 Chapter 5. Trottles Report. The curious events related in these pages would, many of them, most likely never have happened if a person named Trottle had not presumed, contrary to his usual custom, to think for himself. The subject on which the person in question had ventured, for the first time in his life, to form an opinion purely and entirely his own, was one which had already excited the interest of his respected mistress in a very extraordinary degree, or to put it in plainer terms still, the subject was no other than the mystery of the empty house. Feeling no sort of objection to set a success of his own, if possible, side by side with a failure of Mr. Jarbers, Trottle made up his mind one Monday evening to try what he could do on his own account towards clearing up the mystery of the empty house. Carefully dismissing from his mind all nonsensical notions of former tenants and their histories, and keeping the one point in view steadily before him, he started to reach it in the shortest way by walking straight up to the house, and bringing himself face to face with the first person in it who opened the door to him. It was getting towards dark on Monday evening, the thirteenth of the month, when Trottle first set foot on the steps of the house. When he knocked at the door, he knew nothing of the matter which he was about to investigate, except that the landlord was an elderly widower of good fortune and that his name was Fawley, a small beginning enough for a man to start from, certainly. On dropping the knocker, his first proceeding was to look down cautiously, out of the corner of his right eye, for any results which might show themselves at the kitchen window. There appeared at it immediately the figure of a woman, who looked up inquisitively at the stranger on the steps, left the window in a hurry, and came back to it with an open letter in her hand, which she held up to the fading light. After looking over the letter hastily for a moment or so, the woman disappeared once more. Trottle next heard footsteps shuffling and scraping along the bare hall of the house. On a sudden they ceased, and the sound of two voices, a shrill persuading voice and a gruff resisting voice, confusedly reached his ears. After a while the voices left off speaking. A chain was undone, a boat drawn back, the door opened, and Trottle stood face to face with two persons, a woman in advance, and a man behind her, leaning back flat against the wall. "'Wish you good evening, sir,' says the woman, in such a sudden way, and in such a cracked voice, that it was quite startling to hear her. "'Chilly weather, ain't it, sir? Pleased to walk in. You come from good Mr. Fawley, don't you, sir?' "'Don't you, sir?' chimes in the man hoarsely, making a sort of gruff echo of himself, and chuckling after it, as if he thought he had made a joke. If Trottle had said no, the door would have been probably closed in his face. Therefore he took circumstances as he found them, and boldly ran all the risk, whatever it might be, of saying, "'Yes.'" "'Quite right, sir,' says the woman, "'Good Mr. Fawley's letter told us his particular friend would be here to represent him at dusk on Monday the 13th, or if not on Monday the 13th, then on Monday the 20th, at the same time, without fail. And here you are on Monday the 13th. Thank you, sir. Mr. Fawley's particular friend, and dressed all in black, quite right, sir. Pleased to step into the dining-room. It always kept scoured and clean against Mr. Fawley comes here, and I'll fetch a candle in half a minute. It gets so dark in the evenings now you hardly know where you are, do you, sir? And how is good Mr. Fawley in his health? We trust he is better, Benjamin, don't we? We are so sorry not to see him as usual, Benjamin, ain't we?' In half a minute, sir, if you don't mind waiting, I'll be back with a candle. Come along, Benjamin." "'Come along, Benjamin,' chimes in the echo, and chuckles again, as if he thought he had made another joke." Left alone in the empty front parlor, Trottell wondered what was coming next, as he heard the shuffling, scraping footsteps go slowly down the kitchen stairs. The front door had been carefully chained up and bolted behind him on his entrance, and there was not the least chance of his being able to open it to effect his escape without betraying himself by making a noise. Not being of the jarber sought luckily for himself, he took his situation quietly as he found it, and turned his time while alone to account, by summing up in his own mind, the few particulars which he had discovered thus far. He had found out first that Mr. Fawley was in the habit of visiting the house regularly. Second, that Mr. Fawley being prevented by illness from seeing the people put in charge as usual, had appointed a friend to represent him, and had written to say so. Third, that the friend had a choice of two Mondays at a particular time in the evening for doing his errand, and that Trottell had accidentally hit on this time and on the first of the Mondays for beginning his own investigations. Fourth, that the similarity between Trottell's black dress as servant out of livery and the dress of the messenger, whoever he might be, had helped the error by which Trottell was profiting, so far so good. But what was the messenger's errand, and what chance was there that he might not come up and knock at the door himself, from minute to minute on that very evening? While Trottell was turning over this last consideration in his mind, he heard the shuffling footsteps coming up the stairs again, with a flash of candle-light going before them. He waited for the woman's coming in with some little anxiety, for the twilight had been too dim on his getting into the house to allow him to see either her face or the man's face at all clearly. The woman came in first, with the man she called Benjamin at her heels, and set the candle on the mantelpiece. Trottell takes leave to describe her as an offensively cheerful old woman, awfully lean and wiry, and sharp all over at eyes, nose, and chin, devilishly brisk, smiling and restless, with a dirty false front and a dirty black cap, and short fidgety arms, and long hooked fingernails. An unnaturally lusty old woman, who walked with a spring in her wicked old feet, and spoke with a smirk on her wicked old face. The sort of old woman, as Trottell thinks, who ought to have lived in the dark ages and been ducked in a horse pond, instead of flourishing in the nineteenth century and taking charge of a Christian house. You'll please to excuse my son Benjamin, won't you, sir? says this witch without a broomstick pointing to the man behind her, propped against the bare wall of the dining room, exactly as he had been propped against the bare wall of the passage. He's got his inside dreadful bad again as my son Benjamin, and he won't get a bed, and he will follow me about the house, upstairs and downstairs, and in my lady's chamber, as the song says, you know. It's his indisgestion, poor dear, that sours his temper and makes him so aggravating, and indisgestion is a wearing thing to the best of us. Ain't it, sir? Ain't it, sir? chimes in aggravating Benjamin, winking at the candlelight like an owl at the sunshine. Trottell examined the man curiously, while his horrid old mother was speaking of him. He found my son Benjamin to be little and lean, and buttoned up slovenly in a frowsy old greatcoat that fell down to his ragged carpet slippers. His eyes were very watery, his cheeks very pale, and his lips very red. His breathing was so uncommonly loud that it sounded almost like a snore. His head rolled helplessly in the monstrous big collar of his greatcoat, and his limp, lazy hands potted about the wall on either side of him as if they were groping for an imaginary bottle. In plain English the complaint of my son Benjamin was drunkenness of the stupid pig-headed, sottish kind. Drawing this conclusion easily enough, after a moment's observation of the man, Trottell found himself nevertheless keeping his eyes fixed much longer than was necessary on the ugly drunken face rolling about in the monstrous big coat collar, and looking at it with a curiosity that he could hardly account for at first. Was there something familiar to him in the man's features? He turned away from them for an instant, and then turned back to him again. After that second look the notion forced itself into his mind that he had certainly seen a face somewhere, of which that sott's face appeared like a kind of slovenly copy. Where, thinks he to himself, where did I last see the man whom this aggravating Benjamin here so very strongly reminds me of? It was no time just then, with the cheerful old woman's eyes searching him all over, and the cheerful old woman's tongue talking at him nineteen to the dozen, for Trottell to be ransacking his memory for small matters that had got into wrong corners of it. He put by in his mind that very curious circumstance respecting Benjamin's face, to be taken up again when a fit opportunity offered itself, and kept his wits about him in prime order for present necessities. You wouldn't like to go down into the kitchen, would you? says the witch without the broomstick, as familiar as if she had been Trottell's mother, instead of Benjamin's. There's a bit of fire in the grate, and the sink in the back kitchen don't smell to matter much to-day, and it's uncommon chilly up here when a person's flesh don't hardly cover a person's bones. But you don't look cold, sir, do you? And then why, Lord bless my soul, our little bit of business is so very, very little, it's hardly worthwhile to go downstairs about it, after all. Quite a game at business, ain't it, sir? Give and take, that's what I call it, give and take. With that, her wicked old eyes settled hungrily on the region round about Trottell's waistcoat pocket, and she began to chuckle like her son, holding out one of her skinny hands, and tapping cheerfully in the palm with the knuckles of the other. Aggravating Benjamin, seeing what she was about, roused up a little, chuckled, and tapped in imitation of her, got an idea of his own into his muddled head all of a sudden, and bolted it out charitably for the benefit of Trottell. I say," says Benjamin, settling himself against the wall, and nodding his head viciously at his cheerful old mother. I say, look out, she'll skin you!" Assisted by these signs and warnings, Trottell found no difficulty in understanding that the business referred to was the giving and taking of money, and that he was expected to be the giver. It was at this stage of the proceedings that he first felt decidedly uncomfortable, and more than half inclined to wish he was on the street side of the house door again. He was still cudgling his brains for an excuse to save his pocket, when the silence was suddenly interrupted by a sound in the upper part of the house. It was not at all loud. It was a quiet, still scraping sound, so faint that it could hardly have reached the quickest ears except in an empty house. "'Do you hear that, Benjamin?' says the old woman. "'He's at it again, even in the dark, ain't he? Perhaps you'd like to see him, sir?' says she, turning on Trottell, and poking her grinning face close to him. "'Only name it. Only say if you'd like to see him before we do our little bit of business, and I'll show good foley's friend upstairs, just as if he was good Mr. Foley himself. "'My legs are all right, whatever Benjamins may be. "'I get younger and younger, and stronger and stronger, and jollier and jollier every day, that's what I do. "'Don't mind the stairs on my account, sir, if you'd like to see him.'" Him! Trottell wondered whether him meant a man, or a boy, or a domestic animal of the male species. Whatever it meant, here was a chance of putting off that uncomfortable give-and-take business, and, better still, a chance, perhaps, of finding out one of the secrets of the mysterious house. Several spirits began to rise again, and he said, yes, directly, with the confidence of a man who knew all about it. Benjamin's mother took the candle at once, and lighted Trottell briskly to the stairs, and Benjamin himself tried to follow as usual, but getting up several flights of stairs, even helped by the Bannisters, was more with his particular complaint, than he seemed to feel himself inclined to venture on. He sat down obstinately on the lowest step, with his head against the wall, and the tails of his big, great coat spreading out magnificently on the stairs behind him and above him, like a dirty imitation of a court lady's train. "'Bound sit there, dear,' says his affectionate mother, stopping to snuff the candle on the first landing. "'I shall sit here,' says Benjamin, aggravating to the last, till the milk comes in the morning." The cheerful old woman went on nimbly up the stairs to the first floor, and Trottell followed with his eyes and ears wide open. He had seen nothing out of the common in the front parlor or up the staircase so far. The house was dirty and dreary and close-smelling, but there was nothing about it to excite the least curiosity, except the faint scraping sound, which was now beginning to get a little clearer, though still not at all loud, as Trottell followed his leader up the stairs to the second floor. Nothing on the second floor landing but cobwebs above and bits of broken plaster below cracked off from the ceiling. Benjamin's mother was not a bit out of breath and looked all ready to go to the top of the monument if necessary. The faint scraping sound had got a little clearer still, but Trottell was no nearer to guessing what it might be than when he first heard it in the parlor downstairs. On the third and last floor there were two doors, one which was shut, leading into the front garret, and one which was a jar leading into the back garret. There was a loft in the ceiling above the landing, but the cobwebs all over it vowed sufficiently for its not having been open for some little time. The scraping noise, plainer than ever here, sounded on the other side of the back garret door, and to Trottell's great relief that was precisely the door which the cheerful old woman now pushed open. Trottell followed her in, and, for once in his life at any rate, was struck dumb with amazement at the sight which the inside of the room revealed to him. The garret was absolutely empty of everything in the shape of furniture. It must have been used at one time or other by somebody engaged in a profession or a trade which required for the practice of it a great deal of light, for the one window in the room which looked out on a wide open space at the back of the house was three or four times as large every way as a garret window usually is. Close under this window, kneeling on the bare boards with his face to the door, there appeared of all the creatures in the world to see alone at such a place and at such a time a mere might of a child, a little lonely, wizened, strangely clad boy who could not at the most have been more than five years old. He had a greasy old blue shawl crossed over his breast and rolled up to keep the ends from the ground into a great big lump on his back. A strip of something which looked like the remains of a woman's flannel petticoat showed itself under the shawl and below that again a pair of rusty black stockings worlds too large for him covered his legs and his shoeless feet. A pair of old clumsy muffeteers which had worked themselves up on his little frail red arms to the elbows and a big cotton nightcap that had dropped down to his very eyebrows finished off the strange dress which the poor little man seemed not half big enough to fill out and not near strong enough to walk about him. But there was something to see even more extraordinary than the clothes the child was swaddled up in and that was the game which he was playing at all by himself and which moreover explained in the most unexpected manner the faint scraping noise that had found its way downstairs through the half-open door in the silence of the empty house. It has been mentioned that the child was on his knees in the garret when Trottell first saw him. He was not saying his prayers and not crouching down in terror at being alone in the dark. He was odd and unaccountable as it may appear, doing nothing more or less than playing at a charwoman's or housemaid's business of scouring the floor. Both his little hands had tight hold of a mangy old blacking brush with hardly any bristles left in it which he was rubbing backwards and forwards on the boards as gravely and steadily as if he had been at scouring work for years and had got a large family to keep by it. The coming in of Trottell and the old woman did not startle or disturb him in the least. He just looked up for a minute at the candle with a pair of very bright sharp eyes and then went on with his work again as if nothing had happened. On one side of him was a battered pined saucepan without a handle which was his make-believe pale and on the other a morsel of slate coloured cotton rag which stood for his flannel to wipe up with. After scrubbing bravely for a minute or two he took the bit of rag and mocked up and then squeezed make-believe water out into his make-believe pale as grave as any judge that ever sat on a bench. By the time he thought he had got the floor pretty dry he raised himself upright on his knees and blew out a good long breath and set his little red arms a Kimbo and nodded at Trottell. There! says the child, knitting his little downy eyebrows into a frown. Drap the dirt! I've cleaned up. Where's my beer? Benjamin's mother chuckled till Trottell thought she would have choked herself. Lord have mercy on us, says she. Just hear the imp! You would never think he was only five years old, would you, sir? Pleased to tell goodness to Fawley you saw him going on as nicely as ever, playing at being me, scouring the parlour floor and calling for my beer afterwards. That's his regular game, morning, noon and night. He's never tired of it. Only look how snug we've been and dressed him. That's my shawl, a keeping his precious little body warm, and Benjamin's nightcap, a keeping his precious little head warm, and Benjamin's stockings, drawed over his trousers, a keeping his precious little legs warm. He's snug and happy if ever an imp was yet. Where's my beer? Say it again, little dear, say it again. If Trottell had seen the boy with a light and a fire in the room, closed like other children and playing naturally with a top, or a box of soldiers, or a bouncing big India rubber ball, he might have been as cheerful under the circumstances as Benjamin's mother herself. But seeing the child reduced, as he could not help suspecting, for want of proper toys and proper child's company, to take up with the mocking of an old woman at her scouring work, for something to stand in the place of a game, Trottell, though not a family man, nevertheless felt the sight before him to be in its way one of the saddest and the most pitiable that he had ever witnessed. Why, my man, says he, you're the boldest little chap in all England. You don't seem a bit afraid of being up here all by yourself in the dark. The big winder, says the child, pointing up to it, sees in the dark, and I see with the big winder. He stops a bit and gets up on his legs and looks hard at Benjamin's mother. I'm a gooden, says he. Ain't I? I save candle. Trottell wondered what else the forlorn little creature had been brought up to do without, besides candle-light, and risked putting a question as to whether he ever got a run in the open air to cheer him up a bit. Oh, yes, he had a run now and then, out of doors, to say nothing of his runs about the house, the lively little cricket, a run according to good Mr. Forley's instructions, which were followed out carefully, as good Mr. Forley's friend would be glad to hear, to the very letter. As Trottell could only have made one reply to this, namely that good Mr. Forley's instructions were, in his opinion, the instructions of an infernal scamp, and as he felt that such an answer would naturally prove the death blow to all further discoveries on his part, he gulped down his feelings before they got too many for him, and held his tongue, and looked round towards the window again to see what the forlorn little boy was going to amuse himself with next. The child had gathered up his blacking brush and bit of rag, and had put them into the old tin saucepan, and was now working his way, as well as his clothes would let him, with his make-believe pale hugged up in his arms, towards a door of communication, which led from the back to the front garret. I'll say, says he, looking round sharply over his shoulder. What are you two stopping here for? I'm going to bed now, and so I'll tell you. With that he opened the door and walked into the front room. Seeing Trottell take a step or two to follow him, Benjamin's mother opened her wicked old eyes in a state of great astonishment. Mercy on us, says she. Haven't you seen enough of him yet? No, says Trottell. I should like to see him go to bed. Benjamin's mother burst into such a fit of chuckling that the loose extinguisher in the candlestick clattered again with the shaking of her hand. To think of good Mr. Forley's friend taking ten times more trouble about the imp than good Mr. Forley himself. Such a joke as that, Benjamin's mother had not often met with in the course of her life, and she begged to be excused if she took the liberty of having a laugh at it. Leaving her to laugh as much as she pleased, and coming to a pretty positive conclusion after what he had just heard, that Mr. Forley's interest in the child was not of the fondest possible kind, Trottell walked into the front room, and Benjamin's mother, enjoying herself immensely, followed with the candle. There were two pieces of furniture in the front garret, one an old stool of the sort that is used to stand a cask of beer on, and the other a great big rickety straddling old truckle bedstead. In the middle of this bedstead, surrounded by a dim brown waist of sacking, was a kind of little island of poor bedding, an old bolster with nearly all the feathers out of it doubled in three for a pillow, a mere shred of patchwork counterpane, and a blanket. And under that, and peeping out a little on either side beyond the loose clothes, two faded chair cushions of horsehair laid along together for a sort of makeshift mattress. When Trottell got into the room the lonely little boy had scrambled up on the bedstead with the help of the beer stool, and was kneeling on the outer rim of sacking with the shred of counterpane in his hands, just making ready to tuck it in for himself under the chair cushions. I'll tuck you up, my man, says Trottell, jump into bed and let me try. I mean to tuck myself up, says the poor forlorn child, and I don't mean to jump, I mean to crawl, I do, and so I tell you. With that he set to work, tucking in the clothes tight all down the sides of the cushions, but leaving them open at the foot. Then, getting up on his knees and looking hard at Trottell, as much as to say, What do you mean by offering to help such a handy little chap as me? He began to untie the big shawl for himself, and did it, too, in less than half a minute. Then, doubling the shawl up loose over the foot of the bed, he says, I'll say, look here! And ducks under the clothes head first, warming his way up and up softly under the blanket and counterpane, till Trottell saw the top of the large nightcap slowly peep out on the bolster. This oversized headgear of the child's had so shoved itself down in the course of his journey to the pillow under the clothes, that when he got his face fairly out on the bolster, he was all nightcap down to his mouth. He soon freed himself, however, from this slight encumbrance, by turning the ends of the cap up gravely to their old place over his eyebrows, looked at Trottell, said, Snug, ain't it? Goodbye! popped his face under the clothes again, and left nothing to be seen of him but the empty peak of the big nightcap, standing up sturdily on end in the middle of the bolster. What a young limmy he is, ain't it? says Benjamin's mother, giving Trottell a cheerful dig with her elbow. Come on, you won't see no more of him to-night! And so I tell you, sings out a shrill little voice under the bed clothes, chiming in with a playful finish to the old woman's last words. If Trottell had not been by this time positively resolved to follow the wicked secret which accident had mixed him up with through all its turnings and windings right on to the end, he would have probably snatched the boy up then and there, and carried him off from his garret prison, bed clothes and all. As it was, he put a strong check on himself, kept his eye on future possibilities, and allowed Benjamin's mother to lead him downstairs again. My then top bannisters, says she, as Trottell laid his hand on them, they're as rotten as meddle as every one of them. When people come to see the premises, says Trottell, trying to feel his way a little farther into the mystery of the house, you don't bring many of them up here, do you? Bless your art alive, says she, nobody ever comes now. The outside of the house is quite enough to warn them off. More so pity as I say, used to keep me in spirits, staggering them all one after another with the frightful eye-rent, especially the women, Dratum. What's the rent of this house? Hundred and twenty pound a year. Hundred and twenty? Why, they're into housing as street as lets for more than eighty. Lightly enough, ma'am, other landlords may lower their rents if they please, but this ear landlord sticks to his rights, and means to have as much for his house as his father had before him. But the neighbourhood's gone off since then. Hundred and twenty pound, ma'am. The landlord must be mad. Hundred and twenty pound, ma'am. Open the door, you impertinent woman. Lord, what happiness it was to see him bounce out with that awful rent a-ringing in their ears all down the street. She stopped on the second floor landing to treat herself to another chuckle, while Trottell privately posted up in his memory what he had just heard. Two points made out, he sought to himself. The house is kept empty on purpose, and the way it's done is to ask a rent that nobody will pay. Ah, dearie me, says Benjamin's mother, changing the subject on a sudden, and twisting back with a horrid, greedy quickness to those awkward money matters which she had broached down in the parlour. What we've done one way and another for Mr Fawley, it isn't in words to tell that nice little bit of business of ours ought to be a bigger bit of business, considering the trouble we take, Benjamin and me, to make the imp upstairs as happy as the day is long. If good Mr Fawley would only please to think a little more of what a deal he owes to Benjamin and me. That's just it, says Trottell, catching her up short in desperation and seeing his way by the help of those last words of hers to slipping cleverly through her fingers. What should you say if I told you that Mr Fawley was nothing like so far from thinking about that little matter as you fancy? You would be disappointed now if I told you that I had come to-day without the money? Her lank old jaw fell and her villainous old eyes glared in a perfect state of panic at that. But what should you say if I told you that Mr Fawley was only waiting for my report to send me here next Monday at dusk with a bigger bit of business for us two to do together than ever you think for? What should you say to that? The old wretch came so near to Trottell before she answered and jammed him up confidentially so close into the corner of the landing that his throat in a manner rose at her. Can you count it off, do you think, on more than that? says she, holding up her four skinny fingers and her long crooked thumb all of a tremble right before his face. What do you say to two hands instead of one? says he, pushing past her and getting downstairs as fast as he could. What she said, Trottell thinks it best not to report, seeing that the old hypocrite getting next door to light headed at the golden prospect before her, took such liberties with unearthly names and persons which ought never to have approached her lips, and rained down such an awful shower of blessings on Trottell's head that his hair almost stood on end to hear her. He went on downstairs as fast as his feet would carry him till he was brought up all standing, as the sailors say, on the last flight, by aggravating Benjamin, lying right across the stair and fallen off as might have been expected into a heavy drunken sleep. The sight of him instantly reminded Trottell of the curious half-likeness which he had already detected between the face of Benjamin and the face of another man whom he had seen at a past time in very different circumstances. He determined before leaving the house to have one more look at the wretched muddled creature, and accordingly shook him up smartly and propped him against the staircase wall before his mother could interfere. Leave him to me, I'll freshen him up, says Trottell to the old woman, looking hard in Benjamin's face while he spoke. The frightened surprise of being suddenly woke up seemed for about a quarter of a minute to sober the creature. When he first opened his eyes there was a new look in them for a moment which struck home to Trottell's memory, as quick and as clear as a flash of light. The old maudlin sleepy expression came back again in another instant and blurred out all further signs and tokens of the past, but Trottell had seen enough in the moment before it came, and he troubled Benjamin's face with no more inquiries. Next Monday at dusk, says he, cutting short some more of the old woman's palaver about Benjamin's indisgestion. I've got no more time to spare-marm to-night. Please, to let me out. With a last few blessings, a few last dutiful messages to good Mr. Fawley, and a few last friendly hints not to forget next Monday at dusk, Trottell contrived to struggle through the sickening business of leave-taking to get the door opened and to find himself to his own indescribable relief, once more on the outer side of the house-to-let. CHAPTER VI. LET AT LAST THEIR MOM," said Trottell, folding up the manuscript from which he had been reading, and setting it down with a smart tap of triumph on the table. May I venture to ask what you think of that plain statement as a guess on my part, and not on Mr. Jabba's, at the riddle of the empty house? For a minute or two I was unable to say a word. When I recovered a little, my first question referred to the poor for lawn, little boy. Today is Monday the twentieth, I said. Surely you have not let a whole week go by, without trying to find out something more? Except at bedtime and meals, Mom," answered Trottell, I have not let an hour go by. Pleased to understand that I have only come to an end of what I have written, and not to an end of what I have done. I wrote down those first particulars, Mom, because they are of great importance, and also because I was determined to come forward with my written documents, seeing that Mr. Jabba chose to come forward in the first instance with his. I am now ready to go on with the second part of my story, as shortly and plainly as possible, by word of mouth. The first thing I must clear up, if you please, is the matter of Mr. Forley's family affairs. I have heard you speak of the Mom at various times, and I have understood that Mr. Forley had two children only, by his deceased wife, both daughters. The eldest daughter married to her father's entire satisfaction, one Mr. Bain, a rich man holding a high government situation in Canada. She is now living there with her husband and her only child, a little girl of eight or nine years old. Right so far, I think, Mom? Quite right, I said. The second daughter, Trottle went on, and Mr. Forley's favourite, set her father's wishes and the opinions of the world at flat defiance, by running away with a man of low origin, a mate of a merchant vessel, named Kirkland. Mr. Forley not only never forgave that marriage, but vowed that he would visit the scandal of it heavily in the future on husband and wife. Both escaped his vengeance, whatever he meant it to be. The husband was drowned on his first voyage after his marriage, and the wife died in child's bed. Right again, I believe, Mom? Again, quite right! Having got the family matter all right, we will now go back, Mom, to me and my doings. Last Monday I asked you for leave of absence for two days. I employed the time in clearing up the matter of Benjamin's face. Last Saturday I was out of the way when you wanted me. I played truant, Mom, on that occasion, in company with a friend of mine, who is managing Clark in a lawyer's office, and we both spent the morning at Doctor's Commons over the last will and testament of Mr. Forley's father. Leaving the will business for a moment, please to follow me first, if you have no objection, into the ugly subject of Benjamin's face. About six or seven years ago, thanks to your kindness, I had a week's holiday with some friends of mine who live in the town of Pendlebury. One of those friends, the only one now left in the place, kept a chemist's shop, and in that shop I was made acquainted with one of the two doctors in the town, named Barsham. This Barsham was a first-rate surgeon, and might have got to the top of his profession if he had not been a first-rate blaggard. As it was he both drank and gambled, nobody would have anything to do with him in Pendlebury, and at the time when I was made known to him in the chemist's shop, the other doctor, Mr. Dix, who was not to be compared with him for surgical skill, but who was a respectable man, had got all the practice. And Barsham and his old mother were living together in such a condition of utter poverty, that it was a marvel to everybody how they kept out of the parish work-house. Benjamin and Benjamin's mother! Exactly mom. Last Thursday morning, thanks to your kindness again, I went to Pendlebury to my friend the chemist to ask a few questions about Barsham and his mother. I was told that they had both left the town about five years since. When I inquired into the circumstances, some strange particulars came out in the course of the chemist's answer. You know, I have no doubt, mom, that poor Mrs. Kirkland was confined while her husband was at sea in lodgings at a village called Flatfield, and that she died and was buried there. But what you may not know is that Flatfield is only three miles from Pendlebury, that the doctor who attended on Mrs. Kirkland was Barsham, that the nurse who took care of her was Barsham's mother, and that the person who called them both in was Mr. Foley. Whether his daughter wrote to him, or whether he heard of it in some other way, I don't know, but he was with her, though he had sworn never to see her again when she married, a month or more before her confinement, and was backwards and forwards a good deal between Flatfield and Pendlebury. How he managed matters with the Barshams cannot at present be discovered, but it is a fact that he contrived to keep the drunken doctor sober to everybody's amazement. It is a fact that Barsham went to the poor woman with all his wits about him. It is a fact that he and his mother came back from Flatfield after Mrs. Kirkland's death, packed up what few things they had, and left the town mysteriously by night. And lastly it is also a fact that the other doctor, Mr. Dix, was not called in to help till a week after the birth and burial of the child, when the mother was sinking from exhaustion. Exhaustion to give the vagabond Barsham his due, not produced, in Mr. Dix's opinion, by improper medical treatment, but by the bodily weakness of the poor woman herself. Burial of the child, I interrupted, trembling all over. Trottle, you spoke that word burial in a very strange way. You are fixing your eyes on me now with a very strange look. Trottle leaned over close to me and pointed through the window to the empty house. The child's death is registered at Pendlebury, he said, on Barsham's certificate, under the head of male infant stillborn. The child's coffin lies in the mother's grave in Flatfield churchyard. The child himself, as surely as I live and breathe, is living and breathing now a castaway and a prisoner in that villainous house. I sank back in my chair. It's guesswork so far, but it is borne in on my mind for all that as truth. Rouse yourself, Mum, and think a little. The last I hear of Barsham he is attending Mr. Folly's disobedient daughter. The next I see of Barsham he is in Mr. Folly's house, trusted with a secret. He and his mother leave Pendlebury suddenly and suspiciously five years back, and he and his mother have got a child of five years old hidden away in the house. Wait! Please, to wait! I have not done yet. The will left by Mr. Folly's father strengthens the suspicion. The friend I took with me to Doctor's Commons made himself master of the contents of that will, and when he had done so I put these two questions to him. Can Mr. Folly leave his money at his own discretion to anybody he pleases? No, my friend says. His father has left him with only a life interest in it. Suppose one of Mr. Folly's marriage daughters has a girl and the other a boy, how would the money go? It would all go, my friend says, to the boy, and it would be charged with the payment of a certain annual income to his female cousin. After her death it would go back to the male descendant and to his heirs. Consider that, ma'am. The child of the daughter whom Mr. Folly hates, whose husband has been snatched away from his vengeance by death, takes his whole property in defiance of him, and the child of the daughter whom he loves is left a pensioner on her low-born boy cousin for life. There was good, too good reason why that child of Mrs. Kirkland's should be registered stillborn. And if, as I believe, the register is founded on a false certificate, there is better, still better, reason why the existence of the child should be hidden and all trace of his parentage blotted out in the garret of that empty house. He stopped and pointed for the second time to the dim, dust-covered garret windows opposite. As he did so I was startled, a very slight matter suffice to frighten me now, by a knock at the door of the room in which we were sitting. My maid came in with a letter in her hand. I took it from her. The morning card, which was all the envelope enclosed, dropped from my hands. George Folly was no more. He had departed this life three days since, on the evening of Friday. Did our last chance of discovering the truth, I asked, rest with him? Has it died with his death? Courage, Mom, I think not. Our chance rests on our power to make Barsham and his mother confess. And Mr. Folly's death, by leaving them helpless, seems to put that power into our hands. With your permission I will not wait till dusk to-day, as I at first intended, but will make sure of those two people at once. With a policeman in plain clothes to watch the house, in case they try to leave it, with this card to vouch for the fact of Mr. Folly's death, and with a bold acknowledgement on my part of having got possession of their secret and of being ready to use it against them in case of need, I think there is little doubt of bringing Barsham and his mother to terms. In case I find it impossible to get back here before dusk, please to sit near the window-marm, and watch the house a little before they light the street-lamps. If you see the front door open and close again, will you be good enough to put on your bonnet and come across to me immediately? Mr. Folly's death may or may not prevent his messenger from coming as arranged, but if the person does come, it is of importance that you, as a relative of Mr. Folly's, should be present to see him, and to have that proper influence over him, which I cannot pretend to exercise. The only words I could say to Trottle as he opened the door and left me, were words charging him to take care that no harm happened to the poor, full-lawn little boy. Left alone, I drew my chair to the window, and looked out with a beating heart at the guilty house. I waited and waited through what appeared to me to be an endless time, until I heard the wheels of a cab stop at the end of the street. I looked in that direction and saw Trottle get out of the cab alone, walk up to the house, and knock at the door. He was let in by Barsham's mother. A minute or two later a decently dressed man sauntered past the house, looked up at it for a moment, and sauntered on to the corner of the street close by. Here he lent against the post and lighted a cigar, and stopped there smoking in an idle way, but keeping his face always turned in the direction of the house door. I waited and waited still. I waited and waited with my eyes riveted to the door of the house. At last I thought I saw it open in the dusk, and then felt sure I heard it shut again, softly. Though I tried hard to compose myself, I trembled so that I was obliged to call for Peggy to help me on with my bonnet and cloak, and was forced to take her arm to lean on in crossing the street. Trottle opened the door to us before we could knock. Peggy went back and I went in. He had a lighted candle in his hand. It has happened, ma'am, as I thought it would, he whispered, leading me into the bare, comfortless empty parlour. Barsham and his mother have consulted their own interests, and have come to terms. My guesswork is guesswork no longer. It is now what I felt it was—truth. Something strange to me, something which women who are mothers must often know, trembled suddenly in my heart, and brought the warm tears of my youthful days thronging back into my eyes. I took my faithful old servant by the hand, and asked him to let me see Mrs. Kirkland's child for his mother's sake. If you desire it, ma'am, said Trottle, with a gentleness of manner that I had never noticed in him before. But pray, don't think me wanting in duty and right feeling, if I beg you to try and wait a little. You are agitated already, and a first meeting with the child will not help to make you so calm as you would wish to be if Mr. Fawley's messenger comes. The little boy is safe upstairs. Pray, think first of trying to compose yourself for a meeting with a stranger, and believe me, you shall not leave the house afterwards without the child. I felt that Trottle was right, and sat down as patiently as I could in a chair he had thoughtfully placed ready for me. I was so horrified at the discovery of my own relation's wickedness, that when Trottle proposed to make me acquainted with the confession rung from Barsham and his mother, I begged him to spare me all details, and only to tell me what was necessary about George Fawley. All that can be said for Mr. Fawley, ma'am, is that he was just scrupulous enough to hide the child's existence, and blot out its parentage here, instead of consenting at the first to its death or afterwards when the boy grew up, to turning him adrift absolutely helpless in the world. The fraud has been managed, ma'am, with the cunning of Satan himself. Mr. Fawley had the hold over the Barshams that they had helped him in his villainy, and that they were dependent on him for the bread they eat. He had brought them up to London to keep them securely under his own eye. He put them into this empty house, taking it out of the agent's hands previously on pretense that he meant to manage the letting of it himself, and by keeping the house empty made it the surest of all hiding places for the child. Here Mr. Fawley could come whenever he pleased to see that the poor lonely child was not absolutely starved, sure that his visits would only appear like looking after his own property. Here the child was to have been trained to believe himself Barshams' child, till he should be old enough to be provided for in some situation as low and as poor as Mr. Fawley's uneasy conscience would let him pick out. He may have thought of atonement on his deathbed, but not before. I am only too certain of it, not before. A low double-knock startled us. The messenger said trottle under his breath. He went out instantly to answer the knock, and returned, leading in a respectable-looking elderly man, dressed like trottle all in black, with a white cravat, but otherwise not at all resembling him. I am afraid I have made some mistake, said the stranger. Trottle, considerably taking the office of explanation into his own hands, assured the gentleman that there was no mistake, mentioned to him who I was, and asked him if he had not come on business connected with the late Mr. Fawley. Looking greatly astonished, the gentleman answered, Yes! There was an awkward moment of silence after that. The stranger seemed to be not only startled and amazed, but rather distrustful and fearful of committing himself as well. Noticing this, I thought it best to request trottle to put an end to further embarrassment by stating all particulars truthfully as he had stated them to me, and I begged the gentleman to listen patiently for the late Mr. Fawley's sake. He bowed to me very respectfully, and said he was prepared to listen with the greatest interest. It was evident to me, and I could see to trottle also, that we were not dealing to say the least with a dishonest man. Before I offer any opinion on what I have heard, he said earnestly and anxiously after trottle had done, I must be allowed injustice to myself to explain my own apparent connection with this very strange and very shocking business. I was the confidential legal advisor of the late Mr. Fawley, and I am left his executor. Rather more than a fortnight back, when Mr. Fawley was confined to his room by illness, he sent for me, and charged me to call and pay a certain sum of money here, to a man and woman whom I should find taking charge of the house. He said he had reasons for wishing the affair to be kept a secret. He begged me so to arrange my engagements that I could call at this place either on Monday last or to-day at dusk, and he mentioned that he would write to warn the people of my coming without mentioning my name. Dolcott is my name, as he did not wish to expose me to any future importunities on the part of the man and woman. I need hardly tell you that this commission struck me as being a strange one, but in my position with Mr. Fawley I had no resource but to accept it without asking questions, or to break off my long and friendly connection with my client. I chose the first alternative. Business prevented me from doing my errand on Monday last, and if I am here to-day, notwithstanding Mr. Fawley's unexpected death, it is emphatically because I understood nothing of the matter on knocking at this door, and therefore felt myself bound as executor to clear it up. That, on my word of honour, is the whole truth so far as I am personally concerned. I feel quite sure of it, sir, I answered. You mentioned Mr. Fawley's death just now as unexpected. May I inquire if you were present, and if he has left any last instructions? Three hours before Mr. Fawley's death, said Mr. Dolcott, his medical attendant left him apparently in a fair way of recovery. The change for the worse took place so suddenly, and was accompanied by such severe suffering to prevent him from communicating his last wishes to any one. When I reached his house he was insensible. I have since examined his papers not one of them refers to the present time, or to the serious matter which now occupies us. In the absence of instructions I must act cautiously on what you have told me, but I will be rigidly fair and just at the same time. The first thing to be done, he continued, addressing himself to trottle, is to hear what the man and woman downstairs have to say. If you can supply me with writing materials, I will take their declaration separately on the spot, in your presence, and in the presence of the policeman who is watching the house. Tomorrow I will send copies of those declarations, accompanied by a full statement of the case, to Mr. and Mrs. Bain in Canada, both of whom know me well as the late Mr. Fawley's legal adviser. And I will suspend all proceedings on my part, until I hear from them or from their solicitor in London. In the present posture of affairs this is all I can safely do. We could do no less than agree with him, and thank him for his frank and honest manner of meeting us. It was arranged that I should send over the writing materials from my lodgings, and, to my unutterable joy and relief, it was also readily acknowledged that the poor little orphan boy could find no fitter refuge than my old arms were longing to offer him, and no safer protection for the night than my roof could give. Trottle hastened away upstairs, as actively as if he had been a young man, to fetch the child down. And he brought him down to me without another moment of delay, and I went on my knees before the poor little might, and embraced him, and asked him if he would go with me to where I lived. He held me away for a moment, and his one shrewd little eyes looked sharp at me. Then he clung close to me all at once and said, I'm a-going along with you, I am, and so I tell you. For inspiring the poor neglected child with this trust in my old self, I thanked heaven then, with all my heart and soul, and I thank it now. I bundled the poor darling up in my own cloak, and I carried him in my own arms across the road. Peggy was lost in speechless amazement, to behold me trudging out of breath upstairs, with a strange pair of poor little legs under my arm. But she began to cry over the child the moment she saw him, like a sensible woman as she always was, and she still cried her eyes out over him in a comfortable manner, when he at last lay fast asleep, tucked up by my hands in Trottle's bed. And Trottle, bless you, my dear man, said I, kissing his hand as he looked on. The forlorn baby came to this refuge through you, and he will help you on your way to heaven. Trottle answered that I was his dear mistress, and immediately went and put his head out at an open window on the landing, and looked into the back street for a quarter of an hour. That very night as I sat thinking of the poor child, and of another poor child, who is never to be thought about enough at Christmas time, the idea came into my mind which I have lived to execute, and in the realisation of which I am the happiest of women this day. The executor will sell that house, Trottle, said I. Not a doubt of it, ma'am, if he can find a purchaser. I'll buy it. I have often seen Trottle pleased, but I never saw him so perfectly enchanted as he was when I confided to him, which I did then and there, the purpose that I had in view. To make short of a long story, and what story would not be long coming from the lips of an old woman like me unless it was made short by main force, I bought the house. Mrs. Bain had her father's blood in her. She evaded the opportunity of forgiving and generous reparation that was offered her, and disowned the child. But I was prepared for that, and loved him all the more for having no one in the world to look to, but me. I am getting into a flurry by being over-pleased, and I dare say I am as incoherent as need be. I bought the house, and I altered it from the basement to the roof, and I turned it into a hospital for sick children. Never mind by what degrees my little adopted boy came to the knowledge of all the sights and sounds in the streets, so familiar to other children, and so strange to him. Never mind by what degrees he came to be pretty, and childish, and winning, and companionable, and to have pictures and toys about him, and suitable playmates. As I write, I look across the road to my hospital, and there is the darling, who has gone over to play, nodding at me out of one of the once lonely windows, with his dear chubby face backed up by Trottle's waistcoat, as he lifts my pet for Grandma to see. Many an eye I see in that house now, but it is never in solitude, never in neglect. Many an eye I see in that house now, that is more and more radiant every day with the light of returning health. As my precious darling has changed beyond description for the brighter and the better, so do the not less precious darlings of poor women change in that house every day in the year, for which I humbly thank that gracious being whom the restorer of the widow's son and of the ruler's daughter instructed all mankind to call their father.