The sea was done with him. He had struggled manfully for his life, but exhaustion came at last, and, realizing the futility of further fighting, he gave up the battle. The tallest wave, the king of that roaring tumultuous procession racing from the wreck to the shore, took him in its relentless grasp, held him towering for a moment against the sky, whirled his heels in the air, dashed him senseless on the sand, and, finally, rolled him over and over, a helpless bundle, high up upon the sandy beach.
Human life seems of little account when we think of the trifles that make toward the extinction or the extension of it. If the wave that bore Stanford had been a little less tall, he would have been drawn back into the sea by one that followed. If, as a helpless bundle, he had been turned over one time more or one less, his mouth would have pressed into the sand, and he would have died. As it was, he lay on his back with arms outstretched on either side, and a handful of dissolving sand in one clinched fist. Succeeding waves sometimes touched him, but he lay there unmolested by the sea with his white face turned to the sky.
Oblivion has no calendar. A moment or an eternity are the same to it. When consciousness slowly returned, he neither knew nor cared how time had fled. He was not quite sure that he was alive, but weakness rather than fear kept him from opening his eyes to find out whether the world they would look upon was the world they had last gazed at. His interest, however, was speedily stimulated by the sound of the English tongue. He was still too much dazed to wonder at it, and to remember that he was cast away on some unknown island in the Southern Seas. But the purport of the words startled him.
“Let us be thankful. He is undoubtedly dead.” This was said in a tone of infinite satisfaction.
There seemed to be a murmur of pleasure at the announcement from those who were with the speaker. Stanford slowly opened his eyes, wondering what these savages were who rejoiced in the death of an inoffensive stranger cast upon their shores. He saw a group standing around him, but his attention speedily became concentrated on one face. The owner of it, he judged, was not more than nineteen years of age, and the face—at least so it seemed to Stanford at the time—was the most beautiful he had ever beheld. There was an expression of sweet gladness upon it until her eyes met his, then the joy faded from the face, and a look of dismay took its place. The girl seemed to catch her breath in fear, and tears filled her eyes.
“Oh,” she cried, “he is going to live.”
She covered her face with her hands, and sobbed.
Stanford closed his eyes wearily. “I am evidently insane,” he said to himself. Then, losing faith in the reality of things, he lost consciousness as well, and when his senses came to him again he found himself lying on a bed in a clean but scantily furnished room. Through an open window came the roar of the sea, and the thunderous boom of the falling waves brought to his mind the experiences through which he had passed. The wreck and the struggle with the waves he knew to be real, but the episode on the beach he now believed to have been but a vision resulting from his condition.
A door opened noiselessly, and, before he knew of anyone’s entrance, a placid-faced nurse stood by his bed and asked him how he was.
“I don’t know. I am at least alive.”
The nurse sighed, and cast down her eyes. Her lips moved, but she said nothing. Stanford looked at her curiously. A fear crept over him that he was hopelessly crippled for life, and that death was considered preferable to a maimed existence. He felt wearied, though not in pain, but he knew that sometimes the more desperate the hurt, the less the victim feels it at first.
“Are—are any of my—my bones broken, do you know?” he asked.
“No. You are bruised, but not badly hurt. You will soon recover.”
“Ah!” said Stanford, with a sigh of relief. “By the way,” he added, with sudden interest, “who was that girl who stood near me as I lay on the beach?”
“There were several.”
“No, there was but one. I mean the girl with the beautiful eyes and a halo of hair like a glorified golden crown on her head.”
“We speak not of our women in words like those,” said the nurse, severely; “you mean Ruth, perhaps, whose hair is plentiful and yellow.”
Stanford smiled. “Words matter little,” he said.
“We must be temperate in speech,” replied the nurse.
“We may be temperate without, being teetotal. Plentiful and yellow, indeed! I have had a bad dream concerning those who found me. I thought that they—but it does not matter. She at least is not a myth. Do you happen to know if any others were saved?”
“I am thankful to be able to say that every one was drowned.”
Stanford started up with horror in his eyes. The demure nurse, with sympathetic tones, bade him not excite himself. He sank back on his pillow.
“Leave the room,” he cried, feebly, “Leave me—leave me.” He turned his face toward the wall, while the woman left as silently as she had entered.
When she was gone Stanford slid from the bed, intending to make his way to the door and fasten it. He feared that these savages, who wished him dead, would take measures to kill him when they saw he was going to recover. As he leaned against the bed, he noticed that the door had no fastening. There was a rude latch, but neither lock nor bolt. The furniture of the room was of the most meagre description, clumsily made. He staggered to the open window, and looked out. The remnants of the disastrous gale blew in upon him and gave him new life, as it had formerly threatened him with death. He saw that he was in a village of small houses, each cottage standing in its own plot of ground. It was apparently a village of one street, and over the roofs of the houses opposite he saw in the distance the white waves of the sea. What astonished him most was a church with its tapering spire at the end of the street—a wooden church such as he had seen in remote American settlements. The street was deserted, and there were no signs of life in the houses.
“I must have fallen in upon some colony of lunatics,” he said to himself. “I wonder to what country these people belong—either to England or the United States, I imagine—yet in all my travels I never heard of such a community.”
There was no mirror in the room, and it was impossible for him to know how he looked. His clothes were dry and powdered with salt. He arranged them as well as he could, and slipped out of the house unnoticed. When he reached the outskirts of the village he saw that the inhabitants, both men and women, were working in the fields some distance away. Coming towards the village was a girl with a water-can in either hand. She was singing as blithely as a lark until she saw Stanford, whereupon she paused both in her walk and in her song. Stanford, never a backward man, advanced, and was about to greet her when she forestalled him by saying:
“I am grieved, indeed, to see that you have recovered.”
The young man’s speech was frozen on his lip, and a frown settled off his brow. Seeing that he was annoyed, though why she could not guess, Ruth hastened to amend matters by adding:
“Believe me, what I say is true. I am indeed sorry.”
“Sorry that I live?”
“Most heartily am I.”
“It is hard to credit such a statement from one so—from you.”
“Do not say so. Miriam has already charged me with being glad that you were not drowned. It would pain me deeply if you also believed as she does.”
The girl looked at him with swimming eyes, and the young man knew not what to answer. Finally he said:
“There is some horrible mistake. I cannot make it out. Perhaps our words, though apparently the same, have a different meaning. Sit down, Ruth, I want to ask you some questions.”
Ruth cast a timorous glance towards the workers, and murmured something about not having much time to spare, but she placed the water-cans on the ground and sank down on the grass. Stanford throwing himself on the sward at her feet, but, seeing that she shrank back, he drew himself further from her, resting where he might gaze upon her face.
Ruth’s eyes were downcast, which was necessary, for she occupied herself in pulling blade after blade of grass, sometimes weaving them together. Stanford had said he wished to question her, but he apparently forgot his intention, for he seemed wholly satisfied with merely looking at her. After the silence had lasted for some time, she lifted her eyes for one brief moment, and then asked the first question herself.
“From what land do you come?”
“From England.”
“Ah! that also is an island, is it not?”
He laughed at the “also,” and remembered that he had some questions to ask.
“Yes, it is an island—also. The sea dashes wrecks on all four sides of it, but there is no village on its shores so heathenish that if a man is cast upon the beach the inhabitants do not rejoice because he has escaped death.”
Ruth looked at him with amazement in her eyes.
“Is there, then, no religion in England?”
“Religion? England is the most religious country on the face of the earth. There are more cathedrals, more churches, more places of worship in England than in any other State that I know of. We send missionaries to all heathenish lands. The Government, itself, supports the Church.”
“I imagine, then, I mistook your meaning. I thought from what you said that the people of England feared death, and did not welcome it or rejoice when one of their number died.”
“They do not fear death, and they do not rejoice when it comes. Far from it. From the peer to the beggar, everyone fights death as long as he can; the oldest cling to life as eagerly as the youngest. Not a man but will spend his last gold piece to ward off the inevitable even for an hour.”
“Gold piece—what is that?”
Stanford plunged his hand into his pocket.
“Ah!” he said, “there are some coins left. Here is a gold piece.”
The girl took it, and looked at it with keen interest.
“Isn’t it pretty?” she said, holding the yellow coin on her pink palm, and glancing up at him.
“That is the general opinion. To accumulate coins like that, men will lie, and cheat, and steal—yes, and work. Although they will give their last sovereign to prolong their lives, yet will they risk life itself to accumulate gold. Every business in England is formed merely for the gathering together of bits of metal like that in your hand; huge companies of men are formed so that it may be piled up in greater quantities. The man who has most gold has most power, and is generally the most respected; the company which makes most money is the one people are most anxious to belong to.”
Ruth listened to him with wonder and dismay in her eyes. As he talked she shuddered, and allowed the yellow coin to slip from her hand to the ground. “No wonder such a people fears death.”
“Do you not fear death?”
“How can we, when we believe in heaven?”
“But would you not be sorry if someone died whom you loved?”
“How could we be so selfish? Would you be sorry if your brother, or someone you loved, became possessed of whatever you value in England—a large quantity of this gold, for instance?”
“Certainly not. But then you see—well, it isn’t exactly the same thing. If one you care for dies you are separated from him, and——”
“But only for a short time, and that gives but another reason for welcoming death. It seems impossible that Christian people should fear to enter Heaven. Now I begin to understand why our forefathers left England, and why our teachers will never tell us anything about the people there. I wonder why missionaries are not sent to England to teach them the truth, and try to civilize the people?”
“That would, indeed, be coals to Newcastle. But there comes one of the workers.”
“It is my father,” cried the girl, rising. “I fear I have been loitering. I never did such a thing before.”
The man who approached was stern of countenance.
“Ruth,” he said, “the workers are athirst.”
The girl, without reply, picked up her pails and departed.
“I have been receiving,” said the young man, coloring slightly, “some instruction regarding your belief. I had been puzzled by several remarks I had heard, and wished to make inquiries concerning them.”
“It is more fitting,” said the man, coldly, “that you should receive instruction from me or from some of the elders than from one of the youngest in the community. When you are so far recovered as to be able to listen to an exposition of our views, I hope to put forth such arguments as will convince you that they are the true views. If it should so happen that my arguments are not convincing, then I must request that you will hold no communication with our younger members. They must not be contaminated by the heresies of the outside world.”
Stanford looked at Ruth standing beside the village well.
“Sir,” he said, “you underrate the argumentative powers of the younger members. There is a text bearing upon the subject which I need not recall to you. I am already convinced.”
I was staying for some weeks at a lovely town in the Tyrol which I shall take the liberty of naming Schwindleburg. I conceal its real title because it charges what is termed a visitors’ tax, and a heavy visitors’ tax, exacting the same from me through the medium of my hotel bill. The town also made me pay for the excellent band that performs morning and afternoon in the Kurpark. Many continental health resorts support themselves by placing a tax upon visitors, a practice resorted to by no English town, and so I regard the imposition as a swindle, and I refuse to advertise any place that practises it. It is true that if you stay in Schwindleburg less than a week they do not tax you, but I didn’t know that, and the hotel man, being wise in his own generation, did not present his bill until a day after the week was out, so I found myself in for the visitors’ tax and the music money before I was aware of it. Thus does a foolish person accumulate wisdom by foreign travel. I stayed on at this picturesque place, listening to the band every day, trying to get value for my money. I intended to keep much to myself, having work to do, and make no acquaintances, but I fell under the fascination of Johnson, thus breaking my rule. What is the use of making a rule if you can’t have the pleasure of breaking it?
I think the thing that first attracted me to Johnson was his utter negligence in the matter of his personal appearance. When he stepped down from the hotel ‘bus he looked like a semi-respectable tramp. He wore a blue woolen shirt, with no collar or necktie. He had a slouch hat, without the usual affectation of a Tyrolese feather in it. His full beard had evidently not been trimmed for weeks, and he had one trouser-leg turned up. He had no alpenstock, and that also was a merit. So I said to myself, “Here is a man free from the conventionalities of society. If I become acquainted with anybody it will be with him.”
I found Johnson was an American from a Western city named Chicago, which I had heard of, and we “palled on.” He was very fond of music, and the band in the Kurpark was a good one, so we went there together twice a day, and talked as we walked up and down the gravel paths. He had been everywhere, and knew his way about; his conversation was interesting. In about a week I had come to love Johnson, and I think he rather liked me.
One day, as we returned together to the Hotel Post, he held out his hand.
“I’m off to-morrow,” he said; “off to Innsbruck. So I shall bid you good-bye. I am very glad indeed to have met you.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.” I replied. “But I won’t say good-bye now, I’ll see you to the station to-morrow.”
“No, don’t do that. I shall be away before you are up. We’ll say good- bye here.”
We did, and when I had breakfast next morning I found Johnson had left by the early train. I wandered around the park that forenoon mourning for Johnson. The place seemed lonely without him. In the afternoon I explored some of the by-paths of the park within hearing distance of the band, when suddenly, to my intense surprise, I met my departed friend.
“Hello! Johnson,” I cried, “I thought you left this morning.”
The man looked at me with no recognition in his face.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, “my name is Baumgarten.”
Looking more closely at him I at once saw I was mistaken. I had been thinking of Johnson at the time, which probably accounted for the error. Still, his likeness to Johnson was remarkable—to Johnson well groomed. He had neatly-trimmed side-whiskers and moustache, while Johnson had a full beard. His round hat was new, and he wore an irreproachable collar, and even cuffs. Besides this he sported a cane, and evidently possessed many weaknesses to which Johnson was superior. I apologized for my mistake, and was about to walk on when Baumgarten showed signs of wishing to become acquainted.
“I have just arrived,” he said, “and know nothing of the place. Have you been here long?”
“About two weeks,” I answered.
“Ah! then, you are a resident as it were. Are there any good ascents to be made around here?”
“I have not been informed that there are. I am not a climber myself, except by funicular railway. I am always content to take other people’s figures for the heights. The only use I have for a mountain is to look at it.”
Then Baumgarten launched into a very interesting account of mountain dangers he had passed through. I found him a most entertaining talker, almost as fascinating as Johnson himself. He told me he was from Hanover, but he had been educated in Great Britain, which accounted for his perfect English.
“What hotel are you at?” he asked, as the band ceased playing.
“I am staying at the Post,” I answered. “And you?”
“I am at the Adler. You must come to dine with me some evening, and I will make it even by dining with you. We can thus comparetable d’hôtes.”
Baumgarten improved on acquaintance in spite of his foppishness in dress. I almost forgot Johnson until one day I was reminded of him one day by Baumgarten saying, “I leave to-night for Innsbruck.”
“Innsbruck? Why, that’s where Johnson is. You ought to meet him. He’s an awfully good fellow. A little careless about his clothes, that’s all.”
“I should like to meet him. I know no one in Innsbruck. Do you happen to know the name of his hotel?”
“I do not. I don’t even know Johnson’s first name. But I’ll write you a note of introduction on my card, and if you should come across him, give him my regards.”
Baumgarten accepted the card with thanks, and we parted.
Next day, being warm, I sat on a bench in the shade listening to the music. Now that Baumgarten had gone, I was meditating on his strange resemblance to Johnson, and remembering things. Someone sat down beside me, but I paid no attention to him. Finally he said: “This seems to be a very good band.”
I started at the sound of his voice, and looked at him too much astonished to reply.
He wore a moustache, but no whiskers, and a green Tyrolese felt hat with a feather in it. An alpenstock leaned against the bench beside him, its iron point in the gravel. He wore knickerbockers; in fact, his whole appearance was that of the conventional mountaineer-tourist. But the voice! And the expression of the eyes!
“What did you say?”
“I said the band is very good.”
“Oh, yes. Quite so. It’s expensive, and it ought to be good. I’m helping to pay for it. By the way, you arrived this morning, I take it?”
“I came last night.”
“Oh, indeed. And you depart in a few days for Innsbruck?”
“No, I go to Salzburg when I leave here.”
“And your name isn’t Johnson—or—or Baumgarten, by any chance?”
“It is not.”
“You come neither from Chicago nor Hanover?”
“I have never been in America, nor do I know Hanover. Anything else?”
“Nothing else. It’s all right. It’s none of my business, of course.”
“What is none of your business?”
“Who are you.”
“Oh, there’s no secret about that. I am a Russian. My name is Katzoff. At least, these are the first and last syllables of my name. I never use my full name when I travel; it is too complicated.”
“Thanks. And how do you account for your perfect English? Educated in England, I presume? Baumgarten was.”
“No, I was not. You know we Russians are reputed to be good linguists.”
“Yes, I had forgotten that. We will now return to the point from which we started. The band is excellent, and it is about to play one of four favorite selections, Mr. Katzburg.”
“Katzoff is the name. As to the selection, I don’t know much about music, although I am fond of popular pieces.”
Katzoff and I got along very nicely, although I did not seem to like him as well as either Johnson or Baumgarten. He left for Salzburg without bidding me good-bye. Missing him one day, I called at the Angleterre, and the porter told me he had gone.
Next day I searched for him, wondering in what garb I should find him. I passed him twice as he sat on the bench, before I was sure enough to accost him. The sacrifice of his moustache had made a remarkable difference. His clean-shaven face caused him to look at least ten years younger. He wore a tall silk hat, and a long black morning coat. I found myself hardly able to withdraw my eyes from the white spats that partially covered his polished boots. He was reading an English paper, and did not observe my scrutiny. I approached him.
“Well, Johnson,” I said, “thisisa lay out. You’re English this time, I suppose?”
The man looked up in evident surprise. Fumbling around the front of his waistcoat for a moment, he found a black silk string, which he pulled, bringing to his hand a little round disc of glass. This he stuck in one eye, grimacing slightly to keep it in place, and so regarded me apparently with some curiosity. My certainty that it was Johnson wavered for a moment, but I braved it out.
“That monocle is a triumph, Johnson. In combination with the spats it absolutely staggers me. If you had tried that on as Baumgarten I don’t know that I should have recognized you. Johnson, what’s your game?”
“You seem to be laboring under some delusion,” he said at last. “My name is not Johnson. I am Lord Somerset Campbell, if you care to know.”
“Really? Oh, well, that’s all right. I’m the Duke of Argyll, so we must be relatives. Blood is thicker than water, Campbell. Confess. Whom have you murdered?”
“I knew,” said his lordship, slowly, “that the largest lunatic asylum in the Tyrol is near here, but I was not aware that the patients were allowed to stroll in the Kurpark.”
“That’s all very well, Johnson, but——”
“Campbell, if you please.”
“I don’t please, as it happens. This masquerade has gone on long enough. What’s your crime? Or are you on the other side of the fence? Are you practising the detective business?”
“My dear fellow, I don’t know you, and I resent your impertinent curiosity. Allow me to wish you good-day.”
“It won’t do, Johnson, it has gone too far. You have played on my feelings, and I won’t stand it. I’ll go to the authorities and relate the circumstances. They are just suspicious enough to——”
“Which? The authorities or the circumstances?” asked Johnson, sitting down again.
“Both, my dear boy, both, and you know it. Now, Johnson, make a clean breast of it, I won’t give you away.”
Johnson sighed, and his glass dropped from his eye. He looked around cautiously. “Sit down,” he said.
“Then youareJohnson!” I cried, with some exultation.
“I thought you weren’t very sure,” began Johnson. “However, it doesn’t matter, but you should be above threatening a man. That was playing it low down.”
“I see you’re from Chicago. Go on.”
“It’s all on account of this accursed visitors’ tax. That I decline to pay. I stay just under the week at a hotel, and then take a ‘bus to the station, and another ‘bus to another hotel. Of course my mistake was getting acquainted with you. I never suspected you were going to stay here a month.”
“But why didn’t you let me know? Your misdemeanor is one I thoroughly sympathize with. I wouldn’t have said anything.”
Johnson shook his head.
“I took a fellow into my confidence once before. He told it as a dead secret to a friend, and the friend thought it a good joke, and related it, always under oath that it should go no further. The authorities had me arrested before the week was out, and fined me heavily besides exacting the tax.”
“But doesn’t the ‘bus fares, the changing, and all that amount to as much as the tax?”
“I suppose it does. It isn’t the money I object to, it’s the principle of the thing.”
This interview was the last I ever had with Johnson. About a week later I read in the Visitors’ List that Lord Somerset Campbell, who had been a guest of the Victoria (the swell hotel of the place), had left Schwindleburg for Innsbruck.
The public-houses of Burwell Road—and there were many of them for the length of the street—were rather proud of Joe Hollends. He was a perfected specimen of the work a pub produces. He was probably the most persistent drunkard the Road possessed, and the periodical gathering in of Joe by the police was one of the stock sights of the street. Many of the inhabitants could be taken to the station by one policeman; some required two; but Joe’s average was four. He had been heard to boast that on one occasion he had been accompanied to the station by seven bobbies, but that was before the force had studied Joe and got him down to his correct mathematical equivalent. Now they tripped him up, a policeman taking one kicking leg and another the other, while the remaining two attended to the upper part of his body. Thus they carried him, followed by an admiring crowd, and watched by other envious drunkards who had to content themselves with a single officer when they went on a similar spree. Sometimes Joe managed to place a kick where it would do the most good against the stomach of a policeman, and when the officer rolled over there was for a few moments a renewal of the fight, silent on the part of the men and vociferous on the part of the drunkard, who had a fine flow of abusive language. Then the procession went on again. It was perfectly useless to put Joe on the police ambulance, for it required two men to sit on him while in transit, and the barrow is not made to stand such a load.
Of course, when Joe staggered out of the pub and fell in the gutter, the ambulance did its duty, and trundled Joe to his abiding place, but the real fun occurred when Joe was gathered in during the third stage of his debauch. He passed through the oratorical stage, then the maudlin or sentimental stage, from which he emerged into the fighting stage, when he was usually ejected into the street, where he forthwith began to make Rome howl, and paint the town red. At this point the policeman’s whistle sounded, and the force knew Joe was on the warpath, and that duty called them to the fray.
It was believed in the neighborhood that Joe had been a college man, and this gave him additional standing with his admirers. His eloquence was undoubted, after several glasses varying in number according to the strength of their contents, and a man who had heard the great political speakers of the day admitted that none of them could hold a candle to Joe when he got on the subject of the wrongs of the working man and the tyranny of the capitalist. It was generally understood that Joe might have been anything he liked, and that he was no man’s enemy but his own. It was also hinted that he could tell the bigwigs a thing or two if he had been consulted in affairs of State.
One evening, when Joe was slowly progressing as usual, with his feet in the air, towards the station, supported by the requisite number of policemen, and declaiming to the delight of the accompanying crowd, a woman stood with her back to the brick wall, horror-stricken at the sight. She had a pale, refined face, and was dressed in black. Her self-imposed mission was among these people, but she had never seen Joe taken to the station before, and the sight, which was so amusing to the neighborhood, was shocking to her. She enquired about Joe, and heard the usual story that he was no man’s enemy but his own, although they might in justice have added the police. Still, a policeman was hardly looked upon as a human being in that neighborhood. Miss Johnson reported the case to the committee of the Social League, and took counsel. Then it was that the reclamation of Joe Hollends was determined on.
Joe received Miss Johnson with subdued dignity, and a demeanor that delicately indicated a knowledge on his part of her superiority and his own degradation. He knew how a lady should be treated even if he was a drunkard, as he told his cronies afterwards. Joe was perfectly willing to be reclaimed. Heretofore in his life, no one had ever extended the hand of fellowship to him. Human sympathy was what Joe needed, and precious little he had had of it. There were more kicks than halfpence in this world for a poor man. The rich did not care what became of the poor; not they—a proposition which Miss Johnson earnestly denied.
It was one of the tenets of the committee that where possible the poor should help the poor. It was resolved to get Joe a decent suit of clothes and endeavor to find him a place where work would enable him to help himself. Miss Johnson went around the neighborhood and collected pence for the reclamation. Most people were willing to help Joe, although it was generally felt that the Road would be less gay when he took on sober habits. In one room, however, Miss Johnson was refused the penny she pleaded for.
“We cannot spare even a penny,” said the woman, whose sickly little boy clung to her skirts. “My husband is just out of work again. He has had only four weeks’ work this time.”
Miss Johnson looked around the room and saw why there was no money. It was quite evident where the earnings of the husband had gone.
The room was much better furnished than the average apartment of the neighborhood. There were two sets of dishes where one would have been quite sufficient. On the mantelshelf and around the walls were various unnecessary articles which cost money.
Miss Johnson noted all this but said nothing, although she resolved to report it to the committee. In union is strength and in multitude of counsel there is wisdom. Miss Johnson had great faith in the wisdom of the committee.
“How long has your husband been out of work?” she asked.
“Only a few days, but times are very bad and he is afraid he will not get another situation soon.”
“What is his trade?”
“He is a carpenter and a good workman—sober and steady.”
“If you give me his name I will put it down in our books. Perhaps we may be able to help him.”
“John Morris is his name.”
Miss Johnson wrote it down on her tablets, and when she left, the wife felt vaguely grateful for benefits to come.
The facts of the case were reported to the committee, and Miss Johnson was deputed to expostulate with Mrs. Morris upon her extravagance. John Morris’s name was put upon the books among the names of many other unemployed persons. The case of Joe Hollends then came up, and elicited much enthusiasm. A decent suit of clothing had been purchased with part of the money collected for him, and it was determined to keep the rest in trust, to be doled out to him as occasion warranted.
Two persuasive ladies undertook to find a place for him in one of the factories, if such a thing were possible.
Joe felt rather uncomfortable in his new suit of clothes, and seemed to regard the expenditure as, all in all, a waste of good money. He was also disappointed to find that the funds collected were not to be handed over to him in a lump. It was not the money he cared about, he said, but the evident lack of trust. If people had trusted him more, he might have been a better man. Trust and human sympathy were what Joe Hollends needed.
The two persuasive ladies appealed to Mr. Stillwell, the proprietor of a small factory for the making of boxes. They said that if Hollends got a chance they were sure he would reform. Stillwell replied that he had no place for anyone. He had enough to do to keep the men already in his employ. Times were dull in the box business, and he was turning away applicants every day who were good workmen and who didn’t need to be reformed. However, the ladies were very persuasive, and it is not given to every man to be able to refuse the appeal of a pretty woman, not to mention two of them. Stillwell promised to give Hollends a chance, said he would consult with his foreman, and let the ladies know what could be done.
Joe Hollends did not receive the news of his luck with the enthusiasm that might have been expected. Many a man was tramping London in search of employment and finding none, therefore even the ladies who were so solicitous about Joe’s welfare thought he should be thankful that work came unsought. He said he would do his best, which is, when you come to think of it, all that we have a right to expect from any man.
Some days afterwards Jack Morris applied to Mr. Stillwell for a job, but he had no sub-committee of persuasive ladies to plead for him. He would be willing to work half-time or quarter-time for that matter. He had a wife and boy dependent on him. He could show that he was a good workman and he did not drink. Thus did Morris recite his qualifications to the unwilling ears of Stillwell the box maker. As he left the place disheartened with another refusal, he was overtaken by Joe Hollends. Joe was a lover of his fellow-man, and disliked seeing anyone downhearted. He had one infallible cure for dejection. Having just been discharged, he was in high spirits, because his prediction of his own failure as a reformed character, if work were a condition of the reclamation, had just been fulfilled.
“Cheer up, old man,” he cried, slapping Morris on the shoulder, “what’s the matter? Come and have a drink with me. I’ve got the money.”
“No,” said Morris, who knew the professional drunkard but slightly, and did not care for further acquaintance with him, “I want work, not beer.”
“Every man to his taste. Why don’t you ask at the box factory? You can have my job and welcome. The foreman’s just discharged me. Said I wouldn’t work myself, and kept the men off theirs. Thought I talked too much about capital and labor.”
“Do you think I could get your job?”
“Very likely. No harm in trying. If they don’t take you on, come into the Red Lion—I’ll be there—and have a drop. It’ll cheer you up a bit.”
Morris appealed in vain to the foreman. They had more men now in the factory than they needed, he said. So Morris went to the Red Lion, where he found Hollends ready to welcome him. They had several glasses together, and Hollends told him of the efforts of the Social League in the reclamation line, and his doubts of their ultimate success. Hollends seemed to think the ladies of the League were deeply indebted to him for furnishing them with such a good subject for reformation. That night Joe’s career reached a triumphant climax, for the four policeman had to appeal to the bystanders for help in the name of the law.
Jack Morris went home unaided. He had not taken many glasses, but he knew he should have avoided drink altogether, for he had some experience of its power in his younger days. He was, therefore, in a quarrelsome mood, ready to blame everyone but himself.
He found his wife in tears, and saw Miss Johnson sitting there, evidently very miserable.
“What’s all this?” asked Morris.
His wife dried her eyes, and said it was nothing. Miss Johnson had been giving her some advice, which she was thankful for. Morris glared at the visitor.
“What have you got to do with us?” he demanded rudely. His wife caught him by the arm, but he angrily tossed aside her hand. Miss Johnson arose, fearing.
“You’ve no business here. We want none of your advice. You get out of this.” Then, impatiently to his wife, who strove to calm him, “Shut up, will you?”
Miss Johnson was afraid he would strike her as she passed him going to the door, but he merely stood there, following her exit with lowering brow.
The terrified lady told her experience to the sympathizing members of the committee. She had spoken to Mrs. Morris of her extravagance in buying so many things that were not necessary when her husband had work. She advised the saving of the money. Mrs. Morris had defended her apparent lavish expenditure by saying that there was no possibility of saving money. She bought useful things, and when her husband was out of work she could always get a large percentage of their cost from the pawnbroker. The pawnshop, she had tearfully explained to Miss Johnson, was the only bank of the poor. The idea of the pawnshop as a bank, and not as a place of disgrace, was new to Miss Johnson, but before anything further could be said the husband had come in. One of the committee, who knew more about the district than Miss Johnson, affirmed that there was something to say for the pawnbroker as the banker of the poor. The committee were unanimous in condemning the conduct of Morris, and it says much for the members that, in spite of the provocation one of them had received, they did not take the name of so undeserving a man from their list of the unemployed.
The sad relapse of Joe Hollends next occupied the attention of the League. His fine had been paid, and he had expressed himself as deeply grieved at his own frailty. If the foreman had been less harsh with him and had given him a chance, things might have been different. It was resolved to send Joe to the seaside so that he might have an opportunity of toning up his system to resist temptation. Joe enjoyed his trip to the sea. He always liked to encounter a new body of police unaccustomed to his methods. He toned up his system so successfully the first day on the sands that he spent the night in the cells.
Little by little, the portable property in the rooms of the Morrises disappeared into the pawnshop. Misfortune, as usual, did not come singly. The small boy was ill, and Morris himself seemed to be unable to resist the temptation of the Red Lion. The unhappy woman took her boy to the parish doctor, who was very busy, but he gave what attention he could to the case. He said all the boy needed was nourishing food and country air. Mrs. Morris sighed, and decided to take the little boy oftener to the park, but the way was long, and he grew weaker day by day.
At last, she succeeded in interesting her husband in the little fellow’s condition. He consented to take the boy to the doctor with her.
“The doctor doesn’t seem to mind what I say,” she complained. “Perhaps he will pay attention to a man.”
Morris was not naturally a morose person, but continued disappointment was rapidly making him so. He said nothing, but took the boy in his arms, and, followed by his wife, went to the doctor.
“This boy was here before,” said the physician, which tended to show that he had paid more attention to the case than Mrs. Morris thought. “He is very much worse. You will have to take him to the country or he will die.”
“How can I send him to the country?” asked Morris, sullenly. “I’ve been out of work for months.”
“Have you friends in the country?”
“No.”
“Hasn’t your wife any friends in the country who would take her and the lad for a month or so?”
“No.”
“Have you anything to pawn?”
“Very little.”
“Then I would advise you to pawn everything you own, or sell it if you can, and take the boy on your back and tramp to the country. You will get work there probably more easily than in the city. Here are ten shillings to help you.”
“I don’t want your money,” said Morris, in a surly tone. “I want work.”
“I have no work to give you, so I offer you what I have. I haven’t as much of that as I could wish. You are a fool not to take what the gods send.”
Morris, without replying, gathered up his son in his arms and departed.
“Here is a bottle of tonic for him.” said the doctor to Mrs. Morris.
He placed the half-sovereign on the bottle as he passed it to her. She silently thanked him with her wet eyes, hoping that a time would come when she could repay the money. The doctor had experience enough to know that they were not to be classed among his usual visitors. He was not in the habit of indiscriminately bestowing gold coins.
It was a dreary journey, and they were a long time shaking off the octopus-like tentacles of the great city, that reached further and further into he country each year, as if it lived on consuming the green fields. Morris walked ahead with the boy on his back, and his wife followed. Neither spoke, and the sick lad did not complain. As they were nearing a village, the boy’s head sunk on his father’s shoulder. The mother quickened her pace, and came up to them stroking the head of her sleeping son. Suddenly, she uttered a smothered cry and took the boy in her arms.
“What’s the matter?” asked Morris, turning round.
She did not answer, but sat by the roadside with the boy on her lap, swaying her body to and fro over him, moaning as she did so. Morris needed no answer. He stood on the road with hardening face, and looked down on his wife and child without speaking.
The kindly villagers arranged the little funeral, and when it was over Jack Morris and his wife stood again on the road.
“Jack, dear,” she pleaded, “don’t go back to that horrible place. We belong to the country, and the city is so hard and cruel.”
“I’m going back. You can do as you like.” Then, relenting a little, he added, “I haven’t brought much luck to you, my girl.”
She knew her husband was a stubborn man, and set in his way, so, unprotesting, she followed him in, as she had followed out, stumbling many times, for often her eyes did not see the road. And so they returned to their empty rooms.
Jack Morris went to look for work at the Red Lion. There he met that genial comrade, Joe Hollends, who had been reformed, and who had backslid twice since Jack had foregathered with him before. It is but fair to Joe to admit that he had never been optimistic about his own reclamation, but being an obliging man, even when he was sober, he was willing to give the Social League every chance. Jack was deeply grieved at the death of his son, although he had said no word to his wife that would show it. It therefore took more liquor than usual to bring him up to the point of good comradeship that reigned at the Red Lion. When he and Joe left the tavern that night it would have taken an expert to tell which was the more inebriated. They were both in good fighting trim, and were both in the humor for a row. The police, who had reckoned on Joe alone, suddenly found a new element in the fight that not only upset their calculations but themselves as well. It was a glorious victory, and, as both fled down a side street, Morris urged Hollends to come along, for the representatives of law and order have the habit of getting reinforcements which often turn a victory into a most ignominious defeat.
“I can’t,” panted Hollends. “The beggars have hurt me.”
“Come along. I know a place where we are safe.”
Drunk as he was, Jack succeeded in finding the hole in the wall that allowed him to enter a vacant spot behind the box factory. There Hollends lay down with a groan, and there Morris sank beside him in a drunken sleep. The police were at last revenged, and finally.
When the grey daylight brought Morris to a dazed sense of where he was, he found his companion dead beside him. He had a vague fear that he would be tried for murder, but it was not so. From the moment that Hollends, in his fall, struck his head on the curb, the Providence which looks after the drunken deserted him.
But the inquest accomplished one good object. It attracted the attention of the Social League to Jack Morris, and they are now endeavoring to reclaim him.
Whether they succeed or not, he was a man that was certainly once worth saving.