CHAPTER XLII.
MRS. BOXALL FINDS A COMPANION IN MISFORTUNE.
At last the day arrived that Lucy and her grandmother had fixed for removing into the bookseller's house. The furniture was all Mrs. Boxall's own, though, if Mr. Worboise had thought proper to dispute the fact, there was nobody left who could have home witness against it. Mr. Kitely shut shop a little earlier; Mr. Spelt descended from his perch: and Mr. Dolman crept out of his hole—all to bear a hand in the moving of it. It was dusk when they began, but the darkness did not hinder their diligence, and, in the course of a couple of hours, all the heavier articles were in their new places. When everything was got into something like order, it did not appear that, save for the diminution of space, they had had such a terrible downcome. Lucy was heartily satisfied with their quarters, and the feeling that she had now to protect and work for her grandmother gave a little cheerfulness to her behavior, notwithstanding the weight on her heart. Mattie was important, with an importance which not even the delight of having Miss Burton to live with them could assuage; for she had to preside at a little supper which Mr. Kitely had procured, in honor of the occasion, from the cook-shop which supplied the feasts of Spelt and Poppie. But when things were partially arranged for the night, Mrs. Boxall, who was in a very despondent condition, declared her intention of going to bed. Lucy would gladly have done the same, but she could not think of doing dishonor to the hospitality of their kind friend.
"Well, I am sorry the old lady can't be prevailed upon," said Mr. Kitely. "Them sassages I know to be genuine—none of your cats or cats' meat either. I know the very tree they grew upon—eh, princess? And now we shan't be able to eat 'em up."
"Why don't you ask Mr. Spelt to come in and help us?" said Mattie.
"Bless you! he's gone to fetch his kid; and before they'll come home they'll have bought their supper. They always do. I know their ways. But I do believe that's them gone up the court this minute. I'll run and see."
Mr. Kitely hurried out, and returned with Mr. Spelt, Poppie, and the steam-engine, which was set down in the middle of the room.
"Ain't I been fort'nate?" said the bookseller. "Poppie ain't sold all her potatoes. They was a-going to eat 'em up by the way of savin'. So we've agreed to club, and go share and share. Ain't that it, Poppie?"
Poppie grinned and gave no other answer. But her father took up the word.
"It's very kind of you to put it so, Mr. Kitely. But it seems to me we're hardly fit company for a lady like Miss Burton."
"Surely, Mr. Spelt, we haven't been neighbors so long without being fit to have our supper together?" said Lucy.
"That's very neighborly of you, miss. Let me assist you to a potato," said Spelt, going toward the steamer. "It's my belief there ain't no better taters in London, though I says it as buys 'em," he added, throwing back the lid.
"But we ain't going to begin on the taters, Spelt. You come and sit down here, and we'll have the taters put on a plate. That's the right way, ain't it, princess?"
"Well, I should say so, Mr. Kitely," answered Mattie, who had hitherto been too full of her own importance even to talk. But Mr. Spelt interfered.
"Them taters," said he, with decision, "ought to be eaten fresh out of the steamer. If you turn 'em out on to a plate, I don't answer for the consequences. We'll put 'em nearer the table, and I'll sit by 'em, with your leave, Miss Burton, and help everybody as wants one."
It was remarkable with how much more decision than had belonged to him formerly, Mr. Spelt now spoke. Mr. Kitely, after a half hour's meditation, next day, as to whether the cause of it was Poppie or the potatoes, came to the wise conclusion that between them they had made a man of him.
By this time they were all seated round the table.
"Mr. Spelt, you be parson, and say grace," said Kitely, in his usual peremptory tone.
"Why should you ask me, Mr. Kitely?" said the tailor, humbly.
"Because you know more about that sort o' thing than I do—and you know it."
Mr. Spelt said grace so devoutly that nobody could hear him.
"Why do you say grace as if you was ashamed of it, Spelt? If I was to say grace, now, I would let you hear me."
"I didn't know you cared about such things," returned Spelt, evasively.
"Well," said Mr. Kitely, "no more I do—or did, rather; for I'm afraid that Mr. Fuller will get me into bad habits before he has done with me. He's a good man, Mr. Fuller, and that's more than I'd say for every one of the cloth. They're nothing but cloth—meaning no offense, Mr. Spelt, to a honest trade."
"Perhaps there are more good ones among 'em than you think, Mr. Kitely," said Lucy.
"There ud need to be, miss. But I declare that man has almost made me hold my tongue against the whole sect of them. It seems a shame, with him in St. Amos's, to say a word against Mr. Potter in St. Jacob's. I never thought I should take to the church in my old age."
"Old age, Mr. Kitely!" Mattie broke in. "If you talk in that way, think what you make of me!"
A general laugh greeted this remark. But Mattie was serious, and did not even smile.
Poppie never opened her lips, except to smile. But she behaved with perfect propriety. Mr. Spelt had civilized her so far, and that without much trouble. He never told any one, however, that it was with anxiety that he set out every night at half-past nine to bring her home; for more than once he had found her potato-steamer standing alone on the pavement, while she was off somewhere, looking at something, or following a crowd. He had stood nearly half an hour before she came back upon one of those occasions. All she said when she returned was, "I thought I should find you here, daddy."
But I must not linger with the company assembled in the bookseller's back-parlor; for their conversation will not help my reader on with my story.
A very little man, with very short, bandy legs, was trudging along a wide and rather crowded thoroughfare, with a pair of workman's boots in his hand. It was Mr. Spelt's sub, Mr. Dolman, the cobbler.
"Well, Dolly, how do?" said a man in a long velveteen coat, with a short pipe in his mouth and a greasy cloth cap on his head. "You're late to-night, ain't you, Dolly?"
"Them lawyers; them lawyers, Jim!" returned Dolman, enigmatically.
"What the blazes have you got to do with lawyers?" exclaimed Jim Salter, staring at the cobbler, who for the sake of balance had now got one boot in each hand, and stood weighing the one against the other.
"Not much for my own part," returned Dolman, who was feeling very important from having assisted at his neighbors' flitting. "But there's good people in our court could tell you another story."
I have said that Mrs. Boxall did anything but hold her tongue about her affairs, and Dolman had heard Mr. Worboise's behavior so thoroughly canvassed between Mr. Kitely and Mr. Spelt, that he was familiar with the main points of the case.
"Come and have a drop of beer," said Jim, "and tell us all about it."
No greater temptation could have been held out to Dolman. But he had a certain sense of duty that must first be satisfied.
"No, Jim. I never touch a drop till I've taken my work home."
"Where's that?" asked Jim.
"Down by the Minories," answered the cobbler.
"Come along, then. I'll help you carry it."
"'Taint heavy. I'll carry it myself," answered Dolman, who, having once been robbed on a similar occasion, seemed, in regard to boots, to have lost his faith in humanity.
"I can't think, Dolly, why you roost so far from your work. Now it's different with me. My work's here and there and everywhere; but yours is allus in the same place."
"It gives me a walk, Jim. Besides it's respectable. It's having two places of one's own. My landlady, Mrs. Dobbs, knows that my shop's in a fashionable part, and she's rather proud of me for a lodger in consekence. And my landlord, that's Mr. Spelt, a tailor, and well-to-do—how's he to know that I ain't got a house in the suburbs?" answered Dolman, laughing.
The moment he had got his money, and delivered the boots—for that was the order of business between Dolman and his customers—they betook themselves to a public-house in the neighborhood, where Dolman conveyed to Jim, with very tolerable correctness, the whole story of Mrs. Boxall's misfortunes. Before he reached the end of it, however, Jim, who had already "put a name upon something" with two of his acquaintances that night, got rather misty, and took his leave of Dolman with the idea that Lucy and her grandmother had been turned out, furniture and all, into the street, without a place to go to.
Much as she had dreaded leaving her own house, as she had always considered it, Mrs. Boxall had a better night in her new abode than she had had for months, and rose in the morning with a surprising sense of freshness. Wonderful things come to us in sleep—none perhaps more wonderful than this reviving of the colors of the faded soul from being laid for a few hours in the dark—in God's ebony box, as George Herbert calls the night. It is as if the wakeful angels had been busy all the night preening the draggled and ruffled wings of their sleeping brothers and sisters. Finding that Lucy was not yet dressed, she went down alone to the back parlor, and, having nothing else to do, began to look at the birds, of which, I have already informed my reader, Mr. Kitely kept a great many, feeding and cleaning them himself, and teaching the more gifted, starlings and parrots, and such like birds of genius, to speak. If he did anything in the way of selling as well as buying them, it was quite in a private way—as a gentleman may do with his horses.
"Good-morning, sir," screamed a huge gray parrot the moment she entered, regardless of the sex of his visitor. It was one the bookseller had bought of a sailor somewhere about the docks, a day or two before, and its fame had not yet spread through the neighborhood, consequently Mrs. Boxall was considerably startled by the salutation. "Have you spliced the main-brace this morning, sir?" continued the parrot, and, without waiting for a reply, like the great ladies who inquire after an inferior's family and then look out of the window, burst into the song, "There's a sweet little cherub," and, stopping as suddenly at the word, followed it with the inquiry, "How's your mother?" upon which point Mrs. Boxall may, without any irreverence, be presumed to have been a little in the dark. The next moment the unprincipled animal poured forth his innocent soul in a torrent of imprecations which, growing as furious as fast, reached the ears of Mr. Kitely. He entered in a moment and silenced the animal with prompt rebuke, and the descent of an artificial night in the shape of a green cloth over his cage—the vengeance of the lower Jove. The creature exploded worse than ever for a while, and then subsided. Meantime the bookseller turned to Mrs. Boxall to apologize.
"I haven't had him long, ma'am—only a day or two. He's been ill brought up, as you see, poor bird! I shall have a world of trouble to cure him of his bad language. If I can't cure him I'll wring his neck."
"The poor creature doesn't know better," said Mrs. Boxall. "Wouldn't it be rather hard to kill him for it?"
"Well, but what am I to do? I can't have such words running out and in of my princess's ears all day."
"But you could sell him, or give him away, you know, Mr. Kitely."
"A pretty present he would be, the rascal! And for selling him, it would be wickedness to put the money in my pocket. There was a time, ma'am, when I would have taught him such words myself, and thought no harm of it; but now, if I were to sell that bird, ma'am—how should I look Mr. Fuller in the face next Sunday? No; if I can't cure him, I must twist his neck. We'll eat him, ma'am; I dare say he's nice."
He added, in a whisper: "I wanted him to hear me. There's no telling how much them creatures understand."
But before Mr. Kitely had done talking, Mrs. Boxall's attention was entirely taken up with another bird, of the paroquet species. It was the most awfully grotesque, the most pitiably comic animal in creation. It had a green head, with a band of red round the back of it; while white feathers came down on each side of its huge beak, like the gray whiskers of a retired military man. This head looked enormous for the rest of the body, for from the nape of the neck to the tail, except a few long feathers on the shoulders of its wings, blue like those of a jay, there was not another feather on its body: it was as bare as if it had been plucked for roasting. A more desolate, poverty-stricken, wretched object, can hardly be conceived. The immense importance of his head and beak and gray whiskers, with the abject nakedness—more than nakedness, pluckedness—of his body was quite beyond laughing at. It was far fitter to make one cry. But the creature was so absolutely, perfectly self-satisfied, without a notion of shame, or even discomfort, that it appeared impossible he could ever have seen himself behind. He must sorely have fancied himself as glorious as in his palmiest days. And his body was so thin, and his skin so old and wrinkled—I wish I could set him in the margin for my younger readers to see him. He hopped from place to place, and turned himself round before the spectators with such an absence of discomposure, that one could not help admiring his utter sang-froid, almost envying his perfect self-possession. Observing that his guest was absorbed in the contemplation of the phenomenon, Mr. Kitely said:
"You're a-wondering at poor Widdles. Widdles was an old friend of mine I named the bird after before he lost his greatcoat all but the collar. Widdles! Widdles!"
The bird came close up to the end of his perch, and, setting his head on one side, looked at his master with one round yellow eye.
"He's the strangest bird I ever saw," said Mrs. Boxall. "If you talked of wringing his neck, now, I shouldn't wonder, knowing you for a kind-hearted man, Mr. Kitely."
"Wring Widdles' neck!" exclaimed the bookseller. "His is the last neck I would think of wringing. See how bravely he bears misfortune. Nobody could well lose more than Widdles, and nobody could well take it lighter. He's a sermon, is that bird. His whole worldly wealth consists in his wig. They was a fine pair once, only he was always henpecked. His mate used to peck him because he wasn't able to peck her, for he was the smaller of the two. They always reminded me of Spelt and his wife. But when they were took ill, both of them, she gave in, and he wouldn't. Death took his feathers, and left him jolly without them. Bless him, old Widdles."
"Well, it's a curious taste of yours, I must say, Mr. Kitely. But some people, no more than some birds, ain't to be accounted for."
Mr. Kitely chose to consider this a good sally of wit, and laughed loud and long. Mrs. Boxall laughed a little too, and was pleased with herself. And from that moment she began to take to the bird.
"Try him with a bit of sugar," said Mr. Kitely, going to the carved cabinet to get a piece, which he then handed to Mrs. Boxall.
The bird was friendly and accepted it. Mrs. Boxall was pleased with him now as well as with herself, and before long a firm friendship was established between the two, which went so far that Widdles would, when she put her hand into his cage, perch upon her bony old finger, and allow himself to be lifted out. There was no fear of his even attempting to fly away, for he was perfectly aware of his utter incapacity in that direction of bird-like use and custom. Before many days had passed she had become so much attached to the bird that his company did not a little to shield her from the inroads of recurrent regret, mortification, and resentment.
One evening when she came home from her now rather numerous engagements, Lucy found her grandmother seated at the table, with the bird in her hand, rubbing him all over very gently for fear of hurting him, with something she took with her finger from a little pot on the table.
"What are you doing with Widdles, grannie?" she said.
"Trying a little bear's grease, child. Why shouldn't I?" she added, angrily, when Lucy laughed.
"No reason in the world why you shouldn't, grannie. You mustn't mind my laughing."
"I don't see why anybody should laugh at misfortune," returned Mrs. Boxall, severely. "How would you like to be in the condition of this bird yourself?"—without a feather, she was going to say, but just pulled up in time. She could not help laughing herself now, but she went on, nevertheless, with her work of charity. "Who knows," she said, "but they may grow again?"
"Grow again!" shrieked the gray parrot, in the tone of a violin in unskillful hands.
"Yes, grow again, you witch!" said Mrs. Boxall. "I don't see why the devil shouldn't be in you as well as in your betters. Why shouldn't they grow again?"
"Grow again!" reiterated the gray parrot. "Grow again! Widdles! Widdles! Widdles! Ha! ha! ha!"
"It shall grow again," retorted the old lady. "If bear's grease won't do, I'll spend my last penny on a bottle of Macassar; and if it doesn't grow then I'll pluck your back and stick them into his."
Mrs. Boxall had got into a habit of talking thus with the bird, which the bookseller had already nearly cured of his wicked words by instant punishment following each offense.
"Stick them into his!" cried the bird like an echo, and refused to speak again.
Sometimes, however, he would say a naughty word evidently for the sake of testing his master, or as if he wondered what punishment he would have this time—for the punishments were various. On such occasions he would shriek out the word, "Duck his head," and dart to the opposite side of the cage, keeping one eye full on his master, with such an expression that his profile looked like a whole face with a Cyclopean one eye in it.
Whether Mrs. Boxall was at last successful in her benevolent exertions I am unable to say, for her experiments were still going on when the period arrived with which my story must close. She often asserted that she saw them beginning to sprout; and to see her with spectacles on nose, examining the poor withered bluish back of Widdles, was ludicrous or touching, according to the humor of the beholder. Widdles seemed to like the pains she took with him, however; and there is no doubt of one thing, that she was rewarded for her trouble tenfold in being thus withdrawn from the contemplation of her own wrongs and misfortunes. Widdles thus gave her many a peaceful hour she would not in all probability have otherwise enjoyed. Nor were her attentions confined to him; through him, she was introduced to the whole regiment of birds, which she soon began assisting Mr. Kitely to wait upon. Mattie had never taken to them. While grannie, as she, too, called her, was busy with them, Mattie would sit beside at her needlework, scarcely looking up even when she addressed an occasional remark to grannie. It was a curious household, and fell into many singular groups.
But here I must leave Mrs. Boxall with her bird-companions, which, save for the comfort they afforded her in taking her mind off herself, have no active part in the story. Through Mrs. Morgenstern's influence and exertions, Lucy soon had as much to do in the way of teaching as she could compass, and her grandmother knew no difference in her way of living from what she had been accustomed to.
CHAPTER XLIII.
WHAT THOMAS WAS ABOUT.
When Thomas left Rotherhithe with Jim Salter, he had no idea in his head but to get away somewhere. Like the ostrich, he wanted some sand to stick his head into. But wherever he went there were people, even policemen, about, and not one of the places they went through looked more likely to afford him shelter than another. Had he given Jim any clearer information concerning the necessity he was in of keeping dark, perhaps he would have done differently with him. As it was, he contented himself with piloting him about the lower docks and all that maritime part of London. They walked about the whole day till Thomas was quite weary. Nor did refuge seem nearer than before. All this time the police might be on his track, coming nearer and nearer like the bloodhounds that they were. They had some dinner at an eating-house, where Thomas's fastidiousness made yet a farther acquaintance with dirt and disorder, and he felt that he had fallen from his own sphere into a lower order of things, and could never more climb into the heaven from whence he had fallen. But the fear of yet a lower fall into a prison and the criminal's dock kept him from dwelling yet upon what he had lost. At night Jim led him into Ratcliff Highway, the Paradise of sailors at sea—the hell of sailors on shore. Thomas shrunk from the light that filled the street from end to end, blazing from innumerable public-houses, through the open doors of which he looked across into back parlors, where sailors and women sat drinking and gambling, or down long passages to great rooms with curtained doorways, whence came the sounds of music and dancing, and through which passed and re-passed seafaring figures and gaily bedizened vulgar girls, many of whom, had the weather been warmer, would have been hanging about the street-doors, laughing and chaffing the passers-by, or getting up a dance on the pavement to the sound of the music within. It was a whole streetful of low revelry. Poor Jack! Such is his coveted reward on shore for braving Death, and defying him to his face. He escapes from the embrace of the bony phantom to hasten to the arms of his far more fearful companion—the nightmare Life-in-Death—"who thicks man's blood with cold." Well may that pair casting their dice on the skeleton ship symbolize the fate of the sailor, for to the one or the other he falls a victim.
Opposite an open door Jim stopped to speak to an acquaintance. The door opened directly upon a room ascending a few steps from the street. Round a table sat several men—sailors, of course—apparently masters of coasting vessels. A lithe lascar was standing with one hand on the table, leaning over it, and talking swiftly, with snaky gestures of the other hand. He was in a rage. The others burst out laughing. Thomas saw something glitter in the hand of the Hindoo. One of the sailors gave a cry, and started up, but staggered and fell.
Before he fell the lascar was at the door, down the steps with a bound, and out into the street. Two men were after him at full speed, but they had no chance with the light-built Indian.
"The villain has murdered a man, Jim," said Thomas—"in there—look!"
"Oh, I dare say he ain't much the worse," returned Jim. "They're always a outing with their knives here."
For all his indifference, however, Jim started after the Hindoo, but he was out of sight in another moment.
Jim returned.
"He's crowding all sail for Tiger Bay," said he. "I shouldn't care to follow him there. Here's a Peeler."
"Come along, Jim," said Thomas. "Don't stand here all the night."
"Why you ain't afraid o' the place, are you, guv'nor?"
Thomas tried to laugh, but he did not enjoy the allusion—in the presence of a third person especially.
"Well, good-night," said Jim to his acquaintance.
"By the way," he resumed, "do you know the figure of Potts's ken?"
"What Potts? I don't know any Potts."
"Yes you do. Down somewhere about Lime 'us, you know. We saw him that night—"
Here Jim whispered his companion, who answered aloud:
"Oh, yes, I know. Let me see. It's the Marmaid, I think. You ain't a-going there, are you?"
"Don't know. Mayhap. I'm only taking this gen'leman a sight-seeing. He's from the country."
"Good-night, then." And so they parted.
It was a sudden idea of Jim's to turn in the direction of the man whose child Thomas had saved. But Thomas did not know where he was taking him.
"Where will you sleep to-night, guv'nor?" asked Jim, as they walked along.
"I don't know," answered Thomas. "I must leave you to find me a place. But I say, Jim, can you think of anything I could turn to? for my money won't last me long."
"Turn to!" echoed Jim. "Why a man had need be able to turn to everything by turns to make a livin' nowadays. You ain't been used to hard work, by your hands. Do you know yer Bible well?"
"Pretty well," answered Thomas; "but I don't know what that can have to do with making a living."
"Oh, don't you, guv'nor? Perhaps you don't know what yer Bible means. It means pips and pictures."
"You mean the cards. No, no, I've had enough of that. I don't mean ever to touch them again."
"Hum! Bitten," said Jim to himself, but so that Thomas heard him.
"Not very badly, Jim. In the pocket-book I told you I lost I had a hundred pounds, won at cards the night before last."
"My eye!" exclaimed Jim. "What a devil of a pity! But why don't you try your luck again?" he asked, after a few moments of melancholy devoted to the memory of the money.
"Look here, Jim. I don't know where to go to sleep. I have a comfortable room that I dare not go near; a father—a rich man, I believe—who would turn me out; and, in short, I've ruined myself forever with card-playing. The sight of a pack would turn me sick, I do believe."
"Sorry for you, guv'nor. I know a fellow, though, that makes a good thing of the thimble."
"I've no turn for tailoring, I'm afraid."
"Beggin' your pardon, guv'nor, but you are a muff! You never thought I meant a gen'leman like you to take to a beastly trade like that. I meant the thimble and peas, you know, at fairs, and such like. It's all fair, you know. You tell 'em they don't know where the pea is and they don't. I know a friend o' mine'll put you up to it for five or six bob. Bless you! there's room for free trade and money made."
Thomas could hardly be indignant with Jim for speaking according to his kind. But when he looked into it, it stung him to the heart to think that every magistrate would regard him as capable of taking to the profession of thimble-rigging after what he had been already guilty of. Yet in all his dealings with cards Thomas had been scrupulously honorable. He said no more to Jim about finding something to do.
They had gone a good way, and Thomas's strength was beginning to fail him quite. Several times Jim had inquired after the Marmaid, always in public-houses, where he paid for the information or none, as the case might be, by putting a name upon something at Thomas's expense; so that he began to be rather uplifted.
At length he called out joyfully:
"Here's a fishy one, guv'nor, at last! Come along."
So saying, he pushed the swing door, to which was attached a leather strap to keep it from swinging outward, and entered. It admitted them to a bar served by a big fat man with an apron whose substratum was white at the depth of several strata of dirt, and a nose much more remarkable for color than drawing, being in both more like a half-ripe mulberry than anything else in nature. He had little round, watery eyes, and a face indicative of nothing in particular, for it had left its original conformation years behind. As soon as they entered, Jim went straight up to the landlord, and stared at him for a few moments across the counter. "You don't appear to know me, guv'nor?" he said, for the many things he had drank to find the way had made him barky. His vocabulary of address, it will be remarked, was decidedly defective.
"Well, I can't take upon me to say as I do," answered the man, putting his thumbs in the strings of his apron, and looking at Jim with a mixture of effort and suspicion on his puffy face. "And I'll be bound to say," remarked Jim, turning toward Thomas, "that you don't know this gen'leman either. Do 'ee now guv'nor? On yer honor, right as a trivet? No, ye don't."
"Can't say I do."
"Look at him, then. Ain't he fit to remember? Don't he look respectable?"
"Come, none o' your chaff! Say what you've got to say. What do you want?"
"Cut it short, Jim," said Thomas.
"How's your young marmaid as took to the water so nat'ral at the Horsleydown tother day, Mr. Potts?" asked Jim, leaning on his elbows on the counter.
"Jolly," answered the landlord. "Was you by?"
"Wasn't I, then! And there's a guv'nor was nearer than I was. Mr. Potts, that's the very gen'leman as went a header into the water and saved her, Mr. Potts. Hold up yer head, guv'nor."
"You're a chaffin of me, I know," said Potts.
"Come, come, Jim, don't make a fool of me," said Thomas.
"I wish I had known you were bringing me here. Come along. I won't stand it."
But Jim was leaning over the counter, speaking in a whisper to the down-bent landlord.
"You don't mean it?" said the latter.
"Ask the mis'ess, then," said Jim.
"You don't mean it!" repeated the landlord, in a husky voice, and with increase of energy. Then looking toward Thomas, "What will he take?" and with the words turned his back upon Jim, and his face toward a shelf on which stood his choicest bottles between two cask-like protuberances. He got down one of brandy, but Thomas, who was vexed at being brought there as if he wanted some acknowledgment of the good deed he had been fortunate enough to perform, refused to take anything.
"What will you take then?" said the man, whose whole stock of ideas seemed to turn upon taking.
But at the moment a woman entered from behind the shop.
"There, mis'ess," said her husband, "can you tell who that gentleman is?"
She looked at him for a moment, and exclaimed:
"Bless my soul! It's the gentleman that took our Bessie out of the water. How do you do, sir?" she continued, with mingled pleasure and respect, as she advanced from behind the counter, and curtsied to Thomas.
"None the worse for my ducking, thank you," said Thomas, holding out his hand in the delight a word of real friendship always gives.
She shook it warmly, and would hardly let it go.
"Oh! isn't he, then?" muttered Jim, mysteriously, but loud enough for Potts to hear.
"Won't you come in, sir?" said the woman, turning to lead the way.
"Thank you," answered Thomas. "I have been walking about all day, and am very tired. If you would let me sit down awhile—and—perhaps it wouldn't be giving you too much trouble to ask for a cup of tea, for my head aches rather."
"Come in, sir," she said, in a tone of truest hospitality. "That I will, with pleasure, I'm sure."
Thomas followed her into a dingy back room, where she made him lie down on a sofa from which he would have recoiled three days ago, but for which he was very grateful now. She then bustled about to get him some tea, and various little delicacies besides, in the shape of ham, and shrimps, etc., etc. It was pretty clear from her look, and the way she pressed her offerings of gratitude, that she had a true regard for inward comforts, if not for those outward luxuries of neatness and cleanliness.
The moment Thomas was out of the shop, Jim Salter began to be more communicative with Mr. Potts.
"None the worse!" said he, reflectively. "Oh, no. That's the way your quality talk about a few bank-notes. Nothing but a hundred pounds the worst. Oh, no."
"You don't mean it?" said Mr. Potts, making his eyes as round as two sixpences.
"Well, to be sure," said Salter, "I can't take my davy on it; 'cause as how I've only his word for it. But he don't look like a cony-catcher, do he? He's a deal too green for that, I can tell you. Well, he is green!" repeated Jim, bursting into a quiet chuckle.
"I don't mean he's a fool, neither. There's a vasty heap o' difference betwixt a leek in yer eye and a turnip in yer brain-box. Ain't there now, guv'nor?"
"You don't mean it?" said Mr. Potts, staring more than ever.
"What don't I mean, Mr. Potts?"
"You don't mean that that 'ere chap? What do you mean about them hundred pounds?"
"Now I'll tell 'ee, guv'nor. It's a great pleasure to me to find I can tell a story so well."
"There you are—off again, no mortal man can tell to where. You ain't told me no story yet."
"Ain't I? How came it then, guv'nor, that I ha' made you forget your usual 'ospitable manners? If I hadn't ha' been telling you a story, you'd ha'—I know you'd ha' asked me to put a name upon something long ago."
Mr. Potts laughed, and saying, "I beg yer pardon, Mr. Salter, though I'm sure I don't remember ever meetin' of you afore, only that's no consequence; the best o' friends must meet some time for the first time," turned his face to the shelf as he had done before, and, after a little hesitation, seemed to conclude that it would be politic to take down the same bottle. Jim tossed off the half of his glassful, and, setting the rest on the counter, began his story. Whether he wished to represent himself as Thomas's confidant, or, having come to his conclusions to the best of his ability, believed himself justified in representing them as the facts of the case, it is not necessary to inquire; the account he gave of Thomas's position was this: That when Thomas went overboard after little Bessie, he had in the breast of his coat a pocket-book, with a hundred pounds of his master's in it; that he dared not go home without it; that the police were after him; and, in short, that he was in a terrible fix. Mr. Potts listened with a general stare, and made no reply.
"You'll give him a bed to-night, won't you, guv'nor? I'll come back in the morning and see what can be done."
Jim finished his glass of brandy as if it had been only the last drops, and set it on the counter with a world of suggestion in the motion, to which Mr. Potts mechanically replied by filling it again, saying as he did so, in a voice a little huskier than usual, "All right." Jim tossed off the brandy, smacked his lips, said "Thank you, and good-night," and went out of the beer-shop. Mr. Potts stood for five minutes motionless, then went slowly to the door of the back parlor, and called his wife. Leaving Thomas to finish his meal by himself, Mrs. Potts joined her husband and they had a talk together. He told her what Jim had just communicated to him, and they held a consultation, the first result of which was that Mrs. Potts proceeded to get a room—the best she could offer—ready for Thomas. He accepted her hospitality with gratitude, and was glad to go to bed.
Meantime, leaving his wife to attend to the thirst of the public, Mr. Potts set out to find his brother-in-law, the captain of a collier trading between Newcastle and London, who was at the moment in the neighborhood, but whose vessel was taking in ballast somewhere down the river. He came upon him where he had expected to find him, and told him the whole story.
The next morning, when Thomas, more miserable than ever, after rather a sleepless night, came down stairs early, he found his breakfast waiting for him, but not his breakfast only: a huge seafaring man, with short neck and square shoulders, dressed in a blue pilot-coat, was seated in the room. He rose when Thomas entered, and greeted him with a bow made up of kindness and patronage. Mrs. Potts came in the same moment.
"This is my brother, Captain Smith, of the Raven," she said, "come to thank you, sir, for what you did for his little pet, Bessie."
"Well, I donnow," said the captain, with a gruff breeziness of manner. "I came to ask the gentleman if, bein' on the loose, he wouldn't like a trip to Newcastle, and share my little cabin with me."
It was the first glimmer of gladness that had lightened Thomas's horizon for what seemed to him an age.
"Thank you, thank you!" he said; "it is the very thing for me."
And, as he spoke, the awful London wilderness vanished, and open sea and sky filled the world of his imaginings.
"When do you sail?" he asked.
"To-night, I hope, with the ebb," said the captain; "but you had better come with me as soon as you've had your breakfast, and we'll go on board at once. You needn't mind about your chest. You can rough it a little, I dare say. I can lend you a jersey that'll do better than your 'longshore togs."
Thomas applied himself to his breakfast with vigor. Hope even made him hungry. How true it is that we live by hope! Before he had swallowed his last mouthful, he started from his seat.
"You needn't be in such a hurry," said the captain. "There's plenty of time. Stow your prog."
"I have quite done. But I must see Mr. Potts for a minute."
He went to the bar, and, finding that Jim had not yet made his appearance, asked the landlord to change him a sovereign, and give half to Jim.
"It's too much," said Mr. Potts.
"I promised him a day's wages."
"Five shillings is over enough, besides the brandy I gave him last night. He don't make five shillings every day."
Thomas, however, to the list of whose faults stinginess could not be added, insisted on Jim having the half sovereign, for he felt that he owed him far more than that.
In pulling out the small remains of his money, wondering if he could manage to buy a jersey for himself before starting, he brought out with it two bits of pasteboard, the sight of which shot a pang to his heart: they were the pawn-tickets for his watch and Lucy's ring, which he had bought back from the holder on that same terrible night on which he had lost almost everything worth having. It was well he had only thrust them into the pocket of his trousers, instead of putting them into his pocket-book. They had stuck to the pocket, and been dried with it, had got loose during the next day, and now came to light, reminding him of his utter meanness, not to say dishonesty, in parting with the girl's ring that he might follow his cursed play. The gleam of gladness which the hope of escaping from London gave him had awaked his conscience more fully; and he felt the despicableness of his conduct as he had never felt it before. How could he have done it? The ring, to wear which he had been proud because it was not his own, but Lucy's, he had actually exposed to the contamination of vile hands—had actually sent from her pure, lovely person into the pocket of a foul talker, and thence to a pawnbroker's shop. He could have torn himself to pieces at the thought. And now that she was lost to him forever, was he to rob her of her mother's jewel as well? He must get it again. But if he went after it now, even if he had the money to redeem it, he might run into the arms of the searching Law, and he and it too would be gone. But he had not the money. The cold dew broke out on his face, as he stood beside the pump-handles of the beer-shop. But Mr. Potts had been watching him for some time. He knew the look of those tickets, and dull as his brain was, with a dullness that was cousin to his red nose, he divined at once that Thomas's painful contemplation had to do with some effects of which those tickets were the representatives. He laid his hand on Thomas's shoulder from behind. Thomas gave a great start.
"I beg your pardon for frightening of you, sir," said Mr. Potts; "but I believe a long experience in them things makes me able to give you good advice."
"What things?" asked Thomas.
"Them things," repeated Potts, putting a fat forefinger first on the one and then on the other pawn-ticket. "'Twasn't me, nor yet Bessie. 'Tis long since I was in my uncle's. All I had to do there was a-getting of 'em down the spout. I never sent much up it; my first wife, Joan—not Bessie, bless her! Now I ain't no witch, but I can see with 'alf a heye that you've got summat at your uncle's you don't like to leave there, when you're a-goin' a voyagin' to the ends o' the earth. Have you got the money as well as the tickets?"
"Oh dear, no!" answered Thomas, almost crying.
"Come now," said Potts, kindly, "sweep out the chimley. It's no use missing the crooks and corners, and having to send a boy up after all. Sweep it out. Tell me all about it, and I'll see what I can do—or can't do, it may be."
Thomas told him that the tickets were for a watch—a gold watch, with a compensation balance—and a diamond ring. He didn't care about the watch; but he would give his life to get the ring again.
"Let me look at the tickets. How much did you get on 'em separate?"
Thomas said he did not know, but gave him the tickets to examine.
Potts looked at them. "You don't care so much for the watch?" he said.
"No, I don't," answered Thomas; "though my mother did give it to me," he added, ruefully.
"Why don't you offer 'em both of the tickets for the ring, then?" said Potts.
"What?" said Thomas. "I don't see—"
"You give 'em to me," returned Potts. "Here, Bess! you go in and have a chat with the captain—I'm going out, Bessie, for an hour. Tell the captain not to go till I come back."
So saying, Potts removed his white apron, put on a black frock coat and hat, and went out, taking the tickets with him.
Mrs. Potts brought a tumbler of grog for her brother, and he sat sipping it. Thomas refused to join him; for he reaped this good from his sensitive organization, that since the night on which it had helped to ruin him, he could scarcely endure even the smell of strong drink. It was rather more than an hour before Mr. Potts returned, during which time Thomas had been very restless and anxious. But at last his host walked into the back room, laid a small screw of paper before him, and said:
"There's your ring, sir. You won't want your watch this voyage. I've got it, though; but I'm forced to keep it, in case I should be behind with my rent. Any time you look in, I shall have it, or know where it is."
Thomas did what he could to express his gratitude, and took the ring with a wonderful feeling of relief. It seemed like a pledge of farther deliverance. He begged Mr. Potts to do what he pleased with the watch; he didn't care if he never saw it again; and hoped it would be worth more to him than what it had cost him to redeem them both. Then, after many kind farewells, he took his leave with the captain of the Raven. As they walked along, he could not help looking round every few yards; but after his new friend had taken him to a shop where he bought a blue jersey and a glazed hat, and tied his coat up in a handkerchief—his sole bundle of luggage—he felt more comfortable. In a couple of hours he was on board of the Raven, a collier brig of a couple of hundred tons. They set sail the same evening, but not till they reached the Nore did Thomas begin to feel safe from pursuit.
The captain seemed a good deal occupied with his own thoughts, and there were few things they understood in common, so that Thomas was left mostly to his own company; which, though far from agreeable, was no doubt the very best for him under the circumstances. For it was his real self that he looked in the face—the self that told him what he was, showed him whence he had fallen, what he had lost, how he had hitherto been wasting his life, and how his carelessness had at length thrown him over a precipice up which he could not climb—there was no foothold upon it. But this was not all: he began to see not only his faults, but the weakness of his character, the refusal to combat which had brought him to this pass. His behavior to Lucy was the bitterest thought of all. She looked ten times more lovely to him now that he had lost her. That she should despise him was terrible—even more terrible the likelihood that she would turn the rich love of her strong heart upon some one else. How she had entreated him to do her justice! and he saw now that she had done so even more for his sake than for her own. He had not yet any true idea of what Lucy was worth. He did not know how she had grown since the time when, with all a girl's inexperience, she had first listened to his protestations. While he had been going down the hill, she had been going up. Long before they had been thus parted, he would not have had a chance of winning her affections had he had then to make the attempt. But he did see that she was infinitely beyond him, infinitely better than—to use a common phrase—he could have deserved if he had been as worthy as he fancied himself. I say a common phrase, because no man can ever deserve a woman. Gradually—by what gradations he could not have told—the truth, working along with his self-despising, showed him something of all this; and it was the first necessity of a nature like his to be taught to look down on himself. As long as he thought himself more than somebody, no good was to be expected of him. Therefore, it was well for him that the worthlessness of his character should break out and show itself in some plainly worthless deed, that he might no longer be able to hide himself from the conviction and condemnation of his own conscience. Hell had come at last; and he burned in its fire.
He was very weary, and went to bed in a berth in the cabin. But he was awaked while it was yet quite dark by the violent rolling and pitching of the vessel, and the running to and fro overhead. He got up at once, dressed in haste, and clambered up the companion-ladder. It was a wild scene. It had come on to blow hard. The brig was under reefed topsails and jib: but Thomas knew nothing of sea affairs. She was a good boat, and rode the seas well. There was just light enough for him to see the water by the white rents in its darkness. Fortunately, he was one of those few favored individuals in whose nerves the motion of a vessel finds no response—I mean he did not know what sea-sickness was. And that storm came to him a wonderful gift from the Father who had not forgotten his erring child—so strangely did it harmonize with his troubled mind. New strength, even hope, invaded his weary heart from the hiss of the wind through the cordage as it bellied out from the masts; his soul rejoiced in the heave of the wave under the bows and its swift rush astern; and though he had to hold hard by the weather shrouds, not a shadow of fear crossed his mind. This may have partly come from life being to him now a worthless thing, save as he had some chance of—he did not know what; for although he saw no way of recovering his lost honor, and therefore considered that eternal disgrace was his, even if God and man forgave him, there was yet a genuine ray of an unknown hope borne into him, as I say, from the crests of those broken waves. But I think it was natural to Thomas to fear nothing that merely involved danger to himself. In this respect he possessed a fine physical courage. It was in moral courage—the power of looking human anger and contempt in the face, and holding on his own way—that he was deficient. I believe that this came in a great measure from a delicate, sensitive organization. He could look a storm in the face; but a storm in a face he could not endure; he quailed before it. He would sail over a smooth human sea, if he might; when a wind rose there, he would be under bare poles in a moment. Of course this sensitiveness was not in itself an evil, being closely associated with his poetic tendencies, which ought to have been the center from which all the manlier qualities were influenced for culture and development; but he had been spoiled in every way, not least by the utterly conflicting discords of nature, objects, and character in his father and mother. But although a man may be physically brave and morally a coward—a fact too well known to be insisted upon—a facing of physical danger will help the better courage in the man whose will is at all awake to cherish it; for the highest moral courage is born of the will, and not of the organization. The storm wrought thus along with all that was best in him. In the fiercest of it that night, he found himself often kissing Lucy's ring, which, as soon as he began to know that they were in some danger, and not till then, he had, though with a strong feeling of the sacrilege of the act, ventured to draw once more upon his unworthy hand.
The wind increased as the sun rose. If he could only have helped the men staggering to and fro, as they did on the great sea in the days of old! But he did not know one rope from another. Two men were at the tiller. One was called away on some emergency aloft. Thomas sprang to his place.
"I will do whatever you tell me," he said to the steersman; "only let me set a man free."
Then he saw it was the captain himself. He gave a nod, and a squirt of tobacco-juice, as cool as if he had been steering with a light gale over a rippling sea. Thomas did his best, and in five minutes had learned to obey the word the captain gave him as he watched the binnacle. About an hour after the sun rose the wind began to moderate; and before long the captain gave up the helm to the mate, saying to Thomas:
"We'll go and have some breakfast. You've earned your rations, anyhow. Your father ought to have sent you to sea. It would have made a man of you."
This was not very complimentary. But Thomas had only a suppressed sigh to return for answer. He did not feel himself worth defending any more.
CHAPTER XLIV.
THOMAS RETURNS TO LONDON.
After this Thomas made rapid progress in the favor of Captain Smith. He had looked upon him as a landlubber before, with the contempt of his profession; but when he saw that, clerk as he was, he was yet capable at sea, he began to respect him. And as Thomas wakened up more and more to an interest in what was going on around him, he did not indulge in giving him fool's answers to the questions he asked, as so many sea-farers would have been ready to do; and he soon found that Thomas's education, though it was by no means a first-rate one, enabled him to ask more questions with regard to the laws of wind and water and the combination of forces than he was quite able to solve. Before they reached the end of the voyage, Thomas knew the rigging pretty well, and could make himself useful on board. Anxious to ingratiate himself with the captain—longing almost unconsciously for the support of some human approbation, the more that he had none to give himself—he laid himself out to please him. Having a tolerably steady head, he soon found himself able to bear a hand in taking in a reef in the foretop-sail, and he could steer by the course with tolerable steadiness. The sailors were a not unsociable set of men, and as he presumed upon nothing, they too gave him what help they could, not without letting off a few jokes at his expense, in the laughter following on which he did his best to join. The captain soon began to order him about like the rest, which was the best kindness he could have shown him; and Thomas's obedience was more than prompt—it was as pleasant as possible. He had on his part some information to give the captain; and their meals in the cabin together were often merry enough.
"Do you think you could ever make a sailor of me?" asked Tom, one day.
"Not a doubt of it, my boy," the captain answered. "A few voyages more, and you'll go aloft like a monkey."
"Where do you think of making your next voyage, sir?" asked Tom.
"Well, I'm part owner of the brig, and can do pretty much as I like. I did think of Dundee."
"I should have thought they have coal enough of their own thereabouts."
"A cargo of English coal never comes amiss. It's better than theirs by a long way."
"Would you take me with you?"
"To be sure, if you can't do better."
"I can't. I don't want anything but my rations, you know."
"You'll soon be worth your wages. I can't say you are yet, you know."
"Of course not. You must have your full crew besides."
"We're one hand short this voyage; and you've done something to fill the gap."
"I'm very glad, I'm sure. But what would you advise me to do when we reach Newcastle? It will be some time before you get off again."
"Not long. If you like to take your share in getting the cargo on board, you can make wages by that."
"With all my heart," said Thomas, whom this announcement greatly relieved.
"It's dirty work," said the captain.
"There's plenty of water about," answered Thomas.
When they came to Newcastle, Thomas worked as hard as any of them, getting the ballast out and the new cargo in. He had never known what it was to work before; and though it tired him dreadfully at first, it did him good.
"THOMAS WORKED AS HARD AS ANY OF THEM."
Among the men was one whom he liked more than the rest. He had been in the merchant service, and had sailed to India and other places. He knew more than his shipmates, and had only taken to the coasting for a time for family reasons. With him Thomas chiefly consorted when their day's work was over. With a growing hope that by some means he might rise at last into another kind of company, he made the best he could of what he had, knowing well that it was far better than he deserved, and far better than what of late he had been voluntarily choosing. His hope, however, alternated with such fits of misery and despair, that if it had not been for the bodily work he had to do, he thought he would have lost his reason. I believe not a few keep hold of their senses in virtue of doing hard work. I knew an earl's son, an heir, who did so. And I think that not a few, especially women, lose their senses just from having nothing to do. Many more, who are not in danger of this, lose their health, and more still lose their purity and rectitude. In other words, health—physical, mental, moral, and spiritual—requires, for its existence and continuance, work, often hard and bodily labor.
This man lived in Newcastle, and got Thomas a decent room near his own dwelling, where he slept. One evening they had been walking together about the place till they were tired. It was growing late, and as they were some distance from home, they went into a little public house which Robins knew, to get a bit of bread and cheese and some ale. Robins was a very sober man, and Thomas felt no scruple in accompanying him thus, although one of the best things to be said for Thomas was, that ever since he went on board the Raven he had steadily refused to touch spirits. Perhaps, as I have hinted before, there was less merit in this than may appear, for the very smell was associated with such painful memories of misery that it made him shudder. Sometimes a man's physical nature comes in to help him to be good. For such a dislike may grow into a principle which will last after the dislike has vanished.
They sat down in a little room with colored prints of ships in full sail upon the walls, a sanded floor, in the once new fashion which superseded rushes, and an ostrich egg hanging from the ceiling. The landlady was a friend of Robins, and showed them this attention. On the other side of a thin partition was the ordinary room, where the ordinary run of customers sat and drank their grog. There were only two or three in there when our party entered. Presently, while Thomas and Robins were sitting at their supper, they heard two or three more come in. A hearty recognition took place, and fresh orders were given. Thomas started and listened. He thought he heard the name Ningpo.
Now, from Thomas's having so suddenly broken off all connection with his friends, he knew nothing of what had been going on with regard to the property Mr. Boxall had left behind him. He thought, of course, that Mrs. Boxall would inherit it. It would not be fair to suppose, however, that this added to his regret at having lost Lucy, for he was humbled enough to be past that. The man who is turned out of Paradise does not grieve over the loss of its tulips, or, if he does, how came he ever to be within its gates? But the very fact that the name of Boxall was painful to him, made the name of that vessel attract and startle him at once.
"What's the matter?" said Robins.
"Didn't you hear some one in the next room mention the Ningpo?" returned Thomas.
"Yes. She was a bark in the China trade."
"Lost last summer on the Cape Verdes. I knew the captain—at least, I didn't know him, but I knew his brother and his family. They were all on board and all lost."
"Ah!" said Robins, "that's the way of it, you see. People oughtn't to go to sea but them as has business there. Did you say the crew was lost as well?"
"So the papers said."
Robins rose, and went into the next room. He had a suspicion that he knew the voice. Almost the same moment a rough burst of greeting came to Thomas's ears: and a few minutes after, Robins entered, bringing with him a sailor so rough, so hairy, so brown, that he looked as if he must be proof against any attack of the elements—case-hardened against wind and water.
"Here's the gentleman," said Robins, "as knew your captain, Jack."
"Do, sir?" said Jack, touching an imaginary sou'wester.
"What'll you have?" asked Tom.
This important point settled, they had a talk together, in which Jack opened up more freely in the presence of Robins than he would have felt interest enough to do with a stranger alone who was only a would-be sailor at best—a fact which could not be kept a secret from an eye used to read all sorts of signals. I will not attempt to give the story in Jack's lingo. But the certainty was that he had been on board the Ningpo when she went to pieces—that he had got ashore on a spar, after sitting through the night on the stern, and seeing every soul lost, as far as he believed, but himself. He had no great power of description, and did not volunteer much; but he returned very direct answers to all the questions Thomas put to him. Had Thomas only read some of the proceedings in the Court of Probate during the last few months, he would have known better what sort of questions to put to him. Almost the only remark Jack volunteered was:
"Poor little July! how she did stick to me, to be sure! But she was as dead as a marlin-spike long afore the starn broke up."
"Were you long on the island?" asked Tom.
"No, not long," answered the sailor. "I always was one of the lucky ones. I was picked up the same day by a brigantine bound from Portingale to the Sambusy."
Little did Tom think how much might be involved in what Jack said. They parted, and the friends went home together. They made a good voyage, notwithstanding some rough weather, to Dundee, failed in getting a return cargo, and went back to Newcastle in ballast. From Newcastle their next voyage was to London again.
"If you would rather not go to London," said the master to Tom, "there's a friend of mine here who is just ready to start for Aberdeen. I dare say if I were to speak to him he would take you on board."
But Tom's heart was burning to see Lucy once more—if only to see her and restore her ring. If, he thought, he might but once humble himself to the dust before her—if he might but let her see that, worthless as he was, he worshiped her, his heart would be easier. He thought, likewise, that what with razoring and tanning, and the change of his clothes, he was not likely to be recognized. And besides, by this time the power must be out of Mr. Stopper's hands; at least Lucy must have come to exert her influence over the affairs of the business, and she would not allow them to drive things to extremity with him, worthless as he was. He would venture, come of it what might. So he told the captain that he would much prefer to work his passage to London again. It was a long passage this time, and very rough weather.
It was with strange feelings that Thomas saw once more the turrets of the Tower of London. Danger—exposure, it might be—lay before him, but he thought only of Lucy, not of the shame now. It was yet early morning when Captain Smith and he went on shore at Shadwell. The captain was going to see an old friend in the neighborhood, and after that to Limehouse, to the Mermaid, to see his sister. Thomas wanted to be alone, for he had not yet succeeded in making up his mind what he was going to do. So he sent a grateful message by the captain, with the addition that he would look in upon them in the evening.
Left alone, without immediate end or aim, he wandered on, not caring whither he went, but, notwithstanding his heavy thoughts, with something of the enjoyment the sailor feels in getting on shore even after only a fortnight at sea. It was a bright, cold, frosty morning, in the month of March. Without knowing his course, Thomas was wandering northward; and after he had gone into a coffee-shop and had some breakfast, he carelessly resumed his course in the same direction. He found that he was in the Cambridge Road, but whither that led he had no idea. Nor did he know, so absorbed was he in his own thoughts, even after he came into a region he knew, till, lifting up his head, he saw the gray, time-worn tower, that looks so strong and is so shaky, of the old church of Hackney, now solitary, its ancient nave and chancel and all having vanished, leaving it to follow at its leisure, wearied out with disgust at the church which has taken its place, and is probably the ugliest building in Christendom, except the parish-church of a certain little town in the north of Aberdeenshire. This sent a strange pang to his heart, for close by, that family used to live whose bones were now whitening among those rocky islands of the Atlantic. He went into the church-yard, sat down on a grave-stone, and thought. Now that the fiction of his own worth had vanished like an image in the clouds of yesterday, he was able to see clearly into his past life and conduct; and he could not conceal from himself that his behavior to Mary Boxall might have had something to do with the loss of the whole family. He saw more and more the mischief that had come of his own weakness, lack of courage, and principle. If he could but have defended his own conduct where it was blameless, or at least allowed it to be open to the daylight and the anger of those whom it might not please, he would thus have furnished his own steps with a strong barrier against sliding down that slope down which he had first slidden before falling headlong from the precipice at its foot. In self-abasement he rose from the grave-stone, and walked slowly past the house. Merry faces of children looked from upper windows, who knew nothing of those who had been there before them. Then he went away westward toward Highbury. He would just pass his father's door. There was no fear of his father seeing him at this time of the day, for he would be at his office, and his mother could not leave her room. Ah, his mother! How had he behaved to her? A new torrent of self-reproach rushed over his soul as he walked along the downs toward Islington. Some day, if he could only do something first to distinguish himself in any way, he would go and beg her forgiveness. But what chance was there of his ever doing any thing now? He had cut all the ground of action from under his own feet. Not yet did Thomas see that his duty was to confess his sin, waiting for no means of covering its enormity. He walked on. He passed the door, casting but a cursory glance across the windows. There was no one to be seen. He went down the long walk with the lime-trees on one side, which he knew so well, and just as he reached the gates there were his sister Amy and Mr. Simon coming from the other side. They were talking and laughing merrily, and looking in each others face. He had never seen Mr. Simon look so pleasant before. He almost felt as if he could speak to him. But no sooner did Mr. Simon see that this sailor-looking fellow was regarding them, than the clerical mask was on his face, and Thomas turned away with involuntary dislike.
"It is clear," he said to himself, "that they don't care much what is become of me." He turned then, westward again, toward Highgate, and then went over to Hampstead, paused at the pines, and looked along the valley beneath; then descended into it, and went across the heath till he came out on the road by Wildwood. This was nearly the way he had wandered on that stormy Christmas Day with Mary Boxall. He had this day, almost without conscious choice, traversed the scenes of his former folly. Had he not been brooding repentantly over his faults, I doubt if he could have done so, even unconsciously. He turned into the Bull and Bush, and had some dinner; then, as night was falling, started for London, having made up his mind at last what he would do. At the Bull and Bush he wrote a note to Lucy, to the following effect. He did not dare to call her by her name, still less to use any term of endearment.
"I am not worthy to speak or write your name," he said; "but my heart is dying to see you once more. I have likewise to return you your mother's ring, which, though it has comforted me often in my despair, I have no longer any right to retain. But I should just like to tell you that I am working honestly for my bread. I am a sailor now. I am quite clear of all my bad companions, and hope to remain so. Dare I ask you to meet me once—to-morrow night, say, or any night soon, for I am not safe in London? I will tell you all when I see you. Send me one line by the bearer of this to say where you will meet me. Do not, for the sake of your love to me once, refuse me this. I want to beg your forgiveness, that I may go away less miserable than I am. Then I will go to Australia, or somewhere out of the country, and you will never hear of me more. God bless you."
He cried a good deal over this note. Then came the question how he was to send it. He could, no doubt, find a messenger at the Mermaid, but he was very unwilling to make any line of communication between that part of London and Guild Court, or, more properly, to connect himself, whose story was there known, with Lucy's name. He would go to the neighborhood of Guild Court and there look out for a messenger, whom he could then watch.
CHAPTER XLV.
THOMAS IS CAPTURED.
As soon as he had resolved upon this he set out. There was plenty of time. He would walk. Tired as he was beginning to be, motion was his only solace. He walked through Hampstead, and by Haverstock Hill, Tottenham Court Road, and Holborn to the City. By this time the moon was up. Going by Ludgate Hill, he saw her shining over St. Paul's right through the spire of St. Martin's, where the little circle of pillars lays it open to the sky and the wind; she seemed to have melted the spire in two. Then he turned off to the left, now looking out for a messenger. In his mind he chose and rejected several, dallying with his own eagerness, and yielding to one doubt after another about each in succession. At last he reached the farther end of Bagot Street. There stood Poppie with her "murphy-buster." Had it been daylight, when her dress and growth would have had due effect upon her appearance, probably Thomas would not have known her; but seeing her face only by the street-lamp, he just recollected that he had seen the girl about Guild Court. He had no suspicion that she would know him. But Poppie was as sharp as a needle; she did know him.