"I've enough to reproach myself with one."
These words, spoken by Mr. Chester in the course of his late domestic difference with his wife, brought with them a feeling of deep remorse.
He had another child, a son, now a man, and a sharp pain shot through the hearts of husband and wife as the words were uttered. But Mr. Chester, once more at the Royal George, did his best to drown uncomfortable reminiscences. His new tenant, who accompanied him to the gin-palace, scarcely opened his lips except to drink. His manner of taking his liquor was not attractive; he raised his glass to his lips with a sly furtive air, and conducted himself throughout in so objectionable and jarring a spirit, that when, within half-an-hour of midnight, he said, churlishly: "I think I may as well get home;" Mr. Chester replied: "All right; you'll not be missed inthiscompany." Thereupon, the stranger, with another sly watchful look around took his leave, to everyone's satisfaction.
Within a few moments of his departure, Mr. Chester, in the act of drinking, suddenly held up his hand. His attitude of attention was magnetically repeated in the attitudes of the persons around him. As when a person in the street stands still, and points at nothing in the sky, he speedily draws about him a throng of interested ones, who all look up, and point at nothing also.
What had arrested Mr. Chester's attention was the faint sound of music from without. Only half-a-dozen notes reached his ears, and they were softly borne to him from a wind instrument.
The glass which he held trembled in his hand, and, had he not placed it on the counter, would have fallen to the ground.
He walked slowly to the door, and looked out in the street for the musician. He could not see him, and the sound had died away. Returning to his companions, he abruptly asked:
"Did any of you observe whether that man"--referring, with a backward pointing of his thumb, to his new tenant--"had anything in his breast pocket?"
Two or three answered, No, they had not observed any thing particular; but one said he thought, now Mr. Chester mentioned it, that the strangerdidhave something in his breast pocket.
"Something that stuck out," suggested Mr. Chester vivaciously.
Perceiving that he had made a hit, the man replied that he thought itwassomething that stuck out.
"Might have been a stick?" proceeded Mr. Chester.
"Yes, it might have been a stick."
"Or a flute?"
"Yes, it might have been a flute."
"Or," asked Mr. Chester, coming now to his climax, "a penny tin whistle?"
Yes, the man thought it might decidedly have been penny tin whistle; which so satisfied Mr. Chester, that he inhaled a long breath of relief, and asked the man what he would take to drink.
In the meantime, Mrs. Chester proceeded with her domestic duties. She commenced to undress the baby-child whom Sally had already adopted as her own, and she was filled with wonder and curiosity as she noted the superior order of the child's clothes. The shoes, though dirty and dusty, were sound; the socks had not a hole in toe or heel--a state of sock which Sally seldom enjoyed; the frock was of beautiful blue cashmere, and as her mother handed it to her, Sally pressed her lips and eyes against the comfortable material, with a sense of great enjoyment; then came a petticoat, of black merino; then a white petticoat, with tucks and insertions, which increased Sally's admiration; then the little petticoat of flannel, not like the flannel in Sally's petticoat, hard and unsympathetic; this was thick, and soft, and cosy to the touch--there was real warmth and comfort in it; then the pretty white stays; and the child lay in Mrs. Chester's lap, in her chemise, with its delicate edgings of lace round the dimpled arms and fat little bosom--lay like a rose dipped in milk, as the good woman afterwards expressed it to neighbouring gossips. The lovely picture was to Mrs. Chester like sparks of fire upon dry tinder. Soft lights of memory glowed upon her, lighting up the dark sky; sweet reminiscences sprang up in her mind and bloomed there like flowers in an arid soil, and for a few moments she experienced a feeling of delicious happiness. But soon, in the light of sad reality, the stars paled in the sky, the flowers faded, and sorrowful tears were welling from the mother's eyes. Sally did not see them, for her face was hidden in the sleeping baby's neck, and she was kissing her lovely treasure with profound and passionate devotion.
"Come now," abruptly said Mrs. Chester, furtively wiping away her tears, "just you get to bed. I shall be having nice work with you to-morrow if you've caught cold."
Sally's reply denoted that her thoughts were not on herself.
"Ain't she a beauty, mother? She's ever so much better then the collerbine that dances in the street. Mother,shedidn't come from a parsley-bed, did she?"
This was in reference to her belief in her own origin, but Mrs. Chester declined to be led into conversation so Sally wriggled herself between the bedclothes, and holding out her arms received the pretty child in them. Supremely happy, she curled herself up, with her baby-treasure pressed tightly to her bony breast, and was soon fast asleep.
Mrs. Chester, after seeing that the children were warmly tucked up, took Sally's clothes, and commenced the mother's never-ending task among the poor of stitching and mending. And as she stitched and patched, the words her husband had spoken, "I've enough to reproach myself with one," recurred to her, and brought grief and sadness with them. Her tears fell upon Sally's tattered garments as she dwelt upon the bright promise of the first years of her married life and the marring of her most cherished hopes. Absorbed in these contemplations, she did not notice that the candle was almost at its last gasp; presently it went out with a sob, leaving Mrs. Chester in darkness. Wearied with a long day's toil, she closed her eyes; her tear-stained work fell to the ground; her head sank upon the pillow, and her hand sought Sally's. As she gained it, and clasped it within her own, she fell asleep by the children's side. Her sleep was dreamless until nearly midnight, when a few tremulous notes, played outside the house on a penny tin whistle, stirred imagination into creative action, and inspired strangely-contrasted dreams within the minds of mother and child.
She had been married for twenty-five years, and had had two children--one, a boy, a year after her marriage; the other, a girl, the Sally of this story, twenty years afterwards. Upon her darling boy, Ned, she lavished all the strength of her love. He was a handsome child, the very opposite to Sally; full of spirit and mischief; always craving for pleasure and excitement, always being indulged in his cravings to the full extent of his mother's means. This unvarying kindness should have influenced him for good, but he glided into the wrong track, and at an early age developed a remarkable talent for appropriation. The father had no time to look after his son's morals, being himself absorbingly engaged in the cultivation of a talent for which he, also, had shown early aptitude--a talent for gin-drinking.
The lad was much to be pitied on two special grounds. He had a "gift" on his thumb, and he was born with a mole on his right temple.
His mother was overjoyed when she saw this mole. It was the luckiest of omens. For had not seers of old--never mind what seers--declared that the child that was born with a mole on his right temple would surely, in the course of his life, arrive at sudden wealth and honour?
Meanwhile, with a dutiful regard for parental example, Ned followed his father's footsteps to the public-house, and, at a very early age, was fond of draining pots and glasses.
As Ned grew older, he extended the field of his operations. Thus it came about that one fine morning the young thief found himself in a police-court, and was sent to prison as a rogue and a vagabond. There was no doubt he was both.
When he was released from prison, he did not go home immediately; he thought it best to wait until his hair grew again.
He wandered about, at fairs chiefly, picking up food anyhow, and enjoying the life; and by the time he made his appearance again in Rosemary Lane, his hair was as long as ever, and his mother wept over him, and killed the fatted calf for her lovely lad. He brought home with him a new accomplishment in the shape of a tin whistle, upon which he discoursed the most eloquent music. With this whistle he charmed and soothed the tender nature of his mother, and the less impressionable nature of his father, who thoughtlessly helped him in his downward course by taking him to the public-house, where he delighted all around him. There he got his fill of drink, from the customers, and in after days, when the lovely lad's character was about as bad as his worst enemy could have desired, it caused the father real remorse to think that he had helped his son to his undoing. It was this which caused Mr. Chester to utter the words, "I've enough to reproach myself with one." The reprobate would not work; all that he would do was to drink, and thieve, and play upon a tin whistle; and five years ago Ned Chester disappeared from the neighbourhood of Rosemary Lane, and nothing had since been heard of him.
But the mother's heart never went from her boy. Not a day passed but her thoughts dwelt lovingly upon him. He had caused her the bitterest anguish of her life, and she loved him the more for it.
This brief digression ended, we return to Mrs. Chester, who lies asleep by the side of Sally and her baby-treasure. There is no light in the room, there is no moon in the sky. With trembling fingers, the man in the street plays upon the keys of his instrument, and pauses in the middle of a note, and shakes as though an ague were on him. It is a terrible fit, and lasts for minutes; when it subsides, he looks around him fearsomely, and sees monstrous shapes in the air coming towards him. Descending from the dark clouds, uprising from the black pavement, emerging from the viewless air, with eyes that glower, with features that threaten, with limbs that appal, they glide upon and surround him. With hoarse cries and shuddering hands he strives to beat them off, and staggers to the door of the house in which the mother and children are sleeping, with smiles upon their lips.
The first impression of the dreaming woman is that she and her young son are in a cart, out for a day's holiday in the country. It is early morning, and they are in the heart of the country, with its fields, and hedges, and scent of sweet flowers and fresh-mown hay. The clouds are bright, and the mother's heart is filled with love and gratitude as the horse jogs steadily along.
Their pace is slow, but not so slow as that of this white-smocked carter, sitting on the shaft of his lumbering wagon, which, as it rumbles onwards, makes noise enough for a dozen. The wagon is in the middle of the road--as though it were made solely for them to creep over, and nothing else had any business there--and when at length it moves aside, it does so in an indolent, reluctant fashion most tantalising to men and cattle more briskly inclined. Behind them thunders the mail-coach, and the guard's horn sounds merrily on the air.
"There comes the mail-coach!" the driver of the cart exclaims, and the dreamer watches it grow, as it were, out of the distant sky and land, where Liliputia lies. And now it is upon them, with no suspicion of Liliputia about it. On it comes, with Hillo! hallo! hi! hi! hi! heralding and proclaiming itself blithely. Their manner is right and proper, for are they not--guard, coachman, and horses--kings of the road? Out of the way, then, everybody and everything, and make room for their excellencies! Out of the way, you lumbering, white-smocked carter, and open your sleepy eyes! Out of the way, you pair of young dreamers, you, who, arm-in-arm so closely, are surely asleep and dreaming also! She, the first awake, starts in sudden alarm, with bright blushes now in her pretty, pensive face, and he--glad of the chance--throws his arm around her, and hurries her to the roadside, but a yard or two away from the bounding cattle, whose ringing hoofs play a brisker air upon the roadway than ever Apollo's son played upon the lyre. Away goes the coach, and the mother holds her lovely lad aloft in her arms, and in silent wonder, listens to the fading horn, and watches the coach grow smaller and smaller, until it disappears entirely from the sight. Onward they go through the dreamy solitudes, and shadows of green leaves and branches wave about them in never-ending beauty and variety.
How lovely is the day! The birds are singing, the bees are busy, all nature is glad. What a morning for a holiday--what a morning for lovers to walk through shady paths and narrow lanes, over stiles, and under great spreading branches, whose arms bend down caressingly to shield them from the sun! What a morning to bring a long courtship to a sweet conclusion, and to whisper the words that make lads' and lasses' hearts happier than the thrush that pipes its tremulous notes above them as they sit!
And now the mother and her child are in a narrow lane, with hedges on either side, over which they see the ripe corn waving. The mother sings a song about the days when we went gipsying a long time ago, and her friend, the driver, joins in the chorus heartily. At its conclusion, he says, incidentally:
"How about that mole on Neddy's right temple that Jane was telling me of?" (Jane is his young wife.) "What does it really signify?"
"You ask any fortune-teller," says the mother. "It's the very luckiest thing that ever can happen. When a child is born with a mole on the right temple, it is certain sure to arrive at sudden wealth and honour."
"That's a real piece of good fortune," says the driver. "Ifouryoung un's born with a mole on the right temple, it'll be the luckiest day of our lives."
"I'm sure I hope it will be," says the mother, "and that it'll be in the right place."
While this conversation is proceeding, the horse has slackened his pace--and the driver jumps off the cart to pick some sweet honeysuckle, a piece of which he gives to the mother and the child--and the heavens are beautifully bright, and fairy ships are sailing in the clouds--and they go jogging, jogging, jogging on, until they arrive at their journey's end.
Pulling up at a pretty little cottage, with a pretty little green gate for its boundary, a pretty little woman runs hastily out, wiping her hands, which are all over flour, on her apron. This is his Jane, whose visitors have caught her in the act of making a pudding. The first embraces over, they go into the kitchen, where the pudding is tied up, and put into the pot, and is cooked by magic, for the next moment they are eating their dinner. They pass a happy time within the cottage, and then the scene fades, and she and her child are in a field, pelting each other with flowers.
The child grows tired, and the mother makes a nest of fern for her darling to rest in, at the foot of an old tree, whose branches presently fill all the landscape, and cover them with delicious shade. Not a variation of colour in the sky, not a bird's note, not a whisper of the leaves, that the fond mother does not convert into a symbol of happiness for her heart's treasure. And as he sleeps, she sits by his side, until the tree fades and becomes the cottage again, where they are all clustered round the tea-table, eating the sweetest bread-and-butter and the freshest radishes that love can produce.
Then the moon comes out and pierces the ceiling, which changes into night-clouds and solemnly-silent roads, through and over which they are riding peacefully home. A river, of which they had a glimpse when the sun's rays were playing on it, changes now into a white road, over which the cart is slowly passing; now into a field of waving corn, through which they are calmly wending their way without breaking a stalk; now into the stairs of her own cosy home-nest, up which she is walking, with her darling, very sleepy, in her arms. And when she has softly sung a few words of a familiar cradle-song, she points to the stars, not deeming it strange that they are shining all around her, and tells her child that heaven is there!
An amazing transformation takes place. She is alone, with blackness all around her. The rain pours down like a deluge, and a terrific explosion occurs, which shakes the earth to its foundations.
Aroused by the violent banging of the street door, Mrs. Chester starts from the bed. The rain is softly pattering in the street, and she hears the sound of uncertain footsteps groping up the stairs.
"It is the new lodger," she murmurs. "He might have made less noise with the door." Then, rubbing her eyes, she calls, "Sally, are you awake?"
Sally hears her mother's voice through a mist of softly falling rain, and murmuring some indistinct words in reply, cuddles closer to her treasure-baby, and the next moment is asleep again.
"The brute!" exclaims Mrs. Chester. "Waking the children with his row! I'll talk to him to-morrow."
Standing in the dark, she listens. The person who is ascending the stairs to the bedroom in the upper part of the house staggers and stumbles on his way. Thus much Mrs. Chester is conscious of, but she does not hear his low moans, nor see him shake and tremble, as he drags his feet along in fear and dread. When he reaches his room, he falls, dressed, upon the bed, and claws at the air, and picks at the bedclothes in ceaseless unrest, being beset by demons of every shape and form, presenting themselves in a thousand monstrously-grotesque disguises.
Mrs. Chester has heard sufficient to cause her to form a just conclusion.
"Drunk of course," she murmurs; "and Dick'll be as bad when he comes home."
Then she lights a candle, and patiently resumes her task of stitching and patching.
Sounds of music in the air; strange and fantastic shapes and forms; blooming flowers, and grass of rarest shades of green; glittering water, for white swans and paper ships to sail on; waving branches laden with dew-diamonds; birds flying on silver threads that reach from heaven to earth; and standing in the midst of all these wonders, little Sally Chester herself, in her ragged clothes. Comes a procession from the skies, heralded by a glittering white star, which widens into an avenue of light, through which the actors move. Comes a small drummer-boy in the British army, with a drum slung round his shoulders; behind him trots a donkey, familiar to the neighbourhood, who smiles grotesquely at Sally, and asks her when she is going to faint dead away again. The entire contents of a toy and cake shop follow the eccentric donkey. First appear the royal beefeaters, represented by men cut out of rich brown gingerbread, with features formed of Dutch metal, their legs and arms also being magnificently slashed with strips of the same; their features are diabolical, but this does not lessen their attractiveness. Then come a legion of wooden dolls, with not a vestige of clothing on their bodies, their staring expressionless features testifying to their shamelessness and their indifference to public opinion; then the animals from Noah's arks, so indiscriminately coupled as to betray a disgraceful Scriptural ignorance; then tin soldiers on slides, their outstretched swords proclaiming that they are on the straight road to glory; concluding with an army of wooden grenadiers with fixed bayonets, who march without bending a joint. All these move through the avenue of light, and the drummer-boy appears arm-in-arm with a little girl with whom, until she died twelve months ago, Sally used to play at grocers' shops in dark kitchens and on back-window sills. With a grand fanfaronade of trumpets, on marches a gay troop of soldiers, followed by men carrying huge flags, the devices in which are quick with life. Upon the waving folds of silk, fish are swimming, horses are prancing, artizans are following their trades, and the lion and the unicorn are fighting for the crown. These precede more soldiers and carriages and flags, until the shouts that rend the air proclaim the approach of the principal figure in the procession. This proves to be a gilt coach of antique shape, with coachmen and footmen blazing with gold lace, and Sally jumps up and down in frantic excitement as she recognises the inmate of the coach, who is staring in wonder out of the window at the people huzzaing and waving their hats in her honour. It is her own baby-treasure, with flushed and beautiful face, and with eyes bluer and more beautiful than the brightest and bluest clouds. In the midst of this triumphant display a man suddenly appears, and with sinister looks, stands by the coach in which the child is sitting. It is the new tenant who has taken the bedroom in her mother's house, and his menacing attitude proclaims that he is bent on mischief. The child looks imploringly towards Sally for protection, and instantaneously Sally is on the donkey's back, riding full tilt at their common enemy, who goes down in great confusion before her. Upon this the crowd and the entire pageant melt away like vapour from a glass, and Sally, with her baby-treasure safe in her arms, is walking along a dark street, the houses in which are so tall that they shut out the sky. The night is cold, the rain is falling, and they are alone, walking for many hours through the dreary thoroughfares, until from an archway a shadow steals and strives to seize the child. It is the new tenant again. Sally, terror-stricken, flies from him as fast as her little legs will allow her--and flies so swiftly, and through so many streets, for seemingly-interminable hours, that her breath fails, and life is leaving her: and all through this terrible flight the pursuer is at her heels, with flashing eyes and with death in his face. Sally knows that this is expressed in him, and that he is bent on destruction, although her back is towards him. She feels his hot breath on her neck; she hears a hissing sound from remorseless lips; closer and closer he comes, and his arms are about to close around her, when she falls over a precipice, down, down, into the spreading branches of a tree, where she places her baby safely in a cradle of flowers, and watches the form of their enemy flash, like a glance of light, into the abyss, the yawning mouth of which closes upon him with a snap. As the light of the child's golden hair falls on the green branches, they become magically transformed into the likeness of Sally's playmates and acquaintances round and about Rosemary Lane. There is Jane Preedy without any boots, and Ann Taylor without any stockings, and Jimmy Platt with the hair of his head falling over his weak eyes and sticking through the peak of his cap, and Young Stumpy with bits of his shirt thrusting themselves forward from unwarrantable places, and Betsy Newbiggin selling liquorice-water for pins; and there, besides, is the sailor-beggar without legs, who lives next door to the Chesters, comfortably strapped to his little wooden platform on wheels. Then the actors in the Lord Mayor's procession loom out on other branches, conspicuous among them being the drummer-boy, standing on his head on the donkey's back, and valiantly playing the drum in that position. The cradle of flowers fades, and its place is occupied by a square piece of carpet, upon which Sally's baby-treasure is dancing. The child is now dressed in the oddest fashion, her garments being composed of stray bits of silk and ribbon, which hang about her incongruously, but with picturesque effect. As she dances, the drummer-boy, who is now, in addition to his drum, supplied with pandean pipes, beats and pipes to the admiration of the audience. Carried away by the applause, he, in an inadvertent moment, bangs so loudly on his drum that he bangs the entire assemblage into air, and Sally is again alone, sitting in the tree by the side of the empty flower cradle. As she looks disconsolately around for her baby-treasure, comes a vision in the clouds. Thousands of angels, with bright wings and faces of lustrous beauty, are clustered about a cobbler, a friend of Sally's, who occupies a stall in Rosemary Lane, and who for the nonce transferred to a heavenly sphere, now plies his awl on Olympian heights. Very busy is he, with his shirt-sleeves tucked up to his shoulders, mending shoes for the angels, who are flying to him from every bright cloud in the heavens, with old shoes and slippers in their hands. And presently all the lustrous shapes are gazing tenderly on Sally's baby-treasure, upon whose tiny feet the cobbler is fitting a pair of shining slippers. A sudden clap of thunder inspires multitudinous images of beauty, all of which presently merge into the sound of falling water, and the air is filled with a myriad slender lines of flashing light. Fainter and fainter they grow, and Sally awakes from her dream.
She hears the rain falling softly in the streets, and hears her mother ask her if she is awake. Almost unconscious, she murmurs she knows not what in reply, and pressing the baby closer to her, is in a moment asleep again; but her sleep now is dreamless.
The handle of the street door of Mr. Chester's house could be so worked from without by any person initiated into the secret that it yielded easily to practised fingers. This was Mr. Chester's ingenious invention. Early in his married life he had found it not agreeable to his sensitive feelings that, after a night's carouse, the door should be opened for him by his wife. Hence the device.
At one o'clock on this morning he opened his street door and entered his house. Mrs. Chester was still up, mending Sally's clothes. On a corner of the table at which she was working, his supper of bread-and-cheese was laid. As he entered, his wife glanced at him, and then bent her eyes to her work, without uttering a word. Receiving no favourable response to his weak smile, he fell-to upon his supper.
By the time Mr. Chester had finished, the silence had become intolerable to him. His wife, having mended Sally's clothes, was now gathering them together. He made another conciliatory step.
"How is Sally?" he asked.
Mrs. Chester's lip curled. "Sally's asleep," she answered.
"Did you get her any--any strengthening things?"
"No. All the shops were shut--except the public-houses."
"Ah, yes, I forgot. But you might have asked her if she fancied anything."
"I said to her last week," replied the mother, with a dark, fierce flash into her husband's face, "when she came out of one of her faints, 'Sally, what would you like?' 'I'd like some gin, mother,' she answered. I was afraid she might give me the same answer again."
He quailed before the look, and the strong reproach conveyed in the mother's words.
"Don't let's have any more quarrelling to-night, old woman," he said.
"I don't want any quarrelling: I'm not a match for you, Dick."
"That's as it should be, old woman," he said, recovering his spirits. "Man's the master."
"You're good at words, Dick."
"That's so," he chuckled vainfully.
"But better at something else."
"At what, old woman?"
With a scornful glance she laid before him the strap with which he was in the habit of striking her.
"There's no arguing with a woman," he said, with rare discretion. "Come, it's time to get to bed. I suppose the new lodger is in."
"He came in an hour ago."
"And the little girl?"
"She's asleep with Sally."
Mr. Chester, who had risen, stood silent for a few moments, drumming gently with his fingers on the table.
"Did you see him when he came home?"
Mrs. Chester's anger was spent, and her husband's kinder tone now met with a kindred response.
"No, Dick."
"Ah, then, there's no use asking. But you might have heard something, Loo."
"What might I have heard, Dick?" she asked, approaching close to his side. He passed his arms around her.
"Something that would have reminded you----" He broke off abruptly with, "No matter."
"But tell me, Dick."
"When I was at the Royal George I fancied I heard a man playing on a tin whistle."
Mrs. Chester's lips quivered, and a shudder ran through her frame.
"The new tenant," pursued Mr. Chester, "hang him! he's got into my head like a black fog!--the new tenant had just gone away, and good riddance to him, when I heard the music, as I thought, and I went to the door to look. I saw nobody, and a man in the Royal George said that our new lodger had something in his pocket that looked like a whistle or a flute. As he came straight home, I thought you might have heard him play it."
"I was asleep, Dick, when he came home; the slamming of the street door woke me." She paused and played nervously with a button of her husband's coat. "Dick, I dreamt of our Ned to-night."
"Ay, Loo," he answered softly.
"What can have become of him? Where is he now, the dear lad?"
"Best for us not to know, perhaps," replied Mr. Chester gloomily.
"I've thought of him a good deal lately," said Mrs. Chester; "more than I've done for a long time past. And my dreaming of him to-night is a good sign. Dick, I've got it into my head that he'll open the door one day, as handsome as ever, and rich too, and that he'll make it up to us----"
Mr. Chester interrupted her with a bitter laugh.
"If my head doesn't ache till then----There! Stop talking of him, and let's get to bed."
They went into the bedroom together, and Mrs. Chester held the candle over the sleeping children, turning the coverlid down, so that their faces could be seen. They were both fast asleep: the baby's head was lying on Sally's bare shoulder, and their lips almost touched.
It was not upon Sally's face that Mr. Chester's eyes rested. He gazed intently upon the child sleeping in Sally's arms, much as though he were striving to find the solution of some perplexing problem.
"What's bothering you, Dick?" asked Mrs. Chester.
"The difference between this new child and the man upstairs," he replied. "There's our Sally now. She's dark, and skinny, and queer-looking all round; but anybody can see with half an eye that she's our child. It's the same with Ned; he was about the handsomest lad that you could see in a mile's walk----"
"Ay, that he was, Dick," said the fond mother.
"--Not a bit like Sal, and not much like us to speak of, in a general way. And yet nobody could doubt that they were brother and sister, and that he was our boy. Nature works out these things in her own way. Very well, then. In what way has Nature worked out a likeness between this new baby and the man sleeping upstairs?"
"In no way that I can see," replied Mrs. Chester, receiving with favour this evidence against a man to whom she had taken a dislike at first sight.
"There ain't a feature in their faces alike--not one. Nature doesn't tell lies as a rule; but she has told a whopper if that man is this young un's father. Do you mean to tell me that a father would behave to his own flesh and blood as that fellow behaved to this little one to-night? Look here, old woman. I go wrong more often than I go right. I might be a better man to you, I dare say, and a better father to Sal; but things have gone too far for me to alter. But for all that, I think I've got the feelings of a father towards our lass, and I wouldn't part with her for her weight in gold."
Which speech, uttered with rough, genuine feeling, was a recompense to Mrs. Chester for months of neglect and unfair usage.
"Well, Dick," she said, "don't bother any more about it now. We've got two weeks' rent in advance, at any rate."
And this practical commentary Mrs. Chester considered a satisfactory termination to the conversation--at least, for the present.
Mr. Chester was a heavy sleeper. Being an earnest man, he was as earnest in his sleep as in other matters, and his wife had often observed that it would take the house on fire to rouse him. It was singular, therefore, that on this night he should wake up within an hour of his closing his eyes, with an idea in his mind which had not before presented itself in an intelligible shape.
"I say, old woman," he mumbled, "are you awake?" The instinct of habit caused Mrs. Chester to answer drowsily, "Yes, Dick," and to instantly fall asleep again.
"Rouse yourself." (Assisting her by a push.) "What time was it you told me the new lodger came in?"
Under the impression that the question had been put to her many hours since, and therefore not quite clear as to its purport, Mrs. Chester said,
"Eh, Dick?"
"Eh, Dick! and eh, Dick!" retorted Mr. Chester. "Now, then, are you listening?"
"Of course I am," she said reproachfully, throwing upon him the onus of evading the question. "Go on."
"I'm going on. Slow." (With a pause between each word.) "What--time --did--you--tell--me--that--the--new--lodger--came--in--to-night?"
"He came home about an hour before you."
"And you were asleep?"
"Yes, and I'm almost asleep now. That's enough for to-night, Dick."
"Not half enough, old woman," he said, shaking her without mercy. "If you were asleep, how do you know what time he came in?"
"He woke me up," replied Mrs. Chester, goaded to desperation, "with the way he slammed the door. I'll give him a bit of my mind in the morning. There's other lodgers in the house besides him, and I ain't going to have them disturbed in that way. I shouldn't wonder if some of 'em don't give us warning to-morrow. For the Lord's sake, don't talk to me any more! I've got to be up at six o'clock."
He proceeded, without paying the slightest regard to her appeal:
"When the new lodger comes home a couple of hours ago, you are asleep. He wakes you up with the way he bangs the door. He comes into the house, and goes upstairs to his room. That's it, isn't it?"
"That's it, Dick," replied Mrs. Chester listlessly.
"And you don't set your eyes on him?"
"No, and don't want to."
"Now, old woman, just keep your mind on what I'm saying--" but here Mr. Chester interrupted himself by exclaiming, "What's that row upstairs? It comes from his room."
The noise proceeded undoubtedly from the room let to the new lodger, and, as well as she could judge, was caused by the stealthy moving about of furniture. It did not last long and presently all was quiet again.
"I shall have to go up to him," said Mr. Chester, shaking his head at himself in the dark, "if he gives us any more of that fun. He's a stranger in the neighbourhood. Not a soul in the Royal George ever set eyes on him before to-night. He comes here with a child--a mere baby--that don't seem as if it had any right to be here at all. He takes the room and pays a fortnight in advance, without ever asking for a receipt, and without ever saying his name is George, or Jim, or Jo or whatever else it might be. He pulls out a handful of money, too. Does this sound suspicious, or doesn't it?"
"Itdoes, as you put it," acquiesced Mrs. Chester, now awake.
"And, by Jove! there's something more suspicious behind. Who showed him his bedroom?"
"I didn't."
"AndIdidn't. Who showed him how to open the street-door without a key?"
"I didn't."
"AndIdidn't. Then how the devildoeshe open it without being shown how it is done? and how the devil does he find his way, without a light, to a room he's never seen? I'm going to look into this, Loo, before I close my eyes again."
Mr. Chester jumped out of bed energetically, with the intention of putting his purpose into execution. But if his determination of looking into the matter had not been formed by his own reasoning, it would have been forced upon him by what took place immediately his feet touched the floor. The moving of furniture in the new lodger's room recommenced--not stealthily now, but with great violence, and much as though it were being thrown about with the wilful intention of breaking it to pieces. The noise had aroused the other lodgers in the house, and a knocking at Mr. Chester's door, followed by a pathetic inquiry about that disturbance upstairs, and an entreaty that it should be stopped at once, as the speaker's old man had a racking headache and the row was driving him out of his mind, quickened Mr. Chester to speedier action.
"All right, Mrs. Midge," Mr. Chester called out, "I'm going upstairs this minute. It's only a new lodger we've taken in to-night. If he don't stop his row, I'll bundle him neck and crop into the street."
With the handle of the open door in his hand, he turned to his wife, and telling her not to be frightened, groped his way to the upper part of the house.
Mrs. Chester, disregarding her husband's injunction sat up in bed, and listened to the noise, which so increased in violence every moment that she got out of bed before Mr. Chester was halfway upstairs, and stood ready to fly to his assistance.
The person who was causing this commotion had, when he entered the bedroom, fallen upon the bed in a stupor. He had had no rest for a week, and was utterly exhausted. For days he had been haunted and pursued by horrible phantoms, which had driven him almost mad. When the fit first seized him, he was in the country, fifty miles from Rosemary Lane, and the thought occurred to him that there was but one house in all the wide world in which he could find refuge from his enemies. To this refuge he slowly made his way, eating nothing, but drinking whenever the opportunity for doing so presented itself. It gave him for the time a fictitious strength, and enabled him at length to reach Mr. Chester's house.
The room was in total darkness, and for two hours he lay helpless and supine, unaware that even in his stupor he was ceaselessly picking unearthly reptiles from the blanket upon which he had fallen. For two hours he lay thus, and then consciousness returned to him.
It slowly dawned upon his fevered imagination that he was no longer alone. The frightful shapes which had pursued him for a week had discovered his sanctuary, and were stealing upon him. They were subtle and powerful enough to force their way through stone walls, through closed doors, and they had done so now. Perhaps, thought he--if it can be said that he thought at all--if I keep my eyes closed, they will not discover me. It is dark, and I shall evade them. They will not think of searching too closely for me here.
He lay still and quiet, as he believed, with loudly-beating heart; but all the time he struck at the air with his hands, helpless, impotent, terror-bound. Soon, encouraged by the silence, he ventured to open his eyes, and a spasm of despair escaped him as he discovered how he had been juggled. Creeping towards him stealthily was a huge shapeless shadow. Form it had none, its face and eyes were veiled, but he could see huge limbs moving within dark folds. The window and door were fast closed, and it could only have entered the room by way of the chimney and fireplace. If he could thrust it back to that aperture, and block it up, he would be safe. He rose from the bed, shaking and trembling like a leaf in a strong wind, and moved the common washstand between himself and the shadow. Pushing it before him, he whispered triumphantly to himself as he perceived his enemy retreat. Cunningly he drove it towards the fireplace and compelled it into that niche, where it passed away like the passing of a cloud. Thank God! it was gone. And so that it should not again find entrance, he placed against the fireplace all the available furniture in the room. That being done, he lay down upon the bed, with a sense of inexpressible relief.
But peace was not for him. Within five minutes the shadows began again to gather about him, and the same monstrous shape which had previously threatened him reappeared. Not now in disguise, or veiled. He saw its limbs, its horrible face and eyes, and its aspect was so appalling that a smothered shriek of agony broke from his parched lips. Whither should he fly? How could he escape these terrors? Ah! the door! He moved towards it, but shrank back immediately at the sound of steps and muffled voices. The window! butthatwas blocked up by a crawling monster, whose thousand limbs were winding and curling towards him, warning him to approach at his peril. He dared not move a step in that direction. In what direction, then, could he find a refuge? In none. He was hemmed in, surrounded by these fearful enemies; the room was filled with them, and they were waiting for him outside. In mad desperation he seized a chair and hurled it at the approaching shapes; with a terrible strength he raised the heavier furniture, and strove to crush them. In vain. There was no escape for him. Closer and closer they approached; their hot breath, their glaring eyes were eating into his soul, were setting his heart on fire. And at that moment Mr. Chester, who had stopped on his way, to obtain a lighted candle, opened the door and appeared on the threshold.
The candle which Mr. Chester held above his head as he opened the door threw a lurid glow around his fearful form. In a paroxysm of blind delirium the furious wretch threw himself upon his arch enemy. The candle fell to the ground and was extinguished. But the madman needed no light to guide him. He would kill this monster who came to destroy him; he would squeeze the breath out of him; he would tear him limb from limb. He raised Mr. Chester in his arms as though he were a reed, and dashed him on to the bed. He knelt upon him, and struck at him with wild force, and pressed his hands upon his throat, with murderous intent. Mr. Chester was as a child in his grasp--powerless to defend himself, powerless to escape, only able, at intervals, to scream for help.
The sounds of this terrible struggle aroused the whole house, and every person leaped from bed, the most courageous among them running to ascertain the cause of the disturbance. Mrs. Chester was the first to reach the room. She had no candle, but she saw enough to convince her that her husband's life was in danger. She threw herself upon the delirious man, and added her affrighted shrieks to the confusion. The lodgers came hurrying up, and their candles cast a light upon the scene.
Then Mrs. Chester saw clearly before her--saw the distorted face of the man who was striving to strangle her husband--saw in his hand a tin whistle, with which, deeming it to be a dagger, he was stabbing at the form writhing in his grasp.
"O God!" she shrieked. "It is Ned--my boy Ned! Ned--Ned! for the love of God, come off! Are you blind or mad? It is your father you are killing!"
Her words fell upon heedless ears. So strung to a dangerous tension was his tortured imagination, that the entreating voices, the lights, the hands about him striving to frustrate his deadly purpose, were unheard, unseen, unfelt.
The men grappled with him, but their united efforts were unavailing; their blows had no more effect upon him than falling rain. Thus the terrible struggle continued.
"Ned--Ned!" cried Mrs. Chester again, forcing her face between him and the object of his fury, so that, haply, he might recognise her, "for gracious God's sake, take your hands away! Your mother is speaking to you."
The lines in his forehead deepened--the mole on his temple became suffused with blood--the cruel, frenzied expression on his face grew darker and stronger. He dashed her aside with a curse, and, had it not been that one of the bystanders pulled her out of reach of his arm, he would have left his mark upon her.
But as her son turned from her, the struggle came to an end, without being brought to this happier pass by the force of either words or blows. Simply by the appearance of a little child. In this wise:
The conversation that had taken place between husband and wife in Mrs. Chester's bedroom had awakened Sally and her baby-treasure. Sally did not move when her father went out of the room, but when, alarmed by his cries for help, her mother followed him, Sally got out of bed, and lifted her baby treasure to the ground. Hand in hand, they crept to the top of the house.
They reached the room in which the struggle was taking place--and reached it just in time. Another minute, and it might have been fatally too late.
The grown-up persons were too intently engrossed in the action of the terrible scene to observe the entrance of the children, and thus it was that they made their way to the bedside. At this precise moment it was that Ned, the lovely lad, flung his mother from him with brutal force, and that his eyes met those of Sally's baby-treasure, who was gazing upon him with a look of curious terror.
Her white dress, her beautiful face, her blue eyes staring fixedly at him, her golden hair hanging around her pretty head, produced a powerful and singular effect upon him.
The horrible shapes by which he had been pursued faded from his sight, and something sweeter took their place. The dark blood deserted his face, and the furious fire died out of his soul, leaving him once more pale, haggard and degraded, and weak as trickling water.
With shaking limbs he fell upon his knees before the baby-child, and placed his trembling hands upon her shoulders.
'The men and women in the room were spell-bound, not daring to interpose between him and the child, lest they should awake the savage spirit within him.
Brief as was this interval, Mr. Chester had been raised from the bed, and carried from the room. His wife was too intent upon the movements of her son to follow him.
For a very few moments did the lovely lad remain in his kneeling position, embracing the child. Utterly exhausted, by drink, by want of rest, by the terrific excitement of this and previous sleepless nights, his eyes closed, and with wild shudders he sank fainting to the ground.
In response to Mrs. Chester's entreaties, the lodgers assisted her to place him on the bed, and this being done she asked them to go down for her clothes, and to bring her word how her husband is.
"And take the children away," she said with a wan smile. "I shall stop with my boy and nurse him. I am not frightened of him. He will not hurt me. See, the poor lad has no more strength than a baby."
As they left the room with the children, the mother bent over her degraded son, with love and pity in her heart, and her scalding tears fell on his white lips and on the lucky mole on his temple which was to bring sudden wealth and honour to its possessor.