THE STOLEN DOWRY.In a public-house in the Saltmarket of Glasgow there had been a leak in a barrel of spirits which stood in a dark corner inside the counter. The whisky was pure and unreduced as it came from the distillery. Before being retailed it would have been mixed with water in certain proportions, according, to the price labelled on the fancy-painted casks ranged along the wall, to which it would have been partly transferred on the day after its arrival. As it happened, however, that particular barrel was not to be sold. An old spigot had got loose during the night, and the pot-boy who opened the shop waded into what he thought was water instead of the thick coating of sawdust generally covering the floor. The shop was dark, and the boy got a stump of candle and lighted it, to have a search into the cause. The smell might have enlightened him. Behind the counter the floor was covered with escaping whisky. The boy crouched down and poked the candle-stump in under the barrel, and at the same moment was burnt by some of the melted grease. His fingers were of most importance to him, and he dropped the candle with a howl. If the whisky had been gunpowder, it could scarcely have put him out of the shop more quickly. There was a blaze and a roar, and then an explosion, and the boy had scarcely reached the opposite side of the street, with more burns than the candle had inflicted, when the whole shop was in flames.The land of houses above the shop was a high one, and crowded in every flat with families of the poorest. Before these unhappy inmates were well aware of the calamity the flames and smoke had burst through the ceiling of the shop, and into the stair, thus cutting off the only means of escape. Then followed a scene exactly like that which happened in our own Canongate, when a maker of fireworks had his shop blown up about his ears. The terrified inmates gathered at the windows shrieking for help—those in the lower flats being gradually forced upwards by flame and smoke. In a few seconds beds and mattresses began to fly out at the windows of the adjoining houses, and these were held up by the eager and excited crowd below to break the fall of those leaping from the high windows. Some were killed on the spot, many were injured, but a great number were successfully caught, scarcely the worse of the fall. At one of the top windows two women stood in desperation and despair. Though living in the same land, and possibly on the same flat, they were strangers to each other till that moment. One had a child of five clinging to her, white and speechless with terror, and this woman was a poor, hard-working seamstress, a year or two widowed, and having nothing but her needle to depend on for support. The other was Bet Cooper, as bold and irrepressible a thief as ever infested Glasgow.“We’ll have to jump—it’s the only chance,” said Bet, addressing the terrified dressmaker. Bet was scared and awed herself, but her terror had not the effect, as in the person beside her, of rendering her limbs perfectly powerless.The poor dressmaker shook her head, and feebly moaned out something about the child clinging to her.“If my wee Mary was only safe I wadna care for mysel’,” she hysterically exclaimed at last.“Then throw her down—they’ll catch her safe enough,” said Bet with energy.“I couldna dae’t—ye couldna dae’t yoursel’ if she was your ain bairn,” sobbed the poor mother.“Then I’ll do it for you, if you like?” volunteered Bet.“Oh, no, no!” screamed the mother, and the child echoed the terrified cry, which was faintly caught and responded to by the anxious crowd watching them and urging them from below.“Then I’ll take her in my arms and jump with her?” said Bet generously. “If I am killed, she’ll fall soft on top of me and be saved.”The perfect antipodes of each other in character and training, these two women were for the moment drawn together by the warm humanity which makes the whole world kin. The weaker spirit, the half-fainting dressmaker, clung to the bold thief, and mingled her tears with those of Bet as trustfully as if she had been the purest in the land. It is doubtful if she would have consented even then, but a great cloud of smoke and flames sweeping and roaring in their direction hastened the decision. The child screamed and shrank towards the outstretched arms of Bet, and the mother let her go with an effort.“You’ll take care of her?” she tremulously said, as she kissed the child’s white face over and over again.“I’ll take care of her,” said Bet, shortly. “Now stand back a bit, and let me jump.”She grasped the clinging child high over her shoulder and sprang into the air, while a sympathising roar from the crowd below greeted the action. Four men were holding aloft one of the beds, and Bet sank into the yielding mass almost as softly as if she had descended only her own height. The child was breathless and a little shaken, but quite sensible. Bet sprang to her feet and waved the rescued child in triumph in the air towards the mother far above, though the ringing cheer rising around must have carried to her the glad tidings even before Bet’s cry rang out.“She’s safe! Now jump! jump for your life!” was Bet’s eager exclamation. But the mother still clung to the window in powerless terror, and finally motioned to those below that she would try to escape by the roof. Her gesture was not understood at the moment, or a dozen voices would have been raised to warn her that that means had already been tried in vain. The building by that time was filled with smoke, and the unhappy mother had never got farther than the passage leading to the stair landing. Her body was found there, scarcely scorched, with the features calm and placid as in a gentle slumber. Little Mary, the rescued child, when shown the still form, cried out joyfully, “Mother’s only sleeping.” So she was, but it was that blissful rest which knows no troubled dreams, the last and longest that is sent to weary humanity.Bet took the child with her for that night. She had no lack of acquaintances to give her shelter, but Mary appeared to be without a friend in the world. Bet was not easily moved, but somehow that last speech of the poor mother, and her appealing gaze as she uttered it, had got imprinted in her memory—“You’ll take care of her?” Bet fancied she heard the words still, and determined to keep the child under her own eye till its nearest relatives should be sought out and found. Bet was then comparatively young—still under thirty, but she had never had a child of her own, and it was a queer sensation to her to be treading the streets with that little innocent one’s hand so trustfully reposing in her own.The talk of the child was also different from anything Bet had ever listened to; it actually seemed for the time that Bet was the child, and Mary the woman. With a gentleness quite new to her, Bet tried to explain to Mary that there was a possibility of her mother sleeping on and never waking, an idea which Mary utterly derided, though in the end she saidcontentedly—“If mother doesn’t wake, you’ll be my mother instead?”“No, no; that would never do,” said Bet hurriedly, and with some agitation. “I’m not good enough, and it wouldn’t be allowed.”“I think you’reverygood,” said Mary, with the air of a judge. “You saved me from the fire. Oh, what a jump it was! Won’t you let me sleep with you to-night, and cuddle close in your arms, if mother isn’t back?”Bet wasn’t sure, and she mumbled out something to that effect, which Mary chose to take for consent to the arrangement.They made their way, thus talking and considering, to the house of an acquaintance of Bet—a thief, of course, like herself, and almost as well known. Bet was careful to keep the child apart from her friends, that their strange talk might not reach or contaminate its ears, and early in the evening undressed Mary with her own hands to put her into the bed under the slates which had been appropriated to her use. She tucked the child in very tenderly, and got a hearty kiss for her pains, and was then about to leave the little closet, when Mary called her back with thewords—“But I haven’t said my blesses.”“Jerusalem! and what is that?” said Bet, for a moment puzzled.“Oh, you just sit there, and put your hands together like mine, while I say them like a little angel,” said Mary, and to teach her new pupil she illustrated the matter by getting out of the bed-clothes and kneeling beside Bet, clasping her hands and beginning to repeat her prayers. Bet’s attitude—expressive more of astonishment than anything—not quite pleasing her, Mary had to stop and place her new friend’s hands in the same position as her own; and, that being adjusted, sheproceeded—“God bless mother; bless Bet, my new mother; bless everybody—for amen. Good-night. This night I lay me down to sleep; I give my soul to Christ to keep. If I should die and never wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. For amen. Good-night. Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Kingdom come. Thy will be done—earth as ’tis heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we forgive those trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from evil. For amen. Good-night.”Bet was hushed and subdued, and the second kiss which she imprinted on the child’s lips was very near being a tearful one. Possibly the simple utterances of the little one had awakened in her breast some memories of her own childhood, long dormant; or perhaps the pure radiance of the child’s innocence was showing her the darkness of her own heart and life. At any rate Bet left the little closet very bad company for her friends, and was more than once twitted by them upon her solemnity. Bet had begun to think; but as yet the only tangible idea that came to her out of that whirl was expressed in thewords—“I wish the bairn’s friends would not turn up. I think I should like to keep her myself.”Next day inquiry proved that Bet’s “bairn” was literally without friends. Her mother had been in receipt of parochial aid on account of the child and her own poverty, and the parochial authorities could prove beyond question that she had been friendless and alone. Under these circumstances the glad wish welled up naturally to Bet’s lips—she would take it; she would be a mother to the orphan, and seek help from no parochial board. Alas! Bet forgot in the warmth of her newborn love that all her past life was against her. What kind of guardian for a tender and innocent child was a woman who had spent most of her life in open defiance of the law, when not actually in prison?The truth only dawned upon Bet when those who had the power evaded her request by saying that they would consider the matter, make inquiries, and let her know. Meantime the child was allowed to remain with Bet, and, as she slowly sauntered home, the thought rose in hermind—“They’ll take her from me; they’ll never allow me to keep her. I’m too bad; too well known. They’ll ask the police about me, and take her away to-morrow. And they’re right. I’m not fit to bring her up—not unless I make a change.”That was the thought which pulled Bet up, and made her pace the streets for hour after hour before returning to her charge. Change!—was it possible for her to change sufficiently to bring up a child to a good and useful life? Bet was afraid that it was not. But then her very boldness and seeming callousness covered a strong will and a passionate nature, which, once roused to love, loved with head-strong impetuosity.The more imminent the separation from the child seemed, the more Bet longed to keep her, and the result of her long thinking on the plainstones of Glasgow was that she went home to nestle down beside Mary, saying to herself, “I’ll try! I’ll try, for her sake!”Her case, however, was desperate, so Bet was awake very early in the morning, and had Mary up and dressed and out into the cool morning air before the bells and steam whistles had begun to call the factory folks and ironworkers from their homes. Bet’s intention was to make her way to Edinburgh, but as she was fearful of her destination being suspected, and herself pursued, she took a very different route when leaving the city. She had not a penny in her pocket, and, as a matter of fact, had to beg her way, by a long and circuitous route, to the capital. We were duly informed of her disappearance, and, though there was no special charge against her, we should doubtless very soon have had her in our hands had Bet resumed her own line of business. But this did not happen. Bet, while begging at a farm outside the city, had been told to go and work, and replied that she was willing to do so there and then. This resulted in her being employed on the place for nearly a month. At the end of that time she had a little money to draw, and entered the city to have a struggle for honesty and a new life.I am afraid that Bet’s resolve would have all gone to the wall through the taint of crime and the power of hunger had she not chanced to meet an old prison companion who had been struggling in the same way for some months. This woman not only gave temporary shelter to the wanderers, but introduced Bet to a lady who, with some of her friends, had formed a kind of private prisoners’ aid society. Mrs Colbrun—as I shall name her, knowing her aversion to publicity—heard Bet’s story, which, probably for the first time in Bet’s life, was a truthful one in every detail, and, with many a warning that the new life would be full of hardship and temptation, agreed to give her a start by recommending her among her friends as help in rough house-work. Thus Bet was secured from absolute want, and, as she was a strong-bodied woman and eager to do her best, it was not long before she had a regular round of houses employing her at stated intervals atwashingand cleaning, besides occasional jobs from outsiders. During the first few years of this life Bet had many a hard struggle and sore temptation; but then the innocent prattle and loving caresses of Mary made all smooth and endurable. Bet, I should have observed, was by no means a good-looking woman. She had an evil look which was very much against her in her new line. People often employed her with reluctance on that account, and got rid of her as soon as possible, so with all her willingness she was always very poor. Her life was a lonely one, and I have no doubt she often asked herself with bitterness whether the change from her former reckless course was altogether a good one. As Mary grew in years and cleverness, however, and became more of a companion to her protector, her gentle influence gradually asserted itself, and chased many of these clouds from Bet’s half-savage mind. When she was just twelve Mary insisted upon being taken from school and set to work, and through Mrs Colbrun was apprenticed to dressmaking in a big establishment in Princes Street. Mary did not grow up a great beauty, but she had a quiet, engaging manner, and an artlessness and simplicity which made her a favourite. She remained in that establishment for six or seven years, by the end of which time the relative positions of Bet and her had changed, for Bet’s health had become uncertain, and Mary’s wage formed almost their sole support. Mary had forgotten many of the incidents of her youth, but singularly enough, the scene at the fire was imprinted on her memory as vividly as the day after it had occurred. She often spoke of it, and speculated on how different both their lives might have been but for that great calamity. She never really understood Bet’s shudder at the thought, for Mary did not know that her second mother had been a thief, and saved from a life of crime by her own innocent prattle. We are all children alike in that respect, and never know a tithe of the good we have done.At this time came the grand turning-point in Mary’s life, for the son of one of the partners of the firm, who acted as cashier, fell in love with the quiet, lady-like Mary Cooper, passing over beauties in dozens to do so, and, after a long course of opposition from his parents, which as usual only strengthened his passion, succeeded in so adjusting matters that Mary consented to become his wife. When the matter was settled Bet looked as if she did not know whether to cry or rejoice, and, I believe, did a little at both.“How am I ever to fit you to go among such grand folks,” she said in manifest distress.“You have been fitting me all my life,” said Mary, with a bright look and a soft embrace, which she had generally found effectual in banishing all objections.“That’s all very well,” answered Bet, only half mollified; “but where is your outfit to come from? You must have dresses, and no end of things. Ten or twenty pounds would not be too much. Only think! if you went among them in your poor rags, wouldn’t they sneer at you all your life after?”“I don’t know; I never thought of that,” was Mary’s simple rejoinder, “but so long as Herbert does not sneer at me I shall never care for any one else. He will shield me from all trouble.”“Ay, you’re like every one else in love, you see nothing but sunshine before you,” dryly returned Bet, “but it’s possible that even he would turn round and sneer at your former poverty if I allowed him to provide your outfit, as he offered to do. ‘Nothing of the kind,’ I said, quite sharp; ‘Mary will provide all that herself.’ But though I said that to look independent, I can’t for the life of me tell where the money’s to come from. I have not one pound to rub on another.”“Don’t distress yourself about that, mother dear,” said Mary, with another nestling kiss; “for if he cannot love me for ever without a paltry dress or two, his love isn’t worthy the name. And if his devotion is to change to sneers, all the outfits in the world would not prevent it. So just let the matter rest. I’ll take all the risk. He knows we are poor in everything but a good name, so where is the shame?”Mary thought she had effectually settled the difficulty; but Bet continued to harp on the same theme. It was an awkward position certainly. There was Mary living in a house of one room and a closet, in a not very choice locality, and her affianced in one of the biggest villas in the Grange. The inequality of their positions cropped out painfully whenever he chanced to visit the humble home, and Bet was in such a feverish state of distress over her poverty that she would have made any sacrifice for a little temporary grandeur. As the time drew near when Mary was to leave her for another’s care, Bet’s uneasiness increased. She had rashly pledged herself to provide Mary’s outfit, and was now further from that than ever. It is difficult to analyse her feelings so as to account for all her actions; but I suppose her mind had got into such a morbid state that she was scarcely responsible for her own actions.At this critical juncture Bet’s old friend and adviser, Mrs Colbrun, sent for her and Mary to congratulate them on the approaching event, and make some small present to the bride. What the present was I have no recollection, but it was something which led Mrs Colbrun and Mary to leave the room for a few minutes.Bet had often been left with the free range of the whole house before with no evil result. In the room in which she was now left there stood a writing table, one drawer of which was open, showing quite a pile of bank notes and other money.Bet fought valiantly with the temptation till Mrs Colbrun was actually crossing the lobby to re-enter the room, when the old thieving nature struggled uppermost, and Bet, with one swift movement of her hand, had possessed herself of a bunch of the notes, and concealed them with magical celerity about her person.The remainder of her stay in the house was torture to Bet, not only on account of the fear of discovery, but because she had a conscience, and could not disguise even to herself the dastardly act she had committed in robbing a benefactor.They got away at last, but Bet was nearly an hour at home before she ventured to bring out the notes, which she did with a shaking hand, telling Mary they were for her marriage outfit, which she had better go and purchase forthwith.Perhaps it was the tone in which the strange request was made, or the guilty look which accompanied the offer of the money, or possibly sheer astonishment at Bet possessing such a sum, that roused Mary’s suspicions; but she had scarcely taken the notes and counted them when a chill thought fell on her heart.“Where did you get so much money, mother dear?” she tremulously asked. “Did Mrs Colbrun give it you?”“No, no! ask no questions, but away you go and spend it to the best advantage,” hurriedly responded Bet, in a strange voice.Mary stared at her for a minute, then began to tremble violently, and finally sat down with the notes in her hand, and burst into tears. Thoroughly alarmed, Bet sprang up and tried to soothe the young girl, but the first words which Mary could articulate stabbed her through.“Mother, dear,” she cried, clasping the guilty woman in her arms, and trying in vain to get a clear look into the shrinking eyes, “tell me true and plain. There was a drawer in Mrs Colbrun’s room with a pile of bank notes in it. I saw them. You didn’t—oh, mother! forgive me for the horrible thought!—but say you didn’t take them—steal them—from Mrs Colbrun.”“I didn’t” was shaped on Bet’s lips, but the words stuck in her throat, and the guilty look on her face, and her abashed attitude as she shrank before the accusing eyes gave the lie to the husky response.“Oh, mother, how could you?—you have ruined us!” was all Mary could utter, but after an agonised pause she sprang up with startling energy, andsaid—“I must take them back! I shall never allow her to be robbed!”“And send me to prison for ten or twenty years?” cried Bet in reproach. “No; rather throw them into the fire. That will hide all.”“I shall not! Mother, you are mad—you are not in your senses to propose such a thing. It would be robbery just the same, whether we use the notes or not, if we do not restore them. I shall take them back, but try to give them in a way that will not criminate you. Yes, whatever happens, you must be safe.”Mary hurried on her things and left the house, amid the feeble protests of Bet. She had not been out of the place many minutes when I knocked at the door and entered. Mrs Colbrun had missed the notes immediately on the departure of Bet and Mary, and, shocked and indignant, had brought word to the Central. It needed but a word or two regarding Bet’s past life to convince me that she was the thief, and I took the address and went there direct. Bet, however, was bold as brass, and denied all knowledge of the notes, and officiously assisted me to search the house for them. I left her at last baffled, but not convinced, and made my way to Mrs Colbrun’s for consultation and advice. It was nearly dark when I reached the place, which was at the outskirts of the city, and on a very dark and badly-lighted road. As I approached the place I fancied that I saw a skulking figure cross the road and move round towards the back of the house. It was Mary, who had loitered about vainly trying to think of some mode of restoring the notes which should not re-act upon her benefactor, Bet. At length she had conceived the project of getting round to the back, raising the window of Mrs Colbrun’s room, and tossing the notes into some corner. Quite ignorant of these facts, I followed the figure; saw the dark window stealthily approached, and then was witness to an attempt to force up the window, which chanced to be fastened on the inside. When this had continued for a short time I slipped rapidly up behind, and laid a hand on the woman’s shoulder. She uttered a scream of terror, and instantly dropped the bunch of notes, which I as quickly picked up. I took her round to the front door, and introduced her to Mrs Colbrun, who besought me, as I have seldom been pleaded with, to let poor Mary go, “and say no more about it.”That was quite beyond my power, and Mary—who had not a word to say in her defence, and even faintly admitted the identity of the stolen notes—was taken away and locked up.No sooner did Bet hear of the capture than she appeared in a frenzied state at the office, tearing her hair and altogether conducting herself like a maniac, and loudly declared that she and not Mary was the thief. I had known so many cases in which a mother sacrificed all, even her reputation, to save her offspring from prison, that I felt certain this was but another instance of the kind, and we paid little attention to Bet’s story.The same day Mary’s affianced appeared at the office, and was allowed to see the prisoner, when he besought her in the most piteous accents to declare the truth and save her name, but to all this Mary would say nothing. At the trial she was informed that her sentence would be lighter if she pled guilty, and “Guilty” she pled accordingly.Her sentence was one month’s imprisonment, but the moment it was pronounced she turned to her affianced, who had been seated behind her, and whispered with a face positivelyradiant—“Now, I may speak, Herbert. Yes, I am innocent.”Strenuous efforts were immediately made to quash the conviction and have Mary released, but the law gives forth no uncertain sound on the point, and Mary served the full month like an ordinary malefactor.When the position was explained to me by her lover, I said tohim—“Stick by her. She is a noble girl. Marry her when she comes out; for, when she could sacrifice so much from love of her mother, what would she not sacrifice for her husband!”He thought the advice good enough to act on, and I believe has never regretted his choice.
In a public-house in the Saltmarket of Glasgow there had been a leak in a barrel of spirits which stood in a dark corner inside the counter. The whisky was pure and unreduced as it came from the distillery. Before being retailed it would have been mixed with water in certain proportions, according, to the price labelled on the fancy-painted casks ranged along the wall, to which it would have been partly transferred on the day after its arrival. As it happened, however, that particular barrel was not to be sold. An old spigot had got loose during the night, and the pot-boy who opened the shop waded into what he thought was water instead of the thick coating of sawdust generally covering the floor. The shop was dark, and the boy got a stump of candle and lighted it, to have a search into the cause. The smell might have enlightened him. Behind the counter the floor was covered with escaping whisky. The boy crouched down and poked the candle-stump in under the barrel, and at the same moment was burnt by some of the melted grease. His fingers were of most importance to him, and he dropped the candle with a howl. If the whisky had been gunpowder, it could scarcely have put him out of the shop more quickly. There was a blaze and a roar, and then an explosion, and the boy had scarcely reached the opposite side of the street, with more burns than the candle had inflicted, when the whole shop was in flames.
The land of houses above the shop was a high one, and crowded in every flat with families of the poorest. Before these unhappy inmates were well aware of the calamity the flames and smoke had burst through the ceiling of the shop, and into the stair, thus cutting off the only means of escape. Then followed a scene exactly like that which happened in our own Canongate, when a maker of fireworks had his shop blown up about his ears. The terrified inmates gathered at the windows shrieking for help—those in the lower flats being gradually forced upwards by flame and smoke. In a few seconds beds and mattresses began to fly out at the windows of the adjoining houses, and these were held up by the eager and excited crowd below to break the fall of those leaping from the high windows. Some were killed on the spot, many were injured, but a great number were successfully caught, scarcely the worse of the fall. At one of the top windows two women stood in desperation and despair. Though living in the same land, and possibly on the same flat, they were strangers to each other till that moment. One had a child of five clinging to her, white and speechless with terror, and this woman was a poor, hard-working seamstress, a year or two widowed, and having nothing but her needle to depend on for support. The other was Bet Cooper, as bold and irrepressible a thief as ever infested Glasgow.
“We’ll have to jump—it’s the only chance,” said Bet, addressing the terrified dressmaker. Bet was scared and awed herself, but her terror had not the effect, as in the person beside her, of rendering her limbs perfectly powerless.
The poor dressmaker shook her head, and feebly moaned out something about the child clinging to her.
“If my wee Mary was only safe I wadna care for mysel’,” she hysterically exclaimed at last.
“Then throw her down—they’ll catch her safe enough,” said Bet with energy.
“I couldna dae’t—ye couldna dae’t yoursel’ if she was your ain bairn,” sobbed the poor mother.
“Then I’ll do it for you, if you like?” volunteered Bet.
“Oh, no, no!” screamed the mother, and the child echoed the terrified cry, which was faintly caught and responded to by the anxious crowd watching them and urging them from below.
“Then I’ll take her in my arms and jump with her?” said Bet generously. “If I am killed, she’ll fall soft on top of me and be saved.”
The perfect antipodes of each other in character and training, these two women were for the moment drawn together by the warm humanity which makes the whole world kin. The weaker spirit, the half-fainting dressmaker, clung to the bold thief, and mingled her tears with those of Bet as trustfully as if she had been the purest in the land. It is doubtful if she would have consented even then, but a great cloud of smoke and flames sweeping and roaring in their direction hastened the decision. The child screamed and shrank towards the outstretched arms of Bet, and the mother let her go with an effort.
“You’ll take care of her?” she tremulously said, as she kissed the child’s white face over and over again.
“I’ll take care of her,” said Bet, shortly. “Now stand back a bit, and let me jump.”
She grasped the clinging child high over her shoulder and sprang into the air, while a sympathising roar from the crowd below greeted the action. Four men were holding aloft one of the beds, and Bet sank into the yielding mass almost as softly as if she had descended only her own height. The child was breathless and a little shaken, but quite sensible. Bet sprang to her feet and waved the rescued child in triumph in the air towards the mother far above, though the ringing cheer rising around must have carried to her the glad tidings even before Bet’s cry rang out.
“She’s safe! Now jump! jump for your life!” was Bet’s eager exclamation. But the mother still clung to the window in powerless terror, and finally motioned to those below that she would try to escape by the roof. Her gesture was not understood at the moment, or a dozen voices would have been raised to warn her that that means had already been tried in vain. The building by that time was filled with smoke, and the unhappy mother had never got farther than the passage leading to the stair landing. Her body was found there, scarcely scorched, with the features calm and placid as in a gentle slumber. Little Mary, the rescued child, when shown the still form, cried out joyfully, “Mother’s only sleeping.” So she was, but it was that blissful rest which knows no troubled dreams, the last and longest that is sent to weary humanity.
Bet took the child with her for that night. She had no lack of acquaintances to give her shelter, but Mary appeared to be without a friend in the world. Bet was not easily moved, but somehow that last speech of the poor mother, and her appealing gaze as she uttered it, had got imprinted in her memory—“You’ll take care of her?” Bet fancied she heard the words still, and determined to keep the child under her own eye till its nearest relatives should be sought out and found. Bet was then comparatively young—still under thirty, but she had never had a child of her own, and it was a queer sensation to her to be treading the streets with that little innocent one’s hand so trustfully reposing in her own.
The talk of the child was also different from anything Bet had ever listened to; it actually seemed for the time that Bet was the child, and Mary the woman. With a gentleness quite new to her, Bet tried to explain to Mary that there was a possibility of her mother sleeping on and never waking, an idea which Mary utterly derided, though in the end she saidcontentedly—
“If mother doesn’t wake, you’ll be my mother instead?”
“No, no; that would never do,” said Bet hurriedly, and with some agitation. “I’m not good enough, and it wouldn’t be allowed.”
“I think you’reverygood,” said Mary, with the air of a judge. “You saved me from the fire. Oh, what a jump it was! Won’t you let me sleep with you to-night, and cuddle close in your arms, if mother isn’t back?”
Bet wasn’t sure, and she mumbled out something to that effect, which Mary chose to take for consent to the arrangement.
They made their way, thus talking and considering, to the house of an acquaintance of Bet—a thief, of course, like herself, and almost as well known. Bet was careful to keep the child apart from her friends, that their strange talk might not reach or contaminate its ears, and early in the evening undressed Mary with her own hands to put her into the bed under the slates which had been appropriated to her use. She tucked the child in very tenderly, and got a hearty kiss for her pains, and was then about to leave the little closet, when Mary called her back with thewords—
“But I haven’t said my blesses.”
“Jerusalem! and what is that?” said Bet, for a moment puzzled.
“Oh, you just sit there, and put your hands together like mine, while I say them like a little angel,” said Mary, and to teach her new pupil she illustrated the matter by getting out of the bed-clothes and kneeling beside Bet, clasping her hands and beginning to repeat her prayers. Bet’s attitude—expressive more of astonishment than anything—not quite pleasing her, Mary had to stop and place her new friend’s hands in the same position as her own; and, that being adjusted, sheproceeded—
“God bless mother; bless Bet, my new mother; bless everybody—for amen. Good-night. This night I lay me down to sleep; I give my soul to Christ to keep. If I should die and never wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. For amen. Good-night. Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Kingdom come. Thy will be done—earth as ’tis heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we forgive those trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from evil. For amen. Good-night.”
Bet was hushed and subdued, and the second kiss which she imprinted on the child’s lips was very near being a tearful one. Possibly the simple utterances of the little one had awakened in her breast some memories of her own childhood, long dormant; or perhaps the pure radiance of the child’s innocence was showing her the darkness of her own heart and life. At any rate Bet left the little closet very bad company for her friends, and was more than once twitted by them upon her solemnity. Bet had begun to think; but as yet the only tangible idea that came to her out of that whirl was expressed in thewords—
“I wish the bairn’s friends would not turn up. I think I should like to keep her myself.”
Next day inquiry proved that Bet’s “bairn” was literally without friends. Her mother had been in receipt of parochial aid on account of the child and her own poverty, and the parochial authorities could prove beyond question that she had been friendless and alone. Under these circumstances the glad wish welled up naturally to Bet’s lips—she would take it; she would be a mother to the orphan, and seek help from no parochial board. Alas! Bet forgot in the warmth of her newborn love that all her past life was against her. What kind of guardian for a tender and innocent child was a woman who had spent most of her life in open defiance of the law, when not actually in prison?
The truth only dawned upon Bet when those who had the power evaded her request by saying that they would consider the matter, make inquiries, and let her know. Meantime the child was allowed to remain with Bet, and, as she slowly sauntered home, the thought rose in hermind—
“They’ll take her from me; they’ll never allow me to keep her. I’m too bad; too well known. They’ll ask the police about me, and take her away to-morrow. And they’re right. I’m not fit to bring her up—not unless I make a change.”
That was the thought which pulled Bet up, and made her pace the streets for hour after hour before returning to her charge. Change!—was it possible for her to change sufficiently to bring up a child to a good and useful life? Bet was afraid that it was not. But then her very boldness and seeming callousness covered a strong will and a passionate nature, which, once roused to love, loved with head-strong impetuosity.
The more imminent the separation from the child seemed, the more Bet longed to keep her, and the result of her long thinking on the plainstones of Glasgow was that she went home to nestle down beside Mary, saying to herself, “I’ll try! I’ll try, for her sake!”
Her case, however, was desperate, so Bet was awake very early in the morning, and had Mary up and dressed and out into the cool morning air before the bells and steam whistles had begun to call the factory folks and ironworkers from their homes. Bet’s intention was to make her way to Edinburgh, but as she was fearful of her destination being suspected, and herself pursued, she took a very different route when leaving the city. She had not a penny in her pocket, and, as a matter of fact, had to beg her way, by a long and circuitous route, to the capital. We were duly informed of her disappearance, and, though there was no special charge against her, we should doubtless very soon have had her in our hands had Bet resumed her own line of business. But this did not happen. Bet, while begging at a farm outside the city, had been told to go and work, and replied that she was willing to do so there and then. This resulted in her being employed on the place for nearly a month. At the end of that time she had a little money to draw, and entered the city to have a struggle for honesty and a new life.
I am afraid that Bet’s resolve would have all gone to the wall through the taint of crime and the power of hunger had she not chanced to meet an old prison companion who had been struggling in the same way for some months. This woman not only gave temporary shelter to the wanderers, but introduced Bet to a lady who, with some of her friends, had formed a kind of private prisoners’ aid society. Mrs Colbrun—as I shall name her, knowing her aversion to publicity—heard Bet’s story, which, probably for the first time in Bet’s life, was a truthful one in every detail, and, with many a warning that the new life would be full of hardship and temptation, agreed to give her a start by recommending her among her friends as help in rough house-work. Thus Bet was secured from absolute want, and, as she was a strong-bodied woman and eager to do her best, it was not long before she had a regular round of houses employing her at stated intervals atwashingand cleaning, besides occasional jobs from outsiders. During the first few years of this life Bet had many a hard struggle and sore temptation; but then the innocent prattle and loving caresses of Mary made all smooth and endurable. Bet, I should have observed, was by no means a good-looking woman. She had an evil look which was very much against her in her new line. People often employed her with reluctance on that account, and got rid of her as soon as possible, so with all her willingness she was always very poor. Her life was a lonely one, and I have no doubt she often asked herself with bitterness whether the change from her former reckless course was altogether a good one. As Mary grew in years and cleverness, however, and became more of a companion to her protector, her gentle influence gradually asserted itself, and chased many of these clouds from Bet’s half-savage mind. When she was just twelve Mary insisted upon being taken from school and set to work, and through Mrs Colbrun was apprenticed to dressmaking in a big establishment in Princes Street. Mary did not grow up a great beauty, but she had a quiet, engaging manner, and an artlessness and simplicity which made her a favourite. She remained in that establishment for six or seven years, by the end of which time the relative positions of Bet and her had changed, for Bet’s health had become uncertain, and Mary’s wage formed almost their sole support. Mary had forgotten many of the incidents of her youth, but singularly enough, the scene at the fire was imprinted on her memory as vividly as the day after it had occurred. She often spoke of it, and speculated on how different both their lives might have been but for that great calamity. She never really understood Bet’s shudder at the thought, for Mary did not know that her second mother had been a thief, and saved from a life of crime by her own innocent prattle. We are all children alike in that respect, and never know a tithe of the good we have done.
At this time came the grand turning-point in Mary’s life, for the son of one of the partners of the firm, who acted as cashier, fell in love with the quiet, lady-like Mary Cooper, passing over beauties in dozens to do so, and, after a long course of opposition from his parents, which as usual only strengthened his passion, succeeded in so adjusting matters that Mary consented to become his wife. When the matter was settled Bet looked as if she did not know whether to cry or rejoice, and, I believe, did a little at both.
“How am I ever to fit you to go among such grand folks,” she said in manifest distress.
“You have been fitting me all my life,” said Mary, with a bright look and a soft embrace, which she had generally found effectual in banishing all objections.
“That’s all very well,” answered Bet, only half mollified; “but where is your outfit to come from? You must have dresses, and no end of things. Ten or twenty pounds would not be too much. Only think! if you went among them in your poor rags, wouldn’t they sneer at you all your life after?”
“I don’t know; I never thought of that,” was Mary’s simple rejoinder, “but so long as Herbert does not sneer at me I shall never care for any one else. He will shield me from all trouble.”
“Ay, you’re like every one else in love, you see nothing but sunshine before you,” dryly returned Bet, “but it’s possible that even he would turn round and sneer at your former poverty if I allowed him to provide your outfit, as he offered to do. ‘Nothing of the kind,’ I said, quite sharp; ‘Mary will provide all that herself.’ But though I said that to look independent, I can’t for the life of me tell where the money’s to come from. I have not one pound to rub on another.”
“Don’t distress yourself about that, mother dear,” said Mary, with another nestling kiss; “for if he cannot love me for ever without a paltry dress or two, his love isn’t worthy the name. And if his devotion is to change to sneers, all the outfits in the world would not prevent it. So just let the matter rest. I’ll take all the risk. He knows we are poor in everything but a good name, so where is the shame?”
Mary thought she had effectually settled the difficulty; but Bet continued to harp on the same theme. It was an awkward position certainly. There was Mary living in a house of one room and a closet, in a not very choice locality, and her affianced in one of the biggest villas in the Grange. The inequality of their positions cropped out painfully whenever he chanced to visit the humble home, and Bet was in such a feverish state of distress over her poverty that she would have made any sacrifice for a little temporary grandeur. As the time drew near when Mary was to leave her for another’s care, Bet’s uneasiness increased. She had rashly pledged herself to provide Mary’s outfit, and was now further from that than ever. It is difficult to analyse her feelings so as to account for all her actions; but I suppose her mind had got into such a morbid state that she was scarcely responsible for her own actions.
At this critical juncture Bet’s old friend and adviser, Mrs Colbrun, sent for her and Mary to congratulate them on the approaching event, and make some small present to the bride. What the present was I have no recollection, but it was something which led Mrs Colbrun and Mary to leave the room for a few minutes.
Bet had often been left with the free range of the whole house before with no evil result. In the room in which she was now left there stood a writing table, one drawer of which was open, showing quite a pile of bank notes and other money.
Bet fought valiantly with the temptation till Mrs Colbrun was actually crossing the lobby to re-enter the room, when the old thieving nature struggled uppermost, and Bet, with one swift movement of her hand, had possessed herself of a bunch of the notes, and concealed them with magical celerity about her person.
The remainder of her stay in the house was torture to Bet, not only on account of the fear of discovery, but because she had a conscience, and could not disguise even to herself the dastardly act she had committed in robbing a benefactor.
They got away at last, but Bet was nearly an hour at home before she ventured to bring out the notes, which she did with a shaking hand, telling Mary they were for her marriage outfit, which she had better go and purchase forthwith.
Perhaps it was the tone in which the strange request was made, or the guilty look which accompanied the offer of the money, or possibly sheer astonishment at Bet possessing such a sum, that roused Mary’s suspicions; but she had scarcely taken the notes and counted them when a chill thought fell on her heart.
“Where did you get so much money, mother dear?” she tremulously asked. “Did Mrs Colbrun give it you?”
“No, no! ask no questions, but away you go and spend it to the best advantage,” hurriedly responded Bet, in a strange voice.
Mary stared at her for a minute, then began to tremble violently, and finally sat down with the notes in her hand, and burst into tears. Thoroughly alarmed, Bet sprang up and tried to soothe the young girl, but the first words which Mary could articulate stabbed her through.
“Mother, dear,” she cried, clasping the guilty woman in her arms, and trying in vain to get a clear look into the shrinking eyes, “tell me true and plain. There was a drawer in Mrs Colbrun’s room with a pile of bank notes in it. I saw them. You didn’t—oh, mother! forgive me for the horrible thought!—but say you didn’t take them—steal them—from Mrs Colbrun.”
“I didn’t” was shaped on Bet’s lips, but the words stuck in her throat, and the guilty look on her face, and her abashed attitude as she shrank before the accusing eyes gave the lie to the husky response.
“Oh, mother, how could you?—you have ruined us!” was all Mary could utter, but after an agonised pause she sprang up with startling energy, andsaid—
“I must take them back! I shall never allow her to be robbed!”
“And send me to prison for ten or twenty years?” cried Bet in reproach. “No; rather throw them into the fire. That will hide all.”
“I shall not! Mother, you are mad—you are not in your senses to propose such a thing. It would be robbery just the same, whether we use the notes or not, if we do not restore them. I shall take them back, but try to give them in a way that will not criminate you. Yes, whatever happens, you must be safe.”
Mary hurried on her things and left the house, amid the feeble protests of Bet. She had not been out of the place many minutes when I knocked at the door and entered. Mrs Colbrun had missed the notes immediately on the departure of Bet and Mary, and, shocked and indignant, had brought word to the Central. It needed but a word or two regarding Bet’s past life to convince me that she was the thief, and I took the address and went there direct. Bet, however, was bold as brass, and denied all knowledge of the notes, and officiously assisted me to search the house for them. I left her at last baffled, but not convinced, and made my way to Mrs Colbrun’s for consultation and advice. It was nearly dark when I reached the place, which was at the outskirts of the city, and on a very dark and badly-lighted road. As I approached the place I fancied that I saw a skulking figure cross the road and move round towards the back of the house. It was Mary, who had loitered about vainly trying to think of some mode of restoring the notes which should not re-act upon her benefactor, Bet. At length she had conceived the project of getting round to the back, raising the window of Mrs Colbrun’s room, and tossing the notes into some corner. Quite ignorant of these facts, I followed the figure; saw the dark window stealthily approached, and then was witness to an attempt to force up the window, which chanced to be fastened on the inside. When this had continued for a short time I slipped rapidly up behind, and laid a hand on the woman’s shoulder. She uttered a scream of terror, and instantly dropped the bunch of notes, which I as quickly picked up. I took her round to the front door, and introduced her to Mrs Colbrun, who besought me, as I have seldom been pleaded with, to let poor Mary go, “and say no more about it.”
That was quite beyond my power, and Mary—who had not a word to say in her defence, and even faintly admitted the identity of the stolen notes—was taken away and locked up.
No sooner did Bet hear of the capture than she appeared in a frenzied state at the office, tearing her hair and altogether conducting herself like a maniac, and loudly declared that she and not Mary was the thief. I had known so many cases in which a mother sacrificed all, even her reputation, to save her offspring from prison, that I felt certain this was but another instance of the kind, and we paid little attention to Bet’s story.
The same day Mary’s affianced appeared at the office, and was allowed to see the prisoner, when he besought her in the most piteous accents to declare the truth and save her name, but to all this Mary would say nothing. At the trial she was informed that her sentence would be lighter if she pled guilty, and “Guilty” she pled accordingly.
Her sentence was one month’s imprisonment, but the moment it was pronounced she turned to her affianced, who had been seated behind her, and whispered with a face positivelyradiant—
“Now, I may speak, Herbert. Yes, I am innocent.”
Strenuous efforts were immediately made to quash the conviction and have Mary released, but the law gives forth no uncertain sound on the point, and Mary served the full month like an ordinary malefactor.
When the position was explained to me by her lover, I said tohim—
“Stick by her. She is a noble girl. Marry her when she comes out; for, when she could sacrifice so much from love of her mother, what would she not sacrifice for her husband!”
He thought the advice good enough to act on, and I believe has never regretted his choice.