Lady Harriet did not even hear of her son's ongoings with Sally Wanless, though to the menials of her household and the gossips of the village they had furnished for months back one of the most delightful and engrossing topics of conversation that the oldest among them had ever been permitted to share in. It was better than the most sensational romance of theLondon Journal; for was not this drama being acted out before their very eyes? They took the same delight in it, though keener and deeper, that they would have taken in any sport involving the death of the weaker creature, and few among them cared in the least for the girl whose danger they failed not to see. Among the young her beauty excited envy, and they virtuously rejoiced that her pride would yet bring her sorrow. All, young and old, loved an intrigue for itself; and would not have spoiled their sport for the world. The servants at the Grange carried their tales to the village, and the village gossips drew together in the fields, on the road, by the pump, at cottage doors, to roll the sweet morsel of scandal under their tongues.
All this time Sarah's parents were kept in ignorance of what was afoot. Neither dreamt of danger to theirdaughter, because neither was aware of the fiend who pursued her. As for Sarah herself, she behaved better after she had begun to feel the spell of the Captain's fascination upon her than before; was more demure and obedient. This she was half unconsciously, half from a wish to propitiate her father and mother in view of she knew not what.
Pausing not to think, heedless of the smiles and whispers, the nods and winks that greeted her wherever she went, all of them signs full of warning to one disposed to alarm, free, happy-hearted Sally Wanless plunged into the abyss.
Ruined and forsaken, she came to herself only to find that she had entered a new world. Sorrow and darkness dwelt within where light had been; and around her all was changed. The silent hints of her fellow servants gave place to open taunts and scorn. None pity a fallen woman so little as her fellow women, and Sally's fellow servants were not long in making her life an unrelieved agony. The bloom forsook her cheek, her step became listless, her eyes dull and sunken. She literally withered before her tormentors, and they pitied her not.
A change so great soon attracted the attention of her parents, especially as for a little time her manner in her visits to them became suddenly dashed with recklessness. The wretched girl, in trying to be her old self, was, like a bad actor, overdoing her part. Her parents grew uneasy, and the uneasiness gave place to alarm when Sally grew pale and silent. Afraid to speak, hoping itmight be some cross in love matters, which most young lasses experience, both her father and mother yearned after their daughter. At length the accidental discovery of some trumpery trinket of the Captain's, which Sally wore round her neck, led to the revelation of all their daughter's peril and loss, although the knowledge came too late.
The ribbon by which the trinket hung had become loose, and it fell on the floor. Before Sally could pick it up, her mother's hand was on it. Holding it to the light, she found that it was a gaudy looking locket, and instantly demanded where Sally had got this. Taken by surprise Sally answered at once,
"From Captain Wiseman."
"From Captain Wiseman! Oh, Sally!" That was all she said; but the tone and the look went to the girl's heart and tore it with a new misery. Her father turned in his chair and looked at her for a minute or two without speaking. She took his gaze to mean rebuke, and mechanically tried to escape from the house. Then her father spoke.
"Stay, Sarah," he said. "Go with your mother to the boys' room. We must know what this means."
Equally mechanically she obeyed, suffering her mother to lead her away.
Left alone, Thomas said that he did not think of anything particular for some time. He just sat still as if animation was suspended, a dull feeling of pain, a sense of stunnedness possessing his whole being. The fate of his pretty daughter was before his inward eye all the time.He gazed at it and realized it, but it did not move him. His emotions were frozen up.
It was some time before the mother and daughter came back, and the girl would not face her father. He rose to bid her good night. She hesitated a moment and then muttering, "I shall be late," turned and fled from the house.
Mrs. Wanless told her husband that she could make nothing of the girl.
"I plead with her," she said; "I scolded her and tried to work on her feelings, but she just hid her face in her hands, and rolled and moaned like to break her heart."
Poor, lone lass, her tale needed no words to make it plain. Already it was known to all the village, and this Sunday night the hideous reality entered the minds of her parents, breeding there a sorrow the keenest they had ever known.
At the Grange, too, who was there knew not? That Sunday night Sally was actually late as she had said, and the scolding, seasoned with brutal taunts, which she had to endure from her superior, might have stung the girl to retaliation had not a deeper pain laid hold of her spirit. She paid no heed to the taunts and broad allusions of her neighbour, whose heart was perhaps the bitterer from the recent failure of her own last effort at husband-catching. A fire raged in Sally's heart that seemed to be consuming her very life. Her one hope now was to die. That would be best. As soon as possible she crept silently away to bed. How blessed is the darkness to the soul that is ashamed! Sally's grief,deep and bitter though it might be, was little to the sorrow and pain she had left that night in the home of her childhood. The deathly calm in her father's mind was succeeded by a storm before which Sally's sobs were as the wailings of an infant. His spirit had been stirred to its depths by many storms in the past, and needed much to rouse it now, but what he had learned to-night was surely enough. In the darkness of the night the full horror of what had befallen his daughter and himself was pressed in upon his thoughts till his heart rose in bitterness unspeakable. Was it true, then, he asked himself again and again, that his child, the darling of his old age, had been ruined by this cub of the oppressor? Had this blackest of all wrongs been added to all the rest? There was but one answer, and as he brooded over the shame and misery that would fall upon his daughter and on all the family, as he thought of this heartless seducer going through the world scathless, passion swelled within him. An impulse to vengeance swept over him. Had the Captain been within reach of Thomas's hands then, the old man might have slain him. Yes, he felt he could die cheerfully for his daughter's sake, were her wrongs fully avenged. Ah, if he could thus bring back her good name! But would not mere vengeance be sweet? To take the scoundrel's life-blood! He set his teeth, his frame shook under the gust of his terrible agony of grief, hatred, and shame, and he longed for the daylight that he might go and find the seducer of his precious one. The desire for revenge was strong upon him with the strength of a great temptation.
Then his mood changed. The fierce fires burnt themselves low. Weary and exhausted he lay still, and for the first time became aware that his wife was silently weeping by his side. He had thought she slept. A softer mood stole into his heart, but he could not speak of the grief that consumed them both. In the morning he rose, weary and sad, to go about his day's work. Days passed before he made up his mind what to do, and during these days, his wife waited with anxious patience, too wise to worry her husband. At last, he resolved to bring her home. Anger and revenge were conquered thus far, and love and pity for his child were victorious.
"We must take Sally's shame to ourselves, mother," he said to his wife, when his mind was made up. "I know it will be hard for you, harder than you think; but she is our flesh and blood, and we must stand by her. What say ye, wife?"
"An' what can I say, Thomas? I've been wishin' her home ever since Sunday, for I'm sure she'll die where she is. Oh! my poor darling; God pity her. The sin is surely not hers;" and Mrs. Wanless wept, but her heart was glad that the father was ready to shield and forgive. Sometimes, as she watched the hard stern lines of his face, or his fixed gaze of wrath, she had dreaded a sterner decision. But now again Thomas's better nature had triumphed, and his faith in the everlasting justice inclined him to mercy.
As this talk took place on the Thursday evening, it was thought best to wait for Sally's return on Sunday, ratherthan to excite comment by going at once in quest of her. Her mother had stolen to the Grange on the previous Monday morning, to find out whether Sally had gone back, and had then seen and heard enough to make her dread another visit.
But they waited in vain for Sally that Sunday. She never came near her father's house, but spent her hours of liberty alone in the woods, afraid to face her father, and vaguely wishing she were dead. Her mother must go and tell her what had been decided on, after all.
So on the Monday morning, Mrs. Wanless again set out for the Grange. With sickening heart and trembling steps, she crept along the sweeping avenue like a thief in dread of being seen. The day was grey and cold, as the latter days of April often are, and the leaden clouds threatened rain. It was one of those days when spring has, as it were, turned back to give a farewell hand-shake to winter. A chilly blast swept along the ground in gusts, and made one shiver; the world looked dreary and forbidding; birds were silent; and as one looked abroad on the cheerless world, and mournful sky, one grew unconsciously to have a shut-in kind of feeling. If only a rift would appear in that grey canopy, then one might breathe and have hope. Who has not come under the spell of such days? To whom have they not seemed to increase the bitterness of sorrow, to add weight to the burden of disappointment?
Mrs. Wanless was probably all the sadder this morning that the day was sad, though her thoughts were too fixed on Sally to be overborne by any idle impressions from theleaden aspect of the landscape. Or perhaps she felt that the day and her feelings were in wonderful unison. A beautiful spring morning might have jarred on her spirit. Spring sunshine is so gladsome, so full of hope, and Mrs. Wanless had no hope, only a longing to bring her daughter home and hide her away out of the world's sight.
Intent on her errand, she approached the house—a large, square building, with innumerable staring windows and a bare lawn in front, where a poor woman could find no hiding place—but as she neared the servants' door round in the east end of the mansion she paused irresolute. She remembered the reception of a week ago, the whispers and nods and innuendos of the wenches who came and went with a wonderful bustle of extemporized activity as she stood speaking to her daughter just by the door. If Sally would but come out, she thought, as once and again she turned back unable to muster courage, and cowered by the garden wall, which approached that end of the house, wherein lay the servants' quarters, with her old shepherd's plaid shawl gathered tightly round her. But no one came save menials, out of whose sight the poor bruised mother would fain have kept herself. The children of the gentlefolks would not be out of doors that day. It was too cold.
At last Mrs. Wanless nerved herself to a desperate effort, left the shelter of the garden wall, and walked as firmly as she could up to the kitchen door, and feebly knocked. She waited a long time as it seemed to her palpitating heart, but no answer came. Her knock had not been heard, so she tried again, this time a little lessfeebly. It was no use—nobody minded her. Would she go away? Nay, she dared not do that. She would wait, somebody was sure to turn up presently. The resolution was hardly formed when the door opened, and her daughter and she stood face to face. A scared look came into the girl's eyes as she exclaimed, "You here again, mother;" the blood mantled to her forehead, and she half stepped back. But her mother caught her by the arm feverishly, and led her away from the house, saying—
"Oh, Sally, I do so want to see you, but I didn't like to come in again. Why didn't you coom home last night?"
Sally tried to frame some excuse, but her voice failed her; she turned pale as death, and hung her head.
"Why didn't you, dear;" her mother repeated, in a dull, mechanical sort of way. Sally's feelings overcame her. She burst into tears, and through her sobs gasped out—
"I thought you—father—wouldn't let me come back."
Her mother did not at once reply, she was too pained, and also too keenly alive to the eyes that were at many a window gloating over her daughter's misery. Almost roughly she tightened her grasp on the girl's arm, and hurried her round the corner of the garden wall, never halting till safely behind a clump of evergreens. Then she released her daughter, turned, and clasped her to her breast. Both wept now, and, as she wept, the poor, stricken mother cried—
"Ah, Sally, Sally, my pet, my pet, you mustn't think on us like that," in tones that expressed reproach and loveand pity and misery all in one. But no word of reproach did she utter.
It was some time before the two were composed enough to say much about anything. Sally roused herself first, for she suddenly recollected that she had orders to be quick back. She had been sent out for milk for the nursery.
"I must run, mother," she said hurriedly, "or Mary Crane will nag at me;" and she made as if to go.
"Wait a moment, Sally dear," her mother answered. "I had nearly forgotten what I came for; A-dear! a-dear! you mustn't stand no more of Mary Crane's naggings, Sally; an' if she begins to-day, you're to give up the place and coom home. Now, mind, Sally," she added, eagerly, "that will be best, give up your place;" for Sally seemed to shrink from the idea of coming home.
"But father——he"——
"It was father as said it, Sally dear. Father says you must coom home. He can't a-bear to see you suffering and abused in this big house as you've been so wronged in; an' ye'll do what father wishes, won't you, my pet?"
"Is it really true, mother. Are you sure that father will let me coom home?"
"My dear, he sent me to tell ye. Oh, say ye'll coom home, Sally?"
"But father'll be angry with me and scold me, mother, and I can't abide that—oh, I can't, I can't," and Sally shook her head despairingly, the gleam of hope vanishing from her eyes.
"No, Sally, your father wonnot scold ye. Surely you know him better nor that. He is too heart-broke about ye a' ready to have any scoldings left, an' he was never hard to ye. Coom, now; say you'll give up the place, and it will be all right."
This and much more the mother said, pleading as for her daughter's life, and she won her point. Once Sally's dread of her father was somewhat removed, she caught eagerly at the prospect of escape from the Grange. Any change would be like going from Hell to Heaven that would take her away from that place of torment. So anxious was she to get away, once her mind became fixed, that she never once thought of the burden she would be to her parents. But for the inexorable month's warning, she would have taken flight that night.
Mother and daughter parted almost the moment that the former was assured of Sally's readiness to come home, and Sally, nearly half-an-hour late, sped on her errand. It was with a glow on her face and a light in her eye that had been absent for many a day, that she ultimately reappeared in the nursery. Her bright looks seemed to add fuel to the wrath of the upper nurse, who burst out on Sally before she was well in at the door.
"I shan't stand this no longer, miss, depend on't," the soured, elderly maiden wound up. "I'm a decent woman, I ham, and don't mean to be disgraced by the likes o' you, not if I knows it. I've stood a lot too much from you a'ready, shameless gipsy that ye are. Your hongoin's is just past bearin', and I mean to tell Mrs. Morgan this very day as 'ow she must get another nurse an she means to keep you."
Nearly if not quite as much as this had been said to Sarah Wanless before now, and she had borne it silently with a bitter heart, because she found herself alone in the world. But to-day she was bolder from the consciousness within her that she was not yet wholly forsaken. Driven to bay by this woman's tongue, she turned uponher, and with flashing eyes, a voice trembling with passion, cried—
"And I have stood too much from you, Mary Crane. You have behaved to me worse than if I had been a dog, and you're a hard-hearted, selfish woman. What right have you to trample upon me, as if you was a saint and more? You've a black enough mind any way, and mebbe you've done worse nor me before now, for all your spiteful pride and down-looking on a poor, heart-stricken girl, as never did you no harm. Shame on you, Mary Crane, I would not exchange my lot for yours yet, if it was to give me a heart like yours. And you need not trouble Mrs. Morgan with your tales. I've made up my mind to stand your insolence no longer. I'll go to Mrs. Morgan myself and give up my place, and tell her how you've used me."
This unexpected outburst fairly took the nurse's breath away. She stuttered with inarticulate passion, and danced again in the agony of rage. A torrent of abuse was on her tongue, but she only managed to hiss out an opprobrious epithet at the girl, at the sound of which Sally faced her like one transformed. Drawing her form up to its full height, and holding her clenched hands close by her sides, she marched straight at nurse Crane, and fairly stood over her with her face a-flame and lips set, every feature rigid with scorn and wrath. Crane's heart died within her. She cowered and hid her face in her hands.
"Say that word again, Mary Crane," Sally demanded in a low, passion-thrilled voice, but Mary Crane uttered never a sound.
"Say it again, will you!" Sally repeated in low tones. "Dare to call me that name again, and I'll——" But Sarah had no threat big enough for her wrath. She caught her breath sharp, and came closer to her enemy, suddenly bent down and laid hold of Mary Crane's head with both her hands, forcing her to turn up her face.
But Crane would not look at her. With a half wail, half shriek, her knees gave way under her, and she sank on the floor wriggling as if about to take a fit.
Sarah looked at her for a moment contemptuously, and then turned away, while the heroic mood was upon her, to seek an interview with Mrs. Morgan.
That lady received the announcement of her under-nurse with her usual high-bred indifference, merely saying, "Oh, very well, you can go." But, as the girl turned away, something in her manner made Mrs. Morgan scrutinise her keenly. The girl seemed changed even to the eyes of the aristocratic lady, and, perhaps, she, too, began to suspect her, for Sally thought that she saw an expression of mingled contempt and annoyance on Mrs. Morgan's face, of which she caught a last glimpse on turning to shut the door behind her. It might have been only her own heated fancy, but, all the same, Sally's brief spell of courage was over from that moment. Happily Mary Crane vexed her no more openly, but she took her revenge in secret.
Mrs. Morgan's suspicions had been in reality so far excited as to cause her to make further inquiries. She called Mary Crane into her room one day and questioned her about "this girl, Sarah—What's her name?" MaryCrane for a little time would tell nothing. She now both hated and feared Sally Wanless, and until she could discover exactly where the girl stood with her mistress, she was not going to commit herself. Her remarks were therefore cautiously shaped at first, with a view to draw her mistress out. She prevaricated, dropped hints, and tried to measure the extent of Mrs. Morgan's knowledge before revealing her own. There was not only the girl to consider, but also the Captain. It might be more than her own place was worth to "blab on the Capting."
Either Mrs. Morgan was obtuse or ignorant, for she gave no response for some time to Mary's stream of words. "You see, 'm, as Sarah's a light sort of girl, 'm, as is allus a-runnin' after the men, 'm. She mayn't be bad, 'm, but she don't beayve proper for one in her station. I'm sure, 'm, I've told her times enough as no good id come of her upsittin' ways, and her ongoin' with the gentlemens—agentleman in particler—'as hoften shocked me, 'm."
Thus she ran on, till Mrs. Morgan, quite bewildered, exclaimed—
"But what has the girl done, then, Mary?"
"Laws, 'm, 'ow should I know, 'm. Hax herself, 'm, hax the—agentleman as you knows, 'm, knows hintimate, 'm."
"A gentleman I know intimately—what do you mean? I know no gentleman. Surely you don't mean Captain Wiseman?"
"Well, 'm, I don't know, 'm. You see, 'm, I thought the family mightn't like it——"
"That will do, Mary, that will do. I want no more beating about the bush. Tell me, yea or nay, has Captain Wiseman been noticing this girl?"
"Yes, 'm, he 'as, 'm; but I don't think——"
"Never mind what you think, you are sure of that fact?"
"Oh, yes, 'm, quite."
"Ah, thank you; then that'll do for the present," and she motioned to Crane to leave the room.
That worthy departed not quite satisfied. She had doubts as to whether her mistress liked to know the truth, doubted also if she had done Sarah as much harm as she wished to. But she showed none of these mental clouds in the servants' hall. There, in Sally's absence, she was triumphant, and the "said she's" and "said I's" with which the tale was embellished, served to emphasise the triumph which she indicated that the interview had been to her diplomatic skill. She only confessed to one regret. Mrs. Morgan had somehow cut the interview short, "just when I was a-goin' to tell her all about it."
Mrs. Morgan, however, did not need to be told all about it. She knew the habits of her brother, and, her interest once aroused, managed to put this and that together so well as to arrive before many minutes at a tolerably shrewd conclusion. "This, then," she said to herself, "is the secret of Captain Cecil's wonderful reform." That reflection at once brought her face to face with the question—Shall I or shall I not tell my mother? It was not a question so easily answered as it seemed. Mrs.Morgan was inclined to do it from her dislike of the Captain, who had always absorbed too much of his mother's attention—ought I to have said love?—for the good feelings of the rest of the family. But, then, this very preference made it difficult to decide. She might enrage her mother, and there were family money matters yet to settle, in the disposition of which a mother's displeasure might cause permanent changes. For these and other reasons, "too numerous to mention," Mrs. Morgan hesitated. She would wait on events, on her mother's moods and her own; so avoiding a decision.
That seemed easiest, and yet it proved the hardest course to Mrs. Morgan, who had quite a vulgar woman's delight in retailing scandal. Before a week was out she found it expedient to tell all. Her mother and she held a long conference in secret on the Friday after Sally had given up her place. What they said to each other will never be known; but one decision came of it that was at once acted upon. Sarah Wanless was dismissed that night by the orders of Lady Harriet, who sent her own maid with the message. "Jane," as she was called, delivered it with curt insolence, and at the same time flung a month's wages, which Lady Harriet had likewise sent, on the table, with a significant gesture, as if to say, "You are too unclean, Sally Wanless, to be touched by a superior person like me."
When Sarah went home, which she did as soon as her small box was packed up, and told her parents that she was dismissed, her father was so indignant that he wantedto send the extra weeks' wages back. His wife, however, persuaded him that it was better to let things alone. "The money," she said, "is her right, and can do us no harm; and Sally is well out ofthatden anyway." And Mrs. Wanless was right.
I wonder where Christians find authority for our modern treatment of illegitimacy? Preachers of all sects are never tired of telling us that they preach peace and goodwill among men. Their religion is to redeem all wrongs, to make mankind better, to lift the fallen, and cheer the broken-hearted. So at least they say, but when we look for deeds, we do not find many in this lower world. The fulfilment of the Christian ideal is prudently (?) adjourned to the next, above or below. Wherever one turns in contemplation of modern Christianity, one finds a ghastly divergence between its professions and its practice, and at no point is this more visible than in the behaviour of the Churches towards women who have sinned. Taking their tone from a corrupt society, which desires to enjoy its vices, and to prey upon its women without taking upon itself responsibilities which the poor besotted Turk even never dreams of shirking, the dispensers of the gospel of peace lead the chorus of reprobation which is heaped upon the woman, who, like the virgin mother so many of them profess to worship, bears the burden of maternity in shameand loneliness. No distinction is drawn between woman and woman—rarely or ever is the guilt of the man considered; the duties of fatherhood can be neglected by the seducer with tacit, nay, often with the full approbation of society and the Churches. But on the woman a penalty falls that is worse than death. She has yielded to the seducer, and henceforth she must be pressed down and cast out, unless—and the distinction is important—she be a sinner of the highest caste in society, when the sin may be covered with lies as with an embroidered garment; or, unless she belong to the lowest, where the difference between morality and immorality is too often nearly indistinguishable—thirteen centuries of more or less well-paid-for priestly instruction notwithstanding. Speaking broadly, however, the law of social life condemns the "unattached" woman and her offspring to obloquy and degradation, and it does this not merely without the protest of the Churches, but by their full sanction. For ages priests of all hues have arrogated to themselves the power of regulating the union of the sexes; without their rites and blessings no two human beings could become man and wife. When two were thus united the universal cry was "What God hath joined together let no man put asunder." The priest, in fact, arrogated to himself the power of the Deity. His "joining" was God's, and none but his held on Earth or in Heaven. Greater blasphemy has hardly ever been committed even by priests. By this abominable fraud—this false assumption of authority—deeper social wrongs have come upon the world than from any other priestly assumption whatsoever. The priest has habituatedsociety to disregard all ties formed in what is called an illegitimate manner. It has sanctioned the desertion of women by their seducers, and what is even worse, the desertion of children by their fathers and mothers, for, of course, if the parents were not priest-joined, the offspring must be of the devil. A man may, according to this dogma, have lived the life of a fiend, ruining women, bringing children into the world to live or die as the poor law or hunger should order; but this is no hindrance to his obtaining the blessing of "the Church" should he one day take it into his head to submit to be married to one woman—for gain, for any reason, or none.
Scoundrel and saint are alike welcome to the priest's services and blessings if the marriage fees be paid; and with the full concurrence and blessing of any sectary in the world, a man may disjoin himself from a woman or women he has lived with for years in order to take another, if there was no marriage uniting him to these he deserted. God, of course, could not be expected to "join" those who never sought a priest's help. The whole basis of this treatment of the sexes is grossly and blasphemously immoral, and the fruits of it are visible on every side. To it we owe the highly nourishing character of the "social evil" quite as much as to man's inherent depravity, and we shall never really begin to overcome that evil until the whole of the teachings and assumptions of the sects, as applied to marriage and divorce, are swept clean out of the public mind.
Who is there to whom the history of some poor woman betrayed and deserted is not known—a woman, it maybe, tender-hearted and true, as worthy of wifehood as any of her sex? Did society pity that woman? Have you pitied her? Perhaps, but would you not also gather up your garments and pass by on the other side, if you met her in public? Habit is so strong, you will say in excuse; yes, yes, habit is strong, and the woman is weak. Why should one heed her? She brought her fate on herself. Leave her to perish. The man she loved has left her, and the world treats her no worse than he. If her own sex spits upon her and hisses at her, what can man do? These be the thoughts of most men over broken lives, and most readers may therefore feel impatient that I should linger over the ruin and fall of a poor peasant lass. Yet what can I do? my task is to write the history of this family; its sorrows and failings, its burdens and tears, are all that it has wherewith to claim the world's attention. And to my thinking, they mean much. Their lives were real to them, as yours, reader, is to you, and they had a part in making up the pitiful social life of this decrepit old England possibly just as high as yours.
Therefore must I ask you to turn aside with me for a moment to look again on Sally Wanless, when she reappears from her seclusion—a shame mother, with a babe born to sorrow and shame in her arms. I have said reappears, but she has not yet ventured to meet the, to her, scathing gaze of the people in the village street. She steals into the little garden behind her father's cottage, and there, in the soft September afternoons, you would find her seated beneath the shade of an old appletree, face to face with her doom, and looking at it as one who has no hope.
In some people the soul wakes late; some, indeed, appear to pass through the world without its ever awakening. They may be bright-hearted people, full of animal life and spirits, capable of much work and a few sacrifices, yet they have never risen up to full consciousness of the meaning of life, to its higher impulses, and its terrible risks and obligations. No great inward commotion has ever visited them; they vegetate tamely on till they reach the grave. Others, like Thomas Wanless, awake early to consciousness of the mystery and burden of existence, and battle with hopes and fears their lives long.
Would that his daughter had also found the realities of living ere the curse of life had come upon her! But she did not. Her awakening came too late. While it was possible she hid from herself the meaning of her fall, and refused to look at the awful questions which for the first time surged in upon her soul. It was not possible for long. When the wail of her infant first broke on her ear she awoke and was stricken with the full consciousness of what she had lost. Her past life stood out before her as something apart; its hopes belonged to another state of existence, to a life in which her future could have no part. All lonely at the heart she had borne the pains of motherhood, and a feeble infant lay by her side bearing witness against her now and evermore. No father welcomed it. The sound of its feeble cry brought a forsakenness about the mother's heartnothing could remove. In vain her mother soothed her. In vain her true-hearted father, bravely hiding away his shame and grief, took the little one in his arms and fondled it with a fatherhood that assumed all the sin and all the responsibilities of his child. Sarah could not be comforted. Blank despair took possession of her. Why was she not dead? Why did the child live? Surely they would be both better dead and buried out of sight for ever? This was the under tone of her thoughts now, save when at times, and as she grew strong again, gusts of passion like her father's would sweep over her soul. Then she felt for moments as if she could compel the world to stop and witness her revenge. Should a fit like this master her, what might one so desperate not do? Hers was a soul awake and in prison, but if it burst its bonds?
Let the gay and frivolous, the light talkers, the young and giddy, the tempter and the tempted, stop to look upon this ruin. Is it a small thing, do you think, for a man to have the undoing of this woman and child laid to his charge. He passes in the world unharmed, nay, admired, probably, the very women in secret whispering admiringly of his prowess. But does that make his guilt the less? Is there no retributive justice dogging his heels, from which all the glories and adulations of earth cannot shield him? Look at the history of such men, and be they kings or carters, you will find that they become degraded wretches, moral abortions, repulsive ruins of humanity, as the result of their crimes against woman. Yea, the woman is avenged, though only after death comes the judgment.
But Sally Wanless thought not of revenge, that calm September evening, on which my memory pictures her through the mirror of other eyes, seated, half in shadow, half in sunlight, beneath the old apple tree. Her baby lies asleep on her lap, the sunlight glints through the leaves on her hair, and flickers now and then across the infant's face—but she heeds neither child nor light. A far-away look is in her eyes—a look that tells of longing, for what will never be hers again on earth. The evening sun-glow throws into relief the pale, pinched face with its unresigned hungry look, for in that face there is no welcome to the sober autumn warmth. The dull fire of Sally's eyes is the fire of an unquenchable pain. Where is there room in her life for joy any more? Her eye does not trace heaven's battlemented walls, in those grand masses of white clouds—the blue expanse beyond is not eloquent of the near world unseen. No; her thoughts are self-centred; she never looks upward. Day after day she sits here, still and silent, as one stunned. Her spirit seems at such times as if beaten to the earth, never to rise again. The child sometimes fails to interest or rouse her. When its wails demand attention, she will fondle and kiss it much, as if it were made of wood.
Alas; poor Sally, winsome lass. How many such as you go aching through the world, broken-hearted, and forsaken,—waiting for the judgment to come, when, as they still, perhaps, lingeringly hope, the wrong shall be righted for evermore.
Her parents yearned after their daughter, and yet feared to break in rudely upon her brooding spirit. Neighbourscame too, full of kindly promises and curiosity, ready to speak volumes of comforting words; but Sally shrank from contact with them,—preferred the garden seat, or her own garret window.
Thomas became broken-hearted about his child. He could not get her to so much as look at him. Often times he laid his hands softly on her bent head, and whispered—"Sally, my lass, cheer up a bit. Don't break mother's heart and mine, by taking on so." But Sally merely wept, and bent still lower over her babe. They could not get her to go out during the day—only at night would she creep along by the hedge-rows, in the most unfrequented paths, accompanied by her mother, and hiding the child as much as possible, beneath her shawl, when it was not asleep at home. Her morbid fancy made her think that everyone knew her shame. She could not see people talking together without a rush of blood to her face, as if she felt the talk must be of her.
And how fared it all this time with her seducer? As the world elects, it shall always fare. From it he had neither frown nor word of rebuke. Those that knew his sin thought as little about it as he did, and that was apparently never at all. He took no more notice of Sarah Wanless and the infant girl she had borne to him, than if they had been dogs. Nay, far less, for they were hateful to his selfish, ease-loving nature, and therefore he rigorously banished them from his sight and thoughts. Just as before, he took his "pleasure" coming and going to town, and living the life of sottish ease, as became a man of fashion and a court soldier. At the Vicarage hiswelcome was just as warm as ever, although every soul within its walls was quite aware of the ruin he had brought on the poor peasant's daughter. Mrs. Codling's verdict naturally was, that it served the gipsy right, and and her father too. He was always an insolent fellow, who never showed proper respect for the Olympians, and this would perhaps take down his pride a bit. This was the view of the matter insinuated to Adelaide, who had become "skittish" when the news first reached her ears, thereby, however, increasing the ardour with which the captain followed her. Mrs. Codling had quite made up her mind, that through Adelaide she would succeed in catching the Captain as a son-in-law, and therefore took occasion to put "matters in their proper light."
"Of course, my dear," she would say, "we shall have to get rid of the girl and her brat, for it might be unpleasant to have them in the parish; but the Captain can manage all that, never fear, and if the whole nest of them remove to another part of the country, the parish will have a good riddance. I daresay a few pounds will do it, for all that old rascal's pride."
Adelaide was soon satisfied, and soon, also, her flippant tongue had disseminated this view of the case all over the parish; for Adelaide would talk to the housemaid when no better listener was to be had.
Thus was the Captain's way made smooth to him, and the country side soon became as full of his ongoings with "the parson's girl" as ever it had been about his intrigue with Sally Wanless.
Thomas Wanless himself saw and heard much, for his cottage was not very far from the Vicarage road, and the Captain sometimes forgot himself, and passed his very door, instead of taking up the back street. Doubtless it never entered the Captain's head that any peasant would accost him about such a trifle as the ruin of his daughter. He ought rather to feel honoured thereat. What he did fear was the girl herself—he having a fine gentlemanly dread of "scenes."
Nevertheless, Thomas's wrath was awakened anew at the sight of this "cool blackguard," as he most irreverently styled the Captain, and soon the feeling extended to them that "harboured him." It was borne in upon his spirit,as the Methodists say, that he must denounce the "ruffian." Yes, yes, he thought, this must be done; till it was done there would be no relief in his mind. He had borne too much in silence, but that this harbouring of criminals should go on before his face was more than he could stand.
"It will do no good," his wife said, as he declared his purpose to her.
"Good!" he answered, "who wants or expects good to come to them or us? I expect none, but I must and shall tell the blackguard what I think of him."
Yet this was easier said than done. He could not well stop the Captain in the street, for he nearly always drove or rode, and never once passed Thomas's cottage door on foot. It was utterly useless to call at the Grange, for no one would see him. Obsequious menials might even set the dogs at him, or trump up a charge against him and put him in jail. Besides, Thomas had no time except on Sundays to go in quest of his enemy, and on Sundays the Captain was usually at the Vicarage. In the bitterness of spirit which these thoughts brought him to, Thomas might have, perhaps, done something rash, but happily necessity prevented him. He had now to work, if possible, harder than ever—early and late at the farm, on his allotment, in the little garden at his cottage, he laboured for the means of life—and did but poorly, though the work kept him up and helped him to control the fire that burned within him.
At last the chance he longed for came suddenly, and without his seeking it. He was passing the Vicaragegarden one beautiful Sunday afternoon in October, and heard voices on the little lawn which lay between the hedge and the house. Laughter and the chatter of merry tongues fell on his ear, and one hard man's voice he instantly guessed must be that of Captain Wiseman. To reach that conclusion and the resolve to face his daughter's seducer then and there may be said to have constituted one mental effort. A rush of strong emotion swept over him and made him feel, as he opened the Vicarage gate and slipped within, as if God had laid a mission upon him to lay bare the iniquity of this man and of those who countenanced him. Under the influence of this feeling he straightened himself and strode across the grass direct to the place where he heard the voices.
The scene that burst upon his view if possible heightened his courage, and I can well imagine that the rough, toil-gnarled, weather-buffeted old man looked like an avenging fate to those whose privacy he had thus invaded. Always dignified and noble in aspect, the anger at his heart now doubtless made him heroic.
Mrs. Codling and her four daughters were seated in a group on chairs in front of a sort of arbour that stood at the further end of the lawn, and a little behind the western end of the house, not far from the churchyard, from which it was hidden by a clump of evergreens and a wall. Behind Adelaide Codling, leaning over her chair, and apparently teasing her in a familiarnonchalantway, stood Captain Wiseman. As he faced the gate he was the first to catch sight of Thomas Wanless, and although he hardly knew Sally's father by sight, he appeared to guessintuitively that a "scene" was at hand. His red face grew redder still, his talk suddenly ceased, and an ugly scowl gathered on his fleshly brow. Mrs. Codling's back was towards the approaching peasant, but the Captain's sudden silence and the look he gave made her turn round just as Thomas came up. She also divined that trouble was at hand, and, bridling up at the idea of that "disgusting creature" parading his girl's shameless conduct before her pure-minded daughters, prepared at once for action.
"See if the Vicar can come out, my dear," she said to the girl nearest to her, and then addressing Thomas, cried in tones meant to be frigidly severe, but which only succeeded in being savagely spiteful—
"If you want the Vicar, my good man, go to the house. You have no right to enter this garden."
She might just as well have addressed the nearest tree. Thomas paid no attention to her, but stalking up to the Captain, glared at him till that wretched being shivered with fear in spite of himself. Perhaps this "gallant" soldier thought Wanless would knock him down, and that may have been the peasant's first impulse. However, he did not, but instead turned after a minute or so to Mrs. Codling, and asked, with stern abruptness—
"Madam, do you know who this man is?"
For a brief space the woman seemed scared and cowed by the tones and at the face she saw looming above her. "Good gracious me!" she exclaimed, half to herself. "What does the man mean?" Then, recovering courage, added, "I do believe the creature is crazy. I'm verysorry, Captain Wiseman, but really I fear you will have to come to the rescue of us weak women. Do speak to him and order him off."
At this two of the girls began to scream, but Adelaide giggled.
"Since you give me no answer, madam," Thomas struck in, "I shall tell you who this man is," and he stepped round and backed a little, so as to be able to look at both the Captain and the Vicar's wife. "This man is the seducer of my daughter," he continued. "He has committed a crime against her and against me which is worse than murder in the sight of God. He is the father of a helpless child that, for all he cares, might be flung into a roadside ditch to die. For his cold-blooded villainy that child and my child must suffer all their days. This man, I tell you," and here his voice rang all over the place, "this man has broken an innocent girl's heart, and you know it, madam, and you harbour him. Shame on you!"
Mrs. Codling grew pale with rage, and tried to speak; but before she got a word out Thomas had turned to the Captain, who took a step forward as if to collar him.
"Captain Wiseman," he said; and at the sudden, sharp address that wretch paused, grew mottled in the face, and dropped the raised hand by his side. "What!" cried the labourer, "would you dare to touch me, you low, libertine scoundrel? Stand back, lest I have to sully my hands by choking the life out of you, reptile that you are!"
How much further Thomas might have gone I know not, but by this time Mrs. Codling had got her voice and charged in turn. She ordered Thomas to leave the place, and in shrill tones threatened him with the police, with the Captain's vengeance, with the Vicar's wrath, called him a hoary old sinner, and well-nigh swore at him for polluting the ears of her precious daughters with the story of his own girl's immorality. It was a fearful torrent, Thomas afterwards confessed. Until then he had never known the length of a woman's tongue. But it came to an end at last, for Mrs. Codling lost her breath. With a parting shot to the effect that Thomas had only got what he deserved, and it was like father like child—low wretches all—the ruffled woman relapsed into a fuming silence. Somehow the tirade brought relief to Thomas's overcharged heart. It had an amusing and grotesque side that struck him forcibly in spite of himself, and it was therefore with a certain sense as of laughter welling up through his heart of sorrow—a feeling for which he would fain have reproached himself—that he answered in a voice that bore down all attempts at interruption—
"Poor lady, I did not come here to quarrel with you, far from it. God forgive you for having such ill feelings, and you a parson's wife too. But what could one expect when you harbour scamps like this fine military seducer here? That's enough to make your heart the abode of all that is wicked. I bear you no malice though, far from it. I would warn you to mend your steps in time. You call me names, and accuse me of bringing mycorrupt affairs before the pure ears of your daughters. Take care, woman, take care. The serpent that destroyed my precious lass has not lost his fangs, and your turn to mourn as I mourn may be nearer than you think. Because you have fine clothes and luxuries, and live in a grand house, you think that the ills of the poor cannot reach you. Take care, I say, or the day may come when I can return your taunt, and tell you that if you had set a better example to your children, if you had guarded them against evil company, you might have been spared much sorrow and humiliation." With this, Thomas turned to go, but the cries of Mrs. Codling arrested him.
"The wretch," she shrieked. "Josiah, do, for heaven's sake, speak to this low fellow. His foul abuse is positively sickening." And as the Vicar shuffled up in obedience to the summons, his wife, turning to the gallant rake, added, "I'm so sorry, Captain, that you should have been insulted here. This must be very disagreeable to you."
The Captain found voice to assure her that it did not matter. He didn't "care a hang, you know," and gave it as his opinion that a strategic movement towards the house might be the best end of the affair.
"Yes, yes," cried Adelaide, "let us go indoors and leave that fellow to speak to the trees. He'll soon tire of that;" and she proceeded to gather up the stray wraps.
But before this noble plan of out-manœuvring an enemy could be carried out, the Vicar and Thomas had encounteredeach other, and Mrs. Codling had to rush to the defence of her husband.
"My good man," the Vicar had begun. "Eh, Thomas Wanless is it? Dear me! You forget yourself, sir. You mustn't behave in this way in my garden, and before ladies, too. Go away, go away, and come to me to-morrow if you have anything to complain of. I'll see you in my study."
"Come to you!" answered the peasant in tones of amazement and scorn. "Come to you! what could you do, you whited sepulchre? You God-forsaken, poor, tippling creature. Mind your own affairs," and he laughed a bitter laugh, as once more he turned to go.
The Vicar also turned and slunk away with a scared guilty look, but his wife's wrath found outlet anew.
"This is too bad," she screamed after Wanless, "the low scoundrel. Oh, Captain Wiseman, I do wish you would thrash the fellow to within an inch of his life. Oh dear! oh dear! will nobody pity me," and she fairly wept with rage.
The last that Thomas heard of them was the Captain explaining in his most persuasive words that "By Jove, you know, it would hardly be the thing for me to take to fisticuffs with a low labourer-ruffian, else, by Gad, nothing would have delighted me more than to beat him to a pulp, you know."
Thomas turned and gazed in the direction of the speaker as if to invite him to come and try, but the Captain was busy hurrying the ladies into the house, and though near enough to see well the look on Thomas'sface, he showed no sign of accepting the implied challenge.
It was Mrs. Codling who, brave to the last, and woman-like, gave the parting shot.
"Be off, you low blackguard," she screamed, and then disappeared within the house. It afterwards transpired that she caught sight of some of the servants watching the encounter with Wanless from a window, and had much comfort from the blowing up she gave them. Her superfluous temper was thereby wholesomely expended.
Thomas Wanless went home that afternoon struggling with a feeling of disappointment in which there mingled a certain degree of shame. He had never entered the Vicar's grounds with the intention of either wrangling with the Vicar or his wife. A desire to expose a scoundrel was his sole motive, and he had felt a sense of the heroic as he proceeded to seek his daughter's betrayer. Had that man abused him, or struck him, or in any way given him the opportunity of letting loose his wrath, he would have, perhaps, felt that a duty had been discharged. Instead of that, Thomas had merely fallen out with a sharp-tongued, not over-sensitive woman, and abused a poor parson who, whatever his failings, had not at the moment the least intention to act otherwise than as a peace-maker. The heroics had all vanished, and in their place was something grotesque and ludicrous. The more Thomas thought of it the more he felt that he had that day vindicated neither his own honour nor his daughter's, and he resolved that henceforth he should bear his sorrows in silence.
Perhaps this self-condemnation was not quite reasonable, for Mrs. Codling provoked Wanless most unjustifiably. She, at all events, got no more than she deserved. But the labourer was sensitive and proud, and these feelings made him prefer silent endurance to the loss of self-respect. Could he have foreseen the consequences which seemed at least to flow from his one effort at bringing home to the sinner his sin, he might have had still greater doubts about the wisdom of the course he pursued on that calm October Sunday afternoon.
For one thing, the noise of the row between the Captain and Thomas was soon heard all over Ashbrook. The Vicarage servants retailed it with many embellishments to their friends—as a secret, of course—and Adelaide Codling herself let out some episodes to her then bosom friend. Presently, and in due course, the tale reached the Grange, where it took the circumstantial and easily comprehended form of an account of a great fight between the Captain and the labourer, in which the latter had got two black eyes, a broken nose, cut lips, a thumb out of joint, and some said three, some five teeth knocked down his throat by the scientific handling of the gallant guardsman. It was nothing to the purpose to say that the labourer had been seen going about his work as usual, for people of his sort thought nothing of maulings that would have nearly been the death of superior persons—like flunkeys and valets.
In some such guise, the story ultimately reached the ears of Mrs. Morgan, who was so much shocked at the idea of a fight between her brother and a low labouringfellow that she felt constrained to tell her mother, especially as the fight was alleged to have taken place on the Vicarage lawn, in presence of the Vicar's family. Mrs. Morgan, keener sighted than her mother now was, had for some time been aware of the ambitions of Mrs. Codling, so far at any rate as to disapprove of the constant intercourse which the Captain had with the Vicarage. In telling her story, therefore, it was possible for her also to lay emphasis upon the Captain's relationship with the Codlings, which she took care to do, and as she flattered herself much that she succeeded admirably.
At first it seemed as if she had done nothing of the kind. The Juno of the parish, Lady Harriet Wiseman, forgot everything for a time in her wrath at the abominable presumption of a labourer in fighting with her blue-blooded son, and was eager to have him arrested and punished. In vain Mrs. Morgan pleaded the scandal such a step would cause; her wrathful ladyship would hear never a word. Nothing pacified her till she had spoken to her son on the subject, and she had so set her heart upon making an example of that vagabond fellow, who had troubled the parish ever since she could remember, that she was positively more angry than before when her son told her that what she wished could not be done for the best of all reasons—there had been no fight. Then her wrath fell partly on her son, and they quarrelled. She asked him what he was doing at the Vicarage. He replied that it was none of her business, and left her with the seeds of jealous suspicion in her heart.
Next time the Captain met his sister, he rounded upon her, and, according to common report, called her "a damned meddlesome fool" for interfering in his affairs. Thus matters were likely to become ravelled at the Grange. Perhaps it was to lull suspicion and allow the heated atmosphere to cool that the Captain soon after this betook himself to Newmarket, and thence to London. Before he went he gave a private hint to the head gamekeeper that he would not be inconsolable if that questionable functionary could manage to make out a case of night-poaching against Thomas Wanless. An underling heard of the plot and warned Thomas to take care, and though Thomas never poached, the warning was probably needful enough.
The row at the Grange was the least significant of the consequences that flowed from Thomas Wanless's visit to the Vicarage Gardens. Mrs. Morgan had apparently indicated to her mother the suspicions she entertained as to the aims of Mrs. Codling, and Lady Harriet, afraid to tackle her son about his amours, attacked Mrs. Codling instead. It was plainly enough intimated to that scheming woman that Lady Harriet disapproved of the constant visits of the Captain to the Vicarage, and Mrs. Codling was asked to discourage them.
A sensible person would have deferred to the wishes of the greatest lady in the parish on a point so delicate, but Mrs. Codling proved to be anything but sensible. Afraid of exciting the wrath of Lady Harriet by open hostility, she took refuge in underhand plots. The intercourse between the Captain and her daughter, which hadhitherto been carried on, in a manner, openly, was now changed, with the mother's connivance, into a secret intrigue. By this change the whole moral attitude of the family became debased. Captain Wiseman was astute enough to see through the would-be mother-in-law's motives, and cunning enough to egg her on in a course of duplicity and folly. His mother need know nothing, he represented, till all was over. No doubt she would at first resent a secret marriage, but when she saw she could no longer help it, her wrath would soon cool down.
With talks like these it may be supposed that Adelaide Codling, apt pupil as she was, soon came to look upon a secret marriage as just the one thing desirable and necessary to secure her happiness; and, from this conclusion, it was but a step to destruction. Probably enough Captain Wiseman had never any intention of marrying the girl, but whether or not, he certainly had abandoned it, when, after a few weeks of secret meetings and clandestine letter writing, he succeeded in persuading her to join him in London. She left home just after Christmas, in secret to all appearance, though the village gossips would have it that her mother knew of her flight beforehand, and nobody doubted that she had run away after the Captain. In vain did Mrs. Codling give out that her daughter had been called away suddenly to visit a sick aunt. Nobody believed her. Secret intrigues cannot be successfully carried out in a quiet country village, and what was declared to be the true version of the flight was current in all the country side within a week of Adelaide's departure.
Unthinkingly, Mrs. Robins repeated this story to Mrs. Wanless one day in Sally's hearing, and immediately repented of her folly, for Sally uttered a low moan and fainted. From that day the gloom of her life seemed deeper. With unceasing tenderness and watchfulness her parents had sought to bring back hope to their lost one's heart, and until this ugly bit of gossip reached her they had hopes of succeeding. Sally had began to talk a little more freely, and, recognising the burden she was to her parents, was becoming anxious to get a situation of some kind—provided always that it might be far away, where no one would know her. But from the time she came back to consciousness on this unhappy day, darkness again settled down on her spirit. She sat apart brooding, as when first her babe lay on her lap. That babe itself appeared to grow almost hateful in her sight, and was left to the care of her mother, weary though the old woman was with work and sorrow. With mouth hard set and eyes looking wistfully sometimes, as if in terror, into a world far away from the home nest, Sally heeded no one. Her father again grew deeply concerned about her, and tried casually to draw her out of the trancethat seemed to chain her soul. It was useless. She answered him in monosyllables or never at all. At times too, and when he spoke to her, a strange, resolute look would gather on her face. It was not exactly obstinacy, though she certainly was unyielding. Rather was it a look as of one who had made up her mind to a great sacrifice, and feared that she might be betrayed into abandoning a duty. At that look her father always somehow grew afraid. It was evident to him that his daughter in some way connected Adelaide Codling's flight with her own life, but how he could not guess.
But his fears were only too well grounded, for one day, Sally, too, disappeared. Watching her opportunity when the babe was asleep, her mother busy washing, and her father away at the farm, she dressed herself as if for a walk, went out, and did not return. All day her mother had endured the keenest anxiety in the hope that Sally would come back. She was unwilling to send for her husband, and could only make one or two cautious inquiries through her nearest neighbours. They knew nothing; Sally had been seen, of course, but she looked and walked as usual, with hasty steps and eyes bent on the ground. Though startled at the news, Thomas was not surprised. The flight only fulfilled his own forebodings. Swallowing a morsel of food he started for Warwick, and soon learnt there that a girl answering to Sally's description had left by the slow London train at eleven o'clock. On his way home he bitterly reproached himself that he had not taken means to make such a step impossible. The two or three pounds that Sally had brought home with her hehad scrupulously left untouched, and these she had taken with her, as also the few trinkets given to her by the Captain. Thomas had no doubt whatever that Sally had fled to London.
For a time this blow positively dazed Thomas and his wife. Once more their nights were nights of sorrow and tears, and for them the mornings brought no joy. Only the little one that lay sleeping in its wee cot was all unconscious of trouble, or that its presence added poignancy to the bitterness with which the labourer and his wife mourned for their lost one.
Thomas Wanless, however, was not a man to abandon himself long to useless grief. The more keen the pain the more certain was his nature to rise and fight for deliverance, and before long he had made up his mind that, while he had life, his child should not be abandoned. Cost what it would, he must follow her to that dreadful city whose horrors darkened his imagination. The lost one should be found, and, if God would but help him, saved. So he resolved, although as yet he knew not how his resolution could be carried out.
For a day or two he brooded over it, afraid almost to tell his wife. The fear was weak. No sooner did Mrs. Wanless know what her husband meant to do than she became almost cheerful, and brought her ready wit to bear on all possible plans for enabling him to go. Full of a true woman's self-sacrificing spirit, she at first proposed to go out charring, and so make a living, but the child made that impossible. The utmost she could do was to continue to take in washing, and even that would be asevere strain upon her, with a babe to tend. At best, too, it would afford her only a precarious living, and nothing possible could be left to help her husband in London.
Unable to decide on ways and means, but yet determined to carry out their one great plan, they ended by casting their trust on Providence, leaving the future to take care of itself. As a first step, Thomas went to Stratford, and withdrew the few pounds left in the bank there,—some £10 or £12. That done, he next went to consult his daughter Jane, as to what help she could give. Jane had little, and was saving that little to get married and to emigrate; but when the whole matter was laid before her, she, too, fell in with her father's plans, and offered him her money.
"No, no, I cannot take that," he answered. "I hope to get work in London, and cash enough to keep soul and body together. I only ask you to help your mother with it, should she be in need—to help her all you can, in fact."
Jane promised all the more cheerfully, perhaps, that her little all was not immediately to be taken from her to help in this hunt after Sarah.
Mrs. Wanless also wanted her husband to write to Tom, telling him the circumstances, and asking for help, but to this he would in nowise consent.
"Tom," he said, "needs all his money just now, and what he sends must come of his own goodwill. Besides we shall get Sally back again, and then the best thing will be to send her out to Tom. She wouldn't go if she thought Tom knew what had befallen her. Jacob doesnot yet know, Jane will keep silence, and there is no need for Tom to be enlightened."
This reasoning was unanswerable, and Mrs. Wanless had to acquiesce with what heart she could. Nay, more than that, sore against her will, she had to submit to see her husband start for London with only £5 in his pocket. The rest he insisted leaving with her, on the same grounds as he had refused Jane's savings. "I shall get work, my dear," he said; "never mind me," and she had to yield.
Possibly Thomas would have been less confident had he known what going to London, and work in London, meant; but in spite of his dread of the great city, his conceptions were so hazy, that in his heart, as he afterwards confessed, he never contemplated needing to work there at all. He hoped to find Sarah in a day or two, or at most within a week, and once found, was sure that she would come home. His wife, it turned out, formed a truer conception of the task before him, although she had never seen a bigger town than Leamington or Warwick. But her fears did not abate her husband's confidence. Without fixing dates, he told his master and all whom it concerned, that he expected to be back soon. Struck, perhaps, by the generous purpose of the man, Thomas's master thrust a couple of sovereigns into his hand as they parted, but Thomas would not accept them. In spite of all the farmer could say, Thomas stoutly maintained that he had enough. "My own means are sufficient," he said.
"Your own means sufficient," laughed the shrewdScot. "Well, I like that! Man, how much hae ye got?"
"Five pounds," said Thomas.
"Five pounds! Five pounds to go to London, and look for a runaway girl with! Good heavens, man, that'll no keep ye a week. Ye'll starve, Wanless, lang afore you find the lassie, if ye ever find her. God, man, if that's a' you can scrape for the job, you'd better bide where ye are?"
"That I cannot do," Thomas answered. "Starve or not, I must go and seek my child."
The farmer looked at him for a moment, gave a grunt of amazement, and turned on his heel, with the remark—
"Well, well, Wanless, a wilful man must hae his way, they say, and you must have yours, I suppose, but, faith, I doubt you'll rue your folly."
And with that consolatory observation, Thomas parted from a master whom he had learnt to respect, for the rough outside hid a not unkindly nature.
The liking was mutual, and was not on Robson's part lessened by the refusal of his man to take the two sovereigns. The sturdy independence of his hind was a thing so uncommon, that it excited his admiration, and stirred his somewhat dulled natural feelings of generosity. Many a time during the absence of her husband, Mrs. Wanless had cause to bless the "Missus o' Whitbury Farm" for acts of unostentatious kindness which that motherly Scotchwoman needed, it must be said, little prompting to perform. On her husband's suggestion, she called one day at the cottage, and at once took aninterest in the pale, sad woman, and the little child. Thereafter, many little presents of milk, and of butter and cheese, found their way to the cottage from Whitbury Farm. And what Mrs. Wanless felt most grateful of all for, was that these things were never sent to her by servants, but were brought either by Mrs. Robson herself, or by one of her daughters. The farmer's wife did not try to make Mrs. Wanless feel that she was a miserable dependent upon her bounty. She had not in that respect, as yet, acquired English manners. In the Lowlands of Scotland, I am told, there is no abject class like the English agricultural labourer, and these hard Scotch farmer folks had still to learn that their hinds were not human beings of like passions and feelings with themselves.