Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men Read online

  CHAPTER V.

  "I really feel for the tinker-mother," whispered Mrs. Hedgehog.

  "I feel for her myself," was my reply. "The cares of a family are heavyenough when they only last for the season, and one sleeps them off in awinter's nap. When--as in the case of men--they last for a lifetime, andyou never get more than one night's rest at a time, they must be almostunendurable. As to prolonging one's anxieties from one's own families tothe families of each of one's children--no parent in his senses--"

  "What is the gipsy girl saying now?" asked Mrs. Hedgehog, who had beenpaying more attention to the women than to my observations--an annoyanceto which, as head of the family, I have been subjected oftener than isbecoming.

  Sybil had been kneeling at the old woman's feet, soothing her andchafing her hands. At last she said,

  "But you did get him, Mother. How was it?"

  "Not for five more years, my daughter. And never in all that time couldI get a sight of his face. The very first house I calls at next morning,I sees a chalk mark on the gate-post, placed there by some travellingtinker or pedler or what not, by which I knows that the neighbourhood isbeing made too hot for tramps and vagrants, as they call us. And go backin what disguisement I might, there was no selling a bootlace, norbegging a crust of bread there--_there_, where _he_ lived.

  "I makes up the ten pounds, and ties it in a bag; but I gets worse andworse in health and spirits and in confusion of mind, my daughter; andwhen I comes accidentally across my son in a Bedfordshire lane, and hiswife is drinking, and he is in much bewilderment with the children, Itakes up again with them, and I was with them when Christian comes to methe second time."

  "He came back to you?"

  "Learning and the confinement of stone walls, my daughter, than which notwo things could be more contrary to the nature of those who dwells inthe woods and lanes. I will not deny that the clergyman--and especiallythe young clergywoman--had been very good to him; but for which he wouldprobably have run away long before. But what is bred in the bone comesout in the flesh. He does pretty well with the learning, and he bearswith the confinement of school, though it is worse than that of theclergy-house. But when a rumour has crept out that he is not the son ofthe clergyman nor of the clergywoman, and he is taunted with being agipsy and a vagrant, he lays his bare hands on those nearest to him, mydaughter, and comes away on his bare feet."

  "How did he find you, Mother?"

  "He has no fixed intentions beyond running away, my daughter; but as heis sitting in a hedge to bandage one of his feet with his handkerchief,he sees our patteran, and he goes on, keeping it by the left, and seesit again, and so follows it, and comes home."

  "You mean that he came to you?"

  "I do, my dear. For home is not a house that never moves from one place,built of stone or brick, and with a front door for the genteel and aback door for the common people. If it was so, prisons would be homes.But home, my daughter, is where persons is whom you belongs to, and itmay be under a hedge to-day and in a fair to-morrow."

  "Mother," said Sybil, "what did you do about the ten pounds?"

  "I will tell you, my daughter. I was obliged to wait longer than wasagreeable to me before proceeding to that neighbourhood, for the policewas searching everywhere, and it would be wearisome to relate to youwith what difficulty Christian was concealed. My plans had been longmade, as you know.

  "Clergyfolk, my daughter, with a tediousness of jaw which makes them asoppressive to listen long to as houses is to rest long in, has theirgood points like other persons; they shows kindness to those who are introuble, and they spends their money very freely on the poor. This iswell known, even by those who has no liking for parsons, and I have morethan once observed that persons who goes straight to the public-housewhen they has money in their pockets, goes straight to the parson whentheir pockets is empty.

  "It is also well known, my daughter, that when the clergyman collectsmoney after speaking in his church, he doesn't take it for his own use,as is the custom with other people, such as Punch and Judy men, orsingers, or fortune tellers; at the same time he is as pleased with agood collection as if it were for his own use; and if some rich personcontributes a sovereign for the sick and poor, it is to him as it wouldbe to you, my daughter, if your hand was crossed with gold by some noblegentleman who had been crossed in love.

  "I explain this, my dear, that you may understand how it was that I hadplanned to pay back the clergy people's ten pounds in church, whichwould be as good as paying it into their hands, with the advantage ofsecrecy for myself. On the Saturday I drives into the little market in adonkey-cart with greens, and on Sunday morning I goes to church in avery respectable disguisement, and the sexton puts me in a pew withsome women of infirm mind in workhouse dresses, for which, my daughter,I had much to do to restrain myself from knocking him down. But I does;and I behaves myself through the service with the utmost care, followingthe movements of the genteeler portion of the company, those in the pewwith me having no manners at all; one of them standing most of the timeand giggling over the pew-back, and another sitting in the corner andweeping into her lap.

  "But with the exception of getting up and sitting down, and holding abook open as near to the middle as I could guess, I pays littleattention, my daughter, for all my thoughts is taken up with waiting forthe collection to begin, and with trying to keep my eyes from theclergywoman's face, which I can see quite clearly, though she is at somedistance from me."

  "Did she look very wild, Mother, as if she felt beside herself?"

  "She looked very bad, my daughter, and grey, which was not with age. Itells you that I tried not to look at her; and by and by the collectionbegins.

  "It seems hours to me, my daughter, whilst the money is chinking and theclergyman is speaking, and the ten pieces of gold is getting so hot inmy hands, I fancies they burns me, and still not one of thecollecting-men comes near our pew.

  "At last, one by one, they begins to go past me and go up to theclergyman who is waiting for them at the upper end, and then I perceivesthat they regards us as too poor to pay our way like the rest, and thatthe plates will never be put into our pew at all. So when the last butone is going past me, I puts out my hand to beckon him, and the womanthat is standing by me bursts out laughing, and the other cries worsethan ever, and the collecting-man says, 'Hush! hush!' and goes past andtakes the plate with him.

  "'A black curse on your insolence!' says I; and then I grips thelaughing woman by the arm and whispers, 'If you make that noise again,I'll break your head,' and she sits down and begins to cry like theother.

  "There is one more collecting-man, who comes last, and he is the Duke,who lives at the big house.

  "The nobility and gentry, my daughter, when they are the real thing,has, like the real Romans, a quickness to catch your meaning, and apoliteness of manner which you doesn't meet with among such people asthe keeper of a small shop or the master of a workhouse. The Duke was avery old man, with bent shoulders and the slow step of age, and I thinkshe did not see or hear very quickly; and when I beckons to him he goespast. But when he is some way past he looks back. And when he sees myhand out, he turns and comes slowly down again, and hands me the platewith as much politeness as if I had been in his own pew, and he says ina low voice, 'I beg your pardon.'

  "But when I sees him stumbling back, and knows that in his politeness hewill bring me the plate, there comes a fear on me, my daughter, that hemay see the ten pieces of gold and think I has stolen them. And then Iknows not what I shall do, for the nobility and gentry, though quick andpolite in a matter of obliging the poor, such as this one,--when theysits as poknees[C] to administer justice, loses both their good senseand their good manners as completely as any of the police.

  "But it comes to me also that being such a real one--such anout-and-outer--his politeness may be so great that he may look anotherway, rather than peep and pry to see what the poor workhouse-companywoman puts into the plate. And I am right, my daughter, for he looksaway, and I
lays the ten golden sovereigns in the plate, and he gives alittle smile and a little bow, and goes slowly and stumblingly to theupper end, where the clergyman is still speaking verses.

  "And then, my daughter, my hands, which made the gold sovereigns sohot, turns very hot, and I gets up and goes out of the church with asmuch respectfulness and quiet as I am able.

  "And I tries not to look at her face as I turns to shut the door, but Iwas unable to keep myself from doing so, and as it looked then I can seeit now, my dear, and I know I shall remember it till I die. I thinkssomehow that she was praying, though it was not a praying part of theservice, and when I looks to the upper end I sees that the eyes of theyoung clergyman her husband is fixed on her, as mine is.

  "And of all the words which he preached that day and the verses he spokewith so much readiness, I could not repeat one to you, my daughter, tosave my life, except the words he was saying just then, and they remainsin my ears as her face remains before my eyes,--

  "'GOD is not unrighteous, that He will forget your work, andlabour which proceedeth of love.'"