CHAPTER IV.
I MURDER MY BABY-BROTHER.
Misfortunes never come singly, and they did not come singly to us. It was not for us to give the lie to a proverb. Often in a family, death is in a hurry when it commences, and takes one after another quickly; then pauses for a long breath.
In very truth, sorrow in its deepest phase had entered our house, and my mother's form seemed to shrink and grow less from the day she put on mourning for my grandmother. But if my mother had her troubles, I am sure I had mine; and one was of such a strange and terrible nature that, even at this distance of time, and with a better comprehension of things, a curiously-reluctant feeling comes upon me as I prepare to narrate it. It is summarised in a very few words. I murdered my baby-brother.
At least, such was my impression at the time. For a long while I was afflicted by secret remorse and by fear of discovery, and never till now have I made confession. There was only one witness of my crime: our cat. I remember well that my father was said to be sinking at the time, and my mother, having her hands full, and her heart, too, poor dear! placed me and my baby-brother in the room in which I used to sit with my grandmother. My task was to take care of the little fellow, and to amuse him. He was so young that he could scarcely toddle, and we had great fun with two oranges which my mother had given us to play with. It required great strength of mind not to eat them instead of playing with them; but the purpose for which they were given to us had been plainly set down by my mother. All that I could hope for, therefore, was that they might burst their skins after being knocked about a little, when of course they would become lawful food. We played ball with them; my baby-brother rolling them towards me, not being strong enough to throw them, and I (secretly animated by the wish that they would burst their skins) throwing them up to him, with a little more force than was actually necessary, and trying to make him catch them. I cannot tell for how long we played, for at this precise moment of my history a mist steals upon such of my early reminiscences as are related in this and the preceding chapters--a mist which divides, as by a curtain, one part of my life from another. My actual life will soon commence, the life that is tangible to me, as it were, that stands out in stronger colour and is distinct from the brief prologue which was acted in dreamland, and which lies nestled deep among the days of my childhood. Cloud-memories these; most of us have such. Some are wholly bright and sweet, some wholly sad and bitter, some parti-coloured. When the dreamland in which these cloud-memories have birth has faded, and we are in the summer or the winter of our days, fighting the Battle, or, having fought it, are waiting for the trumpet-sound which proclaims the Grand Retreat, we can all remember where we received such and such a wound, where such and such a refreshing draught was given to us, at what part of the fight such and such a scar was gained, and at what part a spiritual vision dawned upon our souls, captivating and entrancing us with hopes too bright and beautiful ever to be realised; and though our blood be thin and poor, and the glory of life seems to have waned with the waning of our strength, our pulses thrill and our hearts beat with something of the old glow as the remembrance of these pains and pleasures comes upon us!
To return to my baby-brother. The dusk steals upon us, and we are still playing with the oranges. The cat is watching us, and when an orange rolls in her direction she, half timidly, half sportively, stretches out her paw towards it, and on one occasion lies full-length on her stomach, with an orange between the tips of her paws, and her nose in a straight line with it. I hear my baby-brother laugh gleefully as I scramble on all-fours after the orange. The dusk has deepened, and my baby-brother's face grows indistinct. I throw the orange towards him. It hits him in the face, and his gleeful laughter changes to a scream. I absolutely never see my baby-brother again, and never again hear his voice. All that afterwards refers to him seems to be imparted to me when it is dark, and so strong is my impression of this detail that in my memory I never see his face with a light upon it. My baby-brother is taken suddenly ill, I am told. I go about the house, always in the dark, stepping very gently, and wondering whether my secret will become known, and if it does, what will be done to me. Still in the dark I hear that my baby-brother is worse; that he is dangerously ill. Then, without an interval as it seems, comes the news that my baby-brother is dead, and I learn in some undiscoverable way that he has died of the croup. I know better. I know that I gave him his death-blow with the orange, and I tremble for the consequences. But no human being appears to suspect me, and for my own sake I must preserve silence. Even to assume an air of grief at my baby-brother's death might be dangerous; it might look as if I were too deeply interested in the event; so I put on my most indifferent air. There are, however, two things in the house that I am frightened of. One is our old Dutch clock, the significant ticking and the very ropes and iron weights of which appear to me to be pregnant with knowledge of my crime. Five minutes before every hour the clock gives vent to a whirring sound, and at that sound, hitherto without significance, I tremble. There is a warning in it, and with nervous apprehension I count the seconds that intervene between it and the striking of the hour, believing that then the bell will proclaim my guilt. It does proclaim it; but no person understands it, no one heeds it. I lean against the passage wall, listening to the denunciation. Snaggletooth comes in and stands by my side while the clock is striking. I look up into his face with imploring eyes and a sinking heart. He taps my cheek kindly, and passes on. I breathe more freely; he does not know the language of the bells. The other thing of which I am frightened is our cat. I know that she knows, and I am fearful lest, by some mysterious means, she will denounce me. If I meet her in the dark, her green eyes glare at me. I try to win her over to my side in a covert manner by stroking her coat; but as I smooth her fur skilfully and cunningly, I am convinced that she arches her back in a manner more significant than usual, and that by that action she declines to be a passive accessory to the fact. Her very tail, as it curls beneath my fingers, accuses me. But time goes on, and I am not arrested and led away to be hanged. When my baby-brother is in his coffin I am taken to see him. The cat follows at my heels; I strive to push her away stealthily with my foot, but she rubs her ear against my leg, and will not leave me. I do not see my baby-brother, because I shut my eyes, and I sob and tremble so that they are compelled to take me out of the room; but I have a vague remembrance of flowers about his coffin. I am a little relieved when I hear that he is buried, but the night that follows is a night of torture to me. The Dutch clock ticks, 'I know! I know!' and the cat purrs, 'I know! I know!' and when I am in bed the shade of Jane Painter steals into the room, and after smelling about for blood, whispers in a ghastly undertone that she knows, and is going to tell. Of the doctor, also, I begin to be frightened, for after his visit to my father's sick-room, my mother brings him to see me--being anxious about me, I hear her say. He stops and speaks to me, and when his fingers are on my wrist, I fancy that the beating of my pulse is revealing my crime to him.
But more weighty cares even than mine are stirring in our house, and making themselves felt. My father's last moments are approaching, and I hear that he cannot last the day out. He lasts the day out, but he does not last the night out. As the friend of the family, Snaggletooth remains in the house to see the end of his old comrade. He and my father were schoolboys together, he tells me. 'He was the cleverest boy in the school,' Snaggletooth says; 'the cleverest boy in the school! He used to do my sums for me. We went out birds'-nesting together; and many and many's the time we've stood up against the whole school, snowballing. A snowball, with a stone in it, hit him in the face once, and knocked him flat down; but he was up in a minute, all bloody, and rushed into the middle of our enemies, like a young lion--like a young lion! He was the first and the cleverest of all of us--I was a long way behind him. And now, think of him lying there almost at his last breath, and look at me!' Snaggletooth straightens himself as he walks upstairs, murmuring, 'The cleverest boy in the school! And now think of him, and look at me!'
Snaggletooth's wife is in the house, and helps my mother in her trouble. In the night this good creature and I sit together in the kitchen--waiting. My mother comes in softly two or three times; once she draws me out of the kitchen on to the dark landing, and kneels down, and with her arms around my neck, sobs quietly upon my shoulder. She kisses me many times, and whispers a prayer to me, which I repeat after her.
'Be a good child always, Chris,' she says.
'I will, mother.' And the promise, given at such a time, sinks into my heart with the force of a sacred obligation.
Then my mother takes me into the kitchen, and gives me into the charge of Snaggletooth's wife, and steals away. Snaggletooth's wife begins to prattle to amuse me, and in a few minutes I ascertain that she in some way resembles Jane Painter; for--probably influenced by the appropriateness of the occasion for such narrations--she tells me stories in a low tone about the Ghost of the Red Barn, and the Cock-lane Ghost, and Old Mother Shipton. The old witch is a favourite theme with Snaggletooth's wife, and I hear many strange things. She says:
'One night Mother Shipton was in a terrible rage, and she told the grasshopper on the top of the Royal Exchange to jump over to the ball on St. Paul's Church steeple. And so it did. Soon after that, London was burnt to the ground.'
I muse upon this, and presently inquire: 'Was it an accident?'
'The fire? No; it was done on purpose.'
'Was it because the grasshopper jumped on to the steeple that London was set on fire?'
'Of course,' is the reply. 'That was Mother Shipton's spite.'
Snaggletooth's wife tells so many stories of ghosts and witches that the air smells of fire and brimstone, and I see the cat's tail stiffen and its eyes glow fearfully. Then I hear a cry from upstairs, and Snaggletooth's wife rises hurriedly, and looks about her with restless hands, and the whole house is in a strange confusion. Snaggletooth himself comes into the room, and as he whispers some consoling words to me--only the import of which I understand--his great tooth sticks out like a horn. He looks like a fiend.
CHAPTER V.
I PLAY THE PART OF CHIEF MOURNER.
Notwithstanding her limited means, my mother had always managed to keep up a respectable appearance. Popular report had settled it that my grandmother was a woman of property and that my father had money; and the fact that my grandmother's long stocking had proved to be a myth was most completely discredited. We are supposed, therefore, to be well to do, and the scandal would have been great if my father had not received a respectable funeral. Public opinion called for it. My mother makes a great effort, and quite out of love, I am sure, and not at all in deference to public opinion, buries my father in a manner so respectable as to receive the entire approval of our neighbours. Public opinion called for mutes, and two mutes--one with a very long face and one with a very square face--are at our door, the objects of deep and attentive contemplation on the part of the sundry and several. Public opinion called for four black horses, and there they stand, champing their bits, with their mouths well soaped. Public opinion called for plumes, and there they wave, and bow, and bend, proud and graceful attendants at the shrine of death. Public opinion called for mock mourners, and they are ready to parody grief, with very large feet, ill-fitting black gloves, and red-rimmed eyes, which suggest the idea that their eyelids have been wept away by a long course of salaried affliction. Never all his life had my father been so surrounded by pomps and vanities; but public opinion has decided that on such solemn occasions grief is not grief unless it is lacquered, and that common decency would be outraged by following the dead to the grave with simple humility.
The interior of our house has an appearance generally suggestive of graves and coffins. The company is assembled in the little parlour facing the street--my grandmother's room--and in her expiring attempt at respectability my mother has provided sherry and biscuits. The blinds are down although it is broad day; a parody of a sunbeam flows through a chink, but the motes within it are anything but lively, and float up and down the slanting pillar in a sluggish and funereal manner, in perfect sympathy with the occasion. The cat peeps into the room, debating whether she shall enter; after a cautious scrutiny she decides in the negative, and retires stealthily, to muse over the uncertainty of life in a more retired spot. The company is not numerous. Snaggletooth is present, and the doctor, and two neighbours who approve of the sherry. These latter invite Snaggletooth's attention to the wine, and he pours out a glass and disposes of it with a sadly resigned air; saying before he drinks it, with a tender reference to my father as he holds it up to the light, Ah! If he could!' Conversation is carried on in a deadly-lively style. I think of my baby-brother, and a wild temptation urges me to fall upon my knees and make confession of the murder; but I resist it, and am guiltily dumb. Snaggletooth, observing signs of agitation in my face, pats me on the shoulder, and says, 'Poor little fellow!' The two neighbours follow suit, and poor-little-fellow me in sympathising tones. After this, they approach the decanter of sherry with one intention. There is but half a glass left, which the first to reach the decanter pours out and drinks, while the second regards him reproachfully, with a look which asks, On such an occasion should not self be sacrificed? Before the lid of the coffin is fastened down, I am taken into the room by Snaggletooth to look for the last time upon my father's face. I see nothing but a figure in white which inspires me with fear. I cling close to Snaggletooth. He is immensely affected, and mutters, 'Good-bye, old schoolfellow! Ah, time! time!' As I look up at him, his bald head glistens as would a ball of wax, and something glistens in his eyes.
When the coffin is taken out of the house, there is great excitement among the throng of persons in the street. They peep over each other's shoulders to catch a glimpse of the coffin and of me. I cannot help feeling that I am in an exalted position. A thrill of pride stirs my heart. Am I not chief mourner?
I stand by the side of a narrow grave, dug in a corner of the churchyard, and shaded from the sun's glare by a triangular wall, the top of which is covered with pieces of broken bottles, arranged with cruel nicety and precision, so that their sharp and jagged ends are uppermost. Standing also within the shadow of the triangular wall are a number of tombstones, some fair and white, others yellow and crumbling from age, which I regard with the air of one who has acquired a vested interest in the property. I do not understand the words the clergyman utters, for he has an impediment in his speech. But as the coffin is lowered, I am impelled gently towards the grave, from which I shrink, however, apprehensive lest I shall be thrust into it, and buried beneath the earth which is scattered on the coffin with a leaden miserable sound. When the service is ended, I hear Snaggletooth mutter, 'Think of him lying there, and look at me! And we were schoolfellows, and played snowball together!' Snaggletooth shows me my grandmother's grave, and the grave of my baby-brother. I dare not look upon the latter, knowing what I know. Then Snaggletooth, still with head uncovered, stands before a little gave over which is a small marble tombstone, with the inscription, 'Here Lieth our Beloved Daughter.' Seeing that his tears are falling on the grave, I creep closer to him, and he presses me gently to his side. I read the inscription slowly, spelling the words, 'Here Lieth our Beloved Daughter,' and I look at him inquiringly.
'My daughter,' he says; 'the sweetest angel that ever breathed. She was three years and one day old when she died, nearly five years ago. Poor darling! Five years ago! Ah, time! time!'
As we pass out of the churchyard I notice again the broken glass on the top of the wall, and I say,
'Isn't that cruel?'
'Why cruel?' asks Snaggletooth. 'No one can get in without hurting himself.'
Snaggletooth regards me with an eye of curiosity.
'And who do you think wants to get into such a place, my little fellow?'
I do not answer, and Snaggletooth adds,
'The angels, perhaps. Good--good. But they come in another way.'
'No one can get out without hurting himself,' I suggest.
'That is a better thought; but if they lived good lives----'
'Yes, sir.'
'Walls covered with broken glass won't hurt them.'
Snaggletooth looks upwards contemplatively. I look up also, and a sudden dizziness comes upon me and overpowers me. Snaggletooth catches me as I am falling.
'You are not well, my little fellow.'
'No, sir; I feel very weak, but the doctor says I shall get over it.'
Snaggletooth lifts me in his arms, and I fall asleep on his shoulder as he carries me tenderly home.
Here we are, my mother and I, sitting in the little parlour. My mother has been crying over me, and perhaps over the sad future that lies before us. Not a sound now is to be heard. My condition is a strange one. Everything about me is very unreal, and I wonderingly consider if I shall ever wake up. All my young experiences come to me again. I see my grandmother and myself sitting together. There upon the mantelshelf is the figure of the smoke-dried monkey of a man in stone, wagging his head at me; there is the man with the knob on the top of his head--what is his name? Anthony--yes, Anthony Bullpit--making a meal off his finger nails. In marches my grandmother's long stocking, bulged out with money to the shape of a very substantial leg, just as I had fancied it--that makes me laugh; but my flesh creeps as I hear Jane Painter's voice in the dark, telling of blood and murder. The last word, as she dwells upon it, brings up my baby-brother, and I hear the Dutch clock tick: 'I know! I know!' But it ticks all these fancies into oblivion, and ticks in the picture of the churchyard. I see the graves and the tombstones, and I read the inscription: 'Here Lieth our Beloved Daughter.' How it must grieve her parents to know that their beloved daughter is lying shut up in the cold earth! I raise a portrait of the child, with fair hair and laughing eyes, and I wonder how she would look now if she were dug up, and whether her parents would know her again. Night surprises me confined within the triangular wall of the churchyard. The gates are closed, and I cannot pass out. The moon shines down icily. The cold air makes my fevered blood hotter. I must get out! I cannot stop confined here for ever! I dig my fingers into the wall; desperately I cling to it, and strive to climb. Inch by inch I mount. With an exquisite sense of relief I reach the top, but as I place my hands upon it they are cut to the bone by the broken glass, and with a wild shudder I sink into darkness and oblivion!
CHAPTER VI.
IN WHICH A GREAT CHANGE IN MY CIRCUMSTANCES TAKES PLACE.
When I recovered from the fever of which the experiences just recorded were the prelude, I found that we had removed from the house in which I was born, and that we were occupying apartments. We had removed also from the neighbourhood; the streets were strange, the people were strange; I saw no familiar faces. Hitherto we had been living in Hertford, and many a time had I watched the barges going lazily to and fro on the River Lea. The place we were in now was nothing but a village; my mother told me it was called Chipping Barnet. I cannot tell exactly what it was that restrained me from asking why the change had been made; it must have been from an intuitive consciousness that the subject was painful to my mother. But when, after the lapse of a year or so, we moved away from Chipping Barnet, and began to live in very humble fashion in two small rooms, I asked the reason.
'My dear,' said my mother, 'we cannot afford better.'
I looked into her face; it was pale and cheerful. But I saw, although no signs of repining were there, that care had made its mark. She smiled at me.
'We are very poor, dear child,' she said; and added quickly, with a light in her eyes, 'but that is no reason why we should not be happy.'
She did her best to make me so, and poor as our home was, it contained many sweet pleasures. By this time I had completely lost sight of Snaggletooth and all our former friends and acquaintances. I did not miss them; I had my mother with me, and I wished for no one else. Already, my former life and my former friends were becoming to me things of long ago. My mother often spoke of London, and of her wish to go there.
'I think it would be better for us, Chris,' she said.
'Is London a very large place?' I asked. 'As large as this?' stretching out my arms to gain an idea of its extent.
My mother told me what she knew of London, which was not much, for she had only been there once, for a couple of days, and I said I was sure I should not like it; there were too many people in it. My idea of perfect happiness was to live with my mother in some pretty country place, where there were fields and shady walks and turnstiles and narrow lanes, and perhaps a river. I described the very place, and artistically dotted it with lazy cattle listening for mysterious signs in earth or air, or looking with steady solemn gaze far into the horizon, as if they were observing signs hidden from human gaze. I also put some lazy barges on the river, 'Creeping, creeping, creeping,' I said, 'as if they were so tired!'
'And we would go and live in that very place, my dear,' said my mother, 'if we had money enough.'
'When you get money enough, mother, we will go.'
'Yes, my dear.'
Other changes were made, but not in the direction I desired. Like a whirlpool, London was drawing us nearer and nearer to its depths, and by the time I was twelve years of age we were nearly at the bottom of the hill down which we had been steadily going. My clothes were very much patched and mended now; all our furniture was sold, and we were living in one room, which was rented to us ready furnished. The knowledge of the struggle in which my mother was engaged loomed gradually upon me, and distressed me in a vague manner. We were really now in London, although not in the heart of the City; and my mother, whose needle brought us bread and very little butter, often walked four miles to the workshop, and four miles back, on a fruitless errand. Things were getting worse and worse with us. My mother grew thinner and paler, but she never looked at me without a smile on her lips--a smile that was often sad, but always tender. At night, while she worked, she taught me to read and write; there was no free school near us, and she could not afford to pay for my learning. But no schoolmaster could have taught me as well as she did. She had a thin, sweet voice, and often when I was in bed I fell asleep with her singing by my side. I used to love to lie thus peacefully with closed eyes, and float into dreamland upon the wings of her sweet melodies. I woke up sometimes late in the night, and saw her dear face bending over her work. It was always meek and cheerful; I never saw anger or bad passion in it.
'Mother,' I said one night, after I had lain and watched her for a long time.
She gave a start. 'Dear child; I thought you were asleep.'
'So I have been; but I woke up, and I've been watching you for a long, long time. Mother, when I am a man I shall work for you.'
'That's right, dear. You give me pleasure and delight. I know my good boy will try to be a good man.'
'I will try to; as good as you are. I want to be like you. Could I not work now, mother?'
'No, dear child; you are not strong enough yet.'
'I wish I could grow into a strong man in a night,' I thought.
My mother came to the bedside and rested her fingers upon my neck. What tenderness dwells in a loving mother's touch! I imprisoned her fingers in mine. She leant towards me caressingly and kissed me. Sleep stole upon me in that kiss of love.
I saw a picture in a shop window of a girl whose bright fresh face brought my mother's face before me. But the girl's face was full of gladness, and her cheeks were glowing; my mother's cheeks were sunken and wan. Still the likeness was unmistakably there, and I thought how much I should love to see my mother as bright as this bright girl. I spoke to her about it, and she went to see the picture, which was in the next street to ours. She came back smiling.
'It is like me, Chris,' she said; 'as I was once.'
'Then you must have been very, very pretty,' I said, stroking her cheek.
My mother laughed melodiously.
'When I was young, my dear,' she said with innocent vanity, blushing like a girl, 'I was thought not to be ugly.'
'Ugly, indeed!' I exclaimed, looking around defiantly. 'My mother couldn't be ugly!'
'What do you call me now, Chris?'
'You are beautiful--beautiful!' with another defiant look. My mother shook her hand in mild remonstrance. 'You are--you are! But you're pale and thin, and you've got lines here--and here.' I smoothed them with my hand. 'And, mother, you're not old!'
'I'm forty, Chris.'
'That is not old. Tell me--why did you alter so?'
'Time and trouble alter us, dear. We can't be always bright.'
I thought that I might be the trouble she referred to, and I asked the question anxiously.
'You, my darling!' she said, drawing me to her side and petting me. 'You are my joy, my comfort! I live only for you, Chris--only for you!'
I noticed something here, and, with a touch of that logical argumentativeness for which I was afterwards not undistinguished, I said:
'If I am your joy and comfort, you ought to be glad.'
'And am I not glad? What does my little boy mean by his roundabouts?'
'You cried when you said I was your joy and comfort.'
'They were tears of pleasure, my dear--tears that sprang from my love for my boy. Then perhaps they sprang from the thought--for we will be truthful always, Chris--that I should like to buy my boy a new pair of boots and some new clothes, and that I couldn't because I hadn't money enough.'
'You would buy them for me if you had money?'
'Ah! what would I not buy for my darling if I had money!'
How delicious it was to nestle in her arms as she poured out the love of her heart for me! How I worshipped her, and kissed her, and patted her cheek, and smoothed her hair.
'You are like a lover, my dear,' she said.
'I am your lover,' I replied, and murmured softly to myself, 'Wait till I am a man! wait till I am a man!'
That night I coaxed my mother to talk to me of the time when she was young, and she did, with many a smile and many a blush; and in our one little room there was much delight. She picked out the daisies of her life, and laid them before me to gladden my heart. Simple and beautiful were they as Nature's own sweet flower. She showed me a picture of herself as a girl, and I saw its likeness to the picture I had admired in the shop window. She sang me to sleep with her dear old songs, full of sweetness and simplicity. How different are our modern songs from those sweet old airs! The charm of simplicity is wanting--but, indeed, it is wanting in other modern things as well. The spirit of simplicity dwells not in crowded places.
Then commenced my first conscious worship of woman. I held her in my heart as a devotee holds a saint. How good was this world which contained such goodness! How sweet this life which contained such sweetness! She was the flower of both. Modesty, simplicity, and truth, were with her invariably. To me she became the incarnation of purity.
Time went on, and low as we were we were still going down hill steadily and surely. It is a long hill, and there are many depths in it. Work grew slack, and in the struggle to make both ends meet, my mother was frequently worsted; there was often a great gap between. I do not wonder that hearts sometimes crack in that endeavour. Yet my mother ('by hook and by crook,' as I have heard her say merrily) generally managed in the course of the week to scrape together some few coins which, jealously watched and jealously spent, sufficed in a poor way to keep body and soul together. How it was managed is a mystery to me. The winter came on: a hard winter. Bread went up in price; every additional halfpenny on a four-pound loaf was a dagger in my mother's breast. We rubbed through this hard time somehow, and Christmas glided by and the new year came upon us. A cold spring set in, and work, which had been getting slacker and slacker, could not now be obtained. Still my mother did not lie down and yield. She tried other shops, and received a little work--very little--at odd times. There came a very hard week, and my mother was much distressed. On the Friday night I heard her murmuring to herself in her sleep as I thought, and I fancied I heard her sob. I called to her, but she did not answer me. Her breath rose and fell in regular rhythm. Yes, she was asleep, and the sob I thought I heard was born of my fancy. I was thankful for that!
CHAPTER VII.
IN WHICH A FAIRY IN A COTTON-PRINT DRESS IS INTRODUCED.
The next day was Saturday, and my mother went out early in the morning, and returned at two o'clock with the saddest of faces.
'No work, mother?' I asked.
'No, my dear,' she replied; 'but come, my child, you must be hungry.'
There was little enough to eat, but my boy's appetite, and the cunning way my mother had of placing our humble fare before me, made the plain food as sweet as the best.
I noticed that she ate nothing, and I tried to persuade her to eat.
'I have no appetite, my dear,' she said, and added in reply to my sorrowful look, 'My little boy doesn't know what I've had while I was out this morning.'
Deeper thought than usual seemed to occupy her mind during the afternoon, and she suddenly started up, and hurriedly threw on her bonnet and shawl.
'Are you going to try again, mother?'
'Yes, my darling; I must try again.'
She did not return until late, but she returned radiant, and said, as she took my face between her two hands, and kissed me:
'Child, dear child! God bless those who help the poor!'
She did not bid me repeat the words; but some deep meaning in her voice impelled me to do so, and I said in a solemn tone, what the words seemed to demand,
'God bless those who help the poor!'
She nodded pensively as she knelt before me, and as I looked at her somewhat earnestly, her face flushed, and she rose, and bustled about the room, putting things in order. I think she tried to hide her face from me, and that her bustling about was a pretence.
'And now, Chris,' she said presently, drawing her breath quickly, as though she had been running, 'let us go out and get something nice for supper, and for dinner to-morrow. Put on your cap, dear; you must be hungry.'
I was; and I was glad, indeed, to hear the good news, and to accompany her on such an errand. She consulted me as to what she should buy, and made me very proud and happy with her 'What do you say to this, dear?' and 'Would you like this, my darling?' We returned home loaded with meat, potatoes, and one or two little delicacies. I was in a state of great satisfaction, and we made quite merry over the trifling incident of a few potatoes rolling out of my mother's apron down the stairs in the dark. Bump, bump, bumping,' I said, as I scrambled down after them, 'as if they knew their way in the dark, and could see without a candle.'
'Potatoes have eyes, my dear,' said my mother; and we laughed blithely over it.
My mother's mood changed after supper. We always said a very simple grace after meals. It was, 'Thank God for a good breakfast!' 'Thank God for a good dinner!' or whatever meal it was of which we had partaken. Our 'Thank God for a good supper!' being said, most earnestly by my mother, she cleared away the things, and said,
'Now we will see how rich we are.'
We sat down at the table, side by side, and my mother took out of her pocket what money it contained. I thought that our all had been expended in our frugal purchases, but I was agreeably mistaken. There were still left two sixpences and a few coppers. My mother selected a battered halfpenny, and regarded it tenderly--so tenderly, and with so much feeling, that her tears fell on it. I wondered. A battered halfpenny, dented, dirty, bruised! I wondered more as she kissed it, and held it to me to kiss.
'Why, mother?' I asked, as I kissed.
In reply, she told me a story.
'My dear, there lived in a great forest a poor woman who had no friend in the world but one--a bird that she loved with all her heart and soul, and who, not being big enough or strong enough to get food for himself, depended, because he couldn't help it, upon what this poor woman could provide for him. There were other birds that in some way resembled the bird that belonged to this poor woman, and that she loved so dearly, and many of these were also compelled to wander about the great forest in search of food; but they found it so difficult to obtain sufficient to eat, and they met with so many sad adventures in their search, that their wings lost their strength, and their hearts the brightness that was their proper heritage--for they were young birds, whose time for battling with the world had not arrived. The poor woman did not wish her dear bird to meet with such sad experiences until he was strong and able to cope with them. I can't tell you, my dear, how much she loved her bird, and how thoroughly her whole heart was wrapped up in her treasure. Once she had friends who were good to her; but it was the will of God that she should lose them, and she and her bird were left alone in the world. She had many difficulties to contend with, being a weak and foolish woman----'
I shook my head, and said, 'I am sure she wasn't; I am sure she wasn't!' My mother pressed me closer to her side, and continued, her fingers caressing my neck:
----'And the days were sometimes very dark for her, or would have been but for the joy she found in her only treasure. A time came when her heart almost fainted within her--for her bird was at home hungry, and there was no food in the nest, and she did not know which way to turn to get it. She wandered about the forest with rebellious thoughts in her mind--yes, my dear, she did!--and out of her blindness and wickedness--hush, my dearest!--out of her blindness and wickedness, she began almost to doubt the goodness of God. She thought, foolish woman that she was! that there was no love in the forest but the love which filled her breast; that pity, compassion, charity, had died out of the world, and that she and her bird were to be left to perish. But she received such a lesson, my dear, as she will never forget till her dying day. While these despairing thoughts were in her mind, and while her rebellious heart was crying against the sweetest attributes with which God has endowed His children, a fairy in a cotton-print dress came to her side----'
Mother!'
'It is true, my dear. A fairy in a cotton-print dress came to her side, and with a sweet word and a sweeter look put into her hand a talisman--call it a stone, my dear, if you will--a common, almost valueless piece of stone; and the touch of the pretty little fairy fingers to the poor woman's hand was like the touch of Moses's rod to the rock, when the waters came forth for the famished people. And she prayed God to forgive her for doubting His goodness, and the goodness of those whom He made in the image of Himself. Then, as she looked at the common piece of stone which the fairy had given to her, she saw in it the face of an angel, and she kissed it again and again, as I do this.'
After a little while my mother wrapped the halfpenny in a piece of paper, and put it by, saying she hoped she would never be compelled to spend it.
During the whole of the following week my mother was unsuccessful in obtaining work. It was not from want of perseverance that she did not succeed, for she came home every day weary and footsore.
'The sewing-machines are keeping many poor women out of work,' she said.
'Then they are bad things,' I exclaimed; 'I wish they were all burnt!'
'No, my dear; they are good things; they are blessings to many poor creatures. Why, Chris, if I had one, we should be quite rich!'
But she did not have one, and her needles were at a discount, so far as earning bread for us was concerned. On the Saturday she went out again early, and did not come home until late at night. Good fortune had again attended her, and she brought home a little money.
'Have you seen the fairy in the cotton-print dress?' I asked gaily. My mother nodded sorrowfully. Saturday's a lucky day, mother,' I said, rubbing my hands.
'Yes, my child,' she answered, with a heavy sigh.
She added another halfpenny to the one she had kissed and put by last week, and we went out again to make our purchases. Another week followed, and another, with similar results and similar incidents. Then my mother fell sick, and could not, although she tried, keep the knowledge of her weakness from me; a sorrow of which I was not a sharer was preying on her heart. I did not know of it; but I saw that my mother was growing even paler and thinner, and often, when she did not think I was observing her, I saw the tears roll down her cheek, and her lips quiver piteously. Friday night found us with a cupboard nearly empty, and with but one halfpenny in our treasury--the first battered and bruised halfpenny, which my mother hoped she would never be compelled to spend. Those she had added to it had gone during the week. She looked at it wistfully:
'Must we spend it, Chris?'
'Is the angel's face there?' I asked.
'Yes, I see it.' And she kissed the battered coin again.
'Then we must keep it,' I said stoutly.
When I awoke the next morning, my mother was kneeling by my bedside, and when she saw my eyes resting on her face, she clasped me in her arms, and so we lay for fully half an hour, without a word being spoken. There was a little milk left for breakfast, and this my mother made into very weak milk-and-water. The bread she cut into four slices. One she ate, two she gave to me, and one she put into the cupboard. She laid the battered halfpenny on the mantelshelf.
'Now, Chris,' she said, as she put on her poor worn bonnet, 'when you are hungry you can eat the slice of bread that's in the cupboard; and if I am not at home before you are hungry again, you can buy some bread with that halfpenny. Kiss me, dear child.'
'But, mother,' I remonstrated, you are too ill to go out. You ought to stay at home to-day.'
I dare not, child. I must go out. Why, doesn't my Chris want his supper to-night, and his dinner to-morrow? And don't I want my supper and dinner, too?'
'Are you going to the workshop, mother?'
'I am going that way, child.'
But I begged her to promise that she would try and be home early, and she was compelled to promise, to satisfy me. With faltering steps she left the room, and walked slowly downstairs. I felt that there was something wrong, but I did not understand it, and certainly would have been powerless to remedy it. I was soon hungry enough to eat the slice of bread; and then I went out, and strolled restlessly about the streets. It was a cold day, and I was glad to get indoors again, although there was no fire. In the afternoon I was hungry again, and mother had not returned. Should I spend the halfpenny? I took it from the mantelshelf. The gift of a fairy in a cotton-print dress! I turned it this way and that, in the endeavour to find some special charm in it. It was as common a halfpenny as I had ever looked upon. I saw no angel's face in it. But my mother said there was, and that was enough. No; I could not spend it. Then I thought that it was unkind of me to let my mother, ill and weak as she was, go out by herself. I reproached myself; I might have helped her on. She promised to return soon; perhaps she was not strong enough to return. These reproachful thoughts and my hunger grew upon me, and my uneasiness increased, until I became very wretched indeed. As dusk was falling, I made up my mind that a certain duty was before me. I must walk into the City to the shop for which my mother used to work, and seek for her. I had been to the place two or three times to take work home, and I knew my way pretty well. Perhaps I should meet my mother on the road. Off I started on my self-imposed task. My increasing hunger made the distance appear twice as long as it really was, and I could not help lingering and longing for a little while at a fine cook-shop, the perfume which pervaded it being more fragrant to me at the time than all the perfumes of Arabia would have been. When I arrived at the workshop, it was closed. There was nothing for it but to turn my face homeward. Weary, hungry, and dispirited, I commenced my journey back; I was anxious to get home quickly now, to lessen the chance of my mother returning while I was absent. In my eagerness and confusion I missed my way, and it was quite ten o'clock at night when I found myself in a street which was familiar to me, and which I knew to be about two miles from the street in which we lived. The neighbourhood in which I was now was a busy one; a kind of market was held there every Saturday night, in which poor people could purchase what they required a trifle cheaper than they could be supplied at the regular shops. There were a great glare of lights and a great hurly-burly of noise which in my weak condition confused and frightened me. I staggered feebly on, and stumbled against a man who was passing me in a great hurry. He caught hold of my arm with such force as to swing me round; and without any effort on my part to escape, for I was almost unconscious, I slipped from his grasp and fell to the ground. I think I heard the words, Unmanly brute uttered in a female voice; but my next distinct remembrance is that I was standing on my feet, swaying slightly, and held up by the man I had run against. He spoke to me in sharp tones, and demanded to know where I was running to. I begged his pardon humbly, but in tones too faint to reach his ear, for he inquired roughly if I had a tongue in my head. There were a few persons standing about us, and one or two women told the man he ought to be ashamed of himself, and asked him what he meant by it, and why he didn't leave the boy alone. In sneering reply he called them a parcel of wise women.
'Did you ever see a thief of his size?' he asked.
'I am not a thief,' I said, in a faint tone. 'Let me go. I want to get home.'
I raised my eyes to his face as I spoke. I could not distinguish his features, for everything was dim before me, but he seemed to see something in my face that occupied his attention, for he looked at me long and earnestly.
'Have you been ill?'
'I am tired and hungry. Let me go, please,' I implored.
He released his hold of me. Glad to be free, and intent only on getting home as soon as I could, I walked from him with uncertain steps. But I did not know how weak I really was; and I was compelled to cling to the shop-fronts for support. I must have stumbled on in this way for fifty or sixty yards, when stopped to rest myself. Then,' without raising my eyes, I knew that the man against whom I had stumbled was standing by me again; he must have followed me out of his course, for when we first met his road was different from mine.
'Did you see me following you?' he asked.
I was frightened of him; his voice seemed to hurt me. I had scarcely a comprehension of the meaning of his words; and I was fearful that, if I disputed anything he said, I might arouse his anger, and that he would detain me again. He repeated his question; and I answered, almost without knowing what I said,
'Yes, sir.'
My reply appeared to dissatisfy him.
'Then you have been shamming weakness?'
'Yes, sir.'
I looked about me timidly and nervously for a means of escape. Standing in the road, close to the kerbstone, and facing a portion of the pavement which was partly in shade, was a beggar-woman, with her face hidden on her breast. One hand held her thin shawl tightly in front of her; the other hand was held out supplicatingly. What it was that caused me to fix my eyes on her I cannot tell; perhaps it was because I recognised in her drooping form and humble attitude something kindred to my own pitiable condition. As I gazed at her, a little girl, very poorly dressed, and with a basket on her arm, stopped before the woman, and put a coin into her outstretched hand. The woman curtseyed, and stooped and kissed the little girl. As the child, her act of charity performed, walked away, I saw her face; and it was so sweet and good, that my mother's words with reference to the battered halfpenny came to my mind: 'I see an angel's face in it.' I watched her until she was lost in the throng; and then I turned to the beggar-woman again, and saw, as in a flash of light, my mother! Was it shame, was it joy, that convulsed me, as crying, 'Mother! mother!' I ran and fell senseless at her feet?