"Pulling it down," he said, after looking at them for awhile, "an old rubbishing concern—ain't it?"
"Pulling it down!" echoed one of the workmen, giving him a contemptuous look, "much you know about it."
"Well, but what is it to be?" asked Jones, looking as simple as he could, "stables?"
"Stables! a shop, stupid!"
"Oh! a shop! Ah! it's to be a shop, is it? And what sort of a shop— public-house? We want one."
"Better ask Mr. Smithson; the house is his."
"Oh! it's Mr. Smithson's, is it?"
Jones walked away much relieved.
Mr. Smithson had long talked of removing himself and his earthenware to some larger tenement than that which he now occupied; a pleasant neighbour he was not; but anything was better than the fear which had for a moment seized the heart of Richard Jones.
The workmen did not linger over their task, indeed, Mr. Smithson took care that they should not. Night and morning, the whole day long, Jones saw him after them; he watched him through the pots of Scotch marmelade that decorated the front of his shop window, and internally admired the indefatigable zeal Mr. Smithson displayed. Humbly, too, he contrasted it with his own deficiencies in that respect "I ain't got no spirit; that's the fact of it," confessed Mr. Jones in his own heart.
In a comparatively short space of time, the bricklayers had done their task; they were succeeded by the carpenters, who proved as zealous and as active. And now fear and trembling once more seized the heart of Richard Jones. What were those busy carpenters about? why were they fabricating shelves and drawers? drawers of every size, some small, some large, just such drawers as he had in his shop? He questioned one of their body: what was to be sold in that shop—did he know? The man could not tell, but rather fancied it was to be an oil and colour shop. Then it was not to be Mr. Smithson's own? Oh, no, certainly!
Jones walked away, a prey to the most tormenting anxiety. Was the man right—was he wrong? had he spoken the truth? had he deceived him? Was he, Jones, now that his business was really improving, was he threatened with a rival? Or was this but a false alarm, the phantom of his fears? what would he not have given to think so! His ease was the more distressing, that he dared unburthen his mind to none, to Mary least of any. She, poor little thing, far from sharing her father's fears, rejoiced in the prospect of a new shop.
"It'll make the street quite gay," she said to her father, "especially if it's a linen-draper's. I wonder if they'll have pretty bonnets."
She tried to obtain information on this interesting point, but failed completely. Suspense is worse than the worst reality. Richard Jones lost appetite and sleep. Slumber, when it came, was accompanied by such fearful nightmare, that waking thoughts, though bitter, were not, at least, so terrible. He could not forget the opposite shop; in the first place, because he saw it every morning with his bodily eyes; in the second, because it ever haunted that inward eye called by Wordsworth 'the bliss of solitude.' How far it proved a bliss to Richard Jones, the reader may imagine.
All this time the shop had been progressing, and now bricklayer, carpenter, glazier, and decorator haying done their work, it was completed and ready for its tenant, who, however, seemed in no hurry to appear. This proved the worst time for Richard Jones. To look at that shop all the day long, and not to be able to make anything of it; to wonder whether it were a friend or an enemy; whether it would give new lustre to the street on which he had cast his fortunes, or blast those fortunes in their very birth, was surely no ordinary trial. Well might he grow thin, haggard, and worn.
At length, the crisis came. At the close of November, a dread rumour reached his ears. The shop was to be a grocer's shop, and it was to open a week before Christmas.
That same evening, Mary came home crying, and much agitated. Mrs. Brown, with her usual kindness, had given information.
"Oh, father!" she exclaimed, "Mrs. Brown says it's to be a grocer's shop."
"So I have heard to-day," he replied, a little gloomily. "Never mind, child," he added, attempting to cheer up, and a rueful attempt it turned out, "never mind, I dare-say there's room for two."
He said it, but he knew it was not true; he knew there was room but for one, and that if two came, why, either both must perish after a fierce contest, or one survive and triumph over the ruin of the other's all. He knew it, and groaned at the thought.
"I wish you wouldn't father," said Mary, again beginning to cry.
"Mary, my pet, I can't help it," said Jones, fairly giving way to feelings too long repressed; "there aint room for two, that's the plain truth of it, and if another grocer comes, why, he must ruin me, or I must ruin him; and that aint pleasant to think of, is it?"
Mary was not without spirit.
"Father," she cried resolutely, "if it's to be, why, it's to be, and it can't be helped; but I wouldn't give in without trying to get the upper hand, that I wouldn't."
Her father shook his head disconsolately.
"Child," he said, "it's like setting an old horse against a mettlesome young one. That new fellow has got every advantage. Look at his shop, then look at mine; why, his is twice as big again. Look at his front— all plate glass; look at his counters—all polished oak!"
"Well, and can't you get the shop—our shop—done up too?" ambitiously asked Mary. "There's time yet."
"Why yes, there is—but the money, Mary dear!"
"Never mind the money."
"No more I would, my pet, if I had got it; but you see, the one pound ten a week hasn't kept up; and those things cost a precious deal."
Mary reflected a while. "S'pose," she suggested, "you got in a fresh stock of jams in glass jars, for the front window."
"And what shall we do with the old?"
"Eat them. And s'pose you add a few pots of pickles?"
"Pickles!" echoed Jones, looking doubtful.
"And s'pose," continued Mary, "you add macaroni, and sauces, and set up as a superior grocer."
Jones scratched his head.
"Law, child!" he said, "this aint a stylish neighbourhood—and who'll buy my macaroni and my sauces?"
"Why no one, of course," superciliously replied Mary. "It's not to sell them, you want them; it's for the look of the thing—to be a superior grocer, you know."
The words "superior grocer," gently tickled secret ambition. Mr. RichardJones seriously promised his daughter to think about it.
Mary had other thoughts, which she did not communicate to her father; and of these thoughts, the chief was to find out what had become of Mr. Saunders, and return to the old plan of enticing him into partnership. She was so full of this project, that, partly to get assistance, partly to take a little consequence on herself, she imparted it, under the strictest secrecy, to Rachel Gray; and at the close, she pretty clearly hinted, that if Mr. Joseph Saunders behaved well, he might, in time, aspire to the honour of her hand.
Rachel heard her silently, and looked very uncomfortable.
"My dear," she said, hesitatingly, "you must not think of anything of the kind; indeed you must not."
"And why shouldn't I?" tartly asked Mary, with a saucy toss of the head.
"Because, my dear," said Rachel, gently and sadly, "Jane is going to marry that Mr. Saunders, who ifs cousin to Mr. Smithson, who is putting him in the new grocer's shop."
For a moment, Mary remained stunned; then she burst into tears.
"He's a mean, sneaking fellow! that's what he is!" she cried.
"Oh, my dear—my dear!" gently said Rachel, "will you not take something from the hand of God! We have all our lot to bear," she added, with a half sigh.
But gently though Rachel spoke, Mary looked more rebellious than submissive.
"He's a mean—" she began again; the entrance of Mrs. Brown interrupted her.
Mrs. Brown was in a very ill humour. At first, she had behaved pretty decently to Rachel and her father; but of late, she had given free vent to her natural disposition; and it was not, we have no need to say, an amiable one. On the present occasion, she had, moreover, additional cause for dissatisfaction.
"And so," she exclaimed, slamming the door, and irefully addressing Rachel, "and so your beggarly father has been and broke my china cup! Eh, ma'am!"
Rachel turned pale, on hearing of this new disaster.
"Indeed, Mrs. Brown—" she began.
"Don't Mrs. Brown me," was the indignant rejoinder. "I tell you, I have never had a moment's peace, ease, and quiet, and never shall have—since you and your beggarly father entered this house."
For, by a strange perversion of ideas, Mrs. Brown persisted in asserting and thinking that it was Rachel and her father who had entered the house, and not she. And this, Rachel might have said; and she might have added that to bear daily reproaches and insults, formed no part of her agreement with Mrs. Brown. She might—but where would the use have been? She was free to depart any day she liked; and since she preferred to stay, why not bear it all patiently? And so she remained silent, whilst Mrs. Brown scolded and railed; for, as she had said to Mary, "we have all our lot to bear."
The lesson was lost on the young girl. No sooner was Mrs. Brown's back turned, than again Mary abused Mr. Saunders, Jane, Mr. Smithson and the new shop collectively, until she could go home to her father's. He already knew all, and gloomily exclaimed, "that it was no more than he expected; that it was all of a piece; and that there was neither honesty, gratitude, nor goodness left in this wicked world."
From which comprehensive remark we can clearly see that Mr. Jones is turning misanthropic. And yet the matter was very simple—an everyday occurrence. Smithson had seen that he might find it profitable to cut the ground under Jones's feet. Why should he not do it? Is not profit the abject of commerce? and is not competition the fairest way of securing profit?
The reader may easily imagine Jane and Joseph Saunders married. It was an old engagement Imagine them, too, retained from their wedding tour to Gravesend. It is evening; and on the next morning, "The two Teapots" is to open.
Richard Jones spent a sleepless night, and took down his shutters as soon as a gray, dull light entered the street. It availed little; only a dirty child came in for a pennyworth of brown sugar. It was half-past eight when Saunders opened his shop; and just about that time a chill, drizzling rain began to fall.
The morning was miserable, and only a few wretched figures flitted about the wet street. No one entered the "Teapot;" but then not a soul either crossed the threshold of the rival shop.
And thus the dull morning wore on until the church clock struck ten. A sprinkling of customers then entered the shop of Richard Jones. They were one and all mightily indignant at the impudence of the opposite shop in coming there—a lady in a large, black, shabby straw bonnet in particular.
"Ay, ay, you may flare away—you may flare away," she added, knowingly wagging her head at it, "you'll have none of my custom, I can tell you. An ounce of your four shilling best, Mr. Jones, if you please?"
"Coming, ma'am, di-rectly," was the prompt reply. .
"I never heard anythink like it—never," observed another lady, with solemn indignation. "Did the low fellow think we wanted his shop!"
An indignant "no," was chorused around.
Richard Jones's heart swelled, and his throat too. He was much moved.
"Gentlemen," he began, "no, ladies, I mean—ladies, I have always done my duty since I was a boy, and, with the help of God, I mean to do my duty till I die." Pause and approving murmur. "And, ladies, I am no speech-maker—all I say is this: God forgive that villain opposite! You know the story. I'll not trouble you with repeating it. All I say is this: ladies, if my customers'll stand by me, I'll stand by my customers —I'll stand by my customers!" he repeated, looking round the shop with a triumphant eye, and giving the counter a hearty thump with his fist; and, poor fellow, you may be sure that he did mean to stand by his customers.
The oration proved very successful; altogether, the day was successful. The two Teapots remained vacant; the Teapot was thronged. All Jones's liege subjects were anxious to prove their loyalty; and though, when the gas was lit, Jones could discern a few dark figures within his rival's shop, Jones did not care. He felt certain they were but some of the low creatures from the alley, and be did not care.
The second day resembled the first, and the third resembled the second. Jones felt quite satisfied "that it was all right," until he cast up his accounts at the end of the week. To his surprise, he found that his expenditure was barely covered, and that, somehow or other, his gains had considerably lessened. He reckoned over and over, and still he came to the same result. "Well, 'taint of much consequence for one week," he thought, a little impatiently, and he put the books by.
"What's the matter, father?" asked Mary, looking up into his overcast face.
"What's the matter!" he echoed cheerfully; "why, the matter is, that you are a saucy puss—that's what's the matter," and he chucked her chin, and Mary laughed.
But the next week's examination revealed a still deeper gap. Jones scratched his head, and pulled a long face. It was not that he minded the loss, for it was a trifling one after all; but be had a secret dread, and it stood in the background of his thoughts, like a ghost in a dark room, haunting him. Could it be—was it possible—that his customers were playing him false—that they were deserting him—and he began to think and think, and to remember, how many pennyworths of this, and of that, he had sold to the children, and how few shillings worth he had sold to the mothers.
"Well, father, and how's this week?" asked Mary.
Jones rubbed his chin, and looked at her fairly perplexed—his wit was none of the brightest—as to how he might best elude the question.
"How's this week," he echoed; "well, this week is like last week to be sure. I wonder how that fellow Saunders is a getting on."
"Law! father, don't mind him," said Mary. "He's low, that's what he is— he's low."
Impossible for us to translate the scorn with which Miss Mary Jones spoke. It impressed her father. "Spirited little thing," he thought, and he drew her fondly towards him, and kissed her, and Mary fortunately forgot her question.
Week after week passed, and what had been a speck on the horizon, became a dark and threatening cloud. Richard Jones could not shut his eyes to the truth that his customers were deserting him. Even Mary perceived it, and spoke uneasily on the subject, of which her father at once made light.
"It's business, child," he said, "and business is all ups and downs; I have had the ups, and the downs I must have." Spite this philosophic reflection, Mr. Jones could not help thinking he had rather more than his share of the downs. He was embittered, too, by daily perceiving the defection of some staunch customer. That lady in the large, shabby, black straw bonnet, who had so spiritedly told "The two Teapots" to flare away on the day of its opening, was one of the first who forsook the "Teapot" for its rival. Many followed her perfidious example; but Mr. Jones did not feel fairly cut up, until he one evening distinctly saw Rachel Gray walk out of the opposite shop. The stab of Brutus was nothing to Caesar in comparison with this blow to Richard Jones.
And he was thinking it over the next morning, and stood behind his counter breaking sugar rather gloomily, when Rachel herself appeared. Mr. Jones received her very coldly.
She asked for a pound of sugar.
"And no tea?" he said, pointedly.
"None to-day," quietly replied Rachel; but she saw that he knew all, and she was too sincere to feign ignorance. "Mr. Jones," she said, somewhat sadly, "I must go where I am told, and do as I am bid; but, indeed, why do you not keep better tea?"
"Better tea! better tea!" echoed Mr. Jones, in some indignation.
"Yes," quietly said Rachel, "better tea."
Mr. Jones smiled an injured smile, and rather sarcastically replied:
"Miss Gray, if you prefer that feller's tea to mine, you're welcome to leave your money to him, and not to me. 'Tain't because my daughter is prenticed to you that I expect nothink from you, Miss. All I say is this: don't go there at night, Miss Gray, and buy your tea, and then come here in the morning and buy your sugar. That's not giving a man your custom, you know it ain't. Don't do it; no offence meant, but I'm like you, Miss Gray, plain spoken, you see."
And he resumed the breaking of his sugar.
"I prefer!" sadly said Rachel, "when you know, Mr. Jones, that I am no one now, but must go by the will of another—indeed, you wrong me!"
Jones knew he did; but misfortune makes men wilfully unjust.
"Don't mention it," he interrupted, "ladies like new faces, and he's a young fellow, and I am an old one, and so there's an end of it."
Poor Rachel looked much pained. To be blamed by every one seemed her lot.
"Indeed, Mr. Jones," she said, "I must do as Mrs. Brown bids me, and she says your four shilling black is not equal to his four, and, indeed, Mr. Jones, I am sorry to say, that others say so too."
Mr. Jones did not reply one word; he fell into a brown study; at the close of it he sighed, and looking up, said earnestly:
"Miss Gray, let me have some of that tea, will you? and I'll see myself what it's like."
"Of course you will," said Rachel, brightening, "you shall have it directly—directly, Mr. Jones."
And without loss of time she hastened home, and almost immediately appeared again, bringing him the tea herself, and earnestly declaring that she was sure he had only to taste it, to set all right, to which Jones answered not a word, but rather gloomily thanked her for the trouble she had taken. When he was once more alone, he smelt the tea, shook his head and frowned; then he put it away until evening came round, when he gave it to Mary, and without further explanation, simply told her that was the tea they were going to have this evening. Unconscious Mary made the tea.
"La! Father," she exclaimed, as she poured the boiling water upon it, "what beautiful tea you've got; it's quite fragrant."
"Is it?" he echoed, faintly,
"Why, of course it is," she said, pettishly, "I am sure that fellow opposite ain't got nothink like it."
Richard Jones leaned his brow on his hand, and checked a groan. But when the tea was drawn, when it was poured out, when he raised the cup to his lips and tasted it, the man's courage forsook him; he put down the cup, and cried like a child.
"Father! father!" exclaimed Mary, frightened and bewildered.
"Oh! my darling!" he cried, "we're ruined—we're lost!—that tea is Joseph Saunders's tea; and he gives it for four shillings, and it's better than my five. And I can't give it, nor I can't get it neither," he added, despairingly; "for I have not got credit, and little cash; and I buy dear, and dear I must sell, or starve!"
Of this speech, all Mary understood, was that the tea she had been making was tea from Mr. Saunders's shop. She deliberately rose, poured the contents of the teapot on the ashes in the hearth; the contents of her own teacup, then of her father's quickly followed; then she sat down, folded her arms, and uttered a grim: "There! I only wish I could serve him so," she added after a pause.
But what Mary meant by this wish—to pour out Joseph Saunders like his own tea, seems rather a fantastic image, even for hate—the present writer does not venture to determine.
"It's all over!" sadly said Jones; "we can't compete with him. I'll shut up shop, and we'll go to some other neighbourhood, and live in our old way. After all, I'll not be a richer nor a poorer man than before my cousin left me the sixty pound."
"You ain't got no spirit!" cried Mary, turning scarlet with anger. "Give in to that fellow!—I'd have more spirit than that," she added with mighty scorn.
Her father attempted to remonstrate; but the wilful little thing would not listen to facts or to reason. She was sure Saunders could not keep up much longer—that she was. They had only to wait, and wear him out.
Alas! it is very hard to tear out ambition and pride from the heart of man, rich or poor. In an evil hour, Richard Jones yielded.
And now, alas! fairly began the Teapot's downward course. Every effort of Richard Jones to rise, only made him sink the deeper. To use a worn out, though expressive phrase, he stirred heaven and earth to get better tea; but the spell to conjure it forth was wanting. Jones had very correctly stated the case to his daughter—he had not credit; he had little or no cash; what he purchased in small quantities, he bought dear; and he sold as he bought. And thus, unable to compete with superior, capital and energy, he declined day by day.
But if he fell, it was not without a struggle. He turned desperate, and resorted to a desperate expedient; he sold his goods at prime cost, and left himself without profit. But Jones did not care; all he wanted was to crush his opponent—that object accomplished, and he once more sole master of the field, he could make his own price, and gradually retrieve lost time, and heal the wounds received in the battle.
Business requires a cool head; competition has its limits, beyond which yawns the bottomless pit of ruin. Jones lost his temper, and with it his judgment. Not satisfied with the faint change for the better, produced by the first measure, he impatiently resolved "to settle that Saunders," by a second and still bolder stroke. He filled his shop-windows with placards, on which prices were marked, with notes of admiration. He pressed into his service a dozen of little boys, whose sole business was to slip bills under doors, and to throw them down areas, or to force them into the hands of unconscious passengers; and he crowned an these arts by selling under prime cost.
The customers could not resist this tender appeal to their feelings; they came back one and all—the Teapot once more was full—the two Teapots was deserted; and Richard Jones was triumphant.
We profess no particular regard for Joseph Saunders; but we cannot deny that he played his cruel game skilfully and well. He did not bring down his prices one farthing. Without emotion he saw his shop forsaken—he knew his own strength; he knew, too, the weakness of his enemy.
"Oh! It's that dodge you are after," he thought, thrusting his tongue in his cheek. "Well, then, it has beggared many a man before you; and we shall see how long you'll keep it up—that's all."
And to whosoever liked to hear, Saunders declared that Mr. Jones was selling at loss, and that he (Saunders) could not afford to do so; and was sorry the old man would be so obstinate. "Where was the use, when he could not go on?"
Nothing did Jones more harm than this assertion, and the knowledge that it was a literal truth; for though people worship cheapness, that goddess of modern commerce, it is only on condition that she shall be a reality, not a fiction; that she shall rest on the solid basis of gains, howsoever small; not on the sand foundation of loss, that certain forerunner of failure. Jones could not, of course, long keep up the plan of selling under cost; he was obliged to give it up. With it, ceased his fallacious and momentary prosperity.
"I thought so," soliloquized Saunders.
Reader, if you think that we mean to cast a stone at the great shop, you are mistaken. We deal not with pitiless political economy, with its laws, with their workings. The great shop must prosper; 'tis in the nature of things; and the little shop must perish—'tis in their nature too. We but lament this sad truth, that on God's earth, which God made for all, there should be so little room for the poor man; for his pride, his ambition, his desires, which he has in common with the rich man; we but deplore what all, alas! know too well; that the crown of creation, a soul, a man by God's Almighty mind, fashioned and called forth into being, by Christ's priceless blood purchased and redeemed to Heaven, should be a thing of so little worth—ay, so much, so very much less worth than some money, in this strange world of ours.
Few pitied Richard Jones in his fall. His little ambition was remembered as a crime; for success had not crowned it. His little vanities were so many deadly sins; for gold did not hide or excuse them. To the dregs, the unhappy man drank the latter draught which rises to the lips of the fallen, when they see the world deserting them to worship a rival. A usurper had invaded his narrow realm, and crushed him; his little story was a true page from that great book of History, which we need not read to know how power decays, or to learn of man's fickleness, and fortune's frowns. Alas! History, if we did but know it, lies around us, as mankind lives in the meanest wretch we meet, and perchance despise.
It is a bitter thing to behold our own ruin; it is a cruel thing to look on powerless and despairing; and both now fell to the lot of Richard Jones. He had ventured all, and lost all. He was doomed—he knew it; every one knew it. But, alas! the cup of his woes was not full.
Mary had always been delicate. One chill evening she took cold; a cough settled on her chest; sometimes it seemed gone, then suddenly it returned again. "She felt very well," she said; and, strange to say, her father thought so too. Rachel was the first to see that something was wrong.
"Mary," she said to her, one morning, "what ails you? Your breath seems quite short."
"La! bless you, Miss," replied Mary, in her patronizing way, "I am all right."
They were alone; Rachel looked at the young girl; her eyes glittered; her cheeks were red with a hectic flush; her breathing was quick and oppressive. The eyes of Rachel filled with tears; she thought of her little dead sister in her grave.
"Mary," she said, "do not work any more to-day—go home."
Mary looked up in her face, and laughed—the gay laugh of an unconscious child, fearless of death.
"Why, Miss, you are crying!" she exclaimed, amazed.
"Am I?" said Rachel, trying to smile, "never mind, Mary; go home—or, rather, take this parcel to Mrs. Jameson, number three, Albert Terrace. It is a fine day—the walk will do you good."
Mary jumped up, charmed at the prospect. She tied her bonnet-strings before the looking-glass, and hummed the tune of "Meet me by moonlight alone." Mary was turned sixteen; and vague ideas of romance sometimes fitted through her young brain.
When she was fairly gone, Rachel rose, laid her work by, put on her bonnet and shawl, and quietly slipped round to the Teapot: ostensibly, she wanted to buy some tea: her real purpose was to call the attention of Mr. Jones to his daughter's state.
But, strange to say, Rachel Gray could not make him understand her; his mind was full of the two Teapots; of the villany of that Saunders; of the world's ingratitude; of his misfortunes and his wrongs.
"I dare say Mary feels it too," put in Rachel.
"Of course she does, Miss Gray—of course she does. The child has feelings. And then you know, Miss Gray, if that fellow hadn't a come there, why, you know, we were getting on as well as could be."
"I notice that she coughs," said Rachel
"Why, yes, poor child; she can't get rid of that cough—she's growing, you see. And then, you see, that Saunders—"
"And her breathing is so short," interrupted Rachel.
"Sure to be, on account of the cough. And, as I was saying, thatSaunders—"
"But, Mr. Jones, don't you think you had better see a doctor?" again interrupted Rachel.
"See a doctor!" exclaimed Jones, staring at her. "You don't mean to say my child is ill, Miss Gray?"
"I don't think she is quite well, Mr. Jones," replied Rachel, trembling as she said so.
He sank down on his seat behind the counter, pale as death. The obstinate cough, the short breathing, the hectic flush, all rushed back to his memory; unseen, unheeded, till then, they now told him one fearful story. With trembling hand he wiped away the drops of cold perspiration from his forehead.
"The doctor must see her directly," he said, "directly. I'll go and look for him, and you'll send her round. It's nothing—nothing at all, I am sure; she's growing, you see. But still, it must be attended to, you know —it must be attended to."
A light laugh at the door interrupted him. He turned round, and saw Mary looking in at him and Rachel Gray, through the glass windows; with another laugh, she vanished. Rachel went to the door, and called her back.
"Mary, Mary, your father wants you."
The young girl came in; and, for the first time, her father seemed to see the bright red spot that burned on her cheek, the unnatural brilliancy of her blue eyes, the painful shortness of her breath. A mist seemed to fall from his eyes, and the dread truth to stand revealed before him; but he did not speak, nor did Rachel; Mary looked at them both, wondering.
"Well, what ails you two, that you stare at me so," she said, pertly. "I am so hot," she added, after a while. "I think I shall stay at home, as you said. Miss Gray."
She went into the back parlour, and sat down on the first chair she found at hand. Rachel Gray and her father followed her in. The poor child, who, because she had felt no actual pain, had thought that she could not be ill, now, for the first time, felt that she was so.
"What ails you, dear?" softly asked Rachel, bending over her, as she saw her gradually turning pale.
"La! bless you. Miss Gray, I am quite well—only I feel so faint like."
And even as she spoke, her head sank on the bosom of Rachel—she had fainted.
When Mary recovered to consciousness, she was lying on her bed, up stairs. Rachel stood by her pillow. At the foot of her bed, Mary caught sight of her father's face, ghastly pale. Between the two, she saw a strange gentleman, a doctor, who felt her pulse, put a few questions to her, wrote a prescription, and soon left.
"I must go now," said Rachel, "but I shall come back this evening, and bring my work."
Jones did not heed her; he looked stupified and like one bereft of sense, but Mary laughed and replied, "Oh! do Miss Gray, come and take tea with us."
Rachel promised that she would try, kissed her and left. With great difficulty she obtained from Mrs. Brown the permission to return.
They on whom the light of this world shone not, were rarely in the favour of Mrs. Brown. And only on condition of being home early did she allow Rachel to depart. Before leaving, she went up to her other's chair, he was not now quite so helpless as at first, and did not require her constant presence or assistance; though he still did not know her.
"I shall try and not be too long away," said Rachel in a low voice.
"Never mind," he muttered, shaking his head, "never mind."
"There's a precious old fool for you!" said Mrs. Brown laughing coarsely.
A flush of pain crossed Rachel's cheek, but to have replied, would have been to draw down a storm on her head; she silently left the house.
She found Mary feverish, restless, and full of projects. She would get up early the next day, and make up for lost time. She remembered all the work she had to do, and which she had unaccountably neglected. Her father's shirts to mend, her own wardrobe to see to; the next room to clean up, for a second lodger had never been found; in short, to hear her, it seemed as if her life had only begun, and that this was the day of its opening. In vain Rachel tried to check her soothingly; Mary talked on and was so animated and so merry, that her father, who came up every five minutes to see how she was, could not believe her to be so very ill as Miss Gray thought, or the Doctor had hinted. Indeed, when at nine Rachel left, and he let her down stairs, he seemed quite relieved.
"The child's only growing," he said to Rachel, "only growing; a little rest and a little medicine, and she'll be all right again."
But scarcely was Rachel out of the door, when she burst into tears. "My poor little Mary," she thought, "my poor little Mary!"
It was rather late when Rachel knocked timidly at the door, Mrs. Brown opened to her, and there was a storm on her brow.
"Well, ma'am," she began; "well, ma'am!"
"Oh! pray do not—do not!" imploringly exclaimed Rachel, clasping her hands.
For her excessive patience had of late rendered Mrs. Brown's violent temper wholly ungovernable. Irritated by the very meekness which met her wrath, she had, with the instinct of aggression, found the only vulnerable point of Rachel—her father. This was, indeed, the heel of Achilles. All the shafts of the enemy's railing that fell harmless on the childish old man, rebounded on his daughter with double force: deep and keen they sank in her hearty and every one inflicted its wound. And thus it was that Rachel had learned to look with terror to Mrs. Brown's wrath —that she now shrank from it with fear and trembling, and implored for mercy.
But there is no arguing with ill-temper. Mrs. Brown would neither give mercy, nor hear reason. Had she not lent twenty pound three and six to Rachel? Was not Rachel beholden to her for food, shelter, chemist's bill, and physician's fees? and should not, therefore, her will be Rachel's law, and her pleasure be Rachel's pleasure?
Poor Rachel, her patience was great, but now she felt as if it must fail; as if she could not, even for the sake of a roof's shelter, endure more from one to whom no tie of love or regard bound her—nothing but the burdening sense of an obligation which she had not sought, and for which she had already paid so dearly. She clasped her thin hands—she looked with her mild brown eyes in the face of her tormentor, and her lips quivered with the intensity of the feelings that moved her to reply, and repel insult and contumely, and with the strength of will that kept her silent.
At length, Mrs. Brown grew tired, for her ill-temper had this quality— it was vehement, not slow and irritating, the infliction ceased—Rachel remained alone.
Mrs. Brown had taken possession of the room that had once been Rachel's. Thomas Gray slept in the back parlour; and in order to remain within reach of aid, Rachel slept on the floor of the front room. In this room it was that Mrs. Brown had left her. Softly Rachel went and opened the door of her father's room; it was dark and quiet; but in its stillness, she heard his regular breathing—he slept, and little, did he know how much that calm sleep of his cost his daughter. She closed the door, and sat down in her own room; but she thought not of sleep; the tempter was with her in that hour. Her heart was full of bitterness—full even to overflowing. On a dark and dreary sea, her lot seemed cast; she saw not the guiding star of faith over her head. She saw not before her the haven of blessed peace.
The words "Thy will be done," fell from her lips; they were not in her heart. Nothing was there, nothing but wounded pride, resentment, and the sense of unmerited wrong.
In vain, thinking of her tyrant, Rachel said to herself, "I forgive that woman—I forgive her freely." She felt that she did not; that anger against this pitiless tormentor of her life smouldered in her heart like the red coal living beneath pale ashes; and Rachel was startled, and justly, to feel that so strange and unusual an emotion, anger against another, had found place in her bosom, and that though she bade it go, it stayed, and would not depart.
To be gentle is not to be passionless. The spirit of Rachel had been early subdued, too much subdued for her happiness; but it was too noble ever to have been quenched. It still burned within her, a flame pure and free, though invisible. But now, alas! the vapours of earthly passion dimmed its brightness: and it was darkened with human wrath.
Through such moments of temptation and trial all have passed; and then it is, indeed, when we are not blinded by pride, that we feel our miserable weakness, a weakness for which there is but one remedy, but then it is a divine one—the strength of God.
That strength Rachel now invoked.De Profundis, from the depths of her sorrow she cried out to the Lord, not that her burden might grow less, but that her strength to bear it, to endure and forgive, might increase eyen with it And strength was granted unto her. It came, not at once, not like the living waters that flowed from the arid rock, when the prophet spoke, but slowly, like the heavenly manna that fell softly in the silence of the night, and was gathered ere the sun rose above the desert.
Rachel felt—oh, pure and blessed feeling!—that her heart was free from bitterness and gall; that she could forgive the offender, to seventy times seven; that she could pray for her—not with the lip-prayer of the self-righteous Pharisee, but with the heartfelt orisons of the poor, sinning, and penitent publican; and again and again, and until the tears flowed down her cheek, she blessed God, the sole Giver of so mighty and superhuman a grace.
And well it was for Rachel Gray, that she forgave her enemy that night. Well it was, indeed, that the next sun beheld not her wrath. Before that sun rose, the poor, erring woman had given in her account of every deed, and every word uttered in the heat of anger:—Mrs. Brown had gone to her room strong and well. She was found dead and cold in her bed the next morning.
A coroner's inquest was held, and a verdict of "sudden death" recorded. And a will, too, was found in a tea-caddy, by which Mrs. Brown formally bequeathed all her property to Rachel Gray, "as a proof," said the will, "of her admiration and respect."
On hearing the words, Rachel burst into tears.
"Thank God! That I forgave her!" she exclaimed, "thank God!"
Well indeed might she thank the Divine bestower of all forgiveness. The legacy was not after all a large one. Mrs. Brown's annuity died with her; she left little more money than buried her decently; the ground lease of the house in which she had originally resided was almost out, and the bequest was in reality limited to the present abode of Rachel; but invaluable to her indeed, was the shelter of that humble home, now her own for ever.
And when all was over; when the grave had closed on one, who not being at peace herself, could not give peace to others, when Rachel and her father remained alone in the little house, now hushed and silenced from all rude and jarring sounds, safe from all tyrannical interference, Rachel felt, with secret thankfulness, that if her lot was not happy, according to human weakness, it was blest with peace and quiet, and all the good that from them spring. If a cloud still lingered over it, it was only because, looking at her father, she remembered the unfulfilled desire of her heart; and if on days otherwise now marked with peace, there sometimes fell the darkness of a passing shadow, it was only when she saw and felt too keenly the sorrows of others.
Richard Jones still hoped: "Mary was so young!" He would hope. But it was not to be; he had but tasted the cup of his sorrows; to the dregs was he to drink it; the earthly idol on which he had set his heart was to be snatched from him; he was to waken one day to the bitter knowledge: "there is no hope!"
How he felt we know not, and cannot tell: none have a right to describe that grief save they who have passed through it; we dare not unveil the father's heart: we deal but with the external aspect of things, and sad and bitter enough it was.
In a silent shop, where the sugar seemed to shrink away in the casks, where the tea-chests looked hollow, where dust gathered on the counter, on the shelves, in the corners, everywhere; where all looked blasted and withered by the deadly upas tree opposite, you might have seen a haggard man who stood there day after day, waiting for customers that came not, and who from behind his shop windows drearily watched the opposite shop, always full; thriving, fattening on his ruin; or who, sadder sight to his eyes and heart, looked at the little back parlour, where on her sick bed his dying daughter lay.
Mary, as her illness drew towards its close, became fanciful, she insisted on having her bed brought down to the back parlour, and would leave her door open, "in order to mind the shop," she said. If anything could hasten her father's ruin, this did it: the few customers whom he had left, gradually dropped off, scared away by that sick girl, looking at them with her eager, glittering eyes.
He sat by her one evening in a sad and very bitter mood. She was ill, very ill, and for three days not a soul had crossed the threshold of his shop. His love and his ambition were passing away together from his life.
"Father," querulously said Mary, "why did you shut the shop so early?" For since her illness the young girl's mind was always running on the shop.
"Where's the use of leaving it open?" huskily answered Jones, "unless it's to see them all going to the two Teapots opposite."
"Well, but I wish you had not," she resumed, "it looks so dull and so dark."
It is very likely that to please her, Richard Jones would have gone and taken the shutters down; but for a knock at the private door.
"There's Miss Gray," said Mary, her face lighting.
Richard Jones went and opened it; it was Rachel Gray. The light of the candle which he held fell full on his face; Rachel was struck with its haggard expression.
"You do not look well, Mr. Jones," she said.
"Don't I, Miss Gray," he replied, with a dreary smile, "well, that's a wonder! Look here!" he added, leading her into the shop where his tallow candle shed but a dim, dull light, "look here," he continued, raising it high, and turning it round so that it cast its faint gleam over the whole place, "look here; there's a shop for you, Miss Gray. How long ago is it since you, and your mother, and Mary and I we settled that shop? Look at it now, I say—look at it now. Look here!" and he thrust the light down a cask, "empty! Look there!" and he raised the lid of a tea-chest, "empty! Do you wish to try the drawers? Oh! they are all labelled, but what's in 'em. Miss Gray? nothing! It's well the customers have left off coming; for I couldn't serve them; couldn't accommodate them, I am sorry to say," and he laughed very bitterly. "I was happy when I came here," he resumed, "I had hope; I thought there was an opening; I thought there was room for me. I set up this shop; I did it all up myself, as you know— every inch of it; I painted it; I put the fixtures in; I drove every nail in with my own hand, and what's been the upshot of it all, Miss Gray?"
Rachel raised her soft brown eyes to his:
"It is the will of God," she said, "and God knows best, for He is good."
Richard Jones looked at her and smiled almost sternly, for suffering gives dignity to the meanest, and no man, when he feels deeply, is the same man as when his feelings are unstirred.
"Miss Gray," he said, "I have worked from my youth—slaved some would say; I hoped to make out something for myself and my child, and it was more of her than of myself I thought I wronged none; I did my best; a rich man steps in, and I am bewared—and you tell me God is good—mind, I don't say he aint—but is he good to me?"
Rachel Gray shook with nervous emotion from head to foot She was pained— she was distressed at the question. Still more distressed because her mind was so bewildered, because her ideas were in such strange tumult, that with the most ardent wish to speak, she could not. As when in a dream we struggle to move and cannot, our will being fettered by the slumber of the body, so Rachel felt then, so alas! for her torment she felt almost always; conscious of truths sublime, beautiful and consoling, but unable to express them in speech.
"God is good," she said again, clinging to that truth as to her anchor of safety.
Again Richard Jones smiled.
"And my child, Miss Gray," he said, lowering his voice so that his words could not reach the next room, "going by inches before my very eyes; yet I must look on and not go mad. I must be beggared, and I must bear it; I must become childless, and I must bear it. And the wicked thrive, and the wicked's children outlive them, for God is good to them, Miss Gray."
The eyes of Rachel filled with tears; her brow became clouded.
"Ah! Mr. Jones," she said, "do not complain; you have loved your child."
"What are you keeping Miss Gray there for?" pettishly said the voice ofMary, "I want her."
"And here I am, dear," said Rachel, going in to her, "I am come to sit a while with you; for I am sure your poor father wants rest, does he not?"
"I don't want any one to sit with me," impatiently replied Mary, "I am not so ill as all that."
"But do you sleep at night?"
"No, I can't—I am so feverish."
"Well, then, we sit up with you to keep you company," said her father.
This explanation apparently satisfied Mary, who began to talk of other things. She knew not she was dying; whence should the knowledge have come to a mere child like her. None had told her the truth. And she was passing away into eternity, unconscious—her heart, her thoughts, her soul full of the shadows of life.
Rachel saw and knew it, and it grieved her. She remembered her little sister's happy and smiling death-bed, and from her heart she prayed that a similar blessing might crown the last hours of little Mary; that she might go to her God like a child to her father.
And when Richard Jones, after sitting up with them until twelve, went upstairs to rest awhile, and Rachel heard Mary talk of her recovery, and of projects and hopes, vain to her as a dream, she could not help feeling that it was her duty to speak. They were alone, "yes, now," thought Rachel, "now is the time to speak."
Oh! hard and bitter task: to tell the young of death; the hoping that they must not hope; to tell those who would so fondly delay and linger in this valley, that they must depart for the land that is so near, and that seems so far. Rachel knew not how to begin. Mary opened the subject.
"I shall be glad when I am well again," she said, "I am tired of this little room; it seems so dull when I see the sun shine in the street, don't it, Miss Gray?"
"I dare say it does: you remind me of a little story I once read; shall I tell it to you?"
"Oh! yes you may," carelessly replied Mary, yawning slightly; she thoughtMiss Gray prosy at times.
"It is not a long story," said Rachel timidly, "and here it is; a king was once hunting alone in a wood, when he heard a very beautiful voice singing very sweetly; he went on and saw a poor leper."
"What's a leper?" interrupted Mary.
"Don't you remember the lepers in the Gospel, who were made clean by our Saviour? they were poor things, who had a bad and loathsome complaint, and this man, whom the king heard singing, was one; and the king could not help saying to him, 'how can you sing when you seem in so wretched a condition?' But the leper replied, 'it is because I am in this state that I sing, for as my body decays, I know that the hour of my deliverance draws nigh, that I shall leave this miserable world, and go to my Lord and my God.'"
Mary looked at Rachel surprised at the impressive and earnest tone with which she spoke.
"Well but, Miss Gray," she said, at length, "what is there like me in this story; I am not a leper, am I?"
"We are all lepers," gently said Rachel, "for we are all sinners, and sin is to the soul what leprosy is to the body; it defiles it, and we all should be glad to die; for Christ has conquered death, and with death sin ends, and our true life, the life in God begins."
Mary raised herself on one elbow. She looked at Rachel fixedly, earnestly; "Miss Gray," she said; "what do you mean?"
Rachel did not reply—she could not.
"Why do you tell me all these things?" continued Mary.
And still Rachel could not speak.
"Miss Gray," said Mary, "amIgoing to die?" She looked wistfully in Rachel's face, and the beseeching tone of her young childish voice seemed to pierce Rachel's heart; but she had began; could not, she dared not go back. She rose, she clasped her hands, she trembled from head to foot, tears streamed down her cheek; her voice faltered so that she could scarcely speak, but she mastered it, clear and distinct the words came out. "Mary, we must all obey the will of God; we came into this world at His will, at His will we must leave it."
"And must I leave it, Miss Gray?" asked Mary, persisting in her questioning like a child.
Rachel stooped over her; the fast tears poured from her face on Mary's pale brow, "yes, my darling," she said softly, "yes, you must leave this miserable earth of trouble and sorrow, and go to God your friend and your father."
The weakest, the frailest creatures often rise to heroic courage. This fretful, pettish child heard her sentence with some wonder, but apparently without sorrow.
"Don't cry, Miss Gray," she said, "Idon't cry; but do you know, it seems so odd that I should die, doesn't it now?"
Rachel did not reply, nor did she attempt it; her very heart was wrung.Mary guessed, or saw it.
"I wish you would not fret," she said, "I wish you would not. Miss Gray.Idon't, you see."
"Ay," thought Rachel, "you do not, my poor child, for what do you know of death?" And a little while after this, Mary, who felt heavy, fell asleep with her hand in that of Rachel Gray.
Three days had passed.
The morning was gray and dull. He had sat up all night by Mary; for Rachel, exhausted with fatigue, had been unable to come. Poor little Mary, her hour was nigh; she knew it, and her young heart grieved for her father, so soon to be childless. She thought of herself too; she looked over the whole of her young life, and she saw its transgressions and its sins with a sorrow free from faithless dismay; for Rachel had said to her: "Shall we dare to limit for ourselves, or for others, the unfathomed mercy of God?"
"Father," she suddenly said, "I want to speak to you."
"What is it, my darling?" he asked, bending over her fondly. She looked up in his face, her cheeks flushed with a deeper hectic, her glassy eyes lit with a brighter light.
"Father," she said, "I have been a naughty child, have I not?"
"No—no, my little pet, never, indeed, never."
"I know I have been naughty, father; I 'have been,' oh! so cross at times; but, father, I could not help it—at least, it seemed as if I could not—my back ached so, and indeed," she added, clasping her hands, "I am very sorry, father, very sorry."
He stooped still nearer to her; he laid his cheek on her pillow; he kissed her hot brow, little Mary half smiled.
"You forgive me, don't you?" she murmured faintly.
"Forgive you! my pet—my darling."
"Yes, pray do," she said.
She could scarcely speak now; there was a film on her eyes, too. He saw it gathering fast, very fast. Suddenly she seemed to revive like a dying flame. Again she addressed him.
"Father!" she said, "why don't you take down the shutters?"
And with singular earnestness she fixed her eyes on his. Take down the shutters? The question seemed a stab sent through his very heart. Yet he mastered himself, and replied: "'Tis early yet; 'tis very early, my darling."
"No 'taint," she said, in her old pettish way, and then she murmured in a low and humbled tone: "Ah! I forget—I forget. I did not mean to be cross again. Indeed I did not, father, so pray forgive me."
"Don't think of it, my pet. Do you wish for anything?"
"Nothing, father, but that you would take down the shutters."
He tried to speak—he could not; only a few broken sounds gasped on his lips for utterance.
"Because you see," she continued with strange earnestness, "the customers will all be coming and wondering if they see the shop shut; and they will think me worse, and so—and so—"
She could not finish the sentence, but she tried to do so.
"And so you see, father." Again the words died away. Her father raised his head; he looked at her; he saw her growing very white. Again he bent, and softly whispered: "My darling, did you say your prayers this morning?"
An expression of surprise stole over the child's wan face.
"I had forgotten," she replied, faintly, "I shall say them now." She folded her thin hands, her lips moved. "Our father who art in heaven," she said, and she began a prayer that was never finished upon earth.
The dread moment had come. The angel of death stood in that hushed room; swiftly and gently he fulfilled his errand, then departed, leaving all in silence, breathless and deep.
He knew it was all over. He rose; he closed the eyes, composed the slender limbs, then he sat down by his dead child, a desolate man—a heart-broken father. How long he sat thus he knew not; a knock at the door at length roused him. Mechanically he rose and went and opened. He saw a man who at once stepped in and closed the door, and before the man spoke, Jones knew his errand.
"It's all right," he said, "I know, the landlord could scarcely help it; come in."
The bailiff was a bluff, hearty-looking man; he gave Jones a sound slap on the shoulder.
"You are a trump! that's what you are," he said, with a big oath.
Jones did not answer, but showed his guest into the back parlour.
"Halloo! what's that?" cried the bailiff, attempting to raise the bed-curtain.
"Don't," said Jones, in a husky voice.
Then the man saw what it was, and he exclaimed quite ruefully: "I am very sorry—I am very sorry."
"You can't help it," meekly said Jones, "you must do your duty."
"Why that's what I always say," cried the bailiff with a second oath, rather bigger than the first, "a man must do his duty, mustn't he?" and a third oath slipped out.
"Don't swear, pray don't!" said Jones.
"And if I do, may I be—" here the swearing bailiff paused aghast at what he was going to add. "I can't help myself like," he said, rather ruefully, "it's second natur, you see, second natur. But I'll try and not do it—I'll try."
And speaking quite softly, spite of his swearing propensities, he looked wistfully at Jones; but the childless father's face remained a blank.
"Make yourself at home," he said in a subdued voice. "I think you'll find all you want in that cupboard, at least 'tis all I have."
And he resumed his place by the dead.
"All I want, and all you have," muttered the bailiff with his head in the cupboard. "Then faith, my poor fellow, 'tain't much."
The day was chill and very dreary; the bailiff smoked his pipe by the low smouldering fire, and yawned over a dirty old newspaper. Two hours had passed thus when Jones said to him: "You don't want for anything, do you?"
"Why no," musingly replied the bailiff, taking out his pipe, and looking up from his paper, "thank you, I can't say I want for anything, but what have you to say to a glass of grog, eh?"
He rather brightened himself at the idea.
"I'll send for anything you like," drearily replied Jones, and it was plain he had not understood as relating to himself the kindly meant proposal.
The bailiff rather stiffly said, he wanted nothing.
"Well then," resumed Jones, slipping off his shoes, "I'll leave you for awhile."
"Why, where are you going?" cried the other staring.
"There," said Jones, and raising the curtain, he crept in to his dead darling.
The curtain shrouded him in; he was alone—alone with his child and his grief. A little child he had cradled her in his arms; many a time had she slept in that fond embrace, to her both a protection and a caress. And now! He looked at the little pale face that had fallen asleep in prayer; he saw it lying on its pillow in death-like stillness; and if he repressed the groan that rose to his lips the deeper was his anguish.
Oh, passion! eloquent pages have been wasted on thy woes; volumes have been written to tell mankind of thy delights and thy torments. To no other tale will youth bend its greedy ear, of no other feelings will man acknowledge the power to charm his spirit and his heart. And here was one who knew thee not in name or in truth, and yet who drank to the dregs, and to the last bitterness his cup of sorrow. Oh! miserable and unpoetic griefs of the prosaic poor. Where are ye, elements of power and pathos of our modern epic: the novel? A wretched shop that will not take, a sickly child that dies! Ay, and were the picture but drawn by an abler hand, know proud reader, if proud thou art, that thy very heart could bleed, that thy very soul would be wrung to read this page from a poor man's story.
And so he lay by his dead, swelling with a tearless agony, a nameless and twofold desolation. Gaze not on that grief—eye of man: thou art powerless to pity, for thou art powerless to understand.
"Only think!" said a neighbour to Mrs. Smith, "Mr. Jones's shutters have been closed the whole day. I can't think what the matter is."
"Can't you," replied Mrs. Smith laughing, "why, woman, the shop is shut."
Ay, the shop was shut. The shop which Richard Jones had opened with so much pride—the shop which he had ever linked with his child, closed on the day of her death, and never reopened. He did not care. His little ambition was wrecked; his little pride was broken; his little cruise of love had been poured forth upon the earth by God's own hand; it was empty and dry; arid sand and dust had drunk up its once sweet waters.
What a man without ambition, pride, and lore may be, he had become in the one day that bereaved him.
Pity not him, reader; his tale is told; pity him whose bitter story of hope and disappointment but begins as I write, and as you read. For mortal hand has not sounded the bitter depth of such woes. In them live the true tragic passions that else seem to have passed from the earth; passions that could rouse the meekest to revenge and wrath, if daily dew from heaven fell not on poor parched hearts, as nightly it comes down from the skies above, on thirsting earth.
A time may come when the London churchyard shall be remembered as a thing that has been and is no more; but now who knows it not? Who need describe the serried gravestones that mark the resting places in this sad field of death; who need tell how they stare at busy passers by through their iron grating—how they look ghastly, like the guest of the Egyptian feast, dead in the midst of tumult and riotous life.
Dreary are they when the sun shines on them, and their rank weeds, the sun which those beneath feel not, but more dreary by far when the drizzling rain pours down the dark church walls and filters into the sodden earth. And in such a place, and on such a day did they make the grave of Mary Jones.
Two mourners stood by: a woman and a man. When all was over, when earth had closed over the grave and its contents, the man sat down on a neighbouring gravestone, and looked at that red mound which held his all, with a dreary stolid gaze of misery and woe.
Rachel bent over him, and gently laid her hand on his shoulder.
"Mr. Jones, you must come!" she said.
He made no reply, he did not rise, and when she took his hand to lead him away, he yielded without resistance. She took him to her own house. Kindly and tenderly she led him, like a little child, and a child he seemed to have become, helpless, inert—without will, without power.
His own home was a wreck, the prey of creditors, who found but little there, yet sufficient, for their claims were few, to save him from disgrace. Rachel Gray gave him the room where his child once had slept, where he had come in to look at her in her sleep, and fondly bent over her pillow: he burst into tears as he entered it; and those tears relieved him, and did him good.
At the end of two days he rallied from his torpor; he awoke, he remembered he was a man born to work, to earn his daily bread, and bear the burden of life.
He went out one morning, and looked for employment. Something he found to do; but what it was he told not Rachel. When she gently asked, he shook his head and smiled bitterly.
"It don't matter. Miss Gray," he said; "it don't matter."
No doubt it was some miserable, poorly paid task. Yet he only spoke the truth, when he said it mattered little. He lived and laboured, like thousands; but he cared not for to-day, and thought not of to-morrow; the Time of Promise and of Hope had for ever departed. What though he should feel want, so long as he could pay his weekly rent to Rachel Gray, he cared not. There is an end to all things; and as for his old age, should he grow old, had he not the parish and the workhouse? And so Richard Jones could drag on through life, of all hopes, save the heavenly hope, forsaken.
But Heaven chose to chastise and humble still further, this already chastised and sorely humbled man. He fell ill, and remained for weeks on his sick bed, a burden cast on the slender means of Rachel Gray. In vain he begged and prayed to be sent to the workhouse or some hospital; Rachel would not hear of it. She kept him, she attended on him with all the devotedness of a daughter; between him and her father she divided her time. Earnestly Jones prayed for death: the boon was not granted; he recovered.
They sat together and alone one evening in the quiet little parlour— alone, for Thomas Gray was no one, when there came a knock at the door, and the visitor admitted by Rachel, proved to be Joseph Saunders.
"Mr. Jones is within," hesitatingly said Rachel
"And I just want to speak to him," briefly replied Saunders, "so that's lucky."
He walked into the parlour as he spoke; Rachel followed, wondering what was to be the issue. On seeing his enemy, poor Jones reddened slightly but the flush soon died away, and in a meek, subdued voice, he was the first to say "good evening."
"Sorry to hear you have been ill," said Saunders sitting down, "but you are coming round, ain't you?"
"I am much better," was the quiet reply.
"Got anything to do?" bluntly asked Saunders.
"Nothing as yet," answered Jones with a subdued groan, for he thought ofRachel, so poor herself, and the burden he was to her.
"Well then, Mr. Jones; just listen to me!" said Saunders, drawing his chair near, "I know you have a grudge against me."
"You have ruined me," said Jones.
"Pshaw, man, 'twas all fair, all in the way of business," exclaimedSaunders a little impatiently.
"You have ruined me," said Jones again; "but I forgive you, I have long ago forgiven you, and the shadow of a grudge against you, or living man, I have not, thank God!"
"That's all right enough," emphatically said Saunders; "still, Mr. Jones, you say I have ruined you. It isn't the first time either that you have said so, and with some people, I may as well tell you it has injured me."