 8 Margaret's debut as a public singer. Still gently with them they have much endured, scoff not at their fond hopes and earnest plans, though they may seem to thee wild dreams and fancies. Perchance in the rough school of stern experience they've something learned which theory does not teach. Or if they greatly err, deal gently still, and let their error but the stronger plead give us the light and guidance that we need. Love Thoughts One Sunday afternoon, about three weeks after that mournful night, Jem Wilson set out with the ostensible purpose of calling on John Barton. He was dressed in his best, his Sunday suit, of course, while his face glittered with the scrubbing he had bestowed on it. His dark black hair had been arranged and rearranged before the household looking-glass, and in his buttonhole he stuck a Narcissus, a sweet Nancy as its pretty Lancashire name, hoping it would attract Mary's notice so that he might have the delight of giving it her. It was a bad beginning of his visit of happiness that Mary saw him some minutes before he came into her father's house. She was sitting at the end of the dresser with the little window-blind drawn on one side in order that she might see the passers-by in the intervals of reading her Bible which lay open before her. So she watched all the greeting a friend gave Jem. She saw the face of condolence, the sympathetic shake of the hand, and had time to arrange her own face and manner before Jem came in, which he did as if he had eyes for no one but her father, who sat smoking his pipe by the fire, while he read an old northern star borrowed from a neighbouring public house. Then he turned to Mary, who he felt through the sure instinct of love by which almost his body thought was present. Her hands were busy adjusting her dress, a forced and unnecessary movement Jem could not help thinking. Her accost was quiet and friendly, if grave. She felt that she readened like a rose and wished she could prevent it, while Jem wondered if her blushes arose from fear or anger or love. She was very cunning, I am afraid. She pretended to read diligently and not to listen to a word that was said, while in fact she heard all sounds, even to Jem's long, deep sighs which wrung her heart. At last she took up her Bible, and as if their conversation disturbed her went upstairs to her little room, and she had scarcely spoken a word to Jem, scarcely looked at him, never noticed his beautiful sweet Nancy which only awaited her least word of praise to be hers. He did not know, that pang was spared, that in her little dingy bedroom stood a white jug, filled with a luxuriant bunch of early spring roses, making the whole room fragrant and bright. They were the gift of her richer lover. So Jem had to go on sitting with John Barton, fairly caught in his own trap, and had to listen to his talk and answer him as best he might. There's the right stuff in this here star, and no mistake, such a write-down piece for short hours. At the same rate of wages as now, asked Jem, I, I, else where's the use? It's only taken out of the master's pocket what they can well afford. Did I ever tell you what the infirmary chap let me into, many a year ago? No, said Jem, listlessly. Well, you must know, I were in the infirmary for a fever, and times were rare and bad, and there'd be good chaps there to a man while he's wick, whatever they may be about cutting him up at after. So when I were better of the fever but weak is water, they says to me, says they, If you can write, you may stay in a week longer, and help our surgeon with sorting his papers, and we'll take care of you if you're belly full of meat and drink, you'll be twice as strong in a week. So they wanted but one word to that bargain, so I was set to writing and copying the writing I could do well enough, but they'd such queer ways of spelling that I'd never been used to, that I'd to look first at the copy and then at my letters for all the world like a cock picking up grains of corn, but one thing startled me even then, and I thought I'd make bold to ask the surgeon the meaning of it. I've gotten no head for numbers, but this I know, that by far the greater part of the accidents has come in, happened in the last two hours of work, when folk getting tired and careless, the surgeon said it were all true, and that he were going to bring that fact to light. Jem was pondering Mary's conduct, but the pause made him aware he ought to utter some civil listening noise, so he said, very true. Aye, it's true enough, my lad, that we're sadly over-born and worse will come of it a forelong. Block printers is going to strike, they ain't gettin' a bang up union, as won't let them be put upon. But there's many a thing will happen a forelong as folk don't expect, you may take my word for that, Jem. Jem was very willing to take it, but did not express the curiosity he should have done, so John Barton thought he'd try another hint or two. Workin' folk won't be ground to the dust much longer. Weenah had as much to bear as human nature can bear, so if the masters can't do us no good, and they say they can't, weenah try hire folk. Still Jem was not curious. He gave up hope of seeing Mary again by her own good free will, and the next best thing would be to be alone, to think of her. So muttering something which he meant to serve as an excuse for his sudden departure, he hastily wished John good afternoon, and left him to resume his pipe and his politics. For three years past trade had been getting worse and worse, and the price of provisions higher and higher. This disparity between the amount of the earnings of the working classes and the price of their food, occasioned in more cases than could well be imagined disease and death. Whole families went through a gradual starvation. They only wanted a Dante to record their sufferings, and yet even his words would fall short of the awful truth. They could only present an outline of the tremendous facts of the destitution that surrounded thousands upon thousands in the terrible years 1839, 1840, and 1841. Even philanthropists who had studied the subject were forced to own themselves perplexed in their endeavor to ascertain the real causes of the misery. The whole matter was of so complicated a nature that it became next to impossible to understand it thoroughly. It need excite, no surprise then, to learn that a bad feeling between working men and the upper classes became very strong in this season of privation. The indigence and sufferings of the operatives induced a suspicion in the minds of many of them that their legislators, their magistrates, their employers, and even their ministers of religion were in general their oppressors and enemies, and were in league for their prostration and enthralment. The most deplorable and enduring evil that arose out of the period of commercial depression, to which I refer, was this feeling of alienation between the different classes of society. It is so impossible to describe, or even faintly to picture, the state of distress which prevailed in the town at that time that I will not attempt it. And yet I think again that surely, in a Christian land, it was not known even so feebly as words could tell it, or the more happy and fortunate would have thronged with their sympathy and their aid. In many instances the sufferers wept first, and then they cursed. Their vindictive feelings exhibited themselves in rabid politics. And when I hear, as I have heard, of the sufferings and privations of the poor, of provision shops where haphors of tea, sugar, butter, and even flour were sold to accommodate the indigent, of parents sitting in their clothes by the fireside during the whole night for seven weeks together, in order that their only bed and bedding might be reserved for the use of their large family. Of others sleeping upon the cold hearthstone for weeks in succession without adequate means of providing themselves with fooboot or fuel, and this in the depth of winter. Of others being compelled to fast for days together, uncheered by any hope of better fortune, living moreover or rather starving in a crowded garret or damp cellar, and gradually sinking under the pressure of want and despair into a premature grave. And when this has been confirmed by the evidence of their care-worn looks, their excited feelings and their desolate homes, can I wonder that many of them in such times of misery and destitution spoke and acted with ferocious precipitation. An idea was now springing up among the operatives that originated with the Chartists, but which came at last to be cherished as a darling child by many and many a one. They could not believe that government knew of their misery. They rather chose to think it possible that men could voluntarily assume the office of legislators for a nation who were ignorant of its real state, as who should make domestic rules for the pretty behaviour of children without caring to know that those children had been kept for days without food. Besides, the starving multitudes had heard that the very existence of their distress had been denied in Parliament, and though they felt this strange and inexplicable, yet the idea that their misery had still to be revealed in all its depths, and that then some remedy would be found soothed their aching hearts and kept down their rising fury. So a petition was framed and signed by thousands in the bright spring days of 1839 imploring Parliament to hear witnesses who could testify to the unparalleled destitution of the manufacturing districts. Nottingham, Sheffield, Glasgow, Manchester, and many other towns were busy appointing delegates to convey this petition, who might speak not merely of what they had seen and had heard, but from what they had borne and suffered. Life-worn, gaunt, anxious, hunger-stamped men were those delegates. One of them was John Barton. He would have been ashamed to own the flutter of spirits his appointment gave him. There was the childish delight of seeing London. That went a little way and but a little way. There was the vain idea of speaking out his notions before so many grand folk. That went a little further. And last there was the really pure gladness of heart arising from the idea that he was one of the chosen to be instruments in making known the distresses of the people and consequently in procuring them some grand relief by means of which they should never suffer want or care anymore. He hoped largely, but vaguely, of the results of his expedition. An argosy of the precious hopes of many otherwise sparing creatures was that petition to be heard concerning their sufferings. The night before the morning on which the Manchester delegates were to leave for London Barton might be said to hold a levy so many neighbours came dropping in. Jobly had early established himself and his pipe by John Barton's fire, not saying much, but puffing away and imagining himself of use in adjusting the smoothing irons that hung before the fire, ready for Mary when she should want them. As for Mary, her employment was the same as that of Bo Tibbs' wife, just washing her father's two shirts in the pantry back kitchen, for she was anxious about his appearance in London. The coat had been redeemed, though the silk handkerchief was forfeited. The door stood open as usual between the house-place and back kitchen, so she gave her greeting to their friends as they entered. So, John, you're bound for London, are you? said one. I suppose I'm in go answer, John, yielding to necessity, as it were. Well, there's many a thing I'd like you to speak on to the Parliament people. Well, not spare them, John, I hope. Tell them our minds. How we're thinking we'd been clemmed long enough, and we do not see what in good they've been doing, if they can't give us what we are all crying for since the day we were born. I'll tell them that, and much more to it, when it gets to my turn. But thou knows there's many will have their word for me. Well, thou'llt speak at last, lest the lad do ask him to make the masters to break the machines. There's never been good time since Spin and Jenny's came up. Machines is the ruin of poor folk, chimed in several voices. For my part, said a shivering, half-clad man, who crept near the fire as if augs-tricken. I would like thee to tell him to pass the short hours, Bill. Flesh and blood gets wearied with so much orc. Why should factory hands work so much longer nor other trades? Just ask him that, Barton, will ye? Barton was saved the necessity of answering by the entrance of Mrs. Davenport, the poor widow he had been so kind to. She looked half-fed and eager, but was decently clad. In her hand she brought a little newspaper parcel, which she took to Mary, who opened it, and then called out, dangling a shirt-collar from her soapy fingers. See, Father, what a dandy you'll be in London! Mrs. Davenport has brought you this, made new cut all after the fashion. Thank you for thinking of him. Hey, Mary, said Mrs. Davenport in a low voice. What is all I can do to what he's done for me and mine? But Mary, sure I can help ye, for you'll be busy with this journey. Just help me ring these out, and then I'll take them to the mangle. So Mrs. Davenport became a listener to the conversation, and after a while joined in. I'm sure, John Barton, if you are taking messages to the Parliament folk, you'll not object to telling them what a sore trial it is, this law there's, keeping children for factory work, whether they be weakly or strong. There's our Ben, why porridge seems to go no way with him he eats so much, and I ain't gotten no money to send him to school as I would like. And there he is, rampaging about the streets a day, getting hungrier and hungrier, and picking up a manner of bad ways, and the Inspector won't let him in to work in the factory, because he's not right age, though he's twice as strong as Sanky's little rippling of a lad, as works till he cries for his legs aching so, though he's right age and better. I have one plan I wish to tell John Barton, said a pompous, careful speaking man, and I should like him to lay it afford the honourable house. My mother, come down of Oxfordshire, and were under laundry maid in Sir Francis Dashwood's family, and when we were little ones she'd tell us stories of their grandeur, and one thing she named were that Sir Francis wore two shirts a day. Now he were all as one as a Parliament man, and many on him I have no doubt are like extravagant. Just tell him, John, do, that they'd be doing Lancashire weavers of great kindness, if they'd have their shirts made a calico, to make trade brisk that wood with the power of shirts they wear. Jobly now put in his word, taking the pipe out of his mouth, and addressing the last speaker he said, I'll tell you what, Bill, and no offence, mind ye, there's but hundreds of them Parliament folk is wear so many shirts to their back, but there's thousands and thousands of poor weavers as had gotten only one shirt in the world, I, and don't know where to get another when that rags done. Though there turning out miles a calico every day, and many a mile of it, is lying in a warehouse, stopping up trade for want of purchasers. You take my advice, John Barton, and ask Parliament to set trade free, so his workmen can earn a decent wage, and buy there too, I in three shirts a year, that would make weaving brisk. He put his pipe in his mouth again, and redoubled his puffing to make up for lost time. I'm a feared neighbor, said John Barton, I've not much chance of telling them all ye say. What I think on is just speaking out about the distress that they say is not. When they hear of children born on wet flags, without a rag to cover them, or a bit of food for the mother, when they hear of folk lying down to die in the streets, or hiding their want in some hole of a cellar till death come to set them free, and when they hear of all this plague, pestilence, and famine, they'll surely do somewhat wiser for us than we can guess at now. However, I have no objection, if so be there is an opening, to speak up for what ye say. Anyhow, I'll do my best, and ye see now if better times don't come after Parliament knows all. Some shook their heads, but more looked cheery, and then one by one dropped off, leaving John and his daughter alone. Didst thou mark how poorly Jane Wilson looked, asked he, as they wound up their hard day's work, by a supper eaten over the fire, which glowed and glimmered through the room and formed their only light? No, I can't say as I did, but she's never rightly held up her head since the twins died, and all along she has never been a strong woman. Never seen her accident, before that I mined her look in as fresh and likely a girl as ever a one in Manchester. What accident, Father! She caught her sight again a wheel. It were four wheels were boxed up. It were just when she were to have been married, and many one thought George would have been off his bargain, but I knew he weren't the chap for that trick. Pretty near the first place she went to, when she were able to go about again, was the old church. Poor wench, all pale and limping. She went up the aisle, George holding her as tender as a mother and walking as so as ever he could, not to hurry her. Though there were plenty and now of rude lads to cast their jests at him and her. Her face were white like a sheet when she came in the church, but before she got to the altar she were all one flush. But for all that it's been a happy marriage, and George has stuck by me through life like a brother. He'll never hold his head up again if he loses Jane. I didn't like her looks tonight. And so he went to bed, the fear of forthcoming sorrow to his friend mingling with his thoughts of tomorrow and his hopes for the future. Mary watched him set off with her hands over her eyes to shade them from the bright slanting rays of the morning sun, and then she turned into the house to arrange its disorder before going to her work. She wondered if she should like or dislike the evening in morning solitude, for several hours when the clock struck she thought of her father, and wondered where he was. She made good resolutions according to her lights, and by and by came the distractions and events of the broad full day to occupy her with the present and to deaden the memory of the absent. One of Mary's resolutions was that she would not be persuaded or induced to see Mr. Harry Carson during her father's absence. There was something crooked in her conscience after all for this very resolution seemed an acknowledgment that it was wrong to meet him at any time. And yet she had brought herself to think her conduct quite innocent and proper, for although unknown to her father, and certain even did he know it, to fail of obtaining his sanction she esteemed her love meetings with Mr. Carson as sure to end in her father's good and happiness. But now that he was away she would do nothing that he would disapprove of. No, not even though it was for his own good in the end. Now among Miss Simmons young ladies was one who had been from the beginning a confidant in Mary's love affair, made so by Mr. Carson himself. He had felt the necessity of some third person to carry letters and messages, and to plead his cause when he was absent. In a girl named Sally Ledbitter he had found a willing advocate. She would have been willing to have embarked in a love affair herself especially a clandestine one for the mere excitement of the thing, but her willingness was strengthened by the sundry half-sovereance which from time to time Mr. Carson bestowed upon her. Sally Ledbitter was vulgar-minded to the last degree. Never easy unless her talk was of love and lovers. In her eyes it was an honour to have had a long list of lovers. So constituted it was a pity that Sally herself was but a plain red-haired freckled girl. Never likely one would have thought to become a heroine on her own account. But what she lacked in beauty she tried to make up for by a kind of witty boldness which gave her what her betters would have called peacency. Considerations of modesty or propriety never checked her utterance of a good thing. She had just talent enough to corrupt others. Her very good nature was an evil influence. They could not hate one who was so kind. They could not avoid one who was so willing to shield them from scrapes by any exertion of her own, whose ready fingers would at any time make up for their deficiencies, and whose still more convenient tongue would at any time invent for them. The Jews or Mohammedans, which I forget which, believe that there is one little bone of our body, one of the vertebrae if I remember rightly, which will never decay and turn to dust, but will lie in corrupt and indestructible in the ground until the last day. This is the seed of the soul. The most depraved have also their seed of the holiness that shall one day overcome their evil, their one good quality lurking hidden but safe among all the corrupt and bad. The only seed of the future soul was her love for her mother, an aged bed-ridden woman. For her she had self-denial. For her her good nature rose into tenderness, to cheer her lonely bed. Her spirits in the evenings when her body was often woefully tired never flagged, but were ready to recount the events of the day, to turn them into ridicule and to mimic with admirable fidelity. Any person gifted with an absurdity who had fallen under her keen eye. But the mother was lightly principled like Sally herself. Nor was there need to conceal from her the reason why Mr. Carson gave her so much money. She chuckled with pleasure and only hoped that the wooing would be long-doing. Still, neither she nor her daughter nor Harry Carson liked this resolution of Mary not to see him during her father's absence. One evening, and the early summer evenings were long and bright now, Sally met Mr. Carson by appointment to be charged with a letter from Mary imploring her to see him, which Sally was to back with all her powers of persuasion. After parting from him she determined as it was not so very late to go at once to Mary's and deliver the message and letter. She found Mary in great sorrow. She had just heard of George Wilson's sudden death. Her old friend, her father's friend, Jem's father. All his claims came rushing upon her, though not guarded from a necessary sight or sound of death as the children of the rich are, yet it had so often been brought home to her this last three or four months. It was so terrible thus to see friend after friend depart. Her father, too, who had dreaded Jane Wilson's death the evening before he set off, and she, the weekly, was left behind while the strong man was taken. At any rate the sorrow her father had so feared for him was spared. Such were the thoughts which came over her. She could not go to comfort the bereaved, even if comfort were in her power to give, for she had resolved to avoid Jem, and she felt that this of all others was not the occasion on which she should keep up a studiously cold manner. And in this shock of grief Sally Ledbitter was the last person she wished to see. However she rose to welcome her, betraying her tear-swollen face. Well, I shall tell Mr. Carson to-morrow how you are fretting for him. It's no more, nor he's doing for you, I can tell you. For him, indeed, said Mary, with a toss of her pretty head. I miss for him. You've been sighing as if your heart would break now for several days over your work. Now aren't you a little goose not to go and see one, who I am sure loves you as his life, and whom you love? How much, Mary? This much, as the children say, opening her arms very wide. Nonsense, said Mary, pouting. Often think I don't love him at all. And I'm to tell him that, am I, next time I see him, asked Sally. If you like, replied Mary. I'm sure I don't care for that or anything else now. Weeping afresh. But Sally did not like to be the bearer of any such news. She saw she had gone on the wrong tack, and that Mary's heart was too full to value either message or letter as she ought. So she wisely paused in their delivery and said in a more sympathetic tone than she had hitherto used. Do tell me, Mary, what's fretting you so? You know I never could abide to see you cry. George Wilson's drop down dead this afternoon, said Mary, fixing her eyes for one minute on Sally, and the next hiding her face in her apron as she sobbed anew. Dear, dear, all flesh is grass, here to-day and gone to-morrow, as the Bible says. Still, he was an old man, and not good for much. There's better folk than him left behind. Is the canting old maid, as was his sister, alive yet? I don't know who you mean, said Mary sharply, for she did know, and did not like to have her dear, simple Alice so spoken of. Come, Mary, don't be so innocent. Is Miss Alice Wilson alive, then? Will that please you? I haven't seen her here about lately. No, she's left living here. When the twins died she thought she could maybe be of use to her sister, who was sadly cast down, and Alice thought she could cheer her up. At any rate she could listen to her when her heart grew overburdened, and she gave up her cellar, and went to live with them. Well, good go with her. I'd know fancy for her, and I'd know fancy for her making my pretty Mary into a methady. She wasn't a methady. She was Church of England. Well, well, Mary, you're very particular. You know what I meant. Look who is this letter from, holding up Henry Carson's letter. I don't know and don't care, said Mary, turning very red. My eyes, if I didn't know, you did know and did care. Well, give it me, said Mary, impatiently, and anxious in her present mood for her visitor's departure. Sally relinquished it unwillingly. She had, however, the pleasure of seeing Mary dimple and blush as she read the letter, which seemed to say the writer was not indifferent to her. You must tell him I can't come, said Mary, raising her eyes at last. I have said I won't meet him while Father is away, and I won't. But Mary, he does so look for you. You'd be quite sorry for him. He's so put out about not seeing you. Besides, you go when your father's at home without letting on to him, and what harm would there be in going now? Well, Sally, you know my answer. I won't. And I won't. I'll tell him to come and see you himself some evening instead of sending me. He'd maybe find you not so hard to deal with. Mary flashed up. If he dares come here while Father's away, I'll call the neighbors in to turn him out, so don't be putting him up to that. Mercy on us! One would think you were the first girl that ever had a lover. Have you never heard what other girls do and think no shame of? Hush, Sally! That's Margaret Jennings at the door. And in an instant Margaret was in the room. Mary had begged Jobley to let her come and sleep with her. In the uncertain firelight you could not help noticing that she had the groping walk of a blind person. Well I must go, Mary, said Sally. And that's your last word? Yes, yes, good night. She shut the door gladly on her unwelcome visitor. Unwelcome at that time, at least. Oh, Margaret, have you heard the sad news about George Wilson? Yes, that I have. Poor creatures. They've been so tried lately. Not that I think sudden death's so bad a thing. It's easy. And there's no terrors for him as dies. For them as survives it's very hard. Oh, George, he was such a hearty-looking man. Margaret, said Mary, who had been closely observing her friend. Thou art very blind to tonight art, though. Is it with crying your eyes are so swollen and red? Yes, dear, but not crying for sorrow. And he heard where I was last night. No, where? Look here, she held up a bright golden sovereign. Mary opened her large gray eyes with astonishment. I'll tell you all and how about it. You see, there's a gentleman lecturing on the music at the mechanics, and he wants folk to sing his songs. Well, last night the counter got a sore throat and couldn't make a note, so they sent for me. Jacob Butterworth had said a good word for me, and they asked me what I sing. You may think I was frightened, but I thought now or never, and said I'd do my best. So I tried or the songs with the lecturer, and then the managers told me I would make myself decent and be there by seven. And what did you put on, asked Mary, oh, why didn't you come in for my pretty pink gingham? I did think on it, but you had not come home then. No, I put on my merino, as was turned last winter, and my white shawl, and did my hair pretty tidy. It did well enough. Well, but as I was saying, I went at seven. I couldn't see to read my music, but I took the paper in with me, so I had something to do with my fingers. The folk's heads danced, as I stood as right a forum all, as if I'd been going to play at ball with them. You may guess I felt squeamish, but mine weren't the first song, and the music sounded like a friend's voice telling me to take courage. So to make a long story short, when it were all over, the lecturer thanked me, and the manager said as how there never was a new singer so applauded, for they clapped and stamped after I'd done, till I began to wonder how many parachutes they'd get through a week at that rate, let alone their hands. So I am to sing again on Thursday, and I got a sovereign last night, and am to have half a sovereign every night the lecturer is at the mechanics. Well, Margaret, I'm right glad to hear it. And I don't think you've heard the best bit yet. Now that a way seemed open to me of not being a burden to any one, though it did please God to make me blind, I thought I'd tell grandfather. I only told him about the singing and the sovereign last night, for I thought I'd not send him to bed with a heavy heart. But this morning I told him all. And how did he take it? He's not a man of many words, and it took him by surprise like. I wonder at that. I've noticed it in your ways ever since you've told me. Aye, that's it. If I'd not told you, and you'd seen me every day, you'd not have noticed the little might of difference from day to day. Well, but what did your grandfather say? Why, Mary, said Margaret, half-smiling. I'm a bit loath to tell you, for unless you knew grandfather's ways like me, you'd think it's strange. He was taken by surprise, and he said, damn you. Then he began looking at his book as it were, and were very quiet, while I told him all about it, how I'd feared, and how downcast I'd been, and how I were reconciled to it, if it were the Lord's will, and how I hoped to earn money by singing, and while I were talking, I saw great big tears come dropping on the book. But in course I never let on that I saw him. Dear grandfather, and all day long he's been quietly moving things out of my way, as he thought might trip me up, and putting things in my way as he thought I might want. Never knowing I saw and felt what he were doing, for you see he thinks I'm out and out blind, I guess, as I shall be soon. Margaret sighed, in spite of her cheerful and relieved tone. Though Mary caught the sigh, she felt it was better to let it pass without notice, and began with the tact which true sympathy rarely fails to supply, to ask a variety of questions respecting her friend's musical debut, which tended to bring out more distinctly how successful it had been. Why, Margaret, at length, she exclaimed, Thou'lt become as famous, maybe, as that grandlady from London, as we see'd one evening driving up to the concert-room door in her carriage. It looks very like it, said Margaret, with a smile. And be sure, Mary, I'll not forget to give thee a lift now and then when that comes about. Nay, who knows if thou art a good girl, but may happen I may make thee my lady's maid. Wouldn't that be nice? So I even sing to myself the beginning of one of my songs. And ye shall walk in silk attire, and stiller have to spare. Nay, don't stop, or else give me something rather more new. For somehow I never quite liked that part about thinking, O Donald Mayor. Well, though I'm a bit tired, I don't care if I do. Before I come, I were practising well nigh upon two hours this one, which I'm to sing on Thursday. The lecturer said, he were sure it would just suit me, and I should do justice to it, and I should be right sorry to disappoint him. He were so nice and encouraging like to me. Hey, Mary, what a pity there isn't more that way, unless scolding and raiding in the world. It would go a vast deal further. Besides, some of the singers said they were almost certain that it were a song of his own, because he was so fidgety in particular about it. And so anxious I should give it the proper expression. And that makes me care still more. The first verse, he said, were to be sung tenderly but joyously. I'm afraid I don't quite hit that, but I'll try. What a single word can do, thrilling all the heart strings through, calling forth fond memories, raining round Hope's melodies, steeping all in one bright hue. What a single word can do. Now it falls into the minor key and must be very sad-like. I feel as if I could do that better than Tother. What a single word can do, making life seem all untrue, driving joy and hope away, leaving not one cheering ray, blighting every flower that grew. What a single word can do. Margaret certainly made the most of this little song. As a factory worker listening outside observed, she spun it read fine. And if she only sang it at the mechanics with half the feeling she put into it that night, the lecturer must have been hard to please if he did not admit that his expectations were more than fulfilled. When it was ended, Mary's looks told more than words could have done what she thought of it, and partly to keep in a tear which would faint have rolled out, she brightened into a laugh and said, for certain the carriage is coming, so let us go and dream on it. End of Chapter 8. Chapter 9 of Mary Barton. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Wendy and Lehigh Utah. Mary Barton by Elizabeth Claycon Gasco. Chapter 9 Barton's London Experiences. A life of self-indulgence is for us. A life of self-denial is for them. For us the streets broad-built and populous. For them unhealthy corners, garrets dim and cellars where the water-rat may swim. For us green paths refreshed by frequent rain. For them dark alleys where the dust lies grim. Not doomed by us to this appointed pain. God made us rich and poor of what do these complain? Mrs. Norton's Child of the Islands. The next evening it was a warm pattering incessant rain, just the rain to awaken up the flowers. But in Manchester, where alas there are no flowers, the rain had only a disheartening and gloomy effect. The streets were wet and dirty. The drippings from the houses were wet and dirty. And the people were wet and dirty. Indeed, most kept within doors, and there was an unusual silence of footsteps in the little paved courts. Mary had to change her clothes after her walk home and had hardly settled herself before she heard someone fumbling at the door. The noise continued long enough to allow her to get up and go and open it. There stood, could it be? Yes, it was her father. Drenched and way-worn, there he stood. He came in with no word to Mary in return for her cheery and astonished greeting. He sat down by the fire in his wet things, unheeding. But Mary would not let him so rest. She ran up and brought down his working day clothes and went into the pantry to rummage up their little bit of provision while he changed by the fire, talking all the while as gaily as she could, though her father's depression hung like a lead on her heart. For Mary, in her seclusion at Miss Simmons, where the chief talk was of fashions and dress and parties to be given, for which such and such gowns would be wanted, varied with a slight whispered interlude occasionally about love and lovers, had not heard the political news of the day that Parliament had refused to listen to the working men when they petitioned with all the force of their rough untutored words to be heard concerning the distress which was riding, like the conqueror on his pale horse among the people which was crushing their lives out of them and stamping woe marks over the land. When he had eaten and was refreshed, they sat for some time in silence, for Mary wished him to tell her would oppress him so, yet durst not ask. In this she was wise, for when we are heavy laden in our hearts, it falls in better with our humour to reveal our case in our own way and our own time. Mary sat on a stool at her father's feet, in old childish guise, and stole her hand into his while his sadness infected her and she caught the trick of grief inside, she knew not why. Mary, women speak to our God to hear us, for man will not hearken, no, not now when we weep tears of blood. In an instant Mary understood the fact, if not the details, that so weighed down her father's heart. She pressed his hand with silent sympathy. She did not know what to say and was so afraid of speaking wrongly that she was silent. But when his attitude had remained unchanged for more than half an hour, his eyes gazing vacantly and fixedly at the fire, no sound, but now and then a deep drawn sigh to break the weary ticking of the clock and the drip drop from the roof without, Mary could bear it no longer, anything to rouse her father, even bad news. Father, do you know George Wilson's dead? Her hand was suddenly and almost violently compressed. He dropped down dead in Oxford Road yesterday morning. It's very sad, isn't it, Father? Her tears were ready to flow as she looked up in her father's face for sympathy, still the same fixed look of despair, not varied by a grief for the dead. Best for him to die, he said in a low voice. This was unbearable. Mary got up under pretense of going to tell Margaret that she need not come to sleep with her tonight, but really to ask Jobly to come and cheer her father. She stopped outside the door. Margaret was practicing her singing and through the still night air her voice rang out, like that of an angel. Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, sayeth your God. The old Hebrew prophetic words fell like dew on Mary's heart. She could not interrupt. She stood listening and comforted till the little buzz of conversation began again and then entered and told her errand. Both grandfather and granddaughter rose instantly to fulfill her request. He's just tired out, Mary said, old Job. He'll be a different man tomorrow. There is no describing the looks and tones that have power over an aching, heavy-laden heart. But in an hour or so, John Barton was talking away as freely as ever, until all his talk ran, as was natural, on the disappointment of his fond hope of the forlorn hope of many. I, London's a fine place, said he, and finer folk live in it than I ever thought on or ever heard tell on except in the storybooks. They're having their good things now that afterwards they may be tormented. Still, at the old parable of dives and Lazarus, does it haunt the minds of the rich as it does those of the poor? Do tell us all about London, dear father, asked Mary, who was sitting at her old post by her father's knee. How can I tell you all about it when I never cede one-tenth of it? It's as big as six Manchester's, they told me. One sixth may be made up of grand palaces, three sixths of middling kind, and the rest of holes of iniquity and filth, such as Manchester knows not on, I'm glad to say. Well, father, but did you see the queen? I believe I didn't, though one day I'd thought I'd seen her many a time. You see, said he, turning to Joe Lee. There were a day appointed for us to go to Parliament House. We were most honest, biting at a public house in Hallborn, where they did very well for us. The morning of taking our petition, we had such a spread for breakfast as the queen herself might have had sitting down to. I suppose they thought we wanted pudding in heart. There were mutton, kidneys and sausages and broiled ham and fried beef and onions more like a dinner nor a breakfast. Many on our chaps, though I could see, could eat but little. The food stuck in their throats when they thought of them at home. Wives and little ones had said maybe at that very time not to eat. Well, after breakfast we were all set to walk in procession, and a time it took to put us in order, two and two, and the petition, as was yards long, carried by the foremost pairs. The men looked grave enough, you may be sure, and such a set of thin, wan wretched-looking chaps as they were. Yourself is none to boast on. I, but I, were fat and rosy to many a one. Well, we walked on and on through many a street, much the same as Dean's Gate. We had to walk slowly, slowly, for the carriages and cabs is throng the streets. I thought by and by we should maybe get clear on them. But as the streets grew wider, they grew worse, and at last we were fairly blocked up at Oxford Street. We'd gotten across it after a while, though, in my eyes the grand streets we were in then. They've sadly puzzled how to build houses, though, in London. There'd be an opening for a good, steady master builder there, as known as business. For you see the houses are many on them built without any proper shape for a body to live in. Some on them they've afterthought would fall down, so they've stuck great ugly pillars out before them. And some on them, we thought they must be the tailor's sign, had gotten stoned men and women as wanted clothes stuck on them. I were like a child. I forgot in my errand in looking about me. By this time it were dinner time were better as we could tell by the sun right above our heads. And we were dusty and tired going a step now and a step then. Well, at last we'd gotten into a street grander nor all, leaning to the Queen's Palace. And there it were, I thought, I saw the Queen. You've seen the herses with white plumes, Job. Job assented. Well, them undertaker folk are driving a pretty trade in London. Well, nigh every lady we saw in a carriage had hired one of them plumes for the day and had it niddle-noddling on her head. It were the Queen's drawing-room, they said, and the carriages went bowling along towards her house, some with dressed up gentlemen like circus folk in them and rucksle ladies in others. Carriages themselves were great shakes too. Some of the gentlemen, as couldn't get inside, hung on behind with nosegays to smell at and sticks to keep off folk as might splash their silk stockings. I wonder why they didn't hire a cab rather than hang on like a whip behind boy. But I suppose they wished to keep with their wives, Darby and Joan-like. Coachmen were little squat men with wigs like the old-fashioned Parsons. Well, we could not get on for these carriages, though we waited and waited. The horses were too fat to move quick. They never known want of food, one might tell by their silly coats, and police pushed us back when we tried to cross. One or two of them struck with their sticks and coachmen laughed, and some officers as stood nigh put their spy-glasses in their eye and left them sticking there like montibanks. One of the police struck me. What in business have you to do that, said I? You're frightening them horses, says he, in his mincing way, for Londoners are mostly all tongue-tied and can't say their A's and I's properly. And it's our business to keep you from molesting the ladies and gentlemen going to Her Majesty's drawing-room. And why are we to be molested, asked I, going decently about our business, which is life and death to us and many a little one climbing at home in Lancashire? Which businesses of most consequence in the sight of God think you? I honor them grand-ladies and gentlemen as you think so much on. But I might as well have held my peace, for he only laughed. John ceased, after waiting a little, to see if he would go on himself, Job said. Well, but that's not all your story, man. Tell us what happened when you got to the Parliament House. After a little pause, John answered, if you please, neighbor, I'd rather say not about that. It's not to be forgotten or forgiven either, by me or many another. But I cannot tell of our down-casting just as a piece of London news. As long as I live, our rejection of that day will abide in my heart. And as long as I live, I shall curse them as so cruelly refused to hear us. But I'll not speak of it no more. So daunted in their inquiries, they sat silent for a few minutes. Old Job, however, felt that someone must speak. Else all the good they had done in dispelling John Barton's gloom was lost. So after a while, he thought of a subject, neither sufficiently dissonant from the last to jar on a full heart, nor too much the same to cherish the continuance of the gloomy train of thought. Did you ever hear tell, said he to Mary, that I were in London once? No, said she was surprised, and looking at Job with increased respect. I but I were though, and pegged there too, though she minds not about it poor wench. You must know I had but one child, and she were Margaret's mother. I loved her above a bit, and one day she came, standing behind me for that I should not see her blushes and stroking my cheeks in her own coaxing way, and told me she and Frank Jennings, as was adjoiner lodging near us, should be so happy if they were married. I could not find in my heart to say her nay, though I went sick at the thought of losing her away from my home. However, she was my only child, and I never said not of what I felt for fear of grieving her young heart. But I tried to think of the time when I'd been young myself, and had loved her blessed mother, and how we'd left father and mother, and gone out into the world together. And I'm now right thankful I held my peace, and did not fret with telling her how sore I was at parting with her that were the light of my eyes. But, said Mary, you said the man were a neighbor. I, so he were, and his father are for him, but work were rather slack in Manchester, and Frank's uncle sent him word of London work and London wages, so he were to go there, and it were there Margaret was to follow him. Well, my heart aches yet at thought of those days. She's so happy, and he's so happy, only the poor father is fretted sadly behind their backs. They were married and stayed some days with me afore setting off, and I've often thought since Margaret's heart failed her many a time those few days, and she would feign of spoken. But I knew for myself it were better to keep it pent up, and I never let on what I were feeling. I knew what she meant when she came kissing and holding my hand in all her old childish ways of loving me. Well, they went at last. You know them two letters, Margaret. Yes, sure, replied his granddaughter. Well, them two were the only letters I ever had from her poor lass. She said in them she were very happy, and I believe she were. And Frank's family heard he were in good work. In one of her letters, poor thing she ends with saying farewell Grandad, with a line drawn under Grandad, and from that another hints I knew she were in the family way. And I said not, but I screwed up a little money thinking come Witsentide, I'd take a holiday and go and see her in the little one. But one day towards Witsentide, come Jennings with a grave face and says he, I hear our Frank and your Margaret's both getting the fever. He might have knocked me down with a straw, for it seemed as if God told me what the upshot would be. Old Jennings had gotten the letter, you see, from the landlady they lodged with, a well penned letter, asking if they'd no friends to come and nurse them. She'd caught it first, and Frank, who was as tender over her as her own mother could have been, had nursed her till he'd caught it himself. And she, expecting her down-lying every day, well to make a long story short, old Jennings and I went up by that night's coach. So you see, Mary, that was the way I got to London. But how was your daughter when you got there? asked Mary anxiously. She were at rest, poor Wench, and so were Frank. I guessed as much when I see the landlady's face all swelled with crying when she opened the door to us. We said, where are they? And I knew they were dead from her look. But Jennings didn't, as I take it. For when she showed us into a room with a white sheet on the bed, and underneath it, plain to be seen, two still figures, he screeched out as if he'd been a woman. Yet he'd other children, and I'd none. There lay my darling, my only one. She were dead, and there were no one to love me, no, not one. I just remember rightly what I did, but I know I were very quiet while my heart were crushed within me. Jennings could not stand being in the room at all, so the landlady took him down, and I were glad to be alone. It grew dark while I sat there, and at last the landlady came up again and said, come here. So I got up and walked into the light, but I had to hold by the stair rails I were so weak and dizzy. She led me into a room where Jennings lay on a sofa, fast asleep, with his pocket-hanker-chiff over his head for a nightcap. She said he'd cried himself fairly off to sleep. There were tea on the table already, for she were a kind-hearted body. But she still said, come here, and took hold of my arm. So I went round the table, and there were a clothes basket by the fire with a shawl put over it. Lift that up, says she, and I did. And there lay a little wee-babby fast asleep. My heart gave a leap, and the tears came rushing into my eyes first time that day. Is it hers, said I, though I knew it were. Yes, said she. She were getting a bit better of the fever, and the babby were born. And then the poor young man took worse and died, and she were not many hours behind. Little might of a thing, and yet it seemed her angel come back to comfort me. I were quite jealous of Jennings whenever he went near the babby. I thought it were more my flesh and blood than his, and yet I were afraid he would claim it. However, that were far enough from his thoughts. He'd plenty other children, but as I found out after, he'd all along been wishing me to take it. Well, we buried Margaret and her husband in a big, crowded, lonely churchyard in London. I were loath to leave them there, as I thought when they rose again they'd feel so strange at first, away from Manchester and all old friends. But it could not be helped. Well, God watches over their graves there as well as here. That funeral cost a mint of money, but Jennings and I wished to do the thing decent. Then we'd the stout little babby to bring home. We'd not over much money left, but it were fine weather, and we thought we'd take the coach to Brumagham and walk on. It were a bright May morning when I last saw London town, looking back from a big hill a mile or two off. And in that big mass of a place, I were leaving my blessed child asleep in her last sleep. Well, God's will be done. She's gotten to heaven before me, but I shall get there at last, please God, so it's a long while first. The babby had been fed before we set out, and the coach moving kept it asleep, bless its little heart. But when the coach stopped for dinner, it were awake and crying for its babbies. So we asked for some bread and milk, and Jennings took it first for to feed it. But it made its mouth like a square, and let it run out at each of the four corners. Shake it, Jennings said I. That's the way they make water run through a funnel when it's over full, and a child's mouth is broad end of the funnel, and the gullet the narrow one. So he shook it. But it only cried the more. Let me have it, says I, thinking he were an awkward old chap. But it were just as bad with me. By shaking the babby we got better nor a gill into its mouth, but more nor that came up again, wetting all the nice dry clothes landlady had put on. Well, just as we'd get into the dinner table and helped ourselves and eaten two mouthful, came in the garden and a fine chap with a sample of calico flourishing in his hand. Coach is ready, says one, half a crown your dinner, says the other. Well, we thought it a deal for both our dinners when we'd hardly tasted them, but bless your life, it were half a crown apiece, and a shilling for the bread and milk as we're posited all over babby's clothes. We spoke up again it, but everybody said it were the rules, so what could two poor old chaps like us do again it? Well, poor babby cried without stopping to take a breath from that time till we got to Bromagham for the night. My heart ached for the little thing. It caught with its wee mouth at our coat sleeves and at our mouths when we tried to comfort it by talking to it. Poor little wench, it wanted its mammy as relying cold in the grave. Well, says I, it'll be clung to death if it lets out supper as it did its dinner. Let's get some woman to feed it. It comes natural to women to do for babby's. So we asked the chambermaid at the inn, she took quite kindly to it, and we got a good supper and grew rare and sleepy what with the warmth and with our long ride in the open air. The chambermaid said she would like to have it to sleep with her, only Mrs. Woodsculled so, but it looked so quiet and smiling like as it lay in her arms that we thought it would be no trouble to have it with us. I says, seeing Jennings, how women folk do quiet in babby's. It's just as I said. He looked grave, he were always thoughtful looking though I never heard him say anything very deep. At last says he, young woman, have you gotten a spare nightcap? Mrs. always keeps nightcaps for gentlemen this does not like to impact, says she, rather quick. I, but young woman, it's one of your nightcaps I want. The babby seems to have taken a mind to ya, and maybe in the dark it might take me for you if I'd get in your nightcap on. The chambermaid smirked and went for a cap, but I laughed outright at the old bearded chap, thinking he'd make himself like a woman just by putting on a woman's cap. However, he'd not be laughed out on it, so I held the babby till he were in bed. Such a night as we had on it, babby began to scream of the old fashioned, and we took it turn and turn about to sit up and rock it. My heart were very sore for the little one as it groped about with its mouth, but for all that I could scarce keep from smiling at the thought of us two old chaps, the one with a woman's nightcap on, sitting on our hinderns for half the night, hushabying a babby as wouldn't be hushabied. Toward morning poor little wench it fell asleep fairly tired out with crying, but even in its sleep it gave such pitiful sobs, quivering up from the very bottom of its little heart that once or twice I almost wished it lay on its mother's breast at peace forever. Jennings fell asleep too, but I began for to reckon up our money. It were little enough we had left. Our dinner the day of four had taken so much. I didn't know what our reckoning would be for that night lodging in supper and breakfast. Doing a sum always sent me asleep ever since I were a lad, so I fell sound in a short time, and were only awakened by chambermaid tapping at the door to say she'd dressed the babby before her mrs. were up if we liked. But bless you, we never thought of undressing at the night of four, and now we're sleeping so sound, and we were so glad of the peace and quietness that we thought it were no good to waken it up to screech again. Well, there's Mary asleep for a good listener. I suppose you're getting weary of my tale, so I'll not be long overending it. The reckoning left us very bare, and we thought we'd best walk home, for it were only sixty mile they'd tell us, and not stop again for not save victuals. So we left Brumagham, which is as black a place as Manchester without looking so like home, and walked all that day carrying babby turn and turn about. It were well fed by chambermaid before we left, and the day were fine, and folk began to have some knowledge of the proper way of speaking, and we were more cheery at thought of home, though mine, God knows, were lonesome enough. We stopped none for dinner, but at bagging-time we'd get in a good meal at a public house and fed the babby as well as we could, but that were but poorly. We got a crust too for it to suck, chambermaid put us up to that. That night, whether we were tired or what and I don't know, but it were dreary work, and the poor little wench had slept out or sleep and began the cry as, war my heart out again, says Jennings as he. We should not have set out so like gentle folk atop of the coat chester-day. Nay, lad, we should have had more to walk if we had not ridden, and I'm sure both you and I is so weary of tramping. So he were quiet a bit, but he were one of them as we're sure to find out somewhat had been done amiss when there was no going back to undo it. So presently he coughs, as if he were going to speak, and I says to myself, add it again, my lad, says he. I ask pardon, neighbor, but it strikes me it would have been better for my son if he had never begun to keep company with your daughter. Well, that put me up and my heart got very full, and but that I were carrying her, babby, I think I should have struck him. At last I could hold in no longer and says I. Better say at once it would have been better for God never to have made the world, for then we'd never have been in it to have had the heavy hearts we have now. Well, he said that were a rank blasphemy, but I thought his way of casting up again the events God had pleased to send were worse blasphemy. However, I said not more angry for the little babby's sake, as were the child of his dead son as well as of my dead daughter. The longest lane we'll have a turning, and that night came to an end at last, and we were foot sore and tired enough, and to my mind the babby were getting weaker and weaker and it rung my heart to hear its little wail. I'd have given my right hand for one of yesterday's hearty cries. We were wanting our breakfasts, and so it were too motherless babby. We could see no public houses, so about six o'clock only we thought it were later. We stopped at a cottage where a woman were moving about near the open door. Says I, good woman, may we rest a bit? Come in, says she, wiping a chair as looked bright enough before with her apron. It were a cheery clean room, and we were glad to sit down again, though I thought my legs would never bend at the knees. In a minute she fell and noticing the babby, and took it in her arms and kissed it again and again. Mrs. says I, we're not without money, and if you'd give us somewhat for breakfast we'd pay you honest, and if you would wash and dress that poor baby and get some poppies down its throat for its well-nigh clemmed, I'd pray for you till my dying day. So she said not, but give me the babby back, and before you could say Jack Robinson she'd a pan on the fire and bread and cheese on the table. When she turned around her face looked red and her lips were tight pressed together. Well, we were right down glad on our breakfast, and God bless and reward that woman for her kindness that day. She fed the poor babby as gently and softly and spoke to it as tenderly as its own mother could have done. It seemed as if that stranger and it had known each other before, maybe in heaven where folk spirits come from, they say. The babby looked up so lovingly in her eyes and it made little noises more like a dove than odd else. Then she undressed it, poor darling, it were time, touching it so softly and washed it from head to foot, and as many on its clothes were dirty and what bits of things its mother had gotten already for it had been sent by the carrier from London. She put him aside and wrapping little naked babby in her apron, she pulled out a key as were fastened to a black ribbon and hung down her breast and unlocked a drawer in the dresser. I was sorry to be prying, but I could not help seeing in that drawer some little child's clothes all strewed with lavender and lying by in a little whip in a broken rattle. I began to have an insight into that woman's heart then. She took out a thing or two and locked the drawer and went on dressing babby. Just about then come her husband down. A great big fellow as didn't look half awake though it were getting late. But he'd heard all this had been said downstairs as were plain to be seen, but he were a gruff chap. We'd finished our breakfast and Jennings were looking hard at the woman as she were getting the babby to sleep with a sort of rocking way. At length says he, I had learnt the way now. It's two jaguets in a shake, two jaguets in a shake. I can get that babby asleep now myself. The man had nodded cross enough to us and had gone to the door and stood there whistling with his hands in his breech pockets looking abroad, but at last he turns and says quite sharp. I say, Mrs, I'm to have no breakfast today, I suppose. So with that she kissed the child a long, soft kiss and looking in my face to see if I could take her meaning gave me the babby without a word. I were loath to stir, but I saw it were better to go. So giving Jennings a sharp nudge for he'd fallen asleep, I says, Mrs, what's to pay? Pulling out my money with a jingle that she might not guess we were at all bare a cash. So she looks at her husband, who said narrow word, but were listening with all his ears nevertheless. And when she saw he would not say, she said, hesitating, as if pulled two ways by her fear of him. Should you think sixpence over much? It were so different to public house reckoning for we'd eaten a main deal before the chap came down. So says I, and Mrs, what should we give you for the babby's bread and milk? I had it once in my mind to say, and for your trouble with it, but my heart would not let me say it, for I could read in her ways how it had been a work of love. So says she quite quick and stealing a look at her husband's back is looked all year if ever a back did. Oh, we could take not for the little babby's food if it had eaten twice as much, bless it. With that he looked at her such a scowling look. She knew what he meant and stepped softly across the floor to him and put her hand on his arm. He seemed as though he'd shake it off by a jerk on his elbow, but she said, quite low, for poor little Johnny's sake, Richard. He did not move or speak again, and after looking in his face for a minute, she turned away, swallowing deep in her throat. She kissed the sleeping baby as she passed when I paid her to quieten the gruff husband and stop him if he rated her. I could not help slipping another sixpence under the loaf, and then we set off again. Last look I had of that woman, she were quietly wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron as she went about her husband's breakfast, but I shall know her in heaven. He stopped to think of that long ago, May morning, when he had carried his granddaughter under the distant hedgerows and beneath the flowering sycamores. There's not more to say when she said he to Margaret as she begged him to go on. That night we reached Manchester and I'd found out that Jennings would be glad enough to give up babby to me. So I took her home at once and a blessing she spent to me. They were all silent for a few minutes, each following out the current of their thoughts. Then, almost simultaneously, their attention fell upon Mary, sitting on her little stool, her head resting on her father's knee and sleeping as soundly as any infant. Her breath, still like an infant, came and went as softly as a bird steals to her leafy nest. Her half-open mouth was as scarlet as the winter berries and contrasted finely with the clear paleness of her complexion where the eloquent blood flushed carnation at each motion. Her black eyelashes lay on the delicate cheek which was still more shaded by the masses of her golden hair that seemed to form a nest-like pillar for her as she lay. Her father, in fond pride, straightened one glossy curl for an instant as if to display its length and silkiness. The little action awoke her and like nine out of ten people in similar circumstances, she exclaimed, opening her eyes to their fullest extent, I'm not asleep, I've been awake all the time. Even her father could not keep from smiling and Jobly and Margaret laughed outright. Come, Winch, said Job, don't look so gloppin' because thou'dst fallen asleep while an old chap like me was talking on old times. It were like enough to send thee to sleep. Try if thou canst keep nine eyes open while I read thy father a bit on a poem as is written by a weaver like ourselves. A rare chap I'll be bound as he who could weave verse like this. So adjusting his spectacles on his nose, cocking his chin, crossing his legs and coughing to clear his voice, he read aloud a little poem of Samuel Bramford's he had picked up somewhere. God help the poor who on this wintery morn come forth from Allie's dim and court's obscure. God help yon poor pale girl who drops forlorn and meekly her affliction doth endure. God help her outcast lamb, she trembling stands, all wan her lips and frozen red her hands. Her sunken eyes are modestly downcast. Her night black hair streams on the fitful blast. Her bosom passing fair is half revealed and oh, so cold the snow lies there congealed. Her feet benumbed, her shoes all rent and worn. God help the outcast lamb who stands forlorn. God help the poor. God help the poor, an infant's feeble wail, comes from meon narrow gateway and behold, a female crouching there so deathly pale, huddling her child to screen it from the cold. Her vesture scant, her bonnet crushed and torn. A thin shawl doth her baby deer enfold and so she bides the ruthless gale of morn, which almost to her heart hath sent it's cold. And now she, sudden, darts her avaning look, as one with new hot bread goes past the nook. And as the tempting load is onward borne, she weeps. God help the helpless one forlorn. God help the poor. God help the poor, behold, yon famished lad, no shoes nor hose his wounded feet protect. With limping gate and looks so dreamy sad, he wanders onward, stopping to inspect each window stored with articles of food. He yearns but to enjoy one cheering meal. Oh, to the hungry pallet vines rude would yield a zest the famished only feel. He now devours a crust of moldy bread, with teeth and hands the precious boon is torn, unmindful of the storm that round his head in petuous sweeps. God help the child forlorn. God help the poor. God help the poor. Another have I found. A bowed and venerable man is he. His slouched hat with faded crepe is bound. His coat is gray and threadbare too, I see. The rude wind seems to mock his hoary hair. His shirtless bosom to the blast is bare, and he turns and casts a wistful eye, and with scant neck and wipes the blinding spray, and looks around as if he feign would spy. Friends he had feasted in his better day. Ah, some are dead, and some have longed for born to know the poor, and he is left forlorn. God help the poor. God help the poor who in lone valleys dwell, or by far hills where wind and heather grow. There's is a story sad indeed to tell, yet little cares the world and lest would know about the toil and want men undergo. The wearying loom doth call them up at morn. They work till worn out nature sinks to sleep. They taste but are not fed. The snow drifts deep around the fireless cot and blocks the door. The night storm howls a dirge across the moor, and shall they perish thus oppressed in lorn? Shall toil and famine hopeless still be born? No, God will yet arise and help the poor. Amen, said Barton, solemnly and sorrowfully. Mary went, could those copy me them lines, does think? That's to say, if Job dared has no objection. Not I, more their herd in red in the better, say I. So Mary took the paper, and the next day on a blank half sheet of a valentine, all bordered with hearts and darts. A valentine she had once suspected to come from Jem Wilson. She copied Bamford's beautiful little poem. End of chapter nine. Chapter 10 of Mary Barton. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Wendy in Lehigh, Utah. Mary Barton by Elizabeth Claycorn Gaskell. Chapter 10, Return of the Protocol. My heart once soft as woman's tear is gnarled with gloating on the ills I cannot cure. Elliot. Then guard and shield her innocence. Let her not fall like me. Which were better owe a thousand times she in her grave should be. The Outcast. Despair settled down like a heavy cloud, and now and then, through the dead calm of sufferings, came pipings of stormy winds, foretelling the end of these dark prognostics. In times of sorrowful or fierce endurance, we are often soothed by the mere repetition of old proverbs, which tell the experience of our forefathers. But now it's a long lane that has no turning. The weariest day draws to an end, et cetera, seemed false and vain sayings. So long and so weary was the pressure of terrible times. Deeper and deeper still sank the poor. It showed how much lingering suffering it takes to kill men that so few in comparison died during those times. But remember, we only miss those who do men's work in their humble sphere, the aged, the feeble, the children, when they die, are hardly noticed by the world. And yet, to many hearts, their deaths make a blank which long years will never fill up. Remember, too, that though it may take much suffering to kill the able-bodied and effective members of society, it does not take much to reduce them to worn, listless, diseased creatures who thence forward crawl through life with moody hearts and pain-stricken bodies. The people had thought the poverty of the preceding years hard to bear and found its yoke heavy, but this year added sorely to its weight. Former times had chastised them with whips, but this chastised them with scorpions. Of course Barton had his share of mere bodily sufferings. Before he had gone up to London on his vein errand, he had been working short time. But in the hopes of speedy redress by means of the interference of Parliament, he had thrown up his place, and now, when he asked Leave to resume his work, he was told they were diminishing their number of hands every week. And he was made aware by the remarks of fellow workmen that a chartis delegate and a leading member of a trades union was not likely to be favoured in his search after employment. Still, he tried to keep up a brave heart concerning himself. He knew he could bear hunger, for that power of endurance had been called forth when he was a little child and had seen his mother hide her daily morsel to share it among her children. And when he, being the eldest, had told the noble lie that he was not hungry, could not eat a bit more, in order to imitate his mother's bravery and still the sharp wail of the younger infants. Mary, too, was secure of two meals a day at Miss Simmons, though by the way the dressmaker, too, feeling the effect of bad times, had left off giving tea to her apprentices, setting them the example of long abstinence by putting off her own meal till work was done for the night, however late that might be. But the rent, it was half a crown a week, nearly all Mary's earnings, and much less room might do for them, only two. Now came the time to be thankful that the early dead were saved from the evil to come. The agricultural laborer generally has strong local attachments, but they are far less common, almost obliterated among the inhabitants of a town. Still there are exceptions, and Barton formed one. He had removed to his present house, just after the last bad times, when little Tom had sickened and died. He had then thought the bustle of a removal would give his poor, stunned wife something to do, and he had taken more interest in the details of the proceeding than he otherwise would have done, in the hope of calling her forth to action again. So he seemed to know every brass-headed nail driven up for her convenience. Only one had been displaced. It was Esther's bonnet-nail, which in his deep revengeful anger against her, after his wife's death, he had torn out of the wall and cast into the street. It would be hard work to leave the house, which yet seemed hallowed by his wife's presence in the happy days of old, but he was a law unto himself, though sometimes a bad fierce law, and he resolved to give the rent collector notice and look out for a cheaper abode, and tell Mary they must flit. Poor Mary, she loved the house too. It was wrenching up her natural feelings of home, for it would be long before the fibres of her heart would gather themselves about another place. This trial was spared. The collector of himself, on the very Monday when Barton planned to give him notice of his intention to leave, lowered the rent three pence a week, just enough to make Barton compromise and agree to stay on a little longer. But by degrees the house was stripped of all its little ornaments. Some were broken, and the odd two pences and three pences wanted to pay for their repairs were required for the far sterner necessity of food, and by and by Mary began to part with the other superfluities at the pawn shop. The smart tea tray and tea caddy, long and carefully kept, went for bread for her father. He did not ask for it or complain, but she saw hunger in his shrunk, fierce animal look. Then the blankets went, for it was summertime and they could spare them, and their sale made a fund which Mary fancied would last till better times came. But it was soon all gone, and then she looked around the room to crib it of its few remaining ornaments. To all these proceedings, her father never said a word. If he fasted or feasted after the sale of some article on an unusual meal of bread and cheese, he took all with a sullen indifference, which depressed Mary's heart. She often wished he would apply for relief from the guardian's relieving office. Often wondered the trade's union did nothing for him. Once when she asked him as he sat, grime, unshaven and gaunt after a day's fasting over the fire, why he did not get relief from the town, he turned around with grim wrath and said, I don't want money, child. Damn their charity and their money. I want work and it is my right. I want work. He would bear it all, he said to himself, and he did bear it, but not meekly. That was too much to expect. Real meekness of character is called out by experience of kindness, and few had been kind to him. Yet through it all, with stern determination, he refused the assistance his trade's union would have given him. It had not much to give, but with worldly wisdom thought it better to propitiate an active useful member than to help those who were more un-energetic, though they had large families to provide for. Not so thought John Barton. With him Mead was right. Give it to Tom Darbyshire, he said. He's more claim on it than me, for he's more need of it with his seven children. Now Tom Darbyshire was, in his listless, grumbling way, a backbiting enemy of John Barton's, and he knew it, but he was not to be influenced by that in a matter like this. Mary went early to her work, but her cheery laugh over it was now missed by the other girls. Her mind wandered over the present distress, and then settled as she stitched, on the visions of the future, where yet her thoughts dwelt more on the circumstances of ease, and the pumps and vanities awaiting her than on the lover with whom she was to share them. Still she was not insensible to the pride of having attracted one so far above herself in station. Not insensible to the secret pleasure of knowing that he, whom so many admired, had often said he would give anything for one of her sweet smiles. Her love for him was a bubble blown out of vanity, but it looked very real and very bright. Sally Ledbitter, meanwhile, keenly observed the signs of the times. She found out that Mary had begun to affix a stern value to money as the purchaser of life, and many girls had been dazzled and lured by gold, even without the betraying love which she believed to exist in Mary's heart. So she urged young Mr. Carson by representations of the want she was sure surrounded Mary to bring matters more to a point. But he had a kind of instinctive dread of hurting Mary's pride of spirit, and durst not hint his knowledge in any way of the distress that many must be enduring. He felt that for the present he must still be content with stolen meetings and summer evening strolls, and the delight of pouring sweet, honeyed words into her ears while she listened, with a blush and a smile that made her look radiant with beauty. No, he would be cautious in order to be certain, for Mary, one way or another, he must make his. He had no doubt of the effect of his own personal charms in the long run, for he knew he was handsome and believed himself fascinating. If he had known what Mary's home was, he would not have been so much convinced of his increasing influence over her by her being more and more ready to linger with him in the sweet summer air. For when she returned for the night, her father was often out, and the house wanted the cheerful look it had had in the days when money was never wanted to purchase soap and brushes, black lead and pipe clay. It was dingy and comfortless, for, of course, there was not even the dumb, familiar home friend of fire. And Margaret, too, was now very often from home, singing at some of those grand places. And Alice, oh, Mary wish she had never left her cellar to go and live at Angcoats with her sister-in-law. For in that matter, Mary felt very guilty. She had put off and put off going to see the widow after George Wilson's death, from dread of meeting Jem, or giving him reason to think she wished to be as intimate with him as formerly, and now she was so much ashamed of her delay that she was likely never to go at all. Even if her father was at home, it was no better. Indeed, it was worse. He seldom spoke, less than ever, and often when he did speak, they were sharp, angry words, such as he had never given her formerly. Her temper was high, too, and her answer's not overmild, and once in his passion he had even beaten her. If Sally Ledbitter or Mr. Carson had been at hand at that moment, Mary would have been ready to leave her home forever. She sat alone after her father had flung out of the house, bitterly thinking on the days that were gone, angry with her own hastiness, and believing that her father did not love her, striving to heap up one painful thought on another. Who cared for her? Mr. Carson might, but in this grief that seemed no comfort. Mother dead, father so often angry, so lately cruel, for it was a hard blow, and blistered in reddened Mary's soft white skin with pain, and then her heart turned round, and she remembered with self-reproach how provokingly she had looked and spoken, and how much her father had to bear, and oh, what a kind and loving parent he had been till these days of trial. The remembrance of one little instance of his fatherly love thronged after another into her mind, and she began to wonder how she could have behaved to him as she had done. Then he came home, and but for very shame she would have confessed her penitence in words, but she looked sullen, from her effort to keep down emotion, and for some time her father did not know how to begin to speak. At length he gulped down his pride and said, Mary, I'm not above saying I'm very sorry I beat thee, thou word a bit aggravating, and I'm not the man I was, but it were wrong, and I'll try never to lay hands on thee again. So he held out his arms, and in many tears she told him her repentance for her fault. He never struck her again. Still he often was angry, but that was almost better than being silent. Then he sat near the fireplace, from habit smoking or chewing opium. Oh, how Mary loathed that smell. And in the dusk, just before it merged into the short summer night, she had learned to look with dread towards the window, which now her father would have kept uncurtained, for there were not seldom seen sights which haunted her in her dreams. Strange faces of pale men with dark glaring eyes peered into the inner darkness, and seemed desirous to ascertain if her father was home. Or a hand and arm, the body hidden, was put within the door and beckoned him away. He always went, and once or twice, when Mary was in bed, she heard men's voices below in earnest, whispered, talk. They were all desperate members of trades unions, ready for anything, made ready by want. While all this change for gloom yet struck fresh and heavy on Mary's heart, her father startled her out of a reverie one evening by asking her when she had been to see Jane Wilson. From his manner of speaking, she was made aware that he had been, but at the time of his visit, he had never mentioned anything about it. Now, however, he gruffly told her to go next day without fail, and added some abuse of her for not having been before. The little outward impulse of her father's speech gave Mary the push, which she in this instance required, and accordingly, timing her visit so as to avoid gems hours at home, she went the following afternoon to Ancoats. The outside of the well-known house struck her as different, for the door was closed instead of open as it once had always stood. The window-plants, George Wilson's pride in his special care, looked withering and drooping. They had been without water for a long time, and now, when the widow had reproached herself severely for neglect, in her ignorant anxiety she gave them too much. On opening the door, Alice was seen, not stirring about in her habitual way, but knitting by the fireside. The room felt hot, although the fire burnt gray and dim under the bright rays of the afternoon sun. Mrs. Wilson was siding the dinner-things and talking all the time in a kind of whining, shouting voice which Mary did not at first understand. She understood at once, however, that her absence had been noted and talked over. She saw a constrained look on Mrs. Wilson's sorrow-stricken face, which told her a scolding was to come. Dear Mary, is that you, she began? Why, who would have dreamt of seeing you? We thought you'd clean forgotten us, and Jem has often wondered if he should know you if he met you in the street. Now poor Jane Wilson had been sorely tried, and at present her trials had had no outward effect, but that have increased the servity of temper. She wished to show Mary how much she was offended, and meant to strengthen her cause by putting some of her own sharp speeches into Jem's mouth. Mary felt guilty and had no good reason to give as an apology, so for a minute she stood silent, looking very much ashamed, and then turned to speak to Aunt Alice, who in her surprised hearty greeting to Mary had dropped her ball of worsted, and was busy trying to set the thread to rights before the kitten had entangled at past redemption, once round every chair, and twice round the table. You men speak louder than that if you mean her to hear. She's become deaf as opposed this last few weeks. I'd have told you if I'd remember how long it were since you'd seen her. Yes, my dear, I'm getting very hard at hearing of late, said Alice, catching the state of the case with her quick glancing eyes. I suppose it's the beginning of the end. Don't talk of that way, screamed her sister-in-law. We've had enough of ends and deaths without forecasting more. She covered her face with her apron and sat down to cry. He was such a good husband, said she, in a less excited tone to Mary, as she looked up with tear-streaming eyes from behind her apron. No one can tell what I've lost in him, for no one knew his worth like me. Mary's listening sympathy softened her, and she went on to unburden her heavy laden heart. Ah, dear, dear, no one knows what I've lost. When my poor boys went, I thought the Almighty had crushed me to the ground, but I never thought of losing George. I did not think I could have borne to have lived without him, and yet I'm here. And he's a fresh burst of crying interrupted her speech. Mary, beginning to speak again, did you ever hear what a poor creature I were when he married me? And he's such a handsome fellow. Gems nothing to what his father were at his age. Yes, Mary had heard, and so she said. But the poor woman's thoughts had gone back to those days, and her little recollections came out, with many interruptions of sighs and tears and shakes of the head. There were not about me for him to choose me. I were just well enough before the accident. But at after I were downright plain. And there was Bessie Whitter, as would have given her eyes for him. She is as Mrs. Carson now, for she were a handsome lass, though I never could see her beauty then, and Carson weren't so much above her, as they're both above us all now. Mary went very red, and wished she could help doing so, and wished also that Mrs. Wilson would tell her more about the father and mother of her lover. But she durst not ask, and Mrs. Wilson's thoughts soon returned to her husband, and their early married days. If you'll believe me, Mary, there never was such a born goose at housekeeping as I were, and yet he married me. I had been in factories since five years old the most, and I knew not about cleaning or cooking, let alone washing in such like work. The day after we were married, he went to his work at after breakfast, and says he, Jenny, we'll have the cold beef and potatoes, and that's a dinner for our prince. I were anxious to make him comfortable. God knows how anxious, and yet I had no notion how to cook a potato. I knowed they were boiled, and knowed their skins were taken off, and that were all. So I tidied my house in a rough kind of way. Then I looked at the very clock up yonder, pointing at one that hung against the wall. And I see'd it were nine o'clock, so thinks I, the potatoes shall be well-boiled at any rate, and I get some on the fire in a jiffy. That's to say, as soon as I could peel them, which were a tough job at first. And then I fell to unpacking my boxes. And at twenty minutes past twelve he comes home. And I had the beef ready on the table, and I went to take the potatoes out of the pot. But oh, Mary, the water had boiled away, and they were all a nasty brown mess as smelt through all the house. He said not, and were very gentle. But oh, Mary, I cried so that afternoon. I shall never forget it, no never. I made many a blunder at after. But none that fretted me like that. Father does not like girls to work in factories, said Mary. No, I know he does not, and reason good. They oughtn't to go at it after they're married. That I'm very clear about. I could reckon up, counting on her fingers. I, nine men I know, has been driven to the public house by having wives as worked in factories. Good folk, too, as thought there was no harm in putting their little ones out to nurse, and letting their house go all dirty in their fires all out. And that was a place as was tempting for a husband to stay in, was it? He soon finds out gin-shops, where all is clean and bright, and where the fires blaze cheerily and gives a man a welcome as it were. Wives who was standing nearer for the convenience of hearing had caught much of this speech, and it was evident the subject had previously been discussed by the women, for she chimed in. I wish our gem could speak a word to the queen about factory work for married women. Eh! But he comes at strong one once you get him to speak about it. Wife a-hisen will never work away from home. I say it's Prince Albert is ought to be asked how he'd like his mrs. to be from home when he comes in, tired and worn wanting someone to cheer him, and maybe her to come in by and by, just as tired and down in the mouth, and how he'd like for her never to be at home, to see to the cleaning of his house, or to keep a bright fire in his grate, let alone his meals being all hugger-mugger and comfortless. I'd be bound, Prince, as he is, if his mrs. served him so, he'd be off to a gin-palice, or some other that kind. So why can't he make a log in poor folks' wives working in factories? Mary ventured to say that she thought the queen and Prince Albert could not make laws. But the answer was, phew, don't tell me it's not the queen who makes laws, and isn't she bound to obey Prince Albert? And if he said they mustn't, why she'd say they mustn't? And then all folk would say, oh, no, we never shall do any such thing no more. Gems getting on rarely, said Alice, who had not heard her sister's last burst of eloquence and whose thoughts were still running on her nephew and his various talents. He's found out somewhat about crank or tank, I forget rightly which it is, but the masters made him foreman, and he all the while turning off hands. But he said he could not part with Jim know-how. He's good wage now. I tell him he'll be thinking of Mary soon, and he deserves a write-down good wife that he does. Mary went very red, and looked annoyed, although there was a secret spring of joy deep down in her heart at hearing Gems so spoken of. But his mother only saw the annoyed look, and was peaked accordingly. She was not over and above desirous that her son should marry. His presence in the house seemed a relic of happier times, and she had some little jealousy of his future wife whoever she might be. Still she could not bear anyone not to feel gratified and flattered by Gems' preference, and full well she knew how above all others he preferred Mary. Now she had never thought Mary good enough for Gems, and her late neglect in coming to see her still wrinkled a little in her breast. So she determined to invent a little in order to do away with any idea Mary might have that Jim would choose her for his write-down good wife, as Aunt Alice called it. I he'll be for taking a wife soon, and then in a lower voice as if confidentially, but really to prevent any contradiction or explanation from her simple sister-in-law she added, it'll not be long before Molly Gibson—that's her at the provision shop around the corner—will hear a secret as will not displease her, I'm thinking. She has been casting sheep's eyes at our gem this many a day, but he thought her father would not give her to a common working man. But now he's good as her every bit. I thought once he'd have fancy for thee, Mary, but I do not think you'd ever suit it, so it's best as it is. By an effort Mary managed to keep down her vexation, and to say, she hoped he'd be happy with Molly Gibson. She was very handsome, for certain. I, in a notable body, too. I'll just step upstairs and show you the patchwork quilt she gave me but last Saturday. Mary was glad she was going out of the room. Her words irritated her. Perhaps not the less, because she did not fully believe them. Besides, she wanted to speak to Alice, and Mrs. Wilson seemed to think that she, as the widow, ought to absorb all the attention. Dear Alice, B. and Mary, I'm so grieved to find you so deaf. It must have come on very rapid. Yes, dear, it's a trial. I'm not denying it. Pray God give me strength to find out its teaching. I felt it soar one fine day when I thought I'd go gather some meadow-sweet to make tea for Jane's cough, and the field seemed so drean still, and at first I could not make out what was wanting, and then it struck me. It were the song of the birds, and that I never should hear their sweet music no more, and I could not help crying a bit. But I have much to be thankful for. I think I'm a comfort to Jane if I'm only someone to scold now and then, poor body. It takes off her thoughts from her sore losses when she can scold a bit. If my eyes are left I can do well enough. I can guess at what folks are saying. The splendid red and yellow patch quilt now made its appearance, and Jane Wilson would not be satisfied unless Mary praised it all over, border, center, and groundwork, right side and wrong, and Mary did her duty, saying all the more, because she could not work herself up at the very hearty admiration of her rivals present. She made haste, however, with her commendations, in order to avoid encountering Jem. As soon as she was fairly away from the house and street, she slackened her pace and began to think. Did Jem really care for Molly Gibson? Well, if he did let him. People seemed all to think he was much too good for her, Mary's own self. Perhaps someone else, far more handsome and far more grand, would show him one day that she was good enough to be Mrs. Henry Carson. So temper, or what Mary called spirit, led her to encourage Mr. Carson more than ever she had done before. Some weeks after this there was a meeting of the trades union to which John Barton belonged. The morning of the day on which it was to take place, he had lain late in bed, for what was the use of getting up? He had hesitated between the purchase of meal or opium, and had chosen the latter, for its use had become a necessity with him. He wanted it to relieve him from the terrible depression its absence occasioned. A large lump seemed only to bring him into a natural state, or what had been his natural state formally. Eight o'clock was the hour fixed for the meeting, and at it were red letters filled with details of woe from all parts of the country. Fierce heavy gloom brooded over the assembly, and fiercely and heavily did the men separate towards eleven o'clock, some irritated by the opposition of others to their desperate plans. It was not a night to cheer them, as they quitted the glare of the gas-lighted room and came out into the street. Unceasing, soaking rain was falling, the very lamps seemed obscured by the damp upon the glass, and their light reached but to a little distance from the posts. The streets were cleared of passers-by, not a creature seemed stirring except here and there a drenched policeman in his oil-skin cape. Barton wished the others good night, and set off home. He had gone through a street or two when he heard a step behind him, but he did not care to stop and see who it was. A little further the person quickened step, and touched his arm, very lightly. He turned and saw, even by the darkness visible of that badly lighted street, that the woman who stood by him was of no doubtful profession. It was told by her faded finery, all unfit to meet the pelting of that pitiless storm. The gauze bonnet once pink, now dirty white. The muslin gown, all draggled and soaking wet up to the very knees. The gay-colored beret-chall, closely wrapped round the form, which yet shivered and shook as the woman whispered, I want to speak with you. He swore an oath, and bade her be gone. I really do, don't send me away. I'm so out of breath, I cannot say all I would at once. She put her hand to her side, and caught her breath with evident pain. I tell thee I'm not the man for thee, adding an appropriate name. Stay, said he, as the thought suggested by her voice flashed across him. He gripped her arm. The arm he had just before shaken off and dragged her faintly resisting to the nearest lamppost. He pushed the bonnet back and roughly held the face she would feign have averted to the light, and in her large, unnaturally bright gray eyes, her lovely mouth half open as if imploring the forbearance she could not ask for in words. He saw at once the long-lost ester. She who had caused his wife's death. Much was like the gay creature of former years, but the glaring paint, the sharp features, the changed expression of the whole. But most of all he loathed the dress, and yet the poor thing out of her little choice of attire had put on the plainest she had to come on that night's errand. So it's thee, is it? It's thee, exclaimed John, as he ground his teeth, and shook her with passion. I've looked for thee long at corners of streets and such like places. I knew I should find thee at last. The old may be bethinkthee as some words I spoke, which put thee up at the time somewhat about street-walkers. But oh, no, thou art none of them knots. No one thinks thou art who sees thy fine draggletail dress in thy pretty pink cheeks, stopping for very want of breath. Oh, mercy, John, mercy, listen to me for Mary's sake. She meant his daughter, but the name only fell on his ear as belonging to his wife, and it was adding fuel to the fire. In vain did her face grow deadly pale around the vivid circle of paint. In vain did she gasp for mercy. He burst forth again. And thou names that name to me, and thou thinks the thought of her will bring thee mercy? Dost thou know it was thee who killed her, as sure as ever Cain killed Abel? She'd loved thee as her own, and she'd trusted thee as her own. And when thou wert gone, she never held head up again, but died in less than a three-week, and at her judgment day she'll rise and point thee as her murderer, or if she don't, I will. He flung her, trembling, sinking, fainting from him, and strode away. She fell with a feeble scream against the lamppost, and lay there in her weakness unable to rise. A policeman came up in time to see the close of these occurrences, and concluding from Esther's unsteady reeling fall that she was tipsy, he took her in half unconscious state to the lockups for the night. The superintendent of that abode of vice and misery was roused from his dozing watch through the dark hours by half delirious wails and moanings, which he reported as a rising from intoxication. If he had listened, he would have heard these words repeated in various forms, but always in the same anxious, muttering way. He would not listen to me, what can I do? He would not listen to me, and I wanted to warn him. Oh, what shall I do to save Mary's child? What shall I do? How can I keep her from being such a one as I am? Such a wretched, loathsome creature. She was listening just as I listened, and loving just as I loved, and the end will be just like my end. How shall I save her? She won't hark into warning or heed it more than I did, and who loves her well enough to watch over her as she should be watched? God keep her from harm, and yet I won't pray for her sinner than I am. Can my prayers be heard? No, they'll only do harm. How shall I save her? He would not listen to me. So the night wore away. The next morning she was taken up to the new Bailey. It was a clear case of disorderly vagrancy, and she was committed to prison for a month. How much might happen in that time? End of Chapter 10, Return of the Protocol. This is a LibriVox recording. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org.