed away, much as life does with us all. We heed not its passing, and forget in the turmoil of worldly cares to scatter seed for the great Husbandman, to reap when He cometh. And little Pollie? She had been busy as usual selling her flowers, and as usual scattering, in her simple way, the golden grain. Gently had she led Sally Grimes to seek for higher things, and every Sabbath they were now to be seen sitting side by side, learning of the life that is to come. And at home? Affairs there had become much brighter, for Mrs. Turner's work had greatly increased, her quiet, unpretending manner having won for her many kind friends, who kept her fully employed--indeed so much that Lizzie Stevens had given up her hard labour of working for the slopshops, and now helped the widow in her lighter and more remunerative toil. It is true they had to work early and late to keep the house (such as it was) above them--the wolf from the door; but they were not so lonely as heretofore. The widow found comfort in the companionship of the hitherto friendless girl, and it was such a happiness for Lizzie to have one so motherly in whom to confide, and of whom she could ask counsel and advice. Then when Pollie came in from her daily toil, cheering them both like a very sunbeam, how they would pause in their work to watch her as she merrily counted over her money, and brushed out her empty basket in readiness for the morrow, chatting gaily the while. And then to see that active little figure so noiselessly busy getting the tea-dinner, which she always insisted on doing to save "mother" the trouble; indeed, I think the tea would have lost its flavour for that dear mother had Pollie's hands not prepared it. Sometimes, during the hot July days, the child would persuade them to take a rest; and when it became too dark to see their work without the help of a candle, they would walk out of Drury Lane for a while, and go down one of the streets leading to the Thames, where the air felt purer and fresher, and sitting down would watch the boats on the river. Sally usually joined them, and these little rests from toil constituted their simple pleasures. How deliciously cool the breezes felt, so different to the heated atmosphere of their own neighbourhood! Both Mrs. Turner and Lizzie used to feel revived by the change. No wonder then that the two children should decide on living near the river when they grew rich, for with the hopefulness of youth they planned great things for the future. So the summer passed by, and autumn came, and now, instead of roses or pinks, Pollie's basket was filled with chrysanthemums and dahlias. She often wondered what she should do when winter came and there were no sweet flowers to sell. It grieved her to think she should not then be able to help her dear mother, and as usual she opened her heart to that loving parent. "Ah, my Pollie!" said the mother, as she smoothed back the curls from the anxious little face, "have you forgotten? 'The Lord will provide.'" Then the child was comforted, for she remembered that "There is no want to them that fear Him." One October evening she turned up Russell Court, tired and anxious to get home, for it had been a dull, dark day in the City, and she had not succeeded in disposing of her flowers there. The old bankers and merchants seemed not disposed for purchasing bouquets that day. Even Sally's basket still remained filled, and she was always a more successful seller than timid little Pollie; so the elder girl had proposed trying westward for better luck. Better luck they certainly had, for their baskets became empty at last, but they walked many a mile during the day, and Pollie's tiny feet were very, very weary, as bidding her friend a loving "good-night" she turned her steps towards home, eagerly longing for its rest and shelter. The gas was flaring in Drury Lane, so that Russell Court looked dark by comparison; but as she approached the house in which they lived, she was surprised to see a dense crowd gathered around the door. Men were there speaking in hoarse whispers, women talking with bated breath as though afraid to speak aloud, and the bewildered child could hardly fancy it was the same place, there was such a hushed commotion as it were; the crowd swaying to and fro, to give place to others who came to swell the excited throng. Little Pollie stood amidst the people who were hustling each other to get as near the door as possible. What was to be done? how was she to get into the house? and oh, how anxious her mother would be at her long absence! The poor child became frightened, almost to tears, totally unable to force her way through the mob, which was increasing every moment, when looking round for some friendly aid, she saw to her delight Mrs. Smith, the greengrocer's wife, standing close by, with a shawl thrown over her head, talking to a policeman, and pointing excitedly towards the house. Pollie went up to her and ventured timidly to touch her arm. "Please, Mrs. Smith," she began. "Lor' bless me, child, what are you doing out so late, and in this crowd too?" was her exclamation. "I can't get in," Pollie sobbed; "oh, what is the matter?" "What! don't you know? Lor', it's awful," she replied; "here, policeman, do get this poor child through that there mob; I guess her mother is in a way about her." "All right, Mrs. S----," said the man, and to Pollie's astonishment he took her up in his arms, to carry her through the crowd, who made way for him to pass with his light burden. Tallow candles were flaring in the narrow passage, people with pallid, haggard faces looked out from open room doors; yet with all this unwonted stir, there seemed to be a strange hushed awe upon them, as though they were calmed by the mysterious presence of a great calamity. When the man put Pollie down she glanced from one to another in trembling alarm, still clinging to her protector's hand. "Here she is at last," cried a voice; and turning to the speaker she recognised a woman who lived in the house, and whom she had often met on the stairs. "Is it my mother?" asked the child, with undefined dread at her poor little heart. "No, no, come with me; he keeps calling for you." Then, still holding the policeman's hand closely clasped in hers, she followed the woman down the dirty dark stairs which led to the cellar where Jimmy lived. The door of the squalid room stood wide open; two tallow candles stuck in empty bottles flared on the broken mantel-shelf above the rusty fireless grate; a battered old chair and a rickety table constituted the entire furniture of the room (if such it could be called), for on a heap of dirty rags lay little Jimmy. By his side, holding him in her arms, knelt Mrs. Turner, whilst a gentleman, evidently the parish doctor, was bathing his head, from which the blood was flowing. Lizzie Stevens was there, steeping linen in a basin for the doctor, and another policeman, no one else. I forgot. Crouching in the farthest corner, and glaring in drunken stupor around her, was the poor dying child's wretched mother. A broken bottle tightly grasped in her hands, fragments of which lay about the dirt-encrusted floor, told the tale, alas! too plainly. In her drunken fury she had slain her child! Pollie felt safe directly she saw her own loved mother. "O mother, what is it?" she whispered. The dying boy heard her, softly as she had spoken. "Little Pollie," he feebly murmured, and turned his dim eyes up to her. "Dear Jimmy," she said, kneeling down beside him. He smiled as though at peace, and yet the life-blood was ebbing slowly away. "Pollie," he said, "shall I go to the kingdom of heaven? Will Jesus put His hands on me, and bless me also?" The little girl could not speak for sobbing, but she laid her soft cheek upon his clay-cold hand. "You've been very good to me," he rambled on, "you told me of the Good Shepherd"---- There was silence, broken only by the choking sobs of the listeners; even the policemen, used as they were to similar scenes, were deeply moved at the dying boy's love for his little friend. His eyes were closed, but his disengaged hand wandered feebly over the horse-rug that covered him, until at last he laid it on Pollie's bowed head. There it rested; his eyes unclosed, and he gazed wildly round, saying excitedly-- "Pollie, Pollie, it's so dark. Is it night coming on? Don't go, little Pollie. Let me say the prayer you taught me." He tried to fold his hands as _she_ had always done. In vain--they fell upon the coverlet, weak and nerveless. "Lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death," he murmured falteringly. The voice ceased! Crippled Jimmy had passed away safely into the fold of the Good Shepherd! Ah! who would wish him back again? Misery exchanged for perfect bliss--sorrow and sighing for eternal joy. They all gazed upon the sharp pinched features, now gradually settling into the calm repose of death. What in life was almost painful to look upon, with the touch of immortality became lovely; for the dead child's face bore the impress of an angel's smile, as though he had caught a glimpse of heaven's happiness whilst passing through the dark valley of the shadow of death. Little Pollie clung to her mother, sobbing convulsively and hiding her face in her dress. "Hush, my darling," soothed the widow; "poor Jimmy is now with God, free from all sorrow or pain. Think what his joy must be!" They were startled by a harsh voice screeching out-- "That ain't my Jimmy! Let me get at him! I say, what be you folks doing here?" It was the drunken creature, who, unnoticed by any of them, had approached the spot where the dead child lay. She darted forward, crying out, whilst she brandished the bottle-- "I'll wake him, never fear; like I've done many a time before, I warrant ye!" Fortunately the policeman saw her in time to prevent her doing further mischief, or even touching the boy, for, laying his firm grasp upon her arm, he exclaimed authoritatively-- "Come, none of this, my good woman. I must take you to Bow Street, to answer the charge of killing that poor little chap." Then ensued a scene too terrible to describe. The wretched woman was taken away from the place, shrieking and swearing, leaving her dead child to be tended by strangers, kinder far than she had ever been. CHAPTER X. NORA. A drizzling rain kept falling the day on which little Jimmy was to be laid in his narrow home. They had found beneath his ragged jacket a little packet, carefully tied with a piece of thread, and on opening it, something dried and shrivelled fell to the ground. It was the bunch of violets, now withered, Pollie's first gift to him--the only gift he had ever received, and which came fraught with such peace to him. With tender pity Mrs. Turner refolded the tiny packet, and placed the faded flowers again where they had been so carefully treasured. His unhappy mother was in prison, which place she only quitted to be confined for life in a criminal lunatic asylum, driven mad by that fearful curse of England--drink! drink! so that there would have been no one to follow him to his last resting-place had not good Mrs. Turner offered to go. She could not bear to think of the poor child being laid to rest so friendlessly, and little Pollie pleaded to be taken. Then Lizzie Stevens begged to be allowed to accompany the widow in her pious task, and just as the humble parish funeral was leaving the house, which had been but a miserable home for the dead child, Sally Grimes came up, and, taking Lizzie's hand silently, joined the three mourners. A large black cloak covered her patched but clean frock, and she wore an old black bonnet of her mother's, which had outlived many fashions. It was the only outward semblance of mourning she could get, but her heart sorrowed sincerely for the crippled boy whom she had seen for many years, desolate and uncared for, crouching in the dingy doorway--desolate until little Pollie found him there, and shed some brightness around his hitherto lonely life; and another thing, he was a sort of link between her and Pollie. The London streets looked dismal and dirty on this autumn afternoon with the pitiless rain and murky sky; but when the little party reached the quiet suburban cemetery, the clouds had somewhat dispersed, though the late flowers which yet remained to gladden the earth drooped with the heavy moisture; and when the last words were spoken, and all that remained of Crippled Jimmy had been laid in his narrow bed, the four kindly mourners turned tearfully from the spot, leaving him alone in his poor humble grave. At that moment a robin perched himself on a bush close by, and warbled forth such a hymn, so full of gladness, it seemed as though the bird sang the echo of those joyful words-- "I am the Resurrection and the Life." * * * * * And so they left little Jimmy. Nothing could harm him now. Twas but his frail mortality they mourned; his blest spirit, freed from earthly stains, was now with his Saviour and God. * * * * * On their return home they found that Mrs. Flanagan had prepared a comfortable tea for them all in Mrs. Turner's room; and it looked so cosy and home-like, humble though it was, with Mrs. Flanagan's kindly face to greet them. Poor Mrs. Flanagan--she was greatly changed; no longer the same cheerful person, but calm and subdued, as if she dwelt beneath some dark shadow that clouded her existence. She did not now, when her day's work was ended, come into Mrs. Turner's room to have a friendly chat, or interest herself in Pollie's fortune-making, as she used to do. It is true, she still brought the flowers for the child, but her whole mind seemed too absorbed to dwell on these trivial matters which formerly possessed such an interest for her. Her entire thoughts were centred on Nora. No one, save good Mrs. Turner, had seen the poor girl since the evening Pollie had brought the lost one home. The poor mother hid, as it were, her recovered treasure, fearful that even the mere passing glance of scorn should for a moment rest on her blighted child. So up in that little room, away from prying eyes, lived the mother and daughter. Nora was not idle. Not for worlds would she have rested dependent on that dear forgiving mother's hard earnings for her daily food; therefore, whilst Mrs. Flanagan toiled in Covent Garden Market, her daughter's slender fingers diligently laboured at bookbinding, the trade she had pursued years ago, in the time when her heart was innocent and happy. On the evening of which we write, when Sally Grimes and Lizzie Stevens had gone to their own homes after the peaceful hours spent with Mrs. Turner, the old woman sat for some time silent and sad, with elbows resting on the table, and her face buried in her hands. At length she looked up. "My Nora's very sadly," she observed. The widow paused in her needlework, and gazed at the troubled countenance of her old friend. "She is not ill, is she?" was the question: "I saw her this morning, and then she seemed pretty much the same." "No, not ill in body, at least not much," replied the poor mother; "but oh! Mrs. Turner, my Nora is not like my Nora of days gone by." And the grey head bent low upon the table, and the worn wrinkled face was hidden, to hide the bitter tears which fell. Her sympathising listener put down her work, and rising softly, laid her hand gently upon her neighbour's sorrow-bent head. "Take heart, Mrs. Flanagan," she soothed; "it will all come right at last, in God's own time. Just think how once you feared you should never see your daughter again, and then"---- "Oh, but she's not the same; no longer gay, or even cheerful, as she used to be," was sobbed forth; "sits for hours looking far-away like, as if she saw me not; yet once I was all to her. Ah, woe is me that I should be sorry she was not laid to rest years ago, when a sinless child, like little Jimmy was to-day!" Whilst the unhappy mother was thus pouring out her heart sorrow, Pollie had crept up, and in loving pity had slidden her small hand into her aged friend's in token of sympathy with her grief. For some time Mrs. Flanagan was too absorbed with her great woe to heed that gentle caress, but when alluding to the dead boy she raised her head, and saw the little girl's tearful eyes lifted to hers. "Please, don't cry, dear Mrs. Flanagan," she said timidly. "Nora will soon be like she once was; won't she, mother?" "Bless you, my precious," cried the poor old woman, laying her hand lovingly on the child's curly head, "you're a real comfort to me." "O mother," murmured a soft voice, "have patience with me, dearest; I am still your own Nora; only--oh, so worn and sin-stained!" They started in surprise. Unseen she had entered the room, and had overheard her poor mother mourning for her child. Meekly she knelt at her parent's feet, with tearless eyes upraised, but clasping the hard rough hand that had so toiled for her in the years gone by, and was willing still to toil, could it but bring back some few gleams of former brightness to her child. "I am not changed in heart to you, dear mother," she continued, "but when I sit and think, my sad thoughts fly back over the dreary desert of the past; and I know what I am, and what I might have been." All trembling with emotion, the poor old woman held out her arms to clasp her penitent child; then laying her head upon her bosom, she smoothed the beautiful hair caressingly, as in the days when as an infant she nestled there. "Yes, yes, dear mother," pursued the poor girl; "let me lay my weary head where I can hear the beating of your heart, whose every throb, I know, is full of love for me. I will pray to forget the sad, sad past, and be to you once more your Nora of the long ago. We were so happy then!" "Yes, we were happy in those days," murmured the mother, to herself as it were; "though often hungry, and often cold; but the wide world was our garden, and we had to pluck what flowers we could from it. You, my poor child, passed by the blossoms, and gathered only weeds; but take heart, my darling, there are yet some bonnie buds to cull, and life after all will not be quite a barren wilderness to you and your poor old mother." Then Mrs. Flanagan fairly broke down. But the icy barrier which had divided the mother and daughter was fallen, and they now knew what they were--all in all--to each other once again. CHAPTER XI. CHRISTMAS EVE. Christmas Eve! What memories revive at those two almost hallowed words! We think upon the _first_ Christmas Eve,--of the manger at Bethlehem, the Redeemer's humble cradle-bed; the star, guiding His first worshippers to His poor abode,--and we recall in imagination that glorious anthem sung by the heavenly host to those simple awe-struck shepherds whilst guarding their flocks by night! Yes; those words, "Christmas Eve," carry our thoughts, for a time at least, far from the cares of this transient world; and strangely cold must be the heart that does not echo the glad tidings, "On earth, peace, goodwill toward men." But on the Christmas Eve of which we speak the holy stars were shining above a far different scene than those peaceful plains of Bethlehem--on London, that wilderness to the poor and sad, that golden city for the rich and gay, and in a district of which (Drury Lane) little star-light could be discerned through the murky air of its crowded streets. Drury Lane was now at the height of its business: flaring gas-jets flamed at the open shop-fronts, whilst tradesmen and costermongers seemed to vie with each other as to which could shout the loudest to attract customers. There were butchers urging passers-by to purchase joints of animals hanging up in the shops, decked with rosettes and bows of coloured ribbon in honour of Christmas; greengrocers, gay with holly and mistletoe, interspersed with mottoes wishing every one the "Compliments of the season." Bakers, too, were doing a thriving trade in cakes of all sizes; whilst down the centre of the street, lining each side of the roadway, were vendors of all sorts of things, whose stalls were brightened either by oil-lamps or else the more humble candle stuck in a paper lantern. I care not to speak of gin-palaces, filled by poor wretches buying poison for soul and body. Would to God our loved country could be free from its curse of drunkenness! And yet the poor denizens of this pent-up neighbourhood appeared more cheerful and better-tempered than they usually seem to be. Jokes were bandied freely between tradesmen and customers, and kindly greetings exchanged in honour of Christmas. Occasionally, it is true, a shivering creature would be seen shuffling along through the busy crowd, glancing with furtive hungry eyes at the food exposed for sale, but unable to buy even a loaf of bread. The generality, however, had anticipated the coming festive season, and had saved the wherewith to keep Christmas. It was a relief to turn from the noisy din of Drury Lane up Russell Court, and thence to the quiet of Mrs. Turner's room. Yes; there they were all to be seen, a happy family party, preparing, too, to keep Christmas. At the one end of the table, close to the candle (they could only afford one), sat Mrs. Turner and Lizzie, busily stitching away, anxious to do as much work as they possibly could, as it was intended to celebrate the next day as an entire rest and holiday. On the floor was Sally Grimes stoning some raisins into a basin for the plum-pudding, and by her side, at Nora's feet, sat Pollie, helping her trusty friend in her important work. Mrs. Flanagan was standing at the other end of the table, busily mixing the various ingredients requisite for this crowning dish of the unwonted feast, and there also was Mrs. Grimes (Sally's mother) chopping up the seasoning for a goose, which Mrs. Flanagan's employers had given her as a Christmas gift, and on which they were all to dine. Mrs. Smith had also contributed something to this festival in the shape of oranges and nuts, and had also given Pollie a few sprigs of holly with which to deck their room. Seated on a low chair, her lap filled with holly leaves and bright berries, sat Nora, and her slender fingers were busy twining them into little garlands to brighten up their poor abode. Very pale and fragile looked the girl, almost too fragile to struggle with the world, but her sweet face was happier than when last we saw her kneeling at her mother's feet. It was as though the storm of life had buffeted her until almost crushed, and having vented its utmost fury, had passed away, leaving her at rest at last, but oh! so worn and weary with the strife. Poor old Mrs. Flanagan! Every thought of her heart turned to Nora. When her daughter was sometimes gay with a touch of the light-heartedness of other days, the gaiety would find an echo with her, and she would strive to be merry for that dear one's sake. And if, as was more frequently the case, the girl was sad, the shadow rested on the mother also. She seemed now but to live in the reflection of her daughter's life. Even now, whilst busy with the morrow's good cheer, she would ever and anon pause to glance at her child; and if the girl chanced to look up, and met the mother's eyes with a smile, what intense joy spread over that mother's careworn face, lighting it up with the sunshine of love. Ah me! we can never fathom the depth of a mother's tenderness. Who in the whole world cares for us as she does? Pitiful to our faults, sorrowing with our griefs, rejoicing in our joys. Who so unselfish? who so true? Happy the child who can _truthfully_ say, "Never has sin of mine furrowed thy brow, or silvered thy hair, my darling." But to return to our story. Pollie, seated as before mentioned at Nora's feet, was intently watching her (making very little progress, I fear, with stoning the raisins) as she daintily threaded some berries to form a word, and many a merry laugh was caused by the two children trying to guess what the word was to be. P was the letter first fixed on to the slip of cardboard, and which she held up to them, smiling brightly. "I know what it's to be!" cried Sally, who was becoming quite a scholar now; "it's plum-pudding." But Nora shook her head, saying-- "No, that is not the word I am going to make. Can you guess, Pollie?" "I don't think I can," was the reply. "Is it"---- "P stands for Pollie," cried out impetuous Sally, in her eagerness almost upsetting her basin of raisins upon the floor. "Perhaps it's that." There was much merriment over Sally's guessing, and much amazement too on the part of Mrs Grimes, who was utterly astonished at her "gal's larning;" but still Nora shook her head. No, that was not the word intended. Many were the conjectures hazarded, till at last Pollie resolved to try no more, but wait until the entire word or phrase was finished, both children promising not to look until at a given signal from Nora they should know it was completed. Then they resumed their employment, waiting very patiently for the time. At last it came. "Now," said Nora, and she held it up so that all could see, then she gave it into Pollie's hand. The puzzle was solved. "Peace on earth," read the child aloud. There was a silence, each one occupied with thoughts those words suggested. Tears filled the eyes of the two widows, for they clearly understood what was in the girl's heart when tracing those letters. _Her_ head was bowed; they could not see her face, but her hands were very trembling as she clasped them together as if in silent prayer. Pollie broke the silence. "Nora, dearie," she half whispered, "I wish we could get in the other beautiful words, 'Glory to God in the highest,' because it is He who gives us this sweet peace, and I should so like to thank Him." CHAPTER XII. IN THE SPRING-TIME. Christmas had come and gone, even the New Year was becoming old; for three months had slipped by, and March winds were preparing to usher in April showers. The London shopkeepers were exhibiting their spring goods, hoping that the few gleams of sun which had contrived to make themselves seen were indeed heralds of the coming "season," which "season" was supposed to bring an increase of business with it, and, of course, as the homely adage says, "more grist to the mill." But as yet the streets were wet and sloppy, the bleak winds whistled round the corners, and London looked very dull and cheerless, even at the West End, where it is always brighter than in the busy City. Far away in the country, it is true, the birds were twittering, joyfully busy in making their nests, flying hither and thither in search of materials to form their tiny homes. There were sheep, too, in the meadows, cropping the fresh young grass, whilst the lambs skipped merrily about their staid mothers, as though rejoicing in the warmer weather; for the winter had been very severe, and many a night had they huddled together beside a hedge to keep themselves warm when the snow was falling thickly around. The buds on the trees, especially the elms, were filling, so that after a few showers they would throw off their brown sheaths and put forth their delicate green leaves to court the breeze; and as to the hedges, they were already verdant. Yes, all creation was awaking, eager to proclaim His praise who hath said "While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." In the deep sheltered copse or hedgerows, primroses and violets were to be found nestling amidst green leaves and soft moss, filling the air with perfume. It always seems a pity to gather them where they bloom so sweetly and linger so long, yet gathered they were and sent up to London; some, indeed, were to be found in Sally Grimes' basket as she stood outside the Bank, as she was standing on the day we first saw her. She has certainly improved since then--no longer ragged or untidy, but her hair is neatly plaited beneath a decent bonnet, and her shawl is securely fastened, instead of flying in the wind as it used to do. She is still very successful in "business," although she does not now rush across the roads at peril of life or limb, nor does she thrust her flowers into the faces of the passers-by, frightening timid people by her roughness. No; all that is changed, and she has become a quiet, steady girl. Truth to tell, she is beginning to dislike the life she leads--not the flowers; she loves them more than ever! and often looks after neat little servants she sometimes sees, wishing to become like one of them. Patience, Sally! who knows what may be by and by? But where is little Pollie, that she is not with her trusty friend? Poor little Pollie lies sick and ill at home, so pale and thin one would scarcely recognise in that wan little face the Pollie of last spring-time! A severe cold, followed by slow fever, has laid her low, and though all danger is over, she still continues so weak, too feeble to move; therefore her dear mother or Lizzie Stevens lifts her from her bed and lays her in an easy-chair which Mrs. Flanagan had borrowed, in which she reclines all the day long, very patient and uncomplaining though the poor little heart is often very sad as she watches her mother's busy fingers, and feels that she cannot help to lift the burden as she used to do; then like an angel's whisper comes the remembrance of that which cheered her the first day she started in business, "Fear thou not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, for I am thy God; I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of My righteousness;" and so the brown eyes close, shutting up the fast-gathering tears, and she trusts in her Heavenly Father with all the fervour of her pure childish heart, sure that the "Lord will provide." Then during the evening Nora comes in, and takes the little sufferer upon her lap, and sings to her so beautifully that the child gazes up into the girl's lovely eyes, now so calm and hopeful, with the dreamy fancy that the angels must look like her. There is one song, an especial favourite with them both, called "Beautiful Blue Violets;" and very often, whilst listening to the sweet voice, Pollie falls asleep, soothed by the melody. Indeed, there is no lack of kind friends who love the little girl. Mrs. Smith brings up all sorts of nice things to tempt the child's appetite--sweet oranges and baked apples--even her brother, the butcher at whose shop Pollie's first purchase of meat was made, sent a piece of mutton, "with his respects to Mrs. Turner, and it was just the right bit to make some broth for the little gal." The good doctor (the same who was present when crippled Jimmy died), though far from being a rich man, would accept no fee for attending her, so that if kindness and love could have called back her lost health, Pollie would soon have been well; but she is very, very ill, and day by day grows weaker and weaker. Her poor mother watches each change in the little face so precious to her, and when she lifts her in her arms feels how light the burden is becoming; she dreads to think that God will take her only treasure from her; her lips tremble as she says, "Thy will be done." But the poor have no time for repining; every idle moment is money lost, and money must be earned to buy food for the dear ones who look to them for bread; so Mrs. Turner was compelled to work on, though her heart was sick with sadness, and many a time gladly would she have laid it aside to take her suffering child in her arms, and soothe the languid pain as none but a mother can. The little girl seemed to guess the thought those anxious eyes revealed, and when she saw her dear mother looking wistfully upon her, she would say, striving to be gay, and hide from those loving eyes all trace of suffering-- "I'm so cosy in this nice chair, mother darling, and Nora is coming in soon, you know!" And of the many who love little Pollie, who so true as Sally Grimes? Every morning before setting off for the City she comes, anxiously asking, "How's Pollie?" and on her return, her first care is to inquire for her little sick friend, bringing with her a few flowers, if she has any left in the basket, or some other trifle, precious, though, to the grateful recipient, whose white lips smile gratefully at the kind Sally for thus thinking of her. "Ay, but I'm lonesome without you, Pollie," says the girl, as she kisses the pale cheeks of the child; "and glad I'll be when you gets about again, the place don't seem the same without you; why, even that big peeler with the whiskers, who is a'most allers near the Bank, he says to-day 'How's the little gal?' that he did." One evening Sally came, rushing in quite breathless with excitement, startling Mrs. Turner and waking up Pollie, who was dozing in Nora's arms. "Good news, good news," she cried out; "luck's come at last, hurray! there's such a lovely lady coming to see you, Pollie." "To see Pollie?" asked the widow in surprise; "who is she?" "I don't know," was the reply, "but she's coming; she told me so, and soon too." "Who can it be?" they all questioned of each other, pausing in their work to look at the excited girl. "I'll tell you all about it," exclaimed Sally, who felt herself to be of some importance as the bearer of such wonderful news; "only just let me get my breath a bit." "Well," she continued, when sufficiently recovered to proceed with her story, but which, like all narrators of startling intelligence, she seemed to wish to spin out, so as to excite the curiosity of her hearers to the utmost; "well, I was standing at the top of Threadneedle Street, with my back to the Mansion House, looking to see if any customers were coming from Moorgate Street way, when some one touched me on my shoulder. I turned sharp round, as I thought maybe it was a gent wanting a bunch of flowers for his coat. But instead of a gent it was, oh, such a pretty lady! Not a young lady; p'raps as old as you, Mrs. Turner, p'raps older. She was dressed all in black, with, oh my! such crape, and jet beads; and though she smiled when she spoke, yet she seemed sad-like." "Are you the little girl I saw here about a year ago?" says she. "May be I am, marm," says I; "cos I'm pretty well allers here, leastway in the mornings." She looked at me a bit, and then she says-- "'I should not have thought to find you such a big girl in so short a time. Do you remember me? I bought some violets, and you told me your name, and where you lived; indeed I should have come to see you long ago as I promised, but was obliged to go abroad suddenly with my own little girl.' "And then I thought she was going to cry, she looked so sad," added Sally, "and she said"---- "'But God took her home.'" "Poor dear lady!" was the exclamation of Sally's attentive listeners. "Even the rich have troubles also," said Mrs. Turner with a pitying sigh. "Wait a bit, I 'aint told you all yet," cried the girl; "well, I just then thought of what Pollie told us about the lady who gave her a shilling the very first day she went with me selling violets. So I says-- "It warn't me, marm, you saw that day; it was little Pollie!" "'Yes, that was the name,' says she; 'and where is little Pollie?' "With that I up and told her as how Pollie wasn't well, and so she says, 'I will come to see her directly I have finished my business in the City.' Oh, Lor'!" cried Sally, suddenly pausing in her story, "here she be, I'm sure, for there's some one coming up the stairs with Mrs. Flanagan, some one who don't wear big heavy boots too; can't you hear?" Sally was right; for the kindly face of their neighbour appeared in the doorway, ushering in "the beautiful lady." "And so this is little Pollie," the sweet voice said, as, after speaking cheerfully to the widow and the others who were in the room, she stood beside the sick child. "Well, Pollie, I have come to see you at last, and in return for the beautiful violets you gave me a year ago, I will, with our merciful Father's blessing us, put some roses on your white cheeks." * * * * * My story is told! In a pretty lodge close to the gates of a magnificent park live Pollie and her dear long-suffering mother, but now as happy as it is possible for mortals to be. The widow continues her needlework, not as formerly, "to keep the wolf from the door," but merely for their beloved lady, or what is required for the house. Pollie, whose cheeks are now truly rosy, goes every day to school, and when at home helps her mother, so that in time she will become quite a useful girl to their kind and generous benefactress. But who are those two neat young girls who are coming down the path towards the lodge, looking so bright and cheerful? Surely one is Lizzie Stevens, and the other Sally Grimes? Yes, indeed, and the housekeeper says she "never had two better servants, so willing and steady," than our two young friends. So Sally's ambition is realised; she is a servant, and a good one too, for trusty Sally never did anything by halves. And Mrs. Flanagan? If you will walk across the meadow by that narrow raised path, you will see a cosy cottage adjoining the dairy. There is Mrs. Flanagan, with sleeves tucked up above her elbows, busily making butter; it reminds her of the years long ago, when she used to do the dairy-work at the farm, and had never known a care. But she is happy even now, for outside the window is Nora, cheerful and contented, feeding the poultry, who gather round her, clucking noisily, while some white pigeons have flown down from the dove-cot, and one has alighted on her shoulder, and Nora's merry laugh is as music to the mother's ear. There is some one scouring milk-pans in the yard, but whose features are almost hidden by a large black bonnet; who is it? The face turns towards us, and we see Sally Grimes' mother! So we leave all our old friends, peaceful and happy, doing their duty faithfully to the noble lady, who, though surrounded by all the world holds dear--riches--yet had sympathy for the poor ones of the earth, and pity for their sorrows. She had resided many years abroad, but on returning to England and re-forming her establishment, had chosen these honest hard-working friends of ours to serve her. She learned from others how they had striven to live, and how they had each endeavoured to do their Heavenly Master's work as He had appointed; patient under privations, and tender to others, doing as they would be done by. And thus sunshine had come to brighten the hitherto dreary paths of their struggling lives, though even in their darkest hours our humble friends had never forgotten that "Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face." And how gratefully did they now lift up their hearts to Him who "careth for us!" And when Mrs. Flanagan and Mrs. Grimes met at Mrs. Turner's, as they very often did when their work was done, they would contrast their present happy lot with those sad days of the past. "And yet," as Mrs. Turner once said, "had it not been for our troubles we should never have known each other, for it was those very sorrows that knit us together." "Ay, ay," interrupted Mrs. Grimes, "for your Pollie somehow made my gal hate the streets, else she might a run there till now, and never a been the rale good scholar she be." "Ah, Pollie be a comfort to you," observed the other old friend; "and how she do grow, to be sure! Well, well, bless her heart, she won't have to rough it, my dear--leastways I hope not,--nor be led to go wrong like my poor Nora; still she'll have her sorrows, like the rest on us." Yes, that was true; she would have her share of the trials that fall to the lot of all, and so would trusty Sally; but happily they knew where to take their cares, and He who had led them to this peaceful home would be with them still. And thus we leave them--living their lives in peaceful content, grateful for the memories given, and trusting in Him always. * * * * * And all this happiness had been brought about by--a simple Bunch of Violets! 
35757	----	OUR KATIE. PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 150 NASSAU-STREET, NEW YORK. OUR KATIE. [Illustration: "She taught us how to live, and--Oh, too high The price of knowledge--taught us how to die."] Katie was born in Ireland, but at an early age her parents emigrated to this country and settled in Brooklyn, not a great distance from the Lee Avenue Sabbath-school. She was one of a family of ten children, of whom several were older than herself, yet from her earliest childhood she appeared to be a ruling spirit among them. Naturally quick and apt to learn, she readily adapted herself to the manners and customs of the new people she was with, and it was her earnest desire that her family should do the same. Katie was not beautiful, nor even pretty, but there was an earnest look in her large dark eyes, and an expression of frankness in her countenance. Her amiable disposition endeared her to every one, and the influence she possessed among both old and young was truly surprising. At an early age she began to take charge of the younger children; and here her care was like that of a mother. She was anxious they should learn habits of order and cleanliness, and she used to offer some little reward to the one who excelled for a certain length of time in these virtues. It is related of Katie, as showing her obliging disposition, that when at home, it was her custom on every Monday, the general wash-day, to collect around her all the children of her acquaintance, and amuse and entertain them, to the intense delight of their grateful mothers; for the little ones all loved Katie, and would oftentimes yield to her a more willing obedience than to those better entitled to receive it. Katie's connection with the Sabbath-school began with its organization, her name being the tenth enrolled upon the register. And little did the Secretary think, as he glanced upon the little Irish girl standing so timidly before him, that beneath that rough exterior was hidden such a noble spirit as was afterwards manifested--nor that the humble name then recorded was yet to be known throughout the land, and that its sound was to bring tears into eyes which never beheld the owner. From the first, Katie manifested the most absorbing interest in the school, which continued unabated till her death. The second Sabbath she brought all her younger brothers and sisters; and during the entire period of her sojourn here, though the school increased from ten to ten hundred members, there was not one more regular and punctual in attendance than they. None were more entirely devoted to the interest of the school than Katie. It was to her more than meat or drink. No weather was so inclement as to detain her from any of its meetings. There was no clothing, however poor and dilapidated, which could not, under Katie's skilful fingers, be made to assume an appearance of neatness, at least long enough for her to attend Sabbath-school. Is not here a lesson for many a richer child who, with every possible advantage, yet seizes upon the slightest pretext for remaining absent from her class, careless alike of the blessing she refuses and the pain she causes an anxious teacher. Katie was always the first one of her class present, and here her sweet disposition manifested itself most forcibly. Extremely neat in her own person, the want of neatness in others annoyed her exceedingly, and that any one should come to school with soiled clothing, or dirty face and hands, was to her almost an unpardonable sin; therefore each new arrival was scrutinized most closely, and the pump near the school-room has witnessed many and many of her charitable ablutions. She generally carried a small comb in her pocket, which she never scrupled to use; and it was often difficult to recognize in the clean-faced, smooth-haired child who returned with her from one of these cold-water expeditions, the wretched little object she had "carried out." Katie was one of our home missionaries, and a more devoted, faithful one it would be difficult to find. Her ardent love for the Sabbath-school, and the instruction she there received, made her anxious that others should share the same blessing. It appeared to be a rule of her life never to come alone. Much of her spare time was occupied in searching through the lanes and hovels for those unblessed with religious influence, and bringing them in to the Sabbath-school. The locality in which she resided was inhabited mostly by the lower class of Irish Catholics, who were bitterly opposed to the cause for which she so unweariedly labored. Yet, although the difficulties she encountered were neither few nor easily surmounted, she was very successful, and the numbers which through her means were added to our school were very large. It was her custom either to call for them herself at their homes, or else meet them at some place she should appoint, and then with her little band to start for the school, taking the pump in her way if she thought it necessary. She was willing to be placed in any class, or to make any sacrifice the superintendent required; and the welfare of the school was always preferred to her own pleasure. No teacher ever had Katie in her charge, but felt that she was indeed a blessing to the class. Studious and attentive, she always knew her lessons perfectly, and it was no uncommon thing for her to repeat several hundred verses from the Bible and hymn-book at one time. Her own recitations completed, her attention was next given to the other members of the class; and if, as was too often the case, there were any unprepared with lessons, Katie always considered it her especial duty to assist them as much as possible, finding easy places in the Testament or short hymns for them to learn. In this way many who would otherwise have been totally deficient, were enabled to recite a dozen verses before leaving the room. Her knowledge of Scripture was, for one so young, truly marvellous. Every great historical event recorded on those sacred pages she knew by heart. With the beautiful Psalms of David, the sublime prophecies of Isaiah, and the solemn, yet mysterious revelations of John, she was equally familiar; and on being once questioned by a teacher in whose class she was temporarily placed, where she had learned so much about the Bible, she replied, "I learned it all in Sabbath-school." She could commit to memory with great facility; and being very fond of reading, no spare moment found Katie without a book or paper in her hands. Katie belonged, for some time, to an Industrial school in Brooklyn; and the teachers and managers bear a willing testimony to the high character she maintained while there. Diligent, attentive, and obedient, her lovely disposition soon rendered her here, as everywhere else, a universal favorite; while her prompt and efficient aid in all the minor duties of the school, made her almost invaluable as an assistant. But it is time to speak of Katie's spiritual life; and short as the record must necessarily be, it is yet sufficient to prove that "not by might, nor by power," but by the Holy Spirit alone are we made wise unto salvation. When she first entered the school, the Bible was to her almost a sealed book. True, she was not unacquainted with the name of Christ, nor that he lived and died for sinners; but beyond the knowledge of this simple fact, she was entirely ignorant. That she was personally interested in the matter was something she had never dreamed of. This life alone occupied all her thoughts; and it was left for a Sabbath-school teacher first to open her eyes to the necessity of a preparation here for the life beyond; to teach her the true significance of that sorrowful life which Jesus led on earth, the thorny crown and the agonizing death on the cross; to show her that it was for her sake he suffered, for her sins he was numbered with transgressors. It was all new to Katie, something she had never heard of before; and the interest she at first manifested became more and more intense, as week after week some new truth was unfolded, some new idea gained of the great plan of redemption through a crucified Saviour. The influence of the Holy Spirit upon Katie's mind was like the rising dawn, not a sudden change from midnight darkness to the full and glowing splendor of noonday. She could not, probably, have given a connected account of her experience, and pointed to the day and hour in which she first felt the love of Christ, nor to the moment when for the first time she felt the joy of pardoned sin through his perfect merits. All she knew was, that whereas once she was blind, now she saw; and she was content. One Sabbath a new teacher, in whose class Katie was placed a few months previous to her death, took occasion privately to address her on the duty of personal religion, urging upon her the importance of giving her heart to Jesus while in her youth. With a bright, happy smile, Katie replied, "Why, teacher, I do love Jesus now." "Well, Katie, I am glad; but you must love him with all your heart, so much that you will be willing to give up all your own wishes for his sake; to do any thing he requires, however hard it may seem, and to work for him all your life; and to try and grow more and more like him every day. This is the kind of love I mean." Katie humbly replied, "I think I love him a great deal, but I know it is not enough--it is only a little child's love; but when I get older, then I will love him as much as grown persons do." Only a child's love! The teacher's eye grew dim as she remembered the words of the blessed Master: "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of heaven." Katie seldom spoke of herself. Deeds, not words, alone spoke of the change within. Yet her life bore beautiful testimony to the profession she made. And what better evidence could be required that the love she professed was genuine, than that her life daily assimilated more and more to the divine pattern which Christ hath given? He himself said, "By their fruits shall ye know them." As may already have been inferred, Katie's parents were extremely poor, with a large family of small children to support; and the father being out of employment much of the time, they often wanted even the necessaries of life, and it was no uncommon thing for Katie to go supperless and hungry to bed. Therefore, as soon as she was old enough, she felt that she must do something to assist her parents in supporting the family. Only one path was open to her, and that was domestic service. Unhesitatingly she availed herself of it. Whatever her strength was equal to, Katie was willing and glad to do; and in seeking a place, she had but one stipulation to make--which was, that she should be allowed the privilege of going to Sabbath-school on Sunday afternoons. Some kind friend procured for her a situation in New York, where she would have light work and high wages. The distance appeared to make no impression whatever on Katie, as she asked the usual question, "Can I go to Sunday-school every week?" On being told that it would not be convenient to have her absent on that day, no persuasions could induce her to accept it. And it was so in every instance. Though she began service at the early age of twelve years, yet in no case did she ever fail of giving satisfaction. Faithful in the discharge of her duties, active, and obliging, she invariably won the love and esteem of all who employed her. But she did not change often. With one family, the first she entered, she remained over eighteen months, and then only left because sickness demanded her presence at home. She devoted all the wages she received to the wants of the family, never retaining a penny for herself. Once when urged by her mother to do so, Katie replied, "Yes, mother, just as soon as the children get fixed up." But, poor child, this seemed a hopeless task--there were so many of them, and little shoes will wear out, little frocks will get torn--so that Katie never came home without finding it necessary to supply some article of clothing. Yet she always did it cheerfully, thankful that it was in her power to assist at any sacrifice. Thus this noble girl toiled on month after month, looking for and receiving no reward, save in beholding the happiness she conferred at home, and each day studying how she might increase it. Surely of her it might well be said, "She hath done what she could." About six weeks previous to her death, she obtained a situation in a highly estimable Christian family in Brooklyn. And here she appeared to grow more spiritually lovely, more tender and affectionate in her manner, more thoughtful for the comfort and welfare of others than ever. The new friends with whom she was living had lately been called to pass through peculiarly severe affliction. One after another of the loved voices in that family circle had been hushed and silent in death, and yet that dread messenger who had summoned them away still lingered. The husband and father of that stricken band had for a long time been ill, and all felt that in his death their bereavement was soon to be complete. Katie soon endeared herself to every one in the house. She was to them like an own child, and as such was treated. Seeing her destitute condition, they at once furnished her with suitable clothing. Katie's gratitude was unbounded, and the affectionate manner in which she always spoke of them showed how truly she appreciated their kindness. Her quick and ready sympathies were awakened as she learned of their repeated trials, and by every means in her power she endeavored to console them. A daughter near her own age, whom they had recently lost, appeared to interest her most deeply. She never wearied talking of her, and would frequently say to the mother, "I am sure I shall see and know your dear R---- in heaven." With the invalid father, Katie was a great favorite, and when she was not otherwise engaged, he loved to have her with him. Katie would then take her little Bible and read to him the sweet promises of Jesus, or sing some of the many beautiful hymns she learned at Sabbath-school. Her simple comments on what she read at once amused and interested him, while her glowing faith seemed to quicken and increase his own. Who shall say that the ministrations of this blessed child were not instrumental in lightening his pathway to the tomb; dispelling the doubts and fears which cluster round it, and revealing more distinctly the smiling face of Jesus to him who was so soon to pass through the dark valley? A favorite hymn was the following: I'm a pilgrim, and I'm a stranger, I can tarry, I can tarry but a night; Do not detain me, for I am going To where the streamlets are ever flowing; I'm a pilgrim, and I'm a stranger, I can tarry, I can tarry but a night. There the sunbeams are ever shining, I am longing, I am longing for the sight; Within a country unknown and dreary, I have been wandering, forlorn and weary. I'm a pilgrim, etc. Of that country to which I'm going My Redeemer, my Redeemer is the light; There is no sorrow, nor any sighing, Nor any sin there, nor any dying. I'm a pilgrim, etc. [Illustration] Katie was soon known to every child in the neighborhood. During her hours of recreation she would gather them all about her on the steps, and tell them stories from the Bible, talk about heaven, or sing with them from her hymn-book; and the eager attention which they gave her proved that they were well entertained. Though living now at a distance of over three miles from the Sabbath-school, yet she never failed of being present, generally starting from ten to fifteen minutes earlier then was otherwise necessary, in order to stop at home and see that the other children were ready, for Katie would never consent to their being absent. To be sure, she always had the whole of them to wash and dress, but that was no hardship, for she was too active to allow of its consuming much time, and in an incredible short space she would be seen marching down the street with her little band in regular order, teaching them a lesson to repeat as she went along; for in this, as in every thing else, they depended entirely upon Katie. The last Sabbath Katie ever passed on earth found her in her usual place; but her sad look attracted the attention of her teacher, who kindly inquired the cause. With tearful eyes she replied, "The gentleman I live with is very sick; we do not think he can live till next Sunday." Her foreboding proved true, and on the following Tuesday he died. Then it was that Katie seemed almost an angel of mercy. She not only consoled them with words of hope and encouragement, but endeavored in every way to relieve them of all care or thought, apart from the one great sorrow which overshadowed them; while the delicacy and tenderness of feeling she manifested throughout this whole trying season, would not have shamed the most fastidious refinement. But at last it was all over. The precious dust had been laid in its last resting-place, and now the busy cares of life may not longer be forgotten. The day after the funeral, thinking that Katie looked pale, and that the air would do her good, Mrs. D---- sent her out towards evening for a short walk. On her return it was found that she had been several miles out of the way, to procure something she knew the physicians had ordered for a little grandchild of Mrs. D----, and which they had not known where to obtain. Thus was she to the very last thoughtful and careful for others. That evening after the rest of the family had retired, Mrs. D---- and Katie remained in the parlor, speaking of the home their departed friend had gained. Katie then took a small lamp in her hand, and sat down to read. It is supposed that, overcome by fatigue, she fell asleep, when the lamp slid from her grasp to the floor and ignited the bottom of her dress. In an instant she was enveloped in flames. Mrs. D---- seized a rug and sprang to her assistance; but Katie, frightened, ran through the hall into the yard, where she fell. By this time their screams had brought assistance. The poor child was raised and carried into the house, but every particle of her light summer clothing had been consumed, and her body burned in the most shocking manner. Medical aid was instantly summoned, and every thing possible done to alleviate her sufferings, but it was at once perceived she could survive only a few hours. Katie received the intelligence with a smile of joy, and instantly remarked, "Now I shall indeed see your daughter, very, very soon." She requested them to send for her own family, and also for her Superintendent, that she might see them once again before she died, or rather hear them, for her sight was entirely destroyed. Her mother was soon beside her, and her agony as she beheld her child was heart-rending. Katie took her hand, saying, "Dear mother, please don't cry so; if you do I cannot talk to you, and I have so much to say. See, I am not crying. Oh, please don't." Katie then told her about the accident, and how happy she felt in view of death; and said, "Oh, mother, it is so blessed to feel that I am going to be with Jesus for ever." Then, with a clear, sweet voice, she sung, "My heavenly home is bright and fair, No pain nor death can enter there; Its glittering towers the sun outshine, That heavenly mansion shall be mine. I'm going home, I'm going home, I'm going home, to die no more." All through those hours of terrible agony, not a complaint, scarcely a groan, escaped her; but words of prayer and praise were continually upon her lips. "Jesus is my best, my only friend," she said; "he is close beside me now, and I know he will not let me perish." Again she sung this beautiful hymn, "Rock of ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in thee; Let the water and the blood, From thy side a healing flood, Be of sin the double cure, Save from wrath and make me pure. Could my tears for ever flow, Could my zeal no languor know, This for sin could not atone; Thou must save, and thou alone. In my hand no price I bring, Simply to thy cross I cling. While I draw this fleeting breath, When my eyelids close in death, When I rise to worlds unknown, And behold thee on thy throne, Rock of ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in thee." When she concluded, there was not a dry eye in the room. Perceiving that she was sinking rapidly, the physicians ordered stimulants to be administered; but the moment Katie felt them upon her lips, she turned away and absolutely refused them. "Don't you know," she exclaimed, "that I belong to the Band of Hope?" "But, Katie," urged her friends, "your superintendent would give it to you himself, were he here now." "Well, when he comes and says so, then I will take it." "But, Katie, you may die before he comes, if you don't take a little now." "Then I will die," exclaimed the noble girl, "but I won't break my pledge." She appeared to appreciate every thing which was done for her, and her expressions of gratitude were most touching. Several times she said, "Oh, how I do love everybody, but Jesus best of all;" and then, with clasped hands, she prayed. And as the words of holy trust fell from her lips, there was not one present but felt it was "well with the child." Her mind appeared to dwell much on the Sabbath-school: "I shall never see it again," she once said, "but Oh, I shall see heaven so soon!" and then, in a sweet, but feeble voice, she sang two verses of a favorite hymn: "I'm travelling home to heaven above, Will you go? will you go? To sing the Saviour's dying love, Will you go? will you go? The crown of life I then shall wear, The conqueror's palm my hands shall bear, And all the joys of heaven I'll share; Will you go? will you go?" Not a doubt or fear appeared to dim the glory of her faith. The last hour, so terrible to many, brought to her only the most ineffable joy and peace. Fearing that Mr. Johnson her superintendent would not arrive in time, she left a most affectionate message for him. She then bade all her friends good-by, thanked them for the care and attention shown her, and entreated them all to meet her in heaven. Sinking back, she murmured, in an exhausted tone, "_Dear_, DEAR Saviour." Mr. Johnson now entered, but too late, for it was thought Katie was gone. She lay a few moments longer, silent and motionless; scarcely a breath came from these parted lips to indicate that she yet lived. Suddenly collecting all her remaining strength, with uplifted hand, she exclaimed, in a glad, exultant voice, "Oh death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory?" The raised hand slowly drooped upon her bosom, a few fluttering breaths, and Katie was ours no longer. A solemn silence filled the chamber, unbroken by even a single sob. It was a season never to be forgotten by the few who stood round that lowly couch. What, Oh what but the religion of Jesus could have stood the test of that awful hour? What but his infinite love could have enabled her to endure such terrible sufferings--to go singing into the swelling waves of Jordan, and even as its billows closed over her, to send back the triumphant cry, "Oh death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory?" Transcriber's Notes: Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_. Obvious errors in spelling and hyphenation have been corrected from the original: Page 20: eomments correct to comments Page 29: wont corrected to won't Punctuation has been corrected without note. 
14762	----	NOW OR NEVER Or, The Adventures of Bobby Bright. A Story for Young Folks by OLIVER OPTIC Author of _The Boat Club_, _All Aboard_, _In Doors and Out_, etc. Boston: Lee and Shepard, Publishers. New York: Lee, Shepard & Dillingham, 49 Greene Street 1872 TO MY NEPHEW, CHARLES HENRY POPE. This Book IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. PREFACE The story contained in this volume is a record of youthful struggles, not only in the world without, but in the world within; and the success of the little hero is not merely a gathering up of wealth and honors, but a triumph over the temptations that beget the pilgrim on the plain of life. The attainment of worldly prosperity is not the truest victory, and the author has endeavored to make the interest of his story depend more on the hero's devotion to principles than on his success in business. Bobby Bright is a smart boy; perhaps the reader will think he is altogether too smart for one of his years. This is a progressive age, and any thing which Young America may do need not surprise any person. That little gentleman is older than his father, knows more than his mother, can talk politics, smoke cigars, and drive a 2:40 horse. He orders "one stew" with as much ease as a man of forty, and can even pronounce correctly the villanous names of sundry French and German wines and liqueurs. One would suppose, to hear him talk, that he had been intimate with Socrates and Solon, with Napoleon and Noah Webster; in short, that whatever he did not know was not worth knowing. In the face of these manifestations of exuberant genius, it would be absurd to accuse the author of making his hero do too much. All he has done is to give this genius a right direction; and for politics, cigars, 2:40 horses, and "one stew," he has substituted the duties of a rational and accountable being, regarding them as better fitted to develop the young gentleman's mind, heart, and soul. Bobby Bright is something more than a smart boy. He is a good boy, and makes a true man. His daily life is the moral of the story, and the author hopes that his devotion to principle will make a stronger impression upon the mind of the young reader, than even the most exciting incidents of his eventful career. WILLIAM T. ADAMS. DORCHESTER, Nov. 15, 1856. CONTENTS. CHAP. I.--In which Bobby goes a fishing, and catches a Horse. CHAP. II.--In which Bobby blushes several Times, and does a Sum in Arithmetic. CHAP. III.--In which the Little Black House is bought, but not paid for. CHAP. IV.--In which Bobby gets out of one Scrape, and into another. CHAP. V.--In which Bobby gives his Note for Sixty Dollars. CHAP. VI.--In which Bobby sets out on his Travels. CHAP. VII.--In which Bobby stands up for certain "Inalienable Rights." CHAP. VIII.--In which Mr. Timmins is astonished, and Bobby dines in Chestnut Street. CHAP. IX.--In which Bobby opens various Accounts, and wins his first Victory. CHAP X.--In which Bobby is a little too smart. CHAP. XI.--In which Bobby strikes a Balance, and returns to Riverdale. CHAP. XII.--In which Bobby astonishes sundry Persons, and pays Part of his Note. CHAP. XIII.--In which Bobby declines a Copartnership, and visits B---- again. CHAP. XIV.--In which Bobby's Air Castle is upset, and Tom Spicer takes to the Woods. CHAP. XV.--In which Bobby gets into a Scrape, and Tom Spicer turns up again. CHAP. XVI.--In which Bobby finds "it is an ill wind that blows no one any good." CHAP. XVII.--In which Tom has a good Time, and Bobby meets with a terrible Misfortune. CHAT. XVIII.--In which Bobby takes French Leave, and camps in the Woods. CHAP. XIX.--In which Bobby has a narrow Escape, and goes to Sea with Sam Ray. CHAP. XX.--In which the Clouds blow over, and Bobby is himself again. CHAP. XXI.--In which Bobby steps off the Stage, and the Author must finish "Now or Never." CHAPTER I. IN WHICH BOBBY GOES A FISHING, AND CATCHES A HORSE. "By jolly! I've got a bite!" exclaimed Tom Spicer, a rough, hard-looking boy, who sat on a rock by the river's side, anxiously watching the cork float on his line. "Catch him, then," quietly responded Bobby Bright, who occupied another rock near the first speaker, as he pulled up a large pout, and, without any appearance of exultation, proceeded to unhook and place him in his basket. "You are a lucky dog, Bob," added Tom, as he glanced into the basket of his companion, which now contained six good-sized fishes. "I haven't caught one yet." "You don't fish deep enough." "I fish on the bottom." "That is too deep." "It don't make any difference how I fish; it is all luck." "Not all luck, Tom; there is something in doing it right." "I shall not catch a fish," continued Tom, in despair. "You'll catch something else, though, when you go home." "Will I?" "I'm afraid you will." "Who says I will?" "Didn't you tell me you were 'hooking jack'? "Who is going to know any thing about it?" "The master will know you are absent." "I shall tell him my mother sent me over to the village on an errand." "I never knew a fellow to 'hook jack,' yet, without getting found out." "I shall not get found out unless you blow on me; and you wouldn't be mean enough to do that;" and Tom glanced uneasily at his companion. "Suppose your mother should ask me if I had seen you." "You would tell her you have not, of course." "Of course?" "Why, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you do as much as that for a fellow?" "It would be a lie." "A lie! Humph!" "I wouldn't lie for any fellow," replied Bobby, stoutly, as he pulled in his seventh fish, and placed him in the basket. "Wouldn't you?" "No, I wouldn't." "Then, let me tell you this; if you peach on me I'll smash your head." Tom Spicer removed one hand from the fish pole and, doubling his fist, shook it with energy at his companion. "Smash away," replied Bobby, coolly. "I shall not go out of my way to tell tales; but if your mother or the master asks me the question, I shall not lie." "Won't you?" "No, I won't." "I'll bet you will;" and Tom dropped his fish pole, and was on the point of jumping over to the rock occupied by Bobby, when the float of the former disappeared beneath the surface of the water. "You have got a bite," coolly interposed Bobby, pointing to the line. Tom snatched the pole, and with a violent twitch, pulled up a big pout; but his violence jerked the hook out of the fish's mouth, and he disappeared beneath the surface of the river. "Just my luck!" muttered Tom. "Keep cool, then." "I will fix you yet." "All right; but you had better not let go your pole again, or you will lose another fish." "I'm bound to smash your head, though." "No, you won't." "Won't I?" "Two can play at that game." "Do you stump me?" "No; I don't want to fight; I won't fight if I can help it." "I'll bet you won't!" sneered Tom. "But I will defend myself." "Humph!" "I am not a liar, and the fear of a flogging shall not make me tell a lie."' "Go to Sunday school--don't you?" "I do; and besides that, my mother always taught me never to tell a lie." "Come! you needn't preach to me. By and by, you will call me a liar." "No, I won't; but just now you told me you meant to lie to your mother, and to the master." "What if I did? That is none of your business." "It is my business when you want me to lie for you, though; and I shall not do it." "Blow on me, and see what you will get." "I don't mean to blow on you." "Yes you do." "I will not lie about it; that's all." "By jolly! see that horse!" exclaimed Tom, suddenly, as he pointed to the road leading to Riverdale centre. "By gracious!" added Bobby, dropping his fish pole, as he saw the horse running at a furious rate up the road from the village. The mad animal was attached to a chaise, in which was seated a lady, whose frantic shrieks pierced the soul of our youthful hero. The course of the road was by the river's side for nearly half a mile, and crossed the stream at a wooden bridge but a few rods from the place where the boys were fishing. Bobby Bright's impulses were noble and generous; and without stopping to consider the peril to which the attempt would expose him, he boldly resolved to stop that horse, or let the animal dash him to pieces on the bridge. "Now or never!" shouted he, as he leaped from the rock, and ran with all his might to the bridge. The shrieks of the lady rang in his ears, and seemed to command him, with an authority which he could not resist, to stop the horse. There was no time for deliberation; and, indeed, Bobby did not want any deliberation. The lady was in danger; if the horse's flight was not checked, she would be dashed in pieces; and what then could excuse him for neglecting his duty? Not the fear of broken limbs, of mangled flesh, or even of a sudden and violent death. It is true Bobby did not think of any of these things; though, if he had, it would have made no difference with him. He was a boy who would not fight except in self-defence, but he had the courage to do a deed which might have made the stoutest heart tremble with terror. Grasping a broken rail as he leaped over the fence, he planted himself in the middle of the bridge, which was not more than half as wide as the road at each end of it, to await the coming of the furious animal. On he came, and the piercing shrieks of the affrighted lady nerved him to the performance of his perilous duty. The horse approached him at a mad run, and his feet struck the loose planks of the bridge. The brave boy then raised his big club, and brandished it with all his might in the air. Probably the horse did not mean any thing very bad; was only frightened, and had no wicked intentions towards the lady; so that when a new danger menaced him in front, he stopped suddenly, and with so much violence as to throw the lady forward from her seat upon the dasher of the chaise. He gave a long snort, which was his way of expressing his fear. He was evidently astonished at the sudden barrier to his further progress, and commenced running back. "Save me!" screamed the lady. "I will, ma'am; don't be scared!" replied Bobby, confidently, as he dropped his club, and grasped the bridle of the horse, just as he was on the point of whirling round to escape by the way he had come. "Stop him! Do stop him!" cried the lady. "Whoa!" said Bobby, in gentle tones, as he patted the trembling horse on his neck. "Whoa, good horse! Be quiet! Whoa!" The animal, in his terror, kept running backward and forward; but Bobby persevered in his gentle treatment, and finally soothed him, so that he stood quiet enough for the lady to get out of the chaise. "What a miracle that I am alive!" exclaimed she when she realized that she stood once more upon the firm earth. "Yes, ma'am, it is lucky he didn't break the chaise. Whoa! Good horse! Stand quiet!" "What a brave little fellow you are!" said the lady, as soon as she could recover her breath so as to express her admiration of Bobby's bold act. "O, I don't mind it," replied he, blushing like a rose in June. "Did he run away with you?" "No; my father left me in the chaise for a moment while he went into a store in the village, and a teamster who was passing by snapped his whip, which frightened Kate so that she started off at the top of her speed. I was so terrified, that I screamed with all my might, which frightened her the more. The more I screamed, the faster she ran." "I dare say. Good horse! Whoa, Kate!" "She is a splendid creature; she never did such a thing before. My father will think I am killed." By this time, Kate had become quite reasonable, and seemed very much obliged to Bobby for preventing her from doing mischief to her mistress; for she looked at the lady with a glance of satisfaction, which her deliverer interpreted as a promise to behave better in future. He relaxed his grasp upon the bridle, patted her upon the neck, and said sundry pleasant things to encourage her in her assumed purpose of doing better. Kate appeared to understand Bobby's kind words, and declared as plainly as a horse could declare that she would be sober and tractable. "Now, ma'am, if you will get into the chaise again, I think Kate will let me drive her down to the village." "O, dear! I should not dare to do so." "Then, if you please, I will drive down alone, so as to let your father know that you are safe." "Do." "I am sure he must feel very bad, and I may save him a great deal of pain, for a man can suffer a great deal in a very short time." "You are a little philosopher, as well as a hero, and if you are not afraid of Kate, you may do as you wish." "She seems very gentle now;" and Bobby turned her round, and got into the chaise. "Be very careful," said the lady. "I will." Bobby took the reins, and Kate, true to the promise she had virtually made, started off at a round pace towards the village. He had not gone more than a quarter of a mile of the distance when he met a wagon containing three men, one of whom was the lady's father. The gestures which he made assured Bobby he had found the person whom he sought, and he stopped. "My daughter! Where is she?" gasped the gentleman, as he leaped from the wagon. "She is safe, sir," replied Bobby, with all the enthusiasm of his warm nature. "Thank God!" added the gentleman, devoutly as he placed himself in the chaise by the side of Bobby. CHAPTER II. IN WHICH BOBBY BLUSHES SEVERAL TIMES, AND DOES A SUM IN ARITHMETIC. Mr. Bayard, the owner of the horse, and the father of the lady whom Bobby had saved from impending death, was too much agitated to say much, even to the bold youth who had rendered him such a signal service. He could scarcely believe the intelligence which the boy brought him; it seemed too good to be true. He had assured himself that Ellen--for that was the young lady's name--was killed, or dreadfully injured. Kate was driven at the top of her speed, and in a few moments reached the bridge, where Ellen was awaiting his arrival. "Here I am, father, alive and unhurt!" cried Ellen, as Mr. Bayard stopped the horse. "Thank Heaven my child!" replied the glad father, embracing his daughter. "I was sure you were killed." "No, father; thanks to this bold youth, I am uninjured." "I am under very great obligations to you, young man," continued Mr. Bayard, grasping Bobby's hand. "O, never mind, sir;" and Bobby blushed just as he had blushed when the young lady spoke to him. "We shall never forget you--shall we, father?" added Ellen. "No, my child; and I shall endeavor to repay, to some slight extent, our indebtedness to him. But you have not yet told me how you were saved." "O, I merely stopped the horse; that's all," answered Bobby, modestly. "Yes, father, but he placed himself right before Kate when she was almost flying over the ground. When I saw him, I was certain that he would lose his life, or be horribly mangled for his boldness," interposed Ellen. "It was a daring deed, young man, to place yourself before an affrighted horse in that manner," said Mr. Bayard. "I didn't mind it, sir." "And then he flourished a big club, almost as big as he is himself, in the air, which made Kate pause in her mad career, when my deliverer here grasped her by the bit and held her." "It was well and bravely done." "That it was, father; not many men would have been bold enough to do what he did," added Ellen, with enthusiasm. "Very true; and I feel, that I am indebted to him for your safety. What is your name, young man?" "Robert Bright, sir." Mr. Bayard took from his pocket several pieces of gold, which he offered to Bobby. "No, I thank you, sir," replied Bobby, blushing. "What! as proud as you are bold?" "I don't like to be paid for doing my duty." "Bravo! You are a noble little fellow! But you must take this money, not as a reward for what you have done, but as a testimonial of my gratitude." "I would rather not, sir." "Do take it, Robert," added Ellen. "I don't like to take it. It looks mean to take money for doing one's duty." "Take it, Robert, to please me;" and the young lady smiled so sweetly that Bobby's resolution began to give way. "Only to please me, Robert." "I will, to please you; but I don't feel right about it." "You must not be too proud, Robert," said Mr. Bayard, as he put the gold pieces into his hand. "I am not proud, sir; only I don't like to be paid for doing my duty." "Not paid, my young friend. Consider that you have placed me under an obligation to you for life. This money is only an expression of my own and my daughter's feelings. It is but a small sum, but I hope you will permit me to do something more for you, when you need it. You will regard me as your friend as long as you live." "Thank you, sir." "When you want any assistance of any kind, come to me. I live in Boston; here is my business card." Mr. Bayard handed him a card, on which Bobby read, "F. Bayard & Co., Booksellers and Publishers, No. ---- Washington Street, Boston." "You are very kind, sir." "I want you should come to Boston and see us too," interposed Ellen. "I should be delighted to show you the city, to take you to the Athenaeum and the Museum." "Thank you." Mr. Bayard inquired of Bobby about his parents, where he lived, and about the circumstances of his family. He then took out his memorandum book, in which he wrote the boy's name and residence. "I am sorry to leave you now, Robert, but I have over twenty miles to ride to-day. I should be glad to visit your mother, and next time I come to Riverdale, I shall certainly do so." "Thank you, sir; my mother is a very poor woman, but she will be glad to see you." "Now, good by, Robert." "Good by," repeated Ellen. "Good by." Mr. Bayard drove off, leaving Bobby standing on the bridge with the gold pieces in his hand. "Here's luck!" said Bobby, shaking the coin. "Won't mother's eyes stick out when she sees these shiners? There are no such shiners in the river as these." Bobby was astonished, and the more he gazed at the gold pieces, the more bewildered he became. He had never held so much money in his hand before. There were three large coins and one smaller one. He turned them over and over, and finally ascertained that the large coins were ten dollar pieces, and the smaller one a five dollar piece. Bobby was not a great scholar, but he knew enough of arithmetic to calculate the value of his treasure. He was so excited, however, that he did not arrive at the conclusion half so quick as most of my young readers would have done. "Thirty-five dollars!" exclaimed Bobby, when the problem was solved. "Gracious!" "Hallo, Bob!" shouted Tom Spicer, who had got tired of fishing; besides, the village clock was just striking twelve, and it was time for him to go home. Bobby made no answer, but hastily tying the gold pieces up in the corner of his handkerchief, he threw the broken rail he had used in stopping the horse where it belonged, and started for the place where he had left his fishing apparatus. "Hallo, Bob!" "Well, Tom?" "Stopped him--didn't you?" "I did." "You were a fool; he might have killed you." "So he might; but I didn't stop to think of that. The lady's life was in danger." "What of that?" "Every thing, I should say." "Did he give you any thing?" "Yes;" and Bobby continued his walk down to the river's side. "I say, what did he give you, Bobby?" persisted Tom, following him. "O, he gave me a good deal of money." "How much?" "I want to get my fish line now; I will tell you all about it some other time," replied Bobby, who rather suspected the intentions of his companion. "Tell me now; how much was it?" "Never mind it now." "Humph! Do you think I mean to rob you?" "No." "Ain't you going halveses?" "Why should I?" "Wasn't I with you?" "Were you?" "Wasn't I fishing with you?" "You did not do any thing about stopping the horse." "I would, if I hadn't been afraid to go up to the road." "Afraid?" "Somebody might have seen me, and they would have known that I was hooking jack." "Then you ought not to share the money." "Yes, I had. When a fellow is with you, he ought to have half. It is mean not to give him half." "If you had done any thing to help stop the horse, I would have shared with you. But you didn't." "What of that?" Bobby was particularly sensitive in regard to the charge of meanness. His soul was a great deal bigger than his body, and he was always generous, even to his own injury, among his companions. It was evident to him that Tom had no claim to any part of the reward; but he could not endure the thought even of being accused of meanness. "I'll tell you what I will do, if you think I ought to share with you. I will leave it out to Squire Lee; and if he thinks you ought to have half, or any part of the money, I will give it to you." "No, you don't; you want to get me into a scrape for hooking jack. I see what you are up to." "I will state the case to him without telling him who the boys are." "No, you don't! You want to be mean about it. Come, hand over half the money." "I will not," replied Bobby, who, when it became a matter of compulsion, could stand his ground at any peril. "How much have you got?" "Thirty-five dollars." "By jolly! And you mean to keep it all yourself?" "I mean to give it to my mother." "No, you won't! If you are going to be mean about it, I'll smash your head!" This was a favorite expression with Tom Spicer, who was a noted bully among the boys of Riverdale. The young ruffian now placed himself in front of Bobby, and shook his clinched fist in his face. "Hand over." "No, I won't. You have no claim to any part at the money; at least, I think you have not. If you have a mind to leave it out to Squire Lee, I will do what is right about it." "Not I; hand over, or I'll smash your head!" "Smash away," replied Bobby, placing himself on the defensive. "Do you think you can lick me?" asked Tom, not a little embarrassed by this exhibition of resolution on the part of his companion. "I don't think any thing about it; but you don't bully me in that kind of style." "Won't I?" "No." But Tom did not immediately put his threat in execution, and Bobby would not be the aggressor; so he stepped one side to pass his assailant. Tom took this as an evidence of the other's desire to escape, and struck him a heavy blow on the side of the head The next instant the bully was floundering in the soft mud of a ditch; Bobby's reply was more than Tom had bargained for, and while he was dragging himself out of the ditch, our hero ran down to the river, and got his fish pole and basket. "You'll catch it for that!" growled Tom. "I'm all ready, whenever it suits your convenience," replied Bobby. "Just come out here and take it in fair fight," continued Tom, who could not help bullying, even in the midst of his misfortune. "No, I thank you; I don't want to fight with any fellow. I will not fight if I can help it." "What did you hit me for, then?" "In self-defence." "Just come out here, and try it fair?" "No;" and Bobby hurried home, leaving the bully astonished, and discomfited by the winding up of the morning's sport. CHAPTER III. IN WHICH THE LITTLE BLACK HOUSE IS BOUGHT BUT NOT PAID FOR. Probably my young readers have by this time come to the conclusion that Bobby Bright was a very clever fellow--one whose acquaintance they would be happy to cultivate. Perhaps by this time they have become so far interested in him as to desire to know who his parents were, what they did, and in what kind of a house he lived. I hope none of my young friends will think any less of him when I inform them that Bobby lived in an old black house which had never been painted, which had no flower garden in front of it, and which, in a word, was quite far from being a palace. A great many very nice city folks would not have considered it fit to live in, would have turned up their noses at it, and wondered that any human beings could be so degraded as to live in such a miserable house. But the widow Bright, Bobby's mother, thought it was a very comfortable house, and considered herself very fortunate in being able to get so good a dwelling. She had never lived in a fine house, knew nothing about velvet carpets, mirrors seven feet high, damask chairs and lounges, or any of the smart things which very rich and very proud city people consider absolutely necessary for their comfort. Her father had been a poor man, her husband had died a poor man, and her own life had been a struggle to keep the demons of poverty and want from invading her humble abode. Mr. Bright, her deceased husband, had been a day laborer in Riverdale. He never got more than a dollar a day, which was then considered very good wages in the country. He was a very honest, industrious man, and while he lived, his family did very well. Mrs. Bright was a careful, prudent woman, and helped him support the family. They never knew what it was to want for any thing. Poor people, as well as rich, have an ambition to be something which they are not, or to have something which they have not. Every person, who has an energy of character, desires to get ahead in the world. Some merchants, who own big ships and big warehouses by the dozen, desire to be what they consider rich. But their idea of wealth is very grand. They wish to count it in millions of dollars, in whole blocks of warehouses; and they are even more discontented than the day laborer who has to earn his dinner before he can eat it. Bobby's father and mother had just such an ambition, only it was so modest that the merchant would have laughed at it. They wanted to own the little black house in which they resided, so that they could not only be sure of a home while they lived, but have the satisfaction of living in their own house. This was a very reasonable ideal, compared with that of the rich merchants I have mentioned; but it was even more difficult for them to reach it, for the wages were small, and they had many mouths to feed. Mr. Bright had saved up fifty dollars; and he thought a great deal more of this sum than many people do of a thousand dollars. He had had to work very hard and be very prudent in order to accumulate this sum, which made him value it all the more highly. With this sum of fifty dollars at his command, John Bright felt rich; and then, more than ever before, he wanted to own the little black house. He felt as grand as a lord; and as soon as the forty-nine dollars had become fifty, he waited upon Mr. Hardhand, a little crusty old man, who owned the little black house, and proposed to purchase it. The landlord was a hard man. Every body in Riverdale said he was mean and stingy. Any generous-hearted man would have been willing to make an easy bargain with an honest, industrious, poor man, like John Bright, who wished to own the house in which he lived; but Mr. Hardhand, although he was rich, only thought how he could make more money. He asked the poor man four hundred dollars for the old house and the little lot of land on which it stood. It was a matter of great concern to John Bright. Four hundred dollars was a "mint of money," and he could not see how he should ever be able to save so much from his daily earnings. So he talked with Squire Lee about it, who told him that three hundred was all it was worth. John offered this for it, and after a month's hesitation, Mr. Hardhand accepted the offer, agreeing to take fifty dollars down and the rest in semi-annual payments of twenty-five dollars each, until the whole was paid. I am thus particular in telling my readers about the bargain, because this debt which his father contracted was the means of making a man of Bobby, as will be seen in his subsequent history. John Bright paid the first fifty dollars; but before the next instalment became due, the poor man was laid in his cold and silent grave. A malignant disease carried him off, and the hopes of the Bright family seemed to be blasted. Four children were left to the widow. The youngest was only three years old, and Bobby, the oldest, was nine, when his father died. Squire Lee, who had always been a good friend of John Bright, told the widow that she had better go to the poorhouse, and not attempt to struggle along with such a fearful odds against her. But the widow nobly refused to become a pauper, and to make paupers of her children, whom she loved quite as much as though she and they had been born in a ducal palace. She told the squire that she had two hands, and as long as she had her health, the town need not trouble itself about her support. Squire Lee was filled with surprise and admiration at the noble resolution of the poor woman; and when he returned to his house, he immediately sent her a cord of wood, ten bushels of potatoes, two bags of meal, and a firkin of salt pork. The widow was very grateful for these articles, and no false pride prevented her from accepting the gift of her rich and kind-hearted neighbor. Riverdale centre was largely engaged in the manufacturing of boots and shoes, and this business gave employment to a large number of men and women. Mrs. Bright had for several years "closed" shoes--which, my readers who do not live in "shoe towns" may not know, means sewing or stitching them. To this business she applied herself with renewed energy. There was a large hotel in Riverdale centre, where several families from Boston spent the summer. By the aid of Squire Lee, she obtained the washing of these families, which was more profitable than closing shoes. By these means she not only supported her family very comfortably, but was able to save a little money towards paying for the house. Mr. Hardhand, by the persuasions of Squire Lee, had consented to let the widow keep the house, and pay for it as she could. John Bright had been dead four years at the time we introduce Bobby to the reader. Mrs. Bright had paid another hundred dollars towards the house, with the interest; so there was now but one hundred due. Bobby had learned to "close," and helped his mother a great deal; but the confinement and the stooping posture did not agree with his health, and his mother was obliged to dispense with his assistance. But the devoted little fellow found a great many ways of helping her. He was now thirteen, and was as handy about the house as a girl. When he was not better occupied, he would often go to the river and catch a mess of fish, which was so much clear gain. The winter which had just passed, had brought a great deal of sickness to the little black house. The children all had the measles, and two of them the scarlet fever, so that Mrs. Bright could not work much. Her affairs were not in a very prosperous condition when the spring opened; but the future was bright, and the widow, trusting in Providence, believed that all would end well. One thing troubled her. She had not been able to save any thing for Mr. Hardhand. She could only pay her interest; but she hoped by the first of July to give him twenty-five dollars of the principal. But the first of July came, and she had only five dollars of the sum she had partly promised her creditor. She could not so easily recover from the disasters of the hard winter, and she had but just paid off the little debts she had contracted. She was nervous and uneasy as the day approached. Mr. Hardhand always abused her when she told him she could not pay him, and she dreaded his coming. It was the first of July on which Bobby caught those pouts, caught the horse, and on which Tom Spicer had "caught a Tartar." Bobby hastened home, as we said at the conclusion of the last chapter. He was as happy as a lord. He had fish enough in his basket for dinner, and for breakfast the next morning, and money enough in his pocket to make his mother as happy as a queen, if queens are always happy. The widow Bright, though she had worried and fretted night and day about the money which was to be paid to Mr. Hardhand on the first of July, had not told her son any thing about it. It would only make him unhappy, she reasoned, and it was needless to make the dear boy miserable for nothing; so Bobby ran home all unconscious of the pleasure which was in store for him. When he reached the front door, as he stopped to scrape his feet on the sharp stone there, as all considerate boys who love their mothers do, before they go into the house, he heard the angry tones of Mr. Hardhand. He was scolding and abusing his mother because she could not pay him the twenty-five dollars. Bobby's blood boiled with indignation, and his first impulse was to serve him as he had served Tom Spicer, only a few moments before; but Bobby, as we have before intimated, was a peaceful boy, and not disposed to quarrel with any person; so he contented himself with muttering a few hard words. "The wretch! What business has he to talk to my mother in that style?" said he to himself. "I have a great mind to kick him out of the house." But Bobby's better judgment came to his aid; and perhaps he realized that he and his mother would only get kicked out in return. He could battle with Mr. Hardhand, but not with the power which his wealth gave him; so, like a great many older persons in similar circumstances, he took counsel of prudence rather than impulse. "Bear ye one another's burdens," saith the Scripture; but Bobby was not old enough or astute enough to realize that Mr. Hardhand's burden was his wealth, his love of money; that it made him little better than a Hottentot; and he could not feel as charitably towards him as a Christian should towards his erring, weak brother. Setting his pole by the door, he entered the room where Hardhand was abusing his mother. CHAPTER IV. IN WHICH BOBBY GETS OUT OF ONE SCRAPE, AND INTO ANOTHER. Bobby was so indignant at the conduct of Mr. Hardhand, that he entirely forgot the adventure of the morning; and he did not even think of the gold he had in his pocket. He loved his mother; he knew how hard she had worked for him and his brother and sisters; that she had burned the "midnight oil" at her clamps; and it made him feel very bad to near her abused as Mr. Hardhand was abusing her. It was not her fault that she had not the money to pay him. She had been obliged to spend a large portion of her time over the sick beds of her children, so that she could not earn so much money as usual; while the family expenses were necessarily much greater. Bobby knew also that Mr. Hardhand was aware of all the circumstances of his mother's position, and the more he considered the case the more brutal and inhuman was his course. As our hero entered the family room with the basket of fish on his arm, the little crusty old man fixed the glance of his evil eye upon him. "There is that boy, marm, idling away his time by the river, and eating you out of house and home," said the wretch. "Why don't you set him to work, and make him earn something?" "Bobby is a very good boy," meekly responded the widow Bright. "Humph! I should think he was. A great lazy lubber like him, living on his mother!" and Mr. Hardhand looked contemptuously at Bobby. "I am not a lazy lubber," interposed the insulted boy with spirit. "Yes, you are. Why don't you go to work?" "I do work." "No, you don't; you waste your time paddling in the river." "I don't." "You had better teach this boy manners too, marm," said the creditor, who, like all men of small souls, was willing to take advantage of the power which the widow's indebtedness gave him. "He is saucy." "I should like to know who taught you manners, Mr. Hardhand," replied Bobby, whose indignation was rapidly getting the better of his discretion. "What!" growled Mr. Hardhand, aghast at this unwonted boldness. "I heard what you said before I came in; and no decent man would go to the house of a poor woman to insult her." "Humph! Mighty fine," snarled the little old man, his gray eyes twinkling with malice. "Don't Bobby; don't be saucy to the gentleman," interposed his mother. "Saucy, marm? You ought to horsewhip him for it. If you don't, I will." "No, you won't!" replied Bobby, shaking his head significantly. "I can take care of myself." "Did any one ever hear such impudence!" gasped Mr. Hardhand. "Don't, Bobby, don't," pleaded the anxious mother. "I should like to know what right you have to come here and abuse my mother," continued Bobby, who could not restrain his anger. "Your mother owes me money, and she don't pay it, you young scoundrel!" answered Mr. Hardhand, foaming with rage. "That is no reason why you should insult her. You can call _me_ what you please, but you shall not insult my mother while I'm round." "Your mother is a miserable woman, and--" "Say that again, and though you are an old man, I'll hit you for it. I'm big enough to protect my mother, and I'll do it." Bobby doubled up his fists and edged up to Mr. Hardhand, fully determined to execute his threat if he repeated the offensive expression, or any other of a similar import. He was roused to the highest pitch of anger, and felt as though he had just as lief die as live in defence of his mother's good name. I am not sure that I could excuse Bobby's violence under any other circumstances. He loved his mother--as the novelists would say, he idolized her; and Mr. Hardhand had certainly applied some very offensive epithets to her--epithets which no good son could calmly bear applied to a mother. Besides, Bobby, though his heart was a large one, and was in the right place, had never been educated into those nice distinctions of moral right and wrong which control the judgment of wise and learned men. He had an idea that violence, resistance with blows, was allowable in certain extreme cases; and he could conceive of no greater provocation than an insult to his mother. "Be calm, Bobby; you are in a passion," said Mrs. Bright. "I am surprised, marm," began Mr. Hardhand, who prudently refrained from repeating the offensive language--and I have no doubt he was surprised; for he looked both astonished and alarmed. "This boy has a most ungovernable temper." "Don't you worry about my temper, Mr. Hardhand; I'll take care of myself. All I want of you is not to insult my mother. You may say what you like to me; but don't you call her hard names." Mr. Hardhand, like all mean, little men, was a coward; and he was effectually intimidated by the bold and manly conduct of the boy. He changed his tone and manner at once. "You have no money for me, marm?" said he, edging towards the door. "No, sir; I am sorry to say that I have been able to save only five dollars since I paid you last; but I hope--" "Never mind, marm, never mind; I shall not trouble myself to come here again, where I am liable to be kicked by this ill-bred cub. No, marm, I shall not come again. Let the law take its course." "O, mercy! See what you have brought upon us, Bobby," exclaimed Mrs. Bright, bursting into tears. "Yes, marm, let the law take its course." "O Bobby! Stop a moment, Mr. Hardhand; do stop a moment." "Not a moment, marm. We'll see;" and Mr. Hardhand placed his hand upon the latch string. Bobby felt very uneasy, and very unhappy at that moment. His passion had subsided, and he realized that he had done a great deal of mischief by his impetuous conduct. Then the remembrance of his morning, adventure on the bridge came like a flash of sunshine to his mind, and he eagerly drew from his pocket the handkerchief in which he had deposited the precious gold,--doubly precious now, because it would enable him to retrieve the error into which he had fallen, and do something towards relieving his mother's embarrassment. With a trembling hand he untied the knot which secured the money. "Here, mother, here is thirty-five dollars;" and he placed it in her hand. "Why, Bobby!" exclaimed Mrs. Bright. "Pay him, mother, pay him, and I will tell you all about it by and by." "Thirty-five dollars! and all in gold! Where did you get it, Bobby?" "Never mind it now, mother." Mr. Hardhand's covetous soul had already grasped the glittering gold; and removing his hand from the latch string, he approached the widow. "I shall be able to pay you forty dollars now," said Mrs. Bright, taking the five dollars she had saved from her pocket. "Yes, marm." Mr. Hardhand took the money, and seating himself at the table, indorsed the amount on the back of the note. "You owe me sixty more," said he, maliciously, as he returned the note to his pocket book. "It must be paid immediately." "You must not be hard with me now, when I have paid more than you demanded." "I don't wish to come here again. That boy's impudence has put me all out of conceit with you and your family," replied Mr. Hardhand, assuming the most benevolent look he could command. "There was a time when I was very willing to help you. I have waited a great while for my pay for this house; a great deal longer than I would have waited for anybody else." "Your interest has always been paid punctually," suggested the widow, modestly. "That's true; but very few people would have waited as long as I have for the principal. I wanted to help you--" "By gracious!" exclaimed Bobby, interrupting him. "Don't be saucy, my son, don't," said Mrs. Bright, fearing a repetition of the former scene. "_He_ wanted to help us!" ejaculated Bobby. It was a very absurd and hypocritical expression on the part of Mr. Hardhand; for he never wanted to help any one but himself; and during the whole period of his relations with the poor widow, he had oppressed, insulted, and abused her to the extent of his capacity, or at least as far as his interest would permit. He was a malicious and revengeful man. He did not consider the great provocation he had given Bobby for his violent conduct, but determined to be revenged, if it could be accomplished without losing any part of the sixty dollars still due him. He was a wicked man at heart, and would not scruple to turn the widow and her family out of house and home. Mrs. Bright knew this, and Bobby knew it too; and they felt very uneasy about it. The wretch still had the power to injure them, and he would use it without compunction. "Yes, young man, I wanted to help you, and you see what I get for it--contempt and insults! You will hear from me again in a day or two. Perhaps you will change your tune, you young reprobate!" "Perhaps I shall," replied Bobby, without much discretion. "And you too, marm; you uphold him in his treatment of me. You have not done your duty to him. You have been remiss, marm!" continued Mr. Hardhand, growing bolder again, as he felt the power he wielded. "That will do, sir; you can go!" said Bobby, springing from his chair, and approaching Mr. Hardhand. "Go, and do your worst!" "Humph! you stump me--do you?" "I would rather see my mother kicked out of the house than insulted by such a dried-up old curmudgeon as you are. Go along!" "Now, don't, Bobby," pleaded his mother. "I am going; and if the money is not paid by twelve o'clock to-morrow, the law shall lake its course;" and Mr. Hardhand rushed out of the house, slamming the door violently after him. "O Bobby, what have you done?" exclaimed Mrs. Bright, when the hard-hearted creditor had departed. "I could not help it, mother; don't cry. I cannot bear to hear you insulted and abused; and I thought when I heard him do it a year ago, that I couldn't stand it again. It is too bad." "But he will turn us out of the house; and what shall we do then?" "Don't cry, mother; it will come round all right. I have friends who are rich and powerful, and who will help us." "You don't know what you say, Bobby. Sixty dollars is a great deal of money, and if we should sell all we have, it would scarcely bring that." "Leave it all to me, mother; I feel as though I could do something now. I am old enough to make money." "What can you do?" "Now or never!" replied Bobby, whose mind had wandered from the scene to the busy world, where fortunes are made and lost every day. "Now or never!" muttered he again. "But Bobby, you have not told me where you got all that gold." "Dinner is ready, I see, and I will tell you while we eat." Bobby had been a fishing, and to be hungry is a part of the fisherman's luck; so he seated himself at the table, and gave his mother a full account of all that had occurred at the bridge. The fond mother trembled when she realized the peril her son had incurred for the sake of the young lady; but her maternal heart swelled with admiration in view of the generous deed, and she thanked God that she was the mother of such a son. She felt more confidence in him then than she had ever felt before, and she realized that he would be the stay and the staff of her declining years. Bobby finished his dinner, and seated himself on the front door step. His mind was absorbed, by a new and brilliant idea; and for half an hour he kept up a most tremendous thinking. "Now or never!" said he, as he rose and walked down the road towards Riverdale Centre. CHAPTER V. IN WHICH BOBBY GIVES HIS NOTE FOR SIXTY DOLLARS. A great idea was born in Bobby's brain. His mother's weakness and the insecurity of her position were more apparent to him than they had ever been before. She was in the power of her creditor, who might turn her out of the little black house, sell the place at auction, and thus, perhaps, deprive her of the whole or a large part of his father's and her own hard earnings. But this was not the peculiar hardship of her situation, as her devoted son understood it. It was not the hard work alone which she was called upon to perform, not the coarseness of the fare upon which they lived, not the danger even of being turned out of doors, that distressed Bobby; it was that a wretch like Mr. Hardhand could insult and trample upon his mother. He had just heard him use language to her that made his blood boil with indignation, and he did not, on cool, sober, second thought, regret that he had taken such a decided stand against it. He cared not for himself. He could live on a crust of bread and a cup of water from the spring; he could sleep in a barn; he could wear coarse and even ragged clothes; but he could not submit to have his mother insulted, and by such a mean and contemptible person as Mr. Hardhand. Yet what could he do? He was but a boy, and the great world would look with contempt upon his puny form. But he felt that he was not altogether insignificant. He had performed an act, that day, which the fair young lady, to whom he had rendered the service, had declared very few men would have undertaken. There was something in him, something that would come out, if he only put his best foot forward. It was a tower of strength within him. It told him that he could do wonders; that he could go out into the world and accomplish all that would be required to free his mother from debt, and relieve her from the severe drudgery of her life. A great many people think they can "do wonders." The vanity of some very silly people makes them think they can command armies, govern nations, and teach the world what the world never knew before, and never would know but for them. But Bobby's something within him was not vanity. It was something more substantial. He was not thinking of becoming a great man, a great general, a great ruler, or a great statesman; not even of making a great fortune. Self was not the idol and the end of his calculations. He was thinking of his mother, and only of her; and the feeling within him was as pure, and holy, and beautiful as the dream of an angel. He wanted to save his mother from insult in the first place, and from a life of ceaseless drudgery in the second. A legion of angels seemed to have encamped in his soul to give him strength for the great purpose in his mind. His was a holy and a true purpose, and it was this that made him think he could "do wonders." What Bobby intended to do the reader shall know in due time. It is enough now that he meant to do something. The difficulty with a great many people is, that they never resolve to do something. They wait for "something to turn up;" and as "things" are often very obstinate, they utterly refuse to "turn up" at all. Their lives are spent in waiting for a golden opportunity which never comes. Now, Bobby Bright repudiated the Micawber philosophy. He would have nothing to do with it. He did not believe corn would grow without being planted, or that pouts would bite the bare hook. I am not going to tell my young readers now how Bobby made out in the end; but I can confidently say that, if he had waited for "something to turn up," he would have become a vagabond, a loafer, out of money, out at the elbows, and out of patience with himself and all the world. It was "now or never" with Bobby. He meant to do something; and after he had made up his mind how and where it was to be done, it was no use to stand thinking about it, like the pendulum of the "old clock which had stood for fifty years in a farmer's kitchen, without giving its owner any cause of complaint." Bobby walked down the road towards the village with a rapid step. He was thinking very fast, and probably that made him step quick. But as he approached Squire Lee's house, his pace slackened, and he seemed to be very uneasy. When he reached the great gate that led up to the house, he stopped for an instant, and thrust his hands down very deep into his trousers pockets. I cannot tell what the trousers pockets had to do with what he was thinking about; but if he was searching for any thing in them, he did not find it; for after an instant's hesitation he drew out his hands, struck one of them against his chest, and in an audible voice exclaimed,-- "Now or never." All this pantomime, I suppose, meant that Bobby had some misgivings as to the ultimate success of his mission at Squire Lee's, and that when he struck his breast and uttered his favorite expression, they were conquered and driven out. Marching with a bold and determined step up to the squire's back door--Bobby's idea of etiquette would not have answered for the meridian of fashionable society--he gave three smart raps. Bobby's heart beat a little wildly as he waited a response to his summons. It seemed that he still had some doubts as to the practicability of his mission; but they were not permitted to disturb him long, for the door was opened by the Squire's pretty daughter Annie, a young miss of twelve. "O Bobby, is it you? I am so glad you have come!" exclaimed the little lady. Bobby blushed--he didn't know why, unless it was that the young lady desired to see him. He stammered out a reply, and for the moment forgot the object of his visit. "I want you to go down to the village for me, and get some books the expressman was to bring up from Boston for me. Will you go?" "Certainly, Miss Annie, I shall be very glad to go for _you_," replied Bobby with an emphasis that made the little maiden blush in her turn. "You are real good, Bobby; but I will give you something for going." "I don't want any thing," said Bobby, stoutly. "You are too generous! Ah, I heard what you did this forenoon; and pa says that a great many men would not have dared to do what you did. I always thought you were as brave as a lion; now I know it." "The books are at the express office, I suppose," said Bobby, turning as red as a blood beet. "Yes, Bobby; I am so anxious to get them that I can't wait till pa goes down this evening." "I will not be gone long." "O, you needn't run, Bobby; take your time." "I will go very quick. But, Miss Annie, is your father at home?" "Not now; he has gone over to the wood lot; but he will be back by the time you return." "Will you please to tell him that I want to see him about something very particular, when he gets back?" "I will, Bobby." "Thank you, Miss Annie;" and Bobby hastened to the village to execute his commission. "I wonder what he wants to see pa so very particularly for," said the young lady to herself, as she watched his receding form. "In my opinion, something has happened, at the little black house, for I could see that he looked very sober." Either Bobby had a very great regard for the young lady, and wished to relieve her impatience to behold the coveted books, or he was in a hurry to see Squire Lee; for the squire's old roan horse could hardly have gone quicker. "You should not have run, Bobby," said the little maiden when he placed the books in her hand; "I would not have asked you to go if I had thought you would run all the way. You must be very tired." "Not at all; I didn't run, only walked very quick," replied he; but his quick breathing indicated that his words or his walk had been very much exaggerated. "Has your father returned?" "He has; he is waiting for you in the sitting room. Come in, Bobby." Bobby followed her into the room, and took the chair which Annie offered him. "How do you do, Bobby? I am glad to see you," said the squire, taking him by the hand, and bestowing a benignant smile upon him--a smile which cheered his heart more than any thing else could at that moment. "I have heard of you before to-day." "Have you?" "I have, Bobby; you are a brave little fellow." "I came over to see you, sir, about something very particular," replied Bobby, whose natural modesty induced him to change the topic. "Indeed; well, what can I do for you?" "A great deal, sir; perhaps you will think I am very bold, sir, but I can't help it." "I know you are a very bold little fellow, or you would not have done what you did this forenoon," laughed the squire. "I didn't mean that, sir," answered Bobby, blushing up to the eyes. "I know you didn't; but go on." "I only meant that you would think me presuming, or impudent, or something of that kind." "O, no, far from it. You cannot be presuming or impudent. Speak out, Bobby; any thing under the heavens that I can do for you, I shall be glad to do." "Well, sir, I am going to leave Riverdale." "Leave Riverdale!" "Yes, sir; I am going to Boston, where I mean to do something to help mother." "Bravo! you are a good lad. What do you mean to do?" "I was thinking I should go into the book business." "Indeed!" and Squire Lee was much amused by the matter-of-fact manner of the young aspirant. "I was talking with a young fellow who went through the place last spring, selling books. He told me that some days he made three or four dollars, and that he averaged twelve dollars a week." "He did well; perhaps, though, only a few of them make so much." "I know I can make twelve dollars a week," replied Bobby, confidently, for that something within him made him feel capable of great things. "I dare say you can. You have energy and perseverance, and people take a liking to you." "But I wanted to see you about another matter. To speak out at once, I want to borrow sixty dollars of you;" and Bobby blushed, and seemed very much embarrassed by his own boldness. "Sixty dollars!" exclaimed the squire. "I knew you would think me impudent," replied our hero, his heart sinking within him. "But I don't, Bobby. You want this money to go into business with--to buy your stock of books?" "O, no, sir; I am going to apply to Mr. Bayard for that." "Just so; Mr. Bayard is the gentleman whose daughter you saved?" "Yes, sir. I want this money to pay off Mr. Hardhand. We owe him but sixty dollars now, and he has threatened to turn us out, if it is not paid by tomorrow noon." "The old hunks!" Bobby briefly related to the squire the events or the morning, much to the indignation and disgust of the honest, kind-hearted man. The courageous boy detailed more clearly his purpose, and doubted not he should be able to pay the loan in a few months. "Very well, Bobby, here is the money;" and the squire took it from his wallet, and gave it to him. "Thank you, sir. May Heaven bless you! I shall certainly pay you." "Don't worry about it, Bobby. Pay it when you get ready." "I will give you my note, and--" The squire laughed heartily at this, and told him, that, as he was a minor, his note was not good for any thing. "You shall see whether it is, or not," returned Bobby. "Let me give it to you, at least, so that we can tell how much I owe you from time to time." "You shall have your own way." Annie Lee, as much amused as her father at Bobby's big talk, got the writing materials, and the little merchant in embryo wrote and signed the note. "Good, Bobby! Now promise that you will come and see me every time you come home, and tell me how you are getting along." "I will, sir, with the greatest pleasure;" and with a light heart Bobby tripped away home. CHAPTER VI. IN WHICH BOBBY SETS OUT ON HIS TRAVELS. Squire Lee, though only a plain farmer, was the richest man in Riverdale. He had taken a great fancy to Bobby, and often employed him to do errands, ride the horse to plough in the cornfields, and such chores about the place as a boy could do. He liked to talk with Bobby because there was a great deal of good sense in him, for one with a small head. If there was any one thing upon which the squire particularly prided himself, it was his knowledge of human nature. He declared that he only wanted to look a man in the face to know what he was; and as for Bobby Bright, he had summered him and wintered him, and he was satisfied that he would make something in good time. He was not much astonished when Bobby opened his ambitious scheme of going into business for himself. But he had full faith in his ability to work out a useful and profitable, if not a brilliant life. He often said that Bobby was worth his weight in gold, and that he would trust him with any thing he had. Perhaps he did not suspect that the time was at hand when he would be called upon to verify his words practically; for it was only that morning, when one of the neighbors told him about Bobby's stopping the horse, that he had repeated the expression for the twentieth time. It was not an idle remark. Sixty dollars was hardly worth mentioning with a man of his wealth and liberal views, though so careful a man as he was would not have been likely to throw away that amount. But as a matter of investment,--Bobby had made the note read "with interest,"--he would as readily have let him have it, as the next richest man in the place, so much confidence had he in our hero's integrity, and so sure was he that he would soon have the means of paying him. Bobby was overjoyed at the fortunate issue of his mission, and he walked into the room where his mother was closing shoes, with a dignity worthy a banker or a great merchant. Mrs. Bright was very sad. Perhaps she felt a little grieved that her son, whom she loved so much, had so thoughtlessly plunged her into a new difficulty. "Come, cheer up, mother; it is all right," said Bobby in his usual elastic and gay tones; and at the same time he took the sixty dollars from his pocket and handed it to her. "There is the money, and you will be forever quit of Mr. Hardhand to-morrow." "What, Bobby! Why, where did you get all this money?" asked Mrs. Bright, utterly astonished. In a few words the ambitious boy told his story, and then informed his mother that he was going to Boston the next Monday morning, to commence business for himself. "Why, what can you do, Bobby?" "Do? I can do a great many things;" and he unfolded his scheme of becoming a little book merchant. "You are a courageous fellow! Who would have thought of such a thing?" "I should, and did." "But you are not old enough." "O, yes, I am." "You had better wait a while." "Now or never, mother! You see I have given my note, and my paper will be dishonored, if I am not up and doing." "Your paper!" said Mrs. Bright, with a smile. "That is what Mr. Wing, the boot manufacturer, calls it." "You needn't go away to earn this money; I can pay it myself." "This note is my affair, and I mean to pay it myself with my own earnings. No objections, mother." Like a sensible woman as she was, she did not make any objections. She was conscious of Bobby's talents; she knew that he had a strong mind of his own, and could take care of himself. It is true, she feared the influence of the great world, and especially of the great city, upon the tender mind of her son; but if he was never tempted, he would never be a conqueror over the foes that beset him. She determined to do her whole duty towards him, and she carefully pointed out to him the sins and the moral danger to which he would be exposed, and warned him always to resist temptation. She counselled him to think of her when he felt like going astray. Bobby declared that he would try to be a good boy. He did not speak contemptuously of the anticipated perils, as many boys would have done, because he knew that his mother would not make bugbears out of things which she knew had no real existence. The next day, Mr. Hardhand came; and my young readers can judge how astonished and chagrined he was, when the widow Bright offered him the sixty dollars. The Lord was with the widow and the fatherless, and the wretch was cheated out of his revenge. The note was given up, and the mortgage cancelled. Mr. Hardhand insisted that she should pay the interest on the sixty dollars for one day, as it was then the second day of July; but when Bobby reckoned it up, and found it was less than one cent, even the wretched miser seemed ashamed of himself, and changed the subject of conversation. He did not dare to say any thing saucy to the widow this time. He had lost his power over her, and there stood Bobby, who had come to look just like a young lion to him, coward and knave as he was. The business was all settled now, and Bobby spent the rest of the week in getting ready for his great enterprise. He visited all his friends, and went each day to talk with Squire Lee and Annie. The little maiden promised to buy a great many books of him, if he would bring his stock to Riverdale, for she was quite as much interested in him as her father was. Monday morning came, and Bobby was out of bed with the first streak of dawn. The excitement of the great event which was about to happen had not permitted him to sleep for the two hours preceding; yet when he got up, he could not help feeling sad. He was going to leave the little black house, going to leave his mother, going to leave the children, to depart for the great city. His mother was up before him. She was even more sad than he was, for she could see plainer than he the perils that environed him, and her maternal heart, in spite of the reasonable confidence she had in his integrity and good principles, trembled for his safety. As he ate his breakfast, his mother repeated the warnings and the good lessons she had before imparted. She particularly cautioned him to keep out of bad company. If he found that his companions would lie and swear, he might depend upon it they would steal, and he had better forsake them at once. This was excellent advice, and Bobby had occasion at a later period to call it to his sorrowing heart. "Here is three dollars, Bobby; it is all the money I have. Your fare to Boston will be one dollar, and you will have two left to pay the expenses of your first trip. It is all I have now," said Mrs. Bright. "I will not take the whole of it. You will want it yourself. One dollar is enough. When I find Mr. Bayard, I shall do very well." "Yes, Bobby, take the whole of it." "I will take just one dollar, and no more," replied Bobby, resolutely, as he handed her the other two dollars. "Do take it, Bobby." "No, mother; it will only make me lazy and indifferent." Taking a clean shirt, a pair of socks, and a handkerchief in his bundle, he was ready for a start. "Good by, mother," said he, kissing her and taking her hand. "I shall try and come home on Saturday, so as to be with you on Sunday." Then kissing the children, who had not yet got up, and to whom he had bidden adieu the night before, he left the house. He had seen the flood of tears that filled his mother's eyes, as he crossed the threshold; and he could not help crying a little himself. It is a sad thing to leave one's home, one's mother, especially, to go out into the great world; and we need not wonder that Bobby, who had hardly been out of Riverdale before, should weep. But he soon restrained the flowing tears. "Now or never!" said he, and he put his best foot forward. It was an epoch in his history, and though he was too young to realize the importance of the event, he seemed to feel that what he did now was to give character to his whole future life. It was a bright and beautiful morning--somehow, it is always a bright and beautiful morning when boys leave their homes to commence the journey of life; it is typical of the season of youth and hope, and it is meet that the sky should be clear, and the sun shine brightly, when the little pilgrim sets out upon his tour. He will see clouds and storms before he has gone far--let him have a fair start. He had to walk five miles to the nearest railroad station. His road lay by the house of his friend, Squire Lee; and as he was approaching it, he met Annie. She said she had come out to take her morning walk; but Bobby knew very well that she did not usually walk till an hour later; which, with the fact that she had asked him particularly, the day before, what time he was going, made Bobby believe that she had come out to say good by, and bid him God speed on his journey. At any rate, he was very glad to see her. He said a great many pretty things to her, and talked so big about what he was going to do, that the little maiden could hardly help laughing in his face. Then at the house he shook hands with the squire and shook hands again with Annie, and resumed his journey. His heart felt lighter for having met them, or at least for having met one of them, if not both; for Annie's eyes were so full of sunshine that they seemed to gladden his heart, and make him feel truer and stronger. After a pleasant walk, for he scarcely heeded the distance, so full was he of his big thoughts, he reached the railroad station. The cars had not yet arrived, and would not for half an hour. "Why should I give them a dollar for carrying me to Boston, when I can just as well walk? If I get tired, I can sit down and rest me. If I save the dollar, I shall have to earn only fifty-nine more to pay my note. So here goes;" and he started down the track. CHAPTER VII. IN WHICH BOBBY STANDS UP FOR "CERTAIN INALIENABLE RIGHTS." Whether it was wise policy, or "penny wise and pound foolish" policy for Bobby to undertake such a long walk, is certainly a debatable question; but as my young readers would probably object to an argument, we will follow him to the city, and let every one settle the point to suit himself. His cheerful heart made the road smooth beneath his feet. He had always been accustomed to an active, busy life, and had probably often walked more than twenty miles in a day. About ten o'clock, though he did not feel much fatigued, he seated himself on a rock by a brook from which he had just taken a drink, to rest himself. He had walked slowly so as to husband his strength; and he felt confident that he should be able to accomplish the journey without injury to himself. After resting for half an hour, he resumed his walk. At twelve o'clock he reached a point from which he obtained his first view of the city. His heart bounded at the sight, and his first impulse was to increase his speed so that he should the sooner gratify his curiosity; but a second thought reminded him that he had eaten nothing since breakfast; so, finding a shady tree by the road side, he seated himself on a stone to eat the luncheon which his considerate mother had placed in his bundle. Thus refreshed, he felt like a new man, and continued his journey again till he was on the very outskirts of the city, where a sign, "No passing over this bridge," interrupted his farther progress. Unlike many others, Bobby took this sign literally, and did not venture to cross the bridge. Having some doubts as to the direct road to the city, he hailed a man in a butcher's cart, who not only pointed the way, but gave him an invitation to ride with him, which Bobby was glad to accept. They crossed the Milldam, and the little pilgrim forgot the long walk he had taken--forgot Riverdale, his mother, Squire Lee, and Annie, for the time, in the absorbing interest of the exciting scene. The Common beat Riverdale Common all hollow; he had never seen any thing like it before. But when the wagon reached Washington Street, the measure of his surprise was filled up. "My gracious! how thick the houses are!" exclaimed he, much to the amusement of the kind-hearted butcher. "We have high fences here," he replied. "Where are all these folks going to?" "You will have to ask them, if you want to know." But the wonder soon abated, and Bobby began to think of his great mission in the city. He got tired of gazing and wondering, and even began to smile with contempt at the silly fops as they sauntered along, and the gayly-dressed ladies, that flaunted like so many idle butterflies, on the sidewalk. It was an exciting scene; but it did not look real to him. It was more like Herr Grunderslung's exhibition of the magic lantern, than any thing substantial. The men and women were like so many puppets. They did not seem to be doing any thing, or to be walking for any purpose. He got out of the butcher's cart at the Old South. His first impression, as he joined the busy throng, was, that he was one of the puppets. He did not seem to have any hold upon the scene, and for several minutes this sensation of vacancy chained him to the spot. "All right!" exclaimed he to himself at last. "I am here. Now's my time to make a strike. Now or never." He pulled Mr. Bayard's card from his pocket, and fixed the number of his store in his mind. Now, numbers were not a Riverdale institution, and Bobby was a little perplexed about finding the one indicated. A little study into the matter, however, set him right, and he soon had the satisfaction of seeing the bookseller's name over his store. "F. Bayard," he read; "this is the place." "Country!" shouted a little ragged boy, who dodged across the street at that moment. "Just so, my beauty!" said Bobby, a little nettled at this imputation of verdancy. "What a greeny!" shouted the little vagabond from the other side of the street. "No matter, rag-tag! We'll settle that matter some other time." But Bobby felt that there was something in his appearance which subjected him to the remarks of others, and as he entered the shop, he determined to correct it as soon as possible. A spruce young gentleman was behind the counter, who cast a mischievous glance at him as he entered. "Mr. Bayard keep here?" asked Bobby. "Well, I reckon he does. How are all the folks up country?" replied the spruce clerk, with a rude grin. "How are they?" repeated Bobby, the color flying to his cheek. "Yes, ha-ow do they dew?" "They behave themselves better than they do here." "Eh, greeny?" "Eh, sappy?" repeated Bobby, mimicking the soft, silky tones of the young city gentleman. "What do you mean by sappy?" asked the clerk, indignantly. "What do you mean by greeny?" "I'll let you know what I mean!" "When you do, I'll let you know what I mean by sappy." "Good!" exclaimed one of the salesmen, who had heard part of this spirited conversation. "You will learn better by and by, Timmins, than to impose upon boys from out of town." "You seem to be a gentleman, sir," said Bobby, approaching the salesman. "I wish to see Mr. Bayard." "You can't see him!" growled Timmins. "Can't I?" "Not at this minute; he is engaged just now," added the salesman, who seemed to have a profound respect for Bobby's discrimination. "He will be at liberty in a few moments." "I will wait, then," said Bobby, seating himself on a stool by the counter. Pretty soon the civil gentleman left the store to go to dinner, and Timmins, a little timid about provoking the young lion, cast an occasional glance of hatred at him. He had evidently found that "Country" was an embryo American citizen, and that he was a firm believer in the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence. Bobby bore no ill will towards the spruce clerk, ready as he had been to defend his "certain inalienable rights." "You do a big business here," suggested Bobby, in a conciliatory tone, and with a smile on his face which ought to have convinced the uncourteous clerk that he meant well. "Who told you so?" replied Timmins, gruffly. "I merely judged from appearances. You have a big store, and an immense quantity of books." "Appearances are deceitful," replied Timmins; and perhaps he had been impressed by the fact from his experience with the lad from the country. "That is true," added Bobby, with a good-natured smile, which, when interpreted, might have meant, "I took you for a civil fellow, but I have been very much mistaken." "You will find it out before you are many days older." "The book business is good just now, isn't it?" continued Bobby, without clearly comprehending the meaning of the other's last remark. "Humph! What's that to you?" "O, I intend to go into it myself." "Ha, ha, ha! Good! You do?" "I do," replied Bobby, seemingly unconcerned at the taunts of the clerk. "I suppose you want to get a place here," sneered Timmins, alarmed at the prospect. "But let me tell you, you can't do it. Bayard has all the help he wants; and if that is what you come for, you can move on as fast as you please." "I guess I will see him," added Bobby quietly. "No use." "No harm in seeing him." As he spoke he took up a book that lay on the counter, and began to turn over the leaves. "Put that book down!" said the amiable Mr. Timmins. "I won't hurt it," replied Bobby, who had just fixed his eye upon some very pretty engravings in the volume. "Put it down!" repeated Mr. Timmins, in a loud, imperative tone. "Certainly I will, if you say so," said Bobby, who, though not much intimidated by the harsh tones of the clerk, did not know the rules of the store, and deemed it prudent not to meddle. "I _do_ say so!" added Mr. Timmins, magnificently; "and what's more, you'd better mind me, too." Bobby had minded, and probably the stately little clerk would not have been so bold if he had not. Some people like to threaten after the danger is over. Then our visitor from the country espied some little blank books lying on the counter. He had already made up his mind to have one, in which to keep his accounts; and he thought, while he was waiting, that he would purchase one. He meant to do things methodically; so when he picked up one of the blank books, it was with the intention of buying it. "Put that book down!" said Mr. Timmins, encouraged in his aggressive intentions by the previous docility of our hero. "I want to buy one." "No, you don't: put it down.". "What is the price of these?" asked Bobby, resolutely. "None of your business!" CHAPTER VIII. IN WHICH MR. TIMMINS IS ASTONISHED, AND BOBBY DINES IN CHESTNUT STREET. It was Mr. Bayard. He had finished his business with the gentleman by his side, and hearing the noise of the scuffle, had come to learn the occasion of it. "This impudent young puppy wouldn't let the books alone!" began Mr. Timmins. "I threatened to turn him out if he didn't; and I meant to make good my threat. I think he meant to steal something." Bobby was astonished and shocked at this bold imputation; but he wished to have his case judged on its own merits; so he turned his face away, that Mr. Bayard might not recognize him. "I wanted to buy one of these blank books," added Bobby, picking up the one he had dropped on the floor in the struggle. "All stuff!" ejaculated Timmins. "He is an impudent, obstinate puppy! In my opinion he meant to steal that book." "I asked him the price, and told him I wanted to buy it," added Bobby, still averting his face. "Well, I told him; and he said it was too high." "He asked me twenty-five cents for it." "Is this true, Timmins?" asked Mr. Bayard, sternly. "No, sir, I told him fourpence," replied Timmins boldly. "By gracious! What a whopper!" exclaimed Bobby, startled out of his propriety by this monstrous lie. "He said twenty-five cents; and I told him I could buy one up in Riverdale, where I came from, for six cents. Can you deny that?" "It's a lie!" protested Timmins. "Riverdale," said Mr. Bayard. "Are you from Riverdale, boy?" "Yes, sir, I am; and if you will look on your memorandum book you will find my name there." "Bless me! I am sure I have seen that face before," exclaimed Mr. Bayard, as he grasped the hand of Bobby, much to the astonishment and consternation of Mr. Timmins. You are--" "Robert Bright, sir." "My brave little fellow! I am heartily glad to see you;" and the bookseller shook the hand he held with hearty good will. "I was thinking of you only a little while ago." "This fellow calls me a liar," said Bobby, pointing to the astonished Mr. Timmins, who did not know what to make of the cordial reception which "Country" was receiving from his employer. "Well, Robert, we know that he is a liar; this is not the first time he has, been caught in a lie. Timmins, your time is out." The spruce clerk hung his head with shame and mortification. "I hope, sir, you will--" he began, but pride or fear stopped him short. "Don't be hard with him, sir, if you please," said Bobby. "I suppose I aggravated him." Mr. Bayard looked at the gentleman who stood by his side, and a smile of approbation lighted up his face. "Generous as he is noble! Butler, this is the boy that saved Ellen." "Indeed! He is a little giant!" replied Mr. Butler, grasping Bobby's hand. Even Timmins glanced with something like admiration in his looks at the youth whom he had so lately despised. Perhaps, too, he thought of that Scripture wisdom about entertaining angels unawares. He was very much abashed, and nothing but his silly pride prevented him from acknowledging his error, and begging Bobby's forgiveness. "I can't have a liar about me," said Mr. Bayard. "There may be some mistake," suggested Mr. Butler. "I think not. Robert Bright couldn't lie. So brave and noble a boy is incapable of a falsehood. Besides, I got a letter from my friend Squire Lee by this morning's mail, in which he informed me of my young friend's coming." Mr. Bayard took from his pocket a bundle of letters, and selected the squire's from among them. Opening it, he read a passage which had a direct bearing upon the case before him. "'I do not know what Bobby's faults are,'"--the letter said,--"'but this I do know: that Bobby would rather be whipped than tell a lie. He is noted through the place for his love of truth.'--That is pretty strong testimony; and you see, Bobby,--that's what the squire calls you,--your reputation has preceded you." Bobby blushed, as he always did when he was praised, and Mr. Timmins was more abashed than ever. "Did you hear that, Timmins? Who is the liar now?" said Mr. Bayard, turning to the culprit. "Forgive me, sir, this time. If you turn me off now, I cannot get another place, and my mother depends upon my wages." "You ought to have thought of this before." "He aggravated me, sir, so that I wanted to pay him off." "As to that, he commenced upon me the moment I came into the store. But don't turn him off, if you please, sir," said Bobby, who even now wished no harm to his discomfited assailant. "He will do better hereafter: won't you, Timmins?" Thus appealed to, Timmins, though he did not relish so direct an inquiry, and from such a source, was compelled to reply in the affirmative; and Mr. Bayard graciously remitted the sentence he had passed against the offending clerk. "Now, Robert, you will come over to my house and dine with me. Ellen will be delighted to see you." "Thank you, sir," replied Bobby, bashfully, "I have been to dinner",--referring to the luncheon he had eaten at Brighton. "But you must go to the house with me." "I should be very glad to do so, sir, but I came on business. I will stay here with Mr. Timmins till you come back." The truth is, he had heard something about the fine houses of the city, and how stylish the people were, and he had some misgivings about venturing into such a strange and untried scene as the parlor of a Boston merchant. "Indeed, you must come with me. Ellen would never forgive you or me, if you do not come." "I would rather rest here till you return," replied Bobby, still willing to escape the fine house and the fine folks. "I walked from Riverdale, sir, and I am rather tired." "Walked!" exclaimed Mr. Bayard. "Had you no money?" "Yes, sir, enough to pay my passage; but Dr. Franklin says that 'a penny saved is a penny earned,' and I thought I would try it. I shall get rested by the time you return." "But you must go with me. Timmins, go and get a carriage." Timmins obeyed, and before Mr. Bayard had finished asking Bobby how all the people in Riverdale were, the carriage was at the door. There was no backing out now, and our hero was obliged to get into the vehicle, though it seemed altogether too fine for a poor boy like him. Mr. Bayard and Mr. Butler (whom the former had invited to dine with him) seated themselves beside him, and the driver was directed to set them down at No. ---- Chestnut Street, where they soon arrived. Though my readers would, no doubt, be very much amused to learn how carefully Bobby trod the velvet carpets, how he stared with wonder at the drapery curtains, at the tall mirrors, the elegant chandeliers, and the fantastically shaped chairs and tables that adorned Mr. Bayard's parlor, the length of our story does not permit us to pause over these trivial matters. When Ellen Bayard was informed that her little deliverer was in the house, she rushed into the parlor like a hoiden school girl, grasped both his hands, kissed both his rosy cheeks, and behaved just as though she had never been to a boarding school in her life. She had thought a great deal about Bobby since that eventful day, and the more she thought of him, the more she liked him. Her admiration of him was not of that silly, sentimental character which moon-struck young ladies cherish towards those immaculate young men who have saved them from drowning in a horse pond, pulled them back just as they were tumbling over a precipice two thousand five hundred feet high, or rescued them from a house seven stories high, bearing them down a ladder seventy-five odd feet long. The fact was, Bobby was a boy of thirteen and there was no chance for much sentiment; so the young lady's regard was real, earnest, and lifelike. Ellen said a great many very handsome things; but I am sure she never thought of such a thing as that he would run away with her, in case her papa was unneccessarily obstinate. She was very glad to see him, and I have no doubt she wished Bobby might be her brother, it would be so glorious to have such a noble little fellow always with her. Bobby managed the dinner much better than he had anticipated; for Mr. Bayard insisted that he should sit down with them, whether he ate any thing or not. But the Rubicon passed, our hero found that he had a pretty smart appetite, and did full justice to the viands set before him. It is true the silver forks, the napkins, the finger bowls, and other articles of luxury and show, to which he had been entirely unaccustomed, bothered him not a little; but he kept perfectly cool, and carefully observed how Mr. Butler, who sat next to him, handled the "spoon fork," what he did with the napkin and the finger bowl, so that, I will venture to say, not one in ten would have suspected he had not spent his life in the parlor of a _millionnaire_. Dinner over, the party returned to the parlor, where Bobby unfolded his plan for the future. To make his story intelligible, he was obliged to tell them all about Mr. Hardhand. "The old wretch!" exclaimed Mr. Bayard. "But, Robert, you must let me advance the sixty dollars, to pay Squire Lee." "No, sir; you have done enough in that way. I have given my note for the money." "Whew;" said Mr. Butler. "And I shall soon earn enough to pay it." "No doubt of it. You are a lad of courage and energy, and you will succeed in every thing you undertake." "I shall want you to trust me for a stock of books on the strength of old acquaintance," continued Bobby, who had now grown quite bold, and felt as much at home in the midst of the costly furniture, as he did in the "living room" of the old black house. "You shall have all the books you want." "I will pay for them as soon as I return. The truth is, Mr. Bayard, I mean to be independent. I didn't want to take that thirty-five dollars, though I don't know what Mr. Hardhand would have done to us, if I hadn't." "Ellen said I ought to have given you a hundred, and I think so myself." "I am glad you didn't. Too much money makes us fat and lazy." Mr. Bayard laughed at the easy self-possession of the lad--at his big talk; though, big as it was, it meant something. When he proposed to go to the store, he told Bobby he had better stay at the house and rest himself. "No, sir; I want to start out to-morrow, and I must get ready to-day." "You had better put it off till the next day; you will feel more like it then." "Now or never," replied Bobby. "That is my motto, sir. If we have any thing to do, now is always the best time to do it. Dr. Franklin says, 'Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to day.'" "Right, Robert! you shall have your own way. I wish my clerks would adopt some of Dr. Franklin's wise saws. I should be a great deal better off in the course of a year if they would." CHAPTER IX. IN WHICH BOBBY OPENS VARIOUS ACCOUNTS, AND WINS HIS FIRST VICTORY. "Now, Bobby, I understand your plan," said Mr. Bayard, when they reached the store; "but the details must be settled. Where do you intend to go?" "I hardly know, sir. I suppose I can sell books almost any where." "Very true; but in some places much better than in others." Mr. Bayard mentioned a large town about eighteen miles from the city, in which he thought a good trade might be carried on, and Bobby at once decided to adopt the suggestion. "You can make this place your head quarters for the week; if books do not sell well right in the village, why, you can go out a little way, for the country in the vicinity is peopled by intelligent farmers, who are well off, and who can afford to buy books." "I was thinking of that; but what shall I take with me, sir?" "There is a new book just published, called 'The Wayfarer,' which is going to have a tremendous run. It has been advertised in advance all over the country, so that you will find a ready sale for it. You will get it there before any one else, and have the market all to yourself." "The Wayfarer? I have heard of it myself." "You shall take fifty copies with you, and if you find that you shall want more, write, and I will send them." "But I cannot carry fifty copies." "You must take the cars to B----, and have a trunk or box to carry your books in. I have a stout trunk down cellar which you shall have." "I will pay for it, sir." "Never mind that, Bobby; and you will want a small valise or carpet bag to carry your books from house to house. I will lend you one." "You are very kind, sir; I did not mean to ask any favors of you except to trust me for the books until my return." "All right, Bobby." Mr. Bayard called the porter and ordered him to bring up the trunk, in which he directed Mr. Timmins to pack fifty "Wayfarers." "Now, how much will these books cost me apiece?" asked Bobby. "The retail price is one dollar; the wholesale price is one third off; and you shall have them at what they cost me." "Sixty-seven cents," added Bobby. "That will give me a profit of thirty-three cents on each book." "Just so." "Perhaps Mr. Timmins will sell me one of those blank books now; for I like to have things down in black and white." "I will furnish you with something much better than that;" and Mr. Bayard left the counting room. In a moment he returned with a handsome pocket memorandum book, which he presented to the little merchant. "But I don't like to take it unless you will let me pay for it," said Bobby, hesitating. "Never mind it, my young friend. Now you can sit down at my desk and open your accounts. I like to see boys methodical, and there is nothing like keeping accounts to make one accurate. Keep your books posted up, and you will know where you are at any time." "I intend to keep an account of all I spend and all I receive, if it is no more than a cent." "Right, my little man. Have you ever studied book-keeping?" "No, sir, I suppose I haven't; but there was a page of accounts in the back part of the arithmetic I studied, and I got a pretty good idea of the thing from that. All the money received goes on one side, and all the money paid out goes on the other." "Exactly so; in this book you had better open a book account first. If you wish, I will show you how." "Thank you, sir; I should be very glad to have you;" and Bobby opened the memorandum book, and seated himself at the desk. "Write 'Book Account' at the top of the pages, one word on each. Very well. Now write 'To fifty copies of Wayfarer, at sixty-seven cents, $33.50,' on the left hand page, or debit side of the account." "I am not much of a writer," said Bobby, apologetically. "You will improve. Now, each day you will credit the amount of sales on the right hand page, or credit side of the account; so, when you have sold out, the balance due your debit side will be the profit on the lot. Do you understand it?" Bobby thought a moment before he could see through it; but his brain was active, and he soon managed the idea. "Now you want a personal account;" and Mr. Bayard explained to him how to make this out. He then instructed him to enter on the debit-side all he spent for travel, board, freight, and other charges. The next was the "profit and loss" account, which was to show him the net profit of the business. Our hero, who had a decided taste for accounts, was very much pleased with this employment; and when the accounts were all opened, he regarded them with a great deal of satisfaction. He longed to commence his operations, if it were only for the pleasure of making the entries in this book. "One thing I forgot," said he, as he seized the pen, and under the cash account entered, "To Cash from mother, $1.00." "Now I am all right, I believe." "I think you are. Now, the cars leave at seven in the morning. Can you be ready for a start as early as that?" asked Mr. Bayard. "O, yes, sir, I hope so. I get up at half past four at home." "Very well; my small valise is at the house; but I believe every thing else is ready. Now, I have some business to attend to; and if you will amuse yourself for an hour or two, we will go home then." "I shall want a lodging-place when I am in the city; perhaps some of your folks can direct me to one where they won't charge too much." "As to that, Bobby, you must go to my house whenever you are in the city." "Law, sir! you live so grand, I couldn't think of going to your house. I am only a poor boy from the country, and I don't know how to behave myself among such nice folks." "You will do very well, Bobby. Ellen would never forgive me if I let you go any where else. So that is settled; you will go to my house. Now, you may sit here, or walk out and see the sights." "If you please, sir, if Mr. Timmins will let me look at some of the books, I shouldn't wish for any thing better. I should like to look at the Wayfarer, so that I shall know how to recommend it." "Mr. Timmins _will_ let you," replied Mr. Bayard, as he touched the spring of a bell on his desk. The dapper clerk came running into the counting-room to attend the summons of his employer. "Mr. Timmins," continued Mr. Bayard, with a mischievous smile, "bring Mr. Bright a copy of 'The Wayfarer.'" Mr. Timmins was astonished to hear "Country" called "Mister," astonished to hear his employer call him "Mister," and Bobby was astonished to hear himself called "Mister;" nevertheless, our hero enjoyed the joke. The clerk brought the book; and Bobby proceeded to give it a thorough, critical examination. He read the preface, the table of contents, and several chapters of the work, before Mr. Bayard was ready to go home "How do you like it, Bobby?" asked the bookseller. "First rate." "You may take that copy in your hand; you will want to finish it." "Thank you, sir; I will be careful of it." "You may keep it. Let that be the beginning of your own private library." His own private library! Bobby had not got far enough to dream of such a thing yet; but he thanked Mr. Bayard, and put the book under his arm. After tea, Ellen proposed to her father that they should all go to the Museum. Mr. Bayard acceded, and our hero was duly amazed at the drolleries perpetrated there. He had a good time; but it was so late when he went to bed, that he was a little fearful lest he should oversleep himself in the morning. He did not, however, and was down in the parlor before any of the rest of the family were stirring. An early breakfast was prepared for him, at which Mr. Bayard, who intended to see him off, joined him. Depositing his little bundle and the copy of "The Wayfarer" in the valise provided for him, they walked to the store. The porter wheeled the trunk down to the railroad station, though Bobby insisted upon doing it himself. The bookseller saw him and his baggage safely aboard of the cars, gave him a ticket, and then bade him an affectionate adieu. In a little while Bobby was flying over the rail, and at about eight o'clock, reached B----. The station master kindly permitted him to deposit his trunk in the baggage room, and to leave it there for the remainder of the week. Taking a dozen of the books from the trunk, and placing them in his valise, he sallied out upon his mission. It must be confessed that his heart was filled with a tumult of emotions. The battle of life was before him. He was on the field, sword in hand, ready to plunge into the contest. It was victory or defeat. "March on, brave youth! the field of strife With peril fraught before thee lies; March on! the battle plain of life Shall yield thee yet a glorious prize." It was of no use to shrink then, even if he had felt disposed to do so. He was prepared to be rebuffed, to be insulted, to be turned away from the doors at which he should seek admission; but he was determined to conquer. He had reached a house at which he proposed to offer "The Wayfarer" for sale. His heart went pit pat, pit pat, and he paused before the door. "Now or never!" exclaimed he, as he swung open the garden gate, and made his way up to the door. He felt some misgivings. It was so new and strange to him that he could hardly muster sufficient resolution to proceed farther. But his irresolution was of only a moment's duration. "Now or never!" and he gave a vigorous knock at the door. It was opened by an elderly lady, whose physiognomy did not promise much. "Good morning, ma'am. Can I sell you a copy of 'The Wayfarer' to-day? a new book, just published." "No; I don't want none of your books. There's more pedlers round the country now than you could shake a stick at in a month," replied the old lady petulantly. "It is a very interesting book, ma'am; has an excellent moral." Bobby had read the preface, as I before remarked. "It will suit you, ma'am; for you look just like a lady who wants to read something with a moral." Bravo, Bobby! The lady concluded that her face had a moral expression, and she was pleased with the idea. "Let me see it;" and she asked Bobby to walk in and be seated, while she went for her spectacles. As she was looking over the book, our hero went into a more elaborate recommendation of its merits. He was sure it would interest the young and the old; it taught a good lesson; it had elegant engravings; the type was large, which would suit her eyes; it was well printed and bound; and finally, it was cheap at one dollar. "I'll take it," said the old lady. "Thank you, ma'am." Bobby's first victory was achieved "Have you got a dollar?" asked the lady, as she handed him a two dollar bill. "Yes, ma'am;" and he gave her his only dollar, and put the two in its place, prouder than a king who has conquered an empire. "Thank you, ma'am." Bidding the lady a polite good morning, he left the house, encouraged by his success to go forward in his mission with undiminished hope. CHAPTER X. IN WHICH BOBBY IS A LITTLE TOO SMART. The clouds were rolled back, and Bobby no longer had a doubt as to the success of his undertaking. It requires but a little sunshine to gladden the heart, and the influence of his first success scattered all the misgivings he had cherished. Two New England shillings is undoubtedly a very small sum of money; but Bobby had made two shillings, and he would not have considered himself more fortunate if some unknown relative had left him a fortune. It gave him confidence in his powers, and as he walked away from the house, he reviewed the circumstances of his first sale. The old lady had told him at first she did not wish to buy a book, and, moreover, had spoken rather contemptuously of the craft to which he had now the honor to belong. He gave himself the credit of having conquered the old lady's prejudices. He had sold her a book in spite of her evident intention not to purchase. In short, he had, as we have before said, won a glorious victory, and he congratulated himself accordingly. But it was of no use to waste time in useless self-glorification, and Bobby turned from the past to the future. There were forty-nine more books to be sold, so that the future was forty-nine-times as big as the past. He saw a shoemaker's shop ahead of him; and he was debating with himself whether he should enter and offer his books for sale. It would do no harm, though he had but slight expectations of doing any thing. There were three men at work in the shop--one of them a middle-aged man, the other two young men. They looked like persons of intelligence, and as soon as Bobby saw them his hopes grew stronger. "Can I sell you any books to-day?" asked the little merchant, as he crossed the threshold. "Well, I don't know; that depends upon how smart you are," replied the eldest of the men. "It takes a pretty smart fellow to sell any thing in this shop." "Then I hope to sell each of you a book," added Bobby, laughing at the badinage of the shoemaker. Opening his valise he took out three copies of his book, and politely handed one to each of the men. "It isn't every book pedler that comes along who offers you such a work as that. 'The Wayfarer' is decidedly _the_ book of the season." "You don't say so!" said the oldest shoemaker, with a laugh. "Every pedler that comes along uses those words, precisely." "Do they? They steal my thunder then." "You are an old one." "Only thirteen. I was born where they don't fasten the door with a boiled carrot." "What do they fasten them with?" "They don't fasten them at all." "There are no book pedlers round there, then;" and all the shoemakers laughed heartily at this smart sally. "No; they are all shoemakers in our town." "You can take my hat, boy." "You will want it to put your head in; but I will take one dollar for that book instead." The man laughed, took out his wallet, and handed Bobby the dollar, probably quite as much because he had a high appreciation of his smartness, as from any desire to possess the book. "Won't you take one?" asked Bobby, appealing to another of the men, who was apparently not more than twenty-four years of age. "No; I can't read," replied he, roguishly. "Let your wife read it to you then." "My wife?" "Certainly; she knows how to read, I will warrant." "How do you know I have got a wife?" "O, well, a fellow as good looking and good natured as you are could not have resisted till this time." "Has you, Tom," added the oldest shoemaker. "I cave in;" and he handed over the dollar, and laid the book upon his bench. Bobby looked at the third man with some interest. He had said nothing, and scarcely heeded the fun which was passing between the little merchant and his companions. He was apparently absorbed in his examination of the book. He was a different kind of person from the others, and Bobby's instinctive knowledge of human nature assured him that he was not to be gained by flattery or by smart sayings; so he placed himself in front of him, and patiently waited in silence for him to complete his examination. "You will find that he is a hard one," put in one of the others. Bobby made no reply, and the two men who had bought books resumed their work. For five minutes our hero stood waiting for the man to finish his investigation into the merits of "The Wayfarer." Something told him not to say any thing to this person; and he had some doubts about his purchasing. "I will take one," said the last shoemaker, as he handed Bobby the dollar. "I am much obliged to you, gentlemen," said Bobby, as he closed his valise. "When I come this way again I shall certainly call." "Do; you have done what no other pedler ever did in this shop." "I shall take no credit to myself. The fact is, you are men of intelligence, and you want good books." Bobby picked up his valise and left the shop, satisfied with those who occupied it, and satisfied with himself. "Eight shillings!" exclaimed he, when he got into the road. "Pretty good hour's work, I should say." Bobby trudged along till he came to a very large, elegant house, evidently dwelt in by one of the nabobs of B----. Inspired by past successes, he walked boldly up to the front door, and rang the bell. "Is Mr. Whiting in?" asked Bobby, who had read the name on the door plate. "Colonel Whiting _is_ in," replied the servant, who had opened the door. "I should like to see him for a moment, if he isn't busy." "Walk in;" and for some reason or other the servant chuckled a great deal as she admitted him. She conducted him to a large, elegantly furnished parlor, where Bobby proceeded to take out his books for the inspection of the nabob, whom the servant promised to send to the parlor. In a moment Colonel Whiting entered. He was a large, fat man, about fifty years old. He looked at the little book merchant with a frown that would have annihilated a boy less spunky than our hero. Bobby was not a little inflated by the successes of the morning, and if Julius Caesar or Napoleon Bonaparte had stood before him then, he would not have flinched a hair--much less in the presence of no greater magnate than the nabob of B----. "Good morning, Colonel Whiting. I hope you are well this beautiful morning," Bobby began. I must confess I think this was a little too familiar for a boy of thirteen to a gentleman of fifty, whom he had never seen before in his life; but it must be remembered that Bobby had done a great deal the week before, that on the preceding night he had slept in Chestnut Street, and that he had just sold four copies of "The Wayfarer." He was inclined to be smart, and some folks hate smart boys. The nabob frowned; his cheek reddened with anger; but he did not condescend to make any reply to the smart speech. "I have taken the liberty to call upon you this morning, to see if you did not wish to purchase a copy of 'The Wayfarer'--a new book just issued from the press, which people say is to be the book of the season." My young readers need not suppose this was an impromptu speech, for Bobby had studied upon it all the time he was coming from Boston in the cars. It would be quite natural for a boy who had enjoyed no greater educational advantages than our hero to consider how he should address people into whose presence his calling would bring him; and he had prepared several little addresses of this sort, for the several different kinds of people whom he expected to encounter. The one he had just "got off" was designed for the "upper crust." When he had delivered the speech, he approached the indignant, frowning nabob, and with a low bow, offered him a copy of "The Wayfarer." "Boy," said Colonel Whiting, raising his arm with majestic dignity, and pointing to the door,--"boy, do you see that door?" Bobby looked at the door, and, somewhat astonished replied that he did see it, that it was a very handsome door, and he would inquire whether it was black walnut, or only painted in imitation thereof. "Do you see that door?" thundered the nabob, swelling with rage at the cool impudence of the boy. "Certainly I do, sir; my eyesight is excellent." "Then use it!" "Thank you, sir; I have no use for it. Probably it will be of more service to you than to me." "Will you clear out, or shall I kick you out?" gasped the enraged magnate of B----. "I will save you that trouble, sir; I will go, sir. I see we have both made a mistake." "Mistake? What do you mean by that, you young puppy? You are a little impudent, thieving scoundrel!" "That's your mistake, sir. I took you for a gentleman, sir; and that was my mistake." "Ha, ha, ha!" laughed a sweet, musical voice, and at that moment a beautiful young lady rushed up to the angry colonel, and threw her arms around his neck. "The jade!" muttered he. "I have caught you in a passion again, uncle;" and the lady kissed the old gentleman's anger-reddened cheek, which seemed to restore him at once to himself. "It was enough to make a minister swear," said he, in apology. "No, it wasn't, uncle; the boy was a little pert, it is true; but you ought to have laughed at him, instead of getting angry. I heard the whole of it." "Pert?" said Bobby to himself. "What the deuse does she mean by that?" "Very well, you little minx; I will pay the penalty." "Come here, Master Pert," said the lady to Bobby. Bobby bowed, approached the lady, and began to feel very much embarrassed. "My uncle,", she continued, "is one of the best hearted men in the world--ain't you, uncle?" "Go on, you jade!" "I love him, as I would my own father; but he will sometimes get into a passion. Now, you provoked him." "Indeed, ma'am, I hadn't the least idea of saying any thing uncivil," pleaded Bobby. "I studied to be as polite as possible." "I dare say. You were too important, too pompous, for a boy to an old gentleman like uncle, who is really one of the best men in the world. Now, if you hadn't studied to be polite, you would have done very well." "Indeed, ma'am, I am a poor boy, trying to make a little money to help my mother. I am sure I meant no harm." "I know you didn't. So you are selling books to help your mother?" "Yes, ma'am." She inquired still further into the little merchant's history, and seemed to be very much interested in him. In a frolic, a few days before, Bobby learned from her, Colonel Whiting had agreed to pay any penalty she might name, the next time he got into a passion. "Now, young man, what book have you to sell?" asked the lady. "'The Wayfarer.'" "How many have you in your valise?" "Eight." "Very well; now, uncle, I decree, as the penalty of your indiscretion, that you purchase the whole stock." "I submit." "'The Wayfarer' promises to be an excellent book: and I can name at least half a dozen persons who will thank you for a copy, uncle." Colonel Whiting paid Bobby eight dollars, who left the contents of his valise on the centre table, and then departed, astounded at his good fortune, and fully resolved never to be too smart again. CHAPTER XI. IN WHICH BOBBY STRIKES A BALANCE, AND RETURNS TO RIVERDALE. Our hero had learned a lesson which experience alone could teach him. The consciousness of that "something within him" inclined him to be a little too familiar with his elders; but then it gave him confidence in himself, and imparted courage to go forward in the accomplishment of his mission. His interview with Colonel Whiting and the gentle but plain rebuke of his niece had set him right, and he realized that, while he was doing a man's work, he was still a boy. He had now a clearer perception of what is due to the position and dignity of those upon whom fortune has smiled. Bobby wanted to be a man, and it is not strange that he should sometimes fancy he was a man. He had an idea, too, that "all men are born free and equal;" and he could not exactly see why a nabob was entitled to any more respect and consideration than a poor man. It was a lesson he was compelled to learn, though some folks live out their lifetimes without ever finding out that. "'Tis wealth, good sir, makes honorable men." Some people think a rich man is no better than a poor man, except so far as he behaves himself better. It is strange how stupid some people are! Bobby had no notion of cringing to any man, and he felt as independent as the Declaration of Independence itself. But then the beautiful lady had told him that he was pert and forward; and when he thought it over, he was willing to believe she was right, Colonel Whiting was an old man, compared with himself; and he had some faith, at least in theory, in the Spartan virtue of respect for the aged. Probably the nabob of B---- would have objected to being treated with respect on account of his age; and Bobby would have been equally unwilling to acknowledge that he treated him with peculiar respect on account of his wealth or position. Perhaps the little merchant had an instinctive perception of expediency--that he should sell more books by being less familiar: at any rate he determined never again to use the flowery speeches he had arranged for the upper crust. He had sold a dozen books; and possibly this fact made him more willing to compromise the matter than he would otherwise have been. This was, after all, the great matter for congratulation, and with a light heart he hurried back to the railroad station to procure another supply. We cannot follow him into every house where his calling led him. He was not always as fortunate as in the instances we have mentioned. Sometimes all his arguments were unavailing, and after he had spent half an hour of valuable time in setting forth the merits of "The Wayfarer," he was compelled to retire without having effected a sale. Sometimes, too, he was rudely repulsed; hard epithets were applied to him; old men and old women, worried out by the continued calls of pedlers, sneered at him, or shut the door in his face; but Bobby was not disheartened. He persevered, and did not allow these little trials to discompose or discourage him. By one o'clock on the first day of his service he had sold eighteen books, which far exceeded even his most sanguine expectations. By this time he began to feel the want of his dinner; but there was no tavern or eating house at hand, and he could not think of leaving the harvest to return to the railroad station; so he bought a sheet of gingerbread and a piece of cheese at a store, and seating himself near a brook by the side of the road, he bolted his simple meal, as boys are very apt to do when they are excited. When he had finished, he took out his account book, and entered, "Dinner, 10 cents." Resuming his business, he disposed of the remaining six books in his valise by the middle of the afternoon, and was obliged to return for another supply. About six o'clock he entered the house of a mechanic, just as the family were sitting down to tea. He recommended his book with so much energy that the wife of the mechanic took a fancy to him, and not only purchased one, but invited him to tea. Bobby accepted the invitation, and in the course of the meal, the good lady drew from him the details of his history, which he very modestly related, for though he sometimes fancied himself a man, he was not the boy to boast of his exploits. His host was so much pleased with him, that he begged him to spend the night with them. Bobby had been thinking how and where he should spend the night, and the matter had given him no little concern. He did not wish to go to the hotel, for it looked like a very smart house, and he reasoned that he should have to pay pretty roundly for accommodations there. These high prices would eat up his profits, and he seriously deliberated whether it would not be better for him to sleep under a tree than pay fifty cents for a lodging. If I had been there I should have told him that a man loses nothing in the long run by taking good care of himself. He must eat well and sleep well, in order to do well and be well. But I suppose Bobby would have told me that it was of no use to pay a quarter extra for sleeping on a gilded bedstead, since the room would be so dark he could not see the gilt even if he wished to do so. I could not have said any thing to such a powerful argument; so I am very glad the mechanic's wife set the matter at rest by offering him a bed in her house. He spent a very pleasant evening with the family, who made him feel entirely at home, they were so kind and so plain spoken. Before he went to bed, he entered under the book account, "By twenty-six Wayfarers, sold this day, $26.00." He had done a big day's work, much bigger than he could hope to do again. He had sold more than one half of his whole stock, and at this rate he should be out of books the next day. At first he thought he would send for another lot; but he could not judge yet what his average daily sales would be, and finally concluded not to do so. What he had might last till Friday or Saturday. He intended to go home on the latter day, and he could bring them with him on his return without expense. This was considerable of an argument for a boy to manage; but Bobby was satisfied with it, and went to sleep, wondering what his mother, Squire Lee, and Annie were thinking of about that time. After breakfast the next morning he resumed his travels. He was as enthusiastic as ever, and pressed "The Wayfarer" with so much earnestness that he sold a book in nearly every house he visited. People seemed to be more interested in the little merchant than in his stock, and taking advantage of this kind feeling towards him, he appealed to them with so much eloquence that few could resist it. The result of the day's sales was fifteen copies, which Bobby entered in the book account with the most intense satisfaction. He had outdone the boy who had passed through Riverdale, but he had little hope that the harvest would always be so abundant. He often thought of this boy, from whom he had obtained the idea he was now carrying out. That boy had stopped over night at the little black house, and slept with him. He had asked for lodging, and offered to pay for it, as well as for his supper and breakfast. Why couldn't he do the same? He liked the suggestion, and from that time, wherever he happened to be, he asked for lodging, or the meal he required, and he always proposed to pay for what he had, but very few would take any thing. On Friday noon he had sold out. Returning to the railroad station, he found that the train would not leave for the city for an hour; so he improved the time in examining and balancing his accounts. The book sales amounted to just fifty dollars, and after his ticket to Boston was paid for, his expenses would amount to one dollar and fifty cents, leaving a balance in his favor of fifteen dollars. He was overjoyed with the result, and pictured the astonishment with which his mother, Squire Lee, and Annie would listen to the history of his excursion. After four o'clock that afternoon he entered the store of Mr. Bayard, bag and baggage. On his arrival in the city, he was considerably exercised in mind to know how he should get the trunk to his destination. He was too economical to pay a cartman a quarter; but what would have seemed mean in a man was praiseworthy in a boy laboring for a noble end. Probably a great many of my young readers in Bobby's position, thinking that sixteen dollars, which our hero had in his pocket, was a mint of money, would have been in favor of being a little magnificent--of taking a carriage and going up-town in state. Bobby had not the least desire to "swell," so he settled the matter by bargaining with a little ragged fellow to help him carry the trunk to Mr. Bayard's store for fourpence. "How do you do, Mr. Timmins?" said Bobby to the spruce clerk, as he deposited the trunk upon the floor, and handed the ragged boy the four-pence. "Ah, Bobby!" exclaimed Mr. Timmins. "Have you sold out?" "All clean. Is Mr. Bayard in?" "In the office. But how do you like it?" "First rate." "Well, every one to his taste; but I don't see how any one who has any regard for his dignity can stick himself into every body's house. I couldn't do it, I know." "I don't stand for the dignity." "Ah, well, there is a difference in folks." "That's a fact," replied Bobby, as he hurried to the office of Mr. Bayard, leaving Mr. Timmins to sun himself in his own dignity. The bookseller was surprised to see him so soon, but he gave him a cordial reception. "I didn't expect you yet," said he. "Why do you come back? Have you got sick of the business?" "Sick of it! No, sir." "What have you come back for then?" "Sold out, sir." "Sold out! You have done well!" "Better than I expected." "I had no idea of seeing you till to-morrow night; and I thought you would have books enough to begin the next week with. You have done bravely." "If I had had twenty more, I could have sold them before to-morrow night. Now, sir, if you please, I will pay you for those books--thirty-three dollars and fifty cents." "You had better keep that, Bobby. I will trust you as long as you wish." "If you please, sir, I had rather pay it;" and the little merchant, as proud as a lord, handed over the amount. "I like your way of doing business, Bobby. Nothing helps a man's credit so much as paying promptly. Now tell me some of your adventures--or we will reserve them till this evening, for I am sure Ellen will be delighted to hear them." "I think I shall go to Riverdale this afternoon. The cars leave at half past five." "Very well; you have an hour to spare." Bobby related to his kind friend the incidents of his excursion, including his interview with Colonel Whiting and his niece, which amused the bookseller very much. He volunteered some good advice, which Bobby received in the right spirit, and with a determination to profit by it. At half past five he took the cars for home, and before dark was folded in his mother's arms. The little black house seemed doubly dear to him now that he bad been away from it a few days. His mother and all the children were so glad to see him that it seemed almost worth his while to go away for the pleasure of meeting them on his return. CHAPTER XII. IN WHICH BOBBY ASTONISHES SUNDRY PERSONS AND PAYS PART OF HIS NOTE. "Now tell me, Bobby, how you have made out," said Mrs. Bright, as the little merchant seated himself at the supper table. "You cannot have done much, for you have only been gone five days." "I have done pretty well, mother," replied Bobby, mysteriously; "pretty well, considering that I am only a boy." "I didn't expect to see you till to-morrow night." "I sold out, and had to come home." "That may be, and still you may not have done much." "I don't pretend that I have done much." "How provoking you are! Why don't you tell me, Bobby, what you have done?" "Wait a minute, mother, till I have done my supper, and then I will show you the footings in my ledger." "Your ledger!" "Yea, my ledger. I keep a ledger now." "You are a great man, Mr. Robert Bright," laughed his mother. "I suppose the people took their hats off when they saw you coming." "Not exactly, mother." "Perhaps the governor came out to meet you when he heard you was on the road." "Perhaps he did; I didn't see him, however. This apple pie tastes natural, mother. It is a great luxury to get home after one has been travelling." "Very likely." "No place like home, after all is done and said. Who was the fellow that wrote that song, mother?" "I forget; the paper said he spent a great many years in foreign parts. My sake! Bobby; one would think by your talk that you had been away from home for a year." "It seems like a year," said he, as he transferred another quarter of the famous apple pie to his plate. "I miss home very much. I don't more than half like being among strangers so much." "It is your own choice; no one wants you to go away from home." "I must pay my debts, any how. Don't I owe Squire Lee sixty dollars?" "But I can pay that." "It is my affair, you see." "If it is your affair, then I owe you sixty dollars." "No, you don't; I calculate to pay my board now. I am old enough and big enough to do something." "You have done something ever since you was old enough to work." "Not much; I don't wonder that miserable old hunker of a Hardhand twitted me about it. By the way, have you heard any thing from him?" "Not a thing." "He has got enough of us, I reckon." "You mustn't insult him, Bobby, if you happen to see him." "Never fear me." "You know the Bible says we must love our enemies, and pray for them that despitefully use us and persecute us." "I should pray that the Old Nick might get him." "No, Bobby; I hope you haven't forgot all your Sunday school lessons." "I was wrong, mother," replied Bobby, a little moved. "I did not mean so. I shall try to think as well of him as I can; but I can't help thinking, if all the world was like him, what a desperate hard time we should have of it." "We must thank the Lord that he has given us so many good and true men." "Such as Squire Lee, for instance," added Bobby, as he rose from the table and put his chair back against the wall. "The squire is fit to be a king; and though I believe in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, I wouldn't mind seeing a crown upon his head." "He will receive his crown in due time," replied Mrs. Bright, piously. "The squire?" "The crown of rejoicing, I mean." "Just so; the squire is a nice man; and I know another just like him." "Who!" "Mr. Bayard; they are as near alike as two peas." "I am dying to know about your journey." "Wait a minute, mother, till we clear away the supper things;" and Bobby took hold, as he had been accustomed, to help remove and wash the dishes. "You needn't help now, Bobby." "Yes, I will, mother." Some how our hero's visit to the city did not seem to produce the usual effect upon him; for a great many boys, after they had been abroad, would have scorned to wash dishes and wipe them. A week in town has made many a boy so smart that you couldn't touch him with a ten foot pole. It starches them up so stiff that sometimes they don't know their own mothers, and deem it a piece of condescension to speak a word to the patriarch in a blue frock who had the honor of supporting them in childhood. Bobby was none of this sort. We lament that he had a habit of talking big--that is, of talking about business affairs in a style a little beyond his years. But he was modest to a fault, paradoxical as it may seem. He was always blushing when any body spoke a pretty thing about him. Probably the circumstances of his position elevated him above the sphere of the mere boy; he had spent but little time in play, and his attention had been directed at all times to the wants of his mother. He had thought a great deal about business, especially since the visit of the boy who sold books to the little black house. Some boys are born merchants, and from their earliest youth have a genius for trade. They think of little else. They "play shop" before they wear jackets, and drive a barter trade in jackknives, whistles, tops, and fishing lines long before they get into their teens. They are shrewd even then, and obtain a taste for commerce before they are old enough to know the meaning of the word. We saw a boy in school, not long since, give the value of eighteen cents for a little stunted quince--boys have a taste for raw quinces, strange as it may seem. Undoubtedly he had no talent for trade, and would make a very indifferent tin pedler. Our hero was shrewd. He always got the best end of the bargain; though, I am happy to say, his integrity was too unyielding to let him cheat his fellows. We have made this digression so that my young readers may know why Bobby was so much given to big talk. The desire to do something worthy of a good son turned his attention to matters above his sphere; and thinking of great things, he had come to talk great things. It was not a bad fault, after all. Boys need not necessarily be frivolous. Play is a good thing, an excellent thing, in its place, and is as much a part of the boy's education as his grammar and arithmetic. It not only develops his muscles, but enlarges his mental capacity; it not only fills with excitement the idle hours of the long day, but it sharpens the judgment, and helps to fit the boy for the active duties of life. It need not be supposed, because Bobby had to turn his attention to serious things, that he was not fond of fun; that he could not or did not play. At a game of round ball, he was a lucky fellow who secured him upon his side; for the same energy which made him a useful son rendered him a desirable hand in a difficult game. When the supper things were all removed, the dishes washed and put away, Bobby drew out his pocket memorandum book. It was a beautiful article, and Mrs. Bright was duly astonished at its gilded leaves and the elegant workmanship. Very likely her first impulse was to reprove her son for such a piece of reckless extravagance; but this matter was set right by Bobby's informing her how it came into his possession. "Here is my ledger, mother," he said, handing her the book. Mrs. Bright put on her spectacles, and after bestowing a careful scrutiny upon the memorandum book, turned to the accounts. "Fifty books!" she exclaimed, as she read the first entry. "Yes, mother; and I sold them all." "Fifty dollars!" "But I had to pay for the books out of that." "To be sure you had; but I suppose you made as much as ten cents a piece on them, and that would be--let me see; ten times fifty--" "But I made more than that, I hope." "How much?" The proud young merchant referred her to the profit and loss account, which exhibited a balance of fifteen dollars. "Gracious! Three dollars a day!" "Just so, mother. Now I will pay you the dollar I borrowed of you when I went away." "You didn't borrow it of me." "But I shall pay it." Mrs. Bright was astonished at this unexpected and gratifying result. If she had discovered a gold mine in the cellar of the little black house, it could not have afforded her so much satisfaction; for this money was the reward of her son's talent and energy. Her own earnings scarcely ever amounted to more than three or four dollars a week, and Bobby, a boy of thirteen, had come home with fifteen for five days' work. She could scarcely believe the evidence other own senses, and she ceased to wonder that he talked big. It was nearly ten o'clock when the widow and her son went to bed, so deeply were they interested in discussing our hero's affairs. He had intended to call upon Squire Lee that night, but the time passed away so rapidly that he was obliged to defer it till the next day. After breakfast the following morning, he hastened to pay the intended visit. There was a tumult of strange emotions in his bosom as he knocked at the squire's door. He was proud of the success he had achieved, and even then his cheek burned under the anticipated commendations which his generous friend would bestow upon him. Besides, Annie would be glad to see him, for she had expressed such a desire when they parted on the Monday preceding. I don't think that Bobby cherished any silly ideas, but the sympathy of the little maiden fell not coldly or unwelcomely upon his warm heart. In coming from the house he had placed his copy of "The Wayfarer" under his arm, for Annie was fond of reading; and on the way over, he had pictured to himself the pleasure she would derive from reading his book. Of course he received a warm welcome from the squire and his daughter. Each of them had bestowed more than a thought upon the little wanderer as he went from house to house, and more than once they had conversed together about him. "Well, Bobby, how is trade in the book line?" asked the squire, after the young pilgrim had been cordially greeted. "Pretty fair," replied Bobby, with as much indifference as he could command, though it was hard even to seem indifferent then and there. "Where have you been travelling?" "In B----." "Fine place. Books sell well there?" "Very well; in fact, I sold out all my stock by noon yesterday." "How many books did you carry?" "Fifty." "You did well." "I should think you did!" added Annie, with an enthusiasm which quite upset all Bobby's assumed indifference. "Fifty books!" "Yes, Miss Annie; and I have brought you a copy of the book I have been selling; I thought you would like to read it. It is a splendid work, and will be _the_ book of the season." "I shall be delighted to read it," replied Annie, taking the proffered volume. "It looks real good," she continued, as she turned over the leaves. "It is first rate; I have read it through." "It was very kind of you to think of me when you have so much business on your mind," added she, with a roguish smile. "I shall never have so much business on my mind that I cannot think of my friends," replied Bobby, so gallantly and so smartly that it astonished himself. "I was just thinking what I should read next; I am so glad you have come." "Never mind her, Bobby; all she wanted was the book," interposed Squire Lee, laughing. "Now, pa!" "Then I shall bring her one very often." "You are too bad, pa," said Annie, who, like most young ladies just entering their teens, resented any imputation upon the immaculateness of human love, or human friendship. "I have got a little money for you, Squire Lee," continued Bobby, thinking it time the subject was changed. He took out his gilded memorandum book, whose elegant appearance rather startled the squire, and from its "treasury department" extracted the little roll of bills, representing an aggregate of ten dollars which he had carefully reserved for his creditor. "Never mind that, Bobby," replied the squire. "You will want all your capital to do business with." "I must pay my debts before I think of any thing else." "A very good plan, Bobby, but this is an exception to the general rule." "No, sir, I think not. If you please, I insist upon paying you tea dollars on my note." "O, well, if you insist, I suppose I can't help myself." "I would rather pay it, I shall feel so much better." "You want to indorse it on the note, I suppose." That was just what Bobby wanted. Indorsed on the note was the idea, and our hero had often passed that expression through his mind. There was something gratifying in the act to a man of business integrity like himself; it was discharging a sacred obligation,--he had already come to deem it a sacred duty to pay one's debts,--and as the squire wrote the indorsement across the back of the note, he felt more like a hero than ever before. "'Pay as you go' is an excellent idea; John Randolph called it the philosopher's stone," added Squire Lee, as he returned the note to his pocket book. "That is what I mean to do just as soon as I can." "You will do, Bobby." The young merchant spent nearly the whole forenoon at the squire's, and declined an invitation to dinner only on the plea that his mother would wait for him. CHAPTER XIII. IN WHICH BOBBY DECLINES A COPARTNERSHIP AND VISITS B---- AGAIN. After dinner Bobby performed his Saturday afternoon chores as usual. He split wood enough to last for a week, so that his mother might not miss him too much, and then, feeling a desire to visit his favorite resorts in the vicinity, he concluded to go a fishing. The day was favorable, the sky being overcast and the wind very light. After digging a little box of worms in the garden back of the house, he shouldered his fish pole; and certainly no one would have suspected that he was a distinguished travelling merchant. He was fond of fishing, and it is a remarkable coincidence that Daniel Webster, and many other famous men, have manifested a decided passion for this exciting sport. No doubt a fondness for angling is a peculiarity of genius; and if being an expert fisherman makes a great man, then our hero was a great man. He had scarcely seated himself on his favorite rock, and dropped his line into the water, before he saw Tom Spicer approaching the spot. The bully had never been a welcome companion. There was no sympathy between them. They could never agree, for their views, opinions, and tastes were always conflicting. Bobby had not seen Tom since he left him to crawl out of the ditch on the preceding week, and he had good reason to believe that he should not be regarded with much favor. Tom was malicious and revengeful, and our hero was satisfied that the blow which had prostrated him in the ditch would not be forgotten till it had been atoned for. He was prepared, therefore, for any disagreeable scene which might occur. There was another circumstance also which rendered the bully's presence decidedly unpleasant at this time--an event that had occurred during his absence, the particulars of which he had received from his mother. Tom's father, who was a poor man, and addicted to intemperance, had lost ten dollars. He had brought it home, and, as he affirmed, placed it in one of the bureau drawers. The next day it could not be found. Spicer, for some reason, was satisfied that Tom had taken it; but the boy stoutly and persistently denied it. No money was found upon him, however, and it did not appear that he had spent any at the stores in Riverdale Centre. The affair created some excitement in the vicinity, for Spicer made no secret of his suspicions, and publicly accused Tom of the theft. He did not get much sympathy from any except his pot companions; for there was no evidence but his bare and unsupported statement to substantiate the grave accusation. Tom had been in the room when the money was placed in the drawer, and, as his father asserted, had watched him closely while he deposited the bills under the clothing. No one else could have taken it. These were the proofs. But people generally believed that Spicer had carried no money home, especially as it was known that he was intoxicated on the night in question; and that the alleged theft was only a ruse to satisfy certain importunate creditors. Every body knew that Tom was bad enough to steal, even from his father; from which my readers can understand that it is an excellent thing to have a good reputation. Bobby knew that he would lie and use profane language; that he spent his Sundays by the river, or in roaming through the woods; and that he played truant from school as often as the fear of the rod would permit; and the boy that would do all these things certainty would steal if he got a good chance. Our hero's judgment, therefore, of the case was not favorable to the bully, and he would have thanked him to stay away from the river while he was there. "Hallo, Bob! How are you?" shouted Tom, when he had come within hailing distance. "Very well," replied Bobby, rather coolly. "Been to Boston, they say." "Yes." "Well, how did you like it?" continued Tom as he seated himself on the rock near our hero. "First rate." "Been to work there?" "No." "What have you been doing?" "Travelling about." "What doing?" "Selling books." "Was you, though? Did you sell any?" "Yes, a few." "How many?" "O, about fifty." "You didn't, though--did you? How much did you make?" "About fifteen dollars." "By Jolly! You are a smart one, Bobby. There are not many fellows that would have done that." "Easy enough," replied Bobby, who was not a little surprised at this warm commendation from one whom he regarded as his enemy. "Yon had to buy the books first--didn't you?" asked Tom, who began to manifest a deep interest in the trade. "Of course; no one will give you the books." "What do you pay for them?" "I buy them so as to make a profit on them," answered Bobby, who, like a discreet merchant, was not disposed to be too communicative. "That business would suit me first rate." "It is pretty hard work." "I don't care for that. Don't you believe I could do something in this line?" "I don't know; perhaps you could." "Why not, as well as you?" This was a hard question; and, as Bobby did not wish to be uncivil, he talked about a big pout he hauled in at that moment, instead of answering it. He was politic, and deprecated the anger of the bully; so, though Tom plied him pretty hard, he did not receive much satisfaction. "You see, Tom," said he, when he found that his companion insisted upon knowing the cost of the books, "this is a publisher's secret; and I dare say they would not wish every one to know the cost of books. We sell them for a dollar apiece." "Humph! You needn't be so close about it. I'll bet I can find out." "I have no doubt you can; only, you see, I don't want to tell what I am not sure they would be willing I should tell." Tom took a slate pencil from his pocket, and commenced ciphering on the smooth rock upon which he sat. "You say you sold fifty books?" "Yes." "Well; if you made fifteen dollars out of fifty, that is thirty cents apiece." Bobby was a little mortified when he perceived that he had unwittingly exposed the momentous secret. He had not given Tom credit for so much sagacity as he had displayed in his inquiries; and as he had fairly reached his conclusion, he was willing he should have the benefit of it. "You sold them at a dollar apiece. Thirty from a hundred leaves seventy. They cost you seventy cents each--didn't they?" "Sixty-seven," replied Bobby, yielding the point. "Enough said, Bob; I am going into that business, any how." "I am willing." "Of course you are; suppose we go together," suggested Tom, who had not used all this conciliation without having a purpose in view. "We could do nothing together." "I should like to get out with you just once, only to see how it is done." "You can find out for yourself, as I did." "Don't be mean, Bob." "Mean? I am not mean." "I don't say you are. We have always been good friends, you know." Bobby did not know it; so he looked at the other with a smile which expressed all he meant to say. "You hit me a smart dig the other day, I know; but I don't mind that. I was in the wrong then, and I am willing to own it," continued Tom, with an appearance of humility. This was an immense concession for Tom to make, and Bobby was duly affected by it. Probably it was the first time the bully had ever owned he was in the wrong. "The fact is, Bob, I always liked you; and you know I licked Ben Dowse for you." "That was two for yourself and one for me; besides, I didn't want Ben thrashed." "But he deserved it. Didn't he tell the master you were whispering in school?" "I was whispering; so he told the truth." "It was mean to blow on a fellow, though." "The master asked him if I whispered to him; of course he ought not to lie about it. But he told of you at the same time." "I know it; but I wouldn't have licked him on my own account." "_Perhaps_ you wouldn't." "I know I wouldn't. But, I say, Bobby, where do you buy your books?" "At Mr. Bayard's, in Washington Street." "He will sell them to me at the same price, won't he?" "I don't know." "When are you going again?" "Monday." "Won't you let me go with you, Bob?" "Let you? Of course you can go where you please; it is none of my business." Bobby did not like the idea of having such a co-partner as Tom Spicer, and he did not like to tell him so. If he did, he would have to give his reasons for declining the proposition, and that would make Tom mad, and perhaps provoke him to quarrel. The fish bit well, and in an hour's time Bobby had a mess. As he took his basket and walked home, the young ruffian followed him. He could not get rid of him till he reached the gate in front of the little black house; and even there Tom begged him to stop a few moments. Our hero was in a hurry, and in the easiest manner possible got rid of this aspirant for mercantile honors. We have no doubt a journal of Bobby's daily life would be very interesting to our young readers; but the fact that some of his most stirring adventures are yet to be related admonishes us to hasten forward more rapidly. On Monday morning Bobby bade adieu to his mother again, and started for Boston. He fully expected to encounter Tom on the way, who, he was afraid, would persist in accompanying him on his tour. As before, he stopped at Squire Lee's to bid him and Annie good by. The little maiden had read "The Wayfarer" more than half through, and was very enthusiastic in her expression of the pleasure she derived from it. She promised to send it over to his house when she had finished it, and hoped he would bring his stock to Riverdale, so that she might again replenish her library. Bobby thought of something just then, and the thought brought forth a harvest on the following Saturday, when he returned. "When he had shaken bands with the squire and was about to depart, he received a piece of news which gave him food for an hour's serious reflection. "Did you hear about Tom Spicer?" asked Squire Lee. "No, sir; what about him?" "Broken his arm." "Broken his arm! Gracious! How did it happen?" exclaimed Bobby, the more astonished because he had been thinking of Tom since he had left home. "He was out in the woods yesterday, where boys should not be on Sundays, and, in climbing a tree after a bird's nest, he fell to the ground." "I am sorry for him," replied Bobby, musing. "So am I; but if he had been at home, or at church, where he should have been, it would not have happened. If I had any boys, I would lock them up in their chambers if I could not keep them at home Sundays." "Poor Tom!" mused Bobby, recalling the conversation he had had with him on Saturday, and then wishing that he had been a little more pliant with him. "It is too bad; but I must say I am more sorry for his poor mother than I am for him," added the squire. "However, I hope it will do him good, and be a lesson he will remember as long as he lives." Bobby bade the squire and Annie adieu again, and resumed his journey towards the railroad station. His thoughts were busy with Tom Spicer's case. The reason why he had not joined him, as he expected and feared he would, was now apparent. He pitied him, for he realized that he must endure a great deal of pain before he could again go out; but he finally dismissed the matter with the squire's sage reflection, that he hoped the calamity would be a good lesson to him. The young merchant did not walk to Boston this time, for he had come to the conclusion that, in the six hours it would take him to travel to the city on foot, the profit on the books he could sell would be more than enough to pay his fare, to say nothing of the fatigue and the expense of shoe leather. Before noon he was at B---- again, as busy as ever in driving his business. The experience of the former week was of great value to him. He visited people belonging to all spheres in society, and, though he was occasionally repulsed or treated with incivility, he was not conscious in a single instance of offending any person's sense of propriety. He was not as fortunate as during the previous week, and it was Saturday noon before he had sold out the sixty books he carried with him. The net profit for this week was fourteen dollars, with which he was abundantly pleased. Mr. Bayard again commended him in the warmest terms for his zeal and promptness. Mr. Timmins was even more civil than the last time, and when Bobby asked the price of Moore's Poems, he actually offered to sell it to him for thirty-three per cent. less than the retail price. The little merchant, was on the point of purchasing it, when Mr. Bayard inquired what he wanted. "I am going to buy this book," replied Bobby. "Moore's Poems?" "Yes, sir." Mr. Bayard took from a glass case an elegantly bound copy of the same work--morocco, full gilt--and handed it to our hero. "I shall make you a present of this. Are you an admirer of Moore?" "No, sir; not exactly--that is, I don't know much about it; but Annie Lee does, and I want to get the book for her." Bobby's checks reddened as he turned the leaves of the beautiful volume, putting his head down to the page to hide his confusion. "Annie Lee?" said Mr. Bayard with a quizzing smile. "I see how it is. Rather young, Bobby." "Her father has been very good to me and to my mother; and so has Annie, for that matter. Squire Lee would be a great deal more pleased if I should make Annie a present than if I made him one. I feel grateful to him, and I want to let it out some how." "That's right, Bobby; always remember your friends. Timmins, wrap up this book." Bobby protested with all his might; but the bookseller insisted that he should give Annie this beautiful edition, and he was obliged to yield the point. That evening he was at the little black house again, and his mother examined his ledger with a great deal of pride and satisfaction. That evening, too, another ten dollars was indorsed on the note, and Annie received that elegant copy of Moore's Poems. CHAPTER XIV. IN WHICH BOBBY'S AIR CASTLE IS UPSET AND TOM SPICER TAKES TO THE WOODS. During the next four weeks Bobby visited various places in the vicinity of Boston; and at the end of that time he had paid the whole of the debt he owed Squire Lee. He had the note in his memorandum book, and the fact that he had achieved his first great purpose afforded him much satisfaction. Now he owed no man any thing, and he felt as though he could hold up his head among the best people in the world. The little black house was paid for, and Bobby was proud that his own exertions had released his mother from her obligation to her hard creditor. Mr. Hardhand could no longer insult and abuse her. The apparent results which Bobby had accomplished; however, were as nothing compared with the real results. He had developed those energies of character which were to make him, not only a great business man, but a useful member of society. Besides, there was a moral grandeur in his humble achievements which was more worthy of consideration than the mere worldly success he had obtained. Motives determine the character of deeds. That a boy of thirteen should display so much enterprise and energy was a great thing; but that it should be displayed from pure, unselfish devotion to his mother was a vastly greater thing. Many great achievements are morally insignificant, while many of which the world never hears mark the true hero. Our hero was not satisfied with what he had done, and far from relinquishing his interesting and profitable employment, his ambition suggested new and wider fields of success. As one ideal, brilliant and glorious in its time, was reached, another more brilliant and more glorious presented itself, and demanded to be achieved. The little black house began to appear rusty and inconvenient; a coat of white paint would marvellously improve its appearance; a set of nice Paris-green blinds would make a palace of it, and a neat fence around it would positively transform the place into a paradise. Yet Bobby was audacious enough to think of these things, and even to promise himself that they should be obtained. In conversation with Mr. Bayard a few days before, that gentleman had suggested a new field of labor; and it had been arranged that Bobby should visit the State of Maine the following week. On the banks of the Kennebec were many wealthy and important towns, where the intelligence of the people created a demand for books. This time the little merchant was to take two hundred books, and be absent until they were all sold. On Monday morning he started bright and early for the railroad station. As usual, he called upon Squire Lee, and informed Annie that he should probably be absent three or four weeks. She hoped no accident would happen to him, and that his journey would be crowned with success. Without being sentimental, she was a little sad, for Bobby was a great friend of hers. That elegant copy of Moore's Poems had been gratefully received, and she was so fond of the bard's beautiful and touching melodies that she could never read any of them without thinking of the brave little fellow who had given her the volume; which no one will consider very remarkable, even in a little miss of twelve. After he had bidden her and her father adieu, he resumed his journey. Of course he was thinking with all his might; but no one need suppose he was wondering how wide the Kennebec River was, or how many books he should sell in the towns upon its banks. Nothing of the kind; though it is enough even for the inquisitive to know that he was thinking of something, and that his thoughts were very interesting, not to say romantic. "Hallo, Bob!" shouted some one from the road side. Bobby was provoked; for it is sometimes very uncomfortable to have a pleasant train of thought interrupted. The imagination is buoyant, ethereal, and elevates poor mortals up to the stars sometimes. It was so with Bobby. He was building up some kind of an air castle, and had got up in the clouds amidst the fog and moonshine, and that aggravating voice brought him down, _slap_, upon terra firma. He looked up and saw Tom Spicer seated upon the fence. In his hand he held a bundle, and had evidently been waiting some time for Bobby's coming. He had recovered from the illness caused by his broken arm, and people said it had been a good lesson for him, as the squire hoped it would be. Bobby had called upon him two or three times during his confinement to the house; and Tom, either truly repentant for his past errors, or lacking the opportunity at that time to manifest his evil propensities, had stoutly protested that he had "turned over a new leaf," and meant to keep out of the woods on Sunday, stop lying and swearing, and become a good boy. Bobby commended his good resolutions, and told him he would never want friends while he was true to himself. The right side, he declared, was always the best side. He quoted several instances of men, whose lives he had read in his Sunday school books, to show how happy a good man may be in prison, or when all the world seemed to forsake him. Tom assured him that he meant to reform and be a good boy; and Bobby told him that when any one meant to turn over a new leaf, it was "now or never." If he put it off, he would only grow worse, and the longer the good work was delayed, the more difficult it would be to do it. Tom agreed to all this, and was sure he had reformed. For these reasons Bobby had come to regard Tom with a feeling of deep interest. He considered him as, in some measure, his disciple, and he felt a personal responsibility in encouraging him to persevere in his good work. Nevertheless Bobby was not exactly pleased to have his fine air castle upset, and to be tipped out of the clouds upon the cold, uncompromising earth again; so the first greeting he gave Tom was not as cordial as it might have been. "Hallo, Tom!" he replied, rather coolly. "Been waiting for you this half hour." "Have you?" "Yes; ain't you rather late?" "No; I have plenty of time, though none to spare," answered Bobby; and this was a hint that he must not detain him too long. "Come along then." "Where are you going, Tom?" asked Bobby, a little surprised at these words. "To Boston." "Are you?" "I am; that's a fact. You know I spoke to you about going into the book business." "Not lately." "But I have been thinking about it all the time." "What do your father and mother say?" "O, they are all right." "Have you asked them?" "Certainly I have; they are willing I should go with _you_." "Why didn't you speak of it then?" "I thought I wouldn't say any thing till the time came. You know you fought shy when I spoke about it before." And Bobby, notwithstanding the interest he felt in his companion, was a little disposed to "fight shy" now. Tom had reformed, or had pretended to do so; but he was still a raw recruit, and our hero was somewhat fearful that he would run at the first fire. To the good and true man life is a constant battle. Temptation assails him at almost every point; perils and snares beset him at every step of his mortal pilgrimage, so that every day he is called upon to gird on his armor and fight the good fight. Bobby was no poet; but he had a good idea of this every-day strife with the foes of error and sin that crossed his path. It was a practical conception, but it was truly expressed under the similitude of a battle. There was to be resistance, and he could comprehend that, for his bump of combativeness took cognizance of the suggestion. He was to fight; and that was an idea that stood him in better stead than a whole library of ethical subtleties. Judging Tom by his own standard, he was afraid he would run--that he wouldn't "stand fire." He had not been drilled. Heretofore, when temptation beset him, he had yielded without even a struggle, and fled from the field without firing a gun. To go out into the great world was a trying event for the raw recruit. He lacked, too, that prestige of success which is worth more than numbers, on the field of battle. Tom had chosen for himself, and he could not send him back. He had taken up the line of march, let it lead him where it might. "March on! in legions death and sin Impatient wait thy conquering hand; The foe without, the foe within-- Thy youthful arm must both withstand." Bobby had great hopes of him. He felt that he could not well get rid of him, and he saw that it was policy for him to make the best of it. "Well, Tom, where are you going?" asked Bobby, after he had made up his mind not to object to the companionship of the other. "I don't know. You have been a good friend to me lately, and I had an idea that you would give me a lift in this business." "I should be very willing to do so: but what can I do for you?" "Just show me how the business is done; that's all I want." "Your father and mother were willing you should come--were they not?" Bobby had some doubts about this point, and with good reason too. He had called at Tom's house, the day before, and they had gone to church together; but neither he nor his parents had said a word about his going to Boston. "When did they agree to it?" "Last night," replied Tom, after a moment's hesitation. "All right then; but I cannot promise you that Mr. Bayard will let you have the books." "I can fix that, I reckon," replied Tom, confidently. "I will speak a good word for you, at any rate." "That's right, Bob." "I am going down into the State of Maine this time, and shall be gone three or four weeks." "So much the better; I always wanted to go down that way." Tom asked a great many questions about the business and the method of travelling, which Bobby's superior intelligence and more extensive experience enabled him to answer to the entire satisfaction of the other. When they were within half a mile of the railroad station, they heard a carriage driven at a rapid rate approaching them from the direction of Riverdale. Tom seemed to be uneasy, and cast frequent glances behind him. In a moment the vehicle was within a short distance of them, and he stopped short in the road to scrutinize the persons in it. "By jolly!" exclaimed Tom; "my father!" "What of it?" asked Bobby, surprised by the strange behavior of his companion. Tom did not wait to reply, but springing over the fence, fled like a deer towards some woods a short distance from the road. Was it possible? Tom had run away from home. His father had not consented to his going to Boston, and Bobby was mortified to find that his hopeful disciple had been lying to him ever since they left Riverdale. But he was glad the cheat had been exposed. "That was Tom with you--wasn't it?" asked Mr. Spicer, as he stopped the foaming horse. "Yes, sir; but he told me you had consented that he should go with me," replied Bobby, a little disturbed by the angry glance of Mr. Spicer's fiery eyes. "He lied! the young villain! He will catch it for this." "I would not have let him come with me only for that. I asked him twice over if you were willing, and he said you were." "You ought to have known better than to believe him," interposed the man who was with Mr. Spicer. Bobby had some reason for believing him. The fact that Tom had reformed ought to have entitled him to some consideration, and our hero gave him the full benefit of the declaration. To have explained this would have taken more time than he could spare; besides, it was "a great moral question," whose importance Mr. Spicer and his companion would not be likely to apprehend; so he made a short story of it, and resumed his walk, thankful that he had got rid of Tom. Mr. Spicer and his friend, after fastening the horse to the fence, went to the woods in search of Tom. Bobby reached the station just in time to take the cars, and in a moment was on his way to the city. CHAPTER XV. IN WHICH BOBBY GETS INTO A SCRAPE, AND TOM SPICER TURNS UP AGAIN. Bobby had a poorer opinion of human nature than ever before. It seemed almost incredible to him that words so fairly spoken as those of Tom Spicer could be false. He had just risen from a sick bed, where he had had an opportunity for long and serious reflection. Tom had promised fairly, and Bobby had every reason to suppose he intended to be a good boy. But his promises had been lies. He had never intended to reform, at least not since he had got off his bed of pain. He was mortified and disheartened at the failure of this attempt to restore him to himself. Like a great many older and wiser persons than himself, he was prone to judge the whole human family by a single individual. He did not come to believe that every man was a rascal, but, in more general terms, that there is a great deal more rascality in this world than one would be willing to believe. With this sage reflection, he dismissed Tom from his mind, which very naturally turned again to the air castle which had been so ruthlessly upset. Then his opinion of "the rest of mankind" was reversed; and he reflected that if the world were only peopled by angels like Annie Lee, what a pleasant place it would be to live in. She could not tell a lie, she could not use bad language, she could not steal, or do any thing else that was bad; and the prospect was decidedly pleasant. It was very agreeable to turn from Tom to Annie, and in a moment his air castle was built again, and throned on clouds of gold and purple. I do not know what impossible things he imagined, or how far up in the clouds, he would have gone, if the arrival of the train at the city had not interrupted his thoughts, and pitched him down upon the earth again. Bobby was not one of that impracticable class of persons who do nothing but dream; for he felt that he had a mission, to perform which dreaming could not accomplish. However pleasant it may be to think of the great and brilliant things which one _will_ do, to one of Bobby's practical character it was even more pleasant to perform them. We all dream great things, imagine great things; but he who stops there does not amount to much, and the world can well spare him, for he is nothing but a drone in the hive. Bobby's fine imaginings were pretty sure to bring out "now or never," which was the pledge of action, and the work was as good as done when he had said it. Therefore, when the train arrived, Bobby did not stop to dream any longer. He forgot his beautiful air castle, and even let Annie Lee slip from his mind for the time being. Those towns upon the Kennebec, the two hundred books he was to sell, loomed up before him, for it was with them he had to do. Grasping the little valise he carried with him, he was hastening out of the station house when a hand was placed upon his shoulder. "Got off slick--didn't I?" said Tom Spicer, placing himself by Bobby's side. "You here, Tom!" exclaimed our hero, gazing with astonishment at his late companion. It was not an agreeable encounter, and from the bottom of his heart Bobby wished him any where but where he was. He foresaw that he could not easily get rid of him. "I am here," replied Tom. "I ran through the woods to the depot, and got aboard the cars just as they were starting. The old man couldn't come it over me quite so slick as that." "But you ran away from home." "Well, what of it?" "A good deal, I should say." "If you had been in my place, you would have done the same." "I don't know about that; obedience to parents is one of our first duties." "I know that; and if I had had any sort of fair play, I wouldn't have run away." "What do you mean by that?" asked Bobby, somewhat surprised, though he had a faint idea of the meaning of the other. "I will tell you all about it by and by. I give you my word and honor that I will make every thing satisfactory to you." "But you lied to me on the road this morning." Tom winced; under ordinary circumstances he would have resented such a remark by "clearing away" for a fight. But he had a purpose to accomplish, and he knew the character of him with whom he had to deal. "I am sorry I did, now," answered Tom, with every manifestation of penitence for his fault. "I didn't want to lie to you; and it went against my conscience to do so. But I was afraid, if I told you my father refused, up and down, to let me go, that you wouldn't be willing I should come with you." "I shall not be any more willing now I know all about it," added Bobby, in an uncompromising tone. "Wait till you have heard my story, and then you won't blame me." "Of course you can go where you please; it is none of my business; but let me tell you, Tom, in the beginning, that I won't go with a fellow who has run away from his father and mother." "Pooh! What's the use of talking in that way?" Tom was evidently disconcerted by this decided stand of his companion. He knew that his bump of firmness was well developed, and whatever he said he meant. "You had better return home, Tom. Boys that run away from home don't often amount to much. Take my advice, and go home," added Bobby. "To such a home as mine!" said Tom, gloomily. "If I had such a home as yours, I would not have left it." Bobby got a further idea from this remark of the true state of the case, and the consideration moved him. Tom's father was a notoriously intemperate man, and the boy had nothing to hope for from his precept or his example. He was the child of a drunkard, and as much to be pitied as blamed for his vices. His home was not pleasant. He who presided over it, and who should have made a paradise of it, was its evil genius, a demon of wickedness, who blasted its flowers as fast as they bloomed. Tom had seemed truly penitent both during his illness and since his recovery. His one great desire now was to get away from home, for home to him was a place of torment. Bobby suspected all this, and in his great heart he pitied his companion. He did not know what to do. "I am sorry for you, Tom," said he, after he had considered the matter in this new light; "but I don't see what I can do for you. I doubt whether it would be right for me to help you run away from your parents." "I don't want you to help me run away. I have done that already." "But if I let you go with me, it will be just the same thing. Besides, since you told me those lies this morning, I haven't much confidence in you." "I couldn't help that." "Yes, you could. Couldn't help lying?" "What could I do? You would have gone right back and told my father." "Well, we will go up to Mr. Bayard's store, and then we will see what can be done." "I couldn't stay at home, sure," continued Tom, as they walked along together. "My father even talked of binding me out to a trade." "Did he?" Bobby stopped short in the street; for it was evident that, as this would remove him from his unhappy home, and thus effect all he professed to desire, he had some other purpose in view. "What are you stopping for, Bob?" "I think you better go back, Tom." "Not I; I won't do that, whatever happens." "If your father will put you to a trade, what more do you want?" "I won't go to a trade, any how." Bobby said no more, but determined to consult with Mr. Bayard about the matter; and Tom was soon too busily engaged in observing the strange sights and sounds of the city to think of any thing else. When they reached the store, Bobby went into Mr. Bayard's private office and told him all about the affair. The bookseller decided that Tom had run away more to avoid being bound to a trade than because his home was unpleasant; and this decision seemed to Bobby all the more just because he knew that Tom's mother, though a drunkard's wife, was a very good woman. Mr. Bayard further decided that Bobby ought not to permit the runaway to be the companion of his journey. He also considered it his duty to write to Mr. Spicer, informing him of his son's arrival in the city, and clearing Bobby from any agency in his escape. While Mr. Bayard was writing the letter, Bobby went out to give Tom the result of the consultation. The runaway received it with a great show of emotion, and begged and pleaded to have the decision reversed. But Bobby, though he would gladly have done any thing for him which was consistent with his duty, was firm as a rock, and positively refused, to have any thing to do with him until he obtained his father's consent; or, if there was any such trouble as he asserted, his mother's consent. Tom left the store, apparently "more in sorrow than in anger." His bullying nature seemed to be cast out, and Bobby could not but feel sorry for him. Duty was imperative, as it always is, and it must be done "now or never." During the day the little merchant attended to the packing of his stock, and to such other preparations as were required for his journey. He must take the steamer that evening for Bath, and when the time for his departure arrived, he was attended to the wharf by Mr. Bayard and Ellen, with whom he had passed the afternoon. The bookseller assisted him in procuring his ticket and berth, and gave him such instructions as his inexperience demanded. The last bell rang, the fasts were cast off, and the great wheels of the steamer began to turn. Our hero, who had never been on the water in a steamboat, or indeed any thing bigger than a punt on the river at home, was much interested and excited by his novel position. He seated himself on the promenade deck, and watched with wonder the boiling, surging waters astern of the steamer. How powerful is man, the author of that mighty machine that bore him so swiftly over the deep blue waters! Bobby was a little philosopher, as we have before had occasion to remark, and he was decidedly of the opinion that the steamboat was a great institution. When he had in some measure conquered his amazement, and the first ideas of sublimity which the steamer and the sea were calculated to excite in a poetical imagination, he walked forward to take a closer survey of the machinery. After all, there was something rather comical in the affair. The steam hissed and sputtered, and the great walking beam kept flying up and down; and the sum total of Bobby's philosophy was, that it was funny these things should make the boat go so like a race horse over the water. Then he took a look into the pilot house, and it seemed more funny that turning that big wheel should steer the boat. But the wind blew rather fresh at the forward part of the boat, and as Bobby's philosophy was not proof against it, he returned to the promenade deck, which was sheltered from the severity of the blast. He had got reconciled to the whole thing, and ceased to bother his head about the big wheel, the sputtering steam, and the walking beam; so he seated himself, and began to wonder what all the people in Riverdale were about. "All them as hasn't paid their fare, please walk up to the cap'n's office and s-e-t-t-l-e!" shouted a colored boy, presenting himself just then, and furiously ringing a large hand bell. "I have just settled," said Bobby, alluding to his comfortable seat. But the allusion was so indefinite to the colored boy that he thought himself insulted. He did not appear to be a very amiable boy, for his fist was doubled up, and with sundry big oaths, he threatened to annihilate the little merchant for his insolence. "I didn't say any thing that need offend you," replied Bobby. "I meant nothing." "You lie! You did!" He was on the point of administering a blow with his fist, when a third party appeared on the ground, and without waiting to hear the merits of the case, struck the negro a blow which had nearly floored him. Some of the passengers now interfered, and the colored boy was prevented from executing vengeance on the assailant. "Strike that fellow and you strike me!" said he who had struck the blow. "Tom Spicer!" exclaimed Bobby, astonished and chagrined at the presence of the runaway. CHAPTER XVI. IN WHICH BOBBY FINDS "IT IS AN ILL WIND THAT BLOWS NO ONE ANY GOOD." A gentleman, who was sitting near Bobby when he made the remark which the colored boy had misunderstood, interfered to free him from blame, and probably all unpleasant feelings might have been saved, if Tom's zeal had been properly directed. As it was, the waiter retired with his bell, vowing vengeance upon his assailant. "How came you here, Tom?" asked Bobby, when the excitement had subsided. "You don't get rid of me so easily," replied Tom, laughing. Bobby called to mind the old adage that "a had penny is sure to return;" and, if it had not been a very uncivil remark, he would have said it. "I didn't expect to see you again at present," he observed, hardly knowing what to say or do. "I suppose not; but as I didn't mean you should expect me, I kept out of sight. Only for that darkey you wouldn't have found me out so soon. I like you, Bob, in spite of all you have done to get rid of me, and I wasn't a going to let the darkey thrash you." "You only made matters worse." "That is all the thanks I get for hitting him for you." "I am sorry you hit him, at the same time I suppose you meant to do me a service, and I thank you, not for the blow you struck the black boy, but for your good intentions." "That sounds better. I meant well, Bob." "I dare say you did. But how came you here?" "Why, you see, I was bound to go with you any how or at least to keep within hail of you. You told me, you know, that you were going in the steamboat; and after I left the shop, what should I see but a big picture of a steamboat on a wall. It said, 'Bath, Gardiner, and Hallowell,' on the bill; and I knew that was where you meant to go. So this afternoon I hunts round and finds the steamboat. I thought I never should have found it, but here I am." "What are you going to do?" "Going into the book business," replied Tom, with a smile. "Where are your books?" "Down stairs, in the cellar of the steamboat, or whatever you call it." "Where did you get them?" "Bought 'em, of course." "Did you? Where?" "Well, I don't remember the name of the street now. I could go right there if I was in the city, though." "Would they trust you?" Tom hesitated. The lies he had told that morning had done him no good--had rather injured his cause; and, though he had no principle that forbade lying, he questioned its policy in the present instance. "I paid part down, and they trusted me part." "How many books you got?" "Twenty dollars worth. I paid eight dollars down." "You did? Where did you get the eight dollars?" Bobby remembered the money Tom's father had lost several weeks before, and immediately connected that circumstance with his present ability to pay so large a sum. Tom hesitated again, but he was never at a loss for an answer. "My mother gave it to me." "Your mother?" "Yes, _sir_!" replied Tom, boldly, and in that peculiarly bluff manner which is almost always good evidence that the boy is lying. "But you ran away from home." "That's so; but my mother knew I was coming." "Did she?" "To be sure she did." "You didn't say so before." "I can't tell all I know in a minute." "If I thought your mother consented to your coming, I wouldn't say another word." "Well, she did; you may bet your life on that." "And your mother gave you ten dollars?" "Who said she gave me ten dollars?" asked Tom a little sharply. That was just the sum his father had lost, and Bobby had unwittingly hinted his suspicion. "You must have had as much as that if you paid eight on your books. Your fare to Boston and your steamboat fare must be two dollars more." "I know that; but look here, Bob;" and Tom took from his pocket five half dollars and exhibited them to his companion. "She gave me thirteen dollars." Notwithstanding this argument, Bobby felt almost sure that the lost ten dollars was a part of his capital. "I will tell you my story now, Bob, if you like. You condemned me without a hearing, as Jim Guthrie said when they sent him to the House of Correction for getting drunk." "Go ahead." The substance of Tom's story was, that his father drank so hard, and was such a tyrant in the house, that he could endure it no longer. His father and mother did not agree, as any one might have suspected. His mother, encouraged by the success of Bobby, thought that Tom might do something of the kind, and she had provided him the money to buy his stock of books. Bobby had not much confidence in this story. He had been deceived once; besides, it was not consistent with his previous narrative, and he had not before hinted that he had obtained his mother's consent. But Tom was eloquent, and protested that he had reformed, and meant to do well. He declared, by all that was good and great, Bobby should never have reason to be ashamed of him. Our little merchant was troubled. He could not now get rid of Tom without actually quarrelling with him, or running away from him. He did not wish to do the former, and it was not an easy matter to do the latter. Besides, there was hope that the runaway would do well; and if he did, when he carried the profits of his trade home, his father would forgive him. One thing was certain, if he returned to Riverdale he would be what he had been before. For these reasons Bobby finally, but very reluctantly, consented that Tom should remain with him, resolving, however, that, if he did not behave himself, he would leave him at once. Before morning he had another reason. When the steamer got out into the open bay, Bobby was seasick. He retired to his berth with a dreadful headache; as he described it afterwards, it seemed just as though that great walking beam was smashing up and down right in the midst of his brains. He had never felt so ill before in his life, and was very sure, in his inexperience, that something worse than mere seasickness ailed him. He told Tom, who was not in the least affected, how he felt; whereupon the runaway blustered round, got the steward and the captain into the cabin, and was very sure that Bobby would die before morning, if we may judge by the fuss he made. The captain was angry at being called from the pilot house for nothing, and threatened to throw Tom overboard if he didn't stop his noise. The steward, however, was a kind-hearted man, and assured Bobby that passengers were often a great deal sicker than he was; but he promised to do something for his relief, and Tom went with him to his state room for the desired remedy. The potion was nothing more nor less than a table spoonful of brandy, which Bobby, who had conscientious scruples about drinking ardent spirits, at first refused to take. Then Tom argued the point, and the sick boy yielded. The dose made him sicker yet, and nature came to his relief, and in a little while he felt better. Tom behaved like a good nurse; he staid by his friend till he went to sleep, and then "turned in" upon a settee beneath his berth. The boat pitched and tumbled about so in the heavy sea that Bobby did not sleep long, and when he woke he found Tom ready to assist him. But our hero felt better, and entreated Tom to go to sleep again. He made the best of his unpleasant situation. Sleep was not to be wooed, and he tried to pass away the dreary hours in thinking of Riverdale and the dear ones there. His mother was asleep, and Annie was asleep; and that was about all the excitement he could get up even on the home question. He could not build castles in the air, for seasickness and castle building do not agree. The gold and purple clouds would be black in spite of him, and the aerial structure he essayed to build would pitch and tumble about, for all the world, just like a steamboat in a heavy sea. As often as he got fairly into it, he was violently rolled out, and in a twinkling found himself in his narrow berth, awfully seasick. He went to sleep again at last, and the long night passed away. When he woke in the morning, he felt tolerably well, and was thankful that he had got out of that scrape. But before he could dress himself, he heard a terrible racket on deck. The steam whistle was shrieking, the bell was banging, and he heard the hoarse bellowing of the captain. It was certain that something had happened, or was about to happen. Then the boat stopped, rolling heavily in the sea. Tom was not there; he had gone on deck. Bobby was beginning to consider what a dreadful thing a wreck was, when Tom appeared. "What's the matter?" asked Bobby, with some appearance of alarm. "Fog," replied Tom. "It is so thick you can cut it with a hatchet." "Is that all?" "That's enough.' "Where are we?" "That is just what the pilot would like to know. They can't see ahead a bit, and don't know where we are." Bobby went on deck. The ocean rolled beneath them, but there was nothing but fog to be seen above and around them. The lead was heaved every few moments, and the steamer crept slowly along till it was found the water shoaled rapidly, when the captain ordered the men to let go the anchor. There they were; the fog was as obstinate as a mule, and would not "lift." Hour after hour they waited, for the captain was a prudent man, and would not risk the life of those on board to save a few hours' time. After breakfast, the passengers began to display their uneasiness, and some of them called the captain very hard names, because he would not go on. Almost every body grumbled, and made themselves miserable. "Nothing to do and nothing to read," growled a nicely-dressed gentleman, as he yawned and stretched himself to manifest his sensation of ennui. "Nothing to read, eh?" thought Bobby. "We will soon supply that want." Calling Tom, they went down to the main deck, where the baggage had been placed. "Now's our time," said he, as he proceeded to unlock one of the trunks that contained his books. "Now or never." "I am with you," replied Tom, catching the idea. The books of the latter were in a box, and he was obliged to get a hammer to open it; but with Bobby's assistance he soon got at them. "Buy 'The Wayfarer,'" said Bobby, when he returned to the saloon, and placed a volume in the hands of the yawning gentleman. "Best book of the season; only one dollar." "That I will, and glad of the chance," replied the gentleman. "I would give five dollars for any thing, if it were only the 'Comic Almanac.'" Others were of the same mind. There was no present prospect that the fog would lift, and before dinner time our merchant had sold fifty copies of "The Wayfarer." Tom, whose books were of an inferior description, and who was inexperienced as a salesman, disposed of twenty, which was more than half of his stock. The fog was a godsend to both of them, and they reaped a rich harvest from the occasion, for almost all the passengers seemed willing to spend their money freely for the means of occupying the heavy hours, and driving away that dreadful ennui which reigns supreme in a fog-bound steamer. About the middle of the afternoon, the fog blew over, and the boat proceeded on her voyage, and before sunset our young merchants were safely landed at Bath. CHAPTER XVII. IN WHICH TOM HAS A GOOD TIME, AND BOBBY MEETS WITH A TERRIBLE MISFORTUNE. Bath afforded our young merchants an excellent market for their wares, and they remained there the rest of the week. They then proceeded to Brunswick, where their success was equally flattering. Thus far Tom had done very well, though Bobby had frequent occasion to remind him of the pledges he had given to conduct himself in a proper manner. He would swear now and then, from the force of habit; but invariably, when Bobby checked him, he promised to do better. At Brunswick Tom sold the last of his books, and was in possession of about thirty dollars, twelve of which he owed the publisher who had furnished his stock. This money seemed to burn in his pocket. He had the means of having a good time, and it went hard with him to plod along as Bobby did, careful to save every penny he could. "Come, Bob, let's get a horse and chaise and have a ride--what do you say?" proposed Tom, on the day he finished selling his books. "I can't spare the time or the money," replied Bobby, decidedly. "What is the use of having money if we can't spend it? It is a first rate day, and we should have a good time." "I can't afford it. I have a great many books to sell." "About a hundred; you can sell them fast enough." "I don't spend my money foolishly." "It wouldn't be foolishly. I have sold out, and am bound to have a little fun now." "You never will succeed if you do business in that way." "Why not?" "You will spend your money as fast as you get it." "Pooh! we can get a horse and chaise for the afternoon for two dollars. That is not much." "Considerable, I should say. But if you begin, there is no knowing where to leave off. I make it a rule not to spend a single cent foolishly, and if I don't begin, I shall never do it." "I don't mean to spend all I get; only a little now and then," persisted Tom. "Don't spend the first dollar for nonsense, and then you won't spend the second. Besides, when I have any money to spare, I mean to buy books with it for my library." "Humbug! Your library!" "Yes, my library; I mean to have a library one of these days." "I don't want any library, and I mean to spend some of my money in having a good time; and if you won't go with me, I shall go alone--that's all." "You can do as you please, of course; but I advise you to keep your money. You will want it to buy another stock of books." "I shall have enough for that. What do you say? Will you go with me or not?" "No, I will not." "Enough said; then. I shall go alone, or get some fellow to go with me." "Consider well before you go," pleaded Bobby, who had sense enough to see that Tom's proposed "good time" would put back, if not entirely prevent, the reform he was working out. He then proceeded to reason with him in a very earnest and feeling manner, telling him he would not only spend all his money, but completely unfit himself for business. What he proposed to do was nothing more nor less than extravagance, and it would lead him to dissipation and ruin. "To-day I am going to send one hundred dollars to Mr. Bayard," continued Bobby; "for I am afraid to have so much money with me. I advise you to send your money to your employer." "Humph! Catch me doing that! I am bound to have a good time, any how." "At least, send the money you owe him." "I'll bet I won't." "Well, do as you please; I have said all I have to say." "You are a fool, Bob!" exclaimed Tom, who had evidently used Bobby as much as he wished, and no longer cared to speak soft words to him. "Perhaps I am; but I know better than to spend my money upon fast horses. If you will go, I can't help it. I am sorry you are going astray." "What do you mean by that, you young monkey?" said Tom, angrily. This was Tom Spicer, the bully. It sounded like him; and with a feeling of sorrow Bobby resigned the hopes he had cherished of making a good boy of him. "We had better part now," added our hero, sadly. "I'm willing." "I shall leave Brunswick this afternoon for the towns up the river. I hope no harm will befall you. Good by, Tom," "Go it! I have heard your preaching about long enough, and I am more glad to get rid of you than you are to get rid of me." Bobby walked away towards the house where he had left the trunk containing his books, while Tom made his way towards a livery stable. The boys had been in the place for several days, and had made some acquaintances; so Tom had no difficulty in procuring a companion for his proposed ride. Our hero wrote a letter that afternoon to Mr. Bayard, in which he narrated all the particulars of his journey, his relations with Tom Spicer, and the success that had attended his labors. At the bank he procured a hundred dollar note for his small bills, and enclosed it in the letter. He felt sad about Tom. The runaway had done so well, had been so industrious, and shown such a tractable spirit, that he had been very much encouraged about him. But if he meant to be wild again,--for it was plain that the ride was only "the beginning of sorrows,"--it was well that they should part. By the afternoon stage our hero proceeded to Gardiner, passing through several smaller towns, which did not promise a very abundant harvest. His usual success attended him; for wherever he went, people seemed to be pleased with him, as Squire Lee had declared they would be. His pleasant, honest face was a capital recommendation, and his eloquence seldom failed to achieve the result which eloquence has ever achieved from Demosthenes down to the present day. Our limits do not permit us to follow him in all his peregrinations from town to town, and from house to house; so we pass over the next fortnight, at the end of which time we find him at Augusta. He had sold all his books but twenty, and had that day remitted eighty dollars more to Mr. Bayard. It was Wednesday, and he hoped to sell out so as to be able to take the next steamer for Boston, which was advertised to sail on the following day. He had heard nothing from Tom since their parting, and had given up all expectation of meeting him again; but that bad penny maxim proved true once more, for, as he was walking through one of the streets of Augusta, he had the misfortune to meet him--and this time it was indeed a misfortune. "Hallo, Bobby!" shouted the runaway, as familiarly as though nothing had happened to disturb the harmony of their relations. "Ah, Tom, I didn't expect to see you again," replied Bobby, not very much rejoiced to meet his late companion. "I suppose not; but here I am, as good as new. Have you sold out?" "No, not quite." "How many have you left?" "About twenty; but I thought, Tom, you would have returned to Boston before this time." "No;" and Tom did not seem to be in very good spirits. "Where are you going now?" "I don't know. I ought to have taken your advice, Bobby." This was a concession, and our hero began to feel some sympathy for his companion--as who does not when the erring confess their faults? "I am sorry you did not." "I got in with some pretty hard fellows down there to Brunswick," continued Tom, rather sheepishly. "And spent all your money," added Bobby, who could readily understand the reason why Tom had put on his humility again. "Not all." "How much have you left?" "Not much," replied he, evasively. "I don't know what I shall do. I am in a strange place, and have no friends." Bobby's sympathies were aroused, and without reflection, he promised to be a friend in his extremity. "I will stick by you this time, Bob, come what will. I will do just as you say, now." Our merchant was a little flattered by this unreserved display of confidence. He did not give weight enough to the fact that it was adversity alone which made Tom so humble. He was in trouble, and gave him all the guarantee he could ask for his future good behavior. He could not desert him now he was in difficulty. "You shall help me sell my books, and then we will return to Boston together. Have you money enough left to pay your employer?" Tom hesitated; something evidently hung heavily upon his mind. "I don't know how it will be after I have paid my expenses to Boston," he replied, averting his face. Bobby was perplexed by this evasive answer; but as Tom seemed so reluctant to go into details, he reserved his inquiries for a more convenient season. "Now, Tom, you take the houses on that side of the street, and I will take those upon this side. You shall have the profits on all you sell." "You are a first rate fellow, Bob; and I only wish I had done as you wanted me to do." "Can't be helped now, and we will do the next best thing," replied Bobby, as he left his companion to enter a house. Tom did very well, and by the middle of the afternoon they had sold all the books but four. "The Wayfarer" had been liberally advertised in that vicinity, and the work was in great demand. Bobby's heart grew lighter as the volumes disappeared from his valise, and already he had begun to picture the scene which would ensue upon his return to the little black house. How glad his mother would be to see him, and, he dared believe, how happy Annie would be as she listened to the account of his journey in the State of Maine! Wouldn't she be astonished when he told her about the steamboat, about the fog, and about the wild region at the mouth of the beautiful Kennebec! Poor Bobby! the brightest dream often ends in sadness; and a greater trial than any he had been called upon to endure was yet in store for him. As he walked along, thinking of Riverdale and its loved ones, Tom came out of a grocery store where he had just sold a book. "Here, Bob, is a ten dollar bill. I believe I have sold ten books for you," said Tom, after they had walked some distance. "You had better keep the money now; and while I think of it, you had better take what I have left of my former sales;" and Tom handed him another ten dollar bill. Bobby noticed that Tom seemed very much confused and embarrassed; but he did not observe that the two bills he had handed him were on the same bank. "Then you had ten dollars left after your frolic," he remarked, as he took the last bill. "About that;" and Tom glanced uneasily behind him. "What is the matter with you, Tom?" asked Bobby, who did not know what to make of his companion's embarrassment. "Nothing, Bob; let us walk a little faster. We had better turn up this street," continued Tom, as with a quick pace, he took the direction indicated. Bobby began to fear that Tom had been doing something wrong; and the suspicion was confirmed by seeing two men running with all their might towards them. Tom perceived them at the same moment. "Run!" he shouted, and suiting the action to the word, he took to his heels, and fled up the street into which he had proposed to turn. Bobby did not run, but stopped short where he was till the men came up to him. "Grab him," said one of them, "and I will catch the other." The man collared Bobby, and in spite of all the resistance he could make, dragged him down the street to the grocery store in which Tom had sold his last book. "What do you mean by this?" asked Bobby, his blood boiling with indignation at the harsh treatment to which he had been subjected. "We have got you, my hearty," replied the man, releasing his hold. No sooner was the grasp of the man removed, then Bobby, who determined on this as on former occasions to stand upon his inalienable rights, bolted for the door, and ran away with all his speed. But his captor was too fleet for him, and he was immediately retaken. To make him sure this time, his arms were tied behind him, and he was secured to the counter of the shop. In a few moments the other man returned dragging Tom in triumph after him. By this time quite a crowd had collected, which nearly filled the store. Bobby was confounded at the sudden change that had come over his fortunes; but seeing that resistance would be vain, he resolved to submit with the best grace he could. "I should like to know what all this means?" he inquired, indignantly. The crowd laughed in derision. "This is the chap that stole the wallet, I will be bound," said one, pointing to Tom, who stood in surly silence awaiting his fate. "He is the one who came into the store," replied the shopkeeper. "_I_ haven't stole any wallet," protested Bobby, who now understood the whole affair. The names of the two boys were taken, and warrants procured for their detention. They were searched, and upon Tom was found the lost wallet, and upon Bobby two ten dollar bills, which, the loser was willing to swear had been in the wallet. The evidence therefore was conclusive, and they were both sent to jail. Poor Bobby! the inmate of a prison! The law took its course, and in due time both of them were sentenced to two years' imprisonment in the State Reform School. Bobby was innocent, but he could not make his innocence appear. He had been the companion of Tom, the real thief, and part of the money had been found upon his person. Tom was too mean to exonerate him, and even had the hardihood to exult over his misfortune. At the end of three days they reached the town in which the Reform School is located, and were duly committed for their long term. Poor Bobby! CHAPTER XVIII. IN WHICH BOBBY TAKES FRENCH LEAVE, AND CAMPS IN THE WOODS. The intelligence of Bobby's misfortune reached Mr. Bayard, in Boston, by means of the newspapers. To the country press an item is a matter of considerable importance, and the alleged offence against the peace and dignity of the State of Maine was duly heralded to the inquiring public as a "daring robbery." The reporter who furnished the facts in the case for publication was not entirely devoid of that essential qualification of the country item writer, a lively imagination, and was obliged to dress up the particulars a little, in order to produce the necessary amount of wonder and indignation. It was stated that one of the two young men had been prowling about the place for several days, ostensibly for the purpose of selling books, but really with the intention of stealing whatever he could lay his hands upon. It was suggested that the boys were in league with an organized band of robbers, whose nefarious purposes would be defeated by the timely arrest of these young villains. The paper hinted that further depredations would probably be discovered, and warned people to beware of ruffians strolling about the country in the guise of pedlers. The writer of this thrilling paragraph must have had reason to believe that he had discharged his whole duty to the public, and that our hero was duly branded as a desperate fellow. No doubt he believed Bobby was an awful monster; for at the conclusion of his remarks he introduced some severe strictures on the lenity of the magistrate, because he had made the sentence two years, instead of five, which the writer thought the atrocious crime deserved. But, then, the justice differed from him in politics, which may account for the severity of the article. Mr. Bayard read this precious paragraph with mingled grief and indignation. He understood the case at a glance. Tom Spicer had joined him, and the little merchant had been involved in his crime. He was sure that Bobby had had no part in stealing the money. One so noble and true as he had been could not steal, he reasoned. It was contrary to experience, contrary to common sense. He was very much disturbed. This intelligence would be a severe blow to the poor boy's mother, and he had not the courage to destroy all her bright hopes by writing her the terrible truth. He was confident that Bobby was innocent, and that his being in the company of Tom Spicer had brought the imputation upon him; so he could not let the matter take its course. He was determined to do something to procure his liberty and restore his reputation. Squire Lee was in the city that day, and had left his store only half an hour before he discovered the paragraph. He immediately sent to his hotel for him, and together they devised means to effect Bobby's liberation. The squire was even more confident than Mr. Bayard that our hero was innocent of the crime charged upon him. They agreed to proceed immediately to the State of Maine, and use their influence in obtaining his pardon. The bookseller was a man of influence in the community, and was as well known in Maine as in Massachusetts; but to make their application the surer, he procured letters of introduction from some of the most distinguished men in Boston to the governor and other official persons in Maine. We will leave them now to do the work they had so generously undertaken, and return to the Reform School, where Bobby and Tom were confined. The latter took the matter very coolly. He seemed to feel that he deserved his sentence, but he took a malicious delight in seeing Bobby the companion of his captivity. He even had the hardihood to remind him of the blow he had struck him more than two months before, telling him that he had vowed vengeance then, and now the time had come. He was satisfied. "You know I didn't steal the money, or have any thing to do with it," said Bobby. "Some of it was found upon you, though," sneered Tom, maliciously. "You know how it came there, if no one else does." "Of course I do; but I like your company too well to get rid of you so easy." "The Lord is with the innocent," replied Bobby, "and something tells me that I shall not stay in this place a great while." "Going to run away?" asked Tom, with interest, and suddenly dropping his malicious look. "I know I am innocent of any crime; and I know that the Lord will not let me stay here a great while." "What do you mean to do, Bob?" Bobby made no reply; he felt that he had had more confidence in Tom than he deserved, and he determined to keep his own counsel in future. He had a purpose in view. His innocence gave him courage; and perhaps he did not feel that sense of necessity for submission to the laws of the land which age and experience give. He prayed earnestly for deliverance from the place in which he was confined. He felt that he did not deserve to be there; and though it was a very comfortable place, and the boys fared as well as he wished to fare, still it seemed to him like a prison. He was unjustly detained; and he not only prayed to be delivered, but he resolved to work out his own deliverance at the first opportunity. Knowing that whatever he had would be taken from him, he resolved by some means to keep possession of the twenty dollars he had about him. He had always kept his money in a secret place in his jacket to guard against accident, and the officers who had searched him had not discovered it. But now his clothes would be changed. He thought of these things before his arrival; so, when he reached the entrance, and got out of the wagon, to open the gate, by order of the officer, he slipped his twenty dollars into a hole in the wall. It so happened that there was not a suit of clothes in the store room of the institution which would fit him; and he was permitted to wear his own dress till another should be made. After his name and description had been entered, and the superintendent had read him a lecture upon his future duties, he was permitted to join the other boys, who were at work on the farm. He was sent with half a dozen others to pick up stones in a neighboring field. No officer was with them, and Bobby was struck with the apparent freedom of the institution, and he so expressed himself to his companions. "Not so much freedom as you think for," said one, in reply. "I should think the fellows would clear out." "Not so easy a matter. There is a standing reward of five dollars to any one who brings back a runaway." "They must catch him first." "No fellow ever got away yet. They always caught him before he got ten miles from the place." This was an important suggestion to Bobby, who already had a definite purpose in his mind. Like a skilful general, he had surveyed the ground on his arrival, and was at once prepared to execute his design. In his conversation with the boys, he obtained, the history of several who had attempted to escape, and found that even those who got a fair start were taken on some public road. He perceived that they were not good generals, and he determined to profit by their mistake. A short distance from the institution was what appeared to be a very extensive wood. Beyond this, many miles distant, he could see the ocean glittering like a sheet of ice under the setting sun. He carefully observed the hills, and obtained the bearings of various prominent objects in the vicinity, which would aid him in his flight. The boys gave him all the information in their power about the localities of the country. They seemed to feel that he was possessed of a superior spirit, and that he would not long remain among them; but, whatever they thought, they kept their own counsel. Bobby behaved well, and was so intelligent and prompt that he obtained the confidence of the superintendent, who began to employ him about the house, and in his own family. He was sent of errands in the neighborhood, and conducted himself so much to the satisfaction of his guardians that he was not required to work in the field after the second day of his residence on the farm. One afternoon he was told that his clothes were ready, and that he might put them on the next morning. This was a disagreeable announcement; for Bobby saw that, with the uniform of the institution upon his back, his chance of escape would be very slight. But about sunset, he was sent by the superintendent's lady to deliver a note at a house in the vicinity. "Now or never!" said Bobby to himself, after he had left the house. "Now's my time." As he passed the gate, he secured his money, and placed it in the secret receptacle of his jacket. After he had delivered the letter, he took the road and hastened off in the direction of the wood. His heart beat wildly at the prospect of once more meeting his mother, after nearly four weeks' absence. Annie Lee would welcome him; she would not believe that he was a thief. He had been four days an inmate of the Reform School, and nothing but the hope of soon attaining his liberty had kept his spirits from drooping. He had not for a moment despaired of getting away. He reached the entrance to the wood, and taking a cart path, began to penetrate its hidden depths. The night darkened upon him; he heard the owl screech his dismal note, and the whip-poor-will chant his cheery song. A certain sense of security now pervaded his mind, for the darkness concealed him from the world, and he had placed six good miles between him and the prison, as he considered it. He walked on, however, till he came to what seemed to be the end of the wood, and he hoped to reach the blue ocean he had seen in the distance before morning. Leaving the forest, he emerged into the open country. There was here and there a house before him; but the aspect of the country seemed strangely familiar to him. He could not understand it. He had never been in this part of the country before; yet there was a great house with two barns by the side of it, which he was positive he had seen before. He walked across the field a little farther, when, to his astonishment and dismay, he beheld the lofty turrets of the State Reform School. He had been walking in a circle, and had come out of the forest near the place where he had entered it. Bobby, as the reader has found out by this time, was a philosopher as well as a hero; and instead of despairing or wasting his precious time in vain regrets at his mistake, he laughed a little to himself at the blunder, and turned back into the woods again. "Now or never!" muttered he. "It will never do to give it up so." For an hour he walked on, with his eyes fixed on a great bright star in the sky. Then he found that the cart path crooked round, and he discovered where he had made his blunder. Leaving the road, he made his way in a straight line, still guided by the star, till he came to a large sheet of water. The sheet of water was an effectual barrier to his farther progress; indeed, he was so tired, he did not feel able to walk any more. He deemed himself safe from immediate pursuit in this secluded place. He needed rest, and he foresaw that the next few days would be burdened with fatigue and hardship which he must be prepared to meet. Bobby was not nice about trifles, and his habits were such that he had no fear of taking cold. His comfortable bed in the little black house was preferable to the cold ground, even with the primeval forest for a chamber; but circumstances alter cases, and he did not waste any vain regrets about the necessity of his position. After finding a secluded spot in the wood, he raked the dry leaves together for a bed, and offering his simple but fervent prayer to the Great Guardian above, he lay down to rest. The owl screamed his dismal note, and the whip-poor-will still repeated his monotonous song; but they were good company in the solitude of the dark forest. He could not go to sleep for a time, so strange and exciting were the circumstances of his position. He thought of a thousand things, but he could not _think_ himself to sleep, as he was wont to do. At last nature, worn out by fatigue and anxiety, conquered the circumstances, and he slept. CHAPTER XIX. IN WHICH BOBBY HAS A NARROW ESCAPE, AND GOES TO SEA WITH SAM RAY. Nature was kind to the little pilgrim in his extremity, and kept his senses sealed in grateful slumber till the birds had sung their matin song, and the sun had risen high in the heavens. Bobby woke with a start, and sprang to his feet. For a moment he did not realize where he was, or remember the exciting incidents of the previous evening. He felt refreshed by his deep slumber, and came out of it as vigorous as though he had slept in his bed at home. Rubbing his eyes, he stared about him at the tall pines whose foliage canopied his bed, and his identity was soon restored to him. He was Bobby Bright--but Bobby Bright in trouble. He was not the little merchant, but the little fugitive fleeing from the prison to which he had been doomed. It did not take him long to make his toilet, which was the only advantage of his primitive style of lodging. His first object was to examine his position, and ascertain in what direction he should continue his flight. He could not go ahead, as he had intended, for the sheet of water was an impassable barrier. Leaving the dense forest, he came to a marsh, beyond which was the wide creek he had seen in the night. It was salt water, and he reasoned that it could not extend a great way inland. His only course was to follow it till he found means of crossing it. Following the direction of the creek, he kept near the margin of the wood till he came to a public road. He had some doubts about trusting himself out of the forest, even for a single moment; so he seated himself upon a rock to argue the point. If any one should happen to come along, he was almost sure of furnishing a clew to his future movements, if not of being immediately captured. This was a very strong argument, but there was a stronger one upon the other side. He had eaten nothing since dinner on the preceding day, and he began, to feel faint for the want of food. On the other side of the creek he saw a pasture which looked as though it might afford him a few berries; and he was on the point of taking to the road, when he heard the rumbling of a wagon in the distance. His heart beat with apprehension. Perhaps it was some officer of the institution in search of him. At any rate it was some one who had come from the vicinity of the Reform School, and who had probably heard of his escape. As it came nearer, he heard the jingling of bells; it was the baker. How he longed for a loaf of his bread, or some of the precious ginger-bread he carried in his cart! Hunger tempted him to run the risk of exposure. He had money; he could buy cakes and bread; and perhaps the baker had a kind heart, and would befriend him in his distress. The wagon was close at hand. "Now or never," thought he; but this time it was not _now_. The risk was too great. If he failed now, two years of captivity were before him; and as for the hunger, he could grin and bear it for a while. "Now or never;" but this time it was escape now or never; and he permitted the baker to pass without hailing him. He waited half an hour, and then determined to take the road till he had crossed the creek. The danger was great, but the pangs of hunger urged him on. He was sure there were berries in the pasture, and with a timid step, carefully watching before and behind to insure himself against surprise, he crossed the bridge. But then a new difficulty presented itself. There was a house within ten rods of the bridge, which he must pass, and to do so would expose him to the most imminent peril. He was on the point of retreating, when a man came out of the house, and approached him. What should he do? It was a trying moment. If he ran, the act would expose him to suspicion. If he went forward, the man might have already received a description of him, and arrest him. He chose the latter course. The instinct of his being was to do every thing in a straightforward manner, and this probably prompted his decision. "Good morning, sir," said he boldly to the man. "Good morning. Where are you travelling?" This was a hard question. He did not know where he was travelling; besides, even in his present difficult position, he could not readily resort to a lie. "Down here a piece," he replied. "Travelled far to-day?" "Not far. Good morning, sir;" and Bobby resumed his walk. "I say, boy, suppose you tell me where you are going;" and the man came close to him, and deliberately surveyed him from head to foot. "I can hardly tell you," replied Bobby, summoning courage for the occasion. "Well, I suppose not," added the man, with a meaning smile. Bobby felt his strength desert him as he realized that he was suspected of being a runaway from the Reform School. That smile on the man's face was the knell of hope; and for a moment he felt a flood of misery roll over his soul. But the natural elasticity of his spirits soon came to his relief, and he resolved not to give up the ship, even if he had to fight for it. "I am in a hurry, so I shall have to leave you." "Not just yet, young man. Perhaps, as you don't know where you are going, you may remember what your name is," continued the man, good naturedly. There was a temptation to give a false name; but is it was so strongly beaten into our hero that the truth is better than a falsehood, he held his peace. "Excuse me, sir, but I can't stop to talk now." "In a hurry? Well, I dare say you are. I suppose there is no doubt but you are Master Robert Bright." "Not the least, sir; I haven't denied it yet, and I am not ashamed of my name," replied Bobby, with a good deal of spirit. "That's honest; I like that." "Honesty is the best policy," added Bobby. "That's cool for a rogue, any how. You ought to thought of that afore." "I did." "And stole the money?" "I didn't. I never stole a penny in my life." "Come, I like that." "It is the truth." "But they won't believe it over to the Reform school," laughed the man. "They will one of these days, perhaps." "You are a smart youngster; but I don't know as I can make five dollars any easier than by taking you back where you come from." "Yes, you can," replied Bobby, promptly. "Can I?" "Yes." "How?" "By letting me go." "Eh; you talk flush. I suppose you mean to give me your note, payable when the Kennebec dries up." "Cash on the nail," replied Bobby. "You look like a man with a heart in your bosom."--Bobby stole this passage from "The Wayfarer." "I reckon I have. The time hasn't come yet when Sam Ray could see a fellow-creature in distress and not help him out. But to help a thief off--" "We will argue that matter," interposed Bobby. "I can prove to you beyond a doubt that I am innocent of the crime charged upon me." "You don't look like a bad boy, I must say." "But, Mr. Ray, I'm hungry; I haven't eaten a mouthful since yesterday noon." "Thunder! You don't say so!" exclaimed Sam Ray. "I never could bear to see a man hungry, much more a boy; so come along to my house and get something to eat, and we will talk about the other matter afterwards." Sam Ray took Bobby to the little old house in which he dwelt; and in a short time his wife, who expressed her sympathy for the little fugitive in the warmest terms, had placed an abundant repast upon the table. Our hero did ample justice to it, and when he had finished he felt like a new creature. "Now, Mr. Ray, let me tell you my story," said Bobby. "I don't know as it's any use. Now you have eat my bread and butter, I don't feel like being mean to you. If any body else wants to carry you back, they may; I won't." "But you shall hear me;" and Bobby proceeded to deliver his "plain, unvarnished tale." When he had progressed but a little way in the narrative, the noise of an approaching vehicle was heard. Sam looked out of the window, as almost every body does in the country when a carriage passes. "By thunder! It's the Reform School wagon!" exclaimed he. "This way, boy!" and the good-hearted man thrust him into his chamber, bidding him get under the bed. The carriage stopped at the house; but Sam evaded direct reply, and the superintendent--for it was he--proceeded on his search. "Heaven bless you, Mr. Ray!" exclaimed Bobby, when he came out of the chamber, as the tears of gratitude coursed down his cheeks. "O, you will find Sam Ray all right," said he, warmly pressing Bobby's proffered hand. "I ain't quite a heathen, though some folks around here think so." "You are an angel!" "Not exactly," laughed Sam. Our hero finished his story, and confirmed it by exhibiting his account book and some other papers which he had retained. Sam Ray was satisfied, and vowed that if ever he saw Tom Spicer he would certainly "lick" him for his sake. "Now, sonny, I like you; I will be sworn you are a good fellow; and I mean to help you off. So just come along with me. I make my living by browsing round, hunting and fishing a little, and doing an odd job now and then. You see, I have got a good boat down the creek, and I shall just put you aboard and take you any where you have a mind to go." "May Heaven reward you!" cried Bobby, almost overcome by this sudden and unexpected kindness. "O, I don't want no reward; only when you get to be a great man--and I am dead sure you will be a great man--just think now and then of Sam Ray, and it's all right." "I shall remember you with gratitude as long as I live." Sam Ray took his gun on his shoulder, and Bobby the box of provision which Mrs. Ray had put up, and they left the house. At the bridge they got into a little skiff, and Sam took the oars. After they had passed a bend in the creek which concealed them from the road, Bobby felt secure from further molestation. Sam pulled about two miles down the creek, where it widened into a broad bay, near the head of which was anchored a small schooner. "Now, my hearty, nothing short of Uncle Sam's whole navy can get you away from me," said Sam, as he pulled alongside the schooner. "You have been very kind to me." "All right, sonny. Now tumble aboard." Bobby jumped upon the deck of the little craft and Sam followed him, after making fast the skiff to the schooner's moorings. In a few minutes the little vessel was standing down the bay with "a fresh wind and a flowing sheet." Bobby, who had never been in a sail boat before, was delighted, and in no measured terms expressed his admiration of the working of the trim little craft. "Now, sonny, where shall we go?" asked Sam, as they emerged from the bay into the broad ocean. "I don't know," replied Bobby. "I want to get back to Boston." "Perhaps I can put you aboard of some coaster bound there." "That will do nicely." "I will head towards Boston, and if I don't overhaul any thing, I will take you there myself." "Is this boat big enough to go so far?" "She'll stand anything short of a West India hurricane. You ain't afeerd, are you?" "O, no; I like it." The big waves now tossed the little vessel up and down like a feather, and the huge seas broke upon the bow, deluging her deck with floods of water. Bobby had unlimited confidence in Sam Ray, and felt as much at home as though he had been "cradled upon the briny deep." There was an excitement in the scene which accorded with his nature, and the perils which he had so painfully pictured on the preceding night were all born into the most lively joys. They ate their dinners from the provision box; Sam lighted his pipe, and many a tale he told of adventure by sea and land. Bobby felt happy, and almost dreaded the idea of parting with his rough but good-hearted friend They were now far out at sea, and the night was coming on. "Now, sonny, you had better turn in and take a snooze; you didn't rest much last night." "I am not sleepy; but there is one thing I will do; and Bobby drew from his secret receptacle his roll of bills. "Put them up, sonny," said Sam. "I want to make you a present of ten dollars." "You can't do it." "Nay, but to please me." "No, sir!" "Well, then, let me send it to your good wife." "You can't do that, nuther," replied Sam, gazing earnestly at a lumber-laden schooner ahead of him. "You must; your good heart made you lose five dollars, and I insist upon making it up to you." "You can't do it." "I shall feel bad if you don't take it. You see I have twenty dollars here, and I would like to give you the whole of it." "Not a cent, sonny. I ain't a heathen. That schooner ahead is bound for Boston, I reckon." "I shall be sorry to part with you, Mr. Ray." "Just my sentiment. I hain't seen a youngster afore for many a day that I took a fancy to, and I hate to let you go." "We shall meet again." "I hope so." "Please to take this money." "No;" and Sam shook his head so resolutely that Bobby gave up the point. As Sam had conjectured, the lumber schooner was bound to Boston. Her captain readily agreed to take our hero on board, and he sadly bade adieu to his kind friend. "Good by, Mr. Ray," said Bobby, as the schooner filled away. "Take this to remember me by." It was his jackknife; but Sam did not discover the ten dollar bill, which was shut beneath the blade, till it was too late to return it. Bobby did not cease to wave his hat to Sam till his little craft disappeared in the darkness. CHAPTER XX. IN WHICH THE CLOUDS BLOW OVER, AND BOBBY IS HIMSELF AGAIN. Fortunately for Bobby, the wind began to blow very heavily soon after he went on board of the lumber schooner, so that the captain was too much engaged in working his vessel to ask many questions. He was short handed, and though our hero was not much of a sailor, he made himself useful to the best of his ability. Though the wind was heavy, it was not fair; and it was not till the third morning after his parting with Sam Ray that the schooner arrived off Boston Light. The captain then informed him that, as the tide did not favor him, he might not get up to the city for twenty-four hours; and, if he was in a hurry, he would put him on board a pilot boat which he saw standing up the channel. "Thank you, captain; you are very kind, but it would give you a great deal of trouble," said Bobby. "None at all. We must wait here till the tide turns; so we have nothing better to do." "I should be very glad to get up this morning." "You shall, then;" and the captain ordered two men to get out the jolly boat. "I will pay my passage now, if you please." "That is paid." "Paid?" "I should say you had worked your passage. You have done very well, and I shall not charge you any thing." "I expected to pay my passage, captain; but if you think I have done enough to pay it, why, I have nothing to say, only that I am very much obliged to you." "You ought to be a sailor, young man; you were cut out for one." "I like the sea, though I never saw it till a few weeks since. But I suppose my mother would not let me go to sea." "I suppose not. Mothers are always afraid of salt water." By this time the jolly boat was alongside; and bidding the captain adieu, he jumped into it, and the men pulled him to the pilot boat, which had come up into the wind at the captain's hail. Bobby was kindly received on board, and in a couple of hours landed at the wharf in Boston. With a beating heart he made his way up into Washington Street. He felt strangely; his cheeks seemed to tingle, for he was aware that the imputation of dishonesty was fastened upon him. He could not doubt but that the story of his alleged crime had reached the city, and perhaps gone to his friends in Riverdale. How his poor mother must have wept to think her son was a thief! No; she never could have thought that. _She_ knew he would not steal, if no one else did. And Annie Lee--would she ever smile upon him again? Would she welcome him to her father's house so gladly as she had done in the past? He could bring nothing to establish his innocence but his previous character. Would not Mr. Bayard frown upon him? Would not even Ellen be tempted to forget the service he had rendered her? Bobby had thought of all these things before--on his cold, damp bed in the forest, in the watches of the tempestuous night onboard the schooner. But now, when he was almost in the presence of those he loved and respected, they had more force, and they nearly overwhelmed him. "I am innocent," he repeated to himself, "and why need I fear? My good Father in heaven will not let me be wronged." Yet he could not overcome his anxiety; and when he reached the store of Mr. Bayard, he passed by, dreading to face the friend who had been so kind to him. He could not bear even to be suspected of a crime by him. "Now or never," said he, as he turned round. "I will know my fate at once, and then make the best of it." Mustering all his courage, he entered the store. Mr. Timmins was not there; so he was spared the infliction of any ill-natured remark from him. "Hallo, Bobby!" exclaimed the gentlemanly salesman, whose acquaintance he had made on his first visit. "Good morning, Mr. Bigelow," replied Bobby with as much boldness as he could command. "I didn't know as I should ever see you again. You have been gone a long while." "Longer than usual," answered Bobby, with a blush; for he considered the remark of the salesman as an allusion to his imprisonment. "Is Mr. Bayard in?" "He is--in his office." Bobby's feet would hardly obey the mandate of his will, and with a faltering step he entered the private room of the bookseller. Mr. Bayard was absorbed in the perusal of the morning paper, and did not observe his entrance. With his heart up in his throat, and almost choking him, he stood for several minutes upon the threshold. He almost feared to speak, dreading the severe frown with which he expected to be received. Suspense, however, was more painful than condemnation, and he brought his resolution up to the point. "Mr. Bayard," said he, in faltering tones. "Bobby!" exclaimed the bookseller, dropping his paper upon the floor, and jumping upon his feet as though an electric current had passed through his frame. Grasping our hero's hand, he shook it with so much energy that, under any other circumstances, Bobby would have thought it hurt him. He did not think so now. "My poor Bobby! I am delighted to see you!" continued Mr. Bayard. Bobby burst into tears, and sobbed like a child, as he was. The unexpected kindness of this reception completely overwhelmed him. "Don't cry, Bobby; I know all about it;" and the tender-hearted bookseller wiped away his tears. "It was a stroke of misfortune; but it is all right now." But Bobby could not help crying, and the more Mr. Bayard, attempted to console him, the more he wept. "I am innocent, Mr. Bayard," he sobbed. "I know you are, Bobby; and all the world knows you are." "I am ruined now; I shall never dare to hold my head up again." "Nonsense, Bobby; you will hold your head the higher. You have behaved like a hero." "I ran away from the State Reform School, sir. I was innocent, and I would rather have died than staid there." "I know all about it, my young friend. Now dry your tears, and we will talk it all over." Bobby blowed and sputtered a little more; but finally he composed himself, and took a chair by Mr. Bayard's side. The bookseller then drew from his pocket a ponderous document, with a big official seal upon it, and exhibited it to our hero. "Do you see this, Bobby? It is your free and unconditional pardon." "Sir! Why--" "It will all end well, you may depend." Bobby was amazed. His pardon? But it would not restore his former good name. He felt that he was branded as a felon. It was not mercy, but justice that he wanted. "Truth is mighty, and will prevail," continued Mr. Bayard; "and this document restores your reputation." "I can hardly believe that." "Can't you? Hear my story then. When I read in one of the Maine papers the account of your misfortune, I felt that you had been grossly wronged. You were coupled with that Tom Spicer, who is the most consummate little villain I ever saw, and I understood your situation. Ah, Bobby, your only mistake was in having anything to do with that fellow." "I left him at Brunswick because he began to behave badly; but he joined me again at Augusta. He had spent nearly all his money, and did not know what to do. I pitied him, and meant to do something to help him out of the scrape." "Generous as ever! I have heard all about this before." "Indeed; who told you?" "Tom Spicer himself." "Tom?" asked Bobby, completely mystified. "Yes, Tom; you see, when I heard about your trouble, Squire Lee and myself--" "Squire Lee? Does he know about it?" "He does; and you may depend upon it, he thinks more highly of you than ever before. He and I immediately went down to Augusta to inquire into the matter. We called upon the governor of the state, who said that he had seen you, and bought a book of you." "Of me!" exclaimed Bobby, startled to think he had sold a book to a governor. "Yes; you called at his house; probably you did not know that he was the chief magistrate of the state. At any rate, he was very much pleased with you, and sorry to hear of your misfortune. Well, we followed your route to Brunswick, where we ascertained how Tom had conducted. In a week he established a very bad reputation there; but nothing could be found to implicate you. The squire testified to your uniform good behavior, and especially to your devotion to your mother. In short, we procured your pardon, and hastened with it to the State Reform School. "On our arrival, we learned, to our surprise and regret, that you had escaped from the institution on the preceding evening. Every effort was made to retake you, but without success. Ah, Bobby, you managed that well." "They didn't look in the right place," replied Bobby, with a smile, for he began to feel happy again. "By the permission of the superintendent, Squire Lee and myself examined Tom Spicer. He is a great rascal. Perhaps he thought we would get him out; so he made a clean breast of it, and confessed that you had no hand in the robbery, and that you knew nothing about it. He gave you the two bills on purpose to implicate you in the crime. We wrote down his statement, and had it sworn to before a justice of the peace. You shall read it by and by." "May Heaven reward you for your kindness to a poor boy!" exclaimed Bobby, the tears flowing down his cheeks again. "I did not deserve so much from you, Mr. Bayard." "Yes, you did, and a thousand times more. I was very sorry you had left the institution, and I waited in the vicinity till they said there was no probability that you would be captured. The most extraordinary efforts were used to find you; but there was not a person to be found who had seen or heard of you. I was very much alarmed about you, and offered a hundred dollars for any information concerning you." "I am sorry you had so much trouble. I wish I had known you were there." "How did you get off?" Bobby briefly related the story of his escape, and Mr. Bayard pronounced his skill worthy of his genius. "Sam Ray is a good fellow; we will remember him," added the bookseller, when he had finished. "I shall remember him; and only that I shall be afraid to go into the State of Maine after what has happened, I should pay him a visit one of these days." "There you are wrong. Those who know your story would sooner think of giving you a public reception, than of saying or doing any thing to injure your feelings. Those who have suffered unjustly are always lionized." "But no one will know my story, only that I was sent to prison for stealing." "There you are mistaken again. We put articles in all the principal papers, stating the facts in the case, and establishing your innocence beyond a peradventure. Go to Augusta now, Bobby, and you will be a lion." "I am sure I had no idea of getting out of the scrape so easily as this." "Innocence shall triumph, my young friend." "What does mother say?" asked Bobby, his countenance growing sad. "I do not know. We returned from Maine only yesterday; but Squire Lee will satisfy her. All that can worry her, as it has worried me, will be her fears for your safety when she hears of your escape." "I will soon set her mind at ease upon that point. I will take the noon train home." "A word about business before you go. I discharged Timmins about a week ago, and I have kept his place for you." "By gracious!" exclaimed Bobby, thrown completely out of his propriety by this announcement. "I think you will do better, in the long run, than you would to travel about the country. I was talking with Ellen about it, and she says it shall be so. Timmins's salary was five hundred dollars a year, and you shall have the same." "Five hundred dollars a year!" ejaculated Bobby, amazed at the vastness of the sum. "Very well for a boy of thirteen, Bobby." "I was fourteen last Sunday, sir." "I would not give any other boy so much; but you are worth it, and you shall have it." Probably Mr. Bayard's gratitude had something to do with this munificent offer; but he knew that our hero possessed abilities and energy far beyond his years. He further informed Bobby that he should have a room at his house, and that Ellen was delighted with the arrangement he proposed. The gloomy, threatening clouds were all rolled back, and floods of sunshine streamed in upon the soul of the little merchant; but in the midst of his rejoicing be remembered that his own integrity had carried him safely through the night of sorrow and doubt. He had been true to himself, and now, in the hour of his great triumph, he realized that, if he had been faithless to the light within him, his laurel would have been a crown of thorns. He was happy--very happy. What made him so? Not his dawning prosperity; not the favor of Mr. Bayard; not the handsome salary he was to receive; for all these things would have been but dross, if he had sacrificed his integrity, his love of truth and uprightness. He had been true to himself, and unseen angels had held him up. He had been faithful, and the consciousness of his fidelity to principle made a heaven within his heart. It was arranged that he should enter upon the duties of his new situation on the following week. After settling with Mr. Bayard, he found he had nearly seventy dollars in his possession; so that in a pecuniary point of view, if in no other, his eastern excursion was perfectly satisfactory. By the noon train he departed for Riverdale, and in two hours more he was folded to his mother's heart. Mrs. Bright wept for joy now, as she had before wept in misery when she heard of her son's misfortune. It took him all the afternoon to tell his exciting story to her, and she was almost beside herself when Bobby told her about his new situation. After tea he hastened over to Squire Lee's; and my young readers can imagine what a warm reception he had from father and daughter. For the third time that day he narrated his adventures in the east; and Annie declared they were better than any novel she had ever read. Perhaps it was because Bobby was the hero. It was nearly ten o'clock before he finished his story; and when he left, the squire made him promise to come over the next day. CHAPTER XXI. IN WHICH BOBBY STEPS OFF THE STAGE, AND THE AUTHOR MUST FINISH "NOW OR NEVER." The few days which Bobby remained at home before entering upon the duties of his new situation were agreeably filled up in calling upon his many friends, and in visiting those pleasant spots in the woods and by the river, which years of association had rendered dear to him. His plans for the future too, occupied some of his time, though, inasmuch as his path of duty was already marked out, these plans were but little more than a series of fond imaginings; in short, little more than day dreams. I have before hinted that Bobby was addicted to castle building, and I should pity the man or boy who was not--who had no bright dream of future achievements, of future usefulness. "As a man thinketh, so is he," the Psalmist tells us, and it was the pen of inspiration which wrote it. What a man pictures as his ideal of that which is desirable in this world and the world to come, he will endeavor to attain. Even if it be no higher aim than the possession of wealth or fame, it is good and worthy as far as it goes. It fires his brain, it nerves his arm. It stimulates him to action, and action is the soul of progress. We must all work; and this world were cold and dull if it had no bright dreams to be realized. What Napoleon dreamed, he labored to accomplish, and the monarchs of Europe trembled before him. What Howard wished to be, he labored to be; his ideal was beautiful and true, and he raised a throne which will endure through eternity. Bobby dreamed great things. That bright picture of the little black house transformed into a white cottage, with green blinds, and surrounded by a pretty fence, was the nearest object; and before Mrs. Bright was aware that he was in earnest, the carpenters and the painters were upon the spot. "Now or never," replied Bobby to his mother's remonstrance. "This is your home, and it shall be the pleasantest spot upon earth, if I can make it so." Then he had to dream about his business in Boston and I am not sure but that he fancied himself a rich merchant, like Mr. Bayard, living in an elegant house in Chestnut Street, and having clerks and porters to do as he bade them. A great many young men dream such things, and though they seem a little silly when spoken out loud, they are what wood and water are to the steam engine--they are the mainspring of action. Some are stupid enough to dream about these things, and spend their time in idleness, and dissipation, waiting for "the good time coming." It will never come to them. They are more likely to die in the almshouse or the state prison, than to ride in their carriages; for constant exertion is the price of success. Bobby enjoyed himself to the utmost of his capacity during these few days of respite from labor. He spent a liberal share of his time at Squire Lee's where he was almost as much at home as in his mother's house. Annie read Moore's Poems to him, till he began to have quite a taste for poetry himself. In connection with Tom Spicer's continued absence, which had to be explained, Bobby's trials in the eastern country leaked out, and the consequence was, that he became a lion in Riverdale. The minister invited him to tea, as well as other prominent persons, for the sake of hearing his story; but Bobby declined the polite invitations from sheer bashfulness. He had not brass enough to make himself a hero; besides, the remembrance of his journey was any thing but pleasant to him. On Monday morning he took the early train for Boston, and assumed the duties of his situation in Mr. Bayard's store. But as I have carried my hero through the eventful period of his life, I cannot dwell upon his subsequent career. He applied himself with all the energy of his nature to the discharge of his duties. Early in the morning and late in the evening he was at his post, Mr. Bigelow was his friend from the first, and gave him all the instruction he required. His intelligence and quick perception soon enabled him to master the details of the business, and by the time he was fifteen, he was competent to perform any service required of him. By the advice of Mr. Bayard, he attended an evening school for six months in the year, to acquire a knowledge of book keeping, and to compensate for the opportunities of which he had been necessarily deprived in his earlier youth. He took Dr. Franklin for his model, and used all his spare time in reading good books, and in obtaining such information and such mental culture as would fit him to be, not only a good merchant, but a good and true man. Every Saturday night he went home to Riverdale to spend the Sabbath with his mother. The little black house no longer existed, for it had become the little paradise of which he had dreamed, only that the house seemed whiter, the blinds greener, and the fence more attractive than his fancy had pictured them. His mother, after a couple of years, at Bobby's earnest pleadings, ceased to close shoes and take in washing; but she had enough and to spare, for her son's salary was now six hundred dollars. His kind employer boarded him for nothing, (much against Bobby's will, I must say,) so that every month he carried to his mother thirty dollars, which more than paid her expenses. * * * * * Eight years have passed by since Bobby--we beg his pardon; he is now Mr. Robert Bright--entered the store of Mr. Bayard. He has passed from the boy to the man. Over the street door a new sign has taken the place of the old one, and the passer-by reads,-- BAYARD & BRIGHT, BOOKSELLERS AND PUBLISHERS. The senior partner resorts to his counting room every morning from the force of habit; but he takes no active part in the business. Mr. Bright has frequent occasion to ask his advice, though every thing is directly managed by him; and the junior is accounted one of the ablest, but at the same time one of the most honest, business men in the city. His integrity has never been sacrificed, even to the emergencies of trade. The man is what the boy was; and we can best sum up the results of his life by saying that he has been true to himself, true to his friends and true to his God. Mrs. Bright is still living at the little white cottage, happy in herself and happy in her children. Bobby--we mean Mr. Bright--has hardly missed going to Riverdale on a Saturday night since he left home, eight years before. He has the same partiality for those famous apple pies, and his mother would as soon think of being without bread as being without apple pies when he comes home. Of course Squire Lee and Annie were always glad to see him when he came to Riverdale; and for two years it had been common talk in Riverdale that our hero did not go home on Sunday evening when the clock struck nine. But as this is a forbidden topic, we will ask the reader to go with us to Mr. Bayard's house in Chestnut Street. What! Annie Lee here? No; but as you are here, allow me to introduce Mrs. Robert Bright. They were married a few months before, and Mr. Bayard insisted that the happy couple should make their home at his house. But where is Ellen Bayard? O, she is Mrs. Bigelow now, and her husband is at the head of a large book establishment in New York. Bobby's dream had been realised, and he was the happiest man in the world--at least he thought so, which is just the same thing. He had been successful in business; his wife--the friend and companion of his youth, the brightest filament of the bright vision his fancy had woven--had been won, and the future glowed with brilliant promises. He had been successful; but neither nor all of the things we have mentioned constituted his highest and truest success--not his business prosperity, not the bright promise of wealth in store for him, not his good name among men, not even the beautiful and loving wife who had cast her lot with his to the end of time. These were successes, great and worthy, but not the highest success. He had made himself a man,--this was his real success,--a true, a Christian man. He had lived a noble life. He had reared the lofty structure of his manhood upon a solid foundation--principle. It is the rock which the winds of temptation and the rains of selfishness cannot move. Robert Bright is happy because he is good. Tom Spicer, now in the state prison, is unhappy,--not _because_ he is in the state prison, but because the evil passions of his nature are at war with the peace of his soul. He has fed the good that was within him upon straw and husks, and starved it out. He is a body only; the soul is dead in trespasses and sin. He loves no one, and no one loves him. During the past summer, Mr. Bright and his lady took a journey "down east." Annie insisted upon visiting the State Reform School; and her husband drove through the forest by which he had made his escape on that eventful night. Afterwards they called upon Sam Ray, who had been "dead sure that Bobby would one day be a great man." He was about the same person, and was astonished and delighted when our hero introduced himself. They spent a couple of hours in talking over the past, and at his departure, Mr. Bright made him a handsome present in such a delicate manner that he could not help accepting it. Squire Lee is still as hale and hearty as ever, and is never so happy as when Annie and her husband come to Riverdale to spend the Sabbath. He is fully of the opinion that Mr. Bright is the greatest man on the western continent, and he would not be in the least surprised if he should be elected president of the United States one of these days. The little merchant is a great merchant now. But more than this, he is a good man. He has formed his character, and he will probably die as he has lived. Reader, if yon have any good work to do, do it now, for with you it may be "NOW OR NEVER." 
37981	----	Transcriber's Note: Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. [Illustration: "The best of all were the cosey talks we had in the twilight." _Frontispiece._] MAY FLOWERS BY LOUISA M. ALCOTT AUTHOR OF "LITTLE WOMEN," "LITTLE MEN," "AN OLD-FASHIONED GIRL," ETC. Illustrated BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY _Copyright, 1887_, BY LOUISA M. ALCOTT. _Copyright, 1899_, BY JOHN S. P. ALCOTT. University Press JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. MAY FLOWERS Being Boston girls, of course they got up a club for mental improvement, and, as they were all descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers, they called it the May Flower Club. A very good name, and the six young girls who were members of it made a very pretty posy when they met together, once a week, to sew, and read well-chosen books. At the first meeting of the season, after being separated all summer, there was a good deal of gossip to be attended to before the question, "What shall we read?" came up for serious discussion. Anna Winslow, as president, began by proposing "Happy Dodd;" but a chorus of "I've read it!" made her turn to her list for another title. "'Prisoners of Poverty' is all about workingwomen, very true and very sad; but Mamma said it might do us good to know something of the hard times other girls have," said Anna, soberly; for she was a thoughtful creature, very anxious to do her duty in all ways. "I'd rather not know about sad things, since I can't help to make them any better," answered Ella Carver, softly patting the apple blossoms she was embroidering on a bit of blue satin. "But we might help if we really tried, I suppose; you know how much Happy Dodd did when she once began, and she was only a poor little girl without half the means of doing good which we have," said Anna, glad to discuss the matter, for she had a little plan in her head and wanted to prepare a way for proposing it. "Yes, I'm always saying that I have more than my share of fun and comfort and pretty things, and that I ought and will share them with some one. But I don't do it; and now and then, when I hear about real poverty, or dreadful sickness, I feel _so_ wicked it quite upsets me. If I knew _how_ to begin, I really would. But dirty little children don't come in my way, nor tipsy women to be reformed, nor nice lame girls to sing and pray with, as it all happens in books," cried Marion Warren, with such a remorseful expression on her merry round face that her mates laughed with one accord. "I know something that I _could_ do if I only had the courage to begin it. But Papa would shake his head unbelievingly, and Mamma worry about its being proper, and it would interfere with my music, and everything nice that I especially wanted to go to would be sure to come on whatever day I set for my good work, and I should get discouraged or ashamed, and not half do it, so I don't begin, but I know I ought." And Elizabeth Alden rolled her large eyes from one friend to another, as if appealing to them to goad her to this duty by counsel and encouragement of some sort. "Well, I suppose it's right, but I do perfectly hate to go poking round among poor folks, smelling bad smells, seeing dreadful sights, hearing woful tales, and running the risk of catching fever, and diphtheria, and horrid things. I don't pretend to like charity, but say right out I'm a silly, selfish wretch, and want to enjoy every minute, and not worry about other people. Isn't it shameful?" Maggie Bradford looked such a sweet little sinner as she boldly made this sad confession, that no one could scold her, though Ida Standish, her bosom friend, shook her head, and Anna said, with a sigh: "I'm afraid we all feel very much as Maggie does, though we don't own it so honestly. Last spring, when I was ill and thought I might die, I was so ashamed of my idle, frivolous winter, that I felt as if I'd give all I had to be able to live it over and do better. Much is not expected of a girl of eighteen, I know; but oh! there were heaps of kind little things I _might_ have done if I hadn't thought only of myself. I resolved if I lived I'd try at least to be less selfish, and make some one happier for my being in the world. I tell you, girls, it's rather solemn when you lie expecting to die, and your sins come up before you, even though they are very small ones. I never shall forget it, and after my lovely summer I mean to be a better girl, and lead a better life if I can." Anna was so much in earnest that her words, straight out of a very innocent and contrite heart, touched her hearers deeply, and put them into the right mood to embrace her proposition. No one spoke for a moment, then Maggie said quietly,-- "I know what it is. I felt very much so when the horses ran away, and for fifteen minutes I sat clinging to Mamma, expecting to be killed. Every unkind, undutiful word I'd ever said to her came back to me, and was worse to bear than the fear of sudden death. It scared a great deal of naughtiness out of me, and dear Mamma and I have been more to each other ever since." "Let us begin with 'The Prisoners of Poverty,' and perhaps it will show us something to do," said Lizzie. "But I must say I never felt as if shop-girls needed much help; they generally seem so contented with themselves, and so pert or patronizing to us, that I don't pity them a bit, though it must be a hard life." "I think we can't do _much_ in that direction, except set an example of good manners when we go shopping. I wanted to propose that we each choose some small charity for this winter, and do it faithfully. That will teach us how to do more by and by, and we can help one another with our experiences, perhaps, or amuse with our failures. What do you say?" asked Anna, surveying her five friends with a persuasive smile. "What _could_ we do?" "People will call us goody-goody." "I haven't the least idea how to go to work." "Don't believe Mamma will let me." "We'd better change our names from May Flowers to sisters of charity, and wear meek black bonnets and flapping cloaks." Anna received these replies with great composure, and waited for the meeting to come to order, well knowing that the girls would have their fun and outcry first, and then set to work in good earnest. "I think it's a lovely idea, and I'll carry out my plan. But I won't tell what it is yet; you'd all shout, and say I couldn't do it, but if you were trying also, that would keep me up to the mark," said Lizzie, with a decided snap of her scissors, as she trimmed the edges of a plush case for her beloved music. "Suppose we all keep our attempts secret, and not let our right hand know what the left hand does? It's such fun to mystify people, and then no one _can_ laugh at us. If we fail, we can say nothing; if we succeed, we can tell of it and get our reward. I'd like that way, and will look round at once for some especially horrid boot-black, ungrateful old woman, or ugly child, and devote myself to him, her, or it with the patience of a saint," cried Maggie, caught by the idea of doing good in secret and being found out by accident. The other girls agreed, after some discussion, and then Anna took the floor again. "I propose that we each work in our own way till next May, then, at our last meeting, report what we have done, truly and honestly, and plan something better for next year. Is it a vote?" It evidently was a unanimous vote, for five gold thimbles went up, and five blooming faces smiled as the five girlish voices cried, "Aye!" "Very well, now let us decide what to read, and begin at once. I think the 'Prisoners' a good book, and we shall doubtless get some hints from it." So they began, and for an hour one pleasant voice after the other read aloud those sad, true stories of workingwomen and their hard lives, showing these gay young creatures what their pretty clothes cost the real makers of them, and how much injustice, suffering, and wasted strength went into them. It was very sober reading, but most absorbing; for the crochet needles went slower and slower, the lace-work lay idle, and a great tear shone like a drop of dew on the apple blossoms as Ella listened to "Rose's Story." They skipped the statistics, and dipped here and there as each took her turn; but when the two hours were over, and it was time for the club to adjourn, all the members were deeply interested in that pathetic book, and more in earnest than before; for this glimpse into other lives showed them how much help was needed, and made them anxious to lend a hand. "We can't do much, being 'only girls,'" said Anna; "but if each does one small chore somewhere it will pave the way for better work; so we will all try, at least, though it seems like so many ants trying to move a mountain." "Well, ants build nests higher than a man's head in Africa; you remember the picture of them in our old geographies? And we can do as much, I'm sure, if each tugs her pebble or straw faithfully. I shall shoulder mine to-morrow if Mamma is willing," answered Lizzie, shutting up her work-bag as if she had her resolution inside and was afraid it might evaporate before she got home. "I shall stand on the Common, and proclaim aloud, 'Here's a nice young missionary, in want of a job! Charity for sale cheap! Who'll buy? who'll buy?'" said Maggie, with a resigned expression, and a sanctimonious twang to her voice. "I shall wait and see what comes to me, since I don't know what I'm fit for;" and Marion gazed out of the window as if expecting to see some interesting pauper waiting for her to appear. "I shall ask Miss Bliss for advice; she knows all about the poor, and will give me a good start," added prudent Ida, who resolved to do nothing rashly lest she should fail. "I shall probably have a class of dirty little girls, and teach them how to sew, as I can't do anything else. They won't learn much, but steal, and break, and mess, and be a dreadful trial, and I shall get laughed at and wish I hadn't done it. Still I shall try it, and sacrifice my fancy-work to the cause of virtue," said Ella, carefully putting away her satin glove-case with a fond glance at the delicate flowers she so loved to embroider. "I have no plans, but want to do so much I shall have to wait till I discover what is best. After to-day we won't speak of our work, or it won't be a secret any longer. In May we will report. Good luck to all, and good-by till next Saturday." With these farewell words from their president the girls departed, with great plans and new ideas simmering in their young heads and hearts. It seemed a vast undertaking; but where there is a will there is always a way, and soon it was evident that each had found "a little chore" to do for sweet charity's sake. Not a word was said at the weekly meetings, but the artless faces betrayed all shades of hope, discouragement, pride, and doubt, as their various attempts seemed likely to succeed or fail. Much curiosity was felt, and a few accidental words, hints, or meetings in queer places, were very exciting, though nothing was discovered. Marion was often seen in a North End car, and Lizzie in a South End car, with a bag of books and papers. Ella haunted a certain shop where fancy articles were sold, and Ida always brought plain sewing to the club. Maggie seemed very busy at home, and Anna was found writing industriously several times when one of her friends called. All seemed very happy, and rather important when outsiders questioned them about their affairs. But they had their pleasures as usual, and seemed to enjoy them with an added relish, as if they realized as never before how many blessings they possessed, and were grateful for them. So the winter passed, and slowly something new and pleasant seemed to come into the lives of these young girls. The listless, discontented look some of them used to wear passed away; a sweet earnestness and a cheerful activity made them charming, though they did not know it, and wondered when people said, "That set of girls are growing up beautifully; they will make fine women by and by." The mayflowers were budding under the snow, and as spring came on the fresh perfume began to steal out, the rosy faces to brighten, and the last year's dead leaves to fall away, leaving the young plants green and strong. On the 15th of May the club met for the last time that year, as some left town early, and all were full of spring work and summer plans. Every member was in her place at an unusually early hour that day, and each wore an air of mingled anxiety, expectation, and satisfaction, pleasant to behold. Anna called them to order with three raps of her thimble and a beaming smile. "We need not choose a book for our reading to-day, as each of us is to contribute an original history of her winter's work. I know it will be very interesting, and I hope more instructive, than some of the novels we have read. Who shall begin?" "You! you!" was the unanimous answer; for all loved and respected her very much, and felt that their presiding officer should open the ball. Anna colored modestly, but surprised her friends by the composure with which she related her little story, quite as if used to public speaking. "You know I told you last November that I should have to look about for something that I _could_ do. I did look a long time, and was rather in despair, when my task came to me in the most unexpected way. Our winter work was being done, so I had a good deal of shopping on my hands, and found it less a bore than usual, because I liked to watch the shop girls, and wish I dared ask some of them if I could help them. I went often to get trimmings and buttons at Cotton's, and had a good deal to do with the two girls at that counter. They were very obliging and patient about matching some jet ornaments for Mamma, and I found out that their names were Mary and Maria Porter. I liked them, for they were very neat and plain in their dress,--not like some, who seem to think that if their waists are small, and their hair dressed in the fashion, it is no matter how soiled their collars are, nor how untidy their nails. Well, one day when I went for certain kinds of buttons which were to be made for us, Maria, the younger one, who took the order, was not there. I asked for her, and Mary said she was at home with a lame knee. I was so sorry, and ventured to put a few questions in a friendly way. Mary seemed glad to tell her troubles, and I found that 'Ria,' as she called her sister, had been suffering for a long time, but did not complain for fear of losing her place. No stools are allowed at Cotton's, so the poor girls stand nearly all day, or rest a minute now and then on a half-opened drawer. I'd seen Maria doing it, and wondered why some one did not make a stir about seats in this place, as they have in other stores and got stools for the shop women. I didn't dare to speak to the gentlemen, but I gave Mary the Jack roses I wore in my breast, and asked if I might take some books or flowers to poor Maria. It was lovely to see her sad face light up and hear her thank me when I went to see her, for she was very lonely without her sister, and discouraged about her place. She did not lose it entirely, but had to work at home, for her lame knee will be a long time in getting well. I begged Mamma and Mrs. Allingham to speak to Mr. Cotton for her; so she got the mending of the jet and bead work to do, and buttons to cover, and things of that sort. Mary takes them to and fro, and Maria feels so happy not to be idle. We also got stools for all the other girls in that shop. Mrs. Allingham is so rich and kind she can do anything, and now it's such a comfort to see those tired things resting when off duty that I often go in and enjoy the sight." Anna paused as cries of "Good! good!" interrupted her tale; but she did not add the prettiest part of it, and tell how the faces of the young women behind the counters brightened when she came in, nor how gladly all served the young lady who showed them what a true gentlewoman was. "I hope that isn't all?" said Maggie, eagerly. "Only a little more. I know you will laugh when I tell you that I've been reading papers to a class of shop girls at the Union once a week all winter." A murmur of awe and admiration greeted this deeply interesting statement; for, true to the traditions of the modern Athens in which they lived, the girls all felt the highest respect for "papers" on any subject, it being the fashion for ladies, old and young, to read and discuss every subject, from pottery to Pantheism, at the various clubs all over the city. "It came about very naturally," continued Anna, as if anxious to explain her seeming audacity. "I used to go to see Molly and Ria, and heard all about their life and its few pleasures, and learned to like them more and more. They had only each other in the world, lived in two rooms, worked all day, and in the way of amusement or instruction had only what they found at the Union in the evening. I went with them a few times, and saw how useful and pleasant it was, and wanted to help, as other kind girls only a little older than I did. Eva Randal read a letter from a friend in Russia one time, and the girls enjoyed it very much. That reminded me of my brother George's lively journals, written when he was abroad. You remember how we used to laugh over them when he sent them home? Well, when I was begged to give them an evening, I resolved to try one of those amusing journal-letters, and chose the best,--all about how George and a friend went to the different places Dickens describes in some of his funny books. I wish you could have seen how those dear girls enjoyed it, and laughed till they cried over the dismay of the boys, when they knocked at a door in Kingsgate Street, and asked if Mrs. Gamp lived there. It was actually a barber's shop, and a little man, very like Poll Sweedlepipes, told them 'Mrs. Britton was the nuss as lived there now.' It upset those rascals to come so near the truth, and they ran away because they couldn't keep sober." The members of the club indulged in a general smile as they recalled the immortal Sairey with "the bottle on the mankle-shelf," the "cowcumber," and the wooden pippins. Then Anna continued, with an air of calm satisfaction, quite sure now of her audience and herself,-- "It was a great success. So I went on, and when the journals were done, I used to read other things, and picked up books for their library, and helped in any way I could, while learning to know them better and give them confidence in me. They are proud and shy, just as we should be, but if you _really_ want to be friends and don't mind rebuffs now and then, they come to trust and like you, and there is so much to do for them one never need sit idle any more. I won't give names, as they don't like it, nor tell how I tried to serve them, but it is very sweet and good for me to have found this work, and to know that each year I can do it better and better. So I feel encouraged and am very glad I began, as I hope you all are. Now, who comes next?" As Anna ended, the needles dropped and ten soft hands gave her a hearty round of applause; for all felt that she had done well, and chosen a task especially fitted to her powers, as she had money, time, tact, and the winning manners that make friends everywhere. Beaming with pleasure at their approval, but feeling that they made too much of her small success, Anna called the club to order by saying, "Ella looks as if she were anxious to tell her experiences, so perhaps we had better ask her to hold forth next." "Hear! hear!" cried the girls; and, nothing loath, Ella promptly began, with twinkling eyes and a demure smile, for _her_ story ended romantically. "If you are interested in shop girls, Miss President and ladies, you will like to know that _I_ am one, at least a silent partner and co-worker in a small fancy store at the West End." "No!" exclaimed the amazed club with one voice; and, satisfied with this sensational beginning, Ella went on. "I really am, and you have bought some of my fancy-work. Isn't that a good joke? You needn't stare so, for I actually made that needle-book, Anna, and my partner knit Lizzie's new cloud. This is the way it all happened. I didn't wish to waste any time, but one can't rush into the street and collar shabby little girls, and say, 'Come along and learn to sew,' without a struggle, so I thought I'd go and ask Mrs. Brown how to begin. Her branch of the Associated Charities is in Laurel Street, not far from our house, you know; and the very day after our last meeting I posted off to get my 'chore.' I expected to have to fit work for poor needlewomen, or go to see some dreadful sick creature, or wash dirty little Pats, and was bracing up my mind for whatever might come, as I toiled up the hill in a gale of wind. Suddenly my hat flew off and went gayly skipping away, to the great delight of some black imps, who only grinned and cheered me on as I trotted after it with wild grabs and wrathful dodges. I got it at last out of a puddle, and there I was in a nice mess. The elastic was broken, feather wet, and the poor thing all mud and dirt. I didn't care much, as it was my old one,--dressed for my work, you see. But I couldn't go home bareheaded, and I didn't know a soul in that neighborhood. I turned to step into a grocery store at the corner, to borrow a brush, or buy a sheet of paper to wear, for I looked like a lunatic with my battered hat and my hair in a perfect mop. Luckily I spied a woman's fancy shop on the other corner, and rushed in there to hide myself, for the brats hooted and people stared. It was a very small shop, and behind the counter sat a tall, thin, washed-out-looking woman, making a baby's hood. She looked poor and blue and rather sour, but took pity on me; and while she sewed the cord, dried the feather, and brushed off the dirt, I warmed myself and looked about to see what I could buy in return for her trouble. "A few children's aprons hung in the little window, with some knit lace, balls, and old-fashioned garters, two or three dolls, and a very poor display of small wares. In a show-case, however, on the table that was the counter, I found some really pretty things, made of plush, silk, and ribbon, with a good deal of taste. So I said I'd buy a needle-book, and a gay ball, and a pair of distracting baby's shoes, made to look like little open-work socks with pink ankle-ties, so cunning and dainty, I was glad to get them for Cousin Clara's baby. The woman seemed pleased, though she had a grim way of talking, and never smiled once. I observed that she handled my hat as if used to such work, and evidently liked to do it. I thanked her for repairing damages so quickly and well, and she said, with my hat on her hand, as if she hated to part with it, 'I'm used to millinaryin' and never should have give it up, if I didn't have my folks to see to. I took this shop, hopin' to make things go, as such a place was needed round here, but mother broke down, and is a sight of care; so I couldn't leave her, and doctors is expensive, and times hard, and I had to drop my trade, and fall back on pins and needles, and so on.'" Ella was a capital mimic, and imitated the nasal tones of the Vermont woman to the life, with a doleful pucker of her own blooming face, which gave such a truthful picture of poor Miss Almira Miller that those who had seen her recognized it at once, and laughed gayly. "Just as I was murmuring a few words of regret at her bad luck," continued Ella, "a sharp voice called out from a back room, 'Almiry! Almiry! come here.' It sounded very like a cross parrot, but it was the old lady, and while I put on my hat I heard her asking who was in the shop, and what we were 'gabbin' about.' Her daughter told her, and the old soul demanded to 'see the gal;' so I went in, being ready for fun as usual. It was a little, dark, dismal place, but as neat as a pin, and in the bed sat a regular Grandma Smallweed smoking a pipe, with a big cap, a snuff-box, and a red cotton handkerchief. She was a tiny, dried-up thing, brown as a berry, with eyes like black beads, a nose and chin that nearly met, and hands like birds' claws. But such a fierce, lively, curious, blunt old lady you never saw, and I didn't know what would be the end of me when she began to question, then to scold, and finally to demand that 'folks should come and trade to Almiry's shop after promisin' they would, and she havin' took a lease of the place on account of them lies.' I wanted to laugh, but dared not do it, so just let her croak, for the daughter had to go to her customers. The old lady's tirade informed me that they came from Vermont, had 'been wal on 't till father died and the farm was sold.' Then it seems the women came to Boston and got on pretty well till 'a stroke of numb-palsy,' whatever that is, made the mother helpless and kept Almiry at home to care for her. I can't tell you how funny and yet how sad it was to see the poor old soul, so full of energy and yet so helpless, and the daughter so discouraged with her pathetic little shop and no customers to speak of. I did not know what to say till 'Grammer Miller,' as the children call her, happened to say, when she took up her knitting after the lecture, 'If folks who go spendin' money reckless on redic'lous toys for Christmas only knew what nice things, useful and fancy, me and Almiry could make ef we had the goods, they'd jest come round this corner and buy 'em, and keep me out of a Old Woman's Home and that good, hard-workin' gal of mine out of a 'sylum; for go there she will ef she don't get a boost somehow, with rent and firin' and vittles all on her shoulders, and me only able to wag them knittin'-needles.' "'I will buy things here and tell all my friends about it, and I have a drawer full of pretty bits of silk and velvet and plush, that I will give Miss Miller for her work, if she will let me.' I added that, for I saw that Almiry was rather proud, and hid her troubles under a grim look. "That pleased the old lady, and, lowering her voice, she said, with a motherly sort of look in her beady eyes: 'Seein' as you are so friendly, I'll tell you what frets me most, a layin' here, a burden to my darter. She kep' company with Nathan Baxter, a master carpenter up to Westminster where we lived, and ef father hadn't a died suddin' they'd a ben married. They waited a number o' years, workin' to their trades, and we was hopin' all would turn out wal, when troubles come, and here we be. Nathan's got his own folks to see to, and Almiry won't add to _his_ load with hern, nor leave me; so she give him back his ring, and jest buckled to all alone. She don't say a word, but it's wearin' her to a shadder, and I can't do a thing to help, but make a few pin-balls, knit garters, and kiver holders. Ef she got a start in business it would cheer her up a sight, and give her a kind of a hopeful prospeck, for old folks can't live forever, and Nathan is a waitin', faithful and true.' "That just finished me, for I am romantic, and do enjoy love stories with all my heart, even if the lovers are only a skinny spinster and a master carpenter. So I just resolved to see what I could do for poor Almiry and the peppery old lady. I didn't promise anything but my bits, and, taking the things I bought, went home to talk it over with Mamma. I found she had often got pins and tape, and such small wares, at the little shop, and found it very convenient, though she knew nothing about the Millers. She was willing I should help if I could, but advised going slowly, and seeing what they could do first. We did not dare to treat them like beggars, and send them money and clothes, and tea and sugar, as we do the Irish, for they were evidently respectable people, and proud as poor. So I took my bundle of odds and ends, and Mamma added some nice large pieces of dresses we had done with, and gave a fine order for aprons and holders and balls for our church fair. "It would have done your hearts good, girls, to see those poor old faces light up as I showed my scraps, and asked if the work would be ready by Christmas. Grammer fairly swam in the gay colors I strewed over her bed, and enjoyed them like a child, while Almiry tried to be grim, but had to give it up, as she began at once to cut aprons, and dropped tears all over the muslin when her back was turned to me. I didn't know a washed-out old maid _could_ be so pathetic." Ella stopped to give a regretful sigh over her past blindness, while her hearers made a sympathetic murmur; for young hearts are very tender, and take an innocent interest in lovers' sorrows, no matter how humble. "Well, that was the beginning of it. I got so absorbed in _making_ things go well that I didn't look any further, but just 'buckled to' with Miss Miller and helped run that little shop. No one knew me in that street, so I slipped in and out, and did what I liked. The old lady and I got to be great friends; though she often pecked and croaked like a cross raven, and was very wearing. I kept her busy with her 'pin-balls and knittin'-work,' and supplied Almiry with pretty materials for the various things I found she could make. You wouldn't believe what dainty bows those long fingers could tie, what ravishing doll's hats she would make out of a scrap of silk and lace, or the ingenious things she concocted with cones and shells and fans and baskets. I love such work, and used to go and help her often, for I wanted her window and shop to be full for Christmas, and lure in plenty of customers. Our new toys, and the little cases of sewing silk sold well, and people began to come more, after I lent Almiry some money to lay in a stock of better goods. Papa enjoyed my business venture immensely, and was never tired of joking about it. He actually went and bought balls for four small black boys who were gluing their noses to the window one day, spellbound by the orange, red, and blue treasures displayed there. He liked my partner's looks, though he teased me by saying that we'd better add lemonade to our stock as poor dear Almiry's acid face would make lemons unnecessary and sugar and water were cheap. "Well, Christmas came, and we did a great business, for Mamma came and sent others, and our fancy things were as pretty and cheaper than those at the art stores, so they went well, and the Millers were cheered up, and I felt encouraged, and we took a fresh start after the holidays. One of my gifts at New Year was my own glove-case,--you remember the apple-blossom thing I began last autumn? I put it in our window to fill up, and Mamma bought it, and gave it to me full of elegant gloves, with a sweet note, and Papa sent a check to 'Miller, Warren, & Co.' I was so pleased and proud I could hardly help telling you all. But the best joke was the day you girls came in and bought our goods, and I peeped at you through the crack of the door, being in the back room dying with laughter to see you look round, and praise our 'nice assortment of useful and pretty articles.'" "That's all very well, and we can bear to be laughed at if you succeeded, Miss. But I don't believe you did, for no Millers are there now. Have you taken a palatial store on Boylston Street for this year, intending to run it alone? We'll all patronize it, and your name will look well on a sign," said Maggie, wondering what the end of Ella's experience had been. "Ah! I still have the best of it, for my romance finished up delightfully, as you shall hear. We did well all winter, and no wonder. What was needed was a little 'boost' in the right direction, and I could give it; so my Millers were much comforted, and we were good friends. But in March Grammer died suddenly, and poor Almiry mourned as if she had been the sweetest mother in the world. The old lady's last wishes were to be 'laid out harnsome in a cap with a pale blue satin ribbin, white wasn't becomin', to hev at least three carriages to the funeral, and be sure a paper with her death in it was sent to N. Baxter, Westminster, Vermont.' "I faithfully obeyed her commands, put on the ugly cap myself, gave a party of old ladies from the Home a drive in the hacks, and carefully directed a marked paper to Nathan, hoping that he _had_ proved 'faithful and true.' I didn't expect he would, so was not surprised when no answer came. But I _was_ rather amazed when Almiry told me she didn't care to keep on with the store now she was free. She wanted to visit her friends a spell this spring, and in the fall would go back to her trade in some milliner's store. "I was sorry, for I really enjoyed my partnership. It seemed a little bit ungrateful after all my trouble in getting her customers, but I didn't say anything, and we sold out to the Widow Bates, who is a good soul with six children, and will profit by our efforts. "Almiry bid me good-by with all the grim look gone out of her face, many thanks, and a hearty promise to write soon. That was in April. A week ago I got a short letter saying,-- "'DEAR FRIEND,--You will be pleased to hear that I am married to Mr. Baxter, and shall remain here. He was away when the paper came with mother's death, but as soon as he got home he wrote. I couldn't make up my mind till I got home and see him. Now it's all right, and I am very happy. Many thanks for all you done for me and mother. I shall never forget it. My husband sends respects, and I remain "'Yours gratefully, "'ALMIRA M. BAXTER.'" "That's splendid! You did well, and next winter you can look up another sour spinster and cranky old lady and make them happy," said Anna, with the approving smile all loved to receive from her. "My adventures are not a bit romantic, or even interesting, and yet I've been as busy as a bee all winter, and enjoyed my work very much," began Elizabeth, as the President gave her a nod. "The plan I had in mind was to go and carry books and papers to the people in hospitals, as one of Mamma's friends has done for years. I went once to the City Hospital with her, and it was very interesting, but I didn't dare to go to the grown people all alone, so I went to the Children's Hospital, and soon loved to help amuse the poor little dears. I saved all the picture-books and papers I could find for them, dressed dolls, and mended toys, and got new ones, and made bibs and night-gowns, and felt like the mother of a large family. "I had my pets, of course, and did my best for them, reading and singing and amusing them, for many suffered very much. One little girl was so dreadfully burned she could not use her hands, and would lie and look at a gay dolly tied to the bedpost by the hour together, and talk to it and love it, and died with it on her pillow when I 'sung lullaby' to her for the last time. I keep it among my treasures, for I learned a lesson in patience from little Norah that I never can forget. [Illustration: "I had my pets of course, and did my best for them."] "Then Jimmy Dolan with hip disease was a great delight to me, for he was as gay as a lark in spite of pain, and a real little hero in the way he bore the hard things that had to be done to him. He never can get well, and he is at home now; but I still see to him, and he is learning to make toy furniture very nicely, so that by and by, if he gets able to work at all, he may be able to learn a cabinet-maker's trade, or some easy work. "But my pet of pets was Johnny, the blind boy. His poor eyes had to be taken out, and there he was left so helpless and pathetic, all his life before him, and no one to help him, for his people were poor, and he had to go away from the hospital since he was incurable. He seemed almost given to me, for the first time I saw him I was singing to Jimmy, when the door opened and a small boy came fumbling in. "'I hear a pretty voice, I want to find it,' he said, stopping as I stopped with both hands out as if begging for more. "'Come on, Johnny, and the lady will sing to you like a bobolink,' called Jimmy, as proud as Barnum showing off Jumbo. "The poor little thing came and stood at my knee, without stirring, while I sang all the nursery jingles I knew. Then he put such a thin little finger on my lips as if to feel where the music came from, and said, smiling all over his white face, 'More, please more, lots of 'em! I love it!' "So I sang away till I was as hoarse as a crow, and Johnny drank it all in like water; kept time with his head, stamped when I gave him 'Marching through Georgia,' and hurrahed feebly in the chorus of 'Red, White, and Blue.' It was lovely to see how he enjoyed it, and I was so glad I had a voice to comfort those poor babies with. He cried when I had to go, and so touched my heart that I asked all about him, and resolved to get him into the Blind School as the only place where he could be taught and made happy." "I thought you were bound there the day I met you, Lizzie; but you looked as solemn as if all your friends had lost their sight," cried Marion. "I did feel solemn, for if Johnny could not go there he would be badly off. Fortunately he was ten, and dear Mrs. Russell helped me, and those good people took him in though they were crowded. 'We cannot turn one away,' said kind Mr. Parpatharges. "So there my boy is, as happy as a king with his little mates, learning all sorts of useful lessons and pretty plays. He models nicely in clay. Here is one of his little works. Could you do as well without eyes?" and Lizzie proudly produced a very one-sided pear with a long straw for a stem. "I don't expect he will ever be a sculptor, but I hope he will do something with music, he loves it so, and is already piping away on a fife very cleverly. Whatever his gift may prove, if he lives, he will be taught to be a useful, independent man, not a helpless burden, nor an unhappy creature sitting alone in the dark. I feel very happy about my lads, and am surprised to find how well I get on with them. I shall look up some more next year, for I really think I have quite a gift that way, though you wouldn't expect it, as I have no brothers, and always had a fancy boys were little imps." The girls were much amused at Lizzie's discovery of her own powers, for she was a stately damsel, who never indulged in romps, but lived for her music. Now it was evident that she had found the key to unlock childish hearts, and was learning to use it, quite unconscious that the sweet voice she valued so highly was much improved by the tender tones singing lullabies gave it. The fat pear was passed round like refreshments, receiving much praise and no harsh criticism; and when it was safely returned to its proud possessor, Ida began her tale in a lively tone. "I waited for _my_ chore, and it came tumbling down our basement steps one rainy day in the shape of a large dilapidated umbrella with a pair of small boots below it. A mild howl made me run to open the door, for I was at lunch in the dining-room, all alone, and rather blue because I couldn't go over to see Ella. A very small girl lay with her head in a puddle at the foot of the steps, the boots waving in the air, and the umbrella brooding over her like a draggled green bird. "'Are you hurt, child?' said I. [Illustration: "'Are you hurt, child?' said I."] "'No, I thank you, ma'am,' said the mite quite calmly, as she sat up and settled a woman's shabby black hat on her head. "'Did you come begging?' I asked. "'No, ma'am, I came for some things Mrs. Grover's got for us. She told me to. I don't beg.' And up rose the sopping thing with great dignity. "So I asked her to sit down, and ran up to call Mrs. Grover. She was busy with Grandpa just then, and when I went back to my lunch there sat my lady with her arms folded, water dripping out of the toes of her old boots as they hung down from the high chair, and the biggest blue eyes I ever saw fixed upon the cake and oranges on the table. I gave her a piece, and she sighed with rapture, but only picked at it till I asked if she didn't like it. "'Oh yes, 'm, it's elegant! Only I was wishin' I could take it to Caddy and Tot, if you didn't mind. They never had frostin' in all their lives, and I did once.' "Of course I put up a little basket of cake and oranges and figs, and while Lotty feasted, we talked. I found that their mother washed dishes all day in a restaurant over by the Albany Station, leaving the three children alone in the room they have on Berry Street. Think of that poor thing going off before light these winter mornings to stand over horrid dishes all day long, and those three scraps of children alone till night! Sometimes they had a fire, and when they hadn't they stayed in bed. Broken food and four dollars a week was all the woman got, and on that they tried to live. Good Mrs. Grover happened to be nursing a poor soul near Berry Street last summer, and used to see the three little things trailing round the streets with no one to look after them. "Lotty is nine, though she looks about six, but is as old as most girls of fourteen, and takes good care of 'the babies,' as she calls the younger ones. Mrs. Grover went to see them, and, though a hard-working creature, did all she could for them. This winter she has plenty of time to sew, for Grandpa needs little done for him except at night and morning, and that kind woman spent her own money, and got warm flannel and cotton and stuff, and made each child a good suit. Lotty had come for hers, and when the bundle was in her arms she hugged it close, and put up her little face to kiss Grover so prettily, I felt that I wanted to do something too. So I hunted up Min's old waterproof and rubbers, and a hood, and sent Lotty home as happy as a queen, promising to go and see her. I did go, and there was my work all ready for me. Oh, girls! such a bare, cold room, without a spark of fire, and no food but a pan of bits of pie and bread and meat, not fit for any one to eat, and in the bed, with an old carpet for cover, lay the three children. Tot and Caddy cuddled in the warmest place, while Lotty, with her little blue hands, was trying to patch up some old stockings with bits of cotton. I didn't know _how_ to begin, but Lotty did, and I just took her orders; for that wise little woman told me where to buy a bushel of coal and some kindlings, and milk and meal, and all I wanted. I worked like a beaver for an hour or two, and was so glad I'd been to a cooking-class, for I could make a fire, with Lotty to do the grubby part, and start a nice soup with the cold meat and potatoes, and an onion or so. Soon the room was warm, and full of a nice smell, and out of bed tumbled 'the babies,' to dance round the stove and sniff at the soup, and drink milk like hungry kittens, till I could get bread and butter ready. "It was great fun! and when we had cleared things up a bit, and I'd put food for supper in the closet, and told Lotty to warm a bowl of soup for her mother and keep the fire going, I went home tired and dirty, but very glad I'd found something to do. It is perfectly amazing how little poor people's things cost, and yet they can't get the small amount of money needed without working themselves to death. Why, all I bought didn't cost more than I often spend for flowers, or theatre tickets, or lunches, and it made those poor babies so comfortable I could have cried to think I'd never done it before." Ida paused to shake her head remorsefully, then went on with her story, sewing busily all the while on an unbleached cotton night-gown which looked about fit for a large doll. "I have no romantic things to tell, for poor Mrs. Kennedy was a shiftless, broken-down woman, who could only 'sozzle round,' as Mrs. Grover said, and rub along with help from any one who would lend a hand. She had lived out, married young, and had no faculty about anything; so when her husband died, and she was left with three little children, it was hard to get on, with no trade, feeble health, and a discouraged mind. She does her best, loves the girls, and works hard at the only thing she can find to do; but when she gives out, they will all have to part,--she to a hospital, and the babies to some home. She dreads that, and tugs away, trying to keep together and get ahead. Thanks to Mrs. Grover, who is very sensible, and knows how to help poor people, we have made things comfortable, and the winter has gone nicely. "The mother has got work nearer home, Lotty and Caddy go to school, and Tot is safe and warm, with Miss Parsons to look after her. Miss Parsons is a young woman who was freezing and starving in a little room upstairs, too proud to beg and too shy and sick to get much work. I found her warming her hands one day in Mrs. Kennedy's room, and hanging over the soup-pot as if she was eating the smell. It reminded me of the picture in Punch where the two beggar boys look in at a kitchen, sniffing at the nice dinner cooking there. One says, 'I don't care for the meat, Bill, but I don't mind if I takes a smell at the pudd'n' when it's dished.' I proposed a lunch at once, and we all sat down, and ate soup out of yellow bowls with pewter spoons with such a relish it was fun to see. I had on my old rig; so poor Parsons thought I was some dressmaker or work-girl, and opened her heart to me as she never would have done if I'd gone and demanded her confidence, and patronized her, as some people do when they want to help. I promised her some work, and proposed that she should do it in Mrs. K.'s room, as a favor, mind you, so that the older girls could go to school and Tot have some one to look after her. She agreed, and that saved her fire, and made the K.'s all right. Sarah (that's Miss P.) tried to stiffen up when she learned where I lived; but she wanted the work, and soon found I didn't put on airs, but lent her books, and brought her and Tot my bouquets and favors after a german, and told her pleasant things as she sat cooking her poor chilblainy feet in the oven, as if she never could get thawed out. "This summer the whole batch are to go to Uncle Frank's farm and pick berries, and get strong. He hires dozens of women and children during the fruit season, and Mrs. Grover said it was just what they all needed. So off they go in June, as merry as grigs, and I shall be able to look after them now and then, as I always go to the farm in July. That's all,--not a bit interesting, but it came to me, and I did it, though only small chore." "I'm sure the helping of five poor souls is a fine work, and you may well be proud of it, Ida. Now I know why you wouldn't go to matinées with me, and buy every pretty thing we saw as you used to. The pocket money went for coal and food, and your fancy-work was little clothes for these live dolls of yours. You dear thing! how good you were to cook, and grub, and prick your fingers rough, and give up fun, for this kind work!" Maggie's hearty kiss, and the faces of her friends, made Ida feel that her humble task had its worth in their eyes, as well as in her own; and when the others had expressed their interest in her work, all composed themselves to hear what Marion had to tell. "I have been taking care of a scarlet runner,--a poor old frost-bitten, neglected thing; it is transplanted now, and doing well, I'm happy to say." "What _do_ you mean?" asked Ella, while the rest looked very curious. Marion picked up a dropped stitch in the large blue sock she was knitting, and continued, with a laugh in her eyes: "My dears, that is what we call the Soldiers' Messenger Corps, with their red caps and busy legs trotting all day. I've had one of them to care for, and a gorgeous time of it, I do assure you. But before I exult over my success, I must honestly confess my failures, for they were sad ones. I was so anxious to begin my work at once, that I did go out and collar the first pauper I saw. It was an old man, who sometimes stands at the corners of streets to sell bunches of ugly paper flowers. You've seen him, I dare say, and his magenta daisies and yellow peonies. Well, he was rather a forlorn object, with his poor old red nose, and bleary eyes, and white hair, standing at the windy corners silently holding out those horrid flowers. I bought all he had that day, and gave them to some colored children on my way home, and told him to come to our house and get an old coat Mamma was waiting to get rid of. He told a pitiful story of himself and his old wife, who made the paper horrors in her bed, and how they needed everything, but didn't wish to beg. I was much touched, and flew home to look up the coat and some shoes, and when my old Lear came creeping in the back way, I ordered cook to give him a warm dinner and something nice for the old woman. "I was called upstairs while he was mumbling his food, and blessing me in the most lovely manner; and he went away much comforted, I flattered myself. But an hour later, up came the cook in a great panic to report that my venerable and pious beggar had carried off several of Papa's shirts and pairs of socks out of the clothes-basket in the laundry, and the nice warm hood we keep for the girl to hang out clothes in. "I was _very_ angry, and, taking Harry with me, went at once to the address the old rascal gave me, a dirty court out of Hanover Street. No such person had ever lived there, and my white-haired saint was a humbug. Harry laughed at me, and Mamma forbade me to bring any more thieves to the house, and the girls scolded awfully. "Well, I recovered from the shock, and, nothing daunted, went off to the little Irishwoman who sells apples on the Common,--not the fat, cosey one with the stall near West Street, but the dried-up one who sits by the path, nodding over an old basket with six apples and four sticks of candy in it. No one ever seems to buy anything, but she sits there and trusts to kind souls dropping a dime now and then, she looks so feeble and forlorn, 'on the cold, cold ground.' "She told me another sad tale of being all alone and unable to work, and 'as wake as wather-grewl, without a hap-worth av flesh upon me bones, and for the love of Heaven gimme a thrifle to kape the breath av loife in a poor soul, with a bitter hard winter over me, and niver a chick or child to do a hand's turn.' I hadn't much faith in her, remembering my other humbug, but I did pity the old mummy; so I got some tea and sugar, and a shawl, and used to give her my odd pennies as I passed. I never told at home, they made such fun of my efforts to be charitable. I thought I really was getting on pretty well after a time, as my old Biddy seemed quite cheered up, and I was planning to give her some coal, when she disappeared all of a sudden. I feared she was ill, and asked Mrs. Maloney, the fat woman, about her. "'Lord love ye, Miss dear, it's tuk up and sint to the Island for tree months she is; for a drunken ould crayther is Biddy Ryan, and niver a cint but goes for whiskey,--more shame to her, wid a fine bye av her own ready to kape her daycint.' "Then I _was_ discouraged, and went home to fold my hands, and see what fate would send me, my own efforts being such failures." "Poor thing, it _was_ hard luck!" said Elizabeth, as they sobered down after the gale of merriment caused by Marion's mishaps, and her clever imitation of the brogue. "Now tell of your success, and the scarlet runner," added Maggie. "Ah! that was _sent_, and so I prospered. I must begin ever so far back, in war times, or I can't introduce my hero properly. You know Papa was in the army, and fought all through the war till Gettysburg, where he was wounded. He was engaged just before he went; so when his father hurried to him after that awful battle, Mamma went also, and helped nurse him till he could come home. He wouldn't go to an officer's hospital, but kept with his men in a poor sort of place, for many of his boys were hit, and he wouldn't leave them. Sergeant Joe Collins was one of the bravest, and lost his right arm saving the flag in one of the hottest struggles of that great fight. He had been a Maine lumberman, and was over six feet tall, but as gentle as a child, and as jolly as a boy, and very fond of his colonel. "Papa left first, but made Joe promise to let him know how he got on, and Joe did so till he too went home. Then Papa lost sight of him, and in the excitement of his own illness, and the end of the war, and being married, Joe Collins was forgotten, till we children came along, and used to love to hear the story of Papa's battles, and how the brave sergeant caught the flag when the bearer was shot, and held it in the rush till one arm was blown off and the other wounded. We have fighting blood in us, you know, so we were never tired of that story, though twenty-five years or more make it all as far away to us as the old Revolution, where _our_ ancestor was killed, at _our_ Bunker Hill! "Last December, just after my sad disappointments, Papa came home to dinner one day, exclaiming, in great glee: 'I've found old Joe! A messenger came with a letter to me, and when I looked up to give my answer, there stood a tall, grizzled fellow, as straight as a ramrod, grinning from ear to ear, with his hand to his temple, saluting me in regular style. "Don't you remember Joe Collins, Colonel? Awful glad to see you, sir," said he. And then it all came back, and we had a good talk, and I found out that the poor old boy was down on his luck, and almost friendless, but as proud and independent as ever, and bound to take care of himself while he had a leg to stand on. I've got his address, and mean to keep an eye on him, for he looks feeble and can't make much, I'm sure.' [Illustration: "And there stood a tall grizzly man, saluting in regular style."] "We were all very glad, and Joe came to see us, and Papa sent him on endless errands, and helped him in that way till he went to New York. Then, in the fun and flurry of the holidays, we forgot all about Joe, till Papa came home and missed him from his post. I said I'd go and find him; so Harry and I rummaged about till we did find him, in a little house at the North End, laid up with rheumatic fever in a stuffy back room, with no one to look after him but the washerwoman with whom he boarded. "I was _so_ sorry we had forgotten him! but _he_ never complained, only said, with his cheerful grin, 'I kinder mistrusted the Colonel was away, but I wasn't goin' to pester him.' He tried to be jolly, though in dreadful pain; called Harry 'Major,' and was so grateful for all we brought him, though he didn't want oranges and tea, and made us shout when I said, like a goose, thinking that was the proper thing to do, 'Shall I bathe your brow, you are so feverish?' "'No, thanky, miss, it was swabbed pretty stiddy to the horsepittle, and I reckon a trifle of tobaccer would do more good and be a sight more relishin', ef you'll excuse my mentionin' it.' "Harry rushed off and got a great lump and a pipe, and Joe lay blissfully puffing, in a cloud of smoke, when we left him, promising to come again. We did go nearly every day, and had lovely times; for Joe told us his adventures, and we got so interested in the war that I began to read up evenings, and Papa was pleased, and fought all his battles over again for us, and Harry and I were great friends reading together, and Papa was charmed to see the old General's spirit in us, as we got excited and discussed all our wars in a fever of patriotism that made Mamma laugh. Joe said I 'brustled up' at the word _battle_ like a war-horse at the smell of powder, and I'd ought to have been a drummer, the sound of martial music made me so 'skittish.' "It was all new and charming to us young ones, but poor old Joe had a hard time, and was very ill. Exposure and fatigue, and scanty food, and loneliness, and his wounds, were too much for him, and it was plain his working days were over. He hated the thought of the poor-house at home, which was all his own town could offer him, and he had no friends to live with, and he could not get a pension, something being wrong about his papers; so he would have been badly off, but for the Soldiers' Home at Chelsea. As soon as he was able, Papa got him in there, and he was glad to go, for that seemed the proper place, and a charity the proudest man might accept, after risking his life for his country. "There is where I used to be going when you saw me, and I was _so_ afraid you'd smell the cigars in my basket. The dear old boys always want them, and Papa says they _must_ have them, though it isn't half so romantic as flowers, and jelly, and wine, and the dainty messes we women always want to carry. I've learned about different kinds of tobacco and cigars, and you'd laugh to see me deal out my gifts, which are received as gratefully as the Victoria Cross, when the Queen decorates _her_ brave men. I'm quite a great gun over there, and the boys salute when I come, tell me their woes, and think that Papa and I can run the whole concern. I like it immensely, and am as proud and fond of my dear old wrecks as if I'd been a Rigoletto, and ridden on a cannon from my babyhood. That's _my_ story, but I can't begin to tell how interesting it all is, nor how glad I am that it led me to look into the history of American wars, in which brave men of our name did their parts so well." A hearty round of applause greeted Marion's tale, for her glowing face and excited voice stirred the patriotic spirit of the Boston girls, and made them beam approvingly upon her. "Now, Maggie, dear, last but not least, I'm sure," said Anna, with an encouraging glance, for _she_ had discovered the secret of this friend, and loved her more than ever for it. Maggie blushed and hesitated, as she put down the delicate muslin cap-strings she was hemming with such care. Then, looking about her with a face in which both humility and pride contended, she said, with an effort, "After the other lively experiences, mine will sound very flat. In fact, I have no story to tell, for _my_ charity began at home, and stopped there." "Tell it, dear. I know it is interesting, and will do us all good," said Anna, quickly; and, thus supported, Maggie went on. "I planned great things, and talked about what I meant to do, till Papa said one day, when things were in a mess, as they often are, at our house, 'If the little girls who want to help the world along would remember that charity begins at home, they would soon find enough to do.' "I was rather taken aback, and said no more, but after Papa had gone to the office, I began to think, and looked round to see what there was to be done at that particular moment. I found enough for that day, and took hold at once; for poor Mamma had one of her bad headaches, the children could not go out because it rained, and so were howling in the nursery, cook was on a rampage, and Maria had the toothache. Well, I began by making Mamma lie down for a good long sleep. I kept the children quiet by giving them my ribbon box and jewelry to dress up with, put a poultice on Maria's face, and offered to wash the glass and silver for her, to appease cook, who was as cross as two sticks over extra work washing-day. It wasn't much fun, as you may imagine, but I got through the afternoon, and kept the house still, and at dusk crept into Mamma's room and softly built up the fire, so it should be cheery when she waked. Then I went trembling to the kitchen for some tea, and there found three girls calling, and high jinks going on; for one whisked a plate of cake into the table drawer, another put a cup under her shawl, and cook hid the teapot, as I stirred round in the china closet before opening the slide, through a crack of which I'd seen, heard, and smelt 'the party,' as the children call it. "I was angry enough to scold the whole set, but I wisely held my tongue, shut my eyes, and politely asked for some hot water, nodded to the guests, and told cook Maria was better, and would do her work if she wanted to go out. "So peace reigned, and as I settled the tray, I heard cook say in her balmiest tone, for I suspect the cake and tea lay heavy on her conscience, 'The mistress is very poorly, and Miss takes nice care of her, the dear.' "All blarney, but it pleased me and made me remember how feeble poor Mamma was, and how little I really did. So I wept a repentant weep as I toiled upstairs with my tea and toast, and found Mamma all ready for them, and so pleased to find things going well. I saw by that what a relief it would be to her if I did it oftener, as I ought, and as I resolved that I would. "I didn't say anything, but I kept on doing whatever came along, and before I knew it ever so many duties slipped out of Mamma's hands into mine, and seemed to belong to me. I don't mean that I liked them, and didn't grumble to myself; I did, and felt regularly crushed and injured sometimes when I wanted to go and have my own fun. Duty is right, but it isn't easy, and the only comfort about it is a sort of quiet feeling you get after a while, and a strong feeling, as if you'd found something to hold on to and keep you steady. I can't express it, but you know?" And Maggie looked wistfully at the other faces, some of which answered her with a quick flash of sympathy, and some only wore a puzzled yet respectful expression, as if they felt they ought to know, but did not. "I need not tire you with all my humdrum doings," continued Maggie. "I made no plans, but just said each day, 'I'll take what comes, and try to be cheerful and contented.' So I looked after the children, and that left Maria more time to sew and help round. I did errands, and went to market, and saw that Papa had his meals comfortably when Mamma was not able to come down. I made calls for her, and received visitors, and soon went on as if I were the lady of the house, not 'a chit of a girl,' as Cousin Tom used to call me. "The best of all were the cosey talks we had in the twilight, Mamma and I, when she was rested, and all the day's worry was over, and we were waiting for Papa. Now, when he came, I didn't have to go away, for they wanted to ask and tell me things, and consult about affairs, and make me feel that I was really the eldest daughter. Oh, it was just lovely to sit between them and know that they needed me, and loved to have me with them! That made up for the hard and disagreeable things, and not long ago I got my reward. Mamma is better, and I was rejoicing over it, when she said, 'Yes, I really am mending now, and hope soon to be able to relieve my good girl. But I want to tell you, dear, that when I was most discouraged my greatest comfort was, that if I had to leave my poor babies they would find such a faithful little mother in you.' "I was _so_ pleased I wanted to cry, for the children _do_ love me, and run to me for everything now, and think the world of Sister, and they didn't use to care much for me. But that wasn't all. I ought not to tell these things, perhaps, but I'm so proud of them I can't help it. When I asked Papa privately, if Mamma was _really_ better and in no danger of falling ill again, he said, with his arms round me, and such a tender kiss,-- "'No danger now, for this brave little girl put her shoulder to the wheel so splendidly, that the dear woman got the relief from care she needed just at the right time, and now she really rests sure that we are not neglected. You couldn't have devoted yourself to a better charity, or done it more sweetly, my darling. God bless you!'" Here Maggie's voice gave out, and she hid her face, with a happy sob, that finished her story eloquently. Marion flew to wipe her tears away with the blue sock, and the others gave a sympathetic murmur, looking much touched; forgotten duties of their own rose before them, and sudden resolutions were made to attend to them at once, seeing how great Maggie's reward had been. "I didn't mean to be silly; but I wanted you to know that I hadn't been idle all winter, and that, though I haven't much to tell, I'm _quite_ satisfied with my chore," she said, looking up with smiles shining through the tears till her face resembled a rose in a sun-shower. "Many daughters have done well, but thou excellest them all," answered Anna, with a kiss that completed her satisfaction. "Now, as it is after our usual time, and we must break up," continued the President, producing a basket of flowers from its hiding-place, "I will merely say that I think we have all learned a good deal, and will be able to work better next winter; for I am sure we shall want to try again, it adds so much sweetness to our own lives to put even a little comfort into the hard lives of the poor. As a farewell token, I sent for some real Plymouth mayflowers, and here they are, a posy apiece, with my love and many thanks for your help in carrying out my plan so beautifully." So the nosegays were bestowed, the last lively chat enjoyed, new plans suggested, and goodbyes said; then the club separated, each member going gayly away with the rosy flowers on her bosom, and in it a clearer knowledge of the sad side of life, a fresh desire to see and help still more, and a sweet satisfaction in the thought that each had done what she could. * * * * * Transcriber's Note: All punctuation kept as per original, including unclosed quotes. 
16964	----	+------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: Some very obvious typos | | were corrected in this text. For a list please | | see the bottom of the document. | +------------------------------------------------+ WAGE EARNING AND EDUCATION THE SURVEY COMMITTEE OF THE CLEVELAND FOUNDATION Charles E. Adams, Chairman Thomas G. Fitzsimons Myrta L. Jones Bascom Little Victor W. Sincere Arthur D. Baldwin, Secretary James R. Garfield, Counsel Allen T. Burns, Director THE EDUCATION SURVEY Leonard P. Ayres, Director CLEVELAND EDUCATION SURVEY WAGE EARNING AND EDUCATION BY R.R. LUTZ THE SURVEY COMMITTEE OF THE CLEVELAND FOUNDATION CLEVELAND · OHIO 1916 COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY THE SURVEY COMMITTEE OF THE CLEVELAND FOUNDATION WM. F. FELL CO. PRINTERS PHILADELPHIA FOREWORD This summary volume, entitled "Wage Earning and Education," is one of the 25 sections of the report of the Education Survey of Cleveland conducted by the Survey Committee of the Cleveland Foundation in 1915 and 1916. Copies of all the publications may be obtained from the Cleveland Foundation. They may also be obtained from the Division of Education of the Russell Sage Foundation, New York City. A complete list will be found in the back of this volume, together with prices. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Foreword 5 List of Tables 10 List of Diagrams 12 CHAPTER I. THE INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION SURVEY 13 Types of occupations studied 13 The Survey staff and methods of work 14 II. FORECASTING FUTURE PROBABILITIES 18 The popular concept of industrial education 19 The importance of relative numbers 20 A constructive program must fit the facts 23 An actuarial basis for industrial education 24 III. THE WAGE EARNERS OF CLEVELAND 25 IV. THE FUTURE WAGE EARNERS OF CLEVELAND 29 The public schools 29 Ages of pupils 32 Education at the time of leaving school 34 V. INDUSTRIAL TRAINING FOR BOYS IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 38 What the boys in school will do 40 Organization and costs 44 What the elementary schools can do 45 VI. THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 47 Specialized training not practicable 48 A general industrial course 49 Industrial mathematics 52 Mechanical Drawing 54 Industrial science 55 Shop work 56 Vocational information 58 VII. TRADE TRAINING DURING THE LAST YEARS IN SCHOOL 60 The technical high schools 62 A two-year trade course 66 VIII. TRADE-PREPARATORY AND TRADE-EXTENSION TRAINING FOR BOYS AND MEN AT WORK 69 Continuation training from 15 to 18 74 The technical night schools 76 A combined program of continuation and trade-extension training 80 IX. VOCATIONAL TRAINING FOR GIRLS 83 Differentiation in the junior high school 86 Specialized training for the sewing trades 88 Other occupations 90 X. VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 92 The work of the vocational counselor 92 The Girls' Vocation Bureau 94 XI. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 97 SUMMARIES OF SPECIAL REPORTS XII. BOYS AND GIRLS IN COMMERCIAL WORK 101 A general view of commercial work 106 Bookkeeping 108 Stenography 108 Clerks' positions 109 Wages and regularity of employment 110 The problem of training 111 XIII. DEPARTMENT STORE OCCUPATIONS 115 Department stores 115 Neighborhood stores 116 Five and ten cent stores 117 Wages 118 Regularity of employment 122 Opportunities for advancement 123 The problem of training 124 Character of the instruction 129 XIV. THE GARMENT TRADES 131 Characteristics of the working force 132 Earnings 135 Regularity of employment 139 Training and promotion 140 Educational needs 143 Sewing courses in the public schools 145 Elective sewing courses in the junior high school 147 A one year trade course for girls 148 Trade extension training 149 XV. DRESSMAKING AND MILLINERY 151 Dressmaking 151 Millinery 153 The problem of training 156 XVI. THE METAL TRADES 158 Foundry and machine shop products 159 Automobile manufacturing 169 Steel works, rolling mills, and related industries 170 XVII. THE BUILDING TRADES 173 Sources of labor supply 173 Apprenticeship 174 Union organization 176 Earnings 176 Hours 178 Regularity of employment 179 Health conditions 179 Opportunities for advancement 180 The problem of training 181 XVIII. RAILROAD AND STREET TRANSPORTATION 187 Railroad transportation 187 Motor and wagon transportation 192 Street railroad transportation 193 XIX. THE PRINTING TRADES 195 The composing room 198 The pressroom 201 The bindery 203 Other occupations 204 The problem of training 206 LIST OF TABLES TABLE PAGE 1. Occupational distribution of the working population of Cleveland 26 2. Nativity of the working population in Cleveland 27 3. Pupils enrolled in the different grades of the public day schools in June, 1915 30 4. Enrollment of high school pupils, second semester, 1914-15 31 5. Ages of pupils enrolled in public elementary, high, and normal schools in June, 1915 33 6. Educational equipment of the children who drop out of the public schools each year, as indicated by the grades from which they leave 35 7. Per cent of total male working population engaged in specified occupations, 1900 and 1910 40 8. Distribution of native born men between the ages of 21 and 45 in the principal occupational groups 41 9. Distribution of third and fourth year students in trade courses in the Cleveland technical high schools, first semester, 1915-16 63 10. Distribution by occupations of Cleveland's technical school graduates 64 11. Time allotment in the apprentice course given by the Warner and Swasey Company, Cleveland 70 12. Course and number enrolled in the technical night schools, January, 1915 77 13. Per cent of total population engaged in gainful occupations during three different age periods 84 14. Number employed in the principal wage earning occupations among each 1,000 women from 16 to 21 years of age 85 15. Per cent of women employees over 18 years of age earning $12 a week and over 120 16. Wages for full-time working week, women's clothing, Cleveland, 1915 139 17. Average wages for full-time working week for similar workers, in men's and women's clothing, Cleveland, 1915 139 18. Proportions and estimated numbers employed in machine tool occupations, 1915 161 19. Average, highest, and lowest earnings, in cents per hour, and per cent employed on piece work and day work, 1915 162 20. Estimated time required to learn machine tool work 164 21. Average earnings per hour in pattern making, molding, core making, blacksmithing, and boiler making 166 22. Estimated number of men engaged in building trades, 1915 174 23. Union regulations as to entering age of apprentice 175 24. Union regulations as to length of apprenticeship period 175 25. Union scale of wages in cents per hour, May 1, 1915 177 26. Usual weekly wages of apprentices in three building trades 178 27. Average daily earnings of job and newspaper composing room workers, 1915 199 28. Average daily earnings of pressroom workers, 1915 202 29. Average daily earnings of bindery workers, 1915 203 30. Average daily earnings in photoengraving, stereotyping, electrotyping, and lithographing occupations, 1915 205 LIST OF DIAGRAMS DIAGRAM PAGE 1. Boys and girls under 18 years of age in office work 103 2. Men and women 18 years of age and over in clerical and administrative work in offices 104 3. Per cent of women earning each class of weekly wages in each of six occupations 119 4. Per cent of salesmen and of men clerical workers in stores, receiving each class of weekly wage 121 5. Per cent of male workers in non-clerical positions in six industries earning $18 per week and over 122 6. Per cent that the average number of women employed during the year is of the highest number employed in each of six industries 123 7. Distribution of 8,337 clothing workers by sex in the principal occupations in the garment industry 134 8. Percentage of women in men's and women's clothing and seven other important women employing industries receiving under $8, $8 to $12, and $12 and over per week 136 9. Percentage of men in men's and women's clothing and seven other manufacturing industries receiving under $18, $18 to $25, and $25 and over per week 138 10. Average number of unemployed among each 100 workers, men's clothing, women's clothing, and fifteen other specified industries 141 11. Percentages of unemployment in each of nine building industries 180 12. Number of men in each 100 in printing and five other industries earning each class of weekly wage 196 13. Number of women in each 100 in printing and six other industries earning each class of weekly wage 198 WAGE EARNING AND EDUCATION CHAPTER I THE INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION SURVEY The education survey of Cleveland was undertaken in April, 1915, at the invitation of the Cleveland Board of Education and the Survey Committee of the Cleveland Foundation, and continued until June, 1916. As a part of the work detailed studies were made of the leading industries of the city for the purpose of determining what measures should be taken by the public school system to prepare young people for wage-earning occupations and to provide supplementary trade instruction for those already in employment. The studies also dealt with all forms of vocational education conducted at that time under public school auspices. TYPES OF OCCUPATIONS STUDIED Separate studies were made of the metal industry, building and construction, printing and publishing, railroad and street transportation, clothing manufacture, department store work, and clerical occupations. The wage-earners in these fields of employment constitute nearly 60 per cent of the total number of persons engaged in gainful occupations and include 95 per cent of the skilled workmen in the city. The survey also gave considerable attention to the various types of semi-skilled work found in the principal industries. Each separate study was assigned to a particular member of the Survey Staff who personally carried on the field investigations and later submitted a report to the director of the survey. Each report was also subjected to careful analysis and criticism from other members of the Survey Staff before it was finally passed upon by the Survey Committee. Mimeographed copies were sent to representatives of the industry and to the superintendent of schools and members of the school board and their criticisms and suggestions were given careful consideration before the Committee and the director of the survey gave their final approval to the publication of the report. The value of the work was greatly enhanced through the ample discussion of the different studies from widely diverse points of view secured in this way. The industrial studies were carried through under the direction of the author of this summary volume. THE SURVEY STAFF AND METHODS OF WORK The reports of the studies relating to vocational education were published in a series of eight separate monograph volumes. The names of the reports and the previous experience in educational and investigational work of each member of the Survey Staff are as follows: "Boys and Girls in Commercial Work"--Bertha M. Stevens; teacher in elementary and secondary schools; agent of Associated Charities; secretary of Consumers' League of Ohio; director of Girls' Bureau of Cleveland; author of "Women's Work in Cleveland"; co-author of "Commercial Work and Training for Girls." "Department Store Occupations"--Iris P. O'Leary; head of manual training department, First Pennsylvania Normal School; head of vocational work for girls and women, New Bedford Industrial School; head of girls' department, Boardman Apprentice Shops, New Haven, Conn.; special investigator of department stores for New York State Factory Investigating Commission; three years' trade experience as employer and employee; author of books on household arts and department stores; Special Assistant for Vocational Education, State Department of Public Instruction, New Jersey. "The Garment Trades" and "Dressmaking and Millinery"--Edna Bryner; teacher in grades, high school, and state normal college; eugenic research worker New Jersey State Hospital; statistical expert in United States Bureau of Labor Investigation of women and child labor; statistical agent United States Post Office Department; Special Agent Russell Sage Foundation. "The Building Trades," and "The Printing Trades"--Frank L. Shaw; teacher in grades and high school; principal of high school; assistant superintendent of schools; superintendent of schools; special agent United States Immigration Commission; special agent United States Census; industrial secretary North American Civic League for Immigrants; author of reports on immigration legislation. "The Metal Trades"--R.R. Lutz; teacher in rural and graded schools; superintendent of schools; secretary of Department of Education of Porto Rico; took part in school surveys of Greenwich, Conn., Bridgeport, Conn., Springfield, Ill., Richmond, Va.; Special Agent Division of Education, Russell Sage Foundation. "Railroad and Street Transportation"--Ralph D. Fleming; special agent and investigator for United States Immigration Commission, the Federal Census of Manufacturers, the United States Tariff Board, the Minimum Wage Commission of Massachusetts, the National Civic Federation, and the United States Commission on Industrial Relations. The work began in April, 1915, and ended in the same month of the following year. Two members of the staff, with one stenographer and a clerk, were employed during the entire period. One member of the staff was employed 11 months, one nine months, one approximately five months, and one two months. The field investigations consisted largely of visits to industrial establishments for the purpose of securing first-hand information as to industrial conditions and the nature and educational content of particular occupations. Over 400 visits of this kind were made by members of the Survey Staff. Many conferences were held with employers and employees with the object of securing their views as to the needs and possibilities of industrial training. The task of tabulating and classifying the data obtained by the individual investigators in their visits to the local industrial establishments involved much time and labor. Although it was not found practicable to maintain complete uniformity in the different inquiries, the members of the staff kept in close touch with each other, so that with respect to the points of principal importance, the results of their investigations are comparable. Practically every recommendation made in the reports was discussed in conferences with school principals and with other members of the teaching force engaged in the teaching of vocational subjects. Throughout the survey the objective held constantly in mind was the formulation of a constructive program of vocational training in the public schools. In outlining the field of inquiry a clear distinction was drawn between those kinds of general education which have a more or less indirect vocational significance, and vocational training for specific occupations in which the controlling purpose is direct preparation for wage-earning. The studies were purposely limited to this latter type of vocational training. The survey did not concern itself with manual training conducted for general educational ends, with the art work of the schools, or with courses in domestic science and household arts. These subjects in the curriculum were dealt with in different sections of the education survey, but were considered as being outside the legitimate field of the vocational survey. CHAPTER II FORECASTING FUTURE PROBABILITIES The industrial education survey of Cleveland differs from other studies conducted elsewhere in that it bases its educational program on a careful study of the probable future occupational distribution of the young people now in school. It does not claim to foretell the specific positions that individual boys and girls will hold when they are adults but it does claim very definitely that our safest guide in foretelling their future vocational distribution is to be found in the official figures of the present occupational census of the city. One of the most familiar and time-worn platitudes of educational speakers and writers is that "The children of today are the citizens of tomorrow." In the field of industrial education it is quite as true that the school children of today are the workers of tomorrow. Moreover, since occupational distributions change but slowly even in these modern times, it is unquestionably true that the boys and girls now studying in the public schools will soon be scattered among the different gainful occupations of Cleveland's industrial, commercial, and professional life in just about the same proportions as their fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters are now distributed. The plan of the survey in advocating types of present preparation based on studies of future prospects seems at first sight so obvious a mode of procedure as hardly to warrant extended explanation. This is far from being the case. The reader who proposes to follow the working-out of the principle and to scrutinize the evidence underlying it must be prepared to scan many a detailed table of statistics and to arrive at most unforeseen conclusions. THE POPULAR CONCEPT OF INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION For many years past the public has given respectful attention to the arguments of the champions of industrial education. There has been general assent to the proposition that the schools should train for and not away from the industrial age in which we live. We have come to think of the carpenter shop, the machine shop, the forge shop, and the cooking room as necessary and desirable adjuncts of the modern school and to our minds these shops have typified industrial education. All of these have come to be almost synonymous with progressive thought and action in public education. Very generally it has been felt that the problems of industrial education were to be solved through the wider extension of these shop facilities in our public schools. When these familiar generalizations are submitted to careful analysis their whole structure begins to totter. In Cleveland about 3,700 boys leave school each year and go to work. They represent various stages of advancement from the 4th grade of the elementary school to the 4th year of the high school. They are scattered through more than 100 school buildings. The problem of industrial education is to give these boys with their differing ages, their widely varied school preparation, and their scattered geographical distribution, the best possible preparation for taking their places in the work-a-day world. They represent every grade of intelligence, every stratum of social and economic life, and it is extremely difficult to bring them together for instructional purposes. They are scattered in little groups through more than a thousand classrooms. THE IMPORTANCE OF RELATIVE NUMBERS Now it is possible to foretell with some certainty what these young people will be doing a few years from now. Almost all of them are of American birth and it is certain that in a few years they will be engaged in doing just about the same sorts of work as are now done in the city of Cleveland by adults of American birth. The data of the United States Census of Occupations show us that among every 100 American born men in Cleveland there are eight who are clerks, seven who are machinists, four who are salesmen, and so on through the list of hundreds of occupations. The number of American born men in each 100 engaged in each of the 10 leading sorts of occupations is approximately as follows: Clerks 8 Machinists 7 Salesmen 4 Laborers and porters 4 Retail dealers 4 Draymen, teamsters, etc. 4 Bookkeepers 3 Carpenters 3 Commercial travelers 2 Manufacturers 2 ---- 41 This simple list at once calls into question all the standard assumptions about the extension of industrial education depending on greatly increasing the number of carpenter shops and machine shops in the public schools. The figures show that among each 100 American born men in Cleveland only seven are machinists and only three are carpenters. Clearly we should not be justified in training all the boys in our public schools to enter the machinist's trade or the carpenter's trade when nine out of each 10 will in all probability engage in entirely different sorts of future work. The more the figures of the little table given above are studied, the clearer it appears that our conventional ideas about industrial education need critical scrutiny and careful challenge. These 10 leading occupations include only 41 out of each 100 American born men. Moreover, more than half of these 41 are engaged in mental work rather than in manual work. From these considerations one definite conclusion inevitably emerges. It is that the safest guide for thinking and planning for industrial education is to be found in a study of the occupational distribution of the present adults. From the very outset such a study indicates that the most difficult and important problems which must be met and coped with are not those relating to methods of instruction but rather those of organization and administration. The future carpenters and machinists cannot be taught until we can get them together in fair sized classes. They represent the most numerous of the industrial groups and yet their numbers are relatively so few that the average Cleveland school sends out into the world each year only two or three future machinists and perhaps one future carpenter. The trouble with present thinking about this matter has been that we have noted the very large numbers of machinists and carpenters in the population and have failed to realize that while these groups are numerous in the aggregate they are after all quite small when relatively considered and compared with the total number of workers. Another important fact that has been almost invariably overlooked is that many of the present carpenters and machinists are foreigners by birth and that there is every prospect that this same condition will maintain in the future. Hence these trades and most other industrial occupations are not recruited from our public schools to anything like the degree that has been assumed. A CONSTRUCTIVE PROGRAM MUST FIT THE FACTS The simple principle which underlies the method employed by the survey is the same on which all large business undertakings are conducted. The results of its application in the field of industrial education are, however, fundamentally different from those commonly arrived at on the assumption that nine-tenths of the rising generation will earn their living in industrial pursuits. The fact is that no such proportion of the children in school will become industrial workers. All the native born labor now employed in manufacturing and mechanical industries constitutes only 44 per cent of the total number of native born workers in the city. Moreover, nearly half of the industrial workers are employed in unskilled and semi-skilled occupations for which no training is required beyond a few days' or weeks' practice on the job. Such training calls for a mechanical equipment far more extensive than the resources of the school system can provide, and can be given by the factory more effectively and much more cheaply than by the schools. In the final analysis, the problem of industrial training narrows down to the skilled industrial trades. Approximately 22 per cent of the total number of American workers in the city are employed in skilled manual occupations. This does not mean that a constructive program of industrial education would affect 22 per cent of the present school enrollment. All the weight of educational opinion and experience is on the side of excluding the children of the lower and middle age groups as too young to profit by any sort of industrial training, while the evidence collected by the survey goes to show that of the remainder less than one-fifth of the girls and one-fourth of the boys are likely to become skilled industrial workers. AN ACTUARIAL BASIS FOR INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION Considerations like the foregoing have determined the fundamental method of the Cleveland Industrial Survey. Plans for the present generation have been formulated on the basis of future prospects as foretold by state and federal census data. The methods used were characterized by a member of the Cleveland Foundation Survey Committee as "the actuarial basis of vocational education." This is accurately descriptive, because the method of forecasting the number of men the community will need for each wage-earning occupation closely resembles that employed by life insurance actuaries in foretelling how long men of different ages are likely to live. Such methods are similar to those commonly used in commerce and industry. They deal with mass data rather than with individual figures, and with relative values rather than with absolute ones. CHAPTER III THE WAGE EARNERS OF CLEVELAND In 1910 Cleveland ranked sixth among the cities of the United States as to number of inhabitants, with a population of approximately 561,000. The city is growing rapidly. From 1900 to 1910 the increase in the total number of inhabitants was over 46 per cent. The Census Bureau estimate of the population in 1914 is approximately 639,000. Of the 10 largest cities in the country only one--Detroit--had in 1910 a greater proportion of its wage earners engaged in industrial employment than Cleveland. Relatively Cleveland has one and one-fourth times as many industrial workers as New York, Chicago, St. Louis, or Baltimore, and one and two-fifths times as many as Boston. On the other hand a smaller proportion of the adult workers of the city earn their living in professional, clerical, and commercial work, or in domestic and personal service employments than in most large cities. Table 1 shows by large occupational groups the distribution in 1910 of the working population in Cleveland. The classification is that adopted by the federal census. More than 56 per cent of the male workers of the city and about 33 per cent of the women workers were engaged in manufacturing and mechanical occupations. The trade group ranks next, about 14 per cent of the men and approximately 11 per cent of the women being engaged in commercial occupations. Of each 100 women in employment 30 are servants, laundresses, housekeepers, or are engaged in some other form of personal service, while only five men of each 100 earn their living in this kind of work. Railroad and street transportation, with the telegraph and telephone and mail systems of communication, requires the services of 11 per cent of the male working population, but uses very few women. About seven per cent of the men and 15 per cent of the women are employed in clerical work. A slightly larger ratio of women to men is found in the professional occupations, due mainly to the large number of women in the teaching profession. The whole professional group constitutes less than five per cent of the total working population. TABLE 1.--OCCUPATIONAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE WORKING POPULATION OF CLEVELAND, CENSUS OF OCCUPATIONS, 1910 ----------------------------------------+---------+--------+--------- Occupational group | Men | Women | Total ----------------------------------------+---------+--------+--------- Manufacturing and mechanical industries | 109,644 | 18,201 | 127,845 Trade | 27,229 | 5,942 | 33,171 Domestic and personal service | 9,546 | 16,467 | 26,063 Transportation | 21,530 | 1,110 | 22,640 Clerical occupations | 14,047 | 8,100 | 22,147 Professional service | 7,204 | 4,869 | 12,073 Public service | 3,461 | 39 | 3,500 Agricultural and extraction of minerals | 1,367 | 80 | 1,447 ----------------------------------------+---------+--------+--------- Total | 194,078 | 54,808 | 248,886 ----------------------------------------+---------+--------+--------- From the standpoint of vocational training one of the most striking facts about Cleveland wage-earners is that a large majority of them are not Clevelanders. Almost exactly half of the men in gainful employment were born outside the United States and, due to the rapid growth of the city, there has been a considerable influx of workers from the surrounding country in recent years, so that a large proportion even of the American working population was born, brought up, and educated in some other place. The number and per cent of foreign born, of foreign or mixed parentage but born in this country, and of native parentage is shown in Table 2. TABLE 2.--NATIVITY OF THE WORKING POPULATION IN CLEVELAND. U.S. CENSUS, 1910 ----------------------------+-------------------+----------------- | Men | Women +--------+----------+--------+-------- Nativity | Number | Per cent | Number |Per cent ----------------------------+--------+----------+--------+-------- Foreign born | 96,291 | 50 | 16,673 | 31 Foreign or mixed parentage | 55,074 | 28 | 24,275 | 44 Native parentage | 42,713 | 22 | 13,860 | 25 ----------------------------+--------+----------+--------+-------- Total |194,078 | 100 | 54,808 | 100 ----------------------------+--------+----------+--------+-------- More than three-fourths are foreign or of foreign or mixed parentage. The proportion of those born in this country of American parentage is approximately the same for both sexes, but the number of women workers of mixed parentage is relatively much larger than among the men. Roughly, of each 10 men employed in gainful occupations, five, and of each 10 working women, three, were born abroad. The large proportion of foreigners in the trades has an important bearing on the problem of vocational training. Some of the skilled occupations are monopolized by foreign labor to such an extent that they offer a very limited field of employment for native workmen. Cabinet making, tailoring, molding, blacksmithing, baking, and shoe making, are examples. Some of these trades have practically ceased to recruit from American labor. This condition has to be constantly borne in mind in planning training courses to prepare boys for the skilled trades, because of the marked disparity which often exists between the size of a trade and the field of opportunity it presents for boys of native birth. CHAPTER IV THE FUTURE WAGE-EARNERS OF CLEVELAND In 1915 there were in Cleveland approximately 50,000 boys between the ages of six and 15, and 56,000 girls between the ages of six and 16, the age period during which school attendance is required by law. Of these 106,000 children approximately 37,000 boys and 38,000 girls were enrolled in the public schools. Exact data as to those attending private and parochial schools are not available. The total enrollment in such schools has been variously estimated as between 25,000 and 30,000. THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS The public school system in 1915 enrolled approximately 82,000 children of all ages, of whom about half were boys and half girls. They are taught in 98 elementary schools and 10 high schools. The elementary course comprises eight grades. At the beginning of the school year 1915-16 two junior high schools were opened for pupils of the seventh and eighth grades. It is to be expected that this plan will soon be extended throughout the city, so that the enrollment in elementary schools will be made up of pupils of the first six grades only. The distribution by grade is given in Table 3. The kindergarten grades and the special ungraded classes are omitted. TABLE 3.--PUPILS ENROLLED IN THE DIFFERENT GRADES OF THE PUBLIC DAY SCHOOLS IN JUNE, 1915 -------------------+-------------------- Grade | Pupils -------------------+-------------------- 1 | 13,108 2 | 10,857 3 | 10,562 4 | 9,323 5 | 8,902 6 | 7,259 7 | 6,429 8 | 4,903 | I | 3,122 II | 2,100 III | 1,534 IV | 1,399 -------------------+-------------------- About 77 per cent of the children are enrolled in the grades below the seventh, about 13 per cent in the seventh and eighth grades, a little over six per cent in the first two years of the high school, and less than three and one-half per cent in the third and fourth. There are eight academic high schools, two technical high schools, and two commercial high schools. The technical high schools are steadily growing in favor. The registration of boys in these schools increased about 33 per cent from 1913 to 1915, and of girls about 77 per cent. During the same period the registration of boys in the academic high schools decreased slightly, while the increase of girl students was only eight per cent; in the commercial high schools the number of girl students increased 20 per cent, while the enrollment of boys fell off more than 10 per cent. The enrollment by individual schools is shown in Table 4. TABLE 4.--ENROLLMENT OF HIGH SCHOOL PUPILS, SECOND SEMESTER, 1914-1915 ----------------------------------+-----------------------------+ | Enrollment | Schools +---------+---------+---------+ | Boys | Girls | Total | ----------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+ | | | | Academic high schools | | | | Central | 804 | 711 | 1,515 | East | 607 | 688 | 1,295 | Glenville | 405 | 611 | 1,016 | West | 246 | 377 | 623 | Lincoln | 277 | 329 | 606 | South | 213 | 238 | 451 | | | | | Total | 2,552 | 2,954 | 5,506 | ----------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+ | | | | Technical high schools | | | | East Technical | 1,161 | 548 | 1,709 | West Technical | 515 | 242 | 757 | | | | | Total | 1,676 | 790 | 2,466 | ----------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+ | | | | Commercial high schools | | | | West Commercial | 249 | 528 | 777 | East Commercial | 49 | 96 | 145 | | | | | Total | 298 | 624 | 922 | ----------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+ | | | | All high schools | 4,526 | 4,368 | 8,894 | | | | | ----------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+ About three-eighths of the high school pupils of the city are in the technical and commercial schools. Of the boys 56 per cent are enrolled in the academic high schools, 37 per cent in the technical schools, and seven per cent in the commercial schools. Of the girls 68 per cent attend the academic high schools, 18 per cent the technical schools, and 14 per cent the commercial schools. In the commercial high school approximately two-thirds of the enrollment is made up of girls. In the technical high schools the opposite condition prevails, the girls constituting less than one-third of the total enrollment, while in the academic high schools the girls outnumber the boys by nearly one-sixth. AGES OF PUPILS The distribution as to ages is shown in Table 5. The largest group is made up of children seven years old. Between 14 and 15 over 30 per cent leave school. The loss from 16 to 17 is approximately 43 per cent, from 17 to 18 about 44 per cent, and from 18 to 19 nearly 62 per cent. The compulsory attendance law requires boys to attend school until they are 15 and girls until they are 16. That the law is not adequately enforced is demonstrated by the heavy loss between the ages of 14 and 15, and the fact that the loss between 15 and 16 is approximately the same for both boys and girls, although girls are required to attend one year longer than boys. Additional evidence as to the laxity in the enforcement of the compulsory law is found in the results of an inquiry conducted by the Consumers' League of Cleveland in the spring of 1916, in cooperation with the survey. TABLE 5.--AGES OF PUPILS ENROLLED IN PUBLIC ELEMENTARY, HIGH, AND NORMAL SCHOOLS IN JUNE, 1915 ------------------------------------------------- Age | Boys | Girls | Total -------------+-----------+-----------+----------- 6 | 4,255 | 4,180 | 8,435 7 | 5,012 | 4,815 | 9,827 8 | 4,496 | 4,407 | 8,903 9 | 4,268 | 4,103 | 8,371 10 | 4,093 | 3,951 | 8,044 | | | 11 | 3,747 | 3,593 | 7,340 12 | 3,700 | 3,646 | 7,346 13 | 3,676 | 3,631 | 7,307 14 | 3,445 | 3,271 | 6,716 15 | 2,358 | 2,291 | 4,649 | | | 16 | 1,190 | 1,163 | 2,353 17 | 672 | 680 | 1,352 18 | 403 | 358 | 761 19 | 135 | 156 | 291 20 | 41 | 52 | 93 | | | Over 20 | ... | 22 | 22 -------------+-----------+-----------+----------- Total | 41,491 | 40,319 | 81,810 ------------------------------------------------- An attempt was made to follow up the cases of all the children who had left one public elementary school during the period of one year preceding the study. The work was done by the case method and the homes of the children were visited. The total number of cases studied was 117, of whom 89 were girls. It was found that one-third of these children had graduated and gone on to high school. Another third had gone to work, and of these, 40 per cent had done so without graduating. The children constituting the remaining third were staying at home, and among these a majority had dropped out without graduating. Of the eighth grade graduates one-half were found to be illegally employed, as they were less than 16 years of age. Among those who dropped out and went to work before completing the course 80 per cent were illegally employed. The fact that many girls drop out without graduating and before the end of the legal attendance period and remain at home indicates that most of them do not leave on account of financial necessity. This conclusion is substantiated by the testimony of the girls and their parents, many of whom say that the girls left simply because they grew tired of attending and did not see the value of remaining. These facts point to the necessity for much more effective work in enforcing the compulsory attendance laws, for far better inspection of shops and factories to detect violations of the child labor laws, and above all to such a reform of the schooling opportunities provided for older girls as will make them and their parents see the value of securing the advantages of the training provided. EDUCATION AT THE TIME OF LEAVING SCHOOL About 3,700 boys and an approximately equal number of girls drop out of the public schools each year. Most of the boys and a considerable number of the girls enter wage-earning at once. Their educational equipment at the time of leaving school is indicated in Table 6. TABLE 6.--EDUCATIONAL EQUIPMENT OF THE CHILDREN WHO DROP OUT OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS EACH YEAR, AS INDICATED BY THE GRADES FROM WHICH THEY LEAVE --------------+--------------------- Grade | Number leaving --------------+--------------------- 4 | 70 5 | 440 6 | 960 7 | 1260 8 | 1630 | I | 890 II | 590 III | 150 IV | 1410 --------------+--------------------- Total | 7400 --------------+--------------------- Slightly less than one-fifth finish the high school course. Nearly three-fifths drop out before entering the high school, and approximately three-eighths before reaching the eighth grade. Under the present compulsory attendance law a boy who enters school at the age of six and afterwards advances at the rate of one grade per year until the end of the compulsory attendance period should cover nine grades--eight in the elementary school and one in high school--by the time he is 15 years old. In actual fact, however, only about two-fifths get any high school training. Nearly all of the rest take the eight to nine years' attendance required by law to complete eight, seven, six, or even a smaller number of grades. It is from this body of pupils that most of the wage-earners are recruited. In the course of the survey several investigations were made for the purpose of finding out what educational preparation workers in various industries had received. One of the most extensive of these was conducted in connection with the study of the printing industry. Educationally the printing trades rank higher than most other factory occupations, yet the average journeyman printer possesses less than a complete elementary education. Composing-room employees, such as compositors, linotypers, stonemen, proof-readers, etc., undoubtedly stand at the head of the skilled trades as to educational training, but it was found that only eight per cent were high school graduates. Six per cent had left school before reaching the seventh grade, and 16 per cent before reaching the eighth grade. The other departments of the printing industry made a much less favorable showing. An investigation conducted by the Survey in the spring of 1915, covering 5,000 young people at work under 21 years of age, indicated that only about 13 per cent of these young workers had received any high school training and that less than four per cent had completed a high school course. Over one-fifth reported the sixth grade as the last completed before leaving school, and nearly half had dropped out before completing the elementary course. Less than seven per cent of the boys engaged in industrial pursuits had received any high school training and only 42 per cent had got beyond the seventh grade. The educational preparation of the boys engaged in commercial and clerical occupations was somewhat better, nearly 22 per cent having attended high school one year or more; about one-half had left school after completing the eighth grade and nearly one-third had not completed the elementary course. These facts have a vital relation to the problem of vocational training. If the great majority of the children who will later enter wage-earning occupations do not remain in school beyond the end of the compulsory attendance period, and in addition over half fail to complete even the elementary course, vocational training, to reach them at all, must begin not later than the seventh grade, and if possible, before the pupils reach the age of 14. CHAPTER V INDUSTRIAL TRAINING FOR BOYS IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS In Chapter III the distribution of the wage-earners of the city was outlined, mainly for the purpose of establishing a basis on which to make a forecast of the future occupations of the children in the public schools. Such a forecast is essential as the preliminary step in any plan of vocational training to be carried out during the school period, for the reason that without it a clear understanding of the principal factors of the problem is impossible. The kinds of vocational training needed by children in school, and how and where such training should be given, must always depend in the first instance on what they are going to do when they grow up. The average elementary school in Cleveland enrolls between 350 and 400 boys. When they leave school these boys will scatter into many different kinds of work. With respect to the future vocations of the pupils, the average school represents in a sense a cross section of the occupational activities of the city. It contains a certain number of recruits for each of the principal types of wage-earning pursuits. A few of the boys will later enter professional life; many will take up some sort of clerical work; a still larger number will be employed in commercial occupations; and the largest group of all will become wage-earners in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits. The future occupation cannot be foretold accurately with respect to any particular boy, but we do know that, whatever their individual tastes and abilities, the boys must finally engage in activities similar to those in which the adult born native male population is engaged, and in approximately the same proportions. We do not know, for example, whether Johnny Jones will become a doctor or a carpenter, but we do know that of each 1,000 boys in the public schools about seven will become doctors and about 25 will become carpenters, because for many years about those proportions of the boys of native birth in Cleveland have become doctors and carpenters. One of the most impressive facts which comes to light in the study of occupational statistics is the constancy in these proportions. The business of any community requires certain kinds of work to be performed and the relative amount of work required and consequently the relative number of workers vary but slightly over a long period of time. This principle is illustrated in a striking way by the list of occupations selected at random presented in Table 7, showing the number of persons engaged in the occupations specified among each 100 male workers at two successive census years. TABLE 7--PER CENT OF TOTAL MALE WORKING POPULATION ENGAGED IN SPECIFIED OCCUPATIONS, 1900 AND 1910 ----------------------------+--------------------- | Per cent of total Occupation | working population +----------+---------- | 1900 | 1910 ----------------------------+----------+---------- Machinists | 4.7 | 5.8 Saloon keepers | 1.1 | .7 Tailors | 2.1 | 1.7 Commercial travelers | .8 | 1.1 Lawyers | .5 | .4 Barbers | .8 | .7 Bakers | .6 | .5 Physicians | .6 | .5 Carpenters | 3.4 | 3.3 Cabinet makers | .5 | .4 Plumbers | .9 | .9 Stenographers and typists | .3 | .3 ----------------------------+----------+---------- With the exception of plumbers and stenographers there was either an increase or a decrease from 1900 to 1910 in the relative number employed in each of these occupations. In only one occupation, however, that of machinist, did the change amount to as much as one per cent. In all the others the shift during the decade was less than one-half of one per cent, and in more than three-fifths of them it did not exceed one-tenth of one per cent of the total number of male workers. WHAT THE BOYS IN SCHOOL WILL DO The figures in this table, presented for illustrative purposes, do not accurately represent the proportions of boys now attending the public schools who are likely to enter the occupations named, because they do not take into account the fact that a considerable number of the workers in Cleveland came to this country after they reached adult manhood and that a disproportionate number of these foreign born workers enter the industrial occupations. For this reason the total adult working population is not strictly comparable with the school enrollment, which is approximately nine-tenths native born. When the boys in the public schools grow up they will be distributed among the different trades, professions, and industries in about the same proportions as are the American born men in the city at the present time. This distribution is shown for the different occupational groups in Table 8. TABLE 8.--DISTRIBUTION OF NATIVE BORN MEN BETWEEN THE AGES OF 21 AND 45 IN THE PRINCIPAL OCCUPATIONAL GROUPS Approximate Occupational group per cent Manufacturing and mechanical occupations 44 Commercial occupations 20 Clerical occupations 16 Transportation occupations 11 Domestic and personal service occupations 5 Professional occupations 3 Public service occupations 1 ---- Total 100 The figures in the column at the right of the table represent the number of native born men between the ages of 21 and 45 among each hundred native born male inhabitants engaged in the occupations comprehended in the various groups. In the case of the industrial group the figure is too high, as the census data relative to the distribution of foreign and native born include all ages, and there is a smaller proportion of American born adult men employed in industry than is found in the lower age groups. Extensive computations have shown, however, that the inaccuracies due to this cause are not serious enough to affect the use of the figures for our purpose. Let us now consider what these proportions mean in establishing vocational courses to prepare boys for wage-earning pursuits. The future expectations of the boys in a large elementary school enrolling say 1,000 pupils of both sexes would be about as follows: _Number of boys who will enter_ Manufacturing and mechanical occupations 220 Commercial occupations 100 Clerical occupations 80 Transportation occupations 55 Domestic and personal service occupations 25 Professional occupations 15 Public service occupations 5 ---- Total 500 This distribution includes all pupils, from the beginners in the first grade to the older boys in the seventh and eighth grades. It is certain, however, that differentiated instruction for vocational purposes is not possible or advisable for the younger children. According to the commonly accepted view among educators, vocational training should not be undertaken before the age of 12 years, and many believe that this is too early. In an elementary school of 1,000 pupils there would be about 80 boys 12 years old and over. Applying to this number the ratios given in the previous table we obtain the following: _Number of boys who will enter_ Manufacturing and mechanical occupations 35 Commercial occupations 16 Clerical occupations 13 Transportation occupations 9 Domestic and personal service occupations 4 Professional occupations 2 Public service occupations 1 --- Total 80 The industrial group includes all of the skilled trades and most of the semi-skilled and unskilled manual occupations. The skilled trades are usually grouped in four main classifications: metal trades, building trades, printing trades, and "other" trades, these last comprising a number of small trades in each of which relatively few men are employed. With respect to their future occupations the 35 boys in the industrial group are likely to be distributed about as follows: _Number of boys who will enter_ Metal trades 8 Building trades 7 Printing trades 1 Other trades 2 Semi-skilled and unskilled industrial occupations 17 --- 35 The analysis can be carried still further, for these trade groups are by no means homogeneous. The building trades, for example, include over 20 distinct trades, a number of which have little in common with the others as to methods of work and technical content. ORGANIZATION AND COSTS At this point it becomes necessary to take cognizance of certain administrative factors which have a marked bearing on the problem. They relate to the organization of classes in elementary schools and the cost of teaching. In a school of 1,000 pupils there would be at least five separate classes for the seventh and eighth grades. The 35 boys who need industrial training are not all found in a single class, but are distributed more or less evenly throughout the five classrooms, that is, there are approximately seven in each class. A differentiated course under these conditions is difficult if not impossible. In a few of the Cleveland elementary schools the departmental system of teaching is in use. Under this plan something might be done, were it not that the total number of pupils requiring instruction relating specifically to the industrial trades is too small to justify the expense necessary for equipment, material, and special instruction required for such training. This is true as regards even an industrial course of the most general kind, while provision for particular trades is entirely out of the question. The machinist's trade employs more men than any other occupation in the city, yet the number of seventh and eighth grade boys in the average elementary school who will probably become machinists does not exceed five or six. Not over two boys are likely to enter employment in the printing industry. The smaller trades, such as pattern making, cabinet making, molding, and blacksmithing are represented by not more than one boy each. A possible alternative is the plan now followed in the teaching of manual training whereby the boys of the upper grades in various elementary schools are sent to one centrally located for a short period of instruction each week. The principal objection to this plan is that the amount of time now given is insufficient to accomplish much in an industrial course, nor can it be materially increased without seriously interfering with the work in other subjects. The first condition for successful industrial training is the concentration of a large number of pupils old enough to benefit by such training in a single school plant. Only in this way is it possible to bring the cost of teaching, equipment, and material within reasonable limits and provide facilities for differentiating the work on the basis of the vocational needs of the pupils. The fact that this condition cannot be met in elementary schools is one of the strongest arguments in favor of conducting the seventh and eighth grade work under the junior high school form of organization. WHAT THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS CAN DO The most important contribution to vocational education the elementary school can make consists in getting the children through the lower grades fast enough so that they will reach the junior high school by the time they are 13 years old, in order that before the end of the compulsory attendance period they may spend at least two years in a school where some kind of industrial training is possible. That this is not being done at the present time the data presented in Chapter IV amply demonstrate. In recent years there has been a tendency to regard vocational training as a remedy for retardation. The fact is that the cure of retardation is not a subsequent but a preliminary condition to successful training for wage-earning. Vocational training is not a means for the prevention of retardation, but retardation is a most effective means for the prevention of vocational training. CHAPTER VI THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL In 1915 the Board of Education authorized the establishment of a system of junior high schools in the city, and at the beginning of the school year of 1915-16 the new plan was inaugurated in two schools. The Empire Junior High School, situated in the eastern part of the city, had an enrollment of about 700 children made up of seventh and eighth grade pupils formerly accommodated in the elementary schools of that section. The Detroit Junior High School on the west side had an enrollment of about 400 pupils. No decision has yet been reached as to whether the course shall include only two years' work, or three years, as in other cities of the country where the junior high school plan has been adopted. A comparison of the course with that for corresponding grades of the elementary schools shows some marked differences. Less time is devoted to English in the junior high school and considerably more to arithmetic, geography, and history. Mechanical drawing, not taught in the elementary schools except incidentally in the manual training classes, is given an hour each week. All boys receive one hour of manual training a week against slightly less than one and one-half hours in the seventh and eighth elementary grades, but they may elect an additional two and one-half hours a week in this subject, together with applied arithmetic during the first year, or with bookkeeping during the second. Girls may elect an additional two and one-half hours a week of domestic science, with bookkeeping. The manual training for boys comprises woodwork and bookbinding. SPECIALIZED TRAINING NOT PRACTICABLE In the junior high school, as in the elementary school, the greatest difficulty in the way of trade training for specific occupations lies in the small number of pupils who can be expected, within the bounds of reasonable probability, to enter a single trade. Hand and machine composition, the largest of the printing trades, will serve as an example. In a junior high school of 1,000 pupils, boys and girls, the number of boys who are likely to become compositors is about five. But to teach this trade printing equipment occupying considerable space is necessary, together with a teacher who has had some experience or training as a printer. The expense per pupil for equipment, for the space it occupies, and for instruction renders special training for such small classes impracticable. All of the skilled occupations, with the exception perhaps of the machinist's trade, are in the same case. An attempt to form separate classes for each of the eight largest trades in the city would result in two classes of not over five pupils, three classes of not over 10 pupils, and only one of over 13 pupils. The following table shows the number of boys, in a school of this size, who are likely to enter each of these trades. _Number of boys who will probably become:_ Machinists 36 Carpenters 13 Steam engineers 11 Painters 10 Electricians 9 Plumbers 7 Compositors 5 Molders 5 A GENERAL INDUSTRIAL COURSE The members of the Survey Staff were, however, of the opinion that through the system of electives in the junior high school, industrial training of a more general type, made up chiefly of instruction in the applications of mathematics, drawing, physics, and chemistry to the commoner industrial processes, would be of considerable benefit to those boys who, on the basis of their own selection or that of their parents, are likely to enter industrial pursuits. A course of this kind is outlined in following sections of this chapter. The objections which may be brought against this plan are frankly recognized. It takes into account only the interests of the industrial group, comprising less than one-half of the boys in the school. Unquestionably it would tend to vitalize the teaching of mathematics, drawing, and science for the boys who enroll in the industrial course, but it leaves unsolved the question of method and content of instruction in these subjects for the boys in the non-industrial or so-called academic course. Very possibly future experience may demonstrate that the plan recommended for the general industrial course affords the best medium for teaching science and mathematics at this period to all pupils, in which case a differentiated course would be unnecessary. The organization of vocational training in junior high school grades presents many difficulties which cannot be solved by a more or less abstract study of educational and industrial needs. Experimentation on an extensive scale, covering a considerable period of time, is necessary before definite conclusions can be drawn as to the limitations and possibilities of such work. It is with a full appreciation of this fact that the following suggestive outline is presented. The purpose of the general industrial course is to afford to boys who wish to enter industrial occupations the opportunity to secure knowledge and training that will be of direct or indirect value to them in industrial employment. It is not expected that by this means they can be given much practical training in hand work for any particular trade. The most the school can do for the boy at this period is to bridge over for him the gap that exists between the knowledge he obtains from books and the rôle which this knowledge plays in the working world. It must not be assumed that the transition can be effected merely by the introduction of shop work, even if it were possible to provide the wide variety of manual training necessary to make up a fair representation of the principal occupations into which the boys will enter when they leave school. It is doubtful whether, so far as its vocational value is concerned, shop work isolated from other subjects of the curriculum is worth any more per unit of time devoted to it than several of the so-called academic subjects. This is particularly true of the two most common types of manual training--cabinet making and forge work. Both represent dying trades. During the decade 1900-1910 the increase in the number of cabinet makers in Cleveland fell far below the general increase in population. The blacksmiths made a still poorer showing. Both trades are recruited mainly from abroad and the relative number of Americans employed in them is steadily declining. In the opinion of the Survey Staff a general industrial course should cover instruction in at least the following five subjects: Industrial mathematics, mechanical drawing, industrial science, shop work, and the study of economic and working conditions in wage earning pursuits. These may be offered as independent electives or they may be required of all pupils who elect the industrial course. The details of organization must, of course, be worked out by trial and experiment. They will probably vary in different schools and from year to year. INDUSTRIAL MATHEMATICS Of the hundreds of employers who were interviewed by members of the Survey Staff as to the technical equipment needed by beginners in the various trades, nearly all emphasized the ability to apply the principles of simple arithmetic quickly, correctly, and accurately to industrial problems. Many employers criticized the present methods of teaching this subject in the public schools. In the main their criticisms were to the effect that the teaching was not "practical." "The boys I get may know arithmetic," said one, "but they haven't any mathematical sense." Another cited his experience with an apprentice who was told to cut a bar eight and one-half feet long into five pieces of equal length. He was not told the length of the bar, but was given the direct order: "Cut that bar into five pieces all of the same size." The boy was unable to lay out the work, although when asked by the foreman, "Don't you know how to divide 81/2 by 5?", he performed the arithmetical operation without difficulty. The employer gave this instance as an illustration of what to his mind constituted one of the principal defects of public school teaching. "Mere knowledge of mathematical principles and the ability to solve abstract problems is not enough," he said. "What the boys get in the schools is mathematical skill, but what they need in their work is mathematical intelligence. The first does not necessarily imply the second." This mathematical intelligence can be developed only through practice in the solution of practical problems, that is, problems which are stated in the every day terms of the working world and which require the student to go through the successive mental steps in the same way that he would if he were working in a shop. The problem referred to above is one of division of fractions. If we state it thus: "81/2÷5," the pupil takes pencil and paper, performs the operation and announces the result. If we say, "A bar 81/2 feet long is to be cut into five pieces of equal length; how long should each piece be?", the problem calls for the exercise of greater intelligence, as the pupil must determine which process to use in order to obtain the correct result. It becomes still more difficult if we merely show him the bar and say: "This bar must be cut into five pieces of equal length; how long will each piece be?" Several additional preliminary steps are required, none of which was involved in the problem in its original form. Before the length of the pieces can be computed he must find out the length of the bar. He must know what to measure it with, and in what terms, whether feet or inches, the problem should be stated. Again, if we say: "Lay this bar out to be cut in five equal lengths," another step--the measurement and marking for each cut--is added. Many variations might be introduced, each involving additional opportunities for the exercise of thought. It is through practice in solving problems of this kind that the pupil acquires what the employer called mathematical intelligence. It consists in the ability to note what elements are involved in the problems and to decide which process of arithmetic should be used in dealing with them. Once these decisions are made the succeeding arithmetical calculations are simple and easy. In technical terms the ability that is needed is the ability to generalize one's experiences. In every-day terms it is the ability to use what one knows. The work in applied mathematics should cover a wide range of problems worded in the language of the trades and constantly varied in order to establish as many points of contact as possible between the pupil's knowledge of mathematics and the use of mathematics in industrial life. Practical shop work is one of the best means to this end. The trouble with much of the shop work given in the schools is that it runs to hand craftmanship in which the object is to "make something" by methods long ago discarded in the industrial world, rather than to give the pupil exercise in the sort of thinking he will need to do after he goes to work. Successful teaching does not depend so much on the use of tools and materials as on the teacher's knowledge of the conditions surrounding industrial work and his ability to originate methods for vitalizing the instruction in its relation to industrial needs. MECHANICAL DRAWING At the present time the junior high school course provides for one hour a week of mechanical drawing. All the boys who may be expected to elect the industrial course can well afford to devote more time to drawing. For such boys no other subject in the curriculum, except perhaps applied mathematics, is of greater importance. In many of the trades the ability to work from drawings is indispensable and the man who does not possess it is not likely to rise above purely routine work. In a drawing course for future industrial workers the emphasis should be placed on giving the pupil an understanding of the uses of drawing for industrial purposes, rather than on fine workmanship in making drawings. Seventh grade boys can't be made into draftsmen in three years and if they leave school at 15 they are not likely to become draftsmen. The ordinary skilled workman seldom has any need to make drawings or designs, beyond an occasional rough sketch, but he often has to work from drawings. To put it in another way, drawing to the average workman is like an additional language of which he needs a reading but not a writing knowledge. No doubt it would be well to teach him to write and read with equal skill, but in the two or three years most of these boys will remain in school there is not time enough to do both. INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE In many of the trades an introductory knowledge of physics and chemistry is of considerable advantage. Boys in the junior high school cannot be expected to take formal courses in these subjects, but they should not leave school without some acquaintance with them and a knowledge of their relations to industrial processes. A fair equipment should be provided for demonstrational and illustrative purposes. The subject matter should be correlated as closely as possible with the shop work, and the principal mechanical and chemical laws explained as the shop problems furnish examples of their application. In addition the boys should be taught the common technical terms used in trade hand books. The man who expects to advance in his trade will have to keep on learning after he leaves school. There are many avenues of information open to him, and the school can perform no more valuable service than to point the way to the sources of knowledge represented by reference books, trade journals, and other technical literature. Some of the popular magazines, such as "The Scientific American," "The Illustrated World," and "Popular Mechanics" can be used most effectively to bring home to the pupils the close connection existing between the class work and the outside world of science and invention. SHOP WORK It is difficult to determine the exact function of the manual training shop work in cabinet making and bookbinding which figures in the curriculum at present. That the work was not planned with vocational training in mind seems clear from the action of the school board in adding bookbinding to the course about the middle of the year. The bookbinding trade is one of the smallest in the city, and there is little probability that more than one boy among the total number enrolled in both junior high schools will enter it after leaving school. Fully three-fourths of the industrial group will later be employed in occupations where most of the work is done with machines or machine tools. Even in the hand tool trades, such as carpentry, sheet metal work, cabinet making, and blacksmithing, the use of machines is constantly increasing. It would seem, therefore, that some acquaintance with different types of machines would be of considerable value to the pupils who may later enter industrial employment. The number of boys who are likely to become machinists is large enough to warrant the installation of a small machine shop. Repairing, assembling, and taking apart machines should occupy an important place in the shop course. Most boys are intensely interested in getting at the "insides" of a machine, and the processes of assembling, with their attendant problems of adjustment and co-ordination of mechanical movements, afford opportunities for the best kind of practical instruction. One of the great advantages of this type of shop work lies in the fact that it consumes little or no material and is therefore inexpensive; another is that a fairly extensive equipment can be easily obtained, as any machine, old or new, will serve the purpose and may be used over and over again. The extent and variety of shop equipment will depend largely on the resources of the school system. The more the better, so long as the money is expended on the principle of the greatest good to the greatest number, which means that the kinds of tools and equipment used in the large trades should be preferred to those used only in the smaller trades. In order that the time devoted to shop work may yield its greatest results, it is necessary that every lesson center around knowledge and ability that will be of real subsequent use to the pupils. It must not run to "art" and it must not be mere tinkering. Its principal value as vocational training, in the last analysis, lies in its use as an objective medium for the teaching of industrial mathematics and science. VOCATIONAL INFORMATION During the second and third years all the boys who elect the industrial course or who expect to leave school at the end of the compulsory attendance period should be required to devote some time each week to the study of economic and working conditions in wage earning industrial and commercial occupations. A clear understanding of the comparative advantages of different kinds of employment is of the highest importance at this period of the boy's life. It seems to be generally assumed that an adequate basis of knowledge for the selection of an industrial vocation is an acquaintance with materials and processes. Such knowledge is valuable, but making a living is mainly an economic problem. What an occupation means in terms of income is more significant than what it means in terms of materials. The most important facts about the cabinet making trade, for example, are that it offers very few opportunities for employment to public school boys, and that it is one of the lowest paid skilled trades. The primary considerations in the intelligent selection of a vocation relate to wages, steadiness of employment, health risks, opportunities for advancement, apprenticeship conditions, union regulations, and the number of chances there are for getting into it. These things are fundamental, and any one of them may well take precedence over the matter of whether the tastes of the future wage-earner run to wood, brick, stone, or steel. CHAPTER VII TRADE TRAINING DURING THE LAST YEARS IN SCHOOL Between the end of the compulsory attendance period and the entering age in most of the trades there exists a gap of from one to two years which is not adequately covered by any of the present educational agencies of the school system. Two years ago the Ohio State legislature extended the compulsory attendance period from 14 to 15 for boys and from 14 to 16 for girls. The result has been to force into the first years of the high school course a considerable number of pupils who have no intention of taking the complete four year course, and who will leave as soon as they reach the end of the compulsory period. That these pupils are probably not getting all that they might out of the time they attend high school is no argument against the present compulsory attendance age limit, which should be raised rather than lowered. The study of industrial conditions conducted during the survey left every member of the Survey Staff firmly convinced that the industries of Cleveland have little or nothing worth while to offer to boys under 16. Very few of the skilled trades will accept an apprentice below this age. The general opinion among manufacturers was unfavorable to the employment of boys under 16. "They are more of a nuisance than a help," said one; "they are not old enough to understand the responsibilities of work." "They break more machinery and spoil more material than they are worth," said another. In several of the building trades apprentices must be 17 years old, as the law forbids boys under this age to work on scaffoldings. The new workmen's compensation law exerts a strong influence in favor of a higher working age limit, owing to the greater risk of accident among young workers. The fact is that the law is still about one year behind the requirements of industrial life. If a vote were taken among employers who can offer boys the opportunity to learn a trade it would be found that a large majority favor raising the working age to 16. Employment before this time usually leads nowhere, and the pittance the boy earns cannot be compared with the economic advantage he could derive from an additional year in a good vocational school. The average boy who leaves school at 15 spends a year or two loafing or working at odd jobs before he can obtain employment that offers any promise of future advancement. These years are often more than wasted, as he not only learns nothing of value from such casual jobs, but misses the healthy discipline of steady, orderly work, which is of so great importance during these formative years of his life. THE TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOLS The two technical high schools, the East Technical and West Technical, occupy an important place among the secondary schools of the city. At the present time the two schools enroll nearly two-fifths of the boys attending high school. The course comprises four years' work. In the East Technical the shopwork includes joinery and wood-turning during the first year, and pattern making and foundry work during the second year. In the West Technical the first year course includes pattern making and either forging or sheet metal work; and that of the second year, forging, pipe-fitting, brazing, riveting, and cabinet making. During the remaining two years of the course the student may elect a particular trade, devoting about 10 hours a week to practice in the shop during the last half of the third year, and from 11 to 15 hours during the fourth year. The proportion of pupils who graduate is small and the mortality during the first two years is very heavy. This is due in part to the fact that the type of pupil who leaves school early is more likely to elect a technical course than an academic course. About 25 per cent of each entering class drops out after attending one year, and 25 per cent of the remainder by the end of the second year. By the time the third year is reached the classes are greatly depleted and the survivors as a rule are of the more intelligent and prosperous type. Only a small proportion of them expect to enter skilled manual occupations. Table 9 shows the distribution of the third and fourth year students among the different trade courses during the first semester of 1915-16. TABLE 9.--DISTRIBUTION OF THIRD AND FOURTH YEAR STUDENTS IN TRADE COURSES IN THE CLEVELAND TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOLS, FIRST SEMESTER, 1915-1916 Trade courses Students Electrical construction 68 Machine work 52 Printing 28 Cabinet making 22 Pattern making 12 Foundry work 1 ---- Total 183 That relatively few of these students will ultimately become journeymen workmen is shown by the records of the boys graduated in the past. The principal of the East Technical High School recently sent a questionnaire to all the students graduated up to 1915, asking for information as to their present occupations and their earnings during the first four years after graduation. Of those who replied, over 60 per cent either were attending college, or employed as draftsmen or chemists. About 28 per cent were employed in the skilled trades. The distribution in detail is shown in Table 10. The data furnished by graduates as to their earnings during successive years after leaving school supply still more convincing evidence to the effect that the technical school graduate seldom remains in manual work more than two or three years. The complete course gives them an equipment of practical and theoretical knowledge that speedily takes them out of the handwork class. The technical high schools are primarily training schools for future civil, electrical, and mechanical engineers. To the student who cannot afford a college course they offer excellent preparation for rapid advancement to supervisory and executive industrial positions, and for drafting and office work in manufacturing plants. TABLE 10.--DISTRIBUTION BY OCCUPATION OF CLEVELAND TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES Occupation Number Attending college 111 Draftsmen 51 Electricians 33 Machinists 32 Chemists 8 Pattern makers 7 Cabinet makers 6 Printers 3 Foundrymen 1 Unclassified 32 ---- Total 284 The output of the schools falls into two main divisions: those who leave at the end of the second year or earlier, and those who graduate. The records show that most of the pupils who reach the third year complete the course, but nearly half drop out during the first and second years. The benefit they obtain from these two years' attendance is problematical. The course was designed on the basis of four years' attendance, and the work of the first two years is to a considerable degree a preparation for that of the last two. The principals of both schools are fully alive to the disadvantages of the course for the large number of pupils who drop out within a year or two, and admit that such students would derive greater benefit from more practical instruction aimed directly toward preparation for the industrial trades. Both believe that the only practicable solution is a two-year trade course in a separate school, covering a much wider range of shop activities than the present high school course. To the only alternative--the institution of a short course within the technical schools to be conducted either as a part of or simultaneously with the four year course--they present objections of considerable weight. They point out that a preparatory course for the trades and a preparatory course with college as the goal differ not only in length but in kind. The work in mathematics for the future civil engineer, for example, must conform to college entrance standards and involves an amount of study that is quite unnecessary for the boy whose aim is to become a carpenter or machinist. The first needs a thorough course in algebra, geometry, and trigonometry; the second needs industrial arithmetic, with only such applications of higher mathematics as may be of use to him in his trade. The same principle holds with respect to other subjects. What boys who expect to enter industrial occupations most need at this period is instruction that will be of practical value to them for future wage earning. It is doubtful whether high school courses which have been formulated in the first instance to prepare pupils for a college course can furnish such instruction and it is still more doubtful whether the trade training required by the future mechanic and the broader preparation required for the professions can be given effectively in the same school. A TWO-YEAR TRADE COURSE It is the opinion of the Survey Staff that a separate school in which direct training for the industrial trades is emphasized would result in more profitable use of the pupils' time and probably induce many of them to remain in school up to the apprentice entering age. Such a school, with a curriculum embracing vocational training for all the principal trades, would easily command an enrollment sufficient to justify the installation of a good shop equipment and the employment of a corps of teachers qualified by special training and experience for this kind of work. Even if only one-half the number who enter the skilled trades each year attended the school, the enrollment would reach at least 800 boys. A trade school of this kind would relieve the first and second year classes of many pupils that the technical high schools do not want and cannot adequately provide for. The minimum entering age should be not less than 14, and no requirement other than age should be imposed. This would draw part of the over-age pupils from the grades and take from the junior high school a certain number of boys who could profit by the greater amount of time given to shop work in the trade school. A good many will stay only one year, and every effort should be made at the time of entrance to learn the intentions of the pupil. If it seems fairly certain that he will not remain longer than a year he may well omit such studies as have no direct bearing on the trade he wishes to learn. The courses should follow the lines laid down in the general industrial course recommended for the junior high school, but with a greater proportion of the time devoted to practical shopwork. As the number of pupils for each trade class would be relatively large, a closer correlation could be effected between the academic subjects and the work in the shops than is possible in the junior high school. Both general and special courses should be provided. Many of the pupils will wish to specialize on a particular trade. Others who have not yet reached a decision need a general course that will give them a wide range of experience with materials and processes. The organization of classes should be planned so as to permit transfers, whenever desirable, from the general to the special courses, or vice-versa. By the time the pupil has reached the second year he usually will settle down to steady work on the trade he selects, although here again the organization should be sufficiently elastic to allow transfers when there seems to be good reason for making them. It is to be expected, however, that nearly all the pupils will devote their time during the second year to practice and study limited to single trades. The success of the school in holding boys to the age of 16 or 17 will depend on its ability to convince them that the extra time in school is a paying investment, and this cannot be done unless they stick to one line of work. CHAPTER VIII TRADE-PREPARATORY AND TRADE-EXTENSION TRAINING FOR BOYS AND MEN AT WORK Several forms of trade-preparatory and trade-extension training for apprentices and journeymen workmen are carried on in the city. Probably the most effective work done in the teaching of boys after they have entered employment is found in manufacturing establishments which maintain apprentice schools in connection with their shops. There are two excellent examples of this type of instruction in Cleveland--the apprentice schools conducted by the New York Central Railroad and by the Warner and Swasey Company, manufacturers of astronomical instruments and machine tools. The Warner and Swasey Company school was established in 1911. The course covers a total of 560 hours, extending over a period of four years. The apprentices attend the school four hours a week for 35 weeks each year. The time allotment for the various subjects included in the course is shown in Table 11. In 1915 there were 65 apprentices enrolled in the school, most of them from the machinist's trade. The sessions are held during working hours in a room in the factory fitted up with drawing tables and blackboards. No shop equipment is used. The purpose of the course is to develop a body of trained workmen competent to take positions in the factory as foremen or heads of departments. Less than one-tenth of the total time of the course is devoted to the study of shop practice. Standard textbooks are used in the teaching of mathematics. TABLE 11.--TIME ALLOTMENT IN THE APPRENTICE COURSE GIVEN BY THE WARNER AND SWASEY COMPANY, CLEVELAND Subject Hours Arithmetic 35 English 65 Mechanical drawing 70 Shop practice 40 Algebra 70 Geometry 40 Trigonometry 30 Physics 70 Materials 35 Industrial history 35 Mechanics, strength of materials, and mechanical design 70 --- Total 560 The enrollment in the school conducted by the New York Central Railroad is about 140 boys, nearly all of whom are machinists' apprentices. They are divided into three classes, the members of each class attending the school four hours a week. About two-thirds of the time is devoted to mechanical drawing and one-third to mathematics and shop practice. The instruction in these two latter subjects is based on a series of graded mimeographed or blue print lesson sheets, containing a wide variety of shop problems, with a condensed and simplified explanation of the mathematical principles involved. In the main the work is limited to the application of simple arithmetic to problems of shop practice. No textbooks are used, but the booklets on machine shop practice published by the International Correspondence Schools are studied in connection with the course. In addition to the required classroom work in mechanical drawing, each apprentice serves four or five months of his term in the regular drafting rooms of the company. The classroom is equipped with models of railway appliances and machinery, together with laboratory apparatus for teaching the laws of mechanics. No machine tools or other shop equipment are used in the classes. The course covers about 700 hours of instruction exclusive of the time spent in regular drafting room work. About 20 apprentices finished the course in 1915. Several of the building and printing trades' labor unions take an active interest in the training of apprentices, and in at least two instances the unions maintain evening classes for teaching trade theory. The Electrical Workers' Union, made up principally of inside wiremen, conducts apprentice classes taught by journeymen. The International Typographical Union course for compositors and compositors' apprentices is undoubtedly the best yet devised for giving supplementary training in hand composition. It is taught by journeymen in evening classes, under the supervision of the central office of the Typographical Union Commission, to which all the work must be submitted. In February, 1916, about 100 students were enrolled, of whom approximately one-third were apprentices and two-thirds journeymen. The course consists of 46 lessons in English, lettering, design, color harmony, job composition, and imposition for machine and hand folding. The classes are held at the headquarters of the union. As the students' daily practice in the shop provides plenty of opportunity for the acquisition of manual skill, no apparatus or shop equipment is used in connection with the course. The apprentice school conducted by the Y.M.C.A. represents another type of apprentice training. The instruction is given during the day. The apprentices are sent to the school by various firms in the city under an arrangement whereby the boys attend four and one-half hours each week during regular shop time. In February, 1916, the enrollment consisted of 46 apprentices, practically all from the metal trades. The employers pay the tuition fee, which amounts to $20 a year. The course requires four years' work of 40 weeks each, a total of 720 hours. It comprises instruction in shop mathematics, drawing, English, physics, and industrial hygiene. No shop equipment is used. Fifteen boys were graduated from the course this year. The factory apprentice school of the Warner and Swasey Company and New York Central Railroad type possesses many advantages over any kind of continuation instruction carried on outside of the plants where the boys are employed. A better correlation between the class and shop work is possible together with a more personal relation between teacher and pupils than is usually found when the pupils are drawn from a number of different establishments. It must be admitted, however, that this method of training apprentices is not feasible except in very large plants, as in small classes the teaching cost becomes prohibitive. There is little probability that it will ever be adopted by enough employers to take care of more than an insignificant proportion of the boys who enter the skilled trades. The results obtained, here and in other cities, through coöperative schemes, such as the Y.M.C.A. continuation school, are in the main disappointing. Their failure to reach more than a few of the boys who need trade-extension training is due partly to the fact that they operate under a condition that is fundamentally unjust. One employer interviewed during the survey stated the case very clearly: "I can see no good reason why I should make pecuniary sacrifices for the benefit of my competitors. Very few of my apprentices remain until the end of their term, because by the time they have completed their second year other firms which make no effort to train their quota of skilled workmen for the trade steal them away from me. Any plan for the training of apprentices which does not apportion the burden among the different establishments in direct proportion to the number of men they have, simply penalizes those public-spirited employers who participate in it." CONTINUATION TRAINING FROM 15 TO 18 The years between 15 and 18 are among the most important in the life of the young worker. If left to his own devices during this period, he is very likely to lose much of vocational value of his earlier education, because he does not grasp the relation which the knowledge he acquired in school bears to his daily work. As a result the problem of supplementary instruction at a later age, when he wakes up to his need for it, becomes much more difficult than if trade-extension training had been taken up at once when he entered employment. The vocational interests of young workers and the social interests of the community are both opposed to the current practice of "graduating" boys from the public schools at the ages of 15 or 16 and then losing sight of them. The fact that the large number who go into industrial occupations will not or cannot remain in school beyond these ages does not absolve the school system from further responsibility for their educational future. There should not be a complete severance between the boy and the school until he has reached a relatively mature age. In other words, the school system should maintain, as long as possible, such a relation with him as will help to round out his education and lead him to continue it after reaching manhood. It is the opinion of the Survey Staff that the only practicable solution of this problem lies in the day continuation school, backed by a compulsory law which will bring every boy and girl at work under the age of 18 into school for a certain number of hours per week. Only through a comprehensive plan that will reach large numbers of young workers can the difficulties inherent in the administration of small classes be overcome. The night schools have never been successful in holding boys long enough to make more than a beginning in trade-extension training. It is certain that growing boys should not be expected to add two hours of study to their nine or 10 hours of unaccustomed labor in the shop. Both individual and community interests demand that this problem be taken up in such a way as to obviate the sharp cleavage between the boy's school life and his working life. From every point of view it is unwise to permit him to lose all contact with the educational agencies of the city during his first years at work. The compulsory continuation school avoids the difficulties which are responsible for the common failure of those schemes which depend for their success on the initiative of individuals or the voluntary coöperation of employers and trade unions. One of its great advantages is that the principle on which it is based makes for equal justice to all. There can be no doubt that the decline of apprentice training in the shops is due partly to the fact that employers find that much of the time and money it costs goes toward providing a skilled labor force for competitors who make no effort to train young workers. The cooperation of employers on a comprehensive scale will be secured only when the burden is equally shared. THE TECHNICAL NIGHT SCHOOLS Night classes are conducted in both of the technical high schools for two terms a year of 10 weeks each, the pupils attending four hours a week. A tuition fee of $5 a term is collected, of which $3.50 is refunded to those who maintain an average attendance of 75 per cent. No special provision is made for apprentices as distinct from journeymen, and the trade classes are attended by a considerable number of wage-earners employed in occupations unrelated to industrial work. The list of courses offered during the past year, with the number enrolled in each course at the beginning of the second term, is shown in Table 12. A glance at the list of courses shows at once that while the vocational motive is given first importance, the schools also aim to provide instruction in cultural subjects which have only an indirect vocational application. Less than one-third of the students are pursuing courses which are directly related to their daily work. The remainder are enrolled in courses which have little or no connection with their daily occupations. In but four of the courses--machine shop, architectural drawing, printing, and sheet metal work--are more than half of the students employed in directly related occupations. TABLE 12.--COURSES AND NUMBER ENROLLED IN THE TECHNICAL NIGHT SCHOOLS, JANUARY, 1915 Number Course enrolled Mechanical drawing 328 Machine shop 222 Electrical construction 159 Sewing 103 Mathematics 89 Architectural drawing 83 Pattern making 73 Woodworking 67 Chemistry 59 Sheet metal drawing 52 Cooking 46 Foundry work 36 Agriculture 31 Printing 27 Sheet metal shop 23 Business English 20 Electric motors 19 Arts and crafts 18 Millinery 18 Electricity and magnetism 16 ------ Total 1,489 The policy of the schools is to form a class in any subject for which a sufficient number of students make application. Only a small proportion of the pupils attend more than one year, and the mortality from term to term is very high, although the tuition fee plan insures fairly good attendance during the term. The data collected by the survey indicate that the average length of attendance is approximately two terms--the equivalent in student hours of less than three weeks in the ordinary day school. Most of the men who enroll in night school classes need a course of at least two or three years. All but a few, however, insist on having their supplementary training in small doses. Frequently they want only specific instruction about a specific thing, such as how to lay out a certain piece of work or how to set up a particular machine tool. They want to secure this knowledge in the shortest possible time, and very few want the same thing. A course of two or three years does not appeal to them. Another difficulty is that their previous educational equipment varies widely, and some are not capable of assimilating even the specialized bit of trade knowledge they need without a preliminary course in arithmetic. As the personnel of the classes changes to a marked degree from term to term, the courses undergo frequent modifications. Apparently the teachers and principals have made a sincere effort to adapt the instruction to the demands of the men who attend the schools, but the fact is that the difficulties inherent in such work make it impossible to organize the classes on any basis except that of subject matter, which means fitting students into courses, rather than adapting courses to the needs of particular groups of workers. The enrollment is far below what should be expected in a city of nearly three-quarters of a million inhabitants. The total number of journeymen, apprentices, and helpers from the skilled manual occupations, receiving trade instruction in the night schools, is considerably less than one per cent of the total number in the city. A large enrollment is necessary for efficient administration. Success in specializing courses in night schools, as in day schools, requires a large administrative unit. The possible variety of courses is in direct ratio to the number enrolled. In a class of 200 carpenters there would probably be, for example, 10 or 15 men who need specialized instruction in stair-building. On the basis of the present enrollment of 40 or 50 carpenters the class would dwindle to three or four, with the result that the per capita teaching cost becomes prohibitive. The relatively small result now obtained is not the fault of the schools, but is due principally to the fact that the great field of evening vocational instruction is treated by the school system as a mere side line of the technical high schools. The evening classes are taught by teachers who have already given their best in the day classes. The enrollment cannot be greatly increased so long as this type of education is handled as one of the marginal activities of the school system, manned by tired teachers and directed by tired principals. It is a totally different kind of job from regular day instruction and requires a different administrative organization, with a responsible head vested with sufficient authority to meet quickly and effectively the widely varying demands of its students. This will require the speeding-up of administrative methods in the establishment of courses and the employment of teachers, a freer hand for the principals as regards both expenditures and policy, and most important of all, the organization of all forms of continuation and night school instruction under a separate department. A COMBINED PROGRAM OF CONTINUATION AND TRADE-EXTENSION TRAINING In considering the general conclusions of the survey as to what should be done in the matter of trade preparatory and trade-extension training in both day and night schools, it must be borne in mind that these two types of vocational training are still in the experimental stage. Their future development will probably involve a wide departure from conventional school methods and the evolution of a special technique through trial and experiment. At the present time we can only formulate certain of the main conditions to which future advance in these fields must conform. First of all, it must be recognized that such work is a big job in itself and cannot be successfully conducted as an appendix of the day school. It is worth doing well, or it is not worth doing. It needs an organization sufficiently elastic and adaptable to quickly make adjustments to unusual and unexpected conditions. It needs the supervision of a competent director who can devote to it all his time and energy, and a corps of teachers who not only know how and what to teach, but who possess a firm conviction of the value and utility of this kind of instruction. In the hands of teachers who bring to it only the margin of interest and energy remaining after a hard day's work in the high school, or who are unable to comprehend the radical difference between teaching a boy in the day school 35 hours a week and teaching a boy four hours a week in the continuation school or evening class, the full measure of success cannot be expected. The employment of day teachers for night school work has never been other than a makeshift, and the insignificant results attained in night schools throughout the country have been due in great measure to this cause. Apart from the fact that the interests of adolescent workers imperatively demand the establishment of day continuation schools, an additional argument in favor of such schools is that they would provide a means for making the night trade-extension work effective, through the use of continuation day school teachers for night school work. Such a plan would mean that teachers employed on this basis would have charge of a day continuation class during one session of four hours, and a night class of two hours, making a total of six hours' work per day. A plan of this kind would make possible the establishment of the fundamental conditions for successful trade--preparatory and trade-extension training in the night schools. The present system is unjust to both teachers and students;--to the students because the man or boy who sacrifices his recreation time to attend night school has a right to the best the schools can give; to the teachers because no teacher can work a two-hour night shift in addition to seven or eight hours in the technical high school without seriously impairing his efficiency. The development of this plan would necessitate the establishment of two centers, one located in the eastern and one in the western section of the city. In these centers should be housed the day vocational school, the day continuation classes, and the night vocational classes. This would relieve the technical high schools of a task which does not belong to them, and which by overloading the teachers seriously interferes with the work they were originally employed to do. At present a considerable number of the technical high school teachers are devoting from one-fifth to one-fourth of their total working day to elementary teaching, as most of the work in the night schools is below high school grade. By bringing together all the trade preparatory and trade-extension work under one roof, it is possible to secure the highest efficiency in the use of equipment. Expensive shops can be justified only on the basis of constant use. If the suggestion for the establishment of a vocational school is acted upon, such future contingencies as the continuation school should be borne in mind in planning the buildings and equipment, so as to permit of extensions as they may be required. It is practically certain that universal continuation training for young workers up to the age of 17 or 18 will be made compulsory in all the progressive states of the country within the next decade. The Ohio school authorities should get ready to handle the continuation school problem before the example of other states and the overwhelming pressure of public opinion forces it upon them. CHAPTER IX VOCATIONAL TRAINING FOR GIRLS The discussions in the preceding chapters have been limited intentionally to a consideration of the needs and possibilities of training for wage-earning pursuits in which men predominate. The conditions which surround vocational training for girls are so fundamentally unlike those encountered in the vocational training of boys that a combined treatment leads to needless complexity and confusion. Cleveland uses a relatively smaller amount of woman labor than most other large cities. In only one of the 10 largest cities in the country--Pittsburgh--is the proportion of women and girls at work smaller as compared with the total number of persons in gainful occupations than in Cleveland. In 1900, 20.4 per cent of the workers in the city were women; by 1910 the proportion of women workers had increased to 22 per cent, a shift of less than two per cent for the decade. A consideration of the occupational future of boys and girls shows at once how widely their problems differ. The typical boy in Cleveland attends school until he reaches the age of 15 or 16. About this period he becomes a wage-earner and for the next 30 or 40 years devotes most of his time and energy to making a living. The typical girl leaves school about the same time, becomes a wage-earner for a few years, then marries and spends the rest of her life keeping house and rearing children. To the man wage-earning is the real business of life. To the woman it is a means for filling in the gap between school and marriage, a little journey into the world previous to settling down to her main job. The most radical and important difference between the two sexes with respect to wage-earning is found in the length of the working life. The transitory character of the wage-earning phase in the life of most women is clearly seen in the contrasted age distribution shown in Table 13. TABLE 13.--PER CENT OF TOTAL POPULATION ENGAGED IN GAINFUL OCCUPATIONS DURING THREE DIFFERENT AGE PERIODS ----------------------+-------------+------------+ Age period | Women | Men | ----------------------+-------------+------------+ 16 to 21 | 60 | 85 | 21 to 45 | 26 | 98 | 45 and over | 12 | 85 | ----------------------+-------------+------------+ Approximately 85 per cent of the boys and slightly less than 60 per cent of the girls between the ages of 16 and 21 are at work. In the next age group--21 to 45--given by the census, 98 per cent of the men are at work, but the proportion of women employed in gainful occupations drops to 26 per cent, or about one in four; in the next age group--45 and over--it falls to about 12 per cent, as compared with 85 per cent of the men. Of the women still at work in the older age group, over one-half are engaged in domestic and personal service as servants, laundresses, housekeepers, etc. TABLE 14.--NUMBER EMPLOYED IN THE PRINCIPAL WAGE-EARNING OCCUPATIONS AMONG EACH 1,000 WOMEN FROM 16 TO 21 YEARS OF AGE Manufacturing and mechanical industries: Apprentices to dressmakers and milliners 4 Dressmakers and seamstresses (not in factory) 20 Milliners and millinery dealers 17 Semi-skilled operatives: Candy factories 6 Cigar and tobacco factories 15 Electrical supply factories 10 Knitting mills 11 Printing and publishing 8 Woolen and worsted mills: Weavers 5 Other occupations 7 Sewers and sewing machine operators (factory) 53 Tailoresses 25 Transportation: Telephone operators 19 Trade: Clerks in stores 28 Saleswomen (stores) 35 Professional service: Musicians and teachers of music 6 Teachers (school) 4 Domestic and personal service: Charwomen and cleaners 5 Laundry operatives 13 Servants 81 Waitresses 9 Clerical occupations: Bookkeepers, cashiers, and accountants 26 Clerks (except clerks in stores) 20 Stenographers and typewriters 62 The occupations in which the girls now in the public schools will later engage can be determined with a relative degree of accuracy by employing a method in general similar to that utilized in forecasting the occupations of boys. It must be taken into account, however, that the wage-earning period for women, except in the professional occupations, usually begins before the age of 21. For this reason the 16 to 21 age group probably offers the best basis for determining the future occupational distribution of girls in school. If all women at work up to the age of 25 were included the figures would be more nearly exact, but unfortunately data for the period between 21 and 25 are not available. The figures at the right of Table 14 show the number engaged in each specified occupation among each thousand women in the city between the ages of 16 and 21. The proportions given for the professional occupations, particularly teaching, are too small, because of the fact that few women enter the professions before the age of 21. Applying these proportions to the average elementary school unit, it will be seen at once that the number of girls old enough to profit by special training is too small in any single occupation to form a class of workable size. In such a school there would be about 80 girls 12 years old and over. Of the skilled occupations listed in the table stenography and typewriting offers the largest field of employment, yet the number who are likely to take up this kind of work does not exceed five or six. DIFFERENTIATION IN THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL The organization of the junior high school, where the enrollment is made up entirely of older pupils, obviates this difficulty to some extent. Instead of 80 girls there are from 300 to 500, with a corresponding increase in the number who will enter any given wage-earning occupation. Not less than one-eighth and probably not more than one-fifth of these girls will become needleworkers of some kind. They will need a more practical and intensive training in the fundamentals of sewing than is now provided by the household arts course. The skill required in trade work cannot be obtained in the amount of time now devoted to this subject. It should be made possible for a girl who expects to make a living with her needle to elect a thoroughly practical course in sewing in which the aim is to prepare for wage earning rather than merely to teach the girl how to make and mend her own garments. As proficiency in trade sewing requires first of all ample opportunity for practice, provision should be made for extending the time now given to sewing for those girls who wish to become needle workers. This can easily be done through the system of electives now in use. The establishment of classes in power machine operating during the junior high school period appears to be impracticable, due to the immaturity of the girls and the small number who could profit by such instruction. A discussion of the present sewing courses in the public schools will be found in Chapters XIV and XV, which summarize the special reports on the Garment Trades and Dressmaking and Millinery. In the present chapter the consideration of these occupations is limited to an examination of the administrative questions connected with training for the sewing trades. SPECIALIZED TRAINING FOR THE SEWING TRADES The compulsory attendance law requires all girls to attend school until they are 16 years old. This forces a considerable number into the high schools for one or two years before they go to work. As a rule the type of girl who is likely to enter the needle trades selects the technical high school course, not because she has any idea of finishing it, but because she believes it offers a less tiresome way of getting through her last one or two years in school than the academic course. The technical course requires three and three-quarter hours a week of sewing during the first two years. The student may elect trade dressmaking and millinery during the third and fourth years. Very few girls who can afford to spend four years in high school ever become dressmakers or factory operatives. If the school system is to do anything of direct vocational value for them it will have to begin further down. Most of them leave school before the age of 17 and the years between 14 and 16 represent the last chance the school will have to give them any direct aid towards preparation for immediate wage-earning. For successful work in machine operating the class must be large enough to warrant the purchase and operation of sufficient equipment to give the pupils an opportunity for intensive practice. The only way this condition can be secured is by concentrating in large groups the girls who need such training. Little will be accomplished in training for the sewing trades without specialization, and specialization in small administrative units is impossible. The teaching and operating cost in a school enrolling, say 200 girls, who want the same kind of work, can be brought within reasonable bounds. In a school where the total number who need specialized training does not exceed 10 or 15 the cost is prohibitive. In the opinion of the Survey Staff a one or two year vocational course in the sewing trades should be established. The entrance age should not be less than 15. Courses should be provided for intensive work in trade dressmaking, power machine operating, and trade millinery. A conservative estimate of the number of girls who could be expected to enroll for courses in these subjects is 500. A trade school might be established where only this type of vocational training would be carried on, or it might be conducted in the same building with the trade courses for boys recommended in a previous chapter. In either case the number of pupils would be sufficient to warrant up-to-date equipment and a corps of specially trained teachers. Training for the sewing trades consumes more material than any other kind of vocational training. For this reason economical administration requires some arrangement for marketing the product. During the latter part of the course the school should be able to turn out first-class work. The familiarity with trade standards the pupils obtain through practice on garments which must meet the exacting demands of the buying public has a distinct educational value. The Manhattan Trade School for Girls in New York City and other successful schools in the country operate on this basis. There is reason to believe that there would be little difficulty in making arrangements with the clothing manufacturers in Cleveland to furnish a good trade school as much contract work as the classes could handle. OTHER OCCUPATIONS From one-fourth to one-fifth of the girls in the school will later enter employment in commercial and clerical occupations, as stenographers, typists, clerks, cashiers, bookkeepers, saleswomen, and so on. Their needs will be considered in Chapters XII and XIII, in which the findings of the special reports on Boys and Girls in Commercial Work and Department Store Occupations are summarized. A relatively small number will become semi-skilled operatives in industrial establishments, such as job printing houses, knitting mills, and factories making electrical supplies, metal products, and so on. As a rule such work requires only a small amount of manual skill or deftness. Not much training is needed and it can be given quickly and effectively in the factories. About one-ninth of the girls in the school will enter paid domestic or personal service of some kind. The household arts courses probably meet the needs of girls who may be employed in such occupations as far as they can be met under present conditions. The woman domestic servant occupies about the same social level as the male common laborer, and a course which openly sets out to train girls to be servants is not likely to prosper. The load of social stigma such work carries is too heavy. At some time in the future it may be possible to ignore the traditional and universal attitude of our public toward the so-called menial occupations sufficiently to consider training servants. At present such a possibility seems remote. CHAPTER X VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE Very few of the army of young people who become wage earners each year take up the occupations in which they engage as the result of any conscious selection of their own or of their parents. They drift into some job aimlessly and ignorantly, following the line of least resistance, driven or led by the accidents and exigencies of gaining a livelihood. They possess no accurate or comprehensive knowledge of the advantages and disadvantages of different types of wage earning occupations, and frequently take up work for which they are entirely unfitted or which holds little future beyond a bare livelihood. THE WORK OF THE VOCATIONAL COUNSELOR The plan now followed in the technical high schools of the city, by which one teacher in the school specially qualified for such work is charged with the duty of advising pupils who leave school and aiding them in securing desirable employment, could be adapted to the junior high school, where the need for service of this kind is even greater than in the technical high schools. Such work requires men who have had some contact with industrial conditions, and who possess sound judgment, common sense, and a fairly comprehensive knowledge of the local industries. If the curriculum embraces the course in "Industrial Information" suggested in a previous chapter, the teacher of this subject might well be designated as vocational counselor for the boys in the school. A course similar in nature should be provided for the girls and a woman teacher selected to advise them when they leave school. Considerable difficulty probably will be experienced in securing women teachers competent to assume this task, but any wide-awake teacher who will devote some attention to published studies of industrial conditions and get in touch with the local organizations engaged in the investigation of wage earning employments, such as the Consumers' League and the Girls' Vocation Bureau, can soon acquire a fund of information that will enable her to offer valuable suggestions and advice to girls who expect to become wage earners. The vocational counselor must guard against conventional thinking and the mass of "inspirational" nonsense which forms the main contribution to the vocational guidance of youth provided in the average schoolroom. The ideals of success usually held up before school children seem to have been drawn from a mixture of Sunday school literature and the prospectuses of efficiency bureaus. Boiled down the rules prescribed for their attainment are two: first, "Be good;" and second, "Get ahead." The pupils are told about well-known men who became famous or rich, usually rich, by practicing these rules. Occasionally there is some prattle about the "dignity of labor," as a rule meaningless in the light of our current ideas of success. We do not think of a well-paid artisan as "successful." His success begins when he is promoted to office work, or becomes a foreman. The inherent difficulty with ideals of success which demand that the worker become a boss of somebody else is that the world of industry needs only a relatively small number of bosses. Theoretically it is possible for any individual to reach the eminence of boss-ship. In real life less than one-tenth of the boys who enter industrial employment can rise above the level of the journeyman artisan, at least before later middle age, because only about that proportion of bosses are needed. The task of the vocational counselor will consist in putting the pupil's feet on the first steps of the ladder rather than showing him rosy pictures of the top of it. For the great majority the top means no more than decent wages. This, after all, is a worthy ambition, frequently requiring the worker's best efforts for its realization. THE GIRLS' VOCATION BUREAU The Girls' Vocation Bureau, for the placement of girls and women in wage-earning employment, has been in operation about six years. At present it is under the general charge of the state and municipal employment bureau, although part of the funds for the support of the bureau is raised through private subscription. From July, 1914, to July, 1915, the Bureau secured positions for nearly 11,000 girls and women. Of these approximately 12 per cent were girls under 21. In many instances only temporary employment is secured, although efforts are made to place the girls in permanent positions. More girls are placed in office positions than in any other line of work, but a considerable proportion take employment in factories, domestic service, restaurants, and stores. A careful record is kept of each applicant's qualifications, home conditions, the names of employers, etc. The Bureau endeavors to keep in touch with the girls after they are placed through follow-up reports and visits by members of the office staff or by volunteer investigators. This spring every school in the city was visited by representatives of the Bureau in the endeavor to interest principals in the work of placement, and arrangements were made for sending to the Bureau lists of the girls who were expected to leave school permanently. This effort met with slight success, as only about 100 girls were reported from all the schools in the city, although the number of girls leaving school each year from the elementary grades alone is over 2,000. In all cases the girls were visited by a representative of the Bureau and urged to return to school, or if they were determined to seek employment the advantages of registering in the Bureau were brought to their attention. It is to be hoped that more effective coöperation between the Bureau and the schools can be established and that plans for a placement bureau for boys similar in method and aim to the Girls' Bureau may be realized. The matter of placement is the most difficult part of the vocational counselor's duties, and an arrangement whereby the vocational guidance departments of the various schools might serve as feeders to a central placement bureau would probably in the long run give the best results. Both guidance and placement are new things in the public schools and efficient methods of administration can be worked out only through trial and experiment. CHAPTER XI CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 1. The future occupations of the children in school will correspond very closely to those of the native-born adult population. The occupational distribution of the city's working population therefore constitutes the best guide as to the kinds of industrial training which can be undertaken profitably by the school system. 2. Industrial training in school has to do chiefly with preparation for work in the skilled trades. Training for semi-skilled occupations can be given more effectively and cheaply in the factories than in the schools. 3. As a rule, industrial training is not practicable in elementary schools, for the reason that the number of boys in the average elementary school who are likely to enter the skilled trades and who are also old enough to profit by industrial training is too small to permit the organization of classes. 4. The most important contribution to vocational education the elementary schools can make consists in getting the children through the course fast enough so that two or three years before the end of the compulsory attendance period they will enter an intermediate or vocational school where some kind of industrial training is possible. 5. The survey recommends the establishment of a general industrial course in the junior high school, made up chiefly of instruction in the applications of mathematics, drawing, physics, and chemistry to the commoner industrial processes. The course should also include the study of economic and working conditions in the principal industrial occupations. 6. One or two vocational schools equipped to offer specialized trade training for boys and girls between the ages of 14 and 17 are needed. At present a gap of from one to two years exists between the end of the compulsory attendance period and the entrance age in practically all the skilled trades, which could well be employed in direct preparation for trade work. Such schools would relieve the first and second year classes of the technical high schools of many pupils these schools do not want and cannot adequately provide for. General as well as special courses should be offered, although pupils should be encouraged to select a particular occupation and devote at least one year to intensive preparation for it. 7. The survey favors the extension of the compulsory attendance period for boys to the age of 16. The industries of Cleveland have little or nothing worth while to offer boys below this age. 8. The best form of trade-extension training is that provided in a few establishments which maintain apprentice schools in their plants. This plan is feasible only in large establishments. It will never take care of more than a small proportion of the young workers who need supplementary technical training. 9. Plans for trade-extension training of apprentices depending on the coöperation of employers have met with slight success. The principle difficulty is that the sacrifices they involve are borne by a relatively small number of employers while the benefits are reaped by the industry in general. Either the industry as a whole or the community should bear the cost of such training. 10. The vocational interests of young workers and the social interests of the community demand the establishment of a system of continuation training for all young people in employment, up to the age of 18 years. The classes should be held during working hours and attendance should be compulsory. 11. The enrollment in the trade classes of the night schools is far below what it should be in a city as large as Cleveland. The relatively small result now obtained is not the fault of the schools, but is due mainly to the fact that the field of vocational evening instruction is treated by the school system as a mere side line of the technical high schools. 12. The survey recommends the organization of all forms of continuation, night vocational, and day vocational training under centralized full-time leadership. Only in this way can there be secured a type of organization and administration sufficiently elastic and adaptable to meet the widely varying needs of the working classes. 13. Industrial training for girls will consist in the main of preparation for the sewing trades. Practically no other industrial occupations in which large numbers of women are employed possess sufficient technical content to warrant the establishment of training courses in the schools. The survey recommends a practical course of needle instruction in the junior high school and the introduction in the vocational schools of specialized courses in dressmaking, power machine operating, and trade millinery for the older girls who wish to enter these trades. 14. The present experiment in vocational guidance and placement should be extended as rapidly as possible. Courses in vocational information should be offered in the junior high school and vocational counsellors appointed to advise pupils in the selection of their future vocations and aid them in securing desirable employment when they leave school. The full measure of success in this work demands better coöperation with outside agencies on the part of teachers and principals than has been secured up to the present time. CHAPTER XII SUMMARY OF REPORT ON BOYS AND GIRLS IN COMMERCIAL WORK Particular attention is given throughout this report to the differences which exist between boys and girls in commercial employment with respect to the conditions which govern success and advancement. The majority of boys begin as messengers or office boys and subsequently become clerks or do bookkeeping work. As men they remain in these latter positions or, in at least an equal number of cases, pass on into the productive or administrative end of business. The majority of girls are stenographers, or to a less extent, assistants in bookkeeping or clerical work. Boys' work may be expected to take on the characteristics of the business that employs them; girls' work remains in essentials unchanged even in totally changed surroundings. Boys' work within limits is progressive; girls' work in its general type--with individual exceptions--is static. Boys as a rule cannot stay at the same kind of work and advance; girls as a rule stay at the same kind of work whether or not they advance. Boys in any position are expected to be qualifying themselves for "the job ahead," but for girls that is not the case. Boys may expect to make a readjustment with every step in advancement. Each new position brings them to a new situation and into a new relation to the business. Girls receive salary advancement for increasingly responsible work, but any change in work is likely to be so gradual as to be almost imperceptible if they remain in the same place of employment. If they change to another place, those who are stenographers have a slight readjustment to make in getting accustomed to new terms and to the peculiarities of the new persons who dictate to them. Bookkeeping assistants may encounter different systems, but their part of the work will be so directed and planned that it cannot be said to necessitate difficult adaptation on their part. The work of clerical assistants is so simple and so nearly mechanical that the question of adjustment does not enter. These girl workers do not find that the change of position or firm brings them necessarily into a new relation to the business. Even moderate success is denied to a boy if he has not adaptability and the capacity to grasp business ideas and methods; but a comparatively high degree of success could be attained by a girl who possessed neither of these qualifications. A boy, however, who has no specific training which he can apply directly and definitely at work would be far more likely to obtain a good opening and promotion than a girl without it would be. The range of a boy's possible future occupations is as wide as the field of business. He cannot at first be trained specifically as a girl can be because he does not know what business will do with him or what he wants to do with business. The girl's choice is limited by custom. She can prepare herself definitely for stenography, bookkeeping, and machine operating and be sure that she is preparing for just the opportunity--and the whole opportunity--that business offers to her. Her very limitation of opportunity makes preliminary choice and training a definitely possible thing. [Illustration: Diagram 1.--Boys and girls under 18 years of age in office work in Cleveland. Data from report of Ohio Industrial Commission, 1915] The difference between boys and girls begins at the beginning. Boys are given a larger share of the positions which the youngest worker can fill. Diagram 1 illustrates this and the figures of the United States Census for 1910 clearly corroborate it. Boys are taken for such work and taken younger than girls, not merely because the law permits them to go to work at an earlier age, but also because business itself intends to round their training. Girls, on the contrary, are expected to enter completely trained for definite positions. This fact alone would in most cases compel them to be older. Furthermore, because boys in first positions are looked upon as potential clerks, miscellaneous jobs about the office have for them a two-fold value. They give the employer a chance to weed out unpromising material; and they give boys an opportunity to find themselves and to gather ideas about the business and methods which they may be able to make use of in later adjustments. [Illustration: Diagram 2.--Men and women 18 years of age and over in clerical and administrative work in offices in Cleveland. U.S. Census, 1910] Diagram 2 shows that girls' training, if it is to meet the present situation, must prepare for a future in specialized clerical work; boys' future must apparently be thought of as in mostly the clerical and administrative fields. The term "clerical" as here used, covers bookkeepers, cashiers and accountants, stenographers and typists, clerks and a miscellaneous group of younger workers such as messengers, office boys, etc. "Administrative" covers proprietors, officials, managers, supervisors, and agents, but it does not include salespeople. The usual commercial course gives impartially to boys and girls two traditional "subjects" which they are to apply in wage earning whatever part of the wage earning field they may enter. These are stenography and bookkeeping. The evidence collected during the survey shows that these are rarely found in combination except in small offices. Of the men employed who are stenographers, the majority are of two kinds: (1) those who use stenography incidentally with their other and more important work as clerks, and (2) those for whom stenography is but a stepping-stone to another kind of position. The only firms which make a practice of offering ordinary stenographic positions for boys are those which restrict themselves to male employees for every kind of work. Independent stenographic work of various kinds is of course open to the sexes alike. In Cleveland there are a few women in court stenography. The 10 public stenographers' offices were found upon inquiry to include two men and 10 women. No figures regarding convention reporters were obtainable. In the positions of the bookkeeping group also there was some sex difference. The accountants, bookkeepers, cashiers, pay-masters and other persons of responsibility are, in large offices where both sexes work together, much more likely to be men than women; the assistants who work with these may be of either sex, but girls and women are likely to make up the greater portion. Of the small office this is less generally true. Boys who do machine operating are usually clerks whose machine work, as in the case of stenography, is merely an adjunct to other work; with girls machine operating is either the whole of the position or the most important part of it. The essential difference between the clerkship which boys for the most part hold and the general clerical work which girls do is that the boys' work is unified and is a definite, separate responsible part of the business, usually in line for promotion to some other clerkship; the girls' is a miscellany of more or less unrelated jobs and is not a preparation for specific promotion. A GENERAL VIEW OF COMMERCIAL WORK All commercial occupations may be roughly divided into two classes: those which have to do with administrative, merchandising, or productive work, and those which carry on the clerical routine which the others necessitate. The first class of occupations may be designated by the term "administrative work" and the second by "clerical work." A varying relation exists between the two which depends chiefly upon the kind of business represented. In some kinds clerical work is the stepping stone by which administrative work is reached; in others employment in clerical work side-tracks away from the administrative work. There is, of course, a future of promotion within the limits of clerical work without reference to its relation to administrative work. The practical aspect of it is, in most kinds of business, that the subordinate clerical positions far outnumber the chief ones. Promotion of any sort depends largely upon individual capacity; but this general distinction may be made between promotion in clerical work and in administrative work; in the clerical field it tends to be automatic but limited; in administrative work it comes more often through a worker's initiative or individuality than through automatic progression and it has no arbitrary limits. Obviously one kind of person will be adapted to an administrative career; another to a clerical one. Even a beginner in wage earning might be able to classify himself on a basis like this; yet it is not essential, for in many cases it is possible that his first positions recognize this choice. He needs fundamental experience in business methods whatever he is going to do; and for most administrative positions he needs maturity. He can achieve both by serving an apprenticeship in some form of clerical work. The important things for him in the early part of his career are to understand the distinction between the two classes of occupations; to sense the relation he holds to the business as a whole; and to act intelligently in the matter of making a change. BOOKKEEPING The bookkeeping which modern business, except in the small establishment, demands of young workers is certainly not the journal and ledger bookkeeping of the commercial schools. A modern office organization may have in its bookkeeping department of 20 persons only one "bookkeeper." This person is responsible for the system and he supervises the keeping of records and the preparation of statements. A minority of his assistants will need to be able to distinguish debits from credits; the rest will be occupied in making simple entries or in posting, in verifying and checking, or in finding totals with the aid of machines. The bookkeeping systems employed show wide variation, not only in different kinds of business, but in different establishments in the same kinds of business. Many firms are using a loose-leaf system; some use ledgers; and others have a system of record keeping which calls for neither of these devices. Bookkeeping work, especially in the positions held by girls, is frequently combined with comptometer or adding machine work, with typing, billing, filing, or statistical work; but rarely, except in the small office, are bookkeeping and stenography--the Siamese Twins of traditional and commercial training--found linked together. STENOGRAPHY Stenography is used throughout business chiefly in correspondence; to a less extent for report and statement work, for legal work, and for printer's copy. The stenographer in any business office, more than other clerical workers, is supposed to look after a variety of unorganized details including the use of office appliances, the filing of letters, and sometimes dealing with patrons or visitors in the absence of the employer. She is more important to the employer in his personal business relations than any other employee, except in the case of those few employers who have private secretaries. CLERKS' POSITIONS In the case of large corporations, which are by far the largest employers of clerks, this work has been standardized to a marked degree. The organization of the office work of the telegraph, telephone, and express companies, the railroads, and the occasional large wholesale company in Cleveland is a nearly exact duplication of that of other district or division offices controlled by these companies in other cities. The same is true of the Civil Service. Whatever effects standardization may have upon opportunity, it obviously makes for definiteness in regard to training requirements. All the positions are graded on the basis of experience and responsibility and a logical line of promotion from one to another has been worked out. The report contains detailed studies of different kinds of clerical work in the offices of transportation and public utility corporations, retail and wholesale stores, manufacturing establishments, banks, the civil service, and small offices employing relatively few people. In each of these such matters as character of the work, opportunities for advancement, kind of training needed and special qualifications are taken up. WAGES AND REGULARITY OF EMPLOYMENT Stated briefly the conclusions of the report with respect to wages and regularity of employment in office positions are as follows: The wage opportunities for clerical workers, especially men, lie in business positions outside the limits of clerical work. Men clerical workers average about the same pay as salesmen and more pay than industrial workers. Women clerical workers receive more than either saleswomen or industrial workers. Employment is much more regular in clerical work than it is in salesmanship or industrial work. For men clerical workers the wage opportunity is better in manufacturing and trade than in some kinds of transportation business. For women it is better in manufacturing and transportation than it is in trade. Men's wages tend to be higher than women's in all branches of clerical work. Among the clerical positions, bookkeeping shows the highest wage average for men; clerks' positions show the lowest. Stenography shows the highest for women; machine work the lowest. Men bookkeepers show their best wage average in the wholesale business, clerks in transportation, and stenographers in manufacturing. The small office gives better wage opportunity to women bookkeepers and men stenographers; the large office favors women stenographers and men clerks. For boys, there is some indication that advanced education and commercial training, in their present status, are less closely related to high wages than are personal qualities and experience. For girls, the combination of high school education and business training is the best preparation for wage advancement. A general high school education and usually, business training, are essential to the assurance of even a living wage. Business training based upon less than high school education is almost futile. THE PROBLEM OF TRAINING Six chapters of the report are devoted to a consideration of the needs and possibilities of training. The work now being done in the public schools of the city is discussed in detail, with suggestions for a better adaptation of the courses of study and methods and content of instruction to the needs of boys and girls who wish to prepare themselves to enter clerical occupations. The observations on training for such work may be summarized as follows: Commercial training should be open to all students whom commercial subjects and methods can serve best; but graduation should depend upon a high standard of efficiency. Statistics show that commercial training is not to be looked upon, in a wholesale way, as a successful means of taking care of backward academic students. Commercial students' need for cultural and other supplementary education may be even greater than that of academic students. The graduation rate of commercial students in public schools has been increased since the organization of a separate commercial high school and the number of students entering has been decreased. Commercial high schools receive a grade of children who are about medium in scholarship and normal in age. Commercial and academic high school teachers are similar in scholastic preparation and in the salaries they are paid. The Cleveland Normal School does not prepare definitely for the teaching of commercial subjects. Commercial teachers are nominally supervised by the district superintendents. Public schools receive 29 per cent of the city's day commercial students. The private schools receive a few more than the sum of public, parochial, and philanthropic schools. Public schools receive 22 per cent of the city's night commercial students. The private schools receive more than twice as many as the public and philanthropic schools. There are no night commercial classes in parochial schools. The length of the day course in most private schools is eight months or less; in public schools it is four years. The public school, if it believes in longer preparation for commercial work than most private schools give, should demonstrate the reason to parents and children. Training for boys and girls should be different in content and in emphasis. The usual course of study in commercial schools is suitable for girls and unsuitable for boys. A girl needs, chiefly, specific training in some one line of work. She has a choice among stenography, bookkeeping, and machine operating. A boy needs, chiefly, general education putting emphasis on writing, figuring, and spelling; general information; and the development of certain qualities and standards. For students electing to go into commercial work, general education may be taught more effectively through the medium of commercial subjects than through academic ones. Boys' training looks forward to both clerical work and business administration; but as clerical work is a preparation for business and is likely to occupy the first few years of wage earning, training should aim especially to meet the needs of clerical positions. Clerical positions for boys cover a variety of work which cannot be definitely anticipated and cannot therefore be specifically trained for. But certain fundamental needs are common to all. Most of the specialized training for boys should be given in night continuation classes. Girl stenographers need a full high school course for its educational value and for maturity. Girls going into other clerical positions can qualify with a year or two less of education; but immaturity in any case puts them at a disadvantage. Boys' training, for those who cannot remain in school, should be compressed into fewer than four years. Immaturity in the case of boys is not a great disadvantage. Bookkeeping has general value in the information it gives about business methods and for its drill in accuracy. To some extent it may aid in the development of reasoning. Much of the bookkeeping in actual use in business consists in making entries of one kind only and in checking and verifying. Understanding of debit and credit, posting, and trial balance, is the maximum practical need of the younger workers. Penmanship demands compactness, legibility, neatness, and ease in writing; also, the correct writing and placing of figures. The chief demand of business in arithmetic is for fundamental operations--adding and multiplying--also for ability to make calculations and to verify results mentally. Undergraduate experience in school or business offices may be a valuable method of acquainting students with office practice and routine and with business organization and business standards. CHAPTER XIII SUMMARY OF REPORT ON DEPARTMENT STORE OCCUPATIONS The field covered in this volume is limited to the business of retail selling as carried on in the department stores and some other stores of Cleveland. The retail stores considered can all be assigned to one of the three following classes: (1) The department store of the first rank which draws trade not only from the whole city and the suburbs but also from the towns and smaller cities of a large surrounding district; (2) the neighborhood store which does a smaller business within narrower limits, drawing its trade, as the name indicates, from the immediate neighborhood; (3) the five and ten cent store, well known by syndicate names, where no merchandise which must be sold above 10 cents is carried. DEPARTMENT STORES The five largest department stores in Cleveland employ about 5,800 people distributed among several mercantile departments, and in a variety of occupations that find a place in the industry. Of these 5,800 people approximately seven-tenths are women and three-tenths are men; 90 per cent are over 18 years of age and 10 per cent are under 18. The entire force of a store is sometimes arbitrarily divided by the management into "productive," and "non-productive" help. From 40 to 60 per cent of the employees were reported as actually taking in money, while the remainder, the "non-producers," were engaged in keeping the business going and making it possible for the "producers" to sell goods. The greatest number of opportunities either for employment or promotion are in the selling force. This is often spoken as being "on the floor." Both boys and girls may find employment here, though a large majority of the sales force is made up of them. Speaking in general terms, men are only employed to sell men's furnishings, sporting goods, bulky merchandise, such as rugs, furniture, blankets, etc., and yard goods which are difficult to handle, such as household linens and dress goods. Positions as buyers and buyer's assistants are not restricted by sex and boys and girls may both consider them as a possible goal. NEIGHBORHOOD STORES A neighborhood store is that type of department store which draws its trade from a comparatively limited area of which the store is the center. The kind of goods carried are practically the same as in the large department store and the variety of merchandise may be nearly as great; but the selection is more limited because of the small stock. Promotion to selling positions is more rapid in the neighborhood stores than in regular department stores. One reason for this is that a larger proportion of the force is "productive," _i.e._, selling. This proportion may run as high as 80 or even 90 per cent, as compared with the 40 to 60 per cent of "productive" help in large department stores. Employment in these stores is looked upon as desirable preliminary training for service in larger department stores. This is the general opinion held by those who hire the employees in the larger stores. The selling experience gained in neighborhood stores is looked upon as general, in that it gives an acquaintance with a variety of merchandise rather than an extensive knowledge of any line of stock. This experience makes the employee adaptable and resourceful. Another advantage of neighborhood training for sales people is the fact that they are brought into closer human relations with the customer and thus learn the value of personality as a factor in making sales. FIVE AND TEN CENT STORES Cleveland had in the fall of 1915 six large stores where nothing costing over 10 cents is sold. These belong to three syndicates or chains. To show the extent to which this business has developed it may be stated that the largest of these syndicates, which controls three of the six Cleveland stores, has 747 branches in different parts of the country. The number of saleswomen in a single store ranges from 12 to 70. The total number in the six stores was approximately 226. The shift in this branch of retail trade is large, as there are continual changes in the selling force. One store reported the number of new employees hired in six months as being about equal to the average selling force. The managers of the five and ten cent stores without exception stated that they preferred to hire beginners who were without store experience. The hours of work are longer and the conditions under which the work is done are more trying than is usually the case in the larger department stores. The girl who expects her application for employment in the five and ten cent store to be accepted must be 18 years old in order that she may legally work after six o'clock. It is better for her to be without previous selling experience (unless in other five and ten cent stores), as employers in these stores prefer to train help according to their own methods. WAGES AND EMPLOYMENT The wages paid beginners in the department stores are fair as compared with other industries employing the same grade of help. Boys and girls when they first enter employment receive from $3.50 to $7, depending on the store where they get their first job. In addition to the salary most department stores give bonuses or commissions through which the members of the sales force may increase their compensation. The Survey Staff worked out comparisons on the basis of data supplied by the State Industrial Commission between the earnings of workers in department store occupations and those in other industries. Diagram 3 shows graphically a comparison of the wages of women workers in six different industries. An interesting point brought out by this graphic comparison is that retail trade constitutes a much better field for women's employment as compared with the great majority of positions open to them in other lines than is commonly assumed to be the case. This is brought out even more clearly in Table 15, which compares, on a percentage basis, those who earn $12 a week and over, in all of the industries of the city employing as many as 500 women in 1914. [Illustration: Diagram 3.--Per cent of women earning each class of weekly wages in each of six occupations] TABLE 15.--PER CENT OF WOMEN EMPLOYEES OVER 18 YEARS OF AGE EARNING $12 A WEEK AND OVER Office employees, in retail and wholesale stores 31.8 Employees in women's clothing factories 22.5 Saleswomen in retail and wholesale stores 21.0 Employees in men's clothing factories 13.3 Employees in hosiery and knit goods factories 7.9 Employees in printing and publishing establishments 7.7 Employees in telephone and telegraph offices 6.3 Employees in laundries and dry cleaning establishments 4.4 Employees in cigar and tobacco factories 3.9 Employees in gas and electric fixtures concerns 3.2 If the data were for retail stores only and did not include wholesale stores, then office work, which now stands at the head of the list, would probably not make so good a showing, although the superiority over the selling positions is, from the wage-earning standpoint, so marked that there seems to be no escape from the conclusion that on the whole women office workers are better paid than women in the sales force. On the other hand the proportion of saleswomen earning $12 and over is from nearly seven times as great to not far from twice as great as it is in the factory industries, if we except the workers in women's clothing factories, whose earnings per week are better than those of the saleswomen. With respect to the men employed on the sales force of the department stores a somewhat different situation exists. In Diagram 4 a comparison is made of the wages paid in sales positions with the wages paid in clerical positions. Here it will be noted that men who sell goods in retail and wholesale stores earn more on the average than men occupying clerical positions, such as bookkeepers, stenographers, and office clerks. This comparison does not include traveling salesmen. A further comparison of the earnings of the men in stores with the earnings of male workers (omitting office clerks) in the different industries of the city employing the largest number of men is given in Diagram 5, which shows the per cent in each industry earning $18 a week and over. [Illustration: Diagram 4.--Per cent of salesmen and of men clerical workers in stores receiving each class of weekly wage] In comparing wages in stores with those in the manufacturing industries it must be not forgotten that the working day and week in the larger stores is shorter than in most of the factories. Hence a comparison of earnings on the basis of wage per hour would show a still greater advantage in favor of both sales persons and clerical workers. [Illustration: Diagram 5.--Per cent of male workers in non-clerical positions in six industries earning $18 per week and over] REGULARITY OF EMPLOYMENT In department store work and in nearly all branches of retail selling there is a marked fluctuation in the number employed during the year. Sales work in the department stores is seasonal in the sense that a large number of extra sales women are taken on during the Christmas season for a period of temporary employment, usually lasting from one to two months. The proportion of the total working force for the whole year employed in such transient jobs is approximately one-fourth. How selling positions in retail and wholesale stores compare with other fields of employment in this respect is seen in Diagram 6. [Illustration: Diagram 6.--Per cent that the average number of women employed during the year is of the highest number employed in each of six industries] OPPORTUNITIES FOR ADVANCEMENT In regard to promotion in department stores it should be noted that as a rule the executives are made in the business and are not, as in some industries, brought in from the outside because they must have some special training which the organization itself does not provide. Not only in Cleveland but in other cities where studies of the same kind have been made it has been found that practically all the people holding important floor positions have come up from the ranks. The various lines of promotion through the different departments are analyzed in detail in the report. THE PROBLEM OF TRAINING That vocational training for department store employees is both desirable and possible is proved by the fact that most of the large stores in Cleveland make some provision for the instruction of their workers. Some of these classes are carefully organized and excellently taught with every promise of increasing in usefulness. Others employ methods of instruction which belong to the academic school of an earlier decade and give evidence that the problem of vocational training with which they are presumably concerned is not even understood. From the standpoint of the school there are two well recognized kinds of training possible for department store employees: trade preparatory and trade extension training. Eventually it may prove practicable to organize instruction of both kinds, but it is the opinion of the author of the report that under present conditions the surest results can be expected from trade extension training. In trade extension instruction the members of the group to be dealt with have already secured their foothold in the industry; and having mastered at least the rudiments of their job they have acquired a basis of experience which may be utilized for purposes of instruction. These people are responsive to teaching organized with regard to their needs, for daily experience is demonstrating to them their deficiencies. The success of the proposed training will largely depend upon the employment of simple and direct methods that shall place this knowledge in the hands and head of the person or group needing it. The application of this instruction must be immediate and practical and must not be dependent upon the working out of a complicated course or schedule. The organization must be flexible enough to admit of bringing together a group having a common need, although they may come from different departments of the business. Since the unit of class organization is not previous school experience or similar employment, it will be seen that this class should be held only until the need is fully supplied and should then give place to another organized on the same basis. As in all vocational teaching, the size of the class should be limited. To make this work really effective, the instructor should come in sufficiently close contact with all pupils to enable him to obtain a personal knowledge of their needs and capabilities. A further necessity for small classes and individual instruction is found in the fact that there is a constant shift of employees in the industry as well as frequent accessions from the outside. It readily can be seen that this is not a problem of the regular school and that it cannot be met by ordinary classroom methods. Part time or continuation classes, such as have already proved feasible for other kinds of trade instruction, are the most practicable methods of doing this work. Classes for the instruction of employees are already maintained in the majority of large stores. The extension of this plan of separate responsibility is one way of meeting the problem. But this method has certain obvious faults. The unequal opportunity which it affords to department store employees as a body is a conspicuous drawback. The value of the instruction so given, moreover, will always depend to a large extent on the comprehension of the problem by the firm maintaining the classes. The method involves much duplication of effort, which is particularly wasteful when the instruction of small groups is involved. Another possible method would be for the several department stores to get together and coöperate in providing instruction. There would seem to be no reason why stores should not unite for this purpose as well as for any other. The advantages of this method are economy of maintenance and administration, the ability to command expert service, and the possibility of securing and sharing the results of a great variety of such experiences as does not consist of exclusive trade secrets. The number of people whom it would be necessary to employ exclusively for the purpose of conducting these classes would be small as compared with the results accomplished. Collectively these stores now have in their employ a body of highly paid experts in all lines of merchandise. A large amount of the most accurate technical knowledge covering the work of all departments is already available in the several stores. These are valuable resources which should be utilized by a coöperative school of this kind. For the head of such a school, it would be desirable to secure a man or woman of more than usual ability and discernment who, above all else, could sense the business and routine of each contributing store from the standpoint of the employee and of store organization. It would be the business of this person to become familiar with the available sources of knowledge in the different stores and then arrange for the presentation of this knowledge to the various classes. By coöperation with the floor men, heads of sections and departments, as well as with the employees themselves, he should come into close contact with the requirements of the workers and should gather from the different stores those who, because of their common need, can be made into a "school unit." It would also be necessary to employ assistants of practical experience who would attend to the details of routine teaching, and act as interpreters for those experts who have the knowledge but not the ability to impart it even to a small class. It is realized that a scheme of this kind would involve the overcoming of many objections and difficulties of adjustment before it could be put into actual operation. It would necessitate mutual concessions and forbearance on the part of everybody concerned, but the results would unquestionably justify the labor. A third method, already in operation in Boston, New York, and Buffalo, calls for the coöperation of the stores and the schools. This partnership, it is claimed, makes certain that the needs of the pupil are considered before the demands of the business. It insures equal opportunity for all employees so far as instruction is concerned and it divides the expense of maintenance between the industry and the school. It is to be regretted that this scheme frequently results in the employment of teachers who, although certificated for regular school work, have no other qualifications, instead of persons of practical experience. The employment of such teachers too often leads to the following of ordinary school practices and academic traditions rather than the methods and practice of business. In some quarters it is maintained that this instruction should be entirely taken over by the public schools, thus relieving the store of any responsibility in the matter. It is probably not now advisable for the school to assume full responsibility for such training. The heavy expense involved and the physical limitations of the schools would make it difficult, without the coöperation of the store, to reproduce the trade atmosphere necessary for real vocational training. As a result, the instruction would become abstract and theoretical, with the major portion of the effort limited to a continuation of elementary school subjects taught with reference to their application to department store work. CHARACTER OF THE INSTRUCTION The analysis of the industry shows that in each occupation or job there is a definite amount of knowledge which must be acquired by the efficient worker. A study of this analysis and of the examples of technical knowledge needed by the worker at different points in the industry will show that no such thing as a general course is possible. In every case the character of the instruction should be such that it will answer a definite need of the employee. What this instruction should be in specific cases can be settled only, on the one hand, by a thorough analysis of the occupation to determine what demands it makes upon the workers, and on the other, by a careful study of the workers themselves to ascertain how far they have been unable to meet these demands without assistance. Lessons can then be organized dealing with such subject matter as individuals or groups have failed to grasp, the lack of which limits their efficiency or restricts their usefulness. It can readily be seen that this instruction will cover a wide range of subjects, from the use of fractions needed by checkers and salesgirls in yard goods sections, to the special technical knowledge of fine furs required by the salesperson who handles this merchandise. The method by which this instruction can best be given is in a series of short unit courses. In every case the length of the course is to be determined by the subject matter. For instance, two one-half hour lessons may be a "course," when this time is sufficient for the necessary teaching. The group or class to which this instruction is given might be made up of those who need the same technical knowledge, although they might expect to make a different application of this instruction. For instance, the unit course on silks might be given to a group composed of salespeople from the silk section, the waists and gowns section, and the section of men's neckwear. The report gives detailed examples of the kinds of technical knowledge needed in the different departments of the store. It maintains that such instruction cannot be successfully given by regular school teachers. As in other industries the teacher needs actual experience in the occupation for which training is given. Academic training and teaching experience are desirable and valuable, but among the qualifications demanded of a teacher of this kind they are of secondary importance. The final chapter of the report contains valuable instructions for young persons who desire to secure positions in retail trade. These instructions cover such matters as work papers, methods of securing a position, and requirements for employment in various kinds of department store work. CHAPTER XIV SUMMARY OF REPORT ON THE GARMENT TRADES The clothing industry in Cleveland has grown very rapidly in recent years. During the 10 year period from 1900-10 the number of persons employed in the industry increased approximately 100 per cent. This increase was much greater than the increase throughout the country as a whole and was more than twice as large as the increase in the population of the city. There is every indication that this rapid growth is still continuing. It is estimated that approximately 10,000 workers are employed in the industry at the present time. The distribution of men and women in the industry is most interesting. The making of men's garments has been more fully standardized and is subject to fewer changes than the making of women's garments. In this standardized and systematized branch of the industry the women now outnumber the men. In the manufacture of women's garments, where the styles change more frequently and the work is of a more varied character, more men than women are employed. The methods of work are of three general types: The old tailoring system known as "team work," or a slight modification of it; piece operating; and section work. Under the team system, used extensively in the making of women's coats, a head tailor hires his own helpers (operators and finishers), supervises them and pays them by the week out of the lump sum he receives for the garments from the clothing establishment. Under the piece operating system each operator sews up all the seams on one "piece," or garment, and each finisher does all the hand sewing on one garment. Each operator and each finisher is an independent worker. The whole body of finishers keeps pace with the whole body of operators. Piece operating is used almost entirely in dress and skirt making, and to some extent in coat making. The section system is based on the subdivision of processes into a number of minor operations. The workers are divided into groups, each group making a certain part of the garment. The various operations are divided into as many minor operations as the number of workers and quantity and kind of materials will warrant. Each of these minor operations is performed by operators who do nothing else. This specialization has been carried to a high degree in the manufacture of men's clothing, and section work is increasingly used on women's coats. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE WORKING FORCE One of the objects of the study was to find how many positions there are for men and women in each occupation in the industry. Through the coöperation of employers data were obtained from the records of 50 establishments employing a total of 8,337 garment workers, approximately four-fifths of the total number in the city. The distribution of workers by sex in the various occupations is shown in Diagram 7. The apportioning of work to the two sexes seems to depend partly upon the weight of materials and partly upon previous training. The men are mostly foreign born tailors who have had the kind of training necessary for the more complicated work. The women are largely American born of foreign parentage, trained in American shops and employed chiefly upon operations that may be learned in a relatively short time. Cutting and pressing are practically monopolized by men. Nearly all hand sewers are women, except for a few basters on men's clothing. Most designers are men, although a few women designers are found in dress and waist shops. In the largest trade,--machine operating,--about two-thirds of the workers are women. In no trade in which both sexes are employed is the difference in their work more apparent. The weight of materials decides to some extent the division of operating between men and women. Some employers are of the opinion that garments made of such thick materials as plush, corduroys, and cheviots are too heavy to be manipulated under needle machinery by women and consequently employ only men operators. Where light weight materials are used, as in the manufacture of dresses and waists, delicacy in handling is required, and nearly all the operators are women. [Illustration: Diagram 7.--Distribution of 8,337 clothing workers by sex in the principal occupations in the garment industry] Four-fifths of the men and two-fifths of the women employed in the industry are of foreign birth and the majority of the native born workers are of foreign parentage. There is an increasing demand for workers who understand English, due to the fact that they are able to follow directions more intelligently. There are relatively few workers under the age of 18. Many firms will employ no one under this age because of various complications which arise in connection with the age and schooling certification of girls between the ages of 16 and 18. Of 25 women's clothing factories visited during the Survey only nine had any workers under 18. According to the report of the Industrial Commission of Ohio for 1914 only eight per cent of the workers employed in making men's clothing, and less than two per cent of the workers employed in making women's clothing were under 18 years of age. EARNINGS In general the wages paid in garment making compare favorably with those of other manufacturing industries. This is particularly true with respect to the earnings of women workers. A considerably larger proportion of the women employed in the garment industry earn what may be considered high wages for industrial workers than in any of the larger factory industries of the city. This is clearly shown in Diagram 8 which lists nine of the principal fields of industrial employment for women. The proportions of women receiving under $8 a week are lower in men's and women's clothing than in the other seven industries. In the proportion of women receiving $12 and over, women's clothing ranks first and men's clothing third. [Illustration: Diagram 8.--Percentage of women in men's and women's clothing and seven other important women employing industries receiving under $8, $8 to $12, and $12 and over per week.] The comparison of the wages paid men employees shown in Diagram 9 is somewhat less favorable. Women's clothing ranks with printing and publishing as to the proportion of male workers receiving the highest specified earnings per week. Men's clothing ranks sixth among the industries compared. The various kinds of work do not command fixed wage rates, as do many other types of industrial employment. Quantity of output as well as quality of workmanship is an important factor in the determination of wages. Men generally turn out a greater output than women on the same kind of work and piece workers usually earn more than those paid by the week. The lowest, average, and highest wages for each of the principal occupations in the two branches of the industry are shown in Tables 16 and 17. One reason often given for the higher earnings received by workers on women's garments is the greater irregularity of employment in this branch of the industry. This, however, does not sufficiently account for the difference. The most weighty reason is that a higher degree of adaptability is required of workers than is the case in the manufacture of men's clothing. [Illustration: Diagram 9.--Percentage of men in men's and women's clothing and seven other manufacturing industries receiving under $18, $18 to $25, and $25 and over per week] TABLE 16.--WAGES FOR FULL-TIME WORKING WEEK, WOMEN'S CLOTHING, CLEVELAND, 1915 ---------------------------------------+--------+----------+---------+ Workers | Lowest | Average | Highest | ---------------------------------------+--------+----------+---------+ Assorters, women | $6.00 | $8.75 | $14.00 | Hand sewers, women | 6.00 | 10.00 | 20.00 | Trimming girls | 7.00 | 10.25 | 15.00 | Operators,* women | 6.00 | 12.00 | 30.00 | Sample makers, women | 10.00 | 12.75 | 15.00 | Examiners, women | 8.00 | 13.50 | 18.00 | Models, suit and cloak | 10.00 | 15.25 | 21.00 | Forewomen | 9.00 | 16.25 | 25.00 | Operators,* men | 7.00 | 17.75 | 50.00 | Pressers, men | 9.00 | 18.25 | 35.00 | Cutters,§ men | 8.00 | 19.25 | 30.00 | Pattern graders, suit and cloak, men | 13.00 | 22.00 | 27.50 | Sample makers, men | 13.00 | 22.50 | 25.00 | Examiners, men | 16.00 | 25.00 | 45.00 | Head tailors, men | 18.00 | 25.00 | ... | Foremen | 14.00 | 30.00 | 75.00 | ---------------------------------------+--------+----------+---------+ *: Includes piece and section operators and helpers to head tailors §: Includes all cutters except foremen, apprentices, and pattern graders TABLE 17.--AVERAGE WAGES FOR FULL-TIME WORKING WEEK FOR SIMILAR WORKERS, MEN'S AND WOMEN'S CLOTHING, CLEVELAND, 1915 ---------------------------------------+--------------+--------------+ Workers | Men's | Women's | | clothing | clothing | ---------------------------------------+--------------+--------------+ Hand sewers, women | $9.50 | $10.00 | Section operators, women | 9.25 | 11.25 | Examiners, women | 7.00 | 13.50 | Section operators, men | 16.50 | 15.25 | Pressers, under | 12.00 | 15.75 | Forewomen | 11.00 | 16.25 | Pressers, upper | 18.50 | 19.50 | Cutters, cloth | 18.75 | 20.00 | Examiners, men | 17.75 | 25.00 | Foremen | 29.25 | 30.00 | ---------------------------------------+--------------+--------------+ REGULARITY OF EMPLOYMENT The making of women's clothing is seasonal, to meet a seasonal purchasing demand. Most people purchase their summer clothes in April and May, and their winter clothes in October and November. During the months previous to these purchasing seasons a large number of workers are needed, but after the height of the purchasing period employment becomes less and less steady until the first demands of the new season are felt. During the rush season a greater number of workers is employed, or the output may be augmented by increasing the speed at which the work is performed or the number of hours in the working day. A combination of these methods is frequently used. During dull periods the workers may be busy from a few hours a week to full working time; while in rush periods they may work not only the regular working hours, but in addition a good deal of over-time. Compared with other manufacturing industries as regards regularity of employment men's clothing makes an excellent showing while women's clothing ranks low. In Diagram 10 the average number of unemployed among each 100 workers is shown for men's and women's clothing and for 15 other large manufacturing industries in the city. Men's clothing leads the list, with an average unemployment of four among each 100 workers, while women's clothing ranks 14th, with 15 among each 100. TRAINING AND PROMOTION Designers learn their work through apprenticeships to custom tailors and cutters and by taking supplementary courses in drafting and grading of patterns in a designing school. Most designers in Cleveland have had training in designing schools in New York or Chicago. [Illustration: Diagram 10.--The black portions of the bars show the average number of unemployed among each 100 workers in men's clothing, women's clothing and 15 other specified industries] With but few exceptions organized training for machine operating is found only in the largest establishments. There is general agreement among employers that it takes a girl who has never operated a machine before about four weeks to learn an easy operation well enough to be taken on at regular piece rates. A much longer time is required to become a first class worker on a single operation, and to acquire skill in a group of operations takes from one to two years. Girls are not usually employed as hand sewers unless they know how to do plain sewing. A girl who starts with this knowledge should be able to learn factory sewing well enough to earn fair wages within from six months to a year. In cutting, which has a so-called apprenticeship lasting from two to six years, there is no formal system of instruction. Boys must pick up the trade from observation and practice. Beginners start as errand boys, cloth boys, bundlers, or helpers. Pressing is usually learned in cleaning and pressing shops. It takes about eight weeks for a green hand to become a good seam presser. To become a final presser on skirts and dresses requires from six months to a year, and on jackets and cloaks from two to three years. Examiners have usually had considerable previous experience as machine operators or finishers. The length of experience depends on the kinds of garments and ranges from three to eight years. Trimmers and assorters learn their work as helpers to experienced employees. A year or so of experience is required before they can be entrusted with responsible work. Foremen are selected from the working force or, in a few cases, trained especially for their positions. Although there are few opportunities each year for advancement to foremanship, employers declare they cannot get enough persons of ability to fill vacancies. A study of the previous experience of foremen and forewomen made by the survey shows that they come from nearly every department of the factory. The length of previous experience among the cases studied ranged from three months to nine years. EDUCATIONAL NEEDS The quality which proprietors of garment making establishments value above all others in their employees is adaptability. The reason for this is that the manufacturing of clothing differs from almost all other kinds of industrial work in the frequency with which changes take place in the size and shape of the product and in the range of materials which must be handled by the same workers. There is an annual change in the weight of cloth used for the different seasons, from light to heavy and from heavy to light. The size and shape of the pieces which compose the finished garment are determined by changes in style which vary from the minor modifications occurring yearly in men's clothing to the radical changes in the style of women's clothing. A wide variety of fabrics is employed, ranging from thick to thin, smooth to rough, closely woven to loosely woven and from plain weave to fancy weave. In one season a single establishment will make garments from as many as 200 different fabrics, and each operator is likely to work upon 60 or more different kinds of cloth. In view of the fact that many of the workers are foreigners or of foreign parentage, and that the frequent changes in styles and materials require the giving of detailed instructions by foremen, instruction in English is of more importance in the garment trades than in occupations where there is a larger proportion of native born and where the products and processes are more uniformly standardized. All clothing workers should have a practical knowledge of the fundamental operations of arithmetic. Where the piece and section systems are in operation it is important for the worker to keep account of what she has accomplished and to know enough arithmetic to check her own record with the tally kept by the foreman or payroll girl. Some of the occupations, such as cutting, involve a considerable amount of arithmetical computation. As in other trades, all workers and prospective workers need a general knowledge of industrial conditions. They would greatly benefit from a better understanding of the supply of labor, factors affecting prices, organization of workers, industrial legislation, the relative importance of the field of employment in different industries, the nature of important industrial processes, and the like. At the present time there is little opportunity for gaining such information either before entering any specific line of work or afterwards. For certain small groups within the clothing industry there are needs in the way of technical training that are important and at present unsupplied. Training in applied mathematics, drafting and design would be of benefit to a considerable number of employees who are occupying or working towards advanced positions. A large proportion of the women workers need skill in hand sewing. Before girls enter the industry they should have careful and systematic training in plain sewing stitches, sewing on buttons and other fasteners, and button hole making. Machine operating is the most important occupation in the industry, and employs more women than any other occupation in the city, except perhaps dressmaking. After a careful study of the characteristics of this occupation and the various conditions affecting it, the survey reached the conclusion that there should be established by the school system a trade course for prospective power machine operators. SEWING COURSES IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS In the elementary schools manual training sewing is given in the fifth and sixth grades. It consists of one hour a week of hand sewing taught by a regular grade teacher or sometimes by teachers of domestic science or other special subjects. The aim is to give the girls a knowledge of practical sewing which may be of use to them in the home. In five of the elementary schools hand and machine sewing is taught by special sewing teachers. About four per cent of all the seventh and eighth grade girls in the elementary schools receive this instruction. In the technical high schools the sewing course covers four years work. During the first two years all girls are required to take plain hand and machine sewing three and three-quarter hours a week. In the third and fourth years they may elect either millinery or dressmaking, and special courses in these subjects are provided for girls who wish to prepare for trade work. The aim of the sewing course as stated in the outline of the East Technical High School is "(1) Preparation for efficiency in the selection of the materials used in sewing and the construction of articles relating to the home and family sewing: (2) laying the foundation for courses in college, normal school, or business school." A two year elective course in sewing is provided in the academic high school as a part of the home economic course. The aim of this sewing, which is called domestic art, is stated thus: "Problem--my personal appearance is one of my chief assets. What can I do to improve it?" Dressmaking and millinery classes are conducted in the night technical high schools to teach girls how to make their own clothes and hats. The manual training sewing in the fifth and sixth grades cannot be considered as furnishing any important contribution in the training of those who will make their living in the sewing trades. Much the same must be said of the work in the technical high schools. It is taught not for the purpose of securing quick, accurate hand or machine stitching, but to enable the girls to make a few garments for their personal use. Due to the fact that very few of the girls who become wage earners in these trades remain in school after the completion of the elementary course it is doubtful whether the technical high school offers a hopeful field for practical training. The work in the elementary schools is so hampered by lack of equipment that the results, from the standpoint of trade preparation, amount to very little. ELECTIVE SEWING COURSES IN THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL The reduction of retardation all through the grades is of fundamental importance to any plan of vocational training. The age of 15 is the final compulsory attendance age for girls, and those who enter at six and seven and make regular progress should be in the first or second high school year by the time they reach this age. Last year there were, however, 1,170 fifteen-year-old girls in the Cleveland schools who were from one to seven grades below normal. Instead of being in the high school, they were scattered from the second grade to the eighth, and they constituted more than half of all the girls of that age in the school system. It is clear that unless the schools can carry them through more nearly on schedule time there is no hope of providing industrial training for a large proportion of them, because they reach the end of the compulsory period before entering the grades in which industrial training can be given effectively and economically. The report recommends that during the junior high school period girls who expect to enter the sewing trades should be given work in mechanical drawing, elementary science, industrial conditions, elementary mechanics and hand and machine sewing. The fundamentals of sewing can be thoroughly taught in two years. The work during the first year might well be limited to hand sewing. Machine sewing should be taken up in the second year, and the girls given an opportunity during the third year to specialize somewhat broadly in a trade school on the kind of work in which they may wish to engage--power operating, dressmaking, or millinery. A ONE YEAR TRADE COURSE FOR GIRLS Specialized training must be conducted under conditions closely resembling those found in the industry. This involves equipment similar to that used in the factory, an ample supply of materials, and a corps of teachers who have had practical experience. It might seem that on the score of adequate equipment the factory itself would be the place for such training. But the fact is that the main object of the factory is to turn out as large a quantity as possible of saleable product. In the school the main object should be to turn out as large a quantity of saleable skill and knowledge as possible, with the saleable product as a secondary, although necessary, feature. The junior high school is not the place for specialized trade training, since it is reasonably certain that there would not be a sufficient number of girls in each junior high school desiring to enter a single trade to warrant the provision of special equipment and special teachers. For this reason the report favors a trade course in a separate school plant where girls who wish to specialize in any of the sewing trades can be taught in fairly large classes. The work done during the past few years in such institutions as the Boston Trade School for Girls and the Manhattan Trade School for Girls in New York City gives evidence of the practicability of this plan. TRADE-EXTENSION TRAINING The only instruction offered by the public school system at the present time which can be considered as trade-extension training for the garment industries is that given in the sewing classes in the technical night schools. The enrollment in these classes during the second term of 1915-16 was 229. Only a small proportion of the girls and women enrolled in the night sewing classes make their living by sewing. The students employed by day in clothing factories or in any of the sewing trades constitute somewhat less than 15 per cent of the total number enrolled. Nearly half of the enrollment is made up of workers in commercial, clerical or professional pursuits and approximately one-third are not employed in any gainful occupation. In both technical night schools the emphasis is laid on training for home sewing rather than on training for wage earning. The courses now given are not planned for workers in the garment trades, but to help women and girls who want to learn how to make, alter, and repair their own garments. If a trade school of the kind described in the previous section were established it would be possible to give at night short unit courses in machine or hand sewing to those workers who wish to extend their experience and prepare themselves for advancement, utilizing in the night classes the equipment of the day school. It is probable also that special day classes could be organized during the dull season to give beginners the opportunity to learn new processes and extend their knowledge of trade theory. CHAPTER XV SUMMARY OF REPORT ON DRESSMAKING AND MILLINERY At the time of the last census the total number of women in Cleveland employed as milliners or dressmakers was approximately 5,000, of whom about seven-tenths were dressmakers and about three-tenths milliners. For the most part they were of native birth. The proportion of young girls engaged in these occupations was relatively small, the age distribution showing that only about one-third of the milliners and less than one-fifth of the dressmakers were under 21 years of age. DRESSMAKING Four distinctive lines of work are done by those who are classified by the census as dressmakers and seamstresses: dressmaking proper, usually carried on in shops; alteration work in stores; general sewing done by seamstresses at home or in the homes of customers; and the work of the so-called dressmaking "school," in which the dressmaker helps her customers do their general sewing. Shop dressmaking is in the main confined to the making of afternoon and evening gowns and fancy blouses. Nearly uniform processes of work are maintained and the workers in the different establishments need about the same kinds of abilities and degrees of skill. There is a strong and increasing tendency towards specialization of the work. Among each 100 workers in dressmaking shops about 13 are head girls, 55 are finishers or makers, 16 are helpers, eight are apprentices, and the rest are lining makers, cutters, embroiderers, errand girls, shoppers, and stock girls. Alteration work constitutes a separate sewing trade and consists of the adjustment of ready-made garments to individual peculiarities. It furnishes employment to several hundred workers in Cleveland. The weekly wages most commonly paid to each class of workers in dressmaking shops may be roughly stated as follows: apprentices, $2 to $4; helpers $6 to $9; finishers or makers $10 to $12; and drapers $18 to $20. Lining making, done in most shops by apprentices or helpers, pays from $4 to $6 a week. In one shop a specialist on linings received $12. Women cutters, found in two shops, and doing supervisory work similar to that done by drapers, earned from $15 to $25. Hemstitchers earn $10 to $14 and a guimpe maker in one shop earned $12. Errand girls were found at $3 and $6; stock girls at $8, $12, and $13; and shoppers at from $3.50 to $10. Beginners in alteration departments are started at from $5 to $7. Regular alteration hands earn from $7 to $18, the average being $9 or $10. Fitters earn about the same as drapers in dressmaking shops, averaging from $15 to $18, with a range of from $10 to $25. As a rule comparatively little time is lost through irregularity of employment. Workers average from 10 to 11 months' work out of the year. Establishments usually close during the month of August and for one or two weeks in the spring. Workers in alteration department average 11 months of work. Dress alteration work is steady, while suit and coat alteration is irregular. Apprenticeship in dressmaking comprehends a trying-out period of from six months to a year. Most shops take apprentices, the proportion in the trade being one to every 12 workers; and an effort is made to keep these new workers if they are at all satisfactory. There is no standardized apprenticeship wage. Girls may serve without pay for six months, or may start at from 50 cents to $4 a week. At the end of six months they may be earning from $1.50 to $6. The lack of any wage standard in apprenticeship probably accounts for the fact that it is difficult to get girls to enter this trade. MILLINERY Millinery requires the handling of small pieces of the most varied sorts of material, most of it perishable. The materials must be measured, cut, turned, twisted, and draped into innumerable designs and color combinations, and sewed with various kinds of stitching. The main processes are making, trimming, and designing. Making consists in fashioning a specified shape from wire or buckram and covering it with such materials as straw or velvet. The covering may be put on plain, or may be shirred or draped. Trimming consists in placing and sewing on all sorts of decorative materials. A combination of the two processes of making and trimming, known as copying, consists in making a hat from the beginning exactly like a specified model. Designing is the creation of original models. The increase in the use of the factory-made hat has decreased the number of workers in custom millinery, and has also had an effect in diverting business from small retail shops to millinery departments in stores. The number of millinery workers constantly fluctuates, not only from season to season, but from year to year. According to a close estimate not more than 2,000 workers were actually engaged in millinery occupations during the busiest part of 1915. Between 1,200 and 1,400 were in retail shops; about 300 were in millinery departments in stores; and about 300 more were in wholesale houses. The data collected indicate that the wages of workers in retail shops are lower in general than the wages of workers in millinery departments in stores and in wholesale houses. Makers in retail shops earn from $3 to $16 a week, the average being about $8. Trimmers earn from $10 to $40, with an average of about $18. Out of 45 retail shops, only 22 paid as high as $10 to any maker; 15 paid as high as $12; six paid as high as $15; and only one paid over $15. In millinery departments in stores, trimmers, who are generally designers, earn from $15 to $50 a week or more. The rate most commonly received is $25. Makers are started at from $4 to $6 and may advance to $15, with an average of about $10. In wholesale houses designers earn from $25 to $60, or more. Makers start at about $5, and the usual range is from $10 to $15. Those employed in straight copying may earn between $15 and $20. The 1914 report of the Industrial Commission of Ohio presents data showing that of the women 18 years of age and over employed in wholesale houses 37 per cent receive under $8, about 22 per cent receive between $8 and $12, while 41 per cent receive $12 and over. The girls under 18 years of age were, with one exception, receiving less than $4 per week. Employment in retail shops averages about 32 weeks during the year; in the millinery departments of stores from 32 to 42 weeks; and in wholesale houses about 40 weeks. The proportion of workers employed the year round is very small. The majority of millinery workers are faced with the problem of tiding themselves over two dull seasons, aggregating from 12 to 28 weeks each year. The millinery apprenticeship period lasts for two seasons of 12 weeks each. Almost all retail shops take apprentices in large numbers, there being one apprentice to every three or four workers in the trade. Few apprentices are found in stores and wholesale houses. The apprenticeship wage is extremely low. The usual rate is $1 a week during the first season and from $1.50 to $2 during the second. THE PROBLEM OF TRAINING The needs of girls who are soon to leave school and go to work can best be met by a modification of the junior high school course and by the establishment of a one-year trade school for girls. Before a re-organization of the junior high school work is made to meet the needs of these girls an effort should be made to reduce retardation so that more girls will reach the junior high school before the end of the compulsory attendance period. The present courses should be reorganized so as to give basic preparation for wage earning and should be as concrete and real as a thorough understanding of the requirements of the gainful occupations can make them. Thorough sewing courses planned from the standpoint of the sewing trades should be offered, extending over two years. The program suggested closely resembles that recommended for the garment trades. It is also recommended that a one-year trade school be established for preparing girls to enter employment in dressmaking and millinery. The history of trade schools for girls, both private and public, indicates that such a school, if properly conducted, would be highly successful in Cleveland. The classes in sewing and millinery in the evening technical high schools do not offer trade-extension training for workers and it is not likely that they could be easily reorganized to furnish such training. It is recommended that if a trade school is established in Cleveland, short unit courses in sewing and related subjects, such as design, be given in evening classes. CHAPTER XVI SUMMARY OF REPORT ON THE METAL TRADES Approximately one-half of the total number of persons in Cleveland engaged in manufacturing are found in the metal industries. When the last federal census was taken nearly one-seventh of the entire male population was employed in establishments engaged in the manufacture of crude or finished metal products. Pittsburgh only, among the 10 largest cities in the country, has a higher proportion of its industrial population working in such establishments. In relation to its total population, Cleveland has twice as many people working in these industries as Chicago, three times as many as Philadelphia, and four times as many as New York. It is estimated that at the present time the number of wage earners in the city engaged in this kind of work is between 70,000 and 80,000. The report deals with the three leading industries of the city,--foundry and machine shop products, automobile manufacturing, and steel works and rolling mills. The study of this last group also includes several related industries, such as blast furnaces, wire mills, nail mills, and bolt, nut, and rivet factories. About three-fourths of the total number of wage earners in the city engaged in the manufacture of metal products are found in these three industries. The field investigations consisted of personal visits to the manufacturing establishments for the purpose of securing first hand data as to industrial conditions, and conferences with employers, superintendents, foremen, and workmen as to the need and possibilities of training for metal working occupations. In all, 60 establishments, employing approximately 35,000 men, were visited. The conclusions as to vocational training were based on an analysis of educational needs in the various metal industries, together with an extended study of the social and economic factors which condition the training of all workers. Particular attention was given to the administrative problems involved in such training in public schools. FOUNDRY AND MACHINE SHOP PRODUCTS According to the United States Census, foundries and factories making machine shop products gave employment in 1909 to nearly 18,000 Cleveland wage-earners. This industrial group ranks first in the city, employing more than twice as many workers as the next largest industry,--automobile manufacturing,--and approximately two-fifths of the total working force in all metal industries. Its growth during the previous five years, from the standpoint of number of workers employed, showed an increase of about 33 per cent, and it is estimated that the total number of wage-earners in 1914 was approximately 25,000. At the present time, due to the impetus given to this branch of manufacturing by the European war, the working force is undoubtedly in excess of this figure. The report gives extended consideration to the machinist's trade, which constitutes by far the largest body of skilled workers in the city. This trade has been affected more than any other by the progress of invention and the modern tendency towards specialization. In many establishments the all-round machinist, competent to do independent work and operate the wide variety of machine tools now used in the trade, had practically disappeared. In his place are found "specialist" machine hands who have learned the operation of a single machine tool, but have no general knowledge of the trade, and who if called on to perform work requiring the use of a machine tool different from the one on which they are employed are unable to do so. There are hundreds of drill press hands who cannot operate a milling machine, lathe hands who know nothing of planer work, and so on. The subdivision of these occupations follows closely the advance in invention, so that employers advertising for help frequently specify not only the machine tool to be used but add the name of the firm which manufactures that particular type of machine, with the result that there are about as many kinds of machinists as there are manufacturers of machine tools. Table 18 shows the estimated number of men employed, with their distribution in the various branches of the trade. TABLE 18.--PROPORTIONS AND ESTIMATED NUMBERS EMPLOYED IN MACHINE TOOL OCCUPATIONS, 1915 --------------------------------+------------+-------------+ | | Estimated | Workers | Per cent | number | --------------------------------+------------+-------------+ Lathe hands | 18.8 | 3,384 | Drill press operators | 17.9 | 3,222 | Bench hands | 13.4 | 2,412 | Machinists | 12.7 | 2,286 | Screw machine operators | 9.4 | 1,692 | Milling machine operators | 8.6 | 1,548 | Tool makers | 8.3 | 1,494 | Grinding machine operators | 6.2 | 1,116 | Planer hands | 2.2 | 396 | Turret lathe operators | 1.8 | 324 | Gear cutter operators | .7 | 126 | --------------------------------+------------+-------------+ Total | 100.0 | 18,000 | --------------------------------+------------+-------------+ Specialization has operated to lower standards of skill and keep down wages. The average wage of the "all-round" machinist is very nearly the lowest found among the skilled trades. The union scale is but 14 cents an hour above that paid unskilled labor, while the average earnings of machine operators range from four to 12 cents above laborers' wages. Only among the highly skilled tool makers do the wages approach those received by skilled labor in most other industries. Table 19 shows the average, highest, and lowest rates per hour for all branches of the machine trades in the establishments from which data were collected during the survey, with the per cent employed on piece work and day work. TABLE 19.--AVERAGE, HIGHEST, AND LOWEST EARNINGS, IN CENTS PER HOUR, AND PER CENT EMPLOYED ON PIECE WORK AND DAY WORK, 1915 ---------------------------+-------+-------+-------+--------+--------+ | | | |Per cent|Per cent| | | | |on piece| on day | Workers |Lowest |Average|Highest| work | work | ---------------------------+-------+-------+-------+--------+--------+ Tool makers | 25.0 | 39.0 | 50.0 | .. | 100 | Machinists | 25.0 | 33.2 | 50.0 | .. | 100 | Planer hands | 20.0 | 32.2 | 42.0 | .. | 100 | Grinding machine operators | 20.0 | 32.0 | 50.0 | 70 | 30 | Bench hands | 17.5 | 29.6 | 45.0 | 48 | 52 | Screw machine operators | 17.5 | 29.5 | 63.8 | 79 | 21 | Lathe hands | 19.0 | 29.1 | 40.0 | 40 | 60 | Turret lathe operators | 25.0 | 29.0 | 47.5 | 80 | 20 | Gear cutter operators | 20.0 | 26.7 | 40.0 | 96 | 4 | Milling machine operators | 15.0 | 25.9 | 40.0 | 53 | 47 | Drill press operators | 15.0 | 23.5 | 35.0 | 35 | 65 | Machinists' helpers | 20.0 | 22.2 | 25.0 | .. | 100 | ---------------------------+-------+-------+-------+--------+--------+ On the basis of weekly or yearly earnings, the trade makes a better showing. Work is steady throughout the year, and the time lost through unemployment on account of seasonal changes is slight. Also, as the usual working day is from nine to 10 hours, that is, from one to two hours longer than in the higher paid building trades, the difference in daily wages is really less marked than a comparison of hourly rates would seem to indicate. Little attempt has been made to adapt the apprentice system to modern conditions. The term of service and rates of pay have changed but slightly over a long period of years. As a result only a small proportion of the boys who begin as apprentices finish the apprenticeship term of three or four years. Employers attribute this to the relatively high wages paid for machine operating, and the slight advantage, from a wage standpoint, of the "all-round" man over the machine operator. After a year or two the apprentice finds that he can double his pay by taking a job as operator, and the inducement for learning the trade thoroughly is too small to hold him. The report gives a comparison of the earnings of an apprentice and a machine operator, both starting at the same age, the first becoming a journeyman machinist at the end of three years and the second specializing on a particular machine. Assuming that both boys go to work at the age of 16 their total earnings up to the age of 25 years will be approximately equal. The lack of thoroughly trained workmen is beginning to be felt, but the efforts made by industrial establishments to meet it have small prospects of success unless the economic factors of the problem are given greater consideration. Inasmuch as no regular apprenticeship period is served for machine operating, a special effort was made to secure data relating to the time usually required for the worker to learn the operation of each tool well enough to earn average wages. In this matter the individual opinions of foremen and superintendents differed widely, but when the reports from all the establishments visited were compared, a sufficient degree of uniformity was found to serve as a basis for estimating the amount of experience workers of average intelligence would need, under normal shop conditions, in order to become fairly proficient. There was practical unanimity in fixing the period at four years for tool makers and three to four years for machinists. Higher estimates were received from the superintendents of plants doing a jobbing business or manufacturing high grade machine tools than from the specialized shops making a single product. The superintendents of automobile manufacturing plants, where the standard of quality in production is necessarily high, gave the lowest estimates of all. Table 20 shows the estimated time required to learn the various types of machine work. TABLE 20.--ESTIMATED TIME REQUIRED TO LEARN MACHINE TOOL WORK ------------------------------------+----------------------+ Workers | Time required | ------------------------------------+----------------------+ Grinding machine operators | 12 to 15 months | Lathe hands | 6 to 9 months | Planer hands | 6 months | Gear cutter operators | 6 months | Turret lathe operators | 4 to 6 months | Screw machine operators | 3 to 6 months | Bench hands | 3 to 6 months | Milling machine operators | 2 to 4 months | Drilling machine operators | 2 weeks to 4 months | ------------------------------------+----------------------+ The weakness of specialization, with its constant tendency towards the substitution of semi-skilled operatives for trained workmen, lies in its failure to provide a body of workers from whom to recruit the large directive force needed in any scheme of production based on semi-skilled labor. This condition is regarded by many employers with grave concern, and in a few plants apprentice schools designed primarily to train future foremen have been established. Practically all the foremen in the shops visited had received an all-round training as machinists, and there are few opportunities for promotion open to men who have not a general knowledge of the trade. On the other hand, such general knowledge is only one of the requisites for advancement. Others are initiative, resourcefulness, tact, self-control, ability to get along with men, and a disposition to subordinate personal interests to the interests of the business. To these should be added the quality of patience, for there must be vacancies before there can be promotions, and vacancies among the better positions are not frequent. Ten of the establishments visited, employing a total working force of over 5,000 men, reported but eight vacancies among foremen's positions over a period of one year. These same establishments had in their employ a total of 618 all-round machinists and tool makers. Assuming that only the machinists and tool makers were eligible for promotion, the mathematical chance per man of becoming a foreman during the year was about one in 77. Other occupations studied in detail were pattern making, molding, core making, blacksmithing, and boiler making. Pattern making offers the most interesting work and the highest wages among the metal trades, but the total number of American born pattern makers in the city does not exceed seven or eight hundred, so the field of employment is relatively limited. Molding and core making, in which between 4,000 and 5,000 men are engaged, have practically become foreign trades. Less than 20 per cent of the molders in the city were born in this country. These trades offer few opportunities for employment to boys of native birth. Somewhat similar conditions exist in the blacksmithing trade. Changed methods of production have largely done away with the old-time blacksmith, who survives only in horse-shoeing and repair shops. The proportion of native blacksmiths is steadily declining, and it is unlikely that any considerable number of boys from the public schools will enter the trade. The boiler making trade employs relatively few men, the total number of native born boiler makers at the time of the last census being less than 600. The trade seems to be at a standstill. The increase during the previous decade was less than five per cent against a total population increase of 46 per cent. The average earnings per hour for these trades in the establishments visited by members of the Survey Staff are shown in Table 21. TABLE 21.--AVERAGE EARNINGS PER HOUR IN PATTERN MAKING, MOLDING, CORE MAKING, BLACKSMITHING, AND BOILER MAKING Average earnings Workers Per Hour Pattern makers .44 Skilled molders .39 Semi-skilled molders .27 Skilled core makers .39 Semi-skilled core makers .27 Blacksmiths .33 Boiler makers .32 The findings and recommendations as to training emphasize the fact that the vast majority of boys who become workers in the metal trades leave school by the time they are 15 with at most a common school education, so that any vocational training before they go to work must be given between the ages of 12 and 15 and before the end of the eighth grade. The report points out the impossibility of effective vocational instruction in elementary schools on account of the prohibitive cost per pupil for both equipment and teaching, and endorses the recently adopted junior high school plan. This form of organization has the great advantage of concentrating in large groups the boys who are old enough to make a beginning in prevocational training, and through the departmental system of teaching offers facilities for differentiation of courses to meet their varying needs. Whatever their cultural value, the present manual training courses in woodwork have little relation to the requirements of any metal working trade, except pattern making, in which some of the same tools are used. No manual training work in metal is offered in the elementary and junior high schools. The course recommended for the junior high school lays especial emphasis on applied mathematics, mechanical drawings, practice in assembling and taking apart machines, and the utilization of the shop as a laboratory for teaching industrial science. The report maintains that the object of such a course should be the development of industrial intelligence through the application of mathematical and mechanical principles to the solution of concrete problems, rather than the teaching of specific operations and skill in the use of tools. In mechanical drawing the ability to understand and interpret drawings should be given more importance than the ability to make drawings. Few workmen are ever called on to draw, while the ability to read plans and sketches is always in demand. It is also recommended that boys who do not expect to take a full high school course or who intend to leave at the end of the compulsory period should devote at least a period each week to the study of economic and working conditions in industrial and commercial occupations. With respect to the technical high schools the report holds that these schools are primarily training schools for the higher positions of industry. They undoubtedly offer the best instruction obtainable in the city for the ambitious boy who wishes to prepare himself for supervisory and managerial positions in industry or for a college engineering course. The establishment of a separate two-year vocational school, equipped for giving instruction in all the larger industrial trades, is recommended. The number of boys in the public schools between the ages of 14 and 16 who are likely to enter the metal trades is between 700 and 800, of whom from 500 to 600 will become machinists or machine tool operators. An enrollment of much less than this number is sufficient to justify the installation of good shop equipment and the employment of a corps of teachers who have had the special training necessary for this kind of work. It should be possible to form a class in pattern making and foundry work of from 80 to 100 boys, and one of at least 30 in blacksmithing. Boiler making could be taught in connection with sheet metal work. Various changes are recommended in the present evening school classes for machinists, molders, and pattern makers now given by the technical high schools. It is claimed that the courses as now organized are not elastic enough to meet the varying needs of the journeymen, helpers, machine operators, and apprentices employed in these trades. The great need is for short unit courses in which the instruction is limited to a particular machine or a special branch of the trade. The long course tends to discourage the student, especially when it embraces an amount of theory out of all proportion to his working needs. AUTOMOBILE MANUFACTURING Due to the large number and specialized character of the occupations in this industry, they are taken up in a more general way than the "foundries and machine shop" group. The productive departments of the automobile factories utilize in the main the same equipment as other machinery manufacturing plants, but specialization has been carried to a degree found in few other metal industries. The "all-round" workman is a rara avis. The machine shops are manned by machine "specialists" most of whom know how to operate a single machine tool or perform a single operation made up of relatively simple elements. From one-half to two-thirds of the working force is recruited from immigrant labor which is "broken in" under skilful foremen within a period varying from a few days to a few weeks. In the simpler assembling operations the jobs are so subdivided that any man who is not actually feebleminded can learn the work in a few days. Production is on a large scale, permitting the maintenance of high-grade engineering and experimental departments, where all of the work is planned to the last detail. As a result the automobile manufacturers are turning out one of the most complicated and most efficient machines known to modern industry with a working force composed chiefly of semi-skilled labor. For the machine shop workers the training suggested is similar to that recommended for the same class of workmen in other machine shops. The necessity of short unit courses adapted for teaching parts of the trade rather than the whole trade is obvious, as most automobile workers are employed on specialized operations. Short unit evening courses for motor and transmission assemblers, and testers and inspectors, are recommended. STEEL WORKS, ROLLING MILLS, AND RELATED INDUSTRIES A somewhat similar treatment is followed with respect to the iron and steel group of industries--blast furnaces, steel mills, rolling mills, wire mills, nail mills, and bolt, nut, and rivet factories. These industries are characterized by a high proportion of common and semi-skilled labor in the working force. Between 75 and 90 per cent of the workers are of foreign birth. In the operating department of one mill only two Americans were found among a total of 600 employees. As a rule the native born workers are mechanics employed in the power and maintenance departments. With scarcely an exception the occupations are of a nature that require the worker to learn through actual experience in the mills. Theory and practice must be learned at the same time. Even the supervisory and executive positions in which a technical education is of considerable value require a long and arduous apprenticeship on the job before the worker can compete with men who have started with the scantiest educational equipment, but have picked up a knowledge of the processes by experience and observation. Below these positions the work rapidly grades off to various kinds of machine operating in which not even the ability to read or understand English is required. No plan of vocational training is presented, because at present the mills recruit almost exclusively from foreign labor, and only a very small number of boys from the public schools are likely to seek employment in them. The technical content of the work which might conceivably be given in evening classes, except in the case of the few directive and supervisory positions, is so small that continuation instruction offers but meager hopes of success. Under present conditions the long working day and the necessity of changing from the day to the night shift, or vice-versa every two weeks, constitutes an insuperable obstacle to the organization of night classes. The principal need of the rank and file is a speaking and reading knowledge of the English language, so that the workers can be taught to avoid and prevent accidents, and give themselves the necessary care when they occur. Instruction in English with possibly courses in accident prevention and personal hygiene represent about the only training possible that can be said to have any real vocational significance. CHAPTER XVII SUMMARY OF REPORT ON THE BUILDING TRADES A careful estimate places the number of men engaged in building construction in Cleveland at the present time at about 30,000, comprising more than one-fifth of the total number employed in manufacturing and mechanical occupations. About two-thirds of these workmen are skilled artisans, distributed among some 20 different trades. The estimated number in each trade is shown in Table 22. SOURCES OF LABOR SUPPLY The building trades get their workers from four principal sources: immigration, native journeymen from outside the city, helpers, and apprentices. Immigration contributes the largest proportion in both skilled and unskilled work, practically monopolizing the latter. Over four-fifths of all cabinet makers, more than two-thirds of all brick and stone masons, and nearly two-thirds of all carpenters are foreign born. Plumbers and steam-fitters show the smallest proportion of foreign labor. TABLE 22.--ESTIMATED NUMBER OF MEN ENGAGED IN BUILDING TRADES, 1915 ----------------------------------------+------------------+ Workers in trade | Number employed | ----------------------------------------+------------------+ Carpenters | 7,105 | Painters, glaziers, varnishers | 2,746 | Plumbers, gas- and steam-fitters | 2,014 | Bricklayers | 1,800 | Machine woodworkers | 1,198 | Sheet metal workers or tinsmiths | 1,069 | Cabinet-makers | 895 | Inside wiremen and fixture hangers | 750 | Plasterers | 638 | Paperhangers | 379 | Structural iron workers | 356 | Roofers and slaters | 315 | Stone-cutters | 292 | Lathers | 275 | Stone masons and marble setters | 250 | Ornamental iron workers | 200 | Cement finishers | 200 | Hoisting engineers | 150 | Elevator constructors | 100 | Parquet floor layers | 100 | Tile-layer | 100 | Asbestos workers | 75 | Wood carvers | 63 | Helpers | 926 | Apprentices | 306 | ----------------------------------------+------------------+ Total | 22,302 | ----------------------------------------+------------------+ APPRENTICESHIP The general decline of the apprenticeship system which began with the invention of modern labor-saving machinery has affected the building trades least of all. Here it survives in an active state and is steadily gaining ground. It is in favor with many employers and with all unions. The best apprenticeship systems are found in the strongly organized trades. It is true that in some of the trades apprenticeship is little more than a name, meaning simply that permission has been granted to learn the trade. The apprentice is left free to pick up what experience he can between the odd jobs that are given him. What meager instruction he receives comes from a journeyman worker who is none too eager to give up what he considers the secrets of his trade. The union regulations provide that boys shall not enter the trades as apprentices or helpers below the age of 16. The limits set by the various trades and the union regulations as to length of apprenticeship are shown in Tables 23 and 24. TABLE 23.--UNION REGULATIONS AS TO ENTERING AGE OF APPRENTICES ----------------------------------------+------------------------+ Asbestos workers | Enter at any age | Bricklayers | Between 16 and 23 | Carpenters | Between 17 and 22 | Cement finishers | Must be full grown | Elevator constructors | Must be full grown | Lathers | Must be 18 years old | Inside wiremen | Between 16 and 21 | Painters and paperhangers | Before 21 years old | Plumbers and gas-fitters | Must be 16 years old | Sheet metal workers | Must be over 16 years | Slate and tile roofers | Must enter before 25 | Steam-fitters | Must be full grown | Structural and ornamental iron workers | Between 18 and 25 | ----------------------------------------+------------------------+ TABLE 24.--UNION REGULATIONS AS TO LENGTH OF APPRENTICESHIP PERIOD _Trades in which indentures are usually signed_ Bricklayer 4 years Plasterers 4 years Sheet metal workers 4 years _Trades in which indentures are seldom signed_ Steam-fitters 5 years Carpenters 4 years Inside wiremen 4 years Plumbers and gas-fitter 4 years Cement finishers 3 years Asbestos workers 3 years Painters and paperhangers 3 years Slate and tile roofers 3 years Lathers 2 years Structural and ornamental iron workers 11/2 years Elevator constructors varies All obtainable information points to the conclusion that the number of apprentices employed in the city is far below the maximum permitted by the unions. Many large contractors have no apprentices and say they will not bother with them. Others state that they have been unable to get or keep good apprentices and have therefore given up the plan. UNION ORGANIZATION The building trades are among the most strongly organized in the city. It is estimated that their unions at the present time include about 90 per cent of all the men engaged in building work. Practically all the large contracting firms employ only union labor. The few non-union workers are employed by small contractors. Requirements for admission to the different unions vary to a marked degree. If the union is strong and has a good control over the labor supply, admission fees are higher and regulations as to apprentices and helpers are more stringent than if the union is fighting to gain a foothold. EARNINGS No industrial workers in the city are paid better wages than those employed in the building trades. More than one-half of the skilled workers are in trades that pay an hourly wage of 50 cents or over. The hourly rate in each occupation is shown in Table 25. TABLE 25.--UNION SCALE OF WAGES IN CENTS PER HOUR MAY 1, 1915 _70 Cents_ Bricklayers 70.00 Hoisting engineers on boom derricks, etc. 70.00 Stone masons 70.00 Structural iron workers 70.00 _From 60 to 70 Cents_ Marble setters 68.75 Inside wiremen 68.75 Plasterers 68.75 Slate and tile roofers 67.50 Parquet floor layers (carpenters) 62.50 Lathers, first class 62.50 Plumbers 62.50 Steam-fitters 62.50 Stone-cutters 62.50 Hoisting engineers, brick hoists 60.00 Elevator constructors 60.00 _From 50 to 60 Cents_ Tile layers 59.38 Lathers, second class 56.25 Carpenters 55.00 Cement workers, finishers 55.00 Sheet metal workers 50.00 Painters 50.00 Paperhangers 50.00 _From 40 to 50 Cents_ Asbestos workers 47.50 Composition roofers 42.50 _Under 40 Cents_ Cabinet-makers and bench hands 37.50 Machine woodworkers 37.50 Electrical fixture hangers 37.50 Hod-carriers 35.00 Union organization is a more powerful factor in determining wages in these trades than technical knowledge and skill. A high degree of skill in a given trade brings little advantage in the matter of wages. By establishing a minimum scale below which no journeyman shall work, the union secures practically a flat rate of pay for most of the men in the trade. When there is much building work and good men are scarce, contractors sometimes pay higher wages to highly skilled workmen in order to secure their services. As a rule, however, their reward comes in the form of steadier employment. The less skilled man is the first to be laid off when business is slack, while the first-class workman, for the reason that he is so hard to replace, is the last to be discharged. Many unions, among them those of the carpenters, bricklayers, and painters, make no provision as to the wages of apprentices. Table 26 shows the wages in three of the building trades that have established a uniform scale for apprentices. Sheet metal apprentices are paid a bonus of $1 extra for each week served. TABLE 26.--USUAL WEEKLY WAGES OF APPRENTICES IN THREE BUILDING TRADES -------------+----------------+----------------+--------------+ | | | Sheet metal | Year | Inside wiremen | Plasterers | workers | -------------+----------------+----------------+--------------+ First year | $5.50 | $5.50 to $6.25 | $5.00 | Second year | 13.20 | 8.25 to 11.02 | 5.50 to 6.00 | Third year | 17.60 | 13.75 to 16.00 | 6.50 to 7.00 | Fourth year | 22.00 | 19.25 | 8.00 to 9.00 | -------------+----------------+----------------+--------------+ HOURS The usual working day is eight hours. Many of the trades work only a half day on Saturdays throughout the year; practically all have this half holiday during the four summer months. For holiday or over-time work the men receive either pay and a half or double pay. REGULARITY OF EMPLOYMENT Due to the seasonal character of building work, it is next to impossible for a building contractor to keep a large force employed all the year. One result of this situation is that the men change employers more than any other workers in industry. Irregularity of employment is greater in building construction than in any other of the principal industries of the city. A comparison between the different branches of building work as to regularity of employment is presented in Diagram 11. The best showing is made by electrical contracting, in which the average number employed is 93 per cent of the maximum working force, and the poorest by plastering in which the average is only 66 per cent of the maximum. HEALTH CONDITIONS Nearly all of the building trades are open air occupations, much even of the inside work being done before the buildings are closed in. For the most part the materials used are not injurious to health if reasonable precautions are taken and ordinary habits of cleanliness observed. In general, health conditions are better than those found in the factory industries. [Illustration: Diagram 11.--Sections in outline represent percentage of men employed, and sections in black percentage of men unemployed in each of nine building industries at the time when each industry showed the largest percentage of unemployment] OPPORTUNITIES FOR ADVANCEMENT The building trades offer many opportunities for advancement. One reason for this is the large number of supervisory positions made necessary by the wide range of building activities. A foreman in almost any of the trades must be able to read plans, as he must lay out the work. It is not necessary for him to be the most skilled mechanic in the force. Employers and superintendents say that in selecting foremen they lay about equal weight on skill and on ability to handle men. As a rule, foremanship carries with it higher wages, although in some cases the pay is the same as that of the regular journeymen. The reward for the added responsibility comes in the form of steadier employment. It is not uncommon for a foreman to be hired on a salary basis and carried on the payroll throughout the entire year. Small contracting offers another form of advancement. It requires but little initial investment to make a modest beginning, because individual workmen in the various building trades provide their own tools and no expensive machines are required. Comparatively little working capital is necessary, as provision is made in most contracts for part payments as the work progresses. THE PROBLEM OF TRAINING The recommendations of the report relating to training for the building trades may be summarized under five headings: 1. _Reduce retardation._ The first step in improving the educational preparation of workers entering the building trades is to reduce retardation or slow progress in the elementary grades. At present it is approximately true of the men entering the building trades that one-third drop out of school by the sixth grade, two-thirds by the seventh grade, and three-thirds by the eighth grade. Now according to law a boy cannot go to work until he is 16, and if he has made normal progress he will have completed the eight grades of the elementary course before he has reached that age. In point of fact, many of these boys do not make normal progress through the grades and hence they reach the age of 15 before completing the elementary course. As a result they fall out of school without having had those portions of the work in reading, drawing, mathematics, and elementary science which would be of most direct use to them in their future work. 2. _General industrial courses in seventh, eighth, and ninth grades._ If retardation could be largely reduced in the elementary grades, industrialized courses could be properly introduced in the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades for boys intending to enter the building trades. The specific changes recommended include as their most important elements: a. Increased training in industrial arithmetic beginning in the seventh grade. b. Courses in industrial drawing. c. Courses in elementary science relating to industry. d. Courses in industrial information. e. General courses in industrial shop work. These are general industrial courses and it is recommended that they be introduced as prominent features of the work of the junior high school. They are not intended to take the place of specialized courses in the building trades, but they are proposed as courses valuable for all future industrial workers and within which certain adaptations should be made for those who are intending to enter the building trades. 3. _A two year industrial trade school._ In addition to the general industrial courses in junior high schools that have been recommended in the previous section, there should be established a two year industrial trade school for boys. It should receive boys 14 to 16 years of age who desire direct trade-preparatory training. There are good reasons why the present elementary schools, the proposed junior high schools, and the existing technical high schools cannot satisfactorily take the place of a specialized two year course in giving boys direct trade-preparatory education. Boys who go through the technical high schools do not remain in the building trades as artisans. This is shown by the fact that less than two per cent of the graduates of these schools are working in the building trades. The elementary schools and the junior high schools cannot conduct satisfactory trade-preparatory courses for the building industry for the reason that they do not bring together at any one point a sufficient number of these future workers to make it possible to teach them economically. This is a consideration which conditions every plan for the organization of industrial education. It is a question of the community's capacity to absorb workmen trained for any given occupation. In Cleveland about 4,000 boys leave the public elementary schools each year. Approximately 2,400 of them drop out of the elementary schools or leave after graduating from them, while the remaining 1,600 go on to high school. The future workers in the building trades will be largely recruited from the 2,400 boys who leave the elementary schools each year. Most of them range in age from 14 to 16 and in school advancement from the fifth to the eighth grades. They represent a cross-section of a large part of the city's adult manhood of a few years hence. Now the census figures tell us that if present conditions maintain in the future only about 100 of the 4,000 boys leaving school each year will be carpenters. For the purposes of the present inquiry we may assume that these 100 future carpenters are to be found among the 2,400 boys who do not go on to high school. But Cleveland has 108 elementary schools and these 100 future carpenters are widely scattered among them. Even if we knew which boys were destined to become carpenters, and even if we knew when they would leave school, and even if we should decide to give them all trade preparatory education for the last two years of their school life, we should still have an average class in carpentry of only two boys in each elementary school. This is administratively and educationally impossible. For similar reasons specialized trade preparatory classes in junior high schools would prove exceedingly difficult to organize. The whole situation is changed, however, when we gather in a central school all these future artisans who have decided that they wish to prepare for specific trades. Under these conditions classes would be sufficiently large so that specialized training could be given and special equipment provided. This work would best be undertaken in a school entirely devoted to the purpose, but such courses might be organized in connection with the present technical high schools. This arrangement would be less desirable and probably give inferior results. The important point, however, is not so much the organization or curriculum for these classes, it is the fundamental fact that trade classes can be wisely organized only when a sufficiently large number of pupils can be gathered in one place so as to make the work efficient and economical. The effectiveness of the trade-preparatory training recommended would be greatly increased if the upper limit of the compulsory attendance period for boys should be placed at 16 years instead of at 15 as it is now. 4. _Trade-Extension Classes for Apprentices._ At the present time the technical high schools offer evening classes for apprentices in the building trades. About one-seventh of the apprentices of the city are enrolled in these classes. In the main they are full grown men. In general they do not want shop work related to their own trades, but prefer instead to enroll in courses in drawing. The considerations already presented bear in minor degree on the problem of providing evening instruction for trade apprentices. The essential for efficient work is that a sufficient number of pupils be brought together so as to make it possible to organize specialized classes in different kinds of work that the pupils want and need. So long as there are only 50 apprentices enrolled in the entire city, and these represent a number of trades, many different stages of advancement, and a variety of needs, truly efficient work will be impossible. Better conditions can be brought about only through the coöperation of the unions, the employers, and the school people. 5. _Trade-Extension Work for Journeymen._ The evening technical schools now maintain shop classes and drawing classes for workers in the building trades. Less than one per cent of the workers in these trades are enrolled in these classes. There is little differentiation in the school work offered to helpers, apprentices, and journeymen. The result is that the work is much less efficient than it might well be. It cannot be rendered much more efficient than it is until the classes are increased in size and as a result the work differentiated and specialized. This type of improvement will result only from putting the night school work in the hands of skilful and well paid directors and teachers who bring to it a degree of energy, enterprise, ingenuity, and adaptability that it is unreasonable to expect and impossible to get from day school teachers who have already given the best that is in them to their regular classes and are giving a fatigued margin of work and attention to their night school pupils. CHAPTER XVIII SUMMARY OF REPORT ON RAILROAD AND STREET TRANSPORTATION The report on railroad and street transportation takes up a class of wage earning occupations that give employment in Cleveland to approximately 15,000 men. A much larger proportion than is found in most other industrial manual occupations are natives of the city. Although some of the work is relatively unskilled, all of the different occupations have one common characteristic--the necessity for a knowledge of the English language and some acquaintance with local customs and conditions. For this reason comparatively few foreigners are employed. The report takes up separately three types of workers, those employed in railroad train service, those engaged in wagon or automobile transportation, and the car service employees of the street railroad. RAILROAD TRANSPORTATION The study covered only those railroad occupations that are directly concerned with the actual operation of trains, such as those of engineers, firemen, conductors, and trainmen. These occupations have many points in common and bring into play many similar mental and physical characteristics. The requirements for entrance are strict and examinations for the higher positions are obligatory. In all of them the hazards are great. Each occupation is firmly intrenched in trade unionism. Differences with employers relating to such matters as promotion, hours of labor, wages, and overtime are settled by collective bargaining or, in case of failure to agree, by arbitration proceedings. The estimated number of men in Cleveland employed in these occupations in 1915 is approximately 4,500. Of these about one-fourth are switchmen and flagmen, one-fourth enginemen, one-fifth brakemen, one-sixth conductors, and one-eighth firemen. The requirements for entrance call for a high degree of physical fitness. The applicant for employment must pass a severe examination as to vision and hearing, and in addition furnish certain data as to his family history, as it relates to insanity, tuberculosis, and certain other diseases. The high standard maintained insures a type of employees which for physical fitness, mental alertness, and ability to handle difficult situations is unsurpassed in any industry. Frequent examinations, which are compulsory, are the stepping stones to the higher positions. In this way a brakeman qualifies for the position of freight conductor, a freight conductor for that of passenger conductor, and a fireman for a position as engineer. Each of the two services, passenger and freight, has its advantages. In the passenger service the working day is short, with little overtime. Freight service requires a longer working day and a considerable amount of overtime. Promotions in both services and from one to the other are made on the basis of seniority. Violation of the strict rules laid down for the operation of trains on the part of employees may result in reprimand, suspension, or dismissal, according to the gravity of the offense. The penalty of suspension has practically superseded the others except in extreme cases, such as drunkenness, theft, or other serious violations of the rules, for which offenders are summarily dismissed. On some railroads, a graded system of demerits is used. When an employee has received a certain number of demerits he is dismissed from the service. The railroad unions are among the strongest and most aggressive in the country. The total union membership among train operating employees alone in the country is approximately 350,000. The unions are all modeled upon the same general plan. They are quite independent of each other, keep strictly to their agreements and oppose the sympathetic strike. They all maintain some form of life insurance. Four organizations have underwritten over $500,000,000 of insurance and one of them in a single year paid claims amounting to $1,135,000. The influence of these unions has been particularly effective in securing the passage of protective state and national legislation such as full crew laws, standardization of train equipment, employers' liability laws, car limit laws, etc. The hazardous nature of the work is indicated by a statement made by a prominent union official to the effect that the Trainmen's Brotherhood paid a claim for death or disability every seven hours. A report to the Interstate Commerce Commission states that there is one case of injury in train or yard service every nine minutes. With the invention of safety devices the risk of accident has been greatly lessened, but railroading is still one of the most dangerous industrial occupations. There is little chance of employment for applicants under the age of 21 years. In fact, many roads refuse to employ men below this age. Physical or sense defects which often accompany advancing years, and which would not disqualify a man in other occupations do so in railroad work. The average length of the working life is a little over 12 years. Railroad employees are among the best paid workers in the country. A close estimate based on extensive wage investigations places the annual earnings of engineers at from $1,200 to $2,400 a year, with an average of $1,600. Conductors average about $1,350, firemen a little over $900, and other trainmen about $950. The usual working day is 10 hours, although this is often exceeded. Overtime is paid on a regular scale agreed upon by the companies and the union. The educational requirements are not very exacting. A thorough grounding in the "three R's" is usually all that is necessary. A large amount of trade knowledge is obtained through contact and participation after entering employment and can be gained in no other way. The examinations for promotion are of a thorough-going character. One of the roads in Cleveland requires an examination of its firemen and trainmen six months after employment, as to vision, color-sense, and hearing. They must also pass an oral examination on the characteristics of their division and a written examination on certain set questions furnished them in advance. Two years later they are examined again, the fireman for engineman, and the brakeman for conductor. The scope of these examinations covers the whole range of train operating. Each of the five large railroads entering Cleveland has air-brake cars equipped with various forms of air brakes, air signals, pumps, valves, and injectors for the purpose of giving instruction to trainmen. A competent instructor is put in charge of these cars to explain the theory and practice of the apparatus and also to give instruction in any new type of engine or train equipment. The conclusions of the report are in the main negative with respect to specialized vocational training in the public schools. There is no doubt that the general industrial course recommended for the junior high school period in previous chapters would be of some value to boys who may enter this line of work. Problems of railroad transportation might well be included as part of the work in applied mathematics. What workers in these occupations need most, however, is a thorough elementary education. MOTOR AND WAGON TRANSPORTATION This section of the report takes up such occupations as those of teamsters, chauffeurs, and repairmen. There are no reliable data as to the number of men in the city employed in these occupations, but it is certain that it does not fall below 9,000. Notwithstanding the great increase in the use of automobiles and auto trucks in recent years the number of teamsters at the present time is in excess of 4,000 men. A very large proportion of the men employed in these occupations are of American birth. The general conditions of labor such as wages, hours of labor, and so on, are the same for teamsters and chauffeurs. They earn about the same wages, belong to the same union, and work about the same hours. The wages range from 25 to 37 cents an hour. Earnings in the better paid jobs compare favorably with those in several of the skilled trades. Automobile repairmen earn from 30 to 45 cents an hour, and work from nine to 10 hours a day. The working day for teamsters and chauffeurs is somewhat longer, ranging from 10 to 12 hours. At the present time these occupations are only partially organized in trade unions. The report recommends the establishment of a course in automobile construction and operation in the technical high schools. In view of the constantly increasing use of automobiles such a course would be of value to many boys besides those who enter employment as chauffeurs and truck drivers. STREET RAILROAD TRANSPORTATION There are employed in Cleveland at present approximately 2,500 motormen and street car conductors. Almost all of them are of American birth, and the majority are natives of the city. As in railroad work each applicant for employment must pass an examination, although the requirements are less exacting than those demanded in railroad work. The preliminary training occupies about 10 days, during which the motorman is taught by actual car operation how to operate the controller, how to apply and release the brakes, and other duties connected with the careful running of the car through crowded streets. The conductor is taught the names of the streets, how and when to call them, where stops are to be made, when to turn lights on and off, how to act in case of accidents, and the various duties which deal with the sale, collection, and reporting of transfers and tickets. No one is admitted into the service before the age of 21 or after 35. Promotion usually comes in the form of better runs. The chances of promotion to positions above the grade of conductor or motorman are very slight. About 90 per cent of the men belong to the local union. Union rates of pay for motormen and conductors are higher in Cleveland than in most cities in the country, in spite of the fact that this is the only large city in the country with a three cent street car fare. The wages of both motormen and conductors are 29 cents an hour for the first year and 32 in succeeding years. The hours of labor are very irregular. The usual working day is from 10 to 12 hours. The author of the report is of the opinion that no special instruction for this type of workers can be given by the public schools. CHAPTER XIX SUMMARY OF REPORT ON THE PRINTING TRADES A smaller proportion of the industrial population in Cleveland is engaged in printing than in most large cities. The number of persons employed in printing occupations in 1915 is estimated at approximately 3,900, made up chiefly of skilled workmen. Little common labor is used in any department of the industry. The business of printing is usually conducted in small establishments. There are not more than six plants in the city which employ over 75 wage earners. Data collected from 44 local printing shops, showed an average working force of only 36 persons. Due largely to this characteristic printing affords an unusual number of opportunities for advancement to the skilled workers in the industry. The smaller the establishments are the greater is the proportion of proprietors, superintendents, managers and foremen to the total number of wage earners. Ten per cent of the total working force in the printing industry is employed in supervisory and directive positions. In many of the large manufacturing industries of the city the proportion in such work is less than three per cent. [Illustration: Diagram 12.--Number of men in each 100 in printing and five other industries earning each class of weekly wage. Black indicates less than $18, hatching, $18 to $25, and outline $25 and over] No other manufacturing industry employs so large a proportion of American born workers. In recent years many of the skilled industrial trades have been recruited to a very large extent from foreign labor, but in printing the American worker has so far held his own remarkably well. This is due in part to the relatively high wages and desirable working conditions and to the necessity in all branches of printing for a working knowledge of English. Practically all of the trades are thoroughly organized. The unions are united in a body called the Council of the Allied Printing Trades. Although only about half of the shops in the city employ union labor exclusively, the union regulations as to wages and hours of labor are observed in both open and closed shops. Printing workers are among the best paid industrial wage earners in the city. A comparison of the weekly earnings in the various manufacturing industries is shown in Diagram 12. This comparison is based upon the 1914 report of the Ohio Industrial Commission. The comparison of the earnings of women in various industries, shown in Diagram 13, is less favorable to printing. On the basis of the proportion of women that earn $12 and over per week this industry takes third place. It should be noted, however, that nearly all the women employed are engaged in semi-skilled work in binderies,--a lower grade of work than that done by most women workers in clothing factories, where wages are higher. Compared with other occupations that require about the same amount of experience and training, in textile, tobacco, and confectionery manufacturing establishments, the wages of women employed in the printing industry are relatively high. Wage earners in printing establishments lose less time through irregularity of employment than do those in most other factory industries. The kind of work done by women is more seasonal than that done by men, although less so than in other manufacturing industries which employ large numbers of women. [Illustration: Diagram 13.--Number of women in each 100 in printing and six other industries earning each class of weekly wage. Black indicates less than $8, hatching $8 to $12, and outline $12 and over] COMPOSING ROOM WORKERS Nearly all the workers in this department of the industry are hand or machine compositors. Until about 30 years ago, before practical type-setting machines were invented, all type was set by hand. Today the hand compositor, except in very small shops, works only on jobs requiring special type and special arrangement, such as advertisements, title covers of books, letter heads, and so on. In the city there are about 1,200 people employed in composing room occupations, or about 30 per cent of the total number of workers in the industry. This number includes some 50 women employed as proof-readers and copy-holders. Nine-tenths of the composing room workers are members of the International Typographical Union, although the number of shops that employ union men exclusively, called closed shops, approximates only one-half of the total number in the city. The remainder, while employing union labor, observing union hours, and paying union wages, reserve the right to hire non-union workmen. Composing room workers are the best paid in the industry. A comparison of average wages in newspaper and job establishments is shown in Table 27. TABLE 27.--AVERAGE DAILY EARNINGS OF JOB AND NEWSPAPER COMPOSING-ROOM WORKERS, 1915 -------------------------+---------------+------------+ | | Newspaper | Workers in trade | Job offices | offices | -------------------------+---------------+------------+ Foremen | $5.19 | $6.65 | Linotype machinists | 4.66 | 4.84 | Proof-readers | 4.63 | 3.98 | Monotype operators | 4.57 | .. | Linotypers | 4.28 | 4.65 | Monotype casters | 3.96 | 4.30 | Stonemen | 3.94 | 4.89 | Hand-compositors | 3.48 | 4.58 | Copy-holders | 2.30 | 2.93 | Apprentices | 1.64 | 1.30 | -------------------------+---------------+------------+ Compositors suffer most from the diseases that are common to indoor workers. The stooping position in which much of the work is done, together with insufficient ventilation and the presence of gases from the molten metal used in monotype and linotype machines, favors the development of lung diseases. The number of deaths from consumption among compositors is more than double that in most outdoor occupations. The apprenticeship system has held its own in the compositor's trade better than in most industrial occupations. In the establishments visited by the Survey Staff there were approximately 15 apprentices to each 100 hand and machine compositors. As a rule there is no real system or method of instruction. The points principally insisted upon by the union, which strongly favors the apprenticeship system, are that the number of apprentices employed shall not exceed that stipulated in the agreement between the employers and the union, and that each apprentice shall be required to serve the full term of five years. During the first and second years the apprentice is required to perform general work in the composing room under the direction of the foreman. In the third year he joins the union as an apprentice. The apprenticeship agreement stipulates that during this year he must be employed four hours each day at composition and distribution. In the fourth and fifth years the number of hours per day on such work is increased to six and seven respectively. During the last two years of his term he must take the evening trade course given by the International Typographical Union, the expense of tuition being met by the local union. The agreement contains no stipulation as to wages for the first and second years. The wage for the third year is $9 a week, for the fourth year $12, and for the fifth, $15. Apprentices in newspaper composing rooms are permitted to spend the last six months of their period working on type-setting machines. THE PRESSROOM The pressroom occupations include platen and cylinder pressmen, web or newspaper pressmen, platen and cylinder pressfeeders, plate printers, cutters, flyboys and apprentices. Approximately 15 per cent of the men employed are cylinder pressmen, about 10 per cent platen pressmen, and less than three per cent web pressmen. Pressfeeders comprise over 40 per cent of the whole group. Nearly nine-tenths of all pressroom workers are employed in job establishments. Five occupations--those of cutters, floormen, flyboys, plate printers, and web pressmen--give employment to fewer than 40 men each. The average daily earnings of pressroom workers in the establishments from which wage data were collected during the survey are shown in Table 28. The hourly rates of pay are high as compared with those in other occupations requiring an equal or greater amount of skill and knowledge. Cylinder pressmen earn more per hour than do tool and die makers--the most highly skilled of the metal trades--and platen pressmen in charge of five or more presses earn more than all-round machinists and boiler makers. The rate for cylinder pressfeeders is about three cents an hour higher than that received for specialized machine work in the metal trades. TABLE 28.--AVERAGE DAILY EARNINGS OF PRESSROOM WORKERS, 1915 _Job pressroom workers_ Foremen $4.78 Cylinder pressmen 3.63 Cutters 3.41 Platen pressmen 2.97 Floormen 2.91 Cylinder pressfeeders, men 2.54 Cylinder pressfeeders, women 1.77 Platen pressfeeders, men 1.83 Platen pressfeeders, women 1.70 Flyboys 1.56 _Newspaper pressroom workers_ Foremen 6.11 Web pressmen 4.33 Web pressmen's assistants 2.95 Formal apprenticeship is practically unknown. The boy begins as a pressfeeder, usually on a platen press, and in the course of time gets to be a platen pressman. A knowledge of platen presswork does not qualify a man to run a cylinder press, and as a rule the platen pressman who wants to change must serve some time as a cylinder pressfeeder and cylinder pressman's assistant. There is no organized system for training beginners. The boy who wants to become a pressman must pick up the trade through experience and practice, the length of time required depending chiefly on how frequently changes occur among the force of pressmen employed in the shop. THE BINDERY The bindery is the only department of the industry in which any considerable number of women are employed. Some of the occupations, such as gathering, sewing, and stitching, are practically monopolized by women. They are also employed extensively in hand and machine folding. About one-fifth are gatherers and one-fifth sewers and stitchers. The other three-fifths are distributed among a number of occupations usually classed as general bindery work. The occupations in which men predominate are forwarding, ruling, and finishing, and cutting. The forwarders comprise more than one-fourth of the total number of men engaged in bindery work. The other two skilled trades--ruling and finishing--give employment to about 35 men each. The average daily earnings in the various occupations, based on returns from 44 establishments, were as shown in Table 29. TABLE 29.--AVERAGE DAILY EARNINGS OF BINDERY WORKERS, 1915 ------------------------------+-----------+-----------+ Workers in trade | Men | Women | ------------------------------+-----------+-----------+ Foremen | $4.78 | $2.05 | Rulers | 3.56 | .. | Finishers | 3.51 | .. | Forwarders | 3.23 | .. | Cutters | 3.21 | .. | Machine-folders | 2.81 | 1.49 | Wire-stitchers | .. | 1.57 | Apprentices | 1.53 | .. | Gatherers | .. | 1.52 | Sewers | .. | 1.52 | Other bindery operatives | 1.40 | 1.51 | ------------------------------+-----------+-----------+ On account of the seasonal character of the work considerable time is lost through unemployment, particularly in those occupations in which women predominate. Beginners in these occupations in which the majority of the women are employed, start on folding or pasting, and as opportunity presents, gradually acquire practice in the higher grades of work, such as gathering and machine operating. There are some traces of the apprenticeship system in forwarding, ruling, and finishing, but these trades are so small that all of them combined require only a very few new workers each year. OTHER OCCUPATIONS Other departments of the printing industry are photoengraving, stereotyping, electrotyping, and lithographing. They give employment to approximately 700 workers, distributed among more than 20 distinct trades, requiring the most diverse sorts of skill, knowledge, and training. There are about 100 men in the city engaged in the different processes of photoengraving. Nearly all of the stereotypers, numbering from 60 to 70, are employed in newspaper offices. There are about 125 electrotypers and 400 lithographers. The labor conditions closely approximate those found in other departments of the industry. Average wages for the different occupations are shown in Table 30. TABLE 30.--AVERAGE DAILY EARNINGS IN PHOTOENGRAVING, STEREOTYPING, ELECTROTYPING, AND LITHOGRAPHING OCCUPATIONS, 1915 Average Workers in trade daily earnings Photoengraving Artists $6.32 Photographers 4.69 Etchers 4.52 Routers 4.25 Finishers 4.21 Proofers 3.69 Strippers 3.61 Blockers 2.36 Apprentices 1.49 Art apprentices 1.27 Stereotyping 4.00 Electrotyping Molders 4.41 Finishers 4.01 Casters 3.18 Routers 3.17 Builders 3.13 Blockers 2.05 Batterymen 1.97 Case fillers 1.59 Apprentices 1.10 Lithographing Lettermen 6.63 Artists 6.41 Pressroom foremen 5.80 Grainers 4.73 Engravers 4.35 Pressmen 3.91 Transferers and proofers 3.41 Pressroom apprentices 2.80 Tracers 2.63 Stone polishers 2.53 Pressfeeders 1.72 Other apprentices 1.59 Artist apprentices 1.23 Flyboys 1.10 There is no well organized system for training apprentices in photoengraving, stereotyping, and electrotyping, or in any of the lithographic trades, except that of poster artist, in which an efficient and strictly regulated system of apprenticeship is maintained. THE PROBLEM OF TRAINING The report maintains that up to the end of the compulsory attendance period school training preparatory to entering the printing trades must be of the most general sort, due to the fact that in the average elementary school the number of boys who are likely to become printers is too small to form special classes. For example, in an elementary school of 1,000 pupils the number of boys 12 years old and over to whom instruction in printing would be of value from the standpoint of future vocational utility, would probably not exceed two. While admitting the advantages of the junior high school for the purposes of vocational training, the report points out that even in a school where only pupils of the upper grades are admitted, the number who are likely to become printers is still too small to warrant special instruction. In a junior high school of 1,000 pupils not more than nine boys are likely to become printers. The report recommends a general industrial course during the junior high school period. What the boys need at this time is practice in the application of mathematics, drawing, and elementary science to industrial problems. Shop equipment should be selected with this object in mind. It is doubtful whether it should include a printing shop, for while such a shop would be useful to the few boys who will become printers, it would be of little value in training for other industries. The report suggests as subjects which should be included in the general industrial course practice in handling and assembling machinery, the study of color harmony, and the principles of design in connection with the work in drawing, the use of printing shop problems in applied mathematics, and thorough instruction in spelling, punctuation, and the division of words. It also recommends the course of industrial information referred to in previous chapters. The establishment of a two year printing course in a separate vocational school is recommended to meet the need for specialized instruction from the end of the compulsory period to the apprentice entering age. The printing trades are relatively small and it is only by concentrating in a single school plant all the boys who may wish to enter them that specialized training can be made practicable. In this way it would be possible to secure classes of from 60 to 100 boys each for such trades as composition and presswork. The report emphasizes the need for instruction in trade theory as against practice on specific operations. It points out that the boys will have plenty of opportunity after they go to work to acquire speed and manual skill, while they have little chance, under modern shop conditions, to obtain an understanding of the relation of drawing, physics, chemistry, mathematics, and art to their work. The only trade extension training offered by the public schools at the present time is that given in the technical night schools. During the second term of 1915-16 there were 28 persons enrolled in the technical night school printing class. Of these 28 persons three were journeymen printers, five described themselves as "helpers," 11 were apprentices, one was employed in the office of a printing establishment, and eight were engaged in occupations unrelated to printing. No special provision is made for the apprentices. The course, which includes hand composition, a little press work, and lectures on trade subjects, is planned "to help broaden the shop training of those working at the trade." That it does so to any considerable extent is doubtful. Too much of the time is devoted to hand work and practice on operations which the boys can easily learn in the shops. It is believed that the plan followed in the evening apprentice course prescribed by the International Typographical Union, in which no shop equipment or apparatus is used, is better adapted to the needs of boys employed in the trade. The course consists of 46 lessons in English, lettering, design, color harmony, job composition, and imposition for machine, and hand folding. The classes are taught by journeymen teachers. In February 1916 about 100 students were enrolled, of whom approximately one-third were apprentices and two-thirds journeymen. CLEVELAND EDUCATION SURVEY REPORTS These reports can be secured from the Survey Committee of the Cleveland Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio. They will be sent postpaid for 25 cents per volume with the exception of "Measuring the Work of the Public Schools" by Judd, "The Cleveland School Survey" by Ayres, and "Wage Earning and Education" by Lutz. These three volumes will be sent for 50 cents each. All of these reports may be secured at the same rates from the Division of Education of the Russell Sage Foundation, New York City. Child Accounting in the Public Schools--Ayres. Educational Extension--Perry. Education through Recreation--Johnson. Financing the Public Schools--Clark. Health Work in the Public Schools--Ayres. Household Arts and School Lunches--Boughton. Measuring the Work of the Public Schools--Judd. Overcrowded Schools and the Platoon Plan--Hartwell. School Buildings and Equipment--Ayres. Schools and Classes for Exceptional Children--Mitchell. School Organization and Administration--Ayres. The Public Library and the Public Schools--Ayres and McKinnie. The School and the Immigrant--Miller. The Teaching Staff--Jessup. What the Schools Teach and Might Teach--Bobbitt. The Cleveland School Survey (Summary)--Ayres. * * * * * Boys and Girls in Commercial Work--Stevens. Department Store Occupations--O'Leary. Dressmaking and Millinery--Bryner. Railroad and Street Transportation--Fleming. The Building Trades--Shaw. The Garment Trades--Bryner. The Metal Trades--Lutz. The Printing Trades--Shaw. Wage Earning and Education (Summary)--Lutz. * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: Typos Corrected In Text: Table 15 on page 120: establishments for estabments page 194: "car fare" for "car far" page 15: employee for employe * * * * * 
19473	----	[Illustration: "I'm big enough to protect my Mother, and I'll do it." _p. 42._] NOW OR NEVER OR THE ADVENTURES OF BOBBY BRIGHT _A STORY FOR YOUNG FOLKS_ OLIVER OPTIC _NEW EDITION_ NEW YORK THE MERSHON COMPANY PUBLISHERS Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by WILLIAM T. ADAMS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. Copyright, 1884, By WILLIAM T. ADAMS. NOW OR NEVER. To my Nephew CHARLES HENRY POPE THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED PREFACE The story contained in this volume is a record of youthful struggles, not only in the world without, but in the world within; and the success of the little hero is not merely a gathering up of wealth and honors, but a triumph over the temptations that beset the pilgrim on the plain of life. The attainment of worldly prosperity is not the truest victory; and the author has endeavored to make the interest of his story depend more on the hero's devotion to principles than on his success in business. Bobby Bright is a smart boy; perhaps the reader will think he is altogether too smart for one of his years. This is a progressive age, and anything which young America may do need not surprise any person. That little gentleman is older than his father, knows more than his mother, can talk politics, smoke cigars, and drive a 2:40 horse. He orders "one stew" with as much ease as a man of forty, and can even pronounce correctly the villanous names of sundry French and German wines and liqueurs. One would suppose, to hear him talk, that he had been intimate with Socrates and Solon, with Napoleon and Noah Webster; in short, that whatever he did not know was not worth knowing. In the face of these manifestations of exuberant genius, it would be absurd to accuse the author of making his hero do too much. All he has done is to give this genius a right direction; and for politics, cigars, 2:40 horses, and "one stew," he has substituted the duties of a rational and accountable being, regarding them as better fitted to develop the young gentleman's mind, heart, and soul. Bobby Bright is something more than a smart boy. He is a good boy, and makes a true man. His daily life is the moral of the story, and the author hopes that his devotion to principle will make a stronger impression upon the mind of the young reader, than even the most exciting incidents of his eventful career. WILLIAM T. ADAMS. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. In which Bobby goes a fishing, and catches a Horse 1 II. In which Bobby blushes several Times, and does a Sum in Arithmetic 13 III. In which the Little Black House is bought, but not paid for 26 IV. In which Bobby gets out of one Scrape, and into another 38 V. In which Bobby gives his Note for Sixty Dollars 52 VI. In which Bobby sets out on his Travels 66 VII. In which Bobby stands up for certain "Inalienable Rights" 78 VIII. In which Mr. Timmins is astonished, and Bobby dines in Chestnut Street 91 IX. In which Bobby opens various Accounts, and wins his first Victory 104 X. In which Bobby is a little too smart 117 XI. In which Bobby strikes a Balance, and returns to Riverdale 131 XII. In which Bobby astonishes sundry Persons, and pays Part of his Note 144 XIII. In which Bobby declines a Copartnership, and visits B---- again 160 XIV. In which Bobby's Air Castle is upset, and Tom Spicer takes to the Woods 177 XV. In which Bobby gets into a Scrape, and Tom Spicer turns up again 191 XVI. In which Bobby finds "it is an ill wind that blows no one any good" 205 XVII. In which Tom has a good Time, and Bobby meets with a terrible Misfortune 219 XVIII. In which Bobby takes French Leave, and camps in the Woods 235 XIX. In which Bobby has a narrow Escape, and goes to Sea with Sam Ray 248 XX. In which the Clouds blow over, and Bobby is himself again 264 XXI. In which Bobby steps off the Stage, and the Author must finish "Now or Never" 280 NOW OR NEVER OR THE ADVENTURES OF BOBBY BRIGHT CHAPTER I IN WHICH BOBBY GOES A FISHING, AND CATCHES A HORSE "By jolly! I've got a bite!" exclaimed Tom Spicer, a rough, hard-looking boy, who sat on a rock by the river's side, anxiously watching the cork float on his line. "Catch him, then," quietly responded Bobby Bright, who occupied another rock near the first speaker, as he pulled up a large pout, and, without any appearance of exultation, proceeded to unhook and place him in his basket. "You are a lucky dog, Bob," added Tom, as he glanced into the basket of his companion, which now contained six good-sized fishes. "I haven't caught one yet." "You don't fish deep enough." "I fish on the bottom." "That is too deep." "It don't make any difference how I fish; it is all luck." "Not all luck, Tom; there is something in doing it right." "I shall not catch a fish," continued Tom, in despair. "You'll catch something else, though, when you go home." "Will I?" "I'm afraid you will." "Who says I will?" "Didn't you tell me you were 'hooking jack'?" "Who is going to know anything about it?" "The master will know you are absent." "I shall tell him my mother sent me over to the village on an errand." "I never knew a fellow to 'hook jack,' yet, without getting found out." "I shall not get found out unless you blow on me; and you wouldn't be mean enough to do that;" and Tom glanced uneasily at his companion. "Suppose your mother should ask me if I had seen you." "You would tell her you have not, of course." "Of course?" "Why, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you do as much as that for a fellow?" "It would be a lie." "A lie! Humph!" "I wouldn't lie for any fellow," replied Bobby, stoutly, as he pulled in his seventh fish, and placed him in the basket. "Wouldn't you?" "No, I wouldn't." "Then let me tell you this; if you peach on me, I'll smash your head." Tom Spicer removed one hand from the fish pole and, doubling his fist, shook it with energy at his companion. "Smash away," replied Bobby, coolly. "I shall not go out of my way to tell tales; but if your mother or the master asks me the question, I shall not lie." "Won't you?" "No, I won't." "I'll bet you will;" and Tom dropped his fish pole, and was on the point of jumping over to the rock occupied by Bobby, when the float of the former disappeared beneath the surface of the water. "You've got a bite," coolly interposed Bobby, pointing to the line. Tom snatched the pole, and with a violent twitch, pulled up a big pout; but his violence jerked the hook out of the fish's mouth, and he disappeared beneath the surface of the river. "Just my luck!" muttered Tom. "Keep cool, then." "I will fix you yet." "All right; but you had better not let go your pole again, or you will lose another fish." "I'm bound to smash your head, though." "No, you won't." "Won't I?" "Two can play at that game." "Do you stump me?" "No; I don't want to fight; I won't fight if I can help it." "I'll bet you won't!" sneered Tom. "But I will defend myself." "Humph!" "I am not a liar, and the fear of a flogging shall not make me tell a lie." "Go to Sunday school--don't you?" "I do; and besides that, my mother always taught me never to tell a lie." "Come! you needn't preach to me. By and by, you will call me a liar." "No, I won't; but just now you told me you meant to lie to your mother, and to the master." "What if I did? That is none of your business." "It _is_ my business when you want me to lie for you, though; and I shall not do it." "Blow on me, and see what you will get." "I don't mean to blow on you." "Yes, you do." "I will not lie about it; that's all." "By jolly! see that horse!" exclaimed Tom, suddenly, as he pointed to the road leading to Riverdale Centre. "By gracious!" added Bobby, dropping his fish pole, as he saw the horse running at a furious rate up the road from the village. The mad animal was attached to a chaise, in which was seated a lady, whose frantic shrieks pierced the soul of our youthful hero. The course of the road was by the river's side for nearly half a mile, and crossed the stream at a wooden bridge but a few rods from the place where the boys were fishing. Bobby Bright's impulses were noble and generous; and without stopping to consider the peril to which the attempt would expose him, he boldly resolved to stop that horse, or let the animal dash him to pieces on the bridge. "Now or never!" shouted he, as he leaped from the rock, and ran with all his might to the bridge. The shrieks of the lady rang in his ears, and seemed to command him, with an authority which he could not resist, to stop the horse. There was no time for deliberation; and, indeed, Bobby did not want any deliberation. The lady was in danger; if the horse's flight was not checked, she would be dashed in pieces; and what then could excuse him for neglecting his duty? Not the fear of broken limbs, of mangled flesh, or even of a sudden and violent death. It is true Bobby did not think of any of these things; though, if he had, it would have made no difference with him. He was a boy who would not fight except in self-defence, but he had the courage to do a deed which might have made the stoutest heart tremble with terror. Grasping a broken rail as he leaped over the fence, he planted himself in the middle of the bridge, which was not more than half as wide as the road at each end of it, to await the coming of the furious animal. On he came, and the piercing shrieks of the affrighted lady nerved him to the performance of his perilous duty. The horse approached him at a mad run, and his feet struck the loose planks of the bridge. The brave boy then raised his big club, and brandished it with all his might in the air. Probably the horse did not mean anything very bad; was only frightened, and had no wicked intentions towards the lady; so that when a new danger menaced him in front, he stopped suddenly, and with so much violence as to throw the lady forward from her seat upon the dasher of the chaise. He gave a long snort, which was his way of expressing his fear. He was evidently astonished at the sudden barrier to his further progress, and commenced running back. "Save me!" screamed the lady. "I will, ma'am; don't be scared!" replied Bobby, confidently, as he dropped his club, and grasped the bridle of the horse, just as he was on the point of whirling round to escape by the way he had come. "Stop him! Do stop him!" cried the lady. "Whoa!" said Bobby, in gentle tones, as he patted the trembling horse on his neck. "Whoa, good horse! Be quiet! Whoa!" The animal, in his terror, kept running backward and forward; but Bobby persevered in his gentle treatment, and finally soothed him, so that he stood quiet enough for the lady to get out of the chaise. "What a miracle that I am alive!" exclaimed she, when she realized that she stood once more upon the firm earth. "Yes, ma'am, it is lucky he didn't break the chaise. Whoa! Good horse! Stand quiet!" "What a brave little fellow you are!" said the lady, as soon as she could recover her breath so as to express her admiration of Bobby's bold act. "O, I don't mind it," replied he, blushing like a rose in June. "Did he run away with you?" "No; my father left me in the chaise for a moment while he went into a store in the village, and a teamster who was passing by snapped his whip, which frightened Kate so that she started off at the top of her speed. I was so terrified that I screamed with all my might, which frightened her the more. The more I screamed, the faster she ran." "I dare say. Good horse! Whoa, Kate!" "She is a splendid creature; she never did such a thing before. My father will think I am killed." By this time, Kate had become quite reasonable, and seemed very much obliged to Bobby for preventing her from doing mischief to her mistress; for she looked at the lady with a glance of satisfaction, which her deliverer interpreted as a promise to behave better in future. He relaxed his grasp upon the bridle, patted her upon the neck, and said sundry pleasant things to encourage her in her assumed purpose of doing better. Kate appeared to understand Bobby's kind words, and declared as plainly as a horse could declare that she would be sober and tractable. "Now, ma'am, if you will get into the chaise again, I think Kate will let me drive her down to the village." "O, dear! I should not dare to do so." "Then, if you please, I will drive down alone, so as to let your father know that you are safe." "Do." "I am sure he must feel very bad, and I may save him a great deal of pain, for a man can suffer a great deal in a very short time." "You are a little philosopher, as well as a hero, and if you are not afraid of Kate, you may do as you wish." "She seems very gentle now;" and Bobby turned her round, and got into the chaise. "Be very careful," said the lady. "I will." Bobby took the reins, and Kate, true to the promise she had virtually made, started off at a round pace towards the village. He had not gone more than a quarter of a mile of the distance when he met a wagon containing three men, one of whom was the lady's father. The gestures which he made assured Bobby he had found the person whom he sought, and he stopped. "My daughter! Where is she?" gasped the gentleman, as he leaped from the wagon. "She is safe, sir," replied Bobby, with all the enthusiasm of his warm nature. "Thank God!" added the gentleman, devoutly, as he placed himself in the chaise by the side of Bobby. CHAPTER II IN WHICH BOBBY BLUSHES SEVERAL TIMES, AND DOES A SUM IN ARITHMETIC Mr. Bayard, the owner of the horse, and the father of the lady whom Bobby had saved from impending death, was too much agitated to say much, even to the bold youth who had rendered him such a signal service. He could scarcely believe the intelligence which the boy brought him; it seemed too good to be true. He had assured himself that Ellen--for that was the young lady's name--was killed or dreadfully injured. Kate was driven at the top of her speed, and in a few moments reached the bridge, where Ellen was awaiting his arrival. "Here I am, father, alive and unhurt!" cried Ellen, as Mr. Bayard stopped the horse. "Thank Heaven, my child!" replied the glad father, embracing his daughter. "I was sure you were killed." "No, father; thanks to this bold youth, I am uninjured." "I am under very great obligations to you, young man," continued Mr. Bayard, grasping Bobby's hand. "O, never mind, sir;" and Bobby blushed just as he had blushed when the young lady spoke to him. "We shall never forget you--shall we, father?" added Ellen. "No, my child; and I shall endeavor to repay, to some slight extent, our indebtedness to him. But you have not yet told me how you were saved." "O, I merely stopped the horse; that's all," answered Bobby, modestly. "Yes, father, but he placed himself right before Kate when she was almost flying over the ground. When I saw him, I was certain that he would lose his life, or be horribly mangled for his boldness," interposed Ellen. "It was a daring deed, young man, to place yourself before an affrighted horse in that manner," said Mr. Bayard. "I didn't mind it, sir." "And then he flourished a big club, almost as big as he is himself, in the air, which made Kate pause in her mad career, when my deliverer here grasped her by the bit and held her." "It was well and bravely done." "That it was, father; not many men would have been bold enough to do what he did," added Ellen, with enthusiasm. "Very true; and I feel that I am indebted to him for your safety. What is your name, young man?" "Robert Bright, sir." Mr. Bayard took from his pocket several pieces of gold, which he offered to Bobby. "No, I thank you, sir," replied Bobby, blushing. "What! as proud as you are bold?" "I don't like to be paid for doing my duty." "Bravo! You are a noble little fellow! But you must take this money, not as a reward for what you have done, but as a testimonial of my gratitude." "I would rather not, sir." "Do take it, Robert," added Ellen. "I don't like to take it. It looks mean to take money for doing one's duty." "Take it, Robert, to please me;" and the young lady smiled so sweetly that Bobby's resolution began to give way. "Only to please me, Robert." "I will, to please you; but I don't feel right about it." "You must not be too proud, Robert," said Mr. Bayard, as he put the gold pieces into his hand. "I am not proud, sir; only I don't like to be paid for doing my duty." "Not paid, my young friend. Consider that you have placed me under an obligation to you for life. This money is only an expression of my own and my daughter's feelings. It is but a small sum, but I hope you will permit me to do something more for you, when you need it. You will regard me as your friend as long as you live." "Thank you, sir." "When you want any assistance of any kind, come to me. I live in Boston; here is my business card." Mr. Bayard handed him a card, on which Bobby read, "F. Bayard & Co., Booksellers and Publishers, No. --, Washington Street, Boston." "You are very kind, sir." "I want you should come to Boston and see us, too," interposed Ellen. "I should be delighted to show you the city, to take you to the Athenæum and the Museum." "Thank you." Mr. Bayard inquired of Bobby about his parents, where he lived, and about the circumstances of his family. He then took out his memorandum book, in which he wrote the boy's name and residence. "I am sorry to leave you now, Robert, but I have over twenty miles to ride to-day. I should be glad to visit your mother, and next time I come to Riverdale, I shall certainly do so." "Thank you, sir; my mother is a very poor woman, but she will be glad to see you." "Now, good by, Robert." "Good by," repeated Ellen. "Good by." Mr. Bayard drove off, leaving Bobby standing on the bridge with the gold pieces in his hand. "Here's luck!" said Bobby, shaking the coin. "Won't mother's eyes stick out when she sees these shiners? There are no such shiners in the river as these." Bobby was astonished, and the more he gazed at the gold pieces, the more bewildered he became. He had never held so much money in his hand before. There were three large coins and one smaller one. He turned them over and over, and finally ascertained that the large coins were ten dollar pieces, and the smaller one a five dollar piece. Bobby was not a great scholar, but he knew enough of arithmetic to calculate the value of his treasure. He was so excited, however, that he did not arrive at the conclusion half so quick as most of my young readers would have done. "Thirty-five dollars!" exclaimed Bobby, when the problem was solved. "Gracious!" "Hallo, Bob!" shouted Tom Spicer, who had got tired of fishing; besides, the village clock was just striking twelve, and it was time for him to go home. Bobby made no answer, but hastily tying the gold pieces up in the corner of his handkerchief, he threw the broken rail he had used in stopping the horse where it belonged, and started for the place where he had left his fishing apparatus. "Hallo, Bob!" "Well, Tom?" "Stopped him--didn't you?" "I did." "You were a fool; he might have killed you." "So he might; but I didn't stop to think of that. The lady's life was in danger." "What of that?" "Everything, I should say." "Did he give you anything?" "Yes;" and Bobby continued his walk down to the river's side. "I say, what did he give you, Bobby?" persisted Tom, following him. "O, he gave me a good deal of money." "How much?" "I want to get my fish line now; I will tell you all about it some other time," replied Bobby, who rather suspected the intentions of his companion. "Tell me now; how much was it?" "Never mind it now." "Humph! Do you think I mean to rob you?" "No." "Ain't you going halveses?" "Why should I?" "Wasn't I with you?" "Were you?" "Wasn't I fishing with you?" "You did not do anything about stopping the horse." "I would, if I hadn't been afraid to go up to the road." "Afraid?" "Somebody might have seen me, and they would have known that I was hooking jack." "Then you ought not to share the money." "Yes, I had. When a fellow is with you, he ought to have half. It is mean not to give him half." "If you had done anything to help stop the horse, I would have shared with you. But you didn't." "What of that?" Bobby was particularly sensitive in regard to the charge of meanness. His soul was a great deal bigger than his body, and he was always generous, even to his own injury, among his companions. It was evident to him that Tom had no claim to any part of the reward; but he could not endure the thought even of being accused of meanness. "I'll tell you what I will do, if you think I ought to share with you. I will leave it out to Squire Lee; and if he thinks you ought to have half, or any part of the money, I will give it to you." "No, you don't; you want to get me into a scrape for hooking jack. I see what you are up to." "I will state the case to him without telling him who the boys are." "No, you don't! You want to be mean about it. Come, hand over half the money." "I will not," replied Bobby, who, when it became a matter of compulsion, could stand his ground at any peril. "How much have you got?" "Thirty-five dollars." "By jolly! And you mean to keep it all yourself?" "I mean to give it to my mother." "No, you won't! If you are going to be mean about it, I'll smash your head!" This was a favorite expression with Tom Spicer, who was a noted bully among the boys of Riverdale. The young ruffian now placed himself in front of Bobby, and shook his clenched fist in his face. "Hand over." "No, I won't. You have no claim to any part of the money; at least, I think you have not. If you have a mind to leave it out to Squire Lee, I will do what is right about it." "Not I; hand over, or I'll smash your head!" "Smash away," replied Bobby, placing himself on the defensive. "Do you think you can lick me?" asked Tom, not a little embarrassed by this exhibition of resolution on the part of his companion. "I don't think anything about it; but you don't bully me in that kind of style." "Won't I?" "No." But Tom did not immediately put his threat in execution, and Bobby would not be the aggressor; so he stepped one side to pass his assailant. Tom took this as an evidence of the other's desire to escape, and struck him a heavy blow on the side of the head. The next instant the bully was floundering in the soft mud of a ditch; Bobby's reply was more than Tom had bargained for, and while he was dragging himself out of the ditch, our hero ran down to the river, and got his fish pole and basket. "You'll catch it for that!" growled Tom. "I'm all ready, whenever it suits your convenience," replied Bobby. "Just come out here and take it in fair fight," continued Tom, who could not help bullying, even in the midst of his misfortune. "No, I thank you; I don't want to fight with any fellow. I will not fight if I can help it." "What did you hit me for, then?" "In self-defence." "Just come out here, and try it fair!" "No;" and Bobby hurried home, leaving the bully astonished and discomfited by the winding up of the morning's sport. CHAPTER III IN WHICH THE LITTLE BLACK HOUSE IS BOUGHT BUT NOT PAID FOR Probably my young readers have by this time come to the conclusion that Bobby Bright was a very clever fellow--one whose acquaintance they would be happy to cultivate. Perhaps by this time they have become so far interested in him as to desire to know who his parents were, what they did, and in what kind of a house he lived. I hope none of my young friends will think any less of him when I inform them that Bobby lived in an old black house which had never been painted, which had no flower garden in front of it, and which, in a word, was quite far from being a palace. A great many very nice city folks would not have considered it fit to live in, would have turned up their noses at it, and wondered that any human beings could be so degraded as to live in such a miserable house. But the widow Bright, Bobby's mother, thought it was a very comfortable house, and considered herself very fortunate in being able to get so good a dwelling. She had never lived in a fine house, knew nothing about velvet carpets, mirrors seven feet high, damask chairs and lounges, or any of the smart things which very rich and very proud city people consider absolutely necessary for their comfort. Her father had been a poor man, her husband had died a poor man, and her own life had been a struggle to keep the demons of poverty and want from invading her humble abode. Mr. Bright, her deceased husband, had been a day laborer in Riverdale. He never got more than a dollar a day, which was then considered very good wages in the country. He was a very honest, industrious man, and while he lived, his family did very well. Mrs. Bright was a careful, prudent woman, and helped him support the family. They never knew what it was to want for anything. Poor people, as well as rich, have an ambition to be something which they are not, or to have something which they have not. Every person, who has any energy of character, desires to get ahead in the world. Some merchants, who own big ships and big warehouses by the dozen, desire to be what they consider rich. But their idea of wealth is very grand. They wish to count it in millions of dollars, in whole blocks of warehouses; and they are even more discontented than the day laborer who has to earn his dinner before he can eat it. Bobby's father and mother had just such an ambition, only it was so modest that the merchant would have laughed at it. They wanted to own the little black house in which they resided, so that they could not only be sure of a home while they lived, but have the satisfaction of living in their own house. This was a very reasonable ideal, compared with that of the rich merchants I have mentioned; but it was even more difficult for them to reach it, for the wages were small, and they had many mouths to feed. Mr. Bright had saved up fifty dollars; and he thought a great deal more of this sum than many people do of a thousand dollars. He had had to work very hard and be very prudent in order to accumulate this sum, which made him value it all the more highly. With this sum of fifty dollars at his command, John Bright felt rich; and then, more than ever before, he wanted to own the little black house. He felt as grand as a lord; and as soon as the forty-nine dollars had become fifty, he waited upon Mr. Hardhand, a little crusty old man, who owned the little black house, and proposed to purchase it. The landlord was a hard man. Everybody in Riverdale said he was mean and stingy. Any generous-hearted man would have been willing to make an easy bargain with an honest, industrious, poor man, like John Bright, who wished to own the house in which he lived; but Mr. Hardhand, although he was rich, only thought how he could make more money. He asked the poor man four hundred dollars for the old house and the little lot of land on which it stood. It was a matter of great concern to John Bright. Four hundred dollars was a "mint of money," and he could not see how he should ever be able to save so much from his daily earnings. So he talked with Squire Lee about it, who told him that three hundred was all it was worth. John offered this for it, and after a month's hesitation Mr. Hardhand accepted the offer, agreeing to take fifty dollars down, and the rest in semi-annual payments of twenty-five dollars each until the whole was paid. I am thus particular in telling my readers about the bargain, because this debt which his father contracted was the means of making a man of Bobby, as will be seen in his subsequent history. John Bright paid the first fifty dollars; but before the next instalment became due, the poor man was laid in his cold and silent grave. A malignant disease carried him off, and the hopes of the Bright family seemed to be blasted. Four children were left to the widow. The youngest was only three years old, and Bobby, the oldest, was nine, when his father died. Squire Lee, who had always been a good friend of John Bright, told the widow that she had better go to the poorhouse, and not attempt to struggle along with such fearful odds against her. But the widow nobly refused to become a pauper, and to make paupers of her children, whom she loved quite as much as though she and they had been born in a ducal palace. She told the squire that she had two hands, and as long as she had her health, the town need not trouble itself about her support. Squire Lee was filled with surprise and admiration at the noble resolution of the poor woman; and when he returned to his house, he immediately sent her a cord of wood, ten bushels of potatoes, two bags of meal, and a firkin of salt pork. The widow was very grateful for these articles, and no false pride prevented her from accepting the gift of her rich and kind-hearted neighbor. Riverdale Centre was largely engaged in the manufacturing of boots and shoes, and this business gave employment to a large number of men and women. Mrs. Bright had for several years "closed" shoes--which, my readers who do not live in "shoe towns" may not know, means sewing or stitching them. To this business she applied herself with renewed energy. There was a large hotel in Riverdale Centre, where several families from Boston spent the summer. By the aid of Squire Lee, she obtained the washing of these families, which was more profitable than closing shoes. By these means she not only supported her family very comfortably, but was able to save a little money towards paying for the house. Mr. Hardhand, by the persuasions of Squire Lee, had consented to let the widow keep the house, and pay for it as she could. John Bright had been dead four years at the time we introduce Bobby to the reader. Mrs. Bright had paid another hundred dollars towards the house, with the interest; so there was now but one hundred due. Bobby had learned to "close," and helped his mother a great deal; but the confinement and the stooping posture did not agree with his health, and his mother was obliged to dispense with his assistance. But the devoted little fellow found a great many ways of helping her. He was now thirteen, and was as handy about the house as a girl. When he was not better occupied, he would often go to the river and catch a mess of fish, which was so much clear gain. The winter which had just passed had brought a great deal of sickness to the little black house. The children all had the measles, and two of them the scarlet fever, so that Mrs. Bright could not work much. Her affairs were not in a very prosperous condition when the spring opened; but the future was bright, and the widow, trusting in Providence, believed that all would end well. One thing troubled her. She had not been able to save anything for Mr. Hardhand. She could only pay her interest; but she hoped by the first of July to give him twenty-five dollars of the principal. But the first of July came, and she had only five dollars of the sum she had partly promised her creditor. She could not so easily recover from the disasters of the hard winter, and she had but just paid off the little debts she had contracted. She was nervous and uneasy as the day approached. Mr. Hardhand always abused her when she told him she could not pay him, and she dreaded his coming. It was the first of July on which Bobby caught those pouts, caught the horse, and on which Tom Spicer had "caught a Tartar." Bobby hastened home, as we said at the conclusion of the last chapter. He was as happy as a lord. He had fish enough in his basket for dinner, and for breakfast the next morning, and money enough in his pocket to make his mother as happy as a queen, if queens are always happy. The widow Bright, though she had worried and fretted night and day about the money which was to be paid to Mr. Hardhand on the first of July, had not told her son anything about it. It would only make him unhappy, she reasoned, and it was needless to make the dear boy miserable for nothing; so Bobby ran home all unconscious of the pleasure which was in store for him. When he reached the front door, as he stopped to scrape his feet on the sharp stone there, as all considerate boys who love their mothers do, before they go into the house, he heard the angry tones of Mr. Hardhand. He was scolding and abusing his mother because she could not pay him the twenty-five dollars. Bobby's blood boiled with indignation, and his first impulse was to serve him as he had served Tom Spicer, only a few moments before; but Bobby, as we have before intimated, was a peaceful boy, and not disposed to quarrel with any person; so he contented himself with muttering a few hard words. "The wretch! What business has he to talk to _my_ mother in that style?" said he to himself. "I have a great mind to kick him out of the house." But Bobby's better judgment came to his aid; and perhaps he realized that he and his mother would only get kicked out in return. He could battle with Mr. Hardhand, but not with the power which his wealth gave him; so, like a great many older persons in similar circumstances, he took counsel of prudence rather than impulse. "Bear ye one another's burdens," saith the Scripture; but Bobby was not old enough or astute enough to realize that Mr. Hardhand's burden was his wealth, his love of money; that it made him little better than a Hottentot; and he could not feel as charitably towards him as a Christian should towards his erring, weak brother. Setting his pole by the door, he entered the room where Hardhand was abusing his mother. CHAPTER IV IN WHICH BOBBY GETS OUT OF ONE SCRAPE, AND INTO ANOTHER Bobby was so indignant at the conduct of Mr. Hardhand, that he entirely forgot the adventure of the morning; and he did not even think of the gold he had in his pocket. He loved his mother; he knew how hard she had worked for him and his brother and sisters; that she had burned the "midnight oil" at her clamps; and it made him feel very bad to hear her abused as Mr. Hardhand was abusing her. It was not her fault that she had not the money to pay him. She had been obliged to spend a large portion of her time over the sick beds of her children, so that she could not earn so much money as usual; while the family expenses were necessarily much greater. Bobby knew also that Mr. Hardhand was aware of all the circumstances of his mother's position, and the more he considered the case the more brutal and inhuman was his course. As our hero entered the family room with the basket of fish on his arm, the little crusty old man fixed the glance of his evil eye upon him. "There is that boy, marm, idling away his time by the river, and eating you out of house and home," said the wretch. "Why don't you set him to work, and make him earn something?" "Bobby is a very good boy," meekly responded the widow Bright. "Humph! I should think he was. A great lazy lubber like him, living on his mother!" and Mr. Hardhand looked contemptuously at Bobby. "I am not a lazy lubber," interposed the insulted boy with spirit. "Yes, you are. Why don't you go to work?" "I do work." "No, you don't; you waste your time paddling in the river." "I don't." "You had better teach this boy manners too, marm," said the creditor, who, like all men of small souls, was willing to take advantage of the power which the widow's indebtedness gave him. "He is saucy." "I should like to know who taught _you_ manners, Mr. Hardhand," replied Bobby, whose indignation was rapidly getting the better of his discretion. "What!" growled Mr. Hardhand, aghast at this unwonted boldness. "I heard what you said before I came in; and no decent man would go to the house of a poor woman to insult her." "Humph! Mighty fine," snarled the little old man, his gray eyes twinkling with malice. "Don't, Bobby; don't be saucy to the gentleman," interposed his mother. "Saucy, marm? You ought to horsewhip him for it. If you don't, I will." "No, you won't!" replied Bobby, shaking his head significantly. "I can take care of myself." "Did any one ever hear such impudence!" gasped Mr. Hardhand. "Don't, Bobby, don't," pleaded the anxious mother. "I should like to know what right you have to come here and abuse my mother," continued Bobby, who could not restrain his anger. "Your mother owes me money, and she doesn't pay it, you young scoundrel!" answered Mr. Hardhand, foaming with rage. "That is no reason why you should insult her. You can call _me_ what you please, but you shall not insult my mother while I'm round." "Your mother is a miserable woman, and----" "Say that again, and though you are an old man, I'll hit you for it. I'm big enough to protect my mother, and I'll do it." Bobby doubled up his fists and edged up to Mr. Hardhand, fully determined to execute his threat if he repeated the offensive expression, or any other of a similar import. He was roused to the highest pitch of anger, and felt as though he had just as lief die as live in defence of his mother's good name. I am not sure that I could excuse Bobby's violence under any other circumstances. He loved his mother--as the novelists would say, he idolized her; and Mr. Hardhand had certainly applied some very offensive epithets to her--epithets which no good son could calmly hear applied to a mother. Besides, Bobby, though his heart was a large one, and was in the right place, had never been educated into those nice distinctions of moral right and wrong which control the judgment of wise and learned men. He had an idea that violence, resistance with blows, was allowable in certain extreme cases; and he could conceive of no greater provocation than an insult to his mother. "Be calm, Bobby; you are in a passion," said Mrs. Bright. "I am surprised, marm," began Mr. Hardhand, who prudently refrained from repeating the offensive language--and I have no doubt he was surprised; for he looked both astonished and alarmed. "This boy has a most ungovernable temper." "Don't you worry about my temper, Mr. Hardhand; I'll take care of myself. All I want of you is not to insult my mother. You may say what you like to me; but don't you call her hard names." Mr. Hardhand, like all mean, little men, was a coward; and he was effectually intimidated by the bold and manly conduct of the boy. He changed his tone and manner at once. "You have no money for me, marm?" said he, edging towards the door. "No, sir; I am sorry to say that I have been able to save only five dollars since I paid you last; but I hope----" "Never mind, marm, never mind; I shall not trouble myself to come here again, where I am liable to be kicked by this ill-bred cub. No, marm, I shall not come again. Let the law take its course." "O, mercy! See what you have brought upon us, Bobby," exclaimed Mrs. Bright, bursting into tears. "Yes, marm, let the law take its course." "O, Bobby! Stop a moment, Mr. Hardhand; do stop a moment." "Not a moment, marm. We'll see;" and Mr. Hardhand placed his hand upon the latch string. Bobby felt very uneasy and very unhappy at that moment. His passion had subsided, and he realized that he had done a great deal of mischief by his impetuous conduct. Then the remembrance of his morning adventure on the bridge came like a flash of sunshine to his mind, and he eagerly drew from his pocket the handkerchief in which he had deposited the precious gold,--doubly precious now, because it would enable him to retrieve the error into which he had fallen, and do something towards relieving his mother's embarrassment. With a trembling hand he untied the knot which secured the money. "Here, mother, here is thirty-five dollars;" and he placed it in her hand. "Why, Bobby!" exclaimed Mrs. Bright. "Pay him, mother, pay him, and I will tell you all about it by and by." "Thirty-five dollars! and all in gold! Where _did_ you get it, Bobby?" "Never mind it now, mother." Mr. Hardhand's covetous soul had already grasped the glittering gold; and removing his hand from the latch string, he approached the widow. "I shall be able to pay you forty dollars now," said Mrs. Bright, taking the five dollars she had saved from her pocket. "Yes, marm." Mr. Hardhand took the money, and seating himself at the table, indorsed the amount on the back of the note. "You owe me sixty more," said he, maliciously, as he returned the note to his pocket book. "It must be paid immediately." "You must not be hard with me now, when I have paid more than you demanded." "I don't wish to come here again. That boy's impudence has put me all out of conceit with you and your family," replied Mr. Hardhand, assuming the most benevolent look he could command. "There was a time when I was very willing to help you. I have waited a great while for my pay for this house; a great deal longer than I would have waited for anybody else." "Your interest has always been paid punctually," suggested the widow, modestly. "That's true; but very few people would have waited as long as I have for the principal. I wanted to help you----" "By gracious!" exclaimed Bobby, interrupting him. "Don't be saucy, my son, don't," said Mrs. Bright, fearing a repetition of the former scene. "_He_ wanted to help us!" ejaculated Bobby. It was a very absurd and hypocritical expression on the part of Mr. Hardhand; for he never wanted to help any one but himself; and during the whole period of his relations with the poor widow, he had oppressed, insulted, and abused her to the extent of his capacity, or at least as far as his interest would permit. He was a malicious and revengeful man. He did not consider the great provocation he had given Bobby for his violent conduct, but determined to be revenged, if it could be accomplished without losing any part of the sixty dollars still due him. He was a wicked man at heart, and would not scruple to turn the widow and her family out of house and home. Mrs. Bright knew this, and Bobby knew it too; and they felt very uneasy about it. The wretch still had the power to injure them, and he would use it without compunction. "Yes, young man, I wanted to help you, and you see what I get for it--contempt and insults! You will hear from me again in a day or two. Perhaps you will change your tune, you young reprobate!" "Perhaps I shall," replied Bobby, without much discretion. "And you too, marm; you uphold him in his treatment of me. You have not done your duty to him. You have been remiss, marm!" continued Mr. Hardhand, growing bolder again, as he felt the power he wielded. "That will do, sir; you can go!" said Bobby, springing from his chair, and approaching Mr. Hardhand. "Go, and do your worst!" "Humph! you stump me,--do you?" "I would rather see my mother kicked out of the house than insulted by such a dried-up old curmudgeon as you are. Go along!" "Now, don't, Bobby," pleaded his mother. "I am going; and if the money is not paid by twelve o'clock to-morrow, the law shall take its course;" and Mr. Hardhand rushed out of the house, slamming the door violently after him. "O, Bobby, what have you done?" exclaimed Mrs. Bright, when the hard-hearted creditor had departed. "I could not help it, mother; don't cry. I cannot bear to hear you insulted and abused; and I thought when I heard him do it a year ago, that I couldn't stand it again. It is too bad." "But he will turn us out of the house; and what shall we do then?" "Don't cry, mother; it will come round all right. I have friends who are rich and powerful, and who will help us." "You don't know what you say, Bobby. Sixty dollars is a great deal of money, and if we should sell all we have, it would scarcely bring that." "Leave it all to me, mother; I feel as though I could do something now. I am old enough to make money." "What can you do?" "Now or never!" replied Bobby, whose mind had wandered from the scene to the busy world, where fortunes are made and lost every day. "Now or never!" muttered he again. "But, Bobby, you have not told me where you got all that gold." "Dinner is ready, I see, and I will tell you while we eat." Bobby had been a fishing, and to be hungry is a part of the fisherman's luck; so he seated himself at the table, and gave his mother a full account of all that had occurred at the bridge. The fond mother trembled when she realized the peril her son had incurred for the sake of the young lady; but her maternal heart swelled with admiration in view of the generous deed, and she thanked God that she was the mother of such a son. She felt more confidence in him then than she had ever felt before, and she realized that he would be the stay and the staff of her declining years. Bobby finished his dinner, and seated himself on the front door step. His mind was absorbed by a new and brilliant idea; and for half an hour he kept up a most tremendous thinking. "Now or never!" said he, as he rose and walked down the road towards Riverdale Centre. CHAPTER V IN WHICH BOBBY GIVES HIS NOTE FOR SIXTY DOLLARS A great idea was born in Bobby's brain. His mother's weakness and the insecurity of her position were more apparent to him than they had ever been before. She was in the power of her creditor, who might turn her out of the little black house, sell the place at auction, and thus, perhaps, deprive her of the whole or a large part of his father's and her own hard earnings. But this was not the peculiar hardship of her situation, as her devoted son understood it. It was not the hard work alone which she was called upon to perform, not the coarseness of the fare upon which they lived, not the danger even of being turned out of doors, that distressed Bobby; it was that a wretch like Mr. Hardhand could insult and trample upon his mother. He had just heard him use language to her that made his blood boil with indignation, and he did not, on cool, sober, second thought, regret that he had taken such a decided stand against it. He cared not for himself. He could live on a crust of bread and a cup of water from the spring; he could sleep in a barn; he could wear coarse and even ragged clothes; but he could not submit to have his mother insulted, and by such a mean and contemptible person as Mr. Hardhand. Yet what could he do? He was but a boy, and the great world would look with contempt upon his puny form. But he felt that he was not altogether insignificant. He had performed an act that day, which the fair young lady, to whom he had rendered the service, had declared very few men would have undertaken. There was something in him, something that would come out, if he only put his best foot forward. It was a tower of strength within him. It told him that he could do wonders; that he could go out into the world and accomplish all that would be required to free his mother from debt, and relieve her from the severe drudgery of her life. A great many people think they can "do wonders." The vanity of some very silly people makes them think they can command armies, govern nations, and teach the world what the world never knew before and never would know but for them. But Bobby's something within him was not vanity. It was something more substantial. He was not thinking of becoming a great man, a great general, a great ruler, or a great statesman; not even of making a great fortune. Self was not the idol and the end of his calculations. He was thinking of his mother, and only of her; and the feeling within him was as pure, and holy, and beautiful as the dream of an angel. He wanted to save his mother from insult in the first place, and from a life of ceaseless drudgery in the second. A legion of angels seemed to have encamped in his soul to give him strength for the great purpose in his mind. His was a holy and a true purpose, and it was this that made him think he could "do wonders." What Bobby intended to do the reader shall know in due time. It is enough now that he meant to do something. The difficulty with a great many people is, that they never resolve to do something. They wait for "something to turn up;" and as "things" are often very obstinate, they utterly refuse to "turn up" at all. Their lives are spent in waiting for a golden opportunity which never comes. Now, Bobby Bright repudiated the Micawber philosophy. He would have nothing to do with it. He did not believe corn would grow without being planted, or that pouts would bite the bare hook. I am not going to tell my young readers now how Bobby came out in the end; but I can confidently say that, if he had waited for "something to turn up," he would have become a vagabond, a loafer, out of money, out at the elbows, and out of patience with himself and all the world. It was "now or never" with Bobby. He meant to do something; and after he had made up his mind how and where it was to be done, it was no use to stand thinking about it, like the pendulum of the "old clock which had stood for fifty years in a farmer's kitchen, without giving its owner any cause of complaint." Bobby walked down the road towards the village with a rapid step. He was thinking very fast, and probably that made him step quick. But as he approached Squire Lee's house, his pace slackened, and he seemed to be very uneasy. When he reached the great gate that led up to the house, he stopped for an instant, and thrust his hands down very deep into his trousers pockets. I cannot tell what the trousers pockets had to do with what he was thinking about; but if he was searching for anything in them, he did not find it; for after an instant's hesitation he drew out his hands, struck one of them against his chest, and in an audible voice exclaimed,-- "Now or never." All this pantomime, I suppose, meant that Bobby had some misgivings as to the ultimate success of his mission at Squire Lee's, and that when he struck his breast and uttered his favorite expression, they were conquered and driven out. Marching with a bold and determined step up to the squire's back door,--Bobby's ideas of etiquette would not have answered for the meridian of fashionable society,--he gave three smart raps. Bobby's heart beat a little wildly as he awaited a response to his summons. It seemed that he still had some doubts as to the practicability of his mission; but they were not permitted to disturb him long, for the door was opened by the squire's pretty daughter Annie, a young miss of twelve. "O, Bobby, is it you? I am so glad you have come!" exclaimed the little lady. Bobby blushed--he didn't know why, unless it was that the young lady desired to see him. He stammered out a reply, and for the moment forgot the object of his visit. "I want you to go down to the village for me, and get some books the expressman was to bring up from Boston for me. Will you go?" "Certainly, Miss Annie, I shall be very glad to go for _you_," replied Bobby, with an emphasis that made the little maiden blush in her turn. "You are real good, Bobby; but I will give you something for going." "I don't want anything," said Bobby, stoutly. "You are too generous! Ah, I heard what you did this forenoon; and pa says that a great many men would not have dared to do what you did. I always thought you were as brave as a lion; now I know it." "The books are at the express office, I suppose," said Bobby, turning as red as a blood beet. "Yes, Bobby; I am so anxious to get them that I can't wait till pa goes down this evening." "I will not be gone long." "O, you needn't run, Bobby; take your time." "I will go very quick. But, Miss Annie, is your father at home?" "Not now; he has gone over to the wood lot; but he will be back by the time you return." "Will you please to tell him that I want to see him about something very particular, when he gets back?" "I will, Bobby." "Thank you, Miss Annie;" and Bobby hastened to the village to execute his commission. "I wonder what he wants to see pa so very particularly for," said the young lady to herself, as she watched his receding form. "In my opinion, something has happened at the little black house, for I could see that he looked very sober." Either Bobby had a very great regard for the young lady, and wished to relieve her impatience to behold the coveted books, or he was in a hurry to see Squire Lee; for the squire's old roan horse could hardly have gone quicker. "You should not have run, Bobby," said the little maiden, when he placed the books in her hand; "I would not have asked you to go if I had thought you would run all the way. You must be very tired." "Not at all; I didn't run, only walked very quick," replied he; but his quick breathing indicated that his words or his walk had been very much exaggerated. "Has your father returned?" "He has; he is waiting for you in the sitting room. Come in, Bobby." Bobby followed her into the room, and took the chair which Annie offered him. "How do you do, Bobby? I am glad to see you," said the squire, taking him by the hand, and bestowing a benignant smile upon him--a smile which cheered his heart more than anything else could at that moment. "I have heard of you before, to-day." "Have you?" "I have, Bobby; you are a brave little fellow." "I came over to see you, sir, about something very particular," replied Bobby, whose natural modesty induced him to change the topic. "Indeed; well, what can I do for you?" "A great deal, sir; perhaps you will think I am very bold, sir, but I can't help it." "I know you are a very bold little fellow, or you would not have done what you did this forenoon," laughed the squire. "I didn't mean that, sir," answered Bobby, blushing up to the eyes. "I know you didn't; but go on." "I only meant that you would think me presuming, or impudent, or something of that kind." "O, no, far from it. You cannot be presuming or impudent. Speak out, Bobby; anything under the heavens that I can do for you, I shall be glad to do." "Well, sir, I am going to leave Riverdale." "Leave Riverdale!" "Yes, sir; I am going to Boston, where I mean to do something to help mother." "Bravo! you are a good lad. What do you mean to do?" "I was thinking I should go into the book business." "Indeed!" and Squire Lee was much amused by the matter-of-fact manner of the young aspirant. "I was talking with a young fellow who went through the place last spring, selling books. He told me that some days he made three or four dollars, and that he averaged twelve dollars a week." "He did well; perhaps, though, only a few of them make so much." "I know I can make twelve dollars a week," replied Bobby, confidently, for that something within him made him feel capable of great things. "I dare say you can. You have energy and perseverance, and people take a liking to you." "But I wanted to see you about another matter. To speak out at once, I want to borrow sixty dollars of you;" and Bobby blushed, and seemed very much embarrassed by his own boldness. "Sixty dollars!" exclaimed the squire. "I knew you would think me impudent," replied our hero, his heart sinking within him. "But I don't, Bobby. You want the money to go into business with--to buy your stock of books?" "O, no, sir; I am going to apply to Mr. Bayard for that." "Just so; Mr. Bayard is the gentleman whose daughter you saved?" "Yes, sir. I want this money to pay off Mr. Hardhand. We owe him but sixty dollars now, and he has threatened to turn us out, if it is not paid by to-morrow noon." "The old hunks!" Bobby briefly related to the squire the events of the morning, much to the indignation and disgust of the honest, kind-hearted man. The courageous boy detailed more clearly his purpose, and doubted not he should be able to pay the loan in a few months. "Very well, Bobby, here is the money;" and the squire took it from his wallet, and gave it to him. "Thank you, sir. May Heaven bless you! I shall certainly pay you." "Don't worry about it, Bobby. Pay it when you get ready." "I will give you my note, and----" The squire laughed heartily at this, and told him that, as he was a minor, his note was not good for anything. "You shall see whether it is, or not," returned Bobby. "Let me give it to you, at least, so that we can tell how much I owe you from time to time." "You shall have your own way." Annie Lee, as much amused as her father at Bobby's big talk, got the writing materials, and the little merchant in embryo wrote and signed the note. "Good, Bobby! Now promise that you will come and see me every time you come home, and tell me how you are getting along." "I will, sir, with the greatest pleasure;" and with a light heart Bobby tripped away home. CHAPTER VI IN WHICH BOBBY SETS OUT ON HIS TRAVELS Squire Lee, though only a plain farmer, was the richest man in Riverdale. He had taken a great fancy to Bobby, and often employed him to do errands, ride the horse to plough in the cornfields, and such chores about the place as a boy could do. He liked to talk with Bobby because there was a great deal of good sense in him, for one with a small head. If there was any one thing upon which the squire particularly prided himself, it was his knowledge of human nature. He declared that he only wanted to look a man in the face to know what he was; and as for Bobby Bright, he had summered him and wintered him, and he was satisfied that he would make something in good time. He was not much astonished when Bobby opened his ambitious scheme of going into business for himself. But he had full faith in his ability to work out a useful and profitable, if not a brilliant, life. He often said that Bobby was worth his weight in gold, and that he would trust him with anything he had. Perhaps he did not suspect that the time was at hand when he would be called upon to verify his words practically; for it was only that morning, when one of the neighbors told him about Bobby's stopping the horse, that he had repeated the expression for the twentieth time. It was not an idle remark. Sixty dollars was hardly worth mentioning with a man of his wealth and liberal views, though so careful a man as he was would not have been likely to throw away that amount. But as a matter of investment,--Bobby had made the note read "with interest,"--he would as readily have let him have it, as the next richest man in the place, so much confidence had he in our hero's integrity, and so sure was he that he would soon have the means of paying him. Bobby was overjoyed at the fortunate issue of his mission, and he walked into the room where his mother was closing shoes, with a dignity worthy a banker or a great merchant. Mrs. Bright was very sad. Perhaps she felt a little grieved that her son, whom she loved so much, had so thoughtlessly plunged her into a new difficulty. "Come, cheer up, mother; it is all right," said Bobby, in his usual elastic and gay tones; and at the same time he took the sixty dollars from his pocket and handed it to her. "There is the money, and you will be forever quit of Mr. Hardhand to-morrow." "What, Bobby! Why, where did you get all this money?" asked Mrs. Bright, utterly astonished. In a few words the ambitious boy told his story, and then informed his mother that he was going to Boston the next Monday morning, to commence business for himself. "Why, what can you do, Bobby?" "Do? I can do a great many things;" and he unfolded his scheme of becoming a little book merchant. "You are a courageous fellow! Who would have thought of such a thing?" "I should, and did." "But you are not old enough." "O, yes, I am." "You had better wait a while." "Now or never, mother! You see I have given my note, and my paper will be dishonored, if I am not up and doing." "Your paper!" said Mrs. Bright, with a smile. "That is what Mr. Wing, the boot manufacturer, calls it." "You needn't go away to earn this money; I can pay it myself." "This note is my affair, and I mean to pay it myself with my own earnings. No objections, mother." Like a sensible woman as she was, she did not make any objections. She was conscious of Bobby's talents; she knew that he had a strong mind of his own, and could take care of himself. It is true, she feared the influence of the great world, and especially of the great city, upon the tender mind of her son; but if he was never tempted, he would never be a conqueror over the foes that beset him. She determined to do her whole duty towards him; and she carefully pointed out to him the sins and the moral danger to which he would be exposed, and warned him always to resist temptation. She counselled him to think of her when he felt like going astray. Bobby declared that he would try to be a good boy. He did not speak contemptuously of the anticipated perils, as many boys would have done, because he knew that his mother would not make bug-bears out of things which she knew had no real existence. The next day, Mr. Hardhand came; and my young readers can judge how astonished and chagrined he was, when the widow Bright offered him the sixty dollars. The Lord was with the widow and the fatherless, and the wretch was cheated out of his revenge. The note was given up, and the mortgage cancelled. Mr. Hardhand insisted that she should pay the interest on the sixty dollars for one day, as it was then the second day of July; but when Bobby reckoned it up, and found it was less than one cent, even the wretched miser seemed ashamed of himself, and changed the subject of conversation. He did not dare to say anything saucy to the widow this time. He had lost his power over her, and there stood Bobby, who had come to look just like a young lion to him, coward and knave as he was. The business was all settled now, and Bobby spent the rest of the week in getting ready for his great enterprise. He visited all his friends, and went each day to talk with Squire Lee and Annie. The little maiden promised to buy a great many books of him, if he would bring his stock to Riverdale, for she was quite as much interested in him as her father was. Monday morning came, and Bobby was out of bed with the first streak of dawn. The excitement of the great event which was about to happen had not permitted him to sleep for the two hours preceding; yet when he got up, he could not help feeling sad. He was going to leave the little black house, going to leave his mother, going to leave the children, to depart for the great city. His mother was up before him. She was even more sad than he was, for she could see plainer than he the perils that environed him, and her maternal heart, in spite of the reasonable confidence she had in his integrity and good principles, trembled for his safety. As he ate his breakfast, his mother repeated the warnings and the good lessons she had before imparted. She particularly cautioned him to keep out of bad company. If he found that his companions would lie and swear, he might depend upon it they would steal, and he had better forsake them at once. This was excellent advice, and Bobby had occasion at a later period to call it to his sorrowing heart. "Here is three dollars, Bobby; it is all the money I have. Your fare to Boston will be one dollar, and you will have two left to pay the expenses of your first trip. It is all I have now," said Mrs. Bright. "I will not take the whole of it. You will want it yourself. One dollar is enough. When I find Mr. Bayard, I shall do very well." "Yes, Bobby, take the whole of it." "I will take just one dollar, and no more," replied Bobby, resolutely, as he handed her the other two dollars. "Do take it, Bobby." "No, mother; it will only make me lazy and indifferent." Taking a clean shirt, a pair of socks, and a handkerchief in his bundle, he was ready for a start. "Good by, mother," said he, kissing her and taking her hand. "I shall try and come home on Saturday, so as to be with you on Sunday." Then kissing the children, who had not yet got up, and to whom he had bidden adieu the night before, he left the house. He had seen the flood of tears that filled his mother's eyes, as he crossed the threshold; and he could not help crying a little himself. It is a sad thing to leave one's home, one's mother, especially, to go out into the great world; and we need not wonder that Bobby, who had hardly been out of Riverdale before, should weep. But he soon restrained the flowing tears. "Now or never!" said he, and he put his best foot forward. It was an epoch in his history, and though he was too young to realize the importance of the event, he seemed to feel that what he did now was to give character to his whole future life. It was a bright and beautiful morning--somehow it is always a bright and beautiful morning when boys leave their homes to commence the journey of life; it is typical of the season of youth and hope, and it is meet that the sky should be clear, and the sun shine brightly, when the little pilgrim sets out upon his tour. He will see clouds and storms before he has gone far--let him have a fair start. He had to walk five miles to the nearest railroad station. His road lay by the house of his friend, Squire Lee; and as he was approaching it, he met Annie. She said she had come out to take her morning walk; but Bobby knew very well that she did not usually walk till an hour later; which, with the fact that she had asked him particularly, the day before, what time he was going, made Bobby believe that she had come out to say good by, and bid him God speed on his journey. At any rate, he was very glad to see her. He said a great many pretty things to her, and talked so big about what he was going to do, that the little maiden could hardly help laughing in his face. Then at the house he shook hands with the squire and shook hands again with Annie, and resumed his journey. His heart felt lighter for having met them, or at least for having met one of them, if not both; for Annie's eyes were so full of sunshine that they seemed to gladden his heart, and make him feel truer and stronger. After a pleasant walk, for he scarcely heeded the distance, so full was he of his big thoughts, he reached the railroad station. The cars had not yet arrived, and would not for half an hour. "Why should I give them a dollar for carrying me to Boston, when I can just as well walk? If I get tired, I can sit down and rest me. If I save the dollar, I shall have to earn only fifty-nine more to pay my note. So here goes;" and he started down the track. CHAPTER VII IN WHICH BOBBY STANDS UP FOR "CERTAIN INALIENABLE RIGHTS" Whether it was wise policy, or "penny wise and pound foolish" policy for Bobby to undertake such a long walk, is certainly a debatable question; but as my young readers would probably object to an argument, we will follow him to the city, and let every one settle the point to suit himself. His cheerful heart made the road smooth beneath his feet. He had always been accustomed to an active, busy life, and had probably often walked more than twenty miles in a day. About ten o'clock, though he did not feel much fatigued, he seated himself on a rock by a brook from which he had just taken a drink, to rest himself. He had walked slowly so as to husband his strength; and he felt confident that he should be able to accomplish the journey without injury to himself. After resting for half an hour, he resumed his walk. At twelve o'clock he reached a point from which he obtained his first view of the city. His heart bounded at the sight, and his first impulse was to increase his speed so that he should the sooner gratify his curiosity; but a second thought reminded him that he had eaten nothing since breakfast; so, finding a shady tree by the road side, he seated himself on a stone to eat the luncheon which his considerate mother had placed in his bundle. Thus refreshed, he felt like a new man, and continued his journey again till he was on the very outskirts of the city, where a sign, "No passing over this bridge," interrupted his farther progress. Unlike many others, Bobby took this sign literally, and did not venture to cross the bridge. Having some doubts as to the direct road to the city, he hailed a man in a butcher's cart, who not only pointed the way, but gave him an invitation to ride with him, which Bobby was glad to accept. They crossed the Milldam, and the little pilgrim forgot the long walk he had taken--forgot Riverdale, his mother, Squire Lee, and Annie, for the time, in the absorbing interest of the exciting scene. The Common beat Riverdale Common all hollow; he had never seen anything like it before. But when the wagon reached Washington Street, the measure of his surprise was filled up. "My gracious! how thick the houses are!" exclaimed he, much to the amusement of the kind-hearted butcher. "We have high fences here," he replied. "Where are all these folks going to?" "You will have to ask them, if you want to know." But the wonder soon abated, and Bobby began to think of his great mission in the city. He got tired of gazing and wondering, and even began to smile with contempt at the silly fops as they sauntered along, and the gayly dressed ladies, that flaunted like so many idle butterflies, on the sidewalk. It was an exciting scene; but it did not look real to him. It was more like Herr Grunderslung's exhibition of the magic lantern, than anything substantial. The men and women were like so many puppets. They did not seem to be doing anything, or to be walking for any purpose. He got out of the butcher's cart at the Old South. His first impression, as he joined the busy throng, was, that he was one of the puppets. He did not seem to have any hold upon the scene, and for several minutes this sensation of vacancy chained him to the spot. "All right!" exclaimed he to himself at last. "I am here. Now's my time to make a strike. Now or never." He pulled Mr. Bayard's card from his pocket, and fixed the number of his store in his mind. Now, numbers were not a Riverdale institution, and Bobby was a little perplexed about finding the one indicated. A little study into the matter, however, set him right, and he soon had the satisfaction of seeing the bookseller's name over his store. "F. Bayard," he read; "this is the place." "Country!" shouted a little ragged boy, who dodged across the street at that moment. "Just so, my beauty!" said Bobby, a little nettled at this imputation of verdancy. "What a greeny!" shouted the little vagabond from the other side of the street. "No matter, rag-tag! We'll settle that matter some other time." But Bobby felt that there was something in his appearance which subjected him to the remarks of others, and as he entered the shop, he determined to correct it as soon as possible. A spruce young gentleman was behind the counter, who cast a mischievous glance at him as he entered. "Mr. Bayard keep here?" asked Bobby. "Well, I reckon he does. How are all the folks up country?" replied the spruce clerk, with a rude grin. "How are they?" repeated Bobby, the color flying to his cheek. "Yes, ha-ow do they dew?" "They behave themselves better than they do here." "Eh, greeny?" "Eh, sappy?" repeated Bobby, mimicking the soft, silky tones of the young city gentleman. "What do you mean by sappy?" asked the clerk indignantly. "What do you mean by greeny?" "I'll let you know what I mean!" "When you do, I'll let you know what I mean by sappy." "Good!" exclaimed one of the salesmen, who had heard part of this spirited conversation. "You will learn better by and by, Timmins, than to impose upon boys from out of town." "You seem to be a gentleman, sir," said Bobby, approaching the salesman. "I wish to see Mr. Bayard." "You can't see him!" growled Timmins. "Can't I?" "Not at this minute; he is engaged just now," added the salesman, who seemed to have a profound respect for Bobby's discrimination. "He will be at liberty in a few moments." "I will wait, then," said Bobby, seating himself on a stool by the counter. Pretty soon the civil gentleman left the store to go to dinner, and Timmins, a little timid about provoking the young lion, cast an occasional glance of hatred at him. He had evidently found that "Country" was an embryo American citizen, and that he was a firm believer in the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence. Bobby bore no ill will towards the spruce clerk, ready as he had been to defend his "certain inalienable rights." "You do a big business here," suggested Bobby, in a conciliatory tone, and with a smile on his face which ought to have convinced the uncourteous clerk that he meant well. "Who told you so?" replied Timmins, gruffly. "I merely judged from appearances. You have a big store, and an immense quantity of books." "Appearances are deceitful," replied Timmins; and perhaps he had been impressed by the fact from his experience with the lad from the country. "That is true," added Bobby, with a good-natured smile, which, when interpreted, might have meant, "I took you for a civil fellow, but I have been very much mistaken." "You will find it out before you are many days older." "The book business is good just now, isn't it?" continued Bobby, without clearly comprehending the meaning of the other's last remark. "Humph! What's that to you?" "O, I intend to go into it myself." "Ha, ha, ha! Good! You do?" "I do," replied Bobby, seemingly unconcerned at the taunts of the clerk. "I suppose you want to get a place here," sneered Timmins, alarmed at the prospect. "But let me tell you, you can't do it. Bayard has all the help he wants; and if that is what you come for, you can move on as fast as you please." "I guess I will see him," added Bobby, quietly. "No use." "No harm in seeing him." As he spoke he took up a book that lay on the counter, and began to turn over the leaves. "Put that book down!" said the amiable Mr. Timmins. "I won't hurt it," replied Bobby, who had just fixed his eye upon some very pretty engravings in the volume. "Put it down!" repeated Mr. Timmins, in a loud, imperative tone. "Certainly I will, if you say so," said Bobby, who, though not much intimidated by the harsh tones of the clerk, did not know the rules of the store, and deemed it prudent not to meddle. "I _do_ say so!" added Mr. Timmins, magnificently; "and what's more, you'd better mind me, too." Bobby had minded, and probably the stately little clerk would not have been so bold if he had not. Some people like to threaten after the danger is over. Then our visitor from the country espied some little blank books lying on the counter. He had already made up his mind to have one, in which to keep his accounts; and he thought, while he was waiting, that he would purchase one. He meant to do things methodically; so when he picked up one of the blank books, it was with the intention of buying it. "Put that book down!" said Mr. Timmins, encouraged in his aggressive intentions by the previous docility of our hero. "I want to buy one." "No, you don't; put it down." "What is the price of these?" asked Bobby, resolutely. "None of your business!" "Is that the way you treat your customers?" asked Bobby, with a little sternness in his looks and tones. "I say I want to buy one." "Put it down." "But I will not; I say I want to buy it." "No, you don't!" "What is the price of it?" "Twenty-five cents," growled Timmins, which was just four times the retail price. "Twenty-five cents! That's high." "Put it down, then." "Is that your lowest price?" asked Bobby, who was as cool as a cucumber. "Yes, it is; and if you don't put it down, I'll kick you out of the store." "Will you? Then I won't put it down." Mr. Timmins took this as a "stump;" his ire was up, and he walked round from behind the counter to execute his threat. I must say I think Bobby was a little forward, and I would have my young readers a little more pliant with small men like Timmins. There are always men enough in the world who are ready and willing to quarrel on any provocation; and it is always best not to provoke them, even if they are overbearing and insolent, as Mr. Timmins certainly was. "Hold on a minute before you do it," said Bobby, with the same provoking coolness. "I want to buy this book, and I am willing to pay a fair price for it. But I happen to know that you can buy them up in Riverdale, where I came from, for six cents." "No matter," exclaimed the indignant clerk, seizing Bobby by the coat collar for the purpose of ejecting him; "you shall find your way into the street." Now Bobby, as I have before intimated, was an embryo American citizen, and the act of Mr. Timmins seemed like an invasion of his inalienable rights. No time was given him to make a formal declaration of rights in the premises; so the instinct of self-preservation was allowed to have free course. Mr. Timmins pulled and tugged at his coat collar, and Bobby hung back like a mule; and for an instant there was quite a spirited scene. "Hallo! Timmins, what does this mean?" said a voice, at which the valiant little clerk instantly let go his hold. CHAPTER VIII IN WHICH MR. TIMMINS IS ASTONISHED, AND BOBBY DINES IN CHESTNUT STREET It was Mr. Bayard. He had finished his business with the gentleman by his side, and hearing the noise of the scuffle, had come to learn the occasion of it. "This impudent young puppy wouldn't let the books alone!" began Mr. Timmins. "I threatened to turn him out if he didn't; and I meant to make good my threat. I think he meant to steal something." Bobby was astonished and shocked at this bold imputation; but he wished to have his case judged on its own merits; so he turned his face away, that Mr. Bayard might not recognize him. "I wanted to buy one of these blank books," added Bobby, picking up the one he had dropped on the floor in the struggle. "All stuff!" ejaculated Timmins. "He is an impudent, obstinate puppy! In my opinion he meant to steal that book." "I asked him the price, and told him I wanted to buy it," added Bobby, still averting his face. "Well, I told him; and he said it was too high." "He asked me twenty-five cents for it." "Is this true, Timmins?" asked Mr. Bayard, sternly. "No, _sir_! I told him fourpence," replied Timmins, boldly. "By gracious! What a whopper!" exclaimed Bobby, startled out of his propriety by this monstrous lie. "He said twenty-five cents; and I told him I could buy one up in Riverdale, where I came from, for six cents. Can you deny that?" "It's a lie!" protested Timmins. "Riverdale," said Mr. Bayard. "Are you from Riverdale, boy?" "Yes, sir, I am; and if you will look on your memorandum book you will find my name there." "Bless me! I am sure I have seen that face before," exclaimed Mr. Bayard, as he grasped the hand of Bobby, much to the astonishment and consternation of Mr. Timmins. "You are----" "Robert Bright, sir." "My brave little fellow! I am heartily glad to see you;" and the bookseller shook the hand he held with hearty good will. "I was thinking of you only a little while ago." "This fellow calls me a liar," said Bobby, pointing to the astonished Mr. Timmins, who did not know what to make of the cordial reception which "Country" was receiving from his employer. "Well, Robert, we know that _he_ is a liar; this is not the first time he has been caught in a lie. Timmins, your time is out." The spruce clerk hung his head with shame and mortification. "I hope, sir, you will----" he began, but pride or fear stopped him short. "Don't be hard with him, sir, if you please," said Bobby. "I suppose I aggravated him." Mr. Bayard looked at the gentleman who stood by his side, and a smile of approbation lighted up his face. "Generous as he is noble! Butler, this is the boy that saved Ellen." "Indeed! He is a little giant!" replied Mr. Butler, grasping Bobby's hand. Even Timmins glanced with something like admiration in his looks at the youth whom he had so lately despised. Perhaps, too, he thought of that Scripture wisdom about entertaining angels unawares. He was very much abashed, and nothing but his silly pride prevented him from acknowledging his error and begging Bobby's forgiveness. "I can't have a liar about me," said Mr. Bayard. "There may be some mistake," suggested Mr. Butler. "I think not. Robert Bright couldn't lie. So brave and noble a boy is incapable of a falsehood. Besides, I got a letter from my friend Squire Lee by this morning's mail, in which he informed me of my young friend's coming." Mr. Bayard took from his pocket a bundle of letters, and selected the squire's from among them. Opening it, he read a passage which had a direct bearing upon the case before him. "'I do not know what Bobby's faults are,'"--the letter said,--"'but this I do know: that Bobby would rather be whipped than tell a lie. He is noted through the place for his love of truth.'--That is pretty strong testimony; and you see, Bobby,--that's what the squire calls you,--your reputation has preceded you." Bobby blushed, as he always did when he was praised, and Mr. Timmins was more abashed than ever. "Did you hear that, Timmins? Who is the liar now?" said Mr. Bayard, turning to the culprit. "Forgive me, sir, this time. If you turn me off now, I cannot get another place, and my mother depends upon my wages." "You ought to have thought of this before." "He aggravated me, sir, so that I wanted to pay him off." "As to that, he commenced upon me the moment I came into the store. But don't turn him off, if you please, sir," said Bobby, who even now wished no harm to his discomfited assailant. "He will do better hereafter: won't you, Timmins?" Thus appealed to, Timmins, though he did not relish so direct an inquiry, and from such a source, was compelled to reply in the affirmative; and Mr. Bayard graciously remitted the sentence he had passed against the offending clerk. "Now, Robert, you will come over to my house and dine with me. Ellen will be delighted to see you." "Thank you, sir," replied Bobby, bashfully, "I have been to dinner"--referring to the luncheon he had eaten at Brighton. "But you must go to the house with me." "I should be very glad to do so, sir, but I came on business. I will stay here with Mr. Timmins till you come back." The truth is, he had heard something about the fine houses of the city, and how stylish the people were, and he had some misgivings about venturing into such a strange and untried scene as the parlor of a Boston merchant. "Indeed, you must come with me. Ellen would never forgive you or me, if you did not come." "I would rather rest here till you return," replied Bobby, still willing to escape the fine house and the fine folks. "I walked from Riverdale, sir, and I am rather tired." "Walked!" exclaimed Mr. Bayard. "Had you no money?" "Yes, sir, enough to pay my passage; but Dr. Franklin says that 'a penny saved is a penny earned,' and I thought I would try it. I shall get rested by the time you return." "But you must go with me. Timmins, go and get a carriage." Timmins obeyed, and before Mr. Bayard had finished asking Bobby how all the people in Riverdale were, the carriage was at the door. There was no backing out now, and our hero was obliged to get into the vehicle, though it seemed altogether too fine for a poor boy like him. Mr. Bayard and Mr. Butler (whom the former had invited to dine with him) seated themselves beside him, and the driver was directed to set them down at No. --, Chestnut Street, where they soon arrived. Though my readers would, no doubt, be very much amused to learn how carefully Bobby trod the velvet carpets, how he stared with wonder at the drapery curtains, at the tall mirrors, the elegant chandeliers, and the fantastically shaped chairs and tables that adorned Mr. Bayard's parlor, the length of our story does not permit us to pause over these trivial matters. When Ellen Bayard was informed that her little deliverer was in the house, she rushed into the parlor like a hoiden school girl, grasped both his hands, kissed both his rosy cheeks, and behaved just as though she had never been to a boarding school in her life. She had thought a great deal about Bobby since that eventful day, and the more she thought of him, the more she liked him. Her admiration of him was not of that silly, sentimental character which moonstruck young ladies cherish towards those immaculate young men who have saved them from drowning in a horse pond, pulled them back just as they were tumbling over a precipice two thousand five hundred feet high, or rescued them from a house seven stories high, bearing them down a ladder seventy-five odd feet long. The fact was, Bobby was a boy of thirteen and there was no chance for much sentiment; so the young lady's regard was real, earnest, and lifelike. Ellen said a great many very handsome things; but I am sure she never thought of such a thing as that he would run away with her, in case her papa was unnecessarily obstinate. She was very glad to see him, and I have no doubt she wished Bobby might be her brother, it would be so glorious to have such a noble little fellow always with her. Bobby managed the dinner much better than he had anticipated; for Mr. Bayard insisted that he should sit down with them, whether he ate anything or not. But the Rubicon passed, our hero found that he had a pretty smart appetite, and did full justice to the viands set before him. It is true the silver forks, the napkins, the finger bowls, and other articles of luxury and show, to which he had been entirely unaccustomed, bothered him not a little; but he kept perfectly cool, and carefully observed how Mr. Butler, who sat next to him, handled the "spoon fork," what he did with the napkin and the finger bowl, so that, I will venture to say, not one in ten would have suspected he had not spent his life in the parlor of a millionaire. Dinner over, the party returned to the parlor, where Bobby unfolded his plan for the future. To make his story intelligible, he was obliged to tell them all about Mr. Hardhand. "The old wretch!" exclaimed Mr. Bayard. "But, Robert, you must let me advance the sixty dollars, to pay Squire Lee." "No, sir; you have done enough in that way. I have given my note for the money." "Whew!" said Mr. Butler. "And I shall soon earn enough to pay it." "No doubt of it. You are a lad of courage and energy, and you will succeed in everything you undertake." "I shall want you to trust me for a stock of books, on the strength of old acquaintance," continued Bobby, who had now grown quite bold, and felt as much at home in the midst of the costly furniture, as he did in the "living room" of the old black house. "You shall have all the books you want." "I will pay for them as soon as I return. The truth is, Mr. Bayard, I mean to be independent. I didn't want to take that thirty-five dollars, though I don't know what Mr. Hardhand would have done to us, if I hadn't." "Ellen said I ought to have given you a hundred, and I think so myself." "I am glad you didn't. Too much money makes us fat and lazy." Mr. Bayard laughed at the easy self-possession of the lad--at his big talk; though, big as it was, it meant something. When he proposed to go to the store, he told Bobby he had better stay at the house and rest himself. "No, sir; I want to start out to-morrow, and I must get ready to-day." "You had better put it off till the next day; you will feel more like it then." "Now or never," replied Bobby. "That is my motto, sir. If we have anything to do, now is always the best time to do it. Dr. Franklin says, 'Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day.'" "Right, Robert! you shall have your own way. I wish my clerks would adopt some of Dr. Franklin's wise saws. I should be a great deal better off in the course of a year if they would." CHAPTER IX IN WHICH BOBBY OPENS VARIOUS ACCOUNTS, AND WINS HIS FIRST VICTORY "Now, Bobby, I understand your plan," said Mr. Bayard, when they reached the store; "but the details must be settled. Where do you intend to go?" "I hardly know, sir. I suppose I can sell books almost anywhere." "Very true; but in some places much better than in others." Mr. Bayard mentioned a large town about eighteen miles from the city, in which he thought a good trade might be carried on, and Bobby at once decided to adopt the suggestion. "You can make this place your headquarters for the week; if books do not sell well right in the village, why, you can go out a little way, for the country in the vicinity is peopled by intelligent farmers, who are well off, and who can afford to buy books." "I was thinking of that; but what shall I take with me, sir?" "There is a new book just published, called 'The Wayfarer,' which is going to have a tremendous run. It has been advertised in advance all over the country, so that you will find a ready sale for it. You will get it there before any one else, and have the market all to yourself." "'The Wayfarer'? I have heard of it myself." "You shall take fifty copies with you, and if you find that you shall want more, write, and I will send them." "But I cannot carry fifty copies." "You must take the cars to B----, and have a trunk or box to carry your books in. I have a stout trunk down cellar which you shall have." "I will pay for it, sir." "Never mind that, Bobby; and you will want a small valise or carpet bag to carry your books from house to house. I will lend you one." "You are very kind, sir; I did not mean to ask any favors of you except to trust me for the books until my return." "All right, Bobby." Mr. Bayard called the porter and ordered him to bring up the trunk, in which he directed Mr. Timmins to pack fifty "Wayfarers." "Now, how much will these books cost me apiece?" asked Bobby. "The retail price is one dollar; the wholesale price is one third off; and you shall have them at what they cost me." "Sixty-seven cents," added Bobby. "That will give me a profit of thirty-three cents on each book." "Just so." "Perhaps Mr. Timmins will sell me one of those blank books now; for I like to have things down in black and white." "I will furnish you with something much better than that;" and Mr. Bayard left the counting room. In a moment he returned with a handsome pocket memorandum book, which he presented to the little merchant. "But I don't like to take it unless you will let me pay for it," said Bobby, hesitating. "Never mind it, my young friend. Now you can sit down at my desk and open your accounts. I like to see boys methodical, and there is nothing like keeping accounts to make one accurate. Keep your books posted up, and you will know where you are at any time." "I intend to keep an account of all I spend and all I receive, if it is no more than a cent." "Right, my little man. Have you ever studied book-keeping?" "No, sir, I suppose I haven't; but there was a page of accounts in the back part of the arithmetic I studied, and I got a pretty good idea of the thing from that. All the money received goes on one side, and all the money paid out goes on the other." "Exactly so; in this book you had better open a book account first. If you wish, I will show you how." "Thank you, sir; I should be very glad to have you;" and Bobby opened the memorandum book, and seated himself at the desk. "Write 'Book Account,' at the top of the pages, one word on each. Very well. Now write 'To fifty copies of "Wayfarer," at sixty-seven cents, $33.50,' on the left-hand page, or debit side of the account." "I am not much of a writer," said Bobby, apologetically. "You will improve. Now, each day you will credit the amount of sales on the right hand page, or credit side of the account; so, when you have sold out, the balance due your debit side will be the profit on the lot. Do you understand it?" Bobby thought a moment before he could see through it; but his brain was active, and he soon managed the idea. "Now you want a personal account;" and Mr. Bayard explained to him how to make this out. He then instructed him to enter on the debit side all he spent for travel, board, freight, and other charges. The next was the "profit and loss" account, which was to show him the net profit of the business. Our hero, who had a decided taste for accounts, was very much pleased with this employment; and when the accounts were all opened, he regarded them with a great deal of satisfaction. He longed to commence his operations, if it were only for the pleasure of making the entries in this book. "One thing I forgot," said he, as he seized the pen, and under the cash account entered, "To Cash from mother, $1.00." "Now I am all right, I believe." "I think you are. Now, the cars leave at seven in the morning. Can you be ready for a start as early as that?" asked Mr. Bayard. "O, yes, sir, I hope so. I get up at half past four at home." "Very well; my small valise is at the house; but I believe everything else is ready. Now, I have some business to attend to; and if you will amuse yourself for an hour or two, we will go home then." "I shall want a lodging place when I am in the city; perhaps some of your folks can direct me to one where they won't charge too much." "As to that, Bobby, you must go to my house whenever you are in the city." "Law, sir! you live so grand, I couldn't think of going to your house. I am only a poor boy from the country, and I don't know how to behave myself among such nice folks." "You will do very well, Bobby. Ellen would never forgive me if I let you go anywhere else. So that is settled; you will go to my house. Now, you may sit here, or walk out and see the sights." "If you please, sir, if Mr. Timmins will let me look at some of the books, I shouldn't wish for anything better. I should like to look at 'The Wayfarer,' so that I shall know how to recommend it." "Mr. Timmins _will_ let you," replied Mr. Bayard, as he touched the spring of a bell on his desk. The dapper clerk came running into the counting room to attend the summons of his employer. "Mr. Timmins," continued Mr. Bayard, with a mischievous smile, "bring Mr. Bright a copy of 'The Wayfarer.'" Mr. Timmins was astonished to hear "Country" called "Mister," astonished to hear his employer call him "Mister," and Bobby was astonished to hear himself called "Mister." Nevertheless, our hero enjoyed the joke. The clerk brought the book; and Bobby proceeded to give it a thorough, critical examination. He read the preface, the table of contents, and several chapters of the work, before Mr. Bayard was ready to go home. "How do you like it, Bobby?" asked the bookseller. "First rate." "You may take that copy in your hand; you will want to finish it." "Thank you, sir; I will be careful of it." "You may keep it. Let that be the beginning of your own private library." His own private library! Bobby had not got far enough to dream of such a thing yet; but he thanked Mr. Bayard, and put the book under his arm. After tea, Ellen proposed to her father that they should all go to the Museum. Mr. Bayard acceded, and our hero was duly amazed at the drolleries perpetrated there. He had a good time; but it was so late when he went to bed, that he was a little fearful lest he should over-sleep himself in the morning. He did not, however, and was down in the parlor before any of the rest of the family were stirring. An early breakfast was prepared for him, at which Mr. Bayard, who intended to see him off, joined him. Depositing his little bundle and the copy of "The Wayfarer" in the valise provided for him, they walked to the store. The porter wheeled the trunk down to the railroad station, though Bobby insisted upon doing it himself. The bookseller saw him and his baggage safely aboard of the cars, gave him a ticket, and then bade him an affectionate adieu. In a little while Bobby was flying over the rail, and at about eight o'clock reached B----. The station master kindly permitted him to deposit his trunk in the baggage room, and to leave it there for the remainder of the week. Taking a dozen of the books from the trunk, and placing them in his valise, he sallied out upon his mission. It must be confessed that his heart was filled with a tumult of emotions. The battle of life was before him. He was on the field, sword in hand, ready to plunge into the contest. It was victory or defeat. "March on, brave youth! the field of strife With peril fraught before thee lies; March on! the battle plain of life Shall yield thee yet a glorious prize." It was of no use to shrink then, even if he had felt disposed to do so. He was prepared to be rebuffed, to be insulted, to be turned away from the doors at which he should seek admission; but he was determined to conquer. He had reached a house at which he proposed to offer "The Wayfarer" for sale. His heart went pit pat, pit pat, and he paused before the door. "Now or never!" exclaimed he, as he swung open the garden gate, and made his way up to the door. He felt some misgivings. It was so new and strange to him that he could hardly muster sufficient resolution to proceed farther. But his irresolution was of only a moment's duration. "Now or never!" and he gave a vigorous knock at the door. It was opened by an elderly lady, whose physiognomy did not promise much. "Good morning, ma'am. Can I sell you a copy of 'The Wayfarer' to-day? a new book, just published." "No; I don't want none of your books. There's more pedlers round the country now than you could shake a stick at in a month," replied the old lady, petulantly. "It is a very interesting book, ma'am; has an excellent moral." Bobby had read the preface, as I before remarked. "It will suit you, ma'am; for you look just like a lady who wants to read something with a moral." Bravo, Bobby! The lady concluded that her face had a moral expression, and she was pleased with the idea. "Let me see it;" and she asked Bobby to walk in and be seated, while she went for her spectacles. As she was looking over the book, our hero went into a more elaborate recommendation of its merits. He was sure it would interest the young and the old; it taught a good lesson; it had elegant engravings; the type was large, which would suit her eyes; it was well printed and bound; and finally, it was cheap at one dollar. "I'll take it," said the old lady. "Thank you, ma'am." Bobby's first victory was achieved. "Have you got a dollar?" asked the lady, as she handed him a two-dollar bill. "Yes, ma'am;" and he gave her his only dollar and put the two in its place, prouder than a king who has conquered an empire. "Thank you ma'am." Bidding the lady a polite good morning, he left the house, encouraged by his success to go forward in his mission with undiminished hope. CHAPTER X IN WHICH BOBBY IS A LITTLE TOO SMART The clouds were rolled back, and Bobby no longer had a doubt as to the success of his undertaking. It requires but a little sunshine to gladden the heart, and the influence of his first success scattered all the misgivings he had cherished. Two New England shillings is undoubtedly a very small sum of money; but Bobby had made two shillings, and he would not have considered himself more fortunate if some unknown relative had left him a fortune. It gave him confidence in his powers, and as he walked away from the house, he reviewed the circumstances of his first sale. The old lady had told him at first she did not wish to buy a book, and, moreover, had spoken rather contemptuously of the craft to which he had now the honor to belong. He gave himself the credit of having conquered the old lady's prejudices. He had sold her a book in spite of her evident intention not to purchase. In short, he had, as we have before said, won a glorious victory, and he congratulated himself accordingly. But it was of no use to waste time in useless self-glorification, and Bobby turned from the past to the future. There were forty-nine more books to be sold; so that the future was forty-nine times as big as the past. He saw a shoemaker's shop ahead of him, and he was debating with himself whether he should enter and offer his books for sale. It would do no harm, though he had but slight expectations of doing anything. There were three men at work in the shop--one of them a middle-aged man, the other two young men. They looked like persons of intelligence, and as soon as Bobby saw them his hopes grew stronger. "Can I sell you any books to-day?" asked the little merchant, as he crossed the threshold. "Well, I don't know; that depends upon how smart you are," replied the eldest of the men. "It takes a pretty smart fellow to sell anything in this shop." "Then I hope to sell each of you a book," added Bobby, laughing at the badinage of the shoemaker. Opening his valise he took out three copies of his book, and politely handed one to each of the men. "It isn't every book pedler that comes along who offers you such a work as that. 'The Wayfarer' is decidedly _the_ book of the season." "You don't say so!" said the oldest shoemaker, with a laugh. "Every pedler that comes along uses those words, precisely." "Do they? They steal my thunder then." "You are an old one." "Only thirteen. I was born where they don't fasten the door with a boiled carrot." "What do they fasten them with?" "They don't fasten them at all." "There are no book pedlers round there, then;" and all the shoemakers laughed heartily at this smart sally. "No; they are all shoemakers in our town." "You can take my hat, boy." "You will want it to put your head in; but I will take one dollar for that book instead." The man laughed, took out his wallet, and handed Bobby the dollar, probably quite as much because he had a high appreciation of his smartness, as from any desire to possess the book. "Won't you take one?" asked Bobby, appealing to another of the men, who was apparently not more than twenty-four years of age. "No; I can't read," replied he roguishly. "Let your wife read it to you, then." "My wife?" "Certainly; she knows how to read, I will warrant." "How do you know I have got a wife?" "O, well, a fellow as good looking and good natured as you are could not have resisted till this time." "Has you, Tom," added the oldest shoemaker. "I cave in;" and he handed over the dollar, and laid the book upon his bench. Bobby looked at the third man with some interest. He had said nothing, and scarcely heeded the fun which was passing between the little merchant and his companions. He was apparently absorbed in his examination of the book. He was a different kind of person from the others, and Bobby's instinctive knowledge of human nature assured him that he was not to be gained by flattery or by smart sayings; so he placed himself in front of him, and patiently waited in silence for him to complete his examination. "You will find that he is a hard one," put in one of the others. Bobby made no reply, and the two men who had bought books resumed their work. For five minutes our hero stood waiting for the man to finish his investigation into the merits of "The Wayfarer." Something told him not to say anything to this person; and he had some doubts about his purchasing. "I will take one," said the last shoemaker, as he handed Bobby the dollar. "I am much obliged to you, gentlemen," said Bobby, as he closed his valise. "When I come this way again I shall certainly call." "Do; you have done what no other pedler ever did in this shop." "I shall take no credit to myself. The fact is, you are men of intelligence, and you want good books." Bobby picked up his valise and left the shop, satisfied with those who occupied it, and satisfied with himself. "Eight shillings!" exclaimed he, when he got into the road. "Pretty good hour's work, I should say." Bobby trudged along till he came to a very large, elegant house, evidently dwelt in by one of the nabobs of B----. Inspired by past successes, he walked boldly up to the front door, and rang the bell. "Is Mr. Whiting in?" asked Bobby, who had read the name on the door plate. "Colonel Whiting _is_ in," replied the servant, who had opened the door. "I should like to see him for a moment, if he isn't busy." "Walk in;" and for some reason or other the servant chuckled a great deal as she admitted him. She conducted him to a large, elegantly furnished parlor, where Bobby proceeded to take out his books for the inspection of the nabob, whom the servant promised to send to the parlor. In a moment Colonel Whiting entered. He was a large, fat man, about fifty years old. He looked at the little book merchant with a frown that would have annihilated a boy less spunky than our hero. Bobby was not a little inflated by the successes of the morning, and if Julius Cæsar or Napoleon Bonaparte had stood before him then, he would not have flinched a hair--much less in the presence of no greater magnate than the nabob of B----. "Good morning, Colonel Whiting. I hope you are well this beautiful morning." Bobby began. I must confess I think this was a little too familiar for a boy of thirteen to a gentleman of fifty, whom he had never seen before in his life; but it must be remembered that Bobby had done a great deal the week before, that on the preceding night he had slept in Chestnut Street, and that he had just sold four copies of "The Wayfarer." He was inclined to be smart, and some folks hate smart boys. The nabob frowned; his cheek reddened with anger; but he did not condescend to make any reply to the smart speech. "I have taken the liberty to call upon you this morning, to see if you did not wish to purchase a copy of 'The Wayfarer'--a new book just issued from the press, which people say is to be the book of the season." My young readers need not suppose this was an impromptu speech, for Bobby had studied upon it all the time he was coming from Boston in the cars. It would be quite natural for a boy who had enjoyed no greater educational advantages than our hero to consider how he should address people into whose presence his calling would bring him; and he had prepared several little addresses of this sort, for the several different kinds of people whom he expected to encounter. The one he had just "got off" was designed for the "upper crust." When he had delivered the speech, he approached the indignant, frowning nabob, and, with a low bow, offered him a copy of "The Wayfarer." "Boy," said Colonel Whiting, raising his arm with majestic dignity, and pointing to the door,--"boy, do you see that door?" Bobby looked at the door, and, somewhat astonished, replied that he did see it, that it was a very handsome door, and he would inquire whether it was black walnut, or only painted in imitation thereof. "Do you see that door?" thundered the nabob, swelling with rage at the cool impudence of the boy. "Certainly I do, sir; my eyesight is excellent." "Then use it!" "Thank you, sir; I have no use for it. Probably it will be of more service to you than to me." "Will you clear out, or shall I kick you out?" gasped the enraged magnate of B----. "I will save you that trouble, sir; I will go, sir. I see we have both made a mistake." "Mistake? What do you mean by that, you young puppy? You are a little impudent, thieving scoundrel!" "That is your mistake, sir. I took you for a gentleman, sir; and that was my mistake." "Ha, ha, ha!" laughed a sweet, musical voice, and at that moment a beautiful young lady rushed up to the angry colonel, and threw her arms around his neck. "The jade!" muttered he. "I have caught you in a passion again, uncle;" and the lady kissed the old gentleman's anger-reddened cheek, which seemed to restore him at once to himself. "It was enough to make a minister swear," said he, in apology. "No, it wasn't, uncle; the boy was a little pert, it is true; but you ought to have laughed at him, instead of getting angry. I heard the whole of it." "Pert?" said Bobby to himself. "What the deuce does she mean by that?" "Very well, you little minx; I will pay the penalty." "Come here, Master Pert," said the lady to Bobby. Bobby bowed, approached the lady, and began to feel very much embarrassed. "My uncle," she continued, "is one of the best-hearted men in the world--ain't you, uncle?" "Go on, you jade!" "I love him, as I would my own father; but he will sometimes get into a passion. Now, you provoked him." "Indeed, ma'am, I hadn't the least idea of saying anything uncivil," pleaded Bobby. "I studied to be as polite as possible." "I dare say. You were too important, too pompous, for a boy to an old gentleman like uncle, who is really one of the best men in the world. Now, if you hadn't _studied_ to be polite, you would have done very well." "Indeed, ma'am, I am a poor boy, trying to make a little money to help my mother. I am sure I meant no harm." "I know you didn't. So you are selling books to help your mother?" "Yes, ma'am." She inquired still further into the little merchant's history, and seemed to be very much interested in him. In a frolic, a few days before, Bobby learned from her, Colonel Whiting had agreed to pay any penalty she might name, the next time he got into a passion. "Now, young man, what book have you to sell?" asked the lady. "'The Wayfarer.'" "How many have you in your valise?" "Eight." "Very well; now, uncle, I decree, as the penalty of your indiscretion, that you purchase the whole stock." "I submit." "'The Wayfarer' promises to be an excellent book; and I can name at least half a dozen persons who will thank you for a copy, uncle." Colonel Whiting paid Bobby eight dollars, who left the contents of his valise on the centre table, and then departed, astounded at his good fortune, and fully resolved never to be too smart again. CHAPTER XI IN WHICH BOBBY STRIKES A BALANCE, AND RETURNS TO RIVERDALE Our hero had learned a lesson which experience alone could teach him. The consciousness of that "something within him" inclined him to be a little too familiar with his elders; but then it gave him confidence in himself, and imparted courage to go forward in the accomplishment of his mission. His interview with Colonel Whiting and the gentle but plain rebuke of his niece had set him right, and he realized that, while he was doing a man's work, he was still a boy. He had now a clearer perception of what is due to the position and dignity of those upon whom fortune has smiled. Bobby wanted to be a man, and it is not strange that he should sometimes fancy he was a man. He had an idea, too, that "all men are born free and equal;" and he could not exactly see why a nabob was entitled to any more respect and consideration than a poor man. It was a lesson he was compelled to learn, though some folks live out their lifetimes without ever finding out that. "'Tis wealth, good sir, makes honorable men." Some people think a rich man is no better than a poor man, except so far as he behaves himself better. It is strange how stupid some people are! Bobby had no notion of cringing to any man, and he felt as independent as the Declaration of Independence itself. But then the beautiful lady had told him that he was pert and forward; and when he thought it over, he was willing to believe she was right. Colonel Whiting was an old man, compared with himself; and he had some faith, at least in theory, in the Spartan virtue of respect for the aged. Probably the nabob of B---- would have objected to being treated with respect on account of his age; and Bobby would have been equally unwilling to acknowledge that he treated him with peculiar respect on account of his wealth or position. Perhaps the little merchant had an instinctive perception of expediency--that he should sell more books by being less familiar; at any rate he determined never again to use the flowery speeches he had arranged for the upper crust. He had sold a dozen books; and possibly this fact made him more willing to compromise the matter than he would otherwise have been. This was, after all, the great matter for congratulation, and with a light heart he hurried back to the railroad station to procure another supply. We cannot follow him into every house where his calling led him. He was not always as fortunate as in the instances we have mentioned. Sometimes all his arguments were unavailing, and after he had spent half an hour of valuable time in setting forth the merits of "The Wayfarer," he was compelled to retire without having effected a sale. Sometimes, too, he was rudely repulsed; hard epithets were applied to him; old men and old women, worried out by the continued calls of pedlers, sneered at him, or shut the door in his face; but Bobby was not disheartened. He persevered, and did not allow these little trials to discompose or discourage him. By one o'clock on the first day of his service he had sold eighteen books, which far exceeded even his most sanguine expectations. By this time he began to feel the want of his dinner; but there was no tavern or eating house at hand, and he could not think of leaving the harvest to return to the railroad station; so he bought a sheet of gingerbread and a piece of cheese at a store, and seating himself near a brook by the side of the road, he bolted his simple meal, as boys are very apt to do when they are excited. When he had finished, he took out his account book, and entered, "Dinner, 10 cents." Resuming his business, he disposed of the remaining six books in his valise by the middle of the afternoon, and was obliged to return for another supply. About six o'clock he entered the house of a mechanic, just as the family were sitting down to tea. He recommended his book with so much energy, that the wife of the mechanic took a fancy to him, and not only purchased one, but invited him to tea. Bobby accepted the invitation, and in the course of the meal the good lady drew from him the details of his history, which he very modestly related, for though he sometimes fancied himself a man, he was not the boy to boast of his exploits. His host was so much pleased with him, that he begged him to spend the night with them. Bobby had been thinking how and where he should spend the night, and the matter had given him no little concern. He did not wish to go to the hotel, for it looked like a very smart house, and he reasoned that he should have to pay pretty roundly for accommodations there. These high prices would eat up his profits, and he seriously deliberated whether it would not be better for him to sleep under a tree than pay fifty cents for a lodging. If I had been there I should have told him that a man loses nothing in the long run by taking good care of himself. He must eat well and sleep well, in order to do well and be well. But I suppose Bobby would have told me that it was of no use to pay a quarter extra for sleeping on a gilded bedstead, since the room would be so dark he could not see the gilt even if he wished to do so. I could not have said anything to such a powerful argument, so I am very glad the mechanic's wife set the matter at rest by offering him a bed in her house. He spent a very pleasant evening with the family, who made him feel entirely at home, they were so kind and so plain spoken. Before he went to bed, he entered under the book account, "By twenty-six 'Wayfarers,' sold this day, $26.00." He had done a big day's work, much bigger than he could hope to do again. He had sold more than one half of his whole stock, and at this rate he should be out of books the next day. At first he thought he would send for another lot; but he could not judge yet what his average daily sales would be, and finally concluded not to do so. What he had might last till Friday or Saturday. He intended to go home on the latter day, and he could bring them with him on his return without expense. This was considerable of an argument for a boy to manage; but Bobby was satisfied with it, and went to sleep, wondering what his mother, Squire Lee, and Annie were thinking of about that time. After breakfast the next morning he resumed his travels. He was as enthusiastic as ever, and pressed "The Wayfarer" with so much earnestness that he sold a book in nearly every house he visited. People seemed to be more interested in the little merchant than in his stock, and taking advantage of this kind feeling towards him, he appealed to them with so much eloquence that few could resist it. The result of the day's sales was fifteen copies, which Bobby entered in the book account with the most intense satisfaction. He had outdone the boy who had passed through Riverdale, but he had little hope that the harvest would always be so abundant. He often thought of this boy, from whom he had obtained the idea he was now carrying out. That boy had stopped over night at the little black house, and slept with him. He had asked for lodging, and offered to pay for it, as well as for his supper and breakfast. Why couldn't he do the same? He liked the suggestion, and from that time, wherever he happened to be, he asked for lodging, or the meal he required; and he always proposed to pay for what he had, but very few would take anything. On Friday noon he had sold out. Returning to the railroad station, he found that the train would not leave for the city for an hour; so he improved the time in examining and balancing his accounts. The book sales amounted to just fifty dollars, and, after his ticket to Boston was paid for, his expenses would amount to one dollar and fifty cents, leaving a balance in his favor of fifteen dollars. He was overjoyed with the result, and pictured the astonishment with which his mother, Squire Lee, and Annie would listen to the history of his excursion. After four o'clock that afternoon he entered the store of Mr. Bayard, bag and baggage. On his arrival in the city, he was considerably exercised in mind to know how he should get the trunk to his destination. He was too economical to pay a cartman a quarter; but what would have seemed mean in a man was praiseworthy in a boy laboring for a noble end. Probably a great many of my young readers in Bobby's position, thinking that sixteen dollars, which our hero had in his pocket, was a mint of money, would have been in favor of being a little magnificent,--of taking a carriage and going up-town in state. Bobby had not the least desire to "swell;" so he settled the matter by bargaining with a little ragged fellow to help him carry the trunk to Mr. Bayard's store for fourpence. "How do you do, Mr. Timmins?" said Bobby to the spruce clerk, as he deposited the trunk upon the floor, and handed the ragged boy the fourpence. "Ah, Bobby!" exclaimed Mr. Timmins. "Have you sold out?" "All clean. Is Mr. Bayard in?" "In the office. But how do you like it?" "First rate." "Well, every one to his taste; but I don't see how any one who has any regard for his dignity can stick himself into everybody's house. I couldn't do it, I know." "I don't stand for the dignity." "Ah, well, there is a difference in folks." "That's a fact," replied Bobby, as he hurried to the office of Mr. Bayard, leaving Mr. Timmins to sun himself in his own dignity. The bookseller was surprised to see him so soon, but he gave him a cordial reception. "I didn't expect you yet," said he. "Why do you come back? Have you got sick of the business?" "Sick of it! No, sir." "What have you come back for, then?" "Sold out, sir." "Sold out! You have done well!" "Better than I expected." "I had no idea of seeing you till to-morrow night; and I thought you would have books enough to begin the next week with. You have done bravely." "If I had had twenty more, I could have sold them before to-morrow night. Now, sir, if you please, I will pay you for those books--thirty-three dollars and fifty cents." "You had better keep that, Bobby. I will trust you as long as you wish." "If you please, sir, I had rather pay it;" and the little merchant, as proud as a lord, handed over the amount. "I like your way of doing business, Bobby. Nothing helps a man's credit so much as paying promptly. Now tell me some of your adventures--or we will reserve them till this evening, for I am sure Ellen will be delighted to hear them." "I think I shall go to Riverdale this afternoon. The cars leave at half past five." "Very well; you have an hour to spare." Bobby related to his kind friend the incidents of his excursion, including his interview with Colonel Whiting and his niece, which amused the bookseller very much. He volunteered some good advice, which Bobby received in the right spirit, and with a determination to profit by it. At half past five he took the cars for home, and before dark was folded in his mother's arms. The little black house seemed doubly dear to him now that he had been away from it a few days. His mother and all the children were so glad to see him that it seemed almost worth his while to go away for the pleasure of meeting them on his return. CHAPTER XII IN WHICH BOBBY ASTONISHES SUNDRY PERSONS AND PAYS PART OF HIS NOTE "Now tell me, Bobby, how you have made out," said Mrs. Bright, as the little merchant seated himself at the supper table. "You cannot have done much, for you have only been gone five days." "I have done pretty well, mother," replied Bobby, mysteriously; "pretty well, considering that I am only a boy." "I didn't expect to see you till to-morrow night." "I sold out, and had to come home." "That may be, and still you may not have done much." "I don't pretend that I have done much." "How provoking you are! Why don't you tell me, Bobby, what you have done?" "Wait a minute, mother, till I have done my supper, and then I will show you the footings in my ledger." "Your ledger!" "Yes, my ledger. I keep a ledger now." "You are a great man, Mr. Robert Bright," laughed his mother. "I suppose the people took their hats off when they saw you coming." "Not exactly, mother." "Perhaps the governor came out to meet you when he heard you were on the road." "Perhaps he did; I didn't see him, however. This apple pie tastes natural, mother. It is a great luxury to get home after one has been travelling." "Very likely." "No place like home, after all is done and said. Who was the fellow that wrote that song, mother?" "I forget; the paper said he spent a great many years in foreign parts. My sake! Bobby, one would think by your talk that you had been away from home for a year." "It seems like a year," said he, as he transferred another quarter of the famous apple pie to his plate. "I miss home very much. I don't more than half like being among strangers so much." "It is your own choice; no one wants you to go away from home." "I must pay my debts, anyhow. Don't I owe Squire Lee sixty dollars?" "But I can pay that." "It is my affair, you see." "If it is your affair, then I owe you sixty dollars." "No, you don't; I calculate to pay my board now. I am old enough and big enough to do something." "You have done something ever since you were old enough to work." "Not much; I don't wonder that miserable old hunker of a Hardhand twitted me about it. By the way, have you heard anything from him?" "Not a thing." "He has got enough of us, I reckon." "You mustn't insult him, Bobby, if you happen to see him." "Never fear me." "You know the Bible says we must love our enemies, and pray for them that despitefully use us and persecute us." "I should pray that the Old Nick might get him." "No, Bobby; I hope you haven't forgot all your Sunday school lessons." "I was wrong, mother," replied Bobby, a little moved. "I did not mean so. I shall try to think as well of him as I can; but I can't help thinking, if all the world was like him, what a desperate hard time we should have of it." "We must thank the Lord that he has given us so many good and true men." "Such as Squire Lee, for instance," added Bobby, as he rose from the table and put his chair back against the wall. "The squire is fit to be a king; and though I believe in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, I wouldn't mind seeing a crown upon his head." "He will receive his crown in due time," replied Mrs. Bright, piously. "The squire?" "The crown of rejoicing, I mean." "Just so; the squire is a nice man; and I know another just like him." "Who?" "Mr. Bayard; they are as near alike as two peas." "I am dying to know about your journey." "Wait a minute, mother, till we clear away the supper things;" and Bobby took hold, as he had been accustomed, to help remove and wash the dishes. "You needn't help now, Bobby." "Yes, I will, mother." Somehow our hero's visit to the city did not seem to produce the usual effect upon him; for a great many boys, after they had been abroad, would have scorned to wash dishes and wipe them. A week in town has made many a boy so smart that you couldn't touch him with a ten foot pole. It starches them up so stiff that sometimes they don't know their own mothers, and deem it a piece of condescension to speak a word to the patriarch in a blue frock who had the honor of supporting them in childhood. Bobby was none of this sort. We lament that he had a habit of talking big, that is, of talking about business affairs in a style a little beyond his years. But he was modest to a fault, paradoxical as it may seem. He was always blushing when anybody spoke a pretty thing about him. Probably the circumstances of his position elevated him above the sphere of the mere boy; he had spent but little time in play, and his attention had been directed at all times to the wants of his mother. He had thought a great deal about business, especially since the visit of the boy who sold books to the little black house. Some boys are born merchants, and from their earliest youth have a genius for trade. They think of little else. They "play shop" before they wear jackets, and drive a barter trade in jackknives, whistles, tops, and fishing lines long before they get into their teens. They are shrewd even then, and obtain a taste for commerce before they are old enough to know the meaning of the word. We saw a boy in school, not long since, give the value of eighteen cents for a little stunted quince; boys have a taste for raw quinces, strange as it may seem. Undoubtedly he had no talent for trade, and would make a very indifferent tin pedler. Our hero was shrewd. He always got the best end of the bargain; though, I am happy to say, his integrity was too unyielding to let him cheat his fellows. We have made this digression so that my young readers may know why Bobby was so much given to big talk. The desire to do something worthy of a good son turned his attention to matters above his sphere; and thinking of great things, he had come to talk great things. It was not a bad fault, after all. Boys need not necessarily be frivolous. Play is a good thing, an excellent thing, in its place, and is as much a part of the boy's education as his grammar and arithmetic. It not only develops his muscles, but enlarges his mental capacity; it not only fills with excitement the idle hours of the long day, but it sharpens the judgment, and helps to fit the boy for the active duties of life. It need not be supposed, because Bobby had to turn his attention to serious things, that he was not fond of fun; that he could not or did not play. At a game of round ball, he was a lucky fellow who secured him upon his side; for the same energy which made him a useful son rendered him a desirable hand in a difficult game. When the supper things were all removed, the dishes washed and put away, Bobby drew out his pocket memorandum book. It was a beautiful article, and Mrs. Bright was duly astonished at its gilded leaves and the elegant workmanship. Very likely her first impulse was to reprove her son for such a piece of reckless extravagance; but this matter was set right by Bobby's informing her how it came into his possession. "Here is my ledger, mother," he said, handing her the book. Mrs. Bright put on her spectacles, and after bestowing a careful scrutiny upon the memorandum book, turned to the accounts. "Fifty books!" she exclaimed, as she read the first entry. "Yes, mother; and I sold them all." "Fifty dollars!" "But I had to pay for the books out of that." "To be sure you had; but I suppose you made as much as ten cents apiece on them, and that would be--let me see; ten times fifty----" "But I made more than that, I hope." "How much?" The proud young merchant referred her to the profit and loss account, which exhibited a balance of fifteen dollars. "Gracious! Three dollars a day!" "Just so, mother. Now I will pay you the dollar I borrowed of you when I went away." "You didn't borrow it of me." "But I shall pay it." Mrs. Bright was astonished at this unexpected and gratifying result. If she had discovered a gold mine in the cellar of the little black house, it could not have afforded her so much satisfaction; for this money was the reward of her son's talent and energy. Her own earnings scarcely ever amounted to more than three or four dollars a week, and Bobby, a boy of thirteen, had come home with fifteen for five days' work. She could scarcely believe the evidence of her own senses, and she ceased to wonder that he talked big. It was nearly ten o'clock when the widow and her son went to bed, so deeply were they interested in discussing our hero's affairs. He had intended to call upon Squire Lee that night, but the time passed away so rapidly that he was obliged to defer it till the next day. After breakfast the following morning, he hastened to pay the intended visit. There was a tumult of strange emotions in his bosom as he knocked at the squire's door. He was proud of the success he had achieved, and even then his cheek burned under the anticipated commendations which his generous friend would bestow upon him. Besides, Annie would be glad to see him, for she had expressed such a desire when they parted on the Monday preceding. I don't think that Bobby cherished any silly ideas, but the sympathy of the little maiden fell not coldly or unwelcomely upon his warm heart. In coming from the house he had placed his copy of "The Wayfarer" under his arm, for Annie was fond of reading; and on the way over, he had pictured to himself the pleasure she would derive from reading _his_ book. Of course he received a warm welcome from the squire and his daughter. Each of them had bestowed more than a thought upon the little wanderer as he went from house to house, and more than once they had conversed together about him. "Well, Bobby, how is trade in the book line?" asked the squire, after the young pilgrim had been cordially greeted. "Pretty fair," replied Bobby, with as much indifference as he could command, though it was hard even to seem indifferent then and there. "Where have you been travelling?" "In B----." "Fine place. Books sell well there?" "Very well; in fact, I sold out all my stock by noon yesterday." "How many books did you carry?" "Fifty." "You did well." "I should think you did!" added Annie, with an enthusiasm which quite upset all Bobby's assumed indifference. "Fifty books!" "Yes, Miss Annie; and I have brought you a copy of the book I have been selling; I thought you would like to read it. It is a splendid work, and will be _the_ book of the season." "I shall be delighted to read it," replied Annie, taking the proffered volume. "It looks real good," she continued, as she turned over the leaves. "It is first rate; I have read it through." "It was very kind of you to think of me when you have so much business on your mind," added she, with a roguish smile. "I shall never have so much business on my mind that I cannot think of my friends," replied Bobby, so gallantly and so smartly that it astonished himself. "I was just thinking what I should read next; I am _so_ glad you have come." "Never mind her, Bobby; all she wanted was the book," interposed Squire Lee, laughing. "Now, pa!" "Then I shall bring her one very often." "You are too bad, pa," said Annie, who, like most young ladies just entering their teens, resented any imputation upon the immaculateness of human love, or human friendship. "I have got a little money for you, Squire Lee," continued Bobby, thinking it time the subject was changed. He took out his gilded memorandum book, whose elegant appearance rather startled the squire, and from its "treasury department" extracted the little roll of bills, representing an aggregate of ten dollars, which he had carefully reserved for his creditor. "Never mind that, Bobby," replied the squire. "You will want all your capital to do business with." "I must pay my debts before I think of anything else." "A very good plan, Bobby, but this is an exception to the general rule." "No, sir, I think not. If you please, I insist upon paying you ten dollars on my note." "O, well, if you insist, I suppose I can't help myself." "I would rather pay it, I shall feel so much better." "You want to indorse it on the note, I suppose." That was just what Bobby wanted. Indorsed on the note was the idea, and our hero had often passed that expression through his mind. There was something gratifying in the act to a man of business integrity like himself; it was discharging a sacred obligation,--he had already come to deem it a sacred duty to pay one's debts,--and as the squire wrote the indorsement across the back of the note, he felt more like a hero than ever before. "'Pay as you go' is an excellent idea; John Randolph called it the philosopher's stone," added Squire Lee, as he returned the note to his pocket book. "That is what I mean to do just as soon as I can." "You will do, Bobby." The young merchant spent nearly the whole forenoon at the squire's, and declined an invitation to dinner only on the plea that his mother would wait for him. CHAPTER XIII IN WHICH BOBBY DECLINES A COPARTNERSHIP AND VISITS B---- AGAIN After dinner Bobby performed his Saturday afternoon chores as usual. He split wood enough to last for a week, so that his mother might not miss him too much, and then, feeling a desire to visit his favorite resorts in the vicinity, he concluded to go a fishing. The day was favorable, the sky being overcast and the wind very light. After digging a little box of worms in the garden back of the house, he shouldered his fish pole; and certainly no one would have suspected that he was a distinguished travelling merchant. He was fond of fishing, and it is a remarkable coincidence that Daniel Webster, and many other famous men, have manifested a decided passion for this exciting sport. No doubt a fondness for angling is a peculiarity of genius; and if being an expert fisherman makes a great man, then our hero was a great man. He had scarcely seated himself on his favorite rock, and dropped his line into the water, before he saw Tom Spicer approaching the spot. The bully had never been a welcome companion. There was no sympathy between them. They could never agree, for their views, opinions, and tastes were always conflicting. Bobby had not seen Tom since he left him to crawl out of the ditch on the preceding week, and he had good reason to believe that he should not be regarded with much favor. Tom was malicious and revengeful, and our hero was satisfied that the blow which had prostrated him in the ditch would not be forgotten till it had been atoned for. He was prepared, therefore, for any disagreeable scene which might occur. There was another circumstance also which rendered the bully's presence decidedly unpleasant at this time,--an event that had occurred during his absence, the particulars of which he had received from his mother. Tom's father, who was a poor man, and addicted to intemperance, had lost ten dollars. He had brought it home, and, as he affirmed, placed it in one of the bureau drawers. The next day it could not be found. Spicer, for some reason, was satisfied that Tom had taken it; but the boy stoutly and persistently denied it. No money was found upon him, however, and it did not appear that he had spent any at the stores in Riverdale Centre. The affair created some excitement in the vicinity, for Spicer made no secret of his suspicions, and publicly accused Tom of the theft. He did not get much sympathy from any except his pot companions; for there was no evidence but his bare and unsupported statement to substantiate the grave accusation. Tom had been in the room when the money was placed in the drawer, and, as his father asserted, had watched him closely, while he deposited the bills under the clothing. No one else could have taken it. These were the proofs. But people generally believed that Spicer had carried no money home, especially as it was known that he was intoxicated on the night in question; and that the alleged theft was only a ruse to satisfy certain importunate creditors. Everybody knew that Tom was bad enough to steal, even from his father; from which my readers can understand that it is an excellent thing to have a good reputation. Bobby knew that he would lie and use profane language; that he spent his Sundays by the river, or in roaming through the woods; and that he played truant from school as often as the fear of the rod would permit; and the boy that would do all these things certainly would steal if he got a good chance. Our hero's judgment, therefore, of the case was not favorable to the bully, and he would have thanked him to stay away from the river while he was there. "Hallo, Bob! How are you?" shouted Tom, when he had come within hailing distance. "Very well," replied Bobby, rather coolly. "Been to Boston, they say." "Yes." "Well, how did you like it?" continued Tom, as he seated himself on the rock near our hero. "First rate." "Been to work there?" "No." "What have you been doing?" "Travelling about." "What doing?" "Selling books." "Was you, though? Did you sell any?" "Yes, a few." "How many?" "O, about fifty." "You didn't, though--did you? How much did you make?" "About fifteen dollars." "By jolly! You are a smart one, Bobby. There are not many fellows that would have done that." "Easy enough," replied Bobby, who was not a little surprised at this warm commendation from one whom he regarded as his enemy. "You had to buy the books first--didn't you?" asked Tom, who began to manifest a deep interest in the trade. "Of course; no one will give you the books." "What do you pay for them?" "I buy them so as to make a profit on them," answered Bobby, who, like a discreet merchant, was not disposed to be too communicative. "That business would suit me first rate." "It is pretty hard work." "I don't care for that. Don't you believe I could do something in this line?" "I don't know; perhaps you could." "Why not, as well as you?" This was a hard question; and, as Bobby did not wish to be uncivil, he talked about a big pout he hauled in at that moment, instead of answering it. He was politic, and deprecated the anger of the bully; so, though Tom plied him pretty hard, he did not receive much satisfaction. "You see, Tom," said he, when he found that his companion insisted upon knowing the cost of the books, "this is a publisher's secret; and I dare say they would not wish every one to know the cost of books. We sell them for a dollar apiece." "Humph! You needn't be so close about it. I'll bet I can find out." "I have no doubt you can; only, you see, I don't want to tell what I am not sure they would be willing I should tell." Tom took a slate pencil from his pocket, and commenced ciphering on the smooth rock upon which he sat. "You say you sold fifty books?" "Yes." "Well; if you made fifteen dollars out of fifty, that is thirty cents apiece." Bobby was a little mortified when he perceived that he had unwittingly exposed the momentous secret. He had not given Tom credit for so much sagacity as he had displayed in his inquiries; and as he had fairly reached his conclusion, he was willing he should have the benefit of it. "You sold them at a dollar apiece. Thirty from a hundred leaves seventy. They cost you seventy cents each--didn't they?" "Sixty-seven," replied Bobby, yielding the point. "Enough said, Bob; I am going into that business, anyhow." "I am willing." "Of course you are; suppose we go together," suggested Tom, who had not used all this conciliation without having a purpose in view. "We could do nothing together." "I should like to get out with you just once, only to see how it is done." "You can find out for yourself, as I did." "Don't be mean, Bob." "Mean? I am not mean." "I don't say you are. We have always been good friends, you know." Bobby did not know it; so he looked at the other with a smile which expressed all he meant to say. "You hit me a smart dig the other day, I know; but I don't mind that. I was in the wrong then, and I am willing to own it," continued Tom, with an appearance of humility. This was an immense concession for Tom to make, and Bobby was duly affected by it. Probably it was the first time the bully had ever owned he was in the wrong. "The fact is, Bob, I always liked you; and you know I licked Ben Dowse for you." "That was two for yourself and one for me; besides, I didn't want Ben thrashed." "But he deserved it. Didn't he tell the master you were whispering in school?" "I was whispering; so he told the truth." "It was mean to blow on a fellow, though." "The master asked him if I whispered to him; of course he ought not to lie about it. But he told of you at the same time." "I know it; but I wouldn't have licked him on my own account." "_Perhaps_ you wouldn't." "I know I wouldn't. But, I say, Bobby, where do you buy your books?" "At Mr. Bayard's, in Washington Street." "He will sell them to me at the same price--won't he?" "I don't know." "When are you going again?" "Monday." "Won't you let me go with you, Bob?" "Let you? Of course you can go where you please; it is none of my business." Bobby did not like the idea of having such a copartner as Tom Spicer, and he did not like to tell him so. If he did, he would have to give his reasons for declining the proposition, and that would make Tom mad, and perhaps provoke him to quarrel. The fish bit well, and in an hour's time Bobby had a mess. As he took his basket and walked home, the young ruffian followed him. He could not get rid of him till he reached the gate in front of the little black house; and even there Tom begged him to stop a few moments. Our hero was in a hurry, and in the easiest manner possible got rid of this aspirant for mercantile honors. We have no doubt a journal of Bobby's daily life would be very interesting to our young readers; but the fact that some of his most stirring adventures are yet to be related admonishes us to hasten forward more rapidly. On Monday morning Bobby bade adieu to his mother again, and started for Boston. He fully expected to encounter Tom on the way, who, he was afraid, would persist in accompanying him on his tour. As before, he stopped at Squire Lee's to bid him and Annie good by. The little maiden had read "The Wayfarer" more than half through, and was very enthusiastic in her expression of the pleasure she derived from it. She promised to send it over to his house when she had finished it, and hoped he would bring his stock to Riverdale, so that she might again replenish her library. Bobby thought of something just then, and the thought brought forth a harvest on the following Saturday, when he returned. When he had shaken hands with the squire and was about to depart, he received a piece of news which gave him food for an hour's serious reflection. "Did you hear about Tom Spicer?" asked Squire Lee. "No, sir; what about him?" "Broken his arm." "Broken his arm! Gracious! How did it happen?" exclaimed Bobby, the more astonished because he had been thinking of Tom since he had left home. "He was out in the woods yesterday, where boys should not be on Sundays, and, in climbing a tree after a bird's nest, he fell to the ground." "I am sorry for him," replied Bobby, musing. "So am I; but if he had been at home, or at church, where he should have been, it would not have happened. If I had any boys, I would lock them up in their chambers if I could not keep them at home Sundays." "Poor Tom!" mused Bobby, recalling the conversation he had had with him on Saturday, and then wishing that he had been a little more pliant with him. "It is too bad; but I must say I am more sorry for his poor mother than I am for him," added the squire. "However, I hope it will do him good, and be a lesson he will remember as long as he lives." Bobby bade the squire and Annie adieu again, resumed his journey towards the railroad station. His thoughts were busy with Tom Spicer's case. The reason why he had not joined him, as he expected and feared he would, was now apparent. He pitied him, for he realized that he must endure a great deal of pain before he could again go out; but he finally dismissed the matter with the squire's sage reflection, that he hoped the calamity would be a good lesson to him. The young merchant did not walk to Boston this time, for he had come to the conclusion that, in the six hours it would take him to travel to the city on foot, the profit on the books he could sell would be more than enough to pay his fare, to say nothing of the fatigue and the expense of shoe leather. Before noon he was at B---- again, as busy as ever in driving his business. The experience of the former week was of great value to him. He visited people belonging to all spheres in society, and, though he was occasionally repulsed or treated with incivility, he was not conscious in a single instance of offending any person's sense of propriety. He was not as fortunate as during the previous week, and it was Saturday noon before he had sold out the sixty books he carried with him. The net profit for this week was fourteen dollars, with which he was abundantly pleased. Mr. Bayard again commended him in the warmest terms for his zeal and promptness. Mr. Timmins was even more civil than the last time, and when Bobby asked the price of Moore's Poems, he actually offered to sell it to him for thirty-three per cent less than the retail price. The little merchant was on the point of purchasing it, when Mr. Bayard inquired what he wanted. "I am going to buy this book," replied Bobby. "Moore's Poems?" "Yes, sir." Mr. Bayard took from a glass case an elegantly bound copy of the same work--morocco, full gilt--and handed it to our hero. "I shall make you a present of this. Are you an admirer of Moore?" "No, sir; not exactly--that is, I don't know much about it; but Annie Lee does, and I want to get the book for her." Bobby's cheeks reddened as he turned the leaves of the beautiful volume, putting his head down to the page to hide his confusion. "Annie Lee?" said Mr. Bayard with a quizzing smile. "I see how it is. Rather young, Bobby." "Her father has been very good to me and to my mother; and so has Annie, for that matter. Squire Lee would be a great deal more pleased if I should make Annie a present than if I made him one. I feel grateful to him, and I want to let it out somehow." "That's right, Bobby; always remember your friends. Timmins, wrap up this book." Bobby protested with all his might; but the bookseller insisted that he should give Annie this beautiful edition, and he was obliged to yield the point. That evening he was at the little black house again, and his mother examined his ledger with a great deal of pride and satisfaction. That evening, too, another ten dollars was indorsed on the note, and Annie received that elegant copy of Moore's Poems. CHAPTER XIV IN WHICH BOBBY'S AIR CASTLE IS UPSET AND TOM SPICER TAKES TO THE WOODS During the next four weeks Bobby visited various places in the vicinity of Boston; and at the end of that time he had paid the whole of the debt he owed Squire Lee. He had the note in his memorandum book, and the fact that he had achieved his first great purpose afforded him much satisfaction. Now he owed no man anything, and he felt as though he could hold up his head among the best people in the world. The little black house was paid for, and Bobby was proud that his own exertions had released his mother from her obligation to her hard creditor. Mr. Hardhand could no longer insult and abuse her. The apparent results which Bobby had accomplished, however, were as nothing compared with the real results. He had developed those energies of character which were to make him, not only a great business man, but a useful member of society. Besides, there was a moral grandeur in his humble achievements which was more worthy of consideration than the mere worldly success he had obtained. Motives determine the character of deeds. That a boy of thirteen should display so much enterprise and energy was a great thing; but that it should be displayed from pure, unselfish devotion to his mother was a vastly greater thing. Many great achievements are morally insignificant, while many of which the world never hears mark the true hero. Our hero was not satisfied with what he had done, and far from relinquishing his interesting and profitable employment, his ambition suggested new and wider fields of success. As one ideal, brilliant and glorious in its time, was reached, another more brilliant and more glorious presented itself, and demanded to be achieved. The little black house began to appear rusty and inconvenient; a coat of white paint would marvellously improve its appearance; a set of nice Paris-green blinds would make a palace of it; and a neat fence around it would positively transform the place into a paradise. Yet Bobby was audacious enough to think of these things, and even to promise himself that they should be obtained. In conversation with Mr. Bayard a few days before, that gentleman had suggested a new field of labor; and it had been arranged that Bobby should visit the State of Maine the following week. On the banks of the Kennebec were many wealthy and important towns, where the intelligence of the people created a demand for books. This time the little merchant was to take two hundred books, and be absent until they were all sold. On Monday morning he started bright and early for the railroad station. As usual, he called upon Squire Lee, and informed Annie that he should probably be absent three or four weeks. She hoped no accident would happen to him, and that his journey would be crowned with success. Without being sentimental, she was a little sad, for Bobby was a great friend of hers. That elegant copy of Moore's Poems had been gratefully received, and she was so fond of the bard's beautiful and touching melodies that she could never read any of them without thinking of the brave little fellow who had given her the volume; which no one will consider very remarkable, even in a little miss of twelve. After he had bidden her and her father adieu, he resumed his journey. Of course he was thinking with all his might; but no one need suppose he was wondering how wide the Kennebec River was, or how many books he should sell in the towns upon its banks. Nothing of the kind; though it is enough even for the inquisitive to know that he was thinking of something, and that his thoughts were very interesting, not to say romantic. "Hallo, Bob!" shouted some one from the road side. Bobby was provoked; for it is sometimes very uncomfortable to have a pleasant train of thought interrupted. The imagination is buoyant, ethereal, and elevates poor mortals up to the stars sometimes. It was so with Bobby. He was building up some kind of an air castle, and had got up in the clouds amidst the fog and moonshine, and that aggravating voice brought him down, _slap_, upon terra firma. He looked up and saw Tom Spicer seated upon the fence. In his hand he held a bundle, and had evidently been waiting some time for Bobby's coming. He had recovered from the illness caused by his broken arm, and people said it had been a good lesson for him, as the squire hoped it would be. Bobby had called upon him two or three times during his confinement to the house; and Tom, either truly repentant for his past errors, or lacking the opportunity at that time to manifest his evil propensities, had stoutly protested that he had "turned over a new leaf," and meant to keep out of the woods on Sunday, stop lying and swearing, and become a good boy. Bobby commended his good resolutions, and told him he would never want friends while he was true to himself. The right side, he declared, was always the best side. He quoted several instances of men, whose lives he had read in his Sunday school books, to show how happy a good man may be in prison, or when all the world seemed to forsake him. Tom assured him that he meant to reform and be a good boy; and Bobby told him that when any one meant to turn over a new leaf, it was "now or never." If he put it off, he would only grow worse, and the longer the good work was delayed, the more difficult it would be to do it. Tom agreed to all this, and was sure he had reformed. For these reasons Bobby had come to regard Tom with a feeling of deep interest. He considered him as, in some measure, his disciple, and he felt a personal responsibility in encouraging him to persevere in his good work. Nevertheless Bobby was not exactly pleased to have his fine air castle upset, and to be tipped out of the clouds upon the cold, uncompromising earth again; so the first greeting he gave Tom was not as cordial as it might have been. "Hallo, Tom!" he replied, rather coolly. "Been waiting for you this half hour." "Have you?" "Yes; ain't you rather late?" "No; I have plenty of time, though none to spare," answered Bobby; and this was a hint that he must not detain him too long. "Come along then." "Where are you going, Tom?" asked Bobby, a little surprised at these words. "To Boston." "Are you?" "I am; that's a fact. You know I spoke to you about going into the book business." "Not lately." "But I have been thinking about it all the time." "What do your father and mother say?" "O, they are all right." "Have you asked them?" "Certainly I have; they are willing I should go with _you_." "Why didn't you speak of it then?" "I thought I wouldn't say anything till the time came. You know you fought shy when I spoke about it before." And Bobby, notwithstanding the interest he felt in his companion, was a little disposed to "fight shy" now. Tom had reformed, or had pretended to do so; but he was still a raw recruit, and our hero was somewhat fearful that he would run at the first fire. To the good and true man life is a constant battle. Temptation assails him at almost every point; perils and snares beset him at every step of his mortal pilgrimage, so that every day he is called upon to gird on his armor and fight the good fight. Bobby was no poet; but he had a good idea of this every-day strife with the foes of error and sin that crossed his path. It was a practical conception, but it was truly expressed under the similitude of a battle. There was to be resistance, and he could comprehend that, for his bump of combativeness took cognizance of the suggestion. He was to fight; and that was an idea that stood him in better stead than a whole library of ethical subtilties. Judging Tom by his own standard, he was afraid he would run--that he wouldn't "stand fire." He had not been drilled. Heretofore, when temptation beset him, he had yielded without even a struggle, and fled from the field without firing a gun. To go out into the great world was a trying event for the raw recruit. He lacked, too, that prestige of success which is worth more than numbers on the field of battle. Tom had chosen for himself, and he could not send him back. He had taken up the line of march, let it lead him where it might. "March on! in legions death and sin Impatient wait thy conquering hand; The foe without, the foe within-- Thy youthful arm must both withstand." Bobby had great hopes of him. He felt that he could not well get rid of him, and he saw that it was policy for him to make the best of it. "Well, Tom, where are you going?" asked Bobby, after he had made up his mind not to object to the companionship of the other. "I don't know. You have been a good friend to me lately, and I had an idea that you would give me a lift in this business." "I should be very willing to do so; but what can I do for you?" "Just show me how the business is done; that's all I want." "Your father and mother were willing you should come--were they not?" Bobby had some doubts about this point, and with good reason too. He had called at Tom's house the day before, and they had gone to church together; but neither he nor his parents had said a word about his going to Boston. "When did they agree to it?" "Last night," replied Tom, after a moment's hesitation. "All right then; but I cannot promise you that Mr. Bayard will let you have the books." "I can fix that, I reckon," replied Tom, confidently. "I will speak a good word for you, at any rate." "That's right, Bob." "I am going down into the State of Maine this time, and shall be gone three or four weeks." "So much the better; I always wanted to go down that way." Tom asked a great many questions about the business and the method of travelling, which Bobby's superior intelligence and more extensive experience enabled him to answer to the entire satisfaction of the other. When they were within half a mile of the railroad station, they heard a carriage driven at a rapid rate approaching them from the direction of Riverdale. Tom seemed to be uneasy, and cast frequent glances behind him. In a moment the vehicle was within a short distance of them, and he stopped short in the road to scrutinize the persons in it. "By jolly!" exclaimed Tom; "my father!" "What of it?" asked Bobby, surprised by the strange behavior of his companion. Tom did not wait to reply, but springing over the fence fled like a deer towards some woods a short distance from the road. Was it possible? Tom had run away from home. His father had not consented to his going to Boston, and Bobby was mortified to find that his hopeful disciple had been lying to him ever since they left Riverdale. But he was glad the cheat had been exposed. "That was Tom with you--wasn't it?" asked Mr. Spicer, as he stopped the foaming horse. "Yes, sir; but he told me you had consented that he should go with me," replied Bobby, a little disturbed by the angry glance of Mr. Spicer's fiery eyes. "He lied! the young villain! He will catch it for this." "I would not have let him come with me only for that. I asked him twice over if you were willing, and he said you were." "You ought to have known better than to believe him," interposed the man who was with Mr. Spicer. Bobby had some reason for believing him. The fact that Tom had reformed ought to have entitled him to some consideration, and our hero gave him the full benefit of the declaration. To have explained this would have taken more time than he could spare; besides, it was "a great moral question," whose importance Mr. Spicer and his companion would not be likely to apprehend; so he made a short story of it, and resumed his walk, thankful that he had got rid of Tom. Mr. Spicer and his friend, after fastening the horse to the fence, went to the woods in search of Tom. Bobby reached the station just in time to take the cars, and in a moment was on his way to the city. CHAPTER XV IN WHICH BOBBY GETS INTO A SCRAPE, AND TOM SPICER TURNS UP AGAIN Bobby had a poorer opinion of human nature than ever before. It seemed almost incredible to him that words so fairly spoken as those of Tom Spicer could be false. He had just risen from a sick bed, where he had had an opportunity for long and serious reflection. Tom had promised fairly, and Bobby had every reason to suppose he intended to be a good boy. But his promises had been lies. He had never intended to reform, at least not since he had got off his bed of pain. He was mortified and disheartened at the failure of this attempt to restore him to himself. Like a great many older and wiser persons than himself, he was prone to judge the whole human family by a single individual. He did not come to believe that every man was a rascal, but, in more general terms, that there is a great deal more rascality in this world than one would be willing to believe. With this sage reflection, he dismissed Tom from his mind, which very naturally turned again to the air castle which had been so ruthlessly upset. Then his opinion of "the rest of mankind" was reversed; and he reflected that if the world were only peopled by angels like Annie Lee, what a pleasant place it would be to live in. She could not tell a lie, she could not use bad language, she could not steal, or do anything else that was bad; and the prospect was decidedly pleasant. It was very agreeable to turn from Tom to Annie, and in a moment his air castle was built again, and throned on clouds of gold and purple. I do not know what impossible things he imagined, or how far up in the clouds he would have gone, if the arrival of the train at the city had not interrupted his thoughts, and pitched him down upon the earth again. Bobby was not one of that impracticable class of persons who do nothing but dream; for he felt that he had a mission to perform which dreaming could not accomplish. However pleasant it may be to think of the great and brilliant things which one _will_ do, to one of Bobby's practical character it was even more pleasant to perform them. We all dream great things, imagine great things; but he who stops there does not amount to much, and the world can well spare him, for he is nothing but a drone in the hive. Bobby's fine imaginings were pretty sure to bring out a "now or never," which was the pledge of action, and the work was as good as done when he had said it. Therefore, when the train arrived, Bobby did not stop to dream any longer. He forgot his beautiful air castle, and even let Annie Lee slip from his mind for the time being. Those towns upon the Kennebec, the two hundred books he was to sell, loomed up before him, for it was with them he had to do. Grasping the little valise he carried with him, he was hastening out of the station house when a hand was placed upon his shoulder. "Got off slick--didn't I?" said Tom Spicer, placing himself by Bobby's side. "You here, Tom!" exclaimed our hero, gazing with astonishment at his late companion. It was not an agreeable encounter, and from the bottom of his heart Bobby wished him anywhere but where he was. He foresaw that he could not easily get rid of him. "I am here," replied Tom. "I ran through the woods to the depot, and got aboard the cars just as they were starting. The old man couldn't come it over me quite so slick as that." "But you ran away from home." "Well, what of it?" "A good deal, I should say." "If you had been in my place, you would have done the same." "I don't know about that; obedience to parents is one of our first duties." "I know that; and if I had had any sort of fair play, I wouldn't have run away." "What do you mean by that?" asked Bobby, somewhat surprised, though he had a faint idea of the meaning of the other. "I will tell you all about it by and by. I give you my word of honor that I will make everything satisfactory to you." "But you lied to me on the road this morning." Tom winced; under ordinary circumstances he would have resented such a remark by "clearing away" for a fight. But he had a purpose to accomplish, and he knew the character of him with whom he had to deal. "I'm sorry I did, now," answered Tom, with every manifestation of penitence for his fault. "I didn't want to lie to you; and it went against my conscience to do so. But I was afraid, if I told you my father refused, up and down, to let me go, that you wouldn't be willing I should come with you." "I shall not be any more willing now I know all about it," added Bobby, in an uncompromising tone. "Wait till you have heard my story, and then you won't blame me." "Of course you can go where you please; it is none of my business; but let me tell you, Tom, in the beginning, that I won't go with a fellow who has run away from his father and mother." "Pooh! What's the use of talking in that way?" Tom was evidently disconcerted by this decided stand of his companion. He knew that his bump of firmness was well developed, and whatever he said he meant. "You had better return home, Tom. Boys that run away from home don't often amount to much. Take my advice, and go home," added Bobby. "To such a home as mine!" said Tom, gloomily. "If I had such a home as yours, I would not have left it." Bobby got a further idea from this remark of the true state of the case, and the consideration moved him. Tom's father was a notoriously intemperate man, and the boy had nothing to hope for from his precept or his example. He was the child of a drunkard, and as much to be pitied as blamed for his vices. His home was not pleasant. He who presided over it, and who should have made a paradise of it, was its evil genius, a demon of wickedness, who blasted its flowers as fast as they bloomed. Tom had seemed truly penitent both during his illness and since his recovery. His one great desire now was to get away from home, for home to him was a place of torment. Bobby suspected all this, and in his great heart he pitied his companion. He did not know what to do. "I am sorry for you, Tom," said he, after he had considered the matter in this new light; "but I don't see what I can do for you. I doubt whether it would be right for me to help you run away from your parents." "I don't want you to help me run away. I have done that already." "But if I let you go with me, it will be just the same thing. Besides, since you told me those lies this morning, I haven't much confidence in you." "I couldn't help that." "Yes, you could. Couldn't help lying?" "What could I do? You would have gone right back and told my father." "Well, we will go up to Mr. Bayard's store, and then we will see what can be done." "I couldn't stay at home, sure," continued Tom, as they walked along together. "My father even talked of binding me out to a trade." "Did he?" Bobby stopped short in the street; for it was evident that, as this would remove him from his unhappy home, and thus effect all he professed to desire, he had some other purpose in view. "What are you stopping for, Bob?" "I think you had better go back, Tom." "Not I; I won't do that, whatever happens." "If your father will put you to a trade, what more do you want?" "I won't go to a trade, anyhow." Bobby said no more, but determined to consult with Mr. Bayard about the matter; and Tom was soon too busily engaged in observing the strange sights and sounds of the city to think of anything else. When they reached the store, Bobby went into Mr. Bayard's private office and told him all about the affair. The bookseller decided that Tom had run away more to avoid being bound to a trade than because his home was unpleasant; and this decision seemed to Bobby all the more just because he knew that Tom's mother, though a drunkard's wife, was a very good woman. Mr. Bayard further decided that Bobby ought not to permit the runaway to be the companion of his journey. He also considered it his duty to write to Mr. Spicer, informing him of his son's arrival in the city, and clearing Bobby from any agency in his escape. While Mr. Bayard was writing the letter, Bobby went out to give Tom the result of the consultation. The runaway received it with a great show of emotion, and begged and pleaded to have the decision reversed. But Bobby, though he would gladly have done anything for him which was consistent with his duty, was firm as a rock, and positively refused to have anything to do with him until he obtained his father's consent; or, if there was any such trouble as he asserted, his mother's consent. Tom left the store, apparently "more in sorrow than in anger." His bullying nature seemed to be cast out, and Bobby could not but feel sorry for him. Duty was imperative, as it always is, and it must be done "now or never." During the day the little merchant attended to the packing of his stock, and to such other preparations as were required for his journey. He must take the steamer that evening for Bath, and when the time for his departure arrived, he was attended to the wharf by Mr. Bayard and Ellen, with whom he had passed the afternoon. The bookseller assisted him in procuring his ticket and berth, and gave him such instructions as his inexperience demanded. The last bell rang, the fasts were cast off, and the great wheels of the steamer began to turn. Our hero, who had never been on the water in a steamboat, or indeed anything bigger than a punt on the river at home, was much interested and excited by his novel position. He seated himself on the promenade deck, and watched with wonder the boiling, surging waters astern of the steamer. How powerful is man, the author of that mighty machine that bore him so swiftly over the deep blue waters! Bobby was a little philosopher, as we have before had occasion to remark, and he was decidedly of the opinion that the steamboat was a great institution. When he had in some measure conquered his amazement, and the first ideas of sublimity which the steamer and the sea were calculated to excite in a poetical imagination, he walked forward to take a closer survey of the machinery. After all, there was something rather comical in the affair. The steam hissed and sputtered, and the great walking beam kept flying up and down; and the sum total of Bobby's philosophy was, that it was funny these things should make the boat go so like a race horse over the water. Then he took a look into the pilot house, and it seemed more funny that turning that big wheel should steer the boat. But the wind blew rather fresh at the forward part of the boat, and as Bobby's philosophy was not proof against it, he returned to the promenade deck, which was sheltered from the severity of the blast. He had got reconciled to the whole thing, and ceased to bother his head about the big wheel, the sputtering steam, and the walking beam; so he seated himself, and began to wonder what all the people in Riverdale were about. "All them as hasn't paid their fare, please walk up to the cap'n's office and s-e-t-t-l-e!" shouted a colored boy, presenting himself just then, and furiously ringing a large hand bell. "I have just settled," said Bobby, alluding to his comfortable seat. But the allusion was so indefinite to the colored boy that he thought himself insulted. He did not appear to be a very amiable boy, for his fist was doubled up, and with sundry big oaths, he threatened to annihilate the little merchant for his insolence. "I didn't say anything that need offend you," replied Bobby. "I meant nothing." "You lie! You did!" He was on the point of administering a blow with his fist, when a third party appeared on the ground, and without waiting to hear the merits of the case, struck the negro a blow which had nearly floored him. Some of the passengers now interfered, and the colored boy was prevented from executing vengeance on the assailant. "Strike that fellow and you strike me!" said he who had struck the blow. "Tom Spicer!" exclaimed Bobby, astonished and chagrined at the presence of the runaway. CHAPTER XVI IN WHICH BOBBY FINDS "IT IS AN ILL WIND THAT BLOWS NO ONE ANY GOOD" A gentleman, who was sitting near Bobby when he made the remark which the colored boy had misunderstood, interfered to free him from blame, and probably all unpleasant feelings might have been saved, if Tom's zeal had been properly directed. As it was, the waiter retired with his bell, vowing vengeance upon his assailant. "How came you here, Tom?" asked Bobby, when the excitement had subsided. "You don't get rid of me so easily," replied Tom, laughing. Bobby called to mind the old adage that "a bad penny is sure to return;" and, if it had not been a very uncivil remark, he would have said it. "I didn't expect to see you again at present," he observed, hardly knowing what to say or do. "I suppose not; but as I didn't mean you should expect me, I kept out of sight. Only for that darkey you wouldn't have found me out so soon. I like you, Bob, in spite of all you have done to get rid of me, and I wasn't a going to let the darkey thrash you." "You only made matters worse." "That is all the thanks I get for hitting him for you." "I am sorry you hit him; at the same time I suppose you meant to do me a service, and I thank you, not for the blow you struck the black boy, but for your good intentions." "That sounds better. I meant well, Bob." "I dare say you did. But how came you here?" "Why, you see, I was bound to go with you anyhow or at least to keep within hail of you. You told me, you know, that you were going in the steamboat; and after I left the shop, what should I see but a big picture of a steamboat on a wall. It said. 'Bath, Gardiner, and Hallowell,' on the bill; and I knew that was where you meant to go. So this afternoon I hunts round and finds the steamboat. I thought I never should have found it; but here I am." "What are you going to do?" "Going into the book business," replied Tom, with a smile. "Where are your books?" "Down stairs, in the cellar of the steamboat, or whatever you call it." "Where did you get them?" "Bought 'em, of course." "Did you? Where?" "Well, I don't remember the name of the street now. I could go right there if I was in the city, though." "Would they trust you?" Tom hesitated. The lies he had told that morning had done him no good--had rather injured his cause; and, though he had no principle that forbade lying, he questioned its policy in the present instance. "I paid part down, and they trusted me part." "How many books you got?" "Twenty dollars' worth. I paid eight dollars down." "You did? Where did you get the eight dollars?" Bobby remembered the money Tom's father had lost several weeks before, and immediately connected that circumstance with his present ability to pay so large a sum. Tom hesitated again, but he was never at a loss for an answer. "My mother gave it to me." "Your mother?" "Yes, _sir_!" replied Tom, boldly, and in that peculiarly bluff manner which is almost always good evidence that the boy is lying. "But you ran away from home." "That's so; but my mother knew I was coming." "Did she?" "To be sure she did." "You didn't say so before." "I can't tell all I know in a minute." "If I thought your mother consented to your coming, I wouldn't say another word." "Well, she did; you may bet your life on that." "And your mother gave you ten dollars?" "Who said she gave me _ten_ dollars?" asked Tom, a little sharply. That was just the sum his father had lost, and Bobby had unwittingly hinted his suspicion. "You must have had as much as that if you paid eight on your books. Your fare to Boston and your steamboat fare must be two dollars more." "I know that; but look here, Bob;" and Tom took from his pocket five half dollars and exhibited them to his companion. "She gave me thirteen dollars." Notwithstanding this argument, Bobby felt almost sure that the lost ten dollars was a part of his capital. "I will tell you my story now, Bob, if you like. You condemned me without a hearing, as Jim Guthrie said when they sent him to the House of Correction for getting drunk." "Go ahead." The substance of Tom's story was, that his father drank so hard, and was such a tyrant in the house, that he could endure it no longer. His father and mother did not agree, as any one might have suspected. His mother, encouraged by the success of Bobby, thought that Tom might do something of the kind, and she had provided him the money to buy his stock of books. Bobby had not much confidence in this story. He had been deceived once; besides, it was not consistent with his previous narrative, and he had not before hinted that he had obtained his mother's consent. But Tom was eloquent, and protested that he had reformed, and meant to do well. He declared, by all that was good and great, Bobby should never have reason to be ashamed of him. Our little merchant was troubled. He could not now get rid of Tom without actually quarrelling with him, or running away from him. He did not wish to do the former, and it was not an easy matter to do the latter. Besides, there was hope that the runaway would do well; and if he did, when he carried the profits of his trade home, his father would forgive him. One thing was certain; if he returned to Riverdale he would be what he had been before. For these reasons Bobby finally, but very reluctantly, consented that Tom should remain with him, resolving, however, that, if he did not behave himself, he would leave him at once. Before morning he had another reason. When the steamer got out into the open bay, Bobby was seasick. He retired to his berth with a dreadful headache; as he described it afterwards, it seemed just as though that great walking beam was smashing up and down right in the midst of his brains. He had never felt so ill before in his life, and was very sure, in his inexperience, that something worse than mere seasickness ailed him. He told Tom, who was not in the least affected, how he felt; whereupon the runaway blustered round, got the steward and the captain into the cabin, and was very sure that Bobby would die before morning, if we may judge by the fuss he made. The captain was angry at being called from the pilot house for nothing, and threatened to throw Tom overboard if he didn't stop his noise. The steward, however, was a kind-hearted man, and assured Bobby that passengers were often a great deal sicker than he was; but he promised to do something for his relief, and Tom went with him to his state room for the desired remedy. The potion was nothing more nor less than a table spoonful of brandy, which Bobby, who had conscientious scruples about drinking ardent spirits, at first refused to take. Then Tom argued the point, and the sick boy yielded. The dose made him sicker yet, and nature came to his relief, and in a little while he felt better. Tom behaved like a good nurse; he staid by his friend till he went to sleep, and then "turned in" upon a settee beneath his berth. The boat pitched and tumbled about so in the heavy sea that Bobby did not sleep long, and when he woke he found Tom ready to assist him. But our hero felt better, and entreated Tom to go to sleep again. He made the best of his unpleasant situation. Sleep was not to be wooed, and he tried to pass away the dreary hours in thinking of Riverdale and the dear ones there. His mother was asleep, and Annie was asleep; that was about all the excitement he could get up even on the home question. He could not build castles in the air, for seasickness and castle building do not agree. The gold and purple clouds would be black in spite of him, and the aerial structure he essayed to build would pitch and tumble about, for all the world, just like a steamboat in a heavy sea. As often as he got fairly into it, he was violently rolled out, and in a twinkling found himself in his narrow berth, awfully seasick. He went to sleep again at last, and the long night passed away. When he woke in the morning, he felt tolerably well, and was thankful that he had got out of that scrape. But before he could dress himself, he heard a terrible racket on deck. The steam whistle was shrieking, the bell was banging, and he heard the hoarse bellowing of the captain. It was certain that something had happened, or was about to happen. Then the boat stopped, rolling heavily in the sea. Tom was not there; he had gone on deck. Bobby was beginning to consider what a dreadful thing a wreck was, when Tom appeared. "What's the matter?" asked Bobby, with some appearance of alarm. "Fog," replied Tom. "It is so thick you can cut it with a hatchet." "Is that all?" "That's enough." "Where are we?" "That is just what the pilot would like to know. They can't see ahead a bit, and don't know where we are." Bobby went on deck. The ocean rolled beneath them, but there was nothing but fog to be seen above and around them. The lead was heaved every few moments, and the steamer crept slowly along till it was found the water shoaled rapidly, when the captain ordered the men to let go the anchor. There they were; the fog was as obstinate as a mule, and would not "lift." Hour after hour they waited, for the captain was a prudent man, and would not risk the life of those on board to save a few hours' time. After breakfast, the passengers began to display their uneasiness, and some of them called the captain very hard names, because he would not go on. Almost everybody grumbled, and made themselves miserable. "Nothing to do and nothing to read," growled a nicely-dressed gentleman, as he yawned and stretched himself to manifest his sensation of _ennui_. "Nothing to read, eh?" thought Bobby. "We will soon supply that want." Calling Tom, they went down to the main deck where the baggage had been placed. "Now's our time," said he, as he proceeded to unlock one of the trunks that contained his books. "Now or never." "I am with you," replied Tom, catching the idea. The books of the latter were in a box, and he was obliged to get a hammer to open it; but with Bobby's assistance he soon got at them. "Buy 'The Wayfarer,'" said Bobby, when he returned to the saloon, and placed a volume in the hands of the yawning gentleman. "Best book of the season; only one dollar." "That I will, and glad of the chance," replied the gentleman. "I would give five dollars for anything, if it were only the 'Comic Almanac.'" Others were of the same mind. There was no present prospect that the fog would lift, and before dinner time our merchant had sold fifty copies of "The Wayfarer." Tom, whose books were of an inferior description, and who was inexperienced as a salesman, disposed of twenty, which was more than half of his stock. The fog was a godsend to both of them, and they reaped a rich harvest from the occasion, for almost all the passengers seemed willing to spend their money freely for the means of occupying the heavy hours and driving away that dreadful _ennui_ which reigns supreme in a fog-bound steamer. About the middle of the afternoon, the fog blew over, and the boat proceeded on her voyage, and before sunset our young merchants were safely landed at Bath. CHAPTER XVII IN WHICH TOM HAS A GOOD TIME, AND BOBBY MEETS WITH A TERRIBLE MISFORTUNE Bath afforded our young merchants an excellent market for their wares, and they remained there the rest of the week. They then proceeded to Brunswick, where their success was equally flattering. Thus far Tom had done very well, though Bobby had frequent occasion to remind him of the pledges he had given to conduct himself in a proper manner. He would swear now and then, from the force of habit; but invariably, when Bobby checked him, he promised to do better. At Brunswick Tom sold the last of his books, and was in possession of about thirty dollars, twelve of which he owed the publisher who had furnished his stock. This money seemed to burn in his pocket. He had the means of having a good time, and it went hard with him to plod along as Bobby did, careful to save every penny he could. "Come, Bob, let's get a horse and chaise and have a ride--what do you say?" proposed Tom, on the day he finished selling his books. "I can't spare the time or the money," replied Bobby, decidedly. "What is the use of having money if we can't spend it? It is a first rate day, and we should have a good time." "I can't afford it. I have a great many books to sell." "About a hundred; you can sell them fast enough." "I don't spend my money foolishly." "It wouldn't be foolishly. I have sold out, and I am bound to have a little fun now." "You never will succeed if you do business in that way." "Why not?" "You will spend your money as fast as you get it." "Pooh! we can get a horse and chaise for the afternoon for two dollars. That is not much." "Considerable, I should say. But if you begin, there is no knowing where to leave off. I make it a rule not to spend a single cent foolishly, and if I don't begin, I shall never do it." "I don't mean to spend all I get; only a little now and then," persisted Tom. "Don't spend the first dollar for nonsense, and then you won't spend the second. Besides, when I have any money to spare, I mean to buy books with it for my library." "Humbug! Your library!" "Yes, my library; I mean to have a library one of these days." "I don't want any library, and I mean to spend some of my money in having a good time; and if you won't go with me, I shall go alone--that's all." "You can do as you please, of course; but I advise you to keep your money. You will want it to buy another stock of books." "I shall have enough for that. What do you say? will you go with me or not?" "No, I will not." "Enough said; then I shall go alone, or get some fellow to go with me." "Consider well before you go," pleaded Bobby, who had sense enough to see that Tom's proposed "good time" would put back, if not entirely prevent, the reform he was working out. He then proceeded to reason with him in a very earnest and feeling manner, telling him he would not only spend all his money, but completely unfit himself for business. What he proposed to do was nothing more nor less than extravagance, and it would lead him to dissipation and ruin. "To-day I am going to send one hundred dollars to Mr. Bayard," continued Bobby; "for I am afraid to have so much money with me. I advise you to send your money to your employer." "Humph! Catch me doing that! I am bound to have a good time, anyhow." "At least, send the money you owe him." "I'll bet I won't." "Well, do as you please; I have said all I have to say." "You are a fool, Bob!" exclaimed Tom, who had evidently used Bobby as much as he wished, and no longer cared to speak soft words to him. "Perhaps I am; but I know better than to spend my money upon fast horses. If you will go, I can't help it. I am sorry you are going astray." "What do you mean by that, you young monkey?" said Tom, angrily. This was Tom Spicer, the bully. It sounded like him; and with a feeling of sorrow Bobby resigned the hopes he had cherished of making a good boy of him. "We had better part now," added our hero, sadly. "I'm willing." "I shall leave Brunswick this afternoon for the towns up the river. I hope no harm will befall you. Good by, Tom." "Go it! I have heard your preaching about long enough, and I am more glad to get rid of you than you are to get rid of me." Bobby walked away towards the house where he had left the trunk containing his books, while Tom made his way towards a livery stable. The boys had been in the place for several days, and had made some acquaintances; so Tom had no difficulty in procuring a companion for his proposed ride. Our hero wrote a letter that afternoon to Mr. Bayard, in which he narrated all the particulars of his journey, his relations with Tom Spicer, and the success that had attended his labors. At the bank he procured a hundred dollar note for his small bills, and enclosed it in the letter. He felt sad about Tom. The runaway had done so well, had been so industrious, and shown such a tractable spirit, that he had been very much encouraged about him. But if he meant to be wild again,--for it was plain that the ride was only "the beginning of sorrows,"--it was well that they should part. By the afternoon stage our hero proceeded to Gardiner, passing through several smaller towns, which did not promise a very abundant harvest. His usual success attended him; for wherever he went, people seemed to be pleased with him, as Squire Lee had declared they would be. His pleasant, honest face was a capital recommendation, and his eloquence seldom failed to achieve the result which eloquence has ever achieved from Demosthenes down to the present day. Our limits do not permit us to follow him in all his peregrinations from town to town, and from house to house; so we pass over the next fortnight, at the end of which time we find him at Augusta. He had sold all his books but twenty, and had that day remitted eighty dollars more to Mr. Bayard. It was Wednesday, and he hoped to sell out so as to be able to take the next steamer for Boston, which was advertised to sail on the following day. He had heard nothing from Tom since their parting, and had given up all expectation of meeting him again; but that bad penny maxim proved true once more, for, as he was walking through one of the streets of Augusta, he had the misfortune to meet him--and this time it was indeed a misfortune. "Hallo, Bobby!" shouted the runaway, as familiarly as though nothing had happened to disturb the harmony of their relations. "Ah, Tom, I didn't expect to see you again," replied Bobby, not very much rejoiced to meet his late companion. "I suppose not; but here I am, as good as new. Have you sold out?" "No, not quite." "How many have you left?" "About twenty; but I thought, Tom, you would have returned to Boston before this time." "No;" and Tom did not seem to be in very good spirits. "Where are you going now?" "I don't know. I ought to have taken your advice, Bobby." This was a concession, and our hero began to feel some sympathy for his companion--as who does not when the erring confess their faults? "I am sorry you did not." "I got in with some pretty hard fellows down there to Brunswick," continued Tom, rather sheepishly. "And spent all your money," added Bobby, who could readily understand the reason why Tom had put on his humility again. "Not all." "How much have you left?" "Not much," replied he, evasively. "I don't know what I shall do. I am in a strange place, and have no friends." Bobby's sympathies were aroused, and without reflection, he promised to be a friend in his extremity. "I will stick by you this time, Bob, come what will. I will do just as you say, now." Our merchant was a little flattered by this unreserved display of confidence. He did not give weight enough to the fact that it was adversity alone which made Tom so humble. He was in trouble, and gave him all the guarantee he could ask for his future good behavior. He could not desert him now he was in difficulty. "You shall help me sell my books, and then we will return to Boston together. Have you money enough left to pay your employer?" Tom hesitated; something evidently hung heavily upon his mind. "I don't know how it will be after I have paid my expenses to Boston," he replied, averting his face. Bobby was perplexed by this evasive answer; but as Tom seemed so reluctant to go into details, he reserved his inquiries for a more convenient season. "Now, Tom, you take the houses on that side of the street, and I will take those upon this side. You shall have the profits on all you sell." "You are a first rate fellow, Bob; and I only wish I had done as you wanted me to do." "Can't be helped now, and we will do the next best thing," replied Bobby, as he left his companion to enter a house. Tom did very well, and by the middle of the afternoon they had sold all the books but four. "The Wayfarer" had been liberally advertised in that vicinity, and the work was in great demand. Bobby's heart grew lighter as the volumes disappeared from his valise, and already he had begun to picture the scene which would ensue upon his return to the little black house. How glad his mother would be to see him, and, he dared believe, how happy Annie would be as she listened to the account of his journey in the State of Maine! Wouldn't she be astonished when he told her about the steamboat, about the fog, and about the wild region at the mouth of the beautiful Kennebec! Poor Bobby! the brightest dream often ends in sadness; and a greater trial than any he had been called upon to endure was yet in store for him. As he walked along, thinking of Riverdale and its loved ones, Tom came out of a grocery store where he had just sold a book. "Here, Bob, is a ten dollar bill. I believe I have sold ten books for you," said Tom, after they had walked some distance. "You had better keep the money now; and while I think of it, you had better take what I have left of my former sales;" and Tom handed him another ten dollar bill. Bobby noticed that Tom seemed very much confused and embarrassed; but he did not observe that the two bills he had handed him were on the same bank. "Then you had ten dollars left after your frolic," he remarked, as he took the last bill. "About that;" and Tom glanced uneasily behind him. "What is the matter with you, Tom?" asked Bobby, who did not know what to make of his companion's embarrassment. "Nothing, Bob; let us walk a little faster. We had better turn up this street," continued Tom, as, with a quick pace, he took the direction indicated. Bobby began to fear that Tom had been doing something wrong; and the suspicion was confirmed by seeing two men running with all their might towards them. Tom perceived them at the same moment. "Run!" he shouted, and suiting the action to the word, he took to his heels, and fled up the street into which he had proposed to turn. Bobby did not run, but stopped short where he was till the men came up to him. "Grab him," said one of them, "and I will catch the other." The man collared Bobby, and in spite of all the resistance he could make, dragged him down the street to the grocery store in which Tom had sold his last book. "What do you mean by this?" asked Bobby, his blood boiling with indignation at the harsh treatment to which he had been subjected. "We have got you, my hearty," replied the man, releasing his hold. No sooner was the grasp of the man removed, than Bobby, who determined on this as on former occasions to stand upon his inalienable rights, bolted for the door, and ran away with all his speed. But his captor was too fleet for him, and he was immediately retaken. To make him sure this time, his arms were tied behind him, and he was secured to the counter of the shop. In a few moments the other man returned, dragging Tom in triumph after him. By this time quite a crowd had collected, which nearly filled the store. Bobby was confounded at the sudden change that had come over his fortunes; but seeing that resistance would be vain, he resolved to submit with the best grace he could. "I should like to know what all this means?" he inquired, indignantly. The crowd laughed in derision. "This is the chap that stole the wallet, I will be bound," said one, pointing to Tom, who stood in surly silence awaiting his fate. "He is the one who came into the store," replied the shopkeeper. "_I_ haven't stole any wallet," protested Bobby, who now understood the whole affair. The names of the two boys were taken, and warrants procured for their detention. They were searched, and upon Tom was found the lost wallet, and upon Bobby two ten dollar bills, which the loser was willing to swear had been in the wallet. The evidence therefore was conclusive, and they were both sent to jail. Poor Bobby! the inmate of a prison! The law took its course, and in due time both of them were sentenced to two years' imprisonment in the State Reform School. Bobby was innocent, but he could not make his innocence appear. He had been the companion of Tom, the real thief, and part of the money had been found upon his person. Tom was too mean to exonerate him, and even had the hardihood to exult over his misfortune. At the end of three days they reached the town in which the Reform School is located, and were duly committed for their long term. Poor Bobby! CHAPTER XVIII IN WHICH BOBBY TAKES FRENCH LEAVE, AND CAMPS IN THE WOODS The intelligence of Bobby's misfortune reached Mr. Bayard, in Boston, by means of the newspapers. To the country press an item is a matter of considerable importance, and the alleged offence against the peace and dignity of the State of Maine was duly heralded to the inquiring public as a "daring robbery." The reporter who furnished the facts in the case for publication was not entirely devoid of that essential qualification of the country item writer, a lively imagination, and was obliged to dress up the particulars a little, in order to produce the necessary amount of wonder and indignation. It was stated that one of the two young men had been prowling about the place for several days, ostensibly for the purpose of selling books, but really with the intention of stealing whatever he could lay his hands upon. It was suggested that the boys were in league with an organized band of robbers, whose nefarious purposes would be defeated by the timely arrest of these young villains. The paper hinted that further depredations would probably be discovered, and warned people to beware of ruffians strolling about the country in the guise of pedlers. The writer of this thrilling paragraph must have had reason to believe that he had discharged his whole duty to the public, and that our hero was duly branded as a desperate fellow. No doubt he believed Bobby was an awful monster; for at the conclusion of his remarks he introduced some severe strictures on the lenity of the magistrate, because he had made the sentence two years, instead of five, which the writer thought the atrocious crime deserved. But, then, the justice differed from him in politics, which may account for the severity of the article. Mr. Bayard read this precious paragraph with mingled grief and indignation. He understood the case at a glance. Tom Spicer had joined him, and the little merchant had been involved in his crime. He was sure that Bobby had had no part in stealing the money. One so noble and true as he had been could not steal, he reasoned. It was contrary to experience, contrary to common sense. He was very much disturbed. This intelligence would be a severe blow to the poor boy's mother, and he had not the courage to destroy all her bright hopes by writing her the terrible truth. He was confident that Bobby was innocent, and that his being in the company of Tom Spicer had brought the imputation upon him; so he could not let the matter take its course. He was determined to do something to procure his liberty and restore his reputation. Squire Lee was in the city that day, and had left his store only half an hour before he discovered the paragraph. He immediately sent to his hotel for him, and together they devised means to effect Bobby's liberation. The squire was even more confident than Mr. Bayard that our hero was innocent of the crime charged upon him. They agreed to proceed immediately to the State of Maine, and use their influence in obtaining his pardon. The bookseller was a man of influence in the community, and was as well known in Maine as in Massachusetts; but to make their application the surer, he procured letters of introduction from some of the most distinguished men in Boston to the governor and other official persons in Maine. We will leave them now to do the work they had so generously undertaken, and return to the Reform School, where Bobby and Tom were confined. The latter took the matter very coolly. He seemed to feel that he deserved his sentence, but he took a malicious delight in seeing Bobby the companion of his captivity. He even had the hardihood to remind him of the blow he had struck him more than two months before, telling him that he had vowed vengeance then, and now the time had come. He was satisfied. "You know I didn't steal the money, or have anything to do with it," said Bobby. "Some of it was found upon you, though," sneered Tom, maliciously. "You know how it came there, if no one else does." "Of course I do; but I like your company too well to get rid of you so easy." "The Lord is with the innocent," replied Bobby; "and something tells me that I shall not stay in this place a great while." "Going to run away?" asked Tom, with interest, and suddenly dropping his malicious look. "I know I am innocent of any crime; and I know that the Lord will not let me stay here a great while." "What do you mean to do, Bob?" Bobby made no reply; he felt that he had had more confidence in Tom than he deserved, and he determined to keep his own counsel in future. He had a purpose in view. His innocence gave him courage; and perhaps he did not feel that sense of necessity for submission to the laws of the land which age and experience give. He prayed earnestly for deliverance from the place in which he was confined. He felt that he did not deserve to be there; and though it was a very comfortable place, and the boys fared as well as he wished to fare, still it seemed to him like a prison. He was unjustly detained; and he not only prayed to be delivered, but he resolved to work out his own deliverance at the first opportunity. Knowing that whatever he had would be taken from him, he resolved by some means to keep possession of the twenty dollars he had about him. He had always kept his money in a secret place in his jacket to guard against accident, and the officers who had searched him had not discovered it. But now his clothes would be changed. He thought of these things before his arrival; so, when he reached the entrance, and got out of the wagon, to open the gate, by order of the officer, he slipped his twenty dollars into a hole in the wall. It so happened that there was not a suit of clothes in the store room of the institution which would fit him; and he was permitted to wear his own dress till another should be made. After his name and description had been entered, and the superintendent had read him a lecture upon his future duties, he was permitted to join the other boys, who were at work on the farm. He was sent with half a dozen others to pick up stones in a neighboring field. No officer was with them, and Bobby was struck with the apparent freedom of the institution, and he so expressed himself to his companions. "Not so much freedom as you think for," said one, in reply. "I should think the fellows would clear out." "Not so easy a matter. There is a standing reward of five dollars to any one who brings back a runaway." "They must catch him first." "No fellow ever got away yet. They always caught him before he got ten miles from the place." This was an important suggestion to Bobby, who already had a definite purpose in his mind. Like a skilful general, he had surveyed the ground on his arrival, and was at once prepared to execute his design. In his conversation with the boys, he obtained the history of several who had attempted to escape, and found that even those who got a fair start were taken on some public road. He perceived that they were not good generals, and he determined to profit by their mistake. A short distance from the institution was what appeared to be a very extensive wood. Beyond this, many miles distant, he could see the ocean glittering like a sheet of ice under the setting sun. He carefully observed the hills, and obtained the bearings of various prominent objects in the vicinity which would aid him in his flight. The boys gave him all the information in their power about the localities of the country. They seemed to feel that he was possessed of a superior spirit, and that he would not long remain among them; but, whatever they thought, they kept their own counsel. Bobby behaved well, and was so intelligent and prompt that he obtained the confidence of the superintendent, who began to employ him about the house, and in his own family. He was sent of errands in the neighborhood, and conducted himself so much to the satisfaction of his guardians that he was not required to work in the field after the second day of his residence on the farm. One afternoon he was told that his clothes were ready, and that he might put them on the next morning. This was a disagreeable announcement; for Bobby saw that, with the uniform of the institution upon his back, his chance of escape would be very slight. But about sunset, he was sent by the superintendent's lady to deliver a note at a house in the vicinity. "Now or never!" said Bobby to himself, after he had left the house. "Now's my time." As he passed the gate, he secured his money, and placed it in the secret receptacle of his jacket. After he had delivered the letter, he took the road and hastened off in the direction of the wood. His heart beat wildly at the prospect of once more meeting his mother, after nearly four weeks' absence. Annie Lee would welcome him; she would not believe that he was a thief. He had been four days an inmate of the Reform School, and nothing but the hope of soon attaining his liberty had kept his spirits from drooping. He had not for a moment despaired of getting away. He reached the entrance to the wood, and taking a cart path, began to penetrate its hidden depths. The night darkened upon him; he heard the owl screech his dismal note, and the whip-poor-will chant his cheery song. A certain sense of security now pervaded his mind, for the darkness concealed him from the world, and he had placed six good miles between him and the prison, as he considered it. He walked on, however, till he came to what seemed to be the end of the wood, and he hoped to reach the blue ocean he had seen in the distance before morning. Leaving the forest, he emerged into the open country. There was here and there a house before him; but the aspect of the country seemed strangely familiar to him. He could not understand it. He had never been in this part of the country before; yet there was a great house with two barns by the side of it, which he was positive he had seen before. He walked across the field a little farther, when, to his astonishment and dismay, he beheld the lofty turrets of the State Reform School. He had been walking in a circle, and had come out of the forest near the place where he had entered it. Bobby, as the reader has found out by this time, was a philosopher as well as a hero; and instead of despairing or wasting his precious time in vain regrets at his mistake, he laughed a little to himself at the blunder, and turned back into the woods again. "Now or never!" muttered he. "It will never do to give it up so." For an hour he walked on, with his eyes fixed on a great bright star in the sky. Then he found that the cart path crooked round, and he discovered where he had made his blunder. Leaving the road, he made his way in a straight line, still guided by the star, till he came to a large sheet of water. The sheet of water was an effectual barrier to his farther progress; indeed, he was so tired he did not feel able to walk any more. He deemed himself safe from immediate pursuit in this secluded place. He needed rest, and he foresaw that the next few days would be burdened with fatigue and hardship which he must be prepared to meet. Bobby was not nice about trifles, and his habits were such that he had no fear of taking cold. His comfortable bed in the little black house was preferable to the cold ground, even with the primeval forest for a chamber; but circumstances alter cases, and he did not waste any vain regrets about the necessity of his position. After finding a secluded spot in the wood, he raked the dry leaves together for a bed, and offering his simple but fervent prayer to the Great Guardian above, he lay down to rest. The owl screamed his dismal note, and the whip-poor-will still repeated his monotonous song; but they were good company in the solitude of the dark forest. He could not go to sleep for a time, so strange and exciting were the circumstances of his position. He thought of a thousand things, but he could not _think_ himself to sleep, as he was wont to do. At last nature, worn out by fatigue and anxiety, conquered the circumstances, and he slept. CHAPTER XIX IN WHICH BOBBY HAS A NARROW ESCAPE, AND GOES TO SEA WITH SAM RAY Nature was kind to the little pilgrim in his extremity, and kept his senses sealed in grateful slumber till the birds had sung their matin song, and the sun had risen high in the heavens. Bobby woke with a start, and sprang to his feet. For a moment he did not realize where he was, or remember the exciting incidents of the previous evening. He felt refreshed by his deep slumber, and came out of it as vigorous as though he had slept in his bed at home. Rubbing his eyes, he stared about him at the tall pines whose foliage canopied his bed, and his identity was soon restored to him. He was Bobby Bright--but Bobby Bright in trouble. He was not the little merchant, but the little fugitive fleeing from the prison to which he had been doomed. It did not take him long to make his toilet, which was the only advantage of his primitive style of lodging. His first object was to examine his position, and ascertain in what direction he should continue his flight. He could not go ahead, as he had intended, for the sheet of water was an impassable barrier. Leaving the dense forest, he came to a marsh, beyond which was the wide creek he had seen in the night. It was salt water, and he reasoned that it could not extend a great way inland. His only course was to follow it till he found means of crossing it. Following the direction of the creek he kept near the margin of the wood till he came to a public road. He had some doubts about trusting himself out of the forest, even for a single moment; so he seated himself upon a rock to argue the point. If any one should happen to come along, he was almost sure of furnishing a clew to his future movements, if not of being immediately captured. This was a very strong argument, but there was a stronger one upon the other side. He had eaten nothing since dinner on the preceding day, and he began to feel faint for the want of food. On the other side of the creek he saw a pasture which looked as though it might afford him a few berries; and he was on the point of taking to the road, when he heard the rumbling of a wagon in the distance. His heart beat with apprehension. Perhaps it was some officer of the institution in search of him. At any rate it was some one who had come from the vicinity of the Reform School, and who had probably heard of his escape. As it came nearer, he heard the jingling of bells; it was the baker. How he longed for a loaf of his bread, or some of the precious gingerbread he carried in his cart! Hunger tempted him to run the risk of exposure. He had money; he could buy cakes and bread; and perhaps the baker had a kind heart, and would befriend him in his distress. The wagon was close at hand. "Now or never," thought he; but this time it was not _now_. The risk was too great. If he failed now, two years of captivity were before him; and as for the hunger, he could grin and bear it for a while. "Now or never;" but this time it was escape now or never; and he permitted the baker to pass without hailing him. He waited half an hour, and then determined to take the road till he had crossed the creek. The danger was great, but the pangs of hunger urged him on. He was sure there were berries in the pasture, and with a timid step, carefully watching before and behind to insure himself against surprise, he crossed the bridge. But then a new difficulty presented itself. There was a house within ten rods of the bridge, which he must pass, and to do so would expose him to the most imminent peril. He was on the point of retreating, when a man came out of the house, and approached him. What should he do? It was a trying moment. If he ran, the act would expose him to suspicion. If he went forward, the man might have already received a description of him, and arrest him. He chose the latter course. The instinct of his being was to do everything in a straightforward manner, and this probably prompted his decision. "Good morning, sir," said he boldly to the man. "Good morning. Where are you travelling?" This was a hard question. He did not know where he was travelling; besides, even in his present difficult position, he could not readily resort to a lie. "Down here a piece," he replied. "Travelled far to-day?" "Not far. Good morning, sir;" and Bobby resumed his walk. "I say, boy, suppose you tell me where you are going;" and the man came close to him, and deliberately surveyed him from head to foot. "I can hardly tell you," replied Bobby, summoning courage for the occasion. "Well, I suppose not," added the man, with a meaning smile. Bobby felt his strength desert him as he realized that he was suspected of being a runaway from the Reform School. That smile on the man's face was the knell of hope; and for a moment he felt a flood of misery roll over his soul. But the natural elasticity of his spirits soon came to his relief, and he resolved not to give up the ship, even if he had to fight for it. "I am in a hurry, so I shall have to leave you." "Not just yet, young man. Perhaps, as you don't know where you are going, you may remember what your name is," continued the man, good naturedly. There was a temptation to give a false name; but as it was so strongly beaten into our hero that the truth is better than a falsehood, he held his peace. "Excuse me, sir, but I can't stop to talk now." "In a hurry? Well, I dare say you are. I suppose there is no doubt but you are Master Robert Bright." "Not the least, sir; I haven't denied it yet, and I am not ashamed of my name," replied Bobby, with a good deal of spirit. "That's honest; I like that." "'Honesty is the best policy,'" added Bobby. "That's cool for a rogue, anyhow. You ought to thought of that afore." "I did." "And stole the money?" "I didn't. I never stole a penny in my life." "Come, I like that." "It is the truth." "But they won't believe it over to the Reform School," laughed the man. "They will one of these days, perhaps." "You are a smart youngster; but I don't know as I can make five dollars any easier than by taking you back where you come from." "Yes, you can," replied Bobby, promptly. "Can I?" "Yes." "How?" "By letting me go." "Eh; you talk flush. I suppose you mean to give me your note, payable when the Kennebec dries up." "Cash on the nail," replied Bobby. "You look like a man with a heart in your bosom,"--Bobby stole this passage from "The Wayfarer." "I reckon I have. The time hasn't come yet when Sam Ray could see a fellow-creature in distress and not help him out. But to help a thief off----" "We will argue that matter," interposed Bobby. "I can prove to you beyond a doubt that I am innocent of the crime charged upon me." "You don't look like a bad boy, I must say." "But, Mr. Ray, I'm hungry; I haven't eaten a mouthful since yesterday noon." "Thunder! You don't say so!" exclaimed Sam Ray. "I never could bear to see a man hungry, much more a boy; so come along to my house and get something to eat, and we will talk about the other matter afterwards." Sam Ray took Bobby to the little old house in which he dwelt; and in a short time his wife, who expressed her sympathy for the little fugitive in the warmest terms, had placed an abundant repast upon the table. Our hero did ample justice to it, and when he had finished he felt like a new creature. "Now, Mr. Ray, let me tell you my story," said Bobby. "I don't know as it's any use. Now you have eat my bread and butter, I don't feel like being mean to you. If anybody else wants to carry you back, they may; I won't." "But you shall hear me;" and Bobby proceeded to deliver his "plain, unvarnished tale." When he had progressed but a little way in the narrative, the noise of an approaching vehicle was heard. Sam looked out of the window, as almost everybody does in the country when a carriage passes. "By thunder! It's the Reform School wagon!" exclaimed he. "This way, boy!" and the good-hearted man thrust him into his chamber, bidding him get under the bed. The carriage stopped at the house; but Sam evaded a direct reply, and the superintendent--for it was he--proceeded on his search. "Heaven bless you, Mr. Ray!" exclaimed Bobby, when he came out of the chamber, as the tears of gratitude coursed down his cheeks. "O, you will find Sam Ray all right," said he, warmly pressing Bobby's proffered hand. "I ain't quite a heathen, though some folks around here think so." "You are an angel!" "Not exactly," laughed Sam. Our hero finished his story, and confirmed it by exhibiting his account book and some other papers which he had retained. Sam Ray was satisfied, and vowed that if ever he saw Tom Spicer he would certainly "lick" him for his sake. "Now, sonny, I like you; I will be sworn you are a good fellow; and I mean to help you off. So just come along with me. I make my living by browsing round, hunting and fishing a little, and doing an odd job now and then. You see, I have got a good boat down the creek, and I shall just put you aboard and take you anywhere you have a mind to go." "May Heaven reward you!" cried Bobby, almost overcome by this sudden and unexpected kindness. "O, I don't want no reward; only when you get to be a great man--and I am dead sure you will be a great man--just think now and then of Sam Ray, and it's all right." "I shall remember you with gratitude as long as I live." Sam Ray took his gun on his shoulder, and Bobby the box of provisions which Mrs. Ray had put up, and they left the house. At the bridge they got into a little skiff, and Sam took the oars. After they had passed a bend in the creek which concealed them from the road, Bobby felt secure from further molestation. Sam pulled about two miles down the creek, where it widened into a broad bay, near the head of which was anchored a small schooner. "Now, my hearty, nothing short of Uncle Sam's whole navy can get you away from me," said Sam, as he pulled alongside the schooner. "You have been very kind to me." "All right, sonny. Now tumble aboard." Bobby jumped upon the deck of the little craft and Sam followed him, after making fast the skiff to the schooner's moorings. In a few minutes the little vessel was standing down the bay with "a fresh wind and a flowing sheet." Bobby, who had never been in a sail boat before, was delighted, and in no measured terms expressed his admiration of the working of the trim little craft. "Now, sonny, where shall we go?" asked Sam, as they emerged from the bay into the broad ocean. "I don't know," replied Bobby. "I want to get back to Boston." "Perhaps I can put you aboard of some coaster bound there." "That will do nicely." "I will head towards Boston, and if I don't overhaul anything, I will take you there myself." "Is this boat big enough to go so far?" "She'll stand anything short of a West India hurricane. You ain't afeard, are you?" "O, no; I like it." The big waves now tossed the little vessel up and down like a feather, and the huge seas broke upon the bow, deluging her deck with floods of water. Bobby had unlimited confidence in Sam Ray, and felt as much at home as though he had been "cradled upon the briny deep." There was an excitement in the scene which accorded with his nature, and the perils which he had so painfully pictured on the preceding night were all born into the most lively joys. They ate their dinners from the provision box; Sam lighted his pipe, and many a tale he told of adventure by sea and land. Bobby felt happy, and almost dreaded the idea of parting with his rough but good-hearted friend. They were now far out at sea, and the night was coming on. "Now, sonny, you had better turn in and take a snooze; you didn't rest much last night." "I am not sleepy; but there is one thing I will do;" and Bobby drew from his secret receptacle his roll of bills. "Put them up, sonny," said Sam. "I want to make you a present of ten dollars." "You can't do it." "Nay, but to please me." "No, sir!" "Well, then, let me send it to your good wife." "You can't do that, nuther," replied Sam, gazing earnestly at a lumber-laden schooner ahead of him. "You must; your good heart made you lose five dollars, and I insist upon making it up to you." "You can't do it." "I shall feel bad if you don't take it. You see I have twenty dollars here, and I would like to give you the whole of it." "Not a cent, sonny. I ain't a heathen. That schooner ahead is bound for Boston, I reckon." "I shall be sorry to part with you, Mr. Ray." "Just my sentiment. I hain't seen a youngster afore for many a day that I took a fancy to, and I hate to let you go." "We shall meet again." "I hope so." "Please to take this money." "No;" and Sam shook his head so resolutely that Bobby gave up the point. As Sam had conjectured, the lumber schooner was bound to Boston. Her captain readily agreed to take our hero on board, and he sadly bade adieu to his kind friend. "Good by, Mr. Ray," said Bobby, as the schooner filled away. "Take this to remember me by." It was his jackknife; but Sam did not discover the ten dollar bill, which was shut beneath the blade, till it was too late to return it. Bobby did not cease to wave his hat to Sam till his little craft disappeared in the darkness. CHAPTER XX IN WHICH THE CLOUDS BLOW OVER, AND BOBBY IS HIMSELF AGAIN Fortunately for Bobby, the wind began to blow very heavily soon after he went on board of the lumber schooner, so that the captain was too much engaged in working his vessel to ask many questions. He was short handed, and though our hero was not much of a sailor he made himself useful to the best of his ability. Though the wind was heavy, it was not fair; and it was not till the third morning after his parting with Sam Ray that the schooner arrived off Boston Light. The captain then informed him that, as the tide did not favor him, he might not get up to the city for twenty-four hours; and, if he was in a hurry, he would put him on board a pilot boat which he saw standing up the channel. "Thank you, captain; you are very kind, but it would give you a great deal of trouble," said Bobby. "None at all. We must wait here till the tide turns; so we have nothing better to do." "I should be very glad to get up this morning." "You shall, then;" and the captain ordered two men to get out the jolly boat. "I will pay my passage now, if you please." "That is paid." "Paid?" "I should say you had worked your passage. You have done very well, and I shall not charge you anything." "I expected to pay my passage, captain; but if you think I have done enough to pay it, why I have nothing to say, only that I am very much obliged to you." "You ought to be a sailor, young man; you were cut out for one." "I like the sea, though I never saw it till a few weeks since. But I suppose my mother would not let me go to sea." "I suppose not; mothers are always afraid of salt water." By this time the jolly boat was alongside; and bidding the captain adieu, he jumped into it, and the men pulled him to the pilot boat, which had come up into the wind at the captain's hail. Bobby was kindly received on board, and in a couple of hours landed at the wharf in Boston. With a beating heart he made his way up into Washington Street. He felt strangely; his cheeks seemed to tingle, for he was aware that the imputation of dishonesty was fastened upon him. He could not doubt but that the story of his alleged crime had reached the city, and perhaps gone to his friends in Riverdale. How his poor mother must have wept to think her son was a thief! No; she never could have thought that. _She_ knew he would not steal, if no one else did. And Annie Lee--would she ever smile upon him again? Would she welcome him to her father's house so gladly as she had done in the past? He could bring nothing to establish his innocence but his previous character. Would not Mr. Bayard frown upon him? Would not even Ellen be tempted to forget the service he had rendered her? Bobby had thought of all these things before--on his cold, damp bed in the forest, in the watches of the tempestuous night on board the schooner. But now, when he was almost in the presence of those he loved and respected, they had more force, and they nearly overwhelmed him. "I am innocent," he repeated to himself, "and why need I fear? My good Father in heaven will not let me be wronged." Yet he could not overcome his anxiety; and when he reached the store of Mr. Bayard, he passed by, dreading to face the friend who had been so kind to him. He could not bear even to be suspected of a crime by him. "Now or never," said he, as he turned round. "I will know my fate at once, and then make the best of it." Mustering all his courage, he entered the store. Mr. Timmins was not there; so he was spared the infliction of any ill-natured remark from him. "Hallo, Bobby!" exclaimed the gentlemanly salesman, whose acquaintance he had made on his first visit. "Good morning, Mr. Bigelow," replied Bobby with as much boldness as he could command. "I didn't know as I should ever see you again. You have been gone a long while." "Longer than usual," answered Bobby, with a blush; for he considered the remark of the salesman as an allusion to his imprisonment. "Is Mr. Bayard in?" "He is--in his office." Bobby's feet would hardly obey the mandate of his will, and with a faltering step he entered the private room of the bookseller. Mr. Bayard was absorbed in the perusal of the morning paper, and did not observe his entrance. With his heart up in his throat, and almost choking him, he stood for several minutes upon the threshold. He almost feared to speak, dreading the severe frown with which he expected to be received. Suspense, however, was more painful than condemnation, and he brought his resolution up to the point. "Mr. Bayard," said he, in faltering tones. "Bobby!" exclaimed the bookseller, dropping his paper upon the floor, and jumping upon his feet as though an electric current had passed through his frame. Grasping our hero's hand, he shook it with so much energy that, under any other circumstances, Bobby would have thought it hurt him. He did not think so now. "My poor Bobby! I am delighted to see you!" continued Mr. Bayard. Bobby burst into tears, and sobbed like a child, as he was. The unexpected kindness of this reception completely overwhelmed him. "Don't cry, Bobby; I know all about it;" and the tender-hearted bookseller wiped away his tears. "It was a stroke of misfortune; but it is all right now." But Bobby could not help crying, and the more Mr. Bayard attempted to console him, the more he wept. "I am innocent, Mr. Bayard," he sobbed. "I know you are, Bobby; and all the world knows you are." "I am ruined now; I shall never dare to hold my head up again." "Nonsense, Bobby; you will hold your head the higher. You have behaved like a hero." "I ran away from the State Reform School, sir. I was innocent, and I would rather have died than stayed there." "I know all about it, my young friend. Now dry your tears, and we will talk it all over." Bobby blew and sputtered a little more; but finally he composed himself, and took a chair by Mr. Bayard's side. The bookseller then drew from his pocket a ponderous document, with a big official seal upon it, and exhibited it to our hero. "Do you see this, Bobby? It is your free and unconditional pardon." "Sir! Why----" "It will all end well, you may depend." Bobby was amazed. His pardon? But it would not restore his former good name. He felt that he was branded as a felon. It was not mercy, but justice, that he wanted. "Truth is mighty, and will prevail," continued Mr. Bayard; "and this document restores your reputation." "I can hardly believe that." "Can't you? Hear my story then. When I read in one of the Maine papers the account of your misfortune, I felt that you had been grossly wronged. You were coupled with that Tom Spicer, who is the most consummate little villain I ever saw, and I understood your situation. Ah, Bobby, your only mistake was in having anything to do with that fellow." "I left him at Brunswick because he began to behave badly; but he joined me again at Augusta. He had spent nearly all his money, and did not know what to do. I pitied him, and meant to do something to help him out of the scrape." "Generous as ever! I have heard all about this before." "Indeed; who told you?" "Tom Spicer himself." "Tom?" asked Bobby, completely mystified. "Yes, Tom; you see, when I heard about your trouble, Squire Lee and myself----" "Squire Lee? Does he know about it?" "He does; and you may depend upon it, he thinks more highly of you than ever before. He and I immediately went down to Augusta to inquire into the matter. We called upon the governor of the state, who said that he had seen you, and bought a book of you." "Of me!" exclaimed Bobby, startled to think he had sold a book to a governor. "Yes; you called at his house; probably you did not know that he was the chief magistrate of the state. At any rate, he was very much pleased with you, and sorry to hear of your misfortune. Well, we followed your route to Brunswick, where we ascertained how Tom had conducted. In a week he established a very bad reputation there; but nothing could be found to implicate you. The squire testified to your uniform good behavior, and especially to your devotion to your mother. In short, we procured your pardon, and hastened with it to the State Reform School. "On our arrival, we learned, to our surprise and regret, that you had escaped from the institution on the preceding evening. Every effort was made to retake you, but without success. Ah, Bobby, you managed that well." "They didn't look in the right place," replied Bobby, with a smile, for he began to feel happy again. "By the permission of the superintendent, Squire Lee and myself examined Tom Spicer. He is a great rascal. Perhaps he thought we would get him out; so he made a clean breast of it, and confessed that you had no hand in the robbery, and that you knew nothing about it. He gave you the two bills on purpose to implicate you in the crime. We wrote down his statement, and had it sworn to before a justice of the peace. You shall read it by and by." "May Heaven reward you for your kindness to a poor boy!" exclaimed Bobby, the tears flowing down his cheeks again. "I did not deserve so much from you, Mr. Bayard." "Yes, you did, and a thousand times more. I was very sorry you had left the institution, and I waited in the vicinity till they said there was no probability that you would be captured. The most extraordinary efforts were used to find you; but there was not a person to be found who had seen or heard of you. I was very much alarmed about you, and offered a hundred dollars for any information concerning you." "I am sorry you had so much trouble. I wish I had known you were there." "How did you get off?" Bobby briefly related the story of his escape, and Mr. Bayard pronounced his skill worthy of his genius. "Sam Ray is a good fellow; we will remember him," added the bookseller, when he had finished. "I shall remember him; and only that I shall be afraid to go into the State of Maine after what has happened, I should pay him a visit one of these days." "There you are wrong. Those who know your story would sooner think of giving you a public reception, than of saying or doing anything to injure your feelings. Those who have suffered unjustly are always lionized." "But no one will know my story, only that I was sent to prison for stealing." "There you are mistaken again. We put articles in all the principal papers, stating the facts in the case, and establishing your innocence beyond a peradventure. Go to Augusta now, Bobby, and you will be a lion." "I am sure I had no idea of getting out of the scrape so easily as this." "Innocence shall triumph, my young friend." "What does mother say?" asked Bobby, his countenance growing sad. "I do not know. We returned from Maine only yesterday; but Squire Lee will satisfy her. All that can worry her, as it has worried me, will be her fears for your safety when she hears of your escape." "I will soon set her mind at ease upon that point. I will take the noon train home." "A word about business before you go. I discharged Timmins about a week ago, and I have kept his place for you." "By gracious!" exclaimed Bobby, thrown completely out of his propriety by this announcement. "I think you will do better, in the long run, than you would to travel about the country. I was talking with Ellen about it, and she says it shall be so. Timmins's salary was five hundred dollars a year, and you shall have the same." "Five hundred dollars a year!" ejaculated Bobby, amazed at the vastness of the sum. "Very well for a boy of thirteen, Bobby." "I was fourteen last Sunday, sir." "I would not give any other boy so much; but you are worth it, and you shall have it." Probably Mr. Bayard's gratitude had something to do with this munificent offer; but he knew that our hero possessed abilities and energy far beyond his years. He further informed Bobby that he should have a room at his house, and that Ellen was delighted with the arrangement he proposed. The gloomy, threatening clouds were all rolled back, and floods of sunshine streamed in upon the soul of the little merchant; but in the midst of his rejoicing he remembered that his own integrity had carried him safely through the night of sorrow and doubt. He had been true to himself, and now, in the hour of his great triumph, he realized that, if he had been faithless to the light within him, his laurel would have been a crown of thorns. He was happy--very happy. What made him so? Not his dawning prosperity; not the favor of Mr. Bayard; not the handsome salary he was to receive; for all these things would have been but dross if he had sacrificed his integrity, his love of truth and uprightness. He had been true to himself, and unseen angels had held him up. He had been faithful, and the consciousness of his fidelity to principle made a heaven within his heart. It was arranged that he should enter upon the duties of his new situation on the following week. After settling with Mr. Bayard, he found he had nearly seventy dollars in his possession; so that in a pecuniary point of view, if in no other, his eastern excursion was perfectly satisfactory. By the noon train he departed for Riverdale, and in two hours more he was folded to his mother's heart. Mrs. Bright wept for joy now, as she had before wept in misery when she heard of her son's misfortune. It took him all the afternoon to tell his exciting story to her, and she was almost beside herself when Bobby told her about his new situation. After tea he hastened over to Squire Lee's; and my young readers can imagine what a warm reception he had from father and daughter. For the third time that day he narrated his adventures in the east; and Annie declared they were better than any novel she had ever read. Perhaps it was because Bobby was the hero. It was nearly ten o'clock before he finished his story; and when he left, the squire made him promise to come over the next day. CHAPTER XXI IN WHICH BOBBY STEPS OFF THE STAGE, AND THE AUTHOR MUST FINISH "NOW OR NEVER" The few days which Bobby remained at home before entering upon the duties of his new situation were agreeably filled up in calling upon his many friends, and in visiting those pleasant spots in the woods and by the river, which years of association had rendered dear to him. His plans for the future, too, occupied some of his time, though, inasmuch as his path of duty was already marked out, these plans were but little more than a series of fond imaginings; in short, little more than day dreams. I have before hinted that Bobby was addicted to castle building, and I should pity the man or boy who was not--who had no bright dream of future achievements, of future usefulness. "As a man thinketh, so is he," the Psalmist tells us, and it was the pen of inspiration which wrote it. What a man pictures as his ideal of that which is desirable in this world and the world to come, he will endeavor to attain. Even if it be no higher aim than the possession of wealth or fame, it is good and worthy as far as it goes. It fires his brain, it nerves his arm. It stimulates him to action, and action is the soul of progress. We must all work; and this world were cold and dull if it had no bright dreams to be realized. What Napoleon dreamed, he labored to accomplish, and the monarchs of Europe trembled before him. What Howard wished to be, he labored to be; his ideal was beautiful and true, and he raised a throne which will endure through eternity. Bobby dreamed great things. That bright picture of the little black house transformed into a white cottage, with green blinds, and surrounded by a pretty fence, was the nearest object; and before Mrs. Bright was aware that he was in earnest, the carpenters and the painters were upon the spot. "Now or never," replied Bobby to his mother's remonstrance. "This is your home, and it shall be the pleasantest spot upon earth, if I can make it so." Then he had to dream about his business in Boston and I am not sure but that he fancied himself a rich merchant, like Mr. Bayard, living in an elegant house in Chestnut Street, and having clerks and porters to do as he bade them. A great many young men dream such things, and though they seem a little silly when spoken out loud, they are what wood and water are to the steam engine--they are the mainspring of action. Some are stupid enough to dream about these things, and spend their time in idleness and dissipation, waiting for "the good time coming." It will never come to them. They are more likely to die in the almshouse or the state prison, than to ride in their carriages; for constant exertion is the price of success. Bobby enjoyed himself to the utmost of his capacity during these few days of respite from labor. He spent a liberal share of his time at Squire Lee's, where he was almost as much at home as in his mother's house. Annie read Moore's Poems to him, till he began to have quite a taste for poetry himself. In connection with Tom Spicer's continued absence, which had to be explained, Bobby's trials in the eastern country leaked out, and the consequence was, that he became a lion in Riverdale. The minister invited him to tea, as well as other prominent persons, for the sake of hearing his story; but Bobby declined the polite invitations from sheer bashfulness. He had not brass enough to make himself a hero; besides, the remembrance of his journey was anything but pleasant to him. On Monday morning he took the early train for Boston, and assumed the duties of his situation in Mr. Bayard's store. But as I have carried my hero through the eventful period of his life, I cannot dwell upon his subsequent career. He applied himself with all the energy of his nature to the discharge of his duties. Early in the morning and late in the evening he was at his post. Mr. Bigelow was his friend from the first, and gave him all the instruction he required. His intelligence and quick perception soon enabled him to master the details of the business, and by the time he was fifteen, he was competent to perform any service required of him. By the advice of Mr. Bayard, he attended an evening school for six months in the year, to acquire a knowledge of book keeping, and to compensate for the opportunities of which he had been necessarily deprived in his earlier youth. He took Dr. Franklin for his model, and used all his spare time in reading good books, and in obtaining such information and such mental culture as would fit him to be, not only a good merchant, but a good and true man. Every Saturday night he went home to Riverdale to spend the Sabbath with his mother. The little black house no longer existed, for it had become the little paradise of which he had dreamed, only that the house seemed whiter, the blinds greener, and the fence more attractive than his fancy had pictured them. His mother, after a couple of years, at Bobby's earnest pleadings, ceased to close shoes and take in washing; but she had enough and to spare, for her son's salary was now six hundred dollars. His kind employer boarded him for nothing (much against Bobby's will, I must say), so that every month he carried to his mother thirty dollars, which more than paid her expenses. * * * * * Eight years have passed by since Bobby--we beg his pardon, he is now Mr. Robert Bright--entered the store of Mr. Bayard. He has passed from the boy to the man. Over the street door a new sign has taken the place of the old one, and the passer-by reads,-- BAYARD & BRIGHT, BOOKSELLERS AND PUBLISHERS. The senior partner resorts to his counting room every morning from the force of habit; but he takes no active part in the business. Mr. Bright has frequent occasion to ask his advice, though everything is directly managed by him; and the junior is accounted one of the ablest, but at the same time one of the most honest, business men in the city. His integrity has never been sacrificed, even to the emergencies of trade. The man is what the boy was; and we can best sum up the results of his life by saying that he has been true to himself, true to his friends, and true to his God. Mrs. Bright is still living at the little white cottage, happy in herself and happy in her children. Bobby--we mean Mr. Bright--has hardly missed going to Riverdale on a Saturday night since he left home, eight years before. He has the same partiality for those famous apple pies, and his mother would as soon think of being without bread as being without apple pies when he comes home. Of course Squire Lee and Annie were always glad to see him when he came to Riverdale; and for two years it had been common talk in Riverdale that our hero did not go home on Sunday evening when the clock struck nine. But as this is a forbidden topic, we will ask the reader to go with us to Mr. Bayard's house in Chestnut Street. What! Annie Lee here? No; but as you are here, allow me to introduce Mrs. Robert Bright. They were married a few months before, and Mr. Bayard insisted that the happy couple should make their home at his house. But where is Ellen Bayard? O, she is Mrs. Bigelow now, and her husband is at the head of a large book establishment in New York. Bobby's dream had been realized, and he was the happiest man in the world--at least he thought so, which is just the same thing. He had been successful in business; his wife--the friend and companion of his youth, the brightest filament of the bright vision his fancy had woven--had been won, and the future glowed with brilliant promises. He had been successful; but neither nor all of the things we have mentioned constituted his highest and truest success--not his business prosperity, not the bright promise of wealth in store for him, not his good name among men, not even the beautiful and loving wife who had cast her lot with his to the end of time. These were successes, great and worthy, but not the highest success. He had made himself a man,--this was his real success,--a true, a Christian man. He had lived a noble life. He had reared the lofty structure of his manhood upon a solid foundation--principle. It is the rock which the winds of temptation and the rains of selfishness cannot move. Robert Bright is happy because he is good. Tom Spicer, now in the state prison, is unhappy,--not _because_ he is in the state prison, but because the evil passions of his nature are at war with the peace of his soul. He has fed the good that was within him upon straw and husks, and starved it out. He is a body only; the soul is dead in trespasses and sin. He loves no one, and no one loves him. During the past summer, Mr. Bright and his lady took a journey "down east." Annie insisted upon visiting the State Reform School; and her husband drove through the forest by which he had made his escape on that eventful night. Afterwards they called upon Sam Ray, who had been "dead sure that Bobby would one day be a great man." He was about the same person, and was astonished and delighted when our hero introduced himself. They spent a couple of hours in talking over the past, and at his departure, Mr. Bright made him a handsome present in such a delicate manner that he could not help accepting it. Squire Lee is still as hale and hearty as ever, and is never so happy as when Annie and her husband come to Riverdale to spend the Sabbath. He is fully of the opinion that Mr. Bright is the greatest man on the western continent, and he would not be in the least surprised if he should be elected President of the United States one of these days. The little merchant is a great merchant now. But more than this, he is a good man. He has formed his character, and he will probably die as he has lived. Reader, if you have any good work to do, do it now; for with you it may be "NOW OR NEVER." 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Barrie. 46. Twice-Told Tales, I. Hawthorne. 47. Twice-Told Tales, II. Hawthorne. 48. In Memoriam. Tennyson. 49. Vicar of Wakefield. Goldsmith. 50. Whittier's Poems. 51. Autocrat of Breakfast Table. Holmes. 52. Heroes and Hero Worship. Carlyle. 53. Mosses from an Old Manse, I. Hawthorne. 54. Mosses from an Old Manse, II. Hawthorne. 55. Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. 56. Song of Hiawatha. Longfellow. 57. Evangeline, and Poems. Longfellow. 58. Sketch Book. Irving. 59. Stickit Minister. S. R. Crockett. 60. House of the Seven Gables. Hawthorne. 61. Poetical Works of Robt. Browning. 62. Paradise Lost. Milton. 63. Hamlet. Shakespeare. 64. Julius Cæsar. Shakespeare. 65. Book of Golden Deeds. Yonge. 66. Child's History of England. Dickens. 67. Confessions of an Opium Eater. De Quincey. 68. Ten Nights in a Barroom. Arthur. 69. Treasure Island. Stevenson. 70. Tanglewood Tales. Hawthorne. 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15218	----	[Illustration: MRS. JOHN VAN VORST AS "ESTHER KELLY" Wearing the costume of the pickle factory] [Illustration: MISS MARIE VAN VORST AS "BELL BALLARD" At work in a shoe factory] * * * * * THE WOMAN WHO TOILS _Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls_ BY MRS. JOHN VAN VORST and MARIE VAN VORST _ILLUSTRATED_ NEW YORK: DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 1903 * * * * * DEDICATION To Mark Twain In loving tribute to his genius, and to his human sympathy, which in Pathos and Seriousness, as well as in Mirth and Humour, have made him kin with the whole world:-- this book is inscribed by BESSIE and MARIE VAN VORST. * * * * * PREFATORY LETTER FROM THEODORE ROOSEVELT _Written after reading Chapter III. when published serially_ WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, October 18, 1902. _My Dear Mrs. Van Vorst_: _I must write you a line to say how much I have appreciated your article, "The Woman Who Toils." But to me there is a most melancholy side to it, when you touch upon what is fundamentally infinitely more important than any other question in this country--that is, the question of race suicide, complete or partial_. _An easy, good-natured kindliness, and a desire to be "independent"--that is, to live one's life purely according to one's own desires--are in no sense substitutes for the fundamental virtues, for the practice of the strong, racial qualities without which there can be no strong races--the qualities of courage and resolution in both men and women, of scorn of what is mean, base and selfish, of eager desire to work or fight or suffer as the case may be provided the end to be gained is great enough, and the contemptuous putting aside of mere ease, mere vapid pleasure, mere avoidance of toil and worry. I do not know whether I most pity or most despise the foolish and selfish man or woman who does not understand that the only things really worth having in life are those the acquirement of which normally means cost and effort. If a man or woman, through no fault of his or hers, goes throughout life denied those highest of all joys which spring only from home life, from the having and bringing up of many healthy children, I feel for them deep and respectful sympathy--the sympathy one extends to the gallant fellow killed at the beginning of a campaign, or the man who toils hard and is brought to ruin by the fault of others. But the man or woman who deliberately avoids marriage, and has a heart so cold as to know no passion and a brain so shallow and selfish as to dislike having children, is in effect a criminal against the race, and should be an object of contemptuous abhorrence by all healthy people_. _Of course no one quality makes a good citizen, and no one quality will save a nation. But there are certain great qualities for the lack of which no amount of intellectual brilliancy or of material prosperity or of easiness of life can atone, and which show decadence and corruption in the nation just as much if they are produced by selfishness and coldness and ease-loving laziness among comparatively poor people as if they are produced by vicious or frivolous luxury in the rich. If the men of the nation are not anxious to work in many different ways, with all their might and strength, and ready and able to fight at need, and anxious to be fathers of families, and if the women do not recognize that the greatest thing for any woman is to be a good wife and mother, why, that nation has cause to be alarmed about its future_. _There is no physical trouble among us Americans. The trouble with the situation you set forth is one of character, and therefore we can conquer it if we only will._ _Very sincerely yours,_ _THEODORE ROOSEVELT._ * * * * * PREFATORY NOTE A portion of the material in this book appeared serially under the same title in _Everybody's Magazine_. Nearly a third of the volume has not been published in any form. * * * * * CONTENTS By MRS. JOHN VAN VORST CHAPTER PAGE I. Introductory 1 II. In a Pittsburg Factory 7 III. Perry, a New York Mill Town 59 IV. Making Clothing in Chicago 99 V. The Meaning of It All 155 By MARIE VAN VORST CHAPTER PAGE VI. Introductory 165 VII. A Maker of Shoes at Lynn 169 VIII. The Southern Cotton Mills 215 The Mill Village The Mill IX. The Child in the Southern Mills 275 * * * * * LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Miss Marie and Mrs. John Van Vorst in their factory costumes, _Frontispiece_ FACING PAGE "The streets are covered with snow, and over the snow the soot falls softly like a mantle of perpetual mourning," 12 "Waving arms of smoke and steam, a symbol of spent energy, of the lives consumed, and vanishing again," 58 "They trifle with love," 70 After Saturday night's shopping, 84 Sunday evening at Silver Lake, 96 "The breath of the black, sweet night reached them, fetid, heavy with the odour of death as it blew across the stockyards," 102 In a Chicago theatrical costume factory, 114 Chicago types, 128 The rear of a Chicago tenement, 144 A delicate type of beauty at work in a Lynn shoe factory, 172 One of the swells of the factory: a very expert "vamper," an Irish girl, earning from $10 to $14 a week, 172 "Learning" a new hand, 184 The window side of Miss K.'s parlour at Lynn, Mass., 196 "Fancy gumming," 210 An all-round, experienced hand, 210 "Mighty mill--pride of the architect and the commercial magnate," 220 "The Southern mill-hand's face is unique, a fearful type," 240 * * * * * THE WOMAN WHO TOILS CHAPTER I--INTRODUCTORY BY MRS. JOHN VAN VORST * * * * * CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY Any journey into the world, any research in literature, any study of society, demonstrates the existence of two distinct classes designated as the rich and the poor, the fortunate and the unfortunate, the upper and the lower, the educated and the uneducated--and a further variety of opposing epithets. Few of us who belong to the former category have come into more than brief contact with the labourers who, in the factories or elsewhere, gain from day to day a livelihood frequently insufficient for their needs. Yet all of us are troubled by their struggle, all of us recognize the misery of their surroundings, the paucity of their moral and esthetic inspiration, their lack of opportunity for physical development. All of us have a longing, pronounced or latent, to help them, to alleviate their distress, to better their condition in some, in every way. Now concerning this unknown class whose oppression we deplore we have two sources of information: the financiers who, for their own material advancement, use the labourer as a means, and the philanthropists who consider the poor as objects of charity, to be treated sentimentally, or as economic cases to be studied theoretically. It is not by economics nor by the distribution of bread alone that we can find a solution for the social problem. More important for the happiness of man is the hope we cherish of eventually bringing about a reign of justice and equality upon earth. It is evident that, in order to render practical aid to this class, we must live among them, understand their needs, acquaint ourselves with their desires, their hopes, their aspirations, their fears. We must discover and adopt their point of view, put ourselves in their surroundings, assume their burdens, unite with them in their daily effort. In this way alone, and not by forcing upon them a preconceived ideal, can we do them real good, can we help them to find a moral, spiritual, esthetic standard suited to their condition of life. Such an undertaking is impossible for most. Sure of its utility, inspired by its practical importance, I determined to make the sacrifice it entailed and to learn by experience and observation what these could teach. I set out to surmount physical fatigue and revulsion, to place my intellect and sympathy in contact as a medium between the working girl who wants help and the more fortunately situated who wish to help her. In the papers which follow I have endeavoured to give a faithful picture of things as they exist, both in and out of the factory, and to suggest remedies that occurred to me as practical. My desire is to act as a mouthpiece for the woman labourer. I assumed her mode of existence with the hope that I might put into words her cry for help. It has been my purpose to find out what her capacity is for suffering and for joy as compared with ours; what tastes she has, what ambitions, what the equipment of woman is as compared to that of man: her equipment as determined, 1st. By nature, 2d. By family life, 3d. By social laws; what her strength is and what her weaknesses are as compared with the woman of leisure; and finally, to discern the tendencies of a new society as manifested by its working girls. After many weeks spent among them as one of them I have come away convinced that no earnest effort for their betterment is fruitless. I am hopeful that my faithful descriptions will perhaps suggest, to the hearts of those who read, some ways of rendering personal and general help to that class who, through the sordidness and squalour of their material surroundings, the limitation of their opportunities, are condemned to slow death--mental, moral, physical death! If into their prison's midst, after the reading of these lines, a single death pardon should be carried, my work shall not have been in vain. * * * * * IN A PITTSBURG FACTORY * * * * * CHAPTER II IN A PITTSBURG FACTORY In choosing the scene for my first experiences, I decided upon Pittsburg, as being an industrial centre whose character was determined by its working population. It exceeds all other cities of the country in the variety and extent of its manufacturing products. Of its 321,616 inhabitants, 100,000 are labouring men employed in the mills. Add to these the great number of women and girls who work in the factories and clothing shops, and the character of the place becomes apparent at a glance. There is, moreover, another reason which guided me toward this Middle West town without its like. This land which we are accustomed to call democratic, is in reality composed of a multitude of kingdoms whose despots are the employers--the multi-millionaire patrons--and whose serfs are the labouring men and women. The rulers are invested with an authority and a power not unlike those possessed by the early barons, the feudal lords, the Lorenzo de Medicis, the Cheops; but with this difference, that whereas Pharaoh by his unique will controlled a thousand slaves, the steel magnate uses, for his own ends also, thousands of separate wills. It was a submissive throng who built the pyramids. The mills which produce half the steel the world requires are run by a collection of individuals. Civilization has undergone a change. The multitudes once worked for one; now each man works for himself first and for a master secondarily. In our new society where tradition plays no part, where the useful is paramount, where business asserts itself over art and beauty, where material needs are the first to be satisfied, and where the country's unclaimed riches are our chief incentive to effort, it is not uninteresting to find an analogy with the society in Italy which produced the Renaissance. Diametrically opposed in their ideals, they have a common spirit. In Italy the rebirth was of the love of art, and of classic forms, the desire to embellish--all that was inspired by culture of the beautiful; the Renaissance in America is the rebirth of man's originality in the invention of the useful, the virgin power of man's wits as quickened in the crude struggle for life. Florence is _par excellence_ the place where we can study the Italian Renaissance; Pittsburg appealed to me as a most favourable spot to watch the American Renaissance, the enlivening of energies which give value to a man devoid of education, energies which in their daily exercise with experience generate a new force, a force that makes our country what it is, industrially and economically. So it was toward Pittsburg that I first directed my steps, but before leaving New York I assumed my disguise. In the Parisian clothes I am accustomed to wear I present the familiar outline of any woman of the world. With the aid of coarse woolen garments, a shabby felt sailor hat, a cheap piece of fur, a knitted shawl and gloves I am transformed into a working girl of the ordinary type. I was born and bred and brought up in the world of the fortunate--I am going over now into the world of the unfortunate. I am to share their burdens, to lead their lives, to be present as one of them at the spectacle of their sufferings and joys, their ambitions and sorrows. I get no farther than the depot when I observe that I am being treated as though I were ignorant and lacking in experience. As a rule the gateman says a respectful "To the right" or "To the left," and trusts to his well-dressed hearer's intelligence. A word is all that a moment's hesitation calls forth. To the working girl he explains as follows: "Now you take your ticket, do you understand, and I'll pick up your money for you; you don't need to pay anything for your ferry--just put those three cents back in your pocket-book and go down there to where that gentleman is standing and he'll direct you to your train." This without my having asked a question. I had divested myself of a certain authority along with my good clothes, and I had become one of a class which, as the gateman had found out, and as I find out later myself, are devoid of all knowledge of the world and, aside from their manual training, ignorant on all subjects. My train is three hours late, which brings me at about noon to Pittsburg. I have not a friend or an acquaintance within hundreds of miles. With my bag in my hand I make my way through the dark, busy streets to the Young Women's Christian Association. It is down near a frozen river. The wind blows sharp and biting over the icy water; the streets are covered with snow, and over the snow the soot falls softly like a mantle of perpetual mourning. There is almost no traffic. Innumerable tramways ring their way up and down wire-lined avenues; occasionally a train of freight cars announces itself with a warning bell in the city's midst. It is a black town of toil, one man in every three a labourer. They have no need for vehicles of pleasure. The trolleys take them to their work, the trains transport the products of the mills. I hear all languages spoken: this prodigious town is a Western bazaar where the nations assemble not to buy but to be employed. The stagnant scum of other countries floats hither to be purified in the fierce bouillon of live opportunity. It is a cosmopolitan procession that passes me: the dusky Easterner with a fez of Astrakhan, the gentle-eyed Italian with a shawl of gay colours, the loose-lipped Hungarian, the pale, mystic Swede, the German with wife and children hanging on his arm. [Illustration: "THE STREETS ARE COVERED WITH SNOW, AND OVER THE SNOW THE SOOT FALLS SOFTLY LIKE A MANTLE OF PERPETUAL MOURNING"] In this giant bureau of labour all nationalities gather, united by a common bond of hope, animated by a common chance of prosperity, kindred through a common effort, fellow-citizens in a new land of freedom. At the central office of the Young Women's Christian Association I receive what attention a busy secretary can spare me. She questions and I answer as best I can. "What is it you want?" "Board and work in a factory." "Have you ever worked in a factory?" "No, ma'am." "Have you ever done any housework?" She talks in the low, confidential tone of those accustomed to reforming prisoners and reasoning with the poor. "Yes, ma'am, I have done housework." "What did you make?" "Twelve dollars a month." "I can get you a place where you will have a room to yourself and fourteen dollars a month. Do you want it?" "No, ma'am." "Are you making anything now?" "No, ma'am." "Can you afford to pay board?" "Yes, as I hope to get work at once." She directs me to a boarding place which is at the same time a refuge for the friendless and a shelter for waifs. The newly arrived population of the fast-growing city seems unfamiliar with the address I carry written on a card. I wait on cold street corners, I travel over miles of half-settled country, long stretches of shanties and saloons huddled close to the trolley line. The thermometer is at zero. Toward three o'clock I find the waif boarding-house. The matron is in the parlour hovering over a gas stove. She has false hair, false teeth, false jewelry, and the dry, crabbed, inquisitive manner of the idle who are entrusted with authority. She is there to direct others and do nothing herself, to be cross and make herself dreaded. In the distance I can hear a shrill, nasal orchestra of children's voices. I am cold and hungry. I have as yet no job. The noise, the sordidness, the witchlike matron annoy me. I have a sudden impulse to flee, to seek warmth and food and proper shelter--to snap my fingers at experience and be grateful I was born among the fortunate. Something within me calls _Courage_! I take a room at three dollars a week with board, put my things in it, and while my feet yet ache with cold I start to find a factory, a pickle factory, which, the matron tells me, is run by a Christian gentleman. I have felt timid and even overbold at different moments in my life, but never so audacious as on entering a factory door marked in gilt letters: "_Women Employees_." The Cerberus between me and the fulfilment of my purpose is a gray-haired timekeeper with kindly eyes. He sits in a glass cage and about him are a score or more of clocks all ticking soundly and all surrounded by an extra dial of small numbers running from one to a thousand. Each number means a workman--each tick of the clock a moment of his life gone in the service of the pickle company. I rap on the window of the glass cage. It opens. "Do you need any girls?" I ask, trying not to show my emotion. "Ever worked in a factory?" "No, sir; but I'm very handy." "What have you done?" "Housework," I respond with conviction, beginning to believe it myself. "Well," he says, looking at me, "they need help up in the bottling department; but I don't know as it would pay you--they don't give more than sixty or seventy cents a day." "I am awfully anxious for work," I say. "Couldn't I begin and get raised, perhaps?" "Surely--there is always room for those who show the right spirit. You come in to-morrow morning at a quarter before seven. You can try it, and you mustn't get discouraged; there's plenty of work for good workers." The blood tingles through my cold hands. My heart is lighter. I have not come in vain. I have a place! When I get back to the boarding-house it is twilight. The voices I had heard and been annoyed by have materialized. Before the gas stove there are nine small individuals dressed in a strange combination of uniform checked aprons and patent leather boots worn out and discarded by the babies of the fortunate. The small feet they encase are crossed, and the freshly washed faces are demure, as the matron with the wig frowns down into a newspaper from which she now and then hisses a command to order. Three miniature members are rocking violently in tiny rocking chairs. "_Quit rocking_!" the false mother cries at them. "You make my head ache. Most of 'em have no parents," she explains to me. "None of 'em have homes." Here they are, a small kingdom, not wanted, unwelcome, unprovided for, growled at and grumbled over. Yet each is developing in spite of chance; each is determining hour by hour his heritage from unknown parents. The matron leaves us; the rocking begins again. Conversation is animated. The three-year-old baby bears the name of a three-year-old hero. This "Dewey" complains in a plaintive voice of a too long absent mother. His rosy lips are pursed out even with his nose. Again and again he reiterates the refrain: "My mamma don't never come to see me. She don't bring me no toys." And then with pride, "My mamma buys rice and tea and lots of things," and dashing to the window as a trolley rattles by, "My mamma comes in the street cars, only," sadly, "she don't never come." Not one of them has forgotten what fate has willed them to do without. At first they look shrinkingly toward my outstretched hand. Is it coming to administer some punishment? Little by little they are reassured, and, gaining in confidence, they sketch for me in disconnected chapters the short outlines of their lives. "I've been to the hospital," says one, "and so's Lily. I drank a lot of washing soda and it made me sick." Lily begins her hospital reminiscences. "I had typhoy fever--I was in the childun's ward awful long, and one night they turned down the lights--it was just evening--and a man came in and he took one of the babies up in his arms, and we all said, 'What's the row? What's the row?' and he says 'Hush, the baby's dead.' And out in the hall there was something white, and he carried the baby and put it in the white thing, and the baby had a doll that could talk, and he put that in the white thing too, right alongside o' the dead baby. Another time," Lily goes on, "there was a baby in a crib alongside of mine, and one day he was takin' his bottle, and all of a suddint he choked; and he kept on chokin' and then he died, and he was still takin' his bottle." Lily is five. I see in her and in her companions a familiarity not only with the mysteries but with the stern realities of life. They have an understanding look at the mention of death, drunkenness and all domestic difficulties or irregularities. Their vocabulary and conversation image the violent and brutal side of existence--the only one with which they are acquainted. At bedtime I find my way upward through dark and narrow stairs that open into a long room with a slanting roof. It serves as nursery and parlour. In the dull light of a stove and an oil lamp four or five women are seated with babies on their knees. They have the meek look of those who doom themselves to acceptance of misfortune, the flat, resigned figures of the overworked. Their loose woolen jackets hang over their gaunt shoulders; their straight hair is brushed hard and smooth against high foreheads. One baby lies a comfortable bundle in its mother's arms; one is black in the face after a spasm of coughing; one howls its woes through a scarlet mask. The corners of the room are filled with the drones--those who "work for a bite of grub." The cook, her washing done, has piled her aching bones in a heap; her drawn face waits like an indicator for some fresh signal to a new fatigue. Mary, the woman-of-all-work, who has spent more than one night within a prison's walls, has long ago been brutalized by the persistence of life in spite of crime; her gray hair ripples like sand under receding waves; her profile is strong and fine, but her eyes have a film of misery over them--dull and silent, they deaden her face. And Jennie, the charwoman, is she a cripple or has toil thus warped her body? Her arms, long and withered, swing like the broken branches of a gnarled tree; her back is twisted and her head bowed toward earth. A stranger to rest, she seems a mechanical creature wound up for work and run down in the middle of a task. What could be hoped for in such surroundings? With every effort to be clean the dirt accumulates faster than it can be washed away. It was impossible, I found by my own experience, to be really clean. There was a total absence of beauty in everything--not a line of grace, not a pleasing sound, not an agreeable odour anywhere. One could get used to this ugliness, become unconscious even of the acrid smells that pervade the tenement. It was probable my comrades felt at no time the discomfort I did, but the harm done them is not the physical suffering their condition causes, but the moral and spiritual bondage in which it holds them. They are not a class of drones made differently from us. I saw nothing to indicate that they were not born with like _capacities_ to ours. As our bodies accustom themselves to luxury and cleanliness, theirs grow hardened to deprivation and filth. As our souls develop with the advantages of all that constitutes an ideal--an intellectual, esthetic and moral ideal--their souls diminish under the oppression of a constant physical effort to meet material demands. The fact that they become physically callous to what we consider unbearable is used as an argument for their emotional insensibility. I hold such an argument as false. From all I saw I am convinced that, _given their relative preparation_ for suffering and for pleasure, their griefs and their joys are the same as ours in kind and in degree. * * * * * When one is accustomed to days begun at will by the summons of a tidy maid, waking oneself at half-past five means to be guardian of the hours until this time arrives. Once up, the toilet I made in the nocturnal darkness of my room can best be described by the matron's remark to me as I went to bed: "If you want to wash," she said, "you'd better wash now; you can't have no water in your room, and there won't be nobody up when you leave in the morning." My evening bath is supplemented by a whisk of the sponge at five. Without it is black--a more intense black than night's beginning, when all is astir. The streets are silent, an occasional train whirls past, groups of men hurry hither and thither swinging their arms, rubbing their ears in the freezing air. Many of them have neither overcoats nor gloves. Now and then a woman sweeps along. Her skirts have the same swing as my own short ones; under her arm she carries a newspaper bundle whose meaning I have grown to know. My own contains a midday meal: two cold fried oysters, two dried preserve sandwiches, a pickle and an orange. My way lies across a bridge. In the first gray of dawn the river shows black under its burden of ice. Along its troubled banks innumerable chimneys send forth their hot activity, clouds of seething flames, waving arms of smoke and steam--a symbol of spent energy, of the lives consumed and vanishing again, the sparks that shine an instant against the dark sky and are spent forever. As I draw nearer the factory I move with a stream of fellow workers pouring toward the glass cage of the timekeeper. He greets me and starts me on my upward journey with a wish that I shall not get discouraged, a reminder that the earnest worker always makes a way for herself. "What will you do about your name?" "What will you do with your hair and your hands?" "How can you deceive people?" These are some of the questions I had been asked by my friends. Before any one had cared or needed to know my name it was morning of the second day, and my assumed name seemed by that time the only one I had ever had. As to hair and hands, a half-day's work suffices for their undoing. And my disguise is so successful I have deceived not only others but myself. I have become with desperate reality a factory girl, alone, inexperienced, friendless. I am making $4.20 a week and spending $3 of this for board alone, and I dread not being strong enough to keep my job. I climb endless stairs, am given a white cap and an apron, and my life as a factory girl begins. I become part of the ceaseless, unrelenting mechanism kept in motion by the poor. The factory I have chosen has been built contemporaneously with reforms and sanitary inspection. There are clean, well-aired rooms, hot and cold water with which to wash, places to put one's hat and coat, an obligatory uniform for regular employees, hygienic and moral advantages of all kinds, ample space for work without crowding. Side by side in rows of tens or twenties we stand before our tables waiting for the seven o'clock whistle to blow. In their white caps and blue frocks and aprons, the girls in my department, like any unfamiliar class, all look alike. My first task is an easy one; anybody could do it. On the stroke of seven my fingers fly. I place a lid of paper in a tin jar-top, over it a cork; this I press down with both hands, tossing the cover, when done, into a pan. In spite of myself I hurry; I cannot work fast enough--I outdo my companions. How can they be so slow? I have finished three dozen while they are doing two. Every nerve, every muscle is offering some of its energy. Over in one corner the machinery for sealing the jars groans and roars; the mingled sounds of filling, washing, wiping, packing, comes to my eager ears as an accompaniment for the simple work assigned to me. One hour passes, two, three hours; I fit ten, twenty, fifty dozen caps, and still my energy keeps up. The forewoman is a pretty girl of twenty. Her restless eyes, her metallic voice are the messengers who would know all. I am afraid of her. I long to please her. I am sure she must be saying "_How well the new girl works_." Conversation is possible among those whose work has become mechanical. Twice I am sent to the storeroom for more caps. In these brief moments my companions volunteer a word of themselves. "I was out to a ball last night," the youngest one says. "I stayed so late I didn't feel a bit like getting up this morning." "That's nothing," another retorts. "There's hardly an evening we don't have company at the house, music or somethin'; I never get enough rest." And on my second trip the pale creature with me says: "I'm in deep mourning. My mother died last Friday week. It's awful lonely without her. Seems as though I'd never get over missing her. I miss her _dreadful_. Perhaps by and by I'll get used to it." "Oh, no, you won't," the answer comes from a girl with short skirts. "You'll never get used to it. My ma's been dead eight years next month and I dreamt about her all last night. I can't get her out o' me mind." Born into dirt and ugliness, disfigured by effort, they have the same heritage as we: joys and sorrows, grief and laughter. With them as with us gaiety is up to its old tricks, tempting from graver rivals, making duty an alien. Grief is doing her ugly work: hollowing round cheeks, blackening bright eyes, putting her weight of leaden loneliness in hearts heretofore light with youth. When I have fitted 110 dozen tin caps the forewoman comes and changes my job. She tells me to haul and load up some heavy crates with pickle jars. I am wheeling these back and forth when the twelve o'clock whistle blows. Up to that time the room has been one big dynamo, each girl a part of it. With the first moan of the noon signal the dynamo comes to life. It is hungry; it has friends and favourites--news to tell. We herd down to a big dining-room and take our places, five hundred of us in all. The newspaper bundles are unfolded. The ménu varies little: bread and jam, cake and pickles, occasionally a sausage, a bit of cheese or a piece of stringy cold meat. In ten minutes the repast is over. The dynamo has been fed; there are twenty minutes of leisure spent in dancing, singing, resting, and conversing chiefly about young men and "sociables." At 12:30 sharp the whistle draws back the life it has given. I return to my job. My shoulders are beginning to ache. My hands are stiff, my thumbs almost blistered. The enthusiasm I had felt is giving way to a numbing weariness. I look at my companions now in amazement. How can they keep on so steadily, so swiftly? Cases are emptied and refilled; bottles are labeled, stamped and rolled away; jars are washed, wiped and loaded, and still there are more cases, more jars, more bottles. Oh! the monotony of it, the never-ending supply of work to be begun and finished, begun and finished, begun and finished! Now and then some one cuts a finger or runs a splinter under the flesh; once the mustard machine broke--and still the work goes on, on, on! New girls like myself, who had worked briskly in the morning, are beginning to loiter. Out of the washing-tins hands come up red and swollen, only to be plunged again into hot dirty water. Would the whistle never blow? Once I pause an instant, my head dazed and weary, my ears strained to bursting with the deafening noise. Quickly a voice whispers in my ear: "You'd better not stand there doin' nothin'. If _she_ catches you she'll give it to you." On! on! bundle of pains! For you this is one day's work in a thousand of peace and beauty. For those about you this is the whole of daylight, this is the winter dawn and twilight, this is the glorious summer noon, this is all day, this is every day, this is _life_. Rest is only a bit of a dream, snatched when the sleeper's aching body lets her close her eyes for a moment in oblivion. Out beyond the chimney tops the snowfields and the river turn from gray to pink, and still the work goes on. Each crate I lift grows heavier, each bottle weighs an added pound. Now and then some one lends a helping hand. "Tired, ain't you? This is your first day, ain't it?" The acid smell of vinegar and mustard penetrates everywhere. My ankles cry out pity. Oh! to sit down an instant! "Tidy up the table," some one tells me; "we're soon goin' home." Home! I think of the stifling fumes of fried food, the dim haze in the kitchen where my supper waits me; the children, the band of drifting workers, the shrill, complaining voice of the hired mother. This is home. I sweep and set to rights, limping, lurching along. At last the whistle blows! In a swarm we report; we put on our things and get away into the cool night air. I have stood ten hours; I have fitted 1,300 corks; I have hauled and loaded 4,000 jars of pickles. My pay is seventy cents. The impressions of my first day crowd pell-mell upon my mind. The sound of the machinery dins in my ears. I can hear the sharp, nasal voices of the forewoman and the girls shouting questions and answers. A sudden recollection comes to me of a Dahomayan family I had watched at work in their hut during the Paris Exhibition. There was a magic spell in their voices as they talked together; the sounds they made had the cadence of the wind in the trees, the running of water, the song of birds: they echoed unconsciously the caressing melodies of nature. My factory companions drew their vocal inspiration from the bedlam of civilization, the rasping and pounding of machinery, the din which they must out-din to be heard. For the two days following my first experience I am unable to resume work. Fatigue has swept through my blood like a fever. Every bone and joint has a clamouring ache. I pass the time visiting other factories and hunting for a place to board in the neighbourhood of the pickling house. At the cork works they do not need girls; at the cracker company I can get a job, but the hours are longer, the advantages less than where I am; at the broom factory they employ only men. I decide to continue with tin caps and pickle jars. My whole effort now is to find a respectable boarding-house. I start out, the thermometer near zero, the snow falling. I wander and ask, wander and ask. Up and down the black streets running parallel and at right angles with the factory I tap and ring at one after another of the two-story red-brick houses. More than half of them are empty, tenantless during the working hours. What hope is there for family life near the hearth which is abandoned at the factory's first call? The sociableness, the discipline, the division of responsibility make factory work a dangerous rival to domestic care. There is something in the modern conditions of labour which act magnetically upon American girls, impelling them to work not for bread alone, but for clothes and finery as well. Each class in modern society knows a menace to its homes: sport, college education, machinery--each is a factor in the gradual transformation of family life from a united domestic group to a collection of individuals with separate interests and aims outside the home. I pursue my search. It is the dinner hour. At last a narrow door opens, letting a puff of hot rank air blow upon me as I stand in the vestibule questioning: "Do you take boarders?" The woman who answers stands with a spoon in her hand, her eyes fixed upon a rear room where a stove, laden with frying-pans, glows and sputters. "Come in," she says, "and get warm." I walk into a front parlour with furniture that evidently serves domestic as well as social purposes. There is a profusion of white knitted tidies and portieres that exude an odour of cooking. Before the fire a workingman sits in a blue shirt and overalls. Fresh from the barber's hands, he has a clean mask marked by the razor's edge. Already I feel at home. "Want board, do you?" the woman asks. "Well, we ain't got no place; we're always right full up." My disappointment is keen. Regretfully I leave the fire and start on again. "I guess you'll have some trouble in finding what you want," the woman calls to me on her way back to the kitchen, as I go out. The answer is everywhere the same, with slight variations. Some take "mealers" only, some only "roomers," some "only gentlemen." I begin to understand it. Among the thousands of families who live in the city on account of the work provided by the mills, there are girls enough to fill the factories. There is no influx such as creates in a small town the necessity for working-girl boarding-houses. There is an ample supply of hands from the existing homes. There is the same difference between city and country factory life that there is between university life in a capital and in a country town. A sign on a neat-looking corner house attracts me. I rap and continue to rap; the door is opened at length by a tall good-looking young woman. Her hair curls prettily, catching the light; her eyes are stupid and beautiful. She has on a black skirt and a bright purple waist. "Do you take boarders?" "Why, yes. I don't generally like to take ladies, they give so much trouble. You can come in if you like. Here's the room," she continues, opening a door near the vestibule. She brushes her hand over her forehead and stares at me; and then, as though she can no longer silence the knell that is ringing in her heart, she says to me, always staring: "My husband was killed on the railroad last week. He lived three hours. They took him to the hospital--a boy come running down and told me. I went up as fast as I could, but it was too late; he never spoke again. I guess he didn't know what struck him; his head was all smashed. He was awful good to me--so easy-going. I ain't got my mind down to work yet. If you don't like this here room," she goes on listlessly, "maybe you could get suited across the way." Thompson Seton tells us in his book on wild animals that not one among them ever dies a natural death. As the opposite extreme of vital persistence we have the man whose life, in spite of acute disease, is prolonged against reason by science; and midway comes the labourer, who takes his chances unarmed by any understanding of physical law, whose only safeguards are his wits and his presence of mind. The violent death, the accidents, the illnesses to which he falls victim might be often warded off by proper knowledge. Nature is a zealous enemy; ignorance and inexperience keep a whole class defenseless. The next day is Saturday. I feel a fresh excitement at going back to my job; the factory draws me toward it magnetically. I long to be in the hum and whir of the busy workroom. Two days of leisure without resources or amusement make clear to me how the sociability of factory life, the freedom from personal demands, the escape from self can prove a distraction to those who have no mental occupation, no money to spend on diversion. It is easier to submit to factory government which commands five hundred girls with one law valid for all, than to undergo the arbitrary discipline of parental authority. I speed across the snow-covered courtyard. In a moment my cap and apron are on and I am sent to report to the head forewoman. "We thought you'd quit," she says. "Lots of girls come in here and quit after one day, especially Saturday. To-day is scrubbing day," she smiles at me. "Now we'll do right by you if you do right by us. What did the timekeeper say he'd give you?" "Sixty or seventy a day." "We'll give you seventy," she says. "Of course, we can judge girls a good deal by their looks, and we can see that you're above the average." She wears her cap close against her head. Her front hair is rolled up in crimping-pins. She has false teeth and is a widow. Her pale, parched face shows what a great share of life has been taken by daily over-effort repeated during years. As she talks she touches my arm in a kindly fashion and looks at me with blue eyes that float about under weary lids. "You are only at the beginning," they seem to say. "Your youth and vigour are at full tide, but drop by drop they will be sapped from you, to swell the great flood of human effort that supplies the world's material needs. You will gain in experience," the weary lids flutter at me, "but you will pay _with your life_ the living you make." There is no variety in my morning's work. Next to me is a bright, pretty girl jamming chopped pickles into bottles. "How long have you been here?" I ask, attracted by her capable appearance. She does her work easily and well. "About five months." "How much do you make?" "From 90 cents to $1.05. I'm doing piece-work," she explains. "I get seven-eighths of a cent for every dozen bottles I fill. I have to fill eight dozen to make seven cents. Downstairs in the corking-room you can make as high as $1.15 to $1.20. They won't let you make any more than that. Me and them two girls over there are the only ones in this room doing piece-work. I was here three weeks as a day-worker." "Do you live at home?" I ask. "Yes; I don't have to work. I don't pay no board. My father and my brothers supports me and my mother. But," and her eyes twinkle, "I couldn't have the clothes I do if I didn't work." "Do you spend your money all on yourself?" "Yes." I am amazed at the cheerfulness of my companions. They complain of fatigue, of cold, but never at any time is there a suggestion of ill-humour. Their suppressed animal spirits reassert themselves when the forewoman's back is turned. Companionship is the great stimulus. I am confident that without the social _entrain_, the encouragement of example, it would be impossible to obtain as much from each individual girl as is obtained from them in groups of tens, fifties, hundreds working together. When lunch is over we are set to scrubbing. Every table and stand, every inch of the factory floor must be scrubbed in the next four hours. The whistle on Saturday blows an hour earlier. Any girl who has not finished her work when the day is done, so that she can leave things in perfect order, is kept overtime, for which she is paid at the rate of six or seven cents an hour. A pail of hot water, a dirty rag and a scrubbing-brush are thrust into my hands. I touch them gingerly. I get a broom and for some time make sweeping a necessity, but the forewoman is watching me. I am afraid of her. There is no escape. I begin to scrub. My hands go into the brown, slimy water and come out brown and slimy. I slop the soap-suds around and move on to a fresh place. It appears there are a right and a wrong way of scrubbing. The forewoman is at my side. "Have you ever scrubbed before?" she asks sharply. This is humiliating. "Yes," I answer; "I have scrubbed ... oilcloth." The forewoman knows how to do everything. She drops down on her knees and, with her strong arms and short-thumbed, brutal hands, she shows me how to scrub. The grumbling is general. There is but one opinion among the girls: it is not right that they should be made to do this work. They all echo the same resentment, but their complaints are made in whispers; not one has the courage to openly rebel. What, I wonder to myself, do the men do on scrubbing day. I try to picture one of them on his hands and knees in a sea of brown mud. It is impossible. The next time I go for a supply of soft soap in a department where the men are working I take a look at the masculine interpretation of house cleaning. One man is playing a hose on the floor and the rest are rubbing the boards down with long-handled brooms and rubber mops. "You take it easy," I say to the boss. "I won't have no scrubbing in my place," he answers emphatically. "The first scrubbing day, they says to me 'Get down on your hands and knees,' and I says--'Just pay me my money, will you; I'm goin' home. What scrubbing can't be done with mops ain't going to be done by me.' The women wouldn't have to scrub, either, if they had enough spirit all of 'em to say so." I determined to find out if possible, during my stay in the factory, what it is that clogs this mainspring of "spirit" in the women. I hear fragmentary conversations about fancy dress balls, valentine parties, church sociables, flirtations and clothes. Almost all of the girls wear shoes with patent leather and some or much cheap jewelry, brooches, bangles and rings. A few draw their corsets in; the majority are not laced. Here and there I see a new girl whose back is flat, whose chest is well developed. Among the older hands who have begun work early there is not a straight pair of shoulders. Much of the bottle washing and filling is done by children from twelve to fourteen years of age. On their slight, frail bodies toil weighs heavily; the delicate child form gives way to the iron hand of labour pressed too soon upon it. Backs bend earthward, chests recede, never to be sound again. * * * * * After a Sunday of rest I arrive somewhat ahead of time on Monday morning, which leaves me a few moments for conversation with a piece-worker who is pasting labels on mustard jars. She is fifteen. "Do you like your job?" I ask. "Yes, I do," she answers, pleased to tell her little history. "I began in a clothing shop. I only made $2.50 a week, but I didn't have to stand. I felt awful when papa made me quit. When I came in here, bein' on my feet tired me so I cried every night for two months. Now I've got used to it. I don't feel no more tired when I get home than I did when I started out." There are two sharp blue lines that drag themselves down from her eyes to her white cheeks. "Why, you know, at Christmas they give us two weeks," she goes on in the sociable tone of a woman whose hands are occupied. "I just didn't know what to do with myself." "Does your mother work?" "Oh, my, no. I don't have to work, only if I didn't I couldn't have the clothes I do. I save some of my money and spend the rest on myself. I make $6 to $7 a week." The girl next us volunteers a share in the conversation. "I bet you can't guess how old I am." I look at her. Her face and throat are wrinkled, her hands broad, and scrawny; she is tall and has short skirts. What shall be my clue? If I judge by pleasure, "unborn" would be my answer; if by effort, then "a thousand years." "Twenty," I hazard as a safe medium. "Fourteen," she laughs. "I don't like it at home, the kids bother me so. Mamma's people are well-to-do. I'm working for my own pleasure." "Indeed, I wish I was," says a new girl with a red waist. "We three girls supports mamma and runs the house. We have $13 rent to pay and a load of coal every month and groceries. It's no joke, I can tell you." The whistle blows; I go back to my monotonous task. The old aches begin again, first gently, then more and more sharply. The work itself is growing more mechanical. I can watch the girls around me. What is it that determines superiority in this class? Why was the girl filling pickle jars put on piece-work after three weeks, when others older than she are doing day-work at fifty and sixty cents after a year in the factory? What quality decides that four shall direct four hundred? Intelligence I put first; intelligence of any kind, from the natural penetration that needs no teaching to the common sense that every one relies upon. Judgment is not far behind in the list, and it is soon matured by experience. A strong will and a moral steadiness stand guardians over the other two. The little pickle girl is winning in the race by her intelligence. The forewomen have all four qualities, sometimes one, sometimes another predominating. Pretty Clara is smarter than Lottie. Lottie is more steady. Old Mrs. Minns' will has kept her at it until her judgment has become infallible and can command a good price. Annie is an evenly balanced mixture of all, and the five hundred who are working under the five lack these qualities somewhat, totally, or have them in useless proportions. Monday is a hard day. There is more complaining, more shirking, more gossip than in the middle of the week. Most of the girls have been to dances on Saturday night, to church on Sunday evening with some young man. Their conversation is vulgar and prosaic; there is nothing in the language they use that suggests an ideal or any conception of the abstract. They make jokes, state facts about the work, tease each other, but in all they say there is not a word of value--nothing that would interest if repeated out of its class. They have none of the sagaciousness of the low-born Italian, none of the wit and penetration of the French _ouvriere_. The Old World generations ago divided itself into classes; the lower class watched the upper and grew observant and appreciative, wise and discriminating, through the study of a master's will. Here in the land of freedom, where no class line is rigid, the precious chance is not to serve but to live for oneself; not to watch a superior, but to find out by experience. The ideal plays no part, stern realities alone count, and thus we have a progressive, practical, independent people, the expression of whose personality is interesting not through their words but by their deeds. When the Monday noon whistle blows I follow the hundreds down into the dining-room. Each wears her cap in a way that speaks for her temperament. There is the indifferent, the untidy, the prim, the vain, the coquettish; and the faces under them, which all looked alike at first, are becoming familiar. I have begun to make friends. I speak bad English, but do not attempt to change my voice and inflection nor to adopt the twang. No allusion is made to my pronunciation except by one girl, who says: "I knew you was from the East. My sister spent a year in Boston and when she come back she talked just like you do, but she lost it all again. I'd give anything if I could talk _aristocratic_." I am beginning to understand why the meager lunches of preserve-sandwiches and pickles more than satisfy the girls whom I was prepared to accuse of spending their money on gewgaws rather than on nourishment. It is fatigue that steals the appetite. I can hardly taste what I put in my mouth; the food sticks in my throat. The girls who complain most of being tired are the ones who roll up their newspaper bundles half full. They should be given an hour at noon. The first half of it should be spent in rest and recreation before a bite is touched. The good that such a regulation would work upon their faulty skins and pale faces, their lasting strength and health, would be incalculable. I did not want wholesome food, exhausted as I was. I craved sours and sweets, pickles, cake, anything to excite my numb taste. So long as I remain in the bottling department there is little variety in my days. Rising at 5:30 every morning, I make my way through black streets to offer my sacrifice of energy on the altar of toil. All is done without a fresh incident. Accumulated weariness forces me to take a day off. When I return I am sent for in the corking-room. The forewoman lends me a blue gingham dress and tells me I am to do "piece"-work. There are three who work together at every corking-table. My two companions are a woman with goggles and a one-eyed boy. We are not a brilliant trio. The job consists in evening the vinegar in the bottles, driving the cork in, first with a machine, then with a hammer, letting out the air with a knife stuck under the cork, capping the corks, sealing the caps, counting and distributing the bottles. These operations are paid for at the rate of one-half a cent for the dozen bottles, which sum is divided among us. My two companions are earning a living, so I must work in dead earnest or take bread out of their mouths. At every blow of the hammer there is danger. Again and again bottles fly to pieces in my hand. The boy who runs the corking-machine smashes a glass to fragments. "Are you hurt?" I ask, my own fingers crimson stained. "That ain't nothin'," he answers. "Cuts is common; my hands is full of 'em." The woman directs us; she is fussy and loses her head, the work accumulates, I am slow, the boy is clumsy. There is a stimulus unsuspected in working to get a job done. Before this I had worked to make the time pass. Then no one took account of how much I did; the factory clock had a weighted pendulum; now ambition outdoes physical strength. The hours and my purpose are running a race together. But, hurry as I may, as we do, when twelve blows its signal we have corked only 210 dozen bottles! This is no more than day-work at seventy cents. With an ache in every muscle, I redouble my energy after lunch. The girl with the goggles looks at me blindly and says: "Ain't it just awful hard work? You can make good money, but you've got to hustle." She is a forlorn specimen of humanity, ugly, old, dirty, condemned to the slow death of the overworked. I am a green hand. I make mistakes; I have no experience in the fierce sustained effort of the bread-winners. Over and over I turn to her, over and over she is obliged to correct me. During the ten hours we work side by side not one murmur of impatience escapes her. When she sees that I am getting discouraged she calls out across the deafening din, "That's all right; you can't expect to learn in a day; just keep on steady." As I go about distributing bottles to the labelers I notice a strange little elf, not more than twelve years old, hauling loaded crates; her face and chest are depressed, she is pale to blueness, her eyes have indigo circles, her pupils are unnaturally dilated, her brows contracted; she has the appearance of a cave-bred creature. She seems scarcely human. When the time for cleaning up arrives toward five my boss sends me for a bucket of water to wash up the floor. I go to the sink, turn on the cold water and with it the steam which takes the place of hot water. The valve slips; in an instant I am enveloped in a scalding cloud. Before it has cleared away the elf is by my side. "Did you hurt yourself?" she asks. Her inhuman form is the vehicle of a human heart, warm and tender. She lifts her wide-pupiled eyes to mine; her expression does not change from that of habitual scrutiny cast early in a rigid mould, but her voice carries sympathy from its purest source. There is more honour than courtesy in the code of etiquette. Commands are given curtly; the slightest injustice is resented; each man for himself in work, but in trouble all for the one who is suffering. No bruise or cut or burn is too familiar a sight to pass uncared for. It is their common sufferings, their common effort that unites them. When I have become expert in the corking art I am raised to a better table, with a bright boy, and a girl who is dignified and indifferent with the indifference of those who have had too much responsibility. She never hurries; the work slips easily through her fingers. She keeps a steady bearing over the morning's ups and downs. Under her load of trials there is something big in the steady way she sails. "Used to hard work?" she asks me. "Not much," I answer; "are you?" "Oh, yes. I began at thirteen in a bakery. I had a place near the oven and the heat overcame me." Her shoulders are bowed, her chest is hollow. "Looking for a boarding place near the factory, I hear," she continues. "Yes. You live at home, I suppose." "Yes. There's four of us: mamma, papa, my sister and myself. Papa's blind." "Can't he work?" "Oh, yes, he creeps to his job every morning, and he's got so much experience he kind o' does things by instinct." "Does your mother work?" "Oh, my, no. My sister's an invalid. She hasn't been out o' the door for three years. She's got enlargement of the heart and consumption, too, I guess; she 'takes' hemorrhages. Sometimes she has twelve in one night. Every time she coughs the blood comes foaming out of her mouth. She can't lie down. I guess she'd die if she lay down, and she gets so tired sittin' up all night. She used to be a tailoress, but I guess her job didn't agree with her." "How many checks have we got," I ask toward the close of the day. "Thirteen," Ella answers. "An unlucky number," I venture, hoping to arouse an opinion. "Are you superstitious?" she asks, continuing to twist tin caps on the pickle jars. "I am. If anything's going to happen I can't help having presentiments, and they come true, too." Here is a mystic, I thought; so I continued: "And what about dreams?" "Oh!" she cried. "Dreams! I have the queerest of anybody!" I was all attention. "Why, last night," she drew near to me, and spoke slowly, "I dreamed that mamma was drunk, and that she was stealing chickens!" Such is the imagination of this weary worker. The whole problem in mechanical labour rests upon economy of force. The purpose of each, I learned by experience, was to accomplish as much as possible with one single stroke. In this respect the machine is superior to man, and man to woman. Sometimes I tried original ways of doing the work given me. I soon found in every case that the methods proposed by the forewoman were in the end those whereby I could do the greatest amount of work with the least effort. A mustard machine had recently been introduced to the factory. It replaced three girls; it filled as many bottles with a single stroke as the girls could fill with twelve. This machine and all the others used were run by boys or men; the girls had not strength enough to manipulate them methodically. The power of the machine, the physical force of the man were simplifying their tasks. While the boy was keeping steadily at one thing, perfecting himself, we, the women, were doing a variety of things, complicated and fussy, left to our lot because we had not physical force for the simpler but greater effort. The boy at the corking-table had soon become an expert; he was fourteen and he made from $1 to $1.20 a day. He worked ten hours at one job, whereas Ella and I had a dozen little jobs almost impossible to systematize: we hammered and cut and capped the corks and washed and wiped the bottles, sealed them, counted them, distributed them, kept the table washed up, the sink cleaned out, and once a day scrubbed up our own precincts. When I asked the boy if he was tired he laughed at me. He was superior to us; he was stronger; he could do more with one stroke than we could do with three; he was by _nature_ a more valuable aid than we. We were forced through physical inferiority to abandon the choicest task to this young male competitor. Nature had given us a handicap at the start. For a few days there is no vacancy at the corking-tables. I am sent back to the bottling department. The oppressive monotony is one day varied by a summons to the men's dining-room. I go eagerly, glad of any change. In the kitchen I find a girl with skin disease peeling potatoes, and a coloured man making soup in a wash-boiler. The girl gives me a stool to sit on, and a knife and a pan of potatoes. The dinner under preparation is for the men of the factory. There are two hundred of them. They are paid from $1.35 up to $3 a day. Their wages begin above the highest limit given to women. The dinner costs each man ten cents. The $20 paid in daily cover the expenses of the cook, two kitchen maids and the dinner, which consists of meat, bread and butter, vegetables and coffee, sometimes soup, sometimes dessert. If this can pay for two hundred there is no reason why for five cents a hot meal of some kind could not be given the women. They don't demand it, so they are left to make themselves ill on pickles and preserves. The coloured cook is full of song and verse. He quotes from the Bible freely, and gives us snatches of popular melodies. We have frequent calls from the elevator boy, who brings us ice and various provisions. Both men, I notice, take their work easily. During the morning a busy Irish woman comes hurrying into our precincts. "Say," she yells in a shrill voice, "my cauliflowers ain't here, are they? I ordered 'em early and they ain't came yet." Without properly waiting for an answer she hurries away again. The coloured cook turns to the elevator boy understandingly: "Just like a woman! Why, before I'd _make a fuss_ about cauliflowers or anything else!" About eleven the head forewoman stops in to eat a plate of rice and milk. While I am cutting bread for the two hundred I hear her say to the cook in a gossipy tone: "How do you like the new girl? She's here all alone." I am called away and do not hear the rest of the conversation. When I return the cook lectures me in this way: "Here alone, are you?" "Yes." "Well, I see no reason why you shouldn't get along nicely and not kill yourself with work either. Just stick at it and they'll do right by you. Lots o' girls who's here alone gets to fooling around. Now I like everybody to have a good time, and I hope you'll have a good time, too, but you mustn't carry it too far." My mind went back as he said this to a conversation I had had the night before with a working-girl at my boarding-house. "Where is your home?" I asked. She had been doing general housework, but ill-health had obliged her to take a rest. She looked at me skeptically. "We don't have no homes," was her answer. "We just get up and get whenever they send us along." And almost as a sequel to this I thought of two sad cases that had come close to my notice as fellow boarders. I was sitting alone one night by the gas stove in the parlour. The matron had gone out and left me to "answer the door." The bell rang and I opened cautiously, for the wind was howling and driving the snow and sleet about on the winter air. A young girl came in; she was seeking a lodging. Her skirts and shoes were heavy with water. She took off her things slowly in a dazed manner. Her short, quick breathing showed how excited she was. When she spoke at last her voice sounded hollow, her eyes moved about restlessly. She stopped abruptly now and then and contracted her brows as though in an appeal for merciful tears; then she continued in the same broken, husky voice: "I suppose I'm not the only one in trouble. I've thought a thousand times over that I would kill myself. I suppose I loved him--but I _hate_ him now." These two sentences, recurring, were the story's all. The impotence of rebellion, a sense of outrage at being abandoned, the instinctive appeal for protection as a right, the injustice of being left solely to bear the burden of responsibility which so long as it was pleasure had been shared--these were the thoughts and feelings breeding hatred. She had spent the day in a fruitless search for her lover. She had been to his boss and to his rooms. He had paid his debts and gone, nobody knew where. She was pretty, vain, homeless; alone to bear the responsibility she had not been alone to incur. She could not shirk it as the man had done. They had both disregarded the law. On whom were the consequences weighing more heavily? On the woman. She is the sufferer; she is the first to miss the law's protection. She is the weaker member whom, for the sake of the race, society protects. Nature has made her man's physical inferior; society is obliged to recognize this in the giving of a marriage law which beyond doubt is for the benefit of woman, since she can least afford to disregard it. Another evening when the matron was out I sat for a time with a young working woman and her baby. There is a comradeship among the poor that makes light of indiscreet questions. I felt only sympathy in asking: "Are you alone to bring up your child?" "Yes, ma'am," was the answer. "I'll never go home with _him_." I looked at _him_: a wizened, four-months-old infant with a huge flat nose, and two dull black eyes fixed upon the gas jet. The girl had the grace of a forest-born creature; she moved with the mysterious strength and suppleness of a tree's branch. She was proud; she felt herself disgraced. For four months she had not left the house. I talked on, proposing different things. "I don't know what to do," she said. "I can't never go home with _him_, and if I went home without him I'd never be the same. I don't know what I'd do if anything happened to _him_." Her head bowed over the child; she held him close to her breast. But to return to the coloured cook and my day in the kitchen. I had ample opportunity to compare domestic service with factory work. We set the table for two hundred, and do a thousand miserable slavish tasks that must be begun again the following day. At twelve the two hundred troop in, toil-worn and begrimed. They pass like locusts, leaving us sixteen hundred dirty dishes to wash up and wipe. This takes us four hours, and when we have finished the work stands ready to be done over the next morning with peculiar monotony. In the factory there is stimulus in feeling that the material which passes through one's hands will never be seen or heard of again. On Saturday the owner of the factory comes at lunch time with several friends and talks to us with an amazing _camaraderie_. He is kindly, humourous and tactful. One or two missionaries speak after him, but their conversation is too abstract for us. We want something dramatic, imaginative, to hold our attention, or something wholly natural. Tell us about the bees, the beavers or the toilers of the sea. The longing for flowers has often come to me as I work, and a rose seems of all things the most desirable. In my present condition I do not hark back to civilized wants, but repeatedly my mind travels toward the country places I have seen in the fields and forests. If I had a holiday I would spend it seeing not what man but what God has made. These are the things to be remembered in addressing or trying to amuse or instruct girls who are no more prepared than I felt myself to be for any preconceived ideal of art or ethics. The omnipresence of dirt and ugliness, of machines and "stock," leave the mind in a state of lassitude which should be roused by something natural. As an initial remedy for the ills I voluntarily assumed I would propose amusement. Of all the people who spoke to us that Saturday, we liked best the one who made us laugh. It was a relief to hear something funny. In working as an outsider in a factory girls' club I had always held that nothing was so important as to give the poor something beautiful to look at and think about--a photograph or copy of some _chef d'oeuvre_, an _objet d'art_, lessons in literature and art which would uplift their souls from the dreariness of their surroundings. Three weeks as a factory girl had changed my beliefs. If the young society women who sacrifice one evening every week to talk to the poor in the slums about Shakespeare and Italian art would instead offer diversion first--a play, a farce, a humourous recitation--they would make much more rapid progress in winning the confidence of those whom they want to help. The working woman who has had a good laugh is more ready to tell what she needs and feels and fears than the woman who has been forced to listen silently to an abstract lesson. In society when we wish to make friends with people we begin by entertaining them. It should be the same way with the poor. Next to amusement as a means of giving temporary relief and bringing about relations which will be helpful to all, I put instruction, in the form of narrative, about the people of other countries, our fellow man, how he lives and works; and, third, under this same head, primitive lessons about animals and plants, the industries of the bees, the habits of ants, the natural phenomena which require no reasoning power to understand and which open the thoughts upon a delightful unknown vista. My first experience is drawing to its close. I have surmounted the discomforts of insufficient food, of dirt, a bed without sheets, the strain of hard manual labour. I have confined my observations to life and conditions in the factory. Owing, as I have before explained, to the absorption of factory life into city life in a place as large as Pittsburg, it seemed to me more profitable to centre my attention on the girl within the factory, leaving for a small town the study of her in her family and social life. I have pointed out as they appeared to me woman's relative force as a worker and its effects upon her economic advancement. I have touched upon two cases which illustrate her relative dependence on the law. She appeared to me not as the equal of man either physically or legally. It remained to study her socially. In the factory where I worked men and women were employed for ten-hour days. The women's highest wages were lower than the man's lowest. Both were working as hard as they possibly could. The women were doing menial work, such as scrubbing, which the men refused to do. The men were properly fed at noon; the women satisfied themselves with cake and pickles. Why was this? It is of course impossible to generalize on a single factory. I can only relate the conclusions I drew from what I saw myself. The wages paid by employers, economists tell us, are fixed at the level of bare subsistence. This level and its accompanying conditions are determined by competition, by the nature and number of labourers taking part in the competition. In the masculine category I met but one class of competitor: the bread-winner. In the feminine category I found a variety of classes: the bread-winner, the semi-bread-winner, the woman who works for luxuries. This inevitably drags the wage level. The self-supporting girl is in competition with the child, with the girl who lives at home and makes a small contribution to the household expenses, and with the girl who is supported and who spends all her money on her clothes. It is this division of purpose which takes the "spirit" out of them as a class. There will be no strikes among them so long as the question of wages is not equally vital to them all. It is not only nature and the law which demand protection for women, but society as well. In every case of the number I investigated, if there were sons, daughters or a husband in the family, the mother was not allowed to work. She was wholly protected. In the families where the father and brothers were making enough for bread and butter, the daughters were protected partially or entirely. There is no law which regulates this social protection: it is voluntary, and it would seem to indicate that civilized woman is meant to be an economic dependent. Yet, on the other hand, what is the new force which impels girls from their homes into the factories to work when they do not actually need the money paid them for their effort and sacrifice? Is it a move toward some far distant civilization when women shall have become man's physical equal, a "free, economic, social factor, making possible the full social combination of individuals in collective industry"? This is a matter for speculation only. What occurred to me as a possible remedy both for the oppression of the woman bread-winner and also as a betterment for the girl who wants to work though she does not need the money, was this: the establishment of schools where the esthetic branches of industrial art might be taught to the girls who by their material independence could give some leisure to acquiring a profession useful to themselves and to society in general. The whole country would be benefited by the opening of such schools as the Empress of Russia has patronized for the maintenance of the "petites industries," or those which Queen Margherita has established for the revival of lace-making in Italy. If there was such a counter-attraction to machine labour, the bread-winner would have a freer field and the non-bread-winner might still work for luxury and at the same time better herself morally, mentally and esthetically. She could aid in forming an intermediate class of labourers which as yet does not exist in America: the hand-workers, the _main d'oeuvre_ who produce the luxurious objects of industrial art for which we are obliged to send to Europe when we wish to beautify our homes. The American people are lively, intelligent, capable of learning anything. The schools of which I speak, founded, not for the manufacturing of the useful but of the beautiful, could be started informally as classes and by individual effort. Such labour would be paid more than the mechanical factory work; the immense importation from abroad of objects of industrial art sufficiently proves the demand for them in this country; there would be no material disadvantage for the girl who gave up her job in a pickle factory. Her faculties would be well employed, and she could, without leaving her home, do work which would be of esthetic and, indirectly, of moral value. I was discouraged at first to see how difficult it was to help the working girls as individuals and how still more difficult to help them as a class. There is perhaps no surer way of doing this than by giving opportunities to those who have a purpose and a will. No amount of openings will help the girl who has not both of these. I watched many girls with intelligence and energy who were unable to develop for the lack of a chance a start in the right direction. Aside from the few remedies I have been able to suggest, I would like to make an appeal for persistent sympathy in behalf of those whose misery I have shared. Until some marvelous advancement has been made toward the reign of justice upon earth, every man, woman and child should have constantly in his heart the sufferings of the poorest. On the evening when I left the factory for the last time, I heard in the streets the usual cry of murders, accidents and suicides: the mental food of the overworked. It is Saturday night. I mingle with a crowd of labourers homeward bound, and with women and girls returning from a Saturday sale in the big shops. They hurry along delighted at the cheapness of a bargain, little dreaming of the human effort that has produced it, the cost of life and energy it represents. As they pass, they draw their skirts aside from us, the labourers who have made their bargains cheap; from us, the coöperators who enable them to have the luxuries they do; from us, the multitude who stand between them and the monster Toil that must be fed with human lives. Think of us, as we herd to our work in the winter dawn; think of us as we bend over our task all the daylight without rest; think of us at the end of the day as we resume suffering and anxiety in homes of squalour and ugliness; think of us as we make our wretched try for merriment; think of us as we stand protectors between you and the labour that must be done to satisfy your material demands; think of us--be merciful. [Illustration: "WAVING ARMS OF SMOKE AND STEAM, A SYMBOL OF SPENT ENERGY, OF THE LIVES CONSUMED, AND VANISHING AGAIN" Factories on the Alleghany River at the 16th Street bridge, just below the pickle works] * * * * * PERRY, A NEW YORK MILL TOWN * * * * * CHAPTER III PERRY, A NEW YORK MILL TOWN No place in America could have afforded better than Pittsburg a chance to study the factory life of American girls, the stimulus of a new country upon the labourers of old races, the fervour and energy of a people animated by hope and stirred to activity by the boundless opportunities for making money. It is the labourers' city _par excellence_; and in my preceding chapters I have tried to give a clear picture of factory life between the hours of seven and six, of the economic conditions, of the natural social and legal equipment of woman as a working entity, of her physical, moral and esthetic development. Now, since the time ticked out between the morning summoning whistle to that which gives release at night is not half the day, and only two-thirds of the working hours, my second purpose has been to find a place where the factory girl's own life could best be studied: her domestic, religious and sentimental life. Somewhere in the western part of New York State, one of my comrades at the pickle works had told me, there was a town whose population was chiefly composed of mill-hands. The name of the place was Perry, and I decided upon it as offering the typical American civilization among the working classes. New England is too free of grafts to give more than a single aspect; Pittsburg is an international bazaar; but the foundations of Perry are laid with bricks from all parts of the world, held together by a strong American cement. Ignorant of Perry further than as it exists, a black spot on a branch of a small road near Buffalo, I set out from New York toward my destination on the Empire State Express. There was barely time to descend with my baggage at Rochester before the engine had started onward again, trailing behind it with world-renowned rapidity its freight of travelers who, for a few hours under the car's roof, are united by no other common interest than that of journeying quickly from one spot to another, where they disperse never to meet again. My Perry train had an altogether different character. I was late for it, but the brakeman saw me coming and waved to the engineer not to start until my trunk was checked and safely boarded like myself. Then we bumped our way through meadows quickened to life by the soft spring air; we halted at crossroads to pick up stray travelers and shoppers; we unloaded plowing machines and shipped crates of live fowl; we waited at wayside stations with high-sounding names for family parties whose unpunctuality was indulgently considered by the occupants of the train. My companions, chiefly women, were of the homely American type whose New England drawl has been modified by a mingling of foreign accents. They took advantage of this time for "visiting" with neighbours whom the winter snows and illnesses had rendered inaccessible. Their inquiries for each other were all kindliness and sympathy, and the peaceful, tolerant, uneventful way in which we journeyed from Rochester to Perry was a symbol of the way in which these good people had journeyed across life. Perry, the terminus of the line, was a frame station lodged on stilts in a sea of surrounding mud. When the engine had come to a standstill and ceased to pant, when the last truck had been unloaded, the baggage room closed, there were no noises to be heard except those that came from a neighbouring country upon whose peace the small town had not far encroached; the splash of a horse and buggy through the mud, a monotonous voice mingling with the steady tick of the telegraph machine, some distant barnyard chatter, and the mysterious, invisible stir of spring shaking out upon the air damp sweet odours calling the earth to colour and life. Descending the staircase which connected the railroad station with the hill road on which it was perched, I joined a man who was swinging along in rubber boots, with several farming tools, rakes and hoes, slung over his shoulder. A repugnance I had felt in resuming my toil-worn clothes had led me to make certain modifications which I feared in so small a town as Perry might relegate me to the class I had voluntarily abandoned. The man in rubber boots looked me over as I approached, bag in hand, and to my salutation he replied: "Going down to the mill, I suppose. There's lots o' ladies comes in the train every day now." He was the perfection of tact; he placed me in one sentence as a mill-hand and a lady. "I'll take you down as far as Main Street," he volunteered, giving me at once a feeling of kindly interest which "city folks" have not time to show. We found our way by improvised crossings through broad, soft beds of mud. Among the branches of the sap-fed trees which lined the unpaved streets transparent balls of glass were suspended, from which, as twilight deepened, a brilliant artificial light shot its rays, the perfection of modern invention, over the primitive, unfinished little town of Perry, which was all contrast and energy, crudity and progress. "There's a lot of the girls left the mill yesterday," my companion volunteered. "They cut the wages, and some of the oldest hands got right out. There's more than a thousand of 'em on the pay-roll, but I guess you can make good money if you're ready to work." We had reached Main Street, which, owing to the absence of a trolley, had retained a certain individuality. The rivers of mud broadened out into a sea, flanked by a double row of two-story, flat-roofed frame stores, whose monotony was interrupted by a hotel and a town hall. My guide stopped at a corner butcher shop. Its signboard was a couple of mild-eyed animals hanging head downward, presented informally, with their skins untouched, and having more the appearance of some ill-treated pets than future beef and bouillon for the Perry population. "Follow the boardwalk!" was the simple command I received. "Keep right along until you come to the mill." I presently fell in with a drayman, who was calling alternately to his horse as it sucked in and out of the mud and to a woman on the plank walk. She had on a hat with velvet and ostrich plumes, a black frock, a side bag with a lace handkerchief. She was not young and she wore spectacles; but there was something nervous about her step, a slight tremolo as she responded to the drayman, which suggested an adventure or the hope of it. The boardwalk, leading inevitably to the mill, announced our common purpose and saved us an introduction. "Going down to get work?" was the question we simultaneously asked of each other. My companion, all eagerness, shook out the lace handkerchief in her side bag and explained: "I don't have to work; my folks keep a hotel; but I always heard so much about Perry I thought I'd like to come up, and," she sighed, with a flirt of the lace handkerchief and a contented glance around at the rows of white frame houses, "I'm up now." "Want board?" the drayman called to me. "You kin count on me for a good place. There's Doctor Meadows, now; he's got a nice home and he just wants two boarders." The middle-aged woman with the glasses glanced up quickly. "Doctor Meadows of Tittihute?" she asked. "I wont go there; he's too strict. He's a Methodist minister. You couldn't have any fun at all." I followed suit, denouncing Doctor Killjoy as she had, hoping that her nervous, frisky step would lead me toward the adventure she was evidently seeking. "Well," the drayman responded indulgently, "I guess Mr. Norse will know the best place for you folks." We had come at once to the factory and the end of the boardwalk. It was but a few minutes before Mr. Norse had revealed himself as the pivot, the human hub, the magnet around which the mechanism of the mill revolved and clung, sure of finding its proper balance. Tall, lank and meager, with a wrinkled face and a furtive mustache, Mr. Norse made his rounds with a list of complaints and comments in one hand, a pencil in the other and a black cap on his head which tipped, indulgent, attentive to hear and overhear. His manner was professional. He looked at us, placed us, told us to return at one o'clock, recommended a boarding-house, and, on his way to some other case, sent a small boy to accompany us on future stretches of boardwalk to our lodgings. The street we followed ended in a rolling hillside, and beyond was the mysterious blue that holds something of the infinite in its mingling of clouds and shadows. The Geneseo Valley lay near us like a lake under the sky, and silhouetted against it were the factory chimney and buildings. The wood's edge came close to the town, whose yards prolong themselves into green meadows and farming lands. We knocked at a rusty screen door and were welcomed with the cordiality of the country woman to whom all folks are neighbours, all strangers possible boarders. The house, built without mantelpiece or chimney, atoned for this cheerlessness with a large parlour stove, whose black arms carried warmth through floor and ceiling. A table was spread in the dining-room. A loud-ticking clock with a rusty bell marked the hour from a shelf on the wall, and out of the kitchen, seen in vista, came a spluttering sound of frying food. Our hostess took us into the parlour. Several family pictures of stony-eyed women and men with chin beards, and a life-sized Frances Willard in chromo, looked down at our ensuing interview. Board, lodging, heat and light we could have at $2.75 a week. Before the husky clock had struck twelve, I was installed in a small room with the middle-aged woman from Batavia and a second unknown roommate. Now what, I asked myself, is the mill's attraction and what is the power of this small town? Its population is 3,346. Of these, 1,000 work in the knitting-mill, 200 more in a cutlery factory and 300 in various flour, butter, barrel, planing mills and salt blocks. Half the inhabitants are young hands. Not one in a hundred has a home in Perry; they have come from all western parts of the State to work. There are scarcely any children, few married couples and almost no old people. It is a town of youthful contemporaries, stung with the American's ambition for independence and adventure, charmed by the gaiety of being boys and girls together, with an ever possible touch of romance which makes the hardest work seem easy. Within the four board walls of each house, whose type is repeated up and down Perry streets, there is a group of factory employees boarding and working at the mill. Their names suggest a foreign parentage, but for several generations they have mingled their diverse energies in a common effort which makes Americans of them. As I lived for several weeks among a group of this kind, who were fairly representative, I shall try to give, through a description of their life and conversation, their personalities and characteristics, their occupations out of working hours, a general idea of these unknown toilers, who are so amazingly like their more fortunate sisters that I became convinced the difference is only superficial--not one of kind but merely of variety. The Perry factory girl is separated from the New York society girl, not by a few generations, but by a few years of culture and training. In America, where tradition and family play an unimportant part, the great educator is the spending of money. It is through the purchase of possessions that the Americans develop their taste, declare themselves, and show their inherent capacity for culture. Give to the Perry mill-hands a free chance for growth, transplant them, care for them, and they will readily show how slight and how merely a thing of culture the difference is between the wild rose and the American beauty. What were my first impressions of the hands who returned at noon under the roof which had extended unquestioning its hospitality? Were they a band of slaves, victims to toil and deprivation? Were they making the pitiful exchange of their total vitality for insufficient nourishment? Did life mean to them merely the diminishing of their forces? On the contrary, they entered gay, laughing young, a youth guarded intact by freedom and hope. What were the subjects of conversation pursued at dinner? Love, labour, the price paid for it, the advantages of town over country life, the neighbour and her conduct. What was the appearance of my companions? There was nothing in it to shock good taste. Their hands and feet were somewhat broadened by work, their skins were imperfect for the lack of proper food, their dresses were of coarse material; but in small things the differences were superficial only. Was it, then, in big things that the divergence began which places them as a lower class? Was it money alone that kept them from the places of authority? What were their ambitions, their perplexities? What part does self-respect play? How well satisfied are they, or how restless? What can we learn from them? What can we teach them? We ate our dinner of boiled meat and custard pie and all started back in good time for a one o'clock beginning at the mill. For the space of several hundred feet its expressionless red brick walls lined the street, implacable, silent. Within all hummed to the collective activity of a throng, each working with all his force for a common end. Machines roared and pounded; a fine dust filled the air--a cloud of lint sent forth from the friction of thousands of busy hands in perpetual contact with the shapeless anonymous garments they were fashioning. There were, on their way between the cutting-and the finishing-rooms, 7,000 dozen shirts. They were to pass by innumerable hands; they were to be held and touched by innumerable individuals; they were to be begun and finished by innumerable human beings with distinct tastes and likings, abilities and failings; and when the 7,000 dozen shirts were complete they were to look alike, and they were to look as though made by a machine; they were to show no trace whatever of the men and the women who had made them. Here we were, 1,000 souls hurrying from morning until night, working from seven until six, with as little personality as we could, with the effort to produce, through an action purely mechanical, results as nearly as possible identical one to the other, and all to the machine itself. [Illustration: "THEY TRIFLE WITH LOVE"] What could be the result upon the mind and health of this frantic mechanical activity devoid of thought? It was this for which I sought an answer; it is for this I propose a remedy. At the threshold of the mill door my roommate and I encountered Mr. Norse. There was irony in the fates allotted us. She was eager to make money; I was indifferent. Mr. Norse felt her in his power; I felt him in mine. She was given a job at twenty-five cents a day and all she could make; I was offered the favourite work in the mill--shirt finishing, at thirty cents a day and all I could make; and when I shook my head to see how far I could exploit my indifference and said, "Thirty cents is too little," Mr. Norse's answer was: "Well, I suppose you, like the rest of us, are trying to earn a living. I will guarantee you seventy-five cents a day for the first two weeks, and all you can make over it is yours." My apprenticeship began under the guidance of an "old girl" who had been five years in the mill. A dozen at a time the woolen shirts were brought to us, complete all but the adding of the linen strips in front where the buttons and buttonholes are stitched. The price of this operation is paid for the dozen shirts five, five and a half and six cents, according to the complexity of the finish. My instructress had done as many as forty dozen in one day; she averaged $1.75 a day all the year around. While she was teaching me the factory paid her at the rate of ten cents an hour. A touch of the machine's pedal set the needle to stitching like mad. A second touch in the opposite direction brought it to an abrupt standstill. For the five hours of my first afternoon session there was not an instant's harmony between what I did and what I intended to do. I sewed frantically into the middle of shirts. I watched my needle, impotent as it flew up and down, and when by chance I made a straight seam I brought it to so sudden a stop that the thread raveled back before my weary eyes. When my back and fingers ached so that I could no longer bend over the work, I watched my comrades with amazement. The machine was not a wild animal in their hands, but an instrument that responded with niceness to their guidance. Above the incessant roar and burring din they called gaily to each other, gossiping, chatting, telling stories. What did they talk about? Everything, except domestic cares. The management of an interior, housekeeping, cooking were things I never once heard mentioned. What were the favourite topics, those returned to most frequently and with surest interest? Dress and men. Two girls in the seaming-room had got into a quarrel that day over a packer, a fine looking, broad-shouldered fellow who had touched the hearts of both and awakened in each an emotion she claimed the right to defend. The quarrel began lightly with an exchange of unpleasant comment; it soon took the proportions of a dispute which could not give itself the desired vent in words alone. The boss was called in. He made no attempt to control what lay beyond his power, but applying factory legislation to the case, he ordered the two Amazons to "register out" until the squabble was settled, as the factory did not propose to pay its hands for the time spent in fights. So the two girls "rang out" past the timekeeper and took an hour in the open air, hand to hand, fist to fist, which, as it happens to man, had its calming effect. We stitched our way industriously over the 7,000 dozen. Except for the moments when some girl called a message or shouted a conversation, there was nothing to occupy the mind but the vibrating, pulsing, pounding of the machinery. The body was shaken with it; the ears strained. The little girl opposite me was a new hand. Her rosy cheeks and straight shoulders announced this fact. She had been five months in the mill; the other girls around her had been there two years, five years, nine years. There were 150 of us at the long, narrow tables which filled the room. By the windows the light and air were fairly good. At the centre tables the atmosphere was stagnant, the shadows came too soon. The wood's edge ran within a few yards of the factory windows. Between it and us lay the stream, the water force, the power that had called men to Perry. There, as everywhere in America, for an individual as for a place, the attraction was industrial possibilities. As Niagara has become more an industrial than a picturesque landscape, so Perry, in spite of its serene and beautiful surroundings, is a shrine to mechanical force in whose temple, the tall-chimneyed mill, a human sacrifice is made to the worshipers of gain. My _vis-à-vis_ was talkative. "Say," she said to her neighbour, "Jim Weston is the worst flirt I ever seen." "Who's Jim Weston?" the other responded, diving into the box by her side for a handful of gray woolen shirts. "Why, he's the one who made my teeth--he made teeth for all of us up home," and her smile reveals the handiwork of Weston. "If I had false teeth," is the comment made upon this, "I wouldn't tell anybody." "I thought some," continues the implacable new girl, unruffled, "of having a gold filling put in one of my front teeth. I think gold fillings are so pretty," she concludes, looking toward me for a response. This primitive love of ornament I found manifest in the same medico-barbaric fancy for wearing eye-glasses. The nicety of certain operations in the mill, performed not always in the brightest of lights, is a fatal strain upon the eyes. There are no oculists in Perry, but a Buffalo member of the profession makes a monthly visit to treat a new harvest of patients. Their daily effort toward the monthly finishing of 40,000 garments permanently diminishes their powers of vision. Every thirty days a new set of girls appears with glasses. They wear them as they would an ornament of some kind, a necklace, bracelet or a hoop through the nose. When the six o'clock whistle blew on the first night I had finished only two dozen shirts. "You've got a good job," my teacher said, as we came out together in the cool evening air. "You seem to be taking to it." They size a girl up the minute she comes in. If she has quick motions she'll get on all right. "I guess you'll make a good finisher." Once more we assembled to eat and chat and relax. After a moment by the kitchen pump we took our places at table. Our hostess waited upon us. "It takes some grit," she explained, "and more grace to keep boarders." Except on Sundays, when all men might be considered equals in the sight of the Lord, she and her husband did not eat until we had finished. She passed the dishes of our frugal evening meal--potatoes, bread and butter and cake--and as we served ourselves she held her head in the opposite direction, as if to say, "I'm not looking; take the biggest piece." It was with my roommates I became the soonest acquainted. The butcher's widow from Batavia was a grumbler. "How do you like your job?" I asked her as we fumbled about in the dim light of our low-roofed room. "Oh, Lordy," was the answer, "I didn't think it would be like this. I'd rather do housework any day. I bet you won't stay two weeks." She was ugly and stupid. She had been married young to a butcher. Left alone to battle with the world, she might have shaken out some of her dullness, but the butcher for many years had stood between her and reality, casting a still deeper shadow on her ignorance. She had the monotony of an old child, one who questions constantly but who has passed the age when learning is possible. The butcher's death had opened new possibilities. After a period of respectful mourning, she had set out, against the wishes of her family, with a vague, romantic hope that was expressed not so much in words as in a certain picture hat trimmed with violet chiffon and carried carefully in a bandbox by itself, a new, crisp sateen petticoat, and a golf skirt she had sat up until one o'clock to finish the night before she left home. It was inevitable that the butcher's widow should be disappointed. There was too much grim reality in ten-hour days spent over a machine in the stifling mill room to feed a sentimentalist whose thirty odd years were no accomplice to romance. She grumbled and complained. Secret dissatisfaction preyed upon her. She was somewhat exasperated at the rest of us, who worked cheerily and with no _arrière pensée_. At the end of the first week the picture hat was tucked away in the bandbox; the frou-frou of the sateen petticoat and the daring swish of the golf skirt were packed up, like the remains of a bubble that had reflected the world in its brilliant sides one moment and the next lay a little heap of soap-suds. She had gone behind in her work steadily at the factory; she was not making more than sixty cents a day. She left us and went back to do housework in Batavia. My other roommate was of the Madonna type. In our class she would have been called an invalid. Her hands trembled, she was constantly in pain, and her nerves were rebellious without frequent doses of bromide. We found her one night lying in a heap on the bed, her moans having called us to her aid. It was the pain in her back that never stopped, the ache between her shoulders, the din of the machines in her ears, the vibration, the strain of incessant hours upon her tired nerves. We fixed her up as best we could, and the next day at quarter before seven she was, like the rest of us, bending over her machine again. She had been a school-teacher, after passing the necessary examination at the Geneseo Normal School. She could not say why school-teaching was uncongenial to her, except that the children "made her nervous" and she wanted to try factory work. Her father was a cheese manufacturer up in the Genesee Valley. She might have lived quietly at home, but she disliked to be a dependent. She was of the mystic, sentimental type. She had a broad forehead, straight auburn hair, a clear-cut mouth, whose sharp curves gave it sweetness. Though her large frame indicated clearly an Anglo-Saxon lineage, there was nothing of the sport about her. She had never learned to skate or swim, but she could sit and watch the hills all day long. Her clothes had an esthetic touch. Mingled with her nervous determination there was a sentimental yearning. She was an idealist, impelled by some controlling emotion which was the mainspring of her life. Little by little we became friends. Our common weariness brought us often together after supper in a listless, confidential mood before the parlour stove. We let the conversation drift inevitably toward the strong current that was marking her with a touch of melancholy, like all those of her type whose emotional natures are an enchanted mirror, reflecting visions that have no place in reality. We talked about blondes and brunettes, tall men and short men, our favourite man's name; and gradually the impersonal became personal, the ideal took form. Her voice, like a broken lute that might have given sweet sounds, related the story. It was inevitable that she should love a dreamer like herself. Nature had imbued her with a hopeless yearning. She slipped a gold locket from a chain on her throat. It framed her hero's picture, the source of her courage, the embodiment of her heroic energy: a man of thirty, who had failed at everything; good-looking, refined, a personage in real life who resembled the inhabitants of her enchanted mirror. In the story she told there were stars and twilight, summer evenings, walks, talks, hopes and vague projects. Any practical questions I felt ready to ask would have sounded coarse. The little school-teacher with shattered nerves embodied a hope that was more to her than meat and drink and money. She was of those who do not live by bread alone. Among the working population of Perry there are all manner of American characteristics manifest. In a country where conditions change with such rapidity that each generation is a revelation to the one which preceded it, it is inevitable that the family and the State should be secondary to the individual. We live with our own generation, with our contemporaries. We substitute experience for tradition. Each generation lives for itself during its prime. As soon as its powers begin to decline it makes way with resignation for the next: "We have had our day; now you can have yours." Thus in the important decisions of life, the choosing of a career, matrimony or the like, the average American is much more influenced by his contemporaries than by his elders, much more stimulated or determined by the friends of his own age than by the older members of his family. This detaching of generations through the evolution of conditions is inevitable in a new civilization; it is part of the country's freedom. It adds fervour and zest and originality to the effort of each. But it means a youth without the peace of protection; an old age without the harvest of consolation. The man in such a battle as life becomes under these circumstances is better equipped than the woman, whose nature disarms her for the struggle. The American woman is restless, dissatisfied. Society, whether among the highest or lowest classes, has driven her toward a destiny that is not normal. The factories are full of old maids; the colleges are full of old maids; the ballrooms in the worldly centres are full of old maids. For natural obligations are substituted the fictitious duties of clubs, meetings, committees, organizations, professions, a thousand unwomanly occupations. I cannot attempt to touch here upon the classes who have not a direct bearing on our subject, but the analogy is striking between them and the factory elements of which I wish to speak. I cannot dwell upon details that, while full of interest, are yet somewhat aside from the present point, but I want to state a fact, the origin of whose ugly consequences is in all classes and therefore concerns every living American woman. Among the American born women of this country the sterility is greater, the fecundity less than those of any other nation in the world, unless it be France, whose anxiety regarding her depopulation we would share in full measure were it not for the foreign immigration to the United States, which counteracts the degeneracy of the American.[1] The original causes for this increasing sterility are moral and not physical. When this is known, does not the philosophy of the American working woman become a subject of vital interest? Among the enemies to fecundity and a natural destiny there are two which act as potently in the lower as in the upper classes: the triumph of individualism, the love of luxury. America is not a democracy, the unity of effort between the man and the woman does not exist. Men were too long in a majority. Women have become autocrats or rivals. A phrase which I heard often repeated at the factory speaks by itself for a condition: "She must be married, because she don't work." And another phrase pronounced repeatedly by the younger girls: "I don't have to work; my father gives me all the money I need, but not all the money I _want_. I like to be independent and spend my money as I please." [Footnote 1: George Engelman, M.D., "The Increasing Sterility of American Women," from the Journal of the American Medical Association, October 5, 1901.] What are the conclusions to be drawn? The American-born girl is an egoist. Her whole effort (and she makes and sustains one in the life of mill drudgery) is for herself. She works for luxury until the day when a proper husband presents himself. Then, she stops working and lets him toil for both, with the hope that the budget shall not be diminished by increasing family demands. In those cases where the woman continues to work after marriage, she chooses invariably a kind of occupation which is inconsistent with child-bearing. She returns to the mill with her husband. There were a number of married couples at the knitting factory at Perry. They boarded, like the rest of us. I never saw a baby nor heard of a baby while I was in the town. I can think of no better way to present this love of luxury, this triumph of individualism, this passion for independence than to continue my account of the daily life at Perry. On Saturday night we drew our pay and got out at half-past four. This extra hour and a half was not given to us; we had saved it up by beginning each day at fifteen minutes before seven. In reality we worked ten and a quarter hours five days in the week in order to work eight and a half on the sixth. By five o'clock on Saturdays the village street was animated with shoppers--the stores were crowded. At supper each girl had a collection of purchases to show: stockings, lace, fancy buckles, velvet ribbons, elaborate hairpins. Many of them, when their board was paid, had less than a dollar left of the five or six it had taken them a week to earn. "I am not working to save," was the claim of one girl for all. "I'm working for pleasure." This same girl called me into her room one evening when she was packing to move to another boarding-house where were more young men and better food. I watched her as she put her things into the trunk. She had a quantity of dresses, underclothes with lace and tucks, ribbons, fancy hair ornaments, lace boleros, handkerchiefs. The bottom of her trunk was full of letters from her beau. The mail was always the source of great excitement for her, and having noticed that she seemed especially hilarious over a letter received that night, I made this the pretext for a confidence. "You got a letter to-night, didn't you?" I asked innocently. "Was it the one you wanted?" "My, yes," she answered, tossing up a heap of missives from the depths of her trunk. "It was from the same one that wrote me these. I've been going with him three years. I met him up in the grape country where I went to pick grapes. They give you your board and you can make twenty-seven or thirty dollars in a fall. He made up his mind as soon as he saw me that I was about right. Now he wants me to marry him. That's what his letter said to-night. He is making three dollars a day and he owns a farm and a horse and wagon. He bought his sister a $300 piano this fall." "Well, of course," I said eagerly, "you will accept him?" She looked half shy, half pleased, half surprised. "No, my! no," she answered, shaking her head. "I don't want to be married." "But why not? Don't you think you are foolish? It's a good chance and you have already been 'going with him' three years." "Yes, I know that, but I ain't ready to marry him yet. Twenty-five is time enough. I'm only twenty-three. I can have a good time just as I am. He didn't want me to come away and neither did my parents. I thought it would 'most kill my father. He looked like he'd been sick the day I left, but he let me come 'cause he knew I'd never be satisfied until I got my independence." What part did the love of humanity play in this young egoist's heart? She was living, as she had so well explained it, "not to save, but to give herself pleasure"; not to spare others, but to exercise her will in spite of them. Tenderness, reverence, gratitude, protection are the feelings which one generation awakens for another. Among the thousand contemporaries at Perry, from the sameness of their ambitions, there was inevitable rivalry and selfishness. The closer the age and capacity the keener the struggle. [Illustration: AFTER SATURDAY NIGHT'S SHOPPING] There are seven churches in Perry of seven different denominations. In this small town of 3,000 inhabitants there are seven different forms of worship. The church plays an important part in the social life of the mill hands. There are gatherings of all sorts from one Sunday to another, and on Sunday there are almost continuous services. There are frequent conversions. When the Presbyterian form fails they "try" the Baptist. There is no moral instruction; it is all purely religious; and they join one church or another more as they would a social club than an ordained religious organization. Friday was "social" night at the church. Sometimes there was a "poverty" social, when every one put on shabby clothes, and any one who wore a correct garment of any sort was fined for the benefit of the church. Pound socials were another variety of diversion, where all the attendants were weighed on arriving and charged a cent admission for every pound of avoirdupois. The most popular socials, however, were box socials, and it was to one of these I decided to go with two girls boarding in the house. Each of us packed a box with lunch as good as we could afford--eggs, sandwiches, cakes, pickles, oranges--and arrived with these, we proceeded to the vestry-room, where we found an improvised auctioneer's table and a pile of boxes like our own, which were marked and presently put up for sale. The youths of the party bid cautiously or recklessly, according as their inward conviction told them that the box was packed by friend or foe. My box, which, like the rest, had supper for two, was bid in by a tall, nice-looking mill hand, and we installed ourselves in a corner to eat and talk. He was full of reminiscence and had had a checkered career. His first experience had been at night work in a paper mill. He worked eleven hours a night one week, thirteen hours a night the next week, in and out of doors, drenched to the skin. He had lost twenty-five pounds in less than a year, and his face was a mere mask drawn over the irregular bones of the skull. "I always like whatever I am doing," he responded at my protestation of sympathy. "I think that's the only way to be. I never had much appetite at night. They packed me an elegant pail, but somehow all cold food didn't relish much. I never did like a pail.... How would you like to take a dead man's place?" he asked, looking at me grimly. I begged him to explain. "One of my best friends," he began, "was working alongside of me, and I guess he got dizzy or something, for he leaned up against the big belt that ran all the machinery and he was lifted right up in the air and tore to pieces before he ever knew what struck him. The boss came in and seen it, and the second question he asked, he says, 'Say, is the machinery running all right?' It wasn't ten minutes before there was another man in there doing the dead man's work." I began to undo the lunch-box, feeling very little inclined to eat. We divided the contents, and my friend, seeing perhaps that I was depressed, told me about the "shows" he had been to in his wanderings. "Now, I don't care as much for comedy as some folks," he explained. "I like 'Puddin' Head Wilson' first rate, but the finest thing I ever seen was two of Shakespeare's: 'The Merchant of Venice' and 'Julius Cæsar.' If you ever get a chance I advise you to go and hear them; they're great." I responded cordially, and when we had exhausted Shakespeare I asked him how he liked Perry people. "Oh, first rate," he said. "I've been here only a month, but I think there's too much formality. It seems to me that when you work alongside of a girl day after day you might speak to her without an introduction, but they won't let you here. I never seen such a formal place." I said very little. The boy talked on of his life and experiences. His English was good except for certain grammatical errors. His words were well chosen. There was between him and the fortunate boys of a superior class only a few years of training. The box social was the beginning of a round of gaieties. The following night I went with my box-social friend to a ball. Neither of us danced, but we arrived early and took good places for looking on. The barren hall was dimly lighted. In the corner there was a stove; at one end a stage. An old man with a chin beard was scattering sand over the floor with a springtime gesture of seed sowing. He had his hat on and his coat collar turned up, as though to indicate that the party had not begun. By and by the stage curtain rolled up and the musicians came out and unpacked a violin, a trombone, a flute and a drum. They sat down in the Medieval street painted on the scenery back of them, crossed their legs and asked for _sol la_ from an esthetic young lady pianist, with whom they seemed on very familiar terms. The old man with the chin beard made an official _entrée_ from the wing, picked up the drum and became a part of the orchestra. The subscribers had begun to arrive, and when the first two-step struck up there were eight or ten couples on the floor. They held on to each other closely, with no outstretched arms as is the usual form, and they revolved very slowly around and around the room. The young men had smooth faces, patent leather boots, very smart cravats and a sheepish, self-conscious look. The girls had elaborate constructions in frizzed hair, with bows and tulle; black trailing skirts with coloured ruffled under-petticoats, light-coloured blouses and fancy belts. They seemed to be having a very good time. On the way home we passed a brightly lighted grocery shop. My friend looked in with interest. "Goodness," he said, "but those Saratoga chips look good. Now, what would you order," he went on, "if you could have anything you liked?" We began to compose a ménu with oysters and chicken and all the things we never saw, but it was not long before my friend cried "Mercy! Oh, stop; I can't stand it. It makes me too hungry." The moon had gone under a cloud. The wooden sidewalks were rough and irregular, and as we walked along toward home I tripped once or twice. Presently I felt a strong arm put through mine, with this assurance: "Now if you fall we'll both fall together." After four or five days' experience with a machine I began to work with more ease and with less pain between my shoulders. The girls were kind and sympathetic, stopping to help and encourage the "new girl." One of the shirt finishers, who had not been long in the mill herself, came across from her table one day when I was hard at work with a pain like a sword stab in my back. "I know how you ache," she said. "It just makes me feel like crying when I see how you keep at it and I can guess how tired you are." Nothing was so fatiguing as the noise. In certain places near the eyelet and buttonhole machines it was impossible to make one's neighbour hear without shouting. My teacher, whose nerves, I took it, were less sensitive than mine, expressed her sensations in this way: "It's just terrible sitting here all day alone, worrying and thinking all by yourself and hustling from morning until night. Lots of the girls have nervous prostration. My sister had it and I guess I'm getting it. I hear the noise all night. Quite a few have consumption, too, from the dust and the lint." The butcher's widow, the school-teacher and I started in at about the same time. At the end of two weeks the butcher's widow had long been gone. The school-teacher had averaged seventy-nine cents a day and I had averaged eighty-nine. My best day I finished sixteen dozen shirts and netted $1.11. My board and washing cost me three dollars, so that from the first I had a living insured. There was one negress in the factory. She worked in a corner quite by herself and attended to menial jobs, such as sweeping and picking up scraps. A great many of the girls and boys took correspondence courses in stenography, drawing, bookkeeping, illustrating, etc., etc. The purely mechanical work of the mill does not satisfy them. They are restless and ambitious, exactly the material with which to form schools of industrial art, the class of hand-workers of whom I have already spoken. One of the girls who worked beside us as usual in the morning, left a note on her machine at noon one day to say that she would never be back. She was going up to the lake to drown herself, and we needn't look for her. Some one was sent in search. She was found sitting at the lake's edge, weeping. She did not speak. We all talked about it in our leisure moments, but the work was not interrupted. There were various explanations: she was out of her mind; she was discouraged with her work; she was nervous. No one suggested that an unfortunate love affair be the cause of her desperate act. There was not a word breathed against her reputation. I would have felt impure in proposing what to me seemed most probable. The mill owners exert, as far as possible, an influence over the moral tone of their employees, assuming the right to judge their conduct both in and out of the factory and to treat them as they see fit. The average girls are self-respecting. They trifle with love. The attraction they wish to exert is ever present in their minds and in their conversation. The sacrifices they make for clothes are the first in importance. They have superstitions of all kinds: to sneeze on Saturday means the arrival of a beau on Sunday; a big or little tea leaf means a tall or a short caller, and so on. There is a book of dreams kept on one table in the mill, and the girls consult it to find the interpretation of their nocturnal reveries. They are fanciful, sentimental, cold, passionless. The accepted honesty of married life makes them slow to discard the liberty they love, to dismiss the suitors who would attend their wedding as one would a funeral. There is, of course, another category of girl, who goes brutally into passionate pleasures, follows the shows, drinks and knocks about town with the boys. She is known as a "bum," has sacrificed name and reputation and cannot remain in the mill. We discussed one night the suitable age for a girl to become mistress of herself. The boy of the household maintained that at eighteen a girl could marry, but that she must be twenty-one before she could have her own way. All the girls insisted that they could and did boss themselves and had even before they were eighteen. Two chums who boarded in my house gave a charming illustration of the carelessness and the extravagance, the independence and love of it which characterizes feminine America. One of these was a _deracinee_, a child with a foreign touch in her twang; a legend of other climes in the dexterity of her deft fingers; some memory of an exile from France in her name: Lorraine. Her friend was a _mondaine_. She had the social gift, a subtle understanding of things worldly, the _glissey mortel n'appuyez jamais_ attitude toward life. By a touch of flippancy, an adroit turn of mind, she kept the knowing mastery over people which has mystified and delighted in all great hostesses since the days of Esther. When the other girls waited feverishly for love letters, she was opening a pile of invitations to socials and theatre parties. Discreet and condescending, she received more than she gave. As soon as the posters were out for a Tuesday performance of "Faust," preparations began in the household to attend. Saturday shopping and supper were hurried through and by six o'clock Lorraine was at the sewing machine tucking chiffon for hats and bodices. After ten hours' work in the mill, she began again, eager to use the last of the spring twilight, prolonged by a quarter moon. There was a sudden, belated gust of snow; in the blue mist each white frame house glowed with a warm, pink light from its parlour stove. Lorraine's fingers flew. A hat took form and grew from a heap of stuff into a Parisian creation; a bolero was cut and tucked and fitted; a skirt was ripped and stitched and pressed; a shirt-waist was started and finished. For two nights the girls worked until twelve o'clock so that when the "show" came they might have something new to wear that nobody had seen. This must have been the unanimous intention of the Perry populace, for the peanut gallery was a bower of fashion. Styles, which I had thought were new in Paris, were familiarly worn in Perry by the mill hands. White kid gloves were _en regle_. The play was "Faust." All allusions to the triumph of religion over the devil; all insinuations on the part of Mephistopheles in regard to the enviable escape of Martha's husband and of husbands in general, from prating women in general; all invocations of virtue and moral triumph, were greeted with bursts of applause. Between the acts there was music, and the ushers distributed showers of printed advertisements, which the audience fell at once to reading as though they had nothing to talk about. I heard only one hearty comment about the play: "That devil," said Lorraine, as we walked home together, "was a corker!" I have left until the last the two friends who held a place apart in the household: the farmer and his wife, the old people of another generation with whom we boarded. They had begun life together forty years ago. They lived on neighbouring farms. There was dissension between the families such as we read of in "Pyramus and Thisbe," "Romeo and Juliet." The young people contrived a means of corresponding. An old coat that hung in the barn, where nobody saw it, served as post-office. Truman pleaded his cause ardently and won his Louisa. They fixed a day for the elopement. A fierce snowstorm piled high its drifts of white, but all the afternoon long the little bride played about, burrowing a path from the garden to her bedroom window, and when night came and brought her mounted hero with it, she climbed up on to the saddle by his side and rode away to happiness, leaving ill nature and quarrels far behind. Side by side, as on the night of their wedding ride, they had traversed forty years together. Ill health had broken up their farm home. When Truman could no longer work they came in to Perry to take boarders, having no children. The old man never spoke. He did chores about the house, made the fire mornings, attended to the parlour stove; he went about his work and no one ever addressed a word to him; he seemed to have no more live contact with the youth about him than driftwood has with the tree's new shoots. He had lived his life on a farm; he was a land captain; he knew the earth's secrets as a ship's captain knows the sea's. He paced the mild wooden pavements of Perry, booted, and capped for storm and wind, deep snow and all the inimical elements a pioneer might meet with. His new false teeth seemed to shine from his shaggy gray beard as a symbol of this new town experience in a rough natural existence, out of keeping, ill assorted. Tempted to know what his silence hid, I spent an hour with him by the kitchen stove one Sunday afternoon. His memory went easily back to the days when there were no railroads, no telegraphs, no mills. He was of a speculative turn of mind: "I don't see," he said, "what makes men so crazy after gold. They're getting worse all the time. Gold ain't got no real value. You take all the gold out of the world and it wouldn't make no difference whatever. You can't even make a tool to get a living with, out of gold; but just do away with the iron, and where would you be?" And again, he volunteered: "I think Mr. Carnegie would have done a deal nobler if he had paid his men a little more straight along. He wouldn't have had such a name for himself. But don't you believe it would have been better to have paid those men more for the work they were doing day by day than it is now to give pensions to their families? I know what I think about the matter." [Illustration: SUNDAY EVENING AT SILVER LAKE The mill girls' excursion resort. A special train and 'busses run on Sundays, and "everybody" goes.] I asked him how he liked city life. "Give me a farm every time," was his answer. "Once you've seen a town you know it all. It's the same over and over again. But the country's changing every day in the year. It's a terrible thing, being sick," he went on. "It seems sometimes as though the pain would tear me to pieces when I walk across the floor. I wasn't no good on the farm any more, so my wife took a notion we better come in town and take boarders." Thus it was with this happily balanced couple; as his side grew heavier she took on more ballast and swung even with him. She had the quick adaptability common to American women. During the years of farm life religious meetings and a few neighbours had kept her in touch with the outside world. The church and the kitchen were what she had on the farm; the church and the kitchen were what she had in town; family life supplemented by boarders, a social existence kept alive by a few faithful neighbours. She had retained her activity and sympathy because she was intelligent, because she lived with the _young_. The man could not make himself one of another generation, so he lived alone. He had lost his companions, the "cow kind and the sheep kind"; he had lost control over the earth that belonged to him; he was disused; he suffered; he pined. But as they sat together side by side at table, his look toward her was one of trust and comfort. His glance traveled back over a long vista of years seen to them as their eyes met, invisible to those about--years that had glorified confidence in this life as it passed and transfigured it into the promise of another life to come. * * * * * MAKING CLOTHING IN CHICAGO * * * * * CHAPTER IV MAKING CLOTHING IN CHICAGO On arriving in Chicago I addressed myself to the ladies of Hull House, asking for a tenement family who would take a factory girl to board. I intended starting out without money to see at least how far I could go before putting my hand into the depths where an emergency fund was pinned in a black silk bag. It was the first day of May. A hot wind blew eddies of dust up and down the electric car tracks; the streets were alive with children; a group swarmed in front of each doorstep, too large to fit into the house behind it. Down the long, regular avenues that stretched right and left there was a broken line of tenements topped by telegraph wires and bathed in a soft cloud of black soot falling from a chimney in the neighbourhood. The sidewalks were a patchwork of dirt, broken paving-stones and wooden boards. The sunshine was hot and gloomy. There were no names on the corner lamps and the house numbers were dull and needed repainting. It was already late in the afternoon: I had but an hour or two before dark to find a lodging. The miserable, overcrowded tenement houses repelled me, yet I dreaded that there should not be room among them for one more bread-winner to lodge. I hailed a cluster of children in the gutter: "Say," I said, "do you know where Mrs. Hicks lives to?" They crowded around, eager. The tallest boy, with curly red hair and freckles, pointed out Mrs. Hicks' residence, the upper windows of a brick flat that faced the world like a prison wall. After I had rung and waited for the responding click from above, a cross-eyed Italian woman with a baby in her arms motioned to me from the step where she was sitting that I must go down a side alley to find Mrs. Hicks. Out of a promiscuous heap of filth, a broken-down staircase led upward to a row of green blinds and a screen door. Somebody's housekeeping was scattered around in torn bits of linen and tomato cans. The screen door opened to my knock and the Hicks family gushed at me--ever so many children of all ages and an immense mother in an under-waist and petticoat. The interior was neat; the wooden floors were scrubbed spotless. I congratulated myself. Mrs. Hicks clucked to the family group, smiled at me, and said: "I never took a boarder in my life. I ain't got room enough for my own young ones, let alone strangers." [Illustration: "THE BREATH OF THE BLACK, SWEET NIGHT REACHED THEM, FETID, HEAVY WITH THE ODOUR OF DEATH AS IT BLEW ACROSS THE STOCKYARDS"] There were two more names on my list. I proceded to the nearest and found an Irish lady living in basement rooms ornamented with green crochet work, crayon portraits, red plaid table-cloths and chromo picture cards. She had rheumatism in her "limbs" and moved with difficulty. She was glad to talk the matter over, though she had from the first no intention of taking me. From my then point of view nothing seemed so desirable as a cot in Mrs. Flannagan's front parlour. I even offered in my eagerness to sleep on the horsehair sofa. Womanlike, she gave twenty little reasons for not taking me before she gave the one big reason, which was this: "Well, to tell you the truth, I wouldn't mind having you myself, but I've got three sons, and you know _boys is queer_." It was late, the sun had set and only the twilight remained for my search before night would be upon me and I would be driven to some charity refuge. I had one more name, and climbed to find its owner in a tenement flat. She was a German woman with a clubfoot. Two half-naked children incrusted with dirt were playing on the floor. They waddled toward me as I asked what my chances were for finding a room and board. The mother struck first one, then the other, of her offspring, and they fell into two little heaps, both wailing. From a hole back of the kitchen came the sympathetic response of a half-starved shaggy dog. He howled and the babes wailed while we visited the dusky apartment. There was one room rented to a day lodger who worked nights, and one room without a window where the German family slept. She proposed that I share the bed with her that night until she could get an extra cot. Her husband and the children could sleep on the parlour lounge. She was hideous and dirty. Her loose lips and half-toothless mouth were the slipshod note of an entire existence. There was a very dressy bonnet with feathers hanging on a peg in the bedroom, and two gala costumes belonging to the tearful twins. "I'll come back in an hour, thank you," I said. "Don't expect me if I am not here in an hour," and I fled down the stairs. Before the hour was up I had found, through the guidance of the Irish lady with rheumatism, a clean room in one street and board in another. This was inconvenient, but safe and comparatively healthy. My meals were thirty-five cents a day, payable at the end of the week; my room was $1.25 a week, total $3.70 a week. My first introduction to Chicago tenement life was supper at Mrs. Wood's. I could hear the meal sputtering on the kitchen stove as I opened the Wood front door. Mrs. Wood, combining duties as cook and hostess, called to me to make myself at home in the front parlour. I seated myself on the sofa, which exuded the familiar acrid odour of the poor. Opposite me there was a door half open leading into a room where a lamp was lighted. I could see a young girl and a man talking together. He was sitting and had his hat on. She had a halo of blond hair, through which the lamplight was shining, and she stood near the man, who seemed to be teasing her. Their conversation was low, but there was a familiar cry now and then, half vulgar, half affectionate. When we had taken our places at the table, Mrs. Wood presented us. "This is Miss Ida," she said, pointing to the blonde girl; "she's been boarding over a year with me, and this," turning to the young man who sat near by with one arm hanging listlessly over the back of a chair, "this is Miss Ida's intended." The other members of the household were a fox terrier, a canary and "Wood"--Wood was a man over sixty. He and Mrs. Wood had the same devoted understanding that I have observed so often among the poor couples of the older generation. This good little woman occupied herself with the things that no longer satisfy. She took tender care of her husband, following him to the door with one hand on his shoulder and calling after him as he went on his way: "Good-by; take care of yourself." She had a few pets, her children were married and gone, she had a miniature patch of garden, a trust in the church guild--which took some time and attention for charitable works, and she did her own cooking and housework. "And," she explained to me in the course of our conversation at supper, "I never felt the need of joining these University Settlement Clubs to get into society." Wood and his wife were a good sort. Miss Ida was kind in her inquiries about my plans. "Have you ever operated a power machine?" she asked. "Yes," I responded--with what pride she little dreamed. "I've run an electric Singer." "I guess I can get you a job, then, all right, at my place. It's piece-work; you get off at five, but you can make good money." I thanked her, not adding that my Chicago career was to be a checkered one, and that I was determined to see how many things I could do that I had never done before. But social life was beginning to wear on Miss Ida's intended. He took up his hat and swung along toward the door. I was struggling to extract with my fork the bones of a hard, fried fish. Mrs. Wood encouraged me in a motherly tone: "Oh, my, don't be so formal; take your knife." "Say," called a voice from the door, "say, come on, Ida, I'm waiting for you." And the blonde fiancée hurried away with an embarrassed laugh to join her lover. She was refined and delicate, her ears were small, her hands white and slender, she spoke correctly with a nasal voice, and her teeth (as is not often the case among this class, whose lownesses seem suddenly revealed when they open their mouths) were sound and clean. The man's smooth face was all commonness and vulgarity. "He's had appendicitis," Mrs. Wood explained when we were alone. "He's been out of work a long time. As soon as he goes to his job his side bursts out again where they operated on him. He ain't a bit strong." "When are they going to be married?" I asked. "Oh, dear me, they don't think of that yet; they're in no hurry." "Will Miss Ida work after she's married?" "No, indeed." Did they not have their share of ideal then, these two young labourers who could wait indefinitely, fed by hope, in their sordid, miserable surroundings? I returned to my tenement room; its one window opened over a narrow alley flanked on its opposite side by a second tenement, through whose shutters I could look and see repeated layers of squalid lodgings. The thermometer had climbed up into the eighties. The wail of a newly born baby came from the room under mine. The heat was stifling. Outdoors in the false, flickering day of the arc lights the crowd swarmed, on the curb, on the sidewalk, on the house steps. The breath of the black, sweet night reached them, fetid, heavy with the odour of death as it blew across the stockyards. Shouts, calls, cries, moans, the sounds of old age and of infancy, of despair and of joy, mingled and became the anonymous murmur of a hot, human multitude. The following morning I put ten cents in my pocket and started out to get a job before this sum should be used up. How huge the city seemed when I thought of the small space I could cover on foot, looking for work! I walked toward the river, as the commercial activity expressed itself in that direction by fifteen-and twenty-story buildings and streams of velvet smoke. Blocks and blocks of tenements, with the same dirty people wallowing around them, answered my searching eyes in blank response. There was an occasional dingy sign offering board and lodging. After I had made several futile inquiries at imposing offices on the river front I felt that it was a hopeless quest. I should never get work unknown, unskilled, already tired and discouraged. My collar was wilted in the fierce heat; my shabby felt sailor hat was no protection against the sun's rays; my hands were gloveless; and as I passed the plate glass windows I could see the despondent droop of my skirt, the stray locks of hair that blew about free of comb or veil. A sign out: "Manglers wanted!" attracted my attention in the window of a large steam laundry. I was not a "mangler," but I went in and asked to see the boss. "Ever done any mangling?" was his first question. "No," I answered, "but I am sure I could learn." I put so much ardour into my response that the boss at once took an interest. "We might give you a place as shaker; you could start in and work up." "What do you pay?" "Four dollars a week until you learn. Then you would work up to five, five and a half." Better than nothing, was all I could think, but I can't live on four a week. "How often do you pay?" "Every Tuesday night." This meant no money for ten days. "If you think you'd like to try shaking come round Monday morning at seven o'clock." Which I took as my dismissal until Monday. At least I had a job, however poor, and strengthened by this thought I determined to find something better before Monday. The ten-cent piece lay an inviting fortune in my hand. I was to part with one-tenth of it in exchange for a morning newspaper. This investment seemed a reckless plunge, but "nothing venture, nothing have," my pioneer spirit prompted, and soon deep in the list of _Wanted, Females_, I felt repaid. Even in my destitute condition I had a choice in mind. If possible I wanted to work without machinery in a shop where the girls used their hands alone as power. Here seemed to be my heart's content--a short, concise advertisement, "Wanted, hand sewers." After a consultation with a policeman as to the whereabouts of my future employer, it became evident that I must part with another of my ten cents, as the hand sewers worked on the opposite side of the city from the neighbourhood whither I had strayed in my morning's wanderings. I took a car and alighted at a busy street in the fashionable shopping centre of Chicago. The number I looked for was over a steep flight of dirty wooden stairs. If there is such a thing as luck it was now to dwell a moment with one of the poorest. I pushed open a swinging door and let myself into the office of a clothing manufacturer. The owner, Mr. F., got up from his desk and came toward me. "I seen your advertisement in the morning paper." "Yes," he answered in a kindly voice. "Are you a tailoress?" "No, sir; I've never done much sewing except on a machine." "Well, we have machines here." "But," I almost interrupted, beginning to fear that my training at Perry was to limit all further experience to an electric Singer, "I'd rather work with my hands. I like the hand-work." He looked at me and gave me an answer which exactly coincided with my theories. He said this, and it was just what I wanted him to say. "If you do hand-work you'll have to use your mind. Lots of girls come in here with an idea they can let their thoughts wander; but you've got to pay strict attention. You can't do hand-work mechanically." "All right, sir," I responded. "What do you pay?" "I'll give you six dollars a week while you're learning." I could hardly control a movement of delight. Six dollars a week! A dollar a day for an apprentice! "But"--my next question I made as dismal as possible--"when do you pay?" "Generally not till the end of the second week," the kindly voice said; "but we could arrange to pay you at the end of the first if you needed the money." "Shall I come in Monday?" "Come in this afternoon at 12:30 if you're ready." "I'm ready," I said, "but I ain't brought no lunch with me, and it's too late now to get home and back again." The man put his hand in his pocket and laid down before me a fifty-cent piece, advanced on my pay. "Take that," he said, with courtesy; "get yourself a lunch in the neighbourhood and come back at half-past twelve." I went to the nearest restaurant. It was an immense bakery patronized by office girls and men, hard workers who came for their only free moment of the day into this eating-place. Everything that could be swallowed quickly was spread out on a long counter, behind which there were steaming tanks of tea, coffee and chocolate. The men took their food downstairs and the ladies climbed to the floor above. I watched them. They were self-supporting women--independent; they could use their money as they liked. They came in groups--a rustling frou-frou announced silk underfittings; feathers, garlands of flowers, masses of trimming weighed down their broad-brimmed picture hats, fancy veils, kid gloves, silver side-bags, embroidered blouses and elaborate belt buckles completed the detail of their showy costumes, the whole worn with the air of a manikin. What did these busy women order for lunch? Tea and buns, ice-cream and buckwheat cakes, apple pie _a la mode_ and chocolate were the most serious ménus. This nourishing food they ate with great nicety and daintiness, talking the while about clothes. They were in a hurry, as all of them had some shopping to do before returning to work, and they each spent a prinking five minutes before the mirror, adjusting the trash with which they had bedecked themselves exteriorly while their poor hard-working systems went ungarnished and hungry within. This is the wound in American society whereby its strength sloughs away. It is in this class that campaigns can be made, directly and indirectly, by preaching and by example. What sort of women are those who sacrifice all on the altar of luxury? It is a prostitution to sell the body's health and strength for gewgaws. What harmony can there be between the elaborate get-up of these young women and the miserable homes where they live? The idolizing of material things is a religion nurtured by this class of whom I speak. In their humble surroundings the love of self, the desire to possess things, the cherished need for luxuries, crowd out the feelings that make character. They are but one manifestation of the egoism of the unmarried American woman. For what and for whom do they work? Is their fundamental thought to be of benefit to a family or to some member of a family? Is their indirect object to be strong, thrifty members of society? No. Their parents are secondary, their health is secondary to the consuming vanity that drives them toward a ruinous goal. They scorn the hand-workers; they feel themselves a _noblesse_ by comparison. They are the American snobs whose coat of arms marks not a well-remembered family but prospective luxuries.... Married, they bring as a portion thriftless tastes, to satisfy which more than one business man has wrecked his career. They work like men; why should they not live as men do, with similar responsibilities? What should we think of a class of masculine clerks and employees who spent all their money on clothes? The boss was busy when I got back to the clothing establishment. From the bench where I waited for orders I could take an inventory of the shop's productions. Arrayed in rows behind glass cases there were all manner of uniforms: serious uniforms going to the colonies to be shot to pieces, militia uniforms that would hear their loudest heart-beats under a fair head; drum-majors' hats that would never get farther than the peaceful lawn of a military post; fireman's hats; the dark-blue coat of a lonely lighthouse guardian; the undignified short jacket of a "buttons." All that meant parade and glory, the uniforms that make men identical by making each proud of himself for his brass buttons and gold lace. Even in the heavy atmosphere of the shop's rear, though they appeared somewhat dingy and tarnished, they had their undeniable charm, and I thought with pity of the hands that had to sew on plain serge suits. [Illustration: IN A CHICAGO THEATRICAL COSTUME FACTORY] As soon as the boss saw me, the generous Mr. F. who advanced me the fifty cents smiled at the skeptical Mr. F. who had never expected to see me again. One self said to the other: "I told you so!" and all the kindly lines in the man's face showed that he had looked for the best even in his inferiors and that he had found mankind worth trusting. He was the most generous employer I met with anywhere; I also took him to be the least businesslike. But, as though quickly to establish the law of averages, his head forewoman counterbalanced all his mercies by her ferocious crossness. She terrorized everybody, even Mr. F. It was to her, I concluded, that we owed our $6 a week. No girl would stay for less; it was an atelier chiefly of foreign employees; the proud American spirit would not stand the lash of Frances' tongue. She had been ten years in the place whose mad confusion was order to her. Mr. F. did not dare to send her away; he preferred keeping a perpetual advertisement in the papers and changing hands every few days. The workroom on our floor was fifty or sixty feet long, with windows on the street at one end and on a court at the other. The middle of the room was lighted by gas. The air was foul and the dirt lay in heaps at every corner and was piled up under the centre tables. It was less like a workshop than an old attic. There was the long-accumulated disorder of hasty preparation for the vanities of life. It had not at all the aspect of a factory which makes a steady provision of practical things. There were odds and ends of fancy costumes hanging about--swords, crowns, belts and badges. Under the sewing machines' swift needles flew the scarlet coats of a regiment; gold and silver braid lay unfurled on the table; the hand-workers bent over an armful of khaki; a row of young girls were fitting military caps to imaginary soldier's heads; the ensigns of glory slipped through the fingers of the humble; chevrons and epaulets were caressed never so closely by toil-worn hands. In the midst of us sits a man on a headless hobby horse, making small gray trunks bound in red leather, such boxes as might contain jewels for Marguerite, a game of lotto, or a collection of jack-straws and mother-of-pearl counters brought home from a first trip abroad. The trunk maker wears a sombrero and smokes a corn-cob pipe. He is very handsome with dark eyes and fine features, and he has the "average figure," so that he serves as manikin for the atelier; and I find him alternately a workman in overalls and a Turkish magnate with turban and flowing robes. It is into this atmosphere of toil and unreality that I am initiated as a hand sewer. Something of the dramatic and theatrical possesses the very managers themselves. Below, a regiment waits impatient for new brass buttons; we sew against time and break all our promises. Messengers arrive every few minutes with fresh reports of rising ire on the part of disappointed customers. Down the stairs pell-mell comes an elderly partner of the firm with a gold-and-purple crown on his head and after him follows the kindly Mr. F. in an usher's jacket. "If you don't start now," he calls, "that order'll be left on our hands." Amid such confusion the regular rhythm of the needle as it carries its train of thread across the yards of coloured cloth is peaceful, consoling. I have on one side of me a tailor who speaks only Polish, on the other side a seamstress who speaks only German. Across the frontier I thus become they communicate with signs, and I get my share of work planned out by each. Every woman in the place is cross except the girl next to me. She has only just come in and the poison of the forewoman has not yet stung her into ill nature. She is, like all the foreigners, neatly, soberly dressed in a sensible frock of good durable material. The few Americans in the shop have on elaborate shirt-waists in light-coloured silks with fancy ribbon collars. We are well paid, there is no doubt of it. We begin work at 8 A.M. and have a generous half-hour at noon. Most of the girls are Germans and Poles, and they have all received training as tailoresses in their native countries. To the sharp onslaught of Frances' tongue they make no response except in dogged silent obedience, whereas the dressy Americans with their proper spirit of independence touch the limit of insubordination at every new command. Insults are freely exchanged; threats ring out on the tired ears. Frances is ubiquitous. She scolds the tailors with a torrent of abuse, she terrorizes the handsome manikin, she bewilders the kindly Mr. F., and before three days have passed she has dismissed the neat little Polish girl, in tears. This latter comes to me, her face wrought with emotion. She was receiving nine dollars a week; it is her first place in America. This sudden dismissal, its injustice, requires an explanation. She cannot speak a word of English and asks me to put my poor German at her service as interpreter. Mr. F. is clearly a man who advocates everything for peace, and as there is for him no peace when Frances is not satisfied, we gain little by our appeal to him except a promise that he will attend later to the troubles of the Polish girl. But later, as earlier, Frances triumphs, and I soon bid good-by to my seatmate and watch her tear-stained face disappear down the dingy hallway. She was a skilled tailoress, but she could not cut out men's garments, so Frances dismissed her. I wonder when my turn will come, for I am a green hand and yet determined to keep the American spirit. For the sake of justice I will not be downed by Frances. It is hard to make friends with the girls; we dare not converse lest a fresh insult be hurled at us. For every mistake I receive a loud, severe correction. When night comes I am exhausted. The work is easy, yet the moral atmosphere is more wearing than the noise of many machines. My job is often changed during the week. I do everything as a greenhorn, but I work hard and pay attention, so that there is no excuse to dismiss me. "I am only staying here between jobs," the girl next me volunteers at lunch. "My regular place burnt out. You couldn't get _me_ to work under _her_. I wouldn't stand it even if they do pay well." She is an American. "You're lucky to be so independent," says a German woman whose dull silence I had hitherto taken for ill nature. "I'm glad enough to get the money. I was up this morning at five, working. There's myself and my mother and my little girl, and not a cent but what I make. My husband is sick. He's in Arizona." "What were you doing at five?" I asked. "I have a trade," she answers. "I work on hair goods. It don't bring me much, but I get in a few hours night and morning and it helps some. There's so much to pay." She was young, but youth is no lover of discomfort. Hardships had chased every vestige of _jeunesse_ from her high, wrinkled brow and tired brown eyes. Like a mirror held against despair her face reflected no ray of hope. She was not rebellious, but all she knew of life was written there in lines whose sadness a smile now and again intensified. Added to the stale, heavy atmosphere there is now a smell of coffee and tobacco smoke. The old hands have boiled a noon beverage on the gas; the tailors smoke an after-dinner pipe. Put up in newspaper by Mrs. Wood, at my matinal departure, my lunches, after a journey across the city, held tightly under my arm, become, before eating, a block of food, a composite meal in which I can distinguish original bits of ham sandwich and apple pie. The work, however, does not seem hard to me. I sew on buttons, rip trousers, baste coat sleeves--I do all sorts of odd jobs from eight until six, without feeling, in spite of the bad air, any great physical fatigue which ten minutes' brisk walk does not shake off. But never have the hours dragged so; the moral weariness in the midst of continual scolding and abuse are unbearable. Each night I come to a firm decision to leave the following day, but weakly I return, sure of my dollar and dreading to face again the giant city in search of work. About four one afternoon, well on in the week, Frances brings me a pair of military trousers; the stripes of cloth at the side seam are to be ripped off. I go to work cheerfully cutting the threads and slipping one piece of cloth from the other. Apparently Frances is exasperated that I should do the job in an easy way. It is the only way I know to rip, but Frances knows another way that breaks your back and almost puts your eyes out, that makes you tired and behindhand and sure of a scolding. She shows me how to rip her way. The two threads of the machine, one from above and one from below, which make the stitch, must be separated. The work must be turned first on the wrong, then on the right side, the scissors must lift first the upper, then the under thread. I begin by cutting a long hole in the trousers, which I hide so Frances will not see it. She has frightened me into dishonesty. Arrived at the middle of the stripe I am obliged to turn the trousers wrong side out and right side out again every other stitch. While I was working in this way, getting more enraged every moment, a bedbug ran out of the seam between my fingers. I killed it. It was full of blood and made a wet red spot on the table. Then I put down the trousers and drew away my chair. It was useless saying anything to the girl next me. She was a Pole, dull, sullen, without a friendly word; but the two women beyond had told me once that they pitied Frances' husband, so I looked to them for support in what I was about to do. "There's bedbugs in them clothes," I said. "I won't work on 'em. No, sir, not if she sends me away this very minute." In a great hurry Frances passed me twice. She called out angrily both times without waiting for an answer: "Why don't you finish them pants?" Frances was a German. She wore two rhinestone combs in her frizzes, which held also dust and burnt odds and ends of hair. She had no lips whatever. Her mouth shut completely over them after each tirade. Her eyes were separated by two deep scowls and her voice was shrill and nasal. On her third round she faced me with the same question: "Why don't you finish them pants?" "Because," I answered this time, "there's bedbugs in 'em and I ain't goin' to touch 'em!" "Oh! my!" she taunted me, in a sneering voice, "that's dreadful, ain't it? Bedbugs! Why, you need only just look on the floor to see 'em running around anywhere!" I said nothing more, and this remark was the last Frances ever addressed to me. "Mike!" she called to the presser in the corner, "will you have this _young lady's_ card made out." She gave me no further work to do, but, too humiliated to sit idle, I joined a group of girls who were sewing badges. We had made up all description of political badges--badges for the court, for processions, school badges, military badges, flimsy bits of coloured ribbon and gold fringe which go the tour of the world, rallying men to glory. In the dismal twilight our fingers were now busied with black-and-silver "in memoriam" badges, to be worn as a last tribute to some dead member of a coterie who would follow him to the grave under the emblem that had united them. We were behindhand for the dead as well as for the living. At six the power was turned off, the machine hands went home, there was still an unfinished heap of black badges. I got up and put on my things in the dark closet that served for dressing-room. Frances called to the hand sewers in her rasping voice: "You darsn't leave till you've finished them badges." How could I feel the slavery they felt? My nerves were sensitive; I was unaccustomed to their familiar hardships. But on the other hand, my prison had an escape; they were bound within four walls; I dared to rebel knowing the resources of the black silk emergency bag, money lined. They for their living must pay with moral submission as well as physical fatigue. There was nothing between them and starvation except the success of their daily effort. What opposition could the German woman place, what could she risk, knowing that two hungry mouths waited to be fed beside her own? With a farewell glance at the rubbish-strewn room, the high, grimy windows, the group of hand sewers bent over their work in the increasing darkness, I started down the stairs. A hand was laid on my arm, and I looked up and saw Mike's broad Irish face and sandy head bending toward me. "I suppose you understand," he said, "that there'll be no more work for you." "Yes," I answered, "I understand," and we exchanged a glance that meant we both agreed it was Frances' fault. In the shop below I found Mr. F. and returned the fifty cents he had advanced me. He seemed surprised at this. "I'm sorry," he said, in his gentle voice, "that we couldn't arrange things." "I'm sorry, too," I said. But I dared not add a word against Frances. She had terrorized me like the rest, and though I knew I never would see her again, her pale, lifeless mask haunted me. I remembered a remark the German woman had made when Frances dismissed the Polish girl: "People ought to make it easy, and not hard, for others to earn a living." At the end of this somewhat agitating day I returned to my tenement lodgings as to a haven of rest. There was one other lodger besides myself: she was studying music on borrowed money at four dollars a lesson. Obviously she was a victim to luxury in the same degree as the young women with whom I had lunched at the bakery. Nothing that a rich society girl might have had been left out of her wardrobe, and borrowed money seemed as good as any for making a splurge. Miss Arnold was something of a snob, intellectual and otherwise. It was evident from my wretched clothes and poor grammar that I was not accustomed to ladies of her type, but, far from sparing me, she humiliated me with all sorts of questions. "I'm tired of taffeta jackets, aren't you?" she would ask, apropos of my flimsy ulster. "I had taffeta last year, with velvet and satin this winter; but I don't know what I'll get yet this summer." After supper, on my return, I found her sitting in the parlour with Mrs. Brown. They never lighted the gas, as there was an electric lamp which sent its rays aslant the street and repeated the pattern of the window curtains all over Mrs. Brown's face and hands. Drawn up on one end of the horsehair sofa, Miss Arnold, in a purple velvet blouse, chatted to Mrs. Brown and me. "I'm from Jacksonville," she volunteered, patting her masses of curly hair. "Do you know anybody from Jacksonville? It's an elegant town, so much wealth, so many retired farmers, and it's such an educational centre. Do you like reading?" she asked me. "I don't get time," is my response. "Oh, my!" she rattles on. "I'm crazy about reading. I do love blank verse--it makes the language so choice, like in Shakespeare." Mrs. Brown and I, being in the majority as opposed to this autocrat, remain placid. A current of understanding exists between us. Miss Arnold, on the other hand, finds our ignorance a flattering background for her learning and adventures. She is so obviously a woman of the world on the tenement horsehair sofa. "In case you don't like your work," she Lady Bountifuls me, "I can get you a stylish place as maid with some society people just out of Chicago--friends of mine, an elegant family." "I don't care to live out," I respond, thanking her. "I like my Sundays and my evenings off." Mrs. Brown pricks up her ears at this, and I notice that thereafter she keeps close inquiry as to how my Sundays and evenings are spent. But the bell rings. Miss Arnold is called for by friends to play on the piano at an evening entertainment. Mrs. Brown and I, being left alone, begin a conversation of the personal kind, which is the only resource among the poor. If she had had any infirmity--a wooden leg or a glass eye--she would naturally have begun by showing it to me, but as she had been spared intact she chose second best. "I've had lots of shocks," she said, rocking back and forth in a squeaky rocking-chair. The light from over the way flickered and gleamed. Mrs. Brown's broad, yellow face and gray hair were now brilliant, now somber, as she rocked in and out of the silver rays. Her voice was a metallic whine, and when she laughed against her regular, even, false teeth there was a sound like the mechanical yelp of a toy cat. Married at sixteen, her whole life had been Brown on earth below and God in His heaven above. Childless, she and Brown had spent over fifty years together. It was natural in the matter of shocks the first she should tell me about was Brown's death. The story began with "a breakfast one Sunday morning at nine o'clock.... Brown always made the fire, raked down the ashes, set the coffee to boil, and when the toast and eggs were ready he called me. And that wasn't one morning, mind you--it was every morning for fifty years. But this particular morning I noticed him speaking strange; his tongue was kind o' thick. He didn't hardly eat nothing, and as soon as I'd done he got up and carried the ashes downstairs to dump 'em. When he come up he seemed dizzy. I says to him, 'Don't you feel good?' but he didn't seem able to answer. He made like he was going to undress. He put his hand in his pocket for his watch, and he put it in again for his pocketbook; but the second time it stayed in--he couldn't move it no more; it was dead and cold when I touched it. He leaned up against the wall, and I tried to get him over on to the sofa. When I looked into his eyes I see that he was gone. He couldn't stand, but I held on to him with all my force; I didn't let his head strike as he went down. _When he fell we fell together_." Her voice was choked; even now after three years as she told the story she could not believe it herself. Presently when she is calm again she continues the recital of her shocks--three times struck by lightning and once run over. Her simple descriptions are straightforward and dramatic. As she talks the wind blows against the windows, the shutters rattle and an ugly white china knob, against which the curtains are draped, falls to the floor. Tenderly, amazed, she picks it up and looks at it. "Brown put that up," she says; "there hasn't no hand touched it since his'n." Proprietor of this house in which she lives, Mrs. Brown is fairly well off. She rents one floor to an Italian family, one to some labourers, and one to an Irishman and his wife who get drunk from time to time and rouse us in the night with tumult and scuffling. She has a way of disappearing for a week or more and returning without giving any account of herself. Relations are strained, and Mrs. Brown in speaking of her says: "I don't care what trouble I was in, I wouldn't call in that Irish woman. I don't have anything to do with her. I'd rather get the Dago next door." And hereafter follows a mild tirade against the Italians--the same sentiments I have heard expressed before in the labouring centres. [Illustration: CHICAGO TYPES] "They're kind folks and good neighbours," Mrs. Brown explains, "but they're different from us. They eat what the rest of us throw away, and there's no work they won't do. They're putting money aside fast; most of 'em owns their own houses; but since they've moved into this neighbourhood the price of property's gone down. I don't have nothing to do with 'em. We don't any of us. They're not like us; they're different." Without letting a day elapse I started early the following morning in search of a new job. The paper was full of advertisements, but there was some stipulation in each which narrowed my possibilities of getting a place, as I was an unskilled hand. There was, however, one simple "Girls wanted!" which I answered, prepared for anything but an electric sewing machine. The address took me to a more fashionable side of the city, near the lake; a wide expanse of pale, shimmering water, it lay a refreshing horizon for eyes long used to poverty's quarters. Like a sea, it rolled white-capped waves toward the shore from its far-away emerald surface where sail-freighted barks traveled at the wind's will. Free from man's disfiguring touch, pure, immaculate, it appeared bridelike through a veil of morning mist. And at its very brink are the turmoil and confusion of America's giant industries. In less than an hour I am receiving wages from a large picture frame company in East Lake Street. Once more I have made the observation that men are more agreeable bosses than women. The woman, when she is not exceptionally disagreeable, like Frances, is always annoying. She bothers and nags; things must be done her way; she enjoys the legitimate minding of other people's business. Aiming at results only, the masculine mind is more tranquil. Provided you get your work done, the man boss doesn't care what methods you take in doing it. For the woman boss, whether you get your work done or not, you must do it her way. The overseer at J.'s picture frame manufactory is courteous, friendly, considerate. I have a feeling that he wishes me to coöperate with him, not to be terrorized and driven to death by him. My spirits rise at once, my ambition is stimulated, and I desire his approval. The work is all done by the piece, he explains to me, telling me the different prices. The girls work generally in teams of three, dividing profits. Nothing could be more modern, more middle-class, more popular, more philistine than the production of J.'s workrooms. They are the cheap imitations fed to a public hungry for luxury or the semblance of it. Nothing is genuine in the entire shop. Water colours are imitated in chromo, oils are imitated in lithograph, white carved wood frames are imitated in applications of pressed brass. Great works of art are belittled by processes cheap enough to be within reach of the poorest pocket. Framed pictures are turned out by the thousand dozens, every size, from the smallest domestic scene, which hangs over the baby's crib in a Harlem flat, to the large wedding-present size placed over the piano in the front parlour. The range of subjects covers a familiar list of comedies or tragedies--the partings before war, the interior behind prison bars, the game of marbles, the friendly cat and dog, the chocolate girl, the skipper and his daughter, etc., etc. My job is easy, but slow. With a hammer and tacks I fasten four tin mouldings to the four corners of a gilt picture frame. Twenty-five cents for a hundred is the pay given me, and it takes me half a day to do this many; but my comrades don't allow me to get discouraged. "You're doing well," a red-haired _vis-a-vis_ calls to me across the table. And the foreman, who comes often to see how I am getting along, tells me that the next day we are to begin team-work, which pays much better. The hours are ten a day: from seven until five thirty, with twenty-five minutes at noon instead of half an hour. The extra five minutes a day mount up to thirty minutes a week and let us off at five on Saturdays. The conversation around me leads me to suppose that my companions are not downtrodden in any way, nor that they intend letting work interfere with happiness. They have in their favour the most blessed of all gifts--youth. The tragic faces one meets with are of the women breadwinners whose burdens are overwhelming and of the children in whom physical fatigue arrests development and all possibility of pleasure. My present team-mates and those along the rest of the room are Americans between fourteen and twenty-four years of age, full of unconscious hope for the future, which is natural in healthy, well-fed youth, taking their work cheerily as a self-imposed task in exchange for which they can have more clothes and more diversions during their leisure hours. The profitable job given us on the following day is monotonous and dirty, but we net $1.05 each. There is a mechanical roller which passes before us, carrying at irregular intervals a large sheet of coloured paper covered with glue. My _vis-à-vis_ and I lay the palms of our right hands on to the glue surface and lift the sheet of paper to its place on the table before us, over a stiff square of bristol board. The boss of the team fixes the two sheets together with a brush which she manipulates skilfully. We are making in this way the stiff backs which hold the pictures into their frames. When we have fallen into the proper swing we finish one hundred sheets every forty-five minutes. We could work more rapidly, but the sheets are furnished to us at this rate, and it is so comfortable that conversation is not interrupted. The subjects are the same as elsewhere--dress, young men, entertainments. The girls have "beaux" and "steady beaux." The expression, "Who is she going with?" means who is her steady beau. "I've got Jim Smith _now_, but I don't know whether I'll keep him," means that Jim Smith is on trial as a beau and may become a "steady." They go to Sunday night subscription dances and arrive Monday morning looking years older than on Saturday, after having danced until early morning. "There's nothing so smart for a ball," the mundane of my team tells us, "as a black skirt and white silk waist." About ten in the morning most of us eat a pickle or a bit of cocoanut cake or some titbit from the lunch parcel which is opened seriously at twelve. The light is good, the air is good, the room where we work is large and not crowded, the foreman is kind and friendly, the girls are young and cheerful; one can make $7 to $8 a week. The conditions at J.'s are too favourable to be interesting, and, having no excuse to leave, I disappear one day at lunch time and never return to get my apron or my wages. I shall be obliged to draw upon the resources of the black silk bag, but before returning to my natural condition of life I wish to try one more place: a printing job. There are quantities of advertisements in the papers for girls needed to run presses of different sorts, so on the very afternoon of my self-dismissal I start through the hot summer streets in search of a situation. On the day when my appearance is most forlorn I find policemen always as officially polite as when I am dressed in my best. Other people of whom I inquire my way are sometimes curt, sometimes compassionate, seldom indifferent, and generally much nicer or not nearly as nice as they would be to a rich person. Poor old women to whom I speak often call me "dear" in answering. Under the trellis of the elevated road the "cables" clang their way. Trucks and automobiles, delivery wagons and private carriages plunge over the rough pavements. The sidewalks are crowded with people who are dressed for business, and who, whether men or women, are a business type; the drones who taste not of the honey stored in the hives which line the streets and tower against the blue sky, veiling it with smoke. The orderly rush of busy people, among whom I move toward an address given in the paper, is suddenly changed into confusion and excitement by the bell of a fire-engine which is dragged clattering over the cobbles, followed closely by another and another before the sound of the horses' hoofs have died away. Excitement for a moment supersedes business. The fire takes precedence before the office, and a crowd stands packed against policemen's arms, gazing upward at a low brick building which sends forth flames hotter than the brazen sun, smoke blacker than the perpetual veil of soot. I compare the dingy gold number over the burning door with the number in print on the newspaper slip held between my thumb and forefinger. Decidedly this is not one of my lucky days. The numbers correspond. But there are other addresses and I collect a series of replies. The employer in a box factory on the West Side takes my address and promises to let me know if he has a vacancy for an unskilled hand. Another boss printer, after much urging on my part, consents to give me a trial the following Monday at three dollars a week. A kindly forelady in a large printing establishment on Wabash Avenue sends me away because she wants only trained workers. "I'm real sorry," she says. "You're from the East, aren't you? I notice you speak with an accent." By this time it is after three in the afternoon; my chances are diminishing as the day goes on and others apply before me. There is one more possibility at a box and label company which has advertised for a girl to feed a Gordon press. I have never heard of a Gordon press, but I make up my mind not to leave the label company without the promise of a job for the very next day. The stairway is dingy and irregular. My spirits are not buoyant as I open a swinging door and enter a room with a cage in the middle, where a lady cashier, dressed in a red silk waist, sits on a high stool overlooking the office. Three portly men, fat, well nourished, evidently of one family, are installed behind yellow ash desks, each with a lady typewriter at his right hand. I go timidly up to the fattest of the three. He is in shirt sleeves, evidently feeling the heat painfully. He pretends to be very busy and hardly looks up when I say: "I seen your ad. in the paper this morning." "You're rather late," is his answer. "I've got two girls engaged already." "Too late!" I say with an intonation which interrupts his work for a minute while he looks at me. I profit by this moment, and, changing from tragedy to a good-humoured smile, I ask: "Say, are you sure those girls'll come? You can't always count on us, you know." He laughs at this. "Have you ever run a Gordon press?" "No, sir; but I'm awful handy." "Where have you been working?" "At J.'s in Lake Street." "What did you make?" "A dollar a day." "Well, you come in to-morrow about eleven and I'll tell you then whether I can give you anything to do." "Can't you be sure now?" Truly disappointed, my voice expresses the eagerness I feel. "Well," the fat man says indulgently, "you come in to-morrow morning at eight and I'll give you a job." The following day I begin my last and by far my most trying apprenticeship. The noise of a single press is deafening. In the room where I work there are ten presses on my row, eight back of us and four printing machines back of them. On one side of the room only are there windows. The air is heavy with the sweet, stifling smell of printer's ink and cheap paper. A fine rain of bronze dust sifts itself into the hair and clothes of the girls at our end of the room, where they are bronzing coloured advertisements. The work is all done standing; the hours are from seven until six, with half an hour at noon, and holiday at one thirty on Saturdays. It is to _feed_ a machine that I am paid three dollars a week. The expression is admirably chosen. The machine's iron jaws yawn for food; they devour all I give, and when by chance I am slow they snap hungrily at my hand and would crush my fingers did I not snatch them away, feeling the first cold clutch. It is nervous work. Each leaf to be printed must be handled twice; 5,000 circulars or bill-heads mean 10,000 gestures for the printer, and this is an afternoon's work. Into the square marked out for it by steel guards the paper must be slipped with the right hand, while the machine is open; with the left hand the printed paper must be pulled out and a second fitted in its place before the machine closes again. What a master to serve is this noisy iron mechanism animated by steam! It gives not a moment's respite to the worker, whose thoughts must never wander from her task. The girls are pale. Their complexions without exception are bad. We are bossed by men. My boss is kind, and, seeing that I am ambitious, he comes now and then and prints a few hundred bill-heads for me. There is some complaining _sotto voce_ of the other boss, who, it appears, is a hard taskmaster. Both are very young, both chew tobacco and expectorate long, brown, wet lines of tobacco juice on to the floor. While waiting for new type I get into conversation with the boss of ill-repute. He has an honest, serious face; his eyes are evidently more accustomed to judging than to trusting his fellow beings. He is communicative. "Do you like your job?" he asks. "Yes, first rate." "They don't pay enough. I give notice last week and got a raise. I guess I'll stay on here until about August." "Then where are you going?" "Going home," he answers. "I've been away from home for seven years. I run away when I was thirteen and I've been knocking around ever since, takin' care of myself, makin' a livin' one way or another. My folks lives in California. I've been from coast to coast--and I tell you I'll be mighty glad to get back." "Ever been sick?" "Yes, twice. It's no fun. No matter how much licking a boy gets he ought never to leave home. The first year or so you don't mind it so much, but when you've been among strangers two years, three years, all alone, sick or well, you begin to feel you must get back to your own folks." "Are you saving up?" I ask. He nods his head, not free to speak for tobacco juice. "I'll be able to leave here in August," he explains, when he has finished spitting, "for Omaha. In three months I can save up enough to get on as far as Salt Lake, and in another three months I can move on to San Francisco. I tell you," he adds, returning to his work, "a person ought never to leave home." He had nine months of work and privation before reaching the goal toward which he had been yearning for years. With what patience he appears possessed compared to our fretfulness at the fast express trains, which seem to crawl when they carry us full speed homeward toward those we love! Nine months, two hundred and seventy days, ten-hour working days, to wait. He was manly. He had the spirit of adventure; his experience was wide and his knowledge of men extended; he had managed to take care of himself in one way or another for seven years, the most trying and decisive in a boy's life. He had not gone to the bad, evidently, and to his credit he was homeward bound. His history was something out of the ordinary; yet beyond the circle where he worked and was considered a hard taskmaster he was a nonentity--a star in the milky way, a star whose faint rays, without individual brilliancy, added to the general luster. The first day I had a touch of pride in getting easily ahead of the new girl who started in when I did. From my machine I could see only the back of her head; it was shaking disapproval at every stroke she made and had to make over again. She had a mass of untidy hair and a slouchy skirt that slipped out from her belt in the back. If not actually stupid, she was slow, and the foreman and the girl who took turns teaching her exchanged glances, meaning that they were exhausting their patience and would readily give up the job. I was pleased at being included in these glances, and had a miserable moment of vanity at lunch time when the old girls, the habitués, came after me to eat with them. The girl with the untidy hair and the long skirt sat quite by her self. Without unfolding her newspaper bundle, she took bites of things from it, as though she were a little ashamed of her lunch. My moment of vanity had passed. I went over to her, not knowing whether her appearance meant a slipshod nature or extreme poverty. As we were both new girls, there was no indiscretion in my direct question: "Like your job?" I could not understand what she answered, so I continued: "Ever worked before?" She opened her hands and held them out to me. In the palm of one there was a long scar that ran from wrist to forefinger. Two nails had been worn off below the quick and were cracked through the middle. The whole was gloved in an iron callous, streaked with black. "Does that look like work?" was her response. It was almost impossible to hear what she said. Without a palate, she forced the words from her mouth in a strange monotone. She was one of nature's monstrous failures. Her coarse, opaque skin covered a low forehead and broad, boneless nose; her teeth were crumbling with disease, and into her full lower lip some sharp tool had driven a double scar. She kept her hand over her mouth when she talked, and except for this movement of self-consciousness her whole attitude was one of resignation and humility. Her eyes in their dismal surroundings lay like clear pools in a swamp's midst reflecting blue sky. "What was you doing to get your hands like that?" I asked. "Tipping shoe-laces. I had to quit, 'cause they cut the pay down. I could do twenty-two gross in a day, working until eight o'clock, and I didn't care how hard I worked so long as I got good pay--$9 a week. But the employer'd been a workman himself, and they're the worst kind. He cut me down to $4 a week, so I quit." "Do you live home?" "Yes. I give all I make to my mother, and she gives me my clothes and board. Almost anywhere I can make $7 a week, and I feel when I earn that much like I was doing right. But it's hard to work and make nothing. I'm slow to learn," she smiled at me, covering her mouth with her hand, "but I'll get on to it by and by and go as fast as any one; only I'm not very strong." "What's the matter with you?" "Heart disease for one thing, and then I'm so nervous. It's kind of hard to have to work when you're not able. To-day I can hardly stand, my head's aching so. They make the poor work for just as little as they can, don't they? It's not the work I mind, but if I can't give in my seven a week at home I get to worrying." Now and then as she talked in her inarticulate pitiful voice the tears added luster to her eyes as her emotions welled up within her. The machines began to roar and vibrate again. The noon recess was over. She went back to her job. Her broad, heavy hands began once more to serve a company on whose moderate remuneration she depended for her daily bread. Her silhouette against the window where she stood was no longer an object for my vain eyes to look upon with a sense of superiority. I could hear the melancholy intonation of her voice, pronouncing words of courage over her disfigured underlip. She was one of nature's failures--one of God's triumphs. Saturday night my fellow lodger, Miss Arnold, and I made an expedition to the spring opening of a large dry-goods shop in the neighbourhood of Mrs. Brown's. I felt rather humble in my toil-worn clothes to accompany the young woman, who had an appearance of prosperity which borrowed money alone can give. But she encouraged me, and we started together for the principal street of the quarter whose history was told in its show-case windows. Pawnshops and undertakers, bakeries and soda-water fountains were ranged side by side on this highway, as the necessity for them is ranged with incongruous proximity in the existence of those who live pell-mell in moral and material disorder after the manner of the poor. There was even a wedding coach in the back of the corner undertaker's establishment, and in the front window a coffin, small and white, as though death itself were more attractive in the young, as though the little people of the quarter were nearer Heaven and more suggestive of angels than their life-worn elders. The spotless tiny coffin with its fringe and satin tufting had its share of the ideal, mysterious, unused and costly; in the same store with the wedding coach, it suggested festivity: a reunion to celebrate with tears a small pilgrim's right to sleep at last undisturbed. The silver rays of the street lamps mingled with the yellow light of the shop windows, and on the sidewalk there was a cosmopolitan public. Groups of Italian women crooned to each other in their soft voices over the bargains for babies displayed at the spring opening; factory girls compared notes, chattered, calculated, tried to resist, and ended by an extravagant choice; the German women looked and priced and bought nothing; the Hungarians had evidently spent their money on arriving. From the store window wax figures of the ideal woman, clad in latest Parisian garb, with golden hair and blue eyes, gazed down benignly into the faces uplifted with envy and admiration. Did she not plainly say to them "For $17 you can look as I do"? The store was apparently flourishing, and except for such few useful articles as stockings and shirts it was stocked with trash. Patronized entirely by labouring men and women, it was an indication to their needs. Here, for example, was a stand hung with silk dress skirts, trimmed with lace and velvet. They were made after models of expensive dress-makers and were attempts at the sort of thing a Mme. de Rothschild might wear at the Grand Prix de Paris. Varying from $11 to $20, there was not one of the skirts made of material sufficiently solid to wear for more than a few Sunday outings. On another counter there were hats with extravagant garlands of flowers, exaggerated bows and plumes, wraps with ruffles of lace and long pendant bows; silk boleros; a choice of things never meant to be imitated in cheap quality. [Illustration: THE REAR OF A CHICAGO TENEMENT] I watched the customers trying on. Possessed of grace and charm in their native costumes, hatless, with gay-coloured shawls on their shoulders, the Italian women, as soon as they donned the tawdry garb of the luxury-loving labourer, were common like the rest. In becoming prosperous Americans, animated by the desire for material possession which is the strength and the weakness of our countrymen, they lost the character that pleases us, the beauty we must go abroad to find. Miss Arnold priced everything, compared quality and make with Jacksonville productions, and decided to buy nothing, but in refusing to buy she had an air of opulence and taste hard to please which surpassed the effect any purchase could have made. Sunday morning Mrs. Brown asked me to join her and Miss Arnold for breakfast They were both in slippers and dressing-gowns. We boiled the coffee and set the table with doughnuts and sweet cakes, which Miss Arnold kept in a paper bag in her room. "I hardly ever eat, except between meals," she explained. "A nibble of cake or candy is as much as I can manage, my digestion is so poor." "Ever since Brown died," the widow responded, "I've had my meals just the same as though he were here. All I want," she went on, as we seated ourselves and exchanged courtesies in passing the bread and butter, "all I want is somebody to be kind to me. I've got a young niece that I've tried to have with me. I wrote to her and says: 'Your auntie's heart's just crying out for you!' And I told her I'd leave her all I've got. But she said she didn't feel like she could come." As soon as breakfast is over the mundane member of the household starts off on a day's round of visits. When the screen door has shut upon her slender silhouette, Mrs. Brown settles down for a chat. She takes out the brush and comb, unbraids her silver locks and arranges them while she talks. "Miss Arnold's always on the go; she's awful nervous. These society people aren't happy. Life's not all pleasure for them. You can be sure they have their ups and downs like the rest of us." "I guess that's likely," is my response. "They don't tell the truth always, in the first place. They say there's got to be deceit in society, and that these stylish people pretend all sorts of things. Well, then, all I say is," and she pricks the comb into the brush with emphasis, "all I say is, you better keep out of society." She had twisted her gray braids into a coil at the back of her head, and dish-washing is now the order of the day. As we splash and wipe, Mrs. Brown looks at me rather closely. She is getting ready to speak. I can feel this by a preliminary rattle of her teeth. "You're a new girl here," she begins; "you ain't been long in Chicago. I just thought I'd tell you about a girl who was workin' here in the General Electric factory. She was sixteen--a real nice-lookin' girl from the South. She left her mother and come up here alone. It wasn't long before she got to foolin' round with one of the young men over to the factory. They were both young; they didn't mean no harm; but one day she come an' told me, cryin' like anythin', that she was in trouble, and her young man had slipped off up to Michigan." Here Mrs. Brown stopped to see if I was interested, and as I responded with a heartfelt "Oh, my!" she went on: "Well, you ought to have seen that girl's sufferin', her loneliness for her mother. I'd come in her room sometimes at midnight--the very room you have now--and find her on the floor, weepin' her heart out. I want to tell you never to get discouraged. Just you listen to what happened. The gentleman from the factory got a sheriff and they started up north after the young man, determined to get him by force if they couldn't by kindness. Well, they found him and they brought him back; he was willin' to come, and they got everythin' fixed up for the weddin' without tellin' her a thing about it, and one day she was sittin' right there," she pointed to the rocking chair in the front parlour window, "when he come in. He was carryin' a big bunch of cream roses, tied with long white ribbons. He offered 'em to her, but she wouldn't look at them nor at him. After awhile they went together into her room and talked for half an hour, and when they come back she had consented to marry him. He was real kind. He kept askin' me if she had cried much and thankin' me for takin' care of her. They were married, and when the weddin' was over she didn't want to stay with him. She said she wanted her mother, but we talked to her and told her what was right, and things was fixed up between them." She had taken down from its hook in the corner sunlight the canary bird and his cage. She put them on the table and prepared to give the bird his bath and fresh seed. "You see," she said, drawing up a chair, "that's what good employers will do for you. If you're working in a good place they'll do right by you, and it don't pay to get down-hearted." I thanked her and showed the interest I truly felt in the story. Evidently I must account for my Sundays! It was with the bird now that Mrs. Brown continued her conversation. He was a Rip Van Winkle in plumage. His claws trailed over the sand of the cage. Except when Mrs. Brown had a lodger or two with her, the bird was the only living thing in her part of the tenement. "I've had him twenty-five years," she said to me. "Brown give him to me. I guess I'd miss him if he died." And presently she repeated again: "I don't believe I even know how much I'd miss him." On the last evening of my tenement residence I was sitting in a restaurant of the quarter, having played truant from Mrs. Wood's, whose Friday fish dinner had poisoned me. My hands had been inflamed and irritated in consequence, and I was now intent upon a good clean supper earned by ten hours' work. My back was turned to the door, which I knew must be open, as I felt a cold wind. The lake brought capricious changes of the temperature: the thermometer had fallen the night before from seventy to thirty. I turned to see who the newcomer might be. The sight of him set my heart beating faster. The restaurant keeper was questioning the man to find out who he was.... He was evidently nobody--a fragment of anonymous humanity lashed into _debris_ upon the edge of a city's vortex; a remnant of flesh and bones for human appetites to feed on; a battleground of disease and vice; a beggar animated by instinct to get from others what he could no longer earn for himself; the type _par excellence_ who has worn out charity organizations; the poor wreck of a soul that would create pity if there were none of it left in the world. He was asking for food. The proprietor gave him the address of a free lodging-house and turned him away. He pulled his cap over his head; the door opened and closed, letting in a fresh gale of icy air. The man was gone. I turned back to my supper. Scientific philanthropists would have means of proving that such men are alone to blame for their condition; that this one was in all probability a drunkard, and that it would be useless, worse than useless, to help him. But he was cold and hungry and penniless, and I knew it. I went as swiftly as I could to overtake him. He had not traveled far, lurching along at a snail's pace, and he was startled when I came up to him. One of his legs was longer than the other; it had been crushed in an accident. They were not pairs, his legs, and neither were his eyes pairs; one was big and blind, with a fixed pupil, and the other showed all his feelings. Across his nose there was a scar, a heavy scar, pale like the rest of his face. He was small and had sandy hair. The directors of charity bureaus could have detected perhaps a faint resemblance to the odour of liquor as he breathed a halo of frosty air over his scraggly red beard. Through the weather-beaten coat pinned over it his bare chest was visible. "It's a cold night!" I began. "Are you out of a job?" With his wistful eye he gave me a kind glance. "I've been sick. There's a sharp pain right in through here." He showed me a spot under his arm. "They thought at the hospital that I 'ad consumption. But," his face brightened, "I haven't got it." He showed in his smile the life-warrant that kept him from suicide. _He wanted to live._ "Where did you sleep last night?" I asked. "It was a cold night." "To tell you the truth," he responded in his strong Scotch accent, "I slept in a wagon." I proposed that we do some shopping together; he looked at me gratefully and limped along to a cheap clothing store, kept by an Italian. The warmth within was agreeable; there was a display of garments hung across the ceiling under the gas-light. My companion waited, leaning against the glass counter, while I priced the flannel shirts. To be sure, my own costume promised little bounty. The price of the shirt was seventy-five cents, and as soon as he heard this the poor man said: "Oh, you mustn't spend as much as that." Looking first at the pauper, then at me, the Italian leaned over and whispered to me, "I think I understand. You can have the shirt for sixty, and I'll put in a pair of socks, too." Thus we had become a fraternity; all were poor, the stronger woe helping the weaker.... When his toilet was complete the poor man looked half a head taller. "Shall I wrap up your old cap for you?" the salesman asked, and the other laughed a broken, long-disused laugh. "I guess I won't need it any more," he said, turning to me. His face had changed like the children's valentines that grow at a touch from a blank card to a glimpse of paradise. Once in the street again we shook hands. I was going back to my supper. He was going, the charity directors would say, to pawn his shirt and coat. The man had evidently not more than a few months to live; I was leaving Chicago the following day. We would undoubtedly never meet again. As his bony hand lay in mine, his eyes looked straight at me. "Thank you," he said, and his last words were these: "I'll stand by you." It was a pledge of fraternity at parting. There was no material substance to promise. I took it to mean that he would stand by any generous impulses I might have; that he would be, as it were, a patron of spontaneous as opposed to organized charity; a patron of those who are never too poor to give to some one poorer; of those who have no scientific reasons for giving, no statistics, only compassion and pity; of those who want to aid not only the promising but the hopeless cases; of those whose charity is tolerant and maternal, patient with the helpless, prepared for disappointments; not looking for results, ever ready to begin again, so long as the paradox of suffering and inability are linked together in humanity. * * * * * THE MEANING OF IT ALL * * * * * CHAPTER V THE MEANING OF IT ALL Before concluding the recital of my experiences as a working girl, I want to sum up the general conclusions at which I arrived and to trace in a few words the history of my impressions. What, first of all, was my purpose in going to live and work among the American factory hands? It was not to gratify simple curiosity; it was not to get material for a novel; it was not to pave the way for new philanthropic associations; it was not to obtain crude data, such as fill the reports of labour commissioners. My purpose was to _help_ the working girl--to help her mentally, morally, physically. I considered this purpose visionary and unpractical, I considered it pretentious even, and I cannot say that I had any hope of accomplishing it. What did I mean by _help_? Did I mean a superficial remedy, a palliative? A variety of such remedies occurred to me as I worked, and I have offered them gladly for the possible aid of charitable people who have time and money to carry temporary relief to the poor. It was not relief of this kind that I meant by _help_. I meant an _amelioration in natural conditions_. I was not hopeful of discovering any plan to bring about this amelioration, because I believed that the conditions, deplorable as they appear to us, of the working poor, were natural, the outcome of laws which it is useless to resist. I adopted the only method possible for putting my belief to the test. I did what had never been done. I was a skeptic and something of a sentimentalist when I started. I have become convinced, as I worked, that certain of the most unfortunate conditions are not natural, and that they can therefore be corrected. It is with hope for the material betterment of the breadwinning woman, for the moral advancement of the semi-breadwinner and the esthetic improvement of the country, that I submit what seems a rational plan. For the first three weeks of my life as a factory girl I saw among my companions only one vast class of slaves, miserable drudges, doomed to dirt, ugliness and overwork from birth until death. My own physical sufferings were acute. My heart was torn with pity. I revolted against a society whose material demands were satisfied at the cost of minds and bodies. Labour appeared in the guise of a monster feeding itself on human lives. To every new impression I responded with indiscriminate compassion. It is impossible for the imagination to sustain for more than a moment at a time the terrible fatigue which a new hand like myself is obliged to endure day after day; the disgust at foul smells, the revulsion at miserable food soaked in grease, the misery of a straw mattress, a sheetless bed with blankets whose acrid odour is stifling. The mind cannot grasp what it means to be frantic with pain in the shoulders and back before nine in the morning, and to watch the clock creep around to six before one has a right to drop into the chair that has stood near one all day long. Yet it is not until the system has become at least in a great measure used to such physical effort that one can judge without bias. When I had grown so accustomed to the work that I was equal to a long walk after ten hours in the factory; when I had become so saturated with the tenement smell that I no longer noticed it; when any bed seemed good enough for the healthy sleep of a working girl, and any food good enough to satisfy a hungry stomach, then and then only I began to see that in the great unknown class there were a multitude of classes which, aside from the ugliness of their esthetic surroundings and the intellectual inactivity which the nature of their occupation imposes, are not all to be pitied: they are a collection of human individuals with like capacities to our own. The surroundings into which they are born furnish little chance for them to develop their minds and their tastes, but their souls suffer nothing from working in squalour and sordidness. Certain acts of impulsive generosity, of disinterested kindness, of tender sacrifice, of loyalty and fortitude shone out in the poverty-stricken wretches I met on my way, as the sun shines glorious in iridescence on the rubbish heap that goes to fertilize some rich man's fields. My observations were confined chiefly to the women. Two things, however, regarding the men I noticed as fixed rules. They were all breadwinners; they worked because they needed the money to live; they supported entirely the woman, wife or mother, of the household who did not work. In many cases they contributed to the support of even the wage-earning females of the family: the woman who does not work when she does not need to work is provided for. The women were divided into two general classes: Those who worked because they needed to earn their living, and those who came to the factories to be more independent than at home, to exercise their coquetry and amuse themselves, to make pin money for luxuries. The men formed a united class. They had a purpose in common. The women were in a class with boys and with children. They had nothing in common but their physical inferiority to man. The children were working from necessity, the boys were working from necessity; the only industrial unit complicating the problem were the girls who worked without being obliged to--the girls who had "all the money they needed, but not all the money they wanted." To them the question of wages was not vital. They could afford to accept what the breadwinner found insufficient. They were better fed, better equipped than the self-supporting hand; they were independent about staying away from the factory when they were tired or ill, and they alone determined the reputation for irregularity in which the breadwinners were included. Here, then, it seemed to me, was the first chance to offer help. The self-supporting woman should be in competition only with other self-supporting industrial units. The problem for her class will settle itself, according to just and natural laws, when the purpose of this class is equally vital to all concerned. Relief, it seemed to me, could be brought to the breadwinner by separating from her the girl who works for luxuries. How could this be done? There is, I believe, a way in which it can be accomplished naturally. The non-self-supporting girls must be attracted into some field of work which requires instruction and an especial training, which pays them as well while calling into play higher faculties than the brutalizing machine labour. This field of work is industrial art: lace-making, hand-weaving, the fabrication of tissues and embroideries, gold-smithery, bookbinding, rug-weaving, woodcarving and inlaying, all the branches of industrial art which could be executed by woman in her home, all the manual labour which does not require physical strength, which would not place the woman, therefore, as an inferior in competition with man, but would call forth her taste and skill, her training and individuality, at the same time being consistent with her destiny as a woman. The American factory girl has endless ambition. She has a hunger for knowledge, for opportunities to better herself, to get on in the world, to improve. There is ample material in the factories as they exist for forming a new, higher, superior class of industrial art labourers. There is a great work to be accomplished by those who are willing to give their time and their money to lifting the non-breadwinners from the slavish, brutalizing machines at which they work, ignorant of anything better, and placing them by education, by cultivation, in positions of comparative freedom--freedom of thought, taste and personality. Classes in industrial art already exist at the Simmons School in Boston and Columbia University in New York. New classes should be formed. Individual enterprise should start the ball and keep it rolling until it is large enough to be held in Governmental hands. It is not sufficient merely to form classes. The right sort of pupils should be attracted. There is not a factory which would not furnish some material. The recompense for apprenticeship would be the social and intellectual advancement dear to every true American's heart. The question of wages would be self-regulating. At Hull House, Chicago, in the Industrial Art School it has been proved that, provided the models be simple in proportion to the ability of the artisan, the work can be sold as fast as it is turned out. The public is ready to buy the produce of hand-workers. The girls I speak of are fit for advancement. It is not a plan of charity, but one to ameliorate natural conditions. Who will act as mediator? I make an appeal to all those whose interests and leisure permit them to help in this double emancipation of the woman who toils for bread and the girl who works for luxuries. * * * * * MARIE VAN VORST INTRODUCTORY VII. A MAKER OF SHOES AT LYNN VIII. THE SOUTHERN COTTON MILLS IX. THE CHILD IN THE SOUTHERN MILLS * * * * * CHAPTER VI INTRODUCTORY There are no words too noble to extol the courage of mankind in its brave, uncomplaining struggle for existence. Idealism and estheticism have always had much to say in praise of the "beauty of toil." Carlyle has honoured it as a cult; epics have been written in its glory. When one has turned to and performed, day in and day out, this labour from ten to thirteen hours out of the twenty-four, with Sundays and legal holidays as the sole respite--to find at the month's end that the only possible economics are pleasures--one is at least better fitted to comprehend the standpoint of the worker; and one realizes that part of the universe is pursuing means to sustain an existence which, by reason of its hardship, they perforce cling to with indifference. I laid aside for a time everything pertaining to the class in which I was born and bred and became an American working-woman. I intended, in as far as was possible, to live as she lived, work as she worked. In thus approaching her I believed that I could share her ambitions, her pleasures, her privations. Working by her side day after day, I hoped to be a mirror that should reflect the woman who toils, and later, when once again in my proper sphere of life, to be her expositor in an humble way--to be a mouthpiece for her to those who know little of the realities of everlasting labour. I have in the following pages attempted to solve no problem--I have advanced no sociologic schemes. Conclusions must be drawn by those who read the simple, faithful description of the woman who toils as I saw her, as I worked beside her, grew to understand in a measure her point of view and to sympathize with her struggle. MARIE VAN VORST. Riverdale-on-Hudson, 1902. * * * * * A MAKER OF SHOES AT LYNN * * * * * CHAPTER VII A MAKER OF SHOES AT LYNN "Those who work neither with their brains nor their hands are a menace to the public safety."--Roosevelt. Well and good! In the great mobs and riots of history, what class is it which forms the brawn and muscle and sinew of the disturbance? The workmen and workwomen in whom discontent has bred the disease of riot, the abnormality, the abortion known as Anarchy, Socialism. The hem of the uprising is composed of idlers and loungers, indeed, but it is _the labourer's head_ upon which the red cap of protest is seen above the vortex of the crowd. _That those who labour with their hands may have no cause to menace society, those who labour with their brains shall strive to encompass._ Evils in any system American progress is sure to cure. Shops such as the Plant shoe factory in Boston, with its eight-hour labour, ample provision for escape in case of fire, its model ventilating, lavish employment of new machinery--tells on the great manufacturing world. Reason, human sympathy, throughout history have been enemies to slavery or its likeness: reason and sympathy suggest that time and place be given for the operative man and woman to rest, to benefit by physical culture, that the bowed figures might uplift the flabby muscles. Time is securely past when the manufacturers' greed may sweat the labourers' souls through the bodies' pores in order that more stuff may be turned out at cheaper cost. The people through social corporations, through labour unions, have made their demands for shorter hours and better pay. * * * * * LYNN Luxuries to me are what necessities are to another. A boot too heavy, a dress ill-hung, a stocking too thick, are annoyances which to the self-indulgent woman of the world are absolute discomforts. To omit the daily bath is a little less than a crime in the calendar; an odour bordering on the foul creates nausea to nostrils ultra-refined; undue noises are nerve exhausting. If any three things are more unendurable to me than others, they are noises, bad smells and close air. I am in no wise unique, but represent a class as real as the other class whose sweat, bone and fiber make up a vast human machine turning out necessities and luxuries for the market. [Illustration: A DELICATE TYPE OF BEAUTY--At work in a Lynn shoe factory] [Illustration: ONE OF THE SWELLS OF THE FACTORY: A very expert "vamper," an Irish girl, earning from $10 to $14 a week] The clothes I laid aside on December 18, 1901, were as follows: Hat $ 40 Sealskin coat 200 Black cloth dress 150 Silk underskirt 25 Kid gloves 2 Underwear 30 ---- $ 447 The clothes I put on were as follows: Small felt hat $ .25 Woolen gloves .25 Flannel shirt-waist 1.95 Gray serge coat 3.00 Black skirt 2.00 Underwear 1.00 Tippet 1.00 ---- $9.45 * * * * * When I outlined to my friends my scheme of presenting myself for work in a strange town with no introduction, however humble, and no friends to back me, I was assured that the chances were that I would in the end get nothing. I was told that it would be impossible to disguise my class, my speech; that I would be suspected, arouse curiosity and mistrust. * * * * * One bitter December morning in 1901 I left Boston for Lynn, Mass. The route of my train ran close to marshes; frozen hard ice many feet thick covered the rocks and hillocks of earth, and on the dazzling winter scene the sun shone brilliantly. No sooner had I taken my place in my plain attire than my former personality slipped from me as absolutely as did the garments I had discarded. I was Bell Ballard. People from whose contact I had hitherto pulled my skirts away became my companions as I took my place shoulder to shoulder with the crowd of breadwinners. Lynn in winter is ugly. The very town itself seemed numbed and blue in the intense cold well below zero. Even the Christmas-time greens in the streets and holly in the store windows could not impart festivity to this city of workers. The thoroughfares are trolley lined, of course, and a little beyond the town's centre is a common, a white wooden church stamping the place New England. Lynn is made up of factories--great masses of ugliness, red brick, many-windowed buildings. The General Electric has a concern in this town, but the industry is chiefly the making of shoes. The shoe trade in our country is one of the highest paying manufactures, and in it there are more women employed than in any other trade. Lynn's population is 70,000; of these 10,000 work in shoe-shops. The night must not find me homeless, houseless. I went first to a directory and found the address of the Young Women's Christian Association: a room upstairs in a building on one of the principal streets. Here two women faced me as I made my appeal, and I saw at once displayed the sentiments of kindness thenceforth to greet me throughout my first experience--qualities of exquisite sympathy, rare hospitality and human interest. "I am looking for work. I want to get a room in a safe place for the night." I had not for a moment supposed that anything in my attire of simple decorous work-clothes could awaken pity. Yet pity it was and nothing less in the older woman's face. "Work in the shops?" "Yes, ma'am." The simple fact that I was undoubtedly to make my own living and my own way in the hard hand-to-hand struggle in the shops aroused her sympathy. She said earnestly: "You must not go anywhere to sleep that you don't know about, child." She wrote an address for me on a slip of paper. "Go there; I know the woman. If she can't take you, why, come back here. I'll take you to my own house. I won't have you sleep in a strange town just _anywheres_! You might get into trouble." She was not a matron; she was not even one of the staff of managers or directors. She was only a woman who had come in to ask some question, receive some information; and thus in marvelous friendliness she turned and outstretched her hand--I was a stranger and this was her welcome. I had proved a point at the first step; help had been extended. If I myself failed to find shelter I could go to her for protection. I intended to find my lodging place if possible without any reference or any aid. Out of the town proper in a quiet side street I saw a little wooden tenement set back from the road. "Furnished Room to Rent," read the sign in the window. A sweet-faced woman responded to the bell I had rung. One glance at me and she said: "Ve only got a 'sheep' room." At the compliment I was ill-pleased and told her I was looking for a _cheap_ room: I had come to Lynn to work. Oh! that was all right. That was the kind of people she received. I followed her into the house. I must excuse her broken English. She was French. Ah! was she? That made my way easier. I told her I was from Paris and a stranger in this part of the country, and thenceforth our understanding was complete. In 28 Viger Street we spoke French always. My room in the attic was blue-and-white papered; a little, clean, agreeable room. Madam begged that I would pardon the fact that my bed had no sheets. She would try to arrange later. She also insinuated that the "young ladies" who boarded with her spoiled all her floor and her furniture by slopping the water around. I assured her that she should not have to complain of me--I would take care. The room was $1.25 a week. Could I pay her in advance? I did so, of course. I would have to carry up my water for washing from the first floor morning and night and care for my room. On the landing below I made arrangements with the tenant for board at ten cents a meal. Madame Courier was also a French Canadian, a mammoth creature with engaging manners. "Mademoiselle Ballard has work?" "Not yet." "Well, if you don't get a job my husband will speak for you. I have here three other young ladies who work in the shops; they'll speak for you!" Before the door of the first factory I failed miserably. I could have slunk down the street and gladly taken the first train away from Lynn! My garments were heavy; my skirt, lined with a sagging cotton goods, weighed a ton; the woolen gloves irritated. The shop fronted the street, and the very sight through the window of the individuals representing power, the men whom I saw behind the desks, frightened me. I could not go in. I fairly ran through the streets, but stopped finally before a humbler shop--where a sign swung at the door: "Hands Wanted." I went in here and opened a door on the third floor into a small office. I was before a lank Yankee manufacturer. Leaning against his desk, twisting from side to side in his mouth a toothpick, he nodded to me as I entered. His wife, a grim, spectacled New Englander, sat in the revolving desk-chair. "I want work. Got any?" "Waal, thet's jist what we hev got! Ain't we, Mary?" (I felt a flashing sensation of triumph.) "Take your tippet off, set right down, ef you're in earnest." "Oh, I am in earnest; but what sort of work is it?" "It's gluein' suspender straps." "Suspenders! I want to work in a shoe-shop!" He smiled, indulgent of this whim. "They all does! Don't they, Mary?" (She acquiesced.) "Then they get sick of the shop, and they come back to me. You will!" "Let me try the shoe-shop first; then if I can't get a job I'll come back." He was anxious to close with me, however, and took up a pile of the suspender straps, tempting me with them. "What you ever done?" "Nothing. I'm green!" "That don't make no difference; they're all green, ain't they, Mary?" "Yes," Mary said; "I have to learn them all." "Now, to Preston's you can get in all right, but you won't make over four dollars a week, and here if you're smart you'll make six dollars in no time." ... Preston's! That was the first name I had heard, and to Preston's I was asking my way, stimulated by the fact, though I had been in Lynn not an hour and a half, a job was mine did I care to glue suspender straps! I afterward learned that Preston's, a little factory on the town's outskirts, is a model shoe-shop in its way. I did not work there, and neither of the factories in which I was employed was "model" to my judgment. A preamble at the office, where they suggested taking me in as office help: "But I am green; I can't do office work." Then Mr. Preston himself, working-director in drilling-coat, sat before me in his private office. I told him: "I want work badly--" He had nothing--was, indeed, turning away hands; my evident disappointment had apparently impressed a man who was in the habit of refusing applicants for work. "Look here"--he mitigated his refusal--"come to-morrow at nine. I'm getting in a whole bale of cloth for cutting linings." "You'll give me a chance, then?" "Yes, I will!" It was then proven that I could not starve in Lynn, nor wander houseless. With these evidences of success, pride stirred. I determined before nightfall to be at work in a Lynn shoe-shop. It was now noon, streets filled with files and lines of freed operatives. Into a restaurant I wandered with part of the throng, and, with excitement and ambition for sauce, ate a good meal. Factories had received back their workers when I applied anew. This time the largest building, one of the most important shops in Lynn, was my goal. At the door of Parsons' was a sign reading: "_Wanted, Vampers_." A vamper I was not, but if any help was wanted there was hope. My demand for work was greeted at the office this time with--"Any signs out?" "Yes." (What they were I didn't deem it needful to say!) The stenographer nodded: "Go upstairs, then; ask the forelady on the fifth floor." Through the big building and the shipping-room, where cases of shoes were were being crated for the market, I went, at length really within a factory's walls. From the first to the fifth floor I went in an elevator--a freight elevator; there are no others, of course. This lift was a terrifying affair; it shook and rattled in its shaft, shook and rattled in pitch darkness as it rose between "safety doors"--continuations of the building's floors. These doors open to receive the ascending elevator, then slowly close, in order that the shaft may be covered and the operatives in no danger of stepping inadvertently to sudden death. I reached the fifth floor and entered into pandemonium. The workroom was in full working swing. At least five hundred machines were in operation and the noise was startling and deafening. I made my way to a high desk where a woman stood writing. I knew her for the forelady by her "air"; nothing else distinguished her from the employees. No one looked up as I entered. I was nowhere a figure to attract attention; evidently nothing in my voice or manner or aspect aroused supposition that I was not of the class I simulated. Now, into my tone, as I spoke to the forelady bending over her account book, I put all the force I knew. I determined she should give me something to do! Work was everywhere: some of it should fall to my hand. "Say, I've got to work. Give me anything, anything; I'm green." She didn't even look at me, but called--shrieked, rather--above the machine din to her colleagues: "Got anything for a green hand?" The person addressed gave me one glance, the sole and only look I got from any one in authority in Parsons'. "Ever worked in a shoe-shop before?" "No, ma'am." "I'll have you learned _pressin'_; we need a _presser_. Go take your things off, then get right down over there." I tore off my outside garment in the cloak-room, jammed full of hats and coats. I was obliged to stack my belongings in a pile on the dirty floor. Now hatless, shirt-waisted, I was ready to labour amongst the two hundred bond-women around me. Excitement quite new ran through me as I went to the long table indicated and took my seat. My object was gained. I had been in Lynn two hours and a half and was a working-woman. On my left the seat was vacant; on my right Maggie McGowan smiled at me, although, poor thing, she had small cause to welcome the green hand who demanded her time and patience. She was to "learn me pressin'," and she did. Before me was a board, black with stains of leather, an awl, a hammer, a pot of foulest-smelling glue, and a package of piece-work, ticketed. The branch of the trade I learned at Parsons' was as follows: Before me was outspread a pile of bits of leather foxings, back straps, vamps, etc. Dipping my brush in the glue, I gummed all the extreme outer edges. When the "case" had been gummed, the first bits were dry, then the fingers turned down the gummed edges of the leather into fine little seams; these seams are then plaited with the awl and the ruffled hem flattened with the hammer--this is "pressing." The case goes from presser to the seaming machine. The instruments turn in my awkward fingers. I spread glue where it should not be: edges designated for its reception remain innocent. All this means double work later. "_Twict the work_!" my teacher remarks. Little by little, however, the simplicity of the manual action, the uniformity, the mechanical movement declare themselves. I glance from time to time at my expert neighbours, compare our work; in an hour I have mastered the method--skill and rapidity can be mine only after many days; but I worked alone, unaided. As raw edges, at first defying my clumsiness, fell to fascinating rounds, as the awl creased the leather into the fluting folds, as the hammer mashed the gummed seam down, I enjoyed the process; it was kindergarten and feminine toil combined, not too hard; but it was only the beginning! Meanwhile my teacher, patient-faced, lightning-fingered, sat close to me, reeking perspiration, tired with the ordeal of instructing a greenhorn. With no sign of exhausted patience, however, she gummed my vamps with the ill-smelling glue. "This glue makes lots of girls sick! In the other shops where I worked they just got sick, one by one, and quit. I stuck it out. The forelady said to me when I left: 'My! I never thought anybody could stand it's long's you have.'" I asked, "What would you rather do than this?" She didn't seem to know. "I don't do this for fun, though! Nor do you--I bet you!" (I didn't--but not quite for her reason.) As I had yet my room to make sure of, I decided to leave early. I told Maggie McGowan I was going home. "Tired already?" There was still an hour to dark. As I explained to her my reasons she looked at my amateur accomplishment spread on the board before us. I had only pressed a case of shoes--three dozen pairs. "I guess I'll have to put it on my card," she soliloquized, "'cause I learned you." "Do--do----" "It's only about seven cents, anyway." "Three hours' work and that's all I've made?"[2] [Footnote 2: An expert presser can do as many as 400 shoes a day. This is rare and maximum.] She regarded me curiously, to see how the amount tallied with my hope of gain and wealth. "Yet you tell me I'm not stupid. How long have you been at it?" [Illustration: "LEARNING" A NEW HAND Miss P., an experienced "gummer" on vamp linings, is a New England girl, and makes $8 or $9 a week. The new hand makes from $2.50 to $3 a week at the same work] "Ten years." "And you make?" "Well, I don't want to discourage you." ... (If Maggie used this expression once she used it a dozen times; it was her pat on the shoulder, her word of cheer before coming ill news.) "... I don't want to discourage you, but it's slow! I make about twelve dollars a week." "Then I will make four!" (Four? Could it be possible I dreamed of such sums at this stage of ignorance!) "_I don't want to discourage you_, but I guess you'd better do housework!" It was clear, then, that for weeks I was to drop in with the lot of women wage-earners who make under five dollars a week for ten hours a day labour. "Why don't _you_ do housework, Maggie?" "I do. I get up at five and do all the work of our house, cook breakfast, and clean up before I come to the shop. I eat dinner here. When I go home at night I get supper and tidy up!" My expression as I fell to gumming foxings was not pity for my own fate, as she, generous creature, took it to be. "After you've been here a few years," she said, "you'll make more than I do. I'm not smart. You'll beat me." Thus with tact she told me bald truth, and yet had not discouraged! Novel situations, long walks hither and thither through Lynn, stairs climbed, and three hours of intense application to work unusual were tiring indeed. Nevertheless, as I got into my jacket and put on my hat in the suffocation of the cloak-room I was still under an exhilarating spell. I belonged, for time never so little, to the giant machine of which the fifth floor of Parsons' is only an infinitesimal humming, singing part. I had earned seven cents! Seven cents of the $4,000,000 paid to Lynn shoe employees were mine. I had bought the right to one piece of bread by the toil of my unskilled labour. As I fastened my tippet of common black fur and drew on my woolen gloves, the odour from my glue-and leather-stained hands came pungent to my nostrils. Friends had said to me: "Your hands will betray you!" If the girls at my side in Parsons' thought anything about the matter they made no such sign as they watched my fingers swiftly lose resemblance to those of the leisure class under the use of instruments and materials damning softness and beauty from a woman's hands. Yet Maggie had her sensitiveness on this subject. I remarked once to her: "I don't see how you manage to keep your hands so clean. Mine are twice as black." She coloured, was silent for a time, then said: "I never want anybody to speak to me of my hands. I'm ashamed of 'em; they used to be real nice, though." She held the blunted ends up. "They're awful! I do love a nice hand." The cold struck sharp as a knife as I came out of the factory. Fresh air, insolent with purity, cleanness, unusedness, smiting nostrils, sought lungs filled too long with unwholesome atmosphere.[3] [Footnote 3: At Plant's, Boston, fresh air cylinders ventilate the shop.] Heated by a brisk walk home, I climbed the stairs to my attic room, as cold as Greenland. It was nearly six thirty, supper hour, and I made a shift at a toilet. Into the kitchen I was the last comer. All of the supper not on the table was on the stove, and between this red-hot buffet and the supper table was just enough room for the landlady to pass to and fro as she waited upon her nine guests. No sooner did I open the door into the smoky atmosphere, into the midst of the little world here assembled, than I felt the quick kindness of welcome. My place was at the table's end, before the Irish stew. "Miss Ballard!" The landlady put her arm about my waist and introduced me, mentioning the names of every one present. There were four women besides myself and four men. "I don't want Miss Ballard to feel strange," said my hostess in her pretty Canadian _patois_. "I want her to be at home here." I sat down. "Oh, she'll be at home all right!" A frowzy-headed, pretty brunette from the table's other end raised kind eyes to me and nodded a smiling good-fellowship. "Come to work in the shops?" "Yes." "Ever been to Lynn before?" "No; live in Paris--stranger." "My, but that's hard--all alone here! Got a job?" "Yes." And I explained to the attentive interest of all. From the Irish stew before me they helped themselves, or passed to me the plates from the distance. If excitement had not taken from me every shred of appetite, the kitchen odours, smoke and frying, the room's stifling heat would have dulled hunger. Let it go! I was far too interested to eat. The table was crowded with all manner of substances passing for food--cheese, preserves, onion pickles, cake and Irish stew, all eaten at one time and at will; the drink was tea. At my left sat a well-dressed man who would pass anywhere for a business man of certain distinction. He was a common operator. Next him was a bridal couple, very young and good looking; then came the sisters, Mika and Nannette, their brother, a packer at a shop, then Mademoiselle Frances, expert hand at fourteen dollars a week (a heavy swell indeed), then Maurice. Although I was evidently an object of interest, although countless questions were put to me, let me say that curiosity was markedly absent. Their attitude was humane, courteous, sympathetic, agreeable, which qualities I firmly believe are supreme in those who know hardship, who suffer privation, who labour. Great surprise was evinced that I had so soon found a job. Mika and Nannette, brunette Canadians, with voices sweet and carrying, talked in good English and mediocre French. "It's wonderful you got a job right off! Ain't she in luck! Why, most has to get spoken of weeks in advance--introduced by friends, too!" Mika said: "My name's been up two months at my sister's shop. The landlady told us about your coming, Miss Ballard. We was going to speak for you to our foreladies." Here my huge hostess, who during my stay stood close to my side as though she thought I needed her motherliness, put her hand on my shoulder. "Yes, _mon enfant_, we didn't want you to get discouraged in a strange place. _Ici nous sommes toute une famille_". "All one family?" Oh, no, no, kind creature, hospitable receiver of a stranger, not all one family! I belong to the class of the woman who, one day by chance out of her carriage, did she happen to sit by your side in a cable car, would pull her dress from the contact of your clothes, heavy with tenement odours; draw back as you crushed your huge form down too close to her; turn no look of sisterhood to your face, brow-bound by the beads of sweat, its signet of labour. Not one family! I am one with the hostess, capable even of greeting her guest with insolent discourtesy did such a one chance to intrude at an hour when her presence might imperil the next step of the social climber's ladder. Not one family, but part of the class whose tongues turn the _truffle_ buried in _pate de foie gras_; whose lips are reddened with Burgundies and cooled with iced champagnes; who discuss the quality of a _canard a la presse_ throughout a meal; who have no leisure, because they have no labour such as you know the term to mean; who create disease by feeding bodies unstimulated by toil, whilst you, honestly tired, really hungry, eat Irish stew in the atmosphere of your kitchen dining-hall. Not one family, I blush to say! God will not have it so. The Irish stew had all disappeared, every vestige. "But mademoiselle eats nothing--a bird's appetite." And here was displayed the first hint of vulgarity we are taught to look for in the other class. She put her hands about my arms. "_Tiens! un bras tout de meme!_" and she looked at Maurice, the young man on my right. "_Maurice c'est toi qui devrait t'informer des bras d'mademoiselle."_ ("Maurice, it is you who should inform yourself of mademoiselle's arms.") Maurice laughed with appreciation, as did the others. He was the sole American at table; out of courtesy for him we talked English from time to time, although he assured us he understood all we said in "the jargon." * * * * * To Maurice a master pen could do justice; none other. His _type_ is seen stealing around corners in London's Whitechapel and in the lowest quarters of New York: a lounger, indolent, usually drunk. Maurice was the type, with the qualities absent. Tall, lank, loosely hung together, made for muscular effort, he wore a dark flannel shirt, thick with grease and oil stains, redolent with tobacco, a checked waistcoat, no collar or cravat. From the collarless circle of his shirt rose his strong young neck and bullet head; his forehead was heavy and square below the heavy brows; his black eyes shone deep sunken in their caverns. His black hair, stiff as a brush, came low on his forehead; his mouth was large and sensual, his teeth brilliant. But his hands! never to be forgotten! Scrubbed till flesh might well have parted from the bones! clean, even if black and mutilated with toil; fingers forever darkened; stained ingrained ridges rising around the nails, hard and ink-black as leather. Maurice was Labour--its Symbol--its Epitome. At the landlady's remark he had blushed and addressed me frankly: "Say, I work to de 'Lights.'" (Lights! Can such a word be expressive of the factory which has daily blackened and scarred and dulled this human instrument?) "To the 'Lights,' and it ain't no _cinch_, I can tell you! I got to keep movin'. Every minute I'm late I get docked for wages--it's a day's work to the 'Lights.' When _she_ calls me at six--why, I don't turn over and snooze another! I just turn right out. I walk two miles to my shop--and every man in his place at 6:45! Don't you forgit it!" He cleaned his plate of food. "I jest keep movin' all de time." He wiped his mouth--rose unceremoniously, put on his pot-like derby ajaunt, lit a vile cigar, slipped into a miserable old coat, and was gone, the odour of his weed blending its new smell with kitchen fumes. He is one of the absolutely real creatures I have ever seen. Of his likeness types of crime are drawn. Maurice--blade keen-edged, hidden in its battered sheath, its ugly case--terrible yet attractive specimen of strength and endurance--Youth and Manhood in you are bound to labour as on the rack, and in the ordeal you keep (as does the mass of humanity) Silence! Eat by this man's side, heap his plate with coarse victuals, feel the touch of his flannel sleeve against your own flannel blouse, see his look of brotherhood as he says: "Say, if de job dey give you is too hard, why, I guess I kin get yer in to the 'Lights'!" These are sensations facts alone can give. * * * * * After dinner we sit all together in the parlour, the general living-room: carpet-covered sofa, big table, few chairs--that's all. We talk an hour--and on what? We discuss Bernhardt, the divine Sarah. "Good shows don't come to Lynn much; it don't pay them. You can't get more than fifty cents a seat. Now Bernhardt don't like to act for fifty-cent houses! But the theatres are crowded if ever there's a good show. We get tired of the awful poor shows to the Opera House." Maude Adams was a favourite. Réjane had been seen. Of course, the vital American interest--money--is touched upon, let me say lightly, and passed. The packer at Rigger's, intelligent and well-informed and well-read, discoursed in good French about English and French politics and on the pleasure it would be to travel and see the world. At nine, friendly handshaking. "Good-night. You're tired. You'll like it all right to the shops, see if you don't! You'll make money, too. The forelady must a-seen that you were ambitious. Why, to my shop when a new hand applies for a job the foreman asks: 'What does he look like? Ambitious lookin'? Well, then--there's room." Ambitious to make shoes! To grind out all you can above the average five dollars a week, all you may by conscientious, unflagging work during 224 hours out of a month. Good-night to the working world! Landlady and friendly co-labourers. "_Il ne faut pas vous gener, mademoiselle; nous sommes toute une famille_." Upstairs in my room the excitement died quite out of me. I lay wakeful in the hard, sheetless bed. It was cold, my window-pane freezing rapidly. I could not sleep. On either side, through the thin walls of the house, I could hear my neighbours settling to repose. Maurice's room was next to mine. He whistled a short snatch of a topical song as he undressed. On the other side slept the landlady's children; opposite, the packer from Rigger's. The girls' room was downstairs. When Maurice's song had reached its close he heaved a profound sigh, and then followed silence, as slumber claimed the sole period of his existence not devoted to work. The tenement soon passed to stillness complete. Before six the next morning--black as night--the call: "Mau--rice! Mau--_rice_!" rang through the hall. Summons to us all, given through him on whom the exigencies of life fell the heaviest. Maurice worked by day system--the rest of us were freed men and women by comparison. The night before, timid and reluctant to descend the two flights of pitch dark stairs with a heavy water-pitcher in my hand, I had brought up no water! It is interesting to wonder how scrupulous we would all be if our baths were carried up and down two flights of stairs pitcher by pitcher. A little water nearly frozen was at hand for my toilet. By six I was dressed and my bed made; by 6:15 in the kitchen, dense with smoke from the frying breakfast. Through the haze the figures of my friends declared themselves. Codfish balls, bread and butter and coffee formed the repast. Maurice is the first to finish, standing a moment to light his pipe, his hat acock; then he is gone. The sisters wash at the sink, Mika combing her mass of frowzy dark hair, talking meanwhile. The sisters' toilet, summary and limited, is frankly displayed. At my right the bride consumes five enormous fish balls, as well as much bread. Her husband, a young, handsome, gentle creature, eats sparingly. His hand is strapped up at the wrist. "What's wrong?" "Strained tendons. Doctor says they'd be all right if I could just hold up a little. They don't get no chance to rest." "But why not 'hold up' awhile?" He regards me sympathetically as one who says to an equal, a fellow: "You know why!--for the same reason that you yourself will work sick or well." "_On fait ce que l'on peut_!" ("One does one's best!") When the young couple had left the room our landlady said: "The little woman eats well, doesn't she! She needs no tonic! All day long she sits in my parlour and rocks--and rocks." "She does nothing?" Madame shrugged. "But yes! She reads novels!" It was half-past six when I got into the streets. The midwinter sky is slowly breaking to dawn. The whole town white with fresh snow, and still half-wedded to night, is nevertheless stirring to life. I become, after a block or two, one of a hurrying throng of labour-bound fellows--dark forms appear from streets and avenues, going in divers directions toward their homes. Homes? Where one passes most of one's life, is it not _Home_? These figures to-day bend head and shoulders against the wind as it blows neck-coverings about, forces bare hands into coat pockets. By the time the town has been traversed, railroad track crossed, and Parsons' in sight, day has nearly broken. Pink clouds float over factory roofs in a sky growing bluer, flushing to day. [Illustration: THE WINDOW SIDE OF MISS K.'s PARLOUR AT LYNN, MASS] From now on the day is shut out for those who here and there enter the red-brick factories. An hour at noon? Of course, this magnificent hour is theirs! Time to eat, time to feed the human machine. One hour in which to stretch limbs, to pull to upright posture the bent body. Meanwhile daylight progresses from glowing beauty to high noon, and there the acme of brilliance seems to pause, as freed humanity stares half-blinded at God's midday rest. All the remaining hours of daylight are for the leisure world. Not till night claims Lynn shall the factory girl be free. Ascending the five flights of dirty stairs, my steps fell side by side those of a young workman in drilling coat. He gave me a good-morning in a cheery tone. "Working here? Got it good?" "I guess so." "That's all right. Good-day." Therefore I began my first labour day with a good wish from my new class! On the fifth floor I was one of the very first arrivals. If in the long, low-ceiled room windows had been opened, the flagging air gave no sign to the effect. It was fetid and cold. Daylight had not fully found the workshop, gas was lit, and no work prepared. I was eager to begin, but was forced to wait before idle tools till work was given me--hard ordeal for ambitious piece-worker. At the tick of seven, however, I had begun my branch of the shoe-making trade. One by one my mates arrived; the seats beyond me and on either side were filled. Opposite me sat a ghost of girlhood. A tall, slender creature, cheeks like paper, eyes sunken. She, too, had the smile of good-fellowship--coin freely passed from workwoman to workwoman. This girl's job was filthy. She inked edges of the shoes with a brush dipped in a pot of thick black fluid. Pile after pile of piece-work was massed in front of her; pile by pile disappeared. She worked like lightning. "Do you like your job?" I ventured. This seemed to be the open sesame to all conversations in the shops. She shrugged her narrow shoulders but made no direct reply. "I used to have what you're doing; it's awful. That glue made me sick. I was in bed. So when I came back I got _this_." She was separated from my glue-pot by a table's length only. "But don't you smell it from here?" "Not so bad; this here" (pointing to her black fluid) "smells stronger; it _drownds_ it. "I make my wages clear," she announced to me a few minutes later. "How do you mean?" "Why, at noon I wait in a restaurant; they give me my dinner afterward. I go back there and wait on the table at supper, too. My vittles don't cost me anything!" So that is where your golden noon hour is spent, standing, running, waiting, serving in the ill-smelling restaurant I shall name later; and not your dinner hour alone, but the long day's fag end! "I ain't from these parts," she continued, confidentially, "I'm down East. I used to run a machine, but it hurts my side." My job went well for an amateur. I finished one case of shoes (thirty-six pairs) in little more than an hour. By ten o'clock the room grew stifling hot. I was obliged to discard my dress skirt and necktie, loosen collar, roll up my sleeves. My warmer blooded companions did the like. It was singular to watch the clock mark out the morning hours, and at ten, already early, very early in the forenoon, feel tired because one had been three hours at work. A man came along with nuts and apples in a basket to sell. I bought an apple for five cents. It was regarded by my teacher, Maggie, as a prodigal expenditure! I shared it with her, and she in turn shared her half with her neighbours, advising me wisely. "Say, you'd better _earn_ an apple before you buy one!" My companion on the other side was a pretty country girl. She regarded her work with good-humoured indifference; indeed, her labour was of very indifferent quality. I don't believe she was ever intended to make shoes. In a cheerful "undertone she sang topical songs the morning long. It drove Maggie McGowan "mad," so she said. "Say, why don't some of _youse_ sing?" said the little creature, looking down our busy line. "I never hear no singing in the shops." Maggie said, "Sing! Well, I don't come here to sing." The other laughed sweetly. "Well, I jest have to sing." "You seem happy; are you?" She looked at me out of her pretty blue eyes. "You bet! That's the way to be!" Then after a little, in an aside to me alone, she whispered: "Not always. Sometimes I cry all to myself. "See the sun?" she exclaimed, lifting her head. (It shone golden through the window's dirty, cloudy pane.) "He's peekin' at me! He'll find _you_ soon. Looks like he was glad to see us sitting here!" Sun, friend, light, air, seek them--seek them! Pour what tide of pure gold you may in through the sullied pane; touch, caress the bowed heads at the clicking machines! Shine on the dusty, untidy hair! on the bowed shoulders! on the flying hands! At noon I made a reluctant concession to wisdom and habit. Unwilling to thwart my purposes and collapse from sheer fatigue, at the dinner hour I went to a restaurant and ordered a meal in keeping with my appetite. I had never been so hungry. I almost wept with joy when the chicken and cranberry and potato appeared. Never was sauce more poignant than that which seasoned the only real repast I had in Lynn. The hours, from one to three went fairly well, but by 3:30 I was tired out, my fingers had grown wooden with fatigue, glue-pot and folding-line, board, hammer and awl had grown indistinct. It was hard-to continue. The air stifled. Odours conspired together. Oil, leather, glue (oh, that to-heaven-smelling glue!), tobacco smoke, humanity. * * * * * Maggie asked me, "How old do I look?" I gave her thirty. Twenty-five it seemed she was. In guessing the next girl's age no better luck. "It's this," Maggie nodded to the workroom; "it takes it out of you! Just you wait till you've worked ten years in Lynn." Ten years! Heaven forbid! Already I could have rushed from the factory, shaken its dust from my feet, and with hands over ears shut out the horrid din that inexorably cried louder than human speech. Everything we said was shrieked in the friendly ear bent close. Although Maggie McGowan was curious about me, in posing her questions she was courtesy itself. "Say," to her neighbour, "where do you think Miss Ballard's from? Paris!" My neighbour once-removed leaned forward to stare at me. "My, but that's a change to Lynn! Ain't it? Now don't you think you'll miss it?" She fell to work again, and said after a little: "Paris! Why, that's like a dream. Is it like real places? I can't never guess what it is like!" The girl at the machine next mine had an ear like a sea-shell, a skin of satin. Her youth was bound, strong shoulders already stooped, chest fast narrowing. At 7 A.M. she came: albeit fresh, pale still and wan; rest of the night too short a preparation for the day's work. By three in the afternoon she was flushed, by five crimson. She threw her hands up over her head and exclaimed: "My back's broke, and I've only made thirty-five cents to-day." Maggie McGowan (indicating me): "Here's a girl who's had the misfortune never to work in a shoe-shop." "_Misfortune?_ You don't mean that!" Maggie: "Well, I guess I don't! If I didn't make a joke now and then I'd jump into the river!" She sat close to me patiently directing my clumsy fingers. "Why do you speak so strongly? 'Jump into the river!' That's saying a lot!" "I am sick of the shoe-shops." "How long have you been at this work?" "Ten years. When you have worked ten years in Lynn you will be sick of the shops." I was sick of the shops, and I had not worked ten years. And for my hard-toiling future, such as she imagined that it would be, I could see that she pitied me. Once, supposing that since I am so green and so ill-clad, and so evidently bent on learning my trade the best I knew, she asked me in a voice quick with sisterhood: "Say, are you hungry?" "No, no, no." "You'll be all right! No American girl need to starve in America." In the shops the odours are more easily endured than is the noise. All conversation is shrieked out, and all the vision that one has as one lifts one's eyes from time to time is a sky seen through dirty window-panes, distant chimney-pots, and the roof-lines of like houses of toil. * * * * * I gathered this from our interrupted talk that flowed unceasingly despite the noise of our hammers and the noise of the general room. They worked at a trade uncongenial. Not one had a good word to say for shop-labour there, despite its advantages, in this progressive land of generous pay. Each woman in a narrow, touching degree was a dreamer. Housework! too servile; but then, compared to shopwork it was leisure. By four the gas was lit here and there where burners were available. Over our heads was no arrangement for lighting. We bent lower in semi-obscurity. In the blending of twilight and gaslight the room became mysterious, a shadowy corridor. Figures grew indistinct, softened and blurred. The exhausted air surrounded the gas jets in misty circles. Unaltered alone was the ceaseless thud, the chopping, pounding of the machinery, the long soughing of the power-engine. Here and there a woman stops to rest a second, her head sunk in her hand; or she rises, stretches limbs and body. A man wanders in from the next room, a pipe in his mouth, or a bad cigar, and pausing by one of the pale operators, whose space of rest is done, he flings down in front of her a new pile of piece-work from the cutting machines. We are up five flights of stairs. There are at least two hundred girls. Machine oil, rags, refuse, cover the floor--such _dèbris_ as only awaits a spark from a lighted match or cigar to burst into flames. Despite laws and regulations the building is not fire-proof. There is no fire-escape. A cry of fire, and great Heaven! what escape for two hundred of us from this mountain height, level with roofs of the distant town! Thus these women, shapes mysterious in gaslight and twilight, labour: life is at stake; health, youth, vigour, supply little more than bread. I rise; my bruised limbs, at first numb, then aching, stir for the first time after five hours of steady work. The pile of shoes before me is feeble evidence of the last hours' painful effort. I get into my clothes--skirt, jacket and hat, all impregnated now with factory and tenement odours, and stumble downstairs and out into the street. I have earned fifty cents to-day--but then, I am green! When once more in the cool, fresh air, released, I draw in a long and grateful breath. Lynn on this winter night is a snow-bound, midwinter village. In the heavens is the moon's ghost, a mist-shrouded, far-away disk. But it is the Christmas moon, shining on the sleeping thousands in the town, where night alone is free. The giant factories are silent, the machines at last quiet, the long workrooms moon-invaded. Labour is holy, but serfdom is accursed, and toil which demands that every hour of daylight should be spent in the race for existence--all of the daylight--is kin to slavery! There is no time for mental or physical upright-standing, no time for pleasure. * * * * * One day I decided to consider myself dismissed from Parsons'. They had taught me all they could, unless I changed my trade, in that shop; I wished to learn a new one in another. Therefore, one morning I applied at another factory, again one of the largest in Lynn. The sign read: "_Cleaner Wanted_!" "Cleaner" sounded easy to learn. My experience this time was with a foreman instead of a forelady. The workroom I sought was on the second floor, a room filled with men, all of them standing. Far down the room's centre I saw the single figure of a woman at her job. By her side I was soon to be, and we two the sole women on the second floor. The foreman was distinctly a personage. Small, kind, alive, he wore a straw hat and eye-glasses. He had decided in a moment that my short application for "something to do" was not to be gainsaid. "Ever worked before?" This time I had a branch of a trade at my fingers' ends. "Yes, sir; presser." I was proud of my trade. I did not even know, as I do now, that "cleaning" is the filthiest job the trade possesses. It is in bad repute and difficult to secure a woman to do the unpleasant work. "You come with me," he said cheerfully; "I'll teach you." The forelady at Parsons' did not know whether I worked well or not. She never came to see. The foreman in Marches' taught me himself. Two high desks, like old-time school desks, rose in the workshop's centre. Behind one of these I stood, whilst the foreman in front of me instructed my ignorance. The room was filled with high crates rolled hither and thither on casters. These crates contained anywhere from thirty-two to fifty pairs of boots. The cases are moved from operator to operator as each man selects the shoes to apply to them the especial branch of his trade. From the crate of boots rolled to my side I took four boots and placed them on the desk before me. With the heel of one pressed against my breast, I dipped my forefinger in a glass of hot soap and water, water which soon became black as ink. I passed my wet, soapy finger all around the boot's edges, from toe to heel. This loosened, in the space between the sole and vamp, the sticky dye substance on the leather and particles so-called "dirt." Then with a bit of wood covered with Turkish toweling I scraped the shoe between the sole and vamp and with a third cloth polished and rubbed the boot clean. In an hour's time I did one-third as well as my companion. I cleaned a case in an hour, whilst she cleaned three. When my employer had left me I observed the woman at my side: an untidy, degraded-looking creature, long past youth. Her hands beggared description; their covering resembled skin not at all, but a dark-blue substance, leatherlike, bruised, ingrained, indigo-hued. Her nails looked as though they had been beaten severely. One of her thumbs was bandaged. "I lost one nail; rotted off." "Horrible! How, pray?" "That there water: it's poison from the shoe-dye." Swiftly my hands were changing to a faint likeness of my companion's. "Don't tell him," she said, "that I told you that. He'll be mad; he'll think I am discouraging you. But you'll lose your forefinger nail, all right!" Then she gave a little laugh as she turned her boot around to polish it. "Once I tried to clean my hands up. Lord! it's no good! I scrub 'em with a scrubbin'-brush on Sundays." "How long have you been at this job?" "Ten months." They called her "Bobby"; the men from their machines nodded to her now and then, bantering her across the noise of their wheels. She was ignorant of it, too stupid to know whether life took her in sport or in earnest! The men themselves worked in their flannel shirts. Not far from us was a wretchedly ill-looking individual, the very shadow of manhood. I observed that once he cast toward us a look of interest. Under my feet was a raised platform on which I stood, bending to my work. During the morning the consumptive man strolled over and whispered something to "Bobby." He made her dullness understand. When he had gone back to his job she said to me: "Say, w'y don't yer push that platform away and stand down on the floor? You're too tall to need that. It makes yer bend." "Did that man come over to tell you this?" "Yes. He said it made you tired." From my work, across the room, I silently blessed the pale old man, bowed, thin, pitiful, over the shoe he held, obscured from me by the cloud of sawdust-like flying leather that spun scattered from the sole he held to the flying wheel. * * * * * I don't believe the shoe-dye really to be poisonous. I suppose it is scarcely possible that it can be so; but the constant pressure against forefinger nail is enough to induce disease. My fingers were swollen sore. The effects of the work did not leave my hands for weeks. "Bobby" was not talkative or communicative simply because she had nothing to say. Over and over again she repeated the one single question to me during the time I worked by her side: "Do you like your job?" and although I varied my replies as well as I could with the not too exhausting topic she offered, I could not induce her to converse. She took no interest in my work, absorbed in her own. Every now and then she would compute the sum she had made, finally deciding that the day was to be a red-bean day and she would make a dollar and fifty cents. During the time we worked together she had cleaned seventeen cases of shoes. In this shop it was hotter than in Parsons'. We sweltered at our work. Once a case of shoes was cleaned, I wrote my initial "B" on the tag and rolled the crate across the floor to the man next me, who took it into his active charge. The foreman came to me many times to inspect, approve and encourage. He was a model teacher and an indefatigable superintendent. Just how far personal, and just how far human, his kindness, who can say? "You've been a presser long at the shoe-shops?" "No." "I like your pluck. When a girl has never had to work, and takes hold the way you do, I admire it. You will get along all right." "Thank you; perhaps I won't, though." "Now, don't get nervous. I am nervous myself," he said; "I know how that is." On his next visit he asked me: "Where you goin'; to when you get out of here to-night?" I told him that I was all right--that I had a place to stay. "If you're hard up, don't get discouraged; come to me." [Illustration: "FANCY GUMMING." Mrs. T earns $8 or $9 a week. Her husband also works in a factory, and between them they have made enough to build a pretty little cottage] [Illustration: AN ALL-AROUND, EXPERIENCED HAND. Mrs. F., who has worked in the factory more than twenty years, once as a forewoman, now earns only $5 or $6 a week] I thanked him again and said that I could not take charity. "Nonsense! I don't call it charity! If I was hard put, don't you s'pose I'd go to the next man if he offered me what I offer you? The world owes you a livin'." When the foreman had left me I turned to look at "Bobby." She was in the act of lifting to her lips a glass of what was supposed to be water. "You're not going to drink that!" I gasped, horrified. "Where did you get it?" "Oh, I drawed it awhile ago," she said. It had stood gathering microbes in the room, visible ones evidently, for a scum had formed on the glass that looked like stagnant oil. She blew the stuff back and drank long. Her accent was so bad and her English so limited I took her to be a foreigner beyond doubt. She proved to be an American. She had worked in factories all her life, since she was eight years old, and her brain was stunted. At dinner time, when I left Marches', I had stood, without sitting down once, for five hours, and according to Bobby's computation I had made the large sum of twenty-five cents, having cleaned a little more than one hundred shoes. To all intents, at least for the moment, my hands were ruined. At Weyman's restaurant I went in with my fellow workwomen and men. Weyman's restaurant smells very like the steerage in a vessel. The top floor having burned out a few weeks before, the ceiling remained blackened and filthy. The place was so close and foul-smelling that eating was an ordeal. If I had not been so famished, it would have been impossible for me to swallow a mouthful. I bought soup and beans, and ate, in spite of the inconveniences, ravenously, and paid for my dinner fifteen cents. Most of my neighbours took one course, stew or soup. I rose half-satisfied, dizzy from the fumes and the bad air. I am safe in saying that I never smelled anything like to Weyman's, and I hope never to again. Never again shall I hear food and drink discussed by the _gourmet_--discuss, indeed, with him over his repast--but there shall rise before me Weyman's restaurant, low-ceiled, foul, crowded to overflowing. I shall see the diners bend edged appetites to the unpalatable food. These Weyman patrons, mark well, are the rich ones, the swells of labour--able to squander fifteen to twenty cents on their stew and tea. There are dozens, you remember, still in the unaired fourth and fifth stories--at "lunching" over their sandwiches. Far more vivid, more poignant even must be to me the vision of "Bobby." I shall see her eat her filthy sandwich with her blackened hands, see her stoop to blow the scum of deadly matter from her typhoid-breeding glass. In Lynn, unless she boards at home, a girl's living costs her at best $3.75 a week. If she be of the average[4] her month's earnings are $32. Reduce this by general expenses and living and her surplus is $16, to earn which she has toiled 224 hours. You will recall that there are, out of the 22,000 operatives in Massachusetts, 5,000 who make under $5 a week. I leave the reader to compute from this the luxuries and possible pleasures consistent with this income. [Footnote 4: Lynn's average wages are $8 per week.] A word for the swells of the trade, for swells exist. One of my companions at 28 Viger Street made $14 a week. Her expenses were $4; she therefore had at her disposition about $40 a month. She had no family--_every cent of her surplus she spent on her clothes_. "I like to look down and see myself dressed nice," she said; "it makes me feel good. I don't like myself in poor clothes." She _was_ well-dressed--her furs good, her hat charming. We walked to work side by side, she the lady of us. Of course she belongs to the Union. Her possible illness is provided for; her death will bring $100 to a distant cousin. She is only tired out, thin, undeveloped, pale, that's all. She is almost a capitalist, and extremely well dressed. Poor attire, if I can judge by the reception I met with in Lynn, influences only those who by reason of birth, breeding and education should be above such things. In Viger Street I was more simply clad than my companions. My aspect called forth only sisterhood and kindness. Fellowship from first to last, fellowship from their eyes to mine, a spark kindled never to be extinguished. The morning I left my tenement lodging Mika took my hand at the door. "Good-by." Her eyes actually filled. "I'm awful sorry you're going. If the world don't treat you good come back to us." I must qualify a little. One member of the working class there was on whom my cheap clothes had a chilling effect--the spoiled creature of the traveling rich, a Pullman car porter on the train from Boston to New York! Although I called him first and purposely gave him my order in time, he viewed me askance and served me the last of all. As I watched my companions in their furs and handsome attire eat, whilst I sat and waited, my woolen gloves folded in my lap, I wondered if any one of the favoured was as hungry, as famished as the presser from Parsons', the cleaner from Marches'. * * * * * THE SOUTHERN COTTON MILLS * * * * * CHAPTER VIII THE SOUTHERN COTTON MILLS THE MILL VILLAGE Columbia, South Carolina, of course is conscious that there are mills without its city precincts. It is proud of the manufacture that gives the city precedence and commercial value all over the world. The trolley runs to the mills empty, as a rule, after the union depot is passed. Frankly, what is there to be seen in these dusty suburbs? Entry to the mills themselves is difficult, if not absolutely impossible. And that which forms the background for the vast buildings, the Mill Village, is a section to be shunned like the plague. Plague is not too strong a word to apply to the pest-ridden, epidemic-filled, filthy settlement where in this part of the country the mill-hand lives, moves and has his being, horrible honeycomb of lives, shocking morals and decency. Around Columbia there lie five mills and their respective settlements--Excelsior, the Granton, Calcutta, the Richland and the Capital City. Each of these mills boasts its own so-called town. When these people are free on Saturday afternoon and Sunday they are too exhausted to do anything but turn into their hovels to sleep. At most on Saturday afternoons or Sundays they board a trolley and betake themselves to a distant park which, in the picturesque descriptions of Columbia, reads like an Arcadia and is in reality desolation. The mill-hands are not from the direct section of Columbia. They are strangers brought in from "the hills" by the agents of the company, who go hither and thither through the different parts of the country describing to the poor whites and the hill dwellers work in the mills as a way to riches and success. Filled with dreams of gain and possessions, with hopes of decent housing and schooling for their children, they leave their distant communities and troop to the mills. These immigrants are picturesque, touching to see. They come with all they own in the world on their backs or in their hands; penniless; burrs and twigs often in the hair of the young girls. They are hatless, barefooted, ignorant; innocent for the most part--and hopeful! What the condition of these labourers is after they have tested the promises of the manufacturer and found them empty bubbles can only be understood and imagined when one has seen their life, lived among them, worked by their side, and comprehended the tragedy of this population--a floating population, going from Granton to Excelsior, from Excelsior to Richland, hither and thither, seeking--seeking better conditions. They have no affiliation with the people of the town; they are looked down upon as scum: and in good sooth, for good reason, scum they are! It is spring, warm, gracious. This part of the world seems to be well-nigh treeless! There is no generous foliage, but wherever there are branches to bear it the first green has started out, delicate, tender and beautiful. In my simple work garb I leave Columbia and take a trolley to the mill district. I have chosen Excelsior as best for my purpose. Its reputation is most at stake; its prospectus dazzling; its annals effective. If such things are done in Gath...! I cannot say with what timidity I descend from the tram in this strange country, foreign to my Northern habitation and filled with classes whose likeness I have never seen and around which the Southern Negro makes a tad and gloomy background. Before the trolley has arrived at the corporation stores Excelsior has spoken--roared, clicked forth so vibrantly, so loudly, I am prepared to feel the earth shake. This is the largest mill in the world and looks it! A model, too, in point of view of architecture. I have read in the prospectus that it represents $1,750,000 capital, possesses 104,000 spindles, employs 1,200 hands, and can, with crowding, employ 3,000. Surely it will have place for one more, then! I am impressed with its grandeur as it rises, red-bricked, with proud, straight towers toward its centre--impressed and frightened by its insistent call as it rattles and hums to me across the one-sixteenth of a mile of arid sand track. At one side Christianity and doctrine have constructed a church: a second one is building. On the other side, at a little distance, lies Granton, second largest mill. All this I take in as I make my way Excelsiorward. Between me and the vast mill itself there is not a soul. A thick, sandy road winds to the right; in the distance I can see a black trestle over which the freight cars take the cotton manufactures to the distant railroad and ship them to all parts of the world. Beyond the trestle are visible the first shanties of the mill town. Work first and lodgings afterward are my goals. At the door of Excelsior I am more than overwhelmed by its magnificence and its loud voice that makes itself so far-reachingly heard. There is no entry for me at the front of the mill, and I toil around to the side; not a creature to be seen. I venture upon the landing and make my way along a line of freight cars--between the track and the mill. A kind-faced man wanders out from an unobserved doorway; a gust of roar follows him! He sees me, and lifts his hat with the ready Southern courtesy not yet extinct. I hasten to ask for work. [Illustration: "MIGHTY MILL--PRIDE OF THE ARCHITECT AND THE COMMERCIAL MAGNATE" "Charnel house, destroyer of homes, of all that mankind calls hallowed; breeder of strife, of strike, of immorality of sedition and riot"] "Well, thar's jest plenty of work, I reckon! Go in that do'; the overseer will tell you." Through the door open behind him I catch glimpses of a room enormous in dimensions. Cotton bales lie on the floor, stand around the walls and are piled in the centre. Leaning on them, handling them, lying on them, outstretched, or slipping like shadows into shadow, are the dusky shapes of the black Negro of true Southern blood. I have been told there is no Negro labour in the mills. I take advantage of my guide's kind face to ask him if he knows where I can lodge. "Hed the measles? Well, my gyrl got 'em. Thar's a powerful sight of measles hyar. I'd take you-all to bo'd at my house ef you ain't 'fraid of measles. Thar's the hotel." (He points to what at the North would be known as a brick shanty.) "A gyrl can bo'd thar for $2.25 a week. You won't make that at first." With extreme kindness he leads me into the roaring mill past picturesque black men and cotton bales: we reach the "weave-room." I am told that carpet factories are celebrated for their uproar, but the weave-looms of a cotton mill to those who know them need no description! This is chaos before order was conceived: more weird in that, despite the din and thunder, everything is so orderly, so perfectly carried forth by the machinery. Here the cotton cloth is woven. Excelsior is so vast that from one end to the other of a room one cannot distinguish a friend. I decide instantly that the weave-room shall not be my destination! An overseer comes up to me. He talks with me politely and kindly--that is, as well as he can, he talks! It is almost impossible to hear what he says. He asks me simple and few questions and engages me promptly to work that "_evening_" as the Southerner calls the hours after midday. "You can see all the work and choose a sitting or a standing job." This is an improvement on Pittsburg and Lynn. I have been told there is always work in the mills for the worker. It is not strange that every inducement consistent with corporation rules should be made to entice the labouring girl! The difficulty is that no effort is made to keep her! The ease with which, in all these experiences, work has been obtained, goes definitely to prove that there is a demand everywhere for labourers. _Organize labour, therefore, so well that the work-woman who obtains her task may be able to continue it and keep her health and her self-respect_. With Excelsior as my future workshop I leave the mill to seek lodging in the mill village. The houses built by the corporation for the hands are some five or six minutes' walk, not more, from the palace-like structure of the mill proper. To reach them I plod through a roadway ankle-deep in red clay dust. The sun is bright and the air heavy, lifeless and dull; the scene before me is desolate, meager and poverty-stricken in the extreme. The mill houses are all built exactly alike. Painted in sickly greens and yellows, they rise on stilt-like elevations above the malarial soil. Here the architect has catered to the different families, different individual tastes in one point of view alone, regarding the number of rooms: They are known as "four-or six-room cottages." In one of the first cottages to the right a wholesome sight--the single wholesome sight I see during my experience--meets my eye. Human kindness has transformed one of the houses into a kindergarten--"Kindergarten" is over the door. A pretty Southern girl, a lady, stands surrounded by her little flock. The handful of half a dozen emancipated children who are not in the mills is refreshing to see. There are very few; the kindergarten flags for lack of little scholars. I accost her. "Can you tell me any decent place to board?" She is sorry, regards me kindly with the expression I have grown to know--the look the eyes adopt when a person of one class addresses her sister in a lower range. "I am a stranger come out to work in the mills." But the young lady takes little interest in me. Children are her care. They surround her, clinging, laughing, calling--little birds fed so gently by the womanly hand. She turns from the working-woman to them, but not before indicating a shanty opposite: "Mrs. Green lives there in that four-room cottage. She is a good woman." Through the door's crack I interview Mrs. Green, a pallid, sickly creature, gowned, as are most of the women, in a calico garment made all in one piece. She permits me to enter the room which forms (as do all the front rooms in a mill cottage) bedroom and general living-room. Here is confusion incarnate--and filthy disorder. The tumbled, dirty bed fills up one-half the room. In it is a little child, shaking with chills. On the bare floor are bits of food, old vegetables, rags, dirty utensils of all sorts of domestic description. The house has a sickening odour. The woman tells me she is too ill to keep tidy--too ill to keep boarders. We do not strike a bargain. "I am only here four months," she said. "Sick ever since I come, and my little girl has fevernaygu." I wander forth and a child directs me to a six-room cottage, "a real bo'din'-house." I attack it and thus discover the dwelling where I make my home in Excelsior. From the front room of this dwelling a kitchen opens. Within its shadow I see a Negro washing dishes. A tall woman, taller than most men, angular, white-haired, her face seared by toil and stricken with age, greets me: she is the landlady. At her skirts, catching them and staring at a stranger, wanders a very young child--a blue-eyed, clean little being; a great relief, in point of fact, to the general filth hitherto presented me. The room beyond me is clean. I draw a breath of gratitude. "Mrs. Jones?" "Yes, this is Jones' bo'din'-house." The old woman has a comb in her hand; she has "jest ben com'in' Letty's hair." Letty smiles delightedly. "This yere's the child of the lady upstairs. The mother's a pore sick thing." Mrs. Jones bends the stiffness of sixty-eight years over the stranger's child. "And grandmaw keeps Letty clean, don't she, Letty? She don't never whip her, neither; jest a little cross to her." "Can I find lodging here?" She looks at me. "Yes, ma'am, you kin. I'm full up; got a lot of gentlemen bo'ders, but not many ladies. I got one bed up aloft; you can't have it alone neither, and the baby's mother is sick up there, too. Nuthin' ketchin'. She come here a stranger; the mill was too hard on her; she's ben sick fo' days." I had made a quick decision and accepted half a bed. I would return at noon. "Stranger hyar, I reckon?" "Yes; from Massachusetts. A shoe-hand." She shakes her head: "You wont like the mills." She draws Letty between her old stiff knees, seats herself on a straight chair, and combs the child's hair on either side its pathetic, gentle little face. So I leave her for the present to return to Columbia and fetch back with me my bundle of clothes. * * * * * When I return at noon it is dinner time. I enter and am introduced, with positive grace and courtesy, by my dear old landlady to her son-in-law, "Tommy Jones," a widower, a man in decent store clothes and a Derby hat surrounded by a majestic crape sash. He is nonchalantly loading a large revolver, and thrusts it in his trousers pocket: "Always carry it," he explains; "comes handy!" Then I am presented to the gentlemen boarders. I beg to go upstairs, with my bundles, and I see for the first time my dwelling part of this shanty. A ladderlike stair leading directly from the kitchen takes me into the loft. Heavens! the sight of that sleeping apartment! There are three beds in it, sagging beds, covered by calico comforters. The floor is bare; the walls are bare. I have grown to know that "Jones'" is the cleanliest place in the Excelsior village, and yet to our thinking it lacks perfection. Around the bare walls hang the garments of the other women who share the room with me. What humble and pathetic decorations! poor, miserable clothes--a shawl or two, a coat or two, a cotton wrapper, a hat; and on one nail the miniature clothes of Letty--a little night-dress and a tiny blue cotton dress. I put my bundle down by the side of my bed which I am to share with another woman, and descend, for Mrs. Jones' voice summons me to the midday meal. The nourishment provided for these thirteen-hour-a-day labourers is as follows: On a tin saucepan there was a little salt pork and on another dish a pile of grease-swimming spinach. A ragged Negro hovered over these articles of diet; the room was full of the smell of frying. After the excitement of my search for work, and the success, if success it can be called that so far had met me, I could not eat; I did not even sit down. I made my excuse. I said that I had had something to eat in Columbia, and started out to the mill. By the time the mill-hand has reached his home a good fifteen minutes out of the three-quarters of an hour recreation is gone: his food is quickly bolted, and by the time I have reached the little brick hotel pointed out to me that morning and descended to its cellar restaurant, forced myself to drink a cup of sassafras tea, and mounted again into the air, the troop of workers is on the march millward. I join them. Although the student of philanthropy and the statistician would find difficulty in forcing the countersign of the manufactories, the worker may go everywhere. I do not see my friend of the morning, the overseer, in the "weave-room"; indeed, there is no one to direct me; but I discover, after climbing the stairs, a room of flying spools and more subdued machinery, and it appears that the spool-room is this man's especial charge. He consigns to me a standing job. A set of revolving spools is designated, and he secures a pretty young girl of about sixteen, who comes cheerfully forward and consents to "learn" me. Spooling is not disagreeable, and the room is the quietest part of the mill--noisy enough, but calm compared to the others. In Excelsior this room is, of course, enormous, light and well ventilated, although the temperature, on account of some quality of the yarn, is kept at a point of humidity far from wholesome. "Spooling" is hard on the left arm and the side. Heart disease is a frequent complaint amongst the older spoolers. It is not dirty compared to shoe-making, and whereas one stands to "spool," when one is not waiting for yarn it is constant movement up and down the line. The fact that there are more children than young girls, more young girls than women, proves the simplicity of this task. The cotton comes from the spinning-room to the spool-room, and as the girl stands before her "side," as it is called, she sees on a raised ledge, whirling in rapid vibration, some one hundred huge spools full of yarn; whilst below her, each in its little case, lies a second bobbin of yarn wound like a distaff. Her task controls machinery in constant motion, that never stops except in case of accident. With one finger of her right hand she detaches the yarn from the distaff that lies inert in the little iron rut before her. With her left hand she seizes the revolving circle of the large spool's top in front of her, holding this spool steady, overcoming the machinery for the moment not as strong as her grasp. This demands a certain effort. Still controlling the agitated spool with her left hand, she detaches the end of yarn with the same hand from the spool, and by means of a patent knotter harnessed around her palm she joins together the two loosened ends, one from the little distaff and one from this large spool, so that the two objects are set whirling in unison and the spool receives all the yarn from the distaff. Up and down this line the spooler must walk all day long, replenishing the iron grooves with fresh yarn and reknitting broken strands. This is all that there is of "spooling." It demands alertness, quickness and a certain amount of strength from the left arm, and that is all! To conceive of a woman of intelligence pursuing this task from the age of eight years to twenty-two on down through incredible hours is not salutary. You will say to me, that if she demands nothing more she is fit for nothing more. I cannot think it. The little girl who teaches me spooling is fresh and cheerful and jolly; I grant her all this. She lives at home. I am told by my subsequent friends that she thinks herself better than anybody. This pride and ambition has at least elevated her to neat clothes and a sprightliness of manner that is refreshing. She does not hesitate to evince her superiority by making sport of me. She takes no pains to teach me well. Instead of giving me the patent knotter, which would have simplified my job enormously, she teaches me what she expresses "the old-fashioned way"--knotting the yarn with the fingers. I have mastered this slow process by the time that the overseer discovers her trick and brings me the harness for my left hand. She is full of curiosity about me, asking me every sort of question, to which I give the best answers that I can. By and by she slips away from me. I turn to find her; she has vanished, leaving me under the care of a truly kind, sad little creature in a wrapper dress. This little Maggie has a heart of gold. "Don't you-all fret," she consoles. "That's like Jeannie: she's so _mean_. When you git to be a remarkable fine spooler she'll want you on her side, you bet." She assists my awkwardness gently. "I'll learn you all right. You-all kin stan' hyar by me all day. Jeannie clean fergits she was a greenhorn herself onct; we all wuz. Whar you come from?" "Lynn, Massachusetts." "Did you-all git _worried_ with the train? I only bin onto it onct, and it worried me for days!" She tells me her simple annals with no question: "My paw he married ag'in, and me stepmother peard like she didn't care for me; so one day I sez to paw, 'I'm goin' to work in the mills'--an' I lef home all alone and come here." After a little--"When I sayd good-by to my father peard like _he_ didn't care neither. I'm all alone here. I bo'ds with that girl's mother." I wore that day in the mill a blue-checked apron. So did Maggie, but mine was from Wanamaker's in New York, and had, I suppose, a certain style, for the child said: "I suttenly dew think that yere's a awful pretty apron: where'd you git it?" "Where I came from," I answered, and, I am sorry to say, it sounded brusque. For the little thing blushed, fearful lest she had been indiscreet....(Oh, I assure you the qualities of good breeding are there! Some of my factory and mill friends can teach the set in which I move lessons salutary!) "I didn't mean jest 'xactly wherebouts," she murmurs; "I only meant it warn't from these parts." * * * * * During the afternoon the gay Jeannie returns and presents to me a tin box. It is filled with a black powder. "Want some?" Well, what is it? She greets my ignorance with shrieks of laughter. In a trice half a dozen girls have left their spooling and cluster around me. "She ain't never _seen_ it!" and the little creature fills her mouth with the powder which she keeps under her tongue. "It is _snuff_!" They all take it, old and young, even the smallest children. Their mouths are brown with it; their teeth are black with it. They take it and smell it and carry it about under their tongues all day in a black wad, spitting it all over the floor. Others "dip," going about with the long sticks in their mouths. The air of the room is white with cotton, although the spool-room is perhaps the freest. These little particles are breathed into the nose, drawn into the lungs. Lung disease and pneumonia--consumption--are the constant, never-absent scourge of the mill village. The girls expectorate to such an extent that the floor is nauseous with it; the little girls practise spitting and are adepts at it. Over there is a woman of sixty, spooling; behind the next side is a child, not younger than eight, possibly, but so small that she has to stand on a box to reach her side. Only the very young girls show any trace of buoyancy; the older ones have accepted with more or less complaint the limitation of their horizons. They are drawn from the hill district with traditions no better than the loneliness, desertion and inexperience of the fever-stricken mountains back of them. They are illiterate, degraded; the mill has been their widest experience; and all their tutelage is the intercourse of girl to girl during the day and in the evenings the few moments before they go to bed in the mill-houses, where they either live at home with parents and brothers all working like themselves, or else they are fugitive lodgers in a boarding-house or a hotel, where their morals are in jeopardy constantly. As soon as a girl passes the age, let us say of seventeen or eighteen, there is no hesitation in her reply when you ask her: "Do you like the mills?" Without exception the answer is, "I _hate them_." Absorbed with the novelty of learning my trade, the time goes swiftly. Yet even the interest and excitement does not prevent fatigue, and from 12:45 to 6:45 seems interminable! Even when the whistle blows we are not all free--Excelsior is behindhand with her production, and those whom extra pay can beguile stay on. Maggie, my little teacher, walks with me toward our divided destinations, her quasi-home and mine. Neither in the mill nor the shoe-shops did I take precaution to change my way of speaking--and not once had it been commented upon. To-day Maggie says to me: "I reckon you-all is 'Piscopal?" "Why?" "Why, you-all _talks_ 'Piscopal." So much for a tribute to the culture of the church. * * * * * At Jones' supper is ready, spread on a bare board running the length of the room--a bare board supported by saw-horses; the seats are boards again, a little lower in height. They sag in the middle threateningly. One plate is piled high with fish--bones, skin and flesh all together in one odourous mass. Salt pork graces another platter and hominy another. I am alone in the supper room. The guests, landlord and landlady are all absent. Some one, as he rushes by me, gives me the reason for the desertion: "They've all gone to see the fight; all the white fellers is after a nigger." Through the window I can see the fleeing forms of the settlers--women, sunbonnets in hand, the men hatless. It appears that all the world has turned out to see what lawless excitement may be in store. The whirling dust and sand in the distance denote the group formed by the Negro and his pursuers. This, standing on the little porch of my lodging-house, I see and am glad to find that the chase is fruitless. The black man, tortured to distraction, dared at length to rebel, and from the moment that he showed spirit his life was not worth a farthing, but his legs were, and he got clear of Excelsior. The lodgers troop back. Molly, my landlady's niece, breathing and panting, disheveled, leads the procession and is voluble over the affair. "They-all pester a po'r nigger's life out 'er him, ye'es, they dew so! Ef a nigger wants ter show his manners to me, why, I show mine to him," she said generously, "and ef he's a mannerly nigger, why, I ain't got nothin' ag'in him; no, sir, I suttenly ain't!" It is difficult to conceive how broad and philanthropic, how generous and unusual this poor mill girl's standpoint is contrasted with the sentiment of the people with which she moves. I slip into my seat at the table in the centre of the sagging board and find Molly beside me, the girl from Excelsior with the pretty hair on the other side. The host, Mr. Jones, honours the head of the table, and "grandmaw" waits upon us. Opposite are the three men operatives, flannel-shirted and dirty. The men are silent for the most part, and bend over their food, devouring the unpalatable stuff before them. I feel convinced that if they were not so terribly hungry they could not eat it. Jones discourses affably on the mill question, advising me to learn "speeding," as it pays better and is the only advanced work in the mill. Molly, my elbow-companion, seems to take up the whole broad seat, she is so big and so pervading; and her close proximity--unwashed, heavy with perspiration as she is, is not conducive to appetite. She is full of news and chatter and becomes the leading spirit of the meal. "I reckon you-all never did see anything like the fight to the mill to-day." She arouses at once the interest of even the dull men opposite, who pause, in the applying of their knives and forks, to hear. "Amanda Wilcox she dun tol' Ida Jacobs that she'd _do her_ at noon, and Ida she sarst her back. It was all about a _sport_[5]--Bill James. He's been spo'tin' Ida Jacobs these three weeks, I reckon, and Amanda got crazy over it and 'clared she'd spile her game. And she tol' Ida Jacobs a lie about Bill--sayd he' been spo'tin' her down to the Park on Sunday. [Footnote 5: A beau.] "Well, sir, the whole spinnin'-room was out to see what they-all'd do at noon, and they jest resh'd for each other like's they was crazy; and one man he got between 'em and sayd, 'Now the gyrl what spits over my hand first can begin the fight.' "They both them spit right, into each other's faces, they did so; and arter that yer couldn't get them apart. Ida Jacobs grabbed Amanda by the ha'r and Amanda hit her plump in the chest with her fist. They was suttenly like to kill each other ef the men hadn't just parted them; it took three men to part 'em." Her story was much appreciated. "Ida was dun fer, I can tell ye; she suttenly was. She can't git back to work fer days." The spinning-room is the toughest room in the mill. After supper the men went out on the porch with their pipes and we to the sitting-room, where Molly, the story-teller, seated herself in a comfortable chair, her feet outstretched before her. She made a lap, a generous lap, to which she tried to beguile the baby, Letty. Mrs. White had disappeared. "You-all come here to me, Letty." She held out her large dirty hands to the blue-eyed waif. In its blue-checked apron, the remains of fish and ham around its mouth, its large blue eyes wandering from face to face in search of the pale mother who had for a time left her, Letty stood for a moment motionless and on the verge of tears. "You-all come to Molly and go By-O." There was some magic in that word that at long past eight charmed the eighteen-months'-old baby. She toddled across the floor to the mill-girl, who lifted her tenderly into her ample lap. The big, awkward girl, scarcely more than a child herself, uncouth, untutored, suddenly gained a dignity and a grace maternal--not too much to say it, she had charm. Letty leaned her head against Molly's breast and smiled contentedly, whilst the mill-girl rocked softly to and fro. "Shall Molly sing By-O?" She should. The little face, lifted, declared its request. "Letty must sing, too," murmured the young girl. "Sing By-O! We'll all sing it together." Letty covered her eyes with one hand-to feign sleep and sang her two words sweetly, "By-O! By-O!" and Molly joined her. Thus they rocked and hummed, a picture infinitely touching to see. One of these two would soon be an unclaimed foundling when the unknown woman had faded out of existence. The other--who can say how to her maternity would come! * * * * * In the room where we sit Jones' wife died a few weeks before, victim to pneumonia that all winter has scourged the town--"the ketchin' kind"--that is the way it has been caught, and fatally by many.[6] [Footnote 6: There are no statistics, they tell me, kept of births, marriages or deaths in this State; it is less surprising that the mill village has none.] In one corner stands a sewing machine, in another an organ--luxuries: in these cases, objects of art. They are bought on the installment plan, and some of these girls pay as high as $100 for the organ in monthly payments of $4 at a time. The mill-girl is too busy to use the machine and too ignorant to play the organ. Jones is a courteous host. His lodgers occupy the comfortable seats, whilst he perches himself on the edge of a straight high-backed chair and converses with us, not lighting his pipe until urged, then deprecatingly smoking in little smothered puffs. I feel convinced that Jones thinks that Massachusetts shoe-hands are a grade higher in the social scale than South Carolina mill-girls! Because, after being witness more than once to my morning and evening ablutions on the back steps, he said: "Now, I am goin' to dew the right thing by you-all; I'm goin' to fix up a wash-stand in that there loft." This is a triumph over the lax, uncleanly shiftlessness of the Southern settlement. Again: "You-all must of had good food whar you come from: your skin shows it; 'tain't much like hyar-'bouts. Why, I'd know a mill-hand anywhere, if I met her at the North Pole--salla, pale, sickly." I might have added for him, deathlike, ... skeleton ... _doomed_. But I listen, rocking in the best chair, whilst Mrs. White glides in from the kitchen and, unobserved, takes her place on a little low chair by the sewing machine behind Jones. Her baby rocks contentedly in Molly's arms. Jones continues: "I worked in the mill fifteen years. I have done a little of all jobs, I reckon, and I ain't got no use for mill-work. If they'd pay me fifty cents a side to run the 'speeders' I'd _go_ in fer an hour or two now and then. Why, I sell sewing machines and organs to the mill-hands all over the country. I make $60 a month, and _I touch all my money_," he said significantly. "It's the way to do. A man don't feel no dignity unless he does handle his own money, if it's ten cents or ten dollars." He then explains the corporation's methods of paying its slaves. Some of the hands never touch their money from month's end to month's end. Once in two weeks is pay-day. A woman has then worked 122 hours. The corporation furnishes her house. There is the rent to be paid; there are also the corporation stores from which she has been getting her food and coal and what gewgaws the cheap stuff on sale may tempt her to purchase. There is a book of coupons issued by the mill owners which are as good as gold. It is good at the stores, good for the rent, and her time is served out in pay for this representative currency. This is of course not obligatory, but many of the operatives avail themselves or bind themselves by it. When the people are ill, Jones says, they are docked for wages. When, for indisposition or fatigue, they knock a day off, there is a man, hired especially for this purpose, who rides from house to house to find out what is the matter with them, to urge them to rise, and if they are not literally too sick to move, they are hounded out of their beds and back to their looms. Jones himself, mark you, is emancipated! He has set himself free; but he is still a too-evident although a very innocent partisan of the corporation. [Illustration: "THE SOUTHERN MILL HAND'S FACE IS UNIQUE, A FEARFUL TYPE"] "I think," he says, "that the mill-hand is _meaner_ to the corporation than the corporation is to the mill-hand." "Why?" "Why, they would strike for shorter hours and better pay." Unconsciously with one word he condemns his own cause. "What's the use of these hyar mill-hands tryin' to fight corporations? Why, Excelsior is the biggest mill under one roof in the world; its capital is over a million; it has 24,500 spindles. The men that run these mills have got all their stuff paid for; they've got piles of money. What do they care for a few penniless lot of strikers? They can shut down and not feel it. Why, these hyar people might just as well fight against a stone wall." The wages of these people, remember, pay Jones for the organs upon which they cannot play and the machines which they cannot use. His home is a mill corporation house; he makes a neat sum by lodging the hands. He has fetched down from the hills Molly, his own niece, to work for him. He perforce _will_ speak well. I do not blame him. He is by all means the most respectable-looking member of the colony. He wears store clothes; he dresses neatly; he is shaven, brushed and washed. "Don't you let the mill hands discourage you with lies about the mill. Any of 'em would be jealous of you-all." Then he warns, again forced to plead for another side: "You-all won't come out as you go in, I tell you! You're the picture of health. Why," he continues, a little later, "you ain't got no idea how light-minded the mill-girl is. Why, in the summer time she'll trolley four or five miles to a dance-hall they've got down to ---- and dance there till four o'clock--come home just in time to get into the mills at 5:45." Which fact convinces me of nothing but that the women are still, despite their condition and their white slavery, human beings, and many of them are young human beings (Thank God, for it is a prophecy for their future!) _not yet crushed to the dumb endurance of beasts_. Rather early I bid them all good-night and climb the attic stairs to my loft. There the three beds arrayed in soggy striped comforters greet me. Old boots and downtrodden shoes are thrown into the corners and the lines of clothing already describe fantastic shapes in the dark, suggesting pendant sinister figures. Windows are large, thank Heaven! In the mill district the air is heavy, singularly lifeless; the night is warm and stifling. Close to an old trunk I sit down with a slip of paper on my knee and try to take a few notes. But no sooner have I begun to write than a step on the stair below announces another comer. Before annoyance can deepen too profoundly the big, awkward form of the landlady's niece slouches into sight. Sheepishly she comes across the room to me--sits down on the nearest bed. Molly's costume is typical: a dark cotton wrapper whose colours have become indistinct in the stains of machinery oil and perspiration. The mill girl boasts no coquetry of any kind around her neck and waist, but her headdress is a tribute to feminine vanity! Compactly screwed curl papers, dozens of them, accentuate the hard, unlovely lines of her face and brow. Her features are coarse, heavy and square, but her eyes are clear, frank and kind. She has an appealing, friendly expression; Molly is a distinctly whole-souled, nice creature. One elbow sinks in the bed and she cradles her crimped head in her large, dirty hand. "My, ef I could write as fast as you-all I'd write some letters, I reckon. Ust ter write; like it good enough, tew; but I ain't wrote in months. I was thinkin' th' other day ef I didn't take out the _pencile_ I'd dun forgit how to spell." Without the window through which she gazes is seen the pale night sky and in the heavens hangs the thread of a moon. Its light is unavailing alongside of the artificial moon--an enormous electric light. This lifts its brilliant, dazzling circumference high in the centre of the mill street. I have but to move a trifle aside from the window coping's shelter to receive a blinding blaze. But Molly has been subtle enough to discover the natural beauty of the night. She sees, curiously enough, past this modern illumination: the young moon has charm for her. "Ain't it a pretty night?" she asks me. Its beauty has not much chance to enhance this room and the crude forms, but it has awakened something akin to sentiment in the breast of this young savage. "I don't guess ever any one gets tired of hearing _sweet music_[7], does you-all?" [Footnote 7: The Southern term for stringed instruments.] "What is the nicest music you have ever heard, Molly?" "Why, a gui-taar an' a mandolin. It's so sweet! I could sit for hours an' hyar 'em pick." Her curlpaper head wags in enthusiasm. "Up to the hills, from whar I cum, I ust ter hyar 'em a serenadin' of some gyrl an' I ust ter set up in bed and lis'en tel it died out; it warn't for _me_, tho'!" "Didn't they ever serenade you?" "No, _ma'am_; I don't pay no 'tention to spo'tin'." Without, the moon's slender thread holds in a silvery circle the half-defined misty ball that shall soon be full moon. Thank heavens I shall not see this golden globe form, wane, decline in this town, forgotten of gods and men! But the woman at my side must see it mark its seasons; she is inscrutably part of the colony devoted to unending toil! Here all she has brought of strong youth shall fade and perish; womanly sentiment be crushed; die out in sterility; or worse, coarsen to the animal like to those whose companion she is forced to be. "I live to the Rockies, an' Uncle Tom he come up after me and carried me down hyar. My auntie died two weeks ago in the livin'-room; she had catchin' pneumonia. I tuk care of her all through her sickness, did every mite for her, and there was bo'ders, tew--I guess half a dozen of 'em--and I cooked and washed and everything for 'em all. When she died I went to work in the mill. Say, I reckon you-all didn't see my new hat?" It was fetched, done up with care in paper. She displayed it, a white straw round hat, covered with roses. At praise of it and admiration the girl flushed with pleasure. "My, you _dew_ like it? Why, I didn't think it _pretty, much_. Uncle Tom dun buy it for me." She gives all her wages to Uncle Tom, who in turn brings her from time to time such stimulus to labour as some pretty feminine thing like this. _This_ shall crown Molly's hair freed from the crimpers when the one day of the week, Sunday, comes! Not from Sunday till Sunday again are those hair crimpers unloosed. Despite Uncle Tom's opposition to mill work for women, despite his cognizance of the unhealthfulness of the mills, he knew a thing or two when he put his strapping innocent niece to work thirteen hours a day and pocketed himself the spoils. "I can't go to bade awful early, because I don't sleep ef I do; I'm too tired to sleep. When I feel real sick I tries to stay home a day, and then the overseer he rides around and _worries_ me to git up. I declare ef I wouldn't near as soon git up as to be roused up. They don't give you no peace, rousing you out of bed when you can scarcely stand. I suttenly dew feel bade to-night; I suttenly can't scarcely get to bed!" Here into our discourse, mounting the stairs, comes the pale mother and her little child. This ghost of a woman, wedding-ringless, who called herself Mrs. White, could scarcely crawl to her bed. She was whiter than the moon and as slender. Molly's bed is close to mine. The night toilet of this girl consisted of her divesting herself of her shoes, stockings and her cotton wrapper, then in all the other garments she wore during the day she turned herself into bed, nightgownless, unwashed. Mrs. White undressed her child, giving it very good care. It was a tiny creature, small-boned and meager. Every time I looked over at it it smiled appealingly, touchingly. Finally when she went downstairs to the pump to get a drink of water for it, I went over and in her absence stroked the little hand and arm: such a small hand and such an infinitesimal arm! Unused to attention and the touch, but not in the least frightened, Letty extended her miniature member and looked up at me in marvel. Mrs. White on her return made herself ready for the night. She said in her frail voice: "Letty's a powerful hand for vegetubbles, and she eats everything." Memory of the ham and the putrid fish I had seen this eighteen-months-old child devour not an hour ago came to my mind. Mrs. White let down her hair--a nonchalance that Molly had not been guilty of. This woman's hair was no more than a wisp. It stood out thin, wiry, almost invisible in the semilight. This was the extent of her toilet. She slipped out of her shoes, but she did not even take off her dress. Then she turned in by her child. She was very ill; it was plain to be seen. Death was fast upon this woman's track; it should clutch her inevitably within the next few weeks at most, if that emaciated body had resistance for so long. Her languor was slow and indicative, her gray, ashen face like death itself. "Lie still, Letty," she whispers to the baby; "don't touch mother--she can't stand it to-night." My mattress was straw and billowy, the bed sheetless, and under the weight of the cotton comforter I tried to compose myself. There were five of us in the little loft. My bedfellow was peaceful and lay still, too tired to do anything else. In front of me was the open window, through which shone the electric light, blatant and insistent; behind this, the clock of Excelsior--brightly lit and incandescent--glared in upon us, giant hands going round, seeming to threaten the hour of dawn and frightening sleep and mocking, bugbearing the short hours which the working-woman might claim for repose. It was well on to nine o 'clock and the mills were working overtime. Molly turned restlessly on her bed and murmured, "I suttenly dew feel bad to-night." A little later I heard her say over to herself: "My, I forgot to say my prayers." She was the sole member of the loft to whom sleep came; it came to her soon. I lay sleepless, watching the clock of Excelsior. The ladder staircase openly led to the kitchen: there was no door, no privacy possible to our quarters, and the house was full of men. A little later Letty cries: "A drink, a drink!" and the tone of the mother, who replies, is full of patience, but fuller still of suffering. "Hush, Letty, hush! Mother's too sick to get it." But the child continues to fret and plead. Finally with a groan Mrs. White stretches out her hand and gets the tin mug of water, of that vile and dirty water which has brought death to so many in the mill village. The child drinks it greedily. I can hear it suck the fluid. Then the woman herself staggers to her feet, rises with dreadful illness upon her, and all through the hot stuffy night in the close air of the loft growing momentarily more fetid, unwholesome, intolerable--she rises to be violently sick over and over again. It seems an indefinite number of times to one who lies awake listening, and must seem unceasing to the poor wretch who returns to her bed only to rise again. She groans and suffers and bites her exclamations short. Twice she goes to the window and by the light of the electric lamp pours laudanum into a glass and takes it to still her pain and her need. The odours become so nauseous that I am fain to cover my face and head. The child fed on salt ham and pork is restless and thirsty all night and begs for water at short intervals. At last the demand is too much for the poor agonized mother--she takes refuge in silencing unworthy, and to which one feels her gentleness must be forced. "Hark! The cat will get you, Letty! See that cat?" And the feline horror in nameless form, evoked in an awe-inspiring whisper, controls the little creature, who murmurs, sobs and subsides. What spirit deeper than her character has hitherto displayed stirs the mill-girl in the bed next to me? Possibly the tragedy in the other bed; possibly the tragedy of her own youth. At all events, whatever burden is on her, her cross is heavy! She murmurs in her dreams, in a voice more mature, more serious than any tone of hers has indicated: "Oh, my God!" It is a strange cry--call--appeal. It rings solemn to me as I lie and watch and pity. Hours of night which should be to the labourer peaceful, full of repose after the day, drag along from nine o'clock, when we went to bed, till three. At three Mrs. White falls into a doze. I envy her. Over me the vermin have run riot; I have killed them on my neck and my arms. When it seemed that flesh and blood must succumb, and sleep, through sheer pity, take hold of us, a stirring begins in the kitchen below which in its proximity seems a part of the very room we occupy. The landlady, Mrs. Jones, has arisen; she is making her fire. At a quarter to four Mrs. Jones begins her frying; at four a deep, blue, ugly smoke has ascended the stairway to us. This smoke is thick with odours--the odour of bad grease and bad meat. Its cloud conceals the beds from me and I can scarcely pierce its curtain to look through the window. It settles down over the beds like a creature; it insinuates itself into the clothes that hang upon the wall. So permeating is it that the odour of fried food clings to everything I wear and haunts me all day. I can hear the sputtering of the saucepan and the fall and flap of the pieces of meat as she drops them in to fry. _I know what they are_, for I have seen them the night before--great crimson bits of flesh torn to pieces and arranged in rows by the fingers of a ragged Negro as he crouched by the kitchen table. This preparation continues for an hour: it takes an abnormally long time to cook abnormally bad food! Long before five the clock of Excelsior rings and the cry of the mill is heard waking whomsoever might be lucky enough to be asleep. Mrs. Jones calls Molly. "Molly!" The girl murmurs and turns. "Come, you-all git up; you take so powerful long to dress yo'self!" Long to dress! It is difficult to see how that would be possible. She rises reluctantly, yawning, sighing; lifts her scarcely rested body, puts on her stockings and her shoes and the dirty wrapper. Her hair is untouched, her face unwashed, but she is ready for the day! Mrs. White has actually fallen asleep, the small roll, her baby, curled up close to her back. Molly's summons is mine as well. I am a mill-hand with her. I rise and repeat my ablutions of the evening before. Unhooking the tin basin, possessing myself of a bit of soap on the kitchen stairs, I wash my face and hands. Although the water is dipped from the pail on which a scum has formed, still it is so much more cool, refreshing and stimulating than anything that has come in contact with me for hours that it is a positive pleasure. * * * * * THE MILL By this time the morning has found us all, and unlovely it seems as regarded from this shanty environment. At 4:50 Excelsior has shrieked every settler awake. At half-past five we have breakfasted and I pass out of the house, one of the half-dozen who seek the mill from our doors. We fall in with the slowly moving, straggling file, receiving additions from each tenement as we pass. Beside me walks a boy of fourteen in brown earth-coloured clothes. He is so thin that his bones threaten to pierce his vestments. He has a slender visage of the frailness I have learned to know and distinguish: it represents the pure American type of people known as "poor white trash," and with whose blood has been scarcely any admixture of foreign element. A painter would call his fine, sensitive face beautiful: it is the face of a martyr. His hat of brown felt slouches over bright red hair; one cuffless hand, lank and long, hangs down inert, the other sleeve falls loose; he is one-armed. His attitude and gait express his defrauded existence. Cotton clings to his clothes; his shoes, nearly falling off his feet, are red with clay stains. I greet him; he is shy and surprised, but returns the salutation and keeps step with me. He is "from the hills," an orphan, perfectly friendless. He boards with a lot of men; evidently their companionship has not been any solace to him, for, as he is alone this day, I see him always alone. He works from 5:45 to 6:45, with three-quarters of an hour at noon, and has his Saturday afternoons and his Sundays free. He is destitute of the quality we call joy and has never known comfort. He makes fifty cents a day; he has no education, no way of getting an education; he is almost a man, crippled and condemned. At my exclamation when he tells me the sum of his wages he looks up at me; a faint likeness to a smile comes about his thin lips: "_It keeps me in existence_!" he says in a slow drawl. He used just those words. At the different doors of the mill we part. He is not unconscious of my fellowship with him, that I feel and know. A kindling light has come across his face. "Good luck to you!" I bid him, and he lifts his head and his bowed shoulders and with something like warmth replies, "I hope you-all will have good luck, tew." As we come into the spooling-room from the hot air without the mill seems cold. I go over to a green box destined for the refuse of the floors and sit down, waiting for work. On this day I am to have my own "side"--I am a full-fledged spooler. Excelsior has gotten us all out of our beds before actual daylight, but that does not mean we are to have a chance to begin our money-making piece-work job at once! "Thar ain't likely to be no yarn for an hour to-day," Maggie tells me. She is no less dirty than yesterday, or less smelly, but also she is no less kind. "I reckon you-all are goin' to make a remarkable spooler," she cheers me on. "You'll get tired out at first, but then I gets tired, tew, right along, only it ain't the same _kind_--it's not so _sharp_." Her distinction is clever. Across the room at one of the "drawing-in frames" I see the figure of an unusally pretty girl with curly dark hair. She bends to her job in front of the frame she runs; it has the effect of tapestry, of that work with which women of another--oh, of _quite_ another class--amuse their leisure, with which they kill their time. "Drawing-in,"[8] although a sitting job, is considered to be a back-breaker. The girls are ambitious at this work; they make good wages. They sit close to their frames, bent over, for twelve hours out of the day. This girl whom I see across the floor of the Excelsior is an object to rest the eyes upon; she is a beauty. There is not much beauty of any kind or description in sight. Maggie has noticed her esthetic effect. "You-all seen that girl; she's suttenly prob'ly am _peart_." [Footnote 8: A good drawer-in makes $1.25 a day.] She is a new hand from a distance. This is her first day. What miserable chance has brought her here? If she stays the mill will claim her body and soul. The overseer has marked her out; he hovers in the part of the room where she works. She has colour and her difference to her pale companions is marked. Excelsior will not leave those roses unwithered. I can foretell the change as yellow unhealthfulness creeps upon her cheeks and the red forever goes. There are no red cheeks here, not one. She has chosen a sitting-down job thinking it easier. I saw her lean back, put her hands around her waist and rest, or try to, after she has bent four hours over her close task. I go over to her. "They say it's awful hard on the eyes, but they tell me, too, that I'll be a remarkable fine hand." I saw her apply for work, and saw, too, the man's face as he looked at her when she asked: "Got any work?" "We've got plenty of work for a good-looking woman like you," he said with significance, and took pains to place her within his sight. The yarn has come in, and I return to my part of the mill; Maggie flies to her spools and leaves me to seek my distant place far away from her. I set my work in order; whilst my back is turned some girl possesses herself of my hand-harness. Mine was a new one, and the one she leaves for me is broken. This delays, naturally, and the overseer, after proving to his satisfaction that I am hampered, gets me a new one and I set to work. Many of the older hands come without breakfast, and a little later tin pails or paper parcels appear. These operatives crouch down in a Turkish fashion at the machines' sides and take a hasty mouthful of their unwholesome, unpleasant-looking food, eating with their fingers more like animals than human beings. By eight the full steam power is on, to judge by the swift turning, the strong resistance of the spools. Not one of the women near me but is degrading to look upon and odourous to approach. These creatures, ill clad, with matted, frowsy hair and hands that look as though they had never, never been washed, smell like the byre. As for the children, I must pass them by in this recital. The tiny, tiny children! The girls are profane, contentious, foul-mouthed. There is much partisanship and cliqueism; you can tell it by the scowls and the low, insulting words as an enemy passes. To protect the hair from the flying pieces of cotton the more particular women, and oftentimes children as well, wear felt hats pulled down well over the eyes. The cotton, indeed, thistledown-like, flies without cessation through the air--spins off from the spools; it rises and floats, falling on the garments and in the hair, entering the nostrils and throat and lungs. I repeat, the expectoration, the coughing and the throat-cleaning is constant. Over there two girls have taken advantage of a wait for yarn to go to sleep on the floor; their heads are pillowed on each others' shoulders; they rest against a cotton bale. Maggie wanders over to me to see "how you-all is gettin' on." "Tired?" "Well, I reckon I am. Thank God we get out in a little while now." * * * * * One afternoon I went up to the loft to rest a few moments before going to the mill. Mrs. White was sitting on her bed, a slender figure in the blue-checked wrapper she always wore. Her head was close to the window, her silhouette in the light, pale and slender. "I wa'n't sick when I come hyar, but them mills! They's suttinly tew hyard on a woman! Weave-room killed me, I guess. I couldn't hyar at all when I come out and scarcely could stan' on ma feet when I got home. Tew tyred to eat, tew; and the water hyar is regularly pisen; hev you-all seen it? It's all colours. Doctor done come to see me; ain't helpin' me any; 'pears like he-all ain't goin' to come no mo'!" "If you have a husband, why don't you go to him and let him care for you?" She was silent, turning her wedding-ringless hand over and over on her lap: the flies came buzzing in around us, and in the near distance Excelsior buzzed, the loudest, most insistent creature on this part of the earth. "Seems like a woman ought to help a man--some," she murmured. Downstairs Mrs. Jones sums her up in a few words. "She-all suttinly ain't no _'Mrs'_ in the world! Calls herself _'White.'_" (The intonation is not to be mistaken.) "Pore thing's dyin'--knows it, tew! Come hyar to die, I reckon. She'll die right up thar in that baed, tew. Doctor don't come no mo'. Know she cayn't pay him nothin'. You-all come hyar to grandmaw, Letty!" The child around whom the threads of existence are weaving fabric more intricate than any woof or warp of the great mills goes confidingly to the old woman, who lifts her tenderly into her arms. With every word she speaks this aged creature draws her own picture. To these types no pen save Tolstoi's could do justice. Mine can do no more than display them by faithfully transcribing their simple dialect-speech. "I am sixty-four years old, an' played out. Worked too hyard. Worked every day since I was a child, and when I wasn't workin' had the fevar. Come from the hills las' month. When his wife dyde, the son he come an' fetched me cross the river to help him." How has she lived so long and so well, with life "so hyard on her"? "I loved my husban', yes, ma'am, I regularly loved him; reckon no woman didn't ever love a man mo', and he loved me, tew, jest ez much. Seems tho' God couldn't bayr to see us-all so happy--couldn't las'; he dyde." Mrs. Jones' figure is a case of bones covered with a brown substance--you could scarcely call it skin; a weather-beaten, tanned hide; nothing more. This human statue, ever responsive to the eternal moulding, year after year has been worked upon by the titan instrument, Labour: struggle, disease, want. But this hill woman has known love. It has transfigured her, illumined her. This poor deformed body is a torch only for an immortal flame. I know now why it seems good to be near her, why her eyes are inspired.... I rise to leave her and she comes forward to me, puts out her hand first, then puts both thin, old arms about me and kisses me. In speaking of the settlement, it borders on the humourous to use the word sanitation. In the mill district, as far as my observation reached, there is none. Refuse not too vile for the public eye is thrown into the middle of the streets in front of the houses. The general drainage is performed by emptying pans and basins and receptacles into the backyards, so that as one stands at the back steps of one's own door one breathes and respires the filth of half a dozen shanties. Decaying vegetables, rags, dirt of all kinds are the flowers of these people, the decorations of their miserable garden patches. To walk through Granton (which the prospectus tells us is well drained) is to evoke nausea; to _inhabit_ Granton is an ordeal which even necessity cannot rob of its severity. These settlers, habitants of dwellings built by finance solely for the purpose of renting, are celebrated for their immorals--"a rough, lying, bad lot." "Oh, the mill-hands!" ... Sufficient, expressive designation. Nevertheless, these people, simple, direct and innocent, display qualities that we have been taught are enviable--a lack of curiosity, for the most part, in the affairs of others, a warm Southern courtesy, a human kindliness. I found these people degraded because of their habits and not of their tendencies, which statement I can justify; whatever may be their natural instincts, born, nurtured in their unlovely environment, they have no choice but to fall into the usages of poverty and degradation. They have seen nothing with which to compare their existences; they have no time, no means to be clean, and no stimulus to be decent. A job at Granton was no more difficult to secure than was "spoolin'" at the other mill. I applied one Saturday noon, when Granton was silent and the operatives within their doors asleep, for the most part, leaving the village as deserted as it is on a workday. A like desolation pervades the atmosphere on holiday and day of toil. I was so lucky as to meet a shirt-sleeved overseer in the doorway. Preceding him were two ill-clad, pale children of nine and twelve, armed with a long, mop-like broom with which their task was to sweep the cotton from the floors--cotton that resettled eternally as soon as it was brushed away. The superintendent regarded me curiously, I thought penetratingly, and for the first time in my experience I feared detection. My dread was enhanced by the loneliness, the lawlessness of the place, the risk and boldness of my venture. By this I was most thoroughly a mill-girl in appearance, at least; my clothes were white with cotton, my hair far from tidy; fatigue and listlessness unassumed were in my attitude. I had not heard the Southern dialect for so long not to be able to fall into it with little effort. I told him I had been a "spooler" and did not like it--"wanted to spin." He listened silently, regarding me with interest and with what I trembled to fear was disbelief. I desperately pushed back my sunbonnet and in Southern drawl begged for work. "Spinnin'?" he asked. "What do you want to spin for?" He was a Yankee, his accent sharp and keen. How clean and decent and capable he appeared, the dark mill back of him; shantytown, vile, dirty, downtrodden, beside him! I told him that I was tired of spooling and knew I could make more by something else. He thrust his hands into his pockets. "To-night is Saturday; alone here?" "Yes." "Where you going to stay in Granton?" "I don't know yet." "Don't learn spinnin'," he said decidedly. "I am head of the _speedin'-room_. I'll give you a job in my room on Monday morning." My relief was immense. His subsequent questions I parried, thanked him, and withdrew to keep secret from Excelsior that I had deserted for Granton. Although these mills are within three hundred feet of each other, the villagers do not associate. The workings of Granton are unknown to Excelsior and vice versa. The speeding-room in Granton is second only in noise to the weave-room. Conversation must be entrancing and vital to be pursued here! The speeder has under her care as many machines as her skill can control. My teacher, Bessie, ran four sides, seventy-six speeders on a side, her work being regulated by a crank that marked the vibrations. To the lay mind the terms of the speeding-room can mean nothing. This girl made from $1.30 to $1.50 a day. She controlled in all 704 speeders; these she had to replenish and keep running, and to clean all the machinery gear with her own hands; to oil the steel, even to bend and clean under the lower shelf and come into contact with the most dangerous parts of the mechanism. The girl at the speeder next to me had just had her hand mashed to a jelly. The speeder watches her ropers run out; these stand at the top and back of the line. The ropers are refilled and their ends attached to the flying speeders by a quick motion. The yarn from the ropers is wound off on to the speeders. When the speeders are full of yarn they are detached from the nest of steel in which they whirl and are thrown into a hand-car which is pushed about the room by the girls themselves. Speeding is excessively dirty work and greasy; the oiling and cleaning is only fit for a man to do. The girl who teaches me has been at her work for ten years; she entered the factory at eight. She was tall, raw-boned, an expert, deft and capable, and, as far as I could judge in our acquaintance, thoroughly respectable. There are long waits in this department of the cotton-spinning life. On tall green stools we sit at the end of our sides during the time it takes for one well-filled roper to spin itself out; we talk, or rather contrive to make ourselves heard. She has a sweet, gentle face; she is courtesy and kindness itself. "What do you think about all day?" "Why, I couldn't even begin to tell all my thoughts." "Tell me some." "Why, I think about books, I reckon. Do you-all like readin'?" "Yes." "Ain't nuthin' I like so good when I ain't tyrd." "Are you often tired?" And this question surprises her. She looks up at me and smiles. "Why, I'm _always_ tyrd! I read novels for the most part; like to read love stories and about fo'ran travel." (For one short moment please consider: This hemmed-in life, this limited existence, encompassed on all sides by the warfare and battle and din of maddening sounds, vibrations around her during twelve hours of the day, vibrations which, mean that her food is being gained by each pulse of the engine and its ratio marked off by the disk at her side. Before her the scene is unchanged day after day, month after month, year after year. It is not an experience to this woman who works beside me so patiently; it is her life. The forms she sees are warped and scarred; the intellects with which she comes in contact are dulled and undeveloped. All they know is toil, all they know of gain is a fluctuation in a wage that ranges from cents to a dollar and cents again, never touching a two-dollar mark. The children who, barefooted, filthy, brush past her, sweeping the cotton from the infected floors, these are the only forms of childhood she has ever seen. The dirty women around her, low-browed, sensual, are the forms of womanhood that she knows; and the men? If she does not feed the passion of the overseer, she may find some mill-hand who will contract a "mill marriage" with this daughter of the loom, a marriage little binding to him and which will give her children to give in time to the mill. This is the realism of her love story: She reads books that you, too, may have read; she dares to dream of scenes, to picture them--scenes that you have sought and wearied of. A tithe of our satiety would mean her banquet, her salvation!... Her happiness? _That_ question who can answer for her or for you?) She continues: "I'm very fond of fo'ran travel, only I ain't never had much occasion for it." This pathos and humour keep me silent. A few ropers have run out; she rises. I rise, too, to replace, to attach, and set the exhausted line taut and complete again. Ten years! Ten years! All her girlhood and youth has been given to keeping ropers supplied with fresh yarn and speeders a-whirling. During this travail she has kept a serenity of expression, a depth of sweetness at which I marvel. Her voice is peculiarly soft and, coupled with the dialect drawl, is pleasant to hear. "I hate the mills!" she says simply. "What would you be if you could choose?" I venture to ask. She has no hesitation in answering. "I'd love to be a trained nurse." Then, turn about is fair play in her mind, I suppose, for she asks: "What would _you-all_ be?" And ashamed not to well repay her truthfulness I frankly respond: "I'd like to write a book." "I _dee_-clare." She stares at me. "Why, you-all _is_ ambitious. Did you ever write anything?" "A letter or two." She is interested and kindles, leaning forward. "I suttenly ain't so high in my ambitions," she says appreciatively. "Wish you'd write a love story for me to read," and she ponders over the idea, her eyes on my snowy flying speeders. "Look a-hyar, got any of your scrappin's on writin' hyar? Ef you don't mind anybody's messin' with your things, bring your scrappin's to me an' I'll soon tell you ef you can write a book er not," she whispered to me encouragingly, confidentially, a whisper reaching farther in the mills than a loud sound. I thanked her and said: "Do you think that you'd know?" "Well, I guess I would!" she said confidently. "I ain't read all my life sense I was eight years old not to know good writin' from bad. Can you-all sing?" "No." "Play sweet music?" "No." "I jest love it." She enthuses. "Every Saturday afternoon I take of a music teacher on the gee-tar. It costs me a quarter." I could see the scene: a shanty room, the tall, awkward figure bending over her instrument; the type that the teacher made, the ambition, the eagerness--all of which qualities we are so willing to deny to the slaves of toil. "They ain't much flowers here in Granton," she said again. "'Tain't no use to try to have even a few geraneums; it's so dry; ain't no yards nor gardens, nuther." Musing on this desolation as she walks up and down the line, she says: "I dew love flowers, don't you?" * * * * * Over and over again I am asked by those whose wish I suppose is to prove to themselves and their consciences that the working-girl is not so actively wretched, her outcry is not so audible that we are forced to respond: "The working people are happy? The factory girls are happy, are they not? Don't you find them so?" Is it a satisfaction to the leisure class, to the capitalist and employer, to feel that a woman poorly housed, ill-fed, in imminent moral danger, every temptation rampant over barriers down, overworked, overstrained by labour varying from ten to thirteen hours a day, by all-night labour, and destruction of body and soul, _is happy_? Do you _wish_ her to be so? Is the existence _ideal_? I can speak only for the shoe manufacturing girl of Lynn and for the Southern mill-hand. I thank Heaven that I can say truthfully, that of all who came under my observation, not one who was of age to reflect was happy. I repeat, the working-woman is brave and courageous, but the most sane and hopeful indication for the future of the factory girl and the mill-hand is that she rebels, dreams of something better, and will in the fullness of time stretch toward it. They have no time to think, even if they knew how. All that remains for them in the few miserable hours of relief from labour and confinement and noise is to seek what pastime they may find under their hand. We have never realized, they have never known, that their great need--given the work that is wrung from them and the degradation in which they are forced to live--is a craving for amusement and relaxation. Amusements for this class are not provided; they _can_ laugh, they rarely do. The thing that they seek--let me repeat: I cannot repeat it too often--in the minimum of time that remains to them, is distraction. They do not want to read; they do not want to study; they are too tired to concentrate. How can you expect it? I heard a manufacturer say: "We gave our mill-hands everything that we could to elevate them--a natatorium, a reading library--and these halls fell into disuse." I ask him now, through these pages, the questions which I did not put to him then as I listened in silence to his complaint. He said he thought too much was done for the mill-hands. What time would he suggest that they should spend in the reading-room, even if they have learned to read? They rise at four; at a quarter before six they are at work. The day in winter is not born when they start their tasks; the night has fallen long before they cease. In summer they are worked long into their evenings. They tell me that they are too tired to eat; that all they want to do is to turn their aching bones on to their miserable mattresses and sleep until they are cried and shrieked awake by the mill summons. Therefore they solve their own questions. Nothing is provided for them that they can use, and they turn to the only thing that is within their reach--animal enjoyment, human intercourse and companionship. They are animals, as are their betters, and with it, let us believe, more excuse. The mill marriage is a farce, and yet they choose to call their unions now and again a marriage. Many a woman has been a wife several times in the same town, in the same house. The bond-tying is a form, and, of course, mostly ignored. The settlements swarm with illegitimate children. Next to me work two young girls, both under seventeen, both ringless and with child. * * * * * Let me picture the Foster household, where I used to call Saturday evenings. Mrs. Foster herself, dirty, slipshod, a frowzy mass, hugs her fireside. Although the day is warm, she kindled a fire to stimulate the thin, poor blood exhausted by disease and fevers. Two flatirons lie in a dirty heap on the floor. As usual, the room is a nest of filth and untidiness. Mrs. Foster is half paralyzed, but her tongue is free. She talks fluently in her soft Southern drawl, more Negro than white as to speech and tone. Up to her sidles a dirty, pretty little boy of four. "This yere is too little to go to the mill, but he's wild to go; yes, ser, he is so. Las' night he come to me en say, 'Auntie, you-all wake me up at fo' 'clock sure; I got ter go ter the mill.'" Here the little blond child, whose mouth is set on a pewter spoon dripping over with hominy, grins appreciatively. He throws back his white and delicate little face, and his aunt, drawing him close to her, caresses him and continues: "Yes, ma'am, to-day he dun wake up after they-all had gone and he sayd, 'My goodness, I dun oversleep mase'f!' He sha'n't go to the mill," she frowned, "not ef we can help it. Why, I don't never let him outen my sight; 'fraid lest those awful mill children would git at him." Thus she sheltered him with what care she knew--care that unfortunately _could not go far enough back to protect him_! His mother came in at the noon hour, as we sat there rocking and chatting. She was a straight, slender creature, not without grace in her shirt-waist and her low-pulled felt hat that shadowed her sullen face. She was very young, not more than twenty-two, and her history indicative and tragic. With a word only and a nod she passes us; she has now too many vital things and incidents in her own career to be curious regarding a strange mill-hand. She goes with her comrade--and cousin--Mamie, into the kitchen to devour in as short a time as possible the noon dinner, served by the grandmother: cabbage and hominy. "They don't have time 'nough to eat," the aunt says; "no sooner then they-all come in and bolt their dinner then it is time to go back." Her child has followed her. Minnie was married at thirteen; in less than a year she was a grass widow. "My goodness, there's lots of grass widows!" my frowsled hostess nods. "Why, in one weave-room hyar there ain't a gyrl but what's left by her husband. One day a new gyrl come for to run a loom and they yells out at her, 'Is you-all a grass widow? Yer can't come in hyar ef you ain't.'" But it was after her grass widowhood that Minnie's tragedy began. The mill was her ruin. So much grace and good looks could not go, cannot go, _does not_ go unchallenged by the attentions of the men who are put there to run these women's work. The overseer was father of her child, and when she tried to force from him recognition and aid he threw over his position and left Columbia and this behind him. This, one instance under my own eyes observed. There are many. "Mamie works all night" (she spoke of the other girl)--"makes more money. My, but she hates the mills! Says she ain't ever known a restful minute sence she left the hills." My hostess has drawn the same conclusion from my Northern appearance that the Joneses drew. "You-all must eat good where you come from! you look so healthy.' Do you-all know the Banks girl over to Calcutta?" "No." "They give her nine months." (Calcutta is the roughest settlement round here.) "Why, that gyrl wars her hair cut short, and she shoots and cuts like a man. She drew her knife on a man last week--cut his face all up and into his side through his lung. Tried to pass as she was his wife, but when they had her up, ma'am, they proved she had been three men's wives and he four gyrl's husbands. He liked to died of the cut. They've given her nine months, but he ain't the only man that bears her marks. Over to Calcutta it's the knife and the gun at a wink. This yere was an awful pretty gyrl. My Min seed her peekin' out from behind the loom in the weave-room, thought she was a boy, and said: 'Who's that yere pretty boy peekin' at me?' And that gyrl told Min that she couldn't help knife the men, they all worried on her so! 'Won't never leave me alone; I jest have to draw on 'em; there ain't no other way.'"... For the annals of morality and decency do not take up this faithful account and picture the cotton-mill village. You will not find it in these scenes drawn from the life as it is at this hour, as it is portrayed by the words that the very people themselves will pour into your ears. Under the walls of Calcutta Negroes are engaged in laying prospective flower beds, so that the thirteen-hour workers may look out from time to time and see the forms of flowers. On the other side rise some twenty shanties. These houses of Calcutta village are very small, built from the roughest unpainted boards. Here it is, in this little settlement, that the knife comes flashing out at a word--that the women shoot as well as men, and perhaps more quickly. * * * * * "Richmond aint so bad as the other!" I can hear Mrs. Foster drawl out this recommendation to us. "They ain't so much chills here. We dun move up from town first; had to--too high rents for we-all; now we dun stay hyar. Why, some of the gyrls and boys works to Granton and bo'ds hyar; seems like it's mo' healthy." Moving, ambulant population! tramping from hill to hill, from sand-heap to sand-heap to escape the slow or quick death, to prolong the toiling, bitter existence--pilgrims of eternal hope; born in the belief, in the sane and wholesome creed that, no matter what the horror is, no matter what the burden's weight must be, _one must live_! It takes a great deal to wake in these inexpressive, indifferent faces illumination of interest. At what should they rejoice? I have made the destitution of beauty clear. I believe there is an absolute lack of every form or sight that might inspire or cause a soul to awake. There is nothing to lift these people from the earth and from labour. There should be a complete readjustment of this system. I have been interested in reading in the New York _Sun_ of April 20th of the visit of the bishops to the model factories in Ohio. I am constrained to wish that bishops and clergy and philanthropists and millionaires and capitalists might visit in bodies and separately the mills of South Carolina and their tenement population. It is difficult to know just what the ideas are of the people who have constructed these dwellings. They tell us in this same prospectus, which I have read with interest after my personal experience, that these villages are "_picturesque_." This is the only reference I find to the people and their conditions. I have seen nothing but horror, and yet I went into these places without prejudice, prepared to be interested in the industry of the Southern country, and with no idea of the tragedy and nudity of these people's existence. The ultimate balance is sure to come; meanwhile, we cannot but be sensible of the vast individual sacrifices that must fall to destruction before the scales swing even. * * * * * THE CHILD IN SOUTHERN MILLS * * * * * CHAPTER IX THE CHILD IN THE SOUTHERN MILLS In the week before I left for the South I dined in ---- with a very charming woman and her husband. Before a table exquisite in its appointments, laden with the best the market could offer and good taste display, sat the mistress, a graceful, intelligent young woman, full of philanthropic, charitable interests, and one whom I know to be devoted to the care and benefiting of little children in her city. During the meal I said to her casually: "Do you know that in your mills in South Carolina to-night, as we sit here, little children are working at the looms and frames--little children, some of them not more than six years old?" She said, in astonishment, "I don't know it; and I can't believe it." I told her I should soon see just how true the reports were, and when I returned to New York I would tell her the facts. She is not alone in her ignorance. Not one person, man or woman, to whom I told the facts of the cases I observed "_dreamed that children worked in any mills in the United States_!" After my experience amongst the working class, I am safe in saying that I consider their grievances to be the outcome of the ignorance and greed of the manufacturer abetted, aided and made possible by the ignorance and poverty of the labourer. There is nothing more conscience-silencing than to accuse the writers of the different articles on child-labour of sentimentality. The comfort in which we live makes it easy to eliminate thoughts that torture us to action in the cause of others. I will be delighted to meet an accusation of sentimentality and exaggeration by any man or woman who has gone to a Southern mill as an operative and worked side by side with the children, lived with them in their homes. It is defamation to use the word "home" in connection with the unwholesome shanty in the pest-ridden district where the remnant of the children's lives not lived in the mill is passed. This handful of unpainted huts, raised on stilts from the soil, fever-ridden and malarious; this blank, ugly line of sun-blistered shanties, along a road, yellow-sand deep, is a mill village. The word _village_ has a cheerful sound. It summons a country scene, with the charms of home, however simple and unpretentious. There is nothing to charm or please in the villages I have already, in these pages, drawn for you to see and which with veritable sick reluctance I summon again before your eyes. Every house is like unto its neighbour--a shelter put up rapidly and filled to the best advantage. There is not a garden within miles, not a flower, scarcely a tree. Arid, desolate, beautyless, the pale sand of the State of South Carolina nurtures as best it can a stray tree or shrub--no more. At the foot of the shanties' black line rises the cotton mill. New, enormous, sanitary (!!). Its capital runs into millions; its prospectuses are pompous; its pay-roll mysterious. You will not be able to say how many of the fifteen hundred odd hands at work in this mill are adults, how many children. In the State of South Carolina there are statistics of neither births, marriages nor deaths. What can you expect of a mill village! At 5:45 we have breakfasted--the twelve of us who live in one small shanty, where we have slept, all five of us in one room, men to the right of the kitchen, women and children on the left. To leave the pestilence of foul air, the stench of that dwelling, is blessed, even if the stroke that summons is the mill whistle. As we troop to work in the dawn, we leave behind us the desert-like town; all day it drowses, haunted by a few figures of old age and infirmity--but the mill is alive! We have given up, in order to satisfy its appetite, all manner of flesh and blood, and the gentlest morsel between its merciless jaws is the little child. So long as I am part of its food and triumph I will study the mill. Leaving the line of flashing, whirling spools, I lean against the green box full of cotton refuse and regard the giant room. It is a wonderful sight. The mill itself, a model of careful, well-considered building, has every facility for the best and most advantageous manufacture of textiles. The fine frames of the intricate "warping," the well-placed frames of the "drawing-in" all along the window sides of the rooms; then lines upon lines of spool frames. Great piles of stuff lie here and there in the room. It is early--"all the yarn ain't come yet." Two children whose work has not been apportioned lie asleep against a cotton bale. The terrible noise, the grinding, whirling, pounding, the gigantic burr renders other senses keen. By my side works a little girl of eight. Her brutal face, already bespeaking knowledge of things childhood should ignore, is surrounded by a forest of yellow hair. She goes doggedly at her spools, grasping them sullenly. She walks well on her bare, filthy feet. Her hands and arms are no longer flesh colour, but resemble weather-roughened hide, ingrained with dirt. Around the tangle of her hair cotton threads and bits of lint make a sort of aureole. (Her nimbus of labour, if you will!) There is nothing saint-like in that face, nor in the loose-lipped mouth, whence exudes a black stain of snuff as between her lips she turns the root she chews. "She's a mean girl," my little companion says; "we-all don't hev nothin' to say to her." "Why?" "Her maw hunts her to the mill; she don't want to go--no, sir--so she's mad most the time." Thus she sets her dogged resistance in scowling black looks, in quick, frantic gestures and motions against the machinery that claims her impotent childhood. The nimbus around her furze of hair remains; there are other heads than saints--there are martyrs! Let the child wear her crown. Through the looms I catch sight of Upton's, my landlord's, little child. She is seven; so small that they have a box for her to stand upon. She is a pretty, frail, little thing, a spooler--"a good spooler, tew!" Through the frames on the other side I can only see her fingers as they clutch at the flying spools; her head is not high enough, even with the box, to be visible. Her hands are fairy hands, fine-boned, well-made, only they are so thin and dirty, and her nails--claws; she would do well to have them cut. A nail can be torn from the finger, _is_ torn from the finger frequently,[9] by this flying spool. I go over to Upton's little girl. Her spindles are not thinner nor her spools whiter. [Footnote 9: In Huntsville, Alabama, a child of eight lost her index and middle fingers of the right hand in January, 1902. One doctor told me that he had amputated the fingers of more than a hundred babies. A merchant told me he had _frequently_ seen children whose hands had been cut off by the machinery.--_American Federationist_.] "How old are you?" "Ten." She looks six. It is impossible to know if what she says is true. The children are commanded both by parents and bosses to advance their ages when asked. "Tired?" She nods, without stopping. She is a "remarkable fine hand." She makes forty cents a day. See the value of this labour to the manufacturer--cheap, yet skilled; to the parent it represents $2.40 per week. I must not think that as I work beside them I will gain their confidence! They have no time to talk. Indeed, conversation is not well looked upon by the bosses, and I soon see that unless I want to entail a sharp reproof for myself and them I must stick to my "side." And at noon I have no heart to take their leisure. At twelve o'clock, Minnie, a little spooler, scarcely higher than her spools, lifts her hands above her head and exclaims: _"Thank God, there's the whistle!"_ I watched them disperse: some run like mad, always bareheaded, to fetch the dinner-pail for mother or father who work in the mill and who choose to spend these little legs and spare their own. It takes ten minutes to go, ten to return, and the little labourer has ten to devote to its own food, which, half the time, he is too exhausted to eat. I watch the children crouch on the floor by the frames; some fall asleep between the mouthfuls of food, and so lie asleep with food in their mouths until the overseer rouses them to their tasks again. Here and there totters a little child just learning to walk; it runs and crawls the length of the mill. Mothers who have no one with whom to leave their babies bring them to the workshop, and their lives begin, continue and end in the horrible pandemonium. One little boy passes by with his broom; he is whistling. I look up at the cheery sound that pierces fresh but faint and natural above the machines' noise. His eyes are bright; his good spirits surprise me: here is an argument for my comfortable friends who wish to prove that the children "are happy!" I stop him. "You seem very jolly!" He grins. "How long have you been working?" "Two or three days." The gay creature has just _begun_ his servitude and brings into the dreary monotony a flash of the spirit which should fill childhood. I think it will be granted that it takes a great deal to discourage and dishearten a child. The hopefulness of the mill communities lies in just those elements that overwork in the adult and that child labour will ultimately destroy. When hope is gone in the adult he must wreak some vengeance on the bitter fate that has robbed him. There is no more tragic thing than the hopeless child. The adult who grows hopeless can affiliate with the malcontents and find in the insanity of anarchy what he calls revenge. It seems folly to insult the common sense of the public by asking them whether they think that thirteen hours a day, with a half to three-quarters of an hour for recreation at noon, or the same amount of night-work in a mill whose atmosphere is vile with odours, humid with unhealthfulness, filled with the particles of flying cotton, a pandemonium of noise and deafening roar, so deafening that the loss of hearing is frequent and the keenness of hearing always dulled ... whether the atmosphere combined with the association of men and women whose morals or lack of morals is notorious all over the world, is good for a growing child? Is it conducive to progressive development, to the making of decent manhood or womanhood? What kind of citizen can this child--if he is fit enough in the economic struggle of the world to survive--turn out to be? Not citizens at all: creatures scarcely fit to be called human beings. I asked the little girl who teaches me to spool who the man is whom I have seen riding around on horseback through the town. "Why, he goes roun' rousin' up the hands who ain't in their places. Sometimes he takes the children outen thayre bades an' brings 'em back to the mill." And if the child can stand, it spins and spools until it drops, till constitution rebels, and death, the only friend it has ever known, sets it free. Besides being spinners and spoolers, and occasionally weavers even, the children sweep the cotton-strewed floors. Scarcely has the miserable little object, ragged and odourous, passed me with his long broom, which he drags half-heartedly along, than the space he has swept up is cotton-strewn again. It settles with discouraging rapidity; it has also settled on the child's hair and clothes, and his eyelashes, and this atmosphere he breathes and fairly eats, until his lungs become diseased. Pneumonia--fatal in nearly all cases here--and lung fever had been a pestilence, "a regular plague," before I came. There were four cases in the village where I, lived, and fever and ague, malaria and grippe did their parts. "Why, thar ain't never a haouse but's got somebody sick," my little teacher informed me in her soft Southern dialect. "I suttinly never did see a place like this for dyin' in winter time. I reckon et's funerals every day." Here is a little child, not more than seven years old. The land is a hot enough country, we will concede, but not a savage South Sea Island! She has on one garment, if a tattered sacking dress can so be termed. Her bones are nearly through her skin, but her stomach is an unhealthy pouch, abnormal. _She has dropsy._ She works in _a new mill_--in one of the largest mills in South Carolina. Here is a slender little boy--a birch rod (good old simile) is not more slender, but the birch has the advantage: it is elastic--it bends, has youth in it. This boy looks ninety. He is a dwarf; twelve years old, he appears seven, no more. He sweeps the cotton off the floor of "the baby mill." (How tenderly and proudly the owners speak of their brick and mortar.) He sweeps the cotton and lint from the mill aisles from 6 P.M. to 6 A.M. without a break in the night's routine. He stops of his own accord, however, to cough and expectorate--he has advanced tuberculosis. At night the shanties receive us. On a pine board is spread our food--can you call it nourishment? The hominy and molasses is the best part; salt pork and ham are the strong victuals. It is eight o'clock when the children reach their homes--later if the mill work is behindhand and they are kept over hours. They are usually beyond speech. They fall asleep at the table, on the stairs; they are carried to bed and there laid down as they are, unwashed, undressed; and the inanimate bundles of rags so lie until the mill summons them with its imperious cry before sunrise, while they are still in stupid sleep: "What do you do on Sundays?" I asked one little girl. "Why, thare ain't nothing much to dew. I go to the park sometimes." This park is at the end of a trolley line; it is their Arcadia. Picture it! A few yellow sand hills with clusters of pine trees and some scrubby undergrowth; a more desolate, arid, gloomy pleasure ground cannot be conceived. On Sundays the trolleys bring those who are not too tired to so spend the day. On Sundays the mill shanties are full of sleepers. The park has a limited number of devotees. Through the beautyless paths and walks the figures pass like shadows. There come three mill girls arm in arm; their curl papers, screwed tight all the week, are out on Sunday, in greasy, abundant curls. Sunday clothes are displayed in all their superbness. Three or four young men, town fellows, follow them; they are all strangers, but they will go home arm in arm. Several little children, who have no clothes but those, they wear, cling close to the side of a gaunt, pale-faced man, who carries in his arms the youngest. The little girl has become a weight to be carried on Sundays; she has worked six days of the week--shall she not rest on the seventh? She shall; she claims this, and lies inert on the man's arm, her face already seared with the scars of toil. I ran such risk taking pictures that I relinquished the task, and it was only the last day at the mill, while still in my working clothes with a camera concealed in my pocket, that I contrived to get a picture or two. I ventured to ask two little boys who swept the mill to stand for their pictures. "I don't kyar to," the older one said. I explained that it would not hurt them, as I thought he was afraid; but his little companion vouchsafed: "We-all ain't got no nickel." When they understood it was a free picture they were as delighted as possible and posed with alacrity, making touching apologies for their greasy, dirty condition. When I asked one of them if he was ever clean, he said: "On Sunday I wash my hands." It was noon, on the day I chose to leave ----, turning my back on the mill that had allured me to its doors and labour. In South Carolina early April is torrid, flies and mosquitoes are rampant. What must this settlement be in midsummer heat? There is no colour in the Southern scene; the clothes of the mill-hands, the houses, the soil are of one tone--and, more strange, there is not one line of red, one dash of life, in the faces of the hundreds of women and children that pass me on their way back to work. Under the existing circumstances they have no outlook, these people, no hope; their appearance expresses accurately the changeless routine of an existence devoted to eternal ignorance, eternal toil. From their short half-hour of mid-noon rest, the whistle, piercing, inanimate call, has dared to command the slavish obedience of animate and intelligent beings. I pause by the trestle over which rumble the cars, heavily laden with the cotton cloth whose perfection has made this Southern mill justly famous. The file of humanity that passes me I shall never forget! The Blank Mill claims 1,500 of these labourers; at least 200 are children. The little things run and keep step with the older men and women; their shaggy, frowzled heads are bent, their hands protrude pitifully from their sleeves; they are barefooted, bareheaded. With these little figures the elements wanton; they can never know the fullness of summer or the proper maturity of autumn. Suns have burned them, rains have fallen upon them, as unprotected through storms they go to their work. The winter winds have penetrated the tatters with blades like knives; gray and dusty and earth-coloured the line passes. These are children? No, they are wraiths of childhood--they are effigies of youth! What can Hope work in this down-trodden soil for any future harvest? They can curse and swear; they chew tobacco and take snuff. When they speak at all their voices are feeble; ears long dulled by the thunder of the mill are no longer keen to sound; their speech is low and scarcely audible. Over sallow cheeks where the skin is tightly drawn their eyes regard you suspiciously, malignantly even, never with the frank look of childhood. As the long afternoon goes by in its hours of leisure for us fatigue settles like a blight over their features, their expressions darken to elfish strangeness, whilst sullen lines, never to be eradicated, mark the distinctive visages of these children of labour. At certain seasons of the year they actually die off like flies. They fall subject, not to children's diseases exactly--nothing really natural seems to come into the course of these little existences--they fall a prey to the maladies that are the outcomes of their conditions. They are always half-clad in the winter time; their clothes differ nothing at all from their summer clothes; they have no overcoats or coats; many of them go barefoot all winter long. They come out from the hot mills into cold, raw winds and fall an easy prey to pneumonia, scourge of the mill-town. Their general health is bad all the year round; their skins and complexions have taken the tone of the sandy soil of the Southern country in which they are bred and in which their martyrdom is accomplished. I never saw a rosy cheek nor a clear skin: these are the parchment editions of childhood on which Tragedy is written indelibly. You can there read the eternal condemnation of those who have employed them for the sake of gain. It is a melancholy satisfaction to believe that mill labour will kill off little spinners and spoolers. Unfortunately, this is not entirely true. There are constitutions that survive all the horrors of existence. I have worked both in Massachusetts and the South beside women who entered the mill service at eight years of age. One of these was still in her girlhood when I knew her. She was very strong, very good and still had some illusions left. I do not know what it goes to prove, when I say that at twenty, in spite of twelve years of labour, she still dreamed, still hoped, still longed and prayed _for something that was not a mill_. If this means content in servitude, if this means that the poor white trash are born slaves, or if, on the contrary, it means that there is something inherent in a woman that will carry her past suicide and past idiocy and degradation, all of which is around her, I think it argues well for the working women. The other woman was forty. She had no illusions left--please remember she had worked since eight; she had reached, if you like, the idiot stage. She had nothing to offer during all the time I knew her but a few sentences directly in connection with her toil. It is useless to advance the plea that spooling is not difficult. No child (we will cancel under twelve!) should work at all. No human creature should work thirteen hours a day. No baby of six, seven or eight should be seen in the mills. It is also useless to say that these children tell you that they "like the mill." They are beaten by their parents if they do not tell you this, and, granted that they do not like their servitude, when was it thought expedient that a child should direct its existence? If they do not pass the early years of their lives in study, when should they learn? At what period of their lives should the children of the Southern mill-hand be educated? Long before they reach their teens their habits are formed--ignorance is ingrained; indeed, after a few years they are so vitally reduced that if you will you cannot teach them. Are these little American children, then, to have no books but labour? No recreation? To be crushed out of life to satisfy the ignorance and greed of their parents, the greed of the manufacturers? Whatever else we are, we are financiers _per se_. The fact that to-day, as for years past, Southern cotton mills are employing the labour of children under tender age--employing an army of them to the number of twenty thousand under twelve--can only be explained by a frank admittal that infantile labour has been considered advantageous to the cause of gain. This gain, apparent by the facts that a mill can be run for thousands of dollars less in the South than a like mill can be run in the North, and its net surplus profits be the same as those of the Northern manufactory, is one by which one generation alone will profit. The attractiveness of the figures is fallacious. What I imply is self-evident. The infant population (its numbers give it a right to this dignity of term) whose cheap toil feeds the mills is doomed. I mean to say that the rank and file of humanity are daily weeded out; that thousands of possibly strong, healthy, mature labouring men and women are being disease-stricken, hounded out of life; the cotton mill child cannot develop to the strong normal adult working-man and woman. The fiber exhausted in the young body cannot be recreated. Early death carries hundreds out of life, disease rots the remainder, and the dulled maturity attained by a creature whose life has been passed in this labour is not fit to propagate the species. The excessively low wages paid these little mill-hands keep under, of necessity, the wage paid the grown labourer. It is a crying pity that children are equal to the task imposed upon them. It is a crying pity that machines (since they have appeared, with their extended, all-absorbing power) should not do all! Particularly in the Southern States do they evince, at a fatal point, their limit, display their inadequacy. When babies can be employed successfully for thirteen hours out of the twenty-four at all machines with men and women; when infants feeds mechanism with labour that has not one elevating, humanizing effect upon them physically or mentally, it places human intelligence below par and cheapens and distorts the nobler forms of toil. Not only is it "no disgrace to work," but on the contrary it is a splendid thing to be able to labour, and those who gain their bread by the sweat of their brow are not the servants of mankind in the sense of the term, but the patriarchs and controllers of the world's march and the most subtle signs of the times. But there are distinctly fitnesses of labour, and the proper presentation to the working-man and woman and child is a consideration. No one to-day would be likely for an instant to concede that to replace the treadmill horse with a child (a thing often seen and practised in times past) would be an advantage. And yet the march of the child up and down before its spooling frame is more suggestive of an animal--of the dog hitched to the Belgian milk cart; of the horse on the mill-tread--than another analogy. Contrast this pallid automaton with the children of the poor in a New York kindergarten, where the six-or seven-year-old child of the German, the Hungarian, the Polish emigrant, may have its imagination stimulated, its creative and individual faculties employed as it is taught to _make things_--construct, combine, weave, sew, mould. Every power latent is cajoled to expression, every talent encouraged. Thus work in its first form is rendered attractive, and youth and individuality are encouraged. In the South of this American country whose signet is individualism, whose strength (despite our motto, "United we stand") is in the individual freedom and vast play of original thought, here in the South our purest born, the most unmixed blood of us, is being converted into machines of labour when the forms of little children are bound in youth to the spindle and loom. In a certain mill in Alabama there are seventy-five child-labourers who work twelve hours out of the twenty-four; they have a half-hour at noon for luncheon. There is a night school in connection with this mill corporation. Fancy it, a night school for the day-long child labourer! Fifty out of seventy-five troop to it. Although they are so tired they cannot keep awake on the benches, and the littlest of them falls asleep over its letters, although they weep with fatigue, they are eager to learn! Is there a more conclusive testimony to the quality of the material that is being lost to the States and the country by the martyrdom of intelligent children? One hears two points of view expressed on this subject. The capitalist advances that the greed of the parents forces the children into the mills; the people themselves tell you that unless they are willing to let their available children work, their own lives are made impossible by the overseers. A widow who has children stands a fair chance of having her rent free; if she refuses this tithe of flesh and blood she is too often thrust into the street. So I am told. Now, which of these facts is the truth? It seems to be clearly too much left to the decision of private enterprise or parental incapability. The Legislature is the only school in which to decide the question. During my stay in South Carolina I never heard one woman advocate the mills for children. One mother, holding to her breast her illegitimate child, her face dark with dislike, said: "_Them mills!_ I would not let _my_ little boy work in 'em! No, sir! He would go over my dead body." Another woman said: "_My_ little girl work? No, ma'am; she goes to school!" and the child came in even as she spoke--let me say the only cheerful specimen of childhood, with the exception of the few little creatures in the kindergarten, that I saw in the mill district. South Carolina has become very haughty on this topic and has reached a point when she tells us she is to cure the sore in her own body without aid or interference. At a late session of the Legislature the bill for the restriction of child labour--we must call it this, since it legislates only for the child under ten--this bill was defeated by only two dissenting voices. A humane gentleman who laid claim to one of these voices was heard to ejaculate as the bill failed to pass: "Thank God!" Just why, it is not easy to understand. When I was so arrogant as to say to the editor of _The State_, the leading paper in South Carolina, that I hoped my article might aid the cause, I made an error clearly, for he replied: "We need no aid. The people of South Carolina are aroused to the horror and will cure it themselves." Georgia is not roused to the horror; Alabama is stirring actively; but the Northerners who own these mills--the capitalists, the manufacturers, the men who are building up a reputation for the wealth of South Carolina and Alabama mills, are the least aroused of all. We must believe that many directors of these mills are ignorant of the state of affairs, and that those who are enlightened willingly blind their eyes. The mill prospectuses are humourous when read by the investigator. We are told "labour-unions cut no figure here!" Go at night through the mills with the head of the Labour Federation and with the instigator of the first strikes in this district--with men who are the brain and fiber of the labour organization, and see the friendly looks flash forth, see the understanding with which they are greeted all through certain mills. Consider that not 200 miles away at the moment are 22,000 labourers on strike. Then greet these statements with a smile! * * * * * On my return to the North I made an especial effort to see my New England friend. We lunched together this time, and at the end of the meal her three little children fluttered in to say a friendly word. I looked at them, jealous for their little defrauded fellows, whose twelve-hour daily labour served to purchase these exquisite clothes and to heap with dainties the table before us. But I was nevertheless rejoiced to see once again the forms of real childhood for whom air and freedom and wealth were doing blessed tasks. When we were alone I drew for my friend as well as I could pictures of what I had seen. She leaned forward, took a brandied cherry from the dish in front of her, ate it delicately and dipped her fingers in the finger-bowl; then she said: "Dear friend, I am going to surprise you very much." I waited, and felt that it would be difficult to surprise me with a tale of a Southern mill. "Those little children--_love the mill!_ They _like_ to work. It's a great deal better for them to be employed than for them to run the streets!" She smiled over her argument, and I waited. "Do you know," she continued, "that I believe they are really very happy." She had well presented her argument. She had said she would surprise me--and she did. "You will not feel it a breach of affection and hospitality if I print what you say?" I asked her. "It's only fair that the capitalist's view should be given here and there first hand. You own one-half the mill in ----, Carolina?" "Yes." "What do you think of a model mill with only nine hours a day labour, holidays and all nights free, schools, where education is enforced by the State; reading-rooms open as well as churches--amusement halls, music, recreation and pleasure, as well as education and religion?" "I think," she said keenly, "that united, concentrated action on the part of the cotton mill owners might make such a thing feasible; for us to try it alone would mean ruin." "Not ruin," I amended; "a reduction of income." "Ruin," she said, firing. "We couldn't compete. To compete," she said with the conviction of an intelligent, well-informed manufacturer, "I must have my sixty-six hours a week!" The spirit of discontent is always abroad when false conditions exist. Its restless presence is controlled by one spirit alone--humanity--when reasonably are weighed and justly decided the questions of balance between Capital and Labour. We must believe that there is no unsolvable problem before us in considering the presence of the child in the Southern mills. There is nothing in the essence of the subject to discourage the social economist. The question should not be left to the decision of the private citizen. This stuff is worth saving. There is the making in these children of first-class citizens. I quote from the illustrated supplement of the South Carolina _State_ that you may see what the mill manufacturers think of the quality of the "poor white trash": "The operatives in the South Carolina mills are the common people--the bone and sinew who have left the fields to the Negroes. They are industrious, intelligent, frugal, and have the native instincts of honesty and integrity and of fidelity which are essential to good citizenship." If such things are true of the mill-hands of South Carolina, it is worth while to save their children. * * * * * Henceforth, to my vision across the face of the modern history of labour and manufacture will eternally defile the gray, colourless column of the Southern mill-hands: an earth-hued line of humanity--a stream that divides not. Here there are no stragglers. At noon and night the pace is quick, eager. Steady as a prison gang, it goes to food, rest and freedom. But this alacrity is absent in the morning. On the hem of night, the fringe of day, the march is slow and lifeless. Many of the heads are bent and downcast; some of the faces peer forward, and sallow masks of human countenances lift, with a look set beyond the mill--toward who can say what vain horizon! The Stream wanders slowly toward the Houses of Labour, although whipped by invisible scourge of Need. Without this incentive and spur, think you it would pursue a direction toward _thirteen hours of toil_, shut from air and sunlight and day, taking in its rank the women, the young girl and the little child? The tone of the garments is somber and gray, blending with the gray of the dawn; or red, blending with the earth stains of the peculiar Southern soil; or claylike and pale yellow. Many of the faces are pallid, some are tense, most of them are indifferent, dulled by toil and yet not all unintelligent. Those who are familiar with the healthy type of the decent workmen of the West and East must draw their distinctions as they consider this peculiar, unfamiliar class. The Southern mill-hand's face is unique--a fearful type, whose perusal is not pleasant or cheerful to the character-reader, to the lover of humanity or to the prophet of the future. Thus they defile: men with felt hats drawn over their brows; women, sunbonneted or hatless; children barefoot, bareheaded, ragged, unwashed. Unwashed these labourers have gone to bed; unwashed they have arisen. To their garments cling the bits of cotton, the threads of cotton, the strands of roping, badges of their trade, brand of their especial toil. As they pass over the red clay, over the pale yellow sand, the earth seems to claim them as part of her unchanging phase; cursed by the mandate primeval--"by the sweat of thy brow"--Earth-Born! In the early morning the giant mill swallows its victims, engorges itself with entering humanity; then it grows active, stirring its ponderous might to life, movement and sound. Hear it roar, shudder, shattering the stillness for half a mile! It is full now of flesh and blood, of human life and brain and fiber: it is content! Triumphantly during the long, long hours it devours the tithe of body and soul. Behind lies the deserted, accursed village, destitute of life during the hours of day, condemned to the care of a few women, the old, the bedridden and the sick--of which last there are plenty. Mighty Mills--pride of the architect and the commercial magnate; charnel houses, devastators, destructors of homes and all that mankind calls hallowed; breeders of strife, of strike, of immorality, of sedition and riot--buildings tremendous--you give your immutable faces, myriads-windowed, to the dust-heaps, to the wind-swept plains of sand. When South Carolina shall have taken from you (as its honour and wisdom and citizenship is bound to do) the youngest of the children, do you think that you shall inevitably continue to devour what remains? There is too much resistance yet left in the mass of human beings. Youth will then rebel at a servitude beginning _at ten years of age_: and the women will lift their arms above their heads one day in desperate gesture of appeal and cry out--not for the millionaire's surplus; not a tirade anarchistic against capital.... What is this woman of the hills and woman of the mills that she should so demand? She will call for hours short enough to permit her to bear her children; for requital commensurate with the exigence of progressive civilization; for wages equal to her faithful toil. This is not too fantastic a demand or too ideal a state to be divinely hoped for, believed in and brought to pass.[10] [Footnote 10: Of the 21,000,000 spindles in the United States, the South has 6,000,000. $35,381,000 of Carolina's wealth is in cotton mills. NOTE. I have seen, in Aragon, Georgia, hope for the future of the mill-hands. The Aragon Cotton Mills are an improvement on the South Carolina Mills and are under the direct supervision of an owner whose sole God is not gain. Mr. Walcott is an agitator of the nine-hours-a-day movement; he is opposed to Child Labour, and in all his relations with his hands he is humane and kindly. I look to the time when Aragon shall set a perfect pattern of what a mill-town should be. It is already quite the best I have seen. Its healthfulness is far above the average, and its situation most fortunate.] * * * * * Not inapt here is the pagan idea of _Nous_, moving upon chaos, stirring the stagnant, unresponsive forces into motion; agitating these forces into action; the individual elements separate and go forth, each one on its definitely inspired mission. Some inevitable hour shall see the universal agitation of the vast body known as the "labouring class." For the welfare of the whole world, may it not come whilst they are so ignorant and so down-pressed. 
20071	----	SUE A LITTLE HEROINE by L. T. MEADE Author of "A Girl from America," "The Princess of the Revels," "Polly, a New-Fashioned Girl," "A Sweet Girl Graduate," etc. New York The New York Book Company 1910 BIOGRAPHY AND BIBLIOGRAPHY L. T. Meade (Mrs. Elizabeth Thomasina Smith), English novelist, was born at Bandon, County Cork, Ireland, 1854, the daughter of Rev. R. T. Meade, Rector of Novohal, County Cork, and married Toulmin Smith in 1879. She wrote her first book, _Lettie's Last Home_, at the age of seventeen and since then has been an unusually prolific writer, her stories attaining wide popularity on both sides of the Atlantic. She worked in the British Museum, living in Bishopsgate Without, making special studies of East London life which she incorporated in her stories. She edited _Atlanta_ for six years. Her pictures of girls, especially in the influence they exert on their elders, are drawn with intuitive fidelity; pathos, love, and humor, as in _Daddy's Girl_, flowing easily from her pen. She has traveled extensively, being devoted to motoring and other outdoor sports. Among more than fifty novels she has written, dealing largely with questions of home life, are: _David's Little Lad_; _Great St. Benedict's_; _A Knight of To-day_ (1877); _Miss Toosey's Mission_; _Bel-Marjory_ (1878); _Laddie; Outcast Robbin, or, Your Brother and Mine_; _A Cry from the Great City_; _White Lillie and Other Tales_; _Scamp and I_; _The Floating Light of Ringfinnan_; _Dot and Her Treasures_; _The Children's Kingdom: the Story of Great Endeavor_; _The Water Gipsies_; _A Dweller in Tents_; _Andrew Harvey's Wife_; _Mou-setse: A Negro Hero_ (1880); _Mother Herring's Chickens_ (1881); _A London Baby: the Story of King Roy_ (1883); _Hermie's Rose-Buds and Other Stories_; _How it all Came Round_; _Two Sisters_ (1884); _Autocrat of the Nursery_; _Tip Cat_; _Scarlet Anemones_; _The Band of Three_; _A Little Silver Trumpet_; _Our Little Ann_; _The Angel of Love_ (1885); _A World of Girls_ (1886); _Beforehand_; _Daddy's Boy_; _The O'Donnells of Inchfawn_; _The Palace Beautiful_; _Sweet Nancy_ (1887); _Deb and the Duchess_ (1888); _Nobody's Neighbors_; _Pen_ (1888); _A Girl from America_ (1907). CONTENTS I. BIG BEN'S VOICE. 1 II. A SERVANT OF GOD. 3 III. GOOD SECURITY. 7 IV. SOLITARY HOURS. 9 V. EAGER WORDS. 10 VI. DIFFERENT SORT OF WORK. 12 VII. SHOPPING. 21 VIII. COMPARISONS. 26 IX. A TRIP INTO THE COUNTRY. 31 X. THE RETURN TO LONDON. 35 XI. A NEW DEPARTURE. 44 XII. LEFT ALONE. 48 XIII. PETER HARRIS. 60 XIV. THE SEARCH. 66 XV. CONCENTRATION OF PURPOSE. 69 XVI. PICKLES. 74 XVII. CINDERELLA. 78 XVIII. THE METROPOLITAN FIRE BRIGADE. 79 XIX. A SAINTLY LADY. 83 XX. CAUGHT AGAIN. 87 XXI. SAFE HOME AT LAST. 94 XXII. NEWS OF SUE. 105 XXIII. AMATEUR DETECTIVE. 109 XXIV. MOTHER AND SON. 112 XXV. ABOUT RONALD. 113 XXVI. TWO CUPS OF COFFEE. 124 XXVII. DELAYED TRIAL. 127 XXVIII. CINDERELLA WOULD SHIELD THE REAL THIEF. 130 XXIX. A LITTLE HEROINE. 132 XXX. WHAT WAS HARRIS TO HER? 134 XXXI. A STERN RESOLVE. 136 XXXII. AN UNEXPECTED ACCIDENT. 137 XXXIII. A POINTED QUESTION. 138 XXXIV. PICKLES TO THE FORE AGAIN. 141 XXXV. THE WINGS ARE GROWING. 142 XXXVI. A CRISIS. 143 XXXVII. THE HAPPY GATHERING. 151 SUE: A LITTLE HEROINE. CHAPTER I. BIG BEN'S VOICE. Sue made a great effort to push her way to the front of the crowd. The street preacher was talking, and she did not wish to lose a word. She was a small, badly made girl, with a freckled face and hair inclined to red, but her eyes were wonderfully blue and intelligent. She pushed and pressed forward into the thick of the crowd. She felt a hand on her shoulder, and looking up, saw a very rough man gazing at her. "Be that you, Peter Harris?" said Sue. "An' why didn't yer bring Connie along?" "Hush!" said some people in the crowd. The preacher raised his voice a little higher: "'Tell His disciples and Peter that He goeth before you into Galilee.'" Peter Harris, the rough man, trembled slightly. Sue found herself leaning against him. She knew quite well that his breath was coming fast. "His disciples and Peter," she said to herself. The street preacher had a magnificent voice. It seemed to roll above the heads of the listening crowd, or to sink to a penetrating whisper which found its echo in their hearts. The deep, wonderful eyes of the man had a power of making people look at him. Sue gazed with all her might and main. "Father John be a good un," she said to herself. "He be the best man in all the world." After the discourse--which was very brief and full of stories, and just the sort which those rough people could not help listening to--a hymn was sung, and then the crowd dispersed. Sue was amongst them. She was in a great hurry. She forgot all about John Atkins, the little street preacher to whom she had been listening. She soon found herself in a street which was gaily lighted; there was a gin-palace at one end, another in the middle, and another at the farther end. This was Saturday night: Father John was fond of holding vigorous discourses on Saturday nights. Sue stopped to make her purchases. She was well-known in the neighborhood, and as she stepped in and out of one shop and then of another, she was the subject of a rough jest or a pleasant laugh, just as the mood of the person she addressed prompted one or other. She spent a few pence out of her meager purse, her purchases were put into a little basket, and she found her way home. The season was winter. She turned into a street back of Westminster; it went by the name of Adam Street. It was very long and rambling, with broken pavements, uneven roadways, and very tall, narrow, and dirty houses. In a certain room on the fourth floor of one of the poorest of these houses lay a boy of between ten and eleven years of age. He was quite alone in the room, but that fact did not at all insure his being quiet. All kinds of sounds came to him--sounds from the street, sounds from below stairs, sounds from overhead. There were shrieking voices and ugly laughter, and now and then there were shrill screams. The child was accustomed to these things, however, and it is doubtful whether he heard them. He was a sad-looking little fellow, with that deadly white complexion which children who never go into the fresh air possess. His face, however, was neither discontented nor unhappy. He lay very still, with patient eyes, quite touching in their absolute submission. Had any one looked hard at little Giles they would have noticed something else on his face--it was a listening look. The sounds all around did not discompose him, for his eyes showed that he was waiting for something. It came. Over and above the discord a Voice filled the air. Nine times it repeated itself, slowly, solemnly, with deep vibrations. It was "Big Ben" proclaiming the hour. The boy had heard the chimes which preceded the hour; they were beautiful, of course, but it was the voice of Big Ben himself that fascinated him. "Ain't he a real beauty to-night?" thought the child. "How I wishes as Sue 'ud hear him talk like that! Sometimes he's more weakly in his throat, poor fellow! but to-night he's in grand voice." The discord, which for one brief moment was interrupted for the child by the beautiful, harmonious notes, continued in more deafening fashion than ever. Children cried; women scolded; men cursed and swore. In the midst of the din the room door was opened and a girl entered. "Sue!" cried Giles. "Yes," answered Sue, putting down her basket as she spoke. "I'm a bit late; there wor a crowd in the street, and I went to hear him. He wor grand." "Oh, worn't he?" said Giles. "I never did know him to be in such beautiful voice." Sue came up and stared at the small boy. Her good-natured but somewhat common type of face was a great contrast to his. "Whatever are you talking about?" she said. "You didn't hear him; you can't move, poor Giles!" "But I did hear him," replied the boy. "I feared as I'd get off to sleep, but I didn't. I never did hear Big Ben in such voice--he gave out his text as clear as could be." "Lor', Giles!" exclaimed Sue, "I didn't mean that stupid clock; I means Father John. I squeezed up as close as possible to him, and I never missed a word as fell from his lips. Peter Harris were there too. I wonder how he felt. Bad, I 'spect, when he remembers the way he treated poor Connie. And oh, Giles! what do yer think? The preacher spoke to him jest as clear as clear could be, and he called him by his name--Peter. 'Tell His disciples and Peter,' Father John cried, and I could feel Peter Harris jump ahind me." "Wor that his text, Sue?" "Yes, all about Peter. It wor wonnerful." "Well, my text were, 'No more pain,'" said the boy. "I ache bad nearly always, but Big Ben said, 'No more pain,' as plain as he could speak, poor old fellow! It was nine times he said it. It were werry comforting." Sue made no reply. She was accustomed to that sort of remark from Giles. She busied herself putting the kettle on the fire to boil, and then cleaned a little frying-pan which by-and-by was to toast a herring for Giles's supper and her own. "Look what I brought yer," she said to the boy. "It were turning a bit, Tom Watkins said, and he gave it me for a ha'penny, but I guess frying and a good dash of salt 'ull make it taste fine. When the kettle boils I'll pour out your tea; you must want it werry bad." "Maybe I do and maybe I don't," answered Giles. "It's 'No more pain' I'm thinking of. Sue, did you never consider that maybe ef we're good and patient Lord Christ 'ull take us to 'eaven any day?" "No," answered Sue; "I'm too busy." She stood for a minute reflecting. "And I don't want to go to 'eaven yet," she continued; "I want to stay to look after you." Giles smiled. "It's beautiful in 'eaven," he said. "I'd like to go, but I wouldn't like to leave you, Sue." "Take your tea now, there's a good fellow," answered Sue, who was nothing if not matter-of-fact. "Aye, dear!" she continued as she poured it out and then waited for Giles to raise the cup to his lips, "Peter Harris do look bad. I guess he's sorry he was so rough on Connie. But now let's finish our supper, and I'll prepare yer for bed, Giles, for I'm desp'rate tired." CHAPTER II. A SERVANT OF GOD. John Atkins, the street preacher, was a little man who led a wonderful life. He was far better educated than most people of his station, and in addition his mind was tender in feeling and very sensitive and loving. He regarded everybody as his brothers and sisters, and in especial he took to his heart all sorrowful people. He never grumbled or repined, but he looked upon his life as a pilgrimage to a better country, and did not, therefore, greatly trouble if things were not quite smooth for him. This little man had a very wide circle of friends. The fact is, he had more power of keeping peace and order in the very poor part of London, back of Westminster, where he lived, than had any dignitary of the Church, any rector, any curate, or any minister, be he of what persuasion he might. Father John was very humble about himself. Indeed, one secret of his success lay in the fact that he never thought of himself at all. Having preached on this Saturday evening, as was his wont, to a larger crowd than usual, he went home. As he walked a passer-by could have seen that he was lame; he used a crutch. With the winter rain beating on him he looked insignificant. Presently he found the house where he had a room, went up the stairs, and entered, opening the door with a latch-key. A fire was burning here, and a small paraffin lamp with a red shade over it cast a warm glow over the little place. The moment the light fell upon Father John his insignificance vanished. That was a grand head and face which rose above the crippled body. The head was high and splendidly proportioned. It was crowned with a wealth of soft brown hair, which fell low on the shoulders. The forehead was lofty, straight, and full; the mouth rather compressed, with firm lines round it; the eyes were very deep set--they were rather light gray in color, but the pupils were unusually large. The pupils and the peculiar expression of the eyes gave them a wonderful power. They could speak when every other feature in the face was quiet. "I don't like them--I dread them," said Peter Harris on one occasion. "Aye, but don't I love 'em just!" remarked little Giles. Giles and Sue were special friends of John Atkins. They had, in fact, been left in his care by their mother three years before this story begins. This was the way they had first learned to know Father John. The man had a sort of instinct for finding out when people were in trouble and when they specially needed him. There was a poor woman lying on her dying bed, and a boy and a girl were kneeling close to her. "Keep a good heart up, Giles," she said to the boy. "I know I'm goin' to leave yer, and you're as lame as lame can be, but then there's Sue. Sue has a deal o' gumption for such a young un. Sue won't let yer want, Giles, lad; you need never go to the workhouse while Sue's alive." "No, that he needn't, mother," answered Sue. "Can't yer get back on to yer sofa, Giles?" she added, turning to the boy. "You'll break your back kneeling by mother all this time." "No, I won't; I'd rather stay," answered the boy. His eyes were full of light; he kept on stroking his mother's hand. "Go on, mother," he said. "Tell us more. You're goin' to 'eaven, and you'll see father." A sob strangled his voice for a minute. "Yes, I'll see my good 'usband--that is, I hope so; I can but trust--I allus have trusted, though often, ef I may say the truth, I couldn't tell what I were a-trusting to. Somehow, whatever folks say, there _is_ a Providence." "Oh, mother!" said Giles, "God is so beautiful--when you see father again you'll know that." "Mother," interrupted Sue, "does yer think as Providence 'ull get me constant work at the sewing, enough to keep Giles and me?" "I dunno, Sue," answered the woman. "I've trusted a good bit all my life, and more specially since your father was took, and somehow we haven't quite starved. Happen it'll be the same with Giles and you." The boy sighed. His back was aching terribly. His heart was breaking at the thought of losing his mother; he struggled to continue kneeling by the bedside, but each moment the effort became greater. The children were kneeling so when a quick, light step was heard on the stairs, and a little man entered. It was too dark in the room for the children to see his face; they heard, however, a very pleasant voice. It said in cheerful tones: "Why haven't you fire here, and a candle? Can I help you?" "There ain't much candle left," answered Giles. "And mother's dying," continued Sue. "She don't mind the dark--do yer, mother?" The little man made no reply in words, but taking some matches from his pocket, and also a candle, he struck a light. He placed the candle in a sconce on the wall, and then turned to the three. "Be yer a parson?" asked the woman. "I am a servant of God," answered Atkins. "I'm real glad as you're a parson," she answered; "you can make it all right between Almighty God and me." "You are mistaken; I can't do that. That is Jesus Christ's work. But I will pray with you--let me hold your hand, and we will pray together." Then and there in the dismal attic Father John spoke out his heart in the following simple words. Even Sue never forgot those words to the latest day she lived: "Lord God Almighty, look down upon this dying woman. Thy Son died for her and she knows it not. Lord, she is in great darkness, and she is so near death that she has no time to learn the truth in its fullness; but Thou who art in the light can show some of Thy light to her. Now, in her dying hour, reveal to her Thyself." The dying woman fixed her glittering eyes on the strange man. When he ceased speaking she smiled; then she said, slowly: "I allus felt that I could trust in Providence." She never spoke after that, and half an hour afterwards she died. This was the beginning of Father John's friendship with Giles and Sue. The next day Sue, by dint of many and anxious inquiries, found him out, and put her queer little unkempt head into his room. "Ef yer please, parson, may I speak to yer 'bout Giles and me?" "Certainly, my little girl. Sit down and tell me what I can do for you." "Parson," said Sue, with much entreaty in her voice and many a pucker on her brow, "what I wants to say is a good deal. I wants ter take care o' Giles, to keep up the bit o' home and the bit o' victual. It 'ud kill Giles ef he wor to be took to the work'us; and I promised mother as I'd keep 'im. Mother wor allers a-trustin', and she trusted Giles ter me." Here Sue's voice broke off into a sob, and she put up her dirty apron to her eyes. "Don't cry, my dear," answered Atkins kindly; "you must not break your word to your mother. Will it cost you so much money to keep yourself and Giles in that little attic?" "It ain't that," said she, proudly. "It ain't a bit as I can't work, fur I can, real smart at 'chinery needlework. I gets plenty to do, too, but that 'ere landlady, she ain't a bit like mother; she'd trusten nobody, and she up this morning, and mother scarce cold, and says as she'd not let her room to Giles and me 'cept we could get some un to go security fur the rent; and we has no un as 'ud go security, so we must go away the day as mother is buried, and Giles must go to the work'us; and it 'ull kill Giles, and mother won't trust me no more." "Don't think that, my child; nothing can shake your mother's trust where God has taken her now. But do you want me to help you?" Sue found the color mounting to her little, weather-beaten face. A fear suddenly occurred to her that she had been audacious--that this man was a stranger, that her request was too great for her to ask. But something in the kindness of the eyes looking straight into hers brought sudden sunshine to her heart and courage to her resolve. With a burst, one word toppling over the other, out came the whole truth: "Please, sir--please, sir, I thought as you might go security fur Giles and me. We'd pay real honest. Oh, sir, will you, jest because mother did trusten so werry much?" "I will, my child, and with all the heart in the world. Come home with me now, and I will arrange the whole matter with your landlady." CHAPTER III. GOOD SECURITY. John Atkins was always wont to speak of Sue and Giles as among the successes of his life. This was not the first time he had gone security for his poor, and many of his poor had decamped, leaving the burden of their unpaid rent on him. He never murmured when such failures came to him. He was just a trifle more particular in looking not so much into the merits as the necessities of the next case that came to his knowledge. But no more, than if all his flock had been honest as the day, did he refuse his aid. This may have been a weakness on the man's part; very likely, for he was the sort of man whom all sensible and long-headed people would have spoken about as a visionary, an enthusiast, a believer in doing to others as he would be done by--a person, in short, without a grain of everyday sense to guide him. Atkins would smile when such people lectured him on what they deemed his folly. Nevertheless, though he took failure with all resignation, success, when it came to him, was stimulating, and Giles and Sue he classed among his successes. The mother died and was buried, but the children did not leave their attic, and Sue, brave little bread-winner, managed not only to pay the rent but to keep the gaunt wolf of hunger from the door. Sue worked as a machinist for a large City house. Every day she rose with the dawn, made the room as tidy as she could for Giles, and then started for her long walk to the neighborhood of Cheapside. In a room with sixty other girls Sue worked at the sewing-machine from morning till night. It was hard labor, as she had to work with her feet as well as her hands, producing slop clothing at the rate of a yard a minute. Never for an instant might her eyes wander from the seam; and all this severe work was done in the midst of an ear-splitting clatter, which alone would have worn out a person not thoroughly accustomed to it. But Sue was not unhappy. For three years now she had borne without breaking down this tremendous strain on her health. The thought that she was keeping Giles in the old attic made her bright and happy, and her shrill young voice rose high and merry above those of her companions. No; Sue, busy and honest, was not unhappy. But her fate was a far less hard one than Giles's. Giles had not always been lame. When first his mother held him in her arms he was both straight and beautiful. Though born of poor parents and in London, he possessed a health and vigor seldom bestowed upon such children. In those days his father was alive, and earning good wages as a fireman in the London Fire Brigade. There was a comfortable home for both Sue and Giles, and Giles was the very light and sunshine of his father's and mother's life. To his father he had been a special source of pride and rejoicing. His beauty alone would have made him so. Sue was essentially an everyday child, but Giles had a clear complexion, dark-blue eyes, and curling hair. Giles as a baby and a little child was very beautiful. As his poor, feeble-looking mother carried him about--for she was poor and feeble-looking even in her palmy days--people used to turn and gaze after the lovely boy. The mother loved him passionately, but to the father he was as the apple of his eye. Giles's father had married a wife some degrees below him both intellectually and socially. She was a hard-working, honest, and well-meaning soul, but she was not her husband's equal. He was a man with great force of character, great bravery, great powers of endurance. Before he had joined the Fire Brigade he had been a sailor, and many tales did he tell to his little Giles of his adventures on the sea. Sue and her mother used to find these stories dull, but to Giles they seemed as necessary as the air he breathed. He used to watch patiently for hours for the rare moments when his father was off duty, and then beg for the food which his keen mental appetite craved for. Mason could both read and write, and he began to teach his little son. This state of things continued until Giles was seven years old. Then there came a dreadful black-letter day for the child; for the father, the end of life. Every event of that torturing day was ever after engraved on the little boy's memory. He and his father, both in high spirits, started off for their last walk together. Giles used to make it a practice to accompany his father part of the way to his station, trotting back afterwards safely and alone to his mother and sister. To-day their way lay through Smithfield Market, and the boy, seeing the Martyrs' Monument in the center of the market-place, asked his father eagerly about it. "Look, father, look!" he said, pointing with his finger. "What is that?" "That is the figure of an angel, lad. Do you see, it is pointing up to heaven. Do you know why?" "No, father; tell us." "Long ago, my lad, there were a lot of brave people brought just there where the angel stands; they were tied to stakes in the ground and set fire to and burned--burned until they died." "Burned, father?" asked little Giles in a voice of horror. "Yes, boy. They were burned because they were so brave they would rather be burned than deny the good God. They were called martyrs, and that angel stands there now to remind people about them and to show how God took them straight to heaven." "I think they were grand," answered the boy, his eyes kindling. "Can't people be like that now?" "Any one who would rather die than neglect a duty has, to my mind, the same spirit," answered the man. "But now, lad, run home, for I must be off." "Oh, father, you are going to that place where the wonderful new machinery is, and you said I might look at it. May I come?" The father hesitated, finally yielded, and the two went on together. But together they were never to come back. That very day, with the summer sun shining, and all the birds in the country far away singing for joy, there came a message for the brave father. He was suddenly, in the full prime of his manly vigor, to leave off doing God's work down here, doubtless to take it up with nobler powers above. A fireman literally works with his life in his hands. He may have to resign it at any moment at the call of duty. This trumpet-call, which he had never neglected, came now for Giles Mason. A fire broke out in the house where little Giles watched with keen intelligence the new machinery. The machinery was destroyed, the child lamed for life, and the brave father, in trying to rescue him and others, was so injured by falling stones and pieces of woodwork that he only lived a few hours. The two were laid side by side in the hospital to which they were carried. "Father," said the little one, nestling close to the injured and dying man, "I think people _can_ be martyrs now!" But the father was past words, though he heard the child, for he smiled and pointed upwards. The smile and the action were so significant, and reminded the child so exactly of the angel who guards the Martyrs' Monument, that ever afterwards he associated his brave father with those heroes and heroines of whom the sacred writer says that "the world is not worthy." CHAPTER IV. SOLITARY HOURS. Giles was kept in the hospital for many weeks, even months. All that could be done was done for him; but the little, active feet were never to walk again, and the spine was so injured that he could not even sit upright. When all that could be done had been done and failed, the boy was sent back to his broken-down and widowed mother. Mrs. Mason had removed from the comfortable home where she lived during her husband's lifetime to the attic in a back street of Westminster, where she finally died. She took in washing for a livelihood, and Sue, now twelve years old, was already an accomplished little machinist.[1] They were both too busy to have time to grieve, and at night were too utterly worn-out not to sleep soundly. They were kind to Giles lying on his sick-bed; they both loved him dearly, but they neither saw, nor even tried to understand, the hunger of grief and longing which filled his poor little mind. His terrible loss, his own most terrible injuries, had developed in the boy all that sensitive nerve organism which can render life so miserable to its possessor. To hear his beloved father's name mentioned was a torture to him; and yet his mother and Sue spoke of it with what seemed to the boy reckless indifference day after day. Two things, however, comforted him--one the memory of the angel figure over the Martyrs' Monument at Smithfield, the other the deep notes of Big Ben. His father, too, had been a martyr, and that angel stood there to signify his victory as well as the victory of those others who withstood the torture by fire; and Big Ben, with its solemn, vibrating notes, seemed to his vivid imagination like that same angel speaking. Though an active, restless boy before his illness, he became now very patient. He would lie on his back, not reading, for he had forgotten what little his father taught him, but apparently lost in thought, from morning to night. His mother was often obliged to leave him alone, but he never murmured at his long, solitary hours; indeed, had there been any one by to listen to all the words he said to himself at these times, they would have believed that the boy enjoyed them. Thus three years passed away. In those three years all the beauty had left little Giles's face; all the brightness had fled from his eyes; he was now a confirmed invalid, white and drawn and pinched. Then his poor, tired-out mother died. She had worked uncomplainingly, but far beyond her strength, until suddenly she sickened and in a few days was dead. Giles, however, while losing a mother, had gained a friend. John Atkins read the sensitive heart of the boy like a book. He came to see him daily, and soon completed the reading-lessons which his father had begun. As soon as the boy could read he was no longer unhappy. His sad and troubled mind need no longer feed on itself; he read what wise and great men thought, for Atkins supplied him with books. Atkins's books, it is true, were mostly of a theological nature, but once he brought him a battered Shakespeare; and Sue also, when cash was a little flush, found an old volume of the _Arabian Nights_ on a book-stall. These two latter treasures gave great food to the active imagination of little Giles. FOOTNOTE [1] In July 1877 arrangements were made to provide for the families of firemen who were killed in the performance of their duty, but nothing was done for them before that date. CHAPTER V. EAGER WORDS. When John Atkins was quite young he was well-to-do. His father and mother had kept a good shop, and not only earned money for their needs but were able to put by sufficient for a rainy day. John was always a small and delicate child, and as he grew older he developed disease of the spine, which not only gave him a deformed appearance but made him slightly lame. Nevertheless, he was an eager little scholar, and his father was able to send him to a good school. The boy worked hard, and eagerly read and learned all that came in his way. Thus life was rather pleasant than otherwise with John Atkins up to his fifteenth year, but about then there came misfortunes. The investment into which his father had put all his hard-won earnings was worthless; the money was lost. This was bad enough, but there was worse to follow. Not only had the money disappeared, but the poor man's heart was broken. He ceased to attend to his business; his customers left him to go elsewhere; his wife died suddenly, and he himself quickly followed her to the grave. After these misfortunes John Atkins had a bad illness himself. He grew better after a time, took to cobbling as a trade, and earned enough to support himself. How he came to take up street preaching, and in consequence to be much beloved by his neighbors, happened simply enough. On a certain Sunday evening he was walking home from the church where he attended, his heart all aglow with the passionate words of the preacher he had been listening to. The preacher had made Bunyan the subject of his discourse, and the author of the _Pilgrim's Progress_ was at that time the hero of all heroes in the mind of Atkins. He was thinking of his wonderful pilgrimage as he hurried home. He walked on. Suddenly, turning a corner, he knocked up against a man, who, half-reeling, came full-tilt against him. "Aye, Peter," he said, knowing the man, and perceiving that he was far too tipsy to get to his home with safety, "I'll just walk home with you, mate. I've got an apple in my pocket for the little wench." The man made no objection, and they walked on. At the next corner they saw a crowd, all listening eagerly to the words of a large, red-faced man who, mounted on a chair, addressed them. On the burning, glowing heart of John Atkins fell the following terrible words: "For there be no God, and there be nothing before us but to die as the beasts die. Let us get our fill of pleasure and the like of that, neighbors, for there ain't nothing beyond the grave." "It's a lie!" roared Atkins. The words had stung him like so many fiery serpents. He rushed into the midst of the crowd; he forgot Peter Harris; he sprang on to the chair which the other man in his astonishment had vacated, and poured out a whole string of eager, passionate words. At that moment he discovered that he had a wonderful gift. There was the message in his heart which God had put there, and he was able to deliver it. His words were powerful. The crowd, who had listened without any great excitement to the unbeliever, came close now to the man of God, applauding him loudly. Atkins spoke of the Fatherhood of God and of His love. "Ain't that other a coward?" said two or three rough voices when Atkins ceased to speak. "And he comes here talking them lies every Sunday night," said one poor woman. "Come you again, master, and tell us the blessed truth." This decided Atkins. He went to his parish clergyman, an overworked and badly paid man, and told him the incident. He also spoke of his own resolve. He would go to these sheep who acknowledged no Shepherd, and tell them as best he could of a Father, a Home, a Hope. The clergyman could not but accept the services of this fervent city missionary. "Get them to church if you can," he said. "Aye, if I can," answered Atkins; "but I will compel them to enter the Church above--that is the main thing." Soon he began to know almost all the poor folks who crowded to hear him. In their troubles he was with them; when joy came he heard first about it, and rejoiced most of all; and many a poor face of a tired woman or worn-out man, or even a little child, looking into his, grew brighter in the presence of death. CHAPTER VI. DIFFERENT SORT OF WORK. Connie was a very pretty girl. She was between thirteen and fourteen years of age, and very small and delicate-looking. Her hair was of a pale, soft gold; her eyes were blue; she had a delicate complexion, pink and white--almost like a china figure, Sue said; Giles compared her to an angel. Connie was in the same trade that Sue earned her bread by; she also was a machinist in a large warehouse in the City. All day long she worked at the sewing-machine, going home with Sue night after night, glad of Sue's sturdy support, for Connie was much more timid than her companion. Connie was the apple of Harris's eye, his only child. He did everything he could for her; he lived for her. If any one could make him good, Connie could; but she was sadly timid; she dreaded the terrible moments when he returned home, having taken more than was good for him. At these times she would slink away to visit Giles and Sue, and on more than one occasion she had spent the night with the pair rather than return to her angry father. Some months, however, before this story begins, a terrible misfortune had come to Peter Harris. He had come home on a certain evening worse than usual from the effects of drink. Connie happened to be in. She had dressed herself with her usual exquisite neatness. She always kept the place ship-shape. The hearth was always tidily swept. She managed her father's earnings, which were quite considerable, and the wretched man could have had good food and a comfortable home, and been happy as the day was long, if only the craze for drink had not seized him. Connie was very fond of finery, and she was now trimming a pretty hat to wear on the following Sunday. Not long ago she had made a new friend, a girl at the warehouse of the name of Agnes Coppenger. Agnes was older than Connie. She was the kind of girl who had a great admiration for beauty, and when she saw that people turned to look at pretty Connie with her sweet, refined face and delicate ways, she hoped that by having such a pleasant companion she also might come in for her share of admiration. She therefore began to make much of Connie. She praised her beauty, and invited her to her own home. There Connie made companions who were not nearly such desirable ones as Sue and Giles. She began to neglect Sue and Giles, and to spend more and more of her time with Agnes. On a certain day when the two girls were working over their sewing-machines, the whir of the numerous machines filling the great warehouse, Agnes turned to Connie. "When we go out at morning break I 'ave a word to say to yer." Connie's eyes brightened. "You walk with me," whispered Agnes again. An overseer came round. Talking was forbidden in the great room, and the girls went on with their mechanical employment, turning out long seam after long seam of delicate stitches. The fluff from the work seemed to smother Connie that morning. She had inherited her mother's delicacy. She coughed once or twice. There was a longing within her to get away from this dismal, this unhealthy life. She felt somehow, down deep in her heart, that she was meant for better things. The child was by nature almost a poet. She could have worshiped a lovely flower. As to the country, what her feelings would have been could she have seen it almost baffles description. Now, Sue, working steadily away at her machine a little farther down the room, had none of these sensations. Provided that Sue could earn enough money to keep Giles going, that was all she asked of life. She was as matter-of-fact as a young girl could be; and as to pining for what she had not got, it never once entered her head. At twelve o'clock there was a break of half-an-hour. The machinists were then turned out of the building. It did not matter what sort of day it was, whether the sun shone with its summer intensity, or whether the snow fell in thick flakes--whatever the condition of the outside world, out all the working women had to go. None could skulk behind; all had to seek the open air. Connie coughed now as the bitter blast blew against her cheeks. "Isn't it cold?" she said. She expected to see Agnes by her side, but it was Sue she addressed. "I've got a penny for pease-pudding to-day," said Sue. "Will you come and have a slice, Connie? Or do yer want somethin' better? Your father, Peter Harris, can let yer have more than a penny for yer dinner." "Oh, yes," answered Connie; "'tain't the money--I 'aven't got not a bit of happetite, not for nothing; but I want to say a word to Agnes Coppenger, and I don't see her." "Here I be," said Agnes, coming up at that moment. "Come right along, Connie; I've got a treat for yer." The last words were uttered in a low whisper, and Sue, finding she was not wanted, went off in another direction. She gave little sighs as she did so. What was wrong with pretty Connie, and why did she not go with her? It had been her custom to slip her hand inside Sue's sturdy arm. During the half-hour interval, the girls used to repair together to the nearest cheap restaurant, there to secure what nourishing food their means permitted. They used to chatter to one another, exchanging full confidences, and loving each other very much. But for some time now Connie had only thought of Agnes Coppenger, and Sue felt out in the cold. "Can't be helped," she said to herself; "but if I am not mistook, Agnes is a bad un, and the less poor Connie sees of her the better." Sue entered the restaurant, which was now packed full of factory girls, and she asked eagerly for her penn'orth of pease-pudding. Meanwhile Connie and Agnes were very differently employed. When the two girls found themselves alone, Agnes looked full at Connie and said: "I'm going to treat yer." "Oh, no, you ain't," said Connie, who was proud enough in her way. "Yes, but I be," said Agnes; "I ha' lots o' money, bless yer! Here, we'll come in here." An A.B.C. shop stood invitingly open just across the road. Connie had always looked at these places of refreshment with open-eyed admiration, and with the sort of sensation which one would have if one stood at the gates of Paradise. To enter any place so gorgeous as an A.B.C., to be able to sit down and have one's tea or coffee or any other refreshment at one of those little white marble tables, seemed to her a degree of refinement scarcely to be thought about. The A.B.C. was a sort of forbidden fruit to Connie, but Agnes had been there before, and Agnes had described the delight of the place. "The quality come in 'ere," said Agnes, "an' they horders all sorts o' things, from mutton-chops to poached heggs. I am goin' in to-day, and so be you." "Oh, no," said Connie, "you can't afford it." "That's my lookout," answered Agnes. "I've half-a-crown in my pocket, and ef I choose to have a good filling meal, and ef I choose that you shall have one too, why, that is my lookout." As Agnes spoke she pulled her companion through the swinging door, and a minute later the two young girls had a little table between them, not far from the door. Agnes called in a lofty voice to one of the waitresses. "Coffee for two," she said, "and rolls and butter and poached heggs; and see as the heggs is well done, and the toast buttered fine and thick. Now then, look spruce, won't yer?" The waitress went off to attend to Agnes's requirements. Agnes sat back in her chair with a sort of lofty, fine-lady air which greatly impressed poor Connie. By-and-by the coffee, the rolls and butter, and the poached eggs appeared. A little slip of paper with the price of the meal was laid close to Agnes's plate, and she proceeded to help her companion to the good viands. "It's this sort of meal you want hevery day," she said. "Now then, eat as hard as ever you can, and while you're eating let me talk, for there's a deal to say, and we must be back in that factory afore we can half do justice to our wittles." Connie sipped her coffee, and looked hard at her companion. "What is it?" she asked suddenly. "What's all the fuss, Agnes? Why be you so chuff to poor Sue, and whatever 'ave you got to say?" "This," said Agnes. "You're sick o' machine-work, ain't you?" "Oh, that I be!" said Connie, stretching her arms a little, and suppressing a yawn. "It seems to get on my narves, like. I am that miserable when I'm turning that horrid handle and pressing that treadle up and down, up and down, as no words can say. I 'spect it's the hair so full of fluff an' things, too; some'ow I lose my happetite for my or'nary feed when I'm working at that 'orrid machine." "I don't feel it that way," said Agnes in a lofty tone. "But then, _I_ am wery strong. I can heat like anything, whatever I'm a-doing of. There, Connie; don't waste the good food. Drink up yer corffee, and don't lose a scrap o' that poached egg, for ef yer do it 'ud be sinful waste. Well, now, let me speak. I know quite a different sort o' work that you an' me can both do, and ef you'll come with me this evening I can tell yer all about it." "What sort of work?" asked Connie. "Beautiful, refined--the sort as you love. But I am not going to tell yer ef yer give me away." "What do you mean by that, Agnes?" "I means wot I say--I'll tell yer to-night ef yer'll come 'ome with me." "Yer mean that I'm to spend all the evening with yer?" asked Connie. "Yes--that's about it. _You_ are to come 'ome with me, and we'll talk. Why, bless yer! with that drinkin' father o' yourn, wot do you want all alone by yer lonesome? You give me a promise. And now I must pay hup, and we'll be off." "I'll come, o' course," said Connie after brief reflection. "Why shouldn't I?" she added. "There's naught to keep me to home." The girls left the A.B.C. shop and returned to their work. Whir! whir! went the big machines. The young heads were bent over their accustomed toil; the hands on the face of the great clock which Connie so often looked at went on their way. Slowly--very slowly--the time sped. Would that long day ever come to an end? The machinists' hours were from eight o'clock in the morning to six in the evening. Sometimes, when there were extra lots of ready-made clothes to be produced, they were kept till seven or even eight o'clock. But for this extra work there was a small extra pay, so that few of them really minded. But Connie dreaded extra hours extremely. She was not really dependent on the work, although Peter would have been very angry with his girl had she idled her time. She herself, too, preferred doing this to doing nothing. But to-night, of all nights, she was most impatient to get away with Agnes in order to discover what that fascinating young person's secret was. She looked impatiently at the clock; so much so that Agnes herself, as she watched her eyes, chuckled now and then. "She'll be an easy prey," thought Agnes Coppenger. "I'll soon get 'er into my power." At six o'clock there was no further delay; no extra work was required, and the machinists poured into the sloppy, dark, and dreary streets. "Come along now, quickly," said Agnes. "Don't wait for Sue; Sue has nothing to do with you from this time out." "Oh dear! oh dear!" said Connie. "But I don't want to give up Sue and Giles. You ha' never seen little Giles Mason?" "No," replied Agnes, "and don't want to. Wot be Giles to me?" "Oh," said Connie, "ef yer saw 'im yer couldn't but love 'im. He's the wery prettiest little fellow that yer ever clapped yer two eyes on--with 'is delicate face an' 'is big brown eyes--and the wonnerful thoughts he have, too. Poetry ain't in it. Be yer fond o' poetry yerself, Agnes?" "I fond o' poetry?" almost screamed Agnes. "Not I! That is, I never heerd it--don't know wot it's like. I ha' no time to think o' poetry. I'm near mad sometimes fidgeting and fretting how to get myself a smart 'at, an' a stylish jacket, an' a skirt that hangs with a sort o' swing about it. But you, now--you never think on yer clothes." "Oh yes, but I do," said Connie; "and I ha' got a wery pwitty new dress now as father guv me not a fortnight back; and w'en father don't drink he's wery fond o' me, an' he bought this dress at the pawnshop." "Lor', now, did he?" said Agnes. "Wot sort be it, Connie?" "Dark blue, with blue velvet on it. It looks wery stylish." "You'd look like a lydy in that sort o' dress," said Agnes. "You've the face of a lydy--that any one can see." "Have I?" said Connie. She put up her somewhat roughened hand to her smooth little cheeks. "Yes, you 'ave; and wot I say is this--yer face is yer fortoon. Now, look yer 'ere. We'll stand at this corner till the Westminster 'bus comes up, and then we'll take a penn'orth each, and that'll get us wery near 'ome. Yer don't think as yer father'll be 'ome to-night, Connie?" "'Tain't likely," replied Connie; "'e seldom comes in until it's time for 'im to go to bed." "Well then, that's all right. When we get to Westminster, you skid down Adam Street until yer get to yer diggin's; an' then hup you goes and changes yer dress. Into the very genteel dark-blue costoom you gets, and down you comes to yer 'umble servant wot is waitin' for yer below stairs." This programme was followed out in all its entirety by Connie. The omnibus set the girls down not far from her home. Connie soon reached her room. No father there, no fire in the grate. She turned on the gas and looked around her. The room was quite a good one, of fair size, and the furniture was not bad of its sort. Peter Harris himself slept on a trundle-bed in the sitting-room, but Connie had a little room all to herself just beyond. Here she kept her small bits of finery, and in especial the lovely new costume which her father had given her. She was not long in slipping off her working-clothes. Then she washed her face and hands, and brushed back her soft, glistening, pale-golden hair, and put on the dark-blue dress, and her little blue velvet cap to match, and--little guessing how lovely she appeared in this dress, which simply transformed the pretty child into one of quite another rank of life--she ran quickly downstairs. A young man of the name of Anderson, whom she knew very slightly, was passing by. He belonged to the Fire Brigade, and was one of the best and bravest firemen in London. He had a pair of great, broad shoulders, and a very kind face. It looked almost as refined as Connie's own. Anderson gave her a glance, puzzled and wondering. He felt half-inclined to speak, but she hurried by him, and the next minute Agnes gripped her arm. "My word, ain't you fine!" said that young lady. "You _be_ a gel to be proud of! Won't yer do fine, jest! Now then, come along, and let's be quick." Connie followed her companion. They went down several side-streets, and took several short cuts. They passed through the roughest and worst part of the purlieus at the back of Westminster. At last they entered a broader thoroughfare, and there Agnes stopped. "Why, yer never be livin' here?" asked Connie. "No, I bean't. You'll come to my 'ome afterwards. I want to take yer to see a lydy as maybe'll take a fancy to yer." "Oh!" said Connie, feeling both excited and full of wonder. The girls entered a side passage, and presently Connie, to her astonishment, found herself going upwards--up and up and up--in a lift. The lift went up as far as it would go. The girls got out. Agnes went first, and Connie followed. They walked down the passage, and Agnes gave a very neat double knock on the door, which looked like an ordinary front door to a house. The door was opened by a woman rather loudly dressed, but with a handsome face. "How do you do, Mrs. Warren?" said Agnes. "I ha' brought the young lydy I spoke to yer about. Shall us both come in?" "Oh, yes, certainly," said Mrs. Warren. She stood aside, and Connie, still following her companion, found herself at the other side of the neat door. The place inside was bright with electric light, and the stout, showily dressed lady, going first, conducted the girls into a room which Agnes afterwards spoke of as the dining-room. The lady sat down in a very comfortable arm-chair, crossed her legs, and desired Connie to come forward and show herself. "Take off yer 'at," she said. Connie did so. "You're rather pretty." Connie was silent. "I want," said the stout woman, "a pretty gel, something like you, to come and sit with me from ten to two o'clock hevery day. Yer dooties'll be quite light, and I'll give yer lots o' pretty clothes and good wages." "But what'll I have to do?" asked Connie. "Jest to sit with me an' keep me company; I'm lonesome here all by myself." Connie looked puzzled. "You ask wot wages yer'll get," said Agnes, poking Connie on the arm. Connie's blue eyes looked up. The showy lady was gazing at her very intently. "I'll give yer five shillin's a week," she said, "and yer keep, and some carst-off clothes--my own--now and again; and ef that bean't a bargain, I don't know wot be." Connie was silent. "You 'ad best close with it," said Agnes. "It's a charnce once in a 'undred. Yer'll be very 'appy with Mrs. Warren--her's a real lydy." "Yes, that I be," said Mrs. Warren. "I come of a very hold family. My ancestors come hover with William the Conqueror." Connie did not seem impressed by this fact. "Will yer come or will yer not?" said Mrs. Warren. "I'll take yer jaunts, too--I forgot to mention that. Often on a fine Saturday, you an' me--we'll go to the country together. You don't know 'ow fine that 'ull be. We'll go to the country and we'll 'ave a spree. Did yer never see the country?" "No," said Connie, in a slow voice, "but I ha' dreamt of it." "She's the sort, ma'am," interrupted Agnes, "wot dreams the queerest things. She's hall for poetry and flowers and sech like. She's not matter-o'-fack like me." "Jest the sort I want," said Mrs. Warren. "I--I loves poetry. You shall read it aloud to me, my gel--or, better still, I'll read it to you. An' as to flowers--why, yer shall pluck 'em yer own self, an' yer'll see 'em a-blowin' an' a-growin', yer own self. We'll go to the country next Saturday. There, now--ain't that fine?" Connie looked puzzled. There certainly was a great attraction at the thought of going into the country. She hated the machine-work. But, all the same, somehow or other she did not like Mrs. Warren. "I'll think o' it and let yer know," she said. But when she uttered these words the stately dressed and over-fine lady changed her manner. "There's no thinking now," she said. "You're 'ere, and yer'll stay. You go out arter you ha' been at my house? You refuse my goodness? Not a bit o' it! Yer'll stay." "Oh, yes, Connie," said Agnes in a soothing tone. "But I don't want to stay," said Connie, now thoroughly frightened. "I want to go--and to go at once. Let me go, ma'am; I--I don't like yer!" Poor Connie made a rush for the door, but Agnes flew after her and clasped her round the waist. "Yer _be_ a silly!" she said. "Yer jest stay with her for one week." "But I--I must go and tell father," said poor Connie. "You needn't--I'll go an' tell him. Don't yer get into such a fright. Don't, for goodness' sake! Why, think of five shillin's a week, and jaunts into the country, and beautiful food, and poetry read aloud to yer, and hall the rest!" "I has most select poetry here," said Mrs. Warren. "Did yer never yere of a man called Tennyson? An' did yer never read that most touching story of the consumptive gel called the 'May Queen'? 'Ef ye're wakin' call me hearly, call me hearly, mother dear.' I'll read yer that. It's the most beauteous thing." "It sounds lovely," said Connie. She was always arrested by the slightest thing which touched her keen fancy and rich imagination. "And you 'ates the machines," said Agnes. "Oh yes, I 'ates the machines," cried Connie. Then she added after a pause: "I'm 'ere, and I'll stay for one week. But I must go back first to get some o' my bits o' duds, and to tell father. You'd best let me go, ma'am; I won't be long away." "But I can't do that," said Mrs. Warren; "it's a sight too late for a young, purty gel like you to be out. Agnes, now, can go and tell yer father, and bring wot clothes yer want to-morrow.--Agnes, yer'll do that, won't yer?" "Yes--that I will." "They'll never let me stay," said Connie, reflecting on this fact with some satisfaction. "We won't ax him, my dear," said Mrs. Warren. "I must go, really, now," said Agnes. "You're all right, Connie; you're made. You'll be a fine lydy from this day out. And I'll come and see yer.--W'en may I come, Mrs. Warren?" "To-morrer evenin'," said Mrs. Warren. "You and Connie may have tea together to-morrer evenin', for I'm goin' out with some friends to the thayertre." Poor Connie never quite knew how it happened, but somehow she found herself as wax in the strong hands of Mrs. Warren. Connie, it is true, gave a frightened cry when she heard Agnes shut the hall door behind her, and she felt positive that she had done exceedingly wrong. But Mrs. Warren really seemed kind, although Connie could not but wish that she was not quite so stout, and that her face was not of such an ugly brick red. She gave the girl a nice supper, and talked to her all the time about the lovely life she would have there. "Ef I takes to yer I'll maybe hadopt yer as my own daughter, my dear," she said. "You're a wery purty gel. And may I ax how old you are, my love?" Connie answered that she was fourteen, and Mrs. Warren remarked that she was small for her age and looked younger. She showed the girl her own smart clothing, and tried the effect of her bit of fur round Connie's delicate throat. "There," she said; "you can keep it. It's only rabbit; I can't afford no dearer. But yer'll look real foine in it when we goes out for our constooshionul to-morrow morning." Connie was really touched and delighted with the present of the fur. She got very sleepy, too, after supper--more sleepy than she had ever felt in her life--and when Mrs. Warren suggested that her new little handmaid should retire early to bed, the girl was only too glad to obey. CHAPTER VII. SHOPPING. Connie slept without dreams that night, and in the morning awoke with a start. What was the matter? Was she late? It was dreadful to be late at the doors of that cruel factory. Those who were late were docked of their pay. Peter Harris was always very angry when his daughter did not bring in her full earnings on Saturday night. Connie cried out, "Father, father!" and then sat up in bed and pushed her golden hair back from her little face. What was the matter? Where was she? Why, what a pretty room! There was scarcely any light yet, and she could not see the different articles of furniture very distinctly, but it certainly seemed to her that she was in a most elegant apartment. Her room at home was--oh, so bare! just a very poor trundle-bed, and a little deal chest of drawers with a tiny looking-glass on top, and one broken chair to stand by her bedside. This was all. But her present room had a carpet on the floor, and there were pictures hanging on the walls, and there were curtains to the windows, and the little bed on which she lay was covered with a gay counterpane--soft--almost as soft as silk. Where could she be? It took her almost a minute to get back the memory of last night. Then she shuddered with the most curious feeling of mingled ecstasy and pain. She was not going to the factory to-day. She was not going to work at that horrid sewing-machine. She was not to meet Sue. She was not to be choked by the horrid air. She, Connie, had got a new situation, and Mrs. Warren was a very nice woman, although she was so fat and her dress was so loud that even Connie's untrained taste could not approve of it. Just then a voice called to her: "Get up, my dear; I'll have a cosy breakfast ready for yer by the time yer've put yourself tidily into yer clothes." "Yes," thought Connie to herself, "I've done well to come. Agnes is right. I wonder what she'll say when she comes to tea this evening. I wonder if she met father. I do 'ope as father won't find me. I'd real like to stay on here for a bit; it's much, much nicer than the cruel sort of life I 'ave to home." Connie dressed by the light which was now coming in more strongly through the window. Mrs. Warren pushed a can of hot water inside the door, and the girl washed with a strange, unwonted sense of luxury. She had no dress but the dark-blue, and she was therefore forced to put it on. When she had completed her toilet she entered the sitting-room. Mrs. Warren, in her morning _déshabille_, looked a more unpleasing object than ever. Her hair was in tight curl-papers, and she wore a very loose and very dirty dressing-gown, which was made of a sort of pattern chintz, and gave her the effect of being a huge pyramid of coarse, faded flowers. There was coffee, however, which smelled very good, on the hearth, and there was some toast and bacon, and some bread, butter, and jam. Connie and Mrs. Warren made a good meal, and then Mrs. Warren began to talk of the day's programme. "I have a lot of shopping to do this morning," she said, "and we'll go out not later than ten o'clock sharp. It's wonderful wot a lot o' things I has to buy. There's sales on now, too, and we'll go to some of 'em. Maybe I'll get yer a bit o' ribbon--you're fond o' blue ribbon, I take it. Well, maybe I'll get it for yer--there's no saying. Anyhow, we'll walk down the streets, and wot shops we don't go into we'll press our noses against the panes o' glass and stare in. Now then, my dear, yer don't s'pose that I'll allow you to come out walking with the likes o' me with yer 'air down like that." "Why, 'ow is it to be done?" said Connie. "I take it that it's beautiful; I ha' done it more tidy than ever." "But I don't want it tidy. Now then, you set down yere close to the fire, so that you can toast yer toes, and I'll see to yer 'air." Connie was forced to obey; more and more was she wax in the hands of her new employer. Mrs. Warren quickly took the hair-pins out of Connie's thick plait. She let it fall down to her waist, and then she unplaited it and brushed out the shining waves of lovely hair, and then said, with a smile of satisfaction: "Now, I guess there won't be anybody prettier than you to walk abroad to-day." "But I can't," said Connie--"I don't ever wear my 'air like that; it's only young lydies as does that." "Well, ain't you a lydy, and ain't I a lydy? You're going out with one, and yer'll wear yer 'air as I please." Connie shivered; but presently the little dark-blue cap was placed over the masses of golden hair, the gray fur was fastened round the slender throat, and Connie marched out with Mrs. Warren. Mrs. Warren's own dress was in all respects the reverse of her pretty young companion's. It consisted of a very voluminous silk cloak, which was lined with fur, and which gave the already stout woman a most portly appearance. On her head she wore a bonnet covered with artificial flowers, and she enveloped her hands in an enormous muff. "Now, off we go," said Mrs. Warren. "You'll enjoy yerself, my purty." It is quite true that Connie did--at least, at first. This was the time of day when, with the exception of Sundays, she was always buried from view in the ugly warehouse. She was unaccustomed to the morning sunshine, and she was certainly unaccustomed to the handsome streets where Mrs. Warren conducted her. They walked on, and soon found themselves in crowded thoroughfares. At last they stopped before the doors of a great shop, into which crowds of people were going. "Oh, what a pretty girl!" said Connie to her companion. A young girl, very like Connie herself--so like as to make the resemblance almost extraordinary--was entering the shop, accompanied by an old gentleman who was supporting himself by the aid of a gold-headed stick. The girl also had golden hair. She was dressed in dark blue, and had gray fur round her neck. But above the fur there peeped out a little pale-blue handkerchief made of very soft silk. "That's purty," whispered Mrs. Warren to Connie. "Yer'd like a 'andkercher like that--yer shall 'ave one. Get on in front o' me; you're slimmer nor me; I want to push into the shop." Connie obeyed. As she passed the fair young girl, the girl seemed to notice the extraordinary likeness between them, for she turned and looked at Connie and smiled. She also said something to her companion, who also stared at the girl. But stout Mrs. Warren poked Connie from behind, and she had to push forward, and presently found herself in the shop. There it seemed to her that Mrs. Warren did very little buying. It is true she stopped at several counters, always choosing those which were most surrounded by customers; it is true she pulled things about, poking at the goods offered for sale, and making complaints about them, but always keeping Connie well to the fore. A delicate color had sprung into the girl's cheeks, and almost every one turned to look at her. The shopmen turned; the shopgirls gazed; the customers forgot what they wanted in their amazement at Connie's beauty. Her hair, in especial, was the subject of universal admiration--its thickness, its length, its marvelous color. The girl herself was quite unconscious of the admiration which her appearance produced, but Mrs. Warren knew well what a valuable acquisition she had made in little Connie. When they left the shop she seemed to be in high good-humor. But, lo and behold! a change had taken place in the outside world. The sun, so bright and glorious, had hidden himself behind a murky yellow fog, which was coming up each moment thicker and thicker from the river. "Oh dear!" said Mrs. Warren. "Oh dear!" cried Connie too. "We won't get lost, will us, ma'am?" "Lost?" cried Mrs. Warren, with a sniff. "Now, I call this fog the most beautiful fortunation thing that could have 'appened. We'll have a real jolly morning now, Connie. You come along o' me. There, child--walk a bit in front. Why, ye're a real, real beauty. I feel sort of ashamed to be walkin' with yer. Let folks think that you're out with yer nurse, my pretty. Yes, let 'em think that, and that she's screening yer from misfortun' wid her own ample person." Thus Connie walked for several hours that day. In and out of crowded thoroughfares the two perambulated. Into shops they went, and out again they came. Everywhere Connie went first, and Mrs. Warren followed very close behind. At last the good lady said that she had done her morning's shopping. Connie could not well recall what she had bought, and the pair trudged soberly home. When they got there Mrs. Warren went straight to her own bedroom, and Connie sat down by the fire, feeling quite tired with so much exercise. Presently Mrs. Warren came out again. She had changed her dress, and had put on an ample satin gown of black with broad yellow stripes. She was in high good-humor, and going up to Connie, gave her a resounding smack on the cheek. "Now," she said, "yer won't think 'ard of poor Mammy Warren. See wot I've gone an' got an' bought for yer." Connie turned quickly. A soft little blue handkerchief, delicately folded in tissue-paper, was laid on the table by the girl. "Why--why--that ain't for me!" said Connie. "Yes, but it be! Why shouldn't it be for you? I saw yer lookin' at that purty young lydy who was as like yer as two peas. I watched 'ow yer stared at the blue 'andkercher, and 'ow yer sort o' longed for it." "But indeed--indeed I didn't." "Anyhow, here's another, and yer can have it, and wear it peeping out among yer fur. I take it that yer blue 'andkercher'll take the cake." "Then you've bought it for me?" said Connie. "Yus--didn't I zay so?" "But I never seen yer do it," said Connie. "Seen me do it?" said Mrs. Warren, her eyes flashing with anger. "You was too much taken up with yer own conceits, my gel--hevery one staring at yer, 'cos poor old Mammy Warren 'ad made yer so beautiful. But though you was full to the brim o' yourself, I warn't so selfish; I were thinkin' o' you--and yere's yer 'andkercher." Connie took up the handkerchief slowly. Strange as it may seem, it gave her no pleasure. She said, "Thank you, Mrs. Warren," in a subdued voice, and took it into her little bedroom. Connie felt that she did not particularly want to wear the handkerchief. She did not know why, but a trouble, the first of the many troubles she was to undergo in the terrible society of Mrs. Warren, came over her. She went back again and sat down by the fire. During the greater part of the afternoon the stout woman slept. Connie watched her furtively. A strong desire to get up and run away seized her. Could she not get out of that house and go back to Sue and Giles? How happy she would feel in Giles's bare little room! How she would enjoy talking with the child! With what wonder they would both listen to Big Ben as he spoke in that voice of his the number of the hours! Giles would make up fairy-tales for Connie to listen to. How Connie did love the "wonnerful" things he said about the big "Woice"! One day it was cheerful, another day sad, another day very encouraging, another day full of that noble influence which the child himself so largely exercised. At all times it was an angel voice, speaking to mankind from high above this sordid world. It helped Giles, and it helped Connie too. She sat by the fire in this well-furnished room and looked anxiously towards the door. Once she got up on tiptoe. She had almost reached the door, but had not quite done so, when Mrs. Warren turned, gave a loud snore, and opened her eyes. She did not speak when she saw Connie, but her eyes seemed to say briefly, "Well, don't you go any farther"; and Connie turned back into her small bedroom. Sharp at four o'clock Mrs. Warren started up. "Now then," she said, "I'm goin' to get the tea ready." "Can I help you, ma'am?" asked Connie. "Shall I make you some toast, ma'am?" "Toast?" cried Mrs. Warren. "Toast? Do you think I'd allow yer to spile yer purty face with the fire beatin' on it? Not a bit o' it! You set down there--it's a foine lydy you be, and I ha' to take care of yer." "But why should yer do that, ma'am? I ain't put into the world to do naught. I ha' always worked 'ard--father wanted me to." "Eh?" said Mrs. Warren. "But I'm yer father and mother both now, and I don't want yer to." "Don't yer?" said Connie. She sank down and folded her hands in her lap. "I must do summut to whiten them 'ands o' yours," said Mrs. Warren; "and I'm goin' to get yer real purty stockings an' boots to wear. You must look the real lydy--a real lydy wears neat boots and good gloves." "But I ain't a lydy," said Connie; "an' wots more," she added, "I don't want to be." "You be a lydy," said Mrs. Warren; "the Halmighty made yer into one." "I don't talk like one," said Connie. "No; but then, yer needn't speak. Oh lor'! I suppose that's Agnes a-poundin' at the door. Oh, stand back, child, and I'll go to her." Mrs. Warren opened the door, and Agnes stepped in. "I ha' took French leave," she said. "I dunno wot they'll say at the factory, but yere I be. You promised, you know, Mrs. Warren, ma'am, as I shouldn't 'ave naught to do with factory life, niver no more." "You needn't," said Mrs. Warren. "I ha' a deal o' work for yer to get through; but come along into my bedroom and we'll talk over things." Mrs. Warren and Agnes disappeared into the bedroom of the former, Mrs. Warren having first taken the precaution to lock the sitting-room door and put the key into her pocket. Poor Connie felt more than ever that she was a prisoner. More than ever did she long for the old life which she had lived. Notwithstanding her father's drinking bouts, notwithstanding his cruelty and neglect, the free life, the above-board life--even the dull, dull factory life--were all as heaven compared to this terrible, mysterious existence in Mrs. Warren's comfortable rooms. CHAPTER VIII. COMPARISONS. Mrs. Warren and Agnes talked together for quite three quarters of an hour. When they came out of the bedroom, Mrs. Warren was wearing a tight-fitting cloth jacket, which made her look more enormous even than the cloak had done. She had a small black bonnet on her head, over which she had drawn a spotted net veil. Her hands were encased in decent black gloves, her skirt was short, and her boots tidy. She carried in her hand a fair-sized brown leather bag; and telling Connie that she was "goin' out," and would be back when she saw her and not before, left the two girls alone in the little sitting-room. After she had shut the door behind her, Agnes went over to it, and possessing herself of the key, slipped it into her pocket. Then she stared hard at Connie. "Well," she said, "an' 'ow do yer like it?" "I don't like it at all," answered Connie, "I want to go--I will go. I'd rayther a sight be back in the factory. Mrs. Warren--she frightens me." "You be a silly," said Agnes. "You talk like that 'cos you knows no better. Why, 'ere you are as cosy and well tended as gel could be. Look at this room. Think on the soft chair you're sittin' upon; think on the meals; think on yer bedroom; think on the beautiful walk you 'ad this morning. My word! you be a silly! No work to do, and nothing whatever to trouble yer, except to act the lydy. My word! ef _you're_ discontent, the world'll come to an end. Wish I were in your shoes--that I do." "Well, Agnes, get into them," said Connie. "I'm sure you're more than welcome. I'm jest--jest pinin' for wot you thinks naught on. I want to see Giles and Sue and--and--father. You git into my shoes--you like it--I don't like it." Agnes burst into a loud laugh. "My word!" she said, "you're be a gel and a 'arf. Wouldn't I jest jump at gettin' into your shoes if I could? But there! yer shoes don't fit me, and that's the truth." "Don't fit yer, don't they?" exclaimed Connie. "Wot do yer mean by that?" "Too small," said Agnes, sticking out her ugly foot in its broken boot--"too genteel--too neat. No one could make a lydy o' me. Look at my 'ands." She spread out her coarse, stumpy fingers. "Look at my face. Why, yere's a glass; let's stand side by side, an' then let's compare. Big face; no nose to speak of; upper lip two inches long; mouth--slit from ear to ear; freckles; eyes what the boys call pig's eyes; 'air rough and coarse; figure stumpy. Now look at you. Face fair as a lily; nose straight and small; mouth like a rosebud; eyes blue as the sky. No, Connie, it can't be done; what with that face o' yourn, and that gold 'air o' yourn, you're a beauty hout and hout. Yer face is yer fortoon', my purty maid." "My face ain't my fortune." "Things don't fit, Connie. You ha' got to stay yere--and be a fine lydy. That's the way you works for yer livin'--I ha' to work in a different sort." "What sort? Oh, do tel me!" "No; that's my secret. But I've spoke out plain with the old woman, and I'm comin' yere Saturday night--not to stay, bless yer! no, but to do hodd jobs for her; for one thing, to look arter you when she's out. I 'spect she'll get Ronald back now you ha' come." "Ronald!" cried Connie. "Who's he?" "Never you mind; you'll know when yer see of 'im." "Then I'm a prisoner," said Connie--"that's what it means." "Well, well! take it like that ef yer like. Ain't it natural that Mrs. Warren should want yer to stay now she ha' got yer? When yer stays willin'-like, as yer will all too soon, then yer'll 'ave yer liberty. Hin an' out then yer may go as yer pleases; there'll be naught to interfere. Yer'll jest do yer dooty then, and yer dooty'll be to please old Mammy Warren." "Has my father missed me?" asked Connie, who saw by this time that she could not possibly cope with Agnes; if ever she was to effect her escape from this horrible place, it must be by guile. "'Ow is father?" she asked. "'Ave he missed me yet?" "Know nothing 'bout him. Don't think he have, for the boys, Dick and Hal, was 'ome when I come back. They 'ad no news for me at all." "You saw Sue to-day?" "Yus, I saw her, an' I kep' well away from her." "Agnes," said Connie in a very pleading voice, "ef I must stay 'ere--an' I don't know wot I ha' done to be treated like this--will yer take a message from me to little Giles?" "Wot sort?" asked Agnes. "Tell 'im straight from me that I can't come to see 'im for a few days, an' ax him to pray for me; an' tell him that I 'ears the Woice same as he 'ears the Woice, and tell 'im as it real comforts me. Wull yer do that, Agnes--wull yer, now?" "Maybe," said Agnes; then after a pause she added, "Or maybe I won't. I 'ates yer Methody sort o' weak-minded folks. That's the worst o' you, Connie; you're real weak-minded, for all ye're so purty, what wid yer 'prays' an' yer Woice, indeed!" "Hark! it's sounding now," said Connie. She raised her little delicate hand, and turned her head to listen. The splendid notes filled the air. Connie murmured something under her breath. "I know wot Giles 'ud say 'bout the Woice to-night," she murmured. But Agnes burst into a loud laugh. "My word!" she said. "You 're talkin' o' Big Ben. Well, you be a caution." "_He that shall endure_," whispered Connie; and then a curious hidden sunshine seemed to come out and radiate her small face. She folded her hands. The impatience faded from her eyes. She sat still and quiet. "Wot hever's the matter with yer?" asked Agnes. "Naught as yer can understand, Aggie." "Let's get tea," said Agnes. She started up and made vigorous preparations. Soon the tea was served and placed upon the little centre-table. It was an excellent tea, with shrimps and bread-and-butter, and cake and jam. Agnes ate enormously, but Connie was not as hungry as usual. "Prime, I call it!" said Agnes. "My word! to think of gettin' all this and not workin' a bit for it! You be in luck, Connie Harris--you be in luck." When the meal was over, and Agnes had washed up and made the place tidy, she announced her intention of going to sleep. "I'm dead-tired," she said, "and swallerin' sech a fillin' meal have made me drowsy. But I ha' the key in my pocket, so don't you be trying that little gime o'running away." Agnes slept, and snored in her sleep, and Connie restlessly walked to the window and looked out. When Big Ben sounded again her eyes filled with tears. She had never spent such a long and dismal evening in her life. Mammy Warren did not return home until between ten and eleven o'clock. Immediately on her arrival, Agnes took her departure. Mammy Warren then locked the door, and having provided herself with a stiff glass of whisky-and-water, desired Connie to hurry off to bed. "Yer'll be losing yer purty sleep," she said, "and then where'll yer be?" The next day Connie again walked abroad with Mrs. Warren. Once more she was dressed in the dark-blue costume, with her golden hair hanging in a great fleece down her back. But when she made her appearance without the little blue handkerchief, Mrs. Warren sent her back for it. "I know wot I'm about," she said. "The blue in the 'andkercher'll add to the blue in yer eyes. Pop it on, gel, and be quick." Connie obeyed. "I don't--want to," she said. "And _w'y_ don't yer?" The woman's voice was very fierce. "I'm somehow sort o' feared." "Take that for bein' sort o' feared," said Mrs. Warren; and she hit the child so fierce a blow on the arm that Connie cried out from the pain. Poor Connie was a very timorous creature, however, and the effect of the blow was to make her meek and subservient. The blue handkerchief was tied on and arranged to Mrs. Warren's satisfaction, and they both went out into the open air. They went by 'bus to quite a different part of the town on this occasion, and Mrs. Warren again assured her little companion that she had a great deal of shopping to get through. "That is why I wear this cloak," she said; "I ha' bags fastened inside to hold the things as I buy." Once again they got into a crowd, and once again Connie was desired to walk on a little way in front, and once again people turned to look at the slim, fair child with her beautiful face and lovely hair. Once more they entered several shops, and invariably chose the most crowded parts--so crowded that Mrs. Warren whispered to Connie: "We must wait till our turn, honey. We must ha' patience, dearie." They had patience. Mrs. Warren did absolutely purchase half-a-dozen very coarse pocket-handkerchiefs, keeping Connie close to her all the time. One of these she straightway presented to the girl, saying in a loud voice as she did so to the attendant: "I'm out with the purty dear to give her exercise. I am her nurse. She mustn't walk too far. No, thank you, mum, I'll carry the 'andkerchers 'ome myself; I won't trouble yer to send them to Portland Mansions.--Now, come along, my dear; we mustn't waste our time in this 'ot shop. We must be hout, taking of our exercise." They walked a very, very long way that morning, and Mrs. Warren, contrary to her yesterday's plan, did now and then expend a few pence. Whenever she did so she drew the shop people's attention to Connie, speaking of her as her charge, and a "dear, delicate young lydy," and begging of the people to be quick, as "'ot air" was so bad for the dear child; and invariably she refused to allow a parcel to be sent to Portland Mansions, saying that she preferred to carry it. At last, however, she seemed to think that Connie had had sufficient exercise, and they went home from the corner of Tottenham Court Road on the top of a 'bus. On their way Connie turned innocently to her companion and said: "Why ever did yer say as we lived in Portland Mansions?" But a sharp pinch on the girl's arm silenced her, and she felt more nervous and frightened than ever. The moment they got home, Mrs. Warren again returned to her bedroom, and came back neatly dressed in a black and yellow silk, with a keen appreciation of roast pork and apple sauce, which had been preparing in the oven all the morning. Connie too was hungry. When the meal came to an end Mrs. Warren said: "More like a lydy you grows each minute. But, my dear, I must thank yer nivver to open yer mouth when you're out, for yer ain't got the accent. Yer must niver do it until yer has acquired the rightful accent." "Was that why yer pinched me so 'ard when I axed why yer spoke o' Portland Mansions?" asked Connie. Mrs. Warren burst into a loud laugh. "Course it were," she said. "Don't yer nivver do nothing o' that sort agin." "But we don't live in Portland Mansions. Why did yer say so?" asked Connie. "Ax no questions and yer'll be told no lies," was Mrs. Warren's response. She accompanied this apparently innocent speech with a look out of her fierce black eyes which caused poor Connie's heart to sink into her shoes. After a minute Mrs. Warren said: "To-morrer's Saturday; we'll go out a bit in the morning, and then we'll take train into the country. I promised yer a jaunt, and yer shall 'ave it. I'm thinking a lot o' yer, my dear, and 'ow I can best help such a beautiful young gel. Yer accent must be 'tended to, and the best way to manage that is for you to have a refoined sort o' companion. Ronald is that sort. We'll go and fetch 'im 'ome to-morrer." "Whoever is Ronald?" asked Connie. "Do tell me, please," she added in an interested voice, "for Agnes spoke of him yesterday." "You wait till yer see," said Mrs. Warren. She nodded good-humoredly. The rest of the day passed very much like the day before. It was again intensely dull to poor Connie. She had nothing whatever to do but to feed and sit still. Again Mrs. Warren slept until tea-time. Then Agnes made her appearance, and Mrs. Warren went out in a tight-fitting coat, and with a leather bag in her hand. Agnes made tea and scolded Connie; and Connie grumbled and cried, and begged and begged to be given back her liberty. Mrs. Warren returned a little later than the night before. Agnes went away; Mrs. Warren drank whisky-and-water, and Connie was sent to bed. Oh, it was a miserable night! And would her own people ever find her? Would Sue be satisfied that Connie was not quite lost? And would Father John look for her? Dear, kind, splendid Father John! What would she not give to hear his magnificent voice as he preached to the people once again? Would not her own father search heaven and earth to find his only child? He was so good to Connie when he was not drunk--so proud of her, too, so glad when she kissed him so anxious to do the best he could for her! Would he give her up for ever? "Oh dear, dear!" thought the poor child, "if it was not for the Woice I believe I'd go mad; but the Woice--it holds me up. I'm 'appy enough w'en I 'ears it. Oh, little Giles, thank yer for telling me o' the wonnerful Woice!" CHAPTER IX. A TRIP INTO THE COUNTRY. Saturday dawned a very bright and beautiful day. Mrs. Warren got up early, and Connie also rose, feeling somehow or other that she was going to have a pleasanter time than she had yet enjoyed since her imprisonment. Oh yes, she was quite certain now that she was imprisoned; but for what object it was impossible for her even to guess. Mrs. Warren bustled out quite an hour earlier than usual. She did not go far on this occasion. She seemed a little anxious, and once or twice, to Connie's amazement, dodged down a back street as though she were afraid. Her red face turned quite pale when she did this, and she clutched Connie's arm and said in a faltering voice: "I'm tuk with a stitch in my side! Oh, my poor, dear young lydy, I'm afeered as I won't be able to take yer for a long walk this blessed morning." But when Connie, later on, inquired after the stitch, she was told to mind her own business, and she began to think that Mrs. Warren had pretended. They reached Waterloo at quite an early hour, and there they took third-class tickets to a part of the country about thirty miles from London. It took them over an hour to get down, and during that time Connie sat by the window wrapped in contemplation. For the first time she saw green grass and hills and running water, and although it was midwinter she saw trees which seemed to her too magnificent and glorious for words. Her eyes shone with happiness, and she almost forgot Mrs. Warren's existence. At last they reached the little wayside station to which Mrs. Warren had taken tickets. They got out, and walked down a winding country lane. "Is this real, real country?" asked Connie. "Yus--too real for me." "Oh ma'am, it's bootiful! But I dunna see the flowers." "Flowers don't grow in the winter, silly." "Don't they? I thought for sure I'd see 'em a-blowin' and a-growin'. Yer said so--yer mind." "Well, so yer wull, come springtime, ef ye're a good gel. Now, I want to talk wid yer wery serious-like." "Oh ma'am, don't!" said poor Connie. "None o' yer 'dont's' wid me! You ha' got to be very thankful to me for all I'm a-doin' for yer--feedin yer, and cockerin' yer up, and makin' a fuss o' yer, and brushing out yer 'air, and giving yer blue ties, and boots, and gloves." "Oh ma'am, yes," said Connie; "and I'm wery much obleeged--I am, truly--but I'd rayther a sight rayther, go 'ome to father; I would, ma'am." "Wot little gels 'ud like isn't wot little gels 'ull get," said Mrs. Warren. "You come to me of yer own free will, and 'avin' come, yer'll stay. Ef yer makes a fuss, or lets out to anybody that yer don't like it, I've a little room in my house--a room widdout no light and no winder, and so far away from any other room that yer might scream yerself sick and no one 'ud 'ear. Into that room yer goes ef yer makes trouble. And now, listen." Mrs. Warren gripped Connie's arm so tight that the poor child had to suppress a scream. "I know wot ye're been saying to Agnes--a-grumblin' and a-grumblin' to Agnes, instead o' down on yer knees and thankin' the Almighty that yer've found Mammy Warren. I know all about it: Yer'll stop that--d'yer 'ear--d'yer 'ear?" "Yus, ma'am," said Connie. "Do yer, promise?" "Yus, ma'am," said the poor child again. "I'll see as yer keeps it--yer little good-for-nothing beggar maid as I'm a-pamperin' of! Don't I work for yer, and toil for yer? And am I to have naught but grumbles for my pains? Yer won't like that room--an' it's there!" "I won't grumble," said Connie, terrified, and not daring to do anything but propitiate her tyrant. Mrs. Warren's manner altered. "Wull," she said, "I ha' brought yer down all this long way to 'ave a plain talk, and I guess we 'ave 'ad it. You please me, and I'll do my dooty by you; but don't please me, and there ain't a gel in the whole of Lunnon'll be more misrubble than you. Don't think as yer'll git aw'y, for yer won't--no, not a bit o' it. And now I've something else to say. There's a young boy as we're goin' to see to-day. 'Is name is Ronald; he's a special friend o' mine. I ha' had that boy a-wisiting o' me afore now, but he were took bad with a sort of fever. My word! din't I nurse him--the best o' good things didn't I give 'im! But his narves went wrong, and I sent him into the country for change of hair. He's all right now. He's a very purty boy, same as you're a purty gel, and I'm goin' to bring him back to be a companion for yer." "Oh ma'am!" "Yus," said Mrs. Warren. "Yer'll like that, won't yer?" "Oh yus, ma'am." "Wull, now--we'll be calling at the cottage in a few minutes, and wot I want yer to do is to have a talk with that yer boy. Ye're to tell him as I'm wonnerful good; ye're to tell him the sort o' things I does for yer. The poor boy--he got a notion in his head w'en he had the fever--that I--I--Mammy Warren--wor cruel to him. You tell him as there ain't a word o' truth in it, for a kinder or more motherly body never lived. Ef yer don't tell him that, I'll soon find out; an' there's the room without winders an' without light real 'andy. Now--do yer promise?" These words were accompanied by a violent shake. "Do yer promise?" "Yus, I promise," said Connie, turning white. Mrs. Warren had an extraordinary capacity for changing her voice and manner, even the expression of her face. While she had been extracting two promises from poor Connie, she looked like the most awful, wicked old woman that the worst parts of London could produce; but when on two points Connie had faithfully promised to yield to her wishes, she immediately altered her tactics, and became as genial and affectionate and pleasant as she had been the reverse a few minutes back. "I believes yer," she said, "and you're a real nice child, and there won't be any one in the 'ole of Lunnun 'appier than you as long as yer take the part of poor old Mammy Warren. Now then, yere's the cottage, and soon we'll see the little man. He'll be a nice companion for yer, Connie, and yer'll like that, won't you?" "Oh yes, ma'am," said Connie. She was not a London child for nothing. She had known a good deal of its ups and downs, although nothing quite so terrible as her present position had ever entered into her mind. But she saw clearly enough that the only chance of deliverance for her, and perhaps for the poor little boy, was to carry out Mammy Warren's injunctions and to keep her promise to the letter. Accordingly, when Mrs. Warren's knock at the cottage door was answered by a kind-looking, pale-faced woman, Connie raised her bright blue eyes to the woman's face and listened with deep interest when Mrs. Warren inquired how the poor little boy was. "Is it Ronald?" said the woman, whose name was Mrs. Cricket. "He's ever so much better; he's taken kindly to his food, and is out in the woods now at the back of the house playing all by himself." "In the woods is he, now?" said Mrs. Warren. "Well, I ha' come to fetch him 'ome." "Oh ma'am, I don't think he's as strong as all that." "I ha' come to fetch him 'ome by the wishes of his parients," said Mrs. Warren. "I suppose," she added, "there's no doubt in yer moind that I '_ave_ come from the parients of the boy?" "Oh no, ma'am--none, o' course. Will you come in, and I'll fetch him?" "Is he quite right in the 'ead now?" said Mrs. Warren as she and Connie followed Mrs. Cricket into the cottage. "He's better," said that good woman. "No talk o' dark rooms and nasty nightmares and cruel old women? All those things quite forgot?" asked Mrs. Warren. "He ain't spoke o' them lately." "Well then, he's cured; he's quite fit to come 'ome. This young lydy is a r'lation o' hisn. I ha' brought her down to see 'im, and we'll all travel back to town together.--You might go and find him, my dear," said Mrs. Warren, turning to Connie, and meanwhile putting her finger to her lips when Mrs. Cricket's back was turned in order to enjoin silence on the girl. "You run out into the woods, my purty, and find the dear little boy and bring him back here as fast as yer like." "Yes, missy," said Mrs. Cricket, opening the back door of the cottage, "you run out, straight up that path, and you'll find little Ronald." Connie obeyed. She was glad to be alone in order to collect her thoughts. A wild idea of running away even now presented itself to her. But looking back, she perceived that Mrs. Warren had seated herself by the kitchen window and had her bold eyes fixed on her retreating little figure. No chance of running away. She must trust to luck, and for the present she must carry out Mrs. Warren's instructions. Presently she came up to the object of her search--an exceedingly pretty, dark-haired boy of about ten years of age. His face was pale, his features regular, his eyes very large, brown, and soft, like rich brown velvet. He did not pay much attention to Connie, but went on laying out a pile of horse-chestnuts which he had gathered in rows on the ground. "Be your name Ronald?" said Connie, coming up to him. He looked at her, then sprang to his feet, and politely took off his little cap. "Yes, my name is Ronald Harvey." "I ha' come to fetch yer," said Connie. "What for?" asked the boy. "It's Mammy Warren," said Connie in a low tone. "What?" asked the child. His face, always pale, now turned ghastly white. "She's such a nice woman," said Connie. She sat down by Ronald. "Show me these purty balls," she said. "Wot be they?" "Chestnuts," said the boy. "Did you ever see them before? That was not true what you said about--about----" "Yus," said Connie, "it is true. I'm a little gel stayin' with her now, and you--I want you to come back with me. She's real, real kind is Mammy Warren." The boy put his hand up to his forehead. "You seem a nice girl," he said, "and you look like--like a lady, only you don't talk the way ladies talk. I'm a gentleman. My father was an officer in the army, and my darling mother died, and--and something happened--I don't know what--but I was very, very, very ill. There was an awful time first, and there seemed to be a woman called Mammy Warren mixed up in the time and----" "Oh, you had fever," said Connie, "and you--you pictured things to yourself in the fever. But 'tain't true," she added earnestly. "I'm wid her, an' she's real, real, wonnerful kind." "You wouldn't tell a lie, would you, girl?" said the boy. Connie bit her lip hard. "No," she said then in a choked voice. "I wonder if it's true," said the boy. "It seems to me it was much more than the fever, but I can't--I can't _quite_ remember." "She is very kind," echoed Connie. "Children, come along in," said a cheerful voice at that moment; and Connie, raising her eyes, saw the sturdy form of Mrs. Warren advancing up the path to meet her. "She was terrible cruel in my time," said Ronald, glancing at the same figure. "I don't want to go back." "Oh, do--do come back, for my sake!" whispered Connie. He turned and looked into the beautiful little face. "Boys have to be good," he said then, "and--and brave. My father was a very brave man." Then he struggled to his feet. "Well, Ronald," said Mrs. Warren, "and 'ow may yer be, my dear little boy? This is Connie, a cousin o' yourn. Wot playmates you two wull be! Ye're both comin' back with me to my nice 'ome this wery arfternoon. And now Mrs. Cricket 'as got a meal for us all and then yer little things'll be packed, Ronald, and I'll carry 'em--for in course yer nurse ought to carry yer clothes, my boy. We'll get off to the train as fast as ever we can arter we've had our meal. Now, children, foller me back to the cottage." Mrs. Warren sailed on in front. Connie and Ronald followed after, hand in hand. There was quite a splendid color in Connie's pale cheeks now, for all of a sudden she saw a reason for her present life. She had got to protect Ronald, who was so much younger than herself. She would protect him with her very life if necessary. CHAPTER X. THE RETURN TO LONDON. Mrs. Warren made a very hearty meal. She swallowed down cup after cup of strong coffee, and ate great hunches of thick bread-and-butter, and called out to the children not to shirk their food. But, try as they would, neither Connie nor Ronald had much appetite. Connie, in spite of herself, could not help casting anxious glances at the little boy, and whenever she did so she found that Mrs. Warren had fixed her with her bold black eyes. It seemed to Connie that Mrs. Warren's eyes said quite as plainly as though her lips had spoken: "I'll keep my word; there's the room with no winder and no light in it--yer'll find yerself in there ef yer don't look purty sharp." But notwithstanding the threatening expression of Mrs. Warren's eyes, Connie could not restrain all sign of feeling. Ronald, on the other hand, appeared quite bright. He devoted himself to Connie, helping her in the most gentlemanly way to the good things which Mrs. Cricket had provided. "The apple jam is very nice," he said. "I watched Mrs. Cricket make it.--Didn't I, Mrs. Cricket?" "That you did, my little love," said the good woman. "And I give you a little saucer of it all hot and tasty for your tea, didn't I, my little love?" "Oh yes," replied Ronald; "and didn't I like it, just!" "Jam's wery bad for little boys," said Mrs. Warren at this juncture. "Jam guvs little boys fever an' shockin' cruel dreams. It's bread-and-butter as little boys should heat, and sometimes bread without butter in case they should turn bilious." "Oh no, ma'am, begging your pardon," here interrupted Mrs. Cricket; "I haven't found it so with dear little Master Ronald. You tell his parients, please, ma'am, that it's milk as he wants--lots and lots of country milk--and--and a chop now and then, and chicken if it's young and tender. That was 'ow I pulled 'im round.--Wasn't it, Ronald, my dear?" "Yes," said Ronald in his gentlemanly way. "You were very good indeed, Mrs. Cricket." "Perhaps," interrupted Mrs. Warren, drawing herself up to her full height, which was by no means great, and pursing her lips, "yer'll 'ave the goodness, Mrs. Cricket, to put on a piece o' paper the exact diet yer like to horder for this yere boy. I'm a busy woman," said Mrs. Warren, "and I can't keep it in my 'ead. It's chuckens an' chops an' new-laid heggs--yer did say new-laid heggs at thruppence each didn't yer, Mrs. Cricket?--an' the richest an' best milk, mostly cream, I take it." "I said nothing about new-laid eggs," said Mrs. Cricket, who was exceedingly exact and orderly in her mind; "but now, as you 'ave mentioned them, they'd come in very 'andy. But I certain did speak of the other things, and I'll write 'em down ef yer like." "Do," said Mrs. Warren, "and I'll mention 'em to the child's parients w'en I see 'em." But at this juncture something startling happened, for Ronald, white as a sheet, rose. "Has my father come back?" he asked. "Have you heard from him? Are you taking me to him?" Mrs. Warren gazed full at Ronald, and, quick as thought, she adopted his idea. Here would be a way--a delightful way--of getting the boy back to her dreadful house. "Now, ain't I good?" she said. "Don't I know wot a dear little boy wants? Yus, my love, ye're soon to be in the harms of yer dear parient." "But you said both parients," interrupted Mrs. Cricket. Mrs. Warren put up her finger to her lips. She had got the boy in her arms, and he found himself most unwillingly folded to her ample breast. "Ain't one enough at a time?" was her most dubious remark. "And now then, Ronald, hurry up with yer things, for Connie and me, we must be hoff. We could leave yer behind, ef yer so wished it, but Lunnun 'ud be a much more convenient place for yer to meet yer father." "Oh I'll go, I'll go!" said Ronald. "My darling, darling father! Oh, I did think I'd never see him again! And he's quite well, Mrs. Warren?" "In splendid, splendid health," said Mrs. Warren. "Niver did I lay eyes on so 'andsome a man." "And I'll see him to-night?" said Ronald. "Yus--ef ye're quick." Then Ronald darted into the next room, and Mrs. Cricket followed him, and Connie and Mrs. Warren faced each other. Mrs. Warren began to laugh immoderately. "Young and tender chuckens," she said, "an' chops an' new-laid heggs an' milk. Wotever's the matter with yer, Connie?" Connie answered timidly that she though Ronald a dear little boy, and very pretty, and that she hoped that he would soon get strong with the nourishing food that Mrs. Warren was going to give him. But here that worthy woman winked in so mysterious and awful a manner that poor Connie felt as though she had received an electric shock. After a time she spoke again. "I'm so glad about his father!" she said. "His father was a hofficer in the harmy. Will he really see him to-night, Mrs. Warren?" "Will the sky fall?" was Mrs. Warren's ambiguous answer. "Once for all, Connie, you ax no questions an' you'll be told no lies." A very few moments afterwards Ronald came out of the little bedroom, prepared for his journey. Mrs. Cricket cried when she parted with him, but there were no tears in the boy's lovely eyes--he was all smiles and excitement. "I'll bring my own, own father down to see you, Mrs. Cricket," he said; "maybe not to-morrow, but some day next week. For you've been very good to me, darling Mrs. Cricket." Then Mrs. Cricket kissed him and cried over him again, and the scene might have been prolonged if Mrs. Warren had not caught the boy roughly by the shoulder and pulled him away. As they were marching down the tiny path which led from the cottage to the high-road, Mrs. Cricket did venture to say in an anxious voice: "I s'pose as Major Harvey'll pay me the little money as I spended on the dear child?" "That he will," said Mrs. Warren. "I'll see him to-night, most like, and I'll be sure to mention the chuckens and the chops." "Well then, good-bye again, darling," said Mrs. Cricket. Ronald blew a kiss to her, and then, taking Connie's hand, they marched down the high-road in the direction of the railway station, Mrs. Warren trotting by their side, carrying the small bundle which contained Ronald's clothes all tied up neatly in a blue check handkerchief. "Yer'll be sure to tell yer father wot a good nurse I were to you, Ronald," she remarked as they found themselves alone in a third-class carriage. "You're quite sure it _was_ only a dream?" said Ronald then very earnestly. "Wot do yer mean by that, chile?" inquired Mrs. Warren. "I mean the dark room without any light, and the dreadful person who--who--flogged me, and--the hunger." "Poor little kid!" said Mrs. Warren. "Didn't he 'ave the fever, and didn't Mammy Warren hold him in her arms, an', big boy that he be, walked up and down the room wid him, and tried to soothe him w'en he said them nasty lies? It wor a dream, my dear. W'y, Connie here can tell yer 'ow good I am to 'er." "Wery good," said Connie--"so good that there niver were no one better." She tumbled out the words in desperation, and Mammy Warren gave her a radiant smile, and poked her playfully in the ribs, and said that she was quite the funniest gel she had ever come acrost. After this Connie was quite silent until the little party found themselves at Waterloo. Here they mounted to the top of a 'bus, and Ronald, trembling with delight, clutched hold of Connie's hand. "Stoop down," he said; "I want to whisper." Connie bent towards him. "Do you think my father will be waiting for me when we get back to Mrs. Warren's?" "I don't know," was the only reply poor Connie could manage to give him. At last the omnibus drive came to an end, and the trio walked the short remaining distance to Mrs. Warren's rooms. Ronald almost tumbled upstairs in his eagerness to get there first. "Oh, how will he get in? I do hope he's not been waiting and gone away again." Mrs. Warren opened the door with her latch key. The room was dark, for there was neither fire-light nor gas-light; but soon these deficiencies were supplied, for Mrs. Warren was exceedingly fond of creature comforts. "I wonder when he'll come," said Ronald. He was standing by the table and looking anxiously with his big brown eyes all round him. "I do wonder when he'll come." Mrs. Warren made no reply. She began to prepare supper. As she did so there came a knock at the door. Mrs. Warren went to open it. She had an eager conversation with some one who stood without, and then she and Agnes entered the room together. Ronald evidently knew Agnes, for he shrank away from her and regarded her arrival with the reverse of pleasure. "Wull--and 'ow yer?" said Agnes in a cheerful tone. She chucked Ronald under the chin and remarked on his healthy appearance. "Wull," said Mrs. Warren, "yer can't blame the pore child for that, seein' as he 'ave been cockered up on the best food in the land--chuckens and chops, no less." "Oh, dear me! how shockin' greedy you must be!" said Agnes. "I'm sure, ma'am," she continued, turning to Mrs. Warren, "no one could desire better than wot _you_ 'as to eat." "I like my own food," said Mrs. Warren, "although it be simplicity itself. There are two red 'errin's for supper to-night, and bread-and-butter and tea, and a _little_ raspberry jam, and ef that ain't enough for anybody's palate, I don't know----" "My father, when he comes"--began Ronald, but here Mrs. Warren turned to him. "You're a manly boy, Ronald," she said, "and I know you'll tike wot I 'ave to say in a manly sperrit. Yer father have been called out o' Lunnon, and won't be back for a day or two. He sent a message by Agnes 'ere. He don't know the exact day as he'll be back, but he'll come wery soon." "Yes," said Agnes, "I seen him." "Where?" asked Ronald. "In the street," said Agnes. "He come along 'ere an hour back. Ef you'd been 'ome he might ha' took yer back with him; but w'en he found that you was still in the country he wor that pleased 'is whole face seemed to smile, and he said--said 'e, 'Dear Mammy Warren--I'd like to chuck her under her chin.' Them was his wery words." "I don't believe my father would say that sort of thing," answered Ronald. "Oh my!" said Agnes. "Highty-tighty! Don't yer go an' say as I tells lies, young man----" "An' it's the wery thing he would say," interrupted Mrs. Warren, "for a plainer-spoken, more hagreeable man than the Major niver drew breath." "He left yer a message," continued Agnes, "an' yer can tike it or leave it--I don't care. Wot he said wor this. You're to obey Mammy Warren, an' be wery grateful to her, an' do jest wot she tells yer until he comes 'ome. He'll be 'ome any day, an' he'll come an' fetch yer then, and the more good yer be to Mammy Warren the better pleased he'll be." Ronald sat down on a little stool. He had sat on that stool before. He looked with dim eyes across the over-furnished, hot, and terribly ugly room. That vision of delight which had buoyed him up all the way back to London was not to be realized for a few days. He must bear with Mrs. Warren for a few days. It did not enter into his head that the whole story about his father was false from beginning to end. The present disappointment was quite enough for so young a child to bear. After this Mrs. Warren and Agnes conversed in semi-whispers, and presently they retired into Mrs Warren's bedroom, and Connie and Ronald were alone. "I am glad yer've come 'ere, Ronald," said Connie. "Yes," said Ronald. He pressed his little white hand against his forehead. "You're missing your father, I know," continued Connie, "Somehow I'm a-missing o' mine." "Have you a father, Connie?" asked the little boy. "Yus--that I 'ave," said Connie. "Not a great, grand gentleman like yourn, but a father for all that." "Is your father in London?" asked the boy. "Oh yes," answered Connie, "and not far from 'ere, nayther." "Then why aren't you with him?" asked Ronald. "'Cos I can't be," replied Connie in a low whisper. "Hush!" said Ronald. Just then the door opened and Agnes came out. Mrs. Warren followed her. Mrs. Warren wore her usual tight-fitting jacket, but on this occasion Agnes carried a leather bag, which seemed to be stuffed so full that it was with difficulty it could be kept shut. Mrs. Warren addressed the two children. "I'm goin' to lock you two in," she said, "an' you'd best go to bed. There's a little bed made up in your room, Connie, for Ronald to sleep in; and as you're a deal older than that sweet little boy, you'll nurse him off to sleep, jest as though he wor your real brother. Arter he's asleep you can go to bed yerself, for there's nothing like early hours for beauty sleep. You yere me, Connie? You know wot to do?" "Yus," answered Connie. Her voice was almost cheerful. She was so truly glad that Mrs. Warren was going out. When she heard the key turning in the lock, and knew that she and Ronald were locked in all alone, she scarcely seemed to mind, so glad was she of Ronald's company. Neither child spoke to the other until the retreating footsteps of Mrs. Warren and Agnes ceased to sound on the stairs. Then Connie went up to Ronald, and kneeling down by him put her arms round him and kissed him. "You're very pretty," said the little boy, "although you don't talk like a lady. But that doesn't matter," he added, "for you've got a lady's heart." "I love you, Ronald," was Connie's answer. Ronald now put his own arms round Connie's neck and kissed her once or twice on her peach-like cheek, and then they both sat down on the floor and were happy for a few minutes in each other's company. After that Ronald began to speak. He told Connie about his father and about his mother. He did not cry at all, as most children would have done, when he spoke of those he loved so dearly. "Mother's dead nearly a year now," he said. "It was waiting for father that killed her. Father went out to a dreadful war in South Africa, and we heard that he was killed. Mother wouldn't believe it; she never did believe it--never--and she taught me not to, and I never did. But, all the same, it killed her." "And then wot became of you?" asked Connie. "I was taken here," replied Ronald. "That's three or four months ago now. I remember quite well being out walking with my nurse. She wasn't very nice, my nurse wasn't; but she was--oh, so good and kind compared to--what--what happened afterwards! Darling mother was dead. They had put her body in the grave, and the angels had got her soul. I didn't like to think of the grave, but I did love to remember the angels. The last thing mother said when she was dying was, 'Ronald, when your father comes back, be sure you tell him that I never believed that he was really dead.'" "I promised her, and then she said again, 'And you'll never believe it either, Ronald.' And I said that I never, never would, if it was a thousand years. And then she kissed me and smiled; and I s'pose the angels took her, for she never spoke any more." "Well," said Connie, who did not want Ronald to dwell too long on this very sad scene, "tell us 'bout the day you come 'ere." "Mother was in her grave," said Ronald, "and there was no one who thought very much about me; and my nurse--she was not half as kind as when mother lived. One day she took me for a walk. We went a long, long way, and presently she asked me to wait for her outside one of those awful gin-palaces. She used to go in there sometimes, even when mother was alive. Well, I waited and waited outside, but she never came out. I was not a bit frightened at first, of course, for my father's boy mustn't be a coward, must he, Connie?" "No," answered Connie. "But she didn't come out, and it got late, and people began to look at me, and by-and-by Mammy Warren came out of the gin-palace. She was--oh, so red in the face! and I thought I'd never seen so dreadfully stout a woman. She put her hand on my shoulder and said, 'Wotever are you doing here?' And I said, 'I'm waiting for my nurse, Hannah Waters.' And she said, 'Oh, then, _you're_ the little boy!' And I stared at her, and she said, 'Pooh Hannah's took bad, and she's asked me to take you home. Come along at once, my dear.' "I went with her. I wasn't a bit frightened--I had never been frightened in all my life up to then. But she didn't take me home at all. She brought me to this house. She was very kind to me at first, in a sort of a way, and she told me that my relations had given me to her to look after, and that I was to be her little boy for the present, and must do just what she wanted." "Well--and wot did she want?" asked Connie, trembling not a little. "It wasn't so dreadful bad at first," continued Ronald. "She used to take me out every day for long walks, and she made me look very nice; and we went into shops, for she said she wanted to buy things, but I don't think she ever did buy much. I used to be tired sometimes; we walked such a very long way." "And did she ever make you go a little, tiny bit in front of her?" said Connie. "Why, yes," replied Ronald. "But I rather liked that, for, you see, I'm a gentleman, and she's not a lady." "I wonder," said Connie, "ef she spoke of herself as your old nurse." Ronald began to laugh. "How clever of you to think of that, Connie! She always did; and whenever she did buy things she said they were for me; and she used to give--oh, tremendous grand addresses of where I lived." "Portland Mansions, p'r'aps?" said Connie. "Sometimes that, and sometimes other places; but of course the parcels were never sent there; she always carried them herself." "And she wore a big, big cloak, with pockets inside?" asked Connie. "Yes, she did--she did." "She does just the same with me now," said Connie. "I go out with her every day, and we go into the big shops--into the most crowded parts--and she doesn't buy much. I like that the best part of the day, for all the rest of the time I have to stay here and do nothing." "And so had I to stay in these rooms and do nothing," said Ronald. "But I won't have to stay long now," he continued, "as my dear, dear father has come home. Oh! I wish darling mother were alive, that she might feel as happy as I do to-night." "But tell me, Ronald," continued Connie, "how was it yer got the fever?" "I don't quite remember that part," said the little boy. "All that part was made up of dreams. There was a dreadful dream when I seemed to be quite well, and when I said something before some one, and Mammy Warren turned scarlet; and when I was alone she--she flogged me and put me into a dark, dark room for--oh! it seemed like--for ever. And I had nothing to eat, and I was so frightened--for she said there was a bogy there--that I nearly died. I didn't like to be frightened, for it seemed as though I couldn't be father's own son if I were afraid. But I was afraid, Connie--I was. I'll have to tell darling father about it when I see him; I'm sure he'll forgive me, more particular when he knows the whole thing was only a fever dream--for there's not any room in this house like that, is there, Connie." "Yes, but there be," thought Connie. But she did not say so aloud. That night Ronald slept as peacefully as though he were really back again with his father. But Connie lay awake. Anxious as she had been before Ronald's arrival, that state of things was nothing at all to her present anxiety. The next day was Sunday, and if it had not been for Big Ben the two poor children would have had a most miserable time, for they were shut up in Mrs. Warren's room from morning till night. In vain they begged to be allowed to go out. Mrs. Warren said "No," and in so emphatic a manner that they did not dare to ask her twice. Agnes did not come at all to the house on Sunday, and Connie and Ronald finally curled themselves up in the deep window-ledge, and Connie talked and told Ronald all about her past life. In particular she told him about Big Ben, and little Giles, and the wonderful, most wonderful "Woice." After that the children had a sort of play together, in which Ronald proved himself to be a most imaginative little person, for he invented many fresh stories with regard to Big Ben, assuring Connie that he was much more than a voice. He would not be at all surprised, he said if Big Ben was not a great angel who came straight down from heaven every hour to comfort the sorrowful people in Westminster. Ronald thought it extremely likely that this wonderful angel knew his own mother, and was on this special Sunday telling him to be a brave boy and keep up his heart, for most certainly he would be safe back with his father before another Sunday came. "That's what he says," continued Ronald, "and that's what'll happen, you'll see, Connie. And when darling father comes here you shall come away too, for I won't leave you alone with Mammy Warren. She's not a real kind person, is she, Connie?" "Don't ax me," said Connie. Ronald looked up into her face. "You can't tell a lie at all well," he said. "You're trying to make me think that Mammy Warren's nice, but you're not doing it well, for I don't believe you." Then the big clock once again tolled the hour, and Ronald laughed with glee. "There's no doubt about it now," he said. "Father _is_ coming, and very, very soon. Oh I am glad, and happy!" During that Sunday the children had very little food, for Mrs. Warren seemed all of a sudden to have changed her tactics. Whether it was the fact that she was really angry at Mrs. Cricket's having fed the boy on chicken and mutton-chops, no one could tell; but all he did have on that eventful Sunday was weak tea, stale bread and butter, and a very little jam. Towards evening the two poor little creatures were really hungry. By-and-by they clasped each other round the neck, and fell asleep in each other's arms. It was in this condition--curled up near the fire--that Mrs. Warren found them when she got home. CHAPTER XI. A NEW DEPARTURE. With Monday morning, however, all things seemed to have altered. Mrs. Warren was up spry and early. She called Connie to come and help her, but she desired Ronald to lie in bed. "It's a nasty day," she said; "there's sleet falling. We'll go out, of course, for fresh air is good for children, but we must none of us wear our best clothes." "What do yer mean by that?" said Connie. "Don't you go and ax me wot I mean; just do wot I tells yer. No dark-blue dress for yer to-day, missy. I ha' got a old gownd as 'ull fit yer fine." Poor Connie trembled. Mrs. Warren went into her bedroom. "'Ere, now," she said, "you put it on." The old gown was certainly not at all nice. Its color was quite indescribable. It was very ragged and torn, too, round the bottom of the skirt. It dragged down in front so as almost to trip poor Connie when she tried to walk, and was several inches too short in the back. Mrs. Warren desired Connie to take off her dainty shoes and stockings, and gave her some stockings with holes in them, and some very disreputable shoes down at the heel. She made her pin across her chest a little old shawl of an ugly pale pattern, and instead of allowing her to wear her hair in a golden fleece down her back, she plaited it, and tied it into a little bunch at the back of her head. She then put an old bonnet on the child's head--a bonnet which must have once belonged to quite an elderly woman--and tied it with strings in front. Connie felt terribly ashamed of herself. "I'm all in rags," she said, "jest as though I wor a beggar maid." "I've a fancy that yer shall wear these 'ere clothes to-day," said Mrs. Warren. "Yer've been a fine lydy too long; yer'll be a beggar maid to-day. W'en I tell yer wot to do in the street, yer'll do it. You can sing, I take it. Now then, you learn the words." Mrs. Warren planted down before Connie the well-known words of "Home, Sweet Home." "I know this without learning it," said the girl. "An' you 'as a good woice, I take it." "Middlin'," replied Connie. "Wull, sing it for me now." Connie struck up the familiar words, and so frightened was she that in real desperation she acquitted herself fairly well. "You'll take a treble, an' the little boy 'ull do likewise, and I'll take a fine, deep second. Ah! _I_ know 'ow to sing," said Mrs. Warren. "You won't take little Ronald out on a dreadful sort o' day like this," said Connie. "Wen I want yer adwice I'll ax fur it," said Mrs. Warren, with most withering sarcasm. Poor Connie felt her heart suddenly fit to burst. What new and dreadful departure was this? Mrs. Warren now brought Ronald into the front room, and there she arrayed him in garments of the poorest type, allowing his little thin legs to be quite bare, and his very thin arms to show through his ragged jacket. She posed, however, a little red cap on the midst of his curly dark hair; and this cap most wonderfully became the child, so that few people could pass him in the street without noticing the sweetness of his angelic face. Then Mrs. Warren prepared herself for the part she was to take. She went into her bedroom for the purpose, and returned looking so exactly like a stout old beggar woman that the children would scarcely have known her. She had covered her left eye with a patch, and now only looked out on the world with her right one. Her hair was knotted untidily under a frowsy old bonnet, and a very thin shawl was bound across her ample breast. "We'll do fine, I take it," she said to the children. "I am your mother, my dears; you'll both 'old me by the 'and. Purtier little lambs couldn't be seen than the two of yez. And ef poor, ugly Mammy Warren 'ave made herself still uglier for yer sweet sakes, 'oo can but love 'er for the ennoblin' deed? Wull, come along now, children; but first I'll build up the fire, for we'll be 'ungry arter this 'ere job." The fire was built up to Mrs. Warren's satisfaction, and the three went downstairs. Ronald was quite speechless with shame--to go out like this, to disgrace his brave father and his darling mother in this sort of fashion, was pure torture to the boy; but Connie, in the thought of him and the fear that he would take cold, almost forgot her own misery. The three did not go anywhere by 'bus that day, but hurried down side alleys and back streets until they got into the region of Piccadilly. The children had not the least idea where they were. Suddenly, however, they came to a pause outside a large hotel, and there Mrs. Warren struck up the first note of "Home, Sweet Home." She had timed everything well. The policeman was at the other end of his beat, and she would not be molested for quite ten minutes. The quavering, ugly notes of the old woman were well subdued, and Connie had a really fine voice, and it rose high on the bitter air in sweet, childish appeal and confidence. Ronald, too, was struck with a sudden thought. That hotel was a sort of place where father used to live when he was alive. Who could tell if his father himself might not have returned, and might not be there, and might not hear him if he sang loud enough and sweet enough? The voice of the boy and the voice of the girl blended together, and Mrs. Warren skilfully dropped hers so as not to spoil the harmony. The people in the hotel were attracted by the sweet notes, and crowded to the windows. Then Connie's face of purest beauty--Connie's face rendered all the more pathetic by the old bonnet and the dreadful, tattered dress--and Ronald with his head thrown back, his red cap held in his hand, the white snow falling in flakes on his rich dark hair, made between them a picture which would melt the hardest heart. Sixpences and even shillings were showered from the windows, and as the last note of "Home, Sweet Home" died away Mrs. Warren pocketed quite a considerable harvest. She and the children then moved on and did likewise before several other large buildings, but they were not so successful again as they had been with their first attempt. The police came back sooner than they were expected. Ronald began to cough, too, and Connie's face looked blue with cold. Mrs. Warren, however, was not disappointed. She spoke encouragingly and protectingly to the children. "Come 'ome, loveys," she said; "come 'ome, my little dears." They did get home--or, rather, they got back to the dreadful house where they were imprisoned--late in the afternoon, Ronald almost speechless with cold and fatigue, Connie trembling also, and aching in every limb. But now unwonted comforts awaited them. Mrs. Warren had no idea of killing off these sources of wealth. She put Ronald into a hot bath, and rubbed his limbs until they glowed, and then moved his little bed in front of the fire and got him into it. Connie was also rubbed and dried and desired to dispense with her beggar's toilet. Afterwards there was quite a good dinner of roast pork with crackling and apple sauce, and dreadful as their position was, both the poor children enjoyed this meal as they had never enjoyed food before. Thus a few days went by, the children going out every morning with Mrs. Warren sometimes as beggar children, but sometimes again as children of the well-to-do. These two programmes formed the most interesting part of their little lives. For the rest of the day they sat huddled up together, sometimes talking, sometimes silent, while each day a bigger and bigger ache came into Ronald's heart. Why, oh why did not his father come to fetch him? But as all things come to an end, so the children's life in Mrs. Warren's dreadful attics came to an abrupt conclusion. One day, just as they were dressed to go out, there came a hurried knock at the door. It seemed to Connie, who was very sharp and observant, that Mrs. Warren did not much like the sound. She went to the door and, before opening it, called out, "Who's there?" "Agnes," was the reply; whereupon Mrs. Warren opened the door a few inches, and Agnes squeezed in, immediately locking the door behind her. She whispered something into Mrs. Warren's ear, which caused that good woman to turn deadly white and stagger against the wall. "Yer've no time to faint, ma'am," said Agnes. "'Ere--let me slap yer on the back." She gave two resounding whacks on Mrs. Warren's stout back, which caused that woman to heave a couple of profound sighs and then to recover her presence of mind. She and Agnes then retired into her bedroom, where drawers were hastily opened, and much commotion was heard by the two prettily dressed and waiting children. In another minute or two Agnes came out alone. "Wull," she said, "and 'ow be you, Connie?" "I am all right," said Connie. "Where's Mammy Warren?" "She's tuk bad, and won't want yer to go out a-walkin' with her to-day. Oh my! oh my! how spry we be! It 'minds me o' the old song, 'As Willikins were a-walkin' wid his Dinah one day.'" "Agnes," said Connie, "I'm certain sure as there's some'ut wrong." "Be yer now?" said Agnes. "Wull then, ye're mistook. Wot could be wrong? Ye're a very queer and suspicious gel, Connie Harris--the most suspicious as I hever see'd. Ye're just for all the world the most selfish gel as could be found in the whole o' Lunnun. Pore Mammy Warren was told of the sudden death of her sister, and that's all the sympathy you guvs her. Wery different she behaves to you and Ronald. 'Hagnes,' says she, 'tike those pore children for a run,' says she, 'and bring them 'ome safe in time for dinner,' says she, 'an' give 'em some roast mutton for dinner, poor darlin's,' says Mammy Warren; and then she falls to cryin', and 'Oh, my sister!' she says, and 'Oh, poor Georgina!' she sobs. Now then, the pair of yer--out we goes, and I'll go wid yer." Quick as thought Agnes accomplished her purpose, and the two prettily dressed children--Connie with her hair down her back, Ronald looking like a little prince--found themselves in the street. But if the two children thought that they had the slightest chance of running away they were terribly mistaken, for Agnes proved even a sharper taskmistress than Mrs. Warren. She seemed to Connie to have suddenly got quite old and very cruel and determined. She walked the children here, and she walked them there. They peered into shop windows and got into crowds, but they did no shopping that morning. Connie was rather glad of that, and now she was so accustomed to being stared at that she hardly took any notice; while as to Ronald, his sweet brown eyes looked full up into the face of every gentleman who passed, in the faint hope of discovering his father again. It seemed to Connie that they were out longer than usual; but at last they did come back. Then, to their great surprise, they found the door of Mammy Warren's sitting-room wide opened. "My word! 'ow can this 'ave 'appened?" said Agnes. They all went in, and Agnes went straight to the bedroom. She came out presently, wearing a very grave face, and told the children that she greatly feared poor Mammy Warren had gone off her head with grief--that there wasn't a sign of her in the bedroom, nor anywhere in the house. "And she's took her things, too," said Agnes. "Wull, now--wull, I must go and search for her. Yer dinner's in the oven, children, and I'll come back to see 'ow yer be sometime to-night, p'rhaps." "Wull Mammy Warren come back to-night?" asked Connie. "I don't know--maybe the poor soul is in the river by now. She wor took wery bad, thinkin' of her sister, Georgina. I'll lock yer in, of course, children, and yer can eat yer dinner and think o' yer mercies." CHAPTER XII. LEFT ALONE. When Agnes went out the two children stared at each other. "Connie," said Ronald, "I wish you'd tell me the real, real truth." But Connie was trembling very much. "Don't yer ax me," she said. She suddenly burst into tears. "I am so dreadfully frightened," she cried. "I don't think I ever wor so frightened in all my life before. You're not half so frightened as I am, Ronald." "Of course not," said Ronald, "for I am a boy, you see, and I'll be a man by-and-by. Besides, I have to think of father--father would have gone through anything. Once he was in a shipwreck. The ship was really wrecked, and a great many of the passengers were drowned. Father told me all about it, but it was from a friend of father's that I learned afterwards how splendid he was, saving--oh, heaps of people! It was that night," continued Ronald, sitting down by the fire as he spoke, his eyes glowing with a great thought, and his little face all lit up by the fire-light--"it was that night that he first found out how much he loved mother; for mother was in a great big Atlantic liner, and it was father who saved her life. Afterwards they were married to each other, and afterwards I came to them--God sent me, you know." "Yus," said Connie. She dried her eyes. "Go on talking, Ronald," she said. "I never met a boy like you. I thought there were no one like Giles, but it seems to me some'ow that you're a bit better--you're so wonnerful, wonnerful brave, and 'ave such a cunnin' way of talkin'. I s'pose that's 'cos you--you're a little gen'leman, Ronald." Ronald made no answer to this. After a minute he said: "There's no thanks to me to be brave--that is, when I'm brave it's all on account of father, and 'Like father, like son.' Mother used to teach me that proverb when I was very small. Shall I tell you other things that father did?" "Oh yus, please," said Connie. "He saved some people once in a great big fire. No one else had courage to go in, but he wasn't afraid of anything. And another time he saved a man on the field of battle. He got his V. C. for that." "Wotever's a V. C.?" inquired Connie. "Oh," said Ronald, "don't you even know that? How very ignorant you are, dear Connie. A V. C.--why, it's better to be a Victoria Cross man than to be the greatest noble in the land. Even the King couldn't be more than a Victoria Cross man." "Still, I don't understand," said Connie. "It's an honor," said Ronald, "that's given for a very, very brave deed. Father had it; when he comes back he'll show you his Victoria Cross; then you'll know." "Do yer think as he'll come soon?" asked Connie. "He may come to-day," said Ronald--"or he may not," he added, with a profound sigh. The little boy had been talking with great excitement, but now the color faded from his cheeks and he coughed a little. He had coughed more or less since that dreadful day when Mrs. Warren had taken him out in the snowstorm. He was always rather a delicate child, and after his bad fever he was not fit to encounter such misery and hardship. "Connie," he said after a time, "it's the worst of all dreadful things, isn't it, to pretend that you are what you aren't?" "What do yer mean by that?" asked Connie. "Well, it's this way. You praise me for being brave. I am not brave always; I am very frightened sometimes. I am very terribly frightened now, dear Connie." "Oh Ronald!" said Connie, "if you're frightened hall's hup." "Let me tell you," said Ronald. He laid his little, thin hand on the girl's arm. "It's about father. Do you think, Connie, that Mammy Warren could have invented that story about him?" "I dunno," said Connie. "But what do you think, Connie? Tell me just what you think." "Tell me what you think, Ronald." "I am afraid to think," said the child. "At first I believed it, just as though father had spoken himself to me. I thought for sure and certain he'd be waiting for me here. I didn't think for a single moment that he'd be the sort of father that would come and stand outside in the landing and go away again just because I wasn't here. For, you see, I am his own little boy; I am all he has got. I know father so well, I don't believe he could do that kind of thing." "Oh, but you can't say," answered Connie. "Certain sure, it seemed as though Agnes spoke the truth." "I thought that too; only father's a very refined sort of man, and he'd never, never chuck Mrs. Warren under the chin." "Agnes might have invented that part," said poor Connie. But in her heart of hearts she had long ago given up all hope of Ronald's father coming to fetch him. "She might," said Ronald; "that is quite true; and he might have had to go to the country--perhaps to rescue some one in great danger. He is the sort who are always doing that. That's quite, quite likely, for it would be in keeping with father's way. And he'd like me, of course, to be unselfish, and never to make a fuss--he hated boys who made a fuss. Oh yes, I did believe it; and on Saturday night and on Sunday, when Big Ben talked to us, it seemed that it was mother telling me that father would soon be with me. But a whole week has gone and he hasn't come. Why, it's Saturday night again, Connie. I've been back again in this house for a whole week now, and father has never, never come." "Maybe he'll come to-night," said Connie. "I don't think so; somehow I'd sort of feel it in my bones if he was coming back." "What do yer mean by that?" said Connie. "Oh, I'd be springy-like and jumpy about. But I'm not. I feel--oh, so lazy and so--so tired! and a little bit--yes, a greatbit--frightened--terribly frightened." "You must cheer up, Ronald," said Connie. Then she added, "I wish we could get out o' this. I wish I could pick the lock and get aw'y." "Oh, I wish you could, Connie," said the child. "Couldn't you try?" "I'm a'most afeered to go into Mammy Warren's room," said Connie; "for ef she did come back and see me any time, she'd punish me awful; but p'r'aps I might find tools for picking the lock in her room." "Oh, do let's try!" said Ronald. Connie half-rose, then sat down again. "It's me that's the coward now," she said. "Oh, how so, Connie?" "'Cos," said Connie, "there's that dark room with no winder--'tain't a dream, Ronald." "I thought it wasn't," said Ronald, turning white. "No--it's there," said Connie, "and I'm afeered o' it." Ronald sat very still for a minute then. He was thinking hard. He was only a little boy of ten years old, but he was a very plucky one. He looked at Connie, who although a little older than he, was very slight and small for her age. "Connie," he said, "if you and I are ever to make our escape we must not be frightened. Even the dark closet won't frighten me now. _I_ am going into Mrs. Warren's room." "Oh Ronald! Are you? Dare you?" "Yes, I dare. Father did worse things than that--why should I be afraid?" "You'd win the V. C., Ronald, wouldn't you, now?" Ronald smiled. "Not for such a little, little thing. But perhaps some day," he said; and his eyes looked very bright. "Connie, if we can unpick the lock and get the door open, where shall we go?" "We'll go," said Connie in a brisk voice, "back to Father John as fast as ever we can." "Father John," said Ronald--"who is he?" "I told you, Ronnie--I told you about him." "I forgot for a minute," said Ronald. "You mean the street preacher." "Yus," said Connie. "'E'll save us. There's no fear o' Mammy Warren getting to us ever again ef he takes us in 'and." Ronald smiled. "The only thing I'm afraid of is this," he said--"that if it's true about father, he may come here and find me gone." "Let's leave a note for him," said Connie then. "Let's put it on the table. If Mammy Warren should come back she'll find the note, but that won't do any harm, for she knows Father John, and she's awful afeered of him, 'cos she said as much, so she'd never follow us there." "The very thing!" said Ronald. "Let's get some paper. Will you write the note, Connie?" The children poked round in the sitting-room, and found a sheet of very thin paper, and an old pen, and a penny bottle of ink. Ronald dictated, and Connie wrote: "DEAR FATHER,--I've waited here for a week. I am trying to be very brave. Connie's an awful nice girl. We've picked the lock here, father, and we've gone to Father John, in Adam Street. Please come quick, for your little boy is so very hungry for you. Come quick, darling father.--Your little waiting boy, RONALD." "That'll bring him," said Ronald. "We'll put it on the table." Connie had written her letter badly, and there were several blots; but still a feat was accomplished. Her cheeks were bright with excitement now. "What shall I put outside?" she asked--"on the envelope, I mean." Ronald thought for a minute; then he said in a slow and impressive voice: "To Major Harvey, V. C., from Ronald." "Nobody can mistake who it's meant for," said Ronald. "Here's a bit of sealing-wax," said Connie. "Let's seal it." They did so, Connie stamping the seal with a penny thimble which she took out of her pocket. "And now," said Ronald, pulling himself up, "all is ready, and I am going into Mammy Warren's room to try and find tools for picking the lock." "I'm a-goin' with yer," said Connie. "Oh Connie, that is brave of you." "No," said Connie, "it 'ud be real cowardly to let yer go alone." Hand in hand the two children crossed the ugly sitting-room, and opened the door which led into that mysterious apartment known as Mammy Warren's room. It certainly was a very strange-looking place. There was no bed to be seen anywhere, which in itself was surprising. But Connie explained to Ronald that the huge wooden wardrobe was doubtless a press-bed which let down at night. "She'd keep all kinds of things at the back of the bed," said the practical Connie, who had seen several similar arrangements in the houses of the poor. This room, however, although ugly and dark--very dark--seemed to be suspiciously bare. The children had turned on the gas--for evening had already arrived--and they could see with great distinctness. Mammy Warren owned the upper part of this tenement-house, and no one ever came up the creaking stairs except to visit her. The children therefore knew that if there was a footstep they would be in danger. Connie, however, assured Ronald that she could put out the light and be innocently seated by the fire if Mammy Warren did arrive unexpectedly. All was silence, however, on the creaking stairs, and they were able to resume their search. The chest of drawers stood with all its drawers open and each one of them empty. No sort of tool could the children find. The yellow and black silk dress had disappeared, but the disreputable old beggar's clothes hung on the peg behind the door. There was also a very ancient bonnet, which was hung by its strings over the dress. Otherwise there was not a scrap of anything whatever in the room except the press bedstead, which the children could not possibly open, and the empty chest of drawers. "But here," said Connie, "is a door. P'rhaps it's a cupboard door." "Let's try if it will open," said Ronald. He turned the handle. The door shot back with a spring, and the boy's face turned pale. "The dark closet!" said Connie. "The dark, dark room without a winder!" Ronald caught hold of Connie's hand and squeezed it tightly. After a minute he said in a husky voice: "Come away." Connie shut the mysterious closet door. The children turned out the gas in Mammy Warren's bedroom, and went back to the sitting-room. Here they crouched down, pale and trembling, before the fire. "Don't, Ronnie--don't," said Connie. "Hold me very tight, Connie," said the little boy. She did so, pressing him to her heart and kissing his little face. After a minute tears came to his eyes, and he said in a sturdy tone: "Now I am better. It was wrong of me to be so frightened." "Hark--there's the Woice!" said Connie. They sat very still while Big Ben proclaimed the hour of nine. "What does he say?" asked Ronald, turning round and looking at Connie. "I know," said Connie, a light on her pretty face. "Father John preached on it once. I know wot Big Ben's a-sayin' of to-night." "Tell me," said Ronald. "_He that shall endure_," said Connie. "Yes, Connie," repeated Ronald--"'He that shall endure'----" "_To the end_," said Connie, "_shall be saved_," she added. "Oh Connie!" cried the boy. "Do you really, really think so?" "Father John says it, and Father John couldn't tell a lie," continued the girl. "He says that is one of God's promises, and God never made a mistake. 'He that shall endure to the end--shall be saved.'" "Then," said Ronald, "if _we_ endure _we_ shall be saved." "Yes," replied Connie. "You're not frightened, then?" "Not after that," said Connie. "How can you tell that _was_ what Big Ben said?" "'Eard him," said Connie. She unclasped Ronald's arms from her neck and stood up. "I'm better," she said; "I'm not frightened no more. Sometimes it's 'ard to endure--Father John says it is. But ''E that _shall_ endure to the end'--to the _end_--he made a great p'int o' that--'shall be saved.'" "Then _we'll_ be saved," said Ronald. "Yus," answered Connie. She looked down at the little boy. The boy was gazing into the fire and smiling. Connie put on some fresh lumps of coal, and the fire broke into a cheerful blaze. It did not matter at all to the good coal whether it burned out its heart in an attic or a palace; wherever it was put to do its duty, it did it. Now gay little flames and cheerful bursts of bubbling gas rendered even the hideous room bright. "W'y, it's long past tea!" said Connie. "I'll put on the kettle and we'll have our tea, Ronald. Maybe Aggie'll be back in a minute, and maybe she'd like a cup o' tea." Connie put on the kettle, and then went to the cupboard to get out the provisions. These were exceedingly short. There was little more than a heel of very stale bread, and no butter, and only a scrape of jam; but there was a little tea in the bottom of the tea-canister, and a little coarse brown sugar in a cup. Connie laid the table quite cheerfully. "We'll toast the bread," she said. "Tea and toast is famous food." She got an old, bent toasting-fork, and she and Ronald laughed and even joked a little as they browned the stale bread until it was quite crisp and tempting-looking. "I'd ever so much rather have this tea than a great, big, grand one with Mammy Warren," said Connie. "Yes, Connie," said the boy; "so would I." They had no milk with their tea, but that was, after all but a small circumstance. They scraped out the jam-pot and spread its contents on the hot toast, and contrived to enjoy the slender meal to the utmost. Ronald said nothing about breakfast the next morning; he doubtless did not even give it a thought. But Connie remembered it well, although she took care not to allude to it. Ten o'clock struck, and still Agnes did not appear. Eleven, twelve--and no sign either of Mammy Warren or the girl. "Shall we go to bed?" said Ronald. "Let's bring our beds and lay 'em on the floor," said Connie, "in this room. Some'ow I don't think as Mammy Warren 'ull come back to-night. She wouldn't 'ave tuk all her things ef she meant to come; would she, Ronald?" "I don't know," said Ronald. He was very sleepy, for the hour was terribly late for so young a child to be awake. After a little reflection Connie decided only to drag his bed into the front room. She could lie on the floor by his side, wrapped up in a blanket. The fire was built up with the last scrap of coal in the hod, and then Ronald lay down without undressing. Connie begged of him to take off his clothes, but he said to her: "Maybe father'll come in the middle of the night. I somehow feel as if something must happen to-night, and I don't want not to be ready." Connie therefore only removed his shoes. She tucked the blankets round him, and said, "Good-night, Ronnie." "What is that verse?" asked Ronald again. "'He that shall endure to the end'----" "'Shall be saved,'" finished Connie. When she came to these words she noticed that little Ronald was sound asleep. Connie changed her mind about lying down. She sat on the floor by the boy's side, laid her head on the pillow close to his, and also dropped asleep. Big Ben called out the hour but the children slept. Perhaps the Voice spoke to them in their dreams, for they smiled now and then. Doubtless they were far away in those dreams from the dreadful attic, from the influence of a most cruel woman, from hunger and cold. The fire burned to a fine red glow, and then cooled down and grew gray and full of ashes, and eventually went out. For it had burned its heart out trying to help the children; and without a heart, even fire cannot keep alive. But the two children slept on, although Ronald now stirred uneasily and coughed in his sleep. It seemed to Connie that she also was oppressed by something, as though a great and terrible nightmare were sitting on her chest. Ronald coughed louder and opened his eyes. "Connie, Connie--where are we?" he cried. Connie sat up with a stare. "I be stiff," she began, "and--and cold. Wotever's the hour? Bide a bit, Ronald, and I'll find the matches and turn on the gas." "What's the matter with the room?" said Ronald. "I don't know nothing," said Connie. "My eyes smart," said Ronald, "and I can't breathe." "I feel queer too," said Connie. "I won't be a second finding out, though. You lie quiet." She groped about, found a match-box, which still contained a few matches, struck a light, and applied it to the gas, which was at full pressure now, and roared out, making a great flame. "W'y, the room's full o' smoke," said Connie. "Wottever can it be?" Ronald sat up in bed, opening his eyes. "Where does it come from?" he said. "The fire is out." Just then Big Ben proclaimed the hour of three. "He that shall endure," thought Connie. "To the end," darted through Ronald's mind; and just then both children heard an unmistakable and awful roar. Was it the roar of human voices or the roar of something else--a devouring and awful element? Connie turned white. Now, if ever, was the time to be brave. "I'll open the winder and look out," she said. She sprang towards it and, with a great effort, pushed it half up. The moment she did so, the noise from without came louder, and the noise from within was more deafening. "Fire! fire!" shouted a multitude of people from below in the street; and "Fire! fire!" cried the frenzied inhabitants of the old tenement-house. Connie and Ronald were on the top story. Connie went back to Ronald. "The house is on fire, Ronnie!" she said. "But we mustn't be frightened, either of us; we must think of the grand verse, and of what Big Ben said. Big Ben's an angel, you mind; Giles knows all about that." "Oh yes," said Ronald, his teeth chattering; for the draught from the open window, although it relieved his breathing, made him intensely cold. "It's a beautiful verse, isn't it, Connie?" he continued. "Yus," said Connie. "Let's get to the winder, Ronnie dear. We'll call out. There are people down in the street. The fire-engines 'ull be on in a minute; we'll be saved, in course." "Oh, of course," said Ronnie. He staggered to the floor, and put his feet into his shoes. "A good thing I wasn't undressed," he said. "Yus," said Connie. "Now, let's get to the winder." The children staggered there. The smoke was getting more dense; the room was filling faster and faster with the horrible, blinding, suffocating thing. But at the window there was relief. Connie put out her head for a minute, and then quickly drew it back. "There's flames burstin' out o' the winders," she said. "I wish as the firemen 'ud come." The children clung to one another. Just then, above the roar of the flames and the screams of the people, something else was distinctly audible. The fast approach of horses; the gallant figures of men in brass helmets: the brave firemen--members of the noblest brigade in the world--were on the spot. "It's hall right," said Connie. "They've come. Don't yer be a bit frightened, Ronnie; we'll soon be out o' this. You ax Giles w'en you see him wot _'e_ thinks o' firemen. '_Es_ father were one. Oh, there's no fear now that they've come!" She pressed close to the window and put out her head and shoulders. Ronald did likewise. The men out in the street were acting promptly. The hose were brought to bear on the increasing flames. But all to no purpose; the house was past saving. Was any one within? "No," said a woman down in the crowd; "hevery soul is out, even to my last biby--bless him!" She gave a hysterical cry, and sat down on a neighboring doorstep. But the firemen of the London Brigade are very careful to ascertain for themselves whether there is any likelihood of loss of life. "Has any one come down from the top floor?" asked a tall young man. He had a splendid figure--broad, square shoulders, and a light and athletic frame--which showed at once that he was the very best possible sort of fireman. Just then the flames burst out more brightly than ever, and Connie, with her fair hair surrounding her little face, and Ronald clinging to her hand, were both distinctly seen. "My God!" cried the firemen, "there are children up there. Put the escape up at once--don't lose an instant--I am going up to them." "You can't; it's certain death," said one or two. Several other voices were also raised in expostulation. But if any one in that crowd supposed that they were going to turn George Anderson, the bravest fireman in London, from his purpose, they were mistaken. "That little angel face, and the face of the boy by her side!" he said once or twice under his breath. And then up and up he went--up and up--the children in the burning room (for the flames had broken out behind them now) watching and watching. His fear was that they might fall from their perilous position. But they had both crept out on to the window-ledge. "Courage, courage!" he shouted to them. "Hold tight--I'll be there in a minute!" "The window is so hot!" gasped Connie. "Think--think of the Voice," whispered Ronald. He closed his eyes. In another minute he would have been beyond all earthly succor, and up in those beautiful realms where angels live, and his mother would meet him. But this was not to be. In less than an instant a firm hand rescued the two children from their perilous position, and they were brought down to the ground uninjured. Ronald fainted in that descent, but Connie kept her consciousness. They were out of Mammy Warren's awful house. She had a queer sense as though she had been delivered from a worse danger even than fire. People crowded round, and presently the tall fireman came up. "What is your name?" he said to Connie. "Connie," she replied. "Well, Connie," he answered, "it was the sight of your beautiful face in the window that gave me courage to save yer. Now, do you want to have a shelter for yourself and your little brother to-night?' "Thank you, sir," said Connie. The man pulled a card--it looked just like a gentleman's visiting card--out of his pocket. "Will you take that," he said, "to No. 12 Carlyle Terrace? It's just round the corner. Take your little brother with you. There are two bells to the house. Look for the one that has the word 'Night' written under it. It used to be a doctor's house, but there's no doctor there now. My mother will understand--give her that card, and tell her what has happened. Good night." He turned away. It was some time before Connie and Ronald could get rid of the many neighbors who volunteered help, and who regarded the two pretty children as the hero and heroine of the hour. Offers of a shake-down for the night, of a hasty meal, of a warm fire, came to Connie from all sorts of people. But she had made up her mind to follow out the directions of the tall fireman, and saying that she had friends at No. 12 Carlyle Terrace, she and Ronald soon started off to go to the address the fireman had given them. They were both too excited to feel the effects of all they had gone through at first, but when they reached the house, and Connie pressed the button of the bell which had the word "Night" written under it, she was trembling exceedingly. "Why are we coming here?" asked Ronald. "I dunno," said Connie. "Seems as though a hangel was with us all the time." "I expect so," answered Ronald in a very weak voice. "And," continued Connie, "he's a-leadin' of us 'ere." They had pressed the bell, and quickly--wonderfully quickly--they heard steps running down the stairs; and the door was opened by a tall woman--very tall and very thin--with a beautiful pale face and soft motherly eyes. "What is it?" she asked. "What is the matter? Oh, my poor little dears! And how you smell of fire! Have you been in a fire?" "Please, ma'am," said Connie, "be yer the mother o' Mr. George Anderson--the bravest fireman, ma'am? He told me to give yer this card, ma'am." "I am Mrs. Anderson. Oh, of course, if he's sent you----" "_'E_ saved us from the fire, ma'am," said Connie. "Come in, you poor little things," said Mrs Anderson. She drew the children in; she shut the door behind them. It seemed to Connie when that door shut that it shut out sorrow and pain and hunger and cold; for within the house there was warmth--not only warmth for frozen little bodies, but for tired souls. Mrs. Anderson was one of the most motherly women in London; and George, her son, knew what he was about when he sent the children to her. Soon they were revived with warm baths and with hot port-wine and water, and very soon afterwards they were both lying in beds covered with linen sheets that felt soft and fine as silk. But Mrs. Anderson sat by them both while they slept, for she did not like the look on the boy's face, and felt very much afraid of the shock for him. "The little girl can stand more," she said to herself. "She's a beautiful little creature, but she's a child of the people. She has been accustomed to hardships all her life; but with the boy it's different--he's a gentleman by birth. Something very cruel has happened to him, poor little lad! and this seems to be the final straw." Mrs. Anderson was a very wise woman, and her fears with regard to little Ronald were all too quickly realized. By the morning the boy was in a high state of fever. A doctor was summoned, and Mrs. Anderson herself nursed him day and night. Connie begged to be allowed to remain, and her request was granted. "For the present you shall stay with me," said Mrs. Anderson. "I don't know your story, nor the story of this little fellow, but I am determined to save his life if I can." "I can tell yer something," said Connie. "Little Ronald's a real gent--_'e's_ the son of a hofficer in 'Is Majesty's harmy, an' the hofficer's name is Major Harvey, V. C." "What?" cried Mrs. Anderson. She started back in amazement. "Why, I knew him and his wife," she said. "I know he was killed in South Africa, and I know his dear wife died about a year ago. Why, I've been looking for this child. Is your story quite true, little girl?" "Yus, it's quite true," said Connie. "But tell me--do tell me--is his father really dead?" "I fear so. It is true that his death was not absolutely confirmed; but he has been missing for over two years." "Ma'am," said Connie, "wot do yer mean by his death not bein' confirmed?" "I mean this, little girl," said Mrs. Anderson--"that his body was never found." "Then he ain't dead," said Connie. "What do you mean?" "I feel it in my bones," said Connie, "same as Ronald felt it in his bones. _'E_ ain't dead." Mrs. Anderson laid her hand on the girl's pretty hair. "I am getting in a real trained nurse to look after Ronald Harvey," she said. "If he's the son of my old friend, more than ever is he my care now; and you this evening, little Connie, shall tell me your story." This Connie did. When she had described all that had occurred to her during the last few weeks, Mrs. Anderson was so amazed that she could hardly speak. "My poor child!" she said. "You can't guess what terrible dangers you've escaped. That dreadful woman was, without doubt, a member of a large gang of burglars. Several have been arrested within the last day or two, and I have no doubt we shall hear of her soon at the police courts." "Burglars?" said Connie--"burglars? Them be thieves, bean't they?" "Yes--thieves." "But what could she do with us?" said Connie. "She used you for her own purposes. While people were looking at you, she was doubtless picking their pockets. Don't think any more about it, dear, only be thankful that you have escaped. And now, don't you feel very anxious about your father and your old friends?" "Yus," said Connie. "I'd like to go home. I'd like them to know once for all what happened." "Would you like to go back to-night? You can return to me, you know. I shall be up with Ronald until far into the night." Connie rose swiftly. "You're not afraid of the streets, my poor little child?" "Oh no, ma'am. I'm only quite an ordinary girl. I ha' learnt my lesson," continued Connie. "I were real discontent wid my life at the factory, but I'll be discontent no more." "You had a sharp lesson," said Mrs. Anderson. "I think God wants you to be a particularly good and a particularly brave woman, or He wouldn't have let you go through so much." "Yes, ma'am," answered Connie; "and I'll try 'ard to be good and brave." CHAPTER XIII. PETER HARRIS. While Connie was going through such strange adventures in Mammy Warren's attic room, her father, Giles, and Sue, and dear Father John were nearly distracted about her. Peter Harris was a rough, fierce, unkempt individual. He was fond of drink. He was not at all easily impressed by good things; but, as has been said before, if he had one tender spot in his heart it was for Connie. When he drank he was dreadfully unkind to his child; but in his sober moments there was nothing he would not do for the pretty, motherless girl. As day after day passed without his seeing her, he got nearly frantic with anxiety. At first he tried to make nothing of her disappearance, saying that the girl had doubtless gone to visit some friends; but when a few days went by and there were no tidings of her, and Sue assured him that she not only never appeared now at the great warehouse in Cheapside where they used to work together, but also that she had been seen last with Agnes Coppenger, and that Agnes Coppenger had also disappeared from her work at the sewing-machine, he began to fear that something bad had happened. Father John was consulted, and Father John advised the necessity of at once acquainting the police. But although the police did their best, they could get no trace whatever either of Agnes or of Connie. Thus the days passed, and Connie's friends were very unhappy about her. Her absence had a bad effect on Peter, who, from his state of grief and uneasiness, had taken more and more consolation out of the gin-palace which he was fond of frequenting. Every night now he came home tipsy, and the neighbors were afraid to go near. Soon he began to abuse Connie, to say unkind things about her, and to fly into a passion with any neighbor who mentioned her name. Giles shed silent tears for his old playmate, and even the voice of Big Ben hardly comforted him, so much did he miss the genial companionship of pretty Connie. But now at last the girl herself was going home. She had no fear. She was full of a wild and yet terrible delight. How often she had longed for her father! Connie had a great deal of imagination, and during the dreadful time spent at Mother Warren's, and in especial since Ronald had come, she began to compare her father with Ronald's, and gradually but surely to forget the cruel and terrible scenes when that father was drunk, and to think of him only in his best moments when he kissed her and petted her and called her his dear little motherless girl. Oh, he would be glad to see her now! He would rejoice in her company. Connie quickly found the old house in Adam Street, and ran up the stairs. One or two people recognized her, and said, "Hullo, Con! you back?" but being too busy with their struggle for life, did not show any undue curiosity. "Is my father in?" asked Connie of one. The man said, "He be." And then he added, "Yer'd best be careful. He ain't, to say, in his pleasantest mood to-night." Connie reached the well-known landing. She turned the handle of the door. It was locked. She heard some one moving within. Then a rough voice said: "Get out o' that!" "It's me, father!" called Connie back. "It's Connie!" "Don't want yer--get away!" said the voice. Connie knelt down and called through the keyhole: "It's me--I've 'ad a dreadful time--let me in." "Go 'way--don't want yer--get out o' this!" "Oh father--father!" called Connie. She began to sob. After all her dreams, after all her longings, after all her cruel trials--to be treated like this, and by her father! It seemed to shake her very belief in fathers, even in the great Father of all. "Please--please--I'm jest wanting yer awfu' bad!" she pleaded. Her gentle and moving voice--that voice for which Peter Harris, when sober and in his right mind, so starved to hear again--now acted upon him in quite the opposite direction. He had not taken enough to make him stupid, only enough to rouse his worst passions. He strode across the room, flung the door wide, and lifting Connie from her knees, said to her: "Listen. You left me without rhyme or reason--not even a word or a thought. I sorrowed for yer till I turned to 'ate yer! Now then, get out o' this. I don't want yer, niver no more. Go down them stairs, unless yer want me to push yer down. Go 'way--and be quick!" There was a scowl on his angry face, a ferocious look in his eyes. Connie turned quite gently, and without any apparent anger went downstairs. "Ah!" said a man in the street, "thought yer wouldn't stay long." "He's wery bad," said Connie. She walked slowly, as though her heart were bleeding, down Adam Street until she came to the house where Father John Atkins lived. It was a little house, much smaller than its neighbors. Father John's room was on the ground floor. She knocked at the door. There was no answer. She turned the handle: it yielded to her pressure. She went in, sank down on the nearest chair, and covered her face with both her hands. She was trembling exceedingly. The shock of her father's treatment was far greater than she could well bear in her present weak and over-excited condition. She had gone through--oh, so much--so very much! That awful time with Mammy Warren; her anxiety with regard to little Ronald; and then that final, awful, never-to-be-forgotten day, that night which was surely like no other night that had ever dawned on the world--the noise of the gathering flames, the terrific roar they made through the old building; the shouts of the people down below; the heat, the smoke, the pain, the cruel, cruel fear; and then last but not least--the deliverance! When that gallant fireman appeared, it seemed to both Connie and Ronald as though the gates of heaven had opened, and they had been taken straight away from the pains of hell into the glories of the blest. But all these things told on the nerves, and when Connie now had been turned away from her father's door, she was absolutely unfit for such treatment. When she reached Father John's she was as weak and miserable a poor little girl as could found anywhere in London. "My dear! my dear!" said the kind voice--the sort of voice that always thrilled the hearts of those who listened to him. A hand was laid on the weeping girl's shoulder. "Look up," said the voice again. Then there was a startled cry, an exclamation of the purest pleasure. "Why Connie--my dear Connie--the good Lord has heard our prayers and has sent you back again!" "Don't matter," said Connie, sobbing on, quite impervious to the kindness, quite unmoved by the sympathy. "There ain't no Father 'chart 'eaven," she continued. "I don't believe in 'Im no more. There ain't no Father, and no Jesus Christ. Ef there were, my own father wouldn't treat me so bitter cruel." "Come, Connie," said the preacher, "you know quite well that you don't mean those dreadful words. Sit down now by the cosy fire; sit in my own little chair, and I'll talk to you, my child. Why, Connie, can't you guess that we've been praying for you?" "Don't matter," whispered Connie again. The preacher looked at her attentively. He put his kind hand for a minute on her forehead, and then, with that marvellous knowledge which he possessed of the human heart and the human needs, he said nothing for the time being. Connie was not fit to argue, and he knew she was worn-out. He got her to sit in the old arm-chair, and to lay her golden head against a soft cushion, and then he prepared coffee--strong coffee--both for her and himself. It was late, and he was deadly tired. He had been up all the night before. It was his custom often to spend his nights in this fashion; for, as he was fond of expressing it, the Divine Master seemed to have more work for him to do at night than in the daytime. "There are plenty of others to help in the daytime," thought Father John, "but in the darkness the sin and the shame are past talking about. If I can lift a burden from one heart, and help one poor suffering soul, surely that is the best night's rest I can attain to." Last night he had put a drunken woman to bed. He had found her on a doorstep, and had managed, notwithstanding his small stature and slender frame, to drag her upstairs. There her terrified children met him. He managed to get them into a calm state of mind, and then induced them to help him for all they were worth. The great, bulky woman was undressed and put into bed. She slept, and snored loudly, and the children crowded round. He made them also go to bed, and went away, promising to call in the morning. He did so. The woman was awake, conscious, and bitterly ashamed. He spoke to her as he alone knew how, and, before he left, induced her to go with him to take the pledge. He then gave her a little money out of his slender earnings to get a meal for the children, and spent the rest of the day trying to get fresh employment for her. She had been thrown out of work by her misdemeanors; but Father John was a power, and more than one lady promised to try Mrs. Simpkins once again. The little preacher was, therefore, more tired than his wont. He bent over Connie. She drank her coffee, and, soothed by his presence, became calmer herself. "Now then," he said, "you will tell me everything. Why did you run away?" "'Cos I were tired o' machine-work. But, oh, Father John! I niver, niver meant to stay aw'y. I jest thought as I were to get a nice new situation; I niver guessed as it 'ud be a prison." Connie then told her story, with many gaps and pauses. "You see," said Father John when she had finished, "that when you took the management of your own life into your own hands you did a very dangerous thing. God was guiding you, and you thought you could do without Him. You have been punished." "Yus," said Connie. "I'll niver be the same again." "I hope, indeed, that you will not be the same. You have gone through marvellous adventures, and but for God Himself you would not now be in the world. It is not only your pain and misery that you have to consider, but you have also to think of the pain and misery you inflicted on others." "No," said Connie defiantly, "that I won't do. I thought father 'ud care, but he turned me from 'ome." "He did care, Connie. I never knew any one so distracted. He cared so terribly, and was so sore about you, that he took to drink to drown his pain. In the morning, when he is sober, you will see what a welcome he will give you." "No," said Connie, shaking her head. "But I say he will. He will help you, and he will be a father to you. I will take you to him myself in the morning." Connie did not say anything more. When she had finished her coffee, the preacher suggested that he should take her to Sue and Giles. The girl looked at him wildly. In telling her story, she had never mentioned the name of the lady who had taken her in, nor the name of the brave fireman who had befriended her. But now Father John boldly asked her for these particulars. Her little face flushed and she looked up defiantly. "I dunnut want to give 'em," she said. "But I ask you for them, Connie," said the preacher. Connie could no more withstand Father John's authoritative tone than she could fly. After a minute's pause she did tell what she knew, and Father John wrote Mrs. Anderson's address down in his note-book. "Now then, Connie," he said, rising, "you're better. Sue and Giles will be so glad to see you once more! Come, dear; let me take you to them." Connie stood up. There was a curious, wild light in her eyes; but she avoided looking at the street preacher, and he did not observe it. Had he done so he would have been more careful. The two went out into the street together. It was now getting really late. The distance between the preacher's room and the humble lodgings where Sue and Giles lived was no great way, but to reach the home of the little Giles they had to pass some very ill-favored courts. At one of these Connie suddenly saw a face she knew. She started, trembling, and would have fled on had not a hand been raised to warning lips. The preacher at that instant was stopped by a man who wanted to ask him a question with regard to a child of his whom Father John was trying to find employment for. Before he knew what had happened, Connie's hand was dragged from his. The girl uttered a slight cry, and the next minute was enveloped in the darkness of one of the worst courts in the whole of London. "Quiet--quiet!" said a voice. "Don't you let out one sound or you'll niver speak no more. It's me--Agnes. I won't do yer no 'arm ef ye're quiet. Come along with me now." Connie went, for she could not do anything else. Her feelings were absolutely confused. She did not know at that fearful moment whether she was glad or sorry to be back with Agnes Coppenger again. She only felt a sense of relief at having slipped away from Father John, and at having, as she thought, parted from her own cruel father. "Oh Agnes!" she whispered, "hide me; and don't--don't take me back to Mammy Warren!" "Bless yer!" said Agnes, "she's coped by the perlice. Mammy Warren's awaiting her trial in the 'Ouse of Detention; yer won't be worried by her no more." "W'ere are yer taking me, then, Agnes?" "'Ome--to my 'ouse, my dear." "Yer'll promise to let me go in the morning?" "Safe an' sure I will--that is, ef yer want to go." Agnes was now walking so fast that Connie had the utmost difficulty in keeping up with her. She seemed all the time to be dodging, getting into shadows, avoiding lights, turning rapidly round corners, making the most marvellous short cuts, until at last--at last--she reached a very tall house, much taller than the one where Mammy Warren had lived. She made a peculiar whistle when she got there. The door was opened by a boy of about Connie's age. "'Ere we be, Freckles," said Agnes; "and I ha' got the beautiful and saintly Connie back again." "Hurrah for saintly Connie!" cried Freckles. The two girls were dragged in by a pair of strong hands, and Connie found herself in utter darkness, descending some slippery stairs--into what depths she had not the slightest idea. "These are the cellars," said Agnes when at last a door was flung open, and she found herself in a very poorly lit apartment with scarcely any furniture. "You was in hattics before," continued Agnes; "now ye're in the cellars. Yer didn't greatly take to kind Mammy Warren, but perhaps yer'll like Simeon Stylites better. He's a rare good man is Simeon--wery pious too. He sets afore him a saint o' the olden days, an' tries to live accordin'. He ain't in yet, so yer can set down and take things heasy." Connie sat down. "I'm that frightened!" she said. Agnes began to laugh. "Sakes!" she exclaimed, "you ha' no cause. Simeon's a real feeling man, and he's allers kind to pore gels, more particular ef they 'appen to be purty." Agnes now proceeded to light a fire in a huge, old-fashioned grate. There seemed to be abundance of coal. She built the fire up high, and when it roared up the chimney she desired Connie to draw near. "You ain't got over yer fright yet," she began. "Don't talk of it," said Connie. "I guess as I won't--yer do look piquey. 'Ow's the other kid?" "I dunno." Agnes laughed and winked. After a minute she said, "Yer needn't tell me. 'E's with Mrs. Anderson, mother o' the fireman. The fireman--'e's a real 'andsome man--I can tike to that sort myself. The kid's wery bad, he is. Wull, ef he dies it'll be a pity, for he 'ave the makings in 'im of a first-rate perfessional." "Perfessional?" said Connie. "Yus--ef he lives 'e'll be one. Simeon Stylites 'ull see to that. You'll be a perfessional, too. There's no use in these 'ere days bein' anything of an amattur; yer must be a perfessional or yer can't earn yer bread." "I don't understand," said Connie. "Sakes! you be stupid. It's good to open yer heyes now. Wot do yer think Mammy Warren wanted yer for?" "I never could tell, only Mrs. Anderson said----" "Yus--tell us wot she said. She's a torf--let's get _'er_ idees on the subjeck." "I won't tell yer," said Connie. "Oh--_that's_ yer little gime! Wull--I don't keer--I'll tell yer from my p'int o' view. Mammy Warren wanted yer--not for love--don't think no sech thing--but jest 'cos she could make you a sort o' decoy-duck. W'ile she was pickin' up many a good harvest, folks was a-starin' at you; an' w'en the little boy were there too, w'y, they stared all the more. She 'ad the boy first, and he were a fine draw. But he tuk ill, an' then she had to get some sort, an' I told her 'bout you, and 'ow purty you were, an' wot golden 'air you 'ad. 'Her golden 'air was 'angin' down her back,' I sung to her, an' she were tuk with the picter. Then I got yer for her--you knows 'ow. Wull, pore Mammy Warren! she's in quad for the present. But she'll come out agin none the worse; bless yer! they feeds 'em fine in quad now. Many a one as I know goes in reg'lar for the cold weather. You see, we'n yer gets yer lodgin' an' yer food at Government expense, it don't cost yer nothing, an' yer come out none the worse. That's wot Mammy Warren 'ull do. But Simeon Stylites-'e's a man 'oo prides himself on niver 'avin' been tuk yet. He'll teach yer 'ow to be a perfessional. Now then--yer ain't frightened, be yer?" "No," said Connie. Once again she was the old Connie. She had got over her anguish of despair and grief about her father's conduct. She must get out of this, and the only chance was to let Agnes think that she didn't mind. "Yer'll make a _beautiful_ perfessional!" said Agnes, looking at her with admiration now. "I could--I could grovel at yer feet--pore me, so plain as I ham an' hall, an' you so wery genteel. There now, 'oo's that a-knockin' at the door?" Agnes went to the door. She opened it about an inch, and had a long colloquy with some one outside. "All right, Freckles," she said, "you can go to bed." She then came back to Connie. "Simeon ain't returning afore to-morrer," she said. "We'll tike to our beds. Come along with me, Connie." CHAPTER XIV. THE SEARCH. When Connie had been suddenly dragged with extreme force from the preacher's side, he had darted after her, and would have been knocked down himself, and perhaps killed, if the neighbor who had accosted him had not also gone a step or two into the dark alley and dragged him back by main force. "You don't go down there, Father John," he said--"not without two or three big men, as big as myself. That you don't--I'll keep you back, Father John by all the strength in my body; for if you go down you'll be killed, and then what use will yer be to the poor little gel?" Father John acknowledged the justice of this. A crowd of men and women had gathered round, as they always did in those parts at the slightest disturbance. Father John recognized many of them, and soon formed a little body of strong men and women. The policemen also came to their aid. They searched the blind alley, going into every house. In short, they did not leave a stone unturned to recover poor Connie; but, alas! all in vain. Father John was at least glad that he had not gone to visit Sue and Giles. He could not bear to bring them such terrible tidings as that poor Connie had come home and had been kidnapped again. "We'll get her," said the policeman. "There are lots of thieves about here; but as we've unearthed that dreadful character, Mother Warren, we'll quickly get the rest of the gang. Don't you be afraid, Father John; the child will be in your hands before the day is out." Nevertheless, Father John spent a sleepless night, and early--very early--in the morning he started off to visit Peter Harris. Peter had slept all night. In the morning he awoke with a headache, and with a queer feeling that something very bad had happened. When Father John entered his room he gazed at him with bloodshot eyes. "Wottever is it?" he said. "I had a dream--I must be mistook, of course, but I thought Connie had come back." "Well," said Father John very gravely, "and so she did come back." "Wot?" asked the father. He sat up on the bed where he had thrown himself, and pushed back his rough hair. "I have some very sad news for you, Harris. Will you wash first and have a bit of breakfast, or shall I tell you now?" "Get out with you!" said the man. "Will I wash and have a bit o' breakfast? Tell me about my child, an' be quick!" All the latent tenderness in that fierce heart had reawakened. "Connie back?" said the man. "Purty little Connie? You don't niver say so! But where be she? Wherever is my little gel?" "You ask God where she is," said the preacher in a very solemn voice. "She's nowhere to be found. She came here, and you--you turned her away, Peter Harris." "I did wot?" said Harris. "You turned her off--yes, she came to me, poor child. You had taken too much and didn't know what you were doing." The man's face was ghastly pale. "What do yer mean?" he said. "You took too much, and you were cruel to your child. She came to me in bitter grief. I did what I could to soothe her; I assured her that I know you well, and that you'd be all right and quite ready to welcome her home in the morning." "Well, and so I be. Welcome my lass home? There ain't naught I wouldn't do for her; the best that can be got is for my Connie. Oh, my dear, sweet little gel! It's the fatted calf she'll 'ave--the Prodigal didn't have a bigger welcome." "But she is no prodigal. She was sinned against; she didn't sin. Doubtless she did wrong to be discontented. She was never very strong, perhaps, either in mind or body, and she got under bad influence. She was often afraid to go home, Peter Harris, because of you; for you were so savage to her when you took, as you call it, a drop too much. I'll tell you another time her story, for there is not a moment now to spare; you must get up and help to find her." Peter Harris sprang to his feet just as though an electric force had pulled him to that position. "Find her?" he said. "But she were here--here! Where be she? Wot did yer do with her, Father John?" "I didn't dare to bring her back here last night, and she could not stay with me. I was taking her to Giles and Sue when----" "Man--speak!" Harris had caught the preacher by his shoulder. Father John staggered for a minute, and then spoke gently, "As we were passing a blind alley some one snatched her from me, right into the pitch darkness. I followed, but was pulled back myself. As soon as possible we formed a party and went to search for her, aided by the police; but she has vanished. It is your duty now to help to find her. The police have great hopes that they have got a clue, but nothing is certain. Beyond doubt the child is in danger. Wake up, Harris. Think no more of that horrible poison that is killing you, body and soul, and do your utmost to find your lost child." "God in heaven help me!" said the miserable man. "Lost--you say? And she come 'ere--and I turned her off? Oh, my little Connie!" "Keep up your courage, man; there's not a minute of time to spend in vain regrets. You must help the police. You know nearly all the byways and blind alleys of this part of London. You can give valuable information; come at once." A minute or two later the two men went out together. CHAPTER XV. CONCENTRATION OF PURPOSE. While these dreadful things were happening to Connie, Sue rose with the dawn, rubbed her sleepy eyes until they opened broad and wide, and went with all youthful vigor and goodwill about her daily tasks. First she had to light the fire and prepare Giles's breakfast; then to eat her own and tidy up the room; then, having kissed Giles, who still slept, and left all in readiness for him when he awoke, she started for her long walk from Westminster to St. Paul's Churchyard. She must be at her place of employment by eight o'clock, and Sue was never known to be late. With her bright face, smooth, well-kept hair, and neat clothes, she made a pleasing contrast to most of the girls who worked at Messrs. Cheadle's cheap sewing. Sue possessed in her character two elements of success in life. She had directness of aim and concentration of purpose. No one thought the little workgirl's aims very high; no one ever paused to consider her purpose either high or noble; but Sue swerved not from aim or purpose, either to the right hand or to the left. She was the bread-winner in the small family. That was her present manifest duty. And some day she would take Giles away to live in the country. That was her ambition. Every thought she had to spare from her machine-work and her many heavy duties went to this far-off, grand result. At night she pictured it; as she walked to and from her place of work she dwelt upon it. Some day she and Giles would have a cottage in the country together. Very vague were Sue's ideas of what country life was like. She had never once been in the country; she had never seen green fields, nor smelt, as they grow fresh in the hedges, wild flowers. She imagined that flowers grew either in bunches, as they were sold in Convent Garden, or singly in pots. It never entered into her wildest dreams that the ground could be carpeted with the soft sheen of bluebells or the summer snow of wood anemones, or that the hedge banks could hold great clusters of starry primroses. No, Sue had never seen the place where she and Giles would live together when they were old. She pictured it like the town, only clean--very clean--with the possibility of procuring eggs really fresh and milk really pure, and of perhaps now and then getting a bunch of flowers for Giles without spending many pence on them. People would have called it a poor dream, for Sue had no knowledge to guide her, and absolutely no imagination to fill in details; but, all the same, it was golden in its influence on the young girl, imparting resolution to her face and purpose to her eyes, and encircling her round, in her young and defenseless womanhood, as a guardian angel spreading his wings about her. She walked along to-day brightly as usual. The day was a cold one, but Sue was in good spirits. She was in good time at her place, and sat down instantly to her work. A girl sat by her side. Her name was Mary Jones. She was a weakly girl, who coughed long and often as she worked. "I must soon give up, Sue," she panted between slight pauses in her work. "This 'ere big machine seems to tear me hall to bits, like; and then I gets so hot, and when we is turned out in the middle o' the day the cold seems to strike so dreadful bitter yere;" and she pressed her hand to her sunken chest. "'Tis goin' to snow, too, sure as sure, to-day," answered Sue. "Don't you think as you could jest keep back to-day, Mary Jones? Maybe you mightn't be seen, and I'd try hard to fetch you in something hot when we comes back." "Ye're real good, and I'll just mak' shift to stay in," replied Mary Jones. But then the manager came round, and the girls could say no more for the present. At twelve o'clock, be the weather what it might, all had to turn out for half an hour. This, which seemed a hardship, was absolutely necessary for the proper ventilation of the room; but the delicate girls felt the hardship terribly, and as many of them could not afford to go to a restaurant, there was nothing for them but to wander about the streets. At the hour of release to-day it still snowed fast, but Sue with considerable cleverness, had managed to hide Mary Jones in the warm room, and now ran fast through the blinding and bitter cold to see where she could get something hot and nourishing to bring back to her. Her own dinner, consisting of a hunch of dry bread and dripping, could be eaten in the pauses of her work. Her object now was to provide for the sick girl. She ran fast, for she knew a shop where delicious penny pies were to be had, and it was quite possible to demolish penny pies unnoticed in the large workroom. The shop, however, in question was some way off, and Sue had no time to spare. She had nearly reached it, and had already in imagination clasped the warm pies in her cold hands, when, suddenly turning a corner, she came face to face with Harris. Harris was walking along moodily, apparently lost in thought. When he saw Sue, however, he started, and took hold of her arm roughly. "Sue," he said, "does you know as Connie came back last night?" "Connie?" cried Sue. Her face turned pale and then red again in eagerness. "Then God 'ave heard our prayers!" she exclaimed with great fervor. "Oh! won't my little Giles be glad?" "You listen to the end," said the man. He still kept his hand on her shoulder, not caring whether it hurt her or not. "She come back, my purty, purty little gel, but I 'ad tuk too much, and I were rough on her and I bid her be gone, and she went. She went to Father John; _'e_ were kind to her, and 'e were taking her to you, w'en some willain--I don't know 'oo--caught her by the arm and pulled her down a dark alley, and she ain't been seen since. Wottever is to be done? I'm near mad about her--my pore little gel. And to think that I--_I_ should ha' turned her aw'y!" Sue listened with great consternation to this terrible tale. She forgot all about poor Mary Jones and the penny pie which she hoped to smuggle into the workroom for her dinner. She forgot everything in all the world but the fact that Connie had come and gone again, and that Peter Harris was full of the most awful despair and agony about her. "I'm fit to die o' grief," said the man. "I dunno wot to do. The perlice is lookin' for her 'igh an' low, and---- Oh Sue, I am near off my 'ead!" Sue thought for a minute. "Is Father John looking for her too?" she said. "W'y, yus--of course he be. I'm to meet the perlice again this afternoon, an' we'll--we'll make a rare fuss." "Yer'll find her, in course," said Sue. "W'y, there ain't a doubt," she continued. "Wot do yer mean by that?" "There couldn't be a doubt," continued the girl; "for God, who brought her back to us all, 'ull help yer if yer ax 'Im." "Do yer believe that, Sue?" "Sartin sure I do--I couldn't live if I didn't." "You're a queer un," said Harris, he felt a strange sort of comfort in the rough little girl's presence. It seemed to him in a sort of fashion that there was truth in her words. She was very wise--wiser than most. He had always respected her. "You're a queer, sensible gel," he said then--"not like most. I am inclined to believe yer. I'm glad I met yer; you were always Connie's friend." "Oh yus," said Sue; "I love her jest as though she were my real sister." "An' yer do think as she'll come back again?" "I'm sartin sure of it." "Turn and walk with me a bit, Sue. I were near mad w'en I met yer, but somehow you ha' given me a scrap o' hope." "Mr. Harris," said Sue, all of a sudden, "you were cruel to Connie last night; but w'en she comes back again you'll be different, won't yer?" "I tuk the pledge this morning," said Harris in a gloomy voice. "Then in course you'll be different. It were w'en yer tuk too much that you were queer. W'en you're like you are now you're a wery kind man." "Be I, Sue?" said Harris. He looked down at the small girl. "No one else, unless it be pore Connie, iver called me a kind man." "And I tell yer wot," continued Sue--"ef ye're sure she'll come back--as sure as I am--she----" "Then I am sure," said Harris. "I'm as sure as there's a sky above us. There now!" "And a God above us," said Sue. The man was silent. "In that case," continued Sue, "let's do our wery best. Let's 'ave iverything nice w'en she comes 'ome. Let's 'ave a feast for her, an' let me 'elp yer." "Yer mean that yer'll come along to my room an' put things in order?" said Harris. "Yes; and oh, Mr. Harris! couldn't yer take her a little bit of a present?" "Right you are, wench," he said. Harris's whole face lit up. "That _be_ a good thought!" He clapped Sue with violence on the shoulder. "Right you be! An' I know wot she've set 'er silly little 'eart on--w'y, a ring--a purty ring with a stone in it; and 'ere's a shop--the wery kind for our purpose. Let's come in--you an' me--and get her one this wery instant minute." The two entered the shop. A drawer of rings was brought for Harris to select from. He presently chose a little ring, very fine, and with a tiny turquoise as decoration. He felt sure that this would fit Connie's finger, and laying down his only sovereign on the counter, waited for the change. Sue had gone a little away from him, to gaze in open-eyed wonder at the many trinkets exhibited for sale. Notwithstanding her excitement about Connie, she was too completely a woman not to be attracted by finery of all sorts; and here were scarves and laces and brooches and earrings--in short, that miscellaneous array of female decorations so fascinating to the taste of girls like Sue. In this absorbing moment she forgot even Connie. In the meantime, in this brief instant while Sue was so occupied, the man who served turned his back to get his change from another drawer. He did this leaving the box with the rings on the counter. In the corner of this same box, hidden partly away under some cotton-wool, lay two lockets, one of great value, being gold, set with brilliants. In this instant, quick as thought, Harris put in his hand, and taking the diamond locket, slipped it into his pocket. He then received his change, and he and Sue left the shop together. He noticed, however, as he walked out that the shopman was missing the locket. His theft could not remain undiscovered. Another instant and he would be arrested and the locket found on his person. He had scarcely time for the most rapid thought--certainly no time for any sense of justice to visit his not too fine conscience. The only instinct alive in him in that brief and trying moment was that of self-preservation. He must preserve himself, and the means lay close at hand. He gave Sue a little push as though he had stumbled against her, and then, while the girl's attention was otherwise occupied, he transferred the locket from his own pocket to hers, and with a hasty nod, dashed down a side-street which lay close by. Rather wondering at his sudden exit, Sue went on. Until now she had forgotten Mary Jones. She remembered her with compunction. She also knew that she had scarcely time to get the penny pies and go back to Cheapside within the half-hour. If she ran, however, she might accomplish this feat. Sue was very strong, and could run as fast as any girl; she put wings to her feet, and went panting down the street. In the midst of this headlong career, however, she was violently arrested. She heard the cry of "Stop thief!" behind her, and glancing back, saw two men, accompanied by some boys, in full pursuit. Too astonished and frightened to consider the improbability of their pursuing her, she ran harder than ever. She felt horrified, and dreaded their rudeness should they reach her. Down side-streets and across byways she dashed, the crowd in pursuit increasing each moment. At last she found that she had run full-tilt into the arms of a policeman, who spread them out to detain her. "What's the matter, girl? Who are you running away from?" "Oh, hide me--hide me!" said poor Sue. "They are calling out 'Stop thief!' and running after me so hard." Before the policeman could even reply, the owner of the pawnshop had come up. "You may arrest that girl, policeman," he said roughly. "She and a man were in my shop just now, and one or other of 'em stole a valuable diamond locket from me." "What a shame! I didn't touch it!" said Sue. "I never touched a thing as worn't my own in hall my life!" "No doubt, my dear," said the policeman; "but of course you won't object to be searched?" "No, of course," said Sue; "you may search me as much as you like--you won't get no stolen goods 'bout me;" and she raised her head fearlessly and proudly. The crowd who had now thickly collected, and who, as all crowds do, admired pluck, were beginning to applaud, and no doubt the tide was turning in Sue's favor, when the policeman, putting his hand into her pocket, drew out the diamond locket. An instant's breathless silence followed this discovery, followed quickly by some groans and hisses from the bystanders. "Oh, but ain't she a hardened one!" two or three remarked; and all pressed close to watch the result. Sue had turned very white--so white that the policeman put his hand on her shoulder, thinking she was going to faint. "She is innocent," said in his heart of hearts this experienced functionary; but he further added, "It will go hard for her to prove it--poor lass!" Aloud he said: "I've got to take you to the lock-up, my girl; for you must say how you 'appened to come by that 'ere little trinket. The quieter you come, and the less you talk, the easier it 'ull go wid you." "I have nothink to say," answered Sue. "I can't--can't see it at all. But I'll go wid yer," she added. She did not asseverate any more, nor even say she was innocent. She walked away by the policeman's side, the crowd still following, and the owner of the pawnshop--having recovered his property, and given his address to the policeman--returned to his place of business. Sue walked on, feeling stunned; her thought just now was how very much poor Mary Jones would miss her penny pies. CHAPTER XVI. PICKLES. The lock-up to which the policeman wanted to convey Sue was at some little distance. With his hand on her shoulder, they walked along, the crowd still following. They turned down more than one by-street, and chose all the short cuts that Constable Z could remember. One of these happened to be a very narrow passage, and a place of decidedly ill repute. The policeman, however, still holding his terrified charge, walked down it, and the crowd followed after. In the very middle of this passage--for it was little more--they were met by a mob even greater than themselves. These people were shouting, vociferating, waving frantic hands, and all pointing upwards. The policeman raised his eyes and saw that the cause of this uproar was a house on fire. It was a very tall, narrow house, and all the top of it was completely enveloped in flames. From one window, from which escape seemed impossible--for the flames almost surrounded it--a man leaned out, imploring some one to save him. The height from the ground was too great for him to jump down, and no fire-escape was yet in sight. Policeman Z was as kind-hearted a man as ever lived. In the excitement of such a moment he absolutely forgot Sue. He rushed into the crowd, scattering them right and left, and sent those who had not absolutely lost their heads flying for the fire-escape and the engines. They all arrived soon after, and the man, who was the only person in the burning part of the house, was brought in safety to the ground. In the midst of the shouting, eager crowd Sue stood, forgetting herself, as perhaps every one else there did also, in such intense excitement. Scarcely, however, had the rescued man reached the ground when she felt herself violently pulled from behind--indeed, not only pulled, but dragged so strongly that she almost lost her feet. She attempted to scream, but a hand was instantly placed over her mouth, and she found herself running helplessly, and against her will, down a narrow passage which flanked one side of the burning house; beyond this into a small backyard; then through another house into another yard; and so on until she entered a small, very dirty room. This room was full of unknown condiments in jars and pots, some queer stuffed figures in fancy-dresses, some wigs and curls of false hair, and several masks, false noses, etc., etc. Sue, entering this room, was pushed instantly into a large arm-chair, whereupon her captor came and stood before her. He was a lad of about her own size, and perhaps a year or two younger. He had a round, freckled face, the lightest blue eyes, and the reddest, most upright shock of hair she had ever seen. He put his arms akimbo and gazed hard at Sue, and so motionless became his perfectly round orbs that Sue thought he had been turned into stone. Suddenly, however, he winked, and said in a shrill, cheerful tone: "Well, then, plucky 'un, 'ow does yer find yerself now?" Not any number of shocks could quite deprive Sue of her common-sense. She had not an idea of what had become of her. Was this another and a rougher way of taking her to the lock-up? Was this queer boy friend or foe? "Be yer agen me, boy?" she said. "Agen yer! Well, the ingratitude! Ha'n't I jest rescued yer from the hands o' that 'ere nipper?" "Oh!" exclaimed Sue; and the relieved tension of her poor, terrified little heart found vent in two big tears which rose to her eyes. The red-haired boy balanced himself on one toe in order to survey those tears more carefully. "Well," he said at length, in a tone in which there was a ludicrous mingling of wonder and contempt--"well, ye're a queer un fur a plucky un--a wery queer un. Crying! My eyes! Ain't yer hin luck not to be in prison, and ain't that a subject for rejoicing? I don't cry when I'm in luck; but then, thank goodness! I'm not a gel. Lor'! they're queer cattle, gels are--wery queer, the best o' 'em. But they're as they're made, poor things! We can't expect much from such weakness. But now look you here, you gel--look up at me, full and solemn in the face, and say if ye're hinnercent in the matter o' that 'ere locket. If yer can say quite solemn and straightforward as yer his innercent, why, I'll help yer; but if yer is guilty--and, mark me, I can tell by yer heyes ef ye're talking the truth--I can do naught, fur I'm never the party to harbor guilty folks. Now speak the truth, full and solemn; be yer hinnercent?" Here the red-haired boy got down on his knees and brought his eyes within a few inches of Sue's eyes. "Be yer hinnercent?" he repeated. "Yes," answered Sue, "I'm quite, quite hinnercent; yer can believe me or not as yer pleases. I'm quite hinnercent, and I won't cry no more ef yer dislikes it. I wor never reckoned a cry-baby." "Good!" said the boy; "I b'lieves yer. And now jest tell me the whole story. I come hup jest when the perleeceman and the pawnbroker were a-gripping yer. Lor'! I could a' twisted out o' their hands heasy enough; but then, to be thankful agen, I ain't a gel." "There's no good twitting me wid being a gel," interrupted Sue; "gels have their use in creation same as boys, and I guess as they're often the pluckier o' the two." "Gels pluckier! Well, I like that. However, I will say as you stood game. I guessed as you wor hinnercent then. And now jest tell me the story." "It wor this way," began Sue, whose color and courage were beginning to return. Then she told her tale, suppressing carefully all tears, for she was anxious to propitiate the red-haired boy. She could not, however, keep back the indignation from her innocent young voice; and this indignation, being a sure sign in his mind of pluckiness, greatly delighted her companion. "'Tis the jolliest shame I ever heard tell on in all my life," he said in conclusion; but though he said this he chuckled, and seemed to enjoy himself immensely. "Now then," he added, "there's no doubt at all as ye're hinnercent. I know that as clear--I feels as sartin on that p'int--as tho' I wor reading the secrets of my own heart. But 'tis jest equal sartin as a magistrate 'ud bring you hin guilty. He'd say--and think hisself mighty wise, too--'You had the locket, so in course yer tuk the locket, and so yer must be punished.' Then you'd be tuk from the lock-up to the House o' Correction, where you'd 'ave solitary confinement, most like, to teach you never to do so no more." "'Ow long 'ud they keep me there?" asked Sue. "'Ow long 'ud they be wicked enough to keep me there fur what I never did?" "Well, as it wor a first offence, and you but young, they might make it a matter of no longer than a year, or maybe eighteen months. But then, agen, they'd 'ave to consider as it wor diamonds as you tuk. They gems is so waluable that in course you must be punished according. Yes, considerin' as it wor diamonds, Sue, I would say as you got off cheap wid two years." "You talk jest as tho' I had done it," said Sue angrily, "when you know perfect well as I'm quite hinnercent." "Well, don't be touchy. I'm only considerin' what the judge 'ud say. I ain't the judge. Yes, you'd 'ave two years. But, lor'! it don't much matter wot time you 'ad, for you'd never be no good arter." "Wot do you mean now?" asked Sue. "I mean as you'd never get no 'ployment, nor be able to hold up yer head. Who, I'd like to know, 'ud employ a prison lass--and what else 'ud you be?" Here Sue, disregarding her companion's dislike to tears, broke down utterly, and exclaimed through her sobs: "Oh! poor Giles--poor, poor Giles! It 'ull kill my little Giles. Oh! I didn't think as Lord Jesus could give me sech big stones to walk hover." "Now ye're gettin' complicated," exclaimed the red-haired boy. "I make 'lowance fur yer tears--ye're but a gel, and I allow as the picture's dark--but who hever is Giles? And where are the stones? Ye're setting still this 'ere minute, and I guess as the arm-chair in which I placed yer, though none o' the newest, be better than a stone." "Giles is my brother," said Sue; "and the stones--well, the stones is 'phorical, ef yer knows wot that means." "Bless us, no! I'm sure I don't. But tell about Giles." So Sue wiped her eyes again and went back a little further in her life-story. "It is complicated," said her companion when she paused--"a lame brother, poor chap, and you the support. Well, well! the more reason as you should keep out o' prison. Now, Sue, this is wot I calls _deep_; jest keep still fur a bit, and let me put on my considerin' cap." The red-haired boy seated himself on the floor, thrust his two hands into his shock of hair, and stared very hard and very straight before him. In this position he was perfectly motionless for about the space of half a minute; then, jumping up, he came again very close to Sue. "Be yer willin' to take the adwice of a person a deal wiser nor yourself? Look me full in the heyes and answer clear on that p'int." "Yes, I'm sure I am," said Sue, in as humble a spirit as the most exalted teacher could desire. "Good!" said the red-haired boy, giving his thigh a great clap. "Then you've got to hearken to _me_. Sue, there's nothink in life fur you but to hide." "To hide!" said Sue. "Yes. You must on no 'count whatever let the perleece find yer. We must get to discover the guilty party, and the guilty party must confess; but in the meanwhile yer must hide. There must be no smell o' the prison 'bout yer, Sue." "Oh! but--but--boy--I don't know yer name." "Pickles," said the red-haired boy, giving his head a bob. "Pickles, at yer sarvice." "Well, then, Pickles," continued Sue, "if I go and hide, what 'ull become o' Giles?" "And what 'ull come o' him ef yer go ter prison--yer goose? Now, jest yer listen to the words o' wisdom. You mustn't go back to Giles, fur as sure as you do the perleece 'ull have you. That would break that little tender brother's heart. No, no, leave Giles ter me; you must hide, Sue." "But where, and fur how long?" asked Sue. "Ah! now ye're comin' sensible, and axin' refreshin' questions. Where? Leave the where to me. How long? Leave the how long ter me." "Oh Pickles! ye're real good," sobbed Sue; "and ef yer'll only promise as Giles won't die, and that he won't break his heart wid frettin', why, I'll leave it ter you--I'll leave it all ter you." "And yer couldn't--search the world over--leave it to a safer person," said Pickles. "So now that's a bargain--I'll take care on Giles." CHAPTER XVII. CINDERELLA. "The first thing to be considered, Sue," said Pickles, as he seated himself on the floor by her side, "is the disguise. The disguise must be wot I consider deep." "Wot hever does yer mean now?" asked Sue. "Why, yer Silly, yer don't s'pose as yer can go hout and about as you are now? Why, the perleece 'ud have yer. Don't yer s'pose as yer'll be advertised?" "I dunno heven wot that his," said Sue. "Oh! my heyes, ain't yer green! Well, it 'ull be, say, like this. There'll be by hall the perleece-stations placards hup, all writ hout in big print: 'Gel missing--plain gel, rayther stout, rayther short, wid round moon-shaped face, heyes small, mouth big, hair----" "There! you needn't go on," said Sue, who, though by no means vain, scarcely relished this description. "I know wot yer mean, and I don't want ter be twitted with not being beautiful. I'd rayther be beautiful by a long way. I s'pose, as the disguise is ter change me, will it make me beautiful? I'd like that." Pickles roared. "Well, I never!" he said. "We'll try. Let me see; I must study yer fur a bit. Hair wot's called sandy now--changed ter black. Heyebrows; no heyebrows in 'ticlar--mark 'em hout strong. Mouth: couldn't sew hup the mouth in the corners. No, Sue, I'm feared as I never can't make no pictur' of yer. But now to be serious. We must set to work, and we has no time ter spare, fur hold Fryin-pan 'ull come home, and there'll be the mischief to pay ef he finds us yere." "Who's he?" asked Sue. "Who? Why, the owner of this yer shop. I'm in his employ. I'm wot's called his steady right-hand man. See, Sue, yere's a pair o' scissors; get yer hair down and clip away, and I'll get ready the dye." Pickles now set to work in earnest, and proved himself by no means an unskilled workman. In a wonderfully short space of time Sue's long, neutral-tinted hair was changed to a very short crop of the darkest hue. Her eyebrows were also touched up, and as her eyelashes happened to be dark, the effect was not quite so inharmonious as might have been feared. Pickles was in ecstasies, and declared that "Not a policeman in London 'ud know her." He then dived into an inner room in the funny little shop, and returned with an old blue petticoat and a faded red jersey. These Sue had to exchange for her own neat but sober frock. "Ye're perfect," said Pickles, dancing round her. "Yer looks hangelic. Now fur the name." "The name?" said Sue. "Must I 'ave a new name too?" "In course yer must; nothink must let the name o' Sue pass yer lips. Now, mind, that slip o' the tongue might prove fatal." "Wery well," said Sue in a resigned voice of great trouble. "Yer needn't be so down on yer luck. I don't myself think anythink o' the name o' Sue; 'tis what I considers low and common. Now, wot's yer favorite character? Say in acting, now." "There's no character hin all the world as I hadmires like Cinderella," said Sue. "Oh, my heyes, Cinderella, of hall people! Worn't Cinderella wot might 'ave bin called beautiful? Dressed shabby, no doubt, and wid hard-hearted sisters--but hadn't she small feet, now? Well, Sue, I don't say as ye're remarkable fur them special features b'in' small, nor is yer looks _wery_ uncommon; but still, ef yer have a fancy for the name, so be it. It _will_ be fun thinkin' of the beautiful, small-footed Cinderella and looking at you. But so much the better, so come along, Cinderella, fur Fryin'-pan 'ull catch us ef we don't make haste." "Where are we to go?" asked the poor little newly made Cinderella, with a piteous face. "Now, yer needn't look like that. None but cheerful folks goes down wid me. Where are yer to go to? Why, to mother, of course--where else?" "Oh, have you got a mother?" asked Sue. "Well, wot next? 'Ow did I happen ter be born? Yes, I has a mother, and the wery best little woman in the world--so come along." CHAPTER XVIII. THE METROPOLITAN FIRE BRIGADE. Pickles and Sue had to go a long way before they reached the destination of "the best little woman in the world." They walked along by-streets and all kinds of queer places, and presently reached a part of London where Sue had never been before. They passed whole streets of warehouses, and came then to poor-looking dwelling-houses, but all of an immense height, and very old and dirty. It was the back slums of Westminster over again, but it was a Westminster severed as far as one pole is from another to Sue. "We does a roaring trade yere," said Pickles, looking around him with the air of a proprietor well satisfied with his property. "Wot in?" asked Sue. "Wot hin? Well, that may surprise yer. Hin fire, of course." "Wot do yer mean?" asked Sue. "Wot does I mean? I mean as we deals in that 'ere rampagious helement. We belongs to the great London Fire Brigade. That his, my brother Will does; and I have a cousin wot thinks hisself no end of a swell, and he's beginning his drill. Do you suppose, you goose, as I'd have acted as I did, wid that 'ere remarkable coolness jest now, when the fire wor burning, and the man wor on the wery brink of destruction, ef fire had not bin, so to speak, my native hair? But now, here we are at last, so come along hup to mother!" Taking Sue's hand, Pickles dragged her up flight after flight of stairs, until they reached the top of one of the very tall, dirty houses. Here he suddenly flung open a door, and pushing Sue in, sang out: "Mother, yere I be! And let me introduce to you Cinderella. Her sisters have bin that unkind and mean as cannot be told, and she have taken refuge wid us until the Prince comes to tie on the glass slipper." No doubt Pickles' mother was thoroughly accustomed to him, for she did not smile at all, but coming gravely forward, took Sue's two hands in hers, and looking into her face, and seeing something of the great trouble there, said in a soft, kind tone: "Sit down, my dear--sit down. If I can help you I will." "Oh, you can help her real fine, mother!" said Pickles, beginning to dance a hornpipe round them both. "And I said as you were the wery best little 'oman in all the world, and that you would do hall you could." "So I will, my lad; only now do let the poor dear speak for herself." But Sue did not. There are limits beyond which fortitude will not go, and those limits were most suddenly reached by the poor child. Her morning's early rising, her long walk to her place of business, her hard work when she got there; then her hurried run for the sick girl's lunch, her cruel betrayal, her very startling capture by Pickles; the fact that her hair had been cut off, her clothes changed, her very name altered, until she herself felt that she must really be somebody else, and not the Sue whom Giles loved. All these things she had borne with tolerable calmness; but now (for Sue was really starving) the warm room, the bright fire--above all, the kind face that bent over her, the gentle voice that asked to hear her tale--proved too much. She put up her toil-worn hands to her face and burst into such sobs as strong people give way to in agony. Mrs. Price beckoned to Pickles to go away, and then, sitting down by Sue's side, she waited until the overloaded heart should have become a little quieted; then she said: "And now, my dear, you will tell me the story." Sue did tell it--told it all--Mrs. Price sitting by and holding her hands, and absolutely not speaking a single word. "You believes me, marm?" said Sue at last. Mrs. Price looked in the girl's eyes and answered simply: "Yes, poor lamb, I quite believe you. And now I am going to get you some supper." She made Sue lie back in the easy-chair by the fire, and drawing out a little round table, laid a white cloth upon it. Sue's mind, by this time partly relieved of its load, was able to take in its novel surroundings. The house might be very tall and very dirty, but this room at least was clean. Floor, walls, furniture--all reflected a due and most judicious use of soap and water; and the woman moving about with gentle, deft fingers, arranging now this and now that, was quite different from any woman Sue had ever seen before. She was a widow, and wore a widow's cap and a perfectly plain black dress, but she had a white handkerchief pinned neatly over her shoulders, so that she looked half-widow, half-nun. She was tall and slender, with very beautiful dark eyes. Sue did not know whether to think her the very gravest person she had ever seen or the very brightest. Her face was thoughtful and sweet; perhaps when in repose it was sad, but she never looked at a human being without a certain expression coming into her eyes which said louder and plainer than words, "I love you." This expression gave the hungry and poor who came in contact with her glance many a heart-thrill, and it is not too much to say they were seldom disappointed of the sympathy which the look in those dark and lovely eyes gave them reason to hope for. Mrs. Price now laid the tea-things, giving the poor little shorn and transformed Cinderella sitting by the hearth so many expressive glances that she began to feel quite a heavenly peace stealing over her. "Worn't Jesus real good to bring me yere?" was her mental comment. She had scarcely made it before two young men came in. These young men were dressed in the uniform of the London Fire Brigade. They looked dusty, and the taller of the two was covered with smoke and dirt. "Mother," he said as he tossed his helmet on the table. "I've been worked almost to death. You have supper ready, I hope." "Yes, yes, my lad--a nice little piece of boiled pork, smoking hot, and pease-pudding and potatoes. I am glad you've brought George with you. He is kindly welcome, as he knows." "As he knows very well," answered George, with a smile. He touched the woman's shoulder for an instant with his big hand. Then the two young men went into the next room to have a wash before supper. "William is coming on fine," said George, when they returned, looking at the other fireman--"though you did disobey orders, William, and are safe to get a reprimand.--Fancy, Mrs. Price! this brave son of yours, returning from his day's drill, must needs see a fire and rush into it, all against orders--ay, and save a poor chap's life--before any one could prevent him." It may be as well to explain here that each man who wishes to join the Metropolitan Fire Brigade must first have served some time at sea; also, before a man is allowed to attend a fire he must be thoroughly trained--in other words, he must attend drill. There's a drill class belonging to each station. It is under the charge of an instructor and two assistant instructors. Each man, on appointment, joins this class, and learns the use of all the different appliances required for the extinction of fire. William Price had not quite completed his eight weeks' drill. "Yes, it was a ticklish piece of work," continued Anderson. "The poor chap he rescued was surrounded by flames. Then, too, the street was so narrow and the crowd so great that the whole matter is simply wonderful; but that policeman who kept order was a fine fellow." "Why, it worn't never the fire as we come from jest now!" here burst from Sue. "Hush--hush, Cinderella!" said Pickles, who had come back, giving her a push under the table. "It 'ud be more suitable to yer present sitiwation ef yer didn't talk. In course it wor that same fire. Why, it wor that deed o' bravery done by my own nearest o' kin as incited me to hact as I did by you." "Whoever is the girl?" said Price, noticing poor Sue for the first time. "Cinderella's the name of this 'ere misfortunate maiden," replied Pickles; "an' yer ax no more questions, Bill, an' yer'll get no stories told." "I must go, Mrs. Price," said Anderson; "but I'll be back again as soon as possible." "Tell me first, George," said the widow, "how your mother is." "I haven't been to see her for a few days, but she wrote to say that both the children who were rescued from the fire a few days back are doing fairly well. The boy was bad at first, but is now recovering." "Ah! that was a brave deed," said Price in a voice of the greatest admiration. "And did she tell you the names of the poor little critters?" "She did. Connie was the name of one----" "Connie?" cried Sue, springing to her feet. "Sit down, Cinderella, and keep yourself quiet," cried Pickles. George Anderson gave the queer little girl who went by this name a puzzled glance. "Yes," he said briefly, "Connie was the name of one, and Ronald the name of the other. I never saw a more beautiful little creature in all the world than Connie." "That's _'er_!" broke from Sue's irrepressible lips. CHAPTER XIX. A SAINTLY LADY. When so many strange things were happening, we may be sure that Father John was not idle. He had hoped much from Peter Harris's knowledge of the byways and dens and alleys of Westminster. But although Peter was accompanied by the sharpest detectives that Scotland Yard could provide, not the slightest clue to Connie's whereabouts could be obtained. The man was to meet more detectives again that same afternoon, and meanwhile a sudden gleam of hope darted through Father John's brain. What a fool he had been not to think of it before! How glad he was now that he had insisted on getting the name and address of the brave fireman deliverer from Connie on the previous night! He went straight now to the house in Carlyle Terrace. He stopped at No. 12. There he rang the bell and inquired if Mrs. Anderson were within. Mrs. Anderson was the last woman in the world to refuse to see any one, whether rich or poor, who called upon her. Even impostors had a kindly greeting from this saintly lady; for, as she was fond of saying to herself, "If I can't give help, I can at least bestow pity." Mrs. Anderson was no fool, however, and she could generally read in their faces the true story of a man or woman who came to her. More often than not the story was a sad one, and the chance visitor was in need of help and sympathy. When this was not the case, she was able to explain very fully to the person who had called upon her what she thought of deceit and dishonest means of gaining a livelihood; and that person, as a rule, went away very much ashamed, and in some cases determined to turn over a new leaf. When this really happened Mrs. Anderson was the first to help to get the individual who had come to her into respectable employment. She was by no means rich, but nearly every penny of her money was spent on others; her own wants were of the simplest. The house she lived in belonged to her son, who, although a gentleman by birth, had long ago selected his profession--that of a fireman in the London Fire Brigade. He had a passion for his calling, and would not change it for the richest and most luxurious life in the world. Now Mrs. Anderson came downstairs to interview Father John. Father John stood up, holding his hat in his hand. He always wore a black frock-coat; his hair hung long over his shoulders; his forehead was lofty; his expressive and marvelously beautiful gray eyes lit up his rugged and otherwise plain face. It was but to look at this man to know that he was absolutely impervious to flattery, and did not mind in the least what others thought about him. His very slight but perceptible deformity gave to his eyes that pathetic look which deformed people so often possess. The moment Mrs. Anderson entered the room she recognized him. "Why," she said in a joyful tone, "is it true that I have the honor of speaking to the great street preacher?" "Not great, madam," said Father John--"quite a simple individual; but my blessed Father in heaven has given me strength to deliver now and then a message to poor and sorrowful people." "Sit down, won't you?" said Mrs. Anderson. Father John did immediately take a chair. Mrs. Anderson did likewise. "Now," said the widow, "what can I do for you?" "I will tell you, madam. Her father and I are in great trouble about the child----" "What child?" asked Mrs. Anderson. "You surely don't mean little Connie Harris? I have been nervous at her not reappearing to-day. At her own express wish, she went to visit her father last night. I would have sent some one with her, but she wouldn't hear of it, assuring me that she had been about by herself in the London streets as long as she could remember; but she has not returned." "No, madam?" Over Father John's face there passed a quick emotion. Then this last hope must be given up. "You have news of her?" said Mrs. Anderson. "I have, and very bad news." Father John then related his story. "Oh, why--why did I let her go?" said Mrs. Anderson. "Don't blame yourself dear lady; the person to blame is the miserable father who would not receive his lost child when she returned to him." "Oh, poor little girl!" said Mrs. Anderson. "Such a sweet child, too, and so very beautiful!" "Her beauty is her danger," said Father John. "What do you mean?" "She told me her story, as doubtless she has told it to you." "She has," said Mrs. Anderson. "There is not the least doubt," continued the street preacher, "that that notorious thief, Mrs. Warren, used the child to attract people from herself when she was stealing their goods. Mrs. Warren is one of the most noted pickpockets in London. She has been captured, but I greatly fear that some other members of the gang have kidnapped the child once more." "What can be done?" said Mrs. Anderson. "I wish my son were here. I know he would help." "Ah, madam," said Father John, "how proud you must be of such a son! I think I would rather belong to his profession than any other in all the world--yes, I believe I would rather belong to it than to my own; for when you can rescue the body of a man from the cruel and tormenting flames, you have a rare chance of getting at his soul." "My son is a Christian as well as a gentleman," said Mrs. Anderson. "He would feel with you in every word you have uttered, Father John. I will send him a message and ask him if he can meet you here later on to-night." "I shall be very pleased to come; and I will if I can," said Father John. "But," he added, "my time is scarcely ever my own--I am the servant of my people." "Your congregation?" said Mrs. Anderson. "Yes, madam; all sorts and conditions of men. I have no parish; still, I consider myself God's priest to deliver His message to sorrowful people who might not receive it from an ordained clergyman." Mrs. Anderson was silent. Father John's eyes seemed to glow. He was looking back on many experiences. After a minute he said: "The consolation is this: 'He that shall endure to the end--shall be saved.'" "How very strange that you should speak of that!" said Mrs. Anderson. "Why so, madam? Don't you believe it?" "Oh, indeed I do! But I'll tell you why I think it strange. There is a little boy--the child who was also rescued from the fire--in my house. He was very ill at first; he is now better, but not well enough to leave his bedroom. I was anxious about him for a time, but he is, I thank God, recovering. Now, this child went on murmuring that text during his delirium--a strange one to fall from the lips of so young a child." "Indeed, yes, madam. I am most deeply interested. I am glad you have mentioned the little boy. Connie told me about him last night. I am sorry that in my anxiety for her I forgot him." "You could never forget little Ronald if you were to see him," said Mrs. Anderson. "I don't think I ever saw quite so sweet a child. His patience, his courage, and I think I ought to add his faith, are marvelous." "He cannot be nicer or better than a little boy of the name of Giles who lives in a very poor attic near my own room," said the preacher. "I wonder," said Mrs. Anderson after a pause, "if you could spare time to come up and see little Ronald with me." "I should be only too glad," said Father John. So Mrs. Anderson took the preacher upstairs, and very softly opened the door, beyond which stood a screen. She entered, followed by the preacher, into a pretty room, which had lovely photographs hanging on the walls, that bore on childhood in different aspects. There was the summer child--the child of happiness--playing in the summer meadows, chasing butterflies and gathering flowers. And there also was the winter child--the child of extreme desolation--shivering on a doorstep in one of London's streets. There were other children, too--saintly children--St. Agnes and her lamb, St. Elizabeth, St. Ursula; and, above all, there were photographs of the famous pictures of the Child of all children, the Child of Bethlehem. The windows of the room were shaded by soft curtains of pale blue. A cheerful fire burned in the grate, and a child lay, half-sitting up, in a bed covered by a silken eider-down. The child looked quite content in his little bed, and a trained nurse who was in the room went softly out by another door as Mrs. Anderson and the preacher entered. "Hasn't Connie come back?" asked Ronald. "No, dear," said Mrs. Anderson; "she's not able to do so just yet." "I want her," said Ronald, suppressing a sigh. "I have brought this gentleman to see you, Ronald." "What?" The boy cast a quick glance at the somewhat ungainly figure of Father John. Another disappointment--not the father he was waiting for. But the luminous eyes of the preacher seemed to pierce into the boy's soul. When he looked once, he looked again. When he looked twice, it seemed to him that he wanted to look forever. "I am glad," he said; and a smile broke over his little face. Father John sat down at once by the bedside, and Mrs. Anderson went softly out of the room. "Waiting for something, little man?" said the street preacher. "How can you tell?" asked Ronald. "I see it in your eyes," said the preacher. "It's father," said Ronald. "Which father?" asked the preacher. "My own," said Ronald--"my soldier father--the V. C. man, you know." "Yes," said Father John. "I want him," said Ronald. "Of course you do." "Is he likely to come soon?" asked Ronald. "If I could tell you that, Ronald," said the street preacher, "I should be a wiser man than my Father in heaven means me to be. There is only one Person who can tell you when your earthly father will come." "You mean Lord Christ," said Ronald. "I mean Christ and our Father in heaven." Ronald shut his eyes for a minute. Then he opened them. "I want my father," he said. "I'm sort o' starving for him." "Well," said Father John, "you have a father, you know--you have two fathers. If you can't get your earthly father down here, you're certain safe to get him up there. A boy with two fathers needn't feel starved about the heart, need he, now?" "I suppose not," said Ronald. "He need not, of course," said Father John. "I'll say a bit of a prayer for you to the Heavenly Father, and I know that sore feeling will go out of your heart. I know it, Ronald; for He has promised to answer the prayers of those who trust in Him. But now I want to talk to you about something else. I guess, somehow, that the next best person to your father to come to see you now is your little friend Connie." "Yes, yes!" said Ronald. "I've missed her dreadful. Mrs. Anderson is sweet, and Nurse Charlotte very kind, and I'm beginning not to be quite so nervous about fire and smoke and danger. It's awful to be frightened. I'll have to tell my father when he comes back how bad I've been and how unlike him. But if I can't get him just now--and I'm not going to be unpatient--I want Connie, 'cos she understands." "Of course she understands," said the preacher. "I will try and get her for you." "But why can't she come back?" "She can't." "But why--why?" "That is another thing I can't tell you." "And I am not to be unpatient," said Ronald. "You're to be patient--it's a big lesson--it mostly takes a lifetime to get it well learned. But somehow, when it is learned, then there's nothing else left to learn." Ronald's eyes were so bright and so dark that the preacher felt he had said enough for the present. He bent down over the boy. "The God above bless thee, child," he said; "and if you have power and strength to say a little prayer for Connie, do. She will come back when the Heavenly Father wills it. Good-bye, Ronald." CHAPTER XX. CAUGHT AGAIN. When Connie awoke the next morning, it was to see the ugly face of Agnes bending over her. "Stylites is to 'ome," she said briefly. "Yer'd best look nippy and come into the kitchen and 'ave yer brekfus'." "Oh!" said Connie. "You'll admire Stylites," continued Agnes; "he's a wery fine man. Now come along--but don't yer keep him waiting." Connie had not undressed. Agnes poured a little water into a cracked basin for her to wash her face and hands, and showed her a comb, by no means specially inviting, with which she could comb out her pretty hair. Then, again enjoining her to "look slippy," she left the room. In the kitchen a big breakfast was going on. A quantity of bacon was frizzling in a pan over a great fire; and Freckles, the boy who had let Connie and Agnes in the night before, was attending to it. Two men with rough faces--one of them went by the name of Corkscrew, and the other was known as Nutmeg--were standing also within the region of the warm and generous fire. But the man on whom Connie fixed her pretty eyes, when she softly opened the door and in all fear made her appearance, was of a totally different order of being. He was a tall man, quite young, not more than thirty years of age, and remarkably handsome. He had that curious combination of rather fair hair and very dark eyes and brows. His face was clean-shaven, and the features were refined and delicate without being in the least effeminate; for the cruel strength of the lower jaw and firmly shut lips showed at a glance that this man had a will of iron. His voice was exceedingly smooth and gentle, however, in intonation. When he saw Connie he stepped up to her side and, giving her a gracious bow, said: "Welcome to the kitchen, young lady." "It's Stylites--bob yer curtsy," whispered Agnes in Connie's ear. So Connie bobbed her curtsy. Was this the man she was to be so dreadfully afraid of? Her whole charming little face broke into a smile. "I'm so glad as you're Stylites!" she said. The compliment, the absolutely unexpected words, the charm of the smile, had a visible effect upon the man. He looked again at Connie as though he would read her through and through; then, taking her hand, he led her to the breakfast-table. "Freckles," he said, "put a clean plate and knife on the table. That plate isn't fit for a young lady to eat off." Freckles grinned from ear to ear, showing rows of yellow teeth. He rushed off to wash the plate in question, and returned with it hot and shining to lay again before Connie's place. Simeon Stylites himself helped the little girl to the choicest pieces of bacon, to delicate slices of white bread, and to any other good things which were on the table. As he did this he did not speak once, but his eyes seemed to be everywhere. No one dared do a thing on the sly. The rough-looking men, Corkscrew and Nutmeg, were desired in a peremptory tone to take their mugs of tea to another table at the farther end of the great room. One of them ventured to grumble, and both cast angry glances at Connie. Stylites, however, said, "Shut that!" and they were instantly mute as mice. The boy Freckles also took his breakfast to the other table; but Agnes sat boldly down, and pushing her ill-favored face forward, addressed Simeon in familiar style: "I nabbed her--yer see." "Shut that!" said Stylites. Agnes flushed an angry red, gave Connie a vindictive look, but did not dare to utter another word. Connie ate her breakfast with wonderful calm, and almost contentment. During the night which had passed she had gone through terrible dreams, in which Simeon Stylites had figured largely. He had appeared to her in those dreams as an ogre--a monster too awful to live. But here was a gracious gentleman, very goodly to look upon, very kind to her, although rude and even fierce to the rest of the party. "He'll let me go 'ome," thought Connie; "he 'ave a kind 'eart." The meal came to an end. When it did so Corkscrew came up and inquired if the young "amattur" were "goin' to 'ave her first lesson in perfessional work." "Shut that!" said Stylites again. "You go into cellar No. 5 and attend to the silver, Corkscrew.--Nutmeg, you'll have the other jewelry to put in order this morning. Is the furnace in proper order?" "Yus, sir." "Get off both of you and do your business. We're going out this evening." "When, sir?" "Ten o'clock--sharp's the word." "On wot, sir?" "No. 17's the job," said Simeon Stylites. "And wot am I to do?" said Agnes. "Stay indoors and mend your clothes." "In this room, sir?" "No; your bedroom." "Please, Simeon Stylites, yer ain't thanked me yet for bringin' Connie along." For answer Stylites put his hand into his pocket, produced half-a-crown, and tossed it to Agnes. "Get into your room, and be quick about it," he said. "May I take Connie along, please, sir?" "Leave the girl alone. Go!" Agnes went. "Come and sit in this warm chair by the fire, dear," said Stylites. Connie did so. The smile round her lips kept coming and going, going and coming. She was touched; she was soothed; she had not a scrap of fear; this great, strong, kind man would certainly save her. He was so different from dreadful Mammy Warren. "Freckles," said the chief, "wash the breakfast things; put them in order; take them all into the pantry. When you have done, go out by the back door, being careful to put on the old man's disguise to-day. Fasten the wig firmly on, and put a patch over your eye. Here's five shillings; get food for the day, and be here by twelve o'clock sharp. Now go." "Yus, sir." Freckles had an exceedingly cheerful manner. He knew very little fear. The strange life he led gave him a sort of wild pleasure. He winked at Connie. "Somethin' wery strange be goin' to 'appen," he said to himself. "A hamattur like this a-brought in by private horders, an' no perfessional lesson to be tuk." He thought how he himself would enjoy teaching this pretty child some of the tricks of the trade. Oh, of course, she was absolutely invaluable. He didn't wonder that Mammy had brought in such spoil when Connie was there. But even Freckles had to depart, and Connie presently found herself alone with the chief. He stood by the hearth, looking taller and more exactly like a fine gentleman, and Connie was more and more reassured about him. "Please, sir----" she began. "Stop!" he interrupted. "Mayn't I speak, sir?" "No--not now. For God's sake don't plead with me; I can't stand that." "Why, sir?" But Connie, as she looked up, saw an expression about that mouth and that jaw which frightened her, and frightened her so badly that all the agony she had undergone in Mammy Warren's house seemed as nothing in comparison. The next minute, however, the cruel look had departed. Simeon Stylites drew a chair forward, dropped into it, bent low, and looked into Connie's eyes. "Allow me," he said; and he put his hand very gently under her chin, and raised her little face and looked at it. "Who's your father?" he asked. "Peter Harris." "Trade?" "Blacksmith, sir." "Where do you live?" "Adam Street, sir; and----" "Hush! Only answer my questions." Stylites removed his hand from under the girl's chin, and Connie felt a blush of pain sweeping over her face. "How long were you with that woman Warren?" "Dunno, sir." "What do you mean by answering me like that?" "Can't 'elp it, sir. Tuk a fright there--bad fire--can't remember, please, sir." "Never mind; it doesn't matter. Stand up; I want to look at your hair." Connie did so. Simeon took great masses of the golden, beautiful hair between his slender fingers. He allowed it to ripple through them. He felt its weight and examined its quality. "Sit down again," he said. "Yus, sir." "You're exactly the young girl I want for my profession." "Please, sir----" "Hush!" "Yus, sir." "I repeat--and I wish you to listen--that in my profession you would rise to eminence. You haven't an idea what it is like, have you?" "No--I mean I'm not sure----" "You had better keep in ignorance, for it won't be really necessary for you to understand." "Oh, sir." "Not really necessary." Connie looked up into the stern and very strange face. "But you miss a good deal," said Stylites--"yes, a very great deal. Tell me, for instance, how you employed your time before you entered Mrs. Warren's establishment." "I did machine-work, sir." "I guessed as much--or perhaps Coppenger told me. Machine-work--attic work?--Shop?" "Yus, sir--in Cheapside, sir--a workshop for cheap clothing, sir." "Did you like it?" "No, sir." "I should think not. Let me look at your hand." He took one of Connie's hands and examined it carefully. "Little, tapering fingers," he said, "spoiled by work. They could be made very white, very soft and beautiful. Have you ever considered what a truly fascinating thing a girl's hand is?" Connie shook her head. "You'd know it if you stayed with me. I should dress you in silk and satins, and give you big hats with feathers, and lovely silk stockings and charming shoes." "To wear in this 'ere kitchen, sir?" "Oh no, you wouldn't live in this kitchen; you would be in a beautiful house with other ladies and gentlemen. _You would_ like that, wouldn't you?" "Yus, sir--ef I might 'ave Ronald and Giles and father and Father John, and p'rhaps Mrs. Anderson and Mr. George Anderson, along o' me." "But in that beautiful house you wouldn't have Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, nor your father, nor that canting street preacher, nor the children you've just mentioned. It's just possible you might have the boy Ronald, but even that is problematical--you'd have to give up the rest." "Then, sir," said Connie, "I rayther not go, please." "Do you think that matters?" said Stylites. "Wot, sir?" "That you'd rather not go?" "I dunno, sir." "It doesn't matter one whit. Children who come here aren't asked what they'd rather or rather not do, girl--they've got to do what _I_ order." The voice came out, not loud, but sharp and incisive, as though a knife were cutting something. "Yus, sir--yus, sir." "Connie"--the man's whole tone altered--"what will you give me if I let you go?" "Oh, sir----" "I want you to give me something very big, I've taken great trouble to secure you. You're the sort of little girl I want; you would be very useful to me. You have come in here--it is true you haven't the least idea where this house is--but you've come in, and you've seen me, and you've discovered the name which these low people call me. Of course, you can understand that my real name is not Simeon Stylites--I have a very different name; and my home isn't here--I have a very different home. I would take you there, and treat you well, and afterwards perhaps send you to another home. You should never know want, and no one would be unkind to you. You would be as a daughter to me, and I am a lonely man." "Oh, sir--sir!" said poor Connie, "I--I like you, sir--I'm not afeered--no, not much afeered--but if you 'ud only let the others come----" "That I cannot do, girl. If you choose to belong to me you must give up the others." "_Ef_ I choose, sir--may I choose?" "Yes--on a condition." The man who called himself Simeon Stylites looked at the girl with a queer, hungry expression in his eyes. "I wanted you very badly indeed," he said; "and I was not in the least prepared to be sentimental. But I had a little sister like you. She died when she was rather younger than you. I loved her, and she loved me. I was quite a good man then, and a gentleman----" "Oh, sir--ye're that now." "No, girl--I am not. There are things that a gentleman would do which I would _not_ do, and there are things which no gentleman would do which I do. I have passed the line; nevertheless, the outward tokens remain; and I live--well, child, I want for nothing. My profession is very lucrative--very." Connie did not understand half the words of this strange, queer man, with a terribly stern and yet terribly pathetic voice. "When I saw you this morning," said Stylites, "I knew at once it was no go. You were like the little Eleanor whom alone in all the world I ever truly loved. You are too young to be told my story, or I would tell it to you." "Oh, sir," said Connie, "I'd real like to comfort yer." "You can't do that, and I won't spoil the life of any child with such a look of my little Eleanor. I am going to give you back your liberty--on a condition." "Wot's that?" said Connie. "That you never breathe to mortal what happened to you from the time you left your friend, the street preacher, last night, until the time when you found yourself at liberty and outside that same court. Wild horses mustn't drag it from you; detectives must do their utmost in vain. I am willing to do a good deal for you, girl, solely and entirely because of that chance likeness. But I won't have _my_ profession and _my_ chances in life imperilled. Do you promise?" "Sir, I'll niver,--niver tell." "You must promise more strongly than that--the others must be witnesses." "Oh, sir--oh, sir! you must trust me. Don't call the others in; let me promise to you, yer lone self, an' I will keep my word." The strange man with the strange eyes looked long for a full minute into Connie's face. "I could have been good to you," he said, "and what I had to offer was not altogether contemptible. But it somehow wouldn't have fitted in with my memory of Eleanor, who went back to God at eleven years of age, very pure in heart, and just like a little child. 'Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.' Those are the words which mark her little grave in a distant part of the country. If you will follow in her steps, and be pure and good in heart and life, you may meet my Eleanor in another world. And perhaps you may be able to tell her that I--a man given over to extreme wickedness--did one kind deed for her sake when I gave you back to your friends." "Sir----" "Not another word. I am a man of moods, and I might recant what I have just said." Simeon Stylites sounded a little gong on the table. Agnes came hurriedly in. "Fetch this child's hat and jacket," said the great man imperatively. Agnes brought them. "Be I to take her out, sir?" she said. "No. And listen. This child isn't for us; let her alone in future.--Are you ready, Connie?" "Yus, sir." Simeon Stylites put on the most gentlemanly overcoat and a well-brushed silk hat, and he took a neat stick in his hand and went boldly out of the house. As soon as ever he got outside he saw a hansom, and beckoned the driver. He and Connie got in. They went for a long drive, and Stylites dismissed the hansom in a distant part of the town. "You wouldn't know your way back again?" he said to the girl. "No, sir; an' ef I knew I wouldn't tell." "Well, then--good-bye." "Good-bye, sir." "Yes, good-bye. Walk down this street till you come to the end. Here's a shilling--you'll get a hansom; ask a policeman to put you in. From there go home again, and forget that you ever saw or heard of Simeon Stylites." CHAPTER XXI. SAFE HOME AT LAST. When Harris parted from Sue he ran quickly in his cowardly flight. He did not stay his fleet steps until he had gained a very quiet street. Then, knowing that he was now quite safe, he exchanged his running for a rapid walk. He suddenly remembered that he was to meet the detectives, who were moving heaven and earth to get Connie back for him, not later than three o'clock. They were to meet by appointment in a certain street, and the hour of rendezvous was quickly approaching. He got there in good time; but what was his amazement to see, not only the two detectives--ordinary-looking men in plain clothes--but also the street preacher? The street preacher came up to him eagerly. The detectives also followed close. "Harris," said Atkins, "you can thank God on your knees--your child is safe at home." "Wot?" said Harris. In that instant something sharp as a sword went through his heart. Oh, what a mean, terrible, horrible wretch he was! What a cowardly deed he had just committed! And yet God was kind, and had given him back his child. "Connie is in your room, waiting for you," said Atkins. "I went in not an hour ago, hoping to find you, and there she was." "It's very queer," said Detective Z. "You should have been there also, and have questioned the girl. There isn't the least doubt that she could give the most valuable information, but she won't utter a word--not a word." "Won't she, now?" said Harris. "Perhaps not to you, but she wull, quick enough, to her own father." The entire party then turned in the direction of Harris's rooms. They went up the stairs, and Harris flung the door wide. A little, slight girl, in the identical same dark-blue dress which Harris had bought for her with such pride not many weeks ago, was standing near the fire. Already her womanly influences had been at work. The fire burned brightly. The room was tidy. The girl herself was waiting--expectation, fear, longing, all expressed in her sensitive face. "Father!" she cried as Harris--brutal, red of face, self-reproachful, at once the most miserable and the gladdest man on earth--almost staggered into the room. He took the slim little creature into his arms, gave her a few fierce, passionate kisses; then saying, "It is good to have yer back, wench," pushed her from him with unnecessary violence. He sank into a seat, trembling all over. The two detectives marked his agitation and were full of compassion for him. How deeply he loved his child, they felt. But Father John read deeper below the surface. The man was in a very queer state. Had anything happened? He knew Harris well. At such a moment as this, if all were right, he would not be so overcome. The detectives began to question Connie. "We want to ask you a few questions, my dear," said Constable Z. "Who dragged you into that court last night?" "I won't say," answered Connie. "You won't say? But you know." "I won't say nothing," said Connie. "That is blamed nonsense!" cried Harris, suddenly rousing himself. "Yer've got to say--yer've got to make a clean breast of it. Wot's up? Speak!" "I wouldn't be here, father," said Connie, "'ef I'd not promised most faithfully not _iver_ to tell, and I won't iver, iver, iver tell, not to anybody in all the world." There was a decidedly new quality in the girl's voice. "I wouldn't do it for nobody," continued Connie. She drew herself up, and looked taller; her eyes were shining. The detectives glanced at each other. "If you was put in the witness-box, missy," said one, "yer'd have to break that promise o' yourn, whoever you made it to, or you'ud know what contempt of the law meant." "But I am not in the witness-box," said Connie, her tone suddenly becoming gay. "It was awful kind of people to look for me, but they might ha' looked for ever and niver found me again. I'm 'ere now quite safe, and nothing 'as 'appened at all, and I'm niver goin' to tell. Please, Father John, _you_ won't ask me?" "No, my child," said Father John. "You have made a promise, perhaps a rash one, but I should be the last to counsel you to break it." Nothing more could be gained from Connie at present; and by-and-by Father John and the two detectives left her alone with Harris. When the door closed behind the three men a timid expression came into Connie's gentle eyes. Beyond doubt her father was sober, but he looked very queer--fearfully red in the face, nervous, trembling, bad in his temper. Connie had seen him in many moods, but this particular mood she had never witnessed in him before. He must really love her. He knew nothing about that terrible time last night when he had turned her away. Then he did not know what he was doing. Connie was the last to bear him malice for what--like many other little girls of her class--she considered he could not help. Most of the children in the courts and streets around had fathers who drank. It seemed to Connie and to the other children that this was a necessary part of fathers--that they all took what was not good for them, and were exceedingly unpleasant under its influence. She stood now by the window, and Harris sank into a chair. Then he got up restlessly. "I be goin' out for a bit, lass," he said. "You stay 'ere." "Oh, please, father," said Connie, "ef you be goin' out, may I go 'long and pay Giles a wisit? I want so much to have a real good talk with him." When Connie mentioned the word Giles, Harris gave quite a perceptible start. Something very like an oath came from his lips; then he crushed back his emotion. "Hall right," he said; "but don't stay too long there. And plait up that 'air o' yourn, and put it tight round yer 'ead; I don't want no more kidnappin' o' my wench." There was a slight break in the rough man's voice, and Connie's little sensitive heart throbbed to the tone of love. A minute later Harris had gone out, and Connie, perceiving that it was past four o'clock, and that it would not be so very long before Sue was back from Cheapside, prepared to set off in quite gay spirits to see little Giles. She went into her tiny bedroom. It was a very shabby room, nothing like as well furnished as the one she had occupied at Mammy Warren's. But oh, how glad she was to be back again! How sweet the homely furniture looked! How dear was that cracked and handleless jug! How nice to behold again the wooden box in which she kept her clothes! The little girl now quickly plaited her long, thick hair, arranged it tightly round her head, and putting on a shabby frock and jacket, and laying the dark blue, which had seen such evil days, in the little trunk, she hastily left the room. She was not long in making her appearance in Giles's very humble attic. Her heart beat as she mounted the well-worn stairs. How often--oh, how often she had though of Giles and Sue! How she had longed for them! The next minute she had burst into the room where the boy was lying, as usual, flat on his back. "Giles," she said, "I've come back." "Connie!" answered Giles. He turned quickly to look at her. His face turned first red, then very pale; but the next minute he held up his hand to restrain further words. "Don't say anything for half a minute, Connie, for 'e's goin' to speak." "Big Ben? Oh!" said Connie. She remembered what Big Ben had been to her and to Ronald in Mammy Warren's dreadful rooms. She too listened, half-arrested in her progress across the room. Then, above the din and roar of London, the sweet chimes pealed, and the hour of five o'clock was solemnly proclaimed. "There!" said Giles. "Did yer 'ear wot he said now?" "Tell us--do tell us!" said Connie. "'The peace of God which passeth all understanding.'" said Giles. "Ain't it fine?" "Oh yus," said Connie--"yus! Giles--little Giles--'ow I ha' missed yer! Oh Giles, Giles! this is the peace o' God come back to me again." Giles did not answer, and Connie had time to watch him. It was some weeks now since she had seen him--weeks so full of events that they were like a lifetime to the child; and in those weeks a change had come over little Giles. That pure, small, angel face of his looked smaller, thinner, and more angelic than ever. It seemed as if a breath might blow him away. His sweet voice itself was thin and weak. "I did miss yer, Connie," he said at last. "But then, I were never frightened; Sue were--over and over." "And w'y weren't yer frightened, Giles?" said Connie. "You 'ad a reason to be, if yer did but know." "I did know," said Giles, "and that were why I didn't fret. I knew as you were safe--I knew for sartin sure that Big Ben 'ud talk to yer--_'e'd_ bring yer a message, same as 'e brings to me." "Oh--he did--he did!" said Connie. "I might ha' guessed that you'd think that, for the message were so wery strong. It were indeed as though a Woice uttered the words. But oh, Giles--I 'ave a lot to tell yer!" "Well," said Giles, "and I am ready to listen. Poke up the fire a bit, and then set near me. Yer must stop talking _w'en 'e_ speaks, but otherwise you talk and I listen." "Afore I do anything," said Connie--"'ave you 'ad your tea?" "No. I didn't want it. I'll 'ave it w'en Sue comes 'ome." "Poor Sue!" said Connie. "I'm that longin' to see her! I 'ope she won't be hangry." "Oh, no," said Giles. "We're both on us too glad to be angry. We missed yer sore, both on us." While Giles was speaking Connie had put on the kettle to boil. She had soon made a cup of tea, which she brought to the boy, who, although he had said he did not want it, drank it off with dry and thirsty lips. "Dear Connie!" he said when he gave her the cup to put down. "Now you're better," said Connie, "and I'll speak." She began to tell her story, which quickly absorbed Giles, bringing color into his cheeks and brightness into his eyes, so that he looked by no means so frail and ill as he had done when Connie first saw him. She cheered up when she noticed this, and reflected that doubtless Giles was no worse. It was only because she had not seen him for so long that she was really frightened. When her story was finished Giles spoke: "You're back, and you're safe--and it were the good Lord as did it. Yer'll tell me 'bout the fire over agin another day; and yer'll tell me 'bout that little Ronald, wot 'ave so brave a father, another day. But I'm tired now a bit. It's wonnerful, all the same, wot brave fathers do for their children. W'en I think o' mine, an' wot 'e wor, an' 'ow 'e died, givin' up his life for others, I'm that proud o' him, an' comforted by him, an' rejoiced to think as I'll see 'im agin, as is almost past talkin' on. But there! you'd best go 'ome now; you're quite safe, for 'E wot gives Big Ben 'is message 'ull regard yer." "But why mayn't I wait for Sue?" said Connie. "No," said Giles in a faint tone; "I'm too tired--I'm sort o' done up, Connie--an' I can't listen, even to dear Sue axin' yer dozens and dozens o' questions. You go 'ome now, an' come back ef yer like later on, w'en Sue 'ull be 'ome and I'll ha' broke the news to her. She knows she must be very quiet in the room with me, Connie." So Connie agreed to this; first of all, however, placing a glass with a little milk in it by Giles's side. She then returned to her own room, hoping that she might find her father there before her. He was not there; his place was empty. Connie, however, was not alarmed, only it had struck her with a pang that if he really loved her half as much as she loved him he would have come on that first evening after her return. She spent a little time examining the room and putting it into ship-shape order, and then suddenly remembered that she herself was both faint and hungry. She set the kettle on, therefore, to boil, and made herself some tea. There was a hunch of bread and a piece of cold bacon in the great cupboard, which in Connie's time was generally stored with provisions. She said to herself: "I must ax father for money to buy wittles w'en he comes in." And then she made a meal off some of the bacon and bread, and drank the sugarless and milkless tea as though it were nectar. She felt very tired from all she had undergone; and as the time sped by, and Big Ben proclaimed the hours of seven, eight, and nine, she resolved to wait no longer for her father. She hoped indeed, he would not be tipsy to-night but she resolved if such were the case, and he again refused to receive her, to go to Mrs. Anderson and beg for a night's lodging. First of all, however, she would visit Giles and Sue. Giles would have told Sue the most exciting part of the story, and Sue would be calm and practical and matter-of-fact; but of course, at the same time, very, very glad to see her. Connie thought how lovely it would be to get one of Sue's hearty smacks on her cheek, and to hear Sue's confident voice saying: "You _were_ a silly. Well, now ye're safe 'ome, you'll see as yer stays there." Connie thought no words would be quite so cheerful and stimulating to hear as those matter-of-fact words of Sue's. She soon reached the attic. She opened the door softly, and yet with a flutter at her heart. "Sue," she said. But there was no Sue in the room; only Giles, whose face was very, very white, and whose gentle eyes were full of distress. "Come right over 'ere, Connie," he said. She went and knelt by him. "Ye're not well," she said. "Wot ails yer?" "Sue ain't come 'ome," he answered--"neither Sue nor any tidin's of her. No, I ain't frightened, but I'm--I'm lonesome, like." "In course ye're not frightened," said Connie, who, in the new _rôle_ of comforter for Giles, forgot herself. "I'll set with yer," she said, "till Sue comes 'ome. W'y, Giles, anythink might ha' kep' her." "No," said Giles, "not anythink, for she were comin' 'ome earlier than usual to-night, an' we was to plan out 'ow best to get me a new night-shirt, an' Sue herself were goin' to 'ave a evenin' patchin' her old brown frock. She were comin' 'ome--she 'ad made me a promise; nothin' in all the world would make her break it--that is, _ef_ she could 'elp herself." "Well, I s'pose she couldn't 'elp herself," said Connie. "It's jest this way. They keep her in over hours--they often do that at Cheadle's." "They 'aven't kep' 'er in to-night," said Giles. "Then wot 'ave come to her?" "I dunno; only Big Ben----" "Giles dear, wot _do_ yer mean?" "I know," said Giles, with a catch in his voice, "as that blessed Woice comforts me; but there! I must take the rough with the smooth. 'E said w'en last 'e spoke, 'In all their affliction 'E were afflicted.' There now! why did those words sound through the room unless there _is_ trouble about Sue?" Connie argued and talked, and tried to cheer the poor little fellow. She saw, however, that he was painfully weak, and when ten o'clock struck from the great clock, and the boy--his nerves now all on edge--caught Connie's hand, and buried his face against it, murmuring, "The Woice has said them words agin," she thought it quite time to fetch a doctor. "You mustn't go on like this, Giles," she said, "or yer'll be real ill. I'm goin' away, and I'll be back in a minute or two." She ran downstairs, found a certain Mrs. Nelson who knew both Sue and Giles very well, described the state of the child, and begged of Mrs. Nelson to get the doctor in. "Wull, now," said that good woman, "ef that ain't wonnerful! Why, Dr. Deane is in the 'ouse this very blessed minute attending on Hannah Blake, wot broke her leg. I'll send him straight up to Giles, Connie, ef yer'll wait there till he comes. Lor, now!" continued Mrs. Nelson, "w'y hever should Sue be so late--and this night, of all nights?" Connie, very glad to feel that the doctor was within reach, returned to the boy, who now lay with closed eyes, breathing fast. Dr. Deane was a remarkably kind young man. He knew the sorrows of the poor, and they all loved him, and when he saw Giles he bent down over the little fellow and made a careful examination. He then cheered up the boy as best he could, and told him that he would send him a strengthening medicine, also a bottle of port-wine, of which he was to drink some at intervals, and other articles of food. "Wen 'ull Sue come back?" asked Giles of the doctor. "Can't tell you that, my dear boy. Your sister may walk in at any minute, but I am sure this little friend will stay with you for the night." "Yus, if I may let father know," said Connie. "You mustn't fret, Giles; that would be very wrong," said the doctor. He then motioned Connie on to the landing outside. "The boy is ill," he said, "and terribly weak--he is half-starved. That poor, brave little sister of his does what she can for him, but it is impossible for her to earn sufficient money to give him the food he requires. I am exceedingly sorry for the boy, and will send him over a basket of good things." "But," said Connie, her voice trembling, "is he wery, wery ill?" "Yes," said the doctor--"so ill that he'll soon be better. In his case, that is the best sort of illness, is it not? Oh, my child, don't cry!" "Do yer mean that Giles is goin'--goin' right aw'y?" whispered Connie. "Right away--and before very long. It's the very best thing that could happen to him. If he lived he would suffer all his life. He won't suffer any more soon. Now go back to him, and cheer him all you can." Connie did go back. Where had she learnt such wonderful self-control--she who, until all her recent trials, had been rather a selfish little girl, thinking a good deal of her pretty face and beautiful hair, and rebelling when trouble came to her? She had chosen her own way, and very terrible trials had been hers in consequence. She had learned a lesson, partly from Ronald, partly from Big Ben, partly from the words of her little Giles, whom she had loved all her life. For Giles's sake she would not give way now. "Set you down, Connie--right here," said Giles. She sat down, and he looked at her. "Wot do doctor say?" said Giles. "Oh, that ye're a bit weakly, Giles. He's goin' to send yer a basket o' good wittles." Giles smiled. Then he held out his shadowy little hand and touched Connie. "Niver mind," he said softly; "I know wot doctor said." A heavenly smile flitted over his face, and he closed his eyes. "It won't be jest yet," he said. "There'll be plenty o' time. Connie, wull yer sing to me?" "Yus," said Connie, swallowing a lump in her throat. "Sing ''Ere we suffer.'" Connie began. How full and rich her voice had grown! She remembered that time when, out in the snow, she had sung--little Ronald keeping her company: "Here we suffer grief and pain, Here we meet to part again, In Heaven we part no more. Oh! that will be joyful, When we meet to part no more." The words of the hymn were sung to the very end, Giles listening in an ecstasy of happiness. "Now, 'Happy Land,'" he said. Connie sang: "There is a Happy Land, Far, far away, Where saints in glory stand, Bright, bright as day." The second hymn was interrupted by the arrival of a messenger, who brought a bottle of medicine and a large basket. The contents of the basket were laid on the table--a little crisp loaf of new bread, a pat of fresh butter, half a pound of tea, a small can of milk, a pound of sugar, half-a-dozen new-laid eggs, and a chicken roasted whole, also a bottle of port-wine. "Now then," said Connie, "look, Giles--look!" The messenger took away the basket. Even Giles was roused to the semblance of appetite by the sight of the tempting food. Connie quickly made tea, boiled an egg, and brought them with fresh bread-and-butter to the child. He ate a little; then he looked up at her. "You must eat, too, Connie. Why, you _be_ white and tired!" Connie did not refuse. She made a small meal, and then, opening the bottle of wine with a little corkscrew which had also been sent, kept the precious liquid in readiness to give to Giles should he feel faint. Eleven o'clock rang out in Big Ben's great and solemn voice. Connie was very much startled when she heard the great notes; but, to her surprise, Giles did not take any notice. He lay happy, with an expression on his face which showed that his thoughts were far away. "Connie," he said after a minute, "be yer really meanin' to spend the night with me?" "Oh yus," said Connie, "ef yer'll 'ave me." "You've to think of your father, Connie--he may come back. He may miss yer. Yer ought to go back and see him, and leave him a message." "I were thinking that," said Connie; "and I won't be long. I'll come straight over here the very minute I can, and ef Sue has returned----" "Sue won't come back--not yet," said Giles. "Why, Giles--how do you know?" "Jesus Christ told me jest now through the Woice o' Big Ben," said the boy. "Oh Giles--wot?" "'E said, 'Castin' all your care on God, for He careth for you.' I ha' done it, and I'm not frettin' no more. Sue's all right; God's a-takin' care of her. I don't fret for Sue now, no more than I fretted for you. But run along and tell your father, and come back." Connie went. At this hour of night the slums of Westminster are not the nicest place in the world for so pretty a girl to be out. Connie, too, was known by several people, and although in her old clothes, and with her hair fastened round her head, she did not look nearly so striking as when Mammy Warren had used her as a decoy-duck in order to pursue her pickpocket propensities, yet still her little face was altogether on a different plane from the ordinary slum children. "W'y, Connie," said a rough woman, "come along into my den an' tell us yer story." "Is it Connie Harris?" screamed another. "W'y, gel, w'ere hever were yer hall this time? A nice hue and cry yer made! Stop 'ere this minute and tell us w'ere yer ha' been." "I can't," said Connie. "Giles is bad, and Sue ain't come 'ome. I want jest to see father, and then to go back to Giles. Don't keep me, neighbors." Now, these rough people--the roughest and the worst, perhaps, in the land--had some gleams of good in them; and little Giles was a person whom every one had a soft word for. "A pore little cripple!" said the woman who had first spoken.--"Get you along at once, Connie; he's in." "I be sorry as the cripple's bad, and Sue not returned," cried another. "I 'ope Sue's not kidnapped too. It's awful w'en folks come to kidnappin' one's kids." While the women were talking Connie made her escape, and soon entered her father's room. She gave a start at once of pleasure and apprehension when she saw him there. Was he drunk? Would he again turn her out into the street? She didn't know--she feared. Peter Harris, however, was sober. That had happened in one short day which, it seemed to him, made it quite impossible for him ever to drink again. He looked at Connie with a strange nervousness. "Wull," he said, "you _be_ late! And 'ow's Giles?" He did not dare to ask for Sue. His hope--for he had a hope--was that Sue had come back without ever discovering the locket which he had transferred to her pocket. In that case he might somehow manage to get it away again without her knowing anything whatever with regard to his vile conduct. If God was good enough for that, why, then indeed He was a good God, and Harris would follow Him to his dying day. He would go to the preacher and tell him that henceforth he meant to be a religious, church-going man, and that never again would a drop of drink pass his lips. He had spent an afternoon and evening in the most frightful remorse, but up to the present he had not the most remote intention of saving Sue at his own expense. If only she had escaped unsuspected, then indeed he would be good; but if it were otherwise he felt that the very devils of hell might enter into his heart. "'Ow's Giles? 'Ow did he take yer comin' 'ome again, wench?" "Oh father," said Connie, panting slightly, and causing the man to gaze at her with wide-open, bloodshot eyes, "Giles is wery, wery bad--I 'ad to send for the doctor. 'E come, and 'e said--ah! 'e said as 'ow little Giles 'ud soon be leavin' us. I can't--can't speak on it!" Connie sat down and covered her face with her hands. Harris drew a breath at once of relief and suspicion. He was sorry, of course, for little Giles; but then, the kid couldn't live, and he had nothing to do with his death. It was Sue he was thinking about. Of course Sue was there, or Connie would have mentioned the fact of her not having returned home. Connie wept on, overcome by the strange emotions and experiences through which she had so lately passed. "Connie," said her father at last, when he could bear the suspense no longer, "Sue must be in great takin'--poor Sue!" "But, father," said Connie, suddenly suppressing her tears, "that's the most dreadful part of all--Sue ain't there!" "Not there? Not to 'ome?" thundered Harris. "No, father--she ha' niver come back. It's goin' on for twelve o'clock--an' Giles expected her soon arter six! She ain't come back, 'ave Sue. Wottever is to be done, father?" Harris walked to the fire and poked it into a fierce blaze. Then he turned his back on Connie, and began to fumble with his neck-tie, tightening it and putting it in order. "Father," said Connie. "Wull?" "Wot are we to do 'bout Sue?" "She'll be back come mornin'." "Father," said Connie again, "may I go and spend the night 'long o' Giles? He's too weakly to be left." "No," said Harris; "I won't leave yer out o' my sight. Ef there's kidnappin' about an' it looks uncommon like it--you stay safe within these four walls." "But Giles--Giles?" said Connie. "I'll fetch Giles 'ere." "Father! So late?" "Yus--why not? Ef there's kidnappin' about, there's niver any sayin' w'en Sue may be back. I'll go and fetch him now, and you can get that sofy ready for him; he can sleep on it. There--I'm off! Sue--God knows wot's come o' Sue; but Giles, e' sha'n't want." Harris opened the door, went out, and shut it again with a bang. Connie waited within the room. She was trembling with a strange mixture of fear and joy. How strange her father was--and yet he was good too! He was not drunk to-night. That was wonderful. It was sweet of him to think of bringing Giles to Connie's home, where Connie could look after him and give him the best food, and perhaps save his life. Children as inexperienced as Connie are apt to take a cheerful view even when things are at their lowest. Connie instantly imagined that Giles in his new and far more luxurious surroundings would quickly recover. She began eagerly to prepare a place for him. She dragged a mattress from her own bed, and managed to put it on the sofa; then she unlocked a trunk which always stood in the sitting-room; she knew where to find the key. This trunk had belonged to her mother, and contained some of that mother's clothing, and also other things. Connie selected from its depths a pair of thin and very fine linen sheets. These she aired by the fire, and laid them over the mattress when they were quite warm. There was a blanket, white and light and very warm, which was also placed over the linen sheets; and a down pillow was found which Connie covered with a frilled pillow-case; and finally she took out the most precious thing of all--a large crimson and gold shawl, made of fine, fine silk, which her mother used to wear, and which Connie dimly remembered as thinking too beautiful for this world. But nothing was too beautiful for little Giles; and the couch with its crimson covering was all ready for him when Harris reappeared, bearing the boy in his arms. "I kivered him up with his own blanket," he said, turning to Connie. "Ain't that sofy comfor'ble to look at? You lie on the sofa, sonny, an' then yer'll know wot it be to be well tended." Little Giles was placed there, and Connie prepared a hot bottle to put to his feet, while Harris returned to the empty room to fetch away the medicine and get the things which Dr. Deane had ordered. He left a message, too, with Mrs. Nelson, telling her what had become of the boy, and asking Dr. Deane to call at his house in the future. "You be a good man," said Mrs. Nelson in a tone of great admiration. "My word, now! and ain't it lucky for the kid? You be a man o' money, Mr. Harris--he'll want for nothing with you." "He'll want for nothing no more to the longest day he lives," answered Harris. "Ah, sir," said Mrs. Nelson, "he--he won't live long; he'll want for nothing any more, sir, in the Paradise of God." "Shut up!" said Harris roughly. "Ye're all with yer grumblin's and moans jest like other women." "And what message am I to give to Sue--poor girl--when she comes 'ome?" called Mrs. Nelson after him. But Harris made no reply to this; only his steps rang out hard and firm and cruel on the frosty ground. CHAPTER XXII. NEWS OF SUE. The next morning, when Connie awoke, she remembered all the dreadful things that had happened. She was home again. That strange, mysterious man, Simeon Stylites, had let her go. How awful would have been her fate but for him! "He were a wery kind man," thought Connie. "And now I must try to forget him. I must never mention his name, nor think of him no more for ever. That's the way I can serve him best--pore Mr. Simeon! He had a very genteel face, and w'en he spoke about his little sister it were real touching. But I mustn't think of him, for, ef I do, some day I might let his name slip, an' that 'ud do him a hurt." Connie's thoughts, therefore, quickly left Simeon Stylites, Agnes Coppenger, Freckles, Nutmeg, and Corkscrew, and returned to the exciting fact that Sue was now missing, and that Giles was under her own father's roof. She sprang out of bed, and quickly dressing herself, entered the general sitting-room. She was surprised to find that her father had taken his breakfast and had gone; that Giles was sitting up, looking very pretty, with his little head against the white pillow, and the crimson and gold shawl covering his couch. "Why, Connie," he said, the minute he saw her, "wot a silly chap I wor yesterday! It's all as plain now as plain can be--I know everything now." "Wottever do you mean?" said Connie. "But don't talk too much, Giles, till I ha' got yer yer breakfast." "Bless yer!" said Giles, with a weak laugh, "I ha' had my breakfast an hour and a half ago--yer father guv it to me. He be a wery kind man." "My father guv you your breakfast?" said Connie. She felt that wonders would never cease. Never before had Harris been known to think of any one but himself. "Set down by me, Connie; you can't do naught for your breakfast until the kettle boils. I'll tell yer now w'ere Sue is." "Where?" asked Connie. "Oh Giles! have yer heard of her?" "Course I 'ave--I mean, it's all as clear as clear can be. It's only that Sue 'ave more money than she told me 'bout, and that she's a-tryin' to give me my 'eart's desire." "Your 'eart's desire, Giles?" "Yus--her an' me 'ave always 'ad our dream; and dear Sue--she's a-makin' it come to pass, that's all. It's as plain as plain can be. She's a-gone to the country." "To the country? Oh no, Giles; I don't think so. Wottever 'ud take her to the country at this time o' year?" "It's there she be," said Giles. "She knew as I wanted dreadful to 'ear wot it were like, an' she 'ave gone. Oh Connie, you went to the country; but she didn't guess that. She ha' gone--dear Sue 'ave--to find out all for herself; an' she thought it 'ud be a rare bit of a s'prise for me. I must make the most of it w'en I see her, and ax her about the flowers and everything. She's sartin to be back to-day. Maybe, too, she could get work at plain sewin' in the country; an' she an' me could live in a little cottage, an' see the sun in the sky, and 'ear the birds a singin'. It's a'most like 'eaven to think of the country--ain't it, Connie?" "Yus," said Connie, "the country's beautiful; but wicked people come out o' Lunnon to it, an' then it's sad. An' there's no flowers a-growin' in the fields and 'edges in the winter, Giles--an' there's no birds a-singin'." "Oh! but that 'ull come back," said Giles. "You can eat yer breakfast now, Connie, an' then arter that we'll talk more about the country. You _ain't_ goin' to work to-day--be you, Connie?" "Oh no," said Connie; "I ha' lost that place, an' I dunno w'ere to find another. But there's no hurry," she added, "and I like best now to be along o' you." Connie then ate her breakfast, and Giles lay with his eyes closed and a smile of contentment on his face. In the course of the morning there came an unlooked-for visitor. A funny-looking, red-haired boy entered the room. Seeing Giles asleep, he held up his finger warningly to Connie, and stealing on tiptoe until he got opposite to her, he sat down on the floor. "Wull, an' wottever do yer want?" asked Connie. "Hush!" said the red-haired boy. He pointed to Giles. This action on the part of a total stranger seemed so absurd to Connie that she burst out laughing. The red-haired boy never smiled. He continued to fix his round, light-blue eyes on her face with imperturbable gravity. "Wull," he exclaimed under his breath, "ef she ain't more of a Cinderella than t' other! Oh, wouldn't the Prince give _her_ the glass slipper! Poor, poor Cinderella at 'ome! _you've_ no chance now. Ain't she jest lovely! I call her hangelic! My word! I could stare at that 'ere beauteous face for hiver." As these thoughts crept up to the fertile brain of Pickles his lips moved and he nodded his head, so that Connie really began to think he was bewitched. "Wottever do you want?" she whispered; and, fortunately for them both, at that juncture Giles stirred and opened his eyes. "That's right!" cried Pickles. "Now I can let off the safety-valve!" He gave a sigh of relief. "Whoever's he?" asked Giles, looking from the red-faced boy to Connie. But before she had time to reply, Pickles sprang to his feet, made a somersault up and down the room, then stood with his arms akimbo just in front of Giles. "I'm glad as you hintroduced the word 'he,' young un; hotherwise, from the looks of yer both, you seems to liken me to a monster. Yer want to know who's _he_? He's a boy--a full-grown human boy--something like yerself, only not so flabby by a long chalk." "But wot did you want? and wot's yer name, boy?" said Connie, who could not help laughing again. "Ah!" said Pickles, "now ye're comin' to the p'int o' bein' sensible, young 'oman. I thought at first you could only drop hangelic speeches, an' that you 'ailed from the hangel spheres; but now I see ye're a gel--oh, quite the very purtiest I hiver laid heyes on. Now, as I've spoke my true mind, I'll hanswer yer questions in a discreet an' pious manner. My name is Pickles--Pickles, at yer sarvice." "I never heered such a name in all my life," said Connie. "Wery like not. I were christened by the proper name o' James; but no James as ever walked 'ud hold me--it didn't fit no w'y; an' Pickles did. So Pickles I am, an' Pickles I'll be to the end o' the chapter. Now, as to wot I wants--w'y; I wants a talk with that mealy-faced chap wot looks as if I'd heat him up alive." "No, I don't," said Giles. "I were only thinking as you 'ad the wery reddest 'air I iver see'd in my life." "Personal remarks air considered ill-mannered, young man. And let me tell yer as my hair's my special glory. But now to business. You can't know, I guess, wot I wants yer for." "No, I can't," said Giles. "That's rum; and I to tike the trouble not only to wisit yer own most respectable mansion, but to foller yer 'ere in the true sperrit of kindness." "Ye're wery good; but I can't guess wot ye're up to," answered Giles. "Dear, dear! the silliness o' folks! Now, w'en a stranger seeks yer hout, isn't it safe to s'pose as he brings news?" "Wull, yes." "Next clue--shall I 'elp yer a bit? You 'asn't, so to speak, lost something lately--thimble, or a pair of scissors, or something o' that sort?" "Oh, it's Sue! It's my darling Sue;" exclaimed Giles, a light breaking all over his face. "'As yer brought news of Sue, boy?" "Be Sue a thimble, scissors, or a gel?" "Oh! a gel, in course--my own dear, dear, only sister." "A little, fat, podgy kind o' woman-gel, wid a fine crop o' freckles and sandy hair?" "Yes, yes; that's she. I have bin waiting fur her hall night. Where is she? Please, please, Pickles, where is she?" "Well, can't yer guess? Where 'ud she be likely ter be? She worn't a wandering sort o' gel, as neglected her home duties, wor she?" "Oh no! she never stayed out in hall her life afore." "She worn't, so to speak, a gel as wor given to pilfer, and might be tuk to cool herself in the lock-up." "Never--never! Sue 'ud sooner die than take wot worn't her own; and I wish I wor strong enough to punch yer head fur thinkin' sech a thing," said Giles, his face now crimson with indignation. "Well, softly, softly, young un; I didn't say as she _did_ pilfer. I think that 'ere podgy gel as honest as the day. But now, can't yer guess where she his?" "Oh yes! I can guess wery well," answered Giles, his face softening down. "I guessed long ago--didn't I, Connie?" "Well, now, wot hever did yer guess?" asked Pickles, in some amazement. "Oh! there wor but one thing to guess. There were one dream as Sue and I were halways dreaming, and she have gone off widout me at last, to see wot it wor like. She'll be back hany moment, arter she have seen and found hout hall she could. Sue have gone to the country, Pickles." "Oh, my heyes! to the country!" exclaimed Pickles. His face grew crimson, and he was obliged to leave his seat and walk to the window, where he remained with his back to the others for nearly a minute, and where he indulged in some smothered mirth. When he turned round, however, he was as grave as a judge. "You _are_ clever," he said to Giles. "I'm right, ain't I?" asked Giles. "In course; you're always as right as a trivet." "Oh, I'm so glad! And does she find it wery beautiful?" "Scrumptious! fairy-like! scrumptious!" "Oh, how happy I am! And when 'ull she be back?" "Well, that's the part as may moderate your raptures; she can't exactly tell when. She sent me to tell yer as she don't exactly know. It may be to-morrow; or, agen, it mayn't be fur a week, or even more. She's hever so sorry, and she sends yer a whole pocketful o' love, but she can't tell when she'll get back." "But what is she stayin fur?" "Oh! my heyes! wot is she staying fur? You wants ter live in a cottage in the country, don't yer?" "Why, yes, that's hour dream." "Well, ha'n't she to find hout wot the price o' them are? Ha'n't she, stoo-pid?" "I s'pose so. Is that what she's staying fur?" Pickles nodded. "You don't never tell no lies, do you, boy?" "I! Wot do yer take me fur? You can b'lieve me or not as yer pleases." "Oh! I do b'lieve yer. Will yer take a message back to Sue?" "Why, in course." "Tell her to have two rooms in the cottage, and plenty o' flowers hall round, and a big winder where I can look hout at the stars when I can't sleep o' nights." "Yes, I'll tell her faithful. Hanythink else?" "Tell her as I love to think as she's in the country, but to come back as fast as she can; and give--give her my wery best love. And you wouldn't like to give her a kiss fur me?" "Oh! my heye! yere's a rum go. Fancy me a-kissing Cind--I means Sue. No, young un, I hasn't the wery least hobjection in life. I'll give her two resounding smacks the wery minute as I sees her. Lor'! it will be fine fun. Now, good-bye. I'll come and see yer soon agen.--Good-bye, my beauty. I only wishes as it wor _you_ I wor axed ter kiss.--Good-bye, Giles. I'll remember wot yer said 'bout that 'ere cottage." "Be sure as the winders is big enough fur me to see the stars," called out Giles after him. CHAPTER XXIII. AMATEUR DETECTIVE. Mrs. Price had been blessed by nature with two sons, each as different in manners, disposition, appearance, and tastes as the poles. William, aged twenty, was dark, quiet-looking, with a grave and kind face. In disposition he was as fine a fellow as ever breathed, thoughtful for others, good to all, doing his duty because he loved and feared both God and his mother. He was very reserved, and seldom spoke, but when he did give utterance to his thoughts they were to the point and worth listening to. Mrs. Price was often heard to say that the mere presence of her elder son in the room gave her a sense of repose, that she felt that she had some one to lean on--which in truth she had. James, her second and younger son, had not one of his brother's characteristics; he had no gentle courtesies, no quiet ways. Except when asleep, he was never known to be still for a moment. One glance at his fiery head, at his comical face, would show plainly that he was a very imp of mischief. He was kind-hearted--he would not willingly injure the smallest living thing--but his wild, ungovernable spirit, his sense of the ludicrous in all and every circumstance, made him sometimes do unintentional harm, and his mother had some difficulty in getting him out of the scrapes into which he was always putting himself. No work he had ever done had so delighted the boyish heart of James Price, _alias_ Pickles, as the capture of Sue from the hands of the police. The whole story had a certain flavor about it which would be sure to captivate such a nature as his. Sue was innocent; he was quite certain of that. But then, as certainly some one else was guilty. Here, then, was a work after his own heart; he would find out who the guilty party was. He had a great deal of the detective about him; indeed, he had almost resolved to join that body when he was grown-up. He had brought Sue to his mother; and his mother, too, believing in the girl's innocence, was yet much puzzled how to advise her or what to do with her. Sue, being thoroughly drilled and frightened into such a course by Pickles, had declared that nothing would induce her to go home; for that if she did she would certainly be taken to prison, and found guilty of a crime of which she was quite innocent. Mrs. Price, too, felt that she could not counsel Sue to go back, though the agony of the poor girl, when she thought of Giles waiting and longing for her, was sad to witness. To comfort her a little, Pickles went to see Giles, being warned by Sue on no account to tell him the truth, which would, she said, absolutely and at once break his heart. Pickles, winking profoundly, told her to leave it to him. He went, and Giles himself supplied him with an idea on which he was not slow to work. Giles was fully persuaded that Sue was in the country, and might not return for some days. He seemed more pleased than otherwise that she should be so employed. Pickles was so delighted with his own success that he danced a kind of hornpipe all the way home. He found Sue by herself and very disconsolate, for Mrs. Price had gone out on some errands. The first thing he did was to go up to her and give her two very fierce salutes, one on her brow, the other on the point of her chin. "There, now," he said; "that 'ere little tender brother sent yer them." "Oh Pickles! how is he? Is he wery cut up?" asked poor Cinderella, raising a tearful face. "Cut up? Not a bit o' him! Why, he's quite perky; he think as you has gone to the country." "Oh Pickles! how hever could he?" "Well, listen, and I'll tell yer." Pickles here related his whole interview, not forgetting to reproduce in full all his own clever speeches, and his intense admiration for Connie. "I'd do a great deal fur _you_, Cinderella," he said in conclusion; "fur though ye're as ordinary a woman as I hiver met, yet still yer belongs to the species, and I has a weakness fur the species; but oh, lor'! ef it had been that 'ere Connie, why, I'd have a'most spilt my life-blood fur that hangelic creature." "Well, yer see, it wor only me," said Sue, not a little piqued. "Yes, it wor only you. But now, wot do you think of it all?" "Oh! I'm wery glad and thankful that Giles is wid Connie. He wor halways fond of Connie, and I'm real pleased as he thinks as I'm gone to the country--that 'ull satisfy him ef hanythink will, fur he have sech a longing fur it, poor feller! But oh, Pickles! I do hope as you didn't tell him no lies, to make him so keen upon it." "No--not I. I only nodded and made-believe as he wor clever. No, I wor careful o' the utterances o' the tongue, which is an unruly member." "Well, I'm glad," said Sue. "I only hope as it ain't wrong to deceive him." "No, it ain't a bit wrong; don't you go a fussing about nothink. But now you have got to listen to me, fur I have got something most serious to talk over." "I'll listen," replied Sue. "Good! And wot little bit o' brain you have you may stick inter the listening, too, fur you will presently have to think a deal." "Wery well," answered Sue, who had long ago come to consider Pickles the greatest oracle she had ever seen. Pickles planted himself on his knees in front of her, and having placed one hand firmly on each leg, bent forward until he brought himself into what he considered a telling position with regard to her face. "Ef yer want to unearth a secret, stare 'em well right inter the heyes," was one of his detective principles. "Now, Cinderella," he began, "you say as ye're hinnercent o' that 'ere theft?" "You know I am," answered Sue. "And yet that 'ere wauluable trinket wor found in yer pocket." "Well, I can't help that." "I'm afraid yer can't, Cinderella; and a wery ugly business it is fur yer; it 'ud bring yer in guilty in hany court wot hiver." "I know that, Pickles--I know that only too well; that's why I'm here." "An' you must stay yere until ye're proved hinnercent." "Yes." "Well, that may be awkward--not fur us, but fur poor, little tender Giles. He thinks as ye're gone to the country, and I give him to understand as yer would not be back fur maybe a day or two. But he's hall on a quiver fur yer to come back now; he's hall on a tremble to know wot the country is like. He says ye're to get a cottage as have a big winder in it, fur he wants to see the stars o' nights. Now, I think by the looks o' Giles as he'll fade away wery quick ef yer don't come back soon." "Oh, I know it--I know it!" said Sue. "What shall I do? Ef I do go back I shall be tuk ter prison. Oh! oh! oh!" and she began to weep. "Don't cry, you silly! Cryin' never mended no broken bones. You dry your eyes and listen when the oracle speaks." "I will," said Sue, endeavoring to check her sobs. "Well then, yer hinnercence must be proved. The way to prove yer hinnercence is to find hout _who_ put that 'ere trinket in yer pocket." "Oh Pickles! I don't--I don't think hany one could be so wicked." "Bless yer, gel! yer hasn't gone about and seen life like me. 'Tis a wicked world, Cinderella. Some one put that locket in yer pocket; ef it worn't yerself, it wor another." "I don't know why hany one should do it," said Sue. "You leave that to me. The reason is a mystery; the person wot did it is a mystery; it remains fur this yere child"--giving his breast a great slap--"to unravel them both. Now, Cinderella, wot kind o' man wor that 'ere Peter Harris wot went wid yer to the shop?" "He wor a wery rough kind o' man," said Sue, "and he often drank. He wor in trouble jest then 'bout Connie. Connie is his daughter. She wor away fur a bit, and had come back, and he wanted to give her a ring, and, as I telled yer, we went inter the shop to buy her one." "And had that 'ere Harris much money?" "He didn't say as he hadn't; he gave a sovereign to pay fur the ring." "Don't yer think, Cinderella, as it wor _he_ put the locket in your pocket?" "Indeed I don't," answered Sue, in great indignation. "He wor a bit rough, and used to drink a good deal, but I never heerd mortal say as he worn't as honest a man as ever stepped. Besides, Pickles, he wor a friend to me, and I wor a friend to Connie, and even ef he wished to do something so desperate wicked he couldn't, fur I wor at the other side o' the shop a'most." "All the same," replied Pickles, shaking his fiery head, "I believe as he did it. 'Tis a desperate big mystery, but I means to clear it hup, so you leave it ter me, Cinderella." CHAPTER XXIV. MOTHER AND SON. That night Mrs. Price and her younger son had a conversation. "I do not want to send her away, Jamie," she said when they had discoursed with much interest for some time. "She shall and must stay here for the present; but it cannot go on always, for what would the poor little brother do? If Cinderella is the bread-winner, and Cinderella can earn no bread, the poor little fellow will starve." James Price, _alias_ Pickles, was looking very sober, even thoughtful. "It tuk a deal o' time to save hup, and 'tis rare and comforting to reflect on having it--but there's my half-crown," he said. "Bless you, my laddie! it will help a trifle, but half-a-crown won't feed the smallest eater for long." "Then, mother, you know I allow no one ter dictate ter me but you. Wot's to be done? Ere we to betray the hinnercent?" "No, my lad--no. I confess I am sorely puzzled." "But I ain't," said Pickles, who had knowingly brought his mother round to make this confession. "I ain't puzzled the least bit in life, fur I _know_ who is the real thief." "Now, Jamie, what do you mean?" "Mother, it were the man as went with Cinderella inter the shop; it wor he wot stole the locket and then put it inter her pocket. I don't know how he did it, nor why he did it, but I do know that _did_ do it." "Oh! my dear boy, in your love of mystery you are allowing your imagination to run away with you. I do not think any one would be so wicked." "Never you mind, mother; take it on trust as there's that much wickedness in this yer world. Be thankful ye're hout o' the way o' hearing o' what's disgusting to dwell on, but this yere is a mystery as must be cleared hup. How do you s'pose, mother, as the locket did get inter Cinderella's pocket?" "It may have slipped in as she stood by the counter." "Oh, come, mother! that 'ud go down wid no jury as hiver walked. No, no; b'lieve me as 'tis as I say; and wot's more, 'tis my business to prove the truth o' my thoughts. There's a mystery, but James Price, _alias_ Pickles, 'ull unravel it. You keep Cinderella fur a week yere, mother, and I'll engage as the guilty party confesses by the end o' that time." "I will keep the little girl as long as is necessary, Pickles. But do be careful. Do not allow your vivid imagination to make you unjust to others." "You leave it ter me, mother. You jest promise faithful to keep Cinderella fur a bit, and I'll do the rest." "Yes, Jamie," said Mrs. Price, "I certainly will make that promise." "That's a brick o' a mother. And now I'm off to bed, fur there's nothing like sleep when the brain is much exercised, as mine is at present." CHAPTER XXV. ABOUT RONALD. While poor Harris was trying to soothe the agonies of his conscience by being specially and extra good to Giles, and while Giles, who under Connie's care was recovering a certain measure of strength, and poor little Sue was still acting the part of Cinderella with Pickles as her champion, another child who plays an important part in this story was gradually recovering health and strength. When Ronald was well enough, to come downstairs, and then to walk across Mrs. Anderson's pretty little parlor, and on a certain fine day to go out with her for a walk, the good lady thought it was full time to make inquiries with regard to his relations. She questioned her son George on the subject, and this gallant young fireman gave her what advice he could. "No, don't employ detectives, mother," said George. "Somehow I hate the whole lot of them. Keep Ronald as long as you want to; he's a dear little chap, and a gentleman by birth, and he loves you too." "I want to keep him, George; the child is the greatest delight and comfort to me. He is very unlike other children--very sensitive and delicate. But I do think that if he has relations they ought to know of his whereabouts." "You have questioned him, of course, on the matter," said George Anderson. "No--not much; he hasn't been strong enough. I think, too, the severe illness he has undergone, and the terrible frights he has been subject to, have to a certain extent affected his mind; and beyond the fact that he is always looking for his father, and hoping that his father may walk in, he never talks about the old days." "Well, mother," said George, "I must be off now; duty time is close at hand." As he spoke he rose from the seat by the fire which he had been enjoying in his mother's room. "Of course, there is little doubt that Major Harvey is dead; but you could call at the War Office and inquire, mother, couldn't you?" "Yes, I could and will; and I won't employ detectives, my boy. You may be certain of one thing--that I don't want to part with the child." The next day after breakfast, Mrs. Anderson felt that it was time to question Ronald with regard to his past life. "You are quite well now, Ronald," she said. "Yes," said Ronald, "ever so strong. I feel brave, too," he added; "it would take a very great deal to frighten me now. A soldier's boy should be brave," he continued, that pleading, pathetic look coming into his dark eyes, which gave such a special charm to his little face. "This soldier's boy is very brave," said Mrs. Anderson, patting his little hand, as the child stood close to her. "My father was a V. C., ma'am," remarked Ronald in a soft tone. "You're very proud of that, Ronald--you have good reason to be," said his friend. "But now, dear, I seriously want to ask you a few questions. You have told me about Connie, and about some of your dreadful life with Mammy Warren. I am anxious that you should try to forget all these terrible things as much as possible." "Oh! but, please, I never could forget dear Connie." "I don't want you to forget her. I have been planning a delightful surprise for you with regard to her. But other things you can forget." "There's another person I don't want to forget," said Ronald; "that is the good woman in the country who gave me delicious new-laid eggs and chops and chicken. Mrs. Cricket was her name. I used to think of _The Cricket on the Hearth_ often when I was looking at her. She was very like one, you know--such a cosy, purring sort of woman." "How long were you with her, Ronald?" "I don't remember going to her," said Ronald, shaking his head; "but perhaps I was too ill. But I do remember being with her, and the little path in the wood, and how I gradually got better, and how she petted me. And I remember Connie coming down the path looking like an angel; but Connie was the only bright thing for me to think about that dreadful day. But oh, please--please, Mrs. Anderson! poor Mrs. Cricket! Father hasn't come back, you know--he is coming, of course, but he hasn't come yet--and no one has paid Mrs. Cricket!" "No one has paid her, dear?" "Nobody at all. Mammy Warren said to her that father would pay her, but I know now it must have been all a lie." "I am very much afraid it was," said Mrs. Anderson. "That Mammy Warren was a dreadful woman. Well, Ronald, I must try and get Mrs. Cricket's address, and we'll send her some money; and some day perhaps--there's no saying when--you may be able to go back to her. Would you like to see her again?" "Very, very much," said the child, "if Mammy Warren doesn't come to fetch me." "Very well: I will endeavor to get her address. Perhaps Connie could tell me." "Oh! perhaps she could," said Ronald; "for _I_ couldn't. I haven't a notion where she lived, except that it was far in the country, and the cottage was _teeny_--just two rooms, you know--and there was a pretty wood outside, and the horse-chestnuts lying on the ground." "But now, Ronald, I want you to go farther back. Tell me of things that happened when--when your mother was alive." "I--I'll try," said the boy. "Go on, dear--tell me all you can." "It's very difficult," said Ronald. "I remember little bits, and then I forget little bits." "I don't want you to worry yourself, dear; but can you recall anybody ever calling to see your mother--anybody who might be a relation of yours?" "There was the old gentleman, of course," said Ronald. "Who, dear?" "He was very old, and he wore glasses, and his hair was white. He most times made mother cry, so I--I used to be sorry when he came." "Can you recall his name?" "Mother used to call him Uncle Stephen; but he was not her relation--he was father's. I think he always scolded mother; she used to look dreadfully bad after he was gone. I don't want to see _him_ again." "But he may have had a kind heart." "Oh, I don't know," said Ronald. "I don't want to see him again." "Do you think, by chance, that his name was Harvey?" "I don't know. I think he in a sort of way belonged to father." "Then," said Mrs. Anderson, "I guess that his name was Harvey. Now, I won't question you any more, Ronald. You may sit up and play with your bricks." Ronald played happily enough, and Mrs. Anderson, after thinking for a few minutes, wrote out an advertisement. The advertisement ran as follows: "If a gentleman who was called Uncle Stephen by a little boy, son of the late Major Harvey, who was supposed to have been killed in action at Ladysmith on ----, would wish to know anything of the same boy, he can get full particulars from Mrs. Anderson, 12 Carlyle Terrace, Westminster." This advertisement was put into the _Times_, the _Standard_, the _Telegraph_, and in fact, into all the daily newspapers. It appeared once, and Mrs. Anderson sat--as she expressed it--with her heart in her mouth for a whole day. But nothing happened: nobody came to inquire; there was no letter on the subject of the little son of brave Major Harvey. On the second day of the advertisement Mrs. Anderson felt a great relief in her heart. "After I have advertised for a whole week," she said to herself, "I shall, I think, have done my duty, and perhaps I shall be allowed to keep the dear child." She had looked, and felt, very sad on the first day of the advertisement, but on the second day she was more cheerful, and suggested to Ronald that Connie should come and have tea with him. Ronald was delighted, and clapped his hands in glee. Mrs. Anderson wrote a little note to Connie, slightly blaming her for not coming to see her, but begging her to call that afternoon and have tea with Ronald. Connie was greatly delighted when she got the letter. "May I go, Giles? Do yer mind?" she asked. "In course not," answered Giles. "Why should I mind? Yer'll dress yerself in yer wery best, Connie, and I'll like well to look at yer afore yer goes out, an' w'en yer comes back." So Connie put on her dark-blue costume once more, and brushed out her mane of golden hair and let it hang down her back; for she knew that Ronald would scarcely recognize her deprived of this ornament. Then, having left his tea all ready for Giles, she ran quickly in the direction of Mrs. Anderson's house. She arrived there at four o'clock in the afternoon, to see a little face pressed up close to the pane of glass, and eager eyes watching for her. When she appeared on the steps little hands began to clap, and there was an eager rush of footsteps and then Ronald himself opened the door. "Oh Connie, Connie!" he said, "come in--do, do come in!" "How be yer, Ronald?" asked Connie. "I'm as well as well can be, and I'm happy, too. Mrs. Anderson is just a beautiful old lady, and so very good to me! But come and tell me all about yourself. You and I are to have tea all alone in this room. We will have fun. Why, Connie dear, how lovely you look!" Connie told Ronald that he also looked lovely, and the two children sat down side by side, while Ronald related the little bit of his story which had transpired since Connie saw him last. "I was very ill," he said, "for a bit, and silly, and--and cowardly. But a wonderful man came to see me, and he talked--oh, so beautifully!--and then I got better; and Mrs. Anderson has been more than good to me--no one was ever so good to me before except father. She tells me, Connie, that I must not keep looking out for father; for if he can come he will, and if he can't I've just got to wait with patience. The street preacher, too, talked about patience. It's a little bit hard to be very patient, isn't it, Connie?" "Yus," said Connie. "Oh! and, Connie, some day perhaps you and I may go and stay with Mrs. Cricket in the country, and Mrs. Anderson is going to send her money for the chickens and fresh eggs and things. But I can't remember where the country is--can you, Connie?" "We got out at a plice called Eastborough, an' the cottage wor a ivy cottage down a lane." "Ivy Cottage--of course!" said Ronald. "How stupid of me to have forgotten! Now it's all right, and dear Mrs. Cricket will get her money." When Ronald had told all his story Connie told all hers. In especial she told about Giles, and about poor Sue, who had vanished just as suddenly and completely as she (Connie) and Ronald himself on a certain day had disappeared from their friends. "It's very, very queer," said Ronald. "Connie," he added, "I want to see that little boy. Can't you take me back to him now--can't you?" "Yus," said Connie, "I could; but would it be right?" "We'll ask Mrs. Anderson," said Ronald, "I'm certain sure she won't mind. You know the way there; you won't let yourself be kidnapped any more, will you, Connie?" "No," said Connie. Then tea was brought in, and the children enjoyed it. But Ronald could think of nothing but Giles and his earnest desire to see him. Once again he begged and implored of Connie to take him, just to sit for a few minutes by the little cripple's side, and Connie again said that Mrs. Anderson ought to know. It was just at that moment that a cab drew up at the door, and out of the cab there stepped a white-headed old man, who came ponderously up the steps, leaning on a gold-headed stick. He rang the bell with a loud peal. Ronald began to listen. "Who can it be?" he said. He ran to the window, and looking out, saw the cab waiting; but he missed the sight of the old gentleman, whom doubtless he would have recognized; and the neat little parlor-maid went to open the door, and then the labored steps were heard in the hall, and the drawing-room door was opened and shut, and there was silence. "A visitor for my dear new aunty," said Ronald. "I always call her my aunty, and she likes it very much. Oh Connie, do take me just to see Giles! I know it isn't wrong, and I should be quite safe with you." "First of all," said Connie, "we'll ring the bell and ask if we may speak to Mrs. Anderson for a minute." "Very well," said Ronald; "only I 'spect she's busy with the person who has called." Anne came to answer the children's summons, and told them that her mistress was particularly engaged and could not be disturbed. "That's all right," answered Ronald; "you can go away now, please. You needn't take the tea-things just for a bit. You can go away, please, Anne." Anne, who was devoted to Ronald, thought that the children wanted to play together, and left them alone in the little parlor. The light was growing dim, and Connie poked the fire into a blaze. "I ought to be goin' back," she said. "Giles 'ull want me. I'll come another day, Ronald, and Mrs. Anderson'll let me bring yer back to Giles then." "No, no--to-day," said Ronald--"to-day--to-night--this minute. It isn't wrong. I must see him. You'll take me to see him, and then you'll bring me back, won't you, Connie?" "W'y, yus," said Connie. "I s'pose it ain't wrong; but you can't do more nor set down in the room for about five minutes, Ronald, for yer'll 'ave to get back 'ere quite early, you know." Ronald, delighted at any sort of consent on the part of his little friend, rushed upstairs to fetch his velvet cap and his little overcoat. But he forgot, and so did Connie, all about the thin house-shoes he was wearing. Soon he had slipped into the coat, and cramming the cap on his head and looking up at Connie with a gay laugh, said: "Now we'll come." They were in the hall, and had just opened the hall door, when suddenly that of the drawing-room was opened, and the old man, who helped himself along with a stick, came out. Ronald looked back and caught sight of him; but Ronald himself being in shadow, the old man did not notice him. The old man then spoke in a loud voice: "It is all settled, then, and I will call to-morrow morning at ten o'clock to fetch back the boy. Have him ready. And now, good-day to you, madam." But the old gentleman suddenly stopped as he uttered these words, for the hall door was slammed by some one else with violence, and Ronald turned a white face up to Connie. "It's himself--it's Uncle Stephen. He made mother cry and cry. I won't go back to him. I won't be his boy. Hide me--hide me, Connie!" Connie herself felt very much frightened. "Come along 'ome with me," she said. "He can't get yer at my 'ome. Don't shrink like that, Ronald. Be a man, dear Ronald." The children got back to Connie's rooms without any special adventure. There Giles was waiting with that peaceful look on his face which seemed more or less to quiet every one who came in his way. He smiled all over his little face when he saw Connie, and then his eyes grew big and surprised as he noticed the small boy who kept her company. "Why are yer back so soon, Connie?" he said. "I warn't not one little bit lonesome. And 'oo's he?" said Giles. "This is my dear little friend Ronald," said Connie. "And I wanted to see you awful bad," said Ronald, running up to Giles, flinging his cap on the floor, and kneeling down by him. "I have thought of you--oh, so much! It was you, you know, who taught me to endure to the end. Did Connie tell you about that?" "Yes," said Giles, "she told me." Ronald looked up at Connie. Giles watched the two, and then he held out his little hand and touched Ronald's. "You're wery brave," he said. "You had a brave father." "He is a V. C. man. He's coming to see me one day," said Ronald. "I know," said Giles. "It's real supporting to 'ave a brave father. I have one too." "Have you?" said Ronald. "And is he coming to see you one day?" "No--I'm goin' to 'im. Don't let's talk about it now." Ronald sat down on the side of Giles's crimson and gold bed, and glanced round the room. Connie lit a paraffin lamp and put it on the table. In his first excitement at seeing Giles, Ronald forgot the mad terror which had awakened in him at the sound of Uncle Stephen's voice. But now he remembered. "I have come to stay," he remarked emphatically. "Oh no, Ronald, you can't," exclaimed Connie. "I am not going back," exclaimed Ronald. "Giles, I needn't, need I? There's a dreadful man coming to-morrow, and he's going to take me away from my darling aunty. I won't go. I'll hide here with you, Giles." "Will yer?" said Giles. "That 'ull be real pain to yer aunty, won't it?" "Real pain?" said Ronald. "But Connie can tell her. Connie needn't say where I am. She can just tell that I heard Uncle Stephen's voice, and that I am hiding. I can't go back, can I, Giles--can I?" "Dunno," said Giles; but a wistful expression came into his face. "Why do you look like that?" asked Ronald. "Sometimes one 'as to do things one can't do," was Giles's next rather difficult remark. "But this is really silly," said Ronald, "for we can do the things we can do." "Course not--not by ourselves," said Giles. "But if we're to endure to the end, why, 'E'll help." "You remind me of that awful fire," said Ronald. He jumped up and walked across the room. His eyes were dim; his heart was beating with great rapidity, for he was still weak and had gone through much. Oh, that cruel, cruel old man who had made his mother cry so often! He thought upon him with a growing terror. Connie looked at Ronald, and then she glanced at Giles and her eyes said to Giles: "Help me all you can about Ronald." Then Giles called her to him. "Leave Ronald with me for a bit," he said. "Go back and tell Mrs. Anderson; but leave little Ronald with me." Connie immediately went out; but Ronald was so absorbed in trying to quiet his beating heart, and in trying to recover his courage, that he did not even know when she closed the door after her. Connie ran as quickly as she could all the way to Carlyle Terrace. There she rang a loud peal at the front door. It was Mrs. Anderson herself who opened it to her. "Oh Connie!" said the widow, "thank God! Have you brought news of Ronald? What _has_ happened, Connie--what _has_ happened?" Connie immediately entered the house. "May I speak to yer, ma'am?" she said. "Certainly; but where is the boy?" "He's quite safe, ma'am--he's with Giles." "Why did he go out? He did very wrong." "I did wrong too," said Connie. "I tuk him. He's frightened, ma'am. Ronnie's rare and frightened. He heered wot the old gentleman said." "How could he hear?" said Mrs. Anderson. Connie told. "'Tain't true, ma'am, is it?" said Connie. "Yer wouldn't niver, niver, let little Ronald go away?" "Yes, but I must. I am very sad. I wish I needn't send him; but the gentleman who called to-day is his father's uncle, and his nearest relation in the world. Connie, you must bring Ronald home. I will go with you myself to fetch him." "Oh, ma'am," said Connie, beginning to sob, "it 'ull break his 'eart." "No, Connie," answered Mrs. Anderson. "Hearts like Ronald's--brave and true and faithful--don't break; they endure. Besides that, the old gentleman--Mr. Harvey--will not be unkind to him; I am certain of that." So Connie and Mrs. Anderson returned side by side to the house where Giles and Ronald were waiting for them. When they entered they saw a picture which Mrs. Anderson could never forget: the dying boy, with his radiant face, lying on the bed half-supported by pillows, the crimson and gold coverlet making a wonderful patch of color; and Ronald, the tears still wet on his cheeks, but his eyes very bright, his lips firm, his whole attitude that of a soldier's child. The moment he saw Mrs. Anderson he went up to her. "I am ashamed," he said. "Giles has told me the son of a V. C. man should not be a coward. It is all right--I am going back." Mrs. Anderson pressed the boy's hand. "I knew you wouldn't disappoint me, Ronald," she said. Then she turned and talked a little longer to Giles. She saw how weak the child was, and knew, with a woman's perception, what a very little time longer he had to live in this old world. "My sister's in the country, ma'am," said Giles in his brightest manner. "She's looking for a little house for her an' me--two winders in our room--that's wot Sue an' me thought we 'ud like--and iverythink wery purty. Sue may be back any day. She's takin' a good bit of a time a-lookin' for the 'ouse; but she'll find it, an' then I'll go there." "But are you strong enough to be moved, Giles?" inquired Mrs. Anderson. "Yus," said Giles in his confident tone, "quite strong enough. I want to see the country, and to live in it for a spell, afore I go right 'ome to the best Country of all. Sue's lookin' out; she'll be back--oh, any day, for she knows the time's short." "Giles," said Connie, "you're too tired to talk any more." She gave the boy some of his restorative medicine, and Ronald went up and kissed him. "Don't forget," said Giles, "brave fathers----" "Not me!" answered Ronald. "Brave fathers for ever!" Then Ronald went away. Mrs. Anderson took his hand and led him back to the house. She did not scold him for going out with Connie. She did not mean to reproach him at all; he had made a great victory; she felt proud of him. When supper had come to an end she called the boy to her: "Ronald dear, I wish to say something. If you were a coward to-day, so was I." "You--my aunt?" said Ronald. "Oh no--no!" "Yes. I didn't want to part with you." Ronald shivered. "Won't you ever see me any more?" "I hope so. Mr. Harvey was very kind." "Is his name Harvey--same as mine?" "Yes, darling; he is your father's uncle, and your father lived with him in his old place in Somersetshire when he was a boy. He loved your father. He'll tell you lots of stories about him." "About when does he expect father home?" asked Ronald. "He doesn't know. Perhaps, Ronald--perhaps--never." But here Ronald gave himself a little shake. "I know father's coming back," he said--"feel it in my bones." There was silence then between the woman and the boy. After a long time Ronald spoke: "He made mother cry, all the same." "He told me about that. He wasn't really unkind to her. I, on the whole, like him, Ronald, and I think you can do a lot for him--I think your father would wish it." "Would he?" said Ronald, his eyes sparkling. "I think so. I expect God wants you to help him. He's a hard old man because he has no one to love him, but he did care for your father." Ronald flung his arms round Mrs. Anderson's neck and kissed her. That night it must be owned that he slept badly; and early--very early--in the morning he awoke. "Times is pretty bad," thought the boy to himself; "and there's lots o' battles round. But oh, Giles! brave fathers for ever! You and me won't disgrace our fathers, will we, Giles?" Then he got up and dressed himself, and went downstairs and waited until Mrs. Anderson arrived. As soon as she entered the room he said one word to her--"When?" "Ten o'clock," said Mrs. Anderson. It was eight o'clock then. "Two hours more," said Ronald. During those two hours he was very busy. He packed his bricks, and helped Mrs. Anderson to put his very scanty wardrobe into a very tiny trunk. The time went by. Ten o'clock struck, and, sharp to the minute, a cab drew up at the door. Out of the cab the old gentleman stepped. He entered the hall. He was a very fussy old man, and did not want a young child to live in the house with him. He expected, too, that Mrs. Harvey's boy--he had undoubtedly a great contempt for poor young Harvey--would be a miserable, dwindled, wretched sort of creature. But, lo and behold! a little chap with head well thrown back, his eyes bright and lips brave, stepped up to him. "Here I am, Uncle Stephen. I am Ronald. How do you do?" "Bless my soul!" said the old man. "Let me look at you." He drew the boy round so as to get the light on his face. "'Pon my word!" he said, "you are not the sort of little chap I expected. You're uncommon like your father." Ronald flushed with pride. Mr. Harvey came into the parlor and had a little talk with Mrs. Anderson. "I am indeed indebted to you, madam," he said. "This boy is so surprisingly like my nephew that I could almost fancy the years had gone back and I was teaching the little chap to take his first gallop.--Your father was game on a horse, my lad." "Yes, sir," said Ronald, nodding his head. "'Spect so, sir," he added. The old gentleman chucked him under the chin and uttered a laugh. "Well, boy, we must be going," he said. "We mustn't keep your kind friend. You will let me know, madam, for what I am indebted to you." "For nothing, sir," said Mrs. Anderson. A crimson color rushed into her face. "It has been a labor of love to help this dear little fellow. I could take no money; you mustn't even mention it, sir." "Well, madam--well--I respect your proper pride, and anything I can do---- By the way--eh, Ronald?--there's no saying, but I might invite your friend down to the country.--Do you know Somersetshire, madam?" "I used to know it very well when I was a girl. My people lived in Somersetshire." "Then perhaps you will come and pay us a visit, and see Ronald after he has learned the full use of the saddle and bridle--eh, Ronald?" "Oh--aunty! Will you come?" said Ronald. "I will, darling.--I should like it very much indeed, Mr. Harvey; it is most kind of you to ask me." "But please--please," said Ronald, who had suddenly lost all his fear, "may Connie come, too?" "Who's Connie?" "My special friend and sister." "Ho, ho!" said the old man. "I must hear more about her. Can make no rash promises. But all right, little chap; I'll do what I can for you. Now, if you had taken after---- Well, never mind--I won't say anything to hurt you." "And, please," said Ronald suddenly, "of course you wouldn't pay my aunty, for the things she did can't be paid for. But poor Mrs. Cricket--aunty, I know her address. The place in the country is called Eastborough; and it's Ivy Cottage, aunty; and--she was good to me----" "Yes," said Mrs. Anderson, "you'll let me explain, please, Mr. Harvey. This dear little boy spent a month at Mrs. Cricket's, and she was never paid a penny." "She ought to be paid," said Ronald. "Course, when father returns he'll pay you back again. But she ought to get it, for there was real new-laid eggs, and the chickens were so tender." "'Pon my word," said the old gentleman, "you're a queer boy! I guess you've got the true Harvey blood in you. Never neglect a friend--eh? And never owe a penny. Well now, madam, will you see to this? And what amount of money ought I to give you for the woman?" Mrs. Anderson named what she thought would be a correct sum, and immediately afterwards the old gentleman produced the money from his waistcoat pocket. It was a hard moment for Ronald when he said good-bye, but after he got into the cab he could not help feeling both surprised and elated. He could not help staring and staring at the old gentleman. "Was it your photograph," he said at last, "that my father kept in his dressing-room?" "I expect so," said the old gentleman. "It's surprising," said Ronald, "how I forget. But now I remember. He loved you--he used to talk to me about you. He said it was you taught him first to be brave." "Bless him--bless him!" said the old gentleman. His voice got a little raspy; it is certain that his eyes were a little dim. "Perhaps," said Ronald--he had a marvelous way of comprehending the situation--"but for you he would not have been a V. C. man." "God bless you! It was in himself--he had the noblest heart, the grandest nature! There, boy! don't upset me. 'Pon my word! I hated the thought of having you---- And I hated going to you," said Ronald; "but----" The old face looked into the young face, and the young face looked into the old face, and then they both laughed. Before they reached the old gentleman's hotel Ronald had so far advanced to a friendly footing that he had peered into the contents of the old man's pocket, had pulled out his watch, had applied it to his ear, and had even gone the amazing length of demanding one for himself. CHAPTER XXVI. TWO CUPS OF COFFEE. When Harris parted from Giles and Connie--on the very same day that Connie had gone to tea with Ronald, on the very same day that Ronald had visited Giles--he was as troubled and miserable as man could be. There was but one brave thing for him to do--he ought to confess his sin. Where Sue could be he had not the faintest idea. Why was she absent? It was days now since she had left her home--Sue, of all people--Sue, with a little delicate brother like Giles. It was unlike her to go. There could be but one reason. Harris had taken means to ascertain whether poor Sue had been up before the magistrates. He knew enough about the law, and about crime generally, to know that she would be taken up for theft to Bow Street; but beyond doubt she had never gone there. Where in all the world could she be? Harris was by no means sufficiently sorry to give himself up for conscience's sake; but he was in a state of nervousness and great distress of mind. As he walked down a side-street, his hands in his pockets, his rough fur cap--which he generally wore slouched--well off his eyes, he was suddenly accosted by a red-haired boy, who looked at him with a very innocent face and inquired meekly "ef he were lookin' for a job." "None o' yer sauce, youngster," said Harris, passing on. "I don't mean the least sauce in life, master," said the red-haired boy, still in the most humble and gentle tone. "I only thought ef we were goin' in the same direction we might p'rhaps cheer each other up." "You're a likely youngster, you ere," he said, looking down at him with the grimmest of smiles. "Yus, my mother says as I'm well grown for my hage," replied Pickles; and then, keeping pace with the tall man, he began to whistle softly. Harris returned to his interrupted thoughts, and soon forgot the small boy, who had to run to keep up with his long strides. Suddenly the little boy exclaimed in a shrill, eager treble: "I say, mister!" "Wot now, young 'un?" "You ain't of a wery obleeging turn, be yer? You couldn't help me, now, ter find a guilty party?" "You seems a wery rum chap," said Harris rather crossly. "I don't know nothink 'bout yer guilty parties. There, be off, can't yer!" "I'll be off in a twinkle, master. I ain't rum a bit; my mother allers said as I wor a real quiet boy; but when my heart is full to bustin' it seems a relief to talk to a body, and you, tho' yer puts on bein' fierce, have a kind nature." "Now, what hever do yer mean by that?" "Master, you must furgive a wery timid and heasily repulsed boy; but it ain't possible, even fur one so known to be frightened as me, to be feared of yer. I reads yer kindness in yer heyes, master, and so I makes bold to tell my tale o' woe." "Well, tell away," said Harris, who could not help laughing and looking a little less gruff than before. "You wouldn't be inclined, now, that we should have hour talk hover a pint of hot coffee? There's a heatin-house where the young man have took down the shutters and is dusting away in a manner as his real appetizing. I has fourpence in my pocket. You wouldn't mind my treating yer, jest fer once, would yer?" "Not in the least, youngster. I think it'll be a wery sensible use to put yer money to, and a deal more prudent than spending it in marbles or street plays." "Master, my mother don't allow me to play at marbles, or to hindulge in street wanities, so I has the money and can afford ter be generous. Now let's enter. I smells the coffee a-grinding hup fur hour breakfasts halready." So Harris and Pickles went in to the eating-house, where in a moment or two, over two steaming cups of excellent coffee, Pickles proceeded to unburden himself of his story. "It is only a few days agone, master, as the occurrence as distresses me happened. I wor walking along a certain street wot shall be nameless. I wor walking along bravely, as is my wont, and thinking of my mother, when I see'd a young gel a-flying past me. She wor a wery short, stout gel, and her legs they quite waggled as she ran. I never see'd a gel run so wery hard afore, and I pricked hup my senses to guess wot it hall meant. Soon wor the mystery explained. I heerd ahind of her the cry of 'Stop thief!' and a number of men and boys were a-giving of her chase. I thought as I'd run wid 'em and see what it hall meant. "Presently we shall come up wid the gel. There she wor in the arms of a policeman. He wor a-clutching of her, and trying to find hout wot wor the matter; but she wor so blown she couldn't speak fur a good bit. Then hup comes a man wot said as he had a pawnshop, and that inter the pawnshop had come a man and a gel ter buy a ring, and when they come hout there wor a diamond locket missing. He said as either the gel or the man 'ad tuk the locket; and as the man could not be found, he must get the policeman to search the gel. The poor fat gel, she looked quite scared, and said as she hadn't done it; but the nipper said as she must be searched, and he put in his hand inter her pocket and drew hout the diamond locket. She said as she had never put it there. But, in course, it worn't ter be expected as they'd believe her, so she were tuk orf ter prison. She wor tuk orf ter prison--I see'd her myself." Here Pickles paused. Nothing could have been more refined and delicate than the use he had made of his eyes during this narrative; only very quick and fleeting glances did he bestow upon his companion. When Harris at the commencement of his tale started and changed color, Pickles dropped a piece of bread, and stayed under the table looking for it until the man had quite recovered his composure. When his short story had come to an end he paused; then he said, still without bestowing more than the swiftest side-glance on Harris, "The poor fat gel were tuk orf to the lock-hup. But 'tis borne bin on me, master--'tis borne him on me, and I can't get no rest day nor night--as that yer gel were hinnercent. I believe as she never tuk the locket, and I think that ef ye're as kind-hearted as yer looks yer'll help me ter find that other guilty party." Harris rose to his feet. "Don't be a fool, lad," he said angrily. "I have no time ter give ter sech nonsense. I'm soory fur the gel, but ef she had the locket, of course she tuk the locket. There! I can waste no time. I'll pay fur my hown coffee. Good-morning." "Good-morning, master, and thank yer. I'm glad as ye're sorry fur the gel; she have a lame brother as must miss her, and her case 'ull go heavy, I fear. It seems as it might be a good work ter find the guilty party. I think as it wor the man as went with her inter the shop. I mean ter attend the trial, and I'll mention, ef permitted, my suspicions. But I won't keep yer longer. Sorry again as yer won't oblige me, I'll go home now and consult my mother." All the way back to Great Anvill Street, where Mrs. Price lived, Pickles danced a hornpipe. "I've nailed him at last," he said, chuckling and laughing and dancing all in one breath. "Now to put on the torture screw until he confesses! Oh Pickles, my boy, _wot_ a treasure you'll prove yerself in Scotland Yard!" CHAPTER XXVII. DELAYED TRIAL. It is quite true that Pickles had put on the torture screw. Harris felt exceedingly uncomfortable as he walked home. It was a fact, then, that Sue had been caught and put in prison. That disagreeable boy had seen it all; he had witnessed her rapid flight; he had heard her protestations of innocence; he had seen her carried off to prison. Sue, so good and brave and honest, would be convicted of theft and would have to bear the penalty of theft--of another's theft, not her own. What a foolish girl she had been to run away! Of course, it made her guilt seem all the plainer. There was not a loophole of escape for her. She was certain to be found guilty; probably to-day she would be brought before the magistrate and sentence pronounced upon her. He wondered what magistrate would try her; how long her punishment would last. Had he dared he would have attended her trial. But he did not dare. That red-haired boy--that most unpleasant, impudent boy--would probably be there. There was no saying what things he might say. He would probably appear as a witness, and nothing would keep that giddy tongue of his quiet. What a very queer boy he was, and how strange were his suspicions! When any one else in all the world would have accepted Sue's guilt as beyond doubt or question, he persisted in declaring her innocent. Nay, more than that, he had even declared that the man who had gone with her into the shop was the guilty person. Harris knew there was no proof against the man. No one had seen him take the locket; no one had witnessed its transfer into Sue's pocket. The man was safe enough. No one living could bring his guilt home to him. But stay a moment! A horrible fear came over him. Why did that boy speak like that? He saw Sue running away. Perhaps he had seen more than that. Perhaps he had come on the platform of events earlier in the narrative. Harris felt the cold sweat starting to his forehead as it occurred to him that that awful boy had reason for his talk--that he _knew_ to whom he was speaking. When Harris took the locket he might have been flattening his nose against the window-pane at the pawnbroker's; he might have seen all that was taking place. What was to be done? He could not confess, and yet if he didn't he was in horrible danger; his present state was worse than any state he had been in before. Suppose Connie ever found out his meanness, his wickedness. Harris was very fond of Connie just then. He had suffered during her absence. His home was pleasant to him--as pleasant as his guilty conscience would permit during those days, for little Giles was like no one else. Oh, could the awful moment ever come when Giles would look at him with reproachful eyes--when Giles would turn away from him? The miserable man felt that were such a time to arrive it would be almost as bad as the knowledge that God Himself could not forgive him. He was distracted, miserable; he must find a refuge from his guilty thoughts. A public-house stood handy. He had not really taken too much for a long time now--not since that terrible night when, owing to drink, he had turned his child from his door. But he would forget his misery now in drink. "That dreadful boy!" he muttered--"that dreadful, dreadful boy, with hair like a flame, and eyes that peered into you like gimlets!" Harris passed through the great swing-doors. His good angel must almost have disappeared at that moment. Meanwhile Connie and Giles watched and waited in vain for Sue. She was coming to-day--she was coming to-morrow. But the weary hours went by and no Sue arrived; there was no message from her. Harris went oftener and oftener to the public-house, and brought less and less of his wages home, and Giles faded and faded, and Connie also looked very sad and weary. Once Connie said to Giles, when nearly a month had gone by: "Yer'll 'ave to give up that notion 'bout the country, Giles, for 'tain't true." "Yus, I believe I must give it up," said Giles. "Ain't yer anxious now 'bout dear Sue?" asked Connie. "Not wery," said Giles. "Ef she ain't in the country, the good Lord 'ave her safe somewhere else--that's wot I'm a-thinkin' of. Father John said to me we'en he come last as trials of this sort are good for me." "You 'ave nothing but trials, poor Giles!" said Connie. "Oh no," answered Giles; "I ha' lots o' blessings--you and Big Ben, the beautiful Woice, you know. Connie, some'ow I think as my wings is growin' wery fast. I think w'en they're full-grown----" "Wot then?" asked Connie. "Why, I'll fly away. I can't 'ardly believe as a poor little lame boy like me could fly up higher than the stars, but that's wot 'ull 'appen. I picter it wery often--me no longer tied down to my bed, but with wings, flyin' about as strong as the angels. Only Father John says I'll be higher than the angels, for I'll be one o' the ransomed o' the Lord. I'll see Father John, too, an' you'll come after a bit, an' Sue 'ull come. I can't fret no, I can't." After this Connie went for the doctor, and the doctor said that the boy was very ill--that he might linger a few weeks more, but his sufferings were growing less, and that Connie's kind care was effecting wonders for him. The weeks went by. Harris grew accustomed to his sense of guilt, and Sue to her captivity. Pickles was anxiously looking forward to a crisis. Harris, after giving way to drink for several days, refrained again and worked steadily. He brought in, in consequence, good wages, and Connie and Giles wanted for nothing. It was the one salve to his conscience, this making of Giles comfortable; otherwise, notwithstanding the manifest amendment of his ways, he was scarcely happy. Indeed, Pickles took care that he should not be so. In the most unlikely and unexpected places this dreadful boy would dart upon him, and more and more certain was Harris that he not only knew his secret, but had witnessed his guilt. Harris would have fled miles from the boy, but the boy would not be fled from. He acted as a perpetual blister on the man's already sore conscience, and Harris almost hated him. His first resolve to confide in Pickles and bribe him into silence had long ago died away. He dared not even offer to bribe him; the perfectly fearless and uncorrupt spirit which looked out of the eyes of the boy would be, he knew, proof against all that he could do in the matter of either rewards or punishments. No; all that Harris could do was to maintain as imperturbable a spirit as possible while Pickles expatiated upon the cruel fate of Sue. As far as he could dare question him, he learned from Pickles that Sue had not been yet tried even before the magistrate. He wondered greatly at this delay, and Pickles, who read his wonder in his eyes, remarked lightly that the reason of this long postponement was because the police were busy looking for the guilty party. "Whether they finds him or not," concluded Pickles, "it must come off soon now, fur I'm told that the expense of keeping Sue is breaking that 'ere lock-hup. I 'spect as it 'ull be the finest bit o' a trial as have been fur many a day. I means to be there. And you'll come, won't yer, Mr. Harris?" "I'm sick o' the subject," said Harris. "Oh no, you ain't, Mr. Harris; you 'ave a wery quiet manner, as his only wot his right and becoming, but I can see yer hinterest in yer heyes. You can't keep that good-natured, human look out o' yer heyes, Mr. Harris; nor can yer help a-starting when yer sees me a-coming. Oh no, yer may say wot yer likes, but ye're real interested in that pore, misfort'nit Sue, I _knows_; so you will come to her shameful trial, won't yer?" In despair, and fearing any other reply, Harris promised. CHAPTER XXVIII. CINDERELLA WOULD SHIELD THE REAL THIEF. After one of these interviews Pickles went home and consulted Sue. "Cinderella," he said, "am I to act as yer prince or not?" "I dunno wot hever yer means, Pickles." "Well, my beauty, 'tis jest this--the Prince rescued Cinderella from her cruel sisters, and I want ter rescue you from the arms of justice. You has a wery shameful accusation hanging over you, Cinderella; you is, in short, hiding from the law. I can set yer free. Shall I?" Sue's plump face had grown quite thin during the anxieties of the past month, and now it scarcely lighted up as she answered Pickles: "I want ter be set free, but I don't want ter be set free in your way." "'Tis the only way, Cinderella. The man, Peter Harris, is the guilty party. He tuk that 'ere locket; he put it in yer pocket. I don't know how he did it, nor why he did it, but I do know that no one else did it. I have jest come from him, and lor' bless yer! I have had him on the torture hooks. I made-b'lieve as you were to be tried next week, and I axed him to come to the trial. I could a'most see him shivering at the bare thought, but fur hall that he did not dare but say he'd come. Now, Cinderella, ef you were to allow me to manage it, and I wer to get you and he face to face, why, he'd jest have to confess. I'd have a couple o' witnesses handy, and we'd write it down wot he said, and you'd be set free. I'd manage so to terrify him aforehand that he'd have ter confess----" "And then he'd be put in prison?" said Sue. "Why, in course; and well he'd deserve it. He's the right party to go, fur he's guilty. Yes, shameful guilty, too." "He couldn't manage to run away and escape afterwards?" Pickles laughed. "You think as I'd help him, maybe. Not a bit o' me! I don't harbor no guilty parties, Cinderella, as I ha' told yer heaps and heaps o' times. No, he's guilty, and he goes ter prison; there ain't nothink hard in sending him ter prison." "It ha' seemed ter me often lately, Pickles, as it must be harder to lie in prison guilty than not guilty--you ha'nt, nothink ter trouble yer mind ef yer ain't guilty." "Well then, I s'pose, in that case, as yer'll give yerself hup." "I'd a deal rayther be in hiding with yer, Pickles; but I don't feel as ef I _could_ put Mr. Harris in prison." "Then you must go yerself, fur this thing can't go on fur ever." Sue looked frightened, and her commonplace gray eyes fell to the ground. She took up the poker and began to trace a pattern on the floor: it was as intricate as her own fate just now. She was a little heroine, however, and her noble thoughts redeemed all plainness from her face when at last she spoke: "Once, Pickles, arter mother died we was brought down wery low. I had a dreadful influenzy, and I couldn't nohow go to the machining, and we were near starving. Mr. Harris lent me a shilling that time, and we pulled through. Another time I couldn't meet the rent, and Connie, she begged of her father, and he give me the money; and when I offerd it him back again he wouldn't take it. He wor a rough man, but he had a kind heart. When I were last at home he wor in a real dreadful trouble about Connie--and I loved Connie better nor any one in hall the world, arter Giles. Pickles, it 'ud break Connie's heart fur her father to be tuk to prison. I don't know why he did that--ef he really did do it--but I can't furget those two times as he wor good ter me, and hever since I have come yere he have done heverything fur Giles. No, I couldn't send Mr. Harris to prison. I couldn't rest heasy ef I thought o' him sent there by me. I'd rayther lie there myself." "Wery well, Cinderella; in course you've got ter choose, fur one or other of yer must go to prison, as it is against hall common-sense as you could stay hiding here fur ever. I hadmires yer rare consideration fur that hardened man, Peter Harris. I can't understand it--no, not the least bit in the world--but I hadmires it as I hadmires the top o' the big mountain wot I could never climb, but jest contemplate solemnly from below. I can understand better yer repugnance not to break the heart o' that purty Connie. Most plain women is hard on their more lucky sisters, and I hadmires you, Cinderella, fur rising superior to the wices of yer sex; but wot I can't hunderstand--wot puzzles me--is yer sad failure in sisterly love. There's that little brother; why, heven now he's pining hal to nothing to see yer. Don't yer think as it 'ull break _his_ heart ef yer is tuk ter prison? Why, ef yer could have seen him when he heerd me even hint at sech a thing! He said as he wished as he could knock me down." The tears rapidly filled Sue's eyes. "Pickles," she said after a moment of thought, "'tis a wonderful, wonderful puzzlement ter me. I can't least of all break the heart of Giles. Giles wor left ter me by mother, and I promised as I'd allers tend him real faithful; but wot I 'as bin thinking is that ef yer must give me hup, and not hide me any longer, and I must be locked hup fur a time, that perhaps we might manage as Giles might still think as I wor in the country. Connie would be wery good ter him, and Mr. Harris would support him jest as well as I could have done. Giles, he's that innercent that he'd easily be made ter believe as I could not help going away. He knows nothink o' life, little Giles don't; he'd never, never guess as there were ought o' the prison 'bout me, and arter a time he'd get accustomed to doing widout me. I think, Pickles, we might manage so as not to break Giles's heart, and yet fur me to go ter prison." "Then you really, really chooses to go ter prison, Cinderella?" "I choose, Pickles, never to tell on Peter Harris--never, wot hever happens. I don't want ter go to prison--not one bit--but ef I can't stay hiding, why, I s'pose as I must." "You can't stay hiding more than a day or two longer, Cinderella, and I thinks as ye're a great fool;" and Pickles walked out of the room in apparently high dudgeon. CHAPTER XXIX. A LITTLE HEROINE. Two days afterwards it was Sunday. Pickles and his mother went to church, but Sue did not accompany them. She had hitherto, notwithstanding her disguise, been afraid to stir abroad. To-day, however, when mother and son had departed, she ran eagerly up to the tiny attic where she slept. In this attic was an old box without a lock. Sue opened it in some perturbation. There were several articles of wearing apparel in this box, all of a mothy and mouldy character. One by one Cinderella pulled them out. First there was a purple silk dress. She gazed at it with admiration. Yes; no one would ever recognize Sue in silk. It would be delightful to put it on. She did so. The skirt was much too long, but with the aid of a whole boxful of pins, she managed to bundle it up round her waist. Then came a soft, many-colored Paisley shawl. Would any one in all the world think of the little machinist if she sallied forth in purple silk and Paisley shawl? Sue did not believe it possible. She put on the shawl, and tied on her head an old-fashioned bonnet, trimmed with many-colored ribbons. There was further, in the wonderful box, an old remnant of gauze. This would act as a veil. Now, indeed, she was completely disguised. She thought herself very grand, and wondered had the Prince ever bought finer clothes for the real Cinderella. She shut the box again, tripped downstairs, and out into the street. She had not been out for a whole month now, and the fresh, frosty air, even coming to her through the musty gauze, was very refreshing. She walked quickly. She had an object in view. Very purposeful was her careworn little face as she stepped briskly along. She had a problem to solve. It was too weighty for her young shoulders; she must get the advice of another. She meant to consult Father John--not by words; no, not even with him would she dare confide her secret. But he preached now both Sunday morning and Sunday evening. She would stand with the crowd and listen to his sermon. Perhaps once again there would be a message for her in it. She had not forgotten that last sermon of his; and that last message sent to her from God by his lips had been with her all through her month of captivity. It had been a sad and anxious month for Sue, and now its crisis had come, for the kind people who had protected her could do so no longer; she could no longer eat their bread, nor accept the shelter of their home. No; Sue quite agreed with Pickles that it would be impossible for her to stay in hiding always. Better go forth at once and meet the worst and have it over. She would be put in prison. Yes--that is, either she or Peter Harris would be put in prison. Pickles had quite brought her round to the belief that Harris was really the guilty party. He had done a very, very dreadful thing. Sue could not understand why he had acted so badly, so cruelly by her. Surely he was the right person to go to prison; she could not bear his crime for him. But then, again, it would be very like Jesus Christ if she did. It was wonderful how the thought of the Great Example was before the mind of this simple, ignorant child as she walked hastily on to meet the one who she believed would decide her fate. To-morow, most likely, Pickles would come to her and ask for her final decision. She must make up her mind to-day. She had a long way to walk, and when she reached the street where Father John held his weekly services the place was already crowded. The preacher had mounted on his chair and had commenced his discourse. Sue heard one or two people say, "Look at little Mother Hubbard." But others, again, admired her costume, and out of respect for the rich silk dress, made way for her to approach nearer to the preacher. "Now, Lord Jesus, please do give me the right word," whispered Sue. Then through her musty veil her eyes were fixed anxiously on Atkins. Was it more than a coincidence? This was the sentence which fell upon the expectant ear: "My dear, dear brothers and sisters, 'tis a wonderfully happy thing to be good. It gives a man rare courage. You, most of you, knew poor Bob Daily. Well, he died this morning. He was not a scrap afraid. I was with him, and he went away rejoicing. He knew he was going straight away to Jesus--straight away to the arms of Jesus. He told me a queer thing which had happened to him when he was a young man. He was falsely accused of a crime which he had not done. He was put in prison. He had to stay locked up for what he was innocent of for two years. He said he guessed who had really done the crime, but he did not like to tell on this man, who was much worse off than himself. He bore the punishment for the guilty man, and he had his reward. All the time he was in prison Jesus remained so close to him that He made his heart sing. He says that he could look back on that part of his life as the very happiest time that he had ever spent." "I'm a bit faint-like," said Sue to her nearest neighbor. "Let me out, please." The people made way for her, and for a moment or so she leant against the nearest lamp-post. She did not hear another word of the sermon. She did not need to. When she felt better she walked back to Great Anvill Street. * * * * * That night, just before Pickles went to bed, Sue sought him. "Pickles, I ha' made up my mind--I ha' made it up quite," she said. "Well?" asked Pickles. "You gave me three days, Pickles, and the time 'ull be up to-morrow. Well, I'll go to prison 'stead o' Peter Harris. I ha' that in my mind which 'ull make it come uncommon light ter me. I'll go to prison 'stead o' he." CHAPTER XXX. WHAT WAS HARRIS TO HER? Pickles went up to the very small room where he slept, threw himself on his bed, and fell a-wondering. For the first time in his life he was completely at sea. What _did_ Cinderella mean? For a whole month now she had been his special charge. He had rescued her; he had kept her in the safe shelter of his mother's house; he had been, he considered, very kind indeed to Cinderella. What a fate she would have had but for him! Sent to prison for a crime of which she was absolutely innocent, her whole future disgraced, blighted, ruined! All the time while he had been hunting up Harris, and bringing his ingenious little mind to bear down the full weight of his crime upon the guilty man, he had thought that no amount of gratitude on Cinderella's part--nay, even a whole lifetime of devotion--could scarcely repay all she owed him. But now he kicked his legs impatiently and said to himself that it was enough to provoke the best-natured boy in the universe. After all his trouble, all his hard thoughts and anxious reflections, here was this tiresome Cinderella refusing to be set free. He had, as he expressed it, nailed his man; he had put the noose round him, and all he had to do was to tighten it, and Sue would be free and Harris sent to prison. But without Sue's aid he could not do this, and Sue most emphatically to-night had refused his aid. She would go to prison herself, but she would not betray Harris. What did the girl mean? What was this cowardly Harris to her that she should risk so much and suffer so sorely for his sake? How she had dreaded prison! How very, very grateful she had been to him for saving her! But now she was willing to go there, willing to bear the unmerited punishment, the lifelong disgrace. Why? Pickles, think hard as he would, could get no answer to solve this difficulty. True, she had said she had something in her mind which would lighten the prison fare and the prison life. What was it? Pickles could stand it no longer; he must go and consult his mother. He ran downstairs. Mrs. Price had not yet gone to bed. Pickles sat down beside her by the fire, and laid his curly red head in her lap. "Mother," he said, "this 'ere detective's foiled at last." "What's up now, Jamie, boy?" asked the mother. Pickles told her. He described how he had all but brought the crime home to Harris; how he had proved to Sue that Harris was the guilty party; but that now Sue, after all his tremendous trouble, had refused to identify him. She would go to prison, she said; she would not tell on Harris. "I don't understand it one bit, mother," he said in conclusion. "But I do, Jamie, my boy," answered Mrs. Price, tears filling her kind eyes. "I understand it very well. It means just this--that Sue, dear child, is very noble." Pickles opened his eyes very wide. "Then, mother," he began, "Cinderella is----" and then he stopped. "Your Cinderella, whom you rescued, is a real little heroine, Jamie; but she must not go to prison. We must do something for her. She has been with me for a whole month now, and I never came across a more upright little soul. You surely have not been frightening her with the base idea that we would give her up, my boy?" Pickles colored and hung his head. "I own, mother," he said, "that I did put a little bit of the torture screw to bear on Sue. I didn't mean really as she should go to prison; but I thought as a small dose of fright might make her tell on that Harris. I do think that Peter Harris is about the meanest character I ever come across, and I'd like _him_ to go to prison wery well indeed, mother dear." "If he's guilty, believe me he's not a very happy man, my lad. My own feeling is that 'tis best to leave all punishment to the God against whom we sin. But about Sue? She must not sleep with the notion that she's to go to prison. I have a great mind to go to her now." "Oh! but, mother, mayn't I tell her my own self? 'Twas I as rescued her. She's my own Cinderella, after all, mother dear; and I'd real enjoy telling her. She's asleep hours ago now, mother." "Well, lad, see and have it out with the child before you go to work in the morning, and then I'll have a talk with her afterwards." CHAPTER XXXI. A STERN RESOLVE. But Sue was not asleep. She had quite made up her mind now as to her line of action. There was no longer even a particle of lingering doubt in her brave little soul; she was innocent, but as the sin which was committed must be punished, she would bear the punishment; she would go to prison instead of Harris. Prison would not be so bad if she went there innocent. Yes, Sue would certainly go to Prison. The next day she would consult Mrs. Price, and take the proper steps to deliver herself up to the police. She would go to the pawnbroker's shop and say to him, "I am the little girl in whose pocket you found that lovely diamond locket. I am very sorry I hid from you so long, but now I have come back, and you can send for the police. I will promise not to run away again when they are taking me to prison." This was Sue's resolve, but first she intended to do something else. It was because of this something else that she lay awake now; it was because of this almost passionate longing and desire that she lay with her eyes wide open. She was going to put on her disguise once more; just once again, before she was put in prison, she would wander free and unrestrained into the streets. But she must do this very, very early in the morning, and she feared that if she closed her eyes she would sleep over the right time. It was now March, and the days were lengthening. She rose before the dawn, put on again some portion of the remarkable costume she had worn the day before, and went out. Yes, she was going to prison. She was most likely going to prison that very day. But before she was locked up she would visit Harris's house. She would steal into his rooms to take one look--one long last look for how many weary months--at Giles. She knew the ways of this tenement house well. She had nothing to do but walk up the stairs and lift the latch of Harris's room and go in. Some of the neighbors locked their room doors at night. But Susan remembered with satisfaction that Harris never did so. It was quite dark when she set off, for she knew she had a very long walk from Great Anvill Street to Westminster. CHAPTER XXXII. AN UNEXPECTED ACCIDENT. By dint asking her way more than once, of some of the very policemen whom she dreaded, Sue found herself at last in the old, well-remembered neighborhood. She passed the door of the house where her mother had died and where she had been so happy with Giles, and went on quickly to the other house where Connie and Harris lived. The house door stood open, as was its wont. Sue mounted the stairs; with trembling hands she lifted the latch of Harris's room. Yes, as she had trusted, it was only on the latch. She stooped down, unfastened her shoes, and took them off; then she stole into the room. There were two bedrooms, besides a sitting-room, in Harris's portion of the house. In one of the bedrooms slept Harris, in the other his daughter, and in the little sitting-room lay the lame boy. Thus Sue found herself at once in the presence of her little brother. Her heart beat high. How easily she had accomplished her purpose! How good God was to her! Stealing over on tiptoes, she knelt down by Giles. There was scarcely any light as yet; but a little streamed in from the badly curtained window. This little had sought out Giles, and lingered lovingly round his delicate face and graceful head; he looked ethereal with this first soft light kissing him. Sue bent down very close indeed. She dared not breathe on his face. She scarcely dared draw her own breath in her fear of waking him; but she took his gentle image more firmly than ever into her heart of hearts: it was to cheer her and comfort her during long, long months of prison life. As she bent over him in an ecstasy of love and longing, Giles stirred. Instantly Sue hid herself behind a curtain: here she could see without being seen. The lame boy stirred again and opened his eyes. He looked peaceful; perhaps he had had a happy dream. "I think Sue 'ull soon now have found that cottage in the country," he said aloud. Then he turned over and, still smiling, went to sleep again. Sue's eyes filled with tears. But the light was getting stronger; any moment Harris might rise. Though she would go to prison for Harris, yet she felt that she could not bring herself to meet him. Yes, she must go away with an added weight in her poor, faithful little heart. She stole downstairs, and out into the street. Yes, it was very hard to bear the sight of Giles, to hear those longing words from the lips of Giles, and yet go away to meet unjust punishment for perhaps two long years. Still, it never entered into Sue's head to go back from her resolve, or to save herself by betraying another. Her head was very full of Bible lore, and she compared herself now to one of those three young men who had gone into a fiery furnace for the cause of right and duty. "Jesus Christ wor with them, jest as He'll be with me," she said to herself as she crossed Westminster Bridge. Yes, brave little girl, you were to go through a fiery furnace, but not the one you thought was being prepared for you. Sue's trouble, swift and terrible, but in an unlooked-for form, was on her even now. Just as she had got over the bridge, and was about to cross a very wide thoroughfare, some lumbering wagons came thundering up. They turned sharp round a corner, and the poor child, weak and giddy from her morning's most unwonted exertion, suddenly found herself turning faint. She was in the middle of the crossing, the wagons were upon her, but she could not run. She had scarcely time to throw up her arms, to utter one piercing cry of terror, before she was thrown to the ground. She had a horrible sensation of her life being crushed out of her, of every bone being broken; then followed peace and unconsciousness. One of the wagons had gone partly over her; one leg was broken. She was carried to the accident ward at St. Thomas's Hospital close by. CHAPTER XXXIII. A POINTED QUESTION. Neither had Mrs. Price slept well. All night long she either had fitful and broken dreams, in which her small guest, Sue, constantly figured; or she lay with her eyes open, thinking of her. She was surprised at the child's resolve. She recognized an heroic soul under that plain and girlish exterior. In the morning she got up rather earlier than usual, and instead of going directly downstairs, as was her custom, she went up to Sue's attic. She had promised her eccentric young son to allow him to tell his own tale in his own way; but she meant to comfort Sue with some specially loving and kind greeting. Having a true lady's heart, she knew how to give Sue a very cheering word, and she went upstairs with that heart full. Of course there was no Sue in the little chamber. The bed had been lain in, but was now cold and unoccupied. Mrs. Price went downstairs, considerably puzzled and disturbed. She sent for Pickles and told him. She was full of fear at Sue's disappearance, and told the heedless boy that she blamed him. "You did wrong, my lad--you did very wrong," she said. "You gave the poor thing to understand that she was to be put in prison, and now doubtless she has gone to deliver herself up." "No, mother. She only went out to have a little exercise. Cinderella 'ull be back in an hour or so," answered the boy. But he did not speak with his usual assurance and raillery. The fact was, the calculations in his shrewd little brain were upset by Sue's disappearance. He felt disturbed, perplexed, and annoyed. His mother being really displeased with him was a novel experience to Pickles. She blamed herself much for having allowed him his own way in this matter, and the moment breakfast was over, went out to the nearest police-station to relate Sue's story. Pickles stayed in until noon; then he also went out. He had cheered himself until this hour with the hope that Sue had only gone out for a walk. Notwithstanding all the improbabilities of his poor, frightened Cinderella venturing to show herself in the street, he had clung firmly to this idea; but when the neighboring clock struck twelve he was obliged to abandon it. He was obliged to admit to his own little puzzled heart that it was on no ordinary walk that Sue had gone. Remorse now seized him in full measure. He could not bear the house; he must vent his feelings in exercise. For the first time in his sunny and healthy young life he walked along the streets a defeated and unhappy boy. Suddenly, however, a thought occurred to him. He stood still when it flashed across his fertile brain. Then, with a cheerful shout, which caused the passers-by to turn their heads and smile, he set off running as fast as his feet would carry him. Hope would never be long absent from his horizon, and once again he was following it joyfully. He was on his way now to Harris's house. He meant to pay pretty Connie a visit, and when with her he would put to her a pointed question. It was nearly three o'clock when he reached Westminster. A few minutes later he found himself on the landing outside Connie's rooms. Here, however, he was again a little puzzled, for he wanted to see Connie and not to see Giles. Taking a long time about it, he managed to set the closed door ajar. He looked in. Connie and Giles were both within. Connie was mending her father's socks; Giles was reading aloud to her. Neither of them had noticed the slight creaking noise he had made in opening the door. He ventured on a very slight cough. This sound was heard; the reading ceased. "Come in," said Connie. This he must not do. He waited an instant, then creaked the door again. "Dear, dear! I made certain I had shut that door," said Connie. At this she rose unsuspiciously. "Jest wait a minute, Giles dear. I didn't catch that last bit." She ran to the door to put it to. Pickles placed his foot in her way. The obstacle caused her to look into the passage. There a boy, very red by nature, and with his natural color now much intensified by hard running, stood awaiting her. He pointed to the door, put his finger to his lips, then rushed down the first flight of stairs, where he turned round, and beckoned to her to follow him. "I'll be back in a minute, Giles," said Connie. She had ready wit enough to perceive at a glance that Pickles had something to say to her which he did not wish Giles to hear. Closing the door behind her, she ran downstairs. Pickles could have hugged her in his gratitude. "Ain't you a perfect duck of a darlin'?" he said, gazing hard and full into her face. "What do you want me for, Pickles?" asked Connie. "Fur one or two things of much private importance. First, tell me, how is the little lame chap as is fretting fur his sister wot is kept in the country?" "He is not so well, Pickles; he is not so well as he was. Pickles, I don't believe that story about Sue being in the country." "You don't believe me when I opens my lips to give utterance to the words of gospel truth!" replied Pickles. But his red face grew a shade redder, and his full, bold gaze was not quite so steady as usual. "Why, surely, Pickles, _you_ ain't going to be troubled wid nerves!" he said to himself. Connie, watching anxiously, entreated in her softest tones: "Dear Pickles, you might trust me. I should like to know, and I won't tell Giles." "Ay, ay, that's a woman's curiosity; but the misfortune is as it can't be gratified. No, Connie. You are as rare and pretty a bit of woman as hiver I clapped heyes on. But fur hall that you ain't going to come hover this yere boy. When I tells you, Connie, that Sue is hin the country, please believe as she _his_ in that year health-giving place. When 'tis conwenient fur me to confide in you farther, why, I'll do it. That time ain't at present. In the meantime, ef you want to real help them who ere in difficulty, you will let me know widout any more wasting o' precious time where yer father, Peter Harris, is working to-day." "Oh Pickles! wot do you want wid him?" "Nothink to hurt you, pretty one. Now, will you speak? "He's at Messrs ---- in ---- Street," replied Connie. "Thank yer; and now I'm off. Ef you'll listen to the words o' solemn wisdom, and be guided in that same, you'll not mention this stolen interview to little Giles--bless the little chap! You keep up his heart, Connie. As soon as hiver this yer young man can manage it, Sue shall come home. Lor', now! ain't the world strange and difficult to live in? Wot 'ull bring joy to one 'ull give pain to t'other, but the cause o' right must win the day. Well, good-bye, Connie. I'll wery like look in soon again." CHAPTER XXXIV. PICKLES TO THE FORE AGAIN. Connie went back to Giles, and Pickles, having obtained the information which he desired, sped as fast as his feet could carry him down the street. Once more his spirits were high, and hope was before him. "I may save you, you most obstinate and tiresome Cinderella," he said to himself. "But oh, _wot_ a mistake gels are! Why hever those weak and misguided beings was allowed to be is a puzzlement too great fur me." But though Pickles talked even to himself in this light and careless vein, there was (and he knew it) a pain in his heart--a pain joined to an admiration for Sue, which would have made him willing to fight to the very death in her behalf. The day, however, had been spent while he was rushing about, and by the time he reached the place where Connie had directed him to seek her father, the workmen were putting by their tools and preparing to go home. Pickles followed Harris down the street. Harris was talking to and walking with one of his fellow-workmen, and Pickles did not care to accost him except when he was alone. At the corner, however, of the next street the two parted; and then the boy, putting his face into grave and serious order, ran lightly after Harris. When he addressed him his very voice trembled. "Mr. Harris, I see'd you coming out of that yer shop. I'm in much perplexity and trouble in my mind, and I thought the sight of you and a talk wid you might maybe set me up." "You thought wrong, then," said Harris, replying in his gruffest voice, "for I'm in a mortal bit of a hurry, and I'm in no humor to listen to no chaff, so get away." "Oh, Mr. Harris! I'll endeavor to run by yer side for a minute or two. Mr. Harris, wot does yer think? That little Sue wot I tolled yer on--why, she has discovered who the guilty party is. She have found out who really stole the locket and put it into her pocket." "She have!" said Harris. He was so astonished and taken by surprise that he now stood still. He stood quite still, gazing helplessly at Pickles, while his weather-beaten face grew pale. "'Tis gospel truth as I'm telling yer," continued Pickles, fixing his own light-blue eyes full on his victim. "Sue knows hall about it--the whole thing; the great and awful meanness have been made plain to her. Yes, she knows all, Sue does; but, Mr. Harris----" "Yes; wot have I to say to this tale? I'm in a hurry--tearing hurry--I tell yer." "Yes, Mr. Harris; I won't keep yer. Sue knows, but Sue, she won't betray. I know who did it," she said, "but I won't tell on him. He lent me a shilling once. He is kind to my little brother wot is lame. I know wot he did, but I won't never tell, I'll go to prison 'stead of he." Harris's color had returned. He now walked so fast that Pickles had to run to keep up with him. Suddenly, seeing a passing omnibus, he hailed it, and in a second was on the roof. He did not glance at Pickles. In reply to his tale he had not answered by a single word. CHAPTER XXXV. THE WINGS ARE GROWING. Connie went back to Giles, sat down by him, and he resumed his reading. He was going through the _Pilgrim's Progress_ to her, reading short sentences at a time, for his voice was too low and weak to enable him to exert himself for long at a time. "Connie, wot were that as I read last?" Connie colored. "You weren't listening," said Giles reproachfully. "It wor a most beautiful bit. But you didn't hear me, Connie." "I wor thinking o' something else jest then," owned Connie. "I'll listen now wid hall my might, dear Giles." "Ah! but I'm tired now," said Giles; "and besides, I want to talk 'bout something else, Connie." "Well." "Sue have been a whole month in the country to-day--rayther more than a month. I don't understand it at all. I never thought as she could stay so long away from me. I suppose 'tis hall right, and cottages such as we want do take a powerful long time to find. It has been a long time--wery, wery long--but have I been patient 'bout Sue all this long time, Connie?" "Yes, indeed, dear Giles." "Oh! I'm glad, fur I've tried to be. Then, Connie, wot I'm thinking is that ef Sue don't soon come back--ef she don't soon find that 'ere cottage--why, I won't want it, Connie. Sue 'ull come back and find me--gone." "Gone!" echoed Connie. "Do you mean dead? Oh Giles! you're not ill enough to die." "Yes, Connie, I think I am. I'm so real desperate weak sometimes that I don't like even to move a finger. I used to be hungry, too, but now I never cares to eat. Besides, Connie dear----" "Yes, Giles," answered Connie. "Those wings that I told you of--why, I often seem to feel them flutter inside of me. I told you before, Connie, that when they was full grown, why, I'd fly away. I think they are growing wery fast. I'll want no cottage in the country now. I'm going away to a much better place, ain't I, Connie?" "Oh! but, Giles, I don't want to think that--I don't want to," answered Connie, the tears raining down her cheeks. "'Tis real good fur me, though, Connie. I used to pine sore fur the country; but it have come hover me lately that in winter it 'ud be dull--scarcely any flowers, and no birds singing, nor nothink. Now, in heaven there's no winter. 'A land o' pure delight,' the hymn calls it, 'and never-withering flowers.' So you see, Connie, heaven must be a sight better than the country, and of course I'd rayther go there; only I'm thinking as 'tis sech a pity 'bout Sue." "Yes, I wish as Sue was home," said Connie. "Connie dear, couldn't we send her a message to come straight home to me now? I'm so feared as she'll fret real hard ef she comes wid news of that cottage and finds me gone." "I'll look fur her; I will find her," said Connie with sudden energy. Then she rose and drew down the blinds. "I'll find Sue ef I can, Giles; and now you will go to sleep." "Will you sing to me? When you sing, and I drop off to sleep listening, I allers dream arterwards of heaven." "What shall I sing?" "'There is a land of pure delight.'" CHAPTER XXXVI. A CRISIS. Connie went downstairs and stood in the doorway. She had gone through a good deal during these last adventurous weeks, and although still it seemed to those who knew her that Connie had quite the prettiest face in all the world, it was slightly haggard now for a girl of fourteen years, and a little of its soft plumpness had left it. Connie had never looked more absolutely pathetic than she did at this moment, for her heart was full of sorrow for Giles and of anxiety with regard to Sue. She would keep her promise to the little boy--she would find Sue. As she stood and thought, some of the roughest neighbors passed by, looked at the child, were about to speak, and then went on. She was quite in her shabby, workaday dress; there was nothing to rouse jealousy about her clothes; and the "gel" seemed in trouble. The neighbors guessed the reason. It was all little Giles. Little Giles was soon "goin' aw'y." "It do seem crool," they said one to the other, "an' that sister o' his nowhere to be found." Just then, who should enter the house but kind Dr. Deane. He stopped when he saw Connie. "I am going up to Giles," he said. "How is the little chap?" "Worse--much worse," said Connie, the tears gathering in her eyes. "No news of his sister, I suppose?" "No, sir--none." "I am sorry for that--they were such a very attached pair. I'll run up and see the boy, and bring you word what I think about him." The doctor was absent about a quarter of an hour. While he was away Connie never moved, but stood up leaning against the door-post, puzzling her brains to think out an almost impossible problem. When the doctor reappeared she did not even ask how Giles was. Kind Dr. Deane looked at her; his face was wonderfully grave. After a minute he said: "I think, Connie, I'd find that little sister as quickly as I could. The boy is very, very weak. If there is one desire now in his heart, however, it is just to see Sue once more." "I ha' give him my word," said Connie. "I'm goin' to find Sue ef--ef I never see Giles agin." "But you mustn't leave him for long," said the doctor. "Have you no plan in your head? You cannot find a girl who is lost as Sue is lost in this great London without some clue." "I ain't got any clue," said Connie, "but I'll try and find Pickles." "Whoever is Pickles?" asked the doctor. "'E knows--I'm sartin sure," said Connie. "I'll try and find him, and then----" "Well, don't leave Giles alone. Is there a neighbor who would sit with him?" "I won't leave him alone," said Connie. The doctor then went away. Connie was about to return to Giles, if only for a few minutes, when, as though in answer to an unspoken prayer, the red-headed Pickles appeared in sight. His hair was on end; his face was pale; he was consumed with anxiety; in short, he did not seem to be the same gay-hearted Pickles whom Connie had last met with. When he saw Connie, however, the sight of that sweet and sad face seemed to pull him together. "Now must I give her a blow, or must I not?" thought Pickles to himself. "It do seem 'ard. There's naught, a'most, I wouldn't do for pore Cinderella; but w'en I have to plant a dart in the breast of that 'ere most beauteous crittur, I feels as it's bitter 'ard. W'y, she 'ud make me a most captiwatin' wife some day. Now, Pickles, my boy, wot have you got in the back o' your 'ead? Is it in love you be--an' you not fourteen years of age? Oh, fie, Pickles! What would yer mother s'y ef she knew?" Pickles slapped his hand with a mighty thump against his boyish breast. "That's the w'y to treat nonsense," he said aloud. "Be'ave o' yerself, Pickles--fie for shame, Pickles! That 'ere beauteous maid is to be worshipped from afar--jest like a star. I do declare I'm turnin' po-ettical!" "Pickles!" called Connie at this moment. "Stop!" "Pickles be 'ere," replied the youth, drawing up before Connie and making a low bow. "Giles is worse, Pickles," said Connie, "an' wot's to be done?" Pickles's round face grew grave. "Is 'e wery bad?" he asked. "So bad that he'll soon go up to God," said Connie. Her eyes filled with tears; they rolled down her cheeks. "Bright as dimants they be," thought the boy as he watched her. "Precious tears! I could poetise 'bout them." "Pickles," said Connie again, "I have made Giles a promise. He sha'n't die without seeing Sue. I'm sartin sure, Pickles, that you could take me to Sue now--I'm convinced 'bout it--and I want you to do it." "Why do you think that?" asked Pickles. "'Cos I do," said Connie. "'Cos of the way you've looked and the way you've spoken. Oh, dear Pickles, take me to her now; let me bring her back to little Giles to-night!" Once again that terribly mournful expression, so foreign to Pickles's freckled face, flitted across it. "There!" he said, giving himself a thump. "W'en I could I wouldn't, and now w'en I would I can't. I don't know where she be. She's lost--same as you were lost--w'ile back. She's disappeared, and none of us know nothink about her." "Oh! is she really lost? How terrible that is!" said Connie. "Yus, she's lost. P'r'aps there's one as could find her. Connie, I 'ate beyond all things on 'arth to fright yer or say an unkind thing to yer; but to me, Connie, you're a star that shines afar. Yer'll fergive the imperence of my poetry, but it's drawn from me by your beauty." "Don't talk nonsense now, Pickles," said Connie. "Things are too serious. We must find Sue--I must keep my promise." "Can you bear a bit o' pine?" said Pickles suddenly. "Pain?" said Connie. "I've had a good deal lately. Yes, I think--I think I can bear it." "Mind yer," said Pickles, "it's this w'y. I know w'y Sue left yer, and I know w'y she ain't come back. It's true she 'aven't give herself hup yet, although she guv me to understand as she were 'bout to go to prison." "To prison?" said Connie, springing forward and putting her hand on Pickles's shoulder. "Sue--the most honest gel in all the world--go to prison?" "Oh yes," said Pickles, "yer might call her honest; but w'en she goes into a pawnshop an' comes hout agin wid a golden dimant locket a-hid in her pocket, there are people as won't agree wid yer, an' that's the solemn truth, Connie." Connie's face was very white. "I don't believe it," she said. "Yer don't?" cried Pickles. "But I were there at the time. But for me she would ha' been locked up long ago. But I tuk pity on her--'avin' my own suspicions. I hid her and disguised her. Wot do yer think I come 'ere for so often but jest to comfort the poor thing an' bring her news o' Giles? Then all of a suddn't my suspicions seemed confirmed. I guessed wot I see is workin' in your mind--that some one else done it an' putt the blame on 'er. Oh, I'm a born detective. I putt my wits in soak, an' soon I spotted the guilty party. Bless yer, Connie! ye're right--Sue be honest--honest as the day--noble, too--more nobler nor most folk. Pore Sue! Pore, plain Cinderella! Oh, my word! it's beauteous inside she be--an' you're beauteous outside. Outside beauty is captiwatin', but the hinner wears best." "Go on," said Connie; "tell me wot else you 'ave in yer mind." "It's this: yer may own up to it, an' there's no use beatin' about the bush. The guilty party wot stole the locket an' transferred it by sleight-of-'and to poor Sue is no less a person than yer own father, Connie Harris." Connie fell back, deadly pale. "No--no!" she said. "No--no! I am sartin sure 'tain't that way." "Yus, but it be that way--I tell yer it be. You ax 'im yerself; there's no time for muddlin' and a-hidin' o' the truth. You ax the man hisself." "Father!" said Connie. "Father!" Harris, wrangling with another workman, was now seen approaching. When he perceived his daughter and Pickles, his first impulse was to dart away down a side-street; but Pickles, that most astute young detective, was too sharp for him. "No," he said, rushing at the man and laying his hand on his shoulder. "Giles is bad, an' we can't find Sue no'ow, and yer must tell the truth." Harris did not know why his heart thumped so heavily, and why a sort of wild terror came over him; but when Connie also joined Pickles, and raising her eyes to the rough man's face, said, "Be it true or be it lies, you are my own father and I'll niver turn agin yer," her words had a most startling effect. Harris trembled from head to foot. "S'y that agin, wench," he muttered. "You're mine--I'll not turn agin yer," said Connie. "Then why--wot 'ave I done to deserve a child like this? There, Pickles! you know--and you ha' told Connie--it's all the truth. There come a day w'en I wanted money, an' I were met by sore temptation. I tuk the dimant locket w'en the pawnbroker 'ad 'is back turned on me; but as I were leavin' the shop--Sue bein' by my side--I suddenly saw him pokin' his finger into the place where it had been. I knew it were all up. I managed to slip the locket into Sue's pocket, and made off. I ha' been near mad since--near mad since!" "Small wonder!" said Pickles. "An' do yer know that she 'ad made up her mind to go to prison 'stead o' you?" "You told me so," said Harris--"at least you told me that she was goin' to prison instead o' the guilty party." "Wull," said Pickles, "yer own 'eart told yer 'oo was the guilty party." "That's true, youngster." "Father," said Connie, "we can't find Sue anywhere, and Giles is dying, and we must get her, and you must help." "Help?" said Harris. "Yes, I'll help. I won't leave a stone unturned. She wanted to save me, knowing the truth. Wull, I'll save and find her, knowin' the truth." "I will come with you," said Connie. "I want to go wid yer; only wot am I to do with Giles?" "Don't worrit 'bout him," said Pickles. "I'm 'ere to be o' sarvice to you, Miss Connie--and to you, sir, now as you 'ave come ter yer right mind." "Then I will come with you, father," said Connie. "We'll both go together and find Sue." As Pickles was entering the house he popped his head out again. "I forgot to mention," he said, "as hinquiries o' the most strict and dertective character 'ave been institooted by yer 'umble sarvant for poor Cinderella--I mean Sue. They've led to no results. There's nothing now but one o' the hospitals." It is very doubtful whether Pickles believed himself the clue he had unexpectedly given to Harris and Connie, but certain it is that they immediately began their investigations in those quarters. From one hospital to another they went, until at last they found Sue in bed in St. Thomas's Hospital--flushed, feverish, struggling still to hide her secret in order that when she was better she might save Peter Harris. The poor child was rather worse than usual that evening, and the surgeon who had set her leg was slightly anxious at her feverish symptoms. He said to the nurse who was taking charge of the little girl: "That child has a secret on her mind, and it is retarding her recovery. Do you know anything about her?" "No, sir. It is very awkward," said the nurse, "but from the first she has refused to give her name, calling herself nothing but Cinderella." "Well," said the doctor, "but Cinderella--she doesn't seem touched in the head?" "Oh no," said the nurse; "it isn't that. She's the most sensible, patient child we have in the ward. But it's pitiful to see her when she thinks no one is listening. Nothing comforts her but to hear Big Ben strike. She always cheers up at that, and murmurs something below her breath which no one can catch." "Well, nurse," said the doctor, "the very best thing would be to relieve her mind--to get her to tell you who her people are, and to confide any secret which troubles her to you." "I will try," said the nurse. She went upstairs after her interview with the doctor, and bending over Sue, took her hot hand and said gently: "I wish, little Cinderella, you would tell me something about yourself." "There's naught to tell," said Sue. "But--you'll forgive me--I am sure there is." "Ef you was to ask me for ever, I wouldn't tell then," said Sue. "Ah! I guessed--there is something." "Yes--some'ut--but I can't bear it--the Woice in the air is so beautiful." "What voice?" asked the nurse, who feared that her little patient would suddenly become delirious. "It's Big Ben hisself is talkin' to me and to my darling, darling little brother." "Oh! you have a little brother, Cinderella?" "Yus, a cripple. But don't ask me no more. The Woice gives me strength, and I won't niver, niver tell." "What does Big Ben say? I don't understand." "No," said Sue; "and p'r'aps ye're not wanted to understand. It's for me and for him, poor darling, that Woice is a real comfort." The nurse left her little charge a few minutes afterwards. But before she went off duty she spoke to the night nurse, and confessed that she was anxious about the child, who ought to be recovering, and certainly would but for this great weight of trouble on her mind. All these things, which seemed in themselves unimportant, bore directly on immediate events; for when Connie and Harris arrived at St. Thomas's Hospital and made inquiries with regard to a little, freckled girl, with an honest face and sturdy figure, the hall porter went to communicate with one of the nurses, and the nurse he communicated with turned out to be the night nurse in the very ward where Sue was lying--so suffering, so ill and sorely tried. Now, the nurse, instead of sending word that this was not the hour for visiting patients, took the trouble to go downstairs herself and to interview Connie and her father. Connie gave a faithful description of Sue, and then the nurse admitted that there was a little girl in the hospital who was now in the children's surgical ward. She had been brought in a day or two ago, having a broken leg, owing to a street accident. She was a very patient, good child, but there was something strange about her--nothing would induce her to tell her name. "Then what do you call her?" asked Harris. He was still full of inward tremors, for at that moment he was thinking that of all the sweet sights on earth, that sight would be little Sue's plain face. "Have yer no name for the pore child?" he repeated. "Yes," said the nurse. "She calls herself Cinderella." "It's Sue! It's Sue herself father! God has led us to her--and it's Sue her very own self!" Poor Connie, who had borne up during so many adventures, who had faced the worst steadfastly and without fear, broke down utterly now. She flung herself into her father's arms and sobbed. "Hush, wench hush!" said the rough man. "I am willin' to do hall that is necessary.--Now then, nurse," he continued, "you see my gel--she's rather upset 'bout that pore Cinderella upstairs. But 'ave yer nothing else to say 'bout her?" "She acts in a strange way," said the nurse. "The only thing that comforts her is the sound of Big Ben when he strikes the hour. And she did speak about a little cripple brother." "Can us see her?" asked Connie just then. "It is certainly against the rules, but--will you stay here for a few minutes and I'll speak to the ward superintendent?" The nurse went upstairs. She soon returned. "Sister Elizabeth has given you permission to come up and see the child for a few minutes. This, remember, is absolutely against the ordinary rules; but her case is exceptional, and if you can give her relief of mind, so much the better." Then Connie and her father followed the nurse up the wide, clean stairs, and down the wide, spotless-looking corridors, until they softly entered a room where many children were lying, some asleep, some tossing from side to side with pain. Sue's little bed was the fifth from the door, and Sue was lying on her back, listening intently, for Big Ben would soon proclaim the hour. She did not turn her head when the nurse and the two who were seeking her entered the ward; but by-and-by a voice, not Big Ben's, sounded on her ear, and Connie flung herself by her side and covered her hand with kisses. "You don't think, Sue, do yer," said Connie, "that _us_ could stop seekin' yer until we found yer?" Sue gave a startled cry. "Connie--Connie! Oh Connie! 'ow is Giles?" "'E wants yer more than anything in all the world." "Then he--he's--still alive?" "Yus, he's still alive; but he wants yer. He thought you was in the country, gettin' pretty rooms for you and him. But oh, Sue! he's goin' to a more beautiful country now." Sue didn't cry. She was about to say something, when Harris bent forward. "God in 'eaven bless yer!" he said in a husky voice. "God in 'eaven give back yer strength for that noble deed yer ha' done for me an' mine! But it's all at an end now, Susan--all at an end--for I myself 'ave tuk the matter in 'and, an' hall you 'as to do is to get well as fast as ever yer can for the sake o' Giles." "You mustn't excite her any more to-night," said the nurse then, coming forward; "seeing," she added, "that you have given the poor little thing relief. You can come again to-morrow; but now she must stay quiet." Late as the hour was when Harris and Connie left St. Thomas's Hospital, Harris turned to Connie. "I've some'ut to do--and to-night. Shall I take yer 'ome first, or wull yer come with me?" "Oh, I will come with you, father," said Connie. "Wull then, come along." They walked far--almost as far as Cheapside. Connie could not imagine why her father was taking her into a certain dingy street, and why he suddenly stopped at a door which had not yet been shut for the night. "I thought as there were a chance of findin' him up," he said. "Come right in, gel." Connie entered, and the next minute Harris was addressing the pawnbroker from whom he had stolen the locket. "I 'ave a word to say with you," he remarked; and then he related the circumstances of that day, several weeks ago now. "But we found it," said the pawnbroker, "in the pocket of the young gel." "It was I as put it there," said Harris. "It was I--the meanest wretch on 'arth. But I've come to my senses at last. You can lock me up ef yer like. I'll stay 'ere; I won't even leave the shop ef yer want to deliver the real thief over to justice." The pawnbroker stared at the man; then he looked at Connie. There is no saying what he might have done; but Connie's face, with its pleading expression, was enough to disarm any one. "The fact is," he began "this sort o' thing ought to be punished, or however could poor folks live? But it's a queer thing. When the young gel vanished, as it seemed, into the depths of the 'arth, and I 'ad got my property back, I tuk no further trouble. In course, now that you 'ave delivered yerself up, it seems a'most fair that the law should take its course." "That's wot I think," said Harris. "Make a short job of it, man. Call in a constable; 'e can take me to Bow Street to-night." "No 'urry, man," said the pawnbroker. "I want yer to tell me some'ut more. Is that other little party alive or dead? It seems to me as though the 'arth must 'ave swallered her up." "I will tell you," said Connie; and she did relate Sue's story--as much as she knew of it--and with such pathos that even that pawnbroker, one of the hardest of men, felt a queer softness about his heart. "Wull," he said--"wull, it's a queer world! To think o' that child plannin' things out like that! And ef she ad come to me, I might ha' believed her, too. Wull now, she be a fine little crittur. An' s'pose"--he glanced at Harris--"I don't prosecute you, there's no call, to my way o' thinkin'. And the fact is, I'm too busy to be long out of the shop. Don't you steal no more, neighbor. You ha' got off dirt-cheap this time, but don't you steal no more." CHAPTER XXXVII. THE HAPPY GATHERING. There came a day in the early spring of that year when a great many pleasant things happened to the people who have been mentioned in this story. Connie's room was very bright with flowers--spring flowers--which had been sent to her all the way from Eastborough by Mrs. Cricket. Quantities of primroses were placed in a huge bowl, and the sun came feebly in at the window and seemed to kiss and bless the flowers. There were also some early buttercups and quantities of violets. Giles was neither better nor worse, but perhaps on this day he was a little bit on the side of better. It was so beautiful to think that Sue was coming back! Oh, this was a wonderful day! Sue was well again; Connie was happy; Harris was never tired of doing all he could both for Connie and Giles; and other people were happy too, for Sue's return was to be marked by a sort of holiday--a sort of general feast. To this feast was invited--first, Mrs. Anderson; then Ronald, who happened to be staying in London and was deeply excited at the thought of seeing Connie once more; and also dear Father John, who would not have missed such an occasion for the wide world. Of course, Pickles could not be left out of such a gathering; but he could scarcely be considered a guest, for did he not belong, so to speak, to the family, and was not dear Sue, in particular, his special property? Mrs. Anderson supplied the good things for the feast. This she insisted upon. So Connie spread quite a lordly board--cold meats not a few, some special delicacies for Giles, and a splendid frosted cake with the word "Cinderella" written in pink fairy writing across the top. This special cake had been made by Mrs. Price, and Pickles had brought it and laid it with immense pride on a dish in the centre of the table. "Yus," said Connie, "it do look purty, don't it? Wot with good things to eat, and wot with flowers, it's quite wonderful." When everything was arranged, Connie went into a little room to put on once again her dark-blue dress, and to unplait her thick hair and allow it to fall over her shoulders. "It's for Ronald," she said. "Ronald wouldn't know me without my hair down." Then, one by one, the visitors made their appearance--Father John, who sat down by Giles's side and held his hand, and by his mere presence gave the boy the greatest possible comfort; and Pickles, whose face was shining with hard rubbing and soap and water, and whose red hair stuck upright all over his head. Then Mrs. Anderson came in and sat down, and gave a gentle look first at Giles and then at Connie; and Connie felt that she loved her better than ever, and Giles wondered if he would meet many with faces like hers in heaven. In short, every one had arrived at last except the little heroine. But hark! there was a sound outside as though some vehicle had stopped at the door. Giles's breath came fast. There were steps on the stairs, and two porters from the hospital carried Sue in between them. "Oh, I can really walk," she said. "And oh, Giles--Giles!--Please put me down, porter; I really, really can walk." "Jest as himpatient as ever, Cinderella!" said Pickles, who always tried, as was his custom, to be specially funny in pathetic times. Sue glanced at him, but could not speak just then. There are moments in our lives when no words will come. She went up to Giles and hid her face on his pillow. Poor little Sue had a bitterly hard fight with herself, for that face, which belonged not to earth, unnerved her, notwithstanding the rapture of seeing it once again. But Giles himself was the first to recover composure. "We are 'avin' such a feast!" he said. "An' it's all _so_ beautiful! Now then, Sue I do 'ope as ye're 'ungry." After that Ronald spoke and made the others laugh; and Sue bustled about, just as though she were at home, and Connie helped her; and very soon they all crowded round the table, except Giles, who had his dainty morsels brought to him by Sue's own hands. Thus they ate and laughed and were merry, although perhaps the laughter was a little subdued and the merriment a trifle forced. It was when the feast was quite over that Father John spoke a few words--just a very few--about the love and goodness of God, and how He had brought His wandering sheep home again to the fold, and how He had helped Connie in dark times, and Ronald in dark times, and Sue in dark times. "And He is helping Giles, and will be with him to the end," said the street preacher. "And now," he added, "I think Giles is very tired and would like to be all alone with Sue. Suppose, neighbors, we go into the next room." The opening of the door of the next room was one of the surprises which had been planned by Connie and her father. As he was now earning such really excellent wages, and as he had taken the pledge and meant to keep it, he felt he was entitled to another room. It was neatly furnished. There was a fire burning in the grate, and there were white muslin curtains to the windows. Connie spoke of it with great pride as the "drawing-room," and Pickles assured her that even to set foot in that room was enough to make Connie a "lydy" on the spot. When they were alone Sue and Giles talked softly one to the other. "The blessed Woice," said Sue, "'ave been with me all the w'y." "And with me," said Giles. "You won't go jest yet, Giles," said Sue. "Wery soon--but not quite yet," he answered. Sue smiled and kissed his hand, and they talked as those who have been long parted, and know they must be parted soon again, will talk, when heart meets heart. In the other room people were not more cheerful, but at least more glad. "There is nothing left to wish for," said Pickles. "It's just the best thing in all the world for little Giles to get quite well up in heaven. Ain't it now?" he added, looking at Father John. "Yes," said Father John very briefly. Then he turned to Connie. "You must never forget all that you have lived through, Connie," he said. "You'll be a better and a braver girl just because of these dark days." "She's the best wench on 'arth," said Harris. Suddenly Ronald sprang forward and spoke. "Uncle Stephen said I was to tell you he has bought the cottage in the country where Mrs. Cricket lives and he's adding to it and making it most beautiful, and dear Mrs. Cricket is to be housekeeper, and you're all to come down in the summer--all of you--even Giles; and Giles is to stay there as long as he lives. Uncle Stephen is a splendid man," continued Ronald. "It was after him my darling V. C. father took when he became so great and brave and manly, and I love Uncle Stephen better than any one except father. Father hasn't come home yet, and perhaps I won't see him until Giles sees his father. But I'm a very, very happy boy, and it's all because of Uncle Stephen. Now, the rest of you can be happy too in my cottage--Uncle Stephen says it _is_ my cottage--in the beautiful country." * * * * * These things came to pass, and even Giles went for a short time to the beautiful country, where the flowers grew in such abundance, and where the birds sang all day long. "Now you can guess," he said to Sue after they had been there a fortnight or more, "some little bit about the joys of the Land of Pure Delight." * * * * * Transcriber's Notes 1. This book makes extensive use of dialect. Original spellings of words in dialect have been retained. 2. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. 3. Table of Contents added in this text was not present in original edition. 4. One word has been changed from the original to correctly identify the speaker, Agnes, replying to Connie's question: p. 27 original: "Wot sort?" asked Connie. replacement: "Wot sort?" asked Agnes. 
39291	----	Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Characters enclosed by curly braces are superscripted (example: iii{d}) BOY LABOUR AND APPRENTICESHIP * * * * * SOME PRESS OPINIONS Times.--"The problem already felt acutely in London and in large towns has now appeared even in the country town and village, and to those who still doubt its extent or seriousness we commend this most instructive work." Morning Post.--"An important book on an important subject." Daily News.--"Mr. Bray's book is as full of counsel as of instruction, and it should be in the hands of every student of one of the most serious of social problems." * * * * * BOY LABOUR AND APPRENTICESHIP by REGINALD A. BRAY L.C.C. Author of "The Town Child" Second Impression London Constable & Co. Ltd. 1912 PREFACE We are beginning to realize clearly that all is not well with the youth of this country. From all sides complaints of neglect, and the evils of neglect, are thronging in. Boys as they leave school are casting off the shackles of parental control, and, with no intervening period of youth, are assuming the full independence of the adult. The old apprenticeship system is falling into disuse, and methods of industrial training are at once unsatisfactory and, for the majority, difficult to obtain. Boys in increasing numbers are entering occupations where they learn nothing and forget all they have previously learned, and in which they can see no prospects of employment when manhood is reached. As a consequence, there is a general drift into the army of unskilled labour, and later into the ranks of the unemployed. All expert opinion is unanimous in voicing these complaints. The Report of the Poor Law Commission, Majority and Minority alike, with its volumes of special inquiries and evidence, is one long testimony to the gravity of the evils which are the consequence of neglected youth. Further, we are coming to understand that the period of adolescence forms a critical epoch in the development of the lad. "The forces of sin and those of virtue never struggle so hotly for possession of the youthful soul." [1] And the boy too often is left to fight out this struggle without assistance, and even without advice. The conditions of modern life are increasingly hard on youth. "Never has youth," says Mr. Stanley Hall, the greatest living authority on adolescence, "been exposed to such dangers of both perversion and arrest as in our land and day. Increasing urban life, with its temptations, prematurities, sedentary occupations, and passive stimuli, just when an active objective life is most needed; early emancipation and a lessening sense for both duty and discipline; the haste to know and do all befitting man's estate before its time; the mad rush for sudden wealth, and the reckless fashions set by its gilded youth----" all in increasing degree imperil the passage to manhood. And, lastly, we are compelled to confess that an evil which is at once a grave and a growing evil is one which demands immediate attention. It is not a problem that can be laid on the shelf for that convenient season which never arrives, when legislators have nothing else to think about. There is urgent need for reform in the near future, unless we would see a further degeneration of the youth of the country. The object of this volume is altogether practical--to show what reforms are necessary to prevent the growth of the evil by laying the foundation of a new and true apprenticeship system. But to achieve this object it is necessary first to explain how the problem was dealt with in days gone by, when life was more stable and industrial conditions less complex; and, secondly, to understand in detail the characteristic features of the question as it presents itself to-day. Only with the experience of the past and the present to guide us can we face the future with any hope of controlling its destinies. As "she" is mentioned nowhere else in the volume, it seems desirable to say a word here about the girl. This book is, indeed, concerned with boys alone, but, with a few changes in details, all that is written about conditions, and all that is recommended in the way of reforms, is equally applicable in her case also. I have endeavoured, even at the risk of being termed unduly dogmatic, to make my proposals for reform as definite as possible. I have done so in the cause of clearness. But if I fail to carry my readers with me all the way, I shall be well content if only I have succeeded in starting them on a pilgrimage in quest of the new apprenticeship system. REGINALD A. BRAY. ADDINGTON SQUARE, CAMBERWELL, S.E. CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE v CHAPTER I THE ESSENTIALS OF APPRENTICESHIP 1 CHAPTER II THE OLD APPRENTICESHIP 4 I. The Age of the Gilds 4 II. The Statute of Apprentices 11 III. The Industrial Revolution 20 CHAPTER III THE AGE OF RECONSTRUCTION 26 CHAPTER IV THE GUARDIANSHIP OF THE STATE 36 I. State Supervision 36 § 1. State Regulation 37 (_a_) Prohibition of Employment 41 (_b_) Limitation of Hours 43 (_c_) Protection of Health 52 § 2. State Enterprise 59 II. State Training 62 (_a_) The Elementary School 63 (_b_) The Continuation School 65 III. State Provision of an Opening 70 CHAPTER V APPRENTICESHIP OF TO-DAY 75 I. The Contribution of the State 76 § 1. State Regulation 76 § 2. State Enterprise 83 § 3. Summary 88 II. The Contribution of Philanthropy 89 III. The Contribution of the Home 92 § 1. The Boy of School Age 96 § 2. The Boy after School Days 100 IV. The Contribution of the Workshop 103 § 1. London 104 (_a_) The Employment of School-Children 105 (_b_) The Entry to a Trade 113 (_c_) The Passage to Manhood 142 (_d_) Summary 149 § 2. Other Towns 151 (_a_) The Employment of School-Children 151 (_b_) The Entry to a Trade 155 (_c_) The Passage to Manhood 160 § 3. Rural Districts 161 V. The Break-up of Apprenticeship 165 CHAPTER VI THE NEW APPRENTICESHIP 176 I. Supervision 191 (_a_) The Raising of the School Age 192 (_b_) The Prohibition of Child Labour 195 (_c_) The New Half-Time System 197 (_d_) The Parents' Point of View 202 II. Training 207 III. The Provision of an Opening 221 IV. General Conclusions 231 LIST OF AUTHORITIES 241 INDEX 245 BOY LABOUR AND APPRENTICESHIP CHAPTER I THE ESSENTIALS OF APPRENTICESHIP Originally the term "apprenticeship" was employed to signify not merely the practical training in the mysteries of a trade, but also that wider training of character and intelligence on which depends the real efficiency of the craftsman. Apprenticeship was regarded as a preparation for life, and not only as a preparation for the workshop. It is in this sense that the word is used throughout the present volume. In a volume concerned with any branch of social reform, and consequently likely to arouse differences of opinion, it is always desirable to start on good terms with the reader. This can best be done by beginning with assumptions the truth of which no one is likely to call in question. In dealing with the problem of boy labour and apprenticeship, it is not difficult to venture on certain statements which will receive the unqualified approval of all. An apprenticeship system worthy of the name must satisfy three conditions. First, it must provide for the adequate supervision of boys until they reach at least the age of eighteen. Before that age a lad is not fit to be his own master, and should remain at least to some extent under the control of elder persons. Such supervision must have respect both to his conduct and to his physical development. Secondly, an apprenticeship system must offer full opportunities of training, both general and special--the training of the citizen and the training of the worker. And, lastly, it must lead forward to some opening in the ranks of adult labour, for which definite preparation has been made, and in which good character may find reasonable prospects of permanent employment. Supervision, training, the provision of a suitable opening--these must be regarded as the three essentials of an apprenticeship system. How they may be assured is, no doubt, a problem which invites controversy; that they ought to be assured will be allowed by all. Further, it is perhaps allowable to assume that an apprenticeship system must not be regarded merely as a means of entering a skilled trade. We must not think of it as an organization reserved for a comparatively small section of the community: all must be brought within the sphere of its influence. All boys alike need supervision; all boys alike require some training; all boys alike should see before them, as manhood approaches, the prospects of an opening in some form of occupation where diligence and aptitude may receive its due reward. And all alike must one day play their part in the complex life of the State. We want some to be skilled workers; we want all to be intelligent and well-conducted citizens. Apprenticeship, then, using the word in its widest sense, must be universal. Here again, it is hoped, the reader may express his agreement. In what follows an attempt is made to examine the old apprenticeship system, to criticize apprenticeship as it exists to-day, and so to lead on to proposals which will pave the way for the coming of the new and real apprenticeship system of to-morrow. Throughout, the industrial organization will be judged by bringing it to the test of the principles just laid down. An apprenticeship system must be universal; it must make proper provision for three essentials--supervision, training, opening. Where these are wanting, in whole or in part, the youth of the nation must, in a more or less degree, suffer irreparable loss. CHAPTER II THE OLD APPRENTICESHIP Prior to the nineteenth century and the beginning of factory legislation the conditions of boy labour were determined in and through the industrial organization of the times. Of this organization, so far as the youthful worker was concerned, the indentured apprenticeship system formed the most characteristic feature. The history of the apprenticeship system falls into three periods. In the first the gilds were the predominant factor; in the second the State, by prescribing a seven years' apprenticeship, insured the continuance of the system; in the third the industrial revolution and the triumph of _laissez-faire_ ushered in the age of decay and dissolution. I. THE AGE OF THE GILDS. During the Early and Middle Ages the gilds constituted the central feature of the industrial organization. The merchant gilds began to come into existence in the second half of the eleventh century.[2] They were societies formed for the purpose of obtaining the exclusive privilege of carrying on trades. Later they became either identified with the municipal body, or a specialized department of that authority. The craft gilds appeared about a century later, and were associations of artisans engaged in a particular industry. It is not necessary here to enter on a discussion of the complex relations between these two kinds of gilds. The subject is obscure, but, so far as concerns the regulation of boy labour, the general facts are unquestioned. Either by obtaining a royal charter of their own or by using the authority of the municipality, the gilds were enabled to prescribe, down to the most minute details, the conditions under which the trades of the district were carried on. The control was essentially of a local character, varying from place to place; it was, moreover, a control with, for all practical purposes, the full force of the law at its back. "The towns and even the villages had their gilds, and it is certain that these gilds were the agencies by which the common interests of labour were protected." [3] The gild organization included three classes of person--the apprentice, the journeyman, and the master. _The Apprentice._--The apprentice paid the master a premium, and was indentured to him for a period of years, usually seven. He lived in his master's house, and received from him, in addition to board and clothing, wages on a low and rising scale. The master engaged to teach him his trade, and the boy promised to serve his master honestly and obediently. The following is a typical example of a fifteenth-century indenture:[4] "This indenture made the xviii of September the year of the reign of King Edward the iiiith the xxth between John Gare of Saint Mary Cray in the county of Kent, cordwainer on that oon partie and Walter Byse, son of John Byse sumtyme of Wimelton, in the same county, fuller on that other partie, Witnesseth that the saide Walter hath covenanted with the saide John Gare for the time of vii yeres, and that the saide John Gare shall find the saide Walter mete and drink and clothing during the saide time as to the saide Walter shall be according. Also the saide John Gare shall teche the saide Walter his craft, as he may and can, and also the saide John Gare shall give him the first yere of the said vii yeres iii{d} in money and the second yere vi{d} and so after the rate of iii{d} to an yere, and the last yere of the saide vii yeres the saide John Gare shall give unto the said Walter x shillings of money. And the saide Walter shall will and truly keep his occupacyon and do such things as the saide John shall bid him do, as unto the saide Walter shall be lawful and lefull, and the saide Walter shall be none ale goer neyther to no rebeld nor sporte during the saide vii yeres without the licence of the saide John. In witness whereof the parties aforesaide chaungeably have put their seales this daye and yere abovesaide." _The Journeyman._--At the expiration of the identureship the apprentice became a journeyman. The change of status, beyond bringing with it a rise in wages, made no great difference to the youth. He usually continued to work for his master, and not infrequently remained a lodger in his house. To some extent the master was still responsible for the good conduct of his journeymen. Various regulations forbade the master to entice away the journeymen of others and the journeymen to combine against the masters. _The Master._--By a somewhat similar process of growth and without any sudden break in social status, the journeyman became a master. Between journeyman and master there were no class distinctions. Both worked at their craft; and, in an age preceding the era of capitalistic production on a large scale, the need of capital to start business on his own account presented no difficulties which could not easily be overcome by any intelligent journeyman. Period of apprenticeship, hours and conditions of work, wages and premiums, were all rigidly determined by the rules of the gild. Through its officers the gild visited the workshops, inspected the articles in process of manufacture, satisfied themselves as to their quality, prescribed methods of production, were empowered to confiscate tools not sanctioned by the regulations, and settled all disputes between the three classes of persons concerned. Masters, journeymen, and apprentices alike benefited by an organization which was created and controlled in their common interests; while the general public were well served in the system of expert inspection which guaranteed the quality of the goods supplied. The gild, in short, was "the representation of the interests, not of one class alone, but of the three distinct and somewhat antagonistic elements of modern society--the capitalist _entrepreneur_, the manual worker, and the consumer at large." [5] From the point of view of the boy's training the system presented unique advantages. To the age of twenty-one, and sometimes twenty-four, he was under control. Living in the same house as his master, that control was paternal in character, inspired by a living and individual interest in his welfare. He received a thorough training in the trade to which he was indentured. Finally, when apprenticeship was over, he found ready-made for himself an opening that led upwards from the journeyman to the small master. Under this system there was no boy his own master from an early age, no master irresponsible for the conduct of his boys outside the workshops, and no blind alley of boy employment that closed with boyhood and ended in the sink of unskilled labour. It its best days the gilds represented something more than a privileged trade organization. The close connection between the gilds and the municipality guarded the interests of the public. "The city authorities looked to the wardens of each craft to keep the men under their charge in order; and thus for every public scandal, or underhand attempt to cheat, someone was responsible, and the responsibility could, generally speaking, be brought home to the right person." [6] Further, there was no sharp barrier between trade and trade. It is true that no one could enter a trade without being apprenticed, but the person who had served his seven years' apprenticeship in any one trade became free to follow all trades within the city.[7] The gild system represented therefore something very different from the individualist methods of modern times. There was in a real sense, at any rate in each town, a trade organization under no inconsiderable amount of collective control. But the organization of the gild was suited only to the conditions of a more or less primitive society. For a country rising rapidly to a front place in the commercial world it was ill adapted. Increasing trade brought wealth and a desire for wealth; and with wealth came power to those who possessed it. The richer members of the gild gained the upper hand in the administration of its affairs and oppressed the poorer.[8] The gild was no longer an association of equals; and the weaker went to the wall. Competition turned the methods of production in the direction of cheapness rather than good quality; and the supervisory functions of the gild disappeared. In general the whole system, rigid and inelastic, became a heavy drag on the industrial organization. The members had paid for their privileges in money and a long apprenticeship, and bitterly resented the appearance of intruders not hall-marked by the gild. With shortsighted policy, the gilds limited admissions by exacting high entrance-fees, and strove to secure the maximum of benefits for the smallest possible number. No longer an association of equals, united by common interests and a common outlook; no longer a guarantee of excellence in matters of craftmanship; no longer the guardian of the interests of the general public, but a narrow sect claiming exclusive privileges--the gilds, rent by strife and envy within, and regarded with open hostility by those outside, drifted slowly towards that inevitable end which awaits those who seek to sacrifice the needs of all on the altar of the selfish desires of the few. "In the sixteenth century," says Dr. Cunningham, "the gilds had in many cases so entirely lost their original character that they had not only ceased to serve useful purposes, but their ill-judged interference drove workmen to leave the towns and establish themselves in villages where the gilds had no jurisdiction." [9] They received their death-blow in the year 1547, through the legislation directed against the property of the semi-religious bodies. With the decay of the gilds and their final dissolution passed the ancient system which had for centuries regulated the conditions of boy labour. So far as the boy was concerned the system was founded on three principles: It recognized his need for prolonged control and supervision, and made provision for the need by securing for him, through his master, an interest at once individual and paternal. It recognized the need for a thorough training in the mysteries of the craft; and it recognized the need that, at the close of this training, the lad should find opening out for him a career for which he had been specially prepared. And it made provision for these needs by its scheme of inspection and control carried on by those responsible for the common interests of the trade. In short, the gild organization, in its earlier and flourishing days, may justly be regarded as satisfying the conditions of a true apprenticeship system. II. THE STATUTE OF APPRENTICES. If the gild system was dead, the principles for which it stood and made provision continued to be as important as ever. Nor under the industrial conditions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries did there appear to be any practical difficulty in the way of enforcement. The small master remained, and with him remained the possibility of an effective apprenticeship system. Regulated by custom or by the municipal authority, apprenticeship lost nothing of its old vitality. Indeed, with the increase of trade and the increasing profits derived from trade, it became more popular than ever. None the less, signs are not wanting that people were conscious of faults in the industrial organization. Into the statute book of the period creep frequent allusions to intruders who had entered the trade other than through the door of apprenticeship. There was nothing new in these complaints; they existed even in the best days of the gilds. "We seem at a very early time," says Mrs. Green, "to detect behind the gild system a growing class of 'uncovenanted labour,' which the policy of the employers constantly tended to foster, their aim being on the one hand to limit the number of privileged serving-men, and on the other to increase the supply of uncovenanted labour." [10] But with the decay of the supervisory functions of the gild these complaints became more frequent. The condition of this "uncovenanted labour" has always been the unsolved problem in any apprenticeship system. If uncovenanted labour is allowed to enter a trade on the same terms as those who have served an apprenticeship, the latter have clearly a grievance. They have paid for their privilege in premium and long service at low wages, and not unnaturally demand some assured recompense in return. If, on the other hand, uncovenanted labour is rigidly excluded, there is no method of rapidly increasing the supply of workers in times of expanding trade. From this dilemma there is but one way of escape. All boys, irrespective of the trades they follow, must pass through a system of apprenticeship before they are permitted to earn the wages of a man. Two conditions are necessary to success. First, all boys without exception must serve an apprenticeship; secondly, having served this apprenticeship, they must not in their employment be restricted to the trade to which they have been indentured. As already shown, the gilds, at any rate in certain districts, allowed a person who had served an apprenticeship in one trade to be free of all the trades of the town. The gilds satisfied the second condition, and in their earlier days, when they included the majority of the population, they satisfied to a large extent the second condition as well. To satisfy the first condition was clearly, as will appear later, the intention of the Statute of Apprentices. But apart from the problem of uncovenanted labour, the disappearance of the controlling influence of the gilds left many anomalies. Here apprenticeship was regulated by custom, here by charter, and there left undetermined. In one place a certain period of service was exacted, in another place a different period. Finally, in the minds of the leaders of the day there was firmly fixed the belief that, as trade was becoming the life-blood of the nation, there was need of a general and consolidating Act giving the force of law to what was often only a floating custom applicable in a certain district. In the reign of Elizabeth these growing feelings of discontent found voice in an Act which marks an epoch in industrial legislation. It is usually known as the Statute of Artificers and Apprentices. After reciting the confusion that existed in previous legislation, the preamble continues: "So if the substance of as many of the said Laws as are meet to be continued shall be digested and reduced into one sole law and Statute, and in the same an uniform Order prescribed and limited concerning the Wages and other Orders for Apprentices, Servants and Labourers, there is good hope that it will come to pass, that the same law (being duly executed) should banish Idleness, advance Husbandry, and yield unto the hired person, both in the time of Scarcity and in the time of Plenty, a conventient Proportion of Wages." [11] We are here concerned with the Act only so far as it affects the conditions of boy labour. The principal regulations are the following: "No person shall retain a servant in their services (_i.e._, in employment for which apprenticeship was required) under one whole Year." [12] Husbandmen may take apprentices "from the age of 10 until 21 at least," or till twenty-four by agreement.[13] Householders in towns may "have and retain the son of any Freeman not occupying Husbandry nor being a Labourer ... to serve and be bound as an Apprentice, after the Custom and Order of the City of London, for seven years at the least so as the Term and years of such Apprentice do not expire or determine after such Apprentice shall be of the Age of twenty-four Years at the least." [14] "None may use any manual occupacyon unless he hath been apprenticed to the same as above." [15] "If a person be required by any Householder to be an Apprentice and refuse he may be brought before a justice of the peace who is empourred to commit him unto Ward, there to remain until he be contented, and will be bounden to serve as an Apprentice should serve." [16] The Elizabethan Poor Law gave additional powers with regard to the compulsory apprenticing of those likely to fall into evil ways, and made it lawful for churchwardens and overseers "to bind any such children as aforesaid to be Apprentices, when they shall see convenient, till such Man child shall come to the age of four-and-twenty yeares." [17] Taken together, these two Acts gave to public authorities large powers of control over the growing boy. They did not, indeed, provide that everyone should be apprenticed, but in the majority of occupations no one could be employed unless he had served his time. Nor did they allow a person who had been apprenticed to one trade to work at another. But they applied the system of compulsory apprenticeship to all parts of the country, and they made provision for the proper care, by way of apprenticeship, of neglected children. People of the time were clearly of one mind in their desire to supervise, through the State, the training of the youth. "Contemporary opinion held that it was neither good for society nor trade that the young man should enjoy any independence. 'Until a man grows unto the age of xxiii yeares he for the moste parte, thoughe not alwayes, is wilde, withoute Judgment, and not of sufficient experience to govern himself. Nor (many tymes) grown unto the full or perfect knowledge of the arte or occupation that he professed.'" [18] As to the general effect of the far-reaching Statute of Apprentices, it is not possible to do better than quote Dr. Cunningham: "A proof of the wisdom of the measure seems to lie in the fact that we have no complaints as to these restrictions in the Act or proposals for amending the clauses, but that, on the contrary, there was, on more than one occasion, a demand that it should be rigorously enforced, so that the industrial system of the country should be really reduced to order." [19] For more than two centuries, without amendment, the Act remained in force; and while it lasted it provided at least the possibility for the adequate training and supervision of the youth of the country. These two centuries constitute the second stage in the history of boy labour regulation. From a superficial point of view there appears no essential difference between this period and the preceding. In the first apprenticeship was enforced through the action of the gilds, in the second by special legislative enactment. In either case apprenticeship was, for all practical purposes, compulsory; but here the similarity ends. Under the régime of the gilds apprenticeship was enforced, but in addition its conditions were determined by a careful system of regulation. The gild, an association representing the three classes concerned--masters, journeymen, apprentices--supervised the industrial organization in the interests of all alike. In the best days of the gilds the trade, as a whole, inspected the workshops; the trade, as a whole, watched over the training of the youth; the trade, as a whole, so fixed the number of those entering, that at the conclusion of the apprenticeship there was room in the ranks of the skilled artisan for those who had learned their craft. During the disintegration of the gilds, this second factor gradually disappeared. The Statute of Apprentices did indeed make apprenticeship compulsory, but provided no efficient system of regulation. Measures were frequently advocated and occasionally embodied in Acts for determining the proportion of apprentices to journeymen, but never proved effective. We see gradually emerging the struggle between the conflicting interests of those engaged in production. A seven years' apprenticeship, enforced by law, gave the employers a source of cheap labour, and we begin to hear complaints that the number of apprentices was unduly multiplied and that boys were taking the place of men. To what extent this practice prevailed it is not easy to ascertain; but there is no question that, at any rate among one class of apprentice--the pauper apprentice--abuses were grave and frequent. The whole story of the pauper apprentice forms an ugly episode in the industrial history of the period. The Statute Book is punctuated with frequent allusion to his unfortunate lot, coupled with proposals for reform, for the most part ineffective. As already mentioned, the overseers had large powers of compulsorily apprenticing the children of the poor. A sum was paid to the employer, the lad handed over, and no steps taken to guard his well-being or guarantee his training. It was inevitable that under conditions such as these abuses should occur. The employer found himself provided with a continual supply of lads, bound to serve him until the age of twenty-one, or sometimes twenty-four; he was not troubled by visits of inspectors; he could use them as he pleased. The luckless apprentices were herded together in overcrowded and insanitary dwellings; they were overworked and underfed; they learned no trade, and were regarded as a cheap form of unskilled labour. If they misbehaved themselves the justices of the peace would punish them; if they ran away the law would see to it that they were returned to their masters; if they complained of ill-treatment there was no one to substantiate the charge. Whole trades seemed to have flourished by exploiting the parish apprentices; and not infrequently the overseer, himself an employer, made a comfortable profit out of their misfortunes.[20] In his "History of the Poor Law" Sir G. Nicholls summarizes the legislation on the subject.[21] With the rapid increase in the number of paupers at the close of the eighteenth century these evils multiplied, and to an increasing extent engaged the public attention. If one class of apprentice was thus exploited, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that, in a less degree, others suffered in a similar way. Compulsory apprenticeship, without effective regulation, brought with it the danger of compulsory servitude. The State was conscious of the danger, and duties of supervision were laid on the justices of the peace. The State was likewise conscious of the value of apprenticeship, and gave much attention to the subject. A Commission of Charles I. dealt with the problem, while an Act of James I. was concerned with the misuse of apprenticeship charities, which led to children being brought up in idleness, "to their utter overthrow and the great prejudice of the commonwealth." [22] But legislation proved incapable of preventing evils which increased rapidly as the years went by. From the standpoint of the boy the second period, whose characteristic was compulsion without supervision, was distinctly inferior to the first, when the gilds regulated the affairs of the trade for the common good. But if the apprenticeship system was weakening and abuses on the increase, an effective training was always possible. The small master still remained, there was still the call for the all-round craftsman, and the huge changes in methods of production, that were destined to appear later, still lay in the mists of the future. III. THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. It was the invention of the steam-engine and the consequent introduction of machinery that ushered in the period of the industrial revolution. In the trades affected the consequences were immediate, profound, and disastrous for boys, journeymen, and small masters alike. "On the whole, machinery rendered it possible in many departments of industry to substitute unskilled for skilled labour." [23] In branches of certain trades boys took the place of men. "Under the new conditions (of calico-printing) boys could be employed in what had been hitherto the work of men; so that, in the introduction of machinery, complaints began to be made by the journeymen as to the undue multiplication of apprentices. There was one shop in Lancashire where fifty-five apprentices had been working at one time and only two journeymen; it was obvious that under such circumstances the man who had served his time had very little hope of obtaining employment." [24] A system of compulsory apprenticeship, under such conditions, was exploited for the benefit of the employer, and led inevitably to the injury of the boy. The latter was bound and could not escape, while the former could readily find an excuse for discharging an apprentice. Further, with the growing division of labour and the separation of boys' work from men's work, training became less easy. The boy was kept to a single operation, and when his time was up found no further call for his services. The position of the workmen in the trade appeared desperate. Owing to the competition of boys and the decrease in the demand for his skill, wages were rapidly falling, and at the same time the price of corn was rising by leaps and bounds. The small master, unable to compete with the cheapness of the machine-made goods, fared as badly as the journeyman. Both appealed to Parliament for redress, "usually demanding the prohibition of the new machines, the enforcement of a seven years' apprenticeship, or the maintenance of the old limitation of the number of boys to be taught by each employer." [25] But appeals of this kind fell on deaf ears. The spirit of the age was against interference, and opposition to all form of regulation was rapidly growing. The Statute of Apprentices was disliked by the large employers, and an eager agitation began for its repeal. Though obsolescent, it was still sufficiently alive to be troublesome. A seven years' apprenticeship, it was argued, was unnecessarily long; weaving, for example, could be learnt in two or three years. A Commission was appointed to consider the question, and the large employers pointed out "that the new processes could be learnt in a few months instead of seven years; and that the restriction of the old master craftsman to two or three apprentices apiece was out of the question with the new buyers of labour on a large scale." [26] In the House of Commons "Mr. Sergeant Onslow urged the repeal of the Act, and remarked that 'the reign of Elizabeth was not one in which sound principles of commerce were known.' The true principles of commerce (said another M.P.) appeared at that time to be misunderstood, and the Act in question proved the truth of this assertion. The persons most competent to form regulations with respect to trade were the master manufacturer, whose interest it was to have goods of the best fabric, and no legislative enactment could ever effect so much in producing that result as the merely leaving things to their own courses and operations." [27] The skilled craftsmen, on the other hand, petitioned in favour of compulsory apprenticeship. But in the growing enthusiasm for the theory whose sole tenet lay in the belief that the haven of prosperity lay in the mid-ocean of uncontrolled liberty, all pleas in favour of regulation were treated with contempt. The famous Chalmers, speaking of the Statute of Apprentices, declared that "this law, so far as it requires apprenticeship, ought to be repealed, because its tendency is to abolish and to prevent competition among workmen." [28] In the year 1814 the Statute of Apprentices was repealed;[29] and with its repeal the State washed its hands of all responsibility for the well-being of the youth of the land. Henceforth things were to be left "to their own courses and operations." It is no doubt true that there remained the "Health and Morals of Apprentices Act," passed in 1802; this Act prescribed certain conditions as to hours of work and sanitation. But the Act in itself was utterly "ineffective," [30] and for all practical purposes employers were unfettered in their use or misuse of children. There remained one more blow to be struck before the condition of the boy touched the lowest level of misery reached in the whole history of this country; and it was soon struck with that relentless vigour which marked the actions of the reformer in those times. After the repeal of the Statute of Apprentices there was for the lad no sort of legal guarantee of training, no kind of State supervision over his conduct; he could work how and when it pleased him or his parents. But the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 made it necessary for him to work how and when it pleased his employer, and took from him all possibility of effective choice. This Act abolished the allowance system in aid of wages. Salutary and even necessary as some reform of the kind was, in the particular way in which it was carried out it fell with crushing force on the unfortunate children. Hitherto parents could receive so much per child out of the rates; from henceforth this was to be illegal. Wages indeed rose, but rose slowly and in patches. The earnings of the child were required to make existence even possible for the family. A foreign and impartial student of English affairs has made this truth abundantly clear: "Even granted that the labourer himself now needed no allowance, what had he in place of the allowance for his family and the out-of-work relief? Something in place of these he must have, for even labourers' families must live.... What was the way out? The labourer must sell more labour power; and since his own was already sold, he must put that of his family upon the market. This was how the problem of the married man was solved.... We have already seen that the expansion of the gang system took place mainly after 1834; it appears that the exploitation of child-labour and women's labour is the main characteristic of the period between the Poor Law and the Education Acts. When Dr. Kay was examined before the Lords' Committee on the Poor Law Amendment Act, he described the astonishment of travellers at the number of women and children working in the fields, and traced their increased employment to the Poor Law. In his own words: 'The extent of employment for women and children has most wonderfully increased since the Poor Law came into operation. It has had that effect by rendering it necessary that the children should be so employed in order to adjust the wages to the wants of the family....' And a country clergyman gave expression to similar views in 1843: 'By these allowances their children were not then obliged, as now, to work for their subsistence. Their time was at their own disposal; and then they were sent more regularly to the schools. But since the new Poor Law this has been reversed.'" [31] Those persons who nowadays talk genially of the ease with which the new Poor Law was enforced, would do well to remember that the ease was purchased at the high price of the physical and moral deterioration of the children. Chalmers had got his way, there was now free competition among the workmen; and free competition among the workmen meant then, as it has always meant since, the unregulated slavery of the weak. With the repeal of the Statute of Apprentices and the passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act, the old apprenticeship system came to an end. No longer capable of being controlled in the common interests of the trade and the community, no longer capable of being enforced by statutory enactment, the apprenticeship system in its ancient form, though it might linger among certain industries, was destined slowly to disappear. We may regret its disappearance, as the vanishing of a fragment of an old-world life; but repinings are idle unless directed toward the search for some substitute adequate to the needs of the present. CHAPTER III THE AGE OF RECONSTRUCTION The last chapter closed on the darkest scene in the long history of child labour in this country. Of the three factors essential to a true apprenticeship, not one was found or its need even recognized in the wild riot of the industrial revolution. Of public or organized supervision of the youth of the land there was not a trace. The controlling influence of the gild system had long since disappeared; the powers of regulation that lay in the Statute of Apprentices and the Elizabethan Poor Law had been withdrawn; free and unrestricted traffic in the use of children was the watchword of the age. Babies of four and five years worked alongside the adult and for the same number of hours; there were persons of intelligence who saw in this gain extracted from infants not the least of the triumphs of the day. Children's lives were often a mere alternation of two kinds of darkness--the darkness of night giving place to the darkness of the mine. Boys and girls were hired out in troops to a taskmaster, herded in barns regardless of the claims of health and decency, and driven in gangs into the fields of the farmer. Whether in the mine or the factory or on the farm, the present profits of the employer, and not the future welfare of the race, were alone considered. Industrial training throughout the new manufacturing districts was treated with open contempt. A person, the masters urged, could learn the trade in a few months; while as for the provision of an opening that would lead from the work of the youth to the work of the adult, it was not to be imagined that a subject of this complexity should receive attention at a time when the narrow circuit of the prosperous factory set a limit to the horizon of men's thoughts. In short, over the whole field of industry the desire for immediate success dominated the larger, but more remote, interests of the future. What was most significant of the times was not the flood of misery that swept over the country so much as the spirit of complacent satisfaction with which it was regarded. That the industrial revolution was in the cause of progress, the reform of the Poor Law essential, and the decay of the old apprenticeship system inevitable, men of intelligence could not fail to recognize; but they might also have recognized that the profound transformation of the whole social and industrial structure involved could not take place without widespread suffering and demoralization. Men of the day did see these things, but saw them with unconcern. Progress involved change, and change demanded its toll of pain; but it was not the duty of the State to ease the passage or to yield to the outcry of what they looked on as the silly sentimentalist. The general view of contemporary opinion finds itself reflected in the Whig and Radical journals. In 1819 the _Edinburgh Review_ declared: "After all, we must own that it was quite right to throw out the Bill for prohibiting the sweeping of chimneys by boys--because humanity is a modern invention; and there are many chimneys in old houses that cannot possibly be swept in any other manner;" while the Radical paper, the _Gorgon_, was also inclined to sneer at the House of Commons for "its ostentatious display of humanity in dealing with trivialities like the slave trade, climbing-boys, and the condition of children in factories." [32] The above represents the orthodox opinion of the time. The age was the age of the triumph of the individualist. His was the gospel that inspired the economist; his were the maxims which guided the legislator; his were the principles that were realized in the practice of the manufacturer. For one brief moment in the history of the world's progress the individualist was supreme; and then the world reeled back in horror from the hell of sin and misery he had created. Even in the early days there were not wanting voices to protest against the theory that in the balance-sheet of the trader was to be found the final test of national righteousness. As far back as the year 1801 Mr. Justice Grose, in sentencing an employer for overworking and maltreating an apprentice, declared: "Should the manufacturers insist that without these children they could not advantageously follow their trade, and the overseers say that without such opportunity they could not get rid of these children, he should say to the one, that trade must not for the thirst of lucre be followed, but at once, for the sake of society, be abandoned; and to the other, it is a crime to put out these children, who have no friend to see justice done, to incur deformity and promote consumption or other disease. This obviously leads to their destruction--not to their support." [33] And in the year 1802 was passed the "Health and Morals of Apprentices Act," an Act important not for its results, which were insignificant, but as a protest against the gospel of individualism, and as the first of the long series of Factory Acts which heralded the dawn of a new age. This new age, which reaches down to the present time, and of which the end is not yet, was an age of reconstruction. It represented an attempt, unconscious for the most part, to reinstate in a changed form the principles which underlay the old apprenticeship system. It is true that throughout the whole period indentured apprenticeship was in process of gradual decay, and is now become almost a negligible factor in the industrial world; but it is no less true that from its ruins was slowly rising an organization destined to prove a fitting and even a superior substitute. The final stage of development lies still in the future; the adjustments required to meet the complex needs of modern industry are innumerable; and we are only beginning to see the outlines of a new apprenticeship system towards which we have been drifting for nearly a century. To tell in detail the history of these long years of slow progress would be foreign to the purpose of this book; but certain characteristics, which mark the process of change, are sufficiently germane to the discussions of to-day to justify consideration. In the first place, the forces which repeatedly faced and beat down the resistance of those who stood for unregulated industry were not the forces of economic analysis; few forces that make for great changes are the product of such unimpassioned reason. Factory and kindred legislation were throughout the triumph of sentiment, and not the victory of logic. During the course of the nineteenth century men became slowly more sensitive to the fact of suffering, less tolerant of its continued existence. The Liberal essayist was historically correct when he said contemptuously that humanity was a modern invention. In earlier days little heed was paid to the physical well-being of the individual journeyman or apprentice. If the gilds forbade the carrying on of a craft by night, it was because the dim gloom of ancient illuminants meant bad work, and not because protracted toil made unhealthy workmen. When the State concerned itself with hours of employment, it was to prescribe a minimum, and not to fix a maximum; to keep a man busy, and therefore out of mischief, was deemed more important than to allow him leisure for thought or recreation. In this new sentiment of humanity lay the motive power which drove Parliament on to spasmodic acts of factory legislation. The sentiment was at once a source of weakness and a source of strength. It was a source of weakness because sentiment is essentially local in its sphere of influence. It does not search out the objects on which its favours are lavished; they must be brought by others to its very doors and repeatedly thrust over the threshold till entrance is forced. It lacks the breadth, the insight, and the calm of that imaginative reason which is now slowly taking its place. In the case of suffering, for example, it troubles itself not at all about the more remote causes of suffering or the more remote sufferer, but surges round some particular sufferer or some particular grievance, existing here and now.[34] Sentiment, at any rate the British type of sentiment, is not touched by abstractions; visions of humanity in the throes of travail leave it unmoved; appeals to the ultimate principles of justice fail to produce even a throb of sympathetic interest; it is only the concrete--the oppressed child or the widowed mother--that lets loose the flood. For the more profound solution of social problems such sentiment is useless, but for the attack of specific evils, especially where the opposition is well organized, it displays amazing stubbornness and resource. Its strength lies in its unreason; argument is of no avail; here are certain cases of suffering it will not tolerate; a remedy must be found and Parliament must find it; there will be no peace until something is done. It was in this way that regulation of child labour began, and indeed has continued down to the present time. The result is patchy, and the removal of evils partial and unsystematic. There has been, for example, no serious attempt made to set up a minimum standard of conditions under which alone children shall be employed; least of all has the State endeavoured to formulate a new apprenticeship system, adapted to the needs of modern industry. Much indeed has been done in both directions; but much more remains for the future to carry through before we can hope to read in the efficiency of the race the sign-mark of our success. The first characteristic, then, of the age of reconstruction is to be found in the predominating influence of sentiment. The second characteristic is seen in the triumph of the idealist over the combined forces of the doctrinaire and the practical man. Every proposal for regulating child labour was fought on the same lines; there were the same arguments and the same replies. The individualist urged that State interference was in itself an evil, that, though the consequences might be delayed and the immediate effect even beneficial, you might rest assured that in the long-run your sin would find you out. The wealthy citizen declared that if boys might not climb his chimneys, his chimneys must go unswept; the manufacturer predicted certain ruin to his trade if he were forbidden to use children as seemed best to him; while all united in urging that if the children were not at work they would be doing something worse, and pointed out the obvious cruelty of depriving half-starved parents of the scanty earnings of their half-starved offspring. To all these and similar objections the idealist, with his clearer vision of the reality of things, and firm in his faith that the prosperity of a people could never be the final outcome of allowing an obvious wrong, made response. He sympathized with the individualist for the dreary pessimism of a creed which could see the future alone coloured with hope if heralded by the sobs of suffering children. The wealthy citizen he bade roughly burn his house and build another sooner than sacrifice the lives of boys to the needs of his chimneys. While as for the manufacturer, he told him, as Mr. Justice Grose had told him earlier, that, if his engines needed children as fuel, his was a trade the country was best rid of. To those employers who pleaded the small wages of the parents he suggested the grim and crude and obvious remedy of paying those parents more. And the idealist, with the sentiment of the British public to back him, won the day. But if sentiment gave the idealist his victory, it was the future that brought him a full justification. His sin after many years is yet seeking him; the wealthy citizen found other and innocent means of cleansing his chimneys; the manufacturer placidly adapted himself to the new conditions, and his trade flourished exceedingly; the wages of parents rose rapidly, and what small measure of health and happiness that has come to the children of the poor during the last century has come to them through the defeat and the defiance of the individualist. A hundred years have rolled by, and yet to all new regulation the same old objections are raised by the individualist. But his day is gone, and with his day he also is going. A few, indeed, are left, interesting survivals of the early Victorian age. But for the great majority of the population regulation has no fears; they welcome and invite it. And, further, not only are they willing to forbid unsatisfactory conditions of employment, they are also ready to spend public money to secure a proper environment and a suitable training for children. What they will not tolerate is the continued existence of unnecessary suffering; and they are coming more and more to realize that a vast mass of the suffering of to-day is unnecessary. Principles, even though openly professed, will not look suffering in the face and pass on.[35] Humanity is no longer a modern invention, it has become the guiding spirit of the age. Thus we can face the morning of the twentieth century in a spirit of hope. We may look for more consistent support and less strenuous opposition than in the past. We may in consequence think out and introduce schemes of a more far-reaching character. Empirical patching will give place to reconstruction on a large scale. In other words, the sentiment of the nineteenth century, wayward and uncertain in its method of action, and at its best troubling itself about a remedy for actual suffering, will be superseded by the imaginative reason of the twentieth, which looks rather to prevention than to cure. CHAPTER IV THE GUARDIANSHIP OF THE STATE The age of reconstruction is not complete, and for the moment we are left with the products of sentiment as revealed in the tangled and piecemeal legislation respecting boy labour. Before making new proposals, it is desirable to survey the existing laws on the subject, in order to discover to what extent the State acts as the guardian of the child by making provision for the three essential factors of a true apprenticeship system--supervision, training, opening. The present chapter will be concerned with a description of the statutory machinery; in the next the value of the machinery will be tested by examining its results in actual experience. I. STATE SUPERVISION. Supervision is the first essential of an apprenticeship system. A boy must remain under adequate control, as regards his conduct and physical development, until the age of eighteen is reached; before then he is too young to be allowed safely to become his own master. What part does the State, as guardian, play in this work of supervision? This volume is concerned with the answer to the question only so far as that answer has a direct bearing on the general problem of boy labour. A statement, for example, of the criminal law, of the law relating to public health, or of the poor law, lies outside its scope. The guardianship of the State, in respect of supervision, is of two kinds. On the one hand the State appears as the guardian of the boy by restricting his employment, or by forbidding it under certain specified unfavourable conditions--State regulation; on the other hand--as, for example, in its system of education--it assumes a more active rôle, and itself provides for the boy some of the discipline and training he requires--State enterprise. § 1. STATE REGULATION. The State, by regulation, may protect the boy in three ways-- 1. _Prohibition._--The State may protect the boy by forbidding his employment below a certain age or in certain classes of industry. 2. _Limitation of Hours._--The State may protect the boy by fixing a limit to the number of hours during which he may be employed. 3. _Health and Safety._--The State may protect the boy by enforcing certain regulations as regards sanitation in the workshop or the proper guarding of machinery, or may require a medical certificate to show that the boy is physically fit for the occupation in which he is engaged. We shall best understand the measure of protection afforded the boy by the State by classifying the statutory regulations under these three headings rather than by taking the individual Acts and analyzing them separately. The principal Acts concerned are the following: The Factory and Workshop Act, 1901. Metalliferous Mines Regulation Act, 1872. Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1887. Mines (Prohibition of Child Labour Underground) Act, 1900. The Shop Hours Act, 1892. The Employment of Children Act, 1903. The Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act, 1894. Children Act, 1908. And the various Acts relating to compulsory attendance at school-- Elementary Education Act, 1876. Elementary Education Act, 1880. Elementary Education (School Attendance) Act, 1893. And the Act amending this last Act, 1899. To make what follows clearer, and to avoid repetition, it is desirable to add a few remarks about two of these Acts. The Factory and Workshop Act is concerned with the conditions of employment in premises "wherein labour is exercised by way of trade or for purposes of gain in or incidental to any of the following purposes--namely: "(i.) The making of an article or part of any article; or "(ii.) The altering, repairing, ornamenting, or finishing of any article; or "(iii.) The adapting for sale of an article." [36] Premises in which such operations are carried on are divided into these four classes: 1. _Textile factories_, where mechanical power is used in connection with the manufacture of cotton, wool, hair, silk, flax, hemp, jute, or other like material; 2. _Non-textile factories_, where mechanical power is used in connection with the manufacture of articles other than those included in (1), and, in addition, certain industries, such as "print works," or lucifer-match works, whether mechanical power is or is not employed;[37] 3. _Workshops_ where articles are manufactured without the aid of mechanical power; and-- 4. _Domestic workshops or factories_, where a private house or room is, by reason of the work carried on there, a factory or a workshop, where mechanical power is not used, and in which the only persons employed are members of the same family dwelling there.[37] The Act also has a limited reference to laundries, docks, buildings in course of construction and repair, and railways.[39] Certain definitions are important in the interpretation of the regulations. The expression "child" means a person under the age of fourteen, who is not exempt from attendance at school.[40] The expression "young person" means a person who has ceased to be a child, and is under the age of eighteen.[41] These expressions will be used with this significance in the remainder of this chapter, unless the contrary is stated. The authority for the enforcement of the Factory and Workshop Act is in general the Home Office, acting through its inspectors. In certain cases, which will be mentioned later, the duty of enforcement is imposed on one or other of the locally elected bodies. The regulations comprised in the Employment of Children Act are in part of general application, in part dependent on by-laws made by the local authority, and approved by the Home Secretary. The local authority, for the enforcement of the Act and for the making of by-laws, is, in the case of London, exclusive of the City, for which the Common Council is the authority, the London County Council; in the case of a municipal borough with a population according to the census of 1901 of over 10,000, the Borough Council; in the case of any other urban district with a population of over 20,000, the District Council; in the case of the remainder of England and Wales, the County Council.[42] These are the chief Acts through which are regulated the conditions of boy labour. Each in a more or less degree is concerned with prohibition, limitation of hours, and health regulations. It now remains to examine the extent of the protection provided. _(a) Prohibition of Employment._ There is no law forbidding children below a certain age to work for wages. In default of local by-laws, it is still legal to employ children of any age, however young, in a large number of occupations. Prohibition takes the form of forbidding the employment of children in certain trades regarded as specially dangerous to health or demoralizing to character. 1. It is illegal to employ children or young persons "in the part of a factory or workshop in which there is carried on the process of silvering mirrors by the mercurial process or the process of making white lead." [43] And the Secretary of State has power to extend this prohibition to other dangerous trades.[44] 2. It is illegal to employ underground in any mine boys under the age of thirteen,[45] and no boy under the age of twelve may be employed above-ground in connection with any mine.[46] 3. A child may not be employed "in the part of a factory or workshop in which there is carried on any grinding in the metal trade, or the dipping of lucifer-matches." [47] 4. A child under the age of eleven may not be employed in street-trading--_i.e._, in "the hawking of newspapers, matches, flowers, and other articles, playing, singing, or performing for profit, shoe-blacking, or any like occupation carried on in streets or public places." [48] 5. In theatres and shows, children under seven may not be employed at all, and children under eleven can only be employed on a licence granted by a magistrate.[49] Omitting ways of earning money, as by begging, which cannot properly be regarded as forms of employment, and ancient Acts, such as the Chimney Sweepers Act of 1840, which prohibited the apprenticing of children under the age of sixteen to the trade of the sweep, or the Agricultural Gangs Act, 1867, which forbade the employment of children under eight in an agricultural gang--Acts which have now little practical importance--the regulations outlined above comprise the whole of the regulations which prohibit throughout the country the employment of boys in certain forms of occupation. For any extension of prohibition we must look to the by-laws which may, but need not, be made by local authorities under the provisions of the Employment of Children Act. Under this Act the local authority may make by-laws prescribing for all children below the age which employment is illegal, and may prohibit absolutely, or may permit, subject to conditions, the employment of children under the age of fourteen in any specified occupation.[50] The by-laws may likewise prohibit or allow, under conditions, "street trading" by persons under the age of sixteen.[51] But in either case the by-laws, before becoming operative, must be confirmed, after an inquiry is held, by the Home Secretary.[52] As an example of prohibition through by-laws made under this Act, the case of London outside the City may be cited. The by-laws of the London County Council forbid the employment of all children under the age of eleven, the employment of children under the age of fourteen as "lather boys" in barbers' shops, and the employment of boys under the age of sixteen in "street trading," unless they wear on the arm a badge provided by the Council. _(b) Limitation of Hours._ There is no law limiting for all children or for all young persons the number of hours which may be worked. It is still legal in the majority of occupations to employ young persons, and in default of by-laws school-children on days when the schools are closed, for a number of hours restricted only by the length of the day. As with prohibition, so the matter stands with the limitation of hours. Glaring evils, just because they glared, have from time to time been dealt with by legislation; other evils no less serious have been ignored merely because they have not chanced to attract attention. The result of this piecemeal legislation and enactment by by-laws is a chaos of intricate regulations, applicable to persons of different age and different sex, varying from trade to trade and from place to place. I am, fortunately, concerned here only with the male sex, and shall begin with the boy young person, and then proceed to the boy child. _The Young Person._--Far the most important, because the most detailed and the most comprehensive, of the Acts dealing with the limitation of hours is the Factory and Workshops Act. Under this Act the hours of employment are restricted by specifying the hours during which alone employment may be carried on. No employment is allowed on Sundays except in the case of Jewish factories closed on Saturday, or of certain industries specially sanctioned for the purpose by the Home Secretary. In textile factories,[53] the period of employment for young persons is from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., or from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., with two hours for meals, and on Saturdays from 6 a.m. to 11.30 a.m., with half an hour for meals.[54] In non-textile factories and workshops the chief difference lies in the fact that the interval for meals is half an hour shorter, while on Saturdays employment is permitted between 6 a.m. and 2 p.m., with half an hour for meals.[55] In domestic factories and workshops the hours of employment are from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., with four and a half hours for meals, and on Saturdays from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m., with two and a half hours for meals.[56] Overtime is in general prohibited.[57] Employment inside and outside a factory or workshop in the business of the factory or workshop is prohibited, except during the recognized period, on any day on which the young person is employed inside the factory or workshop both before and after the dinner-hour.[58] Thus the maximum number of hours in a week, including meal-times, during which a young person may be employed is, in textile factories, 65-1/2; in non-textile factories and workshops, 68; in domestic factories and workshops, 85; or, excluding meal-times, the hours in the three classes are 55, 60, and 60 respectively. The Act applies only to those employed in factories and workshops. It has limited application to certain other trades, but the application is unimportant in connection with boy labour. To the regulations quoted there are numerous exceptions, and the Home Secretary has large discretionary powers.[59] A young person may not be employed "in or about a shop" for a longer period than seventy-four hours, including meal-times, in any one week. Further, an employer may not knowingly employ a young person who has already on the same day been employed in a factory or workshop, if such employment makes the total number of hours worked more than the full time a young person is permitted to work in a factory or workshop.[60] By-laws may be made limiting the hours of employment of young persons under the age of sixteen engaged in "street trading." [61] The by-laws of the London County Council forbid the employment of such persons "before 7 a.m. or after 9 p.m., or for more than eight hours in any day, when employed under the immediate direction and supervision of an adult person having charge of a street stall or barrow; before 7 a.m. or after 8 p.m. when employed in any other form of street trading." With the exception of the regulations outlined above, there is no limit to the number of hours during which young persons may legally be employed. _Children._--The most important Acts regulating the hours of employment for children are the Acts which enforce attendance at school. They limit hours, not by fixing a maximum number of hours during which children may be employed, but by pursuing the far more effective plan of seeing that the children are in school, and therefore not in the workshop, during part of the day. Taken together, these Acts provide that children shall be at school, and consequently not at work, at all times when the schools are opened until the age of twelve is reached. There is one exception to this regulation: children may, under a special by-law of the local education authority, be employed in agriculture at the age of eleven, provided that they attend school 250 times a year up to the age of thirteen. This exception is of small importance, as "the number of children who are exempt under this special by-law seems to be very small, not exceeding apparently 400 in the whole country." [62] Between the ages of twelve and fourteen attendance is compulsory, subject to a complex scheme of partial or total exemptions, depending on the by-laws of the local education authority. It rests, for instance, with each local education authority to decide "whether, as regards children between twelve and fourteen, they will grant full-time or half-time exemption, or both, and upon what conditions of attendance or attainments, always subject, of course, to the fact that the by-laws must be approved by the Board of Education, and must not clash with any Act regulating the employment of children." [63] For all practical purposes, it is possible for the local education authority, if they think fit, to insist on such a standard of attainment to be reached before exemption is allowed that, with a few exceptions, relatively insignificant, children are compelled to attend school until the age of fourteen. It is important to remember that these Acts limit the employment of children only during times when the schools are opened. As a general rule, the hours of attendance are between 9 and 12 in the morning, and between 2 and 4.30 in the afternoon; while the schools are open on five days a week during some forty-four weeks in the year. During holidays, and on Saturdays and Sundays, so far as these Acts are concerned, there is no limit to the numbers of hours a child may work. A further limit is put on the hours children may work by the Employment of Children Act, 1903. A child under fourteen may not be employed between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. This provision is subject to variation by local by-laws.[64] Local by-laws may prescribe for children under fourteen: (_a_) The hours between which employment is illegal; (_b_) the number of daily and weekly hours beyond which employment is illegal; and (_c_) may permit, subject to conditions, the employment of children in any specified occupation.[65] Under this Act the by-laws of the London County Council provide that a child liable to attend school shall not be employed on days when the school is open for more than three and a half hours a day, nor-- (_a_) Between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.; (_b_) Before 6.30 a.m. or after 9 p.m.; and on days when the school is not open-- (_a_) Before 6.30 a.m. or after 9 p.m.; (_b_) For more than eight hours in any one day. On Sundays a child shall not be employed except between the hours of 7 a.m. and 1 p.m. for a period not exceeding three hours. A child liable to attend school shall not be employed for more than twenty hours in any week when the school is open on more than two days, or for more than thirty hours in any week when the school is open on two days only or less. Additional limitations are imposed on the number of hours during which children may be employed by the Factory and Workshop Act. A child between "twelve and thirteen, who has reached the standard for total or partial exemption under the Elementary Education Acts, and consequently may be employed, must still, if employed in a factory or workshop, attend school in accordance with the requirements of the Factory Act. So must a child of thirteen who has not obtained a certificate entitling him to be employed as a young person." [66] The famous half-time system is not, as sometimes supposed, a special privilege allowed to workshops and factories. It is permissible in all forms of occupation in a practically unrestricted shape. In factories and workshops the conditions are subject to definite regulations. It is, however, only in factories and workshops, and, indeed, only in certain trades among these, that the half-time system has much practical importance. The general regulations, subject, however, to certain variations, are as follows:[67] Employment must be either in morning and afternoon sets, or on alternate days The morning set begins at 6 a.m. or 7 a.m., and ends-- (_a_) At one o'clock in the afternoon; or (_b_) If the dinner-hour begins before one o'clock, at the beginning of dinner-time; or (_c_) If the dinner-time does not begin before 2 p.m. at noon. The afternoon set begins either-- (_a_) At 1 p.m. (_b_) At any later hour at which the dinner-time terminates; or (_c_) If the dinner-hour does not begin before 2 p.m., and the morning set ends at noon, at noon-- and ends at 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. On Saturdays the period of employment is the same as for young persons--6 a.m. to 11.30 a.m.--but a child shall not be employed on two successive Saturdays, nor on Saturday in any week if on any other days in the same week his period of employment has exceeded five and a half hours. A child must not be employed in two successive periods of seven days in the morning set, nor in two successive periods of seven days in an afternoon set. On the alternate day system, the period of employment is the same as for a young person--_i.e._, from 6 a.m. or 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. or 7 p.m., with two hours for meals; and on Saturdays from 6 a.m. to 11.30 a.m., with half an hour for meals. Under this system a child may not be employed on two successive days, nor on the same day in two successive weeks. Under all the systems a child may not be employed continuously for more than four and a half hours without an interval of half an hour for meals.[68] Nor must a child be employed on any one day on the business of the factory or workshops both inside and outside the factory or workshop.[69] This system of regulation refers to textile factories, but these include the vast majority of half-timers. The regulations with regard to non-textile factories and workshops are less rigorous; and in the case of domestic workshops and factories there is additional relaxation of the rules. The parent or guardian of the half-timer is responsible for the child's attendance at school. As an additional precaution against truancy, the employer may not employ the child unless each Monday the child has obtained from the school a certificate of attendance during the past week.[70] If we take into account the hours worked in the factory and the hours spent in school, we shall find that the half-timer's week of strenuous effort is a long and a weary one. "Taking one week with another, the employment of the half-timer is for twenty-eight and a quarter hours a week in a textile factory, and thirty in a non-textile factory or workshop; and as he is in school for thirteen or fourteen hours, his total week in school and factory is from forty to forty-four hours." [71] In view of proposals made later, I have thought desirable to insert in detail the half-time regulations, in order to show how, in the actual carrying out of industrial operations, a half-time system can be put into effect. _(c) Protection of Health._ There is no law prescribing in all cases the conditions as to buildings, sanitary arrangements, and safety, under which alone children and young persons may be employed. There is no law requiring in all cases a medical certificate from children and young persons to show that they are physically suited for the employment in which they are engaged. It is no doubt true that the buildings in which juveniles are employed come, in respect of sanitation, drainage, and water-supply, under the general Public Health Acts. It is no doubt a fact that local building by-laws occasionally insist on means of escape in case of fire in premises where more than a certain number of persons are employed. It is likewise part of the law of the land that, if a lad in the course of his work meets with a fatal accident, twelve just men and a coroner must sit on the dead body and investigate the cause. But, apart from such regulations, which are not confined to the employment of juveniles, or, indeed, to employment generally, it is only in special forms of occupation that there are required additional precautions designed to protect the health and safety of the workers. Elaborate rules prescribe the conditions which must be observed in the management of a railway or a mine. The Shop Hours Act requires that seats should be provided for shop assistants. Such Acts have in practice only a limited application in the case of children and young persons, who do not to any large extent come into the classes affected. Here, as in regard to the regulation of hours, the chief Act of importance is the Factory and Workshop Act. This Act makes careful provision, so far as premises are concerned, for the health of the workers, juveniles and adults alike. Whether the provisions are in practice always enforced is a matter open to some doubt. In the case of factories,[72] the outside walls, ceilings, passages, and staircases must be painted every seven years, and washed every fourteen months; and in general the premises must be kept clean and free from effluvia, and the floors properly drained. Ventilation must be adequate, and all gases, dust, and other impurities generated in the course of work rendered, so far as is practicable, innocuous to health. In certain cases the inspector may insist on the provision of ventilating fans. Overcrowding is prevented by requiring a minimum space in each room of 250 cubic feet for each person, or during overtime of 400 cubic feet. A reasonable temperature must be maintained in each room in which any person is employed. There must be sufficient and suitable supply of sanitary conveniences. In textile factories a limit is set on the amount of atmospheric humidity. In certain dangerous or poisonous trades additional precautions are required. The Secretary of State has large powers of imposing additional regulations on the one hand, and of granting exemptions on the other. The authority for enforcing the regulations in factories is the inspector acting through the Home Office. The regulations applicable to workshops do not differ very materially from those imposed on factories, but the enforcing authority is different. The authority in the case of workshops is the district or the borough council--_i.e._, the public health authority. The medical officer of health and the inspector of nuisances have for this purpose the power of factory inspectors. A breach of the law on the subject is declared to be a nuisance, and may be dealt with summarily under the Public Health Acts. The district or borough council are compelled to keep a register of the workshops within their area; and the medical officer of health is required to report annually to the council on the administration of the Factory Acts in the workshops and workplaces in the district. A copy of this report must be sent to the Secretary of State, who remains the supreme authority, and in certain cases of default may authorize a factory inspector to take the necessary steps for enforcing these provisions, and recover the expenses from the defaulting council. An attempt is also made to regulate the sanitary conditions under which out-workers are employed. Where provisions are made by the Secretary of State, the employers concerned are made responsible for the condition of the places in which his out-workers carry on work. The employer must keep lists of out-workers. The district council, in cases where the place is injurious to the health of the out-workers, may take steps to have the evil remedied or the employment stopped. The Act requires machinery to be properly fenced, and special precautions to be taken in cleaning machinery in motion. Children may not clean any part of machinery in motion, or any place under such machinery other than a overhead gearing. Children and young persons may not be allowed to work between the fixed and traversing parts of a self-acting machine while the machine is in motion. When there occurs in a factory or workshop any accident which either (_a_) causes loss of life to a person employed in the factory or workshop, or (_b_) causes to a person employed in the factory or workshop such bodily injury as to prevent him on any one of the three working days after the occurrence of the accident from being employed for five hours on his ordinary work, written notice shall forthwith be sent to the inspector for the district. In the case of new factories erected since January 1, 1892, and of new workshops erected since January 1, 1896, in which more than forty persons are employed, a certificate must be obtained from the local authority for building by-laws, stating that reasonable provision for escape has been made in case of fire. With regard to older factories and workshops, the local authority must satisfy itself that reasonable means of escape are provided. From these regulations it will be seen that precautions guarding the health of boys are taken in the case of factories and workshops. There are rules, there is an enforcing and inspecting authority, and there is required a report in all cases of serious accident. But, with one exception, no steps are taken to test the adequacy of the precautions by a periodic medical examination of children and young persons, or to prevent the employment of certain individuals who are physically unfit for the work. The exception is important, and observes attention, because it indicates a possible line of reform. "In a factory a young person under the age of sixteen, or a child, must not be employed ... unless the occupier of the factory has obtained a certificate, in the prescribed form, of the fitness of the young person or child for employment in that factory. When a child becomes a young person, a fresh certificate of fitness must be obtained." [73] A certifying surgeon is appointed for each district. "He must certify that the person named in the certificate is of the age therein specified, and has been personally examined by him, and is not incapacitated by disease or bodily infirmity for working daily for the time allowed by law in the factory." [74] "The certificate may be qualified by conditions as to the work on which a child or young person is fit to be employed," and the employer must observe such conditions.[75] The surgeon has power to examine any process in which the child or young person is employed.[76] A factory inspector who is of opinion that any young person or child is unsuited on the ground of health for the employment on which he is engaged may order his dismissal, unless the certifying surgeon, after examination, shall again certify him as fit.[77] This provision only applies to young persons under the age of sixteen, and to children. It does not, moreover, apply to workshops. In the case of workshops, the employer may obtain, if he thinks fit, a certificate from the certifying surgeon.[78] The Secretary of State has, however, power to extend the regulation to certain classes of workshops, if he considers the extension desirable.[79] In these cases, and these cases alone, is it necessary to call in the doctor to certify the physical fitness of the boy for the employment in which he is engaged. But under the Employment of Children Act, 1903, taken in conjunction with the Education (Administrative Provisions) Act, 1907, it is possible to extend considerably the system of medical tests. Under the first of these Acts, which applies to children under the age of fourteen-- "Sect. 3 (4). A child shall not be employed to lift, carry, or move anything so heavy as to be likely to cause injury to the child. "(5) A child shall not be employed in any occupation likely to be injurious to his life, limb, health, or education, regard being had to his physical condition. "(6) If the local authority send a certificate to the employer saying that certain employment will injure the child, the certificate shall be admissible as evidence in any subsequent proceedings against the employer in respect of the employment of the child." If the child has left school--and under certain conditions a child can leave school at the age of twelve--it is not easy to see how the local authority can enforce these provisions. But with children attending school, whole or part time, circumstances are different. Medical inspection of school-children is now compulsory, and it is within the power of the education authority to inspect any such children.[80] They are therefore at liberty to examine any children known to be at work, and any certificate of "unfitness" sent to an employer would probably be effective. Further, under the Employment of Children Act, Sects. 1 and 2, a local authority may make by-laws permitting, subject to conditions, the employment of children under the age of fourteen in any specified occupation; and in the case of "street trading" the age is extended to sixteen. It would be possible therefore, subject to the approval of the Secretary of State, to make by-laws requiring a medical certificate of fitness in certain forms of occupation in which children under the age of fourteen are engaged. § 2. STATE ENTERPRISE. In the preceding sections the State has played a passive part in the supervision of the boy. It has contented itself with giving orders to others, and with taking some more or less inadequate steps to see that its commands are obeyed, but has directly done nothing itself. We are now to see the State assuming duties of its own, and appearing as the active guardian of the child. Individual or voluntary effort having failed, it has been driven, at first reluctantly, but later with increasing readiness, to fill the gap. The State has now made itself directly responsible for providing schools for the children of the nation. The schools play an important part in the supervision of character. Attendance at school may be either compulsory or voluntary. The law of compulsory attendance has already been stated.[81] As a rule children must attend school till they reach the age of twelve, and under local by-laws can in general be retained till they reach the age of fourteen. In certain cases, important from the point of view of discipline, the period of compulsory attendance can be prolonged. Children under fourteen found begging, or wandering without home, or under the care of a criminal or drunken guardian, or in general living in surroundings likely to lead to crime, may be brought before a magistrate and sent to an industrial school.[82] Here they are boarded and lodged, and may be kept there up to the age of sixteen, after which time the managers of the school have duties of supervision for a further period of two years, with power of recall if desirable. Children who are truants or are convicted of criminal offences can be treated in the same way. For the majority of boys State guardianship is confined to the years of compulsory attendance. But a considerable number continue their education in various ways, and so remain under some sort of supervision. Children may remain at the elementary school till the close of the school year in which they attain the age of fifteen. The education authority has power to provide and aid secondary and trade schools, and to make these institutions accessible by means of scholarships; and secondary schools, if in receipt of grants from the Board of Education, must in general reserve a quarter of the places for pupils whose parents cannot afford to pay fees. The education authority has power to provide evening continuation classes for those who desire to avail themselves of the opportunities thus afforded. Those who choose to attend these places of higher education continue in some degree under the supervision of the State. But the supervision of the State through its schools is not confined to the supervision of conduct. The education authority now exercises important duties in connection with the health of the children in the elementary schools. It is now obligatory on every education authority to inspect medically all children on their admission to school, and at such other times as may be prescribed by the Board of Education.[83] In their original memorandum to education authorities the Board of Education required these inspections--on admission to school, and at the ages of seven and ten.[84] These regulations have not at present been enforced, but the London County Council has now adopted a scheme which practically embodies them. The local education authority is empowered, with the consent of the Board of Education, to make arrangement for attending to the health of the children.[85] Medical inspection is compulsory, medical treatment optional. Further, the local education authority may draw on the rates to feed school-children, whether their parents are destitute or not, provided it is satisfied that the children, for lack of food, are unable to profit by the instruction given.[86] Finally, the local education authority may receive into its day industrial schools children at the request of their parents, who must pay towards the expense such sum as may be fixed by the Secretary of State.[87] It will be seen that, acting through the local education authorities, the State has now assumed large duties in connection with the supervision of children. To submit to the discipline of the schools the vast majority of the children of the county; to examine medically all children in these schools; to feed the necessitous children, and to treat medically the ailing children in the elementary schools; to remove and provide for until the age of sixteen unfortunate children exposed to an unfavourable environment--these are powers which constitute no small measure of State enterprise. II. STATE TRAINING. Training that shall fit a boy for a trade is of two kinds, general and special. The first must develop those mental qualities of alertness, intelligence, and adaptability required in all forms of occupation; the second must give definite instruction in the principles and practice of some particular industry or branch of industries. For the first provision is made in the elementary school system, with its powers of compelling attendance. For the second we must look to the various types of continuation school. Here, under existing conditions, the State can only offer facilities; it cannot enforce attendance.[88] Since the passing of the Education Act, 1902 and 1903, progress has been marked in both directions. The old "voluntary" schools, whose rolls contained the names of half the scholars in the country, and whose limited funds constituted an impassable barrier to all advance, are now maintained out of the rates; and the gap between non-provided and council schools is closing up. The breaking up of the small School Boards and the establishment of larger authorities controlling all forms of education have made for efficiency, while the merging of educational matters in the general municipal work is insuring that practical criticism of his schemes which the educationalist always resents but always requires. _(a) The Elementary School._ It is obvious that, with the variety of children every school contains and their tender age, no definite trade training can be given in the elementary school. On the other hand, we have advanced far beyond the old educational ideal of providing a common and uniform type of instruction in the common school. Types of school are being multiplied to meet the needs of different kinds of pupils. Provision has long since been supplied for the mentally and physically defective, and serious attempts are now being made to break up and classify that huge group which includes the so-called normal child. In addition to the varying types of elementary school which are in process of being adapted to the differing needs of the locality, and the different classes of child, we have, under the elementary school system, what is known as the "higher elementary school." Originally a school specializing in science and of little value, it is tending to become, under the more recent regulations of the Board of Education, a school where a definite bias, either in the direction of commerce or industry, is given to the curriculum. It is true that the number of schools called "higher elementary" shows little signs of increase.[89] This is due to the rigid and inflexible rules of the Board of Education, which seem expressly designed to kill, and not to encourage, the experiment. But while the name is being dropped, the thing is being preserved and multiplied. London, for example, has recently adopted a scheme for the development of sixty of these types of school, to be called "central schools." The curriculum of each school is determined after taking into account the industrial needs of the neighbourhood in which it is placed. The education given is general in character, but the selection of subjects has special reference to some profession or group of trades. Broadly speaking, there are two general types of school, the commercial and the industrial. The industrial type is already subdivided into the woodwork and the engineering type, and further subdivisions will gradually be formed. In these schools no attempt will be made to teach a trade, but such subjects are included in the curriculum as will be found useful in the trade. In the woodwork type, for example, in addition to a considerable amount of time devoted to practical instruction in woodwork, special attention is given to the kinds of arithmetic and drawing required by the intelligent carpenter. An elaborate scheme for picking out between the ages of eleven and twelve the children suitable for these different kinds of school has been drawn up. A four years' course of instruction is provided for. In order to induce the poorer parents to allow their children to remain beyond the age of compulsory attendance, the education committee offers bursaries, thereby exercising that negative form of compulsion technically known as a bribe. Other education authorities are establishing schools with similar aims. The experiments are recent, and mark an important and new development. Two advantages are anticipated. First, the variety in the types of school and the careful selection of scholars will promote intelligence by providing that particular kind of educational nutriment best adapted for encouraging the growth of a particular order of mind. Secondly, by guiding the interests of boys in the direction of various occupations, it is hoped that on leaving school these interests will lead the boys to enter those occupations for which to some extent they have been prepared, and in which they are most likely to succeed. The elementary schools, as a body, will thus become a kind of sorting-house for the different trades, and be freed from that charge, to some extent justified, of catering only for the lower ranks of the clerical profession. _(b) The Continuation School._ It is becoming year by year more generally recognized that a system of education which comes to an end somewhere about the age of fourteen is incomplete and profoundly unsatisfactory. Without attendance at a continuation school of some kind, a boy rapidly loses much of the effect of his previous education, and at the same time is deprived of all opportunity of enjoying the advantages of a more specialized training. To meet this need a complex system of continuation school has grown up. It lacks, however, the element of compulsion, except that negative form already alluded to--the bribe of a scholarship. Looking at the machinery as a whole, it may be admitted that the State does afford considerable opportunity to those anxious to continue their general education, or to obtain some specific form of technical instruction. Whether sufficient use is made of this opportunity is a question that must be answered in the following chapter. But taking the machinery as a whole, and as it exists under the best education authorities, the machinery does touch to some extent the principal trades and professions.[90] 1. Provision is gradually being made for those likely to succeed in the higher branches of industry and commerce. The number of secondary schools is being increased, their quality improved, and their types varied. Technical institutes providing day and evening classes of an advanced character are being rapidly multiplied. University instruction, aided out of public funds, is becoming more plentiful and efficient, and, whether during the day or in the evening, is year by year offering larger opportunities to students. Progress is especially marked in the faculties of economics and technology. Scholarship systems, more or less incomplete, make access to these institutions possible for the poorer classes of the community. The trend of development seems to suggest that a system of organization, calculated to provide training for the highest positions in the industrial and commercial world, is developing along the following lines: Between the ages of eleven and twelve the brightest children will be transferred from the elementary to the secondary school. The secondary school will provide a course of instruction extending to the age of eighteen. Broadly speaking, there will be three types of secondary school, the first giving a general and literary education, the second specializing in commerce, and the third in some branch of science and technology. At the age of eighteen the suitable students will be removed to the University, where they will receive a three or four years' course of instruction suitable to the profession they are intending to enter. It is probable that at the age of fourteen there will be an additional, though smaller, transfer of children from the elementary schools, in order that provision may be made for those who have slipped through the meshes of the scholarship net at the first casting. Scholarships with liberal maintenance grants will make readily accessible to all who are fit the advantages of a prolonged education. Evening classes, leading even to a degree, will remain for those who, for one reason or another, have failed to obtain in their earlier years the advanced instruction they now require. An organization of this kind is not at present found anywhere in its complete form, but it is sufficiently complete in certain directions to be considered here, where we are concerned with attainments, and not reserved for a later chapter, where we shall be examining new paths of progress. 2. For those likely later to fill the position of foreman, or to become the best kind of artisan, the day trade school is provided. The boys enter the trade school on leaving the elementary school about the age of fourteen or fifteen, and go through a two and sometimes a three years' course of instruction. These schools continue the education of the boy, with special reference to the trade concerned, and at the same time devote a large amount of time to supplying an all-round training in the various skilled operations the trade requires. They are essentially practical in character, and this practical character is often assured by a committee of employers, who visit the school and criticize the methods of instruction. 3. For those already apprenticed to, or engaged in, the trade two forms of instruction are provided. The most satisfactory are the classes attended during the day. Attendance at such times can only be secured by inducing the employers to allow their lads time off during working hours. In some cases the element of compulsion is introduced by the employers, who make attendance at such classes a condition of employment. The other form of instruction is provided during the evening at a technical institute. In either case the instruction is of a practical nature, and designed to supplement the training of the workshop. 4. For those who have entered, or desire to enter, the lower walks of commerce, or the civil or municipal service, there is the evening school of a commercial type, usually held in the building of an elementary school. 5. Of the boys who, engaged in unskilled work during the day, are anxious to continue their general education or to improve their position, the evening school again supplies the need. Some practical work is done in the woodwork or metal centres, but the limited equipment of the elementary school stands in the way of any advanced technical instruction. If we omit the commercial classes, already mentioned, attendance at an evening school often means little more than attendance once a week at a class where instruction is given in a single subject, and not infrequently the recreative element is predominant. Recently, and with considerable success, the "course" system has been introduced. Here the students, instead of being present at a single class once a week, attend on several evenings during the week, and go through a course of instruction in several subjects connected together and leading up to some definite goal. If to these various types of continuation school we add the large number of lectures on numerous subjects, we shall see that the State through its schools supplies a considerable amount of technical instruction. It would be false to say that the boys receive all the training that they need, but it would not be beyond the mark to assert that in the case of many education authorities they are afforded all, and not infrequently more than all, the opportunities for which they ask. It is the demand, and not the supply, that is deficient. III. STATE PROVISION OF AN OPENING. Until the year 1910 the provision of openings in suitable occupations was not considered among the duties of the State. It is true that here and there, usually in co-operation with voluntary associations, an education committee made some attempt to place out in trades the boys about to leave school. But any expenditure in this direction was illegal, and under no circumstances was it possible to do anything for those who had already left school. But in the year 1910 the State, without premeditation, has found itself committed to the duty of finding openings for children and juveniles. The revolution was upon us before we had seen the signs of its approach. This assumption of a new duty was the unforeseen result of the establishment of Labour Exchanges. The Act of 1909 thought nothing, said nothing, about juveniles. It was passed as a measure intended to deal with the problem of adult unemployment. Now, there is no problem of unemployment in connection with boys and youths; the demand of employers for this kind of labour appears insatiable. Nevertheless, no sooner were Labour Exchanges opened, than the question of juveniles came to the front. Employers asked for juveniles, and the managers of the local Labour Exchange, eager to meet the wishes of the employer, searched for and found juveniles. Enthusiastic about his work, and prompted by the laudable desire to show large returns of vacancies filled, it did not occur to him that the problem of the juvenile and the problem of the adult had little in common. He was not permitted to remain long in this condition of primitive ignorance. Questions were asked in the House, letters were written to the papers, deputations waited on the President of the Board of Trade, all complaining that the Labour Exchange was becoming an engine for the exploitation of boy labour. In the case of adults, no bargain as to conditions was struck with the employer; the man had to make his own terms. But the boy could not make his own terms, and public opinion had for some years been uneasy about the increasing employment of boys in occupations restricted to boys, and leading to no permanent situation when the years of manhood were reached. Returns showed that it was largely into situations of this character that lads were being thrust by the Labour Exchange. The Board of Trade rapidly realized the evil, and set itself to work to repair the unforeseen mistake. It wisely decided to grapple seriously with the problem, and did not, as it might well have done, restrict the Labour Exchange to adults. It determined to appoint Advisory Committees to deal with juveniles. In London the following machinery is in process of being established: There is a Central Advisory Committee, consisting of six members nominated by the Board of Trade, six by the London County Council, and six by the committee of employers and trade unionists, who advise the Board of Trade on questions of adult employment. The duty of this Central Committee is to advise the Board of Trade as to the appointment of the local Advisory Committees, which will be formed to control the juvenile department in connection with each of the London Labour Exchanges. It will also be the duty of the Central Advisory Committee to advise generally on questions affecting the employment of juveniles. Though the duties of this committee are nominally advisory, its work will in practice become administrative in character. Here then is an organization which in course of time will probably have to deal with the problem of finding suitable occupations for the child and juvenile population of London. Similar bodies are being formed in other towns. As will appear later, this is one of the most important social questions of the day. How these committees will do their work only the future can show. But if the Board of Trade act liberally in matters of expenditure, there is no cause for despondency, and we may well hope that, by the purest of accidents, we are on the threshold of a new era in the history of industrial organization. Chance is not always blind, and some of its wild castings hit the mark. Such, in broad outline, have been the achievements of the State during the age of reconstruction, so far as concerns the problem of boy labour and apprenticeship. Guided by sentiment, partial and limited in the sphere of its operations, the State has yet drifted far from the moorings of _laissez-faire_, and is destined to drift farther as the years go by. How far the intricate machinery, slowly pieced together during the last three-quarters of a century, is successful when judged by results, what are its more serious defects, and what should be the lines of future advance, before the establishment of a real apprenticeship system, it will be the object of the following chapters to explain. But one truth should now be abundantly clear: of the three essential factors of that system, not one has been altogether neglected by the State, and in certain departments its guardianship has been widely extended. In the department of supervision it has, through its schools, created an organization to watch over and to control the conduct of all its children; it has recently recognized through the same agency its duty to provide for them at least the elements of physical well-being; and through numerous Acts it has endeavoured to insure for the boy worker a minimum standard--low, indeed, but still real--of proper conditions of employment. In the department of training it has covered the land with a network of educational institutions, which offer to all the possibilities of nearly every kind of instruction. While, as regards the provision of an opening, it has realized the urgency of the problem, and has taken the first steps to supply the deficiency. These are all, in spite of many shortcomings, solid achievements, hopeful in the present, and more hopeful for the promise they bring of a larger measure of State guardianship in the years that are to come. CHAPTER V APPRENTICESHIP OF TO-DAY A true apprenticeship system, as already explained, must satisfy three conditions: It must guarantee the adequate supervision of the youth of the country as regards physical and moral development until the age of eighteen at least is reached; it must supply means of effective training, both general and specialized; and, finally, it must provide to those about to cross the threshold of manhood an opening in some form of occupation for which definite preparation has been given. The efficiency of the industrial organization of to-day must be judged by the extent to which these three conditions are satisfied. To what extent does the apprenticeship of to-day satisfy the conditions of a true apprenticeship system? To answer this question we must look far beyond the narrow limits of indentured apprenticeship as it still exists. It touches only a fringe, and a vanishing fringe, of the problem. Life for the youth has grown more complex since the passing of the old organization of the gilds; its success or failure is the outcome of the interplay of numerous forces. Four factors contribute, in a more or less degree, to the result. There is the contribution of the State--the last chapter was concerned with the description of the machinery which has slowly been set up during the age of reconstruction--we have yet to test its influence in the actual working; there is the contribution of philanthropic enterprise, as represented in the religious bodies, the clubs, the apprenticeship associations, and skilled employment committees; there is the contribution of the home, with its discipline and training; and, finally, there is the contribution of the workshop, using this term to include all forms of occupation, with the methods of entry and the organization for securing a supply of labour. Only when we have taken into account the effects of these four factors can we pass judgment on the apprenticeship of to-day. I. THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE STATE. In estimating the contribution of the State towards apprenticeship of to-day, it will be convenient, as in the last chapter, to trace the effect of this influence in two sections, the one devoted to a survey of the results of State regulation, and the other to an examination of the achievements of State enterprise. § 1. STATE REGULATION. In its scheme of regulation the State has aimed, broadly speaking, at securing three results. It has endeavoured to prevent boys from being overworked or wrongly worked; it has sought to guard them from being engaged in demoralizing forms of employment; and it has striven to secure satisfactory conditions within the walls of the workshop. The third task presents the fewest difficulties. Medical science is sufficiently advanced to prescribe the conditions as to ventilation, heating, sanitation, and cubic contents essential to the health of the boys. The sad catalogue of accidents is sufficiently long to show where danger, through inadequately guarded machinery, is probable. To enforce the necessary regulations is comparatively easy. There must be a suitable number of inspectors, and these inspectors must be specially trained for their work. Neither condition is at present fulfilled. The staff of inspectors is much too small, and the inspectors themselves frequently lack the requisite technical qualifications. In the work of guarding boys from being engaged in occupations demoralizing to character, the State has only recently taken the first steps. The Employment of Children Act prohibits street trading under certain conditions. As will appear later in this chapter, there are a large number of occupations where regulation is much required. Indeed, it is a comparatively new idea that the nature of the employment of the boy may have a profound influence on the well-being of the man. In the department of regulation the most elaborate machinery has grown up around the attempts of the State to prevent boys from being overworked or wrongly worked. The difficulties in the way of success have been two. There has been the difficulty in getting the necessary law passed. In this respect it is enough to mention that the "half-time" system, in spite of practically universal condemnation, is still permitted, to show the almost insurmountable obstacles presented by vested interests. There is next the difficulty of enforcing the law. It is often urged that it is idle to place on the statute-book laws which can easily be evaded. Too much weight must not, however, be given to this argument. There is a moral effect in the passing of every law. The fact that the State has condemned certain modes of action is an important factor in the formation of public opinion. Many people realize for the first time that the evils which are the result of conduct hitherto regarded as harmless, because not regarded at all, are sufficiently serious to call for State interference. The law may not have its full effect; it will without doubt have some effect. The question of enforcement is, however, of vital importance, and it is well to consider the limits of the power of enforcement. The best method of restricting the hours of employment is to see that the boy is somewhere else during part of the working day. The half-time system, which insured that the boy should spend half his time in school, was established, not primarily with a view to his education, but to prevent him from being overworked. It has, moreover, from its point of view, been completely successful, and has in practice been enforced without difficulty. The various laws relating to compulsory attendance at school have exercised an influence more potent in the work of limiting the hours of employment than all the other elaborate regulations on the subject. If we see to it that a boy is in school, he cannot at the same time be found in the factory. The machinery for enforcing attendance now runs without difficulty, and its action is uniform and comprehensive. The next method of restricting employment is the method of prohibition. Here, again, enforcement presents no serious difficulty. If we forbid children under a certain age to work for wages or to take part in certain forms of occupation, it is enough to find them so engaged at any one moment to secure a conviction. The third method, which seeks to prevent boys from being overworked by setting a limit on the number of hours during which they may be employed, is almost impossible to carry out. The Shop Hours Act is frequently infringed, and only the most rigid system of inspection can get evidence of cases of infringement. Yet even here detection is comparatively easy. A watch can be kept on the number of hours during which a shop is open, and if this exceed the legal limit we have a fair presumption that the shop assistants are over-employed. But in the case of children we cannot draw this conclusion. We are supposing their hours are more limited than in the case of the adults, and the mere fact that the shop is open during a longer period affords no proof that the child is there all the day on all days of the week. To enforce regulations of this kind we must set a watch on the individual child, and on a large scale this is impracticable. In judging of the results of State regulation, as described in the preceding chapter, we may assume that the regulations are enforced--or at any rate are enforceable--where employment is prohibited, or where attendance at school is required, but that regulations which entail the counting of hours have little effect in preventing overwork except by the indirect method of forming public opinion. Further, when we are seeking a path of reform, we must take the road of prohibition or alternative attendance at school. Leaving general considerations, and coming to details, it may be said that, so far as children under the age of fourteen are concerned, the system of State regulation, though a little cumbersome, covers a considerable part of the field, provided always that local education authorities make full use of the powers conferred by the Education Acts, the School Attendance Acts, the Children Act, and the Employment of Children Act, and provided also that the Board of Education and the Home Office render full and cordial support. Unfortunately, these provisos are very far from being fulfilled. More than 58 per cent. of the population, for example, live in districts where the attendance by-laws allow of conditional exemption at the age of twelve. It is true that in nearly half the cases a fairly high standard of attainment is required from the children, but with the remainder no higher standard is required than that reached by the normal child at the age of twelve.[91] Or, again, in connection with the Employment of Children Act, out of seventy-four county boroughs, fifty have made by-laws in reference to street trading, but large towns, like Leeds, Nottingham, or Salford, have made none. Out of 191 smaller boroughs and urban districts, only forty-one have made by-laws; and out of the sixty-two administrative counties, other than London and Middlesex, only one.[92] It may fairly be assumed that, where no by-laws relating to street trading exist, little is done to enforce the other provisions of the Act. As regards young persons, if we exclude the Acts relating to mines, which affect a comparatively small number of lads, the Shop Hours Act, with its mild provisions of seats for assistants and a maximum week of seventy-four hours, the only Act which can be said to exert a large measure of supervision is the Factory and Workshop Act. Assuming that the system of regulation there found is adequate, and adequately enforced--both assumptions far from being fulfilled in practice--there remain the young persons who do not come within its provisions. The number of these is very large. In the next chapter figures are given relating to the occupations of London children on leaving school and between the ages of fifteen and twenty. A study of these tables will show that not more than at most a third of the young persons are brought within the scope of the Factory and Workshop Act. A large proportion of the lads engaged in the building trades, and practically the whole of those employed in shops, in transport, in commerce, and in general labour, are excluded. In their case there is no State supervision to regulate the conditions of their work. Coming to concrete examples, the van-boy may in all kinds of weather spend a dozen hours a day lolling on the tail of a cart, idle for much of his time, and for the remainder holding the horses outside a public-house, or lifting weights too heavy for his strength. The errand-boy, none too well clad or shod, may, delivering parcels and messages, trudge through the cold and rain over long leagues of streets during long stretches of the week. The office-boy may be cooped up in a dark and ill-ventilated office during most of the hours of daylight. The shop-boy may stand ten, twelve, or on Saturdays fifteen hours of the twenty-four in the street or in the shop, with one eye on the goods and the other on a penny novelette. And there is no public authority to say whether the conditions of his employment are satisfactory, no power to have him medically inspected, no possible guarantee to insure that when he passes the threshold of early manhood the vigour and the brightness of youth shall not have given way to the feeble health and the torpor of old age. Unquestionably, we owe much to sentiment for the evils it has denounced and remedied, but we owe also to the régime of sentiment the fact that some two-thirds of the young persons in the country are engaged in occupations carried on without regulation and unvisited by any inspector of the State. § 2. STATE ENTERPRISE. The most signal example of State enterprise in the realm of boy labour is to be found in that huge organization of schools, elementary and continuation, which now cover the country, and whose efficiency is rapidly increasing. The organization has already been described; it remains to summarize briefly its principal effects. First, the boys attend school with astonishing regularity. An average percentage of attendances during the year of ninety-five, and even more, is become common. Truancy is rare, and growing rarer. The truant schools are being gradually emptied, and several have been closed. This result is no doubt in part due to the increased fine for non-attendance, and the pressure thus placed on the parent. But excellent attendance implies much more than the elimination of the truant; it means that, after making allowance for absences due to illness and other sufficient causes, the boy attends school with perfect regularity and punctuality at all times when the schools are opened. Now, this ideal is in the case of the vast majority of boys attained. The result must be attributed to the influence of the teachers over the boy. Prosecution of the parent may cure gross irregularity, but perfect attendance can only be secured by enlisting the co-operation of the boy. The first effect of the school, then, is seen in the almost unqualified regularity and punctuality of the attendance. If we reflect on the home conditions of many of the boys, we shall be compelled to pay a high tribute of praise to the work of the teacher. The second achievement lies in the admirable order maintained within the walls of the school. Ready obedience is the rule, and not the exception. This is in general not the result of a system of harsh discipline--corporal punishment is decreasing at once in severity and in frequency--it is due to the personal influence of the teacher. In the third place, a spirit of industry and active attention pervades the work of the school. In discussing with the authorities of secondary schools the career of the children who have won scholarships from the elementary schools, I have more than once been told that the chief characteristic of these scholars lies in their patient and strenuous diligence. In this respect they serve as an admirable example to the fee-paying pupils. It is true that the scholars are picked children, but ability and diligence are, as experience shows, by no means inseparable companions. Here, again, we see the effect of the school. Finally, the schools are institutions which make for character in the best sense of the word. The moral training is gradually freeing itself from the "do and don't" of the home, and is beginning to reach the higher level of morality where the command is "to be this, not that." A standard of school honour is being sought for, and sometimes attained. To take a single example. In what is perhaps the poorest school in all London, set in the most squalid and vice-haunted region, it has been made a matter of honour with the boys who are receiving school dinners to come to the headmaster as soon as the home circumstances temporarily improve and say: "I don't want a dinner this morning, because father has got a day's work." Habits of regularity, obedience, and industry, and the cultivation of a sense of honour--these are the chief results of State supervision carried out by means of the schools. Two questions require an answer: Do these qualities, found within the precincts of the school, overflow and affect the conduct of the boys outside the school? Do they last when school-days are over, and the boys gone out to work? With regard to the first, there is good reason to believe that they do overflow. The school training does influence the conduct of the boys outside. No one who has watched a zealous headmaster replace an ancient and inefficient teacher of the old type can fail to have observed a striking change in the behaviour of the boys as seen in the street and in the home. With regard to the second question, we must reply that undoubtedly in many cases the qualities gradually disappear. When we come, as we shall do shortly, to the survey of the conditions of boy labour, we shall not be surprised at this unfortunate truth. It would be difficult to imagine any form of training that would be permanent when all discipline is relaxed or entirely discontinued at the most critical period of the development of the boy. The elementary school is now made responsible for the supervision of the health of the children. Medical inspection of all children is now compulsory, while medical treatment is made legal. The education authority may also draw on the rates to provide meals for necessitous children. It is too soon to estimate the effect of these new powers, but if they are used with wise generosity they should exercise a profound influence on the health of the rising generation. But however beneficent may be the influence of the elementary school, it comes to an end abruptly at the age of fourteen, and often a year or two earlier. Up to the age of leaving school, the boy is carefully guarded by the State, and then, with no transitional stage, he becomes a man, and, so far as the State is concerned, all control is withdrawn. Two or three per cent., with the help of scholarships, may pass annually to the secondary school, where State supervision is continued. Not more than 30 per cent. of those who leave the elementary school attend an evening school,[93] and even if they do there is no medical inspection in such places, and little effective discipline is possible for boys attending evening school on two or three nights a week. The remaining two-thirds disappear from the sight of the State, which henceforth renounces all responsibility for their supervision. We have next to regard the schools as training-grounds for the workmen of the future. We ought not to look to the elementary schools to provide any definite preparation for a trade. Unfortunately, through no fault of their own, and because of the industrial development of the day, the schools are turning out in thousands lads completely equipped for a certain class of occupation. We have already seen that the most signal triumph of the schools is to be found in the habits of regularity, intelligence, and obedience, which they impress on the boys. Now, these qualities are essential to success in all walks of life; but for one form of employment alone are they all that is required. This form of employment includes those occupations in which boys and boys only are engaged, and where the boys are discharged as soon as they become men. The messenger-boy, the shop-boy, the van-boy, and even the boy who attends to some machine which monotonously performs a single operation--the boy who comes into one of these classes need take with him nothing but the three recommendations of regularity, obedience, and intelligence. We shall trace later the disastrous effects of these forms of employment. It is not without significance that the rapid increase in the number of boys so engaged has synchronized with the rapid improvement in the system of elementary education. It is something of a tragedy that the most signal triumph of the schools should be, perhaps, the cause of their most signal failure. Definite training must be looked for in the continuation school. It is unnecessary to add much to what has been said in the last chapter; the State offers opportunity, but with its existing powers can do little more. Speaking generally, for the child of comparatively well-to-do parents, for the clever child, for the child of unusual energy and physical vigour, these opportunities can be enjoyed; but for the remainder--and that the great majority--they are useless, because beyond the reach of ordinary endeavour. Of State enterprise in the provision of an opening it is too early to speak; the juvenile branch of the Labour Exchange is only creeping into existence. In the next chapter an attempt will be made to explain how best can be realized the possibilities which lie latent in these institutions. § 3. SUMMARY. We are now in a position to summarize the achievements and the defects of the contribution of the State towards the creation of a true apprenticeship system. Its machinery of regulation has removed the worst abuses of child labour, and in certain departments of industry protects, with some degree of success, the health of the young persons engaged. Its enterprise in the field of education is providing supervision over the health and conduct of the boy till he reaches the age of fourteen, while for the young person it offers opportunities of longer supervision and technical training. If much has been done, much more remains undone. Regulation still leaves rampant many of the evils of child labour. Some two-thirds of the boys as they leave school enter occupations where regulation hardly exists. State enterprise for all practical purposes exerts no supervision over lads between the ages of fourteen and eighteen--the most important epoch of their lives. Technical training, and even the continuance of general education, are possible only for a favoured few, and for the present there is no State provision of an opening. These are grave defects, and apprenticeship of to-day stands condemned unless it can be shown that one or other of the remaining factors supply what the State has failed to give. II. THE CONTRIBUTION OF PHILANTHROPY. The second of the general forces, as distinguished from the individual and special influences of the home and the workshop, which may make some contribution towards the apprenticeship of to-day must be sought among the varied religious and philanthropic associations. While we could not expect from these bodies any assistance in the work of technical training, we might hope to find in their midst conditions which make for the better supervision and control of the lads who have left school. Beginning with the more distinctly religious associations, we find among them practical unanimity of opinion. One and all confess sadly that they are unable to keep in touch with the boys after they have gone out to work. For the tens of thousands of schoolboys who attend Sunday-school there are only hundreds of lads on the roll of Bible-classes. The sudden change from the status of schoolboy to the status of wage-earner, which for the majority severed all connection with the education authority, has even more decisively brought to an end the supervision of church and chapel. The miscellaneous associations represented by clubs, lads' brigades, boy scouts, and the like, have all been called into existence for the express purpose of exerting some measure of control over that transition period of life which separates the boy from the man. How many lads between the ages of fourteen and eighteen come within the sphere of influence it is not possible to say with any exactness. The Twentieth Century League estimated in 1903 that in London about 27,780 boys were connected with institutions of this character, and we shall see later that there are in London about 120,000 boys between the ages of fourteen and eighteen. It would be no less difficult to weigh the value of the work done. Existing as they do on a voluntary basis, and free from all element of compulsion, such supervision as they exert must take the form of tactful guidance. Their success or failure depends less on the machinery and more on the personal qualities of the manager. The wide and admirable influence of the best clubs is the triumph, not of the system, but of the exceptional individual. Exceptional individuals are, it must be remembered, exceptional, and an organization which depends on their presence is necessarily limited in the extent of its operations. We cannot therefore look to these associations to meet adequately the call for supervision. Of recent years numerous associations have been formed with the object of providing suitable openings for boys. There are two sides to their work. On the one hand, situations are found, terms made with employers as to wages and training, and steps taken to see that these terms are carried out. On the other hand, periodic visits are paid to the boy in his home, advice given as to attendance at evening schools, and friendly relations established between boy and visitor. In general, these bodies are concerned with placing out lads in skilled trades, though here and there some attempts have been made to attack the better parts of the unskilled labour market. Work of this character entails the expenditure of much time and money, and requires for the negotiation with employers considerable technical qualifications. Experience has shown that a staff of volunteers cannot alone perform the necessary duties, and paid officers have been appointed. The cost necessarily limits the expansion of the organization. Out of the 30,000 boys who annually leave the elementary schools of London, it is probable that not more than 2 per cent. come under the influence of these associations. On the other hand, if the sphere of their operations is limited, within that sphere it has achieved very considerable success. They have been pioneers in a new movement, have fully justified their existence, and must now look to the State to continue on a larger scale, but on the same general lines, the work that they have begun. Unlike most volunteers, these employment committees welcome this transfer, and are now readily placing their services at the disposal of the Board of Trade through its juvenile Labour Exchange. This brief survey of the contribution of philanthropic enterprise to the apprenticeship of to-day reveals one obvious conclusion: the associations only touch a fringe of the problem, and in no way exert any comprehensive measure of control over the lads between the ages of fourteen and eighteen. Their number, their variety, and their enthusiasm, indicate the urgent need of supervision rather than supervision successfully achieved. We cannot look to them to supplement in any large degree the defects in the scheme of State guardianship, or the more grave defects which will appear when the conditions of home and workshop have been passed in review. III. THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE HOME. What contribution does the home make to the solution of the apprenticeship question? We cannot, indeed, expect to find within the walls of the home provision made for the general education of the boy, or the specialized training of the youth; but it is not unnatural to look to the parent to exercise supervision over his children till manhood is reached, and likewise to offer to the boy leaving school advice and material assistance in the selection of a trade. We are still inclined to regard the family as the one relic of the patriarchal system that has retained a vigorous vitality through all the ages; we are still apt to see in the home a small world, edged off from the large world outside, self-centred, self-ruled, and enjoying all the advantages of a benevolent despotism. To what extent is this general assumption justified by the results of actual experience? The question is of profound importance, and has not received the attention it deserves from those who have written on boy labour. If we can take it for granted that in the normal home we have the means of controlling the boy and the growing lad up till the age of eighteen, we have a solid foundation on which to rest the new apprenticeship. Abnormal homes may need attention; but if the problem of supervision is solved for the majority, if there is an authority to which the boy submits himself as a matter of course, to add training and to organize openings are tasks which should present no serious difficulty. Can we look to the home to provide this fundamental basis of a true apprenticeship system? To answer this question we must study the homes themselves. A few years ago I devoted a large amount of time to the collection of material touching the character of family life in towns. The results were published in an essay entitled "The Boy and the Family." [94] I may perhaps be allowed to summarize the conclusions there established. Home varies from home; each may be said to have its own individuality, but each has much in common. To give definiteness to the problem, I endeavoured to class the homes under three types. In the main, type number one referred to the inhabitants of one and two room tenements; type number two embraced the families possessing three rooms; while the third type included those persons fortunate enough to rent more than three rooms. The size of the home proved a rough, though the best attainable, method of classifying the characteristics of the inmates. Supervision has been interpreted to mean two things--supervision of health and supervision of conduct. So far as the supervision of health is concerned, it is probable that very few of the parents belonging to the three types possess the necessary knowledge to carry out this duty. Among all classes of the community ignorance on matters affecting the hygiene of the home is almost universal. But even if knowledge were present, the resources at the disposal of large numbers would prove inadequate to make that knowledge effective. With type number one overcrowding is the rule; with type number two it is common; and only in the third type do we reach conditions of housing favourable to health. The experience derived from medical inspection of school-children and the administration of the Provision of Meals Act has revealed the deplorable condition of large numbers of children when left to the unaided care of their parents. The returns of necessitous children fed, which are published weekly in the minutes of the London County Council, showed that during the winter of 1909-10 at the time of most acute distress, about 9 per cent. of the children in the schools were receiving meals. A careful inquiry, the most elaborate of its kind, made into the home circumstances of the necessitous children in certain schools showed that the number of children actually fed was probably below, and certainly not above, the number who required meals. The same inquiry, with its lurid pictures of squalor and distress, proved how small was the prospect of health for many of those children, even though they were fed at school. It may be regarded as a conclusive demonstration of the call for more searching regulation on the part of the State.[95] It is probable, however, that the need for food is far larger than that represented by the number of children actually fed. Several inquiries, such as those carried out by Mr. Charles Booth in London, and Mr. Rowntree in York, indicate that the effective income of nearly a third of the population is too small to supply in adequate quantity even the bare necessities of existence. Medical inspection is now revealing the number of children suffering from definite ailments, and urgently requiring medical treatment, which they have hitherto been unable, in a large proportion of cases, to obtain. It would appear that some 10 per cent. suffer from defective vision, about 1 per cent. from discharging ears, about the same number from ringworm, while at least a third are suffering in health from the result of decaying teeth.[96] Everywhere we have abundant evidence to show that, from want of supervision, or of the effective means of supervision in the home, large numbers of children are growing up ill-clad, ill-nourished, and suffering from definite diseases, all alike leading to inefficient manhood. The second department of supervision is concerned with the supervision of character. Can we rest satisfied that the parents exercise over the growing lads that salutary control all growing lads require? The question is of profound importance, if, as all agree, character is the condition of success when the first steps are taken in the industrial world. It is necessary to distinguish between the boy attending school and the boy exempt from compulsory attendance. In what follows I shall draw largely on my essay in "Studies of Boy Life." The conclusions are derived from the experience of many years' residence in a poor part of London, and have been tested by a careful inquiry among ministers of religion, school-teachers, rent-collectors, and others with special knowledge of the subject. § 1. THE BOY OF SCHOOL AGE. If the parents are to control the boys, the boys must come much under the personal influence of the parents; in other words, rulers and ruled must meet frequently. Now, in all three types of family the father exercises little direct control over the children. If of good character, he is either out at work or out looking for work during five days of the week, and sees the children only in the evening. On Saturday afternoons and on Sundays he is at home; but a week-end visitor cannot be the dominant factor in domestic affairs. If control is exercised, it must be exercised by the mother. To trace her influence, it is necessary to picture the kind of life led by each type. I quote from my essay: "So far as the first type is considered, it is not easy to say when the children and parents meet.... The general order of events is something as follows: If it is one of the days on which he elects to work, the father rises about five o'clock, finds his own breakfast, and then quits the house. Some two or three hours later the school-children get out of bed, wash their faces, take a slice of bread and dripping, and go out. Sometimes the mother rises at that time and gets the breakfast, but in most cases remains in bed. At nine the boys go to school. At noon school is over, and the boys, after amusing themselves in the playground or street for an hour, go home to get some food. The mother meanwhile has risen, dressed the smaller children, performed the irreducible minimum of domestic work, and then left the house to gossip with a neighbour, or earn a few pence by charing. On rare occasions she may cook the children some dinner, but as a rule they get what food they can find, and eat it in the streets. Sometimes they receive a halfpenny to buy their own meal at a fried-fish shop. The boys then return to school, escape at half-past four, possibly go home to tea, and then once more turn for amusement to the streets. There they remain until it is dark, and often in summer till dawn begins to break, when at length they seek their dwelling and go to bed. In many cases the boys do not find their way back to their own houses, but take up their quarters for the night in the house of some friend. Sometimes they do not sleep in a house at all. In one case of which I have heard three boys spent a fortnight in a wash-house on the top of some blocks. There they lived an independent existence, getting their food and attending school regularly all the while. Later on, being discovered by a policeman, they were sent to their respective families.... Week follows week with little variation to mark the march of time. As brief a fragment of the boy's life as is possible is spent within the common dwelling, which offers him no occupation, and is entirely devoid of interest or attraction. The mother does not demand his presence indoors, while he himself has no wish to be there. The street, and not the house, ought probably to be regarded as the home or meeting-place of the family." [97] Supervision under circumstances of this kind must be an almost negligible factor in the life of the home. Let us now come to the second type. I quote again: "In the second type, as already mentioned, the family usually occupies three rooms. At first sight the conditions found in the former type seem to prevail here also. Indeed, as a matter of fact, the boys spend hardly more time at home than those just considered. Out of school hours they are either in the street or employed in some form of paid work.... School, street, meals, and bed alternate with one another here in much the same way as they did in the first type. But while the facts remain for the most part unchanged, their setting and colouring are very different. Another atmosphere seems to pervade the whole life; some sense of order and regularity begins to manifest itself; meals are at fixed hours; and the boys are expected home and sent to bed at more or less definite times. They return to their own tenements, and do not spend the night with some of their neighbours. As will appear later, home interests begin to develop; and if the boys spend their leisure in the streets, this is due more to their own choice than to the wish of their parents.... The mother does not display the utter indifference to the state of the dwelling or the habits of the children conspicuous in the first type. Some sort of ideal of home she seems to possess, but to obtain this ideal is beyond her power. She has the look of one who feels that things are wrong, and yet can see no remedy. She notes, for example, the evil influence the street exerts on the characters of her boys, but does not know how to preserve them from its overwhelming attractions." [98] "The chief difference, then, between the first and second type lies not so much in a different kind of life as in a certain change of atmosphere that pervades and transforms the common existence. In the third type this change of atmosphere becomes more conspicuous. A great part of the boy's time is, indeed, still spent outside the dwelling-place, but the life at home begins to assume larger proportions. There is more order and quiet in the house--a condition which reacts favourably on the boys. They are no longer seen hanging about the streets, loafing at the corners, or shouting noisily in the gutters. Though much out of doors, they go farther afield, and visit parks or museums; while, if they stay near home, they will usually be discovered in the school playground. In the evening many of them are indoors, and have various occupations, of which, perhaps, reading is the chief." [99] In type number one, then, there is, for all practical purposes, a complete absence of supervision. In the second type there is a desire for supervision, but the narrowness of the house accommodation thrusts the boys into the streets. In the third type alone are the conditions favourable to supervision. § 2. THE BOY AFTER SCHOOL DAYS. If the boy while at school is under little parental control, it is not to be expected that this control will be tightened when school days are over. With the first type of family there was no supervision before, and there is no more afterwards. The boy is self-supporting, and troubles little about the home, and the home troubles little about him. There is a partial exception in the case of the coster. Here the boy may become one of the regular working members of the establishment, and remains with his father; but the discipline is of a rude and ready sort. With the second type of family the boy's earnings are of great importance to the family, and the mother does her best to keep him at home. Any exercise of discipline is avoided, lest the lad should take his earnings and go elsewhere. He is rather in the position of a favoured lodger, whose presence is valuable to the home, and who must be treated well for fear he should give notice. In the third type of family, the boy, with growing years, passes out of the control of the mother, and is resentful of any restraint exerted by a woman. What supervision he enjoys comes from the father. The two do not meet often; father and son are seldom employed together, and the long distance that frequently separates home and work places the boy beyond the reach of parental control during the greater portion of the week. Such in broad outline, rendered jagged, no doubt, by numerous exceptions, is the quantity and the quality of the supervision exercised by the town parent over the town boy. Even with the highest type no high standard is reached, while with the lower we cannot contemplate the picture with any degree of satisfaction. Speaking generally, the city-bred youth is growing up in a state of unrestrained liberty; and what makes the problem more serious is the fact that all evidence goes to show that this disquieting phenomenon is not an accident, but the direct product of the social and industrial conditions of the times. Towns are growing larger, and with the growth of towns the whole conditions of family life are being transformed. The old patriarchal system is gone; the father is no longer an autocratic ruler in his small world. The family, so to say, has become democratized; we have in it an association of equals in authority. Now, the most ardent advocates of the extension of the suffrage have always limited their demands to an appeal for adult suffrage; they have never clamoured for children to be given a vote. Yet this, for all effective purposes, is what happens in the home in the case of the boy as soon as he has left school. The status of wage-earner has brought with it the status of manhood, and his earnings have conferred on him immunity from control and the right to be consulted in the politics of the home. Another fact, not sufficiently recognized, tends to break down the patriarchal system. With the steady improvement in the State schools, the boy is usually better educated than the father; the father knows this, and the boy knows it too. It is idle, therefore, to look for any large amount of parental control over the boy who has left school. We must face realities, however unpleasant these realities may happen to be; and one of the realities of the time is the independence of the lad. What is equally significant is the suddenness with which this independence comes. Until the age of fourteen he has remained under a carefully designed system of State supervision, exerted by the school authorities; while in a large number of cases the discipline of the home has been an important factor in his existence. At the age of fourteen, as a general rule, the control of school and home end together. The lad goes to bed a boy; he wakes as a man. There should therefore be little cause for surprise if the habits of the school and home are rapidly sloughed off in the new life of irresponsible freedom. Whether, therefore, we look to the State, to philanthropic enterprise, or to the home, we find no satisfactory guarantee for the supervision of the youth of the country. We have yet to search for this supervision in the workshop; but if it is absent there, we shall be faced with the disquieting phenomenon of the boy at the age of fourteen enjoying the full and complete independence of the adult. IV. THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE WORKSHOP. Having examined three out of the four factors which contribute to the apprenticeship of to-day, and found them all inadequate, we must now turn to the workshop in the hope that we shall discover there conditions more favourable to the well-being of the youth of the country. If, however, this last factor prove defective, the apprenticeship of to-day will stand condemned, and the case for drastic reform will become unanswerable. It will therefore be desirable to devote considerable space to this, the central feature of the problem of boy labour. In what follows it is proposed first to make a detailed study of conditions in London, and then to present a general picture of the state of boy labour in other parts of the country. London has been selected for a detailed study because in a peculiar degree it represents the extreme type of urbanization. There is also the advantage that in the case of London the material required for the examination has to a large extent been collected. The investigations of Mr. Charles Booth, the publications and inquiries on the subject carried out by the London County Council, Mr. Cyril Jackson's report on boy labour presented to the Poor Law Commission, and numerous other writings, have provided for the study of London a mass of information which, though not in all respects exhaustive, is more complete than can be found elsewhere. § 1. LONDON. A study of the problem of boy labour in London involves the study of three questions. First we have to consider the case of the children who, while still attending school, are employed for wages. Next we must devote special attention to the boys as they leave school and distribute themselves among the different occupations. Finally, we must watch the later career of those lads, and in particular endeavour to ascertain in what way and with what results is made the difficult passage from the status of the youth to the status of the man. _(a) The Employment of School-Children._ In London the half-time system is not permitted. The standard of attainment for total exemption has been made sufficiently high to prevent the great majority of boys from leaving school till the age of fourteen is reached. It is, however, a fact that improved methods of instruction and more rapid promotion from class to class are tending to lower the age at which it is possible to obtain a Labour Certificate. How far this opportunity is used it is not easy to say; but in certain schools, situated in the poorer districts, it is alleged that there is a growing tendency for the brighter children to claim exemption in this way. The regularity of attendance is admirable, the average attendance in boys' schools exceeding 90 per cent. We may therefore assume that, if the boys work for wages, they must work at times when the schools are not opened. To what extent are boys employed while still liable to attend school? In 1899 a return was obtained throughout the elementary schools of England and Wales of the number of children so employed. In London, in the case of boys, the figures were 21,755.[100] The tables also give the ages of the children, but boys and girls are not separated. If, however, we assume that the number of children of each sex at each age is proportionate to the total number of children of each sex at all ages, we find that 78 per cent. of the boys were eleven and upwards, and 22 per cent. under eleven. The number of boys of eleven and upwards would be about 17,000. There are in the elementary schools about 70,000 boys eleven years of age and upwards, so that about 24 per cent. of these boys are employed. In other words, nearly a quarter of the boys in the elementary schools above the age of eleven were employed at the time of the return. The actual number of boys who are employed during the course of their school career would be considerably larger, as they would not all be employed at the same moment. The return is more than ten years old, but, with the exception of the children under eleven, it is improbable that there has been much change. Similar figures may be deduced from the Report of the Interdepartmental Committee on the Employment of School-Children, 1901.[101] With regard to the number of hours worked, Miss Adler's evidence is selected, and typical schools show that 56 per cent. were employed for more than twenty hours a week, while 14 per cent. were employed thirty-five hours or upwards.[102] In individual cases the figures were much higher. "Thus a boy of eleven years of age, for four shillings a week, was employed for forty-three and three-quarter hours in carrying parcels from a chemist's shop, and, except on Sundays, was practically every moment of his life at school or at work from seven in the morning till nine o'clock at night. Another boy, aged thirteen, worked fifty-two hours a week, being employed by a moulding company, and attending a theatre for five evenings a week and for half a day on Wednesday for a _matinée_--for the last, however, playing truant from school." [103] The following graphic account taken from a school composition, and obtained under circumstances which guarantee its essential accuracy, shows the amount of work which may be compressed into a single day. It refers to Saturday: "I first got up from bed about half-past six, and put my clothes on and had a wash. Then I went to work at B.'s, and swept out his shop, and then I did the window out. But after I done the window I had my breakfast and went in the shop again. I started taking out orders that came in. While I was taking the orders out, Mr. B. went to the Borough market for some potatoes, cabbages, and some onions; but when he came home I had to unload his van. After I unloaded his van, he went for some coal, which he sells at one and sixpence a hundredweight, but he got two tons of coal in. Then we had dinner about one o'clock. When we had our dinner, I had a rest till about four o'clock, when I had tea. When I had my tea I had to go and chop some wood, when it was time to shut up the shop. I had my supper and went home, and went to bed, and the time was about twelve o'clock." [104] It will be seen that, with the exception of a break in the middle of the day, the boy was on duty for nearly three-quarters of the twenty-four hours, and for part of the time was engaged in heavy manual labour. What effect does employment have on the physical condition of children under the age of fourteen? "That excessive employment is injurious alike to the education and to the health of the children is hardly in question. It was testified to by witness after witness, many of them in no way likely to be influenced by merely theoretical objections to child labour." [105] On the other hand, most of the witnesses that appeared before the Interdepartmental Committee were of opinion that "moderate work" was in many cases not only not injurious, but "positively beneficial." [106] It is not easy to understand what is meant by the last statement. If some form of employment is beneficial, then the 76 per cent. who are not so employed suffer, and steps should be taken to encourage them to work. It is doubtful whether the witnesses would have accepted this conclusion, from which, on their own assumptions, there is really no escape. The difficulty lay in drawing the line. "Most of the witnesses seemed to suggest that twenty hours might be fixed as the maximum weekly limit; but, on the other hand, we found some cases where less than twenty hours a week, if concentrated in one or two days, or if done at night, must be injurious." [107] But the evidence of most value on the subject is to be found in a Report of the Medical Officer of the London County Council.[108] About 400 boys employed outside school hours were examined. The following table, with defects in percentages, was obtained as the result:[109] +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | Actual |Fatigue| |Severe| |Severe| |Hours worked | Number |Signs. |Anæmia.|Nerve |Deformities.|Heart | | Weekly. |of Boys.| | |Signs.| |Signs.| |------------------|--------|-------|-------|------|------------|------| |All schoolboys of | | | | | | | | district workers| | | | | | | | and non-workers | 3,700 | -- | 25 | 24 | 8 | 8 | |Working 20 hours | | | | | | | | or less | 163 | 50 | 34 | 28 | 15 | 11 | |Working 20 to 30 | | | | | | | | hours | 86 | 81 | 47 | 44 | 21 | 15 | |Working over 30 | | | | | | | | hours | 95 | 83 | 45 | 50 | 22 | 21 | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ It will be seen that the defects rise rapidly with increase in the hours of work; while, even in the case of those working less than twenty hours, there is a serious deviation from the average. The fact that 50 per cent. of those working less than twenty hours should exhibit signs of fatigue, even where no permanent physical evil results, must seriously affect the value of the school instruction. In every case the workers compare unfavourably with the average for the whole of the workers and non-workers. We cannot view with satisfaction the truth that, even in those employed with moderation, deformities and severe heart signs should be nearly 50 per cent. above the average. The medical officer adds other conclusions no less disquieting. "Working eight hours on Saturday is as inimical as thirty hours during the week, and working through the dinner-hour appears particularly productive of anæmia," [110] "Retardation in school work was noted in 209 out of these 330 boys, 86 being one standard, 83 two standards, 37 three standards, and 3 four standards behind that corresponding to their age." [111] As his final conclusion the medical officer states: "We must set up as an ideal the suppression of child labour below twelve years of age, and during school life regulate it to twenty hours weekly, and a maximum of five hours on any one day." [112] The figures, however, would seem to go far in justifying the more drastic remedy of complete prohibition. It is, however, fair to mention that the Report of the Interdepartmental Committee, and also the Report of the Medical Officer, refer to a state of affairs prior to the passing of the Employment of Children Act. Under this Act, as explained in the last chapter,[113] employment of children under the age of eleven is forbidden, while the by-laws of the Council place restrictions on the number of hours children may work, and the times of day during which such work may be carried on. It is too soon to judge of the extent to which these restrictions can be enforced. During the first year of effective operation in London there were, in respect of boys under the age of sixteen, 13,461 cases of infringement. Prohibition under a certain age or during certain times of the day is comparatively easy to enforce; but limitation of hours, as experience of the Shop Act shows, is extremely difficult to enforce, and peculiarly difficult where, as with school-children, persons are not employed regularly, but work irregularly at times when the schools are not open. To get evidence sufficient to justify convictions is almost impossible, except in a few outrageous cases. What, if any, effect does the employment of school-children have on the general question of the preparation for a trade? Into this general question the Interdepartmental Committee did not enter. They did indeed regard certain forms of occupation as injurious, while they pronounced as beneficial employment in moderation. But this statement has apparently reference only to matters of health, and not to the relation of employment during school days to employment afterwards. The question is of great importance, as habits, in respect of work for wages, formed by the boy cling persistently to the youth. It is necessary, therefore, to pay some attention to the characteristics of the work which schoolboys undertake. In London 90 per cent. of the work would be included in the three following classes: (1) Shops--errand-running and delivery of parcels, milk, newspapers, and watching the goods spread on the counters outside the shops; (2) domestic--knife and boot cleaning, and occasionally baby-minding; and (3) street employment--hawking of newspapers, matches, and flowers, organ-grinding, and the like. Now, none of these forms of occupation provide any trade-training, or offer an opening with satisfactory prospects, to the boy as he leaves school. On the other hand, this class of work has distinctly injurious effects. First, it is employment of a casual character. Affected as it is, on the one hand, by attendance at school, and on the other by Saturdays and holidays, it is essentially irregular as regards hours. Secondly, it is easy to obtain, and consequently lightly undertaken and lightly dropped. Where another situation can be obtained at will, there is no demand on the worker to display the qualities that make for permanence of employment. Thirdly, it is work in which youths as well as boys are engaged; in other words, it does provide an opening to the boy as he leaves school--an opening which he is likely to accept, because it is the most obvious, but at the same time an opening in one of those forms of occupation entrance into which we should, as will appear later, do our utmost to discourage. It is singularly unfortunate that a boy's first association with any kind of paid employment should be of this nature. And, finally, it is at least open to grave doubt whether that sense of independence of home which comes with the consciousness of earning wages should begin at as early an age as twelve or thirteen. It would not be easy to imagine a more unsatisfactory form of preparation for a trade than that provided by the kind of work carried out by wage-earning children. If we add to this demoralizing influence the injurious effect on health and education, the case for total prohibition of boy labour during school-days becomes very strong. _(b) The Entry to a Trade._ The great majority of boys remain at the elementary school till they attain the age of fourteen; it is no less true that the vast majority cease attendance as soon as that age is reached. The period of the next four years--that is, from fourteen to eighteen--forms the most critical time of their career. It is during these four years that the boy must, if ever, have taken the first steps towards learning a trade. During this interval his physical strength must mature, his character take on itself a more or less permanent set, and the question whether his education shall represent something more than a faint shadow of early impressions be finally determined. In short, it is during these four years that the future citizen is made or marred. The previous survey, whether of the factors which contribute to the apprenticeship of to-day, or of the evils which are found among wage-earning school-children, does not guarantee a favourable start in the world of whole-time employment. Each year about 30,000 boys leave school at the age of fourteen to take up some form of work. These figures do not agree with the Census returns, because the latter include all London boys in all classes of society, whether at school or at work. Here we are concerned only with the boys of fourteen who leave the elementary school with the intention of earning their own living. Between the ages of fourteen and eighteen there will therefore be 120,000 boys. It is the careers of these 120,000 boys that we must now try to follow. What are the first occupations selected by these 120,000 boys? During the last few years the London County Council has endeavoured to find an answer to this question. Each head-master of an elementary school is required annually to fill up a form in respect of each boy who has left the school during the preceding twelve months. The information asked for is "occupation of parent," "occupation of boy," "whether skilled or unskilled," or "whether a place of higher education is attended." Returns have been received and summarized for the years 1906-07 and 1907-08. The first return was incomplete, but the second included the vast majority of those who left. Below is given the summary for the two years: +----------------------------------------------------------+ | | Skilled.| Unskilled.| Higher | | | | |Education.| |-------------------------|---------|-----------|----------| | Number | 8,662 | 15,910 | 1,524 | | Percentage | 33·2 | 61·0 | 5·8 | | Percentage, 1906-07 | 28·5 | 67·9 | 3·6 | +----------------------------------------------------------+ It will be seen that, including those who went to some higher form of education, little more than a third of the boys left school to enter a skilled trade.[114] TABLE I. +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | Number. | Percentage. | | Class of Occupation. |------------------|------------------| | | Parent. | Boy. | Parent. | Boy. | |--------------------------------|---------|--------|---------|--------| |Trades and industries | 615 | 347 | 40·87 | 18·74 | |Domestic offices or services | 23 | 46 | 1·52 | 2·48 | |Transport (including messengers,| | | | | | errand-boys, van-boys, etc.) | 191 | 829 | 12·69 | 44·76 | |Shopkeepers, shop-assistants, | | | | | | and dealers | 137 | 133 | 9·10 | 7·18 | |Commercial occupations | 61 | 141 | 4·05 | 7·61 | |General labour | 436 | 215 | 28·98 | 11·61 | |Professional occupations and | | | | | | their subordinate services | 11 | 5 | 0·73 | 0·27 | |General or local government | 26 | 6 | 1·73 | 0·32 | |Defence of the country | 5 | 1 | 0·33 | 0·06 | |Higher education | -- | 27 | -- | 1·45 | |Unemployed | -- | 102 | -- | 5·52 | |--------------------------------|---------|--------|---------|--------| | Total | 1,505 | 1,852 | 100·00 | 100·00 | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ It is unfortunate that no full analysis has been made of these returns. The value of the information which would have thus been obtained was not supposed to justify the labour and expenditure involved in such an analysis. I have, however, roughly analyzed nearly 4,000 cases, and endeavoured to classify the occupations, in accordance with the table founded on the Census return which will be given later.[115] I selected for this purpose typical districts in London. Table I. includes returns from all the schools in the electoral areas of Bermondsey, North Camberwell, and Walworth; it represents a typical miscellaneous working-class district. Table II. includes the electoral areas of Dulwich and Lewisham; it may be regarded as typical of suburban villadom so far as its inhabitants send their children to the elementary schools. Table III. includes the electoral areas of Whitechapel and St. George's-in-the-East, districts distinguished by the presence of a large number of small trades and sweated industries. Table IV. includes the collective results of the three preceding tables, and may be taken as fairly typical of London as a whole. It was necessary to exclude the returns of a few schools as incomplete, indefinite, or obviously inaccurate. Parent stands for occupation of parent, boy for occupation of boy. The two do not quite correspond, as in a certain number of instances the occupation of the parent was unknown. I have included the telegraph-boys under "Transport," as for my purpose this classification was the more suitable. TABLE II. +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | Number. | Percentage. | | Class of Occupation. |------------------|------------------| | | Parent. | Boy. | Parent. | Boy. | |--------------------------------|---------|--------|---------|--------| |Trades and industries | 347 | 151 | 35·57 | 14·86 | |Domestic offices or services | 14 | 27 | 1·45 | 2·64 | |Transport (including messengers,| | | | | | errand-boys, van-boys, etc.) | 70 | 350 | 7·24 | 34·31 | |Shopkeepers, shop-assistants, | | | | | | and dealers | 100 | 126 | 10·34 | 12·35 | |Commercial occupations | 180 | 157 | 18·61 | 15·38 | |General labour | 144 | 54 | 14·89 | 5·29 | |Professional occupations and | | | | | | their subordinate services | 47 | 2 | 4·86 | 0·19 | |General or local government | 66 | 9 | 6·83 | 0·88 | |Defence of the country | 2 | 5 | 0·21 | 0·48 | |Higher education | -- | 76 | -- | 7·45 | |Unemployed | -- | 63 | -- | 6·17 | |--------------------------------|---------|--------|---------|--------| | Total | 967 | 1,020 | 100·00 | 100·00 | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ TABLE III. +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | Number. | Percentage. | | Class of Occupation. |------------------|------------------| | | Parent. | Boy. | Parent. | Boy. | |--------------------------------|---------|--------|---------|--------| |Trades and industries | 349 | 305 | 51·09 | 41·84 | |Domestic offices or services | 25 | 18 | 3·66 | 2·47 | |Transport (including messengers,| | | | | | errand-boys, van-boys, etc.) | 72 | 189 | 10·54 | 25·93 | |Shopkeepers, shop-assistants, | | | | | | and dealers | 91 | 48 | 13·33 | 6·58 | |Commercial occupations | 11 | 39 | 1·61 | 5·35 | |General labour | 116 | 63 | 16·99 | 8·64 | |Professional occupations | | | | | | and their subordinate services| 10 | 3 | 1·46 | 0·41 | |General or local government | 8 | -- | 1·17 | -- | |Defence of the country | 1 | -- | 0·15 | -- | |Higher education | -- | 7 | -- | 0·96 | |Unemployed | -- | 57 | -- | 7·82 | |--------------------------------|---------|--------|---------|--------| | Total | 683 | 729 | 100·00 | 100·00 | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ TABLE IV. +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | Number. | Percentage. | | Class of Occupation. |------------------|------------------| | | Parent. | Boy. | Parent. | Boy. | |--------------------------------|---------|--------|---------|--------| |Trades and industries | 1,308 | 803 | 41·46 | 22·31 | |Domestic offices or services | 62 | 91 | 1·97 | 2·53 | |Transport (including messengers,| | | | | | errand-boys, van-boys, etc.) | 333 | 1,368 | 10·55 | 38·00 | |Shopkeepers, shop-assistants, | | | | | | and dealers | 328 | 307 | 10·39 | 8·52 | |Commercial occupations | 252 | 337 | 7·98 | 9·36 | |General labour | 696 | 332 | 22·06 | 9·22 | |Professional occupations and | | | | | | their subordinate services | 68 | 10 | 2·16 | 0·28 | |General or local government | 100 | 15 | 3·17 | 0·41 | |Defence of the country | 8 | 6 | 0·26 | 0·16 | |Higher education | -- | 110 | -- | 3·05 | |Unemployed | -- | 222 | -- | 6·16 | |--------------------------------|---------|--------|---------|--------| |Total | 3,155 | 3,601 | 100·00 | 100·00 | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ In the interpretation of these tables certain facts must be borne in mind. None of the parents are returned as unemployed; this is because the trade of the parent was asked for, and no account was taken as to whether he was or was not employed. Secondly, the occupations are somewhat vaguely described; this in particular is true of the term "labourer." More exact information would no doubt have removed the parent from the class "general labour," and placed him in the class "transport," and occasionally in the classes "domestic servant" or "shop-assistant." Thirdly, the messenger-boys are included partly under "transport" and partly under "shop-assistants," the boy being termed sometimes an errand-boy and sometimes a shop-boy. The term "office-boy," which appears frequently in the returns, is vague. I have classed the office-boy as an errand-boy unless the school return places him in the column "skilled employment," when I have included him under the heading "commercial occupation." Making allowance for a certain inevitable inaccuracy which belongs to returns of this kind, we have a general picture, accurate in all essentials, of the distribution of boys among the various forms of occupation immediately after leaving the elementary school. The columns which refer to the trade of the parents, and indicate therefore the distribution of the parents among the various forms of occupation, are of considerable value. If we take Table IV., which may be regarded as typical of London as a whole, and compare the last two columns, we shall at once notice the striking difference that marks the distribution of boys and of adults among the several kinds of employment. In "trades and industries," 41 per cent. of parents are engaged, and only 22 per cent. of boys; 38 per cent. of the boys are engaged in "transport," and only 10 per cent. of parents. This fact carries with it a conclusion of great importance--son and father can seldom work together. If, for example, 10 per cent. of the parents are included under "transport," and 38 per cent. of the boys, it is clear that little more than a quarter of such boys can be employed in company with their parents. The actual facts, as revealed by an examination of the individual returns, are much stronger, and demonstrate the extreme rareness of father and son following the same occupation. In the case of "trades and industries" the trade of father and son is not infrequently the same; this is in particular true of "tailoring" trades of the East End, included in Table III., where the proportion of adults to boys are as fifty-one to forty-two. In suburban villadom, pictured in Table III., the clerk is often father to the clerk, while the son of a shopkeeper occasionally assists his parents in the shop. The coster habit likewise runs in families. But with these exceptions father and son do not work together. In consequence, in his first situation the boy is cut adrift from the home and its control, such as it is. He has not his father by his side to note and guide his conduct; and if he enters a skilled trade, he lacks the personal interest of the parent to guarantee his satisfactory training. We have already seen that the school supervision is at an end; in consequence, the only disciplinary influence left is the influence of the employer. The character of the employment and the nature of the supervision of the master become, therefore, of supreme importance to the well-being of the boy. It is consequently necessary to examine in some detail the distinguishing features of the various kinds of occupation. They are usually roughly classed as skilled or unskilled, according as they do or do not lead to a form of employment which requires specialized skill or specialized intelligence. THE UNSKILLED TRADES.--Practically the whole of the unskilled trades are included under the terms "domestic service," "transport," "shop," and "general labour," and the great majority of the boys who select these occupations may be said to select an unskilled trade. In Table I., a typical working-class district, it will be seen that 66 per cent. of the boys who leave the elementary schools come within this class. In Table II., a suburban area, the figures are 55 per cent.; but a considerable proportion of those included under "shops" appear to be employed in the shops of their parents, and to be learning the business. In Table III., representing the small East End trades, the figures are 44 per cent.; but, judged by wages and conditions of employment, the majority of the 42 per cent. included under trades should be transferred to the class of unskilled work. For all the districts, as a whole typical of London, Table IV. shows the figures to be 58·27 per cent. The figures quoted above ignore the boys returned as unemployed and unknown, the number of these for all London being 6 per cent. They are boys waiting for something to turn up; what will turn up it is impossible to predict. But it is safe to say that a considerable portion will drift into unskilled work. The unskilled trades fall into three classes. The first and smallest is included under "domestic service." Under this head are found boys in barbers' shops, page-boys, club-boys, boot and knife boys. Employment in a barber's shop is notoriously unhealthy;[116] a barber's shop is also supposed to be not infrequently the resort of the betting fraternity. The fortunes of the page and club boy await the zeal of an investigator; the knife and boot boy soon passes to some other occupation. Of the three classes, domestic service is the least important and the soonest left by the boy. The second class, included under "transport" and "shopkeepers," is far the largest and the most important. In all London some 47 per cent. of the boys are found here; or, if we add a half of the 6 per cent. returned as unemployed, we may say that half the boys who leave the elementary schools belong to this class. It is necessary to take "transport" and "shopkeepers" together, because it is impossible to tell whether a "shop-boy" is merely an errand-boy, or a boy on the road to become a properly trained shop-assistant. It is probable, however, that only a small number could be regarded as future shop-assistants. Ignoring these exceptions, we have to follow the fortunes of 50 per cent. of the boys leaving school--in other words, of 15,000 persons. Their forms of employment have much in common. In the first place, they are what is known as "blind-alley" occupations--they lead nowhere. Boys only are engaged, and when the boys become men they are cast adrift. Sometimes they are absorbed in the adult service, but more usually, if they have not already left, are given notice, and must at the age of eighteen seek out some new way of earning a living. The report of Mr. Cyril Jackson makes this fact abundantly clear.[117] "The industrial biographies received," he says, "show clearly that there is generally a time of transition when boys have to seek new occupations, for which they have little aptitude." [118] Or again: "There appears to be no doubt that the restlessness of many of the boys doing more or less unskilled work obscures from some employers the fact that they are using a greater number of boys than can ever be employed in connection with their trade as men. The employers who have filled up forms often state that they 'never discharge a boy who is willing to stay,' or 'that boys are only discharged for misconduct,' when it is evident from the figures appearing in the same form that there must be a considerable proportion of the boys passing out of the trade each year.... That many employers, on the other hand, do in fact discharge a considerable proportion of their boys because they have no room for them as men--or, to express the same thing in the form in which it presents itself to the masters, because they cannot afford to offer men's wages--is shown in the short accounts of the trades in the Appendix." [119] It is needless to labour the point further, as everyone familiar with the conditions of boy work give evidence to the same effect. The second characteristic of these trades is that they are mainly concerned with fetching or carrying something--messages, letters, parcels. It is characteristic of that stage of civilization at which we have arrived that we want to save ourselves trouble, or to save ourselves time. Boys are the instruments we use. "Here we are, all of us," says a modern writer, "demanding an endless number of tiny jobs to be done on our behalf. Every year multiplies these demands, increasing the pace at which the jobs can be done, and the number of them that can be crowded into the time. We learn to expect more and more conveniences at our elbow by which communication can be made, business transacted, messages despatched, parcels transferred, news brought up to date, transit hastened, things of all kinds put under our hand. We touch buttons, press knobs, ring bells, whisper down telephones, keep wires throbbing with our desires, bustle and hustle the world along. And all this in the end means _boys_. Boys are what we set moving. Boys are the material in which we deal. Boys are our tools. Every wire has a boy at the end of it." [120] This tendency to demand the services of boys has spread through all classes of society. To take a single example of quite recent growth: It is becoming less and less common for the housewife to bring the results of her marketing home herself; a boy delivers the goods instead. Go into any shop, even in the poorest part of the town, and make a few purchases; the shopman will probably offer to send them home for you. There is something flattering and pleasant in the offer; it is one of the new products of competition to multiply conveniences instead of cutting prices. The demand for boys is rapidly increasing; and while the demand is increasing, the supply of boys has diminished. The raising of the school age, the improved attendance, and the decrease of truancy, have all removed from the labour market an immense number of boys. "The Census figures show that there has been a steady diminution of boys employed under fifteen during the last quarter of a century." [121] The Labour Exchanges testify to the same effect, the managers frequently saying: "There is an unsatisfied demand for juvenile labour of an unskilled type." [122] This growing demand has two effects. First, as it becomes increasingly easier for boys to obtain situations, there is less and less inducement for them to show such industry and good conduct as are necessary to retain their places. Dismissal has no terrors; it means, if they please, a few days' holiday, or, if they prefer it, a new employer can be at once discovered. It becomes therefore difficult for an employer to exercise over the boys the discipline they need; if he attempt to do so, he will soon find himself without boys. Lads change situations for the mere sake of change, to see what happens. "I have known," says Mr. J. G. Cloete, "boys who, within three years of leaving school, have been employed in as many as seventeen different occupations." [123] The second consequence of the increased demand for boys in these kinds of occupations is a rise in wages. The earnings of these boys are considerably higher than those obtained by a boy who enters a skilled trade. "The casual and low-skilled employments give higher wages in the early years in order to attract the boys." [124] With boys choosing, as they do, their own occupations, high wages at the outset are more attractive than low wages with the prospect of learning a trade. The third characteristic these occupations have in common lies in certain general conditions of employment. Hours are long; at the same time, the boy is often idle for long periods, waiting for messages to come in and parcels to go out. Shop-boys and telegraph-boys are kept hanging about with nothing to do. The office-boy in a small office is often the whole staff, and is left alone for hours when his master is out, and "spends his time either in vacancy, in mischievous expeditions along the corridor, or in reading trash of a bloodthirsty nature." [125] The boy has often heavy goods to carry long distances, and overtaxes his strength. Either there is too much idleness or too much work; these are the alternatives. In neither case is there the possibility of much supervision. The fourth characteristic has not received the attention it deserves. These forms of occupation, though unskilled in the sense that the boy receives no training in his present place of business, nevertheless demand qualities of a high standard. The boy must be regular, obedient, and, above all, intelligent. A dull boy as a messenger is liable to make stupid and irritating mistakes. The stories of district messengers carrying letters unaided over the Continent show that the boys possess no ordinary intelligence. Now, we have already seen that these are the qualities which are in a peculiar degree the product of the elementary schools. The schools turn out innumerable boys of this kind. It is not, perhaps, a mere coincidence that the increasing use of boys in occupations which call for alertness of mind has gone on side by side with improvements in the educational system. The State has spent much money on these boys. A boy who starts to attend school at the age of three and leaves at fourteen has had spent on him a sum of money which, if invested year by year at 4 per cent., and left to accumulate till the time for leaving school comes, would amount to nearly £100. Each year in the 30,000 boys who leave school £3,000,000 of State-created value is turned adrift. The State has therefore a right to demand that this capital sum of £100 invested in the boy shall not be squandered by the employer. He ought to give back at the age of eighteen at least as valuable an article as he received four years earlier. This consideration leads to the last characteristic distinguishing these occupations. They lead to nothing, and when the boy reaches the end, he is, in the majority of cases, distinctly inferior in every way to what he was three or four years before. Evidence in favour of this assertion is overwhelming. "At the present time, at the age of eighteen, after a four years' course of employment, whose chief characteristics are the long hours, the lack of supervision, and the total absence of any educational influence, the lad is a distinctly less valuable article in the labour market than he was when he left school four years previously. His only asset is represented by greater physical strength, accompanied probably by a marked decrease in general health and vigour. He has lost the intelligence and aptitude of the boy, and remains a clumsy and unintelligent man, fitted for nothing but unskilled labour, and likely to become sooner or later one of the unemployed." [126] "There seems little doubt that the boy labour is used up for industrial purposes, and that they are left less capable members of the community, with little prospect of good work when they become adults." [127] "The most hopeless position is that of the errand-boy at a small shop in a poor neighbourhood; his prospects are absolutely nil." [128] "The chart prepared from the forms filled in by boys who entered life as errand-boys shows that the small proportion who find steady and skilled employment afterwards have ceased to be errand-boys very early; the vast majority become workers in low-skill trades, or general and casual labourers." [129] "Mr. Courtney Terell, who has been making inquiries from the Passmore Edwards Settlement, writes: 'I feel confident ... that the messenger work produced a definite effect on the boys, as will the continual performance of any one of a definite function which admits of no improvement, and that this has unfitted them for other work.'" [130] "The injury done to these boys is not that they are compelled as men to devote themselves to low-skilled labour, but that from the more or less specialized nature of the work which has employed this boyhood, they are unfitted to become good low-skilled labourers." [131] It is impossible to resist the mass of evidence of this kind which might easily be increased indefinitely. The boy gains nothing from this form of employment and loses much. He loses the results of his training in the elementary school; the habits of obedience, regularity, and industry are dead; the bright intelligence is dulled, and with the coming of dulness goes the power of learning. He loses his prospects; his future is the future of the unskilled labourer--the unskilled labourer, robbed of that grit and alertness which alone secure for unskilled labour the adequate reward of permanent employment at a steady wage. His loss is the loss of the community, which is compelled later to relieve him and his family, and perhaps in the end find a home for him in the workhouse. And in thinking of this deterioration, and of that hopeless future which that deterioration involves, we must never forget that it is not a mere handful of lads who suffer in this way, but that half the boys who leave the elementary school start on this dreary journey, and, so starting, bid fare to reach that dreary end. Reckoned in money, the State has spent a million and a half on these boys, and but little comes back to the State or remains with the boy. If it has gone anywhere, and it probably has, then it has gone into the pockets of the employers who have sucked out of the boys their value, and then cast them aside as worthless refuse, a sort of slag or waste product of their works, for which neither they nor anyone else can find a use. In saying this there is no desire to censure unfairly the employers. They are undoubtedly to blame, because thoughtlessness and ignorance in persons of their position are always blameworthy; but there is nothing deliberate in their actions, and they are largely unconscious of the harm they are doing. There is no active cruelty, and often much rude and ready kindness. The boys to them are merely instruments in the machinery of their business, for the moment the cheapest instruments that can be found, to be used until a new and better supply takes the place of those who are used up. They are ignorant of the consequences of their conduct, and, as their evidence shows, generally imagine that the boys who leave find suitable jobs. It is only of late years that numerous investigators and managers of boys' clubs have revealed the grave results of this thoughtlessness. Employers who generally enjoy a good reputation as employers are often the worst offenders. Indeed, the most flagrant example of this exploitation of boy labour is to be found in the Imperial Government and the Municipal Service. Mr. Cyril Jackson has in his report devoted much space to the telegraph-boys in the service of the Post Office. "The boys come from very good homes, and are often the pick of the family. They are examined medically, and bring characters." [132] A mere fraction are absorbed in the adult service. "It appears as if the Post Office is one of the least promising occupations into which a boy can enter. The better boys go into it, and it is very depressing to see from our returns how very few of the very large number discharged at sixteen or seventeen get into as good employment as their good social standing and general standard of education should have guaranteed for them." [133] "Everyone of experience seems to agree that these telegraph-messengers who are discharged exemplify in a very striking way the evils of a parasitic trade." [134] Yet these things had been going on for years in a service like that of the Post Office, which is subject to much criticism by its employees, and yet no attention had been called to the evil. Unfortunately, boys have no votes, and do not form trade unions. Other Government departments and the Municipal Service seem no less ignorant and no less worthy of blame. A short time back the Education Committee called the attention of the London County Council to the misuse of its boy labour, and now the Council allows its boys, weekly, six hours "off" during working hours, and provides classes which they are compelled to attend. At the same time it has nominated one of its officers to look after the interests of these boys, and to guide them into useful occupations. If the public service is thus guilty, we must not be surprised that private employers are not conscious of wrongdoing in their use of boys. The evil is now revealed; there can be no further excuse for ignorance. How to deal adequately with the problem must be left to the consideration of the next chapter. The third division of the unskilled occupations comes under the head "General Labour." Some 9 per cent. of the boys as they leave school fall into this class. This is a nondescript class not clearly defined in the returns. Probably a considerable proportion should be brought into the preceding class, but there are evidently a large number who could not be disposed of in this way. Boys employed in warehouses, in gardens and parks, boys in small places assisting the master in the lighter forms of labour, boys accompanying their fathers and joining in his work--these come into this division. The returns are not sufficiently explicit to yield materials for a critical examination; but one or two conclusions can be derived from their examination. It will be seen that 22 per cent. of the parents, as compared with 9 per cent. of boys, are recorded as being general labourers. There is here no excess of boys; there should not be the same difficulty in boys finding openings in the adult service as in those occupations where boys can claim a practical monopoly. Boys have always taken some part in labouring work, and so passed to the better class of unskilled labour. Boys in warehouses, for example, frequently find there permanent situations. Further, the proportion of parents to sons would indicate the possibility of the two being employed together, and the boy thus remaining under the supervision of his father. An examination of individual returns justifies this conclusion. On the other hand, it is to be remembered that the hours of employment are frequently very long, and the work arduous and ill suited to the strength of a growing lad, and in no way regulated by legislation. Taken as a whole, it is probable that the boys who enter this kind of occupation, though without opportunity of continuing their education, are not in as forlorn a condition as those in the previous class. But the whole question is obscure, and it is difficult, without fuller information, to test the nature of their training. THE SKILLED OCCUPATIONS.--The skilled occupations fall into two classes--those where manual skill is required, and those concerned with commercial and clerical operations. The former are included under "Trades and Industries," and the latter under "Commercial Occupations," "Professional Occupations," and "Local Government." 1. _Trades and Industries._--From the tables printed on pp. 115-118, it will be seen that under this heading there are in Table I., the type of a working-class district, 41 per cent. of parents and 19 per cent. of boys; in Table II., the type of a suburban district, the figures are 36 and 15 respectively; in Table III., the type of the small trader of the East End, 51 and 42; while in Table IV., the type of London as a whole, the percentage is in the case of fathers 41, and in the case of boys 22. We have now to consider the prospects as regards supervision, training and opening which these trades offer to the boys who enter. Table III., with its percentage of 51 parents and 42 boys engaged in trades and industries, presents a pleasing appearance, but the bulk of the trades concerned belong to the tailoring and other industries where sweating is rife, where the skill required is of a low order, and the wages small and often below the level of bare subsistence. The boys learn something, are frequently employed with their fathers, and have a more or less permanent outlook, though within the horizon of that outlook is seldom included the vision of a living wage. They in general do not form part of the class which finds its way into the ranks of that miscellaneous unskilled labour whose chief characteristic is casual employment. Ignoring this table, and taking the table for all London, we find again the great disproportion of boys and parents. There are two ways in which the boys may learn. They may become indentured apprentices, or, engaged only by the week, though sometimes still termed apprentices, they may enter the workshop, and take what chance is afforded them of "picking up" the mysteries of the trade. _(a) Indentured Apprenticeship._--Apprenticeship is of little importance in London; the system is rapidly becoming obsolete. Whether this is desirable is a matter of opinion; that it is a fact cannot be gainsaid. All evidence is unanimous in support of this conclusion. In 1906 a special committee was appointed by the London County Council to make inquiries into the question, and, after careful investigation, reported that "in London the old system of indentured apprenticeship has for many years been falling into decay. In the majority of the industries it has almost entirely disappeared; in others it is occasionally found existing in a haphazard and highly unsatisfactory manner; while in only a few trades can it be said to be the commonly recognized way of entering the profession." [135] There are in London various charities, with an income of about £24,000 a year, which, in accordance with the terms of their trusts, might be used for purposes of apprenticeship; "but not more than a third of the income has been devoted to this purpose." "The fact that so small a fraction of the income has been devoted to apprenticeship indicates that the trustees have not found it an easy task to find candidates anxious to be indentured to one of the skilled trades." [136] "The recurring note," says Mr. Charles Booth, "throughout the whole of the industrial volumes of the present inquiry is that the system of apprenticeship is either dead or dying." [137] The numerous letters to the Press, the wealth of speeches on the matter, the sundry public meetings presided over by all manner of persons, from the Lord Mayor downwards, all voice the same opinion. It is needless to labour the question; we may take it as an accepted fact that in London indentured apprenticeship is obsolescent, and the system itself of negligible value as a factor in the training of youths in the process of skilled trades. _(b) Picking up a Trade._--Here a boy enters a workshop, and takes his chance of learning the trade from watching and assisting the men. The employer is under no agreement to give him instruction--least of all, to make an all-round craftsman of him. The boy rarely acquires more than a certain dexterity in the performance of a single operation; and, however proficient he may become in that operation, his general intelligence and skill suffer from a narrow and exclusive specialization. The system and consequences are dealt with at length in the Report of the London County Council already mentioned. The importance of the problem must be the justification for a long quotation: "The high wages a lad can earn as an errand-boy ... are more attractive than the low wages associated with an industrial training. Earning looms larger in his imagination than the laborious and less remunerative learning.... Even if, on leaving school, he obtains employment in a workshop, his prospects may not be materially improved. As an errand-boy running in and out of the workshop, if possessed of aptitude and sharpness, he may in a haphazard fashion pick up a smattering of the trade. If he is taken into the shop as a learner, he has little chance of getting an all-round training. He is frequently out of work, and even when employed seldom learns more than a single operation. The Advisory Committee of the London County Council Shoreditch Technical Institute[138] recently held an exhaustive inquiry on the subject, and some of the conclusions are so germane to the present question that they merit quotation. 'It is thus possible,' they write, 'for a boy to be at one branch of a trade for a few months only, and when bad trade intervenes he is thrown out of employment, and frequently finds himself at twenty years of age without a definite knowledge of any craft whatever, and he swells the ranks of the unemployed. We have it on the authority of foremen, employers, apprentices, and parents, that very little opportunity exists, even in big houses, for a boy to learn his trade thoroughly; indeed, we have had students who have been in a workshop as apprentices for three or four years who could not make a small drawer, and in many cases who could not square up true or make the usual joints; and in the woodworking trade their knowledge of drawing when they come to us is practically _nil_. It is a rare thing to find a young workman who can attack any branch of his trade successfully. It frequently occurs that, in consequence of extensive subdivision of labour and excessive competition, a man or boy is set to do one thing--_e.g._, music-stools, overmantels, chair-legs, sideboards--all the time. It is true the man or boy becomes skilled in one direction, but correspondingly narrow in a true appreciation of his trade. It is also a frequent occurrence that a master who has a job on hand which is slightly out of the usual run finds it impossible to put it in the hands of his usual staff. Moreover, when work of delicate design and construction has to be made from specified drawings, it is extremely difficult to obtain men who can proceed with the work on their own responsibility. Not only do these remarks apply to the woodcrafts generally, but they apply with equal force to such work as upholstery (both stuffing and drapery), to metal-work, and to carving. In connection with the latter subject, it is a rare thing indeed for carvers to design a carcass in the rough, and then to see whether the proposed carved portion is in harmony with the whole--whether the said carving be too much in relief, too flat, too expansive, or altogether out of character with the general work. It is notorious that good polishers and furniture decorators are exceedingly rare, and many a high-class manufacturer has his goods spoiled on account of bad polish and decorative treatment.'" [139] It must be remembered that this last quoted opinion is not the opinion of the amateur, but the informed opinion of representative employers. The woodwork and furniture trades are not peculiar in the characteristic of inadequate training. "We have reason to believe," continues the Report, "that if a similar inquiry were made into other trades, the same unsatisfactory picture would be disclosed. Either the training is one-sided, or there is no training at all. The consequences are sufficiently obvious. The skilled trades are, we fear, recruited in the main by immigrants outside London. In many trades the Londoner is at a discount. Acquainted as he is with but one or two operations of his industry, if he loses his situation, it is only with the greatest of difficulty that he can find another. Mr. Charles Booth states that 'with carpenters and joiners, brick-layers, carriage builders, engineers, smiths, and saddlers, the percentages of heads of families born out of London range from 51 to 59,' An inquiry made of the Technical Board of the London County Council on the Building Trades in 1858 showed that '41 typical firms in various branches of the building trades having 12,000 employés had only 80 apprentices and 143 learners, instead of 1,600, which would have been the normal proportion.' The same Report mentions that 'among the foremen and operatives who have come before us, not one stated that he was born or trained in London.' In these trades the better positions go inevitably to the country-bred man, with his all-round training. In the docks alone does the Londoner hold his own. An inquiry there showed that among the dock-labourers proper more than 72 per cent. were born in London--a result not calculated to excite any very solid satisfaction. These facts should arouse serious apprehension concerning the future of the London-bred citizen. We cannot view with equanimity his relegation to lower positions, while the better places are given to better-trained immigrants. We are not prepared to admit that the Londoner is, on the average, inherently inferior either in intelligence or manual dexterity to his country-born neighbour." [140] These quotations indicate clearly the general aspects of the situation. They show the small prospects boys enjoy who enter a skilled trade in London. Parents are not blind to the condition of affairs, and it is not unnatural on their part to allow the boys to go out as errand-boys, where at least the immediate earnings are larger and the hope of advancement not much more discouraging. 2. _Clerical and Commercial Occupations._--Including under this head commercial and professional occupations, and general or local government, we find in Table I., the type of a working-class district, 6-1/2 per cent. of parents and 8 per cent. of boys; in Table II., the type of the suburbs, 30 per cent. of parents, and 16-1/2 per cent. of boys; in Table III., typical of the East End, 4 per cent. of parents, and 6 per cent. of boys; in Table IV., typical of London as a whole, 13 per cent. of parents, and 10 per cent. of boys. In the school returns no boy was placed under these headings unless he appeared in the column "Skilled Work." In judging of these results it must be borne in mind that the better positions fall to those who have had at least a secondary education. Nevertheless, clever boys, who attend evening schools, have some prospects of advancement. One feature in the returns was the large number of boys who were apparently employed with their fathers. In many instances boys obtain their positions as the result of examination. This is true of several banks, assurance companies, railway companies, and is becoming the general practice in the Civil and Municipal Service. Many of these examinations are within the standard of attainment reached by the cleverer boys in the elementary schools. The boys at their place of employment are taught sufficient to enable them to do the work allotted them. This is often of a specialized character; and without further education they cannot expect to escape from the lowest ranks of clerks. If well conducted, they can probably obtain a permanent position when manhood is reached, or, at any rate, are not discharged because they have become men. Change in the methods of business, or failure of the concern, may entail dismissal; and after dismissal a new position is not easily obtained. But the lower ranks of the clerical profession are ill paid, and the need to present a good appearance makes serious inroads on the meagre stipend. Unless the boy continues his education and means to rise, his outlook is not very encouraging. He has, however, the advantage of supervision, of relatively short hours, and enjoys the possibilities of attendance at evening schools. In spite of what is often said to the contrary, taking things as they are, he has the best prospects of those included in the returns. The fact that so large a proportion of boys coming from the suburbs is found in this class would seem to indicate that the more thoughtful parents share this opinion. _(c) The Passage to Manhood._ The tables quoted on pp. 115-118, and founded on school returns, refer only to the first occupations of boys as they leave school. It is unfortunate that no figures exist which trace year by year the later careers of the boys. All persons, however, who have any intimate knowledge of the subject agree that the boys repeatedly move in an almost aimless fashion from one situation to another. The census returns indicate in a general way the distribution, among the trades and occupations, of persons of various ages. They do not, however, give us a yearly survey; and after the age fourteen to fifteen we are compelled to rest content with figures which cover periods of five years. The following table is taken from a table printed in a Report to the Education Committee of the London County Council, made by a special committee appointed to deal with the apprenticeship question; it is founded on the 1901 census return:[141] OCCUPATIONS OF BOYS AND MEN. PERCENTAGES. +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Class of Occupation. | Age | Age | Age | Age | | | 14-15. | 15-20. | 20-45. | 45-65. | |-----------------------------|--------|---------|---------|---------| |Trades and industries | 14·74 | 31·54 | 35·76 | 38·85 | |Domestic offices or services | 1·75 | 3·29 | 3·55 | 3·35 | |Transport (including | | | | | | messengers, errand-boys, | | | | | | van-boys, etc.) | 27·65 | 19·49 | 16·04 | 14·19 | |Shopkeepers, shop-assistants,| | | | | | and dealers | 6·03 | 12·52 | 14·51 | 9·23 | |Commercial occupations | 4·61 | 11·50 | 9·55 | 12·40 | |General labour | 1·46 | 5·53 | 8·46 | 7·02 | |Professional occupations and | | | | | | their subordinate services | 0·73 | 2·00 | 4·55 | 5·08 | |General or local government | | | | | | of the country (including | | | | | | telegraph-boys) | 3·01 | 2·53 | 3·70 | 2·24 | |Defence of the country | 0·15 | 1·77 | 1·40 | 0·62 | |Without specified occupation | | | | | | or unoccupied (including | | | | | | boys at school) | 39·87 | 9·83 | 2·48 | 7·02 | |-----------------------------|--------|---------|---------|---------| |Total number analyzed | 41,889 | 208,921 | 869,466 | 313,949 | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ In comparing this table with the tables founded on the school returns, it must be borne in mind that this table is not confined to persons who have passed through the elementary schools, but refers to all the inhabitants of London. The most striking feature in the table is the marked difference in the distribution of occupations at the age of fourteen to fifteen, and at other ages. The third column, which includes persons between the ages of twenty and forty-five, covers the period of a man's greatest vigour, and may be regarded as the normal or stable distribution. Comparing the first and the third column, it becomes obvious that the first year, at least, after leaving school is a year of uncertainty and aimless wandering. The boys have not definitely chosen any particular occupation as their life's work. How long is spent in this state of unprofitable drifting the census returns do not show as the following years are not separated. But the fact that the distribution in the second column differs materially from the normal distribution of the third column would seem to indicate that this period stretches some distance into the years that lie between the ages of fifteen and twenty. In default of this general information, we must fall back on special investigations; and here the facts are drawn from too narrow a circle of inquiry to be regarded as altogether typical. In his report to the Poor Law Commission, Mr. Cyril Jackson gives an instructive table[142] (see p. 145). It is founded on biographies of boys obtained from boys' clubs, schoolmasters, and managers of schools. I have omitted the ages that follow, as the number of boys concerned was too few to justify any conclusions. The rapid diminution in the number of boys when the age of eighteen is reached impairs the value of the last two columns. In general, the districts from which the boys are drawn are poor; but the fact that the boys come into relation with various organizations, and were no doubt assisted by them, should lead us to believe that the picture presented errs, if anything, by being too favourable. The steady increase in the trades, and the equally steady decrease in the number of van-boys, Post Office boys, errand and shop boys during the first three years is instructive. Trades, skilled and low-skilled, reckoned in percentages, have risen from 39·4 to 50·9, while the messenger class has fallen from 40·1 to 23·8. The changes in the earlier years are the most significant, and little stability of occupation is reached before the age of eighteen. The age of fourteen evidently represents the year of greatest indecision and maximum drift. PERCENTAGE OF BOYS IN VARIOUS GROUPS OF OCCUPATIONS AT EACH AGE. +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ | Occupations. |Age 14.|Age 15.|Age 16.|Age 17.|Age 18.|Age 19.| |-----------------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------| |Skilled trades | 11·2 | 14·0 | 16·8 | 17·8 | 18·0 | 16·3 | |Clerks | 14·6 | 15·0 | 16·4 | 15·2 | 15·4 | 14·3 | |Low-skilled | 28·2 | 32·8 | 34·1 | 33·9 | 32·5 | 34·1 | |Carmen | 0·6 | 0·2 | 0·6 | 2·6 | 4·5 | 5·1 | |Van-boys | 8·2 | 6·6 | 5·2 | 4·9 | 2·8 | 1·2 | |Post Office | 1·4 | 1·4 | 0·2 | 0·2 | 0·3 | 1·2 | |Errand and shop | | | | | | | | boys | 30·5 | 22·0 | 18·4 | 15·0 | 12·6 | 10·3 | |General and | | | | | | | | casual labour | 5·3 | 7·0 | 6·7 | 6·9 | 6·4 | 8·7 | |Army | -- | 0·6 | 0·6 | 1·1 | 3·6 | 4·0 | |At sea | 0·2 | 0·4 | 0·8 | 1·5 | 2·8 | 3·5 | |Emigrants | -- | -- | 0·2 | 0·4 | 0·8 | 1·2 | |-----------------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------| |Total No. of boys| 485 | 500 | 474 | 448 | 356 | 252 | |Unemployed | 1 | 2 | 1 | 13 | 22 | 22 | +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ In other parts of his report Mr. Jackson has endeavoured to follow the history of boys who have begun life as errand-boys or as van-boys. "From the forms returned," he writes, "it seems clear that the theory that boys can become errand-boys for a year or two, and then enter skilled trades, cannot be maintained. Very few boys can pick up skill after a year or two of merely errand-boy work." [143] Or again: "The chart prepared from the forms filled in by boys who entered life as errand-boys shows the small proportion who find any steady and skilled employment afterwards, and those have ceased to be errand-boys very early. The vast majority become workers in low-skilled trades or general and casual labourers." [144] Of all the "blind-alley" occupations, that of the van-boy appears the most deplorable. "The life of the van-boy is a rough and somewhat lazy one. They have long hours, spells of idleness, and considerable opportunities of pilfering and drinking." [145] "The chart shows that it is a very low grade of occupation, and that very few boys who begin as van-boys get into skilled trades--a far lower percentage, in fact, than errand-boys." [146] The second point to be noted in the table founded on the census returns is the large number--nearly 40 per cent.--of boys of the age of fourteen returned as without specified occupation or unoccupied (including boys at school). There are in the elementary schools about 5,000 boys between the age of fourteen and fifteen, and probably about the same number in secondary schools. Converted into percentages, this 40 per cent. would be broken up into 24 per cent. at school and 16 per cent. without specified occupation. The last figure is high, and justifies the conclusion, not only that the boys of fourteen wander from occupation to occupation, but that they also are frequently doing nothing. The habit of shifting from situation to situation necessarily involves considerable periods of unemployment. Thus early in their career the boys become accustomed to the evils of casual labour. We can arrive at the same conclusion by approaching the problem from a somewhat different point of view. If in some trades we discover an excess of boys, and in others an excess of men, it is clear that there must be shocks and shiftings in the passage from youth to manhood. In London the number of lads between the ages of fourteen and twenty is 17·5 per cent. of the number of males between the ages of fourteen and sixty-five. If, therefore, we find the proportion of lads to total males engaged in any trade, reckoned in percentages, differs much from 17·5, either lads must at some time pass out of the trade or men come in. On the other hand, in a trade where this percentage is approximately 17·5 boys who enter have, at any rate, the chance of finding employment as men. In this sense we may regard the distribution of lads and men in a trade as normal when this percentage lies between 15 and 20; less than normal when it drops below 15; more than normal when it rises above 20. The following table may be taken as an example of trades in which considerable numbers of persons are engaged: +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | Number in | Number in | | | Trade. |1,000 of Males|1,000 of Males|Percentage.| | | Aged 14-20. | Aged 14-65. | | |---------------------------|--------------|--------------|-----------| |LESS THAN NORMAL: | | | | | Building trades | 13·2 | 144·2 | 9·1 | | Skin, leather, etc. | 2·6 | 8·5 | 14·1 | | Food, tobacco, drink, | | | | | and lodging | 19·9 | 135·2 | 14·8 | | General labour | 15·0 | 111·1 | 13·5 | | General or local | | | | | government | 6·5 | 45·8 | 14·3 | | Professional | 4·8 | 62·2 | 7·8 | |NORMAL: | | | | | Domestic services | 7·8 | 51·7 | 15·1 | | Commercial occupations | 25·9 | 131·1 | 19·8 | | Metals, machines, etc. | 14·4 | 92·7 | 15·5 | | Precious metals | 6·6 | 36·5 | 18·2 | | Furniture, etc. | 9·3 | 59·5 | 15·7 | | Textile fabrics | 4·1 | 23·5 | 17·3 | |MORE THAN NORMAL: | | | | | National Government | | | | | (messengers, etc.) | 3·9 | 13·5 | 29·2 | | Clerks, office-boys, etc.| 23·1 | 83·0 | 27·8 | | Transport, errand-boys, | | | | | etc. | 52·3 | 236·3 | 22·1 | | Printers | 7·1 | 34·1 | 20·7 | +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ If we could have taken the period fourteen to eighteen instead of fourteen to twenty, these tables would have been even more striking than they are. But, even as they are, they are sufficient to enforce the lesson that between the occupation of the boy and the occupation of the man there is a gulf fixed. The one does not lead naturally to the other. When the boy becomes a man he does not find provided for him a natural opening; with more or less pains, he is driven to force a way in trades for which he has received no definite preparation, and in which diligence and good character do not afford any guarantee of success. _(d) Summary._ Before proceeding to examine the conditions of boy labour in other parts of the country, it will be desirable to summarize the results for London, and so to determine how far the essentials of a true apprenticeship system are found in that city. _Supervision._--The boy should be under adequate supervision until he reaches the age of at least eighteen. In London, so far as the majority are concerned, all State supervision ends at fourteen. When the boy goes out to work what measure of supervision was previously found in the home comes to an end; it is beyond the power of parents to exert any real control over the boy. He is his own master, finds his employment for himself, and leaves it when he thinks fit. Philanthropic enterprise touches a fringe, and a fringe only, of the boys; their growing sense of independence resents restraint. The story of the workshop points the same moral. Personal relations between boy and employer are seldom possible; and where the demand for the services of boys is unlimited and unsatisfied, attempts to enforce discipline fail, because, sooner than submit, the boy seeks another situation. _Training._--For the unskilled labourer of the future London provides no training. The schools do, indeed, turn out in the boys ready made and completely finished articles for boy-work and "blind-alley" occupations, and three or four years of such employment destroy the most-marked results of elementary education. The skilled workman of the future finds in the workshop small chance of gaining that all-round training which will make of him a man, and not a machine. Technical education for the minority is successful, but without power to compel attendance and limit the hours of boy-labour it is only the few who can avail themselves of the opportunities offered. _Opening._--Boys' work is separated from man's work, and there is no broad highway leading from the one to the other. The lad of eighteen is compelled to make a new beginning just when new beginnings are most difficult. His power of learning is gone from him, and in the unskilled labour market alone does he see any prospect of earning immediate wages. The State Labour Exchange is an infant which has yet to justify its creation. In London the provision of supervision, of training, of an opening, is alike defective, and beyond the age of fourteen for the majority of boys can hardly be said to exist at all; and, what is most serious, we are face to face with a state of affairs where there is no sign of improvement, and where all tendencies indicate for the future an accelerated rate of progressive failure. In short, London cannot claim even the beginnings of a real apprenticeship system. § 2. OTHER TOWNS. Among the cities London does not stand alone in its conditions of boy labour. It may indeed be regarded as the most extreme example of urbanization, but it is nothing more; it is a normal type, not an exception or monstrous exaggeration. As the capital of the Empire and the seat of government, it has its own characteristics, but so likewise has every other town. But dominating all these local variations and giving uniformity to the conditions of boy labour in our cities, remain the common features of the industrial development of to-day. This, at any rate, is the unanimous testimony of all those investigators--and they have been many--who have studied the problem. I shall not, therefore, make any attempt to apply to other towns the detailed method of investigation I have endeavoured to employ in the case of London. It will be enough to show that the general conditions are the same. What differences exist are differences of degree, and not differences of kind. _(a) The Employment of School-Children._ The investigations of the Interdepartmental Committee has proved beyond doubt that throughout the country it is common for children, while still attending school, to work long hours for wages. One or two quotations will be sufficient to justify this statement. The Report declares "that, as the door has been closed to their employment in factories and workshops and during school-hours, there has been a tendency, which many witnesses believe to be an increasing one, towards their employment in other occupations before morning school, between school-hours, in the evening, and on Saturdays and Sundays. Provided they make eight or ten attendances every week, they may be employed (with a few exceptions, and these little enforced) in the streets, in the fields, in shops, or at home, for the longest possible hours, and on the hardest and most irksome work, without any limit or regulation." [147] Evidence abounded to show that such possibilities of overwork were frequently realized. Examples have already been quoted in the case of London, and it is unnecessary here to go over the same ground again. That legislation, as at present enforced, has done little to cure the evil of overwork may be seen from the reports of school medical officers. Some of these are quoted in the Annual Report for 1909 of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education. The school medical officers were not asked to report specially on the problem, but their inspection of school-children revealed the magnitude of the evil. "Several school medical officers report on the question of child labour during 1909. Dr. Thresh (school medical officer, Essex) places on record the serious extent to which children are employed out of school-hours in the Grays and Tilbury districts, and gives many individual examples. Dr. Forbes (school medical officer, Brighton) gives some interesting particulars from a statement prepared by the Inspector under the Employment of and Cruelty to Children Acts. In this area the head-teachers furnish regularly lists of children known by them to be employed out of school-hours. Among these children it was found that 39, 25, and 22 per cent. were illegally employed during 1907, 1908, and 1909 respectively. Dr. Clarke (school medical officer, Walthamstow) found that 19 per cent. of the boys examined were employed out of school-hours, of whom 19 per cent. worked an average of eleven hours per week; 32 per cent. worked ten hours and over on Saturdays; 20 per cent. worked twenty hours or over during school-days. A full analysis of all children known to be employed out of school-hours at Yeovil is made by Dr. Page (school medical officer), who found that 22 per cent. of all children eight years of age and upwards were so employed, and of these 40 per cent. worked for twenty hours and upwards per week. Dr. Hope (school medical officer of Liverpool) produces evidence to show how usefully medical inspection may be linked up with the arrangements made to put into force by-laws relating to the employment of children. Thus, all cases where there was reason to suppose that the by-laws were being infringed were reported to the Sanitary Department. These children cases numbered 308 during the year, and a table is given showing in what manner they were dealt with. At Leamington, 119 boys and 30 girls were reported by Dr. Burnet as employed in a wage-earning capacity either before or after school-hours, and 90 boys and 11 girls both before and after school-hours. Of these, 63 children were of subnormal nutrition, 22 were suffering from anæmia, 2 from phthisis, 8 from heart disease, and 25 had enlarged tonsils. Several of these children were quite unfit for such employment, and the subject is deserving of a thorough investigation with a view to adopting protective measures where necessary. At Southport, 131 leaving boys (32·7 per cent.) were found to be doing unskilled or casual work, and in Oldham 179 of the children inspected were similarly engaged." [148] As in London, so in other parts of the country, school-children work for long hours, and no adequate means exist at present to prevent the evil. As in London, so in other parts of the country, signs of serious physical weakness are the common accompaniments of this employment, and the health of the rising generation is injured. As in London, so in other parts of the country, the forms of employment in which children are engaged are uneducational, and tend to lead children, when school-days are over, into the "blind-alley" occupations. Besides these children, there are about 38,000 "half-timers." [149] It is needless here to dilate on the evils of the half-time system, which allows children who have reached the age of twelve to spend half the day in the factory and workshop. It is condemned by all qualified to pass on it an impartial judgment. Its continuance reflects little credit on the humanity of those employers and those trade unions who have repeatedly opposed its abolition. _(b) The Entry to a Trade._ The survey of conditions of juvenile employment in London made clear certain facts. There was the growing demand for boys in what has been called "blind-alley" occupations, and the demoralizing effect of such work. There was the difficulty of obtaining adequate training for those who had entered a skilled trade. There was a general lack of supervision in the workshop. And, finally, there was no easy passage from youth to manhood. It is impossible to read the Report of the Poor Law Commission and the volumes of evidence, or to study the various investigations into the conditions of sundry towns, without being convinced that London is in no way peculiar. The chief difficulty in approaching the problem lies in the selection of the all too numerous witnesses. The Report of the Poor Law Commission probably provides the best summary of the mass of evidence on the subject. Both Reports--Majority and Minority--alike realize the gravity of the problem, not for London alone, but for the whole of the country. "The problem," says the Majority Report, "owes its rise in the main to the enormous growth of cities as distributive centres, giving innumerable openings for errand-boys, milk-boys, office and shop boys, bookstall-boys, van, lorry, and trace boys, street-sellers, etc. In nearly all these occupations the training received leads to nothing; and the occupations themselves are, in most cases, destructive to healthy development, owing to long hours, long periods of standing, walking, or mere waiting, and, morally, are wholly demoralizing." [150] Or, again: "The almost universal experience is that in large towns boys, owing to carelessness or selfishness on the part of the parents, or their own want of knowledge and thought--for the parents very often have little voice in the matter--plunge haphazard, immediately on leaving school, into occupations in which there is no future, where they earn wages sufficiently high to make them independent of parental control and disinclined for the lower wages of apprenticeship, and whence, if they remain, they are extruded when they grow to manhood." [151] Or, to go to the Minority Report: "There are the rivet-boys in shipyards and boiler shops, the 'oil-cans' in the nut and bolt department, the 'boy-minders' of automatic machines, the 'drawers-off' of sawmills, and the 'layers-on' of printing works, and scores of other varieties of boys whose occupations presently come to an end." [152] Or, again: "In towns like Glasgow, Liverpool, Bristol, Newcastle, the proportions of van-boys, etc., are as large as in London." [153] Employers do not always conceal the fact: "In the words of a frank employer, they (the boys) are not taught; they are made to work continuously at their own little temporary trades." [154] If we desire actual figures of those engaged in one class of the "blind-alley" occupations--messengers--Mr. Jackson tells us that "under fourteen years of age there are no less than 32,536 (23·5 per cent. of those occupied under that age), while there are 41,659 aged fourteen, and 54,592 from fifteen to nineteen years of age inclusive, of which it is probable that the bulk are under seventeen years of age." [155] Writing of Norwich, the same writer says: "There seems little doubt that the boy labour is used up for industrial purposes, and that they are left less capable members of the community, with little prospect of good work when they become adults." [156] Apart from the Report of the Poor Law Commission, individual writers of wide and varied experience outside London have voiced the same view. "It has never been so easy," writes Dr. Sadler, "as it is in England to-day, for a boy of thirteen or fourteen to find some kind of virtually unskilled work, involving long hours of deteriorating routine, in which there is little mental or moral discipline, but for which are offered wages that for the time seem high, and flatter his sense of being independent of school discipline and of home restraint." [157] And the same writer continues: "Certain forms of industry, which make large use of boys and girls who have recently left the elementary schools, are in part (except where the employers make special efforts to meet their responsibility) parasitic in character, and get more than they ought, and more than their promoters realize that they are getting, of the physical and moral capital of the rising generation." [158] The Rev. Spencer J. Gibb, who has devoted special attention to the problem, writes: "The characteristic evils of boy work invade office work in a peculiarly subtle and dangerous form. In every city small offices are to be found in which the whole of the business, such as it is, is carried on by the master himself, who has frequently to be absent from his one-roomed office. The office-boy, who constitutes the entire staff, is meanwhile left in charge. He has probably nothing to do, and spends his time either in vacancy, in mischievous expeditions along the corridor, or in reading trash of a bloodthirsty nature." [159] Under such conditions supervision and control are negligible factors in the training of the workshop. It seems unnecessary to multiply examples; all persons of experience lament the increasing employment of boys in "blind-alley" occupations, and deplore the general lack of supervision. The question of the skilled trades has received less attention, and there is much need of such a careful inquiry in various towns as had been made by Mr. Tawney in the case of Glasgow. Writing of the woodwork trades in that town, he says: "There is no regular training system; a boy learns incidentally, and is only shifted from one machine to another when the shop needs it.... One of its employés was the best producer of wooden rings in his town, but could not make a wage at turning a table-leg," and adds that, "with the exception of a few old men who were trained under the apprenticeship system, the foremen are the only men with all-round skill." [160] While of the engineering trades he says: "On entering the works the lad who is going to be a fitter goes straight to the fitting shop and learns nothing else; a lad who is going to be a turner goes to the machine shop and does not learn fitting." [161] Specialization is pushed even farther, and lads are kept to a single machine. Drilling, milling, slotting, punching, band-sawing, or screwing machines can be used after a few days' training, and this is all the experience a boy gets. And, speaking generally of Glasgow firms, Mr. Tawney says: "Boys are kept, as a rule, in their own departments. They are not taught; they are made to work." These facts were obtained as the result of a careful inquiry among 100 firms in Glasgow. Glasgow, then, repeats the story of London; and there is good reason to believe that other towns, if submitted to a similar examination, would demonstrate the fact of the inadequacy of the workshop training of to-day. Apprenticeship, according to numerous witnesses, is everywhere decaying, and there is nothing except the technical school rising to take its place; and under existing conditions the technical school can touch only a fringe of the problem. _(c) The Passage to Manhood._ The evidence of the last few pages, relating to the increase in the number of "blind-alley" occupations and to the inadequate training of the workshop, would show that, as in London, so likewise in other towns, there is no easy passage from the work of the youth to the work of the man. There is a break in the continuity of the service somewhere about the age of eighteen. New openings have then to be searched for, and new beginnings made, when the habits of learning have disappeared, even if the opportunities for it presented themselves. It would seem superfluous to repeat for other towns the statistical evidence in support of this statement which was given in the case of London. "Blind-alley" occupations and troubled passage to manhood necessarily go together. Mr. Tawney's researches in Glasgow indicate clearly the difficulties of this transition period. A single quotation must suffice: "A district secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers says of a world-famous firm which employs several thousand men making a particular kind of domestic machine: 'It is a reception home for young bakers and grocers. Boys go to it from other occupations to do one small part of the machine.... When they leave they are not competent engineers, and find it difficult to get work elsewhere.'" [162] Detailed figures for the country as a whole in respect of certain trades may be found in Mr. Jackson's Report on Boy Labour. All evidence, from wheresoever collected, goes to show the existence of the break between the work of the boy and the work of the man. * * * * * It is trusted that sufficient evidence has been produced to prove conclusively that the conditions of boy labour in London do not differ essentially from the conditions of boy labour in other towns. The evidence could have been multiplied indefinitely and, what is most striking, among the mass of witnesses forthcoming there is none found to venture a contrary opinion. We may take it, then, as a well-established fact that in other towns besides London, supervision, training, and the provision of an opening are alike gravely and progressively defective. In other words, among the urban districts of the country no true apprenticeship system exists or is in course of creation. § 3. RURAL DISTRICTS. No comprehensive inquiry has been made into the conditions of boy labour in rural districts and small towns. A few studies of individual villages exist--as, for example, "Life in an English Village," by Miss Maude Davies--but these are not sufficiently numerous to justify any general conclusions. The return on Children Working for Wages, made to the House of Commons in 1899, gives certain statistics. From the returns on pages 21 and 23 we see that for England and Wales some 5·2 per cent. of children above Standard I. were working for wages. The percentage for boys alone would be 8·5 per cent., or for boys eleven years and upwards about 17 per cent., compared with 24 per cent. for London alone. These figures would seem to show that, while common, work among school-children over the country as a whole does not quite reach the London level. So far as can be gathered from the returns, it is in towns that the employment of school-children is most frequent, though in rural districts it is frequent enough to constitute a grave evil. The same return gives the occupation of children as they leave school. On page 163 is the summary. The table is incomplete: "In London the proportion of children is no less than 94 per cent.; in the group of large urban districts, 72 per cent.; while in the rest of England and Wales, including the rural districts and small towns, the percentage sinks to 47." [163] Without a careful analysis, such as only local knowledge could supply, it would be dangerous to give much weight to the return. It does, however, appear from the summary that "blind-alley" occupations bear a close relation to urbanization, and that the two increase together. Or looking at the question from another point of view, a boy in rural districts enjoys greater opportunities of continuity of employment in the passage from youth to manhood than he does in the towns. OCCUPATIONS OF BOYS ON LEAVING SCHOOL IN (1) LONDON, (2) LARGE URBAN AND MANUFACTURING DISTRICTS, AND (3) RURAL AND SMALL URBAN DISTRICTS OF ENGLAND AND WALES.[164] +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | |Large Urban and| Rural and | | Occupation. | London. | Manufacturing | Small Urban | | | | Districts. | Districts. | |----------------------|---------------|---------------|---------------| | | No. | % | No. | % | No. | % | |Agriculture | 101 | -- | 730 | 2 | 17,950 | 26 | |Building | 787 | 3 | 1,973 | 4 | 3,744 | 5 | |Woodworking | 905 | 4 | 591 | 1 | 661 | 1 | |Metal, engineering, | | | | | | | | and shipbuilding | 949 | 4 | 4,090 | 8 | 3,119 | 4 | |Mining and quarrying | -- | -- | 1,584 | 3 | 6,510 | 9 | |Textile | 49 | -- | 6,046 | 13 | 5,522 | 8 | |Clothing | 665 | 3 | 1,634 | 3 | 1,612 | 2 | |Printing and allied | | | | | | | | trades | 1,121 | 4 | 868 | 2 | 680 | 1 | |Clerical | 2,060 | 8 | 5,666 | 12 | 2,727 | 4 | |In shops | 3,584 | 14 | 6,084 | 13 | 7,045 | 10 | |Errand, cart, boat, | | | | | | | | etc., boy | 10,283 | 40 | 10,496 | 22 | 9,917 | 14 | |Newsboy and street | | | | | | | | vendor | 964 | 4 | 1,472 | 3 | 1,223 | 2 | |Teaching | 120 | -- | 430 | 1 | 557 | 1 | |Domestic service | 301 | 1 | 173 | -- | 1,090 | 2 | |Miscellaneous and | | | | | | | | indefinite | 2,256 | 9 | 4,159 | 9 | 4,817 | 7 | |----------------------+--------|------|--------|------|--------|------| | Total occupied | 24,145 | 94 | 45,996 | 96 | 67,174 | 96 | |No reported occupation| 1,623 | 6 | 2,097 | 4 | 2,765 | 4 | |----------------------|--------|------|--------|------|--------|------| | Grand total | 25,768 | 100 | 48,093 | 100 | 69,939 | 100 | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ There is good reason to believe that the prospects of an all-round training are more favourable in a village than in a town. The fact, already mentioned, that immigrants from rural districts obtain the better positions in London trades, especially in the building trades, would seem to justify this conclusion. There is also the general consideration that rural districts are always nearly a century behind the industrial development of the towns, and represent therefore an older condition of affairs. Workshops are smaller, the gulf between man and employer less impassable, and the old paternal relation between boy and master more possible of attainment. We may therefore assume, without much risk of error, that training is better in rural districts than in towns. On the other hand, while it is true that in industrial progress the villages lag behind the towns, they still follow them, though at an interval. Machine-made goods, especially in the woodwork trades, are in villages replacing the hand-made goods, and the demand for manual dexterity is to this extent decreasing. It would also seem to be true that the old indentured apprenticeship is falling into disuse. In the Wiltshire village of Corsley, for example, while apprenticeship occupied a prominent position in the past, in the story of to-day it passes almost without mention. In Miss Davies's[165] study of the occupations of the inhabitants of that village, only one apprentice is mentioned. It is also a fact that those who are concerned with the administration of local charities for apprenticeship are finding increasing difficulty in discovering masters who are willing to take boys as indentured apprentices, even for a premium, and boys who are desirous of being indentured. We may, perhaps, therefore assume that, while the conditions of boy labour are more favourable in rural districts than they are in towns, the old machinery of training is falling into disuse, and no adequate substitute is taking its place. V. THE BREAK-UP OF APPRENTICESHIP. The survey of the elements that make up the apprenticeship of to-day is now complete. Each of the factors which contribute to the result--the State, Philanthropy, the Home, the Workshop--has been examined, and their influence appraised. It is therefore possible to pass judgment on the system, and, by realizing the present situation in all its relations, to understand clearly the nature and the extent of the problems which call for solution in the immediate future. The period of apprenticeship has been shown to divide itself naturally into two parts. There are the years during which the boy is at school, ending somewhere about the age of fourteen. For the right use of these years we have seen that the State is beginning to accept full responsibility. Whether we have been concerned with the conduct, the physical welfare, or the training of the child, we have found collective enterprise assuming new duties, and carrying them out with a growing enthusiasm. Nor can we have remained blind to the large measure of success achieved. If defects here and there mar the result, they are clearly the defects that belong to all experiments in the early stages, and are obviously not the ineradicable faults of a worn-out system. In short, so far as regards the earlier years of the apprenticeship of to-day, there is no cause for despondency. Progress is the distinguishing characteristic of this first period; the boy is the centre of influences increasing in number, and deliberately planned to promote his well-being. One disquieting phenomenon that calls for attention is the large mass of school-children working long hours. Health is undermined, the effect of education impaired; while the occupations, essentially of the "blind-alley" type, encourage an unfortunate taste for this form of employment. Further, the various local authorities, especially in rural districts, have been very lax in using the powers conferred by the Employment of Children Act. The second stage of apprenticeship covers the years between the ages of fourteen and eighteen. In our survey of this period we have been unable to find much cause for satisfaction. The State no longer recognizes its responsibility for the well-being of all its youth; it is content to offer opportunities of training to those who are able and willing to avail themselves of these advantages, and these last form only a small minority of the whole. The success of evening schools, technical institutes, and other places of higher education, so far as concerns those who come within that sphere of influence, only adds to our regret that that sphere of influence is so narrowly restricted. The majority, at least two-thirds, of the boys pass out of the control of the State, and for the completion of their apprenticeship we must look in other directions. Our search in these other directions has met with little reward; we have found everywhere failure, and, what is worse, failure that is rapidly progressive. Nowhere on a large scale can we discover provision made for the supervision and training of juveniles; from all sides we receive a tumult of complaint that things have gone astray. Philanthropic enterprise, whether represented by the religious bodies or lads' clubs, laments the lack of control over the boys, and frankly confesses its inability to deal satisfactorily with more than a small minority. The testimony of the home is the same; parents complain of the growing independence of their children, and to a large extent have ceased to attempt to exert any restraint over the conduct of their sons. Under the stress of modern industrial conditions and accentuated urbanization, the old patriarchal system of the family has broken down; the home represents an association of equals, in which, perhaps, the young can claim a predominant influence. When we pass to the workshop, in the hope of reaching law and order and constructive thought, it is only to be confronted with the most signal example of an organization which defies every principle of a true apprenticeship system. That the boy of to-day is the workman of to-morrow is a thought that suggests itself to only a few of the most enlightened employers. To the many he is merely a cheap instrument of production to be used up, and then scrapped as waste machinery. He is kept at "his own little temporary task"; and, to make things worse, he is in so much demand that discipline cannot keep him very steadily even to this, or his services will be withdrawn. With the separation of man's work from boy's work there is no easy passage from youth to manhood. With the minute subdivision of operations, there is small chance of a lad in a skilled trade becoming a master of his craft. Apart from the small amount of medical inspection required by the Factory and Workshop Act, no attempt is made to insure that the growing lad is physically fit for the work in which he is engaged. His health is the concern of no one till its breakdown brings him under the Poor Law or thrusts him into the ranks of the unemployable. Undisciplined, with health and training neglected, the lad of eighteen tends to find himself more and more left without prospects, and a person for whom no one in particular has any particular use. In short, our survey of the problem of the apprenticeship of to-day shows conclusively that we have, in the true sense of the word, no apprenticeship system. The old apprenticeship system has broken up, and there is nothing come to take its place. It would be incredible if serious consequences did not accompany this complete break-up of the apprenticeship system; and it needs but little search to discover evils of far-reaching significance. There is first the evil of an uncontrolled youth. A child at the age of fourteen is not fitted to enjoy the independence of an adult. This statement is a truism, but there is tragedy in the fact that society of to-day confers, as we have seen, this irresponsible freedom, in a more or less unqualified form, on the majority of boys when they leave the elementary schools. In the hooligan of the streets or in the youthful criminal we have the most striking example of the fruits of an undisciplined boy. The report of the Commissioners of Prisons for the year ending March 31, 1908, makes this clear. Writing of the Borstal Association, they say: "In this admirable report" (the report, that is, of the Borstal Association), "which should be studied by all who are interested in the causes of crime, after specifying many circumstances which induce the criminal habit, they refer in particular to the absence of any system of control or organization for the employment of the young, as one of the principal causes of wrong-doing. 'When a boy leaves school the hands of organization and compulsion are lifted from his shoulders. If he is the son of very poor parents, his father has no influence, nor, indeed, a spare hour, to find work for him; he must find it for himself; generally he does find a job, and if it does not land him into a dead alley at eighteen he is fortunate, or he drifts, and the tidy scholar becomes a ragged and defiant corner loafer. Over 80 per cent. of our charges admit that they were not at work when they got into trouble,'" [166] The Poor Law Commission calls attention to the evil effects of certain forms of employment which the boys choose because of the freedom they give."'Street-selling, for example,' says the Chief Constable of Sheffield, 'makes the boys thieves.' 'News-boys and street-sellers,' says Mr. Cyril Jackson, 'are practically all gamblers.' 'Of 1,454 youths between fourteen and twenty-one charged in Glasgow during 1906 with theft and other offences inferring dishonesty, 1,208, or 83·7 per cent., came from the class of messengers, street-traders, etc.,' says Mr. Tawney." [167] And it would be easy to multiply indefinitely examples of this kind. It must not, of course, be assumed that all boys become hooligans or criminals, but all do suffer from the want of control and the need of a more disciplined life. Hooliganism is merely an extreme type of a disease which in a milder form fastens upon the boys who are allowed unrestrained liberty. The disease is the disease of restlessness--the restlessness of the town, the dislike of regularity, the joy in change for change's sake, and the habit of roving from place to place. This disease, with the lack of proper technical training, leads on to unemployment when the age of manhood is reached. Unemployment is not the fate of the old only; it is becoming common among the young. "The percentage of men under thirty years of age qualified for assistance under the Unemployed Workmen Act, 1905, was:[168] +------------------------------------------------------------+ | |Up to March 31, 1906.|Twelve Months ending| | | | March 31, 1907. | |-----------------|---------------------|--------------------| | London | 23·9 | 27·4 | | Whole of England| 27·3 | 30·2" | +------------------------------------------------------------+ "It has become clear," says a manager of boys' clubs with a very wide experience, "to all students of the labour problem that a wrong choice of their first work--or, rather, no choice at all, but a drift into it--is responsible for the presence of considerable numbers of young men amongst the unemployed." [169] The Reports of the Poor Law Commission, Majority and Minority alike, repeatedly voice the same opinion. "The great prominence given to boy labour, not only in our evidence, but in the various reports of our special investigators, leads us to the opinion that this is perhaps the most serious of the phenomena which we have encountered in our study of unemployment. The difficulty of getting boys absorbed, through gradual and systematic training, in the skilled trades is great enough; but when to this are added the temptations, outside the organized industries, to enter at an early age into occupations which are not themselves skilled and give no opportunity for acquiring skill, it seems clear that we are faced by a far greater problem than that of finding employment for adults who have fallen behind in the race for efficiency--namely, that the growth of large cities has brought with it an enormous increase in occupations that are making directly for unemployment in the future." [170] The Minority Report is equally emphatic. "There is no subject," it says, "as to which we have received so much and such conclusive evidence as upon the extent to which thousands of boys, from lack of any sort of training for industrial occupations, grow up, almost inevitably, so as to become chronically unemployed or under-employed, and presently to recruit the ranks of the unemployable. In Glasgow nearly 20 per cent. of the labourers in distress are under twenty-five, and one-half of them are under thirty-five." [171] Or again: "It has been demonstrated beyond dispute that one of the features of the manner in which we have chosen to let the nation's industry be organized is that an increasing number of boys are employed in occupations which are either uneducative (in the sense of producing no increase of efficiency and intelligence) or unpromising (in the sense of leading to no permanent occupation during adult life); secondly, that there is a constant tendency for certain industrial functions to be transferred from men to boys, especially when changes in the processes of manufacture or in the organization of industry are taking place rapidly. The resulting difficulty is the double one of the over-employment of boys and the under-employment of men." [172] It is hoped that the present chapter may have made clear the various steps in this unfortunate process of industrial development. First, we have the qualities which are the result of the school training--qualities of regularity, obedience, and intelligence--qualities required, indeed, in all forms of work, but supplying a complete technical outfit alone for the "blind-alley" occupations. The boys leave school, having had expended on them in each case a capital sum of public money of about one hundred pounds. They are valuable assets, and employers have discovered the fact, and adjusted their methods of production or distribution to make full use of this new and valuable supply. High wages attract the boy, who makes his own choice, and earning is regarded as more attractive than the laborious and less remunerative learning. This leads on to the second stage, the "blind-alley" occupation or the skilled trade where there is no real training. Four years of this kind of work dissipate the effects of elementary education. Too often weakened physically by long hours of employment, demoralized by the life of freedom and the fatal facility in obtaining a second job when fancy has made him throw up the first, robbed by disuse of the power to learn even if the inclination were present, he is, at the age of eighteen, a distinctly less valuable asset in the labour market than he was four years before. The hundred pounds investment of public money intended for life has been squandered in youth; the employer has possessed himself of it; and when the boy asks the wages of a man, he is informed that his services are no longer wanted, and told to transfer them elsewhere. Then comes the final stage of degeneration--unemployment or under-employment. The habit, acquired through four years of constant practice, of throwing up a job on the smallest pretext, remains with the lad of eighteen, but the facility of finding another is no longer his. The intensity of the demand for men varies almost inversely with the intensity of the demand for boys; the two are competitors in the same labour market, and of the two the boy is the cheaper and the more efficient instrument of production. Further, habits of boyhood have too often bred a liking for casual employment, with its frequent holidays. Here, also, the employers are willing to oblige him; they find it convenient to have at their beck and call a reserve of labour which can be drawn upon when business is brisk, and discharged in times of slackness. Finally, if he desires regular employment, it is none too easy to discover a suitable opening. The sphere of his usefulness is small; he has for sale a certain amount of animal strength, none too well developed, but has little else to offer. He can push and he can pull indifferently well, but in the world of industry there is not, as is supposed sometimes, an unlimited demand for pulling and pushing. And all the time he is faced with the fact that recruits to the army of pushing and pulling are coming from all sides. Men skilled in the performance of a single operation, and robbed of their well-paid employment by a new invention; men from decaying trades and incapable through lack of training of adapting themselves to fresh conditions; men a little past the vigour of manhood; men discharged for misconduct; men who have lost their work through the bankruptcy of a company or the death of a master--all alike, when everything fails them, turn in desperation to pulling and pushing; and meanwhile machines of novel design decrease year by year the demand for pulling and pushing. All these effects, with innumerable variations, are the result of a wrong start, and of the neglect during the years that lie between the ages of fourteen and eighteen. Want of supervision, want of technical training, want of an opening for which special preparation has been given--these are the three great and characteristic evils of the present industrial situation. Taken together, they are a negation of all apprenticeship in the true sense of the word. During the course of the last few years we have at least learned to know the cause of our suffering, and to know the cause is at least the first step in the path of prevention. And, further, we have begun to see rising from the ruins of the old stabilities of life and the ancient order of industrial organization an edifice--small, indeed, at the moment, but bearing the mark of constructive thought, because reared by the growing power of collective enterprise; and, knowing this, we can turn in a spirit of hope to the task of creating a new apprenticeship system. CHAPTER VI THE NEW APPRENTICESHIP In the present chapter we must endeavour to find some remedy for the evils disclosed in the preceding pages. The old apprenticeship system has broken up, and there is nothing come to take its place. In consequence, the youth of the country is to a large and growing extent passing through the years of adolescence without supervision, without technical training, without prospects of an opening when manhood is reached. These are defects in the industrial organization so obvious that they are now attracting general attention, so grave that there is need of immediate and comprehensive measures of reform. In what direction is the remedy to be looked for? From what quarter may we expect the new apprenticeship to come? The survey of the conditions of boy labour, contained in an earlier portion of this volume, has disclosed two forces at work in the training of the youth of the country. The one force is destructive in its action; the other constructive. Reform obviously lies in the repression of the former and in the encouragement of the latter; there is no other alternative. The force of destruction has been found throughout associated with the characteristic phenomena of the industrial revolution. The accentuated spirit of competition, the increasing use of capital and machinery, with the consequential development of large undertakings, and the rapid changes in methods of production to meet new demands or to make use of new inventions, have all alike been hostile to the well-being of the boy. The system, created by what may be called the natural growth of modern business organization, has been a system which has, in one form or another, continually attempted to exploit child labour. Under this system children, in days gone by, were driven to the mine and to the factory, or herded in gangs in the fields and barns of the farm, and even at the present time are allowed to perform tasks far beyond their strength. Under this system we have watched the slow and continuous decay of indentured apprenticeship, the steady decrease of facilities for obtaining an all-round training in the workshop, and the ever-broadening gulf separating youth from manhood in the sphere of industry. As a result of this system we have seen the hand of control lifted from the shoulder of youth, and have noted lads, under the wayward guidance of an irresponsible freedom, drifting into the path of crime and disorder. We are driven to believe that it is the young who swell the armies of unemployment, and have realized with sudden dismay that, young though they are, they are yet too old to break the set habits of an unfortunate past. And we are beginning to perceive clearly that these phenomena, of ill omen, are not a mere accident, but an integral part of the industrial organization; and to understand that, in spite of numerous superficial changes, the system, born of the revolution of a hundred years ago, has not altered in essentials, and now, as then, threatens with destruction the youth of the land. That system has never enjoyed full freedom of development, but the limits set on its power for evil have not come from within; they have come from without, and been imposed on the employers by the legislative action of the State. It is the State which has throughout the period supplied the second or regulative and constructive force in the training of the youth of the country. It has forbidden the employment of boys in some occupations, and in others limited the hours of employment. Acting without any clearly defined plan, but striking at the evils, which gusts of popular opinion denounced and refused to tolerate, it has yet made impossible the worst abuses of child labour. It has, however, long since passed beyond the realm of mere veto, and has these many years entered the sphere of constructive reform. The scheme of compulsory education, the provision of opportunities for technical instruction, and the powers, recently conferred on local education authorities, to attend to the physical condition of school-children, are all signal examples of the beneficent influence of the second force. We are left, then, with these two forces--the force of destruction and the force of construction; and the fate of the youth turns on the issue of the struggle between the two. They are not, indeed, the only forces concerned in the problem of boy labour, but, compared with their influence, all others sink into insignificance. The State and the industrial system both possess the characteristic of universality, and no other organization can make the same claim. Philanthropic and religious associations have always been found to protest against the abuses of child labour, but their protest only became generally effective when the State gave to it the force of law. Philanthropic and religious associations have been pioneers in the field of education, but the advantages were offered to all only when the State stepped in and assumed the responsibility. Individual employers have always been found to offer to their lads humane conditions of work and full opportunities of training, but these remained the privileges of a few, and it was only through State interference that the many obtained their share. As pointing the way to reform, these other agencies have been, and are, of priceless value to the community, but as themselves the instrument they have invariably proved a failure. We are left, then, with two forces which alone need to be taken into account--the industrial organization and the State. For the creation of the new apprenticeship system either the industrial organization must reform itself, or the State must reform the industrial organization: there is no third alternative. Let us begin with the first alternative, and ask ourselves whether there is any reasonable hope of reform from within the industrial organization. The experience of the past is uniformly hostile to any such expectation. In the history of the last hundred years there is no single exception to the rule that all general improvements in the conditions of boy labour have come from without, and not been carried out from within. The experience of the present repeats in an even more emphatic way the experience of the past. It is impossible to point to one single example of an industrial reform now in course of development, and affecting on a large and beneficent scale the prospects or the training of the boy. It would be easy to cite a hundred instances of the contrary process. The whole of the last chapter is nothing but a detailed summary of the progressive defects of the industrial system, and its attempts to exploit in its own interests the value of boy labour. We saw how, by the multiplication of "blind-alley" occupations, the industrial system contrived to lay hold on and use up most of the products of an improved elementary education initiated by the State. Past and present experience are in accord; we cannot look for reform from within. It is necessary to guard against a possible misinterpretation. There is no thought here of blaming the employer. The fight lies not between boy and employer, but between the force of the State and the force of competition, using the last word to denote the most marked characteristic of the industrial revolution. The employer is in general as much a victim of the process as the boy. He cannot be justly blamed for what he cannot be fairly expected to prevent. The exigencies of competition drive him to select the cheapest methods of production at the moment. If these methods involve the exploitation of the boy, it is unfortunate for the boy, but the employer has no other alternative. To produce as cheaply as his neighbours is the one condition of success; more remote considerations cannot enter into a business undertaking. Those well-intentioned persons, with a smattering of ill-digested science and a system of economics far removed from all practical realities, who talk amiably of the interests of employers and their boys, as future workmen, being identical, confuse the good of the present generation with the good of the generation that comes after. It is undoubtedly a fact that any system which injures the workers will in the long-run injure the trade of the country, but this is true only in the long-run, and the run is often very long. Now, survival in business is determined in the immediate future. The heavy charges on fixed capital, the interest on outstanding loans, the weekly wages bill, and the long tale of daily outgoings, make it impossible for the employer to follow proper methods of training in the hope that the new generation of workers will, by their added efficiency, recoup him for his expenditure. To last till that time he must live through the interval, must obtain that contract to-day, this order to-morrow, and must get it at a profit--in other words, he must choose the cheapest method of production here and now; there and next year will be too late. It will be no inducement to him to reflect that his methods would in the long-run prove the best, if he knows that he cannot stay the course. Competition is of to-day; it takes no account of the happenings of to-morrow. Those who in the struggle cannot survive this year will not live to reap the harvest of future years. Agreement among employers on such questions has been found impossible; the temptation to win by evasion an illicit success proves too strong for the majority. Those who pursue the better methods disappear; those who pursue the worse survive to propagate their kind. There is valid in the world of business a law somewhat analogous to Gresham's law in matters of currency; the bad pushes out and replaces the good. There is a real struggle between the interests of one generation and the next. The employer must concern himself with the things of his own day; it is for the State, whose life is ageless, to guard the welfare of those who are to come. By insisting on the methods that are good in the long-run, by forbidding those which are good only in the immediate present, it places all employers on the same level, and enables the best of them to do what was before impossible. It does not thereby interfere with competition; it merely changes the direction of competition by guiding it into less injurious channels. But the secret of success, as demonstrated by the experience of more than a century, must be sought in the enactment of general regulations, which will apply to all employers, and not be looked for in what is sometimes termed the spirit of growing enlightenment. Unless it can be shown that the immediate interest of the employer is one with the proposed reform, nothing really effective can be done by moral suasion; while, if the two are in accord, moral suasion is superfluous. It can hardly be supposed that the contemplative outsider should know the business of the employers better than they do themselves. The mere fact of calling to our aid the power of moral suasion should be enough to show that enlightened self-interest will not suffice; we do not appeal to a man's conscience when we can appeal to his pocket. If, then, reform and the immediate interest are not in accord, consent on the part of one employer means risk of failure in a world where salvation depends on very small margins of profit. It is, therefore, for the most part labour lost to devote time to the consideration of reforms which do not rest on the basis of legal obligation, and we might at once turn to considerations of State control and State enterprise if it were not for the fact that in the minds of many there still remains a hope of the coming of salvation from another direction. They advocate the revival of the old indentured apprenticeship system, and believe that they have only to explain the situation adequately to the employer for him to realize that his interests lie in its revival. This belief assumes, as already mentioned, that the outsider knows the business of the employer better than he does himself--a tolerably large assumption. We might drop the matter with this criticism, but a re-examination of the old apprenticeship system, in the light of the industrial revolution and of the proposals for its revival, will help us on our journey towards the goal of the new apprenticeship. Such examination will show, first, the conditions which a true apprenticeship must fulfil; and, secondly, that those who hark back upon the past for their ideals of reform are conscious that the past must change its dress before it can hope to commend itself to the critical taste of the present. Now, in its best form, as was shown in the second chapter of this book, the old apprenticeship system was a success. It did afford means of adequate supervision over the youth of the country; it did supply them with technical training; and it did provide an opening in an occupation for which special preparation had been made. But a closer examination of the problem showed that success depended on the satisfaction of three conditions: First, it was essential for the apprentice to live with his master, or at any rate that the relations between the two should be of a paternal character; the second essential was the universality of the small workshop, with the facilities it gave for an all-round training; and, thirdly, an essential part of the system was the existence of the gild, which represented masters and men alike, and in the interests of all inspected and controlled the methods of the workshop. With the dissolution of the gilds we saw the first weakening of the apprenticeship system. There was now no authority guarding the interests of the trade as a whole; compulsory apprenticeship was often used as a means of supplying the employer with cheap and enforced labour, for whose future he had no responsibility. With the advent of the industrial revolution we watched the steady disappearance of the small workshop. Training became difficult, and often impossible. With both masters and men formal apprenticeship lost favour, and the system entered on its second stage of decay. With the multiplication of "blind-alley" occupations, with the growing cleavage between man's work and boy's work, and with division of labour pushed to its utmost extreme, came, as has been proved, the break-up of the apprenticeship system. Now, there is nothing in the signs of the times to herald the approach of a new industrial revolution and a return to the old order of the Middle Ages. Machines and machine methods have come to stay, and must stay if the varied needs of the huge populations of to-day are to be satisfied. The more serious advocates of the revival of indentured apprenticeship admit this fact, and fully realize that modifications of the system are necessary. They suggest that committees of volunteers should assume certain of the functions of the gild; they should exercise a kindly supervision over the boy in his home, and take steps to insure that the conditions of the indenture are observed by the employer. Secondly, they propose that the one-sided training of the workshop should be supplemented by technical classes provided by the education authority and supervised by an advisory committee of representatives of the trade. Finally, they urge that these proposals, so far from being visionary, have actually been realized in practice with complete success. Why may not we look for a general extension of these methods? The answer is tolerably obvious. The experiments have undoubtedly been successful. They have shown the steadying influence exerted over the boy by an indenture; they have shown the advantages that come from friendly visiting at the home or the workshop; they have shown the value of technical classes and trade schools supervised by representatives of the trade. But what they have not shown is that the experiment, while resting on a purely voluntary basis, admits of indefinite expansion. Indeed, the fact that the co-operation of the education authority is invoked, in order to provide technical instruction that shall supplement the training of the workshop, is sufficient evidence that we cannot dispense altogether with the assistance of the State. But much more remains to be said against the possibility of indefinite extension. Take the case of indentures. It is true that some employers can be found willing to receive indentured apprentices, and some boys willing to be indentured. But this does not affect the general rule that the conditions of the modern workshop do not allow of the use of apprentices, whose training is enforceable at law, or discount what is a matter of common observation--that neither employers nor boys like to bind themselves together for a period of years. Indentures may be an excellent plan for curbing the independence of the boy, but it does not, unfortunately, follow that the boys who most want curbing will be the boys who will accept this fretting restraint. What happens in practice is that a select number of boys willing to submit to control are brought into relations with a select number of employers willing to be troubled with boys. This is good as far as it goes, but it goes no way in the direction of providing supervision for the boys who most need it. Or take again the question of supplementing in the technical institute the training of the workshop. Experience here and in other countries shows conclusively that technical instruction, to be really effective, must be given during the daytime, when the lad is fresh, and not during the evening, when he is wearied out by the day's work. But, ignoring the necessarily limited number of cases in which boys are able to forgo earning altogether, instruction during the day is possible only where employers allow their apprentices time off during the day to attend classes. It is true that some few employers have given this permission, but their number is strictly limited. In the hope of extending the principle, the London County Council recently carried out an elaborate inquiry among employers, but with very small results. "If we compare," says the report, "the magnitude of the elaborate inquiry carried out by the principals of polytechnics and technical institutes, by the skilled employment committees, and by the Council itself, with the extent of the success attained, we are bound to admit that the results are of the most meagre dimensions. There appears no prospect of inducing employers on any large scale to co-operate with us in the establishment of a satisfactory system of 'part-time' classes." [173] Extension on a large scale and on a voluntary basis is impossible. But, neglecting the question of possibilities, is the revival of an indentured apprenticeship, as a method of learning certain trades, in itself a thing to be desired? There remains one difficulty that has never satisfactorily been surmounted. If indentured apprenticeship is the door leading to a skilled trade, there will be a movement in the trade to close all other doors. Those who have paid a premium, or at any rate served their time for low wages, cannot be expected to allow without complaint vacancies in the trade to be filled by men who have not passed through a similar period of servitude. If the door is closed, there is no way of recruiting the trade in times of expanding business. But, in general, prohibition has not proved practical, and other ways of entry are discovered, and as these ways are easier, it is only natural that people should tend to choose the easier path. Indentured apprenticeship has never escaped from this dilemma; either the trade is closed to strangers when there is no means of expansion, or the trade is open when there is no inducement to be apprenticed. The change in modern industry, with its tendency to break down the barriers between trade and trade, only accentuates the acuteness of the dilemma. Finally, assuming indentured apprenticeship to be both practical and desirable, would it provide a solution for the problem of boy labour? It is obvious that it would only touch a fringe of the question. We have already seen that some two-thirds of the children, as they leave the elementary school, enter a form of occupation which leads only to unskilled labour, and even for that provides no adequate training. An apprenticeship system would not affect these two-thirds. A boy cannot be apprenticed as an errand-boy, or in one of those workshops where practically only boys are engaged. Not only is this class the most important in respect of numbers; it is also the class most urgently in need of control. It is here that degeneration and demoralization are most marked, while it is here that indentured apprenticeship offers not even a shadow of a remedy. A system which ignores the majority, even if it provided for the favoured few, cannot be regarded as affording a possible solution of the problem of boy labour. We cannot, therefore, look to the revival of apprenticeship, even when supplemented by technical training, to carry us far on the road of reform. It would, however, be a mistake to under-rate the lessons of the experiments. They have shown the value of indentures as a means of controlling the boy; they have shown the value of sympathetic supervision; and they have shown the value of the technical school in widening the inadequate training of the workshop. The defects of the experiment lay in the necessary limitations of the case. Remove the limitations, and you remove the defects. We want universal indentures, universal supervision, universal training. To guard against the dangers of creating a privileged class through the establishment of an apprenticeship system we must see to it that all alike serve a period of apprenticeship. Obviously, we cannot apprentice all boys to employers; we must, therefore, apprentice all boys to the State. There is nothing new in this proposal. Already, through the law of compulsory attendance at school, all boys are so apprenticed between the ages of five and fourteen. What is necessary is an extension of the period of an already existing apprenticeship system. In the search of a means of preventing an evil, the most difficult task is always to exclude the inadequate and the irrelevant. When all paths of advance, with one exception, have been blocked, there is no longer any choice or risk of losing one's way. We have now seen that all ways, except the way of collective control and collective enterprise, fail to reach the desired goal, and, having exhausted all other alternatives, must fall back upon the State. Some do this willingly, some reluctantly, but all, with a few exceptions that may be disregarded, appeal to the State when they are convinced that help can be looked for from no other source. We are now in that position, and must frankly face the situation. Failing assistance in any other direction, we must call on the State to organize a new apprenticeship system. Such a system must make due provision for supervision, training, and an opening. It remains to be considered how these three essentials can be secured. I SUPERVISION. A boy must be under some sort of supervision until he reaches at least the age of eighteen. Such supervision must have respect to his physical well-being as well as to his conduct. Neither the home, nor philanthropy, nor the workshop can be looked for to provide this supervision. They have all failed, and that failure is progressive. The State remains as our only hope. The State has not failed; it has made impossible the worst abuses of child labour, and through its educational system has been an influence for good in the moral and physical development of the children. Its success has been great, and that success has been progressive. Where it has failed, it has failed because its supervision has been withdrawn too soon. The remedy is obvious: we must extend the sphere of State supervision. Three reforms are urgently necessary: (1) The raising of the age of compulsory attendance to fifteen; (2) the complete prohibition of the employment of school-children for wages; and (3) the compulsory attendance of lads between the ages of fifteen and eighteen at some place of education for at least half the working day. With regard to these proposals, it may be said that all three are supported by the Minority Report of the Poor Law Commission and by the labour organizations which have in general expressed their approval of that Report. (1) and (3) are the recommendations of the Report of the Education Committee of the London County Council, adopted unanimously by that body in February, 1909; while (1) and (3) also received a qualified approval from the Majority Report of the Poor Law Commission, and from the Report of the Consultative Committee of the Board of Education on Continuation Schools. They have, therefore, behind them a strong backing of expert opinion. _(a) The Raising of the School Age._ More than ten years have elapsed since Parliament last raised the age of compulsory attendance. There is almost universal agreement that the time has come for adding another year. The discipline of the school is successful while it lasts, but fails in permanent effect because it is withdrawn too soon. In the last chapter we saw from the study of the census tables that for at least the first year after school the boys have settled down to no very fixed employment. Many of the skilled trades do not take learners and apprentices before the age of fifteen. "It is clear," say the Education Committee of the London County Council, "that the year after leaving school--the year, that is, between the ages of fourteen and fifteen--is for the children concerned a year of uncertainty. Nearly half are returned as without specified occupation. No doubt a large proportion of the number are attending some place of education, but it is no less true that a considerable number are not classified, because for the time being they are doing nothing. They have thrown up one situation and are looking out for another. In this respect we must remember that it is a common practice--at any rate, so far as the poorer section of the community is concerned--for the children, and not their parents, to select for themselves the form of occupation and find for themselves situations. The children are too young to choose wisely, and, as a natural consequence, shift from place to place until they discover something that suits their taste or ability. It would be difficult to imagine a more unsatisfactory method of training. Till the age of fourteen they are carefully looked after in school; at the age of fourteen they are set free from all forms of discipline, and become practically their own masters. We must not, therefore, be surprised that under such conditions the effect of the school training is transient, and the large amount of money spent on their education to a great extent wasted." [174] And, summing up the whole case for the raising of the school age, the Education Committee say: "The advantages of keeping children at school until the age of fifteen are many and obvious. They receive an extra year's instruction at a time when they are most apt to learn; they are kept for another year under discipline just at the period when it is easiest to influence permanently the development of character. With the extension they escape the year of aimless drifting from occupation to occupation, and, when called on to choose a profession, they will have a year's extra experience to help them in the choice. We may hope that under these new conditions the tendency to follow the line of greatest initial wages will decrease, and be replaced by a tendency to consider as of paramount importance prospects of training and hope of future advancement." [175] In raising the school age we should take the opportunity of getting rid of certain anomalies which now exist. While for the vast majority of children in London and many other places attendance is compulsory up to the age of fourteen, exemption is possible at the age of twelve and thirteen for a small minority. In certain parts of the country large numbers of children are allowed to leave before the age of fourteen. It is unfortunate that it is the cleverest children who are entitled to this earlier exemption. We are here looking at the problem of apprenticeship from the standpoint of supervision, and in the case of supervision age and not mental attainment must be the determining principle. The bright precocious boy of twelve or thirteen is precisely the boy who stands most in need of control. Morally and physically he is likely to suffer from the effects of premature freedom. The sleepy dullard, who is kept at school until fourteen, could be freed from discipline at an earlier age, with less risk of serious harm. In raising, then, the age of compulsory attendance to fifteen, we must abolish the privileges of exemption and the powers of local option, and enact that all children shall attend school full time until they reach the age of fifteen. _(b) The Prohibition of Child Labour._ Much space has in this volume been devoted to the task of demonstrating the extent and the evils of child labour. It has been shown that anything except the very lightest employment is physically injurious. It has been made clear that the work in which children are engaged is frequently demoralizing, while it never paves the way to entering a skilled trade when school is left. They are essentially "blind-alley" occupations. Further, we have seen good reason to believe that the habit of earning money and the precocious sense of independence so encouraged are not in the best interests of order and discipline. We note the evil in its worst form under the "half-time" system. "The half-timers," we are told, "become clever at repartee and in the use of 'mannish' phrases, which sound clever when they dare use them. They lose their childish habits ... some of the boys commence to smoke and to use bad language." [176] Finally, it has been proved that limitation of the hours of employment in the case of school-children is in practice impossible; there is no ready way of detecting breaches of the law. We are, therefore, driven to the conclusion that, unless the evils are to remain--and this is not tolerable--we must prohibit altogether the employment for wages of children liable to attend school full time. Various objections are made to the proposal. We are told by many of the witnesses who appeared before the Interdepartmental Committee on Wage-earning Children that a little light work was good for boys; it kept them out of mischief. Ignoring the difficulties of insuring that the work shall be little and light, they do not seem to make out their case. In London, as has been shown, not more than a quarter of the boys during the course of their school time are ever engaged seriously in paid employment. If, therefore, the work was beneficial, we should expect to find in the after-career of the 25 per cent. evidence of the advantages they have enjoyed, and in the case of the 75 per cent. signs of failure due to their less fortunate training. But all experience points in the opposite direction. It is the 25 per cent. who drift most generally into the "blind-alley" occupations; it is from this 25 per cent. that the majority of hooligans and youthful criminals are recruited. It is also argued that there are certain tasks which only children can perform, because they occupy only a small portion of the day. Papers must be delivered and milk left at people's houses. But in Germany much of this work is done by old men,[177] and even in this country the "knocker-up" in the morning is not a child, but an old man. Employers in the textile trades declared that it is only by beginning young that children can acquire the necessary quickness and deftness of touch. But as these trades absorb in the adult service only a small proportion of the children engaged, and seeing that in many instances the half-time system has been dropped as uneconomic, there does not seem much force in this objection. Moreover, it cannot be beyond the power of manual training in the schools to provide a fitting and less injurious substitute. The arguments in favour of the continued employment of school-children are the arguments of the old world, and the new world is becoming a little tired of the arguments of these old-world people. The time has come to make a stand, and insist that for all children there shall be insured the blessings of childhood. The first step in this direction lies in making it impossible for them to enter the ranks of the wage-earners as long as their names remain on the roll of the elementary school. _(c) The New Half-Time System._ The proposals for raising the school age and for prohibiting child labour during that period will do much to strengthen the system of supervision. Another year of school discipline; another year of medical inspection and medical treatment; protection during another year from the evil effects of overwork and from the demoralization due to "blind-alley" occupations and premature earning--these reforms will bring us some way on our journey towards the new apprenticeship, but they will not bring us the whole way. There remain the three years which lie between the ages of fifteen and eighteen, and include the greater part of the period of adolescence--in some respects the most important period in the development of a human being. It is during these years that character begins to take its permanent set; it is during these years that, with the coming of puberty, there is most risk of ugly and dangerous outbreaks; it is during these years that physical health demands the most careful attention; and it is during these years that, with the exception of the failures of civilization--the physically, the mentally, and the morally defective--there is no real supervision or, under existing conditions, any hope of securing it. To allow irresponsible freedom during these years is to court disaster; to give it suddenly and in an unqualified degree, as it is given now when the school career is brought to an abrupt end, is to follow a course condemned by all educationalists. No parent, even the most thoughtless, among the well-to-do classes would think of treating his son in this fashion. His whole scheme of education is founded on the principle of a slow and gradual loosening of the bonds of discipline. The close supervision of the private school is replaced by the larger liberty of the public school, which in turn opens into the greater but still restricted freedom of the University. Freedom must come slowly. We want a bridge between the elementary school of the boy and the full-time workshop of the man. Such a bridge would be created by the establishment of the proposed half-time system. For half the day--or at any rate, for half his time--the lad between the ages of fifteen and eighteen would be compelled to attend a place of education, and only during the remaining half be permitted to undertake employment for wages. The advantages of this proposal are many. First, the influence of the school would be retained for an additional three years, and under the half-time system the freedom of the youthful wage-earner would find a suitable limitation in the half-time control of the school. Secondly, we should have the opportunity of another three years' medical inspection and medical treatment. With supervision over the health of the community continued until the age of eighteen we might fairly anticipate a rapid improvement in the physical efficiency of the worker. In particular, we should be able to detect, in a way now impossible, the effects of various forms of employment on those engaged in them. Inspection under the provisions of the Factory and Workshops Act, as has been shown, is too limited in character to do more than pick out a few young persons obviously unfit for the occupation they have selected; but, with the education authority responsible for the health of juveniles, and using to the full extent its powers to provide preventive measures or to veto in the case of certain individuals certain forms of work, we should have gone far to secure that no one should enter on or remain in a trade for which he was physically unfit. Thirdly, as already shown, a half-time system is the only really effective way of limiting the hours of juvenile employment. If the lad is compelled to be elsewhere than in the workshop for half his time, we have an automatic check on excessive work. Other advantages of this system will appear when we come to deal with questions of training and the provision of an opening. The half-time system should be made compulsory throughout the country; it ought not to be left to local option to decide. The local rating authority naturally wishes to encourage the establishment of workshops and factories within its area, and would be unwilling to adopt Acts which might prove a deterrent. It would be a most unsatisfactory state of affairs for employers to evade the spirit of the law by moving into districts where the law was not enforced. It is a little unfortunate that the Education (Scotland) Act, 1908, which allows a limited amount of compulsion in connection with continuation schools, is founded on the principle of local option. The recommendations of the Consultative Committee of the Board of Education are vitiated in a similar way. Local option can never be really successful. It will elect to act only where there is least opposition from employers--in other words, where action is least necessary; and it will do nothing where boy labour is most exploited and regulation most urgently required. In one direction alone can local option be allowed with advantage. It may be permitted to decide on the precise kind or kinds of half-time to be enforced within their area. Boys might attend school on the half-day system or on the alternate day system. Or, again, they might spend three days in the workshop and three days in the school, or under certain circumstances devote six months of the year to the workshop and the remaining six months to the school. It would be desirable to allow the local authority considerable liberty in their methods of adapting the half-time system to the special needs of the trades of the district, provided always that a true half-time system was established. There is no serious difficulty in the way of compelling attendance at the half-time school. It would be enforced just as attendance at the elementary school is enforced, and by the same officers. Further, no employer would be permitted to employ a boy between the ages of fifteen and eighteen who could not show satisfactory evidence of attendance at school. Or if, as may be the case, it is found desirable to permit boys to be engaged only by means of the Labour Exchange, the Labour Exchange itself would prove a most effective way of enforcing attendance. There is nothing new or impracticable in the principle of the proposal. Compulsory attendance at continuation schools can be required in Scotland. Such attendance is compulsory in parts of Germany and Switzerland.[178] It is exacted by certain employers in this country from their apprentices. Further, the fact that for many years the half-time system has been in use in the case of many important industries, and tens of thousands of children so employed, demonstrates clearly enough that there is nothing impossible in the application of a half-time system to juveniles. It would, no doubt, cause some inconvenience, and some employers might dispense with the services of juveniles; but no more difficulty would arise than has arisen when any fresh regulations have been imposed; and we should see, as we have always done in the past, the employers who predicted inevitable ruin before the event, as soon as the proposal became law adapt themselves, with that placid content and admirable success which they have always displayed after the event, to the new condition of affairs. _(d) The Parents' Point of View._ The three proposals just made have one characteristic in common-they all directly set a limit to the employment of children and young persons. It is possible that some readers may regard them from another point of view, and say that in limiting employment they seriously diminish the income of the family. Will the poor parent, whose lot is pitiable enough as things are, be able to stand the loss? In considering this, the parents' point of view, we must guard against being caught in the noose of a vicious circle. We must not perpetuate an evil in order to mitigate its present effects. Many, probably most, of those parents whose income hovers about the margin of possible existence are in this pitiful position because their own childhood has been neglected. As children, they have been overworked, and they are now physically unfit for regular employment; as children, they have been allowed to go uncontrolled and untrained, and now, as men, they are paying a heavy tax for the earnings of their boyhood. They receive little because they are worth little; their work is precarious because the sphere of their usefulness is small. We must not allow their children to live as _they_ lived when children, and so pass on to the next generation the taint of inefficiency and its consequent wages of starvation merely because to-day wages of starvation need to be supplemented. We can never hope to overtake and pass an evil if we always cast it in front of us. The one clear message to the reformer of to-day is that he should look to prevention, and not merely to cure; and the one clear hope of a nation's future lies in insuring to every youth, as he crosses the threshold of manhood, the fullest realization of that development whose promise was his at birth. It might be well worth while for a country lavishly to endow poverty for a generation in order to free itself once for all from its fatal infection. But there is no reason to believe that we must resort to this drastic measure because there is no reason to believe that the proposed restrictions of child labour will in any way injure the parents. Take first the earnings of school-children. There is very little reason to believe that they often make any effective contribution to the income of the home. They are irregular, they are small, and very frequently the boys retain them as pocket-money. Where they are large, as in the case of children employed during the pantomime season, they often form a convenient excuse for the parent to go idle for a time. The only large exception to this rule is the case of the widow. Here, indeed, the earnings do usually find their way home, materially increase the miserable pittance allowed by the guardians, and must be regarded as a tax levied on children in aid of the ratepayer. Humanity and a reformed Poor Law may be trusted to remove the tax. Take next the raising of the school age to fifteen. The age has not been raised for more than ten years, and when it was last raised it was raised without friction and without complaint on the part of the parent. We might, perhaps, have expected that the percentage of attendance would have decreased because of the difficulty of enforcing it on the children of poverty-stricken parents. This has not been the experience; indeed, the last decade has been remarkable for the rapid rise in that percentage. There is not a scrap of evidence to show that the last raising of the school age caused even temporary suffering on a large scale. Never was a large reform carried out with greater ease. There is no reason to believe that, if we raised the age again, that favourable experience would not be repeated. We come now to the new half-time system. The earnings of boys between fifteen and eighteen years are considerable. To diminish them by one-half, it is urged, would be to adopt a course which would prove intolerable to the poor parent. Now, in the first place, though it is true that the lads could be employed for only half the time they were before, it by no means follows that they would only receive half the present money. We have already seen that the demand for boys far outruns the supply. The half-time system would halve the supply, and, though some employers might cease to use boys, the demand would certainly not be halved. The demand for boys would then considerably exceed the demand of to-day. The rate of wages would, in consequence, rise. The boys would no doubt earn less, but certainly more than half of what they now earn. In the next place, it must be remembered that the parent rarely receives the whole of the boy's earnings even during the first year, and each year the proportion of wages that comes to the home grows less. At the age of seventeen it is seldom that more than half finds its way into the family exchequer. The boy keeps the rest, and, as we have already seen, the large amount of money he has to spend on himself is by no means an unmixed benefit. The parent cannot usually get from the boy much more than is required to keep him; indeed, he is afraid to enlarge his demand lest the boy, who is economically independent, should leave home. But under the half-time system, though he may earn his keep, he will rarely earn enough to support himself outside the family. In addition, the fact of being compelled to attend school will be a healthy reminder that he is not yet a man, and so check the growing spirit of independence. Home influence and parental authority will thus be strengthened, and the father will be able to exact a much larger share than before of the boy's earnings. Now, if the earnings are not diminished by so much as half, and if at the same time the parent obtain an increased proportion, it is by no means clear that the home affairs will suffer. Among the poorest families, where home discipline ceases altogether when the boy leaves school, it is quite possible that the financial position of the parent will be improved rather than worsened. But we have not yet taken into account what is, perhaps, the most important consideration. The three proposals under discussion will undoubtedly largely diminish the amount of work performed by boys, but will not diminish the amount of work that requires to be done. Somebody must take up the tasks formerly allotted to boys, and, if boys fail, men must fill their place. Now, the work was given to boys because, to give it to men would cost more. In future, the work will be given to men, and more money will be paid for it than before. In other words, the increased earnings of men will more than make up for the diminished earnings of boys, and much more than compensate for the loss, because, as we have seen, only a portion of the boys' earnings ever reach the home. Or we may look at the question from another point of view, and say that the decreased use of boys will mean an increase in the demand for men, and, consequently, an increase in the wages of men. The Minority Report of the Poor Law Commission arrives at these three proposals by starting from the opposite point of view, and advocates their adoption not primarily for the good of the boys, but for the good of their parents. In the task of decasualizing labour, they are met with the difficulty that a considerable number of men will in the process be thrown out of employment altogether. Work must be found for them, and the easiest and the best way to find it is shown to be the withdrawal from the labour market of persons, like children, who ought not either to be employed at all or to be employed for such long hours as at present. Hence arises the suggestion of a rigid limitation of boy labour. It is much in favour of these proposals that they are the outcome of an elaborate analysis which in the one case begins with the man, and in the other with the child. We may take it, then, as clear that, from the parents' point of view, there is nothing to hinder us in raising the school age to fifteen, prohibiting the employment of school-children, and instituting a new half-time system. II. TRAINING. The second essential in an apprenticeship system worthy the name is the provision of adequate training. The word "training" is used in its broadest sense to include preparation, not only for the life of the workman, but for the life of the citizen as well. In the preceding chapter we have seen that the scholarship schemes, connecting the elementary school with the University, and rapidly increasing throughout the country, are offering opportunities of training for those likely to rise high in the professional, the commercial, and the industrial world. It is probable that sufficient attention has not as yet been given to the supply of the most advanced kind of technological instruction, but the fault is being remedied, and the defect is due rather to lack of knowledge than to lack of will; and it is the instruction, and not the facilities of access to it, that is wanting. What we are concerned with in this chapter is the training of those destined to fill the posts of foremen and managers of small undertakings, of the skilled workmen of the future, and of those never likely to rise above the ranks of unskilled labour. We are also concerned with those who will occupy corresponding positions in the commercial world. It has already been shown that the training of these persons is one-sided and inadequate, and, in the case of the majority, can hardly be said to exist at all. On the other hand, we have seen good reason to believe that the technical school can be, if not a complete substitute for the workshop, at any rate a necessary and fitting supplement. The day has gone by when it was necessary to argue at length the uses of technical instruction. Employers in this country, as they have long since done on the Continent and in America, recognize the advantages. Yearly, whether by compelling the lads in their service to attend the technical school, or forming themselves into committees to advise as to the most desirable methods of teaching, they are displaying a keener interest in the question, and a fuller faith in the possibilities of practical training given outside the walls of the workshop. The defect of existing arrangements has been shown to lie in their limitation. For the majority technical instruction has been unsatisfactory or impossible of access. We must show in the present chapter how all may enjoy the advantages of training; but before doing so we must consider, a little more closely than has been done before, the kind of training required by the petty officers and the rank and file of the industrial army. In much of the preceding discussion it has been assumed that what the man wants is an all-round training. This is undoubtedly a fact, but by an all-round training is not necessarily meant a training that will produce a craftsman of the old school, equally capable of turning his hand successfully to any of the operations with which his trade is concerned. Except in rural districts, in a few of the artistic crafts, and in certain branches of repairing work, a man of this kind is not generally required. It seems probable that the industrial tendencies of to-day are making decreasing demands for purely manual skill. The Report of the Poor Law Commission contains a valuable discussion of the question, and sums up the conclusions in the following passage: "The general trend of our answers was that the 'skill' of modern industry is scarcely comparable with the skill of labour in the past. One might say that, within twenty years, with the universal employment of machinery and the excessive subdivision and specialization of its use, the character of the productive process has quite changed. There is a growing demand for higher intelligence on the part of the few; a large and probably growing demand for specialized machine-minders; and, unhappily, a relegation of those who cannot adapt themselves to a quite inferior, if not worse paid, position. If, then, the 'skill' which we might have looked for and desired is what might be called 'craftsmanship,' we must conclude that the demand for skill is, on the whole, declining. The all-round ability which used honourably to mark out the mechanic is no longer in demand, so much as the work of the highly specialized machine-minder." [179] But if there seems a less demand for all-round skill, there appears to be an increasing demand for trained intelligence. "In the greater industries employing adult male labour, 'machinery' does not in the least resemble the long lines of revolving spindles one sees in a cotton mill. In the machine tools of an engineering shop there is comparatively little of such automatism, and, even where the machines are automatic, single men are put in charge of a number of machines, and the setting and supervising of these is work probably demanding a higher level of intelligence than ever before. 'I should say the skilled men require even more skill than they did,' says Mr. Barnes, 'because of the finer work and more intricate machinery.... Side by side with automatic machines there has come about more intricate and highly complicated machinery.' 'The semi-skilled of to-day,' says Sir Benjamin C. Brown, 'is in many cases as good as the skilled was a quarter of a century ago.'" [180] Or, as another witness puts it: "The tendency of machinery is always to cause a substitution of intelligence for dexterity, the person who was in effect a machine by reason of his dexterity giving place to one who could understand a direct and mechanical process." [181] There seems also good reason to believe that the demand for intelligence outruns the supply. In the workmen, usually classed as skilled, the employer requires intelligence, but he wants something more; he wants trustworthiness, and frequently a certain highly specialized manual dexterity. The training of the workshop can supply the third of these qualifications; it cannot, however, supply the other two, which are in the main the products of education. But between the second and the third there is a certain antagonism. Monotony in the workshop does not cultivate intelligence; it is actively hostile to such growth. Unless there is a well-trained intelligence to begin with, the continual performance of a single task will reduce the man to the level of a mere machine. Now, the employer does not want a mere machine; if he did, in these days of inventive genius, he would soon discover something more reliable in the way of machines than flesh and blood. He wants a machine with intelligence; he must therefore have a man. But the intelligence must rest on a broad basis of education, or the machine element will prove too much for it. This is the reason of the statement, found so often in evidence on technical training given by enlightened employers, that what is mostly required is a good general education. Now we are coming to see that a general education does not imply a certain specific syllabus of instruction; it may be the result of the most varied kinds of instruction. We have ceased to take the narrow view that it consists only in book-learning and aptness with the pen. We have recognized that manual training may rightly play a large part in any system of education, and for the full development of certain types of mind is absolutely indispensable. Consequently, though the employer does not need the man of all-round skill, there is no reason why the workman should not acquire a general use of the tools employed in his trade. Whatever it may be to the employer, the possession of a certain amount of all-round skill is not a matter of indifference to the workman. If he can boast skill in a single operation alone, the bridge that lifts him above the gulf of unskilled labour is very fragile. A change in demand or a new invention may any day render his specialized skill useless, and precipitate him into that gulf whence is no escape. But this is not the case with the man who has received an all-round training. Thrust out of one branch of the trade, he can, if intelligent, comparatively easily find an opening in another. The all-round skill, though not required in the workshop, is necessary to the man if his position in the skilled labour market is to be secure. In a sense, the measure of his all-round skill is the measure of the stability of his industrial status. Further, the possession of all-round skill is a necessary condition of the possession of intelligence. It gives a man a clearer insight into the significance of his trade, and robs monotony of some part of its soul-killing power. Pure specialization is hostile to intelligence; the man who can only do one thing cannot do that one thing well. Finally, from these skilled workmen must be chosen the foremen and small managers, and these people must possess the wider knowledge and a more varied skill. To a large extent at the present time they are not recruited from the large workshop; they come from the country district, where this all-round skill can still be acquired. But, as we have seen, this supply is not inexhaustible, and there are signs that the methods of the industrial revolution are invading the village. Unless, therefore, we are prepared to see a scarcity of trained foremen in the future, we must to-day aim at producing the skilled workman, who is at once intelligent and possesses a general knowledge of the tools of his trade. "We do not to-day," says Sir Christopher Furness, "want men who are all-round at building marine engines; we do need men who are all-round mechanical engineers--men who can apply the principles of their craft to any form of machinery that may be called for. That is a class of training which cannot be achieved by any system of apprenticeship, and is essentially a matter which the governing authority must handle if this country is to maintain its position in the industrial world." [182] "The characteristics," says the Consultative Committee, "that employers most value and most deplore the lack of would appear to be general handiness (which is really to a large extent a mental quality), adaptability and alertness, habits of observation--and the power to express the thing observed--accuracy, resourcefulness, the ability to grapple with new unfamiliar conditions, the habit of applying one's mind and one's knowledge to what one has to do." [183] It is clear that within the narrow sphere of the workshop an all-round training of this kind can never be secured. We must look, then, to the elementary schools supplemented by the technical institute, to insure to the workmen an all-round intelligence and a general knowledge of the use of tools employed in his trade. For commerce, intelligence and an all-round training are no less necessary. "You produce a better clerk," it has been said, "if the boy takes an industrial rather than a commercial course." There is therefore no conflict of interest between what the employer wants and what the workman wants. The employer wants intelligence, and cannot get it from a workman who does not possess a general knowledge of his trade. The workman wants an all-round knowledge of his trade because without it his position as a skilled artisan is precarious and at the mercy of every new invention or change in fashion. We have hitherto spoken as if all were skilled workmen, and as though the unskilled labourer did not exist. Now, there are at the present time huge armies of men that can by no stretch of imagination be regarded as skilled at anything; but it is by no means clear that it is desirable for this huge army to continue as such. It is generally assumed that the performance of so-called unskilled work requires no training and makes no demand on skill. This is a grave mistake; let anyone, without previous experience, try a day's digging in his garden, and he will realize the fact. But it is not merely a question of manual training and practice; the unskilled labourer, to be efficient, needs intelligence. Skilled and unskilled work call for, in this age of machines, more intelligence than was wanted in the past. Almost everyone nowadays uses a machine of some sort; and there can be no question that in such use there is a serious lack of intelligence. The unskilled labour engaged with machinery is almost always inadequate and unsatisfactory. The agricultural labourer, for example, has to manage machines whose complex mechanism is far beyond his ill-trained intelligence to comprehend. The same may be said of the general run of machine-minders. Breakdowns, stoppages, and accidents are the costly consequences of their defect. Of all forms of labour, the unskilled labour of to-day is probably the most expensive to the employer. The labourer is worth, as a rule, little more than he receives, and, not infrequently, a good deal less. The preservation of stupidity is among the most foolish and most expensive of modern luxuries. What the employer wants is the intelligent unskilled labourer, and such a class must be the product, not of the workshop, but of the schools. The training to be provided would be very similar to that required by the skilled workman. From the point of view of the employer, we require more intelligence in the unskilled labourer; from the point of view of the community and the man himself, the need is even more urgent. We must not forget the man in the labourer. He is not for all his time an unskilled labourer; he is the autocrat of the home, the father of a family, and, as a voter, one of the rulers of the Empire. These last functions belong essentially to the highly skilled class of work. Uneducated parents are a danger to their children, and so to the future prosperity of the nation; the illiterate voters a peril to the safety of the State. Finally, the man himself, with a wider outlook on the world, and with a life richer in interests, and so with more opportunities of healthy enjoyment, would be a happier and a better citizen. The shame of modern civilization and the abiding menace to its security lie in the miserable horde of stupid, unintelligent, and uninterested labourers who are good for nothing except the exercise of mere brute strength and indulgence in mere animal pleasures, and not very much good even for this. Looking, then, at the problem of the training of skilled and unskilled workmen alike, whether from the point of view of man or master, we see that the great essential is the possession of a large measure of intelligence. With the continual changes in the methods of industry, men must be capable of changing too; they must be capable of readily adapting themselves to new conditions, and not become petrified in a rigid and inflexible mould. Intelligence, properly developed, means adaptability. If we could secure this, the problem of dealing with the unemployed would be comparatively easy of solution. The inextricable tangle of to-day lies in the hopeless task of securing employment at a living wage for men who are not worth it. Let each man be made good for something, and it will not be beyond the range of wise statesmanship to find that good thing for him to do. How is the necessary training to be provided? The answer to this question need not detain us long. We have already seen that elementary and technical education can solve the problem in the case of those who have been able to avail themselves of the opportunities offered. The only outstanding difficulty was the difficulty of insuring ready access to all; and this has been surmounted in the proposals of the last section. The raising of the school age to fifteen, the prohibition of the employment of school-children, and the new half-time system, give facilities for education never before enjoyed. The boy will remain at the elementary school till the age of fifteen, and there will be no employment outside school hours to undermine his health and render him unfit to profit by the instruction given. We have already noticed the transformation of the elementary school now going on, and the multiplication of various types of school. The process will continue, and the results following the raising of the school age will be increased in value. The school will, in the first place, be regarded as a sorting-house, in which the different kinds of ability are discovered and classified. It will next be an institution where proper provision is made to insure that each kind of ability shall have the fullest opportunity of development. The only meaning of a general education is the discovery and the cultivation of the special interests of the individual. When the boy leaves the elementary school his interests and ability will guide him to search for employment where they will have most scope. How this opening is to be found is a question that will be discussed in the next section. Let us take the boy who enters a skilled trade--say a branch of the woodwork industry--and follow his fortunes. He can be employed in the workshop for only half the day; during the remainder he must attend the half-time school. We have hitherto looked at this half-time school as a means of exercising supervision over conduct and physical development; we must now regard it as a place of technical instruction. There must, therefore, be various types of schools corresponding to the different groups of trades. The boy who enters a woodwork trade will attend a school designed to meet the needs of that industry. At his place of employment he will no doubt be kept to a narrow range of operations, and in their performance will acquire that dexterity which only workshop experience can give. In the half-time school he will receive the training necessary to make of him an intelligent and all-round workman. Here his ordinary education will be continued; instruction in drawing, in mensuration, and in science--all specially adapted to the requirements of his trade--will be provided; and, lastly, in the school workshop he will acquire skill in the general use of the woodwork tools. If it is urged that it will be difficult to find room in the curriculum for such varied training, it must be remembered that the subjects of instruction will all have formed part of the curriculum of the elementary school, with a bias in the direction of the woodwork industry. The boy will remain at the school for three years, and at the age of eighteen we shall have at least laid the foundation of those qualities required by the employer for success in the workshop and by the workman for success in life. Let us take now the case of a boy who, on leaving school, finds employment in some occupation which does not lead to a skilled trade, and provides no educational training. Let us suppose he becomes an errand-boy. We cannot prevent lads of fifteen and upwards from being employed in such occupations, however undesirable, but we can at least guard against the more serious evils which are now the result. The boy will only be employed for half the day; he also must attend a half-time school. At this school he will continue his ordinary education; manual training will be provided to make him clever with his hands, while special attention will be devoted to his physical development. He will not, of course, be taught a definite trade, but will learn the general use of tools. How far, then, schools may be specialized, into different types it must be left for the future to decide. We have hitherto never seriously considered the training of the unskilled labourer, and much pioneer work of an experimental character remains to be done. At the age of eighteen the lad, like his brother in the skilled trade, will be a valuable asset in the labour market. We shall have created what we have not got now, and what we much need--a race of intelligent and adaptable unskilled labourers. There are certain other advantages which the half-time system can claim. First, the training of the workshop and the training of the school are carried on at the same time; instruction and practice go hand in hand. Secondly, only those boys will in general be taught a skilled trade in the schools who have already entered a skilled trade. This removes an objection often felt by Trade Unionists to what they term a multiplication through the schools of half-skilled workmen. Thirdly, we have in it a system of universal apprenticeship. All boys will have been learners, and worked for the same period at low wages. There will, therefore, be no obstacle of a privileged class to make difficulties in the way of those entering a trade who have not passed through the normal course of preparation for it. Fitness for the work will be, as it should be, the sole qualification. Looked at in a general way, the half-time schools will be called on to play a double part. They must train the man in the interests of the community and in the interests of the trade. From the employer's standpoint these schools must be essentially places of practical instruction in close touch with the workshop. Already, under existing conditions, employers and representatives of the trade have been found willing to form advisory committees to visit the schools, criticize the teaching, and make suggestions for increasing its value. The principle must be extended; only in this way shall we get the expert inspection necessary to secure real efficiency. On the other hand, the education authority, the representative of the community, will manage the schools, and make them training-grounds of true citizenship. Under this double system of control, wisely administered, we shall not lose the man in the worker or the worker in the man; the interests of the individual and the interests of the employer will alike be safeguarded. In a real sense, and in fashion adapted to modern requirements, we shall have brought back the best traditions of the old apprenticeship system in which the gild, standing at once for the community and for the trade, watched over the training of the youth of the nation. III. THE PROVISION OF AN OPENING. The third and last essential of an apprenticeship system is the provision of an opening. In the last chapter we have seen the aimless drift of boys as they leave school into "blind-alley" occupations; we have watched them rapidly slough off the effects of the school training; and we have found them a few years later left stranded without prospects; and we have been driven to confess that this process of waste and demoralization is not a passing phase, but an integral part of the industrial development in its present unregulated condition. Boys, parents, employers are alike impotent to cure the evil; once again we are compelled to look to the State for help. The State must guide the choice of boys as they leave school. It must assist them during the period of adolescence to find better forms of employment, or at any rate to retain and increase the value of the school training, and it must bridge the gulf that now separates the work of the lad from the work of the man. Already the necessary organization is in process of formation. We have seen how the establishment of Labour Exchanges for adults has, quite unexpectedly, led to the creation of special departments for juveniles. It is singularly fortunate that this accident has led naturally to the Board of Trade being regarded as the proper authority to carry out the work. It is, however, a fact that Parliament has recently passed an Act which gives power to education authorities to spend money for this purpose. It may do no harm for education authorities to be able, without fear of surcharge, to spend money in co-operating with the Board of Trade, but it would be disastrous if they came to think themselves the responsible authority for the undertaking. One of the chief objects of the machinery is the bridging of the gulf between youth and manhood. We should not enter on this difficult task with much hope of success if we perpetuated the distinction by making the Board of Trade responsible for the work of adults, and the education authorities responsible for the work of juveniles. Further, we are coming to see that questions of employment are questions which must be dealt with by a national, and not a local, body. Only a national authority, with its knowledge of the conditions over the whole country, could be in a position to estimate the prospects in any trade, or to decide as to the right proportions of boys to men. Next, the unit of area for employment bears no relation to the unit of area for educational purposes. Towns are separated from the adjoining districts. The unit of area for London employment, for example, is not the administrative county, but Greater London, and in Greater London there are more than thirty education authorities. If these are not in agreement--and when are thirty local authorities in agreement?--no system of regulation would be effective. If, let us say, the London County Council, in order to discourage the employment of van-boys, declined to supply them through their Exchange, their action would be without result if the adjoining districts did not follow suit, while it is impossible to conceive a more chaotic organization than one which would allow employers in the City to be canvassed for openings by thirty independent bodies. For these and many other reasons the Board of Trade must be regarded as the dominant authority for the organization of the Juvenile Labour Exchange. On the other hand, there must be close co-operation between the Labour Exchange and the education authority. The Board of Trade has recognized the importance of this co-operation, and is making full provision for it in the machinery it is setting up. It is forming local advisory committees in connection with each Labour Exchange, and is making them practically responsible for the control of the juvenile department. On this committee are appointed persons nominated by the Board of Trade on the one hand, and on the other by the education authority. The committee thus represents the two branches of the organization. These committees are only just coming into existence, and it is too early to judge of their success. The problem is one of immediate practical importance; it is, therefore, desirable to consider a little in detail the principles that should guide them in their work. For the same reason it is desirable to ignore for the moment the proposals made in the preceding sections, to take things as they are, and to show what can be achieved under existing conditions. The work of the Juvenile Labour Exchange divides itself naturally into a number of different parts or stages. The first stage is concerned with the boy while still at school. Some months before he is likely to leave he must be seen with the view of inducing him to make use of the Labour Exchange to obtain employment. A form will be filled up showing his position in the school, and any particular ability he may have displayed, recording the state of his health as revealed by medical inspection, and indicating any particular desire as to occupation expressed by himself or his parents. The interview and the filling up of the form will be undertaken by someone connected with the school organization--a teacher, or probably a volunteer. The institution of care committees for each school in connection with medical treatment, and the supply of meals to necessitous children, has enlisted the services of a large number of volunteers who would probably be found willing to make themselves responsible for this part of the work. The form, when filled up, will be sent to the Labour Exchange, where, if thought desirable, arrangements will be made by certain members of the advisory committee, in company with the secretary, to interview the boy and his parents. The next part of the work is connected with the finding of vacancies. Either the employer will notify the Exchange of forthcoming vacancies or vacancies be obtained by canvassing employers. In either case it will be necessary to ascertain exactly the nature and the prospects of the employment. For this work expert knowledge is essential, and it will devolve almost entirely on the secretary or other paid officers of the Exchange. Having found boys wanting employers and employers wanting boys, it will be the duty of the advisory committee to bring the two parties together. The second stage in the work begins as soon as the boy has obtained employment. It will be desirable, if possible, to secure periodic reports, either by interview or by letter, from the employer, who in the majority of cases would no doubt be willing to give the information asked for. We should then know how the boy is getting on at his work from the employer's point of view. We must also know how he is getting on from his own point of view. For this and other reasons it is absolutely essential to keep in touch with the boy in his home. A tactful person, paying periodic visits to the home and seeing the boy, would soon learn what prospects the employment offered, what progress he was making, and would be able to advise him as to what evening classes he should attend, and to help him in those many ways in which a boy can be helped when first he goes out to work. In this way a large amount of valuable though unostentatious supervision would be kept over the boy. The persons most capable of doing this home-visiting are volunteers. In many cases the member of the school case committee who originally interviewed the boy would undertake the duty of supervision; in other cases we might get the assistance of the manager of a boys' club or other similar institution of which the boy was a member; but in all cases the advisory committee must make provision for supervision in the home. The reports from the home and the reports from the employer would be filed at the Exchange. They will enable the advisory committee to follow the career of every boy placed out, and at the same time gradually furnish a mass of detailed information respecting the employers of the district. To what kind of employers or to what classes of employment shall we send boys? To all who ask, or to only selected number? Experience will no doubt show that there are certain employers of such a kind that under no circumstances ought we to trust them with boys. The number of such will be very small, and presents no serious difficulty. We should not supply boys until we had a guarantee that the conditions offered were improved. The question of the class of employment requires more careful consideration. There is a danger into which the advisory committee may easily fall. Recognizing the evils of "blind-alley" occupations, they may be inclined to refuse to send boys to such forms of employment, and only recommend boys to places where there is a prospect of learning a trade. Such a policy would be a fatal one. We should not thereby discourage "blind-alley" occupations, employers would get their boys as they have got them in the past, and the only result would be that we should lose all control over the boys, be unable to move them later to better situations, and so leave the problem not only unsolved, but, for want of knowledge, without possibility of solution. We ought not in the Labour Exchange to bar out any form of employment unless we are prepared to make that employment illegal by Act of Parliament. Street-selling might fairly come within that category, and no doubt other forms of employment will later be brought within the same class. But to bring them within that class, accurate information as to evil effects must be collected in order to stiffen public opinion, and if we wash our hands from the outset of all responsibility for such trades, we shall never have that accurate information. The first step in the way of regulation is that accurate knowledge which a detailed supervision of the boys placed out alone can give. There will, however, always be a temptation for the Exchange to confine its activities to the skilled trades, and let the others go. In Munich, for example, we find the education authority devoting much attention to the apprenticeship section of the work, while "unskilled labourers appear to be left to the Labour Exchange, and they receive, therefore, no advice in selecting their work." [184] The same tendency is seen in this country among the various voluntary associations for obtaining employment for boys. They have concentrated almost exclusively on the skilled trades. The results, expressed in figures or percentages, are pleasing, but altogether misleading. They ignore the large residuum which drifts without advice and without supervision into the less favourable openings, and in matters of social reform it is the large residuums that count. It is always nice to get a nice place for a nice boy that we know; but if we do no more, there is no reason to believe that our action is of any advantage to the community at large. The nice places always are filled, and not infrequently the only effect of interference is that A., who is known, gets the job instead of the unknown B. The Labour Exchange must resist this temptation. It should aim at inducing all employers to obtain their supply of boy labour from the Exchange; its influence will then be at a maximum. The mere establishment of a Juvenile Labour Exchange cannot create favourable openings; it cannot in itself alter the direction of the demand for labour. It might, therefore, be asked what is the use of an exchange for boys who can already find employment of a sort more easily than is good for them? First, there are the advantages of supervision and the opportunities for friendly advice and sympathy; secondly, there is the task of collecting accurate information which will lead up to legislative action, and the system of regulation which is ultimately inevitable; thirdly, while not closing the door to the "blind-alley" occupations, there is no need for the advisory committees to press them on the parent. They would, on the contrary, point out the evils, and suggest either that the opening should be refused or accepted only as a temporary expedient. The object should be to induce the parent to refuse situations which did not afford any prospects of learning or allow time off to attend a continuation school. The "blind-alley" occupations would disappear to-morrow if parents stubbornly refused to permit their boys to fill them. For the moment, moreover, the advantage is all on the side of the parent, as the demand for boys outruns the supply. But neither individual parent nor individual boy can take advantage of this fact; they have not the knowledge or the opportunity to make their voices effectively heard. There is no trade union of parents or trade union of boys, or, indeed, can be, in the "blind-alley" occupations. Collective bargaining must be done for them, and the advisory committee must be its instrument. They must first create the opinion among the parents, and then give effect to it through the Exchange. If employers found that, so long as they refused to offer better conditions, they were either unable to get boys or only got the least satisfactory boys, there would be a strong inducement for them to change their ways. Finally, there is the reverse of this system of educating the parents--the educating of the employers. There is already growing up a feeling among employers that if they cannot give the boys employment as men they might at least offer them opportunities of continuing their education. At a conference held in 1910 between agencies interested in the welfare of boys and employers of labour, under the presidency of the Chairman of the London Chamber of Commerce, the following resolutions were unanimously adopted: "That the London Chamber of Commerce be asked to consider the advisability of establishing a register of its members who would be willing to engage or apprentice boys with a view to the co-operation of the Chamber with the various institutions interested in the welfare of boys." "That employers of labour be recommended, by reducing the present hours of labour or otherwise, to give such facilities as may be possible consistently with the requirements of their business to enable boys and youths to obtain technical instruction." Judicious canvassing among a certain class of employers may, therefore, lead to most beneficent results. It should also be borne in mind that in London and other towns into which there is a large immigration of adult labour, there is room for new openings leading on to skilled trades. While much can unquestionably be done under existing conditions to improve and supervise the conditions of boy labour by means of the Juvenile Labour Exchange, it is certain that sooner or later there will be need of regulation by Act of Parliament. Probably the best course would be to give the Board of Trade power in the case of certain occupations to limit at their discretion the employment of boys to boys engaged at the Exchange. If in addition the proposals made in the previous sections were to become law, we should be in a very strong position to launch the youth on the ocean of manhood with all the prospects of a successful voyage. IV. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. At the end of a long and rather complex discussion it is desirable to attempt some general summary of what has already been achieved and of the proposals necessary for the creation of a true apprenticeship system. It will make for clearness if we take a boy and follow his career through its various stages. At the age of five or thereabouts he will enter the elementary school. It is to be hoped that the reorganization of the public health services and the more careful attention devoted to the period of infancy may send him to the school free from those physical defects so common now, and healthy within the limits of nature. Here he will begin his education. Improved methods of teaching will make for increased intelligence and the growth of numerous interests, while physical exercises, medical inspection and treatment, added to the supply of wholesome food to the necessitous, will promote the healthy development of his body. At the age of eleven comes an important epoch in his career. It is then that, if found suitable, he will, with the help of a scholarship, be sent to the secondary school, and thence be led along a broad road to the University. Failing the winning of a scholarship, he will, if he display any special aptitude, be drafted off to a central school with a commercial or industrial bias. Failing, again, the proof of any exceptional ability, he will remain in the ordinary school. In either case he will continue at school till the age of fifteen, will be forbidden to work for wages outside school hours, and will throughout be periodically examined by the school doctor. With the approach to the age of fifteen begins the second important epoch in his career. Some time before the day of leaving school arrives he will have been interviewed by a friendly volunteer, who, with the help of the school record and medical register, will be able to decide for what form of employment he is best suited. In the meanwhile the Labour Exchange will have found for him a suitable opening, or, failing this, a temporary situation pending a more satisfactory and permanent position. If he gain a place in a skilled trade, the half-time school, which he must attend for the next three years, will add to the training of the workshop that all-round training, whose result is intelligence and adaptability, required to make of him an efficient artisan. If he is destined to fill the ranks of unskilled labour, he will likewise attend a half-time school carefully designed to enable him to play a useful part in the world of life. In both cases he will remain for half-time under the supervision of the education authority; in both cases periodic medical inspection will watch over his physical development, and if it show him physically unfit for the work he has undertaken, he will be found employment more suitable to his strength; in both cases the advisory committee of the Labour Exchange will receive reports from the home, the school, and the employer, and these reports will enable them to discover whether the occupation and the training are well adapted to foster his natural abilities. For three years, while at work, he will also remain at school; for three years his training will be guided by employers who will see to it that it turns out the efficient workman, and by the education authority, which, acting in the interests of the community, will see that it makes for the efficient citizen. In process of time, with the gradual accumulation of experience, and with the knowledge of the Board of Trade behind it, the advisory committee will be able to adjust the supply of boys in course of special training to meet the demands of special trades, and even if some unforeseen transformation of industry upsets the calculations, there should be no insurmountable difficulty of disposing of lads at the age of eighteen who are at once well conducted, physically fit, and intelligent. We come back to the position from which we started in the introduction--the need of securing for the youth of the country adequate supervision up to the age of at least eighteen, appropriate training during that period, and at its conclusion the provision of an opening in some occupation for which special preparation has been given. We have seen that for at any rate a large section of the people these conditions were satisfied during the best days of the gilds, and that they were satisfied in direct proportion to the extent to which the gilds stood for the common interests. With the decay and disappearance of the gilds the training of the youth became a matter of individual bargaining between parent and employer. No authority, standing for the common good, superintended the process. Apprenticeship might be enforced; its efficiency could not be guaranteed. Further, the existence of apprenticeship tended to create a privileged class who resented the intrusion of those who entered a trade by other means. With the coming of the industrial revolution, training itself became more difficult. The large workshop and the division of labour were unfavourable to apprenticeship. Employers wanted to use boys, and not to train them. Rapid progress of invention continually discounted the value of acquired manual skill, and parents could not see at the conclusion of the apprenticeship any prospect of a favourable opening in a skilled trade; while the gradual break-up of the system of supervision bred a spirit of independence among boys which rendered them disinclined to bind themselves for a period of years. Finally, competition, with the urgent need of surviving the struggle of to-day, made it hard for employers to prepare for the future by providing for the training of the future workmen. The industrial system gave no guarantee for the efficiency of the next generation of workers. The old apprenticeship system had broken down. But in the period of general disintegration there was slowly developing--at first unconsciously, and later with more clearly directed effort--an organization which made for constructive reform. It was called into being as a last resort, and to save the country from the ruin which was threatened by the exploitation of children. Competition demanded the sacrifice of to-morrow to-day; the State, whose interests belong to all time, was driven to forbid the sacrifice. Competition demanded that children of tender years should labour in the mines and the factories, and under conditions that made all health a mockery; the State insisted on a minimum standard of health and safety for its children. The standard, low at first, has steadily been raised. Thus has grown up the regulation of child labour and the Acts relating to factories and workshops. Competition cared nothing for the education of the children; it wanted to use them up and cast them on the waste-heap. The State, recognizing the dangers of an uneducated people, established by slow degrees a system of universal education. So the struggle between the two has gone on, the State only interfering as a last resort and in despair of other means to stop the evil. Throughout its action has been generally beneficial, but the benefits have been limited because that action has been partial and patchy. Much of the expenditure, for example, on education has been wasted just because the education came to an end too soon. The time had come for a more comprehensive study of the situation that should indicate the faults of the existing system. Such a study has been attempted in the present volume. The task has been comparatively easy, because the evils are generally admitted. What has not hitherto been recognized sufficiently is the fact that these evils are growing, and not in course of removal. The various factors in the process have been examined, and, ignoring the State, they are clearly inadequate, and progressively inadequate, to the task of solving the problem. As a last resort the State remains. If the principles underlying the training of youth are admitted, if out of the various possible forces concerned all with one exception have been proved defective, then we must put our hopes in the one exception. We must enlarge the sphere of influence of the State. How this should be done has been shown in the present chapter. The principles underlying the proposals have all been drawn from experience, and are founded on the apprenticeship system, but applied with modifications suitable to changed conditions. Under the gild system there were three interests concerned and conjoined--the interests of the master, the interest of journeyman and apprentice, and the interest of the community. Since the gilds have gone these interests have become separate and increasingly antagonistic. For the successful training of the youth of the country the claims of these clashing interests must again be brought together and reconciled. Ultimately and in the long-run they are identical; it is only competition, with its dimmed and narrow vision, that made the cleavage. It is hoped that the proposals outlined in this chapter will point the road towards a final peace. Let us, in conclusion, bring them to the test of the three essentials for which a true apprenticeship system must make adequate provision. There must be supervision--supervision of conduct, supervision of health. Under the new apprenticeship system the State will be the ultimate authority for the supervision of conduct. Till the age of fifteen the boy will remain subject to the control of the schools. Long experience has demonstrated the beneficent influence exercised by the teachers over the children even under present conditions, when the school career is brought to an end at the age of thirteen or fourteen. There is, therefore, nothing wild in the expectation that, with compulsory attendance extended to the age of fifteen, we shall receive richer and more lasting fruits. For the next three years, the critical period of a boy's life, with its first experience of the workshop and the sense of independence which comes with earning wages, the supervision of the State will only in part be withdrawn. During these years he will be compelled to attend the half-time school, and so continue under the control of the education authority. Nor is this all. The advisory committee of the Labour Exchange will advise him in the choice of employment, assist him to obtain it, and generally watch over his career. Thus, helped on his journey and surrounded with wise and friendly influences, he will approach the threshold of manhood with such promise of success as good habits and an ordered life may bring. The State, likewise, will be responsible for the supervision of the boy's health. Periodic medical inspection will watch and aid his physical development. We have not yet learned to appreciate the full value of this periodic inspection; it is, however, destined to become the most powerful instrument of reform. The ill-nourished child, the delicate child, the child in the early stages of phthisis, the child of negligent parents, the child from the overcrowded or insanitary home--all these, the future weaklings of the nation, we know them now only when the evil has too often outrun the possibility of a cure and it is too late. Under the new conditions we shall detect the evil in its first beginning, while there is yet hope. Medical inspection is also the key to the situation after the boy goes out to work, and for three years he will remain under its control. At the present time we only dimly realize the disastrous effects that come to a boy from the choice of an occupation ill-suited to his strength. We forbid a few forms of work, attempt for the most part ineffectively to limit the hours of employment in a few others, but in our clumsy fashion legislate as a rule for the normal child, and it is the abnormal child that suffers most. Under the new conditions there will be no work for children under the age of fifteen, while for the three following years medical inspection will enable us to legislate for the individual boy, taking into account his physical characteristics. Not only shall we be able to help a boy to avoid making a wrong choice, but we shall be able to remove him as soon as medical inspection shows him unfit for the work. Thus, to the age of eighteen the State has its finger on the pulse of the youth. Secondly, there must be an adequate provision of training, special and general, accessible to all. Here, again, we are building on the firm rock of solid experience. The elementary schools have proved themselves to be schools for the cultivation of intelligence. With a year or two added to the school life; with the relief from that distracting influence which comes from wage-earning while at school; with the improved methods of teaching and a clearer differentiation of types of school to suit varying types of mind--reforms already under way--we may fairly hope for a general rise in the intelligence of the boys. The half-time school, with its three years' course, will supply the more specialized training required in the different trades and occupations, while committees of employers will provide the expert criticism essential to success. Finally, there must be the provision of an opening in some form of employment for which special preparation has been given. The Labour Exchange, the juvenile branch worked in close co-operation with the adult section, will supply the opening, while the technical training will give good guarantee for the adequacy of the preparation. The Elementary School, the Half-time School, the Education Authority, and the Advisory Committee, all acting together, will insure a safe passage from youth to manhood. The new apprenticeship system is more complex than the old--it lacks something of the picturesqueness of the Middle Ages--but it finds its compensation in an organization at once more flexible and more comprehensive, and therefore better suited to stand the shock of those huge changes in methods of production and methods of living which have been the ungainly offspring of the industrial revolution. LIST OF AUTHORITIES I PARLIAMENTARY AND MUNICIPAL PUBLICATIONS Elementary Schools (Children Working for Wages), Parts I. and II., Parliamentary Return. 1899. Report of the Interdepartmental Committee on the Employment of School-Children. 1901. Report of the Departmental Committee on the Employment of Children Act, 1903. 1910. Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and the Relief of Distress. 1909. Report by Mr. Cyril Jackson on Boy Labour. 1909. Report of the Commissioners of Prisons for the year ending March 31, 1908. Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for the year 1909. Report of the Consultative Committee of the Board of Education on Higher Elementary Schools. 1906. Report of the Consultative Committee of the Board of Education on Attendance, Compulsory or Otherwise, at Continuation Schools. 2 vols., 1909. Report on the By-Laws made by the London County Council under the Employment of Children Act, 1903, by Chester Jones. 1906. London County Council Report of the Medical Officer (Education) for the year 1906. London County Council Report of the Medical Officer (Education) for the year 1909. London County Council: Medical Treatment of Children attending Elementary Schools--Report of Education Committee. 1909. London County Council: Home Circumstances of Necessitous Children in Twelve Selected Schools. 1909. London County Council: The Apprenticeship Question. 1906. London County Council: Report of the Higher Education Sub-Committee on Apprenticeship: Agenda of Education Committee, February 24, 1909, pp. 412-425. London County Council: Technical Education Board Report on the Building Trades. 1899. London County Council: Report by Miss Durham, Inspector of Women's Technical Classes on Juvenile Labour in Germany. 1910. London County Council: Report by Mr. R. Blair (Education Officer) on Organization of Education in London. P. S. King and Son, Westminster. County Council of Middlesex: Report by Mr. A. J. Bird (Inspector of Schools) on Employment Bureaux for Children of School-leaving Age. Urban District Council of Finchley: Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health, including the Report to the Education Committee for the year 1908. Gloucestershire Education Committee: Report of the Minor Committee to consider Certain Proposals for the Creation of an Apprenticeship Fund and a Labour Bureau. 1907. II AUTHORS ABRAHAM AND DAVIES: Factories and Workshops. 1902. ABRAM, A.: Social Life in the Fifteenth Century. 1909. ALDEN, MARGARET: Child Life and Labour. ASHLEY, W. J.: Introduction to English Economic History. 1888. BEVERIDGE, W. H.: Unemployment. 1909. BLACK, CLEMENTINA: Sweated Industry. 1907. BLAIR, R.: Some Features of American Education. 1904. BOOTH, CHARLES: Life and Labour of the People, 9 vols. 1896. BRAY, REGINALD A.: The Apprenticeship Question, in _Economic Journal_, September, 1909. BRAY, REGINALD A.: The Town Child. 1907. CHRISTIAN SOCIAL UNION: Report on the Employment of Boys in the London Area. 1910. Continuation Schools in England and Elsewhere, edited by M. E. SADLER. 1907. CREASEY, CLARENCE H.: Technical Education in Evening Schools. 1905. CROWLEY, RALPH H.: Hygiene of School Life. 1909. CUNINGHAM, W.: Growth of English Industry and Commerce: Early and Middle Ages. 1905. CUNINGHAM, W.: Growth of English Industry and Commerce: Modern Times, 2 vols. 1903. DAVIES, MAUDE F.: Life in an English Village. 1909. FRERE, MARGARET: Children's Care Committees. 1909. GIBB, THE REV. SPENCER J.: The Problem of Boy Work. 1906. GIBB, THE REV. SPENCER J.: Boy Work and Unemployment. C.S.U. Pamphlet. GORDON, OGILVIE: Handbook of Employments. 1908. GREEN, J. R.: History of the English Peoples, vols. i. and iv. 1896. GREEN, MRS. J. R.: Town Life in the Fifteenth Century, 2 vols. 1894. HALL, G. STANLEY: Adolescence, 2 vols. HASBACH, W.: History of the English Agricultural Labourer. 1908. HAWKINS, C. B.: Norwich: A Social Study. 1910. HAYWARD, F. H.: Day and Evening Schools. 1910. HOGARTH, A. H.: Medical Inspection of Schools. 1909. HUTCHINS AND HARRISON: A History of Factory Legislation. 1907. JACKSON, CYRIL: Unemployment and Trade Unions. 1910. JEBB, EGLANTYNE: Cambridge: A Brief Study in Social Questions. 1906. KEELING, FREDERIC: The Labour Exchange in Relation to Boy and Girl Labour. 1910. KIRKMAN, GRAY B.: A History of English Philanthropy. 1905. KIRKMAN, GRAY B.: Philanthropy and the State. KNOWLES, G. W.: Junior Labour Exchanges. 1910. MACMILLAN, MARGARET: Labour and Childhood. 1907. MOSELEY: Educational Committee Report. 1904. NICHOLLS, SIR G.: History of the English Poor Law. 1898. ROGERS, J. E. T.: Six Centuries of Work and Wages. 1884. ROWNTREE, B. S.: Poverty: A Study of Town Life. 1901. RUSSELL, C. E. B.: Manchester Boys. 1905. RUSSELL AND RIGBY: The Making of the Criminal. 1906. RUSSELL AND RIGBY: Working Lads' Clubs. 1908. SHADWELL, ARTHUR: Industrial Efficiency. 1909. Studies of Boy Life in our Cities, edited by E. J. URWICK. 1904. TAWNEY, R. H.: The Economics of Boy Labour, in _Economic Journal_, December, 1909. Trades for London: Boys. Compiled by the Apprenticeship and Skilled Employment Committee. 1908. Trades for London: Girls. Compiled by the Apprenticeship and Skilled Employment Committee. 1909. TUCKWELL AND SMITH: The Workers' Handbook. 1908. WEBB, SIDNEY AND BEATRICE: History of Trade Unionism. 1907. WEBB, SIDNEY AND BEATRICE: Industrial Democracy, 2 vols. 1897. INDEX Abraham and Davies, 45, 49, 53 Abram, A., 9 Adler, Miss, 106 Adolescence, vi, 176, 198 Agricultural Gangs Act, 42 Apprentices, statute of, 13-15; effect, 16, 17; pauper, 15, 17-19; repeal, 22 Apprenticeship, break-up of, 165-175 charities, 19; decay, 25, 135, 164, 165-175, 177; difficulties of, 12, 188; essentials, 43, 237; indentured, 5, 135, 187-189; meaning, 1; under gilds, 4-11, 234, 237; under industrial revolution, 26-29; under statute, 11-19; universal, 3, 13, 189 of to-day: contribution of home, 92-103; of philanthropy, 89-92; of State, 73-74, 76-89; of workshop, 103-165 the new: Juvenile Labour Exchange, 231-231; new half-time, 191, 197-202; prohibition of employment, 191, 195-197; raising school age, 191-195, 217; summary, 231-240 Ashby, W. J., 4 Attendance at school, Acts relating to, 38, 46-48; percentage of, 83, 106, 105 Blair, R., 86 "Blind-alley" occupations, 87, 112, 123-130, 145, 157, 158, 163, 169-172, 180, 227 Board of Education, 61, 64 Board of Trade, 71, 72, 223, 233 Booth, C., 95, 104, 136, 139 Borstal Association, 169 Boy labour: difficulties of regulation, 79, 80; effects of regulation, 77-82, 88, 89 half-time, 49-52, 78, 197-202, 204, 205 health and safety, 52-58, 77, 197-202 limitation of hours, 43-52, 197-202 prohibition of, 41-43, 195-197, 203, 204 regulation under gilds, 7-11, 234, 237; under industrial revolution, 20-25; under statute, 13, 14 Boys: clubs, 90; errand, 82, 112, 119, 129, 145; lather, 43; office, 119, 126, 158; shop, 122, 126, 128, 145; telegraph, 126, 131, 145; van, 82, 119, 145 Boys: employment of, at school, 103-113, 151-155; on leaving school, 114-119, 163; entering manhood, 143 unemployed, 119; under London County Council, 132 Bursaries, 65 Chamber of Commerce, 230 Chapman, Professor, 211 Child, definition of, 40 Children Act, 38, 59, 61, 80 Children, employment of. _See_ Boys Chimney Sweepers Act, 42 Cloete, J. G., 126, 129 Coal Mines Regulation Act, 38, 42 Competition, 177, 235 Cuningham, W., 4, 6, 10, 16, 20, 22, 28 Davies, Miss Maude, 161, 164 Distribution of trades, 115-118, 142-149, 163; normal, 147-149 Durham, Miss, 196, 228 _Economic Journal_, 116, 159 Education Acts, 1902-03, 62 Administrative Provisions Act, 1907, 58, 60, 61 Provision of Meals Act, 61 Employment of children. _See_ Boys Employment of Children Act, 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 46, 48, 57, 58, 77, 80, 81, 111, 166 Factory legislation, causes of, 30 Factory and Workshops Act, 38, 168; authority for enforcement, 40, 51; definitions, 39-41; effects of, 77, 81, 82, 88; half-time, 49-51; health and safety, 52-56; limitation of hours, 43-52; prohibition of employment, 41, 42 Furness, Sir Christopher, 213 Gibb, Spencer J., 124, 158 Gilds, 4-11, 234, 237 Girls, vii Green, Mrs. J. R., 12 Half-time system, 49-51, 78, 197-203, 204-205 Hall, G. Stanley, vi Hasbach, W., 25 Health and Morals of Apprentices Act, 17, 18, 23, 29 Hutchins and Harrison, 23, 29 Idealist, triumph of, 28 Indenture, old, 6 Individualist, triumph of, 32-34 Industrial revolution, 20-26; effects of, 26-29, 173-175; characteristics, 177-185 schools, 61 Jackson, Cyril. _See_ Report on Boy Labour Labour Exchange, 70, 125; Juvenile, 71, 72, 83, 201, 221-231, 232-240 Lather-boy. _See_ Boys London, employment of school-children, 105-113; entry to a trade, 113-142; passage to manhood, 142-151 Medical certificate, 56, 57, 58 inspection, 58, 60, 61, 85, 86, 94, 168, 197, 231, 232, 233, 238, 239 Messenger-boy. _See_ Boys Metalliferous Mines Regulation Act, 38 Mines (Prohibition of Child Labour Underground) Act, 38, 41 Necessitous children, 94, 95 Nicholls, Sir G., 18 Occupations, clerical, 140-142; distribution of, 115-120, 143, 142-149, 163; skilled, 132-140; unskilled, 112, 121-133 Office-boy. _See_ Boys Opening. _See_ Provision of Poor Law, Elizabethan, 15; Amendment Act, 23-26; Report of Royal Commission. _See_ Reports Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act, 38, 42 Provision of opening, need for, 2; Labour Exchange, 70-72, 221-231, 240; under gilds, 8-11; under industrial revolution, 20-26 Report of Board of Education, 64 of Commissioners for Prisons, 169 of Consultative Committee on Continuation School, 47, 81, 154, 192, 201 of Consultative Committee on Higher Elementary Schools, 214 of Departmental Committee on Employment of Children Act, 81, 125 of Interdepartmental Committee on Employment of Children, 51, 110, 152 of London County Council on Apprenticeship, 66, 115, 128, 135, 136, 139, 140, 143, 187, 192, 194 of Medical Officer, Board of Education, 152, 174 of Medical Officer (Education) of London County Council, 96, 109, 110 Report of Poor Law Commission, 31, 104, 155, 156, 172, 191, 192, 206, 209, 210, 211, 213 Report on Boy Labour, by Mr. Cyril Jackson, 104, 123, 124, 125, 128, 129, 131, 144, 145, 146, 156, 157 on Home Circumstances of Necessitous Children, 95 Rogers, J. E. Thorold, 5 Rural Districts, 161-165 Sadler, M. E., 157, 171, 195 Scholarships, 66-68, 86, 232 School: age, 46-48, 192-195; central, 64, 65; elementary, 46, 47, 63-65, 83-86, 218, 224, 231; evening, 60, 67, 69, 86; industrial, 59, 61; part-time, 68, 132, 187, 218-221, 231; secondary, 60, 67, 86, 232; Sunday, 89; technical and trade, 60, 66, 68, 208 Scott-Holland, Canon, 124 Shop-boy. _See_ Boys Shop Hours Act, 38, 46, 79, 81 Skilled Employment Committees, 91, 92, 185 Supervision, need for, 2; under gilds, 8-11; under statute, 13-15; under industrial revolution, 20-26; by State regulation, 37-58; by State enterprise, 59-70; effects of State, 76-88; by philanthropy, 89-92; in home, 92-103; in workshop, 125; in London, summary, 149, 150; general summary, 165-168; under new apprenticeship, 191-202, 221-231, 237, 238 Tawney, R. L., 159, 160 Technical instruction. _See_ Schools Trades, distribution of, 115-120, 142-149, 163; picking up, 136-140; skilled, 133-142, 208-214, 218, 239; unskilled, 112, 121-133, 155-160, 165-175, 208, 215, 216, 219, 239 Training, need for, 2; under gilds, 9-12; under statute, 13, 14; under industrial revolution, 20-27; in single operation, 21, 137-139; in elementary schools, 63-65; in continuation schools, 65-70; in workshops, 111-113, 121-142, 165-175; in new apprenticeships, 207-221, 233 Van-boy. _See_ Boys Webb, Sidney and Beatrice, 8, 21, 22 Young person, 40, 44-46, 81, 83 THE END BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD FOOTNOTES: [1] G. Stanley Hall, "Adolescence," vol. ii., p. 83. [2] See, for a general description of gilds, "Economic History," by W. J. Ashby; "Growth of English History and Commerce: Early and Middle Ages." by W. Cunningham. [3] J. E. Thorold Rogers, "Six Centuries of Work and Wages," p. 566. [4] Quoted, Cunningham, pp. 349-350. [5] Sidney and Beatrice Webb, "A History of Trade Unionism," p. 17. [6] Cunningham, p. 460. [7] _Ibid._, p. 345. [8] A. Abiam, "Social England in the Fifteenth Century," p. 118. [9] Cunningham, p. 509. [10] Mrs. J. R. Green, "Town Life in the Fifteenth Century," vol. ii., p. 102. [11] 5 Elizabeth, Cap. iv. [12] Sect. 3. [13] Sect. 25. [14] Sect. 26. [15] Sect. 31. [16] 5 Elizabeth, Cap. iv., Sect. 35. [17] 43 Elizabeth, Cap. ii., Sect. 5. Similar powers had been given to Justices of the Peace in earlier Acts (see 27 Henry VIII., Cap. xxv.; Edw. VI., Cap. iii.) [18] W. Cunningham, "Growth of English Industry and Commerce in Modern Times," pp. 29-30. [19] _Ibid._, p. 33. [20] See 3 Chas. I., Cap. v. [21] Sir G. Nicholls, "History of the Poor Law," vol. ii., p. 223 _et seq._ 1898. [22] James I., Cap. iii. [23] Cunningham, p. 615. [24] _Ibid._, pp. 640-641. [25] Sidney and Beatrice Webb, "History of Trade Unionism," p. 47. [26] Sidney and Beatrice Webb, "History of Trade Unionism," p. 47. [27] Cunningham, p. 660. [28] _Ibid._ [29] 54 George III., Cap. xcvi. [30] Hutchins and Harrison, "History of Factory Legislation," p. 16. [31] Herr W. Hasbach, "A History of the English Agricultural Labourer," pp. 224, 225. [32] Quoted by Cunningham, "Growth of Industry and Commerce in Modern Times," p. 776. [33] Quoted by B. L. Hutchins and A. Harrison, in "A History of Factory Legislation," p. 15. [34] In the Report of the Poor Law Commission we have an interesting example side by side of the two forces that make for reform. The Majority Report is altogether the work of sentiment. The proposed variation in the terminology applicable to those in receipt of relief, the loosening of the deterrent system, the advocacy of the more generous treatment of the young and the sick, the general neglect to consider remote causes, and the total absence of any consistent principle, can be explained in no other way. Its cold reception by the British Constitutional Association--that body of people who still hold aloft the tattered banners of the individualist--is but another proof that sentiment, and not the _a priori_ assumptions of the old school, is the guiding spirit. In the Minority Report we see everywhere the mark of the imaginative reason--that reason which, starting with facts and not with theories, strives to picture the long chain of cause and effect which leads up to the sufferer, and finally, seeing the whole process in its true proportions, strikes at the evil where it begins and can be prevented, and not where it ends, when only a more or less modified failure can be looked for. [35] A striking instance of this is supplied by the Municipal Reform Party on the London County Council. Opposed in principle to feeding or treating medically children at the cost of the rates, they have yet been compelled to do both these things. And they have been compelled to take action, not by the pressure of public opinion--the public opinion of their own side generally condemned them for forsaking their principles--but by the sheer inability of members to learn, week after week, that hungry children were unfed and sick children left without treatment. [36] See Part X. of the Act. Needless to say, the decision as to what kinds of industry come within these definitions has exercised the ingenuity of the lawyer. In one case (Law _v._ Graham), for example, Lord Alverstone, Chief Justice, expressed the opinion that bottling beer is not within paragraph (i.) or paragraph (ii.) above; that by a somewhat strained construction it might be said to be within paragraph (iii.), as being an adapting of an article for sale, but that the powers used in washing the bottles was not "in aid of the process of bottling." [37] For complete list of such industries, see Sch. VI. of the Act. [38] See Part VI. of the Act for details and exceptions. [39] Sects. 103, 104, 105, 106. [40] Sects. 71 and 156. [41] Sect. 156. [42] Sect. 13. [43] Factory and Workshop Act, Sect. 77. [44] Sect. 99. [45] Mines Act, 1900, Sect. 1. [46] Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1887, Sect. 7. [47] Factory and Workshops Act, Sect. 77. [48] Employment of Children Act, Sects. 3 and 13. [49] Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act, 1894, Sect. 3. [50] Sect. 1. [51] Sect. 2. [52] Sect. 4. [53] For definitions, see p. 39. [54] Sect. 24. [55] Sect. 26. [56] Sect. 111. [57] Sects. 51, 53. [58] Sects. 31, 46. [59] The best detailed account of the Act is found in "The Law Relating to Factories and Workshops," by Abraham and Davies. [60] Shop Hours Act, Sect. 3. [61] Employment of Children Act, Sect. 2. [62] Report of the Consultative Committee on Continuation Schools, vol. i., p. 22. [63] _Ibid._, vol. i., p. 21. [64] Employment of Children Act, Sect. 3 (1). [65] Sect. 1. [66] Abraham and Davies, "The Law Relating to Factories and Workshops," fourth edition, p. 41. [67] Factory and Workshop Act, 1901, Sect. 25. [68] Sect. 25. [69] Sects. 31 and 46. [70] Sect. 69. [71] Report of the Interdepartmental Committee on the Employment of School-Children, p. 12. [72] The summary of the provisions that follow is founded on "The Law Relating to Factories and Workshops," by Abraham and Davies, chap. ii. [73] Factory and Workshop Act, Sect. 63, (1) and (2). [74] Sect. 64 (4). [75] Sect. 64 (5). [76] Sect. 64 (6). [77] Sect. 67. [78] Sect. 65. [79] Sect. 66. [80] Education (Administrative Provisions) Act, 1907, Sect. 13. [81] See pp. 46-48. [82] Children Act, 1908, Sect. 58. [83] Education (Administration Provisions) Act, 1907, Sect. 13. [84] Board of Education Circular 576, Sect. 12. [85] Education (Administrative Provisions) Act, 1907, Sect. 13. [86] Education (Provision of Meals) Act, 1906, Sect. 3. [87] Children Act, Sect. 77. [88] I am here speaking of England; in Scotland there are limited powers of enforcing attendance. [89] Report of Board of Education, 1908-09, p. 110. [90] For a more detailed account of the machinery considered desirable, see the Report of the London County Council on "The Apprenticeship Question." [91] See Report of the Consultative Committee on Continuation Schools, p. 22. [92] Report of the Departmental Committee on the Employment of Children Act, pp. 6, 7. [93] "The Organization of Education in London," by R. Blair, Education Officer to the London County Council, p. 29. [94] "Studies of Boy Life in Our Cities," edited by E. J. Urwick. Dent and Co. [95] "Home Circumstances of Necessitous Children in Twelve Selected Schools." Report of the London County Council. [96] See "Medical Treatment of Children attending Elementary Schools," in Report of the Medical Officer (Education) of the London County Council for the year 1909. See also Report of the Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1909. [97] "Studies of Boy Life," pp. 22-25 _passim_. [98] "Studies of Boy Life," pp. 26-28 _passim_. [99] "Studies of Boy Life," p. 32. [100] Elementary Schools (Children Working for Wages) Parliamentary Return, 1899, p. 32. [101] Report on Employment of School-Children, p. 8. [102] _Ibid._, p. 9. [103] Report on the Employment of School-Children, p. 9. [104] Quoted from "Studies of Boy Life," p. 24. [105] Report on Employment of School-Children, p. 10. [106] _Ibid._, p. 11. [107] Report on Employment of School-Children, p. 11. [108] Report of the Education Committee submitting the Report of the Medical Officer (Education) for the year 1906. P. S. King and Son. [109] Report of Medical Officer, p. 22. [110] Report of the Medical Officer (Education) 1906, p. 23. [111] _Ibid._, p. 23. [112] _Ibid._, p. 24. [113] See p. 43. [114] Report on the Apprenticeship Question, Minutes of the Education Committee of the London County Council for February 24, 1909, p. 414. [115] The substance of what follows appeared in an article published in the _Economic Journal_ for September, 1909, and is reproduced by the kind permission of the Editor. [116] L.C.C. Report of Medical Officer (Education), 1906, p. 23, showed that this was the most injurious form of work in which school-children were engaged. [117] Report of Mr. Cyril Jackson on Boy Labour, prepared for the Poor Law Commission. [118] Report on Boy Labour, p. 7. [119] Report on Boy Labour, pp. 7 and 8. [120] Canon Scott Holland, Introduction to "The Problem of Boy Work," by the Rev. Spencer J. Gibb. [121] Report on Boy Labour, p. 4. [122] Report of the Departmental Committee on the Employment of Children Act, 1903, 1910, p. 14. [123] "Studies of Boy Life," p. 111. [124] Cyril Jackson, Report on Boy Labour, p. 14. [125] The Rev. Spencer J. Gibb, "The Problem of Boy Work," p. 33. [126] Report on the Apprenticeship Question, Minutes of the Education Committee of the London County Council, February 24, 1909, p. 424. [127] Report on Boy Labour, p. 27. [128] Mr. Cloete, in "Studies of Boy Life," p. 125. [129] Report on Boy Labour, p. 20. [130] _Ibid._, p. 20. [131] _Ibid._, p. 26. [132] Report on Boy Labour, p. 17. [133] _Ibid._, p. 16. [134] _Ibid._, p. 17. [135] Report on the Apprenticeship Question, p. 1. London County Council Publications. P. S. King and Son. [136] Report on the Apprenticeship Question, p. 2. [137] Charles Booth, "Life and Labour of the People," vol. ix., p. 222. [138] This Advisory Committee contains representatives of the chief woodwork industries of the district. [139] Report on the Apprenticeship Question, p. 4. [140] Report on the Apprenticeship Question, p. 4. [141] Minutes of the Education Committee, February 24, 1909, p. 415. [142] Report on Boy Labour, p. 47. [143] Report on Boy Labour, p. 20. [144] _Ibid._, p. 20. [145] _Ibid._, p. 22. [146] _Ibid._, p. 23. [147] Report on Employment of School-Children, p. 5. [148] Report of Chief Medical Officer of Board of Education for 1909, pp. 80-81, _note_. [149] Report of Consultation Committee on Continuation Schools, p. 206. [150] Majority Report of the Poor Law Commission, p. 325. [151] _Ibid._, p. 325. [152] Minority Report of the Poor Law Commission, p. 1166. [153] _Ibid._, p. 1166. [154] Minority Report on the Poor Law Commission, p. 1166. [155] Report on Boy Labour, p. 5. [156] _Ibid._, p. 27. [157] M. E. Sadler, "Continuation Schools," Preface, p. xii. [158] M. E. Sadler, "Continuation Schools," Preface, p. xiii. [159] The Rev. Spencer J. Gibb, "The Problem of Boy Work," p. 33. [160] _Economic Journal_, December, 1909, p. 522. [161] _Ibid._, p. 522. [162] _Economic Journal_, December, 1909, p. 532. [163] Elementary Schools (Children Working for Wages) Act, Part (2), Return for England and Wales, 1899, p. iv. [164] Elementary Schools (Children Working for Wages) Act, Part (2), Return for England and Wales, 1899., p. vii. [165] M. F. Davies, "Life in an English Village," chap. x. [166] Report of the Commissioners of Prisons for the year ending March 31, 1908, p. 14. [167] Report of the Poor Law Commission, p. 325. [168] _Morning Post_, January 3, 1909, letter from Professor M. E. Sadler. [169] Russell and Rigby, "Working Lads' Club," p. 286. [170] Majority Report of the Poor Law Commission, p. 326. [171] Minority Report of the Poor Law Commission, p. 1165. [172] _Ibid._, p. 1166. [173] Minutes of the Education Committee, February 24, 1909, p. 422. [174] Minutes of the Education Committee, February 24, 1909, p. 416. [175] Minutes of the Education Committee, February 24, 1909, p. 416. [176] M. E. Sadler, "Continuation Schools," p. 334. [177] "Berlin, though growing luxurious, is not yet as spendthrift of young life as is London. The newspaper-boy and the street-trader are unknown" (Report to the London County Council, by Miss Durham, p. 3). [178] See Report of the Consultative Committee of the Board of Education on Continuation Schools, chap. x. [179] Report of the Poor Law Commission, p. 346. [180] Report of the Poor Law Commission, pp. 346-347. [181] _Ibid._, Professor Chapman, footnote, p. 346. [182] Report of the Poor Law Commission, p. 351. [183] Report of the Consultative Committee of the Board of Education in Higher Elementary Schools, p. 7. [184] Report by Miss Durham to the London County Council on Juvenile Labour in Germany, p. 7. 
4296	----	Transcribed from the 1909 Wells Gardner, Darton, & Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org FRIARSWOOD POST-OFFICE BY C. M. YONGE, AUTHOR OF "THE HEIR OF REDCLYFFE" WITH COLOURED ILLUSTRATIONS BY A. G. WALKER SCULPTOR LONDON: WELLS GARDNER, DARTON, & CO., LTD. 3 & 4 PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS, E.C. AND 44 VICTORIA STREET, WESTMINSTER, S.W. CHAPTER I--THE STRANGE LAD 'Goodness! If ever I did see such a pig!' said Ellen King, as she mounted the stairs. 'I wouldn't touch him with a pair of tongs!' 'Who?' said a voice from the bedroom. 'Why, that tramper who has just been in to buy a loaf! He is a perfect pig, I declare! I only wonder you did not find of him up here! The police ought to hinder such folk from coming into decent people's shops! There, you may see him now!' 'Is that he upon the bridge--that chap about the size of our Harold?' 'Yes. Did you ever see such a figure? His clothes aren't good enough for a scare-crow--and the dirt, you can't see that from here, but you might sow radishes in it!' 'Oh, he's swinging on the rail, just as I used to do. Put me down, Nelly; I don't want to see any more.' And the eyes filled with tears; there was a working about the thin cheeks and the white lips, and a long sigh came out at last, 'Oh, if I was but like him!' 'Like him! I'd wish something else before I wished that,' said Ellen. 'Don't think about it, Alfred dear; here are Miss Jane's pictures.' 'I don't want the pictures,' said Alfred wearily, as he laid his head down on his white pillow, and shut his eyes because they were hot with tears. Ellen looked at him very sadly, and the feeling in her own mind was, that he was right, and nothing could make up for the health and strength that she knew her mother feared would never return to him. There he lay, the fair hair hanging round the white brow with the furrows of pain in it, the purple-veined lids closed over the great bright blue eyes, the long fingers hanging limp and delicate as a lady's, the limbs stretched helplessly on the couch, whither it cost him so much pain to be daily moved. Who would have thought, that not six months ago that poor cripple was the merriest and most active boy in the parish? The room was not a sad-looking one. There were spotless white dimity curtains round the lattice window; and the little bed, and the walnut of the great chest, and of the doors of the press-bed on which Alfred lay, shone with dark and pale grainings. There was a carpet on the floor, and the chairs had chintz cushions; the walls were as white as snow, and there were pretty china ornaments on the mantel-piece, many little pictures hanging upon the walls, and quite a shelf of books upon the white cloth, laid so carefully on the top of the drawers. A little table beside Alfred held a glass with a few flowers, a cup with some toast and water, a volume of the 'Swiss Family Robinson;' and a large book of prints of animals was on a chair where he could reach it. A larger table was covered with needle-work, shreds of lining, scissors, tapes, and Ellen's red work-box; and she herself sat beside it, a very nice-looking girl of about seventeen, tall and slim, her lilac dress and white collar fitting beautifully, her black apron sitting nicely to her trim waist, and her light hair shining, like the newly-wound silk of the silk-worm, round her pleasant face; where the large, clear, well-opened blue eyes, and the contrast of white and red on the cheek, were a good deal like poor Alfred's, and gave an air of delicacy. Their father had been, as their mother said, 'the handsomest coachman who ever drove to St. James's;' but he had driven thither once too often; he had caught his death of cold one bitter day when Lady Jane Selby was obliged to go to a drawing-room, and had gone off in a deep decline fourteen years ago, when the youngest of his five children was not six weeks old. The Selby family were very kind to Mrs. King, who, besides her husband's claims on them, had been once in service there; and moreover, had nursed Miss Jane, the little heiress, Ellen's foster-sister. By their help she had been able to use her husband's savings in setting up a small shop, where she sold tea, tobacco and snuff, tape, cottons, and such little matters, besides capital bread of her own baking, and various sweet-meats, the best to the taste of her own cooking, the prettiest to the eye brought from Elbury. Oranges too, and apples, shewed their yellow or rosy cheeks at her window in their season; and there was sometimes a side of bacon, displaying under the brown coat the delicate pink stripes bordering the white fat. Of late years one pane of her window had been fitted up with a wooden box, with a slit in it on the outside, and a whole region round it taken up with printed sheets of paper about 'Mails to Gothenburg,--Weekly Post to Vancouver's Island'--and all sorts of places to which the Friarswood people never thought of writing. Altogether, she throve very well; and she was a good woman, whom every one respected for the pains she took to bring up her children well. The eldest, Charles, had died of consumption soon after his father, and there had been much fear for his sister Matilda; but Lady Jane had contrived to have her taken as maid to a lady who usually spent the winter abroad, and the warm climate had strengthened her health. She was not often at Friarswood; but when she came she looked and spoke like a lady--all the more so as she gave herself no airs, but was quite simple and humble, for she was a very good right-minded young woman, and exceedingly fond of her home and her good mother. Ellen would have liked to copy Matilda in everything; and as a first step, she went for a year to a dress-maker; but just as this was over, Alfred's illness had begun; and as he wanted constant care and attendance, it was thought better that she should take in work at home. Indeed Alfred was such a darling of hers, that she could not have endured to go away and leave him so ill. Alfred had been a most lively, joyous boy, with higher spirits than he quite knew what to do with, all fun and good-humour, and yet very troublesome and provoking. He and his brother Harold were the monkeys of the school, and really seemed sometimes as if they _could not_ sit still, nor hinder themselves from making faces, and playing tricks; but that was the worst of them--they never told untruths, never did anything mean or unfair, and could always be made sorry when they had been in fault. Their old school-mistress liked them in spite of all the plague they gave her; and they liked her too, though she had tried upon them every punishment she could devise. Little Miss Jane, the orphan whom the Colonel and Mrs. Selby had left to be brought up by her grandmother, had a great fancy that Alfred should be a page; and as she generally had her own way, he went up to the Grange when he was about thirteen years old, and put on a suit thickly sown with buttons. But ere the gloss of his new jacket had begun to wear off, he had broken four wine-glasses, three cups, and a decanter, all from not knowing where he was going; he had put sugar instead of salt into the salt-cellars at the housekeeper's dining-table, that he might see what she would say; and he had been caught dressing up Miss Jane's Skye terrier in one of the butler's clean cravats; so, though Puck, the aforesaid terrier, liked him better than any other person, Miss Jane not excepted, a regular complaint went up of him to my Lady, and he was sent home. He was abashed, and sorry to have vexed mother and disappointed Miss Jane; but somehow he could not be unhappy when he had Harold to play with him again, and he could halloo as loud as they pleased, and stamp about in the garden, instead of being always in mind to walk softly. There was the pony too! A new arrangement had just been made, that the Friarswood letters should be fetched from Elbury every morning, and then left at the various houses of the large straggling district that depended on that post-office. All letters from thence must be in the post before five o'clock, at which time they were to be sent in to Elbury. The post- master at Elbury asked if Mrs. King's sons could undertake this; and accordingly she made a great effort, and bought a small shaggy forest pony, whom the boys called 'Peggy,' and loved not much less than their sisters. It was all very well in the summer to take those two rides in the cool of the morning and evening; but when winter came on, and Alfred had to start for Elbury in the tardy dawn of a frosty morning, or still worse, in the gloom of a wet one, he did not like it at all. He used to ride in looking blue and purple with the chill; and though he went as close to the fire as possible, and steamed like the tea-kettle while he ate his breakfast and his mother sorted the letters, he had not time to warm himself thoroughly before he had to ride off to leave them--two miles further altogether; for besides the bag for the Grange, and all the letters for the Rectory, and for the farmers, there was a young gentlemen's school at a great old lonely house, called Ragglesford, at the end of a very long dreary lane; and many a day Alfred would have given something if those boys' relations would only have been so good as, with one consent, to leave them without letters. It would not have mattered if Alfred had been a stouter boy; but his mother had always thought he had his poor father's constitution, and therefore wished him to be more in the house; but his idleness had prevented his keeping any such place. It might have been the cold and wet, or, as Alfred thought, it might have been the strain he gave himself one day when he was sliding on the ice and had a fall; but one morning he came in from Elbury very pale, and hobbling, as he said his hip hurt him so much, that Harold must take the letters round for him. Harold took them that morning, and for many another morning and evening besides; while poor Alfred came from sitting by the fire to being a prisoner up-stairs, only moved now and then from his own bed to lie outside that of his mother, when he could bear it. The doctor came, and did his best; but the disease had thrown itself into the hip joint, and it was but too plain that Alfred must be a great sufferer for a long time, and perhaps a cripple for life. But how long might this life be? His mother dared not think. Alfred himself, poor boy, was always trying with his whole might to believe himself getting better; and Ellen and Harold always fancied him so, when he was not very bad indeed; but for the last fortnight he had been decidedly worse, and his heart and hopes were sinking, though he would not own it to himself, and that and the pain made his spirits fail so, that he had been more inclined to be fretful than any time since his illness had begun. His view from the window was a pleasant one; and when he was pretty well, afforded him much amusement. The house stood in a neat garden, with green railings between it and the road, over which Alfred could see every one who came and went towards Elbury, and all who had business at the post-office, or at Farmer Shepherd's. Opposite was the farm-yard; and if nothing else was going on, there were always cocks and hens, ducks and turkeys, pigs, cows, or horses, to be seen there; and the cow-milking, or the taking the horses down to the water, the pig-feeding, and the like, were a daily amusement. Sloping down from the farm-yard, the ground led to the river, a smooth clear stream, where the white ducks looked very pretty, swimming, diving, and 'standing tail upwards;' and there was a high-arched bridge over it, where Alfred could get a good view of the carriages that chanced to come by, and had lately seen all the young gentlemen of Ragglesford going home for the summer holidays, making such a whooping and hurrahing, that the place rang again; and beyond, there were beautiful green meadows, with a straight path through them, leading to a stile; and beyond that, woods rose up, and there was a little glimpse of a stately white house peeping through them. Hay-making was going on merrily in the field, under the bright summer sun, and the air was full of the sweet smell of the grass, but there was something sultry and oppressive to the poor boy's feelings; and when he remembered how Farmer Shepherd had called him to lend a hand last year, and how happy he had been tossing the hay, and loading the waggon, a sad sick feeling crept over him; and so it was that the tears rose in his eyes, and he made his sister lay him back on the pillow, for he did not wish to see any more. Ellen worked and thought, and wanted to entertain him, but could not think how. Presently she burst out, however, 'Oh, Alfred! there's Harold coming running back! There he is, jumping over that hay-cock--not touched the ground once--another--oh! there's Farmer Shepherd coming after him!' 'Hold your tongue,' muttered Alfred moodily, as if each of her words gave him unbearable pain; and he hid his face in the pillow. Ellen kept silence for ten minutes, and then broke forth again, 'Now then, Alfred, you _will_ be glad! There's Miss Jane getting over the stile.' 'I don't want Miss Jane,' grumbled Alfred; and as Ellen sprang up and began smoothing his coverings, collecting her scraps, and tidying the room, already so neat, he growled again, 'What a racket you keep!' 'There, won't you be raised up to see her? She does look so pretty in her new pink muslin, with a double skirt, and her little hat and feather, that came from London; and there's Puck poking in the hay--he's looking for a mouse! And she's showering the hay over him with her parasol! Oh, look, Alfred!' and she was going to lift him up, but he only murmured a cross 'Can't you be quiet?' and she let him alone, but went on talking: 'Ah, there's Puck's little tail wriggling out--hinder-end foremost--here he comes--they are touching their hats to her now, the farmer and all, and she nods just like a little queen! She's got her basket, Alfred. I wonder what she has for you in it! Oh dear, there's that strange boy on the bridge! She won't like that.' 'Why, what would he do to her? He won't bite her,' said Alfred. 'Oh, if he spoke to her, or begged of her, she'd be so frightened! There, he looked at her, and she gave such a start. You little vagabond! I'd like to--' 'Stuff! what could he do to her, with all the hay-field and Farmer Shepherd there to take care of her? What a fuss you do make!' said poor Alfred, who was far too miserable just then to agree with any one, though at almost any other time he would have longed to knock down any strange boy who did but dare to pass Miss Selby without touching his cap; and her visits were in general the very light of his life. They were considered a great favour; for though old Lady Jane Selby was a good, kind-hearted person, still she had her fancies, and she kept her young grand-daughter like some small jewel, as a thing to be folded up in a case, and never trusted in common. She was afraid to allow her to go about the village, or into the school and cottages, always fancying she might be made ill, or meet with some harm; but Mrs. King being an old servant, whom she knew so well, and the way lying across only two meadows beyond Friarswood Park, the little pet was allowed to go so far to visit her foster-mother, and bring whatever she could devise to cheer the poor sick boy. Miss Jane, though of the same age as Ellen, and of course with a great deal more learning and accomplishment, had been so little used to help herself, or to manage anything, that she was like one much younger. The sight of the rough stranger on the bridge was really startling to her, and she came across the road and garden as fast as she could without a run; and the first thing the brother and sister heard, was her voice saying rather out of breath and fluttered, 'Oh, what a horrid-looking boy!' Seeing that Mrs. King was serving some one in the shop, she only nodded to her, and came straight up-stairs. Alfred raised up his head, and beheld the little fairy through the open door, first the head, and the smiling little face and slight figure in the fresh summer dress. Miss Jane was not thought very pretty by strangers; but that dainty little person, and sweet sunny eyes and merry smile, and shy, kind, gracious ways, were perfect in the eyes of her grandmamma and of Mrs. King and her children, if of nobody else. Alfred, in his present dismal state, only felt vexed at a fresh person coming up to worry him, and make a talking; especially one whose presence was a restraint, so that he could not turn about and make cross answers at his will. 'Well, Alfred, how are you to-day?' said the sweet gay voice, a little subdued. 'Better, Ma'am, thank you,' said Alfred, who always called himself better, whatever he felt; but his voice told the truth better than his words. 'He's had a very bad night, Miss Jane,' said his sister; 'no sleep at all since two o'clock, and he is so low to-day, that I don't know what to do with him.' Alfred hated nothing so much as to hear that he was low, for it meant that he was cross. 'Poor Alfred!' said the young lady kindly. 'Was it pain that kept you awake?' 'No, Ma'am--not so much--' said the boy. Miss Jane saw he looked very sad, and hoped to cheer him by opening her basket. 'I've brought you a new book, Alfred. It is "The Cherry-stones." Have you finished the last?' 'No, Ma'am.' 'Did you like it?' 'Yes, Ma'am.' But it was a very matter-of-course sort of Yes, and disappointed Miss Jane, who thought he would have been charmed with the 'Swiss Family Robinson.' Ellen spoke: 'Oh yes, Alfred, you know you did like it. I heard you laughing to yourself at Ernest and the shell of soup. And Harold reads that; and 'tis so seldom he will look at a book.' Jane did not like this quite as well as if Alfred had spoken up more; but she dived into her basket again, and brought out a neat little packet of green leaves, with some strawberries done up in it, and giving a little smile, she made sure that it would be acceptable. Ellen thanked vehemently, and Alfred gave feeble thanks; but, unluckily, he had so set his mind upon raspberries, that he could not enjoy the thought of anything else. It was a sickly distaste for everything, and Miss Selby saw that he was not as much pleased as she meant him to be; she looked at him wistfully, and, half grieved, half impatient, she longed to know what he would really like, or if he were positively ungrateful. She was very young, and did not know whether it was by his fault or her mistake that she had failed to satisfy him. Puck had raced up after her, and had come poking and snuffling round Alfred. She would have called him away lest he should be too much for one so weak, but she saw Alfred really did enjoy this: his hand was in the long rough coat, and he was whispering, 'Poor Puck,' and 'Good little doggie;' and the little hairy rummaging creature, with the bright black beads of eyes gleaming out from under his shaggy hair, was doing him more good than her sense and kindness, or Ellen's either. She turned to the window, and said to Ellen, 'What a wild-looking lad that is on the bridge!' 'Yes, Miss Jane,' said Ellen; 'I was quite afraid he would frighten you.' 'Well, I was surprised,' said Jane; 'I was afraid he might speak to me; but then I knew I was too near friends for harm to come to me;' and she laughed at her own fears. 'How ragged and wretched he looks! Has he been begging?' 'No, Miss Jane; he came into the shop, and bought some bread. He paid for it honestly; but I never did see any one so dirty. And there's Alfred wishing to be like him. I knew you would tell him it is quite wicked, Miss Jane.' It is not right, I suppose, to wish to be anything but what we are,' said Jane, rather puzzled by the appeal; 'and perhaps that poor beggar-boy would only like to have a nice room, and kind mother and sister, like you, Alfred.' 'I don't say anything against them!' cried the boy vehemently; 'but--but--I'd give anything--anything in the world--to be able to run about again in the hay-field! No, don't talk to me, Ellen, I say--I hate them all when I see them there, and I forced to lie here! I wish the sun would never shine!' He hid his eyes and ears in the pillow, as if he never wished to see the light again, and would hear nothing. The two girls both stood trembling. Ellen looked at Miss Selby, and she felt that she must say something. But what could she say? With tears in her eyes she laid hold of Alfred's thin hand and tried to speak, choked by tears. 'Dear Alfred, don't say such dreadful things. You know we are all so sorry for you; but God sent it.' Alfred gave a groan of utter distress, as if it were no consolation. 'And--and things come to do us good,' continued Miss Jane, the tears starting to her cheeks. 'I don't know what good it can do me to lie here!' cried Alfred. 'Oh, but, Alfred, it must.' 'I tell you,' exclaimed the poor boy, forgetting his manners, so that Ellen stood dismayed, 'it does not do me good! I didn't use to hate Harold, nor to hate everybody.' 'To hate Harold!' said Jane faintly. 'Ay,' said Alfred, 'when I hear him whooping about like mad, and jumping and leaping, and going on like I used to do, and never shall again.' The tears came thick and fast, and perhaps they did him good. 'But, Alfred,' said Jane, trying to puzzle into the right thing, 'sometimes things are sent to punish us, and then we ought to submit quietly.' 'I don't know what I've done, then,' he cried angrily. 'There have been many worse than I any day, that are well enough now.' 'Oh, Alfred, it is not who is worse, but what one is oneself,' said Jane. Alfred grunted. 'I wish I knew how to help you,' she said earnestly; 'it is so very sad and hard; and I dare say I should be just as bad myself if I were as ill; but do, pray, Alfred, try to think that nobody sent it but God, and that He must know best.' Alfred did not seem to take in much comfort, and Jane did not believe she was putting it rightly; but it was time for her to go home, so she said anxiously, 'Good-bye, Alfred; I hope you'll be better next time--and--and--' She bent down and spoke in a very frightened whisper, 'You know when we go to church, we pray you may have patience under your sufferings.' Then she sprang away, as if ashamed of the sound of her own words; but as she was taking up her basket and wishing Ellen good-bye, she saw that the strange lad had moved nearer the house, and timid little thing as she was, she took out a sixpence, and said, 'Do give him that, and ask him to go away.' Ellen had no very great fancy for facing the enemy herself, but she made no objection; and looking down-stairs, she saw her brother Harold waiting while his mother stamped the letters, and she called to him, and sent him out to the boy. He came back in a few moments so much amazed, that she could see the whites all round his eyes. 'He won't have it! He's a rum one that! He says he's no beggar, and that if the young lady would give him work, he'd thank her; but he wants none of her money, and he'll stand where he chooses!' 'Why didn't you lick him?' hallooed out Alfred's voice from his bed. 'Oh! if I--' 'Nonsense, Alfred!' cried Miss Jane, frightened into spirit; 'stand still, Harold! I don't mind him.' And she put up her parasol, and walked straight out at the house door as bold as a little lioness, going on without looking to the right or left. '_If_--' began Harold, clenching his fists--and Alfred raised himself upon his bed with flashing eyes to watch, as the boy had moved nearer, and looked for a moment as if he were going to grin, or say something impudent; but the quiet childish form stepping on so simply and steadily seemed to disarm him, and he shrunk back, left her to trip across the road unmolested, and stood leaning over the rail of the bridge, gazing after her as she crossed the hay-field. Harold rode off with the letters; and Alfred lay gazing, and wondering what that stranger could be, counting the holes in his garments, and trying to guess at his history. One good thing was, that Alfred was so much carried out of himself, that he was cheerful all the evening. CHAPTER II--HAY-MAKING There was again a sultry night, which brought on so much discomfort and restlessness, that poor Alfred could not sleep. He tried to bear in mind how much he had disturbed his mother the night before, and he checked himself several times when he felt as if he could not bear it any longer without waking her, and to remember his old experience, that do what she would for him, it would be no real relief, and he should only be sorry the next day when he saw her going about her work with a worn face and a head-ache. Then every now and then Miss Selby's words about being patient came back to him. Sometimes he thought them hard, coming from a being who had never known sickness or sorrow, and wondered how she would feel if laid low as he was; but they would not be put away in that manner, for he knew they were true, and were said by others than Miss Jane, though he had begun to think no phrase so tiresome, hopeless, or provoking. People always told him to be patient when they had no comfort to give him, and did not know what he was suffering. He would not have minded it so much if only he could have got it out of his head. Somehow it would not let him call to his mother, if it was only because very likely all he should get by so doing would be to be again told to be patient. And then came Miss Jane's telling him his illness might be good for him, as if she thought he deserved to be punished. Really that was hard! Who could think he deserved this wearing pain and helplessness, only because he had played tricks on the butler and housekeeper, and now and then laughed at church? 'It is just like Job and his friends,' thought Alfred. 'I don't want her to come and see me any more!' Poor Alfred! There was a little twinge here. His conscience could not give quite such an account as did that of Job! But he did not like recollecting his own errors better than any of us do, and liked much more to feel himself very hardly used, and greatly to be pitied. Thereupon he opened his lips to call to his mother, but that old thought about patience returned on him; he had mercy on her regular breathing, though it made him quite envious to hear it, and he said to himself that he would let her alone, at least till the next time the clock struck. It would be three o'clock next time. Oh dear, would the night never be over? How often such a round of weary thoughts came again and again can hardly be counted; but, at any rate, poor Alfred was exercising one act of forbearance, and that was so much gain. At last he found, by the increasing light shewing him the shapes of all the pictures, that he must have had a short sleep which had made him miss the clock, and he felt a good deal injured thereby. However, Mrs. King was too good a nurse not to be awakened by his first movement, and she came to him, gave him some cold tea, and settled his pillow so as to make him more comfortable; and when he begged her to let in a little more air, she went to open the window wider, and relieve the closeness of the little room. She had learnt while living with Lady Jane that night air is not so dangerous as some people fancy; and it was an infinite relief to Alfred when the lattice was thrown back, and the cool breeze came softly in, with the freshness of the dew, and the delicious scent of the hay-field. Mrs. King stood a moment to look out at the beautiful stillness of early dawn, the trees and meads so gravely calmly quiet, and the silver dew lying white over everything; the tanned hay-cocks rising up all over the field, the morning star and waning moon glowing pale as light of morning spread over the sky. Then a cock crew somewhere at a distance, and Mrs. Shepherd's cock answered him more shrilly close by, and the swallows began to twitter under the eaves. 'It _will_ be a fine day, to be sure!' she said. 'The farmer will get in his hay!' and then she stood looking as if something had caught her attention. 'What do you see, Mother?' asked Alfred. 'I was looking what that was under yon hay-cock,' said Mrs. King; 'and I do believe it is some one sleeping there.' 'Ha!' cried Alfred. 'I dare say it is the boy that would not have Miss Jane's sixpence.' 'I'm sure I hope he's after no harm,' said Mrs. King; 'I don't like to have tramps about so near. I hope he means no mischief by the farmer's poultry.' 'He can't be one of that sort, or he wouldn't have refused the money,' said Alfred. 'How nice and cool it must be sleeping in the hay! I'll warrant he doesn't lie awake. I wish I was there!' 'You'll know what to be thankful for one of these days, my poor lad,' said his mother, sighing; then yawning, she said, 'I must go back to bed. Mind you call out, Alfred, if you hear anything like a noise in the farm- yard.' This notion rather interested Alfred; he began to build up a fine scheme of shouting out and sending Harold to the rescue of the cocks and hens, and how well he would have done it himself a year ago, and pinned the thief, and fastened the door on him. Not that he thought this individual lad at all likely to be a thief, nor did he care much for Farmer Shepherd, who was a hard man and no favourite; but to catch a thief would be a grand feat. And while settling his clever plan, and making some compliments for the magistrate to pay him, Alfred, fanned by the cool breeze, fell into a sound sleep, and did not wake till the sun was high, and all the rest of the house were up and dressed. That good sleep made him much more able to bear the burden of the day. First, his mother came with the towel and basin, and washed his face and hands; and then he had his little book, and said his prayers; and somehow to-day he felt so much less fractious than usual, that he asked to be taught patience, and not _only_ to be made well, as he had hitherto done. That over, he lay smiling as he waited for his breakfast, and when Ellen brought it to him, he had not one complaint to make, but ate it almost with a relish. 'Is that boy gone?' he asked Ellen, as she tidied the room while he was eating. 'What, the dirty boy? No, there he is, speaking to the farmer. Will he beg of him?' 'Asking for work, more likely.' 'I'd sooner give work to a pig at once,' said Ellen; 'but I do believe he's getting it. I fancy they are short of hands for the hay. Yes, he's pointing into the field. Ay, and he's sending him into the yard.' 'I hope he'll give him some breakfast,' said Alfred. 'Do you know he slept all night on a hay-cock?' 'Yes, so Mother said, just like a dog; and he got up like a dog this morning,--never so much as washed himself at the river. Why, he's coming here! Whatever does he want?' 'The lad?' 'No, the farmer.' Mr. Shepherd's heavy tread was heard below, and, as Alfred said, Ellen had only to hold her tongue for them be able to hear his loud tones telling Mrs. King that the glass was falling, and his hay in capital order, and his hands short, and asking whether her boy Harold would come and help in the hay-field between the post times. Mrs. King gave a ready answer that the boy would be well pleased, and the farmer promised him his victuals and sixpence for the day. 'Your lass wouldn't like to come too, I suppose, eh?' Ellen flushed with indignation. She go a hay-making! Her mother was civilly making answer that her daughter was engaged with her sick brother, and besides--had her work for Mrs. Price, which must be finished off. The farmer, saying he had not much expected her, but thought she might like a change from moping over her needle, went off. Ellen did not feel ready to forgive him for wanting to set her to field- work. There is some difference between being fine and being refined, and in Ellen's station of life it is very difficult to hit the right point. To be refined is to be free from all that is rough, coarse, or ungentle; to be fine, is to affect to be above such things. Now Ellen was really refined in her quietness and maidenly modesty, and there was no need for her to undertake any of those kinds of tasks which, by removing young girls from home shelter, do sometimes help to make them rude and indecorous; but she was _fine_, when she gave herself a little mincing air of contempt, as if she despised the work and those who did it. Lydia Grant, who worked so steadily and kept to herself so modestly, that no one ventured a bold word to her as she tossed her hay, was just as refined as Ellen King behind her white blinds, ay, or as Jane Selby herself in her terraced garden. Refinement is in the mind that loves whatsoever is pure, lovely, and of good report; finery is in disdaining what is homely or humble. Boys of all degrees are usually, when they are good for anything, the greatest enemies of the finery tending to affectation; and Alfred at once began to make a little fun of his sister, and tell her it would be a famous thing for her, he believed she had quite forgotten how to run, and did not know a rake from a fork when she saw it. He knew she was longing for a ride in the waggon, if she would but own it. Ellen used to be teased by this kind of joking; but she was too glad to see Alfred well enough so to entertain himself, to think of anything but pleasing him, so she answered good-humouredly that Harold must make hay for them all three to-day, no doubt but he would be pleased enough. He was heard trotting home at this moment, and whistling as he hitched up the pony at the gate, and ran in with the letter-bag, to snap up his breakfast while the letters were sorted. 'Here, let me have them,' called Alfred, and they were glad he should do it, for he was the quickest of the family at reading handwriting; but he was often too ill to attend to it, and more often the weary fretfulness and languor of his state made him dislike to exert himself, so it was apt to depend on his will or caprice. 'Look sharp, Alf!' hallooed out Harold, rushing up-stairs with the bags in one hand, and his bread-and-butter in the other. 'If you find a letter for that there Ragglesford, I don't know what I shall do to you! I must be back in no time for the hay!' And he had bounced down-stairs again before Ellen had time to scold him for making riot enough to shake Alfred to pieces. He was a fine tall stout boy, with the same large fully open blue eyes, high colour, white teeth, and light curly hair, as his brother and sister, but he was much more sunburnt. If you saw him with his coat off, he looked as if he had red gloves and a red mask on, so much whiter was his skin where it was covered; and he was very strong for his age, and never had known what illness was. The brothers were very fond of each other, but since Alfred had been laid up, they had often been a great trial to each other--the one seemed as little able to live without making a noise, as the other to endure the noise he made; and the sight of Harold's activity and the sound of his feet and voice, vexed the poor helpless sufferer more than they ought to have done, or than they would had the healthy brother been less thoughtless in the joy of his strength. To-day, however, all was smooth. Alfred did not feel every tread of those bounding limbs like a shock to his poor diseased frame; and he only laughed as he unlocked the leathern bag, and dealt out the letters, putting all those for the Lady Jane Selby, Miss Selby, and the servants, into their own neat little leathern case with the padlock, and sorting out the rest, with some hope there might be one from Matilda, who was a very good one to write home. There was none from her, but then there was none for Ragglesford, and that was unexpected good luck. If the old housekeeper left in charge had been wicked enough to get her newspaper that day, Alfred felt that in Harold's place he should be sorely tempted to chuck it over the hedge. Ellen looked as if he had talked of murdering her, and truly such a breach of trust would have been a very grievous fault. 'The Reverend--what's his name? the Reverend Marcus Cope, Friarswood, near Elbury,' read Alfred; 'one, two, three letters, and a newspaper. Yes, and this long printed-looking thing. Who is he, Ellen?' 'What did you say?' said Ellen, who was busy shaking her mother's bed, and had not heard at the first moment, but now turned eagerly; 'what did you say his name was?' 'The Reverend Marcus Cope,' repeated Alfred. 'Is that another new parson?' 'Why, did not we tell you what a real beautiful sermon the new clergyman preached on Sunday? Mr. Cope, so that's his name. I wonder if he is come to stay.--Mother,' she ran to the head of the stairs, 'the new clergyman's name is the Reverend Mr. Marcus Cope.' 'He don't live at Ragglesford, I hope!' cried Harold, who regarded any one at the end of that long lane as his natural enemy. 'No, it only says Friarswood,' said Ellen. 'You'll have to find out where he lives, Harold.' 'Pish! it will take me an hour going asking about!' said Harold impatiently. 'He must have his letters left here till he chooses to come for them, if he doesn't know where he lives.' 'No, no, Harold, that won't do,' said Mrs. King. 'You must take the gentleman his letters, and they'll be sure to know at the Park, or at the Rectory, or at the Tankard, where he lodges. Well, it will be a real comfort if he is come to stop.' So Harold went off with the letters and the pony, and Ellen and her mother exchanged a few words about the gentleman and his last Sunday's sermon, and then Ellen went to dust the shop, and put out the bread, while her mother attended to Alfred's wound, the most painful part of the day to both of them. It was over, however, and Alfred was resting afterwards when Harold cantered home as hard as the pony could or would go, and came racing up to say, 'I've seen him! He's famous! He stood out in the road and met me, and asked for his letters, and he's to be at the Parsonage, and he asked my name, and then he laughed and said, "Oh! I perceive it is the royal mail!" I didn't know what he was at, but he looked as good-humoured as anything. Halloo! give me my old hat, Nell--that's it! Hurrah! for the hay-waggon! I saw the horses coming out!' And off he went again full drive; and Alfred did nothing worse than give a little groan. Ellen had enough to do in wondering about Mr. Cope. News seemed to belong of right to the post-office, and it was odd that he should have preached on Sunday, and now it should be Tuesday, without anything having been heard of him, not even from Miss Jane; but then the young lady had been fluttered by the strange boy, and Alfred had been so fretful, that it might have put everything out of her head. Friarswood was used to uncertainty about the clergyman. The Rector had fallen into such bad health, that he had long been unable to do anything, and always hoping to get better, he had sent different gentlemen to take the services, first one and then another, or had asked the masters at Ragglesford to help him; but it was all very irregular, and no one had settled down long enough to know the people or do much good in visiting them. My Lady, as they all called Lady Jane, was as sorry as any one could be, and she tried what she could do by paying a very good school- master and mistress, and giving plenty of rewards; but nothing could be like the constant care of a real good clergyman, and the people were all the worse for the want. They had the church to go to, but it was not brought home to them. The Rector had been obliged at last to go abroad, one of the Ragglesford gentlemen had performed the service for the ensuing Sundays, until now there seemed to be a chance that this new clergyman was coming to stay. This interested Alfred less than his sister. His curiosity was chiefly about the strange lad; and when he was moved to his place by the window he turned his eyes anxiously to make him out in the line of hay-makers, two fields off, as they shook out the grass to give it the day's sunshine. He knew them all, the ten women, with their old straw bonnets poked down over their faces, and deep curtains sewn on behind to guard their necks; the farm men come in from their other work to lend a hand, three or four boys, among whom he could see Harold's white shirt sleeves, and sometimes hear his merry laugh, and he was working next to the figure in brown faded-looking tattered array, which Alfred suspected to belong to the strange boy. So did Ellen. 'Ah!' she said, 'Harold ye scraped acquaintance with that vagabond-looking boy; I wish I had warned him against it, but I suppose he would only have done it all the more.' 'You want to make friends with him yourself, Ellen! We shall have you nodding to him next! You are as curious about him as can be!' said Alfred slyly. 'Me! I never was curious about nothing so insignificant,' said Ellen. 'All I wish is, that that boy may not be running into bad company.' The hay-fields were like an entertainment on purpose for Alfred all day; he watched the shaking of the brown grass all over the meadows in the morning, and the farmer walking over it, and smelling it, and spying up to guess what would come of the great rolling towers of grey clouds edged with pearly white, soft but dazzling, which varied the intense blue of the sky. Then he watched all the company sit or lie down on the shady side of the hedge, under the pollard-willows, and Tom Boldre the shuffler and one or two more go into the farm-house, and come out with great yellow-ware with pies in them, and the little sturdy-looking kegs of beer, and two mugs to go round among them all. There was Harold lying down, quite at his ease, close to the strange boy; Alfred knew how much better that dinner would taste to him than the best with the table-cloth neatly spread in his mother's kitchen; and well did Alfred remember how much more enjoyment there was in such a meal as that, than in any one of the dainties that my Lady sent down to tempt his sickly appetite. And what must pies and beer be to the wanderer who had eaten the crust so greedily the day before! Then, after the hour's rest, the hay-makers rose up to rake the hay into beds ready for the waggons. Harold and the stranger were raking opposite to each other, and Alfred could see them talking; and when they came into the nearer hay-field, he saw Harold put up his hand, and point to the open window, as if he were telling the other lad about the sick boy who was lying there. He was so much absorbed in thus watching, that he did not pay much heed to what interested his mother and sister--the reports which came by every customer about the new clergyman, who, it appeared, had been staying in the next parish till yesterday, when he had moved into the Rectory; and Mrs. Bonham, the butcher's wife, reported that the Rectory servants said he was come to stay till their master came back. All this and much more Mrs. King heard and rehearsed to Ellen, while Alfred lay, sometimes reading the 'Swiss Robinson,' sometimes watching the loading of the wains, as they creaked slowly through the fields, the horses seeming to enjoy the work, among their fragrant provender, as much as the human kind. When five o'clock struck, Harold gave no signs of quitting the scene of action; and Mrs. King, in much anxiety lest the letters should be late, sent Helen to get the pony ready, while she herself went into the field to call the boy. Very unwilling he was to come--he shook his shoulders, and growled and grumbled, and said he should be in plenty of time, and he wished the post was at the bottom of the sea. Nothing but his mother's orders and the necessity of the case could have made him go at all. At last he walked off, as if he had lead in his feet, muttering that he wished he had not some one to be always after him. Mrs. King looked at the grimy face of his disreputable-looking companion, and wondered whether he had put such things into his head. Very cross was Harold as he twitched the bridle out of Ellen's hand, threw the strap of the letter-bag round his neck, and gave such a re-echoing switch to the poor pony, that Alfred heard it up-stairs, and started up to call out, 'For shame, Harold!' Harold was ashamed: he settled himself in the saddle and rode off, but Alfred had not the comfort of knowing that his ill-humour was not being vented upon the poor beast all the way to Elbury. Alfred had given a great deal of his heart to that pony, and it made him feel helpless and indignant to think that it was ill-used. Those tears of which he was ashamed came welling up into his eyes as he lay back on his pillow; but they were better tears than yesterday's--they were not selfish. 'Never mind, Alfy,' said Ellen, 'Harold's not a cruel lad; he'll not go on, if he was cross for a bit. It is all that he's mad after that boy there! I wish mother had never let him go into the hay-field to meet bad company! Depend upon it, that boy has run away out of a Reformatory! Sleeping out at night! I can't think how Farmer Shepherd could encourage him among honest folk!' 'Well, now I think of it, I should not wonder if he had,' said Mrs. King. 'He is the dirtiest boy that ever I did see! Most likely; I wish he may do no mischief to-night!' Harold came home in better humour, but a fresh vexation awaited him. Mrs. King would not let him go to the hay-home supper in the barn. The men were apt to drink too much and grow riotous; and with her suspicions about his new friend, she thought it better to keep him apart. She was a spirited woman, who would be minded, and Harold knew he must submit, and that he had behaved very ill. Ellen told him too how much Alfred had been distressed about the pony, and though he would not shew her that he cared, it made him go straight up-stairs, and with a somewhat sheepish face, say, 'I say, Alf, the pony's all right. I only gave him one cut to get him off. He'd never go at all if he didn't know his master.' 'He'd go fast enough for my voice,' said Alfred. 'You know I'd never go for to beat him,' continued Harold; 'but it was enough to vex a chap--wasn't it?--to have Mother coming and lugging one off from the carrying, and away from the supper and all. Women always grudge one a bit of fun!' 'Mother never grudged us cricket, nor nothing in reason,' said Alfred. 'Lucky you that could make hay at all! And what made you so taken up with that new boy that Ellen runs on against, and will have it he's a convict?' 'A convict! if Ellen says that again!' cried Harold; 'no more a convict than she is.' 'What is he, then? Where does he come from?' 'His name is Paul Blackthorn,' said Harold; 'and he's the queerest chap I ever came across. Why, he knew no more what to do with a prong than the farmer's old sow till I shewed him.' 'But where did he come from?' repeated Alfred. 'He walked all the way from Piggot's turnpike yesterday,' said Harold. 'He's looking for work.' 'And before that?' 'He'd been in the Union out--oh! somewhere, I forgot where, but it's a name in the Postal Guide.' 'Well, but you've not said who he is,' said Ellen. 'Who? why, I tell you, he's Paul Blackthorn.' 'But I suppose he had a father and mother,' said Ellen. 'No,' said Harold. 'No!' Ellen and Alfred cried out together. 'Not as ever he heard tell of,' said Harold composedly, as if this were quite natural and common. 'And you could go and be raking with him like born brothers there!' said Ellen, in horror. 'D'ye think I'd care for stuff like that?' said Harold. 'Why, he sings--he sings better than Jack Lyte! He's learnt to sing, you know. And he's such a comical fellow! he said Mr. Shepherd was like a big pig on his hind legs; and when Mrs. Shepherd came out to count the scraps after we had done, what does he do but whisper to me to know how long our withered cyder apples had come to life!' Such talents for amusing others evidently far out-weighed in Harold's consideration such trifling points as fathers, mothers, and respectability. Alfred laughed; but Ellen thought it no laughing matter, and reproved Harold for being wicked enough to hear his betters made game of. 'My betters!' said Harold--'an old skinflint like Farmer Shepherd's old woman?' 'Hush, Harold! I'll tell Mother of you, that I will!' cried Ellen. 'Do then,' said Harold, who knew his sister would do no such thing. She had made the threat too often, and then not kept her word. She contented herself with saying, 'Well, all I know is, that I'm sure now he has run away out of prison, and is no better than a thief; and if our place isn't broken into before to-morrow morning, and Mother's silver sugar-tongs gone, it will be a mercy. I'm sure I shan't sleep a wink all night.' Both boys laughed, and Alfred asked why he had not done it last night. 'How should I know?' said Ellen. 'Most likely he wanted to see the way about the place, before he calls the rest of the gang.' 'Take care, Harold! it's a gang coming now,' said Alfred, laughing again. 'All coming on purpose to steal the sugar-tongs!' 'No, I'll tell you what they are come to steal,' said Harold mischievously; 'it's all for Ellen's fine green ivy-leaf brooch that Matilda sent her!' 'I dare say Harold has been and told him everything valuable in the house!' said Ellen. 'I think,' said Alfred gravely, 'it would be a very odd sort of thief to come here, when the farmer's ploughing cup is just by.' 'Yes,' said Harold, 'I'd better have told him of that when I was about it; don't you think so, Nelly?' 'If you go on at this rate,' said Ellen, teased into anger, 'you'll be robbing the post-office yourself some day.' 'Ay! and I'll get Paul Blackthorn to help me,' said the boy. 'Come, Ellen, don't be so foolish; I tell you he's every bit as honest as I am, I'd go bail for him.' 'And I _know_ he'll lead you to ruin!' cried Ellen, half crying: 'a boy that comes from nowhere and nobody knows, and sleeps on a hay-cock all night, no better than a mere tramp!' 'What, quarrelling here? 'said Mrs. King, coming up-stairs. 'The lad, I wish him no ill, I'm sure, but he'll be gone by to-morrow, so you may hold your tongues about him, and we'll read our chapter and go to bed.' Harold's confidence and Ellen's distrust were not much wiser the one than the other. Which was nearest being right? CHAPTER III--A NEW FRIEND The post-office was not robbed that night, neither did the silver sugar- tongs disappear, though Paul Blackthorn was no farther off than the hay- loft at Farmer Shepherd's, where he had obtained leave to sleep. But he did not go away with morning, though the hay-making was over. Ellen saw him sitting perched on the empty waggon, munching his breakfast, and to her great vexation, exchanging nods and grins when Harold rode by for the morning's letters; and afterwards, there was a talk between him and the farmer, which ended in his having a hoe put into his hand, and being next seen in the turnip-field behind the farm. To make up for the good day, this one was a very bad one with poor Alfred. There was thunder in the air, and if the sultry heat weighed heavily even on the healthy, no wonder it made him faint and exhausted, disposed to self-pity, and terribly impatient and fretful. He was provoked by Ellen's moving about the room, and more provoked by Harold's whistling as he cleaned out the stable; and on the other hand, Harold was petulant at being checked, and vowed there was no living in the house with Alfred making such a work. Moreover, Alfred was restless, and wanted something done for him every moment, interrupting Ellen's work, and calling his mother up from her baking so often for trifles, that she hardly knew how to get through it. The doctor, Mr. Blunt, came, and he too felt the heat, having spent hours in going his rounds in the closeness and dust. He was a rough man, and his temper did not always hold out; he told Alfred sharply that he would have no whining, and when the boy moaned and winced more than he would have done on a good day, he punished him by not trying to be tender-handed. When Mrs. King said, perhaps a little lengthily, how much the boy had suffered that morning, the doctor, wearied out, no doubt, with people's complaints, cut her short rather rudely, 'Ay, ay, my good woman, I know all that.' 'And can nothing be done, Sir, when he feels so sinking and weak?' 'Sinking--he must feel sinking--nothing to do but to bear it,' said Mr. Blunt gruffly, as he prepared to go. 'Don't keep me now;' and as Alfred held up his hand, and made some complaint of the tightness of the bandage, he answered impatiently, 'I've no time for that, my lad; keep still, and be glad you've nothing worse to complain of.' 'Then you don't think he is getting any better, Sir?' said Mrs. King, keeping close to him. 'I thought he was yesterday, and I wanted to speak to you. My oldest daughter thought if we could get him away to the sea, and--' 'That's all nonsense,' said the hurried doctor; 'don't you spend your money in that way; I tell you nothing ever will do him any good.' This was at the bottom of the stairs; and Mr. Blunt was off. He was the cleverest doctor for a good way round, and it was not easy to Mrs. King to secure his attendance. Her savings and Matilda's were likely to melt away sadly in paying him, since she was just too well off to be doctored at the parish expense, and he was really a good and upright man, though wanting in softness of manner when he was hurried and teased. If Mrs. King had known that he was in haste to get to a child with a bad burn, she might have thought him less unkind in the short ungentle way in which he dashed her hopes. Alas! there had never been much hope; but she feared that Alfred might have heard, and have been shocked. Ellen heard plainly enough, and her heart sank. She tried to look at her brother's face, but he had put it out of sight, and spoke not a word; and she only could sit wondering what was the real drift of the cruel words, and whether the doctor meant to give no hope of recovery, or only to dissuade her mother from vainly trying change of air. Her once bright brother always thus! It was a sad thought, and yet she would have been glad to know he would be no worse; and Ellen's heart was praying with all her might that he might have his health and happiness restored to him, and that her mother might be spared this bitter sorrow. Alfred said nothing about the doctor's visit, but he could eat no dinner, and did not think this so much the fault of his sickly taste, as of his mother's potato-pie; he could not think why she should be so cross as to make that thing, when she knew he hated it; and as to poor Harold, Alfred would hardly let him speak or stir, without ordering Ellen down to tell him not to make such a row. Ellen was thankful when Harold was fairly hunted out of the house and garden, even though he betook himself to the meadow, where Paul Blackthorn was lying on the grass with his feet kicking in the air, and shewing the skin through his torn shoes. The two lads squatted down on the grass with their heads together. Who could tell what mischief that runaway might be putting into Harold's head, and all because Alfred could not bear with him enough for him to be happy at home? They were so much engrossed, that it needed a rough call from the farmer to send Paul back to his work when the dinner-hour was over; whereupon Harold came slowly to his digging again. Hotter and hotter did it grow, and the grey dull clouds began to gain a yellow lurid light in the distance; there were low growlings of thunder far away, and Ellen left her work unfinished, and forgot how hot she was herself in toiling to fan Alfred, so as to keep him in some little degree cooler, while the more he strove with the heat, the more oppressed and miserable he grew. Poor fellow! his wretchedness was not so much the heat, as the dim perception of Mr. Blunt's hasty words; he had not heard them fully--he dared not inquire what they had been, and he could not endure to face them--yet the echo of 'nothing will ever do him good,' seemed to ring like a knell in his ears every time he turned his weary head. Nothing do him good! Nothing! Always these four walls, that little bed, this wasting weary lassitude, this gnawing, throbbing pain, no pony, no running, no shouting, no sense of vigour and health ever again, and perhaps--that terrible perhaps, which made Alfred's very flesh quail, he would not think of; and to drive it away, he found some fresh toil to require of the sister who could not content him, toil as she would. Slowly the afternoon hours rolled on, one after the other, and Alfred had just been in a pet with the clock for striking four when he wanted it to be five, when the sky grew darker, and one or two heavy drops of rain came plashing down on the thirsty earth. 'The storm is coming at last, and now it will be cooler,' said Ellen, looking out from the window. 'Dear me!' she added, there stopping short. 'What?' asked Alfred. 'What are you gaping at?' 'I declare!' cried Ellen, 'it's the new clergyman! It is Mr. Cope, and he is coming up to the wicket!' Alfred turned his head with a peevish sound; he was in the dreary mood to resent whatever took off attention from him for a moment. 'A very pleasant-looking gentleman,' commented Ellen, 'and so young! He does not look older than Charles Lawrence! I wonder whether he is coming in, or if it is only to post a letter. Oh! there he is, talking to Mother! There!' A vivid flash of lightning came over the room at that moment and made them all pause till it was followed up by the deep rumble of the thunder, and then down rushed the rain, plashing and leaping up again, bringing out the delicious scent from the earth, and seeming in one moment to breathe refreshment and relief on the sick boy. His brow was already clearing, as he listened to his mother's tones of welcome, as she was evidently asking the stranger to sit down and wait for the storm to be over, and the cheerful voice that replied to her. He did not scold Ellen for, as usual, making things neat; and whereas, five minutes sooner, he would have hated the notion of any one coming near him, he now only hoped that his mother would bring Mr. Cope up; and presently he heard the well- known creak of the stairs under a manly foot, and his mother's voice saying something about 'a great sufferer, Sir.' Then came in sight his mother's white cap, and behind her one of the most cheerful lively faces that Alfred had ever beheld. The new Curate looked very little more than a boy, with a nice round fresh rosy face, and curly brown hair, and a quick joyous eye, and regular white teeth when he smiled that merry good-humoured smile. Indeed, he was as young as a deacon could be, and he looked younger. He knocked his tall head against the top of the low doorway as he came into the room, and answered Mrs. King's apologies with a pleasant laugh. Ellen knew her mother would like him the better for his height, for no one since the handsome coachman himself had had to bend his head to get into the room. Alfred liked the looks of him the first moment, and by way of salutation put up one of his weary, white, blue-veined hands to pull his damp forelock; but Mr. Cope, nodding in answer to Ellen's curtsey, took hold of his hand at once, and softening the cheery voice that was so pleasant to hear, said, 'Well, my boy, I hope we shall be good friends. And what's your name?' 'Alfred King, Sir,' was the answer. It really was quite a pleasure not to begin with the old weary subject of being pitied for his illness. 'King Alfred!' said Mr. Cope. 'I met King Harold yesterday. I've got into royal company, it seems!' Alfred smiled, it was said so drolly; but his mother, who felt a little as if she were being laughed at, said, 'Why, Sir, my brother's name was Alfred; and as to Harold, it was to please Miss Jane's little sister that died--she was quite a little girl then, Sir, but so clever, and she would have him named out of her History of England.' 'Did Miss Selby give you those flowers?' said Mr. Cope, admiring the rose and geranium in the cup on the table. 'Yes, Sir;' and Mrs. King launched out in the praises of Miss Jane and of my Lady, an inexhaustible subject which did not leave Alfred much time to speak, till Mrs. King, seeing the groom from the Park coming with the letter-bag through the rain, asked Mr. Cope to excuse her, and went down- stairs. 'Well, Alfred, I think you are a lucky boy,' he said. 'I was comparing you with a lad I once knew of, who got his spine injured, and is laid up in a little narrow garret, in a back street, with no one to speak to all day. I don't know what he would not give for a sister, and a window like this, and a Miss Jane.' Alfred smiled, and said, 'Please, Sir, how old is he?' 'About sixteen; a nice stout lad he was, as ever I knew, till his accident; I often used to meet him going about with his master, and thought it was a pleasure to meet such a good-humoured face.' Alfred ventured to ask his trade, and was told he was being brought up to wait on his father, who was a bricklayer, but that a ladder had fallen with him as he was going up with a heavy load, and he had been taken at once to the hospital. The house on which he was employed belonged to a friend of Mr. Cope, and all in the power of this gentleman had been done for him, but that was not much, for it was one of the families that no one can serve; the father drank, and the mother was forced to be out charing all day, and was so rough a woman, that she could hardly be much comfort to poor Jem when she was at home. Alfred was quite taken up with the history by this time, and kept looking at Mr. Cope, as if he would eat it up with his eager eyes. Ellen asked compassionately who did for the poor boy all day. 'His mother runs in at dinner-time, if she is not at work too far off, and he has a jug of water and a bit of bread where he can reach them; the door is open generally, so that he can call to some of the other lodgers, but though the house is as full as a bee-hive, often nobody hears him. I believe his great friend is a little school-girl, who comes and sits by him, and reads to him if she can; but she is generally at school, or else minding the children.' 'It must be very lonely,' said Alfred, perceiving for the first time that there could be people worse off than himself; 'but has he no books to read?' 'He was so irregularly sent to school, that he could not read to himself, even if his corner were not so dark, and the window so dingy. My friend gave him a Bible, but he could not get on with it; and his mother, I am sorry to say, pawned it.' Ellen and Alfred both cried out as if they had never heard of anything so shocking. 'It was grievous,' said Mr. Cope; 'but the poor things did not know the value, and when there was scarcely a morsel of bread in the house, there was cause enough for not judging them hardly, but I don't think Jem would allow it now. He got some of his little friend's easy Scripture lessons and the like, in large print, which he croons over as he lies there alone, till one feels sure that they are working into his heart. The people in the house say that though he has been ill these three years, he has never spoken an ill-tempered word; and if any one pities him, he answers, "It is the Lord," and seems to wish for no change. He lies there between dozing and dreaming and praying, and always seems content.' 'Does he think he shall get well?' said Alfred, who had been listening earnestly. 'Oh no; there is no chance of that; it is an injury past cure. But I suppose that while he bears the Will of God so patiently here, his Heavenly Father makes it up to him in peacefulness of heart now, and the hope of what is to come hereafter.' Alfred made no answer, but his eyes shewed that he was thinking; and Mr. Cope rose, and looked out of window, as a gleam of sunshine, while the dark cloud lifted up from the north-west, made the trees and fields glow with intense green against the deep grey of the sky, darker than ever from the contrast. Ellen stood up, and Alfred exclaimed, 'Oh Sir, please come again soon!' 'Very soon,' said Mr. Cope good-humouredly; 'but you've not got rid of me yet, the rain is pretty hard still, and I see the beggarmen dancing all down the garden-walk.' Alfred and Ellen smiled to hear their mother's old word for the drops splashing up again; and Mr. Cope went on: 'The garden looks very much refreshed by this beautiful shower. It is in fine order. Is it the other monarch's charge?' 'Harold's, Sir,' said Ellen. 'Yes, he takes a great pride in it, and so did Alfred when he was well.' 'Ah, I dare say; and it must be pleasant to you to see your brother working in it now. I see him under that shed, and who is that lad with him? They seem to have some good joke together.' 'Oh,' said Ellen, 'Harold likes company, you see, Sir, and will take up with anybody. I wish you could be so good as to speak to him, Sir, for lads of that age don't mind women folk, you see, Sir.' 'What? I hope his majesty does not like bad company?' said Mr. Cope, not at all that he thought lightly of such an evil, but it was his way to speak in that droll manner, especially as Ellen's voice was a little bit peevish. 'Nobody knows no harm of the chap,' said Alfred, provoked at Ellen for what he thought unkindness in setting the clergyman at once on his brother; but Ellen was the more displeased, and exclaimed: 'Nor nobody knows no good. He's a young tramper that hired with Farmer Shepherd yesterday, a regular runaway and reprobate, just out of prison, most likely.' 'Well, I hope not so bad as that,' said Mr. Cope, 'he's not a bad-looking boy; but I dare say you are anxious about your brother. It must be dull for him, to have his companion laid up;--and by the looks of him, I dare say his spirits are sometimes too much for you,' he added, turning to Alfred. 'He does make a terrible racket sometimes,' said Alfred. 'Ay, and I dare say you will try to bear with it, and not drive him out to seek dangerous company,' said Mr. Cope; at which Alfred blushed a little, as he remembered the morning, and that he had never thought of this danger. Mr. Cope added, 'I think I shall go and talk to those two merry fellows; I must not tire you, my lad, but I will soon come here again;' and he took leave. Heartily did Ellen exclaim, 'Well, that is a nice gentleman!' and as heartily did Alfred reply. He felt as if a new light had come in on his life, and Mr. Cope had not said one word about patience. Ellen expected Mr. Cope to come back and warn her mother against Paul Blackthorn, but she only saw him stand talking to the two lads till he made them both grin again, and then as the rain was over, he walked away; Paul went back to his turnips, and Harold came thundering up-stairs in his great shoes. Alfred was cheerful, and did not mind him now; but Ellen did, and scolded him for the quantity of dirt he was bringing up with him from the moist garden, which was all one steam of sweet smells, as the sun drew up the vapour after the rain. 'If you were coming in, you'd better have come out of the rain, not stood idling there with that good-for-nothing lad. The new minister said he would be after you if you were taking up with bad company.' 'Who told you I was with bad company?' said Harold. 'Why, I could see it! I hope he rebuked you both.' 'He asked us if we could play at cricket--and he asked the pony's name,' said Harold, 'if that's what you call rebuking us!' 'And what did he say to that boy?' 'Oh! he told him he heard he was a stranger here, like himself, and asked how long he'd been here, and where he came from.' 'And what did he say?' 'He said he was from Upperscote Union--come out because he was big enough to keep himself, and come to look for work,' said Harold. 'He's a right good chap, I'll tell you, and I'll bring him up to see Alfy one of these days!' 'Bring up that dirty boy! I should like to see you!' cried Ellen, making _such_ a face. 'I don't believe a word of his coming out of the Union. I'm sure he's run away out of gaol, by the look of him!' 'Ellen--Harold--come down to your tea!' called Mrs. King. So they went down; and presently, while Mrs. King was gone up to give Alfred his tea, there came Mrs. Shepherd bustling across, with her black silk apron thrown over her cap with the crimson gauze ribbons. She wanted a bit of tape, and if there were none in the shop, Harold must match it in Elbury when he took the letters. Ellen was rather familiar with Mrs. Shepherd, because she made her gowns, and they had some talk about the new clergyman. Mrs. Shepherd did not care for clergymen much; if she had done so, she might not have been so hard with her labourers. She was always afraid of their asking her to subscribe to something or other, so she gave it as her opinion, that she should never think it worth while to listen to such a very young man as that, and she hoped he would not stay; and then she said, 'So your brother was taking up with that come-by-chance lad, I saw. Did he make anything out of him?' 'He fancies him more than I like, or Mother either,' said Ellen. 'He says he's out of Upperscote Union; but he's a thorough impudent one, and owns he's no father nor mother, nor nothing belonging to him. I think it is a deal more likely that he is run away from some reformatory, or prison.' 'That's just what I said to the farmer!' said Mrs. Shepherd. 'I said he was out of some place of that sort. I'm sure it's a sin for the gentlemen to be setting up such places, raising the county rates, and pampering up a set of young rogues to let loose on us. Ay! ay! I'll warrant he's a runaway thief! I told the farmer he'd take him to his sorrow, but you see he is short of hands just now, and the men are so set up and grabbing, I don't know how farmers is to live.' So Mrs. Shepherd went away grumbling, instead of being thankful for the beautiful crop of hay, safely housed, before the thunder shower which had saved the turnips from the fly. Ellen might have doubted whether she had done right in helping to give the boy a bad name, but just then in came the ostler from the Tankard with some letters. 'Here!' he said, 'here's one from one of the gentlemen lodging here fishing, to Cayenne. You'll please to see how much there is to pay.' Ellen looked at her Postal Guide, but she was quite at a fault, and she called up-stairs to Alfred to ask if he knew where she should look for Cayenne. He was rather fond of maps, and knew a good deal of geography for a boy of his age, but he knew nothing about this place, and she was just thinking of sending back the letter, to ask the gentleman where it was, when a voice said: 'Try Guiana, or else South America.' She looked up, and there were Paul's dirty face and dirtier elbows, leaning over the half-door of the shop. 'Why, how do you know?' she said, starting back. 'I learnt at school, Cayenne, capital of French Guiana.' Sure enough Cayenne had Guiana to it in her list, and the price was found out. But when this learned geographer advanced into the shop, and asked for a loaf, what a hand and what a sleeve did he stretch out! Ellen scarcely liked to touch his money, and felt all her disgust revive. But, for all that, and for all her fear of Harold's running into mischief, what business had she to set it about that the stranger was an escaped convict? Meanwhile, Alfred had plenty of food for dreaming over his fellow sufferer. It really seemed to quiet him to think of another in the same case, and how many questions he longed to have asked Mr. Cope! He wanted to know whether it came easier to Jem to be patient than to himself; whether he suffered as much wearing pain; whether he grieved over the last hope of using his limbs; and above all, the question he knew he never could bear to ask, whether Jem had the dread of death to scare his thoughts, though never confessed to himself. He longed for Mr. Cope's next visit, and felt strongly drawn towards that thought of Jem, yet ashamed to think of himself as so much less patient and submissive; so little able to take comfort in what seemed to soothe Jem, that it was the Lord's doing. Could Jem think he had been a wicked boy, and take it as punishment? CHAPTER IV--PAUL BLACKTHORN 'I say,' cried Harold, running up into his brother's room, as soon as he had put away the pony, 'do you know whether Paul is gone?' 'It is always Paul, Paul!' exclaimed Ellen; 'I'm sure I hope he is.' 'But why do you think he would be?' asked Alfred. 'Oh, didn't you hear? He knows no more than a baby about anything, and so he turned the cows into Darnel meadow, and never put the hurdle to stop the gap--never thinking they could get down the bank; so the farmer found them in the barley, and if he did not run out against him downright shameful--though Paul up and told him the truth, that 'twas nobody else that did it.' 'What, and turned him off?' 'Well, that's what I want to know,' said Harold, going on with his tea. 'Paul said to me he didn't know how he could stand the like of that--and yet he didn't like to be off--he'd taken a fancy to the place, you see, and there's me, and there's old Caesar--and so he said he wouldn't go unless the farmer sent him off when he came to be paid this evening--and old Skinflint has got him so cheap, I don't think he will.' 'For shame, Harold; don't call names!' 'Well, there he is,' said Alfred, pointing into the farm-yard, towards the hay-loft door. This was over the cow-house in the gable end; and in the dark opening sat Paul, his feet on the top step of the ladder, and Caesar, the yard-dog, lying by his side, his white paws hanging down over the edge, his sharp white muzzle and grey prick ears turned towards his friend, and his eyes casting such appealing looks, that he was getting more of the hunch of bread than probably Paul could well spare. 'How has he ever got the dog up the ladder?' cried Harold. 'Well!' said Mrs. King, 'I declare he looks like a picture I have seen--' 'Well, to be sure! who would go for to draw a picture of the like of that!' exclaimed Ellen, pausing as she put on her things to carry home some work. 'It was a picture of a Spanish beggar-boy,' said Mrs. King; 'and the housekeeper at Castlefort used to say that the old lord--that's Lady Jane's brother--had given six hundred pounds for it.' Ellen set out on her walk with a sound of wonder quite beyond words. Six hundred pounds for a picture like Paul Blackthorn! She did not know that so poor and feeble are man's attempts to imitate the daily forms and colourings fresh from the Divine Hand, that a likeness of the very commonest sight, if represented with something of its true spirit and life, wins a strange value, especially if the work of the great master- artists of many years ago. And even the painter Murillo himself, though he might pleasantly recall on his canvas the notion of the bright-eyed, olive-tinted lad, resting after the toil of the day, could never have rendered the free lazy smile on his face, nor the gleam of the dog's wistful eyes and quiver of its eager ears, far less the glow of setting sunlight that shed over all that warm, clear, ruddy light, so full of rest and cheerfulness, beautifying, as it hid, so many common things: the thatched roof of the barn, the crested hayrick close beside it; the waggons, all red and blue, that had brought it home, and were led to rest, the horses drooping their meek heads as they cooled their feet among the weed in the dark pond;--the ducks moving, with low contented quacks and quickly-wagging tails, in one long single file to their evening foraging in the dewy meadows; the spruce younger poultry pecking over the yard, staying up a little later than their elders to enjoy a few leavings in peace, free from the persecutions of the cross old king of the dung-hill;--all this left in shade, while the ruddy light had mounted to the roofs, gave brilliance to every round tuft of moss, and gleamed on the sober foliage of the old spreading walnut tree. 'Poor lad,' said Mrs. King, 'it seems a pity he should come to such a rough life, when he seems to have got such an education! I hope he is not run away from anywhere.' 'You're as bad as Ellen, mother,' cried Harold, 'who will have it that he's out of prison.' 'No, not that,' said Mrs. King; 'but it did cross me whether he could have run away from school, and if his friends were in trouble for him.' 'He never had any friends,' said Harold, 'nor he never ran away. He's nothing but a foundling. They picked him up under a blackthorn bush when he was a baby, with nothing but a bit of an old plaid shawl round him.' 'Did they ever know who he belonged to?' asked Alfred. 'Never; nor he doesn't care if they don't, for sure they could be no credit to him; but they that found him put him into the Union, and there an old woman, that they called Granny Moll, took to him. She had but one eye, he says; but, Mother, I do believe he never had another friend like her, for he got to pulling up the bits of grass, and was near crying when he said she was dead and gone, and then he didn't care for nothing.' 'But who taught him about Cayenne?' asked Alfred. 'Oh, that was the Union School. All the children went to school, and they had a terrible sharp master, who used to cut them over the head quite cruel, and was sent away at last for being such a savage; but Paul being always there, and having nothing else to do, you see, got on ever so far, and can work sums in his head downright wonderful. There came an inspector once who praised him up, and said he'd recommend him to a place where he'd be taught to be a school-master, if any one would pay the cost; but the guardians wouldn't hear of it at no price, and were quite spiteful to find he was a good scholar, for fear, I suppose, that he'd know more than they.' 'Hush, hush, Harold,' said his mother; 'wait till you have to pay the rates before you run out against the guardians.' 'What do you mean, Mother?' 'Why, don't you see, the guardians have their duties to those who pay the rates, as well as those that have parish pay. What they have to do, is to mind that nobody starves, or the like; and their means comes out of the rates, out of my pocket, and the like of me, as well as my Lady's and all the rich. Well, whatever they might like to do, it would not be serving us fairly to take more than was a bare necessity from us, to send your Master Paul and the like of him to a fine school. 'Tis for them to be just, and other folk to be generous with what's their own.' 'Mother talks as if she was a guardian herself!' said Alfred in his funny way. 'Ah, the collector's going his rounds,' responded Harold; and Mrs. King laughed good-humouredly, always glad to see her sick boy able to enjoy himself; but she sighed, saying, 'Ay, and ill can I spare it, though thanks be to God that I've been as yet of them that pay, and not of them that receive.' 'Go on the parish! Mother, what are you thinking of?' cried both sons indignantly. Poor Mrs. King was thinking of the long winter, and the heavy doctor's bill, and feeling that, after all, suffering and humbling might not be so very far off; but she was too cheerful and full of trust to dwell on the thought, so she smiled and said, 'I only said I was thankful, boys, for the mercy that has kept us up. Go on now, Harold; what about the boy?' 'Why, I don't know that he'd have gone if they had paid his expenses ever so much,' said Harold, 'for he's got a great spirit of his own, and wouldn't be beholden to any one, he said, now he could keep himself--he'd had quite enough of the parish and its keep; so he said he'd go on the tramp till he got work; and they let him out of the Union with just the clothes to his back, and a shilling in his pocket. 'Twas the first time he had ever been let out of bounds since he was picked up under the tree; and he said no one ever would guess the pleasure it was to have nobody to order him here and there, and no bounds round him; and he quite hated the notion of getting inside walls again, as if it was a prison.' 'Oh, I know! I can fancy that!' cried Alfred, raising himself and panting; 'and where did he go first?' 'First, he only wanted to get as far from Upperscote as ever he could, so he walked on; I can't say how he lived, but he didn't beg; he got a job here and a job there; but there are not so many things he knows the knack of, having been at school all his life. Once he took up with a man that sold salt, to draw his cart for him, but the man swore at him so awfully he could not bear it, and beat him too, so he left him, and he had lived terrible hard for about a month before he came here! So you see, Mother, there's not one bit of harm in him; he's a right good scholar, and never says a bad word, nor has no love for drink; so you won't be like Ellen, and be always at me for going near him?' 'You're getting a big boy, Harold, and it is lonely for you,' said Mrs. King reluctantly; 'and if the lad is a good lad I'd not cast up his misfortune against him; but I must say, I should think better of him if he would keep himself a little bit cleaner and more decent, so as he could go to church.' Harold made a very queer face, and said, 'How is he to do it up in the hay-loft, Mother? and he ha'n't got enough to pay for lodgings, nor for washing, nor to change.' 'The river is cheap enough,' said Alfred. 'Do you remember when we used to bathe together, Harold, and go after the minnows?' 'Ay, but he don't know how; and then they did plague him so in the Union, that he's got to hate the very name of washing--scrubbing them over and cutting their hair as if they were in gaol.' 'Poor boy! he is terribly forsaken,' said Mrs. King compassionately. 'You may say that!' returned Harold; 'why, he's never so much as seen how folks live at home, and wanted to know if you were most like old Moll or the master of the Union!' Alfred went into such a fit of laughter as almost hurt him; but Mrs. King felt the more pitiful and tender towards the poor deserted orphan, who could not even understand what a mother was like, and the tears came into her eyes, as she said, 'Well, I'm glad he's not a bad boy. I hope he thinks of the Father and the Home that he has above. I say, Harold, against next Sunday I'll look out Alfred's oldest shirt for him to put on, and you might bring me his to wash, only mind you soak it well in the river first.' Harold quite flushed with gratitude for his mother's kindness, for he knew it was no small effort in one so scrupulously and delicately clean, and with so much work on her hands; but Mrs. King was one who did her alms by her trouble when she had nothing else to give. Alfred smiled and said he wondered what Ellen would say; and almost at the same moment Harold shot down-stairs, and was presently seen standing upon Paul's ladder talking to him; then Paul rose up as though to come down, and there was much fun going on, as to how Caesar was to be got down; for, as every one knows, a dog can mount a ladder far better than he can descend; and poor Caesar stretched out his white paw, looked down, seemed to turn giddy, whined, and looked earnestly at his friends till they took pity on him and lifted him down between them, stretching out his legs to their full length, like a live hand-barrow. A few seconds more, and there was a great trampling of feet, and then in walked Harold, exclaiming, 'Here he is!' And there he stood, shy and sheepish, with rusty black shag by way of hair, keen dark beads of eyes, and very white teeth; but all the rest, face, hands, jacket, trousers, shoes, and all, of darker or lighter shades of olive-brown; and as to the rents, one would be sorry to have to count them; mending them would have been a thing impossible. What a difference from the pure whiteness of everything around Alfred! the soft pink of the flush of surprise on his delicate cheek, and the wavy shine on his light hair. A few months ago, Alfred would have been as ready as his brother to take that sturdy hand, marbled as it was with dirt, and would have heeded all drawbacks quite as little; but sickness had changed him much, and Paul was hardly beside his couch before the colour fleeted away from his cheek, and his eye turned to his mother in such distress, that she was obliged to make a sign to Harold in such haste that it looked like anger, and to mutter something about his being taken worse. And while she was holding the smelling salts to him, and sprinkling vinegar over his couch, they heard the two boys' voices loud under the window, Paul saying he should never come there again, and Harold something about people being squeamish and fine. It hurt Alfred, and he burst out, almost crying, 'Mother! Mother, now isn't that too bad!' 'It is very thoughtless,' said Mrs. King sorrowfully; 'but you know everybody has their feelings, Alfred, and I am sorry it happened so.' 'I'm sure I couldn't help it,' said Alfred, as if his mother were turning against him. 'Harold had better have brought up the farmer's whole stable at once!' 'When you were well, you did not think of such things any more than he does.' Alfred grunted. He could not believe that; and he did not feel gently when his brother shewed any want of consideration; but his mother thought he would only grow crosser by dwelling on the unlucky subject, so she advised him to lie still and rest before his being moved to bed, and went down herself to finish some ironing. Presently Alfred saw the Curate coming over the bridge with quick long steps, and this brought to his mind that he had been wishing to hear more of the poor crippled boy. He watched eagerly, and was pleased to see Mr. Cope turn in at the wicket, and presently the tread upon the stairs was heard, and the high head was lowered at the door. 'Good evening, Alfred; your mother told me it would not disturb you if I came up alone;' and he began to inquire into his amusements and occupations, till Alfred became quite at home with him, and at ease, and ventured to ask, 'If you please, Sir, do you ever hear about Jem now?' and as Mr. Cope looked puzzled, 'the boy you told me of, Sir, that fell off the scaffold.' 'Oh, the boy at Liverpool! No, I only saw him once when I was staying with my cousin; but I will ask after him if you wish to hear.' 'Thank you, Sir. I wanted to know if he had been a bad boy.' 'That I cannot tell. Why do you wish to know? Was it because he had such an affliction?' 'Yes, Sir.' 'I don't think that is quite the way to look at troubles,' said Mr. Cope. 'I should think his accident had been a great blessing to him, if it took him out of temptation, and led him to think more of God.' 'But isn't it punishment?' said Alfred, not able to get any farther; but Mr. Cope felt that he was thinking of himself more than of Jem. 'All our sufferings in this life come as punishment of sin,' he said. 'If there had been no sin, there would have been no pain; and whatever we have to bear in this life is no more than is our due, whatever it may be.' 'Every one is sinful,' said Alfred slowly; 'but why have some more to bear than others that may be much worse?' 'Did you never think it hard to be kept strictly, and punished by your good mother?' Alfred answered rather fretfully, 'But if it is good to be punished, why ain't all alike?' 'God in His infinite wisdom sees the treatment that each particular nature needs. Some can be better trained by joy, and some by grief; some may be more likely to come right by being left in active health; others, by being laid low, and having their faults brought to mind.' Alfred did not quite choose to take this in, and his answer was half sulky: 'Bad boys are quite well!' 'And a reckoning will be asked of them. Do not think of other boys. Think over your past life, of which I know nothing, and see whether you can believe, after real looking into it, that you have done nothing to deserve God's displeasure. There are other more comforting ways of bringing joy out of pain; but of this I am sure, that none will come home to us till we own from the bottom of our heart, that whatever we suffer in this life, we suffer most justly for the punishment of our sins. God bless and help you, my poor boy. Good night.' With these words he went down-stairs, for well he knew that while Alfred went on to justify himself, no peace nor joy could come to him, and he thought it best to leave the words to work in, praying in his heart that they might do so, and help the boy to humility and submission. Finding Mrs. King in her kitchen, he paused and said, 'We shall have a Confirmation in the spring, Mrs. King; shall not you have some candidates for me?' 'My daughter will be very glad, thank you, Sir; she is near to seventeen, and a very good girl to me. And Harold, he is but fourteen--would he be old enough, Sir?' 'I believe the Bishop accepts boys as young; and he might be started in life before another opportunity.' 'Well, Sir, he shall come to you, and I hope you won't think him too idle and thoughtless. He's a good-hearted boy, Sir; but it is a charge when a lad has no father to check him.' 'Indeed it is, Mrs. King; but I think you must have done your best.' 'I hope I have, Sir,' she said sadly; 'I've tried, but my ability is not much, and he is a lively lad, and I'm sometimes afraid to be too strict with him.' 'If you have taught him to keep himself in order, that's the great thing, Mrs. King; if he has sound principles, and honours you, I would hope much for him.' 'And, Sir, that boy he has taken a fancy to; he is a poor lost lad who never had a home, but Harold says he has been well taught, and he might take heed to you.' 'Thank you, Mrs. King; I will certainly try to speak to him. You said nothing of Alfred; do you think he will not be well enough?' 'Ah! Sir,' she said in her low subdued voice, 'my mind misgives me that it is not for Confirmation that you will be preparing him.' Mr. Cope started. He had seen little of illness, and had not thought of this. 'Indeed! does the doctor think so ill of him? Do not these cases often partially recover?' 'I don't know, Sir; Mr. Blunt does not give much account of him,' and her voice grew lower and lower; 'I've seen that look in his father's and his brother's face.' She hid her face in her handkerchief as if overpowered, but looked up with the meek look of resignation, as Mr. Cope said in a broken voice, 'I had not expected--you had been much tried.' 'Yes, Sir. The Will of the Lord be done,' she said, as if willing to turn aside from the dark side of the sorrow that lay in wait for her; 'but I'm thankful you are come to help my poor boy now--he frets over his trouble, as is natural, and I'm afraid he should offend, and I'm no scholar to know how to help him.' 'You can help him by what is better than scholarship,' said Mr. Cope; and he shook her hand warmly, and went away, feeling what a difference there was in the ways of meeting affliction. CHAPTER V--AN UNWELCOME VISITOR 'The axe is laid to the root of the tree,' was said by the Great Messenger, when the new and better Covenant was coming to pierce, try, and search into, the hearts of men. Something like this always happens, in some measure, whenever closer, clearer, and more stringent views of faith and of practice are brought home to Christians. They do not always take well the finding that more is required of them than they have hitherto fancied needful; and there are many who wince and murmur at the sharp piercing of the weapon which tries their very hearts; they try to escape from it, and to forget the disease that it has touched, and at first, often grow worse rather than better. Well is it for them if they return while yet there is time, before blindness have come over their eyes, and hardness over their heart. Perhaps this was the true history of much that grieved poor Mrs. King, and distressed Ellen, during the remainder of the summer. Anxious as Mrs. King had been to bring her sons up in the right way, there was something in Mr. Cope's manner of talking to them that brought things closer home to them, partly from their being put in a new light, and partly from his being a man, and speaking with a different kind of authority. Alfred did not like his last conversation--it was little more than his mother and Miss Selby had said--but then he had managed to throw it off, and he wanted to do so again. It was pleasanter to him to think himself hardly treated, than to look right in the face at all his faults; he knew it was of no use to say he had none, so he lumped them all up by calling himself a sinful creature, like every one else; and thus never felt the weight of them at all, because he never thought what they were. And yet, because Mr. Cope's words had made him uneasy, he could not rest in this state; he was out of temper whenever the Curate's name was spoken, and accused Ellen of bothering about him as much as Harold did about Paul Blackthorn; and if he came to see him, he made himself sullen, and would not talk, sometimes seeming oppressed and tired, and unable to bear any one's presence, sometimes leaving Ellen to do all the answering, dreading nothing so much as being left alone with the clergyman. Mr. Cope had offered to read prayers with him, and he could not refuse; but he was more apt to be thinking that it was tiresome, than trying to enter into what, poor foolish boy, would have been his best comfort. To say he was cross when Mr. Cope was there, would be saying much too little; there was scarcely any time when he was not cross; he was hardly civil even to Miss Jane, so that she began to think it was unpleasant to him to have her there; and if she were a week without calling, he grumbled hard thoughts about fine people; he was fretful and impatient with the doctor; and as to those of whom he had no fears, he would have been quite intolerable, had they loved him less, or had less pity on his suffering. He never was pleased with anything; teased his mother half the night, and drove Ellen about all day. She, good girl, never said one word of impatience, but bore it all with the sweetest good humour; but her mother now and then spoke severely for Alfred's own good, and then he made himself more miserable than ever, and thought she was unkind and harsh, and that he was very much to be pitied for having a mother who could not bear with her poor sick boy. He was treating his mother as he was treating his Father in Heaven. How Harold fared with him may easily be guessed--how the poor boy could hardly speak or step without being moaned at, till he was almost turned out of his own house; and his mother did not know what to do, for Alfred was really very ill, and fretting made him worse, and nothing could be so bad for his brother as being driven out from home, to spend the long summer evenings as he could. Ellen would have been thankful now, had Paul Blackthorn been the worst company into which Harold fell. Not that Paul was a bit cleaner; on the contrary, each day could not fail to make him worse, till, as Ellen had once said, you might almost grow a crop of radishes upon his shoulders. Mrs. King's kind offer of washing his shirt had come to nothing. She asked Harold about it, and had for answer, 'Do you think he would, after the way you served him?' Either he was affronted, or he was ashamed of her seeing his rags, or, what was not quite impossible, there was no shirt at all in the case; and he had a sturdy sort of independence about him, that made him always turn surly at any notion of anything being done for him for charity. How or why he stayed on with the farmer was hard to guess, for he had very scanty pay, and rough usage; the farmer did not like him; the farmer's wife scolded him constantly, and laid on his shoulders all the mischief that was done about the place; and the shuffler gave him half his own work to do, and hunted him about from dawn till past sunset. He was always going at the end of every week, but never gone; perhaps he had undergone too much in his wanderings, to be ready to begin them again; or perhaps either Caesar or Harold, one or both, kept him at Friarswood. And there might be another reason, too, for no one had ever spoken to him like Mr. Cope. Very few had ever thrown him a kindly word, or seemed to treat him like a thing with feelings, and those few had been rough and unmannerly; but Mr. Cope's good-natured smile and pleasant manner had been a very different thing; and perhaps Paul promised to come to the Confirmation class, chiefly because of the friendly tone in which he was invited. When there, he really liked it. He had always liked what he was taught, apart from the manner of teaching; and now both manner and lessons were delightful to him. His answers were admirable, and it was not all head knowledge, for very little more than a really kind way of putting it was needed, to make him turn in his loneliness to rest in the thought of the ever-present Father. Hard as the discipline of his workhouse home had been, it had kept him from much outward harm; the little he had seen in his wanderings had shocked him, and he was more untaught in evil than many lads who thought themselves more respectable, so there was no habit of wickedness to harden and blunt him; and the application of all he had learnt before, found his heart ready. He had not gone to church since he left the workhouse: he did not think it belonged to vagabonds like him; besides, he always felt walls like a prison; and he had not profited much by the workhouse prayers, which were read on week-days by the master, and on Sundays by a chaplain, who always had more to do than he could manage, and only went to the paupers when they were very ill. But when Mr. Cope talked to him of the duty of going to church, he said, 'I will, Sir;' and he sat in the gallery with the young lads, who were not quite as delicate as Alfred. The service seemed to rest him, and to be like being brought near a friend; and he had been told that church might always be his home. He took a pleasure in going thither--the more, perhaps, that he rather liked to shew how little he cared for remarks upon his appearance. There was a great deal of independence about him; and, having escaped from the unloving maintenance of the parish, while he had as yet been untaught what affection or gratitude meant, he _would_ not be beholden to any one. Scanty as were his wages, he would accept nothing from anybody; he daily bought his portion of bread from Mrs. King, but it was of no use for her to add a bit of cheese or bacon to it; he never would see the relish, and left it behind; and so he never would accept Mr. Cope's kind offers of giving him a bit of supper in his kitchen, perhaps because he was afraid of being said to go to the Rectory for the sake of what he could get. He did not object to the farmer's beer, which was sometimes given him when any unusual extra work had been put on him. That was his right, for in truth the farmer did not pay him the value of his labour, and perhaps disliked him the more, because of knowing in his conscience that this was shameful extortion. However, just at harvest time, when Paul's shoes had become very like what may be sometimes picked up by the roadside, Mr. Shepherd did actually bestow on him a pair that did not fit himself! Harold came home quite proud of them. However, on the third day they were gone, and the farmer's voice was heard on the bridge, rating Paul violently for having changed them away for drink. Mrs. King felt sorrowful; but, as Ellen said, 'What could you expect of him?' In spite of the affront, there was a sort of acquaintance now over the counter between Mrs. King and young Blackthorn; and when he came for his bread, she could not help saying, 'I'm sorry to see you in those again.' 'Why, the others hurt me so, I could hardly get about,' said Paul. 'Ah! poor lad, I suppose your feet has got spread with wearing those old ones; but you should try to use yourself to decent ones, or you'll soon be barefoot; and I do think it was a pity to drink them up.' 'That's all the farmer, Ma'am. He thinks one can't do anything but drink.' 'Well, what is become of them?' 'Why, you see, Ma'am, they just suited Dick Royston, and he wanted a pair of shoes, and I wanted a Bible and Prayer-book, so we changed 'em.' When Ellen heard this, she could not help owning that Paul was a good boy after all, though it was in an odd sort of way. But, alas! when next he was to go to Mr. Cope, there was a hue-and-cry all over the hay-loft for the Prayer-book. There was no place to put it safely, or if there had been, Poor Paul was too great a sloven to think of any such thing; and as it was in a somewhat rubbishy state to begin with, it was most likely that one of the cows had eaten it with her hay; and all that could be said was, that it would have been worse if it had been the Bible. As to Dick Royston, to find that he would change away his Bible for a pair of shoes, made Mrs. King doubly concerned that he should be a good deal thrown in Harold's way. There are many people who neglect their Bibles, and do not read them; but this may be from thoughtlessness or press of care, and is not like the wilful breaking with good, that it is to part with the Holy Scripture, save under the most dire necessity; and Dick was far from being in real want, nor was he ignorant, like Mr. Cope's poor Jem, for he had been to school, and could read well; but he was one of those many lads, who, alas! are everywhere to be found, who break loose from all restraint as soon as they can maintain themselves. They do their work pretty well, and are tolerably honest; but for the rest--alas! they seem to live without God. Prayers and Church they have left behind, as belonging to school-days; and in all their strength and health, their days of toil, their evenings of rude diversion, their Sundays of morning sleep, noonday basking in the sun, evening cricket, they have little more notion of anything concerning their souls than the horses they drive. If ever a fear comes over them, it seems a long long way off, a whole life-time before them; they are awkward, and in dread of one another's jeers and remarks; and if they ever wish to be better, they cast it from them by fancying that time must steady them when they have had their bit of fun, or that something will come from somewhere to change them all at once, and make it easy to them to be good--as if they were not making it harder each moment. This sort of lad had been utterly let alone till Mr. Cope came; and Lady Jane and the school-master felt it was dreary work to train up nice lads in the school, only to see them run riot, and forget all good as soon as they thought themselves their own masters. Mr. Cope was anxious to do the best he could for them, and the Confirmation made a good opportunity; but the boys did not like to be interfered with--it made them shy to be spoken to; and they liked lounging about much better than having to poke into that mind of theirs, which they carried somewhere about them, but did not like to stir up. They had no notion of going to school again--which no one wanted them to do--nor to church, because it was like little boys; and they wouldn't be obliged. So Mr. Cope made little way with them; a few who had better parents came regularly to him, but others went off when they found it too much trouble, and behaved worse than ever by way of shewing they did not care. This folly had in some degree taken possession of Harold; and though he could not be as bad as were some of the others, he was fast growing impatient of restraint, and worried and angry, as if any word of good advice affronted him. Driven from home by the fear of disturbing Alfred, he was left the more to the company of boys who made him ashamed of being ordered by his mother; and there was a jaunty careless style about all his ways of talking and moving, that shewed there was something wrong about him--he scorned Ellen, and was as saucy as he dared even to his mother; and though Mr. Cope found him better instructed than most of his scholars, he saw him quite as idle, as restless at church, and as ready to whisper and grin at improper times, as many who had never been trained like him. One August Sunday afternoon, Mrs. King was with Alfred while Ellen was at church. He was lying on his couch, very uncomfortable and fretful, when to the surprise of both, a knock was heard at the door. Mrs. King looked out of the window, and a smart, hard-looking, pigeon's-neck silk bonnet at once nodded to her, and a voice said, 'I've come over to see you, Cousin King, if you'll come down and let me in. I knew I should find you at home.' 'Betsey Hardman!' exclaimed Alfred, in dismay; 'you won't let her come up here, Mother?' 'Not if I can help it,' said Mrs. King, sighing. If there were a thing she disliked above all others, it was Sunday visiting. 'You must help it, Mother,' said Alfred, in his most pettish tones. 'I won't have her here, worrying with her voice like a hen cackling. Say you won't let her come her!' 'Very well,' said Mrs. King, in doubt of her own powers, and in haste to be decently civil. 'Say you won't,' repeated Alfred. 'Gadding about of a Sunday, and leaving her old sick mother--more shame for her! Promise, Mother!' He had nearly begun to cry at his mother's unkindness in running down- stairs without making the promise, for, in fact, Mrs. King had too much conscience to gain present quiet for any one by promises she might be forced to break; and Betsey Hardman was only too well known. Her mother was an aunt of Alfred's father, an old decrepit widow, nearly bed-ridden, but pretty well to do, by being maintained chiefly by her daughter, who made a good thing of taking in washing in the suburbs of Elbury, and always had a girl or two under her. She had neither had the education, nor the good training in service, that had fallen to Mrs. King's lot; and her way of life did not lead to softening her tongue or temper. Ellen called her vulgar, and though that is not a nice word to use, she was coarse in her ways of talking and thinking, loud-voiced, and unmannerly, although meaning to be very good-natured. Alfred lay in fear of her step, ten times harder than Harold's in his most boisterous mood, coming clamp clamp! up the stairs; and her shrill voice--the same tone in which she bawled to her deaf mother, and hallooed to her girls when they were hanging out the clothes in the high wind--coming pitying him--ay, and perhaps her whole weight lumbering down on the couch beside him, shaking every joint in his body! His mother's ways, learnt in the Selby nursery, had made him more tender, and more easily fretted by such things, than most cottage lads, who would have been used to them, and never have thought of not liking to have every neighbour who chose running up into the room, and talking without regard to subject or tone. He listened in a fright to the latch of the door, and the coming in. Betsey's voice came up, through every chink of the boards, whatever she did herself; and he could hear every word of her greeting, as she said how it was such a fine day, she said to Mother she would take a holiday, and come and see Cousin King and the poor lad: it must be mighty dull for him, moped up there. Stump! stump! Was she coming? His mother was answering something too soft for him to hear. 'What, is he asleep?' 'O Mother, must you speak the truth?' 'Bless me! I should have thought a little cheerful company was good for him. Do you leave him quite alone? Well--' and there was a frightful noise of the foot of the heaviest chair on the floor. 'I'll sit down and wait a bit! Is he so very fractious, then?' What was his mother saying? Alfred clenched his fist, and grinned anger at Betsey with closed teeth. There was the tiresome old word, 'Low--ay, so's my mother; but you should rise his spirits with company, you see; that's why I came over; as soon as ever I heard that there wasn't no hope of him, says I to Mother--' What? What was that she had heard? There was his mother, probably trying to restrain her voice, for it came up now just loud enough to make it most distressing to try to catch the words, which sounded like something pitying. 'Ay, ay--just like his poor father; when they be decliny, it will come out one ways or another; and says I to Mother, I'll go over and cheer poor Cousin King up a bit, for you see, after all, if he'd lived, he'd be nothing but a burden, crippled up like that; and a lingering job is always bad for poor folks.' Alfred leant upon his elbow, his eyes full stretched, but feeling as if all his senses had gone into his ears, in his agony to hear more; and he even seemed to catch his mother's voice, but there was no hope in that; it was of her knowing it would be all for the best; and the sadness of it told him that she believed the same as Betsey. Then came, 'Yes; I declare it gave me such a turn, you might have knocked me down with a feather. I asked Mr. Blunt to come in and see what's good for Mother, she feels so weak at times, and has such a noise in her head, just like the regiment playing drums, she says, till she can't hardly bear herself; and so what do you think he says? Don't wrap up her head so warm, says he--a pretty thing for a doctor to say, as if a poor old creature like that, past seventy years old, could go without a bit of flannel to her head, and her three night-caps, and a shawl over them when there's a draught. I say, Cousin, I ha'n't got much opinion of Mr. Blunt. Why don't you get some of them boxes of pills, that does cures wonderful? Ever so many lords and ladies cured of a perplexity fit, by only just taking an imposing draught or two.' Another time Alfred would have laughed at the very imposing draught, that was said to cure lords and ladies of this jumble between apoplexy and paralysis; but this was no moment for laughing, and he was in despair at fancying his mother wanted to lead her off on the quack medicine; but she went on. 'Well, only read the papers that come with them. I make my girl Sally read 'em all to me, being that she's a better scholar; and the long words is quite heavenly--I declare there ain't one of them shorter than peregrination. I'd have brought one of them over to shew you if I hadn't come away in a hurry, because Evans's cart was going out to the merry orchard, and says I to Mother, Well, I'll get a lift now there's such a chance to Friarswood: it'll do them all a bit of good to see a bit of cheerful company, seeing, as Mr. Blunt says, that poor lad is going after his father as fast as can be. Dear me, says I, you don't say so, such a fine healthy-looking chap as he was. Yes, he says, but it's in the constitution; it's getting to the lungs, and he'll never last out the winter.' Alfred listened for the tone of his mother's voice; he knew he should judge by that, even without catching the words--low, subdued, sad--he almost thought she began with 'Yes.' All the rest that he heard passed by him merely as a sound, noted no more than the lowing of the cattle, or the drone of the thrashing machine. He lay half lifted up on his pillows, drawing his breath short with apprehension; his days were numbered, and death was coming fast, fast, straight upon him. He felt it within himself--he knew now the meaning of the pain and sinking, the shortness of breath and choking of throat that had been growing on him through the long summer days; he was being 'cut off with pining sickness,' and his sentence had gone forth. He would have screamed for his mother in the sore terror and agony that had come over him, in hopes she might drive the notion from him; but the dread of seeing her followed by that woman kept his lips shut, except for his long gasps of breath. And she could not keep him--Mr. Blunt could not keep him; no one could stay the hand that had touched him! Prayer! They had prayed for his father, for Charlie, but it had not been God's Will. He had himself many times prayed to recover, and it had not been granted--he was worse and worse. Moreover, whither did that path of suffering lead? Up rose before Alfred the thought of living after the unknown passage, and of answering for all he had done; and now the faults he had refused to call to mind when he was told of chastisement, came and stood up of themselves. Bred up to know the good, he had not loved it; he had cared for his own pleasure, not for God; he had not heeded the comfort of his widowed mother; he had been careless of the honour of God's House, said and heard prayers without minding them; he had been disrespectful and ill-behaved at my Lady's--he had been bad in every way; and when illness came, how rebellious and murmuring he had been, how unkind he had been to his patient mother, sister, and brother; and when Mr. Cope had told him it was meant to lead him to repent, he would not hear; and now it was too late, the door would be shut. He had always heard that there was a time when sorrow was no use, when the offer of being saved had been thrown away. When Ellen came in, and after a short greeting to Betsey Hardman, went up- stairs, she found Alfred lying back on his pillow, deadly white, the beads of dew standing on his brow, and his breath in gasps. She would have shrieked for her mother, but he held out his hand, and said, in a low hoarse whisper, 'Ellen, is it true?' 'What, Alfy dear? What is the matter?' 'What _she_ says.' 'Who? Betsey Hardman? Dear dear Alf, is it anything dreadful?' 'That I shall die,' said Alfred, his eyes growing round with terror again. 'That Mr. Blunt said I couldn't last out the winter.' 'Dear Alfy, don't!' cried Ellen, throwing her arms round him, and kissing him with all her might; 'don't fancy it! She's always gossiping and gadding about, and don't know what she says, and she'd got no business to tell stories to frighten my darling!' she exclaimed, sobbing with agitation. 'I'm sure Mr. Blunt never said no such thing!' 'But Mother thinks it, Ellen.' 'She doesn't, she can't!' cried Ellen vehemently; 'I know she doesn't, or she could never go about as she does. I'll call her up and ask her, to satisfy you.' 'No, no, not while that woman is there!' cried Alfred, holding her by the dress; 'I'll not have _her_ coming up.' Even while he spoke, however, Mrs. King was coming. Betsey had spied an old acquaintance on the way from church, and had popped out to speak to her, and Mrs. King caught that moment for coming up. She understood all, for she had been sitting in great distress, lest Alfred should be listening to every word which she was unable to silence, and about which Betsey was quite thoughtless. So many people of her degree would talk to the patient about himself and his danger, and go on constantly before him with all their fears, and the doctor's opinions, that Betsey had never thought of there being more consideration and tenderness shewn in this house, nor that Mrs. King would have hidden any pressing danger from the sick person; but such plain words had not yet passed between her and Mr. Blunt; and though she had long felt what Alfred's illness would come to, the perception had rather grown on her than come at any particular moment. Now when Ellen, with tears and agitation, asked what that Betsey had been saying to frighten Alfred so, and when she saw her poor boy's look at her, and heard his sob, 'Oh, Mother!' it was almost too much for her, and she went up and kissed him, and laid him down less uneasily, but he felt a great tear fall on his face. 'It's not true, Mother, I'm sure it is not true,' cried Ellen; 'she ought--' Mrs. King looked at her daughter with a sad sweet face, that stopped her short, and brought the sense over her too. 'Did he say so, Mother?' said Alfred. 'Not to me, dear,' she answered; 'but, Ellen, she's coming back! She'll be up here if you don't go down.' Poor Ellen! what would she not have given for power to listen to her mother, and cry at her ease? But she was forced to hurry, or Betsey would have been half-way up-stairs in another instant. She was a hopeful girl, however, and after that 'not to me,' resolved to believe nothing of the matter. Mrs. King knelt down by her son, and looked at him tenderly; and then, as his eyes went on begging for an answer, she said, 'Dr. Blunt never told me there was no hope, my dear, and everything lies in God's power.' 'But you don't think I shall get well, Mother?' 'I don't feel as if you would, my boy,' she said, very low, and fondling him all the time. 'You've got to cough like Father and Charlie, and--though He might raise my boy up--yet anyhow, Alfy boy, if God sees it good for us, it _will_ be good for us, and we shall be helped through with it.' 'But I'm not good, Mother! What will become of me?' 'Perhaps the hearing this is all out of God's mercy, to give you time to get ready, my dear. You are no worse now than you were this morning; you are not like to go yet awhile. No, indeed, my child; so if you don't put off any longer--' 'Mother!' called up Ellen. She was in despair. Betsey was not to be kept by her from satisfying herself upon Alfred's looks, and Mrs. King was only in time to meet her on the stairs, and tell her that he was so weak and low, that he could not be seen now, she could not tell how it would be when he had had his tea. Ellen thought she had never had so distressing a tea-drinking in her life, as the being obliged to sit listening civilly to Betsey's long story about the trouble she had about a stocking of Mrs. Martin's that was lost in the wash, and that had gone to Miss Rosa Marlowe, because Mrs. Martin had her things marked with a badly-done K. E. M., and all that Mrs. Martin's Maria and all Miss Marlowe's Jane had said about it, and all Betsey's 'Says I to Mother,'--when she was so longing to be watching poor Alfred, and how her mother could sit so quietly making tea, and answering so civilly, she could not guess; but Mrs. King had that sense of propriety and desire to do as she would be done by, which is the very substance of Christian courtesy, the very want of which made Betsey, with all her wish to be kind, a real oppression and burthen to the whole party. And where was Harold? Ellen had not seen him coming out of church, but meal-times were pretty certain to bring him home. 'Oh,' said Betsey, 'I'll warrant he is off to the merry orchard.' 'I hope not,' said Mrs. King gravely. 'He never would,' said Ellen, in anger. 'Ah, well, I always said I didn't see no harm in a lad getting a bit of pleasure.' 'No, indeed,' said Mrs. King. 'Harold knows I would not stint him in the fruit nor in the pleasure, but I should be much vexed if he could go out on a Sunday, buying and selling, among such a lot as meet at that orchard.' 'Well, I'm sure I don't know when poor folks is to have a holiday if not on a Sunday, and the poor boy must be terrible moped with his brother so ill.' 'Not doing thine own pleasure on My holy day,' thought Ellen, but she did not say it, for her mother could not bear for texts to be quoted at people. But her heart was very heavy; and when she went up with some tea to Alfred, she looked from the window to see whether, as she hoped, Harold might be in Paul's hay-loft, preferring going without his tea to being teased by Betsey. Paul sat in his loft, with his Bible on his knee, and his head on Caesar's neck. 'Alfred,' said Ellen, 'do you know where Harold is? Sure he is not gone to the merry orchard?' 'Is not he come home?' said Alfred. 'Oh, then he is! He is gone to the merry orchard, breaking Sunday with Dick Royston! And by-and-by he'll be ill, and die, and be as miserable as I am!' And Alfred cried as Ellen had never seen him cry. CHAPTER VI--THE MERRY ORCHARD Where was Harold? Still the evening went on, and he did not come. Alfred had worn himself out with his fit of crying, and lay quite still, either asleep, or looking so like it, that when Betsey had finished her tea, and again began asking to see him, Ellen could honestly declare that he was asleep. Betsey had bidden them good-bye, more than half affronted at not being able to report to her mother all about his looks, though she carried with her a basket of gooseberries and French beans, and Mrs. King walked all the way down the lane with her, and tried to shew an interest in all she said, to make up for the disappointment. Maybe likewise Mrs. King felt it a relief to her uneasiness to look up and down the road, and along the river, and into the farm-yard, in the hope that Harold might be in sight; but nothing was to be seen on the road, but Master Norland, his wife, and baby, soberly taking their Sunday walk; nor by the river, except the ducks, who seemed to be enjoying their evening bath, and almost asleep on the water; nor in the yard, except Paul Blackthorn, who had come down from his perch to drive the horses in from the home-field, and shut the stable up for the night. She could not help stopping a moment at the gate, and calling out to Paul to ask whether he had seen anything of Harold. He seemed to have a great mind not to hear, and turned very slowly with his shoulder towards her, making a sound like 'Eh?' as if to ask what she said. 'Have you seen my boy Harold?' 'I saw him in the morning.' 'Have you not seen him since? Didn't he go to church with you?' 'No; I don't go to Sunday school.' 'Was he there?' She did not receive any answer. 'Do you know if many of the boys are gone to the merry orchard?' 'Ay.' 'Well, you are a good lad not to be one of them.' 'Hadn't got any money,' said Paul gruffly; but Mrs. King thought he said so chiefly from dislike to be praised, and that there had been some principle as well as poverty to keep him away. 'It might be better if no one had it on a Sunday,' she could not help sighing out as she looked anxiously along the lane ere turning in, and then said, 'My good lad, I don't want to get you to be telling tales, but it would set my heart at rest, and his poor brother's up there, if you could tell me he is not gone to Briar Alley.' Paul turned up his face from the gate upon which he was leaning his elbows, and gazed for a moment at her sad, meek, anxious face, then exclaimed, 'I can't think how he could!' Poor Paul! was it not crossing him how impossible it would seem to do anything to vex one who so cared for him? 'Then he is gone,' she said mournfully. 'They were all at him,' said Paul; 'and he said he'd never seen what it was like. Please don't take on, Missus; he's right kind and good-hearted, and wanted to treat me.' 'I had rather he had hearkened to you, my boy,' said Mrs. King. 'I don't know why he should do that,' said Paul, perhaps meaning that a boy who heeded not such a mother would certainly heed no one else. 'But please, Missus,' he added, 'don't beat him, for you made me tell on him.' 'Beat him! no,' said Mrs. King, with a sad smile; 'he's too big a boy for me to manage that way. I can't do more than grieve if he lets himself be led away.' 'Then I'd like to beat him myself if he grieves you!' burst out Paul, doubling up his brown fist with indignation. 'But you won't,' said Mrs. King gently; 'I don't want to make a quarrel among you, and I hope you'll help to keep him out of bad ways, Paul. I look to you for it. Good-night.' Perhaps the darkness and her own warm feeling made her forget the condition of that hand; at any rate, as she said Good-night she took it in her own and shook it heartily, and then she went in. Paul did not say Good-night in answer; but when she had turned away, his head went down between his two crossed arms upon the top of the gate, and he did not move for many many minutes, except that his shoulders shook and shook again, for he was sobbing as he had never sobbed since Granny Moll died. If home and home love were not matters of course to you, you might guess what strange new fountains of feeling were stirred in the wild but not untaught boy, by that face, that voice, that touch. And Mrs. King, as she walked to her own door in the twilight, with bitter pain in her heart, could not help thinking of those from the highways and hedges who flocked to the feast set at naught by such as were bidden. A sad and mournful Sunday evening was that to the mother and daughter, as each sat over her Bible. Mrs. King would not talk to Ellen, for fear of awakening Alfred; not that low voices would have done so, but Ellen was already much upset by what she had heard and seen, and to talk it over would have brought on a fit of violent crying; so her mother thought it safest to say nothing. They would have read their Bible to one another, but each had her voice so choked with tears, that it would not do. That Alfred was sinking away into the grave, was no news to Mrs. King; but perhaps it had never been so plainly spoken to her before, and his own knowledge of it seemed to make it more sure; but broken-hearted as she felt, she had been learning to submit to this, and it might be better and safer for him, she thought, to be aware of his state, and more ready to do his best with the time left to him. That was not the freshest sorrow, or more truly a darker cloud had come over, namely, the feeling, so terrible to a good careful mother, that her son is breaking out of the courses to which she has endeavoured and prayed to bring him up--that he is casting off restraint, and running into evil that may be the beginning of ruin, and with no father's hand to hold him in. O Harold, had you but seen the thick tears dropping on the walnut table behind the arm that hid her face from Ellen, you would not have thought your fun worth them! That merry orchard was about three miles from Friarswood. It belonged to a man who kept a small public-house, and had a little farm, and a large garden, with several cherry trees, which in May were perfect gardens of blossoms, white as snow, and in August with small black fruit of the sort known as merries; and unhappily the fertile produce of these trees became a great temptation to the owner and to all the villagers around. As Sunday was the only day when people could be at leisure, he chose three Sundays when the cherries were ripe for throwing open his orchard to all who chose to come and buy and eat the fruit, and of course cakes and drink of various kinds were also sold. It was a solitary spot, out of the way of the police, or the selling in church-time would have been stopped; but as there may be cases of real distress, the law does not shut up all houses for selling food and drink on a Sunday, so others, where there is no necessity, take advantage of it; and so for miles round all the idle young people and children would call it a holiday to go away from their churches to eat cherries at Briar Alley, buying and selling on a Sunday, noisy and clamorous, and forgetting utterly that it was the Lord's Day, not their day of idle pleasure. It was a sad pity that an innocent feast of fruit should be almost out of reach, unless enjoyed in this manner. To be sure, merries might be bought any day of the week at Briar Alley, and were hawked up and down Friarswood so cheaply that any one might get a mouth as purple as the black spaniel's any day in the season; but that was nothing to the fun of going with numbers, and numbers never could go except on a Sunday. But if people wish to serve God truly, why, they must make up their minds to miss pleasures for His sake, and this was one to begin with; and I am much mistaken if the happiness of the week would not have turned out greater in the end with him. Ay, and as to the owner of the trees, who said he was a poor man, and could not afford to lose the profit, I believe that if he would have trusted God and kept His commandment, his profit in the long run would have been greater here, to say nothing of the peril to his own soul of doing wrong, and leading so many into temptation. The Kings had been bred up to think a Sunday going to the merry orchard a thing never to be done; and in his most idle days Alfred would never have dreamt of such a thing. Indeed, their good mother always managed to have some treat to make up for it when they were little; and they certainly never wanted for merries, nay, a merry pudding had been their dinner this very day, with savage-looking purple juice and scalding hot stones. If Harold went it was for the frolic, not for want of the dainty; and wrong as it was, his mother was grieving more at the thought of his casting away the restraint of his old habits than for the one action. One son going away into the unseen world, the other being led away from the paths of right--no wonder she wept as she tried to read! At last voices were coming, and very loud ones. The summer night was so still, they could be heard a great way--those rude coarse voices of village boys boasting and jeering one another. 'I say, wouldn't you like to be one of they chaps at Ragglesford School?' 'What lots they bought there on Saturday, to be sure!' 'Well they may: they've lots of tin!' 'Have they? How d'ye know?' 'Why, the money-letters! Don't I know the feel of them--directed to master this and master that, and with a seal and a card, and half a sovereign, or maybe a whole one, under it; and such lots as they gets before the holidays--that's to go home, you see.' 'Well, it's a shame such little impudent rogues should get so much without ever doing a stroke of work for it.' 'I say, Harold, don't ye never put one of they letters in your pocket?' 'For shame, Dick!' 'Ha! I shall know where to come when I wants half a sovereign or so!' 'No, you won't.' It was only these last two or three speeches that reached the cottage at all clearly; and they were followed by a sound as if Harold had fallen upon one of the others, and they were holding him off, with halloos and shouts of hoarse laughing, which broke Alfred's sleep, and his voice came down-stairs with a startled cry of 'Mother! Mother! what is that?' She ran up-stairs in haste, and Ellen threw the door open. The sudden display of the light silenced the noisy boys; and Harold came slowly up the garden-path, pretty certain of a scolding, and prepared to feel it as little as he could help. 'Well, Master, a nice sort of a way of spending a Sunday evening this!' began Ellen; 'and coming hollaing up the lane, just on purpose to wake poor Alfred, when he's so ill!' 'I'm sure I never meant to wake him.' 'Then what did you bring all that good-for-nothing set roaring and shouting up the road for? And just this evening, too, when one would have thought you would we have cared for poor Mother and Alfred,' said she, crying. 'Why, what's the matter now?' said Harold. 'Oh, they've been saying he can't live out the winter,' said Ellen, shedding the tears that had been kept back all this time, and broke out now with double force, in her grief for one brother and vexation with the other. But next winter seemed a great way off to Harold, and he was put out besides, so he did not seem shocked, especially as he was reproached with not feeling what he did not know; so all he did was to say angrily, 'And how was I to know that?' 'Of course you don't know anything, going scampering over the country with the worst lot you can find, away from church and all, not caring for anything! Poor Mother! she never thought one of her lads would come to that!' 'Plenty does so, without never such a fuss,' said Harold. 'Why, what harm is there in eating a few cherries?' There would be very little pleasure or use in knowing what a wrangling went on all the time Mrs. King was up-stairs putting Alfred to bed. Ellen had all the right on her side, but she did not use it wisely; she was very unhappy, and much displeased with Harold, and so she had it all out in a fretful manner that made him more cross and less feeling than was his nature. There was something he did feel, however--and that was his mother's pale, worn, sorrowful face, when she came down-stairs and hushed Ellen, but did not speak to him. They took down the books, read their chapter, and she read prayers very low, and not quite steadily. He would have liked very much to have told her he felt sorry, but he was too proud to do so after having shewn Ellen he was above caring for such nonsense. So they all went to bed, Harold on a little landing at the top of the stairs; but--whether it was from the pounds of merry-stones he had swallowed, or the talk he had had with his sister--he could not go to sleep, and lay tossing and tumbling about, thinking it very odd he had not heeded more what Ellen had said when he first came in, and the notion dawning on him more and more, that day after day would come and make Alfred worse, and that by the time summer came again he should be alone. Who could have said it? Why had not he asked? What could he have been thinking about? It should not be true! A sort of frenzy to speak to some one, and hear the real meaning of those words, so as to make sure they were only Ellen's nonsense, came over him in the silent darkness. Presently he heard Alfred moving on his pillow, for the door was open for the heat; and that long long sigh made him call in a whisper, 'Alf, are you awake?' In another moment Harold was by his brother's side. 'Alf! Alf! are you worse?' he asked, whispering. 'No.' 'Then what's all this? What did they say? It's all stuff; I'm sure it is, and you're getting better. But what did Ellen mean?' 'No, Harold,' said Alfred, getting his brother's hand in his, 'it's not stuff; I shan't get well; I'm going after poor Charlie; and don't you be a bad lad, Harold, and run away from your church, for you don't know--how bad it feels to--' and Alfred turned his face down, for the tears were coming thick. 'But you aren't going to die, Alf. Charlie never was like you, I know he wasn't; he was always coughing. It is all Ellen. Who said it? I won't let them.' 'The doctor said it to Betsey Hardman,' said Alfred; and his cough was only too like his brother's. Harold would have said a great deal in contempt of Betsey Hardman, but Alfred did not let him. 'You'll wake Mother,' he said. 'Hush, Harold, don't go stamping about; I can't bear it! No, I don't want any one to tell me now; I've been getting worse ever since I was taken, and--oh! be quiet, Harold.' 'I can't be quiet,' sobbed Harold, coming nearer to him. 'O Alf! I can't spare you! There hasn't been no proper downright fun without you, and--' Harold had lain down by him and clung to his hand, trying not to sob aloud. 'O Harold!' sighed Alfred, 'I don't think I should mind--at least not so much--if I hadn't been such a bad boy.' 'You, Alfy! Who was ever a good boy if you was not?' 'Hush! You forget all about when I was up at my Lady's, and all that. Oh! and how bad I behaved at church, and when I was so saucy to Master about the marbles; and so often I've not minded Mother. O Harold! and God judges one for everything!' What a sad terrified voice it was! 'Oh! don't go on so, Alf! I can't bear it! Why, we are but boys; and those things were so long ago! God will not be hard on little boys. He is merciful, don't you know?' 'But when I knew it was wrong, I did the worst I could!' said Alfred. 'Oh, if I could only begin all over again, now I do care! Only, Harold, Harold, you are well; you can be good now when there's time.' 'I'll be ever so good if you'll only get well,' said Harold. 'I wouldn't have gone to that there place to-night; but 'tis so terribly dull, and one must do something.' 'But in church-time, and on Sunday!' 'Well, I'll never do it again; but it was so sunshiny, and they were all making such fun, you see, and it did seem so stuffy, and so long and tiresome, I couldn't help it, you see.' Alfred did not think of asking how, if Harold could not help it this time, he could be sure of never doing so again. He was more inclined to dwell on himself, and went back to that one sentence, 'God judges us for everything.' Harold thought he meant it for him, and exclaimed, 'Yes, yes, I know, but--oh, Alf, you shouldn't frighten one so; I never meant no harm.' 'I wasn't thinking about that,' sighed Alfred. 'I was wishing I'd been a better lad; but I've been worse, and crosser, and more unkind, ever since I was ill. O Harold! what shall I do?' 'Don't go on that way,' said Harold, crying bitterly. 'Say your prayers, and maybe you will get well; and then in the morning I'll ask Mr. Cope to come down, and he'll tell you not to mind.' 'I wouldn't listen to Mr. Cope when he told me to be sorry for my sins; and oh, Harold, if we are not sorry, you know they will not be taken away.' 'Well, but you are sorry now.' 'I have heard tell that there are two ways of being sorry, and I don't know if mine is the right.' 'I tell you I'll fetch Mr. Cope in the morning; and when the doctor comes he'll be sure to say it is all a pack of stuff, and you need not be fretting yourself.' When Harold awoke in the morning, he found himself lying wrapped in his coverlet on Alfred's bed, and then he remembered all about it, and looked in haste, as though he expected to see some sudden and terrible change in his brother. But Alfred was looking cheerful, he had awakened without discomfort; and with some amusement, was watching the starts and movements, the grunts and groans, of Harold's waking. The morning air and the ordinary look of things, had driven away the gloomy thoughts of evening, and he chiefly thought of them as something strange and dreadful, and yet not quite a dream. 'Don't tell Mother,' whispered Harold, recollecting himself, and starting up quietly. 'But you'll fetch Mr. Cope,' said Alfred earnestly. Harold had begun not to like the notion of meeting Mr. Cope, lest he should hear something of yesterday's doings, and he did not like Alfred or himself to think of last night's alarm, so he said, 'Oh, very well, I'll see about it.' He had not made up his mind. Very likely, if chance had brought him face to face with Mr. Cope, he would have spoken about Alfred as the best way to hinder the Curate from reproving himself; but he had not that right sort of boldness which would have made him go to meet the reproof he so richly deserved, and he was trying to persuade himself either that when Alfred was amused and cheery, he would forget all about 'that there Betsey's nonsense,' or else that Mr. Cope might come that way of himself. But Alfred was not likely to forget. What he had heard hung on him through all the little occupations of the morning, and made him meek and gentle under them, and he was reckoning constantly upon Mr. Cope's coming, fastening on the notion as if he were able to save him. Still the Curate came not, and Alfred became grieved, feeling as if he was neglected. Mr. Blunt, however, came, and at any rate he would have it out with him; so he asked at once very straightforwardly, 'Am I going to die, Sir?' 'Why, what's put that in your head?' said the doctor. 'There was a person here talking last night, Sir,' said Mrs. King. 'Well, but am I?' said Alfred impatiently. 'Not just yet, I hope,' said Mr. Blunt cheerfully. 'You are weak, but you'll pick up again.' 'But of this?' persisted Alfred, who was not to be trifled with. Mr. Blunt saw he must be in earnest. 'My boy,' he said, 'I'm afraid it is not a thing to be got over. I'll do the best I can for you, by God's blessing; and if you get through the winter, and it is a mild spring, you might do; but you'd better settle your mind that you can't be many years for this world.' Many years! that sounded like a reprieve, and sent gladness into Ellen's heart; but somehow it did not seem in the same light to Alfred; he felt that if he were slowly going down hill and wasting away, so as to have no more health or strength in which to live differently from ever before, the length of time was not much to him, and in his sickly impatience he would almost have preferred that it should not be what Betsey kindly called 'a lingering job.' There he lay after Mr. Blunt was gone, not giving Ellen any trouble, except by the sad thoughtfulness of his face, as he lay dwelling on all that he wanted to say to Mr. Cope, and the terror of his sin and of judgment sweeping over him every now and then. Still Mr. Cope came not. Alfred at last began to wonder aloud, and asked if Harold had said anything about it when he came in to dinner; but he heard that Harold had only rushed in for a moment, snatched up a lump of bread and cheese, and made off to the river with some of the lads who meant to spend the noon-tide rest in bathing. When he came for the evening letters he was caught, and Mr. Cope was asked for; and then it came out that Harold had never given the message at all. Alfred, greatly hurt, and sadly worn by his day of expectation, had no self-restraint left, and flew out into a regular passion, calling his brother angry names. Harold, just as passionate, went into a rage too, and scolded his brother for his fancies. Mrs. King, in great displeasure, turned him out, and he rushed off to ride like one mad to Elbury; and poor Alfred remained so much shocked at his own outbreak, just when he meant to have been good ever after, and sobbing so miserably, that no one could calm him at all; and Ellen, as the only hope, put on her bonnet to fetch Mr. Cope. At that moment Paul was come for his bit of bread. She found him looking dismayed at the sounds of violent weeping from above, and he asked what it was. 'Oh, Alfred is so low and so bad, and he wants Mr. Cope! Here's your bread, don't keep me!' 'Let me go! I'll be quicker!' cried Paul; and before she could thank him, he was down the garden and right across the first field. Alfred had had time to cry himself exhausted, and to be lying very still, almost faint, before Mr. Cope came in in the summer twilight. Good Paul! He had found that Mr. Cope was dining at Ragglesford and had run all the way thither; and here was the kind young Curate, quite breathless with his haste, and never regretting the cheerful party whence he had been called away. All Alfred could say was, 'O Sir, I shall die; and I'm a bad boy, and wouldn't heed you when you said so.' 'And God has made you see your sins, my poor boy,' said Mr. Cope. 'That is a great blessing.' 'But if I can't do anything to make up for them, what's the use? And I never shall be well again.' 'You can't make up for them; but there is One Who has made up for them, if you will only truly repent.' 'I wasn't sorry till I knew I should die,' said Alfred. 'No, your sins did not come home to you! Now, do you know what they are?' 'Oh yes; I've been a bad boy to Mother, and at church; and I've been cross to Ellen, and quarrelled with Harold; and I was so audacious at my Lady's, they couldn't keep me. I never did want really to be good. Oh! I know I shall go to the bad place!' 'No, Alfred, not if you so repent, that you can hold to our Blessed Saviour's promise. There is a fountain open for sin and all uncleanness.' 'It is very good of Him,' said Alfred, a little more tranquilly, not in the half-sob in which he had before spoken. 'Most merciful!' said Mr. Cope. 'But does it mean me?' continued Alfred. 'You were baptized, Alfred, you have a right to all His promises of pardon.' And he repeated the blessed sentences: 'Come unto Me, all that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.' 'God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, to the end that all that believe in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.' 'But how ought I to believe, Sir?' 'You say you feel what your sins are; think of them all as you lie, each one as you remember it; say it out in your heart to our Saviour, and pray God to forgive it for His sake, and then think that it cost some of the pain He bore on the Cross, some of the drops of His agony in the Garden. Each sin of ours was indeed of that burden!' 'Oh, that will make them seem so bad!' 'Indeed it does; but how it will make you love Him, and feel thankful to Him, and anxious not to waste the sufferings borne for your sake, and glad, perhaps, that you are bearing some small thing yourself. But you are spent, and I had better not talk more now. Let me read you a few prayers to help you, and then I will leave you, and come again to-morrow.' How differently those Prayers and Psalms sounded to Alfred now that he had really a heart grieved and wearied with the burthen of sin! The point was to make his not a frightened heart, but a contrite heart. CHAPTER VII--HAROLD TAKES A WRONG TURN Mrs. King was very anxious about Alfred for many hours after this visit from the Curate, for he was continually crying, not violently, but the tears flowing quietly from his eyes as he lay, thinking. Sometimes it was the badness of the faults as he saw them now, looking so very different from what they did when they were committed in the carelessness of fun and high spirits, or viewed afterwards in the hardening light of self-justification. Now they did look so wantonly hard and rude--unkind to his sister, ruinous to Harold, regardless of his widowed mother, reckless of his God--that each one seemed to cut into him with a sense of its own badness, and he was quite as much grieved as afraid; he hated the fault, and hated himself for it. Indeed, he was growing less afraid, for the sorrow seemed to swallow that up; the grief at having offended One so loving was putting out the terror of being punished; or rather, when he thought that this illness was punishment, he was almost glad to have some of what he deserved; just as when he was a little boy, he really used to be happier afterwards for having been whipped and put in the corner, because that was like making it up. Though he knew very well that if he had ten thousand times worse than this to bear, it would not be making up for his faults, and he felt now that one of them had been his 'despising the chastening of the Lord.' And then the thought of what had made up for it would come: and though he had known of it all his life, and heeded it all too little, now that his heart was tender, and he had felt some of the horror and pain of sin, he took it all home now, and clung to it. He recollected the verses about that One kneeling--nay, falling on the ground, in the cold dewy night, with the chosen friends who could not watch with Him, and the agony and misery that every one in all the world deserved to feel, gathering on Him, Who had done no wrong, and making His brow stream with great drops of Blood. And the tortures, the shame, the slow Death--circumstance after circumstance came to his mind, and 'for me,' 'this fault of mine helped,' would rise with it, and the tears trickled down at the thought of the suffering and of the Love that had caused it to be undergone. Once he raised up his head, and saw through the window the deep dark-blue sky, and the stars, twinkling and sparkling away; that pale band of light, the Milky Way, which they say is made of countless stars too far off to be distinguished, and looking like a cloud, and on it the larger, brighter burnished stars, differing from one another in glory. He thought of some lines in a book Miss Jane once gave Ellen, which said of the stars: 'The Lord resigned them all to gain The bliss of pardoning thee.' And when he thought that it was the King of those stars Who was scourged and spit on, and for the sake of _his_ faults, the loving tears came again, and he turned to another hymn of Ellen's: 'Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee!' And going on with this, he fell into a more quiet sleep than he had had for many nights. Alfred had worked up his mind to a point where it could not long remain; and when he awoke in the morning, the common affairs of the day occupied him in a way that was not hurtful to him, as the one chief thought was ever present, only laid away for a time, and helping him when he might have been fretful or impatient. He was anxious for Mr. Cope, and grateful when he saw him coming early in the day. Mr. Cope did not, however, say anything very new. He chiefly wished to shew Alfred that he must not think all his struggle with sin over, and that he had nothing to do but to lie still and be pardoned. There was much more work, as he would find, when the present strong feeling should grow a little blunt; he would have to keep his will bent to bear what was sent by God, and to prove his repentance by curing himself of all his bad habits of peevishness and exacting; to learn, in fact, to take up his cross. Alfred feebly promised to try, and it did not seem so difficult just then. The days were becoming cooler, and he did not feel quite so ill; and though he did not know how much this helped him, it made it much easier to act on his good resolutions. Miss Selby came to see him, and was quite delighted to see him looking so much less uncomfortable and dismal. 'Why, Alfred,' said she, 'you must be much better.' Ellen looked mournful at this, and shook her head so that Miss Jane turned her bright face to her in alarm. 'No, Ma'am,' said Alfred. 'Dr. Blunt says I can never get over it.' 'And does that make you glad?' almost gasped Miss Jane. 'No, Ma'am,' said Alfred; 'but Mr. Cope has been talking to me, and made it all so--' He could not get out the words; and, besides, he saw Miss Jane's eyes winking very fast to check the tears, and Ellen's had begun to rain down fast. 'I didn't mean to be silly,' said little Jane, in rather a trembling voice; 'but I'm sorry--no--I'm glad you are happy and good, Alfred.' 'Not good, Miss Jane,' cried Alfred; 'I'm such a bad boy, but there are such good things as I never minded before--' 'Well then, I think you'll like what I've brought you,' said Jane eagerly. It was a little framed picture of our Blessed Lord on His Cross, all darkness round, and the Inscription above His Head; and Miss Jane had painted, in tall Old English red letters, under it the two words, 'For me.' Alfred looked at it as if indeed it would be a great comfort to him to be always reminded by the eye, of how 'He was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities.' He thanked Miss Jane with all his heart, and she and Ellen soon found a place to hang it up well in his sight. It was a pretty bright sight to see her insisting on holding the nail for it, and then playfully pretending to shrink and fancy that Ellen would hammer her fingers. Alfred could enjoy the sunshine of his sick-room again; and Ellen and his mother down-stairs told Miss Selby, with many tears, of the happy change that had come over him ever since he had resigned himself to give up hopes of life. Mrs. King looked so peaceful and thankful, that little Jane could hardly understand what it was that made her so much more at rest. Even Ellen, though her heart ached at the hope having gone out, and left a dark place where it had been, felt the great relief from hour to hour of not being fretted and snarled at for whatever she either did or left undone. Thanks and smiles were much pleasanter payment than groans, murmurs, and scoldings; and the brother and sister sometimes grew quite cheerful and merry together, as Alfred lay raised up to look over the hedge into the harvest-field across the meadow, where the reaper and his wife might be seen gathering the brown ears round, and cutting them with the sickle, and others going after to bind them into the glorious wheat sheaves that leant against each other in heaps of blessed promise of plenty. Paul tried reaping; but the first thing he did was to make a terrible cut in his hand, which the shuffler told him was for good luck! Some of the women in the field bound it up, but he was good for nothing after it except going after the cattle, and so he was likely to lose all the chance of earning himself any better clothes in harvest-time. Harold grumbled dreadfully that his mother could not spare him to go harvesting beyond their own tiny quarter of an acre of wheat. The post made it impossible for him to go out to work like the labourers; and besides, his mother did not think he had gained much good in hay-time, and wished to keep him from the boys. Very hard he thought it; and to hear him grumble, any one would have thought Mrs. King was a tyrant far worse than Farmer Shepherd, working the flesh off his bones, taking away the fun and the payment alike. The truth was, that the morning when Harold threw away from him the thought of his brother's danger, and broke all his promises to him in the selfish fear of a rebuke from the clergyman, had been one of the turning- points of his life, and a turning-point for the bad. It had been a hardening of his heart, just as it had begun to be touched, and a letting in of evil spirits instead of good ones. He became more than ever afraid of Mr. Cope, and shirked going near him so as to be spoken to; he cut Ellen off short if she said a word to him, and avoided being with Alfred, partly because it made him melancholy, partly because he was afraid of Alfred's again talking to him about the evil of his ways. In reality, his secret soul was wretched at the thought of losing his brother; but he tried to put the notion away from him, and to drown it in the noisiest jokes and most riotous sports he could meet with, keeping company with the wildest lads about the parish. That Dick Royston especially, whose honesty was doubtful, but who, being a clever fellow, was a sort of leader, was doing great harm by setting his face against the new parson, and laughing at the boys who went to him. Mrs. King was very unhappy. It was almost worse to think of Harold than of his sick brother; and Alfred grieved very much too, and took to himself the blame of having made home miserable to Harold, and driven him into bad company; of having been so peevish and unpleasant, that it was no wonder he would not come near him more than could be helped; and above all, of having set a bad example of idleness and recklessness, when he was well. If the tears were brought into his eyes at first by some unkind neglect of Harold's, they were sure to end in this thought at last; and then the only comfort was, that Mr. Cope had told him that he might make his sick-bed very precious to his brother's welfare, by praying always for him. Mr. Cope had talked it over with Mrs. King; and they had agreed that as Harold was under the regular age for Confirmation, and seemed so little disposed to prepare for it in earnest, they would not press it on him. He was far from fit for it, and he was in such a mood of impatient irreverence, that Mr. Cope was afraid of making his sin worse by forcing serious things on him, and his mother was in constant fear of losing her last hold on him. Yet Harold was not a bad or unfeeling boy by nature; and if he would but have paused to think, he would have been shocked to see how cruelly he was paining his widowed mother and dying brother, just when he should have been their strength and stay. One afternoon in October, when Alfred was in a good deal of pain, Mr. Blunt said he would send out some cooling ointment for the wound at the joint, when Harold took the evening letters into Elbury. Alfred reckoned much on the relief this was to give, and watched the ticks of the clock for the time for Harold to set off. 'Make haste,' were the last words his mother spoke--and Harold fully meant to make haste; nor was it weather to tempt him to stay long, for there was a chill raw fog hanging over the meadows, and fast turning into rain, which hung in drops upon his eyebrows, and the many-tiered cape of his father's box-coat, which he always wore in bad weather. It was fortunate he was likely to meet nothing, and that he and the pony both knew the road pretty well. How fuzzy the grey fog made the lamps of the town look! Did they disturb the pony? What a stumble! Ha! there's a shoe off. Be it known that it was Harold's own fault; he had not looked at the shoes for many a morning, as he knew it was his duty to do. He left Peggy with her ears back, much discomposed at being shod in a strange forge, and by any one but Bill Saunders. Then Harold was going to leave his bag at the post-office, when, as he turned up the street, some one caught hold of him, and cried, 'Ho! Harold King on foot! What's the row? Old pony tumbled down dead?' 'Cast a shoe,' said Harold. 'Oh, jolly, you'll have to wait!' went on Dick Royston. 'Come in here! Here's such a lark!' Harold looked into a court-yard belonging to a low public-house, and saw what was like a tent, with a bright red star on a blue ground at the end, lighted up. A dark figure came between, and there was a sudden crack that made Harold start. 'It's the unique (he called it eu-ni-quee) royal shooting-gallery, patronized by his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales,' (what a story!) said Dick. 'You've only to lay down your tin; one copper for three shots, and if you hit, you may take your choice--gingerbread-nuts, or bits of cocoa-nut, or, what's jolliest, lollies with gin inside 'em! Come, blaze away! or ha'n't you got the money? Does Mother keep you too short?' If there was a thing Harold had a longing for, it was to fire off a gun! If there was a person he envied more than another, it was old Isaac Coffin, when he prowled up and down Farmer Ledbitter's fields with an old blunderbuss and some powder, to keep off the birds! To be sure it was a public-house, but it was not inside one! And Mother would call it gambling. Oh, but it wasn't cards or skittles! And if he shot away his half-pence, how should he pay for the shoeing of the pony? The blacksmith might trust him, or the clerk at the post-office would lend him the money, or Betsey Hardman. And the time? One shot would not waste much! Pony must be shod. Besides, Dick and all the rest would say he was a baby. He paid the penny, threw aside his cap, and took the gun, though after all it was only a sham one, and what a miss he made! What business had every one to set up that great hoarse laugh? which made him so angry that he had nearly turned on Dick and cuffed him for his pains. However, he was the more bent on trying again, and the owner of the gallery shewed him how to manage better. He hit anything but the middle of the star, and just saw how he thought he might hit next time. Next time was barely a miss, so that the man actually gave him a gin-drop to encourage him. That made him mad to meet with real success; but it was the turn of another 'young gent,' as the man called him, and Harold had to stand by, with his penny in his hand, burning with impatience, and fancying he could mend each shot of that young gent, and another, and another, and another, who all thrust in to claim their rights before him. His turn came at last; and so short and straight was the gallery, that he really did hit once the side of the star, and once the middle, and thus gained one gingerbread-nut, and three of the gin-drops. It would have been his nature to share them with Alfred, but he could not do so without saying where he had been, and that he could not do, so he gave one to Dick, and swallowed the rest to keep out the cold. Just then the town clock struck six, and frightened him. He had been there three-quarters of an hour. What would they say at the post-office? The clerk looked out of his hole as angry as clerk could look. 'This won't do, King,' he said. 'Late for sorting! Fine, remember--near an hour after time.' 'Pony cast a shoe, Sir,' said Harold. He had never been so near a downright falsehood. 'Whew! Then I suppose I must not report you this time! But look out! You're getting slack.' No time this for borrowing of the clerk. Harold was really frightened, for he _had_ dawdled much more than he ought of late, and though he sometimes fancied himself sick of the whole post business, a complaint to his mother would be a dreadful matter. It put everything else out of his head; and he ran off in great haste to get the money from Betsey Hardman, knocking loud at her green door. What a cloud of steamy heat the room was, with the fire glowing like a red furnace, and five black irons standing up before it; and clothes-baskets full of heaps of whiteness, and horses with vapoury webs of lace and cambric hanging on them; and the three ironing-boards, where smoothness ran along with the irons; and the heaps of folded clothes; and Betsey in her white apron, broad and red in the midst of her maidens! 'Ha! Harold King! Well, to be sure, you are a stranger! Don't come nigh that there hoss; it's Mrs. Parnell's best pocket-handkerchiefs, real Walencines!' (she meant Valenciennes.) 'If you'll just run up and see Mother, I'll have it out of the way, and we'll have a cup of tea.' 'Thank you, but I--' 'My! What a smoke ye're in! Take care, or I shall have 'em all to do over again. Go up to Mother, do, like a good lad.' 'I can't, Betsey; I must go home.' 'Ay! that's the way. Lads never can sit down sensible and comfortable! it's all the same--' 'I wanted,' said Harold, interrupting her, 'to ask you to lend me sixpence. Pony's cast a shoe, and I had to leave her with the smith.' 'Ay? Who did you leave her with?' 'The first I came to, up in Wood Street.' 'Myers. Ye shouldn't have done that. His wife's the most stuck-up proud body I ever saw--wears steel petticoats, I'll answer for it. You should have gone to Charles Shaw.' 'Can't help it,' said Harold. 'Please, Betsey, let me have the sixpence; I'll pay you faithfully to-morrow!' 'Ay! that's always the way. Never come in unless ye want somewhat. 'Twasn't the way your poor father went on! He'd a civil word for every one. Well, and can't you stop a minute to say how your poor brother is?' 'Much the same,' said Harold impatiently. 'Yes, he'll never be no better, poor thing! All decliny; as I says to Mother, what a misfortune it is upon poor Cousin King! they'll all go off, one after t'other, just like innocents to the slaughter.' This was not a cheerful prediction; and Harold petulantly said he must get back, and begged for the sixpence. He got it at last, but not till all Betsey's pocket had been turned out; and finding nothing but shillings and threepenny-bits, she went all through her day's expenses aloud, calling all her girls to witness to help her to account for the sixpence that ought to have been there. Mrs. Brown had paid her four and sixpence--one florin and a half-crown--and she had three threepenny-pieces in her pocket, and twopence. Then Sally had been out and got a shilling's-worth of soap, and six-penn'orth of blue, and brought home one shilling; and there was the sausages--no one could recollect what they had cost, though they talked so much about their taste; and five-pence-worth of red-herrings, and the butter; yes, and threepence to the beggar who said he had been in Sebastopol. Harold's head was ready to turn round before it was all done; but he got away at last, with a scolding for not going up to see Mother. Home he trotted as hard as the pony would go, holding his head down to try to bury nose and mouth in his collar, and the thick rain plastering his hair, and streaming down the back of his neck. What an ill-used wretch was he, said he to himself, to have to rattle all over the country in such weather! Here was home at last. How comfortable looked the bright light, as the cottage door was thrown open at the sound of the horse's feet! 'Well, Harold!' cried Ellen eagerly, 'is anything the matter?' 'No,' he said, beginning to get sulky because he felt he was wrong; 'only Peggy lost a shoe--' 'Lame?' 'No, I took her to the smith.' 'Give me Alfred's ointment, please, before you put her up. He is in such a way about it, and we can't put him to bed--' 'Haven't got it.' 'Not got it! O Harold!' 'I should like to know how to be minding such things when pony loses a shoe, and such weather! I declare I'm as wet--!' said Harold angrily, as he saw his sister clasp her hands in distress, and the tears come in her eyes. 'Is Harold come safe?' called Mrs. King from above. 'Is the ointment come?' cried Alfred, in a piteous pain-worn voice. Harold stamped his foot, and bolted to the stable to put the pony away. 'It's not come,' said Ellen, coming up-stairs, very sadly. 'He has forgot it.' 'Forgot it!' cried Alfred, raising himself passionately. 'He always does forget everything! He don't care for me one farthing! I believe he wants me dead!' 'This is very bad of him! I didn't think he'd have done it,' said Mrs. King sorrowfully. 'He's been loitering after some mischief,' exclaimed Alfred. 'Taking his pleasure--and I must stay all this time in pain! Serve him right to send him back to Elbury.' Mrs. King had a great mind to have done so; but when she looked at the torrents of rain that streamed against the window, and thought how wet Harold must be already, and of the fatal illnesses that had been begun by being exposed to such weather, she was afraid to venture a boy with such a family constitution, and turning back to Alfred, she said, 'I am very sorry, Alfred, but it can't be helped; I can't send Harold out in the rain again, or we shall have him ill too.' Poor Alfred! it was no trifle to have suffered all day, and to be told the pain must go on all night. His patience and all his better thoughts were quite worn away, and he burst into tears of anger and cried out that it was very hard--his mother cared for Harold more than for him, and nobody minded it, if he lay in such pain all night. 'You know better than that, dear,' said his poor mother, sadly grieved, but bearing it meekly. 'Harold shall go as soon as can be to-morrow.' 'And what good will that be to-night?' grumbled Alfred. 'But you always did put Harold before me. However, I shall soon be dead and out of your way, that's all!' Mrs. King would not make any answer to this speech, knowing it only made him worse. She went down to see about Harold, an additional offence to Alfred, who muttered something about 'Mother and her darling.' 'How can you, Alfred, speak so to Mother?' cried Ellen. 'I'm sure every one is cross enough to me,' returned Alfred. 'Not Mother,' said Ellen. 'She couldn't help it.' 'She won't send Harold out again, though; I'm sure I'd have gone for him.' 'You don't know what the rain was,' said Ellen. 'Well, he should have minded; but you're all against me.' 'You'll be sorry by-and-by, Alfred; this isn't like the way you talk sometimes.' 'Some one else had need to be sorry, not me.' Perhaps, in the midst of his captious state, Alfred was somewhat pacified by hearing sounds below that made him certain that Harold was not escaping without some strong words from his mother. They were not properly taken. Harold was in no mood of repentance, and the consciousness that he had been behaving most unkindly, only made him more rough and self-justifying. 'I can't help it! I can't be a slave to run about everywhere, and remember everything--pony losing her shoe, and nigh tumbling down with me, and Ross at the post so cross for nothing!' 'You'll grieve at the way you have used your poor brother one of these days, Harold,' quietly answered his mother, so low, that Alfred could not hear through the floor. 'Now, you'll please to go to bed.' 'Ain't I to have no supper?' said Harold in a sullen voice, with a great mind to sit down in the chimney-corner in defiance. 'I shall give you something hot when you are in bed. If I treated you as you deserve, I should send you to Mr. Blunt's this moment; but I can't afford to have you ill too, so go to bed this moment.' His mother could still master him by her steadiness and he went up, muttering that he'd no notion of being treated like a baby, and that he would soon shew her the difference: he wasn't going to be made a slave to Alfred, and 'twas all a fuss about that stuff! He did fancy he said his prayers; but they could not have been real ones, for he was no softer when his mother came to his bedside with a great basin of hot gruel. He said he hated such nasty sick stuff, and grunted savagely when, with a look that ought to have gone to his heart, she asked if he thought he deserved anything better. Yet she did not know of the shooting gallery, nor of his false excuses. If he had not been deceiving her, perhaps he might have been touched. 'Well, Harold,' she said at last, after taking the empty basin from him, and picking up his wet clothes and boots to dry them by the fire, 'I hope as you lie there you'll come to a better mind. It makes me afraid for you, my boy. It is not only your brother you are sinning against, but if you are a bad boy, you know Who will be angry with you. Good-night.' She lingered, but Harold was still hard, and would neither own himself sorry, nor say good-night. When she passed his bed at the top of the stairs again, after hanging up the things by the fire, he had his head hidden, and either was, or feigned to be, asleep. Alfred's ill-temper was nearly gone, but he still thought himself grievously injured, and was at no pains to keep himself from groaning and moaning all the time he was being put to bed. In fact, he rather liked to make the most of it, to shew his mother how provoking she was, and to reproach Harold for his neglect. The latter purpose he did not effect; Harold heard every sound, and consoled himself by thinking what an intolerable work Alfred was making on purpose. If he had tried to bear it as well as possible, his brother would have been much more likely to be sorry. Alfred was thinking too much about his misfortunes and discomforts to attend to the evening reading, but it soothed him a little, and the pain was somewhat less, so he did fall asleep, so uneasily though, that Mrs. King put off going to bed as late as she could. It was nearly eleven, and Ellen had been in bed a long time, when Alfred started, and Mrs. King turned her head, at the click of the wicket gate, and a step plashing on the walk. She opened the little window, and the gust of wet wind puffed the curtains, whistled round the room, and almost blew out the candle. 'Who's there? 'It's me, Mrs. King! I've got the stuff,' called a hoarse tired voice. 'Well, if ever! It's Paul Blackthorn!' exclaimed Mrs. King. 'Thank ye kindly. I'll come and let you in.' 'Paul Blackthorn!' cried Alfred. 'Been all the way to Elbury for me! O Mother, bring him up, and let me thank him! But how ever did he know?' The tears came running down Alfred's cheeks at such kindness from a stranger. Mrs. King had hurried down-stairs, and at the threshold stood a watery figure, holding out the gallipot. 'Oh! thank you, thank you; but come in! Yes, come in! you must have something hot, and get dried.' Paul shambled in very foot-sore. He looked as if he were made of moist mud, and might be squeezed into any shape, and streams of rain were dropping from each of his many rags. 'Well, I don't know how to thank you--such a night! But he'll sleep easy now. How did you come to think of it?' 'I was just coming home from the parson's, and I met Harold putting up Peggy, in a great way because he'd forgotten. That's all, Missus,' said Paul, looking shamefaced. 'Good-night to you.' 'No, no, that won't do. I must have you sit down and get dry,' said Mrs. King, nursing up the remains of the fire; and as Paul's day-garments served him for night-gear likewise, he could hardly help accepting the invitation, and spreading his chilled hands to the fire. As to Mrs. King's feelings, it must be owned that, grateful as she was, it was rather like sitting opposite to the heap in the middle of Mr. Shepherd's farm-yard. 'Would you take that?' she said, holding out a three-penny piece. 'I'd make it twice as much if I could, but times are hard.' 'No, no, Missus, I didn't do it for that,' said Paul, putting it aside. 'Then you must have some supper, that I declare.' And she brought out a slice of cold bacon, and some bread, and warmed some beer at the fire. She would go without bacon and beer herself to- morrow, but that was nothing to her. It was a real pleasure to see the colour come into Paul's bony yellow cheeks at the hearty meal, which he could not refuse; but he did not speak much, for he was tired out, and the fire and the beer were making him very sleepy. Alfred rapped above with the stick that served as a bell. It was to beg that Paul would come and be thanked; and though Mrs. King was a little afraid of the experiment, she did ask him to walk up for a moment. Grunt went he, and in rather an unmannerly way, he said, 'I'd rather not.' 'Pray do,' said Mrs. King; 'I don't think Alfred will sleep easy without saying thank you.' So Paul complied, and in a most ungainly fashion clumped up-stairs and stood at the door. He had not forgotten his last reception, and would not come a step farther, though Alfred stretched out his hand and begged him to come in. Alfred could say only 'Thank you, I never thought any one would be so kind.' And Paul made gruff reply, 'Ye're very welcome,' turned about as if he were running away, and tumbled down-stairs, and out of the house, without even answering Mrs. King's 'Good-night.' Harold had wakened at the sounds. He heard all, but he chose to seem to be asleep, and, would you believe it? he was only the more provoked! Paul's exertion made his neglect seem all the worse, and he was positively angry with him for 'going and meddling, and poking his nose where he'd no concern. Now he shouldn't be able to get the stuff to-morrow, and so make it up; and of course mother would go and dock Paul's supper out of his dinner!' If such reflections were going on upon one side of the partition, there were very different thoughts upon the other. The stranger's kindness had done more than relieve Alfred's pain: the warm sense of thankfulness had softened his spirit, and carried off his selfish fit. He knew not how kind people were to him, and how ungrateful he had been to punish his innocent mother and sister, and so much to magnify a bit of thoughtlessness on Harold's part; to be angry with his mother for not driving him out when she thought it might endanger his health and life, and to say such cruel things on purpose to wound her. Alfred felt himself far more cruel than he had even thought Harold. And was this his resolution? Was this the shewing the sincerity of his repentance through his conduct in illness? Was this patience? Was it brotherly love? Was it the taking up the cross so as to bear it like his Saviour, Who spoke no word of complaining, no murmur against His tormentors? How he had fallen! How he had lost himself! It was a bitter distress, and threw him almost into despair. He prayed over and over to be forgiven, and began to long for some assurance of pardon, and for something to prevent all his right feelings and wishes from thus seeming to slip away from his grasp at the first trial. He told his mother how sorry he was; and she answered, 'Dear lad, don't fret about it. It was very hard for you to bear, and you are but learning, you see, to be patient.' 'But I'm not learning if I don't go on no better,' sighed Alfred. 'By bits you are, my boy,' she said; 'you are much less fractious now than you used to be, only you could not stand this out-of-the-way trial.' Alfred groaned. 'Do you remember what our Saviour said to St. Peter?' said his mother; '"Whither I go thou canst not follow Me now, but thou shalt follow Me afterwards." You see, St. Peter couldn't bear his cross then, but he went on doing his best, and grieving when he failed, and by-and-by he did bear it almost like his Master. He got to be made strong out of weakness.' There was some comfort to Alfred in this; but he feared, and yet longed, to see Mr. Cope, and when he came, had scarcely answered his questions as to how he felt, before he said, 'O Sir, I've been a bad boy again, and so cross to them all!' 'O Sir,' said Ellen, who could not bear for him to blame himself, 'I'm sure it was no wonder--he's so distracted with the pain, and Harold getting idling, and forgetting to bring him the ointment. Why, even that vagabond boy was so shocked, that he went all the way to Elbury that very night for it. I told Alfred you'd tell him that anybody would be put out, and nobody would think of minding what he said.' 'Nobody, especially so kind a sister,' said Mr. Cope, smiling; 'but that is not what Alfred is thinking of.' 'No, Sir,' said Alfred; 'their being so good to me makes it all the worse.' 'I quite believe so; and you are very much disappointed in yourself.' 'Oh yes, Sir, just when I wanted to be getting patient, and more like--' and his eyes turned to the little picture, and filled with tears. Mr. Cope said somewhat of what his mother had said that he was but a scholar in patience, and that he must take courage, though he had slipped, and pray for new strengthening and refreshing to go on in the path of pain his Lord had hallowed for him. Perhaps the words reminded Alfred of the part of the Catechism where they occur, for he said, 'Oh, I wish I was confirmed! If I could but take the Holy Sacrament, to make me stronger, and sure of being forgiven--' 'You shall--before--' said Mr. Cope, speaking eagerly, but becoming choked as he went on. 'You are one whom the Church would own as ready and desirous to come, though you cannot be confirmed. You should at once--but you see I am not yet a priest; I have not the power to administer the Holy Communion; but I trust I shall be one in the spring, and then, Alfred--Or if you should be worse, I promise you that I would bring some one here. You shall not go without the Bread of Life.' Alfred felt what he said to the depths of his heart, but he could not say anything but 'Thank you, Sir.' Mr. Cope, still much moved, laid his hand upon that of the boy. 'So, Alfred, we prepare together. As I hope and long to prepare myself to have that great charge committed to me, which our Saviour Christ gave to His Apostles; so you prepare for the receiving of that Bread and that Cup which will more fully unite you to Him, and join your suffering to what He bore for you.' 'How shall I, Sir?' murmured Alfred. 'I will do my best to shew you,' said Mr. Cope; 'but your Catechism tells you best. Think over that last answer.' Alfred's face lighted sweetly as he went over it. 'Why, that's what I can't help doing, Sir; I can't forget my faults, I'm so afraid of them; and I'm sure I do want to lead a new life, if I didn't keep on being so bad; and thinking about His dying is the best comfort I have. Nor I'm sure I don't bear ill-will to nobody, only I suppose it is not charity to run out at poor Mother and Ellen when one's put out.' 'Perhaps that is what you want to learn,' said Mr. Cope, 'and to get all these feelings deepened, and more earnest and steadfast. If the long waiting does that for you, it will be good, and keep you from coming lightly to the Holy Feast.' 'Oh, I could not do that!' exclaimed Alfred. 'And may I think that all my faults will be taken away and forgiven?' 'All you repent of, and bring in faith--' 'That is what they say at church in the Absolution,' said Alfred thoughtfully. 'Rather it is what the priest says to them,' said Mr. Cope; 'it is the applying the promise of forgiveness that our Saviour bought. I may not yet say those words with authority, Alfred, but I should like to hope that some day I may speak them to you, and bring rest from the weight at your heart.' 'Oh! I hope I may live to that!' said Alfred. 'You shall hear them, whether from me or from another,' said Mr. Cope, 'that is, if God will grant us warning. But you need not fear, Alfred, if you thoroughly repent, and put your full faith in the great Sacrifice that has been offered for your sins and the sins of all the world. God will take care of His child, and you already have His promise that He will give you all that is needful for your salvation.' CHAPTER VIII--CONFIRMATION If Harold had known all the consequences of his neglect, perhaps he would have been more sorry for it than as yet he had chosen to be. The long walk and the warm beer and fire sent Paul to his hay-nest so heavy with sleep, that he never stirred till next morning he was wakened by Tom Boldre, the shuffler, kicking him severely, and swearing at him for a lazy fellow, who stayed out at night and left him to do his work. Paul stumbled to his feet, quite confused by the pain, and feeling for his shoes in the dark loft. The shuffler scarcely gave him an instant to put them on, but hunted him down-stairs, telling him the farmer was there, and he would catch it. It would do nobody any good to hear the violent way in which Mr. Shepherd abused the boy. He was a passionate man, and no good labourers liked to work with him because of his tongue. With such grown men as he had, he was obliged to keep himself under some restraint, but this only incited him to make up for it towards the poor friendless boy. It was really nearly eight o'clock, and Paul's work had been neglected, which was enough to cause displeasure; and besides, Boldre had heard Paul coming home past eleven, and the farmer insisted on knowing what he had been doing. Under all his rags, Paul was a very proud boy, and thus asked, he would not tell, but stood with his legs twisted, looking very sulky. 'No use asking him,' cried Mrs. Shepherd's shrill voice at the back door; 'why, don't ye hear that Mrs. Barker's hen-roost has been robbed by Dick Royston and two or three more on 'em?' 'I never robbed!' cried Paul indignantly. 'None of your jaw,' said the farmer angrily. 'If you don't tell me this moment where you've been, off you go this instant. Drinking at the Tankard, I'll warrant.' 'No such thing, Sir,' said Paul. 'I went to Elbury after some medicine for a sick person.' Somehow he had a feeling about the house opposite, which would not let him come out with the name in such a scene. 'That's all stuff,' broke in Mrs. Shepherd, 'I don't believe one word of it! Send him off; take my advice, Farmer, let him go where he comes from; Ellen King told me he was out of prison.' Paul flushed crimson at this, and shook all over. He had all but turned to go, caring for nothing more at Friarswood; but just then, John Farden, one of the labourers, who was carrying out some manure, called out, 'No, no, Ma'am. Sure enough he did go to Elbury to Dr. Blunt's. I was on the road myself, and I hears him. "Good-night," says I. "Good-night," says he. "Where be'est going?" says I. "To doctor's," says he, "arter some stuff for Alfred King." 'Yes,' said Paul, speaking more to Farden than to his master, 'and then Mrs. King gave me some supper, and that was what made me so late.' 'She ought to be ashamed of herself, then,' said Mrs. Shepherd spitefully, 'having a vagabond scamp like that drinking beer at her house at that time of night. How one is deceived in folks!' 'Well, what are you doing here?' cried the farmer, turning on Paul angrily; 'd'ye mean to waste any more of the day?' So Paul was not turned off, and had to go straight to his work. It was well he had had so good a supper, for he had not a moment to snatch a bit of breakfast. It so happened that his work was to go with John Farden, who was carrying out the manure in the cart. Paul had to hold the horse, while John forked it out into little heaps in the field. John was a great big powerful man, with a foolish face, not a good workman, nor a good character, or he would not have been at that farm. He had either never been taught anything, or had forgotten it all; he never went near church; he had married a disreputable wife, and had two or three unruly children, who were likely to be the plagues of their parents and the parish, but not a whit did John heed; he did not seem to have much more sense than to work just enough to get food, lodging, beer, and tobacco, to sleep all night, and doze all Sunday. There was not any malice nor dishonesty in him; but it was terrible that a man with an immortal soul should live so nearly the life of the brute beasts that have no understanding, and should never wake to the sense of God or of eternity. He was not a man of many words, and nothing passed for a long time but shouts of hoy, and whoa, and the like, to the horse. Paul went heavily on, scarce knowing what he was about; there was a stunned jaded feel about him, as if he were hunted and driven about, a mere outcast, despised by every one, even by the Kings, whose kindness had been his only ray of brightness. Not that his senses or spirits were alive enough even to be conscious of pain or vexation; it was only a dull dreary heedlessness what became of him next; and, quick clever boy as he had been in the Union, he did not seem to have a bit more sense, thought, or feeling, than John Farden. John Farden was the first to break the silence: 'I wouldn't bide,' said he. Paul looked up, and muttered, 'I have nowhere to go.' 'Farmer uses thee shameful,' repeated John. 'Why don't thee cut?' Paul saw the smoke of Mrs. King's chimney. That had always seemed like a friend to him, but it came across him that they too thought him a runaway from prison, and he felt as if his only bond of fellowship was gone. But there was something else, too; and he made answer, 'I'll bide for the Confirmation.' 'Eh?' said John, 'what good'll that do ye?' 'Help me to be a good lad,' said Paul, who knew John Farden would not enter into any other explanation. 'Why, what'll they do to ye?' 'The Bishop will put his hand on me and bless me,' said Paul; and as he said the words there was hope and refreshment coming back. He was a child of God, if no other owned him. 'Whoy,' said Farden, much as he might have spoken to his horse, 'rum sort of a head thou'st got! Thee'll never go up to Bishop such a guy!' 'Can't help it,' said Paul rather sullenly; 'it ain't the clothes that God looks at.' John scanned him all over, with his face looking more foolish than ever in the puzzle he felt. 'Well,' he said, 'and what wilt get by it?' 'God's grace to do right, I hope,' said Paul; then he added, out of his sad heart, 'It's bad enough here, to be sure. It would be a bad look-out if one hoped for nothing afterwards.' Somehow John's mind didn't take in the notion of afterwards, and he did not go on talking to Paul. Perhaps there was a dread in his poor dull mind of getting frightened out of the deadly stupefied sleep it was bound in. But that bit of talk had done Paul great good, by rousing him to the thought of what he had to hope for. There was the Confirmation nigh at hand, and then on beyond there was rest; and the words came into his mind, 'There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are at rest.' Poor, poor boy! He was very young to have such yearnings towards the grave, and well-nigh to wish he lay as near to it as Alfred King, so he might have those loving tender hands near him, those kind voices round him. Paul had gone through a great deal in these few months; and, used to good shelter and regular meals, he was less inured to bodily hardship than many a cottage boy. His utter neglect of his person was telling on him; he was less healthy and strong than he had been, and though high spirits, merriment, and the pleasure of freedom and independence, had made all light to him in the summer, yet now the cold weather, with his insufficient food and scanty clothing, was dulling him and deadening him, and hard work and unkind usage seemed to be grinding his very senses down. To be sure, when twelve o'clock came, he went up into the loft, ate his bit of dry bread, and said his prayers, as he had not been able to do in the morning, and that made him feel less forlorn and downcast for a little while; but then as he sat, he grew cold, and numb, and sleepy, and seemed to have no life in him, but to be moving like a horse in a mill, when Boldre called him down, and told him not to be idling there. The theft in Mrs. Barker's poultry-yard was never traced home to any one, but the world did not the less believe Dick Royston and Jesse Rolt to have been concerned in it. Indeed, they had been drinking up some of their gains when Harold met them at the shooting-gallery: and Mrs. Shepherd would not put it out of her head that Paul Blackthorn was in the secret, and that if he did really go for the medicine as he said, it was only as an excuse for carrying the chickens to some receiver of stolen goods. She had no notion of any person doing anything out of pure love and pity. Moreover, it is much easier to put a suspicion into people's heads than out again; and if Paul's whole history and each day's doings had been proved to her in a court of justice, she would still have chiefly remembered that she had always thought ill of him, and that Ellen King had said he was a runaway convict, and so she would have believed him to the end. Ellen had long ago forgotten that she had said anything of the kind; and though she still held her nose rather high when Paul was near, she would have answered for his honesty as readily as for that of her own brothers. But hers had not been the charity that thinketh no evil, and her idle words had been like thistle-down, lightly sent forth, but when they had lighted, bearing thorns and prickles. Those thorns were galling poor Paul. Nobody could guess what his glimpses of that happy, peaceful, loving family were to him. They seemed to him like a softer, better kind of world, and he looked at their fair faces and fresh, well-ordered garments with a sort of reverence; a kind look or greeting from Mrs. King, a mere civil answer from Ellen, those two sights of the white spirit-looking Alfred, were like the rays of light that shone into his dark hay-loft. Sometimes he heard them singing their hymns and psalms on a Sunday evening, and then the tears would come into his eyes as he leant over the gate to listen. And, as if it was because Ellen kept at the greatest distance from him, he set more store by her words and looks than those of any one else, was always glad when she served him in the shop, and used to watch her on Sunday, looking as fresh as a flower in her neat plain dress. And now to hear that she not only thought meanly of him, which he knew well enough, but thought him a thief, a runaway, and an impostor coming about with false tales, was like a weight upon his sunken spirits, and seemed to take away all the little heart hard usage had left him, made him feel as if suspicious eyes were on him whenever he went for his bit of bread, and took away all his peace in looking at the cottage. He did once take courage to say to Harold, 'Did your sister really say I had run away from gaol?' 'Oh, nobody minds what our Ellen says,' was the answer. 'But did she say so?' 'I don't know, I dare say she did. She's so fine, that she thinks no one that comes up-stairs in dirty shoes worth speaking to. I'm sure she's the plague of my life--always at me.' That was not much comfort for Paul. He had other friends, to be sure. All the boys in the place liked him, and were very angry with the way the farmer treated him, and greatly to their credit, they admired his superior learning instead of being jealous of it. Mrs. Hayward, the sexton's wife, the same who had bound up his hand when he cut it at harvest, even asked him to come in and help her boys in the evenings with what they had to prepare for Mr. Cope. He was not sorry to do so sometimes. The cottage was a slatternly sort of place, where he did not feel ashamed of himself, and the Haywards were mild good sort of folks, from whom he was sure never to hear either a bad or an unkind word; though he did not care for them, nor feel refreshed and helped by being with them as he did with the Kings. John Farden, too, was good-natured to him, and once or twice hindered Boldre from striking or abusing him; he offered him a pipe once, but Paul could not smoke, and another time brought him out a pint of beer into the field. Mrs. Shepherd spied him drinking it from her upper window, and believed all the more that he got money somehow, and spent it in drink. So the time wore on till the Confirmation, all seeming like one dull heavy dream of bondage; and as the weather became colder, the poor boy seemed to have no power of thinking of anything, but of so getting through his work as to avoid violence, to keep himself from perishing with cold, and not to hurt his chilblains more than he could help. All his quick intellect and good instruction seemed to have perished away, and the last time he went to Mr. Cope's, he sat as if he were stupid or asleep, and when a question came to him, sat with his mouth open like silly Bill Pridden. Mr. Cope knew him too well not to feel, as he wrote the ticket, that there were very few of whom he could so entirely from his heart say 'Examined and APPROVED,' as the poor lonely outcast foundling, Paul Blackthorn, who could not even tell whether he were fifteen, sixteen, or seventeen, but could just make sure that he had once been caned by old Mr. Haynes, who went away from the Union twelve years ago. 'Do you think you can keep the ticket safe if I give it you now, Paul?' asked Mr. Cope, recollecting that the cows might sup upon it like his Prayer-book. Paul put his hands down to the bottom of his pockets. They were all one hole, and that sad lost foolish look came over his wan face again, and startled Mr. Cope. The boys grinned, but Charles Hayward stepped forward. 'Please, Sir, let me take care of it for him.' Mr. Cope and Paul both agreed, and Mr. Cope kept Charles for a moment to say, as he gave him a shilling, 'Look here, Charles, do you think you can manage to get that poor fellow a tolerable breakfast on Saturday before he goes? And if you could make him look a little more decent?' Charles pulled his forelock and looked knowing. In fact, there was a little plot among these good-natured boys, and Harold King was in it too, though he was not of the Confirmation party, and said and thought he was very glad of it. He did not want to bind himself to be so very good. Silly boy; as if Baptism had not bound him already! Mrs. Hayward put her head out as Paul passed her cottage, and called out, 'I say, you Paul, you come in to-morrow evening with our Charlie and Jim, and I'll wash you when I washes them.' Good Mrs. Hayward made a mistake that the more delicate-minded Mrs. King would never have made. Perhaps if a pail of warm water and some soap had been set before Paul, he might actually have washed himself; but he was much too big and too shamefaced a lad to fancy sharing a family scrubbing by a woman, whatever she might do to her own sons. But considering the size of the Hayward cottage, and the way in which the family lived, this sort of notion was not likely to come into the head of the good-natured mother. So she and her boys were much vexed when Paul did not make his appearance, and she made a face of great disgust when Charles said, 'Never mind, Mother, my white frock will hide no end of dirt.' 'I shall have to wash it over again before you can wear it, I know,' said Mrs. Hayward. 'Not as I grudges the trouble; he's a poor lost orphant, that it's a shame to see so treated.' Mrs. Hayward did not know that she was bestowing the cup of cold water, as well as being literally ready to wash the feet of the poor disciple. A clean body is a type and token of a pure mind; and though the lads of Friarswood did not quite perceive this, there was a feeling about them of there being something unnatural and improper, and a disgrace to Friarswood, in any one going up to the Bishop in such a condition as Paul. Especially, as Charles Hayward said, when he was the pick of the whole lot. Perhaps Charles was right, for surely Paul was single-hearted in his hope of walking straight to his one home, Heaven, and he had been doing no other than bearing his cross, when he so patiently took the being 'buffeted' when he did well, and faithfully served his froward master. But Paul was not to escape the outward cleansing, and from one of the very last people from whom it would have been expected. He had just pulled his bed of hay down over him, and was trying to curl himself up so as to stop his teeth from chattering, with Caesar on his feet, when the dog growled, and a great voice lowered to a gruff whisper, said, 'Come along, young un!' 'I'm coming,' cried Paul. Though it was not Boldre's voice, it had startled him terribly; he was so much used to ill-treatment, that he expected a savage blow every moment. But the great hand that closed on him, though rough, was not unkind. 'Poor lad, how he quakes!' said John Farden's voice. 'Don't ye be afeard, it's only me.' 'Nobody got at the horses?' cried Paul. 'No, no; only I ain't going to have you going up to yon big parson all one muck-heap! Come on, and make no noise about it.' Paul did not very well know what was going to befall him, but he did not feel unsafe with John Farden, and besides, his lank frame was in the grasp of that big hand like a mouse in the power of a mastiff. So he let himself be hauled down the ladder, into an empty stall, where, behold, there was a dark lantern (which had been at bad work in its time), a pail, a brush, a bit of soap, and a ragged towel. John laid hold of him much as Alfred in his page days used to do of Lady Jane's little dog when it had to be washed, but Puck had the advantage in keeping on his shaggy coat all the time, and in being more gently handled, whereas Farden scrubbed with such hearty good-will, that Paul thought his very skin would come off. But he had undergone the like in the workhouse, and he knew how to accommodate himself to it; and when his rough bath was over, though he was very sore, and stiff, and chilly, he really felt relieved, and more respectable than he had done for many months, only rather sorry he must put on his filthy old rags again; and he gave honest John more thanks than might have been expected. The Confirmation was to be at eleven o'clock, at Elbury, and John had undertaken his morning's work, so that Mr. Shepherd grudgingly consented to spare him, knowing that all the other farmers of course did the same, and that there would be a cry of shame if he did not. Paul had just found his way down the ladder in the morning, with thoughts going through his mind that to him this would be the coming of the Comforter, and he was sure he wanted comfort; and that for some hours of this day at least, he should be at peace from rude words and blows, when he heard a great confusion of merry voices and suppressed laughing, and saw the heads of some of the lads bobbing about near Mrs. King's garden. Was it time already to set off, he wondered, looking up to the sun; but then those boys seemed to be in an uproarious state such as did not suit his present mood, nor did he think Mr. Cope would consider it befitting. He would have let them go by, feeling himself such a scare-crow as they might think a blot upon them; but he remembered that Charles Hayward had his ticket, and as he looked at himself, he doubted whether he should be let into a strange church. 'Paul! Paul Blackthorn!' called Harold, with a voice all aglee. 'Well!' said Paul, 'what do you want of me?' 'Come on, and you'll see.' 'I don't want a row. Is Charlie Hayward there? Just ask him for my card, and don't make a work.' 'He'll give it you if you'll come for it,' said Harold; and seeing there was no other chance, Paul slowly came. Harold led him to the stable, where just within the door stood a knot of stout hearty boys, snorting with fun, hiding their heads on each other's shoulders, and bending their buskined knees with merriment. 'Now then!' cried Charles Hayward, and he had got hold of the only button that held Paul's coat together. Paul was bursting out with something, but George Grant's arms were round his waist, and his hands were fumbling at his fastenings. They were each one much stronger than he was now, and they drowned his voice with shouts of laughter, while as fast as one garment was pulled off, another was put on. 'Mind, you needn't make such a work, it bain't presents,' said George Grant, 'only we won't have them asking up at Elbury if we've saved the guy to bring in.' 'It is a present, though, old Betty Bushel's shirt,' said Charles Hayward. 'She said she'd throw it at his head if he brought it back again; but the frock's mine.' 'And the corduroys is mine,' said George Grant. 'My! they be a sight too big in the band! Run in, Harold, and see if your mother can lend us a pin.' 'And the waistcoat is my summer one,' said Fred Bunting. 'He's too big too; why, Paul, you're no better than a natomy!' 'Never mind, my white frock will hide it all,' said Charles, 'and here's Ned's cap for you. Oh! and it's poor Alfred's boots.' Paul could not make up his mind to walk all the way in the boots, but to satisfy the boys he engaged to put them on as soon as they were getting to Elbury. 'My! he looks quite respectable,' cried Charles, running back a little way to look at him. 'I wonder if Mr. Cope will know him?' exclaimed Harold, jumping leap-frog fashion on George Grant's back. 'The maids will take him for some strange gentleman,' exclaimed Jem Hayward; 'and why, bless me, he's washed, I do declare!' as a streak of light from the door fell on Paul's visage. 'No, you don't mean it,' broke out Charles. 'Let's look! yes, I protest, why, the old grime between his eyes is gone after all. How did you manage that, Paul?' Paul rather uneasily mumbled something about John Farden, and the boys clapped their hands, and shouted, so that Alfred, who well knew what was going on, raised himself on his pillow and laughed. It was rather blunt treatment for feelings if they were tender, but these were rough warm- hearted village boys, and it was all their good-nature. 'And where's the grub?' asked Charles importantly, looking about. 'Oh, not far off,' said Harold; and in another moment, he and Charles had brought in a black coffee-pot, a large mug, some brown sugar, a hunch of bread, some butter, and a great big smoking sausage. Paul looked at it, as if he were not quite sure what to do with it. One boy proceeded to turn in an inordinate quantity of sugar, another to pour in the brown coffee that sent out a refreshing steam enough to make any one hungry. George Grant spread the butter, cut the sausage in half, put it on the bread, and thrust it towards Paul. 'Eat it--s--s,' said Charles, patting Paul on the back. 'Mr. Cope said you was to, and you must obey your minister.' 'Not all for me?' said Paul, not able to help a pull at the coffee, the mug warming his fingers the while. 'Oh yes, we've all had our breakfastisses,' said George Grant; 'we are only come to make you eat yours like a good boy, as Mr. Cope said you should.' They stood round, looking rather as they would have done had Paul been an elephant taking his meal in a show; but not one would hear of helping him off with a crumb out of Mr. Cope's shilling. George Grant was a big hungry lad, and his breakfast among nine at home had not been much to speak of; but savoury as was the sausage, and perfumy as was the coffee, he would have scorned to take a fragment from that stranger, beg him to do so as Paul might; and what could not be eaten at that time, with a good pint of the coffee, was put aside in a safe nook in the stable to be warmed up for supper. That morning's work was not a bad preparation for Confirmation after all. Harold had stayed so long, that he had to jump on the pony and ride his fastest to be in time at the post. He was very little ashamed of not being among those lads, and felt as if he had the more time to enjoy himself; but there were those who felt very sad for him--Alfred, who would have given so much to receive the blessing; and Ellen, whose confirmation was very lonely and melancholy without either of her brothers; besides his mother, to whom his sad carelessness was such constant grief and heart-ache. Ellen was called for by the carriage from the Grange, and sat up behind with the kitchen-maid, who was likewise to be confirmed. Little Miss Jane sat inside in her white dress and veil, looking like a snowdrop, Alfred thought, as his mother lifted him up to the window to see her, as the carriage stood still while Ellen climbed to her seat. In the course of the morning, Mrs. King made time to read over the Confirmation Service with Alfred, to think of the blessing she was receiving, and to pray that it might rest upon her through life. And they entreated, too, that Harold might learn to care for it, and be brought to a better mind. 'O Mother,' said Alfred, after lying thinking for sometime, 'if I thought Harold would take up for good and be a better boy to you than I have been, I should not mind anything so much.' And there was Harold all the time wondering whether he should be able to get out in the evening to have a lark with Dick and Jesse. Ellen was set down by-and-by. Her colour was very deep, but she looked gentle and happy, and the first thing she did was to bend over Alfred, kiss him, and say how she wished he had been there. Then, when she had been into her own room, she came back and told them about the beautiful large Elbury Church, and the great numbers of young girls and boys on the two sides of the aisle, and of the Bishop seated in the chair by the altar, and the chanted service, with the organ sounding so beautiful. And then how her heart had beat, and she hardly dared to speak her vow, and how she trembled when her turn came to go up to the rail, but she said it was so comfortable to see Mr. Cope in his surplice, looking so young among the other clergymen, and coming a little forward, as if to count out and encourage his own flock. She was less frightened when she had met his kind eye, and was able to kneel down with a more quiet mind to receive the gift which had come down on the Day of Pentecost. Alfred wanted to know whether she had seen Paul, but Ellen had been kneeling down and not thinking of other people, when the Friarswood boys went up. Only she had passed him on the way home, and seen that though he was lagging the last of the boys, he did not look dull and worn, as he had been doing lately. Ellen had been asked to go to the Grange after church to-morrow evening, and drink tea there, in celebration of the Confirmation which the two young foster-sisters had shared. Harold went to fetch her home at night, and they both came into the house fresh and glowing with the brisk frosty air, and also with what they had to tell. 'O mother, what do you think? Paul Blackthorn is to go to the Grange to- morrow. My Lady wants to see him, and perhaps she will make Mr. Pound find some work for him about the farm.' Harold jumped up and snapped his fingers towards the farm. 'There's for old Skinflint!' said he; 'not a chap in the place but will halloo for joy!' 'Well, I am glad!' said Mrs. King; 'I didn't think that poor lad would have held out much longer, winter weather and all. But how did my Lady come to hear of it?' 'Oh, it seems she noticed him going to church in all his rags, and Mr. Cope told her who he was; so Miss Jane came and asked me all about him, and I told her what a fine scholar he is, and how shamefully the farmer and Boldre treat him, and how good he was to Alfred about the ointment, and how steady he is. And I told her about the boys dressing him up yesterday, and how he wouldn't take a gift. She listened just as if it was a story, and she ran away to her grandmamma, and presently came back to say that the boy was to come up to-morrow after his work, for Lady Jane to speak to him.' 'Well, at least, he has been washed once,' said Mrs. King; 'but he's so queer; I hope he will have no fancies, and will behave himself.' 'I'll tackle him,' declared Harold decidedly. 'I've a great mind to go out this moment and tell him.' Mrs. King prevented this; she persuaded Harold that Mrs. Shepherd would fly out at them if she heard any noise in the yard, and that it would be better for every one to let Paul alone till the morning. Morning came, and as soon as Harold was dressed, he rushed to the farm- yard, but he could not find Paul anywhere, and concluded that he had been sent out with the cows, and would be back by breakfast-time. As soon as he had brought home the post-bag, he dashed across the road again, but came back in a few moments, looking beside himself. 'He's gone!' he said, and threw himself back in a chair. 'Gone!' cried Mrs. King and Ellen with one voice, quite aghast. 'Gone!' repeated Harold. 'The farmer hunted him off this morning! Missus will have it that he's been stealing her eggs, and that there was a lantern in the stable on Friday night; so they told him to be off with him, and he's gone!' 'Poor, poor boy! just when my Lady would have been the making of him!' cried Ellen. 'But where--which way is he gone?' asked Mrs. King. 'I might ride after him, and overtake him,' cried Harold, starting up, 'but I never thought to ask! And Mrs. Shepherd was ready to pitch into me, so I got away as soon as I could. Do you run over and ask, Ellen; you always were a favourite.' They were in such an eager state, that Ellen at once sprang up, and hastily throwing on her bonnet, ran across the road, and tapped at Mrs. Shepherd's open door, exclaiming breathlessly, 'O Ma'am, I beg your pardon, but will you tell me where Paul Blackthorn is gone?' 'Paul Blackthorn! how should I know?' said Mrs. Shepherd crossly. 'I'm not to be looking after thieves and vagabonds. He's a come-by-chance, and he's a go-by-chance, and a good riddance too!' 'Oh but, Ma'am, my Lady wanted to speak to him.' This only made Mrs. Shepherd the more set against the poor boy. 'Ay, ay, I know--coming over the gentry; and a good thing he's gone!' said she. 'The place isn't to be harbouring thieves and vagrants, or who's to pay the rates? My eggs are gone, I tell you, and who should take 'em but that lad, I'd like to know?' 'Them was two rotten nest-eggs as I throwed away when I was cleaning the stable.' 'Who told you to put in your word, John Farden?' screamed Mrs. Shepherd, turning on him. 'Ye'd best mind what ye're about, or ye'll be after him soon.' 'No loss neither,' muttered John, stopping to pick up his shovel. 'And you didn't see which way he was gone?' asked Ellen, looking from the labourer to the farmer's wife. 'Farmer sent un off or ever I come,' replied John, 'or I'd ha' gied un a breakfast.' 'I'm sure I can't tell,' said Mrs. Shepherd, with a toss of her head. 'And as to you, Ellen King, I'm surprised at you, running after a scamp like that, that you told me yourself was out of a prison.' 'Oh but, Mrs. Shepherd--' 'You ought to be ashamed of yourself,' interrupted Mrs. Shepherd; 'and I wonder your mother allows it. But there's nothing like girls now-a-days.' Ellen thought John Farden grinned; and feeling as if nothing so shocking could ever happen to her again, she flew back, she hardly knew how, to her home, clapped the door after, and dropping into a chair as Harold had done, burst into such a fit of crying, that she could not speak, and only shook her head in answer to Harold's questions as to how Paul was gone. 'Oh, no one knew!' she choked out among her sobs; 'and Mrs. Shepherd--such things!' Harold stamped his foot, and Mrs. King tried to soothe her. In the midst, she recollected that she could not bear her brothers to guess at the worst part of the 'such things;' and recovering herself a moment, she said, 'No, no, they've driven him off! He's gone, and--and, oh! Mother, Mrs. Shepherd will have it he's a thief, and--and she says I said so.' That was bad enough, and Ellen wept bitterly again; while her mother and Harold both cried out with surprise. 'Yes--but--I did say I dare said he was out of a reformatory--and that she should remember it! Now I've taken away his character, and he's a poor lost boy!' Oh, idle words! idle words! CHAPTER IX--ROBBING THE MAIL There was no helping it! People must have their letters whether Paul Blackthorn were lost or not, and Harold was a servant of the public, and must do his duty, so after some exhortations from his mother, he ruefully rose up, hoping that he should not have to go to Ragglesford. 'Yes, you will,' said his mother, 'and maybe to wait. Here's a registered letter, and I think there are two more with money in them.' 'To think,' sighed Harold, as he mounted his pony, 'of them little chaps getting more money for nothing, than Paul did in a month by working the skin off his bones!' 'Don't be discontented, Harold, on that score. Them little chaps will work hard enough by-and-by: and the money they have now is to train them in making a fit use of it then.' Harold looked anxiously up and down the road for Paul, and asked Mr. Cope's housekeeper whether he had been there to take leave. No; and indeed Harold would have been a little vexed if he had wished good-bye anywhere if not at home. There was a fine white frost, and the rime hung thickly on every spray of the heavy branches of the dark firs and larches that overhung the long solitary lane between the Grange and Ragglesford, and fringed the park palings with crystals. Harold thought how cold poor Paul must be going on his way in his ragged clothes. The ice crackled under the pony's feet as she trotted down Ragglesford Lane, and the water of the ford looked so cold, that Peggy, a very wise animal, turned her head towards the foot- bridge, a narrow and not very sound affair, over which Harold had sometimes taken her when the stream was high, and threatened to be over his feet. Harold made no objection; but no sooner were all the pony's four hoofs well upon the bridge, than at the other end appeared Dick Royston. 'Hollo, Har'ld!' was his greeting, 'I've got somewhat to say to ye.' 'D'ye know where Paul Blackthorn is?' asked Harold. 'Not I--I'm a traveller myself, you must know.' 'You, going to cut?' cried Harold. 'Ay,' said Dick, laying hold of the pony's rein. 'The police have been down at Rolt's--stupid fellow left old gander's feet about--Mrs. Barker swore to 'em 'cause he'd had so many kicks and bites on common--Jesse's took up and peached--I've been hiding about all night--precious cold it was, and just waiting, you see, to wish you good-bye.' Harold, very much shocked, could have dispensed with his farewells, nor did he like the look of his eyes. 'Thank you, Dick; I'm sorry--I didn't think--but I'm after time--I wish you'd let go of Peggy.' 'So that's all you have to say to an old comrade!' said Dick; 'but, I say, Har'ld, I'm not going so. I must have some tin to take me to Portsmouth. I want to know what you've got in that there bag!' 'You won't have that; it's the post. Let go, Dick;' and he pushed the pony forward, but Dick had got her fast by the head. Harold looked round for help, but Ragglesford Lane was one of the loneliest places in the country. There was not a house for half a mile, and Lady Jane's plantations shut in the road on either side. 'I mean to have it,' said Dick, looking coolly up into his face; 'I mean to see if there's any of the letters with a half-sovereign in 'em, that you tell us about.' 'Dick, Dick, it would be robbing! For shame, Dick! What would become of Mother and me?' 'That's your look-out,' said Dick; and he stretched out his hand for the bag. He was four years older than Harold, and much stouter. Harold, with a ready move, chucked the bag round to his back, and shouted lustily in hopes that there might be a keeper in the woods, 'Help! Thieves! He's robbing the post!' Dick's hoarse laugh was all the answer. 'That'll do, my dear,' he said; 'now you'd best be quiet; I'd be loath to hurt you.' For all answer, Harold, shouting all the time, dealt him a stroke right over the eyes and nose with his riding-switch, and made a great effort to force the pony on in hopes the blow might have made him slacken his hold. But though one moment Dick's arm was thrown over his watering eyes, the other hand held the bridle as firmly as ever, and the next instant his fist dealt Harold such a blow, as nearly knocked out all his breath. Setting his teeth, and swearing an oath, Dick was pouncing on the boy's arm, when from the road before them came bursting a meagre thing darting like a wild cat, which fell upon him, hallooing as loud as Harold. Dick turned in fury, and let go the bridle. The pony backed in alarm. The new-comer was grappling with the thief, and trying to drag him aside. 'On, on; go on, Har'ld!' he shouted, but his strength was far from equal to Dick's, who threw him aside on the hand-rail. Old rotten rail that it was, it crashed under the weight, and fell with both the boys into the water. Peggy dashed forward to the other side, where Harold pulled her up with much difficulty, and turned round to look at the robber and the champion. The fall was not far, nor the water deep, and they had both risen, and were ready to seize one another again in their rage. And now Harold saw that he who had come to his help was no other than Paul Blackthorn, who shouted loudly, 'On, go on! I'll keep him.' 'He'll kill you!' screamed Harold, in despair, ready to push in between them with his horse; but at that moment cart-wheels were heard in the road, and Dick, shaking his fist, and swearing at them both, shook off Paul as if he had been a feather, and splashing out of the ford on the other side, leapt over the hedge, and was off through the plantations. Paul more slowly crept up towards Harold, dripping from head to foot. 'Paul! Paul! I'm glad I've found you!' cried Harold. 'You've saved the letters, man, and one was registered! Come along with me, up to the school.' 'Nay, I'll not do that,' said Paul. 'Then you'll stay till I come back,' said Harold earnestly; 'I've got so much to tell you! My Lady sent for you. Our Ellen told her all about you, and you're to go to her. Ellen was in such a way when she found you were off.' 'Then she didn't think I'd taken the eggs?' said Paul. 'She'd as soon think that I had,' said Harold. 'Why, don't we all know that you're one of the parson's own sort? But what made you go off without a word to nobody?' 'I don't know. Every one was against me,' said Paul; 'and I thought I'd just go out of the way, and you'd forget all about me. But I never touched those eggs, and you may tell Mr. Cope so, and thank him for all his kindness to me.' 'You'll tell him yourself. You're going home along with me,' cried Harold. 'There! I'll not stir a step till you've promised! Why, if you make off now, 'twill be the way to make them think you have something to run away for, like that rascal.' 'Very well,' said Paul, rather dreamily. 'Then you won't?' said Harold. 'Upon your word and honour?' Paul said the words after him, not much as if he knew what he was about; and Harold, rather alarmed at the sound of the Grange clock striking, gave a cut to the pony, and bounded on, only looking back to see that Paul was seating himself by the side of the lane. Harold said to himself that his mother would not have liked to see him do so after such a ducking, but he knew that he was more tenderly treated than other lads, and with reason for precaution too; and he promised himself soon to be bringing Paul home to be dried and warmed. But he was less speedy than he intended. When he arrived at the school, he had first to account to the servants for his being so late, and then he was obliged to wait while the owner of the registered letter was to sign the green paper, acknowledging its safe delivery. Instead of having the receipt brought back to him, there came a message that he was to go up to tell the master and the young gentlemen all about the robbery. So the servant led the way, and Harold followed a little shy, but more curious. The boys were in school, a great bare white-washed room, looking very cold, with a large arched window at one end, and forms ranged in squares round the hacked and hewed deal tables. Harold thought he should tell Alfred that the young gentlemen had not much the advantage of themselves in their schoolroom. The boys were mostly smaller than he was, only those of the uppermost form being of the same size. There might be about forty of them, looking rather red and purple with the chilly morning, and all their eighty eyes, black or brown, blue or grey, fixed at once upon the young postman as he walked into the room, straight and upright, in his high stout gaiters over his cord trousers, his thick rough blue coat and red comforter, with his cap in his hand, his fair hair uncovered, and his blue eyes and rosy cheeks all the more bright for that strange morning's work. He was a well-mannered boy, and made his bow very properly to Mr. Carter, the master, who sat at his high desk. 'So, my little man,' said the master, 'I hear you've had a fight for our property this morning. You've saved this young gentleman's birthday present of a watch, and he wants to thank you.' 'Thank you, Sir,' said Harold; 'but he'd have been too much for me if Paul hadn't come to help. He's a deal bigger than me.' The boys all made a thumping and scuffling with their feet, as if to applaud Harold; and their master said, 'Tell us how it was.' Harold gave the account in a very good simple manner, only he did not say who the robber was--he did not like to do so--indeed, he would not quite believe it could be his old friend Dick. The boys clapped and thumped doubly when he came to the switching, and still more at the tumble into the water. 'Do you know who the fellow was?' asked Mr. Carter. 'Yes, I knowed him,' said Harold, and stopped there. 'But you had rather not tell. Is that it?' 'Please, Sir, he's gone, and I wouldn't get him into trouble.' At this the school-boys perfectly stamped, and made signs of cheering. 'And who is the boy that came to help you?' 'Paul Blackthorn, Sir; he's a boy from the Union who worked at Farmer Shepherd's. He's a right good boy, Sir; but he's got no friends, nor no--nothing,' said Harold, pausing ere he finished. 'Why didn't you bring him up with you?' asked the master. 'Please, Sir, he wouldn't come.' 'Well,' said Mr. Carter, 'you've behaved like a brave fellow, and so has your friend; and here's something in token of gratitude for the rescue of our property.' It was a crown piece. 'And here,' said the boy whose watch had been saved, 'here's half-a-crown. Shake hands, you're a jolly fellow; and I'll tell my uncle about you.' Harold was a true Englishman, and of course his only answer could be, 'Thank you, Sir, I only did my duty;' and as the other boys, whose money had been rescued, brought forward more silver pledges of gratitude, he added, 'I'll take it to Paul--thank you, Sir--thank you, Sir.' 'That's right; you must share, my lad,' said the school-master. 'It is a reward for both of you.' 'Thank you, Sir, it was _my_ duty,' repeated Harold, making his bow. 'Sir, Sir, pray let us give him three cheers,' burst out the head boy in an imploring voice. Mr. Carter smiled and nodded; and there was such a hearty roaring and stamping, such 'hip, hip, hurrah!' bursting out again and again, that the windows clattered, and the room seemed fuller of noise than it could possibly hold. It is not quite certain that Mr. Carter did not halloo as loud as any of the boys. Harold turned very red, and did not know which way to look while it was going on, nor what to do when it was over, except to say a very odd sort of 'Thank you, Sir;' but his heart leapt up with a kind of warm grateful feeling of liking towards those boys for going along with him so heartily; and the cheers gave a pleasure and glow that the coins never would have done, even had he thought them his own by right. He was not particularly good in this; he had never felt the pinch of want, and was too young to care; and he did not happen to wish to buy anything in particular just then. A selfish or a covetous boy would not have felt as he did; but these were not his temptations. Knowing, as he did, that the assault had been the consequence of his foolish boasts about the money-letters, and that he, being in charge, ought to defend them to the last gasp, he was sure he deserved the very contrary from a reward, and never thought of the money belonging to any one but Paul, who had by his own free will come to the rescue, and saved the bag from robbery, himself from injury and disgrace. How happy he was in thinking what a windfall it was for his friend, and how far it would go in fitting him up respectably! Peggy was ready to trot nearly as fast as he wished her down the lane to the place where he had left Paul; and no sooner did Harold come in sight of the olive-coloured rags, than he bawled out a loud 'Hurrah! Come on, Paul; you don't know what I've got for you! 'Twas a young gentleman's watch as you saved; and they've come down right handsome! and here's twelve-and-sixpence for you--enough to rig you out like a regular swell! Why, what's the matter?' he added in quite another voice, as he had now come up to Paul, and found him sitting nearly doubled up, with his head bent over his knees. He raised his face up as Harold came, and it was so ghastly pale, that the boy, quite startled, jumped off his pony. 'Why, old chap, what is it? Have you got knit up with cold, sitting here?' 'Yes, I suppose so,' said Paul; but his very voice shivered, his teeth chattered, and his knees knocked together with the chill. 'The pains run about me,' he added; but he spoke as if he hardly knew what he was doing or saying. 'You must come home with me, and Mother will give you something hot,' said Harold. 'Come, you'll catch your death if you don't. You shall ride home.' He pulled Paul from his seat with some difficulty, and was further alarmed when he found that the poor fellow reeled and could hardly stand; but he was somewhat roused, and knew better what he was about. Harold tried to put him on the pony, but this could not be managed: he could not help himself enough, Peggy always swerved aside, nor was Harold strong enough to lift him up. The only thing to be done was for Harold to mount, and Paul to lean against the saddle, while the pony walked. When they had to separate at the ford, poor Paul's walk across the bridge was so feeble and staggering, that Harold feared every moment that he would fall where the rail was broken away, but was right glad to put his arm on his shoulder again to help to hold him up. The moving brought a little more life back to the poor boy's limbs, and he walked a little better, and managed to tell Harold how he had felt too miserable to speak to any one after the rating the farmer had given him, and how he had set out on the tramp for more work, though with hope so nearly dead in his heart, that he only wished he could sit down and die. He had walked out of the village before people were about, so as not to be noticed, and then had found himself so weak and weary that he could not get on without food, and had sat down by the hedge to eat the bit of bread he had with him. Then he had taken the first lonely-looking way he saw, without knowing that it was one of Harold's daily rides, and was slowly dragging himself up the hill from the ford when the well-known voice, shouting for help, had suddenly called him back, and filled him with spirit and speed that were far enough off now, poor fellow! That was a terrible mile and a half--Harold sometimes thought it would never be over, or that Paul would drop down, and he would have to gallop off for help; but Paul was not one to give in, and somehow they got back at last, and Harold, with his arm round his friend, dragged him through the garden, and across the shop, and pushed him into the arm-chair by the fire, Mrs. King following, and Ellen rushing down from up-stairs. 'There!' cried Harold, all in a breath, 'there he is! That rascal tried to rob me on Ragglesford Bridge, and was nigh too much for me; but _he_ there came and pulled him off me, and got spilt into the river, and he's got a chill, and if you don't give him something jolly hot, Mother, he'll catch his death!' Mrs. King thought so too: Paul's state looked to her more alarming than it did even to Harold. He did not seem able to think or speak, but kept rocking himself towards the fire, and that terrible shivering shaking him all over. 'Poor lad!' she said kindly. 'I'll tell you what, Harold, all you can do is put him into your bed at once.--Here, Ellen, you run up first, and bring me a shirt to warm for him. Then we'll get his own clothes dried.' 'No, no,' cried Harold, with a caper, 'we'll make a scare-crow of 'em. You don't know what I know, Mother. I've got twelve shillings and sixpence here all his own; and you'll see what I won't do with it at old Levi's, the second-hand clothes man, to-night.' Harold grew less noisy as he saw how little good the fire was doing to his patient, and how ill his mother seemed to think him. He quietly obeyed her, by getting him up-stairs, and putting him into his own bed, the first in which Paul had lain down for more than four months. Then Mrs. King sent Harold out for some gin; she thought hot spirits and water the only chance of bringing back any life after such a dreadful chill; and she and Ellen kept on warming flannels and shawls to restore some heat, and to stop the trembling that shook the bed, so that Alfred felt it, even in the next room, where he lay with the door open, longing to be able to help, and wishing to understand what could have happened. At last, the cordial and the warm applications effected some good. Paul was able to say, 'I don't know why you are so good to me,' and seemed ready to burst into a great fit of crying; but Mrs. King managed to stop him by saying something about one good turn deserving another, and that she hoped he was coming round now. Harold was now at leisure to tell the story in his brother's room. Alfred did not grieve now at his brother's being able to do spirited things; he laughed out loud, and said, 'Well done, Harold!' at the switching, and rubbed his hands, and lighted up with glee, as he heard of the Ragglesford boys and their cheers; and then, Harold went eagerly on with his scheme for fitting up Paul at the second-hand shop, both Mrs. King and Alfred taking great interest in his plans, till Mrs. King hearing something like a moan, went back to Paul. She found his cheeks and hands as burning hot as they had been cold; they were like live coals; and what was worse, such severe pains were running all over his limbs, that he was squeezing the clothes into his mouth that he might not scream aloud. Happily it was Mr. Blunt's day for calling; and before the morning was over he came, and after a few words of explanation, he stood at Paul's bedside. Not much given to tenderness towards the feelings of patients of his degree, Mr. Blunt's advice was soon given. 'Yes, he is in for rheumatic fever--won't be about again for a long time to come. I say, Mistress, all you've got to do is to send in your boy to the Union at Elbury, tell 'em to send out a cart for him, and take him in as a casual pauper. Then they may pass him on to his parish.' Therewith Mr. Blunt went on to attend to Alfred. 'Then you think this poor lad will be ill a long time, Sir?' said Mrs. King, when Mr. Blunt was preparing to depart. 'Of course he will; I never saw a clearer case! You'd better send him off as fast as you can, while he can be moved. He'll have a pretty bout of it, I dare say. 'It is nothing infectious, of course, Sir?' said the mother, a little startled by this hastiness. 'Infectious--nonsense! why, you know better than that, Mrs. King; I only meant that you'd better get rid of him as quick as you can, unless you wish to set up a hospital at once--and a capital nurse you'd be! I would leave word with the relieving officer for you, but that I've got to go on to Stoke, and shan't be at home till too late.' Mrs. King's heart ached for the poor forlorn orphan, when she remembered what she had heard of the nursing in Elbury Union. She did not know how to turn him from her door the day he had saved her son from danger such as she could not think of without shuddering; and yet, what could she do? Her rent and the winter before her, a heavy doctor's bill, and the loss of Alfred's work! Slowly she went up the stairs again to the narrow landing that held the bed where Paul Blackthorn lay. He was quite still, but there were large tears coursing one after the other from his eyes, his hollow cheeks quite glazed with them. 'Is the pain so very bad?' she said in her soft voice, putting her hand over his hot forehead, in the way that Alfred liked. 'I don't--know,' he answered; and his black eyes, after looking up once in her face with the piteous earnest glance that some loving dogs have, shut themselves as if on purpose to keep in the tears, but she saw the dew squeezing out through the eye-lashes. 'My poor boy, I'm sure it's very bad for you,' she said again. 'Please, don't speak so kind,' said Paul; and this time he could not prevent a-sob. 'Nobody ever did so before, and--' he paused, and went on, 'I suppose they do it up in Heaven, so I hope I shall die.' 'You are vexing about the Union,' said Mrs. King, without answering this last speech, or she knew that she should begin to cry herself. 'I _did_ think I'd done with them,' said Paul, with another sob. 'I said I'd never set foot in those four walls again! I was proud, maybe; but please don't stop with me! If you wouldn't look and speak like that, the place wouldn't seem so hard, seeing I'm bred to it, as they say;' and he made an odd sort of attempt to laugh, which ended in his choking himself with worse tears. 'Harold is not gone yet,' said Mrs. King soothingly; 'we'll wait till he comes in from his work, and see how you are, when you've had a little sleep. Don't cry; you aren't going just yet.' That same earnest questioning glance, but with more hope in it, was turned on her again; but she did not dare to bind herself, much as she longed to take the wanderer to her home. She went on to her son's room. 'Mother, Mother,' Alfred cried in a whisper, so eager that it made him cough, 'you can't never send him to the workhouse?' 'I can't bear the thought, Alfy,' she said, the tears in her eyes; 'but I don't know what to do. It's not the trouble. That I'd take with all my heart, but it is hard enough to live, and--' 'I'm sure,' said Ellen, coming close, that her undertone might be heard, 'Harold and I would never mind how much we were pinched.' 'And I could go without--some things,' began Alfred. 'And then,' went on the mother, 'you see, if we got straitened, and Matilda found it out, she'd want to help, and I can't have her savings touched; and yet I can't bear to let that poor lad be sent off, so ill as he is, and after all he's done for Harold--such a good boy, too, and one that's so thankful for a common kind word.' 'O Mother, keep him!' said Alfred; 'don't you know how the Psalm says, "God careth for the stranger, and provideth for the fatherless and the widow"?' Mrs. King almost smiled. 'Yes, Alf, I think it would be trusting God's word; but then there's my duty to you.' 'You've not sent Harold off for the cart?' said Alfred. 'No; I thought somehow, we have enough for to-day; and it goes against me to send him away at once. I thought we'd wait to see how it is to-morrow; and Harold won't mind having a bed made up in the kitchen.' Tap, tap, on the counter. Some one had come in while they were talking. It was Mr. Cope, very anxious to hear the truth of the strange stories that were going about the place. Ellen and Alfred thought it very tiresome that he was so long in coming up-stairs; but the fact was, that their mother was very glad to talk the matter over without them. She knew indeed that Mr. Cope was a very young man, and not likely to be so well able as herself, with all her experience, to decide what she could afford, or whether she ought to follow her feelings at the risk of debt or of privations for her delicate children; but she also knew that though he had not experience, education had given him a wider and clearer range of thought; and that, as her pastor, he ought to be consulted; so though she did not exactly mean to make it a matter for his decision (unless, indeed, he should have some view which had not occurred to her), she knew that he was by far the best person to help her to see her way, and form her own judgment. Mr. Cope heard all the story with as much eagerness as the Ragglesford boys themselves, and laughed quite out loud at Harold's spirited defence. 'That's a good lad!' said he. 'Well, Mrs. King, I don't think you need be very uneasy about your boy. When a fellow can stand up like that in defence of his duty, there must be the right stuff in him to be got at in time! And now, as to his ally--this other poor fellow--very kind of you to have taken him in.' 'I couldn't do no other, Sir,' said Mrs. King; 'he came in so drenched, and so terribly bad, I could do nothing but let him lie down on Harold's bed; and now Dr. Blunt thinks he's going to have a rheumatic fever, and wanted me to send in to the relieving officer, to have him removed, but I don't know how to do that; the poor lad doesn't say one word against it, but I can see it cuts him to the heart; and they do tell such stories of the nurses at the Union, that it does seem hard to send him there, such an innocent boy, too, and one that doesn't seem to know how to believe it if one says a kind word to him.' The tears were in Mrs. King's eyes as she went on: 'I do wish to let him stay here and do what I can for him, with all my heart, and so does all the children, but I don't hardly know what's right by them, poor things. If the parish would but allow him just one shilling and sixpence a week out of the house, I think I could do it.' 'What, with your own boy in such a state, you could undertake to nurse a stranger through a rheumatic fever!' 'It wouldn't make much difference, Sir,' said Mrs. King. 'You see I am up a good deal most nights with Alfred, and we have fire and candle almost always alight. I should only be glad to do it for a poor motherless lad like that, except for the cost; and I thought perhaps if you could speak to the Guardians, they might allow him ever so little, because there will be expenses.' Mr. Cope had not much hope from the parish, so he said, 'Mr. Shepherd ought to do something for him after he has worked for him so long. He has been looking wretchedly ill for some time past; and I dare say half this illness is brought on by such lodging and living as he got there. But what did you say about some eggs?' Mrs. King told him; and he stood a moment thoughtful, then said, 'Well, I'll go and see about it,' and strode across to the farm. When Mr. Cope came back, Ellen was serving a customer. He stood looking redder than they had ever seen him, and tapping the toe of his boot impatiently with his stick; and the moment the buyer had turned away, he said, 'Ellen, ask your mother to be kind enough to come down.' Mrs. King came, and found the young Curate in such a state of indignation, as he could not keep to himself. He had learnt more than he had ever known, or she had ever known, of the oppression that the farmer and his wife and Tom Boldre had practised on the friendless stranger, and he was burning with all the keen generous displeasure of one new to such base ways. At the gate he had met, going home to dinner, John Farden with Mrs. Hayward, who had been charing at the farm. Both had spoken out, and he had learned how far below the value of his labour the boy had been paid, how he had been struck, abused, and hunted about, as would never have been done to one who had a father to take his part. And he had further heard Farden's statement of having himself thrown away the eggs, and Mrs. Hayward's declaration that she verily believed that the farmer only made the accusation an excuse for hurrying the lad off because he thought him faltering for a fever, and wouldn't have him sick there. This was shocking enough; Mr. Cope had thought it merely the kind-hearted woman's angry construction, but it was still worse when he came to the farmer and his wife. So used were they to think it their business to wring the utmost they could out of whatever came in their way, that they had not the slightest shame about it. They thought they had done a thing to be proud of in making such a good bargain of the lad, and getting so much work out of him for so little pay; in fact, that they had been rather weakly kind in granting him the freedom of the hay-loft; the notion of his dishonesty was firmly fixed in their heads, though there was not a charge to bring against him. This was chiefly because they had begun by setting him down as a convict, and because they could not imagine any one living honestly on what they gave him. And lastly, the farmer thought the cleverest stroke of all, was the having got rid of him just as winter was coming on and work was scarce, and when there seemed to be a chance of his being laid up to encumber the rates. Mr. Cope was quite breathless after the answer he had made to them. He had never spoken so strongly in his life before, and he could hardly believe his own ears, that people could be found, not only to do such things, but to be proud of having done them. It is to be hoped there are not many such thoroughgoing tyrants; but selfishness is always ready to make any one into a tyrant, and Mammon is a false god, who manages to make his servants satisfied that they are doing their duty. It was plain enough that no help was to be expected from the farm, and neither Mrs. King nor the clergyman thought there was much hope in the Guardians; however, they were to be applied to, and this would be at least a reprieve for Paul. Mr. Cope went up to see him, and found Harold sitting on the top step of the stairs. 'Well, boys,' he said, in his hearty voice, 'so you've had a battle, I hear. I'm glad it turned out better than your namesake's at Hastings.' Paul was not too ill to smile at this; and Harold modestly said, 'It was all along of he, Sir.' 'And he seems to be the chief sufferer.--Are you in much pain, Paul?' 'Sometimes, Sir, when I try to move,' said Paul; 'but it is better when I'm still.' 'You've had a harder time of it than I supposed, my boy,' said Mr. Cope. 'Why did you never let me know how you were treated?' Paul's face shewed more wonder than anything else. 'Thank you, Sir,' he said, 'I didn't think it was any one's business.' 'No one's business!' exclaimed the young clergyman. 'It is every one's business to see justice done, and it should never have gone on so if you had spoken. Why didn't you?' 'I didn't think it would be any use,' again said Paul. 'There was old Joe Joiner, he always said 'twas a hard world to live in, and that there was nothing for it but to grin and bear it.' 'There's something better to be done than to grin,' said Mr. Cope. 'Yes, I know, Sir,' said Paul, with a brighter gleam on his face; 'and I seem to understand that better since I came here. I was thinking,' he added, 'if they pass me back to Upperscote, I'll tell old Joe that folks are much kinder than he told me, by far.' 'Kinder--I should not have thought that your experience!' exclaimed Mr. Cope, his head still running on the Shepherds. But Paul did not seem to think of them at all, or else to take their treatment as a matter-of-course, as he did his Union hardships. There was a glistening in his eyes; and he moved his head so as to sign down- stairs, as he said, 'I didn't think there was ne'er a one in the world like _her_.' 'What, Mrs. King? I don't think there are many,' said Mr. Cope warmly. 'And yet I hope there are.' 'Ay, Sir,' said Paul fervently. 'And there's Harold, and John Farden, and all the chaps. Please, Sir, when I'm gone away, will you tell them all that I'll never forget 'em? and I'll be happier as long as I live for knowing that there are such good-hearted folks.' Mr. Cope felt trebly moved towards one who thought harshness so much more natural than kindness, and who received the one so submissively, the other so gratefully; but the conversation was interrupted by Harold's exclaiming that my Lady in her carriage was stopping at the gate, and Mother was running out to her. Rumours of the post-office robbery, as little Miss Selby called it, had travelled up to the Grange, and she was wild to know what had happened to Harold; but her grandmamma, not knowing what highway robbers might be roaming about Friarswood, would not hear of her walking to the post-office, and drove thither with her herself, in full state, close carriage, coachman and footman; and there was Mrs. King, with her head in at the carriage window, telling all the story. 'So you have this youth here?' said Lady Jane. 'Yes, my Lady; he was so poorly that I couldn't but let him lie down.' 'And you have not sent him to the workhouse yet?' 'Why, no, not yet, my Lady; I thought I would wait to see how he is to- morrow.' 'You had better take care, Mary,' said Lady Jane. 'You'll have him too ill to be moved; and then what will you do? a great lad of that age, and with illness enough in the house already!' She sighed, and it was not said unkindly; but Mrs. King answered with something about his being so good a lad, and so friendless. And Miss Jane exclaimed, 'O Grandmamma, it does seem so hard to send him to the workhouse!' 'Do not talk like a silly child, my dear,' said Lady Jane. 'Mary is much too sensible to think of saddling herself with such a charge--not fit for her, nor the children either--even if the parish made it worth her while, which it never will. The Union is intended to provide for such cases of destitution; and depend on it, the youth looks to nothing else.' 'No, my Lady,' said Mrs. King; 'he is so patient and meek about it, that it goes to one's very heart.' 'Ay, ay,' said the old lady; 'but don't be soft-hearted and weak, Mary. It is not what I expect of you, as a sensible woman, to be harbouring a mere vagrant whom you know nothing about, and injuring your own children.' 'Indeed, my Lady,' began Mrs. King, 'I've known the poor boy these four months, and so has Mr. Cope; and he is as steady and serious a boy as ever lived.' 'Very likely,' said Lady Jane; 'and I am sure I would do anything for him--give him work when he is out again, or send him with a paper to the county hospital. Eh?' But the county hospital was thirty miles off; and the receiving day was not till Saturday. That would not do. 'Well,' added Lady Jane, 'I'll drive home directly, and send Price with the spring covered cart to take him in to Elbury. That will be better for him than jolting in the open cart they would send for him.' 'Why, thank you, my Lady, but I--I had passed my word that he should not go to-day.' Lady Jane made a gesture as if Mary King were a hopelessly weak good-natured woman; and shaking her head at her with a sort of lady-like vexation, ordered the coachman to drive on. My Lady was put out. No wonder. She was a very sensible, managing woman herself, and justly and up-rightly kind to all her dependants; and she expected every one else to be sternly and wisely kind in the same pattern. Mrs. King was one whom she highly esteemed for her sense and good judgment, and she was the more provoked with her for any failure in these respects. If she had known Paul as the Kings did, it is probable she might have felt like them. Not knowing him, nor knowing the secrets of Elbury Union, she thought it Mrs. King's clear duty to sacrifice him for her children's sake. Moreover, Lady Jane had strict laws against lodgers--the greatest kindness she could do her tenants, though often against their will. So to have her model woman receiving a strange boy into her house, even under the circumstances, was beyond bearing. So Mrs. King stood on her threshold, knowing that to keep Paul Blackthorn would be an offence to her best friend and patroness. Moreover, Mr. Cope was gone, without having left her a word of advice to decide her one way or the other. CHAPTER X--CHRISTMAS DAY Things are rather apt to settle themselves; and so did Paul Blackthorn's stay at the post-office, for the poor boy was in such an agony of pain all night, and the fever ran so high, that it was impossible to think of moving him, even if the waiting upon him in such suffering had not made Mrs. King feel that she could not dismiss him to careless hands. His patience, gratitude, and surprise at every trouble she took for him were very endearing, as were the efforts he made to stifle and suppress moans and cries that the terrible aches would wring from him, so as not to disturb Alfred. When towards morning the fever ran to his head, and he did not know what he said, it was more moving still to see that the instinct of keeping quiet for some one's sake still suppressed his voice. Then, too, his wanderings shewed under what dread and harshness his life had been spent, and what his horror was of a return to the workhouse. In his senses, he would never have thought of asking to remain at Friarswood; but in his half-conscious state, he implored again and again not to be sent away, and talked about not going back, but only being left in a corner to die; and Mrs. King, without knowing what she was about, soothed him by telling him to lie still, for he was not going to that place again. At day-break she sent Harold, on his way to the post, for an order from the relieving officer for medical attendance; and, after some long and weary hours, the Union doctor came. He said, like Mr. Blunt, that it was a rheumatic fever, the effect of hardship and exposure; for which perhaps poor Paul--after his regular meals, warm clothing, and full shelter, in the workhouse--was less prepared than many a country lad, whose days had been much happier, but who had been rendered more hardy by often going without some of those necessaries which were provided for the paupers. The head continued so much affected, that the doctor said the hair must be taken off; which was done by old Master Warren, who singed the horses in the autumn, killed the pigs in the winter, and shaved the men on Saturday night. It was a very good thing for all parties; and he would take no pay for his trouble, but sent down a pitcher with what he called 'all manner of yarbs' steeping in it, with which, as he said, to 'ferment the boy's limbs.' Foment was what he meant; and Mrs. King thought, as it was kindly intended, and could do no harm, she would try if it would do any good; but she could not find that it made much difference whether she used that or common warm water. However, the good will made Paul smile, and helped to change his notion about its being very few that had any compassion for a stranger. So, too, did good Mrs. Hayward, who, when he was at the worst, twice came to sit up all night with him after her day's work; and though she was not as tender a nurse as Mrs. King, treated him like her own son, and moreover carried off to her own tub all the clothes she could find ready to be washed, and would not take so much as a mouthful of meat or drink in return, struggling, toil-worn body as she was. The parish, as might have been foreseen, would afford nothing but the doctor to a chance-comer such as Paul. If he needed more, he might come into the House, and be passed home to Upperscote. But by the time this reply came, Mrs. King not only felt that it would be almost murder to send a person in such a state four miles on a November day, but she was caring so much for her patient, that it sounded almost as impossible as to send Alfred away. Besides, she had remembered the cup of cold water, she had thought of the widow's cruse of oil and barrel of meal, and she had called to mind, 'Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me;' and thereupon she took heart, and made up her mind that it was right to tend the sick lad; and that even if she should bring trouble and want on herself and her children, it would be a Heaven- sent trial that would be good for them. So she made up her resolution to a winter of toil, anxiety, and trouble, and to Lady Jane's withdrawal of favour; and thinking her ungrateful, which, to say the truth, grieved her more than anything else, excepting of course her forebodings for Alfred. Ellen was in great distress about my Lady's displeasure. Not that she dreamt of her mother's giving up Paul on that account; but she was very fond of her little foster-sister, and of many of the maid-servants, and her visits to the Grange were the chief change and amusement she ever had. So while Mrs. King was busy between the shop, her work, and Paul, Ellen sat by her brother, making the housekeeper's winter dress, and imagining all sorts of dreadful things that might come of my Lady being angry with them, till Alfred grew quite out of patience. 'Well, suppose and suppose,' he said, 'suppose it was not to happen at all! Why, Mother's doing right would be any good for nothing if she only did it to please my Lady.' Certainly this was the very touchstone to shew whether the fear of man were the guide. And Ellen was still more terrified that day, for when she went across to the farm for the evening's supply of milk and butter, Mrs. Shepherd launched out into such a torrent of abuse against her and her mother, that she came home trembling from head to foot; and Mrs. King declared she should never go thither again. They would send to Mrs. Price's for the little bit of fresh butter that was real nourishment to Alfred: the healthy ones would save by going without any. One word more as to the Shepherds, and then we have done with him. On the Sunday, Mr. Cope had an elder brother staying with them, who preached on the lesson for the day, the second chapter of the Prophet Habakkuk; and when he came to the text, 'Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house,' he brought in some of the like passages, the threats to those that 'grind the faces of the poor,' that 'oppress the hireling in his wages,' and that terrible saying of St. James, 'Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept by fraud, crieth; and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabbath.' Three days after, the Curate was very much amazed to hear that Mr. and Mrs. Shepherd did not choose to be preached at in their own church, and never meant to come thither again. Now it so happened that he could testify that the sermon had been written five years ago, and that his brother had preached it without knowing that the Shepherds were in existence, for he had only come late the night before, and there was so much to say about their home, that the younger brother had not said a word about his parish before church, though the Kings and their guests were very near his heart. But it was of no use to say so. It was the _truth_ that wounded the farmer and his wife, and no one could make that otherwise. They did not choose to hear their sin rebuked, so they made an excuse by pretending to take offence, and except when they now and then went to the next parish to a meeting-house, cut themselves off from all that might disturb them in the sole pursuit of gain. It is awful to think of such hardening of the heart, first towards man, then towards the warnings of God. And mind, whoever chooses profit rather than mercy, is in the path of Farmer Shepherd. Some certainty as to Lady Jane Selby's feelings came on the second evening of Paul's illness. Mrs. Crabbe, the housekeeper, was seen with infinite trouble and disgust getting her large person over the stiles across the path fields. A call from her was almost a greater event than one from my Lady herself. Why! Mother had been her still-room maid, and always spoke to her as 'Ma'am,' and she called her 'Mary,' and she had chosen Matilda's name for her, and had given her a silver watch! So when Mrs. Crabbe had found her way in, and had been set down to rest in the arm-chair, she proceeded to give 'Mary' a good round scolding against being weak and soft-hearted, saying at last that my Lady was quite in a way about it. She was sure that Harold would catch his death of cold, putting him to sleep in the kitchen, upon the stones--and so--my Lady had sent off the cart with the little chair-bed, that would take down and put up again--mattress, bed-clothes, and all. That was a comfortable finish to the scolding! Not that it was a finish though, for the thanks made Mrs. Crabbe afraid the family thought themselves forgiven, so she went on to declare they all would be pinched, and get into debt, and she should advise her god-daughter, Matilda, not to help them with a farthing of her wages, and as to going without their full meals, that was what none of them were fit to do. With which it appeared that the cart was bringing a can of broth, a couple of rabbits, some calves'-feet jelly, and a bottle of port wine for Alfred, who lived on that and cod-liver oil more than on any other nourishment. At that rate, Lady Jane's displeasure did not seem likely to do much harm; but there was pain in it too, for when Mrs. Crabbe had managed to get up-stairs, past the patch-work quilt that was hung up to shelter Paul from the draught, and had seen Alfred, and been shocked to find how much wasted he was since she last had seen him, she said, 'One thing you know--my Lady says she can't have Miss Selby coming down here to see Alfred while this great lad is always about. And I'm sure it is not proper for her at any time, such a young lady as she is, over all those inconvenient stiles. I declare I shall speak to Mr. Price about them.' Losing Miss Jane's visits was to Alfred like losing a sunbeam, and his spirit felt very dreary after he had heard this sentence. Ellen knew her well enough to suspect that she was very sorry, but that she could not help herself; and Mrs. King caught the brother and sister making such grumbling speeches to each other about the old lady's crossness, that her faithful, grateful spirit was quite grieved, and she spoke strongly up for the just, right-minded lady to whom she had loyally looked up for many and many a year, though, with the right sort of independence, she would not give up to any one's opinion what she knew to be her duty. 'We all knew it must cost us something,' she said, 'and we'll try to be ready with it, though it does go to one's heart that the first should be what vexes you, my Alfy; but it won't be for long.' 'No, Mother; but if it ain't here long? Oh! I don't seem to have nothing to look to if Miss Jane ain't coming here no more, with her pretty ways!' And there were large tears on his cheeks. Mrs. King had tears in her eyes too, but she bent down over the boy, and turning his eyes to the little picture on the wall, she said in a whisper in his ear, 'Didn't He bear His Cross for the sake of other people?' Alfred did not answer; he turned his face in towards the pillow, and though Ellen thought he was crying, it did not seem to her to be so sadly. Cost them something their kindness did. To be sure, there came a party of boys with the master from Ragglesford, when there had been time for them to write the history of the robbery to their homes; and as it came just before the monthly letter which they all had to write by way of practice, to be shewn up to the master, it was a real treasure to them to have such a story to tell. Some of their friends, especially the uncle who gave the watch, had sent small sums of money for the lad who had behaved so well, and these altogether came to a fair amount, which the boys were highly pleased to give over into Mrs. King's hands. She, like Harold, never made the smallest question that it was all for Paul's benefit, and though, when she mentioned it to him, he gave a cheery smile, and said it would lessen the cost of his illness to her, yet she put it all aside with the first twelve-and-sixpence. She told Ellen that it went against her to touch the orphan's money, and that unless it came to very bad times indeed, it should be kept to set him up decently when he should recover. No one else could afford aid in money, not Mr. Cope, for he had little more than a maintenance for himself; indeed, Mrs. King was not in a station where it would seem becoming to offer alms to her. Lady Jane gave help in nourishing food, but the days when this would come were uncertain, and she had made a resolution against undertaking any share of the expense, lest she should seem to encourage Mary King, as she said, in such weak good nature--cramming up her house with a strange boy like that, when she had quite enough to do with her own son. So they had to fight on as they could; and the first week, when Paul's illness was at the height, Ellen had so much more to do for Alfred and about the house, and was so continually called off her work, that she could not finish Mrs. Crabbe's gown as soon as was expected; and the ladies' maid, who was kept waiting, took huff, and sent her new purple silk to Elbury to be madeup. It is not quite certain that Ellen did not shed a few tears. Harold had to go without his butter, and once took it much to heart that his mother would buy no shrimps for tea, but after some one had whispered to him that if there were a trouble about rent, or about Mr. Blunt's bill, Peggy would be sold, he bore it all pretty well; and after all, Alfred and Paul were so apt to give him tastes of their dainties, that he had not much loss! Rent was the care. The pig was killed and cut up to great advantage; Mrs. King sold a side of it at once, which went a good way towards it, but not the whole; and there was a bad debt of John Farden's for bread, contracted last winter, and which he had never paid off in the summer. That would just have made it up, but what hopes were there of that? Just then, however, came a parcel from Matilda. It was her way of helping her family to send them the clothes which her mistresses allowed her to have when they left them off, when Mrs. King either made them up for herself or Ellen, or disposed of them at Elbury. What a treat those parcels were! How curious were all the party at the unpacking, looking at the many odd things that were sure to come out, on the happy doubtful certainty that each one would be remembered by the good sister. So there were the little directed parcels--a neat knitted grey and black handkerchief for Mother to wear in the shop; a whole roll of fashion-books for Ellen, and a nice little pocket-book besides; and a bundle of 'Illustrated News' to amuse the boys; a precious little square book of 'Hymns for the Sick' for Alfred; and a famous pair of riding-gloves, like bears' paws, for Harold. And what rolls besides! Worn flimsy dresses, once pretty, but now only fit for the old-clothes man, yet whose trimmings Ellen pulled out and studied; bonnets that looked as if they had been sat upon; rolls of soft ragged cambric handkerchiefs, on which Mrs. King seized as the most valuable part of the cargo, so useful would they be to poor Alfred; some few real good things, in especial, a beautiful thick silk dress which had been stained, but which dyeing would render very useful; and a particularly nice grey cloth mantle, which Matilda had mentioned in her letter as likely to be useful to Ellen--it was not at all the worse for wear, except as to the lining of the hood, and she should just fancy Ellen in it. Ellen could just fancy herself in it. She had a black silk one, which had come in the same way, and looked very well, but it was just turning off, and it was not warm enough for winter without a shawl under it. That grey looked as if it was made for her, it suited her shoulders and her shape so well! She put it on and twisted about in it, and then she saw her good mother not saying one word, and knew she was thinking of the sum that was wanting to the rent. 'Well, Mother,' said Ellen, 'I'll go in and take the things to Betsey on the next market-day, and if we can get thirty shillings on them without the mantle--' 'Yes, if you can, my dear,' said her mother; 'I'm sure I should be very glad for you to have it, but you see--' And Mrs. King sighed. Ellen passed by Paul on the landing, and saw him with his face flushed with pain and fever, trying to smile at her. She remembered how her unkind words had brought trouble on him, and how her mother had begun by telling her that they must give up their own wishes if they were to nurse him. Ellen went to Elbury on the market-day, and by the help of Betsey Hardman, she got great credit for her bargaining. She brought home thirty shillings, and ten shillings' worth of soap for the shop, where that article was running low; but she did not bring home the cloak, though Betsey had told her a silk cloak over a shawl looked so mean! and she feared all the servants at the Grange would think the same! 'They always were good children to me,' said Mrs. King to Mr. Cope, 'but somehow, since Paul has been here, I think they are better than ever! There's poor Alfred, though his cough has been so bad of late, has been so thoughtful and so good; he says he's quite ashamed to find how patient Paul is under so much sharper pain than he ever had, and he's ready to send anything to Paul that he fancies will do him good--quite carried out of himself, you see; and there's Harold, so much steadier; I've hardly had to find fault with him since that poor boy made off--he's sure to come in in time, and takes care not to disturb his brother, and helps his sister and me all he can.' Mr. Cope was not at all surprised that the work of mercy was blessed to all the little household, nor that it drew out all the better side of their dispositions. There was no positive change, nor sudden resolution, to alter Harold; but he had been a good deal startled by Dick's wickedness, and in him had lost a tempter. Besides, he considered Paul as his own friend, received for his sake, and therefore felt himself bound to do all he could for him, and though he was no nurse, he could do much to set his mother and Ellen free to attend to their patients. And Paul's illness, though so much less dangerous, frightened and subdued Harold much more than the quiet gradual pining away of Alfred, to which he was used. The severe pain, the raging fever, and the ramblings in talk, were much more fearful things to witness than the low cough, the wearing sore, and the helpless languor, though there was much hope for the one, and scarcely any for the other. While to Harold's apprehension, Alfred was always just the same, only worsening visibly from month to month; Paul was better or worse every time he came in, and when fresh from hearing his breath gasp with sharp pain, or receiving his feeble thanks for some slight service, it was not in Harold to go out and get into thoughtless mischief. Moreover, there were helpful things to do at home, such as Harold liked. He was fond of chopping wood, so he was very obliging about the oven, and what he liked best of all was helping his mother in certain evening cookeries of sweet-meats, by receipts from Mrs. Crabbe. On the day of the expedition from Ragglesford, the young gentlemen had found out that Mrs. King's bottles contained what they called 'the real article and no mistake,' much better than what the old woman at the turnpike sold; and so they were, for Mrs. King made them herself, and, like an honest woman, without a morsel of sham in them. She was not going to break the Eighth Commandment by cheating in a comfit any more than by stealing a purse; and the children of Friarswood had long known that, and bought all the 'lollies' that they were not naughty enough to buy on Sundays, when, as may be supposed, her shutters were not shut only for a decent show. And now Harold did not often ride up to the school without some little master giving him a commission for some variety of sweet-stuff; and though Mrs. King used to say it was a pity the children should throw away their money in that fashion, it brought a good deal into her till, and Harold greatly liked assisting at the manufacture. How often he licked his fingers during the process need not be mentioned; but his objection to Ragglesford was quite gone off, now that some one was nearly certain to be looking out for him, with a good-natured greeting, or an inquiry for Paul. He knew one little boy from another, and felt friendly with them all, and he really was quite grieved when the holidays came, and they wished him good-bye. The coach that had been hired to take them to Elbury seemed something to watch for now, and some thoughtful boy stopped all the whooping and hurraing as they came near the house on the bridge. Some other stopped the coach, and they all came dropping off it like a swarm of black flies, and tumbling into the shop, where Mrs. King and her daughter had need to have had a dozen pair of hands to have served them, and they did not go till they had cleared out her entire stock of sweet things and gingerbread; nay, some of them would have gone off without their change, if she had not raced out to catch them with it after they were climbing up the coach, and then the silly fellows said they hated coppers! And meeting Harold and his post-bag on his way home from Elbury, they raised such a tremendous cheer at him that poor Peggy seemed to make but three springs from the milestone to the bridge, and he could not so much as touch his cap by way of answer. Somehow, even after those droll customers were gone, every Saturday's reckoning was a satisfactory one. More always seemed to come in than went out. The potatoes had been unusually free from disease in Mrs. King's garden, and every one came for them; the second pig turned out well; a lodger at the butcher's took a fancy to her buns; and on the whole, winter, when her receipts were generally at the lowest, was now quite a prosperous time with her. The great pressure and near anxiety she had expected had not come, and something was being put by every week towards the bill for flour, and for Mr. Blunt's account, so that she began to hope that after all the Savings Bank would not have to be left quite bare. Quite unexpectedly, John Farden came in for a share of the savings of an old aunt at service, and, like an honest fellow as he was, he got himself out of debt at once. This quite settled all Mrs. King's fears; Mr. Blunt and the miller would both have their due, and she really believed she should be no poorer! Then she recollected the widow's cruse of oil, and tears of thankfulness and faith came into her eyes, and other tears dropped when she remembered the other more precious comfort that the stranger had brought into the widow's house, but she knew that the days of miracles and cures past hope were gone, and that the Christian woman's promise was 'that her children should come again,' but not till the resurrection of the just. And though to her eye each frost was freshly piercing her boy's breast, each warm damp day he faded into greater feebleness, yet the hope was far clearer. He was happy and content. He had laid hold of the blessed hope of Everlasting Life, and was learning to believe that the Cross laid on him here was in mercy to make him fit for Heaven, first making him afraid and sorry for his sins, and ready to turn to Him Who could take them away, and then almost becoming gladness, in the thought of following his Master, though so far off. Not that Alfred often said such things, but they breathed peace over his mind, and made Scripture-reading, prayers, and hymns very delightful to him, especially those in Matilda's book; and he dwelt more than he told any one on Mr. Cope's promise, when he trusted to be made more fully 'one with Christ' in the partaking of His Cup of Life. It used to be his treat, when no one was looking, to read over that Service in his Prayer- book, and to think of the time. It was like a kind of step; he could fix his mind on that, and the sense of forgiveness he hoped for therein, better than on the great change that was coming; when there was much fear and shrinking from the pain, and some dread of what as yet seemed strange and unknown, he thought he should feel lifted up so as to be able to bear the thought, when that holy Feast should have come to him. All this made him much less occupied with himself, and he took much more share in what was going on; he could be amused and playful, cared for all that Ellen and Harold did, and was inclined to make the most of his time with his brother. It was like old happy times, now that Alfred had ceased to be fretful, and Harold took heed not to distress him. One thing to which Alfred looked forward greatly, was Paul's being able to come into his room, and the two on their opposite sides of the wall made many pleasant schemes for the talk and reading that were to go on. But when the day came, Alfred was more disappointed than pleased. Paul had been cased, by Lady Jane's orders, in flannel; he had over that a pair of trousers of Alfred's--much too long, for the Kings were very tall, and he was small and stunted in growth--and a great wrapping-gown that Mr. Cope had once worn when he was ill at college, and over his shaven head a night-cap that had been their father's. Ellen, with many directions from Alfred, had made him up a couch with three chairs, and the cushions Alfred used to have when he could leave his bed; the fire was made up brightly, and Mrs. King and Harold helped Paul into the room. But all the rheumatic pain was by no means over, and walking made him feel it; he was dreadfully weak, and was so giddy and faint after the first few steps, that they could not bring him to shake hands with Alfred as both had wished, but had to lay him down as fast as they could. So tired was he, that he could hardly say anything all the time he was there; and Alfred had to keep silence for fear of wearying him still more. There was a sort of shyness, too, which hindered the two from even letting their eyes meet, often as they had heard each other's voices, and had greeted one another through the thin partition. As Paul lay with his eyes shut, Alfred raised himself to take a good survey of the sharp pinched features, the hollow cheeks, deep-sunk pits for the eyes,--and yellow ghastly skin of the worn face, and the figure, so small and wasted that it was like nothing, curled up in all those wraps. One who could read faces better than young Alfred could, would have gathered not only that the boy who lay there had gone through a great deal, but that there was much mind and thought crushed down by misery, and a gentle nature not fit to stand up alone against it, and so sinking down without exertion. And when Alfred was learning a verse of his favourite hymn-- 'There is a rill whose waters rise--' Paul's eye-lids rose, and looked him all over dreamily, comparing him perhaps with the notions he had carried away from his two former glimpses. Alfred did not look now so utterly different from anything he had seen before, since Mrs. King and Ellen had been hovering round his bed for nearly a month past; but still the fair skin, pink colour, dark eye-lashes, glossy hair, and white hands, were like a dream to him, as if they belonged to the pure land whither Alfred was going, and he was quite loath to hear him speak like another boy, as he knew he could do, having often listened to his talk through the wall. At the least sign of Alfred's looking up, he turned away his eyes as if he had been doing something by stealth. He came in continually after this; and little things each day, and Harold's talk, made the two acquainted and like boys together; but it was not till Christmas Day that they felt like knowing each other. It was the first time Paul felt himself able to be of any use, for he was to be left in charge of Alfred, while Mrs. King and both her other children went to church. Paul was sadly crippled still, and every frost filled his bones with acute pain, and bent him like an old man, so that he was still a long way from getting down-stairs, but he could make a shift to get about the room, and he looked greatly pleased when Alfred declared that he should want nobody else to stay with him in the morning. Very glad he was that his mother would not be kept from Ellen's first Holy Communion. Owing to the Curate not being a priest, the Feast had not been celebrated since Michaelmas; but a clergyman had come to help Mr. Cope, that the parish might not be deprived of the Festival on such a day as Christmas. Harold, though in a much better mood than at the Confirmation time, was not as much concerned to miss it as perhaps he ought to have been. Thought had not come to him yet, and his head was full of the dinner with the servants at the Grange. It was sad that he and Ellen should alone be able to go to it; but it would be famous for all that! Ay, and so were the young postman's Christmas-boxes! So Paul and Alfred were left together, and held their tongues for full five minutes, because both felt so odd. Then Alfred said something about reading the Service, and Paul offered to read it to him. Paul had not only been very well taught, but had a certain gift, such as not many people have, for reading aloud well. Alfred listened to those Psalms and Lessons as if they had quite a new meaning in them, for the right sound and stress on the right words made them sound quite like another thing; and so Alfred said when he left off. 'I'm sure they do to me,' said Paul. 'I didn't know much about "good- will to men" last Christmas.' 'You've not had overmuch good-will from them, neither,' said Alfred, 'since you came out.' 'What! not since I've been at Friarswood?' exclaimed Paul. 'Why, I used to think all _that_ was only something in a book.' 'All what?' asked Alfred. 'All about--why, loving one's neighbour--and the Good Samaritan, and so on. I never saw any one do it, you know, but it was comfortable like to read about it; and when I watched to your mother and all of you, I saw how it was about one's neighbour; and then, what with that and Mr. Cope's teaching, I got to feel how it was--about God!' and Paul's face looked very grave and peaceful. 'Well,' said Alfred, 'I don't know as I ever cared about it much--not since I was a little boy. It was the fun last Christmas.' And Paul looking curious, Alfred told all about the going out for holly, and the dining at the Grange, and the snap-dragon over the pudding, till he grew so eager and animated that he lost breath, and his painful cough came on, so that he could just whisper, 'What did you do?' 'Oh! I don't know. We had prayers, and there was roast beef for dinner, but they gave it to me where it was raw, and I couldn't eat it. Those that had friends went out; but 'twasn't much unlike other days.' 'Poor Paul!' sighed Alfred. 'It won't be like that again, though,' said Paul, 'even if I was in a Union. I know--what I know now.' 'And, Paul,' said Alfred, after a pause, 'there's one thing I should like if I was you. You know our Blessed Saviour had no house over Him, but was left out of the inn, and nobody cared for Him.' Paul did not make any answer; and Alfred blushed all over. Presently Alfred said, 'Harold will run in soon. I say, Paul, would you mind reading me what they will say after the Holy Sacrament--what the Angels sang is the beginning.' Paul found it, and felt as if he must stand to read such praise. 'Thank you,' said Alfred. 'I'm glad Mother and Ellen are there. They'll remember us, you know. Did you hear what Mr. Cope promised me?' Paul had not heard; and Alfred told him, adding, 'It will be the Ember- week in Lent. You'll be one with me then, Paul?' 'I'd like to promise,' said Paul fervently; 'but you see, when I'm well--' 'Oh, you won't go away for good. My Lady, or Mr. Cope, will get you work; and I want you to be Mother's good son instead of me; and a brother to Harold and Ellen.' 'I'd never go if I could help it,' said Paul; 'I sometimes wish I'd never got better! I wish I could change with you, Alfred; nobody would care if 'twas me; nor I'm sure I shouldn't.' 'I should like to get well!' said Alfred slowly, and sighing. 'But then you've been a much better lad than I was.' 'I don't know why you should say that,' said Paul, with his hand under his chin, rather moodily. 'But if I thought I could be good and go on well, I would not mind so much. I say, Alfred, when people round go on being--like Tom Boldre, you know--do you think one can always feel that about God being one's Father, and church home, and all the rest?' 'I can't say--I never tried,' said Alfred. 'But you know you can always go to church--and then the Psalms and Lessons tell you those things. Well, and you can go to the Holy Sacrament--I say, Paul, if you take it the first time with me, you'll always remember me again every time after.' 'I must be very odd ever to forget you!' said Paul, not far from crying. 'Ha!' he exclaimed, 'they are coming out of church!' 'I want to say one thing more, while I've got it in my head,' said Alfred. 'Mr. Cope said all this sickness was a cross to me, and I'd got to take it up for our Saviour's sake. Well, and then mayn't yours be being plagued and bullied, without any friends? I'm sure something like it happened to our Lord; and He never said one word against them. Isn't that the way you may be to follow Him?' Illness and thought had made such things fully plain to Alfred, and his words sank deep into Paul's mind; but there was not time for any answer, for Harold was heard unlocking the door, and striding up three steps at a time, sending his voice before him. 'Well, old chaps, have you quarrelled yet? Have you been jolly together? I say, Mrs. Crabbe told Ellen that the pudding was put into the boiler at eight o'clock last night; and my Lady and Miss Jane went in to give it a stir! I'm to bring you home a slice, you know; and Paul will know what a real pudding is like.' The two boys spent a happy quiet afternoon with Mrs. King; and Charles Hayward brought all the singing boys down, that they might hear the carols outside the window. Paul, much tired, was in his bed by that time; but his last thought was that 'Good-will to Men' had come home to him at last. CHAPTER XI--BETTER DAYS FOR PAUL Paul's reading was a great prize to Alfred, for he soon grew tired himself; his sister could not spare time to read to him, and if she did, she went mumbling on like a bee in a bottle. Her mother did much the same, and Harold used to stumble and gabble, so that it was horrible to hear him. Such reading as Paul's was a new light to them all, and was a treat to Ellen as she worked as much as to Alfred; and Paul, with hands as clean as Alfred's, was only too happy to get hold of a book, and infinitely enjoyed the constant supply kept up by Miss Selby, to make up for her not coming herself. Then came the making out the accounts, a matter dreaded by all the family. Ellen and Alfred both used to do the sums; but as they never made them the same, Mrs. King always went by some reckoning of her own by pencil dots on her thumb-nail, which took an enormous time, but never went wrong. So the slate and the books came up after tea, one night, and Ellen set to work with her mother to pick out every one's bill. There might be about eight customers who had Christmas bills; but many an accountant in a London shop would think eight hundred a less tough business than did the King family these eight; especially as there was a debtor and creditor account with four, and coals, butcher's meat, and shoes for man and horse, had to be set against bread, tea, candles, and the like. One pound of tea, 3_s._ 6_d._, that was all very well; but an ounce and a half of the same made Ellen groan, and look wildly at the corner over Alfred's bed, as if in hopes she should there see how to set it down, so as to work it. 'Fourpence, all but--' said a voice from the arm-chair by the fire. Ellen did not take any particular heed, but announced the fact that three shillings were thirty-six pence, and six was forty-two. Also that sixteen ounces were one pound, and sixteen drams one ounce; but there she got stuck, and began making figures and rubbing them out, as if in hopes that would clear up her mind. Mrs. King pecked on for ten minutes on her nail. 'Well,' she said, 'Paul's right; it is fourpence.' 'However did you do it?' asked Ellen. 'As 16 to 1.5, so 42,' quoth Paul quickly. 'Three halves into 42; 21 and 42 is 63; 63 by 16, gives 3 and fifteen-sixteenths. You can't deduct a sixteenth of a penny, so call it fourpence.' Ellen and Alfred were as wise as to the working as they were before. Next question--Paul's answer came like the next line in the book--Mrs. King proved him right, and so on till she was quite tired of the proofs, and began to trust him. Alfred asked how he could possibly do such things, which seemed to him a perfect riddle. 'I should have had my ears pretty nigh pulled off if I took five minutes to work _that_ in my head,' said Paul. 'But I've forgotten things now; I could do it faster once.' 'I'm sure you hadn't need,' said Mrs. King; 'it's enough to distract one's senses to count so fast. All in your poor head too!' 'And I've got to write them all out to-morrow,' said Ellen dismally; 'I must wait till dark, or I shan't set a stitch of work. I wish people would pay ready money, and then one wouldn't have to set down their bills. Here's Mr. Cope, bread--bread--bread, as long as my arm!' 'If you didn't mind, maybe I could save you the trouble, Miss Ellen,' said Paul. 'Did you ever make out a bill?' asked Mrs. King. 'Never a real one; but every Thursday I used to do sham ones. Once I did a jeweller's bill for twelve thousand pounds and odd! It is so long since I touched a pen, that may be I can't write; but I should like to try.' Ellen brought a pen, and the cover of a letter; and hobbling up to the table, he took the pen, cleared it of a hair that was sticking in it, made a scratch or two weakly and ineffectually, then wrote in a neat clear hand, without running up or down, 'Friarswood, Christmas.' 'A pretty hand as ever I saw!' said Mrs. King. 'Well, if you can write like that, and can be trusted to make no mistakes, you might write out our bills; and we'd be obliged to you most kindly.' And so Paul did, so neatly, that when the next evening Mr. Cope walked in with the money, he said, looking at Harold, 'Ah! my ancient Saxon, I must make my compliments to you: I did not think you could write letters as well as you can carry them.' ''Twas Paul did it, Sir,' said Harold. 'Yes, Sir; 'twas Paul,' said Mrs. King. 'The lad is a wonderful scholar: he told off all the sums as if they was in print; and to hear him read--'tis like nothing I ever heard since poor Mrs. Selby, Miss Jane's mother.' 'I saw he had been very well instructed--in acquaintance with the Bible, and the like.' 'And, Sir, before I got to know him for a boy that would not give a false account of himself, I used to wonder whether he could have run away from some school, and have friends above the common. If you observe, Sir, he speaks so remarkably well.' Mr. Cope had observed it. Paul spoke much better English than did even the Kings; though Ellen was by way of being very particular, and sometimes a little mincing. 'You are quite sure it is not so?' he said, a little startled at Mrs. King's surmise. 'Quite sure now, Sir. I don't believe he would tell a falsehood on no account; and besides, poor lad!' and she smiled as the tears came into her eyes, 'he's so taken to me, he wouldn't keep nothing back from me, no more than my own boys.' 'I'm sure he ought not, Mrs. King,' said the Curate, 'such a mother to him as you have been. I should like to examine him a little. With so much education, he might do something better for himself than field-labour.' 'A very good thing it would be, Sir,' said Mrs. King, looking much cheered; 'for I misdoubt me sometimes if he'll ever be strong enough to gain his bread that way--at least, not to be a good workman. There! he's not nigh so tall as Harold; and so slight and skinny as he is, going about all bent and slouching, even before his illness! Why, he says what made him stay so long in the Union was that he looked so small and young, that none of the farmers at Upperscote would take him from it; and so at last he had to go on the tramp.' Mr. Cope went up-stairs, and found Ellen, as usual, at her needle, and Paul in the arm-chair close by Alfred, both busied in choosing and cutting out pictures from Matilda's 'Illustrated News,' with which Harold ornamented the wall of the stair-case and landing. Mr. Cope sat down, and made them laugh with something droll about the figures that were lying spread on Alfred. 'So, Paul,' he said, 'I find Mrs. King has engaged you for her accountant.' 'I wish I could do anything to be of any use,' said Paul. 'I've half a mind to ask you some questions in arithmetic,' said Mr. Cope, with his merry eyes upon the boy, and his mouth looking grave; 'only I'm afraid you might puzzle me.' 'I can't do as I used, Sir,' said Paul, rather nervously; 'I've forgotten ever so much; and my head swims.' The slate was lying near; Mr. Cope pushed it towards him, and said, 'Well, will you mind letting me see how you can write from dictation?' And taking up one of the papers, he read slowly several sentences from a description of a great fire, with some tolerably long-winded newspaper words in them. When he paused, and asked for the slate, there it all stood, perfectly spelt, well written, and with all the stops and capitals in the right places. 'Famously done, Paul! Well, and do you know where this place was?' naming the town. Paul turned his eyes about for a moment, and then gave the name of a county. 'That'll do, Paul. Which part of England?' 'Midland.' And so on, Mr. Cope got him out of his depth by asking about the rivers, and made him frown and look teased by a question about a battle fought in that county. If he had ever known, he had forgotten, and he was weak and easily confused; but Mr. Cope saw that he had read some history and learnt some geography, and was not like some of the village boys, who used to think Harold had been called after Herod--a nice namesake, truly! 'Who taught you all this, Paul?' he said. 'You must have had a cleverer master than is common in Unions. Who was he?' 'He was a Mr. Alcock, Sir. He was a clever man. They said in the House that he had been a bit of a gentleman, a lawyer, or a clerk, or something, but that he could never keep from the bottle.' 'What! and so they keep him for a school-master?' 'He was brought in, Sir; he'd got that mad fit that comes of drink, Sir, and was fresh out of gaol for debt. And when he came to, he said he'd keep the school for less than our master that was gone. He couldn't do anything else, you see.' 'And how did he teach you?' 'He knocked us about,' said Paul, drawing his shoulders together with an unpleasant recollection; 'he wasn't so bad to me, because I liked getting my tasks, and when he was in a good humour, he'd say I was a credit to him, and order me in to read to him in the evening.' 'And when he was not?' 'That was when he'd been out. They said he'd been at the gin-shop; but he used to be downright savage,' said Paul. 'At last he never thought it worth while to teach any lessons but mine, and I used to hear the other classes; but the inspector came all on a sudden, and found it out one day when he'd hit a little lad so that his nose was bleeding, and so he was sent off.' 'How long ago was this?' 'Going on for a year,' said Paul. 'Didn't the inspector want you to go to a training-school?' said Alfred. 'Yes; but the Guardians wouldn't hear of it.' 'Did you wish it?' asked Mr. Cope. 'I liked my liberty, Sir,' was the answer; and Paul looked down. 'Well, and what you do think now you've tried your liberty?' Paul didn't make any answer, but finding that good-humoured face still waiting, he said slowly, 'Why, Sir, it was well-nigh the worst of all to find I was getting as stupid as the cows.' Mr. Cope laughed, but not so as to vex him; and added, 'So that was the way you learnt to be a reader, Paul. Can you tell me what books you used to read to this master?' Paul paused; and Alfred said, '"Uncle Tom's Cabin," Sir; he told us the story of that.' 'Yes,' said Paul; 'but that wasn't all: there was a book about Paris, and all the people in the back lanes there; and a German prince who came, and was kind.' 'You must not tell them stories out of that book, Paul,' said Mr. Cope quickly, for he knew it was a very bad one. 'No, Sir,' said Paul; 'but most times it was books he called philosophy, that I couldn't make anything of--no story, and all dull; but he was very savage if I got to sleep over them, till I hated the sight of them.' 'I'm glad you did, my poor boy,' said Mr. Cope. 'But one thing more. Tell me how, with such a man as this, you could have learnt about the Bible and Catechism, as you have done.' 'Oh,' said Paul, 'we had only the Bible and Testament to read in the school, because they were the cheapest; and the chaplain asked us about the Catechism every Sunday.' 'What was the chaplain's name?' Paul was able, with some recollection, to answer; but he knew little about the clergyman, who was much overworked, and seldom able to give any time to the paupers. Three days after, Mr. Cope again came into the post-office. 'Well, Mrs. King, I suppose you don't need to be told that our friend Paul has spoken nothing but truth. The chaplain sends me his baptismal registry, for which I asked. Just seventeen he must be--a foundling, picked up at about three weeks old, January 25th, 1836. They fancy he was left by some tramping musicians, but never were able to trace them--at least, so the chaplain hears from some of the people who remember it. Being so stunted, and looking younger than he is, no farmer would take him from the House, and the school-master made him useful, so he was kept on till the grand exposure that he told us of.' 'Ah! Sir,' said Mrs. King,' I'm afraid that master was a bad man. I only wonder the poor lad learnt no more harm from him!' 'One trembles to think of the danger,' said Mr. Cope; 'but you see there's often a guard over those who don't seek the temptation, and perhaps this poor fellow's utter ignorance of anything beyond the Union walls helped him to let the mischief pass by his understanding, better than if he had had any experience of the world.' 'I doubt if he'll ever have that, Sir,' said Mrs. King, her sensible face lighting up rather drolly; 'there's Harold always laughing at him for being so innocent, and yet so clever at his book.' 'So much the better for him,' said Mr. Cope. 'The Son of Sirach never said a wiser word than that "the knowledge of wickedness is not wisdom." Why, Mrs. King, what have I said? you look as if you had a great mind to laugh at me.' 'I beg your pardon, Sir,' said Mrs. King, much disconcerted at what seemed to her as if it might have been disrespect, though that was only Mr. Cope's droll way of putting it, 'I never meant--' 'Well, but what were you thinking of?' 'Why, Sir, I beg your pardon, but I was thinking it wouldn't have been amiss if he had had sense enough to keep himself clean and tidy.' 'I agree with you,' said Mr. Cope, laughing, and seeing she used 'innocent' in a slightly different sense from what he did; 'but perhaps Union cleanliness was not inviting, and he'd not had you to bring him up to fresh cheeks like Harold's. Besides, I believe it was half depression and want of heart to exert himself, when there was no one to care for him; and he certainly had not been taught either self-respect, or to think cleanliness next to godliness.' 'Poor lad--no,' said Mrs. King; 'nor I don't think he'd do it again, and I trust he'll never be so lost again.' 'Lost, and found,' said Mr. Cope gravely. 'Another thing I was going to say was, that this irreverent economy of the Guardians, in allowing no lesson-books but the Bible, seems to have, after all, been blest to him in his knowledge of it, like an antidote to the evil the master poured in.' 'Yes, Sir,' said Mrs. King, 'just so; only he says, that though he liked it, because, poor lad, there was nothing else that seemed to him to speak kind or soft, he never knew how much it was meant for him, nor it didn't seem to touch him home till he came to you, Sir.' Mr. Cope half turned away. His bright eyes had something very like a tear in them, for hardly anything could have been said to make the young clergyman so happy, as to tell him that any work of his should be blessed; but he went on talking quickly, to say that the chaplain gave a still worse account of Alcock than Paul's had been, saying that some gentlemen who had newly become Guardians at the time of the inspector's visit, had taken up the matter, and had been perfectly shocked at the discoveries they had made about the man to whom the poor children had been entrusted. On his dismissal, some of the old set, who were all for cheapness, had talked of letting young Blackthorn act as school-master; but as he was so very young, and had been brought up by this wretched man, the gentlemen would not hear of it; and as they could not afford to accept the inspector's offer of recommending him to a government school, he had been sent out in quest of employment, as being old enough to provide for himself. Things had since, the chaplain said, been put on a much better footing, and he himself had much more time to attend to the inmates. As to Paul, he was glad to hear that he was in good hands; he said he had always perceived him to be a very clever boy, and knew no harm of him but that he was a favourite with Alcock, which he owned had made him very glad to get him out of the House, lest he should carry on the mischief. Mr. Cope and Mrs. King were both of one mind, that this was hard measure. So it was. Man's measure always is either over hard or over soft, because he cannot see all sides at once. Now they saw Paul's side, his simplicity, and his suffering; the chaplain had only seen the chances of his conveying the seeds of ungodly teaching to the workhouse children; he could not tell that the pitch which Paul had not touched by his own will, had not stuck by him--probably owing to that very simplicity which had made him so helpless in common life. Having learnt all this, Mr. Cope proposed to Paul to use the time of his recovery in learning as much as he could, so as to be ready in case any opportunity should offer for gaining his livelihood by his head rather than by his hands. Paul's face glowed. He liked nothing better than to be at a book, and with Mr. Cope to help him by bright encouragements and good-natured explanations instead of tweaks of the ears and raps on the knuckles, what could be pleasanter? So Mr. Cope lent him books, set him questions, and gave him pen, ink, and copy-book, and he toiled away with them till his senses grew dazed, and his back ached beyond bearing; so that 'Mother,' as he called her now, caught him up, and made him lie on his bed to rest, threatening to tell Mr. Cope not to set him anything so hard; while Ellen watched in wonder at any one being so clever, and was proud of whatever Mr. Cope said he did well; and Harold looked on him as a more extraordinary creature than the pie-bald horse in the show, who wore a hat and stood on his hind legs, since he really was vexed when book and slate were taken out of his hands. He would have over-tasked himself in his weakness much more, if it had not been for his lovingness to Alfred. To please Alfred was always his first thought; and even if a difficult sum were just on the point of proving itself, he would leave off at the first moment of seeing Alfred look as if he wanted to be read to, and would miss all his calculations, to answer some question--who was going down the village, or what that noise could be. Alfred tried to be considerate, and was sorry when he saw by a furrow on Paul's brow that he was trying to win up again all that some trifling saying had made him lose. But Alfred was not scholar enough to perceive the teasing of such interruptions, and even had he been aware of it, he was not in a state when he could lie quite still long together without disturbing any one; he could amuse himself much less than formerly, and often had most distressing restless fits, when one or other of them had to give him their whole attention; and it was all his most earnest efforts could do to keep from the old habit of fretfulness and murmuring. And he grieved so much over the least want of temper, and begged pardon so earnestly for the least impatient word--even if there had been real provocation for it--that it was a change indeed since the time when he thought grumbling and complaint his privilege and relief. Nothing helped him more than Paul's reading Psalms to him--the 121st was his favourite--or saying over hymns to him in that very sweet voice so full of meaning. Sometimes Ellen and Paul would sing together, as she sat at her work, and it almost always soothed him to hear the Psalm tunes, that were like an echo from the church, about which he had cared so little when he had been able to go there in health and strength, but for which he now had such a longing! He came to be so used to depend on their singing the Evening Hymn to him, that one of the times when it was most hard for him to be patient, was one cold evening, when Ellen was so hoarse that she could not speak, and an unlucky draught in from the shop door had so knit Paul up again, that he was lying in his bed, much nearer screaming than singing. Most of all, however, was Alfred helped by Mr. Cope's visits, and the looking forward to the promised Feast, with more earnestness as the time drew on, and he felt his own weakness more longing for the support and blessing of uniting his suffering with that of his Lord. 'In all our afflictions He was afflicted,' was a sound that came most cheeringly to him, and seemed to give him greater strength and good-will to bear his load of weakness. There was a book which young Mrs. Selby had given his mother, which was often lying on his bed, and had marks in it at all the favourite places. Some he liked to look at himself, some for Paul to read to him. They were such sentences as these: 'My son, I descended from Heaven for thy salvation; I took upon Me thy miseries; not necessity, but charity, drawing Me thereto, that thou thyself mightest learn patience, and bear temporal miseries without grudging.' 'For from the hour of My Birth, even until My Death on the Cross, I was not without suffering and grief.' And then again: 'Offer up thyself unto Me, and give thyself wholly for God, and thy offering shall be acceptable.' 'Behold, I offered up Myself wholly unto My Father for thee, and gave My whole Body and Blood for thy food, that I might be wholly thine, and that thou mightest continue Mine unto the end.' So he might think of all that he went through as capable of being made a free offering, which God would accept for the sake of the One Great Offering, 'consuming and burning away' (as the book said) 'all his sins with the fire of Christ's love, and cleansing his conscience from all offences.' It was what he now felt in the words, 'Thy Will be done,' which he tried to say in full earnest; but he thought he should be very happy when he should go along with the offering ourselves, our souls, and bodies, to be a 'reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice.' Each of Mr. Cope's readings brought out or confirmed these refreshing hopes; and Paul likewise dwelt on such thoughts. Hardship had been a training to him, like sickness for Alfred; he knew what it was to be weary and heavy laden, and to want rest, and was ready to draw closer to the only Home and Father that he could claim. His gentle unresisting spirit was one that so readily forgot ill-will, that positively Harold cherished more dislike to the Shepherds than he did; and there was no struggle to forgive, no lack of charity for all men, so that hope and trust were free. These two boys were a great deal to the young deacon. Perhaps he reckoned on his first ministration as a priest by Alfred's bedside, as much or even more than did the lad, for to him the whole household were as near and like-minded friends, though neither he nor they ever departed from the fitting manners of their respective stations. He was one who liked to share with others what was near his heart, and he had shewn Alfred the Service for the Ordination of Priests, and the Prayers for Grace that would be offered, and the holy vows that he would take upon him, and the words with which those great Powers would be conferred--those Powers that our Chief Shepherd left in trust for the pastors who feed His flock. And once he had bent down and whispered to Alfred to pray that help might be given to him to use those powers faithfully. So wore on the early spring; and the morning had come when he was to set out for the cathedral town, when Harold rode up to the parsonage door, and something in his looks as he passed the window made Mr. Cope hasten to the door to meet him. 'O Sir!' said Harold, bursting out crying as he began to speak, 'poor Alfred is took so bad; and Mother told me to tell you, Sir--if he's not better--he'll never live out the day!' Poor Harold, who had never seemed to heed his brother's illness, was quite overwhelmed now. It had come upon him all at once. 'What is it? Has the doctor been?' 'No, Sir; I went in at six o'clock this morning to ask him to come out, and he said he'd come--and sent him a blister--but Alf was worse by the time I got back, Sir,--he can't breathe--and don't seem to notice.' And without another word, nor waiting for comfort, Harold dug his heels into Peggy, passed his elbow over his eyes, and cantered on with the tears drying on his face in the brisk March wind. There was no finishing breakfast for the Curate; he thrust his letters into his pocket, caught up his hat, and walked off with long strides for the post-office. It shewed how different things were from usual, that Paul, who had hardly yet been four times down-stairs, his thin pointed face all in a flush, was the only person in the shop, trying with a very shaky hand to cut out some cheese for a great stout farm maid-servant, who evidently did not understand what was the matter, and stared doubly when the clergyman put his strong hand so as to steady Paul's trembling one, and gave his help to fold up the parcel. 'How is he, Paul?' Paul was very near crying as he answered, 'Much worse, Sir. Mother has been up all night with him. O Sir! he did so want to live till you came home.' 'May I go up?' asked Mr. Cope. Paul was sure that he might, and crept up after him. It was bad enough, but not quite so bad as Harold, in his fright, had made Mr. Cope believe. Poor boy! it had all come upon him now; and seeing his brother unable to speak and much oppressed, he fancied he did not know him, whereas Alfred was fully sensible, though too ill to do more than lift his eyes, and put out his weak fingers as Mr. Cope came into the room, where he was lying raised on his pillows, with his mother and sister doing all they could for him. A terrible pain in the side had come on in the night, making every breath painful, every cough agonizing, and his whole face and brow were crimson with the effort of gasping. Paul looked a moment but could not bear it, and went, and sat down on the top of the stairs; while Mr. Cope kindly held Alfred's hot hand, and Mrs. King, in her low patient tone, told how the attack had begun. She was in the midst, when Mr. Blunt's gig was seen at the gate. His having thus hastened his coming was more than they had dared to hope; and while Mrs. King felt grateful for the kindness, Ellen feared that it shewed that he thought very badly of the case. Mr. Cope was much hurried, but he could not bear to go till he had heard Mr. Blunt's opinion; so he went down to the kitchen, tried to console Paul by talking kindly to him, wrote a note, and read his letters. They were much comforted to hear that Mr. Blunt thought that there was hope of subduing the present inflammatory pain; and though there was much immediate danger, it was not hastening so very fast to the end as they had at first supposed. Yet, in such a state as Alfred's, a few hours might finish all. There was no saying. Already, when Mr. Cope went up again, the remedies had given some relief; and though the breaths came short and hard, like so many stabs, Alfred had put his head into an easier position, and his eyes and lips looked more free to look a greeting. There was so much wistful earnestness in his face, and it deeply grieved Mr. Cope to be forced to leave him, and in too much haste even to be able to pray with him. 'Well, Alfred, dear fellow,' he said, his voice trembling, 'I am come to wish you good-bye. I am comforted to find that Mr. Blunt thinks there is good hope that you will be here--that we shall be together when I come back. Yes, I know that is what is on your mind, and I do reckon most earnestly on it; but if it should not be His Will--here, Ellen, will you take care of this note? If he should be worse, will you send this to Mr. Carter, at Ragglesford? and I know he will come at once.' The dew stood on Alfred's eye-lashes, and his lips worked. He looked up sadly to Mr. Cope, as if this did not answer his longings. Mr. Cope replied to the look--'Yes, dear boy, but if it cannot be, still remember it is Communion. He can put us together. We all drink into one Spirit. I shall be engaged in a like manner--I would not--I could not go, Alfred, for pleasure--no, nor business--only for this. You must think that I am gone to bring you home the Gift--the greatest, best Gift--the one our Lord left with His disciples, to bear them through their sorrows and pains--through the light affliction that is but for a moment, but worketh an exceeding weight of glory. And if I should not be in time,' he added, nearly sobbing as he spoke, 'then--then, Alfred, the Gift, the blessing is yours all the same. It is the Great High Priest to Whom you must look--perhaps you may do so the more really if it should not be through--your friend. If we are disappointed, we will make a sacrifice of our disappointment. Good-bye, my boy; God bless you!' Bending close down to his face, he whispered, 'Think of me. Pray for me--now--always.' Then, rising hastily, he shook the hands of the mother and sister, ran down-stairs, and was gone. CHAPTER XII--REST AT LAST The east wind had been swept aside by gales from the warm south, and the spring was bursting out everywhere; the sky looked softly blue, instead of hard and chill; the sun made everything glisten: the hedges were full of catkins; white buds were on the purple twigs of the blackthorns; primroses were looking out on the sunny side of the road; the larks were mounting up, singing as if they were wild with delight; and the sunbeams were full of dancing gnats, as the Curate of Friarswood walked, with quick eager steps, towards the bridge. His eyes were anxiously bent on the house, watching the white smoke rising from the chimney; then he hastened on to gain the first sight at the upper windows, feeling almost as he could have done had it been a brother who lay there; so much was his heart set on the first whom he had striven to help through the valley of the shadow of death. The window was open, but the blind was not drawn; and almost at the same moment the gate opened, some one looked out, and seeing him, waved his hand and arm in joyful signal towards some one within, and this gesture set Mr. Cope's heart at rest. Was it Harold? No, it was Paul Blackthorn, who stood leaning on the wicket, as he held it open for the clergyman, at whom he looked up as if expecting some change, and a little surprised to find the same voice and manner. 'Well, Paul, then he is not worse?' 'No, Sir, thank you, he is better. The pain has left him, and he can speak again,' said Paul, but not very cheerfully. 'That is a great comfort! But who's that?' as a head, not Ellen's, appeared for a moment at the window. 'That's Miss King, Sir--Miss Matilda!' 'Oh! Well, and how are the bones, Paul? Better, I hope, since I see you are come out with the bees,' said Mr. Cope, laying his hand kindly on his shoulder (a thing fit to touch now, since it was in a fustian coat of poor Alfred's), and accommodating his swift strong steps to the feeble halt with which Paul still moved. 'Thank you, Sir, yes; I've been down here twice when the sun was out,' he said, as if it were a grand undertaking; but then, with a sudden smile, 'and poor Caesar knew me, Sir; he came right across the road, and wagged his tail, and licked my hand.' 'Good old Caesar! You were his best friend, Paul.--Well, Mrs. King, this is a blessing!' Mrs. King looked sadly worn out with nursing, and her eyes were full of tears. 'Yes, Sir,' she said, 'indeed it is. My poor darling has been so much afraid he was too much set on your coming home, and yet so patient and quiet about it.' 'Then you ventured to wait?' And Mr. Cope heard that the attack of inflammation had given way to remedies, but that Alfred was so much weakened, that they could not raise him again. He was sustained by as much nourishment as they could give him: but the disease had made great progress, and Mr. Blunt did not think that he could last many days. His eldest sister had come for a fortnight from her place, and was a great comfort to them all. 'And so is Paul,' said Mrs. King, looking for him kindly; 'I don't know what we should do without his help up-stairs and down. And, Sir, yesterday,' she added, colouring a good deal--'I beg your pardon, but I thought, maybe, you'd like to hear it--Alfred would have nobody else up with him in morning church-time--and made him read the most--of that Service, Sir.' Mr. Cope's eyes glistened, and he said something huskily of being glad that Alfred could think of it. It further appeared that Alfred had wished very much to see Miss Selby again, and that Mrs. King had sent the two sisters to the Grange to talk it over with Mrs. Crabbe, and word had been sent by Harold that morning that the young lady would come in the course of the afternoon. Mr. Cope followed Mrs. King up-stairs; Alfred's face lighted up as his sister Matilda made way for the clergyman. He was very white, and his breath was oppressed; but his look had changed very much--it had a strange, still sort of brightness and peace about it. He spoke in very low tones, just above a whisper, and smiled as Mr. Cope took his hand, and spoke to him. 'Thank you, Sir. It is very nice,' he said. 'I thank God that He has let you wait for me,' said Mr. Cope. 'I am glad,' said Alfred. 'I did want to pray for it; but I thought, perhaps, if it was not His Will, I would not--and then what you said. And now He is making it all happy.' 'And you do not grieve over your year of illness?' 'I would not have been without it--no,' said Alfred, very quietly, but with much meaning. '"It is good for me that I have been in trouble," is what you mean,' said Mr. Cope. 'It has made our Saviour seem--I mean--He is so good to me,' said Alfred fervently. But talking made him cough, and that brought a line in the fair forehead so full of peace. Mr. Cope would not say more to him, and asked his mother whether the Feast, for which he had so much longed, should be on the following day. She thought it best that it should be so; and Alfred again said, 'Thank you, Sir,' with the serene expression on his face. Mr. Cope read a Psalm and a prayer to him, and thinking him equal to no more, went away, pausing, however, for a little talk with Paul in the shop. Paul did not say so, but, poor fellow, he had been rather at a loss since Matilda had come. In herself, she was a very good, humble, sensible girl; but she wore a dark silk dress, and looked, moved, and spoke much more like a lady than Ellen: Paul stood in great awe of her, and her presence seemed all at once to set him aloof from the others. He had been like one of themselves for the last three months, now he felt that he was like a beggar among them; he did not like to call Mrs. King mother, lest it should seem presuming; Ellen seemed to be raised up the same step as her sister, and even Alfred was almost out of his reach; Matilda read to him, and Paul's own good feeling shewed him that he would be only in the way if he spent all his time in Alfred's room as formerly; so he kept down-stairs in the morning, and went to bed very early. Nobody was in the least unkind to him: but he had just begun to grieve at being a burden so long, and to wonder how much longer he should be in getting his health again. And then it might be only to be cast about the world, and to lose his one glimpse of home kindness. Poor boy! he still cried at the thought of how happy Alfred was. He did all he could to be useful, but he could scarcely manage to stoop down, could carry nothing heavy, and moved very slowly; and he now and then made a dreadful muddle in the shop, when a customer was not like Mrs. Hayward, who told him where everything was, and the price of all she wanted, as well as Mrs. King could do herself. He could sort the letters and see to the post-office very well; and for all his blunders, he did so much by his good-will, that when Mrs. King wanted to cheer him up, she declared that he saved her all the expense of having in a woman from the village to help, and that he did more about the house than Harold. This was true: for Harold did not like doing anything but manly things, as he called them; whereas Paul did not care what it was, so that it saved trouble to her or Ellen. Talking and listening to Harold was one use of Paul. Now that it had come upon him, and he saw Alfred worse from day to day, the poor boy was quite broken-hearted. Possibly, when at his work, or riding, he managed to shake off the remembrance; but at home it always came back, and he cried so much at the sight of Alfred, and at any attempt of his brother to talk to him, that they could scarcely let him stay ten minutes in the room. Then, when Paul had gone to bed on the landing at seven o'clock, he would come and sit on his bed, and talk, and cry, and sob about his brother, and his own carelessness of him, often till his mother came out and ordered him down-stairs to his own bed in the kitchen; and Paul turned his face into the pillow to weep himself to sleep, loving Alfred very little less than did his brother, but making less noise about it, and feeling very lonely when he saw how all the family cared for each other. So Mr. Cope's kind manner came all the more pleasantly to him; and after some talk on what they both most cared about, Mr. Cope said, 'Paul, Mr. Shaw of Berryton tells me he has a capital school-master, but in rather weak health, and he wants to find a good intelligent youth to teach under him, and have opportunities of improving himself. Five pounds a year, and board and lodgings. What do you think of it, Paul?' Paul's sallow face began growing red, and he polished the counter, on which he was leaning; then, as Mr. Cope repeated, 'Eh, Paul?' he said slowly, and in his almost rude way, 'They wouldn't have me if they knew how I'd been brought up.' 'Perhaps they would if they knew what you've come to in spite of bringing up. And,' added Mr. Cope, 'they are not so much pressed for time but that they can wait till you've quite forgotten your tumble into the Ragglesford. We must fatten you--get rid of those spider-fingers, and you and I must do a few more lessons together--and I think Mrs. King has something towards your outfit; and by Whitsuntide, I told Mr. Shaw that I thought I might send him what I call a very fair sample of a good steady lad.' Paul did not half seem to take it in--perhaps he was too unhappy, or it sounded like sending him away again; or, maybe, such a great step in life was more than he could comprehend, after the outcast condition to which he had been used: but Mr. Cope could not go on talking to him, for the Grange carriage was stopping at the gate, and Matilda and Ellen were both coming down-stairs to receive Miss Jane. Poor little thing, she looked very pale and nervous; and as she shook hands with the Curate, as he met her in the garden-path, she said with a startled manner, 'Oh! Mr. Cope--were you there? Am I interrupting--?' 'Not at all,' he said. 'I had only called in as I came home, and had just come down again.' 'Is it--is it very dreadful?' murmured Jane, with a sort of gasp. She was so entirely unused to scenes of sadness or pain, that it was very strange and alarming to her, and it was more difficult than ever to believe her no younger than Ellen. 'Very far from dreadful or distressing,' said Mr. Cope kindly, for he knew it was not her fault that she had been prevented from overcoming such feelings, and that this was a great effort of kindness. 'It is a very peaceful, soothing sight--he is very happy, and not in a suffering state.' 'Oh, will you tell Grandmamma?' said Jane, with her pretty look of earnestness; 'she is so much afraid of its much for me, and she was so kind in letting me come.' So Miss Selby went on to the two sisters, and Mr. Cope proceeded to the carriage, where Lady Jane had put out her head, glad to be able to ask him about the state of affairs. Having nothing but this little grand- daughter left to her, the old lady watched over her with almost over-tender care, and was in much alarm both lest the air of the sick- room should be unwholesome, or the sight too sorrowful for her; and though she was too kind to refuse the wish of the dying boy, she had come herself, in order that 'the child,' as she called her, might not stay longer than was good for her; and she was much relieved to hear Mr. Cope's account of Alfred's calm state, and of the freshness of the clean room, in testimony of which he pointed to the open window. 'Yes,' she said, 'I hope Mary King was wise enough; but I hardly knew how it might be with such a number about the house--that boy and all. He is not gone, is he?' 'No, he is not nearly well enough yet, though he does what he can to be useful to her. When he is recovered, I have a scheme for him.' So Mr. Cope mentioned Mr. Shaw's proposal, by which my Lady set more store than did Paul as yet. Very kind-hearted she was, though she did not fancy adopting chance-comers into her parish; and as long as he was not saddled upon Mary King, as she said, she was very glad of any good for him; so she told Mr. Cope to come to her for what he might want to fit him out properly for the situation; and turning her keen eyes on him as he stood near the cottage door, pronounced that, after all, he was a nice, decent-looking lad enough, which certainly her Ladyship would not have said before his illness. Miss Jane did not stay long. Indeed, Alfred could not talk to her, and she did not know what to say to him; she could only stand by his bed, with the tears upon her cheeks, making little murmuring sounds in answer to Mrs. King, who said for her son what she thought he wished to have said. Meanwhile, Jane was earnestly looking at him, remarking with awe, that, changed as he was since she had last seen him--so much more wasted away--the whole look of his face was altered by the gentleness and peace that it had gained, so as to be like the white figure of a saint. She could not bear it when Mrs. King told her Alfred wanted to thank her for all her kindness in coming to see him. 'Oh, no,' she said, 'I was not kind at all;' and her tears would not be hindered. 'Only, you know, I could not help it.' Alfred gave her a bright look. Any one could see what a pleasure it was to him to be looking at her again, though he did not repent of his share in the sacrifice for Paul's sake. No, if Paul had been given up that Miss Jane might come to him, Alfred would not have had the training that made all so sweet and calm with him now. He turned his head to the little picture, and said, 'Thank you, Ma'am, for that. That's been my friend.' 'Yes, indeed it has, Miss Jane,' said his mother. 'There's nothing you ever did for him that gave him the comfort that has been.' 'And please, Ma'am,' said Alfred, 'will you tell my Lady--I give her my duty--and ask her pardon for having behaved so bad--and Mrs. Crabbe--and the rest?' 'I will, Alfred; but every one has forgiven that nonsense long ago.' 'It was very bad of me,' said Alfred, pausing for breath; 'and so it was not to mind you--Miss Jane--when you said I was ill for a warning.' 'Did I?' said Jane. 'Yes--in hay-time--I mind it--I didn't mind for long--but 'twas true. He had patience with me.' The cough came on, and Jane knew she must go; her grandmother had bidden her not to stay if it were so, and she just ventured to squeeze Alfred's hand, and then went down-stairs, checking her tears, to wish Matilda and Ellen good-bye; and as she passed by Paul, told him not to uncover his still very short-haired head, and kindly hoped he was better. Paul, in his dreary feelings, hardly thought of Mr. Cope's plan, till, as he was getting the letters ready for Harold, he turned up one in Mr. Cope's writing, addressed to the 'Rev. A. Shaw, Berryton, Elbury.' 'That's to settle for me, then,' he said; and Harold who was at tea, asking, 'What's that?' he explained. 'Well,' said Harold, 'every one to his taste! I wouldn't go to school again, not for a hundred pounds; and as to _keeping_ school!' (Such a face as he made really caused Paul to smile.) 'Nor you don't half like it, neither,' continued Harold. 'Come, you'd better stay and get work here! I'd sooner be at the plough-tail all day, than poke out my eyes over stuff like that,' pointing to Paul's slate, covered with figures. 'Here, Nelly,' as she moved about, tidying the room, 'do you hear? Mr. Cope's got an offer of a place for Paul--five pounds a year, and board and lodging, to be school-master's whipper-in, or what d'ye call it?' 'What do you say, Harold?' cried Ellen, putting her hands on the back of a chair, quite interested. 'You going away, Paul?' 'Mr. Cope says so--and I must get my living, you know,' said Paul. 'But not yet; you are not well enough yet,' said the kind girl. 'And where did you say--?' 'To Berryton.' 'Berryton--oh! that's just four miles out on the other side of Elbury, where Susan Congleton went to live that was housemaid at the Grange. She says it's such a nice place, and such beautiful organ and singing at church! And what did you say you were to be, Paul?' 'I'm to help the school-master.' 'Gracious me!' cried Ellen. 'Why, such a scholar as you are, you'll be quite a gentleman yet, Paul. Why, they school-masters get fifty or sixty pounds salaries sometimes. I protest it's the best thing I've heard this long time! Was it Mr. Cope's doing, or my Lady's?' 'Mr. Cope's,' said Paul, beginning to think he had been rather less grateful than he ought. 'Ah! it is like him,' said Ellen, 'after all the pains he has taken with you. And you'll not be so far off, Paul: you'll come to see us in the holidays, you know.' 'To be sure he will,' said Harold; 'or if he don't, I shall go and fetch him.' 'Of course he will,' said Ellen, with her hand on Paul's chair, and speaking low and affectionately to console him, as she saw him so downcast; 'don't you know how poor Alfy says he's come to be instead of a son to Mother, and a brother to us? I must go up and tell Alf and mother. They'll be so pleased.' Paul felt very differently about the plan now. All the house congratulated him upon it, and Matilda evidently thought more of him now that she found he was to have something to do. But such things as these were out of sight beside that which was going on in the room above. Alfred slept better that night, and woke so much revived, that they thought him better: and Harold, greatly comforted about him, stood tolerably quietly by his side, listening to one or two things that Alfred had longed for months past to say to him. 'Promise me, Harold dear, that you'll be a good son to Mother: you'll be the only one now.' Harold made a bend of his head like a promise. 'O Harold, be good to her!' went on Alfred earnestly; 'she's had so much trouble! I do hope God will leave you to her--if you are steady and good. Do, Harold! She's not like some, as don't care what their lads get to. And don't take after me, and be idle! Be right-down good, Harold, as Paul is; and when you come to be ill--oh! it won't be so bad for you as it was for me!' 'I do want to be good,' sighed Harold. 'If I'd only been confirmed; but 'twas all along of them merries last summer!' 'And I was such a plague to you--I drove you out,' said Alfred. 'No, no, I was a brute to you! Oh! Alfy, Alfy, if I could only get back the time!' He was getting to the sobs that hurt his brother; and his sister was going to interfere; but Alfred said: 'Never mind, Harold dear, we've been very happy together, and we'll always love each other. You'll not forget Alf, and you'll be Mother's good son to take care of her! Won't you?' So Harold gave that promise, and went away with his tears. Poor fellow, now was his punishment for having slighted the Confirmation. Like Esau, an exceeding bitter cry could not bring back what he had lightly thrown away. Well was it for him that this great sorrow came in time, and that it was not altogether his birthright that he had parted with. He found he could not go out to his potato-planting and forget all about it, as he would have liked to have done--something would not let him; and there he was sitting crouched up and sorrowful on the steps of the stairs, when Mr. Cope and all the rest were gathered in Alfred's room, a church for the time. Matilda and Ellen had set out the low table with the fair white cloth, and Mr. Cope brought the small cups and paten, which were doubly precious to him for having belonged to his father, and because the last time he had seen them used had been for his father's last Communion. Now was the time to feel that a change had really passed over the young pastor in the time of his absence. Before, he could only lead Alfred in his prayers, and give him counsel, tell him to hope in his repentance, and on what that hope was founded. Now that he had bent beneath the hand of the Bishop, he had received, straight down from the Twelve, the Power from on High. It was not Mr. Cope, but the Lord Who had purchased that Pardon by His own most Precious Blood, Who by him now declared to Alfred that the sins and errors of which he had so long repented, were pardoned and taken away. The Voice of Authority now assured him of what he had been only told to hope and trust before. And to make the promise all the more close and certain, here was the means of becoming a partaker of the Sacrifice--here was that Bread and that Cup which shew forth the Lord's Death till He come. It was very great rest and peace, the hush that was over the quiet room, with only Alfred's hurried breath to be heard beside Mr. Cope's voice as he spoke the blessed words, and the low responses of the little congregation. Paul was close beside Alfred--he would have him there between his mother and the wall--and the two whose first Communion it was, were the last to whom Mr. Cope came. To one it was to be the Food for the passage into the unseen world; to the other might it be the first partaking of the Manna to support him through the wilderness of this life. 'From the highways and hedges,' here was one brought into the foretaste of the Marriage Supper. Ah! there was one outside, who had loved idle pleasure when the summons had been sent to him. Perhaps the misery he was feeling now might be the means of sparing him from missing other calls, and being shut out at last. It seemed to fulfil all that Alfred had wished. He lay still between waking and sleeping for a long time afterwards, and then begged for Paul to read to him the last chapters of the Book of Revelation. Matilda wished to read them for him; but he said, 'Paul, please.' Paul's voice was fuller and softer when it was low; his accent helped the sense, and Alfred was more used to them than to his visitor sister. Perhaps there was still another reason, for when Paul came to the end, and was turning the leaves for one of Alfred's favourite bits, he saw Alfred's eyes on him, as if he wanted to speak. It was to say, 'Brothers quite now, Paul! Thank you. I think God must have sent you to help me.' Alfred seemed better all the evening, and they went to bed in good spirits; but at midnight, Mr. Cope, who was very deeply studying and praying, the better to fit himself for his new office in the ministry, was just going to shut his book, and go up to bed, when he heard a tremulous ring at the bell. It was Harold, his face looking very white in the light from Mr. Cope's candle. 'Oh! please, Sir,' he said, 'Alfred is worse; and Mother said, if your light wasn't out, you'd like to know.' 'I am very grateful to her,' said Mr. Cope; and taking up his plaid, he wrapped one end round the boy, and put his arm round him, as he felt him quaking as Paul had done before, but not crying--too much awe-struck for that. He said that his mother thought something had broken in the lungs, and that he would be choked. Mr. Cope made the more haste, that he might judge if the doctor would be of any use. Paul was sitting up in his bed--they had not let him get up--but his eyes were wide open with distress, as he plainly heard the loud sob that each breath had become. Mrs. King was holding Alfred up in her arms; Matilda was trying to chafe his feet; Ellen was kneeling with her face hidden. The light of sense and meaning was not gone from Alfred's eyes, though the last struggle had come. He gave a look as though he were glad to see Mr. Cope, and then gazed on his brother. Mrs. King signed to Harold to come nearer, and whispered, 'Kiss him.' His sisters had done so, and he had missed Harold. Then Mr. Cope prayed, and Alfred's eyes at first owned the sounds; but soon they were closed, and the long struggling breaths were all that shewed that the spirit was still there. 'He shall swallow up death in victory, and the Lord God shall wipe away tears from all eyes.' One moment, and the blue eyes they knew so well were opened and smiling on his mother, and then-- It was over; and through affliction and pain, the young spirit had gone to rest! The funeral day was a very sore one to Paul Blackthorn. He would have given the world to be there, and have heard the beautiful words of hope which received his friend to his resting-place, but he could not get so far. He had tried to carry a message to a house not half so far off as the church, but his knees seemed to give way under him, and his legs ached so much that he could hardly get home. Somehow, a black suit, just such as Harold's, had come home for him at the same time; but this could not hinder him from feeling that he was but a stranger, and one who had no real place in the home where he lived. There was the house full of people, who would only make their remarks on him--Miss Hardman (who was very critical of the coffin-plate), the school-master, and some of the upper-servants of the house--and poor Mrs. King and Matilda, who could not help being gratified at the attention to their darling, were obliged to go down and be civil to them; while Ellen, less used to restraint, was shut into her own room crying; and Harold was standing on the stairs, very red, but a good deal engaged with his long hat-band. Poor Paul! he had not even his usual refuge--his own bed to lie upon and hide his face--for that had been taken away to make room for the coffin to be carried down. There, they were going at last, when it had seemed as if the bustle and confusion would never cease. There was Alfred leaving the door where he had so often played, carried upon the shoulders of six lads in white frocks, his old school-fellows and Paul's Confirmation friends. How Paul envied them for doing him that last service! There was his mother, always patient and composed, holding Harold's arm--Harold, who must be her stay and help, but looking so slight, so boyish, and so young, then the two girls, Ellen so overpowered with crying that her sister had to lead her; Mrs. Crabbe with Betsey Hardman, who held up a great white handkerchief, for other people's visible grief always upset her, as she said; and besides, she felt it a duty to cry at such a time; and the rest two and two, quite a train, in their black suits: how unlike the dreary pauper funerals Paul had watched away at Upperscote! That respectable look seemed to make him further off and more desolate, like one cut off, whom no one would follow, no one would weep for. Alfred, who had called him a brother, was gone, and here he was alone! The others were taking their dear one once more to the church where they had so often prayed that he might have a happy issue out of all his afflictions. They were met by Mr. Cope, ending his loving intercourse with Alfred by reading out the blessed promise of Resurrection--the assurance that the body they were sowing in weakness would be raised in power; so that the noble boy, whom they had seen fade away like a drooping flower, would rise again blossoming forth in glory, after the Image of the Incorruptible--that Image, thought Mr. Cope, as he read on, which he faithfully strove to copy even through the sufferings due to the corruptible. His voice often shook and faltered. He had never before read that Service; and perhaps, except for those of his own kin, it could never be a greater effort to him, going along with Alfred as he had done, holding up the rod and staff that bore him through the dark valley. And each trembling of his tone seemed to answer something that the mother was feeling in her peaceful, hopeful, thankful grief--yes, thankful that she could lay her once high-spirited and thoughtless boy in his grave, with the same sure and certain hope of a joyful Resurrection, as that ripe and earnest-minded Christian his father, or his little innocent brother. It was peace--awful peace, indeed, but soothing even to Ellen and Harold, new as they were to grief. But to poor Paul at home, out of hearing of the words of hope, only listening to the melancholy toll of the knell, and quite alone in the disarranged forlorn house, there seemed nothing to take off the edge of misery. He was not wanted to keep Alfred company now, nor to read to him--no one needed him, no one cared for him. He wandered up to where Alfred had lain so long, as if to look for the pale quiet face that used to smile to him. There was nothing but the bed-frame and mattress! He threw himself down on it and cried. He did not well know why--perhaps the chief feeling was that Alfred was gone away to rest and bliss, and he was left alone to be weary and without a friend. At last the crying began to spend itself, and he turned and looked up. There was Alfred's little picture of the Crucified still on the wall, and the words under it, 'For us!' Paul's eye fell on it; and somehow it brought to mind what Alfred had said to him on Christmas Day. There was One Who had no home on earth; there was One Who had made Himself an outcast and a wanderer, and Who had not where to lay His Head. Was not He touched with a fellow-feeling for the lonely boy? Would He not help him to bear his friendless lot as a share of His own Cross? Nay, had He not raised him up friends already in his utmost need? 'There is a Friend Who sticketh closer than a brother.' He was the Friend that Paul need never lose, and in Whom he could still meet his dear Alfred. These thoughts, not quite formed, but something like them, came gently as balm to the poor boy, and though they brought tears even thicker than the first burst of lonely sorrow, they were as peaceful as those shed beside the grave. Though Paul was absent in the body, this was a very different shutting out from Harold's on last Tuesday. Paul must have cried himself to sleep, for he did not hear the funeral- party return, and was first roused by Mrs. King coming up-stairs. He had been so much used to think of this as Alfred's room, that he had never recollected that it was hers; and now that she was come up for a moment's breathing-time, he started up ashamed and shocked at being so caught. But good motherly Mrs. King saw it all, and how he had been weeping where her child had so long rested. Indeed, his face was swelled with crying, and his voice all unsteady. 'Poor lad! poor lad!' she said kindly, 'you were as fond of him as any of them; and if we wanted anything else to make you one of us, that would do it.' 'O Mother,' said Paul, as she kindly put her hand on him, 'I could not bear it--I was so lost--till I looked at _that_,' pointing to the little print. 'Ay,' said Mrs. King, as she wiped her quiet tears, 'that Cross was Alfred's great comfort, and so it is to us all, my boy, whatever way we have to carry it, till we come to where he is gone. No cross, no crown, they say.' Perhaps it was not bad for any one that this forlorn day had given Paul a fresh chill, which kept him in bed for nearly a week, so as gently to break the change from her life of nursing to Mrs. King, and make him very happy and peaceful in her care. And when at last on a warm sunny Sunday, Paul Blackthorn returned thanks in church for his recovery--ay, and for a great deal besides--he had no reason to think that he was a stranger cared for by no one. CHAPTER XIII--SIX YEARS LATER It is a beautiful morning in Easter week. The sun is shining on the gilded weathercock, which flashes every time it veers from south to west; the snowdrops are getting quite out of date, and the buttercups and primroses have it all their own way; the grass is making a start, and getting quite long upon the graves in Friarswood churchyard. 'Really, I should have sent in the Saxon monarch to tidy us up!' says to himself the tall young Rector, as he stepped over the stile with one long stride; 'but I suppose he is better engaged.' That tall young Rector is the Reverend Marcus Cope, six years older, but young still. The poor old Rector, Mr. John Selby, died four years ago abroad; and Lady Jane and Miss Selby's other guardians gave the living to Mr. Cope, to the great joy of all the parish, except the Shepherds, who have never forgiven him for their own usage of their farming boy, nor for the sermon he neither wrote nor preached. The Saxon monarch means one Harold King, who looks after the Rectory garden and horse, as well as the post-office and other small matters. The clerk is unlocking the church, and shaking out the surplice, and Mr. Cope goes into the vestry, takes out two big books covered with green parchment, and sees to the pen. It is a very good one, judging by the writing of the last names in that book. They are Francis Mowbray and Jane Arabella Selby. 'Captain and Mrs. Mowbray will be a great blessing to the place, if they go on as they have begun,' thinks Mr. Cope. 'How happy they are making old Lady Jane, and how much more Mrs. Mowbray goes among the cottages now that she does more as she pleases.' Then Mr. Cope goes to the porch and looks out. He sees two men getting over the stile. One is a small slight person, in very good black clothes, not at all as if they were meant to ape a gentleman, and therefore thoroughly respectable. He has a thin face, rather pointed as to the chin and nose, and the eyes dark and keen, so that it would be over-sharp but that the mouth looks so gentle and subdued, and the whole countenance is grave and thoughtful. You could not feel half so sure that he is a certificated school-master, as you can that his very brisk- looking companion is so. 'Good morning, Mr. Brown.--Good morning, Paul,' said Mr. Cope. 'I did not expect to see you arrive in this way.' The grave face glitters up in a merry look of amusement, while, with a little colouring, he answers: 'Why, Sir, Matilda said it was the proper thing, and so we supposed she knew best.' There are not so many people who _do_ talk of Paul now. Most people know him as Mr. Blackthorn, late school-master at Berryton, where the boys liked him for his bright and gentle yet very firm ways; the parents, for getting their children on, and helping them to be steady; and the clergyman, for being so perfectly to be trusted, so anxious to do right, and, while efficient and well informed, perfectly humble and free from conceit. Now he has just got an appointment to Hazleford school, in another diocese, with a salary of fifty pounds a year; but, as Charles Hayward would tell you, 'he hasn't got one bit of pride, no more than when he lived up in the hay-loft.' There is not long to wait. There is another party getting over the stile. There is a very fine tall youth first. As Betsey Hardman tells her mother, 'she never saw such a one for being fine-growed and stately to look at, since poor Charles King when he wore his best wig.' A very nice open honest face, and as merry a pair of blue eyes as any in the parish, does Harold wear, nearly enough to tell you that, if in these six years it would be too much to say he has never done _anything_ to vex his mother, yet in the main his heart is in the right place--he is a very good son, very tender to her, and steady and right-minded. Whom is he helping over the stile? Oh, that is Mrs. Mowbray's pretty little maid! a very good young thing, whom she has read with and taught; and here, lady-like and delicate-looking as ever, is Matilda. Bridemaids before the bride! that's quite wrong; but the bride has a shy fit, and would not get over first, and Matilda and Harold are, the one encouraging her, the other laughing at her; and Mr. Blackthorn turns very red, and goes down the path to meet her, and she takes his arm, and Harold takes Lucy, and Mr. Brown Miss King. Very nice that bride looks, with her hair so glossy under her straw bonnet trimmed with white, her pretty white shawl, and quiet purple silk dress, her face rather flushed, but quiet-looking, as if she were growing more like her mother, with something of her sense and calmness. How Mr. Blackthorn ever came to ask her that question, nobody can guess, and Harold believes he does not know himself. However, it got an answer two years ago, and Mrs. King gave her consent with all her heart, though she knew Betsey Hardman would talk of picking a husband up out of the gutter, and that my Lady would look severe, and say something of silly girls. Yes--and though the rich widower bailiff had said sundry civil things of Miss Ellen being well brought up and notable--'For,' as Mrs. King wrote to Matilda, 'I had rather see Ellen married to a good religious man than to any one, and I do not know one I can be so sure of as Paul, nor one that is so like a son to me; and if he has no friends belonging to him, that is better than bad friends.' And Ellen herself, from looking on him as a mere boy, as she had done at their first acquaintance, had come to thinking no one ever had been so wise or so clever, far less so good, certainly not so fond of her--so her answer was no great wonder. Then they were to be prudent, and wait for some dependence; and so they did till Mr. Shaw recommended Paul Blackthorn for Hazleford school, where there is a beautiful new house for the master, so that he will have no longer to live in lodgings, and be 'done for,' as the saying is. Harold tells Ellen that he is afraid that without her he won't wash above once in four months; but however that may be, she is convinced that the new school-house will be lost on him, and that in spite of all his fine arithmetic, his fifty pounds will never go so far for one as for two; and so she did not turn a deaf ear to his entreaties that she would not send him alone to Hazleford. They wanted very much to get 'Mother' to come and live with them, give up the post-office, and let Harold live in Mr. Cope's house; but Mother has a certain notion that Harold's stately looks and perfect health might not last, if she were not always on the watch to put him into dry clothes if he comes in damp, and such like 'little fidgets,' as he calls them, which he would not attend to from any one but Mother. So she will keep on the shop and the post-office, and try to break in that uncouth girl of John Farden's to be a tidy little maid; and Mr. and Mrs. Blackthorn will spend their holidays with her and Harold. She may come to them yet in time, if, as Paul predicts, Master Harold takes up with Lucy at the Grange--but there's time enough to think of that; and even if he should, it would take many years to make Lucy into such a Mrs. King as she who is now very busy over the dinner at home, but thinking about a good deal besides the dinner. There! Paul and Ellen have stood and knelt in an earnest reverent spirit, making their vows to one another and before God, and His blessing has been spoken upon them to keep them all their lives through. It is with a good heart of hope that Mr. Cope speaks that blessing, knowing that, as far as human eye can judge, here stands a man who truly feareth the Lord, and beside him a woman with the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit. They are leaving the church now, the bridegroom and his bride, arm in arm, but they turn from the path to the wicket, and Harold will not let even Matilda follow them. Just by the south wall of the church there are three graves, one a very long one, one quite short, one of middle length. The large one has a head-stone, with the names of Charles King, aged forty years, and Charles King, aged seven years. The middle-sized one has a stone cross, and below it 'Alfred King, aged sixteen years,' and the words, 'In all their afflictions He was afflicted.' It was Matilda who paid the cost of that stone, Miss Selby who drew the pattern of it, and 'Mother' who chose the words, as what Alfred himself loved best. At the bottom of Ellen's best work-box is a copy of verses about that very cross. She thinks they ought to have been carved out upon it, but Paul knows a great deal better, so all she could do was to write them out on a sheet of note-paper with a wide lace border, and keep them as her greatest treasure. Perhaps she prizes them even more than the handsome watch that Mr. Shaw gave Paul, though less, of course, than the great Bible and Prayer-book, in which Mr. Cope has waited till this morning to write the names of Paul and Ellen Blackthorn. So they stand beside the cross, and read the words, and they neither of them can say anything, though the white sweet face is before the eyes of their mind at the same time, and Ellen thinks she loves Paul twice as much for having been one of his great comforts. 'Good-bye, Alfred dear,' she whispers at last. 'No, not good-bye,' says Paul. 'He is as much with us as ever, wherever we are. Remember how we were together, Ellen. I have always thought of him at every Holy Communion since, and have felt that if till now, no one living--at least one at rest, were mine by right.' Ellen pressed his arm. 'Yes,' said Paul; 'the months I spent with Alfred were the great help and blessing of my life. I don't believe any recollection has so assisted to guard me in all the frets and temptations there are in a life like mine.' 
44396	----	CHILD LABOR IN CITY STREETS THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO DALLAS · SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO CHILD LABOR IN CITY STREETS BY EDWARD N. CLOPPER, PH.D. SECRETARY OF NATIONAL CHILD LABOR COMMITTEE FOR MISSISSIPPI VALLEY New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1913 _All rights reserved_ COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1912. Reprinted January, 1913. NORWOOD PRESS J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. Transcriber's Notes: Text originally marked up as bold is surrounded by =, text in italics by _, text in different font with ~. All footnotes can be found after the chapter "Conclusion", before the Bibliography. Obvious printer's errors have been remedied, a list of all other changes can be found at the end of the document. PREFACE This volume is devoted to the discussion of a neglected form of child labor. Just why the newsboy, bootblack and peddler should have been ignored in the general movement for child welfare is hard to understand. Perhaps it is due to "the illusion of the near." Street workers have always been far more conspicuous than any other child laborers, and it seems that this very proximity has been their misfortune. If we could have focused our attention upon them as we did upon children in factories, they would have been banished from the streets long ago. But they were too close to us. We could not get a comprehensive view and saw only what we happened to want at the moment--their paltry little stock in trade. Now that we are getting a broader sense of social responsibility, we are beginning to realize how blind and inconsiderate we have been in our treatment of them. The first five chapters of the book review present conditions and discuss causes, the next two deal with effects, and the final ones are concerned with the remedy. The scope has been made as broad as possible. All forms of street work that engage any considerable number of children have been described at length, and opinions and findings of others have been freely quoted. I have attempted to show the bad results of the policy of _laissez-faire_ as applied to this problem. Simply because these little boys and girls have been ministering to its wants, the public has given them scarcely a passing thought. It has been so convenient to have a newspaper or a shoe brush thrust at one, it has not occurred to us that, for the sake of the children, such work would better be done by other means. Although good examples have been set by European cities, we have not introduced any innovations to clear the streets of working children. The free rein at present given to child labor in our city streets is productive of nothing but harmful results, and it is high time that a determined stand was taken for the rights of children so exposed. A few feeble efforts at regulation have been made in some parts of this country, but this is an evil that requires prohibition rather than regulation. There is no valid reason why just as efficient service in streets could not be rendered by adults. Certainly it would be far more suitable and humane to reserve such work for old men and women who need outdoor life and are physically unable to earn their living in other ways. We could buy our newspaper from a crippled adult at a stand just as easily as we get it now from an urchin who shivers on the street corner. It is only a question of habit, and we ought to be glad of the change for the good of all concerned. E. N. C. Cincinnati, 1912. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. THE PROBLEM OF THE STREET-WORKING CHILD--PUBLIC APATHY--RELATION TO OTHER PROBLEMS 1 II. EXTENT TO WHICH CHILDREN ENGAGE IN STREET ACTIVITIES IN AMERICA AND EUROPE 24 III. NEWSPAPER SELLERS 52 IV. BOOTBLACKS, PEDDLERS AND MARKET CHILDREN 83 V. MESSENGERS, ERRAND AND DELIVERY CHILDREN 101 VI. EFFECTS OF STREET WORK UPON CHILDREN 128 VII. RELATION OF STREET WORK TO DELINQUENCY 159 VIII. THE STRUGGLE FOR REGULATION IN THE UNITED STATES 189 IX. DEVELOPMENT OF STREET TRADES REGULATION IN EUROPE 214 CONCLUSION 243 BIBLIOGRAPHY 245 APPENDICES 255 INDEX 277 CHILD LABOR IN CITY STREETS CHAPTER I THE PROBLEM OF THE STREET-WORKING CHILD--PUBLIC APATHY--RELATION TO OTHER PROBLEMS The efforts which have so far been made in the United States to solve the child labor problem have been directed almost exclusively toward improvement of conditions in mines and manufacturing and mercantile establishments. This singling out of one phase of the problem for correction was due to the uneducated state of public opinion which made necessary a long and determined campaign along one line, vividly portraying the wrongs of children in this one form of exploitation, before general interest could be aroused. Within very recent years this campaign has met with signal success, and many states have granted a goodly measure of protection to the children of their working classes as far as the factory, the store and the mine are concerned. The time has now come for attention to be directed toward the premature employment of children in work other than that connected with mining and manufacturing, for there are other phases of this problem which involve large numbers of children and which, up to the present, have received but little thought from students of labor conditions. The three most important of these other phases are the employment of children in agricultural work, in home industries and in street occupations. This volume will deal with the last-named phase--with the economic activities of children in the streets and public places of our cities, their effects and the remedies they demand. The street occupations in which children commonly engage are: newspaper selling, peddling, bootblacking, messenger service, delivery service, running errands and the tending of market stands. The first three are known as street "trades," owing to the popular fallacy that the children who follow them are little "merchants," and are therefore entitled to the dignity of separate classification. Careful usage would confine this term to newsboys, peddlers and bootblacks who work independently of any employer. Many children are employed by other persons to sell newspapers, peddle goods and polish shoes, and such children technically are street traders no more than those who run errands, carry messages or deliver parcels. Consequently the term "street trades" is limited in its application, and by no means embraces all the economic activities of children in our streets and public places. Wisconsin has written into her laws a definition of street trading, declaring that it is "any business or occupation in which any street, alley, court, square or other public place is used for the sale, display or offering for sale of any articles, goods or merchandise."[1] This covers neither bootblacking nor the delivery of newspapers. In Great Britain the expression "street trading" has been officially defined as including: "the hawking of newspapers, matches, flowers, and other articles; playing, singing, or performing for profit; plying for hire in carrying luggage or messages; shoe blacking, or any other like occupations carried on in streets or public places."[2] Street traders and street employees may be classified by occupation as follows:-- STREET TRADERS STREET EMPLOYEES (WORKING FOR THEMSELVES) (WORKING FOR OTHERS) Newspaper sellers Newspaper sellers (on salary) Peddlers (on salary) Peddlers Bootblacks (in stands) Market stand tenders Bootblacks (on street) Messengers Errand children Delivery children This classification is based upon the well-known economic distinction between profits and wages. It is unfortunate that this distinction has been applied to juvenile street workers, for it has operated to the great disadvantage of the "traders." This class has been practically ignored in the general movement for child welfare, on the ground that these little laborers were in business for themselves, and therefore should not be disturbed. Recently the conviction has been dawning upon observant people that, in the case of young children at least, the effects of work on an independent basis, particularly in city streets, are just as bad and perhaps even worse than work under the direction of employers. The mute appeal of the street-working child for protection has at last reached the heart of the welfare movement, and the first feeble efforts in his behalf are now being put forth, regardless of whether he toils for profits or for wages. This alleged distinction between street trading and street employment should be clearly understood, as any movement designed to remedy present conditions must be sufficiently comprehensive to avoid the great mistake of protecting one class and ignoring the other. On the one hand there is said to be an army of little independent "merchants" conducting business affairs of their own, while on the other there is an array of juvenile employees performing the tasks set them by their masters. For purposes of regulation this distinction is hairsplitting, narrow-minded and unjust, as it has been made to defeat in part the beneficent aim of the great campaign for child welfare, but nevertheless it must be reckoned with. Children under fourteen years of age at work in factories and mines are often properly called "slaves," and their plight is regarded with pity coupled with a clarion cry for their emancipation. But tiny workers in the streets are referred to approvingly as "little merchants" and are freely patronized even by the avowed friends of children, who thereby contribute their moral support toward continuing these conditions and maintaining this absurd fiction of our merchant babyhood. As an instance of this remarkable attitude, there was proudly printed in the Pittsburgh _Gazette-Times_ of April 11, 1910, the picture of a four-year-old child who had been a newsboy in an Ohio town since the age of _thirty months_, and this was described as a most worthy achievement! That the term "child labor," whose meaning has so long been popularly restricted to the employment of children in factories, mills, mines and stores, is properly applicable to the activities of children in all kinds of work for profit, is now virtually recognized by a few states which prohibit employment of children under fourteen years of age "in any gainful occupation." But unfortunately the courts have rigidly construed the word "employ" to mean the purchasing of the services of one person by another, hence newsboys, peddlers, bootblacks and others who work on their own account, do not enjoy the protection of such a statute because they are not "employed." Under this interpretation a fatal loophole is afforded through which thousands of boys and girls escape the spirit of the law which seeks to prevent their _labor_ rather than their mere employment. It is for this reason that, in states having otherwise excellent provisions for the conservation of childhood, we see little children freely exploiting themselves on city streets. This situation has been calmly accepted without protest by the general public, for, while the people condemn child labor in factories, they tolerate and even approve of it on the street. They labor under the delusion that merely because a few of our successful business men were newsboys in the past, these little "merchants" of the street are receiving valuable training in business methods and will later develop into leaders in the affairs of men. A glaring example of this attitude was given by a monthly magazine[3] which fondly referred to newsboys as "the enterprising young merchants from whose ranks will be recruited the coming statesmen, soldiers, financiers, merchants and manufacturers of our land." It is extremely unfortunate that this narrow conception has prevailed, as it raises the tremendous obstacle of popular prejudice which must be broken down before these child street workers can receive their share of justice at the hands of the law. The only fair and logical method of approach toward a solution of the child labor problem in all its phases is to take high ground and view the subject broadly in the light of what is for the best interests of children in general. The state recognizes the need of an intelligent citizenship and accordingly provides a system of public schools, requiring the attendance of all children up to the age of fourteen years. In order that nothing shall interfere with the operation of this plan for general education, the state forbids the employment of children of school age. In respect of both these mandates, the state has really assumed the guardianship of the child; it has accepted the principle that the child is the ward of the state and has based its action on this principle. A guardian should be ever mindful of the welfare of his wards, and so, to be consistent, the state should carefully shield its children from all forms of exploitation as well as from other abuses. However, in the matter of the regulation of child labor, a curious anomaly has arisen--no one may employ a child under fourteen years in a _factory_ for even one hour a day without being liable to prosecution for disobeying the law of the state, because such work might interfere with the child's growth and education; all of which is right and indorsed by public opinion, but--merely because a child is working independently of any employer, he is allowed to sell newspapers, peddle chewing gum and black boots for any number of hours, providing he attends school during school hours! Could anything be more inconsistent? To this extent the state, as a guardian, has neglected the welfare of its ward. This lack of consideration for street workers was emphasized in a British government report a number of years ago. Referring to the statutory provisions for preventing overwork by children in factories, workshops and mines, the report declared: "But the labour of children for wages outside these cases is totally unregulated, although many of them work longer than the factory hours allowed for children of the same age, and are at the same time undergoing compulsory educational training, which makes a considerable demand on their energies. We think this is inconsistent. In the interests of their health and education, it seems only reasonable that remedies which have proved so valuable in the case of factory children should in some form be extended to cover the whole field of child labour."[4] To insure a good yield, a field requires cultivation as well as planting; to effect a cure, a patient requires nursing as well as prescription. So with the aim of the state--to insure a strong, intelligent citizenship, its children must be cared for, as well as provided with schools. If a patient is not nursed while the physician is absent, his treatment is of little avail; if children are not protected out of school hours, the purpose of the school is defeated. No manufacturer would allow his machinery to run, unwatched, outside regular work hours, for he knows how disastrous would be the consequences; yet this is precisely what the state is doing by ignoring the activities of children in our city streets--the delicate machinery of their minds and bodies is allowed to run wild out of schools hours, and the state seems to think nothing will happen! These thoughts impel us to the conclusion that the state must watch over the child at least until he has reached the age limit for school attendance, and in the matter of labor regulation its care must not be confined to the prevention of one form of exploitation while other forms, equally injurious, are permitted to flourish unchecked. Legislation regulating street trading by children in this country is now in the stage corresponding to that of the English factory acts in the early part of the nineteenth century,--the first meager restrictions are being tried. Several of the street occupations, viz. messenger service, delivery service and errand running, are ordinarily included among those prohibited to children under fourteen years by state child labor laws, because to engage in such work children have to be employed by other persons. These occupations are covered by the provision common to such laws which forbids employment of such children "in the distribution or transmission of merchandise or messages." The street "trades" of newspaper selling, peddling and bootblacking are, as yet, almost untouched by legislation in the United States, for there exist only a very few state laws and city ordinances relative to this matter, and these of the most primitive kind. The public does not yet realize the injustice of permitting young children to engage, uncontrolled, in the various street-trading activities. It was slow to appreciate the dangers involved in the unrestricted employment of children in factories, mills and mines, but when the awakening finally came, the demand for reform was insistent. This gradual development of a sentiment favoring regulation characterizes also the problem of street employment; the present stage is that of calm indifference, ruffled only by occasional misgivings. Even this is an encouraging sign, inasmuch as the factory agitation passed through the same experience, and emerged triumphant, crystallized in statute form. It is hard to understand how the public conscience can reconcile itself to the chasm between the age limit of fourteen years for messenger service and freedom from all restraint in newspaper selling--both essentially street occupations. Child labor laws are framed in accordance with public sentiment, hence the people by legislative omission practically indorse street trading by little children while condemning their employment in other kinds of work. Thus the state virtually assumes the untenable position that it is right to allow a child of tender years to labor in the streets as a newsboy without any oversight or care whatever, and that it is wrong for him to work in the same field as a messenger, or an errand boy, or a delivery boy, although such occupations are subject to some degree of supervision by older persons. In other words, it is held that little children are capable of self-control in some street occupations, but not able to withstand the dangers of other similar street work, even under the control of adults! After having described the conditions prevailing in Philadelphia among newsboys, Mr. Scott Nearing says: "There are many causes leading up to this condition. Beneath all others lies the fundamental one--the lack of public sentiment in favor of protecting these children. Closely allied to this is another almost equally strong--the lack of public knowledge of the true state of affairs."[5] The Chicago Child Welfare Exhibit pointed out the fact that street trades are quite untouched by child labor legislation in the city and also in the state, declaring that in Illinois a boy or girl too young to be permitted to do any other work may haunt the newspaper offices, the five-cent shows, the theaters and saloons, selling chewing gum and newspapers at all hours of the night.[6] Among the arguments advanced in support of the unsuccessful effort to secure legislation on street trading in Illinois in 1911 was the following: "Each boy or girl street trader is a merchant in his or her own right, and therefore before the law is not considered a wage earner, although there is merely a fine-spun distinction between the child who secures _wages_ as the result of his work and one who obtains his reward in the form of _profits_. The effect on the child of work performed under unsuitable conditions, at unsuitable hours and demanding the exercise of his faculties in unchildish ways, is in no wise determined by the form in which his earnings are calculated. That the results of street trading are wholly bad in the case of both boys and girls is universally recognized."[7] Miss Jane Addams has deplored this situation in a public statement: "A newsboy is a merchant and does not come within the child labor regulations of Illinois. The city of Chicago is a little careless, if not recreant, toward the children who are not reached by the operation of the state law."[8] Even in the few localities where regulation of street trading has been attempted, the delusion that there is some essential difference between child labor in factories and child labor in streets persists in the legislation itself. The latter form of exploitation is assumed to merit a wider latitude for its activity, hence it is hedged about by much less stringent rules. Attention is invited to this inconsistency by the report of a recent investigation in New York City: "We have in New York 4148 children between 14 and 16 years employed in factories with their daily hours of labor limited from 8 A.M. to 5 P.M., while in mercantile establishments there are 1645 more of similar age limit, none of whom can work before 8 in the morning or after 7 in the evening. But on the streets of New York City we have approximately 4500 boys licensed (to say nothing of the little fellows too young to be licensed) to sell newspapers. That means 4500 legalized to work at this particular trade from 6 o'clock in the morning until 10 o'clock in the evening (save during the school year, when they are supposed to attend school from 9 A.M. to 3 P.M.) any day and every day, seven days to the week if they so desire to do."[9] _Broader Aspects of the Problem_ Let us consider the matter from another point of view and discuss the opportunities for constructive work rather than confine our attention to the need of the merely negative remedy of restrictive legislation. The street is painted as a black monster by some social workers, who can discern nothing but evil in it. Nevertheless the street is closely woven into the life of every city dweller, for his contact with it is daily and continuous. If it is all evil, it ought to be abolished; as this is impossible, we must study it to see what it really is and what needs to be done with it. It is the medium by which people are brought into closer touch with one another, where they meet and converse, where they pass in transit, where they rub elbows with all the elements making up their little world, where they absorb the principles of democracy,--for the street is a great leveler. Dr. Delos F. Wilcox, in speaking to the subject "What is Philadelphia Doing to Protect Her Citizens in the Street?" recently said: "The street is the symbol of democracy, of equal opportunity, the channel of the common life, the thing that makes the city.... I fancy that the civic renaissance which must surely come, ... will never get very far until we have awakened to a realization of the dignity of the street--the common street where the city's children play, through which the milk wagon drives, where the young men are educated, along which the currents of the city's life flow unceasingly."[10] An English writer has expressed a similar thought: "We have spoken of the street as a dangerous environment from which we would gladly rescue the children if we could, and so it undoubtedly is in so far as it supplants the influence of the home, tends to nullify that of the school and lets the boys and girls run wild just when they most need to be tamed.... It is, in fact, so strange a mixture of good and evil, so complex an influence in the growth of boy and girl, of youth and man, among our great city population, that it is necessary to attempt to analyze it a little more exactly. It is for the majority the medium in which the social conscience is formed, and through which it makes its power felt. In it the all-powerful agents of progress, example, imitation, the spread of ideas and the discussion of good and evil are incessantly at work."[11] It is only natural that such a general agency for communication should have been abused. Its popularity alone would inevitably lead to such a result, with no restrictions imposed upon street intercourse. The very popularity of the games of billiards, pool and cards and of dancing led to their abuse and consequent disrepute in the eyes of many persons who were blinded to their intrinsic worth as diversions, by the abuses to which they were subjected. The marked success attending the proper use of all these amusements in social settlements and parish houses stimulates the imagination as to what might be accomplished with the street if its abuses also were eliminated. It is of course absurd to pass judgment summarily upon the street, for the street can exert no influence of itself; the evil issues from its abuse by those who frequent it, and it is this abuse that should be suppressed. This immediately raises the question as to what constitutes this abuse. We must bear in mind that the real purpose of the street is to serve as a means of communication, a passageway for the transit of passengers and commerce. It was never intended for a playground, nor a field for child labor, nor a resort for idlers, nor a depository for garbage, nor a place for beggars to mulct the public. These fungous growths from civic neglect ought to be cut away. "A place for everything and everything in its place" would be an efficacious even if old-fashioned remedy: playgrounds for the children, workshops for the idlers, reduction plants for the garbage and asylums for the beggars. With these reforms effected and carefully maintained, the street would soon become much more wholesome and attractive. These considerations have been advanced to indicate the intimate relation which exists between the problem of the child street worker and many other problems with which social workers are now struggling. Child labor in city streets must be abolished, but at the same time coöperation with other movements is necessary before a satisfactory solution of the problem can be assured. For example, it would be a short-sighted policy to prohibit young children from selling goods in home market stands without reporting to the housing authorities cases in which large families live in one or two filthy rooms, displaying and selling their wares in the doorway and from the window. Our Italian citizens are not committing race suicide, but in spite of their numerous progeny they crowd together in extremely limited space, combining their home life with the customary business of selling fruit. Their young children assist in tending the stands on market days and nights or sit on the sidewalk selling baskets to passers-by; at closing time their goods are often stored in the same room that serves for sleeping quarters, cots being brought out from some dark hiding place. In such circumstances the mere prevention of child labor is not sufficient--the housing conditions also should be remedied so as to give the children a more suitable place in which to play, study and sleep, a better home in which to use their leisure. Again, a movement to prohibit street work by children should give impetus to that which seeks to make the public school a social center, and especially to that for public vacation schools. Many of the homes of city children very largely lack the element of attractiveness which is so essential in holding children under the influence of their parents, and this want must be filled as far as possible by making the school an instrument not merely for instruction, but also for the entertainment and socializing of the entire neighborhood. Again, the regulating of street trading should be undertaken jointly with the movement to supply adequate playground facilities. Playgrounds are not a municipal luxury, but a necessary. Children must have some suitable place for recreation. It is not a function of the street to furnish the space for play, and as children cannot and should not be kept at home all the time, it follows that ground must be set apart for the purpose. On these points a British report says: "We have no doubt that insanitary homes and immoral surroundings, with the want of any open spaces where the children could enjoy healthy exercise and recreation, are strong factors in determining towards evil courses in the cases of the children of the poor."[12] The need for more playgrounds in Chicago was partially supplied by having one block in a congested district closed to traffic during August, 1911, so that children could play there without risking their lives, from eight in the morning to eight in the evening. In providing this emergency playground, Chicago has set an example that will undoubtedly be imitated by other cities. In this way the abolition of child labor in city streets would result in benefit not only to the children, but to the entire community as well. It would promote a general civic awakening that would make each town and city a better place to live in, a better home for our citizens of the future. CHAPTER II EXTENT TO WHICH CHILDREN ENGAGE IN STREET ACTIVITIES IN AMERICA AND EUROPE There are no reliable figures either official or unofficial showing the number of children engaged in street activities in any city of the United States or in the country at large. The figures given by the United States Census of 1900 are so inadequate that they can hardly mislead any one endowed with ordinary powers of observation. It solemnly declares that in that year there was a grand total of 6904 newspaper carriers and newsboys, both adults and children, in the entire United States, of whom 69 were females.[13] In all probability there was a greater number at that time in some of our larger cities alone. In the group called "other persons in trade and transportation" only 3557 children ten to fifteen years of age are reported, although this group embraces nine specified occupations, of which that of the newsboy is only one. Besides these, many other occupations (in which 63 per cent of the total number of persons reported are engaged) are not specified.[14] Consequently the number of newsboys ten to fifteen years old reported by the enumerators for the entire country must have been ridiculously small. Again, the total number of bootblacks ten years of age and upwards in the country was reported as 8230, they being included in the group called "other domestic and personal service." Only 2953 children ten to fifteen years of age were reported in this group, which includes five specified occupations, of which that of the bootblacks is only one, and many others (in which 67 per cent of the total number of persons reported are engaged) which are not specified.[15] The inadequacy of these figures to convey any idea whatsoever as to the extent of child labor in street occupations in this country is painfully apparent; they are quoted here merely to show the poverty of statistics on this subject. Their inaccuracy is practically conceded by the report itself in the following words: "The limitations connected with the taking of a great national census preclude proper care upon the question of child employment. There is great uncertainty as to the accuracy of a mass of information of this character taken by enumerators and special agents, who either do not appreciate the importance of the investigation or find it impracticable to devote the time to the inquiry necessary to secure good results."[16] There is reason to hope for more reliable data from the 1910 census; but unfortunately the figures will probably not be available until 1913. The enumerators employed by the Federal government for the Census of 1910, were instructed to make an entry in the occupation column of the population schedule for every person enumerated, giving the exact occupation if employed, writing the word "none" if unemployed, or the words "own income" if living upon an independent income. It was stated positively that the occupation followed by a child of any age was just as important for census purposes as the occupation followed by a man, and that it should never be taken for granted without inquiry that a child had no occupation.[17] However, upon inquiry by enumerators at the time of the census taking as to the occupation of children, many parents undoubtedly replied in the negative, even though their children may have been devoting several hours daily outside of school to street work, under the impression that this was not an occupation. Consequently it is safe to assume that the figures for street-working children in the United States according to the Census of 1910 when published will be under the true number. Nevertheless, they can hardly fail to reflect conditions far better than did the figures for 1900. _Chicago_ It is only from the reports of occasional and very limited local investigations that material as to the actual state of affairs can be obtained. Social workers of Chicago had a bill introduced into the Illinois legislature at its session of 1911, providing that boys under ten years and girls under sixteen years should be prohibited from selling anything in city streets, and some material was gathered to be used in support of this measure. In connection with what has already been said in Chapter I, it is interesting to note that although the provisions of this bill were very mild, and strong efforts were put forth by social workers to secure its passage, it was not allowed to become a law largely because of the absence of public opinion and partly because of the opposition by newspaper publishers and others who were afraid that their interests might suffer through the granting of protection to such little children. In one of the schools of Chicago, pupils were found to be trading in the streets in addition to attending school in the following percentages:-- 65 per cent of 5th grade children 35 per cent of 4th grade children 15 per cent of 2d grade children 12 per cent of 1st grade children (Figures for 3d grade were not given.) All of these children were attending school twenty-five hours a week, and many cases of excessive work out of school hours were found. Some allowance should be made for possible exaggeration on the part of these children, but nevertheless it is certain that many of them were working to an injurious extent. The hours given were as follows:-- 1 boy over 50 hours 4 boys over 40 hours 5 boys over 35 hours 7 boys over 30 hours 18 boys over 20 hours Their average earnings per week were found to be as follows:[18]-- 5th grade children $1.18 4th grade children .85 3d grade children .60 2d grade children .43 1st grade children .36 In referring to the weekly income of the children from this source, the Handbook of the Chicago Child Welfare Exhibit declared that it was "a pitiable sum to compensate for the physical weariness and moral risk attending street trades in a large city. School reports show that street trades, when carried on by young children, lead to truancy, low vitality, dullness and the breaking down of parental control. Since the children are on the streets at all hours, careless habits are developed which often lead to moral ruin to both boys and girls."[19] An instance was related wherein the teacher of a fifth grade in a Chicago school asked those of her pupils who worked for money to raise their hands. In the class of 38 pupils, 26 acknowledged that they were little breadwinners! One boy said he worked ten hours a day besides attending school; others had less striking records, spending from twenty to forty hours a week selling chewing gum and newspapers, blacking boots and pursuing the various other street occupations which the Illinois law leaves open to children of all ages.[20] Referring to the economic and home conditions surrounding young children in Chicago and the many phases of danger to their moral well-being, the Vice Commission of that city reported that its agents had found small boys selling newspapers in segregated districts and that one night an investigator had counted twenty newsboys from eleven years upwards so engaged at midnight and after. Besides these newsboys, many little boys and girls were found peddling chewing gum near disorderly saloons where prostitutes were soliciting. Numerous examples of employment in vicious environment are cited, principally of the peddling of newspapers and chewing gum by young children at all hours of the night in the "red light" districts, about saloons and museums of anatomy. Even in the rear rooms of saloons, boys were seen offering their wares and heard to join in obscene conversation with the patrons of these resorts.[21] A folder published in Chicago by the advocates of street-trade regulation calls attention to these conditions, and states, with regard to little newsgirls who sell papers in the vice regions: "It is not surprising if some of them, becoming so familiar with the practices of the district, take up the profession of the neighborhood. The Juvenile Protective Association reports one little girl who entered the life of a professional prostitute at the age of fourteen, after having sold newspapers for years in the district."[22] Another element of this problem, seldom considered, is described also in this folder--the vagrants, who constitute a large and growing class deserving the attention of both city and citizen. "Three classes of persons, who add little to the general circulation, while detracting much from the tone of the business and working a real injury to themselves, are engaged in selling newspapers; these are the small boy, the semi-vagrant boy, and the young girl. The business of selling newspapers in Chicago is so systematized that the 'vagrant' cannot prosper, and yet the 'vagrant' is in our midst. He can be found on State Street at 11 o'clock on a Saturday night with one newspaper under his arm--not attempting to sell it, but using it as a bait to beg from the passers-by. He can be found in the _American_ news alley, sometimes fifty, sometimes a hundred strong, sleeping on bags, under boxes, or on the floor of the newspaper restaurant. With this boy, and with all those who are obviously too young to be permitted to engage in street trading, it is our duty to deal if we are to preserve the attitude the American city takes toward the dependent child." NATIONALITIES OF BOSTON CHILD STREET TRADERS ====================================+======+========== PLACE OF BIRTH |NUMBER|PERCENTAGE ------------------------------------+------+---------- { Boston 1,556 | | America { Elsewhere in Mass. 171 | 1860 | 70. { Other states 133 | | Russia | 473 | 17.5 Italy | 161 | 6. Other foreign countries | 162 | 6. Not given | 8 | .5 |----- | ------ | 2664 | 100.0 ====================================+======+========== _Boston_ In Boston, during the year 1910, there were issued to newsboys, peddlers and bootblacks from eleven to thirteen years of age inclusive, 2664 licenses. Of these nearly all (2525) were issued to newsboys, while 114 were issued to bootblacks and 25 to peddlers. Of these license holders 904 were eleven years old, 900 were twelve years old, and 860 were thirteen years old. It is interesting to note that nearly three fourths of these children were born in the United States; the table on page 33 shows their distribution among nationalities. _New York City_ The actual number of children engaged in street activities at any given time is less than the number of licenses issued during the year, inasmuch as not all such children persist in pursuing this work, many of them working only a few weeks, while a few never enter upon the tasks which they have been licensed to perform. This is borne out by the experience of investigators in New York City; the report of a study made there recently says: "We are told by the department of education issuing newsboy badges that 4500 boys have these badges, yet when we secured the addresses of some of these from their application cards ... we found that not 30 per cent of the 100 cases investigated lived at listed addresses. Many such were bogus numbers, open lots, factories, wharves, and in some cases the middle of East River would wash over the house number given. When we did find a correct address, the children so located in six cases out of ten were not following the trade. In some instances they never sold papers, obtaining badges simply because other boys were applying for them, and after receiving a badge tucked it away in a drawer or maybe sold it or gave it away."[23] _Cincinnati_ In Cincinnati from June to December, 1909, 1951 boys from ten to thirteen years of age were licensed to sell newspapers, this number being about 15 per cent of the total number of boys of these ages in the city. Their distribution according to age was as follows:-- 10 years 424 11 years 466 12 years 539 13 years 522 ---- Total 1951 The Cincinnati figures do not include bootblacks, peddlers or market children, as no licenses were issued for such occupations, although they are specifically covered by the municipal ordinance regulating street trades. The above data were available only because there has been some attempt in Boston, New York and Cincinnati to restrict the employment of children in street occupations; as in the great majority of cities and states there is absolutely no regulation of this kind, there are of course no figures to indicate conditions. _The Padrone System_ In almost every city of the United States having a population of more than 10,000, there is to be found the padrone system, which is operated principally in the interests of the bootblacking business which the Greeks control. The peddling of flowers, fruit and vegetables in Chicago and New York is partly subject to the same methods. The labor supply furnished by this system for peddling and bootblacking consists generally of children from twelve to seventeen years of age.[24] The Immigration Commission states in its report that there are several thousand shoe-shining establishments in the United States operated by Greeks who employ boys as bootblacks, and that with few exceptions they are under the padrone system.[25] A few boys under sixteen years of age are employed under the Greek padrone system as flower vendors, and these are found chiefly in New York City. They are hired by florists to sell flowers in the streets and public places--largely old stock that cannot be handled in the shops. These boys usually live in good quarters, are well fed and receive their board and from $50 to $100 a year in wages. When not engaged in peddling, they deliver flowers ordered at the shops. The boys employed by the padrones to peddle candy, fruit and vegetables usually live in basements or in filthy rooms; here they are crowded two, three and sometimes four in one bed, with windows shut tight so as to avoid catching cold. The fruit and vegetables still on hand are stored for the night in these bedrooms and in the kitchen. In each peddling company there are usually three or four wagons and from four to eight boys.[26] _Minor Street Occupations_ There are a few so-called street trades in which a relatively small number of children are engaged which so far have not been mentioned in this volume. These are the leading of blind persons and the accompanying of beggars in general, little children being found valuable for such work because they help to excite the sympathy of passers-by. A few children also are employed as lamplighters to go about towns lighting street lamps in the evening and extinguishing them in the early morning. A class of street boys who have as yet received no name in this country, but in England are called "touts," haunt the neighborhood of railroad depots and lie in wait for passengers with hand baggage, offering to carry it to the train for a small fee. Some children are used as singers or performers upon musical instruments, but this is in reality only another form of begging. The writer found one instance of a young boy who was employed by the public library of one of our large cities to gather up overdue books about the city and to collect the fines imposed for failure to return the same. Very frequently in the course of his work this boy had to enter houses of prostitution, as the inmates are steady patrons of the public library, reading light literature, and are quite negligent in the matter of returning the books within the prescribed time. Immediately upon the librarian's learning of the situation, he was relieved of this duty, and a man was detailed to perform the task. Such special occupations as these do not constitute a real factor in the problem because of the small number of children involved, and hence they are omitted from consideration. _Conditions in Great Britain_ Turning to Europe we find much more information on this subject. In Great Britain the House of Commons in 1898 ordered an inquiry to be made into the extent of child labor among public school pupils, and the education department sent schedules to the 20,022 public elementary schools in England and Wales for the purpose of determining the facts. A little more than half of the schools returned the schedules blank, stating that no children were employed; this introduced a large element of error into the return, as many of the schoolmasters misunderstood the meaning of the schedules, and consequently quite a number of children who should have been included were omitted from the total. The 9433 schedules which were filled and returned showed that 144,026 children (about three fourths boys and one fourth girls) were in attendance full time at the public elementary schools of England and Wales and known to be employed for profit outside of school hours. The ages of these children reported as employed were as follows:[27]-- Under 7 years 131 7 years 1,120 8 years 4,211 9 years 11,027 10 years 22,131 11 years 36,775 12 years 47,471 13 years 18,556 14 and over 1,787 Not given 817 ------- Total 144,026 The standards or school grades in which these working children were enrolled and the total enrollment for the year ended August 31, 1898, were as follows:[28]-- ==========================+============ | TOTAL WORKING CHILDREN | ENROLLMENT --------------------------+----------- No Standard 329 | 1st standard 3,890 | 2,875,088 2d standard 11,686 | 723,582 3d standard 24,624 | 679,096 4th standard 36,907 | 590,850 5th standard 37,315 | 421,728 6th standard 21,975 | 212,546 7th standard 6,382 | 66,442 Ex-7 standard 382 | 7,534 Not stated 536 | ------- | --------- Total 144,026 | 5,576,866 ==========================+============ The occupations followed by these children were divided into three main groups, and each of these groups was further divided into three classes. These divisions and the number of children in each were as follows:[29]-- =======================+=======================+========================= | | DOMESTIC EMPLOYMENT, PIECEWORK, CHIEFLY | TIME-WORK, CHIEFLY | GIRLS ONLY, WITH ONE BOYS | BOYS | OR TWO EXCEPTIONS -----------------------+-----------------------+------------------------- Selling | In shops or | Minding babies 11,585 newspapers 15,182 | running | | errands for | Other housework, Hawking goods 2,435 | shopkeepers 76,173 | including | | laundry work, Sports, taking | Agricultural | etc. 9,254 dinners, | occupations 6,115 | knocking-up, | | Needlework and etc. 8,627 | Boot and knife | like occupations 4,019 | cleaning, etc. | | (house boys) 10,636 | =======================+=======================+========================= The return revealed a surprising variety of occupations followed by these children--about 200 different kinds in all. HOURS PER WEEK NUMBER OF CHILDREN Under 10 39,355 10-20 60,268 21-30 27,008 31-40 9,778 41-50 2,390 51-60 576 61-70 142 71-80 59 Over 81 16 Not stated 4,434 ------- Total 144,026 The number of hours per week devoted by these children to the various employments will be found in the above table; it should be remembered that these hours were given to work in addition to the time spent at school.[30] It was recognized that the figures given by this parliamentary return did not represent the real situation, but nevertheless its revelations were sufficiently startling to show the need of further investigation. Accordingly in 1901 there was appointed an interdepartmental committee which after careful study reported that the figures in the parliamentary return were well within the actual numbers, but that the facts it contained were substantially correct.[31] This committee estimated the total number of children who were both in attendance at school and in paid employments in England and Wales at 300,000;[32] it declared that cases of excessive employment were "sufficiently numerous to leave no doubt that a substantial number of children are being worked to an injurious extent."[33] Referring to the amount of time devoted by the children to gainful employment outside of school, the committee reported, "On a review of the evidence we consider it is proved that in England and Wales a substantial number of children, amounting probably to 50,000, are being worked more than twenty hours a week in addition to twenty-seven and one-half hours at school, that a considerable proportion of this number are being worked to thirty or forty and some even to fifty hours a week, and that the effect of this work is in many cases detrimental to their health, their morals and their education, besides being often so unremitting as to deprive them of all reasonable opportunity for recreation. For an evil so serious, existing on so large a scale, we think that some remedy ought to be found."[34] The committee estimated the total number of children selling newspapers and in street hawking at 25,000.[35] With reference to conditions in Edinburgh, an English writer says, "Of the 1406 children employed out of school hours in Edinburgh, 307 are ten years of age or under. Four of them are six years old, and eleven are seven years of age. We hear of boys working seventeen hours (from 7 A.M. to 12 P.M.) on Saturday. For children to work twelve, thirteen and fourteen hours on Saturday is quite common. The average wage seems to be three farthings an hour, but one hears of children who are paid one shilling and sixpence for thirty-eight hours of toil."[36] In New South Wales boys are permitted to trade on the streets at the age of ten years, and up to fourteen years may engage in such work between the hours of 7 A.M. and 7 P.M. except while the schools are in session; after they are fourteen years old they may trade between 6 A.M. and 10 P.M. Such children are licensed, and during the six months ending March 31, 1910, 714 licenses were issued, 72 per cent of them being to children under fourteen years of age; 92 per cent of these children were engaged in hawking newspapers, the others being scattered through such occupations as peddling flowers, fruit and vegetables, fish, fancy goods, matches, bottles, pies and milk.[37] _Conditions in Germany_ In December, 1897, the German Imperial Chancellor, referring to the incomplete census returns as to child labor, requested the governments to furnish him with information as to the total number of children under fourteen employed in labor other than factory labor, agricultural employment and domestic service, and the kinds of work done. In this circular he said: "But, above all, where the kind of occupation is unsuitable for children, where the work continues too long, where it takes place at unseasonable times and in unsuitable places, child labor gives rise to serious consideration; in such cases it is not only dangerous to the health and morality of the children, but school discipline is impaired and compulsory education becomes illusory. For children cannot possibly give the necessary attention to their lessons when they are tired out and when they have been working hard in unhealthful rooms until late at night. I need only instance employment in skittle alleys late in the evening, in the delivery of newspapers in the early morning and the employment of children in many branches of home industry. The most recent researches undertaken in different localities show that the employment of children in labor demands earnest attention in the interests of the rising generation."[38] Inquiries extending over almost the whole German Empire were accordingly made by the different states from January to April, 1898. It was found that 544,283 children under fourteen years were employed in labor other than factory labor, agricultural employment and domestic service. This was 6.53 per cent of the total number of children of school age (8,334,919). With regard to the effects of such work, this German report says: "As the children who carry around small wares, sell flowers, etc., go from one inn to another, they are exposed to evil influences, and are liable to contract at an early age, bad habits of smoking, lying, drinking.... The delivery of newspapers is a particularly great strain on the children, as it occupies them both before and after school hours." Seven divisions of these children were made according to occupation, four of them relating to street work. Under the heading _Handel_ were included children in many kinds of work, among them hawking fruit, milk, bread, brooms, flowers, newspapers, etc.; under _Austragedienste_ were included only the delivery and carrying around of bread, milk, vegetables, beer, papers, books, advertisements, circulars, bills, coals, wood, boots and shoes, washing, clothes, etc.; under _Gewöhnliche Laufdienste_ were included only errand boys and messengers; under _Sonstige gewerbliche Thätigkeit_ were included, among other occupations, blacking boots, leading the blind, street singers and players, etc. ========================+========+========+=========+=========+============ | | | SEX NOT | | | BOYS | GIRLS | STATED | TOTAL | PERCENTAGE ------------------------+--------+--------+---------+---------+------------ Handel (retail trade) | 7,507 | 4,540 | 5,576 | 17,623 | 3.31 | | | | | Austragedienste | | | | | (delivery service) | 67,188 | 36,966 | 31,676 | 135,830 | 25.52 | | | | | Gewöhnliche Laufdienste | | | | | (general messenger | | | | | service) | 23,321 | 2,134 | 10,454 | 35,909 | 6.75 | | | | | Sonstige gewerbliche | | | | | Thätigkeit (other forms | | | | | of labor) | 6,281 | 2,387 | 3,119 | 11,787 | 2.21 ========================+========+========+=========+=========+============ _Conditions in Austria_ The Austrian Ministry of Commerce began an investigation of actual conditions in Austria late in 1907 in response to the agitation for a new law that would regulate child labor not only in factories, but also in home industries, in commerce, and even in agriculture. In his Report on Child Labor Legislation in Europe, Mr. C. W. A. Veditz refers to the findings of this investigation in a number of the provinces. In Bohemia, of 676 children in trade and transportation, but still attending school, 169 were engaged in peddling and huckstering; in delivering goods and going errands 1554 children were employed, being generally hired to deliver bread, milk, meats, groceries, newspapers, books, telegrams, circulars--in fact, all manner of goods.[39] In the province of Upper Austria children are paid from two to seven crowns (40.6 cents to $1.42) a month for delivering newspapers daily, while in the duchy of Salzburg the pay varies from twenty to fifty hellers (4 to 10 cents) a day for delivering bread or newspapers. In the province of Lower Austria, "referring now to the other main occupations in which school children are employed outside of industry proper, the report [of the investigation] shows that ... those working in trade and transportation usually help wait on customers in their parents' stores; a number, however, sell flowers, shoe laces, etc., or huckster bread, butter and eggs, or carry passengers' baggage to and from railway stations. Most of those put down as delivering goods are engaged in delivering bread, milk, newspapers and washing."[40] Children who sell flowers, bread or cigars in Vienna earn one to two crowns (20.3 to 40.6 cents) a day during the week, and on Sundays as much as three crowns (60.9) cents. "The children employed [in Lower Austria] to deliver goods and run errands are also usually employed by non-relatives and receive wages in money. Those who deliver milk, and who work one half to one hour a day, generally receive twenty hellers to one crown (4 to 20.3 cents) weekly; in exceptional cases two crowns (40.6 cents), and in some instances only food and old clothes. For delivering bread and pastry, wages are reported as thirty hellers (6 cents) a week and some meals, or fifty hellers to two crowns (10 to 40.6 cents) a week without meals; in exceptional cases, 10 per cent of the receipts. For delivering papers, which requires one to two hours a day, children receive two to ten crowns (40.6 cents to $2.03) a month. For delivering of washing, thirty hellers (6 cents) for a two-hours' trip, or sixty hellers to two crowns (12 to 40.6 cents) a week. Children who carry dinner to mill laborers, requiring one half to one hour daily, get eighty hellers to five crowns (16 cents to $1.02) a month. Messengers for stores, hotels, etc., get a tip of two to ten hellers (.4 to 2 cents) per errand, or, if employed regularly, twenty hellers to one crown (4 to 20.3 cents) a week."[41] "The delivery of milk, pastry, newspapers, etc., in which many children are employed in Vienna and other large cities, does not cause frequent absences, but is responsible for tardy arrival at school in the morning and for the fatigue that reduces attention and prevents mental alertness."[42] CHAPTER III NEWSPAPER SELLERS By far the majority of the children in street occupations are engaged in the sale or delivery of newspapers. The newsboy predominates to such an extent that he is taken as a matter of course. As Mrs. Florence Kelley says, "For more than one generation, it has been almost invariably assumed that there must be little newsboys." Ever since he became an institution of our city life, the public has been pleased to regard him admiringly as an energetic salesman of penetrating mind and keen sense of humor. There seems to be a tacit indorsement of the newsboy as such. Ordinarily there are five classes of newsboys to be found in all large cities--(1) the corner boys, (2) those who sell for corner boys on salary, (3) others who sell for them on commission, (4) those who sell for themselves, and (5) those with delivery routes. The bulk of the business is handled by the first three of these classes, which are always associated together and found on the busy corners of the downtown sections of all our cities. The choice localities for the sale of newspapers, namely, the corners in the downtown sections where thousands of pedestrians are daily passing, come under the control of individuals by virtue of long tenure or by purchase, and their title to these corners is not disputed largely on account of the support they receive from the circulation managers of the newspapers. In former years the proprietorship of the corner was settled by a fight, but now it undergoes change of ownership by the formal transfer of location, fixtures and goodwill in accordance with the most approved legal practice. In Chicago a system of routes has been established by the newspapers which send wagons out with the different editions published each day to supply the men who control the delivery and sale of newspapers in the various districts. These route men employ boys to deliver for them to regular customers and also to sell on street corners on a commission basis. In Boston, ex-newsboys known as "Canada Points" are employed by the publishers at a fixed salary to distribute the editions by wholesale among the twenty odd places in the city from which the street sellers are supplied. _Ages, Earnings and Character of the Work_ The following individual cases will serve to illustrate the various forms this business takes. One nineteen-year-old boy paid $65 for his corner in Cincinnati about five years ago; he now earns from $4 to $5 a day clear and would not sell the location for many times its cost. He works there from 11 A.M. to 6.30 P.M. on week days, starting an hour earlier on Saturdays, while on Sundays he delivers the morning newspapers over a route to regular customers. Two boys of about twelve years of age work for him, to one of whom he pays 25 cents a day and to the other 30 cents a day; their duties are to hawk the different editions and to dispose of as many copies as possible by hopping the street cars and offering the papers to pedestrians from 3.45 to 6.30 P.M. daily on week days. If they do not hustle and make a large number of sales, they lose their job. A corner in another part of the city is "owned" by a thirteen-year-old boy who earns about 80 cents a day clear for himself in eight hours, and on Saturdays in nine hours. He has two boys working for him on commission, to whom he pays one cent for every four papers sold; they average about 15 cents a day apiece for three hours' work. When questioned, these commission boys admitted that they could make more money if working for themselves, but in that case would have to work until all the copies they had bought were sold, while on the commission plan they did not have to shoulder so much responsibility. Regulations made by the circulation managers of newspapers concerning the return of unsold copies greatly affect the newsboys' business. Naturally these regulations are made with an eye to extending the circulation. Corner boys are allowed to return only one copy out of every ten bought, being reimbursed by the office for its cost. Consequently they urge their newsboy employees and commission workers to put forth every effort to dispose of the supply purchased. The independent sellers are never permitted to return any unsold copies, except in the case of certain energetic boys who can be relied upon to work hard in any event. These are known as "hustlers," and owing to their having won the confidence of the circulation manager they are granted the special privilege of returning at cost all copies they have been unable to sell. In Boston, beginners are often on a commission basis; "in this way they secure the advice and protection of the more experienced while serving their apprenticeship. These _strikers_, as they are called, keep one cent for every four collected; few of them earn more than 25 cents a day, while many of them earn less than 10."[43] An eleven-year-old Jewish boy who has been a newsboy for several years now controls a comparatively quiet corner in Cincinnati, where he nets from 40 to 50 cents a day, working about three hours. This boy's father and mother are both living. Submission to older persons is natural among children, and an interesting instance of tyranny over small boys by adults was found in the case of a newspaper employee who works inside the plant and employs several young boys to sell newspapers on the streets for him. These boys together earn about $1.30 when working about seven hours, but only half of this amount goes into their pockets, the other half being paid to their "employer." In New York City certain busy sections having points of strategic value are under the control of men who employ small boys to do the real work for a mere pittance, usually the price of admission to a moving-picture show. However, under certain circumstances, these little fellows often display a sturdy spirit of independence. An amusing instance is innocently recorded by an old wartime report of a newsboys' home: "It had been decided to give the boys a free dinner on Sundays, on condition that they attend the Sunday School; but last Sunday they desired the Matron to say that they were able and willing to pay for the dinner."[44] Independent newsboys must not stand in the territory controlled by another; they must select some uncontrolled spot, or else run about hither and yon, selling where they can. Under the unwritten law of this business a boy who chances to sell in another's territory must give the corner boy the money and receive a newspaper in exchange; this results the same as if the corner boy himself had made the sale. The earnings of these independent boys range from 15 to 65 cents daily out of school hours, while on Saturdays they make from $1 to $1.50 working from 11 A.M. to 6.30 P.M. An eleven-year-old lad who has been a newsboy for three years, selling on his own account, disposes of most of his copies in saloons located in the middle of a busy square, earning from 50 cents to $1.25 a day even when attending school. His mother and father are both living. Another example of this class is a sixteen-year-old boy who devotes all his time to the trade, his net income averaging about $7.50 per week. His attitude toward regular work is both interesting and significant; he hopes to get a better job, but says that although he has hunted for one, so little is offered for what he can do ($2 to $3 per week) that it would hardly suffice for spending money. Discussing this difference between factory wages and street-trading profits, an English report says: "Working from 11 A.M. to 7 or 8 P.M., with intervals for gambling, newsboys over 14 years old can make from 10_s._ to 14_s._ a week if they have an ordinary share of alertness. In a factory or foundry, working from 6 A.M. to 6 P.M., a boy earns about 13_s._ a week. The comparison needs no comment. The excitement of their career tends to make them more and more reluctant to work steadily.... Many newsboys protest that they want more permanent work, but they rarely keep it when it is found for them."[45] The life of the streets lacks the discipline involved in steady work and fixed earnings. As an example of the route boy there is a fourteen-year-old lad in Cincinnati who has a list of fifty customers to whom he delivers newspapers regularly, earning in this way 25 cents daily, delivering after school hours. He declares that he finds it much easier to work on a route than to sell on the corners or at random. The morning papers employ a man as circulation manager for the residence districts who controls all the corners in those sections. When a corner becomes vacant, he assigns a youth to it. These older boys are not to sell their corners nor to dispose of them in any way, nor are they allowed to have any one working for them; they must "hop" all the street cars passing their corners and are expected to put forth every effort to accomplish a great number of sales. They get their supply of copies at the branch office at 5 A.M., hurrying then to their corners, where they remain until nearly noon, averaging in this time from $2 to $3 per day clear. Nearly all of the afternoon papers sold in the residence districts are delivered by route boys; after having gone over their routes, some of these boys go to the busier localities and sell the sporting extra during the baseball season until about seven o'clock. _Environment_ Strong emphasis was laid upon the evils of street trading by the New York Child Welfare Exhibit of 1911, the Committee on Work and Wages declaring that "The ordinary newsboy is surrounded by influences that are extremely bad, because (1) of the desultory nature of his work; (2) of the character of street life; and (3) of the lack of discipline or restraint in this work. The occupation is characterized by 'rush hours,' during which the boy will work himself into exhaustion trying to keep pace with his trade, and long hours in which there is little or nothing to do, during which the boy has unlimited opportunities to make such use of the street freedom as he sees fit. During these light hours newsboys congregate in the streets and commit many acts of vandalism. They learn all forms of petty theft and usually are accomplished in most of the vices of the street. In building up their routes, the boys often include places of the most degrading and detrimental character. On the economic side, the loss is due to failure of the occupation to furnish any training for industrial careers."[46] The irregularity of newsboys' meals and the questionable character of their food form one of the worst features of street work and are a real menace to health. Many newsboys are in the habit of eating hurriedly at lunch counters at intervals during the day and night, while some snatch free lunches in saloons. In New York City their diet has been found to consist chiefly of "such hostile ingredients as frankfürters, mince pies, doughnuts, ham sandwiches, cakes and 'sinkers'."[47] The use of stimulants is common, and the demand for them is to be expected because of the nervous strain of the work. Liquor is not consumed to any appreciable extent by street-trading children, but coffee is a favorite beverage. In the largest cities, where "night gangs" are found, from four to six bowls of coffee are usually taken every evening. Tobacco is used in great quantities and in all its forms; many boys even appease their hunger for the time by smoking cigarettes, and the smallest "newsies" are addicted to the habit. Evidence that this is not a recent development among street workers is found in a report made nearly a quarter of a century ago, which, with reference to newsboys, says "many of them soon spend their gains in pool rooms, low places of amusement and for the poisonous cigarette."[48] An English report on the street traders of Manchester says: "Drunkenness is rare among these boys ... they are in many ways attractive; but the closer our acquaintance grows with them the more overwhelming does this propensity to gambling appear. Indeed, it may reasonably be said that the whole career of the street trader is one long game of chance.... They tend to become more and more unwilling to work hard; they are the creatures of accident and lose the power of foresight; they never form habits of thrift; and their word can be taken only by those who have learnt how to interpret it."[49] There are tricks in newspaper selling as well as in other trades, and children are not slow to learn them. A careful observer cannot fail to note that certain newsboys seem always to be without change. Their patrons are generally in a hurry and willingly sacrifice the change from a nickel, even priding themselves on their unselfishness in thus helping to relieve the supposed poverty of the newsboys. As a matter of fact, such an act does real harm, for it arouses the cupidity of boys and leads them to believe that honesty is not the best policy. The temptation for newsboys to develop into "short change artists" is an ever present one, for the bustle of the street creates a most favorable condition for the practice of such frauds. Yet in spite of the many temptations which assail them, numbers of newsboys are scrupulously exact in the matter of making change, even under the most trying circumstances. Another common form of deceit, used to play upon the sympathy of passers-by, is practiced after nightfall by boys of all ages in offering a solitary newspaper for sale and crying in plaintive tone, "Please, mister, buy my last paper?" A kind-hearted person readily falls a victim to this ruse, and as soon as he has passed by, the newsboy draws another copy from his hidden supply and repeats his importuning. Commenting on these features of street trading, Dr. Charles P. Neill, United States Commissioner of Labor, has said: "Unless the child is cast in the mold of heroic virtue, the newsboy trade is a training in either knavery or mendicancy. Nowhere else are the wits so sharpened to look for the unfair advantage, nowhere else is the unfortunate lesson so early learned that dishonesty and trickery are more profitable than honesty, and that sympathy coins more pennies than does industry."[50] _Hours_ Work at unseasonable hours is most disastrous in its effects upon growing children, and the newspaper trade is one that engages the labor of boys in our larger cities at all hours of the night. This fact is not generally known. A prominent social worker recently said: "I was astounded to find the other day that my newspaper comes to me in Chicago every morning because two little boys, one twelve and the other thirteen, get it at half-past two at night. These little boys, who go to school, carry papers around so that we get them in the morning at four o'clock all the year around. They are working for a man with whom we contract for our newspapers. I was quite shocked in St. Louis twice this fall (1908) to find a girl five or six years of age selling newspapers near the railroad station in the worst part of town after dark. We hear a great deal of sentimental talk about newsboys' societies doing so much for newsboys, but they do not seem to care anything for work of this kind."[51] In passing it may be remarked that in the city of Toledo there is an active association organized for the benefit of newsboys, which openly encourages street work by boys of from eight to seventeen years. The manager insists that such work affords the means of alleviating the poverty in the families of these boys, but upon inquiry it was found that he had never heard of the provision for the financial relief of such cases of child labor, which is made by the Ohio law, and which had been, at the time, most successfully administered for three years by the Board of Education of his own city. The Chicago newspapers have their Sunday editions distributed on Saturday night, consequently the newsboys are up all night so as to assure prompt service to patrons. In the absence of public opinion in the matter, this abuse flourishes unrestricted, and the children's health is sacrificed to meet the demand for news. Agents of the Chicago Vice Commission reported having seen boys from ten to fifteen years of age selling morning papers at midnight Saturday in the evil districts of the city.[52] The early rising of newsboys to deliver the morning week-day editions also contributes to the breaking down of their health. The old adage is a mockery in their case. There is abundant testimony relative to the evil effects of such untimely work. "Children who go to school and sell papers get up so early in the morning that they are so stupid during the day they cannot do anything. That was clearly demonstrated to me during my experience in teaching school."[53] Another teacher said: "I have had instances in school where children have gone to sleep over their tasks because they got up at two or three o'clock in the morning to put out city lights and to sell papers. In those instances we wanted the parents to take the children away from their work. Where they would not do it, we prosecuted them for contributing to the delinquency of their children."[54] The delivery of newspapers by young boys in the strictly residence sections of cities appears to be unobjectionable, yet even this simple work should be under restriction as to hours, because otherwise the boys would continue to rise at unseemly hours of the night in order to reach the branch offices in time to get the newspapers fresh from the press. In fact, every phase of street work should be under control. Dr. Harold E. Jones, medical inspector of schools to the Essex County Council, has testified that among the most injurious forms of labor performed by boys is the early morning delivery of newspapers and milk.[55] In his Report on Child Labor Legislation in Europe, Mr. C. W. A. Veditz states, "Delivering milk before school in the morning must be condemned, because it fatigues the children so that they become, to say the least, intellectually less receptive."[56] In his article on "The Newsboy at Night in Philadelphia,"[57] Mr. Scott Nearing gives a graphic account of conditions in the City of Brotherly Love. Although this description was written some years ago, local social workers find that the same conditions still obtain, as there is neither law nor ordinance to bring about a change. In this city the closing of the theaters at eleven o'clock marks the beginning of Saturday night's work. The last editions of the evening newspapers are offered at this time, often as a cloak for begging. After the theater, the restaurant patrons are available as customers until midnight. Then the morning papers begin to come from the press, and the newsboys abandon their begging and gambling and rush to the offices for their supplies. A load of forty pounds is often carried by the smallest newsboys, hurrying along the streets in the early morning hours. The cream of the business is done at this time, for most of the purchasers are more or less intoxicated and therefore inclined to be generous with tips and indifferent as to change; sometimes a newsboy takes in as much money on Saturday night and Sunday morning as during the entire remainder of the week. In relating his experiences, Mr. Nearing says, "On one night we saw fifteen boys in a group just as the policeman was chasing them out of Chinatown at half-past three Sunday morning; the youngest boy was clearly not over ten and the oldest was barely sixteen." At this hour the officers of the law interfere and quell the revels of the district. The open gratings in sidewalks through which warm air comes from basements, are then sought, and here the boys pass the time dozing until dawn, when they go abroad again to cry the Sunday papers. _Home Conditions--Poverty_ One of the reasons why the public is so indulgent toward the street worker is that it takes for granted that the child is making a manly effort to support a widowed mother and several starving little brothers and sisters. Mrs. Florence Kelley calls this "perverted reasoning" and scores the public which "unhesitatingly places the burden of the decrepit adult's maintenance upon the slender shoulders of the child."[58] Poverty has been made an excuse for child labor from time immemorial by those who profit by the system. Newspapers are not an exception to the rule; the newsboys extend their circulation and incidentally give them free advertising in the streets--hence they see nothing but good in the newsboys' work and fight lustily to defend what they claim to be the mainstay of the widows. That this popular impression and appealing argument are false and without justification has been shown by students of the problem everywhere. The following table gives the family condition of Cincinnati newsboys:-- Both parents dead 12 Father dead 239 Mother dead 69 Both parents living 1432 ---- Total 1752 Through a special inquiry it was found that in only 363 cases out of this total were the earnings of the children really needed. These 1752 children, ten to thirteen years of age, were licensed from July to December, 1909; their distribution as to age was as follows:-- 10 years 303 11 years 348 12 years 564 13 years 537 ---- Total 1752 Upon investigation of the home conditions of several hundred newsboys in New York City it was declared that "in the majority of cases parents are not dependent on the boys' earnings. The poverty plea--that boys must sell papers to help widowed mothers or disabled fathers--is, for the most part, gross exaggeration."[59] Concerning a study of Chicago newsboys, Myron E. Adams says, "A careful investigation of the records of the Charity Organization Society shows that of the 1000 newsboys investigated, the names of but sixteen families are found, and of these ... only four received direct help, such as coal, clothing or food."[60] Mr. Scott Nearing says: "In many cases the boys want to go on the streets in order to have the pocket money which this life affords, and the ignorant or indifferent parents make no objections, but take the street life as a matter of course. Sometimes, though not nearly as often as is generally supposed, there is real need for the selling."[61] The British interdepartmental committee appointed in 1901 to inquire into the employment of school children, denounced the tolerance of street trading on the ground of necessity: "We think that in framing regulations with regard to child labour and school attendance ... the poverty of the child or its parents ought not to be made a test of the right to labour.... We do not think it is needed; we think that all children should have liberty to work as much and in such ways as is good for them and no more."[62] Another argument in favor of street trading advanced by those who are interested in maintaining present conditions, is that it affords a splendid training for a business career because of the competition that rages among the boys. This is doubtless true, as far as it goes, but the great difficulty is that street trading leads nowhere. It is a blind alley that sooner or later leaves its followers helpless against the solid wall of skilled labor's competition. An occupation that fits a boy for _nothing_ and is devoid of _prospects_, is a curse rather than a blessing in this day of specialization. In spite of the division of labor so elaborately realized to-day, a boy or girl who enters any of the regular industries has at least a fighting chance for acquiring a trade. If the child is honest, capable and diligent he will be promoted to a better position in time if misfortune does not overtake him. The trapper boy in a coal mine is in a fair way to become a miner. The lad who works in a machine shop has the opportunity to make a machinist of himself. The girl who begins as a wrapper in a dry goods shop may become a saleswoman, and then possibly a buyer for her department. Yet in most states children may not enter upon such work until they have reached the age of fourteen years, while some states prohibit boys under sixteen years from being employed in mines or in connection with dangerous machinery either in machine shops or elsewhere. Bitter experience has taught us that these restrictions are right and just, and we now have no hesitancy in barring young children from such employment, regardless of the training it affords. Why, then, do we exempt many forms of street work from the operation of the law? Why do we allow little children to work at any age, both night and day, as newsboys, bootblacks and peddlers in the essentially dangerous environment of the street? Such employment offers but a gloomy future--the useless life of the casual worker. There is no better position to which it leads, no chance for the discovery and development of ability, no reward for good service. It seems incredible that we have been so engrossed with throwing safeguards about the children in regular industries that we have altogether neglected the street worker, for the arguments against child labor in factories, mills, mines and retail shops apply with even greater force to the work of children in our city streets. _Better Substitutes_ There is no reason why newsboys should not be replaced as the medium for the sale and delivery of newspapers by old men, cripples, the tuberculous and those otherwise incapacitated for regular work. In London, the _Westminster Gazette_, the _Pall Mall Gazette_, the _Evening Standard_ and the _Globe_ (all penny papers) are sold in the streets by old men; the _Westminster Gazette_ pays them a wage of 1_s._ for selling eighteen copies and after having disposed of this number they are given a commission of 8_d._ a quire of twenty-six copies, a few men selling from six to eight quires a day. This newspaper has followed this method for many years, and its general manager declares that it is the most satisfactory system that they have been able to evolve. Boys have no sense of responsibility, while old men cling to their posts very faithfully. He admitted that the _Westminster Gazette_ employed some boys as carriers and that the whole subject lay somewhat heavily on his conscience because, "practically speaking, these boys have no future ... a few of them may become cyclists carrying the newspapers ... in a few years their usefulness as cyclists has gone ... then they simply drift away, we don't know where, but we do know that they drift to places like Salvation Army Shelters, etc. How they earn their living is always one of the mysteries of London.... But they have learned nothing from us, nothing that gives them any usefulness for any other occupation.... The great majority become casual labourers dependent entirely on casual work.... It is a life in which very little is gained, although one would suppose that the open air would be of great benefit. But one must remember the insufficient food that these street traders have, and the bad conditions of living and the irregular hours. Many of these boys, of course, are up all hours of the night.... It is quite as bad for a boy in the long run to be engaged as a carrier distributor as for him to sell newspapers in the street. There is no possible argument for the system except that one's competitors do it, and that so long as they do it we must do the same.... We get practically all our men from Salvation Army and Church Army Shelters. There is an abundant supply.... The ordinary man whom we employ is over fifty years of age and runs up to about seventy years.... I think if the police would give us every facility for introducing kiosks it would be a great improvement upon the present system. If boys were prohibited from selling newspapers altogether on the streets, it would automatically send the public to the kiosk; ... the public get into the habit of getting the newspapers from the boys."[63] It should be remembered in connection with the above statements that the _Westminster Gazette_ is a penny paper, and its manager was of opinion that the half-penny papers could not afford to employ men because they depended largely for their circulation upon the persistence of newsboys in thrusting copies upon the attention of people in the streets; he believed that the use of old men would curtail their circulation because men are not so active as boys. On the other hand, news agents protested against the competition of street traders and maintained that they alone were fully able to meet the demands of the public. The departmental committee of 1910 reported: "There can, we think, be little doubt that an active child is an effective agent in promoting the circulation of half-penny papers, and that if the employment of children were forbidden, newspapers would have to rely upon facilities of a more staid and less mobile character. But we see no reason to think that purchasers of newspapers need be put to any inconvenience, since the news agents would be in a position considerably to extend their business, and it might reasonably be expected that the system of employing old men as salesmen would also be developed. It appears to us economically unjustifiable to use children to their own detriment for work which can be done by other means."[64] Referring to the great possibilities for good involved in confining the sale and delivery of newspapers to adults who need outdoor work and are unable to provide for themselves in other ways, the Secretary of the New York Child Labor Committee says: "Where such cities as Paris and Berlin do entirely without newsboys--corner stands taking their places--it would seem that the least that can be done in American cities is to adopt some adequate system of regulation. In this connection, the opportunity presented in newspaper selling to give work to the aged and handicapped--who otherwise would have to be supported by private charity--should not be overlooked."[65] _The Newsboys' Court_ In an effort to control to some extent the tendency of newsboys to become delinquent and to imbue them with a sense of personal responsibility, an interesting experiment in juvenile suffrage and jurisprudence has been undertaken in Boston. During the year 1909, about three hundred newsboys were taken before the juvenile court of that city charged with violation of the local license rules. As the docket of this court was crowded, these newsboy cases were necessarily delayed, and as a result of this situation the boys conceived the idea of establishing a newsboys' court which should have jurisdiction in all cases of failure to observe the rules governing their trade. The following year a petition was presented to the Boston School Committee which was favorably acted upon by that body, and accordingly on the regular election day of that year the newsboys cast their ballots to select three juvenile judges of the court. These three boys, together with two adults appointed by the School Committee, compose the court. Election of these boy judges is held annually, and all licensed newsboys who attend the public schools are qualified electors. The court is empowered to investigate and report its findings with recommendations to the School Committee in all cases of infraction of the newsboy rules. Under the Massachusetts law the School Committee is authorized to regulate street trading by children under fourteen years of age, hence the newsboys are subject to purely local supervision. The supervisor of licensed minors, also an appointee of the School Committee, can, in his discretion, take complaints in his department before the newsboys' court instead of the juvenile court. The newsboy judges are paid fifty cents for their attendance at each official session of the court. The charges made before the Trial Board, as the Boston newsboys' court is called, range from selling without a badge or after eight o'clock in the evening or on street cars, to bad conduct, irregular school attendance, gambling or smoking. The disposition of these cases varies from reprimands and warnings to probation or suspension of license for a definite period, or complete revocation of license.[66] _Summary_ Although the work of selling newspapers has been, to some extent, subdivided and systematized by circulation managers, it has so many features highly objectionable for children that a radical departure from present methods of handling this business should be taken. We know that the work of the newsboy lacks the oversight and discipline of adults, that it exposes the children to the varied physical dangers lurking in the streets, that the early and late hours cause fatigue, that the opportunities for bad companionship are frequent, that irregularity of meals and use of stimulants tend to weaken their constitutions, that it offers no chance for promotion and leads nowhere. We know further that the presence of the newsboy in our streets cannot be justified on the ground of poverty. It has been demonstrated in other countries that children are not essential to the sale and delivery of newspapers; in fact, it has been shown that selling at stands and the use of men instead of children in the streets are both feasible and satisfactory. Why cannot such practices be introduced into the United States? There can be but little doubt as to the advisability of this step, but the innovation will certainly not be made voluntarily by the newspapers. The law must force the issue by prohibiting street work by children. CHAPTER IV BOOTBLACKS, PEDDLERS AND MARKET CHILDREN _Bootblacks_ The itinerant bootblack is gradually disappearing from our cities, but he is still found in Boston, Buffalo, New York City and a few other places. He is being supplanted by the worker at stands, which are conducted almost invariably by Greeks. As a result of this change the bootblacking business will soon cease to be a street occupation; it is discussed here because of the abuses it involves and because it is unregulated in many states, owing to its omission from the list of employments covered by child labor laws. _The Padrone System_ The New York-New Jersey Committee of the North American Civic League for Immigrants reports that: "The condition of Greek boys and young men in such occupations as pushcart peddling, shoe-shining parlors and the flower trade is one of servitude and peonage. It has been found that many boys apparently from fourteen to eighteen years of age arrive here alone, stating that they are eighteen years old, but in reality less than this, and that they are going to relatives. They have been found working in the shoe-shining parlors seven days a week from 7 A.M. to 9 P.M. and living with the 'boss' in groups varying from five to twenty-five under unsanitary conditions, overcrowding and irregularity of meals wholly undesirable for young boys. They are isolated from learning English or from American contact, and receive for their work from $7 to $15 a month and board and lodging. The majority of the flower peddlers have been unable to obtain permits, with the result that the boys who work for them are arrested for violating the law. Boys who have been in the country from three months to a year state they have been arrested several times--their first experience in this country--and are already hardened so that they think nothing of paying fines."[67] The bootblack business is the chief industry to which the Greek padrone system is applied. The United States Immigration Commission found[68] that boys employed as bootblacks live in extremely unwholesome quarters. Wherever the room is large enough, several beds are gathered together with three and sometimes four boys sleeping in each bed. In some places the boys merely roll themselves up in blankets and sleep on the floor. The bootblacking stands are opened for business about 6 o'clock in the morning, consequently the boys are obliged to rise about an hour earlier, and wherever their sleeping quarters are located at considerable distance from the stands, they have to get up as early as 4.30. Arrived at the stands, they remain working until 9.30 or 10 at night in cities, and on Saturday and Sunday nights the closing hour is usually later. The boys eat their lunch in the rear of the establishment, this meal consisting generally of bread and olives or cheese. Supper is eaten after the boys reach "home," and after having eaten it they retire without removing their clothes. Even after their excessively long work day, two of the boys are required to wash the dirty rags used for polishing the shoes daily so they can be used the next day. These boys are compelled to work every day in the year without vacation. The Immigration Commission found that they are under constant espionage, as at every stand the padrone places relatives who both work for him and act as spies on the other boys. Their employer instructs them to make false statements to questions asked by outsiders relative to their ages or conditions of work; many padrones also censor the letters written by the boys to their parents or others and examine all incoming mail, so as to forestall any efforts made by outsiders to induce the boys to leave for other places. The majority of them cannot read or write their own language, and are unable to secure any education in this country because of their long work hours. According to the Immigration Commission their mental development is perceptibly arrested by the physical fatigue they suffer as a result of their long-sustained work without recreation. They receive no good advice, nor do they hear anything that would tend to elevate them morally. The Commission does not hesitate to brand these conditions as deplorable; it declares that the ravages on the constitutions of these boys laboring in shoe-shining establishments under this system are appalling. It attributes these effects to the following causes: long hours, close confinement to their work in poorly ventilated places, unsanitary living conditions, unhealthful manner of sleeping, excessive stooping required by their work, inadequate nourishment due to the "economy" of the padrones who furnish the food, the microbe-laden dust from shoes, the inhaling of injurious chemicals from the polish they use, the filthy condition of their bodies resulting from their failure to bathe and the lack of proper clothing for the winter season. The Greek Consul General at Chicago, himself a physician, in a letter to the Immigration Inspector of that city under date of November 16, 1910, declared that as a result of his experience in examining and treating boy bootblacks he was convinced that all boys under eighteen years of age who labor for a few years in shoe-shining establishments, develop serious chronic stomachic and hepatic troubles which predispose them to pulmonary disease; he further declared that because of the conditions under which they work the majority of them ultimately contract tuberculosis, and that in his opinion it would be more humane and infinitely better for young Greeks to be denied admission into the United States than to be permitted to land if they are intended for such employment. Similar statements are made by other Greek physicians of Chicago. The importation of Greek boys for use as bootblacks in the United States started about 1895, when the Greeks began to secure their monopoly of the industry by taking it away from the Italians and the Negroes, confining it, however, to stands or booths. Most of the early padrones have become financially independent. Their success attracted other Greeks to this industry, and in a short time almost every American city with a population of more than 10,000 had bootblack stands operated by them. Thus the traffic in Greek boys began to flourish. The Bureau of Immigration helped to have a number of padrones indicted and convicted for offenses against the conspiracy statute and the Immigration Act, and these prosecutions made the importers very careful as to their manner of procedure. They now bring the boys here through the instrumentality of relatives in Greece in such a way that the padrones are almost beyond the reach of our criminal statutes. In some cases it has been found that on leaving Greece for this country the boys are told to report to a saloon keeper in Chicago or in some other western city, hence they do not know their final destination. The saloon keeper has his instructions from the padrones and acts as their distributing agent. Padrones who operate in places distant from ports of entry easily avoid detection in this way. In most cases these padrones derive an income from each boy of from $100 to as high as $500 a year. The Commission explains this as follows: The wages paid by the padrones now to Greek boys in shoe-shining establishments range from $80 to $250 per year, the average wages being from $120 to $180 per year. The boys are bound by agreement to turn their tips over to their padrones: in most cases as soon as the tipping patron has departed the boy deposits his tip in the register, while in other places tips are put into a separate box to which the padrone holds the key. In smaller cities and even in the poorest locations each boy's tips may exceed the sum of 50 cents per day, while in large cities they average higher. The Greek padrone, therefore, receives in return from tips alone nearly double the amount of wages paid. By deducting the wages and the annual boarding expenses for each boy--an expenditure seldom exceeding the sum of $40 per year--there is still a sum left to the padrone to pay him for the privilege of allowing the boy to work in his place. In other words, from the total amount of tips--money that belongs to the boy by right--the padrone is enabled to pay the boy's annual wages and still have a respectable sum left, all this independently of the legitimate profits of his business. Relatives of the padrones in Greece often pay the steamship passage of boys with the understanding that they are to go to the United States and serve the padrone for one year to reimburse him for the passage money advanced. A mortgage is placed on the property of the boys' father as security, purporting that the father is to receive in cash an amount equal to the wages commonly paid to Greek bootblacks for one year in the United States, but as a matter of fact a steamship ticket and $12 or $15 in money are all that is given. The cash is to serve as "show money" to help secure admission to this country past the immigration officers at the ports of entry. Advertising is systematically carried on throughout all the provinces of Greece with a view to exciting the interest of the parents so that they will send their boys to the United States, and no efforts are spared in letting it become known that there is a great demand here for boy labor at the bootblack stands. The padrones themselves even go to Greece every two or three years, and while there manage to become godfathers to the children of many families; this relationship gives them great influence, and through it they are able to secure many boys for their service. Concerning the prevention of these abuses, the report says: "In the investigations conducted by the Bureau of Immigration many conferences were held with United States attorneys in various jurisdictions with the view of instituting proceedings against padrones, if possible, under the peonage statutes. The attorneys generally agreed that under the evidence submitted to them those laboring in shoe-shining establishments are peons, but as the elements of indebtedness and physical compulsion to work out the indebtedness are missing, peonage laws cannot apply. "Our immigration laws as now on the statute books provide specifically for the exclusion of boys under sixteen years of age only when not accompanied by one or both of their parents. This provision cannot apply to those boys that come in company with their parents, nor to those who have their parents in the United States, nor to such as successfully deceive immigration officers by posing as the sons of immigrants in whose charge they come. If held for special inspection at the ports of entry, these aliens can only be excluded if it appears that they are destined to an occupation unsuited to their tender years. In the absence of any such evidence, the boards of inquiry generally admit. Once landed, it becomes a hard matter to trace them and almost impossible to secure evidence in the majority of cases, for the boys understand that they will be punished by deportation. This knowledge makes them persistent in withholding any information as to the manner of their entry into the United States."[69] Quite recently a young Greek bootblack who was working at a stand in an Indianapolis office building confessed to a truant officer that he was twelve years old, whereupon the chief truant officer of the city went to the place, but on his arrival the boy had changed his mind and declared that he was fourteen years old, and every one connected with the stand supported the statement. Nevertheless the chief truant officer proceeded with the case and found that the boy had been in this country only about six months, his parents being still in Greece. An older brother had a position as a railroad porter but did not stay with the little fellow even on the few occasions he was in the city. The boy lived at the home of the proprietor of the stand, whose relationship to him was a combination of employer and guardian. This man operated four stands in the city, and his dozen or more other employees all lived at the same place. The chief truant officer charged the man with having worked the boy from 7 A.M. to 9 P.M. seven days in the week, which was admitted before the Juvenile Court by the defendant, who also volunteered the information that the boy worked until 11 P.M. on holidays and on Saturdays. Of course the boy was being kept out of school. In its issue of August 12, 1911, the _Survey_ published a letter from a correspondent concerning a case of peonage among bootblacks in the city of Rochester, N.Y. This particular case was of a pale, thin, under-sized Greek lad who worked at a large stand in a local office building. He explained that he worked every day in the week from 7 A.M. to 9 P.M., including Sundays, and that on Saturdays the hours were lengthened to 11 P.M., adding that he had not been absent from his stand one day in four years except at one time when he was sick in the hospital. A letter which was written by a Greek in Syracuse, N.Y., on May 4, 1911, to the editor of the Syracuse _Post-Standard_ was printed in the same magazine.[70] This letter recites the wrongs of the bootblacks and is reproduced below because of its value as one of the rare protests which come from the victims of the system:-- "Before I came to this country from Greece, I heard that this country is free, but I don't think so. It is free for the Americans, not for the shoe shiners. In this city are too many shoe shiners' stands, and the boys which work there--they work fifteen hours a day, and Sunday, and almost eighteen on Saturdays. They make only from $12 to $18 a month and board, but we don't have any good board neither, but our patrons give us bread, tea and a piece of cheese for dinner, supper, but no breakfast. We don't have any time to go to the church, not in school, and without them we won't be good citizens. They won't let us read newspapers, because they are afraid if we learn something we will quit, but we can't quit because we can't speak English, and we can't find another job. Now I don't mean the boys working in the barber shops. They make $10 to $18 a week, and they don't work as hard as we do. We wish to work as they do. We want the public and Mr. Mayor to cut the hours from fifteen to ten, not Sundays, because we want time for school, and weekly work, not monthly. I think I wrote enough." _Peddlers and Market Children_ The licensed peddlers of Boston are under orders not to engage little children to sell for them with or without compensation. "These peddlers have hitherto crowded the markets of this city by inviting children to help them in the business, frequently for no other compensation than the offal of their pushcarts or stands."[71] The peddling of chewing gum is a common form of street occupation for children. In reality it is merely begging in disguise. The Chicago Vice Commission reports that its agents found boys under fourteen years of age selling gum late at night in the segregated districts of the city. At intervals of from two to three hours their investigators returned to the same neighborhood and found these little children still engaged in this very questionable form of work. One agent reported having seen two little girls of about eleven years in the company of a small boy of about eight years selling chewing gum in front of a saloon in the vice district between nine and ten o'clock at night.[72] The following table gives the sex, age, nationality, standing in school, orphanage and occupation of seventeen children found by one person in a single trip through the markets of Cincinnati:-- ====+=====+====+=====+===========+==========+==========+============== | | | | | FATHER | MOTHER | | | | | | LIVING | LIVING | | | | | +-----+----+-----+----+-------------- BOYS|GIRLS|AGE |GRADE|NATIONALITY| YES | NO | YES | NO | SELLING ----+-----+----+-----+-----------+-----+----+-----+----+-------------- 1 | | 9 | 2d | Italian | 1 | | 1 | | baskets 1 | | 10 | 4th | American | 1 | | 1 | | fruit 1 | | 10 | 3d | German | | 1 | 1 | | vegetables 1 | | 10 | 2d | Italian | | 1 | 1 | | fruit | 1 | 10 | 4th | Italian | 1 | | 1 | | fruit | 1 | 10 | 3d | Italian | | 1 | 1 | | baskets 1 | | 11 | 4th | Italian | | 1 | 1 | | fruit 1 | | 11 | 3d | Italian | 1 | | 1 | | baskets | 1 | 11 | 6th | German | 1 | | | 1 | vegetables 1 | | 12 | 4th | American | 1 | | 1 | | vegetables 1 | | 12 | 3d | American | 1 | | | 1 | baskets 1 | | 12 | 4th | American | 1 | | 1 | | sassafras 1 | | 12 | 6th | Italian | 1 | | 1 | | fruit 1 | | 13 | 5th | Italian | 1 | | 1 | | baskets 1 | | 14 | 3d | American | 1 | | 1 | | sassafras 1 | | 14 | 8th | American | 1 | | 1 | | vegetables | 1 | 14 | 4th | Italian | | 1 | 1 | | fruit ====+=====+====+=====+===========+=====+====+=====+====+============== Of these seventeen children nine were Italians, six were Americans, two were Germans. Five of the children, all of whom except one were Italian, were engaged in selling baskets to the passers-by in markets. Six of the children, all of whom except one were Italian, were selling fruit. Six of the children were selling vegetables and herbs, all of them being Americans and Germans. The occupational characteristics of these different peoples are shown by their children, the Italians predominating in the sale of fruit, the Germans in the sale of the products of their market gardens, the Americans, all of whom were boys, in the sale of the herbs they had gathered or the vegetables cultivated on their home farms. Of these seventeen children nine were in their normal grades at school, while eight were backward and none ahead of their proper grades. This large percentage of retardation is due principally to the lack of time for preparation of school lessons on the part of these children, as much of their afternoons and evenings is taken up either with the work of selling in the markets or with the work of assisting with the garden duties at home. Of the eight backward children, four were Italians and four were Americans. One of the backward Italian girls was fourteen years of age and had left school three weeks prior to the inquiry; she was the oldest of six children; her father was dead, and she was working for her mother in their fruit store selling the fruit from early morning until midnight every day in the week except Sunday. As she was the oldest child in the family, it is of course easily seen that her retardation in school was largely due to her having been kept at work in the shop during the afternoons and evenings while she was still attending school. An American boy, who, although twelve years of age, was only in the third grade at school, was employed by his parents to sell baskets in the market, in spite of the fact that his father had a store and was fully able to support the child properly. This boy was found, as were many other such children, selling baskets in the market at eleven o'clock at night after having been there since early in the morning. A thirteen-year-old Italian boy was only in the fifth grade; he was selling baskets in one market in the morning and in another market during the afternoon and evening; both of his parents were living, and his father had a "city job." There were six children in the family, two of whom were older and employed. The entire family of eight persons occupied two rooms. It is noteworthy that the fathers of twelve of the children were living, only five being dead; while the mothers of fifteen were living, only two being dead. Not a single child was a full orphan. In the great majority of cases it was not necessary for these children to work so prematurely. CHAPTER V MESSENGERS, ERRAND AND DELIVERY CHILDREN Accustomed to seeing messenger boys engaged during the day in the unobjectionable task of delivering telegrams to residences and business offices, one is likely to regard this service as an occupation quite suitable for children and to give it no further thought. However, the character of the work done by the messenger boy changes radically after nine or ten o'clock at night. At that hour most legitimate business has ceased, and the evil phases of city life begin to manifest themselves. From that time on until nearly dawn the messenger's work is largely in connection with the vicious features of city life. The ignorance of the general public as to the evil influences surrounding the night messenger service is strikingly illustrated by what one Indiana boy told an investigator; he declared that if his father knew what kind of work he was doing, a strap would be laid across his back and he would be compelled to abandon it. But the father did not know; he thought his boy was simply delivering telegrams. The delivery of telegrams forms but a small part of the boy's work at night, because few messages are dispatched after business hours. Instead, calls are sent to the office for messengers to go on errands. The boys wait upon the characters of the underworld and perform a surprising variety of simple tasks; they carry notes to and from the inmates of houses of prostitution and their patrons, take lunches, chop suey and chile con carne to bawdyhouse women, procure liquor after the closing hour, purchase opium, cocaine and other drugs, go to drug stores for prostitutes to get medicines and articles used in their trade, and perform other tasks that oblige them to cultivate their acquaintance with the worst side of human nature. One instance was found in which the boy was required to clean up the room of a prostitute and to make her bed. The uniform or cap of the messenger boy is a badge of secrecy and enables him to get liquor at illegal hours or to procure opium and other drugs where plain citizens would be refused; hence these boys are thrown into associations of the lowest kind, night after night, and come to regard these evil conditions as normal phases of life. Usually the brightest boys on the night force become the favorites of the prostitutes; the women take a fancy to particular boys because of their personal attractiveness and show them many favors, so that the most promising boys in this work are the ones most liable to suffer complete moral degradation. Messenger service not only gives boys the opportunity to learn what life is at night in "tenderloin" districts, but the character of the work actually _forces_ them into contact with the vilest conditions and subjects them to the fearful influences always exerted by such associations. Some believe that this evil could be prevented by forbidding the office to allow messenger boys to go on such errands, but this is not practicable for two reasons: first, because an essential feature of the messenger service is secrecy--the office does not inquire into the nature of the errand to be performed, and even if it did so, a false statement could easily be made by the patron over the telephone; and second, it would be necessary to send a detective along with the boy on each trip to see that he observed the rules. Boys are eager to run errands for prostitutes for various reasons, one being the extra income assured, as these women give tips with liberal hand. Like other street occupations, the messenger service is a blind alley; it leads nowhere. A very few boys are promoted to the position of check boy in the telegraph office, and fewer still have an opportunity to learn telegraphy. Some of the boys become cab drivers because they have familiarized themselves with the city streets; others become saloon keepers because they have become well acquainted with this method of making a livelihood; some are attracted by the life of "ease" which opens before them and enter into agreement with prostitutes, upon whose earnings they subsist; others have the courage to get away from these influences and secure work as office boys or in some other line entirely different from the messenger service. A considerable number of the inmates of state reform schools were formerly messenger boys, indicating that this service is one of the roads to delinquency. As the immoral influences surrounding this work are especially active among youths, the age limit for such employment at night should be made high enough to prevent their being so exposed. New York State was first to declare that if this work is to be done at night it must be done by men, and has fixed the age limit at twenty-one years. The late Judge Stubbs, of the Indianapolis Juvenile Court, speaking before the Conference of Juvenile Court Officers held in that city in November, 1910, said that messenger boys, and newsboys who sell papers in the downtown streets, were the boys most frequently charged with delinquency before his court, and declared that twenty-one years was low enough as an age limit for night messenger service. Other temptations assail the messenger boy in his work, and are frequently yielded to. The old practice of raising the amount of charges on the envelope of a telegram is notorious and is still an ever present problem to the companies. When a boy has been detected in this petty crime and is questioned about it, he too often adds to the one misdeed the other equally grievous one of lying, whereupon his dismissal usually follows. Under the direction of the writer an investigation of the night messenger service was made in 1910 in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, the following cases being typical of the conditions found in all cities. In one of the larger towns of Indiana, a fourteen-year-old messenger boy was interviewed one night by an agent of the National Child Labor Committee who had called up the telegraph office by telephone requesting that a messenger be sent to him. Early in the course of conversation, of his own volition, the boy referred to houses of prostitution. Upon being asked what he knew about such places, he replied: "Too much--I am there half the night. You see they call for messengers to run errands for them. Sometimes I get them drinks, opium, medicines from drug stores or anything they want. No matter what they ask us to do--it's our business to go ahead and do it." The boy led the agent to a disreputable negro district and described his activities in this region. "No night passes without my making a dollar down here," said he. "The niggers are great smokers of opium, and I get it for them; they give me a little jar, and I have it filled up for them. It costs them $1.50, and I usually get the change from $2." The agent feigned doubt so as to elicit more information, whereupon the boy offered to get some opium if he were given a tip. The agent gave the boy one dollar and told him he might keep the change; in ten minutes he returned with a card of opium which was subsequently analyzed in a laboratory and found to be the kind ordinarily prepared for smoking purposes. This experience was repeated again and again by agents of the National Child Labor Committee in different cities and proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that these young boys are forced into familiarity with the most degrading conditions. Another fourteen-year-old messenger boy in the same town told the agent that there were but few business calls at night, and that nearly all of their work was in connection with houses of prostitution. This boy spoke of the money he received in tips from inmates and patrons of these houses, of his receiving liquor and cigarettes from them, and remarked, "I do not have to do this work, but I like it; this job is too good to give up; I'm learning a lot of things." This little fellow described some extremely revolting scenes of which he had been witness in these houses, and upon being asked whether his manager was aware of the kind of places he was called to, he replied, "Sure he does, for he gets the message over the telephone, then he calls one of the boys and sends him to the house." Another messenger in the same city, who was seventeen years old and had been in this service for four years, working daily until half past two in the morning, said, in talking about the use of drugs by prostitutes, "When they are so full of dope that they don't know what to do, they call up for a messenger, and sometimes I have had them send me out to a drug store for paris green; they want to kill themselves, they are crazy with opium; of course I take their money and never show up again." This boy also bought a small package of opium for the agent. He declared that he knew every house of prostitution in the city and was well acquainted with their proprietresses. To prove this, he wrote out a list of fourteen such places, putting down the streets and numbers at once from memory. These were subsequently referred to persons familiar with the city and verified. It is very distressing to read the testimony of a fourteen-year-old messenger boy of another city who had been thrown by his work so much in contact with evil conditions that he had come to regard these as normal. Although only fourteen years of age, he had lost all faith in womankind. In walking through the segregated district with the agent, this boy called out in advance the number of each house of prostitution, thus showing his familiarity with the whole region. In his childish, schoolboy hand, he wrote on a slip of paper a list of the bawdyhouses, putting down very promptly from memory the names of the proprietresses, the names of the streets and numbers of the houses. Another fourteen-year-old messenger boy in this city related many disgusting details of his experiences in the service at night--of prostitutes smoking, cursing and sprawling on the floor dead drunk. He stated that he had never smoked before he became a messenger, but that when he saw the women using tobacco in all the houses, he thought there could be no harm in it. "If ladies do it, why shouldn't I? So I began, and now I smoke a pack of cigarettes a day. I get twenty for a nickel and smoke all night. If I didn't, I suppose I'd fall asleep. I once lit a cigarette from an opium pipe in one of the houses--but no more opium for me." When asked whether his manager knew that he was sent to these houses, he replied: "Sure he does, he's the one that sends us; if we don't go, we get fired. He knows all the women, too, because he jokes with them over the telephone when they call up for a boy." A fifteen-year-old night messenger, when asked what he did with the money he received as tips, replied: "Last week I lost a dollar in a crap game, and I go to moving-picture shows during the day and buy different things; I suppose if my people knew the kind of work I was doing, I would get a thick leather strap over my back. They have an idea that the messenger business is just taking telegrams to reputable people. There are very few business calls at night at our office; almost all of them come from houses of prostitution. This is going to be a very busy week with us because a convention starts to-morrow, and the delegates will want us to take them to the houses." Another Hoosier messenger was only sixteen years of age, although he had been in the service of one company for four years and had previously been discharged from another company for having defrauded a patron. This lad was a typical boy of the street; his features were drawn, black lines were below his eyes, and his walk could be described best as a drag. "I know every single house of prostitution in this city," said he. "I have been in every one. I get drinks in most of them, and many a time I was drunk for a whole day in some woman's room." This boy, having been in the service several years, spoke of the ravages dissipation had wrought on the women of the underworld. He had known many of them when they were just starting in their life of shame, and remarked their rapid decline. Voluntarily he spoke of the venereal diseases from which he had suffered. He said that he had been discharged from his first job as a messenger for having defrauded patrons. To illustrate how the scheme worked, he said: "A woman wanted me to carry a package to some place and asked me what it would cost; I said one dollar, and she said she wouldn't pay it because it was too much. I told her to speak to the manager and gave her the telephone number where my pal was waiting for the call. She asked him whether he was the manager, and he said, 'Yes'; then she asked how much the charge was, and he answered one dollar. Then I went on the errand, and we split the difference. Somehow the manager got wise, and out we went." This boy's conversation was a continuous flow of vulgarity. When the agent mentioned gambling, the boy drew from his pocket two sets of dice and said they were "ready at any time to do business. When the first of the month comes around, I am generally short or ahead $5. I lost $8 once. When I have no ready cash, I play on account of my salary." An eighteen-year-old messenger said: "I have been in this business here for five years, and a night never passes that I don't go to a house of prostitution; that's our main business at night. They could not afford to have a messenger service in this town at night if it were not for the red light district. We have to do all their work, because they trust us." This boy spoke of the venereal diseases other boys in the service had, and admitted that he had contracted them twice himself. Another eighteen-year-old messenger boy, who has been in the service four years and is afflicted with an exceptionally bad venereal infection, said among other things, "There are lots of messengers who are kept by women. The boys work only for appearances. I knew two messengers who worked with me who were kept by two prostitutes for a year, then they gave up the job at the same time and took the prostitutes to Chicago, where the women worked for them. One of these boys is only about nineteen years old now. You don't learn anything in the messenger business except to knock down (overcharge a patron) and to go around with prostitutes and gamblers. It kills a fellow. I know, because I went down the line, and I'm coming out the wrong end." When asked why he didn't quit the job, he replied: "You don't suppose I want to work for $3 or $4 a week? I'm used to making pretty good money and having a good time." He said that he made from $40 to $75 a month according to the tips he received, and spent it as fast as he got it. Most of it went in gambling. A fourteen-year-old messenger boy in another city who works from 6 P.M. to 7 A.M., in speaking of the use of whisky in houses of prostitution, said: "We get it for them; the saloons know the messengers, and we stand in with them; the more a house sends for whisky the better they stand in with the saloon keeper. If the proprietress gets locked up, she will always be bailed out by the saloon keeper, but if she don't buy enough stuff from him, he will refuse to do it. When a proprietress is put in jail, the cops ring up for a messenger from the station house, and they send me to the cell where the woman is, and she always gives me a note to take to the saloon keeper and he goes down and gets her out." This boy said his manager knew the kind of places he visited, but was not in the office all night. During the late hours of the night the telegraph operator and the clerk were left in charge, and the boy remarked that they had told him to try to get a woman into the office if he found one on the street, and related instances in which this had been done. He was paid a salary of $22 a month. Another fourteen-year-old messenger in this town is paid $17 a month salary and makes $10 or $12 a month in tips. A thirteen-year-old messenger in another city, after having related some of his experiences in the segregated district, said: "I tell you, it's mighty dirty work for a boy to be in, but I suppose a fellow has to learn these things somehow, and I may as well learn them in the messenger service as in any other way. I smoke perique so I can sleep in the daytime." A fourteen-year-old messenger in the same city, employed from noon to midnight, had been in the service only one week when interviewed by the agent; among other things he said: "All the last week I have been doing nothing but go to the red light district. I didn't know what this messenger business was until I got into it, and I am going to quit just as soon as I see a little more of that kind of thing." In a certain Indiana city there was found a "kid line" messenger service, so called because the proprietor was a mere boy who was formerly in the service of another messenger company. He had two day boys, but at night answered the calls himself. He was fourteen years old and told the agent that he had lived in the "red light" district more than at his home on account of the number of calls he had to answer there, but of course this was exaggeration intended to convey the fact that most of his business was with that region. When he entered into business for himself, he went to all the prostitutes in the "red light" district and told them that he was commencing on his own account and that he wanted them to be his customers. "I get a good deal of their business. I get it because I know how to treat them. I can get them beer on Sunday and can sneak it into their houses. I know all the women and can introduce you to any of them, and can get you any amount of beer or whisky that you want. When I was working for the---- messenger company there was another boy on the force who tried to take all the good calls; he divided his tips with the manager, so he was sent to all the houses where good tips were given. There was one prostitute who liked me pretty well and gave me ten or fifteen cents for myself every time I went to her house. I started to answer a call there one night, and the other boy ran after me. We got to the place at the same time and had a fight in the hall; the men and women in the place gathered around us and offered to give us two dollars each if we would scrap for them, so we started right in, and before I was through with him he had two black eyes and his face was bleeding, then he pulled out a knife, but they took it away from him, and the next day I was fired. There is a young girl in one of the houses who is a chambermaid and wants me to live with her, and maybe I will but I'm afraid my mother will get wise." The fifteen-year-old messenger of another office showed the agent the list of about one hundred calls sent in the previous night, nearly every one of which came from the "red light" district. After weighing such evidence we can readily comprehend the justice of the opinion rendered by Dr. Charles P. Neill in the following words: "The newsboys' service is demoralizing, but the messenger service is debauching.... And, saddest of all, this service appeals strongly to the children. The prurient curiosity of the developing boy would itself incline him to like these calls to houses of prostitution, but they quickly learn also that women who live in these sections are more generous with their earnings in the way of tips than are the people in the more respectable sections of the city.... It can be said that all the boys who go into the messenger service do not go to the bad, but it can be said with equal truth that it ruins children by the dozens, and that if any boy comes out of this service without having suffered moral shipwreck he can thank the mercy of God for it, and not the protecting arm of the community that stands idly by and makes no attempt to save him from temptation."[73] In 1908 Congress passed a child labor law for the District of Columbia which provided, among other restrictions, that no messenger boy under sixteen years should be employed between 7 P.M. and 6 A.M.,--_sixteen years_, the beginning of the period of adolescence, when boys have the greatest need of protection from the vices running riot in cities! The Chicago Vice Commission devotes several pages of its report to a recital of the experiences of messenger boys in connection with their work in the segregated districts. One of the telegraph companies maintains a branch office close to one of these districts, where eight boys from fifteen to eighteen years of age are employed as messengers. These boys are called upon to work at all hours of the day and night, their tasks being the same as those of the messengers in other cities. A number of specific instances of the wretched environment into which these boys are thrown, are given. One of them who works from midnight until 10 A.M. was sent by a prostitute to a drug store for a package of cocaine hydrochloride, for which he paid $5.78, receiving $1 from the prostitute as a tip for the service. Another messenger was sent out on a similar errand by another prostitute two weeks later and purchased for her a hypodermic needle for a syringe; he was charged $2 for this needle, the cost to the druggist being 19 cents. A few days later a boy was called by another prostitute who confided to him that she had discontinued the use of messenger boys for purchasing "dope" because she found that they talked too much and could not be trusted, adding that she now had a newsboy, who sold papers at a near-by corner, buy the cocaine for her. A woman who lives in an apartment house and is the owner and proprietor of houses of prostitution in the restricted district, is in the habit of sending in an order for cocaine to a druggist, who calls a messenger boy to deliver it to her residence. This messenger opened one of the packages and, suspecting that it was cocaine, sniffed a little of it himself. He confessed that he had done this quite often since, and it appeared that he had derived a good deal of pleasure from it. The same messenger is sent about three times monthly by a certain man to a Chinaman, from whom he buys a package of opium for $4. On returning from one of these trips he watched the man open the package, take a quantity of the stuff, roll it and heat it, but at this point the messenger was told to leave the room. Another messenger boy has been employed at this particular branch office for more than three years, although he is now only seventeen years old; his earnings average about $10 per week, including tips. He is of small stature, not mentally bright and at present is afflicted with syphilis of three months' duration. Another messenger is a boy of foreign parentage, only fifteen years of age, who said he had recently been called quite often to a certain house of prostitution where an inmate gave him a box with a note to a druggist; the contents cost $1.75, but upon returning to the woman he would declare that he had paid $2.50, thus obtaining 75 cents on false pretenses, and in addition a tip of half a dollar. On one of his trips for this prostitute he had opened the note and found that it was a requisition for cocaine; on returning he placed some of the contents upon his tongue, but did not like the sensation and never repeated it. He is in the habit of picking up discarded cigarettes and smoking them. In spite of his age, he knows the name of nearly every prostitute in this district and can recognize these women at sight; he stated that whenever he entered a house of prostitution they would nearly always kiss him, and at different times he had had sores on his lips. Another boy who was attending high school was employed as a messenger in the downtown district during Christmas week of 1910. He was sent to deliver a message in a house of prostitution, and the girl who received it offered to cohabit with him free of charge as a Christmas present, stating that it was customary to do this for messenger boys on Christmas Day.[74] A number of other messengers told of similar experiences, stating that they were often called to houses of prostitution to perform small personal services for the inmates. As to regulation of the service, a police order was issued in Chicago in April, 1910, to the effect that no messenger or delivery boy under eighteen years was to be allowed in the segregated districts at any time. In arguing against the further restriction of the night messenger service, the telegraph companies and other interested organizations insist that the majority of these boys are working to support their widowed mothers or incapacitated fathers; a recent government report says, in referring to the table of families in which there are messengers and errand and office boys ten to fourteen years of age, classified by percentage of older breadwinners, for Boston, Chicago, New York and Washington, "These statistics point to the conclusion that the greater part of the families now furnishing children from ten to thirteen years of age and fourteen years for the occupation of messengers and errand and office boys are by no means either entirely or largely dependent upon the earnings of such children for the family support."[75] The restriction advocated does not contemplate the prohibition of this work to boys of fourteen years and upwards in the _daytime_; its object is to shield the youths from the vile associations necessarily connected with this work at _night_. _Night Service by Men--Not by Boys_ Mr. Owen R. Lovejoy of the National Child Labor Committee, in speaking of the study of the night messenger service undertaken by this organization, says: "The evidence collected justified the committee in cooperating with its affiliated organizations to secure legislation, and, counting on the _moral interest of the public_ to promote the effort, we made the question one for practical and immediate decision. Results apparently justify the policy chosen. A bill was unanimously passed by the legislature of New York State [in 1910], excluding any person under twenty-one years of age from this occupation between ten o'clock at night and five o'clock in the morning." Massachusetts in 1911 forbade the employment of messengers under twenty-one years of age between the hours of 10 P.M. and 5 A.M., except by newspaper offices. Utah fixed the same age limit for this work in cities of first and second classes between 9 P.M. and 5 A.M. New Jersey did likewise as to cities of the first class, fixing the age limit at eighteen years for smaller places, the prohibited hours being from 10 P.M. to 5 A.M. Wisconsin also passed a law in 1911, prohibiting the employment of any one under twenty-one years of age as a messenger between 8 P.M. and 6 A.M. in cities of the first, second and third classes. Ohio, in 1910, fixed the age limit for messenger service between 9 P.M. and 6 A.M. at eighteen years. Michigan now prohibits the employment of messengers under eighteen years between 10 P.M. and 5 A.M., as do also New Hampshire, Oregon, Tennessee and California. Other states having the advanced type of child labor law prohibit the employment of children under fourteen years in the messenger service during the day and under sixteen years at night. The states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia and Wyoming do not yet provide any age limit for this work. The evil effects of the messenger service have also been noted in Great Britain. A schoolmaster of Edinburgh says, "Insolence, coarse intonation, swearing, lying, pilfering and lewdness are the chief products of message going by boys."[76] A London health officer has testified as follows: "There is a very large employment of boy labour now, boys employed as messengers and errand boys, which teaches them nothing useful for their future life; and when they have outgrown the age at which they can be employed in this way, the risk of drifting into the ranks of the unskilled labourer is a very large one."[77] "The government post office telegraph messengers are not employed unless they have passed the seventh standard at school and each candidate has to provide a satisfactory certificate of health from his own medical attendant. A boy of fourteen must also be over four feet eight inches in height. The minimum starting wage in London is seven shillings a week, rising by a shilling a week annually to eleven shillings. On reaching the age of sixteen the boy has to pass a further examination in order to qualify for retention. The various _private_ telegraph companies offer much the same terms, though in some cases they are able to get boys slightly cheaper, as the qualifying standard is not such a high one. It is only during the rare periods when the supply of boy labour is more plentiful than usual that the private telegraph companies will refuse a boy on account of his size. The varied nature of the work they are called upon to perform is an undoubted attraction in the eyes of many.... That it is bad for them morally is less open to doubt. Even when they are more actively employed the most that they can hope to learn is a very small amount of discipline. A more serious point is the future of the boys when they cease to be messengers."[78] "It is well to point out that the commonest of these occupations, that of errand boy or messenger boy, is seldom a desirable one, quite apart from the fact that it generally leads nowhere. It lacks almost necessarily what the boy most needs--the compulsory training of the habit of disciplined effort."[79] As Mrs. Florence Kelley says, "The test of the work, however, should be not whether boys can do it, but what it does to boys."[80] CHAPTER VI EFFECTS OF STREET WORK UPON CHILDREN All the evil effects of street work upon children observed by students of the problem have been here divided into three groups, under the headings of physical, moral, and material deterioration. It must be understood that this is a summary of such effects and that while the influences of the street are unquestionably bad, any one child exposed to them is not likely to suffer to the full extent suggested below. However, deterioration in one form or another is invariably noted in children who have been engaged in street work for any length of time, and this is sufficient proof of the undesirability of such employment for our boys and girls. EFFECTS OF STREET WORK ON CHILDREN Material { Form distaste for regular employment. Deterioration { Small chance of acquiring a trade. { Drift into large class of casual workers. { Night work. { Excessive fatigue. { Exposure to bad weather. Physical { Irregularity of sleep and meals. Deterioration { Use of stimulants--cigarettes, coffee, liquor. { Disease through contact with vices. { Encouragement to truancy. { Independence and defiance of parental control. Moral { Weakness cultivated by formation of bad habits. Deterioration { Form liking for petty excitements of street. { Opportunities to become delinquent. { Large percentage of recruits to criminal population. These are the insidious influences permeating street work and rampant in all our cities. They are minimized and even denied by certain ignorant or interested parties who base their assertions upon the fact that prominent men of to-day were once newsboys or bootblacks, and therefore jump to the conclusion that their success is due to the training received in this way when young. The truth is more likely to be that such individuals have succeeded, not because of this early training, but in spite of it. Boys of exceptionally strong character will force themselves out of such an environment unscathed, but the great majority of children have not sufficient mental and moral stamina to withstand these influences. The minority will take care of itself under any circumstances,--it is with the weaker majority that we must deal. The problem is an urgent one, but generally ignored, for, as Myron E. Adams says, the public sees the street worker at his best and neglects him at his worst. The charge that in street work a child has small chance of acquiring a suitable trade is one of the worst counts in the indictment. Street work leads to nothing else; the various occupations are so many industrial pitfalls, and the children who get into them must sooner or later struggle out and begin over again at some other line of work, if they would succeed. "These children (street traders) furnish a very large proportion of recruits to the criminal population. Those who do not graduate into crime form a liking for the petty excitements of the street and a distaste for regular employment. They lack skill and perseverance, shun the monotony of a permanent job, and as they grow older either follow itinerant and questionable trades or become ill-paid and inefficient casual laborers. Therefore these young people are a source of waste to society rather than of profit."[81] The large percentage of former newsboys among the inmates of boys' reformatories recently induced an active social worker to send an inquiry to the superintendents of such institutions and to juvenile court judges in different parts of the country relative to the effect of newspaper selling on schoolboys. The statements received in reply are set forth in a leaflet which was published in 1910.[82] These officials are practically unanimous in condemning street trading by boys, declaring that newsboys are generally stupid and almost always morally defiled; that the pittance they earn is bought at great sacrifice; that the spending of their earnings without supervision is the worst thing that can befall them; that the life leads to gambling, dishonesty and spendthrift habits; that it is a dead-end occupation leading to nothing; that it abounds in evil temptations; that the boys are comparatively idle and see and hear the worst that is to be seen and heard on the street; that the work subjects boys to bad influences before they are strong enough to resist them; that delinquency results from their enforced association with all classes of boys; and concluding that every possible protection should be thrown about the young boy. Some of these officers gave due consideration to the advantages of street trading, and one made the naïve statement that newspaper selling was not a bad business for a boy who could withstand its temptations. Although the law of New York State provides a modicum of regulation for street trading, nevertheless it has not been effective because of extremely indifferent enforcement. Like almost all other street-trading laws in the United States, it places the age limit at the ridiculous age of ten years. A movement was started recently in Buffalo to remedy the situation, and the following statement was published:-- "During the past year we have sought to discover, not by theorizing, but by uncovering the facts, what is the effect of street work on the boy. School records of 230 Buffalo newsboys were secured. Eighteen per cent were reported as truants; 23 per cent stood poor or very poor in attendance and deportment. Twenty-eight per cent stood poor or very poor in scholarship, while only 15 per cent of the other children in the same schools failed in their work. An investigation at the truant school showed that 46.6 per cent of the boys there had been engaged in the street trades. On the basis of these facts and studies made in connection with the schools, juvenile courts and reformatories elsewhere, we hope to secure legislation raising the age below which boys may not engage in the street trades to twelve years, and making it illegal for boys under fourteen to sell after 8 P.M. We are also striving to secure better enforcement of this law in Buffalo and other cities."[83] This folder also states that circular letters were sent to all Buffalo school principals asking about the effect on scholarship of the early morning delivery of newspapers by their pupils, and also to physicians inquiring about the effect of such work on physical development. The hours for such newspaper delivery were from 4.30 A.M. to 7 A.M. Eight principals and six physicians denounced such work to every one who favored it. Referring to the occupational history of reformatory inmates, a recent report for New York City says: "The parental school (school for truants) statistics show that 80 out of its 230 inmates were newsboys, while 60 per cent of the entire number have been street traders. The Catholic Protectorate, full of Italians (noted as street traders), gives us a record of 469 or 80 per cent out of their 590 boys interviewed, who have followed the street profession, and 295 or 50 per cent had been newsboys selling over three months. The New York Juvenile Asylum gives us 31 per cent of its inmates as newsboys and 60 per cent as street traders. The House of Refuge repeats the same story: 63 per cent of those committed to that institution had been street traders, of whom 32 per cent were newsboys. If 63 per cent of the House of Refuge inmates have been street traders, and if the majority of such have begun their so-called criminal careers, which end invariably in the state penitentiary, why do we permit children to trade on our streets?"[84] Another American writer says: "Whatever the cause, the effect on the newsboy is always the same. He lives on the streets at night in an atmosphere of crime and criminals, and he takes in vice and evil with the air he breathes. If he grows into manhood and escapes the tuberculosis which seizes so many of these boys of the street, the things that he has learned as a professional newsboy lead in one direction,--toward crime and things criminal. The professional newsboy is the embryo criminal."[85] The dangers to the morals of children are particularly emphasized by those who have given this subject any attention. Mr. John Spargo says: "Nor is it only in factories that these grosser forms of immorality flourish. They are even more prevalent among the children of the street trades,--newsboys, bootblacks, messengers and the like. The proportion of newsboys who suffer from venereal diseases is alarmingly great. The superintendent of the John Worthy School of Chicago, Mr. Sloan, asserts that 'one third of all the newsboys who come to the John Worthy School have venereal diseases and that 10 per cent of the remaining newsboys at present in the Bridewell are, according to the physician's diagnosis, suffering from similar diseases.' The newsboys who come to the school are, according to Mr. Sloan, on an average of one third below the ordinary standard of physical development, a condition which will be readily understood by those who know the ways of the newsboys of our great cities--their irregular habits, scant feeding, sexual excesses, secret vices, sleeping in hallways, basements, stables and quiet corners. With such a low physical standard the ravages of venereal diseases are tremendously increased."[86] The economic aspect of this work is magnified by most people beyond its true proportion; the earnings of street-working children are not needed by their families in most cases, and even in those instances where their poverty demands such relief it is wrong to purchase it at the price paid in evil training and bad effects of every kind. Commenting on this point the chief truant officer for Indianapolis says: "A large number of truants are recruited from that large unrestricted class whose members are to be found competing with one another on our street corners from early until late. The pennies which many of them earn are a material aid in replenishing the depleted resources of some of our homes. Yet, it is a question whether such child laborers will not in the future bequeath to society an abundant reward of human wreckage which may be traced to such traffic and its many temptations."[87] As to the bad judgment of parents in seeking the premature earnings of their children, a Chicago physician says: "The average newsboy, if he works 365 days a year, does not earn over a hundred dollars; if he becomes delinquent it costs the state at least two hundred dollars a year to care for him. When we remember that twelve out of every one hundred boys between ten and sixteen become delinquent, and that over 60 per cent of these boys come from street trades, it does not take long for a business man to figure out that it is rather poor economy to let a ten-year-old boy go into at least this field of labor.... From an economic standpoint the family that sends out a ten-year-old boy to sell papers loses a great deal more in actual money from the boy's lack of future earning capacity than the boy can possibly earn by his youthful efforts. In other words, this sort of labor from an economic standpoint is an absurdity."[88] In its splendid report on street trading, the British departmental committee of 1910 stated: "We learnt that much of this money, so readily made, is spent with equal dispatch. The children spend it on sweets and cigarettes, and in attending music halls, and in very many cases only a portion, if any, of the daily earnings is taken home.... In many towns the traders are drawn from the poorest of homes, but numerous witnesses have emphatically stated that their experience leads them to think that cases where real benefits accrue to the home are rare."[89] The lack of proper training during childhood almost invariably brings about a tragedy in the lives of working people. The premature employment of children at any kind of labor which interferes with their education and their training in work for which they are fitted is most disastrous in its effects and far outweighs in future misery the little income thus secured in childhood. A careful student of the working class declares: "Many bright and capable men and women in this neighborhood [Greenwich Village, New York City] would undoubtedly have been able to occupy high positions in the industrial world if they had not been _forced into unskilled work when young_."[90] With reference to the effects of street trading an English writer says: "It is difficult to imagine a life which could be worse for a young boy. Apart from the moral dangers, it is a means of earning a livelihood which perhaps more than any other is subject to the most violent fluctuations. But the uncertainty of the income is a trifling evil by comparison with the certainty of the bad moral effects of street trading on boys and youths. The life of the street trader is a continual gamble, unredeemed by any steady work; it is undisciplined and casual, and exposed to all the temptations of the street at its worst. The great majority of the boys who sell papers drift away into crime or idleness or some form of living by their wits."[91] The same writer also declares: "Few things could have a worse effect than this street trading on those engaged in it. It initiates them into the mysteries of the beggar's whine and breeds in them the craving for an irregular, undisciplined method of life."[92] And the editor of these English studies adds: "It is part of the street-bred child's precocity that he acquires a too early acquaintance with matters which as a child he ought not to know at all. His language and conversation often reveal a familiarity with vice which would be terrible were it not so superficial."[93] Speaking of immorality in the narrow sense of the word, the same writer says: "We do not believe that immorality of this kind is universal among the boys and girls of the labouring classes, nor do we believe that the town youth is any worse than his brother and sister of the country. Coarseness and impurity are not the distinguishing mark of any one class or any one place. We question whether comparison of sins and self-indulgence would work out at all to the disadvantage of the town labouring class as a whole. It must be remembered that one commonplace factor, the glaring publicity of the street, is all on the side of the town youth's virtue. The street has its safeguards as well as its dangers."[94] With reference to the blind alley character of street work, another English writer avers: "As in London, the labours of the school children [in Manchester] are in no wise apprenticeship or preparation for their future lives. The grocer's little errand boy will be discharged when he grows bigger and needs higher wages; the chemist's runner is not in training to become a chemist. The three farthings an hour on the one hand, and the physical, moral and intellectual degeneration on the other, are all that the little ones here, as elsewhere, get out of toil from which many a grown man would shrink."[95] Another English student of labor conditions declares: "Teachers--together with magistrates, police authorities, ministers of religion and social workers--are practically unanimous in condemning street trading as an employment of children of school age. In this occupation children deteriorate rapidly from the physical, mental and moral point of view."[96] Still another writer says: "One great evil which results from this life of street trading in childhood is the fact that it is fatal to industrial efficiency in after life."[97] The testimony of Sir Lauder Brunton, M.D., given in 1904, on the occasion of the inquiry into physical deterioration in Great Britain, is to the point, in spite of the fact that the committee directing the inquiry stated that "The impressions gathered from the great majority of the witnesses examined do not support the belief that there is any general progressive deterioration."[98] Sir Lauder Brunton's testimony was as follows: "The causes of deficient physique are very numerous ... it is very likely that in order to eke out the scanty earnings of the father and mother the child is sent, out of school hours, to earn a penny or two, and so it comes to school wearied out in body by having had to work early in the morning, exhausted by not having had food, and then is sent to learn. Well, it cannot learn."[99] Later the same witness testified, "One of the very worst causes [of physical deterioration] is that children in actual attendance at school, work before and after schooltime."[100] In a special inquiry into the physical effects of work upon 600 boys of school age made in 1905 by Dr. Charles J. Thomas, assistant health officer to the London County Council's education department, it was found that many of the children suffered from nervous strain, heart disease and deformities as a result of prolonged labor. Of the 600 boys, 134 were shop boys, 63 were milk boys, 87 were newsboys and the others were scattered among various employments. It was found that work during the dinner hour and also the long work-day on Saturday were particularly harmful. As to fatigue among the newsboys, of those working 20 hours or less, 60 per cent were affected; of those working between 20 and 30 hours, 70 per cent; while of those working more than 30 hours per week, 91 per cent showed fatigue. As to anæmia, among the newsboys, of those working 20 hours or less it appeared among only 19 per cent; but of those working 20 to 30 hours, 30 per cent showed it; while of those working over 30 hours per week, 73 per cent were afflicted in this way. As to nerve strain, of those working 20 hours or less 16 per cent were suffering from it; of those working 20 to 30 hours, 35 per cent; while of those working over 30 hours, 37 per cent showed nerve strain. As to deformities, none were noted among boys working less than 20 hours a week, but 10 per cent of those working 20 to 30 hours or more were found to be afflicted. All elementary schoolboys showed deformities to the extent of 8 per cent, but of those engaged in different kinds of work from 20 to 30 hours a week, 21 per cent showed deformities. Flatfoot was found to be the chief deformity produced by newspaper selling, this being caused by the boys' having to be on their feet too much.[101] One of the most decisive blows delivered against street work by children in Great Britain was the statement of Thomas Burke of the Liverpool City Council, a son of working people, who had lived in a crowded city street for twenty years, had attended a public elementary school until fourteen years of age, where the number of child street traders was very large, and had become convinced that "work after school hours was decidedly injurious to health and character." Referring to the material condition of his street-trading acquaintances, he said: "Almost all the boys sent out to work after school hours from the school referred to have failed in the battle of life. Not one is a member of any of the regular trades, while all who were sent to trade in the streets have gone down to the depths of social misery if not degradation ... a great proportion of those who did not work after school hours, or frequent the streets as newspaper sellers, occupy respectable positions in the city."[102] Miss Ina Tyler of the St. Louis School of Social Economy in a study of St. Louis newsboys made in 1910, found that of 50 newsboys under 11 years of age, 43 gambled, 42 went to cheap shows and 23 used tobacco; while of 100 newsboys 11 to 16 years of age, 86 gambled, 92 went to cheap shows and 76 used tobacco.[103] Among the conclusions of the British interdepartmental committee of 1901 is the following: "Street hawking is not injurious to the health if the hours are not long, and the work is not done late at night; but its moral effects are far worse than the physical, and this employment in the center of many large towns makes the streets hotbeds for the corruption of children who learn to drink, to gamble and to use vile language, while girls are exposed to even worse things."[104] The British departmental committee of 1910 declared: "In the case of both boys and girls the effect of this occupation on future prospects cannot be anything but thoroughly bad, except, possibly, in casual and exceptional cases. We learn that many boys who sell while at school manage to obtain other work upon becoming fourteen, but for those who remain in the street the tendency is to develop into loafers and 'corner boys.' The period between fourteen and sixteen is a critical time in a boy's life. Street trading provides him with no training; he gets no discipline, he is not occupied the whole of his time; for a few years he makes more money and makes it more easily than in an office or a workshop, and he is exposed to a variety of actively evil influences."[105] An important division of the study of street-working children concerns their standing in the schools. In New York City a few figures are available through a study recently made there. The distribution of 200 newsboys under fourteen years of age among the school grades is shown in the following table:[106]-- ======================================================== | GRADES | | AGES +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ SPECIAL |TOTALS | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | | ------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---------+------- 7 | 2 | | | | | | | | | 2 8 | | 3 | 2 | | | | | | | 5 9 | | 1 | 6 | 1 | | | | | | 8 10 | | | 6 | 3 | 3 | | | | | 12 11 | | 5 | 7 |10 | 7 | 4 | 1 | | 2 | 36 12 | | 1 | 1 |19 |21 | 9 | 7 | 1 | 3 | 62 13 | | | |15 |10 |23 |17 | 7 | 3 | 75 +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---------+------- Totals| 2 |10 |22 |48 |41 |36 |25 | 8 | 8 | 200 ======================================================== Applying the rule that in order to be normal a child must enter the first grade at the age of either six or seven years and progress with enough regularity to enable him to attend the eighth grade at the age of either thirteen or fourteen, it is found that of the 177 newsboys ten to thirteen years of age inclusive, 118 are backward, 57 are normal and 2 are beyond their grades. This is shown in the following table:-- ============================================== AGES |BACKWARD | NORMAL | AHEAD | TOTAL -----------+---------+--------+-------+------- 10 | 6 | 6 | 0 | 12 11 | 22 | 11 | 1 | 34 12 | 42 | 16 | 1 | 59 13 | 48 | 24 | 0 | 72 +---------+--------+-------+------- Totals | 118 | 57 | 2 | 177 Percentages| 67% | 32% | 1% | 100% =============================================== This table shows that of the 177 newsboys ten to thirteen years of age, 67 per cent are backward and 32 per cent are normal, while only 1 per cent are ahead of their grades. Boys of these ages are subject to the restrictions prescribed by the state law as to hours, and it is probable that the percentage of retardation would have been even greater if work at night had not been to some extent prevented. A report of New York City conditions made in 1907, before the newsboy law was enforced, says: "The shrewd, bright-eyed, sharp-witted lad is stupid and sleepy in the schoolroom; 295 newsboys compared with non-working boys in the same class were found to fall below the average in proficiency. They were also usually older than their classmates, that is, backward in their grades."[107] Referring to Manchester newsboys above the age of fourteen years, an English report[108] says: "They are not stupid, or even markedly backward, judged by school standards.... As they grow older they sink to a lower level, both morally and economically--in fact, little better than loafers, without aspiration, and content with the squalor of the common lodging-houses in which they live, if only they have enough money for their drink and their gambling." Concerning the younger newsboys the same report continues: "Those who are the children of extremely poor, and often worthless parents, are often upon the streets selling their papers during school hours, and their attendance at the schools, in spite of prosecution of their parents, is so irregular that they make very little progress. These boys take to the streets permanently for their livelihood; a few of them continue, after the age of fourteen, to earn their living by selling newspapers, but most of them sink into less satisfactory kinds of occupation." In connection with these statements it should be remembered that they portray conditions existing prior to the adoption in 1902 of local rules on street trading. With reference to the alleged cleverness of street Arabs, a British observer draws this distinction: "Street-trading children are more cunning than other children, but not more intelligent."[109] In St. Louis there was no regulation until the Missouri law of 1911 was passed; and in 1910 Miss Ina Tyler, in a study of 106 newsboys of that city, found the following conditions:-- NUMBER BELOW NORMAL YEARS SCHOOL GRADE 10 10 out of 16 62% 11 12 out of 16 75% 12 16 out of 28 57% 13 25 out of 33 75% 14 11 out of 13 84% -- --- --- 74 106 70% These figures were copied by the writer from charts displayed at the child labor exhibit of the National Conference of Charities and Correction in St. Louis in 1910, but efforts to ascertain the method of determining these percentages were unavailing. Therefore they cannot be compared with the figures in the preceding tables, because it is by no means certain that the standard ages for normal school standing were adopted in the compilation of this table. In Toledo, Ohio, there is no regulation governing street work by children, although a local association makes an effort to look after the welfare of newsboys. In October, 1911, the writer visited the four public common school buildings nearest the business district of this city and found 287 children in attendance who were regularly engaged in some form of street work out of school hours. The great majority of them were newsboys. The distribution of these children according to age and grade is given below:-- AGES ===================================================================== Grade | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | Totals ------+---+---+---+---+---+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+------- 1 | 1 | 8 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 1 | | | | | | | 23 2 | | | 7 |12 | 8 | 2 | 3 | | 2 | | | | 34 3 | | | 1 | 5 | 8 | 22 | 4 | 7 | 3 | 1 | | | 51 4 | | | | 3 | 7 | 17 | 9 | 11 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 58 5 | | | | | | 8 | 10 | 10 | 7 | 5 | 4 | | 44 6 | | | | | | | 7 | 7 | 16 | 3 | 4 | | 37 7 | | | | | | | 1 | 5 | 6 | 9 | 3 | 1 | 25 8 | | | | | | | | | 5 | 7 | 3 | | 15 ------+---+---+---+---+---+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+------- Totals| 1 | 8 | 13| 24| 27| 50 | 34 | 40 | 45 | 27 | 15 | 3 | 287 ===================================================================== Adopting the same method for determining retardation as in the case of the New York figures, we find that of these 287 street-working school children of Toledo, 55 per cent are backward, 43 per cent are normal and 2 per cent are ahead of their grades. Or, selecting the children ten to thirteen years of age, as was done with the New York figures, we have the following results:-- ========================================================= AGES | BACKWARD | NORMAL | AHEAD | TOTAL -----------+-------------+----------+----------+--------- 10 | 25 | 25 | | 50 11 | 16 | 17 | 1 | 34 12 | 28 | 12 | | 40 13 | 34 | 11 | | 45 Totals | 103 | 65 | 1 | 169 -----------+-------------+----------+----------+--------- Percentages| 61% | 38% | 1% | 100% ========================================================= These percentages show that conditions in Toledo are only slightly better than in New York City. This is surprising because of the great difference in the working conditions of the two cities, the metropolitan street children being subjected to far greater nervous strain because of the more congested population and heavier street traffic. RETARDED CHILDREN IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS (TOLEDO), 1910-1911 _Grades_ | FIRST +-+-------------- | |NORMAL AGE 6-7 | | | SECOND | +-+-------------- | | |NORMAL AGE 7-8 | | | | | THIRD | | +-+-------------- | | | |NORMAL AGE 8-9 | | | | | | | FOURTH | | | +-+-------------- | | | | |NORMAL AGE 7-8 | | | | | | | | | FIFTH | | | | +-+---------------- | | | | | |NORMAL AGE 10-11 | | | | | | | | | | | SIXTH | | | | | +-+---------------- | | | | | | |NORMAL AGE 11-12 | | | | | | | | | | | | | SEVENTH | | | | | | +-+---------------- | | | | | | | |NORMAL AGE 12-13 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | EIGHTH | | | | | | | +-+---------------- | | | | | | | | |NORMAL AGE 13-14 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |PER CENT OF | | | | | | | | |ALL RETARDATIONS | | | | | | | | +-----+---------- V V V V V V V V V ==========+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+======+====== | | | | | | | | | TOTAL ----------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+------+------ Retarded | | | | | | | | | | 1 year | 325| 449| 500| 483| 528| 507| 366| 209| 3,367| 53.5 | | | | | | | | | | Retarded | | | | | | | | | | 2 years | 91| 170| 215| 346| 384| 324| 194| 72| 1,796| 28.5 | | | | | | | | | | Retarded | | | | | | | | | | 3 years | 33| 53| 101| 152| 219| 119| 33| 17| 727| 11.5 | | | | | | | | | | Retarded | | | | | | | | | | 4 or more | 16| 42| 74| 131| 105| 19| 3| 5| 395| 6.2 years | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Total | | | | | | | | | | retarded | 465| 714| 890|1112|1236| 969| 596| 303| 6,285| | | | | | | | | | | Enrollment| | | | | | | | | | each grade|3114|2680|2548|2400|2209|1856|1284| 901|16,992| | | | | | | | | | | Per cent | | | | | | | | | | each grade|14.9|26.6|34.8|46.3|55.9|52.2|46.4|33.6| 36.9| ==========+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+======+======= RETARDED STREET WORKERS IN FOUR TOLEDO COMMON SCHOOLS, OCTOBER, 1911 _Grades_ | FIRST +-+-------------- | |NORMAL AGE 6-7 | | | SECOND | +-+-------------- | | |NORMAL AGE 7-8 | | | | | THIRD | | +-+-------------- | | | |NORMAL AGE 8-9 | | | | | | | FOURTH | | | +-+-------------- | | | | |NORMAL AGE 7-8 | | | | | | | | | FIFTH | | | | +-+---------------- | | | | | |NORMAL AGE 10-11 | | | | | | | | | | | SIXTH | | | | | +-+---------------- | | | | | | |NORMAL AGE 11-12 | | | | | | | | | | | | | SEVENTH | | | | | | +-+---------------- | | | | | | | |NORMAL AGE 12-13 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | EIGHTH | | | | | | | +-+---------------- | | | | | | | | |NORMAL AGE 13-14 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |PER CENT OF | | | | | | | | |ALL RETARDATIONS | | | | | | | | +-----+---------- V V V V V V V V V ==========+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+======+====== | | | | | | | | |TOTAL | ----------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+------+------ Retarded | | | | | | | | | | 1 year | 4| 8| 22| 9| 10| 16| 9| 3| 81| 51.6 | | | | | | | | | | Retarded | | | | | | | | | | 2 years | 4| 2| 4| 11| 7| 3| 3| | 34| 21.7 | | | | | | | | | | Retarded | | | | | | | | | | 3 years | 1| 3| 7| 6| 5| 4| 1| | 27| 17.2 | | | | | | | | | | Retarded | | | | | | | | | | 4 or more | | 2| 4| 5| 4| | | | 15| 9.5 | | | | | | | | | | Total | | | | | | | | | | retarded | 9| 15| 37| 31| 26| 23| 13| 3| 157| | | | | | | | | | | Enrollment| 23| 34| 51| 58| 44| 37| 25| 15| 287| street | | | | | | | | | | workers | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Per cent |39.1|44.1|72.5|53.4| 59|62.1| 52| 20| 54.7| ==========+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+======+======= A comparison between the table given in the report of the Toledo Board of Education for 1911 showing the total number of retarded children in the elementary schools, and a similar table compiled from the figures for the street-trading children in four Toledo schools given on pages 154 and 155, is most significant. The retardation among the total number of pupils enrolled is to be found on page 154.[110] The corresponding figures for the 287 street-trading children in the four schools are to be found on page 155. It is especially noteworthy that the percentage of retardation among the street workers is very much greater than among the total number of pupils, in every grade except the eighth, while for all the grades it is 17.8 per cent greater. This becomes all the more significant when it is remembered that the figures for the total enrollment include the street workers; hence the excess of retardation among the latter makes the showing of the former worse than if they were excluded, and consequently the comparison on page 155 does not appear to be as unfavorable to the street workers as it is in reality. On consideration of the figures in the tables on pages 154 and 155, the conclusion is inevitable that street work greatly promotes the retardation of school children. There are, of course, other factors which contribute to bring about this condition of backwardness, such as poverty, malnutrition and mental deficiency, but there can be no doubt that the evil effects of street work are in large measure responsible for the poor showing made in the schools by the children who follow such occupations. The many quotations in this chapter from authoritative sources with reference to the harmful effects of street work upon children constitute a most severe indictment. Students of labor conditions, specialists and official committees bitterly denounce the practice of permitting children to trade in city streets, and cite the consequences of such neglect. Material, physical and moral deterioration are strikingly apparent in most children who have followed street careers and been exposed to their bad environment for any length of time. We have provided splendid facilities for the correction of our delinquent children through the medium of juvenile courts, state reformatories and the probation system, but surely it would be wise to provide at the same time an ounce of prevention in addition to this pound of cure. Social workers have returned a true bill against street work by children. What will the verdict of the people be? CHAPTER VII RELATION OF STREET WORK TO DELINQUENCY The most convincing proof so far adduced to show that delinquency is a common result of street work is set forth in the volume on "Juvenile Delinquency and its Relation to Employment,"[111] being part of the Report on the Condition of Woman and Child Wage Earners in the United States, prepared under the direction of Dr. Charles P. Neill, United States Commissioner of Labor, in response to an act of Congress in 1907 authorizing the study. The object of this official inquiry into the subject of juvenile delinquency was to discover what connection exists between delinquency and occupation or non-occupation, giving due consideration to other factors such as the character of the child's family, its home and environment. This study is based upon the records of the juvenile courts of Indianapolis, Baltimore, New York, Boston, Newark, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, showing cases of delinquency of children sixteen years of age or younger coming before these courts during the year 1907-1908. The total number of delinquents included in the study is 4839, of whom 2767 had at some time been employed and 2072 had never been employed. The entire number of offenses recorded for all the delinquents was 8797, the working children being responsible for 5471 offenses, or 62.2 per cent, while the non-working children were responsible for 3326 offenses, of 37.8 per cent. This shows that most juvenile offenses are committed by working children. The ages of the children committing the offenses recorded, ranged from six to sixteen years, and the report adds, "When it is remembered that a majority, and presumably a large majority, of all the children between these ages are not working, this preponderance of offenses among the workers assumes impressive proportions."[112] With reference to the character of the offenses it was found that the working children inclined to the more serious kinds. Recidivists were found to be far more numerous among the workers than among the non-workers. Summing up the results of the discussion to this point the report says: "It is found that the working children contribute to the ranks of delinquency a slightly larger number and a much larger proportion than do the non-workers, that this excess appears in offenses of every kind, whether trivial or serious, and among recidivists even more markedly than among first offenders."[113] With reference to the connection between recidivism and street work the report says: "The proportion of recidivism is also large among those who are working while attending school, and the numbers here are very much larger than one would wish to see. Some part of the recidivism here is undoubtedly due to the kind of occupations which a child can carry on while attending school. Selling newspapers and blacking shoes, acting as errand or delivery boy, peddling and working about amusement resorts account for over two-thirds of these boys (478 of the 664 are in one or another of these pursuits). These are all occupations in which the chances of going wrong are numerous, involving as they usually do night work, irregular hours, dubious or actively harmful associations and frequent temptations to dishonesty. In addition, something may perhaps be attributed to the overstrain due to the attempt to combine school and work. When a child of 13, a bootblack, is 'often on the street to 12 P.M.,' or when a boy one year older works six hours daily outside of school time, 'often at night,' as a telegraph messenger, it is evident that his school work is not the only thing which is likely to suffer from the excessive strain upon the immature strength, and from the character of his occupation."[114] While reflecting on the excess of working children among the delinquents, one may be inclined to attribute this to bad home influences; but the report shows that only one-fifth of the workers as opposed to nearly one-third of the non-workers come from distinctly bad homes, while from fair and good homes the proportion is approximately 76 per cent to 65 per cent. Consequently, the working child goes wrong more frequently than the non-working child in spite of his more favorable home surroundings.[115] Of the total number of delinquent boys, both working and non-working, under twelve years of age, 22.4 per cent were workers, while of those twelve to thirteen years old, 42.4 per cent were workers, and of those fourteen to sixteen years old, 80.8 per cent were workers. As comparatively few children under twelve years are at work, the fact that more than one-fifth of the delinquent boys in this age group are working children "becomes exceedingly significant." Of all children twelve to thirteen years of age, the great majority are not employed because of the fourteen-year age limit prevailing in all the states studied except Maryland; hence the larger proportion of working offenders cannot be explained by the influences of age. The increase of working delinquents above fourteen years is to be expected, because so many children go to work on reaching that age. Remembering that the proportionate excess of workers varies from two to nine times the ratio of non-workers, it is evident that this excess cannot be explained by a corresponding excess of orphanage, foreign parentage, bad home conditions or unfavorable age. As the report says, "It seems rather difficult to escape the conclusion that being at work has something to do with their going wrong."[116] The strongest argument against street work by children is to be found in the following table[117] of occupations pursued by the largest number of delinquents and giving the percentage of total delinquents engaged in each. As the report says, the following classification shows that the largest number of delinquent boys were found in those occupations in which the nature of the employment does not permit of supervision--namely, newspaper selling, errand running, delivery service and messenger service. Boys engaged in these occupations, together with bootblacks and peddlers, all work under conditions "which bring them into continual temptations to dishonesty and to other offenses."[118] ==================================================================== | PER CENT | |PER CENT BOYS | OF | GIRLS | OF | TOTAL | | TOTAL Industry or Occupation |DELINQUENT|Industry or Occupation|DELINQUENT | BOYS | | GIRLS -----------------------+----------+----------------------+---------- Newsboys | 21.83 | Domestic service: | Errand boys | 17.80 | Servant in private | Drivers and helpers, | | house | 32.18 wagon | 7.30 | In hotel, restaurant | Stores and markets | 4.23 | or boarding house | 5.44 Messengers, telegraph | 2.59 | Home workers | 16.33 Iron and steel | | Total in domestic |---------- Iron and steel | 1.84 | service | 53.95 Textiles, hosiery and | | | knit goods | 1.84 | Textiles, hosiery and| Bootblacks | 1.77 | knit goods | 12.36 Peddlers | 1.71 | Stores and markets | 5.44 Building trades | 1.64 | Clothing makers | 4.95 Theater | 1.57 | Candy and | Office boys | 1.43 | confectionery | 4.45 Glass | 1.30 | Laundry | 1.98 ==================================================================== The offenses with which the boys were charged are divided in the report into sixteen classes. The messenger service furnishes the largest proportionate number of offenders charged with "assault and battery" and "immoral conduct"; the delivery service those charged with "burglary"; bootblacking those charged with "craps and gambling," "incorrigibility and truancy"; peddling those with "larceny and runaway," and "vagrancy or runaway." The report calls attention to the greater tendency of messengers to immorality, and remarks that it is easy to see a connection between bootblacking and the offenses in which bootblacks lead. The report continues: "It is worthy to note that neither the newsboys nor errand boys, both following pursuits looked upon with disfavor, are found as contributing a _leading_ proportion of any one offense. They seem to maintain what might be called a high general level of delinquency rather than to lead in any particular direction, errand boys being found in fourteen and newsboys in fifteen of the sixteen separate offense groups."[119] For the purpose of clearly defining the connection between occupation and delinquency, and determining whether the delinquency inheres in the occupation or in the conditions under which it is carried on, there were selected six kinds of employments which are generally looked upon by social workers as morally unsafe for children, and a comparison was made of conditions as to the parentage, home surroundings, etc., prevailing among the workers in these occupations, the working delinquents generally, and the whole body of delinquents, both working and non-working. Of the delinquent boys under twelve years engaged in these six groups of employments (delivery and errand boys, newsboys and bootblacks, office boys, street vendors, telegraph messengers and in amusement resorts), nearly three-fourths were found to be newsboys and bootblacks. As four-fifths of the working delinquents under twelve years of age in all occupations are found in these six groups, it is evident that this class is largely responsible for the employment of young boys, and "comparing these figures with those for the working delinquents in all occupations we find that 58.6 per cent, or nearly three-fifths of all the working delinquents up to twelve, come from among the newsboys."[120] It was found that 54.6 per cent of all the working delinquents had both parents living, while newsboys and bootblacks, street vendors and telegraph messengers were found to be more fortunate in this respect than the great mass of working delinquents, even surpassing the whole body of delinquents, working and non-working. As the report says, "One so frequently hears of the newsboy who has no one but himself to look to that it is rather a surprise to find that the orphaned or deserted child appears among them only about half as often relatively as among the whole group of workers."[121] Of the delinquent delivery and errand boys, 78.9 per cent were found to have fair or good homes, of the newsboys and bootblacks 75.8 per cent, of the street vendors 65 per cent, and of the telegraph messengers 78.9 per cent, and in this connection the report declares, "Certainly the predominance of these selected occupations among the employments of delinquents cannot be explained by the home conditions of the children entering them."[122] The findings with respect to the messenger service fully corroborate the charges brought against it by the National Child Labor Committee. The report says: "Turning to the messengers, it is seen that they are in every respect above the average of favorable conditions. Moreover, it is well known that boys taking up this work must be bright and quick; there is no room in it for the dull and mentally weak. Plainly, then, in this case the occupation, not the kind of children who enter it, must be held responsible for its position among the pursuits from which delinquents come ... the chief charges brought against it are that the irregular work and night employment tend to break down health, that the opportunities for overcharge and for appropriating packages or parts of their contents lead to dishonesty, and that the places to which the boy is sent familiarize him with all forms of vice and tend to lead him into immorality."[123] Referring again to the messenger service, the report says: "The unfortunate effects of the inherent conditions of the work are, however, manifest. Its irregularity, the lack of any supervision during a considerable part of the time, the associations of the street and of the places to which messengers are sent, and the frequency of night work with all its demoralizing features, afford an explanation of the impatience of restraint, the reckless yielding to impulse shown in the large percentage of incorrigibility and disorderly conduct. A glance at the main table shows that the two offenses next in order are assault and battery and malicious mischief, both of which indicate the same traits. On the whole, there seems abundant reason for considering that the messenger service deserves its bad name."[124] With reference to errand and delivery boys, the report finds that as the level of favorable conditions keeps so near to the average, it seems necessary to attribute the number of delinquents furnished by this class more to the conditions of the work than to the kind of children taking it up. The occupational influences of amusement resorts, street vending and newspaper selling "are notoriously bad, but a partial explanation of the number of delinquents they furnish is unquestionably in the kind of children who enter them. It is a case of action and reaction. These occupations are easily taken up by immature children, with little or no education and no preliminary training. Such children are least likely to resist evil influences, most likely to yield to all that is bad in their environment."[125] Having shown that a connection can be traced between certain occupations and the number and kind of offenses committed by the children working in them, the report next determines to what extent a direct connection can be traced between occupation and offense. If a working child commits an offense, first, during working hours, second, in some place to which his work calls him, and third, against some person with whom his work brings him in contact, a connection may be said to exist between the misdemeanor and the employment. The report insists that either all three of the connection elements must be present, or else the offense must be very clearly the outcome of conditions related to the work, before a connection can be asserted; and it reminds the reader that the number of connection cases shown represents an understatement, probably to a considerable degree, of the real situation. The number of boy delinquents in occupations which show more than five cases of delinquency chargeable to occupation was found to be 308; of these, 100 were errand or delivery boys, 129 were newsboys, 16 were drivers or helpers, 13 were street vendors and 10 were messengers. The number of boy delinquents working at time of last offense and the number whose offenses show a connection with the occupation are compared, by occupation, in the following table,[126] p. 173. "Among the errand and delivery boys the percentage (of connection cases) is large and the connection close. Larceny accounts for over nine-tenths of these cases, the larceny usually being from the employer when the boy was sent out with goods, though in some cases it was from the house to which the boy was sent. It will be remembered that in respect to parental and home condition, age, etc., the delinquent errand boys came very close to the average, and their antecedents gave no reason to expect they would go wrong so numerously. That fact, together with the large proportion of connection cases, seems to indicate that the occupation is distinctly a dangerous one morally."[130] ========================+=============+======================== | | BOY DELINQUENTS WHOSE | | OFFENSES SHOW A | BOY | CONNECTION WITH | DELINQUENTS | OCCUPATION | WORKING AT +--------+--------------- OCCUPATION OR INDUSTRY | TIME OF | | Per Cent | LAST | | of Boy | OFFENSE | Number | Delinquents | | | in Occupation | | | Working ------------------------+-------------+--------+--------------- In amusement resorts | 40[127] | 7 | 17.5 Domestic service | 50[128] | 14 | 28.0 Driver or helper | 107 | 16 | 14.9 Errand or delivery boys | 261 | 100 | 38.3 Iron and steel workers | 27 | 7 | 25.9 Messengers | 38 | 10 | 26.3 Newsboys and bootblacks | 346[129] | 129 | 37.2 Street vendors | 25 | 13 | 52.0 Stores and markets | 62 | 12 | 19.3 ========================+=============+========+=============== As the various forms of immorality are practiced in secret, the report truly says that the evils which are most associated with a messenger's life could hardly appear in these studies. "A trace of them is found in the case of one boy sentenced for larceny. After his arrest it was found that he was a confirmed user of cocaine, having acquired the habit in the disreputable houses to which his work took him. Perhaps something of the same kind is indicated by the fact that one of the few cases of drunkenness occurring among working delinquents came, as a connection case, from this small group of messengers. For the most part, however, the connection offenses (by messengers) were some form of dishonesty, usually appropriating parcels sent out for delivery, though in some cases collecting charges on prepaid packages was added to this."[131] The newsboys almost equal the errand boys in their percentage of connection cases, though their offenses have a much wider range; in fact, the connection cases for newsboys include a greater variety of offenses than any other occupation studied. Beggary appears for the first time, there being two cases, in both of which the selling of papers was a mere pretext, enabling the boys to approach passers-by. Street vendors were found to show the highest percentage of connection cases, larceny being the leading offense. The report concludes: "It is a striking fact that in spite of the incompleteness of the data, a direct connection between the occupation and the offense has been found to exist in the cases of practically one-fourth of the boys employed at the time of their latest offense. It is also a striking fact that while the delinquent boys working at the time of their latest offense were scattered through more than fifty occupations, over six-sevenths of the connection cases are found among those working in street occupations, and that more than three-fifths come from two groups of workers--the errand or delivery boys, and the newsboys and bootblacks. It is also significant that the connection cases form so large a percentage of the total cases among the street traders, the messengers, and the errand or delivery boys, their proportion ranging from over one-fourth to over one-half, according to the occupation."[132] In considering the effect of night work upon the morals of children, the report says, "The messengers and newsboys show both large numbers and large percentages of night work, thus giving additional ground for the general opinion as to the undesirable character of their work"; and again, "In the following occupations the cases of night work are more numerous than they should be in proportion to the number ever employed in these pursuits: bootblacks, bowling alley and pool room, glass, hotel, messengers, newsboys and theaters and other amusement resorts."[133] More than one-fourth of the working boy delinquents were found to be attending day school. More than half of these pupils were newsboys and bootblacks. It was found that the more youthful the worker, the stronger is his tendency toward irregular attendance at school. Eighty-three boy delinquents were devoting eleven or more hours per day to work, and of these, 31 were errand or delivery boys, 7 were hucksters or peddlers, 6 were messengers and 2 were newsboys or bootblacks. "For both sexes, the workers show a greater tendency than the non-workers to go wrong, even where home and neighborhood surroundings appear favorable, but this tendency is not so marked among the girls as among the boys."[134] This report of the government investigation furnishes most conclusive evidence as to the evil character of street trading in general. It bears out the description so aptly made by a recent writer: "The streets are the proverbial schools of vice and crime. If the factory is the Scylla, the street is the Charybdis."[135] Another American writer has lately declared: "A prolific cause of juvenile delinquency is the influence of the street trades on the working boy. No other form of work has such demoralizing consequences.... These boys are brought into the juvenile court, and their misdemeanors are often so great that reformatory treatment is necessary for them. Accordingly they represent a large proportion of the boys in the different institutions. The demoralization produced by the street trades affects others than those engaged in such trades, but the latter are the chief sufferers; therefore the importance of legislation which will shut off this source of infection."[136] A Chicago physician took occasion to look into the records of the juvenile court of that city in 1909, and found that the first 100 boys and 25 girls examined that year were representative of the 2500 delinquents brought into the court during the preceding year. Not less than 57 of these boys had been engaged in street work--43 as newsboys, 12 as errand boys and messengers and 2 as peddlers. Only 13 out of the entire number had never been employed. Sixty of them were physically subnormal; the general physical condition of the girls was found to be much better than that of the boys of the same age, although 40 per cent of the girls were suffering from acquired venereal disease.[137] In the autumn of 1910 there were 647 boys confined in the Indiana state reformatory, which is known as the Indiana Boys' School, at Plainfield. Of this number 219, or 33.8 per cent, had formerly been engaged in street work. To determine the relative delinquency of street workers and boys who have never pursued such occupations, it would be necessary to compare these 219 delinquents with the total number of street workers in Indiana and also to compare the total number of inmates who had never followed street occupations with the total number of boys within the same age limits in Indiana. A comparison of the two percentages would be illuminating, but is impossible because it is not known how many street workers there are in the state. However, it is safe to assume that the number of street-working boys in Indiana is much less than one third of the total number of boys. If we accept this as true, then the figures indicate that street work promotes delinquency, because one third of all the delinquents in the state reformatory had been so engaged. The frequent assertion that, merely because a large percentage of the inmates of correctional institutions were at some time engaged in street work, such employment is therefore responsible for their delinquency, cannot be accepted alone as proof of the injurious character of this class of occupations, as it is not known how long each offender was engaged in such work, nor are the other causes contributing to the delinquency of each boy properly considered or even known. This defect is avoided in the government's Report on Juvenile Delinquency and its Relation to Employment, which, with reference to the common practice of jumping at conclusions in this way, says, "This appears to show that selling newspapers is a morally dangerous occupation, but the danger cannot be measured, since it is not known what proportion of the working children are newsboys, or what proportion of the newsboys never come to grief."[138] The following tables are of interest as showing in detail the facts as to Indiana's delinquent boy street workers, who are confined in the state reformatory:-- STREET WORKERS IN INDIANA BOYS' SCHOOL, 1910 _Table A. Distribution among Street Occupations_ ==============+============+=====+======+=====+========+======+===== COMMITTED FOR | MESSENGERS |NEWS-|BOOT- |PEDD-|DELIVERY|CAB |TOTAL | |BOYS |BLACKS|LERS |BOYS |DRIVER| +-----+------+ | | | | | | Day |Night | | | | | | --------------+-----+------+-----+------+-----+--------+------+----- Larceny | 3 | 22 | 88 | 3 | 6 | 3 | | 125 Incorrigi- | | | | | | | | bility | | 5 | 30 | 1 | 3 | | 1 | 40 Truancy | | 2 | 27 | | 3 | | | 32 Assault | | | | | | | | and battery | | 2 | 5 | 1 | | | | 8 Burglary | | 1 | | | | 2 | | 3 Forgery | | 2 | | | | | | 2 Manslaughter | | | 1 | | | | | 1 Other charges | 1 | 2 | 5 | | | | | 8 --------------+-----+------+-----+------+-----+--------+------+----- Totals | 4 | 36 | 156 | 5 | 12 | 5 | 1 | 219 ==============+=====+======+=====+======+=====+========+======+===== _Table B. Ages when at Work at these Occupations_ ==================+=======+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+======== | UNDER | | | | | | | | | 10 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | TOTALS ------------------+-------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+-------- Day messengers | | | | 1 | 1 | 2 | | | 4 Night messengers | 1 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 12 | 11 | 3 | | 36 Newsboys | 29 | 29 | 28 | 36 | 19 | 14 | 1 | | 156 Bootblacks | 3 | | 1 | | 1 | | | | 5 Peddlers | 1 | 4 | | 2 | 3 | 1 | | 1 | 12 Delivery boys | | 2 | | 1 | 1 | | | 1 | 5 Cab drivers | | | | | 1 | | | | 1 ------------------+-------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+-------- Totals | 34 | 37 | 31 | 45 | 38 | 28 | 4 | 2 | 219 ==================+=======+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+======== _Table C. Ages at Time of Commitment_ ================+=======+===+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+====== | UNDER | | | | | | | | | | COMMITTED FOR | 9 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | Total ----------------+-------+---+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+------ Larceny | 1 | 2 | 8 | 16 | 16 | 24 | 28 | 19 | 10 | 1 | 125 Incorrigibility | | 1 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 8 | | 40 Truancy | | 2 | 3 | 6 | 4 | 7 | 6 | 3 | 1 | | 32 Assault and | | | | | | | | | | | battery | | | | | 1 | 1 | 5 | 1 | | | 8 Burglary | | | | | | | 2 | | | 1 | 3 Forgery | | | | | | | 1 | 1 | | | 2 Manslaughter | | | | | | | 1 | | | | 1 Other charges | | | | | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | | | 8 ----------------+-------+---+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+------ Totals | 1 | 5 | 15 | 26 | 26 | 40 | 52 | 33 | 19 | 2 | 219 ================+=======+===+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+====== _Table D. Nationality and Orphanage of Street Workers_ OCCUPATIONS +--------------------------------------- Day messengers | +--------------------------------- Night messengers | | +--------------------------- Newsboys | | | +--------------------- Bootblacks | | | | +--------------- Peddlers | | | | | +--------- Delivery boys | | | | | | +--- Cab driver | | | | | | | V V V V V V V Totals ===============+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+======= AMERICAN | 3 | 25 | 69 | 4 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 110 NEGRO | | 5 | 59 | 1 | 2 | 3 | | 70 GERMAN | | 3 | 13 | | 1 | | | 17 IRISH | | 1 | 8 | | 1 | | | 10 POLISH | 1 | 1 | 3 | | 1 | | | 6 FRENCH | | | 2 | | 1 | | | 3 SCOTCH | | 1 | | | | | | 1 ITALIAN | | | 1 | | | | | 1 JEWISH | | | 1 | | | | | 1 ---------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------- FATHER | Yes | 4 | 30 | 107 | 5 | 7 | 4 | | 157 LIVING | No | | 6 | 49 | | 5 | 1 | 1 | 62 ---------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------- MOTHER | Yes | 3 | 30 | 119 | 5 | 11 | 5 | 1 | 174 LIVING | No | 1 | 6 | 37 | | 1 | | | 45 =========+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+======= _Table E. Hours and Earnings of Street Workers_ (In only 91 cases were the hours given, and earnings in only 116 cases.) OCCUPATIONS +-------------------------------- Day messengers | +--------------------------- Night messengers | | +---------------------- Newsboys | | | +----------------- Bootblacks | | | | +------------ Peddlers | | | | | +------- Delivery boys | | | | | | +-- Cab driver | | | | | | | V V V V V V V Totals ====================+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+======= HOURS | | | | | | | | Day | | | | | | | | All | 3 | | 29 | 5 | 11 | 5 | | 53 Morning | | | 10 | | | | | 10 Afternoon | | | 11 | | | | | 11 --------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+------- Night | | | | | | | | All | | 6 | 1 | | | | | 7 Before midnight | | 2 | 4 | | 1 | | 1 | 8 After midnight | | 1 | 1 | | | | | 2 Totals | 3 | 9 | 56 | 5 | 12 | 5 | 1 | 91 ====================+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+======= DAILY EARNINGS | | | | | | | | Under 50 cents | 1 | | 47 | 1 | 6 | | | 55 50-75 cents | 1 | 8 | 23 | 3 | 3 | 3 | | 41 75 cents-$1.00 | 1 | 4 | 5 | | 3 | 2 | 1 | 16 $1.25-$1.50 | | 1 | 3 | | | | | 4 Totals | 3 | 13 | 78 | 4 | 12 | 5 | 1 | 116 ====================+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+======= _Table F. Non-Street Workers in Indiana Boys' School, 1910_ COMMITTED FOR +--------------------------------- Larceny | +--------------------------- Truancy | | +--------------------- Incorrigibility | | | +--------------- Burglary | | | | +--------- Assault and battery | | | | | +--- Other charges | | | | | | V V V V V V Totals ===============+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+======= AMERICAN | 156 | 66 | 53 | 5 | 2 | 11 | 293 NEGRO | 40 | 10 | 7 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 65 GERMAN | 12 | 4 | 4 | | 1 | 2 | 23 IRISH | 7 | 3 | 5 | | 1 | 1 | 17 POLISH | 10 | 3 | 3 | | | | 16 ENGLISH | 3 | | 1 | 1 | | | 5 JEWISH | 1 | | 1 | | | | 2 SWEDISH | | | 1 | | | | 1 FRENCH | 2 | | | | | | 2 MEXICAN | 1 | | | | | | 1 ITALIAN | 1 | | | 1 | | | 2 HUNGARIAN | 1 | | | | | | 1 ---------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------- TOTALS | 234 | 86 | 75 | 8 | 6 | 19 | 428 ---------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------- FATHER | Yes | 168 | 62 | 44 | 6 | 3 | 15 | 298 LIVING | No | 66 | 24 | 31 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 130 ---------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------- MOTHER | Yes | 182 | 62 | 50 | 7 | 5 | 17 | 323 LIVING | No | 52 | 24 | 25 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 105 =========+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+======= _Table G. Non-Street Workers in Indiana Boys' School, 1910_ COMMITTED FOR +--------------------------------- Larceny | +--------------------------- Truancy | | +--------------------- Incorrigibility | | | +--------------- Burglary | | | | +--------- Assault and battery | | | | | +--- Other charges AGES AT | | | | | | COMMITMENT V V V V V V Totals ===========+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+======= UNDER 9 | 9 | 7 | 1 | | | 2 | 19 9 | 7 | 10 | 7 | | | 3 | 27 10 | 10 | 10 | 4 | 1 | | 2 | 27 11 | 20 | 10 | 9 | 2 | | 3 | 44 12 | 25 | 17 | 8 | | | 1 | 51 13 | 33 | 14 | 10 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 61 14 | 46 | 10 | 14 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 73 15 | 47 | 5 | 8 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 66 16 | 28 | 3 | 12 | | 1 | | 44 17 | 9 | | 2 | | | 3 | 14 OVER 17 | | | | 1 | 1 | | 2 -----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------- TOTALS | 234 | 86 | 75 | 8 | 6 | 19 | 428 ===========+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+======= _Table H. Behavior in Institution_ =========+================+==================== | STREET WORKERS | NON-STREET WORKERS ---------+----------------+-------------------- Good | 39 or 18% | 95 or 22% Average | 175 or 80% | 321 or 75% Bad | 5 or 2% | 12 or 3% ---------+----------------+-------------------- Totals | 219 | 428 =========+================+==================== By far the largest number of street-working delinquents had been newsboys, these being followed by messengers, peddlers, bootblacks and delivery boys in the order given. From a hasty glance at these tables one might conclude that street workers are not so liable to become delinquent as those who never follow street occupations, because of the smaller number of the former; but it should be remembered that the ratio of street-working inmates to the entire number of street-working boys in Indiana is much greater than the ratio of the other inmates to the whole body of non-street-working children in the state. In comparing Tables C and G it is seen that the street workers and the non-street workers were committed for practically the same offenses, and that their distribution according to offense does not vary widely. It is significant that a much smaller proportion of the street workers were committed to the institution under the age of ten years, than of the non-street workers, indicating that street occupations (which are not usually entered upon before the age of ten years), if followed for a year or two, contribute largely to the promotion of delinquency. From a comparison of Tables D and F it will be observed that the prevalence of delinquency among the street workers cannot be explained on the ground of orphanage, as only 28 per cent were fatherless and 21 per cent motherless, while of the non-street workers 30 per cent were fatherless and 25 per cent were motherless. This indicates (1) that street work in the great majority of cases is not made necessary by orphanage, and (2) that street work causes delinquency in spite of good home conditions so far as the presence of both parents contributes to the making of a good home. Furthermore, it will be noted in Table E that nearly half of the children for whom figures on income could be obtained earned less than fifty cents per day--a small return on the heavy investment in the risk of health and character. The difference in behavior at the institution between the street workers and the others is shown in Table H to be almost negligible, the latter making a slightly better showing. An English writer says: "There is no difficulty in understanding how street trading and newspaper selling lead to gambling. We are told by those who are best able to judge, that of the young thieves and prostitutes in the city of Manchester, 47 per cent had begun as street hawkers. For the younger boys and girls such an occupation, especially at night, turns the streets into nurseries of crime. The newspaper sellers are not exposed to quite the same dangers, but they are nearly all gamblers. They gamble on anything and everything, from the horse races reported hour by hour in the papers they sell, to the numbers on the passing cabs, and they end by gambling with their lives."[139] CHAPTER VIII THE STRUGGLE FOR REGULATION IN THE UNITED STATES The economic activities of children in city streets, commonly called street trades, are not specifically covered by the provisions of child labor laws except in the District of Columbia and the states of Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, Oklahoma, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, New Hampshire and Wisconsin. The laws of many other states as well as of those mentioned, however, prohibit children under fourteen years of age from being employed or permitted to work in the distribution or transmission of merchandise or messages. If newspapers are merchandise, then children under fourteen years would not be allowed to deliver newspapers under the provision just stated. This raises a nice question as to what is included in the term "merchandise." That there is any distinction between newspapers and merchandise is practically denied by the street-trades laws of Utah and New Hampshire which provide that children under certain ages shall not sell "newspapers, magazines, periodicals or _other_ merchandise in any street or public place"; the question of delivery, however, is left open by these laws. The Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia, in the case of District of Columbia _vs._ Reider, sustained the juvenile court of the District in its decision that newspapers are not merchandise and consequently that children under fourteen years of age engaged in delivering newspapers are not affected by the law.[140] The judge of the trial court stated in his opinion, "No one will seriously contend that the nature of the employment in the case at bar is at all harmful to the child." The case at bar was the prosecution of a route agent for a morning newspaper on account of having employed a minor under fourteen years of age to deliver newspapers. This opinion is typical of the misplaced sympathy so commonly bestowed upon these young "merchants" of the street. In the case cited, the court permitted itself to be drawn aside into an interpretation of the letter of the law instead of viewing the matter in the light of its spirit. The purpose of such a law is to _prevent the labor_ of children, not to distinguish between closely related forms of labor. Its object is to afford protection, not to provoke discussion of purely technical points. The _labor_ of delivering merchandise does not differ in any respect from the _labor_ of delivering newspapers (the possibly greater weight of merchandise does not alter the case, inasmuch as it is usually carried about in wagons); and as the child labor law of the District of Columbia forbids the delivery of merchandise by children under fourteen years at any time, it follows that the delivery of newspapers by such children should not be allowed, because the intent of the law is to protect them from the probable consequences of such work. Moreover, the District of Columbia law prohibits children under sixteen years from delivering merchandise before six o'clock in the morning; yet, under the interpretation given by the juvenile court, it is perfectly proper for a child even under the age of _fourteen_ years to perform the _labor_ of delivery before that hour, provided he handles newspapers instead of packages. The inconsistency of this is only too apparent. The spirit of the law is lost sight of in the close interpretation of its wording. This is one of the obstacles always encountered in the movement for child labor reform after prohibitory legislation has been enacted. American legislation on street trading still clings persistently and pathetically to the theory that uncontrolled labor is much better for children than labor under the supervision of adults, and consequently authorizes very young children to do certain kinds of work in the streets on their own responsibility, while forbidding them to work at other street occupations even under the control of older and more experienced persons. This official incongruity must ultimately be rescinded and replaced by more rational and comprehensive legislation. The fallacy of permitting such a distinction on the ground that the child is an independent "merchant" in the one case and an employee in the other, must also be abandoned in favor of a more enlightened policy. _Present Laws and Ordinances_ The following table shows all the laws and ordinances governing street trading by children in existence in the United States in 1911. The city council of Detroit passed an ordinance in 1877 which forbids newsboys and bootblacks to ply their trades in the streets without a permit from the mayor. No age limit is fixed, no distinction is made between the sexes and no hours are specified. Applicants for the permit are customarily referred to the chief truant officer for approval, and as a rule permits are not issued to boys under ten years of age or to girls. An annual license fee of ten cents is charged, and the license holder is supplied with a numbered badge which must be worn conspicuously. Owing to its manifest weakness, this ordinance is of little avail. It will be observed from the following table that the common age limit for boys in street trading is ten years. When we pause to reflect on the import of this, it is hard to realize that intelligent American communities actually tolerate such an absurdly meager restriction; yet the movement for reform has progressed even this far in only a very small part of the country--in most places there is no restriction whatever! Some day, and that not in the very remote future, we shall look back upon the authorized exploitation of the present period with the same degree of incredulity with which we now regard the horrors of child labor in England during the early part of the nineteenth century. STATE LAWS ============+===========+==========+=======+=============+================= STATES | AGE LIMIT | LICENSES | HOURS | ENFORCEMENT | PENALTIES ------------+-----------+----------+-------+-------------+----------------- Colorado, |Girls, 10; | | |Factory |$5-$100 fine for 1911 |any work | | |inspectors |first offense, |in streets | | | |$100-$200 fine or | | | | |imprisonment 90 | | | | |days for 2d | | | | |offense for | | | | |employers. $5-$25 | | | | |fine for parents ------------+-----------+----------+-------+-------------+----------------- District of |Boys, 10; |Boys, |6 A.M. |Factory |Left to Columbia, |Girls, 16; |10-15 |10 P.M.|inspectors |discretion of 1908 |bootblack- | | | |juvenile court |ing, | | | | |selling | | | | |anything | | | | ------------+-----------+----------+-------+-------------+----------------- Missouri, |Boys, 10; | | |Factory |Max. fine $100 or 1911 |girls, 16; | | |inspectors |max. imprisonment |selling | | | |one year, for |anything | | | |child ------------+-----------+----------+-------+-------------+----------------- Nevada, 1911|Boys, 10; | | | |Child dealt with |girls, 10; | | | |as delinquent |selling | | | | |anything | | | | ------------+-----------+----------+-------+-------------+----------------- New Hamp- |Boys, 10; | | |Factory |$5-$200 fine or shire, 1911 |girls, 16; | | |inspectors; |imprisonment |publica- | | |truant |10-30 days, for |tions or | | |officers |employers and |other mdse.| | | |parents |Boys, 10; | | | | |girls, 10; | | | | |bootblack- | | | | |ing | | | | ------------+-----------+----------+-------+-------------+----------------- New York, |Boys, 10; |Boys, |6 A.M. |Police and |Dealt with accor- 1903 |girls, 16; |10-13 |10 P.M.|truant |ding to law |publica- | | |officers | |tions | | | | ------------+-----------+----------+-------+-------------+----------------- Oklahoma, |Girls, 16; | | |Commissioner |$10-$50 fine or 1909 |publica- | | |of Labor |imprisonment |tions | | | |10-30 days for | | | | |child ------------+-----------+----------+-------+-------------+----------------- Utah, 1911, |Boys, 12; |Boys, |Not | |$25-$200 fine or 1st& 2d |girls 16; |12-15 |after | |imprisonment class |publica- | |9 P.M. | |10-30 days, for cities |tions or | | | |employers and |other mdse.| | | |parents |Boys, 12; |Boys, | | | |girls, 12; |12-15 | | | |bootblack- |Girls, | | | |ing |12-15 | | | ------------+-----------+----------+-------+-------------+----------------- Wisconsin, |Boys, 12; |Boys, |5 A.M. |Factory |$25-$100 fine or 1909, as |girls, 18; |12-15 |6.30 |inspectors |imprisonment 10- amended |publica- | | P.M., | |60 days for pa- 1911, 1st |tions. | |winter | |rents permitting, class |Boys, 14; | |7.30 | |and others em- cities |girls, 18, | | P.M., | |ploying, child |all others | |summer;| |under 16 to | | |publi- | |peddle without | | |cations| |permit. Same for | | | | |newspapers allow- | | | | |ing boys under | | | | |16 about office | | | | |between 9 A.M. | | | | |and 3 P.M. on | | | | |school days ------------+-----------+----------+-------+-------------+----------------- Massachu- |Mayor and aldermen or selectmen may make re-|Max. fine $10 for setts, 1902 |gulations of bootblacking and sale of news- |child; max. fine as amended, |papers, merchandise, etc; may prohibit such |$200 or max. 1910 |sale or trades; or may require license to be|imprisonment 6 |obtained from them. School committees in |months for parent |cities have these powers as to children |allowing, person |under 14 years. |employing, or | |any one furnish- | |ing articles to, | |a child to sell ============+============================================+================= CITY ORDINANCES ==========+===============+==========+=========+=============+============= CITIES | AGE LIMIT | LICENSES | HOURS | ENFORCEMENT | PENALTIES ----------+---------------+----------+---------+-------------+------------- Boston, | Boys, 11; | Boys, | 6 A.M. | Supervisor |Revocation 1902, by | girls, 14; | 11-13 | 8 P.M., | of licensed |of license school | bootblacking, | | winter | minors, |and fine as committee | selling | | 9 P.M., | police and |stated for | anything | | summer | truant |Massachusetts | | | | officers | ----------+---------------+----------+---------+-------------+------------- Cincin- | Boys, 10; | Boys, | 6 A.M. | Police, |Fine $1-$5 nati, 1909| girls, 16; | 10-13 | 8 P.M. | truant and |for child | bootblacking, | | | probation | | selling | | | officers | | anything | | | | ----------+---------------+----------+---------+-------------+------------- Hartford, | Boys, 10; | Boys, | Not | |Revocation 1910 | girls, 10; | 10-13 | during | |of license | selling | Girls, | school | |by school | anything | 10-13 | hours | |superinten- | | | or | |dent | | | after 8 | | | | | P.M. | | ----------+---------------+----------+---------+-------------+------------- Newark, | Boys, 10; | Boys, | Not | Police and |Child placed 1904 | girls, 16; | 10-13 | between | truant |on probation | newspapers | | 9 A.M. | officers |or committed | | | and 3 | |to Newark | | | P.M. | |City Home at | | | nor | |expense of | | | after | |parent | | | 10 P.M. | | ==========+===============+==========+=========+=============+============= In an attempt to minimize the bad effects of street trading most of the communities which have enacted laws or ordinances on the subject provide for the issuance of licenses to boys, and in some cases also to girls, in the belief that in this way the work of the children can best be brought under some degree of control. However, this is merely temporizing, although it affords an opportunity to gather facts and undoubtedly marks a step toward a better solution of the problem. This is brought out clearly by a recent British report on street trading: "Our general impression, gathered in towns in which by-laws had been made, was that, though in exceptional cases much good had resulted from their adoption, on the whole this method of dealing with what we have come to consider an unquestionable evil, has not proved adequate or satisfactory. In many instances it has been pointed out to us that a system of licensing and badging is but a method of legalizing what is indisputably an evil, and that a set of by-laws, however rigorously enforced, can at best only modify the difficulties of the position."[141] The social workers of Chicago, keenly alive to the menace of the situation, bewail the lack of protection for street workers in the following words: "The child labor law and the compulsory school law and the juvenile court law form the body of protective legislation which has been developing in behalf of the children of Illinois during the past twenty years. By none of the three, however, except in so far as street trading by a child under ten is counted an element in dependency, is the street-trading child safeguarded against parental neglect or greed, the vicious sights and sounds of the city street and the demoralizing habit of irregular employment."[142] _Opposition to Regulation_ The opposition to bringing the street trades under some degree of restriction has come, as might be expected, from very interested sources. In Illinois the newspaper publishers figured prominently in the movement to prevent the passage of the street-trades measure introduced in the legislature of that state at its session of 1911. This has not always been the case, however, as the circulation managers of the five leading daily newspapers of St. Louis wrote letters to the legislature of Missouri favoring the passage of that section of the child labor bill of 1911, which provided that boys under ten years and girls under sixteen years should not sell anything in any street or public place within the state. This provision was enacted into law, but it is safe to say that if the rational age limit of sixteen years for boys had been advocated instead of ten years, the newspapers would have been most active in opposing this section. In Cincinnati the circulation managers of the newspapers most affected by the street-trades ordinance passed by the City Council in 1909 agreed to its provisions before the measure was submitted to the Council, and consequently it passed without opposition. In New Haven and Hartford repeated attempts have been made to secure regulation of street trading by means of city ordinances, and at two sessions of the state legislature bills have been introduced which provided for such restriction, but all these efforts have been persistently fought by a leading newspaper of Hartford in which city it has always been customary to have girls as well as boys selling newspapers on the street. In 1910, a city ordinance was passed in Hartford providing that boys and girls under ten years should be prohibited from trading in the streets and that between the ages of ten and fourteen years they should be licensed and not allowed to sell after 8 P.M. The newsgirls were not banished from the street because it was held that they were "a pretty good sort of girl after all," and that so long as it could not be proved that they were _demoralized_ by the work, they should be permitted to go on with it. In other words, the city clings to the fine old American policy of delaying action until some calamity makes it necessary. The objections offered by interested parties to the by-laws drafted by the London County Council at a hearing held in 1906, show that the law of self preservation operates in England as in other quarters of the Earth. News agents, employing little boys to deliver newspapers, declared that conditions were not bad; that the work was healthful; that the wages were a great help to poor parents; that they could not afford to employ older boys; that the lads should be allowed to begin at 6 A.M. and work not more than ten hours a day outside of school with a maximum weekly limit of twenty-five hours; that to prohibit the delivery of newspapers before 7 A.M. and after 7 P.M. would be a great injustice to the trade; that boys wouldn't stay in bed even if 7 A.M. were fixed as the hour for beginning work; that such work does not interfere with schooling; that the boys are well looked after; in short, that the by-laws would ruin them and bring starvation to the children. One news agent in declaiming against the hours fixed for the delivery of newspapers, insisted that the restriction would throw boys out of employment and send them to trade in the streets with their undesirable associations, apparently unmindful of the fact that delivery boys themselves worked in that environment. The dairymen were horrified at the limit placed on hours, urging that the little boys in their employ should begin to deliver milk at 5 A.M., as early work was beneficial and the wages useful to poor parents. Shopkeepers denounced the by-laws as too drastic, because they would prevent such light work as errand running at noon and casual employment in the evening after 7, resulting in hardship to both parents and children; one acknowledged that if he were prevented from employing cheap labor his business would suffer; another said that he employed a boy at noon and also from 5.30 to 9 P.M., the work being light and the parents satisfied, and that the training was good for boys. A fruiterer actually declared that the limit of eight hours on Saturday would make a boy valueless to him; another said he employed a boy for one hour in the morning, from 6 to 9 in the evening, and also on Saturday morning and evening, in running errands, and that the work was not heavy; another employed boys after school from 6 to 9.30 P.M., insisting that the work was good for them, as it kept them from the street and gave them an insight into business habits.[143] It should be remembered that all this work was performed by the children in addition to attending school both morning and afternoon. The testimony given before the British Interdepartmental Committee of 1901 by the secretary of an association representing many thousand retail shopkeepers, would be amusing if it were not so sinister. He presented the subject of child labor in a most favorable aspect, declaring that the wages were needed on account of poverty in the families; that the work was light and had a _very beneficial_ effect on health because it was done in the open air; that good meals were given in addition to cash wages and were _very beneficial_; that the effect on the boys' character was _very beneficial_, as the work cultivated businesslike habits and kept the boys from running the streets, frequently affording promotion to the higher grades of shopkeeping.[144] Another British Committee, investigating conditions in Ireland, reported, "We found but one witness (a newspaper manager of Belfast) to testify that the present conditions of selling papers in the street were satisfactory and cannot be improved; and that instead of tending to demoralize, they have the opposite effect."[145] _Ways and Means of Regulating Street Work_ As to the control of street trading by children there are two methods by which the desired end may be approached. First, a mutual agreement as to self-imposed restrictions among the managers of all the business interests in connection with which children work on the streets. This method, however, can be dismissed from consideration at once on account of its impracticability. Street work embraces many different kinds of commercial activity, and as one manager is the competitor of all others in the same line of business and is free to adopt such lawful means of placing his wares on the market as he sees fit, it would be clearly impossible to force any one into such an agreement against his will. Moreover, new competitors may enter the field at any time who would not be bound by the agreement of the others, and consequently this would soon be broken by the force of competition following the intrusion of these new parties. Second, regulation by constituted legislative authority. This is the more feasible method, and such regulation may be obtained from either of two sources--the municipality or the state. There is a question as to which of the two is the better for the purpose. Regulation by the state has the advantage of making the provisions apply uniformly to all cities within its borders and is obtained by no more effort than is required to get an ordinance through the Council of a single municipality. On the other hand, the municipal ordinance has the advantage of being secured by residents of the community who are intelligently concerned in the local problem and who will therefore take an active interest in having its provisions enforced. However, the good features of both these methods are united in the English plan, a modification of which has been adopted by Massachusetts. According to this plan the state fixes a minimum amount of restriction and authorizes local authorities, including boards of education, to increase the scope of restriction, and provides penalties for violation of the same. As to the degree of regulation, an ultra-conservative measure would prohibit boys under ten and girls under sixteen years from selling anything at any time in the streets or public places of cities, while the age limit for boys is raised to fourteen years for night work. The issuance of licenses to boys ten to fourteen years of age who wish to engage in street trading is the usual accompaniment of such restriction, and while ordinarily of little avail, it could be made of some assistance to truant and probation officers in their efforts to enforce the compulsory education and delinquency laws. The age limit for boys has been advanced to eleven years by the School Committee of Boston, and to twelve years for newsboys and fourteen years for other street workers by the state of Wisconsin. But all efforts to secure such regulation should be based upon the principle that street trading is an undesirable form of labor for children, and consequently should be subject to at least the same restrictions as other forms of child labor. _Probable Course of Regulation in Future_ American child labor laws usually contain a provision to the effect that no child under sixteen years shall engage in any employment that may be considered dangerous to its life or limb or where its health may be injured or morals depraved. This is sonorous, but ineffective,--the particular kinds of improper work should be specified. In this list of undesirable forms of labor, street work should be included. Great Britain has had far more experience in the matter of regulating the work of children than any state of this country, and, in the light of all this experience, her departmental committee of 1910 has emphatically declared that street trading by boys under seventeen and girls under eighteen years should be absolutely prohibited. This should be our ideal in America. Commenting on the banishment of young girls from the streets of New York City, Mrs. Florence Kelley says, "If the law against street selling and peddling by girls to the age of sixteen years can be thus effectively enforced in a city in which the depths of poverty among the immigrants are so frightful as they are in New York, there is no reason for assuming that it is impossible to prohibit efficiently street selling by boys."[146] Girls under eighteen years should never be allowed to go out in the streets for commercial purposes, no matter how innocent these purposes may be in themselves. One of the most important features of the movement in America should be the absolute prohibition of such work by minors under eighteen years at night; this is urged because it is in harmony with the provisions of our most advanced child labor laws and is fully justified because of the evil character of the influences rampant in cities after dark, and because such night work affords children a constant opportunity to cultivate their acquaintance with, if not to know for the first time, conditions from which every effort should be made to isolate them. For night messenger service the age limit should be twenty-one years. The enforcement of such regulation as is now provided by the few states and cities which have given this subject any attention, is variously intrusted to factory inspectors, police, truant and probation officers, but in Boston the school committee has delivered this task into the hands of one man who is known as the supervisor of licensed minors. The Boston plan for enforcement seems to have given better results than the common system of intrusting the enforcement to officers already overburdened with other duties, but it is clearly impossible for one officer to handle the situation unaided in a large city--the plan would be considerably improved by the appointment of several assistants. "The licensing by the Boston School Committee of minors of school age to trade in the streets of Boston came about through an act of legislature in 1902. The need of supervision of minors licensed under this act became very apparent, as their numbers increased and their street influences reacting on their school life became better understood. To meet this need a supervisor of licensed minors was appointed whose duties are to secure the strict enforcement of the law, regulations governing the various forms of street work of children of school age, also to have general supervision of the details of the licensing department."[147] Human nature in children is not in the least unlike human nature in adults. Just as we need an interstate commerce commission backed by the federal government to supervise the large business affairs of men, so do we need a supervisor of children's commercial activities in city streets, clothed with authority by the municipal government. The Boston plan is now being advocated for New York City: "In the street trades the Committee recommends that the principle of supervision of licensed minors, as practised for a number of years in Boston, be adopted, and that an office be created in the Department of Education that shall have supervisory control of all minors engaged in street trades. It recommends furthermore that the minimum age limit for licensing boys be raised from ten to fourteen years, and that the legal limit for selling at night be reduced from 10 to 8, to correspond more nearly with the provisions of labor legislation dealing with children in factories."[148] The first attempt to control the situation in New York City was intrusted to the police, but the results were not satisfactory, as they looked upon the matter with indifference. Subsequently the truant officers also were charged with this duty, and in 1908 four men were assigned to give their entire attention to this work between 3 P.M. and 11 P.M., and at present eight men are so engaged, but no very marked improvement is noticeable. In Rochester the enforcement of the state law was brought about through the efforts of the women of that city; both business women and shoppers were asked to consider themselves members of a vigilance committee and to notify the board of education and the police department by telephone whenever any violations of the law were observed upon the streets. Within five days so many complaints had been received that both the superintendent of schools and the president of the board of education arranged a meeting at which their attention was invited to the widespread disregard of the law. As a result, steps were taken at once to insure enforcement, and finally the board of education appointed one truant officer, and the commissioner of police detailed a policeman especially for the work of reporting violations. In addition to providing an improved method of enforcement, efforts have been made in Boston to deal more effectively with the difficult problem of keeping street traders out of saloons, the licensing board having issued an order to all holders of liquor licenses to prohibit minors from loitering upon the licensed premises, more especially newsboys and messenger boys. The efforts of the school committee to regulate street trading in Boston have been further supplemented by organizing a Newsboys' Republic, which is described as follows: "Perhaps the most important result of supervision so far has been the gradual introduction of a plan for self government among the licensed newsboys through the so-called Boston School Newsboys' Association. This association is pledged to the enforcement of the license rules and the suppression of smoking, gambling and other street vices, more or less common among the street boys of certain neighborhoods. The association is run by the boys themselves, through officers of their own choosing, consisting of one newsboy captain and two lieutenants for each school district; also a chief captain and general secretary and an executive board of seven elected from the ranks of the captains. The general duties of the captains and lieutenants are, first, to see that all licensed newsboys of their respective school districts live up to their license rules, and the principles of the association. Secondly, to see that all boys not licensed shall not interfere with or in any way hurt the business of the licensed newsboys. These duties are performed through weekly inspections on the street, supplemented by monthly inspection at schools, at which time branch meetings of all the boys in each district are frequently held."[149] CHAPTER IX DEVELOPMENT OF STREET TRADES REGULATION IN EUROPE _Great Britain_ Attention was called to the problem of street trading by children in England for the first time, in a comprehensive way, in 1897. A few close observers of social conditions noticed that the situation was so grave as to demand an immediate remedy, and accordingly, upon their initiative, an organization was effected for the purpose of studying the subject. This organization took the form of a private association known as the Committee on Wage-Earning Children. The committee conferred with the officers of the board of education and succeeded in arousing their interest to the extent of securing a promise for the collection of a return from the elementary schools of England and Wales concerning the labor of public school pupils, their ages, and other relevant information. In 1898, the House of Commons ordered this inquiry to be made, and in June of that year copies of a schedule were sent by the educational department to all the public elementary schools in England and Wales. Many schoolmasters misunderstood the meaning of this schedule and failed to report the children of their schools who were actually engaged in various forms of work outside of school hours. Only about half of the schedules were filled and returned, but these showed that 144,026 children were following some kind of gainful occupation in addition to attending school. Many schoolmasters reported pitiable cases of child exploitation, as, for example, the following: "Boys helping milkmen are up at 5 o'clock in the morning, whilst those selling papers are about the streets to a very late hour at night. During lessons many fall off to sleep, and if not asleep the effort to keep awake is truly painful both to boy and teacher. The educational time, as a consequence, is materially wasted."[150] "These are sad cases, viz. one boy (aged eleven, in Standard III) works daily, as a grocer's errand boy, for 1_s._ 6_d._ a week, from 8 to 9 A.M., from 12 to 1.30 P.M., and from 4.30 to 7.30 P.M. On Saturday from 8 A.M. to 10 P.M. Another boy, aged ten in Standard III, works also as a grocer's errand boy for 1_s._ 6_d._ per week, from 8.30 to 9 A.M., from 12 to 1.30 and from 5 to 8 P.M., and on Saturday from 8.30 A.M. to 11 P.M." And all this in addition to twenty-seven and one half hours of school every week! A boy who works for 56-3/4 hours a week, selling papers, is employed as follows: "Monday to Friday, from 7 A.M. to 8.45 A.M., from 12 to 1 P.M., and from 4 to 10 P.M., and on Saturday from 7 A.M., to 10 A.M., from 12 to 2 P.M. and from 3 to 11 P.M." "This is a very bad case: called at 2 and 3 o'clock A.M., the boy (aged eight) is so tired that he is obliged to go to bed again, and is often absent from school, and made to work in the evening as well."[151] Many schoolmasters also testified to the need of a remedy; one of these wrote on the schedule: "May I be allowed to express my gratitude to the education department for making this inquiry, and express the hope that the department will be able to frame some regulation to meet and relieve the onerous conditions under which many of the young have to gain education. Without exaggeration I can truthfully assert that there are to-day in our national and board schools thousands of little white slaves."[152] Nothing more came of the movement until January, 1901, when the Secretary of State for the Home Department appointed an interdepartmental committee "to inquire into the question of the employment of children during school age, and to report what alterations are desirable in the laws relating to child labour and school attendance and in the administration of these laws." After making careful investigation this committee declared: "In the case of street-trading children very strong powers of regulation are required. These children are exposed to the worst influences; they enter public houses to ply their trade, they are kept up late at night and exposed to inclement weather, and the precarious nature of their trade disinclines them to steady work, and encourages them to dissipate their earnings in gambling ... there should be power to prohibit street trading by children; to make regulations as to the age and sex of street traders, and the days and hours on which they may ply their trade; to grant licenses to those permitted to trade and to require the wearing of badges or uniforms; to forbid street traders to enter public houses or to importune or obstruct passengers; and generally to control their conduct and to cope with the evil in every reasonable way."[153] The committee further reported: "Our main recommendation is that the overworking of children in those occupations which are still unregulated by law should be prevented by giving to the county and borough councils a power to make labour by-laws; ... further we suggest that the gaps that may be left by local by-laws should be filled up by a general prohibition of night labour by children and of labour manifestly injurious to health."[154] This committee reported that the number of children in England and Wales attending school and also in paid employment was far greater than as reported by the parliamentary return, estimating that the total number was no less than 300,000 in 1898.[155] One of the witnesses before this committee was a London truant officer of eighteen years' experience, who testified that every month he met with hundreds of cases of milk boys who "go to work at 5 A.M. and knock off at 8.30 and get to school at 9.45. At twelve they return to work, and after school at 4.30 they go again and wash up. The latest hour they work is about 8 P.M. I have frequently seen these children fast asleep in school. It is a common thing to see children of tender age outside the different theatres trying to sell newspapers at 11 o'clock at night. The percentage of cases in which this work is necessary is very small; it simply means that a little more money is spent in the public houses."[156] The report of this committee contains a great mass of testimony from persons in many walks of life, nearly all of whom declared that street trading by children is bad and should be regulated. They differentiated between the hawking of articles in the streets and their delivery for employers, and one of the witnesses from Liverpool testified that the local regulation of street trading by children in that city did not apply to bootblacks nor to boys who carried parcels because they were not selling anything.[157] In 1902, an interdepartmental committee was appointed to study the subject in Ireland, and in its report stated: "The principal dangers to which they [street traders] are exposed are those arising from late hours in the streets, truancy, insufficient clothing, entering licensed premises to find sale for their goods, obstructing, annoying or importuning passengers, begging, fighting with other children, playing football or other games in the streets, using bad language, playing pitch and toss (a gambling game), smoking--all of which are matters of common observation, and have been testified to by many of the witnesses. In our opinion these evils can be lessened, if not entirely removed, by the simple system of regulation, licenses and badges."[158] The direct result of the reports of these committees was the passage by Parliament of the Employment of Children Act, 1903. Section 3 of this act provides, first, that no child under eleven years shall engage in street trading; second, no child under fourteen years shall be employed between 9 P.M. and 6 A.M.; third, no factory or workshop half-timer shall be employed in any other occupation; fourth, no child under fourteen years shall handle heavy weights likely to result in injury; fifth, no child under fourteen years shall engage in any injurious employment. Sections 1 and 2 of this act give to local authorities power to make by-laws regulating the employment of children. The provisions of Section 2 concerning street trading are in substance as follows: any local authority may make by-laws with respect to street trading by persons under the age of sixteen years and may prohibit such street trading subject to age, sex or the holding of a license; may regulate the conditions on which such licenses may be granted and revoked; may determine the days and hours during which and the places at which such street trading may be carried on; may require such street traders to wear badges and may regulate generally the conduct of such street traders; provided that the right to trade shall not be made subject to any conditions having reference to the poverty or general bad character of the person applying for this right, and provided also that the local authority shall have special regard to the desirability of preventing the employment of girls under sixteen years in streets and public places. Section 2 b of the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act, 1904, imposes a penalty upon _adults_ who cause, procure or allow boys under fourteen or girls under sixteen to trade in the streets between 9 P.M. and 6 A.M. An official report made in 1907 gives the names of all counties, boroughs and urban districts in Great Britain which had up to that time made by-laws to regulate street trading by children. In England and Wales, 2 counties, 60 cities and boroughs and 4 urban districts had done so; in Scotland, 3 burghs and the school board districts of 11 burghs and 12 parishes; and in Ireland, 4 cities and boroughs and 1 urban district had made such by-laws.[159] By 1910, out of 74 county boroughs in England and Wales, not less than 50 had made street-trading by-laws, and these included most of the larger places; but out of 191 smaller boroughs and smaller urban districts only 41 had done so; while among 62 administrative counties only 3 had made by-laws. In addition to these, 4 county boroughs and 2 of the smaller boroughs had made street-trading by-laws under local acts. In Scotland, of the 33 county councils empowered to make by-laws, not one had done so by 1910; while of 56 burghs only 3 had passed by-laws; of 979 school boards only 27 had made such regulations. Edinburgh passed by-laws under a private act. In Ireland, out of 33 county councils not one had made by-laws; of the 43 councils of urban districts with a population of over 5000, only 5 had passed regulations. In 1909 the Secretary of State for the Home Department appointed a departmental committee to inquire into the operation of the Employment of Children Act, 1903, and to consider whether any and what further legislative regulation or restriction was required in respect of street trading and other employments dealt with in that act. This committee confined its report, which was submitted in 1910, to the subject of street trading; and its great contribution to the cause of child welfare is its recommendation that street trading should be _prohibited_ rather than regulated. The statute of 1903 prohibits all work by children under the age of eleven years, and its restrictions on street employment by children above that limit, out of school hours, are prohibitions of _night_ work after nine o'clock, consequently a child above the age of eleven years who engages in street trading is restrained, during the day, only by such by-laws as may have been adopted by the local authority. The committee found that even in communities where by-laws had been adopted they were not always observed, and also that where no by-laws had been passed the minimum statutory restrictions were frequently ignored. The report declared that: "A considerable amount of street trading is still done by children under eleven. Special censuses taken in Edinburgh revealed the fact that children as young as seven were trading in the streets. The great bulk of the evidence received in and from Scotland points to the conclusion that the Act [of 1903] has been almost a dead-letter in that country.... Infringements of the Act in Ireland are no less common. In Waterford newspapers are sold by children of nine years old up to 11 P.M. and later."[160] The issuance of licenses and badges was denounced as giving the stamp of official approval to what is recognized as an evil, the adoption of by-laws resulting merely in a partial improvement of conditions even when rigorously enforced. After having devoted several months to the inquiry, during which evidence was gathered in London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dublin, Belfast, Birmingham and Liverpool in addition to receiving the testimony of witnesses from Sheffield, Nottingham, Bolton and other centers, the committee made this very noteworthy and significant declaration: "We have come to the conclusion ... that the effect of street trading upon the character of those who engage in it is only too frequently disastrous. The youthful street trader is exposed to many of the worst of moral risks; he associates with, and acquires the habits of, the frequenters of the kerbstone and the gutter. If a match seller, he is likely to become a beggar--if a newspaper seller, a gambler; the evidence before us was extraordinarily strong as to the extent to which begging prevails among the boy vendors of evening papers. There was an almost equally strong body of testimony to the effect that, at any rate in crowded centres of population, street trading tends to produce a dislike or disability for more regular employment; the child finds that for a few years money is easily earned without discipline or special skill; and the occupation is one which sharpens the wits without developing the intelligence. It leads to nothing practically, and in no way helps him to a future career. There can be no doubt that large numbers of those who were once street traders drift into vagrancy and crime.... Much evidence was given to the effect that the practice of street trading, even though only carried on in the intervals of school attendance, tends to produce a restless disposition, and a dislike of restraint which makes children unwilling to settle down to any regular employment. So far as girls are concerned, there must be added to the above evils an unquestionable danger to morals in the narrower sense. The evidence presented to us on this point was unanimous and most emphatic. Again and again persons specially qualified to speak, assured us that, when a girl took up street trading, she almost invariably was taking a first step toward a life of immorality. The statement that the temptations are great, and the children practically defenseless, needs no amplification. An occupation entailing such perils is indisputably unfit for girls."[161] The need for _prohibition_ of street trading was realized by this committee, the change being urged in the following epoch-making statement: "After carefully considering the operation of the by-laws adopted since 1903, and comparing the present state of affairs with that existing before the passing of the act, we have come to the conclusion that the difficulties of the situation cannot be said to have been met, or any substantial contribution to a solution of the problem made, by the existing law and the machinery set up for its enforcement. Regulation, however well organized and complete, will not turn a wasteful and uneconomic use of the energies of children into a system which is beneficial to the community. Consequently we feel that we have no choice but to recommend the complete statutory prohibition of street trading either by boys or by girls up to a specific age. In the case of boys we feel that it would be wise to name an age which would render it likely that they would have had full opportunities of taking to regular work before they could legally trade in the streets. We think the most suitable age would be seventeen, which gives an interval of three or four years after the ordinary time of leaving an elementary school.... So far as girls are concerned, we feel that the arguments in favor of prohibiting trading increase rather than diminish in force as the age of the traders advances. The entire body of testimony laid before us has forced upon us the conclusion that street trading by girls is entirely indefensible, and that no system of regulation is sufficient to rid the employment of its risks and objections. On the other hand, we have not been able to discover any trace of hardship having resulted in any of those towns in which by-laws have prohibited trading by girls, or have restricted the ages during which trading is permitted. We think that the age of prohibition should be higher for girls than for boys, and, while we feel that it should, in any event, not be less than eighteen, we should be willing to see it fixed as high as twenty-one."[162] As to the administration of the law, the committee declared that this should be delivered into the hands of the education authorities who could charge the regular truant officers with the work of enforcement or employ special officers for the purpose. The placing of responsibility upon the parents of child offenders was indorsed, but the committee criticised administrators because of the small penalties imposed as fines, the amounts being easily covered by the earnings of the traders, and hence an increase of the maximum fine was recommended. A minority report was submitted by four members of this committee who declined to support the recommendation of the majority that street trading should be immediately and universally prohibited in the case of boys up to the age of seventeen. These members held that the cause of street trading should first be removed by organizing employment bureaus for children, by giving the children the benefit of vocational direction, and by promoting industrial education for boys both while attending the elementary schools and after. _Liverpool_ As to local efforts to regulate the street-trading evil, the first steps were taken in Liverpool. In this city the condition of child street traders was particularly bad; half of them were girls, and the stock in trade was usually newspapers and matches--the children were dirty, ragged and running the streets at all hours of the night, the apparent trade in newspapers and other articles being frequently used to cover up much worse things; in fact, many of the girls were practically prostitutes. Quite a number of these children were nothing more or less than beggars, and deliberately appeared in ragged clothing for the purpose of exciting sympathy. A local association undertook to supply them with clothing, but many refused this aid "because it would interfere with their trade." Commenting on similar practices among the street traders of Dublin, Sir Lambert H. Ormsby, M.D., said in 1904: "They sell other things besides ... matches principally. Of course the selling of matches is merely a means of evading being taken up by the police for begging. The matches are only humbug; they do not want to sell them ... they do it for begging purposes."[163] In 1897 the Liverpool Watch Committee appointed a subcommittee to consider the question of children trading in streets, and this subcommittee reported that: "The practice is attended, first, with injury to the health of the children; second, with interference with the education of such as are of school age; third, with danger to the moral welfare of the children inasmuch as the practice frequently leads to street gambling, begging, sleeping out and other undesirable practices, and in some cases to crime." They were of opinion--in which the inspector of reformatories concurred--that much of the money earned by the children went to indulge the vicious and intemperate propensities of parents and guardians. By the Liverpool Corporation Act, 1898, Parliament gave the city power to regulate street trading by children, and accordingly the following provisions were made by the city council: (1) no licenses to any child under eleven; (2) boys eleven to thirteen and girls eleven to fifteen inclusive, to be licensed if not mentally or physically deficient, with consent of parent or guardian; (3) licenses good one year; (4) badges also to be issued; (5) no charge for license or badge; (6) licenses may be revoked by Watch Committee for cause; (7) no licensed child to trade after 9 P.M., nor unless decently clothed, nor without badge, nor in streets during school hours unless exempted from school attendance, and no licensed child may alter or dispose of badge, or enter public houses to trade, or importune passengers. These regulations took effect May 31, 1899, and marked the formal beginning of the movement against street trading by children. In 1901 the Liverpool subcommittee reported that it was "of opinion that the application of the powers conferred by the Act has had the effect of greatly reducing the number of children trading in the streets, especially during school hours and late in the evenings, and of improving the condition, appearance, and behaviour of those children who still engage in street trading." This subcommittee recommended raising the boys' age limit for licenses from fourteen to sixteen years, and was inclined to advise the total prohibition of street trading by girls.[164] _London_ Under the powers conferred on local authorities by the Employment of Children Act 1903, the London County Council framed in February, 1905, a set of by-laws, the provisions of which seemed quite innocuous. Nevertheless a considerable outcry was raised by persons whom they would affect, and thereupon the Secretary of State withheld his confirmation and authorized Mr. Chester Jones to hold an inquiry at which complaints could be heard as well as arguments in favor of the by-laws. This inquiry was held in June and July of 1905, and schoolmasters, attendance officers, police inspectors, news agents and others testified. Mr. Jones held that it was his duty "to endeavour to discover where the line should be drawn, and that it was not open to argument either that child labour should entirely be prohibited or that it should be unregulated."[165] In his report Mr. Jones took up each by-law separately and discussed it, recommending that it be either confirmed or rejected in accordance with his findings. He also drafted a set of by-laws and submitted them with the recommendation that they be adopted instead of the ones originally passed by the London County Council. Referring to these, he says: "An important respect in which my suggested by-laws differ from the County Council by-laws is in differentiating between employment in connection with street stalls and other forms of street trading. It seemed to be the general opinion [of witnesses] that the former employment, being under the supervision of some adult person, probably the parent, is not so harmful in its effects on the morals of the child as the latter, and it must be remembered that the main objection to street trading was on the ground rather of its affecting the morality than the health and education of the children."[166] The regulations drafted by Mr. Jones were not even so drastic as those proposed by the London County Council, and in recommending milder restrictions Mr. Jones says: "A set of by-laws should not err upon the side of overstringency, nor should they be in advance of public opinion; the first, because taking a step more or less in the dark might cause hardships impossible to avoid, and the second, because any by-laws of this sort, being most difficult of enforcement, will certainly be evaded unless backed up by the weight of public opinion."[167] The County Council, however, did not follow Mr. Jones's recommendations in their entirety, but adopted a more stringent set of by-laws which were put in force in October, 1906. In December, 1909, the County Council again amended the by-laws, and an inquiry relative to these changes was held by Mr. Stanley Owen Buckmaster in October, 1910. Mr. Buckmaster recommended a number of changes of minor importance which were adopted by the Council, and accordingly the new by-laws were adopted and took effect on June 3, 1911. This set of by-laws will be found in the Appendix, page 264. The most significant feature which they present is the raising of the age limit for boys to fourteen years and for girls to sixteen years without exemption. The old by-laws prohibited street trading by children under sixteen years between the hours of 9 P.M. and 6 A.M., and this provision was retained in the new by-laws, applying, however, only to boys, inasmuch as girls under that age are prohibited from trading in the streets at any time. These London by-laws on street trading are identical with the provisions of the most advanced American child labor laws on factory employment, and consequently they blaze the way for the application of these provisions in the United States to street trading as well as to employment in factories, mills and mines. _Manchester_ Although the British departmental committee of 1910 was not favorably impressed by the results of regulation as a cure for the evils of street trading, nevertheless it gave due credit to the city of Manchester for what had been accomplished there under the license system. Referring to this city, the report says: "In Manchester such good results as can be arrived at by the method of regulation were, perhaps, more apparent than anywhere else. In that city the entire evidence testified to the fact that the regulation of street trading is very highly organized; a special staff of selected, plain-clothes officers, giving their whole time to the work, knowing the traders personally, visiting the homes, advising the parents, clothing the children and apparently exerting a most beneficial influence. All that can be done through the instrument of regulation seems to be done there, the various authorities working together to that end."[168] An English writer says that regulation in Manchester "has greatly improved the conditions of the newspaper boys and others who earned their living by hawking goods in the streets. It is something to the good at any rate that a boy should be compelled to be decently dressed and so avoid the obvious temptation of appealing to the sympathies of the public by the picturesque raggedness of his clothing. At the same time one cannot help feeling that halfway legislation of this sort is only playing with the problem and that the only really satisfactory law would be one which prohibited street trading by children altogether."[169] _New South Wales_ The British Colony of New South Wales has adopted some mild restrictions under the Employment of Children Act, 1903, and the president of the State Children Relief Board for New South Wales states in his report for the year ending April 5, 1910, that "the Board is not favorably impressed with the principle of street trading by juveniles, realizing that even under the most careful administration children, when once licensed to engage in street trading, are exposed to great temptations." _Canada_ The province of Manitoba, Canada, forbids children under twelve years from trading in the streets at any time; licenses are issued to boys twelve to sixteen years old, who are not allowed to sell after 9 P.M. Some boys have been denied licenses because of their poor school record, others because of lack of proof as to age, others on account of not being physically qualified, and still others because there was no need for their earning money in this way. The licensed boys are kept under supervision; their attendance at school is watched; and if they persist in selling after 9 P.M. or disobey instructions, their licenses are revoked.[170] _Germany_ The Industrial Code of Germany prohibits children under fourteen years from offering goods for sale on public roads, streets or places, and peddling them from house to house. In localities in which such sale or peddling is customary, the local police authorities may permit it for certain periods of time not exceeding a total of four weeks in any calendar year. "Under this provision there was considerable street trading, especially in the larger cities. In Berlin, for instance, during the weeks preceding Christmas, numerous children under fourteen were thus employed. Protests against the practice were made by the Consumers' League and similar organizations, and resulted in the passage of a police regulation, for its restriction; and in 1909 a further step was taken by providing that no exceptions of this sort be thereafter permitted, so that now the employment of children under fourteen years of age in street trading is absolutely forbidden in Berlin."[171] The Industrial Code forbids children under twelve years to deliver goods or perform other errands except for their own parents. Children over twelve years may so engage for not more than three hours daily between 8 A.M. and 8 P.M., but not before morning school nor during the noon recess nor until one hour after school has closed in the afternoon; on Sundays and holidays such children may do this work only for two hours between 8 A.M. and 1 P.M., but not during the principal church service or the half hour preceding it. Such children must first obtain the _Arbeitskarte_ from the local police authority, which is issued upon request of the child's legal representative. Employers must notify the police authority in advance of the employment of such children. _France_ The labor of children in France is regulated by the law of November 2, 1892, as amended by the act of March 30, 1900. This law applies to factories, workshops, mines and quarries, exempting home industries, agricultural work and purely mercantile establishments.[172] The work of children in city streets is not even mentioned. New legislation has recently been proposed to regulate the employment of minors under 18 years of age and of women in the sale of merchandise from stands and tables on sidewalks outside of bazaars and large stores. According to its provisions, the work of such persons would be prohibited for more than two hours at a time and for more than six hours a day, while seats and heating facilities would have to be supplied the same as for employees inside the large establishments.[173] In Paris, newspapers are sold almost exclusively at kiosks on street corners, presided over by middle-aged women. CONCLUSION Many years ago Macaulay declared, "Intense labor, beginning too early in life, continued too long every day, stunting the growth of the mind, leaving no time for healthful exercise, no time for intellectual culture, must impair all those high qualities that have made our country great. Your overworked boys will become a feeble and ignoble race of men, the parents of a more feeble progeny; nor will it be long before the deterioration of the laborer will injuriously affect those very interests to which his physical and moral interests have been sacrificed. If ever we are forced to yield the foremost place among commercial nations, we shall yield it to some people preëminently vigorous in body and in mind." To-day these words seem to us a veritable prophecy--but we must not forget that they apply to America no less than to England. If our civilization is to continue and to improve with time, every child must have a proper opportunity to grow under conditions as nearly normal as possible; we must secure to the children their birthright--the right to play and to dream, the right to healthful sleep, the right to education and training, the right to grow into manhood and into womanhood with cleanness and strength both of body and of mind, the right of a chance to become useful citizens of the future. Eternal vigilance is the price of protection for childhood, and while "Women and children first" is a rigid law of the sea, "Children first" is the fundamental law both of Nature and civilization. FOOTNOTES: [1] Wisconsin Statutes, Section 1728 p., Laws of 1911. [2] Report of Interdepartmental Committee on the Employment of Children during School Age in Ireland, 1902, Minutes of Evidence, Q. 71. Cf. also Great Britain--Employment of Children Act, 1903, Section 13. [3] _The Newsboy_, Pittsburgh, April, 1909. [4] Great Britain--Report of Interdepartmental Committee on Employment of School Children, 1901, pp. 18, 19. [5] Scott Nearing, "The Newsboy at Night in Philadelphia," _Charities and The Commons_, February 2, 1906. [6] "The Child in the City," Handbook of Chicago Child Welfare Exhibit, 1911, p. 25. [7] "A Plea to Take the Small Boy and Girl from the City Streets," a folder issued by Chicago Board of Education and a committee representing local organizations, 1911. [8] Pamphlet 114 of National Child Labor Committee, p. 8. [9] Elizabeth C. Watson, "New York Newsboys and their Work," 1911. [10] _The Survey_, April 22, 1911, p. 138. [11] "Studies of Boy Life in Our Cities (England)," edited by E. J. Urwick, 1904, p. 296. [12] Report of Interdepartmental Committee on the Employment of Children during School Age in Ireland, 1902, p. vii. [13] Twelfth Census of United States, Vol. II, Population, Part II, p. 506. [14] Twelfth Census of United States, Special Reports, Occupations, 1904, pp. xxiv, cxxxiii. [15] _Idem_, pp. xxiii, cxxxiii. [16] Twelfth Census of United States, 1900, Vol. VII, p. cxxv. [17] Instructions to Enumerators, Thirteenth Census of the United States, pp. 32-34. [18] These tables were copied from charts displayed at the Chicago Child Welfare Exhibit, May, 1911. [19] "The Child in the City," Handbook of the Child Welfare Exhibit, Chicago, May 11-25, 1911, p. 25. [20] _Idem_, p. 25. [21] "The Social Evil in Chicago," by the Vice Commission of Chicago, 1911, pp. 241-242. [22] "A Plea to take the Small Boy and the Girl from the City Streets," by the Chicago Board of Education and a committee representing local organizations, 1911. [23] Elizabeth C. Watson, "New York Newsboys and their Work," 1911. [24] Abstract of Immigration Commission's Report on the Greek Padrone System in the United States, 1911, p. 9. [25] A more detailed presentation of this matter will be found in Chapter IV. [26] Immigration Commission's Report, p. 9. [27] Elementary Schools (Children working for Wages), House of Commons Papers, 1899, No. 205, p. 17. [28] _Idem_, p. 21. [29] _Idem_, p. 17. [30] Elementary Schools (Children working for Wages), House of Commons Papers, 1899, No. 205, p. 25. [31] Great Britain, Report of Interdepartmental Committee on Employment of School Children, 1901, p. 8. [32] _Idem_, p. 9. [33] _Idem_, p. 10. [34] Great Britain, Report of Interdepartmental Committee on Employment of School Children, 1901, p. 18. [35] _Idem_, p. 16. [36] Robert H. Sherard, "Child Slaves of Britain," 1905, p. 178. [37] Report of President of State Children Relief Board of New South Wales for year ending April 5, 1910, pp. 39-40. [38] Vierteljahrshefte des Kaiserlichen Statistischen Amts, 1900, Heft III, p. 97. See also Great Britain, Report of Interdepartmental Committee on Employment of School Children, 1901, App. 3, p. 294. [39] Bulletin 89 of United States Bureau of Labor, 1910, p. 84. [40] Bulletin 89 of United States Bureau of Labor, 1910, p. 56. [41] _Idem_, p. 63. [42] _Idem_, p. 65. [43] _The Hustler_, organ of Boston Newsboys' Club, February, 1911. [44] Report of the Newsboys' Home Association of Washington, D.C., 1863-1864, p. 7. [45] "The Education, Earnings and Social Condition of Boys Engaged in Street Trading in Manchester," by E. T. Campagnac and C. E. B. Russell; Great Britain, Report of Interdepartmental Committee on Employment of School Children, 1901, App. 45, pp. 456-457. [46] Handbook of New York Child Welfare Exhibit, 1911, p. 33. [47] "Child Labor on the Street," _The Newsboy_, leaflet of New York Child Labor Committee, 1907. [48] Report of Newsboys' and Children's Aid Society of Washington, D.C., 1889, p. 10. [49] "The Education, Earnings and Social Condition of Boys Engaged in Street Trading in Manchester," by Campagnac and Russell, 1901. [50] Child Labor at the National Capital, an address delivered in Washington, December, 1905, Pamphlet 23 of National Child Labor Committee. [51] Mary E. McDowell, Pamphlet 114 of National Child Labor Committee, pp. 6-7. [52] "The Social Evil in Chicago" by the Vice Commission of Chicago, 1911, p. 242. [53] Miss Todd, Pamphlet 114 of National Child Labor Committee, p. 12. [54] National Child Labor Committee, Pamphlet 114, p. 12. [55] Great Britain, Minutes of Evidence Taken Before Departmental Committee on Employment of Children Act, 1903, 1910, Q. 9724. [56] Bulletin 89 of United States Bureau of Labor, 1910, p. 46. [57] _Charities and The Commons_, February 2, 1906. [58] "Some Ethical Gains through Legislation," 1905, p. 12. [59] "Child Labor on the Street," _The Newsboy_, leaflet of New York Child Labor Committee, 1907. [60] "Children in American Street Trades," 1905, Pamphlet 14 of National Child Labor Committee. [61] _Charities and The Commons_, February 2, 1906. [62] Great Britain, Report of Interdepartmental Committee on Employment of School Children, 1901, p. 23. [63] Great Britain, Minutes of Evidence Taken before Departmental Committee on Employment of Children Act, 1903, 1910, Q. 1837 _et seq._ [64] Great Britain, Report of Departmental Committee on Employment of Children Act, 1903, submitted in 1910, p. 13. [65] George A. Hall, "The Newsboy," in Proceedings of Seventh Annual Meeting of National Child Labor Committee, 1911, p. 102. [66] School Document, No. 14, 1910, Boston Public Schools, pp. 42-44. [67] Report of New York-New Jersey Committee of the North American Civic League for Immigrants, December, 1909-March, 1911, pp. 33-34. [68] Abstract of Immigration Commission's Report on the Greek Padrone System in United States, 1911, p. 10. [69] Abstract of Report on Greek Padrone System in United States, by Immigration Commission, 1911, p. 22. [70] _Survey_, Vol. XXVI, p. 591. [71] School Document, No. 10, 1910, Boston Public Schools, p. 133. [72] "The Social Evil in Chicago," by the Vice Commission of Chicago, 1911, p. 242. [73] "Child Labor at the National Capital," an address delivered in Washington, December, 1905, Pamphlet 23 of National Child Labor Committee. [74] "The Social Evil in Chicago," by the Vice Commission of Chicago, 1911, p. 244. [75] Bulletin 69 of Bureau of Census, "Child Labor in the United States," 1907, p. 170. [76] Robert H. Sherard, "Child Slaves of Britain," p. 179. [77] Great Britain, Report of Interdepartmental Committee on Physical Deterioration, 1904, Vol. II, Q. 10,440. [78] J. G. Cloete, "The Boy and his Work" in "Studies of Boy Life in Our Cities," edited by E. J. Urwick (England), 1904, p. 121. [79] E. J. Urwick, "Studies of Boy Life in Our Cities" (England), 1904, p. 305. [80] "Some Ethical Gains through Legislation," 1905, p. 15. [81] Victor S. Clark, "Women and Child Wage Earners in Great Britain," Bulletin 80, United States Bureau of Labor, p. 28. [82] "Newsboy Life--What Superintendents of Reformatories and Others think about its Effects," Leaflet No. 32 of National Child Labor Committee, 1910. [83] "Buffalo Child Labor Problems," folder issued by New York Child Labor Committee, 1911, p. 3. [84] Elizabeth C. Watson, "New York Newsboys and their Work," 1911. [85] Scott Nearing, "The Newsboy at Night in Philadelphia," _Charities and The Commons_, February 2, 1906. [86] John Spargo, "Bitter Cry of the Children," 1906, p. 184. [87] James L. Fieser, "Causes of Truancy," Indiana Bulletin of Charities and Correction, June, 1910, p. 227. [88] James A. Britton, M.D., "Child Labor and the Juvenile Court," Pamphlet 95 of National Child Labor Committee, 1909. [89] Great Britain, Report of Departmental Committee on Employment of Children Act, 1903, submitted in 1910, p. 12. [90] Mrs. Louise B. More, "Wage-Earners' Budgets," 1907, p. 148. [91] J. G. Cloete, "The Boy and his Work" in "Studies of Boy Life in Our Cities (England)," edited by E. J. Urwick, 1904, p. 131. [92] _Idem_, p. 135. [93] E. J. Urwick, "Studies of Boy Life in Our Cities," 1904, p. 307. [94] _Idem_, p. 309. [95] Robert H. Sherard, "Child Slaves of Britain," 1905, pp. 179-180. [96] Constance Smith, Report on the Employment of Children in the United Kingdom, 1909, p. 11. [97] Margaret Alden, M.D., "Child Life and Labour," 1908, p. 118. [98] Great Britain, Report of Interdepartmental Committee on Physical Deterioration, 1904, Vol. I, paragraph 68. [99] _Idem_, Vol. II, Q. 2453. [100] _Idem_, Vol. II, Q. 2479. [101] Great Britain, Minutes of Evidence taken before Departmental Committee on Employment of Children Act, 1903, 1910, Q. 9503 _et seq._ [102] Great Britain, Report of Interdepartmental Committee on Employment of School Children, 1901, App. 39, p. 418. [103] Copied from Charts in Child Labor Exhibit at National Conference of Charities and Correction, St. Louis, May, 1910. [104] Great Britain, Report of Interdepartmental Committee on Employment of School Children, 1901, p. 11. [105] Great Britain, Report of Departmental Committee on Employment of Children Act, 1903, 1910, p. 12. [106] Elizabeth C. Watson, "New York Newsboys and their Work," 1911. [107] "Child Labor on the Street," leaflet of New York Child Labor Committee, _The Newsboy_, 1907. [108] "The Education, Earnings and Social Condition of Boys Engaged in Street Trading in Manchester," by Campagnac and Russell, 1901. [109] Report of Interdepartmental Committee on Employment of Children during School Age in Ireland, 1902, Q. 3862. [110] Report of the Board of Education of the Toledo City School District, 1910-1911, p. 141. [111] "Juvenile Delinquency and its Relation to Employment," Vol. VIII of Report on Condition of Woman and Child Wage Earners in the United States, Senate Document No. 645, 61st Congress, 2d Session. [112] "Juvenile Delinquency and its Relation to Employment," Vol. VIII of Report on Condition of Woman and Child Wage Earners in the United States, Senate Document No. 645, 61st Congress, 2d Session, p. 39. [113] _Idem_, p. 42. [114] "Juvenile Delinquency and its Relation to Employment," Vol. VIII of Report on Condition of Woman and Child Wage Earners in the United States, Senate Document No. 645, 61st Congress, 2d Session, p. 44. [115] _Idem_, p. 59. [116] "Juvenile Delinquency and its Relation to Employment," Vol. VIII of Report on Condition of Woman and Child Wage Earners in the United States, Senate Document No. 645, 61st Congress, 2d Session, p. 62. [117] _Idem_, p. 69. [118] _Idem_, p. 71. [119] "Juvenile Delinquency and its Relation to Employment," Vol. VIII of Report on Condition of Woman and Child Wage Earners in the United States, Senate Document No. 645, 61st Congress, 2d Session, p. 73. [120] _Idem_, p. 84. [121] "Juvenile Delinquency and its Relation to Employment," Vol. VIII of Report on Condition of Woman and Child Wage Earners in the United States, Senate Document No. 645, 61st Congress, 2d Session, p. 86. [122] _Idem_, p. 87. [123] _Idem_, p. 90. [124] "Juvenile Delinquency and its Relation to Employment," Vol. VIII of Report on Condition of Woman and Child Wage Earners in the United States, Senate Document No. 645, 61st Congress, 2d Session, p. 91. [125] _Idem_, p. 92. [126] "Juvenile Delinquency and its Relation to Employment," Vol. VIII of Report on Condition of Woman and Child Wage Earners in the United States, Senate Document No. 645, 61st Congress, 2d Session, p. 105. [127] Includes 17 in bowling alleys and pool rooms and 23 in theaters and other places of amusement. [128] Includes 2 in boarding houses, 26 home workers (precise character of work not specified), 10 in restaurants, and 12 in private families. [129] Includes 26 bootblacks and 320 newsboys. [130] "Juvenile Delinquency and its Relation to Employment," Vol. VIII of Report on Condition of Woman and Child Wage Earners in the United States, Senate Document No. 645, 61st Congress, 2d Session, p. 106. [131] _Idem_, pp. 106-107. [132] "Juvenile Delinquency and its Relation to Employment," Vol. VIII of Report on Condition of Woman and Child Wage Earners in the United States, Senate Document No. 645, 61st Congress, 2d Session, p. 108. [133] _Idem_, pp. 116-117. [134] _Idem_, p. 134. [135] Davis Wasgatt Clark, "American Child and Moloch of To-day," 1907, p. 40. [136] George B. Mangold, "Child Problems," 1910, p. 232. [137] James A. Britton, M.D., "Child Labor and the Juvenile Court," Pamphlet 95 of National Child Labor Committee, 1909. [138] Vol. VIII of Report on Condition of Woman and Child Wage Earners in the United States, 1911, p. 22. [139] E. J. Urwick, "Studies of Boy Life in Our Cities (England)," 1904, p. 304. [140] Bulletin 81, United States Bureau of Labor, p. 416. [141] Great Britain, Report of Departmental Committee on the Employment of Children Act, 1903, submitted in 1910, p. 9. [142] "A Plea to take the Small Boy and the Girl from the City Streets," by the Chicago Board of Education and a committee representing local organizations, 1911. [143] Report on Bylaws made by London County Council under Employment of Children Act, 1903, by Chester Jones, 1906, pp. 24-27. [144] Great Britain, Report of Interdepartmental Committee on Employment of School Children, 1901, App. 33, p. 403. [145] Report of Interdepartmental Committee on the Employment of Children during School Age in Ireland, 1902, p. vii. [146] "Street Trades," in Proceedings of Seventh Annual Meeting of National Child Labor Committee, 1911, p. 108. [147] School Document No. 15, 1909, Boston Public Schools, pp. 34-35. [148] Committee on Work and Wages, Handbook of New York Child Welfare Exhibit, 1911, p. 33. [149] School Document No. 15, 1909, Boston Public Schools, p. 36. [150] Elementary Schools (Children Working for Wages), House of Commons Paper, 1899, No. 205, p. 14. [151] Elementary Schools (Children Working for Wages), House of Commons Paper, 1899, No. 205, pp. 26-27. [152] _Idem_, p. 16. [153] Great Britain, Report of Interdepartmental Committee on Employment of School Children, 1901, pp. 20-21. [154] _Idem_, p. 24. [155] _Idem_, p. 9. [156] _Idem_, Q. 1123. [157] Great Britain, Report of Interdepartmental Committee on Employment of School Children, 1901, Q. 7203. [158] Great Britain, Report of Interdepartmental Committee on the Employment of Children during School Age in Ireland, 1902, p. 6. [159] Great Britain, Return of Local Authorities which have made By-laws under the Employment of Children Act, 1903, 1907. [160] Great Britain, Report of Departmental Committee on Employment of Children Act, 1903, submitted in 1910, p. 7. [161] Great Britain, Report of Departmental Committee on Employment of Children Act, 1903, submitted in 1910, p. 11. [162] Great Britain, Report of Departmental Committee on Employment of Children Act, 1903, submitted in 1910, p. 13. [163] Great Britain, Report of Interdepartmental Committee on Physical Deterioration, 1904, Vol. II, Q. 12757-12759. [164] Great Britain, Report of Interdepartmental Committee on Employment of School Children, 1901, App. 37, pp. 415-416. [165] Report on the By-laws made by the London County Council under the Employment of Children Act, 1903, by Chester Jones, 1906, p. 5. [166] _Idem_, p. 16. [167] _Idem_, p. 15. [168] Great Britain, Report of Departmental Committee on Employment of Children Act, 1903, submitted in 1910, p. 9. [169] J. G. Cloete, "The Boy and his Work" in "Studies of Boy Life in our Cities," 1904, p. 131. [170] "Citizens in the Making," Annual Report of Superintendent of Neglected Children for Province of Manitoba, Canada, 1910, pp. 31-34. [171] C. W. A. Veditz, "Child Labor Legislation in Europe," in Bulletin 89 of United States Bureau of Labor, 1910, p. 242. [172] Henry Ferrette, "Manuel de législation industrielle," 1909, p. 149. [173] Daily Consular and Trade Reports, 14th Year, No. 106, p. 566. BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS ADAMS, MYRON E., _Children in American Street Trades_, in Proceedings of First Annual Meeting of National Child Labor Committee, 1905, pp. 25-46. ---- _Municipal Regulations of Street Trades_, in Proceedings of National Conference of Charities and Correction, 1904, Vol. XXXI, pp. 294-300. ALDEN, MARGARET, _Child Life and Labour_. BRITTON, JAMES A., _Child Labor and the Juvenile Court_, in Proceedings of Fifth Annual Meeting of National Child Labor Committee, 1909, p. 111. BROWN, EMMA E., _Child Toilers of Boston Streets_. _Buffalo Child Labor Problems_, folder issued by New York Child Labor Committee, 1911. CAMPAGNAC AND RUSSELL, _Education, Earnings and Social Condition of Boys Engaged in Street Trading in Manchester_, Board of Education Special Reports on Educational Subjects, 1902, Vol. VIII, pp. 653-670. _Child Labor in Germany Outside of Factories_, in Report of United States Commissioner of Education, 1900-1901, Vol. I, pp. 54-80. _Child Labor on the Street--The Newsboy_, leaflet of New York Child Labor Committee, 1907. _Child Labor in the United States_, Bulletin 69 of Bureau of Census, 1907. CLARK, DAVIS W., _American Child and Moloch of To-day_, 1907, p. 40. CLARK, VICTOR S., _Woman and Child Wage Earners in Great Britain_, in Bulletin 80 of United States Bureau of Labor, January, 1909. CLOETE, J. G., _The Boy and his Work_, in _Studies of Boy Life in Our Cities_, edited by E. J. Urwick, 1904, pp. 129-133. CLOPPER, EDWARD N., _Children on the Streets of Cincinnati_, in Proceedings of Fourth Annual Meeting of National Child Labor Committee, 1908, pp. 113-123. ---- _Child Labor in Street Trades_, in Proceedings of Sixth Annual Meeting of National Child Labor Committee, 1910, pp. 137-144. CONANT, RICHARD K., _Street Trades and Reformatories_, in Proceedings of Seventh Annual Meeting of National Child Labor Committee, 1911, pp. 105-107. _Employment of Children Act_, 1903, Great Britain, in J. N. Larned's _History for Ready Reference_, 1910, Vol. VII, p. 87. DAVIS, PHILIP, _Child Life on the Street_, National Conference of Charities and Correction, 1909. FIESER, JAMES L., _Causes of Truancy_, in Indiana Bulletin of Charities and Correction, June, 1910, p. 227. FLEISHER, ALEXANDER, _The Newsboys of Milwaukee_, in Fifteenth Biennial Report, Part III, of Wisconsin Bureau of Labor, 1911-1912, pp. 61-96. GIBBS, S. P., _Problem of Boy Work_. GREAT BRITAIN, Elementary Schools (Children Working for Wages), Parliament Sessional Papers 1899, Vol. 75. ---- Report of Interdepartmental Committee on Employment of School Children, 1901. ---- Report of Interdepartmental Committee on Employment of Children during School Age in Ireland, 1902. ---- Report of Interdepartmental Committee on Physical Deterioration, 1904, Vol. II, Q. 2453-2479, 10,440, 12,757. ---- Report of Interdepartmental Committee on Partial Exemption from School Attendance. ---- Report of Departmental Committee on Employment of Children Act, 1903, 1910. ---- Report on By-laws made by London County Council under Employment of Children Act, 1903, by Chester Jones, 1906. ---- Report of Education Committee of London County Council, March 21, 1911, pp. 690-696. Report of President of State Children Relief Board of New South Wales for year ending April 5, 1910, pp. 39-40. Citizens in the Making, Annual Report of Superintendent of Neglected Children for Province of Manitoba, Canada, 1910, pp. 31-34. _Greek Padrone System in United States_, Abstract of Immigration Commission's Report on, 1911. GUNCKEL, J. E., _Boyville_, 1905. HALL, GEORGE A., _The Newsboy_, in Proceedings of Seventh Annual Meeting of National Child Labor Committee, 1911, pp. 100-102. HENDERSON, CHARLES R., _Street Trading of Children_, in his _Preventive Agencies and Methods_, 1910, Vol. III, pp. 97-100. _Juvenile Delinquency and its Relation to Employment_, Vol. VIII of Report on Condition of Woman and Child Wage Earners in United States, Senate Document 645, 61st Congress, 2d Session. KELLEY, FLORENCE, _Children in Street Trades_ and _Telegraph and Messenger Boys_, in her _Some Ethical Gains through Legislation_, 1905, pp. 11-26. ---- _Street Trades_, in Proceedings of Seventh Annual Meeting of National Child Labor Committee, 1911, pp. 108-110. MANGOLD, GEORGE B., _Child Problems_, 1910, p. 232. NEILL, CHARLES P., _Child Labor at the National Capital_, in Proceedings of Second Annual Meeting of National Child Labor Committee, 1905, pp. 17-20. _New York Child Welfare Exhibit, Handbook of_, 1911, p. 33. _Newsboys' Home Association of Washington, D.C., Report of_, 1863-1864. _Newsboy Law_, in Handbook of Child Labor Legislation, 1908, National Consumers' League, p. 63. _Newsboys' and Children's Aid Society of Washington, D.C._, 1889. _Newsboy Life--What Superintendents of Reformatories and Others Think about its Effects_, Leaflet 32 of National Child Labor Committee, 1910. North American Civic League for Immigrants, Report of New York-New Jersey Committee, December, 1909-March, 1911, pp. 33-34. PEACOCK, ROBERT, _Employment of Children with Special Reference to Street Trading_, in Proceedings of Third International Congress for Welfare and Protection of Children, 1902, pp. 191-202. _Plea to Take the Small Boy and Girl from the City Streets_, a folder issued by Chicago Board of Education and a committee representing local organizations, 1911. _Problems of Street Trading_, in Proceedings of Fifth Annual Meeting of National Child Labor Committee, 1909, pp. 230-240. _Saving the Barren Years_, in The Child in the City, Handbook of Chicago Child Welfare Exhibit, 1911, pp. 25-27. School Document No. 14, 1910, Boston Public Schools, pp. 41-44. School Document No. 10, 1910, Boston Public Schools, pp. 132-138. School Document No. 15, 1909, Boston Public Schools, pp. 34-37. SCOTT, LEROY, _The Voice of the Street_. SHERARD, ROBERT H., _Child Slaves of Britain_. SMITH, CONSTANCE, _Report on Employment of Children in United Kingdom_. _The Social Evil in Chicago_, Report of Chicago Vice Commission, 1911, pp. 241-245. SPARGO, JOHN, _Street Trades_ in his _Bitter Cry of the Children_, 1906, pp. 184-188, 258-259. STELZLE, CHARLES, _The Boy of the Street_, New York, 1904, pp. 7, 41. URWICK, E. J., editor of _Studies of Boy Life in Our Cities_ (England), 1904. VEDITZ, C. W. A., _Child Labor Legislation in Europe_, Bulletin 89 of United States Bureau of Labor, July, 1910. WATSON, ELIZABETH C., _New York Newsboys and their Work_, 1911. WHITIN, E. S., _Child Labor: Street Trades_, in his _Factory Legislation in Maine_, 1908, pp. 137-138. WILLIAMS, M., _The Street Boy: Who He is and What to do with Him_, National Conference of Charities and Correction, 1903. WILLIAMSON, E. E., _The Street Arab_, in Proceedings of National Conference of Charities and Correction, 1898, Vol. XXV, pp. 358-361. MAGAZINE ARTICLES Child Labor, by Florence Kelley, _Twentieth Century_, 1911, Vol. V, pp. 30-34. Child Laborers of the Street--The New York Bills, _Charities and Commons_, 1903, Vol. X, pp. 205-206. Child Labor and the Night Messenger Service, by Owen R. Lovejoy, _The Survey_, Vol. XXIV, pp. 311-317. Child Street Trades in London, _Charities and Commons_, 1903, Vol. X, pp. 149-150. Children as Wage Earners--Street Sellers, _Fortnightly Review_, 1903, Vol. LXXIX, pp. 921-922. Committee on Wage-earning Children--Third Annual Report, _Economic Review_, 1904, Vol. XIV, pp. 208-211. Convalescent Men for Newsboys, _The Survey_, 1910, Vol. XXV, p. 809. Enforcing the Newsboy Law in New York and Newark, by J. K. Paulding, _Charities and Commons_, 1905, Vol. XIV, pp. 836-837. Ethics of the Newsboy, by A. Saxby, _Western_, Vol. CLVIII, pp. 575-578. The Greek Bootblack, by Leola Benedict Terhune, _The Survey_, 1911, Vol. XXVI, pp. 852-854. The Greek Boy Who Shines Shoes, _The Survey_, 1911, Vol. XXVI, p. 591. Hartford Regulates Child Street Trades, _The Survey_, 1910, Vol. XXV, p. 511. Industrial Democracy: A Newsboys' Labor Union and What It Thinks of a College Education, by R. W. Bruère, _Outlook_, 1906, Vol. LXXXIV, pp. 878-883. John E. Gunckel of Toledo: the Newsboys' Evangelist, by A. E. Winship, _World To-day_, 1908, Vol. XV, pp. 1169-1173. De Kid Wot Works at Night, by William Hard, _Everybody's_, 1908, Vol. XVIII, pp. 25-37. Milwaukee Regulates Its Street Trades--Other Wisconsin Child Labor Advances, _Survey_, 1909, Vol. XXII, p. 589. New Jersey Children in Street Trades by E. B. Butler, _Charities and Commons_, 1907, Vol. XVII, pp. 1062-1064. New Rules for Street Trades in Boston, with a Comparison of Regulations in Liverpool, _Charities and Commons_, 1909, Vol. XXI, pp. 953-954. New York's Newsboy Lodging House, _Charities and Commons_, 1908, Vol. XXI, pp. 147-148. New York's Newsboys Licensed, _Charities and Commons_, 1903, Vol. XI, pp. 188-189. The Newsboy at Night in Philadelphia, by Scott Nearing, _Charities and Commons_, 1907, Vol. XVII, pp. 778-784. The Newsboy Breadwinner Story, _Charities and Commons_, 1903, Vol. XI, pp. 482, 568. Newsboy Wanderers are Tramps in the Making, by Ernest Poole, _Charities and Commons_, 1903, Vol. X, pp. 160-162. Newsboys Elect Their Own Judge, _Survey_, 1910, Vol. XXV, p. 312. Night Messenger Service, by Owen R. Lovejoy, _Survey_, Vol. XXV, p. 504. The Press and its Newsboys, by John Ihlder, _World To-day_, 1907, Vol. XIII, pp. 737-739. Sale of Goods on Sidewalks (in France), Daily Consular and Trade Reports, 14th Year, No. 106, p. 566. School Children as Wage Earners, by E. F. Hogg, _Nineteenth Century_, 1897, Vol. XLII, pp. 235-244. School Children as Wage Earners--Street Trading in Liverpool, by J. E. Gorst, _Nineteenth Century_, 1899, Vol. XLVI, p. 16. Street Children, by Benjamin Waugh, _Contemporary Review_, 1888, Vol. LIII, pp. 825-835. Street Labor and Juvenile Delinquency, by Josephine C. Goldmark, _Political Science Quarterly_, 1904, Vol. XIX, pp. 417-438. Street Trades and Delinquency, _Survey_, 1911, Vol. XXVI, p. 285. The Street-trading Children of Liverpool, by Thomas Burke, _Contemporary Review_, 1900, Vol. LXXVIII, pp. 720-726. Street Trading by Children (Bradford, England), Daily Consular and Trade Reports, 14th Year, No. 89, p. 246. Two O'clock Sunday Morning, by Scott Nearing, _The Independent_, 1912, Vol. LXXII, No. 3297, pp. 288-289. A Western Newspaper and its Newsboys, by W. B. Forbush, _Charities and Commons_, 1907, Vol. XIX, pp. 798-802. Waifs of the Street, by Ernest Poole, _McClure's_, Vol. XXI, pp. 40-48. What Boston Has Done in Regulating the Street Trades for Children, by Pauline Goldmark, _Charities and Commons_, 1903, Vol. X, pp. 159-160. What of the Newsboy of the Second Cities? Investigations carried on in Buffalo, _Charities and Commons_, 1903, Vol. X, pp. 368-371. APPENDICES APPENDIX A LAWS The law of Wisconsin relative to street trading, as amended in 1911, is given below in its entirety, because it is the most advanced law of its kind in the United States. _Wisconsin_ SECTION 1728 p. The term "street trade," as used in this act, shall mean any business or occupation in which any street, alley, court, square or other public place is used for the sale, display or offering for sale of any articles, goods or merchandise. No boy under the age of twelve years, and no girl under the age of eighteen years, shall in any city of the first class distribute, sell or expose or offer for sale newspapers, magazines or periodicals in any street or public place. SECTION 1728 q. No boy under fourteen years of age, shall, in any city of the first class, work at any time, or be employed or permitted to work at any time, as a bootblack or in any other street trade, or shall sell or offer any goods or merchandise for sale or distribute hand bills or circulars or any other articles, except newspapers, magazines or periodicals as hereinafter provided. SECTION 1728 r. No girl under eighteen years of age shall, in any city of the first class, work at any time, or be employed or permitted to work at any time, as a bootblack or at any other street trades or in the sale or distribution of hand bills or circulars or any other articles upon the street or from house to house. SECTION 1728 s. No boy under sixteen years of age shall, in any city of the first class, distribute, sell or expose or offer for sale any newspapers, magazines or periodicals in any street or public place or work as a bootblack, or in any other street or public trade or sell or offer for sale or distribute any hand bills or other articles, unless he complies with all the legal requirements concerning school attendance, and unless a permit and badge, as hereinafter provided, shall have been issued to him by the state factory inspector. No such permit and badge shall be issued until the officer issuing the same shall have received an application in writing therefor, signed by the parent or guardian or other person having the custody of the child, desiring such permit and badge, and until such officer shall have received, examined and placed on file the written statement of the principal or chief executive officer of the public, private or parochial school, which the said child is attending, stating that such child is an attendant at such school with the grade such child shall have attained, and provided that no such permit and badge shall be issued, unless such officer issuing it is satisfied that such child is mentally and physically able to do such work besides his regular school work as required by law. SECTION 1728 t. Before any such permit is issued, the state factory inspector shall demand and be furnished with proof of such child's age by the production of a verified baptismal certificate or a duly attested birth certificate, or, in case such certificates cannot be secured, by the record of age stated in the first school enrollment of such child. Whenever it appears that a permit was obtained by wrong or false statements as to any child's age, the officer who granted such permit shall forthwith revoke the same. After having received, examined and placed on file such papers, the officer shall issue to the child a permit and badge. The principal or chief executive officer of schools, in which children under fourteen years of age are pupils, shall keep a complete list of all children in their school to whom a permit and badge has been issued, as herein provided. SECTION 1728 u. Such permit shall state the place and date of birth of the child, the name and address of its parents, guardian, custodian or next friend, as the case may be, and describe the color of hair and eyes, the height and weight and any distinguishing facial marks of such child, and shall further state that the papers required by the preceding section have been duly examined and filed; and that the child named in such permit has appeared before the officer issuing the permit. The badge furnished by the officer issuing the permit shall bear on its face a number corresponding to the number of the permit, and the name of the child. Every such permit, and every such badge on its reverse side, shall be signed in the presence of the officer issuing the same by the child in whose name it is issued. Provided, that in case of carrier boys working on salary for newspaper publishers delivering papers, a card of identification shall be issued to such carriers by the factory inspector, which they shall carry on their person, and exhibit to any officer authorized under this act, who may accost them for a disclosure of their right to serve as such carriers. SECTION 1728 v. The badge provided for herein shall be such as the state factory inspector shall designate, and shall be worn conspicuously in sight at all times in such position as may be designated by the said factory inspector by such child while so working. No child to whom such permit and badge or identification card are issued shall transfer the same to any other person. SECTION 1728 w. No boy under fourteen years of age shall, in any city of the first class, sell, expose or offer for sale any newspapers, magazines or periodicals after the hour of six-thirty o'clock in the evening, between the first day of October and the first day of April, nor after seven-thirty o'clock in the evening between the first day of April and the first day of October, or before five o'clock in the morning; and no child under sixteen years of age shall distribute, sell, expose or offer for sale any newspapers, magazines or periodicals or shall work as a bootblack or in any street or public trades or distribute hand bills or shall be employed or permitted to work in the distribution or sale or exposing or offering for sale of any newspapers, magazines or periodicals or as a bootblack or in other street or public trades or in the distribution of hand bills during the hours when the public schools of the city where such child shall reside are in session. Provided, that any boy between the ages of fourteen and sixteen years, who is complying and shall continue to comply with all the legal requirements concerning school attendance, and who is mentally and physically able to do such delivery besides his regular school work, shall be authorized to deliver newspapers between the hours of four and six in the morning. SECTION 1728 x. The commissioner of labor or any factory inspector acting under his direction shall enforce the provisions of this law, and he is hereby vested with all powers requisite therefor. SECTION 1728 y. The permit of any child, who in any city of the first class distributes, sells or offers for sale any newspapers, magazines or periodicals in any street or public place or works as a bootblack or in any other street trade, or sells or offers for sale or distributes any hand bills or other articles in violation of the provisions of this act, or who becomes delinquent or fails to comply with all the legal requirements concerning school attendances shall forthwith be revoked for a period of six months and his badge taken from said child. The refusal of any child to surrender such permit, and the distribution, sale or offering for sale of newspapers, magazines or periodicals or any goods or merchandise, or the working by such child as a bootblack or in any other street or public trade, or in distributing hand bills or other articles, after notice, by any officer authorized to grant permits under this law of the revocation of such permit and a demand for the return of the badge, shall be deemed a violation of this act. The permit of said child may also be revoked by the officer who issued such permit, and the badge taken from such child, upon the complaint of any police officer or other attendance officer or probation officer of a juvenile court, and such child shall surrender his permit and badge upon the demand of any police officer, truancy or other attendance officer or probation officer of a juvenile court or other officer charged with the duty of enforcing this act. In case of a second violation of this act by any child, he shall be brought before the juvenile court, if there shall be any juvenile court in the city where such child resides, or, if not, before any court or magistrate having jurisdiction of offenses committed by minors and be dealt with according to law. SECTION 1728 z. Any parent or other person who employs a minor under the age of sixteen years in peddling without a license or who, having the care or custody of such minor, suffers or permits the child to engage in such employment, or to violate sections 1728 p to 1728 za, inclusive, shall be punished by a fine not to exceed one hundred dollars nor less than twenty-five dollars, or by commitment to the county jail for not more than sixty days or less than ten days. SECTION 1728 za. Providing that no badge shall be issued for a boy selling papers between the ages of twelve and sixteen years by the state factory inspector, except upon certificate of the principal of either public, parochial or other private school attended by said boy, stating and setting forth that said boy is a regular attendant upon said school. No boy under the age of sixteen years shall be permitted by any newspaper publisher or printer or persons having for sale newspapers or periodicals of any character, to loiter or remain around any salesroom, assembly room, circulation room or office for the sale of newspapers, between the hours of nine in the forenoon and three in the afternoon, on days when school is in session. Any newspaper publisher, printer, circulation agent or seller of newspapers shall upon conviction for permitting newsboys to loiter or hang around any assembly room, circulation room, salesroom or office where papers are distributed or sold, shall be punished by a fine not to exceed one hundred dollars nor less than twenty-five dollars, or by commitment to the county jail for not more than sixty days or less than ten days. _London, England_ BY-LAWS ADOPTED BY THE LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL AND PUT IN FORCE ON JUNE 3, 1911 By-laws 1-9 concern the employment of children generally. 10. No girl under the age of 16 years shall be employed in or carry on street trading. 11. No boy under the age of 14 years shall be employed in or carry on street trading. 12. No boy under the age of 16 years shall be employed in or carry on street trading before 6 in the morning or after 9 in the evening. 13. No boy under the age of 16 years shall at any time be employed in or carry on street trading unless (1) He is exempt from school attendance, and (2) He first procures a badge from the London County Council, which he shall wear whilst engaged in street trading on the upper part of the right arm in such a manner as to be conspicuous. The badge shall be deemed to be a license to trade, and may be withheld or withdrawn for such period as the London County Council think fit in any of the following cases-- (_a_) If the boy has, after the issue of the badge to him, been convicted of any offense. (_b_) If it is proved to the satisfaction of the London County Council that the boy has used his badge for the purpose of begging or receiving alms, or for any immoral purpose, or for the purpose of imposition, or for any other improper purpose. (_c_) If the boy fails to notify the London County Council within one week of any change in his place of residence. (_d_) If the boy commits a breach of any of the conditions under which such badge is issued; such conditions to be stated on such badge or delivered to the boy in writing. 14. A boy to whom a badge has been issued by the London County Council shall in no way alter, lend, sell, pawn, transfer, or otherwise dispose of, or wilfully deface, or injure such badge, which shall remain the property of the London County Council, and he shall, on receiving notice in writing from the London County Council (which may be served by post) that the badge has been withdrawn, deliver up the same forthwith to the London County Council. 15. A boy under the age of 16 years, whilst engaged in street trading, shall not enter any premises used for public entertainment or licensed for the sale of intoxicating liquor for consumption on the premises for the purpose of trading. 16. A boy under the age of 16 years, whilst engaged in street trading, shall not annoy any person by importuning. 17. Nothing in these by-laws contained shall restrict the employment of children in the occupations specified in section 3 (_a_) of the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act, 1904, further than such employment is already restricted by statute. APPENDIX B TWO TYPES OF NEWSBOY BADGES. [Illustration: BADGE USED IN CINCINNATI.] [Illustration: BADGE USED IN BOSTON.] APPENDIX C CARDS FOR INVESTIGATIONS The cards used in the inquiries into the newsboy situations of Philadelphia and Milwaukee are reproduced here, in the hope that they will be of use in furnishing suggestions to any organization or individual who contemplates making such an investigation elsewhere. It will be observed that these cards are practically confined to questions affecting newsboys only, and would have to be considerably amplified, if intended for use in a general study of street work by children. Cards used by Boston School Committee for Issuance of Licenses ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ APPLICATION FOR A LICENSE To the School Committee of the City of Boston: I hereby apply for a license for my son as NEWSBOY--PEDLER--BOOTBLACK. SIGNATURE OF PARENT I promise to see that he lives up to the license rules. ________________ SIGNATURE OF BOY I promise to live up to the license rules. ________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- SCHOOL RECORD OF BOY TO BE FILLED OUT BY THE TEACHER AND PRINCIPAL ---------------------+-------------------+------------------------------- PLACE OF BIRTH | DATE OF BIRTH | RESIDENCE | | -------+-------------+-------------------+------------------------------- GRADE | SCHOLARSHIP | PHYSICAL DEFECT? | SIGNATURE OF TEACHER | | | -------+-------------+-------------------+------------------------------- I hereby certify that this Boy's attendance is______ His conduct is_____ SIGNATURE OF PRINCIPAL SCHOOL ____________________________________ _____________________________ GRANTED WITH THE APPROVAL OF THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE: __________________________ SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (CARD RETURNED TO SCHOOL FOR FILE) LICENSED MINORS _________ ________________________________________ No.________________________ Birth date Teacher Grade School Badge given Expires and must be returned ========================================================================= READ AND COPY LICENSE RULES OF THE BOSTON SCHOOL COMMITTEE _________ No boy can get a license unless he is eleven years of age and able to understand and COPY the following: A LICENSED NEWSBOY MUST MUST NOT 1. Must ATTEND school regularly. | 6. Must not sell before 6 A.M. 2. Must be "GOOD" in conduct. | 7. Must not sell after 8 P.M. 3. Must have no UNLICENSED | (9 P.M. in baseball season.) boy help him. | 8. Must not sell in SCHOOL HOURS. 4. Must keep the badge TO | 9. Must not sell on CARS. HIMSELF. | 10. Must not sell without wearing 5. Must RETURN his badge to the | the badge IN PLAIN SIGHT Superintendent of Schools | ALL THE TIME. when ordered to do so. | Any boy who breaks any of the above rules is liable to have his license revoked or go to court and pay a maximum fine of TEN dollars. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Form of Application for License used in Hartford, Conn. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~City of Hartford~ TO THE SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS:-- I hereby make application for a Street-Sales Permit for ______________________________________________________________________ Born in ______________________________________________________________ Age ______________ Sex _______________ Complexion ____________________ Eyes _____________ Hair ______________ Figure ________________________ Living at_________________________________________ Street ____________ If such license is granted I agree that it shall be for this child and for no other. ________________________________________ Parent, Guardian, Next Friend Hartford, ____________________________ =School Information= ______________________________________________________________________ Living at _______________________________________ _Street_____________ is pupil in this School, is regular in attendance, and is a suitable child to have a Street-Sales Permit. ________________________________ Principal. __________________________________ Teacher. __________________________________ School. The age, sex, complexion, eyes, hair, and figure, should be as described above. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Form used in Obtaining Information before the Issuing of a Badge in Province of Manitoba, Canada. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ LICENSED NEWSBOY No. __________________ Date _________________________________ Child's name _____________________________________ Age _______________ Father's name ____________________________ Address ___________________ Mother's name ________________________________________________________ Father's occupation __________________________________________________ School and Grade _____________________________________________________ Principal's name _____________________________________________________ Church __________________ Clergyman __________________________________ Address ______________________________________________________________ Is child of apparently normal development? ___________________________ What proof has been given that he is over twelve years of age? _______ ______________________________________________________________________ Why do parents want him to sell papers? ______________________________ Can child read? ______________________________________________________ Can child write? _____________________________________________________ Has badge been granted? _____________ No. of badge ___________________ If badge has not been granted, state why _____________________________ _____________________________________________ _Superintendent Neglected Children, Province of Manitoba._ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sample of Card used in Investigation of Street Trades in Philadelphia ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Name_______________________________Address_______________________________ Age_______________sells__________________________at______________________ From________to________every day. Works from________to________on Saturday. How long in street trades_____________Income________________per__________ Parents living_____lives at home_______contributes_______per_____to home. If not living at home where does boy reside? Lodging house___ Furnished room___ Some relative___$__per___paid for board. Does boy gamble__drink__smoke___ Habit acquired prior to engaging in street trades________________________ Does vendor save part earnings___________________________________________ Where and with whom does boy spend non-working hours_____________________ At what hour does newsboy reach home_____Has boy a route (exclusive)_____ General health of boy____________________________________________________ Schooling________________________________________________________________ Is selling boy's own choice______________________________________________ How many nights so far this summer has boy stayed out all night__where___ Investigator________________________________Date_________________________ =Philadelphia Investigation Card= ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sample of Card used in Investigation of Newsboys in Milwaukee ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ NAME ADDRESS CITY +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | I. FAMILY | +======================+=================+=============+==================+ |Name of {Guardian} | Nationality: | Religion: | Occupation: | |person he {Parent } | | | | |lives with{ } | | | | +--------------------+-+------+--------+-+-------+-----+------------------+ |Number in Family: |Mother |Father | Total |Number contributing | | | | |Children | to family support | +--------------------+--------+--------+---------+------------------------+ |Age of Boy, yr. mo. |Number of years |Papers handled Daily Sunday *| | | selling papers | Weekly | +--------------------+-----------------+----------------------------------+ |Sells papers as Employer Employee of Individual *| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Sells at (street) | +---------------------------------------------------------+---------------+ |Sells: Morning Afternoon Evening After 9 P.M. *|Permit Number *| | |Has none | +------------------+--------------------------+-----------+---------------+ |Does he come |Where else does he eat? | How often (elsewhere) | |home for supper? | | per week? | +------------------+--------------------------+---------------------------+ |Arrives home |P.M. Saturday nights |Leaves to {deliver} A.M.*| |P.M. week nights | | {sell } | +------------------+---------------+----------+-+-------------------------+ |Does he stay out How often |Shoot |Go into {Saloons } | |all night? per week? |"craps"? | {Tenderloin} | +-----------------------+-----------------------+-------------------------+ |Does he like |Family require |Why is he working? | |the work? |his working? | | +=======================+=======================+=========================+ | II. SCHOOL | +==============================+==========================================+ |School attended: | Location: | +-------------------------+----+----------+-------------------------------+ |Informant: | Grade: | Years in school: | +-------------------------+---------------+-------------------------------+ |Boy's standing in Good Fair Poor *| Conduct: Good Fair Poor *| |school work: Poor | | +------------------+----------------------+-------------------------------+ |Is Boy drowsy? |Is school work injured by selling papers? Yes No *| +------------------+--------------+--------------------+------------------+ |Attendance: Regular Irregular *|Number of days |Absences excused | | |absent last month: | | +---------------------------------+--------------------+------------------+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Reverse Side of Milwaukee Newsboy Investigation Card ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ +--------------------------------------------++---------------------------+ | III. INCOME (AMOUNT RECEIVED BY || | | FAMILY CASHIER) ||IV. TO BE OBTAINED FROM BOY| +----------------------------------+---------+| | |SOURCE OCCUPATION PER NO. WEEKS| TOTAL || | | WEEK PER YEAR |PER YEAR || | +----------------------------------+------+--++---------------------------+ |Newsboy | | ||What does boy $ | | | | ||earn per week? | +----------------------------------+------+--++---------------------------+ |Other Children | | ||How much given $ | | | | ||to family? | +----------------------------------+------+--++---------------------------+ |Father | | ||Why is he selling papers? | +----------------------------------+------+--++---------------------------+ |Mother | | || | +----------------------------------+------+--++---------------------------+ |Rents | | || | +----------------------------------+------+--++---------------------------+ |Lodgers | | || | |(outside of family) | | || | +----------------------------------+------+--++---------------------------+ |Other | | || | |Sources | | || | +----------------------------------+------+--++---------------------------+ |Total | | || | +==================================+======+==++===========================+ |Remarks--Housing: || INSTRUCTIONS | | || | | || It is necessary to get | | ||answers to all questions, | | ||as there are a | +--------------------------------------------++comparatively small number | | ||of cases being | | ||investigated. | | || Divisions I and III are to| | ||be obtained from the | | ||family. | +--------------------------------------------++ Division II from school | |Cleanliness: ||principal or teacher. | | || Division IV from the boy | | ||himself, away from his | | ||family, if possible. | | || Only boys under 14 are to | +--------------------------------------------++considered. | |Other: || If parent is dead, cross | | ||out line two, over. | | || * Use check ([X]) to mark | | ||what answer is. | | || If there are several | | ||answers, check each. | +--------------------------------------------++---------------------------+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ INDEX Addams, Jane, on Illinois child labor law, 15. Age limit (_see_ Laws and Ordinances), 194-196. Austria, investigation of 1907, 49-51. Begging, 38, 69, 96, 220. Berlin regulations, 240. Bootblacks, 83, 93. Ages, 84. Delinquency, 165. Diseases, 87, 88. Earnings, 84, 89, 95. Environment, 86, 87. Home conditions, 85. Hours, 84, 85, 94, 95. Padrone System, report by Immigration Commission, 86-92. Report by North American Civic League for Immigrants, 83, 84. Boston, license statistics, 33. Regulations of street work, 196. Boston Newsboys' Court, 79-81. Boston Newsboys' Republic, 212. Buffalo conditions, report on, 132, 133. Canada, 238. Chicago Child Welfare Exhibit, 14, 29. Chicago statistics of local studies, 28, 29. Chicago Vice Commission's report, 30, 67, 96, 118. Child Welfare Exhibit, 14. Chicago, 29. New York, 60. Cincinnati, license statistics, 35, 71. Market children, 97. Newsboy conditions, 54. Regulations of street work, 196. Delinquency, relation to street work, report of Dr. Charles P. Neill, 159. Chicago juvenile court records, 178. Connection between occupation and offense, 171. Records of Indiana Boys' School, 179-187. Delivery Service, 68, 161-174. Detroit, regulations of street work, 193. Edinburgh, conditions in, 44, 125, 224. Effects of street work, classified, 128. In Buffalo, 132, 133. In physical deterioration, 142-145. Opinions of superintendents of reformatories, 131, 132. Employment distinguished from independent work, 2, 192. Enforcement of regulations, 132, 208, 211. Errand running, 202. Delinquency, 161-174. France, regulations, 241. Germany, inquiry of 1898, 45-48. Regulations, 239. Girls as newspaper sellers, 31, 65, 200. Great Britain, Departmental Committee of 1910, 76, 138, 147, 197, 223, 237. Employment of Children Act, 1903, 221. Interdepartmental Committee of 1901, 43, 73, 145, 203, 217. Interdepartmental Committee of 1902 on Ireland, 150, 294, 220. Interdepartmental Committee of 1904 on Physical Deterioration, 125, 142. Parliamentary return of 1899, 39-42, 215. Hartford, regulations of street work, 196. Housing problem's relation to street trading, 20. Illinois, effort to regulate street trading, 14, 198. Immigration Commission, report on Padrone System, 36, 86-92. Ireland, report of Interdepartmental Committee of 1902, 150, 204, 220. Kelley, Florence, on street trading, 52, 70, 127, 207. Laws, table of state, 194. Licenses for street work required, 197, 209. License statistics, of Boston, 33. Of Cincinnati, 35, 71. Of New York, 16, 34. Liverpool, conditions, 230. Regulations, 232. London County Council bylaws, 233-236, 264. Lovejoy, Owen R., on messenger service, 123. Manchester regulations, 236. Market children, 21, 96. Ages, 97. Earnings, 96. Home conditions, 99, 100. Hours, 99. Nationalities, 97, 98. Orphanage, 100. Retardation, 98, 99. Merchandise, distinction between newspapers and, 189. Messenger boys, 101. Ages, 106-117. Character of work, 101-104. Chicago Vice Commission's report, 118-121. Delinquency, 104, 165, 169. Diseases, 111, 112, 113. Earnings, 106, 112, 113, 114. Environment, 102, 103. Hours, 108, 113, 115, 119. Investigation in Ohio Valley, 106-117. Lack of prospects, 104, 126. Poverty as excuse for work, 122. Use of men instead of boys, 105, 123-125. Nationality of street workers, 33, 97. Nearing, Scott, conditions in Philadelphia, 69, 135. Neill, Charles P., on newsboys' work, 64. On messenger service, 117. Report on Juvenile Delinquency and its Relation to Employment, 159. Newark, regulations of street work, 196. New York, report of newsboy investigation, 16, 34, 148. Child Welfare Exhibit, 60. Regulations of street work, 195. Newsboys, ages, 54-60. Associations, 66. Character of work, 56-58. Classified, 52. Delinquency, 165. Diseases, 136. Earnings compared with factory wages, 58. Environment, 60, 135. Home conditions, 70-72. Hours, 65-70. Irregularity of meals, 61. Orphanage, 71, 168. Retardation, 147-156. Substitutes, 75-79. Tricks of the trade, 63-64. Newsboys' Court of Boston, 79-81. Newsboys' Republic of Boston, 212. New South Wales, license statistics, 45. Regulations, 45, 238. Newspapers, as merchandise, 189. Attitude toward regulation, 28, 199. Night work, of messengers, 101, 169. Of newsboys, 65-70. Ordinances, table of city, 196. Padrone System, report, of Immigration Commission, 36, 86-92. North American Civic League for Immigrants, 83, 84. Peddlers, findings of Chicago Vice Commission, 96. Cincinnati statistics, 97. Delinquency, 165. Immigration Commission's report, 36. Philadelphia conditions, 69. Playgrounds, 22. Poverty as an excuse for street work, 70-73, 136-138. Prohibition, of night work, 208. Of street work by children, 224, 227. Regulation, by municipality or state, 205. Degree of, 193, 206. In future, 207. Unsatisfactory, 228. Retardation in school of street workers, 98, 147-156. Rochester, method of enforcement, 211. St. Louis statistics, 146, 151. School, as social center, 21. Retardation of street workers, 98, 147-156. Scotland, conditions, 44, 225. Spargo, John, on effects of street work, 135. Statistics, of U.S. Census, 24, 25. Austria, 49-51. Boston, 33. Chicago, 28, 29. Cincinnati, 35, 71. Germany, 45-48. Great Britain, 40-44, 143-145. New York, 16, 34, 148. Street as a social agent, 17. Street employments, distinction between, 5. Street occupations, of minor importance, 38. Classified, 4. Contrasted with regular work, 73, 139. Street trading defined, 3. Neglected in legislation, 7, 12, 192. Street trading problem related to other problems, 20. Toledo, retardation of street workers, 152-156. Vagrants, Chicago report on, 32. Vice Commission of Chicago, report, 30, 67, 96, 118. Wisconsin, law, 257. The following pages contain advertisements of a few of the Macmillan books on kindred subjects. NOTABLE WORKS BY MISS JANE ADDAMS A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil _Cloth, 12mo, $1.00 net; by mail, $1.10_ It is almost unnecessary to call attention to the importance of a new book by Jane Addams. As a servant of the public good Miss Addams, both through her work at Hull-House and through her writings, has made for herself a name all over the world. She does not view things from a standpoint of destructive criticism, but rather from that of constructive, her aim being always to better the conditions in the particular field which she is considering. In "A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil," she considers sanely and frankly questions which civilized society has always had confronting it and in all probability always will. Something of her attitude of mind and of her purpose in writing this book as well as a glimpse of the character of the volume may be seen from the following paragraph taken from her preface: "'A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil' was written, not from the point of view of the expert, but because of my own need for a counter-knowledge to a bewildering mass of information which came to me through the Juvenile Protective Association of Chicago. The reports which its twenty field officers daily brought to its main office adjoining Hull-House became to me a revelation of the dangers incident to city conditions and of the allurements which are designedly placed around many young girls in order to draw them into an evil life." * * * * * "Miss Addams's volume is painful reading, but we heartily wish that it might be read and pondered by every man and woman who to-day, in smug complacency, treat with indifference and contempt the great struggle for social purity."--_The Nation._ "As an educational weapon, incalculably valuable. A torch with which every thinking citizen should be armed for a crusade against the dark-covered evil at which it is aimed."--_The Continent._ The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets _12mo, cloth, $1.25 net; by mail, $1.35_ A protest against the practice of every large city of turning over to commercialism practically all the provisions for public recreation, leaving it possible for private greed to starve or demoralize the nature of youth. * * * * * "Few persons in this country are better qualified to speak with authority on any subject connected with the betterment of the poor than is Jane Addams."--_New York Herald._ "The book should be in the hands of every preacher and laborer for humanity. I wish that parents might make it a text-book."--Rev. MADISON C. PETER in _The New Orleans Daily News_. "It is brimming full of the mother sentiment of love and yearning, and also shows such sanity, such breadth and tolerance of mind, and such philosophic penetration into the inner meanings of outward phenomena as to make it a book which no one who cares seriously about its subject can afford to miss."--_New York Times._ Newer Ideals of Peace _12mo, cloth, leather back, $1.25 net; by mail, $1.35_ "A clean and consistent setting forth of the utility of labor as against the waste of war, and an exposition of the alteration of standards that must ensue when labor and the spirit of militarism are relegated to their right places in the minds of men.... Back of it lies illimitable sympathy, immeasurable pity, a spirit as free as that of St. Francis, a sense of social order and fitness that Marcus Aurelius might have found similar to his own."--_Chicago Tribune._ The editor of _Collier's_ writes: "To us it seems the most comprehensive talk yet given about how to help humanity in America to-day." "It is given to but few people to have the rare combination of power of insight and of interpretation possessed by Miss Addams. The present book shows the same fresh virile thought, and the happy expression which has characterized her work.... There is nothing of namby-pamby sentimentalism in Miss Addams's idea of the peace movement. The volume is most inspiring and deserves wide recognition."--_Annals of the American Academy._ "No brief summary can do justice to Miss Addams's grasp of the facts, her insight into their meaning, her incisive estimate of the strength and weakness alike of practical politicians and spasmodic reformers, her sensible suggestions as to woman's place in our municipal housekeeping, her buoyant yet practical optimism."--_Examiner._ Democracy and Social Ethics _Half leather, ix + 281 pages, 12mo, $1.25 net; by mail, $1.35_ "The result of actual experience in hand-to-hand contact with social problems.... No more truthful description, for example, of the 'boss' as he thrives to-day in our great cities has ever been written than is contained in Miss Addams's chapter on 'Political Reform.' ... 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RICHMOND, General Secretary of the Charity Organization Society of Baltimore "A small book full of inspiration, yet intensely practical."--CHARLES RICHMOND HENDERSON. _Cloth, 16mo, $1.00 net_ The Care of Destitute, Neglected, and Delinquent Children By HOMER FOLKS, Ex-Commissioner of Public Charities, New York City CONTENTS.--Conditions prevalent at the opening of the Nineteenth Century; Public Care of Destitute Children, 1801-1875; Private Charities for Destitute Children, 1801-1875; Removal of Children from Almshouse; The State School and Placing Out System; The County Children's Home System; The System of Public Support in Private Institutions; The Boarding Out and Placing Out System; Laws and Societies for the Rescue of Neglected Children; Private Charities for Destitute and Neglected Children, 1875-1900; Delinquent Children; Present Tendencies. _Cloth, 12mo, $1.00 net_ Constructive and Preventive Philanthropy By JOSEPH LEE, Vice-President of the Massachusetts Civic League CONTENTS.--Essence and Limitations of the Subject; Before 1860; Savings and Loans; The Home; Health and Building Laws, Model Tenements; The Setting of the Home; Vacation Schools; Playgrounds for Small Children; Baths and Gymnasiums; Playgrounds for Big Boys; Model Playgrounds; Outings; Boys' Clubs; Industrial Training; For Grown People; Conclusion. _Cloth, 12mo, $1.00 net_ * * * * * THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York Transcriber's Notes: The following changes have been made to the text: - In the table introduced as "Street traders and street employees may be classified by occupation as follows:--" Newspaper sellers was written as one word once. - In the table detailing the occupation of children in Germany, introduced as "Seven divisions of these children were made according to occupation ..." the word Austragedienste was wrongly hyphenated. - In the TABLE E. HOURS AND EARNINGS OF STREET WORKERS a header "OCCUPATIONS" was missing (compared to TABLE D before), and was added. - In Footnote [172] the title of Mr. Ferrette's work was misspelled as "Manuel de Lègislation Industrielle", and was changed to "Manuel de législation industrielle" in accordance with its original title. - In the Index entry "Great Britain ... Interdepartmental Committee of 1902 on Ireland ..." the reference to page 294 was changed to page 204. The following changes have been made to the formatting and layout: - Tables D to G in Chapter VII, and some tables in Annex C were changed in layout to enable readability in plain text. - In "Reverse Side of Milwaukee Newsboy Investigation Card": Original uses check mark, rendered here as [X]. 
21726	----	DEEP DOWN, A TALE OF THE CORNISH MINES, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE. CHAPTER ONE. BEGINS THE STORY WITH A PECULIAR MEETING. Necessity is the mother of invention. This is undoubtedly true, but it is equally true that invention is not the only member of necessity's large family. Change of scene and circumstance are also among her children. It was necessity that gave birth to the resolve to travel to the end of the earth--of English earth at all events--in search of fortune, which swelled the bosom of yonder tall, well-favoured youth, who, seated uncomfortably on the top of that clumsy public conveyance, drives up Market-Jew Street in the ancient town of Penzance. Yes, necessity--stern necessity, as she is sometimes called--drove that youth into Cornwall, and thus was the originating cause of that wonderful series of events which ultimately led to his attaining--but hold! Let us begin at the beginning. It was a beautiful morning in June, in that period of the world's history which is ambiguously styled "Once-upon-a-time," when the "Kittereen"--the clumsy vehicle above referred to--rumbled up to the Star Inn and stopped there. The tall, well-favoured youth leapt at once to the ground, and entered the inn with the air of a man who owned at least the half of the county, although his much-worn grey shooting costume and single unpretentious portmanteau did not indicate either unusual wealth or exalted station. In an off-hand hearty way, he announced to landlord, waiters, chambermaids, and hangers-on, to all, indeed, who might choose to listen, that the weather was glorious, that coaches of all kinds, especially Kittereens, were detestable machines of torture, and that he meant to perform the remainder of his journey on foot. He inquired the way to the town of St. Just, ordered his luggage to be forwarded by coach or cart, and, with nothing but a stout oaken cudgel to encumber him, set out on his walk of about seven miles, with the determination of compensating himself for previous hours of forced inaction and constraint by ignoring roads and crossing the country like an Irish fox-hunter. Acting on the presumptuous belief that he could find his way to any part of the world with the smallest amount of direction, he naturally missed the right road at the outset, and instead of taking the road to St. Just, pursued that which leads to the Land's End. The youth, as we have observed, was well-favoured. Tall, broad-shouldered, deep-chested, and athletic, with an active step, erect gait, and clear laughing eye, he was one whom a recruiting-sergeant in the Guards would have looked upon with a covetous sigh. Smooth fair cheeks and chin told that boyhood was scarce out of sight behind, and an undeniable _some thing_ on the upper lip declared that manhood was not far in advance. Like most people in what may be termed an uncertain stage of existence, our hero exhibited a variety of apparent contradictions. His great size and muscular strength and deep bass voice were those of a man, while the smooth skin, the soft curling hair, and the rollicking gladsome look were all indicative of the boy. His countenance, too, might have perplexed a fortune-teller. Sometimes it was grave almost to sternness, at other times it sparkled with delight, exhibiting now an expression that would have befitted a sage on whose decisions hung the fate of kingdoms, and anon displaying a dash of mischief worthy of the wildest boy in a village school. Some of the youth's varied, not to say extravagant, actions and expressions, were perhaps due to the exhilarating brilliancy of the morning, or to the appearance of those splendid castles which his mind was actively engaged in building in the air. The country through which he travelled was at first varied with trees and bushes clothed in rich foliage; but soon its aspect changed, and ere long he pursued a path which led over a wide extent of wild moorland covered with purple heath and gorse in golden-yellow bloom. The ground, too, became so rough that the youth was fain to confine himself to the highroad; but being of an explorative disposition, he quickly diverged into the lanes, which in that part of Cornwall were, and still are, sufficiently serpentine and intricate to mislead a more experienced traveller. It soon began to dawn upon the youth's mind that he was wandering in a wrong direction, and when he suddenly discovered a solitary cottage on the right hand, which he had previously observed on the left, he made up his mind to sacrifice his independence and condescend to ask for guidance. Lightly leaping a wall with this intent, he crossed two fields, and stooped as he looked in at the low doorway of the cottage, from the interior of which there issued the loud cries of a child either in great pain or passion. A sturdy little boy seated on a stool, and roaring like a young bull, while an elderly woman tried to comfort him, was the sight which met his gaze. "Can you show me the road to St. Just?" inquired our adventurer. "St. Just, sur?" said the woman, stepping out in front of the door, "why, you're on the way to St. Buryan, sure. Ef you do keep on the right of the hill over theere, you'll see the St. Just road." A yell of unparalleled ferocity issued at this moment from the cottage, and it was found that the noisy urchin within, overcome by curiosity, had risen to ascertain who the stranger outside could be, and had been arrested by a pang of agony. "Aw dear, aw dear, my poor booy," exclaimed the woman, endeavouring gently to press the boy down again on the stool, amid furious roaring. "What's wrong with him?" asked our traveller, entering the apartment. "He's tumbled off the wall, dear booy, an' semen to me he's scat un shoulder very bad." "Let me have a look at him," said the youth, sitting down on the edge of a bed which stood at one end of the room, and drawing the child between his knees. "Come, little man, don't shout so loud; I'll put it all right for you. Let me feel your shoulder." To judge from the immediate result, the young man seemed to put it all wrong instead of "all right," for his somewhat rough manipulation of the boy's shoulder produced such a torrent of screams that the pitying woman had much ado to restrain herself from rushing to the rescue. "Ah!" exclaimed the youth in grey, releasing his victim; "I thought so; he has broken his collar-bone, my good woman; not a serious matter, by any means, but it will worry him for some time to come. Have you got anything to make a bandage of?" "Sur?" said the woman. "Have you a bit of rag--an old shirt or apron?--anything will do." The woman promptly produced a cotton shirt, which the youth tore up into long strips. Making a pad of one of these, he placed it under the boy's arm-pit despite of sobs and resistance. This pad acted as a fulcrum on which the arm rested as a lever. Pressing the elbow close to the boy's side he thus forced the shoulder outwards, and, with his left hand, set the bone with its two broken ends together. To secure it in this position he bound the arm pretty firmly to the boy's body, so that he could not move a muscle of the left arm or shoulder. "There," said the youth, assisting his patient to put on his shirt, "that will keep all straight. You must not on any account remove the bandage for some weeks." "How long, sur?" exclaimed the woman in surprise. "For some weeks; but that will depend on how the little fellow gets on. He may go about and use his right arm as he pleases, but no more climbing on walls for some time to come. Do you hear, little man?" The urchin, whose pain was somewhat relieved, and who had moderated down to an occasional deep sob, said "Iss." "You're a doctor, sur, I think?" said the woman. "Yes, I am; and I'll come to see you again, so be careful to attend to my directions. Good-morning." "Good mornin', sur, an' thank 'ee!" exclaimed the grateful dame as the youth left the house, and, leaping the low enclosure in front of it, sped over the moor in the direction which had been pointed out to him. His resolution to ignore roads cost our traveller more trouble than he had anticipated, for the moor was very rugged, the brambles vexatious, and the spines of the gorse uncommonly sharp. Impediments of every kind were more numerous than he had been accustomed to meet with even on the heath-clad hills of Scotland, with which--although "the land of the mountain and the flood" was not that of his birth--he had from childhood been familiar. After a good deal of vigorous leaping and resolute scrambling, he reached one of those peculiar Cornish lanes which are so deeply sunk in the ground, and edged with such high solid walls, that the wayfarer cannot in many places see the nature of the country through which he is passing. The point at which he reached the lane was so overgrown with gorse and brambles that it was necessary to search for a passage through them. This not being readily found, he gave way to the impetuosity of his disposition, stepped back a few paces, cleared the obstacles with a light bound, and alighted on the edge of the bank, which gave way under his weight, and he descended into the lane in a shower of stones and dust, landing on his feet more by chance than by dexterity. A shout of indignation greeted the traveller, and, turning abruptly round, he beheld a stout old gentleman stamping with rage, covered from head to foot with dust, and sputtering out epithets of opprobrium on the hapless wight who had thus unintentionally bespattered him. "Ugh! hah! you young jackanapes--you blind dumbledory--ugh! What mean you by galloping over the country thus like a wild ass--eh?" A fit of coughing here interrupted the choleric old gentleman, in the midst of which our hero, with much humility of demeanour, many apologies, and protestations of innocence of intention to injure, picked up the old gentleman's hat, assisted him to brush his clothes with a bunch of ferns, and in various other ways sought to pacify him. The old man grumbled a good deal at first, but was finally so far mollified as to say less testily, while he put on his hat, "I warrant me, young man, you are come on some wild-goose chase to this out-o'-the-way region of the land in search of the picturesque--eh?--a dauber on canvas?" "No, sir," replied the youth, "I profess not to wield the pencil or brush, although I admit to having made feeble efforts as an amateur. The scalpel is more to my taste, and my object in coming here is to visit a relative. I am on my way to St. Just; but, having wandered somewhat out of my road, have been obliged to strike into bypaths, as you see." "As I _see_, young man!--yes, and as I _feel_," replied the old gentleman, with some remains of asperity. "I have already expressed regret for the mischance that has befallen you," said the youth in grey somewhat sternly, for his impulsive spirit fired a little at the continued ill-humour of the old gentleman. "Perhaps you will return good for evil by pointing out the way to St. Just. May I venture to ask this favour of you?" "You may venture, and you _have_ ventured; and it is my belief, young man, that you'll venture many a thing before this world has done with you; however, as you are a stranger in these parts, and have expressed due penitence for your misdeed, though I more than half doubt your sincerity, I can do no less than point out the road to St. Just, whither I will accompany you at least part of the way; and, young sir, as you have taken pretty free liberty with _me_ this morning, may I take the liberty of asking _you_ the name of your relative in St. Just? I am well acquainted with most of the inhabitants of that town." "Certainly," replied the youth. "The gentleman whom I am going to visit is my uncle. His name is Donnithorne." "What! Tom Donnithorne?" exclaimed the old gentleman, in a tone of surprise, as he darted a keen glance from under his bushy eyebrows at his companion. "Hah! then from that fact I gather that you are Oliver Trembath, the young doctor whom he has been expecting the last day or two. H'm--so old Tom Donnithorne is your uncle, is he?" The youth in grey did not relish the free and easy, not to say patronising, tone of his companion, and felt inclined to give a sharp answer, but he restrained his feelings and replied,--"He is, and you are correct in your supposition regarding myself. Do you happen to know my uncle personally?" "Know him personally!" cried the old gentleman with a sardonic laugh; "Oh yes, I know him intimately--intimately; some people say he's a very good fellow." "I am glad to hear that, for to say truth--" He paused abruptly. "Ha! I suppose you were going to say that you have heard a different account of him--eh?" "Well, I _was_ going to observe," replied Oliver, with a laugh, "that my uncle is rather a wild man for his years--addicted to smuggling, I am told, and somewhat given to the bottle; but it is well known that tattlers give false reports, and I am delighted to hear that the old boy is not such a bad fellow after all." "Humph!" ejaculated the other. "Then you have never seen him, I suppose?" "No, never; although I am a Cornishman I have seen little of my native county, having left it when a little boy--before my uncle came to live in this part of the country." "H'm--well, young man, I would advise you to beware of that same uncle of yours." "How!" exclaimed the youth in surprise; "did you not tell me just now that he is a very good fellow?" "No, sir, I did not. I told you that _some_ people say he is a very good fellow, but for myself I think him an uncommonly bad man, a man who has done me great injury in his day--" "It grieves me to hear you say so," interrupted Oliver, whose ire was again roused by the tone and manner of his companion. "A decidedly bad man," continued the old gentleman, not noticing the interruption, "a thorough rascal, a smuggler, and a drunkard, and--" "Hold, sir!" cried the youth sternly, as he stopped and faced the old gentleman, "remember that you speak of my relative. Had you been a younger man, sir--" Again the youth paused abruptly. "Go on, sir," said the old gentleman ironically, "you would have pommelled me to a jelly with your cudgel, I suppose; is that it?--acting somewhat in the spirit of your kinsman, that same smuggling and tippling old scoundrel, who--" "Enough, sir," interrupted the young man angrily; "we part company here." So saying, he vaulted over the wall that separated the road from the moor, and hurried away. "Take the first turn to the left, and keep straight on, else you'll lose yourself aga-a-a-in," roared the old gentleman, "and my compliments to the rascally old smugg-le-e-r-r!" "The old scoundrel!" muttered the youth as he hurried away. "The young puppy!" growled the old gentleman as he jogged along. "Given to smuggling and the bottle indeed--humph! the excitable jackanapes! But I've given him a turn in the wrong direction that will cool his blood somewhat, and give me leisure to cool mine too, before we meet again." Here the old gentleman's red countenance relaxed into a broad grin, and he chuckled a good deal, in the midst of a running commentary on the conduct and appearance of his late companion, from the disjointed sentences of which it might have been gathered that although his introduction to the young doctor had been unfortunate, and the succeeding intercourse stormy, his opinion of him was not altogether unfavourable. CHAPTER TWO. SHOWS WHAT ASTONISHING RESULTS MAY FOLLOW FROM TAKING THE WRONG ROAD. Before Oliver Trembath had advanced half a mile on his path, he had cooled sufficiently to experience some regret at having been so quick to take offence at one who, being evidently an eccentric character, should not, he thought, have been broken with so summarily. Regrets, however, had come too late, so he endeavoured to shake off the disagreeable feelings that depressed him, and, the more effectually to accomplish this, burst forth into a bravura song with so much emphasis as utterly to drown, and no doubt to confound, two larks, which, up to that time, had been pouring their melodious souls out of their little bodies in the bright blue sky above. Presently he came to a part of the moor where two roads diverged--one to the right and the other to the left. Recalling the shout of advice which the old gentleman had given him in parting, he took that which led to the left, and was gratified, on gaining an eminence a short distance in advance, to see in the far distance a square turret, which he concluded was that of the church of St. Just. Keeping this turret in view, the youth stepped out so vigorously that he soon reached the small town that clustered round the church, and going up to the first man he met, said, "This is the town of St. Just, I suppose, is it not?" "No, et is'n; thee's come the wrang road, sur," replied the rustic. "This es Sennen church-town. St. Just es up over th' hill theere." Oliver Trembath's first feeling was one of surprise; this was followed by annoyance, which quickly degenerated into anger as it flashed into his mind that the old gentleman might possibly have led him wrong on purpose. "How far is it to St. Just?" he inquired. "'Bout six miles, sur." "Then I suppose I am not far from the Land's End?" said Oliver after a pause. "No, not fur," replied the man. "Et do lie straight before 'ee." Thanking the man, Oliver started off at a smart pace, resolving, before proceeding to St. Just, to visit this extreme western point of England-- a visit to which he had often looked forward with pleasant anticipation. During the last hour of his walk the sun had been obscured by clouds, but, just as he approached the cliffs, the clouds separated, and a golden flood rushed over the broad Atlantic, which now lay spread out before him in all its wide majesty as far as the eye could see. "A good omen!" cried the youth with a shout, as he hurried towards the shore, intending to fling off his garments and bathe in the mighty ocean, which, from the place where he first beheld it, appeared to be smooth and still as a mill-pond. But Oliver was compelled to restrain his ardour, for on nearing the sea he found that he stood on the summit of high cliffs, beyond which the Land's End stretched in a succession of broken masses of granite, so chafed and shattered by the action of the sea, and so curiously split, as to resemble basaltic columns. To reach the outermost of those weather-worn sentinels of Old England, required some caution on the part of our traveller, even although well used to scaling the rocky heights of Scottish mountains, and when he did at last plant his foot on the veritable Land's End, he found that it was a precipice apparently sixty feet high, which descended perpendicularly into deep water. His meditated bathe was therefore an impossibility, for those glassy undulations, which appeared so harmless at a distance, gathered slow and gradual height as they approached the land, and at last, assuming the form of majestic waves, flung themselves with a grand roar on the stern cliffs which they have battered so long in vain, and round which--always repulsed but never conquered--they seethed in milky foam. With glistening eye, and heaving breast, and mantling colour, the young doctor stood long and motionless on this extreme point of land--absorbed in admiration of the glorious scene before him. Often had he beheld the sea in the firths and estuaries of the North, but never till now had he conceived the grandeur of the great Atlantic. It seemed to him as if the waves of those inland seas, when tossed by wild storms, were but rough miniature copies of the huge billows which arose before him, without apparent cause, and, advancing without rush or agitation, fell successively with solemn roar at his feet, awakening irresistibly within him deep and new thoughts of the Almighty Creator of earth and sea. For many minutes he stood entranced, his mind wandering in a species of calm delight over the grand scene, but incapable of fixing itself definitely on any special feature--now sweeping out to where the Scilly Isles could be seen resting on the liquid horizon, anon following the flight of circling seagulls, or busy counting the innumerable ships and boats that rested on the sea, but ever and anon recurring, as if under the influence of fascination, to that rich turmoil of foam which boiled, leaped, and churned, around, beneath, and above the mighty breakers. Awaking at last from his trance, Oliver tore himself from the spot, and hastened away to seek the nearest strip of sand where he might throw off his clothes and plunge into the boiling surf. He proceeded in a southerly direction, impatiently expecting at every step to discover some spot suitable for his purpose, but he had taken a long and rapid walk before he found a break in those wild cliffs which afforded him the opportunity of descending to the water's edge. Here, on a narrow strip of sand, he undressed and leaped into the waves. Well was it for Oliver that day that he had been trained in all manly exercises, that his "wind" was good, that his muscles were hard, his nerves well strung, and, above all, that in earliest youth he had learned to swim. Misjudging, in his ignorance, the tremendous power of the surf into which he sprang, and daring to recklessness in the conscious possession of unusual strength and courage, he did not pause to look or consider, but at once struck out to sea. He was soon beyond the influence of the breaking waves, and for some time sported in the full enjoyment of the briny Atlantic waters. Then turning towards the shore he swam in and was speedily tossing among the breakers. As he neared the sandy beach and felt the full power of the water on his partially exhausted frame, he experienced a slight feeling of anxiety, for the thunder of each wave as it fell and rushed up before him in seething foam, seemed to indicate a degree of force which he had not realised in his first vigorous plunge into the sea. A moment more and a wave caught him in its curling crest, and swept him onwards. For the first time in his life, Oliver Trembath's massive strength was of no avail to him. He felt like a helpless infant. In another instant the breaker fell and swept him with irresistible violence up the beach amid a turmoil of hissing foam. No sooner did he touch the ground than he sprang to his feet, and staggered forward a few paces but the returning rush of water swept sand and stones from beneath his feet, carried his legs from under him, and hurled him back into the hollow of the succeeding wave, which again rolled him on the sand. Although somewhat stunned, Oliver did not lose consciousness or self-possession. He now fully realised the extreme danger of his position, and the thought flashed through his brain that, at the farthest, his fate must be decided in two or three minutes. Acting on a brave spirit, this thought nerved him to desperate effort. The instant he could plant his feet firmly he bounded forwards, and then, before the backward rush of water had gathered strength, fell on his knees, and dug his fingers and toes deep into the sand. Had the grasp been on something firm he could easily have held on, but the treacherous sand crumbled out of his grasp, and a second time he was carried back into the sea. The next time he was cast on the beach he felt that his strength was failing; he staggered forward as soon as he touched bottom, with all the energy of one who avails himself of his last chance, but the angry water was too strong for him. Feeling that he was being overpowered, he cast his arms up in the air, and gave utterance to a loud cry. It was not like a cry of despair, but sounded more like what one might suppose would be the shout of a brave soldier when compelled to give way-- fighting--before the might of overwhelming force. At that moment a hand caught the young man's wrist, and held it for a few seconds in a powerful grasp. The wave retreated, a staggering effort followed, and the next moment Oliver stood panting on the beach grasping the rough hand of his deliverer. "Semen to me you was pretty nigh gone, sur," said the man, who had come thus opportunely to the rescue, as he wrung the sea-water from his garments. He was a man of middle height, but of extremely powerful frame, and was habited in the garb of a fisherman. "Truly I had been gone altogether but for your timely assistance; may God reward you for it!" said Oliver earnestly. "Well, I don't think you would be so ready to thank me if you did knaw I had half made up my mind to lev 'ee go." Oliver looked at the man in some surprise, for he spoke gruffly, almost angrily, and was evidently in earnest. "You are jesting," said he incredulously. "Jestin'; no I ain't, maister. Do 'ee see the boat out over?" he said, pointing to a small craft full of men which was being rowed swiftly round a point not more than half a mile distant; "the villains are after me. They might as well have tried to kitch a cunger by the tail as nab Jim Cuttance in one of his dens, if he hadn't bin forced by the softness of his 'art to pull a young fool out o' the say. You'll have to help me to fight, lad, as I've saved your life. Come, follow me to the cave." "But--my clothes--" said Oliver, glancing round him in search of his garments. "They're all safe up here; come along, sur, an' look sharp." At any other time, and in other circumstances, Oliver Trembath's fiery spirit would have resented the tone and manner of this man's address, but the feeling that he owed his life to him, and that in some way he appeared to be the innocent cause of bringing misfortune on him, induced him to restrain his feelings and obey without question the mandate of his rescuer. Jim Cuttance led the way to a cave in the rugged cliffs, the low entrance to which was concealed by a huge mass of granite. The moment they entered several voices burst forth in abuse of the fisherman for his folly in exposing himself; but the latter only replied with a sarcastic laugh, and advised his comrades to get ready for action, for he had been seen by the enemy, who would be down on them directly. At the same time he pointed to Oliver's clothes, which lay in a recess in the side of the cavern. The youth dressed himself rapidly, and, while thus engaged, observed that there were five men in the cavern, besides his guide, with whom they retired into the farthest recess of the place, and entered into animated and apparently angry, though low-toned, conversation. At length their leader, for such he evidently was, swung away from them, exclaiming, with a laugh, "Well, well, he's a good recruit, and if he should peach on we--us can--" He concluded the sentence with a significant grunt. "Now, sur," he said, advancing with his comrade towards Oliver, who was completing his toilet, "they'll be here in ten minutes, an' it is expected that you will lend we a hand. Here's a weapon for you." So saying, he handed a large pistol to Oliver, who received it with some hesitation. "I trust that your cause is a good one," he said. "You cannot expect me to fight for you, even though I am indebted to you for my life, without knowing against whom I fight, and why." At this a tall thick-set man suddenly cocked his pistol, and uttering a fierce oath swore that if the stranger would not fight, he'd shoot him through the head. "Silence, Joe Tonkin!" cried Jim Cuttance, in a tone that at once subdued the man. Oliver, whose eyes had flashed like those of a tiger, drew himself up, and said--"Look at me, lads; I have no desire to boast of what I can or will do, but I assure you it would be as easy to turn back the rising tide as to force me to fight against my will--except, indeed, with yourselves. As I have said, I owe my life to your leader, and apparently have been the innocent means of drawing his enemies upon him. Gratitude tells me to help him if I can, and help him will if the cause be not a bad one." "Well spoken, sur," said the leader, with an approving nod; "see to the weapons, Maggot, and I'll explain it all to the gentleman." So saying, he too Oliver aside, told him hurriedly that the men who ere expected to attack them were fishermen belonging to a neighbouring cove, whose mackerel nets had been accidentally cut by his boat some weeks ago, and who were bent on revenge, not believing that the thing had been done by accident. "But surely you don't mean to use fire-arms against them in such a quarrel?" said Oliver. A sort of humorous smile crossed the swarthy countenance of the man as he replied-- "They will use pistols against we." "Be that as it may," said Oliver; "I will never consent to risk taking the life of a countryman in such a cause." "But you can't fight without a weapon," said the man; "and sure, if 'ee don't shut them they'll shut you." "No matter, I'll take my chance," said Oliver; "my good cudgel would have served me well enough, but it seems to have been swept away by the sea. Here, however, is a weapon that will suit me admirably," he added, picking up a heavy piece of driftwood that lay at his feet. "Well, if you scat their heads with that, they won't want powder and lead," observed the other with a grin, as he rose and returned to the entrance of the cave, where he warned his comrades to keep as quiet as mice. The boat which had caused so much angry discussion among the men of the cave had by this time neared the beach, and one of the crew stood up in the bow to guide her into the narrow cove, which formed but a slight protection, even in calm weather, against the violence of that surf which never ceases to grind at the hard rocks of West Cornwall. At length they effected a landing, and the crew, consisting of nine men armed with pistols and cutlasses, hurried up to the cliffs and searched for the entrance to the cavern. While the events which have been related were taking place, the shades of evening had been gradually creeping over land and sea, and the light was at that time scarcely sufficient to permit of things being distinguished clearly beyond a few yards. The men in the cavern hid themselves in the dark recesses on each side of the entrance, ready for the approaching struggle. Oliver crouched beside his rescuer with the piece of driftwood by his side. Turning suddenly to his companion, he said, in an almost inaudible whisper-- "Friend, it did not occur to me before, but the men we are about to fight with will recognise me again if we should ever chance to meet; could I not manage to disguise myself in some way?" "If you get shut," replied his companion in the same low tone, "it won't matter much; but see here--shut your eyes." Without further remark the man took a handful of wet earth and smeared it over Oliver's face, then, clapping his own "sou'-wester" on his head, he said, with a soft chuckle, "There, your own mother wouldn't knaw 'ee!" Just then footsteps were heard approaching, and the shadow of a man was seen to rest for a moment on the gravel without. The mouth of the cave was so well hidden, however, that he failed to observe it, and passed on, followed by several of his comrades. Suddenly one of them stopped and said-- "Hold on, lads, it can't be far off, I'm sartin' sure; I seed 'em disappear hereabouts." "You're right," cried Jim Cuttance, with a fierce roar, as he rushed from the cavern and fired full at the man who had spoken. The others followed, and a volley of shots succeeded, while shouts of defiance and anger burst forth on all sides. Oliver sprang out at the same moment with the leader, and rushed on one of the boat's crew with such violence that his foot slipped on a piece of seaweed and precipitated him to the ground at the man's feet; the other, having sprung forward to meet him was unable to check himself, tripped over his shoulders, and fell on the top of him. The man named Maggot, having been in full career close behind Oliver, tumbled over both, followed by another man named John Cock. The others, observing them down, rushed with a shout to the rescue, just as Oliver, making a superhuman effort, flung the two men off his back and leaped to his feet. Maggot and the boatman also sprang up, and the latter turned and made for the boat at full speed, seeing that his comrades, overcome by the suddenness of the onset, were in retreat, fighting as they went. All of them succeeded in getting into the boat unharmed, and were in the act of pushing off, when Jim Cuttance, burning with indignation, leaped into the water, grasped the bow of the boat, and was about to plunge his cutlass into the back of the man nearest him, when he was seized by a strong hand from behind and held back. Next moment the boat was beyond his reach. Turning round fiercely, the man saw that it was Oliver Trembath who had interfered. He uttered a terrible oath, and sprang on him like a tiger; Oliver stood firm, parried with the piece of driftwood the savage cut which was made at his head, and with his clenched left hand hit his opponent such a blow on the chest as laid him flat on the sand. The man sprang up in an instant, but instead of renewing the attack, to Oliver's surprise he came forward and held out his hand, which the youth was not unwilling to grasp. "Thank 'ee, sur," he said, somewhat sternly, "you've done me a sarvice; you've prevented me committin' two murders, an' taught me a lesson I never knaw'd afore--that Jim Cuttance an't invulnerable. I don't mind the blow, sur--not I. It wor gov'n in feer fight, an' I was wrang." "I'm glad to find that you view the matter in that light," said Oliver with a smile, "and, truly, the blow was given in self-defence by one who will never forget that he owes you his life." A groan here turned the attention of the party to one of their number who had seated himself on a rock during the foregoing dialogue. "What! not hurt, are 'ee, Dan?" said his leader, going towards him. To this Dan replied with another groan, and placed his hand on his hip. His comrades crowded round him, and, finding that he was wounded and suffering great pain, raised him in their arms and bore him into the cavern, where they laid him on the ground, and, lighting a candle, proceeded to examine him. "You had better let me look at him, lads," said Oliver, pushing the men gently aside, "I am a surgeon." They gave place at once, and Oliver soon found that the man had received a pistol-ball in his thigh. Fortunately it had been turned aside in its course, and lay only a little way beneath the skin, so that it was easily extracted by means of a penknife. "Now, friends," said Oliver, after completing the dressing of the wound, "before I met with you I had missed my way while travelling to St. Just. Will one of you direct me to the right road, and I shall bid you good-night, as I think you have no further need of my services." The men looked at their leader, whom they evidently expected to be their spokesman. "Well, sur, you have rendered we some help this hevenin', both in the way o' pickin' out the ball an' helpin' to break skulls as well as preventin' worse, so we can do no less than show 'ee the road; but hark 'ee, sur," here the man became very impressive, "ef you do chance to come across any of us in your travels, you had better not knaw us, 'xcept in an or'nary way, d'ye understand? an' us will do the same by thee." "Of course I will act as you wish," said Oliver with a smile, "although I do not see why we should be ashamed of this affair, seeing that we were the party attacked. There is only one person to whom I would wish to explain the reason of my not appearing sooner, because he will probably know of the arrival in Penzance this morning of the conveyance that brought me to Cornwall." "And who may that be?" demanded Jim Cuttance. "My uncle, Thomas Donnithorne of St. Just," said Oliver. "Whew!" whistled the fisherman in surprise, while all the others burst into a hearty fit of laughter. "Why do you laugh?" asked Oliver. "Oh, never mind, sur, it's all right," said the man with a chuckle. "Iss, you may tell Thomas Donnithorne; there won't be no harm in tellin' he--oh, dear no!" Again the men laughed loud and long, and Oliver felt his powers of forbearance giving way, when Cuttance said to him: "An' you may tell all his friends too, for they're the right sort. Come now, Maggot here will show 'ee the way up to St. Just." So saying, the stout fisherman conducted the young surgeon to the mouth of the cavern, and shaking hands with him left him to the guidance of the man named Maggot, who led him through several lanes, until he reached the highroad between Sennen church-town and St. Just. Here he paused; told his companion to proceed straight on for about four miles or so, when he would reach the town, and bade him good-night. "And mind 'ee, don't go off the road, sur," shouted Maggot, a few seconds after the young man had left him, "if 'ee don't want to fall down a shaft and scat your skull." Oliver, not having any desire to scat his skull, whatever that might be, assured the man that he would keep to the road carefully. The moon shone clear in a cloudless sky, covering the wide moor and the broad Atlantic with a flood of silver light, and rendering the road quite distinct, so that our traveller experienced no further difficulty in pursuing his way. He hurried forward at a rapid pace, yet could not resist the temptation to pause frequently and gaze in admiration on the scene of desolate grandeur around him. On such occasions he found it difficult to believe that the stirring events of the last few hours were real. Indeed, if it had not been that there were certain uneasy portions of his frame--the result of his recent encounter on the beach-- which afforded constant and convincing evidence that he was awake, he would have been tempted to believe that the adventures of that day were nothing more than a vivid dream. CHAPTER THREE. INTRODUCES A FEW MORE CHARACTERS AND HOMELY INCIDENTS. It was late when our hero entered the little town of St. Just, and inquired for the residence of his uncle, Thomas Donnithorne. He was directed to one of the most respectable of the group of old houses that stood close to the venerable parish church from which St. Just derives its title of "Church-town." He tapped at the door, which was opened by an elderly female. "Does Mr Thomas Donnithorne live here?" asked Oliver. "Iss, sur, he do," answered the woman; "walk in, sur." She ushered him into a small parlour, in which was seated a pretty, little, dark-eyed, rosy-cheeked girl, still in, or only just out of, her teens. Oliver was so taken aback by the unexpected sight that he stood gazing for a moment or two in rather stupid silence. "Your name is Oliver Trembath, I presume," said the girl, rising and laying down the piece of needlework with which she was occupied. "It is," replied Oliver, in some surprise, as he blundered out an apology for his rudeness. "Pray sit down, sir," said the girl; "we have been expecting you for some time, and my uncle told me to act the part of hostess till his return." "Your uncle!" exclaimed Oliver, whose self-possession, not to say impudence, returned immediately; "if Thomas Donnithorne be indeed your uncle, then, fair maid, you and I must needs be cousins, the which, I confess, fills me with satisfaction and also with somewhat of surprise, for up to this hour I have been ignorant of my good fortune in being related to so--so--" "I made a mistake, sir," said the girl, interrupting a speech which was evidently verging towards impropriety, "in calling Mr Donnithorne uncle to you, who are not aware, it seems, that I am only an adopted niece." "Not aware of it! Of course not," said Oliver, throwing himself into a large armchair, while his fair companion busied herself in spreading the board for a substantial meal. "I could not be aware of much that has occurred in this distant part of the kingdom, seeing that my worthy uncle has vouchsafed to write me only two letters in the course of my life; once, many years ago, to condole with me--in about ten lines, address and signature included--on the death of my dear mother; and once again to tell me he had procured an appointment for me as assistant-surgeon in the mining district of St. Just. He must have been equally uncommunicative to my mother, for she never mentioned your existence. However, since I have now made the agreeable discovery, I trust that you will dispense with ceremony, and allow me at once to call you cousin. By the way, you have not yet told me your name." The maiden, who was charmingly unsophisticated, replied that her name was Rose Ellis, and that she had no objection whatever to being called cousin without delay. "Well, cousin Rose," said Oliver, "if it be not prying into secrets, I should like to know how long it is since my uncle adopted you." "About nineteen years ago," replied Rose. "Oh!" said Oliver remonstratively, "before you were born? impossible!" Rose laughed--a short, clear, little laugh which she nipped in the bud abruptly, and replied-- "Well, it was only a short time after I was born. I was wrecked on this coast"--the expressive face here became very grave--"and all on board our ship perished except myself." Oliver saw at once that he had touched on a tender subject, and hastened to change it by asking a number of questions about his uncle, from which he gradually diverged to the recent events in his own history, which he began to relate with much animation. His companion was greatly interested and amused. She laughed often and heartily in a melodious undertone, and Oliver liked her laugh, for it was peculiar, and had the effect of displaying a double row of pretty little teeth, and of almost entirely shutting up her eyes. She seemed to enjoy a laugh so much that he exerted all his powers to tickle her risible faculties, and dwelt long and graphically on his meeting with the irascible old gentleman in the lane. He was still busy with this part of the discourse when a heavy step was heard outside. "There's my uncle," exclaimed Rose, springing up. A moment after the door opened, and in walked the identical irascible old gentleman himself! If a petrified impersonation of astonishment had been a possibility, Oliver Trembath would, on that occasion, have presented the phenomenon. He sat, or rather lay, extended for at least half a minute with his eyes wide and his mouth partly open, bereft alike of the powers of speech and motion. "Heyday, young man!" exclaimed the old gentleman, planting his sturdy frame in the middle of the floor as if he meant then and there to demand and exact an ample apology, or to inflict condign and terrible chastisement, for past misdeeds; "you appear to be making yourself quite at home--eh?" "My _dear_ sir!" exclaimed Oliver, leaping up with a look of dismay; "how can I express my--my--but is it, _can_ it be possible that you are Mr Donnithorne--m-my--uncle?" Oliver's expression, and the look of amazement on the countenance of Rose Ellis, who could not account for such a strange reception of her newly-found cousin, proved almost too much for the old gentleman, whose eyes had already begun to twinkle. "Ay, young man, I am Tom Donnithorne, your uncle, the vile, old, smuggling, brandy-loving rascal, who met his respectful nephew on the road to St. Just"--at this point Rose suddenly pressed her hand over her mouth, darted to her own apartment in a distant corner of the house, and there, seated on her little bed, went into what is not inaptly styled fits of laughter--"and who now," continued the old gentleman, relaxing into a genial smile, and grasping his nephew's hand, "welcomes Oliver Trembath to his house, with all his heart and soul; there, who will say after that, that old Donnithorne does not know how to return good for evil?" "But, my dear uncle," began Oliver, "allow me to explain--" "Now, now, look at that--kept me hours too late for supper already, and he's going to take up more time with explanations," cried the old gentleman, flinging himself on the chair from which Oliver had risen, and wiping his bald pate with a red silk handkerchief. "What can you explain, boy, except that you met an angry old fellow in a lane who called your uncle such hard names that you couldn't help giving him a bit of your mind--there, there, sit down, sit down.--Hallo!" he shouted, starting up impulsively and thrusting his head into the passage, "Rose, Rose, I say, where are you?--hallo!" "Coming, uncle--I'm here." The words came back like an echo, and in another minute Rose appeared with a much-flushed countenance. "Come along, lass, let's have supper without delay. Where is aunty? Rout her out, and tell that jade of a cook that if she don't dish up in five minutes I'll--I'll--. Well, Oliver, talking of explanations, how comes it that you are so late?" "Because I took the wrong road after leaving you in the lane," replied the youth, with a significant glance at his uncle, whose eyes were at the moment fixed gravely on the ground. "The wrong road--eh?" said Mr Donnithorne, looking up with a sly glance, and then laughing. "Well, well, it was only _quid pro quo_, boy; you put a good deal of unnecessary earth and stones over my head, so I thought it was but fair that I should put a good deal more of the same under your feet, besides giving you the advantage of seeing the Land's End, which, of course, every youth of intelligence must take a deep interest in beholding. But, sure, a walk thither, and thence to St. Just, could not have detained you so long?" "Truly no," replied Oliver; "I had a rencontre--a sort of adventure with fishermen, which--" "Fishermen!" exclaimed Mr Donnithorne in surprise; "are ye sure they were not smugglers--eh?" "They said they were fishermen, and they looked like such," replied Oliver; "but my adventure with them, whatever they were, was the cause of my detention, and I can only express my grief that the circumstance has incommoded your household, but, you see, it took some time to beat off the boat's crew, and then I had to examine a wound and extract--" "What say you, boy!" exclaimed Mr Donnithorne, frowning, "beat off a boat's crew--examine a wound! Why, Rose, Molly, come hither. Here we have a young gallant who hath begun life in the far west in good style; but hold, here comes my excellent friend Captain Dan, who is no friend to the smugglers; he is to sup with us to-night; so we will repress our curiosity till after supper. Let me introduce you, Oliver to my wife, your Aunt Molly, or, if you choose to be respectful, Aunt Mary." As he spoke, a fat, fair, motherly-looking lady of about five-and-forty entered the room, greeting her husband with a rebuke, and her nephew with a smile. "Never mind him, Oliver," said the good lady; "he is a vile old creature. I have heard all about your meeting with him this forenoon, and only wish I had been there to see it." "Listen to that now, Captain Dan," cried Mr Donnithorne, as the individual addressed entered the room; "my wife calls me--me, a staid, sober man of fifty-five--calls me a vile old creature. Is it not too bad? really one gets no credit nowadays for devoting oneself entirely to one's better half; but I forget: allow me to introduce you to my nephew, Oliver Trembath, just come from one of the Northern Universities to fight the smugglers of St. Just--of which more anon. Oliver, Captain Hoskin of Botallack, better known as Captain Dan. Now, sit down and let's have a bit of supper." With hospitable urgency Mr Donnithorne and his good dame pressed their guests to do justice to the fare set before them, and, during the course of the meal, the former kept up a running fire of question, comment, and reply on every conceivable subject, so that his auditors required to do little more than eat and listen. After supper, however, and when tumblers and glasses were being put down, he gave the others an opportunity of leading the conversation. "Now, Oliver," he said, "fill your glass and let us hear your adventures. What will you have--brandy, gin, or rum? My friend, Captain Dan here, is one of those remarkable men who don't drink anything stronger than ginger-beer. Of course you won't join _him_." "Thank you," said Oliver. "If you will allow me, I will join your good lady in a glass of wine. Permit me, Aunt Mary, to fill--" "No, I thank you, Oliver," said Mrs Donnithorne good-humouredly but firmly, "I side with Captain Dan; but I'll be glad to see you fill your own." "Ha!" exclaimed Mr Donnithorne, "Molly's sure to side with the opponent of her lawful lord, no matter who or what he be. Fill your own glass, boy, with what you like--cold water, an it please you--and let us drink the good old Cornish toast, `Fish, tin, and copper,' our three staples, Oliver--the bone, muscle, and fat of the county." "Fish, tin, and copper," echoed Captain Dan. "In good sooth," continued Mr Donnithorne, "I have often thought of turning teetotaller myself, but feared to do so lest my wife should take to drinking, just out of opposition. However, let that pass--and now, Oliver, open thy mouth, lad, and relate those surprising adventures of which you have given me a hint." "Indeed, uncle, I do not say they are very surprising, although, doubtless, somewhat new to one who has been bred, if not born, in comparatively quiet regions of the earth." Here Oliver related circumstantially to his wondering auditors the events which befell him after the time when he left his uncle in the lane--being interrupted only with an occasional exclamation--until he reached the part when he knocked down the man who had rescued him from the waves, when Mr Donnithorne interrupted him with an uncontrollable burst. "Ha!" shouted the old gentleman; "what! knocked down the man who saved your life, nephew? Fie, fie! But you have not told us his name yet. What was it?" "His comrades called him Jim, as I have said; and I think that he once referred to himself as Jim Cuttance, or something like that." "What say you, boy?" exclaimed Mr Donnithorne, pushing back his chair and gazing at his nephew in amazement. "Hast fought side by side with Jim Cuttance, and then knocked him down?" "Indeed I have," said Oliver, not quite sure whether his uncle regarded him as a hero or a fool. The roar of laughter which his answer drew from Captain Dan and his uncle did not tend to enlighten him much. "Oh! Oliver, Oliver," said the old gentleman, on recovering some degree of composure, "you should have lived in the days of good King Arthur, and been one of the Knights of the Round Table. Knocked down Jim Cuttance! What think'ee, Captain Dan?" "I think," said the captain, still chuckling quietly, "that the less our friend says about the matter the better for himself." "Why so?" inquired Oliver quickly. "Because," replied his uncle, with some return of gravity, "you have assisted one of the most notorious smugglers that ever lived, to fight his Majesty's coastguard--that's all. What say you, Molly--shall we convict Oliver on his own confession?" The good lady thus appealed to admitted that it was a serious matter, but urged that as Oliver did the thing in ignorance and out of gratitude, he ought to be forgiven. "_I_ think he ought to be forgiven for having knocked down Jim Cuttance," said Captain Dan. "Is he then so notorious?" asked Oliver. "Why, he is the most daring smuggler on the coast," replied Captain Dan, "and has given the preventive men more trouble than all the others put together. In fact, he is a man who deserves to be hanged, and will probably come to his proper end ere long, if not shot in a brawl beforehand." "I fear he stands some chance of it now," said Mr Donnithorne, with a sigh, "for he has been talking of erecting a battery near his den at Prussia Cove, and openly defying the Government men." "You seem to differ from Captain Dan, uncle, in reference to this man," said Oliver, with a smile. "Truly, I do, for although I condemn smuggling,--ahem!" (the old gentleman cast a peculiar glance at the captain), "I don't like to see a sturdy man hanged or shot--and Jim Cuttance is a stout fellow. I question much whether you could find his match, Captain Dan, amongst all your men?" "That I could, easily," said the captain with a quiet smile. "Pardon me, captain," said Oliver, "my uncle has not yet informed me on the point. May I ask what corps you belong to?" "To a sturdy corps of tough lads," answered the captain, with another of his quiet smiles--"men who have smelt powder, most of 'em, since they were little boys--live on the battlefield, I may say, almost night and day--spring more mines in a year than all the soldiers in the world put together--and shorten their lives by the stern labour they undergo; but they burn powder to raise, not to waste, metal. Their uniform is red, too, though not quite so red, nor yet so elegant, as that of the men in his Majesty's service. I am one of the underground captains, sir, of Botallack mine." Captain Dan's colour heightened a very little, and the tones of his voice became a little more powerful as he concluded this reply; but there was no other indication that the enthusiastic soul of one of the "captains" of the most celebrated mine in Cornwall was moved. Oliver felt, however, the contact with a kindred spirit, and, expressing much interest in the mines, proceeded to ask many questions of the captain, who, nothing loath, answered all his queries, and explained to him that he was one of the "captains," or "agents," whose duty it was to superintend the men and the works below the surface--hence the title of "underground;" while those who super-intended the works above ground were styled "grass, or surface captains." He also made an appointment to conduct the young doctor underground, and go over the mine with him at an early date. While the party in old Mr Donnithorne's dwelling were thus enjoying themselves, a great storm was gathering, and two events, very different from each other in character, were taking place--the one quiet, and apparently unimportant, the other tremendous and fatal--both bearing on and seriously influencing the subjects of our tale. CHAPTER FOUR. AT WORK UNDER THE SEA. Chip, chip, chip--down in the dusky mine! Oh, but the rock at which the miner chipped was hard, and the bit of rock on which he sat was hard, and the muscles with which he toiled were hard from prolonged labour; and the lot of the man seemed hard, as he sat there in the hot, heavy atmosphere, hour after hour, from morn till eve, with the sweat pouring down his brow and over his naked shoulders, toiling and moiling with hammer and chisel. But stout David Trevarrow did not think his lot peculiarly hard. His workshop was a low narrow tunnel deep down under the surface of the earth--ay, and deep under the bottom of the sea! His daily sun was a tallow candle, which rose regularly at seven in the morning and set at three in the afternoon. His atmosphere was sadly deficient in life-giving oxygen, and much vitiated by gunpowder smoke. His working costume consisted only of a pair of linen trousers; his colour from top to toe was red as brick-dust, owing to the iron ore around him; his food was a slice of bread, with, perchance, when he was unusually luxurious, the addition of a Cornish pasty; and his drink was water. To an inexperienced eye the man's work would have appeared not only hard but hopeless, for although his hammer was heavy, his arm strong, and his chisel sharp and tempered well, each blow produced an apparently insignificant effect on the flinty rock. Frequently a spark of fire was all that resulted from a blow, and seldom did more than a series of little chips fly off, although the man was of herculean mould, and worked "with a will," as was evident from the kind of gasp or stern expulsion of the breath with which each blow was accompanied. Unaided human strength he knew could not achieve much in such a process, so he directed his energies chiefly to the boring of blast-holes, and left it to the mighty power of gunpowder to do the hard work of rending the rich ore from the bowels of the unwilling earth. Yes, the work was very hard, probably the hardest that human muscles are ever called on to perform in this toiling world; but again we say that David Trevarrow did not think so, for he had been born to the work and bred to it, and was blissfully ignorant of work of a lighter kind, so that, although his brows frowned at the obstinate rock, his compressed lips smiled, for his thoughts were pleasant and far away. The unfettered mind was above ground roaming in fields of light, basking in sunshine, and holding converse with the birds, as he sat there chip, chip, chipping, down in the dusky mine. Stopping at last, the miner wiped his brow, and, rising, stood for a few moments silently regarding the result of his day's work. "Now, David," said he to himself, "the question is, what shall us do-- shall us keep on, or shall us knack?" He paused, as if unable to answer the question. After a time he muttered, "Keep on; it don't look promisin', sure 'nuff, an' it's poor pay; but it won't do to give in yet." Poor pay it was indeed, for the man's earnings during the past month had been barely ten shillings. But David Trevarrow had neither wife, child, nor mother to support, so he could afford to toil for poor pay, and, being of a remarkably hopeful and cheery disposition, he returned home that afternoon resolved to persevere in his unproductive toil, in the hope that at last he should discover a good "bunch of copper," or a "keenly lode of tin." David was what his friends and the world styled unfortunate. In early manhood he had been a somewhat wild and reckless fellow--a noted wrestler, and an adept in all manly sports and games. But a disappointment in love had taught him very bitterly that life is not all sunshine; and this, coupled with a physical injury which was the result of his own folly, crushed his spirit so much that his comrades believed him to be a "lost man." The injury referred to was the bursting of a blood-vessel in the lungs. It was, and still is, the custom of the youthful miners of Cornwall to test their strength by racing up the almost interminable ladders by which the mines are reached. This tremendous exertion after a day of severe toil affected them of course very severely, and in some cases seriously. Many an able-bodied man has by this means brought himself to a premature end. Among others, David Trevarrow excelled and suffered. No one could beat him in running up the ladders; but one day, on reaching the surface, blood issued from his mouth, and thenceforth his racing and wrestling days were ended, and his spirit was broken. A long illness succeeded. Then he began to mend. Slowly and by degrees his strength returned, but not his joyous spirit. Still it was some comfort to feel able for work again, and he "went underground" with some degree of his old vigour, though not with the light heart or light step of former days; but bad fortune seemed to follow him everywhere. When others among his comrades were fortunate in finding copper or tin, David was most unaccountably unsuccessful. Accidents, too, from falls and explosions, laid him up more than once, and he not only acquired the character of an unlucky man from his friends, but despite a naturally sanguine temperament, he began himself to believe that he was one of the unluckiest fellows in the world. About this time the followers of that noble Christian, John Wesley, began to make an impression on Cornwall, and to exert an influence which created a mighty change in the hearts and manners of the people, and the blessed effects of which are abundantly evident at the present day--to the rejoicing of every Christian soul. One of those ministers of our Lord happened to meet with David Trevarrow, and was the means of opening his eyes to many great and previously unknown truths. Among others, he convinced him that "God's ways are not as man's ways;" that He often, though not always, leads His people by thorny paths that they know not of, but does it in love and with His own glory in their happiness as the end in view; that the Lord Jesus Christ must be to a man "the chiefest among ten thousand, and altogether lovely," else He is to him nothing at all, and that he could be convinced of all these truths only by the Holy Spirit. It were vain to attempt to tell all that this good man said to the unhappy miner, but certain it is that from that time forth David became himself again--and yet not himself. The desire to wrestle and fight and race returned in a new form. He began to wrestle with principalities and powers, to fight the good fight of faith, and to run the race set before him in the gospel. The old hearty smile and laugh and cheery disposition also returned, and the hopeful spirit, and so much of the old robust health and strength, that it seemed as if none of the evil effects of the ruptured blood-vessel remained. So David Trevarrow went, as of old, daily to the mine. It is true that riches did not flow in upon him any faster than before, but he did not mind that much, for he had discovered another mine, in which he toiled at nights after the day's toil was over, and whence he extracted treasure of greater value than copper or tin, or even gold--treasure which he scattered in a Sabbath school with liberal hand, and found himself all the richer for his prodigality. Occasionally, after prolonged labour in confined and bad air, a faint trace of the old complaint showed itself when he reached the top of the ladders, but he was not now depressed by that circumstance as he used to be. He was past his prime at the period of which we write, and a confirmed bachelor. To return from this digression: David Trevarrow made up his mind, as we have said, to "go on," and, being a man of resolute purpose, he went on; seized his hammer and chisel, and continued perseveringly to smite the flinty rock, surrounded by thick darkness, which was not dispelled but only rendered visible by the feeble light of the tallow candle that flared at his side. Over his head rolled the billows of the Atlantic; the whistling wind howled among the wild cliffs of the Cornish coast, but they did not break the deep silence of the miner's place of midnight toil. Heaven's artillery was rending the sky, and causing the hearts of men to beat slow with awe. The great boulders ground the pebbles into sand as they crashed to and fro above him, but he heard them not--or if he did, the sound reached him as a deep-toned mysterious murmur, for, being in one of the low levels, with many fathoms of solid rock between him and the bottom of the superincumbent sea, he was beyond the reach of such disturbing influences, tremendous though they were. The miner was making a final effort at his unproductive piece of rock, and had prolonged his toil far into the night. Hour after hour he wrought almost without a moment's respite, save for the purpose, now and then, of trimming his candle. When his right arm grew tired, he passed the hammer swiftly to his left hand, and, turning the borer with his right, continued to work with renewed vigour. At last he paused, and looking over his shoulder called out--"Zackey, booy." The sound died away in a hollow echo through the retiring galleries of the mine, but there was no reply. "Zackey, booy, are 'ee slaipin'?" he repeated. A small reddish-coloured bundle, which lay in a recess close at hand, uncoiled itself like a hedgehog, and, yawning vociferously, sat up, revealing the fact that the bundle was a boy. "Ded 'ee call, uncle?" asked the boy in a sleepy tone. "Iss did I," said the man; "fetch me the powder an' fuse, my son." The lad rose, and, fetching out of a dark corner the articles required, assisted in charging the hole which his uncle had just finished boring. This was the last hole which the man intended to blast that night. For weeks past he had laboured day after day--sometimes, as on the present occasion, at night--and had removed many tons of rock, without procuring either tin or copper sufficient to repay him for his toil, so that he resolved to give it up and remove to a more hopeful part of the mine, or betake himself to another mine altogether. He had now bored his last hole, and was about to blast it. Applying his candle to the end of the fuse, he hastened along the level to a sufficient distance to afford security, warning his nephew as he passed. Zackey leaped up, and, scrambling over the debris with which the bottom of the level was covered, made good his retreat. About a minute they waited in expectancy. Suddenly there was a bright blinding flash, which lit up the rugged sides of the mine, and revealed its cavernous ramifications and black depths. This was accompanied by a dull smothered report and a crash of falling rock, together with a shower of debris. Instantly the whole place was in profound darkness. "Aw, booy," exclaimed the miner; "we was too near. It have knacked us in the dark." "So't have, uncle; I'll go an' search for the box." "Do, my son," said David. In those days lucifer matches had not been invented, and light had to be struck by means of flint, steel, and tinder. The process was tedious compared with the rapid action of congreves and vestas in the present day. The man chipped away for full three minutes before he succeeded in relighting his candle. This done, the rock was examined. "Bad still, Uncle David?" inquired the boy. "Iss, Zackey Maggot, so we'll knack'n, and try the higher mine to-morrow." Having come to this conclusion Uncle David threw down the mass of rock which he held in his brawny hands, and, picking up his implements, said, "Get the tools, booy, and lev us go to grass." Zackey, who had been in the mine all day, and was tired, tied his tools at each end of a rope, so that they might be slung over his shoulder and leave his hands free. Trevarrow treated his in the same way, and, removing his candle from the wall, fixed it on the front of his hat by the simple process of sticking thereto the lump of clay to which it was attached. Zackey having fixed his candle in the same manner, both of them put on their red-stained flannel shirts and linen coats, and traversed the level until they reached the bottom of the ladder-shaft. Here they paused for a few moments before commencing the long wearisome ascent of almost perpendicular ladders by which the miners descended to their work or returned "to grass," as they termed the act of returning to the surface. It cost them more than half an hour of steady climbing before they reached the upper part of the shaft and became aware that a storm was raging in the regions above. On emerging from the mouth of the shaft or "ladder road," man and boy were in a profuse perspiration, and the sharp gale warned them to hasten to the moor-house at full speed. Moor-houses were little buildings in which miners were wont to change their wet underground garments for dry clothes. Some of these used to be at a considerable distance from the shafts, and the men were often injured while going to them from the mine, by being exposed in an overheated state to cutting winds. Many a stout able-bodied miner has had a chill given him in this way which has resulted in premature death. Moor-houses have now been replaced by large drying-houses, near the mouths of shafts, where every convenience is provided for the men drying their wet garments and washing their persons on coming to the surface. Having changed their clothes, uncle and nephew hastened to St. Just, where they dwelt in the cottage of Maggot, the blacksmith. This man, who has already been introduced to the reader, was brother-in-law to David, and father to Zackey. When David Trevarrow entered his brother-in-law's cottage, and told him of his bad fortune, and of his resolution to try his luck next day in the higher mine, little did he imagine that his change of purpose was to be the first step in a succession of causes which were destined to result, at no very distant period, in great changes of fortune to some of his friends in St. Just, as well as to many others in the county. CHAPTER FIVE. DESCRIBES A WRECK AND SOME OF ITS CONSEQUENCES. While the miner had been pursuing his toilsome work in the solitude and silence of the level under the sea, as already described, a noble ship was leaping over the Atlantic waves--homeward bound--to Old England. She was an East-Indiaman, under close-reefed sails, and although she bent low before the gale so that the waves almost curled over her lee bulwarks, she rose buoyantly like a seagull, for she was a good ship, stout of plank and sound of timber, with sails and cordage to match. Naturally, in such a storm, those on board were anxious, for they knew that they were drawing near to land, and that "dear Old England" had an ugly seaboard in these parts--a coast not to be too closely hugged in what the captain styled "dirty weather, with a whole gale from the west'ard," so a good lookout was kept. Sharp eyes were in the foretop looking out for the guiding rays of the Long-ships lighthouse, which illumine that part of our rocky shores to warn the mariner of danger and direct him to a safe harbour. The captain stood on the "foge's'l" with stern gaze and compressed lip. The chart had been consulted, the bearings correctly noted, calculations made, and leeway allowed for. Everything in fact that could be done by a commander who knew his duty had been done for the safety of the ship--so would the captain have said probably, had he lived to be questioned as to the management of his vessel. But everything had _not_ been done. The lead, strange to say, had not been hove. It was ready to heave, but the order was delayed. Unaccountable fatality! The only safe guide that remained to the good ship on that wild night was held in abeyance. It was deemed unnecessary to heave it yet, or it was troublesome, and they would wait till nearer the land. No one now can tell the reasons that influenced the captain, but _the lead was not used_. Owing to similar delay or neglect, hundreds upon hundreds of ships have been lost, and thousands of human lives have been sacrificed! The ship passed like a dark phantom over the very head of the miner who was at work many fathoms below the bottom of the sea. "Land, ho!" came suddenly in a fierce, quick shout from the mast-head. "Starboard! starboard--hard!" cried the captain, as the roar of breakers ahead rose above the yelling of the storm. Before the order was obeyed or another word spoken the ship struck, and a shriek of human terror followed, as the foremast went by the board with a fearful crash. The waves burst over the stern, sweeping the decks fore and aft. Wave after wave lifted the great ship as though it had been a child's toy, and dashed her down upon the rocks. Her bottom was stove in, her planks and timbers were riven like matchwood. Far down below man was destroying the flinty rock, while overhead the rock was destroying the handiwork of man! But the destruction in the one case was slow, in the other swift. A desperate but futile effort was made by the crew to get out the boats, and the passengers, many of whom were women and children, rushed frantically from the cabin to the deck, and clung to anything they could lay hold of, until strength failed, and the waves tore them away. One man there was in the midst of all the terror-stricken crew who retained his self-possession in that dread hour. He was a tall, stern old man with silver locks--an Indian merchant, one who had spent his youth and manhood in the wealthy land collecting gold--"making a fortune," he was wont to say--and who was returning to his fatherland to spend it. He was a thinking and calculating man, and in the anticipation of some such catastrophe as had actually overtaken him, he had secured some of his most costly jewels in a linen belt. This belt, while others were rushing to the boats, the old man secured round his waist, and then sprang on deck, to be swept, with a dozen of his fellow-passengers, into the sea by the next wave that struck the doomed vessel. There was no one on that rugged coast to lend a helping hand. Lifeboats did not then, as now, nestle in little nooks on every part of our dangerous coasts. No eye was there to see nor ear to hear, when, twenty minutes after she struck, the East-Indiaman went to pieces, and those of her crew and passengers who had retained their hold of her uttered their last despairing cry, and their souls returned to God who gave them. It is a solemn thought that man may with such awful suddenness, and so unexpectedly, be summoned into the presence of his Maker. Thrice happy they who, when their hearts grow chill and their grasps relax as the last plank is rending, can say, "Neither death, nor life, nor any other creature, is able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." The scene we have described was soon over, and the rich cargo of the East-Indiaman was cast upon the sea and strewn upon the shore, affording much work for many days to the coastguard, and greatly exciting the people of the district--most of whom appeared to entertain an earnest belief in the doctrine that everything cast by storms upon their coast ought to be considered public property. Portions of the wreck had the name "Trident" painted on them, and letters found in several chests which were washed ashore proved that the ship had sailed from Calcutta, and was bound for the port of London. One little boy alone escaped the waves. He was found in a crevice of the cliffs the following day, with just enough vitality left to give a few details of the wreck. Although all possible care was bestowed on him, he died before night. Thus sudden and complete was the end of as fine a ship as ever spread her canvas to the breeze. At night she had been full of life--full of wealth; in the morning she was gone--only a few bales and casks and broken spars to represent the wealth, and stiffened corpses to tell of the life departed. So she came and went, and in a short time all remnants of her were carried away. One morning, a few weeks after the night of the storm, Maggot the smith turned himself in his bed at an early hour, and, feeling disinclined to slumber, got up to look at the state of the weather. The sun was just rising, and there was an inviting look about the morning which induced the man to dress hastily and go out. Maggot was a powerfully-built man, rough in his outer aspect as well as in his inner man, but by no means what is usually termed a bad man, although, morally speaking, he could not claim to be considered a good one. In fact, he was a hearty, jolly, reckless fisherman, with warm feelings, enthusiastic temperament, and no principle; a man who, though very ready to do a kind act, had no particular objection to do one that was decidedly objectionable when it suited his purpose or served his present interest. He was regarded by his comrades as one of the greatest madcaps in the district. Old Maggot was, as we have said, a blacksmith to trade, but he had also been bred a miner, and was something of a fisherman as well, besides being (like most of his companions) an inveterate smuggler. He could turn his hand to almost anything, and was "everything by turns, but nothing long." Sauntering down to Priests Cove, on the south of Cape Cornwall, with his hands in his pockets and his sou'-wester stuck carelessly on his shaggy head, he fell in with a comrade, whom he hailed by the name of John Cock. This man was also a fisherman, _et cetera_, and the bosom friend and admirer of Maggot. "Where bound to this mornin', Jack?" inquired Maggot. "To fish," replied John. "I go with 'ee, booy," said Maggot. This was the extent of the conversation at that time. They were not communicative, but walked side by side in silence to the beach, where they launched their little boat and rowed out to sea. Presently John Cock looked over his shoulder and exclaimed--"Maggot, I see summat." "Do 'ee?" "Iss do I." "What do un look like?" "Like a dead corp." "Aw, my dear," said Maggot, "lev us keep away. It can do no good to we." Acting on this opinion the men rowed past the object that was floating on the sea, and soon after began to fish; but they had not fished long when the dead body, drifted probably by some cross-current, appeared close to them again. Seeing this they changed their position, but ere long the body again appeared. "P'raps," observed Maggot, "there's somethin' in its pockets." As the same idea had occurred to John Cock, the men resolved to examine the body, so they rowed up to it and found it to be that of an elderly man, much decomposed, and nearly naked. A very short examination sufficed to show that the pockets of such garments as were still upon it were empty, and the men were about to let it go again, when Maggot exclaimed-- "Hold fast, Jack, I see somethin' tied round the waist of he; a sort o' belt it do seem." The belt was quickly removed and the body released, when it sank with a heavy plunge, but ere long reappeared on the surface. The fishermen rowed a considerable distance away from it, and then shipped their oars and examined the belt, which was made of linen. Maggot sliced it up as he would have ripped up a fish, and laid bare, to the astonished gaze of himself and his friend, a number of glittering gems of various colours, neatly and firmly embedded in cotton, besides a variety of rings and small brooches set with precious stones. "Now, I tell 'ee," said Maggot, "'tis like as this here will make our fortin', or else git we into trouble." "Why, whatever shud we git into trouble 'bout it for?" said John Cock. "'Tis like as not they ain't real--only painted glass, scarce wuth the trouble o' car'in' ashore." "Hould thy tongue, thee g'eat chucklehead," replied Maggot; "a man wouldn't go for to tie such stuff round his waist to drown hisself with, I do know, if they worn't real. Lev us car' 'em to Maister Donnithorne." John Cock replied with a nod, and the two men, packing up the jewels, pulled in-shore as fast as possible. Hauling their boat beyond the reach of the surf, they hastened to St. Just, and requested a private audience of Mr Donnithorne. [See note 1.] That excellent gentleman was not unaccustomed to give private audiences to fishermen, and, as has been already hinted at the beginning of this tale, was reported to have private dealings with them also--of a very questionable nature. He received the two men, however, with the hearty air of a man who knows that the suspicions entertained of him by the calumnious world are false. "Well, Maggot," said Mr Donnithorne, "what is your business with me? You are not wont to be astir so early, if all be true that is reported of 'ee." "Plaise, sur," said Maggot, with a glance at Rose Ellis, who sat sewing near the window, "I'm come to talk 'bout private matters--if--" "Leave us, Rose dear, for a little," said the old gentleman. As soon as she was out of the room Maggot locked the door, a proceeding which surprised Mr Donnithorne not a little, but his surprise was much greater when the man drew a small parcel from the breast of his rough coat, and, unrolling it, displayed the glittering jewels of which he had so unexpectedly become possessed. "Where got you these?" inquired Mr Donnithorne, turning them over carefully. "Got 'em in the say--catched 'em, sure 'nough," said Maggot. "Not with a baited hook, I warrant," said the old gentleman. "Come, my son, let's hear all about it." Maggot explained how he had obtained the jewels, and then asked what they were worth. "I can't tell that," said Mr Donnithorne, shaking his head gravely. "Some of them are undoubtedly of value; the others, for all I know, may not be worth much." "Come now, sur," said Maggot, with a confidential leer, "it's not the fust time we have done a bit o' business. I 'spose I cud claim salvage on 'em?" "I don't know that," said the old gentleman; "you cannot tell whom they belonged to, and I suspect Government would claim them, if--But, by the way, I suppose you found no letters--nothing in the shape of writing on the body?" "Nothin' whatsomever." "Well, then, I fear that--" "Come now, sur," said Maggot boldly; "'spose you gives John and me ten pounds apaice an' kape 'em to yourself to make what 'ee can of 'em?" Mr Donnithorne shook his head and hesitated. Often before had he defrauded the revenue by knowingly purchasing smuggled brandy and tobacco, and by providing the funds to enable others to smuggle them; but then the morality of that day in regard to smuggling was very lax, and there were men who, although in all other matters truly honest and upright, could not be convinced of the sinfulness of smuggling, and smiled when they were charged with the practice, but who, nevertheless, would have scorned to steal or tell a downright lie. This, however, was a very different matter from smuggling. The old gentleman shrank from it at first, and could not meet the gaze of the smuggler with his usual bold frank look. But the temptation was great. The jewels he suspected were of immense value, and his heart readily replied to the objections raised by his conscience, that after all there was no one left to claim them, and he had a much better right to them, in equity if not in law, than Government; and as to the fellows who found them--why, the sum they asked would be a great and rich windfall to them, besides freeing them from all further trouble, as well as transferring any risk that might accrue from their shoulders to his own. While the old gentleman was reasoning thus with himself, Maggot stood anxiously watching his countenance and twisting the cloth that had enclosed the jewellery into a tight rope, as he shifted his position uneasily. At length old Mr Donnithorne said-- "Leave the jewels with me, and call again in an hour from this time. You shall then have my answer." Maggot and his friend consented to this delay, and left the room. No sooner were they gone than the old gentleman called his wife, who naturally exclaimed in great surprise on beholding the table covered with such costly trinkets-- "Where _ever_ did you get these, Tom?" Mr Donnithorne explained, and then asked what she thought of Maggot's proposal. "Refuse it," said she firmly. "But, my dear--" "Don't `but' about it, Tom. Whenever a man begins to `but' with sin, it is sure to butt him over on his back. Have nothing to do with it, _I_ say." "But, my dear, it is not dishonest--" "I don't know that," interrupted Mrs Donnithorne vigorously; "you think that smuggling is not dishonest, but I do, and so does the minister." "What care _I_ for the minister?" cried the old gentleman, losing his temper; "who made _him a_ judge of my doings?" "He is an expounder of God's Word," said Mrs Donnithorne firmly, "and holds that `Thou shalt not steal' is one of the Ten Commandments." "Well, well, he and I don't agree, that's all; besides, has he never expounded to you that obedience to your husband is a virtue? a commandment, I may say, which you are--" "Mr Donnithorne," said the lady with dignity, "I am here at your request, and am now complying with your wishes in giving my opinion." "There, there, Molly," said the subdued husband, giving his better half a kiss, "don't be so sharp. You ought to have been a lawyer with your powerful reasoning capacity. However, let me tell you that you don't understand these matters--" "Then why ask my advice, Tom?" "Why, woman, because an inexplicable fatality leads me to consult you, although I know well enough what the upshot will be. But I'm resolved to close with Maggot." "I knew you would," said Mrs Donnithorne quietly. The last remark was the turning-point. Had the good lady condescended to be _earnest_ in her entreaties that the bargain should not be concluded, it is highly probable her husband would have given in; but her last observation nettled him so much that he immediately hoisted a flag of defiance, nailed it to the mast, and went out in great indignation to search for Maggot. That individual was not far off. The bargain was completed, the jewels were locked up in one of the old gentleman's secret repositories, and the fishermen, with ten pounds apiece in their pockets, returned home. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Note 1. It may be well here to inform the reader that the finding of the jewels as here described, and the consequences which followed, are founded on fact. CHAPTER SIX. TREATS OF THE MINER'S COTTAGE, WORK, AND COSTUME. Maggot's home was a disordered one when he reached it, for his youngest baby, a fat little boy, had been seized with convulsions, and his wife and little daughter Grace, and son Zackey, and brother-in-law David Trevarrow, besides his next neighbour Mrs Penrose, with her sixteen children, were all in the room, doing their best by means of useless or hurtful applications, equally useless advice, and intolerable noise and confusion, to cure, if not to kill, the baby. Maggot's cottage was a poor one, his furniture was mean, and there was not much of it; nevertheless its inmates were proud of it, for they lived in comparative comfort there. Mrs Maggot was a kind-hearted, active woman, and her husband--despite his smuggling propensities--was an affectionate father. Usually the cottage was kept in a most orderly condition; but on the present occasion it was, as we have said, in a state of great confusion. "Fetch me a bit of rag, Grace," cried Mrs Maggot, just as her husband entered. "Here's a bit, old 'ooman," said Maggot, handing her the linen cloth in which the jewels had been wrapped up, and which he had unconsciously retained in his hands on quitting Mr Donnithorne--"Run, my dear man," he added, turning to John Cock, "an' fetch the noo doctor." John darted away, and in a quarter of an hour returned with Oliver Trembath, who found that the baby had weathered the storm by the force of its own constitution, despite the adverse influences that were around it. He therefore contented himself with clearing the place of intruders, and prescribing some simple medicine. "Are you going to work?" inquired Oliver of David Trevarrow, observing that the man was about to quit the cottage. "Iss, sur--to Botallack." "Then I will accompany you. Captain Dan is going to show me over part of the mine to-day. Good-morning, Mrs Maggot, and remember my directions if this should happen to the little fellow again." Leaving the cottage the two proceeded through the town to the north end of it, accompanied by Maggot, who said he was going to the forge to do a bit of work, and who parted from them at the outskirts of the town. "Times are bad with you at the mines just now, I find," said Oliver as they walked along. "Iss sur, they are," replied Trevarrow, in the quiet tone that was peculiar to him; "but, thank God, we do manage to live, though there are some of us with a lot o' child'n as finds it hard work. The Bal [The mine] ain't so good as she once was." "I suppose that you have frequent changes of fortune?" said Oliver. The miner admitted that this was the case, for that sometimes a man worked underground for several weeks without getting enough to keep his family, while at other times he might come on a bunch of copper or tin which would enable him to clear 50 pounds or more in a month. "If report says truly," observed Oliver, "you have hit upon a `keenly lode,' as you call it, not many days ago." "A do look very well now, sur," replied the miner, "but wan can never tell. I did work for weeks in the level under the say without success, so I guv it up an went to Wheal Hazard, and on the back o' the fifty-fathom level I did strike 'pon a small lode of tin 'bout so thick as my finger. It may get better, or it may take the bit in its teeth and disappear; we cannot tell." "Well, I wish you good luck," said Oliver; "and here comes Captain Dan, so I'll bid you good-morning." "Good-morning, sur," said the stout-limbed and stout-hearted man, with a smile and a nod, as he turned off towards the moor-house to put on his mining garments. Towards this house a number of men had been converging while Oliver and his companion approached it, and the former observed, that whatever colour the men might be on entering it, they invariably came out light red, like lobsters emerging from a boiling pot. In Botallack mine a large quantity of iron is mingled with the tin ore. This colours everything in and around the mine, including men's clothes, hands, and faces, with a light rusty-red. The streams, of course, are also coloured with it, and the various pits and ponds for collecting the fluid mud of tin ore seem as if filled with that nauseous compound known by the name of "Gregory's Mixture." In the moor-house there were rows of pegs with red garments hung thereon to dry, and there were numerous broad-shouldered men dressing and undressing--in every stage of the process; while in a corner two or three were washing their bodies in a tank of water. These last were men who had been at work all night, and were cleansing themselves before putting on what we may term their home-going clothes. The mining dress is a very simple, and often a very ragged affair. It consists of a flannel shirt, a pair of linen trousers, a short coat of the same, and a hat in the form of a stiff wide-awake, but made so thick as to serve the purpose of a helmet to guard the head from the rocks, etcetera. Clumsy ankle-boots complete the costume. As each man issued from the house, he went to a group of wooden chests which lay scattered about outside, and, opening his own, took from it a bag of powder, some blasting fuse, several iron tools, which he tied to a rope so as to be slung over his shoulder, a small wooden canteen of water, and a bunch of tallow candles. These last he fastened to a button on his breast, having previously affixed one of them to the front of his hat. Thus accoutred, they proceeded to a small platform close at hand, with a square hole in it, out of which protruded the head of a ladder. This was the "ladder road." Through the hole these red men descended one by one, chatting and laughing as they went, and disappeared, leaving the moor-house and all around it a place of solitude. Captain Dan now prepared to descend this ladder road with Oliver Trembath. CHAPTER SEVEN. TELLS OF THE GREAT MINE AND OF A ROYAL DIVE UNDER THE SEA. Botallack, to the dark depths of which we are now about to descend, is the most celebrated mine in the great mining county of Cornwall. It stands on the sea coast, a little more than a mile to the north of St. Just. The region around it is somewhat bleak and almost destitute of trees. In approaching it, the eyes of the traveller are presented with a view of engine-houses, and piles of stones and rubbish, in the midst of which stand a number of uncouth yet picturesque objects, composed of boards and timber, wheels, ropes, pulleys, chains, and suchlike gear. These last are the winding erections of the shafts which lead to the various mines, for the whole region is undermined, and Botallack is only one of several in St. Just parish. Wherever the eye turns, there, in the midst of green fields, where rocks and rocky fences abound, may be seen, rising prominently, the labouring arms, or "bobs," of the pump and skip engines, and the other machinery required in mining operations; while the ear is assailed by the perpetual clatter of the "stamps," or ore-crushing machines, which never cease their din, day or night, except on Sundays. Botallack, like all the other mines, has several "shafts" or entrances to the works below, such as Boscawen Shaft, Wheal Button, Wheal Hazard, Chicornish Shaft, Davis Shaft, Wheal Cock, etcetera, the most interesting of which are situated among the steep rugged cliffs that front and bid defiance to the utmost fury of the Atlantic Ocean. From whatever point viewed, the aspect of Botallack mine is grand in the extreme. On the rocky point that stretches out into the sea, engines with all their fantastic machinery and buildings have been erected. On the very summit of the cliff is seen a complication of timbers, wheels, and chains sharply defined against the sky, with apparently scarce any hold of the cliff, while down below, on rocky ledges and in black chasms, are other engines and beams and rods and wheels and chains, fastened and perched in fantastic forms in dangerous-looking places. Here, amid the most savage gorges of the sea and riven rocks--half clinging to the land, half suspended over the water--is perched the machinery of, and entrance to, the most singular shaft of the mine, named the "Boscawen Diagonal Shaft." This shaft descends under the sea at a steep incline. It is traversed, on rails, by an iron carriage called the "gig," which is lowered and drawn up by steam power. Starting as it does from an elevated position in the rocks that are close to the edge of the sea, and slanting down through the cape, _outward_ or seaward, this vehicle descends only a few fathoms when it is _under the ocean's bed_, and then its further course is far out and deep down--about two-thirds of a mile out, and full 245 fathoms down! The gig conveys the men to and from their work--the ore being drawn up by another iron carriage. There is (or rather there was, before the self-acting brake was added) danger attending the descent of this shaft, for the rope, although good and strong, is not immaculate, as was proved terribly in the year 1864--when it broke, and the gig flew down to the bottom like lightning, dashing itself to pieces, and instantly killing the nine unfortunate men who were descending at the time. Nevertheless, the Prince and Princess of Wales did not shrink from descending this deep burrow under the sea in the year 1865. It was a great day for St. Just and Botallack that 24th of July on which the royal visit was paid. Great were the expectation and preparation on all hands to give a hearty welcome to the royal pair. The ladies arrayed themselves in their best to do fitting honour to the Princess; the balmaidens donned their holiday-attire, and Johnny Fortnight [see note 1] took care, by supplying the poor mine-girls with the latest fashions, that their appearance should be, if we may be allowed the word, _splendiferous_! The volunteers, too, turned out in force, and no one, looking at their trim, soldierly aspect, could have believed them to be the same miners who were wont to emerge each evening through a hole in the earth, red as lobsters, wet, ragged, and befouled--in a word, surrounded by a halo of dishevelment, indicative of their rugged toils in the regions below. Everywhere the people turned out to line the roads, and worthily receive the expected visitors, and great was the cheering when they arrived, accompanied by the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, the Earl of Mount Edgecumbe, Lady de Grey, Lord and Lady Vivian, General Knollys, and others, but louder still was the cheer when the Princess rode down the steep descent to the cliffs in a donkey-carriage. The Botallack cliffs themselves, however, were the central point, not only of the interest, but of the grandeur of the scene, for here were presented such a view and combination as are not often witnessed--nature in one of her wildest aspects, combined with innumerable multitudes of human beings swayed by one feeling of enthusiastic loyalty. Above, on every attainable point, projection, and eminence, men and women clustered like gay flies on the giant cliffs, leaving immense gaps here and there, where no foot might venture save that of a bird. Midway, on the face of the precipice, clung the great beams and supports of the Boscawen Diagonal Shaft, with the little gig perched on them and the royal party seated therein, facing the entrance to the black abyss--the Princess arrayed in a white flannel cloak trimmed with blue, and a straw hat with a blue ribbon round it, and the Prince clad in miner's costume. Underneath, a dizzy depth to gaze down, lay the rugged boulders of the shore, with the spray of the Atlantic springing over them. Deafening was the cheer when the gig at last entered the shaft and disappeared, and intense the anxiety of the vast multitude as they watched the descent--in imagination, of course, for nothing could be seen but the tight wire-rope uncoiling its endless length, and disappearing like a thin snake down the jaws of some awful sea-monster that had climbed so far up the cliffs to meet and devour it! Now they are at the shore; now passing under the sea; fairly under it by this time; a few minutes more and they have reached the spot where yonder seagull is now wheeling above the waves, wondering what new species of bird has taken possession of its native cliffs. Five minutes are passed--yet still descending rapidly! They must be half a mile out from the land now--half of a mile out on the first part of a submarine tunnel to America! "Old England is on the lee," but they are very much the reverse of afloat; solid rock is above, on either side and below--so close to them that the elbows must not be allowed to protrude over the edge of their car, nor the head be held too high. Here even royalty must stoop--not that we would be understood to imply that royalty cannot stoop elsewhere. Those who dwell in Highland cottages could contradict us if we did! Presently the rope "slows"--the lower depths are reached, and now for some time there is patient waiting, for it is understood that they are examining the "levels," where the stout men of Cornwall tear out the solid rock in quest of copper and tin. After a time the thin snake begins to ascend; they are coming up now, but not so fast as they went down. It is about ten minutes before the gig emerges from that black hole and bears the Prince and Princess once more into the light of day. Yes, it was a great day for Botallack, and it will dwell long in the memories of those who witnessed it--especially of that fortunate captain of the mine who had the honour of conducting the Princess on the occasion, and of whose enthusiasm in recalling the event, and in commenting on her intelligence and condescension, we can speak from personal observation. But, reader, you will say, What has all this to do with our story? Nothing--we admit it frankly--nothing whatever in a direct way; nevertheless, indirectly, the narrative may possibly arouse in you greater interest in the mine down which we are about to conduct you--not by the same route as that taken by the Prince and Princess (for the Boscawen Shaft did not exist at the period of our tale), but by one much more difficult and dangerous, as you shall see. Before we go, however, permit us to add to the offence of digression, by wandering still further out of our direct road. There are a few facts regarding Botallack and mining operations, without a knowledge of which you will be apt at times to misunderstand your position. Let us suppose that a mine has been already opened; that a "lode"--that is, a vein of quartz with metal in it--has been discovered cropping out of the earth, and that it has been dug down upon from above, and dug in upon from the sea-cliffs. A shaft has been sunk--in other words, a hole excavated--let us say, two or three hundred yards inland, to a depth of some forty or fifty fathoms,--near the sea-level. This shaft is perhaps nine feet by six wide. The lode, being a layer of quartz, sometimes slopes one way, sometimes another, and is occasionally perpendicular. It also varies in its run or direction a little here and there, like a wildish horse, being sometimes met by other lodes, which, like bad companions, divert it from the straight course. Unlike bad companions, however, they increase its value at the point of meeting by thickening it. Whatever course the lode takes, the miner conscientiously follows suit. His shaft slopes much, little, or not at all, according to the "lie of the lode." It is an ancient truism that water must find its level. Owing to this law, much water accumulates in the shaft, obliging the miner to erect an engine-house and provide a powerful pumping-engine with all its gear, at immense cost, to keep the works dry as he proceeds. He then goes to the shore, and there, in the face of the perpendicular cliff, a little above the sea-level, he cuts a horizontal tunnel about six feet high by three broad, and continues to chisel and blast away the solid rock until he "drives" his tunnel a quarter of a mile inland, which he will do at a rate varying from two to six feet per week, according to the hardness of the rock, until he reaches the shaft and thus provides an easy and inexpensive passage for the water without pumping. This tunnel or level he calls the "Adit level." But his pumping-engine is by no means rendered useless, for it has much to do in hauling ore to the surface, etcetera. In process of time, the miner works away all the lode down to the sea-level, and must sink the shaft deeper--perhaps ten or twenty fathoms--where new levels are driven horizontally "on the lode," and water accumulates which must be pumped up to the Adit level, whence it escapes to the sea. Thus down, down, he goes, sinking his shaft and driving his levels on-- that is, always following the lode _ad infinitum_. Of course he must stop before reaching the other side of the world! At the present time Botallack has progressed in that direction to a depth of 245 fathoms. To those who find a difficulty in realising what depth that really is, we would observe that it is equal to more than three and a half times the height of St. Paul's Cathedral in London, nearly four times the height of St. Rollox chimney in Glasgow, and considerably more than twice the height, from the plain, of Arthur's Seat, near Edinburgh. When the levels have been driven a considerable distance from the shaft, the air naturally becomes bad from want of circulation. To remedy this evil, holes, or short shafts, called "winzes," are sunk at intervals from the upper to the lower levels. These winzes are dangerous traps for the unwary or careless, extending frequently to a depth of ten or fifteen fathoms, and being bridged across by one or two loose planks. Ladders are fixed in many of them to facilitate progress through the mine. When a miner drives the end of his level so far that the air will not circulate, a new winze is usually sunk down to him from the level above. The circulation is thus extended, and the levels progress further and further right and left until they occupy miles of ground. The levels and shafts of Botallack, if put together, would extend to not less than forty miles, and the superficial space of ground, on and beneath which the mine lies, is above 260 acres. When the lode is rich, and extends upwards or downwards, it is cut away from between levels, in a regular systematic manner, strong beams being placed to support temporary platforms, on which the miners may stand and work as they ascend. When they have cut all the lode away up to the level above them, a false timber bottom is made to replace the rocky bottom of the level which is being removed. Thus, in traversing the old workings of a mine one suddenly comes to great caverns, very narrow, but of such immense height above and depth below that the rays of your candle cannot penetrate the darkness. In such places the thick short beams that were used by the old miners are seen extending from side to side of the empty space, disappearing in dim perspective. Woe betide the man who stumbles off his narrow plank, or sets his foot on an insecure beam in such places! Where such workings are in progress, the positions of the miners appear singularly wild and insecure. The men stand in the narrow chasm between the granite walls above each others' heads, slight temporary platforms alone preserving them from certain death, and the candles of those highest above you twinkling like stars in a black sky. In these underground regions of Botallack, above three hundred men and boys are employed, some of whom work occasionally by night as well as by day. On the surface about two hundred men, women, and boys are employed "dressing" the ore, etcetera. Other mines there are in the great mining centres of Cornwall--Redruth, St. Just, St. Austell, and Helston, which are well worthy of note--some of them a little deeper, and some richer than Botallack. But we profess not to treat of all the Cornish mines; our object is to describe one as a type of many, if not all, and as this one runs farthest out beneath the sea, is deeper than most of the others, and richer than many, besides having interesting associations, and being of venerable antiquity, we hold it to be the one most worthy of selection. With a few briefly stated facts we shall take final leave of statistics. As we have said, the Boscawen shaft measures 245 fathoms. The ladder-way by which the men ascend and descend daily extends to 205 fathoms. It takes a man half an hour to reach the bottom, and fully an hour to climb to the surface. There are three pumping and seven winding engines at work--the largest being of 70 horse-power. The tin raised is from 33 to 35 tons a month. The price of tin has varied from 55 pounds to 90 pounds per ton. In time past, when Botallack was more of a copper than a tin-mine, a fathom has been known to yield 100 pounds worth of ore, and a miner has sometimes broken out as much as 300 pounds worth in one month. The mine has been worked from time immemorial. It is known to have been wrought a hundred years before it was taken by the present company, who have had it between thirty and forty years, and, under the able direction of the present manager and purser, Mr Stephen Harvey James, it has paid the shareholders more than 100,000 pounds. The profit in the year 1844 was 24,000 pounds. At the termination of one period of working it left a profit of 300,000 pounds. It has experienced many vicissitudes of fortune. Formerly it was worked for tin, and at one period (1841) was doing so badly that it was about to be abandoned, when an unlooked for discovery of copper was made, and a period of great prosperity again set in, during which many shareholders and miners made their fortunes out of Botallack. Thus much, with a humble apology, we present to the reader, and now resume the thread of our narrative. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Note 1. The packmen are so styled because of their visits being paid fortnightly. CHAPTER EIGHT. DOWN, DOWN, DOWN. Before descending the mine Captain Dan led Oliver to the counting-house, where he bade him undress and put on miner's clothing. "I'll need a biggish suit," observed Oliver. "True," said Captain Dan; "we are obliged usually to give visitors our smallest suits. You are an exception to the rule. Indeed, I'm not sure that I have a pair of trousers big enough for--ah yes, by the way, here is a pair belonging to one of our captains who is unusually stout and tall; I dare say you'll be able to squeeze into 'em." "All right," said Oliver, laughing, as he pulled on the red garments; "they are wide enough round the waist, at all events. Now for a hat." "There," said the captain, handing him a white cotton skull-cap, "put that on." "Why, what's this for?" said Oliver. "To keep _that_ from dirtying your head," replied the other, as he handed his companion a thick felt hat, which was extremely dirty, on the front especially, where the candle was wont to be fixed with wet clay. "Now, then, attach these two candles to that button in your breast, and you are complete.--Not a bad miner to look at," said Captain Dan with a smile of approval. The captain was already equipped in underground costume, and the dirty disreputable appearance he presented was, thought Oliver, a wonderful contrast to his sober and gentlemanly aspect on the evening of their first meeting at his uncle's table. "I'll strike a light after we get down a bit--so come along," said Captain Dan, leaving the office and leading the way. On reaching the entrance to the shaft, Oliver Trembath looked down and observed a small speck of bright light in the black depths. "A man coming up--wait a bit," said the captain in explanation. Presently a faint sound of slow footsteps was heard; they grew gradually more distinct, and ere long the head and shoulders of a man emerged from the hole. Perspiration was trickling down his face, and painting him, streakily, with iron rust and mud. All his garments were soaking. He sighed heavily on reaching the surface, and appeared to inhale the fresh air with great satisfaction. "Any more coming?" "No, Captain Dan," replied the man, glancing with some curiosity at the tall stranger. "Now, sir, we shall descend," said the captain, entering the shaft. Oliver followed, and at once plunged out of bright sunshine into subdued light. A descent of a few fathoms brought them to the bottom of the first ladder. It was a short one; most of the others, the captain told him, were long ones. The width of the shaft was about six feet by nine. It was nearly perpendicular, and the slope of the ladders corresponded with its width--the head of each resting against one side of it, and the foot against the other, thus forming a zigzag of ladders all the way down. At the foot of the first ladder the light was that of deep twilight. Here was a wooden platform, and a hole cut through it, out of which protruded the head of the second ladder. The Captain struck a light, and, applying it to one of the candles, affixed the same to the front of Oliver's hat. Arranging his own hat in a similar way, he continued the descent, and, in a few minutes, both were beyond the region of daylight. When they had got a short way down, probably the distance of an ordinary church-steeple's height below the surface, Oliver looked up and saw the little opening far above him, shining brightly like a star. A few steps more and it vanished from view; he felt that he had for the first time in his life reached the regions of eternal night. The shaft varied in width here and there; in most places it was very narrow--about six feet wide--but, what with cross-beams to support the sides, and prevent soft parts from falling in, and other obstructions, the space available for descent was often not more than enough to permit of a man squeezing past. A damp smell pervaded the air, and there was a strange sense of contraction and confinement, so to speak, which had at first an unpleasant effect on Oliver. The silence, when both men paused at a ladder-foot to trim candles or to rest a minute, was most profound, and there came over the young doctor a sensation of being buried alive, and of having bid a final farewell to the upper earth, the free air, and the sunshine, as they went down, down, down to the depths below. At last they reached a "level" or gallery, by which the ladder-shaft communicated with the pump-shaft. Here Captain Dan paused and trimmed Oliver's candle, which he had thrust inadvertently against a beam, and broken in two. "You have to mind your head here, sir," said the captain, with a quiet smile; "'tis a good place to learn humility." Oliver could scarce help laughing aloud as he gazed at his guide, for, standing as he did with the candle close to his face, his cheeks, nose, chin, forehead, and part of the brim of his hat and shoulders were brought into brilliant light, while the rest of him was lost in the profound darkness of the level behind, and the flame of his candle rested above his head like the diadem of some aristocratic gnome. "How far down have we come?" inquired Oliver. "About eighty fathoms," said the captain; "we shall now go along this level and get into the pump-shaft, by which we can descend to the bottom. Take care of your feet and head as you go, for you'll be apt to run against the rocks that hang down, and the winzes are dangerous." "And pray what are winzes?" asked Oliver as he stumbled along in the footsteps of his guide, over uneven ground covered with debris.--"Ah! hallo! stop!" "What's wrong?" said the captain, looking back, and holding up his candle to Oliver's face. "Candle gone again, captain; I've run my head on that rock. Lucky for me that your mining hats are so thick and hard, for I gave it a butt that might have done credit to an ox." "I told you to mind your head," said Captain Dan, relighting the candle; "you had better carry it in your hand in the levels, it will light your path better. Look out now--here is a winze." The captain pointed to a black yawning hole, about six or seven feet in diameter, which was bridged across by a single plank. "How deep does it go?" asked the youth, holding up his candle and peering in; "I can't see the bottom." "I dare say not," said the captain, "for the bottom is ten fathoms down, at the next level." "And are all the winzes bridged with a single plank in this way?" "Why, no, some of 'em have two or three planks, but they're quite safe if you go steady." "And, pray, how many such winzes are there in the mine?" asked Oliver. "Couldn't say exactly, without thinkin' a bit," replied the captain; "but there are a great number of 'em--little short of a hundred, I should say--for we have a good many miles of levels in Botallack, which possesses an underground geography as carefully measured and mapped out as that of the surface." "And what would happen," asked Oliver, with an expression of half-simulated anxiety, "if you were to fall down a winze and break your neck, and my candle were to get knocked or blown out, leaving me to find my way out of a labyrinth of levels pierced with holes sixty feet deep?" "Well, it's hard to say," replied Captain Dan with much simplicity. "Go on," said Oliver, pursing his lips with a grim smile, as he followed his leader across the narrow bridge. Captain Dan continued his progress until he reached the pump-shaft, the proximity of which was audibly announced by the slow ascent and descent of a great wooden beam, which was styled the "pump-rod." Alongside, and almost touching it, for space was valuable there, and had to be economised, was the iron pipe--nearly a foot in diameter--which conveyed the water from the mine to the "Adit level." The slow-heaving plunge, of about ten feet in extent, and the sough or sigh of the great beam, with the accompanying gurgle of water in the huge pipe, were sounds that seemed horribly appropriate to the subterranean scene. One could have imagined the mine to be a living giant in the last throes of death by drowning. But these were only one half of the peculiarities of the place. On the other side of the shaft an arrangement of beams and partially broken boards formed the traversing "ways" or tube, up which were drawn the kibbles--these last being large iron buckets used for lifting ore to the surface. In the present day, machinery being more perfect, the ancient kibble has been to some extent supplanted by skips, or small trucks with wheels (in some cases iron boxes with guiding-rods), which are drawn up smoothly, and without much tear and wear; but in the rough times of which we write, the sturdy kibble used to go rattling up the shaft with deafening noise, dinting its thick sides, and travelling with a jovial free-and-easy swing that must have added considerably to the debit side of the account of working expenses. Between the pump-rod and the kibble-way there was just room for the ladders upon which Captain Dan, followed by Oliver, now stepped. This shaft was very wet, water dropped and spirted about in fine spray everywhere, and the rounds of the ladders were wet and greasy with much-squeezed slime. It would seem as though the kibbles had known that a stranger was about to descend and had waited for him, for no sooner did Oliver get on the ladder than they began to move--the one to ascend full, and the other to descend empty. "What's that?" exclaimed Oliver. "It's only the kibbles," replied Captain Dan. Before the captain could explain what kibbles were, these reckless buckets met, with a bang, close to Oliver's cheek, and rebounded on the beams that protected him from their fury. Naturally the young man shrank a little from a noise so loud and so near. He was at once scraped down on the other side by the pump-rod! Drawing himself together as much as possible, and feeling for once the disadvantage of being a large man, he followed his leader down, down, ever down, into the profounder depths below. All this time they had not met with a miner, or with any sign of human life--unless the pump and kibbles could be regarded as such--for they had been hitherto traversing the old levels and workings of the mine, but at last, during one of their pauses, they heard the faint sound of chip, chip, chip, in the far distance. "Miners?" inquired Oliver. Captain Dan nodded, and said they would now leave the shaft and go to where the men were at work. He cautioned his companion again to have regard to his head, and to mind his feet. As they proceeded, he stopped ever and anon to point out some object of peculiar interest. "There's a considerable space above and below you here, sir," said the captain, stopping suddenly in a level which was not more than three feet wide. Oliver had been so intent on his feet, and mindful of the winzes, that he had failed to observe the immense black opening overhead. It extended so high above him, and so far forward and backward in the direction of the level, that its boundaries were lost in an immensity of profoundly dark space. The rocky path was also lost to view, both before and behind them, so that the glare of their lights on the metallic walls rendered the spot on which they stood a point of brilliancy in the midst of darkness. Only part of a great beam was visible here and there above them, as if suspended in the gloom to render its profundity more apparent. This, Captain Dan explained, was the space that had once been occupied by a rich lode of ore, all of which had been removed years ago, to the great commercial advantage of a past generation. Soon after passing this the captain paused at a deep cutting in the rock, and, looking sadly at it for a few minutes, said,--"It was here that poor Trevool lost his life. He was a good lad, but careless, and used to go rattling along the levels with his light in his hat and his thoughts among the stars, instead of carrying the light in his hand and looking to his feet. He fell down that winze and broke his back. When we got him up to grass he was alive, but he never spoke another word, and died the same night." "Poor fellow!" said Oliver; "I suppose your men have narrow escapes sometimes." "They have, sir, but it's most always owin' to carelessness. There was a cousin of that very lad Trevool who was buried with a comrade by the falling in of a shaft and came out alive. I was there at the time and helped to dig him out." Captain Dan here stopped, and, sticking his candle against the wet wall of the mine, sat down on a piece of rock, while our hero stood beside him. "You see," said he, "we were sinking a shaft, or rather reopening an old one, at the time, and Harvey, that was the man's name, was down working with a comrade. They came to a soft bit o' ground, an' as they cut through it they boarded it up with timbers across to prevent it slipping, but they did the work hastily. After they had cut down some fathoms below it, the boarding gave way, and down the whole thing went, boards, timbers, stones, and rubbish, on their heads. We made sure they were dead, but set to, nevertheless, to dig them out as fast as possible--turning as many hands to the work as could get at it. At last we came on them, and both were alive, and not very much hurt! The timbers and planks had fallen over them in such a way as to keep the stones and rubbish off. I had a talk with old Harvey the other day on this very subject. He told me that he was squeezed flat against the side of the shaft by the rubbish which buried him, and that he did not lose consciousness for a moment. A large stone had stuck right above his head, and this probably saved him. He heard us digging down to him, he said, and when we got close he sang out to hold on, as the shovel was touching him. Sure enough this was the case, for the next shovelful of rubbish that was lifted revealed the top of his head! We cleared the way to his mouth as carefully as we could, and then gave him a drop of brandy before going on with the work of excavation. His comrade was found in a stooping position, and was more severely bruised than old Harvey, but both of them lived to tell the tale of their burial, and to thank God for their deliverance. Yes," continued the captain, detaching his candle from the wall and resuming his walk, "we have narrow escapes sometimes.--Look here, doctor, did you ever see a rock like that?" Captain Dan pointed to a place in the side of the rocky wall which was grooved and cut as if with a huge gouge or chisel, and highly polished. "It was never cut by man in that fashion; we found it as you see it, and there's many of 'em in the mine. We call 'em slinking slides." "The marks must have been caused when the rocks were in a state of partial fusion," observed Oliver, examining the place with much curiosity. "I don't know as to that, sir," said the captain, moving on, "but there they are, and some of 'em polished to that extent you could almost see your face in 'em." On turning the corner of a jutting rock a light suddenly appeared, revealing a pair of large eyes and a double row of teeth, as it were gleaming out of the darkness. On drawing nearer, this was discovered to be a miner, whose candle was at some little distance, and only shone on him partially. "Well, Jack, what's doing?" asked the captain. The man cast a disconsolate look on a large mass of rock which lay in the middle of the path at his feet. He had been only too successful in his last blasting, and had detached a mass so large that he could not move it. "It's too hard for to break, Captain Dan." "Better get it into the truck," said the captain. "Can't lift it, sur," said the man, who grudged to go through the tedious process of boring it for a second blast. "You must get it out o' that, Jack, at all events. It won't do to let it lie there," said the captain, passing on, and leaving the miner to get out of his difficulty as best he might. A few minutes more and they came on a "pare" of men (in other words, a band of two or more men working together) who were "stopeing-in the back of the level," as they termed the process of cutting upwards into the roof. "There's a fellow in a curious place!" said Oliver, peering up through an irregular hole, in which a man was seen at work standing on a plank supported by a ladder. He was chiselling with great vigour at the rock over his head, and immediately beyond him another man stood on a plank supported by a beam of timber, and busily engaged in a similar occupation. Both men were stripped to the waist, and panted at their toil. The little chamber or cavern in which they worked was brilliantly illuminated by their two candles, and their athletic figures stood out, dark and picturesque, against the light glistering walls. "A curious place, and a singular man!" observed the captain; "that fellow's family is not a small one.--Hallo! James Martin." "Hallo! Captain Dan," replied the miner, looking down. "How many children have you had?" "How many child'n say 'ee?" "Ay, how many?" "I've had nineteen, sur, an' there's eight of 'em alive. Seven of 'em came in three year an six months, sur--three doubles an' a single, but them uns are all gone dead, sur." "How old are you, Jim?" "Forty-seven, sur." "Your brother Tom is at work here, isn't he?" "Iss, in the south level, drivin' the end." "How many children has Tom had, Jim?" "Seventeen, sur, an' seven of 'em's alive; but Tom's only thirty-eight years old, sur." [See note 1.] "Good-morning, Jim." "Good-morning, Captain Dan," replied the sturdy miner, resuming his work. "Good specimens of men these," said the captain, with a quiet smile, to Oliver. "Of course I don't mean to say that all the miners hereabouts are possessed of such large families--nevertheless there are, as I dare say you have observed, a good many children in and about St. Just!" Proceeding onward they diverged into a branch level, where a number of men were working overhead; boring holes into the roof and burrowing upwards. They all drove onwards through flinty rock by the same slow and toilsome process that has already been described--namely, by chipping with the pick, driving holes with the borer, and blasting with gunpowder. As the Captain and Oliver traversed this part of the mine they had occasionally to squeeze past small iron trucks which stood below holes in the sides of the level, down which ever and anon masses of ore and debris came from the workings above with a hard crashing noise. The ore was rich with tin, but the metal was invisible to any but trained eyes. To Oliver Trembath the whole stuff appeared like wet rubbish. Suddenly a low muffled report echoed through the cavernous place. It was followed by five or six similar reports in succession. "They are blasting," said Captain Dan. As he spoke, the thick muddy shoes and brick-dust legs of a man appeared coming down the hole that had previously discharged ore. The man himself followed his legs, and, alighting thereon, saluted Captain Dan with a free-and-easy "Good-morning." Another man followed him; from a different part of the surrounding darkness a third made his appearance, and others came trooping in, until upwards of a dozen of them were collected in the narrow tunnel, each with his tallow candle in his hand or hat, so that the place was lighted brilliantly. They were all clad in loose, patched, and ragged clothes. All were of a uniform rusty-red colour, each with his broad bosom bared, and perspiration trickling down his besmeared countenance. Here, however, the uniformity of their appearance ended, for they were of all sizes and characters. Some were robust and muscular; some were lean and wiry; some were just entering on manhood, with the ruddy hue of health shining through the slime on their smooth faces; some were in the prime of life, pale from long working underground, but strong, and almost as hard as the iron with which they chiselled the rocks. Others were growing old, and an occasional cough told that the "miners' complaint" had begun its fatal undermining of the long-enduring, too-long-tried human body. There were one or two whose iron constitutions had resisted the evil influences of wet garments, bad air, and chills, and who, with much of the strength of manhood, and some of the colour of youth, were still plying their hammers in old age. But these were rare specimens of vigour and longevity; not many such are to be found in Botallack mine. The miner's working life is a short one, and comparatively few of those who begin it live to a healthy old age. Little boys were there, too, diminutive but sturdy urchins, miniature copies of their seniors, though somewhat dirtier; proud as peacocks because of being permitted at so early an age to accompany their fathers or brothers underground, and their bosoms swelling with that stern Cornish spirit of determination to face and overcome great difficulties, which has doubtless much to do with the excessive development of chest and shoulder for which Cornish miners, especially those of St. Just, are celebrated. [See note 2.] It turned out that the men had all arranged to fire their holes at the same hour, and assemble in a lower level to take lunch, or, as they term it, "kroust," while the smoke should clear away. This rendered it impossible for the captain to take his young companion further into the workings at that part of the mine, so they contented themselves with a chat with the men. These sat down in a row, and, each man unrolling a parcel containing a pasty or a thick lump of cake with currants in it, commenced the demolition thereof with as much zeal as had previously been displayed in the demolition of the rock. This frugal fare was washed down with water drawn from little flat barrels or canteens, while they commented lightly, grumblingly, or laughingly, according to temperament, on the poor condition of the lode at which they wrought. We have already said that in mining, as in other things, fortune fluctuates, and it was "hard times" with the men of Botallack at that period. Before they had proceeded far with their meal, one of the pale-faced men began to cough. "Smoke's a-coming down," he said. "We shall 'ave to move, then," observed another. The pouring in of gunpowder smoke here set two or three more a-coughing, and obliged them all to rise and seek for purer--perhaps it were better to say less impure--air in another part of the level, where the draught kept the smoke away. Here, squatting down on heaps of wet rubbish, and sticking their candles against the damp walls, they continued their meal, and here the captain and Oliver left them, retraced their steps to the foot of the shaft, and began the ascent to the surface, or, in mining parlance, began to "return to grass." Up, up, up--the process now was reversed, and the labour increased tenfold. Up they went on these nearly perpendicular and interminable ladders, slowly, for they had a long journey before them; cautiously, for Oliver had a tendency to butt his head against beams, and knock his candle out of shape; carefully, for the rounds of the ladders were wet and slimy and a slip of foot or hand might in a moment have precipitated them into the black gulf below; and pantingly, for strength of limb and lung could not altogether defy the influence of such a prolonged and upright climb. If Oliver Trembath felt, while descending, as though he should _never_ reach the bottom, he felt far more powerfully as if reaching the top were an event of the distant future--all the more that the muscles of his arms and legs, unused to the peculiar process, were beginning to feel rather stiff. This feeling, however, soon passed away, and when he began to grow warm to the work, his strength seemed to return and to increase with each step--a species of revival of vigour in the midst of hard toil with which probably all strong men are acquainted. Up they went, ladder after ladder, squeezing through narrow places, rubbing against wet rocks and beams, scraping against the boarding of the kibble-shaft, and being scraped by the pump-rods until both of them were as wet and red and dirty as any miner below. As he advanced, Oliver began to take note of the places he had passed on the way down, and so much had he seen and thought during his sojourn underground, that, when he reached the level where he first came upon the noisy kibbles, and made acquaintance with the labouring pump-rod, he almost hailed the spot as an old familiar landmark of other days! A circumstance occurred just then which surprised him not a little, and tended to fix this locality still more deeply on his memory. While he was standing in the level, waiting until the captain should relight and trim his much and oft bruised candle, the kibbles began their noisy motion. This was nothing new now, but at the same time the shout of distant voices was heard, as if the gnomes held revelry in their dreary vaults. They drew gradually nearer, and Oliver could distinguish laughter mingled with the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps. "Foolish lads!" ejaculated Captain Dan with a smile, and an expression that proved he took some interest in the folly, whatever it might be. "What is it?" inquired Oliver. "They are racing to the kibble. Look and you shall see," replied the other. Just then a man who had outrun his comrades appeared at the place where the level joined the shaft, just opposite. Almost at the same moment the kibble appeared flying upwards. The miner leaped upon it, caught and clung to the chain as it passed, and shouted a defiant adieu to his less fortunate comrades, who arrived just in time to witness him disappear upwards in this rapid manner "to grass." "That's the way the young ones risk their lives," said the captain, shaking his head remonstratively; "if that young fellow had missed the kibble he would have been dashed to pieces at the bottom of the shaft." Again Captain Dan said "Foolish lads," and shook his head so gravely that Oliver could not help regarding him with the respect due to a sedate, fatherly sort of man; but Oliver was young and unsophisticated, and did not know at the time that the captain had himself been noted in his youth as an extremely reckless and daring fellow, and that a considerable spice of the daring remained in him still! Diverging to the right at this point Captain Dan led Oliver to an old part of the mine, where there were a couple of men opening up and extending one of the old levels. Their progress here was very different from what it had been. Evidently the former miners had not thought it worth their while to open up a wide passage for themselves, and Oliver found it necessary to twist his broad shoulders into all sorts of positions to get them through. The first level they came to in this part was not more than three feet high at the entrance. "A man can't hold his head very high here, sir," said his guide. "Truly no, it is scarce high enough for my legs to walk in without any body above them," said Oliver. "However, lead the way, and I will follow." The captain stooped and made his way through a winding passage where the roof was so low in many places that they were obliged to bend quite double, and the back and neck of the young doctor began to feel the strain very severely. There were, however, a few spots where the roof rose a little, affording temporary relief. Presently they came to the place where the men were at work. The ground was very soft here; the men were cutting through _soft_ granite!--a condition of the stone which Oliver confessed he had never expected to see. Here the lights burned very badly. "What can be the matter with it?" said Oliver, stopping for the third time to trim the wick of his candle. Captain Dan smiled as he said, "You asked me, last night, to take you into one of the levels where the air was bad--now here you are, with the air so bad that the candle will hardly burn. It will be worse before night." "But I feel no disagreeable sensation," said Oliver. "Possibly not, because you are not quite so sensitive as the flame of a candle, but if you remain here a few hours it will tell upon you. Here are the men-- you can ask them." The two men were resting when they approached. One was old, the other middle-aged. Both were hearty fellows, and communicative. The old one, especially, was ruddy in complexion and pretty strong. "You look well for an old miner," said Oliver; "what may be your age?" "About sixty, sur." "Indeed! you are a notable exception to the rule. How comes it that you look so fresh?" "Can't say, sur," replied the old man with a peculiar smile; "few miners live to my time of life, much less do they go underground. P'raps it's because I neither drink nor smoke. Tom there, now," he added, pointing to his comrade with his thumb, "he ain't forty yit, but he's so pale as a ghost; though he is strong 'nuff." "And do you neither drink nor smoke, Tom?" inquired Oliver. "Well, sur, I both smokes and drinks, but I do take 'em in moderation," said Tom. "Are you married?" asked Oliver, turning again to the old man. "Iss, got a wife at hum, an' had six child'n." "Don't you find this bad air tell on your health?" he continued. "Iss, sur. After six or seven hours I do feel my head like to split, an' my stummik as if it wor on fire; but what can us do? we must live, you knaw." Bidding these men goodbye, the captain and Oliver went down to another level, and then along a series of low galleries, in some of which they had to advance on their hands and knees, and in one of them, particularly, the accumulation of rubbish was so great, and the roof so low, that they could only force a passage through by wriggling along at full length like snakes. Beyond this they found a miner and a little boy at work; and here Captain Dan pointed out to his companion that the lodes of copper and tin were rich. Glittering particles on the walls and drops of water hanging from points and crevices, with the green, purple, and yellow colours around, combined to give the place a brilliant metallic aspect. "You'd better break off a piece of ore here," said Captain Dan. Oliver took a chisel and hammer from the miner, and applying them to the rock, spent five minutes in belabouring it with scarcely any result. "If it were not that I fear to miss the chisel and hit my knuckles," he said, "I think I could work more effectively." As he spoke he struck with all his force, and brought down a large piece, a chip of which he carried away as a memorial of his underground ramble. "The man is going to fire the hole," said Captain Dan; "you'd better wait and see it." The hole was sunk nearly two feet deep diagonally behind a large mass of rock that projected from the side of the level. It was charged with gunpowder, and filled up with "tamping" or pounded granite, Then the miner lighted the fuse and hastened away, giving the usual signal, "Fire!" The others followed him to a safe distance, and awaited the result. In a few minutes there was a loud report, a bright blinding flash, and a concussion of the air which extinguished two of the candles. Immediately a crash followed, as the heavy mass of rock was torn from its bed and hurled to the ground. "That's the way we raise tin and copper," said Captain Dan; "now, doctor, we had better return, if you would not be left in darkness, for our candles are getting low." "Did you ever travel underground in the dark?" inquired Oliver. "Not often, but I have done it occasionally. Once, in particular, I went down the main shaft in the dark, and gave a miner an awful fright. I had to go down in haste at the time, and, not having a candle at hand, besides being well acquainted with the way, I hurried down in the dark. It so chanced that a man named Sampy had got his light put out when about to ascend the shaft, and, as he also was well acquainted with the way, he did not take the trouble to relight. There was a good deal of noise in consequence of the pump being at work. When I had got about half-way down I put my foot on something that felt soft. Instantly there was uttered a tremendous yell, and my legs at the same moment were seized by something from below. My heart almost jumped out of my mouth at this, but as the yell was repeated it flashed across me I must have trod on some one's fingers, so I lifted my foot at once, and then a voice, which I knew to be that of Sampy, began to wail and lament miserably. "`Hope I haven't hurt 'ee, Sampy?' said I. "`Aw dear! aw dear! aw, my dear!' was all that poor Sampy could reply. "`Let us go up, my son,' said I, `and we'll strike a light.' "So up we went to the next level, where I got hold of the poor lad's candle and lighted it. "`Aw, my dear!' said Sampy, looking at his fingers with a rueful countenance; `thee have scat 'em all in jowds.'" "Pray," interrupted Oliver, "what may be the meaning of `scat 'em all in jowds'? "Broke 'em all in pieces," replied Captain Dan; "but he was wrong, for no bones were broken, and the fingers were all right again in the course of a few days. Sampy got a tremendous fright, however, and he was never known to travel underground without a light after that." Continuing to retrace their steps, Captain Dan and Oliver made for the main shaft. On the way they came to another of those immense empty spaces where a large lode had been worked away, and nothing left in the dark narrow void but the short beams which had supported the working stages of the men. Here Oliver, looking down through a hole at his feet, saw several men far below him. They were at work on the "end" in three successive tiers--above each other's heads. "You've seen two of these men before," said Captain Dan. "Have I?" "Yes, they are local preachers. The last time you saw the upper one," said Captain Dan with a smile, "you were seated in the Wesleyan chapel, and he was in the pulpit dressed like a gentleman, and preaching as eloquently as if he had been educated at college and trained for the ministry." "I should like very much to go down and visit them," said Oliver. "'Tis a difficult descent. There are no ladders. Will your head stand stepping from beam to beam, and can you lower yourself by a chain?" "I'll try," said Oliver. Without more words Captain Dan left the platform on which they had been walking, and, descending through a hole, led his companion by the most rugged way he had yet attempted. Sometimes they slid on their heels down places that Oliver would not have dreamed of attempting without a guide; at other times they stepped from beam to beam, with unknown depths below them. "Have a care here, sir," said the captain, pausing before a very steep place. "I will go first and wait for you." So saying, he seized a piece of old rusty chain that was fastened into the rock, and swung himself down. Then, looking up, he called to Oliver to follow. The young doctor did so, and, having cautiously lowered himself a few yards, he reached a beam, where he found the captain holding up his candle, and regarding him with some anxiety. Captain Dan appeared as if suspended in mid-air. Opposite to him, in the distance, the two "local preachers" were hard at work with hammer and chisel, while far below, a miner could be seen coming along the next level, and pushing an iron truck full of ore before him. A few more steps and slides, and then a short ascent, and Oliver stood beside the man who had preached the previous Sunday. He worked with another miner, and was red, ragged, and half-clad, like all the rest, and the perspiration was pouring over his face, which was streaked with slime. Very unlike was he at that time to the gentlemanly youth who had held forth from the pulpit. Oliver had a long chat with him, and found that he aspired to enter the ministry, and had already passed some severe examinations. He was self-taught, having procured the loan of books from his minister and some friends who were interested in him. His language and manners were those of a gentleman, yet he had had no advantages beyond his fellows. "My friend there, sir, also hopes to enter the ministry," said the miner, pointing, as he spoke, to a gap between the boards on which he stood. Oliver looked down, and there beheld a stalwart young man, about a couple of yards under his feet, wielding a hammer with tremendous vigour. His light linen coat was open, displaying his bared and muscular bosom. "What! is _he_ a local preacher also?" "He is, sir," said the miner, with a smile. Oliver immediately descended to the stage below, and had a chat with this man also, after which he left them at their work, wondering very much at the intelligence and learning displayed by them; for he remembered that in their sermons they had, without notes, without hesitation, and without a grammatical error, entered into the most subtle metaphysical reasoning (rather too much of it indeed!), and had preached with impassioned (perhaps too impassioned) eloquence, quoting poets and prose writers, ancient and modern, with the facility of good scholars--while they urged men and women to repent and flee to Christ, with all the fervour of men thoroughly in earnest. On the other hand, he knew that their opportunities for self-education were not great, and that they had to toil in the meantime for daily bread, at the rate of about 3 pounds a month! Following Captain Dan, Oliver soon reached the ladder-way. While slowly and in silence ascending the ladders; they heard a sound of music above them. "Men coming down to work, singing," said the captain, as they stood on a cross-beam to listen. The sounds at first were very faint and inexpressibly sweet. By degrees they became more distinct, and Oliver could distinguish several voices singing in harmony, keeping time to the slow measured tread of their descending steps. There seemed a novelty, and yet a strange familiarity, in the strains as they were wafted softly down upon his ear, until they drew near, and the star-like candles of the miners became visible. Their manly voices then poured forth in full strength the glorious psalm-tune called "French," which is usually sung in Scotland to the beautiful psalm beginning, "I to the hills will lift mine eyes." The men stopped abruptly on encountering their captain and the stranger. Exchanging a few words with the former, they stood aside on the beams to let them pass. A little boy came last. His small limbs were as active as those of his more stalwart comrades, and he exhibited no signs of fatigue. His treble voice, too, was heard high and tuneful among the others as they continued their descent and resumed the psalm. The sweet strains retired gradually, and faded in the depths below as they had first stolen on the senses from above; and the pleasant memory of them still remained with the young doctor when he emerged from the mine through the hole at the head of the shaft, and stood once more in the blessed sunshine! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Note 1. Reader, allow us to remark that this is a fact. Indeed, we may say here, once for all, that all the _important_ statements and incidents in this tale are facts, or founded on facts, with considerable modification, but without intentional exaggeration. Note 2. It has been stated to us recently by a volunteer officer, that at battalion parade, when companies were equalised in numbers, the companies formed by the men of St. Just required about four paces more space to stand upon than the other volunteers. No one who visits a St. Just miner at his underground toil will require to ask the reason why. CHAPTER NINE. TREATS OF DIFFICULTIES TO BE OVERCOME. One afternoon a council--we may appropriately say of war--was held in St. Just. The scene of the council was the shop of Maggot, the blacksmith, and the members of it were a number of miners, the president being the worthy smith himself, who, with a sledge-hammer under his arm in the position of a short crutch, occupied the chair, if we may be allowed so to designate the raised hearth of the forge. The war with poverty had not been very successfully waged of late, and, at the time of which we write, the enemy had apparently given the miners a severe check, in the way of putting what appeared to be an insuperable obstacle in their path. "Now, lads," said Maggot, with a slap on the leathern apron that covered his knees, "this is the way on it, an' do 'ee be quiet and hould yer tongues while I do spaik." The other men, of whom there were nearly a dozen, nodded and said, "Go on, booy; thee's knaw tin, sure;" by which expression they affirmed their belief that the blacksmith was a very knowing fellow. "You do tell me that you've come so close to water that you're 'fraid to go on? Is that so?" "Iss, iss," responded the others. "Well, I'll hole into the house, ef you do agree to give un a good pitch," said Maggot. "Agreed, one and all," cried the miners. In order that the reader may understand the drift of this conversation, it is necessary to explain that the indefatigable miner, David Trevarrow, whom we have already introduced in his submarine workshop, had, according to his plan, changed his ground, and transferred his labour to a more hopeful part of the mine. For some time previous the men had been at work on a lode which was very promising, but they were compelled to cease following it, because it approached the workings of an old part of the mine which was known to be full of water. To tap this old part, or as the miners expressed it, to "hole into this house of water," was, they were well aware, an exceedingly dangerous operation. The part of the mine to which we allude was not under the sea, but back a little from the shore, and was not very deep at that time. The "adit"--or water-conducting--level by which the spot was reached commenced at the cliffs, on a level with the seashore, and ran into the interior until it reached the old mine, about a quarter of a mile inland. Here was situated the "house," which was neither more nor less than a number of old shafts and levels filled with water. As they had approached the old mine its near proximity was made disagreeably evident by the quantity of moisture that oozed through the crevices in the rocks--moisture which ere long took the form of a number of tiny rills--and at last began to spirt out from roof and sides in such a way that the miners became alarmed, and hesitated to continue to work in a place where they ran the most imminent risk of being suddenly drowned and swept into the sea, by the bursting of the rocks that still withstood the immense pressure of the confined water. It was at this point in the undertaking that David Trevarrow went to examine the place, and made the discovery of a seam--a "keenly lode"-- which had such a promising appearance that the anxiety of the miners to get rid of this obstructive "house" was redoubled. It was at this point, too, that the council of which we write was held, in order to settle who should have the undesirable privilege of constituting the "forlorn hope" in their subterranean assault. Maggot, who was known to be one of the boldest, and, at the same time, one of the most utterly reckless, men in St. Just, was appealed to in the emergency, and, as we have seen, offered to attack the enemy single-handed, on condition that the miners should give him a "pitch" of the good lode they had found--that is, give him the right to work out a certain number of fathoms of ore for himself. They agreed to this, but one of them expressed some doubt as to Maggot's courage being equal to the occasion. To this remark Maggot vouchsafed no other reply than a frown, but his friend and admirer John Cock exclaimed in supreme contempt,--"What! Maggot afear'd to do it! aw, my dear, hould tha tongue." "But he haven't bin to see the place," urged the previous speaker. "No, my son," said Maggot, turning on the man with a look of pity, "but he can go an' see it. Come, lads, lev us go an' see this place of danger." The miners rose at once as Maggot threw his forehammer on a heap of coals, put on his hat, and strode out of the forge with a reckless fling. A few minutes sufficed to bring them to the beach at the mouth of the adit. It was a singularly wild spot, close under those precipitous cliffs on which some of the picturesque buildings of Botallack mine are perched--a sort of narrow inlet or gorge which from its form is named the Narrow Zawn. There was nothing worthy of the name of a beach at the place, save a little piece of rugged ground near the adit mouth, which could be reached only by a zigzag path on the face of the almost perpendicular precipice. Arrived here, each man lighted a candle, wrapped the customary piece of wet clay round the middle of it, and entered the narrow tunnel. They advanced in single file, James Penrose leading. The height of the adit permitted of their walking almost upright, but the irregularity of the cuttings rendered it necessary that they should advance carefully, with special regard to their heads. In about a quarter of an hour they reached a comparatively open space--that is to say, there were several extensions of the cutting in various directions, which gave the place the appearance of being a small cavern, instead of a narrow tunnel. Here the water, which in other parts of the adit flowed along the bottom, ran down the walls and spirted in fine streams from the almost invisible crevices of the rock, thus betraying at once the proximity and the power of the pent-up water. "What think'ee now, my son?" asked an elderly man who stood at Maggot's elbow. After a short pause, during which he sternly regarded the rocks before him, the smith replied, "_I'll do it_," in the tone and with the air of a man who knows that what he has made up his mind to do is not child's play. The question being thus settled, the miners retraced their steps and went to their several homes. Entering his cottage, the smith found his little girl Grace busily engaged in the interesting process of nursing the baby. He seated himself in a chair by the fireside, smoked his pipe, and watched the process, while his wife busied herself in preparing the evening meal. Oh! but the little Maggot was a big baby--a worthy representative of his father--a true chip of the old block, for he was not only fat, riotous, and muscular, but very reckless, and extremely positive. His little nurse, on the contrary, was gentle and delicate; not much bigger than the baby, although a good deal older, and she had a dreadful business of it to keep him in order. All her efforts at lifting and restraining him were somewhat akin to the exertion made by wrestlers to throw each other by main force, and her intense desire to make baby Maggot "be good" was repaid by severe kicks on the shins, and sundry dabs in the face with, luckily, a soft, fat pair of fists. "Sit 'ee quiet, now, or I'll scat oo nose," said the little nurse suddenly, with a terrible frown. It need scarcely be said that she had not the remotest; intention of carrying out this dreadful threat to smash the little Maggot's nose. She accompanied it, however, with a twist that suddenly placed the urchin in a sitting posture, much to his own surprise, for he opened his eyes very wide, drew his breath sharply, and appeared to meditate a roar. He thought better of it, however, and relapsed into goodness just as the door opened, and David Trevarrow entered. "Oh, uncle David," cried little Grace, jumping up and running towards him, "do help me nuss baby." "What's the matter with the cheeld--bad, eh? Fetch un to me and I'll cure him." There was no necessity to fetch baby, for that obstreperous individual entertained an immense regard for "Unkil Day," and was already on his fat legs staggering across the floor to him with outstretched arms. Thereafter he only required a pair of wings to make him a complete cherub. Little Grace, relieved of her charge, at once set to work to assist her mother in household matters. She was one of those dear little earnest creatures who of their own accord act in a motherly and wifely way from their early years. To look at little Grace's serious thoroughgoing face, when she chanced to pause in the midst of work, and meditate what was to be done next, one might imagine that the entire care of the household had suddenly devolved upon her shoulders. In the matter of housewifery little Grace was almost equal to big Grace, her respected mother; in downright honesty and truthfulness she greatly excelled her. The description of Maggot's household, on that evening, would be very incomplete were we to omit mention of Zackey Maggot. That young man-- for man he deemed himself, and man he was, in all respects, except the trifling matters of years, size, and whiskers--that young man entered the room with his uncle, and, without deigning to change his wet red garments, sat him down at his father's feet and caught hold of a small black kitten, which, at the time, lay sound asleep on the hearth, and began to play with it in a grave patronising way, as though his taking notice of it at all were a condescension. That black kitten, or Chet, as it was usually styled, was accustomed to be strangled the greater part of the morning by the baby. Most of the afternoon it was worried by Zackey, and, during the intervals of torment, it experienced an unusually large measure of the vicissitudes incident to kitten life--such as being kicked out of the way by Maggot senior, or thrown or terrified out of the way by Mrs Maggot, or dashed at by stray dogs, or yelled at by passing boys. The only sunshine of its life (which was at all times liable to be suddenly clouded) was when it slept, or when little Grace put it on her soft neck, tickled its chin, and otherwise soothed its ruffled spirit, as only a loving heart knows how. A bad memory seemed to be that kitten's chief blessing. A horror of any kind was no sooner past than it was straightway forgotten, and the facetious animal would advance with arched back and glaring eyes in defiance of an incursive hen, or twirl in mad hopeless career after its own miserable tail! "'Tis a keenly lode," said Maggot, puffing his pipe thoughtfully. "Iss," assented David Trevarrow, also puffing his pipe, at the clouds issuing from which baby gazed with endless amazement and admiration; "it's worth much, but it isn't worth your life." "Sure, I ain't goin' to give my life for't," replied Maggot. "But you're goin' to risk it," said David, "an' you shouldn't, for you've a wife an' child'n to provide for. Now, I tell 'ee what it is: you lev it to me. _I'll_ hole to the house. It don't matter much what happens to me." "No, 'ee won't," said Maggot stoutly; "what I do promise to do I _will_ do." "But if you die?" said David. "Well, what if I do? we have all to come to that some day, sooner or later." "Are you prepared to die?" asked Trevarrow earnestly. "Now, David, don't 'ee trouble me with that. 'Tis all very well for the women an' child'n, but it don't suit me, it don't, so lev us have no more of it, booy. I'll do it to-morrow, that's fixed, so now we'll have a bit supper." The tone in which Maggot said this assured David that further conversation would be useless, so he dropped the subject and sat down with the rest of the family to their evening meal. CHAPTER TEN. SHOWS HOW MAGGOT MADE A DESPERATE VENTURE, AND WHAT FLOWED FROM IT. "A wilful man must have his way" is a proverb the truth of which was illustrated by the blacksmith on the following day. David Trevarrow again attempted to dissuade him from his purpose, and reiterated his offer to go in his stead, but he failed to move him. Mrs Maggot essayed, and added tears to her suasion, as also did little Grace; but they failed too--the obdurate man would not give way. The only one of his household who did not attempt to dissuade him (excepting, of course, the baby, who cared nothing whatever about the matter) was Zackey. That urchin not only rejoiced in the failure of the others to turn his father from his purpose, but pleaded hard to be allowed to go with him, and share his danger as well as glory. This, however, was peremptorily denied to the young aspirant to fame and a premature death by drowning in a dark hole. Early in the forenoon Maggot and his friends proceeded to the shore, where they found a number of miners and others assembled near the adit mouth--among them our hero Oliver Trembath, Mr Donnithorne, and Mr Cornish, at that time the purser and manager of Botallack mine. The latter gentleman accosted Maggot as he came forward, and advised him to be cautious. Of course the smith gave every assurance that was required of him, and immediately prepared himself to make the dangerous experiment. Supplying himself with a number of tallow candles, a mining hammer, and other tools, Maggot stripped to the waist, and jestingly bidding his friends farewell, entered the mouth of the tunnel, and disappeared. The adit level, or tunnel, through which he had to pass to the scene of his operations, was, as we have said, about a quarter of a mile in length, about six feet high, and two and a half feet wide. It varied in dimensions here and there, however, and was rough and irregular throughout. For the first hundred yards or so Maggot could see well enough to grope his way by the daylight which streamed in at the entrance of the adit, but beyond this point all was intense darkness; so here he stopped, and, striking a light by means of flint, steel, and tinder, lit one of his candles. This he attached to a piece of wet clay in the usual fashion, except that he placed the clay at the lower end of the candle instead of round the middle of it. He then stuck it against the rock a little above the level of his head. Lighting another candle he advanced with it in his hand. Walking, or rather wading onward (for the stream was ankle-deep) far enough to be almost beyond the influence of the first candle, he stopped again and stuck up another. Thus, at intervals, he placed candles along the entire length of the adit, so that he might have light to guide him in his race from the water which he hoped to set free. This precaution was necessary, because, although he meant to carry a candle in his hat all the time, there was a possibility--nay, a strong probability--that it would be blown or drowned out. Little more than a quarter of an hour brought him to the scene of his intended adventure. Here he found the water spirting out all round, much more violently than it had been the day before. He did not waste much time in consideration, having made up his mind on the previous visit as to which part of the rock he would drive the hole through. Sticking his last candle, therefore, against the driest part of the wall that could be found, he seized his tools and commenced work. We have already said that Maggot was a strong man. As he stood there, naked to the waist, holding the borer with his left hand, and plying the hammer with all his might with the other, his great breadth of shoulder and development of muscle were finely displayed by the candlelight, which fell in brilliant gleams on parts of his frame, while the rest of him was thrown into shadow, so deep that it would have appeared black, but for the deeper shade by which it was surrounded--the whole scene presenting a grand Rembrandt effect. It is unnecessary to say that Maggot wrought with might and main. Excited somewhat by the novelty and danger of his undertaking, he felt relieved by the violence of his exertion. He knew, besides, that the candles which were to light him on his return were slowly but surely burning down. Blow after blow resounded through the place incessantly. When the smith's right arm felt a very little wearied--it was too powerful to be soon or greatly exhausted--he shifted the hammer to his left hand, and so the work went on. Suddenly and unexpectedly the borer was driven to its head into the hole by a tremendous blow. The rock behind it had given way. Almost at the same instant a large mass of rock burst outwards, followed by a stream of water so thick and violent that it went straight at the opposite side of the cavern, against which it burst in white foam. This, rebounding back and around, rushed against roof and sides with such force that the whole place was at once deluged. Maggot was knocked down at the first gush, but leaped up and turned to fly. Of course both candles--that in his hat as well as that which he had affixed to the wall--were extinguished, and he was at once plunged in total darkness, for the rays of the next light, although visible, were too feeble to penetrate with any effect to the extremity of the adit. Blinded by rushing water and confused by his fall, the smith mistook his direction, and ran against the side of the level with such violence that he fell again, but his sturdy frame withstood the shock, and once more he sprang to his feet and leaped along the narrow tunnel with all the energy of desperation. Well was it for Maggot at that hour that his heart was bold and his faculties cool and collected, else then and there his career had ended. Bending forward and stooping low, he bounded away like a hunted deer, but the rush of water was so great that it rapidly gained on him, and, by concealing the uneven places in the path, caused him to stumble. His relay of candles served him in good stead; nevertheless, despite their light and his own caution, he more than once narrowly missed dashing out his brains on the low roof. On came the water after the fugitive, a mighty, hissing, vaulting torrent, filling the level behind, and leaping up on the man higher and higher as he struggled and floundered on for life. Quickly, and before quarter of the distance to the adit mouth was traversed, it gurgled up to his waist, swept him off his legs, and hurled him against projecting rocks. Once and again did he succeed in regaining his foothold, but in a moment or two the rising flood swept him down and hurled him violently onward, sporting with him on its foaming crest until it disgorged him at last, and cast him, stunned, bruised, and bleeding, on the seashore. Of course the unfortunate man's friends had waited for him with some impatience, and great was their anxiety when the first of the flood made its appearance. When, immediately after, the battered form of their comrade was flung on the beach, they ran forward and bore him out of the stream. Oliver Trembath being on the spot, Maggot wae at once attended to, and his wounds bound up. "He'll do; he's all right," said Oliver, on completing the work--"only got a few cuts and bruises, and lost a little blood, but that won't harm him." The expression of anxiety that had appeared on the faces of those who stood around at once vanished on hearing these reassuring words. "I knaw'd it," said John Cock energetically. "I knaw'd he couldn't be killed--not he." "I trust that you may be right, Oliver," said old Mr Donnithorne, looking with much concern on the pale countenance of the poor smith, who still lay stretched out, with only a slight motion of the chest to prove that the vital spark had not been altogether extinguished. "No fear of him, he's sure to come round," replied Oliver; "come, lads, up with him on your backs." He raised the smith's shoulder as he spoke. Three tall and powerful miners promptly lent their aid, and Maggot was raised shoulder-high, and conveyed up the steep, winding path that led to the top of the cliff. "It would never do to lose Maggot," murmured Mr Donnithorne, as if speaking to himself while he followed the procession beside Mr Cornish; "he's far too good a--" "A smuggler--eh?" interrupted the purser, with a laugh. "Eh, ah! did I say smuggler?" cried Mr Donnithorne; "surely not, for of all vices that of smuggling is one of the worst, unless it be an overfondness for the bottle. I meant to have said that he is too valuable a man for St. Just to lose--in many ways; and you know, Mr Cornish, that he is a famous wrestler--a man of whom St. Just may be justly proud." Mr Donnithorne cast a sly glance at his companion, whom he knew to be partial to the ancient Cornish pastime of wrestling. Indeed, if report said truly, the worthy purser had himself in his youthful days been a celebrated amateur wrestler, one who had never been thrown, even although he had on more than one occasion been induced in a frolic to enter the public ring and measure his strength with the best men that could be brought against him. He was long past the time of life when men indulge in such rough play, but his tall commanding figure and huge chest and shoulders were quite sufficient to warrant the belief that what was said of him was possible, while the expression of his fine massive countenance, and the humorous glance of his clear, black eye, bore evidence that it was highly probable. "'Twould be foul injustice," said the purser with a quiet laugh, "if I were to deny that Maggot is a good man and true, in the matter of wrestling; nevertheless he is an arrant rogue, and defrauds the revenue woefully. But, after all he is only the cat's-paw; those who employ him are the real sinners--eh, Mr Donnithorne?" "Surely, surely," replied the old gentleman with much gravity; "and it is to be hoped that this accident will have the effect of turning Maggot from his evil ways." The purser could not refrain from a laugh at the hypocritical solemnity of the old gentleman, who was, he well knew, one of the very sinners whom he condemned with such righteous indignation, but their arrival at Maggot's cottage prevented further conversation on the subject at that time. Mrs Maggot, although a good deal agitated when her husband's almost inanimate and bloody form was carried in and laid on the bed, was by no means overcome with alarm. She, like the wives of St. Just miners generally, was too well accustomed to hear of accidents and to see their results, to give way to wild fears before she had learned the extent of her calamity; so, when she found that it was not serious, she dried her eyes, and busied herself in attending to all the little duties which the occasion required. Little Grace, too, although terribly frightened, and very pale, was quite self-possessed, and went about the house assisting her mother ably, despite the tendency to sob, which she found it very difficult to overcome. But the baby behaved in the most shameful and outrageous manner. His naughtiness is almost indescribable. The instant the door opened, and his father's bloody face was presented to view, baby set up a roar so tremendous that a number of dogs in the neighbourhood struck in with a loud chorus, and the black kitten, startled out of an innocent slumber, rushed incontinently under the bed, faced about, and fuffed in impotent dismay! But not only did baby roar--he also fell on the floor and kicked, thereby rendering his noise exasperating, besides exposing his fat person to the risk of being trod upon. Zackey was therefore told off as a detachment to keep this enemy in check, a duty which he performed nobly, until his worthy father was comfortably put to bed, after which the friends retired, and left the smith to the tender care of his own family. "He has done good service anyhow," observed Mr Donnithorne to his nephew, as he parted from him that evening; "for he has cleared the mine of water that it would have cost hundreds of pounds and many months to pump out." CHAPTER ELEVEN. SHOWS THAT MUSIC HATH CHARMS, AND ALSO THAT IT SOMETIMES HAS DISADVANTAGES. One morning, not long after his arrival at St. Just, the young doctor went out to make a round of professional visits. He had on his way to pass the cottage of his uncle, which stood a little apart from the chief square or triangle of the town, and had a small piece of ground in front. Here Rose was wont to cultivate her namesakes, and other flowers, with her own fair hands, and here Mr Thomas Donnithorne refreshed himself each evening with a pipe of tobacco, the flavour of which was inexpressibly enhanced to him by the knowledge that it had been smuggled. He was in the habit of washing the taste of the same away each night, before retiring to rest, with a glass of brandy and water, hot, which was likewise improved in flavour by the same interesting association. The windows of the cottage were wide open, for no Atlantic fog dimmed the glory of the summer sun that morning, and the light air that came up from the mighty sea was fresh and agreeably cool. As Oliver approached the end of the cottage he observed that Rose was not at her accustomed work in the garden, and he was about to pass the door when the tones of a guitar struck his ear and arrested his step. He was surprised, for at that period the instrument was not much used, and the out-of-the-way town of St. Just was naturally the last place in the land where he would have expected to meet with one. No air was played--only a few chords were lightly touched by fingers which were evidently expert. Presently a female voice was heard to sing in rich contralto tones. The air was extremely simple, and very beautiful--at least, so thought Oliver, as he leaned against a wall and listened to the words. These, also, were simple enough, but sounded both sweet and sensible to the listener, coming as they did from a woman's lips so tunefully, and sounding the praises of the sea, of which he was passionately fond:-- SONG. "I love the land where acres broad Are clothed in yellow grain; Where cot of thrall and lordly hall Lie scattered o'er the plain. Oh! I have trod the velvet sod Beneath the beechwood tree; And roamed the brake by stream and lake Where peace and plenty be. But more than plain, Or rich domain, I love the bright blue sea! "I love the land where bracken grows And heath-clad mountains rise; Where peaks still fringed with winter snows Tower in the summer skies. Oh! I have seen the red and green Of fir and rowan tree, And heard the din of flooded linn, With bleating on the lea. But better still Than heath-clad hill I love the stormy sea!" The air ceased, and Oliver, stepping in at the open door, found Rose Ellis with a Spanish guitar resting on her knee. She neither blushed nor started up nor looked confused--which was, of course, very strange of her in the circumstances, seeing that she is the heroine of this tale--but, rising with a smile on her pretty mouth, shook hands with the youth. "Why, cousin," said Oliver, "I had no idea you could sing so charmingly." "I am fond of singing," said Rose. "So am I, especially when I hear such singing as yours; and the song, too--I like it much, for it praises the sea. Where did you pick it up?" "I got it from the composer, a young midshipman," said Rose sadly; at the same time a slight blush tinged her brow. Oliver felt a peculiar sensation which he could not account for, and was about to make further inquiries into the authorship of the song, when it occurred to him that this would be impolite, and might be awkward, so he asked instead how she had become possessed of so fine a guitar. Before she could reply Mr Donnithorne entered. "How d'ee do, Oliver lad; going your rounds--eh?--Come, Rose, let's have breakfast, lass, you were not wont to be behind with it. I'll be bound this gay gallant--this hedge-jumper with his eyes shut--has been praising your voice and puffing up your heart, but don't believe him, Rose; it's the fashion of these fellows to tell lies on such matters." "You do me injustice, uncle," said Oliver with a laugh; "but even if it were true that I am addicted to falsehood in praising women, it were impossible, in the present instance, to give way to my propensity, for Truth herself would find it difficult to select an expression sufficiently appropriate to apply to the beautiful voice of Rose Ellis!" "Hey-day, young man," exclaimed Mr Donnithorne, as he carefully filled his pipe with precious weed, "your oratorical powers are uncommon! Surely thy talents had been better bestowed in the Church or at the Bar than in the sickroom or the hospital. Demosthenes himself would have paled before thee, lad--though, if truth must be told, there is a dash more sound than sense in thine eloquence." "Sense, uncle! Surely your own good sense must compel you to admit that Rose sings splendidly?" "Well, I won't gainsay it," replied Mr Donnithorne, "now that Rose has left the room, for I don't much care to bespatter folk with too much praise to their faces. The child has indeed a sweet pipe of her own. By the way, you were asking about her guitar when I came in; I'll tell you about that. "Its history is somewhat curious," said Mr Donnithorne, passing his fingers through the bunch of gay ribbons that hung from the head of the instrument. "You have heard, I dare say, of the burning of Penzance by the Spaniards more than two hundred years ago; in the year 1595, I think it was?" "I have," answered Oliver, "but I know nothing beyond the fact that such an event took place. I should like to hear the details of it exceedingly." "Well," continued the old gentleman, "our country was, as you know, at war with Spain at the time; but it no more entered into the heads of Cornishmen that the Spaniards would dare to land on our shores than that the giants would rise from their graves. There was, indeed, an old prediction that such an event would happen, but the prediction was either forgotten or not believed, so that when several Spanish galleys suddenly made their appearance in Mounts Bay, and landed about two hundred men near Mousehole, the inhabitants were taken by surprise. Before they could arm and defend themselves, the Spaniards effected a landing, began to devastate the country, and set fire to the adjacent houses. "It is false," continued the old man sternly, "to say, as has been said by some, that the men of Mousehole were seized with panic, and that those of Newlyn and Penzance deserted their houses terror-stricken. The truth is, that the suddenness of the attack, and their unprepared condition to repel it, threw the people into temporary confusion, and forced them to retreat, as, all history shows us, the best and bravest will do at times. In Mousehole, the principal inhabitant was killed by a cannon-ball, so that, deprived of their leading spirit at the critical moment when a leader was necessary, it is no wonder that at _first_ the fishermen were driven back by well-armed men trained to act in concert. To fire the houses was the work of a few minutes. The Spaniards then rushed on to Newlyn and Penzance, and fired these places also, after which they returned to their ships, intending to land the next day and renew their work of destruction. "But that night was well spent by the enraged townsmen. They organised themselves as well as they could in the circumstances, and, when day came, attacked the Spaniards with guns and bows, and that so effectively, that the Dons were glad to hoist their sails and run out of the bay. "Well, you must know there was one of the Spaniards, who, it has been said, either from bravado, or vanity, or a desire to insult the English, or from all three motives together, brought a guitar on shore with him at Mousehole, and sang and played to his comrades while they were burning the houses. This man left his guitar with those who were left to guard the boats, and accompanied the others to Penzance. On his return he again took his guitar, and, going up to a high point of the cliff, so that he might be seen by his companions and heard by any of the English who chanced to be in hiding near the place, sang several songs of defiance at the top of his voice, and even went the length of performing a Spanish dance, to the great amusement of his comrades below, who were embarking in their boats. "While the half-crazed Spaniard was going on thus he little knew that, not three yards distant from him, a gigantic Mousehole fisherman, who went by the name of Gurnet, lay concealed among some low bushes, watching his proceedings with an expression of anger on his big stern countenance. When the boats were nearly ready to start the Spaniard descended from the rocky ledge on which he had been performing, intending to rejoin his comrades. He had to pass round the bush where Gurnet lay concealed, and in doing so was for a few seconds hid from his comrades, who immediately forgot him in the bustle of departure, or, if they thought of him at all, each boat's crew imagined, no doubt, that he was with one of the others. "But he never reached the boats. As he passed the bush Gurnet sprang on him like a tiger and seized him round the throat with both hands, choking a shout that was coming up, and causing his eyes to start almost out of his head. Without uttering a word, and only giving now and then a terrible hiss through his clenched teeth, Gurnet pushed the Spaniard before him, keeping carefully out of sight of the beach, and holding him fast by the nape of the neck, so that when he perceived the slightest symptom of a tendency to cry out he had only to press his strong fingers and effectually nip it in the bud. "He led him to a secluded place among the rocks, far beyond earshot of the shore, and there, setting him free, pointed to a flat rock and to his guitar, and hissed, rather than said, in tones that could neither be misunderstood nor gainsaid-- "`There, dance and sing, will 'ee, till 'ee bu'st!' "Gurnet clenched his huge fist as he spoke, and, as the Spaniard grew pale, and hesitated, he shook it close to his face--so close that he tapped the prominent bridge of the man's nose, and hissed again, more fiercely than before-- "`Ye haaf saved bucca, ye mazed totle, that can only frighten women an' child'n, an burn housen; thee'rt fond o' singin' an' dancin'--dance now, will 'ee, ye gurt bufflehead, or ef ye waant I'll scat thee head in jowds, an' send 'ee scrougin' over cliffs, I will.'" In justice to the narrator it is right to say that these words are not so bad as they sound. "The fisherman's look and action were so terrible whilst he poured forth his wrath, which was kept alive by the thought of the smouldering embers of his own cottage, that the Spaniard could not but obey. With a ludicrous compound of fun and terror he began to dance and sing, or rather to leap and wail, while Gurnet stood before him with a look of grim ferocity that never for a moment relaxed. "Whenever the Spaniard stopped from exhaustion Gurnet shouted `Go on,' in a voice of thunder, and the poor man, being thoroughly terrified, went on until he fell to the ground incapable of further exertion. "Up to this point Gurnet had kept saying to himself, `He is fond o' dancin' an' singin', let un have it, then,' but when the poor man fell his heart relented. He picked him up, threw him across his shoulder as if he had been a bolster, and bore him away. At first the men of the place wanted to hang him on the spot, but Gurnet claimed him as his prisoner, and would not allow this. He gave him his liberty, and the poor wretch maintained himself for many a day as a wandering minstrel. At last he managed to get on board of a Spanish vessel, and was never more heard of, but he left his guitar behind him. It was picked up on the shore, where he left it, probably, in his haste to get away. "The truth of this story, of course, I cannot vouch for," concluded Mr Donnithorne, with a smile, "but I have told it to you as nearly as possible in the words in which I have often heard my grandfather give it--and as for the guitar, why, here it is, having been sold to me by a descendant of the man who found it on the seashore." "A wonderful story indeed," said Oliver--"_if true_." "The guitar you must admit is at least a fact," said the old gentleman. Oliver not only admitted this, but said it was a sweet-sounding fact, and was proceeding to comment further on the subject when Mr Donnithorne interrupted him-- "By the way, talking of sweet sounds, have you heard what that gruff-voiced scoundrel Maggot--that roaring bull of Bashan--has been about lately?" "No, I have not," said Oliver, who saw that the old gentleman's ire was rising. "Ha! lad, that man ought to be hanged. He is an arrant knave, a smuggler--a--an ungrateful rascal. Why, sir, you'll scarcely believe it: he has come to me and demanded more money for the jewels which he and his comrade sold me in fair and open bargain, and because I refused, and called him a few well-merited names, he has actually gone and given information against me as possessor of treasure, which of right, so they say, belongs to Government, and last night I had a letter which tells me that the treasure, as they call it, must be delivered up without delay, on pain of I don't know what penalties. Penalties, forsooth! as if I hadn't been punished enough already by the harassing curtain-lectures of my over-scrupulous wife, ever since the unlucky day when the baubles were found, not to mention the uneasy probings of my own conscience, which, to say truth, I had feared was dead altogether owing to the villainous moral atmosphere of this smuggling place, but which I find quite lively and strong yet--a matter of some consolation too, for although I do have a weakness for cheap 'baccy and brandy, being of an economical turn of mind, I don't like the notion of getting rid of my conscience altogether. But, man, 'tis hard to bear!" Poor Mr Donnithorne stopped here, partly owing to shortness of breath, and partly because he had excited himself to a pitch that rendered coherent speech difficult. "Would it not be well at once to relieve your conscience, sir," suggested Oliver respectfully, "by giving up the things that cause it pain? In my profession we always try to get at the root of a disease, and apply our remedies there." "Ha!" exclaimed the old gentleman, wiping his heated brow, "and lose twenty pounds as a sort of fee to Doctor Maggot, who, like other doctors I wot of, created the disease himself, and who will certainly never attempt to alleviate it by returning the fee." "Still, the disease may be cured by the remedy I recommend," said Oliver. "No, man, it can't," cried the old gentleman with a perplexed expression, "because the dirty things are already sold and the money is invested in Botallack shares, to sell which and pay back the cash in the present depressed state of things would be utter madness. But hush! here comes my better half, and although she _is_ a dear good soul, with an unusual amount of wisdom for her size, it would be injudicious to prolong the lectures of the night into the early hours of morning." As he spoke little Mrs Donnithorne's round good-looking face appeared like the rising sun in the doorway, and her cheery voice welcomed Oliver to breakfast. "Thank you, aunt," said Oliver, "but I have already breakfasted more than an hour ago, and am on my way to visit my patients. Indeed, I have to blame myself for calling at so early an hour, and would not have done so but for the irresistible attraction of a newly discovered voice, which--" "Come, come, youngster," interrupted Mr Donnithorne, "be pleased to bear in remembrance that the voice is connected with a pair of capital ears, remarkable for their sharpness, if not their length, and at no great distance off, I warrant." "You do Rose injustice," observed Mrs Donnithorne, as the voice at that moment broke out into a lively carol in the region of the kitchen, whither its owner had gone to superintend culinary matters. "But tell me, Oliver, have you heard of the accident to poor Batten?" "Yes, I saw him yesterday," replied the doctor, "just after the accident happened, and I am anxious about him. I fear, though I am not quite certain, that his eyesight is destroyed." "Dear! dear!--oh, poor man," said Mrs Donnithorne, whose sympathetic heart swelled, while her blue eyes instantly filled with tears. "It is so very sad, Oliver, for his delicate wife and four young children are entirely dependent upon him and his two sons--and they found it difficult enough to make the two ends meet, even when they were all in health; for it is hard times among the miners at present, as you know, Oliver; and now--dear, dear, it is very, _very_ sad." Little Mrs Donnithorne said nothing more at that time, but her mind instantly reverted to a portly basket which she was much in the habit of carrying with her on her frequent visits to the poor and the sick--for the good lady was one of those whose inclinations as well as principles lead them to "consider the poor." It must not be imagined, however, that the poor formed a large class of the community in St. Just. The miners of that district, and indeed all over Cornwall, were, and still are, a self-reliant, independent, hard-working race, and as long as tough thews and sinews, and stout and willing hearts, could accomplish anything, they never failed to wrench a subsistence out of the stubborn rocks which contain the wealth of the land. Begging goes very much against the grain of a Cornishman, and the lowest depth to which he can sink socially, in his own esteem, is that of being dependent on charity. In some cases this sentiment is carried too far, and has degenerated into pride; for, when God in His wisdom sees fit, by means of disabling accident or declining health, to incapacitate a man from labour, it is as honourable in him to receive charity as it is (although not always sufficiently esteemed so) a high privilege and luxury of the more fortunate to give. Worthy Mrs Donnithorne's charities were always bestowed with such delicacy that she managed, in some mysterious way, to make the recipients feel as though they had done her a favour in accepting them. And yet she was not a soft piece of indiscriminating amiability, whose chief delight in giving lay in the sensations which the act created within her own breast. By no means. None knew better than she when and where to give money, and when to give blankets, bread, or tea. She was equally sharp to perceive the spirit that rendered it advisable for her to say, "I want you to do me a favour--there's a good woman now, you won't refuse me, etcetera," and to detect the spirit that called forth the sharp remark, accompanied with a dubious smile and a shake of her fat forefinger, "There now, see that you make better use of it _this_ time, else I shall have to scold you." Having received a message for poor Mrs Batten, the miner's wife, the doctor left the cottage, and proceeded to pay his visits. Let us accompany him. CHAPTER TWELVE. IN WHICH OLIVER GETS "A FALL," AND SEES SOME OF THE SHADOWS OF THE MINER'S LIFE. In crossing a hayfield, Oliver Trembath encountered the tall, bluff figure, and the grave, sedate smile of Mr Cornish, the manager. "Good-morning, doctor," said the old gentleman, extending his hand and giving the youth a grasp worthy of one of the old Cornish giants; "do you know I was thinking, as I saw you leap over the stile, that you would make a pretty fair miner?" "Thanks, sir, for your good opinion of me," said Oliver, with a smile, "but I would rather work above than below ground. Living the half of one's life beyond the reach of sunlight is not conducive to health." "Nevertheless, the miners keep their health pretty well, considering the nature of their work," replied Mr Cornish; "and you must admit that many of them are stout fellows. You would find them so if you got one of their Cornish hugs." "Perhaps," said Oliver, with a modest look, for he had been a noted wrestler at school, "I might give them a pretty fair hug in return, for Cornish blood flows in my veins." "A fig for blood, doctor; it is of no avail without knowledge and practice, as well as muscle. _With_ these, however, I do acknowledge that it makes weight--if by `blood' you mean high spirit." "By the way, how comes it, sir," said Oliver, "that Cornishmen are so much more addicted to wrestling than other Englishmen?" "It were hard to tell, doctor, unless it be that they feel themselves stronger than other Englishmen, and being accustomed to violent exertion more than others, they take greater pleasure in it. Undoubtedly the Greeks introduced it among us, but whether they practised it as we now do cannot be certainly ascertained." Here Mr Cornish entered into an enthusiastic account of the art of wrestling; related many anecdotes of his own prowess in days gone by, and explained the peculiar method of performing the throw by the heel, the toe, and the hip; the heave forward, the back-heave, and the Cornish hug, to all of which the youth listened with deep interest. "I should like much to witness one of your wrestling-matches," he said, when the old gentleman concluded; "for I cannot imagine that any of your peculiar Cornish hugs or twists can be so potent as to overturn a stout fellow who is accustomed to wrestle in another fashion. Can you show me one of the particular grips or twists that are said to be so effective?" "I think I can," replied the old gentleman, with a smile, and a twinkle in his eye; "of course the style of grip and throw will vary according to the size of the man one has to deal with. Give me hold of your wrist, and plant yourself firmly on your legs. Now, you see, you must turn the arm--so, and use your toe--thus, so as to lift your man, and with a sudden twist--there! That's the way to do it!" said the old gentleman, with a chuckle, as he threw Oliver head foremost into the middle of a haycock that lay opportunely near. It is hard to say whether Mr Cornish or Oliver was most surprised at the result of the effort--the one, that so much of his ancient prowess should remain, and the other, that he should have been so easily overthrown by one who, although fully as large a man as himself, had his joints and muscles somewhat stiffened by age. Oliver burst into a fit of laughter on rising, and exclaimed, "Well done, sir! You have effectually convinced me that there is something worth knowing in the Cornish mode of wrestling; although, had I known what you were about to do, it might not perhaps have been done so easily." "I doubt it not," said Mr Cornish with a laugh; "but that shows the value of `science' in such matters. Good-morning, doctor. Hope you'll find your patients getting on well." He waved his hand as he turned off, while Oliver pursued his way to the miners' cottages. The first he entered belonged to a man whose chest was slightly affected for the first time. He was a stout man, about thirty-five years of age, and of temperate habits--took a little beer occasionally, but never exceeded; had a good appetite, but had caught cold frequently in consequence of having to go a considerable distance from the shaft's mouth to the changing-house while exhausted with hard work underground and covered with profuse perspiration. Often he had to do this in wet weather and when bitterly cold winds were blowing--of late he had begun to spit blood. It is necessary here to remind the reader that matters in this respect-- and in reference to the condition of the miner generally--are now much improved. The changing-houses, besides being placed as near to the several shafts as is convenient, are now warmed with fires, and supplied with water-troughs, so that the men have a comfortable place in which to wash themselves on coming "to grass," and find their clothes thoroughly dried when they return in the morning to put them on before going underground. This renders them less liable to catch cold, but of course does not protect them from the evil influences of climbing the ladders, and of bad air. Few men have to undergo such severe toil as the Cornish miner, because of the extreme hardness of the rock with which he has to deal. To be bathed in perspiration, and engaged in almost unremitting and violent muscular exertion during at least eight hours of each day, may be said to be his normal condition. Oliver advised this man to give up underground work for some time, and, having prescribed for him and spoken encouragingly to his wife, left the cottage to continue his rounds. Several cases, more or less similar to the above, followed each other in succession; also one or two cases of slight illness among the children, which caused more alarm to the anxious mothers than there was any occasion for. These latter were quickly but good-naturedly disposed of, and the young doctor generally left a good impression behind him, for he had a hearty, though prompt, manner and a sympathetic spirit. At one cottage he found a young man in the last stage of consumption. He lay on his lowly bed pale and restless--almost wishing for death to relieve him of his pains. His young wife sat by his bedside wiping the perspiration from his brow, while a ruddy-cheeked little boy romped about the room unnoticed--ignorant that the hour was drawing near which would render him fatherless, and his young mother a widow. This young man had been a daring, high-spirited fellow, whose animal spirits led him into many a reckless deed. His complaint had been brought on by racing up the ladders--a blood-vessel had given way, and he had never rallied after. Just as Oliver was leaving him a Wesleyan minister entered the dwelling. "He won't be long with us, doctor, I fear," he said in passing. "Not long, sir," replied Oliver. "His release will be a happy one," said the minister, "for his soul rests on Jesus; but, alas! for his young wife and child." He passed into the sickroom, and the doctor went on. The next case was also a bad one, though different from the preceding. The patient was between forty and fifty years of age, and had been unable to go underground for several years. He was a staid, sober man, and an abstemious liver, but it was evident that his life on earth was drawing to a close. He had been employed chiefly in driving levels, and had worked a great deal in very bad air, where the candles could not be made to burn unless placed nine or ten feet behind the spot where he was at work. Indeed, he often got no fresh air except what was blown to him, and only a puff now and then. When he first went to work in the morning the candle would not keep alight, so that he had to take his coat and beat the air about before going into the level, and, after a time, went in when the candles could be got to burn by holding them on one side, and teasing out the wick very much. This used to create a great deal of smoke, which tended still further to vitiate the air. When he returned "to grass" his saliva used to be as black as ink. About five years before giving up underground work he had had inflammation of the lungs, followed by blood-spitting, which used to come on when he was at work in what he called "poor air," or in "cold-damp," and he had never been well since. Oliver's last visit that day was to the man John Batten; who had exploded a blast-hole in his face the day before. This man dwelt in a cottage in the small hamlet of Botallack, close to the mine of the same name. The room in which the miner lay was very small, and its furniture scanty; nevertheless it was clean and neatly arranged. Everything in and about the place bore evidence of the presence of a thrifty hand. The cotton curtain on the window was thin and worn, but it was well darned, and pure as the driven snow. The two chairs were old, as was also the table, but they were not rickety; it was obvious that they owed their stability to a hand skilled in mending and in patching pieces of things together. Even the squat little stool in the side of the chimney corner displayed a leg, the whiteness of which, compared with the other two, told of attention to small things. There was a peg for everything, and everything seemed to be on its peg. Nothing littered the well-scrubbed floor or defiled the well-brushed hearthstone, and it did not require a second thought on the part of the beholder to ascribe all this to the tidy little middle-aged woman, who, with an expression of deep anxiety on her good-looking countenance, attended to the wants of her injured husband. As Oliver approached the door of this cottage two stout youths, of about sixteen and seventeen respectively, opened it and issued forth. "Good-morning, lads! Going to work, I suppose?" said Oliver. "Iss, sur," replied the elder, a fair-haired ruddy youth, who, like his brother, had not yet sacrificed his colour to the evil influence of the mines; "we do work in the night corps, brother and me. Father is worse to-day, sur." "Sorry to hear that," said the doctor, as he passed them and entered the cottage, while the lads shouldered their tools and walked smartly down the lane that led to Botallack mine. "Your husband is not quite so well to-day, I hear," said the doctor, going to the side of the bed on which the stalwart form of the miner lay. "No, sur," replied the poor woman; "he has much pain in his eyes to-day, but his heart is braave, sur; I never do hear a complaint from he." This was true. The man lay perfectly still, the compressed lip and the perspiration that moistened his face alone giving evidence of the agony he endured. "Do you suffer much?" inquired the doctor, as he undid the bandages which covered the upper part of the man's face. "Iss, sur, I do," was the reply. No more was said, but a low groan escaped the miner when the bandage was removed, and the frightful effects of the accident were exposed to view. With intense anxiety Mrs Batten watched the doctor's countenance, but found no comfort there. A very brief examination was sufficient to convince Oliver that the eyes were utterly destroyed, for the miner had been so close to the hole when it exploded that the orbs were singed by the flame, and portions of unburnt powder had been blown right into them. "Will he see--a _little_, sur?" whispered Mrs Batten. Oliver shook his head. "I fear not," he said in a low tone. "Speak out, doctor," said the miner in firm tones, "I ain't afeard to knaw it." "It would be unkind to deceive you," replied Oliver sadly; "your eyes are destroyed." No word was spoken for a few minutes, but the poor woman knelt by her husband's side, and nestled close to him. Batten raised his large brown hand, which bore the marks and scars of many a year of manly toil, and laid it gently on his wife's head. "I'll never see thee again, Annie," he murmured in a low deep tone; "but I see thee face now, lass, as I _last_ saw it, wi' the smile of an angel on't--an' I'll see it so till the day I die; bless the Lord for that." Mrs Batten rose and went softly but quickly out of the room that she might relieve her bursting heart without distressing her husband, but he knew her too well to doubt the reason of her sudden movement, and a faint smile was on his lips for a moment as he said to Oliver,--"She's gone to weep a bit, sur, and pray. It will do her good, dear lass." "Your loss is a heavy one--very heavy," said Oliver, with hesitation in his tone, for he felt some difficulty in attempting to comfort one in so hopeless a condition. "True, sur, true," replied the man in a tone of cheerful resignation that surprised the doctor, "but it might have been worse; `the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord!'" Mrs Batten returned in a few minutes, and Oliver left them, after administering as much comfort as he could in the circumstances, but to say truth, although well skilled in alleviating bodily pains, he was incapable of doing much in the way of ministering to the mind diseased. Oliver Trembath was not a medical missionary. His mother, though a good, amiable woman, had been a weak, easy-going creature--one of those good-tempered, listless ladies who may be regarded as human vegetables, who float through life as comfortably as they can, giving as little trouble as possible, and doing as little good as is compatible with the presence of even nominal Christianity. She performed the duties of life in the smallest possible circle, the centre of which was herself, and the extremity of the radii extending to the walls of her garden. She went to church at the regulation hours; "said her prayers" in the regulation tone of voice; gave her charities in the stated way, at stated periods, with a hazy perception as to the objects for which they were given, and an easy indifference as to the success of these objects--the whole end and aim of her wishes being attained in, and her conscience satisfied by, the act of giving. Hence her son Oliver was not much impressed in youth with the power or value of religion, and hence he found himself rather put out when his common sense told him, as it not unfrequently did, that it was his duty sometimes to administer a dose to the mind as well as to the body. But Oliver was not like his mother in any respect. His fire, his energy, his intellectual activity, and his impulsive generosity he inherited from his father. Amiability alone descended to him from his mother--an inheritance, by the way, not to be lightly esteemed, for by it all his other qualities were immeasurably enhanced in value. His heart had beat in sympathy with the mourners he had just left, and his manly disposition made him feel ashamed that the lips which could give advice glibly enough in regard to bandages and physic, and which could speak in cheery, comforting tones when there was hope for his patient, were sealed and absolutely incapable of utterance when death approached or hopeless despair took possession of the sufferer. Oliver had felt something of this even in his student life, when the solemnities of sickness and death were new to him; but it was pressed home upon him with peculiar power, and his manhood was often put to the blush when he was brought into contact with the Wesleyan Methodism of West Cornwall, where multitudes of men and women of all grades drew comfort from the Scriptures as readily and as earnestly as they drew water from their wells--where religion was mingled with everyday and household duties--and where many of the miners and fishermen preached and prayed, and comforted one another with God's Word, as vigorously, as simply, and as naturally as they hewed a livelihood from the rocks or drew sustenance from the sea. CHAPTER THIRTEEN. TREATS OF SPIRITS AND OF SUNDRY SPIRITED MATTERS AND INCIDENTS. One sunny afternoon Mrs Maggot found herself in the happy position of having so thoroughly completed her round of household work that she felt at leisure to sit down and sew, while little Grace sat beside her, near the open door, rocking the cradle. Baby, in blissful unconsciousness of its own existence, lay sound asleep with a thumb in its mouth; the resolute sucking of that thumb having been its most recent act of disobedience. Little Grace was flushed, and rather dishevelled, for it had cost her half an hour's hard wrestling to get baby placed in recumbent somnolence. She now sought to soothe her feelings by tickling the chin of the black kitten--a process to which that active creature submitted with purring satisfaction. "Faither's long of coming hum, mother," said little Grace, looking up. "Iss," replied Mrs Maggot. "D'ee knaw where he is?" inquired Grace. "No, I doan't," replied her mother. It was evident that Mrs Maggot was not in the humour for conversation, so Grace relapsed into silence, and devoted herself to the kitten. "Is that faither?" said Grace, after a few minutes, pointing to the figure of a man who was seen coming over the distant moor or waste land which at that period surrounded the town of St. Just, though the greater part of it is now cultivated fields. "It isn' like un," said Mrs Maggot, shading her eyes with her hand; "sure, it do look like a boatsman." [The men of the coastguard were called "boatsmen" at that time.] "Iss, I do see his cutlash," said little Grace; "and there's another man comin' down road to meet un." "Haste 'ee, Grace," cried Mrs Maggot, leaping up and plucking her last-born out of the cradle, "take the cheeld in to Mrs Penrose, an' bide theer till I send for 'ee--dost a hear?" Plucked thus unceremoniously from gentle slumber to be plunged headlong and without preparation into fierce infantine war, was too much for baby Maggot; he uttered one yell of rage and defiance, which was succeeded by a lull--a sort of pause for the recovery of breath--so prolonged that the obedient Grace had time to fling down the horror-struck Chet, catch baby in her arms, and bear him into the neighbouring cottage before the next roar came forth. The youthful Maggot was at once received into the bosom of the Penrose family, and succeeding yells were smothered by eight out of the sixteen Penroses who chanced to be at home at the time. That Mrs Maggot had a guilty conscience might have been inferred from her future proceedings, which, to one unacquainted with the habits of her husband, would have appeared strange, if not quite unaccountable. When baby was borne off, as related, she seized a small keg, which stood in a corner near the door and smelt strongly of brandy, and, placing it with great care in the vacant cradle, covered it over with blankets. She next rolled a pair of stockings into a ball and tied on it a little frilled night-cap, which she disposed on the pillow, with the face pretty well down, and the back of the head pretty well up, and so judiciously and cleverly covered it with bedclothes that even Maggot himself might have failed to miss his son, or to recognise the outlines of a keg. A bottle half full of brandy, with the cork out, was next placed on the table to account for the odour in the room, and then Mrs Maggot sat down to her sewing, and rocked the cradle gently with her foot, singing a sweet lullaby the while. Ten minutes later, two stout men of the coastguard, armed with cutlasses and pistols, entered the cottage. Mrs Maggot observed that they were also armed with a pick and shovel. "Good-hevenin', missus; how dost do?" said the man who walked foremost, in a hearty voice. "Good-hevenin', Eben Trezise; how are _you_?" said Mrs Maggot. "Braave, thank 'ee," said Trezise; "we've come for a drop o' brandy, missus, havin' heard that you've got some here, an' sure us can smell it--eh?" "Why, iss, we've got wan small drop," said Mrs Maggot, gently arranging the clothes on the cradle, "that the doctor have order for the cheeld. You're welcome to a taste of it, but plaise don't make so much noise, for the poor cheeld's slaipin'." "He'll be smothered, I do think, if you don't turn his head up a bit, missus," said the man; "hows'ever you've no objection to let Jim and me have a look round the place, I dessay?" Mrs Maggot said they were welcome to do as they pleased, if they would only do it quietly for the sake of the "cheeld;" so without more ado they commenced a thorough investigation of the premises, outside and in. Then they went to the smithy, where Mrs Maggot knew her husband had concealed two large kegs of smuggled liquor on the hearth under a heap of ashes and iron debris, but these had been so cleverly, yet carelessly, hidden that the men sat down on the heap under which they lay, to rest and wipe their heated brows after their fruitless search. "Hast 'ee found the brandy?" inquired Mrs Maggot, with a look of innocence, when the two men returned. "Not yet," replied Eben Trezise; "but we've not done. There's a certain shaft near by that has got a bad name for drinkin', missus; p'raps you may have heard on it? Its breath do smell dreadful bad sometimes." Both men laughed at this, and winked to each other, while Mrs Maggot smiled, and, with a look of surprise, vowed that she had not heard of the disreputable shaft referred to. Despite her unconcerned look, however, Mrs Maggot felt anxious, for she was aware that her husband had recently obtained an unusually large quantity of French brandy and tobacco from the Scilly Islands, between which and the coasts of Cornwall smuggling was carried on in a most daring and extensive manner at the time of our story, and she knew that the whole of the smuggled goods lay concealed in one of those numerous disused shafts of old mines which lie scattered thickly over that part of the country. Maggot's absence rendered her position still more perplexing, but she was a woman of ready wit and self-reliance, and she comforted herself with the knowledge that the brandy lay buried far down in the shaft, and that it would take the boatsmen some time to dig to it--that possibly they might give up in despair before reaching it. While the men went off to search for the shaft, and while Mrs Maggot was calmly nursing her spirited little baby, Maggot himself, in company with his bosom friend John Cock, was sauntering slowly homeward along the cliffs near Kenidjack Castle, the ruins of which occupy a bold promontory a little to the north of Cape Cornwall. They had just come in sight of the tin-mine and works which cover Nancharrow valley from the shore to a considerable distance inland, where stand the tall chimneys and engine-houses, the whims and varied machinery of the extensive and prolific old tin-mine named Wheal Owles. The cliffs on which the two men stood are very precipitous and rugged-- rising in some places to a height of about 300 feet above the rocks where the waters of the Atlantic roll dark and deep, fringing the coast with a milky foam that is carried away by the tide in long streaks, to be defiled by the red waters which flow from Nancharrow valley into Porth Ledden Cove. This cove is a small one, with a narrow strip of sand on its shore. At its northern extremity is a deep narrow gorge, into which the waves rush, even in calm weather, with a peculiar sound. In reference to this it is said that the waves "buzz-and-go-in," hence the place has been named Zawn Buzzangein. The sides of the Zawn are about sixty feet high, and quite precipitous. In one part, especially, they overhang their base. It was here that Maggot and his friend stopped on their way home, and turned to look out upon the sea. "No sign o' pilchers yet," observed Maggot, referring to the immense shoals of pilchards which visit the Cornish coasts in the autumn of each year, and form a large portion of the wealth of the county. "Too soon," replied John Cock. "By the way, Jack," said Maggot, "wasn't it hereabouts that the schooner went ashore last winter?" "Iss, 'twor down theer, close by Pullandeese," replied the other, pointing to a deep pool in the rocks round which the swell of the Atlantic broke in white foam. "I was theere myself. I had come down 'bout daylight--before others were stirring, an' sure 'nuff there she lay, on the rocks, bottom up, an' all the crew lost. We seed wan o' them knackin' on the rocks to the north, so we got ropes an' let a man down to fetch un up, but of coorse it was gone dead." "That minds me, Jack," said Maggot, "that I seed a daw's nest here the last time I come along, so lev us go an' stroob that daw's nest." "Thee cusn't do it," said John Cock. Maggot laughed, and said he not only could but would, so he ran down to the neighbouring works and returned with a stout rope, which he fixed firmly to a rock at the edge of the overhanging cliff. We have already said that Maggot was a noted madcap, who stuck at nothing, and appeared to derive positive pleasure from the mere act of putting his life in danger. No human foot could, by climbing, have reached the spot where the nest of the daw, or Cornish chough, was fixed--for the precipice, besides being perpendicular and nearly flat, projected a little near the top, where the nest lay in a crevice overhanging the surf that boiled and raged in Zawn Buzzangein. Indeed, the nest was not visible from the spot where the two men stood, and it could only be seen by going round to the cliffs on the opposite side of the gorge. Without a moment's hesitation Maggot swung himself over the edge of the precipice, merely cautioning his comrade, as he did so, to hold on to the rope and prevent it from slipping. He slid down about two yards, and then found that the rock overhung so much that he was at least six feet off from the crevice in which the young daws nestled comfortably together, and no stretch that he could make with his legs, long though they were, was sufficient to enable him to get on the narrow ledge just below the nest. Several times he tried to gain a footing, and at each effort the juvenile daws--as yet ignorant of the desperate nature of man--opened their little eyes to the utmost in undisguised amazement. For full five minutes Maggot wriggled and the daws gazed, and the anxious comrade above watched the vibrations and jerks of the part of the rope that was visible to him while he listened intently. The bubbles on Zawn Buzzangein, like millions of watery eyes, danced and twinkled sixty feet below, as if in wonder at the object which swung wildly to and fro in mid-air. At last Maggot managed to touch the rock with the extreme point of his toe. A slight push gave him swing sufficient to enable him to give one or two vigorous shoves, by which means he swung close to the side of the cliff. Watching his opportunity, he planted both feet on the narrow ledge before referred to, stretched out his hands, pressed himself flat against the rock, let go the rope, and remained fast, like a fly sticking to a wall. This state of comparative safety he announced to his anxious friend above by exclaiming,--"All right, _John--I've_ got the daws." This statement was, however, not literally true, for it cost him several minutes of slow and careful struggling to enable him so to fix his person as to admit of his hands being used for "stroobing" purposes. At length he gained the object of his ambition, and transferred the horrified daws from their native home to his own warm but unnatural bosom, in which he buttoned them up tight. A qualm now shot through Maggot's heart, for he discovered that in his anxiety to secure the daws he had let go the rope, which hung at a distance of full six feet from him, and, of course, far beyond his reach. "Hullo! John," he cried. "Hullo!" shouted John in reply. "I've got the _daws_," said Maggot, "but I've lost the _rope_!" "Aw! my dear," gasped John; "have 'ee lost th' rope?" It need scarcely be said that poor John Cock was dreadfully alarmed at this, and that he eagerly tendered much useless advice--stretching his neck the while as far as was safe over the cliff. "I say, John," shouted Maggot again. "Hullo!" answered John. "I tell 'ee what: I'm goin' to jump for th' rope. If I do miss th' rope, run thee round to Porth Ledden Cove, an' tak' my shoes weth 'ee; I'll be theere before 'ee." Having made this somewhat bold prediction, Maggot collected all his energies, and sprang from his narrow perch into the air, with arms and hands wildly extended. His effort was well and bravely made, but his position had been too constrained, and his foothold too insecure, to admit of a good jump. He missed the rope, and, with a loud cry, shot like an arrow into the boiling flood below. John Cock heard the cry and the plunge, and stood for nearly a minute gazing in horror into Zawn Buzzangein. Presently he drew a deep sigh of relief, for Maggot made his appearance, manfully buffeting the waves. John watched him with anxiety while he swam out towards the sea, escaped the perpendicular sides of the Zawn, towards which the breakers more than once swept him, doubled the point, and turned in towards the cove. The opposite cliffs of the gorge now shut the swimmer out from John's view, so he drew another deep sigh, and picking up his comrade's shoes, ran round with all his might to Porth Ledden Cove, where, true to his word, having been helped both by wind and tide, Maggot had arrived before him. "Are 'ee safe, my dear man?" was John's first question. "Iss," replied Maggot, shaking himself, "safe enough, an' the daws too, but semmen to me they've gone dead." This was too true. The poor birds had perished in their captor's bosom. CHAPTER FOURTEEN. CONTINUES TO TREAT OF SPIRITS, AND SHOWS THE VALUE OF HOSPITALITY. Having accomplished the feat narrated in the last chapter Maggot proceeded with his friend towards the town. On their way they had to pass the mouth of an old shaft in which both of them chanced to be much interested at that time, inasmuch as it contained the produce of a recent smuggling expedition on a large scale, consisting of nearly a hundred tubs of brandy. The liquor had been successfully brought ashore and concealed in the mine, and that night had been fixed on for its removal. Mules had been provided, and about fifty men were appointed to meet at a certain spot, at a fixed hour, to carry the whole away into the neighbouring towns. Maggot and his comrade began to converse about the subject that was uppermost in their minds, and the former increased his pace, when John Cock drew his attention to the fact that the sun was getting low. "The boys will be mustering now," said John, "an' them theere daws have kep' us late enough already." "They do say that the boatsmen are informed about the toobs," observed Maggot. "More need to look alive," said John. "Hallo!" exclaimed Maggot suddenly; "there's some wan in the shaft!" He pointed to a neighbouring mound of rubbish, on which, just as he spoke, a man made his appearance. Without uttering a word the smugglers sauntered towards the mound, assuming a careless air, as though they were passing that way by chance. On drawing near they recognised Ebenezer Trezise, the coastguard-man. "Good-hevening, sur," said Maggot; "semmen as if you'd found a keenly lode." "Why, iss, we've diskivered a noo vein," said Trezise with a sly smile, "and we're sinkin' a shaft here in the hope o' raisin' tin, or _somethin'_." "Ha! hope you'll let John an' me have a pitch in the noo bal, won't 'ee?" said Maggot with a laugh. "Oh, cer'nly, cer'nly," replied the boatsman; "if you'll lend us a hand to sink the shaft. You appear to have been in the water, and 'twill warm 'ee." "No, thank 'ee," replied Maggot; "I've bin stroobin' a daw's nest under cliff, an' I fell into the say, so I'm goin' hum to dry myself, as I'm afeared o' kitchin' cold, being of a delikit constitootion. But I'll p'raps lend thee a hand afterwards." Maggot nodded as he spoke, and left the place at a slow saunter with his comrade, followed by the thanks and good-wishes of the boatsman, who immediately returned to the laborious task of clearing out the old shaft. "They've got the scent," said Maggot when out of earshot; "but we'll do 'em yet. Whenever thee gets on the leeside o' that hedge, John, do 'ee clap on all sail for Balaswidden, where the boys are waitin', an' tell 'em to be ready for a call. I'll send Zackey, or wan o' the child'n to 'ee." John went off on his errand the moment he was out of sight of the boatsmen, and Maggot walked smartly to his cottage. "Owld ooman," he said, commencing to unbutton his wet garments, "do 'ee git ready a cup o' tay, as fast as you can, lass; we shall have company to-night." "Company!" exclaimed Mrs Maggot in surprise; "what sort o' company?" "Oh! the best, the best," said Maggot with a laugh; "boatsmen no less-- so look sharp. Zackey booy, come here." Zackey put down the unfortunate black kitten (which immediately sought comfort in repose) and obeyed his father's summons, while his mother, knowing that her husband had some plot in his wise head, set about preparing a sumptuous meal, which consisted of bread and butter, tea and fried mackerel, and Cornish pasty. "Zackey, my son," said Maggot while he continued his toilet. "Iss, father." "I want 'ee to come down to the owld shaft with me, an' when I give 'ee the ward cut away as hard as thee legs can spank to Balaswidden, an' fetch the lads that are theere to the owld shaft. They knaw what to do, but tell 'em to make so little noise as they can. Dost a hear, my son?" "Iss, faither," replied Zackey, with a wink of such profound meaning that his sire felt quite satisfied he was equal to the duty assigned him. "Now, doan't 'ee wag tongue more than enough," continued Maggot; "and go play with the chet till I'm ready." The urchin at once descended like a thunderbolt on the black kitten, but that marvellous animal had succeeded in snatching five minutes' repose, which seemed to be amply sufficient to recruit its energies, for it began instantly to play--in other words to worry and scratch the boy's hand--with the utmost glee and good-humour. In a few minutes Maggot and his son went out and hastened to the old shaft, where they found the boatsmen still hard at work with pick and shovel clearing away the rubbish. "You haven't found a bunch o' copper yet, I dessay?" said Maggot with a grin. "No, not yet, but we shan't be long," replied Eben Trezise with a knowing smile. "It's warm work," observed Maggot, as he looked down the hole, and saw that what the boatsman said was true, and that they would not be long of reaching the spot where the liquor had been concealed. Trezise admitted that it _was_ warm work, and paused to wipe his heated brow. "I wish we had a drop o' water here," he said, looking up. "Ha!" exclaimed Maggot; "not much chance o' findin' water in _that_ hole, I do think--no, nor brandy nuther." "Not so sure o' that," said Trezise, resuming his work. "Now, et _is_ a shame to let 'ee die here for want of a drop o' water," said Maggot in a compassionate tone; "I'll send my booy hum for some." The boatsmen thanked him, and Zackey was ordered off to fetch a jug of water; but his father's voice arrested him before he had gone a hundred yards. "Hold on a bit, my son.--P'raps," he said, turning to Trezise, "you'd come up hum with me and have a dish o' tay? Missus have got it all ready." The invitation appeared to gratify the boatsmen, who smiled and winked at each other, as though they thought themselves very clever fellows to have discovered the whereabouts of a hidden treasure, and to be refreshed in the midst of their toil by one whom they knew to be a noted smuggler, and whom they strongly suspected of being concerned in the job they were at that time endeavouring to frustrate. Throwing down their tools they laughingly accepted the invitation, and clambered out of the shaft. "Now's your time," whispered Maggot with a nod to his hopeful son, and then added aloud-- "Cut away, Zackey booy, an' tell mother to get the tay ready. Run, my son, let us knaw what thee legs are made of." "He's a smart lad," observed Trezise, as Zackey gave his father an intelligent look, and dashed away at the top of his speed. "Iss, a clever cheeld," assented Maggot. "Bin down in the mines, I dessay?" said Trezise. "Iss, oh iss; he do knaw tin," replied Maggot with much gravity. In a few minutes the two coastguard-men were seated at Mrs Maggot's well-supplied board, enjoying the most comfortable meal they had eaten for many a day. It was seasoned, too, with such racy talk, abounding in anecdote, from Maggot, and such importunate hospitality on the part of his better half, that the men felt no disposition to cut it short. Little Grace, too, was charmingly attentive, for she, poor child, being utterly ignorant of the double parts which her parents were playing, rejoiced, in the native kindliness of her heart, to see them all so happy. Even the "chet" seemed to enter into the spirit of what was going on, for, regardless of the splendid opportunity that now presented itself of obtaining repose to its heart's content, that black ball of concentrated essence of mischief dashed wildly about the floor and up the bed-curtains, with its back up and its tail thickened, and its green eyes glaring defiance at everything animate, inanimate, or otherwise, insomuch that Maggot made sundry efforts to quell it with the three-legged stool--and Mrs Maggot followed suit with a dish-clout--but in vain! Meanwhile, men and mules and horses were converging by many paths and lanes towards the old shaft, and the shaft itself was apparently endued with the properties of a volcano, for out of its mouth issued a continuous shower of dust and stones, while many stalwart arms laid bare the mine beneath, and tossed up the precious "tubs" of brandy. Before the pleasant little tea-party in Maggot's cottage broke up the whole were scattered abroad, and men and mules and horses sped with their ill-gotten gains across the furze-clad moors. "Sure it's early to break up," said Maggot, when the boatsmen at last rose to take their leave; "there's no fear o' the bunches o' copper melting down there, or flyin' away." "There's no saying," replied Eben Trezise; "you've heerd as well as we of lodes takin' the bit in their teeth an' disappearing--eh?" "Well, iss, so they do sometimes; I'll not keep 'ee longer; good-hevenin' to 'ee," said Maggot, going outside the door and wishing them all manner of success as they returned to the old shaft. Reader, shall we follow the two knowing fellows to that shaft? Shall we mark the bewildered expression of amazement with which they gazed into it, and listen to the wild fiendish laugh of mingled amusement and wrath that bursts from them in fitful explosions as the truth flashes into their unwilling minds? No; vice had triumphed over virtue, and we deem it a kindness to your sensitive nature to draw a veil over the scene of her discomfiture. CHAPTER FIFTEEN. INTRODUCES A STRANGER, DESCRIBES A PICNIC, AND REVEALS SOME SECRETS OF MINING. Somewhere in the vicinity of that magnificent piece of coast scenery in West Cornwall, known by the name of Gurnard's Head, there sauntered, one fine afternoon, a gentleman of tall, commanding aspect. All the parts of this gentleman were, if we may so speak, _prononce_. Everything about him savoured of the superlative degree. His head and face were handsome and large, but their size was not apparent because of the capacity of his broad shoulders and wide chest. His waist was slender, hair curly and very black, only to be excelled by the intense blackness of his eyes. His nose was prominent; mouth large and well shaped; forehead high and broad; whiskers enormous; and nostrils so large as to appear dilated. He was a bony man, a powerful man--also tall and straight, and a little beyond forty. He was to all appearance a hero of romance, and his mind seemed to be filled with romantic thoughts, for he smiled frequently as he gazed around him from the top of the cliffs on the beautiful landscape which lay spread out at his feet. Above him there were wild undulating slopes covered with rich green gorse; below were the cliffs of Gurnard's Cove, with rocky projections that resemble the castellated work of man's hand, and intermingled therewith much of the _materiel_ connected with the pilchard fishery, with masses of masonry so heavy and picturesque as to resemble Nature's handiwork. Beyond lay the blue waters of the Atlantic, which at that time were calm almost as a mill-pond, studded with a hundred sails, and glittering in sunshine. The spot appeared a beautiful solitude, for no living thing was visible save the romantic gentleman and a few seagulls and sheep. The pilchard fishery had not yet commenced, and the three or four fishermen who pitched and repaired their boats on the one little spot of sand that could be seen far below on that rugged coast appeared like mice, and were too far distant to break the feeling of solitude--a feeling which was not a little enhanced by the appearance, on a spot not far distant, of the ruined engine-house of a deserted mine. It was indeed a lovely afternoon, and a beautiful scene--a very misanthrope would have gazed on it with an approach at least to benignity. No wonder that George Augustus Clearemout smiled on it so joyously, and whisked his walking-cane vigorously in the exuberance of his delight. But, strange to say, his smile was always brightest, and the cane flourished most energetically, when he turned his eyes on the ruined mine! He even laughed once or twice, and muttered to himself as he looked at the picturesque object; yet there seemed nothing in its appearance calculated to produce laughter. On the contrary, there were those alive whom the sight of it might have reduced to tears, for, in its brief existence, it had raised uncommonly little tin or copper, although it had succeeded in sinking an immense amount of gold! Nevertheless Mr Clearemout chuckled every time he looked at the ruin, and appeared very much tickled with the thoughts to which it gave rise. "Yes! the very thing! capital!" he muttered to himself, turning again and again to the object of his admiration, "couldn't be better--ha! ha! most suitable; yes, it will do for 'em, probably it will _do_ 'em--do 'em," (he repeated the phrase two or three times with a greater display of white teeth at each utterance of it), "a most superb name--Wheal Do-em--ha! ha! Spell it with two o's to make it look more natural, and ensure correct pronunciation--Wheal Dooem--nothing could be finer, quite candid and above-board--no one can call it a swindle." This last idea caused Mr Clearemout to break into the loudest laugh in which he had hitherto indulged, and he was about to repeat it, when the appearance of a phaeton at a turn of the carriage road reduced him to gravity. The vehicle contained a party of ladies and gentlemen from St. Just, among whom were Rose Ellis, Mrs Donnithorne and her husband, Oliver Trembath, and Mr William Grenfell, a gentleman of property in the neighbourhood. As it approached the spot where Mr Clearemout stood, the horse swerved at a sheep which started out from behind a furze bush, and then backed so rapidly that the hind-wheels were on the point of passing over the edge of the road, when the tall stranger sprang to its head, and led it gently forward. The danger was not great, for the road at the place was elevated little above the sward, but it was sufficiently so to warrant a profusion of thanks from the occupants of the vehicle, and a pressing invitation to Mr Clearemout to join the picnic party then and there assembling. "You see, we're not all here," said Mr Donnithorne, bustling about energetically, as he pulled baskets and bottles from the body of the vehicle, while Oliver assisted the ladies to alight; "there's another machineful coming, but we have lots of grub for all, and will only be too glad of your company, Mr--Mr--what did you say?" "Clearemout," interposed that gentleman, with a bow and a bland smile that quite took Mr Donnithorne by storm. "Ah, yes, glad to have you, Mr Clearemout; why, our necks might all have been broken but for you. Rose, my dear, do look after this basket. There--thanks--how hot it is, to be sure! Mr Clearemout--Mr Grenfell; no introduction--only to let you know his name--my wife-- niece, Rose--Oliver Trembath, and all the rest; there, dispense with ceremony on a picnic always. That's the chief fun of it." While the lively old gentleman ran on thus, and collected the baskets together, Mr Grenfell, who was a tall, gentlemanly man of about sixty, with a grave, aristocratic countenance and polite manner, assured Mr Clearemout that he was happy to make the acquaintance of a man who had rendered them such opportune service, whereupon Mr Clearemout declared himself to be fortunate in being present at such a juncture, and protested that his service was a trifle in itself, although it had led to an introduction which was most gratifying. Then, turning with much urbanity of manner to the ladies, he entered into conversation with them. "Here they come!" shouted old Mr Donnithorne, as another carriage drove up. "The rest of our party," said Mr Grenfell, turning to Mr Clearemout; "friends from St. Just." The carriage stopped as he spoke, and a number of ladies and gentlemen descended therefrom, and mingled their congratulations at the narrow escape which had just been made, with thanks to the dark stranger, and with orders, questions, counter-orders, and explanations innumerable, about baskets to be carried and places to be selected. The picnic, we need scarcely say, very much resembled picnics in general. All were in good spirits--elated with the splendour of the day, the beauty of the views, and the freshness of the sea-breeze that sprang up soon after their arrival. The only one whose feelings were not absolutely unruffled was Oliver Trembath. That youth was afflicted with an unaccountable dislike to the dark stranger which rendered him somewhat uncomfortable. As for the stranger, he made himself extremely agreeable--told anecdotes, sang songs, and became an immaculate waiter on the whole company, handing about plates, glasses, knives, etcetera, etcetera, as deftly as if he were dealing a pack of cards. Above all, he was a good listener, and not only heard other people's stories out to the end, but commented on them as one who had been interested. With all this, he was particularly attentive to Rose Ellis, but so guarded was he that no one noticed the attentions as being peculiar except Rose herself, and Oliver Trembath, who, for the first time in his life, to his great surprise and displeasure, felt the demon of jealousy tormenting his breast. But in the midst of all this, Mr George Augustus Clearemout displayed an insatiable curiosity in regard to mines and miners. Whatever might be the subject of conversation for the time, he invariably took the first opportunity of returning to his favourite theme with one or another of the party, as occasion served. Ashamed of the feelings which troubled him, Oliver Trembath resolved to take the bold and manly step of stifling them, by making himself agreeable to the object of his dislike. Accordingly, he availed himself of an opportunity when the party broke up into groups to saunter about the cliffs, and entered into converse with the stranger on the subject of mines. "You appear to take much interest in mining, I think," said he, as they walked out on the promontory together. "I do indeed," replied Clearemout; "the mines of Cornwall have ever been a subject of deep interest to me, and the miners I regard as a race of men singularly endowed with courage and perseverance." "Your opinion of them is correct," said Oliver. "Have you ever seen them at work?" "No, I have only just arrived in the county, but I hope to visit the mines ere long." "When you do," said Oliver with enthusiasm, "your opinion of them will be strengthened, for their endurance underground, and their perseverance in a species of labour which taxes their muscular power as well as their patience to the uttermost, surpasses anything I have either seen or heard of. England does not fully appreciate, because she is not minutely acquainted with, the endurance and courage of her Cornish miners. The rocks through which they have to cut are so hard and unyielding that men who had not been trained from childhood to subdue them would lose heart altogether at the weight of toil and the small return for it. Sometimes, indeed, miners are fortunate, and here, as elsewhere, lucky hits are made, but for the most part their gains are barely sufficient for their wants; and whether they are lucky or unlucky in that respect, the toil is always hard--so hard that few of them retain health or strength sufficient to go underground beyond the age of forty-five, while hundreds of them find an early grave, owing to disease resulting from their peculiar work, or to accidents. These last are usually occasioned by the bursting out of collections of water which flood the mines, or the fall of masses of timber, or the premature explosion of blast-holes. At other times the men lose hold of the ladders--`fall away' from them, as they express it--or stumble into a winze, which is a small shaft connecting level with level, in which latter case death is almost certain to ensue, many of the winzes being sixty feet deep. In St. Just you will see many poor fellows who have been blinded or maimed in the mines. Nevertheless Cornish miners are a contented, uncomplaining race of men, and Cornwall is justly proud of them." "I am much interested in what you tell me," said Clearemout; "in fact I have come here for the purpose of making inquiry into mines and mining concerns." "Then you will find this to be the very place for you," said Oliver. "My uncle, Mr Donnithorne, and Mr Grenfell, and Mr Cornish are intimately acquainted with mining in all its phases, and will, I am certain, be happy to give you all the information in their power. As to the people of St. Just and its neighbourhood, you will find them most agreeable and hospitable. I can speak from personal experience, although I have only been a short time among them." "I doubt it not," replied Mr Clearemout with a bland smile; "my own limited experience goes far to corroborate what you say, and I hope to have the pleasure of still further testing the truth of your observations." And Mr George Augustus Clearemout did test their truth for several weeks after the picnic. He was received with kindness and hospitality everywhere; he was taken down into the mines by obliging agents, and was invited to several of the periodical business dinners, called "account-dinners," at which he met shareholders in the mines, and had an opportunity of conversing with men of note and wealth from various parts of the county. He dwelt, during his stay, with old Mr Donnithorne, and, much to the surprise if not pleasure of Rose, proved himself to be a proficient on the guitar and a good musician. At length the dark gentleman took his departure for London, whither we shall follow him, and watch his proceedings for a very short time, before returning to the principal scene of our tale. Almost immediately on his arrival in the great city, he betook himself to the West End, and there, in a fashionable square, solicited an interview with an old lady, whose principal noteworthy points were that she had much gold and not much brains. She was a confiding old lady, and had, on a previous occasion, been quite won by the insinuating address of the "charming Mr Clearemout," who had been introduced to her by a noble lord. To this confiding old lady George Augustus painted Cornish mines and mining in the most glowing colours, and recommended her to invest in a mine a portion of her surplus funds. The confiding old lady had no taste for speculation, and was rather partial to the three per cent consols, but George Augustus was so charmingly persuasive that she could not help giving in--so George proposed little plans, and opened up little prospects, and the confiding old lady agreed to all the little plans without paying much regard to the little prospects. After this Mr Clearemout paid another visit in another West End square--this time to a gentleman. The gentleman was young and noble, for Clearemout styled him "My lord." Strange to say he also was of a confiding nature--very much so indeed--and appeared to be even more completely under the influence of George Augustus than the confiding old lady herself. For the benefit of this young gentleman Mr Clearemout painted the same picture in the same glowing colours, which colours seemed to grow warmer as the sun of success rose upon it. He added something about the value of a name, and referred to money as being a matter of small consequence in comparison. The young lord, like the old lady, agreed to everything that was proposed to him, except the proposal to advance money. On that point he was resolute, but Clearemout did not care much about obtaining money from the confiding young gentleman. His name was as good as gold, and would enable him to screw money out of others. After this the dark man paid a visit to several other friends at the West End, all of whom were more or less confiding--some with selfish, others with unselfish, dispositions--but all, without exception, a little weak intellectually. These had the same glowing pictures of a Cornish mine laid before them, and most of them swallowed the bait whole, only one or two being content to nibble. When afternoon began to merge into evening Mr Clearemout paid a last visit for the day--but not in the West End, rather nearer to the City-- to a gentleman somewhat like himself, though less prepossessing, for whose benefit he painted no glowing picture of a mine, but to whom he said, "Come, Jack, I've made a pretty good job of it; let's go and have a chop. If your luck has equalled mine the thing is done, and Wheal Dooem, as I have named the sweet little thing, will be going full swing in a couple of weeks--costing, perhaps, a few hundreds to put it in working order, with a trifle thereafter in the shape of wages to a man and a boy to coal the fire, and keep the thing moving with as much noise as possible to make a show, and leaving a pretty little balance of some twenty or thirty thousand at the credit of the Company, for you and me to enjoy in the meantime--_minus_ a small sum for rent of office, clerk's salary, gas and coal, etcetera, as long as the bubble lasts." Thus did this polite scoundrel go about from house to house getting up a Cornish Mining Company on false pretences (as other polite scoundrels have done before, and doubtless as others will do again), bringing into unmerited disrepute those genuine and grand old mines of Cornwall which have yielded stores of tin and copper, to the enriching of the English nation, ever since those old-world days when the Phoenicians sailed their adventurous barks to the "Cassiterides" in quest of tin. While these things were being done in London, a terrible catastrophe happened in Botallack mine, which threw a dark cloud for some time over more than one lowly cottage in St. Just. CHAPTER SIXTEEN. DESCRIBES "HOLING TO A HOUSE OF WATER" AND ITS TERRIBLE CONSEQUENCES. One morning, about seven o'clock, George and James, the two fair-haired sons of poor John Batten of Botallack, started for their work as usual. They were in high spirits, having obtained a good "pitch" on last setting-day, and things were looking well. They put on their underground clothing at the changing-house, and with several spare candles attached to buttons on the breasts of their coats, and their tools slung over their shoulders, walked towards the head of the ladder-shaft. At the mouth of the shaft they paused for a moment and glanced round. The sky was bright, the landscape green, and the sun lit up many a distant sail on the Atlantic. "I do wish," said the younger with a slight sigh, "that our work was more in the sunshine?" "You'll never be a true miner, Jimmy, if 'ee go hankerin' after the sun like that," said his brother with a laugh, as he stepped on the ladder and began to descend. Jimmy took a last look at the rising sun, and followed him close without replying. The lads were soon beyond the reach of daylight. This was the last they ever saw of earthly sunshine. In a few minutes there came a low soft sound up the shaft; it was the lads singing one of Wesley's beautiful hymns. They had been taught to sing these by their mother from their infancy, and usually beguiled the tedium of the long descent of the ladders by singing one or two of them. Arrived at their place of work the brothers threw down their tools, fixed their candles against the walls of the level, and began the labour of the day. Other men were in that part of the mine at the time, and the brothers found that a message had been sent to one of the captains requesting him to come and examine the place, as the men were becoming uneasy at the increasing flow of water from the walls. One miner, named John Nicols, was "driving an end," that is, extending the level lengthwise, and two others were "stopeing," or cutting up into the roof in pursuit of a promising little lode. They were using hammer and pick in soft ground when the water trickled through to them. It was well known that they were approaching an old part of the mine which had not been worked for thirty years. The drainage of the ground was not, however, accurately known, therefore questions had been put to experienced miners as to the probable condition of this "untapped land." The answer was that, as far as was known, the old mine was full of "deads," that is, of rubbish, and that there was therefore, in all probability, no gathering of water in it. Just at that moment one of the captains entered the level, accompanied by Oliver Trembath. The latter had been called to see a patient near the mine, and chanced to be with the captain when he was summoned. Being anxious to see the place, and the nature of the danger that threatened, he had descended along with him. Before the captain had time to put a question, and while the men were still picking cautiously at the soft ground, the flow of water suddenly increased. Recognising probable danger, a lad named Oats called to his father, who was at the "end" of the level with Nicols. At the same moment the water forced a gap in the wall three feet long by about half a foot wide, and burst in upon them with terrific violence. All turned and fled. Oats and his son, with the captain and Nicols, made for the nearest shaft--which was about eighty yards distant--and escaped, but the brothers Batten and Oliver were thrown down and swept away. One desperate effort was made by Oliver to outstrip the rushing stream; but the candles had been blown out, and, not stooping sufficiently low, he dashed his head against an overhanging rock, and fell. He retained sufficient consciousness, however, to be aware that a desperate struggle for life must be made, and, without knowing what he did, or at what he aimed, he fought with the strength of a giant in thick darkness against the chaotic flood; but his strength soon gave way, and in a few seconds he became insensible. That a terrible catastrophe had occurred was at once known to all the men in the mine by the roar of the rushing water. In order that the reader may clearly understand the situation, it is necessary to explain that the accident occurred in one of the _upper_ levels, at or near its extremity. At the same depth there were many of these underground passages, running in various directions, and several miles in extent, some of them being worked, but most of them old and used up--all the ore having been extracted from them. At various depths below this level other levels had been cut--also running in various directions, and of several miles' extent. These successive levels were not only connected and communicated with by the main shafts of the mine, but by "winzes" or smaller shafts which connected level with level in many places. Some of these were used as ladder-ways, but others had been cut merely for the purpose of securing ventilation. In many parts of these lower levels miners were at work--some, in following the course of promising lodes, "stopeing," or cutting overhead, some cutting downwards, some "driving ends" or extending the levels, and others sinking winzes to keep up the ventilation as they pushed further and further from the shafts or throats, down which flowed the life-giving air. By all of these men the dreaded sounds above--which reached the profounder depths with the muffled but deep-toned roar of a distant storm--were well understood and well heard, for the pent-up waters, in their irresistible fury, carried before them the pent-up atmosphere, and sent it through the low and narrow levels as if through the circling tubes of a monster trumpet, which, mingled with the crash of hurling timbers, rocks, and debris, created a mighty roar that excelled in hideous grandeur the prolonged peals of loud thunder. Every man dropped his tools, and ran to the nearest shaft for his life. It was not, indeed, probable that the flood would fill all the wide-extended ramifications of the vast mine, but no one knew for certain where the catastrophe had occurred, or how near the danger might be to the spot where he laboured. Enough for each that death was dealing terrible destruction somewhere _overhead_, and that, unless every muscle were strained to the uttermost, the pathway might be filled up, and his retreat cut off. The rush was swiftly but not easily made. Those who have never traversed the levels of a Cornish mine may perhaps fancy, on hearing of levels six feet high, and about two and a half feet broad, on the average, that the flight might resemble the rush of men through the windings and turnings of the intricate passages in a stupendous old castle. But it was far otherwise. The roofs, walls, and floors of these levels were irregular, not only in direction, but in height and form. There was no levelling or polishing-off anywhere. It was tunnelling of the roughest kind. Angles and projections remained as the chisel, the pick, and the blasting-powder had left them. Here, the foot tripped over a lump, or plunged into a hollow; there, the head narrowly missed a depending mass of rock, or the shoulder grazed a projecting one. Elsewhere, pools of water lay in the path, and at intervals the yawning chasm of a winze appeared, with one or two broken planks to bridge the gulf, of twenty, forty, or sixty feet, that descended to the levels below. Sometimes it was possible to run with the head stooped a little; generally the back had to be bent low--often double; and occasionally progress could only be made on hands and knees,--this, too, with a candle to be guarded from blasts of air or dripping water, and trimmed, lest it should go out and leave the place in total darkness. But long-continued habit and practice had made the men so familiar with the place, and so nimble in their movements, that they traversed the levels with wonderful rapidity, and most of them ascended the shaft of the mine in safety. Some, however, escaped with the utmost difficulty, and a few there were--chiefly among those who had been near to or immediately below the scene of the outbreak--who perished miserably. At the first rush the water had almost filled the level where it occurred, and, sweeping onward about eight fathoms to a winze, plunged down and partly over it. The greater part, however, went down to the eighty-five fathom level. East of this a man named Anguin, with his two sons, William and James--youths of about twenty years of age--were at work. They heard the roar of the approaching torrent, and the father and younger son James rushed towards the winze, intending to ascend the ladder. Before they reached it the flood was pouring down with deafening noise. The least harmful part of the cataract was the water, for the current now carried along with it stones, pieces of timber, and rubbish. To encounter all this might have caused the stoutest hearts to quail, but miners can never calculate the probable extent of an inundation. They might, indeed, by remaining in the roof of the level, escape; but, on the other hand, if the flood should be great enough to fill the place, they would certainly be drowned. Father and son, therefore, preferred to make a desperate effort to save their lives. They dashed into the flood and made a grasp at the ladder, but before their hands touched the first round they were beaten down and swept away dead corpses. William, on the other hand, climbed to a cross-piece of timber, where he remained until the water abated, which it did in a very short time, for events of this kind are for the most part awfully sudden and brief as well as fatal. Then, descending, he groped his way in the dark over the very spot where his father and brother lay dead--fearfully mutilated and covered with rubbish--and escaped up the shaft. In a still lower level two brothers were at work. Miners usually work in couples--sometimes in larger numbers--and brothers frequently go together. They were in a winze about thirty fathoms from the engine-shaft. Being overtaken by the flood they were washed _down_, to the next level, and along it nearly to the shaft. As the torrent tore past this place, bearing splintered timber, stones, and rubbish along with it, an iron wagon was caught up and flung across the level. This formed a barricade, against which the brothers were dashed. The elder of these brothers was afterwards found alive here, and carried to the surface; but he was speechless, and died twenty minutes after being brought up. When the dead body of the younger and weaker brother was recovered, it was found to be dreadfully shattered, nearly every bone being crushed. In the same level, two men--John Paul and Andrew Teague--hearing the rush of the advancing torrent above their head, made for a shaft, went up it against a heavy fall of water, and escaped. A man named Richard--a powerful man and a cool experienced miner, who had faced death in almost every form--was at work in one of the lowest levels with his son William, a youth of twenty-one, and his nephew, a lad of seventeen, who was the sole support of a widowed mother with six children. They were thirty fathoms from one of the winzes down which the water streamed. On hearing the roar Richard cautioned the younger men to be prompt, but collected. No time was to be lost, but rash haste might prove as fatal as delay. He sent them on in front of him, and they rushed under and past the winze, where they were nearly crushed by the falling water, and where, of course, their candles were extinguished, leaving them in midnight darkness. This last was not so serious a matter to the elder Richard as, at first sight, it might appear. He knew every foot of the ground they had to traverse, with all its turnings, yawning chasms, and plank bridges, and could have led the way blindfold almost as easily as with a light. As they neared the shaft he passed the younger men, and led the way to prevent them falling into it. At this time the water raged round them as high as their waists. The nephew, who was weak, in consequence of a fever from which he had not quite recovered, fell, and, passing the others unobserved, went down the shaft and was lost. The escape of Richard and his son was most wonderful. William was a stout fellow, but the father much more so. They were driven at first into the shaft, but there the fall of water was so great that they could do nothing more than cling to the ladder. By this cataract they were beaten back into the level, but here the water rose around them so quickly and with such force as to oblige them to make another effort to ascend. There was a crevice in the roof of the level here, in which the father had left part of his supply of candles and a tinder-box. He succeeded in reaching these, and in striking a light, which revealed to them the full horrors of their situation. It was with difficulty that the candle could be kept burning by holding it close to the roof under a projecting piece of rock which sheltered it partially from the dashing spray. "Let us try again!" shouted the father. The noise was so great that it was with difficulty they could make each other hear. "It's all over with we," cried the son; "let us pray, faither." The father urged his son, however, to make another effort, as the water had risen nearly to their waists, and prevailed on him to do so, getting on the ladder himself first, in order to bear the brunt of the falling water and thus break its force to his son. As the water below was now rising swiftly William only held the light long enough to enable his father to obtain a secure footing on the ladder, when he dropped it and followed him. So anxious was the youth to escape from the danger that menaced him from below, that he pressed eagerly up against his father. In doing so, he over-reached the rounds of the ladder on which his father trod, and, almost at every step, the latter unwittingly planted his heavy-nailed boots on the son's hands, lacerating them terribly. To avoid this was impossible. So heavy was the descending flood, that it was only his unusually great strength which enabled the father to advance slowly up against it. The son, being partially sheltered by his father's body, knew not the power against which he had to contend, and, being anxious to go up faster, pressed too closely on him, regardless, in his alarm, of the painful consequences. Masses of stone, wood, and rubbish, dashed down the shaft and grazed their shoulders, but providentially none struck them severely. Thus, slowly and painfully, did they ascend to a height of eighty-four feet, and were saved. In another part of the mine, below the level where the accident occurred, James Penrose, whom we have already introduced to the reader, was at work with John Cock. The latter having taken a fancy to try mining for a time instead of smuggling--just by way of a change--had joined the former in working a "pitch" in Botallack mine. These men were peculiarly situated. They were in a level which the water entered, not by flowing along or descending, but, by rising up through a winze. On hearing the noise they ran to this winze, and, looking down, saw the water boiling and roaring far below. They were about to pass on to the shaft when Penrose observed a dark object moving on the ladder. It came slowly up. "Hallo! John," cried Penrose, "stay a bit; here's some one on the ladder." John Cock returned, and they both stooped to afford help. In another moment Oliver Trembath, drenched and bleeding, and covered with mud, stood, or rather reeled, before them. It was evident that he was only half conscious, and scarcely able to stand. But they had no time to speak--scarcely to think--for the water was already boiling up through the winze like a huge fountain, and filling the level. They seized Oliver by the arms and dragged him hastily towards the nearest winze that led upward. Here they found water pouring down like rain, and heard its thunders above them, but the stream was not sufficient to retard their progress up the winze, which they ascended with comparative ease. Penrose and Cock were surprised at this, but the small quantity of water was soon accounted for by the fact that the hatch or trap-door of the winze had been closed; and thus, while it prevented the great body of water above from descending, also effectually shut off the only way of escape. They were therefore compelled to descend again to the level, in which the water was now rising rapidly. Oliver leaned against the rock, and stood in apathetic silence. Penrose tried to rouse him, but failed. His injuries had rendered him almost in capable of coherent speech, and his replies showed that his mind was rambling on the necessity of making haste and struggling hard. James Penrose, who was a "class-leader" and a local preacher among the Wesleyans, and mentally much superior to his comrades, now proved beyond a doubt that his God was to him "a very present help in trouble." Both he and Cock knew, or at least believed, that death was certain to overtake them in a few minutes, for both before and behind retreat was cut off, and the water was increasing with frightful rapidity. Observing that Cock looked anxious, Penrose turned and said earnestly,--"John, you and I shall be dead in a few minutes. "For myself I have no fear, for my peace is already made with God, through Jesus Christ--blessed be His name--but, oh! John, you do know that it is not so with you. Turn, John, turn, even now, to the Lord, who tells you that `though thy sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow,' and that `_now_ is the day of salvation,' if you will only repent, and believe on Him!" "Pray for un, James," said Cock, whose face betrayed his fears. Penrose at once clasped his hands, and, closing his eyes, prayed for his comrade with such fervour that his voice rose loud and strong above the turmoil of the flood. He was still engaged in prayer when the water drove them from the level, and compelled them to re-ascend the winze. Here John Cock began to pray for himself in agonising tones. By this time Oliver had partially recovered, and suggested that they should ascend the winze to the top. Penrose assured him that it was useless to do so; but, while he was still speaking, he observed that the water ceased to rise, and began quickly to abate. In fact, all that we have taken so long to describe--from the outburst to the termination of the great rush--took place within half an hour. The noise overhead now grew less and less, until it almost ceased. They then ascended to the trap-door and tried to force it open, but failed. They shouted, however, and were heard, ere long, by those who had escaped and had returned to the mine to search for their less fortunate companions. The trap-door was opened, strong and willing hands were thrust down the dark winze to the rescue, and in a few seconds the three men were saved. The danger was past--but several lives had been lost in the terrible catastrophe. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. TOUCHES ON THE CAUSES OF ACCIDENTS: OLIVER IN A NEW LIGHT AND HIS UNCLE IN A SAD ONE. That was a sad day in St. Just which followed the event related in the last chapter. Many a heart-broken wail was heard round the mouths of the shafts, as the remains of those who perished were brought to the surface, and conveyed to their former homes. Saddest of all perhaps was the procession that marched slowly to the cottage of blind John Batten, and laid the two fair-haired lads before their stricken parents. Tears were wrung from the strongest men there when they beheld the agonised but tearless mother guide her husband's hand to their faces that he might for the last time feel the loved ones whom, she said in the bitterness of her grief, "he should never see more." "Never see more, dear lass!" he replied with a sad smile, "how can thee say so? Shall we not behold their dear faces again when we see our blessed Lord face to face?" Thus the Christian miner comforted himself and his sorrowing family. It is right to add that such catastrophes are not of frequent occurrence in the mines. The danger of "holing to a house of water," is so great and so well known that the operation is usually conducted with great care, and accident is well guarded against. Nevertheless, an occasional act of carelessness will now and then result in a terrible disaster. A catastrophe, similar in all its chief features to that which has been related in the last chapter, happened in North Levant mine many years ago, and in the burying-ground of the Wesleyan Chapel of St. Just may be seen a tombstone, which bears record of the sad event as follows:-- _Sacred to the memory of_ JAMES, _aged_ 20, _and_ JOHN, _aged_ 15 _years, sons of James and Nanny Thomas of Bollowall, in this Parish, who were drowned (with three others) by the holing to a house of water in North Levant Mine on the first of April_ 1867. A "house" of much larger dimensions, and containing a much greater body of water than that which caused the latest destruction of life in North Levant mine, was cleared of water not long ago in Botallack. The agents knew of its existence, for, the whole region both above and below ground being measured off and planned, they could lay their finger on the exact spot where they knew that an old mine existed. They kept a large borer, six feet long, going constantly before them as they cut their way towards the point of danger. The result was that when the borer at last pierced through to the old mine, there were six feet of solid rock between them and the water. Through the small hole the water flowed, and thus the mine was slowly but safely drained. In the other case, the ground happened to be soft, and had been somewhat recklessly cut away. Of course, there are occasions--proving the truth of the proverb that "accidents will happen in the best regulated families"--in which neither foresight nor precaution can prevent evil; but these are comparatively few. Sometimes the cupidity of a miner will lead him, for the sake of following a rich lode, to approach too near and too recklessly to danger, despite the vigilance of captains, and cause considerable risk to the mine as well as to themselves. Such was the case once long ago at Botallack, when the miners below the sea cut away the rock to within three or four feet of the water, and actually made a small hole through so that they had to plug it up with a piece of wood. This is a fact which we can vouch for, having seen the plug, and heard the boulders rattling loudly over our head with each successive wave; but there is no danger here, because the cutting under the sea is narrow, and the rock solid and intensely hard. Such also was the case, not many years since, at Levant mine, where the men working in the levels under the sea drove upwards until the salt water began to trickle through to them in alarming quantities--insomuch that the other miners struck work, and refused to go again into the mine, unless the workings in that part were stopped, and the place made secure. This was accordingly done, and the men returned to the mine. The danger here was really great, because the cutting that had been made was wide, and the ground overhead comparatively soft. But, to return to our tale. For many days after the catastrophe Oliver Trembath lay in his bed suffering from severe cuts and bruises, as well as from what must have been, as nearly as possible, concussion of the brain, for he had certainly been washed down one of the winzes, although he himself retained only a confused recollection of the events of that terrible day, and could not tell what had befallen him. At length, however, he became convalescent, and a good deal of his old vigour returned. During this period of illness and convalescence Oliver had been constrained by old Mr Donnithorne to take up his abode in his house, and the young doctor could not have experienced more attention and kindness from the old couple if he had been their son. Rose Ellis, too, did her best to cheer him, and, as we need scarcely add, was wonderfully successful in her efforts! It was during this period that Oliver made the acquaintance of a young man of St. Just, named Charles Tregarthen--a congenial spirit--and one who was, besides, a thorough gentleman and an earnest Christian. With this youth he formed a sincere friendship, and although the subject of religion was never obtrusively thrust upon him by young Tregarthen, it entered so obviously into all his thoughts, and shone so clearly in his words and conduct, that Oliver's heart was touched, and he received impressions at that time which never left him. Oliver and his friend were sitting one forenoon in Mr Donnithorne's dining-room, which commanded an extensive view of green fields and grass-covered stone walls, with the beams and machinery of mines on the horizon, and the blue sea beyond. They were planning a short walking tour, which it was thought would be of great benefit to Oliver in that stage of his recovery, when old Mr Donnithorne entered the room with a somewhat perturbed expression of countenance. "How are you, Charlie my boy?" he said. "Oliver, I want to have a few minutes' talk with you in my room on business; I know Charlie will excuse you." "I was on the point of taking leave at any rate," said Tregarthen with a smile, as he grasped Oliver's hand; "think over our plan, like a good fellow; I am sure Mr Donnithorne will approve of it, and I'll look in to-morrow forenoon to hear what decision you come to." "Oliver," said Mr Donnithorne, sitting down opposite the invalid when his friend had left, and frowning portentously, "d'you know I'm a ruined man?" "I trust not, uncle," replied Oliver with an incredulous smile, supposing that the old gentleman was jesting. "Yes, but I am," he repeated with tremendous gravity. "At all events, I shall be ere long. These--these--vile jewels will be the death of me." Having thus broken the ice Mr Donnithorne went on with much volubility of utterance and exasperation of tone to explain that legal proceedings had been instituted for the recovery of the jewels which he had purchased from the fishermen; that things seemed almost certain to go against him; and that in all probability he should be compelled to sell his estate in order to refund the money. "But can you not sell your shares in Botallack and refund with the proceeds?" said Oliver. "No, I cannot," replied the old gentleman. "You know that at present these shares are scarcely saleable except at a ruinous discount, and it would be a pity to part with them just now, seeing that there is some hope of improvement at this time. There is nothing for it but to sell my estate, and I don't think there will be enough left to buy butter to my bread after this unhappy affair is settled, for it amounts to some thousands of pounds." "Indeed, uncle! how comes it that they found out the value of them?" "Oh, simply enough, Oliver, but strangely too. You must know that Maggot, the scoundrel (and yet not such a scoundrel either, for the fellow informed on me in a passion, without having any idea of the severity of the consequences that would follow),--Maggot, it seems, kept the cloth belt in which the jewels were found tied round the owner's waist, and there happened to be a piece of parchment sewed up in the folds of it, in which the number and value of the jewels were enumerated. This belt was ferreted out by the lawyers, and the result is that, as I said before, I shall be a ruined man. Verily," added Mr Donnithorne, with a look of vexation, as he stumped up and down the room with his hands thrust deep into his breeches pockets, "verily, my wife was a true prophetess when she told me that my sin would be sure to find me out, and that honesty was the best policy. 'Pon my conscience, I'm half inclined to haul down my colours and let her manage me after all!" "I am much concerned at what you tell me," said Oliver, "and I regret now very deeply that the few hundreds which I possessed when I came here--and which you know are all my fortune--have also been invested in Botallack shares, for they should have been heartily at your service, uncle." "Don't trouble yourself about your hundreds, lad," said the old gentleman testily; "I didn't come here to ask assistance from you in that way, but to tell you the facts of the case, and ask you to do me the favour to carry a letter to my lawyer in Penzance, and inquire into the condition of a mine I have something to do with there--a somewhat singular mine, which I think will surprise as well as interest you; will you do this, for me, lad?" "Most willingly," replied Oliver. "You heard my friend Charlie Tregarthen speak of our intention to go on a walking tour for a couple of days; now, if you have no objection, he and I will set off together without delay, and make Penzance our goal, going round by the Land's End and the coast." "So be it, Oliver, and don't hurry yourselves, for the business will wait well enough for a day or two. But take care of yourself, lad; don't go swimming off the Land's End again, and above all things avoid smugglers. The scoundrels! they have been the ruin of me, Oliver. Not bad fellows in their way either, but unprincipled characters-- desperately regardless of the national laws; and--and--keep clear of 'em, I advise you strongly--have nothing to do with 'em, Oliver, my son." So saying the old gentleman left the room, shaking his head with profound gravity. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. TELLS OF KING ARTHUR AND OTHER MORE OR LESS FABULOUS MATTERS. Next day Oliver Trembath and his friend Charles Tregarthen, before the sun had mounted his own height above the horizon, were on their way to the Land's End. The young men were admirably suited to each other. Both were well educated, and possessed similar tastes, though their temperaments were dissimilar, and both were strong athletic youths--Oliver's superiority in this latter respect being at that time counterbalanced by his recent illness, which reduced him nearly to a level with his less robust companion. Their converse was general and desultory until they reached the Land's End, on the point of which they had resolved to breakfast. "Now, Oliver, we have purchased an appetite," said Tregarthen, throwing down a wallet in which he carried some provisions; "let us to work." "Stay, Charlie, not here," said Oliver; "let us get out on the point, where we shall have a better view of the cliffs on either side of the Land's End. I love a wide, unobstructed view." "As you will, Oliver; I leave you to select our table, but I pray you to remember that however steady your head may have been in days of yore when you scaled the Scottish mountains, the rough reception it has met with in our Cornish mines has given it a shake that renders caution necessary." "Pshaw! Charlie, don't talk to me of caution, as if I were a timid old woman." "Nay, then, I talk of it because you are _not_ a timid old woman, but a reckless young man who seems bent on committing suicide. Yonder is a grassy spot which I think will suit you well." He pointed to a level patch of sward on the neck of land that connects the outlying and rugged promontory which forms the extreme Land's End with the cliffs of the mainland. Here they spread their meal, and from this point they could see the cliffs and bays of the iron-bound shore extending on the one hand towards Cape Cornwall, and on the other towards that most romantic part of the coast known by the somewhat curious name of Tolpedenpenwith, where rocks and caverns are found in such fantastic fashion that the spot has become justly celebrated for picturesque grandeur. At their feet, far below, the great waves (caused by the swell, for there was no wind) boomed in solemn majesty, encircling the cliffs with a lace-work of foam, while on the horizon the Scilly Islands could be seen shimmering faintly. A bright sun shone on the unruffled sea, and hundreds of ships and boats lay becalmed on its breast. "'Tis a splendid scene!" said Oliver, sitting down beside his friend. "It is indeed, and reminds me of the sea of glass before the great white throne that we read of in Revelation. It is difficult to imagine or to believe that the peaceful water before us, lying between this spot and the Scilly Islands yonder, was once a land full of verdure and life--yet such tradition tells us was the case." "You mean, I suppose, the fabled land of Lionesse?" said Oliver. "Yes; you have heard the story of its destruction, I suppose?" "Not I," said Oliver, "so if you have a mind to tell it me while I satisfy the cravings of an unusually sharp appetite I'll consider you a most obliging fellow. Pass me the knuckle of ham--thanks--and the bread; now go ahead." "'Tis a romantic story," said Tregarthen. "All the better," replied Oliver. "And terrible," added Tregarthen. "It won't spoil my appetite," said his friend. "Well, then, I'll tell it--to the best of my ability." The youth then began the following legend, pausing ever and anon during the narration to swallow a piece of bread or a mouthful of cold tea, which constituted the principal elements of their frugal meal. "You must know that, once upon a time, long, long ago, in those ancient days before Norman or Dane had invaded this land, while Britain still belonged to the British, and King Arthur held his court in Tintagel's halls, there was a goodly land, named Lethowsow or the Lionesse, extending a distance of thirty miles between this cape and yonder shadowy islets which seem to float like cirrus clouds on the horizon. It is said that this land of Lionesse was rich and fertile, supporting many hundreds of families, with large flocks and herds. There were no fewer than forty churches upon it, from which it follows that there must have been a considerable population of well-doing people there. "About the time of the events which I am going to narrate, King Arthur's reign was drawing to a close. Treason had thinned the ranks of the once united and famous knights of the Round Table. It is true that Sir Kaye, the seneschal, remained true, and Sir Ector de Mans, and Sir Caradoc, and Sir Tristram, and Sir Lancelot of the Lake, of whom it was said that `he was the kindest man that ever struck with sword; and he was the goodliest person that ever rode among the throng of knights; and he was the meekest man, and the gentlest, that did ever eat in hall among ladies; and he was the sternest knight to his mortal foe that ever laid lance in rest.' But many seats at the Round Table that once were filled by brave warriors had become empty, and among these, that of Prince Mordred, who, it was rumoured, meant to declare open war against his royal cousin and benefactor. "One night King Arthur sat at the Round Table in Tintagel Castle with his knights gathered round him, and Queen Guenever with her maidens by his side. At the beginning of the feast the king's brow was clouded, for, although there was no lack of merriment or song, there was a want of the free-hearted courtesy and confidence of former days. Still the semblance of unabated good-fellowship was kept up, and the evening passed in gaiety until its close, when the king rose to retire. Taking in his hand a golden cup to pledge his guests, he was about to drink, when a shudder passed through his frame, and he cast the goblet away, exclaiming, `It is not wine, but blood! My father Merlin is among us, and there is evil in the coming days. Break we up our court, my peers! It is no time for feasting, but rather for fasting and for prayer.' "The king glanced with a dark frown at the chair of his kinsman Mordred, but it was not empty! A strange, indistinct, shadowy form rested on it. It had no human shape, but a dreadful outline of something unearthly. Awe-struck and silent, the company at once broke up. "On the following day, news of Mordred's revolt arrived at Tintagel Castle, and day after day fresh rumours reached it of foes flocking in numbers to the rebel standard. The army increased as it advanced, but, strange to say, King Arthur showed no disposition to sally forth and meet the traitor. It seemed as if his brave heart had quailed at last, and his good sword Excalibur had lost its magic virtue. Some thought that he doubted the fidelity of those who still remained around him. But, whatever the cause might have been, King Arthur made no preparation, and indicated no feeling or intention. He lay still in his castle until the rebels had approached to the very gates. There was something terrible in this mysterious silence of the king, which had a tendency to overawe the rebels as they drew near, and remembered that they were about to match themselves against warriors who had grown old in fellowship with victory. "When the main body of the invaders appeared, the great bell of the fortress at last rang out a stirring peal, and before the barbican the trumpets sounded to horse. King Arthur then with his knights and men-at-arms, the best warriors of Britain, arose and sallied forth to fight in their last battle. "Next evening a broken band of horsemen alone remained to tell of the death of their king and the destruction of all their hopes. They numbered several hundreds, but their hacked armour, jaded steeds, and gaping wounds told that they were unfit to offer battle to any foe. They were in full flight, bearing a torn banner, still wet with the blood of King Arthur; yet they fled unwillingly, as men who were unused to retreat, and scarce knew how to comport them in the novel circumstances. Their course was in the direction of the Lionesse, the tract of country called in the Cornish tongue Lethowsow. On they dashed, without uttering a word, over the bleak moors before them. Sometimes they halted to drink at a spring or tighten their girths, and occasionally a man fell behind from sheer exhaustion. At night they encamped, after a hard ride of thirty miles. Next morning the flight was resumed, but the vindictive Mordred still thundered on in pursuit. Ere long they heard a trumpet sounding in their rear, and King Arthur's men halted for a few minutes, with the half-formed design of facing the foe and selling their lives dearly. While they paused in gloomy irresolution, gazing sternly on the advancing host, whose arms flashed back the rays of the morning sun, a mist rose up between them and their foes. It was a strange shadowy mist, without distinct form, yet not without resemblance to something ghostly. The knights at once recognised it as the shade of Merlin, the Great Wizard! Slowly the cloud uprose between the pursuers and pursued, effectually protecting the latter; nevertheless, although baffled, the former did not give up the chase. "At last Mordred reached a lofty slope, from the top of which he descried his enemies retreating across the land of Lionesse. Mad with rage, he descended to the plain, where soft sunlight shone through luxuriant glades and across the green pastures, gladdening the hearts of man and beast. Nature was all peaceful, and gloriously beautiful, but Mordred's eyes saw it not, his heart felt not the sweet influences. The bitterness induced by hatred and an evil conscience reigned within, as he urged his steed furiously onward. "Suddenly a terrible change occurred in the atmosphere, which became oppressively sultry and horrible, while low muttering thunders were heard, and heavings of the earth felt. At the same time the cloud gradually condensed in front of Mordred, and, assuming a distinct form, stood before him in the person of Merlin the Wizard. For a few seconds they stood face to face, frowning on each other in awful silence. Then Merlin raised his arm, and immediately the thunders and confused mutterings increased, until the earth began to undulate and rend as if the foundations of the world were destroyed. Great fissures appeared, and the rocks welled up like the waves of the sea. With a cry of agony the pursuers turned to fly. But it was too late. Already the earth was rent into fragments; it upheaved convulsively for a few seconds; then sank beneath the level of the deep, and the ocean rushed wildly over the land, leaving nothing behind to mark the spot where land had been, save the peaked and barren rocks you see before you, with the surge beating continually around them." "A most extraordinary tale, truly," said Oliver. "Do you believe it has any foundation?" "I believe not the supernatural parts of it, of course," replied Tregarthen; "but there is _something_ in the fact that the land of Cornwall has unquestionably given up part of its soil to the sea. You are aware, I suppose, that St. Michael's Mount, the most beautiful and prominent object in Mounts Bay, has been described as `a hoare rock in a wood,' about six miles from the sea, although it now stands in the bay; and this idea of a sunken land is borne out by the unquestionable fact that if we dig down a few feet into the sand of the shore near Penzance, we shall come on a black vegetable mould, full of woodland _detritus_, such as branches, leaves of coppice wood, and nuts, together with carbonised roots and trunks of forest trees of larger growth; and these have been found as far out as the lowest tide would permit men to dig! In addition to this, portions of land have been overwhelmed by the sea near Penzance, in the memory of men now alive." "Hum!" said Oliver, stretching out his huge limbs like a giant basking in the sunshine, "I dare say you are correct in your suppositions, but I do not profess to be an antiquary, so that I won't dispute the subject with you. At the same time, I may observe that it does seem to me as if there were a screw loose somewhere in the historical part of your narrative, for methinks I have read, heard, or dreamt, that King Arthur was Mordred's uncle, not his cousin, and that Mordred was slain, and that the king was the victor, at the fatal field of Camelford, although the victory was purchased dearly--Arthur having been mortally wounded and carried back to Tintagel to die there. But, of course, I won't pretend to doubt the truth of your narrative because of such trifling discrepancies. As to the encroachment of the sea on the Cornish coast, and the evidences thereof in Mounts Bay, I raise no objection thereto, but I cannot help thinking that we want stronger proof of the existence of the land of Lionesse." "Why, Oliver," said Tregarthen, laughing, "you began by saying that you would not dispute the subject with me, and in two minutes you have said enough to have justified a regular attack on my part, had I been so disposed. However, we have a long road before us, so I must protest against a passage of arms just now." Having finished breakfast, the two friends proceeded along the coast a few miles to Tolpedenpenwith. Here, in the midst of the finest scenery on the coast, they spent the greater part of the day, and then proceeded to Penberth Cove, intending to secure a lodging for the night, order supper, and, while that was in preparation, pay a visit to the famous Logan Rock. Penberth Cove is one of the prettiest little vales in the west of Cornwall. It is enriched with groups of trees and picturesque cottages, and possesses a luxuriant growth of shrubs and underwood, that almost conceals from view the streamlet, which is the chief cause of its fertility. There were also, at the time we write of, one or two houses which, although not public inns, were open for the entertainment of travellers in a semi-private fashion. Here, therefore, our excursionists determined to put up for the night, with the widow of a fisherman who had perished in a storm while engaged in the herring fishery off the Irish coast. This good woman's chief physical characteristic was rotundity, and her prominent mental attribute good-humour. She at once received the gentlemen hospitably, and promised to prepare supper for them while they went to visit the far-famed Logan or Logging Rock, which lay in the vicinity. This rock is one of those freaks of nature which furnish food for antiquaries, points of interest to strangers, and occupation to guides. Every one who goes to the Land's End must needs visit the Logan Rock, if he would "do" the country properly; and if our book were a "Guide to Cornwall," we should feel bound to describe it with much particularity, referring to its size, form, weight, and rocking quality, besides enlarging on the memorable incident in its career, when a wild officer of the navy displaced it from its pivot by means of seamen and crowbars, and was thereafter ordered to replace it (a herculean task, which he accomplished at great cost) on pain of we know not what penalties. But, as we make no pretensions to the important office of a guide, we pass this lion by, with the remark that Oliver and his friend visited it and rocked it, and then went back to Penberth Cove to sup on pilchards, after which followed a chat, then bed, sound sleep, daybreak and breakfast, and, finally, the road to Penzance, with bright sunshine, light hearts, and the music of a hundred larks ringing in the sky. CHAPTER NINETEEN. SMALL TALK AND SOME ACCOUNT OF CORNISH FAIRIES. "What a splendid country for a painter of cliffs!" observed Oliver, as the friends walked briskly along; "I wonder much that our artists do not visit it more frequently." "Perhaps they find metal more attractive nearer home," replied Tregarthen; "all the world has not fallen so violently in love with furze-clad moorland and rugged sea-cliffs as you seem to have done. Besides, the country is somewhat remote. Mayhap when a railway runs into it, which will doubtless be the case before many years pass by, we shall see knights of the brush pitching their white tents on the Land's End; meanwhile we have a few promising young men of our own who bid fair to rival the great Opie himself. You have heard of him, of course?" "I have heard of him indeed, and seen some of his works, but I'm ashamed to confess that, having left Cornwall when very young, and been a dweller in the far north of the kingdom ever since, I have only known the facts that he was a celebrated Cornish artist, and became the President of the Royal Academy. Can you tell me anything of his personal history?" "Not much, but I can give you a brief outline of his career. John Opie was the son of a carpenter of St. Agnes, near Truro, and was discovered and extracted, like a `bunch' of rich ore, from the midst of the tin-mines, by Dr Wolcot--who was celebrated under the name of Peter Pindar. The doctor first observed and appreciated Opie's talent, and, resolving to bring him into notice, wrote about him until he became celebrated as the `Cornish Wonder.' He also introduced people of note to the artist's studio in London, many of whom sat for their portraits. These gave so much satisfaction that the reputation of the `Cornish Wonder' spread far and wide, and orders came pouring in upon him, insomuch that he became a rich man and a Royal Academician, and ultimately President of the Academy. He married an authoress, and his remains were deposited in St. Paul's Cathedral, near to those of Sir Joshua Reynolds. I have heard my grandfather say that he met him once in the town of Helston, and he described him as somewhat rough and unpolished, but a sterling, kind-hearted man." "Did he paint landscape at all?" inquired Oliver. "Not much, I believe. He devoted himself chiefly to portraits." "Well, now," said Oliver, looking round him; "it strikes me that this is just the country for a landscape painter. There is nowhere else such fine cliff scenery, and the wild moors, which remind me much of Scotland, are worthy of being sketched by an able brush." "People have curiously different opinions in reference to the moors which you admire so much," said Tregarthen. "A clergyman who lived and wrote not very long ago, came to Cornwall in search of the picturesque, and he was so disappointed with what he termed a barren, desolate region, that he stopped suddenly on the road between Launceston and Bodmin, and turned his back on Cornwall for ever. As might be expected, such a man gave a very false idea of the country. On the other hand, a more recent writer, commenting on the first, speaks of his delight-- after having grown somewhat tired of the almost too rich and over-cultivated scenery of Kent--on coming to what he styled `a sombre apparition of the desert in a corner of green England,' and dwells with enthusiasm on `these solitudes, and hills crowned with rugged rocks, classical heaths and savage ravines, possessing a character of desolate grandeur.' But this writer did more. He travelled through the country, and discovered that it possessed other and not less beautiful features; that there were richly clothed vales and beautiful rivulets, cultivated fields and prolific gardens, in close proximity to our grand cliffs and moors." "He might have added," said Oliver, "that plants and flowers flourish in the open air here, and attain to a size, and luxuriance which are rare in other parts of England. Why, I have seen myrtles, laurels, fuchsias, pomegranates, and hortensias forming hedges and growing on the windows and walls of many houses. To my mind Cornwall is one of the finest counties in England--of which Flora herself has reason to be proud, and in which fairies as well as giants might dwell with much delight." "Spoken like a true Cornishman!" said Tregarthen, laughing; "and in regard to the fairies I may tell you that we are not without a few of them, although giants confessedly preponderate." "Indeed!" said Oliver; "pray whereabouts do they dwell?" "You have heard of the Gump, I suppose?" "What! the barren plain near Carn Kenidjack, to the north of St. Just?" "The same. Well, this is said to be a celebrated haunt of the pixies, who have often led benighted travellers astray, and shown them wonderful sights. Of course one never meets with any individual who has actually seen them, but I have frequently met with those who have assured me they had known others who had conversed with persons who had seen fairies. One old man, in particular, I have heard of, who was quite convinced of the reality of a fairy scene which he once witnessed. "This old fellow was crossing the Gump one evening, by one of the numerous paths which intersect it. It was summer-time. The sun had gone down beyond the sea-line, and the golden mists of evening were merging into the quiet grey that hung over the Atlantic. Not a breath of wind passed over land or sea. To the northward Chun Castle stood darkly on the summit of the neighbouring hill, and the cromlech loomed huge and mysterious; southward were traces of mystic circles and upright stones, and other of those inexplicable pieces of antiquity which are usually saddled on the overladen shoulders of the Druids. Everything, in fact--in the scene, the season, and the weather--contributed to fill the mind of the old man with romantic musings as he wended his way over the barren moor. Suddenly there arose on the air a sound of sweet, soft music, like the gentle breathings of an Aeolian harp. He stopped and gazed around with looks of mingled curiosity and surprise, but could see nothing unusual. The mysterious sounds continued, and a feeling of alarm stole over him, for twilight was deepening, and home was still far distant. He attempted to advance, but the music had such a charm for him that he could not quit the spot, so he turned aside to discover, if possible, whence it came. Presently he came to a spot where the turf was smoother and greener than elsewhere, and here the most wonderful and enchanting scene met his gaze. Fairies innumerable were before him; real live fairies, and no mistake. Lying down on the grass, the old man crept cautiously towards them, and watched their proceedings with deep interest. They were evidently engaged in the pleasant occupation of holding a fair. There were stalls, tastefully laid out and decorated with garlands of flowers. On these were spread most temptingly all the little articles of fairy costume. To be sure the said costume was very scanty, and to all appearance more picturesque than useful; nevertheless there was great variety. Some wore heath-bells jauntily stuck on their heads; some were helmeted with golden blossoms of the furze, and looked warlike; others had nothing but their own luxuriant hair to cover them. A few of the lady fairies struck the old man as being remarkably beautiful, and one of these, who wore an inverted tulip for a skirt, with a small forget-me-not in her golden hair, seemed to him the very picture of what his old Molly had been fifty years before. It was particularly noticeable that the stalls were chiefly patronised by the fairy fair sex, with the exception of one or two which were much frequented by the men. At these latter, articles were sold which marvellously resembled cigars and brandy, and the old man declared that he saw them smoke the former, and that he smelt the latter; but as he had himself been indulging a little that evening in smuggled spirits and tobacco, we must regard this as a somewhat ungenerous statement on his part, for it is ridiculous to suppose that fairies could be such senseless creatures as to smoke or drink! They danced and sang, however, and it was observed that one young man, with a yellow night-cap and a bad cold, was particularly conspicuous for his anxiety to be permitted to sing. "The music was naturally the great attraction of the evening. It consisted of a large band, and although some of the performers used instruments made of reeds, and straws, and other hollow substances, cut into various forms and lengths, most of them had noses which served the purpose of musical instruments admirably. Indeed, the leader of the band had a prolongation of the nose so like to a flesh-coloured clarionet, that it might easily have been mistaken for the real thing, and on this he discoursed the most seraphic music. Another fairy beside him had a much longer nose, which he used as a trombone with great effect. This fellow was quite a character, and played with such tremendous energy that, on more than one occasion, he brought on a fit of sneezing, which of course interrupted the music, and put the clarionet in a passion. A stout old misshapen gnome, or some such creature, with an enormous head, served for the big drum. Four fairies held him down, and a fifth belaboured his head with a drumstick. It sounded wonderfully hollow, and convinced the old man that it was destitute of brains, and not subject to headache. "All the time that the old man gazed at them, troops of fairies continued to arrive, some on the backs of bats, from which they slipped as they whirred past; others descending, apparently, on moonbeams. The old man even fancied that he saw one attempting to descend by a starbeam, which, being apparently too weak to support his weight, broke, and let him down with a crash into the midst of a party who were very busy round a refreshment stall, where a liberal supply of mountain dew was being served out; but the old man never felt quite sure upon this point, for, at sight of the mountain dew, he felt so thirsty that he determined to taste it. Fixing his eyes on the stall, he suddenly threw his hat into the midst of the party, and made a dash at it; but, to his intense disappointment, the vision was instantly dispelled, and nothing was to be seen on the spot but a few snails creeping over the wet grass, and gossamer threads bespangled with dewdrops." "A very pretty little vision," exclaimed Oliver, "and not the first that has been prematurely dispelled by too ardent a pursuit of strong drink! And now, Charlie, as you appear to be in the vein, and we have still some distance to go, will you tell me something about the giants, and how it came to pass that they were so fond of roaming about Cornwall?" "Their fondness for it, Oliver, must be ascribed to the same cause as your own--just because it is a lovable place," said Tregarthen; "moreover, being a thinly-peopled county, they were probably not much disturbed in their enjoyment of it. To recount their surprising deeds would require a longer space of time than is just now at our disposal, but you have only to look round, in passing through the country, to understand what a mighty race of men they were. There are `giants' quoits,' as you know, without end, some of which have the marks of the fingers and thumbs with which they grasped them. Their strength may be estimated by the fact that one of these quoits is no less than forty feet long and twenty wide, and weighs some hundreds of tons. It would puzzle even your strong arm to toss such a quoit! One of these giants was a very notable fellow. He was named `Wrath,' and is said to have been in the habit of quenching his thirst at the Holy Well under St. Agnes's Beacon, where the marks of his hands, made in the solid granite while he stooped to drink, may still be seen. This rascal, who was well named, is said to have compelled poor St. Agnes, in revenge for her refusing to listen to his addresses, to carry in her apron to the top of Beacon Hill the pile of stones which lies there. But here we are at Penzance, so we shall have done with fiction for the present, and revert to matters of fact. You have business with a lawyer, I believe, and I have business for a short time with a friend. Let us appoint a time and place of meeting." "What say you to the Wherry Mine at two o'clock?" said Oliver. "It is probable that my business will be concluded by that time, when we can go and see this mine together. My uncle seems to set great store by it, because of an old prophecy to the effect that some day or other it will enrich somebody!" "Why, that prophecy has been fulfilled long ago," said Tregarthen, with a laugh. "The mine was a bold undertaking, and at one time paid well, but I fear it won't do so again. However, let us meet there; so farewell, old boy, till two." CHAPTER TWENTY. THE MINE IN THE SEA. True to their appointment, young Tregarthen and Oliver Trembath met at the western end of the town of Penzance, close to the sea-beach, where a mass of buildings and a chimney indicated the position of the Wherry Mine. Oliver's countenance betrayed anxiety as he came forward. "Nothing wrong, I hope?" said Tregarthen. "Well, I can't say exactly that things are wrong; but, at the same time, I don't know that they are altogether right." "Much the same thing," said Tregarthen, smiling; "come, Oliver, unbosom yourself, as novelists say. It will do you good, and two heads, you know, are better than one." "It's not easy to unbosom myself, old fellow," returned Oliver, with a troubled look; "for my poor uncle's affairs are in a perplexed condition, and I hate explanations, especially when I don't understand the nature of what I attempt to explain, so we'll not talk about it, please, till after our visit to the mine. Let it suffice to say that that notorious smuggler Jim Cuttance is concerned in it, and that we must go to Newlyn this afternoon on a piece of business which I shall afterwards disclose. Meanwhile, where is this mine?" "Lift up your eyes and behold," said Tregarthen, pointing to an object which was surrounded by the sea, and stood above two hundred yards from the beach. "What! that martello-tower-like object?" exclaimed Oliver in much surprise. "Even so," replied Tregarthen, who thereupon proceeded to give his friend a history and description of the mine--of which the following is the substance:-- At the western extremity of the sea-beach at Penzance there is a reef of sunken rocks which shows its black crest above water at low tide. It was discovered that this reef contained tin, and the people of the town attacked it with hammers and chisels, when each receding tide left it exposed, as long as the seasons would permit, until the depth became unmanageable. After having been excavated a few fathoms the work was abandoned. Fortunately for the progress of this world there exist a few enterprising men whom nothing can discourage, who seem to be spurred on by opposition, and to gather additional vigour and resolution from increasing difficulties. These men are not numerous, but the world is seldom without a few of them; and one made his appearance in Penzance about the end of last century, in the person of a poor miner named Thomas Curtis. This man conceived the bold design of sinking a shaft through this water-covered rock, and thus creating a mine not only _under_, but _in_ the sea. With the energy peculiar to his class he set to work. The distance of the rock from the beach was about two hundred and forty yards; the depth of water above it at spring tides about nineteen feet. Being exposed to the open sea, a considerable surf is raised on it at times by the prevailing winds, even in summer; while in winter the sea bursts over with such force as to render all operations on it impossible. That Curtis was a man of no common force of character is obvious from the fact that, apart from the difficulties of the undertaking, he could not expect to derive any profit whatever from his labour for several years. As the work could only be carried on during the short period of time in which the rock was above water, and part of this brief period must necessarily be consumed each tide in pumping out the water in the excavation, it of course progressed slowly. Three summers were consumed in sinking the pump-shaft. After this a framework, or caisson, of stout timber and boards, was built round the mouth of the shaft, and rendered watertight with pitch and oakum. It rose to a height of about twelve feet above the surface of the sea, and was strengthened and supported by stout bars, or buttresses of timber. A platform was placed on the top, and a windlass, at which four men could work, was fixed thereon. This erection was connected with the shore by a stage or "wherry" erected on piles. The water was cleared out; the men went "underground," and, with the sea rolling over their heads, and lashing wildly round the turret which was their only safeguard from terrible and instant destruction, they hewed daily from the submarine rock a considerable portion of tin. These first workers, however, had committed an error in carrying on their operations too near the surface, so that water permeated freely through the rock, and the risk of the pressure above being too great, for it rendered the introduction of immense supporting timbers necessary. The water, too, forced its way through the shaft during the winter months, so that the regular working of the mine could not be carried on except in summer; nevertheless, this short interval was sufficient to enable the projector to raise so much ore that his mine got the reputation of being a profitable adventure, and it was wrought successfully for many years. About the end of the century the depth of the pump-shaft was about four fathoms, and the roof had been cut away to the thinness of three feet in some places. Twelve men were employed for two hours at the windlass in hauling the water, while six others were "teaming" from the bottom into the pump. When sufficient water had been cleared away the men laboured at the rock for six hours--in all, eight hours at a time. The prolific nature of the mine may be gathered from the fact that in the space of six months ten men, working about one tenth of that time--less than three weeks--broke about 600 pounds worth of ore. During one summer 3,000 pounds worth of tin was raised! A steam-engine was ultimately attached to the works, and the mine was sunk to a depth of sixteen fathoms, but the expense of working it at length became so great that it was abandoned--not, however, before ore to the amount of 70,000 pounds had been raised from under the sea! At the time of our tale another effort had been made to work the Wherry Mine, and great expectations had been raised, but these expectations were being disappointed. Our unfortunate friend Mr Donnithorne was among the number of those who had cause to regret having ventured to invest in the undertaking, and it was to make inquiries in regard to certain unfavourable rumours touching the mine that Oliver Trembath had been sent to Penzance. After inspecting Wherry Mine the two friends walked along the shore together, and Oliver explained the nature of the difficulties in which his uncle was involved. "The fact is, Charlie," he said, "an old fish-purchaser of Newlyn named Hitchin is one of the principal shareholders in this concern. He is as rich, they say, as Croesus, and if we could only prevail on him to be amiable the thing might be carried on for some time longer with every hope of a favourable result, for there can be no doubt whatever that there is plenty of tin in the mine yet, and the getting of it out is only a question of time and capital." "A pretty serious question--as most speculators find," said Tregarthen, laughing; "you appear to think lightly of it." "Well, I don't pretend to know much about such matters," replied Oliver, "but whatever may be the truth of the case, old Hitchin refuses to come forward. He says that he is low in funds just now, which nobody seems to believe, and that he owes an immense sum of money to Jim Cuttance, the smuggler, for what, of course, he will not tell, but we can have no difficulty in guessing. He says that Cuttance is pressing him just now, and that, therefore, he cannot afford to advance anything on the mine. This being the case it must go down, and, if it does, one of the last few gleams of prosperity that remain to my poor uncle will have fluttered away. This must be prevented, if possible, and it is with that end in view that I purpose going to Newlyn this afternoon to see Hitchin and bring my persuasive powers to bear on him." "H'm, not of much use, I fear," said Tregarthen. "Hitchin is a tough old rascal, with a hard heart and a miserly disposition. However, it may be worth while to make the attempt, for you have a very oily tongue, Oliver." "And you have an extremely impudent one, Charlie. But can you tell me at what time the mackerel boats may be expected this evening, for it seems the old fellow is not often to be found at home during the day, and we shall be pretty sure to find him on the beach when the boats arrive?" Thus appealed to, Tregarthen cast a long look at the sea and sky. "Well, I should say, considering the state of the tide and the threatening appearance of the sky, we may expect to see them at six o'clock, or thereabouts." "That leaves us nearly a couple of hours to spare; how shall we spend it?" said Oliver. "Go and have a look at this fine old town," suggested Tregarthen. "It is worth going over, I assure you. Besides the town hall, market, museum, etcetera, there are, from many points of the surrounding eminences, most superb views of the town and bay with our noble St. Michael's Mount. The view from some of the heights has been said by some visitors to equal that of the far-famed Bay of Naples itself." "Part of this I have already seen," said Oliver, "the rest I hope to live to see, but in the meantime tin is uppermost in my mind; so if you have no objection I should like to have a look at the tin-smelting works. What say you?" "Agreed, by all means," cried Tregarthen; "poor indeed would be the spirit of the Cornishman who did not feel an interest in tin!" CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. TREATS OF TIN-SMELTING AND OTHER MATTERS. There is something grand in the progress of a mechanical process, from its commencement to its termination. Especially is this the case in the production of metals, nearly every step in the course of which is marked by the hard, unyielding spirit of _vis inertiae_ on the one hand, and the tremendous power of intelligence, machinery, and manual dexterity on the other. Take, for example, the progress of a mass of tin from Botallack. Watch yonder stalwart miner at work, deep in the bowels of the mine. Slowly, with powerful blows, he bores a hole in the hard rock. After one, two, or three hours of incessant toil, it is ready for the powder. It is charged; the match is applied; the man takes shelter behind a projection; the mass is rent from its ancient bed, and the miner goes off to lunch while the smoke is clearing away. He returns to his work at length, coughing, and rubbing his eyes, for smoke still lingers there, unable, it would seem, to find its way out; and no wonder, lost as it is in intricate ramifications at the depth of about one thousand five hundred feet below the green grass! He finds but a small piece of ore--perhaps it is twice the size of his head, it may be much larger, but, in any case, it is an apparently poor return for the labour expended. He adds it, however, to the pile at his side, and when that is sufficiently large fills a little iron wagon, and sends it up "to grass" through the shaft, by means of the iron "kibble." Here the large pieces of ore are broken into smaller ones by a man with a hammer; as far as the inexperienced eye can distinguish he might be breaking ordinary stones to repair the road! These are then taken to the "stamps." Those who have delicate nerves would do well to keep as far as possible from the stamps of a tin-mine! Enormous hammers or pounders they are, with shanks as well as heads of malleable-iron, each weighing, shank and head together, seven hundredweight. They are fearful things, these stamps; iron in spirit as well as in body, for they go on for ever-- night and day--wrought by a steam-engine of one hundred horse-power, as enduring as themselves. The stamps are so arranged as to be self-feeders, by means of huge wooden troughs with sloping bottoms, into which the ore is thrown in quantities sufficient to keep them constantly at work without requiring much or constant attendance. Small streams of water trickle over the ore to keep it slowly sliding down towards the jaws, where the stamps thunder up and down alternately. A dread power of pounding have they, truly; and woe be to the toe that should chance to get beneath them! The rock they have to deal with is, as we have said, uncommonly hard, and it enters the insatiable mouth of the stamps about the size of a man's fist, on the average, but it comes out from these iron jaws so exceeding fine as to be incapable of thickening the stream of reddish-yellow water that carries it away. The colour of the stream is the result of iron, with which the tin is mingled. The particles of tin are indeed set free by the stamps from solid bondage, but they are so fine as to be scarcely visible, and so commingled with other substances, such as iron, copper, sulphur, etcetera, that a tedious process of separation has yet to be undergone before the bright metal can be seen or handled. At the present time the stream containing it is poured continuously on several huge wooden tables. These tables are each slightly raised in the centre where the stream falls, so that all the water runs off, leaving the various substances it contains deposited on the table, and these substances are spread over it regularly, while being deposited, by revolving washers or brushes. Tin, being the heaviest of all the ingredients contained in the stream, falls at once to the bottom, and is therefore, deposited on the head or centre of the table; iron, being a shade lighter, is found to lodge in a circle beyond; while all other substances are either spread over the outer rim or washed entirely away. When the tables are full--that is, coated with what appears to be an earthy substance up wards of a foot in depth--the rich tin in the centre is carefully cut out with shovels and placed in tubs, while the rest is rewashed in order that the tin still mingled with it may be captured--a process involving much difficulty, for tin is so very little heavier than iron that the lighter particles can scarcely be separated even after repeated and careful washings. In old times the tin was collected in large pits, whence it was transferred to the hands of balmaidens (or mine-girls) to be washed by them in wooden troughs called "frames," which somewhat resembled a billiard table in form. Indeed, the frames are still largely employed in the mines, but these and the modern table perform exactly the same office--they wash the refuse from the tin. Being finally cleansed from all its impurities, our mass of tin bears more resemblance to brown snuff than to metal. An ignorant man would suppose it to be an ordinary earthy substance, until he took some of it in his hand and felt its weight. It contains, however, comparatively little foreign substance. About seventy per cent of it is pure tin, but this seventy per cent is still locked up in the tight embrace of thirty per cent, of refuse, from which nothing but intense fire can set it free. At this point in the process, our mass of tin leaves the rough hand of the miner. In former days it was divided among the shareholders in this form--each receiving, instead of cash, so many sacks of tin ore, according to the number of his shares or "doles," and carrying it off on mule or horse back from the mine, to be smelted where or by whom he pleased. But whether treated in this way, or, as in the present day, sold by the manager at the market value, it all comes at last to the tin-smelter, whose further proceedings we shall now follow, in company with Oliver and his friend. The agent of the smelting company--a stout, intelligent man, who evidently did "knaw tin"--conducted them first to the furnaces, in the neighbourhood of which were ranged a number of large wooden troughs or bins, all more or less filled with tin ore. The ore got from different mines, he said, differed in quality, as well as in the percentage of tin which it contained. Some had much iron mixed with it, in spite of all the washings it had undergone; some had a little copper and other substances; while some was very pure. By mixing the tin of different mines, better metal could be procured than by simply smelting the produce of each mine separately. Pointing to one of the bins, about three yards square, he told them it contained tin worth 1,000 pounds. There was a large quantity of black sand in one of the bins, which, the agent said, was got by the process of "streaming." It is the richest and best kind of tin ore, and used to be procured in large quantities in Cornwall--especially in ancient times--being found near the surface, but, as a matter of course, not much of that is to be found now, the land having been turned over three times in search of it. This black sand is now imported in large quantities from Singapore. The agent then conducted his visitors to the testing-house, where he showed them the process of testing the various qualities of tin ore offered, to the House for sale. First he weighed out twenty parts of the ore, which, as we have said, resembled snuff. This, he remarked, contained about five-sixths of pure tin, the remaining one-sixth being dross. He mixed it with four parts of fine coal dust, or culm, and added a little borax--these last ingredients being intended to expedite the smelting process. This compound was put into a crucible, and subjected to the intense heat of a small furnace for about twenty minutes. At the end of that time, the agent seized the crucible with a pair of tongs, poured the metal into an iron mould, and threw away the dross. The little mass of tin thus produced was about four inches long, by half an inch broad, and of a dull bluish-grey colour. It was then put into an iron ladle and melted, as one would melt lead when about to cast bullets, but it was particularly noteworthy here, that a very slight heat was required. To extract the metal from the tin ore, a fierce heat, long applied, was necessary, but a slight heat, continued for a few minutes, sufficed to melt the metal. This remelted metal was poured into a stone mould, where it lay like a bright little pool of liquid silver. In a few seconds it solidified, retaining its clear purity in all its parts. "That," said the agent, "is tin of the very best quality. We sell it chiefly to dyers, who use it for colouring purposes, and for whom no tin but the best is of any use. I will now show you two other qualities-- namely, second and inferior." He went to a small cupboard as he spoke, and took therefrom a small piece of tin which had already gone through the smelting process in the crucible above described. Melting this in the ladle, he poured it into the mould, where it lay for a few moments, quite bright and pure, but the instant it solidified, a slight dimness clouded its centre. "That," explained the agent, "is caused by a little copper which they have failed to extract from the tin. Such tin would not do for the dyers, but it is good for the tin-plate makers, who, by dipping thin sheets of iron into molten tin, produce the well-known tin-plates of which our pot-lids and pans, etcetera, are manufactured. This last bit, gentlemen," he added, taking a third piece of tin from the cupboard, "is our worst quality." Having melted it, he poured it into the mould, where it assumed a dull, half-solid appearance, as if it were a liquid only half frozen--or, if you prefer it, a solid in a half molten state. "This is only fit to mix with copper and make brass," said the agent, throwing down the mould. "We test the tin ore twice--once to find out the quantity of metal it contains, and again to ascertain its quality. The latter process you have seen--the former is just the same, with this difference, that I am much more careful in weighing, measuring, etcetera. Every particle of dross I would have collected and carefully separated from any metal it might contain; the whole should then have been reweighed, and its reduction in the smelting process ascertained. Thus, if twenty parts had been the weight of tin ore, the result might perhaps have been fourteen parts of metal and six parts of dross. And now, gentlemen, having explained to you the testing process, if you will follow me, I will show you the opening of one of our furnaces. The smelting-furnace just shows the testing process on a large scale. Into this furnace, six hours ago," he said, pointing to a brick erection in the building to which he led them, "we threw a large quantity of tin ore, mingled with a certain proportion of culm. It is smelted and ready to be run off now." Here he gave an order to a sturdy man, who, with brawny arms bared to the shoulders, stood close at hand. He was begrimed and hairy--like a very Vulcan. Seizing an iron poker, Vulcan probed the orifice of the furnace, and forthwith there ran out a stream of liquid fire, which was caught in an iron bowl nearly four feet in diameter. The intense heat of this pool caused the visitors to step back a few paces, and the ruddy glow shone with a fierce glare on the swart, frowning countenance of Vulcan, who appeared to take a stern delight in braving it. Oliver's attention was at once attracted to this man, for he felt convinced that he had seen his face before, but it was not until he had taxed his memory for several minutes that the scene of his adventure with the smugglers near the Land's End flashed upon him, when he at once recognised him as the man named Joe Tonkin, who had threatened his life in the cavern. From a peculiar look that the man gave him, he saw that he also was recognised. Oliver took no further notice of him at the time, however, but turned to watch the flow of the molten tin. When the iron cauldron was almost full, "slag," or molten refuse began to flow and cover the top of the metal. The hole was immediately plugged up by Vulcan, and the furnace cleared out for the reception of another supply of ore. The surface of the tin was now cleared of slag, after which it was ladled into moulds and allowed to cool. This was the first process completed; but the tin was still full of impurities, and had to undergo another melting and stirring in a huge cauldron. This latter was a severe and protracted operation, which Vulcan performed with tremendous power and energy. In reference to this, it may interest the reader to mention a valuable discovery which was the result of laziness! A man who was employed in a tin-smelting establishment at this laborious work of stirring the molten metal in order to purify it, accidentally discovered that a piece of green wood dropped into it had the effect of causing it to bubble as if it were boiling. To ease himself of some of his toil, he availed himself of the discovery, and, by stirring the metal with a piece of green wood, caused such a commotion that the end in view was accomplished much more effectually and speedily than by the old process. The lazy man's plan, we need scarcely add, is now universally adopted. The last operation was to run the metal into moulds with the smelter's name on them, and these ingots, being of portable size, were ready for sale. While the agent was busily engaged in explaining to Charles Tregarthen some portions of the work, Oliver stepped aside and accosted Joe Tonkin. "So, friend," he said, with a smile, "it seems that smuggling is not your only business?" "No, sur, it ain't," replied Joe, with a grin. "I'm a jack-of-all-trades--a smelter, as you do see, an' a miner _also_, when it suits me." "I'm glad to hear it, my man, for it gives you a chance of coming in contact with better men than smugglers--although I'm free to confess that there _is_ some good among them too. I don't forget that your comrade Jim Cuttance hauled me out of the sea. Where is he?" "Don't knaw, sur," replied Tonkin, with an angry frown; "he and I don't pull well together. We've parted now." Oliver glanced at the man, and as he observed his stern, proud expression of face, and his huge, powerful frame, he came to the conclusion that Cuttance had met a man of equal power and force of character with himself, and was glad to get rid of him. "But I have not gi'n up smuggling," added the man, with a smile. "It do pay pretty well, and is more hearty-like than this sort o' thing." "I'd advise you to fall back on mining," said Oliver. "It is hard work, I know, but it is honest labour, and as far as I have seen, there does not appear to be a more free, hearty, and independent race under the sun than Cornish miners." Joe Tonkin shook his head and smiled dubiously. "You do think so, sur, but you haven't tried it. I don't like it. It don't suit me, it don't. No, no; there's nothin' like a good boat and the open sea." "Things are looking a little better at Botallack just now, Joe," said Oliver, after a pause. "I'd strongly advise you to try it again." The man remained silent for a few minutes, then he said,--"Well, Mr Trembath, I don't mind if I do. I'm tired o' this work, and as my time is up this very day, I'll go over to-morrow and see 'bout it. There's a man at Newlyn as I've got somethin' to say to; I'll go see him to-night, and then--" "Come along, Oliver," shouted Tregarthen at that moment; "it's time to go." Oliver bade Tonkin good-afternoon, and, turning hastily away, followed his friend. The two proceeded arm in arm up Market-Jew Street, and turning down towards the shore, walked briskly along in the direction of the picturesque fishing village of Newlyn, which lies little more than a mile to the westward of Penzance. CHAPTER TWENTY TWO. SHOWS HOW OLIVER AND HIS FRIEND WENT TO NEWLYN AND SAW THE MACKEREL MARKET, AND FOUND SOME DIFFICULTIES AND MYSTERIES AWAITING THEM THERE. The beach opposite Newlyn presented a busy scene when Oliver Trembath and his friend Charlie Tregarthen reached it. Although the zenith of the season was over, mackerel fishing was still going on there in full vigour, and immense crowds of men, women, and children covered the sands. The village lies on the heights above, and crowds of people were leaning over the iron rails which guard the unwary or unsteady passenger from falling into the sea below. A steep causeway connects the main street above with the shore beneath; and up and down it horses, carts, and people were hurrying continuously. True, there was not at that time quite as much bustle as may be witnessed there at the present day. The railway has penetrated these remote regions of the west, and now men work with a degree of feverish haste that was unknown then. While hundreds of little boats (tenders to the large ones) crowd in on the beach, auctioneers with long heavy boots wade knee-deep into the water, followed and surrounded by purchasers, and, ringing a bell as each boat comes in, shout,--"Now, then, five hundred, more or less, in this boat; who bids? Twenty shillings a hundred for five hundred--twenty shillings--say nineteen--I'm bid nineteen--nineteen-and-six--say nineteen-an--twenty--twenty shillings I'm bid--say twenty-one--shall I make it twenty-one shillings for any person?" etcetera. The bells and voices of these auctioneers, loud though they be, are mild compared with the shouts of men, women, and children, as the fish are packed in baskets, with hot haste, to be in time for the train; and horses with laden carts gallop away over the sands at furious speed, while others come dashing back for more fish. And there is need for all this furious haste, for trains, like time and tide, wait for no man, and prices vary according to trains. Just before the starting of one, you will hear the auctioneers put the fish up at 20 shillings, 25 shillings, and even 30 shillings a hundred, and in the next half-hour, after the train is gone, and no chance remains of any more of the fish being got into the London market by the following morning, the price suddenly falls to 8 shillings a hundred, sometimes even less. There is need for haste, too, because the quantity of fish is very great, for there are sometimes two hundred boats at anchor in the bay, each with four thousand fish on the average, which must all be washed and packed in four or five hours. Yes, the old days cannot be compared with the present times, when, between the months of April and June, the three hundred boats of Mounts Bay will land little short of three thousand tons of mackerel, and the railway, for the mere carriage of these to London, Manchester, Birmingham, etcetera, will clear above 20,000 pounds! Nevertheless, the busy, bustling, hearty nature of the scene on Newlyn beach in days of yore was not so very different as one might suppose from that of the present time. The men were not less energetic then than now; the women were not less eager; the children were quite as wild and mischievous, and the bustle and noise apparently, if not really, as great. "What interests you?" asked Charlie Tregarthen, observing that his companion gazed pointedly at some object in the midst of the crowd. "That old woman," said Oliver; "see how demurely she sits on yonder upturned basket, knitting with all her might." "In the midst of chaos," observed Tregarthen, laughing; "and she looks as placidly indifferent to the noise around her as if it were only the murmuring of a summer breeze, although there are two boys yelling at her very ear at this moment." "Perhaps she's deaf," suggested Oliver. Tregarthen said he thought this highly probable, and the two remained silent for some time, watching, from an elevated position on the road leading down to the sands, the ever-changing and amusing scene below. Talk of a pantomime, indeed! No Christmas pantomime ever got up in the great metropolis was half so amusing or so grand as that summer pantomime that was performed daily on Newlyn sands, with admission to all parts of the house--the stage included--for nothing! The scenery was painted with gorgeous splendour by nature, and embraced the picturesque village of Newlyn, with its irregular gables, variously tinted roofs, and whitewashed fronts; the little pier with its modest harbour, perfectly dry because of the tide being out, but which, even if the tide had been in, and itself full to overflowing, could not apparently have held more than a dozen of the larger fishing-boats; the calm bay crowded with boats of all sizes, their brown and yellow sails reflected in the clear water, and each boat resting on its own image. On the far-off horizon might be seen the Lizard Point and the open sea, over which hung red and lurid clouds, which betokened the approach of a storm, although, at the time, all nature was quiet and peaceful. Yes, the scenery was admirably painted, and nothing could exceed the perfection of the acting. It was so _very_ true to nature! Right in front of the spot where the two friends stood, a fisherman sat astride of an upturned basket, enjoying a cup of tea which had been brought to him by a little girl who sat on another upturned basket at his side, gazing with a pleased expression into his rugged countenance, one cheek of which was distended with a preposterously large bite of bread and butter. The great Mathews himself never acted his part so well. What admirable devotion to the one engrossing object in hand! What a perfect and convincing display of a hearty appetite! What obvious unconsciousness of being looked at, and what a genuine and sudden burst of indignation when, owing to a touch of carelessness, he capsized the cup, and poured the precious tea upon the thirsty sand. At the distance from which Oliver and his friend observed him, no words were audible, but none were necessary. The man's acting was so perfect that they knew he was scolding the little girl for the deed which he himself had perpetrated. Then there was something peculiarly touching in the way in which he suddenly broke into a short laugh, and patted the child's head while she wiped out the cup, and refilled it from the little brown broken-nosed teapot hitherto concealed under her ragged shawl to keep it warm. No wizard was needed to tell, however, that this was quite an unnecessary piece of carefulness on the little girl's part, for any brown teapot in the world, possessing the smallest amount of feeling, would have instantly made hot and strong tea out of cold water on being pressed against the bosom of that sunny child! Just beyond this couple, three tired men, in blue flannel shirts, long boots, and sou'-westers, grouped themselves round a bundle of straw to enjoy a pipe: one stretched himself almost at full length on it, in lazy nonchalance; another sat down on it, and, resting his elbows on his knees, gazed pensively at his pipe as he filled it; while the third thrust his hands into his pockets, and stood for a few seconds with a grand bend at the small of his back (as if he felt that his muscles worked easily), and gazed out to sea. The greatest of the old masters could have painted nothing finer. Away to the right, an old man might be seen tying up the lid of a basket full of fish beside his cart, and dividing his attention between the basket and the horse, which latter, much to his surprise, was unwontedly restive that evening, and required an unusual number of cautions to remain still, and of threats as to the punishment that would follow continued disobedience, all of which afforded the most intense and unutterable delight to a very small precocious boy, who, standing concealed on the off side of the animal, tickled its ear with a straw every time it bent its head towards the bundle of hay which lay at its feet. No clown or pantaloon was there to inflict condign punishment, because none was needed. A brother carter standing by performed the part, extempore. His eye suddenly lit on the culprit; his whip sprang into the air and descended on the urchin's breech. Horror-struck, his mouth opened responsive to the crack, and a yell came forth that rose high above the surrounding din, while his little legs carried him away over the sands like a ragged leaf driven before the wind. To the left of this scene (and ignorant of it, for the stage was so large, the actors were so numerous, and the play so grand, that few could do more than attend to their own part) a cripple might be seen with a crutch hopping actively about. He was a young man; had lost his leg, by an accident probably, and was looking about for a cast-away fish for his own supper. He soon found one. Whether it was that one had been dropped accidentally, or that some generous-hearted fish-dealer had dropped one on purpose, we cannot tell, but he did get one--a large fat one, too--and hobbled away as quickly as he could, evidently rejoicing. The cripple was not the only one who crossed the stage thus lightly burdened. There were several halt and maimed, and some blind and aged ones there, whose desires in regard to piscatorial wealth extended only to one, or perhaps two, and they all got what they wanted. That was sufficient for the evening's supper--for the morrow there was no need to care; they could return to get a fresh supply evening after evening for many a day to come, for it was a splendid mackerel season--such as had not been for many years--so said the sages of the village. There were other groups, and other incidents that would have drawn laughter as well as tears from sympathetic hearts, but we must forbear. The play was long of being acted out--it was no common play; besides, it is time for _our_ actors to come upon the stage themselves. "I see old Hitchin," exclaimed Oliver Trembath, starting suddenly out of a reverie, and pointing into the thickest of the crowd. "How can you tell? you don't know him," said his companion. "Know him! Of course I do; who could fail to know him after the graphic description the lawyer gave of him? See--look yonder, beside the cart with the big man in it arranging baskets. D'you see?" "Which? the one painted green, and a scraggy horse with a bag hanging to its nose?" "No, no; a little further to the left, man--the one with the broken rail and the high-spirited horse. There, there he is! a thin, dried-up, wrinkled, old shabby--" "Ah! that's the man," exclaimed Tregarthen, laughing. "Come along, and let's try to keep our eyes on him, for there is nothing so difficult as finding any one in a crowd." The difficulty referred to was speedily illustrated by the fact that the two friends threaded their way to the spot where the cart had stood, and found not only that it was gone, but that Hitchin had also moved away, and although they pushed through the crowd for more than a quarter of an hour they failed to find him. As they were wandering about thus, they observed a very tall broad-shouldered man talking earnestly in undertones to a sailor-like fellow who was still broader across the shoulders, but not quite so tall. It is probable that Oliver would have paid no attention to them, had not the name of Hitchin struck his ear. Glancing round at the men he observed that the taller of the two was Joe Tonkin, and the other his friend of the Land's End, the famous Jim Cuttance. Oliver plucked his companion by the sleeve, and whispered him to stand still. Only a few words and phrases reached them, but these were sufficient to create surprise and arouse suspicion. Once, in particular, Tonkin, who appeared to be losing his temper, raised his voice a little, exclaiming,--"I tell 'ee what it is, Cuttance, I do knaw what you're up to, an' I'll hinder 'ee ef I can." The man confirmed this statement with a savage oath, to which Cuttance replied in kind; nevertheless he was evidently anxious to conciliate his companion, and spoke so low as to be nearly inaudible. Only the words, "Not to-night; I won't do it to-night," reached the ears of the listeners. At this point Tonkin turned from the smuggler with a fling, muttering in an undertone as he went, "I don't b'lieve 'ee, Cuttance, for thee'rt a liard, so I'll watch 'ee, booy." Oliver was about to follow Tonkin, when he observed Hitchin himself slowly wending his way through the crowd. He had evidently heard nothing of the conversation that appeared to have reference to himself, for he sauntered along with a careless air, and his hands in his pockets, as though he were an uninterested spectator of the busy scene. Oliver at once accosted him, "Pray, sir, is your name Hitchin?" "It is," replied the old man, eyeing his interrogator suspiciously. "Allow me to introduce myself, sir--Oliver Trembath, nephew to Mr Thomas Donnithorne of St. Just." Mr Hitchin held out his hand, and said that he was happy to meet with a nephew of his old friend, in the tone of a man who would much rather not meet either nephew or uncle. Oliver felt this, so he put on his most insinuating air, and requested Mr Hitchin to walk with him a little aside from the crowd, as he had something of a private nature to say to him. The old man agreed, and the two walked slowly along the sands to the outskirts of the crowd, where young Tregarthen discreetly left them. The moment Oliver broached the subject of the advance of money, Hitchin frowned, and the colour in his face betrayed suppressed anger. "Sir," said he, "I know all that you would say to me. It has already been said oftener than there is any occasion for. No one appears to believe me when I assert that I have met with heavy losses of late, and have no cash to spare--not even enough to pay my debts." "Indeed, sir," replied Oliver, "I regret to hear you say so, and I can only apologise for having troubled you on the subject. I assure you nothing would have induced me to do so but regard for my uncle, to whom the continuance of this mine for some time would appear to be a matter of considerable importance; but since you will not--" "_Wilt_ not!" interrupted Hitchin angrily, "have I not said _can not_? I tell you, young man, that there is a scoundrel to whom I owe a large sum for--for--well, no matter what it's for, but the blackguard threatens that if I don't--pshaw!--" The old man seemed unable to contain himself at this point, for he turned angrily away from Oliver, and, hastening back towards the town, was soon lost again in the crowd. Oliver was so taken by surprise, that he stood still gazing dreamily at the point where Hitchin had disappeared, until he was roused by a touch on the shoulder from Charlie Tregarthen. "Well," said he, smiling, "how fares your suit?" Oliver replied by a burst of laughter. "How fares my suit?" he repeated; "badly, very badly indeed; why, the old fellow's monkey got up the moment I broached the subject, and I was just in the middle of what I meant to be a most conciliating speech, when he flung off as you have seen." "Odd, very odd," said Tregarthen, "to see how some men cling to their money, as if it were their life. After all, it _is_ life to some--at least all the life they have got." "Come now, don't moralise, Charlie, for we must act just now." "I'm ready to act in any way you propose, Oliver; what do you intend to do? Issue your commands, and I'll obey. Shall we attack the village of Newlyn single-handed, and set fire to it, as did the Spaniards of old, or shall we swim off to the fleet of boats, cut the cables, bind the men in charge, and set sail for the mackerel fishing?" "Neither, my chum, and especially not the latter, seeing that a thundercloud is about to break over the sea ere long, if I do not greatly misjudge appearances in the sky; but, man, we must see this testy old fellow again, and warn him of the danger which threatens him. I feel assured that that rascal Cuttance means him harm, for he let something fall in his anger, which, coupled with what we have already heard from the smuggler himself, and from Tonkin, convinces me that evil is in the wind. Now the question is, how are we to find him, for searching in that crowd is almost useless?" "Let us go to his house," suggested Tregarthen, "and if he is not at home, wait for him." "Do you know where his house is?" "No, not I." "Then we must inquire, so come along." Pushing once more through the throng of busy men and women, the friends ascended the sloping causeway that led to the village, and here asked the first man they met where Mr Hitchin lived. "Right over top o' hill," replied the man. "Thank you. That'll do, Charlie, come along," said Oliver, turning into one of the narrow passages that diverged from the main street of Newlyn, and ascending the hill with giant strides; "one should never be particular in their inquiries after a place. When I'm told to turn to the right after the second turning to the left, and that if I go right on till I come to some other turning, that will conduct me point blank to the street that enters the square near to which lies the spot I wish to reach, I'm apt to get confused. Get a general direction if possible, the position indicated by compass is almost enough, and _ask again_. That's my plan, and I never found it fail." CHAPTER TWENTY THREE. IN WHICH IS RECORDED A VISIT TO AN INFANT-SCHOOL; A WARNING TO A THANKLESS OLD GENTLEMAN; ALSO A STORM, AND A SUDDEN AS WELL AS SURPRISING END OF A MINE, BESIDES DARK DESIGNS. Oliver Trembath's plan of "asking again" had to be put in practice sooner than had been anticipated, for the back alleys and lanes of Newlyn were a little perplexing to a stranger. "Let us inquire here," said Tregarthen, seeing the half-open door of a very small cottage, with part of a woman's back visible in the interior. "By all means," said Oliver, pushing open the door and stooping low as he entered. The visitors were instantly transfixed by thirty pair of eyes--all of them bright blue, or bright black--few of them elevated much more than two feet from the ground, and not one of them dimmed by the smallest approach to a wink. Nay, on the contrary, they all opened so wide when the strangers entered that it seemed as if either winking or shutting were in future out of the question, and that to sleep with eyes wide open was the sad prospect of the owners thereof in all time coming. "An infant-school," murmured Tregarthen. The very smallest boy in the school--an infant with legs about five inches long, who sat on a stool not more than three inches high-- appeared to understand what he said, and to regard it as a personal insult, for he at once began to cry. A little girl with bright red hair, a lovely complexion, and a body so small as to be scarce worth mentioning, immediately embraced the small boy, whereupon he dried his eyes without delay. "You have a nice little school here," said Oliver. "Iss, sur; we do feel proud of it," said the good-looking motherly dame in charge, with a little twitch of her shoulders, which revealed the horrible fact that both her arms had been taken off above the elbows, "the child'n are very good, and they do sing bootiful. Now then, let the gentlemen hear you--`O that'll be'--come." Instantly, and in every possible pitch, the thirty mouths belonging to the thirty pair of eyes opened, and "O that will be joyful," etcetera, burst forth with thrilling power. A few leading voices gradually turned the torrent into a united channel, and before the second verse was reached the hymn was tunefully sung, the sweet voice of the little girl with the bright hair being particularly distinguishable, and the shrill pipe of the smallest boy sounding high above the rest as he sang, "O that will be doyful, doyful, doyful, doyful," with all his might and main. When this was finished Tregarthen asked the schoolmistress what misfortune had caused the loss of her arms, to which she replied that she had lost them in a coach accident. As she was beginning to relate the history of this sad affair, Oliver broke in with a question as to where old Mr Hitchin's house was. Being directed to it they took leave of the infant-school, and soon found themselves before the door of a small cottage. They were at once admitted to the presence of the testy old Hitchin, who chanced to be smoking a pipe at the time. He did not by any means bestow a welcome look on his visitors, but Oliver, nevertheless, advanced and sat down in a chair before him. "I have called, Mr Hitchin," he began, "not to trouble you about the matter which displeased you when we conversed together on the beach, but to warn you of a danger which I fear threatens yourself." "What danger may that be?" inquired Hitchin, in the tone of a man who held all danger in contempt. "What it is I cannot tell, but--" "Cannot tell!" interrupted the old man; "then what's the use of troubling me about it?" "Neither can I tell of what use my troubling you may be," retorted Oliver with provoking coolness, "but I heard the man speak of you on the beach less than an hour ago, and as you referred to him yourself I thought it right to call--" At this point Hitchin again broke in,--"Heard a man speak of me--what man? Really, Mr Trembath, your conduct appears strange to me. Will you explain yourself?" "Certainly. I was going to have added, if your irascible temper would have allowed me, that the notorious smuggler, Jim Cuttance--" Oliver stopped, for at the mention of the smuggler's name the pipe dropped from the old man's mouth, and his face grew pale. "Jim Cuttance!" he exclaimed after a moment's pause; "the villain, the scoundrel--what of him? what of him? No good, I warrant. There is not a rogue unhanged who deserves more richly to swing at the yard-arm than Jim Cuttance. What said he about me?" When he finished this sentence the old man's composure was somewhat restored. He took a new pipe from the chimney-piece and began to fill it, while Oliver related all that he knew of the conversation between the two smugglers. When he had finished Hitchin smoked for some minutes in silence. "Do you really think," he said at length, "that the man means to do me bodily harm?" "I cannot tell," replied Oliver; "you can form your own judgment of the matter more correctly than I can, but I would advise you to be on your guard." "What says your friend?" asked Hitchin, turning towards Tregarthen, of whom, up to that point, he had taken no notice. Thus appealed to, the youth echoed Oliver's opinion, and added that the remark of Cuttance about his intention not to do something unknown _that_ night, and Joe Tonkin's muttered expressions of disbelief and an intention to watch, seemed to him sufficient to warrant unusual caution in the matter of locks, bolts, and bars. As he spoke there came a blinding flash of lightning, followed by a loud and prolonged peal of thunder. Oliver sprang up. "We must bid you good-night," he said, "for we have to walk to St. Just, and don't wish to get more of the storm than we can avoid." "But you cannot escape it," said Hitchin. "Nevertheless we can go as far as possible before it begins, and then take shelter under a bush or hedge, or in a house if we chance to be near one. I would rather talk in rain any day than drive in a kittereen!" "Pray be persuaded to stop where you are, gentlemen," said the old man in a tone of voice that was marvellously altered for the better. "I can offer you comfortable quarters for the night, and good, though plain fare, with smuggled brandy of the best, and tobacco to match." Still Oliver and Tregarthen persisted in their resolution to leave, until Hitchin began to plead in a tone that showed he was anxious to have their presence in the house as protectors. Then their resolution began to waver, and when the old man hinted that they might thus find time to reconsider the matter of the Wherry Mine, they finally gave in, and made up their minds to stay all night. According to the opinion of a celebrated poet, the best-laid plans of men as well as mice are apt to miscarry. That night the elements contrived to throw men's calculations out of joint, and to render their cupidity, villainy, and wisdom alike ineffectual. A storm, the fiercest that had visited them for many years, burst that night on the southern shores of England, and strewed her rocks and sands with wrecks and dead bodies. Nothing new in this, alas! as all know who dwell upon our shores, or who take an interest in, and read the records of, our royal and noble Lifeboat Institution. But with this great subject we have not to do just now, further than to observe, as we have said before, that in those days there were no lifeboats on the coast. Under the shelter of an old house on the shore at Penzance were gathered together a huge concourse of townspeople and seafaring men watching the storm. It was a grand and awful sight--one fitted to irresistibly solemnise the mind, and incline it, unless the heart be utterly hardened, to think of the great Creator and of the unseen world, which seems at such a season to be brought impressively near. The night was extremely dark, and the lightning, by contrast, peculiarly vivid. Each flash appeared to fill the world for a moment with lambent fire, leaving the painful impression on observers of having been struck with total blindness for a few seconds after, and each thunderclap came like the bursting of artillery, with scarcely an interval between the flash and crash, while the wind blew with almost tropical fury. The terrible turmoil and noise were enhanced tenfold by the raging surf, which flew up over the roadway, and sent the spray high above and beyond the tops of the houses nearest to the shore. The old house creaked and groaned in the blast as if it would come down, and the men taking shelter there looked out to sea in silence. The bronzed veterans there knew full well that at that hour many a despairing cry was being uttered, many a hand was stretched wildly, helplessly, and hopelessly from the midst of the boiling surf, and many a soul was passing into eternity. They would have been ready then, as well as now, to have risked life and limb to save fellow-creatures from the sea, but ordinary boats they knew could not live in such a storm. Among the watchers there stood Jim Cuttance. He had been drinking at a public-house in Penzance, and was at the time, to use his own expression, "three sheets in the wind"--that is, about half-drunk. What his business was nobody knew, and we shall not inquire, but he was the first to express his belief that the turret and bridge of the Wherry Mine would give way. As he spoke a vivid flash of lightning revealed the stout timbers of the mine standing bravely in the storm, each beam and chain painted black and sharp against the illumined sky and the foaming sea. "She have stud out many a gale," observed a weather-beaten old seaman; "p'raps she won't go down yet." "I do hope she won't," observed another. "She haven't got a chance," said Cuttance. Just then another flash came, and there arose a sharp cry of alarm from the crowd, for a ship was seen driving before the gale close in upon the land, so close that she seemed to have risen there by magic, and appeared to tower almost over the heads of the people. The moments of darkness that succeeded were spent in breathless, intense anxiety. The flashes, which had been fast enough before, seemed to have ceased altogether now; but again the lightning gleamed--bright as full moonlight, and again the ship was seen, nearer than before--close on the bridge of the mine. "'Tis the Yankee ship broken from her anchors in Gwavus Lake," exclaimed a voice. The thunder-peal that followed was succeeded by a crash of rending timber and flying bolts that almost emulated the thunder. Certainly it told with greater power on the nerves of those who heard it. Once again the lightning flashed, and for a moment the American vessel was seen driving away before the wind, but no vestige of Wherry Mine remained. The bridge and all connected with it had been completely carried away, and its shattered remnants were engulfed in the foaming sea. It deserved a better fate; but its course was run, and its hour had come. It passed away that stormy night, and now nothing remains but a few indications of its shaft-mouth, visible at low water, to tell of one of the boldest and most singular of mining enterprises ever undertaken and carried out by man. There was one spectator of this imposing scene who was not very deeply impressed by it. Jim Cuttance cared not a straw for storms or wrecks, so long as he himself was safe from their influence. Besides, he had other work in hand that night, so he left the watchers on the beach soon after the destruction of the bridge. Buttoning his coat up to the neck, and pulling his sou'-wester tight over his brows, he walked smartly along the road to Newlyn, while many of the fishermen ran down to the beach to render help to the vessel. Between the town of Penzance and the village of Newlyn several old boats lay on the grass above high-water mark. Here the smuggler stopped and gave a loud whistle. He listened a moment and than repeated it still louder. He was answered by a similar signal, and four men in sailor's garb, issuing from behind one of the boats, advanced to meet him. "All right, Bill?" inquired Cuttance. "All right, sur," was the reply. "Didn't I tell 'ee to leave them things behind?" said Cuttance sternly, as he pointed to the butt of a pistol which protruded from the breast-pocket of one of the men; "sure we don't require powder and lead to overcome an old man!" "No more do we need a party o' five to do it," replied the man doggedly. To this Cuttance vouchsafed no reply, but, plucking the weapon from the man, he tossed it far into the sea, and, without further remark, walked towards the fishing village, followed by his men. By this time the thunder and rain had abated considerably, but the gale blew with increased violence, and, as there were neither moon nor stars, the darkness was so intense that men less acquainted with the locality would have been obliged to proceed with caution. But the smugglers knew every foot of the ground between the Lizard and the Land's End, and they advanced with rapid strides until they reached the low wall that encompassed, but could not be said to guard, old Mr Hitchin's garden-plot. The hour was suited for deeds of darkness, being a little after midnight, and the noise of the gale favoured the burglars, who leaped the wall with ease and approached the back of the cottage. In ordinary circumstances Hitchin would have been in bed, and Cuttance knew his habits sufficiently to be aware of this; his surprise, therefore, was great when he found lights burning, and greater still when, peeping through a chink of the window-shutter, he observed two stout fellows seated at the old man's table. Charles Tregarthen he had never seen before, and, as Oliver Trembath sat with his back to the window, he could not recognise him. "There's company wi' the owld man," said Cuttance, returning to his comrades; "two men, young and stout, but we do knaw how to manage they!" This was said by way of an appeal, and was received with a grin by the others, and a brief recommendation to go to work without delay. For a few minutes they whispered together as to the plan of attack, and then, having agreed on that point, they separated. Cuttance and the man whom he had called Bill, went to the window of the room in which Hitchin and his guests were seated, and stationed themselves on either side of it. The sill was not more than breast high. The other three men quickly returned, bearing a heavy boat's-mast, which they meant to use as a battering-ram. It had been arranged that Cuttance should throw up the window, and, at the same moment, his comrades should rush at the shutter with the mast. The leader could not see their faces, but there was light sufficient to enable him to distinguish their dark forms standing in the attitude of readiness. He therefore stepped forward and made a powerful effort to force up the window, but it resisted him, although it shook violently. Those inside sprang up at the sound, and the smugglers sank down, as if by mutual consent, among the bushes which grew thickly near the window. "I told you it was only the wind," said Oliver Trembath, who had opened the shutter and gazed through the window for some time into the darkness, where, of course, he saw nothing. Well was it for him that Cuttance refused to follow Bill's advice, which was to charge him through the window with the mast. The former knew that, with the window fastened, it would be impossible to force an entrance in the face of such a youth as Tregarthen, even although they succeeded in rendering the other _hors de combat_, so he restrained Bill, and awaited his opportunity. Oliver's remark appeared to be corroborated by a gust of wind which came while he was speaking, and shook the window-frame violently. "There it is again," he said, turning to his host with a smile. "Depend upon it, they won't trouble you on such a night as this." He closed and refastened the shutter as he spoke, and they all returned to their places at the table. Unfortunately Oliver had not thought of examining the fastening of the window itself. Had he done so, he would have seen that it was almost wrenched away. Cuttance saw this, however, and resolved to make sure work of it next time. When the men with the battering-ram were again in position, he and Bill applied their united strength to the window, and it instantly flew up to the top. At same moment, bolts and bars gave way, and the shutter went in with a crash. Making use of the mast as a rest, Cuttance sprang on the window-sill and leaped into the room. The whole thing was done with such speed, and, if we may so express it, with such simultaneity of action, that the bold smuggler stood before the astonished inmates almost as soon as they could leap from their chairs. Cuttance ducked to evade a terrific blow which Oliver aimed at him with his fist, and in another instant grappled with him. Tregarthen rushed to the window in time to meet Bill, on whose forehead he planted a blow so effectual that that worthy fell back into the arms of his friends, who considerately let him drop to the ground, and made a united assault on Charlie. Had Oliver Trembath possessed his wonted vigour, he would speedily have overcome his adversary despite his great strength, but his recent illness had weakened him a little, so that the two were pretty equally matched. The consequence was that, neither daring to loosen his hold in order to strike an effective blow, each had to devote all his energies to throw the other, in which effort they wrenched, thrust, and swung each other so violently round the room that chairs and tables were overturned and smashed, and poor old Hitchin had enough to do to avoid being floored in the _melee_, and to preserve from destruction the candle which lighted the scene of the combat. At first Oliver had tried to free his right hand in order to strike, but, finding this impossible, he attempted to throw the smuggler, and, with this end in view, lifted him bodily in the air and dashed him down, but Cuttance managed to throw out a leg and meet the ground with his foot, which saved him. He was a noted wrestler. He could give the famous Cornish hug with the fervour of a black bear, and knew all the mysteries of the science. Often had he displayed his great muscular power and skill in the ring, where "wrestlers" were wont to engage in those combats of which the poet writes:-- "They rush, impetuous, with a shock Their arms implicit, rigid, lock; They twist; they trip; their limbs are mixed; As one they move, as one stand fixed. Now plant their feet in wider space, And stand like statues on their base." But never before had Jim Cuttance had to deal with such a man as Oliver Trembath, who swung him about among the chairs, and crashed him through the tables, until, seizing a sudden opportunity, he succeeded in flinging him flat on the floor, where he held him down, and planted his knee on his chest with such force that he nearly squeezed all the breath out of him. No word did Jim Cuttance utter, for he was incapable of speech, but the colour of his face and his protruding tongue induced Oliver to remove his knee. Meanwhile Charlie Tregarthen had enough to do at the window. After he had tumbled Bill out, as we have described, two of the other men sprang at him, and, seizing him by the collar of his coat, attempted to drag him out. One of these he succeeded in overthrowing by a kick on the chest, but his place was instantly taken by the third of the bearers of the battering-ram, and for a few minutes the struggle was fierce but undecided. Suddenly there arose a great shout, and all three tumbled head over heels into the shrubbery. It was at this moment that Oliver rose from his prostrate foe. He at once sprang to the rescue; leaped out of the window, and was in the act of launching a blow at the head of the first man he encountered, when a voice shouted,--"Hold on, sur." It is certain that Oliver would have declined to hold on, had not the voice sounded familiar. He held his hand, and next moment Charlie appeared in the light of the window dragging a struggling man after him by the nape of the neck. At the same time Joe Tonkin came forward trailing another man by the hair of the head. "Has Cuttance got off?" inquired Tonkin. "No," replied Oliver, leaping back into the room, just in time to prevent Jim, who had recovered, from making his escape. "Now, my man, keep quiet," said Oliver, thrusting him down into a chair. "You and I have met before, and you know that it is useless to attempt resistance." Cuttance vouchsafed no reply, but sat still with a dogged expression on his weather-beaten visage. Hitchin, whose nerves were much shaken by the scene of which he had been a trembling spectator, soon produced ropes, with which the prisoners were bound, and then they were conducted to a place of safe keeping-- each of the victors leading the man he had secured, and old Hitchin going before--an excited advance-guard. The two men whom Tregarthen knocked down had recovered, and made their escape just before the fight closed. Oliver Trembath walked first in the procession, leading Jim Cuttance. "I gave you credit for a more manly spirit than this," said Oliver, as he walked along. "How could you make so cowardly an attack on an old man?" Cuttance made no reply, and Oliver felt sorry that he had spoken, for the remembrance of the incident at the Land's End was strong upon him, and he would have given all he possessed to have had no hand in delivering the smuggler up to justice. At the same time he felt that the attempt of Cuttance was a dastardly one, and that duty required him to act as he did. It seemed to Oliver as if Joe Tonkin had divined his thoughts, for at that moment he pushed close to him and whispered in his ear, "Jim Cuttance didn't mean to rob th' owld man, sur. He only wanted to give he a fright, an' make un pay what he did owe un." This was a new light on the subject to Oliver, who at once formed his resolution and acted on it. "Cuttance," he said, "it is not unlikely that, if brought to justice, you will swing for this night's adventure." He paused and glanced at the face of his prisoner, who still maintained rigid silence. "Well," continued our hero, "I believe that your intentions against Mr Hitchin were not so bad as they would appear to be--" "Who told 'ee that?" asked the smuggler sternly. "No matter," replied Oliver, drawing a knife from his pocket, with which he deliberately cut the cords that bound his prisoner. "There--you are free. I hope that you will make better use of your freedom in time to come than you have in time past, although I doubt it much; but remember that I have repaid the debt I owe you." "Nay," replied Cuttance, still continuing to walk close to his companion's side. "I did give you life. You have but given me liberty." "I'd advise you to take advantage of that liberty without delay," said Oliver, somewhat nettled by the man's remark, as well as by his cool composure, "else your liberty may be again taken from you, in which case I would not give much for your life." "If you do not assist, there is no one here who can take me _now_," replied Cuttance, with a smile. "However, I'm not ungrateful-- good-night." As he said this, the smuggler turned sharp to the right into one of the numerous narrow passages which divide the dwellings of Newlyn, and disappeared. Charles Tregarthen, who was as sharp as a needle, observed this, and, leaving his man in charge of Tonkin, darted after the fugitive. He soon returned, however, wiping the perspiration from his brow, and declaring that he had well-nigh lost himself in his vain endeavours to find the smuggler. "How in all the world did you manage to let him go?" he demanded somewhat sharply of Oliver. "Why, Charlie," replied his friend, with a laugh, "you know I have not been trained to the duties of a policeman, and it has always been said that Jim Cuttance was a slippery eel. However, he's gone now, so we had better have the others placed in safe custody as soon as possible." Saying this he passed his arm through that of old Mr Hitchin, and soon after the smugglers were duly incarcerated in the lock-up of Penzance. CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR. EXHIBITS THE MANAGING DIRECTOR AND THE SECRETARY OF WHEAL DOOEM IN CONFIDENTIAL CIRCUMSTANCES, AND INTRODUCES THE SUBJECT OF "LOCALS." About this time that energetic promoter of mining operations, Mr George Augustus Clearemout, found it necessary to revisit Cornwall. He was seated in an easy-chair in a snug little back-office, or board-room, in one of the airiest little streets of the City of London, when this necessity became apparent to him. Mr Clearemout did not appear to have much to do at that particular time, for he contented himself with tapping the arm of his easy-chair with the knuckles of his right hand, while he twirled his gold watch-key with his left, and smiled occasionally. To judge from appearances it seemed that things in general were prospering with George Augustus. Everything about him was new, and, we might almost say, gorgeous. His coat and vest and pantaloons had a look and a cut about them that told of an extremely fashionable tailor, and a correspondingly fashionable price. His rings, of which he wore several, were massive, one of them being a diamond ring of considerable value. His boots were faultlessly made, quite new, and polished so highly that it dazzled one to look at them, while his linen, of which he displayed a large quantity on the breast, was as white as snow--not London snow, of course! Altogether Mr G.A. Clearemout was a most imposing personage. "Come in," he said, in a voice that sounded like the deep soft whisper of a trombone. The individual who had occasioned the command by tapping at the door, opened it just enough to admit his head, which he thrust into the room. It was a shaggy red head belonging to a lad of apparently eighteen; its chief characteristics being a prolonged nose and a retracted chin, with a gash for a mouth, and two blue holes for eyes. "Please, sir, Mr Muddle," said the youth. "Admit Mr Muddle." The head disappeared, and immediately after a gentleman sauntered into the room, and flung himself lazily into the empty armchair which stood at the fireplace _vis-a-vis_ to the one in which Mr Clearemout sat, explaining that he would not have been so ceremonious had he not fancied that his friend was engaged with some one on business. "How are you, Jack?" said George Augustus. "Pretty bobbish," replied Jack. (He was the same Jack whom we have already introduced as being Mr Clearemout's friend and kindred spirit.) "Any news?" inquired Mr Clearemout. "No, nothing moving," said Jack languidly. "H'm, I see it is time to stir now, Jack, for the wheel of fortune is apt to get stiff and creaky if we don't grease her now and then and give her a jog. Here is a little pot of grease which I have been concocting and intend to lay on immediately." He took a slip of paper from a large pocket-book which lay at his elbow on the new green cloth-covered table, and handed it to his friend, who slowly opened and read it in a slovenly way, mumbling the most of it as he went on:-- "`WHEAL DOOEM, in St. Just, Cornwall--mumble--m--m--in 10,000 shares. An old mine, m--m--every reason to believe--m--m--splendid lodes visible from--m--m. Depth of Adit fifty fathoms--m--depth below Adit ninety fathoms. Pumps, whims, engines, etcetera, in good working order--m-- little expense--Landowners, Messrs.--m--Manager at the Mine, Captain Trembleforem--m--thirteen men, four females, and two boys--m--water-- wheels--stamps--m--Managing Director, George Augustus Clearemout, Esquire, 99 New Gull Street, London--m--Secretary, John Muddle, Esquire--ahem--'" "But, I say, it won't do to publish anything of this sort just yet, you know," said Secretary Jack in a remonstrative tone, "for there's nothing doing at all, I believe." "I beg your pardon," replied the managing director, "there is a good deal doing. I have written to St. Just appointing the local manager, and it is probable that things are really under way by this time; besides, I shall set out for Cornwall to-morrow to superintend matters, leaving my able secretary in charge here in the meantime, and when he hears from me this paper may be completed and advertised." "I say, it looks awful real-like, don't it?" said Jack, with a grin. "Only fancy if it should turn out to be a good mine after all--what a lark _that_ would be! and it might, you know, for it _was_ a real one once, wasn't it? And if you set a few fellows to sink the what-d'ye-call-'ems and drive the thingumbobs, it is possible they may come upon tin and copper, or something of that sort--wouldn't it be jolly?" "Of course it would, and that is the very thing that gives zest to it. It's a speculation, not a swindle by any means, and admirably suits our easy consciences. But, I say, Jack, you _must_ break yourself off talking slang. It will never do to have the secretary of the Great Wheal Dooem Mining Company talk like a street boy. Besides, I hate slang even in a blackguard--not to mention a black-leg--so you must give it up, Jack, you really must, else you'll ruin the concern at the very beginning." Secretary Jack started into animation at this. "Why, George," he said, drawing himself up, "I can throw it off when I please. Look here--suppose yourself an inquiring speculator--ahem! I assure you, sir, that the prospects of this mine are most brilliant, and the discoveries that have been made in it since we commenced operations are incredible--absolutely incredible, sir. Some of the lodes (that's the word, isn't it?) are immensely rich, and upwards of a hundred feet thick, while the part that runs under the sea, or _is_ to run under the sea, at a depth of three thousand fathoms, is probably as rich in copper ore as the celebrated Botallack, whose majestic headland, bristling with machinery, overhangs the raging billows of the wide Atlantic, etcetera, etcetera. O George, it's a great lark entirely!" "You'll have to learn your lesson a little better, else you'll make a great mess of it," said Clearemout. "A muddle of it--according to my name and destiny, George," said the secretary; "a muddle of it, and a fortune _by_ it." Here the secretary threw himself back in the easy-chair, and grinned at the opposite wall, where his eye fell on a large picture, which changed the grin into a stare of surprise. "What have we here, George," he said, rising, and fitting a gold glass in his eye--"not a portrait of Wheal Dooem, is it?" "You have guessed right," replied the other. "I made a few sketches on the spot, and got a celebrated artist to put them together, which he has done, you see, with considerable effect. Here, in the foreground, you observe," continued the managing director, taking up a new white pointer, "stands Wheal Dooem, on a prominent crag overlooking the Atlantic, with Gurnard's Head just beyond. Farther over, we have the celebrated Levant Mine, and the famous Botallack, and the great Wheal Owles, and a crowd of other more or less noted mines, with Cape Cornwall, and the Land's End, and Tolpedenpenwith in the middle-distance, and the celebrated Logan Rock behind them, while we have Mounts Bay, with the beautiful town of Penzance, and St. Michael's Mount, and the Lizard in the background, with France in the remote distance." "Dear, _dear_ me! quite a geographical study, I declare," exclaimed Secretary Jack, examining the painting with some care. "Can you really see all these places at once from Wheal Dooem?" "Not exactly from Wheal Dooem, Jack, but if you were to go up in a balloon a few hundred yards above the spot where it stands, you might see 'em all on a very clear day, if your eyes were good. The fact is, that I regard this picture as a triumph of art, exhibiting powerfully what is by artists termed `bringing together' and great `breadth,' united with exceedingly minute detail. The colouring too, is high--very high indeed, and the _chiaroscuro_ is perfect--" "Ha!" interposed Jack, "all the _chiar_ being on the surface, and the _oscuro_ down in the mine, eh?" "Exactly so," replied Clearemout. "It is a splendid picture. The artist regards it as his _chef_ _d'oeuvre_, and you must explain it to all who come to the office, as well as those magnificent geological sections rolled-up in the corner, which it would be well, by the way, to have hung up without delay. They arrived only this morning. And now, Jack, having explained these matters, I will leave you, to study them at your leisure, while I prepare for my journey to Cornwall, where, by the way, I have my eye upon a sweet little girl, whose uncle, I believe, has lots of tin, both in the real and figurative sense of the word. Something may come of it--who knows?" Next morning saw the managing director on the road, and in due time he found his way by coach, kittereen, and gig to St. Just, where, as before, he was hospitably received by old Mr Donnithorne. That gentleman's buoyancy of spirit, however, was not quite so great as it had been a few months before, but that did not much affect the spirits of Clearemout, who found good Mrs Donnithorne as motherly, and Rose Ellis as sweet, as ever. It happened at this time that Oliver Trembath had occasion to go to London about some matter relating to his deceased mother's affairs, so the managing director had the field all to himself. He therefore spent his time agreeably in looking after the affairs of Wheal Dooem during the day, and making love to Rose Ellis in the evening. Poor Rose was by no means a flirt, but she was an innocent, straightforward girl, ignorant of many of the world's ways, and of a trusting disposition. She found the conversation of Mr Clearemout agreeable, and did not attempt to conceal the fact. Mr Clearemout's vanity induced him to set this down to a tender feeling, although Rose never consciously gave him, by word or look, the slightest reason to come to such a conclusion. One forenoon Mr Clearemout was sitting in Mr Donnithorne's dining-room conversing with Rose and Mrs Donnithorne, when the old gentleman entered and sat down beside them. "I had almost forgotten the original object of my visit this morning," said the managing director, with a smile, and a glance at Rose; "the fact is that I am in want of a man to work at Wheal Dooem, a steady, trustworthy man, who would be fit to take charge--become a sort of overseer; can you recommend one?" Mr Donnithorne paused for a moment to reflect, but Mrs Donnithorne deeming reflection quite unnecessary, at once replied,--"Why, there are many such men in St. Just. There's John Cock, as good a man as you could find in all the parish, and David Trevarrow, and James Penrose-- he's a first-rate man; You remember him, my dear?" (turning to her worse half)--"one of our locals, you know." "Yes, my dear, I remember him perfectly.--You could not, Mr Clearemout, get a better man, I should say." "I think you observed, madam," said Mr Clearemout, "that this man is a `local.' Pray, what is a local?" Rose gave one of her little laughs at this point, and her worthy aunt exclaimed,--"La! Mr Clearemout, don't you know what a local preacher is?" "Oh! a _preacher_? Connected with the Methodist body, I presume?" "Yes, and a first-rate man, I assure you." "But," said Mr Clearemout, with a smile, "I want a miner, not a preacher." "Well, he is a miner, and a good one too--" "Allow _me_ to explain, my dear," said Mr Donnithorne, interrupting his spouse. "You may not be aware, sir, that many of our miners are men of considerable mental ability, and some of them possess such power of speech, and so earnest a spirit, that the Wesleyan body have appointed them to the office of local preaching. They do not become ministers, however, nor are they liable to be sent out of the district like them. They don't give up their ordinary calling, but are appointed to preach in the various chapels of the district in which they reside, and thus we accomplish an amount of work which could not possibly be overtaken by the ordinary ministry." "Indeed! but are they not untrained men, liable to teach erroneous doctrine?" asked Mr Clearemout. "They are not altogether untrained men," replied Mr Donnithorne. "They are subjected to a searching examination, and must give full proof of their Christianity, knowledge, and ability before being appointed." "And good, excellent Christian men many of them are," observed Mrs Donnithorne, with much fervour. "Quite true," said her husband. "This James Penrose is one of our best local preachers, and sometimes officiates in our principal chapel. I confess, however, that those who have the management of this matter are not always very judicious in their appointments. Some of our young men are sorely tempted to show off their acquirements, and preach _themselves_ instead of the gospel, and there are one or two whom I could mention whose hearts are all right, but whose brains are so muddled and empty that they are utterly unfit to teach their fellows. We must not, however, look for perfection in this world, Mr Clearemout. A little chaff will always remain among the wheat. There is no system without some imperfection, and I am convinced that upon the whole our system of appointing local preachers is a first-rate one. At all events it works well, which is one of the best proofs of its excellence." "Perhaps so," said Mr Clearemout, with the air of a man who did not choose to express an opinion on the subject; "nevertheless I had rather have a man who was _not_ a local preacher." "You can see and hear him, and judge for yourself," said Mr Donnithorne; "for he is, I believe, to preach in our chapel to-morrow, and if you will accept of a seat in our pew it will afford my wife and myself much--" "Thank you," interrupted Mr Clearemout; "I shall be very glad to take advantage of your kind offer. Service, you say, begins at--" "Ten precisely," said Mr Donnithorne. CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE. SHOWS THE MINER IN HIS SUNDAY GARB, AND ASTONISHES CLEAREMOUT, BESIDES RELATING SOME INCIDENTS OF AN ACCIDENT. The sun rose bright and hot on Sunday morning, but the little birds were up before the great luminary, singing their morning hymn with noisy delight. It was a peaceful day. The wind was at rest and the sea was calm. In the ancient town of St. Just it was peculiarly peaceful, for the numerous and untiring "stamps"--which all the week had continued their clang and clatter, morning, noon, and night, without intermission--found rest on that hallowed day, and the great engines ceased to bow their massive heads, with the exception of those that worked the pumps. Even these, however, were required to do as little work as was compatible with the due drainage of the mines, and as their huge pulsations were intermittent--few and far between--they did not succeed in disturbing the universal serenity of the morning. If there are in this country men who, more than any other, need repose, we should say they are the miners of Cornwall, for their week's work is exhausting far beyond that of most other labourers in the kingdom. Perhaps the herculean men employed in malleable-iron works toil as severely, but, besides the cheering consciousness of being well paid for their labour, these men exert their powers in the midst of sunlight and fresh air, while the miners toil in bad air, and get little pay in hard times. Sunday is indeed to them the Sabbath-day--it is literally what that word signifies, a day of much-required rest for body, soul, and spirit. Pity that the good old word which God gave us is not more universally used among Christians! Would it not have been better that the translation Rest-day had been adopted, so that even ignorant men might have understood its true signification, than that we should have saddled it with a heathen name, to be an apple of discord in all generations? However, Sunday it is, so Sunday it will stand, we suppose, as long as the world lasts. After all, despite its faulty origin, that word is invested with old and hallowed associations in the minds of many, so we enter our protest against the folly of our forefathers very humbly, beseeching those who are prone to become nettled on this subject to excuse our audacity! Well, as we have said, the Sunday morning to which we refer was peaceful; so would have been Maggot's household had Maggot's youngest baby never been born; but, having been born, that robust cherub asserted his right to freedom of action more violently than ever did the most rabid Radical or tyrannical Tory. He "swarmed" about the house, and kicked and yelled his uttermost, to the great distress of poor little Grace, whose anxiety to get him ready for chapel was gradually becoming feverish. But baby Maggot had as much objection to go to chapel as his wicked father, who was at that time enjoying a pipe on the cliffs, and intended to leave his family to the escort of David Trevarrow. Fortunately, baby gave in about half-past nine, so that little Grace had him washed and dressed, and on his way to chapel in pretty good time, all things considered. No one who entered the Wesleyan Chapel of St. Just that morning for the first time could have imagined that a large proportion of the well-dressed people who filled the pews were miners and balmaidens. Some of the latter were elegantly, we might almost say gorgeously, attired, insomuch that, but for their hands and speech, they might almost have passed for ladies of fashion. The very latest thing in bonnets, and the newest mantles, were to be seen on their pretty heads and shapely shoulders. As we have said before, and now repeat, this circumstance arose from the frequency of the visits of the individual styled "Johnny Fortnight," whose great aim and end in life is to supply miners, chiefly the females among them, with the necessaries, and unnecessaries, of wearing apparel. When the managing director entered Mr Donnithorne's pew and sat down beside his buxom hostess, he felt, but of course was much too well bred to express astonishment; for his host had told him that a large number of the people who attended the chapel were miners, and for a time he failed to see any of the class whom he had hitherto been accustomed to associate with rusty-red and torn garbs, and dirty hands and faces. But he soon observed that many of the stalwart, serious-looking men with black coats and white linen, had strong, muscular hands, with hard-looking knuckles, which, in some instances, exhibited old or recent cuts and bruises. It was a new sight for the managing director to behold the large and apparently well-off families filing into the pews, for, to say truth, Mr Clearemout was not much in the habit of attending church, and he had never before entered a Methodist chapel. He watched with much curiosity the gradual filling of the seats, and the grave, quiet demeanour of the people. Especially interesting was it when Maggot's family came in and sat down, with the baby Maggot in charge of little Grace. Mr Clearemout had met Maggot, and had seen his family; but interest gave place to astonishment when Mrs Penrose walked into the church, backed by her sixteen children, the eldest males among whom were miners, and the eldest females tin-dressers, while the little males and females aspired to be miners and tin-dressers in the course of time. "That's Penrose's family," whispered Mr Donnithorne to his guest. "What! the local's family?" Mr Donnithorne nodded. Soon after, a tall, gentlemanly man ascended the pulpit. The managing director was disappointed. He had come there to hear a miner preach, and behold, a clergyman! "Who is he?" inquired Clearemout. But Mr Donnithorne did not answer. He was looking up the hymn for Mrs D, who, being short-sighted, claimed exemption from the duty of "looking up" anything. Besides, he was a kind, good man at heart--though rather fond of smuggling and given to the bottle, according to Oliver Trembath's account of him--and liked to pay his wife little attentions. But there were still greater novelties in store for the London man that morning. It was new to him to hear John Wesley's beautiful hymns sung to equally beautiful tunes, which were not, however, unfamiliar to his ear, and sung with a degree of fervour that quite drowned his own voice, powerful and deep though it was. It was a new and impressive thing to hear the thrilling, earnest tones of the preacher as he offered up an eloquent extempore prayer--to the petitions in which many of the people in the congregation gave utterance at times to startlingly fervent and loud responses--not in set phraseology, but in words that were called forth by the nature of each petition, such as "Glory to God," "Amen," "Thanks be to Him"--showing that the worshippers followed and sympathised with their spokesman, thus making his prayer their own. But the newest thing of all was to hear the preacher deliver an eloquent, earnest, able, and well-digested sermon, without book or note, in the same natural tone of voice with which a man might address his fellow in the street--a style of address which riveted the attention of the hearers, induced them to expect that he had really something important to say to them, and that he thoroughly believed in the truth of what he said. "A powerful man," observed the managing director as they went out; "your clergyman, I suppose?" "No, sir," replied Mr Donnithorne with a chuckle, "our minister is preaching elsewhere to-day. That was James Penrose." "What! the miner?" exclaimed Clearemout in astonishment. "Ay, the local preacher too." "Why, the man spoke like Demosthenes, and quoted Bacon, Locke, Milton, and I know not whom all--you amaze me," said Mr Clearemout. "Surely all your local preachers are not equal to this one." "Alas, no! some of the young ones are indeed able enough to spout poetry and quote old authors, and too fond they are of doing so; nevertheless, as I have said to you before, most of the local preachers are sober-minded, sterling Christian men, and a few of them have eminent capabilities. Had Penrose been a younger man, he would probably have entered the ministry, but being above forty, with an uncommonly large family, he thinks it his duty to remain as he is, and do as much good as he can." "But surely he might find employment better suited to his talents?" said Clearemout. "There is not much scope in St. Just," replied Mr Donnithorne, with a smile, "and it is a serious thing for a man in his circumstances to change his abode and vocation. No, no, I think he is right to remain a miner." "Well, I confess that I admire his talents," returned Clearemout, "but I still think that an ordinary miner would suit me better." "Well, I know of one who will suit you admirably. He is common enough to look at, and if you will accompany me into the mine to-morrow I'll introduce you to him. I'm not fond of descending the ladders nowadays, though I could do it very well when a youth, but as the man I speak of works in one of the levels near the surface, I'll be glad to go down with you, and Captain Dan shall lead us." True to his word, the old gentleman met Mr Clearemout the following morning at nine o'clock, and accompanied him down into the mine. Their descent was unmarked by anything particular at first. They wore the usual suit of underground clothing, and each carried a lighted candle attached to his hat. After descending about thirty fathoms they left the main shaft and traversed the windings of a level until they came to a place where the sound of voices and hammers indicated that the miners were working. In a few seconds they reached the end of the level. Here two men were "driving" the level, and another--a very tall, powerful man--was standing in a hole driven up slanting-ways into the roof, and cutting the rock above his head. His attitude and aspect were extremely picturesque, standing as he did on a raised platform with his legs firmly planted, his muscular arms raised above him to cut the rock overhead, and the candle so placed as to cause his figure to appear almost black and unnaturally gigantic. "Stay a minute, Captain Dan," said Mr Donnithorne. "That, Mr Clearemout, is the man I spoke of--what think you of his personal appearance?" Clearemout did not reply for a few minutes, but stood silently watching the man as he continued to wield his heavy hammer with powerful strokes--delivering each with a species of gasp which indicated not exhaustion, but the stern vigour with which it was given. "He'll do," said Clearemout in a decided tone. "Hallo! James," shouted Mr Donnithorne. "Hallo! sir," answered the man looking back over his shoulder. "There's a gentleman here who wants to speak to you." The miner flung down his tools, which clattered loudly on the hard rock, as he leaped from his perch with the agility of one whose muscles are all in full and constant exercise. "What! not the local--" Before the managing director could finish his sentence Mr Donnithorne introduced him to James Penrose, and left the two for a time to talk together. It need scarcely be added that Clearemout was quite willing to avail himself of the services of the "local," but the local did not meet his proposals so readily as he would have wished. Penrose was a cautious man, and said he would call on Mr Clearemout in the evening after he had had time to consider the matter. With this reply the other was fain to rest satisfied, and shortly after he returned to the bottom of the shaft with his friends, leaving the hardy miner to pursue his work. At the bottom of the shaft they were accosted by a sturdy little man, who told them that a large piece of timber was being sent down the shaft, and it would be advisable to wait until it reached the bottom. "Is it on the way, Spankey?" asked Captain Dan. "Iss, sur, if it haven't walked into the thirty-fathom level in passin'." Spankey was a humorous individual addicted to joking. "Are you married, Spankey?" asked Clearemout, looking down with a grin at the dirty little fellow beside him. "Iss, sur. Had, two wives, an' the third wan is waitin' for me, 'spose." "Any children, Spankey?" "Iss, six, countin' the wan that died before it could spaik." At this point the beam was heard coming down. In a few seconds it made its appearance, and was hauled a little to one side by Spankey, who proceeded to unwind the chain that had supported it. "I'll give 'em the signal, Captain Dan, to haul up the chain before thee do go on the ladders." The signal was given accordingly, and the engine immediately began to draw up the chain by which the beam had been lowered. This chain had a hook at one end of it, and, as ill-luck would have it, the hook caught Spankey by the right leg of his trousers, and whisked him off his feet. Almost before those beside him could conceive what had happened, the unfortunate man went up the shaft feet foremost, with a succession of dreadful yells, in the midst of which could be heard a fearful rending of strong linen. Fortunately for Spankey, his nether garments were not only strong, but new, so that when the rend came to the seam at the foot, it held on, else had that facetious miner come down the shaft much faster than he went up, and left his brains at the bottom as a memorial of the shocking event! With palpitating hearts, Captain Dan, Clearemout, and old Donnithorne ran up the ladders as fast as they could. In a few minutes they reached the thirty-fathom level, and here, to their great relief, they found Spankey supported in the arms of stout Joe Tonkin. That worthy, true to his promise to Oliver Trembath, had gone to work in Botallack Mine, and had that very day commenced operations in the thirty-fathom level referred to. Hearing the terrible screams of Spankey, he rushed to the end of the level just as the unfortunate man was passing it. The risk was great, but Tonkin was accustomed to risks, and prompt to act. He flung his arms round Spankey, drew him forcibly into the level, and held on for life. There was a terrible rend; the leg of the trousers gave way at the hip, and went flapping up to grass, leaving the horrified miner behind. "Not gone dead yet, sur, but goin' fast," was Spankey's pathetic reply to Captain Dan's anxious inquiries. It was found, however, that, beyond the fright, the man had received no damage whatever. The only other noteworthy fact in reference to this incident is, that when Captain Dan and his companions reached the surface, they were met by the lander, who, with a face as pale as a ghost, held up the torn garment. Great was this man's relief, and loud the fit of laughter with which he expressed it, when Spankey, issuing from the mouth of the shaft, presented his naked limb, and claimed the leg of his trousers! CHAPTER TWENTY SIX. TELLS OF A DISCOVERY AND A DISASTER. That afternoon another accident occurred in the mine, which was of a much more serious nature than the one just recorded, and which interfered somewhat with the plans of the managing director of the Great Wheal Dooem Mining Company. Not long after his interview with Clearemout, James Penrose finished a blast-hole, and called to Zackey Maggot to fetch the fuse. Zackey had been working for a week past in connection with Penrose, and, at the time he was called, was engaged in his wonted occupation of pounding "tamping" wherewith to fill the hole. Wherever Zackey chanced to be at work, he always made himself as comfortable as circumstances would admit of. At the present time he had discovered a little hollow or recess in the wall of the level, which he had converted into a private chamber for the nonce. There was a piece of flat rock on the floor of this recess, which Zackey used as his anvil, and in front of which he kneeled. At his side was a candle, stuck against the wall, where it poured a flood of light on objects in its immediate neighbourhood, and threw the boy's magnified shadow over the floor and against the opposite wall of the level. Above his head was a small shelf, which he had ingeniously fixed in a narrow part of the cell, and on this lay a few candles, a stone bottle of water, a blasting fuse, and part of his lunch, which he had been unable to consume, wrapped in a piece of paper. A small wooden box on the floor, and a couple of pick-hilts, leaning against the wall, completed the furniture of this subterranean grotto. Zackey, besides being a searcher after metals, possessed an unusual amount of metal in himself. He was one of those earnest, hard-working, strong-hearted boys who pass into a state of full manhood, do the work of men, and are looked upon as being men, before they have passed out of their "teens." The boy's manhood, which was even at that early period of his life beginning to show itself, consisted not in his looks or his gait, although both were creditable, but in his firmness of purpose and force of character. What Zackey undertook to do he always did. He never left any work in a half-finished state, and he always employed time diligently. In the mine he commenced to labour the moment he entered, and he never ceased, except during a short period for "kroust," until it was time to shoulder his tools, and mount to the regions of light. Above ground, he was as ready to skylark as the most volatile of his companions, but underground he was a pattern of perseverance--a true Cornish miner in miniature. His energy of character was doubtless due to his reckless father, but his steadiness was the result of "Uncle Davy's" counsel and example. "Are you coming, Zackey?" shouted Penrose, from the end of the level. "Iss, I'm comin'," replied the boy, taking the fuse from the shelf, and hastening towards his companion. Penrose had a peculiar and pleased expression on his countenance, which Zackey observed at once. "What do 'ee grizzle like that for?" inquired the boy. "I've come on a splendid bunch of copper, Zackey," replied the man; "you and I shall make money soon. Run away to your work, lad, and come back when you hear the shot go off." Zackey expressed a hope that the prophecy might come true, and returned to his cell, where he continued pounding diligently--thinking the while of rich ore and a rapid fortune. There was more reason in these thoughts than one might suppose, for Cornish miners experience variety of fortune. Sometimes a man will labour for weeks and months in unproductive ground, following up a small vein in the hope of its leading into a good lode, and making so little by his hard toil that on pay day of each month he is compelled to ask his employer for "subsist"--or a small advance of money--to enable him to live and go on with his work. Often he is obliged to give up in despair, and change to a more promising part of the mine, or to go to another mine altogether; but, not unfrequently, he is rewarded for his perseverance by coming at last to a rich "lode," or mass, or "bunch" of copper or tin ore, out of which he will rend, in a single month, as much as will entitle him to thirty or forty, or even a hundred pounds, next pay day. Such pieces of good fortune are not of rare occurrence. Many of the substantial new cottages to be seen in St. Just at the present day have been built by miners who became suddenly fortunate in this way, so that, although the miner of Cornwall always works hard, and often suffers severe privation, he works on with a well-grounded expectation of a sudden burst of temporal sunshine in his otherwise hard lot. Zackey Maggot was dreaming of some such gleam of good fortune, and patiently pounding away at the tamping, when he heard the explosion of the blast. At the same moment a loud cry rang through the underground caverns. It was one of those terrible, unmistakable cries which chill the blood and thrill the hearts of those who hear them, telling of some awful catastrophe. The boy leaped up and ran swiftly towards the end of the level, where he called to his companion, but received no answer. The smoke which filled the place was so dense that he could not see, and could scarcely breathe. He ran forward, however, and stumbled over the prostrate form of Penrose. Zackey guessed correctly what had occurred, for the accident was, and alas! still is, too common in the mines. The shot had apparently missed fire. Penrose had gone forward to examine it, and it exploded in his face. To lift his companion was beyond Zackey's power, to leave him lying in such dense smoke for any length of time would, he knew, ensure his suffocation, so he attempted to drag him away, but the man was too heavy for him. In his extremity the poor boy uttered a wild cry for help, but he shouted in vain, for there was no one else at work in the level. But Zackey was not the boy to give way to despair, or to act thoughtlessly, or in wild haste in this emergency. He suddenly recollected that there was a rope somewhere about the level. He sought for and found it. Fastening an end of it round the body of the man, under the armpits, he so arranged that the knot of the loop should reach a few inches beyond his head, and on this part of the loop he spread a coat, which thus formed a support to the head, and prevented it being dragged along the ground. While engaged in this operation the poor boy was well-nigh suffocated with smoke, and had to run back once to where the air was purer in order to catch a breath or two. Then, returning, he seized the rope, passed it over his shoulder, and bending forward with all his might and main dragged the man slowly but steadily along the floor of the level to a place where the air was comparatively pure. Leaving him there he quickly fixed a candle in his hat, and carrying another in his hand, to avoid the risk of being left in darkness by an accidental stumble or gust of air, Zackey darted swiftly along the level and ran up the ladders at his utmost speed. Panting for breath, and with eyes almost starting from their sockets, he rushed into the engine-house, and told the man in charge what had occurred; then he dashed away to the counting-house and gave the alarm there, so that, in a very few minutes, a number of men descended the shaft and gathered round the prostrate miner. The doctor who had taken Oliver Trembath's place during his absence was soon in attendance, and found that although no bones had been broken, Penrose's face was badly injured, how deep the injury extended could not at that time be ascertained, but he feared that his eyes had been altogether destroyed. After the application of some cordial the unfortunate man began to revive, and the first words he uttered were, "Praise the Lord"-- evidently in reference to his life having been spared. "Is that you, Zackey?" he inquired after a few moments. "No, it is the doctor, my man. Do you feel much pain in your head?" he asked as he knelt beside him. "Not much; there is a stunned feeling about it, but little pain. You'd better light a candle." "There are candles burning round you," said the doctor. "Do you not see them? There is one close to your face at this moment." Penrose made no answer on hearing this, but an expression of deep gravity seemed to settle on the blackened features. "We must get him up as soon as possible," said the doctor, turning to Captain Dan, who stood at his elbow. "We're all ready, sir," replied the captain, who had quietly procured ropes and a blanket, while the doctor was examining the wounds. With great labour and difficulty the injured man was half hauled, half carried, and pushed up the shaft, and laid on the grass. "Is the sun shining?" he asked in a low voice. "Iss, it do shine right in thee face, Jim," said one of the miners, brushing away a tear with the back of his hand. Again the gravity of Penrose's countenance appeared to deepen, but he uttered no other word; so they brought an old door and laid him on it. Six strong men raised it gently on their shoulders, and, with slow steps and downcast faces, they carried the wounded miner home. CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN. INDICATES THAT "WE LITTLE KNOW WHAT GREAT THINGS FROM LITTLE THINGS MAY RISE." Soon after this accident to James Penrose, the current of events at the mines was diverted from its course by several incidents, which, like the obstructing rocks in a rapid, created some eddies and whirlpools in the lives of those personages with whom this chronicle has to do. As the beginning of a mighty inundation is oft-times an insignificant-looking leak, and as the cause of a series of great events is not unfrequently a trifling incident, so the noteworthy circumstances which we have still to lay before our readers were brought about by a very small matter--by a baby--_the_ baby Maggot! One morning that cherubical creature opened its eyes at a much earlier hour than usual, and stared at the ceiling of its father's cottage. The sun was rising, and sent its unobstructed rays through the window of Maggot's cottage, where it danced on the ceiling as if its sole purpose in rising had been to amuse the Maggot baby. If so, it was pre-eminently successful in its attempts, for the baby lay and smiled for a long time in silent ecstasy. Of course, we do not mean to say that the sun itself, or its direct rays, actually danced. No, it was too dignified a luminary for that, but its rays went straight at a small looking-glass which was suspended on the wall opposite to the window, and this being hung so as to slope forward, projected the rays obliquely into a tub of water which was destined for family washing purposes; and from its gently moving surface they were transmitted to the ceiling, where, as aforesaid, they danced, to the immense delight of Maggot junior. The door of the cottage had been carelessly closed the previous night when the family retired to rest, and a chink of it was open, through which a light draught of summer air came in. This will account for the ripple on the water, which (as every observant reader will note) ought, according to the laws of gravitation, to have lain perfectly still. The inconstancy of baby Maggot's nature was presently exhibited in his becoming tired of the sun, and the restlessness of his disposition displayed itself in his frantic efforts to get out of bed. Being boxed in with a board, this was not an easy matter, but the urchin's limbs were powerful, and he finally got over the obstruction, sufficiently far to lose his balance, and fall with a sounding flop on the floor. It is interesting to notice how soon deceit creeps into the hearts of some children! Of course the urchin fell sitting-wise--babies always do so, as surely as cats fall on their feet. In ordinary circumstances he would have intimated the painful mishap with a dreadful yell; but on this particular occasion young Maggot was bent on mischief. Of what sort, he probably had no idea, but there must have been a latent feeling of an intention to be "bad" in some way or other, because, on reaching the ground, he pursed his mouth, opened his eyes very wide, and looked cautiously round to make sure that the noise had awakened no one. His father, he observed, with a feeling of relief, was absent from home--not a matter of uncommon occurrence, for that worthy man's avocations often called him out at untimeous hours. Mrs Maggot was in bed snoring, and wrinkling up her nose in consequence of a fly having perched itself obstinately on the point thereof. Zackey, with the red earth of the mine still streaking his manly countenance, was rolled-up like a ball in his own bed in a dark recess of the room, and little Grace Maggot could be seen in the dim perspective of a closet, also sound asleep, in her own neat little bed, with her hair streaming over the pillow, and the "chet" reposing happily on her neck. But that easily satisfied chet had long ago had more than enough of rest. Its repose was light, and the sound of baby Maggot falling out of bed caused it to rise, yawn, arch its back and tail, and prepare itself for the mingled joys and torments of the opening day. Observing that the urchin rose and staggered with a gleeful expression towards the door, the volatile chet made a dash at him sidewise, and gave him such a fright that he fell over the door step into the road. Again was that tender babe's deceitfulness of character displayed, for, instead of howling, as he would have done on other occasions, he exercised severe self-restraint, made light of a bruised shin, and, gathering himself up, made off as fast as his fat legs could carry him. There was something deeply interesting--worthy of the study of a philosopher--in the subsequent actions of that precocious urchin. His powers in the way of walking were not much greater than those of a very tipsy man, and he swayed his arms about a good deal to maintain his balance, especially at the outset of the journey, when he imagined that he heard the maternal voice in anger and the maternal footsteps in pursuit in every puff of wind, grunt of pig, or bark of early-rising cur. His entire soul was engrossed in the one grand, vital, absorbing idea of escape! By degrees, as distance from the paternal roof increased, his fluttering spirit grew calmer and his gait more steady, and the flush of victory gathered on his brow and sparkled in his eye, as the conviction was pressed home upon him that, for the first time in his life, he was _free_! free as the wind of heaven to go where he pleased--to do what he liked--to be _as bad as possible_, without let or hindrance! Not that baby Maggot had any stronger desire to be absolutely wicked than most other children of his years; but, having learnt from experience that the attempt to gratify any of his desires was usually checked and termed "bad," he naturally felt that a state of delight so intense as that to which he had at last attained, must necessarily be the very quintessence of iniquity. Being resolved to go through with it at all hazards, he felt proportionately wild and reckless. Such a state of commotion was there in his heaving bosom, owing to contradictory and conflicting elements, that he felt at one moment inclined to lie down and shout for joy, and the next, to sink into the earth with terror. Time, which proverbially works wonderful changes, at length subdued the urchin to a condition of calm goodness and felicity, that would have rejoiced his mother's heart, had it only been brought on in ordinary circumstances at home. There is a piece of waste ground lying between St. Just and the sea--a sort of common, covered with heath and furze--on which the ancient Britons have left their indelible mark, in the shape of pits and hollows and trenches, with their relative mounds and hillocks. Here, in the days of old, our worthy but illiterate forefathers had grubbed and dug and turned up every square foot of the soil, like a colony of gigantic rabbits, in order to supply the precious metal of the country to the Phoenicians, Jews, and Greeks. The ground on this common is so riddled with holes of all sizes and shapes, utterly unguarded by any kind of fence, that it requires care on the part of the pedestrian who traverses the place even in daylight. Hence the mothers of St. Just are naturally anxious that the younger members of their families should not go near the common, and the younger members are as naturally anxious that they should visit it. Thither, in the course of time--for it was not far distant--the baby Maggot naturally trended; proceeding on the principle of "short stages and long rests." Never in his life--so he thought--had he seen such bright and beautiful flowers, such green grass, and such lovely yellow sand, as that which appeared here and there at the mouths of the holes and old shafts, or such a delicious balmy and sweet-scented breeze as that which came off the Atlantic and swept across the common. No wonder that his eyes drank in the beautiful sights, for they had seen little of earth hitherto, save the four walls of his father's cottage and the dead garden wall in front of it; no wonder that his nostrils dilated to receive the sweet odours, for they had up to that date lived upon air which had to cross a noisome and stagnant pool of filth before it entered his father's dwelling; and no wonder that his ears thrilled to hear the carol of the birds, for they had previously been accustomed chiefly to the voices of poultry and pigs, and to the caterwauling of the "chet." But as every joy has its alloy, so our youthful traveller's feelings began to be modified by a gnawing sensation of hunger, as his usual hour for breakfast approached. Still he wandered on manfully, looking into various dark and deep holes with much interest and a good deal of awe. Some of the old shafts were so deep that no bottom could be seen; others were partially filled up, and varied from five to twenty feet in depth. Some were nearly perpendicular, others were sloped and irregular in form; but all were more or less fringed with gorse bushes in full bloom. In a few cases the old pits were concealed by these bushes. It is almost unnecessary to say that baby Maggot's progress, on that eventful morn, was--unknown to himself--a series of narrow escapes from beginning to end--no not exactly to the end, for his last adventure could scarcely be deemed an escape. He was standing on the edge of a hole, which was partially concealed by bushes. Endeavouring to peer into it he lost his balance and fell forward. His ready hands grasped the gorse and received innumerable punctures, which drew forth a loud cry. Head foremost he went in, and head foremost he went down full ten feet, when a small bush caught him, and lowered him gently to the ground, but the spot on which he was landed was steep; it sloped towards the bottom of the hole, which turned inwards and became a sort of cavern. Struggling to regain his footing, he slipped and rolled violently to the bottom, where he lay for a few minutes either stunned or too much astonished to move. Then he recovered a little and began to whimper. After which he felt so much better that he arose and attempted to get out of the hole, but slipped and fell back again, whereupon he set up a hideous roar which continued without intermission for a quarter of an hour, when he fell sound asleep, and remained in happy unconsciousness for several hours. Meanwhile the Maggot family was, as may well be believed, thrown into a state of tremendous agitation. Mrs Maggot, on making the discovery that baby had succeeded in scaling the barricade, huddled on her garments and roused her progeny to assist in the search. At first she was not alarmed, believing that she should certainly find the self-willed urchin near the house, perhaps in the cottage of the Penroses. But when the cottages in the immediate neighbourhood had been called at, and all the known places of danger round the house examined, without success, the poor woman became frantic with terror, and roused the whole neighbourhood. Every place of possible and impossible concealment was searched, and at last the unhappy mother allowed the terrible thought to enter her mind that baby had actually accomplished the unheard-of feat of reaching the dreaded common, and was perhaps at that moment lying maimed or dead at the bottom of an ancient British shaft! Immediately a body of volunteers, consisting of men, women, and children, and headed by Mrs Maggot, hastened to the common to institute a thorough search; but they searched in vain, for the holes were innumerable, and the one in which the baby lay was well concealed by bushes. Besides, the search was somewhat wildly and hastily made, so that some spots were over-searched, while others were almost overlooked. All that day did Mrs Maggot and her friends wander to and fro over the common, and never, since the days when Phoenician galleys were moored by St. Michael's Mount, did the eyes of human beings pry so earnestly into these pits and holes. Had tin been their object, they could not have been more eager. Evening came, night drew on apace, and at last the forlorn mother sat down in the centre of a furze bush, and began to weep. But her friends comforted her. They urged her to go home and "'ave a dish o' tay" to strengthen her for the renewal of the search by torch-light. They assured her that the child could easily exist longer than a day without food, and they reminded her that her baby was an exceptional baby, a peculiar baby--like its father, uncommonly strong, and, like its mother, unusually obstinate. The latter sentiment, however, was _thought_, not expressed. Under the influence of these assurances and persuasions, Mrs Maggot went home, and, for a short time, the common was deserted. Now it chanced, curiously enough, that at this identical point of time, Maggot senior was enjoying a pipe and a glass of grog in a celebrated kiddle-e-wink, with his friend Joe Tonkin. This kiddle-e-wink, or low public-house, was known as Un (or Aunt) Jilly's brandy-shop at Bosarne. It was a favourite resort of smugglers, and many a gallon of spirit, free of duty, had been consumed on the premises. Maggot and his friend were alone in the house at the time, and their conversation had taken a dolorous turn, for many things had occurred of late to disturb the equanimity of the friends. Several ventures in the smuggling way had proved unsuccessful, and the mines did not offer a tempting prospect just then. There had, no doubt, been one or two hopeful veins opened up, and some good "pitches" had been wrought, but these were only small successes, and the luck had not fallen to either of themselves. The recent discovery of a good bunch by poor Penrose had not been fully appreciated, for the wounded man had as yet said nothing about it, and little Zackey had either forgotten all about it in the excitement of the accident, or was keeping his own counsel. Maggot talked gloomily about the advisability of emigration to America, as he sent clouds of tobacco smoke up Un Jilly's chimney, and Tonkin said he would try the mines for a short time, and if things didn't improve he would go to sea. He did not, however, look at things in quite the same light with his friend. Perhaps he was of a more hopeful disposition, perhaps had met with fewer disappointments. At all events, he so wrought on Maggot's mind that he half induced him to deny his smuggling propensities for a time, and try legitimate work in the mines. Not that Joe Tonkin wanted to reform him by any means, but he was himself a little out of humour with his old profession, and sought to set his friend against it also. "Try your luck in Botallack," said Joe Tonkin, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, preparatory to quitting the place, "that's my advice to 'ee, booy." "I've half a mind to," replied Maggot, rising; "if that theere cargo I run on Saturday do go the way the last did, I'll ha' done with it, so I will. Good-hevenin', Un Jilly." "Good-hevenin', an' don't 'ee go tumblin' down the owld shafts," said the worthy hostess, observing that her potent brandy had rendered the gait of the men unsteady. They laughed as they received the caution, and walked together towards St. Just. "Lev us go see if the toobs are all safe," said Maggot, on reaching the common. Tonkin agreed, and they turned aside into a narrow track, which led across the waste land, where the search for the baby had been so diligently carried on all that day. Night had set in, as we have said, and the searchers had gone up to the town to partake of much-needed refreshment, and obtain torches, so that the place was bleak and silent, as well as dark, when the friends crossed it, but they knew every foot of the ground so thoroughly, that there was no fear of their stumbling into old holes. Maggot led the way, and he walked straight to the old shaft where his hopeful son lay. There were three noteworthy points of coincidence here to which we would draw attention. It was just because this old shaft was so well concealed that Maggot had chosen it as a place in which to hide his tubs of smuggled brandy; it was owing to the same reason that the town's-people had failed to discover it while searching for the baby; and it was--at least we think it must have been--just because of the same reason that baby Maggot had found it, for that amiable child had a peculiar talent, a sort of vocation, for ferreting out things and places hidden and secret, especially if forbidden. Having succeeded in falling into the hole, the urchin naturally discovered his father's tubs. After crying himself to sleep as before mentioned, and again awakening, his curiosity in respect to these tubs afforded him amusement, and kept him quiet for a time; perhaps the fact that one of the tubs had leaked and filled the lower part of the old shaft with spirituous fumes, may account for the baby continuing to keep quiet, and falling into a sleep which lasted the greater part of the day; at all events, it is certain that he did not howl, as might have been expected of him in the circumstances. Towards evening, however, he began to move about among the tubs, and to sigh and whimper in a subdued way, for his stomach, unused to such prolonged fasting, felt very uncomfortable. When darkness came on baby Maggot became alarmed, but, just about the time of his father's approach, the moon shone out and cast a cheering ray down the shaft, which relieved his mind a little. "Joe," said Maggot in a whisper, and with a serious look, "some one have bin here." "D'ee think so?" said Tonkin. "Iss I do; the bushes are broken a bit. Hush! what's that?" The two men paused and looked at each other with awe depicted on their faces, while they listened intently, but, in the words of the touching old song, "the beating of their own hearts was all the sound they heard." "It wor the wind," said Maggot. "Iss, that's what it wor," replied Tonkin; "come, lev us go down. The wind can't do no harm to we." But although he proposed to advance he did not move, and Maggot did not seem inclined to lead the way, for just then something like a sigh came from below, and a dark cloud passed over the moon. It is no uncommon thing to find that men who are physically brave as lions become nervous as children when anything bordering on what they deem supernatural meets them. Maggot was about the most reckless man in the parish of St. Just, and Tonkin was not far behind him in the quality of courage, yet these two stood there with palpitating hearts undecided what to do. Ashamed of being thought afraid of anything, Maggot at last cleared his throat, and, in a husky voice, said,--"Come, then, lev us go down." So saying he slid down the shaft, closely followed by Tonkin, who was nearly as much afraid to be left alone on the bleak moor as he was to enter the old mine. Now, while the friends were consulting with palpitating hearts above, baby Maggot, wide-awake and trembling with terror, listened with bated breath below, and when the two men came scrambling down the sides of the shaft his heart seemed to fill up his breast and throat, and his blood began to creep in his veins. Maggot could see nothing in the gloomy interior as he advanced, but baby could see his father's dark form clearly. Still, no sound escaped from him, for horror had bereft him of power. Just then the dark cloud passed off the moon, and a bright beam shone full on the upper half of the baby's face as he peeped over the edge of one of the tubs. Maggot saw two glaring eyeballs, and felt frozen alive instantly. Tonkin, looking over his comrade's shoulder, also saw the eyes, and was petrified on the spot. Suddenly baby Maggot found his voice and uttered a most awful yell. Maggot senior found his limbs, and turned to fly. So did Tonkin, but he slipped and fell at the first step. Maggot fell over him. Both rose and dashed up the shaft, scraping elbows, shins, and knuckles as they went, and, followed by a torrent of hideous cries, that sounded in their ears like the screaming of fiends, they gained the surface, and, without exchanging a word, fled in different directions on the wings of terror! Maggot did not halt until he burst into his house, and flung himself into his own chair by the chimney corner, whence he gazed on what was calculated to alarm as well as to perplex him. This was the spectacle of his own wife taking tea in floods of tears, and being encouraged in her difficult task by Mrs Penrose and a few sympathising friends. With some difficulty he got them to explain this mystery. "What! baby gone lost?" he exclaimed; "where away?" When it was told him what had occurred, Maggot's eyes gradually opened, and his lips gradually closed, until the latter produced a low whistle. "I think that I do knaw where the cheeld is," he said; "come along, an' I'll show un to 'ee." So saying, the wily smith, assuming an air of importance and profound wisdom, arose and led his wife and her friends, with a large band of men who had prepared torches, straight to the old shaft. Going down, but sternly forbidding any one to follow he speedily returned with the baby in his arms, to the surprise of all, and to the unutterable joy of the child's mother. In one sense, however, the result was disastrous. Curious persons were there who could not rest until they had investigated the matter further, and the tubs were not only discovered, but carried off by those who had no title to them whatever! The misfortune created such a tumult of indignation in the breast of Maggot, that he was heard in his wrath to declare he "would have nothin' more to do with un, but would go into the bal the next settin' day." This was the commencement of that series of events which, as we have stated at the beginning of this chapter, were brought about by that wonderful baby--the baby Maggot. CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT. DESCRIBES SETTING-DAY AT THE MINE, ETCETERA. That very evening, while Maggot was smoking his pipe by the fireside, his son Zackey referred to the bunch of copper which Penrose had discovered in the mine. After a short conversation, Maggot senior went to the wounded man to talk about it. "'Twas a keenly lode, did 'ee say?" asked Maggot, after he had inquired as to the health of his friend. "Yes, and as I shall not be able to work there again," said Penrose sadly, "I would advise you to try it. Zackey is entitled to get the benefit of the discovery, for he was with me at the time, and, but for his aid, dear boy, I should have been suffocated." Maggot said no more on that occasion about the mine, being a man of few words, but, after conversing a short time with the wounded man, and ascertaining that no hope was held out to him of the recovery of his sight, he went his way to the forge to work and meditate. Setting-day came--being the first Saturday in the month, and no work was done on that day in Botallack, for the men were all above ground to have their "pitches" for the next month fixed, and to receive their wages-- setting-day being also pay day. Some time before the business of the day commenced, the miners began to assemble in considerable numbers in the neighbourhood of the account-house. Very different was their appearance on that occasion from the rusty-red fellows who were wont to toil in the dark chambers far down in the depths below the spot where they stood. Their underground dresses were laid aside, and they now appeared in the costume of well-off tradesmen. There was a free-and-easy swing about the movements of most of these men that must have been the result of their occupation, which brings every muscle of the body into play, and does not--as is too much the case in some trades--over-tax the powers of a certain set of muscles to the detriment of others. Some there were, however, even among the young men, whose hollow cheeks and bloodless lips, accompanied with a short cough, told of evil resulting from bad air and frequent chills; while, on the other hand, a few old men were to be seen with bright eyes and ruddy cheeks which indicated constitutions of iron. Not a few were mere lads, whose broad shoulders and deep chests and resolute wills enabled them to claim the title, and do the work, of men. There were some among them, both young and old, who showed traces of having suffered in their dangerous employment. Several were minus an eye, and one or two were nearly blind, owing to blast-holes exploding in their faces. One man in particular, a tall and very powerful fellow, had a visage which was quite blue, and one of his eyes was closed--the blue colour resulting from unburnt grains of powder having been blown into his flesh. He had been tattooed, in fact, by a summary and effective process. This man's family history was peculiar. His father, also a miner, had lived in a lonely cottage on a moor near St. Just, and worked in Balaswidden Mine. One night he was carried home and laid at his wife's feet, dead--almost dashed to pieces by a fall. Not long afterwards the son was carried to the same cottage with his right eye destroyed. Some time later a brother dislocated his foot twice within the year in the mine; and a few months after that another brother fell from a beam, descended about twenty-four feet perpendicularly, where he struck the side of the mine with his head, and had six or seven of his teeth knocked out; glancing off to one side, he fell twenty feet more on the hard rock, where he was picked up insensible. This man recovered, however, under the careful nursing of his oft and sorely tried mother. Maggot was present on this setting-day, with a new cap and a new blue cloth coat, looking altogether a surprisingly respectable character. A good deal of undertoned chaffing commenced when he appeared. "Hallo!" exclaimed one, "goin' to become an honest man, Maggot?" "Thinkin' 'bout it," replied the smith, with a good-humoured smile. "Why, if I didn't knaw that the old wuman's alive," said another, "I'd say he was agoin' to get married again!" "Never fear," exclaimed a third, "Maggot's far too 'cute a cunger to be caught twice." "I say, my dear man," asked another, "have 'ee bin takin' a waalk 'pon the clifts lately?" "Iss, aw iss," replied the smith with much gravity. "Did 'ee find any more daws 'pon clift?" asked the other, with a leer. There was a general laugh at this, but Maggot replied with good-humour,--"No, Billy, no--took 'em all away last time. But I'm towld there's some more eggs in the nest, so thee'll have a chance some day, booy." "I hope the daws ain't the worse of their ducking?" asked Billy, with an expression of anxious interest. "Aw, my dear," said Maggot, looking very sad, and shaking his head slowly, "didn't 'ee hear the noos?" "No, not I." "They did catch the noo complaint the doctor do spaik of--bronkeetis I think it is--and although I did tie 'em up wi' flannel round their necks, an' water-gruel, besides 'ot bottles to their feet, they're all gone dead. I mean to have 'em buried on Monday. Will 'ee come to the berryin, Billy?" "P'raps I will," replied Billy, "but see that the gravedigger do berry 'em deep, else he'll catch a blowin' up like the gravedigger did in Cambourne last week." "What was that, booy? Let us hear about it, Billy," exclaimed several voices. "Well, this is the way of it," said Billy: "the owld gravedigger in Cambourne was standin' about, after mittin' was over, a-readin' of the tombstones, for he'd got a good edjication, had owld Tom. His name was Tom--the same man as put a straw rope to the bell which the cows did eat away, so that he cudn't ring the people to mittin'. Well, when he was studdyin' the morials on the stones out comes Captain Rowe. He was wan o' the churchwardens, or somethin' o' that sort, but I don't knaw nothin' 'bout the church, so I ain't sure--an' he calls owld Tom into the vestry. "`Now look here, Tom,' says the captain, very stern, `they tell me thee 'rt gettin' lazy, Tom, an' that thee do dig the graves only four fut deep. Now, Tom, I was over to St. Just t'other day to a berryin', and I see that they do dig their graves six fut or more deeper than you do. That won't do, Tom, I tell 'ee. What's the meanin' of it?' "This came somewhat suddent on owld Tom, but he wor noways put out. "`Well, you do see, Cap'n Rowe,' says he, `I do it apurpose, for I do look at the thing in two lights.'" "`How so?' asked the captain. "`Why, the people of St. Just only think of the berryin', but _I_ do think of the resurrection; the consekince is that they do dig too deep, an' afore the St. Just folk are well out of their graves, _ours_ will be a braave way up to heaven!'" The laugh with which this anecdote was received had scarcely subsided when the upper half of one of the account-house windows opened, and the fine-looking head and shoulders of old Mr Cornish appeared. The manager laid an open book on the window-sill, and from this elevated position, as from a pulpit, he read out the names, positions, etcetera, of the various "pitches" that were to be "sett" for the following month. One of the mine captains stood at his elbow to give any required information--he and his three brother captains being the men who had gone all over the mine during the previous month, examined the work, measured what had been done by each man or "pare" of men, knew the capabilities of all the miners, and fixed the portion that ought to be offered to each for acceptance or refusal. The men assembled in a cluster round the window, and looked up while Mr Cornish read off as follows:-- "John Thomas's pitch at back of the hundred and five. By two men. To extend from the end of tram-hole, four fathom west, and from back of level, five fathom above." For the enlightenment of the reader, we may paraphrase the above sentence thus:-- "The pitch or portion of rock wrought last month by John Thomas is now offered anew--in the first place, to John Thomas himself if he chooses to continue working it at our rate of pay, or, if he declines, to any other man who pleases to offer for it. The pitch is in the back (or roof) of the level, which lies one hundred and five fathoms deep. It must be wrought by two men, and must be excavated lengthwise to an extent of four fathoms in a westerly direction from a spot called the tram-hole. In an upward direction, it may be excavated from the roof of the level to an extent of five fathoms." John Thomas, being present, at once offered "ten shillings," by which he meant that, knowing the labour to be undergone, and the probable value of the ore that would have to be excavated, he thought it worth while to continue at that piece of work, or that "pitch," if the manager would give him ten shillings for every twenty shillings' worth of mineral sent to the surface by him; but the captain also knew the ground and the labour that would be required, and his estimate was that eight shillings would be quite sufficient remuneration, a fact which was announced by Mr Cornish simply uttering the words, "At eight shillings." "Put her down, s'pose," said John Thomas after a moment's consideration. Perhaps John knew that eight shillings was really sufficient, although he wanted ten. At all events he knew that it was against the rules to dispute the point at that time, as it delayed business; that if he did not accept the offer, another man might do so; and that he might not get so good a pitch if he were to change. The pitch was therefore sett to John Thomas, and another read off:--"Jim Hocking's pitch at back of the hundred and ten. By one man. To extend," etcetera. "Won't have nothin' to do with her," said Jim Hocking. Jim had evidently found the work too hard, and was dissatisfied with the remuneration, so he declined, resolving to try his chance in a more promising part of the mine. "Will any one offer for this pitch?" inquired Mr Cornish. Eight and six shillings were sums immediately named by men who thought the pitch looked more promising than Jim did. "Any one offer more for this pitch?" asked the manager, taking up a pebble from a little pile that lay at his elbow, and casting it into the air. While that pebble was in its flight, any one might offer for the pitch, but the instant it touched the ground, the bargain was held to be concluded with the last bidder. A man named Oats, who had been in a hesitating state of mind, here exclaimed "Five shillings" (that is, offered to work the pitch for five shillings on every twenty shillings' worth sent to grass); next instant the stone fell, and the pitch was sett to Oats. Poor James Penrose's pitch was the next sett. "James Penrose's _late_ pitch," read the manager, giving the details of it in terms somewhat similar to those already sett, and stating that the required "pare," or force to be put on it, was two men and a boy. "Put me down for it," said Maggot. "Have you got your pare?" asked Mr Cornish. "Iss, sur." "Their names?" "David Trevarrow and my son Zackey." The pitch was allocated in due form at the rate of fifteen shillings per twenty shillings' worth of mineral sent up--this large sum being given because it was not known to be an unusually good pitch--Penrose having been too ill to speak of his discovery since his accident, and the captain having failed to notice it. When a place is poor looking, a higher sum is given to the miner to induce him to work it. When it is rich, a lower sum is given, because he can make more out of it. Thus the work went on, the sums named varying according to the nature of the ground, and each man saying "Naw," or "Put me down," or "That won't do," or "I won't have her," according to circumstances. While this was going on at the window, another and perhaps more interesting scene was taking place in the office. This apartment presented a singular appearances. There was a large table in the centre of it, which, with every available inch of surface on a side-table, and on a board at the window, was completely covered with banknotes and piles of gold, silver, and copper. Each pile was placed on a little square piece of paper containing the account-current for the month of the man or men to whom it belonged. Very few men laboured singly. Many worked in couples, and some in bands of three, five, or more. So much hard cash gave the place a wealthy appearance, and in truth there was a goodly sum spread out, amounting to several hundreds of pounds. The piles varied very much in size, and conveyed a rough outline of the financial history of the men they belonged to. Some large heaps of silver, with a few coppers and a pile of sovereigns more than an inch high, lying on two or more five-pound notes indicated successful labour. Nevertheless, the evidence was not absolutely conclusive, because the large piles had in most cases to be divided between several men who had banded together; but the little square account-papers, with a couple of crowns on them, told of hard work and little pay, while yonder square with two shillings in the centre of it betokened utter failure, only to be excelled by another square, on which lay _nothing_. You will probably exclaim in your heart, reader, "What! do miners sometimes work for a month, and receive only two shillings, or _nothing_ as wages?" Ay, sometimes; but it is their own seeking if they do; it is not forced upon them. There are three classes of miners--those who work on the surface, dressing ore, etcetera, who are paid a weekly wage; those who work on "tribute," and those who work at "tut-work." Of the first we say nothing, except that they consist chiefly of balmaidens and children-- the former receiving about 18 shillings a month, and the latter from 8 shillings to 20 shillings, according to age and capacity. In regard to "tributers" and "tut-workers," we may remark that the work of both is identical in one respect--namely, that of hewing, picking, boring, and blasting the hard rock. In this matter they share equal toils and dangers, but they are not subjected to the same remunerative vicissitudes. When a man works on "tribute" he receives so many shillings for every twenty shillings' worth of ore that he raises during the month, as already explained. If his "pitch" turns out to be rich in ore, his earnings are proportionably high; if it be poor, he remains poor also. Sometimes a part of the mineral lode becomes so poor that it will not pay for working, and has to be abandoned. So little as a shilling may be the result of a "tributer's" work for a month at one time, while at another time he may get a good pitch, and make 100 pounds or 200 pounds in the same period. The "tutman" (or piecework man), on the other hand, cuts out the rock at so much per fathom, and obtains wages at the rate of from 2 pounds, 10 shillings to 3 pounds a month. He can never hope to make a fortune, but so long as health and strength last, he may count on steady work and wages. Of course there is a great deal of the work in a mine which is not directly remunerative, such as "sinking" shafts, opening up and "driving" (or lengthening) levels, and sinking "winzes." On such work tutmen are employed. The man who works on "tribute" is a speculator; he who chooses "tut-work" is a steady labourer. The tributer experiences all the excitement of uncertainty, and enjoys the pleasures of hope. He knows something, too, about "hope deferred;" also can tell of hope disappointed; has his wits sharpened, and, generally, is a smart fellow. The tut-worker knows nothing of this, his pay being safe and regular, though small. Many quiet-going, plodding men prefer and stick to tut-work. In and about the counting-room the men who had settled the matter of their next month's work were assembled. These--the cashier having previously made all ready--were paid in a prompt and businesslike manner. First, there came forward a middle-aged man. It was scarcely necessary for him to speak, for the cashier knew every man on the mine by name, and also how much was due to him, and the hundreds of little square accounts-current were so arranged that he could lay his hands on any one in an instant. Nevertheless, being a hearty and amiable man, he generally had a word to say to every one. "How's your son, Matthew?" he inquired of the middle-aged man, putting the square paper with its contents into his hand. "He's braave, sir. The doctor do say he'll be about again in a week." Matthew crumpled up his account-current--notes, gold, silver, copper and all--in his huge brown hand, and, thrusting the whole into his breeches pocket, said "Thank 'ee," and walked away. Next, there came forward a young man with one eye, an explosion having shut up the other one for ever. He received his money along with that of the three men who worked in the same "pare" with him. He crumpled it up in the same reckless way as Matthew had done, also thrust it into his pocket, and walked off with an independent swagger. Truly, in the sweat, not only of his brow, but, of every pore in his body, had he earned it, and he was entitled to swagger a little just then. There was little enough room or inducement to do so down in the mine! After this young man a little boy came forward saying that his "faither" had sent him for his money. It was observable that the boys and lads among those who presented themselves in the counting-room, were, as a rule, hearty and hopeful. With them it was as with the young in all walks of life. Everything looked bright and promising. The young men were stern, yet free-and-easy--as though they had already found life a pretty tough battle, but felt quite equal to it. And so they were, every one of them! With tough sinews, hard muscles, and indomitable energy, they were assuredly equal to any work that man could undertake; and many of them, having the fear of God in their hearts, were fitted to endure manfully the trials of life as well. The elderly men were sedate, and had careworn faces; they knew what it was to suffer. Many of them had carried little ones to the grave; they had often seen strong men like themselves go forth in the morning hale and hearty, and be carried to their homes at evening with blinded eyes or shattered limbs. Life had lost its gloss to them, but it had not lost its charms. There were loving hearts to work for, and a glorious end for which to live, or, if need be, to die--so, although their countenances were sedate they were not sad. The old men--of whom there were but two or three--were jolly old souls. They seemed to have successfully defied the tear and wear of life, to have outlived its sorrows, and renewed their youth. Certainly they had not reached their second childhood, for they stepped forth and held out their hands for their pay as steadily as the best of the young ones. When about one-half of the number had been paid, a woman in widow's weeds came forward to take up the pay due to her son--her "wretched Harry," as she styled him. All that was due was seven-and-sixpence. It was inexpressibly sad to see her retire with this small sum--the last that her unsettled boy was entitled to draw from the mines. He had worked previously in the neighbouring mine, Wheal Owles, and had gone to Botallack the month before. He was now off to sea, leaving his mother, who to some extent depended on him, to look out for herself. The next who came forward was a blind man. He had worked long in the mine--so long that he could find his way through the labyrinth of levels as easily in his blind state as he did formerly with his eyesight. When his eyes were destroyed (in the usual way, by the explosion of a hole), he was only off work during the period of convalescence. Afterwards he returned to his familiar haunts underground; and although he could no longer labour in the old way, he was quite able to work a windlass, and draw up the bucket at a winze. For this he now pocketed two pounds sterling, and walked off as vigorously as if he had possessed both his eyes! Among others, a wife appeared to claim her husband's pay, and she was followed by Zackey Maggot, who came to receive his own and Penrose's money. "How does Penrose get on?" inquired the cashier, as he handed over the sum due. "Slowly, sur," said Zackey. "It is a bad case," said one of the captains, who sat close by; "the doctor thinks there is little or no chance for his eyesight." Poor Zackey received his pay and retired without any demonstration of his wonted buoyancy of spirit, for he was fond of Penrose, almost as much so as he was of uncle David Trevarrow. The varied fortune experienced in the mine was exhibited in one or two instances on this occasion. One man and a boy, working together, had, in their own phraseology, "got a sturt"--they had come unexpectedly on a piece of rich ground, which yielded so much tin that at the end of the month they received 25 pounds between them. The man had been receiving "subsist," that is, drawing advances monthly for nearly a year, and, having a wife and children to support, had almost lost heart. It was said that he had even contemplated suicide, but this little piece of good fortune enabled him to pay off his debt and left something over. Another man and boy had 20 pounds to receive. On the other hand, one man had only 2 shillings due to him, while a couple of men who had worked in poor ground found themselves 2 shillings in debt, and had to ask for "subsist." Some time previous to this, two men had discovered a "bunch of copper," and in the course of two months they cleared 260 pounds. At a later period a man in Levant Mine, who was one of the Wesleyan local preachers, cleared 200 pounds within a year. He gave a hundred pounds to his mother, and with the other hundred went off to seek his fortune in Australia! After all the men had been paid, those who wished for "subsist," or advances, were desired to come forward. About a dozen of them did so, and among these were representatives of all classes--the diligent and strong, the old and feeble, and the young. Of course, in mining operations as in other work, the weak, lazy, and idle will ever be up to the lips in trouble, and in need of help. But in mining the best of men may be obliged to demand assistance, because, when tributers work on hopefully day after day and week after week on bad ground, they must have advances to enable them to persevere--not being able to subsist on air! This is no hardship, the mine being at all times open to their inspection, and they are allowed to select their own ground. Hence the demand for "subsist" is not necessarily a sign of absolute but only of temporary poverty. The managers make large or small advances according to their knowledge of the men. There was a good deal of chaffing at this point in the proceedings--the lazy men giving occasion for a slight administration of rebuke, and the able men affording scope for good-humoured pleasantry and badinage. In Botallack, at the present time, about forty or fifty men per month find it necessary to ask for "subsist." Before the wages were paid, several small deductions had to be made. First, there was sixpence to be deducted from each man for "the club." This club consisted of those who chose to pay sixpence a month to a fund for the temporary support of those who were damaged by accidents in the mine. A similar sum per month was deducted from each man for "the doctor," who was bound, in consideration of this, to attend the miners free of charge. In addition to this a shilling was deducted from each man, to be given to the widow and family of a comrade who had died that month. At the present time from 18 pounds to 20 pounds are raised in this way when a death occurs, to be given to the friends of the deceased. It should be remarked that these deductions are made with the consent of the men. Any one may refuse to give to those objects, but, if he do so, he or his will lose the benefit in the event of his disablement or death. Men who are totally disabled receive a pension from the club fund. Not long ago a miner, blind of one eye, left another mine and engaged in Botallack. Before his first month was out he exploded a blast-hole in his face, which destroyed the other eye. From that day he received a pension of 1 pound a month, which will continue till his death--or, at least as long as Botallack shall flourish--and that miner may be seen daily going through the streets of St. Just with his little daughter, in a cart, shouting "Pilchards, fresh pilcha-a-rds, breem, pullock, fresh pullock, _pil-cha-a-rds_"--at the top of his stentorian voice--a living example of the value of "the club," and of the principle of insurance! At length the business of the day came to a close. The wages were paid, the men's work for another month was fixed, the cases of difficulty and distress were heard and alleviated, and then the managers and agents wound up the day by dining together in the account-house, the most noteworthy point in the event being the fact that the dinner was eaten off plates made of pure Botallack tin. Once a quarter this dinner, styled the "account-dinner," is partaken of by any of the shareholders who may wish to be present, on which occasion the manager and agents lay before the company the condition and prospects of the mine, and a quarterly dividend (if any) is paid. There is a matter-of-fact and Spartan-like air about this feast which commands respect. The room in which it is held is uncarpeted, and its walls are graced by no higher works of art than the plans and sections of the mine. The food is excellent and substantial, but simple. There is abundance of it, but there are no courses--either preliminary or successive--no soup or fish to annoy one who wants meat; no ridiculous _entremets_ to tantalise one who wants something solid; no puddings, pies, or tarts to tempt men to gluttony. All set to work at the same time, and enjoy their meal _together_, which is more than can be said of most dinners. All is grandly simple, like the celebrated mine on which the whole is founded. But there is one luxury at this feast which it would be unpardonable not to mention--namely the punch. Whoever tastes this beverage can never forget it! Description were useless to convey an idea of it. Imagination were impotent to form a conception of it. Taste alone will avail, so that our readers must either go to Cornwall to drink it, or for ever remain unsatisfied. We can only remark, in reference to it, that it is potent as well as pleasant, and that it is also dangerous, being of an insinuating nature, so that those who partake freely have a tendency to wish for more, and are apt to dream (not unreasonably, but too wildly) of Botallack tin being transformed into silver and gold. CHAPTER TWENTY NINE. DETAILS, AMONG OTHER THINGS, A DEED OF HEROISM. To work went Maggot and Trevarrow and Zackey on their new pitch next day like true Britons. Indeed, we question whether true Britons of the ancient time ever did go to work with half the energy or perseverance of the men of the present day. Those men of old were mere grubbers on the surface. They knew nothing of deep levels under the ocean. However, to do them justice, they made wonderfully extensive tunnels in mother earth, with implements much inferior to those now in use. But, be that as it may, our trio went to work "with a will." Maggot was keen to get up as much of the rich mineral as possible during the month--knowing that he would not get the place next month on such good terms. Trevarrow, besides having no objections to make money when he could for its own sake, was anxious to have a little to spare to James Penrose, whose large family found it pinching work to subsist on the poor fellow's allowance from the club. As to Zackey, he was ready for anything where Uncle Davy was leader. So these three resolved to work night and day. Maggot took his turn in the daytime and slept at night; Trevarrow slept in the daytime and worked at night; while the boy worked as long as he could at whatever time suited him best. As they advanced on the lode it became larger and richer, and in a day or two it assumed such proportions as to throw the fortunate workers into a state of great excitement, and they tore out and blasted away the precious mineral like Titans. One day, about kroust-time, having fired two holes, they came out of the "end" in which they wrought and sat down to lunch while the smoke was clearing away. "'Tes a brave lode," said Maggot. "It is," responded Trevarrow, taking a long draught of water from the canteen. "What shall us do?" said Maggot; "go to grass to slaip, or slaip in the bal?" "In the bal, if you do like it," said Trevarrow. So it was agreed that the men should sleep in the mine on boards, or on any dry part of the level, in order to save the time and energy lost in ascending and descending the long ladders, and thus make the most of their opportunity. It was further resolved that Zackey should be sent up for dry clothes, and bring them their meals regularly. Trevarrow did not forget to have his Bible brought to him, for he was too serious a man to shut his eyes to the danger of a sudden run of good fortune, and thought that the best way to guard against evil would be to devote nearly all his short periods of leisure time to the reading of "the Word." You may be sure that Maggot afterwards laughed at him for this, but he did not concern himself much about it at the time, because he was usually too hungry to talk at meal-times, and too sleepy to do so after work was over. They were still busily discussing the matter of remaining in the mine all night, when they heard the kibble descending the shaft, near the bottom of which they sat, and next moment a man came to the ground with considerable violence. "Why, Frankey, is that thee, booy?" said Maggot, starting up to assist him. "Aw dear, iss; I'm gone dead a'most! aw dear! aw dear!" "Why, whatever brought 'ee here?" said Trevarrow. "The kibble, sure," replied the man, exhibiting his knuckles, which were cut and bleeding a good deal. "I did come by the chain, anyhow." This was indeed true. Frankey, as his mates called him, was at that time the "lander" in charge of the kibbles at the surface. It was his duty to receive each kibble as it was drawn up to the mouth of the shaft full of ore, empty it, and send it down again. Several coils of chain passing round the large drum of a great horse-windlass, called by the miners a "whim," was the means by which the kibbles were hoisted and lowered. The chain was so arranged that one kibble was lowered by it while the other was being drawn up. Frankey had emptied one of the kibbles, and had given the signal to the boy attending the horse to "lower away," when he inadvertently stepped into the shaft. With ready presence of mind the man caught the chain and clung to it, but the boy, being prevented by a pile of rubbish from seeing what had occurred, eased him down, supposing him to be the kibble! This "easing down" a great number of fathoms was by no means an easy process, as those know well who have seen a pair of kibbles go banging up and down a shaft. It was all that poor Frankey could do to keep his head from being smashed against rocks and beams; but, by energetic use of arms and legs, he did so, and reached the bottom of the shaft without further damage than a little skin rubbed off his knees and elbows, and a few cuts on his hands. The man thought so little of it, indeed, that he at once returned to grass by the ladder-way, to the unutterable surprise and no little consternation of the boy who had "eased him down." The air at the "end" of the level in which Maggot and Trevarrow worked was very bad, and, for some time past, men had been engaged in sinking a winze from the level above to connect the two, and send in a supply of fresh air by creating a new channel of circulation. This winze was almost completed, but one of the men employed at it had suddenly become unwell that day, and no other had been appointed to the work. As it was a matter of great importance to have fresh air, now that they had resolved to remain day and night in the mine for some time, Maggot and Trevarrow determined to complete the work, believing that one or two shots would do it. Accordingly, they mounted to the level above, and were lowered one at a time to the bottom of the unfinished winze by a windlass, which was turned by the man whose comrade had become unwell. For nearly two hours they laboured diligently, scarce taking time to wipe the perspiration from their heated brows. At the end of that time the hole was sufficiently deep to blast, so Maggot called out,--"Zackey, my son, fetch the fuse and powder." The boy was quickly lowered with these materials, and then drawn up. Meanwhile Maggot proceeded to charge the hole, and his comrade sat down to rest. He put in the powder and tamping, and asked the other to hand him the tamping-bar. "Zackey has forgot it," said Trevarrow, looking round. "It don't matter; hand me the borer." "No, I won't," said Trevarrow decidedly, as he grasped the iron tool in question. "Ho! Zackey booy, throw down the tampin'-bar." This was done, and the operation of filling the hole continued, while Trevarrow commented somewhat severely on his companion's recklessness. "That's just how the most o' the reckless men in the bal do get blaw'd up," he said; "they're always picking away at the holes, and tamping with iron tools; why, thee might as well put a lighted match down the muzzle of a loaded gun as tamp with an iron borer." "Come, now," said Maggot, looking up from his work with a leer, "it warn't that as made old Kimber nearly blow hisself up last week." "No, but it was carelessness, anyhow," retorted Trevarrow; "and lucky for him that he was a smart man, else he'd bin gone dead by this time." Maggot soon completed the filling of the hole, and then perpetrated as reckless a deed as any of his mining comrades had ever been guilty of. Trevarrow was preparing to ascend by the windlass, intending to leave his comrade to light the fuse and come up after him. Meanwhile Maggot found that the fuse was too long. He discovered this after it was fixed in the hole, and, unobserved by his companion, proceeded to cut it by means of an iron tool and a flat stone. Fire was struck at the last blow by the meeting of the iron and the stone, and the fuse ignited. To extinguish it was impossible; to cut it in the same way, without striking fire, was equally so. Of course there was plenty of time to ascend by the windlass, but _only one_ at a time could do so. The men knew this, and looked at each other with terrible meaning in their eyes as they rushed at the bucket, and shouted to the man above to haul them up. He attempted to do so, but in vain. He had not strength to haul up two at once. One could escape, both could not, and to delay would be death to both. In this extremity David Trevarrow looked at his comrade, and said calmly,--"Escape, my brother; a minute more and I shall be in heaven." He stepped back while he spoke--the bucket went rapidly upwards, and Trevarrow, sitting down in the bottom of the shaft, covered his eyes with a piece of rock and awaited the issue. The rumbling explosion immediately followed, and the shaft was filled with smoke and flame and hurling stones. One of these latter, shooting upwards, struck and cut the ascending miner on his forehead as he looked down to observe the fate of his self-sacrificing comrade! Maggot was saved, but he was of too bold and kindly a nature to remain for a moment inactive after the explosion was over. At once he descended, and, groping about among the debris, soon found his friend-- alive, and almost unhurt! A mass of rock had arched him over--or, rather, the hand of God, as if by miracle, had delivered the Christian miner. After he was got up in safety to the level above they asked him why he had been so ready to give up his life to save his friend. "Why," said David quietly, "I did think upon his wife and the child'n, and little Grace seemed to say to me, `Take care o' faither'--besides, there are none to weep if I was taken away, so the Lord gave me grace to do it." That night there were glad and grateful hearts in Maggot's cottage--and never in this world was a more flat and emphatic contradiction given to any statement, than that which was given to David Trevarrow's assertion--"There are none to weep if I was taken away." [A short but beautiful account of the above incident will be found in a little volume of poems, entitled _Lays from the Mine, the Moor, and the Mountain_, written by John Harris, a Cornish miner.] CHAPTER THIRTY. REVEALS SOME ASTONISHING FACTS AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES. Sorrow and trouble now began to descend upon Mr Thomas Donnithorne like a thick cloud. Reduced from a state of affluence to one bordering on absolute poverty, the old man's naturally buoyant spirit almost gave way, and it needed all the attentions and the cheering influence of his good wife and sweet Rose Ellis to keep him from going (as he often half-jestingly threatened) to the end of Cape Cornwall and jumping into the sea. "It's all over with me, Oliver," said he one morning, after the return of his nephew from London. "A young fellow like you may face up against such difficulties, but what is an old man to do? I can't begin the world over again; and as for the shares I have in the various mines, they're not worth the paper they're writ upon." "But things may take a turn," suggested Oliver; "this is not the first time the mines have been in a poor condition, and the price of tin low. When things get very bad they are likely to get better, you know. Even now there seems to be some talk among the miners of an improved state of things. I met Maggot yesterday, and he was boasting of having found a monstrous bunch, which, according to him, is to be the making of all our fortunes." Mr Donnithorne shook his head. "Maggot's geese are always swans," he said; "no, no, Oliver, I have lost all hope of improvement. There are so many of these deceptive mines around us just now--some already gone down, and some going--that the public are losing confidence in us, and, somewhat unfairly, judging that, because a few among us are scoundrels, we are altogether a bad lot." "What do you think of Mr Clearemout's new mine?" asked Oliver. "I believe it to be a genuine one," said the old gentleman, turning a somewhat sharp glance on his nephew. "Why do you ask?" "Because I doubt it," replied Oliver. "You are too sceptical," said Mr Donnithorne almost testily; "too much given to judging things at first sight." "Nay, uncle; you are unfair. Had I judged of you at first sight, I should have thought you a--" "Well, what? a smuggling old brandy-loving rascal--eh? and not far wrong after all." "At all events," said Oliver, laughing, "I have lived to form a better opinion of you than that. But, in reference to Clearemout, I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that the work doing at the new mine is very like a sham, for they have only two men and a boy working her, with a captain to superintend; and it is said, for I made inquiries while in London, that thirty thousand pounds have been called up from the shareholders, and there are several highly paid directors, with an office-staff in the City drawing large salaries." "Nonsense, Oliver," said Mr Donnithorne more testily than before; "you know very well that things must have a beginning, and that caution is necessary at first in all speculations. Besides, I feel convinced that Mr Clearemout is a most respectable man, and an uncommonly clever fellow to boot. It is quite plain that you don't like him--that's what prejudices you, Oliver. You're jealous of the impression he has made on the people here." This last remark was made jestingly, but it caused the young doctor to wince, having hit nearer the truth than the old gentleman had any idea of, for although Oliver envied not the handsome stranger's popularity, he was, almost unknown to himself, very jealous of the impression he seemed to have made on Rose Ellis. A feeling of shame induced him to change the subject of conversation, with a laughing observation that he hoped such an unworthy motive did not influence him. Now, while this conversation was going on in the parlour of Mr Donnithorne's cottage, another dialogue was taking place in a small wooden erection at the end of the garden, which bore the dignified name of "Rose's Bower." The parties concerned in it were George Augustus Clearemout and Rose Ellis. A day or two previous to the conversation to which we are about to draw attention, the managing director had undergone a change in his sentiments and intentions. When he first saw Rose he thought her an uncommonly sweet and pretty girl. A short acquaintance with her convinced him that she was even sweeter and prettier than at first he had thought her. This, coupled with the discovery that her uncle was very rich, and that he meant to leave a large portion of his wealth, if not all of it, to Rose, decided Clearemout, and he resolved to marry her. Afterwards he became aware of the fact that old Mr Donnithorne had met with losses, but he was ignorant of their extent, and still deemed it worth while to carry out his intentions. George Augustus had been a "managing director" in various ways from his earliest infancy, and had never experienced much opposition to his will, so that he had acquired a habit of settling in his own mind whatever he meant to do, and forthwith doing it. On this occasion he resolved to sacrifice himself to Rose, in consideration of her prospective fortune-- cash being, of course, Mr Clearemout's god. Great, then, was the managing director's surprise, and astonishing the condition of his feelings, when, on venturing to express his wishes to Rose, he was kindly, but firmly, rejected! Mr Clearemout was so thunderstruck--having construed the unsophisticated girl's candour and simplicity of manner into direct encouragement--that he could make no reply, but, with a profound bow, retired hastily from her presence, went to his lodgings, and sat down with his elbows on the table, and his face buried in his large hands, the fingers of which appeared to be crushing in his forehead, as if to stifle the thoughts that burned there. After sitting thus for half an hour he suddenly rose, with his face somewhat paler, and his lips a little more firmly compressed than usual. It was an epoch in his existence. The man who had so often and so successfully deceived others had made the wonderful discovery that he had deceived himself. He had imagined that money was his sole object in wishing to marry Rose. He now discovered that love, or something like it, had so much to do with his wishes that he resolved to have her without money, and also without her consent. Something within the man told him that Rose's refusal was an unalterable one. He did not think it worth while to waste time in a second attempt. His plans, though hastily formed, required a good deal of preliminary arrangement, so he commenced to carry them out with the single exclamation, "I'll do it!" accompanied with a blow from his heavy fist on the table, which, being a weak lodging-house one, was split from end to end. But the managing director had a soul above furniture at that moment. He hastily put on his hat and strode out of the house. Making good use of a good horse, he paid sundry mysterious visits to various smuggling characters, to all of whom he was particularly agreeable and liberal in the bestowal of portions of the thirty thousand pounds with which a too confiding public had intrusted him. Among other places, he went to a cottage on a moor between St. Just and Penzance, and had a confidential interview with a man named Hicks, who was noted for his capacity to adapt himself to circumstances (when well paid) without being troubled by conscientious scruples. This man had a son who had once suffered from a broken collar-bone, and whose ears were particularly sharp. He chanced to overhear the conversation at the interview referred to, and dutifully reported the same to his mother, who happened to be a great gossip, and knew much about the private affairs of nearly everybody living within six miles of her. The good woman resolved to make some use of her information, but Mr Clearemout left the cottage in ignorance, of course, of her resolution. Having transacted these little pieces of business, the managing director returned home, and, on the day following, sought and obtained an interview with Rose Ellis in her bower. Recollecting the subject of their last conversation, Rose blushed, as much with indignation as confusion, at being intruded upon, but Mr Clearemout at once dispersed her angry feelings by assuring her in tones of deferential urbanity that he would not have presumed to intrude upon her but for the fact that he was about to quit Cornwall without delay, and he wished to talk with her for only a few minutes on business connected with Mr Donnithorne. There was something so manly and straightforward in his tone and manner that she could not choose but allow him to sit down beside her, although she did falter out something about the propriety of talking on her uncle's business affairs with Mr Donnithorne himself. "Your observation is most just," said Mr Clearemout earnestly; "but you are aware that your uncle's nature is a delicate, sensitive one, and I feel that he would shrink from proposals coming from me, that he might listen to if made to him through you. I need not conceal from you, Miss Ellis, that I am acquainted with the losses which your uncle has recently sustained, and no one can appreciate more keenly than I do the harshness with which the world, in its ignorance of details, is apt to judge of the circumstances which brought about this sad state of things. I cannot help feeling deeply the kindness which has been shown me by Mr Donnithorne during my residence here, and I would, if I could, show him some kindness in return." Mr Clearemout paused here a few moments as if to reflect. He resolved to assume that Mr Donnithorne's losses were ruinous, little imagining that in this assumption he was so very near the truth! Rose felt grateful to him for the kind and delicate way in which he referred to her uncle's altered circumstances. "Of course," continued the managing director, "I need not say to _you_, that his independent spirit would never permit him to accept of assistance in the form which would be most immediately beneficial to him. Indeed, I could not bring myself to offer money even as a loan. But it happens that I have the power, just now, of disposing of the shares which he has taken in Wheal Dooem Mine at a very large profit; and as my hope of the success of that enterprise is very small, I--" "Very small!" echoed Rose in surprise. "You astonish me, Mr Clearemout. Did I not hear you, only a few nights ago, say that you had the utmost confidence in the success of your undertaking?" "Most true," replied the managing director with a smile; "but in the world of business a few hours work wonderful changes, sometimes, in one's opinion of things--witness the vacillations and variations `on 'Change'--if I may venture to allude before a lady to such an incomprehensible subject." Rose felt her vigorous little spirit rise, and she was about to return a smart reply in defence of woman's intelligence even in business matters, but the recollection of the altered relative position in which they now stood restrained her. "Yes," continued Mr Clearemout, with a sigh, "the confidence which I felt in Wheal Dooem has been much shaken of late, and the sooner your uncle sells out the better." "But would it be right," said Rose earnestly, "to sell our shares at a high profit if things be as you say?" "Quite right," replied Clearemout, with a bland smile of honesty; "_I_ believe the mine to be a bad speculation; my friend, we shall suppose, believes it to be a good one. Believing as I do, I choose to sell out; believing as he does, he chooses to buy in. The simplest thing in the world, Miss Ellis. Done every day with eyes open, I assure you; but it is not every day that a chance occurs so opportunely as the present, and I felt it to be a duty to give my friend the benefit of my knowledge before quitting this place--for ever!" There was something so kind and touching in the tone of the managing director that Rose was quite drawn towards him, and felt as if she had actually done him an unkindness in refusing him. "But," continued her companion, "I can do nothing, Miss Ellis, without your assistance." "You shall have it," said Rose earnestly; "for I would do anything that a woman might venture, to benefit my dear, dear uncle, and I feel assured that you would not ask me to do anything wrong or unwomanly." "I would not indeed," answered Clearemout with emotion; "but the world is apt to misjudge in matters of delicacy. To ask you to meet me on the cliffs near Priest's Cove, close to Cape Cornwall, to-night, would appear wrong in the eyes of the world." "And with justice," said Rose quickly, with a look of mingled dignity and surprise. "Nevertheless, this is absolutely needful, if we would accomplish the object in view. A friend, whom I know to be desirous of purchasing shares in the mine is to pass round the cape in his yacht this evening. The idea of offering these shares to him had not occurred to me when I wrote to say that I would meet him there. He cannot come up here, I know, but the stroke of a pen, with one of the family to witness it, will be sufficient." It was a bold stroke of fancy in the managing director to put the matter in such a ridiculously unbusinesslike light, but he counted much on Rose's ignorance. As for poor Rose herself, she, knew not what to say or do at first, but when Clearemout heaved a sigh, and, with an expression of deep sadness on his countenance, rose to take leave, she allowed a generous impulse to sway her. "Your answer, then, is--No," said Clearemout, with deep pathos in his tone. Now, it chanced that at this critical point in the conversation, Oliver Trembath, having left the cottage, walked over the grass towards a small gate, near which the bower stood. He unavoidably heard the question, and also the quick, earnest reply,--"My answer, Mr Clearemout, is--Yes. I will meet you this evening on the cliff." She frankly gave him her hand as she spoke, and he gallantly pressed it to his lips, an act which took Rose by surprise, and caused her to pull it away suddenly. She then turned and ran out at the side of the bower to seek the solitude of her own apartment, while Clearemout left it by the other side, and stood face to face with the spellbound Oliver. To say that both gentlemen turned pale as their eyes met would not give an adequate idea of their appearance. Oliver's heart, as well as his body, when he heard the question and reply, stood still as if he had been paralysed. This, then, he thought, was the end of all his hopes-- hopes hardly admitted to himself, and never revealed to Rose, except in unstudied looks and tones. For a few moments his face grew absolutely livid, while he glared at his rival. On the other hand, Mr Clearemout, believing that the whole of his conversation had been overheard, supposed that he had discovered all his villainy to one who was thoroughly able, as well as willing, to thwart him. For a moment he felt an almost irresistible impulse to spring on and slay his enemy; his face became dark with suppressed emotion; and it is quite possible that in the fury of his disappointed malice he might have attempted violence,--had not Oliver spoken. His voice was husky as he said,--"Chance, sir--unfortunate, miserable chance--led me to overhear the last few words that passed between you and--" He paused, unable to say more. Instantly the truth flashed across Clearemout's quick mind. He drew himself up boldly, and the blood returned to his face as he replied,--"If so, sir, you cannot but be aware that the lady's choice is free, and that your aspect and attitude towards me are unworthy of a gentleman." A wonderful influence for weal or woe oft-times results from the selection of a phrase or a word. Had Clearemout charged Oliver with insolence or presumption, he would certainly have struck him to the ground; but the words "unworthy of a gentleman" created a revulsion in his feelings. Thought is swifter than light. He saw himself in the position of a disappointed man scowling on a successful rival who had done him no injury. "Thank you, Clearemout. Your rebuke is merited," he said bitterly; and, turning on his heel, he bounded over the low stone wall of the garden, and hastened away. Whither he went he knew not. A fierce fire seemed to rage in his breast and burn in his brain. At first he walked at full speed, but as he cleared the town he ran--ran as he had never run before. For the time being he was absolutely mad. Over marsh and moor he sped, clearing all obstacles with a bound, and making straight for the Land's End, with no definite purpose in view, for, after a time, he appeared to change his intention, if he had any. He turned sharp to the left, and ran straight to Penzance, never pausing in his mad career until he neared the town. The few labourers he chanced to pass on the way gazed after him in surprise, but he heeded not. At the cottage on the moor where he had bandaged the shoulder of the little boy a woman's voice called loudly, anxiously after him, but he paid no attention. At last he came to a full stop, and, pressing both hands tightly over his forehead, made a terrible effort to collect his thoughts. He was partially successful, and, with somewhat of his wonted composure, walked rapidly into the town. CHAPTER THIRTY ONE. DESCRIBES A MARRED PLOT, AND TELLS OF RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE. Meanwhile the gossiping woman of the cottage on the moor, whose grateful heart had never forgotten the little kindness done to her boy by the young doctor, and who knew that the doctor loved Rose Ellis, more surely, perhaps, than Rose did herself, went off in a state of deep anxiety to St. Just, and, by dint of diligent inquiries and piecing of things together, coupled with her knowledge of Clearemout's intentions, came to a pretty correct conclusion as to the state of affairs. She then went to the abode of young Charles Tregarthen, whom she knew to be Oliver's friend, and unbosomed herself. Charlie repaid her with more than thanks, and almost hugged her in his gratitude for her prompt activity. "And now, Mrs Hicks," said he, "you shall see how we will thwart this scoundrel. As for Oliver Trembath, I cannot imagine what could take him into Penzance in the wild state that you describe. Of course this affair has to do with it, and he evidently has learned something of this, and must have misunderstood the matter, else assuredly he had not been absent at such a time. But why go to Penzance? However, he will clear up the mystery ere long, no doubt. Meanwhile we shall proceed to thwart your schemes, good Mr Clearemout!" So saying, Charlie Tregarthen set about laying his counter-plans. He also, as the managing director had done, visited several men, some of whom were miners and some smugglers, and arranged a meeting that evening near Cape Cornwall. When evening drew on apace, four separate parties converged towards Priest's Cove. First, a boat crept along shore propelled by four men and steered by Jim Cuttance. Secondly, six stout men crept stealthily down to the cove, led by Charlie Tregarthen, with Maggot as his second in command. Thirdly, Rose Ellis wended her way to the rendezvous with trembling step and beating heart; and, fourthly, George Augustus Clearemout moved in the same direction. But the managing director moved faster than the others, having a longer way to travel, for, having had to pay a last visit to Wheal Dooem, he rode thence to St. Just. On the way he was particularly interested in a water-wheel which worked a pump, beside which a man in mining costume was seated smoking his pipe. "Good-evening," said Clearemout, reining up. "Good-hevenin', sur." "What does that pump?" asked the managing director, pointing to the wheel. "That, sur?" said the miner, drawing a few whiffs from his pipe; "why, that do pump gold out o' the Londoners, that do." The managing director chuckled very much, and said, "Indeed!" "Iss, sur," continued the miner, pointing to Wheal Dooem, "an' that wan theere, up over hill, do the same thing." The managing director chuckled much more at this, and displayed his teeth largely as he nodded to the man and rode on. Before his arrival at the rendezvous, the boat was run ashore not far from the spot where Tregarthen and his men were concealed. As soon as the men had landed, Charlie walked down to them alone and accosted their leader. "Well, Cuttance, you're a pretty fellow to put your finger in such a dirty pie as this." Cuttance had seen the approach of Tregarthen with surprise and some alarm. "Well, sur," said he, without any of the bold expression that usually characterised him, "what can a man do when he's to be well paid for the job? I do confess that I don't half like it, but, after all, what have we got to do weth the opinions of owld aunts or uncles? If a gurl do choose to go off wi' the man she likes, that's no matter to we, an' if I be well paid for lendin' a hand, why shouldn't I? But it do puzzle me, Mr Tregarthen, to guess how yow did come to knaw of it." "That don't signify," said Tregarthen sternly. "Do you know who the girl is?" "I don't knaw, an' I don't care," said Jim doggedly. "What would you say if I told you it was Miss Rose Ellis?" said Charlie. "I'd say thee was a liard," replied Cuttance. "Then I do tell you so." "Thee don't mean that!" exclaimed the smuggler, with a blaze of amazement and wrath in his face. "Indeed I do." "Whew!" whistled Jim, "then that do explain the reason why that smooth-tongued feller said he would car' her to the boat close veiled up for fear the men should see her." A rapid consultation was now held by the two as to the proper mode of proceeding. Cuttance counselled an immediate capture of the culprit, and pitching him off the end of Cape Cornwall; but Tregarthen advised that they should wait until Clearemout seized his victim, otherwise they could not convict him, because he would deny any intention of evil against Rose, and pretend that some other girl, who had been scared away by their impetuosity, was concerned, for they might depend on it he'd get up a plausible story and defeat them. Tregarthen's plan was finally agreed to, and he returned to his men and explained matters. Soon afterwards the managing director appeared coming down the road. "Is all right?" he inquired of Cuttance, who went forward to meet him. "All right, sur." "Go down to the boat then and wait," he said, turning away. Ere long he was joined by Rose, with whom he entered into conversation, leading her over the cape so as to get out of sight of the men, but young Tregarthen crept among the rocks and never for a moment lost sight of them. He saw Clearemout suddenly place a kerchief on Rose's mouth, and, despite the poor girl's struggles, tie it firmly so as to prevent her screaming, then he threw a large shawl over her, and catching her in his arms bore her swiftly towards the boat. Tregarthen sprang up and confronted him. Clearemout, astonished and maddened by this unexpected interference, shouted,--"Stand aside, sir! _You_ have no interest in this matter, or right to interfere." Charlie made no reply, but sprang on him like a tiger. Clearemout dropped his burden and grappled with the youth, who threw him in an instant, big though he was, for Tregarthen was a practised wrestler, and the managing director was not. His great strength, however, enabled him to get on his knees, and there is no saying how the struggle might have terminated had not Cuttance come forward, and, putting his hard hands round Clearemout's throat, caused that gentleman's face to grow black, and his tongue and eyes to protrude. Having thus induced him to submit, he eased off the necklace, and assisted him to rise, while the men of both parties crowded round. "Now, then, boys," cried Jim Cuttance, "bear a hand, one and all, and into the say with him." The managing director was at once knocked off his legs, and borne shoulder-high down to the beach by as many hands as could lay hold of him. Here they paused:-- "All together, boys--one--two--ho!" At the word the unfortunate man was shot, by strong and willing arms, into the air like a bombshell, and fell into the water with a splash that was not unlike an explosion. Clearemout was a good swimmer. When he came to the surface he raised himself, and, clearing the water from his eyes, glanced round. Even in that extremity the quickness and self-possession of the man did not forsake him. He perceived, at a glance, that the boat which, in the excitement of the capture, had been left by all the men, had floated off with the receding tide, and now lay a short distance from the shore. At once he struck out for it. There was a shout of consternation and a rush to the water's edge. Maggot shot far ahead of the others, plunged into the sea, and swam off. Observing this, and knowing well the courage and daring of the man, the rest stopped on the shore to witness the result. Clearemout reached the boat first, but, owing to exhaustion, was unable to raise himself into it. Maggot soon came up and grasped him by the throat, both men managed to get their arms over the gunwale, but in their struggle upset the boat and were separated. Clearemout then made for the shore with the intention of giving himself up, and Maggot followed, but he was not equal in swimming to the managing director, whose long steady strokes easily took him beyond the reach of his pursuer. He reached the shore, and stalked slowly out of the water. At the same moment Maggot sank and disappeared. The consternation of his comrades was so great that in the confusion their prisoner was unheeded. Some sprang into the sea and dived after Maggot; others swam to the boat, intending to right it and get the boat-hooks. Suddenly those who had remained on the beach observed something creep out of the sea near to some rocks a little to the right of the place where they stood. They ran towards it. "Hallo! is that you, old Maggot?" they cried. It was indeed the valiant smith himself! How he got there no one ever knew, nor could himself tell. It was conjectured that he must have become partially exhausted, and, after sinking, had crept along the bottom to the shore! However, be that as it may, there he was, lying with his arm lovingly round a rock, and the first thing he said on looking up was,--"Aw! my dear men, has any of 'ee got a chaw of baccy about 'ee?" This was of course received with a shout of laughter, and unlimited offers of quids while they assisted him to rise. Meanwhile Tregarthen was attending to Rose, who had swooned when Clearemout dropped her. He also kept a watch over the prisoner, who, however, showed no intention of attempting to escape, but sat on a stone with his face buried in his hands. The men soon turned their attention to him again, and some of the more violent were advancing to seize him, with many terrible threats of further vengeance, when Rose ran between them, and entreated them to spare him. Tregarthen seconded the proposal, and urged that as he had got pretty severe punishment already, they should set him free. This being agreed to, Charlie turned to the managing director, and said, with a look of pity, "You may go, sir, but, be assured, it is not for your own sake that we let you off. You know pretty well what the result would be if we chose to deliver you up to justice; we care more, however, for the feelings of this lady--whose name would be unavoidably and disagreeably brought before the public at the trial--than we care for your getting your merited reward. But, mark me, if you ever open your lips on the subject, you shall not escape us." "Iss," added Jim Cuttance, "ann remember, you chucklehead, that if you do write or utter wan word 'bout it, after gettin' back to London, there are here twelve Cornish men who will never rest till they have flayed thee alive!" "You need have no fear," said Clearemout with a bitter smile, as he turned and walked away, followed by a groan from the whole party. "Now, lads," said Cuttance after he was gone, "not wan word of this must ever be breathed, and we'll howld 'ee responsible, David Hicks, for t' wife's tongue; dost a hear?" This was agreed to by all, and, to the credit of these honest smugglers, and of Mrs Hicks, be it said, that not a syllable about the incident was ever heard of in the parish of St. Just from that day to this! CHAPTER THIRTY TWO. TOUCHES ON LOVE AND ON PILCHARD FISHING. There can be no doubt that "Fortune favours the brave," and Maggot was one of those braves whom, about this time, she took special delight in favouring. Wild and apparently reckless though he was, Maggot had long cherished an ambitious hope, and had for some time past been laying by money for the purpose of accomplishing his object, which was the procuring of a seine-net and boats for the pilchard fishery. The recent successes he had met with in Botallack enabled him to achieve his aim more rapidly than he had anticipated, and on the day following that in which Clearemout received his deserts, he went to Penberth Cove to see that all was in readiness, for pilchards had recently appeared off the coast in small shoals. That same day Oliver Trembath, having spent a night of misery in Penzance, made up his mind to return to St. Just and face his fate like a man; but he found it so difficult to carry this resolve into effect that he diverged from the highroad--as he had done on his first memorable visit to that region--and, without knowing very well why, sauntered in a very unenviable frame of mind towards Penberth Cove. Old Mr Donnithorne possessed a pretty villa near the cove, to which he was wont to migrate when Mrs D felt a desire for change of air, and in which he frequently entertained large parties of friends in the summer season. In his heart poor Mr Donnithorne had condemned this villa "to the hammer," but the improved appearance of things in the mines had induced him to suspend the execution of the sentence. News of the appearance of pilchards, and a desire to give Rose a change after her late adventure, induced Mr Donnithorne to hire a phaeton (he had recently parted with his own) and drive over to Penberth. Arrived there, he sauntered down to the cove to look after his nets--for he dabbled in pilchard fishing as well as in other matters--and Rose went off to have a quiet, solitary walk. Thus it came to pass that she and Oliver Trembath suddenly met in a lonely part of the road between Penberth and Penzance. Ah, those sudden and unexpected meetings! How pleasant they are, and how well every one who has had them remembers them! "Miss Ellis!" exclaimed Oliver in surprise. "Mr Trembath!" exclaimed Rose in amazement. You see, reader, how polite they were, but you can neither see nor conceive how great was the effort made by each to conceal the tumult that agitated the breast and flushed the countenance, while the tongue was thus ably controlled. It did not last long, however. Oliver, being thrown off his guard, asked a number of confused questions, and Rose, in her somewhat irrelevant replies, happened to make some reference to "that villain Clearemout." "Villain?" echoed Oliver in undisguised amazement. "The villain," repeated Rose, with a flushed face and flashing eye. "What? why? how?--really, excuse me, Miss Ellis--I--I--the villain-- Clearemout--you don't--" There is no saying how many more ridiculous exclamations Oliver might have made had not Rose suddenly said,--"Surely, Mr Trembath, you have heard of his villainy?" "No, never; not a word. Pray do tell me, Miss Ellis." Rose at once related the circumstances of her late adventure, with much indignation in her tone and many a blush on her brow. Before she had half done, Oliver's powers of restraint gave way. "Then you never loved him?" he exclaimed. "Loved him, sir! I do not understand--" "Forgive me, Rose; I mean--I didn't imagine--that is to say--oh! Rose, can it be--is it possible--my _dear_ girl!" He seized her hand at this point, and--but really, reader, why should we go on? Is it not something like a violation of good taste to be too particular here? Is it not sufficient to say that old Mr Donnithorne came suddenly, and of course unexpectedly, on them at that critical juncture, rendering it necessary for Rose to burst away and hide her blushing face on her uncle's shoulder, while Oliver, utterly overwhelmed, turned and walked (we won't say fled) at full speed in the direction of the cove. Here he found things in a condition that was admirably suited to the state of his feelings. The fishermen of the cove were in a state of wild excitement, for an enormous shoal of pilchards had been enclosed in the seine-nets, and Maggot with his men, as well as the people employed by Mr Donnithorne, were as much over head and ears in fishing as Oliver was in love. Do you ask, "Why all this excitement?" We will tell you. The pilchard fishing is to the Cornish fisherman what the harvest is to the husbandman, but this harvest of the sea is not the result of prolonged labour, care, and wisdom. It comes to him in a night. It may last only a few days, or weeks. Sometimes it fails altogether. During these days of sunshine he must toil with unwonted energy. There is no rest for him while the season lasts if he would not miss his opportunity. The pilchard is a little fish resembling a small herring. It visits the southern coasts of England in autumn and winter, and the shoals are so enormous as to defy calculation or description. When they arrive on the coast, "huers"--sharp-sighted men--are stationed on the cliffs to direct the boatmen when to go out and where to shoot their seine-nets. When these are shot, millions of pilchards are often enclosed in a single net. To give an idea of the numbers of fish and the extent of the fishing, in a few words, we may state the fact that, in 1834, one shoal of great depth, and nearly a mile broad, extended from Hayle River to St. Ives, a distance of two and a half miles. A seine was shot into this mass, and 3,600 hogsheads were carried to the curing cellars. As there are 3,000 pilchards in each hogshead, the catch amounted to nearly eleven million fish! The value of these might be 3 pounds a hogshead, and the clear profit about 1 pound a hogshead, so that it is no wonder we hear of fortunes having been made in a few hauls of the pilchard seines. At the same time, losses are sometimes very heavy, owing to gales arising and breaking or carrying away the nets. Such facts, combined with the uncertainty of the arrival or continuance of the fish on any particular part of the coast, tend to induce that spirit of eager, anxious excitement to which we have referred as being so congenial to Oliver Trembath's state of mind at the time of which we write. On the beach the young doctor found Maggot and his men launching their boats, and of course he lent them a hand. "Pilchards been seen?" he inquired. "Iss, iss, doctor," was the smith's curt reply; "jump in, an' go 'long with us." Oliver accepted the invitation, and was rowed towards a part of the bay where the sea appeared to be boiling. The boat was a large one, attended by several others of smaller dimensions. The boiling spot being reached, Maggot, whose whole being was in a blaze of enthusiasm, leaped up and seized the end of a seine-net--three hundred fathoms long by fourteen deep--which he began to throw overboard with the utmost energy, while the boat was rowed swiftly round the mass of fish. David Trevarrow assisted him, and in less than four minutes the whole net was in the sea. One of the other boats, meanwhile, had fastened another net to the first, and, rowing in an opposite direction from it, progressed in a circular course, dropping its net as it went, until the two met-- and thus an immense shoal of pilchards were enclosed. The nets being floated on the surface with corks, and their lower ends sunk to the bottom with leads, the fish were thus securely imprisoned. But the security was not great; a gale might arise which would sweep away the whole concern, or the pilchards might take a fancy to make a dash in one particular direction, in the event of which they would certainly burst the net, and no human power could save a single fin. In order to prevent this, the men in the smaller boats rowed round the seine, beat the sea with their oars, hallooed, and otherwise exerted themselves to keep the fish in the centre of the enclosure. Meanwhile a little boat entered within the circle, having a small net, named a "tuck-net," which was spread round the seine, inside, and gradually drawn together, until the fish were raised towards the surface in a solid, sweltering mass. The excitement at this point became tremendous. Thousands of silvery fish leaped, vaulted, and fluttered in a seething mass on the sea. Maggot roared and yelled his orders like a Stentor. Even mild David Trevarrow lost self-command, and shouted vociferously. "Hand the basket!" cried Maggot. A large basket, with a rope attached to one handle, was produced. Maggot seized the other handle, and thrust it down among the wriggling pilchards. Trevarrow hauled on the rope, lifted the basket out of the sea, and a cataract of living silver was shot into the boat, accompanied by a mighty cheer. Basketful after basketful followed, until the men stood leg-deep in fish. "Hold on a bit!" cried Maggot, as, with rolled-up sleeves, dishevelled hair, and glaring eyes, he threw one leg over the side of the boat, the more easily to continue his work. "Have a care," cried Oliver at that moment, stretching out his hand; but he was too late. The excitable smith had overbalanced himself, and was already head and shoulders deep down among the pilchards, which sprang high over him, as if in triumph! To catch him by the legs, and pull him back into the boat, was the work of a moment, but the proceedings were not interrupted by the mishap. A laugh greeted the smith as he was turned head up, and immediately he braced himself to his arduous labour with renewed energy. The boat filled, it was rowed to the shore, and here was received by eager and noisy men, women, and children, by whom the precious contents were carried to the "cellars," or salting-houses, where they were packed in the neatest possible piles, layer on layer, heads and tails, with a sprinkling of salt between. Maggot's family had followed him to Penberth. Mrs M was there, busy as a bee--so was Zackey, so was little Grace, and so was the baby. They all worked like Trojans, the only difference between baby Maggot and the others being, that, while they did as much work as in them lay, he undid as much as possible; was in every one's way; fell over and into everything, including the sea, and, generally, fulfilled his mission of mischief-maker with credit. The chet was there too! Baby Maggot had decreed that it should accompany him, so there it was, living on pilchards, and dragging out its harassed existence in the usual way. What between salt food, and play, kicks, cuffs, capers, and gluttony, its aspect at that time was more demoniacal, perhaps, than that of any other chet between John o' Groat's and the Land's End. Volumes would scarcely contain all that might be written about this wonderful scene, but enough has been said to indicate the process whereby Maggot secured and salted some hundreds of thousands of pilchards. The enclosing of the fish was the result of a few minutes' work, but the salting and packing were not ended for many days. The result, however, was that the lucky smith sent many hogsheads of pilchards the way of most Cornish fish--namely, to the Mediterranean, for consumption by Roman Catholics, and in due course he received the proceeds, to the extent of three thousand pounds. Thus did Maggot auspiciously begin the making of his fortune--which was originated and finally completed by his successful mining operations at Botallack. And let it be observed here, that he was neither the first nor the last poor man who became prosperous and wealthy by similar means. There are men, not a few, now alive in Cornwall, who began with hammer and pick, and who now can afford to drink in champagne, out of a golden flagon, the good old Cornish toast--"Fish, tin, and copper." CHAPTER THIRTY THREE. THE LAST. Many others as well as Maggot made money by the pilchards at that time. All round the coast of Cornwall millions of these little fish were taken, salted, and exported. No fewer than one thousand hogsheads were taken at St. Ives in the first three seine-nets cast into the sea. In Mounts Bay, Fowey Bay, Mevagissey, and other fishing grounds, immense quantities were caught, and the total catch of the county was little if at all short of thirty thousand hogsheads. Among others, old Mr Donnithorne was so successful that his broken fortunes were almost re-established; and a small sum which our friend Oliver Trembath had ventured to invest in the fishing was more than quadrupled before the end of the year. But this was not all. At the next Botallack account-dinner, Mr Cornish gladdened the hearts of the adventurers by telling them that the lodes which had been "promising" for such a length of time had at last got the length of "performance," and that he had now the pleasure of announcing a large dividend, which he paid there and then. A considerable share of this fell to old Mr Donnithorne, who, in the enthusiasm of the occasion, observed confidentially to Captain Dan that he was convinced "honesty was the best policy after all"--a sentiment which the captain heartily agreed with, although he failed to detect the precise connection between it and the old gentleman's sudden influx of good fortune. But, then, the captain did not drink Botallack punch, while old Mr Donnithorne did, which may to some extent account for the difference in their powers of vision. Captain Dan, however, possessed wonderful powers of vision in reference to the underground workings of Botallack, which were displayed to advantage--and to the great gratification of the shareholders--when, at the request of Mr Cornish, he stood up and gave a detailed and graphic account of the prospects of the mine; telling them that the appearance of the lodes in several parts of the mine was very promising indeed, and that some ground was returning a rich harvest for the labour that had been bestowed on it; that in the 105, which was driving north by six men, they had taken down the copper for fourteen fathoms long, nearly the whole of which had turned out to be worth 100 pounds per fathom; that a splice had been formed in the lode about two fathoms behind the present end, which had disordered it, but he was glad to say it was again improving, and was at that time about fifteen inches wide of rich copper, and, as far as he could judge, they were going through to the top part of the "bunch" of copper; that these facts, he thought, were very satisfactory, but that it was still more gratifying to know that the lode on the bottom of the 105 was far more valuable than that in the back; that in the "Crowns," especially in the various levels under the sea, the lodes were not only "promising," but performing great things, two men and a boy (he referred to Maggot, Trevarrow, and Zackey here) having broken an immense quantity of copper during the last quarter, which was paying splendidly. At this point, Mr Grenfell, who sat on Mr Cornish's right hand, exclaimed, "Hear! hear!" and a little bald-headed man, with a red nose and blue spectacles, near the foot of the table, echoed "Hear!" with genuine enthusiasm (for he had been bordering on bankruptcy for some months past), and swigged off a full glass of punch without winking. Thus encouraged, Captain Dan went on to remark that there were six men driving in Wheal Hazzard (which statement caused a "stranger" who chanced to be at the dinner to observe, in an undertone, that he was not aware they had horses or vehicles of any kind in the mines!), that one cross-cut was also being driven, and three winzes were sinking, and one rise--several of which were opening up tin of first-rate quality, while in the Narrow shaft, Chicornish, Higher Mine, and Wheal Cock, a great deal to the same effect was being done--all of which we leave to the imagination of the reader, merely remarking that however incomprehensible these things may appear to him (or her), they created feelings of profound joy in the assembled guests, especially in the breast of the almost bankrupt one with the bald, red, and blue headpiece. Mr Cornish afterwards congratulated the adventurers on the success of the mine, and the splendid prospects which were opening up to them-- prospects which, he had no doubt, would be fully realised ere long. He referred also to the condition of the miners of the neighbourhood, and alluded to the fact that the neighbouring mines, Wheal Owles and Levant, were also in a flourishing condition; a matter, he said, for which they had reason to be profoundly thankful, for the distress in the district had been severe and prolonged. The manager's voice deepened at this point, and he spoke with pathos, for he had a kindly heart, and his thoughts were at the moment with many a poor miner, in whose little cottages the effects of gaunt poverty could be traced in scanty furniture, meagre fare, and careworn brows. He remembered, too, that only the week before he had seen poor blind John Batten carried to his grave, and had heard the sobs of the bereaved widow, as she attempted to tell him how the brave man had forgotten himself to the very last, when he put his wasted hand on her head, and said, "I'm goin' to leave thee, Mary, for a time; but cheer up, dear lass, I'll be with Jesus soon, an' have my sight restored, and look wance more 'pon the faces of the dear boys, an' 'pon your own sweet face too, dear lass, when we meet again in heaven." There was one of the miners and shareholders of Botallack who did not die, but who lived to enjoy the fruit of his labour and the sunshine of prosperity. James Penrose recovered--not only his health, but also, in some degree, his sight. One of his eyes had indeed been entirely destroyed by the explosion which had so nearly killed him, but the other was partially restored. A long period elapsed, however, ere he was able to go about. Then he found his circumstances so much improved that it was not necessary to resume work underground. Botallack, in which all his savings had been invested, continued steadily to improve, and from the income derived from this source alone he was enabled to live without labouring. But Penrose was not the man to sit down in idleness. Wesley never had a more earnest follower than this miner of St. Just. Thenceforth he devoted himself to preaching, teaching, and doing good as his hand found opportunity, and, being an active man as well as conscientious, he laboured to the end of his days in the service of his Lord more energetically than he had ever toiled in the mines. Penrose and David Trevarrow had always been staunch friends. After the accident to the former, they became more closely united than before. Trevarrow did not give up underground work; he possessed no shares in any of the mines, but, in common with the rest of the mining community, he benefited by the sunshine of prosperity that became so bright at that period, and found leisure, when above ground, to join his friend in his labours of love. They both agreed to make an earnest effort to convince Maggot and John Cock of the error of their ways--with what amount of success it is not easy to state, for these worthies were made of stubborn metal, that required a furnace of unusually fierce heat to melt it. However, we are warranted in concluding that some good was done, from the fact that both of them gave up smuggling, and, in various other ways, showed indication of an improved state of mind. Maggot especially gave a signal and unexpected proof of a softened spirit, when, one Sunday morning, as he was getting ready for chapel, he said to his wife that it was "high time to send that little chucklehead the baby to Sunday school, for he was no better than a small heathen!" The "baby," be it observed, was about six years old at the time when this speech was made, and his _protege_ the "chet" was a great-grandmother, with innumerable chets of her own. It is right to add that, in accordance with this opinion of his father, the baby was carried off to school that very morning by Zackey and Grace, the first having grown to be a strapping youth, and the other a lovely girl, for whose sake there were scores of young miners in St. Just who would gladly have walked ten miles on their bare knees, or dived head foremost into Wheal Hazzard shaft, or jumped over the cliffs into Zawn Buzzangein, or done any other insane act or desperate deed, if, by so doing, they could have caused one thrill of pleasure to pass through her dear little heart! It is not necessary, we should think, to say that in the midst of so much sunshine Oliver Trembath and Rose Ellis thought it advisable to "make hay." Old Mr Donnithorne and his excellent wife (of whose goodness and wisdom, by the way, he became more and more convinced every day of his life) saw no objection whatever to this hay-making--so the young couple were wed at the Wesleyan Chapel of St. Just--Charlie Tregarthen, of course, being groomsman--and the only vehicle in the town was hired to drive them over to Penberth Cove and bliss! As to George Augustus Clearemout, Esquire--that able managing director, despite his ducking at St. Just, continued to fill his chair and to fulfil his destiny in the airy little street in London, where, for many years, he represented Wheal Dooem, and "did" a too confiding public. In this work he was ably assisted by Secretary Jack Muddle, who became quite celebrated as a clear expounder and explainer of veins, lodes, ores, cross-cuts, shafts, levels, winzes, minerals, metals, and mines-- insomuch that he was regarded by many of the confiding public who frequented his office as a more thoroughly learned and scientific man than George Augustus himself. It is interesting, how ever, to have to record the curious fact that the too confiding public changed their opinion at last on this head, and came to regard Secretary Jack as a humbug, and the managing director as a scoundrel. Unfortunately this change of opinion did not take place until the whole of the too confiding public (the T.C.P., as Clearemout styled them) had lost large sums of money, and a few of them become bankrupt. When affairs had reached this crisis, one of the T.C.P.--an irascible old gentleman, whose fiery nature seemed to have singed all the hair off his head, leaving it completely bald--went down to Cornwall in a passion to sift the thing for himself. There he found the Great Wheal Dooem pump-engine going full swing, day and night, under the superintendence of one man, while the vast works underground (on which depended the "enormous" dividends promised to and expected by the T.C.P.) were carried on by another man and a boy. On making this discovery the fiery old gentleman with the denuded head left Cornwall--still in a passion--and exploded in the face of a meeting of the members of the T.C.P., who immediately exploded in each other's faces, and appointed an indignation committee to go and explode, with unexampled fury, in the faces of the managing director and Secretary Jack. But these knowing gentlemen, being aware that the explosion was coming, had wisely betaken themselves to the retirement and seclusion of the Continent. Without troubling the reader with further particulars, we may say, in conclusion, that the result was the stoppage of Wheal Dooem mining operations, and the summary dismissal of the two men and the boy. At the present day the ruins of that great concern may be seen standing on the wild sea-cliffs of west Cornwall, solitary, gaunt, and grey, with the iron "bob" of the pump-engine motionless and pointing up obliquely to the sky, as if the giant arm of the mine were upraised to protest for ever against the villainy and the too confiding folly that had left it standing there--a monument of wasted and misdirected energy--a caution to all speculators--a deserted mine--in the language of miners, a "knacked bal." There are many such "knacked bals" in Cornwall, with their iron "bobs"-- horizontal, depressed, or raised aloft, according to the attitude in which they expired--holding forth similar firm, silent, and perpetual protests and cautions. Many Wheal Dooems (which having accomplished their ends may now be termed Wheal Donems) are to be seen all over the country on gorse-clad hills and on bold headlands; but, alongside of these, may be seen their venerable ancestors, still alive and working; subject, indeed, at times, to fits of depression, when, as their indomitable and unconquerable managers will tell you, "the price of tin is low," and subject also to seasons of revival, when they are getting a "little better price for tin," but still working on with untiring persistency whether the price of tin be high or low. Chief among these, our chosen type, Botallack, may be seen bristling on the grey cliffs of the "far west" with the Atlantic winds and spray revelling amongst its machinery, and the thunder of its stamps giving constant token that hundreds of stout-hearted, strong-limbed Cornishmen are still hewing out tin and copper from its gloomy depths, as they did in days gone by, and as they will, doubtless, continue to do in time to come--steadily, sternly, manfully doing their work of sinking and extending the mine deeper down under the sod and further out under the sea. THE END. 
43111	----	https://archive.org/details/personalhistoryo001850dick Transcriber's note: The errors detailed in the errata at the start of the print edition have been corrected. Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). oe-ligatures have been expanded. --> represents a hand pointing right. [Illustration: Frontispiece] [Illustration: David Copperfield. By Charles Dickens.] THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF DAVID COPPERFIELD. by CHARLES DICKENS. With Illustrations by H. K. Browne. London: Bradbury & Evans, 11, Bouverie Street. 1850. London Bradbury and Evans, Printers, Whitefriars. AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED TO THE HON. MR. AND MRS. RICHARD WATSON, OF ROCKINGHAM, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE. PREFACE. I do not find it easy to get sufficiently far away from this Book, in the first sensations of having finished it, to refer to it with the composure which this formal heading would seem to require. My interest in it, is so recent and strong; and my mind is so divided between pleasure and regret--pleasure in the achievement of a long design, regret in the separation from many companions--that I am in danger of wearying the reader whom I love, with personal confidences, and private emotions. Besides which, all that I could say of the Story, to any purpose, I have endeavoured to say in it. It would concern the reader little, perhaps, to know, how sorrowfully the pen is laid down at the close of a two-years' imaginative task; or how an Author feels as if he were dismissing some portion of himself into the shadowy world, when a crowd of the creatures of his brain are going from him for ever. Yet, I have nothing else to tell; unless, indeed, I were to confess (which might be of less moment still) that no one can ever believe this Narrative, in the reading, more than I have believed it in the writing. Instead of looking back, therefore, I will look forward. I cannot close this Volume more agreeably to myself, than with a hopeful glance towards the time when I shall again put forth my two green leaves once a month, and with a faithful remembrance of the genial sun and showers that have fallen on these leaves of David Copperfield, and made me happy. LONDON, _October_, 1850. CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTER I. I AM BORN 1 CHAP. II. I observe 10 CHAP. III. I have a Change 21 CHAP. IV. I fall into Disgrace 33 CHAP. V. I am sent away from Home 46 CHAP. VI. I enlarge my Circle of Acquaintance 59 CHAP. VII. My "first half" at Salem House 65 CHAP. VIII. My Holidays. Especially one happy Afternoon 78 CHAP. IX. I have a memorable Birthday 88 CHAP. X. I become neglected, and am provided for 97 CHAP. XI. I begin Life on my own Account, and don't like it 111 CHAP. XII. Liking Life on my own Account no better, I form a great Resolution 122 CHAP. XIII. The Sequel of my Resolution 129 CHAP. XIV. My Aunt makes up her Mind about me 143 CHAP. XV. I make another Beginning 154 CHAP. XVI. I am a New Boy in more senses than one 161 CHAP. XVII. Somebody turns up 176 CHAP. XVIII. A Retrospect 188 CHAP. XIX. I look about me, and make a Discovery 193 CHAP. XX. Steerforth's Home 205 CHAP. XXI. Little Em'ly 211 CHAP. XXII. Some old Scenes, and some new People 225 CHAP. XXIII. I corroborate Mr. Dick, and choose a Profession 240 CHAP. XXIV. My first Dissipation 251 CHAP. XXV. Good and bad Angels 257 CHAP. XXVI. I fall into Captivity 271 CHAP. XXVII. Tommy Traddles 283 CHAP. XXVIII. Mr. Micawber's Gauntlet 289 CHAP. XXIX. I visit Steerforth at his Home, again 303 CHAP. XXX. A Loss 308 CHAP. XXXI. A greater Loss 314 CHAP. XXXII. The Beginning of a long Journey 321 CHAP. XXXIII. Blissful 334 CHAP. XXXIV. My Aunt astonishes me 346 CHAP. XXXV. Depression 353 CHAP. XXXVI. Enthusiasm 367 CHAP. XXXVII. A little Cold Water 379 CHAP. XXXVIII. A Dissolution of Partnership 385 CHAP. XXXIX. Wickfield and Heep 397 CHAP. XL. The Wanderer 411 CHAP. XLI. Dora's Aunts 417 CHAP. XLII. Mischief 428 CHAP. XLIII. Another Retrospect 443 CHAP. XLIV. Our Housekeeping 449 CHAP. XLV. Mr. Dick fulfils my Aunt's Prediction 460 CHAP. XLVI. Intelligence 471 CHAP. XLVII. Martha 481 CHAP. XLVIII. Domestic 489 CHAP. XLIX. I am involved in Mystery 497 CHAP. L. Mr. Peggotty's Dream comes true 506 CHAP. LI. The Beginning of a longer Journey 513 CHAP. LII. I assist at an Explosion 525 CHAP. LIII. Another Retrospect 541 CHAP. LIV. Mr. Micawber's Transactions 545 CHAP. LV. Tempest 556 CHAP. LVI. The new Wound, and the old 564 CHAP. LVII. The Emigrants 569 CHAP. LVIII. Absence 577 CHAP. LIX. Return 582 CHAP. LX. Agnes 594 CHAP. LXI. I am shown two interesting Penitents 600 CHAP. LXII. A Light shines on my way 609 CHAP. LXIII. A Visitor 615 CHAP. LXIV. A last Retrospect 621 LIST OF PLATES. PAGE FRONTISPIECE. OUR PEW AT CHURCH 11 I AM HOSPITABLY RECEIVED BY MR. PEGGOTTY 23 THE FRIENDLY WAITER AND I 49 MY MUSICAL BREAKFAST 55 STEERFORTH AND MR. MELL 70 CHANGES AT HOME 79 MRS. GUMMIDGE CASTS A DAMP ON OUR DEPARTURE 105 MY MAGNIFICENT ORDER AT THE PUBLIC-HOUSE 117 I MAKE MYSELF KNOWN TO MY AUNT 137 THE MOMENTOUS INTERVIEW 149 I RETURN TO THE DOCTOR'S AFTER THE PARTY 175 SOMEBODY TURNS UP 182 MY FIRST FALL IN LIFE 201 WE ARRIVE UNEXPECTEDLY AT MR. PEGGOTTY'S FIRESIDE 220 I MAKE THE ACQUAINTANCE OF MISS MOWCHER 233 MARTHA 238 URIAH PERSISTS IN HOVERING NEAR US, AT THE DINNER PARTY 262 I FALL INTO CAPTIVITY 274 WE ARE DISTURBED IN OUR COOKERY 292 I FIND MR. BARKIS "GOING OUT WITH THE TIDE" 313 MR. PEGGOTTY AND MRS. STEERFORTH 330 MY AUNT ASTONISHES ME 350 MR. WICKFIELD AND HIS PARTNER WAIT UPON MY AUNT 364 MR. MICAWBER DELIVERS SOME VALEDICTORY REMARKS 378 TRADDLES MAKES A FIGURE IN PARLIAMENT, AND I REPORT HIM 386 THE WANDERER 412 TRADDLES AND I, IN CONFERENCE WITH THE MISSES SPENLOW 420 I AM MARRIED 447 OUR HOUSEKEEPING 454 MR. DICK FULFILS MY AUNT'S PREDICTION 465 THE RIVER 482 MR. PEGGOTTY'S DREAM COMES TRUE 512 RESTORATION OF MUTUAL CONFIDENCE BETWEEN MR. AND MRS. MICAWBER 539 MY CHILD-WIFE'S OLD COMPANION 544 I AM THE BEARER OF EVIL TIDINGS 566 THE EMIGRANTS 575 I AM SHOWN TWO INTERESTING PENITENTS 605 A STRANGER CALLS TO SEE ME 615 ERRATA. Page 74, line 7 from bottom of page, _for_ "bo'" _read_ "bor'." 74, " 2 from bottom of page, make the same correction. 76, " 14 from bottom of page, make the same correction. 102, " 21 from top of page, make the same correction. 102, twenty lines in advance, make the same correction. 558, line 19 from bottom of page, _for_ "Norwich" _read_ "Ipswich." THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE OF DAVID COPPERFIELD THE YOUNGER. CHAPTER I. I AM BORN. Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously. In consideration of the day and hour of my birth, it was declared by the nurse, and by some sage women in the neighbourhood who had taken a lively interest in me several months before there was any possibility of our becoming personally acquainted, first, that I was destined to be unlucky in life; and secondly, that I was privileged to see ghosts and spirits; both these gifts inevitably attaching, as they believed, to all unlucky infants of either gender, born towards the small hours on a Friday night. I need say nothing here, on the first head, because nothing can show better than my history whether that prediction was verified or falsified by the result. On the second branch of the question, I will only remark, that unless I ran through that part of my inheritance while I was still a baby, I have not come into it yet. But I do not at all complain of having been kept out of this property; and if anybody else should be in the present enjoyment of it, he is heartily welcome to keep it. I was born with a caul, which was advertised for sale, in the newspapers, at the low price of fifteen guineas. Whether sea-going people were short of money about that time, or were short of faith and preferred cork-jackets, I don't know; all I know is, that there was but one solitary bidding, and that was from an attorney connected with the bill-broking business, who offered two pounds in cash, and the balance in sherry, but declined to be guaranteed from drowning on any higher bargain. Consequently the advertisement was withdrawn at a dead loss--for as to sherry, my poor dear mother's own sherry was in the market then--and ten years afterwards the caul was put up in a raffle down in our part of the country, to fifty members at half-a-crown a head, the winner to spend five shillings. I was present myself, and I remember to have felt quite uncomfortable and confused, at a part of myself being disposed of in that way. The caul was won, I recollect, by an old lady with a hand-basket, who, very reluctantly, produced from it the stipulated five shillings, all in halfpence, and twopence halfpenny short--as it took an immense time and a great waste of arithmetic, to endeavour without any effect to prove to her. It is a fact which will be long remembered as remarkable down there, that she was never drowned, but died triumphantly in bed, at ninety-two. I have understood that it was, to the last, her proudest boast, that she never had been on the water in her life, except upon a bridge; and that over her tea (to which she was extremely partial) she, to the last, expressed her indignation at the impiety of mariners and others, who had the presumption to go "meandering" about the world. It was in vain to represent to her that some conveniences, tea perhaps included, resulted from this objectionable practice. She always returned, with greater emphasis and with an instinctive knowledge of the strength of her objection, "Let us have no meandering." Not to meander, myself, at present, I will go back to my birth. I was born at Blunderstone, in Suffolk, or "thereby," as they say in Scotland. I was a posthumous child. My father's eyes had closed upon the light of this world six months, when mine opened on it. There is something strange to me, even now, in the reflection that he never saw me; and something stranger yet in the shadowy remembrance that I have of my first childish associations with his white grave-stone in the church-yard, and of the indefinable compassion I used to feel for it lying out alone there in the dark night, when our little parlor was warm and bright with fire and candle, and the doors of our house were--almost cruelly, it seemed to me sometimes--bolted and locked against it. An aunt of my father's, and consequently a great-aunt of mine, of whom I shall have more to relate by and by, was the principal magnate of our family. Miss Trotwood, or Miss Betsey, as my poor mother always called her, when she sufficiently overcame her dread of this formidable personage to mention her at all (which was seldom), had been married to a husband younger than herself, who was very handsome, except in the sense of the homely adage, "handsome is, that handsome does"--for he was strongly suspected of having beaten Miss Betsey, and even of having once, on a disputed question of supplies, made some hasty but determined arrangements to throw her out of a two pair of stairs' window. These evidences of an incompatibility of temper induced Miss Betsey to pay him off, and effect a separation by mutual consent. He went to India with his capital, and there, according to a wild legend in our family, he was once seen riding on an elephant, in company with a Baboon; but I think it must have been a Baboo--or a Begum. Any how, from India tidings of his death reached home, within ten years. How they affected my aunt, nobody knew; for immediately upon the separation, she took her maiden name again, bought a cottage in a hamlet on the sea-coast a long way off, established herself there as a single woman with one servant, and was understood to live secluded, ever afterwards, in an inflexible retirement. My father had once been a favorite of hers, I believe; but she was mortally affronted by his marriage, on the ground that my mother was "a wax doll." She had never seen my mother, but she knew her to be not yet twenty. My father and Miss Betsey never met again. He was double my mother's age when he married, and of but a delicate constitution. He died a year afterwards, and, as I have said, six months before I came into the world. This was the state of matters, on the afternoon of, what _I_ may be excused for calling, that eventful and important Friday. I can make no claim therefore to have known, at that time, how matters stood; or to have any remembrance, founded on the evidence of my own senses, of what follows. My mother was sitting by the fire, but poorly in health, and very low in spirits, looking at it through her tears, and desponding heavily about herself and the fatherless little stranger, who was already welcomed by some grosses of prophetic pins, in a drawer up-stairs, to a world not at all excited on the subject of his arrival; my mother, I say, was sitting by the fire, that bright, windy March afternoon, very timid and sad, and very doubtful of ever coming alive out of the trial that was before her, when, lifting her eyes as she dried them, to the window opposite, she saw a strange lady coming up the garden. My mother had a sure foreboding at the second glance, that it was Miss Betsey. The setting sun was glowing on the strange lady, over the garden-fence, and she came walking up to the door with a fell rigidity of figure and composure of countenance that could have belonged to nobody else. When she reached the house, she gave another proof of her identity. My father had often hinted that she seldom conducted herself like any ordinary Christian; and now, instead of ringing the bell, she came and looked in at that identical window, pressing the end of her nose against the glass to that extent, that my poor dear mother used to say it became perfectly flat and white in a moment. She gave my mother such a turn, that I have always been convinced I am indebted to Miss Betsey for having been born on a Friday. My mother had left her chair in her agitation, and gone behind it in the corner. Miss Betsey, looking round the room, slowly and enquiringly, began on the other side, and carried her eyes on, like a Saracen's Head in a Dutch clock, until they reached my mother. Then she made a frown and a gesture to my mother, like one who was accustomed to be obeyed, to come and open the door. My mother went. "Mrs. David Copperfield, I _think_," said Miss Betsey; the emphasis referring, perhaps, to my mother's mourning weeds, and her condition. "Yes," said my mother, faintly. "Miss Trotwood," said the visitor. "You have heard of her, I dare say?" My mother answered she had had that pleasure. And she had a disagreeable consciousness of not appearing to imply that it had been an overpowering pleasure. "Now you see her," said Miss Betsey. My mother bent her head, and begged her to walk in. They went into the parlor my mother had come from, the fire in the best room on the other side of the passage not being lighted--not having been lighted, indeed, since my father's funeral; and when they were both seated, and Miss Betsey said nothing, my mother, after vainly trying to restrain herself, began to cry. "Oh tut, tut, tut!" said Miss Betsey, in a hurry. "Don't do that! Come, come!" My mother couldn't help it notwithstanding, so she cried until she had had her cry out. "Take off your cap, child," said Miss Betsey, "and let me see you." My mother was too much afraid of her to refuse compliance with this odd request, if she had any disposition to do so. Therefore she did as she was told, and did it with such nervous hands that her hair (which was luxuriant and beautiful) fell all about her face. "Why, bless my heart!" exclaimed Miss Betsey. "You are a very Baby!" My mother was, no doubt, unusually youthful in appearance even for her years; she hung her head, as if it were her fault, poor thing, and said, sobbing, that indeed she was afraid she was but a childish widow, and would be but a childish mother if she lived. In a short pause which ensued, she had a fancy that she felt Miss Betsey touch her hair, and that with no ungentle hand; but, looking at her, in her timid hope, she found that lady sitting with the skirt of her dress tucked up, her hands folded on one knee, and her feet upon the fender, frowning at the fire. "In the name of Heaven," said Miss Betsey, suddenly, "why Rookery?" "Do you mean the house, ma'am?" asked my mother. "Why Rookery?" said Miss Betsey. "Cookery would have been more to the purpose, if you had had any practical ideas of life, either of you." "The name was Mr. Copperfield's choice," returned my mother. "When he bought the house, he liked to think that there were rooks about it." The evening wind made such a disturbance just now, among some tall old elm-trees at the bottom of the garden, that neither my mother nor Miss Betsey could forbear glancing that way. As the elms bent to one another, like giants who were whispering secrets, and after a few seconds of such repose, fell into a violent flurry, tossing their wild arms about, as if their late confidences were really too wicked for their peace of mind, some weather-beaten ragged old rooks'-nests, burdening their higher branches, swung like wrecks upon a stormy sea. "Where are the birds?" asked Miss Betsey. "The ----?" My mother had been thinking of something else. "The rooks--what has become of them?" asked Miss Betsey. "There have not been any since we have lived here," said my mother. "We thought--Mr. Copperfield thought--it was quite a large rookery; but the nests were very old ones, and the birds have deserted them a long while." "David Copperfield all over!" cried Miss Betsey. "David Copperfield from head to foot! Calls a house a rookery when there's not a rook near it, and takes the birds on trust, because he sees the nests!" "Mr. Copperfield," returned my mother, "is dead, and if you dare to speak unkindly of him to me----" My poor dear mother, I suppose, had some momentary intention of committing an assault and battery upon my aunt, who could easily have settled her with one hand, even if my mother had been in far better training for such an encounter than she was that evening. But it passed with the action of rising from her chair; and she sat down again very meekly, and fainted. When she came to herself, or when Miss Betsey had restored her, whichever it was, she found the latter standing at the window. The twilight was by this time shading down into darkness; and dimly as they saw each other, they could not have done that without the aid of the fire. "Well?" said Miss Betsey, coming back to her chair, as if she had only been taking a casual look at the prospect; "and when do you expect----" "I am all in a tremble," faltered my mother. "I don't know what's the matter. I shall die, I am sure!" "No, no, no," said Miss Betsey. "Have some tea." "Oh dear me, dear me, do you think it will do me any good?" cried my mother in a helpless manner. "Of course it will," said Miss Betsey. "It's nothing but fancy. What do you call your girl?" "I don't know that it will be a girl, yet, ma'am," said my mother innocently. "Bless the Baby!" exclaimed Miss Betsey, unconsciously quoting the second sentiment of the pincushion in the drawer up-stairs, but applying it to my mother instead of me, "I don't mean that. I mean your servant-girl." "Peggotty," said my mother. "Peggotty!" repeated Miss Betsey, with some indignation. "Do you mean to say, child, that any human being has gone into a Christian church, and got herself named Peggotty?" "It's her surname," said my mother, faintly. "Mr. Copperfield called her by it, because her Christian name was the same as mine." "Here! Peggotty!" cried Miss Betsey, opening the parlor-door. "Tea. Your mistress is a little unwell. Don't dawdle." Having issued this mandate with as much potentiality as if she had been a recognised authority in the house ever since it had been a house, and having looked out to confront the amazed Peggotty coming along the passage with a candle at the sound of a strange voice, Miss Betsey shut the door again, and sat down as before: with her feet on the fender, the skirt of her dress tucked up, and her hands folded on one knee. "You were speaking about its being a girl," said Miss Betsey. "I have no doubt it will be a girl. I have a presentiment that it must be a girl. Now child, from the moment of the birth of this girl--" "Perhaps boy," my mother took the liberty of putting in. "I tell you I have a presentiment that it must be a girl," returned Miss Betsey. "Don't contradict. From the moment of this girl's birth, child, I intend to be her friend. I intend to be her godmother, and I beg you'll call her Betsey Trotwood Copperfield. There must be no mistakes in life with _this_ Betsey Trotwood. There must be no trifling with _her_ affections, poor dear. She must be well brought up, and well guarded from reposing any foolish confidences where they are not deserved. I must make that _my_ care." There was a twitch of Miss Betsey's head, after each of these sentences, as if her own old wrongs were working within her, and she repressed any plainer reference to them by strong constraint. So my mother suspected, at least, as she observed her by the low glimmer of the fire: too much scared by Miss Betsey, too uneasy in herself, and too subdued and bewildered altogether, to observe anything very clearly, or to know what to say. "And was David good to you, child?" asked Miss Betsey, when she had been silent for a little while, and these motions of her head had gradually ceased. "Were you comfortable together?" "We were very happy," said my mother. "Mr. Copperfield was only too good to me." "What, he spoilt you, I suppose?" returned Miss Betsey. "For being quite alone and dependent on myself in this rough world again, yes, I fear he did indeed," sobbed my mother. "Well! Don't cry!" said Miss Betsey. "You were not equally matched, child--if any two people _can_ be equally matched--and so I asked the question. You were an orphan, weren't you?" "Yes." "And a governess?" "I was nursery-governess in a family where Mr. Copperfield came to visit. Mr. Copperfield was very kind to me, and took a great deal of notice of me, and paid me a good deal of attention, and at last proposed to me. And I accepted him. And so we were married," said my mother simply. "Ha! poor Baby!" mused Miss Betsey, with her frown still bent upon the fire. "Do you know anything?" "I beg your pardon, ma'am," faltered my mother. "About keeping house, for instance," said Miss Betsey. "Not much, I fear," returned my mother. "Not so much as I could wish. But Mr. Copperfield was teaching me--" ("Much he knew about it himself!") said Miss Betsey in a parenthesis. --"And I hope I should have improved, being very anxious to learn, and he very patient to teach, if the great misfortune of his death"--my mother broke down again here, and could get no farther. "Well, well!" said Miss Betsey. --"I kept my housekeeping-book regularly, and balanced it with Mr. Copperfield every night," cried my mother in another burst of distress, and breaking down again. "Well, well!" said Miss Betsey. "Don't cry any more." --"And I am sure we never had a word of difference respecting it, except when Mr. Copperfield objected to my threes and fives being too much like each other, or to my putting curly tails to my sevens and nines," resumed my mother in another burst, and breaking down again. "You'll make yourself ill," said Miss Betsey, "and you know that will not be good either for you or for my god-daughter. Come! You mustn't do it!" This argument had some share in quieting my mother, though her increasing indisposition perhaps had a larger one. There was an interval of silence, only broken by Miss Betsey's occasionally ejaculating "Ha!" as she sat with her feet upon the fender. "David had bought an annuity for himself with his money, I know," said she, by and by. "What did he do for you?" "Mr. Copperfield," said my mother, answering with some difficulty, "was so considerate and good as to secure the reversion of a part of it to me." "How much?" asked Miss Betsey. "A hundred and five pounds a year," said my mother. "He might have done worse," said my aunt. The word was appropriate to the moment. My mother was so much worse that Peggotty, coming in with the teaboard and candles, and seeing at a glance how ill she was,--as Miss Betsey might have done sooner if there had been light enough,--conveyed her up-stairs to her own room with all speed; and immediately dispatched Ham Peggotty, her nephew, who had been for some days past secreted in the house, unknown to my mother, as a special messenger in case of emergency, to fetch the nurse and doctor. Those allied powers were considerably astonished, when they arrived within a few minutes of each other, to find an unknown lady of portentous appearance, sitting before the fire, with her bonnet tied over her left arm, stopping her ears with jewellers' cotton. Peggotty knowing nothing about her, and my mother saying nothing about her, she was quite a mystery in the parlor; and the fact of her having a magazine of jewellers' cotton in her pocket, and sticking the article in her ears in that way, did not detract from the solemnity of her presence. The doctor having been up-stairs and come down again, and having satisfied himself, I suppose, that there was a probability of this unknown lady and himself having to sit there, face to face, for some hours, laid himself out to be polite and social. He was the meekest of his sex, the mildest of little men. He sidled in and out of a room, to take up the less space. He walked as softly as the Ghost in Hamlet, and more slowly. He carried his head on one side, partly in modest depreciation of himself, partly in modest propitiation of everybody else. It is nothing to say that he hadn't a word to throw at a dog. He couldn't have _thrown_ a word at a mad dog. He might have offered him one gently, or half a one, or a fragment of one; for he spoke as slowly as he walked; but he wouldn't have been rude to him, and he couldn't have been quick with him, for any earthly consideration. Mr. Chillip, looking mildly at my aunt, with his head on one side, and making her a little bow, said, in allusion to the jewellers' cotton, as he softly touched his left ear: "Some local irritation, ma'am?" "What!" replied my aunt, pulling the cotton out of one ear like a cork. Mr. Chillip was so alarmed by her abruptness--as he told my mother afterwards--that it was a mercy he didn't lose his presence of mind. But he repeated, sweetly: "Some local irritation, ma'am?" "Nonsense!" replied my aunt, and corked herself again, at one blow. Mr. Chillip could do nothing after this, but sit and look at her feebly, as she sat and looked at the fire, until he was called up-stairs again. After some quarter of an hour's absence, he returned. "Well?" said my aunt, taking the cotton out of the ear nearest to him. "Well, ma'am," returned Mr. Chillip, "we are--we are progressing slowly, ma'am." "Ba--a--ah!" said my aunt, with a perfect shake on the contemptuous interjection. And corked herself, as before. Really--really--as Mr. Chillip told my mother, he was almost shocked; speaking in a professional point of view alone, he was almost shocked. But he sat and looked at her, notwithstanding, for nearly two hours, as she sat looking at the fire, until he was again called out. After another absence, he again returned. "Well?" said my aunt, taking out the cotton on that side again. "Well, ma'am," returned Mr. Chillip, "we are--we are progressing slowly, ma'am." "Ya--a--ah!" said my aunt. With such a snarl at him, that Mr. Chillip absolutely could not bear it. It was really calculated to break his spirit, he said afterwards. He preferred to go and sit upon the stairs, in the dark and a strong draught, until he was again sent for. Ham Peggotty, who went to the national school, and was a very dragon at his catechism, and who may therefore be regarded as a credible witness, reported next day, that happening to peep in at the parlor-door an hour after this, he was instantly descried by Miss Betsey, then walking to and fro in a state of agitation, and pounced upon before he could make his escape. That there were now occasional sounds of feet and voices overhead which he inferred the cotton did not exclude, from the circumstance of his evidently being clutched by the lady as a victim on whom to expend her superabundant agitation when the sounds were loudest. That, marching him constantly up and down by the collar (as if he had been taking too much laudanum), she, at those times, shook him, rumpled his hair, made light of his linen, stopped _his_ ears as if she confounded them with her own, and otherwise touzled and maltreated him. This was in part confirmed by his aunt, who saw him at half-past twelve o'clock, soon after his release, and affirmed that he was then as red as I was. The mild Mr. Chillip could not possibly bear malice at such a time, if at any time. He sidled into the parlor as soon as he was at liberty, and said to my aunt in his meekest manner: "Well, ma'am, I am happy to congratulate you." "What upon?" said my aunt, sharply. Mr. Chillip was fluttered again, by the extreme severity of my aunt's manner; so he made her a little bow and gave her a little smile, to mollify her. "Mercy on the man, what's he doing!" cried my aunt, impatiently. "Can't he speak?" "Be calm, my dear ma'am," said Mr. Chillip, in his softest accents. "There is no longer any occasion for uneasiness, ma'am. Be calm." It has since been considered almost a miracle that my aunt didn't shake him, and shake what he had to say, out of him. She only shook her own head at him, but in a way that made him quail. "Well, ma'am," resumed Mr. Chillip, as soon as he had courage, "I am happy to congratulate you. All is now over, ma'am, and well over." During the five minutes or so that Mr. Chillip devoted to the delivery of this oration, my aunt eyed him narrowly. "How is she?" said my aunt, folding her arms with her bonnet still tied on one of them. "Well, ma'am, she will soon be quite comfortable, I hope," returned Mr. Chillip. "Quite as comfortable as we can expect a young mother to be, under these melancholy domestic circumstances. There cannot be any objection to your seeing her presently, ma'am. It may do her good." "And _she_. How is _she_?" said my aunt, sharply. Mr. Chillip laid his head a little more on one side, and looked at my aunt like an amiable bird. "The baby," said my aunt. "How is she?" "Ma'am," returned Mr. Chillip, "I apprehended you had known. It's a boy." My aunt said never a word, but took her bonnet by the strings, in the manner of a sling, aimed a blow at Mr. Chillip's head with it, put it on bent, walked out, and never came back. She vanished like a discontented fairy; or like one of those supernatural beings, whom it was popularly supposed I was entitled to see; and never came back any more. No. I lay in my basket, and my mother lay in her bed; but Betsey Trotwood Copperfield was for ever in the land of dreams and shadows, the tremendous region whence I had so lately travelled; and the light upon the window of our room shone out upon the earthly bourne of all such travellers, and the mound above the ashes and the dust that once was he, without whom I had never been. CHAPTER II. I OBSERVE. The first objects that assume a distinct presence before me, as I look far back, into the blank of my infancy, are my mother with her pretty hair and youthful shape, and Peggotty with no shape at all, and eyes so dark that they seemed to darken their whole neighbourhood in her face, and cheeks and arms so hard and red that I wondered the birds didn't peck her in preference to apples. I believe I can remember these two at a little distance apart, dwarfed to my sight by stooping down or kneeling on the floor, and I going unsteadily from the one to the other. I have an impression on my mind which I cannot distinguish from actual remembrance, of the touch of Peggotty's fore-finger as she used to hold it out to me, and of its being roughened by needlework, like a pocket nutmeg-grater. This may be fancy, though I think the memory of most of us can go farther back into such times than many of us suppose; just as I believe the power of observation in numbers of very young children to be quite wonderful for its closeness and accuracy. Indeed, I think that most grown men who are remarkable in this respect, may with greater propriety be said not to have lost the faculty, than to have acquired it; the rather, as I generally observe such men to retain a certain freshness, and gentleness, and capacity of being pleased, which are also an inheritance they have preserved from their childhood. I might have a misgiving that I am "meandering" in stopping to say this, but that it brings me to remark that I build these conclusions, in part upon my own experience of myself; and if it should appear from anything I may set down in this narrative that I was a child of close observation, or that as a man I have a strong memory of my childhood, I undoubtedly lay claim to both of these characteristics. Looking back, as I was saying, into the blank of my infancy, the first objects I can remember as standing out by themselves from a confusion of things, are my mother and Peggotty. What else do I remember? Let me see. There comes out of the cloud, our house--not new to me, but quite familiar, in its earliest remembrance. On the ground-floor is Peggotty's kitchen, opening into a back yard; with a pigeon-house on a pole, in the centre, without any pigeons in it; a great dog-kennel in a corner, without any dog; and a quantity of fowls that look terribly tall to me, walking about, in a menacing and ferocious manner. There is one cock who gets upon a post to crow, and seems to take particular notice of me as I look at him through the kitchen-window, who makes me shiver, he is so fierce. Of the geese outside the side-gate who come waddling after me with their long necks stretched out when I go that way, I dream at night: as a man environed by wild beasts might dream of lions. Here is a long passage--what an enormous perspective I make of it!--leading from Peggotty's kitchen to the front-door. A dark store-room opens out of it, and that is a place to be run past at night; for I don't know what may be among those tubs and jars and old tea-chests, when there is nobody in there with a dimly-burning light, letting a mouldy air come out at the door, in which there is the smell of soap, pickles, pepper, candles, and coffee, all at one whiff. Then there are the two parlors: the parlor in which we sit of an evening, my mother and I and Peggotty--for Peggotty is quite our companion, when her work is done and we are alone--and the best parlor where we sit on a Sunday; grandly, but not so comfortably. There is something of a doleful air about that room to me, for Peggotty has told me--I don't know when, but apparently ages ago--about my father's funeral, and the company having their black cloaks put on. One Sunday night my mother reads to Peggotty and me in there, how Lazarus was raised up from the dead. And I am so frightened that they are afterwards obliged to take me out of bed, and shew me the quiet churchyard out of the bedroom window, with the dead all lying in their graves at rest, below the solemn moon. There is nothing half so green that I know anywhere, as the grass of that churchyard; nothing half so shady as its trees; nothing half so quiet as its tombstones. The sheep are feeding there, when I kneel up, early in the morning, in my little bed in a closet within my mother's room, to look out at it; and I see the red light shining on the sun-dial, and think within myself, "Is the sun-dial glad, I wonder, that it can tell the time again?" [Illustration: Our Pew at Church.] Here is our pew in the church. What a high-backed pew! With a window near it, out of which our house can be seen, and _is_ seen many times during the morning's service, by Peggotty, who likes to make herself as sure as she can that it's not being robbed, or is not in flames. But though Peggotty's eye wanders, she is much offended if mine does, and frowns to me, as I stand upon the seat, that I am to look at the clergyman. But I can't always look at him--I know him without that white thing on, and I am afraid of his wondering why I stare so, and perhaps stopping the service to enquire--and what am I to do? It's a dreadful thing to gape, but I must do something. I look at my mother, but _she_ pretends not to see me. I look at a boy in the aisle, and _he_ makes faces at me. I look at the sunlight coming in at the open door through the porch, and there I see a stray sheep--I don't mean a sinner, but mutton--half making up his mind to come into the church. I feel that if I looked at him any longer, I might be tempted to say something out loud; and what would become of me then! I look up at the monumental tablets on the wall, and try to think of Mr. Bodgers late of this parish, and what the feelings of Mrs. Bodgers must have been, when affliction sore, long time Mr. Bodgers bore, and physicians were in vain. I wonder whether they called in Mr. Chillip, and he was in vain; and if so, how he likes to be reminded of it once a week. I look from Mr. Chillip, in his Sunday neckcloth, to the pulpit; and think what a good place it would be to play in, and what a castle it would make, with another boy coming up the stairs to attack it, and having the velvet cushion with the tassels thrown down on his head. In time my eyes gradually shut up; and, from seeming to hear the clergyman singing a drowsy song in the heat, I hear nothing, until I fall off the seat with a crash, and am taken out, more dead than alive, by Peggotty. And now I see the outside of our house, with the latticed bedroom-windows standing open to let in the sweet-smelling air, and the ragged old rooks'-nests still dangling in the elm-trees at the bottom of the front garden. Now I am in the garden at the back, beyond the yard where the empty pigeon-house and dog-kennel are--a very preserve of butterflies, as I remember it, with a high fence, and a gate and padlock; where the fruit clusters on the trees, riper and richer than fruit has ever been since, in any other garden, and where my mother gathers some in a basket, while I stand by, bolting furtive gooseberries, and trying to look unmoved. A great wind rises, and the summer is gone in a moment. We are playing in the winter twilight, dancing about the parlor. When my mother is out of breath and rests herself in an elbow-chair, I watch her winding her bright curls round her fingers, and straitening her waist, and nobody knows better than I do that she likes to look so well, and is proud of being so pretty. That is among my very earliest impressions. That, and a sense that we were both a little afraid of Peggotty, and submitted ourselves in most things to her direction, were among the first opinions--if they may be so called--that I ever derived from what I saw. Peggotty and I were sitting one night by the parlor fire, alone. I had been reading to Peggotty about crocodiles. I must have read very perspicuously, or the poor soul must have been deeply interested, for I remember she had a cloudy impression, after I had done, that they were a sort of vegetable. I was tired of reading, and dead sleepy; but having leave, as a high treat, to sit up until my mother came home from spending the evening at a neighbour's, I would rather have died upon my post (of course) than have gone to bed. I had reached that stage of sleepiness when Peggotty seemed to swell and grow immensely large. I propped my eyelids open with my two forefingers, and looked perseveringly at her as she sat at work; at the little bit of wax-candle she kept for her thread--how old it looked, being so wrinkled in all directions!--at the little house with a thatched roof, where the yard-measure lived; at her work-box with a sliding lid, with a view of Saint Paul's Cathedral (with a pink dome) painted on the top; at the brass thimble on her finger; at herself, whom I thought lovely. I felt so sleepy, that I knew if I lost sight of anything, for a moment, I was gone. "Peggotty," says I, suddenly, "were you ever married?" "Lord, Master Davy," replied Peggotty. "What's put marriage in your head!" She answered with such a start, that it quite awoke me. And then she stopped in her work, and looked at me, with her needle drawn out to its thread's length. "But _were_ you ever married, Peggotty?" says I. "You are a very handsome woman, an't you?" I thought her in a different style from my mother, certainly; but of another school of beauty, I considered her a perfect example. There was a red velvet footstool in the best parlor, on which my mother had painted a nosegay. The ground-work of that stool, and Peggotty's complexion, appeared to me to be one and the same thing. The stool was smooth, and Peggotty was rough, but that made no difference. "Me handsome, Davy!" said Peggotty. "Lawk, no, my dear! But what put marriage in your head?" "I don't know!--You mustn't marry more than one person at a time, may you, Peggotty?" "Certainly not," says Peggotty, with the promptest decision. "But if you marry a person, and the person dies, why then you may marry another person, mayn't you, Peggotty?" "You MAY," says Peggotty, "if you choose, my dear. That's a matter of opinion." "But what is your opinion, Peggotty?" said I. I asked her, and looked curiously at her, because she looked so curiously at me. "My opinion is," said Peggotty, taking her eyes from me, after a little indecision and going on with her work, "that I never was married myself, Master Davy, and that I don't expect to be. That's all I know about the subject." "You an't cross, I suppose, Peggotty, are you?" said I, after sitting quiet for a minute. I really thought she was, she had been so short with me; but I was quite mistaken: for she laid aside her work, (which was a stocking of her own,) and opening her arms wide, took my curly head within them, and gave it a good squeeze. I know it was a good squeeze, because, being very plump, whenever she made any little exertion after she was dressed, some of the buttons on the back of her gown flew off. And I recollect two bursting to the opposite side of the parlor, while she was hugging me. "Now let me hear some more about the Crorkindills," said Peggotty, who was not quite right in the name yet, "for I an't heard half enough." I couldn't quite understand why Peggotty looked so queer, or why she was so ready to go back to the crocodiles. However, we returned to those monsters, with fresh wakefulness on my part, and we left their eggs in the sand for the sun to hatch; and we ran away from them, and baffled them by constantly turning, which they were unable to do quickly, on account of their unwieldy make; and we went into the water after them, as natives, and put sharp pieces of timber down their throats; and in short we ran the whole crocodile gauntlet. _I_ did at least; but I had my doubts of Peggotty, who was thoughtfully sticking her needle into various parts of her face and arms, all the time. We had exhausted the crocodiles, and begun with the alligators, when the garden-bell rang. We went out to the door; and there was my mother, looking unusually pretty, I thought, and with her a gentleman with beautiful black hair and whiskers, who had walked home with us from church last Sunday. As my mother stooped down on the threshhold to take me in her arms and kiss me, the gentleman said I was a more highly privileged little fellow than a monarch--or something like that; for my later understanding comes, I am sensible, to my aid here. "What does that mean?" I asked him, over her shoulder. He patted me on the head; but somehow, I didn't like him or his deep voice, and I was jealous that his hand should touch my mother's in touching me--which it did. I put it away, as well as I could. "Oh Davy!" remonstrated my mother. "Dear boy!" said the gentleman. "I cannot wonder at his devotion!" I never saw such a beautiful color on my mother's face before. She gently chid me for being rude; and, keeping me close to her shawl, turned to thank the gentleman for taking so much trouble as to bring her home. She put out her hand to him as she spoke, and, as he met it with his own, she glanced, I thought, at me. "Let us say 'good night,' my fine boy," said the gentleman, when he had bent his head--_I_ saw him!--over my mother's little glove. "Good night!" said I. "Come! Let us be the best friends in the world!" said the gentleman, laughing. "Shake hands!" My right hand was in my mother's left, so I gave him the other. "Why that's the wrong hand, Davy!" laughed the gentleman. My mother drew my right hand forward, but I was resolved, for my former reason, not to give it him, and I did not. I gave him the other, and he shook it heartily, and said I was a brave fellow, and went away. At this minute I see him turn round in the garden, and give us a last look with his ill-omened black eyes, before the door was shut. Peggotty, who had not said a word or moved a finger, secured the fastenings instantly, and we all went into the parlor. My mother, contrary to her usual habit, instead of coming to the elbow-chair by the fire, remained at the other end of the room, and sat singing to herself. "--Hope you have had a pleasant evening, ma'am," said Peggotty, standing as stiff as a barrel in the centre of the room, with a candlestick in her hand. "Much obliged to you, Peggotty," returned my mother, in a cheerful voice, "I have had a _very_ pleasant evening." "A stranger or so makes an agreeable change," suggested Peggotty. "A very agreeable change indeed," returned my mother. Peggotty continuing to stand motionless in the middle of the room, and my mother resuming her singing, I fell asleep, though I was not so sound asleep but that I could hear voices, without hearing what they said. When I half awoke from this uncomfortable doze, I found Peggotty and my mother both in tears, and both talking. "Not such a one as this, Mr. Copperfield wouldn't have liked," said Peggotty. "That I say, and that I swear!" "Good Heavens!" cried my mother. "You'll drive me mad! Was ever any poor girl so ill-used by her servants as I am! Why do I do myself the injustice of calling myself a girl? Have I never been married, Peggotty?" "God knows you have, ma'am," returned Peggotty. "Then how can you dare," said my mother--"you know I don't mean how can you dare, Peggotty, but how can you have the heart--to make me so uncomfortable and say such bitter things to me, when you are well aware that I haven't, out of this place, a single friend to turn to!" "The more's the reason," returned Peggotty, "for saying that it won't do. No! That it won't do. No! No price could make it do. No!"--I thought Peggotty would have thrown the candlestick away, she was so emphatic with it. "How can you be so aggravating," said my mother, shedding more tears than before, "as to talk in such an unjust manner! How can you go on as if it was all settled and arranged, Peggotty, when I tell you over and over again, you cruel thing, that beyond the commonest civilities nothing has passed! You talk of admiration. What am I to do? If people are so silly as to indulge the sentiment, is it my fault? What am I to do, I ask you? Would you wish me to shave my head and black my face, or disfigure myself with a burn, or a scald, or something of that sort? I dare say you would, Peggotty. I dare say you'd quite enjoy it." Peggotty seemed to take this aspersion very much to heart, I thought. "And my dear boy," cried my mother, coming to the elbow-chair in which I was, and caressing me, "my own little Davy! Is it to be hinted to me that I am wanting in affection for my precious treasure, the dearest little fellow that ever was!" "Nobody never went and hinted no such a thing," said Peggotty. "You did, Peggotty!" returned my mother. "You know you did. What else was it possible to infer from what you said, you unkind creature, when you know as well as I do, that on his account only last quarter I wouldn't buy myself a new parasol, though that old green one is frayed the whole way up, and the fringe is perfectly mangy. You know it is, Peggotty. You can't deny it." Then, turning affectionately to me, with her cheek against mine, "Am I a naughty mama to you, Davy? Am I a nasty, cruel, selfish, bad mama? Say I am, my child; say 'yes;' dear boy, and Peggotty will love you, and Peggotty's love is a great deal better than mine, Davy. _I_ don't love you at all, do I?" At this, we all fell a-crying together. I think I was the loudest of the party, but I am sure we were all sincere about it. I was quite heartbroken myself, and am afraid that in the first transports of wounded tenderness I called Peggotty a "Beast." That honest creature was in deep affliction, I remember, and must have become quite buttonless on the occasion; for a little volley of those explosives went off, when, after having made it up with my mother, she kneeled down by the elbow-chair, and made it up with me. We went to bed greatly dejected. My sobs kept waking me, for a long time; and when one very strong sob quite hoisted me up in bed, I found my mother sitting on the coverlet, and leaning over me. I fell asleep in her arms, after that, and slept soundly. Whether it was the following Sunday when I saw the gentleman again, or whether there was any greater lapse of time before he reappeared, I cannot recal. I don't profess to be clear about dates. But there he was, in church, and he walked home with us afterwards. He came in, too, to look at a famous geranium we had, in the parlor-window. It did not appear to me that he took much notice of it, but before he went he asked my mother to give him a bit of the blossom. She begged him to choose it for himself, but he refused to do that--I could not understand why--so she plucked it for him, and gave it into his hand. He said he would never, never, part with it any more; and I thought he must be quite a fool not to know that it would fall to pieces in a day or two. Peggotty began to be less with us, of an evening, than she had always been. My mother deferred to her very much--more than usual, it occurred to me--and we were all three excellent friends; still we were different from what we used to be, and were not so comfortable among ourselves. Sometimes I fancied that Peggotty perhaps objected to my mother's wearing all the pretty dresses she had in her drawers, or to her going so often to visit at that neighbour's; but I couldn't, to my satisfaction, make out how it was. Gradually, I became used to seeing the gentleman with the black whiskers. I liked him no better than at first, and had the same uneasy jealousy of him; but if I had any reason for it beyond a child's instinctive dislike, and a general idea that Peggotty and I could make much of my mother without any help, it certainly was not _the_ reason that I might have found if I had been older. No such thing came into my mind, or near it. I could observe, in little pieces, as it were; but as to making a net of a number of these pieces, and catching anybody in it, that was, as yet, beyond me. One autumn morning I was with my mother in the front garden, when Mr. Murdstone--I knew him by that name now--came by, on horseback. He reined up his horse to salute my mother, and said he was going to Lowestoft to see some friends who were there with a yacht, and merrily proposed to take me on the saddle before him if I would like the ride. The air was so clear and pleasant, and the horse seemed to like the idea of the ride so much himself, as he stood snorting and pawing at the garden-gate, that I had a great desire to go. So I was sent up-stairs to Peggotty to be made spruce; and in the meantime Mr. Murdstone dismounted, and, with his horse's bridle drawn over his arm, walked slowly up and down on the outer side of the sweetbriar fence, while my mother walked slowly up and down on the inner to keep him company. I recollect Peggotty and I peeping out at them from my little window; I recollect how closely they appeared to be examining the sweetbriar between them, as they strolled along; and how, from being in a perfectly angelic temper, Peggotty turned cross in a moment, and brushed my hair the wrong way, excessively hard. Mr. Murdstone and I were soon off, and trotting along on the green turf by the side of the road. He held me quite easily with one arm, and I don't think I was restless usually; but I could not make up my mind to sit in front of him without turning my head sometimes, and looking up in his face. He had that kind of shallow black eye--I want a better word to express an eye that has no depth in it to be looked into--which, when it is abstracted, seems from some peculiarity of light to be disfigured, for a moment at a time, by a cast. Several times when I glanced at him, I observed that appearance with a sort of awe, and wondered what he was thinking about so closely. His hair and whiskers were blacker and thicker, looked at so near, than even I had given them credit for being. A squareness about the lower part of his face, and the dotted indication of the strong black beard he shaved close every day, reminded me of the wax-work that had travelled into our neighbourhood some half-a-year before. This, his regular eyebrows, and the rich white, and black, and brown, of his complexion--confound his complexion, and his memory!--made me think him, in spite of my misgivings, a very handsome man. I have no doubt that my poor dear mother thought him so too. We went to an hotel by the sea, where two gentlemen were smoking cigars in a room by themselves. Each of them was lying on at least four chairs, and had a large rough jacket on. In a corner was a heap of coats and boat-cloaks, and a flag, all bundled up together. They both rolled on to their feet in an untidy sort of manner when we came in, and said "Halloa, Murdstone! We thought you were dead!" "Not yet," said Mr. Murdstone. "And who's this shaver?" said one of the gentlemen, taking hold of me. "That's Davy," returned Mr. Murdstone. "Davy who?" said the gentleman. "Jones?" "Copperfield," said Mr. Murdstone. "What! Bewitching Mrs. Copperfield's incumbrance?" cried the gentleman. "The pretty little widow?" "Quinion," said Mr. Murdstone, "take care, if you please. Somebody's sharp." "Who is?" asked the gentleman, laughing. I looked up, quickly; being curious to know. "Only Brooks of Sheffield," said Mr. Murdstone. I was quite relieved to find it was only Brooks of Sheffield; for, at first, I really thought it was I. There seemed to be something very comical in the reputation of Mr. Brooks of Sheffield, for both the gentlemen laughed heartily when he was mentioned, and Mr. Murdstone was a good deal amused also. After some laughing, the gentleman whom he had called Quinion, said: "And what is the opinion of Brooks of Sheffield, in reference to the projected business?" "Why, I don't know that Brooks understands much about it at present," replied Mr. Murdstone; "but he is not generally favourable, I believe." There was more laughter at this, and Mr. Quinion said he would ring the bell for some sherry in which to drink to Brooks. This he did; and when the wine came, he made me have a little, with a biscuit, and, before I drank it, stand up and say "Confusion to Brooks of Sheffield!" The toast was received with great applause, and such hearty laughter that it made me laugh too; at which they laughed the more. In short, we quite enjoyed ourselves. We walked about on the cliff after that, and sat on the grass, and looked at things through a telescope--I could make out nothing myself when it was put to my eye, but I pretended I could--and then we came back to the hotel to an early dinner. All the time we were out, the two gentlemen smoked incessantly--which, I thought, if I might judge from the smell of their rough coats, they must have been doing, ever since the coats had first come home from the tailor's. I must not forget that we went on board the yacht, where they all three descended into the cabin, and were busy with some papers. I saw them quite hard at work, when I looked down through the open skylight. They left me, during this time, with a very nice man with a very large head of red hair and a very small shiny hat upon it, who had got a cross-barred shirt or waistcoat on, with "Skylark" in capital letters across the chest. I thought it was his name; and that as he lived on board ship and hadn't a street-door to put his name on, he put it there instead; but when I called him Mr. Skylark, he said it meant the vessel. I observed all day that Mr. Murdstone was graver and steadier than the two gentlemen. They were very gay and careless. They joked freely with one another, but seldom with him. It appeared to me that he was more clever and cold than they were, and that they regarded him with something of my own feeling. I remarked that once or twice when Mr. Quinion was talking, he looked at Mr. Murdstone sideways, as if to make sure of his not being displeased; and that once when Mr. Passnidge (the other gentleman) was in high spirits, he trod upon his foot, and gave him a secret caution with his eyes, to observe Mr. Murdstone, who was sitting stern and silent. Nor do I recollect that Mr. Murdstone laughed at all that day, except at the Sheffield joke--and that, by the by, was his own. We went home early in the evening. It was a very fine evening, and my mother and he had another stroll by the sweet-briar, while I was sent in to get my tea. When he was gone, my mother asked me all about the day I had had, and what they had said and done. I mentioned what they had said about her, and she laughed, and told me they were impudent fellows who talked nonsense--but I knew it pleased her. I knew it quite as well as I know it now. I took the opportunity of asking if she was at all acquainted with Mr. Brooks of Sheffield, but she answered No, only she supposed he must be a manufacturer in the knife and fork way. Can I say of her face--altered as I have reason to remember it, perished as I know it is--that it is gone, when here it comes before me at this instant, as distinct as any face that I may choose to look on in a crowded street? Can I say of her innocent and girlish beauty, that it faded, and was no more, when its breath falls on my cheek now, as it fell that night? Can I say she ever changed, when my remembrance brings her back to life, thus only; and, truer to its loving youth than I have been, or man ever is, still holds fast what it cherished then? I write of her just as she was when I had gone to bed after this talk, and she came to bid me good night. She kneeled down playfully by the side of the bed, and laying her chin upon her hands, and laughing, said: "What was it they said, Davy? Tell me again. I can't believe it." "'Bewitching----'" I began. My mother put her hands upon her lips to stop me. "It was never bewitching," she said, laughing. "It never could have been bewitching, Davy. Now I know it wasn't!" "Yes it was. 'Bewitching Mrs. Copperfield,'" I repeated stoutly. "And 'pretty.'" "No no, it was never pretty. Not pretty," interposed my mother, laying her fingers on my lips again. "Yes it was. 'Pretty little widow.'" "What foolish, impudent creatures!" cried my mother, laughing and covering her face. "What ridiculous men! An't they? Davy dear----" "Well, Ma." "Don't tell Peggotty; she might be angry with them. I am dreadfully angry with them myself; but I would rather Peggotty didn't know." I promised, of course; and we kissed one another over and over again, and I soon fell fast asleep. It seems to me, at this distance of time, as if it were the next day when Peggotty broached the striking and adventurous proposition I am about to mention; but it was probably about two months afterwards. We were sitting as before, one evening (when my mother was out as before), in company with the stocking and the yard measure, and the bit of wax, and the box with Saint Paul's on the lid, and the crocodile book, when Peggotty, after looking at me several times, and opening her mouth as if she were going to speak, without doing it--which I thought was merely gaping, or I should have been rather alarmed--said coaxingly: "Master Davy, how should you like to go along with me and spend a fortnight at my brother's at Yarmouth? Wouldn't _that_ be a treat?" "Is your brother an agreeable man, Peggotty?" I enquired, provisionally. "Oh what an agreeable man he is!" cried Peggotty, holding up her hands. "Then there's the sea; and the boats and ships; and the fishermen; and the beach; and Am to play with--" Peggotty meant her nephew Ham, mentioned in my first chapter; but she spoke of him as a morsel of English Grammar. I was flushed by her summary of delights, and replied that it would indeed be a treat, but what would my mother say? "Why then I'll as good as bet a guinea," said Peggotty, intent upon my face, "that she'll let us go. I'll ask her, if you like, as soon as ever she comes home. There now!" "But what's she to do while we're away?" said I, putting my small elbows on the table to argue the point. "She can't live by herself." If Peggotty were looking for a hole, all of a sudden, in the heel of that stocking, it must have been a very little one indeed, and not worth darning. "I say! Peggotty! She can't live by herself, you know." "Oh bless you!" said Peggotty, looking at me again at last. "Don't you know? She's going to stay for a fortnight with Mrs. Grayper. Mrs. Grayper's going to have a lot of company." Oh! If that was it, I was quite ready to go. I waited, in the utmost impatience, until my mother came home from Mrs. Grayper's (for it was that identical neighbour), to ascertain if we could get leave to carry out this great idea. Without being nearly so much surprised as I had expected, my mother entered into it readily; and it was all arranged that night, and my board and lodging during the visit were to be paid for. The day soon came for our going. It was such an early day that it came soon, even to me, who was in a fever of expectation, and half afraid that an earthquake or a fiery mountain, or some other great convulsion of nature, might interpose to stop the expedition. We were to go in a carrier's cart, which departed in the morning after breakfast. I would have given any money to have been allowed to wrap myself up over-night, and sleep in my hat and boots. It touches me nearly now, although I tell it lightly, to recollect how eager I was to leave my happy home; to think how little I suspected what I did leave for ever. I am glad to recollect that when the carrier's cart was at the gate, and my mother stood there kissing me, a grateful fondness for her and for the old place I had never turned my back upon before, made me cry. I am glad to know that my mother cried too, and that I felt her heart beat against mine. I am glad to recollect that when the carrier began to move, my mother ran out at the gate, and called to him to stop, that she might kiss me once more. I am glad to dwell upon the earnestness and love with which she lifted up her face to mine, and did so. As we left her standing in the road, Mr. Murdstone came up to where she was, and seemed to expostulate with her for being so moved. I was looking back round the awning of the cart, and wondered what business it was of his. Peggotty, who was also looking back on the other side, seemed anything but satisfied; as the face she brought back into the cart denoted. I sat looking at Peggotty for some time, in a reverie on this supposititious case: whether, if she were employed to lose me like the boy in the fairy tale, I should be able to track my way home again by the buttons she would shed. CHAPTER III. I HAVE A CHANGE. The carrier's horse was the laziest horse in the world, I should hope, and shuffled along, with his head down, as if he liked to keep the people waiting to whom the packages were directed. I fancied, indeed, that he sometimes chuckled audibly over this reflection, but the carrier said he was only troubled with a cough. The carrier had a way of keeping his head down, like his horse, and of drooping sleepily forward as he drove, with one of his arms on each of his knees. I say "drove," but it struck me that the cart would have gone to Yarmouth quite as well without him, for the horse did all that; and as to conversation, he had no idea of it but whistling. Peggotty had a basket of refreshments on her knee, which would have lasted us out handsomely, if we had been going to London by the same conveyance. We ate a good deal, and slept a good deal. Peggotty always went to sleep with her chin upon the handle of the basket, her hold of which never relaxed; and I could not have believed unless I had heard her do it, that one defenceless woman could have snored so much. We made so many deviations up and down lanes, and were such a long time delivering a bedstead at a public-house, and calling at other places, that I was quite tired, and very glad, when we saw Yarmouth. It looked rather spongy and soppy, I thought, as I carried my eye over the great dull waste that lay across the river; and I could not help wondering, if the world were really as round as my geography-book said, how any part of it came to be so flat. But I reflected that Yarmouth might be situated at one of the poles; which would account for it. As we drew a little nearer, and saw the whole adjacent prospect lying a straight low line under the sky, I hinted to Peggotty that a mound or so might have improved it; and also that if the land had been a little more separated from the sea, and the town and the tide had not been quite so much mixed up, like toast and water, it would have been nicer. But Peggotty said, with greater emphasis than usual, that we must take things as we found them, and that, for her part, she was proud to call herself a Yarmouth Bloater. When we got into the street (which was strange enough to me), and smelt the fish, and pitch, and oakum, and tar, and saw the sailors walking about, and the carts jingling up and down over the stones, I felt that I had done so busy a place an injustice; and said as much to Peggotty, who heard my expressions of delight with great complacency, and told me it was well known (I suppose to those who had the good fortune to be born Bloaters) that Yarmouth was, upon the whole, the finest place in the universe. "Here's my Am!" screamed Peggotty, "growed out of knowledge!" He was waiting for us, in fact, at the public-house; and asked me how I found myself, like an old acquaintance. I did not feel, at first, that I knew him as well as he knew me, because he had never come to our house since the night I was born, and naturally he had the advantage of me. But our intimacy was much advanced by his taking me on his back to carry me home. He was, now, a huge, strong fellow of six feet high, broad in proportion, and round-shouldered; but with a simpering boy's face and curly light hair that gave him quite a sheepish look. He was dressed in a canvas jacket, and a pair of such very stiff trousers that they would have stood quite as well alone, without any legs in them. And you couldn't so properly have said he wore a hat, as that he was covered in a-top, like an old building, with something pitchy. Ham carrying me on his back and a small box of ours under his arm, and Peggotty carrying another small box of ours, we turned down lanes bestrewn with bits of chips and little hillocks of sand, and went past gas-works, rope-walks, boat-builders' yards, ship-wrights' yards, ship-breakers' yards, caulkers' yards, riggers' lofts, smiths' forges, and a great litter of such places, until we came out upon the dull waste I had already seen at a distance; when Ham said, "Yon's our house, Mas'r Davy!" I looked in all directions, as far as I could stare over the wilderness, and away at the sea, and away at the river, but no house could _I_ make out. There was a black barge, or some other kind of superannuated boat, not far off, high and dry on the ground, with an iron funnel sticking out of it for a chimney and smoking very cosily; but nothing else in the way of a habitation that was visible to _me_. "That's not it?" said I. "That ship-looking thing?" "That's it, Mas'r Davy," returned Ham. If it had been Aladdin's palace, roc's egg and all, I suppose I could not have been more charmed with the romantic idea of living in it. There was a delightful door cut in the side, and it was roofed in, and there were little windows in it; but the wonderful charm of it was, that it was a real boat which had no doubt been upon the water hundreds of times, and which had never been intended to be lived in, on dry land. That was the captivation of it to me. If it had ever been meant to be lived in, I might have thought it small, or inconvenient, or lonely; but never having been designed for any such use, it became a perfect abode. It was beautifully clean inside, and as tidy as possible. There was a table, and a Dutch clock, and a chest of drawers, and on the chest of drawers there was a tea-tray with a painting on it of a lady with a parasol, taking a walk with a military-looking child who was trundling a hoop. The tray was kept from tumbling down, by a bible; and the tray, if it had tumbled down, would have smashed a quantity of cups and saucers and a teapot that were grouped around the book. On the walls there were some common colored pictures, framed and glazed, of scripture subjects; such as I have never seen since in the hands of pedlars, without seeing the whole interior of Peggotty's brother's house again, at one view. Abraham in red going to sacrifice Isaac in blue, and Daniel in yellow cast into a den of green lions, were the most prominent of these. Over the little mantel-shelf, was a picture of the Sarah Jane lugger, built at Sunderland, with a real little wooden stern stuck on to it; a work of art, combining composition with carpentery, which I considered to be one of the most enviable possessions that the world could afford. There were some hooks in the beams of the ceiling, the use of which I did not divine then; and some lockers and boxes and conveniences of that sort, which served for seats and eked out the chairs. All this, I saw in the first glance after I crossed the threshold--childlike, according to my theory--and then Peggotty opened a little door and showed me my bedroom. It was the completest and most desirable bedroom ever seen--in the stern of the vessel; with a little window, where the rudder used to go through; a little looking-glass, just the right height for me, nailed against the wall, and framed with oyster-shells; a little bed, which there was just room enough to get into; and a nosegay of seaweed in a blue mug on the table. The walls were whitewashed as white as milk, and the patchwork counterpane made my eyes quite ache with its brightness. One thing I particularly noticed in this delightful house, was the smell of fish; which was so searching, that when I took out my pocket-handkerchief to wipe my nose, I found it smelt exactly as if it had wrapped up a lobster. On my imparting this discovery in confidence to Peggotty, she informed me that her brother dealt in lobsters, crabs, and crawfish; and I afterwards found that a heap of these creatures, in a state of wonderful conglomeration with one another, and never leaving off pinching whatever they laid hold of, were usually to be found in a little wooden outhouse where the pots and kettles were kept. We were welcomed by a very civil woman in a white apron, whom I had seen curtseying at the door when I was on Ham's back, about a quarter of a mile off. Likewise by a most beautiful little girl (or I thought her so) with a necklace of blue beads on, who wouldn't let me kiss her when I offered to, but ran away and hid herself. By and by, when we had dined in a sumptuous manner off boiled dabs, melted butter, and potatoes, with a chop for me, a hairy man with a very good-natured face came home. As he called Peggotty "Lass," and gave her a hearty smack on the cheek, I had no doubt, from the general propriety of her conduct, that he was her brother; and so he turned out--being presently introduced to me as Mr. Peggotty, the master of the house. "Glad to see you, sir," said Mr. Peggotty. "You'll find us rough, sir, but you'll find us ready." [Illustration: I am hospitably received by Mr. Peggotty.] I thanked him, and replied that I was sure I should be happy in such a delightful place. "How's your Ma, sir," said Mr. Peggotty. "Did you leave her pretty jolly?" I gave Mr. Peggotty to understand that she was as jolly as I could wish, and that she desired her compliments--which was a polite fiction on my part. "I'm much obleeged to her, I'm sure," said Mr. Peggotty. "Well sir, if you can make out here, fur a fortnut, 'long wi' her," nodding at his sister, "and Ham, and little Em'ly, we shall be proud of your company." Having done the honors of his house in this hospitable manner, Mr. Peggotty went out to wash himself in a kettleful of hot water, remarking that "cold would never get _his_ muck off." He soon returned, greatly improved in appearance; but so rubicund, that I couldn't help thinking his face had this in common with the lobsters, crabs, and crawfish,--that it went into the hot water very black, and came out very red. After tea, when the door was shut and all was made snug (the nights being cold and misty now), it seemed to me the most delicious retreat that the imagination of man could conceive. To hear the wind getting up out at sea, to know that the fog was creeping over the desolate flat outside, and to look at the fire, and think that there was no house near but this one, and this one a boat, was like enchantment. Little Em'ly had overcome her shyness, and was sitting by my side upon the lowest and least of the lockers, which was just large enough for us two, and just fitted into the chimney corner. Mrs. Peggotty with the white apron, was knitting on the opposite side of the fire. Peggotty at her needle-work was as much at home with Saint Paul's and the bit of wax-candle, as if they had never known any other roof. Ham, who had been giving me my first lesson in all-fours, was trying to recollect a scheme of telling fortunes with the dirty cards, and was printing off fishy impressions of his thumb on all the cards he turned. Mr. Peggotty was smoking his pipe. I felt it was a time for conversation and confidence. "Mr. Peggotty!" says I. "Sir," says he. "Did you give your son the name of Ham, because you lived in a sort of ark?" Mr. Peggotty seemed to think it a deep idea, but answered: "No, sir. I never giv him no name." "Who gave him that name, then?" said I, putting question number two of the catechism to Mr. Peggotty. "Why, sir, his father giv it him," said Mr. Peggotty. "I thought you were his father!" "My brother Joe was _his_ father," said Mr. Peggotty. "Dead, Mr. Peggotty?" I hinted, after a respectful pause. "Drowndead," said Mr. Peggotty. I was very much surprised that Mr. Peggotty was not Ham's father, and began to wonder whether I was mistaken about his relationship to anybody else there. I was so curious to know, that I made up my mind to have it out with Mr. Peggotty. "Little Em'ly," I said, glancing at her. "She is your daughter, isn't she, Mr. Peggotty?" "No, sir. My brother in law, Tom, was _her_ father." I couldn't help it. "--Dead, Mr. Peggotty?" I hinted, after another respectful silence. "Drowndead," said Mr. Peggotty. I felt the difficulty of resuming the subject, but had not got to the bottom of it yet, and must get to the bottom somehow. So I said: "Haven't you _any_ children, Mr. Peggotty?" "No, master," he answered with a short laugh. "I'm a bacheldore." "A bachelor!" I said, astonished. "Why, who's that, Mr. Peggotty?" pointing to the person in the apron who was knitting. "That's Missis Gummidge," said Mr. Peggotty. "Gummidge, Mr. Peggotty?" But at this point Peggotty--I mean my own peculiar Peggotty--made such impressive motions to me not to ask any more questions, that I could only sit and look at all the silent company, until it was time to go to bed. Then, in the privacy of my own little cabin, she informed me that Ham and Em'ly were an orphan nephew and niece, whom my host had at different times adopted in their childhood, when they were left destitute; and that Mrs. Gummidge was the widow of his partner in a boat, who had died very poor. He was but a poor man himself, said Peggotty, but as good as gold and as true as steel--those were her similies. The only subject, she informed me, on which he ever showed a violent temper or swore an oath, was this generosity of his; and if it were ever referred to, by any one of them, he struck the table a heavy blow with his right hand (had split it on one such occasion), and swore a dreadful oath that he would be 'Gormed' if he didn't cut and run for good, if it was ever mentioned again. It appeared, in answer to my inquiries, that nobody had the least idea of the etymology of this terrible verb passive to be gormed; but that they all regarded it as constituting a most solemn imprecation. I was very sensible of my entertainer's goodness, and listened to the women's going to bed in another little crib like mine at the opposite end of the boat, and to him and Ham hanging up two hammocks for themselves on the hooks I had noticed in the roof, in a very luxurious state of mind, enhanced by my being sleepy. As slumber gradually stole upon me, I heard the wind howling out at sea and coming on across the flat so fiercely, that I had a lazy apprehension of the great deep rising in the night. But I bethought myself that I was in a boat, after all; and that a man like Mr. Peggotty was not a bad person to have on board if anything did happen. Nothing happened, however, worse than morning. Almost as soon as it shone upon the oyster-shell frame of my mirror I was out of bed, and out with little Em'ly, picking up stones upon the beach. "You're quite a sailor, I suppose?" I said to Em'ly. I don't know that I supposed any thing of the kind, but I felt it an act of gallantry to say something; and a shining sail close to us made such a pretty little image of itself, at the moment, in her bright eye, that it came into my head to say this. "No," replied Em'ly, shaking her head, "I'm afraid of the sea." "Afraid!" I said, with a becoming air of boldness, and looking very big at the mighty ocean. "_I_ a'nt!" "Ah! but it's cruel," said Em'ly. "I have seen it very cruel to some of our men. I have seen it tear a boat as big as our house, all to pieces." "I hope it wasn't the boat that----" "That father was drownded in?" said Em'ly. "No. Not that one, I never see that boat." "Nor him?" I asked her. Little Em'ly shook her head. "Not to remember!" Here was a coincidence! I immediately went into an explanation how I had never seen my own father; and how my mother and I had always lived by ourselves in the happiest state imaginable, and lived so then, and always meant to live so; and how my father's grave was in the churchyard near our house, and shaded by a tree, beneath the boughs of which I had walked and heard the birds sing many a pleasant morning. But there were some differences between Em'ly's orphanhood and mine, it appeared. She had lost her mother before her father; and where her father's grave was no one knew, except that it was somewhere in the depths of the sea. "Besides," said Em'ly, as she looked about for shells and pebbles, "your father was a gentleman and your mother is a lady; and my father was a fisherman and my mother was a fisherman's daughter, and my uncle Dan is a fisherman." "Dan is Mr. Peggotty, is he?" said I. "Uncle Dan--yonder," answered Em'ly, nodding at the boat-house. "Yes. I mean him. He must be very good, I should think?" "Good?" said Em'ly. "If I was ever to be a lady, I'd give him a sky-blue coat with diamond buttons, nankeen trousers, a red velvet waistcoat, a cocked hat, a large gold watch, a silver pipe, and a box of money." I said I had no doubt that Mr. Peggotty well deserved these treasures. I must acknowledge that I felt it difficult to picture him quite at his ease in the raiment proposed for him by his grateful little niece, and that I was particularly doubtful of the policy of the cocked hat; but I kept these sentiments to myself. Little Em'ly had stopped and looked up at the sky in her enumeration of these articles, as if they were a glorious vision. We went on again, picking up shells and pebbles. "You would like to be a lady?" I said. Emily looked at me, and laughed and nodded "yes." "I should like it very much. We would all be gentlefolks together, then. Me, and uncle, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge. We wouldn't mind then, when there come stormy weather.--Not for our own sakes, I mean. We would for the poor fishermen's, to be sure, and we'd help 'em with money when they come to any hurt." This seemed to me to be a very satisfactory and therefore not at all improbable picture. I expressed my pleasure in the contemplation of it, and little Em'ly was emboldened to say, shyly, "Don't you think you are afraid of the sea, now?" It was quiet enough to reassure me, but I have no doubt if I had seen a moderately large wave come tumbling in, I should have taken to my heels, with an awful recollection of her drowned relations. However, I said "No," and I added, "You don't seem to be, either, though you say you are;"--for she was walking much too near the brink of a sort of old jetty or wooden causeway we had strolled upon, and I was afraid of her falling over. "I'm not afraid in this way," said little Em'ly. "But I wake when it blows, and tremble to think of uncle Dan and Ham, and believe I hear 'em crying out for help. That's why I should like so much to be a lady. But I'm not afraid in this way. Not a bit. Look here!" She started from my side, and ran along a jagged timber which protruded from the place we stood upon, and overhung the deep water at some height, without the least defence. The incident is so impressed on my remembrance, that if I were a draughtsman I could draw its form here, I daresay, accurately as it was that day, and little Em'ly springing forward to her destruction (as it appeared to me), with a look that I have never forgotten, directed far out to sea. The light, bold, fluttering little figure turned and came back safe to me, and I soon laughed at my fears, and at the cry I had uttered; fruitlessly in any case, for there was no one near. But there have been times since, in my manhood, many times there have been, when I have thought, Is it possible, among the possibilities of hidden things, that in the sudden rashness of the child and her wild look so far off, there was any merciful attraction of her into danger, any tempting her towards him permitted on the part of her dead father, that her life might have a chance of ending that day. There has been a time since when I have wondered whether, if the life before her could have been revealed to me at a glance, and so revealed as that a child could fully comprehend it, and if her preservation could have depended on a motion of my hand, I ought to have held it up to save her. There has been a time since--I do not say it lasted long, but it has been--when I have asked myself the question, would it have been better for little Em'ly to have had the waters close above her head that morning in my sight; and when I have answered Yes, it would have been. This may be premature. I have set it down too soon, perhaps. But let it stand. We strolled a long way, and loaded ourselves with things that we thought curious, and put some stranded star-fish carefully back into the water--I hardly know enough of the race at this moment to be quite certain whether they had reason to feel obliged to us for doing so, or the reverse--and then made our way home to Mr. Peggotty's dwelling. We stopped under the lee of the lobster-outhouse to exchange an innocent kiss, and went in to breakfast glowing with health and pleasure. "Like two young mavishes," Mr. Peggotty said. I knew this meant, in our local dialect, like two young thrushes, and received it as a compliment. Of course I was in love with little Em'ly. I am sure I loved that baby quite as truly, quite as tenderly, with greater purity, and more disinterestedness, than can enter into the best love of a later time of life, high and ennobling as it is. I am sure my fancy raised up something round that blue-eyed mite of a child, which etherealised, and made a very angel of her. If, any sunny forenoon, she had spread a little pair of wings and flown away before my eyes, I don't think I should have regarded it as much more than I had had reason to expect. We used to walk about that dim old flat at Yarmouth in a loving manner, hours and hours. The days sported by us, as if Time had not grown up himself yet, but were a child too, and always at play. I told Em'ly I adored her, and that unless she confessed she adored me I should be reduced to the necessity of killing myself with a sword. She said she did, and I have no doubt she did. As to any sense of inequality, or youthfulness, or other difficulty in our way, little Em'ly and I had no such trouble, because we had no future. We made no more provision for growing older, than we did for growing younger. We were the admiration of Mrs. Gummidge and Peggotty, who used to whisper of an evening when we sat, lovingly, on our little locker side by side, "Lor! wasn't it beautiful!" Mr. Peggotty smiled at us from behind his pipe, and Ham grinned all the evening and did nothing else. They had something of the sort of pleasure in us, I suppose, that they might have had in a pretty toy, or a pocket model of the Colosseum. I soon found out that Mrs. Gummidge did not always make herself so agreeable as she might have been expected to do, under the circumstances of her residence with Mr. Peggotty. Mrs. Gummidge's was rather a fretful disposition, and she whimpered more sometimes than was comfortable for other parties in so small an establishment. I was very sorry for her; but there were moments when it would have been more agreeable, I thought, if Mrs. Gummidge had had a convenient apartment of her own to retire to, and had stopped there until her spirits revived. Mr. Peggotty went occasionally to a public house called The Willing Mind. I discovered this, by his being out on the second or third evening of our visit, and by Mrs. Gummidge's looking up at the dutch clock, between eight and nine, and saying he was there, and that, what was more, she had known in the morning he would go there. Mrs. Gummidge had been in a low state all day, and had burst into tears in the forenoon, when the fire smoked. "I am a lone lorn creetur'," were Mrs. Gummidge's words, when that unpleasant occurrence took place, "and everythink goes contrairy with me." "Oh, it'll soon leave off," said Peggotty--I again mean our Peggotty--"and besides, you know, it's not more disagreeable to you than to us." "I feel it more," said Mrs. Gummidge. It was a very cold day, with cutting blasts of wind. Mrs. Gummidge's peculiar corner of the fireside seemed to me to be the warmest and snuggest in the place, as her chair was certainly the easiest, but it didn't suit her that day at all. She was constantly complaining of the cold, and of its occasioning a visitation in her back which she called "the creeps." At last she shed tears on that subject, and said again that she was "a lone lorn creetur' and everythink went contrairy with her." "It is certainly very cold," said Peggotty. "Everybody must feel it so." "I feel it more than other people," said Mrs. Gummidge. So at dinner; when Mrs. Gummidge was always helped immediately after me, to whom the preference was given as a visitor of distinction. The fish were small and bony, and the potatoes were a little burnt. We all acknowledged that we felt this something of a disappointment; but Mrs. Gummidge said she felt it more than we did, and shed tears again, and made that former declaration with great bitterness. Accordingly, when Mr. Peggotty came home about nine o'clock, this unfortunate Mrs. Gummidge was knitting in her corner in a very wretched and miserable condition. Peggotty had been working cheerfully. Ham had been patching up a great pair of water-boots; and I, with little Em'ly by my side, had been reading to them. Mrs. Gummidge had never made any other remark than a forlorn sigh, and had never raised her eyes since tea. "Well, Mates," said Mr. Peggotty, taking his seat, "and how are you?" We all said something, or looked something, to welcome him, except Mrs. Gummidge, who only shook her head over her knitting. "What's amiss," said Mr. Peggotty, with a clap of his hands. "Cheer up, old Mawther!" (Mr. Peggotty meant old girl.) Mrs. Gummidge did not appear to be able to cheer up. She took out an old black silk handkerchief and wiped her eyes; but instead of putting it in her pocket, kept it out, and wiped them again, and still kept it out, ready for use. "What's amiss, dame!" said Mr. Peggotty. "Nothing," returned Mrs. Gummidge. "You've come from The Willing Mind, Dan'l?" "Why yes, I've took a short spell at The Willing Mind to-night," said Mr. Peggotty. "I'm sorry I should drive you there," said Mrs. Gummidge. "Drive! I don't want no driving," returned Mr. Peggotty with an honest laugh. "I only go too ready." "Very ready," said Mrs. Gummidge, shaking her head, and wiping her eyes. "Yes, yes, very ready. I am sorry it should be along of me that you're so ready." "Along o' you? It an't along o' you!" said Mr. Peggotty. "Don't ye believe a bit on it." "Yes, yes, it is," cried Mrs. Gummidge. "I know what I am. I know that I'm a lone lorn creetur, and not only that everythink goes contrairy with me, but that I go contrairy with everybody. Yes, yes. I feel more than other people do, and I show it more. It's my misfortun'." I really couldn't help thinking, as I sat taking in all this, that the misfortune extended to some other members of that family besides Mrs. Gummidge. But Mr. Peggotty made no such retort, only answering with another entreaty to Mrs. Gummidge to cheer up. "I an't what I could wish myself to be," said Mrs. Gummidge. "I am far from it. I know what I am. My troubles has made me contrairy. I feel my troubles, and they make me contrairy. I wish I didn't feel 'em, but I do. I wish I could be hardened to 'em, but I an't. I make the house uncomfortable. I don't wonder at it. I've made your sister so all day, and Master Davy." Here I was suddenly melted, and roared out "No, you haven't, Mrs. Gummidge," in great mental distress. "It's far from right that I should do it," said Mrs. Gummidge. "It an't a fit return. I had better go into the house and die. I am a lone lorn creetur, and had much better not make myself contrairy here. If thinks must go contrairy with me, and I must go contrairy myself, let me go contrairy in my parish. Dan'l, I'd better go into the house, and die and be a riddance!" Mrs. Gummidge retired with these words, and betook herself to bed. When she was gone, Mr. Peggotty, who had not exhibited a trace of any feeling but the profoundest sympathy, looked round upon us, and nodding his head with a lively expression of that sentiment still animating his face, said in a whisper: "She's been thinking of the old 'un!" I did not quite understand what old one Mrs. Gummidge was supposed to have fixed her mind upon, until Peggotty, on seeing me to bed, explained that it was the late Mr. Gummidge; and that her brother always took that for a received truth on such occasions, and that it always had a moving effect upon him. Some time after he was in his hammock that night, I heard him myself repeat to Ham, "Poor thing! She's been thinking of the old 'un!" And whenever Mrs. Gummidge was overcome in a similar manner during the remainder of our stay (which happened some few times), he always said the same thing in extenuation of the circumstance, and always with the tenderest commiseration. So the fortnight slipped away, varied by nothing but the variation of the tide, which altered Mr. Peggotty's times of going out and coming in, and altered Ham's engagements also. When the latter was unemployed, he sometimes walked with us to show us the boats and ships, and once or twice he took us for a row. I don't know why one slight set of impressions should be more particularly associated with a place than another, though I believe this obtains with most people, in reference especially to the associations of their childhood. I never hear the name, or read the name, of Yarmouth, but I am reminded of a certain Sunday morning on the beach, the bells ringing for church, little Em'ly leaning on my shoulder, Ham lazily dropping stones into the water, and the sun, away at sea, just breaking through the heavy mist, and showing us the ships, like their own shadows. At last the day came for going home. I bore up against the separation from Mr. Peggotty and Mrs. Gummidge, but my agony of mind at leaving little Em'ly was piercing. We went arm-in-arm to the public-house where the carrier put up, and I promised, on the road, to write to her. (I redeemed that promise afterwards, in characters larger than those in which apartments are usually announced in manuscript, as being to let). We were greatly overcome at parting; and if ever, in my life, I have had a void made in my heart, I had one made that day. Now, all the time I had been on my visit, I had been ungrateful to my home again, and had thought little or nothing about it. But I was no sooner turned towards it, than my reproachful young conscience seemed to point that way with a steady finger; and I felt, all the more for the sinking of my spirits, that it was my nest, and that my mother was my comforter and friend. This gained upon me as we went along; so that the nearer we drew, and the more familiar the objects became that we passed, the more excited I was to get there, and to run into her arms. But Peggotty, instead of sharing in these transports, tried to check them (though very kindly), and looked confused and out of sorts. Blunderstone Rookery would come, however, in spite of her, when the carrier's horse pleased--and did. How well I recollect it, on a cold grey afternoon, with a dull sky, threatening rain! The door opened, and I looked, half laughing and half crying in my pleasant agitation, for my mother. It was not she, but a strange servant. "Why, Peggotty!" I said, ruefully, "isn't she come home!" "Yes, yes, Master Davy," said Peggotty. "She's come home. Wait a bit, Master Davy, and I'll--I'll tell you something." Between her agitation, and her natural awkwardness in getting out of the cart, Peggotty was making a most extraordinary festoon of herself, but I felt too blank and strange to tell her so. When she had got down, she took me by the hand; led me, wondering, into the kitchen; and shut the door. "Peggotty!" said I, quite frightened. "What's the matter?" "Nothing's the matter, bless you, Master Davy dear!" she answered, assuming an air of sprightliness. "Something's the matter, I'm sure. Where's mama?" "Where's mama, Master Davy?" repeated Peggotty. "Yes. Why hasn't she come out to the gate, and what have we come in here for? Oh, Peggotty!" My eyes were full, and I felt as if I were going to tumble down. "Bless the precious boy!" cried Peggotty, taking hold of me. "What is it? Speak, my pet!" "Not dead, too! Oh, she's not dead, Peggotty?" Peggotty cried out No! with an astonishing volume of voice; and then sat down, and began to pant, and said I had given her a turn. I gave her a hug to take away the turn, or to give her another turn in the right direction, and then stood before her, looking at her in anxious inquiry. "You see, dear, I should have told you before now," said Peggotty, "but I hadn't an opportunity. I ought to have made it, perhaps, but I couldn't azackly"--that was always the substitute for exactly, in Peggotty's militia of words--"bring my mind to it." "Go on, Peggotty," said I, more frightened than before. "Master Davy," said Peggotty, untying her bonnet with a shaking hand, and speaking in a breathless sort of way. "What do you think? You have got a Pa!" I trembled, and turned white. Something--I don't know what, or how--connected with the grave in the churchyard, and the raising of the dead, seemed to strike me like an unwholesome wind. "A new one," said Peggotty. "A new one?" I repeated. Peggotty gave a gasp, as if she were swallowing something that was very hard, and, putting out her hand, said: "Come and see him." "I don't want to see him." --"And your mamma," said Peggotty. I ceased to draw back, and we went straight to the best parlor, where she left me. On one side of the fire, sat my mother; on the other, Mr. Murdstone. My mother dropped her work, and arose hurriedly, but timidly I thought. "Now, Clara my dear," said Mr. Murdstone. "Recollect! controul yourself, always controul yourself! Davy boy, how do you do?" I gave him my hand. After a moment of suspense, I went and kissed my mother: she kissed me, patted me gently on the shoulder, and sat down again to her work. I could not look at her, I could not look at him, I knew quite well that he was looking at us both; and I turned to the window and looked out there, at some shrubs that were drooping their heads in the cold. As soon as I could creep away, I crept up-stairs. My old dear bedroom was changed, and I was to lie a long way off. I rambled down-stairs to find anything that was like itself, so altered it all seemed; and roamed into the yard. I very soon started back from there, for the empty dog-kennel was filled up with a great dog--deep mouthed and black-haired like Him--and he was very angry at the sight of me, and sprung out to get at me. CHAPTER IV. I FALL INTO DISGRACE. If the room to which my bed was removed, were a sentient thing that could give evidence, I might appeal to it at this day--who sleeps there now, I wonder!--to bear witness for me what a heavy heart I carried to it. I went up there, hearing the dog in the yard bark after me all the way while I climbed the stairs; and, looking as blank and strange upon the room as the room looked upon me, sat down with my small hands crossed, and thought. I thought of the oddest things. Of the shape of the room, of the cracks in the ceiling, of the paper on the wall, of the flaws in the window-glass making ripples and dimples on the prospect, of the washing-stand being ricketty on its three legs, and having a discontented something about it, which reminded me of Mrs. Gummidge under the influence of the old one. I was crying all the time, but, except that I was conscious of being cold and dejected, I am sure I never thought why I cried. At last in my desolation I began to consider that I was dreadfully in love with little Em'ly, and had been torn away from her to come here where no one seemed to want me, or to care about me, half as much as she did. This made such a very miserable piece of business of it, that I rolled myself up in a corner of the counterpane, and cried myself to sleep. I was awoke by somebody saying "Here he is!" and uncovering my hot head. My mother and Peggotty had come to look for me, and it was one of them who had done it. "Davy," said my mother. "What's the matter?" I thought it very strange that she should ask me, and answered, "Nothing." I turned over on my face, I recollect, to hide my trembling lip, which answered her with greater truth. "Davy," said my mother. "Davy, my child!" I dare say no words she could have uttered, would have affected me so much, then, as her calling me her child. I hid my tears in the bedclothes, and pressed her from me with my hand, when she would have raised me up. "This is your doing, Peggotty, you cruel thing!" said my mother. "I have no doubt at all about it. How can you reconcile it to your conscience, I wonder, to prejudice my own boy against me, or against anybody who is dear to me? What do you mean by it, Peggotty?" Poor Peggotty lifted up her hands and eyes, and only answered, in a sort of paraphrase of the grace I usually repeated after dinner, "Lord forgive you, Mrs. Copperfield, and for what you have said this minute, may you never be truly sorry!" "It's enough to distract me," cried my mother. "In my honeymoon, too, when my most inveterate enemy might relent, one would think, and not envy me a little peace of mind and happiness. Davy, you naughty boy! Peggotty, you savage creature! Oh, dear me!" cried my mother, turning from one of us to the other, in her pettish wilful manner, "what a troublesome world this is, when one has the most right to expect it to be as agreeable as possible!" I felt the touch of a hand that I knew was neither her's nor Peggotty's, and slipped to my feet at the bed-side. It was Mr. Murdstone's hand, and he kept it on my arm as he said: "What's this? Clara, my love, have you forgotten?--Firmness, my dear!" "I am very sorry, Edward," said my mother. "I meant to be very good, but I am so uncomfortable." "Indeed!" he answered. "That's a bad hearing, so soon, Clara." "I say it's very hard I should be made so now," returned my mother, pouting; "and it is--very hard--isn't it?" He drew her to him, whispered in her ear, and kissed her. I knew as well, when I saw my mother's head lean down upon his shoulder, and her arm touch his neck--I knew as well that he could mould her pliant nature into any form he chose, as I know, now, that he did it. "Go you below, my love," said Mr. Murdstone. "David and I will come down, together. My friend," turning a darkening face on Peggotty, when he had watched my mother out, and dismissed her with a nod and a smile: "do you know your mistress's name?" "She has been my mistress a long time, sir," answered Peggotty. "I ought to it." "That's true," he answered. "But I thought I heard you, as I came up-stairs, address her by a name that is not hers. She has taken mine, you know. Will you remember that?" Peggotty, with some uneasy glances at me, curtseyed herself out of the room without replying; seeing, I suppose, that she was expected to go, and had no excuse for remaining. When we two were left alone, he shut the door, and sitting on a chair, and holding me standing before him, looked steadily into my eyes. I felt my own attracted, no less steadily, to his. As I recall our being opposed thus, face to face, I seem again to hear my heart beat fast and high. "David," he said, making his lips thin, by pressing them together, "if I have an obstinate horse or dog to deal with, what do you think I do?" "I don't know." "I beat him." I had answered in a kind of breathless whisper, but I felt, in my silence, that my breath was shorter now. "I make him wince, and smart. I say to myself, 'I'll conquer that fellow;' and if it were to cost him all the blood he had, I should do it. What is that upon your face?" "Dirt," I said. He knew it was the mark of tears as well as I. But if he had asked the question twenty times, each time with twenty blows, I believe my baby heart would have burst before I would have told him so. "You have a good deal of intelligence for a little fellow," he said, with a grave smile that belonged to him, "and you understood me very well, I see. Wash that face, sir, and come down with me." He pointed to the washing-stand, which I had made out to be like Mrs. Gummidge, and motioned me with his head to obey him directly. I had little doubt then, and I have less doubt now, that he would have knocked me down without the least compunction, if I had hesitated. "Clara, my dear," he said, when I had done his bidding, and he walked me into the parlor, with his hand still on my arm; "you will not be made uncomfortable any more, I hope. We shall soon improve our youthful humours." God help me, I might have been improved for my whole life, I might have been made another creature perhaps, for life, by a kind word at that season. A word of encouragement and explanation, of pity for my childish ignorance, of welcome home, of reassurance to me that it _was_ home, might have made me dutiful to him in my heart henceforth, instead of in my hypocritical outside, and might have made me respect instead of hate him. I thought my mother was sorry to see me standing in the room so scared and strange, and that, presently, when I stole to a chair, she followed me with her eyes more sorrowfully still--missing, perhaps, some freedom in my childish tread--but the word was not spoken, and the time for it was gone. We dined alone, we three together. He seemed to be very fond of my mother--I am afraid I liked him none the better for that--and she was very fond of him. I gathered from what they said, that an elder sister of his was coming to stay with them, and that she was expected that evening. I am not certain whether I found out then, or afterwards, that, without being actively concerned in any business, he had some share in, or some annual charge upon the profits of, a wine-merchant's house in London, with which his family had been connected from his great-grandfather's time, and in which his sister had a similar interest; but I may mention it in this place, whether or no. After dinner, when we were sitting by the fire, and I was meditating an escape to Peggotty without having the hardihood to slip away, lest it should offend the master of the house, a coach drove up to the garden-gate, and he went out to receive the visitor. My mother followed him. I was timidly following her, when she turned round at the parlor-door, in the dusk, and taking me in her embrace as she had been used to do, whispered me to love my new father and be obedient to him. She did this hurriedly and secretly, as if it were wrong, but tenderly; and, putting out her hand behind her, held mine in it, until we came near to where he was standing in the garden, where she let mine go, and drew her's through his arm. It was Miss Murdstone who was arrived, and a gloomy-looking lady she was; dark, like her brother, whom she greatly resembled in face and voice; and with very heavy eyebrows, nearly meeting over her large nose, as if, being disabled by the wrongs of her sex from wearing whiskers, she had carried them to that account. She brought with her, two uncompromising hard black boxes, with her initials on the lids in hard brass nails. When she paid the coachman she took her money out of a hard steel purse, and she kept the purse in a very jail of a bag which hung upon her arm by a heavy chain, and shut up like a bite. I had never, at that time, seen such a metallic lady altogether as Miss Murdstone was. She was brought into the parlor with many tokens of welcome, and there formally recognised my mother as a new and near relation. Then she looked at me, and said: "Is that your boy, sister-in-law?" My mother acknowledged me. "Generally speaking," said Miss Murdstone, "I don't like boys. How d' ye do, boy?" Under these encouraging circumstances, I replied that I was very well, and that I hoped she was the same; with such an indifferent grace, that Miss Murdstone disposed of me in two words: "Wants manner!" Having uttered which, with great distinctness, she begged the favor of being shewn to her room, which became to me from that time forth a place of awe and dread, wherein the two black boxes were never seen open or known to be left unlocked, and where (for I peeped in once or twice when she was out) numerous little steel fetters and rivets, with which Miss Murdstone embellished herself when she was dressed, generally hung upon the looking-glass in formidable array. As well as I could make out, she had come for good, and had no intention of ever going again. She began to "help" my mother next morning, and was in and out of the store-closet all day, putting things to rights, and making havoc in the old arrangements. Almost the first remarkable thing I observed in Miss Murdstone was, her being constantly haunted by a suspicion that the servants had a man secreted somewhere on the premises. Under the influence of this delusion, she dived into the coal-cellar at the most untimely hours, and scarcely ever opened the door of a dark cupboard without clapping it to again, in the belief that she had got him. Though there was nothing very airy about Miss Murdstone, she was a perfect Lark in point of getting up. She was up (and, as I believe to this hour, looking for that man) before anybody in the house was stirring. Peggotty gave it as her opinion that she even slept with one eye open; but I could not concur in this idea; for I tried it myself after hearing the suggestion thrown out, and found it couldn't be done. On the very first morning after her arrival she was up and ringing her bell at cock-crow. When my mother came down to breakfast and was going to make the tea, Miss Murdstone gave her a kind of peck on the cheek, which was her nearest approach to a kiss, and said: "Now, Clara, my dear, I am come here, you know, to relieve you of all the trouble I can. You're much too pretty and thoughtless"--my mother blushed but laughed, and seemed not to dislike this character--"to have any duties imposed upon you that can be undertaken by me. If you'll be so good as give me your keys, my dear, I'll attend to all this sort of thing in future." From that time, Miss Murdstone kept the keys in her own little jail all day, and under her pillow all night, and my mother had no more to do with them than I had. My mother did not suffer her authority to pass from her without a shadow of protest. One night when Miss Murdstone had been developing certain household plans to her brother, of which he signified his approbation, my mother suddenly began to cry, and said she thought she might have been consulted. "Clara!" said Mr. Murdstone sternly. "Clara! I wonder at you." "Oh, it's very well to say you wonder, Edward!" cried my mother, "and it's very well for you to talk about firmness, but you wouldn't like it yourself." Firmness, I may observe, was the grand quality on which both Mr. and Miss Murdstone took their stand. However I might have expressed my comprehension of it at that time, if I had been called upon, I nevertheless did clearly comprehend in my own way, that it was another name for tyranny; and for a certain gloomy, arrogant, devil's humour, that was in them both. The creed, as I should state it now, was this. Mr. Murdstone was firm; nobody in his world was to be so firm as Mr. Murdstone; nobody else in his world was to be firm at all, for everybody was to be bent to his firmness. Miss Murdstone was an exception. She might be firm, but only by relationship, and in an inferior and tributary degree. My mother was another exception. She might be firm, and must be; but only in bearing their firmness, and firmly believing there was no other firmness upon earth. "It's very hard," said my mother, "that in my own house--" "_My_ own house?" repeated Mr. Murdstone. "Clara!" "_Our_ own house, I mean," faltered my mother, evidently frightened--"I hope you must know what I mean, Edward--it's very hard that in _your_ own house I may not have a word to say about domestic matters. I am sure I managed very well before we were married. There's evidence," said my mother, sobbing; "ask Peggotty if I didn't do very well when I wasn't interfered with!" "Edward," said Miss Murdstone, "let there be an end of this. I go to-morrow." "Jane Murdstone," said her brother, "be silent! How dare you to insinuate that you don't know my character better than your words imply?" "I am sure," my poor mother went on, at a grievous disadvantage, and with many tears, "I don't want anybody to go. I should be very miserable and unhappy if anybody was to go. I don't ask much. I am not unreasonable. I only want to be consulted sometimes. I am very much obliged to anybody who assists me, and I only want to be consulted as a mere form, sometimes. I thought you were pleased, once, with my being a little inexperienced and girlish, Edward--I am sure you said so--but you seem to hate me for it now, you are so severe." "Edward," said Miss Murdstone, again, "let there be an end of this. I go to-morrow." "Jane Murdstone," thundered Mr. Murdstone. "Will you be silent? How dare you?" Miss Murdstone made a jail-delivery of her pocket-handkerchief, and held it before her eyes. "Clara," he continued, looking at my mother, "you surprise me! You astound me! Yes, I had a satisfaction in the thought of marrying an inexperienced and artless person, and forming her character, and infusing into it some amount of that firmness and decision of which it stood in need. But when Jane Murdstone is kind enough to come to my assistance in this endeavour, and to assume, for my sake, a condition something like a housekeeper's, and when she meets with a base return--" "Oh, pray, pray, Edward," cried my mother, "don't accuse me of being ungrateful. I am sure I am not ungrateful. No one ever said I was, before. I have many faults, but not that. Oh, don't, my dear!" "When Jane Murdstone meets, I say," he went on, after waiting until my mother was silent, "with a base return, that feeling of mine is chilled and altered." "Don't, my love, say that!" implored my mother, very piteously. "Oh, don't, Edward! I can't bear to hear it. Whatever I am, I am affectionate. I know I am affectionate. I wouldn't say it, if I wasn't certain that I am. Ask Peggotty. I am sure she'll tell you I'm affectionate." "There is no extent of mere weakness, Clara," said Mr. Murdstone in reply, "that can have the least weight with me. You lose breath." "Pray let us be friends," said my mother, "I couldn't live under coldness or unkindness. I am so sorry. I have a great many defects, I know, and it's very good of you, Edward, with your strength of mind, to endeavour to correct them for me. Jane, I don't object to anything. I should be quite broken-hearted if you thought of leaving--" My mother was too much overcome to go on. "Jane Murdstone," said Mr. Murdstone to his sister, "any harsh words between us are, I hope, uncommon. It is not my fault that so unusual an occurrence has taken place to-night. I was betrayed into it by another. Nor is it your fault. You were betrayed into it by another. Let us both try to forget it. And as this," he added, after these magnanimous words, "is not a fit scene for the boy--David, go to bed!" I could hardly find the door, through the tears that stood in my eyes. I was so sorry for my mother's distress; but I groped my way out, and groped my way up to my room in the dark, without even having the heart to say good night to Peggotty, or to get a candle from her. When her coming up to look for me, an hour or so afterwards, awoke me, she said that my mother had gone to bed poorly, and that Mr. and Miss Murdstone were sitting alone. Going down next morning rather earlier than usual, I paused outside the parlor-door, on hearing my mother's voice. She was very earnestly and humbly entreating Miss Murdstone's pardon, which that lady granted, and a perfect reconciliation took place. I never knew my mother afterwards to give an opinion on any matter, without first appealing to Miss Murdstone, or without having first ascertained, by some sure means, what Miss Murdstone's opinion was; and I never saw Miss Murdstone, when out of temper (she was infirm that way), move her hand towards her bag as if she were going to take out the keys and offer to resign them to my mother, without seeing that my mother was in a terrible fright. The gloomy taint that was in the Murdstone blood, darkened the Murdstone religion, which was austere and wrathful. I have thought, since, that its assuming that character was a necessary consequence of Mr. Murdstone's firmness, which wouldn't allow him to let any body off from the utmost weight of the severest penalties he could find any excuse for. Be this as it may, I well remember the tremendous visages with which we used to go to church, and the changed air of the place. Again, the dreaded Sunday comes round, and I file into the old pew first, like a guarded captive brought to a condemned service. Again, Miss Murdstone, in a black velvet gown, that looks as if it had been made out of a pall, follows close upon me; then my mother; then her husband. There is no Peggotty now, as in the old time. Again, I listen to Miss Murdstone mumbling the responses, and emphasising all the dread words with a cruel relish. Again, I see her dark eyes roll round the church when she says "miserable sinners," as if she were calling all the congregation names. Again, I catch rare glimpses of my mother, moving her lips timidly between the two, with one of them muttering at each ear like low thunder. Again, I wonder with a sudden fear whether it is likely that our good old clergyman can be wrong, and Mr. and Miss Murdstone right, and that all the angels in Heaven can be destroying angels. Again, if I move a finger or relax a muscle of my face, Miss Murdstone pokes me with her prayer-book, and makes my side ache. Yes, and again, as we walk home, I note some neighbours looking at my mother, and at me, and whispering. Again, as the three go on arm-in-arm, and I linger behind alone, I follow some of those looks, and wonder if my mother's step be really not so light as I have seen it, and if the gaiety of her beauty be really almost worried away. Again, I wonder whether any of the neighbours call to mind, as I do, how we used to walk home together, she and I; and I wonder stupidly about that, all the dreary dismal day. There had been some talk on occasions of my going to boarding-school. Mr. and Miss Murdstone had originated it, and my mother had of course agreed with them. Nothing, however, was concluded on the subject yet. In the meantime, I learnt lessons at home. Shall I ever forget those lessons! They were presided over nominally by my mother, but really by Mr. Murdstone and his sister, who were always present, and found them a favourable occasion for giving my mother lessons in that miscalled firmness, which was the bane of both our lives. I believe I was kept at home, for that purpose. I had been apt enough to learn, and willing enough, when my mother and I had lived alone together. I can faintly remember learning the alphabet at her knee. To this day, when I look upon the fat black letters in the primer, the puzzling novelty of their shapes, and the easy good-nature of O and Q and S, seem to present themselves again before me as they used to do. But they recall no feeling of disgust or reluctance. On the contrary, I seem to have walked along a path of flowers as far as the crocodile-book, and to have been cheered by the gentleness of my mother's voice and manner all the way. But these solemn lessons which succeeded those, I remember as the death-blow at my peace, and a grievous daily drudgery and misery. They were very long, very numerous, very hard--perfectly unintelligible, some of them, to me--and I was generally as much bewildered by them as I believe my poor mother was herself. Let me remember how it used to be, and bring one morning back again. I come into the second-best parlor after breakfast, with my books, and an exercise-book, and a slate. My mother is ready for me at her writing-desk, but not half so ready as Mr. Murdstone in his easy-chair by the window (though he pretends to be reading a book), or as Miss Murdstone, sitting near my mother stringing steel beads. The very sight of these two has such an influence over me, that I begin to feel the words I have been at infinite pains to get into my head, all sliding away, and going I don't know where. I wonder where they _do_ go, by-the-by? I hand the first book to my mother. Perhaps it is a grammar, perhaps a history, or geography. I take a last drowning look at the page as I give it into her hand, and start off aloud at a racing pace while I have got it fresh. I trip over a word. Mr. Murdstone looks up. I trip over another word. Miss Murdstone looks up. I redden, tumble over half-a-dozen words, and stop. I think my mother would show me the book if she dared, but she does not dare, and she says softly: "Oh, Davy, Davy!" "Now, Clara," says Mr. Murdstone, "be firm with the boy. Don't say 'Oh, Davy, Davy!' That's childish. He knows his lesson, or he does not know it." "He does _not_ know it," Miss Murdstone interposes awfully. "I am really afraid he does not," says my mother. "Then you see, Clara," returns Miss Murdstone, "you should just give him the book back, and make him know it." "Yes, certainly," says my mother; "that is what I intend to do, my dear Jane. Now, Davy, try once more, and don't be stupid." I obey the first clause of the injunction by trying once more, but am not so successful with the second, for I am very stupid. I tumble down before I get to the old place, at a point where I was all right before, and stop to think. But I can't think about the lesson. I think of the number of yards of net in Miss Murdstone's cap, or of the price of Mr. Murdstone's dressing-gown, or any such ridiculous problem that I have no business with, and don't want to have anything at all to do with. Mr. Murdstone makes a movement of impatience which I have been expecting for a long time. Miss Murdstone does the same. My mother glances submissively at them, shuts the book, and lays it by as an arrear to be worked out when my other tasks are done. There is a pile of these arrears very soon, and it swells like a rolling snowball. The bigger it gets, the more stupid _I_ get. The case is so hopeless, and I feel that I am wallowing in such a bog of nonsense, that I give up all idea of getting out, and abandon myself to my fate. The despairing way in which my mother and I look at each other, as I blunder on, is truly melancholy. But the greatest effect in these miserable lessons is when my mother (thinking nobody is observing her) tries to give me the cue by the motion of her lips. At that instant, Miss Murdstone, who has been lying in wait for nothing else all along, says in a deep warning voice: "Clara!" My mother starts, colors, and smiles faintly. Mr. Murdstone comes out of his chair, takes the book, throws it at me or boxes my ears with it, and turns me out of the room by the shoulders. Even when the lessons are done, the worst is yet to happen, in the shape of an appalling sum. This is invented for me, and delivered to me orally by Mr. Murdstone, and begins, "If I go into a cheesemonger's shop, and buy five thousand double-Gloucester cheeses at fourpence-halfpenny each, present payment"--at which I see Miss Murdstone secretly overjoyed. I pore over these cheeses without any result or enlightenment until dinner-time; when, having made a Mulatto of myself by getting the dirt of the slate into the pores of my skin, I have a slice of bread to help me out with the cheeses, and am considered in disgrace for the rest of the evening. It seems to me, at this distance of time, as if my unfortunate studies generally took this course. I could have done very well if I had been without the Murdstones; but the influence of the Murdstones upon me was like the fascination of two snakes on a wretched young bird. Even when I did get through the morning with tolerable credit, there was not much gained but dinner; for Miss Murdstone never could endure to see me untasked, and if I rashly made any show of being unemployed, called her brother's attention to me by saying, "Clara, my dear, there's nothing like work--give your boy an exercise;" which caused me to be clapped down to some new labor, there and then. As to any recreation with other children of my age, I had very little of that; for the gloomy theology of the Murdstones made all children out to be a swarm of little vipers (though there _was_ a child once set in the midst of the Disciples), and held that they contaminated one another. The natural result of this treatment, continued, I suppose, for some six months or more, was to make me sullen, dull, and dogged. I was not made the less so, by my sense of being daily more and more shut out and alienated from my mother. I believe I should have been almost stupified but for one circumstance. It was this. My father had left a small collection of books in a little room up-stairs, to which I had access (for it adjoined my own) and which nobody else in our house ever troubled. From that blessed little room, Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, Humphrey Clinker, Tom Jones, The Vicar of Wakefield, Don Quixote, Gil Blas, and Robinson Crusoe, came out, a glorious host, to keep me company. They kept alive my fancy, and my hope of something beyond that place and time,--they, and the Arabian Nights, and the Tales of the Genii,--and did me no harm; for whatever harm was in some of them was not there for me; _I_ knew nothing of it. It is astonishing to me now, how I found time, in the midst of my porings and blunderings over heavier themes, to read those books as I did. It is curious to me how I could ever have consoled myself under my small troubles (which were great troubles to me), by impersonating my favorite characters in them--as I did--and by putting Mr. and Miss Murdstone into all the bad ones--which I did too. I have been Tom Jones (a child's Tom Jones, a harmless creature) for a week together. I have sustained my own idea of Roderick Random for a month at a stretch, I verily believe. I had a greedy relish for a few volumes of Voyages and Travels--I forget what, now--that were on those shelves; and for days and days I can remember to have gone about my region of our house, armed with the centre-piece out of an old set of boot-trees--the perfect realisation of Captain Somebody, of the Royal British Navy, in danger of being beset by savages, and resolved to sell his life at a great price. The Captain never lost dignity, from having his ears boxed with the Latin Grammar. I did; but the Captain was a Captain and a hero, in despite of all the grammars of all the languages in the world, dead or alive. This was my only and my constant comfort. When I think of it, the picture always rises in my mind, of a summer evening, the boys at play in the churchyard, and I sitting on my bed, reading as if for life. Every barn in the neighbourhood, every stone in the church, and every foot of the churchyard, had some association of its own, in my mind, connected with these books, and stood for some locality made famous in them. I have seen Tom Pipes go climbing up the church-steeple; I have watched Strap, with the knapsack on his back, stopping to rest himself upon the wicket-gate; and I _know_ that Commodore Trunnion held that club with Mr. Pickle, in the parlor of our little village alehouse. The reader now understands as well as I do, what I was when I came to that point of my youthful history to which I am now coming again. One morning when I went into the parlor with my books, I found my mother looking anxious, Miss Murdstone looking firm, and Mr. Murdstone binding something round the bottom of a cane--a lithe and limber cane, which he left off binding when I came in, and poised and switched in the air. "I tell you, Clara," said Mr. Murdstone, "I have been often flogged myself." "To be sure; of course," said Miss Murdstone. "Certainly, my dear Jane," faltered my mother, meekly. "But--but do you think it did Edward good?" "Do you think it did Edward harm, Clara?" asked Mr. Murdstone, gravely. "That's the point!" said his sister. To this my mother returned, "Certainly, my dear Jane," and said no more. I felt apprehensive that I was personally interested in this dialogue, and sought Mr. Murdstone's eye as it lighted on mine. "Now, David," he said--and I saw that cast again, as he said it--"you must be far more careful to-day than usual." He gave the cane another poise, and another switch; and having finished his preparation of it, laid it down beside him, with an expressive look, and took up his book. This was a good freshener to my presence of mind, as a beginning. I felt the words of my lessons slipping off, not one by one, or line by line, but by the entire page. I tried to lay hold of them; but they seemed, if I may so express it, to have put skates on, and to skim away from me with a smoothness there was no checking. We began badly, and went on worse. I had come in, with an idea of distinguishing myself rather, conceiving that I was very well prepared; but it turned out to be quite a mistake. Book after book was added to the heap of failures, Miss Murdstone being firmly watchful of us all the time. And when we came at last to the five thousand cheeses (canes he made it that day, I remember), my mother burst out crying. "Clara!" said Miss Murdstone, in her warning voice. "I am not quite well, my dear Jane, I think," said my mother. I saw him wink, solemnly, at his sister, as he rose and said, taking up the cane: "Why, Jane, we can hardly expect Clara to bear, with perfect firmness, the worry and torment that David has occasioned her to-day. That would be stoical. Clara is greatly strengthened and improved, but we can hardly expect so much from her. David, you and I will go up-stairs, boy." As he took me out at the door, my mother ran towards us. Miss Murdstone said, "Clara! are you a perfect fool?" and interfered. I saw my mother stop her ears then, and I heard her crying. He walked me up to my room slowly and gravely--I am certain he had a delight in that formal parade of executing justice--and when we got there, suddenly twisted my head under his arm. "Mr. Murdstone! Sir!" I cried to him. "Don't! Pray don't beat me! I have tried to learn, sir, but I can't learn while you and Miss Murdstone are by. I can't indeed!" "Can't you, indeed, David?" he said. "We'll try that." He had my head as in a vice, but I twined round him somehow, and stopped him for a moment, entreating him not to beat me. It was only for a moment that I stopped him, for he cut me heavily an instant afterwards, and in the same instant I caught the hand with which he held me in my mouth, between my teeth, and bit it through. It sets my teeth on edge to think of it. He beat me then, as if he would have beaten me to death. Above all the noise we made, I heard them running up the stairs, and crying out--I heard my mother crying out--and Peggotty. Then he was gone; and the door was locked outside; and I was lying, fevered and hot, and torn, and sore, and raging in my puny way, upon the floor. How well I recollect, when I became quiet, what an unnatural stillness seemed to reign through the whole house! How well I remember, when my smart and passion began to cool, how wicked I began to feel! I sat listening for a long while, but there was not a sound. I crawled up from the floor, and saw my face in the glass, so swollen, red, and ugly, that it almost frightened me. My stripes were sore and stiff, and made me cry afresh, when I moved; but they were nothing to the guilt I felt. It lay heavier on my breast than if I had been a most atrocious criminal, I dare say. It had begun to grow dark, and I had shut the window (I had been lying, for the most part, with my head upon the sill, by turns crying, dozing, and looking listlessly out), when the key was turned, and Miss Murdstone came in with some bread and meat, and milk. These she put down upon the table without a word, glaring at me the while with exemplary firmness, and then retired, locking the door after her. Long after it was dark I sat there, wondering whether anybody else would come. When this appeared improbable for that night, I undressed, and went to bed; and, there, I began to wonder fearfully what would be done to me. Whether it was a criminal act that I had committed? Whether I should be taken into custody, and sent to prison? Whether I was at all in danger of being hanged? I never shall forget the waking, next morning; the being cheerful and fresh for the first moment, and then the being weighed down by the stale and dismal oppression of remembrance. Miss Murdstone reappeared before I was out of bed; told me, in so many words, that I was free to walk in the garden for half an hour and no longer; and retired, leaving the door open, that I might avail myself of that permission. I did so, and did so every morning of my imprisonment, which lasted five days. If I could have seen my mother alone, I should have gone down on my knees to her and besought her forgiveness; but I saw no one, Miss Murdstone excepted, during the whole time--except at evening prayers in the parlor; to which I was escorted by Miss Murdstone after everybody else was placed; where I was stationed, a young outlaw, all alone by myself near the door; and whence I was solemnly conducted by my jailer, before anyone arose from the devotional posture. I only observed that my mother was as far off from me as she could be, and kept her face another way so that I never saw it; and that Mr. Murdstone's hand was bound up in a large linen wrapper. The length of those five days I can convey no idea of to any one. They occupy the place of years in my remembrance. The way in which I listened to all the incidents of the house that made themselves audible to me; the ringing of bells, the opening and shutting of doors, the murmuring of voices, the footsteps on the stairs; to any laughing, whistling, or singing, outside, which seemed more dismal than anything else to me in my solitude and disgrace--the uncertain pace of the hours, especially at night, when I would wake thinking it was morning, and find that the family were not yet gone to bed, and that all the length of night had yet to come--the depressed dreams and nightmares I had--the return of day, noon, afternoon, evening, when the boys played in the churchyard, and I watched them from a distance within the room, being ashamed to show myself at the window lest they should know I was a prisoner--the strange sensation of never hearing myself speak--the fleeting intervals of something like cheerfulness, which came with eating and drinking, and went away with it--the setting in of rain one evening, with a fresh smell, and its coming down faster and faster between me and the church, until it and gathering night seemed to quench me in gloom, and fear, and remorse--all this appears to have gone round and round for years instead of days, it is so vividly and strongly stamped on my remembrance. On the last night of my restraint, I was awakened by hearing my own name spoken in a whisper. I started up in bed, and putting out my arms in the dark, said: "Is that you, Peggotty?" There was no immediate answer, but presently I heard my name again, in a tone so very mysterious and awful, that I think I should have gone into a fit, if it had not occurred to me that it must have come through the keyhole. I groped my way to the door, and putting my own lips to the keyhole, whispered: "Is that you, Peggotty, dear?" "Yes, my own precious Davy," she replied. "Be as soft as a mouse, or the Cat'll hear us." I understood this to mean Miss Murdstone, and was sensible of the urgency of the case; her room being close by. "How's mama, dear Peggotty? Is she very angry with me?" I could hear Peggotty crying softly on her side of the keyhole, as I was doing on mine, before she answered. "No. Not very." "What is going to be done with me, Peggotty dear? Do you know?" "School. Near London," was Peggotty's answer. I was obliged to get her to repeat it, for she spoke it the first time quite down my throat, in consequence of my having forgotten to take my mouth away from the keyhole and put my ear there; and though her words tickled me a good deal, I didn't hear them. "When, Peggotty?" "To-morrow." "Is that the reason why Miss Murdstone took the clothes out of my drawers?" which she had done, though I have forgotten to mention it. "Yes," said Peggotty. "Box." "Shan't I see mama?" "Yes," said Peggotty. "Morning." Then Peggotty fitted her mouth close to the keyhole, and delivered these words through it with as much feeling and earnestness as a keyhole has ever been the medium of communicating, I will venture to assert: shooting in each broken little sentence in a convulsive little burst of its own. "Davy, dear. If I ain't ben azackly as intimate with you. Lately, as I used to be. It ain't because I don't love you. Just as well and more, my pretty poppet. It's because I thought it better for you. And for some one else besides. Davy, my darling, are you listening? Can you hear?" "Ye--ye--ye--yes, Peggotty!" I sobbed. "My own!" said Peggotty, with infinite compassion. "What I want to say, is. That you must never forget me. For I'll never forget you. And I'll take as much care of your mama, Davy. As ever I took of you. And I won't leave her. The day may come when she'll be glad to lay her poor head. On her stupid, cross old Peggotty's arm again. And I'll write to you, my dear. Though I ain't no scholar. And I'll--I'll--" Peggotty fell to kissing the keyhole, as she couldn't kiss me. "Thank you, dear Peggotty!" said I. "Oh, thank you! Thank you! Will you promise me one thing, Peggotty? Will you write and tell Mr. Peggotty and little Em'ly and Mrs. Gummidge and Ham, that I am not so bad as they might suppose, and that I sent 'em all my love--especially to little Em'ly? Will you, if you please, Peggotty?" The kind soul promised, and we both of us kissed the keyhole with the greatest affection--I patted it with my hand, I recollect, as if it had been her honest face--and parted. From that night there grew up in my breast, a feeling for Peggotty, which I cannot very well define. She did not replace my mother; no one could do that; but she came into a vacancy in my heart, which closed upon her, and I felt towards her something I have never felt for any other human being. It was a sort of comical affection too; and yet if she had died, I cannot think what I should have done, or how I should have acted out the tragedy it would have been to me. In the morning Miss Murdstone appeared as usual, and told me I was going to school; which was not altogether such news to me as she supposed. She also informed me that when I was dressed, I was to come down-stairs into the parlor, and have my breakfast. There, I found my mother, very pale and with red eyes: into whose arms I ran, and begged her pardon from my suffering soul. "Oh, Davy!" she said. "That you could hurt any one I love! Try to be better, pray to be better! I forgive you; but I am so grieved, Davy, that you should have such bad passions in your heart." They had persuaded her that I was a wicked fellow, and she was more sorry for that, than for my going away. I felt it sorely. I tried to eat my parting breakfast, but my tears dropped upon my bread-and-butter, and trickled into my tea. I saw my mother look at me sometimes, and then glance at the watchful Miss Murdstone, and then look down, or look away. "Master Copperfield's box there!" said Miss Murdstone, when wheels were heard at the gate. I looked for Peggotty, but it was not she; neither she nor Mr. Murdstone appeared. My former acquaintance, the carrier, was at the door; the box was taken out to his cart, and lifted in. "Clara!" said Miss Murdstone, in her warning note. "Ready, my dear Jane," returned my mother. "Good bye, Davy. You are going for your own good. Good bye, my child. You will come home in the holidays, and be a better boy." "Clara!" Miss Murdstone repeated. "Certainly, my dear Jane," replied my mother, who was holding me. "I forgive you, my dear boy. God bless you!" "Clara!" Miss Murdstone repeated. Miss Murdstone was good enough to take me out to the cart, and to say on the way that she hoped I would repent, before I came to a bad end; and then I got into the cart, and the lazy horse walked off with it. CHAPTER V. I AM SENT AWAY FROM HOME. We might have gone about half a mile, and my pocket-handkerchief was quite wet through, when the carrier stopped short. Looking out to ascertain what for, I saw, to my amazement, Peggotty burst from a hedge and climb into the cart. She took me in both her arms, and squeezed me to her stays until the pressure on my nose was extremely painful, though I never thought of that till afterwards when I found it very tender. Not a single word did Peggotty speak. Releasing one of her arms, she put it down in her pocket to the elbow, and brought out some paper bags of cakes which she crammed into my pockets, and a purse which she put into my hand, but not one word did she say. After another and a final squeeze with both arms, she got down from the cart and ran away; and, my belief is, and has always been, without a solitary button on her gown. I picked up one, of several that were rolling about, and treasured it as a keepsake for a long time. The carrier looked at me, as if to enquire if she were coming back. I shook my head, and said I thought not. "Then come up," said the carrier to the lazy horse; who came up accordingly. Having by this time cried as much as I possibly could, I began to think it was of no use crying any more, especially as neither Roderick Random, nor that Captain in the Royal British Navy, had ever cried, that I could remember, in trying situations. The carrier, seeing me in this resolution, proposed that my pocket-handkerchief should be spread upon the horse's back to dry. I thanked him, and assented; and particularly small it looked, under those circumstances. I had now leisure to examine the purse. It was a stiff leather purse, with a snap, and had three bright shillings in it, which Peggotty had evidently polished up with whitening, for my greater delight. But its most precious contents were two half-crowns folded together in a bit of paper, on which was written, in my mother's hand, "For Davy. With my love." I was so overcome by this, that I asked the carrier to be so good as reach me my pocket-handkerchief again; but he said he thought I had better do without it; and I thought I really had; so I wiped my eyes on my sleeve and stopped myself. For good, too; though, in consequence of my previous emotions, I was still occasionally seized with a stormy sob. After we had jogged on for some little time, I asked the carrier if he was going all the way. "All the way where?" enquired the carrier. "There," I said. "Where's there?" enquired the carrier. "Near London?" I said. "Why that horse," said the carrier, jerking the rein to point him out, "would be deader than pork afore he got over half the ground." "Are you only going to Yarmouth then?" I asked. "That's about it," said the carrier. "And there I shall take you to the stage-cutch, and the stage-cutch that'll take you to--wherever it is." As this was a great deal for the carrier (whose name was Mr. Barkis) to say--he being, as I observed in a former chapter, of a phlegmatic temperament, and not at all conversational--I offered him a cake as a mark of attention, which he ate at one gulp, exactly like an elephant, and which made no more impression on his big face than it would have done on an elephant's. "Did _she_ make 'em, now?" said Mr. Barkis, always leaning forward, in his slouching way, on the footboard of the cart with an arm on each knee. "Peggotty, do you mean, sir?" "Ah!" said Mr. Barkis. "Her." "Yes. She makes all our pastry, and does all our cooking." "Do she though?" said Mr. Barkis. He made up his mouth as if to whistle, but he didn't whistle. He sat looking at the horse's ears, as if he saw something new there; and sat so, for a considerable time. By-and-by, he said: "No sweethearts, I b'lieve?" "Sweetmeats did you say, Mr. Barkis?" For I thought he wanted something else to eat, and had pointedly alluded to that description of refreshment. "Hearts," said Mr. Barkis. "Sweet hearts; no person walks with her!" "With Peggotty?" "Ah!" he said. "Her." "Oh, no. She never had a sweetheart." "Didn't she though!" said Mr. Barkis. Again he made up his mouth to whistle, and again he didn't whistle, but sat looking at the horse's ears. "So she makes," said Mr. Barkis, after a long interval of reflection, "all the apple parsties, and doos all the cooking, do she?" I replied that such was the fact. "Well. I'll tell you what," said Mr. Barkis. "P'raps you might be writin' to her?" "I shall certainly write to her," I rejoined. "Ah!" he said, slowly turning his eyes towards me. "Well! If you was writin' to her, p'raps you'd recollect to say that Barkis was willin'; would you." "That Barkis is willing," I repeated, innocently. "Is that all the message?" "Ye--es," he said, considering. "Ye--es. Barkis is willin'." "But you will be at Blunderstone again to-morrow, Mr. Barkis," I said, faltering a little at the idea of my being far away from it then, "and could give your own message so much better." As he repudiated this suggestion, however, with a jerk of his head, and once more confirmed his previous request by saying, with profound gravity, "Barkis is willin'. That's the message," I readily undertook its transmission. While I was waiting for the coach in the hotel at Yarmouth that very afternoon, I procured a sheet of paper and an inkstand, and wrote a note to Peggotty which ran thus: "My dear Peggotty. I have come here safe. Barkis is willing. My love to mama. Yours affectionately. P. S. He says he particularly wants you to know--_Barkis is willing_." When I had taken this commission on myself prospectively, Mr. Barkis relapsed into perfect silence; and I, feeling quite worn out by all that had happened lately, lay down on a sack in the cart and fell asleep. I slept soundly until we got to Yarmouth; which was so entirely new and strange to me in the inn-yard to which we drove, that I at once abandoned a latent hope I had had of meeting with some of Mr. Peggotty's family there, perhaps even with little Em'ly herself. The coach was in the yard, shining very much all over, but without any horses to it as yet; and it looked in that state as if nothing was more unlikely than its ever going to London. I was thinking this, and wondering what would ultimately become of my box, which Mr. Barkis had put down on the yard-pavement by the pole (he having driven up the yard to turn his cart), and also what would ultimately become of me, when a lady looked out of a bow-window where some fowls and joints of meat were hanging up, and said: "Is that the little gentleman from Blunderstone?" "Yes, ma'am," I said. "What name?" enquired the lady. "Copperfield, ma'am," I said. "That won't do," returned the lady. "Nobody's dinner is paid for here, in that name." "Is it Murdstone, ma'am?" I said. "If you're Master Murdstone," said the lady, "why do you go and give another name, first?" I explained to the lady how it was, who then rang a bell, and called out, "William! show the coffee-room!" upon which a waiter came running out of a kitchen on the opposite side of the yard to show it, and seemed a good deal surprised when he found he was only to show it to me. It was a large long room with some large maps in it. I doubt if I could have felt much stranger if the maps had been real foreign countries, and I cast away in the middle of them. I felt it was taking a liberty to sit down, with my cap in my hand, on the corner of the chair nearest the door; and when the waiter laid a cloth on purpose for me, and put a set of castors on it, I think I must have turned red all over with modesty. He brought me some chops, and vegetables, and took the covers off in such a bouncing manner that I was afraid I must have given him some offence. But he greatly relieved my mind by putting a chair for me at the table, and saying, very affably, "Now, six-foot! come on!" I thanked him, and took my seat at the board; but found it extremely difficult to handle my knife and fork with anything like dexterity, or to avoid splashing myself with the gravy, while he was standing opposite, staring so hard, and making me blush in the most dreadful manner every time I caught his eye. After watching me into the second chop, he said: "There's half a pint of ale for you. Will you have it now?" I thanked him, and said "Yes." Upon which he poured it out of a jug into a large tumbler, and held it up against the light, and made it look beautiful. "My eye!" he said. "It seems a good deal, don't it?" "It does seem a good deal," I answered with a smile. For it was quite delightful to me, to find him so pleasant. He was a twinkling-eyed, pimple-faced man, with his hair standing upright all over his head; and as he stood with one arm a-kimbo, holding up the glass to the light with the other hand, he looked quite friendly. "There was a gentleman here, yesterday," he said--"a stout gentleman, by the name of Topsawyer--perhaps you know him!" "No," I said, "I don't think----" "In breeches and gaiters, broad-brimmed hat, grey coat, speckled choaker," said the waiter. "No," I said bashfully, "I haven't the pleasure----" "He came in here," said the waiter, looking at the light through the tumbler, "ordered a glass of this ale--_would_ order it--I told him not--drank it, and fell dead. It was too old for him. It oughtn't to be drawn; that's the fact." I was very much shocked to hear of this melancholy accident, and said I thought I had better have some water. "Why you see," said the waiter, still looking at the light through the tumbler, with one of his eyes shut up, "our people don't like things being ordered and left. It offends 'em. But _I_'ll drink it, if you like. I'm used to it, and use is everything. I don't think it'll hurt me, if I throw my head back, and take it off quick. Shall I?" [Illustration: The friendly Waiter and I.] I replied that he would much oblige me by drinking it, if he thought he could do it safely, but by no means otherwise. When he did throw his head back, and take it off quick, I had a horrible fear, I confess, of seeing him meet the fate of the lamented Mr. Topsawyer, and fall lifeless on the carpet. But it didn't hurt him. On the contrary, I thought he seemed the fresher for it. "What have we got here?" he said, putting a fork into my dish. "Not chops?" "Chops," I said. "Lord bless my soul!" he exclaimed, "I didn't know they were chops. Why, a chop's the very thing to take off the bad effects of that beer! Ain't it lucky?" So he took a chop by the bone in one hand, and a potato in the other, and ate away with a very good appetite, to my extreme satisfaction. He afterwards took another chop, and another potato; and after that, another chop and another potato. When we had done, he brought me a pudding, and having set it before me, seemed to ruminate, and to become absent in his mind for some moments. "How's the pie?" he said, rousing himself. "It's a pudding," I made answer. "Pudding!" he exclaimed. "Why, bless me, so it is! What!" looking at it nearer. "You don't mean to say it's a batter-pudding!" "Yes, it is indeed." "Why, a batter-pudding," he said, taking up a table-spoon, "is my favorite pudding! Ain't that lucky? Come on, little 'un, and let's see who'll get most." The waiter certainly got most. He entreated me more than once to come in and win, but what with his table-spoon to my tea-spoon, his dispatch to my dispatch, and his appetite to my appetite, I was left far behind at the first mouthful, and had no chance with him. I never saw any one enjoy a pudding so much, I think; and he laughed, when it was all gone, as if his enjoyment of it lasted still. Finding him so very friendly and companionable, it was then that I asked for the pen and ink and paper, to write to Peggotty. He not only brought it immediately, but was good enough to look over me while I wrote the letter. When I had finished it, he asked me where I was going to school. I said, "Near London," which was all I knew. "Oh, my eye!" he said, looking very low-spirited, "I am sorry for that." "Why?" I asked him. "Oh, Lord!" he said, shaking his head, "that's the school where they broke the boy's ribs--two ribs--a little boy he was. I should say he was--let me see--how old are you, about?" I told him between eight and nine. "That's just his age," he said. "He was eight years and six months old when they broke his first rib; eight years and eight months old when they broke his second, and did for him." I could not disguise from myself, or from the waiter, that this was an uncomfortable coincidence, and enquired how it was done. His answer was not cheering to my spirits, for it consisted of two dismal words, "With whopping." The blowing of the coach-horn in the yard was a seasonable diversion, which made me get up and hesitatingly enquire, in the mingled pride and diffidence of having a purse (which I took out of my pocket), if there were anything to pay. "There's a sheet of letter-paper," he returned. "Did you ever buy a sheet of letter-paper?" I could not remember that I ever had. "It's dear," he said, "on account of the duty. Threepence. That's the way we're taxed in this country. There's nothing else, except the waiter. Never mind the ink. _I_ lose by that." "What should you--what should I--how much ought I to--what would it be right to pay the waiter, if you please?" I stammered, blushing. "If I hadn't a family, and that family hadn't the cowpock," said the waiter, "I wouldn't take a sixpence. If I didn't support a aged pairint, and a lovely sister,"--here the waiter was greatly agitated--"I wouldn't take a farthing. If I had a good place, and was treated well here, I should beg acceptance of a trifle, instead of taking of it. But I live on broken wittles--and I sleep on the coals"--here the waiter burst into tears. I was very much concerned for his misfortunes, and felt that any recognition short of ninepence would be mere brutality and hardness of heart. Therefore I gave him one of my three bright shillings, which he received with much humility and veneration, and spun up with his thumb, directly afterwards, to try the goodness of. It was a little disconcerting to me, to find, when I was being helped up behind the coach, that I was supposed to have eaten all the dinner without any assistance. I discovered this, from overhearing the lady in the bow-window, say to the guard, "Take care of that child, George, or he'll burst!" and from observing that the women-servants who were about the place came out to look and giggle at me as a young phenomenon. My unfortunate friend the waiter, who had quite recovered his spirits, did not appear to be disturbed by this, but joined in the general admiration without being at all confused. If I had any doubt of him, I suppose this half-awakened it; but I am inclined to believe that with the simple confidence of a child, and the natural reliance of a child upon superior years (qualities I am very sorry any children should prematurely change for worldly wisdom), I had no serious mistrust of him on the whole, even then. I felt it rather hard, I must own, to be made, without deserving it, the subject of jokes between the coachman and guard as to the coach drawing heavy behind, on account of my sitting there, and as to the greater expediency of my travelling by waggon. The story of my supposed appetite getting wind among the outside passengers, they were merry upon it likewise; and asked me whether I was going to be paid for, at school, as two brothers or three, and whether I was contracted for, or went upon the regular terms; with other pleasant questions. But the worst of it was, that I knew I should be ashamed to eat anything, when an opportunity offered, and that, after a rather light dinner, I should remain hungry all night--for I had left my cakes behind, at the hotel, in my hurry. My apprehensions were realised. When we stopped for supper I couldn't muster courage to take any, though I should have liked it very much, but sat by the fire and said I didn't want anything. This did not save me from more jokes, either; for a husky-voiced gentleman with a rough face, who had been eating out of a sandwich-box nearly all the way, except when he had been drinking out of a bottle, said I was like a boa constrictor who took enough at one meal to last him a long time; after which, he actually brought a rash out upon himself with boiled beef. We had started from Yarmouth at three o'clock in the afternoon, and we were due in London about eight next morning. It was Midsummer weather, and the evening was very pleasant. When we passed through a village, I pictured to myself what the insides of the houses were like, and what the inhabitants were about; and when boys came running after us, and got up behind and swung there for a little way, I wondered whether their fathers were alive, and whether they were happy at home. I had plenty to think of, therefore, besides my mind running continually on the kind of place I was going to--which was an awful speculation. Sometimes, I remember, I resigned myself to thoughts of home and Peggotty; and to endeavouring, in a confused blind way, to recall how I had felt, and what sort of boy I used to be, before I bit Mr. Murdstone: which I couldn't satisfy myself about by any means, I seemed to have bitten him in such a remote antiquity. The night was not so pleasant as the evening, for it got chilly; and being put between two gentlemen (the rough-faced one and another) to prevent my tumbling off the coach, I was nearly smothered by their falling asleep, and completely blocking me up. They squeezed me so hard sometimes, that I could not help crying out, "Oh! If you please!"--which they didn't like at all, because it woke them. Opposite me was an elderly lady in a great fur cloak, who looked in the dark more like a haystack than a lady, she was wrapped up to such a degree. This lady had a basket with her, and she hadn't known what to do with it, for a long time, until she found that on account of my legs being short, it could go underneath me. It cramped and hurt me so, that it made me perfectly miserable; but if I moved in the least, and made a glass that was in the basket rattle against something else (as it was sure to do), she gave me the cruellest poke with her foot, and said, "Come, don't _you_ fidget. _Your_ bones are young enough, _I_'m sure!" At last the sun rose, and then my companions seemed to sleep easier. The difficulties under which they had laboured all night, and which had found utterance in the most terrific gasps and snorts, are not to be conceived. As the sun got higher, their sleep became lighter, and so they gradually one by one awoke. I recollect being very much surprised by the feint everybody made, then, of not having been to sleep at all, and by the uncommon indignation with which every one repelled the charge. I labor under the same kind of astonishment to this day, having invariably observed that of all human weaknesses, the one to which our common nature is the least disposed to confess (I cannot imagine why) is the weakness of having gone to sleep in a coach. What an amazing place London was to me when I saw it in the distance, and how I believed all the adventures of all my favorite heroes to be constantly enacting and re-enacting there, and how I vaguely made it out in my own mind to be fuller of wonders and wickedness than all the cities of the earth, I need not stop here to relate. We approached it by degrees, and got, in due time, to the inn in the Whitechapel district, for which we were bound. I forget whether it was the Blue Bull, or the Blue Boar; but I know it was the Blue Something, and that its likeness was painted up on the back of the coach. The guard's eye lighted on me as he was getting down, and he said at the booking-office door: "Is there anybody here for a yoongster booked in the name of Murdstone, from Bloonderstone, Sooffolk, to be left till called for?" Nobody answered. "Try Copperfield, if you please, sir," said I, looking helplessly down. "Is there anybody here for a yoongster, booked in the name of Murdstone, from Bloonderstone, Sooffolk, but owning to the name of Copperfield, to be left till called for?" said the guard. "Come! _Is_ there anybody?" No. There was nobody. I looked anxiously around; but the enquiry made no impression on any of the bystanders, if I except a man in gaiters, with one eye, who suggested that they had better put a brass collar round my neck, and tie me up in the stable. A ladder was brought, and I got down after the lady, who was like a haystack: not daring to stir, until her basket was removed. The coach was clear of passengers by that time, the luggage was very soon cleared out, the horses had been taken out before the luggage, and now the coach itself was wheeled and backed off by some hostlers, out of the way. Still, nobody appeared, to claim the dusty youngster from Blunderstone, Suffolk. More solitary than Robinson Crusoe, who had nobody to look at him and see that he was solitary, I went into the booking-office, and, by invitation of the clerk on duty, passed behind the counter, and sat down on the scale at which they weighed the luggage. Here, as I sat looking at the parcels, packages, and books, and inhaling the smell of stables (ever since associated with that morning), a procession of most tremendous considerations began to march through my mind. Supposing nobody should ever fetch me, how long would they consent to keep me there? Would they keep me long enough to spend seven shillings? Should I sleep at night in one of those wooden binns with the other luggage, and wash myself at the pump in the yard in the morning; or should I be turned out every night, and expected to come again to be left till called for, when the office opened next day? Supposing there was no mistake in the case, and Mr. Murdstone had devised this plan to get rid of me, what should I do? If they allowed me to remain there until my seven shillings were spent, I couldn't hope to remain there when I began to starve. That would obviously be inconvenient and unpleasant to the customers, besides entailing on the Blue Whatever-it-was, the risk of funeral expenses. If I started off at once, and tried to walk back home, how could I ever find my way, how could I ever hope to walk so far, how could I make sure of any one but Peggotty, even if I got back? If I found out the nearest proper authorities, and offered myself to go for a soldier, or a sailor, I was such a little fellow that it was most likely they wouldn't take me in. These thoughts, and a hundred other such thoughts, turned me burning hot, and made me giddy with apprehension and dismay. I was in the height of my fever when a man entered and whispered to the clerk, who presently slanted me off the scale, and pushed me over to him, as if I were weighed, bought, delivered, and paid for. As I went out of the office, hand in hand with this new acquaintance, I stole a look at him. He was a gaunt, sallow young man, with hollow cheeks, and a chin almost as black as Mr. Murdstone's; but there the likeness ended, for his whiskers were shaved off, and his hair, instead of being glossy, was rusty and dry. He was dressed in a suit of black clothes which were rather rusty and dry too, and rather short in the sleeves and legs; and he had a white neck-kerchief on that was not over-clean. I did not, and do not, suppose that this neck-kerchief was all the linen he wore, but it was all he showed or gave any hint of. "You're the new boy?" he said. "Yes, sir," I said. I supposed I was. I didn't know. "I'm one of the masters at Salem House," _he_ said. I made him a bow and felt very much overawed. I was so ashamed to allude to a common-place thing like my box, to a scholar and a master at Salem House, that we had gone some little distance from the yard before I had the hardihood to mention it. We turned back, on my humbly insinuating that it might be useful to me hereafter; and he told the clerk that the carrier had instructions to call for it at noon. "If you please, sir," I said, when we had accomplished about the same distance as before, "is it far?" "It's down by Blackheath," he said. "Is _that_ far, sir?" I diffidently asked. "It's a good step," he said. "We shall go by the stage-coach. It's about six miles." I was so faint and tired, that the idea of holding out for six miles more, was too much for me. I took heart to tell him that I had had nothing all night, and that if he would allow me to buy something to eat, I should be very much obliged to him. He appeared surprised at this--I see him stop and look at me now--and after considering for a few moments, said he wanted to call on an old person who lived not far off, and that the best way would be for me to buy some bread, or whatever I liked best that was wholesome, and make my breakfast at her house, where we could get some milk. Accordingly we looked in at a baker's window, and after I had made a series of proposals to buy everything that was bilious in the shop, and he had rejected them one by one, we decided in favour of a nice little loaf of brown bread, which cost me threepence. Then, at a grocer's shop, we bought an egg and a slice of streaky bacon; which still left what I thought a good deal of change, out of the second of the bright shillings, and made me consider London a very cheap place. These provisions laid in, we went on through a great noise and uproar that confused my weary head beyond description, and over a bridge which, no doubt, was London Bridge (indeed I think he told me so, but I was half asleep), until we came to the poor person's house, which was a part of some alms-houses, as I knew by their look, and by an inscription on a stone over the gate, which said they were established for twenty-five poor women. The Master at Salem House lifted the latch of one of a number of little black doors that were all alike, and had each a little diamond-paned window on one side, and another little diamond-paned window above; and we went into the little house of one of these poor old women, who was blowing a fire to make a little saucepan boil. On seeing the master enter, the old woman stopped with the bellows on her knee, and said something that I thought sounded like "My Charley!" but on seeing me come in too, she got up, and rubbing her hands made a confused sort of half curtsey. "Can you cook this young gentleman's breakfast for him, if you please?" said the Master at Salem House. "Can I?" said the old woman. "Yes can I, sure!" "How's Mrs. Fibbitson to-day?" said the Master, looking at another old woman in a large chair by the fire, who was such a bundle of clothes that I feel grateful to this hour for not having sat upon her by mistake. "Ah, she's poorly," said the first old woman. "It's one of her bad days. If the fire was to go out, through any accident, I verily believe she'd go out too, and never come to life again." As they looked at her, I looked at her also. Although it was a warm day, she seemed to think of nothing but the fire. I fancied she was jealous even of the saucepan on it; and I have reason to know that she took its impressment into the service of boiling my egg and broiling my bacon, in dudgeon; for I saw her, with my own discomfited eyes, shake her fist at me once, when those culinary operations were going on, and no one else was looking. The sun streamed in at the little window, but she sat with her own back and the back of the large chair towards it, screening the fire as if she were sedulously keeping _it_ warm, instead of it keeping her warm, and watching it in a most distrustful manner. The completion of the preparations for my breakfast, by relieving the fire, gave her such extreme joy that she laughed aloud--and a very unmelodious laugh she had, I must say. I sat down to my brown loaf, my egg, and my rasher of bacon, with a bason of milk besides, and made a most delicious meal. While I was yet in the full enjoyment of it, the old woman of the house said to the Master: "Have you got your flute with you?" "Yes," he returned. "Have a blow at it," said the old woman, coaxingly. "Do!" The Master, upon this, put his hand underneath the skirts of his coat, and brought out his flute in three pieces, which he screwed together, and began immediately to play. My impression is, after many years of consideration, that there never can have been anybody in the world who played worse. He made the most dismal sounds I have ever heard produced by any means, natural or artificial. I don't know what the tunes were--if there were such things in the performance at all, which I doubt--but the influence of the strain upon me was, first, to make me think of all my sorrows until I could hardly keep my tears back; then to take away my appetite; and lastly to make me so sleepy that I couldn't keep my eyes open. They begin to close again, and I begin to nod, as the recollection rises fresh upon me. Once more the little room with its open corner cupboard, and its square-backed chairs, and its angular little staircase leading to the room above, and its three peacock's feathers displayed over the mantelpiece--I remember wondering when I first went in, what that peacock would have thought if he had known what his finery was doomed to come to--fades from before me, and I nod, and sleep. The flute becomes inaudible, the wheels of the coach are heard instead, and I am on my journey. The coach jolts, I wake with a start, and the flute has come back again, and the Master at Salem House is sitting with his legs crossed, playing it dolefully, while the old woman of the house looks on delighted. She fades in her turn, and he fades, and all fades, and there is no flute, no Master, no Salem House, no David Copperfield, no anything but heavy sleep. I dreamed, I thought, that once while he was blowing into this dismal flute, the old woman of the house, who had gone nearer and nearer to him in her ecstatic admiration, leaned over the back of his chair and gave him an affectionate squeeze round the neck, which stopped his playing for a moment. I was in the middle state between sleeping and waking, either then or immediately afterwards; for, as he resumed--it was a real fact that he had stopped playing--I saw and heard the same old woman ask Mrs. Fibbitson if it wasn't delicious (meaning the flute), to which Mrs. Fibbitson replied, "Ay, ay! Yes!" and nodded at the fire: to which, I am persuaded, she gave the credit of the whole performance. [Illustration: My musical breakfast.] When I seemed to have been dozing a long while, the Master at Salem House unscrewed his flute into the three pieces, put them up as before, and took me away. We found the coach very near at hand, and got upon the roof; but I was so dead sleepy, that when we stopped on the road to take up somebody else, they put me inside where there were no passengers, and where I slept profoundly, until I found the coach going at a footpace up a steep hill among green leaves. Presently, it stopped, and had come to its destination. A short walk brought us--I mean the Master and me--to Salem House, which was enclosed with a high brick wall, and looked very dull. Over a door in this wall was a board with SALEM HOUSE upon it; and through a grating in this door we were surveyed when we rang the bell by a surly face, which I found, on the door being opened, belonged to a stout man with a bull-neck, a wooden leg, overhanging temples, and his hair cut close all round his head. "The new boy," said the Master. The man with the wooden leg eyed me all over--it didn't take long, for there was not much of me--and locked the gate behind us, and took out the key. We were going up to the house, among some dark heavy trees, when he called after my conductor. "Hallo!" We looked back, and he was standing at the door of a little lodge, where he lived, with a pair of boots in his hand. "Here! The cobbler's been," he said, "since you've been out, Mr. Mell, and he says he can't mend 'em any more. He says there an't a bit of the original boot left, and he wonders you expect it." With these words he threw the boots towards Mr. Mell, who went back a few paces to pick them up, and looked at them (very disconsolately, I was afraid), as we went on together. I observed then, for the first time, that the boots he had on were a good deal the worse for wear, and that his stocking was just breaking out in one place, like a bud. Salem House was a square brick building with wings; of a bare and unfurnished appearance. All about it was so very quiet, that I said to Mr. Mell I supposed the boys were out; but he seemed surprised at my not knowing that it was holiday-time. That all the boys were at their several homes. That Mr. Creakle, the proprietor, was down by the sea-side with Mrs. and Miss Creakle; and that I was sent in holiday-time as a punishment for my misdoing, all of which he explained to me as we went along. I gazed upon the schoolroom into which he took me, as the most forlorn and desolate place I had ever seen. I see it now. A long room with three long rows of desks, and six of forms, and bristling all round with pegs for hats and slates. Scraps of old copybooks and exercises, litter the dirty floor. Some silkworms' houses, made of the same materials, are scattered over the desks. Two miserable little white mice, left behind by their owner, are running up and down in a fusty castle made of pasteboard and wire, looking in all the corners with their red eyes for anything to eat. A bird, in a cage a very little bigger than himself, makes a mournful rattle now and then in hopping on his perch, two inches high, or dropping from it; but neither sings nor chirps. There is a strange unwholesome smell upon the room, like mildewed corduroys, sweet apples wanting air, and rotten books. There could not well be more ink splashed about it, if it had been roofless from its first construction, and the skies had rained, snowed, hailed, and blown ink through the varying seasons of the year. Mr. Mell having left me while he took his irreparable boots up-stairs, I went softly to the upper end of the room, observing all this as I crept along. Suddenly I came upon a pasteboard placard, beautifully written, which was lying on the desk, and bore these words--"_Take care of him. He bites._" I got upon the desk immediately, apprehensive of at least a great dog underneath. But, though I looked all round with anxious eyes, I could see nothing of him. I was still engaged in peering about, when Mr. Mell came back, and asked me what I did up there. "I beg your pardon, sir," says I, "if you please, I'm looking for the dog." "Dog?" says he. "What dog?" "Isn't it a dog, sir?" "Isn't what a dog?" "That's to be taken care of, sir; that bites." "No, Copperfield," says he gravely, "that's not a dog. That's a boy. My instructions are, Copperfield, to put this placard on your back. I am sorry to make such a beginning with you, but I must do it." With that, he took me down, and tied the placard, which was neatly constructed for the purpose, on my shoulders like a knapsack; and wherever I went, afterwards, I had the consolation of carrying it. What I suffered from that placard, nobody can imagine. Whether it was possible for people to see me or not, I always fancied that somebody was reading it. It was no relief to turn round and find nobody; for wherever my back was, there I imagined somebody always to be. That cruel man with the wooden leg, aggravated my sufferings. He was in authority; and if he ever saw me leaning against a tree, or a wall, or the house, he roared out from his lodge-door in a stupendous voice, "Hallo, you sir! You Copperfield! Show that badge conspicuous, or I'll report you!" The playground was a bare gravelled yard, open to all the back of the house and the offices; and I knew that the servants read it, and the butcher read it, and the baker read it; that everybody, in a word, who came backwards and forwards to the house, of a morning when I was ordered to walk there, read that I was to be taken care of, for I bit. I recollect that I positively began to have a dread of myself, as a kind of wild boy who did bite. There was an old door in this playground, on which the boys had a custom of carving their names. It was completely covered with such inscriptions. In my dread of the end of the vacation and their coming back, I could not read a boy's name, without enquiring in what tone and with what emphasis _he_ would read, "Take care of him. He bites." There was one boy--a certain J. Steerforth--who cut his name very deep and very often, who, I conceived, would read it in a rather strong voice, and afterwards pull my hair. There was another boy, one Tommy Traddles, who I dreaded would make game of it, and pretend to be dreadfully frightened of me. There was a third, George Demple, who I fancied would sing it. I have looked, a little shrinking creature, at that door, until the owners of all the names--there were five-and-forty of them in the school then, Mr. Mell said--seemed to send me to Coventry by general acclamation, and to cry out, each in his own way, "Take care of him. He bites!" It was the same with the places at the desks and forms. It was the same with the groves of deserted bedsteads I peeped at, on my way to, and when I was in, my own bed. I remember dreaming night after night, of being with my mother as she used to be, or of going to a party at Mr. Peggotty's, or of travelling outside the stage-coach, or of dining again with my unfortunate friend the waiter, and in all these circumstances making people scream and stare, by the unhappy disclosure that I had nothing on but my little night-shirt, and that placard. In the monotony of my life, and in my constant apprehension of the reopening of the school, it was such an insupportable affliction! I had long tasks every day to do with Mr. Mell; but I did them, there being no Mr. and Miss Murdstone here, and got through them without disgrace. Before, and after them, I walked about--supervised, as I have mentioned, by the man with the wooden leg. How vividly I call to mind the damp about the house, the green cracked flagstones in the court, an old leaky water-butt, and the discolored trunks of some of the grim trees, which seemed to have dripped more in the rain than other trees, and to have blown less in the sun! At one we dined, Mr. Mell and I, at the upper end of a long bare dining-room, full of deal tables, and smelling of fat. Then, we had more tasks until tea, which Mr. Mell drank out of a blue teacup, and I out of a tin pot. All day long, and until seven or eight in the evening, Mr. Mell, at his own detached desk in the schoolroom, worked hard with pen, ink, ruler, books, and writing-paper, making out the bills (as I found) for last half-year. When he had put up his things for the night he took out his flute, and blew at it, until I almost thought he would gradually blow his whole being into the large hole at the top, and ooze away at the keys. I picture my small self in the dimly-lighted rooms, sitting with my head upon my hand, listening to the doleful performance of Mr. Mell, and conning to-morrow's lessons. I picture myself with my books shut up, still listening to the doleful performance of Mr. Mell, and listening through it to what used to be at home, and to the blowing of the wind on Yarmouth flats, and feeling very sad and solitary. I picture myself going up to bed, among the unused rooms, and sitting on my bed-side crying for a comfortable word from Peggotty. I picture myself coming down stairs in the morning, and looking through a long ghastly gash of a staircase-window, at the school-bell hanging on the top of an outhouse, with a weathercock above it; and dreading the time when it shall ring J. Steerforth and the rest to work: which is only second, in my foreboding apprehensions, to the time when the man with the wooden leg shall unlock the rusty gate to give admission to the awful Mr. Creakle. I cannot think I was a very dangerous character in any of these aspects, but in all of them I carried the same warning on my back. Mr. Mell never said much to me, but he was never harsh to me. I suppose we were company to each other, without talking. I forgot to mention that he would talk to himself sometimes, and grin, and clench his fist, and grind his teeth, and pull his hair in an unaccountable manner. But he had these peculiarities: and at first they frightened me, though I soon got used to them. CHAPTER VI. I ENLARGE MY CIRCLE OF ACQUAINTANCE. I had led this life about a month, when the man with the wooden leg began to stump about with a mop and a bucket of water, from which I inferred that preparations were making to receive Mr. Creakle and the boys. I was not mistaken; for the mop came into the schoolroom before long, and turned out Mr. Mell and me, who lived where we could, and got on how we could, for some days, during which we were always in the way of two or three young women, who had rarely shown themselves before, and were so continually in the midst of dust that I sneezed almost as much as if Salem House had been a great snuff-box. One day I was informed by Mr. Mell, that Mr. Creakle would be home that evening. In the evening, after tea, I heard that he was come. Before bed-time, I was fetched by the man with the wooden leg to appear before him. Mr. Creakle's part of the house was a good deal more comfortable than ours, and he had a snug bit of garden that looked pleasant after the dusty playground, which was such a desert in miniature, that I thought no one but a camel, or a dromedary, could have felt at home in it. It seemed to me a bold thing even to take notice that the passage looked comfortable, as I went on my way, trembling, to Mr. Creakle's presence: which so abashed me, when I was ushered into it, that I hardly saw Mrs. Creakle or Miss Creakle (who were both there, in the parlor), or anything but Mr. Creakle, a stout gentleman with a bunch of watch-chain and seals, in an arm-chair, with a tumbler and bottle beside him. "So!" said Mr. Creakle. "This is the young gentleman whose teeth are to be filed! Turn him round." The wooden-legged man turned me about so as to exhibit the placard; and having afforded time for a full survey of it, turned me about again, with my face to Mr. Creakle, and posted himself at Mr. Creakle's side. Mr. Creakle's face was fiery, and his eyes were small, and deep in his head; he had thick veins in his forehead, a little nose, and a large chin. He was bald on the top of his head; and had some thin wet-looking hair that was just turning grey, brushed across each temple, so that the two sides interlaced on his forehead. But the circumstance about him which impressed me most, was, that he had no voice, but spoke in a whisper. The exertion this cost him, or the consciousness of talking in that feeble way, made his angry face so much more angry, and his thick veins so much thicker, when he spoke, that I am not surprised, on looking back, at this peculiarity striking me as his chief one. "Now," said Mr. Creakle. "What's the report of this boy?" "There's nothing against him yet," returned the man with the wooden leg. "There has been no opportunity." I thought Mr. Creakle was disappointed. I thought Mrs. and Miss Creakle (at whom I now glanced for the first time, and who were, both, thin and quiet) were not disappointed. "Come here, sir!" said Mr. Creakle, beckoning to me. "Come here!" said the man with the wooden leg, repeating the gesture. "I have the happiness of knowing your father-in-law," whispered Mr. Creakle, taking me by the ear; "and a worthy man he is, and a man of a strong character. He knows me, and I know him. Do _you_ know me? Hey?" said Mr. Creakle, pinching my ear with ferocious playfulness. "Not yet, sir," I said, flinching with the pain. "Not yet? Hey?" repeated Mr. Creakle. "But you will soon. Hey?" "You will soon. Hey?" repeated the man with the wooden leg. I afterwards found that he generally acted, with his strong voice, as Mr. Creakle's interpreter to the boys. I was very much frightened, and said, I hoped so, if he pleased. I felt, all this while, as if my ear were blazing; he pinched it so hard. "I'll tell you what I am," whispered Mr. Creakle, letting it go at last, with a screw at parting that brought the water into my eyes. "I'm a Tartar." "A Tartar," said the man with the wooden leg. "When I say I'll do a thing, I do it," said Mr. Creakle; "and when I say I will have a thing done, I will have it done." "--Will have a thing done, I will have it done," repeated the man with the wooden leg. "I am a determined character," said Mr. Creakle. "That's what I am. I do my duty. That's what _I_ do. My flesh and blood"--he looked at Mrs. Creakle as he said this--"when it rises against me, is not my flesh and blood. I discard it. Has that fellow," to the man with the wooden leg, "been here again?" "No," was the answer. "No," said Mr. Creakle. "He knows better. He knows me. Let him keep away. I say let him keep away," said Mr. Creakle, striking his hand upon the table, and looking at Mrs. Creakle, "for he knows me. Now you have begun to know me too, my young friend, and you may go. Take him away." I was very glad to be ordered away, for Mrs. and Miss Creakle were both wiping their eyes, and I felt as uncomfortable for them, as I did for myself. But I had a petition on my mind which concerned me so nearly, that I couldn't help saying, though I wondered at my own courage: "If you please, sir----" Mr. Creakle whispered, "Hah? What's this?" and bent his eyes upon me, as if he would have burnt me up with them. "If you please, sir," I faltered, "if I might be allowed (I am very sorry indeed, sir, for what I did) to take this writing off, before the boys come back----" Whether Mr. Creakle was in earnest, or whether he only did it to frighten me I don't know, but he made a burst out of his chair, before which I precipitately retreated, without waiting for the escort of the man with the wooden leg, and never once stopped until I reached my own bedroom, where, finding I was not pursued, I went to bed, as it was time, and lay quaking, for a couple of hours. Next morning Mr. Sharp came back. Mr. Sharp was the first master, and superior to Mr. Mell. Mr. Mell took his meals with the boys, but Mr. Sharp dined and supped at Mr. Creakle's table. He was a limp, delicate-looking gentleman, I thought, with a good deal of nose, and a way of carrying his head on one side, as if it were a little too heavy for him. His hair was very smooth and wavy; but I was informed by the very first boy who came back that it was a wig (a second-hand one _he_ said), and that Mr. Sharp went out every Saturday afternoon to get it curled. It was no other than Tommy Traddles who gave me this piece of intelligence. He was the first boy who returned. He introduced himself by informing me that I should find his name on the right-hand corner of the gate, over the top bolt; upon that I said, "Traddles?" to which he replied, "The same," and then he asked me for a full account of myself and family. It was a happy circumstance for me that Traddles came back first. He enjoyed my placard so much, that he saved me from the embarrassment of either disclosure or concealment, by presenting me to every other boy who came back, great or small, immediately on his arrival, in this form of introduction, "Look here! Here's a game!" Happily, too, the greater part of the boys came back low-spirited, and were not so boisterous at my expense as I had expected. Some of them certainly did dance about me like wild Indians, and the greater part could not resist the temptation of pretending that I was a dog, and patting and smoothing me lest I should bite, and saying, "Lie down, sir!" and calling me Towzer. This was naturally confusing, among so many strangers, and cost me some tears, but on the whole it was much better than I had anticipated. I was not considered as being formally received into the school, however, until J. Steerforth arrived. Before this boy, who was reputed to be a great scholar, and was very good-looking, and at least half-a-dozen years my senior, I was carried as before a magistrate. He enquired, under a shed in the playground, into the particulars of my punishment, and was pleased to express his opinion that it was "a jolly shame;" for which I became bound to him ever afterwards. "What money have you got, Copperfield?" he said, walking aside with me when he had disposed of my affair in these terms. I told him seven shillings. "You had better give it to me to take care of," he said. "At least, you can if you like. You needn't if you don't like." I hastened to comply with his friendly suggestion, and opening Peggotty's purse, turned it upside down into his hand. "Do you want to spend anything now?" he asked me. "No, thank you," I replied. "You can if you like, you know," said Steerforth. "Say the word." "No, thank you, sir," I repeated. "Perhaps you'd like to spend a couple of shillings or so, in a bottle of currant wine by-and-by, up in the bedroom?" said Steerforth. "You belong to my bedroom, I find." It certainly had not occurred to me before, but I said, Yes, I should like that. "Very good," said Steerforth. "You'll be glad to spend another shilling or so, in almond cakes, I dare say?" I said, Yes, I should like that, too. "And another shilling or so in biscuits, and another in fruit, eh?" said Steerforth. "I say, young Copperfield, you're going it!" I smiled because he smiled, but I was a little troubled in my mind, too. "Well!" said Steerforth. "We must make it stretch as far as we can; that's all. I'll do the best in my power for you. I can go out when I like, and I'll smuggle the prog in." With these words he put the money in his pocket, and kindly told me not to make myself uneasy; he would take care it should be all right. He was as good as his word, if that were all right which I had a secret misgiving was nearly all wrong--for I feared it was a waste of my mother's two half-crowns--though I had preserved the piece of paper they were wrapped in: which was a precious saving. When we went up-stairs to bed, he produced the whole seven shillings' worth, and laid it out on my bed in the moonlight, saying: "There you are, young Copperfield, and a royal spread you've got!" I couldn't think of doing the honors of the feast, at my time of life, while he was by; my hand shook at the very thought of it. I begged him to do me the favor of presiding; and my request being seconded by the other boys who were in that room, he acceded to it, and sat upon my pillow, handing round the viands--with perfect fairness, I must say--and dispensing the currant wine in a little glass without a foot, which was his own property. As to me, I sat on his left hand, and the rest were grouped about us, on the nearest beds and on the floor. How well I recollect our sitting there, talking in whispers; or their talking, and my respectfully listening, I ought rather to say; the moonlight falling a little way into the room, through the window, painting a pale window on the floor, and the greater part of us in shadow, except when Steerforth dipped a match into a phosphorous-box, when he wanted to look for anything on the board, and shed a blue glare over us that was gone directly! A certain mysterious feeling, consequent on the darkness, the secresy of the revel, and the whisper in which everything was said, steals over me again, and I listen to all they tell me with a vague feeling of solemnity and awe, which makes me glad that they are all so near, and frightens me (though I feign to laugh) when Traddles pretends to see a ghost in the corner. I heard all kinds of things about the school and all belonging to it. I heard that Mr. Creakle had not preferred his claim to being a Tartar without reason; that he was the sternest and most severe of masters; that he laid about him, right and left, every day of his life, charging in among the boys like a trooper, and slashing away, unmercifully. That he knew nothing himself, but the art of slashing, being more ignorant (J. Steerforth said) than the lowest boy in the school; that he had been, a good many years ago, a small hop-dealer in the Borough, and had taken to the schooling business after being bankrupt in hops, and making away with Mrs. Creakle's money. With a good deal more of that sort, which I wondered how they knew. I heard that the man with the wooden leg, whose name was Tungay, was an obstinate barbarian who had formerly assisted in the hop business, but had come into the scholastic line with Mr. Creakle, in consequence, as was supposed among the boys, of his having broken his leg in Mr. Creakle's service, and having done a deal of dishonest work for him, and knowing his secrets. I heard that with the single exception of Mr. Creakle, Tungay considered the whole establishment, masters and boys, as his natural enemies, and that the only delight of his life was to be sour and malicious. I heard that Mr. Creakle had a son, who had not been Tungay's friend, and who, assisting in the school, had once held some remonstrance with his father on an occasion when its discipline was very cruelly exercised, and was supposed, besides, to have protested against his father's usage of his mother. I heard that Mr. Creakle had turned him out of doors, in consequence; and that Mrs. and Miss Creakle had been in a sad way, ever since. But the greatest wonder that I heard of Mr. Creakle was, there being one boy in the school on whom he never ventured to lay a hand, and that boy being J. Steerforth. Steerforth himself confirmed this when it was stated, and said that he should like to begin to see him do it. On being asked by a mild boy (not me) how he would proceed if he did begin to see him do it, he dipped a match into his phosphorous-box on purpose to shed a glare over his reply, and said he would commence by knocking him down with a blow on the forehead from the seven-and-sixpenny ink-bottle that was always on the mantelpiece. We sat in the dark for some time, breathless. I heard that Mr. Sharp and Mr. Mell were both supposed to be wretchedly paid; and that when there was hot and cold meat for dinner at Mr. Creakle's table, Mr. Sharp was always expected to say he preferred cold; which was again corroborated by J. Steerforth, the only parlor-boarder. I heard that Mr. Sharp's wig didn't fit him; and that he needn't be so "bounceable"--somebody else said "bumptious"--about it, because his own red hair was very plainly to be seen behind. I heard that one boy, who was a coal-merchant's son, came as a set-off against the coal-bill, and was called on that account "Exchange or Barter"--a name selected from the arithmetic-book as expressing this arrangement. I heard that the table-beer was a robbery of parents, and the pudding an imposition. I heard that Miss Creakle was regarded by the school in general as being in love with Steerforth; and I am sure, as I sat in the dark, thinking of his nice voice, and his fine face, and his easy manner, and his curling hair, I thought it very likely. I heard that Mr. Mell was not a bad sort of fellow, but hadn't a sixpence to bless himself with; and that there was no doubt that old Mrs. Mell, his mother, was as poor as Job. I thought of my breakfast then, and what had sounded like "My Charley!" but I was, I am glad to remember, as mute as a mouse about it. The hearing of all this, and a good deal more, outlasted the banquet some time. The greater part of the guests had gone to bed as soon as the eating and drinking were over; and we, who had remained whispering and listening half undressed, at last betook ourselves to bed, too. "Good night, young Copperfield," said Steerforth, "I'll take care of you." "You're very kind," I gratefully returned. "I am very much obliged to you." "You haven't got a sister, have you?" said Steerforth, yawning. "No," I answered. "That's a pity," said Steerforth. "If you had had one, I should think she would have been a pretty, timid, little, bright-eyed sort of girl. I should have liked to know her. Good night, young Copperfield." "Good night, sir," I replied. I thought of him very much after I went to bed, and raised myself, I recollect, to look at him where he lay in the moonlight, with his handsome face turned up, and his head reclining easily on his arm. He was a person of great power in my eyes; that was of course the reason of my mind running on him. No veiled future dimly glanced upon him in the moonbeams. There was no shadowy picture of his footsteps, in the garden that I dreamed of walking in all night. CHAPTER VII. MY "FIRST HALF" AT SALEM HOUSE. School began in earnest next day. A profound impression was made upon me, I remember, by the roar of voices in the schoolroom suddenly becoming hushed as death when Mr. Creakle entered after breakfast, and stood in the doorway looking round upon us like a giant in a story-book surveying his captives. Tungay stood at Mr. Creakle's elbow. He had no occasion, I thought, to cry out "Silence!" so ferociously, for the boys were all struck speechless and motionless. Mr. Creakle was seen to speak, and Tungay was heard, to this effect. "Now, boys, this is a new half. Take care what you're about, in this new half. Come fresh up to the lessons, I advise you, for I come fresh up to the punishment. I won't flinch. It will be of no use your rubbing yourselves; you won't rub the marks out that I shall give you. Now get to work, every boy!" When this dreadful exordium was over, and Tungay had stumped out again, Mr. Creakle came to where I sat, and told me that if I were famous for biting, he was famous for biting, too. He then showed me the cane, and asked me what I thought of _that_, for a tooth? Was it a sharp tooth, hey? Was it a double tooth, hey? Had it a deep prong, hey? Did it bite, hey? Did it bite? At every question he gave me a fleshy cut with it that made me writhe; so I was very soon made free of Salem House (as Steerforth said), and very soon in tears also. Not that I mean to say these were special marks of distinction, which only I received. On the contrary, a large majority of the boys (especially the smaller ones) were visited with similar instances of notice, as Mr. Creakle made the round of the schoolroom. Half the establishment was writhing and crying, before the day's work began; and how much of it had writhed and cried before the day's work was over, I am really afraid to recollect, lest I should seem to exaggerate. I should think there never can have been a man who enjoyed his profession more than Mr. Creakle did. He had a delight in cutting at the boys, which was like the satisfaction of a craving appetite. I am confident that he couldn't resist a chubby boy, especially; that there was a fascination in such a subject, which made him restless in his mind, until he had scored and marked him for the day. I was chubby myself, and ought to know. I am sure when I think of the fellow now, my blood rises against him with the disinterested indignation I should feel if I could have known all about him without having ever been in his power; but it rises hotly, because I know him to have been an incapable brute, who had no more right to be possessed of the great trust he held, than to be Lord High Admiral, or Commander-in-chief: in either of which capacities, it is probable that he would have done infinitely less mischief. Miserable little propitiators of a remorseless Idol, how abject we were to him! What a launch in life I think it now, on looking back, to be so mean and servile to a man of such parts and pretensions! Here I sit at the desk again, watching his eye--humbly watching his eye, as he rules a cyphering-book for another victim whose hands have just been flattened by that identical ruler, and who is trying to wipe the sting out with a pocket-handkerchief. I have plenty to do. I don't watch his eye in idleness, but because I am morbidly attracted to it, in a dread desire to know what he will do next, and whether it will be my turn to suffer, or somebody else's. A lane of small boys beyond me, with the same interest in his eye, watch it too. I think he knows it, though he pretends he don't. He makes dreadful mouths as he rules the cyphering-book; and now he throws his eye sideways down our lane, and we all droop over our books and tremble. A moment afterwards we are again eyeing him. An unhappy culprit, found guilty of imperfect exercise, approaches at his command. The culprit falters excuses, and professes a determination to do better to-morrow. Mr. Creakle cuts a joke before he beats him, and we laugh at it,--miserable little dogs, we laugh, with our visages as white as ashes, and our hearts sinking into our boots. Here I sit at the desk again, on a drowsy summer afternoon. A buzz and hum go up around me, as if the boys were so many blue-bottles. A cloggy sensation of the lukewarm fat of meat is upon me (we dined an hour or two ago), and my head is as heavy as so much lead. I would give the world to go to sleep. I sit with my eye on Mr. Creakle, blinking at him like a young owl; when sleep overpowers me for a minute, he still looms through my slumber, ruling those cyphering-books; until he softly comes behind me and wakes me to plainer perception of him, with a red ridge across my back. Here I am in the playground, with my eye still fascinated by him, though I can't see him. The window at a little distance from which I know he is having his dinner, stands for him, and I eye that instead. If he shows his face near it, mine assumes an imploring and submissive expression. If he looks out through the glass, the boldest boy (Steerforth excepted) stops in the middle of a shout or yell, and becomes contemplative. One day, Traddles (the most unfortunate boy in the world) breaks that window accidentally, with a ball. I shudder at this moment with the tremendous sensation of seeing it done, and feeling that the ball has bounded on to Mr. Creakle's sacred head. Poor Traddles! In a tight sky-blue suit that made his arms and legs like German sausages, or roly-poly puddings, he was the merriest and most miserable of all the boys. He was always being caned--I think he was caned every day that half-year, except one holiday Monday when he was only ruler'd on both hands--and was always going to write to his uncle about it, and never did. After laying his head on the desk for a little while, he would cheer up, somehow, begin to laugh again, and draw skeletons all over his slate, before his eyes were dry. I used at first to wonder what comfort Traddles found in drawing skeletons; and for some time looked upon him as a sort of hermit, who reminded himself by those symbols of mortality that caning couldn't last for ever. But I believe he only did it because they were easy, and didn't want any features. He was very honorable, Traddles was; and held it as a solemn duty in the boys to stand by one another. He suffered for this on several occasions; and particularly once, when Steerforth laughed in church, and the Beadle thought it was Traddles, and took him out. I see him now, going away in custody, despised by the congregation. He never said who was the real offender, though he smarted for it next day, and was imprisoned so many hours that he came forth with a whole churchyard-full of skeletons swarming all over his Latin Dictionary. But he had his reward. Steerforth said there was nothing of the sneak in Traddles, and we all felt that to be the highest praise. For my part, I could have gone through a good deal (though I was much less brave than Traddles, and nothing like so old) to have won such a recompense. To see Steerforth walk to church before us, arm-in-arm with Miss Creakle, was one of the great sights of my life. I didn't think Miss Creakle equal to little Em'ly in point of beauty, and I didn't love her (I didn't dare); but I thought her a young lady of extraordinary attractions, and in point of gentility not to be surpassed. When Steerforth, in white trousers, carried her parasol for her, I felt proud to know him; and believed that she could not choose but adore him with all her heart. Mr. Sharp and Mr. Mell were both notable personages in my eyes; but Steerforth was to them what the sun was to two stars. [Illustration: Steerforth and Mr. Mell.] Steerforth continued his protection of me, and proved a very useful friend; since nobody dared to annoy one whom he honored with his countenance. He couldn't--or at all events, he didn't--defend me from Mr. Creakle, who was very severe with me; but whenever I had been treated worse than usual, he always told me that I wanted a little of his pluck, and that he wouldn't have stood it himself; which I felt he intended for encouragement, and considered to be very kind of him. There was one advantage, and only one that I know of, in Mr. Creakle's severity. He found my placard in his way, when he came up or down behind the form on which I sat, and wanted to make a cut at me in passing; for this reason it was soon taken off, and I saw it no more. An accidental circumstance cemented the intimacy between Steerforth and me, in a manner that inspired me with great pride and satisfaction, though it sometimes led to inconvenience. It happened on one occasion, when he was doing me the honor of talking to me in the playground, that I hazarded the observation that something or somebody--I forget what now--was like something or somebody in Peregrine Pickle. He said nothing at the time; but when I was going to bed at night, asked me if I had got that book. I told him no, and explained how it was that I had read it, and all those other books of which I have made mention. "And do you recollect them?" Steerforth said. Oh yes, I replied; I had a good memory, and I believed I recollected them very well. "Then I tell you what, young Copperfield," said Steerforth, "you shall tell 'em to me. I can't get to sleep very early at night, and I generally wake rather early in the morning. We'll go over 'em one after another. We'll make some regular Arabian Nights of it." I felt extremely flattered by this arrangement, and we commenced carrying it into execution that very evening. What ravages I committed on my favorite authors in the course of my interpretation of them, I am not in a condition to say, and should be very unwilling to know; but I had a profound faith in them, and I had, to the best of my belief, a simple, earnest manner of narrating what I did narrate; and these qualities went a long way. The drawback was, that I was often sleepy at night, or out of spirits and indisposed to resume the story; and then it was rather hard work, and it must be done; for to disappoint or displease Steerforth was of course out of the question. In the morning, too, when I felt weary and should have enjoyed another hour's repose very much, it was a tiresome thing to be roused, like the Sultana Scheherazade, and forced into a long story before the getting-up bell rang; but Steerforth was resolute; and as he explained to me, in return, my sums and exercises, and anything in my tasks that was too hard for me, I was no loser by the transaction. Let me do myself justice, however. I was moved by no interested or selfish motive, nor was I moved by fear of him. I admired and loved him, and his approval was return enough. It was so precious to me that I look back on these trifles, now, with an aching heart. Steerforth was considerate, too; and showed his consideration, in one particular instance, in an unflinching manner that was a little tantalising, I suspect, to poor Traddles and the rest. Peggotty's promised letter--what a comfortable letter it was!--arrived before "the half" was many weeks old; and with it a cake in a perfect nest of oranges, and two bottles of cowslip wine. This treasure, as in duty bound, I laid at the feet of Steerforth, and begged him to dispense. "Now, I'll tell you what, young Copperfield," said he: "the wine shall be kept to wet your whistle when you are story-telling." I blushed at the idea, and begged him, in my modesty, not to think of it. But he said he had observed I was sometimes hoarse--a little roopy was his exact expression--and it should be, every drop, devoted to the purpose he had mentioned. Accordingly, it was locked up in his box, and drawn off by himself in a phial, and administered to me through a piece of quill in the cork, when I was supposed to be in want of a restorative. Sometimes, to make it a more sovereign specific, he was so kind as to squeeze orange juice into it, or to stir it up with ginger, or dissolve a peppermint drop in it; and although I cannot assert that the flavour was improved by these experiments, or that it was exactly the compound one would have chosen for a stomachic, the last thing at night and the first thing in the morning, I drank it gratefully and was very sensible of his attention. We seem, to me, to have been months over Peregrine, and months more over the other stories. The institution never flagged for want of a story, I am certain; and the wine lasted out almost as well as the matter. Poor Traddles--I never think of that boy but with a strange disposition to laugh, and with tears in my eyes--was a sort of chorus, in general; and affected to be convulsed with mirth at the comic parts, and to be overcome with fear when there was any passage of an alarming character in the narrative. This rather put me out, very often. It was a great jest of his, I recollect, to pretend that he couldn't keep his teeth from chattering, whenever mention was made of an Alguazil in connexion with the adventures of Gil Blas; and I remember, when Gil Blas met the captain of the robbers in Madrid, this unlucky joker counterfeited such an ague of terror, that he was overheard by Mr. Creakle, who was prowling about the passage, and handsomely flogged for disorderly conduct in the bedroom. Whatever I had within me that was romantic and dreamy, was encouraged by so much story-telling in the dark; and in that respect the pursuit may not have been very profitable to me. But the being cherished as a kind of plaything in my room, and the consciousness that this accomplishment of mine was bruited about among the boys, and attracted a good deal of notice to me though I was the youngest there, stimulated me to exertion. In a school carried on by sheer cruelty, whether it is presided over by a dunce or not, there is not likely to be much learnt. I believe our boys were, generally, as ignorant a set as any schoolboys in existence; they were too much troubled and knocked about to learn; they could no more do that to advantage, than any one can do anything to advantage in a life of constant misfortune, torment, and worry. But my little vanity, and Steerforth's help, urged me on somehow; and without saving me from much, if anything, in the way of punishment, made me, for the time I was there, an exception to the general body, insomuch that I did steadily pick up some crumbs of knowledge. In this I was much assisted by Mr. Mell, who had a liking for me that I am grateful to remember. It always gave me pain to observe that Steerforth treated him with systematic disparagement, and seldom lost an occasion of wounding his feelings, or inducing others to do so. This troubled me the more for a long time, because I had soon told Steerforth, from whom I could no more keep such a secret, than I could keep a cake or any other tangible possession, about the two old women Mr. Mell had taken me to see; and I was always afraid that Steerforth would let it out, and twit him with it. We little thought any one of us, I dare say, when I ate my breakfast that first morning, and went to sleep under the shadow of the peacock's feathers to the sound of the flute, what consequences would come of the introduction into those alms-houses of my insignificant person. But the visit had its unforeseen consequences; and of a serious sort, too, in their way. One day when Mr. Creakle kept the house from indisposition, which naturally diffused a lively joy through the school, there was a good deal of noise in the course of the morning's work. The great relief and satisfaction experienced by the boys made them difficult to manage; and though the dreaded Tungay brought his wooden leg in twice or thrice, and took notes of the principal offenders' names, no great impression was made by it, as they were pretty sure of getting into trouble to-morrow do what they would, and thought it wise, no doubt, to enjoy themselves to-day. It was, properly, a half-holiday; being Saturday. But as the noise in the playground would have disturbed Mr. Creakle, and the weather was not favorable for going out walking, we were ordered into school in the afternoon, and set some lighter tasks than usual, which were made for the occasion. It was the day of the week on which Mr. Sharp went out to get his wig curled; so Mr. Mell, who always did the drudgery, whatever it was, kept school by himself. If I could associate the idea of a bull or a bear with any one so mild as Mr. Mell, I should think of him, in connexion with that afternoon when the uproar was at its height, as of one of those animals, baited by a thousand dogs. I recall him bending his aching head, supported on his bony hand, over the book on his desk, and wretchedly endeavouring to get on with his tiresome work, amidst an uproar that might have made the Speaker of the House of Commons giddy. Boys started in and out of their places, playing at puss in the corner with other boys; there were laughing boys, singing boys, talking boys, dancing boys, howling boys; boys shuffled with their feet, boys whirled about him, grinning, making faces, mimicking him behind his back and before his eyes: mimicking his poverty, his boots, his coat, his mother, everything belonging to him that they should have had consideration for. "Silence!" cried Mr. Mell, suddenly rising up, and striking his desk with the book. "What does this mean! It's impossible to bear it. It's maddening. How can you do it to me, boys?" It was my book that he struck his desk with; and as I stood beside him, following his eye as it glanced round the room, I saw the boys all stop, some suddenly surprised, some half afraid, and some sorry perhaps. Steerforth's place was at the bottom of the school, at the opposite end of the long room. He was lounging with his back against the wall, and his hands in his pockets, and looked at Mr. Mell with his mouth shut up as if he were whistling, when Mr. Mell looked at him. "Silence, Mr. Steerforth!" said Mr. Mell. "Silence yourself," said Steerforth, turning red. "Whom are you talking to?" "Sit down," said Mr. Mell. "Sit down yourself," said Steerforth, "and mind your business." There was a titter, and some applause; but Mr. Mell was so white, that silence immediately succeeded; and one boy, who had darted out behind him to imitate his mother again, changed his mind, and pretended to want a pen mended. "If you think, Steerforth," said Mr. Mell, "that I am not acquainted with the power you can establish over any mind here"--he laid his hand, without considering what he did (as I supposed), upon my head--"or that I have not observed you, within a few minutes, urging your juniors on to every sort of outrage against me, you are mistaken." "I don't give myself the trouble of thinking at all about you," said Steerforth, coolly; "so I'm not mistaken, as it happens." "And when you make use of your position of favoritism here, sir," pursued Mr. Mell, with his lip trembling very much, "to insult a gentleman--" "A what?--where is he?" said Steerforth. Here somebody cried out, "Shame, J. Steerforth! Too bad!" It was Traddles; whom Mr. Mell instantly discomfited by bidding him hold his tongue. --"To insult one who is not fortunate in life, sir, and who never gave you the least offence, and the many reasons for not insulting whom you are old enough and wise enough to understand," said Mr. Mell, with his lip trembling more and more, "you commit a mean and base action. You can sit down or stand up as you please, sir. Copperfield, go on." "Young Copperfield," said Steerforth, coming forward up the room, "stop a bit. I tell you what, Mr. Mell, once for all. When you take the liberty of calling me mean or base, or anything of that sort, you are an impudent beggar. You are always a beggar, you know; but when you do that, you are an impudent beggar." I am not clear whether he was going to strike Mr. Mell, or Mr. Mell was going to strike him, or there was any such intention on either side. I saw a rigidity come upon the whole school as if they had been turned into stone, and found Mr. Creakle in the midst of us, with Tungay at his side, and Mrs. and Miss Creakle looking in at the door as if they were frightened. Mr. Mell, with his elbows on his desk and his face in his hands, sat, for some moments, quite still. "Mr. Mell," said Mr. Creakle, shaking him by the arm; and his whisper was so audible now, that Tungay felt it unnecessary to repeat his words; "you have not forgotten yourself, I hope?" "No, sir, no," returned the Master, showing his face, and shaking his head, and rubbing his hands in great agitation. "No, sir. No. I have remembered myself, I--no, Mr. Creakle, I have not forgotten myself, I--I have remembered myself, sir. I--I--could wish you had remembered me a little sooner, Mr. Creakle. It--it--would have been more kind, sir, more just, sir. It would have saved me something, sir." Mr. Creakle, looking hard at Mr. Mell, put his hand on Tungay's shoulder, and got his feet upon the form close by, and sat upon the desk. After still looking hard at Mr. Mell from this throne, as he shook his head, and rubbed his hands, and remained in the same state of agitation, Mr. Creakle turned to Steerforth, and said: "Now, sir, as he don't condescend to tell me, what _is_ this?" Steerforth evaded the question for a little while; looking in scorn and anger on his opponent, and remaining silent. I could not help thinking even in that interval, I remember, what a noble fellow he was in appearance, and how homely and plain Mr. Mell looked opposed to him. "What did he mean by talking about favorites, then!" said Steerforth at length. "Favorites?" repeated Mr. Creakle, with the veins in his forehead swelling quickly. "Who talked about favorites?" "He did," said Steerforth. "And pray, what did you mean by that, sir?" demanded Mr. Creakle, turning angrily on his assistant. "I meant, Mr. Creakle," he returned in a low voice, "as I said; that no pupil had a right to avail himself of his position of favoritism to degrade me." "To degrade _you_?" said Mr. Creakle. "My stars! But give me leave to ask you, Mr. What's-your-name;" and here Mr. Creakle folded his arms, cane and all, upon his chest, and made such a knot of his brows that his little eyes were hardly visible below them; "whether, when you talk about favorites, you showed proper respect to me? To me, sir," said Mr. Creakle, darting his head at him suddenly, and drawing it back again, "the principal of this establishment, and your employer." "It was not judicious, sir, I am willing to admit," said Mr. Mell. "I should not have done so, if I had been cool." Here Steerforth struck in. "Then he said I was mean, and then he said I was base, and then I called him a beggar. If _I_ had been cool, perhaps I shouldn't have called him a beggar. But I did, and I am ready to take the consequences of it." Without considering, perhaps, whether there were any consequences to be taken, I felt quite in a glow at this gallant speech. It made an impression on the boys too, for there was a low stir among them, though no one spoke a word. "I am surprised, Steerforth--although your candor does you honor," said Mr. Creakle, "does you honor, certainly--I am surprised, Steerforth, I must say, that you should attach such an epithet to any person employed and paid in Salem House, sir." Steerforth gave a short laugh. "That's not an answer, sir," said Mr. Creakle, "to my remark. I expect more than that, from you, Steerforth." If Mr. Mell looked homely, in my eyes, before the handsome boy, it would be quite impossible to say how homely Mr. Creakle looked. "Let him deny it," said Steerforth. "Deny that he is a beggar, Steerforth?" cried Mr. Creakle. "Why, where does he go a begging?" "If he is not a beggar himself, his near relation's one," said Steerforth. "It's all the same." He glanced at me, and Mr. Mell's hand gently patted me upon the shoulder. I looked up, with a flush upon my face and remorse in my heart, but Mr. Mell's eyes were fixed on Steerforth. He continued to pat me kindly on the shoulder, but he looked at him. "Since you expect me, Mr. Creakle, to justify myself," said Steerforth, "and to say what I mean,--what I have to say is, that his mother lives on charity in an alms-house." Mr. Mell still looked at him, and still patted me kindly on the shoulder, and said to himself, in a whisper, if I heard right: "Yes, I thought so." Mr. Creakle turned to his assistant, with a severe frown and labored politeness. "Now, you hear what this gentleman says, Mr. Mell. Have the goodness, if you please, to set him right before the assembled school." "He is right, sir, without correction," returned Mr. Mell, in the midst of a dead silence; "what he has said, is true." "Be so good then as declare publicly, will you," said Mr. Creakle, putting his head on one side, and rolling his eyes round the school, "whether it ever came to my knowledge until this moment?" "I believe not directly," he returned. "Why, you know not," said Mr. Creakle. "Don't you, man?" "I apprehend you never supposed my worldly circumstances to be very good," replied the assistant. "You know what my position is, and always has been, here." "I apprehend, if you come to that," said Mr. Creakle, with his veins swelling again bigger than ever, "that you've been in a wrong position altogether, and mistook this for a charity school. Mr. Mell, we'll part if you please. The sooner the better." "There is no time," answered Mr. Mell, rising, "like the present." "Sir, to you!" said Mr. Creakle. "I take my leave of you, Mr. Creakle, and of all of you," said Mr. Mell, glancing round the room, and again patting me gently on the shoulder. "James Steerforth, the best wish I can leave you is that you may come to be ashamed of what you have done to-day. At present I would prefer to see you anything rather than a friend, to me, or to any one in whom I feel an interest." Once more he laid his hand upon my shoulder; and then taking his flute and a few books from his desk, and leaving the key in it for his successor, he went out of the school, with his property under his arm. Mr. Creakle then made a speech, through Tungay, in which he thanked Steerforth for asserting (though perhaps too warmly) the independence and respectability of Salem House; and which he wound up by shaking hands with Steerforth, while we gave three cheers--I did not quite know what for, but I supposed for Steerforth, and so joined in them ardently, though I felt miserable. Mr. Creakle then caned Tommy Traddles for being discovered in tears, instead of cheers, on account of Mr. Mell's departure; and went back to his sofa, or his bed, or wherever he had come from. We were left to ourselves now, and looked very blank, I recollect, on one another. For myself, I felt so much self-reproach and contrition for my part in what had happened, that nothing would have enabled me to keep back my tears but the fear that Steerforth, who often looked at me, I saw, might think it unfriendly--or, I should rather say, considering our relative ages, and the feeling with which I regarded him, undutiful--if I showed the emotion which distressed me. He was very angry with Traddles, and said he was glad he had caught it. Poor Traddles, who had passed the stage of lying with his head upon the desk, and was relieving himself as usual with a burst of skeletons, said he didn't care. Mr. Mell was ill-used. "Who has ill-used him, you girl?" said Steerforth. "Why, you have," returned Traddles. "What have I done?" said Steerforth. "What have you done?" retorted Traddles. "Hurt his feelings, and lost him his situation." "His feelings!" repeated Steerforth disdainfully. "His feelings will soon get the better of it, I'll be bound. His feelings are not like yours, Miss Traddles. As to his situation--which was a precious one, wasn't it?--do you suppose I am not going to write home, and take care that he gets some money? Polly?" We thought this intention very noble in Steerforth, whose mother was a widow, and rich, and would do almost anything, it was said, that he asked her. We were all extremely glad to see Traddles so put down, and exalted Steerforth to the skies: especially when he told us, as he condescended to do, that what he had done had been done expressly for us, and for our cause; and that he had conferred a great boon upon us by unselfishly doing it. But I must say that when I was going on with a story in the dark that night, Mr. Mell's old flute seemed more than once to sound mournfully in my ears; and that when at last Steerforth was tired, and I lay down in my bed, I fancied it playing so sorrowfully somewhere, that I was quite wretched. I soon forgot him in the contemplation of Steerforth, who, in an easy amateur way, and without any book (he seemed to me to know everything by heart), took some of his classes until a new master was found. The new master came from a grammar-school; and before he entered on his duties, dined in the parlor one day to be introduced to Steerforth. Steerforth approved of him highly, and told us he was a Brick. Without exactly understanding what learned distinction was meant by this, I respected him greatly for it, and had no doubt whatever of his superior knowledge: though he never took the pains with me--not that _I_ was anybody--that Mr. Mell had taken. There was only one other event in this half-year, out of the daily school-life, that made an impression on me which still survives. It survives for many reasons. One afternoon, when we were all harassed into a state of dire confusion, and Mr. Creakle was laying about him dreadfully, Tungay came in, and called out in his usual strong way: "Visitors for Copperfield!" A few words were interchanged between him and Mr. Creakle, as, who the visitors were, and what room they were to be shown into; and then I, who had, according to custom, stood up on the announcement being made, and felt quite faint with astonishment, was told to go by the back stairs and get a clean frill on, before I repaired to the dining-room. These orders I obeyed, in such a flutter and hurry of my young spirits as I had never known before; and when I got to the parlor-door, and the thought came into my head that it might be my mother--I had only thought of Mr. or Miss Murdstone until then--I drew back my hand from the lock, and stopped to have a sob before I went in. At first I saw nobody; but feeling a pressure against the door, I looked round it, and there, to my amazement, were Mr. Peggotty and Ham, ducking at me with their hats, and squeezing one another against the wall. I could not help laughing; but it was much more in the pleasure of seeing them, than at the appearance they made. We shook hands in a very cordial way; and I laughed and laughed, until I pulled out my pocket-handkerchief and wiped my eyes. Mr. Peggotty (who never shut his mouth once, I remember, during the visit) showed great concern when he saw me do this, and nudged Ham to say something. "Cheer up, Mas'r Davy bor'!" said Ham, in his simpering way. "Why, how you have growed!" "Am I grown?" I said, drying my eyes. I was not crying at anything particular that I know of; but somehow it made me cry to see old friends. "Growed, Mas'r Davy bor'? Ain't he growed!" said Ham. "Ain't he growed!" said Mr. Peggotty. They made me laugh again by laughing at each other, and then we all three laughed until I was in danger of crying again. "Do you know how mama is, Mr. Peggotty?" I said. "And how my dear, dear, old Peggotty is?" "Oncommon," said Mr. Peggotty. "And little Em'ly, and Mrs. Gummidge?" "On--common," said Mr. Peggotty. There was a silence. Mr. Peggotty, to relieve it, took two prodigious lobsters, and an enormous crab, and a large canvas bag of shrimps, out of his pockets, and piled them up in Ham's arms. "You see," said Mr. Peggotty, "knowing as you was partial to a little relish with your wittles when you was along with us, we took the liberty. The old Mawther biled 'em, she did. Mrs. Gummidge biled 'em. Yes," said Mr. Peggotty slowly, who I thought appeared to stick to the subject on account of having no other subject ready, "Mrs. Gummidge, I do assure you, she biled 'em." I expressed my thanks; and Mr. Peggotty, after looking at Ham, who stood smiling sheepishly over the shell-fish, without making any attempt to help him, said: "We come, you see, the wind and tide making in our favor, in one of our Yarmouth lugs to Gravesen'. My sister she wrote to me the name of this here place, and wrote to me as if ever I chanced to come to Gravesen', I was to come over and enquire for Mas'r Davy and give her dooty, humbly wishing him well and reporting of the fam'ly as they was oncommon toe-be-sure. Little Em'ly, you see, she'll write to my sister when I go back, as I see you and as you was similarly oncommon, and so we make it quite a merry-go-rounder." I was obliged to consider a little before I understood what Mr. Peggotty meant by this figure, expressive of a complete circle of intelligence. I then thanked him heartily; and said, with a consciousness of reddening, that I supposed Little Em'ly was altered too, since we used to pick up shells and pebbles on the beach? "She's getting to be a woman, that's wot she's getting to be," said Mr. Peggotty. "Ask him." He meant Ham, who beamed with delight and assent over the bag of shrimps. "Her pretty face!" said Mr. Peggotty, with his own shining like a light. "Her learning!" said Ham. "Her writing!" said Mr. Peggotty. "Why, it's as black as jet! And so large it is, you might see it anywheres." It was perfectly delightful to behold with what enthusiasm Mr. Peggotty became inspired when he thought of his little favorite. He stands before me again, his bluff hairy face irradiating with a joyful love and pride, for which I can find no description. His honest eyes fire up, and sparkle, as if their depths were stirred by something bright. His broad chest heaves with pleasure. His strong loose hands clench themselves, in his earnestness; and he emphasises what he says with a right arm that shows, in my pigmy view, like a sledge hammer. Ham was quite as earnest as he. I dare say they would have said much more about her, if they had not been abashed by the unexpected coming in of Steerforth, who, seeing me in a corner speaking with two strangers, stopped in a song he was singing, and said: "I didn't know you were here, young Copperfield!" (for it was not the usual visiting room), and crossed by us on his way out. I am not sure whether it was in the pride of having such a friend as Steerforth, or in the desire to explain to him how I came to have such a friend as Mr. Peggotty, that I called to him as he was going away. But I said, modestly--Good Heaven, how it all comes back to me this long time afterwards!-- "Don't go, Steerforth, if you please. These are two Yarmouth boatmen--very kind, good people--who are relations of my nurse, and have come from Gravesend to see me." "Aye, aye?" said Steerforth, returning. "I am glad to see them. How are you both?" There was an ease in his manner--a gay and light manner it was, but not swaggering--which I still believe to have borne a kind of enchantment with it. I still believe him, in virtue of this carriage, his animal spirits, his delightful voice, his handsome face and figure, and, for aught I know, of some inborn power of attraction besides (which I think a few people possess), to have carried a spell with him to which it was a natural weakness to yield, and which not many persons could withstand. I could not but see how pleased they were with him, and how they seemed to open their hearts to him in a moment. "You must let them know at home, if you please, Mr. Peggotty," I said, "when that letter is sent, that Mr. Steerforth is very kind to me, and that I don't know what I should ever do here without him." "Nonsense!" said Steerforth, laughing. "You mustn't tell them anything of the sort." "And if Mr. Steerforth ever comes into Norfolk or Suffolk, Mr. Peggotty," I said, "while I am there, you may depend upon it I shall bring him to Yarmouth, if he will let me, to see your house. You never saw such a good house, Steerforth. It's made out of a boat!" "Made out of a boat, is it?" said Steerforth. "It's the right sort of house for such a thorough-built boatman." "So 'tis, sir, so 'tis, sir," said Ham, grinning. "You're right, young gen'lm'n. Mas'r Davy bor', gen'lm'n 's right. A thorough-built boatman! Hor, hor! That's what he is, too!" Mr. Peggotty was no less pleased than his nephew, though his modesty forbade him to claim a personal compliment so vociferously. "Well, sir," he said, bowing and chuckling, and tucking in the ends of his neckerchief at his breast, "I thankee, sir, I thankee! I do my endeavours in my line of life, sir." "The best of men can do no more, Mr. Peggotty," said Steerforth. He had got his name already. "I'll pound it, it's wot you do yourself, sir," said Mr. Peggotty, shaking his head, "and wot you do well--right well! I thankee, sir. I'm obleeged to you, sir, for your welcoming manner of me. I'm rough, sir, but I'm ready--least ways, I _hope_ I'm ready, you understand. My house ain't much for to see, sir, but it's hearty at your service if ever you should come along with Mas'r Davy to see it. I'm a reg'lar Dodman, I am," said Mr. Peggotty; by which he meant snail, and this was in allusion to his being slow to go, for he had attempted to go after every sentence, and had somehow or other come back again; "but I wish you both well, and I wish you happy!" Ham echoed this sentiment, and we parted with them in the heartiest manner. I was almost tempted that evening to tell Steerforth about pretty little Em'ly, but I was too timid of mentioning her name, and too much afraid of his laughing at me. I remember that I thought a good deal, and in an uneasy sort of way, about Mr. Peggotty having said that she was getting on to be a woman; but I decided that was nonsense. We transported the shell-fish, or the "relish" as Mr. Peggotty had modestly called it, up into our room unobserved, and made a great supper that evening. But Traddles couldn't get happily out of it. He was too unfortunate even to come through a supper like anybody else. He was taken ill in the night--quite prostrate he was--in consequence of Crab; and after being drugged with black draughts and blue pills, to an extent which Demple (whose father was a doctor) said was enough to undermine a horse's constitution, received a caning and six chapters of Greek Testament for refusing to confess. The rest of the half-year is a jumble in my recollection of the daily strife and struggle of our lives; of the waning summer and the changing season; of the frosty mornings when we were rung out of bed, and the cold, cold smell of the dark nights when we were rung into bed again; of the evening schoolroom dimly lighted and indifferently warmed, and the morning schoolroom which was nothing but a great shivering-machine; of the alternation of boiled beef with roast beef, and boiled mutton with roast mutton; of clods of bread-and-butter, dog's-eared lesson-books, cracked slates, tear-blotted copy-books, canings, rulerings, hair-cuttings, rainy Sundays, suet puddings, and a dirty atmosphere of ink surrounding all. I well remember though, how the distant idea of the holidays, after seeming for an immense time to be a stationary speck, began to come towards us, and to grow and grow. How, from counting months, we came to weeks, and then to days; and how I then began to be afraid that I should not be sent for, and, when I learnt from Steerforth that I _had_ been sent for and was certainly to go home, had dim forebodings that I might break my leg first. How the breaking-up day changed its place fast, at last, from the week after next to next week, this week, the day after to-morrow, to-morrow, to-day, to-night--when I was inside the Yarmouth mail, and going home. I had many a broken sleep inside the Yarmouth mail, and many an incoherent dream of all these things. But when I awoke at intervals, the ground outside the window was not the playground of Salem House, and the sound in my ears was not the sound of Mr. Creakle giving it to Traddles, but the sound of the coachman touching up the horses. CHAPTER VIII. MY HOLIDAYS. ESPECIALLY ONE HAPPY AFTERNOON. When we arrived before day at the inn where the mail stopped, which was not the inn where my friend the waiter lived, I was shown up to a nice little bedroom, with DOLPHIN painted on the door. Very cold I was I know, notwithstanding the hot tea they had given me before a large fire down-stairs; and very glad I was to turn into the Dolphin's bed, pull the Dolphin's blankets round my head, and go to sleep. Mr. Barkis the carrier was to call for me in the morning at nine o'clock. I got up at eight, a little giddy from the shortness of my night's rest, and was ready for him before the appointed time. He received me exactly as if not five minutes had elapsed since we were last together, and I had only been into the hotel to get change for sixpence, or something of that sort. As soon as I and my box were in the cart, and the carrier seated, the lazy horse walked away with us all at his accustomed pace. "You look very well, Mr. Barkis," I said, thinking he would like to know it. Mr. Barkis rubbed his cheek with his cuff, and then looked at his cuff as if he expected to find some of the bloom upon it; but made no other acknowledgment of the compliment. "I gave your message, Mr. Barkis," I said; "I wrote to Peggotty." "Ah!" said Mr. Barkis. Mr. Barkis seemed gruff, and answered drily. "Wasn't it right, Mr. Barkis?" I asked, after a little hesitation. "Why, no," said Mr. Barkis. "Not the message?" "The message was right enough, perhaps," said Mr. Barkis; "but it come to an end there." Not understanding what he meant, I repeated inquisitively: "Came to an end, Mr. Barkis?" "Nothing come of it," he explained, looking at me sideways. "No answer." "There was an answer expected, was there, Mr. Barkis?" said I, opening my eyes. For this was a new light to me. "When a man says he's willin'," said Mr. Barkis, turning his glance slowly on me again, "it's as much as to say, that man's a waitin' for a answer." "Well, Mr. Barkis?" "Well," said Mr. Barkis, carrying his eyes back to his horse's ears; "that man's been a waitin' for a answer ever since." "Have you told her so, Mr. Barkis?" "N--no," growled Mr. Barkis, reflecting about it. "I ain't got no call to go and tell her so. I never said six words to her myself. _I_ ain't a goin' to tell her so." "Would you like me to do it, Mr. Barkis?" said I, doubtfully. "You might tell her, if you would," said Mr. Barkis, with another slow look at me, "that Barkis was a waitin' for a answer. Says you--what name is it?" "Her name?" "Ah!" said Mr. Barkis, with a nod of his head. "Peggotty." "Chrisen name? Or nat'ral name?" said Mr. Barkis. "Oh, it's not her Christian name. Her Christian name is Clara." "Is it though!" said Mr. Barkis. He seemed to find an immense fund of reflection in this circumstance, and sat pondering and inwardly whistling for some time. "Well!" he resumed at length. "Says you, 'Peggotty! Barkis is a waitin' for a answer.' Says she, perhaps, 'Answer to what?' Says you, 'To what I told you.' 'What is that?' says she. 'Barkis is willin',' says you." This extremely artful suggestion, Mr. Barkis accompanied with a nudge of his elbow that gave me quite a stitch in my side. After that, he slouched over his horse in his usual manner; and made no other reference to the subject except, half an hour afterwards, taking a piece of chalk from his pocket, and writing up, inside the tilt of the cart, "Clara Peggotty"--apparently as a private memorandum. Ah, what a strange feeling it was to be going home when it was not home, and to find that every object I looked at, reminded me of the happy old home, which was like a dream I could never dream again! The days when my mother and I and Peggotty were all in all to one another, and there was no one to come between us, rose up before me so sorrowfully on the road, that I am not sure I was glad to be there--not sure but that I would rather have remained away, and forgotten it in Steerforth's company. But there I was; and soon I was at our house, where the bare old elm trees wrung their many hands in the bleak wintry air, and shreds of the old rooks' nests drifted away upon the wind. The carrier put my box down at the garden gate, and left me. I walked along the path towards the house, glancing at the windows, and fearing at every step to see Mr. Murdstone or Miss Murdstone lowering out of one of them. No face appeared, however; and being come to the house, and knowing how to open the door, before dark, without knocking, I went in with a quiet, timid step. God knows how infantine the memory may have been, that was awakened within me by the sound of my mother's voice in the old parlor, when I set foot in the hall. She was singing in a low tone. I think I must have lain in her arms, and heard her singing so to me when I was but a baby. The strain was new to me, and yet it was so old that it filled my heart brim-full; like a friend come back from a long absence. I believed, from the solitary and thoughtful way in which my mother murmured her song, that she was alone. And I went softly into the room. She was sitting by the fire, suckling an infant, whose tiny hand she held against her neck. Her eyes were looking down upon its face, and she sat singing to it. I was so far right, that she had no other companion. [Illustration: Changes at Home.] I spoke to her, and she started, and cried out. But seeing me, she called me her dear Davy, her own boy! and coming half across the room to meet me, kneeled down upon the ground and kissed me, and laid my head down on her bosom near the little creature that was nestling there, and put its hand up to my lips. I wish I had died. I wish I had died then, with that feeling in my heart! I should have been more fit for Heaven than I ever have been since. "He is your brother," said my mother, fondling me. "Davy, my pretty boy! My poor child!" Then she kissed me more and more, and clasped me round the neck. This she was doing when Peggotty came running in, and bounced down on the ground beside us, and went mad about us both for a quarter of an hour. It seemed that I had not been expected so soon, the carrier being much before his usual time. It seemed, too, that Mr. and Miss Murdstone had gone out upon a visit in the neighbourhood, and would not return before night. I had never hoped for this. I had never thought it possible that we three could be together undisturbed, once more; and I felt, for the time, as if the old days were come back. We dined together by the fireside. Peggotty was in attendance to wait upon us, but my mother wouldn't let her do it, and made her dine with us. I had my own old plate, with a brown view of a man-of-war in full sail upon it, which Peggotty had hoarded somewhere all the time I had been away, and would not have had broken, she said, for a hundred pounds. I had my own old mug with David on it, and my own old little knife and fork that wouldn't cut. While we were at table, I thought it a favorable occasion to tell Peggotty about Mr. Barkis, who, before I had finished what I had to tell her, began to laugh, and threw her apron over her face. "Peggotty!" said my mother. "What's the matter?" Peggotty only laughed the more, and held her apron tight over her face when my mother tried to pull it away, and sat as if her head were in a bag. "What are you doing, you stupid creature?" said my mother, laughing. "Oh, drat the man!" cried Peggotty. "He wants to marry me." "It would be a very good match for you; wouldn't it?" said my mother. "Oh! I don't know," said Peggotty. "Don't ask me. I wouldn't have him if he was made of gold. Nor I wouldn't have anybody." "Then, why don't you tell him so, you ridiculous thing?" said my mother. "Tell him so," retorted Peggotty, looking out of her apron. "He has never said a word to me about it. He knows better. If he was to make so bold as say a word to me, I should slap his face." Her own was as red as ever I saw it, or any other face, I think; but she only covered it again, for a few moments at a time, when she was taken with a violent fit of laughter; and after two or three of those attacks, went on with her dinner. I remarked that my mother, though she smiled when Peggotty looked at her, became more serious and thoughtful. I had seen at first that she was changed. Her face was very pretty still, but it looked careworn, and too delicate; and her hand was so thin and white that it seemed to me to be almost transparent. But the change to which I now refer was superadded to this: it was in her manner, which became anxious and fluttered. At last she said, putting out her hand, and laying it affectionately on the hand of her old servant, "Peggotty, dear, you are not going to be married?" "Me, ma'am?" returned Peggotty, staring. "Lord bless you, no!" "Not just yet?" said my mother, tenderly. "Never!" cried Peggotty. My mother took her hand, and said: "Don't leave me, Peggotty. Stay with me. It will not be for long, perhaps. What should I ever do without you!" "Me leave you, my precious!" cried Peggotty. "Not for all the world and his wife. Why, what's put that in your silly little head?"--For Peggotty had been used of old to talk to my mother sometimes like a child. But my mother made no answer, except to thank her, and Peggotty went running on in her own fashion. "Me leave you? I think I see myself. Peggotty go away from you? I should like to catch her at it! No, no, no," said Peggotty, shaking her head, and folding her arms; "not she, my dear. It isn't that there ain't some Cats that would be well enough pleased if she did, but they shan't be pleased. They shall be aggravated. I'll stay with you till I am a cross cranky old woman. And when I'm too deaf, and too lame, and too blind, and too mumbly for want of teeth, to be of any use at all, even to be found fault with, then I shall go to my Davy, and ask him to take me in." "And, Peggotty," says I, "I shall be glad to see you, and I'll make you as welcome as a queen." "Bless your dear heart!" cried Peggotty. "I know you will!" And she kissed me beforehand, in grateful acknowledgment of my hospitality. After that, she covered her head up with her apron again, and had another laugh about Mr. Barkis. After that, she took the baby out of its little cradle, and nursed it. After that, she cleared the dinner-table; after that, came in with another cap on, and her work-box, and the yard-measure, and the bit of wax candle, all just the same as ever. We sat round the fire, and talked delightfully. I told them what a hard master Mr. Creakle was, and they pitied me very much. I told them what a fine fellow Steerforth was, and what a patron of mine, and Peggotty said she would walk a score of miles to see him. I took the little baby in my arms when it was awake, and nursed it lovingly. When it was asleep again, I crept close to my mother's side according to my old custom, broken now a long time, and sat with my arms embracing her waist, and my little red cheek on her shoulder, and once more felt her beautiful hair drooping over me--like an angel's wing as I used to think, I recollect--and was very happy indeed. While I sat thus, looking at the fire, and seeing pictures in the red-hot coals, I almost believed that I had never been away; that Mr. and Miss Murdstone were such pictures, and would vanish when the fire got low; and that there was nothing real in all that I remembered, save my mother, Peggotty, and I. Peggotty darned away at a stocking as long as she could see, and then sat with it drawn on her left hand like a glove, and her needle in her right, ready to take another stitch whenever there was a blaze. I cannot conceive whose stockings they can have been that Peggotty was always darning, or where such an unfailing supply of stockings in want of darning can have come from. From my earliest infancy she seems to have been always employed in that class of needlework, and never by any chance in any other. "I wonder," said Peggotty, who was sometimes seized with a fit of wondering on some most unexpected topic, "what's become of Davy's great-aunt?" "Lor, Peggotty!" observed my mother, rousing herself from a reverie, "what nonsense you talk!" "Well, but I really do wonder, ma'am," said Peggotty. "What can have put such a person in your head?" inquired my mother. "Is there nobody else in the world to come there?" "I don't know how it is," said Peggotty, "unless it's on account of being stupid, but my head never can pick and choose its people. They come and they go, and they don't come and they don't go, just as they like. I wonder what's become of her?" "How absurd you are, Peggotty," returned my mother. "One would suppose you wanted a second visit from her." "Lord forbid!" cried Peggotty. "Well then, don't talk about such uncomfortable things, there's a good soul," said my mother. "Miss Betsey is shut up in her cottage by the sea, no doubt, and will remain there. At all events, she is not likely ever to trouble us again." "No!" mused Peggotty. "No, that ain't likely at all.--I wonder, if she was to die, whether she'd leave Davy anything?" "Good gracious me, Peggotty," returned my mother, "what a nonsensical woman you are! when you know that she took offence at the poor dear boy's ever being born at all!" "I suppose she wouldn't be inclined to forgive him now," hinted Peggotty. "Why should she be inclined to forgive him now?" said my mother, rather sharply. "Now that he's got a brother, I mean," said Peggotty. My mother immediately began to cry, and wondered how Peggotty dared to say such a thing. "As if this poor little innocent in its cradle had ever done any harm to you or anybody else, you jealous thing!" said she. "You had much better go and marry Mr. Barkis, the carrier. Why don't you?" "I should make Miss Murdstone happy, if I was to," said Peggotty. "What a bad disposition you have, Peggotty!" returned my mother. "You are as jealous of Miss Murdstone as it is possible for a ridiculous creature to be. You want to keep the keys yourself, and give out all the things, I suppose? I shouldn't be surprised if you did. When you know that she only does it out of kindness and the best intentions! You know she does, Peggotty--you know it well." Peggotty muttered something to the effect of "Bother the best intentions!" and something else to the effect that there was a little too much of the best intentions going on. "I know what you mean, you cross thing," said my mother. "I understand you, Peggotty, perfectly. You know I do, and I wonder you don't color up like fire. But one point at a time. Miss Murdstone is the point now, Peggotty, and you sha'n't escape from it. Haven't you heard her say, over and over again, that she thinks I am too thoughtless and too--a--a--" "Pretty," suggested Peggotty. "Well," returned my mother, half laughing, "and if she is so silly as to say so, can I be blamed for it?" "No one says you can," said Peggotty. "No, I should hope not, indeed!" returned my mother. "Haven't you heard her say, over and over again, that on this account she wishes to spare me a great deal of trouble, which she thinks I am not suited for, and which I really don't know myself that I _am_ suited for; and isn't she up early and late, and going to and fro continually--and doesn't she do all sorts of things, and grope into all sorts of places, coal-holes and pantries and I don't know where, that can't be very agreeable--and do you mean to insinuate that there is not a sort of devotion in that?" "I don't insinuate at all," said Peggotty. "You do, Peggotty," returned my mother. "You never do anything else, except your work. You are always insinuating. You revel in it. And when you talk of Mr. Murdstone's good intentions--" "I never talked of 'em," said Peggotty. "No, Peggotty," returned my mother, "but you insinuated. That's what I told you just now. That's the worst of you. You _will_ insinuate. I said, at the moment, that I understood you, and you see I did. When you talk of Mr. Murdstone's good intentions, and pretend to slight them (for I don't believe you really do, in your heart, Peggotty), you must be as well convinced as I am how good they are, and how they actuate him in everything. If he seems to have been at all stern with a certain person, Peggotty--you understand, and so I am sure does Davy, that I am not alluding to any body present--it is solely because he is satisfied that it is for a certain person's benefit. He naturally loves a certain person, on my account; and acts solely for a certain person's good. He is better able to judge of it than I am; for I very well know that I am a weak, light, girlish creature, and that he is a firm, grave, serious man. And he takes," said my mother, with the tears which were engendered in her affectionate nature, stealing down her face, "he takes great pains with me; and I ought to be very thankful to him, and very submissive to him even in my thoughts; and when I am not, Peggotty, I worry and condemn myself, and feel doubtful of my own heart, and don't know what to do." Peggotty sat with her chin on the foot of the stocking, looking silently at the fire. "There, Peggotty," said my mother, changing her tone, "don't let us fall out with one another, for I couldn't bear it. You are my true friend, I know, if I have any in the world. When I call you a ridiculous creature, or a vexatious thing, or anything of that sort, Peggotty, I only mean that you are my true friend, and always have been, ever since the night when Mr. Copperfield first brought me home here, and you came out to the gate to meet me." Peggotty was not slow to respond, and ratified the treaty of friendship by giving me one of her best hugs. I think I had some glimpses of the real character of this conversation at the time; but I am sure, now, that the good creature originated it, and took her part in it, merely that my mother might comfort herself with the little contradictory summary in which she had indulged. The design was efficacious; for I remember that my mother seemed more at ease during the rest of the evening, and that Peggotty observed her less. When we had had our tea, and the ashes were thrown up, and the candles snuffed, I read Peggotty a chapter out of the Crocodile Book, in remembrance of old times--she took it out of her pocket: I don't know whether she had kept it there ever since--and then we talked about Salem House, which brought me round again to Steerforth, who was my great subject. We were very happy; and that evening, as the last of its race, and destined evermore to close that volume of my life, will never pass out of my memory. It was almost ten o'clock before we heard the sound of wheels. We all got up then; and my mother said hurriedly that, as it was so late, and Mr. and Miss Murdstone approved of early hours for young people, perhaps I had better go to bed. I kissed her, and went up-stairs with my candle directly, before they came in. It appeared to my childish fancy, as I ascended to the bedroom where I had been imprisoned, that they brought a cold blast of air into the house which blew away the old familiar feeling like a feather. I felt uncomfortable about going down to breakfast in the morning, as I had never set eyes on Mr. Murdstone since the day when I committed my memorable offence. However, as it must be done, I went down, after two or three false starts half-way, and as many runs back on tiptoe to my own room, and presented myself in the parlor. He was standing before the fire with his back to it, while Miss Murdstone made the tea. He looked at me steadily as I entered, but made no sign of recognition whatever. I went up to him, after a moment of confusion, and said: "I beg your pardon, sir. I am very sorry for what I did, and I hope you will forgive me." "I am glad to hear you are sorry, David," he replied. The hand he gave me was the hand I had bitten. I could not restrain my eye from resting for an instant on a red spot upon it; but it was not so red as I turned, when I met that sinister expression in his face. "How do you do, ma'am," I said to Miss Murdstone. "Ah, dear me!" sighed Miss Murdstone, giving me the tea-caddy scoop instead of her fingers. "How long are the holidays?" "A month, ma'am." "Counting from when?" "From to-day, ma'am." "Oh!" said Miss Murdstone. "Then here's _one_ day off." She kept a calendar of the holidays in this way, and every morning checked a day off in exactly the same manner. She did it gloomily until she came to ten, but when she got into two figures she became more hopeful, and, as the time advanced, even jocular. It was on this very first day that I had the misfortune to throw her, though she was not subject to such weaknesses in general, into a state of violent consternation. I came into the room where she and my mother were sitting; and the baby (who was only a few weeks old) being on my mother's lap, I took it very carefully in my arms. Suddenly Miss Murdstone gave such a scream that I all but dropped it. "My dear Jane!" cried my mother. "Good heavens, Clara, do you see?" exclaimed Miss Murdstone. "See what, my dear Jane?" said my mother; "where?" "He's got it!" cried Miss Murdstone. "The boy has got the baby!" She was limp with horror; but stiffened herself to make a dart at me, and take it out of my arms. Then, she turned faint; and was so very ill, that they were obliged to give her cherry-brandy. I was solemnly interdicted by her, on her recovery, from touching my brother any more on any pretence whatever; and my poor mother, who, I could see, wished otherwise, meekly confirmed the interdict, by saying: "No doubt you are right, my dear Jane." On another occasion, when we three were together, this same dear baby--it was truly dear to me, for our mother's sake--was the innocent occasion of Miss Murdstone's going into a passion. My mother, who had been looking at its eyes as it lay upon her lap, said: "Davy! come here!" and looked at mine. I saw Miss Murdstone lay her beads down. "I declare," said my mother, gently, "they are exactly alike. I suppose they are mine. I think they are the color of mine. But they are wonderfully alike." "What are you talking about, Clara?" said Miss Murdstone. "My dear Jane," faltered my mother, a little abashed by the harsh tone of this inquiry, "I find that the baby's eyes and Davy's are exactly alike." "Clara!" said Miss Murdstone, rising angrily, "you are a positive fool sometimes." "My dear Jane," remonstrated my mother. "A positive fool," said Miss Murdstone. "Who else could compare my brother's baby with your boy? They are not at all alike. They are exactly unlike. They are utterly dissimilar in all respects. I hope they will ever remain so. I will not sit here, and hear such comparisons made." With that she stalked out, and made the door bang after her. In short, I was not a favorite with Miss Murdstone. In short, I was not a favorite there with anybody, not even with myself; for those who did like me could not show it, and those who did not, showed it so plainly that I had a sensitive consciousness of always appearing constrained, boorish, and dull. I felt that I made them as uncomfortable as they made me. If I came into the room where they were, and they were talking together and my mother seemed cheerful, an anxious cloud would steal over her face from the moment of my entrance. If Mr. Murdstone were in his best humor, I checked him. If Miss Murdstone were in her worst, I intensified it. I had perception enough to know that my mother was the victim always; that she was afraid to speak to me or be kind to me, lest she should give them some offence by her manner of doing so, and receive a lecture afterwards; that she was not only ceaselessly afraid of her own offending, but of my offending, and uneasily watched their looks if I only moved. Therefore I resolved to keep myself as much out of their way as I could; and many a wintry hour did I hear the church-clock strike, when I was sitting in my cheerless bedroom, wrapped in my little great-coat, poring over a book. In the evening, sometimes, I went and sat with Peggotty in the kitchen. There I was comfortable, and not afraid of being myself. But neither of these resources was approved of in the parlor. The tormenting humor which was dominant there stopped them both. I was still held to be necessary to my poor mother's training, and, as one of her trials, could not be suffered to absent myself. "David," said Mr. Murdstone, one day after dinner when I was going to leave the room as usual; "I am sorry to observe that you are of a sullen disposition." "As sulky as a bear!" said Miss Murdstone. I stood still, and hung my head. "Now, David," said Mr. Murdstone, "a sullen obdurate disposition is, of all tempers, the worst." "And the boy's is, of all such dispositions that ever I have seen," remarked his sister, "the most confirmed and stubborn. I think, my dear Clara, even you must observe it?" "I beg your pardon, my dear Jane," said my mother, "but are you quite sure--I am certain you'll excuse me, my dear Jane--that you understand Davy?" "I should be somewhat ashamed of myself, Clara," returned Miss Murdstone, "if I could not understand the boy, or any boy. I don't profess to be profound; but I do lay claim to common sense." "No doubt, my dear Jane," returned my mother, "your understanding is very vigorous--" "Oh dear, no! Pray don't say that, Clara," interposed Miss Murdstone, angrily. "But I am sure it is," resumed my mother; "and everybody knows it is. I profit so much by it myself, in many ways--at least I ought to--that no one can be more convinced of it than myself; and therefore I speak with great diffidence, my dear Jane, I assure you." "We'll say I don't understand the boy, Clara," returned Miss Murdstone, arranging the little fetters on her wrists. "We'll agree, if you please, that I don't understand him at all. He is much too deep for me. But perhaps my brother's penetration may enable him to have some insight into his character. And I believe my brother was speaking on the subject when we--not very decently--interrupted him." "I think, Clara," said Mr. Murdstone, in a low, grave voice, "that there may be better and more dispassionate judges of such a question than you." "Edward," replied my mother, timidly, "you are a far better judge of all questions than I pretend to be. Both you and Jane are. I only said--" "You only said something weak and inconsiderate," he replied. "Try not to do it again, my dear Clara, and keep a watch upon yourself." My mother's lips moved, as if she answered "Yes, my dear Edward," but she said nothing aloud. "I was sorry, David, I remarked," said Mr. Murdstone, turning his head and his eyes stiffly towards me, "to observe that you are of a sullen disposition. This is not a character that I can suffer to develop itself beneath my eyes without an effort at improvement. You must endeavour, sir, to change it. We must endeavour to change it for you." "I beg your pardon, sir," I faltered. "I have never meant to be sullen since I came back." "Don't take refuge in a lie, sir!" he returned so fiercely, that I saw my mother involuntarily put out her trembling hand as if to interpose between us. "You have withdrawn yourself in your sullenness to your own room. You have kept your own room when you ought to have been here. You know now, once for all, that I require you to be here, and not there. Further, that I require you to bring obedience here. You know me, David. I will have it done." Miss Murdstone gave a hoarse chuckle. "I will have a respectful, prompt, and ready bearing towards myself," he continued, "and towards Jane Murdstone, and towards your mother. I will not have this room shunned as if it were infected, at the pleasure of a child. Sit down." He ordered me like a dog, and I obeyed like a dog. "One thing more," he said. "I observe that you have an attachment to low and common company. You are not to associate with servants. The kitchen will not improve you, in the many respects in which you need improvement. Of the woman who abets you, I say nothing--since you, Clara," addressing my mother in a lower voice, "from old associations and long-established fancies, have a weakness respecting her which is not yet overcome." "A most unaccountable delusion it is!" cried Miss Murdstone. "I only say," he resumed, addressing me, "that I disapprove of your preferring such company as Mistress Peggotty, and that it is to be abandoned. Now, David, you understand me, and you know what will be the consequence if you fail to obey me to the letter." I knew well--better perhaps than he thought, as far as my poor mother was concerned--and I obeyed him to the letter. I retreated to my own room no more; I took refuge with Peggotty no more; but sat wearily in the parlor day after day, looking forward to night, and bedtime. What irksome constraint I underwent, sitting in the same attitude hours upon hours, afraid to move an arm or a leg lest Miss Murdstone should complain (as she did on the least pretence) of my restlessness, and afraid to move an eye lest it should light on some look of dislike or scrutiny that would find new cause for complaint in mine! What intolerable dulness to sit listening to the ticking of the clock; and watching Miss Murdstone's little shiny steel beads as she strung them; and wondering whether she would ever be married, and if so, to what sort of unhappy man; and counting the divisions in the moulding on the chimney-piece; and wandering away, with my eyes, to the ceiling, among the curls and corkscrews in the paper on the wall! What walks I took alone, down muddy lanes, in the bad winter weather, carrying that parlor, and Mr. and Miss Murdstone in it, everywhere: a monstrous load that I was obliged to bear, a daymare that there was no possibility of breaking in, a weight that brooded on my wits, and blunted them! What meals I had in silence and embarrassment, always feeling that there were a knife and fork too many, and that mine; an appetite too many, and that mine; a plate and chair too many, and those mine; a somebody too many, and that I! What evenings, when the candles came, and I was expected to employ myself, but, not daring to read an entertaining book, pored over some hard-headed, harder-hearted treatise on arithmetic; when the tables of weights and measures set themselves to tunes, as Rule Britannia, or Away with Melancholy; and wouldn't stand still to be learnt, but would go threading my grandmother's needle through my unfortunate head, in at one ear and out at the other! What yawns and dozes I lapsed into, in spite of all my care; what starts I came out of concealed sleeps with; what answers I never got, to little observations that I rarely made; what a blank space I seemed, which everybody overlooked, and yet was in everybody's way; what a heavy relief it was to hear Miss Murdstone hail the first stroke of nine at night, and order me to bed! Thus the holidays lagged away, until the morning came when Miss Murdstone said: "Here's the last day off!" and gave me the closing cup of tea of the vacation. I was not sorry to go. I had lapsed into a stupid state; but I was recovering a little and looking forward to Steerforth, albeit Mr. Creakle loomed behind him. Again Mr. Barkis appeared at the gate, and again Miss Murdstone in her warning voice said: "Clara!" when my mother bent over me, to bid me farewell. I kissed her, and my baby brother, and was very sorry then; but not sorry to go away, for the gulf between us was there, and the parting was there, every day. And it is not so much the embrace she gave me, that lives in my mind, though it was as fervent as could be, as what followed the embrace. I was in the carrier's cart when I heard her calling to me. I looked out, and she stood at the garden-gate alone, holding her baby up in her arms for me to see. It was cold still weather; and not a hair of her head, or a fold of her dress, was stirred, as she looked intently at me, holding up her child. So I lost her. So I saw her afterwards, in my sleep at school--a silent presence near my bed--looking at me with the same intent face--holding up her baby in her arms. CHAPTER IX. I HAVE A MEMORABLE BIRTHDAY. I pass over all that happened at school, until the anniversary of my birthday came round in March. Except that Steerforth was more to be admired than ever, I remember nothing. He was going away at the end of the half-year, if not sooner, and was more spirited and independent than before in my eyes, and therefore more engaging than before; but beyond this I remember nothing. The great remembrance by which that time is marked in my mind, seems to have swallowed up all lesser recollections, and to exist alone. It is even difficult for me to believe that there was a gap of full two months between my return to Salem House and the arrival of that birthday. I can only understand that the fact was so, because I know it must have been so; otherwise I should feel convinced that there was no interval, and that the one occasion trod upon the other's heels. How well I recollect the kind of day it was! I smell the fog that hung about the place; I see the hoar frost, ghostly, through it; I feel my rimy hair fall clammy on my cheek; I look along the dim perspective of the schoolroom, with a sputtering candle here and there to light up the foggy morning, and the breath of the boys wreathing and smoking in the raw cold as they blow upon their fingers, and tap their feet upon the floor. It was after breakfast, and we had been summoned in from the playground, when Mr. Sharp entered and said: "David Copperfield is to go into the parlor." I expected a hamper from Peggotty, and brightened at the order. Some of the boys about me put in their claim not to be forgotten in the distribution of the good things, as I got out of my seat with great alacrity. "Don't hurry, David," said Mr. Sharp. "There's time enough, my boy, don't hurry." I might have been surprised by the feeling tone in which he spoke, if I had given it a thought; but I gave it none until afterwards. I hurried away to the parlor; and there I found Mr. Creakle sitting at his breakfast with the cane and a newspaper before him, and Mrs. Creakle with an opened letter in her hand. But no hamper. "David Copperfield," said Mrs. Creakle, leading me to a sofa, and sitting down beside me. "I want to speak to you very particularly. I have something to tell you, my child." Mr. Creakle, at whom of course I looked, shook his head without looking at me, and stopped up a sigh with a very large piece of buttered toast. "You are too young to know how the world changes every day," said Mrs. Creakle, "and how the people in it pass away. But we all have to learn it, David; some of us when we are young, some of us when we are old, some of us at all times of our lives." I looked at her earnestly. "When you came away from home at the end of the vacation," said Mrs. Creakle, after a pause, "were they all well?" After another pause, "Was your mama well?" I trembled without distinctly knowing why, and still looked at her earnestly, making no attempt to answer. "Because," said she, "I grieve to tell you that I hear this morning your mama is very ill." A mist arose between Mrs. Creakle and me, and her figure seemed to move in it for an instant. Then I felt the burning tears run down my face, and it was steady again. "She is very dangerously ill," she added. I knew all now. "She is dead." There was no need to tell me so. I had already broken out into a desolate cry, and felt an orphan in the wide world. She was very kind to me. She kept me there all day, and left me alone sometimes; and I cried, and wore myself to sleep, and awoke and cried again. When I could cry no more, I began to think; and then the oppression on my breast was heaviest, and my grief a dull pain that there was no ease for. And yet my thoughts were idle; not intent on the calamity that weighed upon my heart, but idly loitering near it. I thought of our house shut up and hushed. I thought of the little baby, who, Mrs. Creakle said, had been pining away for some time, and who, they believed, would die too. I thought of my father's grave in the churchyard, by our house, and of my mother lying there beneath the tree I knew so well. I stood upon a chair when I was left alone, and looked into the glass to see how red my eyes were, and how sorrowful my face. I considered, after some hours were gone, if my tears were really hard to flow now, as they seemed to be, what, in connexion with my loss, it would affect me most to think of when I drew near home--for I was going home to the funeral. I am sensible of having felt that a dignity attached to me among the rest of the boys, and that I was important in my affliction. If ever child were stricken with sincere grief, I was. But I remember that this importance was a kind of satisfaction to me, when I walked in the playground that afternoon while the boys were in school. When I saw them glancing at me out of the windows, as they went up to their classes, I felt distinguished, and looked more melancholy, and walked slower. When school was over, and they came out and spoke to me, I felt it rather good in myself not to be proud to any of them, and to take exactly the same notice of them all, as before. I was to go home next night; not by the mail, but by the heavy night-coach, which was called the Farmer, and was principally used by country-people travelling short intermediate distances upon the road. We had no story-telling that evening, and Traddles insisted on lending me his pillow. I don't know what good he thought it would do me, for I had one of my own: but it was all he had to lend, poor fellow, except a sheet of letter-paper full of skeletons; and that he gave me at parting, as a soother of my sorrows and a contribution to my peace of mind. I left Salem House upon the morrow afternoon. I little thought then that I left it, never to return. We travelled very slowly all night, and did not get into Yarmouth before nine or ten o'clock in the morning. I looked out for Mr. Barkis, but he was not there; and instead of him a fat, short-winded, merry-looking, little old man in black, with rusty little bunches of ribbons at the knees of his breeches, black stockings, and a broad-brimmed hat, came puffing up to the coach window, and said: "Master Copperfield?" "Yes, sir." "Will you come with me, young sir, if you please," he said, opening the door, "and I shall have the pleasure of taking you home." I put my hand in his, wondering who he was, and we walked away to a shop in a narrow street, on which was written OMER, DRAPER, TAILOR, HABERDASHER, FUNERAL FURNISHER, &c. It was a close and stifling little shop; full of all sorts of clothing, made and unmade, including one window full of beaver-hats and bonnets. We went into a little back-parlor behind the shop, where we found three young women at work on a quantity of black materials, which were heaped upon the table, and little bits and cuttings of which were littered all over the floor. There was a good fire in the room, and a breathless smell of warm black crape--I did not know what the smell was then, but I know now. The three young women, who appeared to be very industrious and comfortable, raised their heads to look at me, and then went on with their work. Stitch, stitch, stitch. At the same time there came from a workshop across a little yard outside the window, a regular sound of hammering that kept a kind of tune: RAT--tat-tat, RAT--tat-tat, RAT--tat-tat, without any variation. "Well!" said my conductor to one of the three young women. "How do you get on, Minnie?" "We shall be ready by the trying-on time," she replied gaily, without looking up. "Don't you be afraid, father." Mr. Omer took off his broad-brimmed hat, and sat down and panted. He was so fat that he was obliged to pant some time before he could say: "That's right." "Father!" said Minnie, playfully. "What a porpoise you do grow!" "Well, I don't know how it is, my dear," he replied, considering about it. "I _am_ rather so." "You are such a comfortable man, you see," said Minnie. "You take things so easy." "No use taking 'em otherwise, my dear," said Mr. Omer. "No, indeed," returned his daughter. "We are all pretty gay here, thank Heaven! Ain't we, father?" "I hope so, my dear," said Mr. Omer. "As I have got my breath now, I think I'll measure this young scholar. Would you walk into the shop, Master Copperfield?" I preceded Mr. Omer, in compliance with his request; and after showing me a roll of cloth which he said was extra super, and too good mourning for anything short of parents, he took my various dimensions, and put them down in a book. While he was recording them he called my attention to his stock in trade, and to certain fashions which he said had "just come up," and to certain other fashions which he said had "just gone out." "And by that sort of thing we very often lose a little mint of money," said Mr. Omer. "But fashions are like human beings. They come in, nobody knows when, why, or how; and they go out, nobody knows when, why, or how. Everything is like life, in my opinion, if you look at it in that point of view." I was too sorrowful to discuss the question, which would possibly have been beyond me under any circumstances; and Mr. Omer took me back into the parlor, breathing with some difficulty on the way. He then called down a little break-neck range of steps behind a door: "Bring up that tea and bread-and-butter!" which, after some time, during which I sat looking about me and thinking, and listening to the stitching in the room and the tune that was being hammered across the yard, appeared on a tray, and turned out to be for me. "I have been acquainted with you," said Mr. Omer, after watching me for some minutes, during which I had not made much impression on the breakfast, for the black things destroyed my appetite, "I have been acquainted with you a long time, my young friend." "Have you, sir?" "All your life," said Mr. Omer. "I may say before it. I knew your father before you. He was five foot nine and a half, and he lays in five and twen-ty foot of ground." "RAT--tat-tat, RAT--tat-tat, RAT--tat-tat," across the yard. "He lays in five and twen-ty foot of ground, if he lays in a fraction," said Mr. Omer, pleasantly. "It was either his request or her direction, I forget which." "Do you know how my little brother is, sir?" I inquired. Mr. Omer shook his head. "RAT--tat-tat, RAT--tat-tat, RAT--tat-tat." "He is in his mother's arms," said he. "Oh, poor little fellow! Is he dead?" "Don't mind it more than you can help," said Mr. Omer. "Yes. The baby's dead." My wounds broke out afresh at this intelligence. I left the scarcely-tasted breakfast, and went and rested my head on another table in a corner of the little room, which Minnie hastily cleared, lest I should spot the mourning that was lying there with my tears. She was a pretty good-natured girl, and put my hair away from my eyes with a soft kind touch; but she was very cheerful at having nearly finished her work and being in good time, and was so different from me! Presently the tune left off, and a good-looking young fellow came across the yard into the room. He had a hammer in his hand, and his mouth was full of little nails, which he was obliged to take out before he could speak. "Well, Joram!" said Mr. Omer. "How do _you_ get on?" "All right," said Joram. "Done, sir." Minnie colored a little, and the other two girls smiled at one another. "What! you were at it by candle-light last night, when I was at the club, then? Were you?" said Mr. Omer, shutting up one eye. "Yes," said Joram. "As you said we could make a little trip of it, and go over together, if it was done, Minnie and me--and you." "Oh! I thought you were going to leave me out altogether," said Mr. Omer, laughing till he coughed. "--As you was so good as to say that," resumed the young man, "why I turned to with a will, you see. Will you give me your opinion of it?" "I will," said Mr. Omer, rising. "My dear;" and he stopped and turned to me; "would you like to see your----" "No, father," Minnie interposed. "I thought it might be agreeable, my dear," said Mr. Omer. "But perhaps you're right." I can't say how I knew it was my dear, dear mother's coffin that they went to look at. I had never heard one making; I had never seen one that I know of: but it came into my mind what the noise was, while it was going on; and when the young man entered, I am sure I knew what he had been doing. The work being now finished, the two girls, whose names I had not heard, brushed the shreds and threads from their dresses, and went into the shop to put that to rights, and wait for customers. Minnie stayed behind to fold up what they had made, and pack it in two baskets. This she did upon her knees, humming a lively little tune the while. Joram, who I had no doubt was her lover, came in and stole a kiss from her while she was busy (he didn't appear to mind me, at all), and said her father was gone for the chaise, and he must make haste and get himself ready. Then he went out again; and then she put her thimble and scissors in her pocket, and stuck a needle threaded with black thread neatly in the bosom of her gown, and put on her outer clothing smartly, at a little glass behind the door, in which I saw the reflection of her pleased face. All this I observed, sitting at the table in the corner with my head leaning on my hand, and my thoughts running on very different things. The chaise soon came round to the front of the shop, and the baskets being put in first, I was put in next, and those three followed. I remember it as a kind of half chaise-cart, half piano-forte van, painted of a sombre color, and drawn by a black horse with a long tail. There was plenty of room for us all. I do not think I have ever experienced so strange a feeling in my life (I am wiser now, perhaps) as that of being with them, remembering how they had been employed, and seeing them enjoy the ride. I was not angry with them; I was more afraid of them, as if I were cast away among creatures with whom I had no community of nature. They were very cheerful. The old man sat in front to drive, and the two young people sat behind him, and whenever he spoke to them leaned forward, the one on one side of his chubby face and the other on the other, and made a great deal of him. They would have talked to me too, but I held back, and moped in my corner; scared by their love-making and hilarity, though it was far from boisterous, and almost wondering that no judgment came upon them for their hardness of heart. So, when they stopped to bait the horse, and ate and drank and enjoyed themselves, I could touch nothing that they touched, but kept my fast unbroken. So, when we reached home, I dropped out of the chaise behind, as quickly as possible, that I might not be in their company before those solemn windows, looking blindly on me like closed eyes once bright. And oh, how little need I had had to think what would move me to tears when I came back--seeing the window of my mother's room, and next it that which, in the better time, was mine! I was in Peggotty's arms before I got to the door, and she took me into the house. Her grief burst out when she first saw me; but she controuled it soon, and spoke in whispers, and walked softly, as if the dead could be disturbed. She had not been in bed, I found, for a long time. She sat up at night still, and watched. As long as her poor dear pretty was above the ground, she said, she would never desert her. Mr. Murdstone took no heed of me when I went into the parlor where he was, but sat by the fireside, weeping silently, and pondering in his elbow-chair. Miss Murdstone, who was busy at her writing-desk, which was covered with letters and papers, gave me her cold finger-nails, and asked me, in an iron whisper, if I had been measured for my mourning. I said: "Yes." "And your shirts," said Miss Murdstone; "have you brought 'em home?" "Yes, ma'am. I have brought home all my clothes." This was all the consolation that her firmness administered to me. I do not doubt that she had a choice pleasure in exhibiting what she called her self-command, and her firmness, and her strength of mind, and her common sense, and the whole diabolical catalogue of her unamiable qualities, on such an occasion. She was particularly proud of her turn for business; and she showed it now in reducing everything to pen and ink, and being moved by nothing. All the rest of that day, and from morning to night afterwards, she sat at that desk; scratching composedly with a hard pen, speaking in the same imperturbable whisper to everybody; never relaxing a muscle of her face, or softening a tone of her voice, or appearing with an atom of her dress astray. Her brother took a book sometimes, but never read it that I saw. He would open it and look at it as if he were reading, but would remain for a whole hour without turning the leaf, and then put it down and walk to and fro in the room. I used to sit with folded hands watching him, and counting his footsteps, hour after hour. He very seldom spoke to her, and never to me. He seemed to be the only restless thing, except the clocks, in the whole motionless house. In these days before the funeral, I saw but little of Peggotty, except that, in passing up or down stairs, I always found her close to the room where my mother and her baby lay, and except that she came to me every night, and sat by my bed's head while I went to sleep. A day or two before the burial--I think it was a day or two before, but I am conscious of confusion in my mind about that heavy time, with nothing to mark its progress--she took me into the room. I only recollect that underneath some white covering on the bed, with a beautiful cleanliness and freshness all around it, there seemed to me to lie embodied the solemn stillness that was in the house; and that when she would have turned the cover gently back, I cried: "Oh no! oh no!" and held her hand. If the funeral had been yesterday, I could not recollect it better. The very air of the best parlor, when I went in at the door, the bright condition of the fire, the shining of the wine in the decanters, the patterns of the glasses and plates, the faint sweet smell of cake, the odour of Miss Murdstone's dress, and our black clothes. Mr. Chillip is in the room, and comes to speak to me. "And how is Master David?" he says, kindly. I cannot tell him very well. I give him my hand, which he holds in his. "Dear me!" says Mr. Chillip, meekly smiling, with something shining in his eye. "Our little friends grow up around us. They grow out of our knowledge, ma'am?" This is to Miss Murdstone, who makes no reply. "There is a great improvement here, ma'am?" says Mr. Chillip. Miss Murdstone merely answers with a frown and a formal bend; Mr. Chillip, discomfited, goes into a corner, keeping me with him, and opens his mouth no more. I remark this, because I remark everything that happens, not because I care about myself, or have done since I came home. And now the bell begins to sound, and Mr. Omer and another come to make us ready. As Peggotty was wont to tell me, long ago, the followers of my father to the same grave were made ready in the same room. There are Mr. Murdstone, our neighbour Mr. Grayper, Mr. Chillip, and I. When we go out to the door, the Bearers and their load are in the garden; and they move before us down the path, and past the elms, and through the gate, and into the church-yard where I have so often heard the birds sing on a summer morning. We stand around the grave. The day seems different to me from every other day, and the light not of the same color--of a sadder color. Now there is a solemn hush, which we have brought from home with what is resting in the mould; and while we stand bare-headed, I hear the voice of the clergyman, sounding remote in the open air, and yet distinct and plain, saying: "I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord!" Then I hear sobs; and, standing apart among the lookers-on, I see that good and faithful servant, whom of all the people upon earth I love the best, and unto whom my childish heart is certain that the Lord will one day say: "Well done." There are many faces that I know, among the little crowd; faces that I knew in church, when mine was always wondering there; faces that first saw my mother, when she came to the village in her youthful bloom. I do not mind them--I mind nothing but my grief--and yet I see and know them all; and even in the background, far away, see Minnie looking on, and her eye glancing on her sweetheart, who is near me. It is over, and the earth is filled in, and we turn to come away. Before us stands our house, so pretty and unchanged, so linked in my mind with the young idea of what is gone, that all my sorrow has been nothing to the sorrow it calls forth. But they take me on; and Mr. Chillip talks to me; and when we get home, puts some water to my lips; and when I ask his leave to go up to my room, dismisses me with the gentleness of a woman. All this, I say, is yesterday's event. Events of later date have floated from me to the shore where all forgotten things will reappear, but this stands like a high rock in the ocean. I knew that Peggotty would come to me in my room. The Sabbath stillness of the time (the day was so like Sunday! I have forgotten that) was suited to us both. She sat down by my side upon my little bed; and holding my hand, and sometimes putting it to her lips, and sometimes smoothing it with hers, as she might have comforted my little brother, told me, in her way, all that she had to tell concerning what had happened. * * * "She was never well," said Peggotty, "for a long time. She was uncertain in her mind, and not happy. When her baby was born, I thought at first she would get better, but she was more delicate, and sunk a little every day. She used to like to sit alone before her baby came, and then she cried; but afterwards she used to sing to it--so soft, that I once thought, when I heard her, it was like a voice up in the air, that was rising away. "I think she got to be more timid, and more frightened-like, of late; and that a hard word was like a blow to her. But she was always the same to me. She never changed to her foolish Peggotty, didn't my sweet girl." Here Peggotty stopped, and softly beat upon my hand a little while. "The last time that I saw her like her own old self, was the night when you came home, my dear. The day you went away, she said to me, 'I never shall see my pretty darling again. Something tells me so, that tells the truth, I know.' "She tried to hold up after that; and many a time, when they told her she was thoughtless and light-hearted, made believe to be so; but it was all a bygone then. She never told her husband what she had told me--she was afraid of saying it to anybody else--till one night, a little more than a week before it happened, when she said to him: 'My dear, I think I am dying.' "'It's off my mind now, Peggotty,' she told me, when I laid her in her bed that night. 'He will believe it more and more, poor fellow, every day for a few days to come; and then it will be past. I am very tired. If this is sleep, sit by me while I sleep: don't leave me. God bless both my children! God protect and keep my fatherless boy!' "I never left her afterwards," said Peggotty. "She often talked to them two down stairs--for she loved them; she couldn't bear not to love any one who was about her--but when they went away from her bedside, she always turned to me, as if there was rest where Peggotty was, and never fell asleep in any other way. "On the last night, in the evening, she kissed me, and said: 'If my baby should die too, Peggotty, please let them lay him in my arms, and bury us together.' (It was done; for the poor lamb lived but a day beyond her.) 'Let my dearest boy go with us to our resting-place,' she said, 'and tell him that his mother, when she lay here, blessed him not once, but a thousand times.'" Another silence followed this, and another gentle beating on my hand. "It was pretty far in the night," said Peggotty, "when she asked me for some drink; and when she had taken it, gave me such a patient smile, the dear!--so beautiful!-- "Daybreak had come, and the sun was rising, when she said to me, how kind and considerate Mr. Copperfield had always been to her, and how he had borne with her, and told her, when she doubted herself, that a loving heart was better and stronger than wisdom, and that he was a happy man in hers. 'Peggotty, my dear,' she said then, 'put me nearer to you,' for she was very weak. 'Lay your good arm underneath my neck,' she said, 'and turn me to you, for your face is going far off, and I want it to be near.' I put it as she asked; and oh Davy! the time had come when my first parting words to you were true--when she was glad to lay her poor head on her stupid cross old Peggotty's arm--and she died like a child that had gone to sleep!" * * * Thus ended Peggotty's narration. From the moment of my knowing of the death of my mother, the idea of her as she had been of late had vanished from me. I remembered her, from that instant, only as the young mother of my earliest impressions, who had been used to wind her bright curls round and round her finger, and to dance with me at twilight in the parlor. What Peggotty had told me now, was so far from bringing me back to the later period, that it rooted the earlier image in my mind. It may be curious, but it is true. In her death she winged her way back to her calm untroubled youth, and cancelled all the rest. The mother who lay in the grave, was the mother of my infancy; the little creature in her arms, was myself, as I had once been, hushed for ever on her bosom. CHAPTER X. I BECOME NEGLECTED, AND AM PROVIDED FOR. The first act of business Miss Murdstone performed when the day of the solemnity was over, and light was freely admitted into the house, was to give Peggotty a month's warning. Much as Peggotty would have disliked such a service, I believe she would have retained it, for my sake, in preference to the best upon earth. She told me we must part, and told me why; and we condoled with one another, in all sincerity. As to me or my future, not a word was said, or a step taken. Happy they would have been, I dare say, if they could have dismissed me at a month's warning too. I mustered courage once, to ask Miss Murdstone when I was going back to school; and she answered dryly, she believed I was not going back at all. I was told nothing more. I was very anxious to know what was going to be done with me, and so was Peggotty; but neither she nor I could pick up any information on the subject. There was one change in my condition, which, while it relieved me of a great deal of present uneasiness, might have made me, if I had been capable of considering it closely, yet more uncomfortable about the future. It was this. The constraint that had been put upon me, was quite abandoned. I was so far from being required to keep my dull post in the parlor, that on several occasions, when I took my seat there, Miss Murdstone frowned to me to go away. I was so far from being warned off from Peggotty's society, that, provided I was not in Mr. Murdstone's, I was never sought out or inquired for. At first I was in daily dread of his taking my education in hand again, or of Miss Murdstone's devoting herself to it; but I soon began to think that such fears were groundless, and that all I had to anticipate was neglect. I do not conceive that this discovery gave me much pain then. I was still giddy with the shock of my mother's death, and in a kind of stunned state as to all tributary things. I can recollect, indeed, to have speculated, at odd times, on the possibility of my not being taught any more, or cared for any more; and growing up to be a shabby moody man, lounging an idle life away, about the village; as well as on the feasibility of my getting rid of this picture by going away somewhere, like the hero in a story, to seek my fortune: but these were transient visions, day dreams I sat looking at sometimes, as if they were faintly painted or written on the wall of my room, and which, as they melted away, left the wall blank again. "Peggotty," I said in a thoughtful whisper, one evening, when I was warming my hands at the kitchen fire, "Mr. Murdstone likes me less than he used to. He never liked me much, Peggotty; but he would rather not even see me now, if he can help it." "Perhaps it's his sorrow," said Peggotty, stroking my hair. "I am sure, Peggotty, I am sorry too. If I believed it was his sorrow, I should not think of it at all. But it's not that; oh, no, it's not that." "How do you know it's not that?" said Peggotty, after a silence. "Oh, his sorrow is another and quite a different thing. He is sorry at this moment, sitting by the fireside with Miss Murdstone; but if I was to go in, Peggotty, he would be something besides." "What would he be?" said Peggotty. "Angry," I answered, with an involuntary imitation of his dark frown. "If he was only sorry, he wouldn't look at me as he does. _I_ am only sorry, and it makes me feel kinder." Peggotty said nothing for a little while; and I warmed my hands, as silent as she. "Davy," she said at length. "Yes, Peggotty?" "I have tried, my dear, all ways I could think of--all the ways there are, and all the ways there ain't, in short--to get a suitable service here, in Blunderstone; but there's no such a thing, my love." "And what do you mean to do, Peggotty?" says I, wistfully. "Do you mean to go and seek your fortune?" "I expect I shall be forced to go to Yarmouth," replied Peggotty, "and live there." "You might have gone farther off," I said, brightening a little, "and been as bad as lost. I shall see you sometimes, my dear old Peggotty, there. You won't be quite at the other end of the world, will you?" "Contrary ways, please God!" cried Peggotty, with great animation. "As long as you are here, my pet, I shall come over every week of my life to see you. One day, every week of my life!" I felt a great weight taken off my mind by this promise; but even this was not all, for Peggotty went on to say: "I'm a going, Davy, you see, to my brother's, first, for another fortnight's visit--just till I have had time to look about me, and get to be something like myself again. Now, I have been thinking, that perhaps, as they don't want you here at present, you might be let to go along with me." If anything, short of being in a different relation to every one about me, Peggotty excepted, could have given me a sense of pleasure at that time, it would have been this project of all others. The idea of being again surrounded by those honest faces, shining welcome on me; of renewing the peacefulness of the sweet Sunday morning, when the bells were ringing, the stones dropping in the water, and the shadowy ships breaking through the mist; of roaming up and down with little Em'ly, telling her my troubles, and finding charms against them in the shells and pebbles on the beach; made a calm in my heart. It was ruffled next moment, to be sure, by a doubt of Miss Murdstone's giving her consent; but even that was set at rest soon, for she came out to take an evening grope in the store-closet while we were yet in conversation, and Peggotty, with a boldness that amazed me, broached the topic on the spot. "The boy will be idle there," said Miss Murdstone, looking into a pickle-jar, "and idleness is the root of all evil. But, to be sure, he would be idle here--or anywhere, in my opinion." Peggotty had an angry answer ready, I could see; but she swallowed it for my sake, and remained silent. "Humph!" said Miss Murdstone, still keeping her eye on the pickles; "it is of more importance than anything else--it is of paramount importance--that my brother should not be disturbed or made uncomfortable. I suppose I had better say yes." I thanked her, without making any demonstration of joy, lest it should induce her to withdraw her assent. Nor could I help thinking this a prudent course, when she looked at me out of the pickle-jar, with as great an access of sourness as if her black eyes had absorbed its contents. However, the permission was given, and was never retracted; for when the month was out, Peggotty and I were ready to depart. Mr. Barkis came into the house for Peggotty's boxes. I had never known him to pass the garden-gate before, but on this occasion he came into the house. And he gave me a look as he shouldered the largest box and went out, which I thought had meaning in it, if meaning could ever be said to find its way into Mr. Barkis's visage. Peggotty was naturally in low spirits at leaving what had been her home so many years, and where the two strong attachments of her life--for my mother and myself--had been formed. She had been walking in the churchyard, too, very early; and she got into the cart, and sat in it with her handkerchief at her eyes. So long as she remained in this condition, Mr. Barkis gave no sign of life whatever. He sat in his usual place and attitude, like a great stuffed figure. But when she began to look about her, and to speak to me, he nodded his head and grinned several times. I have not the least notion at whom, or what he meant by it. "It's a beautiful day, Mr. Barkis!" I said, as an act of politeness. "It ain't bad," said Mr. Barkis, who generally qualified his speech, and rarely committed himself. "Peggotty is quite comfortable now, Mr. Barkis," I remarked, for his satisfaction. "Is she, though!" said Mr. Barkis. After reflecting about it, with a sagacious air, Mr. Barkis eyed her, and said: "_Are_ you pretty comfortable?" Peggotty laughed, and answered in the affirmative. "But really and truly, you know. Are you?" growled Mr. Barkis, sliding nearer to her on the seat, and nudging her with his elbow. "Are you? Really and truly pretty comfortable? Are you? Eh?" At each of these inquiries Mr. Barkis shuffled nearer to her, and gave her another nudge; so that at last we were all crowded together in the left-hand corner of the cart, and I was so squeezed that I could hardly bear it. Peggotty calling his attention to my sufferings, Mr. Barkis gave me a little more room at once, and got away by degrees. But I could not help observing that he seemed to think he had hit upon a wonderful expedient for expressing himself in a neat, agreeable, and pointed manner, without the inconvenience of inventing conversation. He manifestly chuckled over it for some time. By-and-by he turned to Peggotty again, and repeating, "Are you pretty comfortable though?" bore down upon us as before, until the breath was nearly wedged out of my body. By-and-by he made another descent upon us with the same inquiry, and the same result. At length, I got up whenever I saw him coming, and standing on the footboard, pretended to look at the prospect; after which I did very well. He was so polite as to stop at a public-house, expressly on our account, and entertain us with broiled mutton and beer. Even when Peggotty was in the act of drinking, he was seized with one of those approaches, and almost choked her. But as we drew nearer to the end of our journey, he had more to do and less time for gallantry; and when we got on Yarmouth pavement, we were all too much shaken and jolted, I apprehend, to have any leisure for any thing else. Mr. Peggotty and Ham waited for us at the old place. They received me and Peggotty in an affectionate manner, and shook hands with Mr. Barkis, who, with his hat on the very back of his head, and a shame-faced leer upon his countenance, and pervading his very legs, presented but a vacant appearance, I thought. They each took one of Peggotty's trunks, and we were going away, when Mr. Barkis solemnly made a sign to me with his forefinger to come under an archway. "I say," growled Mr. Barkis, "it was all right." I looked up into his face, and answered, with an attempt to be very profound: "Oh!" "It didn't come to a end there," said Mr. Barkis, nodding confidentially. "It was all right." Again I answered: "Oh!" "You know who was willin'," said my friend. "It was Barkis, and Barkis only." I nodded assent. "It's all right," said Mr. Barkis, shaking hands; "I'm a friend of your'n. You made it all right, first. It's all right." In his attempts to be particularly lucid, Mr. Barkis was so extremely mysterious, that I might have stood looking in his face for an hour, and most assuredly should have got as much information out of it as out of the face of a clock that had stopped, but for Peggotty's calling me away. As we were going along, she asked me what he had said; and I told her he had said it was all right. "Like his impudence," said Peggotty, "but I don't mind that! Davy dear, what should you think if I was to think of being married?" "Why--I suppose you would like me as much then, Peggotty, as you do now?" I returned, after a little consideration. Greatly to the astonishment of the passengers in the street, as well as of her relations going on before, the good soul was obliged to stop and embrace me on the spot, with many protestations of her unalterable love. "Tell me what should you say, darling?" she asked again, when this was over, and we were walking on. "If you were thinking of being married--to Mr. Barkis, Peggotty?" "Yes," said Peggotty. "I should think it would be a very good thing. For then you know, Peggotty, you would always have the horse and cart to bring you over to see me, and could come for nothing, and be sure of coming." "The sense of the dear!" cried Peggotty. "What I have been thinking of, this month back! Yes, my precious; and I think I should be more independent altogether, you see; let alone my working with a better heart in my own house, than I could in anybody else's now. I don't know what I might be fit for, now, as a servant to a stranger. And I shall be always near my pretty's resting-place," said Peggotty musing, "and able to see it when I like; and when _I_ lie down to rest, I may be laid not far off from my darling girl!" We neither of us said anything for a little while. "But I wouldn't so much as give it another thought," said Peggotty, cheerily, "if my Davy was anyways against it--not if I had been asked in church thirty times three times over, and was wearing out the ring in my pocket." "Look at me, Peggotty," I replied; "and see if I am not really glad, and don't truly wish it!" As indeed I did, with all my heart. "Well, my life," said Peggotty, giving me a squeeze, "I have thought of it night and day, every way I can, and I hope the right way; but I'll think of it again, and speak to my brother about it, and in the meantime we'll keep it to ourselves, Davy, you and me. Barkis is a good plain creetur'," said Peggotty, "and if I tried to do my duty by him, I think it would be my fault if I wasn't--if I wasn't pretty comfortable," said Peggotty, laughing heartily. This quotation from Mr. Barkis was so appropriate, and tickled us both so much, that we laughed again and again, and were quite in a pleasant humour when we came within view of Mr. Peggotty's cottage. It looked just the same, except that it may, perhaps, have shrunk a little in my eyes; and Mrs. Gummidge was waiting at the door as if she had stood there ever since. All within was the same, down to the seaweed in the blue mug in my bedroom. I went into the out-house to look about me; and the very same lobsters, crabs, and crawfish possessed by the same desire to pinch the world in general, appeared to be in the same state of conglomeration in the same old corner. But there was no little Em'ly to be seen, so I asked Mr. Peggotty where she was. "She's at school, sir," said Mr. Peggotty, wiping the heat consequent on the porterage of Peggotty's box from his forehead; "she'll be home," looking at the Dutch clock, "in from twenty minutes to half-an-hour's time. We all on us feel the loss of her, bless ye!" Mrs. Gummidge moaned. "Cheer up, Mawther!" cried Mr. Peggotty. "I feel it more than anybody else," said Mrs. Gummidge; "I'm a lone lorn creetur', and she used to be a'most the only think that didn't go contrairy with me." Mrs. Gummidge, whimpering and shaking her head, applied herself to blowing the fire. Mr. Peggotty, looking round upon us while she was so engaged, said in a low voice, which he shaded with his hand: "The old 'un!" From this I rightly conjectured that no improvement had taken place since my last visit in the state of Mrs. Gummidge's spirits. Now, the whole place was, or it should have been, quite as delightful a place as ever; and yet it did not impress me in the same way. I felt rather disappointed with it. Perhaps it was because little Em'ly was not at home. I knew the way by which she would come, and presently found myself strolling along the path to meet her. A figure appeared in the distance before long, and I soon knew it to be Em'ly, who was a little creature still in stature, though she was grown. But when she drew nearer, and I saw her blue eyes looking bluer, and her dimpled face looking brighter, and her whole self prettier and gayer, a curious feeling came over me that made me pretend not to know her, and pass by as if I were looking at something a long way off. I have done such a thing since in later life, or I am mistaken. Little Em'ly didn't care a bit. She saw me well enough; but instead of turning round and calling after me, ran away laughing. This obliged me to run after her, and she ran so fast that we were very near the cottage before I caught her. "Oh, it's you, is it?" said little Em'ly. "Why, you knew who it was, Em'ly," said I. "And didn't _you_ know who it was?" said Em'ly. I was going to kiss her, but she covered her cherry lips with her hands, and said she wasn't a baby now, and ran away, laughing more than ever, into the house. She seemed to delight in teasing me, which was a change in her I wondered at very much. The tea-table was ready, and our little locker was put out in its old place, but instead of coming to sit by me, she went and bestowed her company upon that grumbling Mrs. Gummidge: and on Mr. Peggotty's inquiring why, rumpled her hair all over her face to hide it, and would do nothing but laugh. "A little puss, it is!" said Mr. Peggotty, patting her with his great hand. "So sh' is! so sh' is!" cried Ham. "Mas'r Davy bor', so sh'is!" and he sat and chuckled at her for some time, in a state of mingled admiration and delight, that made his face a burning red. Little Em'ly was spoiled by them all, in fact; and by no one more than Mr. Peggotty himself, whom she could have coaxed into anything, by only going and laying her cheek against his rough whisker. That was my opinion, at least, when I saw her do it; and I held Mr. Peggotty to be thoroughly in the right. But she was so affectionate and sweet-natured, and had such a pleasant manner of being both sly and shy at once, that she captivated me more than ever. She was tender-hearted, too; for when, as we sat round the fire after tea, an allusion was made by Mr. Peggotty over his pipe to the loss I had sustained, the tears stood in her eyes, and she looked at me so kindly across the table, that I felt quite thankful to her. "Ah!" said Mr. Peggotty, taking up her curls, and running them over his hand like water, "here's another orphan, you see, sir. And here," said Mr. Peggotty, giving Ham a back-handed knock in the chest, "is another of 'em, though he don't look much like it." "If I had you for my guardian, Mr. Peggotty," said I, shaking my head, "I don't think I should _feel_ much like it." "Well said, Mas'r Davy bor'!" cried Ham, in an ecstasy. "Hoorah! Well said! Nor more you wouldn't! Hor! Hor!"--Here he returned Mr. Peggotty's back-hander, and little Em'ly got up and kissed Mr. Peggotty. "And how's your friend, sir?" said Mr. Peggotty to me. "Steerforth?" said I. "That's the name!" cried Mr. Peggotty, turning to Ham. "I knowed it was something in our way." "You said it was Rudderford," observed Ham, laughing. "Well?" retorted Mr. Peggotty. "And ye steer with a rudder, don't ye? It ain't fur off. How is he, sir?" "He was very well indeed when I came away, Mr. Peggotty." "There's a friend!" said Mr. Peggotty, stretching out his pipe. "There's a friend, if you talk of friends! Why, Lord love my heart alive, if it ain't a treat to look at him!" "He is very handsome, is he not?" said I, my heart warming with this praise. "Handsome!" cried Mr. Peggotty. "He stands up to you like--like a--why, I don't know what he _don't_ stand up to you like. He's so bold!" "Yes! That's just his character," said I. "He's as brave as a lion, and you can't think how frank he is, Mr. Peggotty." "And I do suppose, now," said Mr. Peggotty, looking at me through the smoke of his pipe, "that in the way of book-learning he'd take the wind out of a'most anything." "Yes," said I, delighted; "he knows everything. He is astonishingly clever." "There's a friend!" murmured Mr. Peggotty, with a grave toss of his head. "Nothing seems to cost him any trouble," said I. "He knows a task if he only looks at it. He is the best cricketer you ever saw. He will give you almost as many men as you like at draughts, and beat you easily." Mr. Peggotty gave his head another toss, as much as to say: "Of course he will." "He is such a speaker," I pursued, "that he can win anybody over; and I don't know what you'd say if you were to hear him sing, Mr. Peggotty." Mr. Peggotty gave his head another toss, as much as to say: "I have no doubt of it." "Then, he's such a generous, fine, noble fellow," said I, quite carried away by my favorite theme, "that it's hardly possible to give him as much praise as he deserves. I am sure I can never feel thankful enough for the generosity with which he has protected me, so much younger and lower in the school than himself." I was running on, very fast indeed, when my eyes rested on little Em'ly's face, which was bent forward over the table, listening with the deepest attention, her breath held, her blue eyes sparkling like jewels, and the color mantling in her cheeks. She looked so extraordinarily earnest and pretty, that I stopped in a sort of wonder; and they all observed her at the same time, for, as I stopped, they laughed and looked at her. "Em'ly is like me," said Peggotty, "and would like to see him." Em'ly was confused by our all observing her, and hung down her head, and her face was covered with blushes. Glancing up presently through her stray curls, and seeing that we were all looking at her still (I am sure, I, for one, could have looked at her for hours), she ran away, and kept away till it was nearly bedtime. I lay down in the old little bed in the stern of the boat, and the wind came moaning on across the flat as it had done before. But I could not help fancying, now, that it moaned of those who were gone; and instead of thinking that the sea might rise in the night and float the boat away, I thought of the sea that had risen, since I last heard those sounds, and drowned my happy home. I recollect, as the wind and water began to sound fainter in my ears, putting a short clause into my prayers, petitioning that I might grow up to marry little Em'ly, and so dropping lovingly asleep. The days passed pretty much as they had passed before, except--it was a great exception--that little Em'ly and I seldom wandered on the beach now. She had tasks to learn, and needle-work to do; and was absent during a great part of each day. But I felt that we should not have had those old wanderings, even if it had been otherwise. Wild and full of childish whims as Em'ly was, she was more of a little woman than I had supposed. She seemed to have got a great distance away from me, in little more than a year. She liked me, but she laughed at me, and tormented me; and when I went to meet her, stole home another way, and was laughing at the door when I came back, disappointed. The best times were when she sat quietly at work in the doorway, and I sat on the wooden step at her feet, reading to her. It seems to me, at this hour, that I have never seen such sunlight as on those bright April afternoons; that I have never seen such a sunny little figure as I used to see, sitting in the doorway of the old boat; that I have never beheld such sky, such water, such glorified ships sailing away into golden air. On the very first evening after our arrival, Mr. Barkis appeared in an exceedingly vacant and awkward condition, and with a bundle of oranges tied up in a handkerchief. As he made no allusion of any kind to this property, he was supposed to have left it behind him by accident when he went away; until Ham, running after him to restore it, came back with the information that it was intended for Peggotty. After that occasion he appeared every evening at exactly the same hour, and always with a little bundle, to which he never alluded, and which he regularly put behind the door, and left there. These offerings of affection were of a most various and eccentric description. Among them I remember a double set of pig's trotters, a huge pin-cushion, half a bushel or so of apples, a pair of jet earrings, some Spanish onions, a box of dominoes, a canary bird and cage, and a leg of pickled pork. Mr. Barkis's wooing, as I remember it, was altogether of a peculiar kind. He very seldom said anything; but would sit by the fire in much the same attitude as he sat in, in his cart, and stare heavily at Peggotty, who was opposite. One night, being, as I suppose, inspired by love, he made a dart at the bit of wax-candle she kept for her thread, and put it in his waistcoat-pocket and carried it off. After that, his great delight was to produce it when it was wanted, sticking to the lining of his pocket, in a partially-melted state, and pocket it again when it was done with. He seemed to enjoy himself very much, and not to feel at all called upon to talk. Even when he took Peggotty out for a walk on the flats, he had no uneasiness on that head, I believe; contenting himself with now and then asking her if she was pretty comfortable; and I remember that sometimes, after he was gone, Peggotty would throw her apron over her face, and laugh for half-an-hour. Indeed, we were all more or less amused, except that miserable Mrs. Gummidge, whose courtship would appear to have been of an exactly parallel nature, she was so continually reminded by these transactions of the old one. At length, when the term of my visit was nearly expired, it was given out that Peggotty and Mr. Barkis were going to make a day's holiday together, and that little Em'ly and I were to accompany them. I had but a broken sleep the night before, in anticipation of the pleasure of a whole day with Em'ly. We were all astir betimes in the morning; and while we were yet at breakfast, Mr. Barkis appeared in the distance, driving a chaise-cart towards the object of his affections. Peggotty was drest as usual, in her neat and quiet mourning; but Mr. Barkis bloomed in a new blue coat, of which the tailor had given him such good measure, that the cuffs would have rendered gloves unnecessary in the coldest weather, while the collar was so high that it pushed his hair up on end on the top of his head. His bright buttons, too, were of the largest size. Rendered complete by drab pantaloons and a buff waistcoat, I thought Mr. Barkis a phenomenon of respectability. When we were all in a bustle outside the door, I found that Mr. Peggotty was prepared with an old shoe, which was to be thrown after us for luck, and which he offered to Mrs. Gummidge for that purpose. "No. It had better be done by somebody else, Dan'l," said Mrs. Gummidge. "I'm a lone lorn creetur' myself, and everythink that reminds me of creetur's that ain't lone and lorn, goes contrairy with me." "Come, old gal!" cried Mr. Peggotty. "Take and heave it!" "No, Dan'l," returned Mrs. Gummidge, whimpering and shaking her head. "If I felt less, I could do more. You don't feel like me, Dan'l; thinks don't go contrairy with you, nor you with them; you had better do it yourself." But here Peggotty, who had been going about from one to another in a hurried way, kissing everybody, called out from the cart, in which we all were by this time (Em'ly and I on two little chairs, side by side), that Mrs. Gummidge must do it. So Mrs. Gummidge did it; and, I am sorry to relate, cast a damp upon the festive character of our departure, by immediately bursting into tears, and sinking subdued into the arms of Ham, with the declaration that she knowed she was a burden, and had better be carried to the House at once. Which I really thought was a sensible idea, that Ham might have acted on. [Illustration: Mrs. Gummidge casts a damp on our departure.] Away we went, however, on our holiday excursion; and the first thing we did was to stop at a church, where Mr. Barkis tied the horse to some rails, and went in with Peggotty, leaving little Em'ly and me alone in the chaise. I took that occasion to put my arm round Em'ly's waist, and propose that as I was going away so very soon now, we should determine to be very affectionate to one another, and very happy, all day. Little Em'ly consenting, and allowing me to kiss her, I became desperate; informing her, I recollect, that I never could love another, and that I was prepared to shed the blood of anybody who should aspire to her affections. How merry little Em'ly made herself about it! With what a demure assumption of being immensely older and wiser than I, the fairy little woman said I was "a silly boy;" and then laughed so charmingly that I forgot the pain of being called by that disparaging name, in the pleasure of looking at her. Mr. Barkis and Peggotty were a good while in the church, but came out at last, and then we drove away into the country. As we were going along, Mr. Barkis turned to me, and said, with a wink,--by-the-by, I should hardly have thought, before, that he _could_ wink: "What name was it as I wrote up in the cart?" "Clara Peggotty," I answered. "What name would it be as I should write up now, if there was a tilt here?" "Clara Peggotty, again?" I suggested. "Clara Peggotty BARKIS!" he returned, and burst into a roar of laughter that shook the chaise. In a word, they were married, and had gone into the church for no other purpose. Peggotty was resolved that it should be quietly done; and the clerk had given her away, and there had been no witnesses of the ceremony. She was a little confused when Mr. Barkis made this abrupt announcement of their union, and could not hug me enough in token of her unimpaired affection; but she soon became herself again, and said she was very glad it was over. We drove to a little inn in a bye road, where we were expected, and where we had a very comfortable dinner, and passed the day with great satisfaction. If Peggotty had been married every day for the last ten years, she could hardly have been more at her ease about it; it made no sort of difference in her: she was just the same as ever, and went out for a stroll with little Em'ly and me before tea, while Mr. Barkis philosophically smoked his pipe, and enjoyed himself, I suppose, with the contemplation of his happiness. If so, it sharpened his appetite; for I distinctly call to mind that, although he had eaten a good deal of pork and greens at dinner, and had finished off with a fowl or two, he was obliged to have cold boiled bacon for tea, and disposed of a large quantity without any emotion. I have often thought, since, what an odd, innocent, out-of-the-way kind of wedding it must have been! We got into the chaise again soon after dark, and drove cosily back, looking up at the stars, and talking about them. I was their chief exponent, and opened Mr. Barkis's mind to an amazing extent. I told him all I knew, but he would have believed anything I might have taken it into my head to impart to him; for he had a profound veneration for my abilities, and informed his wife in my hearing, on that very occasion, that I was "a young Roeshus"--by which I think he meant, prodigy. When we had exhausted the subject of the stars, or rather when I had exhausted the mental faculties of Mr. Barkis, little Em'ly and I made a cloak of an old wrapper, and sat under it for the rest of the journey. Ah, how I loved her! What happiness (I thought) if we were married, and were going away anywhere to live among the trees and in the fields, never growing older, never growing wiser, children ever, rambling hand in hand through sunshine and among flowery meadows, laying down our heads on moss at night, in a sweet sleep of purity and peace, and buried by the birds when we were dead! Some such picture, with no real world in it, bright with the light of our innocence, and vague as the stars afar off, was in my mind all the way. I am glad to think there were two such guileless hearts at Peggotty's marriage as little Em'ly's and mine. I am glad to think the Loves and Graces took such airy forms in its homely procession. Well, we came to the old boat again in good time at night; and there Mr. and Mrs. Barkis bade us good-bye, and drove away snugly to their own home. I felt then, for the first time, that I had lost Peggotty. I should have gone to bed with a sore heart indeed under any other roof but that which sheltered little Em'ly's head. Mr. Peggotty and Ham knew what was in my thoughts as well as I did, and were ready with some supper and their hospitable faces to drive it away. Little Em'ly came and sat beside me on the locker, for the only time in all that visit; and it was altogether a wonderful close to a wonderful day. It was a night tide; and soon after we went to bed, Mr. Peggotty and Ham went out to fish. I felt very brave at being left alone in the solitary house, the protector of Em'ly and Mrs. Gummidge, and only wished that a lion or a serpent, or any ill-disposed monster, would make an attack upon us, that I might destroy him, and cover myself with glory. But as nothing of the sort happened to be walking about on Yarmouth flats that night, I provided the best substitute I could by dreaming of dragons until morning. With morning came Peggotty; who called to me, as usual, under my window as if Mr. Barkis the carrier had been from first to last a dream too. After breakfast she took me to her own home, and a beautiful little home it was. Of all the moveables in it, I must have been most impressed by a certain old bureau of some dark wood in the parlor (the tile-floored kitchen was the general sitting-room), with a retreating top which opened, let down, and became a desk, within which, was a large quarto edition of Fox's Book of Martyrs. This precious volume, of which I do not recollect one word, I immediately discovered and immediately applied myself to; and I never visited the house afterwards, but I kneeled on a chair, opened the casket where this gem was enshrined, spread my arms over the desk, and fell to devouring the book afresh. I was chiefly edified, I am afraid, by the pictures, which were numerous, and represented all kinds of dismal horrors; but the Martyrs and Peggotty's house have been inseparable in my mind ever since, and are now. I took leave of Mr. Peggotty, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge, and little Em'ly, that day; and passed the night at Peggotty's, in a little room in the roof (with the crocodile-book on a shelf by the bed's head) which was to be always mine, Peggotty said, and should always be kept for me in exactly the same state. "Young or old, Davy dear, as long as I am alive and have this house over my head," said Peggotty, "you shall find it as if I expected you here directly minute. I shall keep it every day, as I used to keep your old little room, my darling; and if you was to go to China, you might think of it as being kept just the same, all the time you were away." I felt the truth and constancy of my dear old nurse, with all my heart, and thanked her as well as I could. That was not very well, for she spoke to me thus, with her arms round my neck, in the morning, and I was going home in the morning, and I went home in the morning, with herself and Mr. Barkis in the cart. They left me at the gate, not easily or lightly; and it was a strange sight to me to see the cart go on, taking Peggotty away, and leaving me under the old elm-trees looking at the house, in which there was no face to look on mine with love or liking any more. And now I fell into a state of neglect, which I cannot look back upon without compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition,--apart from all friendly notice, apart from the society of all other boys of my own age, apart from all companionship but my own spiritless thoughts,--which seems to cast its gloom upon this paper as I write. What would I have given, to have been sent to the hardest school that ever was kept!--to have been taught something, anyhow, anywhere! No such hope dawned upon me. They disliked me; and they sullenly, sternly, steadily, overlooked me. I think Mr. Murdstone's means were straitened at about this time; but it is little to the purpose. He could not bear me; and in putting me from him he tried, as I believe, to put away the notion that I had any claim upon him--and succeeded. I was not actively ill-used. I was not beaten, or starved; but the wrong that was done to me had no intervals of relenting, and was done in a systematic, passionless manner. Day after day, week after week, month after month, I was coldly neglected. I wonder sometimes, when I think of it, what they would have done if I had been taken with an illness; whether I should have lain down in my lonely room, and languished through it in my usual solitary way, or whether anybody would have helped me out. When Mr. and Miss Murdstone were at home, I took my meals with them; in their absence, I ate and drank by myself. At all times I lounged about the house and neighbourhood quite disregarded, except that they were jealous of my making any friends: thinking, perhaps, that, if I did, I might complain to some one. For this reason, though Mr. Chillip often asked me to go and see him (he was a widower, having, some years before that, lost a little small light-haired wife, whom I can just remember connecting in my own thoughts with a pale tortoise-shell cat), it was but seldom that I enjoyed the happiness of passing an afternoon in his closet of a surgery; reading some book that was new to me, with the smell of the whole pharmacopoeia coming up my nose, or pounding something in a mortar under his mild directions. For the same reason, added no doubt to the old dislike of her, I was seldom allowed to visit Peggotty. Faithful to her promise, she either came to see me, or met me somewhere near, once every week, and never empty-handed; but many and bitter were the disappointments I had, in being refused permission to pay a visit to her at her house. Some few times, however, at long intervals, I was allowed to go there; and then I found out that Mr. Barkis was something of a miser, or as Peggotty dutifully expressed it, was "a little near," and kept a heap of money in a box under his bed, which he pretended was only full of coats and trousers. In this coffer, his riches hid themselves with such a tenacious modesty, that the smallest instalments could only be tempted out by artifice; so that Peggotty had to prepare a long and elaborate scheme, a very Gunpowder Plot, for every Saturday's expenses. All this time I was so conscious of the waste of any promise I had given, and of my being utterly neglected, that I should have been perfectly miserable, I have no doubt, but for the old books. They were my only comfort; and I was as true to them as they were to me, and read them over and over I don't know how many times more. I now approach a period of my life, which I can never lose the remembrance of, while I remember any thing; and the recollection of which has often, without my invocation, come before me like a ghost, and haunted happier times. I had been out, one day, loitering somewhere, in the listless, meditative manner that my way of life engendered, when, turning the corner of a lane near our house, I came upon Mr. Murdstone walking with a gentleman. I was confused, and was going by them, when the gentleman cried: "What! Brooks!" "No, sir, David Copperfield," I said. "Don't tell me. You are Brooks," said the gentleman. "You are Brooks of Sheffield. That's your name." At these words, I observed the gentleman more attentively. His laugh coming to my remembrance too, I knew him to be Mr. Quinion, whom I had gone over to Lowestoft with Mr. Murdstone to see, before--it is no matter--I need not recall when. "And how do you get on, and where are you being educated, Brooks?" said Mr. Quinion. He had put his hand upon my shoulder, and turned me about, to walk with them. I did not know what to reply, and glanced dubiously at Mr. Murdstone. "He is at home at present," said the latter. "He is not being educated anywhere. I don't know what to do with him. He is a difficult subject." That old, double look was on me for a moment; and then his eye darkened with a frown, as it turned, in its aversion, elsewhere. "Humph!" said Mr. Quinion, looking at us both, I thought. "Fine weather!" Silence ensued, and I was considering how I could best disengage my shoulder from his hand, and go away, when he said: "I suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow still? Eh, Brooks?" "Aye! He is sharp enough," said Mr. Murdstone, impatiently. "You had better let him go. He will not thank you for troubling him." On this hint, Mr. Quinion released me, and I made the best of my way home. Looking back as I turned into the front garden, I saw Mr. Murdstone leaning against the wicket of the churchyard, and Mr. Quinion talking to him. They were both looking after me, and I felt that they were speaking of me. Mr. Quinion lay at our house that night. After breakfast, the next morning, I had put my chair away, and was going out of the room, when Mr. Murdstone called me back. He then gravely repaired to another table, where his sister sat herself at her desk. Mr. Quinion, with his hands in his pockets, stood looking out of window; and I stood looking at them all. "David," said Mr. Murdstone, "to the young this is a world for action; not for moping and droning in." --"As you do," added his sister. "Jane Murdstone, leave it to me, if you please. I say, David, to the young this is a world for action, and not for moping and droning in. It is especially so for a young boy of your disposition, which requires a great deal of correcting; and to which no greater service can be done than to force it to conform to the ways of the working world, and to bend it and break it." "For stubbornness won't do here," said his sister. "What it wants, is, to be crushed. And crushed it must be. Shall be, too!" He gave her a look, half in remonstrance, half in approval, and went on: "I suppose you know, David, that I am not rich. At any rate, you know it now. You have received some considerable education already. Education is costly; and even if it were not, and I could afford it, I am of opinion that it would not be at all advantageous to you to be kept at a school. What is before you, is a fight with the world; and the sooner you begin it, the better." I think it occurred to me that I had already begun it, in my poor way: but it occurs to me now, whether or no. "You have heard 'the counting-house' mentioned sometimes," said Mr. Murdstone. "The counting-house, sir?" I repeated. "Of Murdstone and Grinby, in the wine trade," he replied. I suppose I looked uncertain, for he went on hastily: "You have heard the 'counting-house' mentioned, or the business, or the cellars, or the wharf, or something about it." "I think I have heard the business mentioned, sir," I said, remembering what I vaguely knew of his and his sister's resources. "But I don't know when." "It does not matter when," he returned. "Mr. Quinion manages that business." I glanced at the latter deferentially as he stood looking out of window. "Mr. Quinion suggests that it gives employment to some other boys, and that he sees no reason why it shouldn't, on the same terms, give employment to you." "He having," Mr. Quinion observed in a low voice, and half turning round, "no other prospect, Murdstone." Mr. Murdstone, with an impatient, even an angry gesture, resumed, without noticing what he had said: "Those terms are, that you will earn enough for yourself to provide for your eating and drinking, and pocket-money. Your lodging (which I have arranged for) will be paid by me. So will your washing--" "--Which will be kept down to my estimate," said his sister. "Your clothes will be looked after for you, too," said Mr. Murdstone; "as you will not be able, yet awhile, to get them for yourself. So you are now going to London, David, with Mr. Quinion, to begin the world on your own account." "In short, you are provided for," observed his sister; "and will please to do your duty." Though I quite understood that the purpose of this announcement was to get rid of me, I have no distinct remembrance whether it pleased or frightened me. My impression is, that I was in a state of confusion about it, and, oscillating between the two points, touched neither. Nor had I much time for the clearing of my thoughts, as Mr. Quinion was to go upon the morrow. Behold me, on the morrow, in a much-worn little white hat, with a black crape round it for my mother, a black jacket, and a pair of hard stiff corduroy trousers--which Miss Murdstone considered the best armour for the legs in that fight with the world which was now to come off: behold me so attired, and with my little worldly all before me in a small trunk, sitting, a lone lorn child (as Mrs. Gummidge might have said), in the postchaise that was carrying Mr. Quinion to the London coach at Yarmouth! See, how our house and church are lessening in the distance; how the grave beneath the tree is blotted out by intervening objects; how the spire points upward from my old playground no more, and the sky is empty! CHAPTER XI. I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND DON'T LIKE IT. I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything; but it is matter of some surprise to me, even now, that I can have been so easily thrown away at such an age. A child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of observation, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally, it seems wonderful to me that nobody should have made any sign in my behalf. But none was made; and I became, at ten years old, a little labouring hind in the service of Murdstone and Grinby. Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse was at the water side. It was down in Blackfriars. Modern improvements have altered the place; but it was the last house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving down hill to the river, with some stairs at the end, where people took boat. It was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was out, and literally overrun with rats. Its panelled rooms, discolored with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years, I dare say; its decaying floors and staircase; the squeaking and scuffling of the old grey rats down in the cellars; and the dirt and rottenness of the place; are things, not of many years ago, in my mind, but of the present instant. They are all before me, just as they were in the evil hour when I went among them for the first time, with my trembling hand in Mr. Quinion's. Murdstone and Grinby's trade was among a good many kinds of people, but an important branch of it was the supply of wines and spirits to certain packet ships. I forget now where they chiefly went, but I think there were some among them that made voyages both to the East and West Indies. I know that a great many empty bottles were one of the consequences of this traffic, and that certain men and boys were employed to examine them against the light, and reject those that were flawed, and to rinse and wash them. When the empty bottles ran short, there were labels to be pasted on full ones, or corks to be fitted to them, or seals to be put upon the corks, or finished bottles to be packed in casks. All this work was my work, and of the boys employed upon it I was one. There were three or four of us, counting me. My working place was established in a corner of the warehouse, where Mr. Quinion could see me, when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool in the counting-house, and look at me through a window above the desk. Hither, on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning life on my own account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned to show me my business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a ragged apron and a paper cap. He informed me that his father was a bargeman, and walked, in a black velvet head-dress, in the Lord Mayor's Show. He also informed me that our principal associate would be another boy whom he introduced by the--to me--extraordinary name of Mealy Potatoes. I discovered, however, that this youth had not been christened by that name, but that it had been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account of his complexion, which was pale or mealy. Mealy's father was a waterman, who had the additional distinction of being a fireman, and was engaged as such at one of the large theatres; where some young relation of Mealy's--I think his little sister--did Imps in the Pantomimes. No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship; compared these henceforth every-day associates with those of my happier childhood--not to say with Steerforth, Traddles, and the rest of those boys; and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man, crushed in my bosom. The deep remembrance of the sense I had, of being utterly without hope now; of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it was to my young heart to believe that day by day what I had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, would pass away from me, little by little, never to be brought back any more; cannot be written. As often as Mick Walker went away in the course of that forenoon, I mingled my tears with the water in which I was washing the bottles; and sobbed as if there were a flaw in my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting. The counting-house clock was at half-past twelve, and there was general preparation for going to dinner, when Mr. Quinion tapped at the counting-house window, and beckoned to me to go in. I went in, and found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which was a large one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and with a very extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his coat,--for ornament, I afterwards found, as he very seldom looked through it, and couldn't see anything when he did. "This," said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, "is he." "This," said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel, which impressed me very much, "is Master Copperfield. I hope I see you well, sir?" I said I was very well, and hoped he was. I was sufficiently ill at ease, Heaven knows; but it was not in my nature to complain much at that time of my life, so I said I was very well, and hoped he was. "I am," said the stranger, "thank Heaven, quite well. I have received a letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that he would desire me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my house, which is at present unoccupied--and is, in short, to be let as a--in short," said the stranger, with a smile and in a burst of confidence, "as a bed-room--the young beginner whom I have now the pleasure to--" and the stranger waved his hand, and settled his chin in his shirt collar. "This is Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion to me. "Ahem!" said the stranger, "that is my name." "Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion, "is known to Mr. Murdstone. He takes orders for us on commission, when he can get any. He has been written to by Mr. Murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings, and he will receive you as a lodger." "My address," said Mr. Micawber, "is Windsor Terrace, City Road. I--in short," said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, and in another burst of confidence--"I live there." I made him a bow. "Under the impression," said Mr. Micawber, "that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road--in short," said Mr. Micawber, in another burst of confidence, "that you might lose yourself--I shall be happy to call this evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way." I thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly in him to offer to take that trouble. "At what hour," said Mr. Micawber, "shall I--" "At about eight," said Mr. Quinion. "At about eight," said Mr. Micawber. "I beg to wish you good day, Mr. Quinion. I will intrude no longer." So he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under his arm: very upright, and humming a tune when he was clear of the counting-house. Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as I could in the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby, at a salary, I think, of six shillings a week. I am not clear whether it was six or seven. I am inclined to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that it was six at first and seven afterwards. He paid me a week down (from his own pocket, I believe), and I gave Mealy sixpence out of it to get my trunk carried to Windsor Terrace at night: it being too heavy for my strength, small as it was. I paid sixpence more for my dinner, which was a meat pie and a turn at a neighbouring pump; and passed the hour which was allowed for that meal, in walking about the streets. At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber reappeared. I washed my hands and face, to do the greater honour to his gentility, and we walked to our house, as I suppose I must now call it, together; Mr. Micawber impressing the names of streets, and the shapes of corner houses upon me, as we went along, that I might find my way back, easily, in the morning. Arrived at his house in Windsor Terrace (which I noticed was shabby like himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it could), he presented me to Mrs. Micawber, a thin and faded lady, not at all young, who was sitting in the parlor (the first floor was altogether unfurnished, and the blinds were kept down to delude the neighbours), with a baby at her breast. This baby was one of twins; and I may remark here that I hardly ever, in all my experience of the family, saw both the twins detached from Mrs. Micawber at the same time. One of them was always taking refreshment. There were two other children; Master Micawber, aged about four, and Miss Micawber, aged about three. These, and a dark-complexioned young woman, with a habit of snorting, who was servant to the family, and informed me, before half-an-hour had expired, that she was "a Orfling," and came from St. Luke's workhouse, in the neighbourhood, completed the establishment. My room was at the top of the house, at the back: a close chamber; stencilled all over with an ornament which my young imagination represented as a blue muffin; and very scantily furnished. "I never thought," said Mrs. Micawber, when she came up, twin and all, to show me the apartment, and sat down to take breath, "before I was married, when I lived with papa and mama, that I should ever find it necessary to take a lodger. But Mr. Micawber being in difficulties, all considerations of private feeling must give way." I said: "Yes, ma'am." "Mr. Micawber's difficulties are almost overwhelming just at present," said Mrs. Micawber; "and whether it is possible to bring him through them, I don't know. When I lived at home with papa and mama, I really should have hardly understood what the word meant, in the sense in which I now employ it, but experientia does it--as papa used to say." I cannot satisfy myself whether she told me that Mr. Micawber had been an officer in the Marines, or whether I have imagined it. I only know that I believe to this hour that he _was_ in the Marines once upon a time, without knowing why. He was a sort of town traveller for a number of miscellaneous houses, now; but made little or nothing of it, I am afraid. "If Mr. Micawber's creditors _will not_ give him time," said Mrs. Micawber, "they must take the consequences; and the sooner they bring it to an issue the better. Blood cannot be obtained from a stone, neither can anything on account be obtained at present (not to mention law expenses) from Mr. Micawber." I never can quite understand whether my precocious self-dependence confused Mrs. Micawber in reference to my age, or whether she was so full of the subject that she would have talked about it to the very twins if there had been nobody else to communicate with, but this was the strain in which she began, and she went on accordingly all the time I knew her. Poor Mrs. Micawber! She said she had tried to exert herself; and so, I have no doubt, she had. The centre of the street-door was perfectly covered with a great brass-plate, on which was engraved "Mrs. Micawber's Boarding Establishment for Young Ladies:" but I never found that any young lady had ever been to school there; or that any young lady ever came, or proposed to come; or that the least preparation was ever made to receive any young lady. The only visitors I ever saw or heard of, were creditors. _They_ used to come at all hours, and some of them were quite ferocious. One dirty-faced man, I think he was a bootmaker, used to edge himself into the passage as early as seven o'clock in the morning, and call up the stairs to Mr. Micawber--"Come! You ain't out yet, you know. Pay us, will you? Don't hide, you know; that's mean. I wouldn't be mean if I was you. Pay us, will you? You just pay us, d'ye hear? Come!" Receiving no answer to these taunts, he would mount in his wrath to the words "swindlers" and "robbers;" and these being ineffectual too, would sometimes go to the extremity of crossing the street, and roaring up at the windows of the second floor, where he knew Mr. Micawber was. At these times, Mr. Micawber would be transported with grief and mortification, even to the length (as I was once made aware by a scream from his wife) of making motions at himself with a razor; but within half an hour afterwards, he would polish up his shoes with extraordinary pains, and go out, humming a tune with a greater air of gentility than ever. Mrs. Micawber was quite as elastic. I have known her to be thrown into fainting fits by the king's taxes at three o'clock, and to eat lamb-chops, breaded, and drink warm ale (paid for with two tea-spoons that had gone to the pawnbroker's) at four. On one occasion, when an execution had just been put in, coming home through some chance as early as six o'clock, I saw her lying (of course with a twin) under the grate in a swoon, with her hair all torn about her face; but I never knew her more cheerful than she was, that very same night, over a veal-cutlet before the kitchen fire, telling me stories about her papa and mama, and the company they used to keep. In this house, and with this family, I passed my leisure time. My own exclusive breakfast of a penny loaf and a pennyworth of milk, I provided myself. I kept another small loaf, and a modicum of cheese, on a particular shelf of a particular cupboard, to make my supper on when I came back at night. This made a hole in the six or seven shillings, I know well; and I was out at the warehouse all day, and had to support myself on that money all the week. From Monday morning until Saturday night, I had no advice, no counsel, no encouragement, no consolation, no assistance, no support, of any kind, from any one, that I can call to mind, as I hope to go to heaven! I was so young and childish, and so little qualified--how could I be otherwise?--to undertake the whole charge of my own existence, that often, in going to Murdstone and Grinby's, of a morning, I could not resist the stale pastry put out for sale at half-price at the pastrycook's doors, and spent in that, the money I should have kept for my dinner. Then, I went without my dinner, or bought a roll or a slice of pudding. I remember two pudding-shops, between which I was divided, according to my finances. One was in a court close to St. Martin's Church--at the back of the church,--which is now removed altogether. The pudding at that shop was made of currants, and was rather a special pudding, but was dear, twopennyworth not being larger than a pennyworth of more ordinary pudding. A good shop for the latter was in the Strand--somewhere in that part which has been rebuilt since. It was a stout pale pudding, heavy and flabby, and with great flat raisins in it, stuck in whole at wide distances apart. It came up hot at about my time every day, and many a day did I dine off it. When I dined regularly and handsomely, I had a saveloy and a penny-loaf, or a fourpenny plate of red beef from a cook's shop; or a plate of bread and cheese and a glass of beer, from a miserable old public-house opposite our place of business, called the Lion, or the Lion and something else that I have forgotten. Once, I remember carrying my own bread (which I had brought from home in the morning) under my arm, wrapped in a piece of paper, like a book, and going to a famous alamode beef-house near Drury Lane, and ordering a "small plate" of that delicacy to eat with it. What the waiter thought of such a strange little apparition coming in all alone, I don't know; but I can see him now, staring at me as I ate my dinner, and bringing up the other waiter to look. I gave him a halfpenny for himself, and I wish he hadn't taken it. We had half-an-hour, I think, for tea. When I had money enough, I used to get half-a-pint of ready-made coffee and a slice of bread and butter. When I had none, I used to look at a venison-shop in Fleet-street; or I have strolled, at such a time, as far as Covent Garden Market, and stared at the pine-apples. I was fond of wandering about the Adelphi, because it was a mysterious place, with those dark arches. I see myself emerging one evening from some of these arches, on a little public-house close to the river, with an open space before it, where some coal-heavers were dancing; to look at whom, I sat down upon a bench. I wonder what they thought of me! I was such a child, and so little, that frequently when I went into the bar of a strange public-house for a glass of ale or porter, to moisten what I had had for dinner, they were afraid to give it me. I remember one hot evening I went into the bar of a public-house, and said to the landlord: "What is your best--your _very best_--ale a glass?" For it was a special occasion. I don't know what. It may have been my birth-day. "Twopence-halfpenny," says the landlord, "is the price of the Genuine Stunning ale." "Then," says I, producing the money, "just draw me a glass of the Genuine Stunning, if you please, with a good head to it." [Illustration: My magnificent order at the public-house.] The landlord looked at me in return over the bar, from head to foot, with a strange smile on his face; and instead of drawing the beer, looked round the screen and said something to his wife. She came out from behind it, with her work in her hand, and joined him in surveying me. Here we stand, all three, before me now. The landlord in his shirt sleeves, leaning against the bar window-frame; his wife looking over the little half-door; and I, in some confusion, looking up at them from outside the partition. They asked me a good many questions; as, what my name was, how old I was, where I lived, how I was employed, and how I came there. To all of which, that I might commit nobody, I invented, I am afraid, appropriate answers. They served me with the ale, though I suspect it was not the Genuine Stunning; and the landlord's wife, opening the little half-door of the bar, and bending down, gave me my money back, and gave me a kiss that was half admiring and half compassionate, but all womanly and good, I am sure. I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the scantiness of my resources or the difficulties of my life. I know that if a shilling were given me by Mr. Quinion at any time, I spent it in a dinner or a tea. I know that I worked, from morning until night, with common men and boys, a shabby child. I know that I lounged about the streets, insufficiently and unsatisfactorily fed. I know that, but for the mercy of God, I might easily have been, for any care that was taken of me, a little robber or a little vagabond. Yet I held some station at Murdstone and Grinby's too. Besides that Mr. Quinion did what a careless man so occupied, and dealing with a thing so anomalous, could, to treat me as one upon a different footing from the rest, I never said, to man or boy, how it was that I came to be there, or gave the least indication of being sorry that I was there. That I suffered in secret, and that I suffered exquisitely, no one ever knew but I. How much I suffered, it is, as I have said already, utterly beyond my power to tell. But I kept my own counsel, and I did my work. I knew from the first, that, if I could not do my work as well as any of the rest, I could not hold myself above slight and contempt. I soon became at least as expeditious and as skilful as either of the other boys. Though perfectly familiar with them, my conduct and manner were different enough from theirs to place a space between us. They and the men generally spoke of me as "the little gent," or "the young Suffolker." A certain man named Gregory, who was foreman of the packers, and another named Tipp, who was the carman, and wore a red jacket, used to address me sometimes as "David:" but I think it was mostly when we were very confidential, and when I had made some efforts to entertain them, over our work, with some results of the old readings; which were fast perishing out of my remembrance. Mealy Potatoes uprose once, and rebelled against my being so distinguished; but Mick Walker settled him in no time. My rescue from this kind of existence I considered quite hopeless, and abandoned, as such, altogether. I am solemnly convinced that I never for one hour was reconciled to it, or was otherwise than miserably unhappy; but I bore it; and even to Peggotty, partly for the love of her and partly for shame, never in any letter (though many passed between us) revealed the truth. Mr. Micawber's difficulties were an addition to the distressed state of my mind. In my forlorn state I became quite attached to the family, and used to walk about, busy with Mrs. Micawber's calculations of ways and means, and heavy with the weight of Mr. Micawber's debts. On a Saturday night, which was my grand treat,--partly because it was a great thing to walk home with six or seven shillings in my pocket, looking into the shops and thinking what such a sum would buy, and partly because I went home early,--Mrs. Micawber would make the most heart-rending confidences to me; also on a Sunday morning, when I mixed the portion of tea or coffee I had bought over-night, in a little shaving pot, and sat late at my breakfast. It was nothing at all unusual for Mr. Micawber to sob violently at the beginning of one of these Saturday night conversations, and sing about Jack's delight being his lovely Nan, towards the end of it. I have known him come home to supper with a flood of tears, and a declaration that nothing was now left but a jail; and go to bed making a calculation of the expense of putting bow-windows to the house, "in case anything turned up," which was his favourite expression. And Mrs. Micawber was just the same. A curious equality of friendship, originating, I suppose, in our respective circumstances, sprung up between me and these people, notwithstanding the ludicrous disparity in our years. But I never allowed myself to be prevailed upon to accept any invitation to eat and drink with them out of their stock (knowing that they got on badly with the butcher and baker, and had often not too much for themselves), until Mrs. Micawber took me into her entire confidence. This she did one evening as follows: "Master Copperfield," said Mrs. Micawber, "I make no stranger of you, and therefore do not hesitate to say that Mr. Micawber's difficulties are coming to a crisis." It made me very miserable to hear it, and I looked at Mrs. Micawber's red eyes with the utmost sympathy. "With the exception of the heel of a Dutch cheese--which is not adapted to the wants of a young family"--said Mrs. Micawber, "there is really not a scrap of anything in the larder. I was accustomed to speak of the larder when I lived with papa and mama, and I use the word almost unconsciously. What I mean to express, is, that there is nothing to eat in the house." "Dear me!" I said, in great concern. I had two or three shillings of my week's money in my pocket--from which I presume that it must have been on a Wednesday night when we held this conversation--and I hastily produced them, and with heartfelt emotion begged Mrs. Micawber to accept of them as a loan. But that lady, kissing me, and making me put them back in my pocket, replied that she couldn't think of it. "No, my dear Master Copperfield," said she, "far be it from my thoughts! But you have a discretion beyond your years, and can render me another kind of service, if you will; and a service I will thankfully accept of." I begged Mrs. Micawber to name it. "I have parted with the plate myself," said Mrs. Micawber. "Six tea, two salt, and a pair of sugars, I have at different times borrowed money on, in secret, with my own hands. But the twins are a great tie; and to me, with my recollections of papa and mama, these transactions are very painful. There are still a few trifles that we could part with. Mr. Micawber's feelings would never allow _him_ to dispose of them; and Clickett"--this was the girl from the workhouse--"being of a vulgar mind, would take painful liberties if so much confidence was reposed in her. Master Copperfield, if I might ask you"-- I understood Mrs. Micawber now, and begged her to make use of me to any extent. I began to dispose of the more portable articles of property that very evening; and went out on a similar expedition almost every morning, before I went to Murdstone and Grinby's. Mr. Micawber had a few books on a little chiffonier, which he called the library; and those went first. I carried them, one after another, to a bookstall in the City Road--one part of which, near our house, was almost all bookstalls and bird-shops then--and sold them for whatever they would bring, The keeper of this bookstall, who lived in a little house behind it, used to get tipsy every night, and to be violently scolded by his wife every morning. More than once, when I went there early, I had audience of him in a turn-up bedstead, with a cut in his forehead or a black eye, bearing witness to his excesses over night (I am afraid he was quarrelsome in his drink), and he, with a shaking hand, endeavouring to find the needful shillings in one or other of the pockets of his clothes, which lay upon the floor, while his wife, with a baby in her arms and her shoes down at heel, never left off rating him. Sometimes he had lost his money, and then he would ask me to call again; but his wife had always got some--had taken his, I dare say, while he was drunk--and secretly completed the bargain on the stairs, as we went down together. At the pawnbroker's shop, too, I began to be very well known. The principal gentleman who officiated behind the counter, took a good deal of notice of me; and often got me, I recollect, to decline a Latin noun or adjective, or to conjugate a Latin verb, in his ear, while he transacted my business. After all these occasions Mrs. Micawber made a little treat, which was generally a supper; and there was a peculiar relish in these meals which I well remember. At last Mr. Micawber's difficulties came to a crisis, and he was arrested early one morning, and carried over to the King's Bench Prison in the Borough. He told me, as he went out of the house, that the God of day had now gone down upon him--and I really thought his heart was broken and mine too. But I heard, afterwards, that he was seen to play a lively game at skittles, before noon. On the first Sunday after he was taken there, I was to go and see him, and have dinner with him. I was to ask my way to such a place, and just short of that place I should see such another place, and just short of that I should see a yard, which I was to cross, and keep straight on until I saw a turnkey. All this I did; and when at last I did see a turnkey (poor little fellow that I was!), and thought how, when Roderick Random was in a debtor's prison, there was a man there with nothing on him but an old rug, the turnkey swam before my dimmed eyes and my beating heart. Mr. Micawber was waiting for me within the gate, and we went up to his room (top story but one), and cried very much. He solemnly conjured me, I remember, to take warning by his fate; and to observe that if a man had twenty pounds a-year for his income, and spent nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would be happy, but that if he spent twenty pounds one he would be miserable. After which he borrowed a shilling of me for porter, gave me a written order on Mrs. Micawber for the amount, and put away his pocket-handkerchief, and cheered up. We sat before a little fire, with two bricks put within the rusted grate, one on each side, to prevent its burning too many coals; until another debtor, who shared the room with Mr. Micawber, came in from the bakehouse with the loin of mutton which was our joint-stock repast. Then I was sent up to "Captain Hopkins" in the room overhead, with Mr. Micawber's compliments, and I was his young friend, and would Captain Hopkins lend me a knife and fork. Captain Hopkins lent me the knife and fork, with his compliments to Mr. Micawber. There was a very dirty lady in his little room, and two wan girls, his daughters, with shock heads of hair. I thought it was better to borrow Captain Hopkins's knife and fork, than Captain Hopkins's comb. The Captain himself was in the last extremity of shabbiness, with large whiskers, and an old, old brown great-coat with no other coat below it. I saw his bed rolled up in a corner; and what plates and dishes and pots he had, on a shelf; and I divined (God knows how) that though the two girls with the shock heads of hair were Captain Hopkins's children, the dirty lady was not married to Captain Hopkins. My timid station on his threshhold was not occupied more than a couple of minutes at most; but I came down again with all this in my knowledge, as surely as the knife and fork were in my hand. There was something gipsy-like and agreeable in the dinner, after all. I took back Captain Hopkins's knife and fork early in the afternoon, and went home to comfort Mrs. Micawber with an account of my visit. She fainted when she saw me return, and made a little jug of egg-hot afterwards to console us while we talked it over. I don't know how the household furniture came to be sold for the family benefit, or who sold it, except that _I_ did not. Sold it was, however, and carried away in a van; except the bed, a few chairs, and the kitchen-table. With these possessions we encamped, as it were, in the two parlors of the emptied house in Windsor Terrace; Mrs. Micawber, the children, the Orfling, and myself; and lived in those rooms night and day. I have no idea for how long, though it seems to me for a long time. At last Mrs. Micawber resolved to move into the prison, where Mr. Micawber had now secured a room to himself. So I took the key of the house to the landlord, who was very glad to get it; and the beds were sent over to the King's Bench, except mine, for which a little room was hired outside the walls in the neighbourhood of that Institution, very much to my satisfaction, since the Micawbers and I had become too used to one another, in our troubles, to part. The Orfling was likewise accommodated with an inexpensive lodging in the same neighbourhood. Mine was a quiet back-garret with a sloping roof, commanding a pleasant prospect of a timber-yard; and when I took possession of it, with the reflection that Mr. Micawber's troubles had come to a crisis at last, I thought it quite a paradise. All this time I was working at Murdstone and Grinby's in the same common way, and with the same common companions, and with the same sense of unmerited degradation as at first. But I never, happily for me no doubt, made a single acquaintance, or spoke to any of the many boys whom I saw daily in going to the warehouse, in coming from it, and in prowling about the streets at meal-times. I led the same secretly unhappy life; but I led it in the same lonely, self-reliant manner. The only changes I am conscious of are, firstly, that I had grown more shabby, and secondly, that I was now relieved of much of the weight of Mr. and Mrs. Micawber's cares; for some relatives or friends had engaged to help them at their present pass, and they lived more comfortably in the prison than they had lived for a long while out of it. I used to breakfast with them now, in virtue of some arrangement, of which I have forgotten the details. I forget, too, at what hour the gates were opened in the morning, admitting of my going in; but I know that I was often up at six o'clock, and that my favorite lounging-place in the interval was old London Bridge, where I was wont to sit in one of the stone recesses, watching the people going by, or to look over the balustrades at the sun shining in the water, and lighting up the golden flame on the top of the Monument. The Orfling met me here sometimes, to be told some astonishing fictions respecting the wharves and the Tower; of which I can say no more than that I hope I believed them myself. In the evening I used to go back to the prison, and walk up and down the parade with Mr. Micawber; or play casino with Mrs. Micawber, and hear reminiscences of her papa and mama. Whether Mr. Murdstone knew where I was, I am unable to say. I never told them at Murdstone and Grinby's. Mr. Micawber's affairs, although past their crisis, were very much involved by reason of a certain "Deed," of which I used to hear a great deal, and which I suppose, now, to have been some former composition with his creditors, though I was so far from being clear about it then, that I am conscious of having confounded it with those demoniacal parchments which are held to have, once upon a time, obtained to a great extent in Germany. At last this document appeared to be got out of the way, somehow; at all events it ceased to be the rock-ahead it had been; and Mrs. Micawber informed me that "her family" had decided that Mr. Micawber should apply for his release under the Insolvent Debtors Act, which would set him free, she expected, in about six weeks. "And then," said Mr. Micawber, who was present, "I have no doubt I shall, please Heaven, begin to be beforehand with the world, and to live in a perfectly new manner, if--in short, if anything turns up." By way of going in for anything that might be on the cards, I call to mind that Mr. Micawber, about this time, composed a petition to the House of Commons, praying for an alteration in the law of imprisonment for debt. I set down this remembrance here, because it is an instance to myself of the manner in which I fitted my old books to my altered life, and made stories for myself, out of the streets, and out of men and women; and how some main points in the character I shall unconsciously develope, I suppose, in writing my life, were gradually forming all this while. There was a club in the prison, in which Mr. Micawber, as a gentleman, was a great authority. Mr. Micawber had stated his idea of this petition to the club, and the club had strongly approved of the same. Wherefore Mr. Micawber (who was a thoroughly good-natured man, and as active a creature about everything but his own affairs as ever existed, and never so happy as when he was busy about something that could never be of any profit to him) set to work at the petition, invented it, engrossed it on an immense sheet of paper, spread it out on a table, and appointed a time for all the club, and all within the walls if they chose, to come up to his room and sign it. When I heard of this approaching ceremony, I was so anxious to see them all come in, one after another, though I knew the greater part of them already, and they me, that I got an hour's leave of absence from Murdstone and Grinby's, and established myself in a corner for that purpose. As many of the principal members of the club as could be got into the small room without filling it, supported Mr. Micawber in front of the petition, while my old friend Captain Hopkins (who had washed himself, to do honor to so solemn an occasion) stationed himself close to it, to read it to all who were unacquainted with its contents. The door was then thrown open, and the general population began to come in, in a long file: several waiting outside, while one entered, affixed his signature, and went out. To everybody in succession, Captain Hopkins said: "Have you read it?"--"No."--"Would you like to hear it read?" If he weakly showed the least disposition to hear it, Captain Hopkins, in a loud sonorous voice, gave him every word of it. The Captain would have read it twenty thousand times, if twenty thousand people would have heard him, one by one. I remember a certain luscious roll he gave to such phrases as "The people's representatives in Parliament assembled," "Your petitioners therefore humbly approach your honorable house," "His gracious Majesty's unfortunate subjects," as if the words were something real in his mouth, and delicious to taste; Mr. Micawber, meanwhile, listening with a little of an author's vanity, and contemplating (not severely) the spikes on the opposite wall. As I walked to and fro daily between Southwark and Blackfriars, and lounged about at meal-times in obscure streets, the stones of which may, for anything I know, be worn at this moment by my childish feet, I wonder how many of these people were wanting in the crowd that used to come filing before me in review again, to the echo of Captain Hopkins's voice! When my thoughts go back, now, to that slow agony of my youth, I wonder how much of the histories I invented for such people hangs like a mist of fancy over well-remembered facts! When I tread the old ground, I do not wonder that I seem to see and pity, going on before me, an innocent romantic boy, making his imaginative world out of such strange experiences and sordid things! CHAPTER XII. LIKING LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT NO BETTER, I FORM A GREAT RESOLUTION. In due time, Mr. Micawber's petition was ripe for hearing; and that gentleman was ordered to be discharged under the act, to my great joy. His creditors were not implacable; and Mrs. Micawber informed me that even the revengeful bootmaker had declared in open court that he bore him no malice, but that when money was owing to him he liked to be paid. He said he thought it was human nature. Mr. Micawber returned to the King's Bench when his case was over, as some fees were to be settled, and some formalities observed, before he could be actually released. The club received him with transport, and held an harmonic meeting that evening in his honor; while Mrs. Micawber and I had a lamb's fry in private, surrounded by the sleeping family. "On such an occasion I will give you, Master Copperfield," said Mrs. Micawber, "in a little more flip," for we had been having some already, "the memory of my papa and mama." "Are they dead, ma'am?" I enquired, after drinking the toast in a wine-glass. "My mama departed this life," said Mrs. Micawber, "before Mr. Micawber's difficulties commenced, or at least before they became pressing. My papa lived to bail Mr. Micawber several times, and then expired, regretted by a numerous circle." Mrs. Micawber shook her head, and dropped a pious tear upon the twin who happened to be in hand. As I could hardly hope for a more favourable opportunity of putting a question in which I had a near interest, I said to Mrs. Micawber: "May I ask, ma'am, what you and Mr. Micawber intend to do, now that Mr. Micawber is out of his difficulties, and at liberty? Have you settled yet?" "My family," said Mrs. Micawber, who always said those two words with an air, though I never could discover who came under the denomination, "my family are of opinion that Mr. Micawber should quit London, and exert his talents in the country. Mr. Micawber is a man of great talent, Master Copperfield." I said I was sure of that. "Of great talent," repeated Mrs. Micawber. "My family are of opinion, that, with a little interest, something might be done for a man of his ability in the Custom House. The influence of my family being local, it is their wish that Mr. Micawber should go down to Plymouth. They think it indispensable that he should be upon the spot." "That he may be ready?" I suggested. "Exactly," returned Mrs. Micawber. "That he may be ready--in case of anything turning up." "And do you go too, ma'am?" The events of the day, in combination with the twins, if not with the flip, had made Mrs. Micawber hysterical, and she shed tears as she replied: "I never will desert Mr. Micawber. Mr. Micawber may have concealed his difficulties from me in the first instance, but his sanguine temper may have led him to expect that he would overcome them. The pearl necklace and bracelets which I inherited from mama, have been disposed of for less than half their value; and the set of coral, which was the wedding gift of my papa, has been actually thrown away for nothing. But I never will desert Mr. Micawber. No!" cried Mrs. Micawber, more affected than before, "I never will do it! It's of no use asking me!" I felt quite uncomfortable--as if Mrs. Micawber supposed I had asked her to do anything of the sort!--and sat looking at her in alarm. "Mr. Micawber has his faults. I do not deny that he is improvident. I do not deny that he has kept me in the dark as to his resources and his liabilities, both," she went on, looking at the wall; "but I never will desert Mr. Micawber!" Mrs. Micawber having now raised her voice into a perfect scream, I was so frightened that I ran off to the club-room, and disturbed Mr. Micawber in the act of presiding at a long table, and leading the chorus of Gee up, Dobbin, Gee ho, Dobbin, Gee up, Dobbin, Gee up, and gee ho--o--o! --with the tidings that Mrs. Micawber was in an alarming state, upon which he immediately burst into tears, and came away with me with his waistcoat full of the heads and tails of shrimps, of which he had been partaking. "Emma, my angel!" cried Mr. Micawber, running into the room; "what is the matter?" "I never will desert you, Micawber!" she exclaimed. "My life!" said Mr. Micawber, taking her in his arms. "I am perfectly aware of it." "He is the parent of my children! He is the father of my twins! He is the husband of my affections," cried Mrs. Micawber, struggling; "and I ne--ver--will--desert Mr. Micawber!" Mr. Micawber was so deeply affected by this proof of her devotion (as to me, I was dissolved in tears), that he hung over her in a passionate manner, imploring her to look up, and to be calm. But the more he asked Mrs. Micawber to look up, the more she fixed her eyes on nothing; and the more he asked her to compose herself, the more she wouldn't. Consequently Mr. Micawber was soon so overcome, that he mingled his tears with hers and mine; until he begged me to do him the favor of taking a chair on the staircase, while he got her into bed. I would have taken my leave for the night, but he would not hear of my doing that until the strangers' bell should ring. So I sat at the staircase window, until he came out with another chair and joined me. "How is Mrs. Micawber now, sir?" I said. "Very low," said Mr. Micawber, shaking his head; "re-action. Ah, this has been a dreadful day! We stand alone now--everything is gone from us!" Mr. Micawber pressed my hand, and groaned, and afterwards shed tears. I was greatly touched, and disappointed too, for I had expected that we should be quite gay on this happy and long-looked for occasion. But Mr. and Mrs. Micawber were so used to their old difficulties, I think, that they felt quite shipwrecked when they came to consider that they were released from them. All their elasticity was departed, and I never saw them half so wretched as on this night; insomuch that when the bell rang, and Mr. Micawber walked with me to the lodge, and parted from me there with a blessing, I felt quite afraid to leave him by himself, he was so profoundly miserable. But through all the confusion and lowness of spirits in which we had been, so unexpectedly to me, involved, I plainly discerned that Mr. and Mrs. Micawber and their family were going away from London, and that a parting between us was near at hand. It was in my walk home that night, and in the sleepless hours which followed when I lay in bed, that the thought first occurred to me--though I don't know how it came into my head--which afterwards shaped itself into a settled resolution. I had grown to be so accustomed to the Micawbers, and had been so intimate with them in their distresses, and was so utterly friendless without them, that the prospect of being thrown upon some new shift for a lodging, and going once more among unknown people, was like being that moment turned adrift into my present life, with such a knowledge of it ready made, as experience had given me. All the sensitive feelings it wounded so cruelly, all the shame and misery it kept alive within my breast, became more poignant as I thought of this; and I determined that the life was unendurable. That there was no hope of escape from it, unless the escape was my own act, I knew quite well. I rarely heard from Miss Murdstone, and never from Mr. Murdstone: but two or three parcels of made or mended clothes had come up for me, consigned to Mr. Quinion, and in each there was a scrap of paper to the effect that J. M. trusted D. C. was applying himself to business, and devoting himself wholly to his duties--not the least hint of my ever being any thing else than the common drudge into which I was fast settling down. The very next day showed me, while my mind was in the first agitation of what it had conceived, that Mrs. Micawber had not spoken of their going away without warrant. They took a lodging in the house where I lived, for a week; at the expiration of which time they were to start for Plymouth. Mr. Micawber himself came down to the counting-house, in the afternoon, to tell Mr. Quinion that he must relinquish me on the day of his departure, and to give me a high character, which I am sure I deserved. And Mr. Quinion, calling in Tipp the carman, who was a married man, and had a room to let, quartered me prospectively on him--by our mutual consent, as he had every reason to think; for I said nothing, though my resolution was now taken. I passed my evenings with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, during the remaining term of our residence under the same roof; and I think we became fonder of one another as the time went on. On the last Sunday, they invited me to dinner; and we had a loin of pork and apple sauce, and a pudding. I had bought a spotted wooden horse over-night as a parting gift to little Wilkins Micawber--that was the boy--and a doll for little Emma. I had also bestowed a shilling on the Orfling, who was about to be disbanded. We had a very pleasant day, though we were all in a tender state about our approaching separation. "I shall never, Master Copperfield," said Mrs. Micawber, "revert to the period when Mr. Micawber was in difficulties, without thinking of you. Your conduct has always been of the most delicate and obliging description. You have never been a lodger. You have been a friend." "My dear," said Mr. Micawber; "Copperfield," for so he had been accustomed to call me, of late, "has a heart to feel for the distresses of his fellow creatures when they are behind a cloud, and a head to plan, and a hand to----in short, a general ability to dispose of such available property as could be made away with." I expressed my sense of this commendation, and said I was very sorry we were going to lose one another. "My dear young friend," said Mr. Micawber, "I am older than you; a man of some experience in life, and--and of some experience, in short, in difficulties, generally speaking. At present, and until something turns up (which I am, I may say, hourly expecting), I have nothing to bestow but advice. Still my advice is so far worth taking, that--in short, that I have never taken it myself, and am the"--here Mr. Micawber, who had been beaming and smiling, all over his head and face, up to the present moment, checked himself and frowned--"the miserable wretch you behold." "My dear Micawber!" urged his wife. "I say," returned Mr. Micawber, quite forgetting himself, and smiling again, "the miserable wretch you behold. My advice is, never do to-morrow what you can do to-day. Procrastination is the thief of time. Collar him!" "My poor papa's maxim," Mrs. Micawber observed. "My dear," said Mr. Micawber, "your papa was very well in his way, and Heaven forbid that I should disparage him. Take him for all in all, we ne'er shall--in short, make the acquaintance, probably, of anybody else possessing, at his time of life, the same legs for gaiters, and able to read the same description of print, without spectacles. But he applied that maxim to our marriage, my dear; and that was so far prematurely entered into, in consequence, that I never recovered the expence." Mr. Micawber looked aside at Mrs. Micawber, and added: "Not that I am sorry for it. Quite the contrary, my love." After which, he was grave for a minute or so. "My other piece of advice, Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, "you know. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene, and--and in short you are for ever floored. As I am!" To make his example the more impressive, Mr. Micawber drank a glass of punch with an air of great enjoyment and satisfaction, and whistled the College Hornpipe. I did not fail to assure him that I would store these precepts in my mind, though indeed I had no need to do so, for, at the time, they affected me visibly. Next morning I met the whole family at the coach-office, and saw them, with a desolate heart, take their places outside, at the back. "Master Copperfield," said Mrs. Micawber, "God bless you! I never can forget all that, you know, and I never would if I could." "Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, "farewell! Every happiness and prosperity! If, in the progress of revolving years, I could persuade myself that my blighted destiny had been a warning to you, I should feel that I had not occupied another man's place in existence altogether in vain. In case of anything turning up (of which I am rather confident), I shall be extremely happy if it should be in my power to improve your prospects." I think, as Mrs. Micawber sat at the back of the coach, with the children, and I stood in the road looking wistfully at them, a mist cleared from her eyes, and she saw what a little creature I really was. I think so, because she beckoned to me to climb up, with quite a new and motherly expression in her face, and put her arm round my neck, and gave me just such a kiss as she might have given to her own boy. I had barely time to get down again before the coach started, and I could hardly see the family for the handkerchiefs they waved. It was gone in a minute. The Orfling and I stood looking vacantly at each other in the middle of the road, and then shook hands and said good bye; she going back, I suppose, to Saint Luke's workhouse, as I went to begin my weary day at Murdstone and Grinby's. But with no intention of passing many more weary days there. No. I had resolved to run away.--To go, by some means or other, down into the country, to the only relation I had in the world, and tell my story to my aunt, Miss Betsey. I have already observed that I don't know how this desperate idea came into my brain. But, once there, it remained there; and hardened into a purpose than which I have never entertained a more determined purpose in my life. I am far from sure that I believed there was anything hopeful in it, but my mind was thoroughly made up that it must be carried into execution. Again, and again, and a hundred times again, since the night when the thought had first occurred to me and banished sleep, I had gone over that old story of my poor mother's about my birth, which it had been one of my great delights in the old time to hear her tell, and which I knew by heart. My aunt walked into that story, and walked out of it, a dread and awful personage; but there was one little trait in her behaviour which I liked to dwell on, and which gave me some faint shadow of encouragement. I could not forget how my mother had thought that she felt her touch her pretty hair with no ungentle hand; and though it might have been altogether my mother's fancy, and might have had no foundation whatever in fact, I made a little picture, out of it, of my terrible aunt relenting towards the girlish beauty that I recollected so well and loved so much, which softened the whole narrative. It is very possible that it had been in my mind a long time, and had gradually engendered my determination. As I did not even know where Miss Betsey lived, I wrote a long letter to Peggotty, and asked her, incidentally, if she remembered; pretending that I had heard of such a lady living at a certain place I named at random, and had a curiosity to know if it were the same. In the course of that letter, I told Peggotty that I had a particular occasion for half a guinea; and that if she could lend me that sum until I could repay it, I should be very much obliged to her, and would tell her afterwards what I had wanted it for. Peggotty's answer soon arrived, and was, as usual, full of affectionate devotion. She enclosed the half guinea (I was afraid she must have had a world of trouble to get it out of Mr. Barkis's box), and told me that Miss Betsey lived near Dover, but whether at Dover itself, at Hythe, Sandgate, or Folkstone, she could not say. One of our men, however, informing me on my asking him about these places, that they were all close together, I deemed this enough for my object, and resolved to set out at the end of that week. Being a very honest little creature, and unwilling to disgrace the memory I was going to leave behind me at Murdstone and Grinby's, I considered myself bound to remain until Saturday night; and, as I had been paid a week's wages in advance when I first came there, not to present myself in the counting-house at the usual hour, to receive my stipend. For this express reason, I had borrowed the half-guinea, that I might not be without a fund for my travelling-expenses. Accordingly, when the Saturday night came, and we were all waiting in the warehouse to be paid, and Tipp the carman, who always took precedence, went in first to draw his money, I shook Mick Walker by the hand; asked him when it came to his turn to be paid, to say to Mr. Quinion that I had gone to move my box to Tipp's; and, bidding a last good night to Mealy Potatoes, ran away. My box was at my old lodging, over the water, and I had written a direction for it on the back of one of our address cards that we nailed on the casks: "Master David, to be left till called for, at the Coach Office, Dover." This I had in my pocket ready to put on the box, after I should have got it out of the house; and as I went towards my lodging, I looked about me for some one who would help me to carry it to the booking-office. There was a long-legged young man with a very little empty donkey-cart, standing near the Obelisk, in the Blackfriars Road, whose eye I caught as I was going by, and who, addressing me as "Sixpenn'orth of bad ha'pence," hoped "I should know him agin to swear to"--in allusion, I have no doubt, to my staring at him. I stopped to assure him that I had not done so in bad manners, but uncertain whether he might or might not like a job. "Wot job?" said the long-legged young man. "To move a box," I answered. "Wot box?" said the long-legged young man. I told him mine, which was down that street there, and which I wanted him to take to the Dover coach-office for sixpence. "Done with you for a tanner!" said the long-legged young man, and directly got upon his cart, which was nothing but a large wooden-tray on wheels, and rattled away at such a rate, that it was as much as I could do to keep pace with the donkey. There was a defiant manner about this young man, and particularly about the way in which he chewed straw as he spoke to me, that I did not much like; as the bargain was made, however, I took him up-stairs to the room I was leaving, and we brought the box down, and put it on his cart. Now, I was unwilling to put the direction-card on there, lest any of my landlord's family should fathom what I was doing, and detain me; so I said to the young man that I would be glad if he would stop for a minute, when he came to the dead-wall of the King's Bench prison. The words were no sooner out of my mouth, than he rattled away as if he, my box, the cart, and the donkey, were all equally mad; and I was quite out of breath with running and calling after him, when I caught him at the place appointed. Being much flushed and excited, I tumbled my half-guinea out of my pocket in pulling the card out. I put it in my mouth for safety, and though my hands trembled a good deal, had just tied the card on very much to my satisfaction, when I felt myself violently chucked under the chin by the long-legged young man, and saw my half-guinea fly out of my mouth into his hand. "Wot!" said the young man, seizing me by my jacket collar, with a frightful grin. "This is a pollis case, is it? You're a going to bolt, are you? Come to the pollis, you young warmin, come to the pollis!" "You give me my money back, if you please," said I, very much frightened; "and leave me alone." "Come to the pollis!" said the young man. "You shall prove it yourn to the pollis." "Give me my box and money, will you," I cried, bursting into tears. The young man still replied: "Come to the pollis!" and was dragging me against the donkey in a violent manner, as if there were any affinity between that animal and a magistrate, when he changed his mind, jumped into the cart, sat upon my box, and, exclaiming that he would drive to the pollis straight, rattled away harder than ever. I ran after him as fast as I could, but I had no breath to call out with, and should not have dared to call out, now, if I had. I narrowly escaped being run over, twenty times at least, in half a mile. Now I lost him, now I saw him, now I lost him, now I was cut at with a whip, now shouted at, now down in the mud, now up again, now running into somebody's arms, now running headlong at a post. At length, confused by fright and heat, and doubting whether half London might not by this time be turning out for my apprehension, I left the young man to go where he would with my box and money; and, panting and crying, but never stopping, faced about for Greenwich, which I had understood was on the Dover Road: taking very little more out of the world, towards the retreat of my aunt, Miss Betsey, than I had brought into it, on the night when my arrival gave her so much umbrage. CHAPTER XIII. THE SEQUEL OF MY RESOLUTION. For anything I know, I may have had some wild idea of running all the way to Dover, when I gave up the pursuit of the young man with the donkey cart, and started for Greenwich. My scattered senses were soon collected as to that point, if I had; for I came to a stop in the Kent Road, at a terrace with a piece of water before it, and a great foolish image in the middle, blowing a dry shell. Here I sat down on a door-step, quite spent and exhausted with the efforts I had already made, and with hardly breath enough to cry for the loss of my box and half-guinea. It was by this time dark; I heard the clocks strike ten, as I sat resting. But it was a summer night, fortunately, and fine weather. When I had recovered my breath, and had got rid of a stifling sensation in my throat, I rose up and went on. In the midst of my distress, I had no notion of going back. I doubt if I should have had any, though there had been a Swiss snow-drift in the Kent Road. But my standing possessed of only three-halfpence in the world (and I am sure I wonder how _they_ came to be left in my pocket on a Saturday night!) troubled me none the less because I went on. I began to picture to myself, as a scrap of newspaper intelligence, my being found dead in a day or two, under some hedge; and I trudged on miserably, though as fast as I could, until I happened to pass a little shop, where it was written up that ladies' and gentlemen's wardrobes were bought, and that the best price was given for rags, bones, and kitchen-stuff. The master of this shop was sitting at the door in his shirt sleeves, smoking; and as there were a great many coats and pairs of trowsers dangling from the low ceiling, and only two feeble candles burning inside to show what they were, I fancied that he looked like a man of a revengeful disposition, who had hung all his enemies, and was enjoying himself. My late experiences with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber suggested to me that here might be a means of keeping off the wolf for a little while. I went up the next bye-street, took off my waistcoat, rolled it neatly under my arm, and came back to the shop-door. "If you please, sir," I said, "I am to sell this for a fair price." Mr. Dolloby--Dolloby was the name over the shop-door, at least--took the waistcoat, stood his pipe on its head against the door-post, went into the shop, followed by me, snuffed the two candles with his fingers, spread the waistcoat on the counter, and looked at it there, held it up against the light, and looked at it there, and ultimately said: "What do you call a price, now, for this here little weskit?" "Oh! you know best, sir," I returned, modestly. "I can't be buyer and seller too," said Mr. Dolloby. "Put a price on this here little weskit." "Would eighteenpence be"--I hinted, after some hesitation. Mr. Dolloby rolled it up again, and gave it me back. "I should rob my family," he said, "if I was to offer ninepence for it." This was a disagreeable way of putting the business; because it imposed upon me, a perfect stranger, the unpleasantness of asking Mr. Dolloby to rob his family on my account. My circumstances being so very pressing, however, I said I would take ninepence for it, if he pleased. Mr. Dolloby, not without some grumbling, gave ninepence. I wished him good night, and walked out of the shop, the richer by that sum, and the poorer by a waistcoat. But when I buttoned my jacket, that was not much. Indeed, I foresaw pretty clearly that my jacket would go next, and that I should have to make the best of my way to Dover in a shirt and a pair of trowsers, and might deem myself lucky if I got there even in that trim. But my mind did not run so much on this as might be supposed. Beyond a general impression of the distance before me, and of the young man with the donkey-cart having used me cruelly, I think I had no very urgent sense of my difficulties when I once again set off with my ninepence in my pocket. A plan had occurred to me for passing the night, which I was going to carry into execution. This was, to lie behind the wall at the back of my old school, in a corner where there used to be a haystack. I imagined it would be a kind of company to have the boys, and the bed-room where I used to tell the stories, so near me: although the boys would know nothing of my being there, and the bed-room would yield me no shelter. I had had a hard day's work, and was pretty well jaded when I came climbing out, at last, upon the level of Blackheath. It cost me some trouble to find out Salem House; but I found it, and I found a haystack in the corner, and I lay down by it; having first walked round the wall, and looked up at the windows, and seen that all was dark and silent within. Never shall I forget the lonely sensation of first lying down, without a roof above my head! Sleep came upon me as it came on many other outcasts, against whom house-doors were locked, and house-dogs barked, that night--and I dreamed of lying on my old school-bed, talking to the boys in my room; and found myself sitting upright, with Steerforth's name upon my lips, looking wildly at the stars that were glistening and glimmering above me. When I remembered where I was at that untimely hour, a feeling stole upon me that made me get up, afraid of I don't know what, and walk about. But the fainter glimmering of the stars, and the pale light in the sky where the day was coming, reassured me: and my eyes being very heavy, I lay down again, and slept--though with a knowledge in my sleep that it was cold--until the warm beams of the sun, and the ringing of the getting-up bell at Salem House, awoke me. If I could have hoped that Steerforth was there, I would have lurked about until he came out alone; but I knew he must have left long since. Traddles still remained, perhaps, but it was very doubtful; and I had not sufficient confidence in his discretion or good luck, however strong my reliance was on his good-nature, to wish to trust him with my situation. So I crept away from the wall as Mr. Creakle's boys were getting up, and struck into the long dusty track which I had first known to be the Dover road when I was one of them, and when I little expected that any eyes would ever see me the wayfarer I was now, upon it. What a different Sunday morning from the old Sunday morning at Yarmouth! In due time I heard the church-bells ringing, as I plodded on; and I met people who were going to church; and I passed a church or two where the congregation were inside, and the sound of singing came out into the sun-shine, while the beadle sat and cooled himself in the shade of the porch, or stood beneath the yew-tree, with his hand to his forehead, glowering at me going by. But the peace and rest of the old Sunday morning were on everything, except me. That was the difference. I felt quite wicked in my dirt and dust, and with my tangled hair. But for the quiet picture I had conjured up, of my mother in her youth and beauty, weeping by the fire, and my aunt relenting to her, I hardly think I should have had courage to go on until next day. But it always went before me, and I followed. I got, that Sunday, through three-and-twenty miles on the straight road, though not very easily, for I was new to that kind of toil. I see myself, as evening closes in, coming over the bridge at Rochester, footsore and tired, and eating bread that I had bought for supper. One or two little houses, with the notice, "Lodgings for Travellers," hanging out, had tempted me; but I was afraid of spending the few pence I had, and was even more afraid of the vicious looks of the trampers I had met or overtaken. I sought no shelter, therefore, but the sky; and toiling into Chatham,--which, in that night's aspect, is a mere dream of chalk, and drawbridges, and mastless ships in a muddy river, roofed like Noah's arks,--crept, at last, upon a sort of grass-grown battery overhanging a lane, where a sentry was walking to and fro. Here I lay down, near a cannon; and, happy in the society of the sentry's footsteps, though he knew no more of my being above him than the boys at Salem House had known of my lying by the wall, slept soundly until morning. Very stiff and sore of foot I was in the morning, and quite dazed by the beating of drums and marching of troops, which seemed to hem me in on every side when I went down towards the long narrow street. Feeling that I could go but a very little way that day, if I were to reserve any strength for getting to my journey's end, I resolved to make the sale of my jacket its principal business. Accordingly, I took the jacket off, that I might learn to do without it; and carrying it under my arm, began a tour of inspection of the various slop-shops. It was a likely place to sell a jacket in; for the dealers in second-hand clothes were numerous, and were, generally speaking, on the look-out for customers at their shop-doors. But as most of them had, hanging up among their stock, an officer's coat or two, epaulettes and all, I was rendered timid by the costly nature of their dealings, and walked about for a long time without offering my merchandize to any one. This modesty of mine directed my attention to the marine-store shops, and such shops as Mr. Dolloby's, in preference to the regular dealers. At last I found one that I thought looked promising, at the corner of a dirty lane, ending in an inclosure full of stinging nettles, against the palings of which some second-hand sailors' clothes, that seemed to have overflowed the shop, were fluttering among some cots, and rusty guns, and oilskin hats, and certain trays full of so many old rusty keys of so many sizes that they seemed various enough to open all the doors in the world. Into this shop, which was low and small, and which was darkened rather than lighted by a little window, overhung with clothes, and was descended into by some steps, I went with a palpitating heart; which was not relieved when an ugly old man, with the lower part of his face all covered with a stubbly grey beard, rushed out of a dirty den behind it, and seized me by the hair of my head. He was a dreadful old man to look at, in a filthy flannel waistcoat, and smelling terribly of rum. His bedstead, covered with a tumbled and ragged piece of patchwork, was in the den he had come from, where another little window showed a prospect of more stinging nettles, and a lame donkey. "Oh, what do you want?" grinned this old man, in a fierce, monotonous whine. "Oh, my eyes and limbs, what do you want? Oh, my lungs, and liver, what do you want? Oh, goroo, goroo!" I was so much dismayed by these words, and particularly by the repetition of the last unknown one, which was a kind of rattle in his throat, that I could make no answer; hereupon the old man, still holding me by the hair, repeated: "Oh, what do you want? Oh, my eyes and limbs, what do you want? Oh, my lungs and liver, what do you want! Oh, goroo!"--which he screwed out of himself, with an energy that made his eyes start in his head. "I wanted to know," I said, trembling, "if you would buy a jacket." "Oh, let's see the jacket!" cried the old man. "Oh, my heart on fire, show the jacket to us! Oh, my eyes and limbs, bring the jacket out!" With that he took his trembling hands, which were like the claws of a great bird, out of my hair; and put on a pair of spectacles, not at all ornamental to his inflamed eyes. "Oh, how much for the jacket?" cried the old man, after examining it. "Oh--goroo!--how much for the jacket?" "Half-a-crown," I answered, recovering myself. "Oh, my lungs and liver," cried the old man, "no! Oh, my eyes, no! Oh, my limbs, no! Eighteenpence. Goroo!" Every time he uttered this ejaculation, his eyes seemed to be in danger of starting out; and every sentence he spoke, he delivered in a sort of tune, always exactly the same, and more like a gust of wind, which begins low, mounts up high, and falls again, than any other comparison I can find for it. "Well," said I, glad to have closed the bargain, "I'll take eighteenpence." "Oh, my liver!" cried the old man, throwing the jacket on a shelf. "Get out of the shop! Oh, my lungs, get out of the shop! Oh, my eyes and limbs--goroo!--don't ask for money; make it an exchange." I never was so frightened in my life, before or since; but I told him humbly that I wanted money, and that nothing else was of any use to me, but that I would wait for it, as he desired, outside, and had no wish to hurry him. So I went outside, and sat down in the shade in a corner. And I sat there so many hours, that the shade became sunlight, and the sunlight became shade again, and still I sat there waiting for the money. There never was such another drunken madman in that line of business, I hope. That he was well known in the neighbourhood, and enjoyed the reputation of having sold himself to the devil, I soon understood from the visits he received from the boys, who continually came skirmishing about the shop, shouting that legend, and calling to him to bring out his gold. "You ain't poor, you know, Charley, as you pretend. Bring out your gold. Bring out some of the gold you sold yourself to the devil for. Come! It's in the lining of the mattress, Charley. Rip it open and let's have some!" This, and many offers to lend him a knife for the purpose, exasperated him to such a degree, that the whole day was a succession of rushes on his part, and flights on the part of the boys. Sometimes in his rage he would take me for one of them, and come at me, mouthing as if he were going to tear me in pieces; then, remembering me, just in time, would dive into the shop, and lie upon his bed, as I thought from the sound of his voice, yelling in a frantic way, to his own windy tune, the Death of Nelson; with an Oh! before every line, and innumerable Goroos interspersed. As if this were not bad enough for me, the boys, connecting me with the establishment, on account of the patience and perseverance with which I sat outside, half-dressed, pelted me, and used me very ill all day. He made many attempts to induce me to consent to an exchange; at one time coming out with a fishing-rod, at another with a fiddle, at another with a cocked hat, at another with a flute. But I resisted all these overtures, and sat there in desperation; each time asking him, with tears in my eyes, for my money or my jacket. At last he began to pay me in halfpence at a time; and was full two hours getting by easy stages to a shilling. "Oh, my eyes and limbs!" he then cried, peeping hideously out of the shop, after a long pause, "will you go for twopence more?" "I can't," I said; "I shall be starved." "Oh, my lungs and liver, will you go for threepence?" "I would go for nothing, if I could," I said, "but I want the money badly." "Oh, go--roo!" (it is really impossible to express how he twisted this ejaculation out of himself, as he peeped round the doorpost at me, showing nothing but his crafty old head); "will you go for fourpence?" I was so faint and weary that I closed with this offer; and taking the money out of his claw, not without trembling, went away more hungry and thirsty than I had ever been, a little before sunset. But at an expense of threepence I soon refreshed myself completely; and, being in better spirits then, limped seven miles upon my road. My bed at night was under another haystack, where I rested comfortably, after having washed my blistered feet in a stream, and dressed them as well as I was able, with some cool leaves. When I took the road again next morning, I found that it lay through a succession of hop-grounds and orchards. It was sufficiently late in the year for the orchards to be ruddy with ripe apples; and in a few places the hop-pickers were already at work. I thought it all extremely beautiful, and made up my mind to sleep among the hops that night: imagining some cheerful companionship in the long perspectives of poles, with the graceful leaves twining round them. The trampers were worse than ever that day, and inspired me with a dread that is yet quite fresh in my mind. Some of them were most ferocious-looking ruffians, who stared at me as I went by; and stopped, perhaps, and called after me to come back and speak to them; and when I took to my heels, stoned me. I recollect one young fellow--a tinker, I suppose, from his wallet and brazier--who had a woman with him, and who faced about and stared at me thus; and then roared to me in such a tremendous voice to come back, that I halted and looked round. "Come here, when you're called," said the tinker, "or I'll rip your young body open." I thought it best to go back. As I drew nearer to them, trying to propitiate the tinker by my looks, I observed that the woman had a black eye. "Where are you going?" said the tinker, griping the bosom of my shirt with his blackened hand. "I am going to Dover," I said. "Where do you come from?" asked the tinker, giving his hand another turn in my shirt, to hold me more securely. "I come from London," I said. "What lay are you upon?" asked the tinker. "Are you a prig?" "N--no," I said. "Ain't you, by G--? If you make a brag of your honesty to me," said the tinker, "I'll knock your brains out." With his disengaged hand he made a menace of striking me, and then looked at me from head to foot. "Have you got the price of a pint of beer about you?" said the tinker. "If you have, out with it, afore I take it away!" I should certainly have produced it, but that I met the woman's look, and saw her very slightly shake her head, and form "No!" with her lips. "I am very poor," I said, attempting to smile, "and have got no money." "Why, what do you mean?" said the tinker, looking so sternly at me, that I almost feared he saw the money in my pocket. "Sir!" I stammered. "What do you mean," said the tinker, "by wearing my brother's silk hankercher? Give it over here!" And he had mine off my neck in a moment, and tossed it to the woman. The woman burst into a fit of laughter, as if she thought this a joke, and tossing it back to me, nodded once, as slightly as before, and made the word "Go!" with her lips. Before I could obey, however, the tinker seized the handkerchief out of my hand with a roughness that threw me away like a feather, and putting it loosely round his own neck, turned upon the woman with an oath, and knocked her down. I never shall forget seeing her fall backward on the hard road, and lie there with her bonnet tumbled off, and her hair all whitened in the dust; nor, when I looked back from a distance, seeing her sitting on the pathway, which was a bank by the roadside, wiping the blood from her face with a corner of her shawl, while he went on ahead. This adventure frightened me so, that, afterwards, when I saw any of these people coming, I turned back until I could find a hiding-place, where I remained until they had gone out of sight; which happened so often, that I was very seriously delayed. But under this difficulty, as under all the other difficulties of my journey, I seemed to be sustained and led on by my fanciful picture of my mother in her youth, before I came into the world. It always kept me company. It was there, among the hops, when I lay down to sleep; it was with me on my waking in the morning; it went before me all day. I have associated it, ever since, with the sunny street of Canterbury, dozing as it were in the hot light; and with the sight of its old houses and gateways, and the stately, grey Cathedral, with the rooks sailing round the towers. When I came, at last, upon the bare, wide downs near Dover, it relieved the solitary aspect of the scene with hope; and not until I reached that first great aim of my journey, and actually set foot in the town itself, on the sixth day of my flight, did it desert me. But then, strange to say, when I stood with my ragged shoes, and my dusty, sunburnt, half-clothed figure, in the place so long desired, it seemed to vanish like a dream, and to leave me helpless and dispirited. I inquired about my aunt among the boatmen first, and received various answers. One said she lived in the South Foreland Light, and had singed her whiskers by doing so; another, that she was made fast to the great buoy outside the harbor, and could only be visited at half-tide; a third, that she was locked up in Maidstone Jail for child-stealing; a fourth, that she was seen to mount a broom in the last high wind, and make direct for Calais. The fly-drivers, among whom I inquired next, were equally jocose and equally disrespectful; and the shopkeepers, not liking my appearance, generally replied, without hearing what I had to say, that they had got nothing for me. I felt more miserable and destitute than I had done at any period of my running away. My money was all gone, I had nothing left to dispose of; I was hungry, thirsty, and worn out; and seemed as distant from my end as if I had remained in London. The morning had worn away in these inquiries, and I was sitting on the step of an empty shop at a street corner, near the market-place, deliberating upon wandering towards those other places which had been mentioned, when a fly-driver, coming by with his carriage, dropped a horsecloth. Something good-natured in the man's face, as I handed it up, encouraged me to ask him if he could tell me where Miss Trotwood lived; though I had asked the question so often, that it almost died upon my lips. "Trotwood," said he. "Let me see. I know the name, too. Old lady?" "Yes," I said, "rather." "Pretty stiff in the back?" said he, making himself upright. "Yes," I said. "I should think it very likely." "Carries a bag?" said he--"bag with a good deal of room in it--is gruffish, and comes down upon you, sharp?" My heart sank within me as I acknowledged the undoubted accuracy of this description. "Why then, I tell you what," said he. "If you go up there," pointing with his whip towards the heights, "and keep right on till you come to some houses facing the sea, I think you'll hear of her. My opinion is she won't stand anything, so here's a penny for you." I accepted the gift thankfully, and bought a loaf with it. Dispatching this refreshment by the way, I went in the direction my friend had indicated, and walked on a good distance without coming to the houses he had mentioned. At length I saw some before me; and approaching them, went into a little shop (it was what we used to call a general shop, at home), and inquired if they could have the goodness to tell me where Miss Trotwood lived. I addressed myself to a man behind the counter, who was weighing some rice for a young woman; but the latter, taking the inquiry to herself, turned round quickly. "My mistress?" she said. "What do you want with her, boy?" "I want," I replied, "to speak to her, if you please." "To beg of her, you mean," retorted the damsel. "No," I said, "indeed." But suddenly remembering that in truth I came for no other purpose, I held my peace in confusion, and felt my face burn. My aunt's handmaid, as I supposed she was from what she had said, put her rice in a little basket and walked out of the shop; telling me that I could follow her, if I wanted to know where Miss Trotwood lived. I needed no second permission; though I was by this time in such a state of consternation and agitation, that my legs shook under me. I followed the young woman, and we soon came to a very neat little cottage with cheerful bow-windows: in front of it, a small square gravelled court or garden full of flowers, carefully tended, and smelling deliciously. "This is Miss Trotwood's," said the young woman. "Now you know; and that's all I have got to say." With which words she hurried into the house, as if to shake off the responsibility of my appearance; and left me standing at the garden-gate, looking disconsolately over the top of it towards the parlor-window, where a muslin curtain partly undrawn in the middle, a large round green screen or fan fastened on to the window-sill, a small table, and a great chair, suggested to me that my aunt might be at that moment seated in awful state. My shoes were by this time in a woeful condition. The soles had shed themselves bit by bit, and the upper leathers had broken and burst until the very shape and form of shoes had departed from them. My hat (which had served me for a night-cap, too) was so crushed and bent, that no old battered handle-less saucepan on a dunghill need have been ashamed to vie with it. My shirt and trowsers, stained with heat, dew, grass, and the Kentish soil on which I had slept--and torn besides--might have frightened the birds from my aunt's garden, as I stood at the gate. My hair had known no comb or brush since I left London. My face, neck, and hands, from unaccustomed exposure to the air and sun, were burnt to a berry-brown. From head to foot I was powdered almost as white with chalk and dust, as if I had come out of a lime-kiln. In this plight, and with a strong consciousness of it, I waited to introduce myself to, and make my first impression on, my formidable aunt. The unbroken stillness of the parlor-window leading me to infer, after a-while, that she was not there, I lifted up my eyes to the window above it, where I saw a florid, pleasant-looking gentleman, with a grey head, who shut up one eye in a grotesque manner, nodded his head at me several times, shook it at me as often, laughed, and went away. I had been discomposed enough before; but I was so much the more discomposed by this unexpected behaviour, that I was on the point of slinking off, to think how I had best proceed, when there came out of the house a lady with a handkerchief tied over her cap, and a pair of gardening gloves on her hands, wearing a gardening pocket like a tollman's apron, and carrying a great knife. I knew her immediately to be Miss Betsey, for she came stalking out of the house exactly as my poor mother had so often described her stalking up our garden at Blunderstone Rookery. "Go away!" said Miss Betsey, shaking her head, and making a distant chop in the air with her knife. "Go along! No boys here!" I watched her, with my heart at my lips, as she marched to a corner of her garden, and stooped to dig up some little root there. Then, without a scrap of courage, but with a great deal of desperation, I went softly in and stood beside her, touching her with my finger. "If you please, ma'am," I began. She started, and looked up. "If you please, aunt." "EH?" exclaimed Miss Betsey, in a tone of amazement I have never heard approached. "If you please, aunt, I am your nephew." [Illustration: I make myself known to my Aunt.] "Oh, Lord!" said my aunt. And sat flat down in the garden-path. "I am David Copperfield, of Blunderstone, in Suffolk--where you came, on the night when I was born, and saw my dear mama. I have been very unhappy since she died. I have been slighted, and taught nothing, and thrown upon myself, and put to work not fit for me. It made me run away to you. I was robbed at first setting out, and have walked all the way, and have never slept in a bed since I began the journey." Here my self-support gave way all at once; and with a movement of my hands, intended to show her my ragged state, and call it to witness that I had suffered something, I broke into a passion of crying, which I suppose had been pent up within me all the week. My aunt, with every sort of expression but wonder discharged from her countenance, sat on the gravel, staring at me, until I began to cry; when she got up in a great hurry, collared me, and took me into the parlor. Her first proceeding there was to unlock a tall press, bring out several bottles, and pour some of the contents of each into my mouth. I think they must have been taken out at random, for I am sure I tasted aniseed water, anchovy sauce, and salad dressing. When she had administered these restoratives, as I was still quite hysterical, and unable to controul my sobs, she put me on the sofa, with a shawl under my head, and the handkerchief from her own head under my feet, lest I should sully the cover; and then, sitting herself down behind the green fan or screen I have already mentioned, so that I could not see her face, ejaculated at intervals, "Mercy on us!" letting those exclamations off like minute guns. After a time she rang the bell. "Janet," said my aunt, when her servant came in. "Go up stairs, give my compliments to Mr. Dick, and say I wish to speak to him." Janet looked a little surprised to see me lying stiffly on the sofa (I was afraid to move lest it should be displeasing to my aunt), but went on her errand. My aunt, with her hands behind her, walked up and down the room, until the gentleman who had squinted at me from the upper window came in laughing. "Mr. Dick," said my aunt, "don't be a fool, because nobody can be more discreet than you can, when you choose. We all know that. So don't be a fool, whatever you are." The gentleman was serious immediately, and looked at me, I thought, as if he would entreat me to say nothing about the window. "Mr. Dick," said my aunt, "you have heard me mention David Copperfield? Now don't pretend not to have a memory, because you and I know better." "David Copperfield?" said Mr. Dick, who did not appear to me to remember much about it. "_David_ Copperfield? Oh yes, to be sure. David, certainly." "Well," said my aunt, "this is his boy--his son. He would be as like his father as it's possible to be, if he was not so like his mother, too." "His son?" said Mr. Dick. "David's son? Indeed!" "Yes," pursued my aunt, "and he has done a pretty piece of business. He has run away. Ah! His sister, Betsey Trotwood, never would have run away." My aunt shook her head firmly, confident in the character and behaviour of the girl who never was born. "Oh! you think she wouldn't have run away?" said Mr. Dick. "Bless and save the man," exclaimed my aunt, sharply, "how he talks! Don't I know she wouldn't? She would have lived with her god-mother, and we should have been devoted to one another. Where, in the name of wonder, should his sister, Betsey Trotwood, have run from, or to?" "Nowhere," said Mr. Dick. "Well then," returned my aunt, softened by the reply, "how can you pretend to be wool-gathering, Dick, when you are as sharp as a surgeon's lancet? Now, here you see young David Copperfield, and the question I put to you is, what shall I do with him?" "What shall you do with him?" said Mr. Dick, feebly, scratching his head. "Oh! do with him?" "Yes," said my aunt, with a grave look and her forefinger held up. "Come! I want some very sound advice." "Why, if I was you," said Mr. Dick, considering, and looking vacantly at me, "I should--" The contemplation of me seemed to inspire him with a sudden idea, and he added, briskly, "I should wash him!" "Janet," said my aunt, turning round with a quiet triumph, which I did not then understand, "Mr. Dick sets us all right. Heat the bath!" Although I was deeply interested in this dialogue, I could not help observing my aunt, Mr. Dick, and Janet, while it was in progress, and completing a survey I had already been engaged in making of the room. My aunt was a tall, hard-featured lady, but by no means ill-looking. There was an inflexibility in her face, in her voice, in her gait and carriage, amply sufficient to account for the effect she had made upon a gentle creature like my mother; but her features were rather handsome than otherwise, though unbending and austere. I particularly noticed that she had a very quick, bright eye. Her hair, which was grey, was arranged in two plain divisions, under what I believe would be called a mob-cap: I mean a cap, much more common then than now, with side-pieces fastening under the chin. Her dress was of a lavender color, and perfectly neat; but scantily made, as if she desired to be as little encumbered as possible. I remember that I thought it, in form, more like a riding-habit with the superfluous skirt cut off, than anything else. She wore at her side a gentleman's gold watch, if I might judge from its size and make, with an appropriate chain and seals; she had some linen at her throat not unlike a shirt-collar, and things at her wrists like little shirt-wristbands. Mr. Dick, as I have already said, was grey-headed, and florid: I should have said all about him, in saying so, had not his head been curiously bowed--not by age; it reminded me of one of Mr. Creakle's boys' heads after a beating--and his grey eyes prominent and large, with a strange kind of watery brightness in them that made me, in combination with his vacant manner, his submission to my aunt, and his childish delight when she praised him, suspect him of being a little mad; though, if he were mad, how he came to be there puzzled me extremely. He was dressed like any other ordinary gentleman, in a loose grey morning coat and waistcoat, and white trowsers; and had his watch in his fob, and his money in his pockets: which he rattled as if he were very proud of it. Janet was a pretty blooming girl, of about nineteen or twenty, and a perfect picture of neatness. Though I made no further observation of her at the moment, I may mention here what I did not discover until afterwards, namely, that she was one of a series of protégées whom my aunt had taken into her service expressly to educate in a renouncement of mankind, and who had generally completed their abjuration by marrying the baker. The room was as neat as Janet or my aunt. As I laid down my pen, a moment since, to think of it, the air from the sea came blowing in again, mixed with the perfume of the flowers; and I saw the old-fashioned furniture brightly rubbed and polished, my aunt's inviolable chair and table by the round green fan in the bow-window, the drugget-covered carpet, the cat, the kettle-holder, the two canaries, the old china, the punch-bowl full of dried rose leaves, the tall press guarding all sorts of bottles and pots, and, wonderfully out of keeping with the rest, my dusty self upon the sofa, taking note of everything. Janet had gone away to get the bath ready, when my aunt, to my great alarm, became in one moment rigid with indignation, and had hardly voice to cry out, "Janet! Donkies!" Upon which, Janet came running up the stairs as if the house were in flames, darted out on a little piece of green in front, and warned off two saddle-donkeys, lady-ridden, that had presumed to set hoof upon it; while my aunt, rushing out of the house, seized the bridle of a third animal laden with a bestriding child, turned him, led him forth from those sacred precincts, and boxed the ears of the unlucky urchin in attendance who had dared to profane that hallowed ground. To this hour I don't know whether my aunt had any lawful right of way over that patch of green; but she had settled it in her own mind that she had, and it was all the same to her. The one great outrage of her life, demanding to be constantly avenged, was the passage of a donkey over that immaculate spot. In whatever occupation she was engaged, however interesting to her the conversation in which she was taking part, a donkey turned the current of her ideas in a moment, and she was upon him straight. Jugs of water, and watering pots, were kept in secret places ready to be discharged on the offending boys; sticks were laid in ambush behind the door; sallies were made at all hours; and incessant war prevailed. Perhaps this was an agreeable excitement to the donkey-boys; or perhaps the more sagacious of the donkeys, understanding how the case stood, delighted with constitutional obstinacy in coming that way. I only know that there were three alarms before the bath was ready; and that on the occasion of the last and most desperate of all, I saw my aunt engage, single-handed, with a sandy-headed lad of fifteen, and bump his sandy head against her own gate, before he seemed to comprehend what was the matter. These interruptions were the more ridiculous to me, because she was giving me broth out of a table-spoon at the time (having firmly persuaded herself that I was actually starving, and must receive nourishment at first in very small quantities), and, while my mouth was yet open to receive the spoon, she would put it back into the basin, cry "Janet! Donkies!" and go out to the assault. The bath was a great comfort. For I began to be sensible of acute pains in my limbs from lying out in the fields, and was now so tired and low that I could hardly keep myself awake for five minutes together. When I had bathed, they (I mean my aunt and Janet) enrobed me in a shirt and a pair of trowsers belonging to Mr. Dick, and tied me up in two or three great shawls. What sort of bundle I looked like, I don't know, but I felt a very hot one. Feeling also very faint and drowsy, I soon lay down on the sofa again and fell asleep. It might have been a dream, originating in the fancy which had occupied my mind so long, but I awoke with the impression that my aunt had come and bent over me, and had put my hair away from my face, and laid my head more comfortably, and had then stood looking at me. The words, "Pretty fellow," or "Poor fellow," seemed to be in my ears, too; but certainly there was nothing else, when I awoke, to lead me to believe that they had been uttered by my aunt, who sat in the bow-window gazing at the sea from behind the green fan, which was mounted on a kind of swivel, and turned any way. We dined soon after I awoke, off a roast fowl and a pudding; I sitting at table, not unlike a trussed bird myself, and moving my arms with considerable difficulty. But as my aunt had swathed me up, I made no complaint of being inconvenienced. All this time, I was deeply anxious to know what she was going to do with me; but she took her dinner in profound silence, except when she occasionally fixed her eyes on me sitting opposite, and said, "Mercy upon us!" which did not by any means relieve my anxiety. The cloth being drawn, and some sherry put upon the table (of which I had a glass), my aunt sent up for Mr. Dick again, who joined us, and looked as wise as he could when she requested him to attend to my story, which she elicited from me, gradually, by a course of questions. During my recital, she kept her eyes on Mr. Dick, who I thought would have gone to sleep but for that, and who, whensoever he lapsed into a smile, was checked by a frown from my aunt. "Whatever possessed that poor unfortunate Baby, that she must go and be married again," said my aunt, when I had finished, "_I_ can't conceive." "Perhaps she fell in love with her second husband," Mr. Dick suggested. "Fell in love!" repeated my aunt, "What do you mean? What business had she to do it?" "Perhaps," Mr. Dick simpered, after thinking a little, "she did it for pleasure." "Pleasure, indeed!" replied my aunt. "A mighty pleasure for the poor baby to fix her simple faith upon any dog of a fellow, certain to ill-use her in some way or other. What did she propose to herself, I should like to know! She had had one husband. She had seen David Copperfield out of the world, who was always running after wax dolls from his cradle. She had got a baby--oh, there were a pair of babies when she gave birth to this child sitting here, that Friday night!--and what more did she want?" Mr. Dick secretly shook his head at me, as if he thought there was no getting over this. "She couldn't even have a baby like anybody else," said my aunt, "Where was this child's sister, Betsey Trotwood! Not forthcoming. Don't tell me!" Mr. Dick seemed quite frightened. "That little man of a doctor, with his head on one side," said my aunt, "Jellips, or whatever his name was, what was _he_ about? All he could do, was to say to me, like a robin redbreast--as he _is_--'It's a boy.' A boy! Yah, the imbecility of the whole set of 'em!" The heartiness of the ejaculation startled Mr. Dick exceedingly; and me, too, if I am to tell the truth. "And then, as if this was not enough, and she had not stood sufficiently in the light of this child's sister, Betsey Trotwood," said my aunt, "she marries a second time--goes and marries a Murderer--or a man with a name like it--and stands in _this_ child's light! And the natural consequence is, as anybody but a baby might have foreseen, that he prowls and wanders. He's as like Cain before he was grown up, as he can be." Mr. Dick looked hard at me, as if to identify me in this character. "And then there's that woman with the Pagan name," said my aunt, "that Peggotty, _she_ goes and gets married next. Because she has not seen enough of the evil attending such things, _she_ goes and gets married next, as the child relates. I only hope," said my aunt, shaking her head, "that her husband is one of those Poker husbands who abound in the newspapers, and will beat her well with one." I could not bear to hear my old nurse so decried, and made the subject of such a wish. I told my aunt that indeed she was mistaken. That Peggotty was the best, the truest, the most faithful, most devoted, and most self-denying friend and servant in the world; who had ever loved me dearly, who had ever loved my mother dearly; who had held my mother's dying head upon her arm, on whose face my mother had imprinted her last grateful kiss. And my remembrance of them both, choking me, I broke down as I was trying to say that her home was my home, and that all she had was mine, and that I would have gone to her for shelter, but for her humble station, which made me fear that I might bring some trouble on her--I broke down, I say, as I was trying to say so, and laid my face in my hands upon the table. "Well, well!" said my aunt, "the child is right to stand by those who have stood by him--Janet! Donkies!" I thoroughly believe that but for those unfortunate donkies, we should have come to a good understanding; for my aunt had laid her hand on my shoulder, and the impulse was upon me, thus emboldened, to embrace her and beseech her protection. But the interruption, and the disorder she was thrown into by the struggle outside, put an end to all softer ideas for the present; and kept my aunt indignantly declaiming to Mr. Dick about her determination to appeal for redress to the laws of her country, and to bring actions for trespass against the whole donkey proprietorship of Dover, until tea-time. After tea, we sat at the window--on the look-out, as I imagined, from my aunt's sharp expression of face, for more invaders--until dusk, when Janet set candles, and a backgammon-board, on the table, and pulled down the blinds. "Now, Mr. Dick," said my aunt, with her grave look, and her forefinger up as before, "I am going to ask you another question. Look at this child." "David's son?" said Mr. Dick, with an attentive, puzzled face. "Exactly so," returned my aunt. "What would you do with him, now?" "Do with David's son?" said Mr. Dick. "Ay," replied my aunt, "with David's son." "Oh!" said Mr. Dick. "Yes. Do with--I should put him to bed." "Janet!" cried my aunt, with the same complacent triumph that I had remarked before. "Mr. Dick sets us all right. If the bed is ready, we'll take him up to it." Janet reporting it to be quite ready, I was taken up to it; kindly, but in some sort like a prisoner; my aunt going in front and Janet bringing up the rear. The only circumstance which gave me any new hope, was my aunt's stopping on the stairs to inquire about a smell of fire that was prevalent there; and Janet's replying that she had been making tinder down in the kitchen, of my old shirt. But there were no other clothes in my room than the odd heap of things I wore; and when I was left there, with a little taper which my aunt forewarned me would burn exactly five minutes, I heard them lock my door on the outside. Turning these things over in my mind, I deemed it possible that my aunt, who could know nothing of me, might suspect I had a habit of running away, and took precautions, on that account, to have me in safe keeping. The room was a pleasant one, at the top of the house, overlooking the sea, on which the moon was shining brilliantly. After I had said my prayers, and the candle had burnt out, I remember how I still sat looking at the moonlight on the water, as if I could hope to read my fortune in it, as in a bright book; or to see my mother with her child, coming from Heaven, along that shining path, to look upon me as she had looked when I last saw her sweet face. I remember how the solemn feeling with which at length I turned my eyes away, yielded to the sensation of gratitude and rest which the sight of the white-curtained bed--and how much more the lying softly down upon it, nestling in the snow-white sheets!--inspired. I remember how I thought of all the solitary places under the night sky where I had slept, and how I prayed that I never might be houseless any more, and never might forget the houseless. I remember how I seemed to float, then, down the melancholy glory of that track upon the sea, away into the world of dreams. CHAPTER XIV. MY AUNT MAKES UP HER MIND ABOUT ME. On going down in the morning, I found my aunt musing so profoundly over the breakfast-table, with her elbow on the tray, that the contents of the urn had overflowed the teapot and were laying the whole table-cloth under water, when my entrance put her meditations to flight. I felt sure that I had been the subject of her reflections, and was more than ever anxious to know her intentions towards me. Yet I dared not express my anxiety, lest it should give her offence. My eyes, however, not being so much under controul as my tongue, were attracted towards my aunt very often during breakfast. I never could look at her for a few moments together but I found her looking at me--in an odd thoughtful manner, as if I were an immense way off, instead of being on the other side of the small round table. When she had finished her breakfast, my aunt very deliberately leaned back in her chair, knitted her brows, folded her arms, and contemplated me at her leisure, with such a fixedness of attention that I was quite overpowered by embarrassment. Not having as yet finished my own breakfast, I attempted to hide my confusion by proceeding with it; but my knife tumbled over my fork, my fork tripped up my knife, I chipped bits of bacon a surprising height into the air instead of cutting them for my own eating, and choked myself with my tea which persisted in going the wrong way instead of the right one, until I gave in altogether, and sat blushing under my aunt's close scrutiny. "Hallo!" said my aunt, after a long time. I looked up, and met her sharp bright glance respectfully. "I have written to him," said my aunt. "To--?" "To your father-in-law," said my aunt. "I have sent him a letter that I'll trouble him to attend to, or he and I will fall out, I can tell him!" "Does he know where I am, aunt?" I inquired, alarmed. "I have told him," said my aunt, with a nod. "Shall I--be--given up to him?" I faltered. "I don't know," said my aunt. "We shall see." "Oh! I can't think what I shall do," I exclaimed, "if I have to go back to Mr. Murdstone!" "I don't know anything about it," said my aunt, shaking her head. "I can't say, I am sure. We shall see." My spirits sank under these words, and I became very downcast and heavy of heart. My aunt, without appearing to take much heed of me, put on a coarse apron with a bib, which she took out of the press; washed up the teacups with her own hands; and, when everything was washed and set in the tray again, and the cloth folded and put on the top of the whole, rang for Janet to remove it. She next swept up the crumbs with a little broom (putting on a pair of gloves first), until there did not appear to be one microscopic speck left on the carpet; next dusted and arranged the room, which was dusted and arranged to a hair's breadth already. When all these tasks were performed to her satisfaction, she took off the gloves and apron, folded them up, put them in the particular corner of the press from which they had been taken, brought out her work-box to her own table in the open window, and sat down, with the green fan between her and the light, to work. "I wish you'd go up stairs," said my aunt, as she threaded her needle, "and give my compliments to Mr. Dick, and I'll be glad to know how he gets on with his Memorial." I rose with all alacrity, to acquit myself of this commission. "I suppose," said my aunt, eyeing me as narrowly as she had eyed the needle in threading it, "you think Mr. Dick a short name, eh?" "I thought it was rather a short name, yesterday," I confessed. "You are not to suppose that he hasn't got a longer name, if he chose to use it," said my aunt, with a loftier air. "Babley--Mr. Richard Babley--that's the gentleman's true name." I was going to suggest, with a modest sense of my youth and the familiarity I had been already guilty of, that I had better give him the full benefit of that name, when my aunt went on to say: "But don't you call him by it, whatever you do. He can't bear his name. That's a peculiarity of his. Though I don't know that it's much of a peculiarity, either; for he has been ill-used enough, by some that bear it, to have a mortal antipathy for it, Heaven knows. Mr. Dick is his name here, and everywhere else, now--if he ever went anywhere else, which he don't. So take care, child, you don't call him anything _but_ Mr. Dick." I promised to obey, and went up-stairs with my message; thinking, as I went, that if Mr. Dick had been working at his Memorial long, at the same rate as I had seen him working at it, through the open door, when I came down, he was probably getting on very well indeed. I found him still driving at it with a long pen, and his head almost laid upon the paper. He was so intent upon it, that I had ample leisure to observe the large paper kite in a corner, the confusion of bundles of manuscript, the number of pens, and, above all, the quantity of ink (which he seemed to have in, in half-gallon jars by the dozen), before he observed my being present. "Ha! Phoebus!" said Mr. Dick, laying down his pen. "How does the world go! I'll tell you what," he added, in a lower tone, "I shouldn't wish it to be mentioned, but it's a--" here he beckoned to me, and put his lips close to my ear--"it's a mad world. Mad as Bedlam, boy!" said Mr. Dick, taking snuff from a round box on the table, and laughing heartily. Without presuming to give my opinion on this question, I delivered my message. "Well," said Mr. Dick, in answer, "my compliments to her, and I--I believe I have made a start. I think I have made a start," said Mr. Dick, passing his hand among his grey hair, and casting anything but a confident look at his manuscript. "You have been to school?" "Yes, sir," I answered; "for a short time." "Do you recollect the date," said Mr. Dick, looking earnestly at me, and taking up his pen to note it down, "when King Charles the First had his head cut off?" I said I believed it happened in the year sixteen hundred and forty-nine. "Well," returned Mr. Dick, scratching his ear with his pen, and looking dubiously at me. "So the books say; but I don't see how that can be. Because, if it was so long ago, how could the people about him have made that mistake of putting some of the trouble out of _his_ head, after it was taken off, into _mine_?" I was very much surprised by the inquiry; but could give no information on this point. "It's very strange," said Mr. Dick, with a despondent look upon his papers, and with his hand among his hair again, "that I never can get that quite right. I never can make that perfectly clear. But no matter, no matter!" he said cheerfully, and rousing himself, "there's time enough! My compliments to Miss Trotwood, I am getting on very well indeed." I was going away, when he directed my attention to the kite. "What do you think of that for a kite?" he said. I answered that it was a beautiful one. I should think it must have been as much as seven feet high. "I made it. We'll go and fly it, you and I," said Mr. Dick. "Do you see this?" He showed me that it was covered with manuscript, very closely and laboriously written; but so plainly, that as I looked along the lines, I thought I saw some allusion to King Charles the First's head again, in one or two places. "There's plenty of string," said Mr. Dick, "and when it flies high, it takes the facts a long way. That's my manner of diffusing 'em. I don't know where they may come down. It's according to circumstances, and the wind, and so forth; but I take my chance of that." His face was so very mild and pleasant, and had something so reverend in it, though it was hale and hearty, that I was not sure but that he was having a good-humoured jest with me. So I laughed, and he laughed, and we parted the best friends possible. "Well, child," said my aunt, when I went down stairs. "And what of Mr. Dick, this morning?" I informed her that he sent his compliments, and was getting on very well indeed. "What do you think of him?" said my aunt. I had some shadowy idea of endeavouring to evade the question, by replying that I thought him a very nice gentleman; but my aunt was not to be so put off, for she laid her work down in her lap, and said, folding her hands upon it: "Come! Your sister Betsey Trotwood would have told me what she thought of any one, directly. Be as like your sister as you can, and speak out!" "Is he--is Mr. Dick--I ask because I don't know, aunt--is he at all out of his mind, then?" I stammered; for I felt I was on dangerous ground. "Not a morsel," said my aunt. "Oh, indeed!" I observed faintly. "If there is anything in the world," said my aunt, with great decision and force of manner, "that Mr. Dick is not, it's that." I had nothing better to offer, than another timid "Oh, indeed!" "He has been _called_ mad," said my aunt. "I have a selfish pleasure in saying he has been called mad, or I should not have had the benefit of his society and advice for these last ten years and upwards--in fact, ever since your sister, Betsey Trotwood, disappointed me." "So long as that?" I said. "And nice people they were, who had the audacity to call him mad," pursued my aunt. "Mr. Dick is a sort of distant connexion of mine--it doesn't matter how; I needn't enter into that. If it hadn't been for me, his own brother would have shut him up for life. That's all." I am afraid it was hypocritical in me, but seeing that my aunt felt strongly on the subject, I tried to look as if I felt strongly too. "A proud fool!" said my aunt. "Because his brother was a little eccentric--though he is not half so eccentric as a good many people--he didn't like to have him visible about his house, and sent him away to some private asylum-place; though he had been left to his particular care by their deceased father, who thought him almost a natural. And a wise man _he_ must have been to think so! Mad himself, no doubt." Again, as my aunt looked quite convinced, I endeavoured to look quite convinced also. "So I stepped in," said my aunt, "and made him an offer. I said, Your brother's sane--a great deal more sane than you are, or ever will be, it is to be hoped. Let him have his little income, and come and live with me. _I_ am not afraid of him, _I_ am not proud, _I_ am ready to take care of him, and shall not ill-treat him as some people (besides the asylum folks) have done. After a good deal of squabbling," said my aunt, "I got him; and he has been here ever since. He is the most friendly and amenable creature in existence; and as for advice!--But nobody knows what that man's mind is, except myself." My aunt smoothed her dress and shook her head, as if she smoothed defiance of the whole world out of the one, and shook it out of the other. "He had a favorite sister," said my aunt, "a good creature, and very kind to him. But she did what they all do--took a husband. And _he_ did what they all do--made her wretched. It had such an effect upon the mind of Mr. Dick (_that's_ not madness I hope!) that, combined with his fear of his brother, and his sense of his unkindness, it threw him into a fever. That was before he came to me, but the recollection of it is oppressive to him even now. Did he say anything to you about King Charles the First, child?" "Yes, aunt." "Ah!" said my aunt, rubbing her nose as if she were a little vexed. "That's his allegorical way of expressing it. He connects his illness with great disturbance and agitation, naturally, and that's the figure, or the simile, or whatever it's called, which he chooses to use. And why shouldn't he, if he thinks proper!" I said: "Certainly, aunt." "It's not a business-like way of speaking," said my aunt, "nor a worldly way. I am aware of that; and that's the reason why I insist upon it, that there shan't be a word about it in his Memorial." "Is it a Memorial about his own history that he is writing, aunt?" "Yes, child," said my aunt, rubbing her nose again. "He is memorialising the Lord Chancellor, or the Lord Somebody or other--one of those people, at all events, who are paid to _be_ memorialised--about his affairs. I suppose it will go in, one of these days. He hasn't been able to draw it up yet, without introducing that mode of expressing himself; but it don't signify; it keeps him employed." In fact, I found out afterwards that Mr. Dick had been for upwards of ten years endeavouring to keep King Charles the First out of the Memorial; but he had been constantly getting into it, and was there now. "I say again," said my aunt, "nobody knows what that man's mind is except myself; and he's the most amenable and friendly creature in existence. If he likes to fly a kite sometimes, what of that! Franklin used to fly a kite. He was a Quaker, or something of that sort, if I am not mistaken. And a Quaker flying a kite is a much more ridiculous object than anybody else." If I could have supposed that my aunt had recounted these particulars for my especial behoof, and as a piece of confidence in me, I should have felt very much distinguished, and should have augured favourably from such a mark of her good opinion. But I could hardly help observing that she had launched into them, chiefly because the question was raised in her own mind, and with very little reference to me, though she had addressed herself to me in the absence of anybody else. At the same time, I must say that the generosity of her championship of poor harmless Mr. Dick, not only inspired my young breast with some selfish hope for myself, but warmed it unselfishly towards her. I believe that I began to know that there was something about my aunt, notwithstanding her many eccentricities and odd humours, to be honored and trusted in. Though she was just as sharp that day, as on the day before, and was in and out about the donkeys just as often, and was thrown into a tremendous state of indignation, when a young man, going by, ogled Janet at a window (which was one of the gravest misdemeanors that could be committed against my aunt's dignity), she seemed to me to command more of my respect, if not less of my fear. The anxiety I underwent, in the interval which necessarily elapsed before a reply could be received to her letter to Mr. Murdstone, was extreme; but I made an endeavour to suppress it, and to be as agreeable as I could in a quiet way, both to my aunt and Mr. Dick. The latter and I would have gone out to fly the great kite; but that I had still no other clothes than the anything but ornamental garments with which I had been decorated on the first day, and which confined me to the house, except for an hour after dark, when my aunt, for my health's sake, paraded me up and down on the cliff outside, before going to bed. At length the reply from Mr. Murdstone came, and my aunt informed me, to my infinite terror, that he was coming to speak to her himself on the next day. On the next day, still bundled up in my curious habiliments, I sat counting the time, flushed and heated by the conflict of sinking hopes and rising fears within me; and waiting to be startled by the sight of the gloomy face, whose non-arrival startled me every minute. My aunt was a little more imperious and stern than usual, but I observed no other token of her preparing herself to receive the visitor so much dreaded by me. She sat at work in the window, and I sat by, with my thoughts running astray on all possible and impossible results of Mr. Murdstone's visit, until pretty late in the afternoon. Our dinner had been indefinitely postponed; but it was growing so late, that my aunt had ordered it to be got ready, when she gave a sudden alarm of donkeys, and to my consternation and amazement, I beheld Miss Murdstone, on a side-saddle, ride deliberately over the sacred piece of green, and stop in front of the house, looking about her. "Go along with you!" cried my aunt, shaking her head and her fist at the window. "You have no business there. How dare you trespass? Go along! Oh, you bold-faced thing!" My aunt was so exasperated by the coolness with which Miss Murdstone looked about her, that I really believe she was motionless, and unable for the moment to dart out according to custom. I seized the opportunity to inform her who it was; and that the gentleman now coming near the offender (for the way up was very steep, and he had dropped behind), was Mr. Murdstone himself. "I don't care who it is!" cried my aunt, still shaking her head, and gesticulating anything but welcome from the bow-window. "I won't be trespassed upon. I won't allow it. Go away! Janet, turn him round. Lead him off!" and I saw, from behind my aunt, a sort of hurried battle-piece, in which the donkey stood resisting everybody, with all his four legs planted different ways, while Janet tried to pull him round by the bridle, Mr. Murdstone tried to lead him on, Miss Murdstone struck at Janet with a parasol, and several boys, who had come to see the engagement, shouted vigorously. But my aunt, suddenly descrying among them the young malefactor who was the donkey's guardian, and who was one of the most inveterate offenders against her, though hardly in his teens, rushed out to the scene of action, pounced upon him, captured him, dragged him, with his jacket over his head, and his heels grinding the ground, into the garden, and, calling upon Janet to fetch the constables and justices that he might be taken, tried, and executed on the spot, held him at bay there. This part of the business, however, did not last long; for the young rascal, being expert at a variety of feints and dodges, of which my aunt had no conception, soon went whooping away, leaving some deep impressions of his nailed boots in the flower-beds, and taking his donkey in triumph with him. Miss Murdstone, during the latter portion of the contest, had dismounted, and was now waiting with her brother at the bottom of the steps, until my aunt should be at leisure to receive them. My aunt, a little ruffled by the combat, marched past them into the house, with great dignity, and took no notice of their presence, until they were announced by Janet. "Shall I go away, aunt?" I asked, trembling. "No, sir," said my aunt. "Certainly not!" With which she pushed me into a corner near her, and fenced me in with a chair, as if it were a prison or a bar of justice. This position I continued to occupy during the whole interview, and from it I now saw Mr. and Miss Murdstone enter the room. [Illustration: The momentous interview.] "Oh!" said my aunt, "I was not aware at first to whom I had the pleasure of objecting. But I don't allow anybody to ride over that turf. I make no exceptions. I don't allow anybody to do it." "Your regulation is rather awkward to strangers," said Miss Murdstone. "Is it!" said my aunt. Mr. Murdstone seemed afraid of a renewal of hostilities, and interposing began: "Miss Trotwood!" "I beg your pardon," observed my aunt with a keen look. "You are the Mr. Murdstone who married the widow of my late nephew, David Copperfield, of Blunderstone Rookery?--Though why Rookery, _I_ don't know!" "I am," said Mr. Murdstone. "You'll excuse my saying, sir," returned my aunt, "that I think it would have been a much better and happier thing if you had left that poor child alone." "I so far agree with what Miss Trotwood has remarked," observed Miss Murdstone, bridling, "that I consider our lamented Clara to have been, in all essential respects, a mere child." "It is a comfort to you and me, ma'am," said my aunt, "who are getting on in life, and are not likely to be made unhappy by our personal attractions, that nobody can say the same of us." "No doubt!" returned Miss Murdstone, though, I thought, not with a very ready or gracious assent. "And it certainly might have been, as you say, a better and happier thing for my brother if he had never entered into such a marriage. I have always been of that opinion." "I have no doubt you have," said my aunt. "Janet," ringing the bell, "my compliments to Mr. Dick, and beg him to come down." Until he came, my aunt sat perfectly upright and stiff, frowning at the wall. When he came, my aunt performed the ceremony of introduction. "Mr. Dick. An old and intimate friend. On whose judgment," said my aunt, with emphasis, as an admonition to Mr. Dick, who was biting his forefinger and looking rather foolish, "I rely." Mr. Dick took his finger out of his mouth, on this hint, and stood among the group, with a grave and attentive expression of face. My aunt inclined her head to Mr. Murdstone, who went on: "Miss Trotwood: on the receipt of your letter, I considered it an act of greater justice to myself, and perhaps of more respect to you--" "Thank you," said my aunt, still eyeing him keenly. "You needn't mind me." "To answer it in person, however inconvenient the journey," pursued Mr. Murdstone, "rather than by letter. This unhappy boy who has run away from his friends and his occupation--" "And whose appearance," interposed his sister, directing general attention to me in my indefinable costume, "is perfectly scandalous and disgraceful." "Jane Murdstone," said her brother, "have the goodness not to interrupt me. This unhappy boy, Miss Trotwood, has been the occasion of much domestic trouble and uneasiness; both during the lifetime of my late dear wife, and since. He has a sullen, rebellious spirit; a violent temper; and an untoward, intractable disposition. Both my sister and myself have endeavoured to correct his vices, but ineffectually. And I have felt--we both have felt, I may say; my sister being fully in my confidence--that it is right you should receive this grave and dispassionate assurance from our lips." "It can hardly be necessary for me to confirm anything stated by my brother," said Miss Murdstone; "but I beg to observe, that, of all the boys in the world, I believe this is the worst boy." "Strong!" said my aunt, shortly. "But not at all too strong for the facts," returned Miss Murdstone. "Ha!" said my aunt. "Well, sir?" "I have my own opinions," resumed Mr. Murdstone, whose face darkened more and more, the more he and my aunt observed each other, which they did very narrowly, "as to the best mode of bringing him up; they are founded, in part, on my knowledge of him, and in part on my knowledge of my own means and resources. I am responsible for them to myself, I act upon them, and I say no more about them. It is enough that I place this boy under the eye of a friend of my own, in a respectable business; that it does not please him; that he runs away from it; makes himself a common vagabond about the country; and comes here, in rags, to appeal to you, Miss Trotwood. I wish to set before you, honorably, the exact consequences--so far as they are within my knowledge--of your abetting him in this appeal." "But about the respectable business first," said my aunt. "If he had been your own boy, you would have put him to it, just the same, I suppose?" "If he had been my brother's own boy," returned Miss Murdstone, striking in, "his character, I trust, would have been altogether different." "Or if the poor child, his mother, had been alive, he would still have gone into the respectable business, would he?" said my aunt. "I believe," said Mr. Murdstone, with an inclination of his head, "that Clara would have disputed nothing, which myself and my sister Jane Murdstone were agreed was for the best." Miss Murdstone confirmed this, with an audible murmur. "Humph!" said my aunt. "Unfortunate baby!" Mr. Dick, who had been rattling his money all this time, was rattling it so loudly now, that my aunt felt it necessary to check him with a look, before saying: "The poor child's annuity died with her?" "Died with her," replied Mr. Murdstone. "And there was no settlement of the little property--the house and garden--the what's-its-name Rookery without any rooks in it--upon her boy?" "It had been left to her, unconditionally, by her first husband," Mr. Murdstone began, when my aunt caught him up with the greatest irascibility and impatience. "Good Lord, man, there's no occasion to say that. Left to her unconditionally! I think I see David Copperfield looking forward to any condition of any sort or kind, though it stared him point-blank in the face! Of course it was left to her unconditionally. But when she married again--when she took that most disastrous step of marrying you, in short," said my aunt, "to be plain--did no one put in a word for the boy at that time?" "My late wife loved her second husband, madam," said Mr. Murdstone, "and trusted implicitly in him." "Your late wife, sir, was a most unworldly, most unhappy, most unfortunate baby," returned my aunt, shaking her head at him. "That's what _she_ was. And now, what have you got to say next?" "Merely this, Miss Trotwood," he returned. "I am here to take David back--to take him back unconditionally, to dispose of him as I think proper, and to deal with him as I think right. I am not here to make any promise, or give any pledge to anybody. You may possibly have some idea, Miss Trotwood, of abetting him in his running away, and in his complaints to you. Your manner, which I must say does not seem intended to propitiate, induces me to think it possible. Now I must caution you that if you abet him once, you abet him for good and all; if you step in between him and me, now, you must step in, Miss Trotwood, for ever. I cannot trifle, or be trifled with. I am here, for the first and last time, to take him away. Is he ready to go? If he is not--and you tell me he is not; on any pretence; it is indifferent to me what--my doors are shut against him henceforth, and yours, I take it for granted, are open to him." To this address, my aunt had listened with the closest attention, sitting perfectly upright, with her hands folded on one knee, and looking grimly on the speaker. When he had finished, she turned her eyes so as to command Miss Murdstone, without otherwise disturbing her attitude, and said: "Well, ma'am, have _you_ got anything to remark?" "Indeed, Miss Trotwood," said Miss Murdstone, "all that I could say has been so well said by my brother, and all that I know to be the fact has been so plainly stated by him, that I have nothing to add except my thanks for your politeness. For your very great politeness, I am sure," said Miss Murdstone; with an irony which no more affected my aunt, than it discomposed the cannon I had slept by at Chatham. "And what does the boy say?" said my aunt. "Are you ready to go, David?" I answered no, and entreated her not to let me go. I said that neither Mr. nor Miss Murdstone had ever liked me, or had ever been kind to me. That they had made my mama, who always loved me dearly, unhappy about me, and that I knew it well, and that Peggotty knew it. I said that I had been more miserable than I thought anybody could believe, who only knew how young I was. And I begged and prayed my aunt--I forget in what terms now, but I remember that they affected me very much then--to befriend and protect me, for my father's sake. "Mr. Dick," said my aunt, "what shall I do with this child?" Mr. Dick considered, hesitated, brightened, and rejoined, "Have him measured for a suit of clothes directly." "Mr. Dick," said my aunt, triumphantly, "give me your hand, for your common sense is invaluable." Having shaken it with great cordiality, she pulled me towards her, and said to Mr. Murdstone: "You can go when you like; I'll take my chance with the boy. If he's all you say he is, at least I can do as much for him then, as you have done. But I don't believe a word of it." "Miss Trotwood," rejoined Mr. Murdstone, shrugging his shoulders, as he rose, "if you were a gentleman----" "Bah! stuff and nonsense!" said my aunt. "Don't talk to me!" "How exquisitely polite!" exclaimed Miss Murdstone, rising. "Overpowering, really!" "Do you think I don't know," said my aunt, turning a deaf ear to the sister, and continuing to address the brother, and to shake her head at him with infinite expression, "what kind of life you must have led that poor, unhappy, misdirected baby? Do you think I don't know what a woeful day it was for the soft little creature, when _you_ first came in her way--smirking and making great eyes at her, I'll be bound, as if you couldn't say boh! to a goose!" "I never heard anything so elegant!" said Miss Murdstone. "Do you think I can't understand you as well as if I had seen you," pursued my aunt, "now that I _do_ see and hear you--which, I tell you candidly, is anything but a pleasure to me? Oh yes, bless us! who so smooth and silky as Mr. Murdstone at first! The poor, benighted innocent had never seen such a man. He was made of sweetness. He worshipped her. He doted on her boy--tenderly doted on him! He was to be another father to him, and they were all to live together in a garden of roses, weren't they? Ugh! Get along with you, do!" said my aunt. "I never heard anything like this person in my life!" exclaimed Miss Murdstone. "And when you had made sure of the poor little fool," said my aunt--"God forgive me that I should call her so, and she gone where _you_ won't go in a hurry--because you had not done wrong enough to her and hers, you must begin to train her, must you? begin to break her, like a poor caged bird, and wear her deluded life away, in teaching her to sing _your_ notes?" "This is either insanity or intoxication," said Miss Murdstone, in a perfect agony at not being able to turn the current of my aunt's address towards herself; "and my suspicion is, that it's intoxication." Miss Betsey, without taking the least notice of the interruption, continued to address herself to Mr. Murdstone as if there had been no such thing. "Mr. Murdstone," she said, shaking her finger at him, "you were a tyrant to the simple baby, and you broke her heart. She was a loving baby--I know that; I knew it, years before _you_ ever saw her--and through the best part of her weakness, you gave her the wounds she died of. There is the truth for your comfort, however you like it. And you and your instruments may make the most of it." "Allow me to inquire, Miss Trotwood," interposed Miss Murdstone, "whom you are pleased to call, in a choice of words in which I am not experienced, my brother's instruments?" Still stone-deaf to the voice, and utterly unmoved by it, Miss Betsey pursued her discourse. "It was clear enough, as I have told you, years before _you_ ever saw her--and why, in the mysterious dispensations of Providence, you ever did see her, is more than humanity can comprehend--it was clear enough that the poor soft little thing would marry somebody, at some time or other; but I did hope it wouldn't have been as bad as it has turned out. That was the time, Mr. Murdstone, when she gave birth to her boy here," said my aunt; "to the poor child you sometimes tormented her through afterwards, which is a disagreeable remembrance, and makes the sight of him odious now. Aye, aye! you needn't wince!" said my aunt, "I know it's true without that." He had stood by the door, all this while, observant of her with a smile upon his face, though his black eyebrows were heavily contracted. I remarked now, that, though the smile was on his face still, his colour had gone in a moment, and he seemed to breathe as if he had been running. "Good day, sir!" said my aunt, "and good bye! Good day to you too, ma'am," said my aunt, turning suddenly upon his sister. "Let me see you ride a donkey over _my_ green again, and as sure as you have a head upon your shoulders, I'll knock your bonnet off, and tread upon it!" It would require a painter, and no common painter too, to depict my aunt's face as she delivered herself of this very unexpected sentiment, and Miss Murdstone's face as she heard it. But the manner of the speech, no less than the matter, was so fiery, that Miss Murdstone, without a word in answer, discreetly put her arm through her brother's, and walked haughtily out of the cottage; my aunt remaining in the window looking after them; prepared, I have no doubt, in case of the donkey's reappearance, to carry her threat into instant execution. No attempt at defiance being made, however, her face gradually relaxed, and became so pleasant, that I was emboldened to kiss and thank her; which I did with great heartiness, and with both my arms clasped round her neck. I then shook hands with Mr. Dick, who shook hands with me a great many times, and hailed this happy close of the proceedings with repeated bursts of laughter. "You'll consider yourself guardian, jointly with me, of this child, Mr. Dick," said my aunt. "I shall be delighted," said Mr. Dick, "to be the guardian of David's son." "Very good," returned my aunt, "_that's_ settled. I have been thinking, do you know, Mr. Dick, that I might call him Trotwood?" "Certainly, certainly. Call him Trotwood, certainly," said Mr. Dick. "David's son's Trotwood." "Trotwood Copperfield, you mean," returned my aunt. "Yes, to be sure. Yes. Trotwood Copperfield," said Mr. Dick, a little abashed. My aunt took so kindly to the notion, that some ready-made clothes, which were purchased for me that afternoon, were marked "Trotwood Copperfield," in her own handwriting, and in indelible marking-ink, before I put them on; and it was settled that all the other clothes which were ordered to be made for me (a complete outfit was bespoke that afternoon) should be marked in the same way. Thus I began my new life, in a new name, and with everything new about me. Now that the state of doubt was over, I felt, for many days, like one in a dream. I never thought that I had a curious couple of guardians, in my aunt and Mr. Dick. I never thought of anything about myself, distinctly. The two things clearest in my mind were, that a remoteness had come upon the old Blunderstone life--which seemed to lie in the haze of an immeasurable distance; and that a curtain had for ever fallen on my life at Murdstone and Grinby's. No one has ever raised that curtain since. I have lifted it for a moment, even in this narrative, with a reluctant hand, and dropped it gladly. The remembrance of that life is fraught with so much pain to me, with so much mental suffering and want of hope, that I have never had the courage even to examine how long I was doomed to lead it. Whether it lasted for a year, or more, or less, I do not know. I only know that it was, and ceased to be; and that I have written, and there I leave it. CHAPTER XV. I MAKE ANOTHER BEGINNING. Mr. Dick and I soon became the best of friends, and very often, when his day's work was done, went out together to fly the great kite. Every day of his life he had a long sitting at the Memorial, which never made the least progress, however hard he labored, for King Charles the First always strayed into it, sooner or later, and then it was thrown aside, and another one begun. The patience and hope with which he bore these perpetual disappointments, the mild perception he had that there was something wrong about King Charles the First, the feeble efforts he made to keep him out, and the certainty with which he came in, and tumbled the Memorial out of all shape, made a deep impression on me. What Mr. Dick supposed would come of the Memorial, if it were completed; where he thought it was to go, or what he thought it was to do; he knew no more than anybody else, I believe. Nor was it at all necessary that he should trouble himself with such questions, for if anything were certain under the sun, it was certain that the Memorial never would be finished. It was quite an affecting sight, I used to think, to see him with the kite when it was up a great height in the air. What he had told me, in his room, about his belief in its disseminating the statements pasted on it, which were nothing but old leaves of abortive Memorials, might have been a fancy with him sometimes; but not when he was out, looking up at the kite in the sky, and feeling it pull and tug at his hand. He never looked so serene as he did then. I used to fancy, as I sat by him of an evening, on a green slope, and saw him watch the kite high in the quiet air, that it lifted his mind out of its confusion, and bore it (such was my boyish thought) into the skies. As he wound the string in, and it came lower and lower down out of the beautiful light, until it fluttered to the ground, and lay there like a dead thing, he seemed to wake gradually out of a dream; and I remember to have seen him take it up, and look about him in a lost way, as if they had both come down together, so that I pitied him with all my heart. While I advanced in friendship and intimacy with Mr. Dick, I did not go backward in the favor of his staunch friend, my aunt. She took so kindly to me, that, in the course of a few weeks, she shortened my adopted name of Trotwood into Trot; and even encouraged me to hope that if I went on as I had begun, I might take equal rank in her affections with my sister Betsey Trotwood. "Trot," said my aunt one evening, when the backgammon-board was placed as usual for herself and Mr. Dick, "we must not forget your education." This was my only subject of anxiety, and I felt quite delighted by her referring to it. "Should you like to go to school at Canterbury?" said my aunt. I replied that I should like it very much, as it was so near her. "Good," said my aunt. "Should you like to go to-morrow?" Being already no stranger to the general rapidity of my aunt's evolutions, I was not surprised by the suddenness of the proposal, and said: "Yes." "Good," said my aunt again. "Janet, hire the grey pony and chaise to-morrow morning at ten o'clock, and pack up Master Trotwood's clothes to-night." I was greatly elated by these orders; but my heart smote me for my selfishness, when I witnessed their effect on Mr. Dick, who was so low-spirited at the prospect of our separation, and played so ill in consequence, that my aunt, after giving him several admonitory raps on the knuckles with her dice-box, shut up the board, and declined to play with him any more. But, on hearing from my aunt that I should sometimes come over on a Saturday, and that he could sometimes come and see me on a Wednesday, he revived; and vowed to make another kite for those occasions, of proportions greatly surpassing the present one. In the morning he was downhearted again, and would have sustained himself by giving me all the money he had in his possession, gold and silver too, if my aunt had not interposed, and limited the gift to five shillings, which, at his earnest petition, were afterwards increased to ten. We parted at the garden-gate in a most affectionate manner, and Mr. Dick did not go into the house until my aunt had driven me out of sight of it. My aunt, who was perfectly indifferent to public opinion, drove the grey pony through Dover in a masterly manner; sitting high and stiff like a state coachman, keeping a steady eye upon him wherever he went, and making a point of not letting him have his own way in any respect. When we came into the country road, she permitted him to relax a little, however; and looking at me down in a valley of cushion by her side, asked me whether I was happy. "Very happy indeed, thank you, aunt," I said. She was much gratified; and both her hands being occupied, patted me on the head with her whip. "Is it a large school, aunt?" I asked. "Why, I don't know," said my aunt. "We are going to Mr. Wickfield's first." "Does _he_ keep a school?" I asked. "No, Trot," said my aunt. "He keeps an office." I asked for no more information about Mr. Wickfield, as she offered none, and we conversed on other subjects until we came to Canterbury, where, as it was market-day, my aunt had a great opportunity of insinuating the grey pony among carts, baskets, vegetables, and huckster's goods. The hair-breadth turns and twists we made, drew down upon us a variety of speeches from the people standing about, which were not always complimentary; but my aunt drove on with perfect indifference, and I dare say would have taken her own way with as much coolness through an enemy's country. At length we stopped before a very old house bulging out over the road; a house with long low lattice-windows bulging out still farther, and beams with carved heads on the ends bulging out too, so that I fancied the whole house was leaning forward, trying to see who was passing on the narrow pavement below. It was quite spotless in its cleanliness. The old-fashioned brass knocker on the low arched door, ornamented with carved garlands of fruit and flowers, twinkled like a star; the two stone steps descending to the door were as white as if they had been covered with fair linen; and all the angles and corners, and carvings and mouldings, and quaint little panes of glass, and quainter little windows, though as old as the hills, were as pure as any snow that ever fell upon the hills. When the pony-chaise stopped at the door, and my eyes were intent upon the house, I saw a cadaverous face appear at a small window on the ground floor (in a little round tower that formed one side of the house), and quickly disappear. The low arched door then opened, and the face came out. It was quite as cadaverous as it had looked in the window, though in the grain of it there was that tinge of red which is sometimes to be observed in the skins of red-haired people. It belonged to a red-haired person--a youth of fifteen, as I take it now, but looking much older--whose hair was cropped as close as the closest stubble; who had hardly any eyebrows, and no eyelashes, and eyes of a red-brown; so unsheltered and unshaded, that I remember wondering how he went to sleep. He was high-shouldered and bony; dressed in decent black, with a white wisp of a neckcloth; buttoned up to the throat; and had a long, lank, skeleton hand, which particularly attracted my attention, as he stood at the pony's head, rubbing his chin with it, and looking up at us in the chaise. "Is Mr. Wickfield at home, Uriah Heep?" said my aunt. "Mr. Wickfield's at home, ma'am," said Uriah Heep, "if you'll please to walk in there"--pointing with his long hand to the room he meant. We got out; and leaving him to hold the pony, went into a long low parlor looking towards the street, from the window of which I caught a glimpse, as I went in, of Uriah Heep breathing into the pony's nostrils, and immediately covering them with his hand, as if he were putting some spell upon him. Opposite to the tall old chimney-piece, were two portraits: one of a gentleman with grey hair (though not by any means an old man) and black eyebrows, who was looking over some papers tied together with red tape; the other, of a lady, with a very placid and sweet expression of face, who was looking at me. I believe I was turning about in search of Uriah's picture, when, a door at the farther end of the room opening, a gentleman entered, at sight of whom I turned to the first-mentioned portrait again, to make quite sure that it had not come out of its frame. But it was stationary; and as the gentleman advanced into the light, I saw that he was some years older than when he had had his picture painted. "Miss Betsey Trotwood," said the gentleman, "pray walk in. I was engaged for the moment, but you'll excuse my being busy. You know my motive. I have but one in life." Miss Betsey thanked him, and we went into his room, which was furnished as an office, with books, papers, tin boxes, and so forth. It looked into a garden, and had an iron safe let into the wall; so immediately over the mantel-shelf, that I wondered, as I sat down, how the sweeps got round it when they swept the chimney. "Well, Miss Trotwood," said Mr. Wickfield; for I soon found that it was he, and that he was a lawyer, and steward of the estates of a rich gentleman of the county; "what wind blows you here? Not an ill wind, I hope?" "No," replied my aunt, "I have not come for any law." "That's right, ma'am," said Mr. Wickfield. "You had better come for anything else." His hair was quite white now, though his eyebrows were still black. He had a very agreeable face, and, I thought, was handsome. There was a certain richness in his complexion, which I had been long accustomed, under Peggotty's tuition, to connect with port wine; and I fancied it was in his voice too, and referred his growing corpulency to the same cause. He was very cleanly dressed, in a blue coat, striped waistcoat, and nankeen trowsers; and his fine frilled shirt and cambric neckcloth looked unusually soft and white, reminding my strolling fancy (I call to mind) of the plumage on the breast of a swan. "This is my nephew," said my aunt. "Wasn't aware you had one, Miss Trotwood," said Mr. Wickfield. "My grand-nephew, that is to say," observed my aunt. "Wasn't aware you had a grand-nephew, I give you my word," said Mr. Wickfield. "I have adopted him," said my aunt, with a wave of her hand, importing that his knowledge and his ignorance were all one to her, "and I have brought him here, to put him to a school where he may be thoroughly well taught, and well treated. Now tell me where that school is, and what it is, and all about it." "Before I can advise you properly," said Mr. Wickfield,--"the old question, you know. What's your motive in this?" "Deuce take the man!" exclaimed my aunt. "Always fishing for motives, when they're on the surface! Why, to make the child happy and useful." "It must be a mixed motive, I think," said Mr. Wickfield, shaking his head and smiling incredulously. "A mixed fiddlestick!" returned my aunt. "You claim to have one plain motive in all you do yourself. You don't suppose, I hope, that you are the only plain dealer in the world?" "Ay, but I have only one motive in life, Miss Trotwood," he rejoined, smiling. "Other people have dozens, scores, hundreds. I have only one. There's the difference. However, that's beside the question. The best school? Whatever the motive, you want the best?" My aunt nodded assent. "At the best we have," said Mr. Wickfield, considering, "your nephew couldn't board just now." "But he could board somewhere else, I suppose?" suggested my aunt. Mr. Wickfield thought I could. After a little discussion, he proposed to take my aunt to the school, that she might see it and judge for herself; also, to take her, with the same object, to two or three houses where he thought I could be boarded. My aunt embracing the proposal, we were all three going out together, when he stopped and said: "Our little friend here might have some motive, perhaps, for objecting to the arrangements. I think we had better leave him behind?" My aunt seemed disposed to contest the point; but to facilitate matters I said I would gladly remain behind, if they pleased; and returned into Mr. Wickfield's office, where I sat down again, in the chair I had first occupied, to await their return. It so happened that this chair was opposite a narrow passage, which ended in the little circular room where I had seen Uriah Heep's pale face looking out of window. Uriah, having taken the pony to a neighbouring stable, was at work at a desk in this room, which had a brass frame on the top to hang papers upon, and on which the writing he was making a copy of was then hanging. Though his face was towards me, I thought, for some time, the writing being between us, that he could not see me; but looking that way more attentively, it made me uncomfortable to observe that, every now and then, his sleepless eyes would come below the writing, like two red suns, and stealthily stare at me for I dare say a whole minute at a time, during which his pen went, or pretended to go, as cleverly as ever. I made several attempts to get out of their way--such as standing on a chair to look at a map on the other side of the room, and poring over the columns of a Kentish newspaper--but they always attracted me back again; and whenever I looked towards those two red suns, I was sure to find them, either just rising or just setting. At length, much to my relief, my aunt and Mr. Wickfield came back, after a pretty long absence. They were not so successful as I could have wished; for though the advantages of the school were undeniable, my aunt had not approved of any of the boarding-houses proposed for me. "It's very unfortunate," said my aunt. "I don't know what to do, Trot." "It _does_ happen unfortunately," said Mr. Wickfield. "But I'll tell you what you can do, Miss Trotwood." "What's that?" inquired my aunt. "Leave your nephew here, for the present. He's a quiet fellow. He won't disturb me at all. It's a capital house for study. As quiet as a monastery, and almost as roomy. Leave him here." My aunt evidently liked the offer, though she was delicate of accepting it. So did I. "Come, Miss Trotwood," said Mr. Wickfield. "This is the way out of the difficulty. It's only a temporary arrangement, you know. If it don't act well, or don't quite accord with our mutual convenience, he can easily go to the right about. There will be time to find some better place for him in the meanwhile. You had better determine to leave him here for the present!" "I am very much obliged to you," said my aunt; "and so is he, I see; but--" "Come! I know what you mean," cried Mr. Wickfield. "You shall not be oppressed by the receipt of favors, Miss Trotwood. You may pay for him if you like. We won't be hard about terms, but you shall pay if you will." "On that understanding," said my aunt, "though it doesn't lessen the real obligation, I shall be very glad to leave him." "Then come and see my little housekeeper," said Mr. Wickfield. We accordingly went up a wonderful old staircase; with a balustrade so broad that we might have gone up that, almost as easily; and into a shady old drawing-room, lighted by some three or four of the quaint windows I had looked up at from the street: which had old oak seats in them, that seemed to have come of the same trees as the shining oak floor, and the great beams in the ceiling. It was a prettily furnished room, with a piano and some lively furniture in red and green, and some flowers. It seemed to be all old nooks and corners; and in every nook and corner there was some queer little table, or cupboard, or bookcase, or seat, or something or other, that made me think there was not such another good corner in the room; until I looked at the next one, and found it equal to it, if not better. On everything there was the same air of retirement and cleanliness that marked the house outside. Mr. Wickfield tapped at a door in a corner of the panneled wall, and a girl of about my own age came quickly out and kissed him. On her face, I saw immediately the placid and sweet expression of the lady whose picture had looked at me down-stairs. It seemed to my imagination as if the portrait had grown womanly, and the original remained a child. Although her face was quite bright and happy, there was a tranquillity about it, and about her--a quiet, good, calm spirit--that I never have forgotten; that I never shall forget. This was his little housekeeper, his daughter Agnes, Mr. Wickfield said. When I heard how he said it, and saw how he held her hand, I guessed what the one motive of his life was. She had a little basket-trifle hanging at her side, with keys in it; and looked as staid and as discreet a housekeeper as the old house could have. She listened to her father as he told her about me, with a pleasant face; and when he had concluded, proposed to my aunt that we should go up-stairs and see my room. We all went together; she before us: and a glorious old room it was, with more oak beams, and diamond panes; and the broad balustrade going all the way up to it. I cannot call to mind where or when, in my childhood, I had seen a stained glass window in a church. Nor do I recollect its subject. But I know that when I saw her turn round, in the grave light of the old staircase, and wait for us, above, I thought of that window; and that I associated something of its tranquil brightness with Agnes Wickfield ever afterwards. My aunt was as happy as I was, in the arrangement made for me; and we went down to the drawing-room again, well pleased and gratified. As she would not hear of staying to dinner, lest she should by any chance fail to arrive at home with the grey pony before dark; and as I apprehend Mr. Wickfield knew her too well, to argue any point with her; some lunch was provided for her there, and Agnes went back to her governess, and Mr. Wickfield to his office. So we were left to take leave of one another without any restraint. She told me that everything would be arranged for me by Mr. Wickfield, and that I should want for nothing, and gave me the kindest words and the best advice. "Trot," said my aunt in conclusion, "be a credit to yourself, to me, and Mr. Dick, and Heaven be with you!" I was greatly overcome, and could only thank her, again and again, and send my love to Mr. Dick. "Never," said my aunt, "be mean in anything; never be false; never be cruel. Avoid those three vices, Trot, and I can always be hopeful of you." I promised, as well as I could, that I would not abuse her kindness or forget her admonition. "The pony's at the door," said my aunt, "and I am off! Stay here." With these words she embraced me hastily, and went out of the room, shutting the door after her. At first I was startled by so abrupt a departure, and almost feared I had displeased her; but when I looked into the street, and saw how dejectedly she got into the chaise, and drove away without looking up, I understood her better, and did not do her that injustice. By five o'clock, which was Mr. Wickfield's dinner hour, I had mustered up my spirits again, and was ready for my knife and fork. The cloth was only laid for us two; but Agnes was waiting in the drawing-room before dinner, went down with her father, and sat opposite to him at table. I doubted whether he could have dined without her. We did not stay there, after dinner, but came up-stairs into the drawing-room again: in one snug corner of which, Agnes set glasses for her father, and a decanter of port wine. I thought he would have missed its usual flavor, if it had been put there for him by any other hands. There he sat, taking his wine, and taking a good deal of it, for two hours; while Agnes played on the piano, worked, and talked to him and me. He was, for the most part, gay and cheerful with us; but sometimes his eyes rested on her, and he fell into a brooding state, and was silent. She always observed this quickly, as I thought, and always roused him with a question or caress. Then he came out of his meditation, and drank more wine. Agnes made the tea, and presided over it; and the time passed away after it, as after dinner, until she went to bed; when her father took her in his arms and kissed her, and, she being gone, ordered candles in his office. Then I went to bed too. But in the course of the evening I had rambled down to the door, and a little way along the street, that I might have another peep at the old houses, and the grey Cathedral; and might think of my coming through that old city on my journey, and of my passing the very house I lived in, without knowing it. As I came back, I saw Uriah Heep shutting up the office; and feeling friendly towards everybody, went in and spoke to him, and at parting, gave him my hand. But oh, what a clammy hand his was! as ghostly to the touch as to the sight! I rubbed mine afterwards, to warm it, _and to rub his off_. It was such an uncomfortable hand, that, when I went to my room, it was still cold and wet upon my memory. Leaning out of window, and seeing one of the faces on the beam-ends looking at me sideways, I fancied it was Uriah Heep got up there somehow, and shut him out in a hurry. CHAPTER XVI. I AM A NEW BOY IN MORE SENSES THAN ONE. Next morning, after breakfast, I entered on school life again. I went, accompanied by Mr. Wickfield, to the scene of my future studies--a grave building in a court-yard, with a learned air about it that seemed very well suited to the stray rooks and jackdaws who came down from the Cathedral towers to walk with a clerkly bearing on the grass-plot--and was introduced to my new master, Doctor Strong. Doctor Strong looked almost as rusty, to my thinking, as the tall iron rails and gates outside the house; and almost as stiff and heavy as the great stone urns that flanked them, and were set up, on the top of the red-brick wall, at regular distances all round the court, like sublimated skittles, for Time to play at. He was in his library (I mean Doctor Strong was), with his clothes not particularly well brushed, and his hair not particularly well combed; his knee-smalls unbraced; his long black gaiters unbuttoned; and his shoes yawning like two caverns on the hearth-rug. Turning upon me a lustreless eye, that reminded me of a long-forgotten blind old horse who once used to crop the grass, and tumble over the graves, in Blunderstone churchyard, he said he was glad to see me: and then he gave me his hand; which I didn't know what to do with, as it did nothing for itself. But, sitting at work, not far off from Doctor Strong, was a very pretty young lady--whom he called Annie, and who was his daughter, I supposed--who got me out of my difficulty by kneeling down to put Doctor Strong's shoes on, and button his gaiters, which she did with great cheerfulness and quickness. When she had finished, and we were going out to the school-room, I was much surprised to hear Mr. Wickfield, in bidding her good morning, address her as "Mrs. Strong;" and I was wondering could she be Doctor Strong's son's wife, or could she be Mrs. Doctor Strong, when Doctor Strong himself unconsciously enlightened me. "By the bye, Wickfield," he said, stopping in a passage with his hand on my shoulder; "you have not found any suitable provision for my wife's cousin yet?" "No," said Mr. Wickfield. "No. Not yet." "I could wish it done as soon as it _can_ be done, Wickfield," said Doctor Strong, "for Jack Maldon is needy, and idle; and of those two bad things, worse things sometimes come. What does Doctor Watts say," he added, looking at me, and moving his head to the time of his quotation, "'Satan finds some mischief still, for idle hands to do.'" "Egad, doctor," returned Mr. Wickfield, "if Doctor Watts knew mankind, he might have written, with as much truth, 'Satan finds some mischief still, for busy hands to do.' The busy people achieve their full share of mischief in the world, you may rely upon it. What have the people been about, who have been the busiest in getting money, and in getting power, this century or two? No mischief?" "Jack Maldon will never be very busy in getting either, I expect," said Doctor Strong, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Perhaps not," said Mr. Wickfield; "and you bring me back to the question, with an apology for digressing. No, I have not been able to dispose of Mr. Jack Maldon yet. I believe," he said this with some hesitation, "I penetrate your motive, and it makes the thing more difficult." "My motive," returned Dr. Strong, "is to make some suitable provision for a cousin, and an old playfellow, of Annie's." "Yes, I know," said Mr. Wickfield; "at home or abroad." "Aye!" replied the Doctor, apparently wondering why he emphasised those words so much. "At home or abroad." "Your own expression, you know," said Mr. Wickfield. "Or abroad." "Surely," the Doctor answered. "Surely. One or other." "One or other? Have you no choice?" asked Mr. Wickfield. "No," returned the Doctor. "No?" with astonishment. "Not the least." "No motive," said Mr. Wickfield, "for meaning abroad, and not at home?" "No," returned the Doctor. "I am bound to believe you, and of course I do believe you," said Mr. Wickfield. "It might have simplified my office very much, if I had known it before. But I confess I entertained another impression." Doctor Strong regarded him with a puzzled and doubting look, which almost immediately subsided into a smile that gave me great encouragement; for it was full of amiability and sweetness, and there was a simplicity in it, and indeed in his whole manner, when the studious, pondering frost upon it was got through, very attractive and hopeful to a young scholar like me. Repeating "no," and "not the least," and other short assurances to the same purport, Doctor Strong jogged on before us, at a queer, uneven pace; and we followed: Mr. Wickfield looking grave, I observed, and shaking his head to himself, without knowing that I saw him. The school-room was a pretty large hall, on the quietest side of the house, confronted by the stately stare of some half-dozen of the great urns, and commanding a peep of an old secluded garden belonging to the Doctor, where the peaches were ripening on the sunny south wall. There were two great aloes, in tubs, on the turf outside the windows; the broad hard leaves of which plant (looking as if they were made of painted tin) have ever since, by association, been symbolical to me of silence and retirement. About five-and-twenty boys were studiously engaged at their books when we went in, but they rose to give the Doctor good morning, and remained standing when they saw Mr. Wickfield and me. "A new boy, young gentlemen," said the Doctor; "Trotwood Copperfield." One Adams, who was the head-boy, then stepped out of his place and welcomed me. He looked like a young clergyman, in his white cravat, but he was very affable and good-humored; and he showed me my place, and presented me to the masters, in a gentlemanly way that would have put me at my ease, if anything could. It seemed to me so long, however, since I had been among such boys, or among any companions of my own age, except Mick Walker and Mealey Potatoes, that I felt as strange as ever I have done in all my life. I was so conscious of having passed through scenes of which they could have no knowledge, and of having acquired experiences foreign to my age, appearance, and condition, as one of them, that I half believed it was an imposture to come there as an ordinary little schoolboy. I had become, in the Murdstone and Grinby time, however short or long it may have been, so unused to the sports and games of boys, that I knew I was awkward and inexperienced in the commonest things belonging to them. Whatever I had learnt, had so slipped away from me in the sordid cares of my life from day to night, that now, when I was examined about what I knew, I knew nothing, and was put into the lowest form of the school. But, troubled as I was, by my want of boyish skill, and of book-learning too, I was made infinitely more uncomfortable by the consideration, that, in what I did know, I was much farther removed from my companions than in what I did not. My mind ran upon what they would think, if they knew of my familiar acquaintance with the King's Bench Prison? Was there anything about me which would reveal my proceedings in connexion with the Micawber family--all those pawnings, and sellings, and suppers--in spite of myself? Suppose some of the boys had seen me coming through Canterbury, wayworn and ragged, and should find me out? What would they say, who made so light of money, if they could know how I had scraped my halfpence together, for the purchase of my daily saveloy and beer, or my slices of pudding? How would it affect them, who were so innocent of London life, and London streets, to discover how knowing I was (and was ashamed to be) in some of the meanest phases of both? All this ran in my head so much, on that first day at Doctor Strong's, that I felt distrustful of my slightest look and gesture; shrunk within myself whensoever I was approached by one of my new schoolfellows; and hurried off the minute school was over, afraid of committing myself in my response to any friendly notice or advance. But there was such an influence in Mr. Wickfield's old house, that when I knocked at it, with my new school-books under my arm, I began to feel my uneasiness softening away. As I went up to my airy old room, the grave shadow of the staircase seemed to fall upon my doubts and fears, and to make the past more indistinct. I sat there, sturdily conning my books, until dinner time (we were out of school for good at three); and went down, hopeful of becoming a passable sort of boy yet. Agnes was in the drawing-room, waiting for her father, who was detained by some one in his office. She met me with her pleasant smile, and asked me how I liked the school. I told her I should like it very much, I hoped; but I was a little strange to it at first. "_You_ have never been to school," I said, "have you?" "Oh, yes! Every day." "Ah, but you mean here, at your own home?" "Papa couldn't spare me to go anywhere else," she answered, smiling and shaking her head. "His housekeeper must be in his house, you know." "He is very fond of you, I am sure," I said. She nodded "Yes," and went to the door to listen for his coming up, that she might meet him on the stairs. But, as he was not there, she came back again. "Mama has been dead ever since I was born," she said, in her quiet way. "I only know her picture, down stairs. I saw you looking at it yesterday. Did you think whose it was?" I told her yes, because it was so like herself. "Papa says so, too," said Agnes, pleased. "Hark! That's papa now!" Her bright calm face lighted up with pleasure as she went to meet him, and as they came in, hand in hand. He greeted me cordially; and told me I should certainly be happy under Doctor Strong, who was one of the gentlest of men. "There may be some, perhaps--I don't know that there are--who abuse his kindness," said Mr. Wickfield. "Never be one of those, Trotwood, in anything. He is the least suspicious of mankind; and whether that's a merit, or whether it's a blemish, it deserves consideration in all dealings with the Doctor, great or small." He spoke, I thought, as if he were weary, or dissatisfied with something; but I did not pursue the question in my mind, for dinner was just then announced, and we went down and took the same seats as before. We had scarcely done so, when Uriah Heep put in his red head and his lank hand at the door, and said: "Here's Mr. Maldon begs the favor of a word, sir." "I am but this moment quit of Mr. Maldon," said his master. "Yes, sir," returned Uriah; "but Mr. Maldon has come back, and he begs the favor of a word." As he held the door open with his hand, Uriah looked at me, and looked at Agnes, and looked at the dishes, and looked at the plates, and looked at every object in the room, I thought,--yet seemed to look at nothing; he made such an appearance all the while of keeping his red eyes dutifully on his master. "I beg your pardon. It's only to say, on reflection," observed a voice behind Uriah, as Uriah's head was pushed away, and the speaker's substituted--"pray excuse me for this intrusion--that as it seems I have no choice in the matter, the sooner I go abroad, the better. My cousin Annie did say, when we talked of it, that she liked to have her friends within reach rather than to have them banished, and the old Doctor--" "Doctor Strong, was that?" Mr. Wickfield interposed, gravely. "Doctor Strong of course," returned the other; "I call him the old Doctor--it's all the same, you know." "I _don't_ know," returned Mr. Wickfield. "Well, Doctor Strong," said the other--"Doctor Strong was of the same mind, I believed. But as it appears from the course you take with me that he has changed his mind, why there's no more to be said, except that the sooner I am off, the better. Therefore, I thought I'd come back and say, that the sooner I am off, the better. When a plunge is to be made into the water, it's of no use lingering on the bank." "There shall be as little lingering as possible, in your case, Mr. Maldon, you may depend upon it," said Mr. Wickfield. "Thank'ee," said the other. "Much obliged. I don't want to look a gift-horse in the mouth, which is not a gracious thing to do; otherwise, I dare say, my cousin Annie could easily arrange it in her own way. I suppose Annie would only have to say to the old Doctor--" "Meaning that Mrs. Strong would only have to say to her husband--do I follow you?" said Mr. Wickfield. "Quite so," returned the other, "--would only have to say, that she wanted such and such a thing to be so and so; and it would be so and so, as a matter of course." "And why as a matter of course, Mr. Maldon?" asked Mr. Wickfield, sedately eating his dinner. "Why, because Annie's a charming young girl, and the old Doctor--Doctor Strong, I mean--is not quite a charming young boy," said Mr. Jack Maldon, laughing. "No offence to anybody, Mr. Wickfield. I only mean that I suppose some compensation is fair and reasonable, in that sort of marriage." "Compensation to the lady, sir?" asked Mr. Wickfield gravely. "To the lady, sir," Mr. Jack Maldon answered, laughing. But appearing to remark that Mr. Wickfield went on with his dinner in the same sedate, immoveable manner, and that there was no hope of making him relax a muscle of his face, he added: "However, I have said what I came back to say, and, with another apology for this intrusion, I may take myself off. Of course I shall observe your directions, in considering the matter as one to be arranged between you and me solely, and not to be referred to, up at the Doctor's." "Have you dined?" asked Mr. Wickfield, with a motion of his hand towards the table. "Thank'ee. I am going to dine," said Mr. Maldon, "with my cousin Annie. Good bye!" Mr. Wickfield, without rising, looked after him thoughtfully as he went out. He was rather a shallow sort of young gentleman, I thought, with a handsome face, a rapid utterance, and a confident, bold air. And this was the first I ever saw of Mr. Jack Maldon; whom I had not expected to see so soon, when I heard the Doctor speak of him that morning. When we had dined, we went up-stairs again, where everything went on exactly as on the previous day. Agnes set the glasses and decanters in the same corner, and Mr. Wickfield sat down to drink, and drank a good deal. Agnes played the piano to him, sat by him, and worked and talked, and played some games at dominoes with me. In good time she made tea; and afterwards, when I brought down my books, looked into them, and showed me what she knew of them (which was no slight matter, though she said it was), and what was the best way to learn and understand them. I see her, with her modest, orderly, placid manner, and I hear her beautiful calm voice, as I write these words. The influence for all good, which she came to exercise over me at a later time, begins already to descend upon my breast. I love little Em'ly, and I don't love Agnes--no, not at all in that way--but I feel that there are goodness, peace, and truth, wherever Agnes is; and that the soft light of the colored window in the church, seen long ago, falls on her always, and on me when I am near her, and on every thing around. The time having come for her withdrawal for the night, and she having left us, I gave Mr. Wickfield my hand, preparatory to going away myself. But he checked me and said: "Should you like to stay with us, Trotwood, or to go elsewhere?" "To stay" I answered, quickly. "You are sure?" "If you please. If I may!" "Why, it's but a dull life that we lead here, boy, I am afraid," he said. "Not more dull for me than Agnes, sir. Not dull at all!" "Than Agnes," he repeated, walking slowly to the great chimney-piece, and leaning against it. "Than Agnes!" He had drank wine that evening (or I fancied it), until his eyes were bloodshot. Not that I could see them now, for they were cast down, and shaded by his hand; but I had noticed them a little while before. "Now I wonder," he muttered, "whether my Agnes tires of me. When should I ever tire of her! But that's different--that's quite different." He was musing--not speaking to me; so I remained quiet. "A dull old house," he said, "and a monotonous life; but I must have her near me. I must keep her near me. If the thought that I may die and leave my darling, or that my darling may die and leave me, comes, like a spectre, to distress my happiest hours, and is only to be drowned in----" He did not supply the word; but pacing slowly to the place where he had sat, and mechanically going through the action of pouring wine from the empty decanter, set it down and paced back again. "If it is miserable to bear, when she is here," he said, "what would it be, and she away? No, no, no. I cannot try that." He leaned against the chimney-piece, brooding so long that I could not decide whether to run the risk of disturbing him by going, or to remain quietly where I was, until he should come out of his reverie. At length he aroused himself, and looked about the room until his eyes encountered mine. "Stay with us, Trotwood, eh?" he said, in his usual manner, and as if he were answering something I had just said. "I am glad of it. You are company to us both. It is wholesome to have you here. Wholesome for me, wholesome for Agnes, wholesome perhaps for all of us." "I am sure it is for me, sir," I said. "I am so glad to be here." "That's a fine fellow!" said Mr. Wickfield. "As long as you are glad to be here, you shall stay here." He shook hands with me upon it, and clapped me on the back; and told me that when I had anything to do at night after Agnes had left us, or when I wished to read for my own pleasure, I was free to come down to his room, if he were there and if I desired it for company's sake, and to sit with him. I thanked him for his consideration; and, as he went down soon afterwards, and I was not tired, went down too, with a book in my hand, to avail myself, for half-an-hour, of his permission. But, seeing a light in the little round office, and immediately feeling myself attracted towards Uriah Heep, who had a sort of fascination for me, I went in there instead. I found Uriah reading a great fat book, with such demonstrative attention, that his lank fore-finger followed up every line as he read, and made clammy tracks along the page (or so I fully believed) like a snail. "You are working late to-night, Uriah," says I. "Yes, Master Copperfield," says Uriah. As I was getting on the stool opposite, to talk to him more conveniently, I observed that he had not such a thing as a smile about him, and that he could only widen his mouth and make two hard creases down his cheeks, one on each side, to stand for one. "I am not doing office-work, Master Copperfield," said Uriah. "What work, then?" I asked. "I am improving my legal knowledge, Master Copperfield," said Uriah. "I am going through Tidd's Practice. Oh, what a writer Mr. Tidd is, Master Copperfield!" My stool was such a tower of observation, that as I watched him reading on again, after this rapturous exclamation, and following up the lines with his fore-finger, I observed that his nostrils, which were thin and pointed, with sharp dints in them, had a singular and most uncomfortable way of expanding and contracting themselves--that they seemed to twinkle, instead of his eyes, which hardly ever twinkled at all. "I suppose you are quite a great lawyer?" I said, after looking at him for some time. "Me, Master Copperfield?" said Uriah. "Oh, no! I'm a very umble person." It was no fancy of mine about his hands, I observed; for he frequently ground the palms against each other as if to squeeze them dry and warm, besides often wiping them, in a stealthy way, on his pocket-handkerchief. "I am well aware that I am the umblest person going," said Uriah Heep, modestly; "let the other be where he may. My mother is likewise a very umble person. We live in a numble abode, Master Copperfield, but have much to be thankful for. My father's former calling was umble. He was a sexton." "What is he now?" I asked. "He is a partaker of glory at present, Master Copperfield," said Uriah Heep. "But we have much to be thankful for. How much have I to be thankful for, in living with Mr. Wickfield!" I asked Uriah if he had been with Mr. Wickfield long? "I have been with him, going on four year, Master Copperfield," said Uriah; shutting up his book, after carefully marking the place where he had left off. "Since a year after my father's death. How much have I to be thankful for, in that! How much have I to be thankful for, in Mr. Wickfield's kind intention to give me my articles, which would otherwise not lay within the umble means of mother and self!" "Then, when your articled time is over, you'll be a regular lawyer, I suppose?" said I. "With the blessing of Providence, Master Copperfield," returned Uriah. "Perhaps you'll be a partner in Mr. Wickfield's business, one of these days," I said, to make myself agreeable; "and it will be Wickfield and Heep, or Heep late Wickfield." "Oh, no, Master Copperfield," returned Uriah, shaking his head, "I am much too umble for that!" He certainly did look uncommonly like the carved face on the beam outside my window, as he sat, in his humility, eyeing me sideways, with his mouth widened, and the creases in his cheeks. "Mr. Wickfield is a most excellent man, Master Copperfield," said Uriah. "If you have known him long, you know it, I am sure, much better than I can inform you." I replied that I was certain he was; but that I had not known him long myself, though he was a friend of my aunt's. "Oh, indeed, Master Copperfield," said Uriah. "Your aunt is a sweet lady, Master Copperfield!" He had a way of writhing when he wanted to express enthusiasm, which was very ugly; and which diverted my attention from the compliment he had paid my relation, to the snaky twistings of his throat and body. "A sweet lady, Master Copperfield!" said Uriah Heep. "She has a great admiration for Miss Agnes, Master Copperfield, I believe?" I said "Yes," boldly; not that I knew anything about it, Heaven forgive me! "I hope you have, too, Master Copperfield," said Uriah. "But I am sure you must have." "Everybody must have," I returned. "Oh, thank you, Master Copperfield," said Uriah Heep, "for that remark! It is so true! Umble as I am, I know it is _so_ true! Oh, thank you, Master Copperfield!" He writhed himself quite off his stool in the excitement of his feelings, and, being off, began to make arrangements for going home. "Mother will be expecting me," he said, referring to a pale, inexpressive-faced watch in his pocket, "and getting uneasy; for though we are very umble, Master Copperfield, we are much attached to one another. If you would come and see us, any afternoon, and take a cup of tea at our lowly dwelling, mother would be as proud of your company as I should be." I said I should be glad to come. "Thank you, Master Copperfield," returned Uriah, putting his book away upon a shelf.--"I suppose you stop here, some time, Master Copperfield?" I said I was going to be brought up there, I believed, as long as I remained at school. "Oh, indeed!" exclaimed Uriah. "I should think _you_ would come into the business at last, Master Copperfield!" I protested that I had no views of that sort, and that no such scheme was entertained in my behalf by anybody; but Uriah insisted on blandly replying to all my assurances, "Oh, yes, Master Copperfield, I should think you would, indeed!" and, "Oh, indeed, Master Copperfield, I should think you would, certainly!" over and over again. Being, at last, ready to leave the office for the night, he asked me if it would suit my convenience to have the light put out; and on my answering "Yes," instantly extinguished it. After shaking hands with me--his hand felt like a fish, in the dark--he opened the door into the street a very little, and crept out, and shut it, leaving me to grope my way back into the house: which cost me some trouble and a fall over his stool. This was the proximate cause, I suppose, of my dreaming about him, for what appeared to me to be half the night; and dreaming, among other things, that he had launched Mr. Peggotty's house on a piratical expedition, with a black flag at the mast-head, bearing the inscription "Tidd's Practice," under which diabolical ensign he was carrying me and little Em'ly to the Spanish Main, to be drowned. I got a little the better of my uneasiness when I went to school next day, and a good deal the better next day, and so shook it off by degrees that in less than a fortnight I was quite at home, and happy, among my new companions. I was awkward enough in their games, and backward enough in their studies; but custom would improve me in the first respect, I hoped, and hard work in the second. Accordingly, I went to work very hard, both in play and in earnest, and gained great commendation. And, in a very little while, the Murdstone and Grinby life became so strange to me that I hardly believed in it, while my present life grew so familiar, that I seemed to have been leading it a long time. Doctor Strong's was an excellent school; as different from Mr. Creakle's as good is from evil. It was very gravely and decorously ordered, and on a sound system; with an appeal, in everything, to the honour and good faith of the boys, and an avowed intention to rely on their possession of those qualities unless they proved themselves unworthy of it, which worked wonders. We all felt that we had a part in the management of the place, and in sustaining its character and dignity. Hence, we soon became warmly attached to it--I am sure I did for one, and I never knew, in all my time, of any other boy being otherwise--and learnt with a good will, desiring to do it credit. We had noble games out of hours, and plenty of liberty; but even then, as I remember, we were well spoken of in the town, and rarely did any disgrace, by our appearance or manner, to the reputation of Doctor Strong and Doctor Strong's boys. Some of the higher scholars boarded in the Doctor's house, and through them I learnt, at second hand, some particulars of the Doctor's history--as how he had not yet been married twelve months to the beautiful young lady I had seen in the study, whom he had married for love; as she had not a sixpence, and had a world of poor relations (so our fellows said) ready to swarm the Doctor out of house and home. Also, how the Doctor's cogitating manner was attributable to his being always engaged in looking out for Greek roots; which, in my innocence and ignorance, I supposed to be a botanical furor on the Doctor's part, especially as he always looked at the ground when he walked about--until I understood that they were roots of words, with a view to a new Dictionary, which he had in contemplation. Adams, our head-boy, who had a turn for mathematics, had made a calculation, I was informed, of the time this Dictionary would take in completing, on the Doctor's plan, and at the Doctor's rate of going. He considered that it might be done in one thousand six hundred and forty-nine years, counting from the Doctor's last, or sixty-second, birthday. But the Doctor himself was the idol of the whole school: and it must have been a badly composed school if he had been anything else, for he was the kindest of men; with a simple faith in him that might have touched the stone hearts of the very urns upon the wall. As he walked up and down that part of the court-yard which was at the side of the house, with the stray rooks and jackdaws looking after him with their heads cocked slyly, as if they knew how much more knowing they were in worldly affairs than he, if any sort of vagabond could only get near enough to his creaking shoes to attract his attention to one sentence of a tale of distress, that vagabond was made for the next two days. It was so notorious in the house, that the masters and head-boys took pains to cut these marauders off at angles, and to get out of windows, and turn them out of the court-yard, before they could make the Doctor aware of their presence; which was sometimes happily effected within a few yards of him, without his knowing anything of the matter, as he jogged to and fro. Outside his own domain, and unprotected, he was a very sheep for the shearers. He would have taken his gaiters off his legs, to give away. In fact, there was a story current among us (I have no idea, and never had, on what authority, but I have believed it for so many years that I feel quite certain it is true), that on a frosty day, one winter time, he actually did bestow his gaiters on a beggar-woman, who occasioned some scandal in the neighbourhood by exhibiting a fine infant from door to door, wrapped in those garments, which were universally recognised, being as well known in the vicinity as the Cathedral. The legend added that the only person who did not identify them was the Doctor himself, who, when they were shortly afterwards displayed at the door of a little second-hand shop of no very good repute, where such things were taken in exchange for gin, was more than once observed to handle them approvingly, as if admiring some curious novelty in the pattern, and considering them an improvement on his own. It was very pleasant to see the Doctor with his pretty young wife. He had a fatherly, benignant way of showing his fondness for her, which seemed in itself to express a good man. I often saw them walking in the garden where the peaches were, and I sometimes had a nearer observation of them in the study or the parlor. She appeared to me to take great care of the Doctor, and to like him very much, though I never thought her vitally interested in the Dictionary: some cumbrous fragments of which work the Doctor always carried in his pockets, and in the lining of his hat, and generally seemed to be expounding to her as they walked about. I saw a good deal of Mrs. Strong, both because she had taken a liking for me on the morning of my introduction to the Doctor, and was always afterwards kind to me, and interested in me; and because she was very fond of Agnes, and was often backwards and forwards at our house. There was a curious constraint between her and Mr. Wickfield, I thought (of whom she seemed to be afraid), that never wore off. When she came there of an evening, she always shrunk from accepting his escort home, and ran away with me instead. And sometimes, as we were running gaily across the Cathedral yard together, expecting to meet nobody, we would meet Mr. Jack Maldon, who was always surprised to see us. Mrs. Strong's mama was a lady I took great delight in. Her name was Mrs. Markleham; but our boys used to call her the Old Soldier, on account of her generalship, and the skill with which she marshalled great forces of relations against the Doctor. She was a little, sharp-eyed woman, who used to wear, when she was dressed, one unchangeable cap, ornamented with some artificial flowers, and two artificial butterflies supposed to be hovering above the flowers. There was a superstition among us that this cap had come from France, and could only originate in the workmanship of that ingenious nation: but all I certainly know about it, is, that it always made its appearance of an evening, wheresoever Mrs. Markleham made _her_ appearance; that it was carried about to friendly meetings in a Hindoo basket; that the butterflies had the gift of trembling constantly; and that they improved the shining hours at Doctor Strong's expense, like busy bees. I observed the Old Soldier--not to adopt the name disrespectfully--to pretty good advantage, on a night which is made memorable to me by something else I shall relate. It was the night of a little party at the Doctor's, which was given on the occasion of Mr. Jack Maldon's departure for India, whither he was going as a cadet, or something of that kind: Mr. Wickfield having at length arranged the business. It happened to be the Doctor's birthday, too. We had had a holiday, had made presents to him in the morning, had made a speech to him through the head-boy, and had cheered him until we were hoarse, and until he had shed tears. And now, in the evening, Mr. Wickfield, Agnes, and I, went to have tea with him in his private capacity. Mr. Jack Maldon was there, before us. Mrs. Strong, dressed in white, with cherry-colored ribbons, was playing the piano, when we went in; and he was leaning over her to turn the leaves. The clear red and white of her complexion was not so blooming and flower-like as usual, I thought, when she turned round; but she looked very pretty, wonderfully pretty. "I have forgotten, Doctor," said Mrs. Strong's mama, when we were seated, "to pay you the compliments of the day--though they are, as you may suppose, very far from being mere compliments in my case. Allow me to wish you many happy returns." "I thank you, ma'am," replied the Doctor. "Many, many, many, happy returns," said the Old Soldier. "Not only for your own sake, but for Annie's, and John Maldon's, and many other peoples'. It seems but yesterday to me, John, when you were a little creature, a head shorter than Master Copperfield, making baby love to Annie behind the gooseberry bushes in the back-garden." "My dear mama," said Mrs. Strong, "never mind that now." "Annie, don't be absurd," returned her mother. "If you are to blush to hear of such things, now you are an old married woman, when are you not to blush to hear of them?" "Old?" exclaimed Mr. Jack Maldon. "Annie? Come!" "Yes, John," returned the Soldier. "Virtually, an old married woman. Although not old by years--for when did you ever hear me say, or who has ever heard me say, that a girl of twenty was old by years!--your cousin is the wife of the Doctor, and, as such, what I have described her. It is well for you, John, that your cousin is the wife of the Doctor. You have found in him an influential and kind friend, who will be kinder yet, I venture to predict, if you deserve it. I have no false pride. I never hesitate to admit, frankly, that there are some members of our family who want a friend. You were one yourself, before your cousin's influence raised up one for you." The Doctor, in the goodness of his heart, waved his hand as if to make light of it, and save Mr. Jack Maldon from any further reminder. But Mrs. Markleham changed her chair for one next the Doctor's, and putting her fan on his coat-sleeve, said: "No, really, my dear Doctor, you must excuse me if I appear to dwell on this rather, because I feel so very strongly. I call it quite my monomania, it is such a subject of mine. You are a blessing to us. You really are a Boon, you know." "Nonsense, nonsense," said the Doctor. "No, no, I beg your pardon," retorted the Old Soldier. "With nobody present, but our dear and confidential friend Mr. Wickfield, I cannot consent to be put down. I shall begin to assert the privileges of a mother-in-law, if you go on like that, and scold you. I am perfectly honest and outspoken. What I am saying, is what I said when you first overpowered me with surprise--you remember how surprised I was?--by proposing for Annie. Not that there was anything so very much out of the way, in the mere act of the proposal--it would be ridiculous to say that!--but because, you having known her poor father, and having known her from a baby six months old, I hadn't thought of you in such a light at all, or indeed as a marrying man in any way,--simply that, you know." "Aye, aye," returned the Doctor, good-humoredly. "Never mind." "But I _do_ mind," said the Old Soldier, laying her fan upon his lips. "I mind very much. I recal these things that I may be contradicted if I am wrong. Well! Then I spoke to Annie, and I told her what had happened. I said, 'My dear, here's Doctor Strong has positively been and made you the subject of a handsome declaration and an offer.' Did I press it in the least? No. I said, 'Now, Annie, tell me the truth this moment; is your heart free?' 'Mama,' she said, crying, 'I am extremely young'--which was perfectly true--'and I hardly know if I have a heart at all.' 'Then, my dear,' I said, 'you may rely upon it, it's free. At all events, my love,' said I, 'Doctor Strong is in an agitated state of mind, and must be answered. He cannot be kept in his present state of suspense.' 'Mama,' said Annie, still crying, 'would he be unhappy without me? If he would, I honor and respect him so much, that I think I will have him.' So it was settled. And then, and not till then, I said to Annie, 'Annie, Doctor Strong will not only be your husband, but he will represent your late father: he will represent the head of our family, he will represent the wisdom and station, and I may say the means, of our family; and will be, in short, a Boon to it.' I used the word at the time, and I have used it again, to-day. If I have any merit, it is consistency." The daughter had sat quite silent and still during this speech, with her eyes fixed on the ground; her cousin standing near her, and looking on the ground too. She now said very softly, in a trembling voice: "Mama, I hope you have finished?" "No, my dear Annie," returned the Soldier, "I have not quite finished. Since you ask me, my love, I reply that I have _not_. I complain that you really are a little unnatural towards your own family; and, as it is of no use complaining to you, I mean to complain to your husband. Now, my dear Doctor, do look at that silly wife of yours." As the Doctor turned his kind face, with its smile of simplicity and gentleness, towards her, she drooped her head more. I noticed that Mr. Wickfield looked at her steadily. "When I happened to say to that naughty thing, the other day," pursued her mother, shaking her head and her fan at her, playfully, "that there was a family circumstance she might mention to you--indeed, I think, was bound to mention--she said, that to mention it was to ask a favor; and that, as you were too generous, and as for her to ask was always to have, she wouldn't." "Annie, my dear," said the Doctor. "That was wrong. It robbed me of a pleasure." "Almost the very words I said to her!" exclaimed her mother. "Now really, another time, when I know what she would tell you but for this reason, and won't, I have a great mind, my dear Doctor, to tell you myself." "I shall be glad if you will," returned the Doctor. "Shall I?" "Certainly." "Well, then, I will!" said the Old Soldier. "That's a bargain." And having, I suppose, carried her point, she tapped the Doctor's hand several times with her fan (which she kissed first), and returned triumphantly to her former station. Some more company coming in, among whom were the two masters and Adams, the talk became general; and it naturally turned on Mr. Jack Maldon, and his voyage, and the country he was going to, and his various plans and prospects. He was to leave that night, after supper, in a postchaise, for Gravesend; where the ship, in which he was to make the voyage, lay; and was to be gone--unless he came home on leave, or for his health--I don't know how many years. I recollect it was settled by general consent that India was quite a misrepresented country, and had nothing objectionable in it, but a tiger or two, and a little heat in the warm part of the day. For my own part, I looked on Mr. Jack Maldon as a modern Sinbad, and pictured him the bosom friend of all the Rajahs in the east, sitting under canopies, smoking curly golden pipes--a mile long, if they could be straightened out. Mrs. Strong was a very pretty singer: as I knew, who often heard her singing by herself. But, whether she was afraid of singing before people, or was out of voice that evening, it was certain that she couldn't sing at all. She tried a duet, once, with her cousin Maldon, but could not so much as begin; and afterwards, when she tried to sing by herself, although she began sweetly, her voice died away on a sudden, and left her quite distressed, with her head hanging down over the keys. The good Doctor said she was nervous, and, to relieve her, proposed a round game at cards; of which he knew as much as of the art of playing the trombone. But I remarked that the Old Soldier took him into custody directly, for her partner; and instructed him, as the first preliminary of initiation, to give her all the silver he had in his pocket. We had a merry game, not made the less merry by the Doctor's mistakes, of which he committed an innumerable quantity, in spite of the watchfulness of the butterflies, and to their great aggravation. Mrs. Strong had declined to play, on the ground of not feeling very well; and her cousin Maldon had excused himself because he had some packing to do. When he had done it, however, he returned, and they sat together, talking, on the sofa. From time to time she came and looked over the Doctor's hand, and told him what to play. She was very pale, as she bent over him, and I thought her finger trembled as she pointed out the cards; but the Doctor was quite happy in her attention, and took no notice of this, if it were so. At supper, we were hardly so gay. Every one appeared to feel that a parting of that sort was an awkward thing, and that the nearer it approached, the more awkward it was. Mr. Jack Maldon tried to be very talkative, but was not at his ease, and made matters worse. And they were not improved, as it appeared to me, by the Old Soldier: who continually recalled passages of Mr. Jack Maldon's youth. The Doctor, however, who felt, I am sure, that he was making everybody happy, was well pleased, and had no suspicion, but that we were all at the utmost height of enjoyment. "Annie, my dear," said he, looking at his watch, and filling his glass, "it is past your cousin Jack's time, and we must not detain him, since time and tide--both concerned in this case--wait for no man. Mr. Jack Maldon, you have a long voyage, and a strange country, before you; but many men have had both, and many men will have both, to the end of time. The winds you are going to tempt, have wafted thousands upon thousands to fortune, and brought thousands upon thousands happily back." "It's an affecting thing," said Mrs. Markleham--"however it's viewed, it's affecting--to see a fine young man one has known from an infant, going away to the other end of the world, leaving all he knows behind, and not knowing what's before him. A young man really well deserves constant support and patronage," looking at the Doctor, "who makes such sacrifices." "Time will go fast with you, Mr. Jack Maldon," pursued the Doctor, "and fast with all of us. Some of us can hardly expect, perhaps, in the natural course of things, to greet you on your return. The next best thing is to hope to do it, and that's my case. I shall not weary you with good advice. You have long had a good model before you, in your cousin Annie. Imitate her virtues as nearly as you can." Mrs. Markleham fanned herself, and shook her head. "Farewell, Mr. Jack," said the Doctor, standing up; on which we all stood up. "A prosperous voyage out, a thriving career abroad, and a happy return home!" We all drank the toast, and all shook hands with Mr. Jack Maldon; after which he hastily took leave of the ladies who were there, and hurried to the door, where he was received, as he got into the chaise, with a tremendous broadside of cheers discharged by our boys, who had assembled on the lawn for the purpose. Running in among them to swell the ranks, I was very near the chaise when it rolled away; and I had a lively impression made upon me, in the midst of the noise and dust, of having seen Mr. Jack Maldon rattle past with an agitated face, and something cherry-colored in his hand. After another broadside for the Doctor, and another for the Doctor's wife, the boys dispersed, and I went back into the house, where I found the guests all standing in a group about the Doctor, discussing how Mr. Jack Maldon had gone away, and how he had borne it, and how he had felt it, and all the rest of it. In the midst of these remarks, Mrs. Markleham cried: "Where's Annie!" No Annie was there; and when they called to her, no Annie replied. But all pressing out of the room, in a crowd, to see what was the matter, we found her lying on the hall floor. There was great alarm at first, until it was found that she was in a swoon, and that the swoon was yielding to the usual means of recovery; when the Doctor, who had lifted her head upon his knee, put her curls aside with his hand, and said, looking around: "Poor Annie! She's so faithful and tender-hearted! It's the parting from her old playfellow and friend--her favorite cousin--that has done this. Ah! It's a pity! I am very sorry!" When she opened her eyes, and saw where she was, and that we were all standing about her, she arose with assistance: turning her head, as she did so, to lay it on the Doctor's shoulder--or to hide it, I don't know which. We went into the drawing-room, to leave her with the Doctor and her mother; but she said, it seemed, that she was better than she had been since morning, and that she would rather be brought among us; so they brought her in, looking very white and weak, I thought, and sat her on a sofa. "Annie, my dear," said her mother, doing something to her dress. "See here! You have lost a bow. Will anybody be so good as find a ribbon; a cherry-colored ribbon?" It was the one she had worn at her bosom. We all looked for it--I myself looked everywhere, I am certain--but nobody could find it. "Do you recollect where you had it last, Annie?" said her mother. I wondered how I could have thought she looked white, or anything but burning red, when she answered that she had had it safe, a little while ago, she thought, but it was not worth looking for. Nevertheless, it was looked for again, and still not found. She entreated that there might be no more searching; but it was still sought for, in a desultory way, until she was quite well, and the company took their departure. We walked very slowly home, Mr. Wickfield, Agnes, and I--Agnes and I admiring the moonlight, and Mr. Wickfield scarcely raising his eyes from the ground. When we, at last, reached our own door, Agnes discovered that she had left her little reticule behind. Delighted to be of any service to her, I ran back to fetch it. I went into the supper-room where it had been left, which was deserted and dark. But a door of communication between that and the Doctor's study, where there was a light, being open, I passed on there, to say what I wanted, and to get a candle. The Doctor was sitting in his easy chair by the fireside, and his young wife was on a stool at his feet. The Doctor, with a complacent smile, was reading aloud some manuscript explanation or statement of a theory out of that interminable Dictionary, and she was looking up at him. But, with such a face as I never saw. It was so beautiful in its form, it was so ashy pale, it was so fixed in its abstraction, it was so full of a wild, sleep-walking, dreamy horror of I don't know what. The eyes were wide open, and her brown hair fell in two rich clusters on her shoulders, and on her white dress, disordered by the want of the lost ribbon. Distinctly as I recollect her look, I cannot say of what it was expressive. I cannot even say of what it is expressive to me now, rising again before my older judgment. Penitence, humiliation, shame, pride, love, and trustfulness--I see them all; and in them all, I see that horror of I don't know what. [Illustration: I return to the Doctor's after the party.] My entrance, and my saying what I wanted, roused her. It disturbed the Doctor too, for when I went back to replace the candle I had taken from the table, he was patting her head, in his fatherly way, and saying he was a merciless drone to let her tempt him into reading on; and he would have her go to bed. But she asked him, in a rapid, urgent manner, to let her stay--to let her feel assured (I heard her murmur some broken words to this effect) that she was in his confidence that night. And, as she turned again towards him, after glancing at me as I left the room and went out at the door, I saw her cross her hands upon his knee, and look up at him with the same face, something quieted, as he resumed his reading. It made a great impression on me, and I remembered it a long time afterwards; as I shall have occasion to narrate when the time comes. CHAPTER XVII. SOMEBODY TURNS UP. It has not occurred to me to mention Peggotty since I ran away; but, of course, I wrote her a letter almost as soon as I was housed at Dover, and another, and a longer letter, containing all particulars fully related, when my aunt took me formally under her protection. On my being settled at Doctor Strong's I wrote to her again, detailing my happy condition and prospects. I never could have derived anything like the pleasure from spending the money Mr. Dick had given me, that I felt in sending a gold half-guinea to Peggotty, per post, inclosed in this last letter, to discharge the sum I had borrowed of her: in which epistle, not before, I mentioned about the young man with the donkey-cart. To these communications Peggotty replied as promptly, if not as concisely, as a merchant's clerk. Her utmost powers of expression (which were certainly not great in ink) were exhausted in the attempt to write what she felt on the subject of my journey. Four sides of incoherent and interjectional beginnings of sentences, that had no end, except blots, were inadequate to afford her any relief. But the blots were more expressive to me than the best composition; for they showed me that Peggotty had been crying all over the paper, and what could I have desired more? I made out, without much difficulty, that she could not take quite kindly to my aunt yet. The notice was too short after so long a prepossession the other way. We never knew a person, she wrote; but to think that Miss Betsey should seem to be so different from what she had been thought to be, was a Moral!--that was her word. She was evidently still afraid of Miss Betsey, for she sent her grateful duty to her but timidly; and she was evidently afraid of me, too, and entertained the probability of my running away again soon: if I might judge from the repeated hints she threw out, that the coach-fare to Yarmouth was always to be had of her for the asking. She gave me one piece of intelligence which affected me very much, namely, that there had been a sale of the furniture at our old home, and that Mr. and Miss Murdstone were gone away, and the house was shut up, to be let or sold. God knows I had had no part in it while they remained there, but it pained me to think of the dear old place as altogether abandoned; of the weeds growing tall in the garden, and the fallen leaves lying thick and wet upon the paths. I imagined how the winds of winter would howl round it, how the cold rain would beat upon the window-glass, how the moon would make ghosts on the walls of the empty rooms, watching their solitude all night. I thought afresh of the grave in the churchyard, underneath the tree: and it seemed as if the house were dead too, now, and all connected with my father and mother were faded away. There was no other news in Peggotty's letters. Mr. Barkis was an excellent husband, she said, though still a little near; but we all had our faults, and she had plenty (though I am sure I don't know what they were); and he sent his duty, and my little bedroom was always ready for me. Mr. Peggotty was well, and Ham was well, and Mrs. Gummidge was but poorly, and little Em'ly wouldn't send her love, but said that Peggotty might send it, if she liked. All this intelligence I dutifully imparted to my aunt, only reserving to myself the mention of little Em'ly, to whom I instinctively felt that she would not very tenderly incline. While I was yet new at Doctor Strong's, she made several excursions over to Canterbury to see me, and always at unseasonable hours: with the view, I suppose, of taking me by surprise. But, finding me well employed, and bearing a good character, and hearing on all hands that I rose fast in the school, she soon discontinued these visits. I saw her on a Saturday, every third or fourth week, when I went over to Dover for a treat; and I saw Mr. Dick every alternate Wednesday, when he arrived by stage-coach at noon, to stay until next morning. On these occasions Mr. Dick never travelled without a leathern writing-desk, containing a supply of stationery and the Memorial; in relation to which document he had a notion that time was beginning to press now, and that it really must be got out of hand. Mr. Dick was very partial to gingerbread. To render his visits the more agreeable, my aunt had instructed me to open a credit for him at a cake-shop, which was hampered with the stipulation that he should not be served with more than one shilling's-worth in the course of any one day. This, and the reference of all his little bills at the county inn where he slept, to my aunt, before they were paid, induced me to suspect that he was only allowed to rattle his money, and not to spend it. I found on further investigation that this was so, or at least there was an agreement between him and my aunt that he should account to her for all his disbursements. As he had no idea of deceiving her, and always desired to please her, he was thus made chary of launching into expense. On this point, as well as on all other possible points, Mr. Dick was convinced that my aunt was the wisest and most wonderful of women; as he repeatedly told me with infinite secresy, and always in a whisper. "Trotwood," said Mr. Dick, with an air of mystery, after imparting this confidence to me, one Wednesday; "who's the man that hides near our house and frightens her." "Frightens my aunt, sir?" Mr. Dick nodded. "I thought nothing would have frightened her," he said, "for she's--" here he whispered softly, "don't mention it--the wisest and most wonderful of women." Having said which, he drew back, to observe the effect which this description of her made upon me. "The first time he came," said Mr. Dick, "was--let me see--sixteen hundred and forty-nine was the date of King Charles's execution. I think you said sixteen hundred and forty-nine?" "Yes, sir." "I don't know how it can be," said Mr. Dick, sorely puzzled and shaking his head. "I don't think I am as old as that." "Was it in that year that the man appeared, sir?" I asked. "Why, really," said Mr. Dick, "I don't see how it can have been in that year, Trotwood. Did you get that date out of history?" "Yes, sir." "I suppose history never lies, does it?" said Mr. Dick, with a gleam of hope. "Oh dear, no, sir!" I replied, most decisively. I was ingenuous and young, and I thought so. "I can't make it out," said Mr. Dick, shaking his head. "There's something wrong, somewhere. However, it was very soon after the mistake was made of putting some of the trouble out of King Charles's head into my head, that the man first came. I was walking out with Miss Trotwood after tea, just at dark, and there he was, close to our house." "Walking about?" I inquired. "Walking about?" repeated Mr. Dick. "Let me see. I must recollect a bit. N--no, no; he was not walking about." I asked, as the shortest way to get at it, what he _was_ doing. "Well, he wasn't there at all," said Mr. Dick, "until he came up behind her, and whispered. Then she turned round and fainted, and I stood still and looked at him, and he walked away; but that he should have been hiding ever since (in the ground or somewhere), is the most extraordinary thing!" "_Has_ he been hiding ever since?" I asked. "To be sure he has," retorted Mr. Dick, nodding his head gravely. "Never came out, till last night! We were walking last night, and he came up behind her again, and I knew him again." "And did he frighten my aunt again?" "All of a shiver," said Mr. Dick, counterfeiting that affection and making his teeth chatter. "Held by the palings. Cried. But Trotwood, come here," getting me close to him, that he might whisper very softly; "why did she give him money, boy, in the moonlight?" "He was a beggar, perhaps." Mr. Dick shook his head, as utterly renouncing the suggestion; and having replied a great many times, and with great confidence, "No beggar, no beggar, no beggar, sir!" went on to say, that from his window he had afterwards, and late at night, seen my aunt give this person money outside the garden rails in the moonlight, who then slunk away--into the ground again, as he thought probable--and was seen no more: while my aunt came hurriedly and secretly back into the house, and had, even that morning, been quite different from her usual self; which preyed on Mr. Dick's mind. I had not the least belief, in the outset of this story, that the unknown was anything but a delusion of Mr. Dick's, and one of the line of that ill-fated Prince who occasioned him so much difficulty; but after some reflection I began to entertain the question whether an attempt, or threat of an attempt, might have been twice made to take poor Mr. Dick himself from under my aunt's protection, and whether my aunt, the strength of whose kind feeling towards him I knew from herself, might have been induced to pay a price for his peace and quiet. As I was already much attached to Mr. Dick, and very solicitous for his welfare, my fears favored this supposition; and for a long time his Wednesday hardly ever came round, without my entertaining a misgiving that he would not be on the coach-box as usual. There he always appeared, however, grey-headed, laughing, and happy; and he never had anything more to tell of the man who could frighten my aunt. These Wednesdays were the happiest days of Mr. Dick's life; they were far from being the least happy of mine. He soon became known to every boy in the school; and though he never took an active part in any game but kite-flying, was as deeply interested in all our sports as any one among us. How often have I seen him, intent upon a match at marbles or pegtop, looking on with a face of unutterable interest, and hardly breathing at the critical times! How often, at hare and hounds, have I seen him mounted on a little knoll, cheering the whole field on to action, and waving his hat above his grey head, oblivious of King Charles the Martyr's head, and all belonging to it! How many a summer-hour have I known to be but blissful minutes to him in the cricket-field! How many winter days have I seen him, standing blue-nosed in the snow and east wind, looking at the boys going down the long slide, and clapping his worsted gloves in rapture! He was an universal favorite, and his ingenuity in little things was transcendant. He could cut oranges into such devices as none of us had an idea of. He could make a boat out of anything, from a skewer upwards. He could turn crampbones into chessmen; fashion Roman chariots from old court cards; make spoked wheels out of cotton reels, and birdcages of old wire. But he was greatest of all, perhaps, in the articles of string and straw; with which we were all persuaded he could do anything that could be done by hands. Mr. Dick's renown was not long confined to us. After a few Wednesdays, Doctor Strong himself made some inquiries of me about him, and I told him all my aunt had told me; which interested the Doctor so much that he requested, on the occasion of his next visit, to be presented to him. This ceremony I performed; and the Doctor begging Mr. Dick, whensoever he should not find me at the coach-office, to come on there, and rest himself until our morning's work was over, it soon passed into a custom for Mr. Dick to come on as a matter of course, and, if we were a little late, as often happened on a Wednesday, to walk about the courtyard, waiting for me. Here he made the acquaintance of the Doctor's beautiful young wife (paler than formerly, all this time; more rarely seen by me or any one, I think; and not so gay, but not less beautiful), and so became more and more familiar by degrees, until, at last, he would come into the school and wait. He always sat in a particular corner, on a particular stool, which was called "Dick," after him; here he would sit, with his grey head bent forward, attentively listening to whatever might be going on, with a profound veneration for the learning he had never been able to acquire. This veneration Mr. Dick extended to the Doctor, whom he thought the most subtle and accomplished philosopher of any age. It was long before Mr. Dick ever spoke to him otherwise than bare-headed; and even when he and the Doctor had struck up quite a friendship, and would walk together by the hour, on that side of the courtyard which was known among us as The Doctor's Walk, Mr. Dick would pull off his hat at intervals to show his respect for wisdom and knowledge. How it ever came about, that the Doctor began to read out scraps of the famous Dictionary, in these walks, I never knew; perhaps he felt it all the same, at first, as reading to himself. However, it passed into a custom too; and Mr. Dick, listening with a face shining with pride and pleasure, in his heart of hearts believed the Dictionary to be the most delightful book in the world. As I think of them going up and down before those school-room windows--the Doctor reading with his complacent smile, an occasional flourish of the manuscript, or grave motion of his head; and Mr. Dick listening, enchained by interest, with his poor wits calmly wandering God knows where, upon the wings of hard words--I think of it as one of the pleasantest things, in a quiet way, that I have ever seen. I feel as if they might go walking to and fro for ever, and the world might somehow be the better for it--as if a thousand things it makes a noise about, were not one-half so good for it, or me. Agnes was one of Mr. Dick's friends, very soon; and in often coming to the house, he made acquaintance with Uriah. The friendship between himself and me increased continually, and it was maintained on this odd footing: that, while Mr. Dick came professedly to look after me as my guardian, he always consulted me in any little matter of doubt that arose, and invariably guided himself by my advice; not only having a high respect for my native sagacity, but considering that I inherited a good deal from my aunt. One Thursday morning, when I was about to walk with Mr. Dick from the hotel to the coach-office before going back to school (for we had an hour's school before breakfast), I met Uriah in the street, who reminded me of the promise I had made to take tea with himself and his mother: adding, with a writhe, "But I didn't expect you to keep it, Master Copperfield, we're so very umble." I really had not yet been able to make up my mind whether I liked Uriah or detested him; and I was very doubtful about it still, as I stood looking him in the face in the street. But I felt it quite an affront to be supposed proud, and said I only wanted to be asked. "Oh, if that's all, Master Copperfield," said Uriah, "and it really isn't our umbleness that prevents you, will you come this evening? But if it is our umbleness, I hope you won't mind owning to it, Master Copperfield; for we are well aware of our condition." I said I would mention it to Mr. Wickfield, and if he approved, as I had no doubt he would, I would come with pleasure. So, at six o'clock that evening, which was one of the early office evenings, I announced myself as ready, to Uriah. "Mother will be proud indeed," he said, as we walked away together. "Or she would be proud, if it wasn't sinful, Master Copperfield." "Yet you didn't mind supposing _I_ was proud this morning," I returned. "Oh dear no, Master Copperfield!" returned Uriah. "Oh, believe me, no! Such a thought never came into my head! I shouldn't have deemed it at all proud if you had thought _us_ too umble for you. Because we are so very umble." "Have you been studying much law lately?" I asked, to change the subject. "Oh, Master Copperfield," he said, with an air of self-denial, "my reading is hardly to be called study. I have passed an hour or two in the evening, sometimes, with Mr. Tidd." "Rather hard, I suppose?" said I. "He is hard to _me_ sometimes," returned Uriah. "But I don't know what he might be, to a gifted person." After beating a little tune on his chin as we walked on, with the two fore-fingers of his skeleton right hand, he added: "There are expressions, you see, Master Copperfield--Latin words and terms--in Mr. Tidd, that are trying to a reader of my umble attainments." "Would you like to be taught Latin?" I said, briskly. "I will teach it you with pleasure, as I learn it." "Oh, thank you, Master Copperfield," he answered, shaking his head. "I am sure it's very kind of you to make the offer, but I am much too umble to accept it." "What nonsense, Uriah!" "Oh, indeed you must excuse me, Master Copperfield! I am greatly obliged, and I should like it of all things, I assure you; but I am far too umble. There are people enough to tread upon me in my lowly state, without my doing outrage to their feelings by possessing learning. Learning ain't for me. A person like myself had better not aspire. If he is to get on in life, he must get on umbly, Master Copperfield." I never saw his mouth so wide, or the creases in his cheeks so deep, as when he delivered himself of these sentiments: shaking his head all the time, and writhing modestly. "I think you are wrong, Uriah," I said. "I dare say there are several things that I could teach you, if you would like to learn them." "Oh, I don't doubt that, Master Copperfield," he answered; "not in the least. But not being umble yourself, you don't judge well, perhaps, for them that are. I won't provoke my betters with knowledge, thank you. I'm much too umble. Here is my umble dwelling, Master Copperfield!" We entered a low, old-fashioned room, walked straight into from the street, and found there, Mrs. Heep, who was the dead image of Uriah, only short. She received me with the utmost humility, and apologised to me for giving her son a kiss, observing that, lowly as they were, they had their natural affections, which they hoped would give no offence to any one. It was a perfectly decent room, half parlor and half kitchen, but not at all a snug room. The tea-things were set upon the table, and the kettle was boiling on the hob. There was a chest of drawers with an escrutoire top, for Uriah to read or write at of an evening; there was Uriah's blue bag lying down and vomiting papers; there was a company of Uriah's books, commanded by Mr. Tidd; there was a corner cupboard; and there were the usual articles of furniture. I don't remember that any individual object had a bare, pinched, spare look; but I do remember that the whole place had. It was perhaps a part of Mrs. Heep's humility, that she still wore weeds. Notwithstanding the lapse of time that had occurred since Mr. Heep's decease, she still wore weeds. I think there was some compromise in the cap; but otherwise she was as weedy as in the early days of her mourning. "This is a day to be remembered, my Uriah, I am sure," said Mrs. Heep, making the tea, "when Master Copperfield pays us a visit." "I said you'd think so, mother," said Uriah. "If I could have wished father to remain among us for any reason," said Mrs. Heep, "it would have been, that he might have known his company this afternoon." I felt embarrassed by these compliments; but I was sensible, too, of being entertained as an honored guest, and I thought Mrs. Heep an agreeable woman. "My Uriah," said Mrs. Heep, "has looked forward to this, sir, a long while. He had his fears that our umbleness stood in the way, and I joined in them myself. Umble we are, umble we have been, umble we shall ever be," said Mrs. Heep. "I am sure you have no occasion to be so, ma'am," I said, "unless you like." "Thank you, sir," retorted Mrs. Heep. "We know our station and are thankful in it." I found that Mrs. Heep gradually got nearer to me, and that Uriah gradually got opposite to me, and that they respectfully plied me with the choicest of the eatables on the table. There was nothing particularly choice there, to be sure; but I took the will for the deed, and felt that they were very attentive. Presently they began to talk about aunts, and then I told them about mine; and about fathers and mothers, and then I told them about mine; and then Mrs. Heep began to talk about fathers-in-law, and then I began to tell her about mine--but stopped, because my aunt had advised me to observe a silence on that subject. A tender young cork, however, would have had no more chance against a pair of corkscrews, or a tender young tooth against a pair of dentists, or a little shuttlecock against two battledores, than I had against Uriah and Mrs. Heep. They did just what they liked with me; and wormed things out of me that I had no desire to tell, with a certainty I blush to think of: the more especially as, in my juvenile frankness, I took some credit to myself for being so confidential, and felt that I was quite the patron of my two respectful entertainers. They were very fond of one another: that was certain. I take it that had its effect upon me, as a touch of nature; but the skill with which the one followed up whatever the other said, was a touch of art which I was still less proof against. When there was nothing more to be got out of me about myself (for on the Murdstone and Grinby life, and on my journey, I was dumb), they began about Mr. Wickfield and Agnes. Uriah threw the ball to Mrs. Heep, Mrs. Heep caught it and threw it back to Uriah, Uriah kept it up a little while, then sent it back to Mrs. Heep, and so they went on tossing it about until I had no idea who had got it, and was quite bewildered. The ball itself was always changing too. Now it was Mr. Wickfield, now Agnes, now the excellence of Mr. Wickfield, now my admiration of Agnes; now the extent of Mr. Wickfield's business and resources, now our domestic life after dinner; now, the wine that Mr. Wickfield took, the reason why he took it, and the pity that it was he took so much; now one thing, now another, then everything at once; and all the time, without appearing to speak very often, or to do anything but sometimes encourage them a little, for fear they should be overcome by their humility and the honor of my company, I found myself perpetually letting out something or other that I had no business to let out, and seeing the effect of it in the twinkling of Uriah's dinted nostrils. I had begun to be a little uncomfortable, and to wish myself well out of the visit, when a figure coming down the street passed the door--it stood open to air the room, which was warm, the weather being close for the time of year--came back again, looked in, and walked in, exclaiming loudly, "Copperfield! Is it possible!" [Illustration: Somebody turns up.] It was Mr. Micawber! It was Mr. Micawber, with his eye-glass, and his walking-stick, and his shirt-collar, and his genteel air, and the condescending roll in his voice, all complete! "My dear Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, putting out his hand, "this is indeed a meeting which is calculated to impress the mind with a sense of the instability and uncertainty of all human--in short, it is a most extraordinary meeting. Walking along the street, reflecting upon the probability of something turning up (of which I am at present rather sanguine), I find a young, but valued friend turn up, who is connected with the most eventful period of my life; I may say, with the turning point of my existence. Copperfield, my dear fellow, how do you do?" I cannot say--I really can_not_ say--that I was glad to see Mr. Micawber there; but I was glad to see him too, and shook hands with him heartily, inquiring how Mrs. Micawber was. "Thank you," said Mr. Micawber, waving his hand as of old, and settling his chin in his shirt-collar. "She is tolerably convalescent. The twins no longer derive their sustenance from Nature's founts--in short," said Mr. Micawber, in one of his bursts of confidence, "they are weaned--and Mrs. Micawber is, at present, my travelling companion. She will be rejoiced, Copperfield, to renew her acquaintance with one who has proved himself in all respects a worthy minister at the sacred altar of friendship." I said I should be delighted to see her. "You are very good," said Mr. Micawber. Mr. Micawber then smiled, settled his chin again, and looked about him. "I have discovered my friend Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber genteelly, and without addressing himself particularly to any one, "not in solitude, but partaking of a social meal in company with a widow lady, and one who is apparently her offspring--in short," said Mr. Micawber, in another of his bursts of confidence, "her son. I shall esteem it an honor to be presented." I could do no less, under these circumstances, than make Mr. Micawber known to Uriah Heep and his mother; which I accordingly did. As they abased themselves before him, Mr. Micawber took a seat, and waved his hand in his most courtly manner. "Any friend of my friend Copperfield's," said Mr. Micawber, "has a personal claim upon myself." "We are too umble, sir," said Mrs. Heep, "my son and me, to be the friends of Master Copperfield. He has been so good as take his tea with us, and we are thankful to him for his company; also to you, sir, for your notice." "Ma'am," returned Mr. Micawber, with a bow, "you are very obliging: and what are you doing, Copperfield? Still in the wine trade?" I was excessively anxious to get Mr. Micawber away; and replied, with my hat in my hand, and a very red face I have no doubt, that I was a pupil at Doctor Strong's. "A pupil?" said Mr. Micawber, raising his eyebrows. "I am extremely happy to hear it. Although a mind like my friend Copperfield's"--to Uriah and Mrs. Heep--"does not require that cultivation which, without his knowledge of men and things, it would require, still it is a rich soil teeming with latent vegetation--in short," said Mr. Micawber, smiling, in another burst of confidence, "it is an intellect capable of getting up the classics to any extent." Uriah, with his long hands slowly twining over one another, made a ghastly writhe from the waist upwards, to express his concurrence in this estimation of me. "Shall we go and see Mrs. Micawber, sir?" I said, to get Mr. Micawber away. "If you will do her that favor, Copperfield," replied Mr. Micawber, rising. "I have no scruple in saying, in the presence of our friends here, that I am a man who has, for some years, contended against the pressure of pecuniary difficulties," I knew he was certain to say something of this kind; he always would be so boastful about his difficulties. "Sometimes I have risen superior to my difficulties. Sometimes my difficulties have--in short, have floored me. There have been times when I have administered a succession of facers to them; there have been times when they have been too many for me, and I have given in, and said to Mrs. Micawber in the words of Cato, 'Plato, thou reasonest well. It's all up now. I can show fight no more.' But at no time of my life," said Mr. Micawber, "have I enjoyed a higher degree of satisfaction than in pouring my griefs (if I may describe difficulties, chiefly arising out of warrants of attorney and promissory notes at two and four months, by that word) into the bosom of my friend Copperfield." Mr. Micawber closed this handsome tribute by saying, "Mr. Heep! Good evening. Mrs. Heep! Your servant," and then walking out with me in his most fashionable manner, making a good deal of noise on the pavement with his shoes, and humming a tune as we went. It was a little inn where Mr. Micawber put up, and he occupied a little room in it, partitioned off from the commercial room, and strongly flavored with tobacco smoke. I think it was over the kitchen, because a warm greasy smell appeared to come up through the chinks in the floor, and there was a flabby perspiration on the walls. I know it was near the bar, on account of the smell of spirits and gingling of glasses. Here, recumbent on a small sofa, underneath a picture of a race-horse, with her head close to the fire, and her feet pushing the mustard off the dumb-waiter at the other end of the room, was Mrs. Micawber, to whom Mr. Micawber entered first, saying, "My dear, allow me to introduce to you a pupil of Doctor Strong's." I noticed, by-the-by, that although Mr. Micawber was just as much confused as ever about my age and standing, he always remembered, as a genteel thing, that I was a pupil of Doctor Strong's. Mrs. Micawber was amazed, but very glad to see me. I was very glad to see her too, and after an affectionate greeting on both sides, sat down on the small sofa near her. "My dear," said Mr. Micawber, "if you will mention to Copperfield what our present position is, which I have no doubt he will like to know, I will go and look at the paper the while, and see whether any thing turns up among the advertisements." "I thought you were at Plymouth, ma'am," I said to Mrs. Micawber, as he went out. "My dear Master Copperfield," she replied, "we went to Plymouth." "To be on the spot," I hinted. "Just so," said Mrs. Micawber. "To be on the spot. But, the truth is, talent is not wanted in the Custom House. The local influence of my family was quite unavailing to obtain any employment in that department, for a man of Mr. Micawber's abilities. They would rather _not_ have a man of Mr. Micawber's abilities. He would only show the deficiency of the others. Apart from which," said Mrs. Micawber, "I will not disguise from you, my dear Master Copperfield, that when that branch of my family which is settled in Plymouth became aware that Mr. Micawber was accompanied by myself, and by little Wilkins and his sister, and by the twins, they did not receive him with that ardor which he might have expected, being so newly released from captivity. In fact," said Mrs. Micawber, lowering her voice,--"this is between ourselves--our reception was cool." "Dear me!" I said. "Yes," said Mrs. Micawber. "It is truly painful to contemplate mankind in such an aspect, Master Copperfield, but our reception was, decidedly, cool. There is no doubt about it. In fact, that branch of my family which is settled in Plymouth became quite personal to Mr. Micawber, before we had been there a week." I said, and thought, that they ought to be ashamed of themselves. "Still, so it was," continued Mrs. Micawber. "Under such circumstances, what could a man of Mr. Micawber's spirit do? But one obvious course was left. To borrow, of that branch of my family, the money to return to London, and to return at any sacrifice." "Then you all came back again, ma'am?" I said. "We all came back again," replied Mrs. Micawber. "Since then, I have consulted other branches of my family on the course which it is most expedient for Mr. Micawber to take--for I maintain that he must take some course, Master Copperfield," said Mrs. Micawber, argumentatively. "It is clear that a family of six, not including a domestic, cannot live upon air." "Certainly, ma'am," said I. "The opinion of those other branches of my family," pursued Mrs. Micawber, "is, that Mr. Micawber should immediately turn his attention to coals." "To what, ma'am?" "To coals," said Mrs. Micawber. "To the coal trade. Mr. Micawber was induced to think, on inquiry, that there might be an opening for a man of his talent in the Medway Coal Trade. Then, as Mr. Micawber very properly said, the first step to be taken clearly was, to come and _see_ the Medway. Which we came and saw. I say 'we,' Master Copperfield; for I never will," said Mrs. Micawber with emotion, "I never will desert Mr. Micawber." I murmured my admiration and approbation. "We came," repeated Mrs. Micawber, "and saw the Medway. My opinion of the coal trade on that river, is, that it may require talent, but that it certainly requires capital. Talent, Mr. Micawber has; capital, Mr. Micawber has not. We saw, I think, the greater part of the Medway; and that is my individual conclusion. Being so near here, Mr. Micawber was of opinion that it would be rash not to come on, and see the Cathedral. Firstly, on account of its being so well worth seeing, and our never having seen it; and secondly, on account of the great probability of something turning up in a cathedral town. We have been here," said Mrs. Micawber, "three days. Nothing has, as yet, turned up; and it may not surprise you, my dear Master Copperfield, so much as it would a stranger, to know that we are at present waiting for a remittance from London, to discharge our pecuniary obligations at this hotel. Until the arrival of that remittance," said Mrs. Micawber, with much feeling, "I am cut off from my home (I allude to lodgings in Pentonville), from my boy and girl, and from my twins." I felt the utmost sympathy for Mr. and Mrs. Micawber in this anxious extremity, and said as much to Mr. Micawber, who now returned: adding that I only wished I had money enough, to lend them the amount they needed. Mr. Micawber's answer expressed the disturbance of his mind. He said, shaking hands with me, "Copperfield, you are a true friend; but when the worst comes to the worst, no man is without a friend who is possessed of shaving materials." At this dreadful hint Mrs. Micawber threw her arms round Mr. Micawber's neck and entreated him to be calm. He wept; but so far recovered, almost immediately, as to ring the bell for the waiter, and bespeak a hot kidney pudding and a plate of shrimps for breakfast in the morning. When I took my leave of them, they both pressed me so much to come and dine before they went away, that I could not refuse. But, as I knew I could not come next day, when I should have a good deal to prepare in the evening, Mr. Micawber arranged that he would call at Doctor Strong's in the course of the morning (having a presentiment that the remittance would arrive by that post), and propose the day after, if it would suit me better. Accordingly I was called out of school next forenoon, and found Mr. Micawber in the parlor; who had called to say that the dinner would take place as proposed. When I asked him if the remittance had come, he pressed my hand and departed. As I was looking out of window that same evening, it surprised me, and made me rather uneasy, to see Mr. Micawber and Uriah Heep walk past, arm in arm: Uriah humbly sensible of the honor that was done him, and Mr. Micawber taking a bland delight in extending his patronage to Uriah. But I was still more surprised, when I went to the little hotel next day at the appointed dinner hour, which was four o'clock, to find, from what Mr. Micawber said, that he had gone home with Uriah, and had drunk brandy-and-water at Mrs. Heep's. "And I'll tell you what, my dear Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, "your friend Heep is a young fellow who might be attorney-general. If I had known that young man, at the period when my difficulties came to a crisis, all I can say is, that I believe my creditors would have been a great deal better managed than they were." I hardly understood how this could have been, seeing that Mr. Micawber had paid them nothing at all as it was; but I did not like to ask. Neither did I like to say, that I hoped he had not been too communicative to Uriah; or to inquire if they had talked much about me. I was afraid of hurting Mr. Micawber's feelings, or, at all events, Mrs. Micawber's, she being very sensitive; but I was uncomfortable about it, too, and often thought about it afterwards. We had a beautiful little dinner. Quite an elegant dish of fish; the kidney-end of a loin of veal, roasted; fried sausage-meat; a partridge, and a pudding. There was wine, and there was strong ale; and after dinner Mrs. Micawber made us a bowl of hot punch with her own hands. Mr. Micawber was uncommonly convivial. I never saw him such good company. He made his face shine with the punch, so that it looked as if it had been varnished all over. He got cheerfully sentimental about the town, and proposed success to it; observing, that Mrs. Micawber and himself had been made extremely snug and comfortable there, and that he never should forget the agreeable hours they had passed in Canterbury. He proposed me afterwards; and he, and Mrs. Micawber, and I, took a review of our past acquaintance, in the course of which we sold the property all over again. Then I proposed Mrs. Micawber; or, at least, said, modestly, "If you'll allow me, Mrs. Micawber, I shall now have the pleasure of drinking _your_ health, ma'am." On which Mr. Micawber delivered an eulogium on Mrs. Micawber's character, and said she had ever been his guide, philosopher, and friend, and that he would recommend me, when I came to a marrying time of life, to marry such another woman, if such another woman could be found. As the punch disappeared, Mr. Micawber became still more friendly and convivial. Mrs. Micawber's spirits becoming elevated, too, we sang "Auld Lang Syne." When we came to "Here's a hand, my trusty frere," we all joined hands round the table; and when we declared we would "take a right gude Willie Waught," and hadn't the least idea what it meant, we were really affected. In a word, I never saw any body so thoroughly jovial as Mr. Micawber was, down to the very last moment of the evening, when I took a hearty farewell of himself and his amiable wife. Consequently, I was not prepared, at seven o'clock next morning, to receive the following communication, dated half-past nine in the evening; a quarter of an hour after I had left him. "MY DEAR YOUNG FRIEND, "The die is cast--all is over. Hiding the ravages of care with a sickly mask of mirth, I have not informed you, this evening, that there is no hope of the remittance! Under these circumstances, alike humiliating to endure, humiliating to contemplate, and humiliating to relate, I have discharged the pecuniary liability contracted at this establishment, by giving a note of hand, made payable fourteen days after date, at my residence, Pentonville, London. When it becomes due, it will not be taken up. The result is destruction. The bolt is impending, and the tree must fall. "Let the wretched man who now addresses you, my dear Copperfield, be a beacon to you through life. He writes with that intention, and in that hope. If he could think himself of so much use, one gleam of day might, by possibility, penetrate into the cheerless dungeon of his remaining existence--though his longevity is, at present (to say the least of it), extremely problematical. "This is the last communication, my dear Copperfield, you will ever receive "From "The "Beggared Outcast, "WILKINS MICAWBER." I was so shocked by the contents of this heart-rending letter, that I ran off directly towards the little hotel with the intention of taking it on my way to Doctor Strong's, and trying to soothe Mr. Micawber with a word of comfort. But, half-way there, I met the London coach with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber up behind; Mr. Micawber, the very picture of tranquil enjoyment, smiling at Mrs. Micawber's conversation, eating walnuts out of a paper bag, with a bottle sticking out of his breast pocket. As they did not see me, I thought it best, all things considered, not to see them. So, with a great weight taken off my mind, I turned into a by-street that was the nearest way to school, and felt, upon the whole, relieved that they were gone; though I still liked them very much, nevertheless. CHAPTER XVIII. A RETROSPECT. My school-days! The silent gliding on of my existence--the unseen, unfelt progress of my life--from childhood up to youth! Let me think, as I look back upon that flowing water, now a dry channel overgrown with leaves, whether there are any marks along its course, by which I can remember how it ran. A moment, and I occupy my place in the Cathedral, where we all went together, every Sunday morning, assembling first at school for that purpose. The earthy smell, the sunless air, the sensation of the world being shut out, the resounding of the organ through the black and white arched galleries and aisles, are wings that take me back, and hold me hovering above those days, in a half-sleeping and half-waking dream. I am not the last boy in the school. I have risen, in a few months, over several heads. But the first boy seems to me a mighty creature, dwelling afar off, whose giddy height is unattainable. Agnes says "No," but I say "Yes," and tell her that she little thinks what stores of knowledge have been mastered by the wonderful Being, at whose place she thinks I, even I, weak aspirant, may arrive in time. He is not my private friend and public patron, as Steerforth was, but I hold him in a reverential respect. I chiefly wonder what he'll be, when he leaves Doctor Strong's, and what mankind will do to maintain any place against him. But who is this that breaks upon me? This is Miss Shepherd, whom I love. Miss Shepherd is a boarder at the Misses Nettingalls' establishment. I adore Miss Shepherd. She is a little girl, in a spencer, with a round face and curly flaxen hair. The Misses Nettingalls' young ladies come to the Cathedral too. I cannot look upon my book, for I must look upon Miss Shepherd. When the choristers chaunt, I hear Miss Shepherd. In the service I mentally insert Miss Shepherd's name--I put her in among the Royal Family. At home, in my own room, I am sometimes moved to cry out, "Oh, Miss Shepherd!" in a transport of love. For some time, I am doubtful of Miss Shepherd's feelings, but, at length, Fate being propitious, we meet at the dancing-school. I have Miss Shepherd for my partner. I touch Miss Shepherd's glove, and feel a thrill go up the right arm of my jacket, and come out at my hair. I say nothing tender to Miss Shepherd, but we understand each other. Miss Shepherd and myself live but to be united. Why do I secretly give Miss Shepherd twelve Brazil nuts for a present, I wonder? They are not expressive of affection, they are difficult to pack into a parcel of any regular shape, they are hard to crack, even in room doors, and they are oily when cracked; yet I feel that they are appropriate to Miss Shepherd. Soft, seedy biscuits, also, I bestow upon Miss Shepherd; and oranges innumerable. Once, I kiss Miss Shepherd in the cloak room. Ecstacy! What are my agony and indignation next day, when I hear a flying rumour that the Misses Nettingall have stood Miss Shepherd in the stocks for turning in her toes! Miss Shepherd being the one pervading theme and vision of my life, how do I ever come to break with her? I can't conceive. And yet a coolness grows between Miss Shepherd and myself. Whispers reach me of Miss Shepherd having said she wished I wouldn't stare so, and having avowed a preference for Master Jones--for Jones! a boy of no merit whatever! The gulf between me and Miss Shepherd widens. At last, one day, I meet the Misses Nettingalls' establishment out walking. Miss Shepherd makes a face as she goes by, and laughs to her companion. All is over. The devotion of a life--it seems a life, it is all the same--is at an end; Miss Shepherd comes out of the morning service, and the Royal Family know her no more. I am higher in the school, and no one breaks my peace. I am not at all polite, now, to the Misses Nettingalls' young ladies, and shouldn't dote on any of them, if they were twice as many and twenty times as beautiful. I think the dancing-school a tiresome affair, and wonder why the girls can't dance by themselves and leave us alone. I am growing great in Latin verses, and neglect the laces of my boots. Doctor Strong refers to me in public as a promising young scholar. Mr. Dick is wild with joy, and my aunt remits me a guinea by the next post. The shade of a young butcher rises, like the apparition of an armed head in Macbeth. Who is this young butcher? He is the terror of the youth of Canterbury. There is a vague belief abroad, that the beef suet with which he anoints his hair gives him unnatural strength, and that he is a match for a man. He is a broad-faced, bull-necked young butcher, with rough red cheeks, an ill-conditioned mind, and an injurious tongue. His main use of this tongue, is, to disparage Doctor Strong's young gentlemen. He says, publicly, that if they want anything he'll give it 'em. He names individuals among them (myself included), whom he could undertake to settle with one hand, and the other tied behind him. He waylays the smaller boys to punch their unprotected heads, and calls challenges after me in the open streets. For these sufficient reasons I resolve to fight the butcher. It is a summer evening, down in a green hollow, at the corner of a wall. I meet the butcher by appointment. I am attended by a select body of our boys; the butcher, by two other butchers, a young publican, and a sweep. The preliminaries are adjusted, and the butcher and myself stand face to face. In a moment the butcher lights ten thousand candles out of my left eyebrow. In another moment, I don't know where the wall is, or where I am, or where anybody is. I hardly know which is myself and which the butcher, we are always in such a tangle and tustle, knocking about upon the trodden grass. Sometimes I see the butcher, bloody but confident; sometimes I see nothing, and sit gasping on my second's knee; sometimes I go in at the butcher madly, and cut my knuckles open against his face, without appearing to discompose him at all. At last I awake, very queer about the head, as from a giddy sleep, and see the butcher walking off, congratulated by the two other butchers and the sweep and publican, and putting on his coat as he goes; from which I augur, justly, that the victory is his. I am taken home in a sad plight, and I have beef-steaks put to my eyes, and am rubbed with vinegar and brandy, and find a great white puffy place bursting out on my upper lip, which swells immoderately. For three or four days I remain at home, a very ill-looking subject, with a green shade over my eyes; and I should be very dull, but that Agnes is a sister to me, and condoles with me, and reads to me, and makes the time light and happy. Agnes has my confidence completely, always; I tell her all about the butcher, and the wrongs he has heaped upon me; and she thinks I couldn't have done otherwise than fight the butcher, while she shrinks and trembles at my having fought him. Time has stolen on unobserved, for Adams is not the head-boy in the days that are come now, nor has he been this many and many a day. Adams has left the school so long, that when he comes back, on a visit to Doctor Strong, there are not many there, besides myself, who know him. Adams is going to be called to the bar almost directly, and is to be an advocate, and to wear a wig. I am surprised to find him a meeker man than I had thought, and less imposing in appearance. He has not staggered the world yet, either; for it goes on (as well as I can make out) pretty much the same as if he had never joined it. A blank, through which the warriors of poetry and history march on in stately hosts that seem to have no end--and what comes next! _I_ am the head boy, now; and look down on the line of boys below me, with a condescending interest in such of them as bring to my mind the boy I was myself, when I first came there. That little fellow seems to be no part of me; I remember him as something left behind upon the road of life--as something I have passed, rather than have actually been--and almost think of him as of some one else. And the little girl I saw on that first day at Mr. Wickfield's, where is she? Gone also. In her stead, the perfect likeness of the picture, a child likeness no more, moves about the house; and Agnes--my sweet sister, as I call her in my thoughts, my counsellor and friend, the better angel of the lives of all who come within her calm, good, self-denying influence--is quite a woman. What other changes have come upon me, besides the changes in my growth and looks, and in the knowledge I have garnered all this while? I wear a gold watch and chain, a ring upon my little finger, and a long-tailed coat; and I use a great deal of bear's grease--which, taken in conjunction with the ring, looks bad. Am I in love again? I am. I worship the eldest Miss Larkins. The eldest Miss Larkins is not a little girl. She is a tall, dark, black-eyed, fine figure of a woman. The eldest Miss Larkins is not a chicken; for the youngest Miss Larkins is not that, and the eldest must be three or four years older. Perhaps the eldest Miss Larkins may be about thirty. My passion for her is beyond all bounds. The eldest Miss Larkins knows officers. It is an awful thing to bear. I see them speaking to her in the street. I see them cross the way to meet her, when her bonnet (she has a bright taste in bonnets) is seen coming down the pavement, accompanied by her sister's bonnet. She laughs and talks, and seems to like it. I spend a good deal of my own spare time in walking up and down to meet her. If I can bow to her once in the day (I know her to bow to, knowing Mr. Larkins), I am happier. I deserve a bow now and then. The raging agonies I suffer on the night of the Race Ball, where I know the eldest Miss Larkins will be dancing with the military, ought to have some compensation, if there be even-handed justice in the world. My passion takes away my appetite, and makes me wear my newest silk neck-kerchief continually. I have no relief but in putting on my best clothes, and having my boots cleaned over and over again. I seem, then, to be worthier of the eldest Miss Larkins. Everything that belongs to her, or is connected with her, is precious to me. Mr. Larkins (a gruff old gentleman with a double chin, and one of his eyes immoveable in his head) is fraught with interest to me. When I can't meet his daughter, I go where I am likely to meet him. To say "How do you do, Mr. Larkins? Are the young ladies and all the family quite well?" seems so pointed, that I blush. I think continually about my age. Say I am seventeen, and say that seventeen is young for the eldest Miss Larkins, what of that? Besides, I shall be one-and-twenty in no time almost. I regularly take walks outside Mr. Larkins's house in the evening, though it cuts me to the heart to see the officers go in, or to hear them up in the drawing-room, where the eldest Miss Larkins plays the harp. I even walk, on two or three occasions, in a sickly, spoony manner, round and round the house after the family are gone to bed, wondering which is the eldest Miss Larkins's chamber (and pitching, I dare say now, on Mr. Larkins's instead); wishing that a fire would burst out; that the assembled crowd would stand appalled; that I, dashing through them with a ladder, might rear it against her window, save her in my arms, go back for something she had left behind, and perish in the flames. For I am generally disinterested in my love, and think I could be content to make a figure before Miss Larkins, and expire. --Generally, but not always. Sometimes brighter visions rise before me. When I dress (the occupation of two hours), for a great ball given at the Larkins's (the anticipation of three weeks), I indulge my fancy with pleasing images. I picture myself taking courage to make a declaration to Miss Larkins. I picture Miss Larkins sinking her head upon my shoulder, and saying, "Oh, Mr. Copperfield, can I believe my ears!" I picture Mr. Larkins waiting on me next morning, and saying, "My dear Copperfield, my daughter has told me all. Youth is no objection. Here are twenty thousand pounds. Be happy!" I picture my aunt relenting, and blessing us; and Mr. Dick and Doctor Strong being present at the marriage ceremony. I am a sensible fellow, I believe--I believe, on looking back, I mean--and modest I am sure; but all this goes on notwithstanding. I repair to the enchanted house, where there are lights, chattering, music, flowers, officers (I am sorry to see), and the eldest Miss Larkins, a blaze of beauty. She is dressed in blue, with blue flowers in her hair--forget-me-nots--as if _she_ had any need to wear forget-me-nots! It is the first really grown-up party that I have ever been invited to, and I am a little uncomfortable; for I appear not to belong to anybody, and nobody appears to have anything to say to me, except Mr. Larkins, who asks me how my schoolfellows are, which he needn't do, as I have not come there to be insulted. But after I have stood in the doorway for some time, and feasted my eyes upon the goddess of my heart, she approaches me--she, the eldest Miss Larkins!--and asks me, pleasantly, if I dance. I stammer, with a bow, "With you, Miss Larkins." "With no one else?" enquires Miss Larkins. "I should have no pleasure in dancing with any one else." Miss Larkins laughs and blushes (or I think she blushes), and says, "Next time but one, I shall be very glad." The time arrives. "It is a waltz, I think," Miss Larkins doubtfully observes, when I present myself. "Do you waltz? If not, Captain Bailey--" But I do waltz (pretty well, too, as it happens), and I take Miss Larkins out. I take her sternly from the side of Captain Bailey. He is wretched, I have no doubt; but he is nothing to me. I have been wretched, too. I waltz with the eldest Miss Larkins! I don't know where, among whom, or how long. I only know that I swim about in space, with a blue angel, in a state of blissful delirium, until I find myself alone with her in a little room, resting on a sofa. She admires a flower (pink camelia japonica, price half-a-crown), in my button hole. I give it her, and say: "I ask an inestimable price for it, Miss Larkins." "Indeed! What is that?" returns Miss Larkins. "A flower of yours, that I may treasure it as a miser does gold." "You're a bold boy," says Miss Larkins. "There." She gives it me, not displeased; and I put it to my lips, and then into my breast. Miss Larkins, laughing, draws her hand through my arm, and says, "Now take me back to Captain Bailey." I am lost in the recollection of this delicious interview, and the waltz, when she comes to me again, with a plain elderly gentleman, who has been playing whist all night, upon her arm, and says: "Oh! here is my bold friend! Mr. Chestle wants to know you, Mr. Copperfield." I feel at once that he is a friend of the family, and am much gratified. "I admire your taste, sir," says Mr. Chestle. "It does you credit. I suppose you don't take much interest in hops; but I am a pretty large grower myself; and if you ever like to come over to our neighbourhood--neighbourhood of Ashford--and take a run about our place, we shall be glad for you to stop as long as you like." I thank Mr. Chestle warmly, and shake hands. I think I am in a happy dream. I waltz with the eldest Miss Larkins once again--she says I waltz so well! I go home in a state of unspeakable bliss, and waltz in imagination, all night long, with my arm round the blue waist of my dear divinity. For some days afterwards, I am lost in rapturous reflections; but I neither see her in the street, nor when I call. I am imperfectly consoled for this disappointment by the sacred pledge, the perished flower. "Trotwood," says Agnes, one day after dinner. "Who do you think is going to be married to-morrow? Some one you admire." "Not you, I suppose, Agnes?" "Not me!" raising her cheerful face from the music she is copying. "Do you hear him, Papa?--The eldest Miss Larkins." "To--to Captain Bailey?" I have just power enough to ask. "No; to no Captain. To Mr. Chestle, a hop-grower." I am terribly dejected for about a week or two. I take off my ring, I wear my worst clothes, I use no bear's grease, and I frequently lament over the late Miss Larkins's faded flower. Being, by that time, rather tired of this kind of life, and having received new provocation from the butcher, I throw the flower away, go out with the butcher, and gloriously defeat him. This, and the resumption of my ring, as well as of the bear's grease in moderation, are the last marks I can discern, now, in my progress to seventeen. CHAPTER XIX. I LOOK ABOUT ME, AND MAKE A DISCOVERY. I am doubtful whether I was at heart glad or sorry, when my school-days drew to an end, and the time came for my leaving Doctor Strong's. I had been very happy there, I had a great attachment for the Doctor, and I was eminent and distinguished in that little world. For these reasons I was sorry to go; but for other reasons, unsubstantial enough, I was glad. Misty ideas of being a young man at my own disposal, of the importance attaching to a young man at his own disposal, of the wonderful things to be seen and done by that magnificent animal, and the wonderful effects he could not fail to make upon society, lured me away. So powerful were these visionary considerations in my boyish mind, that I seem, according to my present way of thinking, to have left school without natural regret. The separation has not made the impression on me, that other separations have. I try in vain to recal how I felt about it, and what its circumstances were; but it is not momentous in my recollection. I suppose the opening prospect confused me. I know that my juvenile experiences went for little or nothing then; and that life was more like a great fairy story, which I was just about to begin to read, than anything else. My aunt and I had held many grave deliberations on the calling to which I should be devoted. For a year or more I had endeavoured to find a satisfactory answer to her often-repeated question, "What I would like to be?" But I had no particular liking, that I could discover, for anything. If I could have been inspired with a knowledge of the science of navigation, taken the command of a fast-sailing expedition, and gone round the world on a triumphant voyage of discovery, I think I might have considered myself completely suited. But, in the absence of any such miraculous provision, my desire was to apply myself to some pursuit that would not lie too heavily upon her purse; and to do my duty in it, whatever it might be. Mr. Dick had regularly assisted at our councils, with a meditative and sage demeanour. He never made a suggestion but once; and on that occasion (I don't know what put it in his head), he suddenly proposed that I should be "a Brazier." My aunt received this proposal so very ungraciously, that he never ventured on a second; but ever afterwards confined himself to looking watchfully at her for her suggestions, and rattling his money. "Trot, I tell you what, my dear," said my aunt, one morning in the Christmas season when I left school; "as this knotty point is still unsettled, and as we must not make a mistake in our decision if we can help it, I think we had better take a little breathing-time. In the meanwhile, you must try to look at it from a new point of view, and not as a schoolboy." "I will, aunt." "It has occurred to me," pursued my aunt, "that a little change, and a glimpse of life out of doors, may be useful, in helping you to know your own mind, and form a cooler judgment. Suppose you were to take a little journey now. Suppose you were to go down into the old part of the country again, for instance, and see that--that out-of-the-way woman with the savagest of names," said my aunt, rubbing her nose, for she could never thoroughly forgive Peggotty for being so called. "Of all things in the world, aunt, I should like it best!" "Well," said my aunt, "that's lucky, for I should like it too. But it's natural and rational that you should like it. And I am very well persuaded that whatever you do, Trot, will always be natural and rational." "I hope so, aunt." "Your sister, Betsey Trotwood," said my aunt, "would have been as natural and rational a girl as ever breathed. You'll be worthy of her, won't you?" "I hope I shall be worthy of _you_, aunt. That will be enough for me." "It's a mercy that poor dear baby of a mother of yours didn't live," said my aunt, looking at me approvingly, "or she'd have been so vain of her boy by this time, that her soft little head would have been completely turned, if there was anything of it left to turn." (My aunt always excused any weakness of her own in my behalf, by transferring it in this way to my poor mother.) "Bless me, Trotwood, how you do remind me of her!" "Pleasantly, I hope, aunt?" said I. "He's as like her, Dick," said my aunt, emphatically, "he's as like her, as she was that afternoon, before she began to fret--bless my heart, he's as like her, as he can look at me out of his two eyes!" "Is he indeed?" said Mr. Dick. "And he's like David, too," said my aunt, decisively. "He is very like David!" said Mr. Dick. "But what I want you to be, Trot," resumed my aunt "--I don't mean physically, but morally; you are very well physically--is, a firm fellow. A fine firm fellow, with a will of your own. With resolution," said my aunt, shaking her cap at me, and clenching her hand. "With determination. With character, Trot--with strength of character that is not to be influenced, except on good reason, by anybody, or by anything. That's what I want you to be. That's what your father and mother might both have been, Heaven knows, and been the better for it." I intimated that I hoped I should be what she described. "That you may begin, in a small way, to have a reliance upon yourself, and to act for yourself," said my aunt, "I shall send you upon your trip, alone. I did think, once, of Mr. Dick's going with you; but, on second thoughts, I shall keep him to take care of me." Mr. Dick, for a moment, looked a little disappointed; until the honor and dignity of having to take care of the most wonderful woman in the world, restored the sunshine to his face. "Besides," said my aunt, "there's the Memorial--" "Oh, certainly," said Mr. Dick, in a hurry, "I intend, Trotwood, to get that done immediately--it really must be done immediately! And then it will go in, you know--and then--," said Mr. Dick, after checking himself, and pausing a long time, "there'll be a pretty kettle of fish!" In pursuance of my aunt's kind scheme, I was shortly afterwards fitted out with a handsome purse of money, and a portmanteau, and tenderly dismissed upon my expedition. At parting, my aunt gave me some good advice, and a good many kisses; and said that as her object was that I should look about me, and should think a little, she would recommend me to stay a few days in London, if I liked it, either on my way down into Suffolk, or in coming back. In a word, I was at liberty to do what I would, for three weeks or a month; and no other conditions were imposed upon my freedom than the before-mentioned thinking and looking about me, and a pledge to write three times a week and faithfully report myself. I went to Canterbury first, that I might take leave of Agnes and Mr. Wickfield (my old room in whose house I had not yet relinquished), and also of the good Doctor. Agnes was very glad to see me, and told me that the house had not been like itself since I had left it. "I am sure I am not like myself when I am away," said I. "I seem to want my right hand, when I miss you. Though that's not saying much; for there's no head in my right hand, and no heart. Every one who knows you, consults with you, and is guided by you, Agnes." "Every one who knows me, spoils me, I believe," she answered, smiling. "No. It's because you are like no one else. You are so good, and so sweet-tempered. You have such a gentle nature, and you are always right." "You talk," said Agnes, breaking into a pleasant laugh, as she sat at work, "as if I were the late Miss Larkins." "Come! It's not fair to abuse my confidence," I answered, reddening at the recollection of my blue enslaver. "But I shall confide in you, just the same, Agnes. I can never grow out of that. Whenever I fall into trouble, or fall in love, I shall always tell you, if you'll let me--even when I come to fall in love in earnest." "Why, you have always been in earnest!" said Agnes, laughing again. "Oh! that was as a child, or a school-boy," said I, laughing in my turn, not without being a little shame-faced. "Times are altering now, and I suppose I shall be in a terrible state of earnestness one day or other. My wonder is, that you are not in earnest yourself, by this time, Agnes." Agnes laughed again, and shook her head. "Oh, I know you are not!" said I, "because if you had been, you would have told me. Or at least"--for I saw a faint blush in her face, "you would have let me find it out for myself. But there is no one that I know of, who deserves to love _you_, Agnes. Some one of a nobler character, and more worthy altogether than any one I have ever seen here, must rise up, before I give _my_ consent. In the time to come, I shall have a wary eye on all admirers; and shall exact a great deal from the successful one, I assure you." We had gone on, so far, in a mixture of confidential jest and earnest, that had long grown naturally out of our familiar relations, begun as mere children. But Agnes, now suddenly lifting up her eyes to mine, and speaking in a different manner, said: "Trotwood, there is something that I want to ask you, and that I may not have another opportunity of asking for a long time, perhaps--something I would ask, I think, of no one else. Have you observed any gradual alteration in Papa?" I had observed it, and had often wondered whether she had too. I must have shown as much, now, in my face; for her eyes were in a moment cast down, and I saw tears in them. "Tell me what it is," she said, in a low voice. "I think--shall I be quite plain, Agnes, liking him so much?" "Yes," she said. "I think he does himself no good by the habit that has increased upon him since I first came here. He is often very nervous--or I fancy so." "It is not fancy," said Agnes, shaking her head. "His hand trembles, his speech is not plain, and his eyes look wild. I have remarked that at those times, and when he is least like himself, he is most certain to be wanted on some business." "By Uriah," said Agnes. "Yes; and the sense of being unfit for it, or of not having understood it, or of having shown his condition in spite of himself, seems to make him so uneasy, that next day he is worse, and next day worse, and so he becomes jaded and haggard. Do not be alarmed by what I say, Agnes, but in this state I saw him, only the other evening, lay down his head upon his desk, and shed tears like a child." Her hand passed softly before my lips while I was yet speaking, and in a moment she had met her father at the door of the room, and was hanging on his shoulder. The expression of her face, as they both looked towards me, I felt to be very touching. There was such deep fondness for him, and gratitude to him for all his love and care, in her beautiful look; and there was such a fervent appeal to me to deal tenderly by him, even in my inmost thoughts, and to let no harsh construction find any place against him; she was, at once, so proud of him and devoted to him, yet so compassionate and sorry, and so reliant upon me to be so, too; that nothing she could have said would have expressed more to me, or moved me more. We were to drink tea at the Doctor's. We went there at the usual hour; and round the study-fireside found the Doctor, and his young wife, and her mother. The Doctor, who made as much of my going away as if I were going to China, received me as an honored guest; and called for a log of wood to be thrown on the fire, that he might see the face of his old pupil reddening in the blaze. "I shall not see many more new faces in Trotwood's stead, Wickfield," said the Doctor, warming his hands; "I am getting lazy, and want ease. I shall relinquish all my young people in another six months, and lead a quieter life." "You have said so, any time these ten years, Doctor," Mr. Wickfield answered. "But now I mean to do it," returned the Doctor. "My first master will succeed me--I am in earnest at last--so you'll soon have to arrange our contracts, and to bind us firmly to them, like a couple of knaves." "And to take care," said Mr. Wickfield, "that you're not imposed on, eh?--as you certainly would be, in any contract you should make for yourself. Well! I am ready. There are worse tasks than that, in my calling." "I shall have nothing to think of then," said the Doctor, with a smile, "but my Dictionary; and this other contract-bargain--Annie." As Mr. Wickfield glanced towards her, sitting at the tea-table by Agnes, she seemed to me to avoid his look with such unwonted hesitation and timidity, that his attention became fixed upon her, as if something were suggested to his thoughts. "There is a post come in from India, I observe," he said, after a short silence. "By-the-by! and letters from Mr. Jack Maldon!" said the Doctor. "Indeed?" "Poor dear Jack!" said Mrs. Markleham, shaking her head. "That trying climate!--like living, they tell me, on a sand-heap, underneath a burning-glass! He looked strong, but he wasn't. My dear Doctor, it was his spirit, not his constitution, that he ventured on so boldly. Annie, my dear, I am sure you must perfectly recollect that your cousin never was strong--not what can be called _robust_, you know," said Mrs. Markleham, with emphasis, and looking round upon us generally "--from the time when my daughter and himself were children together, and walking about, arm in arm, the livelong day." Annie, thus addressed, made no reply. "Do I gather from what you say, ma'am, that Mr. Maldon is ill?" asked Mr. Wickfield. "Ill!" replied the Old Soldier. "My dear sir, he is all sorts of things." "Except well?" said Mr. Wickfield. "Except well, indeed!" said the Old Soldier. "He has had dreadful strokes of the sun, no doubt, and jungle fevers and agues, and every kind of thing you can mention. As to his liver," said the Old Soldier resignedly, "that, of course, he gave up altogether, when he first went out!" "Does he say all this?" asked Mr. Wickfield. "Say? My dear sir," returned Mrs. Markleham, shaking her head and her fan, "you little know my poor Jack Maldon when you ask that question. Say? Not he. You might drag him at the heels of four wild horses first." "Mama!" said Mrs. Strong. "Annie, my dear," returned her mother, "once for all, I must really beg that you will not interfere with me, unless it is to confirm what I say. You know as well as I do, that your cousin Maldon would be dragged at the heels of any number of wild horses--why should I confine myself to four! I _won't_ confine myself to four--eight, sixteen, two-and-thirty, rather than say anything calculated to overturn the Doctor's plans." "Wickfield's plans," said the Doctor, stroking his face, and looking penitently at his adviser. "That is to say, our joint plans for him. I said myself, abroad or at home." "And I said," added Mr. Wickfield gravely, "abroad. I was the means of sending him abroad. It's my responsibility." "Oh! Responsibility!" said the Old Soldier. "Every thing was done for the best, my dear Mr. Wickfield; every thing was done for the kindest and best, we know. But if the dear fellow can't live there, he can't live there. And if he can't live there, he'll die there, sooner than he'll overturn the Doctor's plans. I know him," said the Old Soldier, fanning herself, in a sort of calm prophetic agony, "and I know he'll die there, sooner than he'll overturn the Doctor's plans." "Well, well, ma'am," said the Doctor, cheerfully, "I am not bigoted to my plans, and I can overturn them myself. I can substitute some other plans. If Mr. Jack Maldon comes home on account of ill health, he must not be allowed to go back, and we must endeavour to make some more suitable and fortunate provision for him in this country." Mrs. Markleham was so overcome by this generous speech--which, I need not say, she had not at all expected or led up to--that she could only tell the Doctor it was like himself, and go several times through that operation of kissing the sticks of her fan, and then tapping his hand with it. After which she gently chid her daughter Annie, for not being more demonstrative when such kindnesses were showered, for her sake, on her old playfellow; and entertained us with some particulars concerning other deserving members of her family, whom it was desirable to set on their deserving legs. All this time, her daughter Annie never once spoke, or lifted up her eyes. All this time, Mr. Wickfield had his glance upon her as she sat by his own daughter's side. It appeared to me that he never thought of being observed by any one; but was so intent upon her, and upon his own thoughts in connexion with her, as to be quite absorbed. He now asked what Mr. Jack Maldon had actually written in reference to himself, and to whom he had written it? "Why, here," said Mrs. Markleham, taking a letter from the chimney-piece above the Doctor's head, "the dear fellow says to the Doctor himself--where is it? Oh!--'I am sorry to inform you that my health is suffering severely, and that I fear I may be reduced to the necessity of returning home for a time, as the only hope of restoration.' That's pretty plain, poor fellow! His only hope of restoration! But Annie's letter is plainer still. Annie, show me that letter again." "Not now, mama," she pleaded in a low tone. "My dear, you absolutely are, on some subjects, one of the most ridiculous persons in the world," returned her mother, "and perhaps the most unnatural to the claims of your own family. We never should have heard of the letter at all, I believe, unless I had asked for it myself. Do you call that confidence, my love, towards Doctor Strong? I am surprised. You ought to know better." The letter was reluctantly produced; and as I handed it to the old lady, I saw how the unwilling hand from which I took it, trembled. "Now let us see," said Mrs. Markleham, putting her glass to her eye, "where the passage is. 'The remembrance of old times, my dearest Annie'--and so forth--it's not there. 'The amiable old Proctor'--who's he? Dear me, Annie, how illegibly your cousin Maldon writes, and how stupid I am! 'Doctor,' of course. Ah! amiable indeed!" Here she left off, to kiss her fan again, and shake it at the Doctor, who was looking at us in a state of placid satisfaction. "Now I have found it. '_You_ may not be surprised to hear, Annie'--no, to be sure, knowing that he never was really strong; what did I say just now?--'that I have undergone so much in this distant place, as to have decided to leave it at all hazards; on sick leave, if I can; on total resignation, if that is not to be obtained. What I have endured, and do endure here, is insupportable.' And but for the promptitude of that best of creatures," said Mrs. Markleham, telegraphing the Doctor as before, and refolding the letter, "it would be insupportable to me to think of." Mr. Wickfield said not one word, though the old lady looked to him as if for his commentary on this intelligence; but sat severely silent, with his eyes fixed on the ground. Long after the subject was dismissed, and other topics occupied us, he remained so; seldom raising his eyes, unless to rest them for a moment, with a thoughtful frown, upon the Doctor, or his wife, or both. The Doctor was very fond of music. Agnes sang with great sweetness and expression, and so did Mrs. Strong. They sang together, and played duets together, and we had quite a little concert. But I remarked two things: first, that though Annie soon recovered her composure, and was quite herself, there was a blank between her and Mr. Wickfield which separated them wholly from each other; secondly, that Mr. Wickfield seemed to dislike the intimacy between her and Agnes, and to watch it with uneasiness. And now, I must confess, the recollection of what I had seen on that night when Mr. Maldon went away, first began to return upon me with a meaning it had never had, and to trouble me. The innocent beauty of her face was not as innocent to me as it had been; I mistrusted the natural grace and charm of her manner; and when I looked at Agnes by her side, and thought how good and true Agnes was, suspicions arose within me that it was an ill-assorted friendship. She was so happy in it herself, however, and the other was so happy too, that they made the evening fly away as if it were but an hour. It closed in an incident which I well remember. They were taking leave of each other, and Agnes was going to embrace her and kiss her, when Mr. Wickfield stepped between them, as if by accident, and drew Agnes quickly away. Then I saw, as though all the intervening time had been cancelled, and I were still standing in the doorway on the night of the departure, the expression of that night in the face of Mrs. Strong, as it confronted his. I cannot say what an impression this made upon me, or how impossible I found it, when I thought of her afterwards, to separate her from this look, and remember her face in its innocent loveliness again. It haunted me when I got home. I seemed to have left the Doctor's roof with a dark cloud lowering on it. The reverence that I had for his grey head, was mingled with commiseration for his faith in those who were treacherous to him, and with resentment against those who injured him. The impending shadow of a great affliction, and a great disgrace that had no distinct form in it yet, fell like a stain upon the quiet place where I had worked and played as a boy, and did it a cruel wrong. I had no pleasure in thinking, any more, of the grave old broad-leaved aloe-trees which remained shut up in themselves a hundred years together, and of the trim smooth grass-plot, and the stone urns, and the Doctor's walk, and the congenial sound of the Cathedral bell hovering above them all. It was as if the tranquil sanctuary of my boyhood had been sacked before my face, and its peace and honor given to the winds. But morning brought with it my parting from the old house, which Agnes had filled with her influence; and that occupied my mind sufficiently. I should be there again soon, no doubt; I might sleep again--perhaps often--in my old room; but the days of my inhabiting there were gone, and the old time was past. I was heavier at heart when I packed up such of my books and clothes as still remained there to be sent to Dover, than I cared to show to Uriah Heep: who was so officious to help me, that I uncharitably thought him mighty glad that I was going. I got away from Agnes and her father, somehow, with an indifferent show of being very manly, and took my seat upon the box of the London coach. I was so softened and forgiving, going through the town, that I had half a mind to nod to my old enemy the butcher, and throw him five shillings to drink. But he looked such a very obdurate butcher as he stood scraping the great block in the shop, and moreover, his appearance was so little improved by the loss of a front tooth which I had knocked out, that I thought it best to make no advances. The main object on my mind, I remember, when we got fairly on the road, was to appear as old as possible to the coachman, and to speak extremely gruff. The latter point I achieved at great personal inconvenience; but I stuck to it, because I felt it was a grown-up sort of thing. "You are going through, sir?" said the coachman. "Yes, William," I said, condescendingly (I knew him); "I am going to London. I shall go down into Suffolk afterwards." "Shooting, sir?" said the coachman. He knew as well as I did that it was just as likely, at that time of year, I was going down there whaling; but I felt complimented, too. "I don't know," I said, pretending to be undecided, "whether I shall take a shot or not." "Birds is got wery shy, I'm told," said William. "So I understand," said I. "Is Suffolk your county, sir?" asked William. "Yes," I said, with some importance, "Suffolk's my county." "I'm told the dumplings is uncommon fine down there," said William. I was not aware of it myself, but I felt it necessary to uphold the institutions of my county, and to evince a familiarity with them; so I shook my head, as much as to say "I believe you!" "And the Punches," said William. "There's cattle! A Suffolk Punch, when he's a good un, is worth his weight in gold. Did you ever breed any Suffolk Punches yourself, sir?" "N--no," I said, "not exactly." "Here's a gen'lm'n behind me, I'll pound it," said William, "as has bred 'em by wholesale." The gentleman spoken of was a gentleman with a very unpromising squint, and a prominent chin, who had a tall white hat on with a narrow flat brim, and whose close-fitting drab trousers seemed to button all the way up outside his legs from his boots to his hips. His chin was cocked over the coachman's shoulder, so near to me, that his breath quite tickled the back of my head; and as I looked round at him, he leered at the leaders with the eye with which he didn't squint, in a very knowing manner. "Ain't you?" said William. "Ain't I what?" asked the gentleman behind. "Bred them Suffolk Punches by wholesale?" "I should think so," said the gentleman. "There ain't no sort of orse that I ain't bred, and no sort of dorg. Orses and dorgs is some men's fancy. They're wittles and drink to me--lodging, wife, and children--reading, writing, and 'rithmetic--snuff, tobacker, and sleep." "That ain't a sort of man to see sitting behind a coach-box, is it though?" said William in my ear, as he handled the reins. I construed this remark into an indication of a wish that he should have my place, so I blushingly offered to resign it. "Well, if you don't mind, sir," said William, "I think it _would_ be more correct." I have always considered this as the first fall I had in life. When I booked my place at the coach-office, I had had "Box Seat" written against the entry, and had given the book-keeper half-a-crown. I was got up in a special great coat and shawl, expressly to do honor to that distinguished eminence; had glorified myself upon it a good deal; and had felt that I was a credit to the coach. And here, in the very first stage, I was supplanted by a shabby man with a squint, who had no other merit than smelling like a livery-stables, and being able to walk across me, more like a fly than a human being, while the horses were at a canter! [Illustration: My first fall in life.] A distrust of myself, which has often beset me in life on small occasions, when it would have been better away, was assuredly not stopped in its growth by this little incident outside the Canterbury coach. It was in vain to take refuge in gruffness of speech. I spoke from the pit of my stomach for the rest of the journey, but I felt completely extinguished, and dreadfully young. It was curious and interesting, nevertheless, to be sitting up there, behind four horses: well educated, well dressed, and with plenty of money in my pocket: and to look out for the places where I had slept on my weary journey. I had abundant occupation for my thoughts, in every conspicuous landmark on the road. When I looked down at the trampers whom we passed, and saw that well-remembered style of face turned up, I felt as if the tinker's blackened hand were in the bosom of my shirt again. When we clattered through the narrow street of Chatham, and I caught a glimpse, in passing, of the lane where the old monster lived who had bought my jacket, I stretched my neck eagerly to look for the place where I had sat, in the sun and in the shade, waiting for my money. When we came, at last, within a stage of London, and passed the veritable Salem House where Mr. Creakle had laid about him with a heavy hand, I would have given all I had, for lawful permission to get down and thrash him, and let all the boys out like so many caged sparrows. We went to the Golden Cross at Charing Cross, then a mouldy sort of establishment in a close neighbourhood. A waiter showed me into the coffee-room; and a chambermaid introduced me to my small bedchamber, which smelt like a hackney-coach, and was shut up like a family vault. I was still painfully conscious of my youth, for nobody stood in any awe of me at all: the chambermaid being utterly indifferent to my opinions on any subject, and the waiter being familiar with me, and offering advice to my inexperience. "Well now," said the waiter, in a tone of confidence, "what would you like for dinner? Young gentlemen likes poultry in general, have a fowl!" I told him, as majestically as I could, that I wasn't in the humour for a fowl. "Ain't you!" said the waiter. "Young gentlemen is generally tired of beef and mutton, have a weal cutlet!" I assented to this proposal, in default of being able to suggest anything else. "Do you care for taters?" said the waiter, with an insinuating smile, and his head on one side. "Young gentlemen generally has been overdosed with taters." I commanded him, in my deepest voice, to order a veal cutlet and potatoes, and all things fitting; and to inquire at the bar if there were any letters for Trotwood Copperfield, Esquire--which I knew there were not, and couldn't be, but thought it manly to appear to expect. He soon came back to say that there were none (at which I was much surprised), and began to lay the cloth for my dinner in a box by the fire. While he was so engaged, he asked me what I would take with it; and on my replying "Half a pint of sherry," thought it a favourable opportunity, I am afraid, to extract that measure of wine from the stale leavings at the bottoms of several small decanters. I am of this opinion, because, while I was reading the newspaper, I observed him behind a low wooden partition, which was his private apartment, very busy pouring out of a number of those vessels into one, like a chemist and druggist making up a prescription. When the wine came, too, I thought it flat; and it certainly had more English crumbs in it, than were to be expected in a foreign wine in anything like a pure state; but I was bashful enough to drink it, and say nothing. Being, then, in a pleasant frame of mind (from which I infer that poisoning is not always disagreeable in some stages of the process), I resolved to go to the play. It was Covent Garden Theatre that I chose; and there, from the back of a centre box, I saw Julius Cæsar and the new Pantomime. To have all those noble Romans alive before me, and walking in and out for my entertainment, instead of being the stern taskmasters they had been at school, was a most novel and delightful effect. But the mingled reality and mystery of the whole show, the influence upon me of the poetry, the lights, the music, the company, the smooth stupendous changes of glittering and brilliant scenery, were so dazzling, and opened up such illimitable regions of delight, that when I came out into the rainy street, at twelve o'clock at night, I felt as if I had come from the clouds, where I had been leading a romantic life for ages, to a bawling, splashing, link-lighted, umbrella-struggling, hackney-coach-jostling, patten-clinking, muddy, miserable world. I had emerged by another door, and stood in the street for a little while, as if I really were a stranger upon earth: but the unceremonious pushing and hustling that I received, soon recalled me to myself, and put me in the road back to the hotel; whither I went, revolving the glorious vision all the way; and where, after some porter and oysters, I sat revolving it still, at past one o'clock, with my eyes on the coffee-room fire. I was so filled with the play, and with the past--for it was, in a manner, like a shining transparency, through which I saw my earlier life moving along--that I don't know when the figure of a handsome well-formed young man, dressed with a tasteful easy negligence which I have reason to remember very well, became a real presence to me. But I recollect being conscious of his company without having noticed his coming in--and my still sitting, musing, over the coffee-room fire. At last I rose to go to bed, much to the relief of the sleepy waiter, who had got the fidgets in his legs, and was twisting them, and hitting them, and putting them through all kinds of contortions in his small pantry. In going towards the door, I passed the person who had come in, and saw him plainly. I turned directly, came back, and looked again. He did not know me, but I knew him in a moment. At another time I might have wanted the confidence or the decision to speak to him, and might have put it off until next day, and might have lost him. But, in the then condition of my mind, where the play was still running high, his former protection of me appeared so deserving of my gratitude, and my old love for him overflowed my breast so freshly and spontaneously, that I went up to him at once, with a fast-beating heart, and said: "Steerforth! won't you speak to me?" He looked at me--just as he used to look, sometimes--but I saw no recognition in his face. "You don't remember me, I am afraid," said I. "My God!" he suddenly exclaimed. "It's little Copperfield!" I grasped him by both hands, and could not let them go. But for very shame, and the fear that it might displease him, I could have held him round the neck and cried. "I never, never, never was so glad! My dear Steerforth, I am so overjoyed to see you!" "And I am rejoiced to see you, too!" he said, shaking my hands heartily. "Why, Copperfield, old boy, don't be overpowered!" And yet he was glad, too, I thought, to see how the delight I had in meeting him affected me. I brushed away the tears that my utmost resolution had not been able to keep back, and I made a clumsy laugh of it, and we sat down together, side by side. "Why, how do you come to be here?" said Steerforth, clapping me on the shoulder. "I came here by the Canterbury coach, to-day. I have been adopted by an aunt down in that part of the country, and have just finished my education there. How do _you_ come to be here, Steerforth?" "Well, I am what they call an Oxford man," he returned; "that is to say, I get bored to death down there, periodically--and I am on my way now to my mother's. You're a devilish amiable-looking fellow, Copperfield. Just what you used to be, now I look at you! Not altered in the least!" "I knew _you_ immediately," I said; "but you are more easily remembered." He laughed as he ran his hand through the clustering curls of his hair, and said gaily: "Yes, I am on an expedition of duty. My mother lives a little way out of town; and the roads being in a beastly condition, and our house tedious enough, I remained here to-night instead of going on. I have not been in town half-a-dozen hours, and those I have been dozing and grumbling away at the play." "I have been at the play, too," said I. "At Covent Garden. What a delightful and magnificent entertainment, Steerforth!" Steerforth laughed heartily. --"My dear young Davy," he said, clapping me on the shoulder again, "you are a very Daisy. The daisy of the field, at sunrise, is not fresher than you are! I have been at Covent Garden, too, and there never was a more miserable business.--Holloa, you sir!" This was addressed to the waiter, who had been very attentive to our recognition, at a distance, and now came forward deferentially. "Where have you put my friend, Mr. Copperfield?" said Steerforth. "Beg your pardon, sir?" "Where does he sleep? What's his number? You know what I mean," said Steerforth. "Well, sir," said the waiter, with an apologetic air. "Mr. Copperfield is at present in forty-four, sir." "And what the devil do you mean," retorted Steerforth, "by putting Mr. Copperfield into a little loft over a stable?" "Why, you see we wasn't aware, sir," returned the waiter, still apologetically, "as Mr. Copperfield was anyways particular. We can give Mr. Copperfield seventy-two, sir, if it would be preferred. Next you, sir." "Of course it would be preferred," said Steerforth. "And do it at once." The waiter immediately withdrew to make the exchange. Steerforth, very much amused at my having been put into forty-four, laughed again, and clapped me on the shoulder again, and invited me to breakfast with him next morning at ten o'clock--an invitation I was only too proud and happy to accept. It being now pretty late, we took our candles and went up-stairs, where we parted with friendly heartiness at his door, and where I found my new room a great improvement on my old one, it not being at all musty, and having an immense four-post bedstead in it, which was quite a little landed estate. Here, among pillows enough for six, I soon fell asleep in a blissful condition, and dreamed of ancient Rome, Steerforth, and friendship, until the early morning coaches, rumbling out of the archway underneath, made me dream of thunder and the gods. CHAPTER XX. STEERFORTH'S HOME. When the chambermaid tapped at my door at eight o'clock, and informed me that my shaving-water was outside, I felt severely the having no occasion for it, and blushed in my bed. The suspicion that she laughed too, when she said it, preyed upon my mind all the time I was dressing; and gave me, I was conscious, a sneaking and guilty air when I passed her on the staircase, as I was going down to breakfast. I was so sensitively aware, indeed, of being younger than I could have wished, that for some time I could not make up my mind to pass her at all, under the ignoble circumstances of the case; but, hearing her there with a broom, stood peeping out of window at King Charles on horseback, surrounded by a maze of hackney-coaches and looking anything but regal in a drizzling rain and a dark-brown fog, until I was admonished by the waiter that the gentleman was waiting for me. It was not in the coffee-room that I found Steerforth expecting me, but in a snug private apartment, red-curtained and Turkey-carpeted, where the fire burnt bright, and a fine hot breakfast was set forth on a table covered with a clean cloth; and a cheerful miniature of the room, the fire, the breakfast, Steerforth, and all, was shining in the little round mirror over the sideboard. I was rather bashful at first, Steerforth being so self-possessed, and elegant, and superior to me in all respects (age included); but his easy patronage soon put that to rights, and made me quite at home. I could not enough admire the change he had wrought in the Golden Cross; or compare the dull forlorn state I had held yesterday, with this morning's comfort and this morning's entertainment. As to the waiter's familiarity, it was quenched as if it had never been. He attended on us, as I may say, in sackcloth and ashes. "Now, Copperfield," said Steerforth, when we were alone, "I should like to hear what you are doing, and where you are going, and all about you. I feel as if you were my property." Glowing with pleasure to find that he had still this interest in me, I told him how my aunt had proposed the little expedition that I had before me, and whither it tended. "As you are in no hurry, then," said Steerforth, "come home with me to Highgate, and stay a day or two. You will be pleased with my mother--she is a little vain and prosy about me, but that you can forgive her--and she will be pleased with you." "I should like to be as sure of that, as you are kind enough to say you are," I answered, smiling. "Oh!" said Steerforth, "every one who likes me, has a claim on her that is sure to be acknowledged." "Then I think I shall be a favorite," said I. "Good!" said Steerforth. "Come and prove it. We will go and see the lions for an hour or two--it's something to have a fresh fellow like you to show them to, Copperfield--and then we'll journey out to Highgate by the coach." I could hardly believe but that I was in a dream, and that I should wake presently in number forty-four, to the solitary box in the coffee-room and the familiar waiter again. After I had written to my aunt and told her of my fortunate meeting with my admired old schoolfellow, and my acceptance of his invitation, we went out in a hackney-chariot, and saw a Panorama and some other sights, and took a walk through the Museum, where I could not help observing how much Steerforth knew, on an infinite variety of subjects, and of how little account he seemed to make his knowledge. "You'll take a high degree at college, Steerforth," said I, "if you have not done so already; and they will have good reason to be proud of you." "_I_ take a degree!" cried Steerforth. "Not I! my dear Daisy--will you mind my calling you Daisy?" "Not at all!" said I. "That's a good fellow! My dear Daisy," said Steerforth, laughing, "I have not the least desire or intention to distinguish myself in that way. I have done quite sufficient for my purpose. I find that I am heavy company enough for myself, as I am." "But the fame----" I was beginning. "You romantic Daisy!" said Steerforth, laughing still more heartily; "why should I trouble myself, that a parcel of heavy-headed fellows may gape and hold up their hands? Let them do it at some other man. There's fame for him, and he's welcome to it." I was abashed at having made so great a mistake, and was glad to change the subject. Fortunately it was not difficult to do, for Steerforth could always pass from one subject to another with a carelessness and lightness that were his own. Lunch succeeded to our sight-seeing, and the short winter day wore away so fast, that it was dusk when the stage-coach stopped with us at an old brick house at Highgate on the summit of the hill. An elderly lady, though not very far advanced in years, with a proud carriage and a handsome face, was in the doorway as we alighted; and greeting Steerforth as "My dearest James," folded him in her arms. To this lady he presented me as his mother, and she gave me a stately welcome. It was a genteel old-fashioned house, very quiet and orderly. From the windows of my room I saw all London lying in the distance like a great vapour, with here and there some lights twinkling through it. I had only time, in dressing, to glance at the solid furniture, the framed pieces of work (done, I supposed, by Steerforth's mother when she was a girl), and some pictures in crayons of ladies with powdered hair and boddices, coming and going on the walls, as the newly-kindled fire crackled and sputtered, when I was called to dinner. There was a second lady in the dining-room, of a slight short figure, dark, and not agreeable to look at, but with some appearance of good looks too, who attracted my attention: perhaps because I had not expected to see her; perhaps because I found myself sitting opposite to her; perhaps because of something really remarkable in her. She had black hair and eager black eyes, and was thin, and had a scar upon her lip. It was an old scar--I should rather call it, seam, for it was not discolored, and had healed years ago--which had once cut through her mouth, downward towards the chin, but was now barely visible across the table, except above and on her upper lip, the shape of which it had altered. I concluded in my own mind that she was about thirty years of age, and that she wished to be married. She was a little dilapidated--like a house--with having been so long to let; yet had, as I have said, an appearance of good looks. Her thinness seemed to be the effect of some wasting fire within her, which found a vent in her gaunt eyes. She was introduced as Miss Dartle, and both Steerforth and his mother called her Rosa. I found that she lived there, and had been for a long time Mrs. Steerforth's companion. It appeared to me that she never said anything she wanted to say, outright; but hinted it, and made a great deal more of it by this practice. For example, when Mrs. Steerforth observed, more in jest than earnest, that she feared her son led but a wild life at college, Miss Dartle put in thus: "Oh, really? You know how ignorant I am, and that I only ask for information, but isn't it always so? I thought that kind of life was on all hands understood to be--eh?" "It is education for a very grave profession, if you mean that, Rosa," Mrs. Steerforth answered with some coldness. "Oh! Yes! That's very true," returned Miss Dartle. "But isn't it, though?--I want to be put right if I am wrong--isn't it really?" "Really what?" said Mrs. Steerforth. "Oh! You mean it's _not_!" returned Miss Dartle. "Well, I'm very glad to hear it! Now, I know what to do. That's the advantage of asking. I shall never allow people to talk before me about wastefulness and profligacy, and so forth, in connection with that life, any more." "And you will be right," said Mrs. Steerforth. "My son's tutor is a conscientious gentleman; and if I had not implicit reliance on my son, I should have reliance on him." "Should you?" said Miss Dartle. "Dear me! Conscientious, is he? Really conscientious, now?" "Yes, I am convinced of it," said Mrs. Steerforth. "How very nice!" exclaimed Miss Dartle. "What a comfort! Really conscientious? Then he's not--but of course he can't be, if he's really conscientious. Well, I shall be quite happy in my opinion of him, from this time. You can't think how it elevates him in my opinion, to know for certain that he's really conscientious!" Her own views of every question, and her correction of everything that was said to which she was opposed, Miss Dartle insinuated in the same way: sometimes, I could not conceal from myself, with great power, though in contradiction even of Steerforth. An instance happened before dinner was done. Mrs. Steerforth speaking to me about my intention of going down into Suffolk, I said at hazard how glad I should be, if Steerforth would only go there with me; and explaining to him that I was going to see my old nurse, and Mr. Peggotty's family, I reminded him of the boatman whom he had seen at school. "Oh! That bluff fellow!" said Steerforth. "He had a son with him, hadn't he?" "No. That was his nephew," I replied; "whom he adopted, though, as a son. He has a very pretty little niece too, whom he adopted as a daughter. In short, his house (or rather his boat, for he lives in one, on dry land) is full of people who are objects of his generosity and kindness. You would be delighted to see that household." "Should I?" said Steerforth. "Well, I think I should. I must see what can be done. It would be worth a journey--not to mention the pleasure of a journey with you, Daisy,--to see that sort of people together, and to make one of 'em." My heart leaped with a new hope of pleasure. But it was in reference to the tone in which he had spoken of "that sort of people," that Miss Dartle, whose sparkling eyes had been watchful of us, now broke in again. "Oh, but, really? Do tell me. Are they, though?" she said. "Are they what? And are who what?" said Steerforth. "That sort of people.--Are they really animals and clods, and beings of another order? I want to know _so_ much." "Why, there's a pretty wide separation between them and us," said Steerforth, with indifference. "They are not to be expected to be as sensitive as we are. Their delicacy is not to be shocked, or hurt very easily. They are wonderfully virtuous, I dare say--some people contend for that, at least; and I am sure I don't want to contradict them--but they have not very fine natures, and they may be thankful that, like their coarse rough skins, they are not easily wounded." "Really!" said Miss Dartle. "Well, I don't know, now, when I have been better pleased than to hear that. It's so consoling! It's such a delight to know that, when they suffer, they don't feel! Sometimes I have been quite uneasy for that sort of people; but now I shall just dismiss the idea of them, altogether. Live and learn. I had my doubts, I confess, but now they're cleared up. I didn't know, and now I do know; and that shows the advantage of asking--don't it?" I believed that Steerforth had said what he had, in jest, or to draw Miss Dartle out; and I expected him to say as much when she was gone, and we two were sitting before the fire. But he merely asked me what I thought of her. "She is very clever, is she not?" I asked. "Clever! She brings everything to a grindstone," said Steerforth, "and sharpens it, as she has sharpened her own face and figure these years past. She has worn herself away by constant sharpening. She is all edge." "What a remarkable scar that is upon her lip!" I said. Steerforth's face fell, and he paused a moment. "Why, the fact is," he returned, "--_I_ did that." "By an unfortunate accident!" "No. I was a young boy, and she exasperated me, and I threw a hammer at her. A promising young angel I must have been!" I was deeply sorry to have touched on such a painful theme, but that was useless now. "She has borne the mark ever since, as you see," said Steerforth; "and she'll bear it to her grave, if she ever rests in one--though I can hardly believe she will ever rest anywhere. She was the motherless child of a sort of cousin of my father's. He died one day. My mother, who was then a widow, brought her here to be company to her. She has a couple of thousand pounds of her own, and saves the interest of it every year, to add to the principal. There's the history of Miss Rosa Dartle for you." "And I have no doubt she loves you like a brother?" said I. "Humph!" retorted Steerforth, looking at the fire. "Some brothers are not loved over much; and some love--but help yourself, Copperfield! We'll drink the daisies of the field, in compliment to you; and the lilies of the valley that toil not, neither do they spin, in compliment to me--the more shame for me!" A moody smile that had overspread his features cleared off as he said this merrily, and he was his own frank, winning self again. I could not help glancing at the scar with a painful interest when we went in to tea. It was not long before I observed that it was the most susceptible part of her face, and that, when she turned pale, that mark altered first, and became a dull, lead-colored streak, lengthening out to its full extent, like a mark in invisible ink brought to the fire. There was a little altercation between her and Steerforth about a cast of the dice at backgammon--when I thought her, for one moment, in a storm of rage; and then I saw it start forth like the old writing on the wall. It was no matter of wonder to me to find Mrs. Steerforth devoted to her son. She seemed to be able to speak or think about nothing else. She showed me his picture as an infant, in a locket, with some of his baby-hair in it; she showed me his picture as he had been when I first knew him; and she wore at her breast his picture as he was now. All the letters he had ever written to her, she kept in a cabinet near her own chair by the fire; and she would have read me some of them, and I should have been very glad to hear them too, if he had not interposed, and coaxed her out of the design. "It was at Mr. Creakle's, my son tells me, that you first became acquainted," said Mrs. Steerforth, as she and I were talking at one table, while they played backgammon at another. "Indeed, I recollect his speaking, at that time, of a pupil younger than himself who had taken his fancy there; but your name, as you may suppose, has not lived in my memory." "He was very generous and noble to me in those days, I assure you, ma'am," said I, "and I stood in need of such a friend. I should have been quite crushed without him." "He is always generous and noble," said Mrs. Steerforth, proudly. I subscribed to this with all my heart, God knows. She knew I did; for the stateliness of her manner already abated towards me, except when she spoke in praise of him, and then her air was always lofty. "It was not a fit school generally for my son," said she; "far from it; but there were particular circumstances to be considered at the time, of more importance even than that selection. My son's high spirit made it desirable that he should be placed with some man who felt its superiority, and would be content to bow himself before it; and we found such a man there." I knew that, knowing the fellow. And yet I did not despise him the more for it, but thought it a redeeming quality in him--if he could be allowed any grace for not resisting one so irresistible as Steerforth. "My son's great capacity was tempted on, there, by a feeling of voluntary emulation and conscious pride," the fond lady went on to say. "He would have risen against all constraint; but he found himself the monarch of the place, and he haughtily determined to be worthy of his station. It was like himself." I echoed, with all my heart and soul, that it was like himself. "So my son took, of his own will, and on no compulsion, to the course in which he can always, when it is his pleasure, outstrip every competitor," she pursued. "My son informs me, Mr. Copperfield, that you were quite devoted to him, and that when you met yesterday you made yourself known to him with tears of joy. I should be an affected woman if I made any pretence of being surprised by my son's inspiring such emotions; but I cannot be indifferent to any one who is so sensible of his merit, and I am very glad to see you here, and can assure you that he feels an unusual friendship for you, and that you may rely on his protection." Miss Dartle played backgammon as eagerly as she did everything else. If I had seen her, first, at the board, I should have fancied that her figure had got thin, and her eyes had got large, over that pursuit, and no other in the world. But I am very much mistaken if she missed a word of this, or lost a look of mine as I received it with the utmost pleasure, and, honored by Mrs. Steerforth's confidence, felt older than I had done since I left Canterbury. When the evening was pretty far spent, and a tray of glasses and decanters came in, Steerforth promised, over the fire, that he would seriously think of going down into the country with me. There was no hurry, he said; a week hence would do; and his mother hospitably said the same. While we were talking, he more than once called me Daisy; which brought Miss Dartle out again. "But really, Mr. Copperfield," she asked, "is it a nick-name? And why does he give it you? Is it--eh?--because he thinks you young and innocent? I am so stupid in these things." I colored in replying that I believed it was. "Oh!" said Miss Dartle. "Now I am glad to know that! I ask for information, and I am glad to know it. He thinks you young and innocent; and so you are his friend. Well, that's quite delightful!" She went to bed soon after this, and Mrs. Steerforth retired too. Steerforth and I, after lingering for half an hour over the fire, talking about Traddles and all the rest of them at old Salem House, went up-stairs together. Steerforth's room was next to mine, and I went in to look at it. It was a picture of comfort, full of easy chairs, cushions and footstools, worked by his mother's hand, and with no sort of thing omitted that could help to render it complete. Finally, her handsome features looked down on her darling from a portrait on the wall, as if it were even something to her that her likeness should watch him while he slept. I found the fire burning clear enough in my room by this time, and the curtains drawn before the windows and round the bed, giving it a very snug appearance. I sat down in a great chair upon the hearth to meditate on my happiness; and had enjoyed the contemplation of it for some time, when I found a likeness of Miss Dartle looking eagerly at me from above the chimney-piece. It was a startling likeness, and necessarily had a startling look. The painter hadn't made the scar, but _I_ made it; and there it was, coming and going: now confined to the upper lip as I had seen it at dinner, and now showing the whole extent of the wound inflicted by the hammer, as I had seen it when she was passionate. I wondered peevishly why they couldn't put her anywhere else instead of quartering her on me. To get rid of her, I undressed quickly, extinguished my light, and went to bed. But, as I fell asleep, I could not forget that she was still there looking, "Is it really, though? I want to know;" and when I awoke in the night, I found that I was uneasily asking all sorts of people in my dreams whether it really was or not--without knowing what I meant. CHAPTER XXI. LITTLE EM'LY. There was a servant in that house, a man who, I understood, was usually with Steerforth, and had come into his service at the University, who was in appearance a pattern of respectability. I believe there never existed in his station a more respectable-looking man. He was taciturn, soft-footed, very quiet in his manner, deferential, observant, always at hand when wanted, and never near when not wanted; but his great claim to consideration was his respectability. He had not a pliant face, he had rather a stiff neck, rather a tight smooth head with short hair clinging to it at the sides, a soft way of speaking, with a peculiar habit of whispering the letter S so distinctly, that he seemed to use it oftener than any other man; but every peculiarity that he had he made respectable. If his nose had been upside-down, he would have made that respectable. He surrounded himself with an atmosphere of respectability, and walked secure in it. It would have been next to impossible to suspect him of anything wrong, he was so thoroughly respectable. Nobody could have thought of putting him in a livery, he was so highly respectable. To have imposed any derogatory work upon him, would have been to inflict a wanton insult on the feelings of a most respectable man. And of this, I noticed the women-servants in the household were so intuitively conscious, that they always did such work themselves, and generally while he read the paper by the pantry fire. Such a self-contained man I never saw. But in that quality, as in every other he possessed, he only seemed to be the more respectable. Even the fact that no one knew his Christian name, seemed to form a part of his respectability. Nothing could be objected against his surname Littimer, by which he was known. Peter might have been hanged, or Tom transported; but Littimer was perfectly respectable. It was occasioned, I suppose, by the reverend nature of respectability in the abstract, but I felt particularly young in this man's presence. How old he was himself I could not guess--and that again went to his credit on the same score; for in the calmness of respectability he might have numbered fifty years as well as thirty. Littimer was in my room in the morning before I was up, to bring me that reproachful shaving-water, and to put out my clothes. When I undrew the curtains and looked out of bed, I saw him, in an equable temperature of respectability, unaffected by the east wind of January, and not even breathing frostily, standing my boots right and left in the first dancing position, and blowing specks of dust off my coat as he laid it down like a baby. I gave him good morning, and asked him what o'clock it was. He took out of his pocket the most respectable hunting-watch I ever saw, and preventing the spring with his thumb from opening far, looked in at the face as if he were consulting an oracular oyster, shut it up again, and said, if I pleased, it was halfpast eight. "Mr. Steerforth will be glad to hear how you have rested, sir." "Thank you," said I, "very well indeed. Is Mr. Steerforth quite well?" "Thank you, sir, Mr. Steerforth is tolerably well." Another of his characteristics,--no use of superlatives. A cool calm medium always. "Is there anything more I can have the honor of doing for you, sir? The warning-bell will ring at nine; the family take breakfast at halfpast nine." "Nothing, I thank you." "I thank _you_, sir, if you please;" and with that, and with a little inclination of his head when he passed the bedside, as an apology for correcting me, he went out, shutting the door as delicately as if I had just fallen into a sweet sleep on which my life depended. Every morning we held exactly this conversation: never any more, and never any less: and yet, invariably, however far I might have been lifted out of myself over-night, and advanced towards maturer years, by Steerforth's companionship, or Mrs. Steerforth's confidence, or Miss Dartle's conversation, in the presence of this most respectable man I became, as our smaller poets sing, "a boy again." He got horses for us; and Steerforth, who knew every thing, gave me lessons in riding. He provided foils for us, and Steerforth gave me lessons in fencing--gloves, and I began, of the same master, to improve in boxing. It gave me no manner of concern that Steerforth should find me a novice in these sciences, but I never could bear to show my want of skill before the respectable Littimer. I had no reason to believe that Littimer understood such arts himself; he never led me to suppose anything of the kind, by so much as the vibration of one of his respectable eyelashes; yet whenever he was by, while we were practising, I felt myself the greenest and most inexperienced of mortals. I am particular about this man, because he made a particular effect on me at that time, and because of what took place thereafter. The week passed away in a most delightful manner. It passed rapidly, as may be supposed, to one entranced as I was; and yet it gave me so many occasions for knowing Steerforth better, and admiring him more in a thousand respects, that at its close I seemed to have been with him for a much longer time. A dashing way he had of treating me like a plaything, was more agreeable to me than any behaviour he could have adopted. It reminded me of our old acquaintance; it seemed the natural sequel of it; it showed me that he was unchanged; it relieved me of any uneasiness I might have felt, in comparing my merits with his, and measuring my claims upon his friendship by any equal standard; above all, it was a familiar, unrestrained, affectionate demeanor that he used towards no one else. As he had treated me at school differently from all the rest, I joyfully believed that he treated me in life unlike any other friend he had. I believed that I was nearer to his heart than any other friend, and my own heart warmed with attachment to him. He made up his mind to go with me into the country, and the day arrived for our departure. He had been doubtful at first whether to take Littimer or not, but decided to leave him at home. The respectable creature, satisfied with his lot whatever it was, arranged our portmanteaus on the little carriage that was to take us into London, as if they were intended to defy the shocks of ages; and received my modestly proffered donation with perfect tranquillity. We bade adieu to Mrs. Steerforth and Miss Dartle, with many thanks on my part, and much kindness on the devoted mother's. The last thing I saw was Littimer's unruffled eye; fraught, as I fancied, with the silent conviction that I was very young indeed. What I felt, in returning so auspiciously to the old familiar places, I shall not endeavour to describe. We went down by the Mail. I was so concerned, I recollect, even for the honor of Yarmouth, that when Steerforth said, as we drove through its dark streets to the inn, that, as well as he could make out, it was a good, queer, out-of-the-way kind of hole, I was highly pleased. We went to bed on our arrival (I observed a pair of dirty shoes and gaiters in connexion with my old friend the Dolphin as we passed that door), and breakfasted late in the morning. Steerforth, who was in great spirits, had been strolling about the beach before I was up, and had made acquaintance, he said, with half the boatmen in the place. Moreover he had seen, in the distance, what he was sure must be the identical house of Mr. Peggotty, with smoke coming out of the chimney; and had had a great mind, he told me, to walk in and swear he was myself grown out of knowledge. "When do you propose to introduce me there, Daisy?" he said. "I am at your disposal. Make your own arrangements." "Why, I was thinking that this evening would be a good time, Steerforth, when they are all sitting round the fire. I should like you to see it when it's snug, it's such a curious place." "So be it!" returned Steerforth. "This evening." "I shall not give them any notice that we are here, you know," said I, delighted. "We must take them by surprise." "Oh, of course! It's no fun," said Steerforth, "unless we take them by surprise. Let us see the natives in their aboriginal condition." "Though they _are_ that sort of people that you mentioned," I returned. "Aha! What! you recollect my skirmishes with Rosa, do you?" he exclaimed with a quick look. "Confound the girl, I am half afraid of her. She's like a goblin to me. But never mind her. Now what are you going to do? You are going to see your nurse, I suppose?" "Why, yes," I said, "I must see Peggotty first of all." "Well," replied Steerforth, looking at his watch. "Suppose I deliver you up to be cried over for a couple of hours. Is that long enough?" I answered, laughing, that I thought we might get through it in that time, but that he must come also; for he would find that his renown had preceded him, and that he was almost as great a personage as I was. "I'll come anywhere you like," said Steerforth, "or do anything you like. Tell me where to come to; and in two hours I'll produce myself in any state you please, sentimental or comical." I gave him minute directions for finding the residence of Mr. Barkis, carrier to Blunderstone and elsewhere, and, on this understanding, went out alone. There was a sharp bracing air; the ground was dry; the sea was crisp and clear; the sun was diffusing abundance of light, if not much warmth; and everything was fresh and lively. I was so fresh and lively myself, in the pleasure of being there, that I could have stopped the people in the streets and shaken hands with them. The streets looked small, of course. The streets that we have only seen as children, always do, I believe, when we go back to them. But I had forgotten nothing in them, and found nothing changed, until I came to Mr. Omer's shop. OMER AND JORAM was now written up, where OMER used to be; but the inscription, DRAPER, TAILOR, HABERDASHER, FUNERAL FURNISHER, &C., remained as it was. My footsteps seemed to tend so naturally to the shop-door, after I had read these words from over the way, that I went across the road and looked in. There was a pretty woman at the back of the shop, dancing a little child in her arms, while another little fellow clung to her apron. I had no difficulty in recognising either Minnie or Minnie's children. The glass-door of the parlor was not open; but in the workshop across the yard I could faintly hear the old tune playing, as if it had never left off. "Is Mr. Omer at home?" said I, entering. "I should like to see him, for a moment, if he is." "Oh yes, sir, he is at home," said Minnie; "this weather don't suit his asthma out of doors. Joe, call your grandfather!" The little fellow, who was holding her apron, gave such a lusty shout, that the sound of it made him bashful, and he buried his face in her skirts, to her great admiration. I heard a heavy puffing and blowing coming towards us, and soon Mr. Omer, shorter-winded than of yore, but not much older-looking, stood before me. "Servant, sir," said Mr. Omer. "What can I do for you, sir?" "You can shake hands with me, Mr. Omer, if you please," said I, putting out my own. "You were very good-natured to me once, when I am afraid I didn't show that I thought so." "Was I though?" returned the old man. "I'm glad to hear it, but I don't remember when. Are you sure it was me?" "Quite." "I think my memory has got as short as my breath," said Mr. Omer, looking at me and shaking his head; "for I don't remember you." "Don't you remember your coming to the coach to meet me, and my having breakfast here, and our riding out to Blunderstone together: you, and I, and Mrs. Joram, and Mr. Joram too--who wasn't her husband then?" "Why, Lord bless my soul!" exclaimed Mr. Omer, after being thrown by his surprise into a fit of coughing, "you don't say so! Minnie, my dear, you recollect? Dear me, yes--the party was a lady, I think?" "My mother," I rejoined. "To--be--sure," said Mr. Omer, touching my waistcoat with his forefinger, "and there was a little child too! There was two parties. The little party was laid along with the other party. Over at Blunderstone it was, of course. Dear me! And how have you been since?" Very well, I thanked him, as I hoped he had been too. "Oh! nothing to grumble at, you know," said Mr. Omer. "I find my breath gets short, but it seldom gets longer as a man gets older. I take it as it comes, and make the most of it. That's the best way, ain't it?" Mr. Omer coughed again, in consequence of laughing, and was assisted out of his fit by his daughter, who now stood close beside us, dancing her smallest child on the counter. "Dear me!" said Mr. Omer. "Yes, to be sure. Two parties! Why, in that very ride, if you'll believe me, the day was named for my Minnie to marry Joram. 'Do name it, sir,' says Joram. 'Yes, do, father,' says Minnie. And now he's come into the business. And look here! The youngest!" Minnie laughed, and stroked her banded hair upon her temples, as her father put one of his fat fingers into the hand of the child she was dancing on the counter. "Two parties, of course!" said Mr. Omer, nodding his head retrospectively. "Ex-actly so! And Joram's at work, at this minute, on a grey one with silver nails, not this measurement"--the measurement of the dancing child upon the counter--"by a good two inches.--Will you take something?" I thanked him, but declined. "Let me see," said Mr. Omer. "Barkis's the carrier's wife--Peggotty's the boatman's sister--she had something to do with your family? She was in service there, sure?" My answering in the affirmative gave him great satisfaction. "I believe my breath will get long next, my memory's getting so much so," said Mr. Omer. "Well, sir, we've got a young relation of hers here, under articles to us, that has as elegant a taste in the dressmaking business--I assure you I don't believe there's a Duchess in England can touch her." "Not little Em'ly?" said I, involuntarily. "Em'ly's her name," said Mr. Omer, "and she's little too. But if you'll believe me, she has such a face of her own that half the women in this town are mad against her." "Nonsense, father!" cried Minnie. "My dear," said Mr. Omer, "I don't say it's the case with you," winking at me, "but I say that half the women in Yarmouth--ah! and in five mile round--are mad against that girl." "Then she should have kept to her own station in life, father," said Minnie, "and not have given them any hold to talk about her, and then they couldn't have done it." "Couldn't have done it, my dear!" retorted Mr. Omer. "Couldn't have done it! Is that _your_ knowledge of life? What is there that any woman couldn't do, that she shouldn't do--especially on the subject of another woman's good looks?" I really thought it was all over with Mr. Omer, after he had uttered this libellous pleasantry. He coughed to that extent, and his breath eluded all his attempts to recover it with that obstinacy, that I fully expected to see his head go down behind the counter, and his little black breeches, with the rusty little bunches of ribbons at the knees, come quivering up in a last ineffectual struggle. At length, however, he got better, though he still panted hard, and was so exhausted that he was obliged to sit on the stool of the shop-desk. "You see," he said, wiping his head, and breathing with difficulty, "she hasn't taken much to any companions here; she hasn't taken kindly to any particular acquaintances and friends, not to mention sweethearts. In consequence, an ill-natured story got about, that Em'ly wanted to be a lady. Now my opinion is, that it came into circulation principally on account of her sometimes saying, at the school, that if she was a lady she would like to do so and so for her uncle--don't you see?--and buy him such and such fine things." "I assure you, Mr. Omer, she has said so to me," I returned eagerly, "when we were both children." Mr. Omer nodded his head and rubbed his chin. "Just so. Then out of a very little, she could dress herself, you see, better than most others could out of a deal, and _that_ made things unpleasant. Moreover, she was rather what might be called wayward--I'll go so far as to say what I should call wayward myself," said Mr. Omer, "--didn't know her own mind quite--a little spoiled--and couldn't, at first, exactly bind herself down. No more than that was ever said against her, Minnie?" "No, father," said Mrs. Joram. "That's the worst, I believe." "So when she got a situation," said Mr. Omer, "to keep a fractious old lady company, they didn't very well agree, and she didn't stop. At last she came here, apprenticed for three years. Nearly two of 'em are over, and she has been as good a girl as ever was. Worth any six! Minnie, is she worth any six, now?" "Yes, father," replied Minnie. "Never say _I_ detracted from her!" "Very good," said Mr. Omer. "That's right. And so, young gentleman," he added, after a few moments' further rubbing of his chin, "that you may not consider me long-winded as well as short-breathed, I believe that's all about it." As they had spoken in a subdued tone, while speaking of Em'ly, I had no doubt that she was near. On my asking now, if that were not so, Mr. Omer nodded yes, and nodded towards the door of the parlor. My hurried inquiry if I might peep in, was answered with a free permission; and, looking through the glass, I saw her sitting at her work. I saw her, a most beautiful little creature, with the cloudless blue eyes, that had looked into my childish heart, turned laughingly upon another child of Minnie's who was playing near her; with enough of wilfulness in her bright face to justify what I had heard; with much of the old capricious coyness lurking in it; but with nothing in her pretty looks, I am sure, but what was meant for goodness and for happiness, and what was on a good and happy course. The tune across the yard that seemed as if it never had left off--alas! it was the tune that never _does_ leave off--was beating, softly, all the while. "Wouldn't you like to step in," said Mr. Omer, "and speak to her? Walk in and speak to her, sir! Make yourself at home!" I was too bashful to do so then--I was afraid of confusing her, and I was no less afraid of confusing myself: but I informed myself of the hour at which she left of an evening, in order that our visit might be timed accordingly; and taking leave of Mr. Omer, and his pretty daughter, and her little children, went away to my dear old Peggotty's. Here she was, in the tiled kitchen, cooking dinner! The moment I knocked at the door she opened it, and asked me what I pleased to want. I looked at her with a smile, but she gave me no smile in return. I had never ceased to write to her, but it must have been seven years since we had met. "Is Mr. Barkis at home, ma'am?" I said, feigning to speak roughly to her. "He's at home, sir," returned Peggotty, "but he's bad abed with the rheumatics." "Don't he go over to Blunderstone now?" I asked. "When he's well, he do," she answered. "Do _you_ ever go there, Mrs. Barkis?" She looked at me more attentively, and I noticed a quick movement of her hands towards each other. "Because I want to ask a question about a house there, that they call the--what is it?--the Rookery," said I. She took a step backward, and put out her hands in an undecided frightened way, as if to keep me off. "Peggotty!" I cried to her. She cried, "My darling boy!" and we both burst into tears, and were locked in one another's arms. What extravagancies she committed; what laughing and crying over me; what pride she showed, what joy, what sorrow that she whose pride and joy I might have been, could never hold me in a fond embrace; I have not the heart to tell. I was troubled with no misgiving that it was young in me to respond to her emotions. I had never laughed and cried in all my life, I dare say--not even to her--more freely than I did that morning. "Barkis will be so glad," said Peggotty, wiping her eyes with her apron, "that it'll do him more good than pints of liniment. May I go and tell him you are here? Will you come up and see him, my dear?" Of course I would. But Peggotty could not get out of the room as easily as she meant to, for as often as she got to the door and looked round at me, she came back again to have another laugh and another cry upon my shoulder. At last, to make the matter easier, I went up-stairs with her; and having waited outside for a minute, while she said a word of preparation to Mr. Barkis, presented myself before that invalid. He received me with absolute enthusiasm. He was too rheumatic to be shaken hands with, but he begged me to shake the tassel on the top of his nightcap, which I did most cordially. When I sat down by the side of the bed, he said that it did him a world of good to feel as if he was driving me on the Blunderstone road again. As he lay in bed, face upward, and so covered, with that exception, that he seemed to be nothing but a face--like a conventional cherubim,--he looked the queerest object I ever beheld. "What name was it, as I wrote up, in the cart, sir?" said Mr. Barkis, with a slow rheumatic smile. "Ah! Mr. Barkis, we had some grave talks about that matter, hadn't we?" "I was willin' a long time, sir?" said Mr. Barkis. "A long time," said I. "And I don't regret it," said Mr. Barkis. "Do you remember what you told me once, about her making all the apple parsties and doing all the cooking?" "Yes, very well," I returned. "It was as true," said Mr. Barkis, "as turnips is. It was as true," said Mr. Barkis, nodding his nightcap, which was his only means of emphasis, "as taxes is. And nothing's truer than them." Mr. Barkis turned his eyes upon me, as if for my assent to this result of his reflections in bed; and I gave it. "Nothing's truer than them," repeated Mr. Barkis; "a man as poor as I am finds that out in his mind when he's laid up. I'm a very poor man, sir." "I am sorry to hear it, Mr. Barkis." "A very poor man, indeed I am," said Mr. Barkis. Here his right hand came slowly and feebly from under the bedclothes, and with a purposeless uncertain grasp took hold of a stick which was loosely tied to the side of the bed. After some poking about with this instrument, in the course of which his face assumed a variety of distracted expressions, Mr. Barkis poked it against a box, an end of which had been visible to me all the time. Then his face became composed. "Old clothes," said Mr. Barkis. "Oh!" said I. "I wish it was Money, sir," said Mr. Barkis. "I wish it was, indeed," said I. "But it AIN'T," said Mr. Barkis, opening both his eyes as wide as he possibly could. I expressed myself quite sure of that, and Mr. Barkis, turning his eyes more gently to his wife, said: "She's the usefullest and best of women, C. P. Barkis. All the praise that any one can give to C. P. Barkis, she deserves, and more! My dear, you'll get a dinner to-day, for company; something good to eat and drink, will you?" I should have protested against this unnecessary demonstration in my honor, but that I saw Peggotty, on the opposite side of the bed, extremely anxious I should not. So I held my peace. "I have got a trifle of money somewhere about me, my dear," said Mr. Barkis, "but I'm a little tired. If you and Mr. David will leave me for a short nap, I'll try and find it when I wake." We left the room, in compliance with this request. When we got outside the door, Peggotty informed me that Mr. Barkis, being now "a little nearer" than he used to be, always resorted to this same device before producing a single coin from his store; and that he endured unheard-of agonies in crawling out of bed alone, and taking it from that unlucky box. In effect, we presently heard him uttering suppressed groans of the most dismal nature, as this magpie proceeding racked him in every joint; but while Peggotty's eyes were full of compassion for him, she said his generous impulse would do him good, and it was better not to check it. So he groaned on, until he had got into bed again, suffering, I have no doubt, a martyrdom; and then called us in, pretending to have just woke up from a refreshing sleep, and to produce a guinea from under his pillow. His satisfaction in which happy imposition on us, and in having preserved the impenetrable secret of the box, appeared to be a sufficient compensation to him for all his tortures. I prepared Peggotty for Steerforth's arrival, and it was not long before he came. I am persuaded she knew no difference between his having been a personal benefactor of hers, and a kind friend to me, and that she would have received him with the utmost gratitude and devotion in any case. But his easy, spirited, good humour; his genial manner, his handsome looks, his natural gift of adapting himself to whomsoever he pleased, and making direct, when he cared to do it, to the main point of interest in anybody's heart; bound her to him wholly in five minutes. His manner to me, alone, would have won her. But, through all these causes combined, I sincerely believe she had a kind of adoration for him before he left the house that night. He stayed there with me to dinner--if I were to say willingly, I should not half express how readily and gaily. He went into Mr. Barkis's room like light and air, brightening and refreshing it as if he were healthy weather. There was no noise, no effort, no consciousness, in anything he did; but in everything an indescribable lightness, a seeming impossibility of doing anything else, or doing anything better, which was so graceful, so natural, and agreeable, that it overcomes me, even now, in the remembrance. We made merry in the little parlor, where the Book of Martyrs, unthumbed since my time, was laid out upon the desk as of old, and where I now turned over its terrific pictures, remembering the old sensations they had awakened, but not feeling them. When Peggotty spoke of what she called my room, and of its being ready for me at night, and of her hoping I would occupy it, before I could so much as look at Steerforth, hesitating, he was possessed of the whole case. "Of course," he said. "You'll sleep here, while we stay, and I shall sleep at the hotel." "But to bring you so far," I returned, "and to separate, seems bad companionship, Steerforth." "Why, in the name of Heaven, where do you naturally belong!" he said. "What is 'seems,' compared to that!" It was settled at once. He maintained all his delightful qualities to the last, until we started forth, at eight o'clock, for Mr. Peggotty's boat. Indeed, they were more and more brightly exhibited as the hours went on; for I thought even then, and I have no doubt now, that the consciousness of success in his determination to please, inspired him with a new delicacy of perception, and made it, subtle as it was, more easy to him. If any one had told me, then, that all this was a brilliant game, played for the excitement of the moment, for the employment of high spirits, in the thoughtless love of superiority, in a mere wasteful careless course of winning what was worthless to him, and next minute thrown away--I say, if any one had told me such a lie that night, I wonder in what manner of receiving it my indignation would have found a vent! Probably only in an increase, had that been possible, of the romantic feelings of fidelity and friendship with which I walked beside him, over the dark wintry sands, towards the old boat; the wind sighing around us even more mournfully, than it had sighed and moaned upon the night when I first darkened Mr. Peggotty's door. "This is a wild kind of place, Steerforth, is it not?" "Dismal enough in the dark," he said; "and the sea roars as if it were hungry for us. Is that the boat, where I see a light yonder?" "That's the boat," said I. "And it's the same I saw this morning," he returned. "I came straight to it, by instinct, I suppose." We said no more as we approached the light, but made softly for the door. I laid my hand upon the latch; and whispering Steerforth to keep close to me, went in. A murmur of voices had been audible on the outside, and, at the moment of our entrance, a clapping of hands: which latter noise, I was surprised to see, proceeded from the generally disconsolate Mrs. Gummidge. But Mrs. Gummidge was not the only person there, who was unusually excited. Mr. Peggotty, his face lighted up with uncommon satisfaction, and laughing with all his might, held his rough arms wide open, as if for little Em'ly to run into them; Ham, with a mixed expression in his face of admiration, exultation, and a lumbering sort of bashfulness that sat upon him very well, held little Em'ly by the hand, as if he were presenting her to Mr. Peggotty; little Em'ly herself, blushing and shy, but delighted with Mr. Peggotty's delight, as her joyous eyes expressed, was stopped by our entrance (for she saw us first) in the very act of springing from Ham to nestle in Mr. Peggotty's embrace. In the first glimpse we had of them all, and at the moment of our passing from the dark cold night into the warm light room, this was the way in which they were all employed: Mrs. Gummidge in the back ground, clapping her hands like a madwoman. [Illustration: We arrive unexpectedly at Mr. Peggotty's fireside.] The little picture was so instantaneously dissolved by our going in, that one might have doubted whether it had ever been. I was in the midst of the astonished family, face to face with Mr. Peggotty, and holding out my hand to him, when Ham shouted: "Mas'r Davy! It's Mas'r Davy!" In a moment we were all shaking hands with one another, and asking one another how we did, and telling one another how glad we were to meet, and all talking at once. Mr. Peggotty was so proud and overjoyed to see us, that he did not know what to say or do, but kept over and over again shaking hands with me, and then with Steerforth, and then with me, and then ruffling his shaggy hair all over his head, and laughing with such glee and triumph, that it was a treat to see him. "Why, that you two gent'lmen--gent'lmen growed--should come to this here roof to-night, of all nights in my life," said Mr. Peggotty, "is such a thing as never happened afore, I do rightly believe! Em'ly, my darling, come here! Come here, my little witch! There's Mas'r Davy's friend, my dear! There's the gent'lman as you've heerd on, Em'ly. He comes to see you, along with Mas'r Davy, on the brightest night of your uncle's life as ever was or will be, Gorm the t'other one, and horroar for it!" After delivering this speech all in a breath, and with extraordinary animation and pleasure, Mr. Peggotty put one of his large hands rapturously on each side of his niece's face, and kissing it a dozen times, laid it with a gentle pride and love upon his broad chest, and patted it as if his hand had been a lady's. Then he let her go; and as she ran into the little chamber where I used to sleep, looked round upon us, quite hot and out of breath with his uncommon satisfaction. "If you two gent'lmen--gent'lmen growed now, and such gent'lmen--" said Mr. Peggotty. "So th'are, so th'are!" cried Ham. "Well said! So th'are. Mas'r Davy bor--gent'lmen growed--so th'are!" "If you two gent'lmen, gent'lmen growed," said Mr. Peggotty, "don't excuse me for being in a state of mind, when you understand matters, I'll arks your pardon. Em'ly, my dear!--She knows I'm a going to tell," here his delight broke out again, "and has made off. Would you be so good as look arter her, Mawther, for a minute?" Mrs. Gummidge nodded and disappeared. "If this ain't," said Mr. Peggotty, sitting down among us by the fire, "the brightest night o' my life, I'm a shellfish--biled too--and more I can't say. This here little Em'ly, sir," in a low voice to Steerforth, "--her as you see a blushing here just now--" Steerforth only nodded; but with such a pleased expression of interest, and of participation in Mr. Peggotty's feelings, that the latter answered him as if he had spoken. "To be sure," said Mr. Peggotty. "That's her, and so she is. Thankee, sir." Ham nodded to me several times, as if he would have said so too. "This here little Em'ly of ours," said Mr. Peggotty, "has been, in our house, what I suppose (I'm a ignorant man, but that's my belief) no one but a little bright-eyed creetur _can_ be in a house. She ain't my child; I never had one; but I couldn't love her more. You understand! I couldn't do it!" "I quite understand," said Steerforth. "I know you do, sir," returned Mr. Peggotty, "and thankee again. Mas'r Davy, he can remember what she was; you may judge for your own self what she is; but neither of you can't fully know what she has been, is, and will be, to my loving art. I am rough, sir," said Mr. Peggotty, "I am as rough as a Sea Porkypine; but no one, unless, mayhap, it is a woman, can know, I think, what our little Em'ly is to me. And betwixt ourselves," sinking his voice lower yet, "_that_ woman's name ain't Missis Gummidge neither, though she has a world of merits." Mr. Peggotty ruffled his hair again with both hands, as a further preparation for what he was going to say, and went on with a hand upon each of his knees. "There was a certain person as had know'd our Em'ly, from the time when her father was drownded; as had seen her constant; when a babby, when a young gal, when a woman. Not much of a person to look at, he warn't," said Mr. Peggotty, "something o' my own build--rough--a good deal o' the sou'-wester in him--wery salt--but, on the whole, a honest sort of a chap, with his art in the right place." I thought I had never seen Ham grin to anything like the extent to which he sat grinning at us now. "What does this here blessed tarpaulin go and do," said Mr. Peggotty, with his face one high noon of enjoyment, "but he loses that there art of his to our little Em'ly. He follers her about, he makes hisself a sort o' servant to her, he loses in a great measure his relish for his wittles, and in the long run he makes it clear to me wot's amiss. Now I could wish myself, you see, that our little Em'ly was in a fair way of being married. I could wish to see her, at all ewents, under articles to a honest man as had a right to defend her. I don't know how long I may live, or how soon I may die; but I know that if I was capsized, any night, in a gale of wind in Yarmouth Roads here, and was to see the town-lights shining for the last time over the rollers as I couldn't make no head against, I could go down quieter for thinking 'There's a man ashore there, iron-true to my little Em'ly, God bless her, and no wrong can touch my Em'ly while so be as that man lives!'" Mr. Peggotty, in simple earnestness, waved his right arm, as if he were waving it at the town-lights for the last time, and then, exchanging a nod with Ham, whose eye he caught, proceeded as before. "Well! I counsels him to speak to Em'ly. He's big enough, but he's bashfuller than a little un, and he don't like. So _I_ speak. 'What! _Him!_' says Em'ly. '_Him_ that I've know'd so intimate so many years, and like so much! Oh, Uncle! I never can have _him_. He's such a good fellow!' I gives her a kiss, and I says no more to her than 'My dear, you're right to speak out, you're to choose for yourself, you're as free as a little bird.' Then I aways to him, and I says, 'I wish it could have been so, but it can't. But you can both be as you was, and wot I say to you is, Be as you was with her, like a man.' He says to me, a shaking of my hand, 'I will!' he says. And he was--honorable and manful--for two year going on, and we was just the same at home here as afore." Mr. Peggotty's face, which had varied in its expression with the various stages of his narrative, now resumed all its former triumphant delight, as he laid a hand upon my knee and a hand upon Steerforth's (previously wetting them both, for the greater emphasis of the action), and divided the following speech between us: "All of a sudden, one evening--as it might be to-night--comes little Em'ly from her work, and him with her! There ain't so much in _that_, you'll say. No, because he takes care on her, like a brother, arter dark, and indeed afore dark, and at all times. But this tarpaulin chap, he takes hold of her hand, and he cries out to me, joyful, 'Look here! This is to be my little wife!' And she says, half bold and half shy, and half a laughing and half a crying, 'Yes, uncle! If you please.'--If I please!" cried Mr. Peggotty, rolling his head in an ecstacy at the idea; "Lord, as if I should do anythink else!--'If you please, I am steadier now, and I have thought better of it, and I'll be as good a little wife as I can to him, for he's a dear, good fellow!' Then Missis Gummidge, she claps her hands like a play, and you come in. There! the murder's out!" said Mr. Peggotty--"You come in! It took place this here present hour; and here's the man that'll marry her, the minute she's out of her time." Ham staggered, as well he might, under the blow Mr. Peggotty dealt him in his unbounded joy, as a mark of confidence and friendship; but feeling called upon to say something to us, he said, with much faltering and great difficulty: "She warn't no higher than you was, Mas'r Davy--when you first come--when I thought what she'd grow up to be. I see her grow up--gent'lmen--like a flower. I'd lay down my life for her--Mas'r Davy--Oh! most content and cheerful! She's more to me--gent'lmen--than--she's all to me that ever I can want, and more than ever I--than ever I could say. I--I love her true. There ain't a gent'lman in all the land--nor yet sailing upon all the sea--that can love his lady more than I love her, though there's many a common man--would say better--what he meant." I thought it affecting to see such a sturdy fellow as Ham was now, trembling in the strength of what he felt for the pretty little creature who had won his heart. I thought the simple confidence reposed in us by Mr. Peggotty and by himself, was, in itself, affecting. I was affected by the story altogether. How far my emotions were influenced by the recollections of my childhood, I don't know. Whether I had come there with any lingering fancy that I was still to love little Em'ly, I don't know. I know that I was filled with pleasure by all this; but, at first, with an indescribably sensitive pleasure, that a very little would have changed to pain. Therefore, if it had depended upon me to touch the prevailing chord among them with any skill, I should have made a poor hand of it. But it depended upon Steerforth; and he did it with such address, that in a few minutes we were all as easy and as happy as it was possible to be. "Mr. Peggotty," he said, "you are a thoroughly good fellow, and deserve to be as happy as you are to-night. My hand upon it! Ham, I give you joy, my boy. My hand upon that, too! Daisy, stir the fire, and make it a brisk one! and Mr. Peggotty, unless you can induce your gentle niece to come back (for whom I vacate this seat in the corner), I shall go. Any gap at your fireside on such a night--such a gap least of all--I wouldn't make, for the wealth of the Indies!" So Mr. Peggotty went into my old room to fetch little Em'ly. At first little Em'ly didn't like to come, and then Ham went. Presently they brought her to the fireside, very much confused, and very shy,--but she soon became more assured when she found how gently and respectfully Steerforth spoke to her; how skilfully he avoided anything that would embarrass her; how he talked to Mr. Peggotty of boats, and ships, and tides, and fish; how he referred to me about the time when he had seen Mr. Peggotty at Salem House; how delighted he was with the boat and all belonging to it; how lightly and easily he carried on, until he brought us, by degrees, into a charmed circle, and we were all talking away without any reserve. Em'ly, indeed, said little all the evening; but she looked, and listened, and her face got animated, and she was charming. Steerforth told a story of a dismal shipwreck (which arose out of his talk with Mr. Peggotty), as if he saw it all before him--and little Em'ly's eyes were fastened on him all the time, as if she saw it too. He told us a merry adventure of his own, as a relief to that, with as much gaiety as if the narrative were as fresh to him as it was to us--and little Em'ly laughed until the boat rang with the musical sounds, and we all laughed (Steerforth too), in irresistible sympathy with what was so pleasant and light-hearted. He got Mr. Peggotty to sing, or rather to roar, "When the stormy winds do blow, do blow, do blow;" and he sang a sailor's song himself, so pathetically and beautifully, that I could have almost fancied that the real wind creeping sorrowfully round the house, and murmuring low through our unbroken silence, was there to listen. As to Mrs. Gummidge, he roused that victim of despondency with a success never attained by any one else (so Mr. Peggotty informed me) since the decease of the old one. He left her so little leisure for being miserable that she said next day she thought she must have been bewitched. But he set up no monopoly of the general attention, or the conversation. When little Em'ly grew more courageous, and talked (but still bashfully) across the fire to me, of our old wanderings upon the beach, to pick up shells and pebbles; and when I asked her if she recollected how I used to be devoted to her; and when we both laughed and reddened, casting these looks back on the pleasant old times, so unreal to look at now; he was silent and attentive, and observed us thoughtfully. She sat, at this time, and all the evening, on the old locker in her old little corner by the fire--Ham beside her, where I used to sit. I could not satisfy myself whether it was in her own little tormenting way, or in a maidenly reserve before us, that she kept quite close to the wall, and away from him; but I observed that she did so, all the evening. As I remember, it was almost midnight when we took our leave. We had had some biscuit and dried fish for supper, and Steerforth had produced from his pocket a full flask of Hollands, which we men (I may say we men, now, without a blush) had emptied. We parted merrily; and as they all stood crowded round the door to light us as far as they could upon our road, I saw the sweet blue eyes of little Em'ly peeping after us, from behind Ham, and heard her soft voice calling to us to be careful how we went. "A most engaging little Beauty!" said Steerforth, taking my arm. "Well! It's a quaint place, and they are quaint company, and it's quite a new sensation to mix with them." "How fortunate we are, too," I returned, "to have arrived to witness their happiness in that intended marriage! I never saw people so happy. How delightful to see it, and to be made the sharers in their honest joy, as we have been!" "That's rather a chuckle-headed fellow for the girl; isn't he?" said Steerforth. He had been so hearty with him, and with them all, that I felt a shock in this unexpected and cold reply. But turning quickly upon him, and seeing a laugh in his eyes, I answered, much relieved: "Ah, Steerforth! It's well for you to joke about the poor! You may skirmish with Miss Dartle, or try to hide your sympathies in jest from me, but I know better. When I see how perfectly you understand them, how exquisitely you can enter into happiness like this plain fisherman's, or humour a love like my old nurse's, I know that there is not a joy or sorrow, not an emotion, of such people, that can be indifferent to you. And I admire and love you for it, Steerforth, twenty times the more!" He stopped, and, looking in my face, said, "Daisy, I believe you are in earnest, and are good. I wish we all were!" Next moment he was gaily singing Mr. Peggotty's song, as we walked at a round pace back to Yarmouth. CHAPTER XXII. SOME OLD SCENES, AND SOME NEW PEOPLE. Steerforth and I stayed for more than a fortnight in that part of the country. We were very much together, I need not say; but occasionally we were asunder for some hours at a time. He was a good sailor, and I was but an indifferent one; and when he went out boating with Mr. Peggotty, which was a favorite amusement of his, I generally remained ashore. My occupation of Peggotty's spare-room put a constraint upon me, from which he was free: for, knowing how assiduously she attended on Mr. Barkis all day, I did not like to remain out late at night; whereas Steerforth, lying at the Inn, had nothing to consult but his own humour. Thus it came about, that I heard of his making little treats for the fishermen at Mr. Peggotty's house of call, "The Willing Mind," after I was in bed, and of his being afloat, wrapped in fisherman's clothes, whole moonlight nights, and coming back when the morning tide was at flood. By this time, however, I knew that his restless nature and bold spirits delighted to find a vent in rough toil and hard weather, as in any other means of excitement that presented itself freshly to him; so none of his proceedings surprised me. Another cause of our being sometimes apart, was, that I had naturally an interest in going over to Blunderstone, and revisiting the old familiar scenes of my childhood; while Steerforth, after being there once, had naturally no great interest in going there again. Hence, on three or four days that I can at once recal, we went our several ways after an early breakfast, and met again at a late dinner. I had no idea how he employed his time in the interval, beyond a general knowledge that he was very popular in the place, and had twenty means of actively diverting himself where another man might not have found one. For my own part, my occupation in my solitary pilgrimages was to recal every yard of the old road as I went along it, and to haunt the old spots, of which I never tired. I haunted them, as my memory had often done, and lingered among them as my younger thoughts had lingered when I was far away. The grave beneath the tree, where both my parents lay--on which I had looked out, when it was my father's only, with such curious feelings of compassion, and by which I had stood, so desolate, when it was opened to receive my pretty mother and her baby--the grave which Peggotty's own faithful care had ever since kept neat, and made a garden of, I walked near, by the hour. It lay a little off the church-yard path, in a quiet corner, not so far removed but I could read the names upon the stone as I walked to and fro, startled by the sound of the church-bell when it struck the hour, for it was like a departed voice to me. My reflections at these times were always associated with the figure I was to make in life, and the distinguished things I was to do. My echoing footsteps went to no other tune, but were as constant to that as if I had come home to build my castles in the air at a living mother's side. There were great changes in my old home. The ragged nests, so long deserted by the rooks, were gone; and the trees were lopped and topped out of their remembered shapes. The garden had run wild, and half the windows of the house were shut up. It was occupied, but only by a poor lunatic gentleman, and the people who took care of him. He was always sitting at my little window, looking out into the church-yard; and I wondered whether his rambling thoughts ever went upon any of the fancies that used to occupy mine, on the rosy mornings when I peeped out of that same little window in my night-clothes, and saw the sheep quietly feeding in the light of the rising sun. Our old neighbours, Mr. and Mrs. Grayper, were gone to South America, and the rain had made its way through the roof of their empty house, and stained the outer walls. Mr. Chillip was married again to a tall, raw-boned, high-nosed wife; and they had a weazen little baby, with a heavy head that it couldn't hold up, and two weak staring eyes, with which it seemed to be always wondering why it had ever been born. It was with a singular jumble of sadness and pleasure that I used to linger about my native place, until the reddening winter sun admonished me that it was time to start on my returning walk. But, when the place was left behind, and especially when Steerforth and I were happily seated over our dinner by a blazing fire, it was delicious to think of having been there. So it was, though in a softened degree, when I went to my neat room at night; and, turning over the leaves of the crocodile-book (which was always there, upon a little table), remembered with a grateful heart how blest I was in having such a friend as Steerforth, such a friend as Peggotty, and such a substitute for what I had lost as my excellent and generous aunt. My nearest way to Yarmouth, in coming back from these long walks, was by a ferry. It landed me on the flat between the town and the sea, which I could make straight across, and so save myself a considerable circuit by the high road. Mr. Peggotty's house being on that waste-place, and not a hundred yards out of my track, I always looked in as I went by. Steerforth was pretty sure to be there expecting me, and we went on together through the frosty air and gathering fog towards the twinkling lights of the town. One dark evening, when I was later than usual--for I had, that day, been making my parting visit to Blunderstone, as we were now about to return home--I found him alone in Mr. Peggotty's house, sitting thoughtfully before the fire. He was so intent upon his own reflections that he was quite unconscious of my approach. This, indeed, he might easily have been if he had been less absorbed, for footsteps fell noiselessly on the sandy ground outside; but even my entrance failed to rouse him. I was standing close to him, looking at him; and still, with a heavy brow, he was lost in his meditations. He gave such a start when I put my hand upon his shoulder, that he made me start too. "You come upon me," he said, almost angrily, "like a reproachful ghost!" "I was obliged to announce myself somehow," I replied. "Have I called you down from the stars?" "No," he answered. "No." "Up from anywhere, then?" said I, taking my seat near him. "I was looking at the pictures in the fire," he returned. "But you are spoiling them for me," said I, as he stirred it quickly with a piece of burning wood, striking out of it a train of red-hot sparks that went careering up the little chimney, and roaring out into the air. "You would not have seen them," he returned. "I detest this mongrel time, neither day nor night. How late you are! Where have you been?" "I have been taking leave of my usual walk," said I. "And I have been sitting here," said Steerforth, glancing round the room, "thinking that all the people we found so glad on the night of our coming down, might--to judge from the present wasted air of the place--be dispersed, or dead, or come to I don't know what harm. David, I wish to God I had had a judicious father these last twenty years!" "My dear Steerforth, what is the matter?" "I wish with all my soul I had been better guided!" he exclaimed. "I wish with all my soul I could guide myself better!" There was a passionate dejection in his manner that quite amazed me. He was more unlike himself than I could have supposed possible. "It would be better to be this poor Peggotty, or his lout of a nephew," he said, getting up and leaning moodily against the chimney-piece, with his face towards the fire, "than to be myself, twenty times richer and twenty times wiser, and be the torment to myself that I have been, in this Devil's bark of a boat, within the last half-hour!" I was so confounded by the alteration in him, that at first I could only observe him in silence, as he stood leaning his head upon his hand, and looking gloomily down at the fire. At length I begged him, with all the earnestness I felt, to tell me what had occurred to cross him so unusually, and to let me sympathise with him, if I could not hope to advise him. Before I had well concluded, he began to laugh--fretfully at first, but soon with returning gaiety. "Tut, it's nothing, Daisy! nothing!" he replied. "I told you, at the inn in London, I am heavy company for myself, sometimes. I have been a nightmare to myself, just now--must have had one, I think. At odd dull times, nursery tales come up into the memory, unrecognised for what they are. I believe I have been confounding myself with the bad boy who 'didn't care,' and became food for lions--a grander kind of going to the dogs, I suppose. What old women call the horrors, have been creeping over me from head to foot. I have been afraid of myself." "You are afraid of nothing else, I think," said I. "Perhaps not, and yet may have enough to be afraid of too," he answered. "Well! So it goes by! I am not about to be hipped again, David; but I tell you, my good fellow, once more, that it would have been well for me (and for more than me) if I had had a steadfast and judicious father!" His face was always full of expression, but I never saw it express such a dark kind of earnestness as when he said these words, with his glance bent on the fire. "So much for that!" he said, making as if he tossed something light into the air, with his hand. "'Why, being gone, I am a man again,' like Macbeth. And now for dinner! If I have not (Macbeth-like) broken up the feast with most admired disorder, Daisy." "But where are they all, I wonder!" said I. "God knows," said Steerforth. "After strolling to the ferry looking for you, I strolled in here and found the place deserted. That set me thinking, and you found me thinking." The advent of Mrs. Gummidge with a basket, explained how the house had happened to be empty. She had hurried out to buy something that was needed, against Mr. Peggotty's return with the tide; and had left the door open in the meanwhile, lest Ham and little Em'ly, with whom it was an early night, should come home while she was gone. Steerforth, after very much improving Mrs. Gummidge's spirits by a cheerful salutation, and a jocose embrace, took my arm, and hurried me away. He had improved his own spirits, no less than Mrs. Gummidge's, for they were again at their usual flow, and he was full of vivacious conversation as we went along. "And so," he said, gaily, "we abandon this buccaneer life to-morrow, do we?" "So we agreed," I returned. "And our places by the coach are taken, you know." "Ay! there's no help for it, I suppose," said Steerforth. "I have almost forgotten that there is anything to do in the world but to go out tossing on the sea here. I wish there was not." "As long as the novelty should last," said I, laughing. "Like enough," he returned; "though there's a sarcastic meaning in that observation for an amiable piece of innocence like my young friend. Well! I dare say I am a capricious fellow, David. I know I am; but while the iron is hot, I can strike it vigorously too. I could pass a reasonably good examination already, as a pilot in these waters, I think." "Mr. Peggotty says you are a wonder," I returned. "A nautical phenomenon, eh?" laughed Steerforth. "Indeed he does, and you know how truly; knowing how ardent you are in any pursuit you follow, and how easily you can master it. And that amazes me most in you, Steerforth--that you should be contented with such fitful uses of your powers." "Contented?" he answered, merrily. "I am never contented, except with your freshness, my gentle Daisy. As to fitfulness, I have never learnt the art of binding myself to any of the wheels on which the Ixions of these days are turning round and round. I missed it somehow in a bad apprenticeship, and now don't care about it.--You know I have bought a boat down here?" "What an extraordinary fellow you are, Steerforth!" I exclaimed, stopping--for this was the first I had heard of it. "When you may never care to come near the place again!" "I don't know that," he returned. "I have taken a fancy to the place. At all events," walking me briskly on, "I have bought a boat that was for sale--a clipper, Mr. Peggotty says; and so she is--and Mr. Peggotty will be master of her in my absence." "Now I understand you, Steerforth!" said I, exultingly. "You pretend to have bought it for yourself, but you have really done so to confer a benefit on him. I might have known as much at first, knowing you. My dear kind Steerforth, how can I tell you what I think of your generosity?" "Tush!" he answered, turning red. "The less said, the better." "Didn't I know?" cried I, "didn't I say that there was not a joy, or sorrow, or any emotion of such honest hearts that was indifferent to you?" "Aye, aye," he answered, "you told me all that. There let it rest. We have said enough!" Afraid of offending him by pursuing the subject when he made so light of it, I only pursued it in my thoughts as we went on at even a quicker pace than before. "She must be newly rigged," said Steerforth, "and I shall leave Littimer behind to see it done, that I may know she is quite complete. Did I tell you Littimer had come down?" "No." "Oh, yes! came down this morning, with a letter from my mother." As our looks met, I observed that he was pale even to his lips, though he looked very steadily at me. I feared that some difference between him and his mother might have led to his being in the frame of mind in which I had found him at the solitary fireside. I hinted so. "Oh no!" he said, shaking his head, and giving a slight laugh. "Nothing of the sort! Yes. He is come down, that man of mine." "The same as ever?" said I. "The same as ever," said Steerforth. "Distant and quiet as the North Pole. He shall see to the boat being fresh named. She's the Stormy Petrel now. What does Mr. Peggotty care for Stormy Petrels! I'll have her christened again." "By what name?" I asked. "The Little Em'ly." As he had continued to look steadily at me, I took it as a reminder that he objected to being extolled for his consideration. I could not help showing in my face how much it pleased me, but I said little, and he resumed his usual smile, and seemed relieved. "But see here," he said, looking before us, "where the original little Em'ly comes! And that fellow with her, eh? Upon my soul, he's a true knight. He never leaves her!" Ham was a boat-builder in these days, having improved a natural ingenuity in that handicraft, until he had become a skilled workman. He was in his working-dress, and looked rugged enough, but manly withal, and a very fit protector for the blooming little creature at his side. Indeed, there was a frankness in his face, an honesty, and an undisguised show of his pride in her, and his love for her, which were, to me, the best of good looks. I thought, as they came towards us, that they were well matched even in that particular. She withdrew her hand timidly from his arm as we stopped to speak to them, and blushed as she gave it to Steerforth and to me. When they passed on, after we had exchanged a few words, she did not like to replace that hand, but, still appearing timid and constrained, walked by herself. I thought all this very pretty and engaging, and Steerforth seemed to think so too, as we looked after them fading away in the light of a young moon. Suddenly there passed us--evidently following them--a young woman whose approach we had not observed, but whose face I saw as she went by, and thought I had a faint remembrance of. She was lightly dressed; looked bold, and haggard, and flaunting, and poor; but seemed, for the time, to have given all that to the wind which was blowing, and to have nothing in her mind but going after them. As the dark distant level, absorbing their figures into itself, left but itself visible between us and the sea and clouds, her figure disappeared in like manner, still no nearer to them than before. "That is a black shadow to be following the girl," said Steerforth, standing still; "what does it mean?" He spoke in a low voice that sounded almost strange to me. "She must have it in her mind to beg of them, I think," said I. "A beggar would be no novelty," said Steerforth, "but it is a strange thing that the beggar should take that shape to-night." "Why?" I asked him. "For no better reason, truly, than because I was thinking," he said, after a pause, "of something like it, when it came by. Where the Devil did it come from, I wonder!" "From the shadow of this wall, I think," said I, as we emerged upon a road on which a wall abutted. "It's gone!" he returned, looking over his shoulder. "And all ill go with it. Now for our dinner!" But, he looked again over his shoulder towards the sea-line glimmering afar off; and yet again. And he wondered about it, in some broken expressions, several times, in the short remainder of our walk; and only seemed to forget it when the light of fire and candle shone upon us, seated warm and merry, at table. Littimer was there, and had his usual effect upon me. When I said to him that I hoped Mrs. Steerforth and Miss Dartle were well, he answered respectfully (and of course respectably), that they were tolerably well, he thanked me, and had sent their compliments. This was all, and yet he seemed to me to say as plainly as a man could say: "You are very young, sir; you are exceedingly young." We had almost finished dinner, when taking a step or two towards the table, from the corner where he kept watch upon us, or rather upon me, as I felt, he said to his master: "I beg your pardon, sir. Miss Mowcher is down here." "Who?" cried Steerforth, much astonished. "Miss Mowcher, sir." "Why, what on earth does _she_ do here?" said Steerforth. "It appears to be her native part of the country, sir. She informs me that she makes one of her professional visits here, every year, sir. I met her in the street this afternoon, and she wished to know if she might have the honor of waiting on you after dinner, sir." "Do you know the Giantess in question, Daisy?" inquired Steerforth. I was obliged to confess--I felt ashamed, even of being at this disadvantage before Littimer--that Miss Mowcher and I were wholly unacquainted. "Then you shall know her," said Steerforth, "for she is one of the seven wonders of the world. When Miss Mowcher comes, show her in." I felt some curiosity and excitement about this lady, especially as Steerforth burst into a fit of laughing when I referred to her, and positively refused to answer any question of which I made her the subject. I remained, therefore, in a state of considerable expectation until the cloth had been removed some half an hour, and we were sitting over our decanter of wine before the fire, when the door opened, and Littimer, with his habitual serenity quite undisturbed, announced: "Miss Mowcher!" I looked at the doorway and saw nothing. I was still looking at the doorway, thinking that Miss Mowcher was a long while making her appearance, when, to my infinite astonishment, there came waddling round a sofa which stood between me and it, a pursy dwarf, of about forty or forty-five, with a very large head and face, a pair of roguish grey eyes, and such extremely little arms, that, to enable herself to lay a finger archly against her snub nose, as she ogled Steerforth, she was obliged to meet the finger half-way, and lay her nose against it. Her chin, which was what is called a double-chin, was so fat that it entirely swallowed up the strings of her bonnet, bow and all. Throat she had none; waist she had none; legs she had none, worth mentioning; for though she was more than full-sized down to where her waist would have been, if she had had any, and though she terminated, as human beings generally do, in a pair of feet, she was so short that she stood at a common-sized chair as at a table, resting a bag she carried on the seat. This lady; dressed in an off-hand, easy style; bringing her nose and her forefinger together, with the difficulty I have described; standing with her head necessarily on one side, and, with one of her sharp eyes shut up, making an uncommonly knowing face; after ogling Steerforth for a few moments, broke into a torrent of words. "What! My flower!" she pleasantly began, shaking her large head at him. "You're there, are you! Oh, you naughty boy, fie for shame, what do you do so far away from home? Up to mischief, I'll be bound. Oh, you're a downy fellow, Steerforth, so you are, and I'm another, ain't I? Ha, ha, ha! You'd have betted a hundred pound to five, now, that you wouldn't have seen me here, wouldn't you? Bless you, man alive, I'm everywhere. I'm here and there, and where not, like the conjuror's half-crown in the lady's handkercher. Talking of hankerchers--_and_ talking of ladies--what a comfort you are to your blessed mother, ain't you, my dear boy, over one of my shoulders, and I don't say which!" Miss Mowcher untied her bonnet, at this passage of her discourse, threw back the strings, and sat down, panting, on a footstool in front of the fire--making a kind of arbor of the dining-table, which spread its mahogany shelter above her head. "Oh my stars and what's-their-names!" she went on, clapping a hand on each of her little knees, and glancing shrewdly at me, "I'm of too full a habit, that's the fact, Steerforth. After a flight of stairs, it gives me as much trouble to draw every breath I want, as if it was a bucket of water. If you saw me looking out of an upper window, you'd think I was a fine woman, wouldn't you?" "I should think that, wherever I saw you," replied Steerforth. "Go along, you dog, do!" cried the little creature, making a whisk at him with the handkerchief with which she was wiping her face, "and don't be impudent! But I give you my word and honor I was at Lady Mithers's last week--_there's_ a woman! How _she_ wears!--and Mithers himself came into the room where I was waiting for her--_there's_ a man! How _he_ wears! and his wig too, for he's had it these ten years--and he went on at that rate in the complimentary line, that I began to think I should be obliged to ring the bell. Ha! ha! ha! He's a pleasant wretch, but he wants principle." "What were you doing for Lady Mithers?" asked Steerforth. "That's tellings, my blessed infant," she retorted, tapping her nose again, screwing up her face, and twinkling her eyes like an imp of supernatural intelligence. "Never _you_ mind! You'd like to know whether I stop her hair from falling off, or dye it, or touch up her complexion, or improve her eyebrows, wouldn't you? And so you shall, my darling--when I tell you! Do you know what my great grandfather's name was?" "No," said Steerforth. "It was Walker, my sweet pet," replied Miss Mowcher, "and he came of a long line of Walkers, that I inherit all the Hookey estates from." I never beheld anything approaching to Miss Mowcher's wink, except Miss Mowcher's self-possession. She had a wonderful way too, when listening to what was said to her, or when waiting for an answer to what she had said herself, of pausing with her head cunningly on one side, and one eye turned up like a magpie's. Altogether I was lost in amazement, and sat staring at her, quite oblivious, I am afraid, of the laws of politeness. She had by this time drawn the chair to her side, and was busily engaged in producing from the bag (plunging in her short arm to the shoulder, at every dive) a number of small bottles, sponges, combs, brushes, bits of flannel, little pairs of curling irons, and other instruments, which she tumbled in a heap upon the chair. From this employment she suddenly desisted, and said to Steerforth, much to my confusion: "Who's your friend?" "Mr. Copperfield," said Steerforth; "he wants to know you." "Well, then, he shall! I thought he looked as if he did!" returned Miss Mowcher, waddling up to me, bag in hand, and laughing on me as she came. "Face like a peach!" standing on tiptoe to pinch my cheek as I sat. "Quite tempting! I'm very fond of peaches. Happy to make your acquaintance, Mr. Copperfield, I'm sure." I said that I congratulated myself on having the honor to make hers, and that the happiness was mutual. [Illustration: I make the acquaintance of Miss Mowcher.] "Oh my goodness, how polite we are!" exclaimed Miss Mowcher, making a preposterous attempt to cover her large face with her morsel of a hand. "What a world of gammon and spinnage it is, though, ain't it!" This was addressed confidentially to both of us, as the morsel of a hand came away from the face, and buried itself, arm and all, in the bag again. "What do you mean, Miss Mowcher?" said Steerforth. "Ha! ha! ha! What a refreshing set of humbugs we are, to be sure, ain't we, my sweet child?" replied that morsel of a woman, feeling in the bag with her head on one side, and her eye in the air. "Look here!" taking something out. "Scraps of the Russian Prince's nails! Prince Alphabet turned topsy-turvy, _I_ call him, for his name's got all the letters in it, higgledy-piggledy." "The Russian Prince is a client of yours, is he?" said Steerforth. "I believe you, my pet," replied Miss Mowcher. "I keep his nails in order for him. Twice a week! Fingers _and_ toes!" "He pays well, I hope?" said Steerforth. "Pays as he speaks, my dear child--through the nose," replied Miss Mowcher. "None of your close shavers the Prince ain't. You'd say so, if you saw his moustachios. Red by nature, black by art." "By your art, of course," said Steerforth. Miss Mowcher winked assent. "Forced to send for me. Couldn't help it. The climate affected _his_ dye; it did very well in Russia, but it was no go here. You never saw such a rusty Prince in all your born days as he was. Like old iron!" "Is that why you called him a humbug, just now?" inquired Steerforth. "Oh, you're a broth of a boy, ain't you?" returned Miss Mowcher, shaking her head violently. "I said, what a set of humbugs we were in general, and I showed you the scraps of the Prince's nails to prove it. The Prince's nails do more for me, in private families of the genteel sort, than all my talents put together. I always carry 'em about. They're the best introduction. If Miss Mowcher cuts the Prince's nails, she _must_ be all right. I give 'em away to the young ladies. They put 'em in albums, I believe. Ha! ha! ha! Upon my life, 'the whole social system' (as the men call it when they make speeches in Parliament) is a system of Prince's nails!" said this least of women, trying to fold her short arms, and nodding her large head. Steerforth laughed heartily, and I laughed too. Miss Mowcher continuing all the time to shake her head (which was very much on one side), and to look into the air with one eye, and to wink with the other. "Well, well!" she said, smiting her small knees, and rising, "this is not business. Come, Steerforth, let's explore the polar regions, and have it over." She then selected two or three of the little instruments, and a little bottle, and asked (to my surprise) if the table would bear. On Steerforth's replying in the affirmative, she pushed a chair against it, and begging the assistance of my hand, mounted up, pretty nimbly, to the top, as if it were a stage. "If either of you saw my ankles," she said, when she was safely elevated, "say so, and I'll go home and destroy myself." "_I_ did not," said Steerforth. "_I_ did not," said I. "Well, then," cried Miss Mowcher, "I'll consent to live. Now, ducky, ducky, ducky, come to Mrs. Bond and be killed!" This was an invocation to Steerforth to place himself under her hands; who, accordingly, sat himself down, with his back to the table, and his laughing face towards me, and submitted his head to her inspection, evidently for no other purpose than our entertainment. To see Miss Mowcher standing over him, looking at his rich profusion of brown hair through a large round magnifying glass, which she took out of her pocket, was a most amazing spectacle. "_You're_ a pretty fellow!" said Miss Mowcher, after a brief inspection. "You'd be as bald as a friar on the top of your head in twelve months, but for me. Just half-a-minute, my young friend, and we'll give you a polishing that shall keep your curls on for the next ten years!" With this, she tilted some of the contents of the little bottle on to one of the little bits of flannel, and, again imparting some of the virtues of that preparation to one of the little brushes, began rubbing and scraping away with both on the crown of Steerforth's head in the busiest manner I ever witnessed, talking all the time. "There's Charley Pyegrave, the duke's son," she said. "You know Charley?" peeping round into his face. "A little," said Steerforth. "What a man _he_ is! _There's_ a whisker! As to Charley's legs, if they were only a pair (which they ain't), they'd defy competition. Would you believe he tried to do without me--in the Life-Guards, too?" "Mad!" said Steerforth. "It looks like it. However, mad or sane, he tried," returned Miss Mowcher. "What does he do, but, lo and behold you, he goes into a perfumer's shop, and wants to buy a bottle of the Madagascar Liquid." "Charley does?" said Steerforth. "Charley does. But they haven't got any of the Madagascar Liquid." "What is it? Something to drink?" asked Steerforth. "To drink?" returned Miss Mowcher, stopping to slap his cheek. "To doctor his own moustachios with, you _know_. There was a woman in the shop--elderly female--quite a Griffin--who had never even heard of it by name. 'Begging pardon, sir,' said the Griffin to Charley, 'it's not--not--not ROUGE, is it?' 'Rouge,' said Charley to the Griffin. 'What the unmentionable to ears polite, do you think I want with rouge?' 'No offence, sir,' said the Griffin; 'we have it asked for by so many names, I thought it might be.' Now that, my child," continued Miss Mowcher, rubbing all the time as busily as ever, "is another instance of the refreshing humbug I was speaking of. _I_ do something in that way myself--perhaps a good deal--perhaps a little--sharp's the word, my dear boy--never mind!" "In what way do you mean? In the rouge way?" said Steerforth. "Put this and that together, my tender pupil," returned the wary Mowcher, touching her nose, "work it by the rule of Secrets in all trades, and the product will give you the desired result. I say _I_ do a little in that way myself. One Dowager, _she_ calls it lip-salve. Another, _she_ calls it gloves. Another, _she_ calls it tucker-edging. Another, _she_ calls it a fan. _I_ call it whatever _they_ call it. I supply it for 'em, but we keep up the trick so, to one another, and make believe with such a face, that they'd as soon think of laying it on, before a whole drawing-room, as before me. And when I wait upon 'em, they'll say to me sometimes--_with it on_--thick, and no mistake--'How am I looking, Mowcher? Am I pale?' Ha! ha! ha! ha! Isn't _that_ refreshing, my young friend!" I never did in my days behold anything like Mowcher as she stood upon the dining-table, intensely enjoying this refreshment, rubbing busily at Steerforth's head, and winking at me over it. "Ah!" she said. "Such things are not much in demand hereabouts. That sets me off again! I haven't seen a pretty woman since I've been here, Jemmy." "No?" said Steerforth. "Not the ghost of one," replied Miss Mowcher. "We could show her the substance of one, I think?" said Steerforth, addressing his eyes to mine. "Eh, Daisy?" "Yes, indeed," said I. "Aha?" cried the little creature, glancing sharply at my face, and then peeping round at Steerforth's. "Umph?" The first exclamation sounded like a question put to both of us, and the second like a question put to Steerforth only. She seemed to have found no answer to either, but continued to rub, with her head on one side and her eye turned up, as if she were looking for an answer in the air, and were confident of its appearing presently. "A sister of yours, Mr. Copperfield?" she cried, after a pause, and still keeping the same look out. "Aye, aye?" "No," said Steerforth, before I could reply. "Nothing of the sort. On the contrary, Mr. Copperfield used--or I am much mistaken--to have a great admiration for her." "Why, hasn't he now?" returned Miss Mowcher. "Is he fickle? oh, for shame! Did he sip every flower, and change every hour, until Polly his passion requited?--Is her name Polly?" The Elfin suddenness with which she pounced upon me with this question, and a searching look, quite disconcerted me for a moment. "No, Miss Mowcher," I replied. "Her name is Emily." "Aha?" she cried exactly as before. "Umph? What a rattle I am! Mr. Copperfield, ain't I volatile?" Her tone and look implied something that was not agreeable to me in connexion with the subject. So I said, in a graver manner than any of us had yet assumed: "She is as virtuous as she is pretty. She is engaged to be married to a most worthy and deserving man in her own station of life. I esteem her for her good sense, as much as I admire her for her good looks." "Well said!" cried Steerforth. "Hear, hear, hear! Now, I'll quench the curiosity of this little Fatima, my dear Daisy, by leaving her nothing to guess at. She is at present apprenticed, Miss Mowcher, or articled, or whatever it may be, to Omer and Joram, Haberdashers, Milliners, and so forth, in this town. Do you observe? Omer and Joram. The promise of which my friend has spoken, is made and entered into with her cousin; Christian name, Ham; surname, Peggotty; occupation, boat-builder; also of this town. She lives with a relative; Christian name, unknown; surname, Peggotty; occupation, seafaring; also of this town. She is the prettiest and most engaging little fairy in the world. I admire her--as my friend does--exceedingly. If it were not that I might appear to disparage her Intended, which I know my friend would not like, I would add, that to _me_ she seems to be throwing herself away; that I am sure she might do better; and that I swear she was born to be a lady." Miss Mowcher listened to these words, which were very slowly and distinctly spoken, with her head on one side, and her eye in the air as if she were still looking for that answer. When he ceased, she became brisk again in an instant, and rattled away with surprising volubility. "Oh! And that's all about it, is it?" she exclaimed, trimming his whiskers with a little restless pair of scissors, that went glancing round his head in all directions. "Very well: _very_ well! Quite a long story. Ought to end, 'and they lived happy ever afterwards;' oughtn't it? Ah! What's that game at forfeits? I love my love with an E, because she's enticing; I hate her with an E, because she's engaged. I took her to the sign of the exquisite, and treated her with an elopement, her name's Emily, and she lives in the east? Ha! ha! ha! Mr. Copperfield, ain't I volatile?" Merely looking at me with extravagant slyness, and not waiting for any reply, she continued, without drawing breath: "There! If ever any scapegrace was trimmed and touched up to perfection, you are, Steerforth. If I understand any noddle in the world, I understand yours. Do you hear me when I tell you that, my darling? I understand yours," peeping down into his face. "Now you may mizzle, Jemmy (as we say at Court), and if Mr. Copperfield will take the chair I'll operate on him." "What do you say, Daisy?" inquired Steerforth, laughing, and resigning his seat. "Will you be improved?" "Thank you, Miss Mowcher, not this evening." "Don't say no," returned the little woman, looking at me with the aspect of a connoisseur; "a little bit more eyebrow?" "Thank you," I returned, "some other time." "Have it carried half a quarter of an inch towards the temple," said Miss Mowcher. "We can do it in a fortnight." "No, I thank you. Not at present." "Go in for a tip," she urged. "No? Let's get the scaffolding up, then, for a pair of whiskers. Come!" I could not help blushing as I declined, for I felt we were on my weak point, now. But Miss Mowcher, finding that I was not at present disposed for any decoration within the range of her art, and that I was, for the time being, proof against the blandishments of the small bottle which she held up before one eye to enforce her persuasions, said we would make a beginning on an early day, and requested the aid of my hand to descend from her elevated station. Thus assisted, she skipped down with much agility, and began to tie her double chin into her bonnet. "The fee," said Steerforth, "is----" "Five bob," replied Miss Mowcher, "and dirt-cheap, my chicken. Ain't I volatile, Mr. Copperfield?" I replied politely: "Not at all." But I thought she was rather so, when she tossed up his two half-crowns like a goblin pieman, caught them, dropped them in her pocket, and gave it a loud slap. "That's the Till!" observed Miss Mowcher, standing at the chair again, and replacing in the bag the miscellaneous collection of little objects she had emptied out of it. "Have I got all my traps? It seems so. It won't do to be like long Ned Beadwood, when they took him to church 'to marry him to somebody,' as he says, and left the bride behind. Ha! ha! ha! A wicked rascal, Ned, but droll! Now, I know I'm going to break your hearts, but I am forced to leave you. You must call up all your fortitude, and try to bear it. Good bye, Mr. Copperfield! Take care of yourself, Jockey of Norfolk! How I _have_ been rattling on! It's all the fault of you two wretches. _I_ forgive you! 'Bob swore!'--as the Englishman said for 'Good night,' when he first learnt French, and thought it so like English. 'Bob swore,' my ducks!" With the bag slung over her arm, and rattling as she waddled away, she waddled to the door; where she stopped to inquire if she should leave us a lock of her hair. "Ain't I volatile?" she added, as a commentary on this offer, and, with her finger on her nose, departed. Steerforth laughed to that degree, that it was impossible for me to help laughing too; though I am not sure I should have done so, but for this inducement. When we had had our laugh quite out, which was after some time, he told me that Miss Mowcher had quite an extensive connexion, and made herself useful to a variety of people in a variety of ways. Some people trifled with her as a mere oddity, he said; but she was as shrewdly and sharply observant as any one he knew, and as long-headed as she was short-armed. He told me that what she had said of being here, and there, and everywhere, was true enough; for she made little darts into the provinces, and seemed to pick up customers everywhere, and to know everybody. I asked him what her disposition was: whether it was at all mischievous, and if her sympathies were generally on the right side of things: but, not succeeding in attracting his attention to these questions after two or three attempts, I forbore or forgot to repeat them. He told me instead, with much rapidity, a good deal about her skill, and her profits; and about her being a scientific cupper, if I should ever have occasion for her services in that capacity. She was the principal theme of our conversation during the evening: and when we parted for the night Steerforth called after me over the bannisters, "Bob swore!" as I went down stairs. I was surprised, when I came to Mr. Barkis's house to find Ham walking up and down in front of it, and still more surprised to learn from him that little Em'ly was inside. I naturally inquired why he was not there too, instead of pacing the street by himself? "Why, you see, Mas'r Davy," he rejoined, in a hesitating manner, "Em'ly, she's talking to some 'un in here." "I should have thought," said I, smiling, "that that was a reason for your being in here too, Ham." "Well, Mas'r Davy, in a general way, so 't would be," he returned; "but look'ee here, Mas'r Davy," lowering his voice, and speaking very gravely. "It's a young woman, sir--a young woman, that Em'ly knowed once, and doen't ought to know no more." When I heard these words, a light began to fall upon the figure I had seen following them, some hours ago. "It's a poor wurem, Mas'r Davy," said Ham, "as is trod under foot by all the town. Up street and down street. The mowld o' the churchyard don't hold any that the folk shrink away from, more." "Did I see her to-night, Ham, on the sands, after we met you?" "Keeping us in sight?" said Ham. "It's like you did, Mas'r Davy. Not that I know'd, then, she was theer, sir, but along of her creeping soon arterwards under Em'ly's little winder, when she see the light come, and whisp'ring 'Em'ly, Em'ly, for Christ's sake have a woman's heart towards me. I was once like you!' Those was solemn words, Mas'r Davy, fur to hear!" "They were indeed, Ham. What did Em'ly do?" "Says Em'ly, 'Martha, is it you? Oh, Martha, can it be you!'--for they had sat at work together, many a day, at Mr. Omer's." "I recollect her now!" cried I, recalling one of the two girls I had seen when I first went there. "I recollect her quite well!" "Martha Endell," said Ham. "Two or three year older than Em'ly, but was at the school with her." "I never heard her name," said I. "I didn't mean to interrupt you." "For the matter o' that, Mas'r Davy," replied Ham, "all's told a'most in them words, 'Em'ly, Em'ly, for Christ's sake have a woman's heart towards me. I was once like you!' She wanted to speak to Em'ly. Em'ly couldn't speak to her theer, for her loving uncle was come home, and he wouldn't--no, Mas'r Davy," said Ham, with great earnestness, "he couldn't, kind-natur'd, tender-hearted as he is, see them two together, side by side, for all the treasures that's wrecked in the sea." I felt how true this was. I knew it, on the instant, quite as well as Ham. "So Em'ly writes in pencil on a bit of paper," he pursued, "and gives it to her out o' winder to bring here. 'Show that,' she says, 'to my aunt, Mrs. Barkis, and she'll set you down by her fire, for the love of me, till uncle is gone out, and I can come.' By-and-by she tells me what I tell you, Mas'r Davy, and asks me to bring her. What can I do? She doen't ought to know any such, but I can't deny her, when the tears is on her face." He put his hand into the breast of his shaggy jacket, and took out with great care a pretty little purse. "And if I could deny her when the tears was on her face, Mas'r Davy," said Ham, tenderly adjusting it on the rough palm of his hand, "how could I deny her when she give me this to carry for her--knowing what she brought it for? Such a toy as it is!" said Ham, thoughtfully looking on it. "With such a little money in it, Em'ly my dear!" I shook him warmly by the hand when he had put it away again--for that was more satisfactory to me than saying anything--and we walked up and down, for a minute or two, in silence. The door opened then, and Peggotty appeared, beckoning to Ham to come in. I would have kept away, but she came after me, entreating me to come in too. Even then, I would have avoided the room where they all were, but for its being the neat-tiled kitchen I have mentioned more than once. The door opening immediately into it, I found myself among them, before I considered whither I was going. The girl--the same I had seen upon the sands--was near the fire. She was sitting on the ground, with her head and one arm lying on a chair. I fancied, from the disposition of her figure, that Em'ly had but newly risen from the chair, and that the forlorn head might perhaps have been lying on her lap. I saw but little of the girl's face, over which her hair fell loose and scattered, as if she had been disordering it with her own hands; but I saw that she was young, and of a fair complexion. Peggotty had been crying. So had little Em'ly. Not a word was spoken when we first went in; and the Dutch clock by the dresser seemed, in the silence, to tick twice as loud as usual. Em'ly spoke first. "Martha wants," she said to Ham, "to go to London." "Why to London?" returned Ham. He stood between them, looking on the prostrate girl with a mixture of compassion for her, and of jealousy of her holding any companionship with her whom he loved so well, which I have always remembered distinctly. They both spoke as if she were ill; in a soft, suppressed tone that was plainly heard, although it hardly rose above a whisper. [Illustration: Martha.] "Better there than here," said a third voice aloud--Martha's, though she did not move. "No one knows me there. Everybody knows me here." "What will she do there?" inquired Ham. She lifted up her head, and looked darkly round at him for a moment; then laid it down again, and curved her right arm about her neck, as a woman in a fever, or in an agony of pain from a shot, might twist herself. "She will try to do well," said little Em'ly. "You don't know what she has said to us. Does he--do they--aunt?" Peggotty shook her head compassionately. "I'll try," said Martha, "if you'll help me away. I never can do worse than I have done here. I may do better. Oh!" with a dreadful shiver, "take me out of these streets, where the whole town knows me from a child!" As Em'ly held out her hand to Ham, I saw him put in it a little canvas bag. She took it, as if she thought it were her purse, and made a step or two forward; but finding her mistake, came back to where he had retired near me, and showed it to him. "It's all yourn, Em'ly," I could hear him say. "I haven't nowt in all the wureld that ain't yourn, my dear. It ain't of no delight to me, except for you!" The tears rose freshly in her eyes, but she turned away, and went to Martha. What she gave her, I don't know. I saw her stooping over her, and putting money in her bosom. She whispered something, and asked was that enough? "More than enough," the other said, and took her hand and kissed it. Then Martha arose, and gathering her shawl about her, covering her face with it, and weeping aloud, went slowly to the door. She stopped a moment before going out, as if she would have uttered something or turned back; but no word passed her lips. Making the same low, dreary, wretched moaning in her shawl, she went away. As the door closed, little Em'ly looked at us three in a hurried manner, and then hid her face in her hands, and fell to sobbing. "Doen't, Em'ly!" said Ham, tapping her gently on the shoulder. "Doen't, my dear! You doen't ought to cry so, pretty!" "Oh, Ham!" she exclaimed, still weeping pitifully, "I am not as good a girl as I ought to be! I know I have not the thankful heart, sometimes, I ought to have!" "Yes, yes, you have, I'm sure," said Ham. "No! no! no!" cried little Em'ly, sobbing, and shaking her head. "I am not as good a girl as I ought to be. Not near! not near!" And still she cried, as if her heart would break. "I try your love too much. I know I do!" she sobbed. "I'm often cross to you, and changeable with you, when I ought to be far different. You are never so to me. Why am I ever so to you, when I should think of nothing but how to be grateful, and to make you happy!" "You always make me so," said Ham, "my dear! I am happy in the sight of you. I am happy, all day long, in the thoughts of you." "Ah! that's not enough!" she cried. "That is because you are good; not because I am! Oh, my dear, it might have been a better fortune for you, if you had been fond of some one else--of some one steadier and much worthier than me, who was all bound up in you, and never vain and changeable like me!" "Poor little tender-heart," said Ham, in a low voice. "Martha has overset her, altogether." "Please, aunt," sobbed Em'ly, "come here, and let me lay my head upon you. Oh, I am very miserable to-night, aunt! Oh, I am not as good a girl as I ought to be. I am not, I know!" Peggotty had hastened to the chair before the fire. Em'ly, with her arms around her neck, kneeled by her, looking up most earnestly into her face. "Oh, pray, aunt, try to help me! Ham, dear, try to help me! Mr. David, for the sake of old times, do, please, try to help me! I want to be a better girl than I am. I want to feel a hundred times more thankful than I do. I want to feel more, what a blessed thing it is to be the wife of a good man, and to lead a peaceful life. Oh me, oh me! Oh, my heart, my heart!" She dropped her face on my old nurse's breast, and, ceasing this supplication, which in its agony and grief was half a woman's, half a child's, as all her manner was (being, in that, more natural, and better suited to her beauty, as I thought, than any other manner could have been), wept silently, while my old nurse hushed her like an infant. She got calmer by degrees, and then we soothed her; now talking encouragingly, and now jesting a little with her, until she began to raise her head and speak to us. So we got on, until she was able to smile, and then to laugh, and then to sit up, half ashamed; while Peggotty recalled her stray ringlets, dried her eyes, and made her neat again, lest her uncle should wonder, when she got home, why his darling had been crying. I saw her do, that night, what I had never seen her do before. I saw her innocently kiss her chosen husband on the cheek, and creep close to his bluff form as if it were her best support. When they went away together, in the waning moonlight, and I looked after them, comparing their departure in my mind with Martha's, I saw that she held his arm with both her hands, and still kept close to him. CHAPTER XXIII. I CORROBORATE MR. DICK, AND CHOOSE A PROFESSION. When I awoke in the morning I thought very much of little Em'ly, and her emotion last night, after Martha had left. I felt as if I had come into the knowledge of those domestic weaknesses and tendernesses in a sacred confidence, and that to disclose them, even to Steerforth, would be wrong. I had no gentler feeling towards any one than towards the pretty creature who had been my playmate, and whom I have always been persuaded, and shall always be persuaded, to my dying day, I then devotedly loved. The repetition to any ears--even to Steerforth's--of what she had been unable to repress when her heart lay open to me by an accident, I felt would be a rough deed, unworthy of myself, unworthy of the light of our pure childhood, which I always saw encircling her head. I made a resolution, therefore, to keep it in my own breast; and there it gave her image a new grace. While we were at breakfast, a letter was delivered to me from my aunt. As it contained matter on which I thought Steerforth could advise me as well as any one, and on which I knew I should be delighted to consult him, I resolved to make it a subject of discussion on our journey home. For the present we had enough to do, in taking leave of all our friends. Mr. Barkis was far from being the last among them, in his regret at our departure; and I believe would even have opened the box again, and sacrificed another guinea, if it would have kept us eight-and-forty hours in Yarmouth. Peggotty, and all her family, were full of grief at our going. The whole house of Omer and Joram turned out to bid us good bye; and there were so many seafaring volunteers in attendance on Steerforth, when our portmanteaus went to the coach, that if we had had the baggage of a regiment with us, we should hardly have wanted porters to carry it. In a word, we departed to the regret and admiration of all concerned, and left a great many people very sorry behind us. "Do you stay long here, Littimer?" said I, as he stood waiting to see the coach start. "No, sir," he replied; "probably not very long, sir." "He can hardly say just now," observed Steerforth, carelessly. "He knows what he has to do, and he'll do it." "That I am sure he will," said I. Littimer touched his hat in acknowledgment of my good opinion, and I felt about eight years old. He touched it once more, wishing us a good journey; and we left him standing on the pavement, as respectable a mystery as any pyramid in Egypt. For some little time we held no conversation, Steerforth being unusually silent, and I being sufficiently engaged in wondering, within myself, when I should see the old places again, and what new changes might happen to me or them in the meanwhile. At length Steerforth, becoming gay and talkative in a moment, as he could become anything he liked at any moment, pulled me by the arm: "Find a voice, David. What about the letter you were speaking of at breakfast?" "Oh!" said I, taking it out of my pocket. "It's from my aunt." "And what does she say, requiring consideration!" "Why, she reminds me, Steerforth," said I, "that I came out on this expedition to look about me, and to think a little." "Which, of course, you have done?" "Indeed I can't say I have, particularly. To tell you the truth, I am afraid I had forgotten it." "Well! look about you now, and make up for your negligence," said Steerforth. "Look to the right, and you'll see a flat country, with a good deal of marsh in it; look to the left, and you'll see the same. Look to the front, and you'll find no difference; look to the rear, and there it is still." I laughed, and replied that I saw no suitable profession in the whole prospect; which was perhaps to be attributed to its flatness. "What says our aunt on the subject?" inquired Steerforth, glancing at the letter in my hand. "Does she suggest anything?" "Why, yes," said I. "She asks me, here, if I think I should like to be a proctor? What do you think of it?" "Well, I don't know," replied Steerforth, coolly. "You may as well do that as anything else, I suppose." I could not help laughing again, at his balancing all callings and professions so equally; and I told him so. "What _is_ a proctor, Steerforth?" said I. "Why, he is a sort of monkish attorney," replied Steerforth. "He is, to some faded courts held in Doctors' Commons--a lazy old nook near St. Paul's Churchyard--what solicitors are to the courts of law and equity. He is a functionary whose existence, in the natural course of things, would have terminated about two hundred years ago. I can tell you best what he is, by telling you what Doctors' Commons is. It's a little out-of-the-way place, where they administer what is called ecclesiastical law, and play all kinds of tricks with obsolete old monsters of acts of Parliament, which three-fourths of the world know nothing about, and the other fourth supposes to have been dug up, in a fossil state, in the days of the Edwards. It's a place that has an ancient monopoly in suits about people's wills and people's marriages, and disputes among ships and boats." "Nonsense, Steerforth!" I exclaimed. "You don't mean to say that there is any affinity between nautical matters and ecclesiastical matters?" "I don't, indeed, my dear boy," he returned; "but I mean to say that they are managed and decided by the same set of people, down in that same Doctors' Commons. You shall go there one day, and find them blundering through half the nautical terms in Young's Dictionary, apropos of the 'Nancy' having run down the 'Sarah Jane,' or Mr. Peggotty and the Yarmouth boatmen having put off in a gale of wind with an anchor and cable to the 'Nelson' Indiaman in distress; and you shall go there another day, and find them deep in the evidence, pro and con, respecting a clergyman who has misbehaved himself; and you shall find the judge in the nautical case, the advocate in the clergyman case, or contrariwise. They are like actors: now a man's a judge, and now he is not a judge; now he's one thing, now he's another; now he's something else, change and change about; but it's always a very pleasant profitable little affair of private theatricals, presented to an uncommonly select audience." "But advocates and proctors are not one and the same?" said I, a little puzzled. "Are they?" "No," returned Steerforth, "the advocates are civilians--men who have taken a doctor's degree at college--which is the first reason of my knowing anything about it. The proctors employ the advocates. Both get very comfortable fees, and altogether they make a mighty snug little party. On the whole, I would recommend you to take to Doctors' Commons kindly, David. They plume themselves on their gentility there, I can tell you, if that's any satisfaction." I made allowance for Steerforth's light way of treating the subject, and, considering it with reference to the staid air of gravity and antiquity which I associated with that "lazy old nook near St. Paul's Churchyard," did not feel indisposed towards my aunt's suggestion; which she left to my free decision, making no scruple of telling me that it had occurred to her, on her lately visiting her own proctor in Doctors' Commons for the purpose of settling her will in my favor. "That's a laudable proceeding on the part of our aunt, at all events," said Steerforth, when I mentioned it; "and one deserving of all encouragement. Daisy, my advice is that you take kindly to Doctors' Commons." I quite made up my mind to do so. I then told Steerforth that my aunt was in town awaiting me (as I found from her letter), and that she had taken lodgings for a week at a kind of private hotel in Lincoln's Inn Fields, where there was a stone staircase, and a convenient door in the roof; my aunt being firmly persuaded that every house in London was going to be burnt down every night. We achieved the rest of our journey pleasantly, sometimes recurring to Doctors' Commons, and anticipating the distant days when I should be a proctor there, which Steerforth pictured in a variety of humorous and whimsical lights, that made us both merry. When we came to our journey's end, he went home, engaging to call upon me next day but one; and I drove to Lincoln's Inn Fields, where I found my aunt up, and waiting supper. If I had been round the world since we parted, we could hardly have been better pleased to meet again. My aunt cried outright as she embraced me; and said, pretending to laugh, that if my poor mother had been alive, that silly little creature would have shed tears, she had no doubt. "So you have left Mr. Dick behind, aunt?" said I. "I am sorry for that. Ah, Janet, how do you do?" As Janet curtsied, hoping I was well, I observed my aunt's visage lengthen very much. "I am sorry for it, too," said my aunt, rubbing her nose. "I have had no peace of mind, Trot, since I have been here." Before I could ask why, she told me. "I am convinced," said my aunt; laying her hand with melancholy firmness on the table, "that Dick's character is not a character to keep the donkies off. I am confident he wants strength of purpose. I ought to have left Janet at home, instead, and then my mind might perhaps have been at ease. If ever there was a donkey trespassing on my green," said my aunt, with emphasis, "there was one this afternoon at four o'clock. A cold feeling came over me from head to foot, and I _know_ it was a donkey!" I tried to comfort her on this point, but she rejected consolation. "It was a donkey," said my aunt; "and it was the one with the stumpy tail which that Murdering sister of a woman rode, when she came to my house." This had been, ever since, the only name my aunt knew for Miss Murdstone. "If there is any donkey in Dover, whose audacity it is harder to me to bear than another's, that," said my aunt, striking the table, "is the animal!" Janet ventured to suggest that my aunt might be disturbing herself unnecessarily, and that she believed the donkey in question was then engaged in the sand and gravel line of business, and was not available for purposes of trespass. But my aunt wouldn't hear of it. Supper was comfortably served and hot, though my aunt's rooms were very high up--whether that she might have more stone stairs for her money, or might be nearer to the door in the roof, I don't know--and consisted of a roast fowl, a steak, and some vegetables, to all of which I did ample justice, and which were all excellent. But my aunt had her own ideas concerning London provision, and ate but little. "I suppose this unfortunate fowl was born and brought up in a cellar," said my aunt, "and never took the air except on a hackney coach-stand. I _hope_ the steak may be beef, but I don't believe it. Nothing's genuine in the place, in my opinion, but the dirt." "Don't you think the fowl may have come out of the country, aunt?" I hinted. "Certainly not," returned my aunt. "It would be no pleasure to a London tradesman to sell anything which was what he pretended it was." I did not venture to controvert this opinion, but I made a good supper, which it greatly satisfied her to see me do. When the table was cleared, Janet assisted her to arrange her hair, to put on her nightcap, which was of a smarter construction than usual ("in case of fire," my aunt said), and to fold her gown back over her knees, these being her usual preparations for warming herself before going to bed. I then made her, according to certain established regulations from which no deviation, however slight, could ever be permitted, a glass of hot white wine and water, and a slice of toast cut into long thin strips. With these accompaniments we were left alone to finish the evening, my aunt sitting opposite to me drinking her wine and water; soaking her strips of toast in it, one by one, before eating them; and looking benignantly on me, from among the borders of her nightcap. "Well, Trot," she began, "what do you think of the proctor plan? Or have you not begun to think about it yet?" "I have thought a good deal about it, my dear aunt, and I have talked a good deal about it with Steerforth. I like it very much indeed. I like it exceedingly." "Come!" said my aunt. "That's cheering!" "I have only one difficulty, aunt." "Say what it is, Trot," she returned. "Why, I want to ask, aunt, as this seems, from what I understand, to be a limited profession, whether my entrance into it would not be very expensive?" "It will cost," returned my aunt, "to article you, just a thousand pounds." "Now, my dear aunt," said I, drawing my chair nearer, "I am uneasy in my mind about that. It's a large sum of money. You have expended a great deal on my education, and have always been as liberal to me in all things, as it was possible to be. You have been the soul of generosity. Surely there are some ways in which I might begin life with hardly any outlay, and yet begin with a good hope of getting on by resolution and exertion. Are you sure that it would not be better to try that course? Are you certain that you can afford to part with so much money, and that it is right it should be so expended? I only ask you, my second mother, to consider. Are you certain?" My aunt finished eating the piece of toast on which she was then engaged, looking me full in the face all the while; and then setting her glass on the chimney-piece, and folding her hands upon her folded skirts, replied as follows: "Trot, my child, if I have any object in life, it is to provide for your being a good, a sensible, and a happy man. I am bent upon it--so is Dick. I should like some people that I know to hear Dick's conversation on the subject. Its sagacity is wonderful. But no one knows the resources of that man's intellect, except myself!" She stopped for a moment to take my hand between hers, and went on: "It's in vain, Trot, to recall the past, unless it works some influence upon the present. Perhaps I might have been better friends with your poor father. Perhaps I might have been better friends with that poor child your mother, even after your sister Betsey Trotwood disappointed me. When you came to me, a little runaway boy, all dusty and wayworn, perhaps I thought so. From that time until now, Trot, you have ever been a credit to me and a pride and pleasure. I have no other claim upon my means; at least"--here to my surprise she hesitated, and was confused--"no, I have _no_ other claim upon my means--and you are my adopted child. Only be a loving child to me in my age, and bear with my whims and fancies; and you will do more for an old woman whose prime of life was not so happy or conciliating as it might have been, than ever that old woman did for you." It was the first time I had heard my aunt refer to her past history. There was a magnanimity in her quiet way of doing so, and of dismissing it, which would have exalted her in my respect and affection, if any thing could. "All is agreed and understood between us now, Trot," said my aunt, "and we need talk of this no more. Give me a kiss, and we'll go to the Commons after breakfast to-morrow." We had a long chat by the fire before we went to bed. I slept in a room on the same floor with my aunt's, and was a little disturbed in the course of the night by her knocking at my door, as often as she was agitated by a distant sound of hackney-coaches or market-carts, and inquiring "if I heard the engines?" But towards morning she slept better, and suffered me to do so too. At about mid-day, we set out for the offices of Messrs. Spenlow and Jorkins in Doctors' Commons. My aunt, who had this other general opinion in reference to London, that every man she saw was a pickpocket, gave me her purse to carry for her, which had ten guineas in it and some silver. We made a pause at the toy-shop in Fleet-street, to see the giants of Saint Dunstan's strike upon the bells--we had timed our going, so as to catch them at it, at twelve o'clock--and then went on towards Ludgate Hill, and St. Paul's Churchyard. We were crossing to the former place, when I found that my aunt greatly accelerated her speed, and looked frightened. I observed, at the same time, that a lowering ill-dressed man who had stopped and stared at us in passing, a little before, was coming so close after us, as to brush against her. "Trot! My dear Trot!" cried my aunt, in a terrified whisper, and pressing my arm. "I don't know what I am to do." "Don't be alarmed," said I. "There's nothing to be afraid of. Step into a shop, and I'll soon get rid of this fellow." "No, no, child!" she returned. "Don't speak to him for the world. I entreat, I order you!" "Good Heaven, aunt!" said I. "He is nothing but a sturdy beggar." "You don't know what he is!" replied my aunt. "You don't know who he is! You don't know what you say!" We had stopped in an empty doorway, while this was passing, and he had stopped too. "Don't look at him!" said my aunt, as I turned my head indignantly, "but get me a coach, my dear, and wait for me in St. Paul's Churchyard." "Wait for you?" I repeated. "Yes," rejoined my aunt, "I must go alone. I must go with him." "With him, aunt? This man?" "I am in my senses," she replied, "and I tell you I _must_. Get me a coach!" However much astonished I might be, I was sensible that I had no right to refuse compliance with such a peremptory command. I hurried away a few paces, and called a hackney chariot which was passing empty. Almost before I could let down the steps, my aunt sprang in, I don't know how, and the man followed. She waved her hand to me to go away, so earnestly, that, all confounded as I was, I turned from them at once. In doing so I heard her say to the coachman, "Drive anywhere! Drive straight on!" and presently the chariot passed me, going up the hill. What Mr. Dick had told me, and what I had supposed to be a delusion of his, now came into my mind. I could not doubt that this person was the person of whom he had made such mysterious mention, though what the nature of his hold upon my aunt could possibly be, I was quite unable to imagine. After half an hour's cooling in the churchyard, I saw the chariot coming back. The driver stopped beside me, and my aunt was sitting in it alone. She had not yet sufficiently recovered from her agitation to be quite prepared for the visit we had to make. She desired me to get into the chariot, and to tell the coachman to drive slowly up and down a little while. She said no more, except, "My dear child, never ask me what it was, and don't refer to it," until she had perfectly regained her composure, when she told me she was quite herself now, and we might get out. On her giving me her purse, to pay the driver, I found that all the guineas were gone, and only the loose silver remained. Doctors' Commons was approached by a little low archway. Before we had taken many paces down the street beyond it, the noise of the city seemed to melt, as if by magic, into a softened distance. A few dull courts, and narrow ways, brought us to the sky-lighted offices of Spenlow and Jorkins; in the vestibule of which temple, accessible to pilgrims without the ceremony of knocking, three or four clerks were at work as copyists. One of these, a little dry man, sitting by himself, who wore a stiff brown wig that looked as if it were made of gingerbread, rose to receive my aunt, and show us into Mr. Spenlow's room. "Mr. Spenlow's in Court, ma'am," said the dry man; "it's an Arches day; but it's close by, and I'll send for him directly." As we were left to look about us while Mr. Spenlow was fetched, I availed myself of the opportunity. The furniture of the room was old-fashioned and dusty; and the green baize on the top of the writing-table had lost all its color, and was as withered and pale as an old pauper. There were a great many bundles of papers on it, some indorsed as Allegations, and some (to my surprise) as Libels, and some as being in the Consistory Court, and some in the Arches Court, and some in the Prerogative Court, and some in the Admiralty Court, and some in the Delegates' Court; giving me occasion to wonder much, how many Courts there might be in the gross, and how long it would take to understand them all. Besides these, there were sundry immense manuscript Books of Evidence taken on affidavit, strongly bound, and tied together in massive sets, a set to each cause, as if every cause were a history in ten or twenty volumes. All this looked tolerably expensive, I thought, and gave me an agreeable notion of a proctor's business. I was casting my eyes with increasing complacency over these and many similar objects, when hasty footsteps were heard in the room outside, and Mr. Spenlow, in a black gown trimmed with white fur, came hurrying in, taking off his hat as he came. He was a little light-haired gentleman, with undeniable boots, and the stiffest of white cravats and shirt-collars. He was buttoned up, mighty trim and tight, and must have taken a great deal of pains with his whiskers, which were accurately curled. His gold watch-chain was so massive, that a fancy came across me, that he ought to have a sinewy golden arm, to draw it out with, like those which are put up over the gold-beaters' shops. He was got up with such care, and was so stiff, that he could hardly bend himself; being obliged, when he glanced at some papers on his desk, after sitting down in his chair, to move his whole body, from the bottom of his spine, like Punch. I had previously been presented by my aunt, and had been courteously received. He now said: "And so, Mr. Copperfield, you think of entering into our profession? I casually mentioned to Miss Trotwood, when I had the pleasure of an interview with her the other day,"--with another inclination of his body--Punch again--"that there was a vacancy here. Miss Trotwood was good enough to mention that she had a nephew who was her peculiar care, and for whom she was seeking to provide genteelly in life. That nephew, I believe, I have now the pleasure of"--Punch again. I bowed my acknowledgments, and said, my aunt had mentioned to me that there was that opening, and that I believed I should like it very much. That I was strongly inclined to like it, and had taken immediately to the proposal. That I could not absolutely pledge myself to like it, until I knew something more about it. That although it was little else than a matter of form, I presumed I should have an opportunity of trying how I liked it, before I bound myself to it irrevocably. "Oh surely! surely!" said Mr. Spenlow. "We always, in this house, propose a month--an initiatory month. I should be happy, myself, to propose two months--three--an indefinite period, in fact--but I have a partner. Mr. Jorkins." "And the premium, sir," I returned, "is a thousand pounds?" "And the premium, Stamp included, is a thousand pounds," said Mr. Spenlow. "As I have mentioned to Miss Trotwood, I am actuated by no mercenary considerations; few men are less so, I believe; but Mr. Jorkins has his opinions on these subjects, and I am bound to respect Mr. Jorkins's opinions. Mr. Jorkins thinks a thousand pounds too little, in short." "I suppose, sir," said I, still desiring to spare my aunt, "that it is not the custom here, if an articled clerk were particularly useful, and made himself a perfect master of his profession--" I could not help blushing, this looked so like praising myself--"I suppose it is not the custom, in the later years of his time, to allow him any--" Mr. Spenlow, by a great effort, just lifted his head far enough out of his cravat to shake it, and answered, anticipating the word "salary:" "No. I will not say what consideration I might give to that point myself, Mr. Copperfield, if I were unfettered. Mr. Jorkins is immovable." I was quite dismayed by the idea of this terrible Jorkins. But I found out afterwards that he was a mild man, of a heavy temperament, whose place in the business was to keep himself in the back-ground, and be constantly exhibited by name as the most obdurate and ruthless of men. If a clerk wanted his salary raised, Mr. Jorkins wouldn't listen to such a proposition. If a client were slow to settle his bill of costs, Mr. Jorkins was resolved to have it paid; and however painful these things might be (and always were) to the feelings of Mr. Spenlow, Mr. Jorkins would have his bond. The heart and hand of the good angel Spenlow would have been always open, but for the restraining demon Jorkins. As I have grown older, I think I have had experience of some other houses doing business on the principle of Spenlow and Jorkins! It was settled that I should begin my month's probation as soon as I pleased, and that my aunt need neither remain in town nor return at its expiration, as the articles of agreement, of which I was to be the subject, could easily be sent to her at home for her signature. When we had got so far, Mr. Spenlow offered to take me into Court then and there, and show me what sort of place it was. As I was willing enough to know, we went out with this object, leaving my aunt behind; who would trust herself, she said, in no such place, and who, I think, regarded all Courts of Law as a sort of powder-mills that might blow up at any time. Mr. Spenlow conducted me through a paved courtyard formed of grave brick houses, which I inferred, from the Doctors' names upon the doors, to be the official abiding-places of the learned advocates of whom Steerforth had told me; and into a large dull room, not unlike a chapel to my thinking, on the left hand. The upper part of this room was fenced off from the rest; and there, on the two sides of a raised platform of the horse-shoe form, sitting on easy old-fashioned dining-room chairs, were sundry gentlemen in red gowns and grey wigs, whom I found to be the Doctors aforesaid. Blinking over a little desk like a pulpit-desk, in the curve of the horse-shoe, was an old gentleman, whom, if I had seen him in an aviary, I should certainly have taken for an owl, but who I learned was the presiding judge. In the space within the horse-shoe, lower than these, that is to say, on about the level of the floor, were sundry other gentlemen, of Mr. Spenlow's rank, and dressed like him in black gowns with white fur upon them, sitting at a long green table. Their cravats were in general stiff, I thought, and their looks haughty; but in this last respect I presently conceived I had done them an injustice, for when two or three of them had to rise and answer a question of the presiding dignitary, I never saw anything more sheepish. The public, represented by a boy with a comforter, and a shabby-genteel man secretly eating crumbs out of his coat pockets, was warming itself at a stove in the centre of the Court. The languid stillness of the place was only broken by the chirping of this fire and by the voice of one of the Doctors, who was wandering slowly through a perfect library of evidence, and stopping to put up, from time to time, at little roadside inns of argument on the journey. Altogether, I have never, on any occasion, made one at such a cosey, dosey, old-fashioned, time-forgotten, sleepy-headed little family-party in all my life; and I felt it would be quite a soothing opiate to belong to it in any character--except perhaps as a suitor. Very well satisfied with the dreamy nature of this retreat, I informed Mr. Spenlow that I had seen enough for that time, and we rejoined my aunt; in company with whom I presently departed from the Commons, feeling very young when I went out of Spenlow and Jorkins's, on account of the clerks poking one another with their pens to point me out. We arrived at Lincoln's Inn Fields without any new adventures, except encountering an unlucky donkey in a costermonger's cart, who suggested painful associations to my aunt. We had another long talk about my plans, when we were safely housed; and as I knew she was anxious to get home, and, between fire, food, and pickpockets, could never be considered at her ease for half-an-hour in London, I urged her not to be uncomfortable on my account, but to leave me to take care of myself. "I have not been here a week to-morrow, without considering that too, my dear," she returned. "There is a furnished little set of chambers to be let in the Adelphi, Trot, which ought to suit you to a marvel." With this brief introduction, she produced from her pocket an advertisement, carefully cut out of a newspaper, setting forth that in Buckingham Street in the Adelphi there was to be let, furnished, with a view of the river, a singularly desirable, and compact set of chambers, forming a genteel residence for a young gentleman, a member of one of the Inns of Court, or otherwise, with immediate possession. Terms moderate, and could be taken for a month only if required. "Why, this is the very thing, aunt!" said I, flushed with the possible dignity of living in chambers. "Then come," replied my aunt, immediately resuming the bonnet she had a minute before laid aside. "We'll go and look at 'em." Away we went. The advertisement directed us to apply to Mrs. Crupp on the premises, and we rung the area bell, which we supposed to communicate with Mrs. Crupp. It was not until we had rung three or four times that we could prevail on Mrs. Crupp to communicate with us, but at last she appeared, being a stout lady with a flounce of flannel petticoat below a nankeen gown. "Let us see these chambers of yours, if you please, ma'am," said my aunt. "For this gentleman?" said Mrs. Crupp, feeling in her pocket for her keys. "Yes, for my nephew," said my aunt. "And a sweet set they is for sich!" said Mrs. Crupp. So we went up-stairs. They were on the top of the house--a great point with my aunt, being near the fire-escape--and consisted of a little half-blind entry where you could see hardly anything, a little stone-blind pantry where you could see nothing at all, a sitting-room, and a bed-room. The furniture was rather faded, but quite good enough for me; and, sure enough, the river was outside the windows. As I was delighted with the place, my aunt and Mrs. Crupp withdrew into the pantry to discuss the terms, while I remained on the sitting-room sofa, hardly daring to think it possible that I could be destined to live in such a noble residence. After a single combat of some duration they returned, and I saw, to my joy, both in Mrs. Crupp's countenance and in my aunt's, that the deed was done. "Is it the last occupant's furniture?" inquired my aunt. "Yes it is, ma'am," said Mrs. Crupp. "What's become of him?" asked my aunt. Mrs. Crupp was taken with a troublesome cough, in the midst of which she articulated with much difficulty. "He was took ill here, ma'am, and--ugh! ugh! ugh! dear me!--and he died." "Hey! What did he die of?" asked my aunt. "Well, ma'am, he died of drink," said Mrs. Crupp in confidence. "And smoke." "Smoke? You don't mean chimneys?" said my aunt. "No, ma'am," returned Mrs. Crupp. "Cigars and pipes." "_That's_ not catching, Trot, at any rate," remarked my aunt, turning to me. "No, indeed," said I. In short, my aunt, seeing how enraptured I was with the premises, took them for a month, with leave to remain for twelve months when that time was out. Mrs. Crupp was to find linen, and to cook; every other necessary was already provided; and Mrs. Crupp expressly intimated that she should always yearn towards me as a son. I was to take possession the day after to-morrow, and Mrs. Crupp said thank Heaven she had now found summun she could care for! On our way back, my aunt informed me how she confidently trusted that the life I was now to lead would make me firm and self-reliant, which was all I wanted. She repeated this several times next day, in the intervals of our arranging for the transmission of my clothes and books from Mr. Wickfield's; relative to which, and to all my late holiday, I wrote a long letter to Agnes, of which my aunt took charge, as she was to leave on the succeeding day. Not to lengthen these particulars, I need only add, that she made a handsome provision for all my possible wants during my month of trial; that Steerforth, to my great disappointment and hers too, did not make his appearance before she went away; that I saw her safely seated in the Dover coach, exulting in the coming discomfiture of the vagrant donkeys, with Janet at her side; and that when the coach was gone, I turned my face to the Adelphi, pondering on the old days when I used to roam about its subterranean arches, and on the happy changes which had brought me to the surface. CHAPTER XXIV. MY FIRST DISSIPATION. It was a wonderfully fine thing to have that lofty castle to myself, and to feel, when I shut my outer door, like Robinson Crusoe, when he had got into his fortification, and pulled his ladder up after him. It was a wonderfully fine thing to walk about town with the key of my house in my pocket, and to know that I could ask any fellow to come home, and make quite sure of its being inconvenient to nobody, if it were not so to me. It was a wonderfully fine thing to let myself in and out, and to come and go without a word to any one, and to ring Mrs. Crupp up, gasping, from the depths of the earth, when I wanted her--and when she was disposed to come. All this, I say, was wonderfully fine; but I must say, too, that there were times when it was very dreary. It was fine in the morning, particularly in the fine mornings. It looked a very fresh, free life, by daylight: still fresher, and more free, by sunlight. But as the day declined, the life seemed to go down too. I don't know how it was; it seldom looked well by candle-light. I wanted somebody to talk to, then. I missed Agnes. I found a tremendous blank, in the place of that smiling repository of my confidence. Mrs. Crupp appeared to be a long way off. I thought about my predecessor, who had died of drink and smoke; and I could have wished he had been so good as to live, and not bother me with his decease. After two days and nights, I felt as if I had lived there for a year, and yet I was not an hour older, but was quite as much tormented by my own youthfulness as ever. Steerforth not yet appearing, which induced me to apprehend that he must be ill, I left the Commons early on the third day, and walked out to Highgate. Mrs. Steerforth was very glad to see me, and said that he had gone away with one of his Oxford friends to see another who lived near St. Albans, but that she expected him to return to-morrow. I was so fond of him, that I felt quite jealous of his Oxford friends. As she pressed me to stay to dinner, I remained, and I believe we talked about nothing but him all day. I told her how much the people liked him at Yarmouth, and what a delightful companion he had been. Miss Dartle was full of hints and mysterious questions, but took a great interest in all our proceedings there, and said, "Was it really, though?" and so forth, so often, that she got everything out of me she wanted to know. Her appearance was exactly what I have described it, when I first saw her; but the society of the two ladies was so agreeable, and came so natural to me, that I felt myself falling a little in love with her. I could not help thinking, several times in the course of the evening, and particularly when I walked home at night, what delightful company she would be in Buckingham Street. I was taking my coffee and roll in the morning, before going to the Commons--and I may observe in this place that it is surprising how much coffee Mrs. Crupp used, and how weak it was, considering--when Steerforth himself walked in, to my unbounded joy. "My dear Steerforth," cried I, "I began to think I should never see you again!" "I was carried off, by force of arms," said Steerforth, "the very next morning after I got home. Why, Daisy, what a rare old bachelor you are here!" I showed him over the establishment, not omitting the pantry, with no little pride, and he commended it highly. "I tell you what, old boy," he added, "I shall make quite a town-house of this place, unless you give me notice to quit." This was a delightful hearing. I told him if he waited for that, he would have to wait till doomsday. "But you shall have some breakfast!" said I, with my hand on the bell-rope, "and Mrs. Crupp shall make you some fresh coffee, and I'll toast you some bacon in a bachelor's Dutch-oven that I have got here." "No, no!" said Steerforth. "Don't ring! I can't! I am going to breakfast with one of these fellows who is at the Piazza Hotel, in Covent Garden." "But you'll come back to dinner?" said I. "I can't, upon my life. There's nothing I should like better, but I _must_ remain with these two fellows. We are all three off together to-morrow morning." "Then bring them here to dinner," I returned. "Do you think they would come?" "Oh! they would come fast enough," said Steerforth; "but we should inconvenience you. You had better come and dine with us somewhere." I would not by any means consent to this, for it occurred to me that I really ought to have a little housewarming, and that there never could be a better opportunity. I had a new pride in my rooms after his approval of them, and burned with a desire to develop their utmost resources. I therefore made him promise positively in the names of his two friends, and we appointed six o'clock as the dinner-hour. When he was gone, I rang for Mrs. Crupp, and acquainted her with my desperate design. Mrs. Crupp said, in the first place, of course it was well known she couldn't be expected to wait, but she knew a handy young man, who she thought could be prevailed upon to do it, and whose terms would be five shillings, and what I pleased. I said, certainly we would have him. Next, Mrs. Crupp said it was clear she couldn't be in two places at once (which I felt to be reasonable), and that "a young gal" stationed in the pantry with a bed-room candle, there never to desist from washing plates, would be indispensable. I said, what would be the expense of this young female, and Mrs. Crupp said she supposed eighteen-pence would neither make me nor break me. I said I supposed not; and _that_ was settled. Then Mrs. Crupp said, Now about the dinner. It was a remarkable instance of want of forethought on the part of the ironmonger who had made Mrs. Crupp's kitchen fire-place, that it was capable of cooking nothing but chops and mashed potatoes. As to a fish-kittle, Mrs. Crupp said, well! would I only come and look at the range. She couldn't say fairer than that. Would I come and look at it? As I should not have been much the wiser if I _had_ looked at it, I declined, and said, "Never mind fish." But Mrs. Crupp said, Don't say that; oysters was in, and why not them? So _that_ was settled. Mrs. Crupp then said what she would recommend would be this. A pair of hot roast fowls--from the pastry-cook's; a dish of stewed beef, with vegetables--from the pastry-cook's; two little corner things, as a raised pie and a dish of kidneys--from the pastry-cook's; a tart, and (if I liked) a shape of jelly--from the pastry-cook's. This, Mrs. Crupp said, would leave her at full liberty to concentrate her mind on the potatoes, and to serve up the cheese and celery as she could wish to see it done. I acted on Mrs. Crupp's opinion, and gave the order at the pastry-cook's myself. Walking along the Strand, afterwards, and observing a hard mottled substance in the window of a ham and beef shop, which resembled marble, but was labelled "Mock Turtle," I went in and bought a slab of it, which I have since seen reason to believe would have sufficed for fifteen people. This preparation, Mrs. Crupp, after some difficulty, consented to warm up; and it shrunk so much in a liquid state, that we found it what Steerforth called "rather a tight fit" for four. These preparations happily completed, I bought a little dessert in Covent Garden Market, and gave a rather extensive order at a retail wine-merchant's in that vicinity. When I came home in the afternoon, and saw the bottles drawn up in a square on the pantry-floor, they looked so numerous (though there were two missing, which made Mrs. Crupp very uncomfortable), that I was absolutely frightened at them. One of Steerforth's friends was named Grainger, and the other Markham. They were both very gay and lively fellows; Grainger, something older than Steerforth; Markham, youthful-looking, and I should say not more than twenty. I observed that the latter always spoke of himself indefinitely, as "a man," and seldom or never in the first person singular. "A man might get on very well here, Mr. Copperfield," said Markham--meaning himself. "It's not a bad situation," said I, "and the rooms are really commodious." "I hope you have both brought appetites with you?" said Steerforth. "Upon my honour," returned Markham, "town seems to sharpen a man's appetite. A man is hungry all day long. A man is perpetually eating." Being a little embarrassed at first, and feeling much too young to preside, I made Steerforth take the head of the table when dinner was announced, and seated myself opposite to him. Everything was very good; we did not spare the wine; and he exerted himself so brilliantly to make the thing pass off well, that there was no pause in our festivity. I was not quite such good company during dinner, as I could have wished to be, for my chair was opposite the door, and my attention was distracted by observing that the handy young man went out of the room very often, and that his shadow always presented itself, immediately afterwards, on the wall of the entry, with a bottle at its mouth. The "young gal" likewise occasioned me some uneasiness: not so much by neglecting to wash the plates, as by breaking them. For being of an inquisitive disposition, and unable to confine herself (as her positive instructions were) to the pantry, she was constantly peering in at us, and constantly imagining herself detected; in which belief, she several times retired upon the plates (with which she had carefully paved the floor), and did a great deal of destruction. These, however, were small drawbacks, and easily forgotten when the cloth was cleared, and the dessert put on the table; at which period of the entertainment the handy young man was discovered to be speechless. Giving him private directions to seek the society of Mrs. Crupp, and to remove the "young gal" to the basement also, I abandoned myself to enjoyment. I began, by being singularly cheerful and light-hearted; all sorts of half-forgotten things to talk about, came rushing into my mind, and made me hold forth in a most unwonted manner. I laughed heartily at my own jokes, and everybody else's; called Steerforth to order for not passing the wine; made several engagements to go to Oxford; announced that I meant to have a dinner party exactly like that, once a week until further notice; and madly took so much snuff out of Grainger's box, that I was obliged to go into the pantry, and have a private fit of sneezing ten minutes long. I went on, by passing the wine faster and faster yet, and continually starting up with a corkscrew to open more wine, long before any was needed. I proposed Steerforth's health. I said he was my dearest friend, the protector of my boyhood, and the companion of my prime. I said I was delighted to propose his health. I said I owed him more obligations than I could ever repay, and held him in a higher admiration than I could ever express. I finished by saying, "I'll give you Steerforth! God bless him! Hurrah!" We gave him three times three, and another, and a good one to finish with. I broke my glass in going round the table to shake hands with him, and I said (in two words) "Steerforthyou'retheguidingstarofmyexist ence." I went on, by finding suddenly that somebody was in the middle of a song. Markham was the singer, and he sang "When the heart of a man is depressed with care." He said, when he had sung it, he would give us "Woman!" I took objection to that, and I couldn't allow it. I said it was not a respectful way of proposing the toast, and I would never permit that toast to be drunk in my house otherwise than as "The Ladies!" I was very high with him, mainly I think because I saw Steerforth and Grainger laughing at me--or at him--or at both of us. He said a man was not to be dictated to. I said a man _was_. He said a man was not to be insulted, then. I said he was right there--never under my roof, where the Lares were sacred, and the laws of hospitality paramount. He said it was no derogation from a man's dignity to confess that I was a devilish good fellow. I instantly proposed his health. Somebody was smoking. We were all smoking. _I_ was smoking, and trying to suppress a rising tendency to shudder. Steerforth had made a speech about me, in the course of which I had been affected almost to tears. I returned thanks, and hoped the present company would dine with me to-morrow, and the day after--each day at five o'clock, that we might enjoy the pleasures of conversation and society through a long evening. I felt called upon to propose an individual. I would give them my aunt. Miss Betsey Trotwood, the best of her sex! Somebody was leaning out of my bed-room window, refreshing his forehead against the cool stone of the parapet, and feeling the air upon his face. It was myself. I was addressing myself as "Copperfield," and saying, "Why did you try to smoke? You might have known you couldn't do it." Now, somebody was unsteadily contemplating his features in the looking-glass. That was I too. I was very pale in the looking-glass; my eyes had a vacant appearance; and my hair--only my hair, nothing else--looked drunk. Somebody said to me, "Let us go to the theatre, Copperfield!" There was no bed-room before me, but again the jingling table covered with glasses; the lamp; Grainger on my right hand, Markham on my left, and Steerforth opposite--all sitting in a mist, and a long way off. The theatre? To be sure. The very thing. Come along! But they must excuse me if I saw everybody out first, and turned the lamp off--in case of fire. Owing to some confusion in the dark, the door was gone. I was feeling for it in the window-curtains, when Steerforth, laughing, took me by the arm and led me out. We went down-stairs, one behind another. Near the bottom, somebody fell, and rolled down. Somebody else said it was Copperfield. I was angry at that false report, until, finding myself on my back in the passage, I began to think there might be some foundation for it. A very foggy night, with great rings round the lamps in the streets! There was an indistinct talk of its being wet. _I_ considered it frosty. Steerforth dusted me under a lamp-post, and put my hat into shape, which somebody produced from somewhere in a most extraordinary manner, for I hadn't had it on before. Steerforth then said, "You are all right, Copperfield, are you not?" and I told him, "Neverberrer." A man, sitting in a pigeon-hole-place, looked out of the fog, and took money from somebody, inquiring if I was one of the gentlemen paid for, and appearing rather doubtful (as I remember in the glimpse I had of him) whether to take the money for me or not. Shortly afterwards, we were very high up in a very hot theatre, looking down into a large pit, that seemed to me to smoke; the people with whom it was crammed were so indistinct. There was a great stage, too, looking very clean and smooth after the streets; and there were people upon it, talking about something or other, but not at all intelligibly. There was an abundance of bright lights, and there was music, and there were ladies down in the boxes, and I don't know what more. The whole building looked to me, as if it were learning to swim; it conducted itself in such an unaccountable manner, when I tried to steady it. On somebody's motion, we resolved to go down-stairs to the dress-boxes, where the ladies were. A gentleman lounging, full dressed, on a sofa, with an opera-glass in his hand, passed before my view, and also my own figure at full length in a glass. Then I was being ushered into one of these boxes, and found myself saying something as I sat down, and people about me crying "Silence!" to somebody, and ladies casting indignant glances at me, and--what! yes!--Agnes, sitting on the seat before me, in the same box, with a lady and gentleman beside her, whom I didn't know. I see her face now, better than I did then I dare say, with its indelible look of regret and wonder turned upon me. "Agnes!" I said, thickly, "Lorblessmer! Agnes!" "Hush! Pray!" she answered, I could not conceive why. "You disturb the company. Look at the stage!" I tried, on her injunction, to fix it, and to hear something of what was going on there, but quite in vain. I looked at her again by-and-by, and saw her shrink into her corner, and put her gloved hand to her forehead. "Agnes!" I said. "I'mafraidyou'renorwell." "Yes, yes. Do not mind me, Trotwood," she returned. "Listen! Are you going away soon?" "Amigoarawaysoo?" I repeated. "Yes." I had a stupid intention of replying that I was going to wait, to hand her down-stairs. I suppose I expressed it, somehow; for after she had looked at me attentively for a little while, she appeared to understand, and replied in a low tone: "I know you will do as I ask you, if I tell you I am very earnest in it. Go away now, Trotwood, for my sake, and ask your friends to take you home." She had so far improved me, for the time, that though I was angry with her, I felt ashamed, and with a short "Goori!" (which I intended for "Good night!") got up and went away. They followed, and I stepped at once out of the box-door into my bedroom, where only Steerforth was with me, helping me to undress, and where I was by turns telling him that Agnes was my sister, and adjuring him to bring the corkscrew, that I might open another bottle of wine. How somebody, lying in my bed, lay saying and doing all this over again, at cross purposes, in a feverish dream all night--the bed a rocking sea that was never still! How, as that somebody slowly settled down into myself, did I begin to parch, and feel as if my outer covering of skin were a hard board; my tongue the bottom of an empty kettle, furred with long service, and burning up over a slow fire; the palms of my hands, hot plates of metal which no ice could cool! But the agony of mind, the remorse, and shame I felt, when I became conscious next day! My horror of having committed a thousand offences I had forgotten, and which nothing could ever expiate--my recollection of that indelible look which Agnes had given me--the torturing impossibility of communicating with her, not knowing, Beast that I was, how she came to be in London, or where she stayed--my disgust of the very sight of the room where the revel had been held--my racking head--the smell of smoke, the sight of glasses, the impossibility of going out, or even getting up! Oh, what a day it was! Oh, what an evening, when I sat down by my fire to a basin of mutton broth, dimpled all over with fat, and thought I was going the way of my predecessor, and should succeed to his dismal story as well as to his chambers, and had half a mind to rush express to Dover and reveal all! What an evening, when Mrs. Crupp, coming in to take away the broth-basin, produced one kidney on a cheese-plate as the entire remains of yesterday's feast, and I was really inclined to fall upon her nankeen breast, and say, in heartfelt penitence, "Oh, Mrs. Crupp, Mrs. Crupp, never mind the broken meats! I am very miserable!"--only that I doubted, even at that pass, if Mrs. Crupp were quite the sort of woman to confide in! CHAPTER XXV. GOOD AND BAD ANGELS. I was going out at my door on the morning after that deplorable day of headache, sickness, and repentance, with an odd confusion in my mind relative to the date of my dinner-party, as if a body of Titans had taken an enormous lever and pushed the day before yesterday some months back, when I saw a ticket-porter coming up-stairs, with a letter in his hand. He was taking his time about his errand, then; but when he saw me on the top of the staircase, looking at him over the bannisters, he swung into a trot, and came up panting as if he had run himself into a state of exhaustion. "T. Copperfield, Esquire," said the ticket-porter, touching his hat with his little cane. I could scarcely lay claim to the name: I was so disturbed by the conviction that the letter came from Agnes. However, I told him I was T. Copperfield, Esquire, and he believed it, and gave me the letter, which he said required an answer. I shut him out on the landing to wait for the answer, and went into my chambers again, in such a nervous state that I was fain to lay the letter down on my breakfast-table, and familiarise myself with the outside of it a little, before I could resolve to break the seal. I found, when I did open it, that it was a very kind note, containing no reference to my condition at the theatre. All it said, was, "My dear Trotwood. I am staying at the house of papa's agent, Mr. Waterbrook, in Ely-place, Holborn. Will you come and see me to-day, at any time you like to appoint? Ever yours affectionately, AGNES." It took me such a long time to write an answer at all to my satisfaction, that I don't know what the ticket-porter can have thought, unless he thought I was learning to write. I must have written half a dozen answers at least. I began one, "How can I ever hope, my dear Agnes, to efface from your remembrance the disgusting impression"--there I didn't like it, and then I tore it up. I began another, "Shakspeare has observed, my dear Agnes, how strange it is that a man should put an enemy into his mouth"--that reminded me of Markham, and it got no farther. I even tried poetry. I began one note, in a six-syllable line, "Oh do not remember"--but that associated itself with the fifth of November, and became an absurdity. After many attempts, I wrote, "My dear Agnes. Your letter is like you, and what could I say of it that would be higher praise than that? I will come at four o'clock. Affectionately and sorrowfully, T. C." With this missive (which I was in twenty minds at once about recalling, as soon as it was out of my hands), the ticket-porter at last departed. If the day were half as tremendous to any other professional gentleman in Doctors' Commons as it was to me, I sincerely believe he made some expiation for his share in that rotten old ecclesiastical cheese. Although I left the office at half-past three, and was prowling about the place of appointment within a few minutes afterwards, the appointed time was exceeded by a full quarter of an hour, according to the clock of St. Andrew's, Holborn, before I could muster up sufficient desperation to pull the private bell-handle let into the left-hand door-post of Mr. Waterbrook's house. The professional business of Mr. Waterbrook's establishment was done on the ground-floor, and the genteel business (of which there was a good deal) in the upper part of the building. I was shown into a pretty but rather close drawing-room, and there sat Agnes, netting a purse. She looked so quiet and good, and reminded me so strongly of my airy fresh school days at Canterbury, and the sodden, smoky, stupid wretch I had been the other night, that, nobody being by, I yielded to my self-reproach and shame, and--in short, made a fool of myself. I cannot deny that I shed tears. To this hour I am undecided whether it was upon the whole the wisest thing I could have done, or the most ridiculous. "If it had been any one but you, Agnes," said I, turning away my head, "I should not have minded it half so much. But that it should have been you who saw me! I almost wish I had been dead, first." She put her hand--its touch was like no other hand--upon my arm for a moment; and I felt so befriended and comforted, that I could not help moving it to my lips, and gratefully kissing it. "Sit down," said Agnes, cheerfully. "Don't be unhappy, Trotwood. If you cannot confidently trust me, whom will you trust?" "Ah, Agnes!" I returned. "You are my good Angel!" She smiled rather sadly, I thought, and shook her head. "Yes, Agnes, my good Angel! Always my good Angel!" "If I were, indeed, Trotwood," she returned, "there is one thing that I should set my heart on very much." I looked at her inquiringly; but already with a foreknowledge of her meaning. "On warning you," said Agnes, with a steady glance, "against your bad Angel." "My dear Agnes," I began, "if you mean Steerforth--" "I do, Trotwood," she returned. "Then, Agnes, you wrong him very much. He my bad Angel, or anyone's! He, anything but a guide, a support, and a friend to me! My dear Agnes! Now, is it not unjust, and unlike you, to judge him from what you saw of me the other night?" "I do not judge him from what I saw of you the other night," she quietly replied. "From what, then?" "From many things--trifles in themselves, but they do not seem to me to be so, when they are put together. I judge him, partly from your account of him, Trotwood, and your character, and the influence he has over you." There was always something in her modest voice that seemed to touch a chord within me, answering to that sound alone. It was always earnest; but when it was very earnest, as it was now, there was a thrill in it that quite subdued me. I sat looking at her as she cast her eyes down on her work; I sat seeming still to listen to her; and Steerforth, in spite of all my attachment to him, darkened in that tone. "It is very bold in me," said Agnes, looking up again, "who have lived in such seclusion, and can know so little of the world, to give you my advice so confidently, or even to have this strong opinion. But I know in what it is engendered, Trotwood,--in how true a remembrance of our having grown up together, and in how true an interest in all relating to you. It is that which makes me bold. I am certain that what I say is right. I am quite sure it is. I feel as if it were some one else speaking to you, and not I, when I caution you that you have made a dangerous friend." Again I looked at her, again I listened to her after she was silent, and again his image, though it was still fixed in my heart, darkened. "I am not so unreasonable as to expect," said Agnes, resuming her usual tone, after a little while, "that you will, or that you can, at once, change any sentiment that has become a conviction to you; least of all a sentiment that is rooted in your trusting disposition. You ought not hastily to do that. I only ask you, Trotwood, if you ever think of me--I mean" with a quiet smile, for I was going to interrupt her, and she knew why "as often as you think of me--to think of what I have said. Do you forgive me for all this?" "I will forgive you, Agnes," I replied, "when you come to do Steerforth justice, and to like him as well as I do." "Not until then?" said Agnes. I saw a passing shadow on her face when I made this mention of him, but she returned my smile, and we were again as unreserved in our mutual confidence as of old. "And when, Agnes," said I, "will you forgive me the other night?" "When I recall it," said Agnes. She would have dismissed the subject so, but I was too full of it to allow that, and insisted on telling her how it happened that I had disgraced myself, and what chain of accidental circumstances had had the theatre for its final link. It was a great relief to me to do this, and to enlarge on the obligation that I owed to Steerforth for his care of me when I was unable to take care of myself. "You must not forget," said Agnes, calmly changing the conversation as soon as I had concluded, "that you are always to tell me, not only when you fall into trouble, but when you fall in love. Who has succeeded to Miss Larkins, Trotwood?" "No one, Agnes." "Some one, Trotwood," said Agnes, laughing, and holding up her finger. "No, Agnes, upon my word! There is a lady, certainly, at Mrs. Steerforth's house, who is very clever, and whom I like to talk to--Miss Dartle--but I don't adore her." Agnes laughed again at her own penetration, and told me that if I were faithful to her in my confidence she thought she should keep a little register of my violent attachments, with the date, duration, and termination of each, like the table of the reigns of the kings and queens, in the History of England. Then she asked me if I had seen Uriah. "Uriah Heep?" said I. "No. Is he in London?" "He comes to the office down-stairs, every day," returned Agnes. "He was in London a week before me. I am afraid on disagreeable business, Trotwood." "On some business that makes you uneasy, Agnes, I see," said I. "What can that be?" Agnes laid aside her work, and replied, folding her hands upon one another, and looking pensively at me out of those beautiful soft eyes of hers: "I believe he is going to enter into partnership with papa." "What? Uriah? That mean, fawning fellow, worm himself into such promotion?" I cried, indignantly. "Have you made no remonstrance about it, Agnes? Consider what a connexion it is likely to be. You must speak out. You must not allow your father to take such a mad step. You must prevent it, Agnes, while there's time." Still looking at me, Agnes shook her head while I was speaking, with a faint smile at my warmth: and then replied: "You remember our last conversation about papa? It was not long after that--not more than two or three days--when he gave me the first intimation of what I tell you. It was sad to see him struggling between his desire to represent it to me as a matter of choice on his part, and his inability to conceal that it was forced upon him. I felt very sorry." "Forced upon him, Agnes! Who forces it upon him?" "Uriah," she replied, after a moment's hesitation, "has made himself indispensable to papa. He is subtle and watchful. He has mastered papa's weaknesses, fostered them, and taken advantage of them, until--to say all that I mean in a word, Trotwood, until papa is afraid of him." There was more that she might have said; more that she knew, or that she suspected; I clearly saw. I could not give her pain by asking what it was, for I knew that she withheld it from me, to spare her father. It had long been going on to this, I was sensible: yes, I could not but feel, on the least reflection, that it had been going on to this for a long time. I remained silent. "His ascendancy over papa," said Agnes, "is very great. He professes humility and gratitude--with truth, perhaps: I hope so--but his position is really one of power, and I fear he makes a hard use of his power." I said he was a hound, which, at the moment, was a great satisfaction to me. "At the time I speak of, as the time when papa spoke to me," pursued Agnes, "he had told papa that he was going away; that he was very sorry, and unwilling to leave, but that he had better prospects. Papa was very much depressed then, and more bowed down by care than ever you or I have seen him; but he seemed relieved by this expedient of the partnership, though at the same time he seemed hurt by it and ashamed of it." "And how did you receive it, Agnes?" "I did, Trotwood," she replied, "what I hope was right. Feeling sure that it was necessary for papa's peace that the sacrifice should be made, I entreated him to make it. I said it would lighten the load of his life--I hope it will!--and that it would give me increased opportunities of being his companion. Oh, Trotwood!" cried Agnes, putting her hands before her face, as her tears started on it, "I almost feel as if I had been papa's enemy, instead of his loving child. For I know how he has altered, in his devotion to me. I know how he has narrowed the circle of his sympathies and duties, in the concentration of his whole mind upon me. I know what a multitude of things he has shut out for my sake, and how his anxious thoughts of me have shadowed his life, and weakened his strength and energy, by turning them always upon one idea. If I could ever set this right! If I could ever work out his restoration, as I have so innocently been the cause of his decline!" I had never before seen Agnes cry. I had seen tears in her eyes when I had brought new honours home from school, and I had seen them there when we last spoke about her father, and I had seen her turn her gentle head aside when we took leave of one another; but I had never seen her grieve like this. It made me so sorry that I could only say, in a foolish, helpless manner, "Pray, Agnes, don't! Don't, my dear sister!" But Agnes was too superior to me in character and purpose, as I know well now, whatever I might know or not know then, to be long in need of my entreaties. The beautiful, calm manner, which makes her so different in my remembrance from everybody else, came back again, as if a cloud had passed from a serene sky. "We are not likely to remain alone much longer," said Agnes, "and while I have an opportunity, let me earnestly entreat you, Trotwood, to be friendly to Uriah. Don't repel him. Don't resent (as I think you have a general disposition to do) what may be uncongenial to you in him. He may not deserve it, for we know no certain ill of him. In any case, think first of papa and me!" Agnes had no time to say more, for the room-door opened, and Mrs. Waterbrook, who was a large lady--or who wore a large dress: I don't exactly know which, for I don't know which was dress and which was lady--came sailing in. I had a dim recollection of having seen her at the theatre, as if I had seen her in a pale magic lantern; but she appeared to remember me perfectly, and still to suspect me of being in a state of intoxication. Finding by degrees, however, that I was sober, and (I hope) that I was a modest young gentleman, Mrs. Waterbrook softened towards me considerably, and inquired, firstly, if I went much into the parks, and secondly, if I went much into society. On my replying to both these questions in the negative, it occurred to me that I fell again in her good opinion; but she concealed the fact gracefully, and invited me to dinner next day. I accepted the invitation, and took my leave; making a call on Uriah in the office as I went out, and leaving a card for him in his absence. When I went to dinner next day, and, on the street-door being opened, plunged into a vapour-bath of haunch of mutton, I divined that I was not the only guest; for I immediately identified the ticket-porter in disguise, assisting the family servant, and waiting at the foot of the stairs to carry up my name. He looked, to the best of his ability, when he asked me for it confidentially, as if he had never seen me before; but well did I know him, and well did he know me. Conscience made cowards of us both. I found Mr. Waterbrook to be a middle-aged gentleman, with a short throat, and a good deal of shirt-collar, who only wanted a black nose to be the portrait of a pug-dog. He told me he was happy to have the honour of making my acquaintance; and when I had paid my homage to Mrs. Waterbrook, presented me, with much ceremony, to a very awful lady in a black velvet dress, and a great black velvet hat, whom I remember as looking like a near relation of Hamlet's--say his aunt. Mrs. Henry Spiker was this lady's name; and her husband was there too: so cold a man, that his head, instead of being grey, seemed to be sprinkled with hoar-frost. Immense deference was shown to the Henry Spikers, male and female; which Agnes told me was on account of Mr. Henry Spiker being solicitor to something or to somebody, I forget what or which, remotely connected with the Treasury. I found Uriah Heep among the company, in a suit of black, and in deep humility. He told me, when I shook hands with him, that he was proud to be noticed by me, and that he really felt obliged to me for my condescension. I could have wished he had been less obliged to me, for he hovered about me in his gratitude all the rest of the evening; and whenever I said a word to Agnes, was sure, with his shadowless eyes and cadaverous face, to be looking gauntly down upon us from behind. [Illustration: Uriah persists in hovering near us, at the dinner party.] There were other guests--all iced for the occasion, as it struck me, like the wine. But, there was one who attracted my attention before he came in, on account of my hearing him announced as Mr. Traddles! My mind flew back to Salem House; and could it be Tommy, I thought, who used to draw the skeletons! I looked for Mr. Traddles with unusual interest. He was a sober, steady-looking young man of retiring manners, with a comic head of hair, and eyes that were rather wide open; and he got into an obscure corner so soon, that I had some difficulty in making him out. At length I had a good view of him, and either my vision deceived me, or it was the old unfortunate Tommy. I made my way to Mr. Waterbrook, and said, that I believed I had the pleasure of seeing an old schoolfellow there. "Indeed?" said Mr. Waterbrook, surprised. "You are too young to have been at school with Mr. Henry Spiker?" "Oh, I don't mean him!" I returned. "I mean the gentleman named Traddles." "Oh! Aye, aye! Indeed!" said my host, with much diminished interest. "Possibly." "If it's really the same person," said I, glancing towards him, "it was at a place called Salem House where we were together, and he was an excellent fellow." "Oh yes. Traddles is a good fellow," returned my host, nodding his head with an air of toleration. "Traddles is quite a good fellow." "It's a curious coincidence," said I. "It is really," returned my host, "quite a coincidence, that Traddles should be here at all: as Traddles was only invited this morning, when the place at table, intended to be occupied by Mrs. Henry Spiker's brother, became vacant, in consequence of his indisposition. A very gentlemanly man, Mrs. Henry Spiker's brother, Mr. Copperfield." I murmured an assent, which was full of feeling, considering that I knew nothing at all about him; and I inquired what Mr. Traddles was by profession. "Traddles," returned Mr. Waterbrook, "is a young man reading for the bar. Yes. He is quite a good fellow--nobody's enemy but his own." "Is he his own enemy?" said I, sorry to hear this. "Well," returned Mr. Waterbrook, pursing up his mouth, and playing with his watch-chain, in a comfortable, prosperous sort of way. "I should say he was one of those men who stand in their own light. Yes, I should say he would never, for example, be worth five hundred pound. Traddles was recommended to me, by a professional friend. Oh yes. Yes. He has a kind of talent, for drawing briefs, and stating a case in writing, plainly. I am able to throw something in Traddles's way, in the course of the year; something--for him--considerable. Oh yes. Yes." I was much impressed by the extremely comfortable and satisfied manner, in which Mr. Waterbrook delivered himself of this little word "Yes," every now and then. There was wonderful expression in it. It completely conveyed the idea of a man who had been born, not to say with a silver spoon, but with a scaling-ladder, and had gone on mounting all the heights of life one after another, until now he looked, from the top of the fortifications, with the eye of a philosopher and a patron, on the people down in the trenches. My reflections on this theme were still in progress when dinner was announced. Mr. Waterbrook went down with Hamlet's aunt. Mr. Henry Spiker took Mrs. Waterbrook. Agnes, whom I should have liked to take myself, was given to a simpering fellow with weak legs. Uriah, Traddles, and I, as the junior part of the company, went down last, how we could. I was not so vexed at losing Agnes as I might have been since it gave me an opportunity of making myself known to Traddles on the stairs, who greeted me with great fervor: while Uriah writhed with such obtrusive satisfaction and self-abasement, that I could gladly have pitched him over the bannisters. Traddles and I were separated at table, being billeted in two remote corners: he in the glare of a red velvet lady; I, in the gloom of Hamlet's aunt. The dinner was very long, and the conversation was about the Aristocracy--and Blood. Mrs. Waterbrook repeatedly told us, that if she had a weakness, it was Blood. It occurred to me several times that we should have got on better, if we had not been quite so genteel. We were so exceedingly genteel, that our scope was very limited. A Mr. and Mrs. Gulpidge were of the party, who had something to do at second-hand (at least, Mr. Gulpidge had) with the law business of the Bank; and what with the Bank, and what with the Treasury, we were as exclusive as the Court Circular. To mend the matter, Hamlet's aunt had the family failing of indulging in soliloquy, and held forth in a desultory manner, by herself, on every topic that was introduced. These were few enough, to be sure; but as we always fell back upon Blood, she had as wide a field for abstract speculation as her nephew himself. We might have been a party of Ogres, the conversation assumed such a sanguine complexion. "I confess I am of Mrs. Waterbrook's opinion," said Mr. Waterbrook, with his wine-glass at his eye. "Other things are all very well in their way, but give me Blood!" "Oh! There is nothing," observed Hamlet's aunt, "so satisfactory to one! There is nothing that is so much one's _beau-ideal_ of--of all that sort of thing, speaking generally. There are some low minds (not many, I am happy to believe, but there are _some_) that would prefer to do what _I_ should call bow down before idols. Positively Idols! Before services, intellect, and so on. But these are intangible points. Blood is not so. We see Blood in a nose, and we know it. We meet with it in a chin, and we say, 'There it is! That's Blood!' It is an actual matter of fact. We point it out. It admits of no doubt." The simpering fellow with the weak legs, who had taken Agnes down, stated the question more decisively yet, I thought. "Oh, you know, deuce take it," said this gentleman, looking round the board with an imbecile smile, "we can't forego Blood, you know. We must have Blood, you know. Some young fellows, you know, may be a little behind their station, perhaps, in point of education and behaviour, and may go a little wrong, you know, and get themselves and other people into a variety of fixes--and all that--but deuce take it, it's delightful to reflect that they've got Blood in 'em! Myself, I'd rather at any time be knocked down by a man who had got Blood in him, than I'd be picked up by a man who hadn't!" This sentiment, as compressing the general question into a nutshell, gave the utmost satisfaction, and brought the gentleman into great notice until the ladies retired. After that, I observed that Mr. Gulpidge and Mr. Henry Spiker, who had hitherto been very distant, entered into a defensive alliance against us, the common enemy, and exchanged a mysterious dialogue across the table for our defeat and overthrow. "That affair of the first bond for four thousand five hundred pounds has not taken the course that was expected, Gulpidge," said Mr. Henry Spiker. "Do you mean the D. of A.'s?" said Mr. Spiker. "The C. of B.'s?" said Mr. Gulpidge. Mr. Spiker raised his eye-brows, and looked much concerned. "When the question was referred to Lord--I needn't name him," said Mr. Gulpidge, checking himself-- "I understand," said Mr. Spiker, "N." Mr. Gulpidge darkly nodded--"was referred to him, his answer was, 'Money, or no release.'" "Lord bless my soul!" cried Mr. Spiker. "'Money, or no release,'" repeated Mr. Gulpidge firmly. "The next in reversion--you understand me?" "K." said Mr. Spiker, with an ominous look. "--K. then positively refused to sign. He was attended at Newmarket for that purpose, and he point-blank refused to do it." Mr. Spiker was so interested, that he became quite stony. "So the matter rests at this hour," said Mr. Gulpidge, throwing himself back in his chair. "Our friend Waterbrook will excuse me if I forbear to explain myself generally, on account of the magnitude of the interests involved." Mr. Waterbrook was only too happy, as it appeared to me, to have such interests, and such names, even hinted at, across his table. He assumed an expression of gloomy intelligence (though I am persuaded he knew no more about the discussion than I did), and highly approved of the discretion that had been observed. Mr. Spiker, after the receipt of such a confidence, naturally desired to favor his friend with a confidence of his own; therefore the foregoing dialogue was succeeded by another, in which it was Mr. Gulpidge's turn to be surprised, and that by another in which the surprise came round to Mr. Spiker's turn again, and so on, turn and turn about. All this time we, the outsiders, remained oppressed by the tremendous interests involved in the conversation; and our host regarded us with pride, as the victims of a salutary awe and astonishment. I was very glad indeed to get up-stairs to Agnes, and to talk with her in a corner, and to introduce Traddles to her, who was shy, but agreeable, and the same good-natured creature still. As he was obliged to leave early, on account of going away next morning for a month, I had not nearly so much conversation with him as I could have wished; but we exchanged addresses, and promised ourselves the pleasure of another meeting when he should come back to town. He was greatly interested to hear that I knew Steerforth, and spoke of him with such warmth that I made him tell Agnes what he thought of him. But Agnes only looked at me the while, and very slightly shook her head when only I observed her. As she was not among people with whom I believed she could be very much at home, I was almost glad to hear that she was going away within a few days, though I was sorry at the prospect of parting from her again so soon. This caused me to remain until all the company were gone. Conversing with her, and hearing her sing, was such a delightful reminder to me of my happy life in the grave old house she had made so beautiful, that I could have remained there half the night; but, having no excuse for staying any longer, when the lights of Mr. Waterbrook's society were all snuffed out, I took my leave very much against my inclination. I felt then, more than ever, that she was my better Angel; and if I thought of her sweet face and placid smile, as though they had shone on me from some removed being, like an Angel, I hope I thought no harm. I have said that the company were all gone; but I ought to have excepted Uriah, whom I don't include in that denomination, and who had never ceased to hover near us. He was close behind me when I went down-stairs. He was close beside me, when I walked away from the house, slowly fitting his long skeleton fingers into the still longer fingers of a great Guy Fawkes pair of gloves. It was in no disposition for Uriah's company, but in remembrance of the entreaty Agnes had made to me, that I asked him if he would come home to my rooms, and have some coffee. "Oh, really, Master Copperfield," he rejoined,--"I beg your pardon, Mister Copperfield, but the other comes so natural,--I don't like that you should put a constraint upon yourself to ask a numble person like me to your ouse." "There is no constraint in the case," said I. "Will you come?" "I should like to, very much," replied Uriah, with a writhe. "Well, then, come along!" said I. I could not help being rather short with him, but he appeared not to mind it. We went the nearest way, without conversing much upon the road; and he was so humble in respect of those scarecrow gloves, that he was still putting them on, and seemed to have made no advance in that labour, when we got to my place. I led him up the dark stairs, to prevent his knocking his head against anything, and really his damp cold hand felt so like a frog in mine, that I was tempted to drop it and run away. Agnes and hospitality prevailed, however, and I conducted him to my fireside. When I lighted my candles, he fell into meek transports with the room that was revealed to him; and when I heated the coffee in an unassuming block-tin vessel, in which Mrs. Crupp delighted to prepare it (chiefly, I believe, because it was not intended for the purpose, being a shaving-pot, and because there was a patent invention of great price mouldering away in the pantry), he professed so much emotion, that I could joyfully have scalded him. "Oh, really, Master Copperfield,--I mean Mister Copperfield," said Uriah, "to see you waiting upon me is what I never could have expected! But, one way and another, so many things happen to me which I never could have expected, I am sure, in my umble station, that it seems to rain blessings on my ed. You have heard something, I des-say, of a change in my expectations, Master Copperfield,--_I_ should say, Mister Copperfield?" As he sat on my sofa, with his long knees drawn up under his coffee-cup, his hat and gloves upon the ground close to him, his spoon going softly round and round, his shadowless red eyes, which looked as if they had scorched their lashes off, turned towards me without looking at me, the disagreeable dints I have formerly described in his nostrils coming and going with his breath, and a snaky undulation pervading his frame from his chin to his boots, I decided in my own mind that I disliked him intensely. It made me very uncomfortable to have him for a guest, for I was young then, and unused to disguise what I so strongly felt. "You have heard something, I des-say, of a change in my expectations, Master Copperfield,--I should say, Mister Copperfield?" observed Uriah. "Yes," said I, "something." "Ah! I thought Miss Agnes would know of it!" he quietly returned. "I'm glad to find Miss Agnes knows of it. Oh, thank you, Master--Mister Copperfield!" I could have thrown my bootjack at him (it lay ready on the rug), for having entrapped me into the disclosure of anything concerning Agnes, however immaterial. But I only drank my coffee. "What a prophet you have shown yourself, Mister Copperfield!" pursued Uriah. "Dear me, what a prophet you have proved yourself to be! Don't you remember saying to me once, that perhaps I should be a partner in Mr. Wickfield's business, and perhaps it might be Wickfield and Heep! _You_ may not recollect it; but when a person is umble, Master Copperfield, a person treasures such things up!" "I recollect talking about it," said I, "though I certainly did not think it very likely then." "Oh! who _would_ have thought it likely, Mister Copperfield!" returned Uriah, enthusiastically, "I am sure I didn't myself. I recollect saying with my own lips that I was much too umble. So I considered myself really and truly." He sat, with that carved grin on his face, looking at the fire, as I looked at him. "But the umblest persons, Master Copperfield," he presently resumed, "may be the instruments of good. I am glad to think I have been the instrument of good to Mr. Wickfield, and that I may be more so. Oh what a worthy man he is, Mister Copperfield, but how imprudent he has been!" "I am sorry to hear it," said I. I could not help adding, rather pointedly, "on all accounts." "Decidedly so, Mister Copperfield," replied Uriah. "On all accounts. Miss Agnes's above all! You don't remember your own eloquent expressions, Master Copperfield; but _I_ remember how you said one day that everybody must admire her, and how I thanked you for it! You have forgot that, I have no doubt, Master Copperfield?" "No," said I, drily. "Oh how glad I am, you have not!" exclaimed Uriah. "To think that you should be the first to kindle the sparks of ambition in my umble breast, and that you've not forgot it! Oh!--Would you excuse me asking for a cup more coffee?" Something in the emphasis he laid upon the kindling of those sparks, and something in the glance he directed at me as he said it, had made me start as if I had seen him illuminated by a blaze of light. Recalled by his request, preferred in quite another tone of voice, I did the honors of the shaving-pot; but I did them with an unsteadiness of hand, a sudden sense of being no match for him, and a perplexed suspicious anxiety as to what he might be going to say next, which I felt could not escape his observation. He said nothing at all. He stirred his coffee round and round, he sipped it, he felt his chin softly with his grisly hand, he looked at the fire, he looked about the room, he gasped rather than smiled at me, he writhed and undulated about, in his deferential servility, he stirred and sipped again, but he left the renewal of the conversation to me. "So, Mr. Wickfield," said I, at last, "who is worth five hundred of you--or me;" for my life, I think I could not have helped dividing that part of the sentence with an awkward jerk; "has been imprudent, has he, Mr. Heep?" "Oh very imprudent indeed, Master Copperfield," returned Uriah, sighing modestly. "Oh very much so! But I wish you'd call me Uriah, if you please. It's like old times." "Well! Uriah," said I, bolting it out with some difficulty. "Thank you!" he returned, with fervor. "Thank you, Master Copperfield! It's like the blowing of old breezes or the ringing of old bellses to hear _you_ say Uriah. I beg your pardon. Was I making any observation?" "About Mr. Wickfield," I suggested. "Oh! Yes, truly," said Uriah. "Ah! Great imprudence, Master Copperfield. It's a topic that I wouldn't touch upon, to any soul but you. Even to you I can only touch upon it, and no more. If any one else had been in my place during the last few years, by this time he would have had Mr. Wickfield (oh, what a worthy man he is, Master Copperfield, too!) under his thumb. Un--der--his thumb," said Uriah, very slowly, as he stretched out his cruel-looking hand above my table, and pressed his own thumb down upon it, until it shook, and shook the room. If I had been obliged to look at him with his splay foot on Mr. Wickfield's head, I think I could scarcely have hated him more. "Oh dear, yes, Master Copperfield," he proceeded, in a soft voice, most remarkably contrasting with the action of his thumb, which did not diminish its hard pressure in the least degree, "there's no doubt of it. There would have been loss, disgrace, I don't know what all. Mr. Wickfield knows it. I am the umble instrument of umbly serving him, and he puts me on an eminence I hardly could have hoped to reach. How thankful should I be!" With his face turned towards me, as he finished, but without looking at me, he took his crooked thumb off the spot where he had planted it, and slowly and thoughtfully scraped his lank jaw with it, as if he were shaving himself. I recollect well how indignantly my heart beat, as I saw his crafty face, with the appropriately red light of the fire upon it, preparing for something else. "Master Copperfield," he began--"but am I keeping you up?" "You are not keeping me up. I generally go to bed late." "Thank you, Master Copperfield! I have risen from my umble station since first you used to address me, it is true; but I am umble still. I hope I never shall be otherwise than umble. You will not think the worse of my umbleness, if I make a little confidence to you, Master Copperfield? Will you?" "Oh, no," said I, with an effort. "Thank you!" He took out his pocket-handkerchief, and began wiping the palms of his hands. "Miss Agnes, Master Copperfield--" "Well, Uriah?" "Oh, how pleasant to be called Uriah, spontaneously!" he cried; and gave himself a jerk, like a convulsive fish. "You thought her looking very beautiful to-night, Master Copperfield?" "I thought her looking as she always does: superior, in all respects, to every one around her," I returned. "Oh, thank you! It's so true!" he cried. "Oh, thank you very much for that!" "Not at all," I said, loftily. "There is no reason why you should thank me." "Why that, Master Copperfield," said Uriah, "is, in fact, the confidence that I am going to take the liberty of reposing. Umble as I am," he wiped his hands harder, and looked at them and at the fire by turns, "umble as my mother is, and lowly as our poor but honest roof has ever been, the image of Miss Agnes (I don't mind trusting you with my secret, Master Copperfield, for I have always overflowed towards you since the first moment I had the pleasure of beholding you in a poney-shay) has been in my breast for years. Oh, Master Copperfield, with what a pure affection do I love the ground my Agnes walks on!" I believe I had a delirious idea of seizing the red-hot poker out of the fire, and running him through with it. It went from me with a shock, like a ball fired from a rifle: but the image of Agnes, outraged by so much as a thought of this red-headed animal's, remained in my mind when I looked at him, sitting all awry as if his mean soul griped his body, and made me giddy. He seemed to swell and grow before my eyes; the room seemed full of the echoes of his voice; and the strange feeling (to which, perhaps, no one is quite a stranger) that all this had occurred before, at some indefinite time, and that I knew what he was going to say next, took possession of me. A timely observation of the sense of power that there was in his face, did more to bring back to my remembrance the entreaty of Agnes, in its full force, than any effort I could have made. I asked him, with a better appearance of composure than I could have thought possible a minute before, whether he had made his feelings known to Agnes. "Oh, no, Master Copperfield!" he returned; "oh dear, no! Not to any one but you. You see I am only just emerging from my lowly station. I rest a good deal of hope on her observing how useful I am to her father (for I trust to be very useful to him, indeed, Master Copperfield), and how I smooth the way for him, and keep him straight. She's so much attached to her father, Master Copperfield (oh what a lovely thing it is in a daughter!), that I think she may come, on his account, to be kind to me." I fathomed the depth of the rascal's whole scheme, and understood why he laid it bare. "If you'll have the goodness to keep my secret, Master Copperfield," he pursued, "and not, in general, to go against me, I shall take it as a particular favor. You wouldn't wish to make unpleasantness. I know what a friendly heart you've got; but having only known me on my umble footing (on my umblest, I should say, for I am very umble still), you might, unbeknown, go against me rather, with my Agnes. I call her mine, you see, Master Copperfield. There's a song that says, 'I'd crowns resign, to call her mine!' I hope to do it, one of these days." Dear Agnes! So much too loving and too good for any one that I could think of, was it possible that she was reserved to be the wife of such a wretch as this! "There's no hurry at present, you know, Master Copperfield," Uriah proceeded, in his slimy way, as I sat gazing at him, with this thought in my mind. "My Agnes is very young still; and mother and me will have to work our way upards, and make a good many new arrangements, before it would be quite convenient. So I shall have time gradually to make her familiar with my hopes, as opportunities offer. Oh, I'm so much obliged to you for this confidence! Oh, it's such a relief, you can't think, to know that you understand our situation, and are certain (as you wouldn't wish to make unpleasantness in the family) not to go against me!" He took the hand which I dared not withhold, and having given it a damp squeeze, referred to his pale-faced watch. "Dear me!" he said, "it's past one. The moments slip away so, in the confidence of old times, Master Copperfield, that it's almost half-past one!" I answered that I had thought it was later. Not that I had really thought so, but because my conversational powers were effectually scattered. "Dear me!" he said, considering. "The ouse that I am stopping at--a sort of a private hotel and boarding ouse, Master Copperfield, near the New River ed--will have gone to bed these two hours." "I am sorry," I returned, "that there is only one bed here, and that I--" "Oh, don't think of mentioning beds, Master Copperfield!" he rejoined ecstatically, drawing up one leg. "But _would_ you have any objections to my laying down before the fire?" "If it comes to that," I said, "pray take my bed, and I'll lie down before the fire." His repudiation of this offer was almost shrill enough, in the excess of its surprise and humility, to have penetrated to the ears of Mrs. Crupp, then sleeping, I suppose, in a distant chamber, situated at about the level of low water mark, soothed in her slumbers by the ticking of an incorrigible clock, to which she always referred me when we had any little difference on the score of punctuality, and which was never less than three quarters of an hour too slow, and had always been put right in the morning by the best authorities. As no arguments I could urge, in my bewildered condition, had the least effect upon his modesty in inducing him to accept my bed-room, I was obliged to make the best arrangements I could, for his repose before the fire. The mattress of the sofa (which was a great deal too short for his lank figure), the sofa pillows, a blanket, the table-cover, a clean breakfast-cloth, and a great coat, made him a bed and covering, for which he was more than thankful. Having lent him a nightcap, which he put on at once, and in which he made such an awful figure that I have never worn one since, I left him to his rest. I never shall forget that night. I never shall forget how I turned and tumbled; how I wearied myself with thinking about Agnes and this creature; how I considered what could I do, and what ought I to do; how I could come to no other conclusion than that the best course for her peace, was to do nothing, and to keep to myself what I had heard. If I went to sleep for a few moments, the image of Agnes with her tender eyes, and of her father looking fondly on her, as I had so often seen him look, arose before me with appealing faces, and filled me with vague terrors. When I awoke, the recollection that Uriah was lying in the next room sat heavy on me like a waking night-mare; and oppressed me with a leaden dread, as if I had had some meaner quality of devil for a lodger. The poker got into my dozing thoughts besides, and wouldn't come out. I thought, between sleeping and waking, that it was still red hot, and I had snatched it out of the fire, and run him through the body. I was so haunted at last by the idea, though I knew there was nothing in it, that I stole into the next room to look at him. There I saw him, lying on his back, with his legs extending to I don't know where, gurglings taking place in his throat, stoppages in his nose, and his mouth open like a post-office. He was so much worse in reality than in my distempered fancy, that afterwards I was attracted to him in very repulsion, and could not help wandering in and out every half hour or so, and taking another look at him. Still, the long, long night seemed heavy and hopeless as ever, and no promise of day was in the murky sky. When I saw him going down stairs early in the morning (for, thank Heaven! he would not stay to breakfast), it appeared to me as if the night was going away in his person. When I went out to the Commons, I charged Mrs. Crupp with particular directions to leave the windows open, that my sitting-room might be aired, and purged of his presence. CHAPTER XXVI. I FALL INTO CAPTIVITY. I saw no more of Uriah Heep, until the day when Agnes left town. I was at the coach-office to take leave of her and see her go; and there was he, returning to Canterbury by the same conveyance. It was some small satisfaction to me to observe his spare, short-waisted, high-shouldered, mulberry-coloured great-coat perched up, in company with an umbrella like a small tent, on the edge of the back seat on the roof, while Agnes was, of course, inside; but what I underwent in my efforts to be friendly with him, while Agnes looked on, perhaps deserved that little recompense. At the coach-window, as at the dinner-party, he hovered about us without a moment's intermission, like a great vulture: gorging himself on every syllable that I said to Agnes, or Agnes said to me. In the state of trouble into which his disclosure by my fire had thrown me, I had thought very much of the words Agnes had used in reference to the partnership. "I did what I hope was right. Feeling sure that it was necessary for papa's peace that the sacrifice should be made, I entreated him to make it." A miserable foreboding that she would yield to, and sustain herself by, the same feeling in reference to any sacrifice for his sake, had oppressed me ever since. I knew how she loved him. I knew what the devotion of her nature was. I knew from her own lips that she regarded herself as the innocent cause of his errors, and as owing him a great debt she ardently desired to pay. I had no consolation in seeing how different she was from this detestable Rufus with the mulberry-coloured great-coat, for I felt that in the very difference between them, in the self-denial of her pure soul and the sordid baseness of his, the greatest danger lay. All this, doubtless, he knew thoroughly, and had, in his cunning, considered well. Yet, I was so certain that the prospect of such a sacrifice afar off, must destroy the happiness of Agnes; and I was so sure, from her manner, of its being unseen by her then, and having cast no shadow on her yet; that I could as soon have injured her, as given her any warning of what impended. Thus it was that we parted without explanation: she waving her hand and smiling farewell from the coach-window; her evil genius writhing on the roof, as if he had her in his clutches and triumphed. I could not get over this farewell glimpse of them for a long time. When Agnes wrote to tell me of her safe arrival, I was as miserable as when I saw her going away. Whenever I fell into a thoughtful state, this subject was sure to present itself, and all my uneasiness was sure to be redoubled. Hardly a night passed without my dreaming of it. It became a part of my life, and as inseparable from my life as my own head. I had ample leisure to refine upon my uneasiness: for Steerforth was at Oxford, as he wrote to me, and when I was not at the Commons, I was very much alone. I believe I had at this time some lurking distrust of Steerforth. I wrote to him most affectionately in reply to his, but I think I was glad, upon the whole, that he could not come to London just then. I suspect the truth to be, that the influence of Agnes was upon me, undisturbed by the sight of him; and that it was the more powerful with me, because she had so large a share in my thoughts and interest. In the meantime, days and weeks slipped away. I was articled to Spenlow and Jorkins. I had ninety pounds a year (exclusive of my house-rent and sundry collateral matters) from my aunt. My rooms were engaged for twelve months certain: and though I still found them dreary of an evening, and the evenings long, I could settle down into a state of equable low spirits, and resign myself to coffee; which I seem, on looking back, to have taken by the gallon at about this period of my existence. At about this time, too, I made three discoveries: first, that Mrs. Crupp was a martyr to a curious disorder called "the spazzums," which was generally accompanied with inflammation of the nose, and required to be constantly treated with peppermint; secondly, that something peculiar in the temperature of my pantry, made the brandy-bottles burst; thirdly, that I was alone in the world, and much given to record that circumstance in fragments of English versification. On the day when I was articled, no festivity took place, beyond my having sandwiches and sherry into the office for the clerks, and going alone to the theatre at night. I went to see "The Stranger" as a Doctors' Commons sort of play, and was so dreadfully cut up, that I hardly knew myself in my own glass when I got home. Mr. Spenlow remarked, on this occasion, when we concluded our business, that he should have been happy to have seen me at his house at Norwood to celebrate our becoming connected, but for his domestic arrangements being in some disorder, on account of the expected return of his daughter from finishing her education at Paris. But, he intimated that when she came home he should hope to have the pleasure of entertaining me. I knew that he was a widower with one daughter, and expressed my acknowledgments. Mr. Spenlow was as good as his word. In a week or two, he referred to this engagement, and said, that if I would do him the favor to come down next Saturday, and stay till Monday, he would be extremely happy. Of course I said I _would_ do him the favor; and he was to drive me down in his phaeton, and to bring me back. When the day arrived, my very carpet-bag was an object of veneration to the stipendiary clerks, to whom the house at Norwood was a sacred mystery. One of them informed me that he had heard that Mr. Spenlow ate entirely off plate and china; and another hinted at champagne being constantly on draught, after the usual custom of table beer. The old clerk with the wig, whose name was Mr. Tiffey, had been down on business several times in the course of his career, and had on each occasion penetrated to the breakfast-parlor. He described it as an apartment of the most sumptuous nature, and said that he had drunk brown East India sherry there, of a quality so precious as to make a man wink. We had an adjourned cause in the Consistory that day--about excommunicating a baker who had been objecting in a vestry to a paving-rate--and as the evidence was just twice the length of Robinson Crusoe, according to a calculation I made, it was rather late in the day before we finished. However, we got him excommunicated for six weeks, and sentenced in no end of costs; and then the baker's proctor, and the judge, and the advocates on both sides (who were all nearly related), went out of town together, and Mr. Spenlow and I drove away in the phaeton. The phaeton was a very handsome affair; the horses arched their necks and lifted up their legs as if they knew they belonged to Doctors' Commons. There was a good deal of competition in the Commons on all points of display, and it turned out some very choice equipages then; though I always have considered, and always shall consider, that in my time the great article of competition there was starch: which I think was worn among the proctors to as great an extent as it is in the nature of man to bear. We were very pleasant, going down, and Mr. Spenlow gave me some hints in reference to my profession. He said it was the genteelest profession in the world, and must on no account be confounded with the profession of a solicitor: being quite another sort of thing, infinitely more exclusive, less mechanical, and more profitable. We took things much more easily in the Commons than they could be taken anywhere else, he observed, and that set us, as a privileged class, apart. He said it was impossible to conceal the disagreeable fact, that we were chiefly employed by solicitors; but he gave me to understand that they were an inferior race of men, universally looked down upon by all proctors of any pretensions. I asked Mr. Spenlow what he considered the best sort of professional business? He replied, that a good case of a disputed will, where there was a neat little estate of thirty or forty thousand pounds, was, perhaps, the best of all. In such a case, he said, not only were there very pretty pickings in the way of arguments at every stage of the proceedings, and mountains upon mountains of evidence on interrogatory and counter-interrogatory (to say nothing of an appeal lying, first to the Delegates, and then to the Lords); but, the costs being pretty sure to come out of the estate at last, both sides went at it in a lively and spirited manner, and expense was no consideration. Then, he launched into a general eulogium on the Commons. What was to be particularly admired (he said) in the Commons, was its compactness. It was the most conveniently organised place in the world. It was the complete idea of snugness. It lay in a nut-shell. For example: You brought a divorce case, or a restitution case, into the Consistory. Very good. You tried it in the Consistory. You made a quiet little round game of it, among a family group, and you played it out at leisure. Suppose you were not satisfied with the Consistory, what did you do then? Why, you went into the Arches. What was the Arches? The same court, in the same room, with the same bar, and the same practitioners, but another judge, for there the Consistory judge could plead any court-day as an advocate. Well, you played your round game out again. Still you were not satisfied. Very good. What did you do then? Why, you went to the Delegates. Who were the Delegates? Why, the Ecclesiastical Delegates were the advocates without any business, who had looked on at the round game when it was playing in both courts, and had seen the cards shuffled, and cut, and played, and had talked to all the players about it, and now came fresh, as judges, to settle the matter to the satisfaction of everybody! Discontented people might talk of corruption in the Commons, closeness in the Commons, and the necessity of reforming the Commons, said Mr. Spenlow solemnly, in conclusion; but when the price of wheat per bushel had been highest, the Commons had been busiest; and a man might lay his hand upon his heart, and say this to the whole world,--"Touch the Commons, and down comes the country!" I listened to all this with attention; and though, I must say, I had my doubts whether the country was quite as much obliged to the Commons as Mr. Spenlow made out, I respectfully deferred to his opinion. That about the price of wheat per bushel, I modestly felt was too much for my strength, and quite settled the question. I have never, to this hour, got the better of that bushel of wheat. It has re-appeared to annihilate me, all through my life, in connexion with all kinds of subjects. I don't know now, exactly, what it has to do with me, or what right it has to crush me, on an infinite variety of occasions; but whenever I see my old friend the bushel brought in by the head and shoulders (as he always is, I observe), I give up a subject for lost. This is a digression. _I_ was not the man to touch the Commons, and bring down the country. I submissively expressed, by my silence, my acquiescence in all I had heard from my superior in years and knowledge; and we talked about "The Stranger" and the Drama, and the pair of horses, until we came to Mr. Spenlow's gate. There was a lovely garden to Mr. Spenlow's house; and though that was not the best time of the year for seeing a garden, it was so beautifully kept, that I was quite enchanted. There was a charming lawn, there were clusters of trees, and there were perspective walks that I could just distinguish in the dark, arched over with trellis-work, on which shrubs and flowers grew in the growing season. "Here Miss Spenlow walks by herself," I thought. "Dear me!" We went into the house, which was cheerfully lighted up, and into a hall where there were all sorts of hats, caps, great-coats, plaids, gloves, whips, and walking-sticks. "Where is Miss Dora?" said Mr. Spenlow to the servant. "Dora!" I thought. "What a beautiful name!" We turned into a room near at hand (I think it was the identical breakfast-room, made memorable by the brown East Indian Sherry), and I heard a voice say, "Mr. Copperfield, my daughter Dora, and my daughter Dora's confidential friend!" It was, no doubt, Mr. Spenlow's voice, but I didn't know it, and I didn't care whose it was. All was over in a moment. I had fulfilled my destiny. I was a captive and a slave. I loved Dora Spenlow to distraction! [Illustration: I fall into captivity.] She was more than human to me. She was a Fairy, a Sylph, I don't know what she was--any thing that no one ever saw, and every thing that every body ever wanted. I was swallowed up in an abyss of love in an instant. There was no pausing on the brink; no looking down, or looking back; I was gone, headlong, before I had sense to say a word to her. "_I_," observed a well-remembered voice, when I had bowed and murmured something, "have seen Mr. Copperfield before." The speaker was not Dora. No; the confidential friend. Miss Murdstone! I don't think I was much astonished. To the best of my judgment, no capacity of astonishment was left in me. There was nothing worth mentioning in the material world, but Dora Spenlow, to be astonished about. I said, "How do you do, Miss Murdstone? I hope you are well." She answered, "Very well." I said, "How is Mr. Murdstone?" She replied, "My brother is robust, I am obliged to you." Mr. Spenlow, who, I suppose, had been surprised to see us recognise each other, then put in his word. "I am glad to find," he said, "Copperfield, that you and Miss Murdstone are already acquainted." "Mr. Copperfield and myself," said Miss Murdstone, with severe composure, "are connexions. We were once slightly acquainted. It was in his childish days. Circumstances have separated us since. I should not have known him." I replied that I should have known her, any where. Which was true enough. "Miss Murdstone has had the goodness," said Mr. Spenlow to me, "to accept the office--if I may so describe it--of my daughter Dora's confidential friend. My daughter Dora having, unhappily, no mother, Miss Murdstone is obliging enough to become her companion and protector." A passing thought occurred to me that Miss Murdstone, like the pocket instrument called a life-preserver, was not so much designed for purposes of protection as of assault. But as I had none but passing thoughts for any subject save Dora, I glanced at her, directly afterwards, and was thinking that I saw, in her prettily pettish manner, that she was not very much inclined to be particularly confidential to her companion and protector, when a bell rang, which Mr. Spenlow said was the first dinner-bell, and so carried me off to dress. The idea of dressing one's self, or doing any thing in the way of action, in that state of love, was a little too ridiculous. I could only sit down before my fire, biting the key of my carpet-bag, and think of the captivating, girlish, bright-eyed lovely Dora. What a form she had, what a face she had, what a graceful, variable, enchanting manner! The bell rang again so soon that I made a mere scramble of my dressing, instead of the careful operation I could have wished under the circumstances, and went down-stairs. There was some company. Dora was talking to an old gentleman with a grey head. Grey as he was--and a great-grandfather into the bargain, for he said so--I was madly jealous of him. What a state of mind I was in! I was jealous of everybody. I couldn't bear the idea of anybody knowing Mr. Spenlow better than I did. It was torturing to me to hear them talk of occurrences in which I had had no share. When a most amiable person, with a highly polished bald head, asked me across the dinner-table, if that were the first occasion of my seeing the grounds, I could have done anything to him that was savage and revengeful. I don't remember who was there, except Dora. I have not the least idea what we had for dinner, besides Dora. My impression is, that I dined off Dora, entirely, and sent away half-a-dozen plates untouched. I sat next to her. I talked to her. She had the most delightful little voice, the gayest little laugh, the pleasantest and most fascinating little ways, that ever led a lost youth into hopeless slavery. She was rather diminutive altogether. So much the more precious, I thought. When she went out of the room with Miss Murdstone (no other ladies were of the party), I fell into a reverie, only disturbed by the cruel apprehension that Miss Murdstone would disparage me to her. The amiable creature with the polished head told me a long story, which I think was about gardening. I think I heard him say, "my gardener," several times. I seemed to pay the deepest attention to him, but I was wandering in a garden of Eden all the while, with Dora. My apprehensions of being disparaged to the object of my engrossing affection were revived when we went into the drawing-room, by the grim and distant aspect of Miss Murdstone. But I was relieved of them in an unexpected manner. "David Copperfield," said Miss Murdstone, beckoning me aside into a window. "A word." I confronted Miss Murdstone alone. "David Copperfield," said Miss Murdstone, "I need not enlarge upon family circumstances. They are not a tempting subject." "Far from it, ma'am," I returned. "Far from it," assented Miss Murdstone. "I do not wish to revive the memory of past differences, or of past outrages. I have received outrages from a person--a female I am sorry to say, for the credit of my sex--who is not to be mentioned without scorn and disgust; and therefore I would rather not mention her." I felt very fiery on my aunt's account; but I said it would certainly be better, if Miss Murdstone pleased, _not_ to mention her. I could not hear her disrespectfully mentioned, I added, without expressing my opinion in a decided tone. Miss Murdstone shut her eyes, and disdainfully inclined her head; then, slowly opening her eyes, resumed: "David Copperfield, I shall not attempt to disguise the fact, that I formed an unfavorable opinion of you in your childhood. It may have been a mistaken one, or you may have ceased to justify it. That is not in question between us now. I belong to a family remarkable, I believe, for some firmness; and I am not the creature of circumstance or change. I may have my opinion of you. You may have your opinion of me." I inclined my head, in my turn. "But it is not necessary," said Miss Murdstone, "that these opinions should come into collision here. Under existing circumstances, it is as well on all accounts that they should not. As the chances of life have brought us together again, and may bring us together on other occasions, I would say let us meet here as distant acquaintances. Family circumstances are a sufficient reason for our only meeting on that footing, and it is quite unnecessary that either of us should make the other the subject of remark. Do you approve of this?" "Miss Murdstone," I returned, "I think you and Mr. Murdstone used me very cruelly, and treated my mother with great unkindness. I shall always think so, as long as I live. But I quite agree in what you propose." Miss Murdstone shut her eyes again, and bent her head. Then, just touching the back of my hand with the tips of her cold, stiff fingers, she walked away, arranging the little fetters on her wrists and round her neck: which seemed to be the same set, in exactly the same state, as when I had seen her last. These reminded me, in reference to Miss Murdstone's nature, of the fetters over a jail-door; suggesting on the outside, to all beholders, what was to be expected within. All I know of the rest of the evening is, that I heard the empress of my heart sing enchanted ballads in the French language, generally to the effect that, whatever was the matter, we ought always to dance, Ta ra la, Ta ra la! accompanying herself on a glorified instrument, resembling a guitar. That I was lost in blissful delirium. That I refused refreshment. That my soul recoiled from punch particularly. That when Miss Murdstone took her into custody and led her away, she smiled and gave me her delicious hand. That I caught a view of myself in a mirror, looking perfectly imbecile and idiotic. That I retired to bed in a most maudlin state of mind, and got up in a crisis of feeble infatuation. It was a fine morning, and early, and I thought I would go and take a stroll down one of those wire-arched walks, and indulge my passion by dwelling on her image. On my way through the hall, I encountered her little dog, who was called Jip--short for Gipsy. I approached him tenderly, for I loved even him; but he showed his whole set of teeth, got under a chair expressly to snarl, and wouldn't hear of the least familiarity. The garden was cool and solitary. I walked about, wondering what my feelings of happiness would be, if I could ever become engaged to this dear wonder. As to marriage, and fortune, and all that, I believe I was almost as innocently undesigning then, as when I loved little Em'ly. To be allowed to call her "Dora," to write to her, to dote upon and worship her, to have reason to think that when she was with other people she was yet mindful of me, seemed to me the summit of human ambition--I am sure it was the summit of mine. There is no doubt whatever that I was a lackadaisical young spooney; but there was a purity of heart in all this still, that prevents my having quite a contemptuous recollection of it, let me laugh as I may. I had not been walking long, when I turned a corner, and met her. I tingle again from head to foot as my recollection turns that corner, and my pen shakes in my hand. "You--are--out early, Miss Spenlow," said I. "It's so stupid at home," she replied, "and Miss Murdstone is so absurd! She talks such nonsense about its being necessary for the day to be aired, before I come out. Aired!" (She laughed, here, in the most melodious manner). "On a Sunday morning, when I don't practise, I must do something. So I told papa last night I _must_ come out. Besides, it's the brightest time of the whole day. Don't you think so?" I hazarded a bold flight, and said (not without stammering) that it was very bright to me then, though it had been very dark to me a minute before. "Do you mean a compliment?" said Dora, "or that the weather has really changed?" I stammered worse than before, in replying that I meant no compliment, but the plain truth; though I was not aware of any change having taken place in the weather. It was in the state of my own feelings, I added bashfully: to clench the explanation. I never saw such curls--how could I, for there never were such curls!--as those she shook out to hide her blushes. As to the straw hat and blue ribbons which was on the top of the curls, if I could only have hung it up in my room in Buckingham Street, what a priceless possession it would have been! "You have just come home from Paris," said I. "Yes," said she. "Have you ever been there?" "No." "Oh! I hope you'll go soon. You would like it so much!" Traces of deep-seated anguish appeared in my countenance. That she should hope I would go, that she should think it possible I _could_ go, was insupportable. I depreciated Paris; I depreciated France. I said I wouldn't leave England, under existing circumstances, for any earthly consideration. Nothing should induce me. In short, she was shaking the curls again, when the little dog came running along the walk to our relief. He was mortally jealous of me, and persisted in barking at me. She took him up in her arms--oh my goodness!--and caressed him, but he insisted upon barking still. He wouldn't let me touch him, when I tried; and then she beat him. It increased my sufferings greatly to see the pats she gave him for punishment on the bridge of his blunt nose, while he winked his eyes, and licked her hand, and still growled within himself like a little double-bass. At length he was quiet--well he might be with her dimpled chin upon his head!--and we walked away to look at a greenhouse. "You are not very intimate with Miss Murdstone, are you?" said Dora.--"My pet!" (The two last words were to the dog. Oh if they had only been to me!) "No," I replied. "Not at all so." "She is a tiresome creature," said Dora pouting. "I can't think what papa can have been about, when he chose such a vexatious thing to be my companion. Who wants a protector! I am sure _I_ don't want a protector. Jip can protect me a great deal better than Miss Murdstone,--can't you, Jip dear?" He only winked lazily, when she kissed his ball of a head. "Papa calls her my confidential friend, but I am sure she is no such thing--is she, Jip? We are not going to confide in any such cross people, Jip and I. We mean to bestow our confidence where we like, and to find out our own friends, instead of having them found out for us--don't we, Jip?" Jip made a comfortable noise, in answer, a little like a tea-kettle when it sings. As for me, every word was a new heap of fetters, rivetted above the last. "It is very hard, because we have not a kind Mama, that we are to have, instead, a sulky, gloomy old thing like Miss Murdstone, always following us about--isn't it, Jip? Never mind, Jip. We won't be confidential, and we'll make ourselves as happy as we can in spite of her, and we'll teaze her, and not please her,--won't we, Jip?" If it had lasted any longer, I think I must have gone down on my knees on the gravel, with the probability before me of grazing them, and of being presently ejected from the premises besides. But, by good fortune the greenhouse was not far off, and these words brought us to it. It contained quite a show of beautiful geraniums. We loitered along in front of them, and Dora often stopped to admire this one or that one, and I stopped to admire the same one, and Dora, laughing, held the dog up childishly, to smell the flowers; and if we were not all three in Fairyland, certainly _I_ was. The scent of a geranium leaf, at this day, strikes me with a half comical half serious wonder as to what change has come over me in a moment; and then I see a straw hat and blue ribbons, and a quantity of curls, and a little black dog being held up, in two slender arms, against a bank of blossoms and bright leaves. Miss Murdstone had been looking for us. She found us here; and presented her uncongenial cheek, the little wrinkles in it filled with hair-powder, to Dora to be kissed. Then she took Dora's arm in hers, and marched us in to breakfast as if it were a soldier's funeral. How many cups of tea I drank, because Dora made it, I don't know. But, I perfectly remember that I sat swilling tea until my whole nervous system, if I had had any in those days, must have gone by the board. By-and-by we went to church. Miss Murdstone was between Dora and me in the pew; but I heard her sing, and the congregation vanished. A sermon was delivered--about Dora, of course--and I am afraid that is all I know of the service. We had a quiet day. No company, a walk, a family dinner of four, and an evening of looking over books and pictures; Miss Murdstone with a homily before her, and her eye upon us, keeping guard vigilantly. Ah! little did Mr. Spenlow imagine, when he sat opposite to me after dinner that day, with his pocket-handkerchief over his head, how fervently I was embracing him, in my fancy, as his son-in-law! Little did he think, when I took leave of him at night, that he had just given his full consent to my being engaged to Dora, and that I was invoking blessings on his head! We departed early in the morning, for we had a Salvage case coming on in the Admiralty Court, requiring a rather accurate knowledge of the whole science of navigation, in which (as we couldn't be expected to know much about those matters in the Commons) the judge had entreated two old Trinity Masters, for charity's sake, to come and help him out. Dora was at the breakfast-table to make the tea again, however; and I had the melancholy pleasure of taking off my hat to her in the phaeton, as she stood on the door-step with Jip in her arms. What the Admiralty was to me that day; what nonsense I made of our case in my mind, as I listened to it; how I saw "DORA" engraved upon the blade of the silver oar which they lay upon the table, as the emblem of that high jurisdiction; and how I felt, when Mr. Spenlow went home without me (I had had an insane hope that he might take me back again), as if I were a mariner myself, and the ship to which I belonged had sailed away and left me on a desert island; I shall make no fruitless effort to describe. If that sleepy old court could rouse itself, and present in any visible form the day dreams I have had in it about Dora, it would reveal my truth. I don't mean the dreams that I dreamed on that day alone, but day after day, from week to week, and term to term. I went there, not to attend to what was going on, but to think about Dora. If I ever bestowed a thought upon the cases, as they dragged their slow length before me, it was only to wonder, in the matrimonial cases (remembering Dora), how it was that married people could ever be otherwise than happy; and, in the Prerogative cases, to consider, if the money in question had been left to me, what were the foremost steps I should immediately have taken in regard to Dora. Within the first week of my passion, I bought four sumptuous waistcoats--not for myself; _I_ had no pride in them; for Dora--and took to wearing straw-colored kid gloves in the streets, and laid the foundations of all the corns I have ever had. If the boots I wore at that period could only be produced and compared with the natural size of my feet, they would show what the state of my heart was, in a most affecting manner. And yet, wretched cripple as I made myself by this act of homage to Dora, I walked miles upon miles daily in the hope of seeing her. Not only was I soon as well known on the Norwood Road as the postmen on that beat, but I pervaded London likewise. I walked about the streets where the best shops for ladies were, I haunted the Bazaar like an unquiet spirit, I fagged through the Park again and again, long after I was quite knocked up. Sometimes, at long intervals and on rare occasions, I saw her. Perhaps I saw her glove waved in a carriage window; perhaps I met her, walked with her and Miss Murdstone a little way, and spoke to her. In the latter case I was always very miserable afterwards, to think that I had said nothing to the purpose; or that she had no idea of the extent of my devotion, or that she cared nothing about me. I was always looking out, as may be supposed, for another invitation to Mr. Spenlow's house. I was always being disappointed, for I got none. Mrs. Crupp must have been a woman of penetration; for when this attachment was but a few weeks old, and I had not had the courage to write more explicitly even to Agnes, than that I had been to Mr. Spenlow's house, "whose family," I added, "consists of one daughter;"--I say Mrs. Crupp must have been a woman of penetration, for, even in that early stage, she found it out. She came up to me one evening, when I was very low, to ask (she being then afflicted with the disorder I have mentioned) if I could oblige her with a little tincture of cardamums mixed with rhubarb, and flavored with seven drops of the essence of cloves, which was the best remedy for her complaint;--or, if I had not such a thing by me, with a little brandy, which was the next best. It was not, she remarked, so palatable to her, but it was the next best. As I had never even heard of the first remedy, and always had the second in the closet, I gave Mrs. Crupp a glass of the second, which (that I might have no suspicion of its being devoted to any improper use) she began to take in my presence. "Cheer up, sir," said Mrs. Crupp, "I can't abear to see you so, sir, I'm a mother myself." I did not quite perceive the application of this fact to _my_self, but I smiled on Mrs. Crupp, as benignly as was in my power. "Come, sir," said Mrs. Crupp. "Excuse me. I know what it is, sir. There's a young lady in the case." "Mrs. Crupp?" I returned, reddening. "Oh, bless you! Keep a good heart, sir!" said Mrs. Crupp, nodding encouragement. "Never say die, sir! If She don't smile upon you, there's a many as will. You're a young gentleman to _be_ smiled on, Mr. Copperfull, and you must learn your walue, sir." Mrs. Crupp always called me Mr. Copperfull: firstly, no doubt, because it was not my name; and secondly, I am inclined to think, in some indistinct association with a washing-day. "What makes you suppose there is any young lady in the case, Mrs. Crupp?" said I. "Mr. Copperfull," said Mrs. Crupp, with a great deal of feeling, "I'm a mother myself." For some time Mrs. Crupp could only lay her hand upon her nankeen bosom, and fortify herself against returning pain with sips of her medicine. At length she spoke again. "When the present set were took for you by your dear aunt, Mr. Copperfull," said Mrs. Crupp, "my remark were, I had now found summun I could care for. 'Thank Ev'in!' were the expression, 'I have now found summun I can care for!'--You don't eat enough, sir, nor yet drink." "Is that what you found your supposition on, Mrs. Crupp?" said I. "Sir," said Mrs. Crupp, in a tone approaching to severity, "I've laundressed other young gentlemen besides yourself. A young gentleman may be over-careful of himself, or he may be under-careful of himself. He may brush his hair too regular, or too unregular. He may wear his boots much too large for him, or much too small. That is according as the young gentleman has his original character formed. But let him go to which extreme he may, sir, there's a young lady in both of 'em." Mrs. Crupp shook her head in such a determined manner, that I had not an inch of 'vantage ground left. "It was but the gentleman which died here before yourself," said Mrs. Crupp, "that fell in love--with a barmaid--and had his waistcoats took in directly, though much swelled by drinking." "Mrs. Crupp," said I, "I must beg you not to connect the young lady in my case with a barmaid, or anything of that sort, if you please." "Mr. Copperfull," returned Mrs. Crupp, "I'm a mother myself, and not likely. I ask your pardon, sir, if I intrude. I should never wish to intrude where I were not welcome. But you are a young gentleman, Mr. Copperfull, and my adwice to you is, to cheer up, sir, to keep a good heart, and to know your own walue. If you was to take to something, sir," said Mrs. Crupp, "if you was to take to skittles, now, which is healthy, you might find it divert your mind, and do you good." With these words, Mrs. Crupp, affecting to be very careful of the brandy--which it was all gone--thanked me with a majestic curtsey, and retired. As her figure disappeared into the gloom of the entry, this counsel certainly presented itself to my mind in the light of a slight liberty on Mrs. Crupp's part; but, at the same time, I was content to receive it, in another point of view, as a word to the wise, and a warning in future to keep my secret better. CHAPTER XXVII. TOMMY TRADDLES. It may have been in consequence of Mrs. Crupp's advice, and, perhaps, for no better reason than because there was a certain similarity in the sound of the words skittles and Traddles, that it came into my head, next day, to go and look after Traddles. The time he had mentioned was more than out, and he lived in a little street near the Veterinary College at Camden Town, which was principally tenanted, as one of our clerks who lived in that direction informed me, by gentlemen students, who bought live donkeys, and made experiments on those quadrupeds in their private apartments. Having obtained from this clerk a direction to the academic grove in question, I set out, the same afternoon, to visit my old schoolfellow. I found that the street was not as desirable a one as I could have wished it to be, for the sake of Traddles. The inhabitants appeared to have a propensity to throw any little trifles they were not in want of, into the road: which not only made it rank and sloppy, but untidy too, on account of the cabbage-leaves. The refuse was not wholly vegetable either, for I myself saw a shoe, a doubled-up saucepan, a black bonnet, and an umbrella, in various stages of decomposition, as I was looking out for the number I wanted. The general air of the place reminded me forcibly of the days when I lived with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. An indescribable character of faded gentility that attached to the house I sought, and made it unlike all the other houses in the street--though they were all built on one monotonous pattern, and looked like the early copies of a blundering boy who was learning to make houses, and had not yet got out of his cramped brick and mortar pothooks--reminded me still more of Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. Happening to arrive at the door as it was opened to the afternoon milkman, I was reminded of Mr. and Mrs. Micawber more forcibly yet. "Now," said the milkman to a very youthful servant girl. "Has that there little bill of mine been heerd on?" "Oh master says he'll attend to it immediate," was the reply. "Because," said the milkman, going on as if he had received no answer, and speaking, as I judged from his tone, rather for the edification of somebody within the house, than of the youthful servant--an impression which was strengthened by his manner of glaring down the passage--"Because that there little bill has been running so long, that I begin to believe it's run away altogether, and never won't be heerd of. Now, I'm not a going to stand it, you know!" said the milkman, still throwing his voice into the house, and glaring down the passage. As to his dealing in the mild article of milk, by-the-by, there never was a greater anomaly. His deportment would have been fierce in a butcher or a brandy merchant. The voice of the youthful servant became faint, but she seemed to me, from the action of her lips, again to murmur that it would be attended to immediate. "I tell you what," said the milkman, looking hard at her for the first time, and taking her by the chin, "are you fond of milk?" "Yes, I likes it," she replied. "Good," said the milkman. "Then you won't have none to-morrow. D'ye hear? Not a fragment of milk you won't have to-morrow." I thought she seemed, upon the whole, relieved, by the prospect of having any to-day. The milkman, after shaking his head at her, darkly, released her chin, and with any thing rather than good will opened his can, and deposited the usual quantity in the family jug. This done, he went away, muttering, and uttered the cry of his trade next door, in a vindictive shriek. "Does Mr. Traddles live here?" I then enquired. A mysterious voice from the end of the passage replied "Yes." Upon which the youthful servant replied "Yes." "Is he at home?" said I. Again the mysterious voice replied in the affirmative, and again the servant echoed it. Upon this, I walked in, and in pursuance of the servant's directions walked up-stairs; conscious, as I passed the back parlor-door, that I was surveyed by a mysterious eye, probably belonging to the mysterious voice. When I got to the top of the stairs--the house was only a story high above the ground floor--Traddles was on the landing to meet me. He was delighted to see me, and gave me welcome, with great heartiness, to his little room. It was in the front of the house, and extremely neat, though sparely furnished. It was his only room, I saw; for there was a sofa-bedstead in it, and his blacking-brushes and blacking were among his books--on the top shelf, behind a dictionary. His table was covered with papers, and he was hard at work in an old coat. I looked at nothing, that I know of, but I saw everything, even to the prospect of a church upon his china inkstand, as I sat down--and this, too, was a faculty confirmed in me in the old Micawber times. Various ingenious arrangements he had made, for the disguise of his chest of drawers, and the accommodation of his boots, his shaving-glass, and so forth, particularly impressed themselves upon me, as evidences of the same Traddles who used to make models of elephant's dens in writing paper to put flies in; and to comfort himself, under ill usage, with the memorable works of art I have so often mentioned. In a corner of the room was something neatly covered up with a large white cloth. I could not make out what that was. "Traddles," said I, shaking hands with him again, after I had sat down. "I am delighted to see you." "I am delighted to see _you_, Copperfield," he returned. "I am very glad indeed to see you. It was because I was thoroughly glad to see you when we met in Ely Place, and was sure you were thoroughly glad to see me, that I gave you this address instead of my address at chambers." "Oh! You have chambers?" said I. "Why, I have the fourth of a room and a passage, and the fourth of a clerk," returned Traddles. "Three others and myself unite to have a set of chambers--to look business-like--and we quarter the clerk too. Half-a-crown a week he costs me." His old simple character and good temper, and something of his old unlucky fortune also, I thought, smiled at me in the smile with which he made this explanation. "It's not because I have the least pride, Copperfield, you understand," said Traddles, "that I don't usually give my address here. It's only on account of those who come to me, who might not like to come here. For myself, I am fighting my way on in the world against difficulties, and it would be ridiculous if I made a pretence of doing any thing else." "You are reading for the bar, Mr. Waterbrook informed me?" said I. "Why, yes," said Traddles, rubbing his hands, slowly over one another, "I am reading for the bar. The fact is, I have just begun to keep my terms, after rather a long delay. It's some time since I was articled, but the payment of that hundred pounds was a great pull. A great pull!" said Traddles, with a wince, as if he had had a tooth out. "Do you know what I can't help thinking of, Traddles, as I sit here looking at you?" I asked him. "No," said he. "That sky-blue suit you used to wear." "Lord, to be sure!" cried Traddles, laughing. "Tight in the arms and legs, you know? Dear me! Well! Those were happy times, weren't they?" "I think our schoolmaster might have made them happier, without doing any harm to any of us, I acknowledge," I returned. "Perhaps he might," said Traddles. "But dear me, there was a good deal of fun going on. Do you remember the nights in the bed-room? When we used to have the suppers? And when you used to tell the stories? Ha, ha, ha! And do you remember when I got caned for crying about Mr. Mell? Old Creakle! I should like to see him again, too!" "He was a brute to you, Traddles," said I, indignantly; for his good humour made me feel as if I had seen him beaten but yesterday. "Do you think so?" returned Traddles. "Really? Perhaps he was, rather. But it's all over, a long while. Old Creakle!" "You were brought up by an uncle, then?" said I. "Of course I was!" said Traddles. "The one I was always going to write to. And always didn't, eh! Ha, ha, ha! Yes, I had an uncle then. He died soon after I left school." "Indeed!" "Yes. He was a retired--what do you call it!--draper--cloth-merchant--and had made me his heir. But he didn't like me when I grew up." "Do you really mean that?" said I. He was so composed, that I fancied he must have some other meaning. "O dear yes, Copperfield! I mean it," replied Traddles. "It was an unfortunate thing, but he didn't like me at all. He said I wasn't at all what he expected, and so he married his housekeeper." "And what did you do?" I asked. "I didn't do anything in particular," said Traddles. "I lived with them, waiting to be put out in the world, until his gout unfortunately flew to his stomach--and so he died, and so she married a young man, and so I wasn't provided for." "Did you get nothing, Traddles, after all?" "Oh dear yes!" said Traddles. "I got fifty pounds. I had never been brought up to any profession, and at first I was at a loss what to do for myself. However, I began, with the assistance of the son of a professional man, who had been to Salem House--Yawler, with his nose on one side. Do you recollect him?" No. He had not been there with me; all the noses were straight, in my day. "It don't matter," said Traddles. "I began, by means of his assistance, to copy law writings. That didn't answer very well; and then I began to state cases for them, and make abstracts, and do that sort of work. For I am a plodding kind of fellow, Copperfield, and had learnt the way of doing such things pithily. Well! That put it in my head to enter myself as a law student; and that ran away with all that was left of the fifty pounds. Yawler recommended me to one or two other offices, however--Mr. Waterbrook's for one--and I got a good many jobs. I was fortunate enough, too, to become acquainted with a person in the publishing way, who was getting up an Encyclopædia, and he set me to work; and, indeed" (glancing at his table), "I am at work for him at this minute. I am not a bad compiler, Copperfield," said Traddles, preserving the same air of cheerful confidence in all he said, "but I have no invention at all; not a particle. I suppose there never was a young man with less originality than I have." As Traddles seemed to expect that I should assent to this as a matter of course, I nodded; and he went on, with the same sprightly patience--I can find no better expression--as before. "So, by little and little, and not living high, I managed to scrape up the hundred pounds at last," said Traddles; "and thank Heaven that's paid--though it was--though it certainly was," said Traddles, wincing again as if he had had another tooth out, "a pull. I am living by the sort of work I have mentioned, still, and I hope, one of these days, to get connected with some newspaper: which would almost be the making of my fortune. Now, Copperfield, you are so exactly what you used to be, with that agreeable face, and it's so pleasant to see you, that I sha'n't conceal anything. Therefore you must know that I am engaged." Engaged! Oh Dora! "She is a curate's daughter," said Traddles; "one of ten, down in Devonshire. Yes!" For he saw me glance, involuntarily, at the prospect on the inkstand. "That's the church! You come round here, to the left, out of this gate," tracing his finger along the inkstand, "and exactly where I hold this pen, there stands the house--facing, you understand, towards the church." The delight with which he entered into these particulars, did not fully present itself to me until afterwards; for my selfish thoughts were making a ground-plan of Mr. Spenlow's house and garden at the same moment. "She is such a dear girl!" said Traddles; "a little older than me, but the dearest girl! I told you I was going out of town? I have been down there. I walked there, and I walked back, and I had the most delightful time! I dare say ours is likely to be a rather long engagement, but our motto is 'Wait and hope!' We always say that. 'Wait and hope,' we always say. And she would wait, Copperfield, till she was sixty--any age you can mention--for me!" Traddles rose from his chair, and, with a triumphant smile, put his hand upon the white cloth I had observed. "However," he said, "it's not that we haven't made a beginning towards housekeeping. No, no; we have begun. We must get on by degrees, but we have begun. Here," drawing the cloth off with great pride and care, "are two pieces of furniture to commence with. This flower-pot and stand, she bought herself. You put that in a parlor-window," said Traddles, falling a little back from it to survey it with the greater admiration, "with a plant in it, and--and there you are! This little round table with the marble top (it's two feet ten in circumference), _I_ bought. You want to lay a book down, you know, or somebody comes to see you or your wife, and wants a place to stand a cup of tea upon, and--and there you are again!" said Traddles. "It's an admirable piece of workmanship--firm as a rock!" I praised them both, highly, and Traddles replaced the covering as carefully as he had removed it. "It's not a great deal towards the furnishing," said Traddles, "but it's something. The table-cloths and pillow-cases, and articles of that kind, are what discourage me most, Copperfield. So does the ironmongery--candle-boxes, and gridirons, and that sort of necessaries--because those things tell, and mount up. However, 'wait and hope!' And I assure you she's the dearest girl!" "I am quite certain of it," said I. "In the mean time," said Traddles, coming back to his chair; "and this is the end of my prosing about myself, I get on as well as I can. I don't make much, but I don't spend much. In general, I board with the people down-stairs, who are very agreeable people indeed. Both Mr. and Mrs. Micawber have seen a good deal of life, and are excellent company." "My dear Traddles!" I quickly exclaimed. "What are you talking about!" Traddles looked at me, as if he wondered what _I_ was talking about. "Mr. and Mrs. Micawber!" I repeated. "Why, I am intimately acquainted with them!" An opportune double knock at the door, which I knew well from old experience in Windsor Terrace, and which nobody but Mr. Micawber could ever have knocked at that door, resolved any doubt in my mind as to their being my old friends. I begged Traddles to ask his landlord to walk up. Traddles accordingly did so, over the bannister; and Mr. Micawber, not a bit changed--his tights, his stick, his shirt-collar, and his eye-glass, all the same as ever--came into the room with a genteel and youthful air. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Traddles," said Mr. Micawber, with the old roll in his voice, as he checked himself in humming a soft tune. "I was not aware that there was any individual, alien to this tenement, in your sanctum." Mr. Micawber slightly bowed to me, and pulled up his shirt-collar. "How do you do, Mr. Micawber?" said I. "Sir," said Mr. Micawber, "you are exceedingly obliging. I am _in statu quo_." "And Mrs. Micawber?" I pursued. "Sir," said Mr. Micawber, "she is also, thank God, _in statu quo_." "And the children, Mr. Micawber?" "Sir," said Mr. Micawber, "I rejoice to reply that they are, likewise, in the enjoyment of salubrity." All this time, Mr. Micawber had not known me in the least, though he had stood face to face with me. But, now, seeing me smile, he examined my features with more attention, fell back, cried, "Is it possible! Have I the pleasure of again beholding Copperfield!" and shook me by both hands with the utmost fervor. "Good Heaven, Mr. Traddles!" said Mr. Micawber, "to think that I should find you acquainted with the friend of my youth, the companion of earlier days! My dear!" calling over the bannisters to Mrs. Micawber, while Traddles looked (with reason) not a little amazed at this description of me. "Here is a gentleman in Mr. Traddles's apartment, whom he wishes to have the pleasure of presenting to you, my love!" Mr. Micawber immediately reappeared, and shook hands with me again. "And how is our good friend the Doctor, Copperfield?" said Mr. Micawber, "and all the circle at Canterbury?" "I have none but good accounts of them," said I. "I am most delighted to hear it," said Mr. Micawber. "It was at Canterbury where we last met. Within the shadow, I may figuratively say, of that religious edifice, immortalized by Chaucer, which was anciently the resort of Pilgrims from the remotest corners of--in short," said Mr. Micawber, "in the immediate neighbourhood of the Cathedral." I replied that it was. Mr. Micawber continued talking as volubly as he could; but not, I thought, without showing, by some marks of concern in his countenance, that he was sensible of sounds in the next room, as of Mrs. Micawber washing her hands, and hurriedly opening and shutting drawers that were uneasy in their action. "You find us, Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, with one eye on Traddles, "at present established, on what may be designated as a small and unassuming scale; but, you are aware that I have, in the course of my career, surmounted difficulties, and conquered obstacles. You are no stranger to the fact, that there have been periods of my life, when it has been requisite that I should pause, until certain expected events should turn up; when it has been necessary that I should fall back, before making what I trust I shall not be accused of presumption in terming--a spring. The present is one of those momentous stages in the life of man. You find me, fallen back, _for_ a spring; and I have every reason to believe that a vigorous leap will shortly be the result." I was expressing my satisfaction, when Mrs. Micawber came in; a little more slatternly than she used to be, or so she seemed now, to my unaccustomed eyes, but still with some preparation of herself for company, and with a pair of brown gloves on. "My dear," said Mr. Micawber, leading her towards me. "Here is a gentleman of the name of Copperfield, who wishes to renew his acquaintance with you." It would have been better, as it turned out, to have led gently up to his announcement, for Mrs. Micawber, being in a delicate state of health, was overcome by it, and was taken so unwell, that Mr. Micawber was obliged, in great trepidation, to run down to the water-butt in the back yard, and draw a basinful to lave her brow with. She presently revived, however, and was really pleased to see me. We had half-an-hour's talk, all together; and I asked her about the twins, who, she said, were "grown great creatures;" and after Master and Miss Micawber, whom she described as "absolute giants," but they were not produced on that occasion. Mr. Micawber was very anxious that I should stay to dinner. I should not have been averse to do so, but that I imagined I detected trouble, and calculation relative to the extent of the cold meat, in Mrs. Micawber's eye. I therefore pleaded another engagement; and observing that Mrs. Micawber's spirits were immediately lightened, I resisted all persuasion to forego it. But I told Traddles, and Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, that before I could think of leaving, they must appoint a day when they would come and dine with me. The occupations to which Traddles stood pledged, rendered it necessary to fix a somewhat distant one; but an appointment was made for the purpose, that suited us all, and then I took my leave. Mr. Micawber, under pretence of showing me a nearer way than that by which I had come, accompanied me to the corner of the street; being anxious (he explained to me) to say a few words to an old friend, in confidence. "My dear Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, "I need hardly tell you that to have beneath our roof, under existing circumstances, a mind like that which gleams--if I may be allowed the expression--which gleams--in your friend Traddles, is an unspeakable comfort. With a washerwoman, who exposes hard-bake for sale in her parlor-window, dwelling next door, and a Bow-street officer residing over the way, you may imagine that his society is a source of consolation to myself and to Mrs. Micawber. I am at present, my dear Copperfield, engaged in the sale of corn upon commission. It is not an avocation of a remunerative description--in other words it does _not_ pay--and some temporary embarrassments of a pecuniary nature have been the consequence. I am, however, delighted to add that I have now an immediate prospect of something turning up (I am not at liberty to say in what direction), which I trust will enable me to provide, permanently, both for myself and for your friend Traddles, in whom I have an unaffected interest. You may, perhaps, be prepared to hear that Mrs. Micawber is in a state of health which renders it not wholly improbable that an addition may be ultimately made to those pledges of affection which--in short, to the infantine group. Mrs. Micawber's family have been so good as to express their dissatisfaction with this state of things. I have merely to observe, that I am not aware it is any business of theirs, and that I repel that exhibition of feeling with scorn, and with defiance!" Mr. Micawber then shook hands with me again, and left me. CHAPTER XXVIII. MR. MICAWBER'S GAUNTLET. Until the day arrived on which I was to entertain my newly-found old friends, I lived principally on Dora and coffee. In my love-lorn condition, my appetite languished; and I was glad of it, for I felt as though it would have been an act of perfidy towards Dora to have a natural relish for my dinner. The quantity of walking exercise I took, was not in this respect attended with its usual consequence, as the disappointment counteracted the fresh air. I have my doubts, too, founded on the acute experience acquired at this period of my life, whether a sound enjoyment of animal food can develop itself freely in any human subject who is always in torment from tight boots. I think the extremities require to be at peace before the stomach will conduct itself with vigour. On the occasion of this domestic little party, I did not repeat my former extensive preparations. I merely provided a pair of soles, a small leg of mutton, and a pigeon-pie. Mrs. Crupp broke out into rebellion on my first bashful hint in reference to the cooking of the fish and joint, and said, with a dignified sense of injury, "No! No, sir! You will not ask me sich a thing, for you are better acquainted with me than to suppose me capable of doing what I cannot do with ampial satisfaction to my own feelings!" But, in the end, a compromise was effected; and Mrs. Crupp consented to achieve this feat, on condition that I dined from home for a fortnight afterwards. And here I may remark, that what I underwent from Mrs. Crupp, in consequence of the tyranny she established over me, was dreadful. I never was so much afraid of any one. We made a compromise of everything. If I hesitated, she was taken with that wonderful disorder which was always lying in ambush in her system, ready, at the shortest notice, to prey upon her vitals. If I rang the bell impatiently, after half-a-dozen unavailing modest pulls, and she appeared at last--which was not by any means to be relied upon--she would appear with a reproachful aspect, sink breathless on a chair near the door, lay her hand upon her nankeen bosom, and become so ill, that I was glad, at any sacrifice of brandy or anything else, to get rid of her. If I objected to having my bed made at five o'clock in the afternoon--which I _do_ still think an uncomfortable arrangement--one motion of her hand towards the same nankeen region of wounded sensibility was enough to make me falter an apology. In short, I would have done anything in an honorable way rather than give Mrs. Crupp offence; and she was the terror of my life. I bought a second-hand dumb-waiter for this dinner-party, in preference to re-engaging the handy young man; against whom I had conceived a prejudice, in consequence of meeting him in the Strand, one Sunday morning, in a waistcoat remarkably like one of mine, which had been missing since the former occasion. The "young gal" was re-engaged; but on the stipulation that she should only bring in the dishes, and then withdraw to the landing-place, beyond the outer door; where a habit of sniffing she had contracted would be lost upon the guests, and where her retiring on the plates would be a physical impossibility. Having laid in the materials for a bowl of punch, to be compounded by Mr. Micawber; having provided a bottle of lavender-water, two wax candles, a paper of mixed pins, and a pincushion, to assist Mrs. Micawber in her toilette, at my dressing-table; having also caused the fire in my bed-room to be lighted for Mrs. Micawber's convenience; and having laid the cloth with my own hands, I awaited the result with composure. At the appointed time, my three visitors arrived together. Mr. Micawber with more shirt-collar than usual, and a new ribbon to his eye-glass; Mrs. Micawber with her cap in a whitey-brown paper parcel; Traddles carrying the parcel, and supporting Mrs. Micawber on his arm. They were all delighted with my residence. When I conducted Mrs. Micawber to my dressing-table, and she saw the scale on which it was prepared for her, she was in such raptures, that she called Mr. Micawber to come in and look. "My dear Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, "this is luxurious. This is a way of life which reminds me of the period when I was myself in a state of celibacy, and Mrs. Micawber had not yet been solicited to plight her faith at the Hymeneal altar." "He means, solicited by him, Mr. Copperfield," said Mrs. Micawber archly. "He cannot answer for others." "My dear," returned Mr. Micawber with sudden seriousness, "I have no desire to answer for others. I am too well aware that when, in the inscrutable decrees of Fate, you were reserved for me, it is possible you may have been reserved for one, destined, after a protracted struggle, at length to fall a victim to pecuniary involvements of a complicated nature. I understand your allusion, my love. I regret it, but I can bear it." "Micawber!" exclaimed Mrs. Micawber, in tears. "Have I deserved this! I, who never have deserted you; who never _will_ desert you, Micawber!" "My love," said Mr. Micawber, much affected, "you will forgive, and our old and tried friend Copperfield will, I am sure, forgive, the momentary laceration of a wounded spirit, made sensitive by a recent collision with the Minion of Power--in other words, with a ribald Turncock attached to the water-works--and will pity, not condemn, its excesses." Mr. Micawber then embraced Mrs. Micawber, and pressed my hand; leaving me to infer from this broken allusion that his domestic supply of water had been cut off that afternoon, in consequence of default in the payment of the company's rates. To divert his thoughts from this melancholy subject, I informed Mr. Micawber that I relied upon him for a bowl of punch, and led him to the lemons. His recent despondency, not to say despair, was gone in a moment. I never saw a man so thoroughly enjoy himself amid the fragrance of lemon-peel and sugar, the odor of burning rum, and the steam of boiling water, as Mr. Micawber did that afternoon. It was wonderful to see his face shining at us out of a thin cloud of these delicate fumes, as he stirred, and mixed, and tasted, and looked as if he were making, instead of punch, a fortune for his family down to the latest posterity. As to Mrs. Micawber, I don't know whether it was the effect of the cap, or the lavender-water, or the pins, or the fire, or the wax candles, but she came out of my room, comparatively speaking, lovely. And the lark was never gayer than that excellent woman. I suppose--I never ventured to inquire, but I suppose--that Mrs. Crupp, after frying the soles, was taken ill. Because we broke down at that point. The leg of mutton came up very red within, and very pale without: besides having a foreign substance of a gritty nature sprinkled over it, as if it had had a fall into the ashes of that remarkable kitchen fire-place. But we were not in a condition to judge of this fact from the appearance of the gravy, forasmuch as the "young gal" had dropped it all upon the stairs--where it remained, by-the-by, in a long train, until it was worn out. The pigeon-pie was not bad, but it was a delusive pie: the crust being like a disappointing head, phrenologically speaking: full of lumps and bumps, with nothing particular underneath. In short, the banquet was such a failure that I should have been quite unhappy--about the failure, I mean, for I was always unhappy about Dora--if I had not been relieved by the great good-humour of my company, and by a bright suggestion from Mr. Micawber. "My dear friend Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, "accidents will occur in the best regulated families; and in families not regulated by that pervading influence which sanctifies while it enhances the--a--I would say, in short, by the influence of Woman, in the lofty character of Wife, they may be expected with confidence, and must be borne with philosophy. If you will allow me to take the liberty of remarking that there are few comestibles better, in their way, than a Devil, and that I believe, with a little division of labor, we could accomplish a good one if the young person in attendance could produce a gridiron, I would put it to you, that this little misfortune may be easily repaired." There was a gridiron in the pantry, on which my morning rasher of bacon was cooked. We had it in, in a twinkling, and immediately applied ourselves to carrying Mr. Micawber's idea into effect. The division of labor to which he had referred was this:--Traddles cut the mutton into slices; Mr. Micawber (who could do anything of this sort to perfection) covered them with pepper, mustard, salt, and cayenne; I put them on the gridiron, turned them with a fork, and took them off, under Mr. Micawber's directions; and Mrs. Micawber heated, and continually stirred, some mushroom ketchup in a little saucepan. When we had slices enough done to begin upon, we fell-to, with our sleeves still tucked up at the wrists, more slices sputtering and blazing on the fire, and our attention divided between the mutton on our plates, and the mutton then preparing. What with the novelty of this cookery, the excellence of it, the bustle of it, the frequent starting up to look after it, the frequent sitting down to dispose of it as the crisp slices came off the gridiron hot and hot, the being so busy, so flushed with the fire, so amused, and in the midst of such a tempting noise and savor, we reduced the leg of mutton to the bone. My own appetite came back miraculously. I am ashamed to record it, but I really believe I forgot Dora for a little while. I am satisfied that Mr. and Mrs. Micawber could not have enjoyed the feast more if they had sold a bed to provide it. Traddles laughed as heartily, almost the whole time, as he ate and worked. Indeed we all did, all at once; and I dare say there never was a greater success. We were at the height of our enjoyment, and were all busily engaged, in our several departments, endeavouring to bring the last batch of slices to a state of perfection that should crown the feast, when I was aware of a strange presence in the room, and my eyes encountered those of the staid Littimer, standing hat in hand before me. [Illustration: We are disturbed in our cookery.] "What's the matter!" I involuntarily asked. "I beg your pardon, sir, I was directed to come in. Is my master not here, sir?" "No." "Have you not seen him, sir?" "No; don't you come from him?" "Not immediately so, sir." "Did he tell you you would find him here?" "Not exactly so, sir. But I should think he might be here to-morrow, as he has not been here to-day." "Is he coming up from Oxford?" "I beg, sir," he returned respectfully, "that you will be seated, and allow me to do this." With which he took the fork from my unresisting hand, and bent over the gridiron, as if his whole attention were concentrated on it. We should not have been much discomposed, I dare say, by the appearance of Steerforth himself, but we became in a moment the meekest of the meek before his respectable serving-man. Mr. Micawber, humming a tune, to show that he was quite at ease, subsided into his chair, with the handle of a hastily-concealed fork sticking out of the bosom of his coat, as if he had stabbed himself. Mrs. Micawber put on her brown gloves, and assumed a genteel languor. Traddles ran his greasy hands through his hair, and stood it bolt upright, and stared in confusion at the table-cloth. As for me, I was a mere infant at the head of my own table; and hardly ventured to glance at the respectable phenomenon, who had come from Heaven knows where, to put my establishment to rights. Meanwhile he took the mutton off the gridiron, and gravely handed it round. We all took some, but our appreciation of it was gone, and we merely made a show of eating it. As we severally pushed away our plates, he noiselessly removed them, and set on the cheese. He took that off, too, when it was done with; cleared the table; piled everything on the dumb-waiter; gave us our wine-glasses; and, of his own accord, wheeled the dumb-waiter into the pantry. All this was done in a perfect manner, and he never raised his eyes from what he was about. Yet, his very elbows, when he had his back towards me, seemed to teem with the expression of his fixed opinion that I was extremely young. "Can I do anything more, sir?" I thanked him and said, No; but would he take no dinner himself? "None, I am obliged to you, sir." "Is Mr. Steerforth coming from Oxford?" "I beg your pardon, sir?" "Is Mr. Steerforth coming from Oxford?" "I should imagine that he might be here to-morrow, sir. I rather thought he might have been here to-day, sir. The mistake is mine, no doubt, sir." "If you should see him first--" said I. "If you'll excuse me, sir, I don't think I shall see him first." "In case you do," said I, "pray say that I am sorry he was not here to-day, as an old schoolfellow of his was here." "Indeed, sir!" and he divided a bow between me and Traddles, with a glance at the latter. He was moving softly to the door, when, in a forlorn hope of saying something naturally--which I never could, to this man--I said: "Oh! Littimer!" "Sir!" "Did you remain long at Yarmouth, that time?" "Not particularly so, sir." "You saw the boat completed?" "Yes, sir. I remained behind on purpose to see the boat completed." "I know!" He raised his eyes to mine respectfully. "Mr. Steerforth has not seen it yet, I suppose?" "I really can't say, sir. I think--but I really can't say, sir. I wish you good night, sir." He comprehended everybody present, in the respectful bow with which he followed these words, and disappeared. My visitors seemed to breathe more freely when he was gone; but my own relief was very great, for besides the constraint, arising from that extraordinary sense of being at a disadvantage which I always had in this man's presence, my conscience had embarrassed me with whispers that I had mistrusted his master, and I could not repress a vague uneasy dread that he might find it out. How was it, having so little in reality to conceal, that I always _did_ feel as if this man were finding me out? Mr. Micawber roused me from this reflection, which was blended with a certain remorseful apprehension of seeing Steerforth himself, by bestowing many encomiums on the absent Littimer as a most respectable fellow, and a thoroughly admirable servant. Mr. Micawber, I may remark, had taken his full share of the general bow, and had received it with infinite condescension. "But punch, my dear Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, tasting it, "like time and tide, waits for no man. Ah! it is at the present moment in high flavor. My love, will you give me your opinion?" Mrs. Micawber pronounced it excellent. "Then I will drink," said Mr. Micawber, "if my friend Copperfield will permit me to take that social liberty, to the days when my friend Copperfield and myself were younger, and fought our way in the world side by side. I may say, of myself and Copperfield, in words we have sung together before now, that We twa' hae run about the braes And pu'd the gowans fine --in a figurative point of view--on several occasions. I am not exactly aware," said Mr. Micawber, with the old roll in his voice, and the old indescribable air of saying something genteel, "what gowans may be, but I have no doubt that Copperfield and myself would frequently have taken a pull at them, if it had been feasible." Mr. Micawber, at the then present moment, took a pull at his punch. So we all did: Traddles evidently lost in wondering at what distant time Mr. Micawber and I could possibly have been comrades in the battle of the world. "Ahem!" said Mr. Micawber, clearing his throat, and warming with the punch and with the fire. "My dear, another glass?" Mrs. Micawber said it must be very little, but we couldn't allow that, so it was a glassful. "As we are quite confidential here, Mr. Copperfield," said Mrs. Micawber, sipping her punch, "Mr. Traddles being a part of our domesticity, I should much like to have your opinion on Mr. Micawber's prospects. For corn," said Mrs. Micawber argumentatively, "as I have repeatedly said to Mr. Micawber, may be gentlemanly, but it is not remunerative. Commission to the extent of two and ninepence in a fortnight cannot, however limited our ideas, be considered remunerative." We were all agreed upon that. "Then," said Mrs. Micawber, who prided herself on taking a clear view of things, and keeping Mr. Micawber straight by her woman's wisdom, when he might otherwise go a little crooked, "then I ask myself this question. If corn is not to be relied upon, what is? Are coals to be relied upon? Not at all. We have turned our attention to that experiment, on the suggestion of my family, and we find it fallacious." Mr. Micawber, leaning back in his chair with his hands in his pockets, eyed us aside, and nodded his head, as much as to say that the case was very clearly put. "The articles of corn and coals," said Mrs. Micawber, still more argumentatively, "being equally out of the question, Mr. Copperfield, I naturally look round the world, and say, 'What is there in which a person of Mr. Micawber's talent is likely to succeed?' And I exclude the doing anything on commission, because commission is not a certainty. What is best suited to a person of Mr. Micawber's peculiar temperament, is, I am convinced, a certainty." Traddles and I both expressed, by a feeling murmur, that this great discovery was no doubt true of Mr. Micawber, and that it did him much credit. "I will not conceal from you, my dear Mr. Copperfield," said Mrs. Micawber, "that _I_ have long felt the Brewing business to be particularly adapted to Mr. Micawber. Look at Barclay and Perkins! Look at Truman, Hanbury, and Buxton! It is on that extensive footing that Mr. Micawber, I know from my own knowledge of him, is calculated to shine; and the profits, I am told, are e-NOR--mous! But if Mr. Micawber cannot get into those firms--which decline to answer his letters, when he offers his services even in an inferior capacity--what is the use of dwelling upon that idea? None. I may have a conviction that Mr. Micawber's manners"-- "Hem! Really, my dear," interposed Mr. Micawber. "My love, be silent," said Mrs. Micawber, laying her brown glove on his hand. "I may have a conviction, Mr. Copperfield, that Mr. Micawber's manners peculiarly qualify him for the Banking business. I may argue within myself, that if _I_ had a deposit at a banking-house, the manners of Mr. Micawber, as representing that banking-house, would inspire confidence, and must extend the connexion. But if the various banking-houses refuse to avail themselves of Mr. Micawber's abilities, or receive the offer of them with contumely, what is the use of dwelling upon _that_ idea? None. As to originating a banking-business, I may know that there are members of my family who, if they chose to place their money in Mr. Micawber's hands, might found an establishment of that description. But if they do _not_ choose to place their money in Mr. Micawber's hands--which they don't--what is the use of that? Again I contend that we are no farther advanced than we were before." I shook my head, and said, "Not a bit." Traddles also shook his head, and said, "Not a bit." "What do I deduce from this?" Mrs. Micawber went on to say, still with the same air of putting a case lucidly. "What is the conclusion, my dear Mr. Copperfield, to which I am irresistibly brought? Am I wrong in saying, it is clear that we must live?" I answered, "Not at all!" and Traddles answered, "Not at all!" and I found myself afterwards sagely adding, alone, that a person must either live or die. "Just so," returned Mrs. Micawber. "It is precisely that. And the fact is, my dear Mr. Copperfield, that we can _not_ live without something widely different from existing circumstances shortly turning up. Now I am convinced, myself, and this I have pointed out to Mr. Micawber several times of late, that things cannot be expected to turn up of themselves. We must, in a measure, assist to turn them up. I may be wrong, but I have formed that opinion." Both Traddles and I applauded it highly. "Very well," said Mrs. Micawber. "Then what do I recommend? Here is Mr. Micawber, with a variety of qualifications--with great talent--" "Really, my love," said Mr. Micawber. "Pray, my dear, allow me to conclude. Here is Mr. Micawber, with a variety of qualifications, with great talent--_I_ should say, with genius, but that may be the partiality of a wife--" Traddles and I both murmured "No." "And here is Mr. Micawber without any suitable position or employment. Where does that responsibility rest? Clearly on society. Then I would make a fact so disgraceful known, and boldly challenge society to set it right. It appears to me, my dear Mr. Copperfield," said Mrs. Micawber, forcibly, "that what Mr. Micawber has to do, is to throw down the gauntlet to society, and say, in effect, 'Show me who will take that up. Let the party immediately step forward.'" I ventured to ask Mrs. Micawber how this was to be done. "By advertising," said Mrs. Micawber--"in all the papers. It appears to me, that what Mr. Micawber has to do, in justice to himself, in justice to his family, and I will even go so far as to say in justice to society, by which he has been hitherto overlooked, is to advertise in all the papers; to describe himself plainly as so and so, with such and such qualifications, and to put it thus: '_Now_ employ me, on remunerative terms, and address, post-paid, to _W. M._, Post Office, Camden Town.'" "This idea of Mrs. Micawber's, my dear Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, making his shirt-collar meet in front of his chin, and glancing at me sideways, "is, in fact, the Leap to which I alluded, when I last had the pleasure of seeing you." "Advertising is rather expensive," I remarked, dubiously. "Exactly so!" said Mrs. Micawber, preserving the same logical air. "Quite true, my dear Mr. Copperfield! I have made the identical observation to Mr. Micawber. It is for that reason especially, that I think Mr. Micawber ought (as I have already said, in justice to himself, in justice to his family, and in justice to society) to raise a certain sum of money--on a bill." Mr. Micawber, leaning back in his chair, trifled with his eye-glass, and cast his eyes up at the ceiling; but I thought him observant of Traddles too, who was looking at the fire. "If no member of my family," said Mrs. Micawber, "is possessed of sufficient natural feeling to negotiate that bill--I believe there is a better business-term to express what I mean--" Mr. Micawber, with his eyes still cast up at the ceiling, suggested "Discount." "To discount that bill," said Mrs. Micawber, "then my opinion is, that Mr. Micawber should go into the City, should take that bill into the Money Market, and should dispose of it for what he can get. If the individuals in the Money Market oblige Mr. Micawber to sustain a great sacrifice, that is between themselves and their consciences. I view it, steadily, as an investment. I recommend Mr. Micawber, my dear Mr. Copperfield, to do the same; to regard it as an investment which is sure of return, and to make up his mind to _any_ sacrifice." I felt, but I am sure I don't know why, that this was self-denying and devoted in Mrs. Micawber, and I uttered a murmur to that effect. Traddles, who took his tone from me, did likewise, still looking at the fire. "I will not," said Mrs. Micawber, finishing her punch, and gathering her scarf about her shoulders, preparatory to her withdrawal to my bedroom: "I will not protract these remarks on the subject of Mr. Micawber's pecuniary affairs. At your fireside, my dear Mr. Copperfield, and in the presence of Mr. Traddles, who, though not so old a friend, is quite one of ourselves, I could not refrain from making you acquainted with the course _I_ advise Mr. Micawber to take. I feel that the time is arrived when Mr. Micawber should exert himself and--I will add--assert himself, and it appears to me that these are the means. I am aware that I am merely a female, and that a masculine judgment is usually considered more competent to the discussion of such questions; still I must not forget that, when I lived at home with my papa and mama, my papa was in the habit of saying, 'Emma's form is fragile, but her grasp of a subject is inferior to none.' That my papa was too partial, I well know; but that he was an observer of character in some degree, my duty and my reason equally forbid me to doubt." With these words, and resisting our entreaties that she would grace the remaining circulation of the punch with her presence, Mrs. Micawber retired to my bed-room. And really I felt that she was a noble woman--the sort of woman who might have been a Roman matron, and done all manner of heroic things, in times of public trouble. In the fervor of this impression, I congratulated Mr. Micawber on the treasure he possessed. So did Traddles. Mr. Micawber extended his hand to each of us in succession, and then covered his face with his pocket-handkerchief, which I think had more snuff upon it than he was aware of. He then returned to the punch, in the highest state of exhilaration. He was full of eloquence. He gave us to understand that in our children we lived again, and that, under the pressure of pecuniary difficulties, any accession to their number was doubly welcome. He said that Mrs. Micawber had latterly had her doubts on this point, but that he had dispelled them, and reassured her. As to her family, they were totally unworthy of her, and their sentiments were utterly indifferent to him, and they might--I quote his own expression--go to the Devil. Mr. Micawber then delivered a warm eulogy on Traddles. He said Traddles's was a character, to the steady virtues of which he (Mr. Micawber) could lay no claim, but which, he thanked Heaven, he could admire. He feelingly alluded to the young lady, unknown, whom Traddles had honored with his affection, and who had reciprocated that affection by honoring and blessing Traddles with _her_ affection. Mr. Micawber pledged her. So did I. Traddles thanked us both, by saying, with a simplicity and honesty I had sense enough to be quite charmed with, "I am very much obliged to you indeed. And I do assure you, she's the dearest girl!--" Mr. Micawber took an early opportunity, after that, of hinting, with the utmost delicacy and ceremony, at the state of _my_ affections. Nothing but the serious assurance of his friend Copperfield to the contrary, he observed, could deprive him of the impression that his friend Copperfield loved and was beloved. After feeling very hot and uncomfortable for some time, and after a good deal of blushing, stammering, and denying, I said, having my glass in my hand, "Well! I would give them D.!" which so excited and gratified Mr. Micawber, that he ran with a glass of punch into my bed-room, in order that Mrs. Micawber might drink D., who drank it with enthusiasm, crying from within, in a shrill voice, "Hear, hear! My dear Mr. Copperfield, I am delighted. Hear!" and tapping at the wall, by way of applause. Our conversation, afterwards, took a more worldly turn; Mr. Micawber telling us that he found Camden Town inconvenient, and that the first thing he contemplated doing, when the advertisement should have been the cause of something satisfactory turning up, was to move. He mentioned a terrace at the western end of Oxford Street, fronting Hyde Park, on which he had always had his eye, but which he did not expect to attain immediately, as it would require a large establishment. There would probably be an interval, he explained, in which he should content himself with the upper part of a house, over some respectable place of business,--say in Piccadilly,--which would be a cheerful situation for Mrs. Micawber; and where, by throwing out a bow window, or carrying up the roof another story, or making some little alteration of that sort, they might live, comfortably and reputably, for a few years. Whatever was reserved for him, he expressly said, or wherever his abode might be, we might rely on this--there would always be a room for Traddles, and a knife and fork for me. We acknowledged his kindness; and he begged us to forgive his having launched into these practical and business-like details, and to excuse it as natural in one who was making entirely new arrangements in life. Mrs. Micawber, tapping at the wall again, to know if tea were ready, broke up this particular phase of our friendly conversation. She made tea for us in a most agreeable manner; and, whenever I went near her, in handing about the tea-cups and bread-and-butter, asked me, in a whisper, whether D. was fair, or dark, or whether she was short, or tall: or something of that kind; which I think I liked. After tea, we discussed a variety of topics before the fire; and Mrs. Micawber was good enough to sing us (in a small, thin, flat voice, which I remember to have considered, when I first knew her, the very table-beer of acoustics) the favorite ballads of "The Dashing White Serjeant," and "Little Tafflin." For both of these songs Mrs. Micawber had been famous when she lived at home with her papa and mama. Mr. Micawber told us, that when he heard her sing the first one, on the first occasion of his seeing her beneath the parental roof, she had attracted his attention in an extraordinary degree; but that when it came to Little Tafflin, he had resolved to win that woman or perish in the attempt. It was between ten and eleven o'clock when Mrs. Micawber rose to replace her cap in the whitey-brown paper parcel, and to put on her bonnet. Mr. Micawber took the opportunity of Traddles putting on his great coat, to slip a letter into my hand, with a whispered request that I would read it at my leisure. I also took the opportunity of my holding a candle over the bannisters to light them down, when Mr. Micawber was going first, leading Mrs. Micawber, and Traddles was following with the cap, to detain Traddles for a moment on the top of the stairs. "Traddles," said I, "Mr. Micawber don't mean any harm, poor fellow; but, if I were you, I wouldn't lend him anything." "My dear Copperfield," returned Traddles, smiling, "I haven't got anything to lend." "You have got a name, you know," said I. "Oh! You call _that_ something to lend?" returned Traddles, with a thoughtful look. "Certainly." "Oh!" said Traddles. "Yes, to be sure! I am very much obliged to you, Copperfield; but--I am afraid I have lent him that already." "For the bill that is to be a certain investment?" I inquired. "No," said Traddles. "Not for that one. This is the first I have heard of that one. I have been thinking that he will most likely propose that one, on the way home. Mine's another." "I hope there will be nothing wrong about it," said I. "I hope not," said Traddles. "I should think not, though, because he told me, only the other day, that it was provided for. That was Mr. Micawber's expression. 'Provided for.'" Mr. Micawber looking up at this juncture to where we were standing, I had only time to repeat my caution. Traddles thanked me, and descended. But I was much afraid, when I observed the good-natured manner in which he went down with the cap in his hand, and gave Mrs. Micawber his arm, that he would be carried into the Money Market neck and heels. I returned to my fireside, and was musing, half gravely and half laughing, on the character of Mr. Micawber and the old relations between us, when I heard a quick step ascending the stairs. At first, I thought it was Traddles coming back for something Mrs. Micawber had left behind; but as the step approached, I knew it, and felt my heart beat high, and the blood rush to my face, for it was Steerforth's. I was never unmindful of Agnes, and she never left that sanctuary in my thoughts--if I may call it so--where I had placed her from the first. But when he entered, and stood before me with his hand out, the darkness that had fallen on him changed to light, and I felt confounded and ashamed of having doubted one I loved so heartily. I loved her none the less; I thought of her as the same benignant, gentle angel in my life; I reproached myself, not her, with having done him an injury; and I would have made him any atonement if I had known what to make, and how to make it. "Why, Daisy, old boy, dumb-foundered!" laughed Steerforth, shaking my hand heartily, and throwing it gaily away. "Have I detected you in another feast, you Sybarite! These Doctors' Commons fellows are the gayest men in town, I believe, and beat us sober Oxford people all to nothing!" His bright glance went merrily round the room, as he took the seat on the sofa opposite to me, which Mrs. Micawber had recently vacated, and stirred the fire into a blaze. "I was so surprised at first," said I, giving him welcome with all the cordiality I felt, "that I had hardly breath to greet you with, Steerforth." "Well, the sight of me _is_ good for sore eyes, as the Scotch say," replied Steerforth, "and so is the sight of you, Daisy, in full bloom. How are you, my Bacchanal?" "I am very well," said I; "and not at all Bacchanalian to-night, though I confess to another party of three." "All of whom I met in the street, talking loud in your praise," returned Steerforth. "Who's our friend in the tights?" I gave him the best idea I could, in a few words, of Mr. Micawber. He laughed heartily at my feeble portrait of that gentleman, and said he was a man to know, and he must know him. "But who do you suppose our other friend is?" said I, in my turn. "Heaven knows," said Steerforth. "Not a bore, I hope? I thought he looked a little like one." "Traddles!" I replied, triumphantly. "Who's he?" asked Steerforth, in his careless way. "Don't you remember Traddles? Traddles in our room at Salem House?" "Oh! That fellow!" said Steerforth, beating a lump of coal on the top of the fire, with the poker. "Is he as soft as ever? And where the deuce did you pick _him_ up?" I extolled Traddles in reply, as highly as I could; for I felt that Steerforth rather slighted him. Steerforth, dismissing the subject with a light nod, and a smile, and the remark that he would be glad to see the old fellow too, for he had always been an odd fish, inquired if I could give him anything to eat? During most of this short dialogue, when he had not been speaking in a wild vivacious manner, he had sat idly beating on the lump of coal with the poker. I observed that he did the same thing while I was getting out the remains of the pigeon-pie, and so forth. "Why, Daisy, here's a supper for a king!" he exclaimed, starting out of his silence with a burst, and taking his seat at the table. "I shall do it justice, for I have come from Yarmouth." "I thought you came from Oxford?" I returned. "Not I," said Steerforth. "I have been seafaring--better employed." "Littimer was here to-day, to inquire for you," I remarked, "and I understood him that you were at Oxford; though, now I think of it, he certainly did not say so." "Littimer is a greater fool than I thought him, to have been inquiring for me at all," said Steerforth, jovially pouring out a glass of wine, and drinking to me. "As to understanding him, you are a cleverer fellow than most of us, Daisy, if you can do that." "That's true, indeed," said I, moving my chair to the table. "So you have been at Yarmouth, Steerforth!" interested to know all about it. "Have you been there long?" "No," he returned. "An _escapade_ of a week or so." "And how are they all? Of course, little Emily is not married yet?" "Not yet. Going to be, I believe--in so many weeks, or months, or something or other. I have not seen much of 'em. By-the-by;" he laid down his knife and fork, which he had been using with great diligence, and began feeling in his pockets; "I have a letter for you." "From whom?" "Why, from your old nurse," he returned, taking some papers out of his breast pocket. "'J. Steerforth, Esquire, debtor, to the Willing Mind;' that's not it. Patience, and we'll find it presently. Old what's-his-name's in a bad way, and it's about that, I believe." "Barkis, do you mean?" "Yes!" still feeling in his pockets, and looking over their contents: "it's all over with poor Barkis, I am afraid. I saw a little apothecary there--surgeon, or whatever he is--who brought your worship into the world. He was mighty learned about the case, to me; but the upshot of his opinion was, that the carrier was making his last journey rather fast.--Put your hand into the breast pocket of my great coat on the chair yonder, and I think you'll find the letter. Is it there?" "Here it is!" said I. "That's right!" It was from Peggotty; something less legible than usual, and brief. It informed me of her husband's hopeless state, and hinted at his being "a little nearer" than heretofore, and consequently more difficult to manage for his own comfort. It said nothing of her weariness and watching, and praised him highly. It was written with a plain, unaffected, homely piety that I knew to be genuine, and ended with "my duty to my ever darling"--meaning myself. While I deciphered it, Steerforth continued to eat and drink. "It's a bad job," he said, when I had done; "but the sun sets every day, and people die every minute, and we mustn't be scared by the common lot. If we failed to hold our own, because that equal foot at all men's doors was heard knocking somewhere, every object in this world would slip from us. No! Ride on! Rough-shod if need be, smooth-shod if that will do, but ride on! Ride over all obstacles, and win the race!" "And win what race?" said I. "The race that one has started in," said he. "Ride on!" I noticed, I remember, as he paused, looking at me with his handsome head a little thrown back, and his glass raised in his hand, that, though the freshness of the sea-wind was on his face, and it was ruddy, there were traces in it, made since I last saw it, as if he had applied himself to some habitual strain of the fervent energy which, when roused, was so passionately roused within him. I had it in my thoughts to remonstrate with him upon his desperate way of pursuing any fancy that he took--such as this buffetting of rough seas, and braving of hard weather, for example--when my mind glanced off to the immediate subject of our conversation again, and pursued that instead. "I tell you what, Steerforth," said I, "if your high spirits will listen to me"-- "They are potent spirits, and will do whatever you like," he answered, moving from the table to the fireside again. "Then I tell you what, Steerforth. I think I will go down and see my old nurse. It is not that I can do her any good, or render her any real service; but she is so attached to me that my visit will have as much effect on her, as if I could do both. She will take it so kindly that it will be a comfort and support to her. It is no great effort to make, I am sure, for such a friend as she has been to me. Wouldn't you go a day's journey, if you were in my place?" His face was thoughtful, and he sat considering a little before he answered, in a low voice, "Well! Go. You can do no harm." "You have just come back," said I, "and it would be in vain to ask you to go with me?" "Quite," he returned. "I am for Highgate to-night. I have not seen my mother this long time, and it lies upon my conscience, for it's something to be loved as she loves her prodigal son.--Bah! Nonsense!--You mean to go to-morrow, I suppose?" he said, holding me out at arm's length, with a hand on each of my shoulders. "Yes, I think so." "Well, then, don't go till next day. I wanted you to come and stay a few days with us. Here I am, on purpose to bid you, and you fly off to Yarmouth!" "You are a nice fellow to talk of flying off, Steerforth, who are always running wild on some unknown expedition or other!" He looked at me for a moment without speaking, and then rejoined, still holding me as before, and giving me a shake: "Come! Say the next day, and pass as much of to-morrow as you can with us! Who knows when we may meet again, else? Come! Say the next day! I want you to stand between Rosa Dartle and me, and keep us asunder." "Would you love each other too much, without me?" "Yes; or hate," laughed Steerforth; "no matter which. Come! Say the next day!" I said the next day; and he put on his great-coat, and lighted his cigar, and set off to walk home. Finding him in this intention, I put on my own great-coat (but did not light my own cigar, having had enough of that for one while) and walked with him as far as the open road: a dull road, then, at night. He was in great spirits all the way; and when we parted, and I looked after him going so gallantly and airily homeward, I thought of his saying, "Ride on over all obstacles, and win the race!" and wished, for the first time, that he had some worthy race to run. I was undressing in my own room, when Mr. Micawber's letter tumbled on the floor. Thus reminded of it, I broke the seal and read as follows. It was dated an hour and a half before dinner. I am not sure whether I have mentioned that, when Mr. Micawber was at any particularly desperate crisis, he used a sort of legal phraseology: which he seemed to think equivalent to winding up his affairs. "Sir--for I dare not say, my dear Copperfield, "It is expedient that I should inform you that the undersigned is Crushed. Some flickering efforts to spare you the premature knowledge of his calamitous position, you may observe in him this day; but hope has sunk beneath the horizon, and the undersigned is Crushed. "The present communication is penned within the personal range (I cannot call it the society) of an individual, in a state closely bordering on intoxication, employed by a broker. That individual is in legal possession of the premises, under a distress for rent. His inventory includes, not only the chattels and effects of every description belonging to the undersigned, as yearly tenant of this habitation, but also those appertaining to Mr. Thomas Traddles, lodger, a member of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple. "If any drop of gloom were wanting in the overflowing cup, which is now 'commended' (in the language of an immortal Writer) to the lips of the undersigned, it would be found in the fact, that a friendly acceptance granted to the undersigned, by the before-mentioned Mr. Thomas Traddles, for the sum of £23 4_s._ 9½_d._ is over due, and is NOT provided for. Also, in the fact, that the living responsibilities clinging to the undersigned, will, in the course of nature, be increased by the sum of one more helpless victim; whose miserable appearance may be looked for--in round numbers--at the expiration of a period not exceeding six lunar months from the present date. "After premising thus much, it would be a work of supererogation to add, that dust and ashes are for ever scattered "On "The "Head "Of "WILKINS MICAWBER." Poor Traddles! I knew enough of Mr. Micawber by this time, to foresee that _he_ might be expected to recover the blow; but my night's rest was sorely distressed by thoughts of Traddles, and of the curate's daughter, who was one of ten, down in Devonshire, and who was such a dear girl, and who would wait for Traddles (ominous praise!) until she was sixty, or any age that could be mentioned. CHAPTER XXIX. I VISIT STEERFORTH AT HIS HOME, AGAIN. I mentioned to Mr. Spenlow in the morning, that I wanted leave of absence for a short time; and as I was not in the receipt of any salary, and consequently was not obnoxious to the implacable Jorkins, there was no difficulty about it. I took that opportunity, with my voice sticking in my throat, and my sight failing as I uttered the words, to express my hope that Miss Spenlow was quite well; to which Mr. Spenlow replied, with no more emotion than if he had been speaking of an ordinary human being, that he was much obliged to me, and she was very well. We articled clerks, as germs of the patrician order of proctors, were treated with so much consideration, that I was almost my own master at all times. As I did not care, however, to get to Highgate before one or two o'clock in the day, and as we had another little excommunication case in court that morning, which was called The office of the Judge promoted by Tipkins against Bullock for his soul's correction, I passed an hour or two in attendance on it with Mr. Spenlow very agreeably. It arose out of a scuffle between two churchwardens, one of whom was alleged to have pushed the other against a pump; the handle of which pump projecting into a school-house, which school-house was under a gable of the church-roof, made the push an ecclesiastical offence. It was an amusing case; and sent me up to Highgate, on the box of the stage-coach, thinking about the Commons, and what Mr. Spenlow had said about touching the Commons and bringing down the country. Mrs. Steerforth was pleased to see me, and so was Rosa Dartle. I was agreeably surprised to find that Littimer was not there, and that we were attended by a modest little parlor-maid, with blue ribbons in her cap, whose eye it was much more pleasant, and much less disconcerting, to catch by accident, than the eye of that respectable man. But what I particularly observed, before I had been half-an-hour in the house, was the close and attentive watch Miss Dartle kept upon me; and the lurking manner in which she seemed to compare my face with Steerforth's, and Steerforth's with mine, and to lie in wait for something to come out between the two. So surely as I looked towards her, did I see that eager visage, with its gaunt black eyes and searching brow, intent on mine; or passing suddenly from mine to Steerforth's; or comprehending both of us at once. In this lynx-like scrutiny she was so far from faltering when she saw I observed it, that at such a time she only fixed her piercing look upon me with a more intent expression still. Blameless as I was, and knew that I was, in reference to any wrong she could possibly suspect me of, I shrunk before her strange eyes, quite unable to endure their hungry lustre. All day, she seemed to pervade the whole house. If I talked to Steerforth in his room, I heard her dress rustle in the little gallery outside. When he and I engaged in some of our old exercises on the lawn behind the house, I saw her face pass from window to window, like a wandering light, until it fixed itself in one, and watched us. When we all four went out walking in the afternoon, she closed her thin hand on my arm like a spring, to keep me back, while Steerforth and his mother went on out of hearing: and then spoke to me. "You have been a long time," she said, "without coming here. Is your profession really so engaging and interesting as to absorb your whole attention? I ask because I always want to be informed, when I am ignorant. Is it really, though?" I replied that I liked it well enough, but that I certainly could not claim so much for it. "Oh! I am glad to know that, because I always like to be put right when I am wrong," said Rosa Dartle. "You mean it is a little dry, perhaps?" Well, I replied; perhaps it _was_ a little dry. "Oh! and that's a reason why you want relief and change--excitement, and all that?" said she. "Ah! very true! But isn't it a little----Eh?--for him; I don't mean you?" A quick glance of her eye towards the spot where Steerforth was walking, with his mother leaning on his arm, showed me whom she meant; but beyond that, I was quite lost. And I looked so, I have no doubt. "Don't it--I don't say that it _does_, mind I want to know--don't it rather engross him? Don't it make him, perhaps, a little more remiss than usual in his visits to his blindly doting--eh?" With another quick glance at them, and such a glance at me as seemed to look into my innermost thoughts. "Miss Dartle," I returned, "pray do not think--" "I don't!" she said. "Oh, dear me, don't suppose that I think anything! I am not suspicious. I only ask a question. I don't state any opinion. I want to found an opinion on what you tell me. Then, it's not so? Well! I am very glad to know it." "It certainly is not the fact," said I, perplexed, "that I am accountable for Steerforth's having been away from home longer than usual--if he has been: which I really don't know at this moment, unless I understand it from you. I have not seen him this long while, until last night." "No?" "Indeed, Miss Dartle, no!" As she looked full at me, I saw her face grow sharper and paler, and the marks of the old wound lengthen out until it cut through the disfigured lip, and deep into the nether lip, and slanted down the face. There was something positively awful to me in this, and in the brightness of her eyes, as she said, looking fixedly at me: "What is he doing?" I repeated the words, more to myself than her, being so amazed. "What is he doing?" she said, with an eagerness that seemed enough to consume her like a fire. "In what is that man assisting him, who never looks at me without an inscrutable falsehood in his eyes? If you are honorable and faithful, I don't ask you to betray your friend. I ask you only to tell me, is it anger, is it hatred, is it pride, is it restlessness, is it some wild fancy, is it love, _what is it_, that is leading him?" "Miss Dartle," I returned, "how shall I tell you, so that you will believe me, that I know of nothing in Steerforth different from what there was when I first came here. I can think of nothing. I firmly believe there is nothing. I hardly understand, even, what you mean." As she still looked fixedly at me, a twitching or throbbing, from which I could not dissociate the idea of pain, came into that cruel mark; and lifted up the corner of her lip as if with scorn, or with a pity that despised its object. She put her hand upon it hurriedly--a hand so thin and delicate, that when I had seen her hold it up before the fire to shade her face, I had compared it in my thoughts to fine porcelain--and saying, in a quick, fierce, passionate way, "I swear you to secresy about this!" said not a word more. Mrs. Steerforth was particularly happy in her son's society, and Steerforth was, on this occasion, particularly attentive and respectful to her. It was very interesting to me to see them together, not only on account of their mutual affection, but because of the strong personal resemblance between them, and the manner in which what was haughty or impetuous in him was softened by age and sex, in her, to a gracious dignity. I thought, more than once, that it was well no serious cause of division had ever come between them; or two such natures--I ought rather to express it, two such shades of the same nature--might have been harder to reconcile than the two extremest opposites in creation. The idea did not originate in my own discernment, I am bound to confess, but in a speech of Rosa Dartle's. She said at dinner: "Oh, but do tell me, though, somebody, because I have been thinking about it all day, and I want to know." "You want to know what, Rosa?" returned Mrs. Steerforth. "Pray, pray, Rosa, do not be mysterious." "Mysterious!" she cried. "Oh! really? Do you consider me so?" "Do I constantly entreat you," said Mrs. Steerforth, "to speak plainly, in your own natural manner?" "Oh! then, this is _not_ my natural manner?" she rejoined. "Now you must really bear with me, because I ask for information. We never know ourselves." "It has become a second nature," said Mrs. Steerforth, without any displeasure; "but I remember,--and so must you, I think,--when your manner was different, Rosa; when it was not so guarded, and was more trustful." "I am sure you are right," she returned; "and so it is that bad habits grow upon one! Really? Less guarded and more trustful? How _can_ I, imperceptibly, have changed, I wonder! Well, that's very odd! I must study to regain my former self." "I wish you would," said Mrs. Steerforth, with a smile. "Oh! I really will, you know!" she answered. "I will learn frankness from--let me see--from James." "You cannot learn frankness, Rosa," said Mrs. Steerforth, quickly--for there was always some effect of sarcasm in what Rosa Dartle said, though it was said, as this was, in the most unconscious manner in the world--"in a better school." "That I am sure of," she answered, with uncommon fervour. "If I am sure of anything, of course, you know, I am sure of that." Mrs. Steerforth appeared to me to regret having been a little nettled; for she presently said, in a kind tone: "Well, my dear Rosa, we have not heard what it is that you want to be satisfied about?" "That I want to be satisfied about?" she replied, with provoking coldness. "Oh! It was only whether people, who are like each other in their moral constitution--is that the phrase?" "It's as good a phrase as another," said Steerforth. "Thank you:--whether people, who are like each other in their moral constitution, are in greater danger than people not so circumstanced, supposing any serious cause of variance to arise between them, of being divided angrily and deeply?" "I should say yes," said Steerforth. "Should you?" she retorted. "Dear me! Supposing then, for instance,--any unlikely thing will do for a supposition--that you and your mother were to have a serious quarrel." "My dear Rosa," interposed Mrs. Steerforth, laughing good-naturedly, "suggest some other supposition! James and I know our duty to each other better, I pray Heaven!" "Oh!" said Miss Dartle, nodding her head thoughtfully. "To be sure. _That_ would prevent it? Why, of course it would. Ex-actly. Now, I am glad I have been so foolish as to put the case, for it is so very good to know that your duty to each other would prevent it! Thank you very much." One other little circumstance connected with Miss Dartle I must not omit; for I had reason to remember it thereafter, when all the irremediable past was rendered plain. During the whole of this day, but especially from this period of it, Steerforth exerted himself with his utmost skill, and that was with his utmost ease, to charm this singular creature into a pleasant and pleased companion. That he should succeed, was no matter of surprise to me. That she should struggle against the fascinating influence of his delightful art--delightful nature I thought it then--did not surprise me either; for I knew that she was sometimes jaundiced and perverse. I saw her features and her manner slowly change; I saw her look at him with growing admiration; I saw her try, more and more faintly, but always angrily, as if she condemned a weakness in herself, to resist the captivating power that he possessed; and finally I saw her sharp glance soften, and her smile become quite gentle, and I ceased to be afraid of her as I had really been all day, and we all sat about the fire, talking and laughing together, with as little reserve as if we had been children. Whether it was because we had sat there so long, or because Steerforth was resolved not to lose the advantage he had gained, I do not know; but we did not remain in the dining-room more than five minutes after her departure. "She is playing her harp," said Steerforth, softly, at the drawing-room door, "and nobody but my mother has heard her do that, I believe, these three years." He said it with a curious smile, which was gone directly; and we went into the room and found her alone. "Don't get up!" said Steerforth (which she had already done); "my dear Rosa, don't! Be kind for once, and sing us an Irish song." "What do you care for an Irish song?" she returned. "Much!" said Steerforth. "Much more than for any other. Here is Daisy, too, loves music from his soul. Sing us an Irish song, Rosa! and let me sit and listen as I used to do." He did not touch her, or the chair from which she had risen, but sat himself near the harp. She stood beside it for some little while, in a curious way, going through the motion of playing it with her right hand, but not sounding it. At length she sat down, and drew it to her with one sudden action, and played and sang. I don't know what it was, in her touch or voice, that made that song the most unearthly I have ever heard in my life, or can imagine. There was something fearful in the reality of it. It was as if it had never been written, or set to music, but sprung out of the passion within her; which found imperfect utterance in the low sounds of her voice, and crouched again when all was still. I was dumb when she leaned beside the harp again, playing it, but not sounding it, with her right hand. A minute more, and this had roused me from my trance:--Steerforth had left his seat, and gone to her, and had put his arm laughingly about her, and had said, "Come, Rosa, for the future we will love each other very much!" And she had struck him, and had thrown him off with the fury of a wild cat, and had burst out of the room. "What is the matter with Rosa?" said Mrs. Steerforth, coming in. "She has been an angel, mother," returned Steerforth, "for a little while; and has run into the opposite extreme, since, by way of compensation." "You should be careful not to irritate her, James. Her temper has been soured, remember, and ought not to be tried." Rosa did not come back; and no other mention was made of her, until I went with Steerforth into his room to say Good night. Then he laughed about her, and asked me if I had ever seen such a fierce little piece of incomprehensibility. I expressed as much of my astonishment as was then capable of expression, and asked if he could guess what it was that she had taken so much amiss, so suddenly. "Oh, Heaven knows," said Steerforth. "Any thing you like--or nothing! I told you she took every thing, herself included, to a grindstone, and sharpened it. She is an edge-tool, and requires great care in dealing with. She is always dangerous. Good night!" "Good night!" said I, "my dear Steerforth! I shall be gone before you wake in the morning. Good night!" He was unwilling to let me go; and stood, holding me out, with a hand on each of my shoulders, as he had done in my own room. "Daisy," he said, with a smile--"for though that's not the name your Godfathers and Godmothers gave you, it's the name I like best to call you by--and I wish, I wish, I wish, you could give it to me!" "Why so I can, if I choose," said I. "Daisy, if anything should ever separate us, you must think of me at my best, old boy. Come! Let us make that bargain. Think of me at my best, if circumstances should ever part us!" "You have no best to me, Steerforth," said I, "and no worst. You are always equally loved, and cherished in my heart." So much compunction for having ever wronged him, even by a shapeless thought, did I feel within me, that the confession of having done so was rising to my lips. But for the reluctance I had, to betray the confidence of Agnes, but for my uncertainty how to approach the subject with no risk of doing so, it would have reached them before he said, "God bless you, Daisy, and good night!" In my doubt, it did _not_ reach them; and we shook hands, and we parted. I was up with the dull dawn, and, having dressed as quietly as I could, looked into his room. He was fast asleep; lying, easily, with his head upon his arm, as I had often seen him lie at school. The time came in its season, and that was very soon, when I almost wondered that nothing troubled his repose, as I looked at him. But he slept--let me think of him so again--as I had often seen him sleep at school; and thus, in this silent hour, I left him. --Never more, oh God forgive you, Steerforth! to touch that passive hand in love and friendship. Never, never, more! CHAPTER XXX. A LOSS. I got down to Yarmouth in the evening, and went to the inn. I knew that Peggotty's spare room--my room--was likely to have occupation enough in a little while, if that great Visitor, before whose presence all the living must give place, were not already in the house; so I betook myself to the inn, and dined there, and engaged my bed. It was ten o'clock when I went out. Many of the shops were shut, and the town was dull. When I came to Omer and Joram's, I found the shutters up, but the shop door standing open. As I could obtain a perspective view of Mr. Omer inside, smoking his pipe by the parlor-door, I entered, and asked him how he was. "Why, bless my life and soul!" said Mr. Omer, "how do you find yourself? Take a seat.--Smoke not disagreeable, I hope?" "By no means," said I. "I like it--in somebody else's pipe." "What, not in your own, eh?" Mr. Omer returned, laughing. "All the better, sir. Bad habit for a young man. Take a seat. I smoke, myself, for the asthma." Mr. Omer had made room for me, and placed a chair. He now sat down again, very much out of breath, gasping at his pipe as if it contained a supply of that necessary, without which he must perish. "I am sorry to have heard bad news of Mr. Barkis," said I. Mr. Omer looked at me, with a steady countenance, and shook his head. "Do you know how he is to-night?" I asked. "The very question I should have put to you, sir," returned Mr. Omer, "but on account of delicacy. It's one of the drawbacks of our line of business. When a party's ill, we _can't_ ask how the party is." The difficulty had not occurred to me; though I had had my apprehensions too, when I went in, of hearing the old tune. On its being mentioned, I recognised it, however, and said as much. "Yes, yes, you understand," said Mr. Omer, nodding his head. "We durstn't do it. Bless you, it would be a shock that the generality of parties mightn't recover, to say 'Omer and Jorams's compliments, and how do you find yourself this morning'--or this afternoon--as it may be." Mr. Omer and I nodded at each other, and Mr. Omer recruited his wind by the aid of his pipe. "It's one of the things that cut the trade off from attentions they could often wish to show," said Mr. Omer. "Take myself. If I have known Barkis a year, to move to as he went by, I have known him forty year. But _I_ can't go and say 'how is he?'" I felt it was rather hard on Mr. Omer, and I told him so. "I'm not more self-interested, I hope, than another man," said Mr. Omer. "Look at me! My wind may fail me at any moment, and it ain't likely that, to my own knowledge, I'd be self-interested under such circumstances. I say it ain't likely, in a man who knows his wind will go, when it _does_ go, as if a pair of bellows was cut open; and that man a grandfather," said Mr. Omer. I said, "Not at all." "It ain't that I complain of my line of business," said Mr. Omer. "It ain't that. Some good and some bad goes, no doubt, to all callings. What I wish, is, that parties were brought up stronger-minded." Mr. Omer, with a very complacent and amiable face, took several puffs in silence; and then said, resuming his first point. "Accordingly we're obleeged, in ascertaining how Barkis goes on, to limit ourselves to Em'ly. She knows what our real objects are, and she don't have any more alarms or suspicions about us, than if we was so many lambs. Minnie and Joram have just stepped down to the house, in fact (she's there, after hours, helping her aunt a bit), to ask her how he is to-night; and if you was to please to wait till they come back, they'd give you full partic'lers. Will you take something? A glass of srub and water, now? I smoke on srub and water, myself," said Mr. Omer, taking up his glass, "because it's considered softening to the passages, by which this troublesome breath of mine gets into action. But, Lord bless you," said Mr. Omer, huskily, "it ain't the passages that's out of order! 'Give me breath enough,' says I to my daughter Minnie, 'and _I_'ll find passages, my dear.'" He really had no breath to spare, and it was very alarming to see him laugh. When he was again in a condition to be talked to, I thanked him for the proffered refreshment, which I declined, as I had just had dinner; and, observing that I would wait, since he was so good as to invite me, until his daughter and his son-in-law came back, I inquired how little Emily was? "Well, sir," said Mr. Omer, removing his pipe, that he might rub his chin; "I tell you truly, I shall be glad when her marriage has taken place." "Why so?" I inquired. "Well, she's unsettled at present," said Mr. Omer. "It ain't that she's not as pretty as ever, for she's prettier--I do assure you, she is prettier. It ain't that she don't work as well as ever, for she does. She _was_ worth any six, and she _is_ worth any six. But somehow she wants heart. If you understand," said Mr. Omer, after rubbing his chin again, and smoking a little, "what I mean in a general way by the expression, 'A long pull, and a strong pull, and a pull altogether, my hearties, hurrah!' I should say to you, that _that_ was--in a general way--what I miss in Em'ly." Mr. Omer's face and manner went for so much, that I could conscientiously nod my head, as divining his meaning. My quickness of apprehension seemed to please him, and he went on: "Now, I consider this is principally on account of her being in an unsettled state, you see. We have talked it over a good deal, her uncle and myself, and her sweetheart and myself, after business; and I consider it is principally on account of her being unsettled. You must always recollect of Em'ly," said Mr. Omer, shaking his head gently, "that she's a most extraordinary affectionate little thing. The proverb says, 'You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.' Well, I don't know about that. I rather think you may, if you begin early in life. She has made a home out of that old boat, sir, that stone and marble couldn't beat." "I am sure she has!" said I. "To see the clinging of that pretty little thing to her uncle," said Mr. Omer; "to see the way she holds on to him, tighter and tighter, and closer and closer, every day, is to see a sight. Now, you know, there's a struggle going on when that's the case. Why should it be made a longer one than is needful?" I listened attentively to the good old fellow, and acquiesced, with all my heart, in what he said. "Therefore, I mentioned to them," said Mr. Omer, in a comfortable, easy-going tone, "this. I said, 'Now, don't consider Em'ly nailed down in point of time, at all. Make it your own time. Her services have been more valuable than was supposed; her learning has been quicker than was supposed; Omer and Joram can run their pen through what remains; and she's free when you wish. If she likes to make any little arrangement, afterwards, in the way of doing any little thing for us at home, very well. If she don't, very well still. We're no losers, anyhow.' For--don't you see," said Mr. Omer, touching me with his pipe, "it ain't likely that a man so short of breath as myself, and a grandfather too, would go and strain points with a little bit of a blue-eyed blossom, like _her_?" "Not at all, I am certain," said I. "Not at all! You're right!" said Mr. Omer. "Well, sir, her cousin--you know it's a cousin she's going to be married to?" "Oh yes," I replied. "I know him well." "Of course you do," said Mr. Omer. "Well, sir! Her cousin being, as it appears, in good work, and well to do, thanked me in a very manly sort of manner for this (conducting himself altogether, I must say, in a way that gives me a high opinion of him), and went and took as comfortable a little house as you or I could wish to clap eyes on. That little house is now furnished, right through, as neat and complete as a doll's parlor; and but for Barkis's illness having taken this bad turn, poor fellow, they would have been man and wife--I dare say, by this time. As it is, there's a postponement." "And Emily, Mr. Omer?" I inquired. "Has she become more settled?" "Why that, you know," he returned, rubbing his double chin again, "can't naturally be expected. The prospect of the change and separation, and all that, is, as one may say, close to her and far away from her, both at once. Barkis's death needn't put it off much, but his lingering might. Anyway, it's an uncertain state of matters, you see." "I see," said I. "Consequently," pursued Mr. Omer, "Em'ly's still a little down, and a little fluttered; perhaps, upon the whole, she's more so than she was. Every day she seems to get fonder and fonder of her uncle, and more loth to part from all of us. A kind word from me brings the tears into her eyes; and if you was to see her with my daughter Minnie's little girl, you'd never forget it. Bless my heart alive!" said Mr. Omer, pondering, "how she loves that child!" Having so favourable an opportunity, it occurred to me to ask Mr. Omer, before our conversation should be interrupted by the return of his daughter and her husband, whether he knew anything of Martha. "Ah!" he rejoined, shaking his head, and looking very much dejected. "No good. A sad story, sir, however you come to know it. I never thought there was harm in the girl. I wouldn't wish to mention it before my daughter Minnie--for she'd take me up directly--but I never did. None of us ever did." Mr. Omer, hearing his daughter's footstep before I heard it, touched me with his pipe, and shut up one eye, as a caution. She and her husband came in immediately afterwards. Their report was, that Mr. Barkis was "as bad as bad could be;" that he was quite unconscious; and that Mr. Chillip had mournfully said in the kitchen, on going away just now, that the College of Physicians, the College of Surgeons, and Apothecaries' Hall, if they were all called in together, couldn't help him. He was past both Colleges, Mr. Chillip said, and the Hall could only poison him. Hearing this, and learning that Mr. Peggotty was there, I determined to go to the house at once. I bade good night to Mr. Omer, and to Mr. and Mrs. Joram; and directed my steps thither, with a solemn feeling, which made Mr. Barkis quite a new and different creature. My low tap at the door was answered by Mr. Peggotty. He was not so much surprised to see me as I had expected. I remarked this in Peggotty, too, when she came down; and I have seen it since; and I think, in the expectation of that dread surprise, all other changes and surprises dwindle into nothing. I shook hands with Mr. Peggotty, and passed into the kitchen, while he softly closed the door. Little Emily was sitting by the fire, with her hands before her face. Ham was standing near her. We spoke in whispers; listening, between whiles, for any sound in the room above. I had not thought of it on the occasion of my last visit, but how strange it was to me now, to miss Mr. Barkis out of the kitchen! "This is very kind of you, Mas'r Davy," said Mr. Peggotty. "It is oncommon kind," said Ham. "Em'ly, my dear," cried Mr. Peggotty. "See here! Here's Mas'r Davy come! What, cheer up, pretty! Not a wured to Mas'r Davy?" There was a trembling upon her, that I can see now. The coldness of her hand when I touched it, I can feel yet. Its only sign of animation was to shrink from mine; and then she glided from the chair, and, creeping to the other side of her uncle, bowed herself, silently and trembling still, upon his breast. "It's such a loving art," said Mr. Peggotty, smoothing her rich hair with his great hard hand, "that it can't abear the sorrer of this. It's nat'ral in young folk, Mas'r Davy, when they're new to these here trials, and timid, like my little bird,--it's nat'ral." She clung the closer to him, but neither lifted up her face, nor spoke a word. "It's getting late, my dear," said Mr. Peggotty, "and here's Ham come fur to take you home. Theer! Go along with t'other loving art! What, Em'ly? Eh, my pretty?" The sound of her voice had not reached me, but he bent his head as if he listened to her, and then said: "Let you stay with your uncle? Why, you doen't mean to ask me that! Stay with your uncle, Moppet? When your husband that'll be so soon, is here fur to take you home? Now a person wouldn't think it, fur to see this little thing alongside a rough-weather chap like me," said Mr. Peggotty, looking round at both of us, with infinite pride; "but the sea ain't more salt in it than she has fondness in her for her uncle--a foolish little Em'ly!" "Em'ly's in the right in that, Mas'r Davy!" said Ham. "Lookee here! As Em'ly wishes of it, and as she's hurried and frightened, like, besides, I'll leave her till morning. Let me stay too!" "No, no," said Mr. Peggotty. "You doen't ought--a married man like you--or what's as good--to take and hull away a day's work. And you doen't ought to watch and work both. That won't do. You go home and turn in. You ain't afeerd of Em'ly not being took good care on, _I_ know." Ham yielded to this persuasion, and took his hat to go. Even when he kissed her,--and I never saw him approach her, but I felt that nature had given him the soul of a gentleman,--she seemed to cling closer to her uncle, even to the avoidance of her chosen husband. I shut the door after him, that it might cause no disturbance of the quiet that prevailed; and when I turned back, I found Mr. Peggotty still talking to her. "Now, I'm a going up-stairs to tell your aunt as Mas'r Davy's here, and that'll cheer her up a bit," he said. "Sit ye down by the fire, the while, my dear, and warm these mortal cold hands. You doen't need to be so fearsome, and take on so much. What? You'll go along with me?--Well! come along with me--come! If her uncle was turned out of house and home, and forced to lay down in a dyke, Mas'r Davy," said Mr. Peggotty, with no less pride than before, "it's my belief she'd go along with him, now! But there'll be some one else, soon,--some one else, soon, Em'ly!" Afterwards, when I went up-stairs, as I passed the door of my little chamber, which was dark, I had an indistinct impression of her being within it, cast down upon the floor. But, whether it was really she, or whether it was a confusion of the shadows in the room, I don't know now. I had leisure to think, before the kitchen-fire, of pretty little Em'ly's dread of death--which, added to what Mr. Omer had told me, I took to be the cause of her being so unlike herself--and I had leisure, before Peggotty came down, even to think more leniently of the weakness of it: as I sat counting the ticking of the clock, and deepening my sense of the solemn hush around me. Peggotty took me in her arms, and blessed and thanked me over and over again for being such a comfort to her (that was what she said) in her distress. She then entreated me to come up-stairs, sobbing that Mr. Barkis had always liked me and admired me; that he had often talked of me, before he fell into a stupor; and that she believed, in case of his coming to himself again, he would brighten up at sight of me, if he could brighten up at any earthly thing. The probability of his ever doing so, appeared to me, when I saw him, to be very small. He was lying with his head and shoulders out of bed, in an uncomfortable attitude, half resting on the box which had cost him so much pain and trouble. I learned, that, when he was past creeping out of bed to open it, and past assuring himself of its safety by means of the divining rod I had seen him use, he had required to have it placed on the chair at the bed-side, where he had ever since embraced it, night and day. His arm lay on it now. Time and the world were slipping from beneath him, but the box was there; and the last words he had uttered were (in an explanatory tone) "Old clothes!" "Barkis, my dear!" said Peggotty, almost cheerfully: bending over him, while her brother and I stood at the bed's foot. "Here's my dear boy--my dear boy, Master Davy, who brought us together, Barkis! That you sent messages by, you know! Won't you speak to Master Davy?" He was as mute and senseless as the box, from which his form derived the only expression it had. "He's a going out with the tide," said Mr. Peggotty to me, behind his hand. My eyes were dim, and so were Mr. Peggotty's; but I repeated in a whisper, "With the tide?" [Illustration: I find Mr. Barkis "going out with the tide."] "People can't die, along the coast," said Mr. Peggotty, "except when the tide's pretty nigh out. They can't be born, unless it's pretty nigh in--not properly born, till flood. He's a going out with the tide. It's ebb at half arter three, slack water half-an-hour. If he lives 'till it turns, he'll hold his own till past the flood, and go out with the next tide." We remained there, watching him, a long time--hours. What mysterious influence my presence had upon him in that state of his senses, I shall not pretend to say; but when he at last began to wander feebly, it is certain he was muttering about driving me to school. "He's coming to himself," said Peggotty. Mr. Peggotty touched me, and whispered with much awe and reverence, "They are both a going out fast." "Barkis, my dear!" said Peggotty. "C. P. Barkis," he cried, faintly. "No better woman anywhere!" "Look! Here's Master Davy!" said Peggotty. For he now opened his eyes. I was on the point of asking him if he knew me, when he tried to stretch out his arm, and said to me, distinctly, with a pleasant smile: "Barkis is willin'!" And, it being low water, he went out with the tide. CHAPTER XXXI. A GREATER LOSS. It was not difficult for me, on Peggotty's solicitation, to resolve to stay where I was, until after the remains of the poor carrier should have made their last journey to Blunderstone. She had long ago bought, out of her own savings, a little piece of ground in our old churchyard near the grave "of her sweet girl," as she always called my mother; and there they were to rest. In keeping Peggotty company, and doing all I could for her (little enough at the utmost), I was as grateful, I rejoice to think, as even now I could wish myself to have been. But I am afraid I had a supreme satisfaction, of a personal and professional nature, in taking charge of Mr. Barkis's will, and expounding its contents. I may claim the merit of having originated the suggestion that the will should be looked for in the box. After some search, it was found in the box, at the bottom of a horse's nose-bag; wherein (besides hay) there was discovered an old gold watch, with chain and seals, which Mr. Barkis had worn on his wedding-day, and which had never been seen before or since; a silver tobacco-stopper, in the form of a leg; an imitation lemon, full of minute cups and saucers, which I have some idea Mr. Barkis must have purchased to present to me when I was a child, and afterwards found himself unable to part with; eighty-seven guineas and a half, in guineas and half guineas; two hundred and ten pounds, in perfectly clean Bank notes; certain receipts for Bank of England stock; an old horse-shoe, a bad shilling, a piece of camphor, and an oyster-shell. From the circumstance of the latter article having been much polished, and displaying prismatic colours on the inside, I conclude that Mr. Barkis had some general ideas about pearls, which never resolved themselves into anything definite. For years and years, Mr. Barkis had carried this box, on all his journeys, every day. That it might the better escape notice, he had invented a fiction that it belonged to "Mr. Blackboy," and was "to be left with Barkis till called for;" a fable he had elaborately written on the lid, in characters now scarcely legible. He had hoarded, all these years, I found, to good purpose. His property in money amounted to nearly three thousand pounds. Of this he bequeathed the interest of one thousand to Mr. Peggotty for his life; on his decease, the principal to be equally divided between Peggotty, little Emily, and me, or the survivor or survivors of us, share and share alike. All the rest he died possessed of, he bequeathed to Peggotty; whom he left residuary legatee, and sole executrix of that his last will and testament. I felt myself quite a proctor when I read this document aloud with all possible ceremony, and set forth its provisions, any number of times, to those whom they concerned. I began to think there was more in the Commons than I had supposed. I examined the will with the deepest attention, pronounced it perfectly formal in all respects, made a pencil-mark or so in the margin, and thought it rather extraordinary that I knew so much. In this abstruse pursuit; in making an account for, Peggotty, of all the property into which she had come; in arranging all the affairs in an orderly manner; and in being her referee and adviser on every point, to our joint delight; I passed the week before the funeral. I did not see little Emily in that interval, but they told me she was to be quietly married in a fortnight. I did not attend the funeral in character, if I may venture to say so. I mean I was not dressed up in a black cloak and a streamer, to frighten the birds; but I walked over to Blunderstone early in the morning, and was in the churchyard when it came, attended only by Peggotty and her brother. The mad gentleman looked on, out of my little window; Mr. Chillip's baby wagged its heavy head, and rolled its goggle eyes, at the clergyman, over its nurse's shoulder; Mr. Omer breathed short in the background; no one else was there; and it was very quiet. We walked about the churchyard for an hour, after all was over; and pulled some young leaves from the tree above my mother's grave. A dread falls on me here. A cloud is lowering on the distant town, towards which I retraced my solitary steps. I fear to approach it. I cannot bear to think of what did come, upon that memorable night; of what must come again, if I go on. It is no worse, because I write of it. It would be no better, if I stopped my most unwilling hand. It is done. Nothing can undo it; nothing can make it otherwise than as it was. My old nurse was to go to London with me next day, on the business of the will. Little Emily was passing that day at Mr. Omer's. We were all to meet in the old boathouse that night. Ham would bring Emily at the usual hour. I would walk back at my leisure. The brother and sister would return as they had come, and be expecting us, when the day closed in, at the fireside. I parted from them at the wicket-gate, where visionary Straps had rested with Roderick Random's knapsack in the days of yore; and, instead of going straight back, walked a little distance on the road to Lowestoft. Then I turned, and walked back towards Yarmouth. I stayed to dine at a decent alehouse, some mile or two from the Ferry I have mentioned before; and thus the day wore away, and it was evening when I reached it. Rain was falling heavily by that time, and it was a wild night; but there was a moon behind the clouds, and it was not dark. I was soon within sight of Mr. Peggotty's house, and of the light within it shining through the window. A little floundering across the sand, which was heavy, brought me to the door, and I went in. It looked very comfortable, indeed. Mr. Peggotty had smoked his evening pipe, and there were preparations for some supper by-and-by. The fire was bright, the ashes were thrown up, the locker was ready for little Emily in her old place. In her own old place sat Peggotty, once more, looking (but for her dress) as if she had never left it. She had fallen back, already, on the society of the work-box with Saint Paul's upon the lid, the yard-measure in the cottage, and the bit of wax candle: and there they all were, just as if they had never been disturbed. Mrs. Gummidge appeared to be fretting a little, in her old corner; and consequently looked quite natural, too. "You're first of the lot, Mas'r Davy!" said Mr. Peggotty, with a happy face. "Doen't keep in that coat, sir, if it's wet." "Thank you, Mr. Peggotty," said I, giving him my outer coat to hang up. "It's quite dry." "So 'tis!" said Mr. Peggotty, feeling my shoulders. "As a chip! Sit ye down, sir. It ain't o' no use saying welcome to you, but you're welcome, kind and hearty." "Thank you, Mr. Peggotty, I am sure of that. Well, Peggotty!" said I, giving her a kiss. "And how are you, old woman?" "Ha, ha!" laughed Mr. Peggotty, sitting down beside us, and rubbing his hands in his sense of relief from recent trouble, and in the genuine heartiness of his nature; "there's not a woman in the wureld, sir--as I tell her--that need to feel more easy in her mind than her! She done her dooty by the departed, and the departed know'd it; and the departed done what was right by her, as she done what was right by the departed; and--and--and it's _all_ right!" Mrs. Gummidge groaned. "Cheer up, my pretty mawther!" said Mr. Peggotty. (But he shook his head aside at us, evidently sensible of the tendency of the late occurrences to recal the memory of the old one.) "Doen't be down! Cheer up, for your own self, on'y a little bit, and see if a good deal more doen't come nat'ral!" "Not to me, Dan'l," returned Mrs. Gummidge. "Nothink's nat'ral to me but to be lone and lorn." "No, no," said Mr. Peggotty, soothing her sorrows. "Yes, yes, Dan'l!" said Mrs. Gummidge. "I ain't a person to live with them as has had money left. Thinks go too contrairy with me. I had better be a riddance." "Why, how should I ever spend it without you?" said Mr. Peggotty, with an air of serious remonstrance. "What are you a talking on? Doen't I want you more now, than ever I did?" "I know'd I was never wanted before!" cried Mrs. Gummidge, with a pitiable whimper, "and now I'm told so! How could I expect to be wanted, being so lone and lorn, and so contrairy!" Mr. Peggotty seemed very much shocked at himself for having made a speech capable of this unfeeling construction, but was prevented from replying, by Peggotty's pulling his sleeve, and shaking her head. After looking at Mrs. Gummidge for some moments, in sore distress of mind, he glanced at the Dutch clock, rose, snuffed the candle, and put it in the window. "Theer!" said Mr. Peggotty, cheerily. "Theer we are, Missis Gummidge!" Mrs. Gummidge slightly groaned. "Lighted up, accordin' to custom! You're a wonderin' what that's fur, sir! Well, it's fur our little Em'ly. You see, the path ain't over light or cheerful arter dark; and when I'm here at the hour as she's a comin' home, I puts the light in the winder. That, you see," said Mr. Peggotty, bending over me with great glee, "meets two objects. She says, says Em'ly, 'Theer's home!' she says. And likewise, says Em'ly, 'My uncle's theer!' Fur if I ain't theer, I never have no light showed." "You're a baby!" said Peggotty; very fond of him for it, if she thought so. "Well," returned Mr. Peggotty, standing with his legs pretty wide apart, and rubbing his hands up and down them in his comfortable satisfaction, as he looked alternately at us and at the fire, "I doen't know but I am. Not, you see, to look at." "Not azackly," observed Peggotty. "No," laughed Mr. Peggotty, "not to look at, but to--to consider on, you know. _I_ doen't care, bless you! Now I tell you. When I go a looking and looking about that theer pritty house of our Em'ly's, I'm--I'm Gormed," said Mr. Peggotty, with sudden emphasis--"theer! I can't say more--if I doen't feel as if the littlest things was her, a'most. I takes 'em up and I puts 'em down, and I touches of 'em as delicate as if they was our Em'ly. So 'tis with her little bonnets and that. I couldn't see one on 'em rough used a purpose--not fur the whole wureld. There's a babby fur you, in the form of a great Sea Porkypine!" said Mr. Peggotty, relieving his earnestness with a roar of laughter. Peggotty and I both laughed, but not so loud. "It's my opinion, you see," said Mr. Peggotty, with a delighted face, after some further rubbing of his legs, "as this is along of my havin' played with her so much, and made believe as we was Turks, and French, and sharks, and every wariety of forinners--bless you, yes; and lions and whales, and I don't know what all!--when she warn't no higher than my knee. I've got into the way on it, you know. Why, this here candle, now!" said Mr. Peggotty, gleefully holding out his hand towards it, "_I_ know wery well that arter she's married and gone, I shall put that candle theer, just the same as now. I know wery well that when I'm here o' nights (and where else should _I_ live, bless your arts, whatever fortun' I come into!) and she ain't here, or I ain't theer, I shall put the candle in the winder, and sit afore the fire, pretending I'm expecting of her, like I'm a doing now. _There's_ a babby for you," said Mr. Peggotty, with another roar, "in the form of a Sea Porkypine! Why, at the present minute, when I see the candle sparkle up, I says to myself, 'She's a looking at it! Em'ly's a coming!' _There's_ a babby for you, in the form of a Sea Porkypine! Right for all that," said Mr. Peggotty, stopping in his roar, and smiting his hands together; "fur here she is!" It was only Ham. The night should have turned more wet since I came in, for he had a large sou'wester hat on, slouched over his face. "Where's Em'ly?" said Mr. Peggotty. Ham made a motion with his head, as if she were outside. Mr. Peggotty took the light from the window, trimmed it, put it on the table, and was busily stirring the fire, when Ham, who had not moved, said: "Mas'r Davy, will you come out a minute, and see what Em'ly and me has got to show you?" We went out. As I passed him at the door, I saw, to my astonishment and fright, that he was deadly pale. He pushed me hastily into the open air, and closed the door upon us. Only upon us two. "Ham! what's the matter!" "Mas'r Davy!--" Oh, for his broken heart, how dreadfully he wept! I was paralyzed by the sight of such grief. I don't know what I thought, or what I dreaded. I could only look at him. "Ham! Poor good fellow! For Heaven's sake tell me what's the matter!" "My love, Mas'r Davy--the pride and hope of my art--her that I'd have died for, and would die for now--she's gone!" "Gone?" "Em'ly's run away! Oh, Mas'r Davy, think _how_ she's run away, when I pray my good and gracious God to kill her (her that is so dear above all things) sooner than let her come to ruin and disgrace!" The face he turned up to the troubled sky, the quivering of his clasped hands, the agony of his figure, remain associated with that lonely waste, in my remembrance, to this hour. It is always night there, and he is the only object in the scene. "You're a scholar," he said, hurriedly, "and know what's right and best. What am I to say, in-doors? How am I ever to break it to him, Mas'r Davy?" I saw the door move, and instinctively tried to hold the latch on the outside, to gain a moment's time. It was too late. Mr. Peggotty thrust forth his face; and never could I forget the change that came upon it when he saw us, if I were to live five hundred years. I remember a great wail and cry, and the women hanging about him, and we all standing in the room; I with a paper in my hand, which Ham had given me; Mr. Peggotty, with his vest torn open, his hair wild, his face and lips quite white, and blood trickling down his bosom (it had sprung from his mouth, I think), looking fixedly at me. "Read it, sir," he said, in a low shivering voice. "Slow, please. I doen't know as I can understand." In the midst of the silence of death, I read thus, from a blotted letter. "'When you, who love me so much better than I ever have deserved, even when my mind was innocent, see this, I shall be far away.'" "I shall be fur away," he repeated slowly. "Stop! Em'ly fur away. Well!" 'When I leave my dear home--my dear home--oh, my dear home!--in the morning,' the letter bore date on the previous night: '--it will be never to come back, unless he brings me back a lady. This will be found at night, many hours after, instead of me. Oh, if you knew how my heart is torn. If even you, that I have wronged so much, that never can forgive me, could only know what I suffer! I am too wicked to write about myself. Oh, take comfort in thinking that I am so bad. Oh, for mercy's sake, tell uncle that I never loved him half so dear as now. Oh, don't remember how affectionate and kind you have all been to me--don't remember we were ever to be married--but try to think as if I died when I was little, and was buried somewhere. Pray Heaven that I am going away from, have compassion on my uncle! Tell him that I never loved him half so dear. Be his comfort. Love some good girl, that will be what I was once to uncle, and be true to you, and worthy of you, and know no shame but me. God bless all! I'll pray for all, often, on my knees. If he don't bring me back a lady, and I don't pray for my own self, I'll pray for all. My parting love to uncle. My last tears, and my last thanks, for uncle!'" That was all. He stood, long after I had ceased to read, still looking at me. At length I ventured to take his hand, and to entreat him, as well as I could, to endeavour to get some command of himself. He replied, "I thankee, sir, I thankee!" without moving. Ham spoke to him. Mr. Peggotty was so far sensible of _his_ affliction, that he wrung his hand; but, otherwise, he remained in the same state, and no one dared to disturb him. Slowly, at last, he moved his eyes from my face, as if he were waking from a vision, and cast them round the room. Then he said, in a low voice: "Who's the man? I want to know his name." Ham glanced at me, and suddenly I felt a shock that struck me back. "There's a man suspected," said Mr. Peggotty. "Who is it?" "Mas'r Davy!" implored Ham. "Go out a bit, and let me tell him what I must. You doen't ought to hear it, sir." I felt the shock again. I sank down in a chair, and tried to utter some reply; but my tongue was fettered, and my sight was weak. "I want to know his name!" I heard said, once more. "For some time past," Ham faltered, "there's been a servant about here, at odd times. There's been a gen'lm'n too. Both of 'em belonged to one another." Mr. Peggotty stood fixed as before, but now looking at him. "The servant," pursued Ham, "was seen along with--our poor girl--last night. He's been in hiding about here, this week or over. He was thought to have gone, but he was hiding. Doen't stay, Mas'r Davy, doen't!" I felt Peggotty's arm round my neck, but I could not have moved if the house had been about to fall upon me. "A strange chay and horses was outside town, this morning, on the Norwich road, a'most afore the day broke," Ham went on. "The servant went to it, and come from it, and went to it again. When he went to it again, Em'ly was nigh him. The t'other was inside. He's the man." "For the Lord's love," said Mr. Peggotty, falling back, and putting out his hand, as if to keep off what he dreaded. "Doen't tell me his name's Steerforth!" "Mas'r Davy," exclaimed Ham, in a broken voice, "it ain't no fault of yourn--and I am far from laying of it to you--but his name is Steerforth, and he's a damned villain!" Mr. Peggotty uttered no cry, and shed no tear, and moved no more, until he seemed to wake again, all at once, and pulled down his rough coat from its peg in a corner. "Bear a hand with this! I'm struck of a heap, and can't do it," he said, impatiently. "Bear a hand, and help me. Well!" when somebody had done so. "Now give me that theer hat!" Ham asked him whither he was going. "I'm a going to seek my niece. I'm a going to seek my Em'ly. I'm a going, first, to stave in that theer boat, and sink it where I would have drownded _him_, as I'm a livin' soul, if I had had one thought of what was in him! As he sat afore me," he said, wildly, holding out his clenched right hand, "as he sat afore me, face to face, strike me down dead, but I'd have drownded him, and thought it right!--I'm a going to seek my niece." "Where?" cried Ham, interposing himself before the door. "Anywhere! I'm a going to seek my niece through the wureld. I'm a going to find my poor niece in her shame, and bring her back. No one stop me! I tell you I'm a going to seek my niece!" "No, no!" cried Mrs. Gummidge, coming between them, in a fit of crying. "No, no, Dan'l, not as you are now. Seek her in a little while, my lone lorn Dan'l, and that'll be but right; but not as you are now. Sit ye down, and give me your forgiveness for having ever been a worrit to you, Dan'l--what have _my_ contrairies ever been to this!--and let us speak a word about them times when she was first an orphan, and when Ham was too, and when I was a poor widder woman, and you took me in. It'll soften your poor heart, Dan'l," laying her head upon his shoulder, "and you'll bear your sorrow better; for you know the promise, Dan'l, 'As you have done it unto one of the least of these, you have done it unto me'; and that can never fail under this roof, that's been our shelter for so many, many year!" He was quite passive now; and when I heard him crying, the impulse that had been upon me to go down upon my knees, and ask their pardon for the desolation I had caused, and curse Steerforth, yielded to a better feeling. My overcharged heart found the same relief, and I cried too. CHAPTER XXXII. THE BEGINNING OF A LONG JOURNEY. What is natural in me, is natural in many other men, I infer, and so I am not afraid to write that I never had loved Steerforth better than when the ties that bound me to him were broken. In the keen distress of the discovery of his unworthiness, I thought more of all that was brilliant in him, I softened more towards all that was good in him, I did more justice to the qualities that might have made him a man of a noble nature and a great name, than ever I had done in the height of my devotion to him. Deeply as I felt my own unconscious part in his pollution of an honest home, I believe that if I had been brought face to face with him, I could not have uttered one reproach. I should have loved him so well still--though he fascinated me no longer--I should have held in so much tenderness the memory of my affection for him, that I think I should have been as weak as a spirit-wounded child, in all but the entertainment of a thought that we could ever be re-united. That thought I never had. I felt, as he had felt, that all was at an end between us. What his remembrances of me were, I have never known--they were light enough, perhaps, and easily dismissed--but mine of him were as the remembrances of a cherished friend, who was dead. Yes, Steerforth, long removed from the scenes of this poor history! My sorrow may bear involuntary witness against you at the Judgment Throne; but my angry thoughts or my reproaches never will, I know! The news of what had happened soon spread through the town; insomuch that as I passed along the streets next morning, I overheard the people speaking of it at their doors. Many were hard upon her, some few were hard upon him, but towards her second father and her lover there was but one sentiment. Among all kinds of people a respect for them in their distress prevailed, which was full of gentleness and delicacy. The seafaring men kept apart, when those two were seen early, walking with slow steps on the beach; and stood in knots, talking compassionately among themselves. It was on the beach, close down by the sea, that I found them. It would have been easy to perceive that they had not slept all last night, even if Peggotty had failed to tell me of their still sitting just as I left them, when it was broad day. They looked worn; and I thought Mr. Peggotty's head was bowed in one night more than in all the years I had known him. But they were both as grave and steady as the sea itself: then lying beneath a dark sky, waveless--yet with a heavy roll upon it, as if it breathed in its rest--and touched, on the horizon, with a strip of silvery light from the unseen sun. "We have had a mort of talk, sir," said Mr. Peggotty to me, when we had all three walked a little while in silence, "of what we ought and doen't ought to do. But we see our course now." I happened to glance at Ham, then looking out to sea upon the distant light, and a frightful thought came into my mind--not that his face was angry, for it was not; I recal nothing but an expression of stern determination in it--that if ever he encountered Steerforth, he would kill him. "My dooty here, sir," said Mr. Peggotty, "is done. I'm a going to seek my--" he stopped, and went on in a firmer voice: "I'm a going to seek her. That's my dooty evermore." He shook his head when I asked him where he would seek her, and inquired if I were going to London to-morrow? I told him I had not gone to-day, fearing to lose the chance of being of any service to him; but that I was ready to go when he would. "I'll go along with you, sir," he rejoined, "if you're agreeable, to-morrow." We walked again, for a while, in silence. "Ham," he presently resumed, "he'll hold to his present work, and go and live along with my sister. The old boat yonder--" "Will you desert the old boat, Mr. Peggotty?" I gently interposed. "My station, Mas'r Davy," he returned, "ain't there no longer; and if ever a boat foundered, since there was darkness on the face of the deep, that one's gone down. But no, sir, no; I doen't mean as it should be deserted. Fur from that." We walked again for a while, as before, until he explained: "My wishes is, sir, as it shall look, day and night, winter and summer, as it has always looked, since she first know'd it. If ever she should come a wandering back, I wouldn't have the old place seem to cast her off, you understand, but seem to tempt her to draw nigher to 't, and to peep in, maybe, like a ghost, out of the wind and rain, through the old winder, at the old seat by the fire. Then, maybe, Mas'r Davy, seein' none but Missis Gummidge there, she might take heart to creep in, trembling; and might come to be laid down in her old bed, and rest her weary head where it was once so gay." I could not speak to him in reply, though I tried. "Every night," said Mr. Peggotty, "as reg'lar as the night comes, the candle must be stood in its old pane of glass, that if ever she should see it, it may seem to say 'Come back, my child, come back!' If ever there's a knock, Ham (partic'ler a soft knock), arter dark, at your aunt's door, doen't you go nigh it. Let it be her--not you--that sees my fallen child!" He walked a little in front of us, and kept before us for some minutes. During this interval, I glanced at Ham again, and observing the same expression on his face, and his eyes still directed to the distant light, I touched his arm. Twice I called him by his name, in the tone in which I might have tried to rouse a sleeper, before he heeded me. When I at last inquired on what his thoughts were so bent, he replied: "On what's afore me, Mas'r Davy; and over yon." "On the life before you, do you mean?" He had pointed confusedly out to sea. "Ay, Mas'r Davy. I doen't rightly know how 'tis, but from over yon there seemed to me to come--the end of it like;" looking at me as if he were waking, but with the same determined face. "What end?" I asked, possessed by my former fear. "I doen't know," he said thoughtfully; "I was calling to mind that the beginning of it all did take place here--and then the end come. But it's gone! Mas'r Davy," he added; answering, as I think, my look; "you han't no call to be afeerd of me: but I'm kiender muddled; I doen't fare to feel no matters,"--which was as much as to say that he was not himself, and quite confounded. Mr. Peggotty stopping for us to join him: we did so, and said no more. The remembrance of this, in connexion with my former thought, however, haunted me at intervals, even until the inexorable end came at its appointed time. We insensibly approached the old boat, and entered. Mrs. Gummidge, no longer moping in her especial corner, was busy preparing breakfast. She took Mr. Peggotty's hat, and placed his seat for him, and spoke so comfortably and softly, that I hardly knew her. "Dan'l, my good man," said she, "you must eat and drink, and keep up your strength, for without it you'll do nowt. Try, that's a dear soul! And if I disturb you with my clicketten," she meant her chattering, "tell me so, Dan'l, and I won't." When she had served us all, she withdrew to the window, where she sedulously employed herself in repairing some shirts and other clothes belonging to Mr. Peggotty, and neatly folding and packing them in an old oilskin bag, such as sailors carry. Meanwhile, she continued talking, in the same quiet manner: "All times and seasons, you know, Dan'l," said Mrs. Gummidge, "I shall be allus here, and every think will look accordin' to your wishes. I'm a poor scholar, but I shall write to you, odd times, when you're away, and send my letters to Mas'r Davy. Maybe you'll write to me too, Dan'l, odd times, and tell me how you fare to feel upon your lone lorn journies." "You'll be a solitary woman heer, I'm afeerd!" said Mr. Peggotty. "No, no, Dan'l," she returned, "I shan't be that. Doen't you mind me. I shall have enough to do to keep a Beein for you" (Mrs. Gummidge meant a home), "again you come back--to keep a Beein here for any that may hap to come back, Dan'l. In the fine time, I shall set outside the door as I used to do. If any _should_ come nigh, they shall see the old widder woman true to 'em, a long way off." What a change in Mrs. Gummidge in a little time! She was another woman. She was so devoted, she had such a quick perception of what it would be well to say, and what it would be well to leave unsaid, she was so forgetful of herself, and so regardful of the sorrow about her, that I held her in a sort of veneration. The work she did that day! There were many things to be brought up from the beach and stored in the outhouse--as oars, nets, sails, cordage, spars, lobster-pots, bags of ballast, and the like; and though there was abundance of assistance rendered, there being not a pair of working hands on all that shore but would have labored hard for Mr. Peggotty, and been well paid in being asked to do it, yet she persisted, all day long, in toiling under weights that she was quite unequal to, and fagging to and fro on all sorts of unnecessary errands. As to deploring her misfortunes, she appeared to have entirely lost the recollection of ever having had any. She preserved an equable cheerfulness in the midst of her sympathy, which was not the least astonishing part of the change that had come over her. Querulousness was out of the question. I did not even observe her voice to falter, or a tear to escape from her eyes, the whole day through, until twilight; when she and I and Mr. Peggotty being alone together, and he having fallen asleep in perfect exhaustion, she broke into a half-suppressed fit of sobbing and crying, and taking me to the door, said, "Ever bless you, Mas'r Davy, be a friend to him, poor dear!" Then, she immediately ran out of the house to wash her face, in order that she might sit quietly beside him, and be found at work there, when he should awake. In short I left her, when I went away at night, the prop and staff of Mr. Peggotty's affliction; and I could not meditate enough upon the lesson that I read in Mrs. Gummidge, and the new experience she unfolded to me. It was between nine and ten o'clock when, strolling in a melancholy manner through the town, I stopped at Mr. Omer's door. Mr. Omer had taken it so much to heart, his daughter told me, that he had been very low and poorly all day, and had gone to bed without his pipe. "A deceitful, bad-hearted girl," said Mrs. Joram. "There was no good in her, ever!" "Don't say so," I returned. "You don't think so." "Yes, I do!" cried Mrs. Joram, angrily. "No, no," said I. Mrs. Joram tossed her head, endeavouring to be very stern and cross; but she could not command her softer self, and began to cry. I was young, to be sure; but I thought much the better of her for this sympathy, and fancied it became her, as a virtuous wife and mother, very well indeed. "What will she ever do!" sobbed Minnie. "Where will she go! What will become of her! Oh, how could she be so cruel, to herself and him!" I remembered the time when Minnie was a young and pretty girl; and I was glad that she remembered it too, so feelingly. "My little Minnie," said Mrs. Joram, "has only just now been got to sleep. Even in her sleep she is sobbing for Em'ly. All day long, little Minnie has cried for her, and asked me, over and over again, whether Em'ly was wicked? What can I say to her, when Em'ly tied a ribbon off her own neck round little Minnie's the last night she was here, and laid her head down on the pillow beside her till she was fast asleep! The ribbon's round my little Minnie's neck now. It ought not to be, perhaps, but what can I do? Em'ly is very bad, but they were fond of one another. And the child knows nothing!" Mrs. Joram was so unhappy, that her husband came out to take care of her. Leaving them together, I went home to Peggotty's; more melancholy myself, if possible, than I had been yet. That good creature--I mean Peggotty--all untired by her late anxieties and sleepless nights, was at her brother's, where she meant to stay till morning. An old woman, who had been employed about the house for some weeks past, while Peggotty had been unable to attend to it, was the house's only other occupant besides myself. As I had no occasion for her services, I sent her to bed, by no means against her will; and sat down before the kitchen fire a little while, to think about all this. I was blending it with the deathbed of the late Mr. Barkis, and was driving out with the tide towards the distance at which Ham had looked so singularly in the morning, when I was recalled from my wanderings by a knock at the door. There was a knocker upon the door, but it was not that which made the sound. The tap was from a hand, and low down upon the door, as if it were given by a child. It made me start as much as if it had been the knock of a footman to a person of distinction. I opened the door; and at first looked down, to my amazement, on nothing but a great umbrella that appeared to be walking about of itself. But presently I discovered underneath it, Miss Mowcher. I might not have been prepared to give the little creature a very kind reception, if, on her removing the umbrella, which her utmost efforts were unable to shut up, she had shown me the "volatile" expression of face which had made so great an impression on me at our first and last meeting. But her face, as she turned it up to mine, was so earnest; and when I relieved her of the umbrella (which would have been an inconvenient one for the Irish Giant), she wrung her little hands in such an afflicted manner; that I rather inclined towards her. "Miss Mowcher!" said I, after glancing up and down the empty street, without distinctly knowing what I expected to see besides; "how do you come here? What is the matter?" She motioned to me, with her short right arm, to shut the umbrella for her; and passing me hurriedly, went into the kitchen. When I had closed the door, and followed, with the umbrella in my hand, I found her sitting on the corner of the fender--it was a low iron one, with two flat bars at top to stand plates upon--in the shadow of the boiler, swaying herself backwards and forwards, and chafing her hands upon her knees like a person in pain. Quite alarmed at being the only recipient of this untimely visit, and the only spectator of this portentous behaviour, I exclaimed again: "Pray tell me, Miss Mowcher, what is the matter! are you ill?" "My dear young soul," returned Miss Mowcher, squeezing her hands upon her heart one over the other. "I am ill here, I am very ill. To think that it should come to this, when I might have known it and perhaps prevented it, if I hadn't been a thoughtless fool!" Again her large bonnet (very disproportionate to her figure) went backwards and forwards, in her swaying of her little body to and fro; while a most gigantic bonnet rocked, in unison with it, upon the wall. "I am surprised," I began, "to see you so distressed and serious"--when she interrupted me. "Yes, it's always so!" she said. "They are all surprised, these inconsiderate young people, fairly and full grown, to see any natural feeling in a little thing like me! They make a plaything of me, use me for their amusement, throw me away when they are tired, and wonder that I feel more than a toy horse or a wooden soldier! Yes, yes, that's the way. The old way!" "It may be, with others," I returned, "but I do assure you it is not with me. Perhaps I ought not to be at all surprised to see you as you are now: I know so little of you. I said, without consideration, what I thought." "What can I do?" returned the little woman, standing up, and holding out her arms to show herself. "See! What I am, my father was; and my sister is; and my brother is. I have worked for sister and brother these many years--hard, Mr. Copperfield--all day. I must live. I do no harm. If there are people so unreflecting or so cruel, as to make a jest of me, what is left for me to do but to make a jest of myself, them, and every thing? If I do so, for the time, whose fault is that? Mine?" No. Not Miss Mowcher's, I perceived. "If I had shown myself a sensitive dwarf to your false friend," pursued the little woman, shaking her head at me, with reproachful earnestness, "how much of his help or good will do you think _I_ should ever have had? If little Mowcher (who had no hand, young gentleman, in the making of herself) addressed herself to him, or the like of him, because of her misfortunes, when do you suppose her small voice would have been heard? Little Mowcher would have as much need to live, if she was the bitterest and dullest of pigmies; but she couldn't do it. No. She might whistle for her bread and butter till she died of Air!" Miss Mowcher sat down on the fender again, and took out her handkerchief, and wiped her eyes. "Be thankful for me, if you have a kind heart as I think you have," she said, "that while I know well what I am, I can be cheerful and endure it all. I am thankful for myself, at any rate, that I can find my tiny way through the world, without being beholden to any one; and that in return for all that is thrown at me, in folly or vanity, as I go along, I can throw bubbles back. If I don't brood over all I want, it is the better for me, and not the worse for any one. If I am a plaything for you giants, be gentle with me." Miss Mowcher replaced her handkerchief in her pocket, looking at me with very intent expression all the while, and pursued: "I saw you in the street just now. You may suppose I am not able to walk as fast as you, with my short legs and short breath, and I couldn't overtake you; but I guessed where you came, and came after you. I have been here before, to-day, but the good woman wasn't at home." "Do you know her?" I demanded. "I know _of_ her, and about her," she replied, "from Omer and Joram. I was there at seven o'clock this morning. Do you remember what Steerforth said to me about this unfortunate girl, that time when I saw you both at the inn?" The great bonnet on Miss Mowcher's head, and the greater bonnet on the wall, began to go backwards and forwards again when she asked this question. I remembered very well what she referred to, having had it in my thoughts many times that day. I told her so. "May the Father of all Evil confound him," said the little woman, holding up her forefinger between me and her sparkling eyes, "and ten times more confound that wicked servant; but I believed it was _you_ who had a boyish passion for her!" "I?" I repeated. "Child, child! In the name of blind ill-fortune," cried Miss Mowcher, wringing her hands impatiently, as she went to and fro again upon the fender, "why did you praise her so, and blush, and look disturbed?" I could not conceal from myself that I had done this, though for a reason very different from her supposition. "What did I know?" said Miss Mowcher, taking out her handkerchief again, and giving one little stamp on the ground whenever, at short intervals, she applied it to her eyes with both hands at once. "He was crossing you and wheedling you, I saw; and you were soft wax in his hands, I saw. Had I left the room a minute, when his man told me that 'Young Innocence' (so he called you, and you may call him 'Old Guilt' all the days of your life) had set his heart upon her, and she was giddy and liked him, but his master was resolved that no harm should come of it--more for your sake than for hers--and that that was their business here? How could I _but_ believe him? I saw Steerforth soothe and please you by his praise of her! You were the first to mention her name. You owned to an old admiration of her. You were hot and cold, and red and white, all at once when I spoke to you of her. What could I think--what _did_ I think--but that you were a young libertine in everything but experience, and had fallen into hands that had experience enough, and could manage you (having the fancy) for your own good? Oh! oh! oh! They were afraid of my finding out the truth," exclaimed Miss Mowcher, getting off the fender, and trotting up and down the kitchen with her two short arms distressfully lifted up, "because I am a sharp little thing--I need be, to get through the world at all!--and they deceived me altogether, and I gave the poor unfortunate girl a letter, which I fully believe was the beginning of her ever speaking to Littimer, who was left behind on purpose!" I stood amazed at the revelation of all this perfidy, looking at Miss Mowcher as she walked up and down the kitchen until she was out of breath: when she sat upon the fender again, and, drying her face with her handkerchief, shook her head for a long time, without otherwise moving, and without breaking silence. "My country rounds," she added at length, "brought me to Norwich, Mr. Copperfield, the night before last. What I happened to find out there, about their secret way of coming and going, without you--which was strange--led to my suspecting something wrong. I got into the coach from London last night, as it came through Norwich, and was here this morning. Oh, oh, oh! too late!" Poor little Mowcher turned so chilly after all her crying and fretting, that she turned round on the fender, putting her poor little wet feet in among the ashes to warm them, and sat looking at the fire, like a large doll. I sat in a chair on the other side of the hearth, lost in unhappy reflections, and looking at the fire too, and sometimes at her. "I must go," she said at last, rising as she spoke. "It's late. You don't mistrust me?" Meeting her sharp glance, which was as sharp as ever when she asked me, I could not on that short challenge answer no, quite frankly. "Come!" said she, accepting the offer of my hand to help her over the fender, and looking wistfully up into my face, "you know you wouldn't mistrust me, if I was a full-sized woman!" I felt that there was much truth in this; and I felt rather ashamed of myself. "You are a young man," she said, nodding. "Take a word of advice, even from three foot nothing. Try not to associate bodily defects with mental, my good friend, except for a solid reason." She had got over the fender now, and I had got over my suspicion. I told her that I believed she had given me a faithful account of herself, and that we had both been hapless instruments in designing hands. She thanked me, and said I was a good fellow. "Now, mind!" she exclaimed, turning back on her way to the door, and looking shrewdly at me, with her forefinger up again. "I have some reason to suspect, from what I have heard--my ears are always open; I can't afford to spare what powers I have--that they are gone abroad. But if ever they return, if ever any one of them returns, while I am alive, I am more likely than another, going about as I do, to find it out soon. Whatever I know, you shall know. If ever I can do anything to serve the poor betrayed girl, I will do it faithfully, please Heaven! And Littimer had better have a bloodhound at his back, than little Mowcher!" I placed implicit faith in this last statement, when I marked the look with which it was accompanied. "Trust me no more, but trust me no less, than you would trust a full-sized woman," said the little creature, touching me appealingly on the wrist. "If ever you see me again, unlike what I am now, and like what I was when you first saw me, observe what company I am in. Call to mind that I am a very helpless and defenceless little thing. Think of me at home with my brother like myself and sister like myself, when my day's work is done. Perhaps you won't, then, be very hard upon me, or surprised if I can be distressed and serious. Good night!" I gave Miss Mowcher my hand, with a very different opinion of her from that which I had hitherto entertained, and opened the door to let her out. It was not a trifling business to get the great umbrella up, and properly balanced in her grasp; but at last I successfully accomplished this, and saw it go bobbing down the street through the rain, without the least appearance of having anybody underneath it, except when a heavier fall than usual from some overcharged water-spout sent it toppling over, on one side, and discovered Miss Mowcher struggling violently to get it right. After making one or two sallies to her relief, which were rendered futile by the umbrella's hopping on again, like an immense bird, before I could reach it, I came in, went to bed, and slept till morning. In the morning I was joined by Mr. Peggotty and by my old nurse, and we went at an early hour to the coach office, where Mrs. Gummidge and Ham were waiting to take leave of us. "Mas'r Davy," Ham whispered, drawing me aside, while Mr. Peggotty was stowing his bag among the luggage, "his life is quite broke up. He doen't know wheer he's going; he doen't know what's afore him; he's bound upon a voyage that'll last, on and off, all the rest of his days, take my wured for't, unless he finds what he's a seeking of. I am sure you'll be a friend to him, Mas'r Davy?" "Trust me, I will indeed," said I, shaking hands with Ham earnestly. "Thankee. Thankee, very kind, sir. One thing furder. I'm in good employ, you know, Mas'r Davy, and I han't no way now of spending what I gets. Money's of no use to me no more, except to live. If you can lay it out for him, I shall do my work with a better art. Though as to that, sir," and he spoke very steadily and mildly, "you're not to think but I shall work at all times, like a man, and act the best that lays in my power!" I told him I was well convinced of it; and I hinted that I hoped the time might even come, when he would cease to lead the lonely life he naturally contemplated now. "No sir," he said, shaking his head, "all that's past and over with me, sir. No one can never fill the place that's empty. But you'll bear in mind about the money, as theer's at all times some laying by for him?" Reminding him of the fact, that Mr. Peggotty derived a steady, though certainly a very moderate income from the bequest of his late brother-in-law, I promised to do so. We then took leave of each other. I cannot leave him, even now, without remembering with a pang, at once his modest fortitude and his great sorrow. As to Mrs. Gummidge, if I were to endeavour to describe how she ran down the street by the side of the coach, seeing nothing but Mr. Peggotty on the roof, through the tears she tried to repress, and dashing herself against the people who were coming in the opposite direction, I should enter on a task of some difficulty. Therefore I had better leave her sitting on a baker's door-step, out of breath, with no shape at all remaining in her bonnet, and one of her shoes off, lying on the pavement at a considerable distance. When we got to our journey's end, our first pursuit was to look about for a little lodging for Peggotty, where her brother could have a bed. We were so fortunate as to find one, of a very clean and cheap description, over a chandler's shop, only two streets removed from me. When we had engaged this domicile, I bought some cold meat at an eating-house, and took my fellow-travellers home to tea; a proceeding, I regret to state, which did not meet with Mrs. Crupp's approval, but quite the contrary. I ought to observe, however, in explanation of that lady's state of mind, that she was much offended by Peggotty's tucking up her widow's gown before she had been ten minutes in the place, and setting to work to dust my bed-room. This Mrs. Crupp regarded in the light of a liberty, and a liberty, she said, was a thing she never allowed. Mr. Peggotty had made a communication to me on the way to London, for which I was not unprepared. It was, that he purposed first seeing Mrs. Steerforth. As I felt bound to assist him in this, and also to mediate between them; with the view of sparing the mother's feelings as much as possible, I wrote to her that night. I told her as mildly as I could what his wrong was, and what my own share in his injury. I said he was a man in very common life, but of a most gentle and upright character; and that I ventured to express a hope that she would not refuse to see him in his heavy trouble. I mentioned two o'clock in the afternoon as the hour of our coming, and I sent the letter myself by the first coach in the morning. At the appointed time, we stood at the door--the door of that house where I had been, a few days since, so happy: where my youthful confidence and warmth of heart had been yielded up so freely: which was closed against me henceforth: which was now a waste, a ruin. No Littimer appeared. The pleasanter face which had replaced his, on the occasion of my last visit, answered to our summons, and went before us to the drawing-room. Mrs. Steerforth was sitting there. Rosa Dartle glided, as we went in, from another part of the room, and stood behind her chair. [Illustration: Mr. Peggotty and Mrs. Steerforth.] I saw, directly, in his mother's face, that she knew from himself what he had done. It was very pale; and bore the traces of deeper emotion than my letter alone, weakened by the doubts her fondness would have raised upon it, would have been likely to create. I thought her more like him than ever I had thought her; and I felt, rather than saw, that the resemblance was not lost on my companion. She sat upright in her arm-chair, with a stately, immoveable, passionless air, that it seemed as if nothing could disturb. She looked very stedfastly at Mr. Peggotty when he stood before her; and he looked, quite as stedfastly, at her. Rosa Dartle's keen glance comprehended all of us. For some moments not a word was spoken. She motioned to Mr. Peggotty to be seated. He said, in a low voice, "I shouldn't feel it nat'ral, ma'am, to sit down in this house. I'd sooner stand." And this was succeeded by another silence, which she broke thus: "I know, with deep regret, what has brought you here. What do you want of me? What do you ask me to do?" He put his hat under his arm, and feeling in his breast for Emily's letter, took it out, unfolded it, and gave it to her. "Please to read that, ma'am. That's my niece's hand!" She read it, in the same stately and impassive way,--untouched by its contents, as far as I could see,--and returned it to him. "'Unless he brings me back a lady,'" said Mr. Peggotty, tracing out that part with his finger. "I come to know, ma'am, whether he will keep his wured?" "No," she returned. "Why not?" said Mr. Peggotty. "It is impossible. He would disgrace himself. You cannot fail to know that she is far below him." "Raise her up!" said Mr. Peggotty. "She is uneducated and ignorant." "Maybe she's not; maybe she is," said Mr. Peggotty. "_I_ think not, ma'am; but I'm no judge of them things. Teach her better!" "Since you oblige me to speak more plainly, which I am very unwilling to do, her humble connexions would render such a thing impossible, if nothing else did." "Hark to this, ma'am," he returned, slowly and quietly. "You know what it is to love your child. So do I. If she was a hundred times my child, I couldn't love her more. You doen't know what it is to lose your child. I do. All the heaps of riches in the wureld would be nowt to me (if they was mine) to buy her back! But, save her from this disgrace, and she shall never be disgraced by us. Not one of us that she's growed up among, not one of us that's lived along with her, and had her for their all in all, these many year, will ever look upon her pritty face again. We'll be content to let her be; we'll be content to think of her, far off, as if she was underneath another sun and sky; we'll be content to trust her to her husband,--to her little children p'raps,--and bide the time when all of us shall be alike in quality afore our God!" The rugged eloquence with which he spoke, was not devoid of all effect. She still preserved her proud manner, but there was a touch of softness in her voice, as she answered: "I justify nothing. I make no counter-accusations. But I am sorry to repeat, it is impossible. Such a marriage would irretrievably blight my son's career, and ruin his prospects. Nothing is more certain than that it never can take place, and never will. If there is any other compensation--" "I am looking at the likeness of the face," interrupted Mr. Peggotty, with a steady but a kindling eye, "that has looked at me, in my home, at my fireside, in my boat--wheer not?--smiling and friendly, when it was so treacherous, that I go half wild when I think of it. If the likeness of that face don't turn to burning fire, at the thought of offering money to me for my child's blight and ruin, it's as bad. I doen't know, being a lady's, but what it's worse." She changed now, in a moment. An angry flush overspread her features; and she said, in an intolerant manner, grasping the arm-chair tightly with her hands: "What compensation can you make to _me_ for opening such a pit between me and my son? What is your love to mine? What is your separation to ours?" Miss Dartle softly touched her, and bent down her head to whisper, but she would not hear a word. "No, Rosa, not a word! Let the man listen to what I say! My son, who has been the object of my life, to whom its every thought has been devoted, whom I have gratified from a child in every wish, from whom I have had no separate existence since his birth,--to take up in a moment with a miserable girl, and avoid me! To repay my confidence with systematic deception, for her sake, and quit me for her! To set this wretched fancy, against his mother's claims upon his duty, love, respect, gratitude--claims that every day and hour of his life should have strengthened into ties that nothing could be proof against! Is this no injury?" Again Rosa Dartle tried to soothe her; again ineffectually. "I say, Rosa, not a word! If he can stake his all upon the lightest object, I can stake my all upon a greater purpose. Let him go where he will, with the means that my love has secured to him! Does he think to reduce me by long absence? He knows his mother very little if he does. Let him put away his whim now, and he is welcome back. Let him not put her away now, and he never shall come near me, living or dying, while I can raise my hand to make a sign against it, unless, being rid of her for ever, he comes humbly to me and begs for my forgiveness. This is my right. This is the acknowledgment I _will have_. This is the separation that there is between us! And is this," she added, looking at her visitor with the proud intolerant air with which she had begun, "no injury?" While I heard and saw the mother as she said these words, I seemed to hear and see the son, defying them. All that I had ever seen in him of an unyielding, wilful spirit, I saw in her. All the understanding that I had now of his misdirected energy, became an understanding of her character too, and a perception that it was, in its strongest springs, the same. She now observed to me, aloud, resuming her former restraint, that it was useless to hear more, or to say more, and that she begged to put an end to the interview. She rose with an air of dignity to leave the room, when Mr. Peggotty signified that it was needless. "Doen't fear me being any hindrance to you, I have no more to say, ma'am," he remarked, as he moved towards the door. "I come heer with no hope, and I take away no hope. I have done what I thowt should be done, but I never looked fur any good to come of my stan'ning where I do. This has been too evil a house fur me and mine, fur me to be in my right senses and expect it." With this, we departed; leaving her standing by her elbow chair, a picture of a noble presence and a handsome face. We had, on our way out, to cross a paved hall, with glass sides and roof, over which a vine was trained. Its leaves and shoots were green then, and the day being sunny, a pair of glass doors leading to the garden were thrown open. Rosa Dartle, entering this way with a noiseless step, when we were close to them, addressed herself to me: "You do well," she said, "indeed, to bring this fellow here!" Such a concentration of rage and scorn as darkened her face, and flashed in her jet-black eyes, I could not have thought compressible even into that face. The scar made by the hammer was, as usual in this excited state of her features, strongly marked. When the throbbing I had seen before, came into it as I looked at her, she absolutely lifted up her hand, and struck it. "This is a fellow," she said, "to champion and bring here, is he not? You are a true man!" "Miss Dartle," I returned, "you are surely not so unjust as to condemn _me_!" "Why do you bring division between these two mad creatures?" she returned. "Don't you know that they are both mad with their own self-will and pride?" "Is it my doing?" I returned. "Is it your doing!" she retorted. "Why do you bring this man here?" "He is a deeply-injured man, Miss Dartle," I replied. "You may not know it." "I know that James Steerforth," she said, with her hand on her bosom, as if to prevent the storm that was raging there, from being loud, "has a false, corrupt heart, and is a traitor. But what need I know or care about this fellow, and his common niece?" "Miss Dartle," I returned, "you deepen the injury. It is sufficient already. I will only say, at parting, that you do him a great wrong." "I do him no wrong," she returned. "They are a depraved worthless set. I would have her whipped!" Mr. Peggotty passed on, without a word, and went out at the door. "Oh, shame, Miss Dartle! shame!" I said indignantly. "How can you bear to trample on his undeserved affliction!" "I would trample on them all," she answered. "I would have his house pulled down. I would have her branded on the face, drest in rags, and cast out in the streets to starve. If I had the power to sit in judgment on her, I would see it done. See it done? I would do it! I detest her. If I ever could reproach her with her infamous condition, I would go anywhere to do so. If I could hunt her to her grave, I would. If there was any word of comfort that would be a solace to her in her dying hour, and only I possessed it, I wouldn't part with it for Life itself." The mere vehemence of her words can convey, I am sensible, but a weak impression of the passion by which she was possessed, and which made itself articulate in her whole figure, though her voice, instead of being raised, was lower than usual. No description I could give of her would do justice to my recollection of her, or to her entire deliverance of herself to her anger. I have seen passion in many forms, but I have never seen it in such a form as that. When I joined Mr. Peggotty, he was walking slowly and thoughtfully down the hill. He told me, as soon as I came up with him, that having now discharged his mind of what he had purposed doing in London, he meant "to set out on his travels," that night. I asked him where he meant to go? He only answered, "I'm a going, sir, to seek my niece." We went back to the little lodging over the chandler's shop, and there I found an opportunity of repeating to Peggotty what he had said to me. She informed me, in return, that he had said the same to her that morning. She knew no more than I did, where he was going, but she thought he had some project shaped out in his mind. I did not like to leave him, under such circumstances, and we all three dined together off a beefsteak pie--which was one of the many good things for which Peggotty was famous--and which was curiously flavoured on this occasion, I recollect well, by a miscellaneous taste of tea, coffee, butter, bacon, cheese, new loaves, firewood, candles, and walnut ketchup, continually ascending from the shop. After dinner we sat for an hour or so near the window, without talking much; and then Mr. Peggotty got up, and brought his oilskin bag and his stout stick, and laid them on the table. He accepted, from his sister's stock of ready money, a small sum on account of his legacy; barely enough, I should have thought, to keep him for a month. He promised to communicate with me, when anything befel him; and he slung his bag about him, took his hat and stick, and bade us both "Good bye!" "All good attend you, dear old woman," he said, embracing Peggotty, "and you too, Mas'r Davy!" shaking hands with me. "I'm a going to seek her, fur and wide. If she should come home while I'm away,--but ah, that ain't like to be!--or if I should bring her back, my meaning is, that she and me shall live and die where no one can't reproach her. If any hurt should come to me, remember that the last words I left for her was, 'My unchanged love is with my darling child, and I forgive her!'" He said this solemnly, bare-headed; then, putting on his hat, he went down the stairs, and away. We followed to the door. It was a warm, dusty evening, just the time when, in the great main thoroughfare out of which that bye-way turned, there was a temporary lull in the eternal tread of feet upon the pavement, and a strong red sunshine. He turned, alone, at the corner of our shady street, into a glow of light, in which we lost him. Rarely did that hour of the evening come, rarely did I wake at night, rarely did I look up at the moon, or stars, or watch the falling rain, or hear the wind, but I thought of his solitary figure toiling on, poor pilgrim, and recalled the words: "I'm a going to seek her, fur and wide. If any hurt should come to me, remember that the last words I left for her was, 'My unchanged love is with my darling child, and I forgive her!'" CHAPTER XXXIII. BLISSFUL. All this time, I had gone on loving Dora, harder than ever. Her idea was my refuge in disappointment and distress, and made some amends to me, even for the loss of my friend. The more I pitied myself, or pitied others, the more I sought for consolation in the image of Dora. The greater the accumulation of deceit and trouble in the world, the brighter and the purer shone the star of Dora high above the world. I don't think I had any definite idea where Dora came from, or in what degree she was related to a higher order of beings; but I am quite sure I should have scouted the notion of her being simply human, like any other young lady, with indignation and contempt. If I may so express it, I was steeped in Dora. I was not merely over head and ears in love with her, but I was saturated through and through. Enough love might have been wrung out of me, metaphorically speaking, to drown anybody in; and yet there would have remained enough within me, and all over me, to pervade my entire existence. The first thing I did, on my own account, when I came back, was to take a night-walk to Norwood, and, like the subject of a venerable riddle of my childhood to go "round and round the house, without ever touching the house," thinking about Dora. I believe the theme of this incomprehensible conundrum was the moon. No matter what it was, I, the moon-struck slave of Dora, perambulated round and round the house and garden for two hours, looking through crevices in the palings, getting my chin by dint of violent exertion above the rusty nails on the top, blowing kisses at the lights in the windows, and romantically calling on the night, at intervals, to shield my Dora--I don't exactly know what from, I suppose from fire. Perhaps from mice, to which she had a great objection. My love was so much on my mind, and it was so natural to me to confide in Peggotty, when I found her again by my side of an evening with the old set of industrial implements, busily making the tour of my wardrobe, that I imparted to her, in a sufficiently roundabout way, my great secret. Peggotty was strongly interested, but I could not get her into my view of the case at all. She was audaciously prejudiced in my favour, and quite unable to understand why I should have any misgivings, or be low-spirited about it. 'The young lady might think herself well off,' she observed, 'to have such a beau. And as to her Pa,' she said, 'what _did_ the gentleman expect, for gracious sake!' I observed, however, that Mr. Spenlow's Proctorial gown and stiff cravat took Peggotty down a little, and inspired her with a greater reverence for the man who was gradually becoming more and more etherealized in my eyes every day, and about whom a reflected radiance seemed to me to beam when he sat erect in Court among his papers, like a little light-house in a sea of stationery. And by-the-by, it used to be uncommonly strange to me to consider, I remember, as I sat in Court too, how those dim old judges and doctors wouldn't have cared for Dora, if they had known her; how they wouldn't have gone out of their senses with rapture, if marriage with Dora had been proposed to them; how Dora might have sung, and played upon that glorified guitar, until she led _me_ to the verge of madness, yet not have tempted one of those slow-goers an inch out of his road! I despised them, to a man. Frozen-out old gardeners in the flower-beds of the heart, I took a personal offence against them all. The Bench was nothing to me but an insensible blunderer. The Bar had no more tenderness or poetry in it, than the Bar of a public-house. Taking the management of Peggotty's affairs into my own hands, with no little pride, I proved the will, and came to a settlement with the Legacy Duty-office, and took her to the Bank, and soon got everything into an orderly train. We varied the legal character of these proceedings by going to see some perspiring Wax-work, in Fleet Street (melted, I should hope, these twenty years); and by visiting Miss Linwood's Exhibition, which I remember as a Mausoleum of needlework, favorable to self-examination and repentance; and by inspecting the Tower of London; and going to the top of St. Paul's. All these wonders afforded Peggotty as much pleasure as she was able to enjoy, under existing circumstances: except, I think, St. Paul's, which, from her long attachment to her workbox, became a rival of the picture on the lid, and was, in some particulars, vanquished, she considered, by that work of art. Peggotty's business, which was what we used to call "common form business" in the Commons (and very light and lucrative the common-form business was), being settled, I took her down to the office one morning to pay her bill. Mr. Spenlow had stepped out, old Tiffey said, to get a gentleman sworn for a marriage license; but as I knew he would be back directly, our place lying close to the Surrogate's, and to the Vicar-General's office too, I told Peggotty to wait. We were a little like undertakers, in the Commons, as regarded Probate transactions; generally making it a rule to look more or less cut up, when we had to deal with clients in mourning. In a similar feeling of delicacy, we were always blithe and light-hearted with the license clients. Therefore I hinted to Peggotty that she would find Mr. Spenlow much recovered from the shock of Mr. Barkis's decease; and indeed he came in like a bridegroom. But neither Peggotty nor I had eyes for him, when we saw, in company with him, Mr. Murdstone. He was very little changed. His hair looked as thick, and was certainly as black, as ever; and his glance was as little to be trusted as of old. "Ah, Copperfield?" said Mr. Spenlow. "You know this gentleman, I believe?" I made my gentleman a distant bow, and Peggotty barely recognised him. He was, at first, somewhat disconcerted to meet us two together; but quickly decided what to do, and came up to me. "I hope," he said, "that you are doing well?" "It can hardly be interesting to you," said I. "Yes, if you wish to know." We looked at each other, and he addressed himself to Peggotty. "And you," said he. "I am sorry to observe that you have lost your husband." "It's not the first loss I have had in my life, Mr. Murdstone," replied Peggotty, trembling from head to foot. "I am glad to hope that there is nobody to blame for this one,--nobody to answer for it." "Ha!" said he; "that's a comfortable reflection. You have done your duty?" "I have not worn any body's life away," said Peggotty, "I am thankful to think! No, Mr. Murdstone, I have not worrited and frightened any sweet creetur to an early grave!" He eyed her gloomily--remorsefully I thought--for an instant; and said, turning his head towards me, but looking at my feet instead of my face: "We are not likely to encounter soon again;--a source of satisfaction to us both, no doubt, for such meetings as this can never be agreeable. I do not expect that you, who always rebelled against my just authority, exerted for your benefit and reformation, should owe me any good will now. There is an antipathy between us----" "An old one, I believe?" said I, interrupting him. He smiled, and shot as evil a glance at me as could come from his dark eyes. "It rankled in your baby breast," he said. "It embittered the life of your poor mother. You are right. I hope you may do better, yet; I hope you may correct yourself." Here he ended the dialogue, which had been carried on in a low voice, in a corner of the outer office, by passing into Mr. Spenlow's room, and saying aloud, in his smoothest manner: "Gentlemen of Mr. Spenlow's profession are accustomed to family differences, and know how complicated and difficult they always are!" With that, he paid the money for his license; and, receiving it neatly folded from Mr. Spenlow, together with a shake of the hand, and a polite wish for his happiness and the lady's, went out of the office. I might have had more difficulty in constraining myself to be silent under his words, if I had had less difficulty in impressing upon Peggotty (who was only angry on my account, good creature!) that we were not in a place for recrimination, and that I besought her to hold her peace. She was so unusually roused, that I was glad to compound for an affectionate hug, elicited by this revival in her mind of our old injuries, and to make the best I could of it, before Mr. Spenlow and the clerks. Mr. Spenlow did not appear to know what the connexion between Mr. Murdstone and myself was; which I was glad of, for I could not bear to acknowledge him, even in my own breast, remembering what I did of the history of my poor mother. Mr. Spenlow seemed to think, if he thought anything about the matter, that my aunt was the leader of the state party in our family, and that there was a rebel party commanded by somebody else--so I gathered at least from what he said, while we were waiting for Mr. Tiffey to make out Peggotty's bill of costs. "Miss Trotwood," he remarked, "is very firm, no doubt, and not likely to give way to opposition. I have an admiration for her character, and I may congratulate you, Copperfield, on being on the right side. Differences between relations are much to be deplored--but they are extremely general--and the great thing is, to be on the right side:" meaning, I take it, on the side of the moneyed interest. "Rather a good marriage this, I believe?" said Mr. Spenlow. I explained that I knew nothing about it. "Indeed!" he said. "Speaking from the few words Mr. Murdstone dropped--as a man frequently does on these occasions--and from what Miss Murdstone let fall, I should say it was rather a good marriage." "Do you mean that there is money, sir?" I asked. "Yes," said Mr. Spenlow, "I understand there's money. Beauty too, I am told." "Indeed? Is his new wife young?" "Just of age," said Mr. Spenlow. "So lately, that I should think they had been waiting for that." "Lord deliver her!" said Peggotty. So very emphatically and unexpectedly, that we were all three discomposed; until Tiffey came in with the bill. Old Tiffey soon appeared, however, and handed it to Mr. Spenlow, to look over. Mr. Spenlow, settling his chin in his cravat and rubbing it softly, went over the items with a deprecatory air--as if it were all Jorkins's doing--and handed it back to Tiffey with a bland sigh. "Yes," he said. "That's right. Quite right. I should have been extremely happy, Copperfield, to have limited these charges to the actual expenditure out of pocket; but it is an irksome incident in my professional life, that I am not at liberty to consult my own wishes. I have a partner--Mr. Jorkins." As he said this with a gentle melancholy, which was the next thing to making no charge at all, I expressed my acknowledgments on Peggotty's behalf, and paid Tiffey in bank notes. Peggotty then retired to her lodging, and Mr. Spenlow and I went into Court, where we had a divorce-suit coming on, under an ingenious little statute (repealed now, I believe, but in virtue of which I have seen several marriages annulled), of which the merits were these. The husband, whose name was Thomas Benjamin, had taken out his marriage license as Thomas only; suppressing the Benjamin, in case he should not find himself as comfortable as he expected. _Not_ finding himself as comfortable as he expected, or being a little fatigued with his wife, poor fellow, he now came forward by a friend, after being married a year or two, and declared that his name was Thomas Benjamin, and therefore he was not married at all. Which the Court confirmed, to his great satisfaction. I must say that I had my doubts about the strict justice of this, and was not even frightened out of them by the bushel of wheat which reconciles all anomalies. But Mr. Spenlow argued the matter with me. He said, Look at the world, there was good and evil in that; look at the ecclesiastical law, there was good and evil in _that_. It was all part of a system. Very good. There you were! I had not the hardihood to suggest to Dora's father that possibly we might even improve the world a little, if we got up early in the morning, and took off our coats to the work; but I confessed that I thought we might improve the Commons. Mr. Spenlow replied that he would particularly advise me to dismiss that idea from my mind, as not being worthy of my gentlemanly character; but that he would be glad to hear from me of what improvement I thought the Commons susceptible? Taking that part of the Commons which happened to be nearest to us--for our man was unmarried by this time, and we were out of Court, and strolling past the Prerogative Office--I submitted that I thought the Prerogative Office rather a queerly managed institution. Mr. Spenlow inquired in what respect? I replied, with all due deference to his experience (but with more deference, I am afraid, to his being Dora's father), that perhaps it was a little nonsensical that the Registry of that Court, containing the original wills of all persons leaving effects within the immense province of Canterbury, for three whole centuries, should be an accidental building, never designed for the purpose, leased by the registrars for their own private emolument, unsafe, not even ascertained to be fire-proof, choked with the important documents it held, and positively, from the roof to the basement, a mercenary speculation of the registrars, who took great fees from the public, and crammed the public's wills away anyhow and anywhere, having no other object than to get rid of them cheaply. That, perhaps, it was a little unreasonable that these registrars in the receipt of profits amounting to eight or nine thousand pounds a year (to say nothing of the profits of the deputy registrars, and clerks of seats), should not be obliged to spend a little of that money, in finding a reasonably safe place for the important documents which all classes of people were compelled to hand over to them, whether they would or no. That, perhaps, it was a little unjust that all the great offices in this great office, should be magnificent sinecures, while the unfortunate working-clerks in the cold dark room up-stairs were the worst rewarded, and the least considered men, doing important services, in London. That perhaps it was a little indecent that the principal registrar of all, whose duty it was to find the public, constantly resorting to this place, all needful accommodation, should be an enormous sinecurist in virtue of that post (and might be, besides, a clergyman, a pluralist, the holder of a stall in a cathedral, and what not),--while the public was put to the inconvenience of which we had a specimen every afternoon when the office was busy, and which we knew to be quite monstrous. That, perhaps, in short, this Prerogative Office of the diocese of Canterbury was altogether such a pestilent job, and such a pernicious absurdity, that but for its being squeezed away, in a corner of Saint Paul's Churchyard, which few people knew, it must have been turned completely inside out, and upside down, long ago. Mr. Spenlow smiled as I became modestly warm on the subject, and then argued this question with me as he had argued the other. He said, what was it after all? It was a question of feeling. If the public felt that their wills were in safe keeping, and took it for granted that the office was not to be made better, who was the worse for it? Nobody? Who was the better for it? All the Sinecurists. Very well. Then the good predominated. It might not be a perfect system; nothing _was_ perfect; but what he objected to, was, the insertion of the wedge. Under the Prerogative Office, the country had been glorious. Insert the wedge into the Prerogative Office, and the country would cease to be glorious. He considered it the principle of a gentleman to take things as he found them; and he had no doubt the Prerogative Office would last our time. I deferred to his opinion, though I had great doubts of it myself. I find he was right, however; for it has not only lasted to the present moment, but has done so in the teeth of a great parliamentary report made (not too willingly) eighteen years ago, when all these objections of mine were set forth in detail, and when the existing stowage for wills was described as equal to the accumulation of only two years and a half more. What they have done with them since; whether they have lost many, or whether they sell any, now and then, to the butter shops; I don't know. I am glad mine is not there, and I hope it may not go there, yet awhile. I have set all this down, in my present blissful chapter, because here it comes into its natural place. Mr. Spenlow and I falling into this conversation, prolonged it and our saunter to and fro, until we diverged into general topics. And so it came about, in the end, that Mr. Spenlow told me this day week was Dora's birthday, and he would be glad if I would come down and join a little pic-nic on the occasion. I went out of my senses immediately; became a mere driveller next day, on receipt of a little lace-edged sheet of note paper, "Favoured by papa. To remind;" and passed the intervening period in a state of dotage. I think I committed every possible absurdity, in the way of preparation for this blessed event. I turn hot when I remember the cravat I bought. My boots might be placed in any collection of instruments of torture. I provided, and sent down by the Norwood coach the night before, a delicate little hamper, amounting in itself, I thought, almost to a declaration. There were crackers in it with the tenderest mottos that could be got for money. At six in the morning, I was in Covent Garden Market, buying a bouquet for Dora. At ten I was on horseback (I hired a gallant grey, for the occasion), with the bouquet in my hat, to keep it fresh, trotting down to Norwood. I suppose that when I saw Dora in the garden and pretended not to see her, and rode past the house pretending to be anxiously looking for it, I committed two small fooleries which other young gentlemen in my circumstances might have committed--because they came so very natural to me. But oh! when I _did_ find the house, and _did_ dismount at the garden gate, and drag those stoney-hearted boots across the lawn to Dora sitting on a garden seat under a lilac tree, what a spectacle she was, upon that beautiful morning, among the butterflies, in a white chip bonnet and a dress of celestial blue! There was a young lady with her--comparatively stricken in years--almost twenty, I should say. Her name was Miss Mills, and Dora called her Julia. She was the bosom friend of Dora. Happy Miss Mills! Jip was there, and Jip _would_ bark at me again. When I presented my bouquet, he gnashed his teeth with jealousy. Well he might. If he had the least idea how I adored his mistress, well he might! "Oh, thank you, Mr. Copperfield! What dear flowers!" said Dora. I had had an intention of saying (and had been studying the best form of words for three miles) that I thought them beautiful before I saw them so near _her_. But I couldn't manage it. She was too bewildering. To see her lay the flowers against her little dimpled chin, was to lose all presence of mind and power of language in a feeble ecstacy. I wonder I didn't say, "Kill me, if you have a heart, Miss Mills. Let me die here!" Then Dora held my flowers to Jip to smell. Then Jip growled, and wouldn't smell them. Then Dora laughed, and held them a little closer to Jip, to make him. Then Jip laid hold of a bit of geranium with his teeth, and worried imaginary cats in it. Then Dora beat him, and pouted, and said, "My poor beautiful flowers!" as compassionately, I thought, as if Jip had laid hold of me. I wished he had! "You'll be so glad to hear, Mr. Copperfield," said Dora, "that that cross Miss Murdstone is not here. She has gone to her brother's marriage, and will be away at least three weeks. Isn't that delightful?" I said I was sure it must be delightful to her, and all that was delightful to her was delightful to me. Miss Mills, with an air of superior wisdom and benevolence, smiled upon us. "She is the most disagreeable thing I ever saw," said Dora. "You can't believe how ill-tempered and shocking she is, Julia." "Yes, I can, my dear!" said Julia. "_You_ can, perhaps, love," returned Dora, with her hand on Julia's. "Forgive my not excepting you, my dear, at first." I learnt, from this, that Miss Mills had had her trials in the course of a chequered existence; and that to these, perhaps, I might refer that wise benignity of manner which I had already noticed. I found, in the course of the day, that this was the case: Miss Mills having been unhappy in a misplaced affection, and being understood to have retired from the world on her awful stock of experience, but still to take a calm interest in the unblighted hopes and loves of youth. But now Mr. Spenlow came out of the house, and Dora went to him, saying, "Look, papa, what beautiful flowers!" And Miss Mills smiled thoughtfully, as who should say, "Ye May-flies, enjoy your brief existence in the bright morning of life!" And we all walked from the lawn towards the carriage, which was getting ready. I shall never have such a ride again. I have never had such another. There were only those three, their hamper, my hamper, and the guitar-case, in the phaeton; and, of course, the phaeton was open; and I rode behind it, and Dora sat with her back to the horses, looking towards me. She kept the bouquet close to her on the cushion, and wouldn't allow Jip to sit on that side of her at all, for fear he should crush it. She often carried it in her hand, often refreshed herself with its fragrance. Our eyes at those times often met; and my great astonishment is that I didn't go over the head of my gallant grey into the carriage. There was dust, I believe. There was a good deal of dust, I believe. I have a faint impression that Mr. Spenlow remonstrated with me for riding in it; but I knew of none. I was sensible of a mist of love and beauty about Dora, but of nothing else. He stood up sometimes, and asked me what I thought of the prospect. I said it was delightful, and I daresay it was; but it was all Dora to me. The sun shone Dora, and the birds sang Dora. The south wind blew Dora, and the wild flowers in the hedges were all Doras, to a bud. My comfort is, Miss Mills understood me. Miss Mills alone could enter into my feelings thoroughly. I don't know how long we were going, and to this hour I know as little where we went. Perhaps it was near Guildford. Perhaps some Arabian-night magician, opened up the place for the day, and shut it for ever when we came away. It was a green spot, on a hill, carpeted with soft turf. There were shady trees, and heather, and, as far as the eye could see, a rich landscape. It was a trying thing to find people here, waiting for us; and my jealousy, even of the ladies, knew no bounds. But all of my own sex--especially one impostor, three or four years my elder, with a red whisker, on which he established an amount of presumption not be endured--were my mortal foes. We all unpacked our baskets, and employed ourselves in getting dinner ready. Red Whisker pretended he could make a salad (which I don't believe), and obtruded himself on public notice. Some of the young ladies washed the lettuces for him, and sliced them under his directions. Dora was among these. I felt that fate had pitted me against this man, and one of us must fall. Red Whisker made his salad (I wondered how they could eat it. Nothing should have induced _me_ to touch it!) and voted himself into the charge of the wine-cellar, which he constructed, being an ingenious beast, in the hollow trunk of a tree. By-and-by I saw him, with the majority of a lobster on his plate, eating his dinner at the feet of Dora! I have but an indistinct idea of what happened for some time after this baleful object presented itself to my view. I was very merry, I know; but it was hollow merriment. I attached myself to a young creature in pink, with little eyes, and flirted with her desperately. She received my attentions with favour; but whether on my account solely, or because she had any designs on Red Whisker, I can't say. Dora's health was drunk. When I drank it, I affected to interrupt my conversation for that purpose, and to resume it immediately afterwards. I caught Dora's eye as I bowed to her, and I thought it looked appealing. But it looked at me over the head of Red Whisker, and I was adamant. The young creature in pink had a mother in green; and I rather think the latter separated us from motives of policy. Howbeit, there was a general breaking up of the party, while the remnants of the dinner were being put away; and I strolled off by myself among the trees, in a raging and remorseful state. I was debating whether I should pretend that I was not well, and fly--I don't know where--upon my gallant grey, when Dora and Miss Mills met me. "Mr. Copperfield," said Miss Mills, "you are dull." I begged her pardon. Not at all. "And, Dora," said Miss Mills, "_you_ are dull." Oh dear no! Not in the least. "Mr. Copperfield and Dora," said Miss Mills, with an almost venerable air. "Enough of this. Do not allow a trivial misunderstanding to wither the blossoms of spring, which, once put forth and blighted, can not be renewed. I speak," said Miss Mills, "from experience of the past--the remote irrevocable past. The gushing fountains which sparkle in the sun, must not be stopped in mere caprice; the oasis in the desert of Sahara, must not be plucked up idly." I hardly knew what I did, I was burning all over to that extraordinary extent; but I took Dora's little hand and kissed it--and she let me! I kissed Miss Mills's hand; and we all seemed, to my thinking, to go straight up to the seventh heaven. We did not come down again. We stayed up there all the evening. At first we strayed to and fro among the trees: I with Dora's shy arm drawn through mine: and Heaven knows, folly as it all was, it would have been a happy fate to have been struck immortal with those foolish feelings, and have strayed among the trees for ever! But, much too soon, we heard the others laughing and talking, and calling "where's Dora!" So we went back, and they wanted Dora to sing. Red Whisker would have got the guitar-case out of the carriage, but Dora told him nobody knew where it was, but I. So Red Whisker was done for in a moment; and _I_ got it, and _I_ unlocked it, and _I_ took the guitar out, and _I_ sat by her, and _I_ held her handkerchief and gloves, and _I_ drank in every note of her dear voice, and she sang to _me_ who loved her, and all the others might applaud as much as they liked, but they had nothing to do with it! I was intoxicated with joy. I was afraid it was too happy to be real, and that I should wake in Buckingham Street presently, and hear Mrs. Crupp clinking the teacups in getting breakfast ready. But Dora sang, and others sang, and Miss Mills sang--about the slumbering echoes in the caverns of Memory; as if she were a hundred years old--and the evening came on; and we had tea, with a kettle boiling gipsy-fashion; and I was still as happy as ever. I was happier than ever when the party broke up, and the other people, defeated Red Whisker and all, went their several ways, and we went ours through the still evening and the dying light, with sweet scents rising up around us. Mr. Spenlow being a little drowsy after the champagne--honour to the soil that grew the grape, to the grape that made the wine, to the sun that ripened it, and to the merchant who adulterated it!--and being fast asleep in a corner of the carriage, I rode by the side, and talked to Dora. She admired my horse and patted him--oh, what a dear little hand it looked upon a horse!--and her shawl would not keep right, and now and then I drew it round her with my arm; and I even fancied that Jip began to see how it was, and to understand that he must make up his mind to be friends with me. That sagacious Miss Mills, too; that amiable, though quite used up, recluse; that little patriarch of something less than twenty, who had done with the world, and mustn't on any account have the slumbering echoes in the caverns of Memory awakened; what a kind thing she did! "Mr. Copperfield," said Miss Mills, "come to this side of the carriage a moment--if you can spare a moment. I want to speak to you." Behold me, on my gallant grey, bending at the side of Miss Mills, with my hand upon the carriage-door! "Dora is coming to stay with me. She is coming home with me the day after to-morrow. If you would like to call, I am sure papa would be happy to see you." What could I do but invoke a silent blessing on Miss Mills's head, and store Miss Mills's address in the securest corner of my memory! What could I do but tell Miss Mills, with grateful looks and fervent words, how much I appreciated her good offices, and what an inestimable value I set upon her friendship! Then Miss Mills benignantly dismissed me, saying, "Go back to Dora!" and I went; and Dora leaned out of the carriage to talk to me, and we talked all the rest of the way; and I rode my gallant grey so close to the wheel that I grazed his near fore leg against it, and "took the bark off," as his owner told me, "to the tune of three pun' sivin"--which I paid, and thought extremely cheap for so much joy. What time Miss Mills sat looking at the moon, murmuring verses and recalling, I suppose, the ancient days when she and earth had anything in common. Norwood was many miles too near, and we reached it many hours too soon; but Mr. Spenlow came to himself a little short of it, and said, "You must come in, Copperfield, and rest!" and I consenting, we had sandwiches and wine-and-water. In the light room, Dora blushing looked so lovely, that I could not tear myself away, but sat there staring, in a dream, until the snoring of Mr. Spenlow inspired me with sufficient consciousness to take my leave. So we parted; I riding all the way to London with the farewell touch of Dora's hand still light on mine, recalling every incident and word ten thousand times; lying down in my own bed at last, as enraptured a young noodle as ever was carried out of his five wits by love. When I awoke next morning, I was resolute to declare my passion to Dora, and know my fate. Happiness or misery was now the question. There was no other question that I knew of in the world, and only Dora could give the answer to it. I passed three days in a luxury of wretchedness, torturing myself by putting every conceivable variety of discouraging construction on all that ever had taken place between Dora and me. At last, arrayed for the purpose at a vast expense, I went to Miss Mills's, fraught with a declaration. How many times I went up and down the street, and round the square--painfully aware of being a much better answer to the old riddle than the original one--before I could persuade myself to go up the steps and knock, is no matter now. Even when, at last, I had knocked, and was waiting at the door, I had some flurried thought of asking if that were Mr. Blackboy's (in imitation of poor Barkis), begging pardon, and retreating. But I kept my ground. Mr. Mills was not at home. I did not expect he would be. Nobody wanted _him_. Miss Mills was at home. Miss Mills would do. I was shown into a room upstairs, where Miss Mills and Dora were. Jip was there. Miss Mills was copying music (I recollect, it was a new song, called Affection's Dirge), and Dora was painting flowers. What were my feelings, when I recognised my own flowers; the identical Covent Garden Market purchase! I cannot say that they were very like, or that they particularly resembled any flowers that have ever come under my observation; but I knew from the paper round them, which was accurately copied, what the composition was. Miss Mills was very glad to see me, and very sorry her Papa was not at home: though I thought we all bore that with fortitude. Miss Mills was conversational for a few minutes, and then, laying down her pen upon Affection's Dirge, got up, and left the room. I began to think I would put it off till to-morrow. "I hope your poor horse was not tired, when he got home at night," said Dora, lifting up her beautiful eyes. "It was a long way for him." I began to think I would do it to-day. "It was a long way for _him_," said I, "for _he_ had nothing to uphold him on the journey." "Wasn't he fed, poor thing?" asked Dora. I began to think I would put it off till to-morrow. "Ye--yes," I said, "he was well taken care of. I mean he had not the unutterable happiness that I had in being so near you." Dora bent her head over her drawing, and said, after a little while--I had sat, in the interval, in a burning fever, and with my legs in a very rigid state-- "You didn't seem to be sensible of that happiness yourself, at one time of the day." I saw now that I was in for it, and it must be done on the spot. "You didn't care for that happiness in the least," said Dora, slightly raising her eyebrows, and shaking her head, "when you were sitting by Miss Kitt." Kitt, I should observe, was the name of the creature in pink, with the little eyes. "Though certainly I don't know why you should," said Dora, "or why you should call it a happiness at all. But of course you don't mean what you say. And I am sure no one doubts your being at liberty to do what-ever you like. Jip, you naughty boy, come here!" I don't know how I did it. I did it in a moment. I intercepted Jip. I had Dora in my arms. I was full of eloquence. I never stopped for a word. I told her how I loved her. I told her I should die without her. I told her that I idolised and worshipped her. Jip barked madly all the time. When Dora hung her head and cried, and trembled, my eloquence increased so much the more. If she would like me to die for her, she had but to say the word, and I was ready. Life without Dora's love was not a thing to have on any terms. I couldn't bear it, and I wouldn't. I had loved her every minute, day and night, since I first saw her. I loved her at that minute to distraction. I should always love her, every minute, to distraction. Lovers had loved before, and lovers would love again; but no lover had ever loved, might, could, would, or should ever love, as I loved Dora. The more I raved, the more Jip barked. Each of us, in his own way, got more mad every moment. Well, well! Dora and I were sitting on the sofa by-and-by, quiet enough, and Jip was lying in her lap, winking peacefully at me. It was off my mind. I was in a state of perfect rapture. Dora and I were engaged. I suppose we had some notion that this was to end in marriage. We must have had some, because Dora stipulated that we were never to be married without her papa's consent. But, in our youthful ecstacy, I don't think that we really looked before us or behind us; or had any aspiration beyond the ignorant present. We were to keep our secret from Mr. Spenlow; but I am sure the idea never entered my head, then, that there was anything dishonorable in that. Miss Mills was more than usually pensive when Dora, going to find her, brought her back;--I apprehend, because there was a tendency in what had passed to awaken the slumbering echoes in the caverns of memory. But she gave us her blessing, and the assurance of her lasting friendship, and spoke to us, generally, as became a Voice from the Cloister. What an idle time it was! What an unsubstantial, happy, foolish time it was! When I measured Dora's finger for a ring that was to be made of Forget-me-nots, and when the jeweller, to whom I took the measure, found me out, and laughed over his order book, and charged me anything he liked, for the pretty little toy, with its blue stones--so associated in my remembrance with Dora's hand, that yesterday, when I saw such another, by chance, on the finger of my own daughter, there was a momentary stirring in my heart, like pain! When I walked about, exalted with my secret, and full of my own interest, and felt the dignity of loving Dora, and of being beloved, so much, that if I had walked the air, I could not have been more above the people not so situated, who were creeping on the earth! When we had those meetings in the garden of the square, and sat within the dingy summer-house, so happy, that I love the London sparrows to this hour, for nothing else, and see the plumage of the tropics in their smoky feathers! When we had our first great quarrel (within a week of our betrothal), and when Dora sent me back the ring, enclosed in a despairing cocked-hat note, wherein she used the terrible expression that "our love had begun in folly, and ended in madness!" which dreadful words occasioned me to tear my hair, and cry that all was over! When, under cover of the night, I flew to Miss Mills, whom I saw by stealth in a back kitchen where there was a mangle, and implored Miss Mills to interpose between us and avert insanity. When Miss Mills undertook the office and returned with Dora, exhorting us, from the pulpit of her own bitter youth, to mutual concession, and the avoidance of the Desert of Sahara! When we cried, and made it up, and were so blest again, that the back-kitchen, mangle and all, changed to Love's own temple, where we arranged a plan of correspondence through Miss Mills, always to comprehend at least one letter on each side every day! What an idle time! What an unsubstantial, happy, foolish time! Of all the times of mine that Time has in his grip, there is none that in one retrospection I can smile at half so much, and think of half so tenderly. CHAPTER XXXIV. MY AUNT ASTONISHES ME. I wrote to Agnes as soon as Dora and I were engaged. I wrote her a long letter, in which I tried to make her comprehend how blest I was, and what a darling Dora was. I entreated Agnes not to regard this as a thoughtless passion which could ever yield to any other, or had the least resemblance to the boyish fancies that we used to joke about. I assured her that its profundity was quite unfathomable, and expressed my belief that nothing like it had ever been known. Somehow, as I wrote to Agnes on a fine evening by my open window, and the remembrance of her clear calm eyes and gentle face came stealing over me, it shed such a peaceful influence upon the hurry and agitation in which I had been living lately, and of which my very happiness partook in some degree, that it soothed me into tears. I remember that I sat resting my head upon my hand, when the letter was half done, cherishing a general fancy as if Agnes were one of the elements of my natural home. As if, in the retirement of the house made almost sacred to me by her presence, Dora and I must be happier than anywhere. As if, in love, joy, sorrow, hope, or disappointment; in all emotions; my heart turned naturally there, and found its refuge and best friend. Of Steerforth, I said nothing. I only told her there had been sad grief at Yarmouth, on account of Emily's flight; and that on me it made a double wound, by reason of the circumstances attending it. I knew how quick she always was to divine the truth, and that she would never be the first to breathe his name. To this letter, I received an answer by return of post. As I read it, I seemed to hear Agnes speaking to me. It was like her cordial voice in my ears. What can I say more! While I had been away from home lately, Traddles had called twice or thrice. Finding Peggotty within, and being informed by Peggotty (who always volunteered that information to whomsoever would receive it), that she was my old nurse, he had established a good-humoured acquaintance with her, and had stayed to have a little chat with her about me. So Peggotty said; but I am afraid the chat was all on her own side, and of immoderate length, as she was very difficult indeed to stop, God bless her! when she had me for her theme. This reminds me, not only that I expected Traddles on a certain afternoon of his own appointing, which was now come, but that Mrs. Crupp had resigned everything appertaining to her office (the salary excepted) until Peggotty should cease to present herself. Mrs. Crupp, after holding divers conversations respecting Peggotty, in a very high pitched voice, on the staircase--with some invisible Familiar it would appear, for corporeally speaking she was quite alone at those times--addressed a letter to me, developing her views. Beginning it with that statement of universal application, which fitted every occurrence of her life, namely, that she was a mother herself, she went on to inform me that she had once seen very different days, but that at all periods of her existence she had had a constitutional objection to spies, intruders, and informers. She named no names, she said; let them the cap fitted, wear it; but spies, intruders, and informers, especially in widders' weeds (this clause was underlined), she had ever accustomed herself to look down upon. If a gentleman was the victim of spies, intruders, and informers (but still naming no names), that was his own pleasure. He had a right to please himself; so let him do. All that she, Mrs. Crupp, stipulated for, was, that she should not be "brought in contract" with such persons. Therefore she begged to be excused from any further attendance on the top set, until things was as they formerly was, and as they could be wished to be; and further mentioned that her little book would be found upon the breakfast-table every Saturday morning, when she requested an immediate settlement of the same, with the benevolent view of saving trouble, "and an ill-conwenience" to all parties. After this, Mrs. Crupp confined herself to making pitfalls on the stairs, principally with pitchers, and endeavouring to delude Peggotty into breaking her legs. I found it rather harassing to live in this state of siege, but was too much afraid of Mrs. Crupp to see any way out of it. "My dear Copperfield," cried Traddles, punctually appearing at my door, in spite of all these obstacles, "how do you do?" "My dear Traddles," said I, "I am delighted to see you at last, and very sorry I have not been at home before. But I have been so much engaged----" "Yes, yes, I know," said Traddles, "of course. Yours lives in London, I think." "What did you say?" "She--excuse me--Miss D., you know," said Traddles, colouring in his great delicacy, "lives in London, I believe?" "Oh yes. Near London." "Mine, perhaps you recollect," said Traddles, with a serious look, "lives down in Devonshire--one of ten. Consequently, I am not so much engaged as you--in that sense." "I wonder you can bear," I returned, "to see her so seldom." "Hah!" said Traddles, thoughtfully. "It does seem a wonder. I suppose it is, Copperfield, because there's no help for it?" "I suppose so," I replied, with a smile, and not without a blush. "And because you have so much constancy and patience, Traddles." "Dear me!" said Traddles, considering about it, "do I strike you in that way, Copperfield? Really I didn't know that I had. But she is such an extraordinarily dear girl herself, that it's possible she may have imparted something of those virtues to me. Now you mention it, Copperfield, I shouldn't wonder at all. I assure you she is always forgetting herself, and taking care of the other nine." "Is she the eldest?" I inquired. "Oh dear, no," said Traddles. "The eldest is a Beauty." He saw, I suppose, that I could not help smiling at the simplicity of this reply; and added, with a smile upon his own ingenuous face: "Not, of course, but that my Sophy--pretty name, Copperfield, I always think?" "Very pretty!" said I. "Not, of course, but that Sophy is beautiful too, in my eyes, and would be one of the dearest girls that ever was, in anybody's eyes (I should think). But when I say the eldest is a Beauty, I mean she really is a--" he seemed to be describing clouds about himself, with both hands: "Splendid, you know," said Traddles, energetically. "Indeed!" said I. "Oh, I assure you," said Traddles, "something very uncommon, indeed! Then, you know, being formed for society and admiration, and not being able to enjoy much of it, in consequence of their limited means, she naturally gets a little irritable and exacting, sometimes. Sophy puts her in good humour!" "Is Sophy the youngest?" I hazarded. "Oh dear, no!" said Traddles, stroking his chin. "The two youngest are only nine and ten. Sophy educates 'em." "The second daughter, perhaps?" I hazarded. "No," said Traddles. "Sarah's the second. Sarah has something the matter with her spine, poor girl. The malady will wear out by-and-by, the doctors say, but in the meantime she has to lie down for a twelvemonth. Sophy nurses her. Sophy's the fourth." "Is the mother living?" I inquired. "Oh yes," said Traddles, "she is alive. She is a very superior woman, indeed, but the damp country is not adapted to her constitution, and--in fact, she has lost the use of her limbs." "Dear me!" said I. "Very sad, is it not?" returned Traddles. "But in a merely domestic view it is not so bad as it might be, because Sophy takes her place. She is quite as much a mother _to_ her mother, as she is to the other nine." I felt the greatest admiration for the virtues of this young lady; and, honestly with the view of doing my best to prevent the good-nature of Traddles from being imposed upon, to the detriment of their joint prospects in life, inquired how Mr. Micawber was? "He is quite well, Copperfield, thank you," said Traddles. "I am not living with him at present." "No?" "No. You see the truth is," said Traddles, in a whisper, "he has changed his name to Mortimer, in consequence of his temporary embarrassments; and he don't come out till after dark--and then in spectacles. There was an execution put into our house, for rent. Mrs. Micawber was in such a dreadful state that I really couldn't resist giving my name to that second bill we spoke of here. You may imagine how delightful it was to my feelings, Copperfield, to see the matter settled with it, and Mrs. Micawber recover her spirits." "Hum!" said I. "Not that her happiness was of long duration," pursued Traddles, "for, unfortunately, within a week another execution came in. It broke up the establishment. I have been living in a furnished apartment since then, and the Mortimers have been very private indeed. I hope you won't think it selfish, Copperfield, if I mention that the broker carried off my little round table with the marble top, and Sophy's flower-pot and stand?" "What a hard thing!" I exclaimed indignantly. "It was a----it was a pull," said Traddles, with his usual wince at that expression. "I don't mention it reproachfully, however, but with a motive. The fact is, Copperfield, I was unable to repurchase them at the time of their seizure; in the first place, because the broker, having an idea that I wanted them, ran the price up to an extravagant extent; and, in the second place, because I--hadn't any money. Now, I have kept my eye since, upon the broker's shop," said Traddles, with a great enjoyment of his mystery, "which is up at the top of Tottenham Court Road, and, at last, to-day I find them put out for sale. I have only noticed them from over the way, because if the broker saw _me_, bless you, he'd ask any price for them! What has occurred to me, having now the money, is, that perhaps you wouldn't object to ask that good nurse of yours to come with me to the shop--I can show it her from round the corner of the next street--and make the best bargain for them, as if they were for herself, that she can!" The delight with which Traddles propounded this plan to me, and the sense he had of its uncommon artfulness, are among the freshest things in my remembrance. I told him that my old nurse would be delighted to assist him, and that we would all three take the field together, but on one condition. That condition was, that he should make a solemn resolution to grant no more loans of his name, or anything else, to Mr. Micawber. "My dear Copperfield," said Traddles, "I have already done so, because I begin to feel that I have not only been inconsiderate, but that I have been positively unjust to Sophy. My word being passed to myself, there is no longer any apprehension; but I pledge it to you, too, with the greatest readiness. That first unlucky obligation, I have paid. I have no doubt Mr. Micawber would have paid it if he could, but he could not. One thing I ought to mention, which I like very much in Mr. Micawber, Copperfield. It refers to the second obligation, which is not yet due. He don't tell me that it _is_ provided for, but he says it _will be_. Now, I think there is something very fair and honest about that!" I was unwilling to damp my good friend's confidence, and therefore assented. After a little further conversation, we went round to the chandler's shop, to enlist Peggotty; Traddles declining to pass the evening with me, both because he endured the liveliest apprehensions that his property would be bought by somebody else before he could re-purchase it, and because it was the evening he always devoted to writing to the dearest girl in the world. I never shall forget him peeping round the corner of the street in Tottenham Court Road, while Peggotty was bargaining for the precious articles; or his agitation when she came slowly towards us after vainly offering a price, and was hailed by the relenting broker, and went back again. The end of the negotiation was, that she bought the property on tolerably easy terms, and Traddles was transported with pleasure. "I am very much obliged to you, indeed," said Traddles, on hearing it was to be sent to where he lived, that night. "If I might ask one other favor, I hope you wouldn't think it absurd, Copperfield?" I said beforehand, certainly not. "Then if you _would_ be good enough," said Traddles to Peggotty, "to get the flower-pot now, I think I should like (it being Sophy's, Copperfield) to carry it home myself!" Peggotty was glad to get it for him, and he overwhelmed her with thanks, and went his way up Tottenham Court Road, carrying the flower-pot affectionately in his arms, with one of the most delighted expressions of countenance I ever saw. We then turned back towards my chambers. As the shops had charms for Peggotty which I never knew them possess in the same degree for anybody else, I sauntered easily along, amused by her staring in at the windows, and waiting for her as often as she chose. We were thus a good while in getting to the Adelphi. On our way upstairs, I called her attention to the sudden disappearance of Mrs. Crupp's pitfalls, and also to the prints of recent footsteps. We were both very much surprised, coming higher up, to find my outer door standing open (which I had shut), and to hear voices inside. We looked at one another, without knowing what to make of this, and went into the sitting-room. What was my amazement to find, of all people upon earth, my aunt there, and Mr. Dick! My aunt sitting on a quantity of luggage, with her two birds before her, and her cat on her knee, like a female Robinson Crusoe, drinking tea. Mr. Dick leaning thoughtfully on a great kite, such as we had often been out together to fly, with more luggage piled about him! [Illustration: My Aunt astonishes me.] "My dear aunt!" cried I. "Why, what an unexpected pleasure!" We cordially embraced; and Mr. Dick and I cordially shook hands; and Mrs. Crupp, who was busy making tea, and could not be too attentive, cordially said she had knowed well as Mr. Copperfull would have his heart in his mouth, when he see his dear relations. "Halloa!" said my aunt to Peggotty, who quailed before her awful presence. "How are _you_?" "You remember my aunt, Peggotty?" said I. "For the love of goodness, child," exclaimed my aunt, "don't call the woman by that South Sea Island name! If she married and got rid of it, which was the best thing she could do, why don't you give her the benefit of the change? What's your name now,--P?" said my aunt, as a compromise for the obnoxious appellation. "Barkis, ma'am," said Peggotty, with a curtsey. "Well! that's human," said my aunt. "It sounds less as if you wanted a Missionary. How d' ye do, Barkis? I hope you're well?" Encouraged by these gracious words, and by my aunt's extending her hand, Barkis came forward, and took the hand, and curtseyed her acknowledgments. "We are older than we were, I see," said my aunt. "We have only met each other once before, you know. A nice business we made of it then! Trot, my dear, another cup." I handed it dutifully to my aunt, who was in her usual inflexible state of figure; and ventured a remonstrance with her on the subject of her sitting on a box. "Let me draw the sofa here, or the easy chair, aunt," said I. "Why should you be so uncomfortable?" "Thank you, Trot," replied my aunt, "I prefer to sit upon my property." Here my aunt looked hard at Mrs. Crupp, and observed, "We needn't trouble you to wait, ma'am." "Shall I put a little more tea in the pot afore I go, ma'am?" said Mrs. Crupp. "No, I thank you, ma'am," replied my aunt. "Would you let me fetch another pat of butter, ma'am?" said Mrs. Crupp. "Or would you be persuaded to try a new-laid hegg? or should I brile a rasher? Ain't there nothing I could do for your dear aunt, Mr. Copperfull?" "Nothing, ma'am," returned my aunt. "I shall do very well, I thank you." Mrs. Crupp, who had been incessantly smiling to express sweet temper, and incessantly holding her head on one side, to express a general feebleness of constitution, and incessantly rubbing her hands, to express a desire to be of service to all deserving objects, gradually smiled herself, one-sided herself, and rubbed herself, out of the room. "Dick!" said my aunt. "You know what I told you about time-servers and wealth-worshippers?" Mr. Dick--with rather a scared look, as if he had forgotten it--returned a hasty answer in the affirmative. "Mrs. Crupp is one of them," said my aunt. "Barkis, I'll trouble you to look after the tea, and let me have another cup, for I don't fancy that woman's pouring-out!" I knew my aunt sufficiently well to know that she had something of importance on her mind, and that there was far more matter in this arrival than a stranger might have supposed. I noticed how her eye lighted on me, when she thought my attention otherwise occupied; and what a curious process of hesitation appeared to be going on within her, while she preserved her outward stiffness and composure. I began to reflect whether I had done anything to offend her; and my conscience whispered me that I had not yet told her about Dora. Could it by any means be that, I wondered! As I knew she would only speak in her own good time, I sat down near her, and spoke to the birds, and played with the cat, and was as easy as I could be. But I was very far from being really easy; and I should still have been so, even if Mr. Dick, leaning over the great kite behind my aunt, had not taken every secret opportunity of shaking his head darkly at me, and pointing at her. "Trot," said my aunt at last, when she had finished her tea, and carefully smoothed down her dress, and wiped her lips--"you needn't go, Barkis!--Trot, have you got to be firm, and self-reliant?" "I hope so, aunt." "What do you think?" inquired Miss Betsey. "I think so, aunt." "Then why, my love," said my aunt, looking earnestly at me, "why do you think I prefer to sit upon this property of mine to-night?" I shook my head, unable to guess. "Because," said my aunt, "it's all I have. Because I'm ruined, my dear!" If the house, and every one of us, had tumbled out into the river together, I could hardly have received a greater shock. "Dick knows it," said my aunt, laying her hand calmly on my shoulder. "I am ruined, my dear Trot! All I have in the world is in this room, except the cottage; and that I have left Janet to let. Barkis, I want to get a bed for this gentleman to-night. To save expense, perhaps you can make up something here for myself. Anything will do. It's only for to-night. We'll talk about this, more, to-morrow." I was roused from my amazement, and concern for her--I am sure, for her--by her falling on my neck, for a moment, and crying that she only grieved for me. In another moment, she suppressed this emotion; and said with an aspect more triumphant than dejected: "We must meet reverses boldly, and not suffer them to frighten us, my dear. We must learn to act the play out. We must live misfortune down, Trot!" CHAPTER XXXV. DEPRESSION. As soon as I could recover my presence of mind, which quite deserted me in the first overpowering shock of my aunt's intelligence, I proposed to Mr. Dick to come round to the chandler's shop, and take possession of the bed which Mr. Peggotty had lately vacated. The chandler's shop being in Hungerford Market, and Hungerford Market being a very different place in those days, there was a low wooden colonnade before the door (not very unlike that before the house where the little man and woman used to live, in the old weather-glass), which pleased Mr. Dick mightily. The glory of lodging over this structure would have compensated him, I dare say, for many inconveniences; but, as there were really few to bear, beyond the compound of flavors I have already mentioned, and perhaps the want of a little more elbow-room, he was perfectly charmed with his accommodation. Mrs. Crupp had indignantly assured him that there wasn't room to swing a cat there; but, as Mr. Dick justly observed to me, sitting down on the foot of the bed, nursing his leg, "You know, Trotwood, I don't want to swing a cat. I never do swing a cat. Therefore, what does that signify to _me_!" I tried to ascertain whether Mr. Dick had any understanding of the causes of this sudden and great change in my aunt's affairs. As I might have expected, he had none at all. The only account he could give of it, was, that my aunt had said to him, the day before yesterday, "Now, Dick, are you really and truly the philosopher I take you for?" That then he had said, Yes, he hoped so. That then my aunt had said, "Dick, I am ruined." That then he had said "Oh, indeed!" That then my aunt had praised him highly, which he was very glad of. And that then they had come to me, and had had bottled porter and sandwiches on the road. Mr. Dick was so very complacent, sitting on the foot of the bed, nursing his leg, and telling me this, with his eyes wide open and a surprised smile, that I am sorry to say I was provoked into explaining to him that ruin meant distress, want, and starvation; but, I was soon bitterly reproved for this harshness, by seeing his face turn pale, and tears course down his lengthened cheeks, while he fixed upon me a look of such unutterable woe, that it might have softened a far harder heart than mine. I took infinitely greater pains to cheer him up again than I had taken to depress him; and I soon understood (as I ought to have known at first) that he had been so confident, merely because of his faith in the wisest and most wonderful of women, and his unbounded reliance on my intellectual resources. The latter, I believe, he considered a match for any kind of disaster not absolutely mortal. "What can we do, Trotwood?" said Mr. Dick. "There's the Memorial--" "To be sure there is," said I. "But all we can do just now, Mr. Dick, is to keep a cheerful countenance, and not let my aunt see that we are thinking about it." He assented to this in the most earnest manner; and implored me, if I should see him wandering an inch out of the right course, to recal him by some of those superior methods which were always at my command. But I regret to state that the fright I had given him proved too much for his best attempts at concealment. All the evening his eyes wandered to my aunt's face, with an expression of the most dismal apprehension, as if he saw her growing thin on the spot. He was conscious of this, and put a constraint upon his head; but his keeping that immovable, and sitting rolling his eyes like a piece of machinery, did not mend the matter at all. I saw him look at the loaf at supper (which happened to be a small one), as if nothing else stood between us and famine; and when my aunt insisted on his making his customary repast, I detected him in the act of pocketing fragments of his bread and cheese; I have no doubt for the purpose of reviving us with those savings, when we should have reached an advanced stage of attenuation. My aunt, on the other hand, was in a composed frame of mind, which was a lesson to all of us--to me, I am sure. She was extremely gracious to Peggotty, except when I inadvertently called her by that name; and, strange as I knew she felt in London, appeared quite at home. She was to have my bed, and I was to lie in the sitting-room, to keep guard over her. She made a great point of being so near the river, in case of a conflagration; and I suppose really did find some satisfaction in that circumstance. "Trot, my dear," said my aunt, when she saw me making preparations for compounding her usual night-draught, "No!" "Nothing, aunt?" "Not wine, my dear. Ale." "But there is wine here, aunt. And you always have it made of wine." "Keep that, in case of sickness," said my aunt. "We mustn't use it carelessly, Trot. Ale for me. Half a pint." I thought Mr. Dick would have fallen, insensible. My aunt being resolute, I went out and got the ale myself. As it was growing late, Peggotty and Mr. Dick took that opportunity of repairing to the chandler's shop together. I parted from him, poor fellow, at the corner of the street, with his great kite at his back, a very monument of human misery. My aunt was walking up and down the room when I returned, crimping the borders of her nightcap with her fingers. I warmed the ale and made the toast on the usual infallible principles. When it was ready for her, she was ready for it, with her nightcap on, and the skirt of her gown turned back on her knees. "My dear," said my aunt, after taking a spoonful of it; "it's a great deal better than wine. Not half so bilious." I suppose I looked doubtful, for she added: "Tut, tut, child. If nothing worse than Ale happens to us, we are well off." "I should think so myself, aunt, I am sure," said I. "Well, then, why _don't_ you think so?" said my aunt. "Because you and I are very different people," I returned. "Stuff and nonsense, Trot!" replied my aunt. My aunt went on with a quiet enjoyment, in which there was very little affectation, if any; drinking the warm ale with a teaspoon, and soaking her strips of toast in it. "Trot," said she, "I don't care for strange faces in general, but I rather like that Barkis of yours, do you know!" "It's better than a hundred pounds to hear you say so!" said I. "It's a most extraordinary world," observed my aunt, rubbing her nose; "how that woman ever got into it with that name, is unaccountable to me. It would be much more easy to be born a Jackson, or something of that sort, one would think." "Perhaps she thinks so, too; it's not her fault," said I. "I suppose not," returned my aunt, rather grudging the admission; "but it's very aggravating. However, she's Barkis _now_. That's some comfort. Barkis is uncommonly fond of you, Trot." "There is nothing she would leave undone to prove it," said I. "Nothing, I believe," returned my aunt. "Here, the poor fool has been begging and praying about handing over some of her money--because she has got too much of it! A simpleton!" My aunt's tears of pleasure were positively trickling down into the warm ale. "She's the most ridiculous creature that ever was born," said my aunt. "I knew, from the first moment when I saw her with that poor dear blessed baby of a mother of yours, that she was the most ridiculous of mortals. But there are good points in Barkis!" Affecting to laugh, she got an opportunity of putting her hand to her eyes. Having availed herself of it, she resumed her toast and her discourse together. "Ah! Mercy upon us!" sighed my aunt. "I know all about it, Trot! Barkis and myself had quite a gossip while you were out with Dick. I know all about it. I don't know where these wretched girls expect to go to, for my part. I wonder they don't knock out their brains against--against mantelpieces," said my aunt; an idea which was probably suggested to her by her contemplation of mine. "Poor Emily!" said I. "Oh, don't talk to me about poor," returned my aunt. "She should have thought of that, before she caused so much misery! Give me a kiss, Trot. I am sorry for your early experience." As I bent forward, she put her tumbler on my knee to detain me, and said: "Oh, Trot, Trot! And so you fancy yourself in love! Do you?" "Fancy, aunt!" I exclaimed, as red as I could be. "I adore her with my whole soul!" "Dora, indeed!" returned my aunt. "And you mean to say the little thing is very fascinating, I suppose?" "My dear aunt," I replied, "no one can form the least idea what she is!" "Ah! And not silly?" said my aunt. "Silly, aunt!" I seriously believe it had never once entered my head for a single moment, to consider whether she was or not. I resented the idea, of course; but I was in a manner struck by it, as a new one altogether. "Not light-headed?" said my aunt. "Light-headed, aunt!" I could only repeat this daring speculation with the same kind of feeling with which I had repeated the preceding question. "Well, well!" said my aunt. "I only ask. I don't depreciate her. Poor little couple! And so you think you were formed for one another, and are to go through a party-supper-table kind of life, like two pretty pieces of confectionary, do you, Trot?" She asked me this so kindly, and with such a gentle air, half playful and half sorrowful, that I was quite touched. "We are young and inexperienced, aunt, I know," I replied; "and I dare say we say and think a good deal that is rather foolish. But we love one another truly, I am sure. If I thought Dora could ever love anybody else, or cease to love me; or that I could ever love anybody else, or cease to love her; I don't know what I should do--go out of my mind, I think!" "Ah, Trot!" said my aunt, shaking her head, and smiling gravely; "blind, blind, blind!" "Some one that I know, Trot," my aunt pursued, after a pause, "though of a very pliant disposition, has an earnestness of affection in him that reminds me of poor Baby. Earnestness is what that Somebody must look for, to sustain him and improve him, Trot. Deep, downright, faithful earnestness." "If you only knew the earnestness of Dora, aunt!" I cried. "Oh, Trot!" she said again; "blind, blind!" and without knowing why, I felt a vague unhappy loss or want of something overshadow me like a cloud. "However," said my aunt, "I don't want to put two young creatures out of conceit with themselves, or to make them unhappy; so, though it is a girl and boy attachment, and girl and boy attachments very often--mind! I don't say always!--come to nothing, still we'll be serious about it, and hope for a prosperous issue one of these days. There's time enough for it to come to anything!" This was not upon the whole very comforting to a rapturous lover; but I was glad to have my aunt in my confidence, and I was mindful of her being fatigued. So I thanked her ardently for this mark of her affection, and for all her other kindnesses towards me; and after a tender good night, she took her nightcap into my bedroom. How miserable I was, when I lay down! How I thought and thought about my being poor, in Mr. Spenlow's eyes; about my not being what I thought I was, when I proposed to Dora; about the chivalrous necessity of telling Dora what my worldly condition was, and releasing her from her engagement if she thought fit; about how I should contrive to live, during the long term of my articles, when I was earning nothing; about doing something to assist my aunt, and seeing no way of doing anything; about coming down to have no money in my pocket, and to wear a shabby coat, and to be able to carry Dora no little presents, and to ride no gallant greys, and to show myself in no agreeable light! Sordid and selfish as I knew it was, and as I tortured myself by knowing that it was, to let my mind run on my own distress so much, I was so devoted to Dora that I could not help it. I knew that it was base in me not to think more of my aunt, and less of myself; but, so far, selfishness was inseparable from Dora, and I could not put Dora on one side for any mortal creature. How exceedingly miserable I was, that night! As to sleep, I had dreams of poverty in all sorts of shapes, but I seemed to dream without the previous ceremony of going to sleep. Now I was ragged, wanting to sell Dora matches, six bundles for a halfpenny; now I was at the office in a nightgown and boots, remonstrated with by Mr. Spenlow on appearing before the clients in that airy attire; now I was hungrily picking up the crumbs that fell from old Tiffey's daily biscuit, regularly eaten when Saint Paul's struck one; now I was hopelessly endeavouring to get a license to marry Dora, having nothing but one of Uriah Heep's gloves to offer in exchange, which the whole Commons rejected; and still, more or less conscious of my own room, I was always tossing about like a distressed ship in a sea of bed-clothes. My aunt was restless, too, for I frequently heard her walking to and fro. Two or three times in the course of the night, attired in a long flannel wrapper in which she looked seven feet high, she appeared, like a disturbed ghost, in my room, and came to the side of the sofa on which I lay. On the first occasion I started up in alarm, to learn that she inferred from a particular light in the sky, that Westminster Abbey was on fire; and to be consulted in reference to the probability of its igniting Buckingham Street, in case the wind changed. Lying still, after that, I found that she sat down near me, whispering to herself "Poor boy!" And then it made me twenty times more wretched, to know how unselfishly mindful she was of me, and how selfishly mindful I was of myself. It was difficult to believe that a night so long to me, could be short to anybody else. This consideration set me thinking and thinking of an imaginary party where people were dancing the hours away, until that became a dream too, and I heard the music incessantly playing one tune, and saw Dora incessantly dancing one dance, without taking the least notice of me. The man who had been playing the harp all night, was trying in vain to cover it with an ordinary sized nightcap, when I awoke; or I should rather say, when I left off trying to go to sleep, and saw the sun shining in through the window at last. There was an old Roman bath in those days at the bottom of one of the streets out of the Strand--it may be there still--in which I have had many a cold plunge. Dressing myself as quietly as I could, and leaving Peggotty to look after my aunt, I tumbled head foremost into it, and then went for a walk to Hampstead. I had a hope that this brisk treatment might freshen my wits a little; and I think it did them good, for I soon came to the conclusion that the first step I ought to take was, to try if my articles could be cancelled and the premium recovered. I got some breakfast on the Heath, and walked back to Doctors' Commons, along the watered roads and through a pleasant smell of summer flowers, growing in gardens and carried into town on hucksters' heads, intent on this first effort to meet our altered circumstances. I arrived at the office so soon, after all, that I had half an hour's loitering about the Commons, before old Tiffey, who was always first, appeared with his key. Then I sat down in my shady corner, looking up at the sunlight on the opposite chimney-pots, and thinking about Dora; until Mr. Spenlow came in, crisp and curly. "How are you, Copperfield?" said he. "Fine morning!" "Beautiful morning, sir," said I. "Could I say a word to you before you go into Court?" "By all means," said he. "Come into my room." I followed him into his room, and he began putting on his gown, and touching himself up before a little glass he had, hanging inside a closet door. "I am sorry to say," said I, "that I have some rather disheartening intelligence from my aunt." "No!" said he. "Dear me! Not paralysis, I hope?" "It has no reference to her health, sir," I replied. "She has met with some large losses. In fact, she has very little left, indeed." "You as-tound me, Copperfield!" cried Mr. Spenlow. I shook my head. "Indeed, sir," said I, "her affairs are so changed, that I wished to ask you whether it would be possible--at a sacrifice on our part of some portion of the premium, of course," I put in this, on the spur of the moment, warned by the blank expression of his face--"to cancel my articles?" What it cost me to make this proposal, nobody knows. It was like asking, as a favor, to be sentenced to transportation from Dora. "To cancel your articles, Copperfield? Cancel?" I explained with tolerable firmness, that I really did not know where my means of subsistence were to come from, unless I could earn them for myself. I had no fear for the future, I said--and I laid great emphasis on that, as if to imply that I should still be decidedly eligible for a son-in-law one of these days--but, for the present, I was thrown upon my own resources. "I am extremely sorry to hear this, Copperfield," said Mr. Spenlow. "Extremely sorry. It is not usual to cancel articles for any such reason. It is not a professional course of proceeding. It is not a convenient precedent at all. Far from it. At the same time"-- "You are very good, sir," I murmured, anticipating a concession. "Not at all. Don't mention it," said Mr. Spenlow. "At the same time, I was going to say, if it had been my lot to have my hands unfettered--if I had not a partner--Mr. Jorkins"-- My hopes were dashed in a moment, but I made another effort. "Do you think, sir," said I, "if I were to mention it to Mr. Jorkins--" Mr. Spenlow shook his head discouragingly. "Heaven forbid, Copperfield," he replied, "that I should do any man an injustice; still less, Mr. Jorkins. But I know my partner, Copperfield. Mr. Jorkins is _not_ a man to respond to a proposition of this peculiar nature. Mr. Jorkins is very difficult to move from the beaten track. You know what he is!" I am sure I knew nothing about him, except that he had originally been alone in the business, and now lived by himself in a house near Montagu Square, which was fearfully in want of painting; that he came very late of a day, and went away very early; that he never appeared to be consulted about anything; and that he had a dingy little black-hole of his own up-stairs, where no business was ever done, and where there was a yellow old cartridge-paper pad upon his desk, unsoiled by ink, and reported to be twenty years of age. "Would you object to my mentioning it to him, sir?" I asked. "By no means," said Mr. Spenlow. "But I have some experience of Mr. Jorkins, Copperfield. I wish it were otherwise, for I should be happy to meet your views in any respect. I cannot have the least objection to your mentioning it to Mr. Jorkins, Copperfield, if you think it worth while." Availing myself of this permission, which was given with a warm shake of the hand, I sat thinking about Dora, and looking at the sunlight stealing from the chimney-pots down the wall of the opposite house, until Mr. Jorkins came. I then went up to Mr. Jorkins's room, and evidently astonished Mr. Jorkins very much by making my appearance there. "Come in, Mr. Copperfield," said Mr. Jorkins. "Come in!" I went in, and sat down; and stated my case to Mr. Jorkins pretty much as I had stated it to Mr. Spenlow. Mr. Jorkins was not by any means the awful creature one might have expected, but a large, mild, smooth-faced man of sixty, who took so much snuff that there was a tradition in the Commons that he lived principally on that stimulant, having little room in his system for any other article of diet. "You have mentioned this to Mr. Spenlow, I suppose?" said Mr. Jorkins; when he had heard me, very restlessly, to an end. I answered Yes, and told him that Mr. Spenlow had introduced his name. "He said I should object?" asked Mr. Jorkins. I was obliged to admit that Mr. Spenlow had considered it probable. "I am sorry to say, Mr. Copperfield, I can't advance your object," said Mr. Jorkins, nervously. "The fact is--but I have an appointment at the Bank, if you'll have the goodness to excuse me." With that he rose in a great hurry, and was going out of the room, when I made bold to say that I feared, then, there was no way of arranging the matter? "No!" said Mr. Jorkins, stopping at the door to shake his head. "Oh, no! I object, you know," which he said very rapidly, and went out. "You must be aware, Mr. Copperfield," he added, looking restlessly in at the door again, "if Mr. Spenlow objects----" "Personally, he does not object, sir," said I. "Oh! Personally!" repeated Mr. Jorkins, in an impatient manner. "I assure you there's an objection, Mr. Copperfield. Hopeless! What you wish to be done, can't be done. I--I really have got an appointment at the Bank." With that he fairly ran away; and to the best of my knowledge, it was three days before he showed himself in the Commons again. Being very anxious to leave no stone unturned, I waited until Mr. Spenlow came in, and then described what had passed; giving him to understand that I was not hopeless of his being able to soften the adamantine Jorkins, if he would undertake that task. "Copperfield," returned Mr. Spenlow, with a sagacious smile, "you have not known my partner, Mr. Jorkins, as long as I have. Nothing is farther from my thoughts than to attribute any degree of artifice to Mr. Jorkins. But Mr. Jorkins has a way of stating his objections which often deceives people. No, Copperfield!" shaking his head. "Mr. Jorkins is not to be moved, believe me!" I was completely bewildered between Mr. Spenlow and Mr. Jorkins, as to which of them really was the objecting partner; but I saw with sufficient clearness that there was obduracy somewhere in the firm, and that the recovery of my aunt's thousand pounds was out of the question. In a state of despondency, which I remember with anything but satisfaction, for I know it still had too much reference to myself (though always in connexion with Dora), I left the office, and went homeward. I was trying to familiarise my mind with the worst, and to present to myself the arrangements we should have to make for the future in their sternest aspect, when a hackney chariot coming after me, and stopping at my very feet, occasioned me to look up. A fair hand was stretched forth to me from the window; and the face I had never seen without a feeling of serenity and happiness, from the moment when it first turned back on the old oak staircase with the great broad balustrade, and when I associated its softened beauty with the stained glass window in the church, was smiling on me. "Agnes!" I joyfully exclaimed. "Oh, my dear Agnes, of all people in the world, what a pleasure to see you!" "Is it, indeed?" she said, in her cordial voice. "I want to talk to you so much!" said I. "It's such a lightening of my heart, only to look at you! If I had had a conjuror's cap, there is no one I should have wished for but you!" "What?" returned Agnes. "Well! perhaps Dora, first," I admitted, with a blush. "Certainly, Dora first, I hope," said Agnes, laughing. "But you next!" said I. "Where are you going?" She was going to my rooms to see my aunt. The day being very fine, she was glad to come out of the chariot, which smelt (I had my head in it all this time) like a stable put under a cucumber-frame. I dismissed the coachman, and she took my arm, and we walked on together. She was like Hope embodied, to me. How different I felt in one short minute, having Agnes at my side! My aunt had written her one of the odd, abrupt notes--very little longer than a Bank note--to which her epistolary efforts were usually limited. She had stated therein that she had fallen into adversity, and was leaving Dover for good, but had quite made up her mind to it, and was so well that nobody need be uncomfortable about her. Agnes had come to London to see my aunt, between whom and herself there had been a mutual liking these many years: indeed, it dated from the time of my taking up my residence in Mr. Wickfield's house. She was not alone, she said. Her papa was with her--and Uriah Heep. "And now they are partners," said I. "Confound him!" "Yes," said Agnes. "They have some business here; and I took advantage of their coming, to come too. You must not think my visit all friendly and disinterested, Trotwood, for--I am afraid I may be cruelly prejudiced--I do not like to let papa go away alone, with him." "Does he exercise the same influence over Mr. Wickfield still, Agnes?" Agnes shook her head. "There is such a change at home," said she, "that you would scarcely know the dear old house. They live with us now." "They?" said I. "Mr. Heep and his mother. He sleeps in your old room," said Agnes, looking up into my face. "I wish I had the ordering of his dreams," said I. "He wouldn't sleep there long." "I keep my own little room," said Agnes, "where I used to learn my lessons. How the time goes! You remember? The little panelled room that opens from the drawing-room?" "Remember, Agnes? When I saw you, for the first time, coming out at the door, with your quaint little basket of keys hanging at your side?" "It is just the same," said Agnes, smiling. "I am glad you think of it so pleasantly. We were very happy." "We were, indeed," said I. "I keep that room to myself still; but I cannot always desert Mrs. Heep, you know. And so," said Agnes quietly, "I feel obliged to bear her company, when I might prefer to be alone. But I have no other reason to complain of her. If she tires me, sometimes, by her praises of her son, it is only natural in a mother. He is a very good son to her." I looked at Agnes when she said these words, without detecting in her any consciousness of Uriah's design. Her mild but earnest eyes met mine with their own beautiful frankness, and there was no change in her gentle face. "The chief evil of their presence in the house," said Agnes, "is that I cannot be as near papa as I could wish--Uriah Heep being so much between us--and cannot watch over him, if that is not too bold a thing to say, as closely as I would. But, if any fraud or treachery is practising against him, I hope that simple love and truth will be stronger, in the end. I hope that real love and truth are stronger in the end than any evil or misfortune in the world." A certain bright smile which I never saw on any other face, died away, even while I thought how good it was, and how familiar it had once been to me; and she asked me, with a quick change of expression (we were drawing very near my street), if I knew how the reverse in my aunt's circumstances had been brought about. On my replying no, she had not told me yet, Agnes became thoughtful, and I fancied I felt her arm tremble in mine. We found my aunt alone, in a state of some excitement. A difference of opinion had arisen between herself and Mrs. Crupp, on an abstract question (the propriety of chambers being inhabited by the gentler sex); and my aunt, utterly indifferent to spasms on the part of Mrs. Crupp, had cut the dispute short, by informing that lady that she smelt of my brandy, and that she would trouble her to walk out. Both of these expressions Mrs. Crupp considered actionable, and had expressed her intention of bringing before a "British Judy"--meaning, it was supposed, the bulwark of our national liberties. My aunt, however, having had time to cool, while Peggotty was out showing Mr. Dick the soldiers at the Horse Guards--and being, besides, greatly pleased to see Agnes--rather plumed herself on the affair than otherwise, and received us with unimpaired good humour. When Agnes laid her bonnet on the table, and sat down beside her, I could not but think, looking on her mild eyes and her radiant forehead, how natural it seemed to have her there; how trustfully, although she was so young and inexperienced, my aunt confided in her; how strong she was, indeed, in simple love and truth. We began to talk about my aunt's losses, and I told them what I had tried to do that morning. "Which was injudicious, Trot," said my aunt, "but well meant. You are a generous boy--I suppose I must say, young man, now--and I am proud of you, my dear. So far, so good. Now, Trot and Agnes, let us look the case of Betsey Trotwood in the face, and see how it stands." I observed Agnes turn pale, as she looked very attentively at my aunt. My aunt, patting her cat, looked very attentively at Agnes. "Betsey Trotwood," said my aunt, who had always kept her money matters to herself: "--I don't mean your sister, Trot, my dear, but myself--had a certain property. It don't matter how much; enough to live on. More; for she had saved a little, and added to it. Betsey funded her property for some time, and then, by the advice of her man of business, laid it out on landed security. That did very well, and returned very good interest, till Betsey was paid off. I am talking of Betsey as if she was a man-of-war. Well! Then, Betsey had to look about her, for a new investment. She thought she was wiser, now, than her man of business, who was not such a good man of business by this time, as he used to be--I am alluding to your father, Agnes--and she took it into her head to lay it out for herself. So she took her pigs," said my aunt, "to a foreign market; and a very bad market it turned out to be. First, she lost in the mining way, and then she lost in the diving way--fishing up treasure, or some such Tom Tidler nonsense," explained my aunt, rubbing her nose; "and then she lost in the mining way again, and, last of all, to set the thing entirely to rights, she lost in the banking way. I don't know what the Bank shares were worth for a little while," said my aunt; "cent per cent was the lowest of it, I believe; but the Bank was at the other end of the world, and tumbled into space, for what I know; anyhow, it fell to pieces, and never will and never can pay sixpence; and Betsey's sixpences were all there, and there's an end of them. Least said, soonest mended!" My aunt concluded this philosophical summary, by fixing her eyes with a kind of triumph on Agnes, whose color was gradually returning. "Dear Miss Trotwood, is that all the history?" said Agnes. "I hope it's enough, child," said my aunt. "If there had been more money to lose, it wouldn't have been all, I dare say. Betsey would have contrived to throw that after the rest, and make another chapter, I have little doubt. But, there was no more money, and there's no more story." Agnes had listened at first with suspended breath. Her color still came and went, but she breathed more freely. I thought I knew why. I thought she had had some fear that her unhappy father might be in some way to blame for what had happened. My aunt took her hand in hers, and laughed. "Is that all?" repeated my aunt. "Why, yes, that's all, except, 'And she lived happy ever afterwards.' Perhaps I may add that of Betsey yet, one of these days. Now, Agnes, you have a wise head. So have you, Trot, in some things, though I can't compliment you always;" and here my aunt shook her own at me, with an energy peculiar to herself. "What's to be done? Here's the cottage, taking one time with another, will produce, say seventy pounds a-year. I think we may safely put it down at that. Well!--That's all we've got," said my aunt; with whom it was an idiosyncrasy, as it is with some horses, to stop very short when she appeared to be in a fair way of going on for a long while. "Then," said my aunt, after a rest, "there's Dick. He's good for a hundred a-year, but of course that must be expended on himself. I would sooner send him away, though I know I am the only person who appreciates him, than have him, and not spend his money on himself. How can Trot and I do best, upon our means? What do you say, Agnes?" "_I_ say, aunt," I interposed, "that I must do something!" "Go for a soldier, do you mean?" returned my aunt, alarmed; "or go to sea? I won't hear of it. You are to be a proctor. We're not going to have any knockings on the head in _this_ family, if you please, sir." I was about to explain that I was not desirous of introducing that mode of provision into the family, when Agnes inquired if my rooms were held for any long term? "You come to the point, my dear," said my aunt. "They are not to be got rid of, for six months at least, unless they could be underlet, and that I don't believe. The last man died here. Five people out of six _would_ die--of course--of that woman in nankeen with the flannel petticoat. I have a little ready money; and I agree with you, the best thing we can do, is, to live the term out here, and get Dick a bed-room hard by." I thought it my duty to hint at the discomfort my aunt would sustain, from living in a continual state of guerilla warfare with Mrs. Crupp; but she disposed of that objection summarily by declaring, that, on the first demonstration of hostilities, she was prepared to astonish Mrs. Crupp for the whole remainder of her natural life. "I have been thinking, Trotwood," said Agnes, diffidently, "that if you had time--" "I have a good deal of time, Agnes. I am always disengaged after four or five o'clock, and I have time early in the morning. In one way and another," said I, conscious of reddening a little as I thought of the hours and hours I had devoted to fagging about town, and to and fro upon the Norwood Road, "I have abundance of time." "I know you would not mind," said Agnes, coming to me, and speaking in a low voice, so full of sweet and hopeful consideration that I hear it now, "the duties of a secretary." "Mind, my dear Agnes?" "Because," continued Agnes, "Doctor Strong has acted on his intention of retiring, and has come to live in London; and he asked papa, I know, if he could recommend him one. Don't you think he would rather have his favorite old pupil near him, than anybody else?" "Dear Agnes!" said I. "What should I do without you! You are always my good angel. I told you so. I never think of you in any other light." Agnes answered with her pleasant laugh, that one good angel (meaning Dora) was enough; and went on to remind me that the Doctor had been used to occupy himself in his study, early in the morning, and in the evening--and that probably my leisure would suit his requirements very well. I was scarcely more delighted with the prospect of earning my own bread, than with the hope of earning it under my old master; in short, acting on the advice of Agnes, I sat down and wrote a letter to the Doctor, stating my object, and appointing to call on him next day at ten in the forenoon. This I addressed to Highgate--for in that place, so memorable to me, he lived--and went out and posted, myself, without losing a minute. Wherever Agnes was, some agreeable token of her noiseless presence seemed inseparable from the place. When I came back, I found my aunt's birds hanging, just as they had hung so long in the parlor window of the cottage; and my easy chair imitating my aunt's much easier chair in its position at the open window; and even the round green fan, which my aunt had brought away with her, screwed on to the window-sill. I knew who had done all this, by its seeming to have quietly done itself; and I should have known in a moment who had arranged my neglected books in the old order of my school days, even if I had supposed Agnes to be miles away, instead of seeing her busy with them, and smiling at the disorder into which they had fallen. My aunt was quite gracious on the subject of the Thames (it really did look very well with the sun upon it, though not like the sea before the cottage), but she could not relent towards the London smoke, which, she said, "peppered everything." A complete revolution, in which Peggotty bore a prominent part, was being effected in every corner of my rooms, in regard of this pepper; and I was looking on, thinking how little even Peggotty seemed to do with a good deal of bustle, and how much Agnes did without any bustle at all, when a knock came at the door. "I think," said Agnes, turning pale, "it's papa. He promised me that he would come." I opened the door, and admitted, not only Mr. Wickfield, but Uriah Heep. I had not seen Mr. Wickfield for some time. I was prepared for a great change in him, after what I had heard from Agnes, but his appearance shocked me. [Illustration: Mr. Wickfield and his partner wait upon my Aunt.] It was not that he looked many years older, though still dressed with the old scrupulous cleanliness; or that there was an unwholesome ruddiness upon his face; or that his eyes were full and bloodshot; or that there was a nervous trembling in his hand, the cause of which I knew, and had for some years seen at work. It was not that he had lost his good looks, or his old bearing of a gentleman--for that he had not--but the thing that struck me most, was, that with the evidences of his native superiority still upon him, he should submit himself to that crawling impersonation of meanness, Uriah Heep. The reversal of the two natures, in their relative positions, Uriah's of power and Mr. Wickfield's of dependence, was a sight more painful to me than I can express. If I had seen an Ape taking command of a Man, I should hardly have thought it a more degrading spectacle. He appeared to be only too conscious of it himself. When he came in, he stood still; and with his head bowed, as if he felt it. This was only for a moment; for Agnes softly said to him, "Papa! Here is Miss Trotwood--and Trotwood, whom you have not seen for a long while!" and then he approached, and constrainedly gave my aunt his hand, and shook hands more cordially with me. In the moment's pause I speak of, I saw Uriah's countenance form itself into a most ill-favored smile. Agnes saw it too, I think, for she shrank from him. What my aunt saw, or did not see, I defy the science of physiognomy to have made out, without her own consent. I believe there never was anybody with such an imperturbable countenance when she chose. Her face might have been a dead wall on the occasion in question, for any light it threw upon her thoughts; until she broke silence with her usual abruptness. "Well, Wickfield!" said my aunt; and he looked up at her for the first time. "I have been telling your daughter how well I have been disposing of my money for myself, because I couldn't trust it to you, as you were growing rusty in business matters. We have been taking counsel together, and getting on very well, all things considered. Agnes is worth the whole firm, in my opinion." "If I may umbly make the remark," said Uriah Heep, with a writhe, "I fully agree with Miss Betsey Trotwood, and should be only too appy if Miss Agnes was a partner." "You're a partner yourself, you know," returned my aunt, "and that's about enough for you, I expect. How do you find yourself, sir?" In acknowledgment of this question, addressed to him with extraordinary curtness, Mr. Heep, uncomfortably clutching the blue bag he carried, replied that he was pretty well, he thanked my aunt, and hoped she was the same. "And you, Master--I should say, Mister Copperfield," pursued Uriah. "I hope I see you well! I am rejoiced to see you, Mister Copperfield, even under present circumstances." I believed that; for he seemed to relish them very much. "Present circumstances is not what your friends would wish for you, Mister Copperfield, but it isn't money makes the man: it's--I am really unequal with my umble powers to express what it is," said Uriah, with a fawning jerk, "but it isn't money!" Here he shook hands with me: not in the common way, but standing at a good distance from me, and lifting my hand up and down like a pump handle, that he was a little afraid of. "And how do you think we are looking, Master Copperfield,--I should say, Mister?" fawned Uriah. "Don't you find Mr. Wickfield blooming, sir? Years don't tell much in our firm, Master Copperfield, except in raising up the umble, namely, mother and self--and in developing," he added as an after-thought, "the beautiful, namely Miss Agnes." He jerked himself about, after this compliment, in such an intolerable manner, that my aunt, who had sat looking straight at him, lost all patience. "Deuce take the man!" said my aunt, sternly, "what's he about? Don't be galvanic, sir!" "I ask your pardon, Miss Trotwood," returned Uriah; "I'm aware you're nervous." "Go along with you, sir!" said my aunt, anything but appeased. "Don't presume to say so! I am nothing of the sort. If you're an eel, sir, conduct yourself like one. If you're a man, control your limbs, sir! Good God!" said my aunt, with great indignation, "I am not going to be serpentined and corkscrewed out of my senses!" Mr. Heep was rather abashed, as most people might have been, by this explosion; which derived great additional force from the indignant manner in which my aunt afterwards moved in her chair, and shook her head as if she were making snaps or bounces at him. But, he said to me aside in a meek voice: "I am well aware, Master Copperfield, that Miss Trotwood, though an excellent lady, has a quick temper (indeed I think I had the pleasure of knowing her, when I was a numble clerk, before you did, Master Copperfield), and it's only natural, I am sure, that it should be made quicker by present circumstances. The wonder is, that it isn't much worse! I only called to say that if there was anything we could do, in present circumstances, mother or self, or Wickfield and Heep, we should be really glad. I may go so far?" said Uriah, with a sickly smile at his partner. "Uriah Heep," said Mr. Wickfield, in a monotonous forced way, "is active in the business, Trotwood. What he says, I quite concur in. You know I had an old interest in you. Apart from that, what Uriah says I quite concur in!" "Oh, what a reward it is," said Uriah, drawing up one leg, at the risk of bringing down upon himself another visitation from my aunt, "to be so trusted in! But I hope I am able to do something to relieve him from the fatigues of business, Master Copperfield!" "Uriah Heep is a great relief to me," said Mr. Wickfield, in the same dull voice. "It's a load off my mind, Trotwood, to have such a partner." The red fox made him say all this, I knew, to exhibit him to me in the light he had indicated on the night when he poisoned my rest. I saw the same ill-favored smile upon his face again, and saw how he watched me. "You are not going, papa?" said Agnes, anxiously. "Will you not walk back with Trotwood and me?" He would have looked to Uriah, I believe, before replying, if that worthy had not anticipated him. "I am bespoke myself," said Uriah, "on business; otherwise I should have been appy to have kept with my friends. But I leave my partner to represent the firm. Miss Agnes, ever yours! I wish you good-day, Master Copperfield, and leave my umble respects for Miss Betsey Trotwood." With those words, he retired, kissing his great hand, and leering at us like a mask. We sat there, talking about our pleasant old Canterbury days, an hour or two. Mr. Wickfield, left to Agnes, soon became more like his former self; though there was a settled depression upon him, which he never shook off. For all that, he brightened; and had an evident pleasure in hearing us recall the little incidents of our old life, many of which he remembered very well. He said it was like those times, to be alone with Agnes and me again; and he wished to Heaven they had never changed. I am sure there was an influence in the placid face of Agnes, and in the very touch of her hand upon his arm, that did wonders for him. My aunt (who was busy nearly all this while with Peggotty, in the inner room) would not accompany us to the place where they were staying, but insisted on my going; and I went. We dined together. After dinner, Agnes sat beside him, as of old, and poured out his wine. He took what she gave him, and no more--like a child--and we all three sat together at a window as the evening gathered in. When it was almost dark, he lay down on a sofa, Agnes pillowing his head and bending over him a little while; and when she came back to the window, it was not so dark but I could see tears glittering in her eyes. I pray Heaven that I never may forget the dear girl in her love and truth, at that time of my life; for if I should, I must be drawing near the end, and then I would desire to remember her best! She filled my heart with such good resolutions, strengthened my weakness so, by her example, so directed--I know not how, she was too modest and gentle to advise me in many words--the wandering ardor and unsettled purpose within me, that all the little good I have done, and all the harm I have forborne, I solemnly believe I may refer to her. And how she spoke to me of Dora, sitting at the window in the dark; listened to my praises of her; praised again; and round the little fairy-figure shed some glimpses of her own pure light, that made it yet more precious and more innocent to me! Oh, Agnes, sister of my boyhood, if I had known then, what I knew long afterwards!-- There was a beggar in the street, when I went down; and as I turned my head towards the window, thinking of her calm, seraphic eyes, he made me start by muttering, as if he were an echo of the morning: "Blind! Blind! Blind!" CHAPTER XXXVI. ENTHUSIASM. I began the next day with another dive into the Roman bath, and then started for Highgate. I was not dispirited now. I was not afraid of the shabby coat, and had no yearnings after gallant greys. My whole manner of thinking of our late misfortune was changed. What I had to do, was, to show my aunt that her past goodness to me had not been thrown away on an insensible, ungrateful object. What I had to do, was, to turn the painful discipline of my younger days to account, by going to work with a resolute and steady heart. What I had to do, was, to take my woodman's axe in my hand, and clear my own way through the forest of difficulty, by cutting down the trees until I came to Dora. And I went on at a mighty rate, as if it could be done by walking. When I found myself on the familiar Highgate road, pursuing such a different errand from that old one of pleasure, with which it was associated, it seemed as if a complete change had come on my whole life. But that did not discourage me. With the new life, came new purpose, new intention. Great was the labor; priceless the reward. Dora was the reward, and Dora must be won. I got into such a transport, that I felt quite sorry my coat was not a little shabby already. I wanted to be cutting at those trees in the forest of difficulty, under circumstances that should prove my strength. I had a good mind to ask an old man, in wire spectacles, who was breaking stones upon the road, to lend me his hammer for a little while, and let me begin to beat a path to Dora out of granite. I stimulated myself into such a heat, and got so out of breath, that I felt as if I had been earning I don't know how much. In this state, I went into a cottage that I saw was to let, and examined it narrowly,--for I felt it necessary to be practical. It would do for me and Dora admirably: with a little front garden for Jip to run about in, and bark at the tradespeople through the railings, and a capital room up-stairs for my aunt. I came out again, hotter and faster than ever, and dashed up to Highgate, at such a rate that I was there an hour too early; and, though I had not been, should have been obliged to stroll about to cool myself, before I was at all presentable. My first care, after putting myself under this necessary course of preparation, was to find the Doctor's house. It was not in that part of Highgate where Mrs. Steerforth lived, but quite on the opposite side of the little town. When I had made this discovery, I went back, in an attraction I could not resist, to a lane by Mrs. Steerforth's, and looked over the corner of the garden wall. His room was shut up close. The conservatory doors were standing open, and Rosa Dartle was walking, bareheaded, with a quick, impetuous step, up and down a gravel walk on one side of the lawn. She gave me the idea of some fierce thing, that was dragging the length of its chain to and fro upon a beaten track, and wearing its heart out. I came softly away from my place of observation, and avoiding that part of the neighbourhood, and wishing I had not gone near it, strolled about until it was ten o'clock. The church with the slender spire, that stands on the top of the hill now, was not there then to tell me the time. An old red-brick mansion, used as a school, was in its place; and a fine old house it must have been to go to school at, as I recollect it. When I approached the Doctor's cottage--a pretty old place, on which he seemed to have expended some money, if I might judge from the embellishments and repairs that had the look of being just completed--I saw him walking in the garden at the side, gaiters and all, as if he had never left off walking since the days of my pupilage. He had his old companions about him, too; for there were plenty of high trees in the neighbourhood, and two or three rooks were on the grass, looking after him, as if they had been written to about him by the Canterbury rooks, and were observing him closely in consequence. Knowing the utter hopelessness of attracting his attention from that distance, I made bold to open the gate, and walk after him, so as to meet him when he should turn round. When he did, and came towards me, he looked at me thoughtfully for a few moments, evidently without thinking about me at all; and then his benevolent face expressed extraordinary pleasure, and he took me by both hands. "Why, my dear Copperfield," said the Doctor; "you are a man! How do you do? I am delighted to see you. My dear Copperfield, how very much you have improved! You are quite--yes--dear me!" I hoped he was well, and Mrs. Strong too. "Oh dear, yes!" said the Doctor; "Annie's quite well, and she'll be delighted to see you. You were always her favorite. She said so, last night, when I showed her your letter. And--yes to be sure--you recollect Mr. Jack Maldon, Copperfield?" "Perfectly, sir." "Of course," said the Doctor. "To be sure. _He's_ pretty well, too." "Has he come home, sir?" I inquired. "From India?" said the Doctor. "Yes. Mr. Jack Maldon couldn't bear the climate, my dear. Mrs. Markleham--you have not forgotten Mrs. Markleham?" Forgotten the Old Soldier! And in that short time! "Mrs. Markleham," said the Doctor, "was quite vexed about him, poor thing; so we have got him at home again; and we have bought him a little Patent place, which agrees with him much better." I knew enough of Mr. Jack Maldon to suspect from this account that it was a place where there was not much to do, and which was pretty well paid. The Doctor, walking up and down with his hand on my shoulder, and his kind face turned encouragingly to mine, went on: "Now, my dear Copperfield, in reference to this proposal of yours. It's very gratifying and agreeable to me, I am sure; but don't you think you could do better? You achieved distinction, you know, when you were with us. You are qualified for many good things. You have laid a foundation that any edifice may be raised upon; and is it not a pity that you should devote the spring-time of your life to such a poor pursuit as I can offer?" I became very glowing again, and, expressing myself in a rhapsodical style, I am afraid, urged my request strongly; reminding the Doctor that I had already a profession. "Well, well," returned the Doctor, "that's true. Certainly, your having a profession, and being actually engaged in studying it, makes a difference. But, my good young friend, what's seventy pounds a-year?" "It doubles our income, Doctor Strong," said I. "Dear me!" replied the Doctor. "To think of that! Not that I mean to say it's rigidly limited to seventy pounds a-year, because I have always contemplated making any young friend I might thus employ, a present too. Undoubtedly," said the Doctor, still walking me up and down with his hand on my shoulder, "I have always taken an annual present into account." "My dear tutor," said I (now, really, without any nonsense), "to whom I owe more obligations already than I ever can acknowledge--" "No, no," interposed the Doctor. "Pardon me!" "If you will take such time as I have, and that is my mornings and evenings, and can think it worth seventy pounds a-year, you will do me such a service as I cannot express." "Dear me!" said the Doctor, innocently. "To think that so little should go for so much! Dear, dear! And when you can do better, you will? On your word, now?" said the Doctor,--which he had always made a very grave appeal to the honor of us boys. "On my word, sir!" I returned, answering in our old school manner. "Then be it so!" said the Doctor, clapping me on the shoulder, and still keeping his hand there, as we still walked up and down. "And I shall be twenty times happier, sir," said I, with a little--I hope innocent--flattery, "if my employment is to be on the Dictionary." The Doctor stopped, smilingly clapped me on the shoulder again, and exclaimed, with a triumph most delightful to behold, as if I had penetrated to the profoundest depths of mortal sagacity, "My dear young friend, you have hit it. It IS the Dictionary!" How could it be anything else! His pockets were as full of it as his head. It was sticking out of him in all directions. He told me that since his retirement from scholastic life, he had been advancing with it wonderfully; and that nothing could suit him better than the proposed arrangements for morning and evening work, as it was his custom to walk about in the day-time with his considering cap on. His papers were in a little confusion, in consequence of Mr. Jack Maldon having lately proffered his occasional services as an amanuensis, and not being accustomed to that occupation; but we should soon put right what was amiss, and go on swimmingly. Afterwards, when we were fairly at our work, I found Mr. Jack Maldon's efforts more troublesome to me than I had expected, as he had not confined himself to making numerous mistakes, but had sketched so many soldiers, and ladies' heads, over the Doctor's manuscript, that I often became involved in labyrinths of obscurity. The Doctor was quite happy in the prospect of our going to work together on that wonderful performance, and we settled to begin next morning at seven o'clock. We were to work two hours every morning, and two or three hours every night, except on Saturdays, when I was to rest. On Sundays, of course, I was to rest also, and I considered these very easy terms. Our plans being thus arranged to our mutual satisfaction, the Doctor took me into the house to present me to Mrs. Strong, whom we found in the Doctor's new study, dusting his books,--a freedom which he never permitted anybody else to take with those sacred favorites. They had postponed their breakfast on my account, and we sat down to table together. We had not been seated long, when I saw an approaching arrival in Mrs. Strong's face, before I heard any sound of it. A gentleman on horseback came to the gate, and, leading his horse into the little court, with the bridle over his arm, as if he were quite at home, tied him to a ring in the empty coach-house wall, and came into the breakfast parlor, whip in hand. It was Mr. Jack Maldon; and Mr. Jack Maldon was not at all improved by India, I thought. I was in a state of ferocious virtue, however, as to young men who were not cutting down the trees in the forest of difficulty; and my impression must be received with due allowance. "Mr. Jack!" said the Doctor, "Copperfield!" Mr. Jack Maldon shook hands with me; but not very warmly, I believed; and with an air of languid patronage, at which I secretly took great umbrage. But his languor altogether was quite a wonderful sight; except when he addressed himself to his cousin Annie. "Have you breakfasted this morning, Mr. Jack?" said the Doctor. "I hardly ever take breakfast, sir," he replied, with his head thrown back in an easy chair. "I find it bores me." "Is there any news to-day?" inquired the Doctor. "Nothing at all, sir," replied Mr. Maldon. "There's an account about the people being hungry and discontented down in the North, but they are always being hungry and discontented somewhere." The Doctor looked grave, and said, as though he wished to change the subject, "Then there's no news at all; and no news, they say, is good news." "There's a long statement in the papers, sir, about a murder," observed Mr. Maldon. "But somebody is always being murdered, and I didn't read it." A display of indifference to all the actions and passions of mankind was not supposed to be such a distinguished quality at that time, I think, as I have observed it to be considered since. I have known it very fashionable indeed. I have seen it displayed with such success, that I have encountered some fine ladies and gentlemen who might as well have been born caterpillars. Perhaps it impressed me the more then, because it was new to me, but it certainly did not tend to exalt my opinion of, or to strengthen my confidence in, Mr. Jack Maldon. "I came out to inquire whether Annie would like to go to the opera to-night," said Mr. Maldon, turning to her. "It's the last good night there will be, this season; and there's a singer there, whom she really ought to hear. She is perfectly exquisite. Besides which, she is so charmingly ugly," relapsing into languor. The Doctor, ever pleased with what was likely to please his young wife, turned to her and said: "You must go, Annie. You must go." "I would rather not," she said to the Doctor. "I prefer to remain at home. I would much rather remain at home." Without looking at her cousin, she then addressed me, and asked me about Agnes, and whether she should see her, and whether she was not likely to come that day; and was so much disturbed, that I wondered how even the Doctor, buttering his toast, could be blind to what was so obvious. But he saw nothing. He told her, good-naturedly, that she was young and ought to be amused and entertained, and must not allow herself to be made dull by a dull old fellow. Moreover, he said, he wanted to hear her sing all the new singer's songs to him; and how could she do that well, unless she went? So the Doctor persisted in making the engagement for her, and Mr. Jack Maldon was to come back to dinner. This concluded, he went to his Patent place, I suppose; but at all events went away on his horse, looking very idle. I was curious to find out next morning, whether she had been. She had not, but had sent into London to put her cousin off; and had gone out in the afternoon to see Agnes, and had prevailed upon the Doctor to go with her; and they had walked home by the fields, the Doctor told me, the evening being delightful. I wondered then, whether she would have gone if Agnes had not been in town, and whether Agnes had some good influence over her too! She did not look very happy, I thought; but it was a good face, or a very false one. I often glanced at it, for she sat in the window all the time we were at work; and made our breakfast, which we took by snatches as we were employed. When I left, at nine o'clock, she was kneeling on the ground at the Doctor's feet, putting on his shoes and gaiters for him. There was a softened shade upon her face, thrown from some green leaves overhanging the open window of the low room; and I thought all the way to Doctors' Commons, of the night when I had seen it looking at him as he read. I was pretty busy now; up at five in the morning, and home at nine or ten at night. But I had infinite satisfaction in being so closely engaged, and never walked slowly on any account, and felt enthusiastically that the more I tired myself, the more I was doing to deserve Dora. I had not revealed myself in my altered character to Dora yet, because she was coming to see Miss Mills in a few days, and I deferred all I had to tell her until then; merely informing her in my letters (all our communications were secretly forwarded through Miss Mills), that I had much to tell her. In the meantime, I put myself on a short allowance of bear's grease, wholly abandoned scented soap and lavender water, and sold off three waistcoats at a prodigious sacrifice, as being too luxurious for my stern career. Not satisfied with all these proceedings, but burning with impatience to do something more, I went to see Traddles, now lodging up behind the parapet of a house in Castle Street, Holborn. Mr. Dick, who had been with me to Highgate twice already, and had resumed his companionship with the Doctor, I took with me. I took Mr. Dick with me, because, acutely sensitive to my aunt's reverses, and sincerely believing that no galley-slave or convict worked as I did, he had begun to fret and worry himself out of spirits and appetite, as having nothing useful to do. In this condition, he felt more incapable of finishing the Memorial than ever; and the harder he worked at it, the oftener that unlucky head of King Charles the First got into it. Seriously apprehending that his malady would increase, unless we put some innocent deception upon him and caused him to believe that he was useful, or unless we could put him in the way of being really useful (which would be better), I made up my mind to try if Traddles could help us. Before we went, I wrote Traddles a full statement of all that had happened, and Traddles wrote me back a capital answer, expressive of his sympathy and friendship. We found him hard at work with his inkstand and papers, refreshed by the sight of the flowerpot-stand and the little round table in a corner of the small apartment. He received us cordially, and made friends with Mr. Dick in a moment. Mr. Dick professed an absolute certainty of having seen him before, and we both said, "Very likely." The first subject on which I had to consult Traddles was this.--I had heard that many men distinguished in various pursuits had begun life by reporting the debates in Parliament. Traddles having mentioned newspapers to me, as one of his hopes, I had put the two things together, and told Traddles in my letter that I wished to know how I could qualify myself for this pursuit. Traddles now informed me, as the result of his inquiries, that the mere mechanical acquisition necessary, except in rare cases, for thorough excellence in it, that is to say, a perfect and entire command of the mystery of short-hand writing and reading, was about equal in difficulty to the mastery of six languages; and that it might perhaps be attained, by dint of perseverance, in the course of a few years. Traddles reasonably supposed that this would settle the business; but I, only feeling that here indeed were a few tall trees to be hewn down, immediately resolved to work my way on to Dora through this thicket, axe in hand. "I am very much obliged to you, my dear Traddles!" said I. "I'll begin to-morrow." Traddles looked astonished, as he well might; but he had no notion as yet of my rapturous condition. "I'll buy a book," said I, "with a good scheme of this art in it; I'll work at it at the Commons, where I haven't half enough to do; I'll take down the speeches in our court for practice--Traddles, my dear fellow, I'll master it!" "Dear me," said Traddles, opening his eyes, "I had no idea you were such a determined character, Copperfield!" I don't know how he should have had, for it was new enough to me. I passed that off, and brought Mr. Dick on the carpet. "You see," said Mr. Dick, wistfully, "if I could exert myself, Mr. Traddles--if I could beat a drum--or blow anything!" Poor fellow! I have little doubt he would have preferred such an employment in his heart to all others. Traddles, who would not have smiled for the world, replied composedly: "But you are a very good penman, sir. You told me so, Copperfield?" "Excellent!" said I. And indeed he was. He wrote with extraordinary neatness. "Don't you think," said Traddles, "you could copy writings, sir, if I got them for you?" Mr. Dick looked doubtfully at me. "Eh, Trotwood?" I shook my head. Mr. Dick shook his, and sighed. "Tell him about the Memorial," said Mr. Dick. I explained to Traddles that there was a difficulty in keeping King Charles the First out of Mr. Dick's manuscripts; Mr. Dick in the meanwhile looking very deferentially and seriously at Traddles, and sucking his thumb. "But these writings, you know, that I speak of, are already drawn up and finished," said Traddles after a little consideration. "Mr. Dick has nothing to do with them. Wouldn't that make a difference, Copperfield? At all events wouldn't it be well to try?" This gave us new hope. Traddles and I laying our heads together apart, while Mr. Dick anxiously watched us from his chair, we concocted a scheme in virtue of which we got him to work next day, with triumphant success. On a table by the window in Buckingham Street, we set out the work Traddles procured for him--which was to make, I forget how many copies of a legal document about some right of way--and on another table we spread the last unfinished original of the great Memorial. Our instructions to Mr. Dick were that he should copy exactly what he had before him, without the least departure from the original; and that when he felt it necessary to make the slightest allusion to King Charles the First, he should fly to the Memorial. We exhorted him to be resolute in this, and left my aunt to observe him. My aunt reported to us, afterwards, that, at first, he was like a man playing the kettle-drums, and constantly divided his attentions between the two; but that, finding this confuse and fatigue him, and having his copy there, plainly before his eyes, he soon sat at it in an orderly business-like manner, and postponed the Memorial to a more convenient time. In a word, although we took great care that he should have no more to do than was good for him, and although he did not begin with the beginning of a week, he earned by the following Saturday night ten shillings and nine pence; and never, while I live, shall I forget his going about to all the shops in the neighbourhood to change this treasure into sixpences, or his bringing them to my aunt arranged in the form of a heart upon a waiter, with tears of joy and pride in his eyes. He was like one under the propitious influence of a charm, from the moment of his being usefully employed; and if there were a happy man in the world, that Saturday night, it was the grateful creature who thought my aunt the most wonderful woman in existence, and me the most wonderful young man. "No starving now, Trotwood," said Mr. Dick, shaking hands with me in a corner. "I'll provide for her, sir!" and he flourished his ten fingers in the air, as if they were ten banks. I hardly know which was the better pleased, Traddles or I. "It really," said Traddles, suddenly, taking a letter out of his pocket, and giving it to me, "put Mr. Micawber quite out of my head!" The letter (Mr. Micawber never missed any possible opportunity of writing a letter) was addressed to me, "By the kindness of T. Traddles, Esquire, of the Inner Temple." It ran thus:-- "MY DEAR COPPERFIELD, "You may possibly not be unprepared to receive the intimation that something has turned up. I may have mentioned to you on a former occasion that I was in expectation of such an event. "I am about to establish myself in one of the provincial towns of our favored island, (where the society may be described as a happy admixture of the agricultural and the clerical), in immediate connexion with one of the learned professions. Mrs. Micawber and our offspring will accompany me. Our ashes, at a future period, will probably be found commingled in the cemetery attached to a venerable pile, for which the spot to which I refer, has acquired a reputation, shall I say from China to Peru? "In bidding adieu to the modern Babylon, where we have undergone many vicissitudes, I trust not ignobly, Mrs. Micawber and myself cannot disguise from our minds that we part, it may be for years and it may be for ever, with an individual linked by strong associations to the altar of our domestic life. If, on the eve of such a departure, you will accompany our mutual friend, Mr. Thomas Traddles, to our present abode, and there reciprocate the wishes natural to the occasion, you will confer a Boon "On "One "Who "Is "Ever yours, "WILKINS MICAWBER." I was glad to find that Mr. Micawber had got rid of his dust and ashes, and that something really had turned up at last. Learning from Traddles that the invitation referred to the evening then wearing away, I expressed my readiness to do honor to it; and we went off together to the lodging which Mr. Micawber occupied as Mr. Mortimer, and which was situated near the top of the Gray's Inn Road. The resources of this lodging were so limited, that we found the twins, now some eight or nine years old, reposing in a turn-up bedstead in the family sitting-room, where Mr. Micawber had prepared, in a wash-hand-stand jug, what he called "a Brew" of the agreeable beverage for which he was famous. I had the pleasure, on this occasion, of renewing the acquaintance of Master Micawber, whom I found a promising boy of about twelve or thirteen, very subject to that restlessness of limb which is not an unfrequent phenomenon in youths of his age. I also became once more known to his sister, Miss Micawber, in whom, as Mr. Micawber told us, "her mother renewed her youth, like the Phoenix." "My dear Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, "yourself and Mr. Traddles find us on the brink of migration, and will excuse any little discomforts incidental to that position." Glancing round as I made a suitable reply, I observed that the family effects were already packed, and that the amount of luggage was by no means overwhelming. I congratulated Mrs. Micawber on the approaching change. "My dear Mr. Copperfield," said Mrs. Micawber, "of your friendly interest in all our affairs, I am well assured. My family may consider it banishment, if they please; but I am a wife and mother, and I never will desert Mr. Micawber." Traddles, appealed to, by Mrs. Micawber's eye, feelingly acquiesced. "That," said Mrs. Micawber, "that, at least, is my view, my dear Mr. Copperfield and Mr. Traddles, of the obligation which I took upon myself when I repeated the irrevocable words, 'I, Emma, take thee, Wilkins.' I read the service over with a flat-candle on the previous night, and the conclusion I derived from it was, that I never could desert Mr. Micawber. And," said Mrs. Micawber, "though it is possible I may be mistaken in my view of the ceremony, I never will!" "My dear," said Mr. Micawber, a little impatiently, "I am not conscious that you are expected to do any thing of the sort." "I am aware, my dear Mr. Copperfield," pursued Mrs. Micawber, "that I am now about to cast my lot among strangers; and I am also aware that the various members of my family, to whom Mr. Micawber has written in the most gentlemanly terms, announcing that fact, have not taken the least notice of Mr. Micawber's communication. Indeed I may be superstitious," said Mrs. Micawber, "but it appears to me that Mr. Micawber is destined never to receive any answers whatever to the great majority of the communications he writes. I may augur, from the silence of my family, that they object to the resolution I have taken; but I should not allow myself to be swerved from the path of duty, Mr. Copperfield, even by my papa and mama, were they still living." I expressed my opinion that this was going in the right direction. "It may be a sacrifice," said Mrs. Micawber, "to immure one's-self in a Cathedral town; but surely, Mr. Copperfield, if it is a sacrifice in me, it is much more a sacrifice in a man of Mr. Micawber's abilities." "Oh! You are going to a Cathedral town?" said I. Mr. Micawber, who had been helping us all, out of the wash-hand-stand jug, replied: "To Canterbury. In fact, my dear Copperfield, I have entered into arrangements, by virtue of which I stand pledged and contracted to our friend Heep, to assist and serve him in the capacity of--and to be--his confidential clerk." I stared at Mr. Micawber, who greatly enjoyed my surprise. "I am bound to state to you," he said, with an official air, "that the business habits, and the prudent suggestions, of Mrs. Micawber, have in a great measure conduced to this result. The gauntlet, to which Mrs. Micawber referred upon a former occasion, being thrown down in the form of an advertisement, was taken up by my friend Heep, and led to a mutual recognition. Of my friend Heep," said Mr. Micawber, "who is a man of remarkable shrewdness, I desire to speak with all possible respect. My friend Heep has not fixed the positive remuneration at too high a figure, but he has made a great deal, in the way of extrication from the pressure of pecuniary difficulties, contingent on the value of my services; and on the value of those services I pin my faith. Such address and intelligence as I chance to possess," said Mr. Micawber, boastfully disparaging himself, with the old genteel air, "will be devoted to my friend Heep's service. I have already some acquaintance with the law--as a defendant on civil process--and I shall immediately apply myself to the Commentaries of one of the most eminent and remarkable of our English Jurists. I believe it is unnecessary to add that I allude to Mr. Justice Blackstone." These observations, and indeed the greater part of the observations made that evening, were interrupted by Mrs. Micawber's discovering that Master Micawber was sitting on his boots, or holding his head on with both arms as if he felt it loose, or accidentally kicking Traddles under the table, or shuffling his feet over one another, or producing them at distances from himself apparently outrageous to nature, or lying sideways with his hair among the wine-glasses, or developing his restlessness of limb in some other form incompatible with the general interests of society; and by Master Micawber's receiving those discoveries in a resentful spirit. I sat all the while, amazed by Mr. Micawber's disclosure, and wondering what it meant; until Mrs. Micawber resumed the thread of the discourse, and claimed my attention. "What I particularly request Mr. Micawber to be careful of, is," said Mrs. Micawber, "that he does not, my dear Mr. Copperfield, in applying himself to this subordinate branch of the law, place it out of his power to rise, ultimately, to the top of the tree. I am convinced that Mr. Micawber, giving his mind to a profession so adapted to his fertile resources, and his flow of language, _must_ distinguish himself. Now, for example, Mr. Traddles," said Mrs. Micawber, assuming a profound air, "a Judge, or even say a Chancellor. Does an individual place himself beyond the pale of those preferments by entering on such an office as Mr. Micawber has accepted?" "My dear," observed Mr. Micawber--but glancing inquisitively at Traddles, too; "we have time enough before us, for the consideration of those questions." "Micawber," she returned, "no! Your mistake in life is, that you do not look forward far enough. You are bound, in justice to your family, if not to yourself, to take in at a comprehensive glance the extremest point in the horizon to which your abilities may lead you." Mr. Micawber coughed, and drank his punch with an air of exceeding satisfaction--still glancing at Traddles, as if he desired to have his opinion. "Why, the plain state of the case, Mrs. Micawber," said Traddles, mildly breaking the truth to her, "I mean the real prosaic fact, you know--" "Just so," said Mrs. Micawber, "my dear Mr. Traddles, I wish to be as prosaic and literal as possible on a subject of so much importance." "--Is," said Traddles, "that this branch of the law, even if Mr. Micawber were a regular solicitor--" "Exactly so," returned Mrs. Micawber. ("Wilkins, you are squinting, and will not be able to get your eyes back.") "--Has nothing," pursued Traddles, "to do with that. Only a barrister is eligible for such preferments; and Mr. Micawber could not be a barrister, without being entered at an inn of court as a student, for five years." "Do I follow you?" said Mrs. Micawber, with her most affable air of business. "Do I understand, my dear Mr. Traddles, that, at the expiration of that period, Mr. Micawber would be eligible as a Judge or Chancellor?" "He would be _eligible_," returned Traddles, with a strong emphasis on that word. "Thank you," said Mrs. Micawber. "That is quite sufficient. If such is the case, and Mr. Micawber forfeits no privilege by entering on these duties, my anxiety is set at rest. I speak," said Mrs. Micawber, "as a female, necessarily; but I have always been of opinion that Mr. Micawber possesses what I have heard my papa call, when I lived at home, the judicial mind; and I hope Mr. Micawber is now entering on a field where that mind will develope itself, and take a commanding station." I quite believe that Mr. Micawber saw himself, in his judicial mind's eye, on the woolsack. He passed his hand complacently over his bald head, and said with ostentatious resignation: "My dear, we will not anticipate the decrees of fortune. If I am reserved to wear a wig, I am at least prepared, externally," in allusion to his baldness, "for that distinction. I do not," said Mr. Micawber, "regret my hair, and I may have been deprived of it for a specific purpose. I cannot say. It is my intention, my dear Copperfield, to educate my son for the Church; I will not deny that I should be happy, on his account, to attain to eminence." "For the Church?" said I, still pondering, betweenwhiles, on Uriah Heep. "Yes," said Mr. Micawber. "He has a remarkable head-voice, and will commence as a chorister. Our residence at Canterbury, and our local connexion, will, no doubt, enable him to take advantage of any vacancy that may arise in the Cathedral corps." On looking at Master Micawber again, I saw that he had a certain expression of face, as if his voice were behind his eyebrows; where it presently appeared to be, on his singing us (as an alternative between that and bed) "The Wood-Pecker tapping." After many compliments on this performance, we fell into some general conversation; and as I was too full of my desperate intentions to keep my altered circumstances to myself, I made them known to Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. I cannot express how extremely delighted they both were, by the idea of my aunt's being in difficulties; and how comfortable and friendly it made them. When we were nearly come to the last round of the punch, I addressed myself to Traddles, and reminded him that we must not separate, without wishing our friends health, happiness, and success in their new career. I begged Mr. Micawber to fill us bumpers, and proposed the toast in due form: shaking hands with him across the table, and kissing Mrs. Micawber, to commemorate that eventful occasion. Traddles imitated me in the first particular, but did not consider himself a sufficiently old friend to venture on the second. "My dear Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, rising with one of his thumbs in each of his waistcoat pockets, "the companion of my youth: if I may be allowed the expression--and my esteemed friend Traddles: if I may be permitted to call him so--will allow me, on the part of Mrs. Micawber, myself, and our offspring, to thank them in the warmest and most uncompromising terms for their good wishes. It may be expected that on the eve of a migration which will consign us to a perfectly new existence," Mr. Micawber spoke as if they were going five hundred thousand miles, "I should offer a few valedictory remarks to two such friends as I see before me. But all that I have to say in this way, I have said. Whatever station in society I may attain, through the medium of the learned profession of which I am about to become an unworthy member, I shall endeavour not to disgrace, and Mrs. Micawber will be safe to adorn. Under the temporary pressure of pecuniary liabilities, contracted with a view to their immediate liquidation, but remaining unliquidated through a combination of circumstances, I have been under the necessity of assuming a garb from which my natural instincts recoil--I allude to spectacles--and possessing myself of a cognomen, to which I can establish no legitimate pretensions. All I have to say on that score is, that the cloud has passed from the dreary scene, and the God of Day is once more high upon the mountain tops. On Monday next, on the arrival of the four o'clock afternoon coach at Canterbury, my foot will be on my native heath--my name, Micawber!" [Illustration: Mr. Micawber delivers some valedictory remarks.] Mr. Micawber resumed his seat on the close of these remarks, and drank two glasses of punch in grave succession. He then said with much solemnity: "One thing more I have to do, before this separation is complete, and that is to perform an act of justice. My friend Mr. Thomas Traddles has, on two several occasions, 'put his name,' if I may use a common expression, to bills of exchange for my accommodation. On the first occasion Mr. Thomas Traddles was left--let me say, in short, in the lurch. The fulfilment of the second has not yet arrived. The amount of the first obligation," here Mr. Micawber carefully referred to papers, "was, I believe, twenty-three, four, nine and a half; of the second, according to my entry of that transaction, eighteen, six, two. These sums, united, make a total, if my calculation is correct, amounting to forty-one, ten, eleven and a half. My friend Copperfield will perhaps do me the favor to check that total?" I did so and found it correct. "To leave this metropolis," said Mr. Micawber, "and my friend Mr. Thomas Traddles, without acquitting myself of the pecuniary part of this obligation, would weigh upon my mind to an insupportable extent. I have, therefore, prepared for my friend Mr. Thomas Traddles, and I now hold in my hand, a document, which accomplishes the desired object. I beg to hand to my friend Mr. Thomas Traddles my I. O. U. for forty-one, ten, eleven and a half; and I am happy to recover my moral dignity, and to know that I can once more walk erect before my fellow man!" With this introduction (which greatly affected him), Mr. Micawber placed his I. O. U. in the hands of Traddles, and said he wished him well in every relation of life. I am persuaded, not only that this was quite the same to Mr. Micawber as paying the money, but that Traddles himself hardly knew the difference until he had had time to think about it. Mr. Micawber walked so erect before his fellow man, on the strength of this virtuous action, that his chest looked half as broad again when he lighted us down stairs. We parted with great heartiness on both sides; and when I had seen Traddles to his own door, and was going home alone, I thought, among the other odd and contradictory things I mused upon, that, slippery as Mr. Micawber was, I was probably indebted to some compassionate recollection he retained of me as his boy-lodger, for never having been asked by him for money. I certainly should not have had the moral courage to refuse it; and I have no doubt he knew that (to his credit be it written), quite as well as I did. CHAPTER XXXVII. A LITTLE COLD WATER. My new life had lasted for more than a week, and I was stronger than ever in those tremendous practical resolutions that I felt the crisis required. I continued to walk extremely fast, and to have a general idea that I was getting on. I made it a rule to take as much out of myself as I possibly could, in my way of doing everything to which I applied my energies. I made a perfect victim of myself. I even entertained some idea of putting myself on a vegetable diet, vaguely conceiving that, in becoming a graminivorous animal, I should sacrifice to Dora. As yet, little Dora was quite unconscious of my desperate firmness, otherwise than as my letters darkly shadowed it forth. But, another Saturday came, and on that Saturday evening she was to be at Miss Mills's; and when Mr. Mills had gone to his whist-club (telegraphed to me in the street, by a bird-cage in the drawing-room middle window), I was to go there to tea. By this time, we were quite settled down in Buckingham Street, where Mr. Dick continued his copying in a state of absolute felicity. My aunt had obtained a signal victory over Mrs. Crupp, by paying her off, throwing the first pitcher she planted on the stairs out of window, and protecting in person, up and down the staircase, a supernumerary whom she engaged from the outer world. These vigorous measures struck such terror to the breast of Mrs. Crupp, that she subsided into her own kitchen, under the impression that my aunt was mad. My aunt being supremely indifferent to Mrs. Crupp's opinion and everybody else's, and rather favoring than discouraging the idea, Mrs. Crupp, of late the bold, became within a few days so faint-hearted, that rather than encounter my aunt upon the staircase, she would endeavour to hide her portly form behind doors--leaving visible, however, a wide margin of flannel petticoat--or would shrink into dark corners. This gave my aunt such unspeakable satisfaction, that I believe she took a delight in prowling up and down, with her bonnet insanely perched on the top of her head, at times when Mrs. Crupp was likely to be in the way. My aunt, being uncommonly neat and ingenious, made so many little improvements in our domestic arrangements, that I seemed to be richer instead of poorer. Among the rest, she converted the pantry into a dressing-room for me; and purchased and embellished a bedstead for my occupation, which looked as like a bookcase in the daytime, as a bedstead could. I was the object of her constant solicitude; and my poor mother herself could not have loved me better, or studied more how to make me happy. Peggotty had considered herself highly privileged in being allowed to participate in these labors; and, although she still retained something of her old sentiment of awe in reference to my aunt, had received so many marks of encouragement and confidence, that they were the best friends possible. But the time had now come (I am speaking of the Saturday when I was to take tea at Miss Mills's) when it was necessary for her to return home, and enter on the discharge of the duties she had undertaken in behalf of Ham. "So good bye, Barkis," said my aunt, "and take care of yourself! I am sure I never thought I could be sorry to lose you!" I took Peggotty to the coach-office, and saw her off. She cried at parting, and confided her brother to my friendship as Ham had done. We had heard nothing of him since he went away, that sunny afternoon. "And now, my own dear Davy," said Peggotty, "if, while you're a prentice, you should want any money to spend; or if, when you're out of your time, my dear, you should want any to set you up (and you must do one or other, or both, my darling); who has such a good right to ask leave to lend it you, as my sweet girl's own old stupid me!" I was not so savagely independent as to say anything in reply, but that if ever I borrowed money of anyone, I would borrow it of her. Next to accepting a large sum on the spot, I believe this gave Peggotty more comfort than anything I could have done. "And, my dear!" whispered Peggotty, "tell the pretty little angel that I should so have liked to see her, only for a minute! And tell her that before she marries my boy, I'll come and make your house so beautiful for you, if you'll let me!" I declared that nobody else should touch it; and this gave Peggotty such delight that she went away in good spirits. I fatigued myself as much as I possibly could in the Commons all day, by a variety of devices, and at the appointed time in the evening repaired to Mr. Mills's street. Mr. Mills, who was a terrible fellow to fall asleep after dinner, had not yet gone out, and there was no birdcage in the middle window. He kept me waiting so long, that I fervently hoped the Club would fine him for being late. At last he came out; and then I saw my own Dora hang up the birdcage, and peep into the balcony to look for me, and run in again when she saw I was there, while Jip remained behind, to bark injuriously at an immense butcher's dog in the street, who could have taken him like a pill. Dora came to the drawing-room door to meet me; and Jip came scrambling out, tumbling over his own growls, under the impression that I was a Bandit; and we all three went in, as happy and loving as could be. I soon carried desolation into the bosom of our joys--not that I meant to do it, but that I was so full of the subject--by asking Dora, without the smallest preparation, if she could love a beggar? My pretty, little, startled Dora! Her only association with the word was a yellow face and a nightcap, or a pair of crutches, or a wooden leg, or a dog with a decanter-stand in his mouth, or something of that kind; and she stared at me with the most delightful wonder. "How can you ask me anything so foolish!" pouted Dora. "Love a beggar!" "Dora, my own dearest!" said I. "_I_ am a beggar!" "How can you be such a silly thing," replied Dora, slapping my hand, "as to sit there, telling such stories? I'll make Jip bite you!" Her childish way was the most delicious way in the world to me, but it was necessary to be explicit, and I solemnly repeated: "Dora, my own life, I am your ruined David!" "I declare I'll make Jip bite you!" said Dora, shaking her curls, "if you are so ridiculous." But I looked so serious, that Dora left off shaking her curls, and laid her trembling little hand upon my shoulder, and first looked scared and anxious, then began to cry. That was dreadful. I fell upon my knees before the sofa, caressing her, and imploring her not to rend my heart; but, for some time, poor little Dora did nothing but exclaim Oh dear! oh dear! And oh, she was so frightened! And where was Julia Mills! And oh, take her to Julia Mills, and go away, please! until I was almost beside myself. At last, after an agony of supplication and protestation, I got Dora to look at me, with a horrified expression of face, which I gradually soothed until it was only loving, and her soft, pretty cheek was lying against mine. Then I told her, with my arms clasped round her, how I loved her, so dearly, and so dearly; how I felt it right to offer to release her from her engagement, because now I was poor; how I never could bear it, or recover it, if I lost her; how I had no fears of poverty, if she had none, my arm being nerved and my heart inspired by her; how I was already working with a courage such as none but lovers knew; how I had begun to be practical, and to look into the future; how a crust well earned was sweeter far than a feast inherited; and much more to the same purpose, which I delivered in a burst of passionate eloquence quite surprising to myself, though I had been thinking about it, day and night, ever since my aunt had astonished me. "Is your heart mine still, dear Dora?" said I, rapturously, for I knew by her clinging to me that it was. "Oh, yes!" cried Dora. "Oh, yes, it's all yours. Oh, don't be dreadful!" _I_ dreadful! To Dora! "Don't talk about being poor, and working hard!" said Dora, nestling closer to me. "Oh, don't, don't!" "My dearest love," said I, "the crust well-earned--" "Oh, yes; but I don't want to hear any more about crusts!" said Dora. "And Jip must have a mutton-chop every-day at twelve, or he'll die!" I was charmed with her childish, winning way. I fondly explained to Dora that Jip should have his mutton-chop with his accustomed regularity. I drew a picture of our frugal home, made independent by my labor--sketching-in the little house I had seen at Highgate, and my aunt in her room up-stairs. "I am not dreadful now, Dora?" said I, tenderly. "Oh, no, no!" cried Dora. "But I hope your aunt will keep in her own room a good deal! And I hope she's not a scolding old thing!" If it were possible for me to love Dora more than ever, I am sure I did. But I felt she was a little impracticable. It damped my new-born ardor, to find that ardor so difficult of communication to her. I made another trial. When she was quite herself again, and was curling Jip's ears, as he lay upon her lap, I became grave, and said: "My own! May I mention something?" "Oh, please don't be practical!" said Dora, coaxingly. "Because it frightens me so!" "Sweet heart!" I returned; "there is nothing to alarm you in all this. I want you to think of it quite differently. I want to make it nerve you, and inspire you, Dora!" "Oh, but that's so shocking!" cried Dora. "My love, no. Perseverance and strength of character will enable us to bear much worse things." "But I haven't got any strength at all," said Dora, shaking her curls. "Have I, Jip? Oh, do kiss Jip, and be agreeable!" It was impossible to resist kissing Jip, when she held him up to me for that purpose, putting her own bright, rosy little mouth into kissing form, as she directed the operation, which she insisted should be performed symmetrically, on the centre of his nose. I did as she bade me--rewarding myself afterwards for my obedience--and she charmed me out of my graver character for I don't know how long. "But, Dora, my beloved!" said I, at last resuming it; "I was going to mention something." The Judge of the Prerogative Court might have fallen in love with her, to see her fold her little hands and hold them up, begging and praying me not to be dreadful any more. "Indeed I am not going to be, my darling!" I assured her. "But, Dora, my love, if you will sometimes think,--not despondingly, you know; far from that!--but if you will sometimes think--just to encourage yourself--that you are engaged to a poor man--" "Don't, don't! Pray don't!" cried Dora. "It's so very dreadful!" "My soul, not at all!" said I, cheerfully. "If you will sometimes think of that, and look about now and then at your papa's housekeeping, and endeavour to acquire a little habit--of accounts, for instance--" Poor little Dora received this suggestion with something that was half a sob and half a scream. "--It will be so useful to us afterwards," I went on. "And if you would promise me to read a little--a little Cookery Book that I would send you, it would be so excellent for both of us. For our path in life, my Dora," said I, warming with the subject, "is stony and rugged now, and it rests with us to smooth it. We must fight our way onward. We must be brave. There are obstacles to be met, and we must meet, and crush them!" I was going on at a great rate, with a clenched hand, and a most enthusiastic countenance; but it was quite unnecessary to proceed. I had said enough. I had done it again. Oh, she was so frightened! Oh, where was Julia Mills! Oh, take her to Julia Mills, and go away, please! So that, in short, I was quite distracted, and raved about the drawing-room. I thought I had killed her, this time. I sprinkled water on her face. I went down on my knees. I plucked at my hair. I denounced myself as a remorseless brute and a ruthless beast. I implored her forgiveness. I besought her to look up. I ravaged Miss Mills's work-box for a smelling-bottle, and in my agony of mind applied an ivory needle-case instead, and dropped all the needles over Dora. I shook my fists at Jip, who was as frantic as myself. I did every wild extravagance that could be done, and was a long way beyond the end of my wits when Miss Mills came into the room. "Who has done this!" exclaimed Miss Mills, succouring her friend. I replied, "_I_, Miss Mills! _I_ have done it! Behold the destroyer!"--or words to that effect--and hid my face from the light, in the sofa cushion. At first Miss Mills thought it was a quarrel, and that we were verging on the Desert of Sahara; but she soon found out how matters stood, for my dear affectionate little Dora, embracing her, began exclaiming that I was "a poor laborer;" and then cried for me, and embraced me, and asked me would I let her give me all her money to keep, and then fell on Miss Mills's neck, sobbing as if her tender heart were broken. Miss Mills must have been born to be a blessing to us. She ascertained from me in a few words what it was all about, comforted Dora, and gradually convinced her that I was not a laborer--from my manner of stating the case I believe Dora concluded that I was a navigator, and went balancing myself up and down a plank all day with a wheelbarrow--and so brought us together in peace. When we were quite composed, and Dora had gone up-stairs to put some rose-water to her eyes, Miss Mills rang for tea. In the ensuing interval, I told Miss Mills that she was evermore my friend, and that my heart must cease to vibrate ere I could forget her sympathy. I then expounded to Miss Mills what I had endeavoured, so very unsuccessfully, to expound to Dora. Miss Mills replied, on general principles, that the Cottage of content was better than the Palace of cold splendour, and that where love was, all was. I said to Miss Mills that this was very true, and who should know it better than I, who loved Dora with a love that never mortal had experienced yet. But on Miss Mills observing, with despondency, that it were well indeed for some hearts if this were so, I explained that I begged leave to restrict the observation to mortals of the masculine gender. I then put it to Miss Mills, to say whether she considered that there was or was not any practical merit in the suggestion I had been anxious to make, concerning the accounts, the housekeeping, and the Cookery Book? Miss Mills, after some consideration, thus replied: "Mr. Copperfield, I will be plain with you. Mental suffering and trial supply, in some natures, the place of years, and I will be as plain with you as if I were a Lady Abbess. No. The suggestion is not appropriate to our Dora. Our dearest Dora is a favorite child of nature. She is a thing of light, and airiness, and joy. I am free to confess that if it could be done, it might be well, but--" And Miss Mills shook her head. I was encouraged by this closing admission on the part of Miss Mills to ask her, whether, for Dora's sake, if she had any opportunity of luring her attention to such preparations for an earnest life, she would avail herself of it? Miss Mills replied in the affirmative so readily, that I further asked her if she would take charge of the Cookery Book; and, if she ever could insinuate it upon Dora's acceptance, without frightening her, undertake to do me that crowning service. Miss Mills accepted this trust, too; but was not sanguine. And Dora returned, looking such a lovely little creature, that I really doubted whether she ought to be troubled with anything so ordinary. And she loved me so much, and was so captivating (particularly when she made Jip stand on his hind legs for toast, and when she pretended to hold that nose of his against the hot tea-pot for punishment because he wouldn't), that I felt like a sort of Monster who had got into a Fairy's bower, when I thought of having frightened her, and made her cry. After tea we had the guitar; and Dora sang those same dear old French songs about the impossibility of ever on any account leaving off dancing, La ra la, La ra la, until I felt a much greater Monster than before. We had only one check to our pleasure, and that happened a little while before I took my leave, when, Miss Mills chancing to make some allusion to to-morrow morning, I unluckily let out that being obliged to exert myself now, I got up at five o'clock. Whether Dora had any idea that I was a Private Watchman, I am unable to say; but it made a great impression on her, and she neither played nor sang any more. It was still on her mind when I bade her adieu; and she said to me, in her pretty coaxing way--as if I were a doll, I used to think! "Now don't get up at five o'clock, you naughty boy. It's so nonsensical!" "My love," said I, "I have work to do." "But don't do it!" returned Dora. "Why should you?" It was impossible to say to that sweet little surprised face, otherwise than lightly and playfully, that we must work, to live. "Oh! How ridiculous!" cried Dora. "How shall we live without, Dora?" said I. "How? Any how!" said Dora. She seemed to think she had quite settled the question, and gave me such a triumphant little kiss, direct from her innocent heart, that I would hardly have put her out of conceit with her answer, for a fortune. Well! I loved her, and I went on loving her, most absorbingly, entirely, and completely. But going on, too, working pretty hard, and busily keeping red-hot all the irons I now had in the fire, I would sit sometimes of a night, opposite my aunt, thinking how I had frightened Dora that time, and how I could best make my way with a guitar-case through the forest of difficulty, until I used to fancy that my head was turning quite grey. CHAPTER XXXVIII. A DISSOLUTION OF PARTNERSHIP. I did not allow my resolution, with respect to the Parliamentary Debates, to cool. It was one of the irons I began to heat immediately, and one of the irons I kept hot, and hammered at, with a perseverance I may honestly admire. I bought an approved scheme of the noble art and mystery of stenography (which cost me ten and sixpence); and plunged into a sea of perplexity that brought me, in a few weeks, to the confines of distraction. The changes that were rung upon dots, which in such a position meant such a thing, and in such another position something else, entirely different; the wonderful vagaries that were played by circles; the unaccountable consequences that resulted from marks like flies' legs; the tremendous effects of a curve in a wrong place; not only troubled my waking hours, but reappeared before me in my sleep. When I had groped my way, blindly, through these difficulties, and had mastered the alphabet, which was an Egyptian Temple in itself, there then appeared a procession of new horrors, called arbitrary characters; the most despotic characters I have ever known; who insisted, for instance, that a thing like the beginning of a cobweb, meant expectation, and that a pen and ink sky-rocket stood for disadvantageous. When I had fixed these wretches in my mind, I found that they had driven everything else out of it; then, beginning again, I forgot them; while I was picking them up, I dropped the other fragments of the system; in short, it was almost heart-breaking. It might have been quite heart-breaking, but for Dora, who was the stay and anchor of my tempest-driven bark. Every scratch in the scheme was a gnarled oak in the forest of difficulty, and I went on cutting them down, one after another, with such vigour, that in three or four months I was in a condition to make an experiment on one of our crack speakers in the Commons. Shall I ever forget how the crack speaker walked off from me before I began, and left my imbecile pencil staggering about the paper as if it were in a fit! This would not do, it was quite clear. I was flying too high, and should never get on, so. I resorted to Traddles for advice; who suggested that he should dictate speeches to me, at a pace, and with occasional stoppages, adapted to my weakness. Very grateful for this friendly aid, I accepted the proposal; and night after night, almost every night, for a long time, we had a sort of private Parliament in Buckingham Street, after I came home from the Doctor's. I should like to see such a Parliament anywhere else! My aunt and Mr. Dick represented the Government or the Opposition (as the case might be), and Traddles, with the assistance of Enfield's Speaker or a volume of parliamentary orations, thundered astonishing invectives against them. Standing by the table, with his finger in the page to keep the place, and his right arm flourishing above his head, Traddles, as Mr. Pitt, Mr. Fox, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Burke, Lord Castlereagh, Viscount Sidmouth, or Mr. Canning, would work himself into the most violent heats, and deliver the most withering denunciations of the profligacy and corruption of my aunt and Mr. Dick; while I used to sit, at a little distance, with my note-book on my knee, fagging after him with all my might and main. The inconsistency and recklessness of Traddles were not to be exceeded by any real politician. He was for any description of policy, in the compass of a week; and nailed all sorts of colours to every denomination of mast. My aunt, looking very like an immoveable Chancellor of the Exchequer, would occasionally throw in an interruption or two, as "Hear!" or "No!" or "Oh!" when the text seemed to require it: which was always a signal to Mr. Dick (a perfect country gentleman) to follow lustily with the same cry. But Mr. Dick got taxed with such things in the course of his Parliamentary career, and was made responsible for such awful consequences, that he became uncomfortable in his mind sometimes. I believe he actually began to be afraid he really had been doing something, tending to the annihilation of the British constitution, and the ruin of the country. [Illustration: Traddles makes a figure in parliament, and I report him.] Often and often we pursued these debates until the clock pointed to midnight, and the candles were burning down. The result of so much good practice was, that by-and-by I began to keep pace with Traddles pretty well, and should have been quite triumphant if I had had the least idea what my notes were about. But, as to reading them after I had got them, I might as well have copied the Chinese inscriptions on an immense collection of tea-chests, or the golden characters on all the great red and green bottles in the chemists' shops! There was nothing for it, but to turn back and begin all over again. It was very hard, but I turned back, though with a heavy heart, and began laboriously and methodically to plod over the same tedious ground at a snail's pace; stopping to examine minutely every speck in the way, on all sides, and making the most desperate efforts to know these elusive characters by sight wherever I met them. I was always punctual at the office; at the Doctor's too: and I really did work, as the common expression is, like a cart-horse. One day, when I went to the Commons as usual, I found Mr. Spenlow in the doorway looking extremely grave, and talking to himself. As he was in the habit of complaining of pains in his head--he had naturally a short throat, and I do seriously believe he overstarched himself--I was at first alarmed by the idea that he was not quite right in that direction; but he soon relieved my uneasiness. Instead of returning my "Good morning" with his usual affability, he looked at me in a distant, ceremonious manner, and coldly requested me to accompany him to a certain coffee-house, which, in those days, had a door opening into the Commons, just within the little archway in St. Paul's churchyard. I complied, in a very uncomfortable state, and with a warm shooting all over me, as if my apprehensions were breaking out into buds. When I allowed him to go on a little before, on account of the narrowness of the way, I observed that he carried his head with a lofty air that was particularly unpromising; and my mind misgave me that he had found out about my darling Dora. If I had not guessed this, on the way to the coffee-house, I could hardly have failed to know what was the matter when I followed him into an up-stairs room, and found Miss Murdstone there, supported by a background of sideboard, on which were several inverted tumblers sustaining lemons, and two of those extraordinary boxes, all corners and flutings, for sticking knives and forks in, which, happily for mankind, are now obsolete. Miss Murdstone gave me her chilly finger-nails, and sat severely rigid. Mr. Spenlow shut the door, motioned me to a chair, and stood on the hearth-rug in front of the fireplace. "Have the goodness to show Mr. Copperfield," said Mr. Spenlow, "what you have in your reticule, Miss Murdstone." I believe it was the old identical steel-clasped reticule of my childhood, that shut up like a bite. Compressing her lips, in sympathy with the snap, Miss Murdstone opened it--opening her mouth a little at the same time--and produced my last letter to Dora, teeming with expressions of devoted affection. "I believe that is your writing, Mr. Copperfield?" said Mr. Spenlow. I was very hot, and the voice I heard was very unlike mine, when I said, "It is sir!" "If I am not mistaken," said Mr. Spenlow, as Miss Murdstone brought a parcel of letters out of her reticule, tied round with the dearest bit of blue ribbon, "those are also from your pen, Mr. Copperfield?" I took them from her with a most desolate sensation; and, glancing at such phrases at the top, as "My ever dearest and own Dora," "My best beloved angel," "My blessed one for ever," and the like, blushed deeply, and inclined my head. "No, thank you!" said Mr. Spenlow coldly, as I mechanically offered them back to him. "I will not deprive you of them. Miss Murdstone, be so good as to proceed!" That gentle creature, after a moment's thoughtful survey of the carpet, delivered herself with much dry unction as follows. "I must confess to having entertained my suspicions of Miss Spenlow, in reference to David Copperfield, for some time. I observed Miss Spenlow and David Copperfield, when they first met; and the impression made upon me then was not agreeable. The depravity of the human heart is such----" "You will oblige me, ma'am," interrupted Mr. Spenlow, "by confining yourself to facts." Miss Murdstone cast down her eyes, shook her head as if protesting against this unseemly interruption, and with frowning dignity resumed: "Since I am to confine myself to facts, I will state them as dryly as I can. Perhaps that will be considered an acceptable course of proceeding. I have already said, sir, that I have had my suspicions of Miss Spenlow, in reference to David Copperfield, for some time. I have frequently endeavoured to find decisive corroboration of those suspicions, but without effect. I have therefore forborne to mention them to Miss Spenlow's father;" looking severely at him; "knowing how little disposition there usually is in such cases, to acknowledge the conscientious discharge of duty." Mr. Spenlow seemed quite cowed by the gentlemanly sternness of Miss Murdstone's manner, and deprecated her severity with a conciliatory little wave of his hand. "On my return to Norwood, after the period of absence occasioned by my brother's marriage," pursued Miss Murdstone in a disdainful voice, "and on the return of Miss Spenlow from her visit to her friend Miss Mills, I imagined that the manner of Miss Spenlow gave me greater occasion for suspicion than before. Therefore I watched Miss Spenlow closely." Dear, tender little Dora, so unconscious of this Dragon's eye! "Still," resumed Miss Murdstone, "I found no proof until last night. It appeared to me that Miss Spenlow received too many letters from her friend Miss Mills; but Miss Mills being her friend with her father's full concurrence," another telling blow at Mr. Spenlow, "it was not for me to interfere. If I may not be permitted to allude to the natural depravity of the human heart, at least I may--I must--be permitted, so far to refer to misplaced confidence." Mr. Spenlow apologetically murmured his assent. "Last evening after tea," pursued Miss Murdstone, "I observed the little dog starting, rolling, and growling about the drawing-room, worrying something. I said to Miss Spenlow, 'Dora, what is that the dog has in his mouth? It's paper.' Miss Spenlow immediately put her hand to her frock, gave a sudden cry, and ran to the dog. I interposed, and said 'Dora my love, you must permit me.'" Oh Jip, miserable Spaniel, this wretchedness, then, was your work! "Miss Spenlow endeavoured" said Miss Murdstone "to bribe me with kisses, work-boxes, and small articles of jewellery--that, of course, I pass over. The little dog retreated under the sofa on my approaching him, and was with great difficulty dislodged by the fire-irons. Even when dislodged, he still kept the letter in his mouth; and on my endeavouring to take it from him, at the imminent risk of being bitten, he kept it between his teeth so pertinaciously as to suffer himself to be held suspended in the air by means of the document. At length I obtained possession of it. After perusing it, I taxed Miss Spenlow with having many such letters in her possession; and ultimately obtained from her, the packet which is now in David Copperfield's hand." Here she ceased; and snapping her reticule again, and shutting her mouth, looked as if she might be broken, but could never be bent. "You have heard Miss Murdstone," said Mr. Spenlow, turning to me. "I beg to ask, Mr. Copperfield, if you have anything to say in reply?" The picture I had before me, of the beautiful little treasure of my heart, sobbing and crying all night--of her being alone, frightened, and wretched, then--of her having so piteously begged and prayed that stony-hearted woman to forgive her--of her having vainly offered her those kisses, work-boxes, and trinkets--of her being in such grievous distress, and all for me--very much impaired the little dignity I had been able to muster. I am afraid I was in a tremulous state for a minute or so, though I did my best to disguise it. "There is nothing I can say, sir," I returned, "except that all the blame is mine. Dora--" "Miss Spenlow, if you please," said her father, majestically. "--was induced and persuaded by me," I went on, swallowing that colder designation, "to consent to this concealment, and I bitterly regret it." "You are very much to blame, sir," said Mr. Spenlow, walking to and fro upon the hearth-rug, and emphasizing what he said with his whole body instead of his head, on account of the stiffness of his cravat and spine. "You have done a stealthy and unbecoming action, Mr. Copperfield. When I take a gentleman to my house, no matter whether he is nineteen, twenty-nine, or ninety, I take him there in a spirit of confidence. If he abuses my confidence, he commits a dishonourable action, Mr. Copperfield." "I feel it, sir, I assure you," I returned. "But I never thought so, before. Sincerely, honestly, indeed, Mr. Spenlow, I never thought so, before. I love Miss Spenlow to that extent--" "Pooh! nonsense!" said Mr. Spenlow, reddening. "Pray don't tell me to my face that you love my daughter, Mr. Copperfield!" "Could I defend my conduct if I did not, sir?" I returned, with all humility. "Can you defend your conduct if you do, sir?" said Mr. Spenlow, stopping short upon the hearth-rug. "Have you considered your years, and my daughter's years, Mr. Copperfield? Have you considered what it is to undermine the confidence that should subsist between my daughter and myself? Have you considered my daughter's station in life, the projects I may contemplate for her advancement, the testamentary intentions I may have with reference to her? Have you considered anything, Mr. Copperfield?" "Very little, sir, I am afraid;" I answered, speaking to him as respectfully and sorrowfully as I felt; "but pray believe me, I have considered my own worldly position. When I explained it to you, we were already engaged--" "I BEG," said Mr. Spenlow, more like Punch than I had ever seen him, as he energetically struck one hand upon the other--I could not help noticing that even in my despair; "that you will NOT talk to me of engagements, Mr. Copperfield!" The otherwise immoveable Miss Murdstone laughed contemptuously in one short syllable. "When I explained my altered position to you, sir," I began again, substituting a new form of expression for what was so unpalatable to him, "this concealment, into which I am so unhappy as to have led Miss Spenlow, had begun. Since I have been in that altered position, I have strained every nerve, I have exerted every energy, to improve it. I am sure I shall improve it in time. Will you grant me time--any length of time? We are both so young, sir,--" "You are right," interrupted Mr. Spenlow, nodding his head a great many times, and frowning very much, "you are both very young. It's all nonsense. Let there be an end of the nonsense. Take away those letters, and throw them in the fire. Give me Miss Spenlow's letters to throw in the fire; and although our future intercourse must, you are aware, be restricted to the Commons here, we will agree to make no further mention of the past. Come, Mr. Copperfield, you don't want sense; and this is the sensible course." No. I couldn't think of agreeing to it. I was very sorry, but there was a higher consideration than sense. Love was above all earthly considerations, and I loved Dora to idolatry, and Dora loved me. I didn't exactly say so; I softened it down as much as I could; but I implied it, and I was resolute upon it. I don't think I made myself very ridiculous, but I know I was resolute. "Very well, Mr. Copperfield," said Mr. Spenlow, "I must try my influence with my daughter." Miss Murdstone, by an expressive sound, a long drawn respiration, which was neither a sigh nor a moan, but was like both, gave it as her opinion that he should have done this at first. "I must try," said Mr. Spenlow, confirmed by this support, "my influence with my daughter. Do you decline to take those letters, Mr. Copperfield?" For I had laid them on the table. Yes. I told him I hoped he would not think it wrong, but I couldn't possibly take them from Miss Murdstone. "Nor from me?" said Mr. Spenlow. No, I replied with the profoundest respect; nor from him. "Very well!" said Mr. Spenlow. A silence succeeding, I was undecided whether to go or stay. At length I was moving quietly towards the door, with the intention of saying that perhaps I should consult his feelings best by withdrawing: when he said, with his hands in his coat pockets, into which it was as much as he could do to get them; and with what I should call, upon the whole, a decidedly pious air: "You are probably aware, Mr. Copperfield, that I am not altogether destitute of worldly possessions, and that my daughter is my nearest and dearest relative?" I hurriedly made him a reply to the effect, that I hoped the error into which I had been betrayed by the desperate nature of my love, did not induce him to think me mercenary too? "I don't allude to the matter in that light," said Mr. Spenlow. "It would be better for yourself, and all of us, if you _were_ mercenary, Mr. Copperfield--I mean, if you were more discreet and less influenced by all this youthful nonsense. No. I merely say, with quite another view, you are probably aware I have some property to bequeath to my child?" I certainly supposed so. "And you can hardly think," said Mr. Spenlow, "having experience of what we see, in the Commons here, every day, of the various unaccountable and negligent proceedings of men, in respect of their testamentary arrangements--of all subjects, the one on which perhaps the strangest revelations of human inconsistency are to be met with--but that mine are made?" I inclined my head in acquiescence. "I should not allow," said Mr. Spenlow, with an evident increase of pious sentiment, and slowly shaking his head as he poised himself upon his toes and heels alternately, "my suitable provision for my child to be influenced by a piece of youthful folly like the present. It is mere folly. Mere nonsense. In a little while, it will weigh lighter than any feather. But I might--I might--if this silly business were not completely relinquished altogether, be induced in some anxious moment to guard her from, and surround her with protections against, the consequences of, any foolish step in the way of marriage. Now, Mr. Copperfield, I hope that you will not render it necessary for me to open, even for a quarter of an hour, that closed page in the book of life, and unsettle, even for a quarter of an hour, grave affairs long since composed." There was a serenity, a tranquillity, a calm-sunset air about him, which quite affected me. He was so peaceful and resigned--clearly had his affairs in such perfect train, and so systematically wound up--that he was a man to feel touched in the contemplation of. I really think I saw tears rise to his eyes, from the depth of his own feeling of all this. But what could I do? I could not deny Dora and my own heart. When he told me I had better take a week to consider of what he had said, how could I say I wouldn't take a week, yet how could I fail to know that no amount of weeks could influence such love as mine? "In the meantime, confer with Miss Trotwood, or with any person with any knowledge of life," said Mr. Spenlow, adjusting his cravat with both hands. "Take a week, Mr. Copperfield." I submitted; and, with a countenance as expressive as I was able to make it of dejected and despairing constancy, came out of the room. Miss Murdstone's heavy eyebrows followed me to the door--I say her eyebrows rather than her eyes, because they were much more important in her face--and she looked so exactly as she used to look, at about that hour of the morning, in our parlour at Blunderstone, that I could have fancied I had been breaking down in my lessons again, and that the dead weight on my mind was that horrible old spelling-book, with oval woodcuts, shaped, to my youthful fancy, like the glasses out of spectacles. When I got to the office, and, shutting out old Tiffey and the rest of them with my hands, sat at my desk, in my own particular nook, thinking of this earthquake that had taken place so unexpectedly, and in the bitterness of my spirit cursing Jip, I fell into such a state of torment about Dora, that I wonder I did not take up my hat and rush insanely to Norwood. The idea of their frightening her, and making her cry, and of my not being there to comfort her, was so excruciating, that it impelled me to write a wild letter to Mr. Spenlow, beseeching him not to visit upon her the consequences of my awful destiny. I implored him to spare her gentle nature--not to crush a fragile flower--and addressed him generally, to the best of my remembrance, as if, instead of being her father, he had been an Ogre, or the Dragon of Wantley. This letter I sealed and laid upon his desk before he returned; and when he came in, I saw him, through the half-opened door of his room, take it up and read it. He said nothing about it all the morning; but before he went away in the afternoon he called me in, and told me that I need not make myself at all uneasy about his daughter's happiness. He had assured her, he said, that it was all nonsense; and he had nothing more to say to her. He believed he was an indulgent father (as indeed he was), and I might spare myself any solicitude on her account. "You may make it necessary, if you are foolish or obstinate, Mr. Copperfield," he observed, "for me to send my daughter abroad again, for a term; but I have a better opinion of you. I hope you will be wiser than that, in a few days. As to Miss Murdstone," for I had alluded to her in the letter, "I respect that lady's vigilance, and feel obliged to her; but she has strict charge to avoid the subject. All I desire, Mr. Copperfield, is, that it should be forgotten. All you have got to do, Mr. Copperfield, is, to forget it." All! In the note I wrote to Miss Mills, I bitterly quoted this sentiment. All I had to do, I said, with gloomy sarcasm, was to forget Dora. That was all, and what was that! I entreated Miss Mills to see me, that evening. If it could not be done with Mr. Mills's sanction and concurrence, I besought a clandestine interview in the back kitchen where the Mangle was. I informed her that my reason was tottering on its throne, and only she, Miss Mills, could prevent its being deposed. I signed myself, hers distractedly; and I couldn't help feeling, when I read this composition over, before sending it by a porter, that it was something in the style of Mr. Micawber. However, I sent it. At night I repaired to Miss Mills's street, and walked up and down, until I was stealthily fetched in by Miss Mills's maid, and taken the area way to the back kitchen. I have since seen reason to believe that there was nothing on earth to prevent my going in at the front door, and being shown up into the drawing-room, except Miss Mills's love of the romantic and mysterious. In the back kitchen, I raved as became me. I went there, I suppose, to make a fool of myself, and I am quite sure I did it. Miss Mills had received a hasty note from Dora, telling her that all was discovered, and saying, "Oh pray come to me, Julia, do, do!" But Miss Mills, mistrusting the acceptability of her presence to the higher powers, had not yet gone; and we were all benighted in the Desert of Sahara. Miss Mills had a wonderful flow of words, and liked to pour them out. I could not help feeling, though she mingled her tears with mine, that she had a dreadful luxury in our afflictions. She petted them, as I may say, and made the most of them. A deep gulf, she observed, had opened between Dora and me, and Love could only span it with its rainbow. Love must suffer in this stern world; it ever had been so, it ever would be so. No matter, Miss Mills remarked. Hearts confined by cobwebs would burst at last, and then Love was avenged. This was small consolation, but Miss Mills wouldn't encourage fallacious hopes. She made me much more wretched than I was before, and I felt (and told her with the deepest gratitude) that she was indeed a friend. We resolved that she should go to Dora the first thing in the morning, and find some means of assuring her, either by looks or words, of my devotion and misery. We parted, overwhelmed with grief; and I think Miss Mills enjoyed herself completely. I confided all to my aunt when I got home; and in spite of all she could say to me, went to bed despairing. I got up despairing, and went out despairing. It was Saturday morning, and I went straight to the Commons. I was surprised, when I came within sight of our office-door, to see the ticket-porters standing outside talking together, and some half dozen stragglers gazing at the windows which were shut up. I quickened my pace, and, passing among them, wondering at their looks, went hurriedly in. The clerks were there, but nobody was doing anything. Old Tiffey, for the first time in his life I should think, was sitting on somebody else's stool, and had not hung up his hat. "This is a dreadful calamity, Mr. Copperfield," said he, as I entered. "What is?" I exclaimed. "What's the matter?" "Don't you know?" cried Tiffey, and all the rest of them, coming round me. "No!" said I, looking from face to face. "Mr. Spenlow," said Tiffey. "What about him!" "Dead!" I thought it was the office reeling, and not I, as one of the clerks caught hold of me. They sat me down in a chair, untied my neckcloth, and brought me some water. I have no idea whether this took any time. "Dead?" said I. "He dined in town yesterday, and drove down in the phaeton by himself," said Tiffey, "having sent his own groom home by the coach, as he sometimes did, you know----" "Well?" "The phaeton went home without him. The horses stopped at the stable gate. The man went out with a lantern. Nobody in the carriage." "Had they run away?" "They were not hot," said Tiffey, putting on his glasses; "no hotter, I understand, than they would have been, going down at the usual pace. The reins were broken, but they had been dragging on the ground. The house was roused up directly, and three of them went out along the road. They found him a mile off." "More than a mile off, Mr. Tiffey," interposed a junior. "Was it? I believe you are right," said Tiffey,--"_more_ than a mile off--not far from the church--lying partly on the road-side, and partly on the path, upon his face. Whether he fell out in a fit, or got out, feeling ill before the fit came on--or even whether he was quite dead then, though there is no doubt he was quite insensible--no one appears to know. If he breathed, certainly he never spoke. Medical assistance was got as soon as possible, but it was quite useless." I cannot describe the state of mind into which I was thrown by this intelligence. The shock of such an event happening so suddenly, and happening to one with whom I had been in any respect at variance--the appalling vacancy in the room he had occupied so lately, where his chair and table seemed to wait for him, and his handwriting of yesterday was like a ghost--the indefinable impossibility of separating him from the place, and feeling, when the door opened, as if he might come in--the lazy hush and rest there was in the office, and the insatiable relish with which our people talked about it, and other people came in and out all day, and gorged themselves with the subject--this is easily intelligible to any one. What I cannot describe is, how, in the innermost recesses of my own heart, I had a lurking jealousy even of Death. How I felt as if its might would push me from my ground in Dora's thoughts. How I was, in a grudging way I have no words for, envious of her grief. How it made me restless to think of her weeping to others, or being consoled by others. How I had a grasping, avaricious wish to shut out everybody from her but myself, and to be all in all to her, at that unseasonable time of all times. In the trouble of this state of mind--not exclusively my own, I hope, but known to others--I went down to Norwood that night; and finding from one of the servants, when I made my inquiries at the door, that Miss Mills was there, got my aunt to direct a letter to her, which I wrote. I deplored the untimely death of Mr. Spenlow most sincerely, and shed tears in doing so. I entreated her to tell Dora, if Dora were in a state to hear it, that he had spoken to me with the utmost kindness and consideration; and had coupled nothing but tenderness, not a single or reproachful word, with her name. I know I did this selfishly, to have my name brought before her; but I tried to believe it was an act of justice to his memory. Perhaps I did believe it. My aunt received a few lines next day in reply; addressed, outside, to her; within, to me. Dora was overcome by grief; and when her friend had asked her should she send her love to me, had only cried, as she was always crying, "Oh, dear papa! oh, poor papa!" But she had not said No, and that I made the most of. Mr. Jorkins, who had been at Norwood since the occurrence, came to the office a few days afterwards. He and Tiffey were closeted together for some few moments, and then Tiffey looked out at the door and beckoned me in. "Oh!" said Mr. Jorkins. "Mr. Tiffey and myself, Mr. Copperfield, are about to examine the desk, the drawers, and other such repositories of the deceased, with the view of sealing up his private papers, and searching for a Will. There is no trace of any, elsewhere. It may be as well for you to assist us, if you please." I had been in agony to obtain some knowledge of the circumstances in which my Dora would be placed--as, in whose guardianship, and so forth--and this was something towards it. We began the search at once; Mr. Jorkins unlocking the drawers and desks, and we all taking out the papers. The office-papers we placed on one side, and the private papers (which were not numerous) on the other. We were very grave; and when we came to a stray seal, or pencil-case, or ring, or any little article of that kind which we associated personally with him, we spoke very low. We had sealed up several packets; and were still going on dustily and quietly, when Mr. Jorkins said to us, applying exactly the same words to his late partner as his late partner had applied to him: "Mr. Spenlow was very difficult to move from the beaten track. You know what he was! I am disposed to think he had made no will." "Oh, I know he had!" said I. They both stopped and looked at me. "On the very day when I last saw him," said I, "he told me that he had, and that his affairs were long since settled." Mr. Jorkins and old Tiffey shook their heads with one accord. "That looks unpromising," said Tiffey. "Very unpromising," said Mr. Jorkins. "Surely you don't doubt--" I began. "My good Mr. Copperfield!" said Tiffey, laying his hand upon my arm, and shutting up both his eyes as he shook his head: "if you had been in the Commons as long as I have, you would know that there is no subject on which men are so inconsistent, and so little to be trusted." "Why, bless my soul, he made that very remark!" I replied persistently. "I should call that almost final," observed Tiffey. "My opinion is--no will." It appeared a wonderful thing to me, but it turned out that there _was_ no will. He had never so much as thought of making one, so far as his papers afforded any evidence; for there was no kind of hint, sketch, or memorandum, of any testamentary intention whatever. What was scarcely less astonishing to me, was, that his affairs were in a most disordered state. It was extremely difficult, I heard, to make out what he owed, or what he had paid, or of what he died possessed. It was considered likely that for years he could have had no clear opinion on these subjects himself. By little and little it came out, that, in the competition on all points of appearance and gentility then running high in the Commons, he had spent more than his professional income, which was not a very large one, and had reduced his private means, if they ever had been great (which was exceedingly doubtful), to a very low ebb indeed. There was a sale of the furniture and lease, at Norwood; and Tiffey told me, little thinking how interested I was in the story, that, paying all the just debts of the deceased, and deducting his share of outstanding bad and doubtful debts due to the firm, he wouldn't give a thousand pounds for all the assets remaining. This was at the expiration of about six weeks. I had suffered tortures all the time; and thought I really must have laid violent hands upon myself, when Miss Mills still reported to me, that my broken-hearted little Dora would say nothing, when I was mentioned, but "Oh, poor papa! Oh, dear papa!" Also, that she had no other relations than two aunts, maiden sisters of Mr. Spenlow, who lived at Putney, and who had not held any other than chance communication with their brother for many years. Not that they had ever quarrelled (Miss Mills informed me); but that having been, on the occasion of Dora's christening, invited to tea, when they considered themselves privileged to be invited to dinner, they had expressed their opinion in writing, that it was "better for the happiness of all parties" that they should stay away. Since which they had gone their road, and their brother had gone his. These two ladies now emerged from their retirement, and proposed to take Dora to live at Putney. Dora, clinging to them both, and weeping, exclaimed, "O yes, aunts! Please take Julia Mills and me and Jip to Putney!" So they went, very soon after the funeral. How I found time to haunt Putney, I am sure I don't know; but I contrived, by some means or other, to prowl about the neighbourhood pretty often. Miss Mills, for the more exact discharge of the duties of friendship, kept a journal; and she used to meet me sometimes, on the Common, and read it, or (if she had not time to do that) lend it to me. How I treasured up the entries, of which I subjoin a sample! "Monday. My sweet D. still much depressed. Headache. Called attention to J. as being beautifully sleek. D. fondled J. Associations thus awakened, opened floodgates of sorrow. Rush of grief admitted. (Are tears the dewdrops of the heart? J. M.) "Tuesday. D. weak and nervous. Beautiful in pallor. (Do we not remark this in moon likewise? J. M.) D. J. M. and J. took airing in carriage. J. looking out of window, and barking violently at dustman, occasioned smile to overspread features of D. (Of such slight links is chain of life composed! J. M.) "Wednesday. D. comparatively cheerful. Sang to her, as congenial melody, Evening Bells. Effect not soothing, but reverse. D. inexpressibly affected. Found sobbing afterwards, in own room. Quoted verses respecting self and young Gazelle. Ineffectually. Also referred to Patience on Monument. (Qy. Why on monument? J. M.) "Thursday. D. certainly improved. Better night. Slight tinge of damask revisiting cheek. Resolved to mention name of D. C. Introduced same, cautiously, in course of airing. D. immediately overcome. 'Oh, dear, dear Julia! Oh, I have been a naughty and undutiful child!' Soothed and caressed. Drew ideal picture of D. C. on verge of tomb. D. again overcome. 'Oh, what shall I do, what shall I do? Oh, take me somewhere!' Much alarmed. Fainting of D. and glass of water from public-house. (Poetical affinity. Chequered sign on door-post; chequered human life. Alas! J. M.) "Friday. Day of incident. Man appears in kitchen, with blue bag, 'for lady's boots left out to heel.' Cook replies, 'No such orders.' Man argues point. Cook withdraws to inquire, leaving man alone with J. On Cook's return, man still argues point, but ultimately goes. J. missing. D. distracted. Information sent to police. Man to be identified by broad nose, and legs like balustrades of bridge. Search made in every direction. No J. D. weeping bitterly, and inconsolable. Renewed reference to young Gazelle. Appropriate, but unavailing. Towards evening, strange boy calls. Brought into parlour. Broad nose, but no balustrades. Says he wants a pound, and knows a dog. Declines to explain further, though much pressed. Pound being produced by D. takes Cook to little house, where J. alone tied up to leg of table. Joy of D. who dances round J. while he eats his supper. Emboldened by this happy change, mention D. C. upstairs. D. weeps afresh, cries piteously. 'Oh, don't, don't, don't. It is so wicked to think of anything but poor papa!'--embraces J. and sobs herself to sleep. (Must not D. C. confide himself to the broad pinions of Time? J. M.)" Miss Mills and her journal were my sole consolation at this period. To see her, who had seen Dora but a little while before--to trace the initial letter of Dora's name through her sympathetic pages--to be made more and more miserable by her--were my only comforts. I felt as if I had been living in a palace of cards, which had tumbled down, leaving only Miss Mills and me among the ruins; as if some grim enchanter had drawn a magic circle round the innocent goddess of my heart, which nothing indeed but those same strong pinions, capable of carrying so many people over so much, would enable me to enter! CHAPTER XXXIX. WICKFIELD AND HEEP. My aunt, beginning, I imagine, to be made seriously uncomfortable by my prolonged dejection, made a pretence of being anxious that I should go to Dover, to see that all was working well at the cottage, which was let; and to conclude an agreement, with the same tenant, for a longer term of occupation. Janet was drafted into the service of Mrs. Strong, where I saw her every day. She had been undecided, on leaving Dover, whether or no to give the finishing touch to that renunciation of mankind in which she had been educated, by marrying a pilot; but she decided against that venture. Not so much for the sake of principle, I believe, as because she happened not to like him. Although it required an effort to leave Miss Mills, I fell rather willingly into my aunt's pretence, as a means of enabling me to pass a few tranquil hours with Agnes. I consulted the good Doctor relative to an absence of three days; and the Doctor wishing me to take that relaxation,--he wished me to take more; but my energy could not bear that,--I made up my mind to go. As to the Commons, I had no great occasion to be particular about my duties in that quarter. To say the truth, we were getting in no very good odour among the tip-top proctors, and were rapidly sliding down to but a doubtful position. The business had been indifferent under Mr. Jorkins, before Mr. Spenlow's time; and although it had been quickened by the infusion of new blood, and by the display which Mr. Spenlow made, still it was not established on a sufficiently strong basis to bear, without being shaken, such a blow as the sudden loss of its active manager. It fell off very much. Mr. Jorkins, notwithstanding his reputation in the firm, was an easy-going, incapable, sort of man, whose reputation out of doors was not calculated to back it up. I was turned over to him now, and when I saw him take his snuff and let the business go, I regretted my aunt's thousand pounds more than ever. But this was not the worst of it. There were a number of hangers-on and outsiders about the Commons, who, without being proctors themselves, dabbled in common-form business, and got it done by real proctors, who lent their names in consideration of a share in the spoil;--and there were a good many of these too. As our house now wanted business on any terms, we joined this noble band; and threw out lures to the hangers-on and outsiders, to bring their business to us. Marriage licenses and small probates were what we all looked for, and what paid us best; and the competition for these, ran very high indeed. Kidnappers and inveiglers were planted in all the avenues of entrance to the Commons, with instructions to do their utmost to cut off all persons in mourning, and all gentlemen with anything bashful in their appearance, and entice them to the offices in which their respective employers were interested; which instructions were so well observed, that I myself, before I was known by sight, was twice hustled into the premises of our principal opponent. The conflicting interests of these touting gentlemen being of a nature to irritate their feelings, personal collisions took place; and the Commons was even scandalised by our principal inveigler (who had formerly been in the wine trade, and afterwards in the sworn brokery line) walking about for some days with a black eye. Any one of these scouts used to think nothing of politely assisting an old lady in black out of a vehicle, killing any proctor whom she inquired for, representing his employer as the lawful successor and representative of that proctor, and bearing the old lady off (sometimes greatly affected) to his employer's office. Many captives were brought to me in this way. As to marriage licenses, the competition rose to such a pitch, that a shy gentleman in want of one, had nothing to do but submit himself to the first inveigler, or be fought for, and become the prey of the strongest. One of our clerks, who was an outsider, used, in the height of this contest, to sit with his hat on, that he might be ready to rush out and swear before a surrogate any victim who was brought in. The system of inveigling continues, I believe, to this day. The last time I was in the Commons, a civil able-bodied person in a white apron pounced out upon me from a doorway, and whispering the word "Marriage-license" in my ear, was with great difficulty prevented from taking me up in his arms and lifting me into a proctor's. From this digression, let me proceed to Dover. I found everything in a satisfactory state at the cottage; and was enabled to gratify my aunt exceedingly by reporting that the tenant inherited her feud, and waged incessant war against donkies. Having settled the little business I had to transact there, and slept there one night, I walked on to Canterbury early in the morning. It was now winter again; and the fresh, cold windy day, and the sweeping downland, brightened up my hopes a little. Coming into Canterbury, I loitered through the old streets with a sober pleasure that calmed my spirits, and eased my heart. There were the old signs, the old names over the shops, the old people serving in them. It appeared so long, since I had been a schoolboy there, that I wondered the place was so little changed, until I reflected how little I was changed myself. Strange to say, that quiet influence which was inseparable in my mind from Agnes, seemed to pervade even the city where she dwelt. The venerable cathedral towers, and the old jackdaws and rooks whose airy voices made them more retired than perfect silence would have done; the battered gateways, once stuck full with statues, long thrown down, and crumbled away, like the reverential pilgrims who had gazed upon them; the still nooks, where the ivied growth of centuries crept over gabled ends and ruined walls; the ancient houses, the pastoral landscape of field, orchard, and garden; everywhere--on everything--I felt the same serener air, the same calm, thoughtful, softening spirit. Arrived at Mr. Wickfield's house, I found, in the little lower-room on the ground floor, where Uriah Heep had been of old accustomed to sit, Mr. Micawber plying his pen with great assiduity. He was dressed in a legal-looking suit of black, and loomed, burly and large, in that small office. Mr. Micawber was extremely glad to see me, but a little confused too. He would have conducted me immediately into the presence of Uriah, but I declined. "I know the house of old, you recollect," said I, "and will find my way up stairs. How do you like the law, Mr. Micawber?" "My dear Copperfield," he replied. "To a man possessed of the higher imaginative powers, the objection to legal studies is the amount of detail which they involve. Even in our professional correspondence," said Mr. Micawber, glancing at some letters he was writing, "the mind is not at liberty to soar to any exalted form of expression. Still, it is a great pursuit. A great pursuit!" He then told me that he had become the tenant of Uriah Heep's old house; and that Mrs. Micawber would be delighted to receive me, once more, under her own roof. "It is humble," said Mr. Micawber, "--to quote a favourite expression of my friend Heep; but it may prove the stepping-stone to more ambitious domiciliary accommodation." I asked him whether he had reason, so far, to be satisfied with his friend Heep's treatment of him? He got up to ascertain if the door were close shut, before he replied, in a lower voice: "My dear Copperfield, a man who labours under the pressure of pecuniary embarrassments, is, with the generality of people, at a disadvantage. That disadvantage is not diminished, when that pressure necessitates the drawing of stipendiary emoluments, before those emoluments are strictly due and payable. All I can say is, that my friend Heep has responded to appeals to which I need not more particularly refer, in a manner calculated to redound equally to the honour of his head, and of his heart." "I should not have supposed him to be very free with his money either," I observed. "Pardon me!" said Mr. Micawber, with an air of constraint, "I speak of my friend Heep as I have experience." "I am glad your experience is so favourable," I returned. "You are very obliging, my dear Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber; and hummed a tune. "Do you see much of Mr. Wickfield?" I asked, to change the subject. "Not much," said Mr. Micawber, slightingly. "Mr. Wickfield is, I dare say, a man of very excellent intentions; but he is--in short, he is obsolete." "I am afraid his partner seeks to make him so," said I. "My dear Copperfield!" returned Mr. Micawber, after some uneasy evolutions on his stool, "allow me to offer a remark! I am here, in a capacity of confidence. I am here, in a position of trust. The discussion of some topics, even with Mrs. Micawber herself (so long the partner of my various vicissitudes, and a woman of a remarkable lucidity of intellect), is, I am led to consider, incompatible with the functions now devolving on me. I would therefore take the liberty of suggesting that in our friendly intercourse--which I trust will never be disturbed!--we draw a line. On one side of this line," said Mr. Micawber, representing it on the desk with the office ruler, "is the whole range of the human intellect, with a trifling exception; on the other, _is_ that exception; that is to say, the affairs of Messrs. Wickfield and Heep, with all belonging and appertaining thereunto. I trust I give no offence to the companion of my youth, in submitting this proposition to his cooler judgment?" Though I saw an uneasy change in Mr. Micawber, which sat tightly on him, as if his new duties were a misfit, I felt I had no right to be offended. My telling him so, appeared to relieve him; and he shook hands with me. "I am charmed, Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, "let me assure you, with Miss Wickfield. She is a very superior young lady, of very remarkable attractions, graces, and virtues. Upon my honour," said Mr. Micawber, indefinitely kissing his hand and bowing with his genteelest air, "I do Homage to Miss Wickfield! Hem!" "I am glad of that, at least," said I. "If you had not assured us, my dear Copperfield, on the occasion of that agreeable afternoon we had the happiness of passing with you, that D was your favourite letter," said Mr. Micawber, "I should unquestionably have supposed that A had been so." We have all some experience of a feeling, that comes over us occasionally, of what we are saying and doing having been said and done before, in a remote time--of our having been surrounded, dim ages ago, by the same faces, objects, and circumstances--of our knowing perfectly what will be said next, as if we suddenly remembered it! I never had this mysterious impression more strongly in my life, than before he uttered those words. I took my leave of Mr. Micawber, for the time, charging him with my best remembrances to all at home. As I left him, resuming his stool and his pen, and rolling his head in his stock, to get it into easier writing order, I clearly perceived that there was something interposed between him and me, since he had come into his new functions which prevented our getting at each other as we used to do, and quite altered the character of our intercourse. There was no one in the quaint old drawing-room, though it presented tokens of Mrs. Heep's whereabout. I looked into the room still belonging to Agnes, and saw her sitting by the fire, at a pretty old fashioned desk she had, writing. My darkening the light made her look up. What a pleasure to be the cause of that bright change in her attentive face, and the object of that sweet regard and welcome! "Ah, Agnes!" said I, when we were sitting together, side by side; "I have missed you so much, lately!" "Indeed?" she replied. "Again! And so soon?" I shook my head. "I don't know how it is, Agnes; I seem to want some faculty of mind that I ought to have. You were so much in the habit of thinking for me, in the happy old days here, and I came so naturally to you for counsel and support, that I really think I have missed acquiring it?" "And what is it?" said Agnes, cheerfully. "I don't know what to call it," I replied. "I think I am earnest and persevering?" "I am sure of it," said Agnes. "And patient, Agnes?" I enquired, with a little hesitation. "Yes," returned Agnes, laughing. "Pretty well." "And yet," said I, "I get so miserable and worried, and am so unsteady and irresolute in my power of assuring myself, that I know I must want--shall I call it--reliance, of some kind?" "Call it so, if you will," said Agnes. "Well!" I returned. "See here! You come to London, I rely on you, and I have an object and a course at once. I am driven out of it, I come here, and in a moment I feel an altered person. The circumstances that distressed me are not changed, since I came into this room; but an influence comes over me in that short interval that alters me, oh, how much for the better! What is it? What is your secret, Agnes?" Her head was bent down, looking at the fire. "It's the old story," said I. "Don't laugh, when I say it was always the same in little things as it is in greater ones. My old troubles were nonsense, and now they are serious; but whenever I have gone away from my adopted sister--" Agnes looked up--with such a Heavenly face!--and gave me her hand, which I kissed. "Whenever I have not had you, Agnes, to advise and approve in the beginning, I have seemed to go wild, and to get into all sorts of difficulty. When I have come to you, at last (as I have always done), I have come to peace and happiness. I come home, now, like a tired traveller, and find such a blessed sense of rest!" I felt so deeply what I said, it affected me so sincerely, that my voice failed, and I covered my face with my hand, and broke into tears. I write the truth. Whatever contradictions and inconsistencies there were within me, as there are within so many of us; whatever might have been so different, and so much better; whatever I had done, in which I had perversely wandered away from the voice of my own heart; I knew nothing of. I only knew that I was fervently in earnest, when I felt the rest and peace of having Agnes near me. In her placid sisterly manner; with her beaming eyes; with her tender voice; and with that sweet composure, which had long ago made the house that held her quite a sacred place to me; she soon won me from this weakness, and led me on to tell all that had happened since our last meeting. "And there is not another word to tell, Agnes," said I, when I had made an end of my confidence. "Now, my reliance is on you." "But it must not be on me, Trotwood," returned Agnes, with a pleasant smile. "It must be on some one else." "On Dora?" said I. "Assuredly." "Why, I have not mentioned, Agnes," said I, a little embarrassed, "that Dora is rather difficult to--I would not, for the world, say, to rely upon, because she is the soul of purity and truth--but rather difficult to--I hardly know how to express it, really, Agnes. She is a timid little thing, and easily disturbed and frightened. Some time ago, before her father's death, when I thought it right to mention to her--but I'll tell you, if you will bear with me, how it was." Accordingly, I told Agnes about my declaration of poverty, about the cookery-book, the housekeeping accounts, and all the rest of it. "Oh, Trotwood!" she remonstrated, with a smile. "Just your old headlong way! You might have been in earnest in striving to get on in the world, without being so very sudden with a timid, loving, inexperienced girl. Poor Dora!" I never heard such sweet forbearing kindness expressed in a voice, as she expressed in making this reply. It was as if I had seen her admiringly and tenderly embracing Dora, and tacitly reproving me, by her considerate protection, for my hot haste in fluttering that little heart. It was as if I had seen Dora, in all her fascinating artlessness, caressing Agnes, and thanking her, and coaxingly appealing against me, and loving me with all her childish innocence. I felt so grateful to Agnes, and admired her so! I saw those two together, in a bright perspective, such well-associated friends, each adorning the other so much! "What ought I to do then, Agnes?" I inquired, after looking at the fire a little while. "What would it be right to do?" "I think," said Agnes, "that the honourable course to take, would be to write to those two ladies. Don't you think that any secret course is an unworthy one?" "Yes. If _you_ think so," said I. "I am poorly qualified to judge of such matters," replied Agnes, with a modest hesitation, "but I certainly feel--in short, I feel that your being secret and clandestine, is not being like yourself." "Like myself, in the too high opinion you have of me, Agnes, I am afraid," said I. "Like yourself in the candour of your nature," she returned; "and therefore I would write to those two ladies. I would relate, as plainly and as openly as possible, all that has taken place; and I would ask their permission to visit sometimes, at their house. Considering that you are young, and striving for a place in life, I think it would be well to say that you would readily abide by any conditions they might impose upon you. I would entreat them not to dismiss your request, without a reference to Dora; and to discuss it with her when they should think the time suitable. I would not be too vehement," said Agnes, gently, "or propose too much. I would trust to my fidelity and perseverance--and to Dora." "But if they were to frighten Dora again, Agnes, by speaking to her," said I. "And if Dora were to cry, and say nothing about me!" "Is that likely?" inquired Agnes, with the same sweet consideration in her face. "God bless her, she is as easily scared as a bird," said I. "It might be! Or if the two Miss Spenlows (elderly ladies of that sort are odd characters sometimes) should not be likely persons to address in that way!" "I don't think, Trotwood," returned Agnes, raising her soft eyes to mine, "I would consider that. Perhaps it would be better only to consider whether it is right to do this; and, if it is, to do it." I had no longer any doubt on the subject. With a lightened heart, though with a profound sense of the weighty importance of my task, I devoted the whole afternoon to the composition of the draft of this letter; for which great purpose, Agnes relinquished her desk to me. But first I went down stairs to see Mr. Wickfield and Uriah Heep. I found Uriah in possession of a new, plaster-smelling office, built out in the garden; looking extraordinarily mean, in the midst of a quantity of books and papers. He received me in his usual fawning way, and pretended not to have heard of my arrival from Mr. Micawber; a pretence I took the liberty of disbelieving. He accompanied me into Mr. Wickfield's room, which was the shadow of its former self--having been divested of a variety of conveniences, for the accommodation of the new partner--and stood before the fire, warming his back, and shaving his chin with his bony hand, while Mr. Wickfield and I exchanged greetings. "You stay with us, Trotwood, while you remain in Canterbury?" said Mr. Wickfield, not without a glance at Uriah for his approval. "Is there room for me?" said I. "I am sure, Master Copperfield--I should say Mister, but the other comes so natural," said Uriah,--"I would turn out of your old room with pleasure, if it would be agreeable." "No, no," said Mr. Wickfield. "Why should _you_ be inconvenienced? There's another room. There's another room." "Oh, but you know," returned Uriah, with a grin, "I should really be delighted!" To cut the matter short, I said I would have the other room or none at all; so it was settled that I should have the other room: and, taking my leave of the firm until dinner, I went up stairs again. I had hoped, to have no other companion than Agnes. But Mrs. Heep had asked permission to bring herself and her knitting near the fire, in that room; on pretence of its having an aspect more favourable for her rheumatics, as the wind then was, than the drawing-room or dining-parlour. Though I could almost have consigned her to the mercies of the wind on the topmost pinnacle of the Cathedral, without remorse, I made a virtue of necessity, and gave her a friendly salutation. "I'm umbly thankful to you, sir," said Mrs. Heep, in acknowledgment of my inquiries concerning her health, "but I'm only pretty well. I haven't much to boast of. If I could see my Uriah well settled in life, I couldn't expect much more I think. How do you think my Ury looking, sir?" I thought him looking as villanous as ever, and I replied that I saw no change in him. "Oh, don't you think he's changed?" said Mrs. Heep. "There I must umbly beg leave to differ from you. Don't you see a thinness in him?" "Not more than usual," I replied. "_Don't_ you though!" said Mrs. Heep. "But you don't take notice of him with a mother's eye!" His mother's eye was an evil eye to the rest of the world, I thought as it met mine, howsoever affectionate to him; and I believe she and her son were devoted to one another. It passed me, and went on to Agnes. "Don't _you_ see a wasting and a wearing in him, Miss Wickfield?" inquired Mrs. Heep. "No," said Agnes, quietly pursuing the work on which she was engaged. "You are too solicitous about him. He is very well." Mrs. Heep, with a prodigious sniff, resumed her knitting. She never left off, or left us for a moment. I had arrived early in the day, and we had still three or four hours before dinner; but she sat there, plying her knitting-needles as monotonously as an hour-glass might have poured out its sands. She sat on one side of the fire; I sat at the desk in front of it; a little beyond me, on the other side, sat Agnes. Whensoever, slowly pondering over my letter, I lifted up my eyes, and meeting the thoughtful face of Agnes, saw it clear, and beam encouragement upon me, with its own angelic expression, I was conscious presently of the evil eye passing me, and going on to her, and coming back to me again, and dropping furtively upon the knitting. What the knitting was, I don't know, not being learned in that art; but it looked like a net; and as she worked away with those Chinese chopsticks of knitting-needles, she showed in the firelight like an ill-looking enchantress, baulked as yet by the radiant goodness opposite, but getting ready for a cast of her net by-and-by. At dinner she maintained her watch, with the same unwinking eyes. After dinner, her son took his turn; and when Mr. Wickfield, himself, and I were left alone together, leered at me, and writhed until I could hardly bear it. In the drawing-room, there was the mother knitting and watching again. All the time that Agnes sang and played, the mother sat at the piano. Once she asked for a particular ballad, which she said her Ury (who was yawning in a great chair) doted on; and at intervals she looked round at him, and reported to Agnes that he was in raptures with the music. But she hardly ever spoke--I question if she ever did--without making some mention of him. It was evident to me that this was the duty assigned to her. This lasted until bedtime. To have seen the mother and son, like two great bats hanging over the whole house, and darkening it with their ugly forms, made me so uncomfortable, that I would rather have remained down stairs, knitting and all, than gone to bed. I hardly got any sleep. Next day the knitting and watching began again, and lasted all day. I had not an opportunity of speaking to Agnes, for ten minutes. I could barely show her my letter. I proposed to her to walk out with me; but Mrs. Heep repeatedly complaining that she was worse, Agnes charitably remained within, to bear her company. Towards the twilight I went out by myself, musing on what I ought to do, and whether I was justified in withholding from Agnes, any longer, what Uriah Heep had told me in London; for that began to trouble me again, very much. I had not walked out far enough to be quite clear of the town, upon the Ramsgate road, where there was a good path, when I was hailed, through the dusk, by somebody behind me. The shambling figure, and the scanty great coat, were not to be mistaken. I stopped, and Uriah Heep came up. "Well?" said I. "How fast you walk!" said he. "My legs are pretty long, but you've given 'em quite a job." "Where are you going?" said I. "I am coming with you, Master Copperfield, if you'll allow me the pleasure of a walk with an old acquaintance." Saying this, with a jerk of his body, which might have been either propitiatory or derisive, he fell into step beside me. "Uriah!" said I, as civilly as I could, after a silence. "Master Copperfield!" said Uriah. "To tell you the truth (at which you will not be offended), I came out to walk alone, because I have had so much company." He looked at me sideways, and said with his hardest grin, "You mean mother?" "Why yes, I do," said I. "Ah! But you know we're so very umble," he returned. "And having such a knowledge of our own umbleness, we must really take care that we're not pushed to the wall by them as isn't umble. All stratagems are fair in love, sir." Raising his great hands until they touched his chin, he rubbed them softly, and softly chuckled; looking as like a malevolent baboon, I thought, as anything human could look. "You see," he said, still hugging himself in that unpleasant way, and shaking his head at me, "you're quite a dangerous rival, Master Copperfield. You always was, you know." "Do you set a watch upon Miss Wickfield, and make her home no home, because of me?" said I. "Oh! Master Copperfield! Those are very arsh words," he replied. "Put my meaning into any words you like," said I. "You know what it is, Uriah, as well as I do." "Oh no! You must put it into words," he said. "Oh, really! I couldn't myself." "Do you suppose," said I, constraining myself to be very temperate and quiet with him, on account of Agnes, "that I regard Miss Wickfield otherwise than as a very dear sister?" "Well, Master Copperfield," he replied, "you perceive I am not bound to answer that question. You may not, you know. But then, you see, you may!" Anything to equal the low cunning of his visage, and of his shadowless eyes without the ghost of an eyelash, I never saw. "Come, then!" said I. "For the sake of Miss Wickfield----" "My Agnes!" he exclaimed, with a sickly, angular contortion of himself. "Would you be so good as call her Agnes, Master Copperfield!" "For the sake of Agnes Wickfield--Heaven bless her!" "Thank you for that blessing, Master Copperfield!" he interposed. "I will tell you what I should, under any other circumstances, as soon have thought of telling to--Jack Ketch." "To who, sir?" said Uriah, stretching out his neck, and shading his ear with his hand. "To the hangman," I returned. "The most unlikely person I could think of,"--though his own face had suggested the allusion quite as a natural sequence. "I am engaged to another young lady. I hope that contents you." "Upon your soul?" said Uriah. I was about indignantly to give my assertion the confirmation he required, when he caught hold of my hand, and gave it a squeeze. "Oh, Master Copperfield!" he said. "If you had only had the condescension to return my confidence when I poured out the fulness of my art, the night I put you so much out of the way by sleeping before your sitting-room fire, I never should have doubted you. As it is, I'm sure I'll take off mother directly, and only too appy. I know you'll excuse the precautions of affection, won't you? What a pity, Master Copperfield, that you didn't condescend to return my confidence! I'm sure I gave you every opportunity. But you never have condescended to me, as much as I could have wished. I know you have never liked me, as I have liked you!" All this time he was squeezing my hand with his damp fishey fingers, while I made every effort I decently could to get it away. But I was quite unsuccessful. He drew it under the sleeve of his mulberry-colored great coat, and I walked on, almost upon compulsion, arm in arm with him. "Shall we turn?" said Uriah, by-and-by wheeling me face about towards the town, on which the early moon was now shining, silvering the distant windows. "Before we leave the subject, you ought to understand," said I, breaking a pretty long silence, "that I believe Agnes Wickfield to be as far above _you_, and as far removed from all _your_ aspirations, as that moon herself!" "Peaceful! Ain't she!" said Uriah. "Very! Now confess, Master Copperfield, that you haven't liked me quite as I have liked you. All along you've thought me too umble now, I shouldn't wonder?" "I am not fond of professions of humility," I returned, "or professions of anything else." "There now!" said Uriah, looking flabby and lead-coloured in the moonlight. "Didn't I know it! But how little you think of the rightful umbleness of a person in my station, Master Copperfield! Father and me was both brought up at a foundation school for boys; and mother, she was likewise brought up at a public, sort of charitable, establishment. They taught us all a deal of umbleness--not much else that I know of, from morning to night. We was to be umble to this person, and umble to that; and to pull off our caps here, and to make bows there; and always to know our place, and abase ourselves before our betters. And we had such a lot of betters! Father got the monitor-medal by being umble. So did I. Father got made a sexton by being umble. He had the character, among the gentlefolks, of being such a well-behaved man, that they were determined to bring him in. 'Be umble, Uriah,' says father to me, 'and you'll get on. It was what was always being dinned into you and me at school; it's what goes down best. Be umble,' says father, 'and you'll do!' And really it ain't done bad!" It was the first time it had ever occurred to me, that this detestable cant of false humility might have originated out of the Heep family. I had seen the harvest, but had never thought of the seed. "When I was quite a young boy," said Uriah, "I got to know what umbleness did, and I took to it. I ate umble pie with an appetite. I stopped at the umble point of my learning, and says I, 'Hold hard!' When you offered to teach me Latin, I knew better. 'People like to be above you,' says father, 'keep yourself down.' I am very umble to the present moment, Master Copperfield, but I've got a little power!" And he said all this--I knew, as I saw his face in the moonlight--that I might understand he was resolved to recompense himself by using his power. I had never doubted his meanness, his craft and malice; but I fully comprehended now, for the first time, what a base, unrelenting, and revengeful spirit, must have been engendered by this early, and this long, suppression. His account of himself was so far attended with an agreeable result, that it led to his withdrawing his hand in order that he might have another hug of himself under the chin. Once apart from him, I was determined to keep apart; and we walked back, side by side, saying very little more by the way. Whether his spirits were elevated by the communication I had made to him, or by his having indulged in this retrospect, I don't know; but they were raised by some influence. He talked more at dinner than was usual with him; asked his mother (off duty, from the moment of our re-entering the house), whether he was not growing too old for a bachelor; and once looked at Agnes so, that I would have given all I had, for leave to knock him down. When we three males were left alone after dinner, he got into a more adventurous state. He had taken little or no wine; and I presume it was the mere insolence of triumph that was upon him, flushed perhaps by the temptation my presence furnished to its exhibition. I had observed yesterday, that he tried to entice Mr. Wickfield to drink; and, interpreting the look which Agnes had given me as she went out, had limited myself to one glass, and then proposed that we should follow her. I would have done so again to-day; but Uriah was too quick for me. "We seldom see our present visitor, sir," he said, addressing Mr. Wickfield, sitting, such a contrast to him, at the end of the table, "and I should propose to give him welcome in another glass or two of wine, if you have no objections. Mr. Copperfield, your elth and appiness!" I was obliged to make a show of taking the hand he stretched across to me; and then, with very different emotions, I took the hand of the broken gentleman, his partner. "Come, fellow partner," said Uriah, "if I may take the liberty,--now, suppose you give us something or another appropriate to Copperfield!" I pass over Mr. Wickfield's proposing my aunt, his proposing Mr. Dick, his proposing Doctor's Commons, his proposing Uriah, his drinking everything twice; his consciousness of his own weakness, the ineffectual effort that he made against it; the struggle between his shame in Uriah's deportment, and his desire to conciliate him; the manifest exultation with which Uriah twisted and turned, and held him up before me. It made me sick at heart to see, and my hand recoils from writing it. "Come, fellow partner!" said Uriah, at last, "_I_'ll give you another one, and I umbly ask for bumpers, seeing I intend to make it the divinest of her sex." Her father had his empty glass in his hand. I saw him set it down, look at the picture she was so like, put his hand to his forehead, and shrink back in his elbow chair. "I'm an umble individual to give you her elth," proceeded Uriah, "but I admire--adore her." No physical pain that her father's grey head could have borne, I think could have been more terrible to me, than the mental endurance I saw compressed now within both his hands. "Agnes," said Uriah, either not regarding him, or not knowing what the nature of his action was, "Agnes Wickfield is, I am safe to say, the divinest of her sex. May I speak out, among friends? To be her father is a proud distinction, but to be her usband--" Spare me from ever again hearing such a cry, as that with which her father rose up from the table! "What's the matter?" said Uriah, turning of a deadly colour. "You are not gone mad, after all, Mr. Wickfield, I hope? If I say, I've an ambition to make your Agnes my Agnes, I have as good a right to it as another man. I have a better right to it than any other man!" I had my arms round Mr. Wickfield, imploring him by everything that I could think of, oftenest of all by his love for Agnes, to calm himself a little. He was mad for the moment; tearing out his hair, beating his head, trying to force me from him and to force himself from me, not answering a word, not looking at or seeing any one; blindly striving for he knew not what, his face all staring and distorted--a frightful spectacle. I conjured him, incoherently, but in the most impassioned manner, not to abandon himself to this wildness, but to hear me. I besought him to think of Agnes, to connect me with Agnes, to recollect how Agnes and I had grown up together, how I honored her and loved her, how she was his pride and joy. I tried to bring her idea before him in any form; I even reproached him with not having firmness to spare her the knowledge of such a scene as this. I may have effected something, or his wildness may have spent itself; but by degrees he struggled less, and began to look at me--strangely at first, then with recognition in his eyes. At length he said, "I know, Trotwood! My darling child and you--I know! But look at him!" He pointed to Uriah, pale and glowering in a corner, evidently very much out in his calculations, and taken by surprise. "Look at my torturer," he replied. "Before him I have step by step abandoned name and reputation, peace and quiet, house and home." "I have kept your name and reputation for you, and your peace and quiet, and your house and home too," said Uriah, with a sulky, hurried, defeated air of compromise. "Don't be foolish, Mr. Wickfield. If I have gone a little beyond what you were prepared for, I can go back I suppose? There's no harm done." "I looked for single motives in every one," said Mr. Wickfield, "and I was satisfied I had bound him to me by motives of interest. But see what he is--oh, see what he is!" "You had better stop him, Copperfield, if you can," cried Uriah, with his long fore-finger pointing towards me. "He'll say something presently--mind you!--he'll be sorry to have said afterwards, and you'll be sorry to have heard!" "I'll say anything!" cried Mr. Wickfield, with a desperate air. "Why should I not be in all the world's power if I am in yours!" "Mind! I tell you!" said Uriah, continuing to warn me. "If you don't stop his mouth, you're not his friend! Why shouldn't you be in all the world's power, Mr. Wickfield? Because you have got a daughter. You and me know what we know, don't we? Let sleeping dogs lie--who wants to rouse 'em? I don't. Can't you see I am as umble as I can be? I tell you, if I've gone too far, I'm sorry. What would you have, sir?" "Oh, Trotwood, Trotwood!" exclaimed Mr. Wickfield, wringing his hands. "What I have come down to be, since I first saw you in this house! I was on my downward way then, but the dreary, dreary, road I have traversed since! Weak indulgence has ruined me. Indulgence in remembrance, and indulgence in forgetfulness. My natural grief for my child's mother turned to disease; my natural love for my child turned to disease. I have infected everything I touched. I have brought misery on what I dearly love, I know--_You_ know! I thought it possible that I could truly love one creature in the world, and not love the rest; I thought it possible that I could truly mourn for one creature gone out of the world, and not have some part in the grief of all who mourned. Thus the lessons of my life have been perverted! I have preyed on my own morbid coward heart, and it has preyed on me. Sordid in my grief, sordid in my love, sordid in my miserable escape from the darker side of both, oh see the ruin I am, and hate me, shun me!" He dropped into a chair, and weakly sobbed. The excitement into which he had been roused was leaving him. Uriah came out of his corner. "I don't know all I have done, in my fatuity," said Mr. Wickfield, putting out his hands, as if to deprecate my condemnation. "_He_ knows best," meaning Uriah Heep, "for he has always been at my elbow, whispering me. You see the millstone that he is about my neck. You find him in my house, you find him in my business. You heard him, but a little time ago. What need have I to say more!" "You haven't need to say so much, nor half so much, nor anything at all," observed Uriah, half defiant, and half fawning. "You wouldn't have took it up so, if it hadn't been for the wine. You'll think better of it to-morrow, sir. If I have said too much, or more than I meant, what of it? I haven't stood by it!" The door opened, and Agnes, gliding in, without a vestige of colour in her face, put her arm round his neck, and steadily said, "Papa, you are not well. Come with me!" He laid his head upon her shoulder, as if he were oppressed with heavy shame, and went out with her. Her eyes met mine for but an instant, yet I saw how much she knew of what had passed. "I didn't expect he'd cut up so rough, Master Copperfield," said Uriah. "But it's nothing. I'll be friends with him to-morrow. It's for his good. I'm umbly anxious for his good." I gave him no answer, and went upstairs into the quiet room where Agnes had so often sat beside me at my books. Nobody came near me until late at night. I took up a book, and tried to read. I heard the clocks strike twelve, and was still reading, without knowing what I read, when Agnes touched me. "You will be going early in the morning, Trotwood. Let us say good bye, now!" She had been weeping, but her face then was so calm and beautiful! "Heaven bless you!" she said, giving me her hand. "Dearest Agnes!" I returned, "I see you ask me not to speak of to-night--but is there nothing to be done?" "There is God to trust in!" she replied. "Can _I_ do nothing--_I_, who come to you with _my_ poor sorrows?" "And make mine so much lighter," she replied. "Dear Trotwood, no!" "Dear Agnes," I said, "it is presumptuous for me, who am so poor in all in which you are so rich--goodness, resolution, all noble qualities--to doubt or direct you; but you know how much I love you, and how much I owe you. You will never sacrifice yourself to a mistaken sense of duty, Agnes?" More agitated for a moment than I had ever seen her, she took her hand from me, and moved a step back. "Say you have no such thought, dear Agnes! Much more than sister! Think of the priceless gift of such a heart as yours, of such a love as yours!" Oh! long, long afterwards, I saw that face rise up before me, with its momentary look, not wondering, not accusing, not regretting. Oh, long, long afterwards, I saw that look subside, as it did now, into the lovely smile, with which she told me she had no fear for herself--I need have none for her--and parted from me by the name of Brother, and was gone! It was dark in the morning, when I got upon the coach at the inn door. The day was just breaking when we were about to start, and then, as I sat thinking of her, came struggling up the coach side, through the mingled day and night, Uriah's head. "Copperfield!" said he, in a croaking whisper, as he hung by the iron on the roof, "I thought you'd be glad to hear before you went off, that there are no squares broke between us. I've been into his room already, and we've made it all smooth. Why, though I'm umble, I'm useful to him, you know; and he understands his interest when he isn't in liquor! What an agreeable man he is, after all, Master Copperfield!" I obliged myself to say that I was glad he had made his apology. "Oh, to be sure!" said Uriah. "When a person's umble, you know, what's an apology? So easy! I say! I suppose," with a jerk, "you have sometimes plucked a pear before it was ripe, Master Copperfield?" "I suppose I have," I replied. "_I_ did that last night," said Uriah; "but it'll ripen yet! It only wants attending to. I can wait!" Profuse in his farewells, he got down again as the coachman got up. For anything I know, he was eating something to keep the raw morning air out; but, he made motions with his mouth as if the pear were ripe already, and he were smacking his lips over it. CHAPTER XL. THE WANDERER. We had a very serious conversation in Buckingham Street that night, about the domestic occurrences I have detailed in the last chapter. My aunt was deeply interested in them, and walked up and down the room with her arms folded, for more than two hours afterwards. Whenever she was particularly discomposed, she always performed one of these pedestrian feats; and the amount of her discomposure might always be estimated by the duration of her walk. On this occasion she was so much disturbed in mind as to find it necessary to open the bed-room door, and make a course for herself, comprising the full extent of the bed-rooms from wall to wall; and while Mr. Dick and I sat quietly by the fire, she kept passing in and out, along this measured track, at an unchanging pace, with the regularity of a clock-pendulum. When my aunt and I were left to ourselves by Mr. Dick's going out to bed, I sat down to write my letter to the two old ladies. By that time she was tired of walking, and sat by the fire with her dress tucked up as usual. But instead of sitting in her usual manner, holding her glass upon her knee, she suffered it to stand neglected on the chimney-piece; and, resting her left elbow on her right arm, and her chin on her left hand, looked thoughtfully at me. As often as I raised my eyes from what I was about, I met hers. "I am in the lovingest of tempers, my dear," she would assure me with a nod, "but I am fidgetted and sorry!" I had been too busy to observe, until after she was gone to bed, that she had left her night-mixture, as she always called it, untasted on the chimney-piece. She came to her door, with even more than her usual affection of manner, when I knocked to acquaint her with this discovery; but only said, "I have not the heart to take it, Trot, to-night," and shook her head, and went in again. She read my letter to the two old ladies, in the morning, and approved of it. I posted it, and had nothing to do then, but wait, as patiently as I could, for the reply. I was still in this state of expectation, and had been, for nearly a week; when I left the Doctor's one snowy night, to walk home. It had been a bitter day, and a cutting north-east wind had blown for some time. The wind had gone down with the light, and so the snow had come on. It was a heavy, settled fall, I recollect, in great flakes; and it lay thick. The noise of wheels and tread of people were as hushed, as if the streets had been strewn that depth with feathers. My shortest way home,--and I naturally took the shortest way on such a night--was through Saint Martin's Lane. Now, the church which gives its name to the lane, stood in a less free situation at that time; there being no open space before it, and the lane winding down to the Strand. As I passed the steps of the portico, I encountered, at the corner, a woman's face. It looked in mine, passed across the narrow lane, and disappeared. I knew it. I had seen it somewhere. But I could not remember where. I had some association with it, that struck upon my heart directly; but I was thinking of anything else when it came upon me, and was confused. On the steps of the church, there was the stooping figure of a man, who had put down some burden on the smooth snow, to adjust it; my seeing the face, and my seeing him, were simultaneous. I don't think I had stopped in my surprise; but, in any case, as I went on, he rose, turned, and came down towards me. I stood face to face with Mr. Peggotty! Then I remembered the woman. It was Martha, to whom Emily had given the money that night in the kitchen. Martha Endell--side by side with whom, he would not have seen his dear niece, Ham had told me, for all the treasures wrecked in the sea. We shook hands heartily. At first neither of us could speak a word. "Mas'r Davy!" he said, griping me tight, "it do my art good to see you, sir. Well met, well met!" "Well met, my dear old friend!" said I. "I had my thowts o' coming to make inquiration for you, sir, to-night," he said, "but knowing as your aunt was living along wi' you--for I've been down yonder--Yarmouth way--I was afeerd it was too late. I should have come early in the morning, sir, afore going away." "Again?" said I. "Yes, sir," he replied, patiently shaking his head, "I'm away to-morrow." "Where were you going now?" I asked. "Well!" he replied, shaking the snow out of his long hair, "I was a going to turn in somewheers." In those days there was a side-entrance to the stable-yard of the Golden Cross, the inn so memorable to me in connexion with his misfortune, nearly opposite to where we stood. I pointed out the gateway, put my arm through his, and we went across. Two or three public-rooms opened out of the stable-yard; and looking into one of them, and finding it empty, and a good fire burning, I took him in there. When I saw him in the light, I observed, not only that his hair was long and ragged, but that his face was burnt dark by the sun. He was greyer, the lines in his face and forehead were deeper, and he had every appearance of having toiled and wandered through all varieties of weather; but he looked very strong, and like a man upheld by stedfastness of purpose, whom nothing could tire out. He shook the snow from his hat and clothes, and brushed it away from his face, while I was inwardly making these remarks. As he sate down opposite to me at a table, with his back to the door by which we had entered, he put out his rough hand again, and grasped mine warmly. [Illustration: The Wanderer.] "I'll tell you, Mas'r Davy," he said,--"wheer all I've been, and what-all we've heerd. I've been fur, and we've heerd little; but I'll tell you!" I rang the bell for something hot to drink. He would have nothing younger than ale; and while it was being brought, and being warmed at the fire, he sat thinking. There was a fine, massive gravity in his face, I did not venture to disturb. "When she was a child," he said, lifting up his head soon after we were left alone, "she used to talk to me a deal about the sea, and about them coasts where the sea got to be dark blue, and to lay a shining and a shining in the sun. I thowt, odd times, as her father being drownded made her think on it so much. I doen't know, you see, but maybe she believed--or hoped--he had drifted out to them parts, where the flowers is always a blowing, and the country bright." "It is likely to have been a childish fancy," I replied. "When she was--lost," said Mr. Peggotty, "I know'd in my mind, as he would take her to them countries. I know'd in my mind, as he'd have told her wonders of 'em, and how she was to be a lady theer, and how he got her listen to him first, along o'sech like. When we see his mother, I know'd quite well as I was right. I went across-channel to France, and landed theer, as if I'd fell down from the sky." I saw the door move, and the snow drift in. I saw it move a little more, and a hand softly interpose to keep it open. "I found out a English gentleman as was in authority," said Mr. Peggotty, "and told him I was a going to seek my niece. He got me them papers as I wanted fur to carry me through--I doen't rightly know how they're called--and he would have give me money, but that I was thankful to have no need on. I thank him kind, for all he done, I'm sure! 'I've wrote afore you,' he says to me, 'and I shall speak to many as will come that way, and many will know you, fur distant from here, when you're a travelling alone.' I told him, best as I was able, what my gratitoode was, and went away through France." "Alone, and on foot?" said I. "Mostly a-foot," he rejoined; "sometimes in carts along with people going to market; sometimes in empty coaches. Many mile a day a-foot, and often with some poor soldier or another, travelling to see his friends. I couldn't talk to him," said Mr. Peggotty, "nor he to me; but we was company for one another, too, along the dusty roads." I should have known that by his friendly tone. "When I come to any town," he pursued, "I found the inn, and waited about the yard till some one turned up (some one mostly did) as know'd English. Then I told how that I was on my way to seek my niece, and they told me what manner of gentlefolks was in the house, and I waited to see any as seemed like her, going in or out. When it warn't Em'ly, I went on agen. By little and little, when I come to a new village or that, among the poor people, I found they know'd about me. They would set me down at their cottage doors, and give me what-not fur to eat and drink, and show me where to sleep; and many a woman, Mas'r Davy, as has had a daughter of about Em'ly's age, I've found a-waiting for me, at Our Saviour's Cross outside the village, fur to do me sim'lar kindnesses. Some has had daughters as was dead. And God only knows how good them mothers was to me!" It was Martha at the door. I saw her haggard, listening face distinctly. My dread was lest he should turn his head, and see her too. "They would often put their children--partic'lar their little girls," said Mr. Peggotty, "upon my knee; and many a time you might have seen me sitting at their doors, when night was coming on, a'most as if they'd been my Darling's children. Oh, my Darling!" Overpowered by sudden grief, he sobbed aloud. I laid my trembling hand upon the hand he put before his face. "Thankee, sir," he said, "don't take no notice." In a very little while he took his hand away and put it in his breast, and went on with his story. "They often walked with me," he said, "in the morning, maybe a mile or two upon my road; and when we parted, and I said, 'I'm very thankful to you! God bless you!' they always seemed to understand, and answered pleasant. At last I come to the sea. It warn't hard, you may suppose, for a seafaring man like me to work his way over to Italy. When I got theer, I wandered on as I had done afore. The people was just as good to me, and I should have gone from town to town, maybe the country through, but that I got news of her being seen among them Swiss mountains yonder. One as know'd his servant see 'em there, all three, and told me how they travelled, and where they was. I made for them mountains, Mas'r Davy, day and night. Ever so fur as I went, ever so fur the mountains seemed to shift away from me. But I come up with 'em, and I crossed 'em. When I got nigh the place as I had been told of, I began to think within my own self, 'What shall I do when I see her?'" The listening face, insensible to the inclement night, still drooped at the door, and the hands begged me--prayed me--not to cast it forth. "I never doubted her," said Mr. Peggotty. "No! not a bit! On'y let her see my face--on'y let her heer my voice--on'y let my stanning still afore her bring to her thoughts the home she had fled away from, and the child she had been--and if she had growed to be a royal lady, she'd have fell down at my feet! I know'd it well! Many a time in my sleep had I heerd her cry out, 'Uncle!' and seen her fall like death afore me. Many a time in my sleep had I raised her up, and whispered to her, 'Em'ly my dear, I am come fur to bring forgiveness, and to take you home!'" He stopped and shook his head, and went on with a sigh. "_He_ was nowt to me now. Em'ly was all. I bought a country dress to put upon her; and I know'd that, once found, she would walk beside me over them stony roads, go where I would, and never, never, leave me more. To put that dress upon her, and to cast off what she wore--to take her on my arm again, and wander towards home--to stop sometimes upon the road, and heal her bruised feet and her worse-bruised heart--was all that I thowt of now. I doen't believe I should have done so much as look at him. But, Mas'r Davy, it warn't to be--not yet! I was too late, and they was gone. Wheer, I couldn't learn. Some said heer, some said theer. I travelled heer, and I travelled theer, but I found no Em'ly, and I travelled home." "How long ago?" I asked. "A matter o' fower days," said Mr. Peggotty. "I sighted the old boat arter dark, and the light a shining in the winder. When I come nigh and looked in through the glass, I see the faithful creetur Missis Gummidge sittin' by the fire, as we had fixed upon, alone. I called out, 'Doen't be afeerd! It's Dan'l!' and I went in. I never could have thowt the old boat would have been so strange!" From some pocket in his breast, he took out, with a very careful hand, a small paper bundle containing two or three letters or little packets, which he laid upon the table. "This first one come," he said, selecting it from the rest, "afore I had been gone a week. A fifty pound Bank note, in a sheet of paper, directed to me, and put underneath the door in the night. She tried to hide her writing, but she couldn't hide it from Me!" He folded up the note again, with great patience and care, in exactly the same form, and laid it on one side. "This come to Missis Gummidge," he said, opening another, "two or three months ago." After looking at it for some moments, he gave it to me, and added in a low voice, "Be so good as read it, sir." I read as follows: "Oh what will you feel when you see this writing, and know it comes from my wicked hand! But try, try--not for my sake, but for uncle's goodness, try to let your heart soften to me, only for a little little time! Try, pray do, to relent towards a miserable girl, and write down on a bit of paper whether he is well, and what he said about me before you left off ever naming me among yourselves--and whether, of a night, when it is my old time of coming home, you ever see him look as if he thought of one he used to love so dear. Oh, my heart is breaking when I think about it! I am kneeling down to you, begging and praying you not to be as hard with me as I deserve--as I well, well, know I deserve--but to be so gentle and so good, as to write down something of him, and to send it to me. You need not call me Little, you need not call me by the name I have disgraced; but oh, listen to my agony, and have mercy on me so far as to write me some word of uncle, never, never to be seen in this world by my eyes again! "Dear, if your heart is hard towards me--justly hard, I know--but, Listen, if it is hard, dear, ask him I have wronged the most--him whose wife I was to have been--before you quite decide against my poor poor prayer! If he should be so compassionate as to say that you might write something for me to read--I think he would, oh, I think he would, if you would only ask him, for he always was so brave and so forgiving--tell him then (but not else), that when I hear the wind blowing at night, I feel as if it was passing angrily from seeing him and uncle, and was going up to God against me. Tell him that if I was to die to-morrow (and oh, if I was fit, I would be so glad to die!) I would bless him and uncle with my last words, and pray for his happy home with my last breath!" Some money was inclosed in this letter also. Five pounds. It was untouched like the previous sum, and he refolded it in the same way. Detailed instructions were added relative to the address of a reply, which, although they betrayed the intervention of several hands, and made it difficult to arrive at any very probable conclusion in reference to her place of concealment, made it at least not unlikely that she had written from that spot where she was stated to have been seen. "What answer was sent?" I inquired of Mr. Peggotty. "Missis Gummidge," he returned, "not being a good scholar, sir, Ham kindly drawed it out, and she made a copy on it. They told her I was gone to seek her, and what my parting words was." "Is that another letter in your hand?" said I. "It's money, sir," said Mr. Peggotty, unfolding it a little way. "Ten pound, you see. And wrote inside, 'From a true friend,' like the first. But the first was put underneath the door, and this come by the post, day afore yesterday. I'm a going to seek her at the post-mark." He showed it to me. It was a town on the Upper Rhine. He had found out, at Yarmouth, some foreign dealers who knew that country, and they had drawn him a rude map on paper, which he could very well understand. He laid it between us on the table; and, with his chin resting on one hand, tracked his course upon it with the other. I asked him how Ham was? He shook his head. "He works," he said, "as bold as a man can. His name's as good, in all that part, as any man's is, anywheres in the wureld. Anyone's hand is ready to help him, you understand, and his is ready to help them. He's never been heerd fur to complain. But my sister's belief is ('twixt ourselves) as it has cut him deep." "Poor fellow, I can believe it!" "He ain't no care, Mas'r Davy," said Mr. Peggotty in a solemn whisper--"keinder no care no-how for his life. When a man's wanted for rough service in rough weather, he's theer. When there's hard duty to be done with danger in it, he steps forward afore all his mates. And yet he's as gentle as any child. There ain't a child in Yarmouth that doen't know him." He gathered up the letters thoughtfully, smoothing them with his hand; put them into their little bundle; and placed it tenderly in his breast again. The face was gone from the door. I still saw the snow drifting in; but nothing else was there. "Well!" he said, looking to his bag, "having seen you to-night, Mas'r Davy (and that doos me good!) I shall away betimes to-morrow morning. You have seen what I've got heer;" putting his hand on where the little packet lay; "all that troubles me is, to think that any harm might come to me, afore that money was give back. If I was to die, and it was lost, or stole, or elseways made away with, and it was never knowed by him but what I'd took it, I believe the t'other wureld wouldn't hold me! I believe I must come back!" He rose, and I rose too; we grasped each other by the hand again, before going out. "I'd go ten thousand mile," he said, "I'd go till I dropped dead, to lay that money down afore him. If I do that, and find my Em'ly, I'm content. If I doen't find her, maybe she'll come to hear, sometime, as her loving uncle only ended his search for her when he ended his life; and if I know her, even that will turn her home at last!" As we went out into the rigorous night, I saw the lonely figure flit away before us. I turned him hastily on some pretence, and held him in conversation until it was gone. He spoke of a traveller's house on the Dover road, where he knew he could find a clean, plain lodging for the night. I went with him over Westminster Bridge, and parted from him on the Surrey shore. Everything seemed, to my imagination, to be hushed in reverence for him, as he resumed his solitary journey through the snow. I returned to the inn yard, and, impressed by my remembrance of the face, looked awfully around for it. It was not there. The snow had covered our late footprints; my new track was the only one to be seen; and even that began to die away (it snowed so fast) as I looked back over my shoulder. CHAPTER XLI. DORA'S AUNTS. At last, an answer came from the two old ladies. They presented their compliments to Mr. Copperfield, and informed him that they had given his letter their best consideration, "with a view to the happiness of both parties"--which I thought rather an alarming expression, not only because of the use they had made of it in relation to the family difference before-mentioned, but because I had (and have all my life) observed that conventional phrases are a sort of fireworks, easily let off, and liable to take a great variety of shapes and colors not at all suggested by their original form. The Misses Spenlow added that they begged to forbear expressing, "through the medium of correspondence," an opinion on the subject of Mr. Copperfield's communication; but that if Mr. Copperfield would do them the favor to call, upon a certain day, (accompanied, if he thought proper, by a confidential friend), they would be happy to hold some conversation on the subject. To this favor, Mr. Copperfield immediately replied, with his respectful compliments, that he would have the honor of waiting on the Misses Spenlow, at the time appointed; accompanied, in accordance with their kind permission, by his friend Mr. Thomas Traddles of the Inner Temple. Having dispatched which missive, Mr. Copperfield fell into a condition of strong nervous agitation; and so remained until the day arrived. It was a great augmentation of my uneasiness to be bereaved, at this eventful crisis, of the inestimable services of Miss Mills. But Mr. Mills, who was always doing something or other to annoy me--or I felt as if he were, which was the same thing--had brought his conduct to a climax, by taking it into his head that he would go to India. Why should he go to India, except to harass me? To be sure he had nothing to do with any other part of the world, and had a good deal to do with that part; being entirely in the India trade, whatever that was (I had floating dreams myself concerning golden shawls and elephant's teeth); having been at Calcutta in his youth; and designing now to go out there again, in the capacity of resident partner. But this was nothing to me. However, it was so much to him that for India he was bound, and Julia with him; and Julia went into the country to take leave of her relations; and the house was put into a perfect suit of bills, announcing that it was to be let or sold, and that the furniture (Mangle and all) was to be taken at a valuation. So, here was another earthquake of which I became the sport, before I had recovered from the shock of its predecessor! I was in several minds how to dress myself on the important day; being divided between my desire to appear to advantage, and my apprehensions of putting on anything that might impair my severely practical character in the eyes of the Misses Spenlow. I endeavoured to hit a happy medium between these two extremes; my aunt approved the result; and Mr. Dick threw one of his shoes after Traddles and me, for luck, as we went down-stairs. Excellent fellow as I knew Traddles to be, and warmly attached to him as I was, I could not help wishing, on that delicate occasion, that he had never contracted the habit of brushing his hair so very upright. It gave him a surprised look--not to say a hearth-broomy kind of expression--which, my apprehensions whispered, might be fatal to us. I took the liberty of mentioning it to Traddles, as we were walking to Putney; and saying that if he _would_ smooth it down a little-- "My dear Copperfield," said Traddles, lifting off his hat, and rubbing his hair all kinds of ways, "nothing would give me greater pleasure. But it won't." "Won't be smoothed down?" said I. "No," said Traddles. "Nothing will induce it. If I was to carry a half-hundred-weight upon it, all the way to Putney, it would be up again the moment the weight was taken off. You have no idea what obstinate hair mine is, Copperfield. I am quite a fretful porcupine." I was a little disappointed, I must confess, but thoroughly charmed by his good-nature too. I told him how I esteemed his good-nature; and said that his hair must have taken all the obstinacy out of his character, for _he_ had none. "Oh!" returned Traddles, laughing, "I assure you, it's quite an old story, my unfortunate hair. My uncle's wife couldn't bear it. She said it exasperated her. It stood very much in my way, too, when I first fell in love with Sophy. Very much!" "Did she object to it?" "_She_ didn't," rejoined Traddles; "but her eldest sister--the one that's the Beauty--quite made game of it, I understand. In fact, all the sisters laugh at it." "Agreeable!" said I. "Yes," returned Traddles with perfect innocence, "it's a joke for us. They pretend that Sophy has a lock of it in her desk, and is obliged to shut it in a clasped book, to keep it down. We laugh about it." "By-the-bye, my dear Traddles," said I, "your experience may suggest something to me. When you became engaged to the young lady whom you have just mentioned, did you make a regular proposal to her family? Was there anything like--what we are going through to-day, for instance?" I added, nervously. "Why," replied Traddles, on whose attentive face a thoughtful shade had stolen, "it was rather a painful transaction, Copperfield, in my case. You see, Sophy being of so much use in the family, none of them could endure the thought of her ever being married. Indeed, they had quite settled among themselves that she never was to be married, and they called her the old maid. Accordingly, when I mentioned it, with the greatest precaution, to Mrs. Crewler--" "The mamma?" said I. "The mamma," said Traddles--"Reverend Horace Crewler--when I mentioned it with every possible precaution to Mrs. Crewler, the effect upon her was such that she gave a scream and became insensible. I couldn't approach the subject again, for months." "You did at last?" said I. "Well, the Reverend Horace did," said Traddles. "He is an excellent man, most exemplary in every way; and he pointed out to her that she ought, as a Christian, to reconcile herself to the sacrifice (especially as it was so uncertain), and to bear no uncharitable feeling towards me. As to myself, Copperfield, I give you my word, I felt a perfect bird of prey towards the family." "The sisters took your part, I hope, Traddles?" "Why, I can't say they did," he returned. "When we had comparatively reconciled Mrs. Crewler to it, we had to break it to Sarah. You recollect my mentioning Sarah, as the one that has something the matter with her spine?" "Perfectly!" "She clenched both her hands," said Traddles, looking at me in dismay; "shut her eyes; turned lead-color; became perfectly stiff; and took nothing for two days, but toast-and-water administered with a teaspoon." "What a very unpleasant girl, Traddles!" I remarked. "Oh, I beg your pardon, Copperfield!" said Traddles. "She is a very charming girl, but she has a great deal of feeling. In fact, they all have. Sophy told me afterwards, that the self-reproach she underwent while she was in attendance upon Sarah, no words could describe. I know it must have been severe, by my own feelings, Copperfield; which were like a criminal's. After Sarah was restored, we still had to break it to the other eight; and it produced various effects upon them of a most pathetic nature. The two little ones, whom Sophy educates, have only just left off de-testing me." "At any rate, they are all reconciled to it now, I hope?" said I. "Ye--yes, I should say they were, on the whole, resigned to it," said Traddles, doubtfully. "The fact is, we avoid mentioning the subject; and my unsettled prospects and indifferent circumstances are a great consolation to them. There will be a deplorable scene, whenever we are married. It will be much more like a funeral, than a wedding. And they'll all hate me for taking her away!" His honest face, as he looked at me with a serio-comic shake of his head, impresses me more in the remembrance than it did in the reality, for I was by this time in a state of such excessive trepidation and wandering of mind, as to be quite unable to fix my attention on anything. On our approaching the house where the Misses Spenlow lived, I was at such a discount in respect of my personal looks and presence of mind, that Traddles proposed a gentle stimulant in the form of a glass of ale. This having been administered at a neighbouring public-house, he conducted me, with tottering steps, to the Misses Spenlow's door. I had a vague sensation of being, as it were, on view, when the maid opened it; and of wavering, somehow, across a hall with a weather-glass in it, into a quiet little drawing-room on the ground-floor, commanding a neat garden. Also of sitting down here, on a sofa, and seeing Traddles's hair start up, now his hat was removed, like one of those obtrusive little figures made of springs, that fly out of fictitious snuff-boxes when the lid is taken off. Also of hearing an old-fashioned clock ticking away on the chimney-piece, and trying to make it keep time to the jerking of my heart,--which it wouldn't. Also of looking round the room for any sign of Dora, and seeing none. Also of thinking that Jip once barked in the distance, and was instantly choked by somebody. Ultimately I found myself backing Traddles into the fire-place, and bowing in great confusion to two dry little elderly ladies, dressed in black, and each looking wonderfully like a preparation in chip or tan of the late Mr. Spenlow. "Pray," said one of the two little ladies, "be seated." When I had done tumbling over Traddles, and had sat upon something which was not a cat--my first seat was--I so far recovered my sight, as to perceive that Mr. Spenlow had evidently been the youngest of the family; that there was a disparity of six or eight years between the two sisters; and that the younger appeared to be the manager of the conference, inasmuch as she had my letter in her hand--so familiar as it looked to me, and yet so odd!--and was referring to it through an eye-glass. They were dressed alike, but this sister wore her dress with a more youthful air than the other; and perhaps had a trifle more frill, or tucker, or brooch, or bracelet, or some little thing of that kind, which made her look more lively. They were both upright in their carriage, formal, precise, composed, and quiet. The sister who had not my letter, had her arms crossed on her breast, and resting on each other, like an Idol. [Illustration: Traddles and I, in conference with the Misses Spenlow.] "Mr. Copperfield, I believe," said the sister who had got my letter, addressing herself to Traddles. This was a frightful beginning. Traddles had to indicate that I was Mr. Copperfield, and I had to lay claim to myself, and they had to divest themselves of a preconceived opinion that Traddles was Mr. Copperfield, and altogether we were in a nice condition. To improve it, we all distinctly heard Jip give two short barks, and receive another choke. "Mr. Copperfield!" said the sister with the letter. I did something--bowed, I suppose--and was all attention, when the other sister struck in. "My sister Lavinia," said she, "being conversant with matters of this nature, will state what we consider most calculated to promote the happiness of both parties." I discovered afterwards that Miss Lavinia was an authority in affairs of the heart, by reason of there having anciently existed a certain Mr. Pidger, who played short whist, and was supposed to have been enamoured of her. My private opinion is, that this was entirely a gratuitous assumption, and that Pidger was altogether innocent of any such sentiments--to which he had never given any sort of expression that I could ever hear of. Both Miss Lavinia and Miss Clarissa had a superstition, however, that he would have declared his passion, if he had not been cut short in his youth (at about sixty) by over-drinking his constitution, and overdoing an attempt to set it right again by swilling Bath water. They had a lurking suspicion even, that he died of secret love; though I must say there was a picture of him in the house with a damask nose, which concealment did not appear to have ever preyed upon. "We will not," said Miss Lavinia, "enter on the past history of this matter. Our poor brother Francis's death has cancelled that." "We had not," said Miss Clarissa, "been in the habit of frequent association with our brother Francis; but there was no decided division or disunion between us. Francis took his road; we took ours. We considered it conducive to the happiness of all parties that it should be so. And it was so." Each of the sisters leaned a little forward to speak, shook her head after speaking, and became upright again when silent. Miss Clarissa never moved her arms. She sometimes played tunes upon them with her fingers--minuets and marches I should think--but never moved them. "Our niece's position, or supposed position, is much changed by our brother Francis's death," said Miss Lavinia; "and therefore we consider our brother's opinions as regarded her position as being changed too. We have no reason to doubt, Mr. Copperfield, that you are a young gentleman possessed of good qualities and honorable character; or that you have an affection--or are fully persuaded that you have an affection--for our niece." I replied, as I usually did whenever I had a chance, that nobody had ever loved anybody else as I loved Dora. Traddles came to my assistance with a confirmatory murmur. Miss Lavinia was going on to make some rejoinder, when Miss Clarissa, who appeared to be incessantly beset by a desire to refer to her brother Francis, struck in again: "If Dora's mamma," she said, "when she married our brother Francis, had at once said that there was not room for the family at the dinner-table, it would have been better for the happiness of all parties." "Sister Clarissa," said Miss Lavinia. "Perhaps we needn't mind that now." "Sister Lavinia," said Miss Clarissa, "it belongs to the subject. With your branch of the subject, on which alone you are competent to speak, I should not think of interfering. On this branch of the subject I have a voice and an opinion. It would have been better for the happiness of all parties, if Dora's mamma, when she married our brother Francis, had mentioned plainly what her intentions were. We should then have known what we had to expect. We should have said 'pray do not invite us, at any time;' and all possibility of misunderstanding would have been avoided." When Miss Clarissa had shaken her head, Miss Lavinia resumed: again referring to my letter through her eye-glass. They both had little bright round twinkling eyes, by the way, which were like birds' eyes. They were not unlike birds, altogether; having a sharp, brisk, sudden manner, and a little short, spruce way of adjusting themselves, like canaries. Miss Lavinia, as I have said, resumed: "You ask permission of my sister Clarissa and myself, Mr. Copperfield, to visit here, as the accepted suitor of our niece." "If our brother Francis," said Miss Clarissa, breaking out again, if I may call anything so calm a breaking out, "wished to surround himself with an atmosphere of Doctors' Commons, and of Doctors' Commons only, what right or desire had we to object? None, I am sure. We have ever been far from wishing to obtrude ourselves on any one. But why not say so? Let our brother Francis and his wife have their society. Let my sister Lavinia and myself have our society. We can find it for ourselves, I hope!" As this appeared to be addressed to Traddles and me, both Traddles and I made some sort of reply. Traddles was inaudible. I think I observed, myself, that it was highly creditable to all concerned. I don't in the least know what I meant. "Sister Lavinia," said Miss Clarissa, having now relieved her mind, "you can go on, my dear." Miss Lavinia proceeded: "Mr. Copperfield, my sister Clarissa and I have been very careful indeed in considering this letter; and we have not considered it without finally showing it to our niece, and discussing it with our niece. We have no doubt that you think you like her very much." "Think, ma'am," I rapturously began, "oh!----" But Miss Clarissa giving me a look (just like a sharp canary), as requesting that I would not interrupt the oracle, I begged pardon. "Affection," said Miss Lavinia, glancing at her sister for corroboration, which she gave in the form of a little nod to every clause, "mature affection, homage, devotion, does not easily express itself. Its voice is low. It is modest and retiring, it lies in ambush, waits and waits. Such is the mature fruit. Sometimes a life glides away, and finds it still ripening in the shade." Of course I did not understand then that this was an allusion to her supposed experience of the stricken Pidger; but I saw, from the gravity with which Miss Clarissa nodded her head, that great weight was attached to these words. "The light--for I call them, in comparison with such sentiments, the light--inclinations of very young people," pursued Miss Lavinia, "are dust, compared to rocks. It is owing to the difficulty of knowing whether they are likely to endure or have any real foundation, that my sister Clarissa and myself have been very undecided how to act, Mr. Copperfield, and Mr.----" "Traddles," said my friend, finding himself looked at. "I beg pardon. Of the Inner Temple, I believe?" said Miss Clarissa, again glancing at my letter. Traddles said, "Exactly so," and became pretty red in the face. Now, although I had not received any express encouragement as yet, I fancied that I saw in the two little sisters, and particularly in Miss Lavinia, an intensified enjoyment of this new and fruitful subject of domestic interest, a settling down to make the most of it, a disposition to pet it, in which there was a good bright ray of hope. I thought I perceived that Miss Lavinia would have uncommon satisfaction in superintending two young lovers, like Dora and me; and that Miss Clarissa would have hardly less satisfaction in seeing her superintend us, and in chiming in with her own particular department of the subject whenever that impulse was strong upon her. This gave me courage to protest most vehemently that I loved Dora better than I could tell, or any one believe; that all my friends knew how I loved her; that my aunt, Agnes, Traddles, every one who knew me, knew how I loved her, and how earnest my love had made me. For the truth of this, I appealed to Traddles. And Traddles, firing up as if he were plunging into a Parliamentary Debate, really did come out nobly: confirming me in good round terms, and in a plain sensible practical manner, that evidently made a favorable impression. "I speak, if I may presume to say so, as one who has some little experience of such things," said Traddles, "being myself engaged to a young lady--one of ten, down in Devonshire--and seeing no probability, at present, of our engagement coming to a termination." "You may be able to confirm what I have said, Mr. Traddles," observed Miss Lavinia, evidently taking a new interest in him, "of the affection that is modest and retiring; that waits and waits?" "Entirely, ma'am," said Traddles. Miss Clarissa looked at Miss Lavinia, and shook her head gravely. Miss Lavinia looked consciously at Miss Clarissa, and heaved a little sigh. "Sister Lavinia," said Miss Clarissa, "take my smelling-bottle." Miss Lavinia revived herself with a few whiffs of aromatic vinegar--Traddles and I looking on with great solicitude the while; and then went on to say, rather faintly: "My sister and myself have been in great doubt, Mr. Traddles, what course we ought to take in reference to the likings, or imaginary likings, of such very young people as your friend Mr. Copperfield, and our niece." "Our brother Francis's child," remarked Miss Clarissa. "If our brother Francis's wife had found it convenient in her life-time (though she had an unquestionable right to act as she thought best) to invite the family to her dinner-table, we might have known our brother Francis's child better at the present moment. Sister Lavinia, proceed." Miss Lavinia turned my letter, so as to bring the superscription towards herself, and referred through her eye-glass to some orderly-looking notes she had made on that part of it. "It seems to us," said she, "prudent, Mr. Traddles, to bring these feelings to the test of our own observation. At present we know nothing of them, and are not in a situation to judge how much reality there may be in them. Therefore we are inclined so far to accede to Mr. Copperfield's proposal, as to admit his visits here." "I shall never, dear ladies," I exclaimed, relieved of an immense load of apprehension, "forget your kindness!" "But," pursued Miss Lavinia,--"but, we would prefer to regard those visits, Mr. Traddles, as made, at present, to us. We must guard ourselves from recognising any positive engagement between Mr. Copperfield and our niece, until we have had an opportunity--" "Until _you_ have had an opportunity, sister Lavinia," said Miss Clarissa. "Be it so," assented Miss Lavinia, with a sigh,--"until I have had an opportunity of observing them." "Copperfield," said Traddles, turning to me, "you feel, I am sure, that nothing could be more reasonable or considerate." "Nothing!" cried I. "I am deeply sensible of it." "In this position of affairs," said Miss Lavinia, again referring to her notes, "and admitting his visits on this understanding only, we must require from Mr. Copperfield a distinct assurance, on his word of honor, that no communication of any kind shall take place between him and our niece without our knowledge. That no project whatever shall be entertained with regard to our niece, without being first submitted to us--" "To you, sister Lavinia," Miss Clarissa interposed. "Be it so, Clarissa!" assented Miss Lavinia resignedly--"to me--and receiving our concurrence. We must make this a most express and serious stipulation, not to be broken on any account. We wished Mr. Copperfield to be accompanied by some confidential friend to-day," with an inclination of her head towards Traddles, who bowed, "in order that there might be no doubt or misconception on this subject. If Mr. Copperfield, or if you, Mr. Traddles, feel the least scruple, in giving this promise, I beg you to take time to consider it." I exclaimed, in a state of high ecstatic fervor, that not a moment's consideration could be necessary. I bound myself by the required promise, in a most impassioned manner; called upon Traddles to witness it; and denounced myself as the most atrocious of characters if I ever swerved from it in the least degree. "Stay!" said Miss Lavinia, holding up her hand; "we resolved, before we had the pleasure of receiving you two gentlemen, to leave you alone for a quarter of an hour, to consider this point. You will allow us to retire." It was in vain for me to say that no consideration was necessary. They persisted in withdrawing for the specified time. Accordingly, these little birds hopped out with great dignity; leaving me to receive the congratulations of Traddles, and to feel as if I were translated to regions of exquisite happiness. Exactly at the expiration of the quarter of an hour, they reappeared with no less dignity than they had disappeared. They had gone rustling away as if their little dresses were made of autumn-leaves: and they came rustling back, in like manner. I then bound myself once more to the prescribed conditions. "Sister Clarissa," said Miss Lavinia, "the rest is with you." Miss Clarissa, unfolding her arms for the first time, took the notes and glanced at them. "We shall be happy," said Miss Clarissa, "to see Mr. Copperfield to dinner, every Sunday, if it should suit his convenience. Our hour is three." I bowed. "In the course of the week," said Miss Clarissa, "we shall be happy to see Mr. Copperfield to tea. Our hour is half-past six." I bowed again. "Twice in the week," said Miss Clarissa, "but, as a rule, not oftener." I bowed again. "Miss Trotwood," said Miss Clarissa, "mentioned in Mr. Copperfield's letter, will perhaps call upon us. When visiting is better for the happiness of all parties, we are glad to receive visits, and return them. When it is better for the happiness of all parties that no visiting should take place, (as in the case of our brother Francis, and his establishment) that is quite different." I intimated that my aunt would be proud and delighted to make their acquaintance; though I must say I was not quite sure of their getting on very satisfactorily together. The conditions being now closed, I expressed my acknowledgments in the warmest manner; and, taking the hand, first of Miss Clarissa, and then of Miss Lavinia, pressed it, in each case, to my lips. Miss Lavinia then arose, and begging Mr. Traddles to excuse us for a minute, requested me to follow her. I obeyed, all in a tremble, and was conducted into another room. There, I found my blessed darling stopping her ears behind the door, with her dear little face against the wall; and Jip in the plate-warmer with his head tied up in a towel. Oh! How beautiful she was in her black frock, and how she sobbed and cried at first, and wouldn't come out from behind the door! How fond we were of one another, when she did come out at last; and what a state of bliss I was in, when we took Jip out of the plate-warmer, and restored him to the light, sneezing very much, and were all three reunited! "My dearest Dora! Now, indeed, my own for ever!" "Oh DON'T!" pleaded Dora. "Please!" "Are you not my own for ever, Dora?" "Oh yes, of course I am!" cried Dora, "but I am so frightened!" "Frightened, my own?" "Oh yes! I don't like him," said Dora. "Why don't he go?" "Who, my life?" "Your friend," said Dora. "It isn't any business of his. What a stupid he must be!" "My love!" (There never was anything so coaxing as her childish ways.) "He is the best creature!" "Oh, but we don't want any best creatures!" pouted Dora. "My dear," I argued, "you will soon know him well, and like him of all things. And here is my aunt coming soon; and you'll like her of all things too, when you know her." "No, please don't bring her!" said Dora, giving me a horrified little kiss, and folding her hands. "Don't. I know she's a naughty, mischief-making old thing! Don't let her come here, Doady!" which was a corruption of David. Remonstrance was of no use, then; so I laughed, and admired, and was very much in love and very happy; and she showed me Jip's new trick of standing on his hind legs in a corner--which he did for about the space of a flash of lightning, and then fell down--and I don't know how long I should have stayed there, oblivious of Traddles, if Miss Lavinia had not come in to take me away. Miss Lavinia was very fond of Dora (she told me Dora was exactly like what she had been herself at her age--she must have altered a good deal), and she treated Dora just as if she had been a toy. I wanted to persuade Dora to come and see Traddles, but on my proposing it she ran off to her own room and locked herself in; so I went to Traddles without her, and walked away with him on air. "Nothing could be more satisfactory," said Traddles; "and they are very agreeable old ladies, I am sure. I shouldn't be at all surprised if you were to be married years before me, Copperfield." "Does your Sophy play on any instrument, Traddles?" I enquired, in the pride of my heart. "She knows enough of the piano to teach it to her little sisters," said Traddles. "Does she sing at all?" I asked. "Why, she sings ballads, sometimes, to freshen up the others a little when they're out of spirits," said Traddles. "Nothing scientific." "She doesn't sing to the guitar?" said I. "Oh dear no!" said Traddles. "Paint at all?" "Not at all," said Traddles. I promised Traddles that he should hear Dora sing, and see some of her flower-painting. He said he should like it very much, and we went home arm in arm in great good humour and delight. I encouraged him to talk about Sophy, on the way; which he did with a loving reliance on her that I very much admired. I compared her in my mind with Dora, with considerable inward satisfaction; but I candidly admitted to myself that she seemed to be an excellent kind of girl for Traddles, too. Of course my aunt was immediately made acquainted with the successful issue of the conference, and with all that had been said and done in the course of it. She was happy to see me so happy, and promised to call on Dora's aunts without loss of time. But she took such a long walk up and down our rooms that night, while I was writing to Agnes, that I began to think she meant to walk till morning. My letter to Agnes was a fervent and grateful one, narrating all the good effects that had resulted from my following her advice. She wrote, by return of post, to me. Her letter was hopeful, earnest, and cheerful. She was always cheerful from that time. I had my hands more full than ever, now. My daily journies to Highgate considered, Putney was a long way off; and I naturally wanted to go there as often as I could. The proposed tea-drinkings being quite impracticable, I compounded with Miss Lavinia for permission to visit every Saturday afternoon, without detriment to my privileged Sundays. So, the close of every week was a delicious time for me; and I got through the rest of the week by looking forward to it. I was wonderfully relieved to find that my aunt and Dora's aunts rubbed on, all things considered, much more smoothly than I could have expected. My aunt made her promised visit within a few days of the conference; and within a few more days, Dora's aunts called upon her, in due state and form. Similar but more friendly exchanges took place afterwards, usually at intervals of three or four weeks. I know that my aunt distressed Dora's aunts very much, by utterly setting at naught the dignity of fly-conveyance, and walking out to Putney at extraordinary times, as shortly after breakfast or just before tea; likewise by wearing her bonnet in any manner that happened to be comfortable to her head, without at all deferring to the prejudices of civilisation on that subject. But Dora's aunts soon agreed to regard my aunt as an eccentric and somewhat masculine lady, with a strong understanding; and although my aunt occasionally ruffled the feathers of Dora's aunts, by expressing heretical opinions on various points of ceremony, she loved me too well not to sacrifice some of her little peculiarities to the general harmony. The only member of our small society, who positively refused to adapt himself to circumstances, was Jip. He never saw my aunt without immediately displaying every tooth in his head, retiring under a chair, and growling incessantly: with now and then a doleful howl, as if she really were too much for his feelings. All kinds of treatment were tried with him, coaxing, scolding, slapping, bringing him to Buckingham Street (where he instantly dashed at the two cats, to the terror of all beholders); but he never could prevail upon himself to bear my aunt's society. He would sometimes think he had got the better of his objection, and be amiable for a few minutes; and then would put up his snub nose, and howl to that extent, that there was nothing for it but to blind him and put him in the plate-warmer. At length, Dora regularly muffled him in a towel and shut him up there, whenever my aunt was reported at the door. One thing troubled me much, after we had fallen into this quiet train. It was, that Dora seemed by one consent to be regarded like a pretty toy or plaything. My aunt, with whom she gradually became familiar, always called her Little Blossom; and the pleasure of Miss Lavinia's life was to wait upon her, curl her hair, make ornaments for her, and treat her like a pet child. What Miss Lavinia did, her sister did as a matter of course. It was very odd to me; but they all seemed to treat Dora, in her degree, much as Dora treated Jip in his. I made up my mind to speak to Dora about this; and one day when we were out walking (for we were licensed by Miss Lavinia, after a while, to go out walking by ourselves), I said to her that I wished she could get them to behave towards her differently. "Because you know, my darling," I remonstrated, "you are not a child." "There!" said Dora. "Now you're going to be cross!" "Cross, my love?" "I am sure they're very kind to me," said Dora, "and I am very happy." "Well! But my dearest life!" said I, "you might be very happy, and yet be treated rationally." Dora gave me a reproachful look--the prettiest look!--and then began to sob, saying if I didn't like her, why had I ever wanted so much to be engaged to her? And why didn't I go away, now, if I couldn't bear her? What could I do, but kiss away her tears, and tell her how I doted on her, after that! "I am sure I am very affectionate," said Dora; "you oughtn't to be cruel to me, Doady!" "Cruel, my precious love! As if I would--or could--be cruel to you, for the world!" "Then don't find fault with me," said Dora, making a rosebud of her mouth; "and I'll be good." I was charmed by her presently asking me, of her own accord, to give her that cookery-book I had once spoken of, and to show her how to keep accounts as I had once promised I would. I brought the volume with me on my next visit (I got it prettily bound, first, to make it look less dry and more inviting); and as we strolled about the Common, I showed her an old housekeeping-book of my aunt's, and gave her a set of tablets, and a pretty little pencil case and box of leads, to practise housekeeping with. But the cookery-book made Dora's head ache, and the figures made her cry. They wouldn't add up, she said. So she rubbed them out, and drew little nosegays, and likenesses of me and Jip, all over the tablets. Then I playfully tried verbal instruction in domestic matters, as we walked about on a Saturday afternoon. Sometimes, for example, when we passed a butcher's shop, I would say: "Now suppose, my pet, that we were married, and you were going to buy a shoulder of mutton for dinner, would you know how to buy it?" My pretty little Dora's face would fall, and she would make her mouth into a bud again, as if she would very much prefer to shut mine with a kiss. "Would you know how to buy it, my darling?" I would repeat, perhaps, if I were very inflexible. Dora would think a little, and then reply, perhaps, with great triumph: "Why, the butcher would know how to sell it, and what need _I_ know? Oh, you silly boy!" So, when I once asked Dora, with an eye to the cookery-book, what she would do, if we were married, and I were to say I should like a nice Irish stew, she replied that she would tell the servant to make it; and then clapped her little hands together across my arm, and laughed in such a charming manner that she was more delightful than ever. Consequently, the principal use to which the cookery-book was devoted, was being put down in the corner for Jip to stand upon. But Dora was so pleased, when she had trained him to stand upon it without offering to come off, and at the same time to hold the pencil case in his mouth, that I was very glad I had bought it. And we fell back on the guitar-case, and the flower-painting, and the songs about never leaving off dancing, Ta ra la! and were as happy as the week was long. I occasionally wished I could venture to hint to Miss Lavinia, that she treated the darling of my heart a little too much like a plaything; and I sometimes awoke, as it were, wondering to find that I had fallen into the general fault, and treated her like a plaything too--but not often. CHAPTER XLII. MISCHIEF. I feel as if it were not for me to record, even though this manuscript is intended for no eyes but mine, how hard I worked at that tremendous short-hand, and all improvement appertaining to it, in my sense of responsibility to Dora and her aunts. I will only add, to what I have already written of my perseverance at this time of my life, and of a patient and continuous energy which then began to be matured within me, and which I know to be the strong part of my character, if it have any strength at all, that there, on looking back, I find the source of my success. I have been very fortunate in worldly matters; many men have worked much harder, and not succeeded half so well; but I never could have done what I have done, without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one object at a time, no matter how quickly its successor should come upon its heels, which I then formed. Heaven knows I write this, in no spirit of self-laudation. The man who reviews his own life, as I do mine, in going on here, from page to page, had need to have been a good man indeed, if he would be spared the sharp consciousness of many talents neglected, many opportunities wasted, many erratic and perverted feelings constantly at war within his breast, and defeating him. I do not hold one natural gift, I dare say, that I have not abused. My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that, in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest. I have never believed it possible that any natural or improved ability can claim immunity from the companionship of the steady, plain, hard-working qualities, and hope to gain its end. There is no such thing as such fulfilment on this earth. Some happy talent, and some fortunate opportunity, may form the two sides of the ladder on which some men mount, but the rounds of that ladder must be made of stuff to stand wear and tear; and there is no substitute for thorough-going, ardent, and sincere earnestness. Never to put one hand to anything, on which I could throw my whole self; and never to affect depreciation of my work, whatever it was; I find, now, to have been my golden rules. How much of the practice I have just reduced to precept, I owe to Agnes, I will not repeat here. My narrative proceeds to Agnes, with a thankful love. She came on a visit of a fortnight to the Doctor's. Mr. Wickfield was the Doctor's old friend, and the Doctor wished to talk with him, and do him good. It had been matter of conversation with Agnes when she was last in town, and this visit was the result. She and her father came together. I was not much surprised to hear from her that she had engaged to find a lodging in the neighbourhood for Mrs. Heep, whose rheumatic complaint required change of air, and who would be charmed to have it in such company. Neither was I surprised when, on the very next day, Uriah, like a dutiful son, brought his worthy mother to take possession. "You see, Master Copperfield," said he, as he forced himself upon my company for a turn in the Doctor's garden, "where a person loves, a person is a little jealous--leastways, anxious to keep an eye on the beloved one." "Of whom are you jealous, now?" said I. "Thanks to you, Master Copperfield," he returned, "of no one in particular just at present--no male person, at least." "Do you mean that you are jealous of a female person?" He gave me a sidelong glance out of his sinister red eyes, and laughed. "Really, Master Copperfield," he said, "--I should say Mister, but I know you'll excuse the abit I've got into--you're so insinuating, that you draw me like a corkscrew! Well, I don't mind telling you," putting his fish-like hand on mine, "I'm not a lady's man in general, sir, and I never was, with Mrs. Strong." His eyes looked green now, as they watched mine with a rascally cunning. "What do you mean?" said I. "Why, though I am a lawyer, Master Copperfield," he replied, with a dry grin, "I mean, just at present, what I say." "And what do you mean by your look?" I retorted, quietly. "By my look? Dear me, Copperfield, that's sharp practice! What do I mean by my look?" "Yes," said I. "By your look." He seemed very much amused, and laughed as heartily as it was in his nature to laugh. After some scraping of his chin with his hand, he went on to say, with his eyes cast downward--still scraping, very slowly: "When I was but a numble clerk, she always looked down upon me. She was for ever having my Agnes backwards and forwards at her ouse, and she was for ever being a friend to you, Master Copperfield; but I was too far beneath her, myself, to be noticed." "Well?" said I; "suppose you were!" "--And beneath him, too," pursued Uriah, very distinctly, and in a meditative tone of voice, as he continued to scrape his chin. "Don't you know the Doctor better," said I, "than to suppose him conscious of your existence, when you were not before him?" He directed his eyes at me in that sidelong glance again, and he made his face very lantern-jawed, for the greater convenience of scraping, as he answered: "Oh dear, I am not referring to the Doctor! Oh no, poor man! I mean Mr. Maldon!" My heart quite died within me. All my old doubts and apprehensions on that subject, all the Doctor's happiness and peace, all the mingled possibilities of innocence and compromise, that I could not unravel, I saw, in a moment, at the mercy of this fellow's twisting. "He never could come into the office, without ordering and shoving me about," said Uriah. "One of your fine gentlemen he was! I was very meek and umble--and I am. But I didn't like that sort of thing--and I don't!" He left off scraping his chin, and sucked in his cheeks until they seemed to meet inside; keeping his sidelong glance upon me all the while. "She is one of your lovely women, she is," he pursued, when he had slowly restored his face to its natural form; "and ready to be no friend to such as me, _I_ know. She's just the person as would put my Agnes up to higher sort of game. Now, I ain't one of your lady's men, Master Copperfield; but I've had eyes in my ed, a pretty long time back. We umble ones have got eyes, mostly speaking--and we look out of 'em." I endeavoured to appear unconscious and not disquieted, but, I saw in his face, with poor success. "Now, I'm not a going to let myself be run down, Copperfield," he continued, raising that part of his countenance where his red eyebrows would have been if he had had any, with malignant triumph, "and I shall do what I can to put a stop to this friendship. I don't approve of it. I don't mind acknowledging to you that I've got rather a grudging disposition, and want to keep off all intruders. I ain't a going, if I know it, to run the risk of being plotted against." "You are always plotting, and delude yourself into the belief that everybody else is doing the like, I think," said I. "Perhaps so, Master Copperfield," he replied. "But I've got a motive, as my fellow-partner used to say; and I go at it tooth and nail. I mustn't be put upon, as a numble person, too much. I can't allow people in my way. Really they must come out of the cart, Master Copperfield!" "I don't understand you," said I. "Don't you, though?" he returned, with one of his jerks. "I'm astonished at that, Master Copperfield, you being usually so quick! I'll try to be plainer, another time.--Is that Mr. Maldon a-norseback, ringing at the gate, sir?" "It looks like him," I replied, as carelessly as I could. Uriah stopped short, put his hands between his great knobs of knees, and doubled himself up with laughter. With perfectly silent laughter. Not a sound escaped from him. I was so repelled by his odious behaviour, particularly by this concluding instance, that I turned away without any ceremony; and left him doubled up in the middle of the garden, like a scarecrow in want of support. It was not on that evening; but, as I well remember, on the next evening but one, which was a Saturday; that I took Agnes to see Dora. I had arranged the visit, beforehand, with Miss Lavinia; and Agnes was expected to tea. I was in a flutter of pride and anxiety; pride in my dear little betrothed, and anxiety that Agnes should like her. All the way to Putney, Agnes being inside the stage-coach, and I outside, I pictured Dora to myself in every one of the pretty looks I knew so well; now making up my mind that I should like her to look exactly as she looked at such a time, and then doubting whether I should not prefer her looking as she looked at such another time; and almost worrying myself into a fever about it. I was troubled by no doubt of her being very pretty, in any case; but it fell out that I had never seen her look so well. She was not in the drawing-room when I presented Agnes to her little aunts, but was shyly keeping out of the way. I knew where to look for her, now; and sure enough I found her stopping her ears again, behind the same dull old door. At first she wouldn't come at all; and then she pleaded for five minutes by my watch. When at length she put her arm through mine, to be taken to the drawing-room, her charming little face was flushed, and had never been so pretty. But, when we went into the room, and it turned pale, she was ten thousand times prettier yet. Dora was afraid of Agnes. She had told me that she knew Agnes was "too clever." But when she saw her looking at once so cheerful and so earnest, and so thoughtful, and so good, she gave a faint little cry of pleased surprise, and just put her affectionate arms round Agnes's neck, and laid her innocent cheek against her face. I never was so happy. I never was so pleased as when I saw those two sit down together, side by side. As when I saw my little darling looking up so naturally to those cordial eyes. As when I saw the tender, beautiful regard which Agnes cast upon her. Miss Lavinia and Miss Clarissa partook, in their way, of my joy. It was the pleasantest tea-table in the world. Miss Clarissa presided. I cut and handed the sweet seed-cake--the little sisters had a bird-like fondness for picking up seeds and pecking at sugar; Miss Lavinia looked on with benignant patronage, as if our happy love were all her work; and we were perfectly contented with ourselves and one another. The gentle cheerfulness of Agnes went to all their hearts. Her quiet interest in everything that interested Dora; her manner of making acquaintance with Jip (who responded instantly); her pleasant way, when Dora was ashamed to come over to her usual seat by me; her modest grace and ease, eliciting a crowd of blushing little marks of confidence from Dora; seemed to make our circle quite complete. "I am so glad," said Dora, after tea, "that you like me. I didn't think you would; and I want, more than ever, to be liked, now Julia Mills is gone." I have omitted to mention it, by-the-bye. Miss Mills had sailed, and Dora and I had gone aboard a great East Indiaman at Gravesend to see her; and we had had preserved ginger, and guava, and other delicacies of that sort for lunch; and we had left Miss Mills weeping on a camp-stool on the quarter-deck, with a large new diary under her arm, in which the original reflections awakened by the contemplation of Ocean were to be recorded under lock and key. Agnes said, she was afraid I must have given her an unpromising character; but Dora corrected that directly. "Oh no!" she said, shaking her curls at me; "it was all praise. He thinks so much of your opinion, that I was quite afraid of it." "My good opinion cannot strengthen his attachment to some people whom he knows," said Agnes, with a smile; "it is not worth their having." "But please let me have it," said Dora, in her coaxing way, "if you can!" We made merry about Dora's wanting to be liked, and Dora said I was a goose, and she didn't like me at any rate, and the short evening flew away on gossamer-wings. The time was at hand when the coach was to call for us. I was standing alone before the fire, when Dora came stealing softly in, to give me that usual precious little kiss before I went. "Don't you think, if I had had her for a friend a long time ago, Doady," said Dora, her bright eyes shining very brightly, and her little right hand idly busying itself with one of the buttons of my coat, "I might have been more clever perhaps?" "My love!" said I, "what nonsense!" "Do you think it is nonsense?" returned Dora, without looking at me. "Are you sure it is?" "Of course I am!" "I have forgotten," said Dora, still turning the button round and round, "what relation Agnes is to you, you dear bad boy." "No blood-relation," I replied; "but we were brought up together, like brother and sister." "I wonder why you ever fell in love with me?" said Dora, beginning on another button of my coat. "Perhaps because I couldn't see you, and not love you, Dora!" "Suppose you had never seen me at all," said Dora, going to another button. "Suppose we had never been born!" said I, gaily. I wondered what she was thinking about, as I glanced in admiring silence at the little soft hand travelling up the row of buttons on my coat, and at the clustering hair that lay against my breast, and at the lashes of her downcast eyes, slightly rising as they followed her idle fingers. At length her eyes were lifted up to mine, and she stood on tiptoe to give me, more thoughtfully than usual, that precious little kiss--once, twice, three times--and went out of the room. They all came back together within five minutes afterwards, and Dora's unusual thoughtfulness was quite gone then. She was laughingly resolved to put Jip through the whole of his performances, before the coach came. They took some time (not so much on account of their variety, as Jip's reluctance), and were still unfinished when it was heard at the door. There was a hurried but affectionate parting between Agnes and herself; and Dora was to write to Agnes (who was not to mind her letters being foolish, she said), and Agnes was to write to Dora; and they had a second parting at the coach-door, and a third when Dora, in spite of the remonstrances of Miss Lavinia, would come running out once more to remind Agnes at the coach-window about writing, and to shake her curls at me on the box. The stage-coach was to put us down near Covent Garden, where we were to take another stage-coach for Highgate. I was impatient for the short walk in the interval, that Agnes might praise Dora to me. Ah! what praise it was! How lovingly and fervently did it commend the pretty creature I had won, with all her artless graces best displayed, to my most gentle care! How thoughtfully remind me, yet with no pretence of doing so, of the trust in which I held the orphan child! Never, never, had I loved Dora so deeply and truly, as I loved her that night. When we had again alighted, and were walking in the starlight along the quiet road that led to the Doctor's house, I told Agnes it was her doing. "When you were sitting by her," said I, "you seemed to be no less _her_ guardian angel than mine; and you seem so now, Agnes." "A poor angel," she returned, "but faithful." The clear tone of her voice, going straight to my heart, made it natural to me to say: "The cheerfulness that belongs to you, Agnes (and to no one else that ever I have seen), is so restored, I have observed to-day, that I have begun to hope you are happier at home?" "I am happier in myself," she said; "I am quite cheerful and light-hearted." I glanced at the serene face looking upward, and thought it was the stars that made it seem so noble. "There has been no change at home," said Agnes, after a few moments. "No fresh reference," said I, "to--I wouldn't distress you, Agnes, but I cannot help asking--to what we spoke of, when we parted last?" "No, none," she answered. "I have thought so much about it." "You must think less about it. Remember that I confide in simple love and truth at last. Have no apprehensions for me, Trotwood," she added, after a moment; "the step you dread my taking, I shall never take." Although I think I had never really feared it, in any season of cool reflection, it was an unspeakable relief to me to have this assurance from her own truthful lips. I told her so, earnestly. "And when this visit is over," said I,--"for we may not be alone another time,--how long is it likely to be, my dear Agnes, before you come to London again?" "Probably a long time," she replied; "I think it will be best--for papa's sake--to remain at home. We are not likely to meet often, for some time to come; but I shall be a good correspondent of Dora's, and we shall frequently hear of one another that way." We were now within the little court-yard of the Doctor's cottage. It was growing late. There was a light in the window of Mrs. Strong's chamber, and Agnes, pointing to it, bade me good night. "Do not be troubled," she said, giving me her hand, "by our misfortunes and anxieties. I can be happier in nothing than in your happiness. If you can ever give me help, rely upon it I will ask you for it. God bless you always!" In her beaming smile, and in these last tones of her cheerful voice, I seemed again to see and hear my little Dora in her company. I stood awhile, looking through the porch at the stars, with a heart full of love and gratitude, and then walked slowly forth. I had engaged a bed at a decent alehouse close by, and was going out at the gate, when, happening to turn my head, I saw a light in the Doctor's study. A half-reproachful fancy came into my mind, that he had been working at the Dictionary without my help. With the view of seeing if this were so, and, in any case, of bidding him good night, if he were yet sitting among his books, I turned back, and going softly across the hall, and gently opening the door, looked in. The first person whom I saw, to my surprise, by the sober light of the shaded lamp, was Uriah. He was standing close beside it, with one of his skeleton hands over his mouth, and the other resting on the Doctor's table. The Doctor sat in his study chair, covering his face with his hands. Mr. Wickfield, sorely troubled and distressed, was leaning forward, irresolutely touching the Doctor's arm. For an instant, I supposed that the Doctor was ill. I hastily advanced a step under that impression, when I met Uriah's eye, and saw what was the matter. I would have withdrawn, but the Doctor made a gesture to detain me, and I remained. "At any rate," observed Uriah, with a writhe of his ungainly person, "we may keep the door shut. We needn't make it known to ALL the town." Saying which, he went on his toes to the door, which I had left open, and carefully closed it. He then came back, and took up his former position. There was an obtrusive show of compassionate zeal in his voice and manner, more intolerable--at least to me--than any demeanour he could have assumed. "I have felt it incumbent upon me, Master Copperfield," said Uriah, "to point out to Doctor Strong what you and me have already talked about. You didn't exactly understand me, though?" I gave him a look, but no other answer; and, going to my good old master, said a few words that I meant to be words of comfort and encouragement. He put his hand upon my shoulder, as it had been his custom to do when I was quite a little fellow, but did not lift his grey head. "As you didn't understand me, Master Copperfield," resumed Uriah in the same officious manner, "I may take the liberty of umbly mentioning, being among friends, that I have called Doctor Strong's attention to the goings-on of Mrs. Strong. It's much against the grain with me, I assure you, Copperfield, to be concerned in anything so unpleasant; but really, as it is, we're all mixing ourselves up with what oughtn't to be. That was what my meaning was, sir, when you didn't understand me." I wonder now, when I recall his leer, that I did not collar him, and try to shake the breath out of his body. "I dare say I didn't make myself very clear," he went on, "nor you neither. Naturally, we was both of us inclined to give such a subject a wide berth. Hows'ever, at last I have made up my mind to speak plain; and I have mentioned to Doctor Strong that--did you speak, sir?" This was to the Doctor, who had moaned. The sound might have touched any heart, I thought, but it had no effect upon Uriah's. "--mentioned to Doctor Strong," he proceeded, "that any one may see that Mr. Maldon, and the lovely and agreeable lady as is Doctor Strong's wife, are too sweet on one another. Really the time is come (we being at present all mixing ourselves up with what oughtn't to be), when Doctor Strong must be told that this was full as plain to everybody as the sun, before Mr. Maldon went to India; that Mr. Maldon made excuses to come back, for nothing else; and that he's always here, for nothing else. When you come in, sir, I was just putting it to my fellow-partner," towards whom he turned, "to say to Doctor Strong upon his word and honor, whether he'd ever been of this opinion long ago, or not. Come, Mr. Wickfield, sir! Would you be so good as tell us? Yes or no, sir? Come, partner!" "For God's sake, my dear Doctor," said Mr. Wickfield, again laying his irresolute hand upon the Doctor's arm, "don't attach too much weight to any suspicions I may have entertained." "There!" cried Uriah, shaking his head. "What a melancholy confirmation: ain't it? Him! Such an old friend! Bless your soul, when I was nothing but a clerk in his office, Copperfield, I've seen him twenty times, if I've seen him once, quite in a taking about it--quite put out, you know (and very proper in him as a father; I'm sure _I_ can't blame him), to think that Miss Agnes was mixing herself up with what oughtn't to be." "My dear Strong," said Mr. Wickfield in a tremulous voice, "my good friend, I needn't tell you that it has been my vice to look for some one master motive in everybody, and to try all actions by one narrow test. I may have fallen into such doubts as I have had, through this mistake." "You have had doubts, Wickfield," said the Doctor, without lifting up his head. "You have had doubts." "Speak up, fellow-partner," urged Uriah. "I had, at one time, certainly," said Mr. Wickfield. "I--God forgive me--I thought _you_ had." "No, no, no!" returned the Doctor, in a tone of most pathetic grief. "I thought, at one time," said Mr. Wickfield, "that you wished to send Maldon abroad to effect a desirable separation." "No, no, no!" returned the Doctor. "To give Annie pleasure, by making some provision for the companion of her childhood. Nothing else." "So I found," said Mr. Wickfield. "I couldn't doubt it, when you told me so. But I thought--I implore you to remember the narrow construction which has been my besetting sin--that, in a case where there was so much disparity in point of years--" "That's the way to put it, you see, Master Copperfield!" observed Uriah, with fawning and offensive pity. "--a lady of such youth, and such attractions, however real her respect for you, might have been influenced in marrying, by worldly considerations only. I made no allowance for innumerable feelings and circumstances that may have all tended to good. For Heaven's sake remember that!" "How kind he puts it!" said Uriah, shaking his head. "Always observing her from one point of view," said Mr. Wickfield; "but by all that is dear to you, my old friend, I entreat you to consider what it was; I am forced to confess now, having no escape--" "No! There's no way out of it, Mr. Wickfield, sir," observed Uriah, "when it's got to this." "--that I did," said Mr. Wickfield, glancing helplessly and distractedly at his partner, "that I did doubt her, and think her wanting in her duty to you; and that I did sometimes, if I must say all, feel averse to Agnes being in such a familiar relation towards her, as to see what I saw, or in my diseased theory fancied that I saw. I never mentioned this to any one. I never meant it to be known to any one. And though it is terrible to you to hear," said Mr. Wickfield, quite subdued, "if you knew how terrible it is to me to tell, you would feel compassion for me!" The Doctor, in the perfect goodness of his nature, put out his hand. Mr. Wickfield held it for a little while in his, with his head bowed down. "I am sure," said Uriah, writhing himself into the silence like a Conger-eel, "that this is a subject full of unpleasantness to everybody. But since we have got so far, I ought to take the liberty of mentioning that Copperfield has noticed it too." I turned upon him, and asked him how he dared refer to me! "Oh! it's very kind of you, Copperfield," returned Uriah, undulating all over, "and we all know what an amiable character yours is; but you know that the moment I spoke to you the other night, you knew what I meant. You know you knew what I meant, Copperfield. Don't deny it! You deny it with the best intentions; but don't do it, Copperfield!" I saw the mild eye of the good old Doctor turned upon me for a moment, and I felt that the confession of my old misgivings and remembrances was too plainly written in my face to be overlooked. It was of no use raging. I could not undo that. Say what I would, I could not unsay it. We were silent again, and remained so, until the Doctor rose and walked twice or thrice across the room. Presently he returned to where his chair stood; and, leaning on the back of it, and occasionally putting his handkerchief to his eyes, with a simple honesty that did him more honor, to my thinking, than any disguise he could have affected, said: "I have been much to blame. I believe I have been very much to blame. I have exposed one whom I hold in my heart, to trials and aspersions--I call them aspersions, even to have been conceived in anybody's inmost mind--of which she never, but for me, could have been the object." Uriah Heep gave a kind of snivel. I think to express sympathy. "Of which my Annie," said the Doctor, "never, but for me, could have been the object. Gentlemen, I am old now, as you know; I do not feel, to-night, that I have much to live for. But my life--my Life--upon the truth and honor of the dear lady who has been the subject of this conversation!" I do not think that the best embodiment of chivalry, the realisation of the handsomest and most romantic figure ever imagined by painter, could have said this, with a more impressive and affecting dignity than the plain old Doctor did. "But I am not prepared," he went on, "to deny--perhaps I may have been, without knowing it, in some degree prepared to admit--that I may have unwittingly ensnared that lady into an unhappy marriage. I am a man quite unaccustomed to observe; and I cannot but believe that the observation of several people, of different ages and positions, all too plainly tending in one direction (and that so natural), is better than mine." I had often admired, as I have elsewhere described, his benignant manner towards his youthful wife; but the respectful tenderness he manifested in every reference to her on this occasion, and the almost reverential manner in which he put away from him the lightest doubt of her integrity, exalted him, in my eyes, beyond description. "I married that lady," said the Doctor, "when she was extremely young. I took her to myself when her character was scarcely formed. So far as it was developed, it had been my happiness to form it. I knew her father well. I knew her well. I had taught her what I could, for the love of all her beautiful and virtuous qualities. If I did her wrong; as I fear I did, in taking advantage (but I never meant it) of her gratitude and her affection; I ask pardon of that lady, in my heart!" He walked across the room, and came back to the same place; holding the chair with a grasp that trembled, like his subdued voice, in its earnestness. "I regarded myself as a refuge, for her, from the dangers and vicissitudes of life. I persuaded myself that, unequal though we were in years, she would live tranquilly and contentedly with me. I did not shut out of my consideration the time when I should leave her free, and still young and still beautiful, but with her judgment more matured--no, gentlemen--upon my truth!" His homely figure seemed to be lightened up by his fidelity and generosity. Every word he uttered had a force that no other grace could have imparted to it. "My life with this lady has been very happy. Until to-night, I have had uninterrupted occasion to bless the day on which I did her great injustice." His voice, more and more faltering in the utterance of these words, stopped for a few moments; then he went on: "Once awakened from my dream--I have been a poor dreamer, in one way or other, all my life--I see how natural it is that she should have some regretful feeling towards her old companion and her equal. That she does regard him with some innocent regret, with some blameless thoughts of what might have been, but for me, is, I fear, too true. Much that I have seen, but not noted, has come back upon me with new meaning, during this last trying hour. But, beyond this, gentlemen, the dear lady's name never must be coupled with a word, a breath, of doubt." For a little while, his eye kindled and his voice was firm; for a little while he was again silent. Presently, he proceeded as before: "It only remains for me, to bear the knowledge of the unhappiness I have occasioned, as submissively as I can. It is she who should reproach; not I. To save her from misconstruction, cruel misconstruction, that even my friends have not been able to avoid, becomes my duty. The more retired we live, the better I shall discharge it. And when the time comes--may it come soon, if it be His merciful pleasure!--when my death shall release her from constraint, I shall close my eyes upon her honored face, with unbounded confidence and love; and leave her, with no sorrow then, to happier and brighter days." I could not see him for the tears which his earnestness and goodness, so adorned by, and so adorning, the perfect simplicity of his manner, brought into my eyes. He had moved to the door, when he added: "Gentlemen, I have shown you my heart. I am sure you will respect it. What we have said to-night is never to be said more. Wickfield, give me an old friend's arm up-stairs!" Mr. Wickfield hastened to him. Without interchanging a word they went slowly out of the room together, Uriah looking after them. "Well, Master Copperfield!" said Uriah, meekly turning to me. "The thing hasn't took quite the turn that might have been expected, for the old Scholar--what an excellent man!--is as blind as a brickbat; but _this_ family's out of the cart, I think!" I needed but the sound of his voice to be so madly enraged as I never was before, and never have been since. "You villain," said I, "what do you mean by entrapping me into your schemes? How dare you appeal to me just now, you false rascal, as if we had been in discussion together?" As we stood, front to front, I saw so plainly, in the stealthy exultation of his face, what I already so plainly knew; I mean that he forced his confidence upon me, expressly to make me miserable, and had set a deliberate trap for me in this very matter; that I couldn't bear it. The whole of his lank cheek was invitingly before me, and I struck it with my open hand with that force that my fingers tingled as if I had burnt them. He caught the hand in his, and we stood, in that connexion, looking at each other. We stood so, a long time; long enough for me to see the white marks of my fingers die out of the deep red of his cheek, and leave it a deeper red. "Copperfield," he said at length, in a breathless voice, "have you taken leave of your senses?" "I have taken leave of you," said I, wresting my hand away. "You dog, I'll know no more of you." "Won't you?" said he, constrained by the pain of his cheek to put his hand there. "Perhaps you won't be able to help it. Isn't this ungrateful of you, now?" "I have shown you often enough," said I, "that I despise you. I have shown you now, more plainly, that I do. Why should I dread your doing your worst to all about you? What else do you ever do?" He perfectly understood this allusion to the considerations that had hitherto restrained me in my communications with him. I rather think that neither the blow, nor the allusion, would have escaped me, but for the assurance I had had from Agnes that night. It is no matter. There was another long pause. His eyes, as he looked at me, seemed to take every shade of color that could make eyes ugly. "Copperfield," he said, removing his hand from his cheek, "you have always gone against me. I know you always used to be against me at Mr. Wickfield's." "You may think what you like," said I, still in a towering rage. "If it is not true, so much the worthier you." "And yet I always liked you, Copperfield!" he rejoined. I deigned to make him no reply; and, taking up my hat, was going out to bed, when he came between me and the door. "Copperfield," he said, "there must be two parties to a quarrel. I won't be one." "You may go to the devil!" said I. "Don't say that!" he replied. "I know you'll be sorry afterwards. How can you make yourself so inferior to me, as to show such a bad spirit? But I forgive you." "You forgive me!" I repeated disdainfully. "I do, and you can't help yourself," replied Uriah. "To think of your going and attacking _me_, that have always been a friend to you! But there can't be a quarrel without two parties, and I won't be one. I will be a friend to you, in spite of you. So now you know what you've got to expect." The necessity of carrying on this dialogue (his part in which was very slow; mine very quick) in a low tone, that the house might not be disturbed at an unseasonable hour, did not improve my temper; though my passion was cooling down. Merely telling him that I should expect from him what I always had expected, and had never yet been disappointed in, I opened the door upon him, as if he had been a great walnut put there to be cracked, and went out of the house. But he slept out of the house too, at his mother's lodging; and before I had gone many hundred yards, came up with me. "You know, Copperfield," he said, in my ear (I did not turn my head), "you're in quite a wrong position;" which I felt to be true, and that made me chafe the more; "you can't make this a brave thing, and you can't help being forgiven. I don't intend to mention it to mother, nor to any living soul. I'm determined to forgive you. But I do wonder that you should lift your hand against a person that you knew to be so umble!" I felt only less mean than he. He knew me better than I knew myself. If he had retorted, or openly exasperated me, it would have been a relief and a justification; but he had put me on a slow fire, on which I lay tormented half the night. In the morning, when I came out, the early church bell was ringing, and he was walking up and down with his mother. He addressed me as if nothing had happened, and I could do no less than reply. I had struck him hard enough to give him the toothache, I suppose. At all events his face was tied up in a black silk handkerchief, which, with his hat perched on the top of it, was far from improving his appearance. I heard that he went to a dentist's in London on the Monday morning, and had a tooth out. I hope it was a double one. The Doctor gave out that he was not quite well; and remained alone, for a considerable part of every day, during the remainder of the visit. Agnes and her father had been gone a week, before we resumed our usual work. On the day preceding its resumption, the Doctor gave me with his own hands a folded note not sealed. It was addressed to myself; and laid an injunction on me, in a few affectionate words, never to refer to the subject of that evening. I had confided it to my aunt, but to no one else. It was not a subject I could discuss with Agnes, and Agnes certainly had not the least suspicion of what had passed. Neither, I felt convinced, had Mrs. Strong then. Several weeks elapsed before I saw the least change in her. It came on slowly, like a cloud when there is no wind. At first, she seemed to wonder at the gentle compassion with which the Doctor spoke to her, and at his wish that she should have her mother with her, to relieve the dull monotony of her life. Often, when we were at work, and she was sitting by, I would see her pausing and looking at him with that memorable face. Afterwards, I sometimes observed her rise, with her eyes full of tears, and go out of the room. Gradually, an unhappy shadow fell upon her beauty, and deepened every day. Mrs. Markleham was a regular inmate of the cottage then; but she talked and talked, and saw nothing. As this change stole on Annie, once like sunshine in the Doctor's house, the Doctor became older in appearance, and more grave; but the sweetness of his temper, the placid kindness of his manner, and his benevolent solicitude for her, if they were capable of any increase, were increased. I saw him once, early on the morning of her birthday, when she came to sit in the window while we were at work (which she had always done, but now began to do with a timid and uncertain air that I thought very touching), take her forehead between his hands, kiss it, and go hurriedly away, too much moved to remain. I saw her stand where he had left her, like a statue; and then bend down her head, and clasp her hands, and weep, I cannot say how sorrowfully. Sometimes, after that, I fancied that she tried to speak even to me, in intervals when we were left alone. But she never uttered word. The Doctor always had some new project for her participating in amusements away from home, with her mother; and Mrs. Markleham, who was very fond of amusements, and very easily dissatisfied with anything else, entered into them with great good will, and was loud in her commendations. But Annie, in a spiritless unhappy way, only went whither she was led, and seemed to have no care for anything. I did not know what to think. Neither did my aunt; who must have walked, at various times, a hundred miles in her uncertainty. What was strangest of all was, that the only real relief which seemed to make its way into the secret region of this domestic unhappiness, made its way there in the person of Mr. Dick. What his thoughts were on the subject, or what his observation was, I am as unable to explain, as I dare say he would have been to assist me in the task. But, as I have recorded in the narrative of my school days, his veneration for the Doctor was unbounded; and there is a subtlety of perception in real attachment, even when it is borne towards man by one of the lower animals, which leaves the highest intellect behind. To this mind of the heart, if I may call it so, in Mr. Dick, some bright ray of the truth shot straight. He had proudly resumed his privilege, in many of his spare hours, of walking up and down the garden with the Doctor; as he had been accustomed to pace up and down The Doctor's Walk at Canterbury. But matters were no sooner in this state, than he devoted all his spare time (and got up earlier to make it more) to these perambulations. If he had never been so happy as when the Doctor read that marvellous performance, the Dictionary, to him; he was now quite miserable unless the Doctor pulled it out of his pocket, and began. When the Doctor and I were engaged, he now fell into the custom of walking up and down with Mrs. Strong, and helping her to trim her favorite flowers, or weed the beds. I dare say he rarely spoke a dozen words in an hour: but his quiet interest, and his wistful face, found immediate response in both their breasts; each knew that the other liked him, and that he loved both; and he became what no one else could be--a link between them. When I think of him, with his impenetrably wise face, walking up and down with the Doctor, delighted to be battered by the hard words in the Dictionary; when I think of him carrying huge watering-pots after Annie; kneeling down, in very paws of gloves, at patient microscopic work among the little leaves; expressing as no philosopher could have expressed, in every thing he did, a delicate desire to be her friend; showering sympathy, trustfulness, and affection, out of every hole in the watering-pot; when I think of him never wandering in that better mind of his to which unhappiness addressed itself, never bringing the unfortunate King Charles into the garden, never wavering in his grateful service, never diverted from his knowledge that there was something wrong, or from his wish to set it right--I really feel almost ashamed of having known that he was not quite in his wits, taking account of the utmost I have done with mine. "Nobody but myself, Trot, knows what that man is!" my aunt would proudly remark, when we conversed about it. "Dick will distinguish himself yet!" I must refer to one other topic before I close this chapter. While the visit at the Doctor's was still in progress, I observed that the postman brought two or three letters every morning for Uriah Heep, who remained at Highgate until the rest went back, it being a leisure time; and that these were always directed in a business-like manner by Mr. Micawber, who now assumed a round legal hand. I was glad to infer, from these slight premises, that Mr. Micawber was doing well; and consequently was much surprised to receive, about this time, the following letter from his amiable wife. "CANTERBURY, _Monday Evening_. "You will doubtless be surprised, my dear Mr. Copperfield, to receive this communication. Still more so, by its contents. Still more so, by the stipulation of implicit confidence which I beg to impose. But my feelings as a wife and mother require relief; and as I do not wish to consult my family (already obnoxious to the feelings of Mr. Micawber), I know no one of whom I can better ask advice than my friend and former lodger. "You may be aware, my dear Mr. Copperfield, that between myself and Mr. Micawber (whom I will never desert), there has always been preserved a spirit of mutual confidence. Mr. Micawber may have occasionally given a bill without consulting me, or he may have misled me as to the period when that obligation would become due. This has actually happened. But, in general, Mr. Micawber has had no secrets from the bosom of affection--I allude to his wife--and has invariably, on our retirement to rest, recalled the events of the day. "You will picture to yourself, my dear Mr. Copperfield, what the poignancy of my feelings must be, when I inform you that Mr. Micawber is entirely changed. He is reserved. He is secret. His life is a mystery to the partner of his joys and sorrows--I again allude to his wife--and if I should assure you that beyond knowing that it is passed from morning to night at the office, I now know less of it than I do of the man in the south, connected with whose mouth the thoughtless children repeat an idle tale respecting cold plum porridge, I should adopt a popular fallacy to express an actual fact. "But this is not all. Mr. Micawber is morose. He is severe. He is estranged from our eldest son and daughter, he has no pride in his twins, he looks with an eye of coldness even on the unoffending stranger who last became a member of our circle. The pecuniary means of meeting our expenses, kept down to the utmost farthing, are obtained from him with great difficulty, and even under fearful threats that he will Settle himself (the exact expression); and he inexorably refuses to give any explanation whatever of this distracting policy. "This is hard to bear. This is heart-breaking. If you will advise me, knowing my feeble powers such as they are, how you think it will be best to exert them in a dilemma so unwonted, you will add another friendly obligation to the many you have already rendered me. With loves from the children, and a smile from the happily-unconscious stranger, I remain, dear Mr. Copperfield, "Your afflicted "EMMA MICAWBER." I did not feel justified in giving a wife of Mrs. Micawber's experience any other recommendation, than that she should try to reclaim Mr. Micawber by patience and kindness (as I knew she would in any case); but the letter set me thinking about him very much. CHAPTER XLIII. ANOTHER RETROSPECT. Once again, let me pause upon a memorable period of my life. Let me stand aside, to see the phantoms of those days go by me, accompanying the shadow of myself, in dim procession. Weeks, months, seasons, pass along. They seem little more than a summer day and a winter evening. Now, the Common where I walk with Dora is all in bloom, a field of bright gold; and now the unseen heather lies in mounds and bunches underneath a covering of snow. In a breath, the river that flows through our Sunday walks is sparkling in the summer sun, is ruffled by the winter wind, or thickened with drifting heaps of ice. Faster than ever river ran towards the sea, it flashes, darkens, and rolls away. Not a thread changes, in the house of the two little bird-like ladies. The clock ticks over the fire-place, the weather-glass hangs in the hall. Neither clock nor weather-glass is ever right; but we believe in both, devoutly. I have come legally to man's estate. I have attained the dignity of twenty-one. But this is a sort of dignity that may be thrust upon one. Let me think what I have achieved. I have tamed that savage stenographic mystery. I make a respectable income by it. I am in high repute for my accomplishment in all pertaining to the art, and am joined with eleven others in reporting the debates in Parliament for a Morning Newspaper. Night after night, I record predictions that never come to pass, professions that are never fulfilled, explanations that are only meant to mystify. I wallow in words. Britannia, that unfortunate female, is always before me, like a trussed fowl: skewered through and through with office-pens, and bound hand and foot with red tape. I am sufficiently behind the scenes to know the worth of political life. I am quite an Infidel about it, and shall never be converted. My dear old Traddles has tried his hand at the same pursuit, but it is not in Traddles's way. He is perfectly good-humoured respecting his failure, and reminds me that he always did consider himself slow. He has occasional employment on the same newspaper, in getting up the facts of dry subjects, to be written about and embellished by more fertile minds. He is called to the bar; and with admirable industry and self-denial has scraped another hundred pounds together, to fee a Conveyancer whose chambers he attends. A great deal of very hot port wine was consumed at his call; and, considering the figure, I should think the Inner Temple must have made a profit by it. I have come out in another way. I have taken with fear and trembling to authorship. I wrote a little something, in secret, and sent it to a magazine, and it was published in the magazine. Since then, I have taken heart to write a good many trifling pieces. Now, I am regularly paid for them. Altogether, I am well off; when I tell my income on the fingers of my left hand, I pass the third finger and take in the fourth to the middle joint. We have removed, from Buckingham Street, to a pleasant little cottage very near the one I looked at, when my enthusiasm first came on. My aunt, however (who has sold the house at Dover, to good advantage), is not going to remain here, but intends removing herself to a still more tiny cottage close at hand. What does this portend? My marriage? Yes! Yes! I am going to be married to Dora! Miss Lavinia and Miss Clarissa have given their consent; and if ever canary birds were in a flutter, they are. Miss Lavinia, self-charged with the superintendence of my darling's wardrobe, is constantly cutting out brown-paper cuirasses, and differing in opinion from a highly respectable young man, with a long bundle, and a yard measure under his arm. A dressmaker, always stabbed in the breast with a needle and thread, boards and lodges in the house; and seems to me, eating, drinking, or sleeping, never to take her thimble off. They make a lay-figure of my dear. They are always sending for her to come and try something on. We can't be happy together for five minutes in the evening, but some intrusive female knocks at the door, and says, "Oh, if you please, Miss Dora, would you step up-stairs!" Miss Clarissa and my aunt roam all over London, to find out articles of furniture for Dora and me to look at. It would be better for them to buy the goods at once, without this ceremony of inspection; for, when we go to see a kitchen fender and meat-screen, Dora sees a Chinese house for Jip, with little bells on the top, and prefers that. And it takes a long time to accustom Jip to his new residence, after we have bought it; whenever he goes in or out, he makes all the little bells ring, and is horribly frightened. Peggotty comes up to make herself useful, and falls to work immediately. Her department appears to be, to clean everything over and over again. She rubs everything that can be rubbed, until it shines, like her own honest forehead, with perpetual friction. And now it is, that I begin to see her solitary brother passing through the dark streets at night, and looking, as he goes, among the wandering faces. I never speak to him at such an hour. I know too well, as his grave figure passes onward, what he seeks, and what he dreads. Why does Traddles look so important when he calls upon me this afternoon in the Commons--where I still occasionally attend, for form's sake, when I have time? The realisation of my boyish day-dreams is at hand. I am going to take out the license. It is a little document to do so much; and Traddles contemplates it, as it lies upon my desk, half in admiration, half in awe. There are the names, in the sweet old visionary connexion, David Copperfield and Dora Spenlow; and there, in the corner, is that Parental Institution, the Stamp Office, which is so benignantly interested in the various transactions of human life, looking down upon our Union; and there is the Archbishop of Canterbury invoking a blessing on us in print, and doing it as cheap as could possibly be expected. Nevertheless, I am in a dream, a flustered, happy, hurried dream. I can't believe that it is going to be; and yet I can't believe but that everyone I pass in the street, must have some kind of perception, that I am to be married the day after to-morrow. The Surrogate knows me, when I go down to be sworn; and disposes of me easily, as if there were a Masonic understanding between us. Traddles is not at all wanted, but is in attendance as my general backer. "I hope the next time you come here, my dear fellow," I say to Traddles, "it will be on the same errand for yourself. And I hope it will be soon." "Thank you for your good wishes, my dear Copperfield," he replies. "I hope so too. It's a satisfaction to know that she'll wait for me any length of time, and that she really is the dearest girl--" "When are you to meet her at the coach?" I ask. "At seven," says Traddles, looking at his plain old silver watch--the very watch he once took a wheel out of, at school, to make a water-mill. "That is about Miss Wickfield's time, is it not?" "A little earlier. Her time is half-past eight." "I assure you, my dear boy," says Traddles, "I am almost as pleased as if I were going to be married myself, to think that this event is coming to such a happy termination. And really the great friendship and consideration of personally associating Sophy with the joyful occasion, and inviting her to be a bridesmaid in conjunction with Miss Wickfield, demands my warmest thanks. I am extremely sensible of it." I hear him, and shake hands with him; and we talk, and walk, and dine, and so on; but I don't believe it. Nothing is real. Sophy arrives at the house of Dora's aunts, in due course. She has the most agreeable of faces,--not absolutely beautiful, but extraordinarily pleasant,--and is one of the most genial, unaffected, frank, engaging creatures I have ever seen. Traddles presents her to us with great pride; and rubs his hands for ten minutes by the clock, with every individual hair upon his head standing on tiptoe, when I congratulate him in a corner on his choice. I have brought Agnes from the Canterbury coach, and her cheerful and beautiful face is among us for the second time. Agnes has a great liking for Traddles, and it is capital to see them meet, and to observe the glory of Traddles as he commends the dearest girl in the world to her acquaintance. Still I don't believe it. We have a delightful evening, and are supremely happy; but I don't believe it yet. I can't collect myself. I can't check off my happiness as it takes place. I feel in a misty and unsettled kind of state; as if I had got up very early in the morning a week or two ago, and had never been to bed since. I can't make out when yesterday was. I seem to have been carrying the licence about, in my pocket, many months. Next day, too, when we all go in a flock to see the house--our house--Dora's and mine--I am quite unable to regard myself as its master. I seem to be there, by permission of somebody else. I half expect the real master to come home presently, and say he is glad to see me. Such a beautiful little house as it is, with everything so bright and new; with the flowers on the carpets looking as if freshly gathered, and the green leaves on the paper as if they had just come out; with the spotless muslin curtains, and the blushing rose-coloured furniture, and Dora's garden hat with the blue ribbon--do I remember, now, how I loved her in such another hat when I first knew her!--already hanging on its little peg; the guitar-case quite at home on its heels in a corner; and everybody tumbling over Jip's Pagoda, which is much too big for the establishment. Another happy evening, quite as unreal as all the rest of it, and I steal into the usual room before going away. Dora is not there. I suppose they have not done trying on yet. Miss Lavinia peeps in, and tells me mysteriously that she will not be long. She is rather long, notwithstanding; but by-and-by I hear a rustling at the door, and some one taps. I say, "Come in!" but some one taps again. I go to the door, wondering who it is; there, I meet a pair of bright eyes, and a blushing face; they are Dora's eyes and face, and Miss Lavinia has dressed her in to-morrow's dress, bonnet and all, for me to see. I take my little wife to my heart; and Miss Lavinia gives a little scream because I tumble the bonnet, and Dora laughs and cries at once, because I am so pleased; and I believe it less than ever. "Do you think it pretty, Doady?" says Dora. Pretty! I should rather think I did. "And are you sure you like me very much?" says Dora. The topic is fraught with such danger to the bonnet, that Miss Lavinia gives another little scream, and begs me to understand that Dora is only to be looked at, and on no account to be touched. So Dora stands in a delightful state of confusion for a minute or two, to be admired; and then takes off her bonnet--looking so natural without it!--and runs away with it in her hand; and comes dancing down again in her own familiar dress, and asks Jip if I have got a beautiful little wife, and whether he'll forgive her for being married, and kneels down to make him stand upon the cookery-book, for the last time in her single life. I go home, more incredulous than ever, to a lodging that I have hard by; and get up very early in the morning, to ride to the Highgate road and fetch my aunt. I have never seen my aunt in such state. She is dressed in lavender-colored silk, and has a white bonnet on, and is amazing. Janet has dressed her, and is there to look at me. Peggotty is ready to go to church, intending to behold the ceremony from the gallery. Mr. Dick, who is to give my darling to me at the altar, has had his hair curled. Traddles, whom I have taken up by appointment at the turnpike, presents a dazzling combination of cream color and light blue; and both he and Mr. Dick have a general effect about them of being all gloves. No doubt I see this, because I know it is so; but I am astray, and seem to see nothing. Nor do I believe anything whatever. Still, as we drive along in an open carriage, this fairy marriage is real enough to fill me with a sort of wondering pity for the unfortunate people who have no part in it, but are sweeping out the shops, and going to their daily occupations. My aunt sits with my hand in hers all the way. When we stop a little way short of the church, to put down Peggotty, whom we have brought on the box, she gives it a squeeze, and me a kiss. "God bless you, Trot! My own boy never could be dearer. I think of poor dear Baby this morning." "So do I. And of all I owe to you, dear aunt." "Tut, child!" says my aunt; and gives her hand in overflowing cordiality to Traddles, who then gives his to Mr. Dick, who then gives his to me, who then gives mine to Traddles, and then we come to the church door. The church is calm enough, I am sure; but it might be a steam-power loom in full action, for any sedative effect it has on me. I am too far gone for that. The rest is all a more or less incoherent dream. A dream of their coming in with Dora; of the pew-opener arranging us, like a drill-serjeant, before the altar rails; of my wondering, even then, why pew-openers must always be the most disagreeable females procurable, and whether there is any religious dread of a disastrous infection of good-humour which renders it indispensable to set those vessels of vinegar upon the road to Heaven. Of the clergyman and clerk appearing; of a few boatmen and some other people strolling in; of an ancient mariner behind me, strongly flavoring the church with rum; of the service beginning in a deep voice, and our all being very attentive. Of Miss Lavinia, who acts as a semi-auxiliary bridesmaid, being the first to cry, and of her doing homage (as I take it) to the memory of Pidger, in sobs; of Miss Clarissa applying a smelling-bottle; of Agnes taking care of Dora; of my aunt endeavouring to represent herself as a model of sternness, with tears rolling down her face; of little Dora trembling very much, and making her responses in faint whispers. Of our kneeling down together, side by side; of Dora's trembling less and less, but always clasping Agnes by the hand; of the service being got through, quietly and gravely; of our all looking at each other in an April state of smiles and tears, when it is over; of my young wife being hysterical in the vestry, and crying for her poor papa, her dear papa. Of her soon cheering up again, and our signing the register all round. Of my going into the gallery for Peggotty to bring _her_ to sign it; of Peggotty's hugging me in a corner, and telling me she saw my own dear mother married; of its being over, and our going away. Of my walking so proudly and lovingly down the aisle with my sweet wife upon my arm, through a mist of half-seen people, pulpits, monuments, pews, fonts, organs, and church windows, in which there flutter faint airs of association with my childish church at home, so long ago. [Illustration: I am Married.] Of their whispering, as we pass, what a youthful couple we are, and what a pretty little wife she is. Of our all being so merry and talkative in the carriage going back. Of Sophy telling us that when she saw Traddles (whom I had entrusted with the licence) asked for it, she almost fainted, having been convinced that he would contrive to lose it, or to have his pocket picked. Of Agnes laughing gaily; and of Dora being so fond of Agnes that she will not be separated from her, but still keeps her hand. Of there being a breakfast, with abundance of things, pretty and substantial, to eat and drink, whereof I partake, as I should do in any other dream, without the least perception of their flavor; eating and drinking, as I may say, nothing but love and marriage, and no more believing in the viands than in anything else. Of my making a speech in the same dreamy fashion, without having an idea of what I want to say, beyond such as may be comprehended in the full conviction that I haven't said it. Of our being very sociably and simply happy (always in a dream though); and of Jip's having wedding cake, and its not agreeing with him afterwards. Of the pair of hired post-horses being ready, and of Dora's going away to change her dress. Of my aunt and Miss Clarissa remaining with us; and our walking in the garden; and my aunt, who has made quite a speech at breakfast touching Dora's aunts, being mightily amused with herself, but a little proud of it too. Of Dora's being ready, and of Miss Lavinia's hovering about her, loth to lose the pretty toy that has given her so much pleasant occupation. Of Dora's making a long series of surprised discoveries that she has forgotten all sorts of little things; and of everybody's running everywhere to fetch them. Of their all closing about Dora, when at last she begins to say good-bye, looking, with their bright colors and ribbons, like a bed of flowers. Of my darling being almost smothered among the flowers, and coming out, laughing and crying both together, to my jealous arms. Of my wanting to carry Jip (who is to go along with us), and Dora's saying no, that she must carry him, or else he'll think she don't like him any more, now she is married, and will break his heart. Of our going, arm in arm, and Dora stopping and looking back, and saying, "If I have ever been cross or ungrateful to anybody, don't remember it!" and bursting into tears. Of her waving her little hand, and our going away once more. Of her once more stopping, and looking back, and hurrying to Agnes, and giving Agnes, above all the others, her last kisses and farewells. We drive away together, and I awake from the dream. I believe it at last. It is my dear, dear, little wife beside me, whom I love so well! "Are you happy now, you foolish boy?" says Dora, "and sure you don't repent?" * * * I have stood aside to see the phantoms of those days go by me. They are gone, and I resume the journey of my story. CHAPTER XLIV. OUR HOUSEKEEPING. It was a strange condition of things, the honey-moon being over, and the bridesmaids gone home, when I found myself sitting down in my own small house with Dora; quite thrown out of employment, as I may say, in respect of the delicious old occupation of making love. It seemed such an extraordinary thing to have Dora always there. It was so unaccountable not to be obliged to go out to see her, not to have any occasion to be tormenting myself about her, not to have to write to her, not to be scheming and devising opportunities of being alone with her. Sometimes of an evening, when I looked up from my writing, and saw her seated opposite, I would lean back in my chair, and think how queer it was that there we were, alone together as a matter of course--nobody's business any more--all the romance of our engagement put away upon a shelf, to rust--no one to please but one another--one another to please, for life. When there was a debate, and I was kept out very late, it seemed so strange to me, as I was walking home, to think that Dora was at home! It was such a wonderful thing, at first, to have her coming softly down to talk to me as I ate my supper. It was such a stupendous thing to know for certain that she put her hair in papers. It was altogether such an astonishing event to see her do it! I doubt whether two young birds could have known less about keeping house, than I and my pretty Dora did. We had a servant, of course. She kept house for us. I have still a latent belief that she must have been Mrs. Crupp's daughter in disguise, we had such an awful time of it with Mary Anne. Her name was Paragon. Her nature was represented to us, when we engaged her, as being feebly expressed in her name. She had a written character, as large as a proclamation; and, according to this document, could do everything of a domestic nature that ever I heard of, and a great many things that I never did hear of. She was a woman in the prime of life; of a severe countenance; and subject (particularly in the arms) to a sort of perpetual measles or fiery rash. She had a cousin in the Life Guards, with such long legs that he looked like the afternoon shadow of somebody else. His shell-jacket was as much too little for him as he was too big for the premises. He made the cottage smaller than it need have been, by being so very much out of proportion to it. Besides which, the walls were not thick, and whenever he passed the evening at our house, we always knew of it by hearing one continual growl in the kitchen. Our treasure was warranted sober and honest. I am therefore willing to believe that she was in a fit when we found her under the boiler; and that the deficient teaspoons were attributable to the dustman. But she preyed upon our minds dreadfully. We felt our inexperience, and were unable to help ourselves. We should have been at her mercy, if she had had any; but she was a remorseless woman, and had none. She was the cause of our first little quarrel. "My dearest life," I said one day to Dora, "do you think Mary Anne has any idea of time?" "Why, Doady?" inquired Dora, looking up, innocently, from her drawing. "My love, because it's five, and we were to have dined at four." Dora glanced wistfully at the clock, and hinted that she thought it was too fast. "On the contrary, my love," said I, referring to my watch, "it's a few minutes too slow." My little wife came and sat upon my knee, to coax me to be quiet, and drew a line with her pencil down the middle of my nose; but I couldn't dine off that, though it was very agreeable. "Don't you think, my dear," said I, "it would be better for you to remonstrate with Mary Anne?" "Oh no, please! I couldn't, Doady!" said Dora. "Why not, my love?" I gently asked. "Oh, because I am such a little goose," said Dora, "and she knows I am!" I thought this sentiment so incompatible with the establishment of any system of check on Mary Anne, that I frowned a little. "Oh, what ugly wrinkles in my bad boy's forehead!" said Dora, and still being on my knee, she traced them with her pencil; putting it to her rosy lips to make it mark blacker, and working at my forehead with a quaint little mockery of being industrious, that quite delighted me in spite of myself. "There's a good child," said Dora, "it makes its face so much prettier to laugh." "But, my love," said I. "No, no! please!" cried Dora, with a kiss, "don't be a naughty Blue Beard! Don't be serious!" "My precious wife," said I, "we must be serious sometimes. Come! Sit down on this chair, close beside me! Give me the pencil! There! Now let us talk sensibly. You know, dear;" what a little hand it was to hold, and what a tiny wedding-ring it was to see! "You know, my love, it is not exactly comfortable to have to go out without one's dinner. Now, is it?" "N--n--no!" replied Dora, faintly. "My love, how you tremble!" "Because I KNOW you're going to scold me," exclaimed Dora, in a piteous voice. "My sweet, I am only going to reason." "Oh, but reasoning is worse than scolding!" exclaimed Dora, in despair. "I didn't marry to be reasoned with. If you meant to reason with such a poor little thing as I am, you ought to have told me so, you cruel boy!" I tried to pacify Dora, but she turned away her face, and shook her curls from side to side, and said "You cruel, cruel boy!" so many times, that I really did not exactly know what to do: so I took a few turns up and down the room in my uncertainty, and came back again. "Dora, my darling!" "No, I am not your darling. Because you _must_ be sorry that you married me, or else you wouldn't reason with me!" returned Dora. I felt so injured by the inconsequential nature of this charge, that it gave me courage to be grave. "Now, my own Dora," said I, "you are very childish, and are talking nonsense. You must remember, I am sure, that I was obliged to go out yesterday when dinner was half over; and that, the day before, I was made quite unwell by being obliged to eat underdone veal in a hurry; to-day, I don't dine at all--and I am afraid to say how long we waited for breakfast--and _then_ the water didn't boil. I don't mean to reproach you, my dear, but this is not comfortable." "Oh, you cruel, cruel boy, to say I am a disagreeable wife!" cried Dora. "Now, my dear Dora, you must know that I never said that!" "You said I wasn't comfortable!" said Dora. "I said the housekeeping was not comfortable." "It's exactly the same thing!" cried Dora. And she evidently thought so, for she wept most grievously. I took another turn across the room, full of love for my pretty wife, and distracted by self-accusatory inclinations to knock my head against the door. I sat down again, and said: "I am not blaming you, Dora. We have both a great deal to learn. I am only trying to show you, my dear, that you must--you really must" (I was resolved not to give this up)--"accustom yourself to look after Mary Anne. Likewise to act a little for yourself, and me." "I wonder, I do, at your making such ungrateful speeches," sobbed Dora. "When you know that the other day, when you said you would like a little bit of fish, I went out myself, miles and miles, and ordered it, to surprise you." "And it was very kind of you, my own darling," said I. "I felt it so much that I wouldn't on any account have even mentioned that you bought a Salmon--which was too much for two. Or that it cost one pound six--which was more than we can afford." "You enjoyed it very much," sobbed Dora. "And you said I was a Mouse." "And I'll say so again, my love," I returned, "a thousand times!" But I had wounded Dora's soft little heart, and she was not to be comforted. She was so pathetic in her sobbing and bewailing, that I felt as if I had said I don't know what to hurt her. I was obliged to hurry away; I was kept out late; and I felt all night such pangs of remorse as made me miserable. I had the conscience of an assassin, and was haunted by a vague sense of enormous wickedness. It was two or three hours past midnight when I got home. I found my aunt, in our house, sitting up for me. "Is anything the matter, aunt?" said I, alarmed. "Nothing, Trot," she replied. "Sit down, sit down. Little Blossom has been rather out of spirits, and I have been keeping her company. That's all." I leaned my head upon my hand; and felt more sorry and downcast, as I sat looking at the fire, than I could have supposed possible so soon after the fulfilment of my brightest hopes. As I sat thinking, I happened to meet my aunt's eyes, which were resting on my face. There was an anxious expression in them, but it cleared directly. "I assure you, aunt," said I, "I have been quite unhappy myself all night, to think of Dora's being so. But I had no other intention than to speak to her tenderly and lovingly about our home-affairs." My aunt nodded encouragement. "You must have patience, Trot," said she. "Of course. Heaven knows I don't mean to be unreasonable, aunt!" "No, no," said my aunt. "But Little Blossom is a very tender little blossom, and the wind must be gentle with her." I thanked my good aunt, in my heart, for her tenderness towards my wife; and I was sure that she knew I did. "Don't you think, aunt," said I, after some further contemplation of the fire, "that you could advise and counsel Dora a little, for our mutual advantage, now and then?" "Trot," returned my aunt, with some emotion, "no! Don't ask me such a thing!" Her tone was so very earnest that I raised my eyes in surprise. "I look back on my life, child," said my aunt, "and I think of some who are in their graves, with whom I might have been on kinder terms. If I judged harshly of other people's mistakes in marriage, it may have been because I had bitter reason to judge harshly of my own. Let that pass. I have been a grumpy, frumpy, wayward sort of a woman, a good many years. I am still, and I always shall be. But you and I have done one another some good, Trot,--at all events, you have done me good, my dear; and division must not come between us, at this time of day." "Division between _us_!" cried I. "Child, child!" said my aunt, smoothing her dress, "how soon it might come between us, or how unhappy I might make our Little Blossom, if I meddled in anything, a prophet couldn't say. I want our pet to like me, and be as gay as a butterfly. Remember your own home, in that second marriage; and never do both me and her the injury you have hinted at!" I comprehended, at once, that my aunt was right; and I comprehended the full extent of her generous feeling towards my dear wife. "These are early days, Trot," she pursued, "and Rome was not built in a day, nor in a year. You have chosen freely for yourself;" a cloud passed over her face for a moment, I thought; "and you have chosen a very pretty and a very affectionate creature. It will be your duty, and it will be your pleasure too--of course I know that; I am not delivering a lecture--to estimate her (as you chose her) by the qualities she has, and not by the qualities she may not have. The latter you must develop in her, if you can. And if you cannot, child," here my aunt rubbed her nose, "you must just accustom yourself to do without 'em. But remember, my dear, your future is between you two. No one can assist you; you are to work it out for yourselves. This is marriage, Trot; and Heaven bless you both, in it, for a pair of babes in the wood as you are!" My aunt said this in a sprightly way, and gave me a kiss to ratify the blessing. "Now," said she, "light my little lantern, and see me into my band-box by the garden path;" for there was a communication between our cottages in that direction. "Give Betsey Trotwood's love to Blossom, when you come back; and whatever you do, Trot, never dream of setting Betsey up as a scarecrow, for if _I_ ever saw her in the glass, she's quite grim enough and gaunt enough in her private capacity!" With this my aunt tied her head up in a handkerchief, with which she was accustomed to make a bundle of it on such occasions; and I escorted her home. As she stood in her garden, holding up her little lantern to light me back, I thought her observation of me had an anxious air again; but I was too much occupied in pondering on what she had said, and too much impressed--for the first time, in reality--by the conviction that Dora and I had indeed to work out our future for ourselves, and that no one could assist us, to take much notice of it. Dora came stealing down in her little slippers, to meet me, now that I was alone; and cried upon my shoulder, and said I had been hard-hearted and she had been naughty; and I said much the same thing in effect, I believe; and we made it up, and agreed that our first little difference was to be our last, and that we were never to have another if we lived a hundred years. The next domestic trial we went through, was the Ordeal of Servants. Mary Anne's cousin deserted into our coal-hole, and was brought out, to our great amazement, by a piquet of his companions in arms, who took him away handcuffed in a procession that covered our front-garden with ignominy. This nerved me to get rid of Mary Anne, who went so mildly, on receipt of wages, that I was surprised, until I found out about the tea-spoons, and also about the little sums she had borrowed in my name of the tradespeople without authority. After an interval of Mrs. Kidgerbury--the oldest inhabitant of Kentish Town, I believe, who went out charing, but was too feeble to execute her conceptions of that art--we found another treasure, who was one of the most amiable of women, but who generally made a point of falling either up or down the kitchen stairs with the tray, and almost always plunged into the parlor, as into a bath, with the tea-things. The ravages committed by this unfortunate, rendering her dismissal necessary, she was succeeded (with intervals of Mrs. Kidgerbury) by a long line of Incapables; terminating in a young person of genteel appearance, who went to Greenwich Fair in Dora's bonnet. After whom I remember nothing but an average equality of failure. Everybody we had anything to do with seemed to cheat us. Our appearance in a shop was a signal for the damaged goods to be brought out immediately. If we bought a lobster, it was full of water. All our meat turned out to be tough, and there was hardly any crust to our loaves. In search of the principle on which joints ought to be roasted, to be roasted enough, and not too much, I myself referred to the Cookery Book, and found it there established as the allowance of a quarter of an hour to every pound, and say a quarter over. But the principle always failed us by some curious fatality, and we never could hit any medium between redness and cinders. I had reason to believe that in accomplishing these failures we incurred a far greater expense than if we had achieved a series of triumphs. It appeared to me, on looking over the tradesmen's books, as if we might have kept the basement story paved with butter, such was the extensive scale of our consumption of that article. I don't know whether the Excise returns of the period may have exhibited any increase in the demand for pepper; but if our performances did not affect the market, I should say several families must have left off using it. And the most wonderful fact of all was, that we never had anything in the house. As to the washerwoman pawning the clothes, and coming in a state of penitent intoxication to apologise, I suppose that might have happened several times to anybody. Also the chimney on fire, the parish engine, and perjury on the part of the Beadle. But I apprehend that we were personally unfortunate in engaging a servant with a taste for cordials, who swelled our running account for porter at the public-house by such inexplicable items as "quartern rum shrub (Mrs. C.)" "Half-quartern gin and cloves (Mrs. C.)" "Glass rum and peppermint (Mrs. C.)"--the parenthesis always referring to Dora, who was supposed, it appeared on explanation, to have imbibed the whole of these refreshments. One of our first feats in the housekeeping way was a little dinner to Traddles. I met him in town, and asked him to walk out with me that afternoon. He readily consenting, I wrote to Dora, saying I would bring him home. It was pleasant weather, and on the road we made my domestic happiness the theme of conversation. Traddles was very full of it; and said, that, picturing himself with such a home, and Sophy waiting and preparing for him, he could think of nothing wanting to complete his bliss. I could not have wished for a prettier little wife at the opposite end of the table, but I certainly could have wished, when we sate down, for a little more room. I did not know how it was, but though there were only two of us, we were at once always cramped for room, and yet had always room enough to lose everything in. I suspect it may have been because nothing had a place of its own, except Jip's pagoda, which invariably blocked up the main thoroughfare. On the present occasion, Traddles was so hemmed in by the pagoda and the guitar-case, and Dora's flower-painting, and my writing-table, that I had serious doubts of the possibility of his using his knife and fork; but he protested, with his own good-humour, "Oceans of room, Copperfield! I assure you, Oceans!" [Illustration: Our Housekeeping.] There was another thing I could have wished, namely, that Jip had never been encouraged to walk about the table-cloth during dinner. I began to think there was something disorderly in his being there at all, even if he had not been in the habit of putting his foot in the salt or the melted butter. On this occasion he seemed to think he was introduced expressly to keep Traddles at bay; and he barked at my old friend, and made short runs at his plate, with such undaunted pertinacity, that he may be said to have engrossed the conversation. However, as I knew how tender-hearted my dear Dora was, and how sensitive she would be to any slight upon her favorite, I hinted no objection. For similar reasons I made no allusion to the skirmishing plates upon the floor; or to the disreputable appearance of the castors, which were all at sixes and sevens, and looked drunk; or to the further blockade of Traddles by wandering vegetable dishes and jugs. I could not help wondering in my own mind, as I contemplated the boiled leg of mutton before me, previous to carving it, how it came to pass that our joints of meat were of such extraordinary shapes--and whether our butcher contracted for all the deformed sheep that came into the world; but I kept my reflections to myself. "My love," said I to Dora, "what have you got in that dish?" I could not imagine why Dora had been making tempting little faces at me, as if she wanted to kiss me. "Oysters, dear," said Dora, timidly. "Was that _your_ thought?" said I, delighted. "Ye-yes, Doady," said Dora. "There never was a happier one!" I exclaimed, laying down the carving-knife and fork. "There is nothing Traddles likes so much!" "Ye-yes, Doady," said Dora, "and so I bought a beautiful little barrel of them, and the man said they were very good. But I--I am afraid there's something the matter with them. They don't seem right." Here Dora shook her head, and diamonds twinkled in her eyes. "They are only opened in both shells," said I. "Take the top one off, my love." "But it won't come off," said Dora, trying very hard, and looking very much distressed. "Do you know, Copperfield," said Traddles, cheerfully examining the dish, "I think it is in consequence--they are capital oysters, but I _think_ it is in consequence--of their never having been opened." They never had been opened; and we had no oyster-knives--and couldn't have used them if we had; so we looked at the oysters and ate the mutton. At least we ate as much of it as was done, and made up with capers. If I had permitted him, I am satisfied that Traddles would have made a perfect savage of himself, and eaten a plateful of raw meat, to express enjoyment of the repast; but I would hear of no such immolation on the altar of friendship, and we had a course of bacon instead; there happening, by good fortune, to be cold bacon in the larder. My poor little wife was in such affliction when she thought I should be annoyed, and in such a state of joy when she found I was not, that the discomfiture I had subdued, very soon vanished, and we passed a happy evening; Dora sitting with her arm on my chair while Traddles and I discussed a glass of wine, and taking every opportunity of whispering in my ear that it was so good of me not to be a cruel, cross old boy. By and bye she made tea for us; which it was so pretty to see her do, as if she were busying herself with a set of doll's tea-things, that I was not particular about the quality of the beverage. Then Traddles and I played a game or two at cribbage; and Dora singing to the guitar the while, it seemed to me as if our courtship and marriage were a tender dream of mine, and the night when I first listened to her voice were not yet over. When Traddles went away, and I came back into the parlor from seeing him out, my wife planted her chair close to mine, and sat down by my side. "I am very sorry," she said. "Will you try to teach me, Doady?" "I must teach myself first, Dora," said I. "I am as bad as you, love." "Ah! But you can learn," she returned; "and you are a clever, clever man!" "Nonsense, mouse!" said I. "I wish," resumed my wife, after a long silence, "that I could have gone down into the country for a whole year, and lived with Agnes!" Her hands were clasped upon my shoulder, and her chin rested on them, and her blue eyes looked quietly into mine. "Why so?" I asked. "I think she might have improved me, and I think I might have learnt from _her_," said Dora. "All in good time, my love. Agnes has had her father to take care of for these many years, you should remember. Even when she was quite a child, she was the Agnes whom we know," said I. "Will you call me a name I want you to call me?" inquired Dora, without moving. "What is it?" I asked with a smile. "It's a stupid name," she said, shaking her curls for a moment. "Child-wife." I laughingly asked my child-wife what her fancy was in desiring to be so called? She answered without moving, otherwise than as the arm I twined about her may have brought her blue eyes nearer to me: "I don't mean, you silly fellow, that you should use the name, instead of Dora. I only mean that you should think of me that way. When you are going to be angry with me, say to yourself, 'it's only my child-wife!' When I am very disappointing, say, 'I knew, a long time ago, that she would make but a child-wife!' When you miss what I should like to be, and I think can never be, say, 'still my foolish child-wife loves me!' For indeed I do." I had not been serious with her; having no idea, until now, that she was serious herself. But her affectionate nature was so happy in what I now said to her with my whole heart, that her face became a laughing one before her glittering eyes were dry. She was soon my child-wife indeed; sitting down on the floor outside the Chinese House, ringing all the little bells one after another, to punish Jip for his recent bad behaviour; while Jip lay blinking in the doorway with his head out, even too lazy to be teased. This appeal of Dora's made a strong impression on me. I look back on the time I write of; I invoke the innocent figure that I dearly loved, to come out from the mists and shadows of the past, and turn its gentle head towards me once again; and I can still declare that this one little speech was constantly in my memory. I may not have used it to the best account; I was young and inexperienced; but I never turned a deaf ear to its artless pleading. Dora told me, shortly afterwards, that she was going to be a wonderful housekeeper. Accordingly, she polished the tablets, pointed the pencil, bought an immense account-book, carefully stitched up with a needle and thread all the leaves of the Cookery-Book which Jip had torn, and made quite a desperate little attempt "to be good," as she called it. But the figures had the old obstinate propensity--they _would not_ add up. When she had entered two or three laborious items in the account-book, Jip would walk over the page, wagging his tail, and smear them all out. Her own little right-hand middle finger got steeped to the very bone in ink; and I think that was the only decided result attained. Sometimes, of an evening, when I was at home and at work--for I wrote a good deal now, and was beginning in a small way to be known as a writer--I would lay down my pen, and watch my child-wife trying to be good. First of all, she would bring out the immense account-book, and lay it down upon the table, with a deep sigh. Then she would open it at the place where Jip had made it illegible last night, and call Jip up, to look at his misdeeds. This would occasion a diversion in Jip's favour, and some inking of his nose, perhaps, as a penalty. Then she would tell Jip to lie down on the table instantly, "like a lion"--which was one of his tricks, though I cannot say the likeness was striking--and, if he were in an obedient humor, he would obey. Then she would take up a pen, and begin to write, and find a hair in it. Then she would take up another pen, and begin to write, and find that it spluttered. Then she would take up another pen, and begin to write, and say in a low voice, "Oh, it's a talking pen, and will disturb Doady!" And then she would give it up as a bad job, and put the account-book away, after pretending to crush the lion with it. Or, if she were in a very sedate and serious state of mind, she would sit down with the tablets, and a little basket of bills and other documents, which looked more like curl-papers than anything else, and endeavour to get some result out of them. After severely comparing one with another, and making entries on the tablets, and blotting them out, and counting all the fingers of her left hand over and over again, backwards and forwards, she would be so vexed and discouraged, and would look so unhappy, that it gave me pain to see her bright face clouded--and for me!--and I would go softly to her, and say: "What's the matter, Dora?" Dora would look up hopelessly, and reply, "They won't come right. They make my head ache so. And they won't do anything I want!" Then I would say, "Now let us try together. Let me show you, Dora." Then I would commence a practical demonstration, to which Dora would pay profound attention, perhaps for five minutes; when she would begin to be dreadfully tired, and would lighten the subject by curling my hair, or trying the effect of my face with my shirt collar turned down. If I tacitly checked this playfulness, and persisted, she would look so scared and disconsolate, as she became more and more bewildered, that the remembrance of her natural gaiety when I first strayed into her path, and of her being my child-wife, would come reproachfully upon me; and I would lay the pencil down, and call for the guitar. I had a great deal of work to do, and had many anxieties, but the same considerations made me keep them to myself. I am far from sure, now, that it was right to do this, but I did it for my child-wife's sake. I search my breast, and I commit its secrets, if I know them, without any reservation to this paper. The old unhappy loss or want of something had, I am conscious, some place in my heart; but not to the embitterment of my life. When I walked alone in the fine weather, and thought of the summer days when all the air had been filled with my boyish enchantment, I did miss something of the realisation of my dreams; but I thought it was a softened glory of the Past, which nothing could have thrown upon the present time. I did feel, sometimes, for a little while, that I could have wished my wife had been my counsellor; had had more character and purpose, to sustain me and improve me by; had been endowed with power to fill up the void which somewhere seemed to be about me; but I felt as if this were an unearthly consummation of my happiness, that never had been meant to be, and never could have been. I was a boyish husband as to years. I had known the softening influence of no other sorrows or experiences than those recorded in these leaves. If I did any wrong, as I may have done much, I did it in mistaken love, and in my want of wisdom. I write the exact truth. It would avail me nothing to extenuate it now. Thus it was that I took upon myself the toils and cares of our life, and had no partner in them. We lived much as before, in reference to our scrambling household arrangements; but I had got used to those, and Dora I was pleased to see was seldom vexed now. She was bright and cheerful in the old childish way, loved me dearly, and was happy with her old trifles. When the debates were heavy--I mean as to length, not quality, for in the last respect they were not often otherwise--and I went home late, Dora would never rest when she heard my footsteps, but would always come down stairs to meet me. When my evenings were unoccupied by the pursuit for which I had qualified myself with so much pains, and I was engaged in writing at home, she would sit quietly near me, however late the hour, and be so mute, that I would often think she had dropped asleep. But generally, when I raised my head, I saw her blue eyes looking at me with the quiet attention of which I have already spoken. "Oh, what a weary boy!" said Dora one night, when I met her eyes as I was shutting up my desk. "What a weary girl!" said I. "That's more to the purpose. You must go to bed another time, my love. It's far too late for you." "No, don't send me to bed!" pleaded Dora, coming to my side. "Pray don't do that!" "Dora!" To my amazement she was sobbing on my neck. "Not well, my dear! not happy!" "Yes! quite well, and very happy!" said Dora. "But say you'll let me stop, and see you write." "Why, what a sight for such bright eyes at midnight!" I replied. "Are they bright, though?" returned Dora, laughing. "I'm so glad they're bright." "Little Vanity!" said I. But it was not vanity; it was only harmless delight in my admiration. I knew that very well, before she told me so. "If you think them pretty, say I may always stop, and see you write!" said Dora. "_Do_ you think them pretty?" "Very pretty." "Then let me always stop and see you write." "I am afraid that won't improve their brightness, Dora." "Yes it will! Because, you clever boy, you'll not forget me then, while you are full of silent fancies. Will you mind it, if I say something very, very silly?--more than usual?" inquired Dora, peeping over my shoulder into my face. "What wonderful thing is that?" said I. "Please let me hold the pens," said Dora. "I want to have something to do with all those many hours when you are so industrious. May I hold the pens?" The remembrance of her pretty joy when I said yes, brings tears into my eyes. The next time I sat down to write, and regularly afterwards, she sat in her old place with a spare bundle of pens at her side. Her triumph in this connexion with my work, and her delight when I wanted a new pen--which I very often feigned to do--suggested to me a new way of pleasing my child-wife. I occasionally made a pretence of wanting a page or two of manuscript copied. Then Dora was in her glory. The preparations she made for this great work, the aprons she put on, the bibs she borrowed from the kitchen to keep off the ink, the time she took, the innumerable stoppages she made to have a laugh with Jip as if he understood it all, her conviction that her work was incomplete unless she signed her name at the end, and the way in which she would bring it to me, like a school-copy, and then, when I praised it, clasp me round the neck, are touching recollections to me, simple as they might appear to other men. She took possession of the keys soon after this, and went jingling about the house with the whole bunch in a little basket, tied to her slender waist. I seldom found that the places to which they belonged were locked, or that they were of any use except as a plaything for Jip--but Dora was pleased, and that pleased me. She was quite satisfied that a good deal was effected by this make-belief of housekeeping; and was as merry as if we had been keeping a baby-house, for a joke. So we went on. Dora was hardly less affectionate to my aunt than to me, and often told her of the time when she was afraid she was "a cross old thing." I never saw my aunt unbend more systematically to anyone. She courted Jip, though Jip never responded; listened, day after day, to the guitar, though I am afraid she had no taste for music; never attacked the Incapables, though the temptation must have been severe; went wonderful distances on foot to purchase, as surprises, any trifles that she found out Dora wanted; and never came in by the garden, and missed her from the room, but she would call out, at the foot of the stairs, in a voice that sounded cheerfully all over the house: "Where's Little Blossom!" CHAPTER XLV. MR. DICK FULFILS MY AUNT'S PREDICTION. It was some time now, since I had left the Doctor. Living in his neighbourhood, I saw him frequently; and we all went to his house on two or three occasions to dinner or tea. The Old Soldier was in permanent quarters under the Doctor's roof. She was exactly the same as ever, and the same immortal butterflies hovered over her cap. Like some other mothers, whom I have known in the course of my life, Mrs. Markleham was far more fond of pleasure than her daughter was. She required a great deal of amusement, and, like a deep old soldier, pretended, in consulting her own inclinations, to be devoting herself to her child. The Doctor's desire that Annie should be entertained, was therefore particularly acceptable to this excellent parent; who expressed unqualified approval of his discretion. I have no doubt, indeed, that she probed the Doctor's wound without knowing it. Meaning nothing but a certain matured frivolity and selfishness, not always inseparable from full-blown years, I think she confirmed him in his fear that he was a constraint upon his young wife, and that there was no congeniality of feeling between them, by so strongly commending his design of lightening the load of her life. "My dear soul," she said to him one day when I was present, "you know there is no doubt it would be a little pokey for Annie to be always shut up here." The Doctor nodded his benevolent head. "When she comes to her mother's age," said Mrs. Markleham, with a flourish of her fan, "then, it'll be another thing. You might put ME into a Jail, with genteel society and a rubber, and I should never care to come out. But I am not Annie, you know; and Annie is not her mother." "Surely, surely," said the Doctor. "You are the best of creatures--no, I beg your pardon!" for the Doctor made a gesture of depreciation, "I must say before your face, as I always say behind your back, you are the best of creatures; but of course you don't--now do you?--enter into the same pursuits and fancies as Annie?" "No," said the Doctor, in a sorrowful tone. "No, of course not," retorted the Old Soldier. "Take your Dictionary for example. What a useful work a Dictionary is! What a necessary work! The meanings of words! Without Doctor Johnson, or somebody of that sort, we might have been at this present moment calling an Italian-iron a bedstead. But we can't expect a Dictionary--especially when it's making--to interest Annie, can we?" The Doctor shook his head. "And that's why I so much approve," said Mrs. Markleham, tapping him on the shoulder with her shut-up fan, "of your thoughtfulness. It shows that you don't expect, as many elderly people do expect, old heads on young shoulders. You have studied Annie's character, and you understand it. _That's_ what I find so charming!" Even the calm and patient face of Doctor Strong expressed some little sense of pain, I thought, under the infliction of these compliments. "Therefore, my dear Doctor," said the Soldier, giving him several affectionate taps, "you may command me, at all times and seasons. Now, do understand that I am entirely at your service. I am ready to go with Annie to operas, concerts, exhibitions, all kinds of places; and you shall never find that I am tired. Duty, my dear Doctor, before every consideration in the universe!" She was as good as her word. She was one of those people who can bear a great deal of pleasure, and she never flinched in her perseverance in the cause. She seldom got hold of the newspaper (which she settled herself down in the softest chair in the house to read through an eye-glass, every day, for two hours), but she found out something that she was certain Annie would like to see. It was in vain for Annie to protest that she was weary of such things. Her mother's remonstrance always was, "Now, my dear Annie, I am sure you know better; and I must tell you, my love, that you are not making a proper return for the kindness of Doctor Strong." This was usually said in the Doctor's presence, and appeared to me to constitute Annie's principal inducement for withdrawing her objections when she made any. But in general she resigned herself to her mother, and went where the Old Soldier would. It rarely happened now that Mr. Maldon accompanied them. Sometimes my aunt and Dora were invited to do so, and accepted the invitation. Sometimes Dora only was asked. The time had been, when I should have been uneasy in her going; but reflection on what had passed that former night in the Doctor's study, had made a change in my mistrust. I believed that the Doctor was right, and I had no worse suspicions. My aunt rubbed her nose sometimes when she happened to be alone with me, and said she couldn't make it out; she wished they were happier; she didn't think our military friend (so she always called the Old Soldier) mended the matter at all. My aunt further expressed her opinion "that if our military friend would cut off those butterflies, and give 'em to the chimney-sweepers for May-day, it would look like the beginning of something sensible on her part." But her abiding reliance was on Mr. Dick. That man had evidently an idea in his head, she said; and if he could only once pen it up into a corner, which was his great difficulty, he would distinguish himself in some extraordinary manner. Unconscious of this prediction, Mr. Dick continued to occupy precisely the same ground in reference to the Doctor and to Mrs. Strong. He seemed neither to advance nor to recede. He appeared to have settled into his original foundation, like a building; and I must confess that my faith in his ever moving, was not much greater than if he had been a building. But one night, when I had been married some months, Mr. Dick put his head into the parlor, where I was writing alone (Dora having gone out with my aunt to take tea with the two little birds), and said, with a significant cough: "You couldn't speak to me without inconveniencing yourself, Trotwood, I am afraid?" "Certainly, Mr. Dick," said I; "come in!" "Trotwood," said Mr. Dick, laying his finger on the side of his nose, after he had shaken hands with me. "Before I sit down, I wish to make an observation. You know your aunt?" "A little," I replied. "She is the most wonderful woman in the world, sir!" After the delivery of this communication, which he shot out of himself as if he were loaded with it, Mr. Dick sat down with greater gravity than usual, and looked at me. "Now, boy," said Mr. Dick, "I am going to put a question to you." "As many as you please," said I. "What do you consider me, sir?" asked Mr. Dick, folding his arms. "A dear old friend," said I. "Thank you, Trotwood," returned Mr. Dick, laughing, and reaching across in high glee to shake hands with me. "But I mean, boy," resuming his gravity, "what do you consider me in this respect?" touching his forehead. I was puzzled how to answer, but he helped me with a word. "Weak?" said Mr. Dick. "Well," I replied, dubiously. "Rather so." "Exactly!" cried Mr. Dick, who seemed quite enchanted by my reply. "That is, Trotwood, when they took some of the trouble out of you-know-who's head, and put it you know where, there was a----" Mr. Dick made his two hands revolve very fast about each other a great number of times, and then brought them into collision, and rolled them over and over one another, to express confusion. "There was that sort of thing done to me somehow? Eh?" I nodded at him, and he nodded back again. "In short, boy," said Mr. Dick, dropping his voice to a whisper, "I am simple." I would have qualified that conclusion, but he stopped me. "Yes, I am! She pretends I am not. She won't hear of it; but I am. I know I am. If she hadn't stood my friend, sir, I should have been shut up, to lead a dismal life these many years. But I'll provide for her! I never spend the copying money. I put it in a box. I have made a will. I'll leave it all to her. She shall be rich--noble!" Mr. Dick took out his pocket-handkerchief, and wiped his eyes. He then folded it up with great care, pressed it smooth between his two hands, put it in his pocket, and seemed to put my aunt away with it. "Now you are a scholar, Trotwood," said Mr. Dick. "You are a fine scholar. You know what a learned man, what a great man, the Doctor is. You know what honor he has always done me. Not proud in his wisdom. Humble, humble--condescending even to poor Dick, who is simple and knows nothing. I have sent his name up, on a scrap of paper, to the kite, along the string, when it has been in the sky, among the larks. The kite has been glad to receive it, sir, and the sky has been brighter with it." I delighted him by saying, most heartily, that the Doctor was deserving of our best respect and highest esteem. "And his beautiful wife is a star," said Mr. Dick. "A shining star. I have seen her shine, sir. But," bringing his chair nearer, and laying one hand upon my knee--"clouds, sir--clouds." I answered the solicitude which his face expressed, by conveying the same expression into my own, and shaking my head. "What clouds?" said Mr. Dick. He looked so wistfully into my face, and was so anxious to understand, that I took great pains to answer him slowly and distinctly, as I might have entered on an explanation to a child. "There is some unfortunate division between them," I replied. "Some unhappy cause of separation. A secret. It may be inseparable from the discrepancy in their years. It may have grown up out of almost nothing." Mr. Dick, who told off every sentence with a thoughtful nod, paused when I had done, and sat considering, with his eyes upon my face, and his hand upon my knee. "Doctor not angry with her, Trotwood?" he said, after some time. "No. Devoted to her." "Then, I have got it, boy!" said Mr. Dick. The sudden exultation with which he slapped me on the knee, and leaned back in his chair, with his eyebrows lifted up as high as he could possibly lift them, made me think him farther out of his wits than ever. He became as suddenly grave again, and leaning forward as before, said--first respectfully taking out his pocket-handkerchief, as if it really did represent my aunt: "Most wonderful woman in the world, Trotwood. Why has _she_ done nothing to set things right?" "Too delicate and difficult a subject for such interference," I replied. "Fine scholar," said Mr. Dick, touching me with his finger. "Why has _he_ done nothing." "For the same reason," I returned. "Then, I have got it, boy!" said Mr. Dick. And he stood up before me, more exultingly than before, nodding his head, and striking himself repeatedly upon the breast, until one might have supposed that he had nearly nodded and struck all the breath out of his body. "A poor fellow with a craze, sir," said Mr. Dick, "a simpleton, a weak-minded person--present company, you know!" striking himself again, "may do what wonderful people may not do. I'll bring them together, boy. I'll try. They'll not blame _me_. They'll not object to _me_. They'll not mind what _I_ do, if it's wrong. I'm only Mr. Dick. And who minds Dick? Dick's nobody! Whoo!" He blew a slight, contemptuous breath, as if he blew himself away. It was fortunate he had proceeded so far with his mystery, for we heard the coach stop at the little garden gate, which brought my aunt and Dora home. "Not a word, boy!" he pursued in a whisper; "leave all the blame with Dick--simple Dick--mad Dick. I have been thinking, sir, for some time that I was getting it, and now I have got it. After what you have said to me, I am sure I have got it. All right!" Not another word did Mr. Dick utter on the subject; but he made a very telegraph of himself for the next half-hour (to the great disturbance of my aunt's mind), to enjoin inviolable secresy on me. To my surprise I heard no more about it for some two or three weeks, though I was sufficiently interested in the result of his endeavours; descrying a strange gleam of good sense--I say nothing of good feeling, for that he always exhibited--in the conclusion to which he had come. At last I began to believe, that, in the flighty and unsettled state of his mind, he had either forgotten his intention or abandoned it. One fair evening, when Dora was not inclined to go out, my aunt and I strolled up to the Doctor's cottage. It was autumn, when there were no debates to vex the evening air; and I remember how the leaves smelt like our garden at Blunderstone as we trod them under foot, and how the old, unhappy feeling, seemed to go by, on the sighing wind. It was twilight when we reached the cottage. Mrs. Strong was just coming out of the garden, where Mr. Dick yet lingered, busy with his knife, helping the gardener to point some stakes. The Doctor was engaged with some one in his study; but the visitor would be gone directly, Mrs. Strong said, and begged us to remain and see him. We went into the drawing-room with her, and sat down by the darkening window. There was never any ceremony about the visits of such old friends and neighbours as we were. We had not sat here many minutes, when Mrs. Markleham, who usually contrived to be in a fuss about something, came bustling in, with her newspaper in her hand, and said, out of breath, "My goodness gracious, Annie, why didn't you tell me there was some one in the Study!" "My dear mama," she quietly returned, "how could I know that you desired the information!" "Desired the information!" said Mrs. Markleham, sinking on the sofa. "I never had such a turn in all my life!" "Have you been to the Study then, mama?" asked Annie. "_Been_ to the Study, my dear!" she returned emphatically. "Indeed I have! I came upon the amiable creature--if you'll imagine my feelings, Miss Trotwood and David--in the act of making his will." Her daughter looked round from the window quickly. "In the act, my dear Annie," repeated Mrs. Markleham, spreading the newspaper on her lap like a table-cloth, and patting her hands upon it, "of making his last Will and Testament. The foresight and affection of the dear! I must tell you how it was. I really must, in justice to the darling--for he is nothing less!--tell you how it was. Perhaps you know, Miss Trotwood, that there is never a candle lighted in this house, until one's eyes are literally falling out of one's head with being stretched to read the paper. And that there is not a chair in this house, in which a paper can be what _I_ call, read, except one in the Study. This took me to the Study, where I saw a light. I opened the door. In company with the dear Doctor were two professional people, evidently connected with the law, and they were all three standing at the table: the darling Doctor pen in hand. 'This simply expresses then,' said the Doctor--Annie, my love, attend to the very words--'this simply expresses then, gentlemen, the confidence I have in Mrs. Strong, and gives her all unconditionally?' One of the professional people replied, 'And gives her all unconditionally.' Upon that, with the natural feelings of a mother, I said, 'Good God, I beg your pardon!' fell over the door-step, and came away through the little back passage where the pantry is." Mrs. Strong opened the window, and went out into the verandah, where she stood leaning against a pillar. "But now isn't it, Miss Trotwood, isn't it, David, invigorating," said Mrs. Markleham, mechanically following her with her eyes, "to find a man at Doctor Strong's time of life, with the strength of mind to do this kind of thing? It only shows how right I was. I said to Annie, when Doctor Strong paid a very flattering visit to myself, and made her the subject of a declaration and an offer, I said, 'My dear, there is no doubt whatever, in my opinion, with reference to a suitable provision for you, that Doctor Strong will do more than he binds himself to do.'" Here the bell rang, and we heard the sound of the visitors' feet as they went out. "It's all over, no doubt," said the Old Soldier, after listening; "the dear creature has signed, sealed, and delivered, and his mind's at rest. Well it may be! What a mind! Annie, my love, I am going to the Study with my paper, for I am a poor creature without news. Miss Trotwood, David, pray come and see the Doctor." I was conscious of Mr. Dick's standing in the shadow of the room, shutting up his knife, when we accompanied her to the Study; and of my aunt's rubbing her nose violently, by the way, as a mild vent for her intolerance of our military friend; but who got first into the Study, or how Mrs. Markleham settled herself in a moment in her easy chair, or how my aunt and I came to be left together near the door (unless her eyes were quicker than mine, and she held me back), I have forgotten, if I ever knew. But this I know,--that we saw the Doctor before he saw us, sitting at his table, among the folio volumes in which he delighted, resting his head calmly on his hand. That, in the same moment, we saw Mrs. Strong glide in, pale and trembling. That Mr. Dick supported her on his arm. That he laid his other hand upon the Doctor's arm, causing him to look up with an abstracted air. That, as the Doctor moved his head, his wife dropped down on one knee at his feet, and, with her hands imploringly lifted, fixed upon his face the memorable look I had never forgotten. That at this sight Mrs. Markleham dropped the newspaper, and stared more like a figure-head intended for a ship to be called The Astonishment, than anything else I can think of. [Illustration: Mr. Dick fulfils my Aunt's prediction.] The gentleness of the Doctor's manner and surprise, the dignity that mingled with the supplicating attitude of his wife, the amiable concern of Mr. Dick, and the earnestness with which my aunt said to herself, "_That_ man mad!" (triumphantly expressive of the misery from which she had saved him), I see and hear, rather than remember, as I write about it. "Doctor!" said Mr. Dick. "What is it that's amiss? Look here!" "Annie!" cried the Doctor. "Not at my feet, my dear!" "Yes!" she said. "I beg and pray that no one will leave the room! Oh, my husband and father, break this long silence. Let us both know what it is that has come between us!" Mrs. Markleham, by this time recovering the power of speech, and seeming to swell with family pride and motherly indignation, here exclaimed, "Annie, get up immediately, and don't disgrace everybody belonging to you by humbling yourself like that, unless you wish to see me go out of my mind on the spot!" "Mama!" returned Annie. "Waste no words on me, for my appeal is to my husband, and even you are nothing here." "Nothing!" exclaimed Mrs. Markleham. "Me, nothing! The child has taken leave of her senses. Please to get me a glass of water!" I was too attentive to the Doctor and his wife, to give any heed to this request; and it made no impression on anybody else; so Mrs. Markleham panted, stared, and fanned herself. "Annie!" said the Doctor, tenderly taking her in his hands. "My dear! If any unavoidable change has come, in the sequence of time, upon our married life, you are not to blame. The fault is mine, and only mine. There is no change in my affection, admiration, and respect. I wish to make you happy. I truly love and honor you. Rise, Annie, pray!" But she did not rise. After looking at him for a little while, she sank down closer to him, laid her arm across his knee, and dropping her head upon it, said: "If I have any friend here, who can speak one word for me, or for my husband, in this matter; if I have any friend here, who can give a voice to any suspicion that my heart has sometimes whispered to me; if I have any friend here, who honors my husband, or has ever cared for me, and has anything within his knowledge, no matter what it is, that may help to mediate between us, I implore that friend to speak!" There was a profound silence. After a few moments of painful hesitation, I broke the silence. "Mrs. Strong," I said, "there is something within my knowledge, which I have been earnestly entreated by Doctor Strong to conceal, and have concealed until to-night. But, I believe the time has come when it would be mistaken faith and delicacy to conceal it any longer, and when your appeal absolves me from his injunction." She turned her face towards me for a moment, and I knew that I was right. I could not have resisted its entreaty, if the assurance that it gave me had been less convincing. "Our future peace," she said, "may be in your hands. I trust it confidently to your not suppressing anything. I know beforehand that nothing you, or any one, can tell me, will show my husband's noble heart in any other light than one. Howsoever it may seem to you to touch me, disregard that. I will speak for myself, before him, and before God afterwards." Thus earnestly besought, I made no reference to the Doctor for his permission, but, without any other compromise of the truth than a little softening of the coarseness of Uriah Heep, related plainly what had passed in that same room that night. The staring of Mrs. Markleham during the whole narration, and the shrill, sharp interjections with which she occasionally interrupted it, defy description. When I had finished, Annie remained, for some few moments, silent, with her head bent down, as I have described. Then, she took the Doctor's hand (he was sitting in the same attitude as when we had entered the room), and pressed it to her breast, and kissed it. Mr. Dick softly raised her; and she stood, when she began to speak, leaning on him, and looking down upon her husband--from whom she never turned her eyes. "All that has ever been in my mind, since I was married," she said in a low, submissive, tender voice, "I will lay bare before you. I could not live and have one reservation, knowing what I know now." "Nay, Annie," said the Doctor, mildly, "I have never doubted you, my child. There is no need; indeed there is no need, my dear." "There is great need," she answered, in the same way, "that I should open my whole heart before the soul of generosity and truth, whom, year by year, and day by day, I have loved and venerated more and more, as Heaven knows!" "Really," interrupted Mrs. Markleham, "if I have any discretion at all--" ("Which you haven't, you Marplot," observed my aunt, in an indignant whisper.) --"I must be permitted to observe that it cannot be requisite to enter into these details." "No one but my husband can judge of that, mama," said Annie, without removing her eyes from his face, "and he will hear me. If I say anything to give you pain, mama, forgive me. I have borne pain first, often and long, myself." "Upon my word!" gasped Mrs. Markleham. "When I was very young," said Annie, "quite a little child, my first associations with knowledge of any kind were inseparable from a patient friend and teacher--the friend of my dead father--who was always dear to me. I can remember nothing that I know, without remembering him. He stored my mind with its first treasures, and stamped his character upon them all. They never could have been, I think, as good as they have been to me, if I had taken them from any other hands." "Makes her mother nothing!" exclaimed Mrs. Markleham. "Not so, mama," said Annie; "but I make him what he was. I must do that. As I grew up, he occupied the same place still. I was proud of his interest: deeply, fondly, gratefully attached to him. I looked up to him I can hardly describe how--as a father, as a guide, as one whose praise was different from all other praise, as one in whom I could have trusted and confided, if I had doubted all the world. You know, mama, how young and inexperienced I was, when you presented him before me, of a sudden, as a lover." "I have mentioned the fact, fifty times at least, to everybody here!" said Mrs. Markleham. ("Then hold your tongue, for the Lord's sake, and don't mention it any more!" muttered my aunt). "It was so great a change: so great a loss, I felt it, at first," said Annie, still preserving the same look and tone, "that I was agitated and distressed. I was but a girl; and when so great a change came in the character in which I had so long looked up to him, I think I was sorry. But nothing could have made him what he used to be again; and I was proud that he should think me so worthy, and we were married." "--At Saint Alphage, Canterbury," observed Mrs. Markleham. ("Confound the woman!" said my aunt, "she _won't_ be quiet!") "I never thought," proceeded Annie, with a heightened color, "of any worldly gain that my husband would bring to me. My young heart had no room in its homage for any such poor reference. Mama, forgive me when I say that it was _you_ who first presented to my mind the thought that any one could wrong me, and wrong him, by such a cruel suspicion." "Me!" cried Mrs. Markleham. ("Ah! You, to be sure!" observed my aunt, "and you can't fan it away, my military friend!") "It was the first unhappiness of my new life," said Annie. "It was the first occasion of every unhappy moment I have known. Those moments have been more, of late, than I can count; but not--my generous husband!--not for the reason you suppose; for in my heart there is not a thought, a recollection, or a hope, that any power could separate from you!" She raised her eyes, and clasped her hands, and looked as beautiful and true, I thought, as any Spirit. The Doctor looked on her, henceforth, as stedfastly as she on him. "Mama is blameless," she went on, "of having ever urged you for herself, and she is blameless in intention everyway, I am sure,--but when I saw how many importunate claims that were no claims were pressed upon you in my name; how you were traded on in my name; how generous you were, and how Mr. Wickfield, who had your welfare very much at heart, resented it; the first sense of my exposure to the mean suspicion that my tenderness was bought--and sold to you, of all men, on earth--fell upon me, like unmerited disgrace, in which I forced you to participate. I cannot tell you what it was--mama cannot imagine what it was--to have this dread and trouble always on my mind, yet know in my own soul that on my marriage-day I crowned the love and honor of my life!" "A specimen of the thanks one gets," cried Mrs. Markleham, in tears, "for taking care of one's family! I wish I was a Turk!" ("I wish you were, with all my heart--and in your native country!" said my aunt). "It was at that time that mama was most solicitous about my Cousin Maldon. I had liked him:" she spoke softly, but without any hesitation: "very much. We had been little lovers once. If circumstances had not happened otherwise, I might have come to persuade myself that I really loved him, and might have married him, and been most wretched. There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose." I pondered on those words, even while I was studiously attending to what followed, as if they had some particular interest, or some strange application that I could not divine. "There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose"--"no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose." "There is nothing," said Annie, "that we have in common. I have long found that there is nothing. If I were thankful to my husband for no more, instead of for so much, I should be thankful to him for having saved me from the first mistaken impulse of my undisciplined heart." She stood quite still, before the Doctor, and spoke with an earnestness that thrilled me. Yet her voice was just as quiet as before. "When he was waiting to be the object of your munificence, so freely bestowed for my sake, and when I was unhappy in the mercenary shape I was made to wear, I thought it would have become him better to have worked his own way on. I thought that if I had been he, I would have tried to do it, at the cost of almost any hardship. But I thought no worse of him, until the night of his departure for India. That night I knew he had a false and thankless heart. I saw a double meaning, then, in Mr. Wickfield's scrutiny of me. I perceived, for the first time, the dark suspicion that shadowed my life." "Suspicion, Annie!" said the Doctor. "No, no, no!" "In your mind there was none, I know, my husband!" she returned. "And when I came to you, that night, to lay down all my load of shame and grief, and knew that I had to tell, that, underneath your roof, one of my own kindred, to whom you had been a benefactor, for the love of me, had spoken to me words that should have found no utterance, even if I had been the weak and mercenary wretch he thought me--my mind revolted from the taint the very tale conveyed. It died upon my lips, and from that hour till now has never passed them." Mrs. Markleham, with a short groan, leaned back in her easy chair; and retired behind her fan, as if she were never coming out any more. "I have never, but in your presence, interchanged a word with him from that time; then, only when it has been necessary for the avoidance of this explanation. Years have passed since he knew, from me, what his situation here was. The kindnesses you have secretly done for his advancement, and then disclosed to me, for my surprise and pleasure, have been, you will believe, but aggravations of the unhappiness and burden of my secret." She sunk down gently at the Doctor's feet, though he did his utmost to prevent her; and said, looking up, tearfully, into his face: "Do not speak to me yet! Let me say a little more! Right or wrong, if this were to be done again, I think I should do just the same. You never can know what it was to be devoted to you, with those old associations; to find that any one could be so hard as to suppose that the truth of my heart was bartered away, and to be surrounded by appearances confirming that belief. I was very young, and had no adviser. Between mama and me, in all relating to you, there was a wide division. If I shrunk into myself, hiding the disrespect I had undergone, it was because I honored you so much, and so much wished that you should honor me!" "Annie, my pure heart!" said the Doctor, "my dear girl!" "A little more! a very few words more! I used to think there were so many whom you might have married, who would not have brought such charge and trouble on you, and who would have made your home a worthier home. I used to be afraid that I had better have remained your pupil, and almost your child. I used to fear that I was so unsuited to your learning and wisdom. If all this made me shrink within myself (as indeed it did), when I had that to tell, it was still because I honored you so much, and hoped that you might one day honor me." "That day has shone this long time, Annie," said the Doctor, "and can have but one long night, my dear." "Another word! I afterwards meant--stedfastly meant, and purposed to myself--to bear the whole weight of knowing the unworthiness of one to whom you had been so good. And now a last word, dearest and best of friends! The cause of the late change in you, which I have seen with so much pain and sorrow, and have sometimes referred to my old apprehension--at other times to lingering suppositions nearer to the truth--has been made clear to-night; and by an accident I have also come to know, to-night, the full measure of your noble trust in me, even under that mistake. I do not hope that any love and duty I may render in return, will ever make me worthy of your priceless confidence; but with all this knowledge fresh upon me, I can lift my eyes to this dear face, revered as a father's, loved as a husband's, sacred to me in my childhood as a friend's, and solemnly declare that in my lightest thought I have never wronged you; never wavered in the love and the fidelity I owe you!" She had her arms around the Doctor's neck, and he leant his head down over her, mingling his grey hair with her dark brown tresses. "Oh, hold me to your heart, my husband! Never cast me out! Do not think or speak of disparity between us, for there is none, except in all my many imperfections. Every succeeding year I have known this better, as I have esteemed you more and more. Oh, take me to your heart, my husband, for my love was founded on a rock, and it endures!" In the silence that ensued, my aunt walked gravely up to Mr. Dick, without at all hurrying herself, and gave him a hug and a sounding kiss. And it was very fortunate, with a view to his credit, that she did so; for I am confident that I detected him at that moment in the act of making preparations to stand on one leg, as an appropriate expression of delight. "You are a very remarkable man, Dick!" said my aunt, with an air of unqualified approbation; "and never pretend to be anything else, for I know better!" With that, my aunt pulled him by the sleeve, and nodded to me; and we three stole quietly out of the room, and came away. "That's a settler for our military friend, at any rate," said my aunt, on the way home. "I should sleep the better for that, if there was nothing else to be glad of!" "She was quite overcome, I am afraid," said Mr. Dick, with great commiseration. "What! Did you ever see a crocodile overcome?" inquired my aunt. "I don't think I ever saw a crocodile," returned Mr. Dick, mildly. "There never would have been anything the matter, if it hadn't been for that old Animal," said my aunt, with strong emphasis. "It's very much to be wished that some mothers would leave their daughters alone after marriage, and not be so violently affectionate. They seem to think the only return that can be made them for bringing an unfortunate young woman into the world--God bless my soul, as if she asked to be brought, or wanted to come!--is full liberty to worry her out of it again. What are you thinking of, Trot?" I was thinking of all that had been said. My mind was still running on some of the expressions used. "There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose." "The first mistaken impulse of an undisciplined heart." "My love was founded on a rock." But we were at home; and the trodden leaves were lying under-foot, and the autumn wind was blowing. CHAPTER XLVI. INTELLIGENCE. I must have been married, if I may trust to my imperfect memory for dates, about a year or so, when one evening, as I was returning from a solitary walk, thinking of the book I was then writing--for my success had steadily increased with my steady application, and I was engaged at that time upon my first work of fiction--I came past Mrs. Steerforth's house. I had often passed it before, during my residence in that neighbourhood, though never when I could choose another road. Howbeit, it did sometimes happen that it was not easy to find another, without making a long circuit; and so I had passed that way, upon the whole, pretty often. I had never done more than glance at the house, as I went by with a quickened step. It had been uniformly gloomy and dull. None of the best rooms abutted on the road; and the narrow, heavily-framed old-fashioned windows, never cheerful under any circumstances, looked very dismal, close shut, and with their blinds always drawn down. There was a covered way across a little paved court, to an entrance that was never used; and there was one round staircase window, at odds with all the rest, and the only one unshaded by a blind, which had the same unoccupied blank look. I do not remember that I ever saw a light in all the house. If I had been a casual passer-by, I should have probably supposed that some childless person lay dead in it. If I had happily possessed no knowledge of the place, and had seen it often in that changeless state, I should have pleased my fancy with many ingenious speculations, I dare say. As it was, I thought as little of it as I might. But my mind could not go by it and leave it, as my body did; and it usually awakened a long train of meditations. Coming before me, on this particular evening that I mention, mingled with the childish recollections and later fancies, the ghosts of half-formed hopes, the broken shadows of disappointments dimly seen and understood, the blending of experience and imagination, incidental to the occupation with which my thoughts had been busy, it was more than commonly suggestive. I fell into a brown study as I walked on, and a voice at my side made me start. It was a woman's voice, too. I was not long in recollecting Mrs. Steerforth's little parlor-maid, who had formerly worn blue ribbons in her cap. She had taken them out now, to adapt herself, I suppose, to the altered character of the house; and wore but one or two disconsolate bows of sober brown. "If you please, sir, would you have the goodness to walk in, and speak to Miss Dartle?" "Has Miss Dartle sent you for me?" I inquired. "Not to-night, sir, but it's just the same. Miss Dartle saw you pass a night or two ago; and I was to sit at work on the staircase, and when I saw you pass again, to ask you to step in and speak to her." I turned back, and inquired of my conductor, as we went along, how Mrs. Steerforth was. She said her lady was but poorly, and kept her own room a good deal. When we arrived at the house, I was directed to Miss Dartle in the garden, and left to make my presence known to her myself. She was sitting on a seat at one end of a kind of terrace, overlooking the great city. It was a sombre evening, with a lurid light in the sky; and as I saw the prospect scowling in the distance, with here and there some larger object starting up into the sullen glare, I fancied it was no inapt companion to the memory of this fierce woman. She saw me as I advanced, and rose for a moment to receive me. I thought her, then, still more colorless and thin than when I had seen her last; the flashing eyes still brighter, and the scar still plainer. Our meeting was not cordial. We had parted angrily on the last occasion; and there was an air of disdain about her, which she took no pains to conceal. "I am told you wish to speak to me, Miss Dartle;" said I, standing near her, with my hand upon the back of the seat, and declining her gesture of invitation to sit down. "If you please," said she. "Pray has this girl been found?" "No." "And yet she has run away!" I saw her thin lips working while she looked at me, as if they were eager to load her with reproaches. "Run away?" I repeated. "Yes! From him," she said with a laugh. "If she is not found, perhaps she never will be found. She may be dead!" The vaunting cruelty with which she met my glance, I never saw expressed in any other face that ever I have seen. "To wish her dead," said I, "may be the kindest wish that one of her own sex could bestow upon her. I am glad that time has softened you so much, Miss Dartle." She condescended to make no reply, but, turning on me with another scornful laugh, said: "The friends of this excellent and much-injured young lady are friends of yours. You are their champion, and assert their rights. Do you wish to know what is known of her?" "Yes," said I. She rose with an ill-favored smile, and, taking a few steps towards a wall of holly that was near at hand, dividing the lawn from a kitchen-garden, said, in a louder voice, "Come here!"--as if she were calling to some unclean beast. "You will restrain any demonstrative championship or vengeance in this place, of course, Mr. Copperfield?" said she, looking over her shoulder at me with the same expression. I inclined my head, without knowing what she meant; and she said, "Come here!" again; and returned, followed by the respectable Mr. Littimer, who, with undiminished respectability, made me a bow, and took up his position behind her. The air of wicked grace: of triumph, in which, strange to say, there was yet something feminine and alluring: with which she reclined upon the seat between us, and looked at me, was worthy of a cruel Princess in a Legend. "Now," said she, imperiously, without glancing at him, and touching the old wound as it throbbed: perhaps, in this instance, with pleasure rather than pain. "Tell Mr. Copperfield about the flight." "Mr. James and myself, ma'am----" "Don't address yourself to me!" she interrupted, with a frown. "Mr. James and myself, sir----" "Nor to me, if you please," said I. Mr. Littimer, without being at all discomposed, signified by a slight obeisance, that anything that was most agreeable to us was most agreeable to him; and began again: "Mr. James and myself have been abroad with the young woman, ever since she left Yarmouth under Mr. James's protection. We have been in a variety of places, and seen a deal of foreign country. We have been in France, Switzerland, Italy, in fact, almost all parts." He looked at the back of the seat, as if he were addressing himself to that; and softly played upon it with his hands, as if he were striking chords upon a dumb piano. "Mr. James took quite uncommonly to the young woman; and was more settled, for a length of time, than I have known him to be since I have been in his service. The young woman was very improvable, and spoke the languages; and wouldn't have been known for the same country-person. I noticed that she was much admired wherever we went." Miss Dartle put her hand upon her side. I saw him steal a glance at her, and slightly smile to himself. "Very much admired, indeed, the young woman was. What with her dress; what with the air and sun; what with being made so much of; what with this, that, and the other; her merits really attracted general notice." He made a short pause. Her eyes wandered restlessly over the distant prospect, and she bit her nether lip to stop that busy mouth. Taking his hands from the seat, and placing one of them within the other, as he settled himself on one leg, Mr. Littimer proceeded, with his eyes cast down, and his respectable head a little advanced, and a little on one side: "The young woman went on in this manner for some time, being occasionally low in her spirits, until I think she began to weary Mr. James by giving way to her low spirits and tempers of that kind; and things were not so comfortable. Mr. James he began to be restless again. The more restless he got, the worse she got; and I must say, for myself, that I had a very difficult time of it indeed between the two. Still matters were patched up here, and made good there, over and over again; and altogether lasted, I am sure, for a longer time than anybody could have expected." Recalling her eyes from the distance, she looked at me again now, with her former air. Mr. Littimer, clearing his throat behind his hand with a respectable short-cough, changed legs, and went on: "At last, when there had been, upon the whole, a good many words and reproaches, Mr. James he set off one morning, from the neighbourhood of Naples, where we had a villa (the young woman being very partial to the sea), and, under pretence of coming back in a day or so, left it in charge with me to break it out, that, for the general happiness of all concerned, he was"--here an interruption of the short cough--"gone. But Mr. James, I must say, certainly did behave extremely honorable; for he proposed that the young woman should marry a very respectable person, who was fully prepared to overlook the past, and who was, at least, as good as anybody the young woman could have aspired to in a regular way: her connexions being very common." He changed legs again, and wetted his lips. I was convinced that the scoundrel spoke of himself, and I saw my conviction reflected in Miss Dartle's face. "This I also had it in charge to communicate. I was willing to do anything to relieve Mr. James from his difficulty, and to restore harmony between himself and an affectionate parent, who has undergone so much on his account. Therefore I undertook the commission. The young woman's violence when she came to, after I broke the fact of his departure, was beyond all expectations. She was quite mad, and had to be held by force; or, if she couldn't have got to a knife, or got to the sea, she'd have beaten her head against the marble floor." Miss Dartle, leaning back upon the seat, with a light of exultation in her face, seemed almost to caress the sounds this fellow had uttered. "But when I came to the second part of what had been entrusted to me," said Mr. Littimer, rubbing his hands, uneasily, "which anybody might have supposed would have been, at all events, appreciated as a kind intention, then the young woman came out in her true colors. A more outrageous person I never did see. Her conduct was surprisingly bad. She had no more gratitude, no more feeling, no more patience, no more reason in her, than a stock or a stone. If I hadn't been upon my guard, I am convinced she would have had my blood." "I think the better of her for it," said I, indignantly. Mr. Littimer bent his head, as much as to say, "Indeed, sir? But you're young!" and resumed his narrative. "It was necessary, in short, for a time, to take away everything nigh her, that she could do herself, or anybody else, an injury with, and to shut her up close. Notwithstanding which, she got out in the night; forced the lattice of a window, that I had nailed up myself; dropped on a vine that was trailed below; and never has been seen or heard of, to my knowledge, since." "She is dead, perhaps," said Miss Dartle, with a smile, as if she could have spurned the body of the ruined girl. "She may have drownded herself, miss," returned Mr. Littimer, catching at an excuse for addressing himself to somebody. "It's very possible. Or, she may have had assistance from the boatmen, and the boatmen's wives and children. Being given to low company, she was very much in the habit of talking to them on the beach, Miss Dartle, and sitting by their boats. I have known her do it, when Mr. James has been away, whole days. Mr. James was far from pleased to find out, once, that she had told the children she was a boatman's daughter, and that in her own country, long ago, she had roamed about the beach, like them." Oh, Emily! Unhappy beauty! What a picture rose before me of her sitting on the far-off shore, among the children like herself when she was innocent, listening to little voices such as might have called her Mother had she been a poor man's wife; and to the great voice of the sea, with its eternal "Never more!" "When it was clear that nothing could be done, Miss Dartle--" "Did I tell you not to speak to me?" she said, with stern contempt. "You spoke to me, miss," he replied. "I beg your pardon. But it's my service to obey." "Do your service," she returned. "Finish your story, and go!" "When it was clear," he said, with infinite respectability, and an obedient bow, "that she was not to be found, I went to Mr. James, at the place where it had been agreed that I should write to him, and informed him of what had occurred. Words passed between us in consequence, and I felt it due to my character to leave him. I could bear, and I have borne, a great deal from Mr. James; but he insulted me too far. He hurt me. Knowing the unfortunate difference between himself and his mother, and what her anxiety of mind was likely to be, I took the liberty of coming home to England, and relating--" "For money which I paid him," said Miss Dartle to me. "Just so, ma'am--and relating what I knew. I am not aware," said Mr. Littimer, after a moment's reflection, "that there is anything else. I am at present out of employment, and should be happy to meet with a respectable situation." Miss Dartle glanced at me, as though she would inquire if there were anything that I desired to ask. As there was something which had occurred to my mind, I said in reply: "I could wish to know from this--creature," I could not bring myself to utter any more conciliatory word, "whether they intercepted a letter that was written to her from home, or whether he supposes that she received it." He remained calm and silent, with his eyes fixed on the ground, and the tip of every finger of his right hand delicately poised against the tip of every finger of his left. Miss Dartle turned her head disdainfully towards him. "I beg your pardon, miss," he said, awakening from his abstraction, "but, however submissive to you, I have my position, though a servant. Mr. Copperfield and you, miss, are different people. If Mr. Copperfield wishes to know anything from me, I take the liberty of reminding Mr. Copperfield that he can put a question to me. I have a character to maintain." After a momentary struggle with myself, I turned my eyes upon him, and said, "You have heard my question. Consider it addressed to yourself, if you choose. What answer do you make?" "Sir," he rejoined, with an occasional separation and reunion of those delicate tips, "my answer must be qualified; because, to betray Mr. James's confidence to his mother, and to betray it to you, are two different actions. It is not probable, I consider, that Mr. James would encourage the receipt of letters likely to increase low spirits and unpleasantness; but further than that, sir, I should wish to avoid going." "Is that all?" enquired Miss Dartle of me. I indicated that I had nothing more to say. "Except," I added, as I saw him moving off, "that I understand this fellow's part in the wicked story, and that, as I shall make it known to the honest man who has been her father from her childhood, I would recommend him to avoid going too much into public." He had stopped the moment I began, and had listened with his usual repose of manner. "Thank you, sir. But you'll excuse me if I say, sir, that there are neither slaves nor slave-drivers in this country, and that people are not allowed to take the law into their own hands. If they do, it is more to their own peril, I believe, than to other people's. Consequently speaking, I am not at all afraid of going wherever I may wish, sir." With that, he made me a polite bow; and, with another to Miss Dartle, went away through the arch in the wall of holly by which he had come. Miss Dartle and I regarded each other for a little while in silence; her manner being exactly what it was, when she had produced the man. "He says besides," she observed, with a slow curling of her lip, "that his master, as he hears, is coasting Spain; and this done, is away to gratify his seafaring tastes till he is weary. But that is of no interest to you. Between these two proud persons, mother and son, there is a wider breach than before, and little hope of its healing, for they are one at heart, and time makes each more obstinate and imperious. Neither is this of any interest to you; but it introduces what I wish to say. This devil whom you make an angel of, I mean this low girl whom he picked out of the tide-mud," with her black eyes full upon me, and her passionate finger up, "may be alive,--for I believe some common things are hard to die. If she is, you will desire to have a pearl of such price found and taken care of. We desire that, too; that he may not by any chance be made her prey again. So far, we are united in one interest; and that is why I, who would do her any mischief that so coarse a wretch is capable of feeling, have sent for you to hear what you have heard." I saw, by the change in her face, that some one was advancing behind me. It was Mrs. Steerforth, who gave me her hand more coldly than of yore, and with an augmentation of her former stateliness of manner; but still, I perceived--and I was touched by it--with an ineffaceable remembrance of my old love for her son. She was greatly altered. Her fine figure was far less upright, her handsome face was deeply marked, and her hair was almost white. But when she sat down on the seat, she was a handsome lady still; and well I knew the bright eye with its lofty look, that had been a light in my very dreams at school. "Is Mr. Copperfield informed of everything, Rosa?" "Yes." "And has he heard Littimer himself?" "Yes; I have told him why you wished it." "You are a good girl. I have had some slight correspondence with your former friend, sir," addressing me, "but it has not restored his sense of duty or natural obligation. Therefore I have no other object in this, than what Rosa has mentioned. If, by the course which may relieve the mind of the decent man you brought here (for whom I am sorry--I can say no more), my son may be saved from again falling into the snares of a designing enemy, well!" She drew herself up, and sat looking straight before her, far away. "Madam," I said respectfully, "I understand. I assure you I am in no danger of putting any strained construction on your motives. But I must say, even to you, having known this injured family from childhood, that if you suppose the girl, so deeply wronged, has not been cruelly deluded, and would not rather die a hundred deaths than take a cup of water from your son's hand now, you cherish a terrible mistake." "Well, Rosa, well!" said Mrs. Steerforth, as the other was about to interpose, "it is no matter. Let it be. You are married, sir, I am told?" I answered that I had been some time married. "And are doing well? I hear little in the quiet life I lead, but I understand you are beginning to be famous." "I have been very fortunate," I said, "and find my name connected with some praise." "You have no mother?"--in a softened voice. "No." "It is a pity," she returned. "She would have been proud of you. Good night!" I took the hand she held out with a dignified, unbending air, and it was as calm in mine as if her breast had been at peace. Her pride could still its very pulses it appeared, and draw the placid veil before her face, through which she sat looking straight before her on the far distance. As I moved away from them along the terrace, I could not help observing how steadily they both sat gazing on the prospect, and how it thickened and closed around them. Here and there, some early lamps were seen to twinkle in the distant city; and in the eastern quarter of the sky the lurid light still hovered. But, from the greater part of the broad valley interposed, a mist was rising like a sea, which, mingling with the darkness, made it seem as if the gathering waters would encompass them. I have reason to remember this, and think of it with awe; for before I looked upon those two again, a stormy sea had risen to their feet. Reflecting on what had been thus told me, I felt it right that it should be communicated to Mr. Peggotty. On the following evening I went into London in quest of him. He was always wandering about from place to place, with his one object of recovering his niece before him; but was more in London than elsewhere. Often and often, now, had I seen him in the dead of night passing along the streets, searching, among the few who loitered out of doors at those untimely hours, for what he dreaded to find. He kept a lodging over the little chandler's shop in Hungerford Market, which I have had occasion to mention more than once, and from which he first went forth upon his errand of mercy. Hither I directed my walk. On making inquiry for him, I learned from the people of the house that he had not gone out yet, and I should find him in his room up-stairs. He was sitting reading by a window in which he kept a few plants. The room was very neat and orderly. I saw in a moment that it was always kept prepared for her reception, and that he never went out but he thought it possible he might bring her home. He had not heard my tap at the door, and only raised his eyes when I laid my hand upon his shoulder. "Mas'r Davy! Thankee, sir! thankee hearty, for this visit! Sit ye down. You're kindly welcome, sir!" "Mr. Peggotty," said I, taking the chair he handed me, "don't expect much! I have heard some news." "Of Em'ly!" He put his hand, in a nervous manner, on his mouth, and turned pale, as he fixed his eyes on mine. "It gives no clue to where she is; but she is not with him." He sat down, looking intently at me, and listened in profound silence to all I had to tell. I well remember the sense of dignity, beauty even, with which the patient gravity of his face impressed me, when, having gradually removed his eyes from mine, he sat looking downward, leaning his forehead on his hand. He offered no interruption, but remained throughout perfectly still. He seemed to pursue her figure through the narrative, and to let every other shape go by him, as if it were nothing. When I had done, he shaded his face, and continued silent. I looked out of the window for a little while, and occupied myself with the plants. "How do you fare to feel about it, Mas'r Davy?" he inquired at length. "I think that she is living," I replied. "I doen't know. Maybe the first shock was too rough, and in the wildness of her art----! That there blue water as she used to speak on. Could she have thowt o' that so many year, because it was to be her grave!" He said this, musing, in a low, frightened voice; and walked across the little room. "And yet," he added, "Mas'r Davy, I have felt so sure as she was living--I have know'd, awake and sleeping, as it was so trew that I should find her--I have been so led on by it, and held up by it--that I doen't believe I can have been deceived. No! Em'ly's alive!" He put his hand down firmly on the table, and set his sunburnt face into a resolute expression. "My niece, Em'ly, is alive, sir!" he said, stedfastly. "I doen't know wheer it comes from, or how 'tis, but _I am told_ as she's alive!" He looked almost like a man inspired, as he said it. I waited for a few moments, until he could give me his undivided attention; and then proceeded to explain the precaution, that, it had occurred to me last night, it would be wise to take. "Now, my dear friend--" I began. "Thankee, thankee, kind sir," he said, grasping my hand in both of his. "If she should make her way to London, which is likely--for where could she lose herself so readily as in this vast city; and what would she wish to do, but lose and hide herself, if she does not go home?--" "And she won't go home," he interposed, shaking his head mournfully. "If she had left of her own accord, she might; not as 'twas, sir." "If she should come here," said I, "I believe there is one person, here, more likely to discover her than any other in the world. Do you remember--hear what I say, with fortitude--think of your great object!--do you remember Martha?" "Of our town?" I needed no other answer than his face. "Do you know that she is in London?" "I have seen her in the streets," he answered, with a shiver. "But you don't know," said I, "that Emily was charitable to her, with Ham's help, long before she fled from home. Nor, that, when we met one night, and spoke together in the room yonder, over the way, she listened at the door." "Mas'r Davy?" he replied in astonishment. "That night when it snew so hard?" "That night. I have never seen her since. I went back, after parting from you, to speak to her, but she was gone. I was unwilling to mention her to you then, and I am now; but she is the person of whom I speak, and with whom I think we should communicate. Do you understand?" "Too well, sir," he replied. We had sunk our voices, almost to a whisper, and continued to speak in that tone. "You say you have seen her. Do you think that you could find her? I could only hope to do so by chance." "I think, Mas'r Davy, I know wheer to look." "It is dark. Being together, shall we go out now, and try to find her to-night?" He assented, and prepared to accompany me. Without appearing to observe what he was doing, I saw how carefully he adjusted the little room, put a candle ready and the means of lighting it, arranged the bed, and finally took out of a drawer one of her dresses (I remembered to have seen her wear it), neatly folded with some other garments, and a bonnet, which he placed upon a chair. He made no allusion to these clothes, neither did I. There they had been waiting for her, many and many a night, no doubt. "The time was, Mas'r Davy," he said, as we came down stairs, "when I thowt this girl, Martha, a'most like the dirt underneath my Em'ly's feet. God forgive me, there's a difference now!" As we went along, partly to hold him in conversation, and partly to satisfy myself, I asked him about Ham. He said, almost in the same words as formerly, that Ham was just the same, "wearing away his life with kiender no care nohow for't; but never murmuring, and liked by all." I asked him what he thought Ham's state of mind was, in reference to the cause of their misfortunes? Whether he believed it was dangerous? What he supposed, for example, Ham would do, if he and Steerforth ever should encounter? "I doen't know, sir," he replied. "I have thowt of it oftentimes, but I can't arrize myself of it, no matters." I recalled to his remembrance the morning after her departure, when we were all three on the beach. "Do you recollect," said I, "a certain wild way in which he looked out to sea, and spoke about 'the end of it.'" "Sure I do!" said he. "What do you suppose he meant?" "Mas'r Davy," he replied, "I've put the question to myself a mort o' times, and never found no answer. And theer's one curous thing--that, though he is so pleasant, I wouldn't fare to feel comfortable to try and get his mind upon 't. He never said a wured to me as warn't as dootiful as dootiful could be, and it ain't likely as he'd begin to speak any other ways now; but it's fur from being fleet water in his mind, where them thowts lays. It's deep, sir, and I can't see down." "You are right," said I, "and that has sometimes made me anxious." "And me too, Mas'r Davy," he rejoined. "Even more so, I do assure you, than his ventersome ways, though both belongs to the alteration in him. I doen't know as he'd do violence under any circumstarnces, but I hope as them two may be kep asunders." We had come, through Temple Bar, into the city. Conversing no more now, and walking at my side, he yielded himself up to the one aim of his devoted life, and went on, with that hushed concentration of his faculties which would have made his figure solitary in a multitude. We were not far from Blackfriars Bridge, when he turned his head and pointed to a solitary female figure flitting along the opposite side of the street. I knew it, readily, to be the figure that we sought. We crossed the road, and were pressing on towards her, when it occurred to me that she might be more disposed to feel a woman's interest in the lost girl, if we spoke to her in a quieter place, aloof from the crowd, and where we should be less observed. I advised my companion, therefore, that we should not address her yet, but follow her; consulting in this, likewise, an indistinct desire I had, to know where she went. He acquiescing, we followed at a distance: never losing sight of her, but never caring to come very near, as she frequently looked about. Once, she stopped to listen to a band of music; and then we stopped too. She went on a long way. Still we went on. It was evident, from the manner in which she held her course, that she was going to some fixed destination; and this, and her keeping in the busy streets, and, I suppose the strange fascination in the secresy and mystery of so following any one, made me adhere to my first purpose. At length she turned into a dull, dark street, where the noise and crowd were lost; and I said, "We may speak to her now;" and, mending our pace, we went after her. CHAPTER XLVII. MARTHA. We were now down in Westminster. We had turned back to follow her, having encountered her coming towards us; and Westminster Abbey was the point at which she passed from the lights and noise of the leading streets. She proceeded so quickly, when she got free of the two currents of passengers setting towards and from the bridge, that, between this and the advance she had of us when she struck off, we were in the narrow water-side street by Millbank before we came up with her. At that moment she crossed the road, as if to avoid the footsteps that she heard so close behind; and, without looking back, passed on even more rapidly. A glimpse of the river through a dull gateway, where some waggons were housed for the night, seemed to arrest my feet. I touched my companion without speaking, and we both forbore to cross after her, and both followed on that opposite side of the way; keeping as quietly as we could in the shadow of the houses, but keeping very near her. There was, and is when I write, at the end of that low-lying street, a dilapidated little wooden building, probably an obsolete old ferry-house. Its position is just at that point where the street ceases, and the road begins to lie between a row of houses and the river. As soon as she came here, and saw the water, she stopped as if she had come to her destination; and presently went slowly along by the brink of the river, looking intently at it. All the way here, I had supposed that she was going to some house; indeed, I had vaguely entertained the hope that the house might be in some way associated with the lost girl. But, that one dark glimpse of the river, through the gateway, had instinctively prepared me for her going no farther. The neighbourhood was a dreary one at that time; as oppressive, sad, and solitary by night, as any about London. There were neither wharves nor houses on the melancholy waste of road near the great blank Prison. A sluggish ditch deposited its mud at the prison walls. Coarse grass and rank weeds straggled over all the marshy land in the vicinity. In one part, carcases of houses, inauspiciously begun and never finished, rotted away. In another, the ground was cumbered with rusty iron monsters of steam-boilers, wheels, cranks, pipes, furnaces, paddles, anchors, diving-bells, windmill-sails, and I know not what strange objects, accumulated by some speculator, and grovelling in the dust, underneath which--having sunk into the soil of their own weight in wet weather--they had the appearance of vainly trying to hide themselves. The clash and glare of sundry fiery Works upon the river side, arose by night to disturb everything except the heavy and unbroken smoke that poured out of their chimneys. Slimy gaps and causeways, winding among old wooden piles, with a sickly substance clinging to the latter, like green hair, and the rags of last year's handbills offering rewards for drowned men fluttering above high-water mark, led down through the ooze and slush to the ebb tide. There was a story that one of the pits dug for the dead in the time of the Great Plague was hereabout; and a blighting influence seemed to have proceeded from it over the whole place. Or else it looked as if it had gradually decomposed into that nightmare condition, out of the overflowings of the polluted stream. As if she were a part of the refuse it had cast out, and left to corruption and decay, the girl we had followed strayed down to the river's brink, and stood in the midst of this night-picture, lonely and still, looking at the water. [Illustration: The River.] There were some boats and barges astrand in the mud, and these enabled us to come within a few yards of her without being seen. I then signed to Mr. Peggotty to remain where he was, and emerged from their shade to speak to her. I did not approach her solitary figure without trembling; for this gloomy end to her determined walk, and the way in which she stood, almost within the cavernous shadow of the iron bridge, looking at the lights crookedly reflected in the strong tide, inspired a dread within me. I think she was talking to herself. I am sure, although absorbed in gazing at the water, that her shawl was off her shoulders, and that she was muffling her hands in it, in an unsettled and bewildered way, more like the action of a sleep-walker than a waking person. I know, and never can forget, that there was that in her wild manner which gave me no assurance but that she would sink before my eyes, until I had her arm within my grasp. At the same moment I said "Martha!" She uttered a terrified scream, and struggled with me with such strength that I doubt if I could have held her alone. But a stronger hand than mine was laid upon her; and when she raised her frightened eyes and saw whose it was, she made but one more effort, and dropped down between us. We carried her away from the water to where there were some dry stones, and there laid her down, crying and moaning. In a little while she sat among the stones, holding her wretched head with both her hands. "Oh, the river!" she cried passionately. "Oh, the river!" "Hush, hush!" said I. "Calm yourself." But she still repeated the same words, continually exclaiming, "Oh, the river!" over and over again. "I know it's like me!" she exclaimed. "I know that I belong to it. I know that it's the natural company of such as I am! It comes from country places, where there was once no harm in it--and it creeps through the dismal streets, defiled and miserable--and it goes away, like my life, to a great sea, that is always troubled--and I feel that I must go with it!" I have never known what despair was, except in the tone of those words. "I can't keep away from it. I can't forget it. It haunts me day and night. It's the only thing in all the world that I am fit for, or that's fit for me. Oh, the dreadful river!" The thought passed through my mind that in the face of my companion, as he looked upon her without speech or motion, I might have read his niece's history, if I had known nothing of it. I never saw, in any painting or reality, horror and compassion so impressively blended. He shook as if he would have fallen; and his hand--I touched it with my own, for his appearance alarmed me--was deadly cold. "She is in a state of frenzy," I whispered to him. "She will speak differently in a little time." I don't know what he would have said in answer. He made some motion with his mouth, and seemed to think he had spoken; but he had only pointed to her with his outstretched hand. A new burst of crying came upon her now, in which she once more hid her face among the stones, and lay before us, a prostrate image of humiliation and ruin. Knowing that this state must pass, before we could speak to her with any hope, I ventured to restrain him when he would have raised her, and we stood by in silence until she became more tranquil. "Martha," said I then, leaning down, and helping her to rise--she seemed to want to rise as if with the intention of going away, but she was weak, and leaned against a boat. "Do you know who this is, who is with me?" She said faintly, "Yes." "Do you know that we have followed you a long way to-night?" She shook her head. She looked neither at him nor at me, but stood in a humbled attitude, holding her bonnet and shawl in one hand, without appearing conscious of them, and pressing the other, clenched, against her forehead. "Are you composed enough," said I, "to speak on the subject which so interested you--I hope Heaven may remember it!--that snowy night?" Her sobs broke out afresh, and she murmured some inarticulate thanks to me for not having driven her away from the door. "I want to say nothing for myself," she said, after a few moments. "I am bad, I am lost. I have no hope at all. But tell him, sir," she had shrunk away from him, "if you don't feel too hard to me to do it, that I never was in any way the cause of his misfortune." "It has never been attributed to you," I returned, earnestly responding to her earnestness. "It was you, if I don't deceive myself," she said, in a broken voice, "that came into the kitchen, the night she took such pity on me; was so gentle to me; didn't shrink away from me like all the rest, and gave me such kind help! Was it you, sir?" "It was," said I. "I should have been in the river long ago," she said, glancing at it with a terrible expression, "if any wrong to her had been upon my mind. I never could have kept out of it a single winter's night, if I had not been free of any share in that!" "The cause of her flight is too well understood," I said. "You are innocent of any part in it, we thoroughly believe,--we know." "Oh I might have been much the better for her, if I had had a better heart!" exclaimed the girl, with most forlorn regret; "for she was always good to me! She never spoke a word to me but what was pleasant and right. Is it likely I would try to make her what I am myself, knowing what I am myself, so well! When I lost everything that makes life dear, the worst of all my thoughts was that I was parted for ever from her!" Mr. Peggotty, standing with one hand on the gunwale of the boat, and his eyes cast down, put his disengaged hand before his face. "And when I heard what had happened before that snowy night, from some belonging to our town," cried Martha, "the bitterest thought in all my mind was, that the people would remember she once kept company with me, and would say I had corrupted her! When, Heaven knows, I would have died to have brought back her good name!" Long unused to any self-control, the piercing agony of her remorse and grief was terrible. "To have died, would not have been much--what can I say?--I would have lived!" she cried. "I would have lived to be old, in the wretched streets--and to wander about, avoided, in the dark--and to see the day break on the ghastly lines of houses, and remember how the same sun used to shine into my room, and wake me once--I would have done even that, to save her!" Sinking on the stones, she took some in each hand, and clenched them up, as if she would have ground them. She writhed into some new posture constantly: stiffening her arms, twisting them before her face, as though to shut out from her eyes the little light there was, and drooping her head, as if it were heavy with insupportable recollections. "What shall I ever do!" she said, fighting thus with her despair. "How can I go on as I am, a solitary curse to myself, a living disgrace to every one I come near!" Suddenly she turned to my companion. "Stamp upon me, kill me! When she was your pride, you would have thought I had done her harm if I had brushed against her in the street. You can't believe--why should you?--a syllable that comes out of my lips. It would be a burning shame upon you, even now, if she and I exchanged a word. I don't complain. I don't say she and I are alike--I know there is a long, long way between us. I only say, with all my guilt and wretchedness upon my head, that I am grateful to her from my soul, and love her. Oh don't think that all the power I had of loving anything, is quite worn out! Throw me away, as all the world does. Kill me for being what I am, and having ever known her; but don't think that of me!" He looked upon her, while she made this supplication, in a wild distracted manner; and, when she was silent, gently raised her. "Martha," said Mr. Peggotty, "God forbid as I should judge you. Forbid as I, of all men, should do that, my girl! You doen't know half the change that's come, in course of time, upon me, when you think it likely. Well!" he paused a moment, then went on. "You doen't understand how 'tis that this here gentleman and me has wished to speak to you. You doen't understand what 'tis we has afore us. Listen now!" His influence upon her was complete. She stood, shrinkingly, before him, as if she were afraid to meet his eyes; but her passionate sorrow was quite hushed and mute. "If you heerd," said Mr. Peggotty, "owt of what passed between Mas'r Davy and me, th' night when it snew so hard, you know as I have been--wheer not--fur to seek my dear niece. My dear niece," he repeated steadily. "Fur she's more dear to me now, Martha, than ever she was dear afore." She put her hands before her face; but otherwise remained quiet. "I have heerd her tell," said Mr. Peggotty, "as you was early left fatherless and motherless, with no friend fur to take, in a rough seafaring-way, their place. Maybe you can guess that if you'd had such a friend, you'd have got into a way of being fond of him in course of time, and that my niece was kiender daughter-like to me." As she was silently trembling, he put her shawl carefully about her, taking it up from the ground for that purpose. "Whereby," said he, "I know, both as she would go to the wureld's furdest end with me, if she could once see me again; and that she would fly to the wureld's furdest end to keep off seeing me. For though she ain't no call to doubt my love, and doen't--and doen't," he repeated, with a quiet assurance of the truth of what he said, "there's shame steps in, and keeps betwixt us." I read, in every word of his plain impressive way of delivering himself, new evidence of his having thought of this one topic, in every feature it presented. "According to our reckoning," he proceeded, "Mas'r Davy's here, and mine, she is like, one day, to make her own poor solitary course to London. We believe--Mas'r Davy, me, and all of us--that you are as innocent of everything that has befel her, as the unborn child. You've spoke of her being pleasant, kind, and gentle to you. Bless her, I knew she was! I knew she always was, to all. You're thankful to her, and you love her. Help us all you can to find her, and may Heaven reward you!" She looked at him hastily, and for the first time, as if she were doubtful of what he had said. "Will you trust me?" she asked, in a low voice of astonishment. "Full and free!" said Mr. Peggotty. "To speak to her, if I should ever find her; shelter her, if I have any shelter to divide with her; and then, without her knowledge, come to you, and bring you to her?" she asked hurriedly. We both replied together, "Yes!" She lifted up her eyes, and solemnly declared that she would devote herself to this task, fervently and faithfully. That she would never waver in it, never be diverted from it, never relinquish it, while there was any chance of hope. If she were not true to it, might the object she now had in life, which bound her to something devoid of evil, in its passing away from her, leave her more forlorn and more despairing, if that were possible, than she had been upon the river's brink that night; and then might all help, human and Divine, renounce her evermore! She did not raise her voice above her breath, or address us, but said this to the night sky; then stood profoundly quiet, looking at the gloomy water. We judged it expedient, now, to tell her all we knew; which I recounted at length. She listened with great attention, and with a face that often changed, but had the same purpose in all its varying expressions. Her eyes occasionally filled with tears, but those she repressed. It seemed as if her spirit were quite altered, and she could not be too quiet. She asked, when all was told, where we were to be communicated with, if occasion should arise. Under a dull lamp in the road, I wrote our two addresses on a leaf of my pocket-book, which I tore out and gave to her, and which she put in her poor bosom. I asked her where she lived herself. She said, after a pause, in no place long. It were better not to know. Mr. Peggotty suggesting to me, in a whisper, what had already occurred to myself, I took out my purse; but I could not prevail upon her to accept any money, nor could I exact any promise from her that she would do so at another time. I represented to her that Mr. Peggotty could not be called, for one in his condition, poor; and that the idea of her engaging in this search, while depending on her own resources, shocked us both. She continued steadfast. In this particular, his influence upon her was equally powerless with mine. She gratefully thanked him, but remained inexorable. "There may be work to be got," she said. "I'll try." "At least take some assistance," I returned, "until you have tried." "I could not do what I have promised, for money," she replied. "I could not take it, if I was starving. To give me money would be to take away your trust, to take away the object that you have given me, to take away the only certain thing that saves me from the river." "In the name of the great Judge," said I, "before whom you and all of us must stand at his dread time, dismiss that terrible idea! We can all do some good, if we will." She trembled, and her lip shook, and her face was paler, as she answered: "It has been put in your hearts, perhaps, to save a wretched creature for repentance. I am afraid to think so; it seems too bold. If any good should come of me, I might begin to hope; for nothing but harm has ever come of my deeds yet. I am to be trusted, for the first time in a long while, with my miserable life, on account of what you have given me to try for. I know no more, and I can say no more." Again she repressed the tears that had begun to flow; and, putting out her trembling hand, and touching Mr. Peggotty, as if there were some healing virtue in him, went away along the desolate road. She had been ill, probably for a long time. I observed, upon that closer opportunity of observation, that she was worn and haggard, and that her sunken eyes expressed privation and endurance. We followed her at a short distance, our way lying in the same direction, until we came back into the lighted and populous streets. I had such implicit confidence in her declaration, that I then put it to Mr. Peggotty, whether it would not seem, in the onset, like distrusting her, to follow her any further. He being of the same mind, and equally reliant on her, we suffered her to take her own road, and took ours, which was towards Highgate. He accompanied me a good part of the way; and when we parted, with a prayer for the success of this fresh effort, there was a new and thoughtful compassion in him that I was at no loss to interpret. It was midnight when I arrived at home. I had reached my own gate, and was standing listening for the deep bell of Saint Paul's, the sound of which I thought had been borne towards me among the multitude of striking clocks, when I was rather surprised to see that the door of my aunt's cottage was open, and that a faint light in the entry was shining out across the road. Thinking that my aunt might have relapsed into one of her old alarms, and might be watching the progress of some imaginary conflagration in the distance, I went to speak to her. It was with very great surprise that I saw a man standing in her little garden. He had a glass and bottle in his hand, and was in the act of drinking. I stopped short, among the thick foliage outside, for the moon was up now, though obscured; and I recognised the man whom I had once supposed to be a delusion of Mr. Dick's, and had once encountered with my aunt in the streets of the city. He was eating as well as drinking, and seemed to eat with a hungry appetite. He seemed curious regarding the cottage, too, as if it were the first time he had seen it. After stooping to put the bottle on the ground, he looked up at the windows, and looked about; though with a covert and impatient air, as if he was anxious to be gone. The light in the passage was obscured for a moment, and my aunt came out. She was agitated, and told some money into his hand. I heard it chink. "What's the use of this?" he demanded. "I can spare no more," returned my aunt. "Then I can't go," said he. "Here! You may take it back!" "You bad man," returned my aunt, with great emotion; "how can you use me so? But why do I ask? It is because you know how weak I am! What have I to do, to free myself for ever of your visits, but to abandon you to your deserts?" "And why don't you abandon me to my deserts?" said he. "_You_ ask me why!" returned my aunt. "What a heart you must have!" He stood moodily rattling the money, and shaking his head, until at length he said: "Is this all you mean to give me, then?" "It is all I _can_ give you," said my aunt. "You know I have had losses, and am poorer than I used to be. I have told you so. Having got it, why do you give me the pain of looking at you for another moment, and seeing what you have become?" "I have become shabby enough, if you mean that," he said. "I lead the life of an owl." "You stripped me of the greater part of all I ever had," said my aunt. "You closed my heart against the whole world, years and years. You treated me falsely, ungratefully, and cruelly. Go, and repent of it. Don't add new injuries to the long, long list of injuries you have done me!" "Aye!" he returned. "It's all very fine!--Well! I must do the best I can, for the present, I suppose." In spite of himself, he appeared abashed by my aunt's indignant tears, and came slouching out of the garden. Taking two or three quick steps, as if I had just come up, I met him at the gate, and went in as he came out. We eyed one another narrowly in passing, and with no favour. "Aunt," said I, hurriedly. "This man alarming you again! Let me speak to him. Who is he?" "Child," returned my aunt, taking my arm, "come in, and don't speak to me for ten minutes." We sat down in her little parlor. My aunt retired behind the round green fan of former days, which was screwed on the back of a chair, and occasionally wiped her eyes, for about a quarter of an hour. Then she came out, and took a seat beside me. "Trot," said my aunt, calmly, "it's my husband." "Your husband, aunt? I thought he had been dead!" "Dead to me," returned my aunt, "but living." I sat in silent amazement. "Betsey Trotwood don't look a likely subject for the tender passion," said my aunt, composedly, "but the time was, Trot, when she believed in that man most entirely. When she loved him, Trot, right well. When there was no proof of attachment and affection that she would not have given him. He repaid her by breaking her fortune, and nearly breaking her heart. So she put all that sort of sentiment, once and for ever in a grave, and filled it up, and flattened it down." "My dear, good aunt!" "I left him," my aunt proceeded, laying her hand as usual on the back of mine, "generously. I may say at this distance of time, Trot, that I left him generously. He had been so cruel to me, that I might have effected a separation on easy terms for myself; but I did not. He soon made ducks and drakes of what I gave him, sank lower and lower, married another woman, I believe, became an adventurer, a gambler, and a cheat. What he is now, you see. But he was a fine-looking man when I married him," said my aunt, with an echo of her old pride and admiration in her tone; "and I believed him--I was a fool!--to be the soul of honor!" She gave my hand a squeeze, and shook her head. "He is nothing to me now, Trot,--less than nothing. But, sooner than have him punished for his offences (as he would be if he prowled about in this country), I give him more money than I can afford, at intervals when he reappears, to go away. I was a fool when I married him; and I am so far an incurable fool on that subject, that, for the sake of what I once believed him to be, I wouldn't have even this shadow of my idle fancy hardly dealt with. For I was in earnest, Trot, if ever a woman was." My aunt dismissed the matter with a heavy sigh, and smoothed her dress. "There, my dear!" she said. "Now, you know the beginning, middle, and end, and all about it. We won't mention the subject to one another any more; neither, of course, will you mention it to anybody else. This is my grumpy, frumpy story, and we'll keep it to ourselves, Trot!" CHAPTER XLVIII. DOMESTIC. I labored hard at my book, without allowing it to interfere with the punctual discharge of my newspaper duties; and it came out and was very successful. I was not stunned by the praise which sounded in my ears, notwithstanding that I was keenly alive to it, and thought better of my own performance, I have little doubt, than anybody else did. It has always been in my observation of human nature, that a man who has any good reason to believe in himself never flourishes himself before the faces of other people in order that they may believe in him. For this reason, I retained my modesty in very self-respect; and the more praise I got, the more I tried to deserve. It is not my purpose, in this record, though in all other essentials it is my written memory, to pursue the history of my own fictions. They express themselves, and I leave them to themselves. When I refer to them, incidentally, it is only as a part of my progress. Having some foundation for believing, by this time, that nature and accident had made me an author, I pursued my vocation with confidence. Without such assurance I should certainly have left it alone, and bestowed my energy on some other endeavour. I should have tried to find out what nature and accident really had made me, and to be that, and nothing else. I had been writing, in the newspaper and elsewhere, so prosperously, that when my new success was achieved, I considered myself reasonably entitled to escape from the dreary debates. One joyful night, therefore, I noted down the music of the parliamentary bagpipes for the last time, and I have never heard it since; though I still recognise the old drone in the newspapers, without any substantial variation (except, perhaps, that there is more of it), all the livelong session. I now write of the time when I had been married, I suppose, about a year and a half. After several varieties of experiment, we had given up the housekeeping as a bad job. The house kept itself, and we kept a page. The principal function of this retainer was to quarrel with the cook; in which respect he was a perfect Whittington, without his cat, or the remotest chance of being made Lord Mayor. He appears to me to have lived in a hail of saucepan-lids. His whole existence was a scuffle. He would shriek for help on the most improper occasions,--as, when we had a little dinner party, or a few friends in the evening,--and would come tumbling out of the kitchen, with iron missiles flying after him. We wanted to get rid of him, but he was very much attached to us, and wouldn't go. He was a tearful boy, and broke into such deplorable lamentations, when a cessation of our connexion was hinted at, that we were obliged to keep him. He had no mother--no anything in the way of a relative, that I could discover, except a sister, who fled to America the moment we had taken him off her hands; and he became quartered on us like a horrible young changeling. He had a lively perception of his own unfortunate state, and was always rubbing his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket, or stooping to blow his nose on the extreme corner of a little pocket-handkerchief, which he never _would_ take completely out of his pocket, but always economised and secreted. This unlucky page, engaged in an evil hour at six pounds ten per annum, was a source of continual trouble to me. I watched him as he grew--and he grew like scarlet beans--with painful apprehensions of the time when he would begin to shave; even of the days when he would be bald or grey. I saw no prospect of ever getting rid of him; and, projecting myself into the future, used to think what an inconvenience he would be when he was an old man. I never expected anything less, than this unfortunate's manner of getting me out of my difficulty. He stole Dora's watch, which, like everything else belonging to us, had no particular place of its own; and, converting it into money, spent the produce (he was always a weak-minded boy) in incessantly riding up and down between London and Uxbridge outside the coach. He was taken to Bow Street, as well as I remember, on the completion of his fifteenth journey; when four-and-sixpence, and a second-hand fife which he couldn't play, were found upon his person. The surprise and its consequences would have been much less disagreeable to me if he had not been penitent. But he was very penitent indeed, and in a peculiar way--not in the lump, but by instalments. For example; the day after that on which I was obliged to appear against him, he made certain revelations touching a hamper in the cellar, which we believed to be full of wine, but which had nothing in it except bottles and corks. We supposed he had now eased his mind, and told the worst he knew of the cook; but, a day or two afterwards, his conscience sustained a new twinge, and he disclosed how she had a little girl, who, early every morning, took away our bread; and also how he himself had been suborned to maintain the milkman in coals. In two or three days more, I was informed by the authorities of his having led to the discovery of sirloins of beef among the kitchen-stuff, and sheets in the rag-bag. A little while afterwards, he broke out in an entirely new direction, and confessed to a knowledge of burglarious intentions as to our premises, on the part of the pot-boy, who was immediately taken up. I got to be so ashamed of being such a victim, that I would have given him any money to hold his tongue, or would have offered a round bribe for his being permitted to run away. It was an aggravating circumstance in the case that he had no idea of this, but conceived that he was making me amends in every new discovery: not to say, heaping obligations on my head. At last I ran away myself, whenever I saw an emissary of the police approaching with some new intelligence; and lived a stealthy life until he was tried and ordered to be transported. Even then he couldn't be quiet, but was always writing us letters; and wanted so much to see Dora before he went away, that Dora went to visit him, and fainted when she found herself inside the iron bars. In short I had no peace of my life until he was expatriated, and made (as I afterwards heard) a shepherd of, "up the country" somewhere; I have no geographical idea where. All this led me into some serious reflections, and presented our mistakes in a new aspect; as I could not help communicating to Dora one evening, in spite of my tenderness for her. "My love," said I, "it is very painful to me to think that our want of system and management, involves not only ourselves (which we have got used to), but other people." "You have been silent for a long time, and now you are going to be cross!" said Dora. "No, my dear, indeed! Let me explain to you what I mean." "I think I don't want to know," said Dora. "But I want you to know, my love. Put Jip down." Dora put his nose to mine, and said "Boh!" to drive my seriousness away; but, not succeeding, ordered him into his Pagoda, and sat looking at me, with her hands folded, and a most resigned little expression of countenance. "The fact is, my dear," I began, "there is contagion in us. We infect everyone about us." I might have gone on in this figurative manner, if Dora's face had not admonished me that she was wondering with all her might whether I was going to propose any new kind of vaccination, or other medical remedy, for this unwholesome state of ours. Therefore I checked myself, and made my meaning plainer. "It is not merely, my pet," said I, "that we lose money and comfort, and even temper sometimes, by not learning to be more careful; but that we incur the serious responsibility of spoiling everyone who comes into our service, or has any dealings with us. I begin to be afraid that the fault is not entirely on one side, but that these people all turn out ill because we don't turn out very well ourselves." "Oh, what an accusation," exclaimed Dora, opening her eyes wide; "to say that you ever saw me take gold watches! Oh!" "My dearest," I remonstrated, "don't talk preposterous nonsense! Who has made the least allusion to gold watches?" "You did," returned Dora. "You know you did. You said I hadn't turned out well, and compared me to him." "To whom?" I asked. "To the page," sobbed Dora. "Oh, you cruel fellow, to compare your affectionate wife to a transported page! Why didn't you tell me your opinion of me before we were married? Why didn't you say, you hard-hearted thing, that you were convinced I was worse than a transported page? Oh, what a dreadful opinion to have of me! Oh, my goodness!" "Now, Dora, my love," I returned, gently trying to remove the handkerchief she pressed to her eyes, "this is not only very ridiculous of you, but very wrong. In the first place, it's not true." "You always said he was a story-teller," sobbed Dora. "And now you say the same of me! Oh, what shall I do! What shall I do!" "My darling girl," I retorted, "I really must entreat you to be reasonable, and listen to what I did say, and do say. My dear Dora, unless we learn to do our duty to those whom we employ, they will never learn to do their duty to us. I am afraid we present opportunities to people to do wrong, that never ought to be presented. Even if we were as lax as we are, in all our arrangements, by choice--which we are not--even if we liked it, and found it agreeable to be so--which we don't--I am persuaded we should have no right to go on in this way. We are positively corrupting people. We are bound to think of that. I can't help thinking of it, Dora. It is a reflection I am unable to dismiss, and it sometimes makes me very uneasy. There, dear, that's all. Come now! Don't be foolish!" Dora would not allow me, for a long time, to remove the handkerchief. She sat sobbing and murmuring behind it, that, if I was uneasy, why had I ever been married? Why hadn't I said, even the day before we went to church, that I knew I should be uneasy, and I would rather not? If I couldn't bear her, why didn't I send her away to her aunts at Putney, or to Julia Mills in India? Julia would be glad to see her, and would not call her a transported page; Julia never had called her anything of the sort. In short, Dora was so afflicted, and so afflicted me by being in that condition, that I felt it was of no use repeating this kind of effort, though never so mildly, and I must take some other course. What other course was left to take! To "form her mind?" This was a common phrase of words which had a fair and promising sound, and I resolved to form Dora's mind. I began immediately. When Dora was very childish, and I would have infinitely preferred to humour her, I tried to be grave--and disconcerted her, and myself too. I talked to her on the subjects which occupied my thoughts; and I read Shakespeare to her--and fatigued her to the last degree. I accustomed myself to giving her, as it were quite casually, little scraps of useful information, or sound opinion--and she started from them when I let them off, as if they had been crackers. No matter how incidentally or naturally I endeavoured to form my little wife's mind, I could not help seeing that she always had an instinctive perception of what I was about, and became a prey to the keenest apprehensions. In particular, it was clear to me, that she thought Shakespeare a terrible fellow. The formation went on very slowly. I pressed Traddles into the service without his knowledge; and whenever he came to see us, exploded my mines upon him for the edification of Dora at second hand. The amount of practical wisdom I bestowed upon Traddles in this manner was immense, and of the best quality; but it had no other effect upon Dora than to depress her spirits, and make her always nervous with the dread that it would be her turn next. I found myself in the condition of a schoolmaster, a trap, a pitfall; of always playing spider to Dora's fly, and always pouncing out of my hole to her infinite disturbance. Still, looking forward through this intermediate stage, to the time when there should be a perfect sympathy between Dora and me, and when I should have "formed her mind" to my entire satisfaction, I persevered, even for months. Finding at last, however, that, although I had been all this time a very porcupine or hedgehog, bristling all over with determination, I had effected nothing, it began to occur to me that perhaps Dora's mind was already formed. On farther consideration this appeared so likely, that I abandoned my scheme, which had had a more promising appearance in words than in action; resolving henceforth to be satisfied with my child-wife, and to try to change her into nothing else by any process. I was heartily tired of being sagacious and prudent by myself, and of seeing my darling under restraint; so, I bought a pretty pair of ear-rings for her, and a collar for Jip, and went home one day to make myself agreeable. Dora was delighted with the little presents, and kissed me joyfully; but, there was a shadow between us, however slight, and I had made up my mind that it should not be there. If there must be such a shadow anywhere, I would keep it for the future in my own breast. I sat down by my wife on the sofa, and put the ear-rings in her ears; and then I told her that I feared we had not been quite as good company lately, as we used to be, and that the fault was mine. Which I sincerely felt, and which indeed it was. "The truth is, Dora, my life," I said; "I have been trying to be wise." "And to make me wise too," said Dora, timidly. "Haven't you, Doady?" I nodded assent to the pretty inquiry of the raised eyebrows, and kissed the parted lips. "It's of not a bit of use," said Dora, shaking her head, until the ear-rings rang again. "You know what a little thing I am, and what I wanted you to call me from the first. If you can't do so, I am afraid you'll never like me. Are you sure you don't think, sometimes, it would have been better to have--" "Done what, my dear?" For she made no effort to proceed. "Nothing!" said Dora. "Nothing?" I repeated. She put her arms round my neck, and laughed, and called herself by her favorite name of a goose, and hid her face on my shoulder in such a profusion of curls that it was quite a task to clear them away and see it. "Don't I think it would have been better to have done nothing, than to have tried to form my little wife's mind?" said I, laughing at myself. "Is that the question? Yes, indeed, I do." "Is that what you have been trying?" cried Dora. "Oh what a shocking boy!" "But I shall never try any more," said I. "For I love her dearly as she is." "Without a story--really?" inquired Dora, creeping closer to me. "Why should I seek to change," said I, "what has been so precious to me for so long! You never can show better than as your own natural self, my sweet Dora; and we'll try no conceited experiments, but go back to our old way, and be happy." "And be happy!" returned Dora. "Yes! All day! And you won't mind things going a tiny morsel wrong, sometimes?" "No, no," said I. "We must do the best we can." "And you won't tell me, any more, that we make other people bad," coaxed Dora; "will you? Because you know it's so dreadfully cross." "No no," said I. "It's better for me to be stupid than uncomfortable, isn't it?" said Dora. "Better to be naturally Dora than anything else in the world." "In the world! Ah Doady, it's a large place!" She shook her head, turned her delighted bright eyes up to mine, kissed me, broke into a merry laugh, and sprang away to put on Jip's new collar. So ended my last attempt to make any change in Dora. I had been unhappy in trying it; I could not endure my own solitary wisdom; I could not reconcile it with her former appeal to me as my child-wife. I resolved to do what I could, in a quiet way, to improve our proceedings myself; but, I foresaw that my utmost would be very little, or I must degenerate into the spider again, and be for ever lying in wait. And the shadow I have mentioned, that was not to be between us any more, but was to rest wholly on my own heart? How did that fall? The old unhappy feeling pervaded my life. It was deepened, if it were changed at all; but it was as undefined as ever, and addressed me like a strain of sorrowful music faintly heard in the night. I loved my wife dearly, and I was happy; but the happiness I had vaguely anticipated, once, was not the happiness I enjoyed, and there was always something wanting. In fulfilment of the compact I have made with myself, to reflect my mind on this paper, I again examine it, closely, and bring its secrets to the light. What I missed, I still regarded--I always regarded--as something that had been a dream of my youthful fancy; that was incapable of realisation; that I was now discovering to be so, with some natural pain, as all men did. But, that it would have been better for me if my wife could have helped me more, and shared the many thoughts in which I had no partner; and that this might have been; I knew. Between these two irreconcileable conclusions: the one, that what I felt, was general and unavoidable; the other, that it was particular to me, and might have been different: I balanced curiously, with no distinct sense of their opposition to each other. When I thought of the airy dreams of youth that are incapable of realisation, I thought of the better state preceding manhood that I had outgrown; and then the contented days with Agnes, in the dear old house, arose before me, like spectres of the dead, that might have some renewal in another world, but never never more could be reanimated here. Sometimes, the speculation came into my thoughts, what might have happened, or what would have happened, if Dora and I had never known each other? But, she was so incorporated with my existence, that it was the idlest of all fancies, and would soon rise out of my reach and sight, like gossamer floating in the air. I always loved her. What I am describing, slumbered, and half awoke, and slept again, in the innermost recesses of my mind. There was no evidence of it in me; I know of no influence it had in anything I said or did. I bore the weight of all our little cares, and all my projects; Dora held the pens; and we both felt that our shares were adjusted as the case required. She was truly fond of me, and proud of me; and when Agnes wrote a few earnest words in her letters to Dora, of the pride and interest with which my old friends heard of my growing reputation, and read my book as if they heard me speaking its contents, Dora read them out to me with tears of joy in her bright eyes, and said I was a dear old clever, famous boy. "The first mistaken impulse of an undisciplined heart." Those words of Mrs. Strong's were constantly recurring to me, at this time; were almost always present to my mind. I awoke with them, often, in the night; I remember to have even read them, in dreams, inscribed upon the walls of houses. For I knew, now, that my own heart was undisciplined when it first loved Dora; and that if it had been disciplined, it never could have felt, when we were married, what it had felt in its secret experience. "There can be no disparity in marriage, like unsuitability of mind and purpose." Those words I remembered too. I had endeavoured to adapt Dora to myself, and found it impracticable. It remained for me to adapt myself to Dora; to share with her what I could, and be happy; to bear on my own shoulders what I must, and be happy still. This was the discipline to which I tried to bring my heart, when I began to think. It made my second year much happier than my first; and, what was better still, made Dora's life all sunshine. But, as that year wore on, Dora was not strong. I had hoped that lighter hands than mine would help to mould her character, and that a baby-smile upon her breast might change my child-wife to a woman. It was not to be. The spirit fluttered for a moment on the threshold of its little prison, and, unconscious of captivity, took wing. "When I can run about again, as I used to do, aunt," said Dora, "I shall make Jip race. He is getting quite slow and lazy." "I suspect, my dear," said my aunt, quietly working by her side, "he has a worse disorder than that. Age, Dora." "Do you think he is old?" said Dora, astonished. "Oh, how strange it seems that Jip should be old!" "It's a complaint we are all liable to, Little One, as we get on in life," said my aunt, cheerfully; "I don't feel more free from it than I used to be, I assure you." "But Jip," said Dora, looking at him with compassion, "even little Jip! Oh, poor fellow!" "I dare say he'll last a long time yet, Blossom," said my aunt, patting Dora on the cheek, as she leaned out of her couch to look at Jip, who responded by standing on his hind legs, and baulking himself in various asthmatic attempts to scramble up by the head and shoulders. "He must have a piece of flannel in his house this winter, and I shouldn't wonder if he came out quite fresh again, with the flowers, in the spring. Bless the little dog!" exclaimed my aunt, "if he had as many lives as a cat, and was on the point of losing 'em all, he'd bark at me with his last breath, I believe!" Dora had helped him up on the sofa; where he really was defying my aunt to such a furious extent, that he couldn't keep straight, but barked himself sideways. The more my aunt looked at him, the more he reproached her; for, she had lately taken to spectacles, and for some inscrutable reason he considered the glasses personal. Dora made him lie down by her, with a good deal of persuasion; and when he was quiet, drew one of his long ears through and through her hand, repeating, thoughtfully, "Even little Jip! Oh, poor fellow!" "His lungs are good enough," said my aunt, gaily, "and his dislikes are not at all feeble. He has a good many years before him, no doubt. But if you want a dog to race with, Little Blossom, he has lived too well for that, and I'll give you one." "Thank you, aunt," said Dora, faintly. "But, don't, please!" "No?" said my aunt, taking off her spectacles. "I couldn't have any other dog but Jip," said Dora. "It would be so unkind to Jip! Besides, I couldn't be such friends with any other dog but Jip; because he wouldn't have known me before I was married, and wouldn't have barked at Doady when he first came to our house. I couldn't care for any other dog but Jip, I am afraid, aunt." "To be sure!" said my aunt, patting her cheek again. "You are right." "You are not offended," said Dora. "Are you?" "Why, what a sensitive pet it is!" cried my aunt, bending over her affectionately. "To think that I could be offended!" "No, no, I didn't really think so," returned Dora; "but I am a little tired, and it made me silly for a moment--I am always a silly little thing, you know, but it made me more silly--to talk about Jip. He has known me in all that has happened to me, haven't you, Jip? And I couldn't bear to slight him, because he was a little altered--could I, Jip?" Jip nestled closer to his mistress, and lazily licked her hand. "You are not so old, Jip, are you, that you'll leave your mistress yet," said Dora. "We may keep one another company, a little longer!" My pretty Dora! When she came down to dinner on the ensuing Sunday, and was so glad to see old Traddles (who always dined with us on Sunday), we thought she would be "running about as she used to do," in a few days. But they said, wait a few days more; and then, wait a few days more; and still she neither ran nor walked. She looked very pretty, and was very merry; but the little feet that used to be so nimble when they danced round Jip, were dull and motionless. I began to carry her down stairs every morning, and upstairs every night. She would clasp me round the neck and laugh, the while, as if I did it for a wager. Jip would bark and caper round us, and go on before, and look back on the landing, breathing short, to see that we were coming. My aunt, the best and most cheerful of nurses, would trudge after us, a moving mass of shawls and pillows. Mr. Dick would not have relinquished his post of candle-bearer to any one alive. Traddles would be often at the bottom of the staircase, looking on, and taking charge of sportive messages from Dora to the dearest girl in the world. We made quite a gay procession of it, and my child-wife was the gayest there. But, sometimes, when I took her up, and felt that she was lighter in my arms, a dead blank feeling came upon me, as if I were approaching to some frozen region yet unseen, that numbed my life. I avoided the recognition of this feeling by any name, or by any communing with myself; until one night, when it was very strong upon me, and my aunt had left her with a parting cry of "Good night, Little Blossom," I sat down at my desk alone, and cried to think, O what a fatal name it was, and how the blossom withered in its bloom upon the tree! CHAPTER XLIX. I AM INVOLVED IN MYSTERY. I received one morning by the post, the following letter, dated Canterbury, and addressed to me at Doctors' Commons; which I read with some surprise: "MY DEAR SIR, "Circumstances beyond my individual control have, for a considerable lapse of time, effected a severance of that intimacy which, in the limited opportunities conceded to me in the midst of my professional duties, of contemplating the scenes and events of the past, tinged by the prismatic hues of memory, has ever afforded me, as it ever must continue to afford, gratifying emotions of no common description. This fact, my dear sir, combined with the distinguished elevation to which your talents have raised you, deters me from presuming to aspire to the liberty of addressing the companion of my youth, by the familiar appellation of Copperfield! It is sufficient to know that the name to which I do myself the honor to refer, will ever be treasured among the muniments of our house (I allude to the archives connected with our former lodgers, preserved by Mrs. Micawber), with sentiments of personal esteem amounting to affection. "It is not for one, situated, through his original errors and a fortuitous combination of unpropitious events, as is the foundered Bark (if he may be allowed to assume so maritime a denomination), who now takes up the pen to address you--it is not, I repeat, for one so circumstanced, to adopt the language of compliment, or of congratulation. That, he leaves to abler and to purer hands. "If your more important avocations should admit of your ever tracing these imperfect characters thus far--which may be, or may not be, as circumstances arise--you will naturally inquire by what object am I influenced, then, in inditing the present missive? Allow me to say that I fully defer to the reasonable character of that inquiry, and proceed to develope it; premising that it is _not_ an object of a pecuniary nature. "Without more directly referring to any latent ability that may possibly exist on my part, of wielding the thunderbolt, or directing the devouring and avenging flame in any quarter, I may be permitted to observe, in passing, that my brightest visions are for ever dispelled--that my peace is shattered and my power of enjoyment destroyed--that my heart is no longer in the right place--and that I no more walk erect before my fellow man. The canker is in the flower. The cup is bitter to the brim. The worm is at his work, and will soon dispose of his victim. The sooner the better. But I will not digress. "Placed in a mental position of peculiar painfulness, beyond the assuaging reach even of Mrs. Micawber's influence, though exercised in the tripartite character of woman, wife, and mother, it is my intention to fly from myself for a short period, and devote a respite of eight-and-forty hours to revisiting some metropolitan scenes of past enjoyment. Among other havens of domestic tranquillity and peace of mind, my feet will naturally tend towards the King's Bench Prison. In stating that I shall be (D. V.) on the outside of the south wall of that place of incarceration on civil process, the day after to-morrow, at seven in the evening, precisely, my object in this epistolary communication is accomplished. "I do not feel warranted in soliciting my former friend Mr. Copperfield, or my former friend Mr. Thomas Traddles of the Inner Temple, if that gentleman is still existent and forthcoming, to condescend to meet me, and renew (so far as may be) our past relations of the olden time. I confine myself to throwing out the observation, that, at the hour and place I have indicated, may be found such ruined vestiges as yet "Remain, "Of "A "Fallen Tower, "WILKINS MICAWBER. "P.S. It may be advisable to superadd to the above, the statement that Mrs. Micawber is _not_ in confidential possession of my intentions." I read the letter over, several times. Making due allowance for Mr. Micawber's lofty style of composition, and for the extraordinary relish with which he sat down and wrote long letters on all possible and impossible occasions, I still believed that something important lay hidden at the bottom of this roundabout communication. I put it down, to think about it; and took it up again, to read it once more; and was still pursuing it, when Traddles found me in the height of my perplexity. "My dear fellow," said I, "I never was better pleased to see you. You come to give me the benefit of your sober judgment at a most opportune time. I have received a very singular letter, Traddles, from Mr. Micawber." "No?" cried Traddles. "You don't say so? And I have received one from Mrs. Micawber!" With that, Traddles, who was flushed with walking, and whose hair, under the combined effects of exercise and excitement, stood on end as if he saw a cheerful ghost, produced his letter and made an exchange with me. I watched him into the heart of Mr. Micawber's letter, and returned the elevation of eyebrows with which he said "'Wielding the thunderbolt, or directing the devouring and avenging flame!' Bless me, Copperfield!"--and then entered on the perusal of Mrs. Micawber's epistle. It ran thus: "My best regards to Mr. Thomas Traddles, and if he should still remember one who formerly had the happiness of being well acquainted with him, may I beg a few moments of his leisure time? I assure Mr. T. T. that I would not intrude upon his kindness, were I in any other position than on the confines of distraction. "Though harrowing to myself to mention, the alienation of Mr. Micawber (formerly so domesticated) from his wife and family, is the cause of my addressing my unhappy appeal to Mr. Traddles, and soliciting his best indulgence. Mr. T. can form no adequate idea of the change in Mr. Micawber's conduct, of his wildness, of his violence. It has gradually augmented, until it assumes the appearance of aberration of intellect. Scarcely a day passes, I assure Mr. Traddles, on which some paroxysm does not take place. Mr. T. will not require me to depict my feelings, when I inform him that I have become accustomed to hear Mr. Micawber assert that he has sold himself to the D. Mystery and secresy have long been his principal characteristic, have long replaced unlimited confidence. The slightest provocation, even being asked if there is anything he would prefer for dinner, causes him to express a wish for a separation. Last night, on being childishly solicited for twopence, to buy 'lemon-stunners'--a local sweetmeat--he presented an oyster-knife at the twins! "I entreat Mr. Traddles to bear with me in entering into these details. Without them, Mr. T. would indeed find it difficult to form the faintest conception of my heart-rending situation. "May I now venture to confide to Mr. T. the purport of my letter? Will he now allow me to throw myself on his friendly consideration? Oh yes, for I know his heart! "The quick eye of affection is not easily blinded, when of the female sex. Mr. Micawber is going to London. Though he studiously concealed his hand, this morning before breakfast, in writing the direction-card which he attached to the little brown valise of happier days, the eagle-glance of matrimonial anxiety detected d,o,n, distinctly traced. The West-End destination of the coach, is the Golden Cross. Dare I fervently implore Mr. T. to see my misguided husband, and to reason with him? Dare I ask Mr. T. to endeavour to step in between Mr. Micawber and his agonised family? Oh no, for that would be too much! "If Mr. Copperfield should yet remember one unknown to fame, will Mr. T. take charge of my unalterable regards and similar entreaties? In any case, he will have the benevolence _to consider this communication strictly private, and on no account whatever to be alluded to, however distantly, in the presence of Mr. Micawber_. If Mr. T. should ever reply to it (which I cannot but feel to be _most_ improbable), a letter addressed to M. E., Post Office, Canterbury, will be fraught with less painful consequences than any addressed immediately to one, who subscribes herself, in extreme distress, "Mr. Thomas Traddles's respectful friend and suppliant, "EMMA MICAWBER." "What do you think of that letter?" said Traddles, casting his eyes upon me, when I had read it twice. "What do you think of the other?" said I. For he was still reading it with knitted brows. "I think that the two together, Copperfield," replied Traddles, "mean more than Mr. and Mrs. Micawber usually mean in their correspondence--but I don't know what. They are both written in good faith, I have no doubt, and without any collusion. Poor thing!" he was now alluding to Mrs. Micawber's letter, and we were standing side by side comparing the two; "it will be a charity to write to her, at all events, and tell her that we will not fail to see Mr. Micawber." I acceded to this, the more readily, because I now reproached myself with having treated her former letter rather lightly. It had set me thinking a good deal at the time, as I have mentioned in its place; but my absorption in my own affairs, my experience of the family, and my hearing nothing more, had gradually ended in my dismissing the subject. I had often thought of the Micawbers, but chiefly to wonder what "pecuniary liabilities" they were establishing in Canterbury, and to recall how shy Mr. Micawber was of me when he became clerk to Uriah Heep. However, I now wrote a comforting letter to Mrs. Micawber, in our joint names, and we both signed it. As we walked into town to post it, Traddles and I held a long conference, and launched into a number of speculations, which I need not repeat. We took my aunt into our counsels in the afternoon; but our only decided conclusion was, that we would be very punctual in keeping Mr. Micawber's appointment. Although we appeared at the stipulated place a quarter of an hour before the time, we found Mr. Micawber already there. He was standing with his arms folded, over against the wall, looking at the spikes on the top, with a sentimental expression, as if they were the interlacing boughs of trees that had shaded him in his youth. When we accosted him, his manner was something more confused, and something less genteel, than of yore. He had relinquished his legal suit of black for the purposes of this excursion, and wore the old surtout and tights, but not quite with the old air. He gradually picked up more and more of it as we conversed with him; but, his very eye-glass seemed to hang less easily, and his shirt collar, though still of the old formidable dimensions, rather drooped. "Gentlemen!" said Mr. Micawber, after the first salutations, "you are friends in need, and friends indeed. Allow me to offer my inquiries with reference to the physical welfare of Mrs. Copperfield _in esse_, and Mrs. Traddles _in posse_,--presuming, that is to say, that my friend Mr. Traddles is not yet united to the object of his affections, for weal and for woe." We acknowledged his politeness, and made suitable replies. He then directed our attention to the wall, and was beginning "I assure you, gentlemen," when I ventured to object to that ceremonious form of address, and to beg that he would speak to us in the old way. "My dear Copperfield," he returned, pressing my hand, "your cordiality overpowers me. This reception of a shattered fragment of the Temple once called Man--if I may be permitted so to express myself--bespeaks a heart that is an honor to our common nature. I was about to observe that I again behold the serene spot where some of the happiest hours of my existence fleeted by." "Made so, I am sure, by Mrs. Micawber," said I. "I hope she is well?" "Thank you," returned Mr. Micawber, whose face clouded at this reference, "she is but so-so. And this," said Mr. Micawber, nodding his head sorrowfully, "is the Bench! Where, for the first time in many revolving years, the overwhelming pressure of pecuniary liabilities was not proclaimed, from day to day, by importunate voices declining to vacate the passage; where there was no knocker on the door for any creditor to appeal to; where personal service of process was not required, and detainers were merely lodged at the gate! Gentlemen," said Mr. Micawber, "when the shadow of that iron-work on the summit of the brick structure has been reflected on the gravel of the Parade, I have seen my children thread the mazes of the intricate pattern, avoiding the dark marks. I have been familiar with every stone in the place. If I betray weakness, you will know how to excuse me." "We have all got on in life since then, Mr. Micawber," said I. "Mr. Copperfield," returned Mr. Micawber, bitterly, "when I was an inmate of that retreat I could look my fellow-man in the face, and punch his head if he offended me. My fellow-man and myself are no longer on those glorious terms!" Turning from the building in a downcast manner, Mr. Micawber accepted my proffered arm on one side, and the proffered arm of Traddles on the other, and walked away between us. "There are some landmarks," observed Mr. Micawber, looking fondly back over his shoulder, "on the road to the tomb, which, but for the impiety of the aspiration, a man would wish never to have passed. Such is the Bench in my chequered career." "Oh, you are in low spirits, Mr. Micawber," said Traddles. "I am, sir," interposed Mr. Micawber. "I hope," said Traddles, "it is not because you have conceived a dislike to the law--for I am a lawyer myself, you know." Mr. Micawber answered not a word. "How is our friend Heep, Mr. Micawber?" said I, after a silence. "My dear Copperfield," returned Mr. Micawber, bursting into a state of much excitement, and turning pale, "if you ask after my employer as _your_ friend, I am sorry for it; if you ask after him as _my_ friend, I sardonically smile at it. In whatever capacity you ask after my employer, I beg, without offence to you, to limit my reply to this--that whatever his state of health may be, his appearance is foxy: not to say diabolical. You will allow me, as a private individual, to decline pursuing a subject which has lashed me to the utmost verge of desperation in my professional capacity." I expressed my regret for having innocently touched upon a theme that roused him so much. "May I ask," said I, "without any hazard of repeating the mistake, how my old friends Mr. and Miss Wickfield are?" "Miss Wickfield," said Mr. Micawber, now turning red, "is, as she always is, a pattern, and a bright example. My dear Copperfield, she is the only starry spot in a miserable existence. My respect for that young lady, my admiration of her character, my devotion to her for her love and truth, and goodness!--Take me," said Mr. Micawber, "down a turning, for, upon my soul, in my present state of mind I am not equal to this!" We wheeled him off into a narrow street, where he took out his pocket-handkerchief, and stood with his back to a wall. If I looked as gravely at him as Traddles did, he must have found our company by no means inspiriting. "It is my fate," said Mr. Micawber, unfeignedly sobbing, but doing even that, with a shadow of the old expression of doing something genteel; "it is my fate, gentlemen, that the finer feelings of our nature have become reproaches to me. My homage to Miss Wickfield, is a flight of arrows in my bosom. You had better leave me, if you please, to walk the earth as a vagabond. The worm will settle _my_ business in double-quick time." Without attending to this invocation, we stood by, until he put up his pocket-handkerchief, pulled up his shirt-collar, and, to delude any person in the neighbourhood who might have been observing him, hummed a tune with his hat very much on one side. I then mentioned--not knowing what might be lost, if we lost sight of him yet--that it would give me great pleasure to introduce him to my aunt, if he would ride out to Highgate, where a bed was at his service. "You shall make us a glass of your own punch, Mr. Micawber," said I, "and forget whatever you have on your mind, in pleasanter reminiscences." "Or, if confiding anything to friends will be more likely to relieve you, you shall impart it to us, Mr. Micawber," said Traddles, prudently. "Gentlemen," returned Mr. Micawber, "do with me as you will! I am a straw upon the surface of the deep, and am tossed in all directions by the elephants--I beg your pardon; I should have said the elements." We walked on, arm-in-arm, again; found the coach in the act of starting; and arrived at Highgate without encountering any difficulties by the way. I was very uneasy and very uncertain in my mind what to say or do for the best--so was Traddles, evidently. Mr. Micawber was for the most part plunged into deep gloom. He occasionally made an attempt to smarten himself, and hum the fag-end of a tune; but his relapses into profound melancholy were only made the more impressive by the mockery of a hat exceedingly on one side, and a shirt-collar pulled up to his eyes. We went to my aunt's house rather than to mine, because of Dora's not being well. My aunt presented herself on being sent for, and welcomed Mr. Micawber with gracious cordiality. Mr. Micawber kissed her hand, retired to the window, and pulling out his pocket-handkerchief, had a mental wrestle with himself. Mr. Dick was at home. He was by nature so exceedingly compassionate of anyone who seemed to be ill at ease, and was so quick to find any such person out, that he shook hands with Mr. Micawber, at least half-a-dozen times in five minutes. To Mr. Micawber, in his trouble, this warmth, on the part of a stranger, was so extremely touching, that he could only say, on the occasion of each successive shake, "My dear sir, you overpower me!" Which gratified Mr. Dick so much, that he went at it again with greater vigor than before. "The friendliness of this gentleman," said Mr. Micawber to my aunt, "if you will allow me, ma'am, to cull a figure of speech from the vocabulary of our coarser national sports--floors me. To a man who is struggling with a complicated burden of perplexity and disquiet, such a reception is trying, I assure you." "My friend Mr. Dick," replied my aunt, proudly, "is not a common man." "That I am convinced of," said Mr. Micawber. "My dear sir!" for Mr. Dick was shaking hands with him again; "I am deeply sensible of your cordiality!" "How do you find yourself?" said Mr. Dick, with an anxious look. "Indifferent, my dear sir," returned Mr. Micawber, sighing. "You must keep up your spirits," said Mr. Dick, "and make yourself as comfortable as possible." Mr. Micawber was quite overcome by these friendly words, and by finding Mr. Dick's hand again within his own. "It has been my lot," he observed, "to meet, in the diversified panorama of human existence, with an occasional oasis, but never with one so green, so gushing, as the present!" At another time I should have been amused by this; but I felt that we were all constrained and uneasy, and I watched Mr. Micawber so anxiously, in his vacillations between an evident disposition to reveal something, and a counter-disposition to reveal nothing, that I was in a perfect fever. Traddles, sitting on the edge of his chair, with his eyes wide open, and his hair more emphatically erect than ever, stared by turns at the ground and at Mr. Micawber, without so much as attempting to put in a word. My aunt, though I saw that her shrewdest observation was concentrated on her new guest, had more useful possession of her wits than either of us; for she held him in conversation, and made it necessary for him to talk, whether he liked it or not. "You are a very old friend of my nephew's, Mr. Micawber," said my aunt. "I wish I had had the pleasure of seeing you before." "Madam," returned Mr. Micawber, "I wish I had had the honor of knowing you at an earlier period. I was not always the wreck you at present behold." "I hope Mrs. Micawber and your family are well, sir," said my aunt. Mr. Micawber inclined his head. "They are as well, ma'am," he desperately observed after a pause, "as Aliens and Outcasts can ever hope to be." "Lord bless you, sir!" exclaimed my aunt, in her abrupt way. "What are you talking about?" "The subsistence of my family, ma'am," returned Mr. Micawber, "trembles in the balance. My employer----" Here Mr. Micawber provokingly left off; and began to peel the lemons that had been under my directions set before him, together with all the other appliances he used in making punch. "Your employer, you know," said Mr. Dick, jogging his arm as a gentle reminder. "My good sir," returned Mr. Micawber, "you recall me. I am obliged to you." They shook hands again. "My employer, ma'am--Mr. Heep--once did me the favor to observe to me, that if I were not in the receipt of the stipendiary emoluments appertaining to my engagement with him, I should probably be a mountebank about the country swallowing a sword-blade, and eating the devouring element. For anything that I can perceive to the contrary, it is still probable that my children may be reduced to seek a livelihood by personal contortion, while Mrs. Micawber abets their unnatural feats, by playing the barrel-organ." Mr. Micawber, with a random but expressive flourish of his knife, signified that these performances might be expected to take place after he was no more; then resumed his peeling with a desperate air. My aunt leaned her elbow on the little round table that she usually kept beside her, and eyed him attentively. Notwithstanding the aversion with which I regarded the idea of entrapping him into any disclosure he was not prepared to make voluntarily, I should have taken him up at this point, but for the strange proceedings in which I saw him engaged; whereof his putting the lemon-peel into the kettle, the sugar into the snuffer-tray, the spirit into the empty jug, and confidently attempting to pour boiling water out of a candlestick, were among the most remarkable. I saw that a crisis was at hand, and it came. He clattered all his means and implements together, rose from his chair, pulled out his pocket-handkerchief, and burst into tears. "My dear Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, behind his handkerchief, "this is an occupation, of all others, requiring an untroubled mind, and self-respect. I cannot perform it. It is out of the question." "Mr. Micawber," said I, "what is the matter? Pray speak out. You are among friends." "Among friends, sir!" repeated Mr. Micawber; and all he had reserved came breaking out of him. "Good heavens, it is principally because I _am_ among friends that my state of mind is what it is. What is the matter, gentlemen? What is _not_ the matter? Villany is the matter; baseness is the matter; deception, fraud, conspiracy, are the matter; and the name of the whole atrocious mass is--HEEP!" My aunt clapped her hands, and we all started up as if we were possessed. "The struggle is over!" said Mr. Micawber, violently gesticulating with his pocket-handkerchief, and fairly striking out from time to time with both arms, as if he were swimming under superhuman difficulties. "I will lead this life no longer. I am a wretched being, cut off from everything that makes life tolerable. I have been under a Taboo in that infernal scoundrel's service. Give me back my wife, give me back my family, substitute Micawber for the petty wretch who walks about in the boots at present on my feet, and call upon me to swallow a sword to-morrow, and I'll do it. With an appetite!" I never saw a man so hot in my life. I tried to calm him, that we might come to something rational; but he got hotter and hotter, and wouldn't hear a word. "I'll put my hand in no man's hand," said Mr. Micawber, gasping, puffing, and sobbing, to that degree that he was like a man fighting with cold water, "until I have--blown to fragments--the--a--detestable--serpent--HEEP! I'll partake of no one's hospitality, until I have--a--moved Mount Vesuvius--to eruption--on--a--the abandoned rascal--HEEP! Refreshment--a--underneath this roof--particularly punch--would--a--choak me--unless--I had--previously--choaked the eyes--out of the head--a--of--interminable cheat, and liar--HEEP! I--a--I'll know nobody--and--a--say nothing--and--a--live nowhere--until I have crushed--to--a--undiscoverable atoms--the--transcendent and immortal hypocrite and perjurer--HEEP!" I really had some fear of Mr. Micawber's dying on the spot. The manner in which he struggled through these inarticulate sentences, and, whenever he found himself getting near the name of Heep, fought his way on to it, dashed at it in a fainting state, and brought it out with a vehemence little less than marvellous, was frightful; but now, when he sank into a chair, steaming, and looked at us, with every possible color in his face that had no business there, and an endless procession of lumps following one another in hot haste up his throat, whence they seemed to shoot into his forehead, he had the appearance of being in the last extremity. I would have gone to his assistance, but he waved me off, and wouldn't hear a word. "No, Copperfield!--No communication--a--until--Miss Wickfield--a--redress from wrongs inflicted by consummate scoundrel--HEEP!" (I am quite convinced he could not have uttered three words, but for the amazing energy with which this word inspired him when he felt it coming.) "Inviolable secret--a--from the whole world--a--no exceptions--this day week--a--at breakfast time--a--everybody present--including aunt--a--and extremely friendly gentleman--to be at the hotel at Canterbury--a--where--Mrs. Micawber and myself--Auld Lang Syne in chorus--and--a--will expose intolerable ruffian--HEEP! No more to say--a--or listen to persuasion--go immediately--not capable--a--bear society--upon the track of devoted and doomed traitor--HEEP!" With this last repetition of the magic word that had kept him going at all, and in which he surpassed all his previous efforts, Mr. Micawber rushed out of the house; leaving us in a state of excitement, hope, and wonder, that reduced us to a condition little better than his own. But even then his passion for writing letters was too strong to be resisted; for while we were yet in the height of our excitement, hope, and wonder, the following pastoral note was brought to me from a neighbouring tavern, at which he had called to write it:-- "Most secret and confidential. "MY DEAR SIR, "I beg to be allowed to convey, through you, my apologies to your excellent aunt for my late excitement. An explosion of a smouldering volcano long suppressed, was the result of an internal contest more easily conceived than described. "I trust I rendered tolerably intelligible my appointment for the morning of this day week, at the house of public entertainment at Canterbury, where Mrs. Micawber and myself had once the honor of uniting our voices to yours, in the well-known strain of the Immortal exciseman nurtured beyond the Tweed. "The duty done, and act of reparation performed, which can alone enable me to contemplate my fellow mortal, I shall be known no more. I shall simply require to be deposited in that place of universal resort, where "'Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep,' "--With the plain Inscription, "WILKINS MICAWBER." CHAPTER L. MR. PEGGOTTY'S DREAM COMES TRUE. By this time, some months had passed, since our interview on the bank of the river with Martha. I had never seen her since, but she had communicated with Mr. Peggotty on several occasions. Nothing had come of her zealous intervention; nor could I infer, from what he told me, that any clue had ever been obtained, for a moment, to Emily's fate. I confess that I began to despair of her recovery, and gradually to sink deeper and deeper into the belief that she was dead. His conviction remained unchanged. So far as I know--and I believe his honest heart was transparent to me--he never wavered again, in his solemn certainty of finding her. His patience never tired. And, although I trembled for the agony it might one day be to him to have his strong assurance shivered at a blow, there was something so religious in it, so affectingly expressive of its anchor being in the purest depths of his fine nature, that the respect and honor in which I held him were exalted every day. His was not a lazy trustfulness that hoped, and did no more. He had been a man of sturdy action all his life, and he knew that in all things wherein he wanted help he must do his own part faithfully, and help himself. I have known him set out in the night, on a misgiving that the light might not be, by some accident, in the window of the old boat, and walk to Yarmouth. I have known him, on reading something in the newspaper that might apply to her, take up his stick, and go forth on a journey of three or four score miles. He made his way by sea to Naples, and back, after hearing the narrative to which Miss Dartle had assisted me. All his journeys were ruggedly performed; for he was always steadfast in a purpose of saving money for Emily's sake, when she should be found. In all this long pursuit, I never heard him repine; I never heard him say he was fatigued, or out of heart. Dora had often seen him since our marriage, and was quite fond of him. I fancy his figure before me now, standing near her sofa, with his rough cap in his hand, and the blue eyes of my child-wife raised, with a timid wonder, to his face. Sometimes of an evening, about twilight, when he came to talk with me, I would induce him to smoke his pipe in the garden, as we slowly paced to and fro together; and then, the picture of his deserted home, and the comfortable air it used to have in my childish eyes of an evening when the fire was burning, and the wind moaning round it, came most vividly into my mind. One evening, at this hour, he told me that he had found Martha waiting near his lodging on the preceding night when he came out, and that she had asked him not to leave London on any account, until he should have seen her again. "Did she tell you why?" I inquired. "I asked her, Mas'r Davy," he replied, "but it is but few words as she ever says, and she on'y got my promise and so went away." "Did she say when you might expect to see her again?" I demanded. "No, Mas'r Davy," he returned, drawing his hand thoughtfully down his face. "I asked that too; but it was more (she said) than she could tell." As I had long forborne to encourage him with hopes that hung on threads, I made no other comment on this information than that I supposed he would see her soon. Such speculations as it engendered within me I kept to myself, and those were faint enough. I was walking alone in the garden, one evening, about a fortnight afterwards. I remember that evening well. It was the second in Mr. Micawber's week of suspense. There had been rain all day, and there was a damp feeling in the air. The leaves were thick upon the trees, and heavy with wet; but the rain had ceased, though the sky was still dark; and the hopeful birds were singing cheerfully. As I walked to and fro in the garden, and the twilight began to close around me, their little voices were hushed; and that peculiar silence which belongs to such an evening in the country when the lightest trees are quite still, save for the occasional droppings from their boughs, prevailed. There was a little green perspective of trellis-work and ivy at the side of our cottage, through which I could see, from the garden where I was walking, into the road before the house. I happened to turn my eyes towards this place, as I was thinking of many things; and I saw a figure beyond, dressed in a plain cloak. It was bending eagerly towards me, and beckoning. "Martha!" said I, going to it. "Can you come with me?" she inquired, in an agitated whisper. "I have been to him, and he is not at home. I wrote down where he was to come, and left it on his table with my own hand. They said he would not be out long. I have tidings for him. Can you come directly?" My answer was, to pass out at the gate immediately. She made a hasty gesture with her hand, as if to entreat my patience and my silence, and turned towards London, whence, as her dress betokened, she had come expeditiously on foot. I asked her if that were not our destination? On her motioning Yes, with the same hasty gesture as before, I stopped an empty coach that was coming by, and we got into it. When I asked her where the coachman was to drive, she answered "Anywhere near Golden Square! And quick!"--then shrunk into a corner, with one trembling hand before her face, and the other making the former gesture, as if she could not bear a voice. Now much disturbed, and dazzled with conflicting gleams of hope and dread, I looked at her for some explanation. But, seeing how strongly she desired to remain quiet, and feeling that it was my own natural inclination too, at such a time, I did not attempt to break the silence. We proceeded without a word being spoken. Sometimes she glanced out of the window, as though she thought we were going slowly, though indeed we were going fast; but otherwise remained exactly as at first. We alighted at one of the entrances to the Square she had mentioned, where I directed the coach to wait, not knowing but that we might have some occasion for it. She laid her hand on my arm, and hurried me on to one of the sombre streets, of which there are several in that part, where the houses were once fair dwellings in the occupation of single families, but have, and had, long degenerated into poor lodgings let off in rooms. Entering at the open door of one of these, and releasing my arm, she beckoned me to follow her up the common staircase, which was like a tributary channel to the street. The house swarmed with inmates. As we went up, doors of rooms were opened and people's heads put out; and we passed other people on the stairs, who were coming down. In glancing up from the outside, before we entered, I had seen women and children lolling at the windows over flower-pots; and we seemed to have attracted their curiosity, for these were principally the observers who looked out of their doors. It was a broad panelled staircase, with massive balustrades of some dark wood; cornices above the doors, ornamented with carved fruit and flowers; and broad seats in the windows. But all these tokens of past grandeur were miserably decayed and dirty; rot, damp, and age, had weakened the flooring, which in many places was unsound and even unsafe. Some attempts had been made, I noticed, to infuse new blood into this dwindling frame, by repairing the costly old wood-work here and there with common deal; but it was like the marriage of a reduced old noble to a plebeian pauper, and each party to the ill-assorted union shrunk away from the other. Several of the back windows on the staircase had been darkened or wholly blocked up. In those that remained, there was scarcely any glass; and, through the crumbling frames by which the bad air seemed always to come in, and never to go out, I saw, through other glassless windows, into other houses in a similar condition, and looked giddily down into a wretched yard which was the common dust-heap of the mansion. We proceeded to the top-story of the house. Two or three times, by the way, I thought I observed in the indistinct light the skirts of a female figure going up before us. As we turned to ascend the last flight of stairs between us and the roof, we caught a full view of this figure pausing for a moment, at a door. Then it turned the handle and went in. "What's this!" said Martha, in a whisper. "She has gone into my room. I don't know her!" _I_ knew her. I had recognised her with amazement, for Miss Dartle. I said something to the effect that it was a lady whom I had seen before, in a few words, to my conductress; and had scarcely done so, when we heard her voice in the room, though not, from where we stood, what she was saying. Martha, with an astonished look, repeated her former action, and softly led me up the stairs; and then, by a little back door which seemed to have no lock, and which she pushed open with a touch, into a small empty garret with a low sloping roof: little better than a cupboard. Between this, and the room she had called hers, there was a small door of communication, standing partly open. Here we stopped, breathless with our ascent, and she placed her hand lightly on my lips. I could only see, of the room beyond, that it was pretty large; that there was a bed in it; and that there were some common pictures of ships upon the walls. I could not see Miss Dartle, or the person whom we had heard her address. Certainly, my companion could not, for my position was the best. A dead silence prevailed for some moments. Martha kept one hand on my lips, and raised the other in a listening attitude. "It matters little to me her not being at home," said Rosa Dartle, haughtily, "I know nothing of her. It is you I come to see." "Me?" replied a soft voice. At the sound of it, a thrill went through my frame. For it was Emily's! "Yes," returned Miss Dartle, "I have come to look at you. What? You are not ashamed of the face that has done so much?" The resolute and unrelenting hatred of her tone, its cold stern sharpness, and its mastered rage, presented her before me, as if I had seen her standing in the light. I saw the flashing black eyes, and the passion-wasted figure; and I saw the scar, with its white track cutting through her lips, quivering and throbbing as she spoke. "I have come to see," she said, "James Steerforth's fancy; the girl who ran away with him, and is the town-talk of the commonest people of her native place; the bold, flaunting, practised companion of persons like James Steerforth. I want to know what such a thing is like." There was a rustle, as if the unhappy girl, on whom she heaped these taunts, ran towards the door, and the speaker swiftly interposed herself before it. It was succeeded by a moment's pause. When Miss Dartle spoke again, it was through her set teeth, and with a stamp upon the ground. "Stay there!" she said, "or I'll proclaim you to the house, and the whole street! If you try to evade _me_, I'll stop you, if it's by the hair, and raise the very stones against you!" A frightened murmur was the only reply that reached my ears. A silence succeeded. I did not know what to do. Much as I desired to put an end to the interview, I felt that I had no right to present myself; that it was for Mr. Peggotty alone to see her and recover her. Would he never come? I thought impatiently. "So!" said Rosa Dartle, with a contemptuous laugh, "I see her at last! Why, he was a poor creature to be taken by that delicate mock-modesty, and that hanging head!" "Oh, for Heaven's sake, spare me!" exclaimed Emily. "Whoever you are, you know my pitiable story, and for Heaven's sake spare me, if you would be spared yourself!" "If _I_ would be spared!" returned the other fiercely; "what is there in common between _us_, do you think?" "Nothing but our sex," said Emily, with a burst of tears. "And that," said Rosa Dartle, "is so strong a claim, preferred by one so infamous, that if I had any feeling in my breast but scorn and abhorrence of you, it would freeze it up. Our sex! You are an honour to our sex!" "I have deserved this," cried Emily, "but it's dreadful! Dear, dear lady, think what I have suffered, and how I am fallen! Oh, Martha, come back! Oh, home, home!" Miss Dartle placed herself in a chair, within view of the door, and looked downward, as if Emily were crouching on the floor before her. Being now between me and the light, I could see her curled lip, and her cruel eyes intently fixed on one place, with a greedy triumph. "Listen to what I say!" she said; "and reserve your false arts for your dupes. Do you hope to move _me_ by your tears? No more than you could charm me by your smiles, you purchased slave." "Oh, have some mercy on me!" cried Emily. "Show me some compassion, or I shall die mad!" "It would be no great penance," said Rosa Dartle, "for your crimes. Do you know what you have done? Do you ever think of the home you have laid waste?" "Oh, is there ever night or day, when I don't think of it!" cried Emily; and now I could just see her, on her knees, with her head thrown back, her pale face looking upward, her hands wildly clasped and held out, and her hair streaming about her. "Has there ever been a single minute, waking or sleeping, when it hasn't been before me, just as it used to be in the lost days when I turned my back upon it for ever and for ever! Oh, home, home! Oh dear, dear uncle, if you ever could have known the agony your love would cause me when I fell away from good, you never would have shown it to me so constant, much as you felt it; but would have been angry to me, at least once in my life, that I might have had some comfort! I have none, none, no comfort upon earth, for all of them were always fond of me!" She dropped on her face, before the imperious figure in the chair, with an imploring effort to clasp the skirt of her dress. Rosa Dartle sat looking down upon her, as inflexible as a figure of brass. Her lips were tightly compressed, as if she knew that she must keep a strong constraint upon herself--I write what I sincerely believe--or she would be tempted to strike the beautiful form with her foot. I saw her, distinctly, and the whole power of her face and character seemed forced into that expression.--Would he Never come? "The miserable vanity of these earth-worms!" she said, when she had so far controlled the angry heavings of her breast, that she could trust herself to speak. "_Your_ home! Do you imagine that I bestow a thought on it, or suppose you could do any harm to that low place, which money would not pay for, and handsomely? _Your_ home! You were a part of the trade of your home, and were bought and sold like any other vendible thing your people dealt in." "Oh not that!" cried Emily. "Say anything of me; but don't visit my disgrace and shame, more than I have done, on folks who are as honorable as you! Have some respect for them, as you are a lady, if you have no mercy for me." "I speak," she said, not deigning to take any heed of this appeal, and drawing away her dress from the contamination of Emily's touch, "I speak of _his_ home--where I live. Here," she said, stretching out her hand with her contemptuous laugh, and looking down upon the prostrate girl, "is a worthy cause of division between lady-mother and gentleman-son; of grief in a house where she wouldn't have been admitted as a kitchen-girl; of anger, and repining, and reproach. This piece of pollution, picked up from the water-side, to be made much of for an hour, and then tossed back to her original place!" "No! no!" cried Emily, clasping her hands together. "When he first came into my way--that the day had never dawned upon me, and he had met me being carried to my grave!--I had been brought up as virtuous as you or any lady, and was going to be the wife of as good a man as you or any lady in the world can ever marry. If you live in his home and know him, you know, perhaps, what his power with a weak, vain girl might be. I don't defend myself, but I know well, and he knows well, or he will know when he comes to die, and his mind is troubled with it, that he used all his power to deceive me, and that I believed him, trusted him, and loved him!" Rosa Dartle sprang up from her seat; recoiled; and in recoiling struck at her, with a face of such malignity, so darkened and disfigured by passion, that I had almost thrown myself between them. The blow, which had no aim, fell upon the air. As she now stood panting, looking at her with the utmost detestation that she was capable of expressing, and trembling from head to foot with rage and scorn, I thought I had never seen such a sight, and never could see such another. "_You_ love him? _You?_" she cried, with her clenched hand, quivering as if it only wanted a weapon to stab the object of her wrath. Emily had shrunk out of my view. There was no reply. "And tell that to _me_," she added, "with your shameful lips? Why don't they whip these creatures! If I could order it to be done, I would have this girl whipped to death." And so she would, I have no doubt. I would not have trusted her with the rack itself, while that furious look lasted. She slowly, very slowly, broke into a laugh, and pointed at Emily with her hand, as if she were a sight of shame for gods and men. "_She_ love!" she said. "That carrion! And he ever cared for her, she'd tell me? Ha, ha! The liars that these traders are!" Her mockery was worse than her undisguised rage. Of the two, I would have much preferred to be the object of the latter. But, when she suffered it to break loose, it was only for a moment. She had chained it up again, and however it might tear her within, she subdued it to herself. "I came here, you pure fountain of love," she said, "to see--as I began by telling you--what such a thing as you was like. I was curious. I am satisfied. Also to tell you, that you had best seek that home of yours, with all speed, and hide your head among those excellent people who are expecting you, and whom your money will console. When it's all gone, you can believe, and trust, and love again, you know! I thought you a broken toy that had lasted its time; a worthless spangle that was tarnished, and thrown away. But, finding you true gold, a very lady, and an ill-used innocent, with a fresh heart full of love and trustfulness--which you look like, and is quite consistent with your story!--I have something more to say. Attend to it; for what I say I'll do. Do you hear me, you fairy spirit? What I say, I mean to do!" Her rage got the better of her again, for a moment; but it passed over her face like a spasm, and left her smiling. "Hide yourself," she pursued, "if not at home, somewhere. Let it be somewhere beyond reach; in some obscure life--or, better still, in some obscure death. I wonder, if your loving heart will not break, you have found no way of helping it to be still! I have heard of such means sometimes. I believe they may be easily found." A low crying, on the part of Emily, interrupted her here. She stopped, and listened to it as if it were music. "I am of a strange nature, perhaps," Rosa Dartle went on; "but I can't breathe freely in the air you breathe. I find it sickly. Therefore, I will have it cleared; I will have it purified of you. If you live here to-morrow, I'll have your story and your character proclaimed on the common stair. There are decent women in the house, I am told; and it is a pity such a light as you should be among them, and concealed. If, leaving here, you seek any refuge in this town in any character but your true one (which you are welcome to bear, without molestation from me), the same service shall be done you, if I hear of your retreat. Being assisted by a gentleman who not long ago aspired to the favor of your hand, I am sanguine as to that." Would he never, never come? How long was I to bear this? How long could I bear it? "Oh me, oh me!" exclaimed the wretched Emily, in a tone that might have touched the hardest heart, I should have thought; but there was no relenting in Rosa Dartle's smile. "What, what, shall I do!" "Do?" returned the other. "Live happy in your own reflections! Consecrate your existence to the recollection of James Steerforth's tenderness--he would have made you his serving-man's wife, would he not?--or to feeling grateful to the upright and deserving creature who would have taken you as his gift. Or, if those proud remembrances, and the consciousness of your own virtues, and the honorable position to which they have raised you in the eyes of everything that wears the human shape, will not sustain you, marry that good man, and be happy in his condescension. If this will not do either, die! There are doorways and dust-heaps for such deaths, and such despair--find one, and take your flight to Heaven!" I heard a distant foot upon the stairs. I knew it, I was certain. It was his, thank God! She moved slowly from before the door when she said this, and passed out of my sight. "But mark!" she added, slowly and sternly, opening the other door to go away, "I am resolved, for reasons that I have and hatreds that I entertain, to cast you out, unless you withdraw from my reach altogether, or drop your pretty mask. This is what I had to say; and what I say, I mean to do!" The foot upon the stairs came nearer--nearer--passed her as she went down--rushed into the room! "Uncle!" A fearful cry followed the word. I paused a moment, and looking in, saw him supporting her insensible figure in his arms. He gazed for a few seconds in the face; then stooped to kiss it--oh, how tenderly!--and drew a handkerchief before it. [Illustration: Mr. Peggotty's dream comes true.] "Mas'r Davy," he said, in a low tremulous voice, when it was covered, "I thank my Heav'nly Father as my dream's come true! I thank Him hearty for having guided of me, in His own ways, to my darling!" With those words he took her up in his arms; and, with the veiled face lying on his bosom, and addressed towards his own, carried her, motionless and unconscious, down the stairs. CHAPTER LI. THE BEGINNING OF A LONGER JOURNEY. It was yet early in the morning of the following day, when, as I was walking in my garden with my aunt (who took little other exercise now, being so much in attendance on my dear Dora), I was told that Mr. Peggotty desired to speak with me. He came into the garden to meet me half-way, on my going towards the gate; and bared his head, as it was always his custom to do when he saw my aunt, for whom he had a high respect. I had been telling her all that had happened over-night. Without saying a word, she walked up with a cordial face, shook hands with him, and patted him on the arm. It was so expressively done, that she had no need to say a word. Mr. Peggotty understood her quite as well as if she had said a thousand. "I'll go in now, Trot," said my aunt, "and look after little Blossom, who will be getting up presently." "Not along of my being heer, ma'am, I hope?" said Mr. Peggotty. "Unless my wits is gone a bahd's neezing"--by which Mr. Peggotty meant to say, bird's-nesting--"this morning, 'tis along of me as you're a going to quit us?" "You have something to say, my good friend," returned my aunt, "and will do better without me." "By your leave, ma'am," returned Mr. Peggotty, "I should take it kind, pervising you doen't mind my clicketten, if you'd bide heer." "Would you?" said my aunt, with short good-nature. "Then I am sure I will!" So, she drew her arm through Mr. Peggotty's, and walked with him to a leafy little summer-house there was at the bottom of the garden, where she sat down on a bench, and I beside her. There was a seat for Mr. Peggotty too, but he preferred to stand, leaning his hand on the small rustic table. As he stood, looking at his cap for a little while before beginning to speak, I could not help observing what power and force of character his sinewy hand expressed, and what a good and trusty companion it was to his honest brow and iron-grey hair. "I took my dear child away last night," Mr. Peggotty began, as he raised his eyes to ours, "to my lodging, wheer I have a long time been expecting of her and preparing fur her. It was hours afore she knowed me right; and when she did, she kneeled down at my feet, and kiender said to me, as if it was her prayers, how it all come to be. You may believe me, when I heerd her voice, as I had heerd at home so playful--and see her humbled, as it might be in the dust our Saviour wrote in with his blessed hand--I felt a wownd go to my 'art, in the midst of all its thankfulness." He drew his sleeve across his face, without any pretence of concealing why; and then cleared his voice. "It warn't for long as I felt that; for she was found. I had on'y to think as she was found, and it was gone. I doen't know why I do so much as mention of it now, I'm sure. I didn't have it in my mind a minute ago, to say a word about myself; but it come up so nat'ral, that I yielded to it afore I was aweer." "You are a self-denying soul," said my aunt, "and will have your reward." Mr. Peggotty, with the shadows of the leaves playing athwart his face, made a surprised inclination of the head towards my aunt, as an acknowledgment of her good opinion; then, took up the thread he had relinquished. "When my Em'ly took flight," he said, in stern wrath for the moment, "from the house wheer she was made a pris'ner by that theer spotted snake as Mas'r Davy see,--and his story's trew, and may GOD confound him!--she took flight in the night. It was a dark night, with a many stars a shining. She was wild. She ran along the sea beach, believing the old boat was theer; and calling out to us to turn away our faces, for she was a coming by. She heerd herself a crying out, like as if it was another person; and cut herself on them sharp-pinted stones and rocks, and felt it no more than if she had been rock herself. Ever so fur she run, and there was fire afore her eyes, and roarings in her ears. Of a sudden--or so she thowt, you unnerstand--the day broke, wet and windy, and she was lying b'low a heap of stone upon the shore, and a woman was a speaking to her, saying, in the language of that country, what was it as had gone so much amiss?" He saw everything he related. It passed before him, as he spoke, so vividly, that, in the intensity of his earnestness, he presented what he described, to me, with greater distinctness than I can express. I can hardly believe, writing now long afterwards, but that I was actually present in these scenes; they are impressed upon me with such an astonishing air of fidelity. "As Em'ly's eyes--which was heavy--see this woman better," Mr. Peggotty went on, "she know'd as she was one of them as she had often talked to on the beach. Fur, though she had run (as I have said) ever so fur in the night, she had oftentimes wandered long ways, partly afoot, partly in boats and carriages, and know'd all that country, 'long the coast, miles and miles. She hadn't no children of her own, this woman, being a young wife; but she was a looking to have one afore long. And may my prayers go up to Heaven that 'twill be a happ'ness to her, and a comfort, and a honor, all her life! May it love her and be dootiful to her, in her old age; helpful of her at the last; a Angel to her heer, and heerafter!" "Amen!" said my aunt. "She had been summat timorous and down," said Mr. Peggotty, "and had sat, at first, a little way off, at her spinning, or such work as it was, when Em'ly talked to the children. But Em'ly had took notice of her, and had gone and spoke to her; and as the young woman was partial to the children herself, they had soon made friends. Sermuchser, that when Em'ly went that way, she always giv Em'ly flowers. This was her as now asked what it was that had gone so much amiss. Em'ly told her, and she--took her home. She did indeed. She took her home," said Mr. Peggotty, covering his face. He was more affected by this act of kindness, than I had ever seen him affected by anything since the night she went away. My aunt and I did not attempt to disturb him. "It was a little cottage, you may suppose," he said, presently, "but she found space for Em'ly in it,--her husband was away at sea,--and she kep it secret, and prevailed upon such neighbours as she had (they was not many near) to keep it secret too. Em'ly was took bad with fever, and, what is very strange to me is,--maybe 'tis not so strange to scholars,--the language of that country went out of her head, and she could only speak her own, that no one unnerstood. She recollects, as if she had dreamed it, that she lay there, always a talking her own tongue, always believing as the old boat was round the next pint in the bay, and begging and imploring of 'em to send theer and tell how she was dying, and bring back a message of forgiveness, if it was on'y a wured. A'most the whole time, she thowt,--now, that him as I made mention on just now was lurking for her unnerneath the winder: now that him as had brought her to this was in the room,--and cried to the good young woman not to give her up, and know'd, at the same time, that she couldn't unnerstand, and dreaded that she must be took away. Likewise the fire was afore her eyes, and the roarings in her ears; and there was no to-day, nor yesterday, nor yet to-morrow; but everything in her life as ever had been, or as ever could be, and everything as never had been, and as never could be, was a crowding on her all at once, and nothing clear nor welcome, and yet she sang and laughed about it! How long this lasted, I doen't know; but then there come a sleep; and in that sleep, from being a many times stronger than her own self, she fell into the weakness of the littlest child." Here he stopped, as if for relief from the terrors of his own description. After being silent for a few moments, he pursued his story. "It was a pleasant arternoon when she awoke; and so quiet, that there warn't a sound but the rippling of that blue sea without a tide, upon the shore. It was her belief, at first, that she was at home upon a Sunday morning; but, the vine leaves as she see at the winder, and the hills beyond, warn't home, and contradicted of her. Then, come in her friend to watch alongside of her bed; and then she know'd as the old boat warn't round that next pint in the bay no more, but was fur off; and know'd where she was, and why; and broke out a crying on that good young woman's bosom, wheer I hope her baby is a lying now, a cheering of her with its pretty eyes!" He could not speak of this good friend of Emily's without a flow of tears. It was in vain to try. He broke down again, endeavouring to bless her! "That done my Em'ly good," he resumed, after such emotion as I could not behold without sharing in; and as to my aunt, she wept with all her heart; "that done Em'ly good, and she begun to mend. But, the language of that country was quite gone from her, and she was forced to make signs. So she went on, getting better from day to day, slow, but sure, and trying to learn the names of common things--names as she seemed never to have heerd in all her life--till one evening come, when she was a setting at her window, looking at a little girl at play upon the beach. And of a sudden this child held out her hand, and said, what would be in English, 'Fisherman's daughter, here's a shell!'--for you are to unnerstand that they used at first to call her 'Pretty lady,' as the general way in that country is, and that she had taught 'em to call her 'Fisherman's daughter' instead. The child says of a sudden, 'Fisherman's daughter, here's a shell!' Then Em'ly unnerstands her; and she answers, bursting out a crying; and it all comes back! "When Em'ly got strong again," said Mr. Peggotty, after another short interval of silence, "she cast about to leave that good young creetur, and get to her own country. The husband was come home, then; and the two together put her aboard a small trader bound to Leghorn, and from that to France. She had a little money, but it was less than little as they would take for all they done. I'm a'most glad on it, though they was so poor! What they done, is laid up wheer neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and wheer thieves do not break through nor steal. Mas'r Davy, it'll outlast all the treasure in the wureld. "Em'ly got to France, and took service to wait on travelling ladies at a inn in the port. Theer, theer come, one day, that snake.--Let him never come nigh me. I doen't know what hurt I might do him!--Soon as she see him, without him seeing her, all her fear and wildness returned upon her, and she fled afore the very breath he draw'd. She come to England, and was set ashore at Dover. "I doen't know," said Mr. Peggotty, "for sure, when her 'art begun to fail her; but all the way to England she had thowt to come to her dear home. Soon as she got to England she turned her face tow'rds it. But, fear of not being forgiv, fear of being pinted at, fear of some of us being dead along of her, fear of many things, turned her from it, kiender by force, upon the road: 'Uncle, uncle,' she says to me, 'the fear of not being worthy to do, what my torn and bleeding breast so longed to do, was the most fright'ning fear of all! I turned back, when my 'art was full of prayers that I might crawl to the old doorstep, in the night, kiss it, lay my wicked face upon it, and theer be found dead in the morning.' "She come," said Mr. Peggotty, dropping his voice to an awe-stricken whisper, "to London. She--as had never seen it in her life--alone--without a penny--young--so pretty--come to London. A'most the moment as she lighted heer, all so desolate, she found (as she believed) a friend; a decent woman as spoke to her about the needle-work as she had been brought up to do, about finding plenty of it fur her, about a lodging for the night, and making secret inquiration concerning of me and all at home, to-morrow. When my child," he said aloud, and with an energy of gratitude that shook him from head to foot, "stood upon the brink of more than I can say or think on--Martha, trew to her promise, saved her!" I could not repress a cry of joy. "Mas'r Davy!" he said, griping my hand in that strong hand of his, "it was you as first made mention of her to me. I thankee, sir! She was arnest. She had know'd of her bitter knowledge wheer to watch and what to do. She had done it. And the Lord was above all! She come, white and hurried, upon Em'ly in her sleep. She says to her, 'Rise up from worse than death, and come with me!' Them belonging to the house would have stopped her, but they might as soon have stopped the sea. 'Stand away from me,' she says, 'I am a ghost that calls her from beside her open grave!' She told Em'ly she had seen me, and know'd I loved her, and forgiv her. She wrapped her, hasty, in her clothes. She took her, faint and trembling, on her arm. She heeded no more what they said, than if she had had no ears. She walked among 'em with my child, minding only her; and brought her safe out, in the dead of the night, from that black pit of ruin! "She attended on Em'ly," said Mr. Peggotty, who had released my hand, and put his own hand on his heaving chest; "she attended to my Em'ly, lying wearied out, and wandering betwixt whiles, till late next day. Then she went in search of me; then in search of you, Mas'r Davy. She didn't tell Em'ly what she come out fur, lest her 'art should fail, and she should think of hiding of herself. How the cruel lady know'd of her being theer, I can't say. Whether him as I have spoke so much of, chanced to see 'em going theer, or whether (which is most like, to my thinking) he had heerd it from the woman, I doen't greatly ask myself. My niece is found. "All night long," said Mr. Peggotty, "we have been together, Em'ly and me. 'Tis little (considering the time) as she has said, in wureds, through them broken-hearted tears; 'tis less as I have seen of her dear face, as grow'd into a woman's at my hearth. But, all night long, her arms has been about my neck; and her head has laid heer; and we knows full well, as we can put our trust in one another, ever more." He ceased to speak, and his hand upon the table rested there in perfect repose, with a resolution in it that might have conquered lions. "It was a gleam of light upon me, Trot," said my aunt, drying her eyes, "when I formed the resolution of being godmother to your sister Betsey Trotwood, who disappointed me; but, next to that, hardly anything would have given me greater pleasure, than to be godmother to that good young creature's baby!" Mr. Peggotty nodded his understanding of my aunt's feelings, but could not trust himself with any verbal reference to the subject of her commendation. We all remained silent, and occupied with our own reflections (my aunt drying her eyes, and now sobbing convulsively, and now laughing and calling herself a fool); until I spoke. "You have quite made up your mind," said I to Mr. Peggotty, "as to the future, good friend? I need scarcely ask you." "Quite, Mas'r Davy," he returned; "and told Em'ly, Theer's mighty countries, fur from heer. Our future life lays over the sea." "They will emigrate together, aunt," said I. "Yes!" said Mr. Peggotty, with a hopeful smile. "No one can't reproach my darling in Australia. We will begin a new life over theer!" I asked him if he yet proposed to himself any time for going away. "I was down at the Docks early this morning, sir," he returned, "to get information concerning of them ships. In about six weeks or two months from now, there'll be one sailing--I see her this morning--went aboard-- and we shall take our passage in her." "Quite alone?" I asked. "Aye, Mas'r Davy!" he returned. "My sister, you see, she's that fond of you and yourn, and that accustomed to think on'y of her own country, that it wouldn't be hardly fair to let her go. Besides which, theer's one she has in charge, Mas'r Davy, as doen't ought to be forgot." "Poor Ham!" said I. "My good sister takes care of his house, you see, ma'am, and he takes kindly to her," Mr. Peggotty explained for my aunt's better information. "He'll set and talk to her, with a calm spirit, wen it's like he couldn't bring himself to open his lips to another. Poor fellow!" said Mr. Peggotty, shaking his head, "theer's not so much left him, that he could spare the little as he has!" "And Mrs. Gummidge?" said I. "Well, I've had a mort of con-sideration, I do tell you," returned Mr. Peggotty, with a perplexed look which gradually cleared as he went on, "concerning of Missis Gummidge. You see, wen Missis Gummidge falls a thinking of the old 'un, she an't what you may call good company. Betwixt you and me, Mas'r Davy--and you, ma'am--wen Mrs. Gummidge takes to wimicking,"--our old county word for crying,--"she's liable to be considered to be, by them as didn't know the old 'un, peevish-like. Now I _did_ know the old 'un," said Mr. Peggotty, "and I know'd his merits, so I unnerstan' her; but 'tan't entirely so, you see, with others--nat'rally can't be!" My aunt and I both acquiesced. "Wheerby," said Mr. Peggotty, "my sister might--I doen't say she would, but might--find Missis Gummidge give her a leetle trouble now-and-again. Theerfur 'tan't my intentions to moor Missis Gummidge 'long with them, but to find a Beein' fur her wheer she can fisherate fur herself." (A Beein' signifies, in that dialect, a home, and to fisherate is to provide.) "Fur which purpose," said Mr. Peggotty, "I means to make her a 'lowance afore I go, as'll leave her pretty comfort'ble. She's the faithfullest of creeturs. 'Tan't to be expected, of course, at her time of life, and being lone and lorn, as the good old Mawther is to be knocked about aboardship, and in the woods and wilds of a new and fur-away country. So that's what I'm a going to do with _her_." He forgot nobody. He thought of everybody's claims and strivings, but his own. "Em'ly," he continued, "will keep along with me--poor child, she's sore in need of peace and rest!--until such time as we goes upon our voyage. She'll work at them clothes, as must be made; and I hope her troubles will begin to seem longer ago than they was, wen she finds herself once more by her rough but loving uncle." My aunt nodded confirmation of this hope, and imparted great satisfaction to Mr. Peggotty. "Theer's one thing furder, Mas'r Davy," said he, putting his hand in his breast-pocket, and gravely taking out the little paper bundle I had seen before, which he unrolled on the table. "Theer's these here bank-notes--fifty pound, and ten. To them I wish to add the money as she come away with. I've asked her about that (but not saying why), and have added of it up. I an't a scholar. Would you be so kind as see how 'tis?" He handed me, apologetically for his scholarship, a piece of paper, and observed me while I looked it over. It was quite right. "Thankee, sir," he said, taking it back. "This money, if you doen't see objections, Mas'r Davy, I shall put up jest afore I go, in a cover d'rected to him; and put that up in another, d'rected to his mother. I shall tell her, in no more wureds than I speak to you, what it's the price on; and that I'm gone, and past receiving of it back." I told him that I thought it would be right to do so--that I was thoroughly convinced it would be, since he felt it to be right. "I said that theer was on'y one thing furder," he proceeded with a grave smile, when he had made up his little bundle again, and put it in his pocket; "but theer was two. I warn't sure in my mind, wen I come out this morning, as I could go and break to Ham, of my own self, what had so thankfully happened. So I writ a letter while I was out, and put it in the post-office, telling of 'em how all was as 'tis; and that I should come down to-morrow to unload my mind of what little needs a doing of down theer, and, most-like, take my farewell leave of Yarmouth." "And do you wish me to go with you?" said I, seeing that he left something unsaid. "If you could do me that kind favor, Mas'r Davy," he replied, "I know the sight on you would cheer 'em up a bit." My little Dora being in good spirits, and very desirous that I should go--as I found on talking it over with her--I readily pledged myself to accompany him in accordance with his wish. Next morning, consequently, we were on the Yarmouth coach, and again travelling over the old ground. As we passed along the familiar street at night--Mr. Peggotty, in despite of all my remonstrances, carrying my bag--I glanced into Omer and Joram's shop, and saw my old friend Mr. Omer there, smoking his pipe. I felt reluctant to be present, when Mr. Peggotty first met his sister and Ham; and made Mr. Omer my excuse for lingering behind. "How is Mr. Omer, after this long time?" said I, going in. He fanned away the smoke of his pipe, that he might get a better view of me, and soon recognised me with great delight. "I should get up, sir, to acknowledge such an honor as this visit," said he, "only my limbs are rather out of sorts, and I am wheeled about. With the exception of my limbs and my breath, hows'ever, I am as hearty as a man can be, I'm thankful to say." I congratulated him on his contented looks and his good spirits, and saw, now, that his easy chair went on wheels. "It's an ingenious thing, ain't it?" he inquired, following the direction of my glance, and polishing the elbow with his arm. "It runs as light as a feather, and tracks as true as a mail-coach. Bless you, my little Minnie--my grand-daughter you know, Minnie's child--puts her little strength against the back, gives it a shove, and away we go, as clever and merry as ever you see anything! And I tell you what--it's a most uncommon chair to smoke a pipe in." I never saw such a good old fellow to make the best of a thing, and find out the enjoyment of it, as Mr. Omer. He was as radiant, as if his chair, his asthma, and the failure of his limbs, were the various branches of a great invention for enhancing the luxury of a pipe. "I see more of the world, I can assure you," said Mr. Omer, "in this chair, than ever I see out of it. You'd be surprised at the number of people that looks in of a day to have a chat. You really would! There's twice as much in the newspaper, since I've taken to this chair, as there used to be. As to general reading, dear me, what a lot of it I do get through! That's what I feel so strong, you know! If it had been my eyes, what should I have done? If it had been my ears, what should I have done? Being my limbs, what does it signify? Why, my limbs only made my breath shorter when I used 'em. And now, if I want to go out into the street or down to the sands, I've only got to call Dick, Joram's youngest 'prentice, and away I go in my own carriage, like the Lord Mayor of London." He half suffocated himself with laughing here. "Lord bless you!" said Mr. Omer, resuming his pipe, "a man must take the fat with the lean; that's what he must make up his mind to, in this life. Joram does a fine business. Ex-cellent business!" "I am very glad to hear it," said I. "I knew you would be," said Mr. Omer. "And Joram and Minnie are like Valentines. What more can a man expect? What's his limbs to _that_!" His supreme contempt for his own limbs, as he sat smoking, was one of the pleasantest oddities I have ever encountered. "And since I've took to general reading, you've took to general writing, eh, sir?" said Mr. Omer, surveying me admiringly. "What a lovely work that was of yours! What expressions in it! I read it every word--every word. And as to feeling sleepy! Not at all!" I laughingly expressed my satisfaction, but I must confess that I thought this association of ideas significant. "I give you my word and honor, sir," said Mr. Omer, "that when I lay that book upon the table, and look at it outside; compact in three separate and indiwidual wollumes--one, two, three; I am as proud as Punch to think that I once had the honor of being connected with your family. And dear me, it's a long time ago, now, an't it? Over at Blunderstone. With a pretty little party laid along with the other party. And you quite a small party then, yourself. Dear, dear!" I changed the subject by referring to Emily. After assuring him that I did not forget how interested he had always been in her, and how kindly he had always treated her, I gave him a general account of her restoration to her uncle by the aid of Martha; which I knew would please the old man. He listened with the utmost attention, and said, feelingly, when I had done: "I am rejoiced at it, sir! It's the best news I have heard for many a day. Dear, dear, dear! And what's going to be undertook for that unfortunate young woman, Martha, now?" "You touch a point that my thoughts have been dwelling on since yesterday," said I, "but on which I can give you no information yet, Mr. Omer. Mr. Peggotty has not alluded to it, and I have a delicacy in doing so. I am sure he has not forgotten it. He forgets nothing that is disinterested and good." "Because you know," said Mr. Omer, taking himself up, where he had left off, "whatever _is_ done, I should wish to be a member of. Put me down for anything you may consider right, and let me know. I never could think the girl all bad, and I am glad to find she's not. So will my daughter Minnie be. Young women are contradictory creatures in some things--her mother was just the same as her--but their hearts are soft and kind. It's all show with Minnie, about Martha. Why she should consider it necessary to make any show, I don't undertake to tell you. But it's all show, bless you. She'd do her any kindness in private. So, put me down for whatever you may consider right, will you be so good? and drop me a line where to forward it. Dear me!" said Mr. Omer, "when a man is drawing on to a time of life, where the two ends of life meet; when he finds himself, however hearty he is, being wheeled about for the second time, in a speeches of go-cart; he should be over-rejoiced to do a kindness if he can. He wants plenty. And I don't speak of myself, particular," said Mr. Omer, "because, sir, the way I look at it is, that we are all drawing on to the bottom of the hill, whatever age we are, on account of time never standing still for a single moment. So let us always do a kindness, and be over-rejoiced. To be sure!" He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and put it on a ledge in the back of his chair, expressly made for its reception. "There's Em'ly's cousin, him that she was to have been married to," said Mr. Omer, rubbing his hands feebly, "as fine a fellow as there is in Yarmouth! He'll come and talk or read to me, in the evening, for an hour together sometimes. That's a kindness, I should call it! All his life's a kindness." "I am going to see him now," said I. "Are you?" said Mr. Omer. "Tell him I was hearty, and sent my respects. Minnie and Joram's at a ball. They would be as proud to see you as I am, if they was at home. Minnie won't hardly go out at all, you see, 'on account of father,' as she says. So I swore to-night, that if she didn't go, I'd go to bed at six. In consequence of which," Mr. Omer shook himself and his chair, with laughter at the success of his device, "she and Joram's at a ball." I shook hands with him, and wished him good night. "Half a minute, sir," said Mr. Omer. "If you was to go without seeing my little elephant, you'd lose the best of sights. You never see such a sight! Minnie!" A musical little voice answered, from somewhere upstairs, "I am coming, grandfather!" and a pretty little girl with long, flaxen, curling hair, soon came running into the shop. "This is my little elephant, sir," said Mr. Omer, fondling the child. "Siamese breed, sir. Now, little elephant!" The little elephant set the door of the parlor open, enabling me to see that, in these latter days, it was converted into a bedroom for Mr. Omer, who could not be easily conveyed upstairs; and then hid her pretty forehead, and tumbled her long hair, against the back of Mr. Omer's chair. "The elephant butts, you know, sir," said Mr. Omer, winking, "when he goes at a object. Once, elephant. Twice. Three times!" At this signal, the little elephant, with a dexterity that was next to marvellous in so small an animal, whisked the chair round with Mr. Omer in it, and rattled it off, pell-mell, into the parlor, without touching the doorpost: Mr. Omer indescribably enjoying the performance, and looking back at me on the road as if it were the triumphant issue of his life's exertions. After a stroll about the town, I went to Ham's house. Peggotty had now removed here for good; and had let her own house to the successor of Mr. Barkis in the carrying business, who had paid her very well for the good-will, cart, and horse. I believe the very same slow horse that Mr. Barkis drove, was still at work. I found them in the neat kitchen, accompanied by Mrs. Gummidge, who had been fetched from the old boat by Mr. Peggotty himself. I doubt if she could have been induced to desert her post, by any one else. He had evidently told them all. Both Peggotty and Mrs. Gummidge had their aprons to their eyes, and Ham had just stepped out "to take a turn on the beach." He presently came home, very glad to see me; and I hope they were all the better for my being there. We spoke, with some approach to cheerfulness, of Mr. Peggotty's growing rich in a new country, and of the wonders he would describe in his letters. We said nothing of Emily by name, but distantly referred to her more than once. Ham was the serenest of the party. But, Peggotty told me, when she lighted me to a little chamber where the Crocodile book was lying ready for me on the table, that he always was the same. She believed (she told me, crying) that he was broken-hearted; though he was as full of courage as of sweetness, and worked harder and better than any boat-builder in any yard in all that part. There were times, she said, of an evening, when he talked of their old life in the boat-house; and then he mentioned Emily as a child. But, he never mentioned her as a woman. I thought I had read in his face that he would like to speak to me alone. I therefore resolved to put myself in his way next evening, as he came home from his work. Having settled this with myself, I fell asleep. That night, for the first time in all those many nights, the candle was taken out of the window, Mr. Peggotty swung in his old hammock in the old boat, and the wind murmured with the old sound round his head. All next day, he was occupied in disposing of his fishing-boat and tackle; in packing up, and sending to London by waggon, such of his little domestic possessions as he thought would be useful to him; and in parting with the rest, or bestowing them on Mrs. Gummidge. She was with him all day. As I had a sorrowful wish to see the old place once more, before it was locked up, I engaged to meet them there in the evening. But I so arranged it, as that I should meet Ham first. It was easy to come in his way, as I knew where he worked. I met him at a retired part of the sands, which I knew he would cross, and turned back with him, that he might have leisure to speak to me if he really wished. I had not mistaken the expression of his face. We had walked but a little way together, when he said, without looking at me: "Mas'r Davy, have you seen her?" "Only for a moment, when she was in a swoon," I softly answered. We walked a little farther, and he said: "Mas'r Davy, shall you see her, d' ye think?" "It would be too painful to her, perhaps," said I. "I have thowt of that," he replied. "So 'twould, sir, so 'twould." "But, Ham," said I, gently, "if there is anything that I could write to her, for you, in case I could not tell it; if there is anything you would wish to make known to her through me; I should consider it a sacred trust." "I am sure on't. I thankee, sir, most kind! I think theer is something I could wish said or wrote." "What is it?" We walked a little farther in silence, and then he spoke. "'Tan't that I forgive her. 'Tan't that so much. 'Tis more as I beg of her to forgive me, for having pressed my affections upon her. Odd times, I think that if I hadn't had her promise fur to marry me, sir, she was that trustful of me, in a friendly way, that she'd have told me what was struggling in her mind, and would have counselled with me, and I might have saved her." I pressed his hand. "Is that all?" "Theer's yet a something else," he returned, "if I can say it, Mas'r Davy." We walked on, farther than we had walked yet, before he spoke again. He was not crying when he made the pauses I shall express by lines. He was merely collecting himself to speak very plainly. "I loved her--and I love the mem'ry of her--too deep--to be able to lead her to believe of my own self as I'm a happy man. I could only be happy--by forgetting of her--and I'm afeerd I couldn't hardly bear as she should be told I done that. But if you, being so full of learning, Mas'r Davy, could think of anything to say as might bring her to believe I wasn't greatly hurt: still loving of her, and mourning for her: anything as might bring her to believe as I was not tired of my life, and yet was hoping fur to see her without blame, wheer the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest--anything as would ease her sorrowful mind, and yet not make her think as I could ever marry, or as 'twas possible that any one could ever be to me what she was--I should ask of you to say that--with my prayers for her--that was so dear." I pressed his manly hand again, and told him I would charge myself to do this as well as I could. "I thankee, sir," he answered. "'Twas kind of you to meet me. 'Twas kind of you to bear him company down. Mas'r Davy, I unnerstan' very well, though my aunt will come to Lon'on afore they sail, and they'll unite once more, that I am not like to see him agen. I fare to feel sure on't. We doen't say so, but so 'twill be, and better so. The last you see on him--the very last--will you give him the lovingest duty and thanks of the orphan, as he was ever more than a father to?" This I also promised, faithfully. "I thankee again, sir," he said, heartily shaking hands. "I know wheer you're a going. Good bye!" With a slight wave of his hand, as though to explain to me that he could not enter the old place, he turned away. As I looked after his figure, crossing the waste in the moonlight, I saw him turn his face towards a strip of silvery light upon the sea, and pass on, looking at it, until he was a shadow in the distance. The door of the boat-house stood open when I approached; and, on entering, I found it emptied of all its furniture, saving one of the old lockers, on which Mrs. Gummidge, with a basket on her knee, was seated, looking at Mr. Peggotty. He leaned his elbow on the rough chimney-piece, and gazed upon a few expiring embers in the grate; but he raised his head, hopefully, on my coming in, and spoke in a cheery manner. "Come, according to promise, to bid farewell to 't, eh, Mas'r Davy!" he said, taking up the candle. "Bare enough now, an't it?" "Indeed you have made good use of the time," said I. "Why we have not been idle, sir. Missis Gummidge has worked like a--I doen't know what Missis Gummidge ain't worked like," said Mr. Peggotty, looking at her, at a loss for a sufficiently-approving simile. Mrs. Gummidge, leaning on her basket, made no observation. "Theer's the very locker that you used to sit on, 'long with Em'ly!" said Mr. Peggotty, in a whisper. "I'm a going to carry it away with me, last of all. And heer's your old little bedroom, see, Mas'r Davy! A'most as bleak to-night, as 'art could wish!" In truth, the wind, though it was low, had a solemn sound, and crept around the deserted house with a whispered wailing that was very mournful. Everything was gone, down to the little mirror with the oyster-shell frame. I thought of myself, lying here, when that first great change was being wrought at home. I thought of the blue-eyed child who had enchanted me. I thought of Steerforth: and a foolish, fearful fancy came upon me of his being near at hand, and liable to be met at any turn. "'Tis like to be long," said Mr. Peggotty, in a low voice, "afore the boat finds new tenants. They look upon 't, down heer, as being unfort'nate now!" "Does it belong to anybody in the neighbourhood?" I asked. "To a mast-maker up town," said Mr. Peggotty. "I'm a going to give the key to him to-night." We looked into the other little room, and came back to Mrs. Gummidge, sitting on the locker, whom Mr. Peggotty, putting the light on the chimney-piece, requested to rise, that he might carry it outside the door before extinguishing the candle. "Dan'l," said Mrs. Gummidge, suddenly deserting her basket, and clinging to his arm, "my dear Dan'l, the parting words I speak in this house is, I mustn't be left behind. Doen't ye think of leaving me behind, Dan'l! Oh, doen't ye ever do it!" Mr. Peggotty, taken aback, looked from Mrs. Gummidge to me, and from me to Mrs. Gummidge, as if he had been awakened from a sleep. "Doen't ye, dearest Dan'l, doen't ye!" cried Mrs. Gummidge, fervently. "Take me 'long with you, Dan'l, take me 'long with you and Em'ly! I'll be your servant, constant and trew. If there's slaves in them parts where you're a going, I'll be bound to you for one, and happy, but doen't ye leave me behind, Dan'l, that's a deary dear!" "My good soul," said Mr. Peggotty, shaking his head, "you doen't know what a long voyage, and what a hard life 'tis!" "Yes I do, Dan'l! I can guess!" cried Mrs. Gummidge. "But my parting words under this roof is, I shall go into the house and die, if I am not took. I can dig, Dan'l. I can work. I can live hard. I can be loving and patient now--more than you think, Dan'l, if you'll on'y try me. I wouldn't touch the 'lowance, not if I was dying of want, Dan'l Peggotty; but I'll go with you and Em'ly, if you'll on'y let me, to the world's end! I know how 'tis; I know you think that I am lone and lorn; but, deary love, 'tan't so no more! I an't sat here, so long, a watching, and a thinking of your trials, without some good being done me. Mas'r Davy, speak to him for me! I knows his ways, and Em'ly's, and I knows their sorrows, and can be a comfort to 'em, some odd times, and labor for 'em allus! Dan'l, deary Dan'l, let me go 'long with you!" And Mrs. Gummidge took his hand, and kissed it with a homely pathos and affection, in a homely rapture of devotion and gratitude, that he well deserved. We brought the locker out, extinguished the candle, fastened the door on the outside, and left the old boat close shut up, a dark speck in the cloudy night. Next day, when we were returning to London outside the coach, Mrs. Gummidge and her basket were on the seat behind, and Mrs. Gummidge was happy. CHAPTER LII. I ASSIST AT AN EXPLOSION. When the time Mr. Micawber had appointed so mysteriously, was within four-and-twenty hours of being come, my aunt and I consulted how we should proceed; for my aunt was very unwilling to leave Dora. Ah! how easily I carried Dora up and down stairs, now! We were disposed, notwithstanding Mr. Micawber's stipulation for my aunt's attendance, to arrange that she should stay at home, and be represented by Mr. Dick and me. In short, we had resolved to take this course, when Dora again unsettled us by declaring that she never would forgive herself, and never would forgive her bad boy, if my aunt remained behind, on any pretence. "I won't speak to you," said Dora, shaking her curls at my aunt. "I'll be disagreeable! I'll make Jip bark at you all day. I shall be sure that you really are a cross old thing, if you don't go!" "Tut, Blossom!" laughed my aunt. "You know you can't do without me!" "Yes, I can," said Dora. "You are no use to me at all. You never run up and down stairs for me, all day long. You never sit and tell me stories about Doady, when his shoes were worn out, and he was covered with dust--oh, what a poor little mite of a fellow! You never do anything at all to please me, do you, dear?" Dora made haste to kiss my aunt, and say, "Yes, you do! I'm only joking!"--lest my aunt should think she really meant it. "But, aunt," said Dora, coaxingly, "now listen. You must go. I shall tease you, 'till you let me have my own way about it. I shall lead my naughty boy _such_ a life, if he don't make you go. I shall make myself _so_ disagreeable--and so will Jip! You'll wish you had gone, like a good thing, for ever and ever so long, if you don't go. Besides," said Dora, putting back her hair, and looking wonderingly at my aunt and me, "why shouldn't you both go? I am not very ill indeed. Am I?" "Why, what a question!" cried my aunt. "What a fancy!" said I. "Yes! I know I am a silly little thing!" said Dora, slowly looking from one of us to the other, and then putting up her pretty lips to kiss us as she lay upon her couch. "Well, then, you must both go, or I shall not believe you; and then I shall cry!" I saw, in my aunt's face, that she began to give way now, and Dora brightened again, as she saw it too. "You'll come back with so much to tell me, that it'll take at least a week to make me understand!" said Dora. "Because I _know_ I sha'n't understand, for a length of time, if there's any business in it. And there's sure to be some business in it! If there's any thing to add up, besides, I don't know when I shall make it out; and my bad boy will look _so_ miserable all the time. There! Now you'll go, won't you? You'll only be gone one night, and Jip will take care of me while you are gone. Doady will carry me up stairs before you go, and I won't come down again till you come back; and you shall take Agnes a dreadfully scolding letter from me, because she has never been to see us!" We agreed, without any more consultation, that we would both go, and that Dora was a little Impostor, who feigned to be rather unwell, because she liked to be petted. She was greatly pleased, and very merry; and we four, that is to say, my aunt, Mr. Dick, Traddles, and I, went down to Canterbury by the Dover mail that night. At the hotel where Mr. Micawber had requested us to await him, which we got into, with some trouble, in the middle of the night, I found a letter, importing that he would appear in the morning punctually at half-past nine. After which, we went shivering, at that uncomfortable hour, to our respective beds, through various close passages; which smelt as if they had been steeped, for ages, in a solution of soup and stables. Early in the morning, I sauntered through the dear old tranquil streets, and again mingled with the shadows of the venerable gateways and churches. The rooks were sailing about the cathedral towers; and the towers themselves, overlooking many a long unaltered mile of the rich country and its pleasant streams, were cutting the bright morning air, as if there were no such thing as change on earth. Yet the bells, when they sounded, told me sorrowfully of change in everything; told me of their own age, and my pretty Dora's youth; and of the many, never old, who had lived and loved and died, while the reverberations of the bells had hummed through the rusty armour of the Black Prince hanging up within, and, motes upon the deep of Time, had lost themselves in air, as circles do in water. I looked at the old house from the corner of the street, but did not go nearer to it, lest, being observed, I might unwittingly do any harm to the design I had come to aid. The early sun was striking edgewise on its gables and lattice-windows, touching them with gold; and some beams of its old peace seemed to touch my heart. I strolled into the country for an hour or so, and then returned by the main street, which in the interval had shaken off its last night's sleep. Among those who were stirring in the shops, I saw my ancient enemy the butcher, now advanced to top-boots and a baby, and in business for himself. He was nursing the baby, and appeared to be a benignant member of society. We all became very anxious and impatient, when we sat down to breakfast. As it approached nearer and nearer to half-past nine o'clock, our restless expectation of Mr. Micawber increased. At last we made no more pretence of attending to the meal, which, except with Mr. Dick, had been a mere form from the first; but my aunt walked up and down the room, Traddles sat upon the sofa affecting to read the paper with his eyes on the ceiling; and I looked out of the window to give early notice of Mr. Micawber's coming. Nor had I long to watch, for, at the first chime of the half hour, he appeared in the street. "Here he is," said I, "and not in his legal attire!" My aunt tied the strings of her bonnet (she had come down to breakfast in it), and put on her shawl, as if she were ready for anything that was resolute and uncompromising. Traddles buttoned his coat with a determined air. Mr. Dick, disturbed by these formidable appearances, but feeling it necessary to imitate them, pulled his hat, with both hands, as firmly over his ears as he possibly could; and instantly took it off again, to welcome Mr. Micawber. "Gentlemen, and madam," said Mr. Micawber, "good morning! My dear sir," to Mr. Dick, who shook hands with him violently, "you are extremely good." "Have you breakfasted?" said Mr. Dick. "Have a chop!" "Not for the world, my good sir!" cried Mr. Micawber, stopping him on his way to the bell; "appetite and myself, Mr. Dixon, have long been strangers." Mr. Dixon was so pleased with his new name, and appeared to think it so very obliging in Mr. Micawber to confer it upon him, that he shook hands with him again, and laughed rather childishly. "Dick," said my aunt, "attention!" Mr. Dick recovered himself, with a blush. "Now, sir," said my aunt to Mr. Micawber, as she put on her gloves, "we are ready for Mount Vesuvius, or anything else, as soon as _you_ please." "Madam," returned Mr. Micawber, "I trust you will shortly witness an eruption. Mr. Traddles, I have your permission, I believe, to mention here that we have been in communication together?" "It is undoubtedly the fact, Copperfield," said Traddles, to whom I looked in surprise. "Mr. Micawber has consulted me, in reference to what he has in contemplation; and I have advised him to the best of my judgment." "Unless I deceive myself, Mr. Traddles," pursued Mr. Micawber, "what I contemplate is a disclosure of an important nature." "Highly so," said Traddles. "Perhaps, under such circumstances, madam and gentlemen," said Mr. Micawber, "you will do me the favor to submit yourselves, for the moment, to the direction of one, who, however unworthy to be regarded in any other light but as a Waif and Stray upon the shore of human nature, is still your fellow man, though crushed out of his original form by individual errors, and the accumulative force of a combination of circumstances?" "We have perfect confidence in you, Mr. Micawber," said I, "and will do what you please." "Mr. Copperfield," returned Mr. Micawber, "your confidence is not, at the existing juncture, ill-bestowed. I would beg to be allowed a start of five minutes by the clock; and then to receive the present company, inquiring for Miss Wickfield, at the office of Wickfield and Heep, whose Stipendiary I am." My aunt and I looked at Traddles, who nodded his approval. "I have no more," observed Mr. Micawber, "to say at present." With which, to my infinite surprise, he included us all in a comprehensive bow, and disappeared; his manner being extremely distant, and his face extremely pale. Traddles only smiled, and shook his head (with his hair standing upright on the top of it), when I looked to him for an explanation; so I took out my watch, and, as a last resource, counted off the five minutes. My aunt, with her own watch in her hand, did the like. When the time was expired, Traddles gave her his arm; and we all went out together to the old house, without saying one word on the way. We found Mr. Micawber at his desk, in the turret office on the ground floor, either writing, or pretending to write, hard. The large office-ruler was stuck into his waistcoat, and was not so well concealed but that a foot or more of that instrument protruded from his bosom, like a new kind of shirt-frill. As it appeared to me that I was expected to speak, I said aloud: "How do you do, Mr. Micawber?" "Mr. Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, gravely, "I hope I see you well?" "Is Miss Wickfield at home?" said I. "Mr. Wickfield is unwell in bed, sir, of a rheumatic fever," he returned; "but Miss Wickfield, I have no doubt, will be happy to see old friends. Will you walk in, sir?" He preceded us to the dining-room--the first room I had entered in that house--and flinging open the door of Mr. Wickfield's former office, said, in a sonorous voice: "Miss Trotwood, Mr. David Copperfield, Mr. Thomas Traddles, and Mr. Dixon!" I had not seen Uriah Heep since the time of the blow. Our visit astonished him, evidently; not the less, I dare say, because it astonished ourselves. He did not gather his eyebrows together, for he had none worth mentioning; but he frowned to that degree that he almost closed his small eyes, while the hurried raising of his grisly hand to his chin betrayed some trepidation or surprise. This was only when we were in the act of entering his room, and when I caught a glance at him over my aunt's shoulder. A moment afterwards, he was as fawning and as humble as ever. "Well, I am sure," he said. "This is indeed an unexpected pleasure! To have, as I may say, all friends round Saint Paul's, at once, is a treat unlooked for! Mr. Copperfield, I hope I see you well, and--if I may umbly express self so--friendly towards them as is ever your friends, whether or not. Mrs. Copperfield, sir, I hope she's getting on. We have been made quite uneasy by the poor accounts we have had of her state, lately, I do assure you." I felt ashamed to let him take my hand, but I did not know yet what else to do. "Things are changed in this office, Miss Trotwood, since I was a numble clerk, and held your pony; ain't they?" said Uriah, with his sickliest smile. "But _I_ am not changed, Miss Trotwood." "Well, sir," returned my aunt, "to tell you the truth, I think you are pretty constant to the promise of your youth; if that's any satisfaction to you." "Thank you, Miss Trotwood," said Uriah, writhing in his ungainly manner, "for your good opinion! Micawber, tell 'em to let Miss Agnes know--and mother. Mother will be quite in a state, when she sees the present company!" said Uriah, setting chairs. "You are not busy, Mr. Heep?" said Traddles, whose eye the cunning red eye accidentally caught, as it at once scrutinised and evaded us. "No, Mr. Traddles," replied Uriah, resuming his official seat, and squeezing his bony hands, laid palm to palm, between his bony knees. "Not so much so, as I could wish. But lawyers, sharks, and leeches, are not easily satisfied, you know! Not but what myself and Micawber have our hands pretty full, in general, on account of Mr. Wickfield's being hardly fit for any occupation, sir. But it's a pleasure as well as a duty, I am sure, to work for _him_. You've not been intimate with Mr. Wickfield, I think, Mr. Traddles? I believe I've only had the honor of seeing you once myself?" "No, I have not been intimate with Mr. Wickfield," returned Traddles; "or I might perhaps have waited on you long ago, Mr. Heep." There was something in the tone of this reply, which made Uriah look at the speaker again, with a very sinister and suspicious expression. But, seeing only Traddles with his good-natured face, simple manner, and hair on end, he dismissed it as he replied, with a jerk of his whole body, but especially his throat: "I am sorry for that, Mr. Traddles. You would have admired him as much as we all do. His little failings would only have endeared him to you the more. But if you would like to hear my fellow-partner eloquently spoken of, I should refer you to Copperfield. The family is a subject he's very strong upon, if you never heard him." I was prevented from disclaiming the compliment (if I should have done so, in any case), by the entrance of Agnes, now ushered in by Mr. Micawber. She was not quite so self-possessed as usual, I thought; and had evidently undergone anxiety and fatigue. But her earnest cordiality, and her quiet beauty, shone with the gentler lustre for it. I saw Uriah watch her while she greeted us; and he reminded me of an ugly and rebellious genie watching a good spirit. In the meanwhile, some slight sign passed between Mr. Micawber and Traddles; and Traddles, unobserved except by me, went out. "Don't wait, Micawber," said Uriah. Mr. Micawber, with his hand upon the ruler in his breast, stood erect before the door, most unmistakeably contemplating one of his fellow-men, and that man his employer. "What are you waiting for?" said Uriah. "Micawber! Did you hear me tell you not to wait?" "Yes!" replied the immovable Mr. Micawber. "Then why _do_ you wait?" said Uriah. "Because I--in short choose," replied Mr. Micawber, with a burst. Uriah's cheeks lost colour, and an unwholesome paleness, still faintly tinged by his pervading red, overspread them. He looked at Mr. Micawber attentively, with his whole face breathing short and quick in every feature. "You are a dissipated fellow, as all the world knows," he said, with an effort at a smile, "and I am afraid you'll oblige me to get rid of you. Go along! I'll talk to you presently." "If there is a scoundrel on this earth," said Mr. Micawber, suddenly breaking out again with the utmost vehemence, "with whom I have already talked too much, that scoundrel's name is--HEEP!" Uriah fell back, as if he had been struck or stung. Looking slowly round upon us with the darkest and wickedest expression that his face could wear, he said, in a lower voice: "Oho! This is a conspiracy! You have met here, by appointment! You are playing Booty with my clerk, are you, Copperfield? Now, take care. You'll make nothing of this. We understand each other, you and me. There's no love between us. You were always a puppy with a proud stomach, from your first coming here; and you envy me my rise, do you? None of your plots against me; I'll counterplot you! Micawber, you be off. I'll talk to you presently." "Mr. Micawber," said I, "there is a sudden change in this fellow, in more respects than the extraordinary one of his speaking the truth in one particular, which assures me that he is brought to bay. Deal with him as he deserves!" "You are a precious set of people, ain't you?" said Uriah, in the same low voice, and breaking out into a clammy heat, which he wiped from his forehead, with his long lean hand, "to buy over my clerk, who is the very scum of society,--as you yourself were, Copperfield, you know it, before anyone had charity on you,--to defame me with his lies? Miss Trotwood, you had better stop this; or I'll stop your husband shorter than will be pleasant to you. I won't know your story professionally, for nothing, old lady! Miss Wickfield, if you have any love for your father, you had better not join that gang. I'll ruin him, if you do. Now, come! I have got some of you under the harrow. Think twice, before it goes over you. Think twice, you, Micawber, if you don't want to be crushed. I recommend you to take yourself off, and be talked to presently, you fool! while there's time to retreat. Where's mother!" he said, suddenly appearing to notice, with alarm, the absence of Traddles, and pulling down the bell-rope. "Fine doings in a person's own house!" "Mrs. Heep is here, sir," said Traddles, returning with that worthy mother of a worthy son. "I have taken the liberty of making myself known to her." "Who are you to make yourself known?" retorted Uriah. "And what do you want here?" "I am the agent and friend of Mr. Wickfield, sir," said Traddles, in a composed business-like way. "And I have a power of attorney from him in my pocket, to act for him in all matters." "The old ass has drunk himself into a state of dotage," said Uriah, turning uglier than before, "and it has been got from him by fraud!" "Something has been got from him by fraud, I know," returned Traddles quietly; "and so do you, Mr. Heep. We will refer that question, if you please, to Mr. Micawber." "Ury--!" Mrs. Heep began, with an anxious gesture. "You hold your tongue, mother," he returned; "least said, soonest mended." "But my Ury--." "Will you hold your tongue, mother, and leave it to me?" Though I had long known that his servility was false, and all his pretences knavish and hollow, I had had no adequate conception of the extent of his hypocrisy, until I now saw him with his mask off. The suddenness with which he dropped it, when he perceived that it was useless to him; the malice, insolence, and hatred, he revealed; the leer with which he exulted, even at this moment, in the evil he had done--all this time being desperate too, and at his wits' end for the means of getting the better of us--though perfectly consistent with the experience I had of him, at first took even me by surprise, who had known him so long, and disliked him so heartily. I say nothing of the look he conferred on me, as he stood eyeing us, one after another; for I had always understood that he hated me, and I remembered the marks of my hand upon his cheek. But when his eyes passed on to Agnes, and I saw the rage with which he felt his power over her slipping away, and the exhibition, in their disappointment, of the odious passions that had led him to aspire to one whose virtues he could never appreciate or care for, I was shocked by the mere thought of her having lived, an hour, within sight of such a man. After some rubbing of the lower part of his face, and some looking at us with those bad eyes, over his grisly fingers, he made one more address to me, half whining, and half abusive. "You think it justifiable, do you, Copperfield, you who pride yourself so much on your honor and all the rest of it, to sneak about my place, eaves-dropping with my clerk? If it had been _me_, I shouldn't have wondered; for I don't make myself out a gentleman (though I never was in the streets either, as you were, according to Micawber), but being _you_!--And you're not afraid of doing this, either? You don't think at all of what I shall do, in return; or of getting yourself into trouble for conspiracy and so forth? Very well. We shall see! Mr. What's-your-name, you were going to refer some question to Micawber. There's your referee. Why don't you make him speak? He has learnt his lesson, I see." Seeing that what he said had no effect on me or any of us, he sat on the edge of his table with his hands in his pockets, and one of his splay feet twisted round the other leg, waiting doggedly for what might follow. Mr. Micawber, whose impetuosity I had restrained thus far with the greatest difficulty, and who had repeatedly interposed with the first syllable of SCOUN-drel! without getting to the second, now burst forward, drew the ruler from his breast (apparently as a defensive weapon), and produced from his pocket a foolscap document, folded in the form of a large letter. Opening this packet, with his old flourish, and glancing at the contents, as if he cherished an artistic admiration of their style of composition, he began to read as follows: "'Dear Miss Trotwood and gentlemen----'" "Bless and save the man!" exclaimed my aunt in a low voice. "He'd write letters by the ream, if it was a capital offence!" Mr. Micawber, without hearing her, went on. "'In appearing before you to denounce probably the most consummate Villain that has ever existed,'" Mr. Micawber, without looking off the letter, pointed the ruler, like a ghostly truncheon, at Uriah Heep, "'I ask no consideration for myself. The victim, from my cradle, of pecuniary liabilities to which I have been unable to respond, I have ever been the sport and toy of debasing circumstances. Ignominy, Want, Despair, and Madness, have, collectively or separately, been the attendants of my career.'" The relish with which Mr. Micawber described himself, as a prey to these dismal calamities, was only to be equalled by the emphasis with which he read his letter; and the kind of homage he rendered to it with a roll of his head, when he thought he had hit a sentence very hard indeed. "'In an accumulation of Ignominy, Want, Despair, and Madness, I entered the office--or, as our lively neighbour the Gaul would term it, the Bureau--of the Firm, nominally conducted under the appellation of Wickfield and--HEEP, but, in reality, wielded by--HEEP alone. HEEP, and only HEEP, is the mainspring of that machine. HEEP, and only HEEP, is the Forger and the Cheat.'" Uriah, more blue than white at these words, made a dart at the letter, as if to tear it in pieces. Mr. Micawber, with a perfect miracle of dexterity or luck, caught his advancing knuckles with the ruler, and disabled his right hand. It dropped at the wrist, as if it were broken. The blow sounded as if it had fallen on wood. "The Devil take you!" said Uriah, writhing in a new way with pain. "I'll be even with you." "Approach me again, you--you--you HEEP of infamy," gasped Mr. Micawber, "and if your head is human, I'll break it. Come on, come on!" I think I never saw anything more ridiculous--I was sensible of it, even at the time--than Mr. Micawber making broad-sword guards with the ruler, and crying "Come on!" while Traddles and I pushed him back into a corner, from which, as often as we got him into it, he persisted in emerging again. His enemy, muttering to himself, after wringing his wounded hand for some time, slowly drew off his neck-kerchief and bound it up; then, held it in his other hand, and sat upon his table with his sullen face looking down. Mr. Micawber, when he was sufficiently cool, proceeded with his letter. "'The stipendiary emoluments in consideration of which I entered into the service of--HEEP,'" always pausing before that word, and uttering it with astonishing vigor, "'were not defined, beyond the pittance of twenty-two shillings and six per week. The rest was left contingent on the value of my professional exertions; in other and more expressive words, on the baseness of my nature, the cupidity of my motives, the poverty of my family, the general moral (or rather immoral) resemblance between myself and--HEEP. Need I say, that it soon became necessary for me to solicit from--HEEP--pecuniary advances towards the support of Mrs. Micawber, and our blighted but rising family! Need I say that this necessity had been foreseen by--HEEP? That those advances were secured by I. O. U.'s and other similar acknowledgments, known to the legal institutions of this country. And that I thus became immeshed in the web he had spun for my reception?'" Mr. Micawber's enjoyment of his epistolary powers, in describing this unfortunate state of things, really seemed to outweigh any pain or anxiety that the reality could have caused him. He read on: "'Then it was that--HEEP--began to favor me with just so much of his confidence, as was necessary to the discharge of his infernal business. Then it was that I began, if I may so Shakespearianly express myself, to dwindle, peak, and pine. I found that my services were constantly called into requisition for the falsification of business, and the mystification of an individual whom I will designate as Mr. W. That Mr. W. was imposed upon, kept in ignorance, and deluded, in every possible way; yet, that all this while, the ruffian--HEEP--was professing unbounded gratitude to, and unbounded friendship for, that much abused gentleman. This was bad enough; but, as the philosophic Dane observes, with that universal applicability which distinguishes the illustrious ornament of the Elizabethian Era, worse remains behind!'" Mr. Micawber was so very much struck by this happy rounding off with a quotation, that he indulged himself, and us, with a second reading of the sentence, under pretence of having lost his place. "'It is not my intention,'" he continued, reading on, "'to enter on a detailed list, within the compass of the present epistle (though it is ready elsewhere), of the various malpractices of a minor nature, affecting the individual whom I have denominated Mr. W., to which I have been a tacitly consenting party. My object, when the contest within myself between stipend and no stipend, baker and no baker, existence and non-existence, ceased, was to take advantage of my opportunities to discover and expose the major malpractices committed, to that gentleman's grievous wrong and injury, by--HEEP. Stimulated by the silent monitor within, and by a no less touching and appealing monitor without--to whom I will briefly refer as Miss W.--I entered on a not unlaborious task of clandestine investigation, protracted now, to the best of my knowledge, information, and belief, over a period exceeding twelve calendar months.'" He read this passage, as if it were from an Act of Parliament; and appeared majestically refreshed by the sound of the words. "'My charges against--HEEP,'" he read on, glancing at him, and drawing the ruler into a convenient position under his left arm, in case of need, "'are as follows.'" We all held our breath, I think. I am sure Uriah held his. "'First,'" said Mr. Micawber. "'When Mr. W.'s faculties and memory for business became, through causes into which it is not necessary or expedient for me to enter, weakened and confused,--HEEP--designedly perplexed and complicated the whole of the official transactions. When Mr. W. was least fit to enter on business,--HEEP--was always at hand to force him to enter on it. He obtained Mr. W.'s signature under such circumstances to documents of importance, representing them to be other documents of no importance. He induced Mr. W. to empower him to draw out, thus, one particular sum of trust-money, amounting to twelve six fourteen, two, and nine, and employed it to meet pretended business charges and deficiencies which were either already provided for, or had never really existed. He gave this proceeding, throughout, the appearance of having originated in Mr. W.'s own dishonest intention, and of having been accomplished by Mr. W.'s own dishonest act; and has used it, ever since, to torture and constrain him.'" "You shall prove this, you Copperfield!" said Uriah, with a threatening shake of the head. "All in good time!" "Ask--HEEP--Mr. Traddles, who lived in his house after him," said Mr. Micawber, breaking off from the letter; "will you?" "The fool himself--and lives there now," said Uriah, disdainfully. "Ask--HEEP--if he ever kept a pocket-book in that house," said Mr. Micawber; "will you?" I saw Uriah's lank hand stop, involuntarily, in the scraping of his chin. "Or ask him," said Mr. Micawber, "if he ever burnt one there. If he says yes, and asks you where the ashes are, refer him to Wilkins Micawber, and he will hear of something not at all to his advantage!" The triumphant flourish with which Mr. Micawber delivered himself of these words, had a powerful effect in alarming the mother; who cried out, in much agitation: "Ury, Ury! Be umble, and make terms, my dear!" "Mother!" he retorted, "will you keep quiet? You're in a fright, and don't know what you say or mean. Umble!" he repeated, looking at me, with a snarl; "I've umbled some of 'em for a pretty long time back, umble as I was!" Mr. Micawber, genteelly adjusting his chin in his cravat, presently proceeded with his composition. "'Second. HEEP has, on several occasions, to the best of my knowledge, information, and belief'"-- "But _that_ won't do," muttered Uriah, relieved. "Mother, you keep quiet." "We will endeavour to provide something that WILL do, and do for you finally, sir, very shortly," replied Mr. Micawber. "'Second. HEEP has, on several occasions, to the best of my knowledge, information, and belief, systematically forged, to various entries, books, and documents, the signature of Mr. W.; and has distinctly done so in one instance, capable of proof by me. To wit, in manner following, that is to say:'" Again, Mr. Micawber had a relish in this formal piling up of words, which, however ludicrously displayed in his case, was, I must say, not at all peculiar to him. I have observed it, in the course of my life, in numbers of men. It seems to me to be a general rule. In the taking of legal oaths, for instance, deponents seem to enjoy themselves mightily when they come to several good words in succession, for the expression of one idea; as, that they utterly detest, abominate, and abjure, or so forth; and the old anathemas were made relishing on the same principle. We talk about the tyranny of words, but we like to tyrannise over them too; we are fond of having a large superfluous establishment of words to wait upon us on great occasions; we think it looks important, and sounds well. As we are not particular about the meaning of our liveries on state occasions, if they be but fine and numerous enough, so, the meaning or necessity of our words is a secondary consideration, if there be but a great parade of them. And as individuals get into trouble by making too great a show of liveries, or as slaves when they are too numerous rise against their masters, so I think I could mention a nation that has got into many great difficulties, and will get into many greater, from maintaining too large a retinue of words. Mr. Micawber read on, almost smacking his lips: "'To wit, in manner following, that is to say. Mr. W. being infirm, and it being within the bounds of probability that his decease might lead to some discoveries, and to the downfall of--HEEP'S--power over the W. family,--as I, Wilkins Micawber, the undersigned, assume--unless the filial affection of his daughter could be secretly influenced from allowing any investigation of the partnership affairs to be ever made, the said--HEEP--deemed it expedient to have a bond ready by him, as from Mr. W., for the before-mentioned sum of twelve six fourteen, two and nine, with interest, stated therein to have been advanced by--HEEP--to Mr. W. to save Mr. W. from dishonor; though really the sum was never advanced by him, and has long been replaced. The signatures to this instrument, purporting to be executed by Mr. W. and attested by Wilkins Micawber, are forgeries by--HEEP. I have, in my possession, in his hand and pocket-book, several similar imitations of Mr. W.'s signature, here and there defaced by fire, but legible to any one. I never attested any such document. And I have the document itself, in my possession.'" Uriah Heep, with a start, took out of his pocket a bunch of keys, and opened a certain drawer; then, suddenly bethought himself of what he was about, and turned again towards us, without looking in it. "'And I have the document,'" Mr. Micawber read again, looking about as if it were the text of a sermon, "'in my possession,'--that is to say, I had, early this morning, when this was written, but have since relinquished it to Mr. Traddles." "It is quite true," assented Traddles. "Ury, Ury!" cried the mother, "be umble and make terms. I know my son will be umble, gentlemen, if you'll give him time to think. Mr. Copperfield, I'm sure you know that he was always very umble, sir!" It was singular to see how the mother still held to the old trick, when the son had abandoned it as useless. "Mother," he said, with an impatient bite at the handkerchief in which his hand was wrapped, "you had better take and fire a loaded gun at me." "But I love you, Ury," cried Mrs. Heep. And I have no doubt she did; or that he loved her, however strange it may appear; though, to be sure, they were a congenial couple. "And I can't bear to hear you provoking the gentlemen, and endangering of yourself more. I told the gentleman at first, when he told me up-stairs it was come to light, that I would answer for your being umble, and making amends. Oh, see how umble _I_ am, gentlemen, and don't mind him!" "Why, there's Copperfield, mother," he angrily retorted, pointing his lean finger at me, against whom all his animosity was levelled, as the prime mover in the discovery; and I did not undeceive him; "there's Copperfield, would have given you a hundred pound to say less than you've blurted out!" "I can't help it, Ury," cried his mother. "I can't see you running into danger, through carrying your head so high. Better be umble, as you always was." He remained for a little, biting the handkerchief, and then said to me with a scowl: "What more have you got to bring forward? If anything, go on with it. What do you look at me for?" Mr. Micawber promptly resumed his letter, only too glad to revert to a performance with which he was so highly satisfied. "'Third. And last. I am now in a condition to show, by--HEEP'S--false books, and--HEEP'S--real memoranda, beginning with the partially destroyed pocket-book (which I was unable to comprehend, at the time of its accidental discovery by Mrs. Micawber, on our taking possession of our present abode, in the locker or binn devoted to the reception of the ashes calcined on our domestic hearth), that the weaknesses, the faults, the very virtues, the parental affections, and the sense of honor, of the unhappy Mr. W. have been for years acted on by, and warped to the base purposes of--HEEP. That Mr. W. has been for years deluded and plundered, in every conceivable manner, to the pecuniary aggrandisement of the avaricious, false, and grasping--HEEP. That the engrossing object of--HEEP--was, next to gain, to subdue Mr. and Miss W. (of his ulterior views in reference to the latter I say nothing) entirely to himself. That his last act, completed but a few months since, was to induce Mr. W. to execute a relinquishment of his share in the partnership, and even a bill of sale on the very furniture of his house, in consideration of a certain annuity, to be well and truly paid by--HEEP--on the four common quarter-days in each and every year. That these meshes; beginning with alarming and falsified accounts of the estate of which Mr. W. is the receiver, at a period when Mr. W. had launched into imprudent and ill-judged speculations, and may not have had the money, for which he was morally and legally responsible, in hand; going on with pretended borrowings of money at enormous interest, really coming from--HEEP--and by--HEEP--fraudulently obtained or withheld from Mr. W. himself, on pretence of such speculations or otherwise; perpetuated by a miscellaneous catalogue of unscrupulous chicaneries--gradually thickened, until the unhappy Mr. W. could see no world beyond. Bankrupt, as he believed, alike in circumstances, in all other hope, and in honor, his sole reliance was upon the monster in the garb of man,'"--Mr. Micawber made a good deal of this, as a new turn of expression,--"'who, by making himself necessary to him, had achieved his destruction. All this I undertake to show. Probably much more!'" I whispered a few words to Agnes, who was weeping, half joyfully, half-sorrowfully, at my side; and there was a movement among us, as if Mr. Micawber had finished. He said, with exceeding gravity, "Pardon me," and proceeded, with a mixture of the lowest spirits and the most intense enjoyment, to the peroration of his letter. "'I have now concluded. It merely remains for me to substantiate these accusations; and then, with my ill-starred family, to disappear from the landscape on which we appear to be an incumbrance. That is soon done. It may be reasonably inferred that our baby will first expire of inanition, as being the frailest member of our circle; and that our twins will follow next in order. So be it! For myself, my Canterbury Pilgrimage has done much; imprisonment on civil process, and want, will soon do more. I trust that the labor and hazard of an investigation--of which the smallest results have been slowly pieced together, in the pressure of arduous avocations, under grinding penurious apprehensions, at rise of morn, at dewy eve, in the shadows of night, under the watchful eye of one whom it were superfluous to call Demon--combined with the struggle of parental Poverty to turn it, when completed, to the right account, may be as the sprinkling of a few drops of sweet water on my funereal pyre. I ask no more. Let it be, in justice, merely said of me, as of a gallant and eminent naval Hero, with whom I have no pretensions to cope, that what I have done, I did, in despite of mercenary and selfish objects, For England, home, and Beauty. "'Remaining always, &c. &c., WILKINS MICAWBER.'" * * * Much affected, but still intensely enjoying himself, Mr. Micawber folded up his letter, and handed it with a bow to my aunt, as something she might like to keep. There was, as I had noticed on my first visit long ago, an iron safe in the room. The key was in it. A hasty suspicion seemed to strike Uriah; and, with a glance at Mr. Micawber, he went to it, and threw the doors clanking open. It was empty. "Where are the books!" he cried, with a frightful face. "Some thief has stolen the books!" Mr. Micawber tapped himself with the ruler. "_I_ did, when I got the key from you as usual--but a little earlier--and opened it this morning." "Don't be uneasy," said Traddles. "They have come into my possession. I will take care of them, under the authority I mentioned." "You receive stolen goods, do you?" cried Uriah. "Under such circumstances," answered Traddles, "yes." What was my astonishment when I beheld my aunt, who had been profoundly quiet and attentive, make a dart at Uriah Heep, and seize him by the collar with both hands! "You know what _I_ want?" said my aunt. "A strait-waistcoat," said he. "No. My property!" returned my aunt. "Agnes, my dear, as long as I believed it had been really made away with by your father, I wouldn't--and, my dear, I didn't, even to Trot, as he knows--breathe a syllable of its having been placed here for investment. But, now I know this fellow's answerable for it, and I'll have it! Trot, come and take it away from him!" Whether my aunt supposed, for the moment, that he kept her property in his neck-kerchief, I am sure I don't know; but she certainly pulled at it as if she thought so. I hastened to put myself between them, and to assure her that we would all take care that he should make the utmost restitution of everything he had wrongly got. This, and a few moments' reflection, pacified her; but she was not at all disconcerted by what she had done (though I cannot say as much for her bonnet) and resumed her seat composedly. During the last few minutes, Mrs. Heep had been clamoring to her son to be "umble;" and had been going down on her knees to all of us in succession, and making the wildest promises. Her son sat her down in his chair; and, standing sulkily by her, holding her arm with his hand, but not rudely, said to me, with a ferocious look: "What do you want done?" "I will tell you what must be done," said Traddles. "Has that Copperfield no tongue?" muttered Uriah. "I would do a good deal for you if you could tell me, without lying, that somebody had cut it out." "My Uriah means to be umble!" cried his mother. "Don't mind what he says, good gentlemen!" "What must be done," said Traddles, "is this. First, the deed of relinquishment, that we have heard of, must be given over to me now--here." "Suppose I haven't got it," he interrupted. "But you have," said Traddles; "therefore, you know, we won't suppose so." And I cannot help avowing that this was the first occasion on which I really did justice to the clear head, and the plain, patient, practical good sense, of my old schoolfellow. "Then," said Traddles, "you must prepare to disgorge all that your rapacity has become possessed of, and to make restoration to the last farthing. All the partnership books and papers must remain in our possession; all your books and papers; all money accounts and securities, of both kinds. In short, everything here." "Must it? I don't know that," said Uriah. "I must have time to think about that." "Certainly," replied Traddles; "but, in the meanwhile, and until everything is done to our satisfaction, we shall maintain possession of these things; and beg you--in short, compel you--to keep your own room, and hold no communication with any one." "I won't do it!" said Uriah, with an oath. "Maidstone Jail is a safer place of detention," observed Traddles; "and though the law may be longer in righting us, and may not be able to right us so completely as you can, there is no doubt of its punishing _you_. Dear me, you know that quite as well as I! Copperfield, will you go round to the Guildhall, and bring a couple of officers?" Here, Mrs. Heep broke out again, crying on her knees to Agnes to interfere in their behalf, exclaiming that he was very humble, and it was all true, and if he didn't do what we wanted, she would, and much more to the same purpose; being half frantic with fears for her darling. To inquire what he might have done, if he had had any boldness, would be like inquiring what a mongrel cur might do, if it had the spirit of a tiger. He was a coward, from head to foot; and showed his dastardly nature through his sullenness and mortification, as much as at any time of his mean life. "Stop!" he growled to me; and wiped his hot face with his hand. "Mother, hold your noise. Well! Let'em have that deed. Go and fetch it!" "Do you help her, Mr. Dick," said Traddles, "if you please." Proud of his commission, and understanding it, Mr. Dick accompanied her as a shepherd's dog might accompany a sheep. But, Mrs. Heep gave him little trouble; for she not only returned with the deed, but with the box in which it was, where we found a banker's book and some other papers that were afterwards serviceable. "Good!" said Traddles, when this was brought. "Now, Mr. Heep, you can retire to think: particularly observing, if you please, that I declare to you, on the part of all present, that there is only one thing to be done; that it is what I have explained; and that it must be done without delay." Uriah, without lifting his eyes from the ground, shuffled across the room with his hand to his chin, and pausing at the door, said: "Copperfield, I have always hated you. You've always been an upstart, and you've always been against me." "As I think I told you once before," said I, "it is you who have been, in your greed and cunning, against all the world. It may be profitable to you to reflect, in future, that there never were greed and cunning in the world yet, that did not do too much, and over-reach themselves. It is as certain as death." "Or as certain as they used to teach at school (the same school where I picked up so much umbleness), from nine o'clock to eleven, that labor was a curse; and from eleven o'clock to one, that it was a blessing and a cheerfulness, and a dignity, and I don't know what all, eh?" said he with a sneer. "You preach, about as consistent as they did. Won't umbleness go down? I shouldn't have got round my gentleman fellow-partner without it, I think.--Micawber, you old bully, I'll pay _you_!" Mr. Micawber, supremely defiant of him and his extended finger, and making a great deal of his chest until he had slunk out at the door, then addressed himself to me, and proffered me the satisfaction of "witnessing the re-establishment of mutual confidence between himself and Mrs. Micawber." After which, he invited the company generally to the contemplation of that affecting spectacle. [Illustration: Restoration of mutual confidence between Mr. and Mrs. Micawber.] "The veil that has long been interposed between Mrs. Micawber and myself, is now withdrawn," said Mr. Micawber; "and my children and the Author of their Being can once more come in contact on equal terms." As we were all very grateful to him, and all desirous to show that we were, as well as the hurry and disorder of our spirits would permit, I dare say we should all have gone, but that it was necessary for Agnes to return to her father, as yet unable to bear more than the dawn of hope; and for some one else to hold Uriah in safe keeping. So, Traddles remained for the latter purpose, to be presently relieved by Mr. Dick; and Mr. Dick, my aunt, and I, went home with Mr. Micawber. As I parted hurriedly from the dear girl to whom I owed so much, and thought from what she had been saved, perhaps, that morning--her better resolution notwithstanding--I felt devoutly thankful for the miseries of my younger days which had brought me to the knowledge of Mr. Micawber. His house was not far off; and as the street-door opened into the sitting room, and he bolted in with a precipitation quite his own, we found ourselves at once in the bosom of the family. Mr. Micawber exclaiming, "Emma! my life!" rushed into Mrs. Micawber's arms. Mrs. Micawber shrieked, and folded Mr. Micawber in her embrace. Miss Micawber, nursing the unconscious stranger of Mrs. Micawber's last letter to me, was sensibly affected. The stranger leaped. The twins testified their joy by several inconvenient but innocent demonstrations. Master Micawber, whose disposition appeared to have been soured by early disappointment, and whose aspect had become morose, yielded to his better feelings, and blubbered. "Emma!" said Mr. Micawber. "The cloud is past from my mind. Mutual confidence, so long preserved between us once, is restored, to know no farther interruption. Now, welcome poverty!" cried Mr. Micawber, shedding tears. "Welcome misery, welcome houselessness, welcome hunger, rags, tempest, and beggary! Mutual confidence will sustain us to the end!" With these expressions, Mr. Micawber placed Mrs. Micawber in a chair, and embraced the family all round; welcoming a variety of bleak prospects, which appeared, to the best of my judgment, to be anything but welcome to them; and calling upon them to come out into Canterbury and sing a chorus, as nothing else was left for their support. But Mrs. Micawber having, in the strength of her emotions, fainted away, the first thing to be done, even before the chorus could be considered complete, was to recover her. This, my aunt and Mr. Micawber did; and then my aunt was introduced, and Mrs. Micawber recognised me. "Excuse me, dear Mr. Copperfield," said the poor lady, giving me her hand, "but I am not strong; and the removal of the late misunderstanding between Mr. Micawber and myself was at first too much for me." "Is this all your family, ma'am?" said my aunt. "There are no more at present," returned Mrs. Micawber. "Good gracious, I didn't mean that, ma'am," said my aunt. "I mean are all these yours?" "Madam," replied Mr. Micawber, "it is a true bill." "And that eldest young gentleman, now," said my aunt, musing. "What has _he_ been brought up to?" "It was my hope when I came here," said Mr. Micawber, "to have got Wilkins into the Church: or perhaps I shall express my meaning more strictly, if I say the Choir. But there was no vacancy for a tenor in the venerable Pile for which this city is so justly eminent; and he has--in short, he has contracted a habit of singing in public-houses, rather than in sacred edifices." "But he means well," said Mrs. Micawber, tenderly. "I dare say, my love," rejoined Mr. Micawber, "that he means particularly well; but I have not yet found that he carries out his meaning, in any given direction whatsoever." Master Micawber's moroseness of aspect returned upon him again, and he demanded, with some temper, what he was to do? Whether he had been born a carpenter, or a coach painter, any more than he had been born a bird? Whether he could go into the next street, and open a chemist's shop? Whether he could rush to the next assizes, and proclaim himself a lawyer? Whether he could come out by force at the opera, and succeed by violence? Whether he could do anything, without being brought up to something? My aunt mused a little while, and then said: "Mr. Micawber, I wonder you have never turned your thoughts to emigration." "Madam," returned Mr. Micawber, "it was the dream of my youth, and the fallacious aspiration of my riper years." I am thoroughly persuaded, by the bye, that he had never thought of it in his life. "Aye?" said my aunt, with a glance at me. "Why, what a thing it would be for yourselves and your family, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, if you were to emigrate now." "Capital, madam, capital," urged Mr. Micawber, gloomily. "That is the principal, I may say the only difficulty, my dear Mr. Copperfield," assented his wife. "Capital?" cried my aunt. "But you are doing us a great service--have done us a great service, I may say, for surely much will come out of the fire--and what could we do for you, that would be half so good as to find the capital?" "I could not receive it as a gift," said Mr. Micawber, full of fire and animation, "but if a sufficient sum could be advanced, say at five per cent. interest, per annum, upon my personal liability--say my notes of hand, at twelve, eighteen, and twenty-four months, respectively, to allow time for something to turn up----" "Could be? Can be, and shall be, on your own terms," returned my aunt, "if you say the word. Think of this now, both of you. Here are some people David knows, going out to Australia shortly. If you decide to go, why shouldn't you go in the same ship? You may help each other. Think of this now, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. Take your time, and weigh it well." "There is but one question, my dear ma'am, I could wish to ask," said Mrs. Micawber. "The climate, I believe, is healthy." "Finest in the world!" said my aunt. "Just so," returned Mrs. Micawber. "Then my question arises. Now, _are_ the circumstances of the country such, that a man of Mr. Micawber's abilities would have a fair chance of rising in the social scale? I will not say, at present, might he aspire to be Governor, or anything of that sort; but would there be a reasonable opening for his talents to develop themselves--that, would be amply sufficient--and find their own expansion?" "No better opening anywhere," said my aunt, "for a man who conducts himself well, and is industrious." "For a man who conducts himself well," repeated Mrs. Micawber, with her clearest business manner, "and is industrious. Precisely. It is evident to me that Australia is the legitimate sphere of action for Mr. Micawber!" "I entertain the conviction, my dear madam," said Mr. Micawber, "that it is, under existing circumstances, the land, the only land, for myself and family; and that something of an extraordinary nature will turn up on that shore. It is no distance--comparatively speaking; and though consideration is due to the kindness of your proposal, I assure you that is a mere matter of form." Shall I ever forget how, in a moment, he was the most sanguine of men, looking on to fortune; or how Mrs. Micawber presently discoursed about the habits of the kangaroo! Shall I ever recall that street of Canterbury on a market day, without recalling him, as he walked back with us; expressing, in the hardy roving manner he assumed, the unsettled habits of a temporary sojourner in the land; and looking at the bullocks, as they came by, with the eye of an Australian farmer! CHAPTER LIII. ANOTHER RETROSPECT. I must pause yet once again. O, my child-wife, there is a figure in the moving crowd before my memory, quiet and still, saying in its innocent love and childish beauty, Stop to think of me--turn to look upon the little blossom, as it flutters to the ground! I do. All else grows dim, and fades away. I am again with Dora, in our cottage. I do not know how long she has been ill. I am so used to it in feeling, that I cannot count the time. It is not really long, in weeks or months; but, in my usage and experience, it is a weary, weary while. They have left off telling me to "wait a few days more." I have begun to fear, remotely, that the day may never shine, when I shall see my child-wife running in the sunlight with her old friend Jip. He is, as it were suddenly, grown very old. It may be, that he misses in his mistress, something that enlivened him and made him younger; but he mopes, and his sight is weak, and his limbs are feeble, and my aunt is sorry that he objects to her no more, but creeps near her as he lies on Dora's bed--she sitting at the bedside--and mildly licks her hand. Dora lies smiling on us, and is beautiful, and utters no hasty or complaining word. She says that we are very good to her; that her dear old careful boy is tiring himself out, she knows; that my aunt has no sleep, yet is always wakeful, active, and kind. Sometimes, the little bird-like ladies come to see her; and then we talk about our wedding-day, and all that happy time. What a strange rest and pause in my life there seems to be--and in all life, within doors and without--when I sit in the quiet, shaded, orderly, room, with the blue eyes of my child-wife turned towards me, and her little fingers twining round my hand! Many and many an hour I sit thus; but, of all those times, three times come the freshest on my mind. * * * It is morning; and Dora, made so trim by my aunt's hands, shews me how her pretty hair _will_ curl upon the pillow yet, and how long and bright it is, and how she likes to have it loosely gathered in that net she wears. "Not that I am vain of it, now, you mocking boy," she says, when I smile; "but because you used to say you thought it so beautiful; and because, when I first began to think about you, I used to peep in the glass, and wonder whether you would like very much to have a lock of it. Oh what a foolish fellow you were, Doady, when I gave you one!" "That was on the day when you were painting the flowers I had given you, Dora, and when I told you how much in love I was." "Ah! but I didn't like to tell _you_," says Dora, "_then_, how I had cried over them, because I believed you really liked me! When I can run about again as I used to do, Doady, let us go and see those places where we were such a silly couple, shall we? And take some of the old walks? And not forget poor papa?" "Yes, we will, and have some happy days. So you must make haste to get well, my dear." "Oh, I shall soon do that! I am so much better, you don't know!" * * * It is evening; and I sit in the same chair, by the same bed, with the same face turned towards me. We have been silent, and there is a smile upon her face. I have ceased to carry my light burden up and down stairs now. She lies here all the day. "Doady!" "My dear Dora!" "You won't think what I am going to say, unreasonable, after what you told me, such a little while ago, of Mr. Wickfield's not being well? I want to see Agnes. Very much I want to see her." "I will write to her, my dear." "Will you?" "Directly." "What a good, kind boy! Doady, take me on your arm. Indeed, my dear, it's not a whim. It's not a foolish fancy. I want, very much indeed, to see her!" "I am certain of it. I have only to tell her so, and she is sure to come." "You are very lonely when you go down stairs, now?" Dora whispers, with her arm about my neck. "How can I be otherwise, my own love, when I see your empty chair?" "My empty chair!" She clings to me for a little while, in silence. "And you really miss me, Doady?" looking up, and brightly smiling. "Even poor, giddy, stupid me?" "My heart, who is there upon earth that I could miss so much?" "Oh, husband! I am so glad, yet so sorry!" creeping closer to me, and folding me in both her arms. She laughs, and sobs, and then is quiet, and quite happy. "Quite!" she says. "Only give Agnes my dear love, and tell her that I want very, very, much to see her; and I have nothing left to wish for." "Except to get well again, Dora." "Ah, Doady! Sometimes I think--you know I always was a silly little thing!--that that will never be!" "Don't say so, Dora! Dearest love, don't think so!" "I won't, if I can help it, Doady. But I am very happy; though my dear boy is so lonely by himself, before his child-wife's empty chair!" * * * It is night; and I am with her still. Agnes has arrived; has been among us, for a whole day and an evening. She, my aunt, and I, have sat with Dora since the morning, all together. We have not talked much, but Dora has been perfectly contented and cheerful. We are now alone. Do I know, now, that my child-wife will soon leave me? They have told me so; they have told me nothing new to my thoughts; but I am far from sure that I have taken that truth to heart. I cannot master it. I have withdrawn by myself, many times to-day, to weep. I have remembered Who wept for a parting between the living and the dead. I have bethought me of all that gracious and compassionate history. I have tried to resign myself, and to console myself; and that, I hope, I may have done imperfectly; but what I cannot firmly settle in my mind is, that the end will absolutely come. I hold her hand in mine, I hold her heart in mine, I see her love for me, alive in all its strength. I cannot shut out a pale lingering shadow of belief that she will be spared. "I am going to speak to you, Doady. I am going to say something I have often thought of saying, lately. You won't mind?" with a gentle look. "Mind, my darling?" "Because I don't know what you will think, or what you may have thought sometimes. Perhaps you have often thought the same. Doady, dear, I am afraid I was too young." I lay my face upon the pillow by her, and she looks into my eyes, and speaks very softly. Gradually, as she goes on, I feel, with a stricken heart, that she is speaking of herself as past. "I am afraid, dear, I was too young. I don't mean in years only, but in experience, and thoughts, and everything. I was such a silly little creature! I am afraid it would have been better, if we had only loved each other as a boy and girl, and forgotten it. I have begun to think I was not fit to be a wife." I try to stay my tears, and to reply, "Oh, Dora, love, as fit as I to be a husband!" "I don't know," with the old shake of her curls. "Perhaps! But, if I had been more fit to be married, I might have made you more so, too. Besides, you are very clever, and I never was." "We have been very happy, my sweet Dora." "I was very happy, very. But, as years went on, my dear boy would have wearied of his child-wife. She would have been less and less a companion for him. He would have been more and more sensible of what was wanting in his home. She wouldn't have improved. It is better as it is." "Oh, Dora, dearest, dearest, do not speak to me so. Every word seems a reproach!" "No, not a syllable!" she answers, kissing me. "Oh, my dear, you never deserved it, and I loved you far too well, to say a reproachful word to you, in earnest--it was all the merit I had, except being pretty--or you thought me so. Is it lonely down-stairs, Doady?" "Very! Very!" "Don't cry! Is my chair there?" "In its old place." "Oh, how my poor boy cries! Hush, hush! Now, make me one promise. I want to speak to Agnes. When you go down-stairs, tell Agnes so, and send her up to me; and while I speak to her, let no one come--not even aunt. I want to speak to Agnes by herself. I want to speak to Agnes, quite alone." I promise that she shall, immediately; but I cannot leave her, for my grief. "I said that it was better as it is!" she whispers, as she holds me in her arms. "Oh, Doady, after more years, you never could have loved your child-wife better than you do; and, after more years, she would so have tried and disappointed you, that you might not have been able to love her half so well! I know I was too young and foolish. It is much better as it is!" * * * Agnes is down-stairs, when I go into the parlor; and I give her the message. She disappears, leaving me alone with Jip. His Chinese house is by the fire; and he lies within it, on his bed of flannel, querulously trying to sleep. The bright moon is high and clear. As I look out on the night, my tears fall fast, and my undisciplined heart is chastened heavily--heavily. I sit down by the fire, thinking with a blind remorse of all those secret feelings I have nourished since my marriage. I think of every little trifle between me and Dora, and feel the truth, that trifles make the sum of life. Ever rising from the sea of my remembrance, is the image of the dear child as I knew her first, graced by my young love, and by her own, with every fascination wherein such love is rich. Would it, indeed, have been better if we had loved each other as a boy and girl, and forgotten it? Undisciplined heart, reply! How the time wears, I know not; until I am recalled by my child-wife's old companion. More restless than he was, he crawls out of his house, and looks at me, and wanders to the door, and whines to go up-stairs. "Not to-night, Jip! Not to-night!" He comes very slowly back to me, licks my hand, and lifts his dim eyes to my face. "O, Jip! It may be, never again!" He lies down at my feet, stretches himself out as if to sleep, and with a plaintive cry, is dead. [Illustration: My child-wife's old companion.] "O Agnes! Look, look, here!" --That face, so full of pity and of grief, that rain of tears, that awful mute appeal to me, that solemn hand upraised towards Heaven! "Agnes?" It is over. Darkness comes before my eyes; and, for a time, all things are blotted out of my remembrance. CHAPTER LIV. MR. MICAWBER'S TRANSACTIONS. This is not the time at which I am to enter on the state of my mind beneath its load of sorrow. I came to think that the Future was walled up before me, that the energy and action of my life were at an end, that I never could find any refuge but in the grave. I came to think so, I say, but not in the first shock of my grief. It slowly grew to that. If the events I go on to relate, had not thickened around me, in the beginning to confuse, and in the end to augment, my affliction, it is possible, (though I think not probable), that I might have fallen at once into this condition. As it was, an interval occurred before I fully knew my own distress; an interval, in which I even supposed that its sharpest pangs were past; and when my mind could soothe itself by resting on all that was most innocent and beautiful, in the tender story that was closed for ever. When it was first proposed that I should go abroad, or how it came to be agreed among us that I was to seek the restoration of my peace in change and travel, I do not, even now, distinctly know. The spirit of Agnes so pervaded all we thought, and said, and did, in that time of sorrow, that I assume I may refer the project to her influence. But her influence was so quiet that I know no more. And now, indeed, I began to think that in my old association of her with the stained-glass window in the church, a prophetic foreshadowing of what she would be to me, in the calamity that was to happen in the fullness of time, had found a way into my mind. In all that sorrow, from the moment, never to be forgotten, when she stood before me with her upraised hand, she was like a sacred presence in my lonely house. When the Angel of Death alighted there, my child-wife fell asleep--they told me so when I could bear to hear it--on her bosom, with a smile. From my swoon, I first awoke to a consciousness of her compassionate tears, her words of hope and peace, her gentle face bending down as from a purer region nearer Heaven, over my undisciplined heart, and softening its pain. Let me go on. I was to go abroad. That seemed to have been determined among us from the first. The ground now covering all that could perish of my departed wife, I waited only for what Mr. Micawber called the "final pulverisation of Heep," and for the departure of the emigrants. At the request of Traddles, most affectionate and devoted of friends in my trouble, we returned to Canterbury: I mean my aunt, Agnes, and I. We proceeded by appointment straight to Mr. Micawber's house; where, and at Mr. Wickfield's, my friend had been labouring ever since our explosive meeting. When poor Mrs. Micawber saw me come in, in my black clothes, she was sensibly affected. There was a great deal of good in Mrs. Micawber's heart, which had not been dunned out of it in all those many years. "Well, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber," was my aunt's first salutation after we were seated. "Pray, have you thought about that emigration proposal of mine?" "My dear madam," returned Mr. Micawber, "perhaps I cannot better express the conclusion at which Mrs. Micawber, your humble servant, and I may add our children, have jointly and severally arrived, than by borrowing the language of an illustrious poet, to reply that our Boat is on the shore, and our Bark is on the sea." "That's right," said my aunt. "I augur all sorts of good from your sensible decision." "Madam, you do us a great deal of honor," he rejoined. He then referred to a memorandum. "With respect to the pecuniary assistance enabling us to launch our frail canoe on the ocean of enterprise, I have reconsidered that important business-point; and would beg to propose my notes of hand--drawn, it is needless to stipulate, on stamps of the amounts respectively required by the various Acts of Parliament applying to such securities--at eighteen, twenty-four, and thirty months. The proposition I originally submitted, was twelve, eighteen, and twenty-four; but I am apprehensive that such an arrangement might not allow sufficient time for the requisite amount of--Something--to turn up. We might not," said Mr. Micawber, looking round the room as if it represented several hundred acres of highly-cultivated land, "on the first responsibility becoming due, have been successful in our harvest, or we might not have got our harvest in. Labor, I believe, is sometimes difficult to obtain in that portion of our colonial possessions where it will be our lot to combat with the teeming soil." "Arrange it in any way you please, sir," said my aunt. "Madam," he replied, "Mrs. Micawber and myself are deeply sensible of the very considerate kindness of our friends and patrons. What I wish is, to be perfectly business-like, and perfectly punctual. Turning over, as we are about to turn over, an entirely new leaf; and falling back, as we are now in the act of falling back, for a Spring of no common magnitude; it is important to my sense of self-respect, besides being an example to my son, that these arrangements should be concluded as between man and man." I don't know that Mr. Micawber attached any meaning to this last phrase; I don't know that anybody ever does, or did; but he appeared to relish it uncommonly, and repeated, with an impressive cough, "as between man and man." "I propose," said Mr. Micawber, "Bills--a convenience to the mercantile world, for which, I believe, we are originally indebted to the Jews, who appear to me to have had a devilish deal too much to do with them ever since--because they are negotiable. But if a Bond, or any other description of security, would be preferred, I should be happy to execute any such instrument. As between man and man." My aunt observed, that in a case where both parties were willing to agree to anything, she took it for granted there would be no difficulty in settling this point. Mr. Micawber was of her opinion. "In reference to our domestic preparations, madam," said Mr. Micawber, with some pride, "for meeting the destiny to which we are now understood to be self-devoted, I beg to report them. My eldest daughter attends at five every morning in a neighbouring establishment, to acquire the process--if process it may be called--of milking cows. My younger children are instructed to observe, as closely as circumstances will permit, the habits of the pigs and poultry maintained in the poorer parts of this city: a pursuit from which they have, on two occasions, been brought home, within an inch of being run over. I have myself directed some attention, during the past week, to the art of baking; and my son Wilkins has issued forth with a walking-stick and driven cattle, when permitted, by the rugged hirelings who had them in charge, to render any voluntary service in that direction--which I regret to say, for the credit of our nature, was not often; he being generally warned, with imprecations, to desist." "All very right indeed," said my aunt, encouragingly. "Mrs. Micawber has been busy, too, I have no doubt." "My dear madam," returned Mrs. Micawber, with her business-like air, "I am free to confess, that I have not been actively engaged in pursuits immediately connected with cultivation or with stock, though well aware that both will claim my attention on a foreign shore. Such opportunities as I have been enabled to alienate from my domestic duties, I have devoted to corresponding at some length with my family. For I own it seems to me, my dear Mr. Copperfield," said Mrs. Micawber, who always fell back on me, I suppose from old habit, to whomsoever else she might address her discourse at starting, "that the time is come when the past should be buried in oblivion; when my family should take Mr. Micawber by the hand, and Mr. Micawber should take my family by the hand; when the lion should lie down with the lamb, and my family be on terms with Mr. Micawber." I said I thought so too. "This, at least, is the light, my dear Mr. Copperfield," pursued Mrs. Micawber, "in which _I_ view the subject. When I lived at home with my papa and mama, my papa was accustomed to ask, when any point was under discussion in our limited circle, 'In what light does my Emma view the subject?' That my papa was too partial, I know; still, on such a point as the frigid coldness which has ever subsisted between Mr. Micawber and my family, I necessarily have formed an opinion, delusive though it may be." "No doubt. Of course you have, ma'am," said my aunt. "Precisely so," assented Mrs. Micawber. "Now, I may be wrong in my conclusions; it is very likely that I am; but my individual impression is, that the gulf between my family and Mr. Micawber may be traced to an apprehension, on the part of my family, that Mr. Micawber would require pecuniary accommodation. I cannot help thinking," said Mrs. Micawber, with an air of deep sagacity, "that there are members of my family who have been apprehensive that Mr. Micawber would solicit them for their names.--I do not mean to be conferred in Baptism upon our children, but to be inscribed on Bills of Exchange, and negotiated in the Money Market." The look of penetration with which Mrs. Micawber announced this discovery, as if no one had ever thought of it before, seemed rather to astonish my aunt; who abruptly replied, "Well, ma'am, upon the whole, I shouldn't wonder if you were right!" "Mr. Micawber being now on the eve of casting off the pecuniary shackles that have so long enthralled him," said Mrs. Micawber, "and of commencing a new career in a country where there is sufficient range for his abilities,--which, in my opinion, is exceedingly important; Mr. Micawber's abilities peculiarly requiring space,--it seems to me that my family should signalise the occasion by coming forward. What I could wish to see, would be a meeting between Mr. Micawber and my family at a festive entertainment, to be given at my family's expence; where Mr. Micawber's health and prosperity being proposed, by some leading member of my family, Mr. Micawber might have an opportunity of developing his views." "My dear," said Mr. Micawber, with some heat, "it may be better for me to state distinctly, at once, that if I were to develop my views to that assembled group, they would possibly be found of an offensive nature: my impression being that your family are, in the aggregate, impertinent Snobs; and, in detail, unmitigated Ruffians." "Micawber," said Mrs. Micawber, shaking her head, "no! You have never understood them, and they have never understood you." Mr. Micawber coughed. "They have never understood you, Micawber," said his wife. "They may be incapable of it. If so, that is their misfortune. I can pity their misfortune." "I am extremely sorry, my dear Emma," said Mr. Micawber, relenting, "to have been betrayed into any expressions that might, even remotely, have the appearance of being strong expressions. All I would say, is, that I can go abroad without your family coming forward to favor me,--in short, with a parting Shove of their cold shoulders; and that, upon the whole, I would rather leave England with such impetus as I possess, than derive any acceleration of it from that quarter. At the same time, my dear, if they should condescend to reply to your communications--which our joint experience renders most improbable--far be it from me to be a barrier to your wishes." The matter being thus amicably settled, Mr. Micawber gave Mrs. Micawber his arm, and, glancing at the heap of books and papers lying before Traddles on the table, said they would leave us to ourselves; which they ceremoniously did. "My dear Copperfield," said Traddles, leaning back in his chair when they were gone, and looking at me with an affection that made his eyes red, and his hair all kinds of shapes, "I don't make any excuse for troubling you with business, because I know you are deeply interested in it, and it may divert your thoughts. My dear boy, I hope you are not worn out?" "I am quite myself," said I, after a pause. "We have more cause to think of my aunt than of any one. You know how much she has done." "Surely, surely," answered Traddles. "Who can forget it!" "But even that is not all," said I. "During the last fortnight, some new trouble has vexed her; and she has been in and out of London every day. Several times she has gone out early, and been absent until evening. Last night, Traddles, with this journey before her, it was almost midnight before she came home. You know what her consideration for others is. She will not tell me what has happened to distress her." My aunt, very pale, and with deep lines in her face, sat immovable until I had finished; when some stray tears found their way to her cheeks, and she put her hand on mine. "It's nothing, Trot; it's nothing. There will be no more of it. You shall know by and by. Now Agnes, my dear, let us attend to these affairs." "I must do Mr. Micawber the justice to say," Traddles began, "that although he would appear not to have worked to any good account for himself, he is a most untiring man when he works for other people. I never saw such a fellow. If he always goes on in the same way, he must be, virtually, about two hundred years old, at present. The heat into which he has been continually putting himself; and the distracted and impetuous manner in which he has been diving, day and night, among papers and books; to say nothing of the immense number of letters he has written me between this house and Mr. Wickfield's, and often across the table when he has been sitting opposite, and might much more easily have spoken; is quite extraordinary." "Letters!" cried my aunt. "I believe he dreams in letters!" "There's Mr. Dick, too," said Traddles, "has been doing wonders! As soon as he was released from overlooking Uriah Heep, whom he kept in such charge as _I_ never saw exceeded, he began to devote himself to Mr. Wickfield. And really his anxiety to be of use in the investigations we have been making, and his real usefulness in extracting, and copying, and fetching, and carrying, have been quite stimulating to us." "Dick is a very remarkable man," exclaimed my aunt; "and I always said he was. Trot, you know it!" "I am happy to say, Miss Wickfield," pursued Traddles, at once with great delicacy and with great earnestness, "that in your absence Mr. Wickfield has considerably improved. Relieved of the incubus that had fastened upon him for so long a time, and of the dreadful apprehensions under which he had lived, he is hardly the same person. At times, even his impaired power of concentrating his memory and attention on particular points of business, has recovered itself very much; and he has been able to assist us in making some things clear, that we should have found very difficult indeed, if not hopeless, without him. But, what I have to do is to come to results; which are short enough; not to gossip on all the hopeful circumstances I have observed, or I shall never have done." His natural manner and agreeable simplicity made it transparent that he said this to put us in good heart, and to enable Agnes to hear her father mentioned with greater confidence; but it was not the less pleasant for that. "Now, let me see," said Traddles, looking among the papers on the table. "Having counted our funds, and reduced to order a great mass of unintentional confusion in the first place, and of wilful confusion and falsification in the second, we take it to be clear that Mr. Wickfield might now wind up his business, and his agency-trust, and exhibit no deficiency or defalcation whatever." "Oh, thank Heaven!" cried Agnes, fervently. "But," said Traddles, "the surplus that would be left as his means of support--and I suppose the house to be sold, even in saying this--would be so small, not exceeding in all probability some hundreds of pounds, that perhaps, Miss Wickfield, it would be best to consider whether he might not retain his agency of the estate to which he has so long been receiver. His friends might advise him, you know; now he is free. You yourself, Miss Wickfield--Copperfield--I--" "I have considered it, Trotwood," said Agnes, looking to me, "and I feel that it ought not to be, and must not be; even on the recommendation of a friend to whom I am so grateful, and owe so much." "I will not say that I recommend it," observed Traddles. "I think it right to suggest it. No more." "I am happy to hear you say so," answered Agnes, steadily, "for it gives me hope, almost assurance, that we think alike. Dear Mr. Traddles and dear Trotwood, papa once free with honor, what could I wish for! I have always aspired, if I could have released him from the toils in which he was held, to render back some little portion of the love and care I owe him, and to devote my life to him. It has been, for years, the utmost height of my hopes. To take our future on myself, will be the next great happiness--the next to his release from all trust and responsibility--that I can know." "Have you thought how, Agnes?" "Often! I am not afraid, dear Trotwood. I am certain of success. So many people know me here, and think kindly of me, that I am certain. Don't mistrust me. Our wants are not many. If I rent the dear old house, and keep a school, I shall be useful and happy." The calm fervor of her cheerful voice brought back so vividly, first the dear old house itself, and then my solitary home, that my heart was too full for speech. Traddles pretended for a little while to be busily looking among the papers. "Next, Miss Trotwood," said Traddles, "that property of yours." "Well, sir," sighed my aunt. "All I have got to say about it, is, that if it's gone, I can bear it; and if it's not gone, I shall be glad to get it back." "It was originally, I think, eight thousand pounds, Consols?" said Traddles. "Right!" replied my aunt. "I can't account for more than five," said Traddles, with an air of perplexity. "--thousand, do you mean?" inquired my aunt, with uncommon composure, "or pounds?" "Five thousand pounds," said Traddles. "It was all there was," returned my aunt. "I sold three, myself. One, I paid for your articles, Trot, my dear; and the other two I have by me. When I lost the rest, I thought it wise to say nothing about that sum, but to keep it secretly for a rainy day. I wanted to see how you would come out of the trial, Trot; and you came out nobly--persevering, self-reliant, self-denying! So did Dick. Don't speak to me, for I find my nerves a little shaken!" Nobody would have thought so, to see her sitting upright, with her arms folded; but she had wonderful self-command. "Then I am delighted to say," cried Traddles, beaming with joy, "that we have recovered the whole money!" "Don't congratulate me, anybody!" exclaimed my aunt. "How so, sir?" "You believed it had been misappropriated by Mr. Wickfield?" said Traddles. "Of course I did," said my aunt, "and was therefore easily silenced. Agnes, not a word!" "And indeed," said Traddles, "it was sold, by virtue of the power of management he held from you; but I needn't say by whom sold, or on whose actual signature. It was afterwards pretended to Mr. Wickfield, by that rascal,--and proved, too, by figures,--that he had possessed himself of the money (on general instructions, _he_ said) to keep other deficiencies and difficulties from the light. Mr. Wickfield, being so weak and helpless in his hands as to pay you, afterwards, several sums of interest on a pretended principal which he knew did not exist, made himself, unhappily, a party to the fraud." "And at last took the blame upon himself," added my aunt; "and wrote me a mad letter, charging himself with robbery, and wrong unheard of. Upon which I paid him a visit early one morning, called for a candle, burnt the letter, and told him if he ever could right me and himself, to do it; and if he couldn't, to keep his own counsel for his daughter's sake.--If anybody speaks to me, I'll leave the house!" We all remained quiet; Agnes covering her face. "Well, my dear friend," said my aunt, after a pause, "and you have really extorted the money back from him?" "Why, the fact is," returned Traddles, "Mr. Micawber had so completely hemmed him in, and was always ready with so many new points if an old one failed, that he could not escape from us. A most remarkable circumstance is, that I really don't think he grasped this sum even so much for the gratification of his avarice, which was inordinate, as in the hatred he felt for Copperfield. He said so to me, plainly. He said he would even have spent as much, to baulk or injure Copperfield." "Ha!" said my aunt, knitting her brows thoughtfully, and glancing at Agnes. "And what's become of him?" "I don't know. He left here," said Traddles, "with his mother, who had been clamouring, and beseeching, and disclosing, the whole time. They went away by one of the London night coaches, and I know no more about him; except that his malevolence to me at parting was audacious. He seemed to consider himself hardly less indebted to me, than to Mr. Micawber; which I consider (as I told him) quite a compliment." "Do you suppose he has any money, Traddles?" I asked. "Oh dear, yes, I should think so," he replied, shaking his head, seriously. "I should say he must have pocketed a good deal, in one way or other. But, I think you would find, Copperfield, if you had an opportunity of observing his course, that money would never keep that man out of mischief. He is such an incarnate hypocrite, that whatever object he pursues, he must pursue crookedly. It's his only compensation for the outward restraints he puts upon himself. Always creeping along the ground to some small end or other, he will always magnify every object in the way; and consequently will hate and suspect every body that comes, in the most innocent manner, between him and it. So, the crooked courses will become crookeder, at any moment, for the least reason, or for none. It's only necessary to consider his history here," said Traddles, "to know that." "He's a monster of meanness!" said my aunt. "Really I don't know about that," observed Traddles thoughtfully. "Many people can be very mean, when they give their minds to it." "And now, touching Mr. Micawber," said my aunt. "Well, really," said Traddles, cheerfully, "I must, once more, give Mr. Micawber high praise. But for his having been so patient and persevering for so long a time, we never could have hoped to do anything worth speaking of. And I think we ought to consider that Mr. Micawber did right, for right's sake, when we reflect what terms he might have made with Uriah Heep himself, for his silence." "I think so too," said I. "Now, what would you give him?" inquired my aunt. "Oh! Before you come to that," said Traddles, a little disconcerted, "I am afraid I thought it discreet to omit (not being able to carry everything before me) two points, in making this lawless adjustment--for it's perfectly lawless from beginning to end--of a difficult affair. Those I. O. U.'s, and so forth, which Mr. Micawber gave him for the advances he had--" "Well! They must be paid," said my aunt. "Yes, but I don't know when they may be proceeded on, or where they are," rejoined Traddles, opening his eyes; "and I anticipate, that, between this time and his departure, Mr. Micawber will be constantly arrested, or taken in execution." "Then he must be constantly set free again, and taken out of execution," said my aunt. "What's the amount altogether?" "Why, Mr. Micawber has entered the transactions--he calls them transactions--with great form, in a book," rejoined Traddles, smiling; "and he makes the amount a hundred and three pounds, five." "Now, what shall we give him, that sum included?" said my aunt. "Agnes, my dear, you and I can talk about division of it afterwards. What should it be? Five hundred pounds?" Upon this, Traddles and I both struck in at once. We both recommended a small sum in money, and the payment, without stipulation to Mr. Micawber, of the Uriah claims as they came in. We proposed that the family should have their passage and their outfit, and a hundred pounds; and that Mr. Micawber's arrangement for the repayment of the advances should be gravely entered into, as it might be wholesome for him to suppose himself under that responsibility. To this, I added the suggestion, that I should give some explanation of his character and history to Mr. Peggotty, who I knew could be relied on; and that to Mr. Peggotty should be quietly entrusted the discretion of advancing another hundred. I further proposed to interest Mr. Micawber in Mr. Peggotty, by confiding so much of Mr. Peggotty's story to him as I might feel justified in relating, or might think expedient; and to endeavour to bring each of them to bear upon the other, for the common advantage. We all entered warmly into these views; and I may mention at once, that the principals themselves did so, shortly afterwards, with perfect good will and harmony. Seeing that Traddles now glanced anxiously at my aunt again, I reminded him of the second and last point to which he had adverted. "You and your aunt will excuse me, Copperfield, if I touch upon a painful theme, as I greatly fear I shall," said Traddles, hesitating; "but I think it necessary to bring it to your recollection. On the day of Mr. Micawber's memorable denunciation, a threatening allusion was made by Uriah Heep to your aunt's--husband." My aunt, retaining her stiff position, and apparent composure, assented with a nod. "Perhaps," observed Traddles, "it was mere purposeless impertinence?" "No," returned my aunt. "There was--pardon me--really such a person, and at all in his power?" hinted Traddles. "Yes, my good friend," said my aunt. Traddles, with a perceptible lengthening of his face, explained that he had not been able to approach this subject; that it had shared the fate of Mr. Micawber's liabilities, in not being comprehended in the terms he had made; that we were no longer of any authority with Uriah Heep; and that if he could do us, or any of us, any injury or annoyance, no doubt he would. My aunt remained quiet; until again some stray tears found their way to her cheeks. "You are quite right," she said. "It was very thoughtful to mention it." "Can I--or Copperfield--do anything?" asked Traddles, gently. "Nothing," said my aunt. "I thank you many times. Trot, my dear, a vain threat! Let us have Mr. and Mrs. Micawber back. And don't any of you speak to me!" With that, she smoothed her dress, and sat, with her upright carriage, looking at the door. "Well, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber!" said my aunt, when they entered. "We have been discussing your emigration, with many apologies to you for keeping you out of the room so long; and I'll tell you what arrangements we propose." These she explained, to the unbounded satisfaction of the family,--children and all being then present,--and so much to the awakening of Mr. Micawber's punctual habits in the opening stage of all bill transactions, that he could not be dissuaded from immediately rushing out, in the highest spirits, to buy the stamps for his notes of hand. But, his joy received a sudden check; for within five minutes, he returned in the custody of a sheriff's officer, informing us, in a flood of tears, that all was lost. We, being quite prepared for this event, which was of course a proceeding of Uriah Heep's, soon paid the money; and in five minutes more Mr. Micawber was seated at the table, filling up the stamps with an expression of perfect joy, which only that congenial employment, or the making of punch, could impart in full completeness to his shining face. To see him at work on the stamps, with the relish of an artist, touching them like pictures, looking at them sideways, taking weighty notes of dates and amounts in his pocket-book, and contemplating them when finished, with a high sense of their precious value, was a sight indeed. "Now, the best thing you can do, sir, if you'll allow me to advise you," said my aunt, after silently observing him, "is to abjure that occupation for evermore." "Madam," replied Mr. Micawber, "it is my intention to register such a vow on the virgin page of the future. Mrs. Micawber will attest it. I trust," said Mr. Micawber, solemnly, "that my son Wilkins will ever bear in mind, that he had infinitely better put his fist in the fire, than use it to handle the serpents that have poisoned the life-blood of his unhappy parent!" Deeply affected, and changed in a moment to the image of despair, Mr. Micawber regarded the serpents with a look of gloomy abhorrence (in which his late admiration of them was not quite subdued), folded them up, and put them in his pocket. This closed the proceedings of the evening. We were weary with sorrow and fatigue, and my aunt and I were to return to London on the morrow. It was arranged that the Micawbers should follow us, after effecting a sale of their goods to a broker; that Mr. Wickfield's affairs should be brought to a settlement, with all convenient speed, under the direction of Traddles; and that Agnes should also come to London, pending those arrangements. We passed the night at the old house, which, freed from the presence of the Heeps, seemed purged of a disease; and I lay in my old room, like a shipwrecked wanderer come home. We went back next day to my aunt's house--not to mine; and when she and I sat alone, as of old, before going to bed, she said: "Trot, do you really wish to know what I have had upon my mind lately?" "Indeed I do, aunt. If there ever was a time when I felt unwilling that you should have a sorrow or anxiety which I could not share, it is now." "You have had sorrow enough, child," said my aunt, affectionately, "without the addition of _my_ little miseries. I could have no other motive, Trot, in keeping anything from you." "I know that well," said I. "But tell me now." "Would you ride with me a little way to-morrow morning?" asked my aunt. "Of course." "At nine," said she. "I'll tell you then, my dear." At nine, accordingly, we went out in a little chariot, and drove to London. We drove a long way through the streets, until we came to one of the large hospitals. Standing hard by the building was a plain hearse. The driver recognised my aunt, and, in obedience to a motion of her hand at the window, drove slowly off; we following. "You understand it now, Trot," said my aunt. "He is gone!" "Did he die in the hospital?" "Yes." She sat immovable beside me; but, again I saw the stray tears on her face. "He was there once before," said my aunt presently. "He was ailing a long time--a shattered, broken man, these many years. When he knew his state in this last illness, he asked them to send for me. He was sorry then. Very sorry." "You went, I know, aunt." "I went. I was with him a good deal afterwards." "He died the night before we went to Canterbury?" said I. My aunt nodded. "No one can harm him now," she said. "It was a vain threat." We drove away, out of town, to the churchyard at Hornsey. "Better here than in the streets," said my aunt. "He was born here." We alighted; and followed the plain coffin to a corner I remember well, where the service was read consigning it to the dust. "Six-and-thirty years ago, this day, my dear," said my aunt, as we walked back to the chariot, "I was married. God forgive us all!" We took our seats in silence; and so she sat beside me for a long time, holding my hand. At length she suddenly burst into tears, and said: "He was a fine-looking man when I married him, Trot--and he was sadly changed!" It did not last long. After the relief of tears, she soon became composed, and even cheerful. Her nerves were a little shaken, she said, or she would not have given way to it. God forgive us all! So we rode back to her little cottage at Highgate, where we found the following short note, which had arrived by that morning's post from Mr. Micawber: "Canterbury, "Friday. "My dear Madam, and Copperfield, "The fair land of promise lately looming on the horizon is again enveloped in impenetrable mists, and for ever withdrawn from the eyes of a drifting wretch whose Doom is sealed! "Another writ has been issued (in His Majesty's High Court of King's Bench at Westminster), in another cause of HEEP _v._ MICAWBER, and the defendant in that cause is the prey of the sheriff having legal jurisdiction in this bailiwick. 'Now's the day, and now's the hour, See the front of battle lower, See approach proud EDWARD'S power-- Chains and slavery!' "Consigned to which, and to a speedy end (for mental torture is not supportable beyond a certain point, and that point I feel I have attained), my course is run. Bless you, bless you! Some future traveller, visiting, from motives of curiosity, not unmingled, let us hope, with sympathy, the place of confinement allotted to debtors in this city, may, and I trust will, Ponder, as he traces on its wall, inscribed with a rusty nail, "The obscure initials "W. M. "P.S. I re-open this to say that our common friend, Mr. Thomas Traddles (who has not yet left us, and is looking extremely well), has paid the debt and costs, in the noble name of Miss Trotwood; and that myself and family are at the height of earthly bliss." CHAPTER LV. TEMPEST. I now approach an event in my life, so indelible, so awful, so bound by an infinite variety of ties to all that has preceded it, in these pages, that, from the beginning of my narrative, I have seen it growing larger and larger as I advanced, like a great tower in a plain, and throwing its fore-cast shadow even on the incidents of my childish days. For years after it occurred, I dreamed of it often. I have started up so vividly impressed by it, that its fury has yet seemed raging in my quiet room, in the still night. I dream of it sometimes, though at lengthened and uncertain intervals, to this hour. I have an association between it and a stormy wind, or the lightest mention of a sea-shore, as strong as any of which my mind is conscious. As plainly as I behold what happened, I will try to write it down. I do not recal it, but see it done; for it happens again before me. The time drawing on rapidly for the sailing of the emigrant-ship, my good old nurse (almost broken-hearted for me, when we first met) came up to London. I was constantly with her, and her brother, and the Micawbers (they being very much together); but Emily I never saw. One evening when the time was close at hand, I was alone with Peggotty and her brother. Our conversation turned on Ham. She described to us how tenderly he had taken leave of her, and how manfully and quietly he had borne himself. Most of all, of late, when she believed he was most tried. It was a subject of which the affectionate creature never tired; and our interest in hearing the many examples which she, who was so much with him, had to relate, was equal to hers in relating them. My aunt and I were at that time vacating the two cottages at Highgate; I intending to go abroad, and she to return to her house at Dover. We had a temporary lodging in Covent Garden. As I walked home to it, after this evening's conversation, reflecting on what had passed between Ham and myself when I was last at Yarmouth, I wavered in the original purpose I had formed, of leaving a letter for Emily when I should take leave of her uncle on board the ship, and thought it would be better to write to her now. She might desire, I thought, after receiving my communication, to send some parting word by me to her unhappy lover. I ought to give her the opportunity. I therefore sat down in my room, before going to bed, and wrote to her. I told her that I had seen him, and that he had requested me to tell her what I have already written in its place in these sheets. I faithfully repeated it. I had no need to enlarge upon it, if I had had the right. Its deep fidelity and goodness were not to be adorned by me or any man. I left it out, to be sent round in the morning; with a line to Mr. Peggotty, requesting him to give it to her; and went to bed at daybreak. I was weaker than I knew then; and, not falling asleep until the sun was up, lay late, and unrefreshed, next day. I was roused by the silent presence of my aunt at my bedside. I felt it in my sleep, as I suppose we all do feel such things. "Trot, my dear," she said, when I opened my eyes, "I couldn't make up my mind to disturb you. Mr. Peggotty is here; shall he come up?" I replied yes, and he soon appeared. "Mas'r Davy," he said, when we had shaken hands, "I giv Em'ly your letter, sir, and she writ this heer; and begged of me fur to ask you to read it, and if you see no hurt in't, to be so kind as take charge on't." "Have you read it?" said I. He nodded sorrowfully. I opened it, and read as follows: "I have got your message. Oh, what can I write, to thank you for your good and blessed kindness to me! "I have put the words close to my heart. I shall keep them till I die. They are sharp thorns, but they are such comfort. I have prayed over them, oh, I have prayed so much. When I find what you are, and what uncle is, I think what God must be, and can cry to him. "Good bye for ever. Now, my dear, my friend, good bye for ever in this world. In another world, if I am forgiven, I may wake a child and come to you. All thanks and blessings. Farewell, evermore!" This, blotted with tears, was the letter. "May I tell her as you doen't see no hurt in't, and as you'll be so kind as take charge on't, Mas'r Davy?" said Mr. Peggotty, when I had read it. "Unquestionably," said I--"but I am thinking--" "Yes, Mas'r Davy?" "I am thinking," said I, "that I'll go down again to Yarmouth. There's time, and to spare, for me to go and come back before the ship sails. My mind is constantly running on him, in his solitude; to put this letter of her writing in his hand at this time, and to enable you to tell her, in the moment of parting, that he has got it, will be a kindness to both of them. I solemnly accepted his commission, dear good fellow, and cannot discharge it too completely. The journey is nothing to me. I am restless, and shall be better in motion. I'll go down to-night." Though he anxiously endeavoured to dissuade me, I saw that he was of my mind; and this, if I had required to be confirmed in my intention, would have had the effect. He went round to the coach-office, at my request, and took the box-seat for me on the mail. In the evening I started, by that conveyance, down the road I had traversed under so many vicissitudes. "Don't you think that," I asked the coachman, in the first stage out of London, "a very remarkable sky? I don't remember to have seen one like it." "Nor I--not equal to it," he replied. "That's wind, sir. There'll be mischief done at sea, I expect, before long." It was a murky confusion--here and there blotted with a colour like the colour of the smoke from damp fuel--of flying clouds, tossed up into most remarkable heaps, suggesting greater heights in the clouds than there were depths below them to the bottom of the deepest hollows in the earth, through which the wild moon seemed to plunge headlong, as if, in a dread disturbance of the laws of nature, she had lost her way and were frightened. There had been a wind all day; and it was rising then, with an extraordinary great sound. In another hour it had much increased, and the sky was more overcast, and it blew hard. But, as the night advanced, the clouds closing in and densely overspreading the whole sky, then very dark, it came on to blow, harder and harder. It still increased, until our horses could scarcely face the wind. Many times, in the dark part of the night (it was then late in September, when the nights were not short), the leaders turned about, or came to a dead stop; and we were often in serious apprehension that the coach would be blown over. Sweeping gusts of rain came up before this storm, like showers of steel; and, at those times, when there was any shelter of trees or lee walls to be got, we were fain to stop, in a sheer impossibility of continuing the struggle. When the day broke, it blew harder and harder. I had been in Yarmouth when the seamen said it blew great guns, but I had never known the like of this, or anything approaching to it. We came to Ipswich--very late, having had to fight every inch of ground since we were ten miles out of London; and found a cluster of people in the market-place, who had risen from their beds in the night, fearful of falling chimneys. Some of these, congregating about the inn-yard while we changed horses, told us of great sheets of lead having been ripped off a high church-tower, and flung into a bye street, which they then blocked up. Others had to tell of country people, coming in from neighbouring villages, who had seen great trees lying torn out of the earth, and whole ricks scattered about the roads and fields. Still, there was no abatement in the storm, but it blew harder. As we struggled on, nearer and nearer to the sea, from which this mighty wind was blowing dead on shore, its force became more and more terrific. Long before we saw the sea, its spray was on our lips, and showered salt rain upon us. The water was out, over miles and miles of the flat country adjacent to Yarmouth; and every sheet and puddle lashed its banks, and had its stress of little breakers setting heavily towards us. When we came within sight of the sea, the waves on the horizon, caught at intervals above the rolling abyss, were like glimpses of another shore with towers and buildings. When at last we got into the town, the people came out to their doors, all aslant, and with streaming hair, making a wonder of the mail that had come through such a night. I put up at the old inn, and went down to look at the sea; staggering along the street, which was strewn with sand and seaweed, and with flying blotches of sea-foam; afraid of falling slates and tiles; and holding by people I met, at angry corners. Coming near the beach, I saw, not only the boatmen, but half the people of the town, lurking behind buildings; some, now and then braving the fury of the storm to look away to sea, and blown sheer out of their course in trying to get zigzag back. Joining these groups, I found bewailing women whose husbands were away in herring or oyster boats, which there was too much reason to think might have foundered before they could run in anywhere for safety. Grizzled old sailors were among the people, shaking their heads, as they looked from water to sky, and muttering to one another; ship-owners, excited and uneasy; children, huddling together, and peering into older faces; even stout mariners, disturbed and anxious, levelling their glasses at the sea from behind places of shelter, as if they were surveying an enemy. The tremendous sea itself, when I could find sufficient pause to look at it, in the agitation of the blinding wind, the flying stones and sand, and the awful noise, confounded me. As the high watery walls came rolling in, and, at their highest, tumbled into surf, they looked as if the least would engulf the town. As the receding wave swept back with a hoarse roar, it seemed to scoop out deep caves in the beach, as if its purpose were to undermine the earth. When some white-headed billows thundered on, and dashed themselves to pieces before they reached the land, every fragment of the late whole seemed possessed by the full might of its wrath, rushing to be gathered to the composition of another monster. Undulating hills were changed to valleys, undulating valleys (with a solitary storm-bird sometimes skimming through them) were lifted up to hills; masses of water shivered and shook the beach with a booming sound; every shape tumultuously rolled on, as soon as made, to change its shape and place, and beat another shape and place away; the ideal shore on the horizon, with its towers and buildings, rose and fell; the clouds flew fast and thick; I seemed to see a rending and upheaving of all nature. Not finding Ham among the people whom this memorable wind--for it is still remembered down there, as the greatest ever known to blow upon that coast--had brought together, I made my way to his house. It was shut; and as no one answered to my knocking, I went, by back ways and bye-lanes, to the yard where he worked. I learned, there, that he had gone to Lowestoft, to meet some sudden exigency of ship-repairing in which his skill was required; but that he would be back to-morrow morning, in good time. I went back to the inn; and when I had washed and dressed, and tried to sleep, but in vain, it was five o'clock in the afternoon. I had not sat five minutes by the coffee-room fire, when the waiter, coming to stir it, as an excuse for talking, told me that two colliers had gone down, with all hands, a few miles away; and that some other ships had been seen laboring hard in the Roads, and trying, in great distress, to keep off-shore. Mercy on them, and on all poor sailors, said he, if we had another night like the last! I was very much depressed in spirits; very solitary; and felt an uneasiness in Ham's not being there, disproportionate to the occasion. I was seriously affected, without knowing how much, by late events; and my long exposure to the fierce wind had confused me. There was that jumble in my thoughts and recollections, that I had lost the clear arrangement of time and distance. Thus, if I had gone out into the town, I should not have been surprised, I think, to encounter some one who I knew must be then in London. So to speak, there was in these respects a curious inattention in my mind. Yet it was busy, too, with all the remembrances the place naturally awakened; and they were particularly distinct and vivid. In this state, the waiter's dismal intelligence about the ships immediately connected itself, without any effort of my volition, with my uneasiness about Ham. I was persuaded that I had an apprehension of his returning from Lowestoft by sea, and being lost. This grew so strong with me, that I resolved to go back to the yard before I took my dinner, and ask the boat-builder if he thought his attempting to return by sea at all likely? If he gave me the least reason to think so, I would go over to Lowestoft and prevent it by bringing him with me. I hastily ordered my dinner, and went back to the yard. I was none too soon; for the boat-builder, with a lantern in his hand, was locking the yard-gate. He quite laughed, when I asked him the question, and said there was no fear; no man in his senses, or out of them, would put off in such a gale of wind, least of all Ham Peggotty, who had been born to seafaring. So sensible of this, beforehand, that I had really felt ashamed of doing what I was nevertheless impelled to do, I went back to the inn. If such a wind could rise, I think it was rising. The howl and roar, the rattling of the doors and windows, the rumbling in the chimneys, the apparent rocking of the very house that sheltered me, and the prodigious tumult of the sea, were more fearful than in the morning. But there was now a great darkness besides; and that invested the storm with new terrors, real and fanciful. I could not eat, I could not sit still, I could not continue stedfast to anything. Something within me, faintly answering to the storm without, tossed up the depths of my memory, and made a tumult in them. Yet, in all the hurry of my thoughts, wild running with the thundering sea,--the storm, and my uneasiness regarding Ham, were always in the fore-ground. My dinner went away almost untasted, and I tried to refresh myself with a glass or two of wine. In vain. I fell into a dull slumber before the fire, without losing my consciousness, either of the uproar out of doors, or of the place in which I was. Both became overshadowed by a new and indefinable horror; and when I awoke--or rather when I shook off the lethargy that bound me in my chair--my whole frame thrilled with objectless and unintelligible fear. I walked to and fro, tried to read an old gazetteer, listened to the awful noises: looked at faces, scenes, and figures in the fire. At length, the steady ticking of the undisturbed clock on the wall, tormented me to that degree that I resolved to go to bed. It was re-assuring, on such a night, to be told that some of the inn-servants had agreed together to sit up until morning. I went to bed, exceedingly weary and heavy; but, on my lying down, all such sensations vanished, as if by magic, and I was broad awake, with every sense refined. For hours I lay there, listening to the wind and water; imagining, now, that I heard shrieks out at sea; now, that I distinctly heard the firing of signal guns; and now, the fall of houses in the town. I got up, several times, and looked out; but could see nothing, except the reflection in the window-panes of the faint candle I had left burning, and of my own haggard face looking in at me from the black void. At length, my restlessness attained to such a pitch, that I hurried on my clothes, and went down stairs. In the large kitchen, where I dimly saw bacon and ropes of onions hanging from the beams, the watchers were clustered together, in various attitudes, about a table, purposely moved away from the great chimney, and brought near the door. A pretty girl, who had her ears stopped with her apron, and her eyes upon the door, screamed when I appeared, supposing me to be a spirit; but the others had more presence of mind, and were glad of an addition to their company. One man, referring to the topic they had been discussing, asked me whether I thought the souls of the collier-crews who had gone down, were out in the storm? I remained there, I dare say, two hours. Once, I opened the yard-gate, and looked into the empty street. The sand, the sea-weed, and the flakes of foam, were driving by; and I was obliged to call for assistance before I could shut the gate again, and make it fast against the wind. There was a dark gloom in my solitary chamber, when I at length returned to it; but I was tired now, and, getting into bed again, fell--off a tower and down a precipice--into the depths of sleep. I have an impression that for a long time, though I dreamed of being elsewhere and in a variety of scenes, it was always blowing in my dream. At length, I lost that feeble hold upon reality, and was engaged with two dear friends, but who they were I don't know, at the siege of some town in a roar of cannonading. The thunder of the cannon was so loud and incessant, that I could not hear something I much desired to hear, until I made a great exertion and awoke. It was broad day--eight or nine o'clock; the storm raging, in lieu of the batteries; and some one knocking and calling at my door. "What is the matter?" I cried. "A wreck! Close by!" I sprung out of bed, and asked what wreck? "A schooner, from Spain or Portugal, laden with fruit and wine. Make haste, sir, if you want to see her! It's thought, down on the beach, she'll go to pieces every moment." The excited voice went clamouring along the staircase; and I wrapped myself in my clothes as quickly as I could, and ran into the street. Numbers of people were there before me, all running in one direction, to the beach. I ran the same way, outstripping a good many, and soon came facing the wild sea. The wind might by this time have lulled a little, though not more sensibly than if the cannonading I had dreamed of, had been diminished by the silencing of half-a-dozen guns out of hundreds. But, the sea, having upon it the additional agitation of the whole night, was infinitely more terrific than when I had seen it last. Every appearance it had then presented, bore the expression of being _swelled_; and the height to which the breakers rose, and, looking over one another, bore one another down, and rolled in, in interminable hosts, was most appalling. In the difficulty of hearing anything but wind and waves, and in the crowd, and the unspeakable confusion, and my first breathless efforts to stand against the weather, I was so confused that I looked out to sea for the wreck, and saw nothing but the foaming heads of the great waves. A half-dressed boatman, standing next me, pointed with his bare arm (a tattoo'd arrow on it, pointing in the same direction) to the left. Then, O great Heaven, I saw it, close in upon us! One mast was broken short off, six or eight feet from the deck, and lay over the side, entangled in a maze of sail and rigging; and all that ruin, as the ship rolled and beat--which she did without a moment's pause, and with a violence quite inconceivable--beat the side as if it would stave it in. Some efforts were even then being made, to cut this portion of the wreck away; for, as the ship, which was broadside on, turned towards us in her rolling, I plainly descried her people at work with axes, especially one active figure with long curling hair, conspicuous among the rest. But, a great cry, which was audible even above the wind and water, rose from the shore at this moment; the sea, sweeping over the rolling wreck made a clean breach, and carried men, spars, casks, planks, bulwarks, heaps of such toys, into the boiling surge. The second mast was yet standing, with the rags of a rent sail, and a wild confusion of broken cordage flapping to and fro. The ship had struck once, the same boatman hoarsely said in my ear, and then lifted in and struck again. I understood him to add that she was parting amidships, and I could readily suppose so, for the rolling and beating were too tremendous for any human work to suffer long. As he spoke, there was another great cry of pity from the beach; four men arose with the wreck out of the deep, clinging to the rigging of the remaining mast; uppermost, the active figure with the curling hair. There was a bell on board; and as the ship rolled and dashed, like a desperate creature driven mad, now showing us the whole sweep of her deck, as she turned on her beam-ends towards the shore, now nothing but her keel, as she sprung wildly over and turned towards the sea, the bell rang; and its sound, the knell of those unhappy men, was borne towards us on the wind. Again we lost her, and again she rose. Two men were gone. The agony on shore increased. Men groaned, and clasped their hands; women shrieked, and turned away their faces. Some ran wildly up and down along the beach, crying for help where no help could be. I found myself one of these, frantically imploring a knot of sailors whom I knew, not to let those two lost creatures perish before our eyes. They were making out to me, in an agitated way--I don't know how, for the little I could hear I was scarcely composed enough to understand--that the life-boat had been bravely manned an hour ago, and could do nothing; and that as no man would be so desperate as to attempt to wade off with a rope, and establish a communication with the shore, there was nothing left to try; when I noticed that some new sensation moved the people on the beach, and saw them part, and Ham come breaking through them to the front. I ran to him--as well as I know, to repeat my appeal for help. But, distracted though I was, by a sight so new to me and terrible, the determination in his face, and his look, out to sea--exactly the same look as I remembered in connexion with the morning after Emily's flight--awoke me to a knowledge of his danger. I held him back with both arms; and implored the men with whom I had been speaking, not to listen to him, not to do murder, not to let him stir from off that sand! Another cry arose on shore; and looking to the wreck, we saw the cruel sail, with blow on blow, beat off the lower of the two men, and fly up in triumph round the active figure left alone upon the mast. Against such a sight, and against such determination as that of the calmly desperate man who was already accustomed to lead half the people present, I might as hopefully have entreated the wind. "Mas'r Davy," he said, cheerily grasping me by both hands, "if my time is come, 'tis come. If 'tan't, I'll bide it. Lord above bless you, and bless all! Mates, make me ready! I'm a going off!" I was swept away, but not unkindly, to some distance, where the people around me made me stay; urging, as I confusedly perceived, that he was bent on going, with help or without, and that I should endanger the precautions for his safety by troubling those with whom they rested. I don't know what I answered, or what they rejoined; but, I saw hurry on the beach, and men running with ropes from a capstan that was there, and penetrating into a circle of figures that hid him from me. Then, I saw him standing alone, in a seaman's frock and trowsers: a rope in his hand, or slung to his wrist: another round his body: and several of the best men holding, at a little distance, to the latter, which he laid out himself, slack upon the shore, at his feet. The wreck, even to my unpractised eye, was breaking up. I saw that she was parting in the middle, and that the life of the solitary man upon the mast hung by a thread. Still, he clung to it. He had a singular red cap on,--not like a sailor's cap, but of a finer color; and as the few yielding planks between him and destruction rolled and bulged, and his anticipative death-knell rung, he was seen by all of us to wave it. I saw him do it now, and thought I was going distracted, when his action brought an old remembrance to my mind of a once dear friend. Ham watched the sea, standing alone, with the silence of suspended breath behind him, and the storm before, until there was a great retiring wave, when, with a backward glance at those who held the rope which was made fast round his body, he dashed in after it, and in a moment was buffetting with the water; rising with the hills, falling with the valleys, lost beneath the foam; then drawn again to land. They hauled in hastily. He was hurt. I saw blood on his face, from where I stood; but he took no thought of that. He seemed hurriedly to give them some directions for leaving him more free--or so I judged from the motion of his arm--and was gone as before. And now he made for the wreck, rising with the hills, falling with the valleys, lost beneath the rugged foam, borne in towards the shore, borne on towards the ship, striving hard and valiantly. The distance was nothing, but the power of the sea and wind made the strife deadly. At length he neared the wreck. He was so near, that with one more of his vigorous strokes he would be clinging to it,--when, a high, green, vast hill-side of water, moving on shoreward, from beyond the ship, he seemed to leap up into it with a mighty bound, and the ship was gone! Some eddying fragments I saw in the sea, as if a mere cask had been broken, in running to the spot where they were hauling in. Consternation was in every face. They drew him to my very feet--insensible--dead. He was carried to the nearest house; and, no one preventing me now, I remained near him, busy, while every means of restoration were tried; but he had been beaten to death by the great wave, and his generous heart was stilled for ever. As I sat beside the bed, when hope was abandoned and all was done, a fisherman, who had known me when Emily and I were children, and ever since, whispered my name at the door. "Sir," said he, with tears starting to his weather-beaten face, which, with his trembling lips, was ashy pale, "will you come over yonder?" The old remembrance that had been recalled to me, was in his look. I asked him, terror-stricken, leaning on the arm he held out to support me: "Has a body come ashore?" He said, "Yes." "Do I know it?" I asked then. He answered nothing. But, he led me to the shore. And on that part of it where she and I had looked for shells, two children--on that part of it where some lighter fragments of the old boat, blown down last night, had been scattered by the wind--among the ruins of the home he had wronged--I saw him lying with his head upon his arm, as I had often seen him lie at school. CHAPTER LVI. THE NEW WOUND, AND THE OLD. No need, O Steerforth, to have said, when we last spoke together, in that hour which I so little deemed to be our parting-hour--no need to have said, "Think of me at my best!" I had done that ever; and could I change now, looking on this sight! They brought a hand-bier, and laid him on it, and covered him with a flag, and took him up and bore him on towards the houses. All the men who carried him had known him, and gone sailing with him, and seen him merry and bold. They carried him through the wild roar, a hush in the midst of all the tumult; and took him to the cottage where Death was already. But, when they set the bier down on the threshold, they looked at one another, and at me, and whispered. I knew why. They felt as if it were not right to lay him down in the same quiet room. We went into the town, and took our burden to the inn. So soon as I could at all collect my thoughts, I sent for Joram, and begged him to provide me a conveyance in which it could be got to London in the night. I knew that the care of it, and the hard duty of preparing his mother to receive it, could only rest with me; and I was anxious to discharge that duty as faithfully as I could. I chose the night for the journey, that there might be less curiosity when I left the town. But, although it was nearly midnight when I came out of the yard in a chaise, followed by what I had in charge, there were many people waiting. At intervals, along the town, and even a little way out upon the road, I saw more; but at length only the bleak night and the open country were around me, and the ashes of my youthful friendship. Upon a mellow autumn day, about noon, when the ground was perfumed by fallen leaves, and many more, in beautiful tints of yellow, red, and brown, yet hung upon the trees, through which the sun was shining, I arrived at Highgate. I walked the last mile, thinking as I went along of what I had to do; and left the carriage that had followed me all through the night, awaiting orders to advance. The house, when I came up to it, looked just the same. Not a blind was raised; no sign of life was in the dull paved court, with its covered way leading to the disused door. The wind had quite gone down, and nothing moved. I had not, at first, the courage to ring at the gate; and when I did ring, my errand seemed to me to be expressed in the very sound of the bell. The little parlour-maid came out, with the key in her hand; and looking earnestly at me as she unlocked the gate, said: "I beg your pardon, sir. Are you ill?" "I have been much agitated, and am fatigued." "Is anything the matter, sir?--Mr. James?----" "Hush!" said I. "Yes, something has happened, that I have to break to Mrs. Steerforth. She is at home?" The girl anxiously replied that her mistress was very seldom out now, even in a carriage; that she kept her room; that she saw no company, but would see me. Her mistress was up, she said, and Miss Dartle was with her. What message should she take up stairs? Giving her a strict charge to be careful of her manner, and only to carry in my card and say I waited, I sat down in the drawing-room (which we had now reached) until she should come back. Its former pleasant air of occupation was gone, and the shutters were half closed. The harp had not been used for many and many a day. His picture, as a boy, was there. The cabinet in which his mother had kept his letters was there. I wondered if she ever read them now; if she would ever read them more! The house was so still, that I heard the girl's light step up stairs. On her return, she brought a message, to the effect that Mrs. Steerforth was an invalid and could not come down; but, that if I would excuse her being in her chamber, she would be glad to see me. In a few moments I stood before her. She was in his room; not in her own. I felt, of course, that she had taken to occupy it, in remembrance of him; and that the many tokens of his old sports and accomplishments, by which she was surrounded, remained there, just as he had left them, for the same reason. She murmured, however, even in her reception of me, that she was out of her own chamber because its aspect was unsuited to her infirmity; and with her stately look repelled the least suspicion of the truth. At her chair, as usual, was Rosa Dartle. From the first moment of her dark eyes resting on me, I saw she knew I was the bearer of evil tidings. The scar sprung into view that instant. She withdrew herself a step behind the chair, to keep her own face out of Mrs. Steerforth's observation; and scrutinised me with a piercing gaze that never faltered, never shrunk. [Illustration: I am the bearer of evil tidings.] "I am sorry to observe you are in mourning, sir," said Mrs. Steerforth. "I am unhappily a widower," said I. "You are very young to know so great a loss," she returned. "I am grieved to hear it. I am grieved to hear it. I hope Time will be good to you." "I hope Time," said I, looking at her, "will be good to all of us. Dear Mrs. Steerforth, we must all trust to that, in our heaviest misfortunes." The earnestness of my manner, and the tears in my eyes, alarmed her. The whole course of her thoughts appeared to stop, and change. I tried to command my voice in gently saying his name, but it trembled. She repeated it to herself, two or three times, in a low tone. Then, addressing me, she said, with enforced calmness: "My son is ill." "Very ill." "You have seen him?" "I have." "Are you reconciled?" I could not say Yes, I could not say No. She slightly turned her head towards the spot where Rosa Dartle had been standing at her elbow, and in that moment I said, by the motion of my lips, to Rosa "Dead!" That Mrs. Steerforth might not be induced to look behind her, and read, plainly written, what she was not yet prepared to know, I met her look quickly; but I had seen Rosa Dartle throw her hands up in the air with vehemence of despair and horror, and then clasp them on her face. The handsome lady--so like, O so like!--regarded me with a fixed look, and put her hand to her forehead. I besought her to be calm, and prepare herself to bear what I had to tell; but I should rather have entreated her to weep, for she sat like a stone figure. "When I was last here," I faltered, "Miss Dartle told me he was sailing here and there. The night before last was a dreadful one at sea. If he were at sea that night, and near a dangerous coast, as it is said he was; and if the vessel that was seen should really be the ship which----" "Rosa!" said Mrs. Steerforth, "come to me!" She came, but with no sympathy or gentleness. Her eyes gleamed like fire as she confronted his mother, and broke into a frightful laugh. "Now," she said, "is your pride appeased, you madwoman? _Now_ has he made atonement to you----with his life! Do you hear?--His life!" Mrs. Steerforth, fallen back stiffly in her chair, and making no sound but a moan, cast her eyes upon her with a wide stare. "Aye!" cried Rosa, smiting herself passionately on the breast, "look at me! Moan, and groan, and look at me! Look here!" striking the scar, "at your dead child's handy work!" The moan the mother uttered, from time to time, went to my heart. Always the same. Always inarticulate and stifled. Always accompanied with an incapable motion of the head, but with no change of face. Always proceeding from a rigid mouth and closed teeth, as if the jaw were locked and the face frozen up in pain. "Do you remember when he did this?" she proceeded. "Do you remember when, in his inheritance of your nature, and in your pampering of his pride and passion, he did this, and disfigured me for life? Look at me, marked until I die with his high displeasure; and moan and groan for what you made him!" "Miss Dartle," I entreated her. "For Heaven's sake----" "I _will_ speak!" she said, turning on me with her lightning eyes. "Be silent, you! Look at me, I say, proud mother of a proud false son! Moan for your nurture of him, moan for your corruption of him, moan for your loss of him, moan for mine!" She clenched her hand, and trembled through her spare, worn figure, as if her passion were killing her by inches. "YOU, resent his selfwill!" she exclaimed. "You, injured by his haughty temper! You, who opposed to both, when your hair was grey, the qualities which made both when you gave him birth! YOU, who from his cradle reared him to be what he was, and stunted what he should have been! Are you rewarded, _now_, for your years of trouble?" "O Miss Dartle, shame! O cruel!" "I tell you," she returned, "I _will_ speak to her. No power on earth should stop me, while I was standing here! Have I been silent all these years, and shall I not speak now? I loved him better than you ever loved him!" turning on her fiercely. "I could have loved him, and asked no return. If I had been his wife, I could have been the slave of his caprices for a word of love a-year. I should have been. Who knows it better than I? You were exacting, proud, punctilious, selfish. My love would have been devoted--would have trod your paltry whimpering under foot!" With flashing eyes, she stamped upon the ground as if she actually did it. "Look here!" she said, striking the scar again, with a relentless hand. "When he grew into the better understanding of what he had done, he saw it, and repented of it! I could sing to him, and talk to him, and show the ardor that I felt in all he did, and attain with labor to such knowledge as most interested him; and I attracted him. When he was freshest and truest, he loved _me_. Yes, he did! Many a time, when you were put off with a slight word, he has taken Me to his heart!" She said it with a taunting pride in the midst of her frenzy--for it was little less--yet with an eager remembrance of it, in which the smouldering embers of a gentler feeling kindled for the moment. "I descended--as I might have known I should, but that he fascinated me with his boyish courtship--into a doll, a trifle for the occupation of an idle hour, to be dropped, and taken up, and trifled with, as the inconstant humour took him. When he grew weary, I grew weary. As his fancy died out, I would no more have tried to strengthen any power I had, than I would have married him on his being forced to take me for his wife. We fell away from one another without a word. Perhaps you saw it, and were not sorry. Since then, I have been a mere disfigured piece of furniture between you both; having no eyes, no ears, no feelings, no remembrances. Moan? Moan for what you made him; not for your love. I tell you that the time was, when I loved him better than you ever did!" She stood with her bright angry eyes confronting the wide stare, and the set face; and softened no more, when the moaning was repeated, than if the face had been a picture. "Miss Dartle," said I, "if you can be so obdurate as not to feel for this afflicted mother----" "Who feels for me?" she sharply retorted. "She has sown this. Let her moan for the harvest that she reaps to-day!" "And if his faults----" I began. "Faults!" she cried, bursting into passionate tears. "Who dares malign him? He had a soul worth millions of the friends to whom he stooped!" "No one can have loved him better, no one can hold him in dearer remembrance, than I," I replied. "I meant to say, if you have no compassion for his mother; or if his faults--you have been bitter on them----" "It's false," she cried, tearing her black hair; "I loved him!" "--cannot," I went on, "be banished from your remembrance, in such an hour; look at that figure, even as one you have never seen before, and render it some help!" All this time, the figure was unchanged, and looked unchangeable. Motionless, rigid, staring; moaning in the same dumb way from time to time, with the same helpless motion of the head; but giving no other sign of life. Miss Dartle suddenly kneeled down before it, and began to loosen the dress. "A curse upon you!" she said, looking round at me, with a mingled expression of rage and grief. "It was in an evil hour that you ever came here! A curse upon you! Go!" After passing out of the room, I hurried back to ring the bell, the sooner to alarm the servants. She had then taken the impassive figure in her arms, and, still upon her knees, was weeping over it, kissing it, calling to it, rocking it to and fro upon her bosom like a child, and trying every tender means to rouse the dormant senses. No longer afraid of leaving her, I noiselessly turned back again; and alarmed the house as I went out. Later in the day, I returned, and we laid him in his mother's room. She was just the same, they told me; Miss Dartle never left her; doctors were in attendance, many things had been tried; but she lay like a statue, except for the low sound now and then. I went through the dreary house, and darkened the windows. The windows of the chamber where he lay, I darkened last. I lifted up the leaden hand, and held it to my heart; and all the world seemed death and silence, broken only by his mother's moaning. CHAPTER LVII. THE EMIGRANTS. One thing more, I had to do, before yielding myself to the shock of these emotions. It was, to conceal what had occurred, from those who were going away; and to dismiss them on their voyage in happy ignorance. In this, no time was to be lost. I took Mr. Micawber aside that same night, and confided to him the task of standing between Mr. Peggotty and intelligence of the late catastrophe. He zealously undertook to do so, and to intercept any newspaper through which it might, without such precautions, reach him. "If it penetrates to him, sir," said Mr. Micawber, striking himself on the breast, "it shall first pass through this body!" Mr. Micawber, I must observe, in his adaptation of himself to a new state of society, had acquired a bold buccaneering air, not absolutely lawless, but defensive and prompt. One might have supposed him a child of the wilderness, long accustomed to live out of the confines of civilisation, and about to return to his native wilds. He had provided himself, among other things, with a complete suit of oil-skin, and a straw-hat with a very low crown, pitched or caulked on the outside. In this rough clothing, with a common mariner's telescope under his arm, and a shrewd trick of casting up his eye at the sky as looking out for dirty weather, he was far more nautical, after his manner, than Mr. Peggotty. His whole family, if I may so express it, were cleared for action. I found Mrs. Micawber in the closest and most uncompromising of bonnets, made fast under the chin; and in a shawl which tied her up (as I had been tied up, when my aunt first received me) like a bundle, and was secured behind at the waist, in a strong knot. Miss Micawber I found made snug for stormy weather, in the same manner; with nothing superfluous about her. Master Micawber was hardly visible in a Guernsey shirt, and the shaggiest suit of slops I ever saw; and the children were done up, like preserved meats, in impervious cases. Both Mr. Micawber and his eldest son wore their sleeves loosely turned back at the wrists, as being ready to lend a hand in any direction, and to "tumble up," or sing out, "Yeo--Heave--Yeo!" on the shortest notice. Thus Traddles and I found them at nightfall, assembled on the wooden steps, at that time known as Hungerford Stairs, watching the departure of a boat with some of their property on board. I had told Traddles of the terrible event, and it had greatly shocked him; but there could be no doubt of the kindness of keeping it a secret, and he had come to help me in this last service. It was here that I took Mr. Micawber aside, and received his promise. The Micawber family were lodged in a little, dirty, tumble-down public-house, which in those days was close to the stairs, and whose protruding wooden rooms overhung the river. The family, as emigrants, being objects of some interest in and about Hungerford, attracted so many beholders, that we were glad to take refuge in their room. It was one of the wooden chambers up-stairs, with the tide flowing underneath. My aunt and Agnes were there, busily making some little extra comforts, in the way of dress, for the children. Peggotty was quietly assisting, with the old insensible work-box, yard measure, and bit of wax-candle before her, that had now outlived so much. It was not easy to answer her inquiries; still less to whisper Mr. Peggotty, when Mr. Micawber brought him in, that I had given the letter, and all was well. But I did both, and made them happy. If I showed any trace of what I felt, my own sorrows were sufficient to account for it. "And when does the ship sail, Mr. Micawber?" asked my aunt. Mr. Micawber considered it necessary to prepare either my aunt or his wife, by degrees, and said, sooner than he had expected yesterday. "The boat brought you word, I suppose?" said my aunt. "It did, ma'am," he returned. "Well?" said my aunt. "And she sails--" "Madam," he replied, "I am informed that we must positively be on board before seven to-morrow morning." "Heyday!" said my aunt, "that's soon. Is it a sea-going fact, Mr. Peggotty?" "'Tis so, ma'am. She'll drop down the river with that theer tide. If Mas'r Davy and my sister comes aboard at Gravesen', arternoon o' next day, they'll see the last on us." "And that we shall do," said I, "be sure!" "Until then, and until we are at sea," observed Mr. Micawber, with a glance of intelligence at me, "Mr. Peggotty and myself will constantly keep a double look-out together, on our goods and chattels. Emma, my love," said Mr. Micawber, clearing his throat in his magnificent way, "my friend Mr. Thomas Traddles is so obliging as to solicit, in my ear, that he should have the privilege of ordering the ingredients necessary to the composition of a moderate portion of that Beverage which is peculiarly associated, in our minds, with the Roast Beef of old England. I allude to--in short, Punch. Under ordinary circumstances, I should scruple to entreat the indulgence of Miss Trotwood and Miss Wickfield, but----" "I can only say for myself," said my aunt, "that I will drink all happiness and success to you, Mr. Micawber, with the utmost pleasure." "And I too!" said Agnes, with a smile. Mr. Micawber immediately descended to the bar, where he appeared to be quite at home; and in due time returned with a steaming jug. I could not but observe that he had been peeling the lemons with his own clasp-knife, which, as became the knife of a practical settler, was about a foot long; and which he wiped, not wholly without ostentation, on the sleeve of his coat. Mrs. Micawber and the two elder members of the family I now found to be provided with similar formidable instruments, while every child had its own wooden spoon attached to its body by a strong line. In a similar anticipation of life afloat, and in the Bush, Mr. Micawber, instead of helping Mrs. Micawber and his eldest son and daughter to punch, in wine-glasses, which he might easily have done, for there was a shelf-full in the room, served it out to them in a series of villainous little tin pots; and I never saw him enjoy anything so much as drinking out of his own particular pint pot, and putting it in his pocket at the close of the evening. "The luxuries of the old country," said Mr. Micawber, with an intense satisfaction in their renouncement, "we abandon. The denizens of the forest cannot, of course, expect to participate in the refinements of the land of the Free." Here, a boy came in to say that Mr. Micawber was wanted down-stairs. "I have a presentiment," said Mrs. Micawber, setting down her tin pot, "that it is a member of my family!" "If so, my dear," observed Mr. Micawber, with his usual suddenness of warmth on that subject, "as the member of your family--whoever he, she, or it, may be--has kept _us_ waiting for a considerable period, perhaps the Member may now wait _my_ convenience." "Micawber," said his wife, in a low tone, "at such a time as this--" "'It is not meet,'" said Mr. Micawber, rising, "'that every nice offence should bear its comment!' Emma, I stand reproved." "The loss, Micawber," observed his wife, "has been my family's, not yours. If my family are at length sensible of the deprivation to which their own conduct has, in the past, exposed them, and now desire to extend the hand of fellowship, let it not be repulsed." "My dear," he returned, "so be it!" "If not for their sakes; for mine, Micawber," said his wife. "Emma," he returned, "that view of the question is, at such a moment, irresistible. I cannot, even now, distinctly pledge myself to fall upon your family's neck; but the member of your family, who is now in attendance, shall have no genial warmth frozen by me." Mr. Micawber withdrew, and was absent some little time; in the course of which Mrs. Micawber was not wholly free from an apprehension that words might have arisen between him and the Member. At length the same boy re-appeared, and presented me with a note written in pencil, and headed, in a legal manner, "Heep v. Micawber." From this document, I learned that Mr. Micawber, being again arrested, was in a final paroxysm of despair; and that he begged me to send him his knife and pint pot, by bearer, as they might prove serviceable during the brief remainder of his existence, in jail. He also requested, as a last act of friendship, that I would see his family to the Parish Workhouse, and forget that such a Being ever lived. Of course I answered this note by going down with the boy to pay the money, where I found Mr. Micawber sitting in a corner, looking darkly at the Sheriff's Officer who had effected the capture. On his release, he embraced me with the utmost fervor; and made an entry of the transaction in his pocket-book--being very particular, I recollect, about a halfpenny I inadvertently omitted from my statement of the total. This momentous pocket-book was a timely reminder to him of another transaction. On our return to the room upstairs (where he accounted for his absence by saying that it had been occasioned by circumstances over which he had no control), he took out of it a large sheet of paper, folded small, and quite covered with long sums, carefully worked. From the glimpse I had of them, I should say that I never saw such sums out of a school cyphering-book. These, it seemed, were calculations of compound interest on what he called "the principal amount of forty-one, ten, eleven and a half," for various periods. After a careful consideration of these, and an elaborate estimate of his resources, he had come to the conclusion to select that sum which represented the amount with compound interest to two years, fifteen calendar months, and fourteen days, from that date. For this he had drawn a note of-hand with great neatness, which he handed over to Traddles on the spot, a discharge of his debt in full (as between man and man), with many acknowledgments. "I have still a presentiment," said Mrs. Micawber, pensively shaking her head, "that my family will appear on board, before we finally depart." Mr. Micawber evidently had his presentiment on the subject too, but he put it in his tin pot and swallowed it. "If you have any opportunity of sending letters home, on your passage, Mrs. Micawber," said my aunt, "you must let us hear from you, you know." "My dear Miss Trotwood," she replied, "I shall only be too happy to think that anyone expects to hear from us. I shall not fail to correspond. Mr. Copperfield, I trust, as an old and familiar friend, will not object to receive occasional intelligence, himself, from one who knew him when the twins were yet unconscious?" I said that I should hope to hear, whenever she had an opportunity of writing. "Please Heaven, there will be many such opportunities," said Mr. Micawber. "The ocean, in these times, is a perfect fleet of ships; and we can hardly fail to encounter many, in running over. It is merely crossing," said Mr. Micawber, trifling with his eye-glass, "merely crossing. The distance is quite imaginary." I think, now, how odd it was, but how wonderfully like Mr. Micawber, that, when he went from London to Canterbury, he should have talked as if he were going to the farthest limits of the earth; and, when he went from England to Australia, as if he were going for a little trip across the channel. "On the voyage, I shall endeavour," said Mr. Micawber, "occasionally to spin them a yarn; and the melody of my son Wilkins will, I trust, be acceptable at the galley-fire. When Mrs. Micawber has her sea-legs on--an expression in which I hope there is no conventional impropriety--she will give them, I dare say, Little Tafflin. Porpoises and dolphins, I believe, will be frequently observed athwart our Bows; and, either on the Starboard or the Larboard Quarter, objects of interest will be continually descried. In short," said Mr. Micawber, with the old genteel air, "the probability is, all will be found so exciting, alow and aloft, that when the look-out, stationed in the main-top, cries Land-ho! we shall be very considerably astonished!" With that he flourished off the contents of his little tin pot, as if he had made the voyage, and had passed a first-class examination before the highest naval authorities. "What _I_ chiefly hope, my dear Mr. Copperfield," said Mrs. Micawber, "is, that in some branches of our family we may live again in the old country. Do not frown, Micawber! I do not now refer to my own family, but to our children's children. However vigorous the sapling," said Mrs. Micawber, shaking her head, "I cannot forget the parent-tree; and when our race attains to eminence and fortune, I own I should wish that fortune to flow into the coffers of Britannia." "My dear," said Mr. Micawber, "Britannia must take her chance. I am bound to say that she has never done much for me, and that I have no particular wish upon the subject." "Micawber," returned Mrs. Micawber, "there, you are wrong. You are going out, Micawber, to this distant clime, to strengthen, not to weaken, the connexion between yourself and Albion." "The connexion in question, my love," rejoined Mr. Micawber, "has not laid me, I repeat, under that load of personal obligation, that I am at all sensitive as to the formation of another connexion." "Micawber," returned Mrs. Micawber. "There, I again say, you are wrong. You do not know your power, Micawber. It is that which will strengthen, even in this step you are about to take, the connexion between yourself and Albion." Mr. Micawber sat in his elbow-chair, with his eyebrows raised; half receiving and half repudiating Mrs. Micawber's views as they were stated, but very sensible of their foresight. "My dear Mr. Copperfield," said Mrs. Micawber, "I wish Mr. Micawber to feel his position. It appears to me highly important that Mr. Micawber should, from the hour of his embarkation, feel his position. Your old knowledge of me, my dear Mr. Copperfield, will have told you that I have not the sanguine disposition of Mr. Micawber. My disposition is, if I may say so, eminently practical. I know that this is a long voyage. I know that it will involve many privations and inconveniences. I cannot shut my eyes to those facts. But, I also know what Mr. Micawber is. I know the latent power of Mr. Micawber. And therefore I consider it vitally important that Mr. Micawber should feel his position." "My love," he observed, "perhaps you will allow me to remark that it is barely possible that I _do_ feel my position at the present moment." "I think not, Micawber," she rejoined. "Not fully. My dear Mr. Copperfield, Mr. Micawber's is not a common case. Mr. Micawber is going to a distant country, expressly in order that he may be fully understood and appreciated for the first time. I wish Mr. Micawber to take his stand upon that vessel's prow, and firmly say 'This country I am come to conquer! Have you honours? Have you riches? Have you posts of profitable pecuniary emolument? Let them be brought forward. They are mine!'" Mr. Micawber, glancing at us all, seemed to think there was a good deal in this idea. "I wish Mr. Micawber, if I make myself understood," said Mrs. Micawber, in her argumentative tone, "to be the Cæsar of his own fortunes. That, my dear Mr. Copperfield, appears to me to be his true position. From the first moment of this voyage, I wish Mr. Micawber to stand upon that vessel's prow and say, 'Enough of delay: enough of disappointment: enough of limited means. That was in the old country. This is the new. Produce your reparation. Bring it forward!'" Mr. Micawber folded his arms, in a resolute manner, as if he were then stationed on the figure-head. "And doing that," said Mrs. Micawber, "--feeling his position--am I not right in saying that Mr. Micawber will strengthen, and not weaken, his connexion with Britain? An important public character arising in that hemisphere, shall I be told that its influence will not be felt at home? Can I be so weak as to imagine that Mr. Micawber, wielding the rod of talent and of power in Australia, will be nothing in England? I am but a woman; but I should be unworthy of myself, and of my papa, if I were guilty of such absurd weakness." Mrs. Micawber's conviction that her arguments were unanswerable, gave a moral elevation to her tone which I think I had never heard in it before. "And therefore it is," said Mrs. Micawber, "that I the more wish, that, at a future period, we may live again on the parent soil. Mr. Micawber may be--I cannot disguise from myself that the probability is, Mr. Micawber will be--a page of History; and he ought then to be represented in the country which gave him birth, and did _not_ give him employment!" "My love," observed Mr. Micawber, "it is impossible for me not to be touched by your affection. I am always willing to defer to your good sense. What will be--will be. Heaven forbid that I should grudge my native country any portion of the wealth that may be accumulated by our descendants!" "That's well," said my aunt, nodding towards Mr. Peggotty, "and I drink my love to you all, and every blessing and success attend you!" Mr. Peggotty put down the two children he had been nursing, one on each knee, to join Mr. and Mrs. Micawber in drinking to all of us in return; and when he and the Micawbers cordially shook hands as comrades, and his brown face brightened with a smile, I felt that he would make his way, establish a good name, and be beloved, go where he would. Even the children were instructed, each to dip a wooden spoon into Mr. Micawber's pot, and pledge us in its contents. When this was done, my aunt and Agnes rose, and parted from the emigrants. It was a sorrowful farewell. They were all crying; the children hung about Agnes to the last; and we left poor Mrs. Micawber in a very distressed condition, sobbing and weeping by a dim candle, that must have made the room look, from the river, like a miserable light-house. I went down again next morning to see that they were away. They had departed, in a boat, as early as five o'clock. It was a wonderful instance to me of the gap such partings make, that although my association of them with the tumble-down public-house and the wooden stairs dated only from last night, both seemed dreary and deserted, now that they were gone. In the afternoon of the next day, my old nurse and I went down to Gravesend. We found the ship in the river, surrounded by a crowd of boats; a favourable wind blowing; the signal for sailing at her mast head. I hired a boat directly, and we put off to her; and getting through the little vortex of confusion of which she was the centre, went on board. Mr. Peggotty was waiting for us on deck. He told me that Mr. Micawber had just now been arrested again (and for the last time) at the suit of Heep, and that, in compliance with a request I had made to him, he had paid the money: which I repaid him. He then took us down between decks; and there, any lingering fears I had of his having heard any rumours of what had happened, were dispelled by Mr. Micawber's coming out of the gloom, taking his arm with an air of friendship and protection, and telling me that they had scarcely been asunder for a moment, since the night before last. It was such a strange scene to me, and so confined and dark, that, at first, I could make out hardly anything; but, by degrees, it cleared, as my eyes became more accustomed to the gloom, and I seemed to stand in a picture by OSTADE. Among the great beams, bulks, and ringbolts of the ship, and the emigrant-berths, and chests, and bundles, and barrels, and heaps of miscellaneous baggage--lighted up, here and there, by dangling lanterns; and elsewhere by the yellow day-light straying down a windsail or a hatchway--were crowded groups of people, making new friendships, taking leave of one another, talking, laughing, crying, eating and drinking; some, already settled down into the possession of their few feet of space, with their little households arranged, and tiny children established on stools, or in dwarf elbow-chairs; others, despairing of a resting-place, and wandering disconsolately. From babies who had but a week or two of life behind them, to crooked old men and women who seemed to have but a week or two of life before them; and from ploughmen bodily carrying out soil of England on their boots, to smiths taking away samples of its soot and smoke upon their skins; every age and occupation appeared to be crammed into the narrow compass of the 'tween decks. [Illustration: The Emigrants.] As my eye glanced round this place, I thought I saw sitting, by an open port, with one of the Micawber children near her, a figure like Emily's; it first attracted my attention, by another figure parting from it with a kiss; and as it glided calmly away through the disorder, reminding me of--Agnes! But in the rapid motion and confusion, and in the unsettlement of my own thoughts, I lost it again; and only knew that the time was come when all visitors were being warned to leave the ship; that my nurse was crying on a chest beside me; and that Mrs. Gummidge, assisted by some younger stooping woman in black, was busily arranging Mr. Peggotty's goods. "Is there any last wured, Mas'r Davy?" said he. "Is there any one forgotten thing afore we parts?" "One thing!" said I. "Martha!" He touched the younger woman I have mentioned on the shoulder, and Martha stood before me. "Heaven bless you, you good man!" cried I. "You take her with you!" She answered for him, with a burst of tears. I could speak no more, at that time, but I wrung his hand; and if ever I have loved and honored any man, I loved and honored that man in my soul. The ship was clearing fast of strangers. The greatest trial that I had, remained. I told him what the noble spirit that was gone, had given me in charge to say at parting. It moved him deeply. But when he charged me, in return, with many messages of affection and regret for those deaf ears, he moved me more. The time was come. I embraced him, took my weeping nurse upon my arm, and hurried away. On deck, I took leave of poor Mrs. Micawber. She was looking distractedly about for her family, even then; and her last words to me were, that she never would desert Mr. Micawber. We went over the side into our boat, and lay at a little distance to see the ship wafted on her course. It was then calm, radiant sunset. She lay between us, and the red light; and every taper line and spar was visible against the glow. A sight at once so beautiful, so mournful, and so hopeful, as the glorious ship, lying, still, on the flushed water, with all the life on board her crowded at the bulwarks, and there clustering, for a moment, bare-headed and silent, I never saw. Silent, only for a moment. As the sails rose to the wind, and the ship began to move, there broke from all the boats three resounding cheers, which those on board took up, and echoed back, and which were echoed and re-echoed. My heart burst out when I heard the sound, and beheld the waving of the hats and handkerchiefs--and then I saw her! Then, I saw her, at her uncle's side, and trembling on his shoulder. He pointed to us with an eager hand; and she saw us, and waved her last good-bye to me. Aye, Emily, beautiful and drooping, cling to him with the utmost trust of thy bruised heart; for he has clung to thee, with all the might of his great love! Surrounded by the rosy light, and standing high upon the deck, apart together, she clinging to him, and he holding her, they solemnly passed away. The night had fallen on the Kentish hills when we were rowed ashore--and fallen darkly upon me. CHAPTER LVIII. ABSENCE. It was a long and gloomy night that gathered on me, haunted by the ghosts of many hopes, of many dear remembrances, many errors, many unavailing sorrows and regrets. I went away from England; not knowing, even then, how great the shock was, that I had to bear. I left all who were dear to me, and went away; and believed that I had borne it, and it was past. As a man upon a field of battle will receive a mortal hurt, and scarcely know that he is struck, so I, when I was left alone with my undisciplined heart, had no conception of the wound with which it had to strive. The knowledge came upon me, not quickly, but little by little, and grain by grain. The desolate feeling with which I went abroad, deepened and widened hourly. At first it was a heavy sense of loss and sorrow, wherein I could distinguish little else. By imperceptible degrees, it became a hopeless consciousness of all that I had lost--love, friendship, interest; of all that had been shattered--my first trust, my first affection, the whole airy castle of my life; of all that remained--a ruined blank and waste, lying wide around me, unbroken, to the dark horizon. If my grief were selfish, I did not know it to be so. I mourned for my child-wife, taken from her blooming world, so young. I mourned for him who might have won the love and admiration of thousands, as he had won mine long ago. I mourned for the broken heart that had found rest in the stormy sea; and for the wandering remnants of the simple home, where I had heard the night-wind blowing, when I was a child. From the accumulated sadness into which I fell, I had at length no hope of ever issuing again. I roamed from place to place, carrying my burden with me everywhere. I felt its whole weight now; and I drooped beneath it, and I said in my heart that it could never be lightened. When this despondency was at its worst, I believed that I should die. Sometimes, I thought that I would like to die at home; and actually turned back on my road, that I might get there soon. At other times, I passed on farther away, from city to city, seeking I know not what, and trying to leave I know not what behind. It is not in my power to retrace, one by one, all the weary phases of distress of mind through which I passed. There are some dreams that can only be imperfectly and vaguely described; and when I oblige myself to look back on this time of my life, I seem to be recalling such a dream. I see myself passing on among the novelties of foreign towns, palaces, cathedrals, temples, pictures, castles, tombs, fantastic streets--the old abiding places of History and Fancy--as a dreamer might; bearing my painful load through all, and hardly conscious of the objects as they fade before me. Listlessness to everything, but brooding sorrow, was the night that fell on my undisciplined heart. Let me look up from it--as at last I did, thank Heaven!--and from its long, sad, wretched dream, to dawn. For many months I travelled with this ever-darkening cloud upon my mind. Some blind reasons that I had for not returning home--reasons then struggling within me, vainly, for more distinct expression--kept me on my pilgrimage. Sometimes, I had proceeded restlessly from place to place, stopping nowhere; sometimes, I had lingered long in one spot. I had had no purpose, no sustaining soul within me, anywhere. I was in Switzerland. I had come out of Italy, over one of the great passes of the Alps, and had since wandered with a guide among the bye-ways of the mountains. If those awful solitudes had spoken to my heart, I did not know it. I had found sublimity and wonder in the dread heights and precipices, in the roaring torrents, and the wastes of ice and snow; but as yet, they had taught me nothing else. I came, one evening before sunset, down into a valley, where I was to rest. In the course of my descent to it, by the winding track along the mountain-side, from which I saw it shining far below, I think some long-unwonted sense of beauty and tranquillity, some softening influence awakened by its peace, moved faintly in my breast. I remember pausing once, with a kind of sorrow that was not all oppressive, not quite despairing. I remember almost hoping that some better change was possible within me. I came into the valley, as the evening sun was shining on the remote heights of snow, that closed it in, like eternal clouds. The bases of the mountains forming the gorge in which the little village lay, were richly green; and high above this gentler vegetation, grew forests of dark fir, cleaving the wintry snow-drift, wedge-like, and stemming the avalanche. Above these, were range upon range of craggy steeps, grey rock, bright ice, and smooth verdure-specks of pasture, all gradually blending with the crowning snow. Dotted here and there on the mountain's-side, each tiny dot a home, were lonely wooden cottages, so dwarfed by the towering heights that they appeared too small for toys. So did even the clustered village in the valley, with its wooden bridge across the stream, where the stream tumbled over broken rocks, and roared away among the trees. In the quiet air, there was a sound of distant singing--shepherd voices; but, as one bright evening cloud floated midway along the mountain's-side, I could almost have believed it came from there, and was not earthly music. All at once, in this serenity, great Nature spoke to me; and soothed me to lay down my weary head upon the grass, and weep as I had not wept yet, since Dora died! I had found a packet of letters awaiting me but a few minutes before, and had strolled out of the village to read them while my supper was making ready. Other packets had missed me, and I had received none for a long time. Beyond a line or two, to say that I was well, and had arrived at such a place, I had not had fortitude or constancy to write a letter since I left home. The packet was in my hand. I opened it, and read the writing of Agnes. She was happy and useful, was prospering as she had hoped. That was all she told me of herself. The rest referred to me. She gave me no advice; she urged no duty on me; she only told me, in her own fervent manner, what her trust in me was. She knew (she said) how such a nature as mine would turn affliction to good. She knew how trial and emotion would exalt and strengthen it. She was sure that in my every purpose I should gain a firmer and a higher tendency, through the grief I had undergone. She, who so gloried in my fame, and so looked forward to its augmentation, well knew that I would labor on. She knew that in me, sorrow could not be weakness, but must be strength. As the endurance of my childish days had done its part to make me what I was, so greater calamities would nerve me on, to be yet better than I was; and so, as they had taught me, would I teach others. She commended me to God, who had taken my innocent darling to His rest; and in her sisterly affection cherished me always, and was always at my side go where I would; proud of what I had done, but infinitely prouder yet of what I was reserved to do. I put the letter in my breast, and thought what had I been an hour ago! When I heard the voices die away, and saw the quiet evening cloud grow dim, and all the colors in the valley fade, and the golden snow upon the mountain tops become a remote part of the pale night sky, yet felt that the night was passing from my mind, and all its shadows clearing, there was no name for the love I bore her, dearer to me, henceforward, than ever until then. I read her letter, many times. I wrote to her before I slept. I told her that I had been in sore need of her help; that without her I was not, and I never had been, what she thought me; but, that she inspired me to be that, and I would try. I did try. In three months more, a year would have passed since the beginning of my sorrow. I determined to make no resolutions until the expiration of those three months, but to try. I lived in that valley, and its neighbourhood, all the time. The three months gone, I resolved to remain away from home for some time longer; to settle myself for the present in Switzerland, which was growing dear to me in the remembrance of that evening; to resume my pen; to work. I resorted humbly whither Agnes had commended me; I sought out Nature, never sought in vain; and I admitted to my breast the human interest I had lately shrunk from. It was not long, before I had almost as many friends in the valley as in Yarmouth; and when I left it, before the winter set in, for Geneva, and came back in the spring, their cordial greetings had a homely sound to me, although they were not conveyed in English words. I worked early and late, patiently and hard. I wrote a Story, with a purpose growing, not remotely, out of my experience, and sent it to Traddles, and he arranged for its publication very advantageously for me; and the tidings of my growing reputation began to reach me from travellers whom I encountered by chance. After some rest and change, I fell to work, in my old ardent way, on a new fancy, which took strong possession of me. As I advanced in the execution of this task, I felt it more and more, and roused my utmost energies to do it well. This was my third work of fiction. It was not half written, when, in an interval of rest, I thought of returning home. For a long time, though studying and working patiently, I had accustomed myself to robust exercise. My health, severely impaired when I left England, was quite restored. I had seen much. I had been in many countries, and I hope I had improved my store of knowledge. I have now recalled all that I think it needful to recal here, of this term of absence--with one reservation. I have made it, thus far, with no purpose of suppressing any of my thoughts; for, as I have elsewhere said, this narrative is my written memory. I have desired to keep the most secret current of my mind apart, and to the last. I enter on it now. I cannot so completely penetrate the mystery of my own heart, as to know when I began to think that I might have set its earliest and brightest hopes on Agnes. I cannot say at what stage of my grief it first became associated with the reflection, that, in my wayward boyhood, I had thrown away the treasure of her love. I believe I may have heard some whisper of that distant thought, in the old unhappy loss or want of something never to be realised, of which I had been sensible. But the thought came into my mind as a new reproach and new regret, when I was left so sad and lonely in the world. If, at that time, I had been much with her, I should, in the weakness of my desolation, have betrayed this. It was what I remotely dreaded when I was first impelled to stay away from England. I could not have borne to lose the smallest portion of her sisterly affection; yet, in that betrayal, I should have set a constraint between us hitherto unknown. I could not forget that the feeling with which she now regarded me had grown up in my own free choice and course. That if she had ever loved me with another love--and I sometimes thought the time was when she might have done so--I had cast it away. It was nothing, now, that I had accustomed myself to think of her, when we were both mere children, as one who was far removed from my wild fancies. I had bestowed my passionate tenderness upon another object; and what I might have done, I had not done; and what Agnes was to me, I and her own noble heart had made her. In the beginning of the change that gradually worked in me, when I tried to get a better understanding of myself and be a better man, I did glance, through some indefinite probation, to a period when I might possibly hope to cancel the mistaken past, and to be so blessed as to marry her. But, as time wore on, this shadowy prospect faded, and departed from me. If she had ever loved me, then, I should hold her the more sacred; remembering the confidences I had reposed in her, her knowledge of my errant heart, the sacrifice she must have made to be my friend and sister, and the victory she had won. If she had never loved me, could I believe that she would love me now? I had always felt my weakness, in comparison with her constancy and fortitude; and now I felt it more and more. Whatever I might have been to her, or she to me, if I had been more worthy of her long ago, I was not now, and she was not. The time was past. I had let it go by, and had deservedly lost her. That I suffered much in these contentions, that they filled me with unhappiness and remorse, and yet that I had a sustaining sense that it was required of me, in right and honor, to keep away from myself, with shame, the thought of turning to the dear girl in the withering of my hopes, from whom I had frivolously turned when they were bright and fresh--which consideration was at the root of every thought I had concerning her--is all equally true. I made no effort to conceal from myself, now, that I loved her, that I was devoted to her; but I brought the assurance home to myself, that it was now too late, and that our long-subsisting relation must be undisturbed. I had thought, much and often, of my Dora's shadowing out to me what might have happened, in those years that were destined not to try us; I had considered how the things that never happen, are often as much realities to us, in their effects, as those that are accomplished. The very years she spoke of, were realities now, for my correction; and would have been, one day, a little later perhaps, though we had parted in our earliest folly. I endeavoured to convert what might have been between myself and Agnes, into a means of making me more self-denying, more resolved, more conscious of myself, and my defects and errors. Thus, through the reflection that it might have been, I arrived at the conviction that it could never be. These, with their perplexities and inconsistencies, were the shifting quicksands of my mind, from the time of my departure to the time of my return home, three years afterwards. Three years had elapsed since the sailing of the emigrant ship; when, at that same hour of sunset, and in the same place, I stood on the deck of the packet vessel that brought me home, looking on the rosy water where I had seen the image of that ship reflected. Three years. Long in the aggregate, though short as they went by. And home was very dear to me, and Agnes too--but she was not mine--she was never to be mine. She might have been, but that was past! CHAPTER LIX. RETURN. I landed in London on a wintry autumn evening. It was dark and raining, and I saw more fog and mud in a minute than I had seen in a year. I walked from the Custom House to the Monument before I found a coach; and although the very house-fronts, looking on the swollen gutters, were like old friends to me, I could not but admit that they were very dingy friends. I have often remarked--I suppose everybody has--that one's going away from a familiar place, would seem to be the signal for change in it. As I looked out of the coach-window, and observed that an old house on Fish-street Hill, which had stood untouched by painter, carpenter, or bricklayer, for a century, had been pulled down in my absence; and that a neighbouring street, of time-honored insalubrity and inconvenience, was being drained and widened; I half expected to find St. Paul's Cathedral looking older. For some changes in the fortunes of my friends, I was prepared. My aunt had long been re-established at Dover, and Traddles had begun to get into some little practice at the Bar, in the very first term after my departure. He had chambers in Gray's Inn, now; and had told me, in his last letters, that he was not without hopes of being soon united to the dearest girl in the world. They expected me home before Christmas; but had no idea of my returning so soon. I had purposely misled them, that I might have the pleasure of taking them by surprise. And yet, I was perverse enough to feel a chill and disappointment in receiving no welcome, and rattling, alone and silent, through the misty streets. The well-known shops, however, with their cheerful lights, did something for me; and when I alighted at the door of the Gray's Inn Coffee-house, I had recovered my spirits. It recalled, at first, that so-different time when I had put up at the Golden Cross, and reminded me of the changes that had come to pass since then; but that was natural. "Do you know where Mr. Traddles lives in the Inn?" I asked the waiter, as I warmed myself by the coffee-room fire. "Holborn Court, sir. Number two." "Mr. Traddles has a rising reputation among the lawyers, I believe?" said I. "Well, sir," returned the waiter, "probably he has, sir; but I am not aware of it myself." This waiter, who was middle-aged and spare, looked for help to a waiter of more authority--a stout, potential old man, with a double-chin, in black breeches and stockings, who came out of a place like a churchwarden's pew, at the end of the coffee-room, where he kept company with a cash-box, a Directory, a Law-list, and other books and papers. "Mr. Traddles," said the spare waiter. "Number two in the Court." The potential waiter waved him away, and turned, gravely, to me. "I was inquiring," said I, "whether Mr. Traddles at number two in the Court, has not a rising reputation among the lawyers?" "Never heard his name," said the waiter, in a rich husky voice. I felt quite apologetic for Traddles. "He's a young man, sure?" said the portentous waiter, fixing his eyes severely on me. "How long has he been in the Inn?" "Not above three years," said I. The waiter, who I supposed had lived in his churchwarden's pew for forty years, could not pursue such an insignificant subject. He asked me what I would have for dinner? I felt I was in England again, and really was quite cast down on Traddles's account. There seemed to be no hope for him. I meekly ordered a bit of fish and a steak, and stood before the fire musing on his obscurity. As I followed the chief waiter with my eyes, I could not help thinking that the garden in which he had gradually blown to be the flower he was, was an arduous place to rise in. It had such a prescriptive, stiff-necked, long-established, solemn, elderly air. I glanced about the room, which had had its sanded floor sanded, no doubt, in exactly the same manner when the chief waiter was a boy--if he ever was a boy, which appeared improbable; and at the shining tables, where I saw myself reflected, in unruffled depths of old mahogany; and at the lamps, without a flaw in their trimming or cleaning; and at the comfortable green curtains, with their pure brass rods, snugly enclosing the boxes; and at the two large coal fires, brightly burning; and at the rows of decanters, burly as if with the consciousness of pipes of expensive old port wine below; and both England, and the law, appeared to me to be very difficult indeed to be taken by storm. I went up to my bed-room to change my wet clothes; and the vast extent of that old wainscotted apartment (which was over the archway leading to the Inn, I remember), and the sedate immensity of the four-post bedstead, and the indomitable gravity of the chests of drawers, all seemed to unite in sternly frowning on the fortunes of Traddles, or on any such daring youth. I came down again to my dinner; and even the slow comfort of the meal, and the orderly silence of the place--which was bare of guests, the Long Vacation not yet being over--were eloquent on the audacity of Traddles, and his small hopes of a livelihood for twenty years to come. I had seen nothing like this since I went away, and it quite dashed my hopes for my friend. The chief waiter had had enough of me. He came near me no more; but devoted himself to an old gentleman in long gaiters, to meet whom a pint of special port seemed to come out of the cellar of its own accord, for he gave no order. The second waiter informed me, in a whisper, that this old gentleman was a retired conveyancer living in the Square, and worth a mint of money, which it was expected he would leave to his laundress's daughter; likewise that it was rumoured that he had a service of plate in a bureau, all tarnished with lying by, though more than one spoon and a fork had never yet been beheld in his chambers by mortal vision. By this time, I quite gave Traddles up for lost; and settled in my own mind that there was no hope for him. Being very anxious to see the dear old fellow, nevertheless, I despatched my dinner; in a manner not at all calculated to raise me in the opinion of the chief waiter, and hurried out by the back way. Number two in the Court was soon reached; and an inscription on the door-post informing me that Mr. Traddles occupied a set of chambers on the top story, I ascended the staircase. A crazy old staircase I found it to be, feebly lighted on each landing by a club-headed little oil wick, dying away in a little dungeon of dirty glass. In the course of my stumbling up stairs, I fancied I heard a pleasant sound of laughter; and not the laughter of an attorney or barrister, or attorney's clerk or barrister's clerk, but of two or three merry girls. Happening, however, as I stopped to listen, to put my foot in a hole where the Honorable Society of Gray's Inn had left a plank deficient, I fell down with some noise, and when I recovered my footing all was silent. Groping my way more carefully, for the rest of the journey, my heart beat high when I found the outer door, which had MR. TRADDLES painted on it, open. I knocked. A considerable scuffling within ensued, but nothing else. I therefore knocked again. A small sharp-looking lad, half-footboy and half-clerk, who was very much out of breath, but who looked at me as if he defied me to prove it legally, presented himself. "Is Mr. Traddles within?" said I. "Yes, sir, but he's engaged." "I want to see him." After a moment's survey of me, the sharp-looking lad decided to let me in; and opening the door wider for that purpose, admitted me, first, into a little closet of a hall, and next into a little sitting-room; where I came into the presence of my old friend (also out of breath), seated at a table, and bending over papers. "Good God!" cried Traddles, looking up. "It's Copperfield!" and rushed into my arms, where I held him tight. "All well, my dear Traddles?" "All well, my dear, dear Copperfield, and nothing but good news!" We cried with pleasure, both of us. "My dear fellow," said Traddles, rumpling his hair in his excitement, which was a most unnecessary operation, "my dearest Copperfield, my long-lost and most welcome friend, how glad I am to see you! How brown you are! How glad I am! Upon my life and honor, I never was so rejoiced, my beloved Copperfield, never!" I was equally at a loss to express my emotions. I was quite unable to speak, at first. "My dear fellow!" said Traddles. "And grown so famous! My glorious Copperfield! Good gracious me, _when_ did you come, _where_ have you come from, _what_ have you been doing?" Never pausing for an answer to anything he said, Traddles, who had clapped me into an easy chair by the fire, all this time impetuously stirred the fire with one hand, and pulled at my neck-kerchief with the other, under some wild delusion that it was a great coat. Without putting down the poker, he now hugged me again; and I hugged him; and, both laughing, and both wiping our eyes, we both sat down, and shook hands across the hearth. "To think," said Traddles, "that you should have been so nearly coming home as you must have been, my dear old boy, and not at the ceremony!" "What ceremony, my dear Traddles?" "Good gracious me!" cried Traddles, opening his eyes in his old way. "Didn't you get my last letter?" "Certainly not, if it referred to any ceremony." "Why, my dear Copperfield," said Traddles, sticking his hair upright with both hands, and then putting his hands on my knees, "I am married!" "Married!" I cried, joyfully! "Lord bless me, yes!" said Traddles--"by the Reverend Horace--to Sophy--down in Devonshire. Why, my dear boy, she's behind the window curtain! Look here!" To my amazement, the dearest girl in the world came at that same instant, laughing and blushing, from her place of concealment. And a more cheerful, amiable, honest, happy, bright-looking bride, I believe (as I could not help saying on the spot) the world never saw. I kissed her as an old acquaintance should, and wished them joy with all my might of heart. "Dear me," said Traddles, "what a delightful re-union this is! You are so extremely brown, my dear Copperfield! God bless my soul, how happy I am!" "And so am I," said I. "And I am sure I am!" said the blushing and laughing Sophy. "We are all as happy as possible!" said Traddles. "Even the girls are happy. Dear me, I declare I forgot them!" "Forgot?" said I. "The girls," said Traddles. "Sophy's sisters. They are staying with us. They have come to have a peep at London. The fact is, when--was it you that tumbled up stairs, Copperfield?" "It was," said I, laughing. "Well then, when you tumbled up stairs," said Traddles, "I was romping with the girls. In point of fact, we were playing at Puss in the Corner. But as that wouldn't do in Westminster Hall, and as it wouldn't look quite professional if they were seen by a client, they decamped. And they are now--listening, I have no doubt," said Traddles, glancing at the door of another room. "I am sorry," said I, laughing afresh, "to have occasioned such a dispersion." "Upon my word," rejoined Traddles, greatly delighted, "if you had seen them running away, and running back again, after you had knocked, to pick up the combs they had dropped out of their hair, and going on in the maddest manner, you wouldn't have said so. My love, will you fetch the girls?" Sophy tripped away, and we heard her received in the adjoining room with a peal of laughter. "Really musical, isn't it, my dear Copperfield?" said Traddles. "It's very agreeable to hear. It quite lights up these old rooms. To an unfortunate bachelor of a fellow who has lived alone all his life, you know, it's positively delicious. It's charming. Poor things, they have had a great loss in Sophy--who, I do assure you, Copperfield, is, and ever was, the dearest girl!--and it gratifies me beyond expression to find them in such good spirits. The society of girls is a very delightful thing, Copperfield. It's not professional, but it's very delightful." Observing that he slightly faltered, and comprehending that in the goodness of his heart he was fearful of giving me some pain by what he had said, I expressed my concurrence with a heartiness that evidently relieved and pleased him greatly. "But then," said Traddles, "our domestic arrangements are, to say the truth, quite unprofessional altogether, my dear Copperfield. Even Sophy's being here, is unprofessional. And we have no other place of abode. We have put to sea in a cockboat, but we are quite prepared to rough it. And Sophy's an extraordinary manager! You'll be surprised how those girls are stowed away. I am sure I hardly know how it's done." "Are many of the young ladies with you?" I inquired. "The eldest, the Beauty is here," said Traddles, in a low confidential voice, "Caroline. And Sarah's here--the one I mentioned to you as having something the matter with her spine, you know. Immensely better! And the two youngest that Sophy educated are with us. And Louisa's here." "Indeed!" cried I. "Yes," said Traddles. "Now the whole set--I mean the chambers--is only three rooms; but Sophy arranges for the girls in the most wonderful way, and they sleep as comfortably as possible. Three in that room," said Traddles, pointing. "Two in that." I could not help glancing round, in search of the accommodation remaining for Mr. and Mrs. Traddles. Traddles understood me. "Well!" said Traddles, "we are prepared to rough it, as I said just now; and we _did_ improvise a bed last week, upon the floor here. But there's a little room in the roof--a very nice room, when you're up there--which Sophy papered herself, to surprise me; and that's our room at present. It's a capital little gipsey sort of place. There's quite a view from it." "And you are happily married at last, my dear Traddles!" said I. "How rejoiced I am!" "Thank you, my dear Copperfield," said Traddles, as we shook hands once more. "Yes, I am as happy as it's possible to be. There's your old friend, you see," said Traddles, nodding triumphantly at the flower-pot and stand; "and there's the table with the marble top! All the other furniture is plain and serviceable, you perceive. And as to plate, Lord bless you, we haven't so much as a tea-spoon." "All to be earned?" said I, cheerfully. "Exactly so," replied Traddles, "all to be earned. Of course we have something in the shape of tea-spoons, because we stir our tea. But they're Britannia metal." "The silver will be the brighter when it comes," said I. "The very thing we say!" cried Traddles. "You see, my dear Copperfield," falling again into the low confidential tone, "after I had delivered my argument in DOE _dem_ JIPES _versus_ WIGZELL, which did me great service with the profession, I went down into Devonshire, and had some serious conversation in private with the Reverend Horace. I dwelt upon the fact that Sophy--who I do assure you, Copperfield, is the dearest girl!----" "I am certain she is!" said I. "She is, indeed!" rejoined Traddles. "But I am afraid I am wandering from the subject. Did I mention the Reverend Horace?" "You said that you dwelt upon the fact----" "True! Upon the fact that Sophy and I had been engaged for a long period, and that Sophy, with the permission of her parents, was more than content to take me--in short," said Traddles, with his old frank smile, "on our present Britannia-metal footing. Very well. I then proposed to the Reverend Horace--who is a most excellent clergyman, Copperfield, and ought to be a Bishop; or at least ought to have enough to live upon, without pinching himself--that if I could turn the corner, say of two hundred and fifty pounds, in one year; and could see my way pretty clearly to that, or something better, next year; and could plainly furnish a little place like this, besides; then, and in that case, Sophy and I should be united. I took the liberty of representing that we had been patient for a good many years; and that the circumstance of Sophy's being extraordinarily useful at home, ought not to operate, with her affectionate parents, against her establishment in life--don't you see?" "Certainly it ought not," said I. "I am glad you think so, Copperfield," rejoined Traddles, "because, without any imputation on the Reverend Horace, I do think parents, and brothers, and so forth, are sometimes rather selfish in such cases. Well! I also pointed out, that my most earnest desire was, to be useful to the family; and that if I got on in the world, and anything should happen to him--I refer to the Reverend Horace--" "I understand," said I. "--Or to Mrs. Crewler--it would be the utmost gratification of my wishes, to be a parent to the girls. He replied in a most admirable manner, exceedingly flattering to my feelings, and undertook to obtain the consent of Mrs. Crewler to this arrangement. They had a dreadful time of it with her. It mounted from her legs into her chest, and then into her head--" "What mounted?" I asked. "Her grief," replied Traddles, with a serious look. "Her feelings generally. As I mentioned on a former occasion, she is a very superior woman, but has lost the use of her limbs. Whatever occurs to harass her, usually settles in her legs; but on this occasion it mounted to the chest, and then to the head, and, in short, pervaded the whole system in a most alarming manner. However, they brought her through it by unremitting and affectionate attention; and we were married yesterday six weeks. You have no idea what a Monster I felt, Copperfield, when I saw the whole family crying and fainting away in every direction! Mrs. Crewler couldn't see me before we left--couldn't forgive me, then, for depriving her of her child--but she is a good creature, and has done so since. I had a delightful letter from her, only this morning." "And in short, my dear friend," said I, "you feel as blest as you deserve to feel!" "Oh! That's your partiality!" laughed Traddles. "But, indeed, I am in a most enviable state. I work hard, and read Law insatiably. I get up at five every morning, and don't mind it at all. I hide the girls in the day-time, and make merry with them in the evening. And I assure you I am quite sorry that they are going home on Tuesday, which is the day before the first day of Michaelmas Term. But here," said Traddles, breaking off in his confidence, and speaking aloud, "_are_ the girls! Mr. Copperfield, Miss Crewler--Miss Sarah--Miss Louisa--Margaret and Lucy!" They were a perfect nest of roses; they looked so wholesome and fresh. They were all pretty, and Miss Caroline was very handsome; but there was a loving, cheerful, fireside quality in Sophy's bright looks, which was better than that, and which assured me that my friend had chosen well. We all sat round the fire; while the sharp boy, who I now divined had lost his breath in putting the papers out, cleared them away again, and produced the tea-things. After that, he retired for the night, shutting the outer-door upon us with a bang. Mrs. Traddles, with perfect pleasure and composure beaming from her household eyes, having made the tea, then quietly made the toast as she sat in a corner by the fire. She had seen Agnes, she told me while she was toasting. "Tom" had taken her down into Kent for a wedding trip, and there she had seen my aunt, too; and both my aunt and Agnes were well, and they had all talked of nothing but me. "Tom" had never had me out of his thoughts, she really believed, all the time I had been away. "Tom" was the authority for everything. "Tom" was evidently the idol of her life; never to be shaken on his pedestal by any commotion; always to be believed in, and done homage to with the whole faith of her heart, come what might. The deference which both she and Traddles showed towards the Beauty, pleased me very much. I don't know that I thought it very reasonable; but I thought it very delightful, and essentially a part of their character. If Traddles ever for an instant missed the teaspoons that were still to be won, I have no doubt it was when he handed the Beauty her tea. If his sweet-tempered wife could have got up any self-assertion against any one, I am satisfied it could only have been because she was the Beauty's sister. A few slight indications of a rather petted and capricious manner, which I observed in the Beauty, were manifestly considered, by Traddles and his wife, as her birthright and natural endowment. If she had been born a Queen Bee, and they laboring Bees, they could not have been more satisfied of that. But their self-forgetfulness charmed me. Their pride in these girls, and their submission of themselves to all their whims, was the pleasantest little testimony to their own worth I could have desired to see. If Traddles were addressed as "a darling," once in the course of that evening; and besought to bring something here, or carry something there, or take something up, or put something down, or find something, or fetch something; he was so addressed, by one or other of his sisters-in-law, at least twelve times in an hour. Neither could they do anything without Sophy. Somebody's hair fell down, and nobody but Sophy could put it up. Somebody forgot how a particular tune went, and nobody but Sophy could hum that tune right. Somebody wanted to recal the name of a place in Devonshire, and only Sophy knew it. Something was wanted to be written home, and Sophy alone could be trusted to write before breakfast in the morning. Somebody broke down in a piece of knitting, and no one but Sophy was able to put the defaulter in the right direction. They were entire mistresses of the place, and Sophy and Traddles waited on them. How many children Sophy could have taken care of in her time, I can't imagine; but she seemed to be famous for knowing every sort of song that ever was addressed to a child in the English tongue; and she sang dozens to order with the clearest little voice in the world, one after another (every sister issuing directions for a different tune, and the Beauty generally striking in last), so that I was quite fascinated. The best of all was, that, in the midst of their exactions, all the sisters had a great tenderness and respect both for Sophy and Traddles. I am sure, when I took my leave, and Traddles was coming out to walk with me to the coffee-house, I thought I had never seen an obstinate head of hair, or any other head of hair, rolling about in such a shower of kisses. Altogether, it was a scene I could not help dwelling on with pleasure, for a long time after I got back and had wished Traddles good night. If I had beheld a thousand roses blowing in a top set of chambers, in that withered Gray's Inn, they could not have brightened it half so much. The idea of those Devonshire girls, among the dry law-stationers and the attornies' offices; and of the tea and toast, and children's songs, in that grim atmosphere of pounce and parchment, red-tape, dusty wafers, ink-jars, brief and draft paper, law reports, writs, declarations, and bills of costs; seemed almost as pleasantly fanciful as if I had dreamed that the Sultan's famous family had been admitted on the roll of attorneys, and had brought the talking bird, the singing tree, and the golden water into Gray's Inn Hall. Somehow, I found that I had taken leave of Traddles for the night, and come back to the coffee-house, with a great change in my despondency about him. I began to think he would get on, in spite of all the many orders of chief waiters in England. Drawing a chair before one of the coffee-room fires to think about him at my leisure, I gradually fell from the consideration of his happiness to tracing prospects in the live-coals, and to thinking, as they broke and changed, of the principal vicissitudes and separations that had marked my life. I had not seen a coal fire, since I had left England three years ago: though many a wood fire had I watched, as it crumbled into hoary ashes, and mingled with the feathery heap upon the hearth, which not inaptly figured to me, in my despondency, my own dead hopes. I could think of the past now, gravely, but not bitterly; and could contemplate the future in a brave spirit. Home, in its best sense, was for me no more. She in whom I might have inspired a dearer love, I had taught to be my sister. She would marry, and would have new claimants on her tenderness; and in doing it, would never know the love for her that had grown up in my heart. It was right that I should pay the forfeit of my headlong passion. What I reaped, I had sown. I was thinking, And had I truly disciplined my heart to this, and could I resolutely bear it, and calmly hold the place in her home which she had calmly held in mine,--when I found my eyes resting on a countenance that might have arisen out of the fire, in its association with my early remembrances. Little Mr. Chillip the Doctor, to whose good offices I was indebted in the very first chapter of this history, sat reading a newspaper in the shadow of an opposite corner. He was tolerably stricken in years by this time; but, being a mild, meek, calm little man, had worn so easily, that I thought he looked at that moment just as he might have looked when he sat in our parlor, waiting for me to be born. Mr. Chillip had left Blunderstone six or seven years ago, and I had never seen him since. He sat placidly perusing the newspaper, with his little head on one side, and a glass of warm sherry negus at his elbow. He was so extremely conciliatory in his manner that he seemed to apologise to the very newspaper for taking the liberty of reading it. I walked up to where he was sitting, and said, "How do you do, Mr. Chillip?" He was greatly fluttered by this unexpected address from a stranger, and replied, in his slow way, "I thank you, sir, you are very good. Thank you, sir. I hope _you_ are well." "You don't remember me?" said I. "Well, sir," returned Mr. Chillip, smiling very meekly, and shaking his head as he surveyed me, "I have a kind of an impression that something in your countenance is familiar to me, sir; but I couldn't lay my hand upon your name, really." "And yet you knew it, long before I knew it myself," I returned. "Did I indeed, sir?" said Mr. Chillip. "Is it possible that I had the honor, sir, of officiating when----?" "Yes," said I. "Dear me!" cried Mr. Chillip. "But no doubt you are a good deal changed since then, sir?" "Probably," said I. "Well, sir," observed Mr. Chillip, "I hope you'll excuse me, if I am compelled to ask the favor of your name?" On my telling him my name, he was really moved. He quite shook hands with me--which was a violent proceeding for him, his usual course being to slide a tepid little fish-slice, an inch or two in advance of his hip, and evince the greatest discomposure when anybody grappled with it. Even now, he put his hand in his coat pocket as soon as he could disengage it, and seemed relieved when he had got it safe back. "Dear me, sir!" said Mr. Chillip, surveying me with his head on one side. "And it's Mr. Copperfield, is it? Well, sir, I think I should have known you, if I had taken the liberty of looking more closely at you. There's a strong resemblance between you and your poor father, sir." "I never had the happiness of seeing my father," I observed. "Very true, sir," said Mr. Chillip, in a soothing tone. "And very much to be deplored it was, on all accounts! We are not ignorant, sir," said Mr. Chillip, slowly shaking his little head again, "down in our part of the country, of your fame. There must be great excitement here, sir," said Mr. Chillip, tapping himself on the forehead with his forefinger. "You must find it a trying occupation, sir!" "What is your part of the country now?" I asked, seating myself near him. "I am established within a few miles of Bury St. Edmunds, sir," said Mr. Chillip. "Mrs. Chillip, coming into a little property in that neighbourhood, under her father's will, I bought a practice down there, in which you will be glad to hear I am doing well. My daughter is growing quite a tall lass now, sir," said Mr. Chillip, giving his little head another little shake. "Her mother let down two tucks in her frocks only last week. Such is Time, you see, sir!" As the little man put his now empty glass to his lips, when he made this reflection, I proposed to him to have it refilled, and I would keep him company with another. "Well, sir," he returned in his slow way, "it's more than I am accustomed to; but I can't deny myself the pleasure of your conversation. It seems but yesterday that I had the honor of attending you in the measles. You came through them charmingly, sir!" I acknowledged this compliment, and ordered the negus, which was soon produced. "Quite an uncommon dissipation!" said Mr. Chillip, stirring it, "but I can't resist so extraordinary an occasion. You have no family, sir?" I shook my head. "I was aware that you sustained a bereavement, sir, some time ago," said Mr. Chillip. "I heard it from your father-in-law's sister. Very decided character there, sir?" "Why, yes," said I, "decided enough. Where did you see her, Mr. Chillip?" "Are you not aware, sir," returned Mr. Chillip, with his placidest smile, "that your father-in-law is again a neighbour of mine?" "No," said I. "He is indeed, sir!" said Mr. Chillip. "Married a young lady of that part, with a very good little property, poor thing.--And this action of the brain now, sir? Don't you find it fatigue you?" said Mr. Chillip, looking at me like an admiring Robin. I waived that question, and returned to the Murdstones. "I was aware of his being married again. Do you attend the family?" I asked. "Not regularly. I have been called in," he replied. "Strong phrenological development of the organ of firmness, in Mr. Murdstone and his sister, sir." I replied with such an expressive look, that Mr. Chillip was emboldened by that, and the negus together, to give his head several short shakes, and thoughtfully exclaim, "Ah, dear me! We remember old times, Mr. Copperfield!" "And the brother and sister are pursuing their old course, are they?" said I. "Well, sir," replied Mr. Chillip, "a medical man, being so much in families, ought to have neither eyes nor ears for anything but his profession. Still, I must say, they are very severe, sir: both as to this life and the next." "The next will be regulated without much reference to them, I dare say," I returned: "what are they doing as to this?" Mr. Chillip shook his head, stirred his negus, and sipped it. "She was a charming woman, sir!" he observed in a plaintive manner. "The present Mrs. Murdstone?" "A charming woman indeed, sir," said Mr. Chillip; "as amiable, I am sure, as it was possible to be! Mrs. Chillip's opinion is, that her spirit has been entirely broken since her marriage, and that she is all but melancholy mad. And the ladies," observed Mr. Chillip, timorously, "are great observers, sir." "I suppose she was to be subdued and broken to their detestable mould, Heaven help her!" said I. "And she has been." "Well, sir, there were violent quarrels at first, I assure you," said Mr. Chillip; "but she is quite a shadow now. Would it be considered forward if I was to say to you, sir, in confidence, that since the sister came to help, the brother and sister between them have nearly reduced her to a state of imbecility." I told him I could easily believe it. "I have no hesitation in saying," said Mr. Chillip, fortifying himself with another sip of negus, "between you and me, sir, that her mother died of it--or that tyranny, gloom, and worry, have made Mrs. Murdstone nearly imbecile. She was a lively young woman, sir, before marriage, and their gloom and austerity destroyed her. They go about with her, now, more like her keepers than her husband and sister-in-law. That was Mrs. Chillip's remark to me, only last week. And I assure you, sir, the ladies are great observers. Mrs. Chillip herself is a _great_ observer!" "Does he gloomily profess to be (I am ashamed to use the word in such association) religious still?" I inquired. "You anticipate, sir," said Mr. Chillip, his eyelids getting quite red with the unwonted stimulus in which he was indulging. "One of Mrs. Chillip's most impressive remarks. Mrs. Chillip," he proceeded, in the calmest and slowest manner, "quite electrified me, by pointing out that Mr. Murdstone sets up an image of himself, and calls it the Divine Nature. You might have knocked me down on the flat of my back, sir, with the feather of a pen, I assure you, when Mrs. Chillip said so. The ladies are great observers, sir?" "Intuitively," said I, to his extreme delight. "I am very happy to receive such support in my opinion, sir," he rejoined. "It is not often that I venture to give a non-medical opinion, I assure you. Mr. Murdstone delivers public addresses sometimes, and it is said,--in short, sir, it is said by Mrs. Chillip,--that the darker tyrant he has lately been, the more ferocious is his doctrine." "I believe Mrs. Chillip to be perfectly right," said I. "Mrs. Chillip does go so far as to say," pursued the meekest of little men, much encouraged, "that what such people miscall their religion, is a vent for their bad-humors and arrogance. And do you know I must say, sir," he continued, mildly laying his head on one side, "that I _don't_ find authority for Mr. and Miss Murdstone in the New Testament?" "I never found it either," said I. "In the meantime, sir," said Mr. Chillip, "they are much disliked; and as they are very free in consigning everybody who dislikes them to perdition, we really have a good deal of perdition going on in our neighbourhood! However, as Mrs. Chillip says, sir, they undergo a continual punishment; for they are turned inward, to feed upon their own hearts, and their own hearts are very bad feeding. Now, sir, about that brain of yours, if you'll excuse my returning to it. Don't you expose it to a good deal of excitement, sir?" I found it not difficult, in the excitement of Mr. Chillip's own brain, under his potations of negus, to divert his attention from this topic to his own affairs, on which, for the next half hour, he was quite loquacious; giving me to understand, among other pieces of information, that he was then at the Gray's Inn Coffee-house to lay his professional evidence before a Commission of Lunacy, touching the state of mind of a patient who had become deranged from excessive drinking. "And I assure you, sir," he said, "I am extremely nervous on such occasions. I could not support being what is called Bullied, sir. It would quite unman me. Do you know it was some time before I recovered the conduct of that alarming lady, on the night of your birth, Mr. Copperfield?" I told him that I was going down to my aunt, the Dragon of that night, early in the morning; and that she was one of the most tender-hearted and excellent of women, as he would know full well if he knew her better. The mere notion of the possibility of his ever seeing her again, appeared to terrify him. He replied, with a small pale smile, "Is she so, indeed, sir? Really?" and almost immediately called for a candle, and went to bed, as if he were not quite safe anywhere else. He did not actually stagger under the negus; but I should think his placid little pulse must have made two or three more beats in a minute, than it had done since the great night of my aunt's disappointment, when she struck at him with her bonnet. Thoroughly tired, I went to bed too, at midnight; passed the next day on the Dover coach; burst safe and sound into my aunt's old parlor while she was at tea (she wore spectacles now); and was received by her, and Mr. Dick, and dear old Peggotty, who acted as housekeeper, with open arms and tears of joy. My aunt was mightily amused, when we began to talk composedly, by my account of my meeting with Mr. Chillip, and of his holding her in such dread remembrance; and both she and Peggotty had a great deal to say about my poor mother's second husband, and "that murdering woman of a sister,"--on whom I think no pain or penalty would have induced my aunt to bestow any Christian or Proper Name, or any other designation. CHAPTER LX. AGNES. My aunt and I, when we were left alone, talked far into the night. How the emigrants never wrote home, otherwise than cheerfully and hopefully; how Mr. Micawber had actually remitted divers small sums of money, on account of those "pecuniary liabilities," in reference to which he had been so business-like as between man and man; how Janet, returning into my aunt's service when she came back to Dover, had finally carried out her renunciation of mankind by entering into wedlock with a thriving tavern-keeper; and how my aunt had finally set _her_ seal on the same great principle, by aiding and abetting the bride, and crowning the marriage-ceremony with her presence; were among our topics--already more or less familiar to me through the letters I had had. Mr. Dick, as usual, was not forgotten. My aunt informed me how he incessantly occupied himself in copying everything he could lay his hands on, and kept King Charles the First at a respectful distance by that semblance of employment; how it was one of the main joys and rewards of her life that he was free and happy, instead of pining in monotonous restraint; and how (as a novel general conclusion) nobody but she could ever fully know what he was. "And when, Trot," said my aunt, patting the back of my hand, as we sat in our old way before the fire, "when are you going over to Canterbury?" "I shall get a horse, and ride over to-morrow morning, aunt, unless you will go with me?" "No!" said my aunt, in her short abrupt way. "I mean to stay where I am." Then, I should ride, I said. I could not have come through Canterbury to-day without stopping, if I had been coming to anyone but her. She was pleased, but answered, "Tut, Trot; _my_ old bones would have kept till to-morrow!" and softly patted my hand again, as I sat looking thoughtfully at the fire. Thoughtfully, for I could not be here once more, and so near Agnes, without the revival of those regrets with which I had so long been occupied. Softened regrets they might be, teaching me what I had failed to learn when my younger life was all before me, but not the less regrets. "Oh, Trot," I seemed to hear my aunt say once more; and I understood her better now--"Blind, blind, blind!" We both kept silence for some minutes. When I raised my eyes, I found that she was steadily observant of me. Perhaps she had followed the current of my mind; for it seemed to me an easy one to track now, wilful as it had been once. "You will find her father a white-haired old man," said my aunt, "though a better man in all other respects--a reclaimed man. Neither will you find him measuring all human interests, and joys, and sorrows, with his one poor little inch-rule now. Trust me, child, such things must shrink very much, before they can be measured off in _that_ way." "Indeed they must," said I. "You will find her," pursued my aunt, "as good, as beautiful, as earnest, as disinterested, as she has always been. If I knew higher praise, Trot, I would bestow it on her." There was no higher praise for her; no higher reproach for me. O, how had I strayed so far away! "If she trains the young girls whom she has about her, to be like herself," said my aunt, earnest even to the filling of her eyes with tears, "Heaven knows, her life will be well employed! Useful and happy, as she said that day! How could she be otherwise than useful and happy!" "Has Agnes any--" I was thinking aloud, rather than speaking. "Well? Hey? Any what?" said my aunt, sharply. "Any lover," said I. "A score," cried my aunt, with a kind of indignant pride. "She might have married twenty times, my dear, since you have been gone!" "No doubt," said I. "No doubt. But has she any lover who is worthy of her? Agnes could care for no other." My aunt sat musing for a little while, with her chin upon her hand. Slowly raising her eyes to mine, she said: "I suspect she has an attachment, Trot." "A prosperous one?" said I. "Trot," returned my aunt gravely, "I can't say. I have no right to tell you even so much. She has never confided it to me, but I suspect it." She looked so attentively and anxiously at me (I even saw her tremble), that I felt now, more than ever, that she had followed my late thoughts. I summoned all the resolutions I had made, in all those many days and nights, and all those many conflicts of my heart. "If it should be so," I began, "and I hope it is--" "I don't know that it is," said my aunt curtly. "You must not be ruled by my suspicions. You must keep them secret. They are very slight, perhaps. I have no right to speak." "If it should be so," I repeated, "Agnes will tell me at her own good time. A sister to whom I have confided so much, aunt, will not be reluctant to confide in me." My aunt withdrew her eyes from mine, as slowly as she had turned them upon me; and covered them thoughtfully with her hand. By and by she put her other hand on my shoulder; and so we both sat, looking into the past, without saying another word, until we parted for the night. I rode away, early in the morning, for the scene of my old school days. I cannot say that I was yet quite happy, in the hope that I was gaining a victory over myself; even in the prospect of so soon looking on her face again. The well-remembered ground was soon traversed, and I came into the quiet streets, where every stone was a boy's book to me. I went on foot to the old house, and went away with a heart too full to enter. I returned; and looking, as I passed, through the low window of the turret-room where first Uriah Heep, and afterwards Mr. Micawber, had been wont to sit, saw that it was a little parlor now, and that there was no office. Otherwise the staid old house was, as to its cleanliness and order, still just as it had been when I first saw it. I requested the new maid who admitted me, to tell Miss Wickfield that a gentleman who waited on her from a friend abroad, was there; and I was shown up the grave old staircase (cautioned of the steps I knew so well), into the unchanged drawing-room. The books that Agnes and I had read together, were on their shelves; and the desk where I had labored at my lessons, many a night, stood yet at the same old corner of the table. All the little changes that had crept in when the Heeps were there, were changed again. Everything was as it used to be, in the happy time. I stood in a window, and looked across the ancient street at the opposite houses, recalling how I had watched them on wet afternoons, when I first came there; and how I had used to speculate about the people who appeared at any of the windows, and had followed them with my eyes up and down stairs, while women went clicking along the pavement in pattens, and the dull rain fell in slanting lines, and poured out of the waterspout yonder, and flowed into the road. The feeling with which I used to watch the tramps, as they came into the town on those wet evenings, at dusk, and limped past, with their bundles drooping over their shoulders at the ends of sticks, came freshly back to me; fraught, as then, with the smell of damp earth, and wet leaves and briar, and the sensation of the very airs that blew upon me in my own toilsome journey. The opening of the little door in the panneled wall made me start and turn. Her beautiful serene eyes met mine as she came towards me. She stopped and laid her hand upon her bosom, and I caught her in my arms. "Agnes! my dear girl! I have come too suddenly upon you." "No, no! I am so rejoiced to see you, Trotwood!" "Dear Agnes, the happiness it is to me, to see you once again!" I folded her to my heart, and, for a little while, we were both silent. Presently we sat down, side by side; and her angel-face was turned upon me with the welcome I had dreamed of, waking and sleeping, for whole years. She was so true, she was so beautiful, she was so good,--I owed her so much gratitude, she was so dear to me, that I could find no utterance for what I felt. I tried to bless her, tried to thank her, tried to tell her (as I had often done in letters) what an influence she had upon me; but all my efforts were in vain. My love and joy were dumb. With her own sweet tranquillity, she calmed my agitation; led me back to the time of our parting; spoke to me of Emily, whom she had visited, in secret, many times; spoke to me tenderly of Dora's grave. With the unerring instinct of her noble heart, she touched the chords of my memory so softly and harmoniously, that not one jarred within me; I could listen to the sorrowful, distant music, and desire to shrink from nothing it awoke. How could I, when, blended with it all, was her dear self, the better angel of my life? "And you, Agnes," I said, by and by. "Tell me of yourself. You have hardly ever told me of your own life, in all this lapse of time!" "What should I tell?" she answered, with her radiant smile. "Papa is well. You see us here, quiet in our own home; our anxieties set at rest, our home restored to us; and knowing that, dear Trotwood, you know all." "All, Agnes?" said I. She looked at me, with some fluttering wonder in her face. "Is there nothing else, Sister?" I said. Her color, which had just now faded, returned, and faded again. She smiled; with a quiet sadness, I thought; and shook her head. I had sought to lead her to what my aunt had hinted at; for, sharply painful to me as it must be to receive that confidence, I was to discipline my heart, and do my duty to her. I saw, however, that she was uneasy, and I let it pass. "You have much to do, dear Agnes?" "With my school?" said she, looking up again, in all her bright composure. "Yes. It is laborious, is it not?" "The labor is so pleasant," she returned, "that it is scarcely grateful in me to call it by that name." "Nothing good is difficult to you," said I. Her color came and went once more; and once more, as she bent her head, I saw the same sad smile. "You will wait and see papa," said Agnes, cheerfully, "and pass the day with us? Perhaps you will sleep in your own room? We always call it yours." I could not do that, having promised to ride back to my aunt's, at night; but I would pass the day there, joyfully. "I must be a prisoner for a little while," said Agnes, "but here are the old books, Trotwood, and the old music." "Even the old flowers are here," said I, looking round; "or the old kinds." "I have found a pleasure," returned Agnes, smiling, "while you have been absent, in keeping every thing as it used to be when we were children. For we were very happy then, I think." "Heaven knows we were!" said I. "And every little thing that has reminded me of my brother," said Agnes, with her cordial eyes turned cheerfully upon me, "has been a welcome companion. Even this," showing me the basket-trifle, full of keys, still hanging at her side, "seems to jingle a kind of old tune!" She smiled again, and went out at the door by which she had come. It was for me to guard this sisterly affection with religious care. It was all that I had left myself, and it was a treasure. If I once shook the foundations of the sacred confidence and usage, in virtue of which it was given to me, it was lost, and could never be recovered. I set this steadily before myself. The better I loved her, the more it behoved me never to forget it. I walked through the streets; and, once more seeing my old adversary the butcher--now a constable, with his staff hanging up in the shop--went down to look at the place where I had fought him; and there meditated on Miss Shepherd and the eldest Miss Larkins, and all the idle loves and likings, and dislikings, of that time. Nothing seemed to have survived that time but Agnes; and she, ever a star above me, was brighter and higher. When I returned, Mr. Wickfield had come home, from a garden he had, a couple of miles or so out of the town, where he now employed himself almost every day. I found him as my aunt had described him. We sat down to dinner, with some half-dozen little girls; and he seemed but the shadow of his handsome picture on the wall. The tranquillity and peace belonging, of old, to that quiet ground in my memory, pervaded it again. When dinner was done, Mr. Wickfield taking no wine, and I desiring none, we went up stairs; where Agnes and her little charges sang and played, and worked. After tea the children left us; and we three sat together, talking of the by-gone days. "My part in them," said Mr. Wickfield, shaking his white head, "has much matter for regret--for deep regret, and deep contrition, Trotwood, you well know. But I would not cancel it, if it were in my power." I could readily believe that, looking at the face beside him. "I should cancel with it," he pursued, "such patience and devotion, such fidelity, such a child's love, as I must not forget, no! even to forget myself." "I understand you, sir," I softly said. "I hold it--I have always held it--in veneration." "But no one knows, not even you," he returned, "how much she has done, how much she has undergone, how hard she has striven. Dear Agnes!" She had put her hand entreatingly on his arm, to stop him; and was very, very, pale. "Well, well!" he said with a sigh, dismissing, as I then saw, some trial she had borne, or was yet to bear, in connexion with what my aunt had told me. "Well! I have never told you, Trotwood, of her mother. Has any one?" "Never, sir." "It's not much--though it was much to suffer. She married me in opposition to her father's wish, and he renounced her. She prayed him to forgive her, before my Agnes came into this world. He was a very hard man, and her mother had long been dead. He repulsed her. He broke her heart." Agnes leaned upon his shoulder, and stole her arm about his neck. "She had an affectionate and gentle heart," he said; "and it was broken. I knew its tender nature very well. No one could, if I did not. She loved me dearly, but was never happy. She was always laboring, in secret, under this distress; and being delicate and downcast at the time of his last repulse--for it was not the first, by many--pined away and died. She left me Agnes, two weeks old; and the grey hair that you recollect me with, when you first came." He kissed Agnes on her cheek. "My love for my dear child was a diseased love, but my mind was all unhealthy then. I say no more of that. I am not speaking of myself, Trotwood, but of her mother, and of her. If I give you any clue to what I am, or to what I have been, you will unravel it, I know. What Agnes is, I need not say. I have always read something of her poor mother's story, in her character; and so I tell it you to-night, when we three are again together, after such great changes. I have told it all." His bowed head, and her angel face and filial duty, derived a more pathetic meaning from it than they had had before. If I had wanted anything by which to mark this night of our reunion, I should have found it in this. Agnes rose up from her father's side, before long; and going softly to her piano, played some of the old airs to which we had often listened in that place. "Have you any intention of going away again?" Agnes asked me, as I was standing by. "What does my sister say to that?" "I hope not." "Then I have no such intention, Agnes." "I think you ought not, Trotwood, since you ask me," she said, mildly. "Your growing reputation and success enlarge your power of doing good; and if _I_ could spare my brother," with her eyes upon me, "perhaps the time could not." "What I am, you have made me, Agnes. You should know best." "_I_ made you, Trotwood?" "Yes! Agnes, my dear girl!" I said, bending over her. "I tried to tell you, when we met to-day, something that has been in my thoughts since Dora died. You remember, when you came down to me in our little room--pointing upward, Agnes?" "Oh, Trotwood!" she returned, her eyes filled with tears. "So loving, so confiding, and so young! Can I ever forget?" "As you were then, my sister, I have often thought since, you have ever been to me. Ever pointing upward, Agnes; ever leading me to something better; ever directing me to higher things!" She only shook her head; through her tears I saw the same sad quiet smile. "And I am so grateful to you for it, Agnes, so bound to you, that there is no name for the affection of my heart. I want you to know, yet don't know how to tell you, that all my life long I shall look up to you, and be guided by you, as I have been through the darkness that is past. Whatever betides, whatever new ties you may form, whatever changes may come between us, I shall always look to you, and love you, as I do now, and have always done. You will always be my solace and resource, as you have always been. Until I die, my dearest sister, I shall see you always before me, pointing upward!" She put her hand in mine, and told me she was proud of me, and of what I said; although I praised her very far beyond her worth. Then, she went on softly playing, but without removing her eyes from me. "Do you know, what I have heard to-night, Agnes," said I, "strangely seems to be a part of the feeling with which I regarded you when I saw you first--with which I sat beside you in my rough school-days?" "You knew I had no mother," she replied with a smile, "and felt kindly towards me." "More than that, Agnes. I knew, almost as if I had known this story, that there was something inexplicably gentle and softened, surrounding you; something that might have been sorrowful in some one else (as I can now understand it was), but was not so in you." She softly played on, looking at me still. "Will you laugh at my cherishing such fancies, Agnes?" "No!" "Or at my saying that I really believe I felt, even then, that you could be faithfully affectionate against all discouragement, and never cease to be so, until you ceased to live?--Will you laugh at such a dream?" "Oh, no! Oh, no!" For an instant, a distressful shadow crossed her face; but, even in the start it gave me, it was gone; and she was playing on, and looking at me with her own calm smile. As I rode back in the lonely night, the wind going by me like a restless memory, I thought of this, and feared she was not happy. _I_ was not happy; but, thus far, I had faithfully set the seal upon the Past, and, thinking of her, pointing upward, thought of her as pointing to that sky above me, where, in the mystery to come, I might yet love her with a love unknown on earth, and tell her what the strife had been within me when I loved her here. CHAPTER LXI. I AM SHOWN TWO INTERESTING PENITENTS. For a time--at all events until my book should be completed, which would be the work of several months--I took up my abode in my aunt's house at Dover; and there, sitting in the window from which I had looked out at the moon upon the sea, when that roof first gave me shelter, I quietly pursued my task. In pursuance of my intention of referring to my own fictions only when their course should incidentally connect itself with the progress of my story, I do not enter on the aspirations, the delights, anxieties, and triumphs, of my art. That I truly devoted myself to it with my strongest earnestness, and bestowed upon it every energy of my soul, I have already said. If the books I have written be of any worth, they will supply the rest. I shall otherwise have written to poor purpose, and the rest will be of interest to no one. Occasionally, I went to London; to lose myself in the swarm of life there, or to consult with Traddles on some business point. He had managed for me, in my absence, with the soundest judgment; and my worldly affairs were prospering. As my notoriety began to bring upon me an enormous quantity of letters from people of whom I had no knowledge--chiefly about nothing, and extremely difficult to answer--I agreed with Traddles to have my name painted up on his door. There, the devoted postmen on that beat delivered bushels of letters for me; and there, at intervals, I labored through them, like a Home Secretary of State without the salary. Among this correspondence, there dropped in, every now and then, an obliging proposal from one of the numerous outsiders always lurking about the Commons, to practise under cover of my name (if I would take the necessary steps remaining to make a proctor of myself), and pay me a percentage on the profits. But I declined these offers; being already aware that there were plenty of such covert practitioners in existence, and considering the Commons quite bad enough, without my doing anything to make it worse. The girls had gone home, when my name burst into bloom on Traddles's door; and the sharp boy looked, all day, as if he had never heard of Sophy, shut up in a back room, glancing down from her work into a sooty little strip of garden with a pump in it. But, there I always found her, the same bright housewife; often humming her Devonshire ballads when no strange foot was coming up the stairs, and blunting the sharp boy in his official closet with melody. I wondered, at first, why I so often found Sophy writing in a copy-book; and why she always shut it up when I appeared, and hurried it into the table-drawer. But the secret soon came out. One day, Traddles (who had just come home through the drizzling sleet from Court) took a paper out of his desk, and asked me what I thought of that handwriting? "Oh, _don't_, Tom!" cried Sophy, who was warming his slippers before the fire. "My dear," returned Tom, in a delighted state, "why not? What do you say to that writing, Copperfield?" "It's extraordinarily legal and formal," said I. "I don't think I ever saw such a stiff hand." "Not like a lady's hand, is it?" said Traddles. "A lady's!" I repeated. "Bricks and mortar are more like a lady's hand!" Traddles broke into a rapturous laugh, and informed me that it was Sophy's writing; that Sophy had vowed and declared he would need a copying-clerk soon, and she would be that clerk; that she had acquired this hand from a pattern; and that she could throw off--I forget how many folios an hour. Sophy was very much confused by my being told all this, and said that when "Tom" was made a judge he wouldn't be so ready to proclaim it. Which "Tom" denied; averring that he should always be equally proud of it, under all circumstances. "What a thoroughly good and charming wife she is, my dear Traddles!" said I, when she had gone away, laughing. "My dear Copperfield," returned Traddles, "she is, without any exception, the dearest girl! The way she manages this place; her punctuality, domestic knowledge, economy, and order; her cheerfulness, Copperfield!" "Indeed, you have reason to commend her!" I returned. "You are a happy fellow. I believe you make yourselves, and each other, two of the happiest people in the world." "I am sure we _are_ two of the happiest people," returned Traddles. "I admit that, at all events. Bless my soul, when I see her getting up by candle-light on these dark mornings, busying herself in the day's arrangements, going out to market before the clerks come into the Inn, caring for no weather, devising the most capital little dinners out of the plainest materials, making puddings and pies, keeping everything in its right place, always so neat and ornamental herself, sitting up at night with me if it's ever so late, sweet-tempered and encouraging always, and all for me, I positively sometimes can't believe it, Copperfield!" He was tender of the very slippers she had been warming, as he put them on, and stretched his feet enjoyingly upon the fender. "I positively sometimes can't believe it," said Traddles. "Then, our pleasures! Dear me, they are inexpensive, but they are quite wonderful! When we are at home here, of an evening, and shut the outer door, and draw those curtains--which she made--where could we be more snug? When it's fine, and we go out for a walk in the evening, the streets abound in enjoyment for us. We look into the glittering windows of the jewellers' shops; and I show Sophy which of the diamond-eyed serpents, coiled up on white satin rising grounds, I would give her if I could afford it; and Sophy shows me which of the gold watches that are capped and jewelled and engine-turned, and possessed of the horizontal lever-escape-movement, and all sorts of things, she would buy for me if _she_ could afford it; and we pick out the spoons and forks, fish-slices, butter-knives, and sugar-tongs, we should both prefer if we could both afford it; and really we go away as if we had got them! Then, when we stroll into the squares, and great streets, and see a house to let, sometimes we look up at it, and say, how would _that_ do, if I was made a judge? And we parcel it out--such a room for us, such rooms for the girls, and so forth; until we settle to our satisfaction that it would do, or it wouldn't do, as the case may be. Sometimes, we go at half-price to the pit of the theatre--the very smell of which is cheap, in my opinion, at the money--and there we thoroughly enjoy the play: which Sophy believes every word of, and so do I. In walking home, perhaps we buy a little bit of something at a cook's-shop, or a little lobster at the fishmonger's, and bring it here, and make a splendid supper, chatting about what we have seen. Now, you know, Copperfield, if I was Lord Chancellor, we couldn't do this!" "You would do something, whatever you were, my dear Traddles," thought I, "that would be pleasant and amiable! And by the way," I said aloud, "I suppose you never draw any skeletons now?" "Really," replied Traddles, laughing, and reddening, "I can't wholly deny that I do, my dear Copperfield. For, being in one of the back rows of the King's Bench the other day, with a pen in my hand, the fancy came into my head to try how I had preserved that accomplishment. And I am afraid there's a skeleton--in a wig--on the ledge of the desk." After we had both laughed heartily, Traddles wound up by looking with a smile at the fire, and saying, in his forgiving way, "Old Creakle!" "I have a letter from that old--Rascal here," said I. For I never was less disposed to forgive him the way he used to batter Traddles, than when I saw Traddles so ready to forgive him himself. "From Creakle the schoolmaster?" exclaimed Traddles. "No!" "Among the persons who are attracted to me in my rising fame and fortune," said I, looking over my letters, "and who discover that they were always much attached to me, is the self-same Creakle. He is not a schoolmaster now, Traddles. He is retired. He is a Middlesex Magistrate." I thought Traddles might be surprised to hear it, but he was not so at all. "How do you suppose he comes to be a Middlesex Magistrate?" said I. "Oh dear me!" replied Traddles, "it would be very difficult to answer that question. Perhaps he voted for somebody, or lent money to somebody, or bought something of somebody, or otherwise obliged somebody, or jobbed for somebody, who knew somebody who got the lieutenant of the county to nominate him for the commission." "On the commission he is, at any rate," said I. "And he writes to me here, that he will be glad to show me, in operation, the only true system of prison discipline; the only unchallengeable way of making sincere and lasting converts and penitents--which, you know, is by solitary confinement. What do you say?" "To the system?" inquired Traddles, looking grave. "No. To my accepting the offer, and your going with me?" "I don't object," said Traddles. "Then I'll write to say so. You remember (to say nothing of our treatment) this same Creakle turning his son out of doors, I suppose, and the life he used to lead his wife and daughter?" "Perfectly," said Traddles. "Yet, if you'll read his letter, you'll find he is the tenderest of men to prisoners convicted of the whole calendar of felonies," said I; "though I can't find that his tenderness extends to any other class of created beings." Traddles shrugged his shoulders, and was not at all surprised. I had not expected him to be, and was not surprised myself; or my observation of similar practical satires would have been but scanty. We arranged the time of our visit, and I wrote accordingly to Mr. Creakle that evening. On the appointed day--I think it was the next day, but no matter--Traddles and I repaired to the prison where Mr. Creakle was powerful. It was an immense and solid building, erected at a vast expense. I could not help thinking, as we approached the gate, what an uproar would have been made in the country, if any deluded man had proposed to spend one half the money it had cost, on the erection of an industrial school for the young, or a house of refuge for the deserving old. In an office that might have been on the ground-floor of the Tower of Babel, it was so massively constructed, we were presented to our old schoolmaster; who was one of a group, composed of two or three of the busier sort of magistrates, and some visitors they had brought. He received me, like a man who had formed my mind in bygone years, and had always loved me tenderly. On my introducing Traddles, Mr. Creakle expressed, in like manner, but in an inferior degree, that he had always been Traddles's guide, philosopher, and friend. Our venerable instructor was a great deal older, and not improved in appearance. His face was as fiery as ever; his eyes were as small, and rather deeper set. The scanty, wet-looking grey hair, by which I remembered him, was almost gone; and the thick veins in his bald head were none the more agreeable to look at. After some conversation among these gentlemen, from which I might have supposed that there was nothing in the world to be legitimately taken into account but the supreme comfort of prisoners, at any expense, and nothing on the wide earth to be done outside prison-doors, we began our inspection. It being then just dinner-time, we went, first into the great kitchen, where every prisoner's dinner was in course of being set out separately (to be handed to him in his cell), with the regularity and precision of clock-work. I said aside, to Traddles, that I wondered whether it occurred to anybody, that there was a striking contrast between these plentiful repasts of choice quality, and the dinners, not to say of paupers, but of soldiers, sailors, laborers, the great bulk of the honest, working community; of whom not one man in five hundred ever dined half so well. But I learned that the "system" required high living; and, in short, to dispose of the system, once for all, I found that on that head and on all others, "the system" put an end to all doubts, and disposed of all anomalies. Nobody appeared to have the least idea that there was any other system, but _the_ system, to be considered. As we were going through some of the magnificent passages, I inquired of Mr. Creakle and his friends what were supposed to be the main advantages of this all-governing and universally over-riding system? I found them to be the perfect isolation of prisoners--so that no one man in confinement there, knew anything about another; and the reduction of prisoners to a wholesome state of mind, leading to sincere contrition and repentance. Now, it struck me, when we began to visit individuals in their cells, and to traverse the passages in which those cells were, and to have the manner of the going to chapel and so forth, explained to us, that there was a strong probability of the prisoners knowing a good deal about each other, and of their carrying on a pretty complete system of intercourse. This, at the time I write, has been proved, I believe, to be the case; but, as it would have been flat blasphemy against the system to have hinted such a doubt then, I looked out for the penitence as diligently as I could. And here again, I had great misgivings. I found as prevalent a fashion in the form of the penitence, as I had left outside in the forms of the coats and waistcoats in the windows of the tailors' shops. I found a vast amount of profession, varying very little in character: varying very little (which I thought exceedingly suspicious), even in words. I found a great many foxes, disparaging whole vineyards of inaccessible grapes; but I found very few foxes whom I would have trusted within reach of a bunch. Above all, I found that the most professing men were the greatest objects of interest; and that their conceit, their vanity, their want of excitement, and their love of deception (which many of them possessed to an almost incredible extent, as their histories showed), all prompted to these professions, and were all gratified by them. However, I heard so repeatedly, in the course of our goings to and fro, of a certain Number Twenty Seven, who was the Favorite, and who really appeared to be a Model Prisoner, that I resolved to suspend my judgment until I should see Twenty Seven. Twenty Eight, I understood, was also a bright particular star; but it was his misfortune to have his glory a little dimmed by the extraordinary lustre of Twenty Seven. I heard so much of Twenty Seven, of his pious admonitions to everybody around him, and of the beautiful letters he constantly wrote to his mother (whom he seemed to consider in a very bad way), that I became quite impatient to see him. I had to restrain my impatience for some time, on account of Twenty Seven being reserved for a concluding effect. But, at last, we came to the door of his cell; and Mr. Creakle, looking through a little hole in it, reported to us, in a state of the greatest admiration, that he was reading a Hymn Book. There was such a rush of heads immediately, to see Number Twenty Seven reading his Hymn Book, that the little hole was blocked up, six or seven heads deep. To remedy this inconvenience, and give us an opportunity of conversing with Twenty Seven in all his purity, Mr. Creakle directed the door of the cell to be unlocked, and Twenty Seven to be invited out into the passage. This was done; and whom should Traddles and I then behold, to our amazement, in this converted Number Twenty Seven, but Uriah Heep! He knew us directly; and said, as he came out--with the old writhe,-- "How do you do, Mr. Copperfield? How do you do, Mr. Traddles?" This recognition caused a general admiration in the party. I rather thought that everyone was struck by his not being proud, and taking notice of us. "Well, Twenty Seven," said Mr. Creakle, mournfully admiring him. "How do you find yourself to-day?" "I am very umble, sir!" replied Uriah Heep. "You are always so, Twenty Seven," said Mr. Creakle. Here, another gentleman asked, with extreme anxiety: "Are you quite comfortable?" "Yes, I thank you, sir!" said Uriah Heep, looking in that direction. "Far more comfortable here, than ever I was outside. I see my follies now, sir. That's what makes me comfortable." Several gentlemen were much affected; and a third questioner, forcing himself to the front, inquired with extreme feeling: "How do you find the beef?" "Thank you, sir," replied Uriah, glancing in the new direction of this voice, "it was tougher yesterday than I could wish; but it's my duty to bear. I have committed follies, gentlemen," said Uriah, looking round with a meek smile, "and I ought to bear the consequences without repining." A murmur, partly of gratification at Twenty Seven's celestial state of mind, and partly of indignation against the Contractor who had given him any cause of complaint (a note of which was immediately made by Mr. Creakle), having subsided, Twenty Seven stood in the midst of us, as if he felt himself the principal object of merit in a highly meritorious museum. That we, the neophytes, might have an excess of light shining upon us all at once, orders were given to let out Twenty Eight. I had been so much astonished already, that I only felt a kind of resigned wonder when Mr. Littimer walked forth, reading a good book! [Illustration: I am shown two interesting penitents.] "Twenty Eight," said a gentleman in spectacles, who had not yet spoken, "you complained last week, my good fellow, of the cocoa. How has it been since?" "I thank you, sir," said Mr. Littimer, "it has been better made. If I might take the liberty of saying so, sir, I don't think the milk which is boiled with it is quite genuine; but I am aware, sir, that there is great adulteration of milk, in London, and that the article in a pure state is difficult to be obtained." It appeared to me that the gentleman in spectacles backed his Twenty Eight against Mr. Creakle's Twenty Seven, for each of them took his own man in hand. "What is your state of mind, Twenty Eight?" said the questioner in spectacles. "I thank you, sir," returned Mr. Littimer; "I see my follies now, sir. I am a good deal troubled when I think of the sins of my former companions, sir; but I trust they may find forgiveness." "You are quite happy yourself?" said the questioner, nodding encouragement. "I am much obliged to you, sir," returned Mr. Littimer. "Perfectly so." "Is there anything at all on your mind, now?" said the questioner. "If so, mention it, Twenty Eight." "Sir," said Mr. Littimer, without looking up, "if my eyes have not deceived me, there is a gentleman present who was acquainted with me in my former life. It may be profitable to that gentleman to know, sir, that I attribute my past follies, entirely to having lived a thoughtless life in the service of young men; and to having allowed myself to be led by them into weaknesses, which I had not the strength to resist. I hope that gentleman will take warning, sir, and will not be offended at my freedom. It is for his good. I am conscious of my own past follies. I hope he may repent of all the wickedness and sin, to which he has been a party." I observed that several gentlemen were shading their eyes, each, with one hand, as if they had just come into church. "This does you credit, Twenty Eight," returned the questioner. "I should have expected it of you. Is there anything else?" "Sir," returned Mr. Littimer, slightly lifting up his eyebrows, but not his eyes, "there was a young woman who fell into dissolute courses, that I endeavoured to save, sir, but could not rescue. I beg that gentleman, if he has it in his power, to inform that young woman from me that I forgive her her bad conduct towards myself; and that I call her to repentance--if he will be so good." "I have no doubt, Twenty Eight," returned the questioner, "that the gentleman you refer to feels very strongly--as we all must--what you have so properly said. We will not detain you." "I thank you, sir," said Mr. Littimer. "Gentlemen, I wish you a good day, and hoping you and your families will also see your wickedness, and amend!" With this, Number Twenty Eight retired, after a glance between him and Uriah; as if they were not altogether unknown to each other, through some medium of communication; and a murmur went round the group, as his door shut upon him, that he was a most respectable man, and a beautiful case. "Now, Twenty Seven," said Mr. Creakle, entering on a clear stage with _his_ man, "is there anything that any one can do for you? If so, mention it." "I would umbly ask, sir," returned Uriah, with a jerk of his malevolent head, "for leave to write again to mother." "It shall certainly be granted," said Mr. Creakle. "Thank you, sir! I am anxious about mother. I am afraid she ain't safe." Somebody incautiously asked, what from? But there was a scandalised whisper of "Hush!" "Immortally safe, sir," returned Uriah, writhing in the direction of the voice. "I should wish mother to be got into my state. I never should have been got into my present state if I hadn't come here. I wish mother had come here. It would be better for everybody, if they got took up, and was brought here." This sentiment gave unbounded satisfaction--greater satisfaction, I think, than anything that had passed yet. "Before I come here," said Uriah, stealing a look at us, as if he would have blighted the outer world to which we belonged, if he could, "I was given to follies; but now I am sensible of my follies. There's a deal of sin outside. There's a deal of sin in mother. There's nothing but sin everywhere--except here." "You are quite changed?" said Mr. Creakle. "Oh dear, yes, sir!" cried this hopeful penitent. "You wouldn't relapse, if you were going out?" asked somebody else. "Oh de-ar no, sir!" "Well!" said Mr. Creakle, "this is very gratifying. You have addressed Mr. Copperfield, Twenty Seven. Do you wish to say anything further to him?" "You knew me, a long time before I came here and was changed, Mr. Copperfield," said Uriah, looking at me; and a more villainous look I never saw, even on his visage. "You knew me when, in spite of my follies, I was umble among them that was proud, and meek among them that was violent--you was violent to me yourself, Mr. Copperfield. Once, you struck me a blow in the face, you know." General commiseration. Several indignant glances directed at me. "But I forgive you, Mr. Copperfield," said Uriah, making his forgiving nature the subject of a most impious and awful parallel, which I shall not record. "I forgive everybody. It would ill become me to bear malice. I freely forgive you, and I hope you'll curb your passions in future. I hope Mr. W. will repent, and Miss W., and all of that sinful lot. You've been visited with affliction, and I hope it may do you good; but you'd better have come here. Mr. W. had better have come here, and Miss W. too. The best wish I could give you, Mr. Copperfield, and give all of you gentlemen, is, that you could be took up and brought here. When I think of my past follies, and my present state, I am sure it would be best for you. I pity all who ain't brought here!" He sneaked back into his cell, amidst a little chorus of approbation; and both Traddles and I experienced a great relief when he was locked in. It was a characteristic feature in this repentance, that I was fain to ask what these two men had done, to be there at all. That appeared to be the last thing about which they had anything to say. I addressed myself to one of the two warders, who, I suspected, from certain latent indications in their faces, knew pretty well what all this stir was worth. "Do you know," said I, as we walked along the passage, "what felony was Number Twenty Seven's last 'folly?'" The answer was, that it was a Bank case. "A fraud on the Bank of England?" I asked. "Yes, sir. Fraud, forgery, and conspiracy. He and some others. He set the others on. It was a deep plot for a large sum. Sentence, transportation for life. Twenty Seven was the knowingest bird of the lot, and had very nearly kept himself safe; but not quite. The Bank was just able to put salt upon his tail--and only just." "Do you know Twenty Eight's offence?" "Twenty Eight," returned my informant, speaking throughout in a low tone, and looking over his shoulder as we walked along the passage, to guard himself from being overheard, in such an unlawful reference to these Immaculates, by Creakle and the rest; "Twenty Eight (also transportation) got a place, and robbed a young master of a matter of two hundred and fifty pounds in money and valuables, the night before they were going abroad. I particularly recollect his case, from his being took by a dwarf." "A what?" "A little woman. I have forgot her name." "Not Mowcher?" "That's it! He had eluded pursuit, and was going to America in a flaxen wig, and whiskers, and such a complete disguise as never you see in all your born days; when the little woman, being in Southampton, met him walking along the street--picked him out with her sharp eye in a moment--ran betwixt his legs to upset him--and held on to him like grim Death." "Excellent Miss Mowcher!" cried I. "You'd have said so, if you had seen her, standing on a chair in the witness-box at his trial, as I did," said my friend. "He cut her face right open, and pounded her in the most brutal manner, when she took him; but she never loosed her hold till he was locked up. She held so tight to him, in fact, that the officers were obliged to take 'em both together. She gave her evidence in the gamest way, and was highly complimented by the Bench, and cheered right home to her lodgings. She said in Court that she'd have took him single-handed (on account of what she knew concerning him), if he had been Samson. And it's my belief she would!" It was mine too, and I highly respected Miss Mowcher for it. We had now seen all there was to see. It would have been in vain to represent to such a man as the Worshipful Mr. Creakle, that Twenty Seven and Twenty Eight were perfectly consistent and unchanged; that exactly what they were then, they had always been; that the hypocritical knaves were just the subjects to make that sort of profession in such a place; that they knew its market-value at least as well as we did, in the immediate service it would do them when they were expatriated; in a word, that it was a rotten, hollow, painfully-suggestive piece of business altogether. We left them to their system and themselves, and went home wondering. "Perhaps it's a good thing, Traddles," said I, "to have an unsound Hobby ridden hard; for it's the sooner ridden to death." "I hope so," replied Traddles. CHAPTER LXII. A LIGHT SHINES ON MY WAY. The year came round to Christmas-time, and I had been at home above two months. I had seen Agnes frequently. However loud the general voice might be in giving me encouragement, and however fervent the emotions and endeavours to which it roused me, I heard her lightest word of praise as I heard nothing else. At least once a week, and sometimes oftener, I rode over there, and passed the evening. I usually rode back at night; for the old unhappy sense was always hovering about me now--most sorrowfully when I left her--and I was glad to be up and out, rather than wandering over the past in weary wakefulness or miserable dreams. I wore away the longest part of many wild sad nights, in those rides; reviving, as I went, the thoughts that had occupied me in my long absence. Or, if I were to say rather that I listened to the echoes of those thoughts, I should better express the truth. They spoke to me from afar off. I had put them at a distance, and accepted my inevitable place. When I read to Agnes what I wrote; when I saw her listening face; moved her to smiles or tears; and heard her cordial voice so earnest on the shadowy events of that imaginative world in which I lived; I thought what a fate mine might have been--but only thought so, as I had thought after I was married to Dora, what I could have wished my wife to be. My duty to Agnes, who loved me with a love, which, if I disquieted, I wronged most selfishly and poorly, and could never restore; my matured assurance that I, who had worked out my own destiny, and won what I had impetuously set my heart on, had no right to murmur, and must bear; comprised what I felt and what I had learned. But I loved her: and now it even became some consolation to me, vaguely to conceive a distant day when I might blamelessly avow it; when all this should be over; when I could say "Agnes, so it was when I came home; and now I am old, and I never have loved since!" She did not once show me any change in herself. What she always had been to me, she still was; wholly unaltered. Between my aunt and me there had been something, in this connexion, since the night of my return, which I cannot call a restraint, or an avoidance of the subject, so much as an implied understanding that we thought of it together, but did not shape our thoughts into words. When, according to our old custom, we sat before the fire at night, we often fell into this train; as naturally, and as consciously to each other, as if we had unreservedly said so. But we preserved an unbroken silence. I believed that she had read, or partly read, my thoughts that night; and that she fully comprehended why I gave mine no more distinct expression. This Christmas-time being come, and Agnes having reposed no new confidence in me, a doubt that had several times arisen in my mind--whether she could have that perception of the true state of my breast, which restrained her with the apprehension of giving me pain--began to oppress me heavily. If that were so, my sacrifice was nothing; my plainest obligation to her unfulfilled; and every poor action I had shrunk from, I was hourly doing. I resolved to set this right beyond all doubt;--if such a barrier were between us, to break it down at once with a determined hand. It was--what lasting reason have I to remember it!--a cold, harsh, winter day. There had been snow, some hours before; and it lay, not deep, but hard-frozen on the ground. Out at sea, beyond my window, the wind blew ruggedly from the north. I had been thinking of it, sweeping over those mountain wastes of snow in Switzerland, then inaccessible to any human foot; and had been speculating which was the lonelier, those solitary regions, or a deserted ocean. "Riding to-day, Trot?" said my aunt, putting her head in at the door. "Yes," said I, "I am going over to Canterbury. It's a good day for a ride." "I hope your horse may think so too," said my aunt; "but at present he is holding down his head and his ears, standing before the door there, as if he thought his stable preferable." My aunt, I may observe, allowed my horse on the forbidden ground, but had not at all relented toward the donkeys. "He will be fresh enough, presently!" said I. "The ride will do his master good, at all events," observed my aunt, glancing at the papers on my table. "Ah, child, you pass a good many hours here! I never thought, when I used to read books, what work it was to write them." "It's work enough to read them, sometimes," I returned. "As to the writing, it has its own charms, aunt." "Ah! I see!" said my aunt. "Ambition, love of approbation, sympathy, and much more, I suppose? Well: go along with you!" "Do you know anything more," said I, standing composedly before her--she had patted me on the shoulder, and sat down in my chair, "of that attachment of Agnes?" She looked up in my face a little while, before replying: "I think I do, Trot." "Are you confirmed in your impression?" I inquired. "I think I am, Trot." She looked so steadfastly at me: with a kind of doubt, or pity, or suspense in her affection: that I summoned the stronger determination to show her a perfectly cheerful face. "And what is more, Trot--" said my aunt. "Yes!" "I think Agnes is going to be married." "God bless her!" said I, cheerfully. "God bless her!" said my aunt, "and her husband too!" I echoed it, parted from my aunt, went lightly down stairs, mounted, and rode away. There was greater reason than before to do what I had resolved to do. How well I recollect the wintry ride! The frozen particles of ice, brushed from the blades of grass by the wind, and borne across my face; the hard clatter of the horse's hoofs, beating a tune upon the ground; the stiff-tilled soil; the snow-drift, lightly eddying in the chalk-pit as the breeze ruffled it; the smoking team with the waggon of old hay, stopping to breathe on the hill-top, and shaking their bells musically; the whitened slopes and sweeps of Down-land lying against the dark sky, as if they were drawn on a huge slate! I found Agnes alone. The little girls had gone to their own homes now, and she was alone by the fire, reading. She put down her book on seeing me come in; and having welcomed me as usual, took her work-basket and sat in one of the old-fashioned windows. I sat beside her on the window-seat, and we talked of what I was doing, and when it would be done, and of the progress I had made since my last visit. Agnes was very cheerful; and laughingly predicted that I should soon become too famous to be talked to, on such subjects. "So I make the most of the present time, you see," said Agnes, "and talk to you while I may." As I looked at her beautiful face, observant of her work, she raised her mild clear eyes, and saw that I was looking at her. "You are thoughtful to-day, Trotwood!" "Agnes, shall I tell you what about? I came to tell you." She put aside her work, as she was used to do when we were seriously discussing anything; and gave me her whole attention. "My dear Agnes, do you doubt my being true to you?" "No!" she answered, with a look of astonishment. "Do you doubt my being what I always have been to you?" "No!" she answered, as before. "Do you remember that I tried to tell you, when I came home, what a debt of gratitude I owed you, dearest Agnes, and how fervently I felt towards you?" "I remember it," she said, gently, "very well." "You have a secret," said I. "Let me share it, Agnes." She cast down her eyes, and trembled. "I could hardly fail to know, even if I had not heard--but from other lips than yours, Agnes, which seems strange--that there is some one upon whom you have bestowed the treasure of your love. Do not shut me out of what concerns your happiness so nearly! If you can trust me, as you say you can, and as I know you may, let me be your friend, your brother, in this matter, of all others!" With an appealing, almost a reproachful, glance, she rose from the window; and hurrying across the room as if without knowing where, put her hands before her face, and burst into such tears as smote me to the heart. And yet they awakened something in me, bringing promise to my heart. Without my knowing why, these tears allied themselves with the quietly sad smile which was so fixed in my remembrance, and shook me more with hope than fear or sorrow. "Agnes! Sister! Dearest! What have I done!" "Let me go away, Trotwood. I am not well. I am not myself. I will speak to you by and by--another time. I will write to you. Don't speak to me now. Don't! don't!" I sought to recollect what she had said, when I had spoken to her on that former night, of her affection needing no return. It seemed a very world that I must search through in a moment. "Agnes, I cannot bear to see you so, and think that I have been the cause. My dearest girl, dearer to me than anything in life, if you are unhappy, let me share your unhappiness. If you are in need of help or counsel, let me try to give it to you. If you have indeed a burden on your heart, let me try to lighten it. For whom do I live now, Agnes, if it is not for you!" "Oh, spare me! I am not myself! Another time!" was all I could distinguish. Was it a selfish error that was leading me away? Or, having once a clue to hope, was there something opening to me that I had not dared to think of? "I must say more. I cannot let you leave me so! For Heaven's sake, Agnes, let us not mistake each other after all these years, and all that has come and gone with them! I must speak plainly. If you have any lingering thought that I could envy the happiness you will confer; that I could not resign you to a dearer protector, of your own choosing; that I could not, from my removed place, be a contented witness of your joy; dismiss it, for I don't deserve it! I have not suffered quite in vain. You have not taught me quite in vain. There is no alloy of self in what I feel for you." She was quiet now. In a little time, she turned her pale face towards me, and said in a low voice, broken here and there, but very clear, "I owe it to your pure friendship for me, Trotwood--which, indeed, I do not doubt--to tell you, you are mistaken. I can do no more. If I have sometimes, in the course of years, wanted help and counsel, they have come to me. If I have sometimes been unhappy, the feeling has passed away. If I have ever had a burden on my heart, it has been lightened for me. If I have any secret, it is--no new one; and is--not what you suppose. I cannot reveal it, or divide it. It has long been mine, and must remain mine." "Agnes! Stay! A moment!" She was going away, but I detained her. I clasped my arm about her waist. "In the course of years!" "It is not a new one!" New thoughts and hopes were whirling through my mind, and all the colors of my life were changing. "Dearest Agnes! Whom I so respect and honor--whom I so devotedly love! When I came here to-day, I thought that nothing could have wrested this confession from me. I thought I could have kept it in my bosom all our lives, till we were old. But, Agnes, if I have indeed any new-born hope that I may ever call you something more than Sister, widely different from Sister!----" Her tears fell fast; but they were not like those she had lately shed, and I saw my hope brighten in them. "Agnes! Ever my guide, and best support! If you had been more mindful of yourself, and less of me, when we grew up here together, I think my heedless fancy never would have wandered from you. But you were so much better than I, so necessary to me in every boyish hope and disappointment, that to have you to confide in, and rely upon in everything, became a second nature, supplanting for the time the first and greater one of loving you as I do!" Still weeping, but not sadly--joyfully! And clasped in my arms as she had never been, as I had thought she never was to be! "When I loved Dora--fondly, Agnes, as you know"---- "Yes!" she cried, earnestly. "I am glad to know it!" "When I loved her--even then, my love would have been incomplete, without your sympathy. I had it, and it was perfected. And when I lost her, Agnes, what should I have been without you, still!" Closer in my arms, nearer to my heart, her trembling hand upon my shoulder, her sweet eyes shining through her tears, on mine! "I went away, dear Agnes, loving you. I stayed away, loving you. I returned home, loving you!" And now, I tried to tell her of the struggle I had had, and the conclusion I had come to. I tried to lay my mind before her, truly, and entirely. I tried to show her, how I had hoped I had come into the better knowledge of myself and of her; how I had resigned myself to what that better knowledge brought; and how I had come there, even that day, in my fidelity to this. If she did so love me (I said) that she could take me for her husband, she could do so, on no deserving of mine, except upon the truth of my love for her, and the trouble in which it had ripened to be what it was; and hence it was that I revealed it. And O, Agnes, even out of thy true eyes, in that same time, the spirit of my child-wife looked upon me, saying it was well; and winning me, through thee, to tenderest recollections of the Blossom that had withered in its bloom! * * * "I am so blest, Trotwood--my heart is so overcharged--but there is one thing I must say." "Dearest, what?" She laid her gentle hands upon my shoulders, and looked calmly in my face. "Do you know, yet, what it is?" "I am afraid to speculate on what it is. Tell me, my dear." "I have loved you all my life!" * * * O, we were happy, we were happy! Our tears were not for the trials (hers so much the greater), through which we had come to be thus, but for the rapture of being thus, never to be divided more! We walked, that winter evening, in the fields together; and the blessed calm within us seemed to be partaken by the frosty air. The early stars began to shine while we were lingering on, and looking up to them we thanked our GOD for having guided us to this tranquillity. We stood together in the same old-fashioned window at night, when the moon was shining; Agnes with her quiet eyes raised up to it; I following her glance. Long miles of road then opened out before my mind; and, toiling on, I saw a ragged way-worn boy, forsaken and neglected, who should come to call even the heart now beating against mine, his own. * * * It was nearly dinner-time next day when we appeared before my aunt. She was up in my study, Peggotty said: which it was her pride to keep in readiness and order for me. We found her, in her spectacles, sitting by the fire. "Goodness me!" said my aunt, peering through the dusk, "who's this you're bringing home?" "Agnes," said I. As we had arranged to say nothing at first, my aunt was not a little discomfited. She darted a hopeful glance at me, when I said "Agnes;" but seeing that I looked as usual, she took off her spectacles in despair, and rubbed her nose with them. She greeted Agnes heartily, nevertheless; and we were soon in the lighted parlor down stairs, at dinner. My aunt put on her spectacles twice or thrice, to take another look at me, but as often took them off again, disappointed, and rubbed her nose with them. Much to the discomfiture of Mr. Dick, who knew this to be a bad symptom. "By the by, aunt," said I, after dinner; "I have been speaking to Agnes about what you told me." "Then, Trot," said my aunt, turning scarlet, "you did wrong, and broke your promise." "You are not angry, aunt, I trust? I am sure you won't be, when you learn that Agnes is not unhappy in any attachment." "Stuff and nonsense!" said my aunt. As my aunt appeared to be annoyed, I thought the best way was to cut her annoyance short. I took Agnes in my arm to the back of her chair, and we both leaned over her. My aunt, with one clap of her hands, and one look through her spectacles, immediately went into hysterics, for the first and only time in all my knowledge of her. The hysterics called up Peggotty. The moment my aunt was restored, she flew at Peggotty, and calling her a silly old creature, hugged her with all her might. After that, she hugged Mr. Dick (who was highly honored, but a good deal surprised); and after that, told them why. Then, we were all happy together. I could not discover whether my aunt, in her last short conversation with me, had fallen on a pious fraud, or had really mistaken the state of my mind. It was quite enough, she said, that she had told me Agnes was going to be married; and that I now knew better than any one how true it was. * * * We were married within a fortnight. Traddles and Sophy, and Doctor and Mrs. Strong, were the only guests at our quiet wedding. We left them full of joy; and drove away together. Clasped in my embrace, I held the source of every worthy aspiration I had ever had; the centre of myself, the circle of my life, my own, my wife; my love of whom was founded on a rock! "Dearest husband!" said Agnes. "Now that I may call you by that name, I have one thing more to tell you." "Let me hear it, love." "It grows out of the night when Dora died. She sent you for me." "She did." "She told me that she left me something. Can you think what it was?" I believed I could. I drew the wife who had so long loved me, closer to my side. "She told me that she made a last request to me, and left me a last charge." "And it was----" "That only I would occupy this vacant place." And Agnes laid her head upon my breast, and wept; and I wept with her, though we were so happy. CHAPTER LXIII. A VISITOR. What I have purposed to record is nearly finished; but there is yet an incident conspicuous in my memory, on which it often rests with delight, and without which one thread in the web I have spun, would have a ravelled end. I had advanced in fame and fortune, my domestic joy was perfect, I had been married ten happy years. Agnes and I were sitting by the fire, in our house in London, one night in spring, and three of our children were playing in the room, when I was told that a stranger wished to see me. [Illustration: A Stranger calls to see me.] He had been asked if he came on business, and had answered No; he had come for the pleasure of seeing me, and had come a long way. He was an old man, my servant said, and looked like a farmer. As this sounded mysterious to the children, and moreover was like the beginning of a favorite story Agnes used to tell them, introductory to the arrival of a wicked old Fairy in a cloak who hated every body, it produced some commotion. One of our boys laid his head in his mother's lap to be out of harm's way, and little Agnes (our eldest child) left her doll in a chair to represent her, and thrust out her little heap of golden curls from between the window-curtains, to see what happened next. "Let him come in here!" said I. There soon appeared, pausing in the dark doorway as he entered, a hale, grey-haired old man. Little Agnes, attracted by his looks, had run to bring him in, and I had not yet clearly seen his face, when my wife, starting up, cried out to me, in a pleased and agitated voice, that it was Mr. Peggotty! It _was_ Mr. Peggotty. An old man now, but in a ruddy, hearty, strong old age. When our first emotion was over, and he sat before the fire with the children on his knees, and the blaze shining on his face, he looked, to me, as vigorous and robust, withal as handsome, an old man, as ever I had seen. "Mas'r Davy," said he. And the old name in the old tone fell so naturally on my ear! "Mas'r Davy, 'tis a joyful hour as I see you, once more, 'long with your own trew wife!" "A joyful hour indeed, old friend!" cried I. "And these heer pretty ones," said Mr. Peggotty. "To look at these heer flowers! Why, Mas'r Davy, you was but the heighth of the littlest of these, when I first see you! When Em'ly warn't no bigger, and our poor lad were _but_ a lad!" "Time has changed me more than it has changed you since then," said I. "But, let these dear rogues go to bed; and as no house in England but this must hold you, tell me where to send for your luggage (is the old black bag among it, that went so far, I wonder!), and then, over a glass of Yarmouth grog, we will have the tidings of ten years!" "Are you alone?" asked Agnes. "Yes, ma'am," he said, kissing her hand, "quite alone." We sat him between us, not knowing how to give him welcome enough; and as I began to listen to his old familiar voice, I could have fancied he was still pursuing his long journey in search of his darling niece. "It's a mort of water," said Mr. Peggotty, "fur to come across, and on'y stay a matter of fower weeks. But water ('specially when 'tis salt) comes nat'ral to me; and friends is dear, and I am heer.--Which is verse," said Mr. Peggotty, surprised to find it out, "though I hadn't such intentions." "Are you going back those many thousand miles, so soon?" asked Agnes. "Yes, ma'am," he returned. "I giv the promise to Em'ly, afore I come away. You see, I doen't grow younger as the years comes round, and if I hadn't sailed as 'twas, most like I shouldn't never have done 't. And it's allus been on my mind, as I _must_ come and see Mas'r Davy and your own sweet blooming self, in your wedded happiness, afore I got to be too old." He looked at us, as if he could never feast his eyes on us sufficiently. Agnes laughingly put back some scattered locks of his grey hair, that he might see us better. "And now tell us," said I, "everything relating to your fortunes." "Our fortuns, Mas'r Davy," he rejoined, "is soon told. We haven't fared nohows, but fared to thrive. We've allus thrived. We've worked as we ought to 't, and maybe we lived a leetle hard at first or so, but we have allus thrived. What with sheep-farming, and what with stock-farming, and what with one thing and what with t'other, we are as well to do, as well could be. Theer's been kiender a blessing fell upon us," said Mr. Peggotty, reverentially inclining his head, "and we've done nowt but prosper. That is, in the long run. If not yesterday, why then to-day. If not to-day, why then to-morrow." "And Emily?" said Agnes and I, both together. "Em'ly," said he, "arter you left her, ma'am--and I never heerd her saying of her prayers at night, t'other side the canvas screen, when we was settled in the Bush, but what I heerd your name--and arter she and me lost sight of Mas'r Davy, that theer shining sundown--was that low, at first, that, if she had know'd then what Mas'r Davy kep from us so kind and thowtful, 'tis my opinion she'd have drooped away. But theer was some poor folks aboard as had illness among 'em, and she took care of _them_; and theer was the children in our company, and she took care of _them_; and so she got to be busy, and to be doing good, and that helped her." "When did she first hear of it?" I asked. "I kep it from her arter I heerd on't," said Mr. Peggotty, "going on nigh a year. We was living then in a solitary place, but among the beautifullest trees, and with the roses a covering our Beein to the roof. Theer come along one day, when I was out a working on the land, a traveller from our own Norfolk or Suffolk in England (I doen't rightly mind which), and of course we took him in, and giv him to eat and drink, and made him welcome. We all do that, all the colony over. He'd got an old newspaper with him, and some other account in print of the storm. That's how she know'd it. When I come home at night, I found she know'd it." He dropped his voice as he said these words, and the gravity I so well remembered overspread his face. "Did it change her much?" we asked. "Aye, for a good long time," he said, shaking his head; "if not to this present hour. But I think the solitoode done her good. And she had a deal to mind in the way of poultry and the like, and minded of it, and come through. I wonder," he said thoughtfully, "if you could see my Em'ly now, Mas'r Davy, whether you'd know her!" "Is she so altered?" I inquired. "I doen't know. I see her ev'ry day, and doen't know; but, odd-times, I have thowt so. A slight figure," said Mr. Peggotty, looking at the fire, "kiender worn; soft, sorrowful, blue eyes; a delicate face; a pritty head, leaning a little down; a quiet voice and way--timid a'most. That's Em'ly!" We silently observed him as he sat, still looking at the fire. "Some thinks," he said, "as her affection was ill-bestowed; some, as her marriage was broke off by death. No one knows how 'tis. She might have married well, a mort of times, 'but, uncle,' she says to me, 'that's gone for ever.' Cheerful along with me; retired when others is by; fond of going any distance fur to teach a child, or fur to tend a sick person, or fur to do some kindness tow'rds a young girl's wedding (and she's done a many, but has never seen one); fondly loving of her uncle; patient; liked by young and old; sowt out by all that has any trouble. That's Em'ly!" He drew his hand across his face, and with a half-suppressed sigh looked up from the fire. "Is Martha with you yet?" I asked. "Martha," he replied "got married, Mas'r Davy, in the second year. A young man, a farm-laborer, as come by us on his way to market with his mas'r's drays--a journey of over five hundred mile, theer and back--made offers fur to take her fur his wife (wives is very scarce theer), and then to set up fur their two selves in the Bush. She spoke to me fur to tell him her trew story. I did. They was married, and they live fower hundred mile away from any voices but their own and the singing birds." "Mrs. Gummidge?" I suggested. It was a pleasant key to touch, for Mr. Peggotty suddenly burst into a roar of laughter, and rubbed his hands up and down his legs, as he had been accustomed to do when he enjoyed himself in the long-shipwrecked boat. "Would you believe it!" he said. "Why, someun even made offers fur to marry _her_! If a ship's cook that was turning settler, Mas'r Davy, didn't make offers fur to marry Missis Gummidge, I'm Gormed--and I can't say no fairer than that!" I never saw Agnes laugh so. This sudden ecstacy on the part of Mr. Peggotty was so delightful to her, that she could not leave off laughing; and the more she laughed the more she made me laugh, and the greater Mr. Peggotty's ecstacy became, and the more he rubbed his legs. "And what did Mrs. Gummidge say?" I asked, when I was grave enough. "If you'll believe me," returned Mr. Peggotty, "Missis Gummidge, 'stead of saying 'thank you, I'm much obleeged to you, I ain't a going fur to change my condition at my time of life,' up'd with a bucket as was standing by, and laid it over that theer ship's cook's head 'till he sung out for help, and I went in and reskied of him." Mr. Peggotty burst into a great roar of laughter, and Agnes and I both kept him company. "But I must say this, for the good creetur," he resumed, wiping his face when we were quite exhausted; "she has been all she said she'd be to us, and more. She's the willingest, the trewest, the honestest-helping woman, Mas'r Davy, as ever draw'd the breath of life. I have never know'd her to be lone and lorn, for a single minute, not even when the colony was all afore us, and we was new to it. And thinking of the old 'un is a thing she never done, I do assure you, since she left England!" "Now, last, not least, Mr. Micawber," said I. "He has paid off every obligation he incurred here--even to Traddles's bill, you remember, my dear Agnes--and therefore we may take it for granted that he is doing well. But what is the latest news of him?" Mr. Peggotty, with a smile, put his hand in his breast-pocket, and produced a flat-folded, paper parcel, from which he took out, with much care, a little odd-looking newspaper. "You are to unnerstan', Mas'r Davy," said he, "as we have left the Bush now, being so well to do; and have gone right away round to Port Middlebay Harbor, wheer theer's what _we_ call a town." "Mr. Micawber was in the Bush near you?" said I. "Bless you, yes," said Mr. Peggotty, "and turned to with a will. I never wish to meet a better gen'lman for turning to, with a will. I've seen that theer bald head of his, a perspiring in the sun, Mas'r Davy, 'till I a'most thowt it would have melted away. And now he's a Magistrate." "A Magistrate, eh?" said I. Mr. Peggotty pointed to a certain paragraph in the newspaper, where I read aloud as follows, from the "Port Middlebay Times:" "-->The public dinner to our distinguished fellow-colonist and townsman, WILKINS MICAWBER, ESQUIRE, Port Middlebay District Magistrate, came off yesterday in the large room of the Hotel, which was crowded to suffocation. It is estimated that not fewer than forty-seven persons must have been accommodated with dinner at one time, exclusive of the company in the passage and on the stairs. The beauty, fashion, and exclusiveness of Port Middlebay, flocked to do honor to one so deservedly esteemed, so highly talented, and so widely popular. Doctor Mell (of Colonial Salem-House Grammar School, Port Middlebay) presided, and on his right sat the distinguished guest. After the removal of the cloth, and the singing of Non Nobis (beautifully executed, and in which we were at no loss to distinguish the bell-like notes of that gifted amateur, WILKINS MICAWBER, ESQUIRE, JUNIOR), the usual loyal and patriotic toasts were severally given and rapturously received. Doctor Mell, in a speech replete with feeling, then proposed 'Our distinguished Guest, the ornament of our town. May he never leave us but to better himself, and may his success among us be such as to render his bettering himself impossible!' The cheering with which the toast was received defies description. Again and again it rose and fell, like the waves of ocean. At length all was hushed, and WILKINS MICAWBER, ESQUIRE, presented himself to return thanks. Far be it from us, in the present comparatively imperfect state of the resources of our establishment, to endeavour to follow our distinguished townsman through the smoothly-flowing periods of his polished and highly-ornate address! Suffice it to observe, that it was a masterpiece of eloquence; and that those passages in which he more particularly traced his own successful career to its source, and warned the younger portion of his auditory from the shoals of ever incurring pecuniary liabilities which they were unable to liquidate, brought a tear into the manliest eye present. The remaining toasts were DOCTOR MELL; MRS. MICAWBER (who gracefully bowed her acknowledgments from the side-door, where a galaxy of beauty was elevated on chairs, at once to witness and adorn the gratifying scene); MRS. RIDGER BEGS (late Miss Micawber); MRS. MELL; WILKINS MICAWBER, ESQUIRE, JUNIOR (who convulsed the assembly by humorously remarking that he found himself unable to return thanks in a speech, but would do so, with their permission, in a song); MRS. MICAWBER'S FAMILY (well-known, it is needless to remark, in the mother-country), &c. &c. &c. At the conclusion of the proceedings the tables were cleared as if by art-magic for dancing. Among the votaries of TERPSICHORE, who disported themselves until Sol gave warning for departure, Wilkins Micawber, Esquire, Junior, and the lovely and accomplished Miss Helena, fourth daughter of Doctor Mell, were particularly remarkable." I was looking back to the name of Doctor Mell, pleased to have discovered, in these happier circumstances, Mr. Mell, formerly poor pinched usher to my Middlesex magistrate, when Mr. Peggotty pointing to another part of the paper, my eyes rested on my own name, and I read thus: "TO DAVID COPPERFIELD, ESQUIRE, "THE EMINENT AUTHOR. "MY DEAR SIR, "Years have elapsed, since I had an opportunity of ocularly perusing the lineaments, now familiar to the imaginations of a considerable portion of the civilised world. "But, my dear sir, though estranged (by the force of circumstances over which I have had no controul) from the personal society of the friend and companion of my youth, I have not been unmindful of his soaring flight. Nor have I been debarred, Though seas between us braid ha' roared, (BURNS) from participating in the intellectual feasts he has spread before us. "I cannot, therefore, allow of the departure from this place of an individual whom we mutually respect and esteem, without, my dear sir, taking this public opportunity of thanking you, on my own behalf, and, I may undertake to add, on that of the whole of the Inhabitants of Port Middlebay, for the gratification of which you are the ministering agent. "Go on, my dear sir! You are not unknown here, you are not unappreciated. Though 'remote,' we are neither 'unfriended,' 'melancholy,' nor (I may add) 'slow.' Go on, my dear sir, in your Eagle course! The Inhabitants of Port Middlebay may at least aspire to watch it, with delight, with entertainment, with instruction! "Among the eyes elevated towards you from this portion of the globe, will ever be found, while it has light and life, "The "Eye "Appertaining to "WILKINS MICAWBER, "Magistrate." I found, on glancing at the remaining contents of the newspaper, that Mr. Micawber was a diligent and esteemed correspondent of that Journal. There was another letter from him in the same paper, touching a bridge; there was an advertisement of a collection of similar letters by him, to be shortly republished, in a neat volume, "with considerable additions;" and, unless I am very much mistaken, the Leading Article was his also. We talked much of Mr. Micawber, on many other evenings while Mr. Peggotty remained with us. He lived with us during the whole term of his stay,--which, I think, was something less than a month,--and his sister and my aunt came to London to see him. Agnes and I parted from him aboardship, when he sailed; and we shall never part from him more, on earth. But before he left, he went with me to Yarmouth, to see a little tablet I had put up in the churchyard to the memory of Ham. While I was copying the plain inscription for him at his request, I saw him stoop, and gather a tuft of grass from the grave, and a little earth. "For Em'ly," he said, as he put it in his breast. "I promised, Mas'r Davy." CHAPTER LXIV. A LAST RETROSPECT. And now my written story ends. I look back, once more--for the last time--before I close these leaves. I see myself, with Agnes at my side, journeying along the road of life. I see our children and our friends around us; and I hear the roar of many voices, not indifferent to me as I travel on. What faces are the most distinct to me in the fleeting crowd? Lo, these; all turning to me as I ask my thoughts the question! Here is my aunt, in stronger spectacles, an old woman of fourscore years and more, but upright yet, and a steady walker of six miles at a stretch in winter weather. Always with her, here comes Peggotty, my good old nurse, likewise in spectacles, accustomed to do needlework at night very close to the lamp, but never sitting down to it without a bit of wax candle, a yard measure in a little house, and a work-box with a picture of St. Paul's upon the lid. The cheeks and arms of Peggotty, so hard and red in my childish days, when I wondered why the birds didn't peck her in preference to apples, are shrivelled now; and her eyes, that used to darken their whole neighbourhood in her face, are fainter (though they glitter still); but her rough forefinger, which I once associated with a pocket nutmeg grater, is just the same, and when I see my least child catching at it as it totters from my aunt to her, I think of our little parlor at home, when I could scarcely walk. My aunt's old disappointment is set right, now. She is godmother to a real living Betsey Trotwood; and Dora (the next in order) says she spoils her. There is something bulky in Peggotty's pocket. It is nothing smaller than the Crocodile-Book, which is in rather a dilapidated condition by this time, with divers of the leaves torn and stitched across, but which Peggotty exhibits to the children as a precious relic. I find it very curious to see my own infant face, looking up at me from the Crocodile stories; and to be reminded by it of my old acquaintance Brooks of Sheffield. Among my boys, this summer holiday time, I see an old man making giant kites, and gazing at them in the air, with a delight for which there are no words. He greets me rapturously, and whispers, with many nods and winks, "Trotwood, you will be glad to hear that I shall finish the Memorial when I have nothing else to do, and that your aunt's the most extraordinary woman in the world, sir!" Who is this bent lady, supporting herself by a stick, and showing me a countenance in which there are some traces of old pride and beauty, feebly contending with a querulous, imbecile, fretful wandering of the mind? She is in a garden; and near her stands a sharp, dark, withered woman, with a white scar on her lip. Let me hear what they say. "Rosa, I have forgotten this gentleman's name." Rosa bends over her, and calls to her, "Mr. Copperfield." "I am glad to see you, sir. I am sorry to observe you are in mourning. I hope Time will be good to you!" Her impatient attendant scolds her, tells her I am not in mourning, bids her look again, tries to rouse her. "You have seen my son, sir," says the elder lady. "Are you reconciled?" Looking fixedly at me, she puts her hand to her forehead, and moans. Suddenly, she cries, in a terrible voice, "Rosa, come to me. He is dead!" Rosa, kneeling at her feet, by turns caresses her, and quarrels with her; now fiercely telling her, "I loved him better than you ever did!"--now soothing her to sleep on her breast, like a sick child. Thus I leave them; thus I always find them; thus they wear their time away, from year to year. What ship comes sailing home from India, and what English lady is this, married to a growling old Scotch Croesus with great flaps of ears. Can this be Julia Mills? Indeed it is Julia Mills, peevish and fine, with a black man to carry cards and letters to her on a golden salver, and a copper-colored woman in linen, with a bright handkerchief round her head, to serve her Tiffin in her dressing-room. But Julia keeps no diary in these days; never sings Affection's Dirge; eternally quarrels with the old Scotch Croesus, who is a sort of yellow bear with a tanned hide. Julia is steeped in money to the throat, and talks and thinks of nothing else. I liked her better in the Desert of Sahara. Or perhaps this _is_ the Desert of Sahara! For, though Julia has a stately house, and mighty company, and sumptuous dinners every day, I see no green growth near her; nothing that can ever come to fruit or flower. What Julia calls "society," I see; among it Mr. Jack Maldon, from his Patent Place, sneering at the hand that gave it him, and speaking to me, of the Doctor, as "so charmingly antique." But when society is the name for such hollow gentlemen and ladies, Julia, and when its breeding is professed indifference to everything that can advance or can retard mankind, I think we must have lost ourselves in that same Desert of Sahara, and had better find the way out. And lo, the Doctor, always our good friend, laboring at his Dictionary (somewhere about the letter D), and happy in his home and wife. Also the Old Soldier, on a considerably reduced footing, and by no means so influential as in days of yore! Working at his chambers in the Temple, with a busy aspect, and his hair (where he is not bald) made more rebellious than ever by the constant friction of his lawyer's-wig, I come, in a later time, upon my dear old Traddles. His table is covered with thick piles of papers; and I say, as I look around me: "If Sophy were your clerk, now, Traddles, she would have enough to do!" "You may say that, my dear Copperfield! But those were capital days, too, in Holborn Court! Were they not?" "When she told you you would be a Judge? But it was not the town talk _then_!" "At all events," says Traddles, "if I ever am one----" "Why, you know you will be." "Well, my dear Copperfield, _when_ I am one, I shall tell the story, as I said I would." We walk away, arm in arm. I am going to have a family dinner with Traddles. It is Sophy's birthday; and, on our road, Traddles discourses to me of the good fortune he has enjoyed. "I really have been able, my dear Copperfield, to do all that I had most at heart. There's the Reverend Horace promoted to that living at four hundred and fifty pounds a year; there are our two boys receiving the very best education, and distinguishing themselves as steady scholars and good fellows; there are three of the girls married very comfortably; there are three more living with us; there are three more keeping house for the Reverend Horace since Mrs. Crewler's decease; and all of them happy." "Except--" I suggest. "Except the Beauty," says Traddles. "Yes. It was very unfortunate that she should marry such a vagabond. But there was a certain dash and glare about him that caught her. However, now we have got her safe at our house, and got rid of him, we must cheer her up again." Traddles's house is one of the very houses--or it easily may have been--which he and Sophy used to parcel out, in their evening walks. It is a large house; but Traddles keeps his papers in his dressing-room, and his boots with his papers; and he and Sophy squeeze themselves into upper rooms, reserving the best bed-rooms for the Beauty and the girls. There is no room to spare in the house; for more of "the girls" are here, and always are here, by some accident or other, than I know how to count. Here, when we go in, is a crowd of them, running down to the door, and handing Traddles about to be kissed, until he is out of breath. Here, established in perpetuity, is the poor Beauty, a widow with a little girl; here, at dinner on Sophy's birthday, are the three married girls with their three husbands, and one of the husband's brothers, and another husband's cousin, and another husband's sister, who appears to me to be engaged to the cousin. Traddles, exactly the same simple, unaffected fellow as he ever was, sits at the foot of the large table like a Patriarch; and Sophy beams upon him, from the head, across a cheerful space that is certainly not glittering with Britannia metal. And now, as I close my task, subduing my desire to linger yet, these faces fade away. But, one face, shining on me like a Heavenly light by which I see all other objects, is above them and beyond them all. And that remains. I turn my head, and see it, in its beautiful serenity, beside me. My lamp burns low, and I have written far into the night; but the dear presence, without which I were nothing, bears me company. O Agnes, O my soul, so may thy face be by me when I close my life indeed; so may I, when realities are melting from me like the shadows which I now dismiss, still find thee near me, pointing upward! * * * * * * Transcriber's note: This ebook is derived from a digitisation of a signed first edition published by Bradbury & Evans in 1850. Hyphenation in this book is occasionally inconsistent. Unless clearly incorrect, hyphenation been left as found in the print edition. The book contains significant amounts of archaic and dialect spelling. Unless clearly incorrect, spelling has been left as found in the print edition. The following list details correction of typographical errors: CHAPTER II. -"go" changed to "ago" -"dose" changed to "doze" -"dont" changed to "don't" -"ut" changed to "but" CHAPTER III. -"spongey" changed to "spongy" -"air" changed to "hair" -"canvass" changed to "canvas" -"a-top" is correct -"Havn't" changed to "Haven't" -"Pointing" changed to "pointing" -"similies" is correct -"wasnt" changed to "wasn't" -Closing quote added -"did'nt" changed to "didn't" -"have'nt" changed to "haven't -"Mrs" changed to "Mrs." -"old'un" changed to "old 'un" CHAPTER IV. -"stupified" is correct -"becase" changed to "because" CHAPTER VI. -"Mr" changed to "Mr." CHAPTER VII. -"what" changed to "What" -"to day" changed to "to-day" CHAPTER VIII. -Misplaced quote removed CHAPTER IX. -"controuled" is correct -Single quote changed to double CHAPTER X. -"sh'is" used (could be "sh' is") CHAPTER XVI. -Comma replaced with period -"can not" changed to "cannot" -Closing quote added CHAPTER XVII. -"escrutoire" is correct CHAPTER XX. -"plyed" changed to "played" CHAPTER XXI. -"ewents" is correct (dialect) CHAPTER XXII. -Closing quote added -"havn't" changed to "haven't" -"kind-naturd" changed to "kind-natur'd" CHAPTER XXV. -Single quote changed to double -"ouse" is correct (dialect) -"ed" is correct (dialect) CHAPTER XXVI. -"yo" changed to "you," CHAPTER XXIX. -Closing quote added -Correct quoting is unclear; left as text CHAPTER XXXII. -Closing quote added -Closing quote added -"wont" changed to "won't" CHAPTER XXXIV. -"Your's" changed to "Yours" -"aud" changed to "and" CHAPTER XXXV. -Extra opening quote removed CHAPTER XXXVI. -"too" changed to "two" -Single quote changed to double -Closing quote added -Erroneous double quote removed -Closing quote added CHAPTER XXXVII. -Erroneous comma removed CHAPTER XXXVIII. -"coroboration" changed to "corroboration" -"D.J.M." should possibly be "D., J.M."; text from printed edition retained CHAPTER XXXIX. -comma after "incapable" questionable; text from printed edition retained -"havn't" changed to "haven't" CHAPTER XL. -"Peggoty" changed to "Peggotty" CHAPTER XLII. -Closing quote added -Closing quote added -"mavellous" changed to "marvellous" CHAPTER XLIII. -"give" changed to "gives" CHAPTER XLIV. -Comma questionable but left as text CHAPTER XLVI. -Closing quote added -"boatmens'" changed to "boatmen's" -"to night" changed to "to-night" CHAPTER XLVIII. -capitalisation of "What" questionable; left as text -"could'nt" changed to "couldn't" CHAPTER XLIX. -"waived" changed to "waved" CHAPTER LII. -Comma changed to period -"Mr" changed to "Mr." -"I O U's" changed to "I. O. U.'s" CHAPTER LIV. -"earnestnesss" changed to "earnestness" CHAPTER LVII. -"aud" changed to "and" CHAPTER LIX. -"n" changed to "in" -"Mr Dick" changed to "Mr. Dick" CHAPTER LXI. -Closing quote added CHAPTER LXIII. -Closing quote moved -"old'un" changed to "old 'un"