summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/38136-h/38136-h.htm
blob: a35c5cbb5420115523e8b819a1878338f4726deb (plain) 
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764
765
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794
795
796
797
798
799
800
801
802
803
804
805
806
807
808
809
810
811
812
813
814
815
816
817
818
819
820
821
822
823
824
825
826
827
828
829
830
831
832
833
834
835
836
837
838
839
840
841
842
843
844
845
846
847
848
849
850
851
852
853
854
855
856
857
858
859
860
861
862
863
864
865
866
867
868
869
870
871
872
873
874
875
876
877
878
879
880
881
882
883
884
885
886
887
888
889
890
891
892
893
894
895
896
897
898
899
900
901
902
903
904
905
906
907
908
909
910
911
912
913
914
915
916
917
918
919
920
921
922
923
924
925
926
927
928
929
930
931
932
933
934
935
936
937
938
939
940
941
942
943
944
945
946
947
948
949
950
951
952
953
954
955
956
957
958
959
960
961
962
963
964
965
966
967
968
969
970
971
972
973
974
975
976
977
978
979
980
981
982
983
984
985
986
987
988
989
990
991
992
993
994
995
996
997
998
999
1000
1001
1002
1003
1004
1005
1006
1007
1008
1009
1010
1011
1012
1013
1014
1015
1016
1017
1018
1019
1020
1021
1022
1023
1024
1025
1026
1027
1028
1029
1030
1031
1032
1033
1034
1035
1036
1037
1038
1039
1040
1041
1042
1043
1044
1045
1046
1047
1048
1049
1050
1051
1052
1053
1054
1055
1056
1057
1058
1059
1060
1061
1062
1063
1064
1065
1066
1067
1068
1069
1070
1071
1072
1073
1074
1075
1076
1077
1078
1079
1080
1081
1082
1083
1084
1085
1086
1087
1088
1089
1090
1091
1092
1093
1094
1095
1096
1097
1098
1099
1100
1101
1102
1103
1104
1105
1106
1107
1108
1109
1110
1111
1112
1113
1114
1115
1116
1117
1118
1119
1120
1121
1122
1123
1124
1125
1126
1127
1128
1129
1130
1131
1132
1133
1134
1135
1136
1137
1138
1139
1140
1141
1142
1143
1144
1145
1146
1147
1148
1149
1150
1151
1152
1153
1154
1155
1156
1157
1158
1159
1160
1161
1162
1163
1164
1165
1166
1167
1168
1169
1170
1171
1172
1173
1174
1175
1176
1177
1178
1179
1180
1181
1182
1183
1184
1185
1186
1187
1188
1189
1190
1191
1192
1193
1194
1195
1196
1197
1198
1199
1200
1201
1202
1203
1204
1205
1206
1207
1208
1209
1210
1211
1212
1213
1214
1215
1216
1217
1218
1219
1220
1221
1222
1223
1224
1225
1226
1227
1228
1229
1230
1231
1232
1233
1234
1235
1236
1237
1238
1239
1240
1241
1242
1243
1244
1245
1246
1247
1248
1249
1250
1251
1252
1253
1254
1255
1256
1257
1258
1259
1260
1261
1262
1263
1264
1265
1266
1267
1268
1269
1270
1271
1272
1273
1274
1275
1276
1277
1278
1279
1280
1281
1282
1283
1284
1285
1286
1287
1288
1289
1290
1291
1292
1293
1294
1295
1296
1297
1298
1299
1300
1301
1302
1303
1304
1305
1306
1307
1308
1309
1310
1311
1312
1313
1314
1315
1316
1317
1318
1319
1320
1321
1322
1323
1324
1325
1326
1327
1328
1329
1330
1331
1332
1333
1334
1335
1336
1337
1338
1339
1340
1341
1342
1343
1344
1345
1346
1347
1348
1349
1350
1351
1352
1353
1354
1355
1356
1357
1358
1359
1360
1361
1362
1363
1364
1365
1366
1367
1368
1369
1370
1371
1372
1373
1374
1375
1376
1377
1378
1379
1380
1381
1382
1383
1384
1385
1386
1387
1388
1389
1390
1391
1392
1393
1394
1395
1396
1397
1398
1399
1400
1401
1402
1403
1404
1405
1406
1407
1408
1409
1410
1411
1412
1413
1414
1415
1416
1417
1418
1419
1420
1421
1422
1423
1424
1425
1426
1427
1428
1429
1430
1431
1432
1433
1434
1435
1436
1437
1438
1439
1440
1441
1442
1443
1444
1445
1446
1447
1448
1449
1450
1451
1452
1453
1454
1455
1456
1457
1458
1459
1460
1461
1462
1463
1464
1465
1466
1467
1468
1469
1470
1471
1472
1473
1474
1475
1476
1477
1478
1479
1480
1481
1482
1483
1484
1485
1486
1487
1488
1489
1490
1491
1492
1493
1494
1495
1496
1497
1498
1499
1500
1501
1502
1503
1504
1505
1506
1507
1508
1509
1510
1511
1512
1513
1514
1515
1516
1517
1518
1519
1520
1521
1522
1523
1524
1525
1526
1527
1528
1529
1530
1531
1532
1533
1534
1535
1536
1537
1538
1539
1540
1541
1542
1543
1544
1545
1546
1547
1548
1549
1550
1551
1552
1553
1554
1555
1556
1557
1558
1559
1560
1561
1562
1563
1564
1565
1566
1567
1568
1569
1570
1571
1572
1573
1574
1575
1576
1577
1578
1579
1580
1581
1582
1583
1584
1585
1586
1587
1588
1589
1590
1591
1592
1593
1594
1595
1596
1597
1598
1599
1600
1601
1602
1603
1604
1605
1606
1607
1608
1609
1610
1611
1612
1613
1614
1615
1616
1617
1618
1619
1620
1621
1622
1623
1624
1625
1626
1627
1628
1629
1630
1631
1632
1633
1634
1635
1636
1637
1638
1639
1640
1641
1642
1643
1644
1645
1646
1647
1648
1649
1650
1651
1652
1653
1654
1655
1656
1657
1658
1659
1660
1661
1662
1663
1664
1665
1666
1667
1668
1669
1670
1671
1672
1673
1674
1675
1676
1677
1678
1679
1680
1681
1682
1683
1684
1685
1686
1687
1688
1689
1690
1691
1692
1693
1694
1695
1696
1697
1698
1699
1700
1701
1702
1703
1704
1705
1706
1707
1708
1709
1710
1711
1712
1713
1714
1715
1716
1717
1718
1719
1720
1721
1722
1723
1724
1725
1726
1727
1728
1729
1730
1731
1732
1733
1734
1735
1736
1737
1738
1739
1740
1741
1742
1743
1744
1745
1746
1747
1748
1749
1750
1751
1752
1753
1754
1755
1756
1757
1758
1759
1760
1761
1762
1763
1764
1765
1766
1767
1768
1769
1770
1771
1772
1773
1774
1775
1776
1777
1778
1779
1780
1781
1782
1783
1784
1785
1786
1787
1788
1789
1790
1791
1792
1793
1794
1795
1796
1797
1798
1799
1800
1801
1802
1803
1804
1805
1806
1807
1808
1809
1810
1811
1812
1813
1814
1815
1816
1817
1818
1819
1820
1821
1822
1823
1824
1825
1826
1827
1828
1829
1830
1831
1832
1833
1834
1835
1836
1837
1838
1839
1840
1841
1842
1843
1844
1845
1846
1847
1848
1849
1850
1851
1852
1853
1854
1855
1856
1857
1858
1859
1860
1861
1862
1863
1864
1865
1866
1867
1868
1869
1870
1871
1872
1873
1874
1875
1876
1877
1878
1879
1880
1881
1882
1883
1884
1885
1886
1887
1888
1889
1890
1891
1892
1893
1894
1895
1896
1897
1898
1899
1900
1901
1902
1903
1904
1905
1906
1907
1908
1909
1910
1911
1912
1913
1914
1915
1916
1917
1918
1919
1920
1921
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926
1927
1928
1929
1930
1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
2027
2028
2029
2030
2031
2032
2033
2034
2035
2036
2037
2038
2039
2040
2041
2042
2043
2044
2045
2046
2047
2048
2049
2050
2051
2052
2053
2054
2055
2056
2057
2058
2059
2060
2061
2062
2063
2064
2065
2066
2067
2068
2069
2070
2071
2072
2073
2074
2075
2076
2077
2078
2079
2080
2081
2082
2083
2084
2085
2086
2087
2088
2089
2090
2091
2092
2093
2094
2095
2096
2097
2098
2099
2100
2101
2102
2103
2104
2105
2106
2107
2108
2109
2110
2111
2112
2113
2114
2115
2116
2117
2118
2119
2120
2121
2122
2123
2124
2125
2126
2127
2128
2129
2130
2131
2132
2133
2134
2135
2136
2137
2138
2139
2140
2141
2142
2143
2144
2145
2146
2147
2148
2149
2150
2151
2152
2153
2154
2155
2156
2157
2158
2159
2160
2161
2162
2163
2164
2165
2166
2167
2168
2169
2170
2171
2172
2173
2174
2175
2176
2177
2178
2179
2180
2181
2182
2183
2184
2185
2186
2187
2188
2189
2190
2191
2192
2193
2194
2195
2196
2197
2198
2199
2200
2201
2202
2203
2204
2205
2206
2207
2208
2209
2210
2211
2212
2213
2214
2215
2216
2217
2218
2219
2220
2221
2222
2223
2224
2225
2226
2227
2228
2229
2230
2231
2232
2233
2234
2235
2236
2237
2238
2239
2240
2241
2242
2243
2244
2245
2246
2247
2248
2249
2250
2251
2252
2253
2254
2255
2256
2257
2258
2259
2260
2261
2262
2263
2264
2265
2266
2267
2268
2269
2270
2271
2272
2273
2274
2275
2276
2277
2278
2279
2280
2281
2282
2283
2284
2285
2286
2287
2288
2289
2290
2291
2292
2293
2294
2295
2296
2297
2298
2299
2300
2301
2302
2303
2304
2305
2306
2307
2308
2309
2310
2311
2312
2313
2314
2315
2316
2317
2318
2319
2320
2321
2322
2323
2324
2325
2326
2327
2328
2329
2330
2331
2332
2333
2334
2335
2336
2337
2338
2339
2340
2341
2342
2343
2344
2345
2346
2347
2348
2349
2350
2351
2352
2353
2354
2355
2356
2357
2358
2359
2360
2361
2362
2363
2364
2365
2366
2367
2368
2369
2370
2371
2372
2373
2374
2375
2376
2377
2378
2379
2380
2381
2382
2383
2384
2385
2386
2387
2388
2389
2390
2391
2392
2393
2394
2395
2396
2397
2398
2399
2400
2401
2402
2403
2404
2405
2406
2407
2408
2409
2410
2411
2412
2413
2414
2415
2416
2417
2418
2419
2420
2421
2422
2423
2424
2425
2426
2427
2428
2429
2430
2431
2432
2433
2434
2435
2436
2437
2438
2439
2440
2441
2442
2443
2444
2445
2446
2447
2448
2449
2450
2451
2452
2453
2454
2455
2456
2457
2458
2459
2460
2461
2462
2463
2464
2465
2466
2467
2468
2469
2470
2471
2472
2473
2474
2475
2476
2477
2478
2479
2480
2481
2482
2483
2484
2485
2486
2487
2488
2489
2490
2491
2492
2493
2494
2495
2496
2497
2498
2499
2500
2501
2502
2503
2504
2505
2506
2507
2508
2509
2510
2511
2512
2513
2514
2515
2516
2517
2518
2519
2520
2521
2522
2523
2524
2525
2526
2527
2528
2529
2530
2531
2532
2533
2534
2535
2536
2537
2538
2539
2540
2541
2542
2543
2544
2545
2546
2547
2548
2549
2550
2551
2552
2553
2554
2555
2556
2557
2558
2559
2560
2561
2562
2563
2564
2565
2566
2567
2568
2569
2570
2571
2572
2573
2574
2575
2576
2577
2578
2579
2580
2581
2582
2583
2584
2585
2586
2587
2588
2589
2590
2591
2592
2593
2594
2595
2596
2597
2598
2599
2600
2601
2602
2603
2604
2605
2606
2607
2608
2609
2610
2611
2612
2613
2614
2615
2616
2617
2618
2619
2620
2621
2622
2623
2624
2625
2626
2627
2628
2629
2630
2631
2632
2633
2634
2635
2636
2637
2638
2639
2640
2641
2642
2643
2644
2645
2646
2647
2648
2649
2650
2651
2652
2653
2654
2655
2656
2657
2658
2659
2660
2661
2662
2663
2664
2665
2666
2667
2668
2669
2670
2671
2672
2673
2674
2675
2676
2677
2678
2679
2680
2681
2682
2683
2684
2685
2686
2687
2688
2689
2690
2691
2692
2693
2694
2695
2696
2697
2698
2699
2700
2701
2702
2703
2704
2705
2706
2707
2708
2709
2710
2711
2712
2713
2714
2715
2716
2717
2718
2719
2720
2721
2722
2723
2724
2725
2726
2727
2728
2729
2730
2731
2732
2733
2734
2735
2736
2737
2738
2739
2740
2741
2742
2743
2744
2745
2746
2747
2748
2749
2750
2751
2752
2753
2754
2755
2756
2757
2758
2759
2760
2761
2762
2763
2764
2765
2766
2767
2768
2769
2770
2771
2772
2773
2774
2775
2776
2777
2778
2779
2780
2781
2782
2783
2784
2785
2786
2787
2788
2789
2790
2791
2792
2793
2794
2795
2796
2797
2798
2799
2800
2801
2802
2803
2804
2805
2806
2807
2808
2809
2810
2811
2812
2813
2814
2815
2816
2817
2818
2819
2820
2821
2822
2823
2824
2825
2826
2827
2828
2829
2830
2831
2832
2833
2834
2835
2836
2837
2838
2839
2840
2841
2842
2843
2844
2845
2846
2847
2848
2849
2850
2851
2852
2853
2854
2855
2856
2857
2858
2859
2860
2861
2862
2863
2864
2865
2866
2867
2868
2869
2870
2871
2872
2873
2874
2875
2876
2877
2878
2879
2880
2881
2882
2883
2884
2885
2886
2887
2888
2889
2890
2891
2892
2893
2894
2895
2896
2897
2898
2899
2900
2901
2902
2903
2904
2905
2906
2907
2908
2909
2910
2911
2912
2913
2914
2915
2916
2917
2918
2919
2920
2921
2922
2923
2924
2925
2926
2927
2928
2929
2930
2931
2932
2933
2934
2935
2936
2937
2938
2939
2940
2941
2942
2943
2944
2945
2946
2947
2948
2949
2950
2951
2952
2953
2954
2955
2956
2957
2958
2959
2960
2961
2962
2963
2964
2965
2966
2967
2968
2969
2970
2971
2972
2973
2974
2975
2976
2977
2978
2979
2980
2981
2982
2983
2984
2985
2986
2987
2988
2989
2990
2991
2992
2993
2994
2995
2996
2997
2998
2999
3000
3001
3002
3003
3004
3005
3006
3007
3008
3009
3010
3011
3012
3013
3014
3015
3016
3017
3018
3019
3020
3021
3022
3023
3024
3025
3026
3027
3028
3029
3030
3031
3032
3033
3034
3035
3036
3037
3038
3039
3040
3041
3042
3043
3044
3045
3046
3047
3048
3049
3050
3051
3052
3053
3054
3055
3056
3057
3058
3059
3060
3061
3062
3063
3064
3065
3066
3067
3068
3069
3070
3071
3072
3073
3074
3075
3076
3077
3078
3079
3080
3081
3082
3083
3084
3085
3086
3087
3088
3089
3090
3091
3092
3093
3094
3095
3096
3097
3098
3099
3100
3101
3102
3103
3104
3105
3106
3107
3108
3109
3110
3111
3112
3113
3114
3115
3116
3117
3118
3119
3120
3121
3122
3123
3124
3125
3126
3127
3128
3129
3130
3131
3132
3133
3134
3135
3136
3137
3138
3139
3140
3141
3142
3143
3144
3145
3146
3147
3148
3149
3150
3151
3152
3153
3154
3155
3156
3157
3158
3159
3160
3161
3162
3163
3164
3165
3166
3167
3168
3169
3170
3171
3172
3173
3174
3175
3176
3177
3178
3179
3180
3181
3182
3183
3184
3185
3186
3187
3188
3189
3190
3191
3192
3193
3194
3195
3196
3197
3198
3199
3200
3201
3202
3203
3204
3205
3206
3207
3208
3209
3210
3211
3212
3213
3214
3215
3216
3217
3218
3219
3220
3221
3222
3223
3224
3225
3226
3227
3228
3229
3230
3231
3232
3233
3234
3235
3236
3237
3238
3239
3240
3241
3242
3243
3244
3245
3246
3247
3248
3249
3250
3251
3252
3253
3254
3255
3256
3257
3258
3259
3260
3261
3262
3263
3264
3265
3266
3267
3268
3269
3270
3271
3272
3273
3274
3275
3276
3277
3278
3279
3280
3281
3282
3283
3284
3285
3286
3287
3288
3289
3290
3291
3292
3293
3294
3295
3296
3297
3298
3299
3300
3301
3302
3303
3304
3305
3306
3307
3308
3309
3310
3311
3312
3313
3314
3315
3316
3317
3318
3319
3320
3321
3322
3323
3324
3325
3326
3327
3328
3329
3330
3331
3332
3333
3334
3335
3336
3337
3338
3339
3340
3341
3342
3343
3344
3345
3346
3347
3348
3349
3350
3351
3352
3353
3354
3355
3356
3357
3358
3359
3360
3361
3362
3363
3364
3365
3366
3367
3368
3369
3370
3371
3372
3373
3374
3375
3376
3377
3378
3379
3380
3381
3382
3383
3384
3385
3386
3387
3388
3389
3390
3391
3392
3393
3394
3395
3396
3397
3398
3399
3400
3401
3402
3403
3404
3405
3406
3407
3408
3409
3410
3411
3412
3413
3414
3415
3416
3417
3418
3419
3420
3421
3422
3423
3424
3425
3426
3427
3428
3429
3430
3431
3432
3433
3434
3435
3436
3437
3438
3439
3440
3441
3442
3443
3444
3445
3446
3447
3448
3449
3450
3451
3452
3453
3454
3455
3456
3457
3458
3459
3460
3461
3462
3463
3464
3465
3466
3467
3468
3469
3470
3471
3472
3473
3474
3475
3476
3477
3478
3479
3480
3481
3482
3483
3484
3485
3486
3487
3488
3489
3490
3491
3492
3493
3494
3495
3496
3497
3498
3499
3500
3501
3502
3503
3504
3505
3506
3507
3508
3509
3510
3511
3512
3513
3514
3515
3516
3517
3518
3519
3520
3521
3522
3523
3524
3525
3526
3527
3528
3529
3530
3531
3532
3533
3534
3535
3536
3537
3538
3539
3540
3541
3542
3543
3544
3545
3546
3547
3548
3549
3550
3551
3552
3553
3554
3555
3556
3557
3558
3559
3560
3561
3562
3563
3564
3565
3566
3567
3568
3569
3570
3571
3572
3573
3574
3575
3576
3577
3578
3579
3580
3581
3582
3583
3584
3585
3586
3587
3588
3589
3590
3591
3592
3593
3594
3595
3596
3597
3598
3599
3600
3601
3602
3603
3604
3605
3606
3607
3608
3609
3610
3611
3612
3613
3614
3615
3616
3617
3618
3619
3620
3621
3622
3623
3624
3625
3626
3627
3628
3629
3630
3631
3632
3633
3634
3635
3636
3637
3638
3639
3640
3641
3642
3643
3644
3645
3646
3647
3648
3649
3650
3651
3652
3653
3654
3655
3656
3657
3658
3659
3660
3661
3662
3663
3664
3665
3666
3667
3668
3669
3670
3671
3672
3673
3674
3675
3676
3677
3678
3679
3680
3681
3682
3683
3684
3685
3686
3687
3688
3689
3690
3691
3692
3693
3694
3695
3696
3697
3698
3699
3700
3701
3702
3703
3704
3705
3706
3707
3708
3709
3710
3711
3712
3713
3714
3715
3716
3717
3718
3719
3720
3721
3722
3723
3724
3725
3726
3727
3728
3729
3730
3731
3732
3733
3734
3735
3736
3737
3738
3739
3740
3741
3742
3743
3744
3745
3746
3747
3748
3749
3750
3751
3752
3753
3754
3755
3756
3757
3758
3759
3760
3761
3762
3763
3764
3765
3766
3767
3768
3769
3770
3771
3772
3773
3774
3775
3776
3777
3778
3779
3780
3781
3782
3783
3784
3785
3786
3787
3788
3789
3790
3791
3792
3793
3794
3795
3796
3797
3798
3799
3800
3801
3802
3803
3804
3805
3806
3807
3808
3809
3810
3811
3812
3813
3814
3815
3816
3817
3818
3819
3820
3821
3822
3823
3824
3825
3826
3827
3828
3829
3830
3831
3832
3833
3834
3835
3836
3837
3838
3839
3840
3841
3842
3843
3844
3845
3846
3847
3848
3849
3850
3851
3852
3853
3854
3855
3856
3857
3858
3859
3860
3861
3862
3863
3864
3865
3866
3867
3868
3869
3870
3871
3872
3873
3874
3875
3876
3877
3878
3879
3880
3881
3882
3883
3884
3885
3886
3887
3888
3889
3890
3891
3892
3893
3894
3895
3896
3897
3898
3899
3900
3901
3902
3903
3904
3905
3906
3907
3908
3909
3910
3911
3912
3913
3914
3915
3916
3917
3918
3919
3920
3921
3922
3923
3924
3925
3926
3927
3928
3929
3930
3931
3932
3933
3934
3935
3936
3937
3938
3939
3940
3941
3942
3943
3944
3945
3946
3947
3948
3949
3950
3951
3952
3953
3954
3955
3956
3957
3958
3959
3960
3961
3962
3963
3964
3965
3966
3967
3968
3969
3970
3971
3972
3973
3974
3975
3976
3977
3978
3979
3980
3981
3982
3983
3984
3985
3986
3987
3988
3989
3990
3991
3992
3993
3994
3995
3996
3997
3998
3999
4000
4001
4002
4003
4004
4005
4006
4007
4008
4009
4010
4011
4012
4013
4014
4015
4016
4017
4018
4019
4020
4021
4022
4023
4024
4025
4026
4027
4028
4029
4030
4031
4032
4033
4034
4035
4036
4037
4038
4039
4040
4041
4042
4043
4044
4045
4046
4047
4048
4049
4050
4051
4052
4053
4054
4055
4056
4057
4058
4059
4060
4061
4062
4063
4064
4065
4066
4067
4068
4069
4070
4071
4072
4073
4074
4075
4076
4077
4078
4079
4080
4081
4082
4083
4084
4085
4086
4087
4088
4089
4090
4091
4092
4093
4094
4095
4096
4097
4098
4099
4100
4101
4102
4103
4104
4105
4106
4107
4108
4109
4110
4111
4112
4113
4114
4115
4116
4117
4118
4119
4120
4121
4122
4123
4124
4125
4126
4127
4128
4129
4130
4131
4132
4133
4134
4135
4136
4137
4138
4139
4140
4141
4142
4143
4144
4145
4146
4147
4148
4149
4150
4151
4152
4153
4154
4155
4156
4157
4158
4159
4160
4161
4162
4163
4164
4165
4166
4167
4168
4169
4170
4171
4172
4173
4174
4175
4176
4177
4178
4179
4180
4181
4182
4183
4184
4185
4186
4187
4188
4189
4190
4191
4192
4193
4194
4195
4196
4197
4198
4199
4200
4201
4202
4203
4204
4205
4206
4207
4208
4209
4210
4211
4212
4213
4214
4215
4216
4217
4218
4219
4220
4221
4222
4223
4224
4225
4226
4227
4228
4229
4230
4231
4232
4233
4234
4235
4236
4237
4238
4239
4240
4241
4242
4243
4244
4245
4246
4247
4248
4249
4250
4251
4252
4253
4254
4255
4256
4257
4258
4259
4260
4261
4262
4263
4264
4265
4266
4267
4268
4269
4270
4271
4272
4273
4274
4275
4276
4277
4278
4279
4280
4281
4282
4283
4284
4285
4286
4287
4288
4289
4290
4291
4292
4293
4294
4295
4296
4297
4298
4299
4300
4301
4302
4303
4304
4305
4306
4307
4308
4309
4310
4311
4312
4313
4314
4315
4316
4317
4318
4319
4320
4321
4322
4323
4324
4325
4326
4327
4328
4329
4330
4331
4332
4333
4334
4335
4336
4337
4338
4339
4340
4341
4342
4343
4344
4345
4346
4347
4348
4349
4350
4351
4352
4353
4354
4355
4356
4357
4358
4359
4360
4361
4362
4363
4364
4365
4366
4367
4368
4369
4370
4371
4372
4373
4374
4375
4376
4377
4378
4379
4380
4381
4382
4383
4384
4385
4386
4387
4388
4389
4390
4391
4392
4393
4394
4395
4396
4397
4398
4399
4400
4401
4402
4403
4404
4405
4406
4407
4408
4409
4410
4411
4412
4413
4414
4415
4416
4417
4418
4419
4420
4421
4422
4423
4424
4425
4426
4427
4428
4429
4430
4431
4432
4433
4434
4435
4436
4437
4438
4439
4440
4441
4442
4443
4444
4445
4446
4447
4448
4449
4450
4451
4452
4453
4454
4455
4456
4457
4458
4459
4460
4461
4462
4463
4464
4465
4466
4467
4468
4469
4470
4471
4472
4473
4474
4475
4476
4477
4478
4479
4480
4481
4482
4483
4484
4485
4486
4487
4488
4489
4490
4491
4492
4493
4494
4495
4496
4497
4498
4499
4500
4501
4502
4503
4504
4505
4506
4507
4508
4509
4510
4511
4512
4513
4514
4515
4516
4517
4518
4519
4520
4521
4522
4523
4524
4525
4526
4527
4528
4529
4530
4531
4532
4533
4534
4535
4536
4537
4538
4539
4540
4541
4542
4543
4544
4545
4546
4547
4548
4549
4550
4551
4552
4553
4554
4555
4556
4557
4558
4559
4560
4561
4562
4563
4564
4565
4566
4567
4568
4569
4570
4571
4572
4573
4574
4575
4576
4577
4578
4579
4580
4581
4582
4583
4584
4585
4586
4587
4588
4589
4590
4591
4592
4593
4594
4595
4596
4597
4598
4599
4600
4601
4602
4603
4604
4605
4606
4607
4608
4609
4610
4611
4612
4613
4614
4615
4616
4617
4618
4619
4620
4621
4622
4623
4624
4625
4626
4627
4628
4629
4630
4631
4632
4633
4634
4635
4636
4637
4638
4639
4640
4641
4642
4643
4644
4645
4646
4647
4648
4649
4650
4651
4652
4653
4654
4655
4656
4657
4658
4659
4660
4661
4662
4663
4664
4665
4666
4667
4668
4669
4670
4671
4672
4673
4674
4675
4676
4677
4678
4679
4680
4681
4682
4683
4684
4685
4686
4687
4688
4689
4690
4691
4692
4693
4694
4695
4696
4697
4698
4699
4700
4701
4702
4703
4704
4705
4706
4707
4708
4709
4710
4711
4712
4713
4714
4715
4716
4717
4718
4719
4720
4721
4722
4723
4724
4725
4726
4727
4728
4729
4730
4731
4732
4733
4734
4735
4736
4737
4738
4739
4740
4741
4742
4743
4744
4745
4746
4747
4748
4749
4750
4751
4752
4753
4754
4755
4756
4757
4758
4759
4760
4761
4762
4763
4764
4765
4766
4767
4768
4769
4770
4771
4772
4773
4774
4775
4776
4777
4778
4779
4780
4781
4782
4783
4784
4785
4786
4787
4788
4789
4790
4791
4792
4793
4794
4795
4796
4797
4798
4799
4800
4801
4802
4803
4804
4805
4806
4807
4808
4809
4810
4811
4812
4813
4814
4815
4816
4817
4818
4819
4820
4821
4822
4823
4824
4825
4826
4827
4828
4829
4830
4831
4832
4833
4834
4835
4836
4837
4838
4839
4840
4841
4842
4843
4844
4845
4846
4847
4848
4849
4850
4851
4852
4853
4854
4855
4856
4857
4858
4859
4860
4861
4862
4863
4864
4865
4866
4867
4868
4869
4870
4871
4872
4873
4874
4875
4876
4877
4878
4879
4880
4881
4882
4883
4884
4885
4886
4887
4888
4889
4890
4891
4892
4893
4894
4895
4896
4897
4898
4899
4900
4901
4902
4903
4904
4905
4906
4907
4908
4909
4910
4911
4912
4913
4914
4915
4916
4917
4918
4919
4920
4921
4922
4923
4924
4925
4926
4927
4928
4929
4930
4931
4932
4933
4934
4935
4936
4937
4938
4939
4940
4941
4942
4943
4944
4945
4946
4947
4948
4949
4950
4951
4952
4953
4954
4955
4956
4957
4958
4959
4960
4961
4962
4963
4964
4965
4966
4967
4968
4969
4970
4971
4972
4973
4974
4975
4976
4977
4978
4979
4980
4981
4982
4983
4984
4985
4986
4987
4988
4989
4990
4991
4992
4993
4994
4995
4996
4997
4998
4999
5000
5001
5002
5003
5004
5005
5006
5007
5008
5009
5010
5011
5012
5013
5014
5015
5016
5017
5018
5019
5020
5021
5022
5023
5024
5025
5026
5027
5028
5029
5030
5031
5032
5033
5034
5035
5036
5037
5038
5039
5040
5041
5042
5043
5044
5045
5046
5047
5048
5049
5050
5051
5052
5053
5054
5055
5056
5057
5058
5059
5060
5061
5062
5063
5064
5065
5066
5067
5068
5069
5070
5071
5072
5073
5074
5075
5076
5077
5078
5079
5080
5081
5082
5083
5084
5085
5086
5087
5088
5089
5090
5091
5092
5093
5094
5095
5096
5097
5098
5099
5100
5101
5102
5103
5104
5105
5106
5107
5108
5109
5110
5111
5112
5113
5114
5115
5116
5117
5118
5119
5120
5121
5122
5123
5124
5125
5126
5127
5128
5129
5130
5131
5132
5133
5134
5135
5136
5137
5138
5139
5140
5141
5142
5143
5144
5145
5146
5147
5148
5149
5150
5151
5152
5153
5154
5155
5156
5157
5158
5159
5160
5161
5162
5163
5164
5165
5166
5167
5168
5169
5170
5171
5172
5173
5174
5175
5176
5177
5178
5179
5180
5181
5182
5183
5184
5185
5186
5187
5188
5189
5190
5191
5192
5193
5194
5195
5196
5197
5198
5199
5200
5201
5202
5203
5204
5205
5206
5207
5208
5209
5210
5211
5212
5213
5214
5215
5216
5217
5218
5219
5220
5221
5222
5223
5224
5225
5226
5227
5228
5229
5230
5231
5232
5233
5234
5235
5236
5237
5238
5239
5240
5241
5242
5243
5244
5245
5246
5247
5248
5249
5250
5251
5252
5253
5254
5255
5256
5257
5258
5259
5260
5261
5262
5263
5264
5265
5266
5267
5268
5269
5270
5271
5272
5273
5274
5275
5276
5277
5278
5279
5280
5281
5282
5283
5284
5285
5286
5287
5288
5289
5290
5291
5292
5293
5294
5295
5296
5297
5298
5299
5300
5301
5302
5303
5304
5305
5306
5307
5308
5309
5310
5311
5312
5313
5314
5315
5316
5317
5318
5319
5320
5321
5322
5323
5324
5325
5326
5327
5328
5329
5330
5331
5332
5333
5334
5335
5336
5337
5338
5339
5340
5341
5342
5343
5344
5345
5346
5347
5348
5349
5350
5351
5352
5353
5354
5355
5356
5357
5358
5359
5360
5361
5362
5363
5364
5365
5366
5367
5368
5369
5370
5371
5372
5373
5374
5375
5376
5377
5378
5379
5380
5381
5382
5383
5384
5385
5386
5387
5388
5389
5390
5391
5392
5393
5394
5395
5396
5397
5398
5399
5400
5401
5402
5403
5404
5405
5406
5407
5408
5409
5410
5411
5412
5413
5414
5415
5416
5417
5418
5419
5420
5421
5422
5423
5424
5425
5426
5427
5428
5429
5430
5431
5432
5433
5434
5435
5436
5437
5438
5439
5440
5441
5442
5443
5444
5445
5446
5447
5448
5449
5450
5451
5452
5453
5454
5455
5456
5457
5458
5459
5460
5461
5462
5463
5464
5465
5466
5467
5468
5469
5470
5471
5472
5473
5474
5475
5476
5477
5478
5479
5480
5481
5482
5483
5484
5485
5486
5487
5488
5489
5490
5491
5492
5493
5494
5495
5496
5497
5498
5499
5500
5501
5502
5503
5504
5505
5506
5507
5508
5509
5510
5511
5512
5513
5514
5515
5516
5517
5518
5519
5520
5521
5522
5523
5524
5525
5526
5527
5528
5529
5530
5531
5532
5533
5534
5535
5536
5537
5538
5539
5540
5541
5542
5543
5544
5545
5546
5547
5548
5549
5550
5551
5552
5553
5554
5555
5556
5557
5558
5559
5560
5561
5562
5563
5564
5565
5566
5567
5568
5569
5570
5571
5572
5573
5574
5575
5576
5577
5578
5579
5580
5581
5582
5583
5584
5585
5586
5587
5588
5589
5590
5591
5592
5593
5594
5595
5596
5597
5598
5599
5600
5601
5602
5603
5604
5605
5606
5607
5608
5609
5610
5611
5612
5613
5614
5615
5616
5617
5618
5619
5620
5621
5622
5623
5624
5625
5626
5627
5628
5629
5630
5631
5632
5633
5634
5635
5636
5637
5638
5639
5640
5641
5642
5643
5644
5645
5646
5647
5648
5649
5650
5651
5652
5653
5654
5655
5656
5657
5658
5659
5660
5661
5662
5663
5664
5665
5666
5667
5668
5669
5670
5671
5672
5673
5674
5675
5676
5677
5678
5679
5680
5681
5682
5683
5684
5685
5686
5687
5688
5689
5690
5691
5692
5693
5694
5695
5696
5697
5698
5699
5700
5701
5702
5703
5704
5705
5706
5707
5708
5709
5710
5711
5712
5713
5714
5715
5716
5717
5718
5719
5720
5721
5722
5723
5724
5725
5726
5727
5728
5729
5730
5731
5732
5733
5734
5735
5736
5737
5738
5739
5740
5741
5742
5743
5744
5745
5746
5747
5748
5749
5750
5751
5752
5753
5754
5755
5756
5757
5758
5759
5760
5761
5762
5763
5764
5765
5766
5767
5768
5769
5770
5771
5772
5773
5774
5775
5776
5777
5778
5779
5780
5781
5782
5783
5784
5785
5786
5787
5788
5789
5790
5791
5792
5793
5794
5795
5796
5797
5798
5799
5800
5801
5802
5803
5804
5805
5806
5807
5808
5809
5810
5811
5812
5813
5814
5815
5816
5817
5818
5819
5820
5821
5822
5823
5824
5825
5826
5827
5828
5829
5830
5831
5832
5833
5834
5835
5836
5837
5838
5839
5840
5841
5842
5843
5844
5845
5846
5847
5848
5849
5850
5851
5852
5853
5854
5855
5856
5857
5858
5859
5860
5861
5862
5863
5864
5865
5866
5867
5868
5869
5870
5871
5872
5873
5874
5875
5876
5877
5878
5879
5880
5881
5882
5883
5884
5885
5886
5887
5888
5889
5890
5891
5892
5893
5894
5895
5896
5897
5898
5899
5900
5901
5902
5903
5904
5905
5906
5907
5908
5909
5910
5911
5912
5913
5914
5915
5916
5917
5918
5919
5920
5921
5922
5923
5924
5925
5926
5927
5928
5929
5930
5931
5932
5933
5934
5935
5936
5937
5938
5939
5940
5941
5942
5943
5944
5945
5946
5947
5948
5949
5950
5951
5952
5953
5954
5955
5956
5957
5958
5959
5960
5961
5962
5963
5964
5965
5966
5967
5968
5969
5970
5971
5972
5973
5974
5975
5976
5977
5978
5979
5980
5981
5982
5983
5984
5985
5986
5987
5988
5989
5990
5991
5992
5993
5994
5995
5996
5997
5998
5999
6000
6001
6002
6003
6004
6005
6006
6007
6008
6009
6010
6011
6012
6013
6014
6015
6016
6017
6018
6019
6020
6021
6022
6023
6024
6025
6026
6027
6028
6029
6030
6031
6032
6033
6034
6035
6036
6037
6038
6039
6040
6041
6042
6043
6044
6045
6046
6047
6048
6049
6050
6051
6052
6053
6054
6055
6056
6057
6058
6059
6060
6061
6062
6063
6064
6065
6066
6067
6068
6069
6070
6071
6072
6073
6074
6075
6076
6077
6078
6079
6080
6081
6082
6083
6084
6085
6086
6087
6088
6089
6090
6091
6092
6093
6094
6095
6096
6097
6098
6099
6100
6101
6102
6103
6104
6105
6106
6107
6108
6109
6110
6111
6112
6113
6114
6115
6116
6117
6118
6119
6120
6121
6122
6123
6124
6125
6126
6127
6128
6129
6130
6131
6132
6133
6134
6135
6136
6137
6138
6139
6140
6141
6142
6143
6144
6145
6146
6147
6148
6149
6150
6151
6152
6153
6154
6155
6156
6157
6158
6159
6160
6161
6162
6163
6164
6165
6166
6167
6168
6169
6170
6171
6172
6173
6174
6175
6176
6177
6178
6179
6180
6181
6182
6183
6184
6185
6186
6187
6188
6189
6190
6191
6192
6193
6194
6195
6196
6197
6198
6199
6200
6201
6202
6203
6204
6205
6206
6207
6208
6209
6210
6211
6212
6213
6214
6215
6216
6217
6218
6219
6220
6221
6222
6223
6224
6225
6226
6227
6228
6229
6230
6231
6232
6233
6234
6235
6236
6237
6238
6239
6240
6241
6242
6243
6244
6245
6246
6247
6248
6249
6250
6251
6252
6253
6254
6255
6256
6257
6258
6259
6260
6261
6262
6263
6264
6265
6266
6267
6268
6269
6270
6271
6272
6273
6274
6275
6276
6277
6278
6279
6280
6281
6282
6283
6284
6285
6286
6287
6288
6289
6290
6291
6292
6293
6294
6295
6296
6297
6298
6299
6300
6301
6302
6303
6304
6305
6306
6307
6308
6309
6310
6311
6312
6313
6314
6315
6316
6317
6318
6319
6320
6321
6322
6323
6324
6325
6326
6327
6328
6329
6330
6331
6332
6333
6334
6335
6336
6337
6338
6339
6340
6341
6342
6343
6344
6345
6346
6347
6348
6349
6350
6351
6352
6353
6354
6355
6356
6357
6358
6359
6360
6361
6362
6363
6364
6365
6366
6367
6368
6369
6370
6371
6372
6373
6374
6375
6376
6377
6378
6379
6380
6381
6382
6383
6384
6385
6386
6387
6388
6389
6390
6391
6392
6393
6394
6395
6396
6397
6398
6399
6400
6401
6402
6403
6404
6405
6406
6407
6408
6409
6410
6411
6412
6413
6414
6415
6416
6417
6418
6419
6420
6421
6422
6423
6424
6425
6426
6427
6428
6429
6430
6431
6432
6433
6434
6435
6436
6437
6438
6439
6440
6441
6442
6443
6444
6445
6446
6447
6448
6449
6450
6451
6452
6453
6454
6455
6456
6457
6458
6459
6460
6461
6462
6463
6464
6465
6466
6467
6468
6469
6470
6471
6472
6473
6474
6475
6476
6477
6478
6479
6480
6481
6482
6483
6484
6485
6486
6487
6488
6489
6490
6491
6492
6493
6494
6495
6496
6497
6498
6499
6500
6501
6502
6503
6504
6505
6506
6507
6508
6509
6510
6511
6512
6513
6514
6515
6516
6517
6518
6519
6520
6521
6522
6523
6524
6525
6526
6527
6528
6529
6530
6531
6532
6533
6534
6535
6536
6537
6538
6539
6540
6541
6542
6543
6544
6545
6546
6547
6548
6549
6550
6551
6552
6553
6554
6555
6556
6557
6558
6559
6560
6561
6562
6563
6564
6565
6566
6567
6568
6569
6570
6571
6572
6573
6574
6575
6576
6577
6578
6579
6580
6581
6582
6583
6584
6585
6586
6587
6588
6589
6590
6591
6592
6593
6594
6595
6596
6597
6598
6599
6600
6601
6602
6603
6604
6605
6606
6607
6608
6609
6610
6611
6612
6613
6614
6615
6616
6617
6618
6619
6620
6621
6622
6623
6624
6625
6626
6627
6628
6629
6630
6631
6632
6633
6634
6635
6636
6637
6638
6639
6640
6641
6642
6643
6644
6645
6646
6647
6648
6649
6650
6651
6652
6653
6654
6655
6656
6657
6658
6659
6660
6661
6662
6663
6664
6665
6666
6667
6668
6669
6670
6671
6672
6673
6674
6675
6676
6677
6678
6679
6680
6681
6682
6683
6684
6685
6686
6687
6688
6689
6690
6691
6692
6693
6694
6695
6696
6697
6698
6699
6700
6701
6702
6703
6704
6705
6706
6707
6708
6709
6710
6711
6712
6713
6714
6715
6716
6717
6718
6719
6720
6721
6722
6723
6724
6725
6726
6727
6728
6729
6730
6731
6732
6733
6734
6735
6736
6737
6738
6739
6740
6741
6742
6743
6744
6745
6746
6747
6748
6749
6750
6751
6752
6753
6754
6755
6756
6757
6758
6759
6760
6761
6762
6763
6764
6765
6766
6767
6768
6769
6770
6771
6772
6773
6774
6775
6776
6777
6778
6779
6780
6781
6782
6783
6784
6785
6786
6787
6788
6789
6790
6791
6792
6793
6794
6795
6796
6797
6798
6799
6800
6801
6802
6803
6804
6805
6806
6807
6808
6809
6810
6811
6812
6813
6814
6815
6816
6817
6818
6819
6820
6821
6822
6823
6824
6825
6826
6827
6828
6829
6830
6831
6832
6833
6834
6835
6836
6837
6838
6839
6840
6841
6842
6843
6844
6845
6846
6847
6848
6849
6850
6851
6852
6853
6854
6855
6856
6857
6858
6859
6860
6861
6862
6863
6864
6865
6866
6867
6868
6869
6870
6871
6872
6873
6874
6875
6876
6877
6878
6879
6880
6881
6882
6883
6884
6885
6886
6887
6888
6889
6890
6891
6892
6893
6894
6895
6896
6897
6898
6899
6900
6901
6902
6903
6904
6905
6906
6907
6908
6909
6910
6911
6912
6913
6914
6915
6916
6917
6918
6919
6920
6921
6922
6923
6924
6925
6926
6927
6928
6929
6930
6931
6932
6933
6934
6935
6936
6937
6938
6939
6940
6941
6942
6943
6944
6945
6946
6947
6948
6949
6950
6951
6952
6953
6954
6955
6956
6957
6958
6959
6960
6961
6962
6963
6964
6965
6966
6967
6968
6969
6970
6971
6972
6973
6974
6975
6976
6977
6978
6979
6980
6981
6982
6983
6984
6985
6986
6987
6988
6989
6990
6991
6992
6993
6994
6995
6996
6997
6998
6999
7000
7001
7002
7003
7004
7005
7006
7007
7008
7009
7010
7011
7012
7013
7014
7015
7016
7017
7018
7019
7020
7021
7022
7023
7024
7025
7026
7027
7028
7029
7030
7031
7032
7033
7034
7035
7036
7037
7038
7039
7040
7041
7042
7043
7044
7045
7046
7047
7048
7049
7050
7051
7052
7053
7054
7055
7056
7057
7058
7059
7060
7061
7062
7063
7064
7065
7066
7067
7068
7069
7070
7071
7072
7073
7074
7075
7076
7077
7078
7079
7080
7081
7082
7083
7084
7085
7086
7087
7088
7089
7090
7091
7092
7093
7094
7095
7096
7097
7098
7099
7100
7101
7102
7103
7104
7105
7106
7107
7108
7109
7110
7111
7112
7113
7114
7115
7116
7117
7118
7119
7120
7121
7122
7123
7124
7125
7126
7127
7128
7129
7130
7131
7132
7133
7134
7135
7136
7137
7138
7139
7140
7141
7142
7143
7144
7145
7146
7147
7148
7149
7150
7151
7152
7153
7154
7155
7156
7157
7158
7159
7160
7161
7162
7163
7164
7165
7166
7167
7168
7169
7170
7171
7172
7173
7174
7175
7176
7177
7178
7179
7180
7181
7182
7183
7184
7185
7186
7187
7188
7189
7190
7191
7192
7193
7194
7195
7196
7197
7198
7199
7200
7201
7202
7203
7204
7205
7206
7207
7208
7209
7210
7211
7212
7213
7214
7215
7216
7217
7218
7219
7220
7221
7222
7223
7224
7225
7226
7227
7228
7229
7230
7231
7232
7233
7234
7235
7236
7237
7238
7239
7240
7241
7242
7243
7244
7245
7246
7247
7248
7249
7250
7251
7252
7253
7254
7255
7256
7257
7258
7259
7260
7261
7262
7263
7264
7265
7266
7267
7268
7269
7270
7271
7272
7273
7274
7275
7276
7277
7278
7279
7280
7281
7282
7283
7284
7285
7286
7287
7288
7289
7290
7291
7292
7293
7294
7295
7296
7297
7298
7299
7300
7301
7302
7303
7304
7305
7306
7307
7308
7309
7310
7311
7312
7313
7314
7315
7316
7317
7318
7319
7320
7321
7322
7323
7324
7325
7326
7327
7328
7329
7330
7331
7332
7333
7334
7335
7336
7337
7338
7339
7340
7341
7342
7343
7344
7345
7346
7347
7348
7349
7350
7351
7352
7353
7354
7355
7356
7357
7358
7359
7360
7361
7362
7363
7364
7365
7366
7367
7368
7369
7370
7371
7372
7373
7374
7375
7376
7377
7378
7379
7380
7381
7382
7383
7384
7385
7386
7387
7388
7389
7390
7391
7392
7393
7394
7395
7396
7397
7398
7399
7400
7401
7402
7403
7404
7405
7406
7407
7408
7409
7410
7411
7412
7413
7414
7415
7416
7417
7418
7419
7420
7421
7422
7423
7424
7425
7426
7427
7428
7429
7430
7431
7432
7433
7434
7435
7436
7437
7438
7439
7440
7441
7442
7443
7444
7445
7446
7447
7448
7449
7450
7451
7452
7453
7454
7455
7456
7457
7458
7459
7460
7461
7462
7463
7464
7465
7466
7467
7468
7469
7470
7471
7472
7473
7474
7475
7476
7477
7478
7479
7480
7481
7482
7483
7484
7485
7486
7487
7488
7489
7490
7491
7492
7493
7494
7495
7496
7497
7498
7499
7500
7501
7502
7503
7504
7505
7506
7507
7508
7509
7510
7511
7512
7513
7514
7515
7516
7517
7518
7519
7520
7521
7522
7523
7524
7525
7526
7527
7528
7529
7530
7531
7532
7533
7534
7535
7536
7537
7538
7539
7540
7541
7542
7543
7544
7545
7546
7547
7548
7549
7550
7551
7552
7553
7554
7555
7556
7557
7558
7559
7560
7561
7562
7563
7564
7565
7566
7567
7568
7569
7570
7571
7572
7573
7574
7575
7576
7577
7578
7579
7580
7581
7582
7583
7584
7585
7586
7587
7588
7589
7590
7591
7592
7593
7594
7595
7596
7597
7598
7599
7600
7601
7602
7603
7604
7605
7606
7607
7608
7609
7610
7611
7612
7613
7614
7615
7616
7617
7618
7619
7620
7621
7622
7623
7624
7625
7626
7627
7628
7629
7630
7631
7632
7633
7634
7635
7636
7637
7638
7639
7640
7641
7642
7643
7644
7645
7646
7647
7648
7649
7650
7651
7652
7653
7654
7655
7656
7657
7658
7659
7660
7661
7662
7663
7664
7665
7666
7667
7668
7669
7670
7671
7672
7673
7674
7675
7676
7677
7678
7679
7680
7681
7682
7683
7684
7685
7686
7687
7688
7689
7690
7691
7692
7693
7694
7695
7696
7697
7698
7699
7700
7701
7702
7703
7704
7705
7706
7707
7708
7709
7710
7711
7712
7713
7714
7715
7716
7717
7718
7719
7720
7721
7722
7723
7724
7725
7726
7727
7728
7729
7730
7731
7732
7733
7734
7735
7736
7737
7738
7739
7740
7741
7742
7743
7744
7745
7746
7747
7748
7749
7750
7751
7752
7753
7754
7755
7756
7757
7758
7759
7760
7761
7762
7763
7764
7765
7766
7767
7768
7769
7770
7771
7772
7773
7774
7775
7776
7777
7778
7779
7780
7781
7782
7783
7784
7785
7786
7787
7788
7789
7790
7791
7792
7793
7794
7795
7796
7797
7798
7799
7800
7801
7802
7803
7804
7805
7806
7807
7808
7809
7810
7811
7812
7813
7814
7815
7816
7817
7818
7819
7820
7821
7822
7823
7824
7825
7826
7827
7828
7829
7830
7831
7832
7833
7834
7835
7836
7837
7838
7839
7840
7841
7842
7843
7844
7845
7846
7847
7848
7849
7850
7851
7852
7853
7854
7855
7856
7857
7858
7859
7860
7861
7862
7863
7864
7865
7866
7867
7868
7869
7870
7871
7872
7873
7874
7875
7876
7877
7878
7879
7880
7881
7882
7883
7884
7885
7886
7887
7888
7889
7890
7891
7892
7893
7894
7895
7896
7897
7898
7899
7900
7901
7902
7903
7904
7905
7906
7907
7908
7909
7910
7911
7912
7913
7914
7915
7916
7917
7918
7919
7920
7921
7922
7923
7924
7925
7926
7927
7928
7929
7930
7931
7932
7933
7934
7935
7936
7937
7938
7939
7940
7941
7942
7943
7944
7945
7946
7947
7948
7949
7950
7951
7952
7953
7954
7955
7956
7957
7958
7959
7960
7961
7962
7963
7964
7965
7966
7967
7968
7969
7970
7971
7972
7973
7974
7975
7976
7977
7978
7979
7980
7981
7982
7983
7984
7985
7986
7987
7988
7989
7990
7991
7992
7993
7994
7995
7996
7997
7998
7999
8000
8001
8002
8003
8004
8005
8006
8007
8008
8009
8010
8011
8012
8013
8014
8015
8016
8017
8018
8019
8020
8021
8022
8023
8024
8025
8026
8027
8028
8029
8030
8031
8032
8033
8034
8035
8036
8037
8038
8039
8040
8041
8042
8043
8044
8045
8046
8047
8048
8049
8050
8051
8052
8053
8054
8055
8056
8057
8058
8059
8060
8061
8062
8063
8064
8065
8066
8067
8068
8069
8070
8071
8072
8073
8074
8075

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ -->

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
    <title>
      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Life of Thomas Wanless, Peasant,
      by Alexander Johnstone Wilson.
    </title>
    <style type="text/css">

body {
    margin-left: 10%;
    margin-right: 10%;
}

    h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {
    text-align: center; /* all headings centered */
    clear: both;
}

p {
    margin-top: .75em;
    text-align: justify;
    margin-bottom: .75em;
}

hr {
    width: 33%;
    margin-top: 2em;
    margin-bottom: 2em;
    margin-left: auto;
    margin-right: auto;
    clear: both;
}

.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */
    /*  visibility: hidden;  */
    position: absolute;
    left: 92%;
    font-size: smaller;
    text-align: right;
} /* page numbers */

table {
    margin-left: auto;
    margin-right: auto;
}

.center   {text-align: center;}

.tnote {
  border: dashed 1px;
  margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;
  padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em;
  padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em;
}

    </style>
  </head>
<body>


<pre>

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life of Thomas Wanless, Peasant, by 
Alexander Johnstone Wilson

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org


Title: The Life of Thomas Wanless, Peasant

Author: Alexander Johnstone Wilson

Release Date: November 25, 2011 [EBook #38136]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE OF THOMAS WANLESS ***




Produced by Moti Ben-Ari and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was
produced from scanned images of public domain material
from the Google Print project.)






</pre>



<h1>THE LIFE OF THOMAS WANLESS, PEASANT.</h1>

<div class="center">
Manchester:<br />
JOHN DALE, 296 &amp; 298, STRETFORD ROAD.<br />
ABEL HEYWOOD &amp; SON, 56 &amp; 58, OLDHAM STREET.<br />
<br />
London:<br />
SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, &amp; CO., STATIONERS' HALL COURT.
</div>

<hr style="width: 65%;" />


<div class="center">
INDEX.<br />

<table border="0" cellpadding="8" cellspacing="1" summary="">
<tr><td align="right">CHAP.</td><td align="left">&nbsp;</td><td align="right">PAGE.</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">&nbsp;</td><td align="left">INTRODUCTORY,</td><td align="right">1</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">I.</td><td align="left">A HELOT'S NURTURE,</td><td align="right">11</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">II.</td><td align="left">A PHILANTHROPIC PARSON,</td><td align="right">24</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">III.</td><td align="left">THE "ALLOTMENT" CURE FOR HUNGER,</td><td align="right">31</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">IV.</td><td align="left">MANUFACTURING CRIMINALS,</td><td align="right">48</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">V.</td><td align="left">JAIL LIFE,</td><td align="right">69</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">VI.</td><td align="left">NATURE OF A SERMON,</td><td align="right">85</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">VII.</td><td align="left">MEN FOR A STANDING ARMY,</td><td align="right">96</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">VIII.</td><td align="left">VERY ARISTOCRATIC COMPANY,</td><td align="right">115</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">IX.</td><td align="left">AN OLD, OLD STORY,</td><td align="right">123</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">X.</td><td align="left">THE PARSONAGE,</td><td align="right">131</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">XI.</td><td align="left">A MERE PEASANT MAIDEN,</td><td align="right">139</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">XII.</td><td align="left">HIGH AND LOW BREEDING,</td><td align="right">150</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">XIII.</td><td align="left">PREACHERS OF "WORDS",</td><td align="right">157</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">XIV.</td><td align="left">"CHRISTIAN" RESPECTABILITY,</td><td align="right">166</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">XV.</td><td align="left">TOO BAD FOR DESCRIPTION,</td><td align="right">179</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">XVI.</td><td align="left">A BETTER QUEST,</td><td align="right">186</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">XVII.</td><td align="left">NOTHING THAT IS NEW,</td><td align="right">195</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">XVIII.</td><td align="left">SWEET ARE THE USES OF ADVERSITY,</td><td align="right">209</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">XIX.</td><td align="left">THE LOST ONE IS FOUND,</td><td align="right">217</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">XX.</td><td align="left">THE LAST LONG SLEEP OF ALL,</td><td align="right">226</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">XXI.</td><td align="left">THE JOURNEY'S END,</td><td align="right">236</td></tr>
</table>
</div>

<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>

<h2>
THE LIFE OF<br />
THOMAS WANLESS,<br />
PEASANT.<br /><br />
</h2>

<h3>INTRODUCTORY.</h3>

<p>Some years ago it was my habit to spend the long
vacation in a quiet Warwickshire village, not far from
the fashionable town of Leamington. I chose this spot
for its sweet peace and its withdrawnness; for the opportunities
it gave me of wandering along the beautiful
tree-shaded country lanes; for its nearness to such
historical spots as Warwick, Kenilworth, and Stratford-on-Avon,
to all of which I could either walk or ride in a
morning. But I love a quiet village for its own sake
above most things, and would rather spend my leisure
amongst its simple cottage folk, take my rest on the
bench at the village alehouse door, and walk amid the
smock-frocked peasantry to the grey village church, than
mingle with the fashionable, over-dressed, prurient,
hollow-hearted, and artificial products of civilisation that
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>constitute themselves society&mdash;yea a thousand-fold
rather. To me the restfulness of a little village, with its
cots nestling among the drowsy trees in a warm summer
day, is a foreshadowing of the rest of heaven. So I
settled myself in little Ashbrook, in a room sweet and
cool, of its little inn, and laughed at the foolish creatures
who, with weary, purposeless steps trode daily the
Leamington Parade with hearts full of all envy and
jealousy at sight of such other descendants of our tattooed
ancestors as fortune might enable to gaud their bodies
more lavishly than they. These droned their idle life
away flirting, reading the skim-milk, often unwholesome,
literature of the fashionable library; jabbering about
dress, and picking characters to pieces; shooting in the
gardens at archery meetings; patronising religious shows
and thinking it refinement. And I? I wander forth
alone, filling my sketch-book with whatsoever takes my
fancy, or, in sociable moods, drink my ale in rustic
company, talking of hard winters and low wages, the
difficulty of living, of rural incidents, and the joys and
sorrows of those toilers by whose hard labour the few are
made rich. They are not faultless, these rustics, but they
are very human, and their vices are unsophisticated
vices&mdash;the art of gilding iniquity, of luxuriously tricking
out a frivolous existence in the most subtle conceits of
dress and demeanour, has not yet reached them. When
they sin they do not sublimise their sins into the little
peccadilloes and amusements incident to civilisation. So
I love them; marred and crooked and dull-witted though
they may be, they suit my humour, and fall in with my
tastes for the open air, the free expanse of landscape, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>
grand old trees, and the verdure-clothed banks of the
sleepy streams.</p>

<p>It was in this village that I met my peasant. He was
not a man easy to pick acquaintance with, for he mingled
little among the gossips of the place. Never once did I see
him at the village inn or in church. He lived apart in a little
cottage near the Warwick end of the village, with his
wife and a little lass of ten or eleven summers&mdash;his
granddaughter. I often met him in the early morning
going to market with his baskets of vegetables, or in the
cool of the evening, when he would go out with his little
girl skipping and dancing by his side. And the very
first time I saw him he awakened in me a strong interest.
There was something striking in his aspect&mdash;a still calm
was on his face, and at the same time a hardness lay
about the mouth, and in the wrinkles around the eyes,
which was almost repellant. His figure had been above
the middle height; and although now bent and gaunt-looking,
had still an aspect of calm energy and decayed
strength. But what struck me most was the grand,
almost majestic outline of his profile, and the keenness of
his yet undimmed eye, which flashed from beneath grey
shaggy eyebrows with a light that entered one's soul.
The face was thoroughly English in type, with features
singularly regular, the forehead broad, the nose aquiline,
the chin large; and still in old age round and clean and
full, though the cheeks had fallen in and the mouth had
become drawn and hard. Had one met this man in
"society," dressed in correct evening costume, surrounded
by courtly dames in half-dress, one would have been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>
struck by the individuality of that grand, grey face.
Meanly clad, bent, and leaning on a common oaken staff,
the face and figure of this old peasant were such as once
looked at could not be easily forgotten. This also was
a man with a soul in him; ay, and with a heart too; for
does not his eye rest with an inexpressibly sad tenderness
on the slim girl by his side when she interrupts his
reverie with the eager query, "Grand-dad, grand-dad!
Oh look at this poor dead bird in the path; who could
have killed it?"</p>

<p>My interest in this solitary man was keenly roused;
and, from the inquiries I made, I learned enough of his
history to make me anxious to know him. But that was
not a desire easily gratified. Although always courteous
in returning my "good evening," he did so with an air
that forbade conversation, and gave me back but
monosyllables to any remarks I might make about the
weather, the crops, or the child. He was not rude, only
reserved and dry, and that not with me only. To nearly
all the villagers his manner was the same. Only two
may be said to have been frequenters of his house, the
old schoolmaster and the sexton. Even his wife had
few or no gossips. Yet everyone seemed to respect him,
and many spoke of him with a kind of friendly pity.
Whether or not the respect was partly due to the fact
that the old man was supposed to have means&mdash;that is,
that although no longer able to do more than cultivate
his little garden and allotment patch, he was yet not on
the parish&mdash;I cannot say, but it was clear that the kindliness
at least was genuine. And so no one intruded on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>
him. All saluted him respectfully and left him to
himself, save perhaps when one of the village milk
dealers might give him a lift on his way to market.
Sometimes on a warm evening I have seen him seated
at his cottage door with a newspaper on his knee,
smoking his evening pipe, and answering the greetings
of passers by. But except his two old friends, and
perhaps some village children playing with his little one,
there was no gathering of neighbours; no gossips leant
over his fence to discuss village scandals and local
politics. He was a man apart; and thus it happened
that my first holiday in the village passed away leaving
me still a stranger to old Thomas Wanless.</p>

<p>But for an accident we might have been strangers still,
and I would not have troubled the world with this old
peasant's history. I was walking home one morning
from Leamington, whither I had gone to buy some fresh
colours and a sketch-book, when I heard in a hollow
behind me a vehicle of some sort coming along the road
at a great pace. Almost immediately a dog-cart driven
tandem overtook and passed me. It contained a stout,
rather blotched-looking man, who might be any age from
thirty-five to fifty, and a groom. Just beyond the road
took rather a sharp turn to the right, dipping into
another hollow, and the dog-cart had hardly disappeared
round the corner when I heard a shrill scream of pain,
followed by oaths, loud and deep, uttered in a harsh,
metallic, but husky voice. I ran forward and immediately
came upon Thomas Wanless's little girl lying
moaning in the road, white and unable to move, grasping<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>
a bunch of wild flowers in one hand. Half-a-crown lay
amongst the dust near her, and the dog-cart was dashing
over the crest of the further slope, apparently on its way
to the Grange. Without pausing to think, but cursing
the while the heartlessness of those who seemed to think
half-a-crown compensation enough for the injury done to
this little one, I flung my parcel over the hedge, and
gathering the half-fainting child as gently as I could in my
arms, hurried with her to her grandfather's cottage. It
was a good half-mile walk, partly through the village.
The child was heavy, and I arrived hot and out of breath,
followed by several matrons who had caught sight of me
as I passed by, and who stood round the door with anxious
faces. A milkman's cart met me on the way, and I
begged its occupant to drive with all speed to Warwick
for a surgeon, as the child had been run over. The man
answered yes, and went.</p>

<p>When I burst into Thomas's house he was dozing in
his armchair, but the noise woke him and brought his
wife in from the garden. "Oh, my God," cried Thomas,
as he caught sight of the child; and he tried to rise, but
sank again into his seat pale as death, and trembling all
over. His wife burst into tears, but immediately swept
an old couch clear of some clothes and child's playthings,
and there I laid poor Sally, as the old woman called her,
half unconscious and still moaning. Rapidly Mrs. Wanless
loosened the child's clothes, and as she did so I told
them what had occurred. When I described the man
who had run over the child, I was startled by a sudden
flash of angry scorn, almost of hate, that mantled over<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>
the old man's face. He clutched the arms of his chair
convulsively, and half rose from his seat as he almost
hissed out the words&mdash;"By Heaven, the child has been
killed by its own father." He seemed to regret the
words as soon as uttered, and tried to hide his confusion
by eagerly inquiring of his wife if she had found out
where Sally was hurt. The effort failed him, however,
and he remained visibly embarrassed by my presence.
I would have left, but I too was anxious to see where
Sarah was hurt, so I turned to the couch to give Thomas
time to recover himself. As I did so, Sally screamed.
Her grandmother had attempted to draw down her
loosened dress, and in doing so had disturbed the child's
legs, causing acute pain.</p>

<p>I judged at once that a leg was either bruised or
broken, and begged Mrs. Wanless to feel gently for the
hurt. Almost immediately the child uttered a scream,
crying, "Oh, my right leg, my right leg;" and a brief examination
proved the fact that it was broken just a
little way below the knee. The sobbing of the child unnerved
Mrs. Wanless, and she seemed about to faint, so
I led her to a seat, gave her a glass of water, and returned
to Sarah, turning her carefully flat on her back, and
kneeling down, gently removed her stocking from the
broken limb, which I then laid straight out on the couch,
propping it on either side with such soft articles as I
could lay hands on. That done, I told Sarah to lie as
still as she could until the doctor came, when he would
soon ease her pain. Soothing the child thus, and hardly
thinking of the old people, I was suddenly interrupted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>
by Thomas. He had risen from his chair, and, leaning
on his staff, had approached the couch. He stood there
for a little, looking at his little maiden with an expression
of intense pain and sorrow on his face. Then he turned
to me, and, without speaking, held out his hand. I rose
to my feet, grasped it, and, suddenly bethinking myself for
the first time, uncovered my head. The tears gathered
in my eyes in spite of myself. I knew in my heart that
Thomas Wanless and I were friends.</p>

<p>And great friends we became in time. At first I went
to the cottage daily to enquire after little Sarah, who
progressed favourably under the Warwick surgeon's care;
and when she was past all danger and pain, I went to
talk with old Thomas. Gradually his heart opened to
me; and bit by bit I gathered up the main incidents of
his history. A commonplace history enough, yet tragic
too; for Thomas was no commonplace man. There was
a depth of passion beneath that still hard face; a wealth
of feeling, a range of thought that to me was utterly
astounding. What had not this village labourer known
and suffered; what sorrow; what baffled hope; yea, what
despair; and, through despair, what peace! As I sat by
his chair on the summer evenings and listened to his
talk with his old friends, or walked with him in the
by-lanes, gathering from his lips the leading events of
his life, my heart often burned within me. Yet, refined
reader, gentle reader, Thomas Wanless was only a
peasant; a man that sold vegetables and flowers from
door to door in little Warwick town to eke out his means
of subsistence. His was the toiler's lot; the lot without<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>
hope for this world, whose natural end is want, and a
pauper's grave.</p>

<p>Can I hope to interest you in this man's history? I
confess I have my doubts. There is tragedy in it; it is
mostly tragedy; but then it is the tragedy of the low
born. I shall not be able to introduce you to any arch
plotter; to groups of refined adulteresses clad in robes
of satin and blazoned with jewels and gold, at once the
sign and the fruit of their shame. Nor can I promise to
unweave startling plots, or to deal in mysterious horrors
such as cause the flesh of dainty ladies to creep with
a delicious excitement. No; the incidents of Thomas
Wanless's story are mostly those of a plain English
villager, doomed to suffer and to bear his share of the
load of our national greatness; one above the common
level in his personal qualities to be sure, but nowise
above the common lot. Those who cannot bear to read
of such, had better close the book.</p>

<p>Read by you or not, Thomas Wanless's story I must
write, for it is a story that all the upper powers of these
realms would do well to ponder&mdash;from the serene
defenders of the faith, with their high satellite, lord bishops
in lawn sleeves, downwards. The day is coming, and
coming soon, when the men of Thomas Wanless's stamp
will invite these dignitaries to give an account of
themselves, and to justify the manner of their being
under penalty of summary notice to quit.</p>



<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2>

<h3>WHEREIN IS SET FORTH THE BLESSEDNESS OF
A HELOT'S NURTURE.</h3>


<p>The grandfather of Thomas Wanless had been a small
Warwickshire yeoman, whom the troublous times towards
the latter end of the last century, family misfortunes,
and the pressure of the large landowners, had combined
to reduce in circumstances. His son Jacob had,
therefore, found himself in the position of a day labourer
on the farms around Ashbrook, raised above his fellow
labourers only by the fact that he could sign his name,
and that, through his wife, he owned a small freehold
cottage with about a quarter of an acre of garden in the
village. His unusual literary accomplishments, and his
small possession did little to relieve him from the common
miseries which pressed more or less on all, but most, of
course, on the lowest class, during the years that
succeeded the "glorious" Napoleonic wars. The winter of
1819, therefore, found him wrestling with the bitter energy
of a hungry despair to get bread for a family of six
children. The task proved too much for him, and he
was reluctantly driven to let his oldest boy Thomas go
to work on the Whitbury farm for a shilling a week.
Thomas had been trying to pick up some inkling of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>
art of reading at a dame's school in the village, but had
not made much progress&mdash;could, when thus launched on
the world, do no more than spell out the Sermon on the
Mount, or the first verses of the 1st chapter in John's
Gospel, and ere a year was well over he had forgotten
even that. There were no demagogues in those days
disturbing peaceful villages with clamours for education;
no laws prohibiting the labour of little children at tasks
beyond their strength.</p>

<p>The squires, the parsons, and the larger farmers had
the law in their own hands, and combined to keep the
lower orders in ignorance, giving God thanks that they
had the power so to do. The sporting parson of Ashbrook
of that day even thought it superfluous to
teach those d&mdash;&mdash;d labourers' brats the Catechism. He
appeared to think his duty done when he had stumbled
through the prayers once a week in church. That, at
least, was the range of his spiritual duties. For the rest,
he considered it of the highest moment that his tithes
should be promptly paid; that all poaching should be
summarily punished, and that the hunting appointments
of the shire should always be graced by his presence. It was
also a point of duty with him always to vote true blue,
and never to miss a good dinner at any aristocratic table
within his reach. He would say grace with fervour, and
drink the good wines till his face grew purple and his
eyes bloodshot. If he had another mission in life, it
was to do his best to divert in sublime disregard of merit
or human wants, the charity which some reluctantly
contrite sinner of former days had left for the poor of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>
the parish, to the use of creatures who had excited his
good feeling by their obsequiousness.</p>

<p>So it came to pass that little Thomas Wanless was
launched on the world at the early age of eight, at the
age when the well-to-do begin to think of sending their
children to school. Clad in a sort of blue smock and
heavy clog boots; patched, not over-warm breeches and
stockings, Thomas had to face the wintry blasts in the
early morning, for it was a good mile walk to Whitbury
Farm. There, all day long, he either trudged wearily
by the sides of the horses at plough, often nearly frozen
with cold, or did rough jobs about the cattle or pigs in
the muck-littered farmyard. Weary, heavy hearted, and
hungry, the lad came home at night to his meagre supper
of thin oatmeal porridge, or of black bread flavoured
with coarse bacon, washed down sometimes with a little
thin ale or cider. Often he had for dinner only dry
bread and a little watery cheese, and rarely or never any
meat or milk. Supper over the boy crept straight to
bed. For two years this was the life the boy led, and at
the end of these two years his wage was but eighteenpence
a week. No food was given him save, perhaps, an
occasional hunch of bread surreptitiously conveyed to
him beneath the apron of a dairymaid endowed with
fellow feeling. What need to fill up the picture of these
years&mdash;who does not know it now? The long autumn
days spent watching the corn, often, weary with watching,
and hungry, falling asleep by the hedge side. The
dreary winters, the hard pallet, and still harder fare, the
scant clothing and chilled blood, the crowded sleeping<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>
rooms and wan stunted figures; find you not all the history
of lives like this set forth in Parliamentary Blue Books
for legislators to ponder over and mend, if they can or
care. Thomas Wanless suffered no more hardships than
millions that have gone before him, or that follow after
to this day, bearing on their weary, patient shoulders
the burden of our magnificent civilization. He and the
others suspected not that this was their allotted mission in
our immaculate order of society; but the concrete
sufferings of his lot he could feel. For him the harsh
words and cruel blows of the farmer were real enough,
and, in the misery of his present sufferings, his young life
lost its joy and hope. For him the birds that sang in
the sweet spring time brought no melody of heaven, the
autumn with its golden grain no joy. He knew only of
labour, and men's hardness, and was familiar mostly
with hunger and cold and pain. The divine order of the
British Constitution had ordained it&mdash;why should he
complain? If my lord and my lady lived in wasteful
luxury, if proud squires and their henchmen trod crops
under foot in their pursuit of sport, totally regardless of
a people's necessities; if vermin, strictly preserved, ate
the bread of the poor in order that the lordly few might
indulge the wild brute passion for slaughter, deemed by
them a mark of high-breeding, what was that to Thomas
and his kind? Had not those people a right to their
pleasure? Was not the land theirs, by theft or fraud it
might be, but still theirs by a power none dared gainsay?
All that was as clear as day, and religion itself was
distinctly on the side of the upper classes. The Church<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>
through its tithes shared in their exclusive privileges, and
the parson of the parish was a diligent guardian of
property. On the rare occasions when he preached a
sermon his theme was the duty of the poor to be
contented and obedient. Men who dared to think, he
classed as rioters, who, like poachers and rick-burners,
were an abomination to the Lord. Who so dared to
question the divine order of British society, deserved, in
the parson's view, everlasting death. Wealth, in short,
according to this beautiful gospel, was for them that had
it or could steal it within the lines of the constitution,
and for the poor there was degradation, hunger, rags,
and, by way of hope, a chance of the pauper's heaven.</p>

<p>It must be all right, of course; but somehow, gradually,
to little Thomas it did not appear so. Very young and
ignorant as he was, strange thoughts began to stir within
him. At home he saw his father sinking more and more
into the hopeless state of a man whose only earthly hope
was the parish workhouse; he saw his mother beaten to
the earth with the weary work of rearing a family of six
children, without the means of giving them enough to
eat. One by one these went out, like himself, from their
little three-roomed cottage to try and earn the bread
they needed. The girls worked in the fields like the
rest. All were, like himself, uneducated, and, in spite of
all, the wolf could hardly be kept from the door when
bread was dear, as it often was in those days. His
father's wages never averaged more than 8s. a-week the
year round. But what did that matter? Had not the
parish provided a poorhouse, and did it not give bread of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>
a kind to every miserable groundling whom it could not
drive beyond its bounds? They ought surely to have
been contented. Yet Thomas, who saw and often felt
their hunger, and contrasted it with the coarse profusion
at the farm, and the pampered condition of the squire's
menials at the Grange&mdash;he doubted many things.</p>

<p>The sight of a meeting of fox-hunters, and of the rush
of their horses across the cultivated land, filled him with
wrath even then. The life he saw around him had no unity
in it. Thus it happened that, by the time he was 13,
though still stunted in body, he had begun to assert some
amount of dogged independence, and was driven away
from Whitbury farm because he flew at his drunken
master for striking him with the waggoner's whip.</p>

<p>With some difficulty he got work after this, at 2s. a
week and his dinner, on a small dairy farm called the
Brooks, which lay a mile further from the village, on the
Stratford Road. There he got better treatment. His
master was a quiet hard-working man, who had himself
a hard struggle to meet his rent, maintain his stock of
nine cows, and get a living. His own troubles had tended
rather to soften than harden his nature. Thomas, though
having to work early and late, at least always got his
warm dinner, and often received a draught of milk from
the motherly housewife. Here, therefore, he began to
grow; his stunted limbs straightened out; his chest
expanded, and, by the time he was seventeen he gave the
promise of becoming a more than usually stalwart labourer.</p>

<p>While Thomas was still new at this dairy farm, and
while the remembrance of his defiance was still fresh in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>
the minds of farmer Pemberton, of Whitbury, and his
family, he was subjected to an outrage which almost
killed him, and left a mark on his mind which was fresh
and vivid to the day of his death. Farmer Pemberton's
sons resolved to have a lark with the "impudent young
devil." Their first idea was to catch Thomas as he came
home at night, and, after trouncing him soundly,
duck him in the stinking pond formed by the farm
sewage. On consulting their friend, the eldest son of
Lawyer Turner, of Warwick, he, however, said that it
would be better to frighten the little beggar into doing
something they might get him clapped into jail for.
Led by this young knave, the farmer's three sons disguised
themselves by blackening their faces and donning
old clothes. Then, armed with bludgeons and knives,
they lay in wait for Thomas as he came home from work
in the gloom of an October evening. Their intention
was to seize him, and amid great demonstrations of
knives and fearful imprecations, order him to take them
to Farmer Pemberton's rickyard. Once there they
intended to force him to set fire to some straw in the
yard, and then seize him for fire-raising. As young
Turner said, they might easily in this way swear him
into jail for a twelvemonth.</p>

<p>This diabolical plot was actually and literally carried
out upon this poor, ignorant, peasant lad by four young
men, supposed to be educated and civilised; and it might
have had all the disastrous consequences they could have
wished but for an accident. A labourer on the farm
overheard part of the conversation of the plotters as they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>
marshalled themselves on the night of the expedition,
and, as soon as the coast was clear, stole off to warn the
boy's father. Jacob Wanless and he at once roused the
neighbours; and, after a delay of perhaps twenty minutes,
half a dozen men started for Whitbury Farm, while as
many took the Stratford Road to try to save the boy
from capture.</p>

<p>The latter party was too late; Thomas was caught
near a cross-road about a quarter of a mile from the farm.
Two disguised men rushed upon him from opposite sides
of the road with savage growls, their blackened faces half
hid in mufflers. Brandishing clubs and knives, they
demanded his name. Thomas gave one piercing yell of
terror and dashed forward, but was seized and held fast.
Gripping him by the collar of his smock till he was
nearly choked, young Turner again demanded his name,
and, on Thomas gasping it out, roared in his ear, "then
you are the villain we want. You must take us to
farmer Pemberton's rickyard and stables. We are rick-burners,
and will kill you unless you obey." Whereat he
flourished a knife, and drew the back of it across his own
throat, with a significant gurgle. Thomas trembled in
every limb, tried to speak, but his tongue failing him,
burst into a wail of crying instead, and sank to the
ground. The scoundrels laughed hoarsely, and, amid a
volley of oaths, hauled him to his feet. Then forcing
him on his knees, Turner ordered him to swear to lead
them to the place, and keep faith with them. As the
boy hesitated, they stood over him crying, "Swear,
swear, you obstinate pig, or you die," and Turner held<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>
the knife to his heart. Thoroughly cowed and terror
stricken, Thomas gasped out, "I swear." A man on each
side then laid hold of him, hauled him to his feet and led
him towards the farm, the other two ruffians acting
guards, muttering foul oaths, and brandishing their
cudgels within an inch of his face in a way that froze his
very heart's blood with terror.</p>

<p>Arrived at the barn, they produced a tinderbox, and,
lighting a match, ordered Thomas to set fire to a heap
of loose straw that lay near the barn door. Thomas
refused. A dim glimmer of the fact that he was being
hoaxed had risen through his fears. He thought he
knew the voices of at least two of his tormentors, and he
grew bolder. Twice the order was repeated amid
ominous handling of knives, but he sullenly bade them
light the straw themselves, and thrust his hands into his
pockets. After a third refusal one of the Pembertons
struck him in the face a blow that loosened three of his
teeth, and made his nose bleed profusely. Then once
more he was asked to light the straw, but the only reply
was a piercing cry for help. In a moment a gag was
thrust into his bleeding mouth, and he was flung on the
ground, where they proceeded to pinion his hands and
his feet. Before completing the tying, Turner hissed
into his ear, "Hold up your hand to say you yield, you
little devil, or we will beat you to death." But Thomas
lay still, so the whole four of them commenced to push
him about with their feet, and to strike him with their
sticks, amid growls and horrid oaths. Then Thomas
lost consciousness. When he awoke again he was at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>
home in his mother's bed. His mother was kneeling by
his side weeping bitterly, and his father stood over him
holding a feeble rushlight, watching for the return of life.
The boy was in great pain, especially about the legs and
abdomen, and could not move his left arm at all. His
face was swollen, his lips and gums lacerated and sore,
and he lay tossing in pain till the grey morning light,
when he dropt off into a fitful sleep. A fortnight
elapsed before he was able to resume work.</p>

<p>The rescuing party had reached the farm barely in time
to prevent the brutal ruffians from carrying their sport to
perhaps a fatal conclusion. Guided by the curses and
laughter, Jacob and his friends had rushed upon the
savages in the midst of the kicking, and Jacob himself in
a frenzy of rage wrenched a cudgel from the nearest of
them, felled him to the earth with it, and dragged his son
from amongst the others' feet. The man he struck
happened to be Turner; and, seeing him down, the
cowardly young Pembertons took to their heels before the
slower moving labourers could capture them. Turner, all
bleeding as he was, they attempted to take with them in
order to give him into custody, but on the way to the
village he tripped up one of his guards, wrenched himself
free, and bolted. An outrage like this surely could not go
unpunished. Jacob Wanless determined that it should
not, and went to a Warwick lawyer, a rival of old Turner's,
with a view to get redress. This lawyer, Overend by
name, was a sort of pettifogger, who laid himself out for
poor men's work. In his way he was clever enough; but,
unfortunately, he often got drunk; and, even when sober,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
was hardly a match for old Turner. When Thomas's
case came before the justices, Jacob, therefore, fared badly.
Overend had just enough drink to make him violent and
abusive, and the result was that his witnesses were so
bamboozled and browbeaten by both Turner and the
bench that they became confused, and gave incoherent
answers; so it was not very difficult, false swearing
being easy, for Turner and his clients to make Thomas
the criminal. His attack on old Pemberton's person was
raked up in proof of his bad disposition, and his presence
in the farmyard was attributed to motives of revenge. As
a result, instead of obtaining redress, Jacob's case was
dismissed by the magistrates, and he and his son admonished.
The chairman of the day, Squire Polewhele, of
Middlebury, told Jacob he might be thankful that they
did not put his son in jail for assault. There could be
no doubt in his opinion that the young scamp had gone
to farmer Pemberton's rickyard with malicious intent, for
it was clear that he was an ill-conditioned rascal, and if
his father did not take better care of his upbringing he
might live to see him come to a bad end.</p>

<p>Such was Jacob's consolation. It took him and his
son six months to pay Overend's bill of 30s. The
unlucky labourer who had brought the news of the plot
fared perhaps worse than anybody, for old Pemberton, at
the instigation of his sons, turned him off at a moment's
notice. It was nearly four months before the poor fellow
could get another steady job, and he and his family were
all winter chargeable on the rates.</p>

<p>As for the boy Thomas, his nervous system had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
received such a shock that it became a positive agony to
him to have to trudge home from his work in the dark
winter nights, and when his father was unable to go to
meet him he always ran at the top of his speed past
Whitbury farm, his heart within him palpitating like to
burst. All his life long, so deep was the impression
that fright made on him, a certain nervous tremor seized
him whenever he found himself alone on a strange road
on a moonless night.</p>

<p>The rest of the boyhood of Thomas Wanless was
uneventful. He grew in mind and in stature, and suffered
less withal from hunger than many of his order. At the
age of twenty he took a wife, following in that respect
the habits of those around him. 'Tis the fashion nowadays
to inveigh against early marriages, and especially
against the poor who marry early. By such a practice it
is declared miseries are heaped upon them, and our
pauper roll is augmented. This is an easy way to push
aside one of the most perplexing social problems that
this country has ever had to face. With the growth of
wealth marriage has become a luxury even to the rich,
and for the comparatively poor a forbidden indulgence.
As a consequence of this the youth of the present day
avoid marriage with all its hampering ties. A code of
morals has thus grown up which may be said to be
paving the way for a coming negation of all morality.</p>

<p>A young man may commit almost any crime against a
young woman with impunity so long as he steers clear of
all hints of marriage. The relations of the sexes are
under this modern code utterly unnatural and fruitful of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
corruption. Nor can it be otherwise while a man is
forbidden under penalty of social ostracism to take a
wife. To marry is almost as sure a way to renounce the
world, with all its hopes and advantages, as of old was the
taking of a monastic vow. What the next generation
will be, what licenses it will give itself under the modern
restrictions which outrage all that is best in humanity, I
must not venture to predict. But that corruption is
spreading on all hands, that flippancy, folly, and worse,
dominate the relationships of the young of both sexes is
even now too apparent.</p>

<p>But I am travelling far from Thomas Wanless's history.
He at all events felt no social restraint save that of
poverty, which he did not fear, and so he married young.
The lad had, indeed, little choice.</p>

<p>His mother died when he was 19, and one of his sisters,
the youngest of the family, was also dead. The other
had married and gone to a village five miles beyond
Warwick. Of his three brothers, one only remained at
home, a boy of 14. William, the next in age to himself,
had been kidnapped at Gloucester, and carried off to sea
in a Government ship; and the other boy, Jacob, had a
place as stable-boy at Melton Priory, Lord Raven's place,
near which his married sister lived. There was no
woman, therefore, at home to cook food for the three
that were left. His father was too broken down to dream
of marrying again, there were no houses in the miserable
overcrowded village where the three could be taken in to
lodge together, and so, unless they separated, what could
Thomas do but marry? He was willing enough, of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>
course, being, like all country lads of his years, honestly
in love; and so at twenty he brought home his wife to
take his mother's place in the old freehold cottage, soon
to be his own. Sarah Leigh was a year or two older
than her husband, and had been an under-housemaid at
the Grange, the family seat of Squire Wiseman, who was
the greatest man of the parish, and lord of the manor.
Her experiences there were not, perhaps, such as best
fitted her to be a labourer's wife, and at first she was
inclined to commiserate herself. But at bottom Sarah
was a woman of sense, and by the time her second child
arrived had grown into a staid, affectionate housewife,
ever cheerfully busy in making her home comfortable.</p>

<p>Prudent or not, Thomas thus found himself in a humble
and modest way happy. He was now acting as under-waggoner
at a farm called Grimscote, near Warwick, and
had as much as 9s. 6d. a week in summer, besides beer
and extra money in harvest. In winter his work was
also regular, though his wages were then only 8s. a week.
His duties often took him considerable distances away
from home. He was frequently at Coventry and Stratford-on-Avon,
and he had once been as far as Worcester, and
as his observant faculties were keen, he took mental notes
of what he saw. Full of pity for the misery that he everywhere
met, the feelings of his boyhood became keener,
and his independence of spirit more out-spoken. Already
this had attracted in a passing way the attention of the
authorities, and some even went so far as to shake their
wiseacre heads over him, and dubiously hint that he
might be dangerous.</p>



<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>

<h3>INTRODUCES THE READER TO A PHILANTHROPIC
PARSON AND A GREAT SQUIRE.</h3>


<p>In the years that elapsed between the close of the
Napoleonic wars and the passing of the Reform Bill, as
indeed often since, the debasement and misery of the
agricultural poor rose to agony point, and soon after
Thomas Wanless's marriage an outbreak of popular discontent,
based on hunger, stirred a little the smooth
surface of society. It became necessary, for very shame,
to at least appear to do something for the pauperised
masses on whose backs "society" was supported. Accordingly,
a pseudo philanthropic agitation was started in the
rural districts with the object of bettering, or rather of
seeming to better, the peasant's lot. Mass meetings were
held, parsons and even bishops threw themselves into the
movement, patronised it, and sought to guide it to a consummation
safe for themselves and their "dear church,"
itself then so great a landowner.</p>

<p>For rustic miseries these high personages had one main
panacea, and one only. This was not free land, fixity of
tenure for the besotted farmers always so content to lie
at the feet of their earthly lords; it was not disendowment
of the Church and the distribution of its lands among the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
people from whom they had been taken originally by
chicane and greed; nor was it the dismissal, with due
payment, of those inheritors of the ancient marauders and
appropriators of the soil, with all that is on it and under
it, for whom the people have been kept as slaves for many
generations. No; none of these things did the servants
of the British deity, that idealisation of the sacred rights
of feudal property, advocate. Far be such traitor conduct
from them. Their cure for the agricultural distress was
the "allotment system." To these reformers the free
migration of labour, the abolition of that abomination of
the poor law which prevented the poor from leaving their
parishes, was as nothing compared with allotments.
Landlords and parish authorities had but to permit the
labourers to cultivate for themselves little patches of land,
let to them at a good rent, and what opulence would these
serfs not reach.</p>

<p>In the agitation on this tremendous reform, Thomas
Wanless took a keen interest, and then first felt sorely
his inability to read. He tried to recall the lessons of his
childhood, but could not, and was ashamed to apply for
help. Few, indeed, amongst his neighbours could have
helped him. His wife was as uneducated as himself, so
he had to be contented with gathering the purport of
what was going on from those he met at market or mill.
As far as his mind could comprehend the question it was
very clearly made up. He was convinced that all this
agitation about professed interest in the down-trodden
labourers would do them no good, and he doubted
whether any good was meant.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span></p>

<p>"It's not a bit of charity land we want," he always
said. "What I maintain is that you and me an' the
likes of us ought to get 10 acres or more at a fair honest
rent if we can do wi' it, and let's take our chance. Why
shouldn't I be able to keep cows and grow corn as well as
the farmer? He often wastes more than three labourers'
families could live on, and yet pays his rent. I tell ye,
lads, this talk of 'lotments and half acres, and all that, is
just damned nonsense, an' that's what it be."</p>

<p>Sentiments like these did not make Thomas popular
with the upper powers, and had old Parson Field been
alive he might have smarted for his freedom of speech.
But the old parson had died shortly before the noise about
allotments came to a head, and the new vicar was supposed
to be of a different stamp. He was reputed to be a
favourite of one of those strange fungoid excrescences of
Christianity, the "Lord" Bishop of the diocese, who recommended
him for the vacancy, and as he was young
and ignorant of the world, he began his work with some
moral fervour and a tendency to religious zeal. The Rev.
Josiah Codling, M.A., of Jesus College, Cambridge, was
in fact a young man of liberal, not to say democratic
tendencies. He had been sufficiently impressed by some
of the more glorious precepts of the faith he came to teach
to wish in a general sort of a way to do good. Left to
follow his higher impulses he probably might have led a
life of active philanthropy, and the democratic thoroughness
of the Christian faith might have enabled him to do
something to lift the down-trodden people who formed
the bulk of his flock. It was well, at all events, that Mr.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>
Codling began with good intent. He was hardly warm
in the parish before he went into the allotment agitation
with the feverish enthusiasm of inexperience, and he also
had the temerity to start a school. Dismissing the old
parish clerk who had drowsily mumbled the "amens"
and "we beseech Thee's" for nigh forty years, he brought
a young man from Birmingham who knew something of
the three R's, and was rumoured to have even conned a
Latin primer, and constituted him parish clerk and
schoolmaster. The vicarage coach-house was turned into
a schoolroom till better could be provided, and the
vicar and his assistant began, the one to hunt up pupils,
and the other to guide their feet in the way of knowledge.</p>

<p>The farmers for a time looked on, scarce able to
realise the meaning of this innovation, but the more they
looked the less they liked what they saw. So they
grumbled when they met in the churchyard on Sundays,
and shook their heads portentously over their beer or
brandy punch at market ordinaries, hinting that the
"Squoire" should interfere. In their bovine manner
they soon began to place stumbling-blocks in the vicar's
path. A sudden demand for the services of boys and
girls sprang up. Nearly every farmer in the district
found that he needed a new ploughboy or kitchen
wench, and the universal shilling rose to eighteenpence
a week, from the sheer pressure of this demand. Nothing
daunted, Parson Codling determined to start a night
school, and if possible get the grown lads and young
men to attend. He succeeded in inducing nearly thirty
youths to come to this night class, and among the first<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>
to do so was Thomas Wanless. Here was his chance, he
thought, and he seized it with avidity. Soon the numbers
thinned away. Some left because they could see no
good in learning, but most of them because their masters
on hearing of the class threatened to dismiss them at
once unless they promised to stop "going to play the
fool with that young Varsity ninny o' a parson, as knew
nowt o' plain country folks' wants;" and at the end of a
month the young schoolmaster had only seven pupils.
To these he stuck fast, and they made great progress
that winter, for the poor pale-faced Birmingham lad was
an enthusiast in his way. Thomas and he became close
friends, and the former drank in the current political
ideas which William Brown brought with him from
Birmingham as a sponge drinks up water. Early and
late, at every spare moment, Thomas was busy with his
book, and by the time spring came round again he was
able to read with tolerable ease the small county newspaper
that found its way a week old from the Grange to the
village inn. He had read the Pilgrim's Progress,
Robinson Crusoe, and some other books lent him by the
vicar, who looked upon him as his model scholar, and
took glory to himself over the labourer's success.</p>

<p>From that winter forth, however, the enthusiasm of the
new vicar for education sensibly died away. Naturally
fitful in disposition, he craved for immediate results, and,
if they came not, his hopes were disappointed, and his
efforts at once relaxed. The pressure of the upper
powers of his parish was also beginning to tell on his
unsophisticated mind. He met with little overt opposition,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>
for that might have been both troublesome and
impolitic. But quiet social forces worked on him continually
to bring him round to a proper sense of his
position as local priest of feudalism. When he dined out,
which often happened, his host would chaff him on his
attempts to make scholars of those loafing rascals of
labourers. Squire Wiseman in particular gravely assured
him that he was encouraging dangerous ideas among a
very dissolute and indefinitely corrupt lot of pariahs.
Educate them and they would altogether go to the devil.</p>

<p>"Tell you what it is, sir," shouted a half-drunk J.P.
one evening as the vicar and some half dozen others sat
over their wine after dinner at Squire Wiseman's: "Tell
you what it is; we must get you a wife; blest if that
wouldn't give you something better to do, my boy, than
trying to make gentlemen of those damn'd skulking
labourers."</p>

<p>The company ha ha'd with delight, and the parson
blushed to the very root of his hair.</p>

<p>"Capital idea, 'pon my life!" said the host; "and I
know just the girl for you, Codling&mdash;at least my wife
does, for she was remarking only last night what a pity
it was&mdash;"</p>

<p>"Please, sir," said the butler suddenly, after whispering
for a short time with a maid who had entered the room,
"Timms would like to speak wi' you. He says he's
found poacher's snares in the Ashwood coppice, and he
wants two or three fellows to help him watch the
place."</p>

<p>"Damn the fellow! can't he let a man eat his dinner<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>
in peace! Tell him to go to the devil, Robins, and&mdash;and
I'll see him to-morrow morning."</p>

<p>"Yes, sir. But, sir, Timms says&mdash;"</p>

<p>"Curse Timms, and you too! Do you hear what I
say?" roared the squire, and Robins vanished.</p>

<p>The conversation did not get back to the subject of
Codling's marriage; and the host, after playing absently
with his glass for a minute or two, got up hastily, and
muttering, "Excuse me, gentlemen, only I think I had
better see Timms after all," left the room.</p>

<p>That night three poachers&mdash;a Warford villager and two
shoemakers from Warwick&mdash;were caught in the coppice,
and lodged in Warwick jail.</p>

<p>In two days it was all over Ashbrook village that the
vicar was going to get married. The servants at the
Grange had told the news to their friends in confidence.</p>



<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2>

<h3>
EXHIBITS MORE PHILANTHROPY, OF A MIXED SORT,<br />
PLUS A LITTLE FIGHTING&mdash;THE "ALLOTMENT"<br />
CURE FOR HUNGER.<br />
</h3>


<p>The village gossips were right. Lady Harriet Wiseman
did find the vicar a wife, though not just then. The
vicar's young zeal, his vague ideas, had first to be
moderated or abandoned. Bit by bit he was brought
down to the prosaic realities of parish life, which embraced
obligations unheard of in Holy Writ. That says nothing
about the necessity for upholding feudalism. A mere
twelvemonths' labour at reforming the morals and refining
the minds of the rustics by means of the schoolmaster was
not quite enough to bring young Codling to a proper sense
of his position. A few more vagaries, a little further indulgence
in the pleasure of sowing religious wild oats, and
then the vicar would be ready to contract that highly
advantageous marriage, which forms the goal of so many a
parson's ambition.</p>

<p>That accomplished, Codling might be considered
tamed. The one further aberration of his which we have
to notice was his plunge into the allotment agitation.
As the excitement over teaching the rustics their alphabet
and multiplication table began to die out in his mind,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>
this new whim came handily to take its place and
prevent him from feeling like a deserter. Here, he
declared, was the true remedy for the miseries of the
rural poor; he had become convinced that to educate
them first was to begin at the wrong end. The first
thing was to make them comfortable in their homes, and
then they might learn to read with more advantage.
The schoolmaster was by no means to be thrown over,
but meanwhile Codling said the most important thing
was that the labourers should have patches of land to
grow cabbages and potatoes.</p>

<p>The vicar's new fad, as it was called, did not excite
the same amount of hostility amongst the squirearchy of
the neighbourhood as his effort at education, but the
farmers liked it as ill. Squire Wiseman was indeed
opposed to the experiment, and had there been no other
landed proprietor of influence in the parish, the vicar's
fuss would have left no results. But fortunately, in some
respects, for the labourers, nearly all Ashbrook village,
and a good deal of the rolling meadow land to the south
of it, and that lay between wooded knolls, belonged to
an eccentric old fellow, named Hawthorn. The people
called him Captain Hawthorn, perhaps to distinguish
him from the Squire, but he had never known more of
military life than three months' service as a subaltern in
a militia regiment. This Hawthorn was an oddity. A
dry, withered, rather small man, of between 50 and 60,
slovenly in dress, and full of a sardonic humour, he was
constantly to be met walking in the country lanes, and
as often as not conversing with waggoners, poachers, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>
such country people as came in his way. He was therefore
distrusted by the other big people of his neighbourhood;
but the common people loved him. The new
vicar had hardly been a week in the parish ere he was
warned by the gentry to beware of this old man. Old
Polewhele of Middlebury roundly declared that Hawthorn
was an infidel; and the Dowager-Countess of Leigholm,
Lady Harriet Wiseman's mother, felt sure that he was
in league with the Evil One, for he was always muttering
to himself, or else talking to a one-eyed, mangy, tailless
cur, that followed him everywhere, and which had more
than once snarled at her in a very vicious manner. Her
ladyship, however, had a private grudge against him, in
that he had on several occasions been wicked enough to
win money from her at cards, and take it too&mdash;a crime
she was never known to forgive.</p>

<p>Whatever his relationship with, or belief in, the unseen
powers, Hawthorn alone of the landed gentry furthered
Codling's latest project, and made it a success in spite of
the fact that the fitful zealot was at the point of throwing
the whole thing at his heels in disgust. Codling felt that
he had a right to be disheartened when his projects were
not adopted forthwith, and moreover, he was getting
under weigh as a lover, and that made other occupations
irksome. He had done all he could, he said to himself, and
yet nobody was converted. Wiseman laughed at him
good humouredly as usual, and the farmers sent old
Sprigg of Knebesley, as their spokesman, to tell him that
in their opinion "'lotments would be the ruin of all honest
labour. Gi'e the labourers land," he said, "and they'll<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>
skulk at home instead of doin' an honest day's work for
us. They're the laziest vagabonds in creation, and the
only thing you can do is to keep them dependent on the
rates, and when ye want 'em to work, stop supplies.
Hunger's the only prod for cattle o' that kidney."</p>

<p>The vicar was rapidly becoming convinced that he had
made a mistake, but he had gone so far that he could
hardly at once back out, so he resolved to make one
final attempt to carry his point, in which he would obtain
the aid of a brother parson. This device would, he
thought, enable him to retreat gracefully from his false
position. The man he summoned to his help was a
Leicestershire rector, whose consuming zeal had induced
him to become a sort of itinerant evangelist of the allotment
system. What could be better than to get such a
brilliant apostle to address a mass meeting at Ashbrook.
With the failure of a prophet to convince landlords and
farmers, Codling felt that his weak-kneedness might be
justified.</p>

<p>The Rev. Henry Slocome's services were therefore
secured, and notices of the coming meeting were posted on
the church doors and in the neighbourhood for a fortnight
in advance. As there was no building large enough, the
meeting was to be held beneath the old elm on Ashbrook
Green. The news excited great interest amongst the
labourers who, on the Saturday evening in July when the
meeting was held, gathered to the number of about 200
men and women from all the villages in the neighbourhood.
A strange sight they presented as they stood with upturned
faces around the waggon on which the vicar, the parish<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>
clerk, and the speaker of the evening were perched. Grey
wizened faces, watery eyes, blueish hungry-like lips these
men and women had&mdash;a weird, hopeless-looking, toil-bent
congregation of the have-nots.</p>

<p>Young men were stunted and shrivelled with labour
and want, and old men were gaunt and twisted with
exposure, overwork, and rheumatism. Verily if allotments
were to do these people good, the work of the self-chosen
missionary, who had come to set the country on
fire, was not to be contemned. But it boded ill for the
success of his efforts that never a landed proprietor in the
district gave the meeting his countenance. Just, however,
as business began the crowd of labourers was recruited by
from 20 to 30 young farmers and farmers' sons. These
stood apart, ranging themselves on the left of the meeting
near the churchyard wall, and rather behind the waggon.
They were too far off to hear well, but near enough for interruptions,
and they accordingly indulged frequently in
groans, ironical laughter, or jeers at the labourers. Two of
the Pembertons were there, the two who had succeeded
their father at Whitbury farm, and there also was hulking
young Turner from Warwick, half drunk as usual.</p>

<p>The labourers themselves were in high good humour,
and indulged in a great deal of rough chaff at each other's
expense. A noted poacher in particular came in for much
attention, and amongst other things was asked if he
would "haul a cove afore the justices if he caught him
snaring rabbits in his 'lotment?" But all this was hushed
when the vicar and his ally mounted the waggon and
began proceedings. I cannot give you the speech of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
Rev. Henry Slocome, for Thomas had but a dim recollection
of it, his attention being too much occupied watching
the ongoings of the farmers. These for a time contented
themselves with making a noise, but that was far too tame
a kind of fun to satisfy such bright sparks long, and they
soon began to shy small pebbles among the crowd,
aiming at such hats or sticks as were prominent. This
raised a clamour which interrupted the meeting, and
matters were brought to a crisis by one of these stones
hitting Thomas Wanless on the cheek. It was a sharp-edged
bit of flint which cut the cheek open, and made
Thomas furious. Turning his bleeding face, now barely
visible in the gathering dusk, to the crowd, and heedless of
the vicar's shouts for silence, he exclaimed&mdash;"Lads, are
you going to stand this stone-throwing any longer; are
these slave-drivers to be allowed to bully us on our own
village green?"</p>

<p>"No, no, no," shouted the labourers in a chorus.</p>

<p>"Let us thrash them, then," he replied, "and teach
them that we have the right to live."</p>

<p>He was answered with a shout and a rush. In vain the
orator parson and the vicar gesticulated and roared; in
vain the parish clerk, at Codlings' suggestion, jumped from
the waggon and tried to hold the people back. The tall
figure of Thomas Wanless, the sight of blood on his face,
his fiery looks and determined attitude, completely carried
the labourers away. More stones too were thrown, and
the jeers that accompanied them hurt almost more than
stones. A conflict was now inevitable.</p>

<p>Seeing the younger labourers gathering round Wanless<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>
for an onset, Turner, ever the leader in mischief, hastily
collected his forces, and drew them back against the
churchyard wall. They had hardly time ere the labourers
were upon them.</p>

<p>"Come on, boys," Wanless shouted, without waiting to
form an array, hardly, indeed, waiting to see who was
following him. Clenching his teeth and drawing himself
together he dashed up the slope, and singling out Turner,
closed with him, and sent his stick flying over the churchyard
wall. A moment after Turner himself was rolling
amongst the feet of those who had hurried after Wanless.
The strife now became general, and for a time all was wild
confusion. Gradually, however, the fight, as it were, gathered
into knots round the leading men on either side. Big Tom
Pemberton had been struck at by a puny little handful
of pluck, whose slender frame and pinched face indicated
an absence of stamina which ill-fitted him for a struggle
with that stalwart bully. He was instantly caught by the
throat and bent backwards. Had Wanless not happened
to look that way Pemberton might have broken his back,
for he proceeded to twist him round and double him over
his knee, but Wanless was passing, and swift as lightning,
his stick came down on Pemberton's head. The blow
staggered him, and made him let go. Pushing him aside,
Thomas seized the pale-faced lad and hurried him out of
the fight. Turning, he skirted along the edge of the
battle to cheer his comrades and help others that might
be in distress, dealing a blow here, and tripping up a foe
there, and dodging many a stroke aimed at himself.
Comparatively scathless, but somewhat blown, he worked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>
his way back to the thick of the struggle, and immediately
found himself face to face with the other Pemberton, who
had just ended a tough fight with the blacksmith, and
like Wanless, was a little spent. He, however, made for
Thomas the moment he saw him, and they closed in a
fierce wrestle. They tugged and tore at each other for a
moment or two, and then went down together, falling on
their sides, Wanless, being, if anything, rather undermost.
In the fight that followed for supremacy, Pemberton's
greater weight, for he was fuller, taller, and stouter than
Thomas, seemed to promise him the victory; but with a
violent wrench, Wanless so far freed himself as to get his
knees planted against Pemberton's body, when, with a
final tug, he broke free and sprang to his feet. Bill
Pemberton also scrambled up, and they then began
hitting at each other wildly with their fists. A kind of
ring gathered round them, each side cheering its champion,
but the fight was not an equal one. The young farmer
was too fat and heavy, and Thomas's random blows
punished him fearfully. Blood trickled down his face,
and he was gasping for breath before they had fought
five minutes, and Thomas finished the contest by rushing
at Pemberton and throwing him crashing amongst his
followers' feet. They dragged him out of the melée, and,
their fury redoubled, returned to make a combined onset
on the labourers. Had they been at all equally matched
in numbers, the farmers would now probably have
driven their foes from the field, and, overmatched as
they were, they twice forced the labourers back on the
old folks, and women still huddled round the waggon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>
eagerly watching the fight through the gathering
darkness.</p>

<p>But Wanless and his lieutenant, the young blacksmith,
again and again rallied their forces and advanced to the
attack. At last, edging round to the upper end of the
churchyard, which lay aslant a considerable declivity,
they bore down on the flank of the farmers' party, with a
rush that carried everything before it. Before they
could rally themselves, the farmers were huddled together,
and, amid random blows, kicks, and oaths, driven pell
mell clear off the green, as far as the vicarage gate.
There they tried to make a stand, but the momentum
and numbers of the labourers, now swollen by many of
the women, were too much for them, and they were
finally chased from the village, amid the derisive shouts
of the victors. They retired, cursing and vowing
vengeance as they went.</p>

<p>The fight over, the people, panting and exhausted,
drew slowly together by the waggon once more, recounting
their exploits and showing their wounds. One man
had got his arm broken, and many had severe cuts,
bruises, and sprains, but, on the whole, the damage done
had been slight.</p>

<p>It was now almost dark, and the crowd soon began to
ask whether there was to be any more speechifying. The
old people, who had stayed by the waggon, thought the
meeting must be at an end. "The vicar," they said,
"had gone off in a huff, taking t'other parson wi' him,
when he found nary a one mindin' a bit what he said."
So the labourers were in doubts what to do. Some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
wanted to go home, having thrashed the farmers, "a good
nights job enough;" others thought a deputation ought
to go to the vicarage to try and mollify the parson, for
after all allotments might be worth having.</p>

<p>Just as the dispute was waxing warm, the light of a
lantern shone out from behind the tree, and, coming round
to the waggon, attracted attention. Thinking it was the
parsons come back, the labourers ceased their talk to
listen; but what they heard was the voice of Captain
Hawthorn swearing at his servant for not lighting the
way better. The servant paid no attention to the oaths,
but cast his light over the waggon, and exclaimed:
"Here we are, sir. Here's where the strange cove was
a spouting. But, by the Lord Harry! he's hooked it!"
he added in a disappointed tone.</p>

<p>"Strange cove! What's that I hear, Francis? Francis,
you scamp, don't you know that's blasphemy? Hooked
it! He! he! D&mdash;&mdash; the fellow! that comes of picking
up London servants." Then, changing his tone, the
Captain almost shouted, "Help me up, Francis. I
want to see these scoundrels. How the devil is a
man to get into this waggon? Find me a chair, will
you, eh?"</p>

<p>"Please, sir, can't you manage to mount by the wheel,
sir," answered his servant, and after some trouble the
Captain did get in by the wheel, swearing much, and
followed by his servant with the lantern. The dog then
wanted to mount also, but, being fat and heavy couldn't
manage it, so sat down and began to yelp. This caused
a fresh outburst of swearing, and ultimately Francis had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>
to get out again and hoist the dog in, as the brute would
allow none of the people to touch him.</p>

<p>Quiet and order being restored, Hawthorn stood
forward, took the lantern from his servant's hand, and,
raising it, proceeded very deliberately to survey the
crowd before him. Most of their faces, and many of their
names were well known to him; and he addressed some
of those he knew with some characteristic greeting. The
wounded men appeared to interest him specially, and
it was ludicrous to hear him rate one fellow for being
unable to protect his handsome face, and condole with
another on the coming interview with his wife. He discovered
the countenance of his own groom disfigured by
a cut on the nose and a black eye, and he held the light
over it, chuckling loudly, till the fellow fairly ducked
under. "Ha, Silas, you thief," he said, "I have always
told you that you would get punished some day for your
vanity, and sure enough the dairymaid will marry the
blacksmith in less than a month, if you show that face to
her. Gad, you'll frighten my old mare out of her wits,
too, with that diabolical figure-head of yours. You had
better go home to your mother and get it mended."</p>

<p>"By heavens," he exclaimed, again casting his light on
another face, "there's poacher Dick. Were you in the
fray, Dick, my boy? No, no, it cannot be; he's been
mauling the gamekeepers, and has taken refuge amongst
you lads, eh?"</p>

<p>"No, no; he fought with us all square," was the
answer, and the crowd laughed, and the Captain chuckled
again and again.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span></p>

<p>Suddenly laying down the lantern he shouted, "Three
cheers for the victors of Ashbrook fight," a call instantly
responded to amid great good humour and much
laughter.</p>

<p>"Three cheers for the Captain," called a voice in the
crowd, and off went the huzzas again.</p>

<p>"Drop that nonsense, will you, boys; drop it, I say,"
roared the Captain, and added as soon as he could make
himself heard above the din, "what the devil are you
cheering me for? I didn't help you to win the fight,
did I?"</p>

<p>"No, but you cheered us for it," answered a dozen voices
together.</p>

<p>"And that's more than any other squire in Warwickshire
would 'a' done," cried young Wanless.</p>

<p>"Is that you, Tom Wanless?" queried Hawthorn.</p>

<p>"Yes, sir."</p>

<p>"Then you are a damned fool, Tom, and know nothing
about it. All Englishmen like to see pluck, don't they,
you young rascal?"</p>

<p>The ironical tone of this query was perceptible to all,
and raised an answering laugh of irony, amid which
Wanless shouted back&mdash;</p>

<p>"We ain't Englishmen, we labourers, except when we
list and let ourselves be shot by the thousand when some
big chap with a handle to his name says, March! An'
even then the big chaps get all the rewards, and such o'
the common lot as escape hardly get leave to beg. No,
no, sir; we ain't Englishmen, we are only Englishmen's
slaves."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p>

<p>"Drop that, Tom Wanless," interrupted Hawthorn;
"drop it. Good Lord, man, do you suppose I came here
to listen to a speech from you, when I kept well without
earshot of the parsons. And, Gad, that reminds me&mdash;Where
are the parsons? Francis! Francis!"</p>

<p>"Yes sir, yes sir," answered that staid person, hurriedly
coming forward.</p>

<p>"Humph, making love to the wenches at my very elbow,
you graceless dog. Go and tell the vicar with my compliments,
that I want to speak to him out here in this old
waggon with the bottom half out. Gad, I'll be through
it, I do believe, before you get back. Could that shouting
fellow have stamped holes in it," he added to himself, as
Francis disappeared. "Shouldn't wonder," and chuckling
again at the idea, he sat down on the side of the waggon,
quite oblivious of the expectant crowd around him. An
impatient hum soon broke on his ear, and he lifted his
head and called out, "Go home to bed, you mutinous
pack; you'll be defrauding your masters of an hour's
work to-morrow morning."</p>

<p>"No fear of that, sir; and we want to hear what you
have got to say to us."</p>

<p>"Say to you! Ah, yes, to be sure I have something
to say; but we must wait for the parson, boys."</p>

<p>"Here he comes! Here he comes!" shouted voices
from the edge of the crowd, and after a little bustling the
ruddy face of Codling, and the grey head of his friend
gleamed over the side of the waggon in the dim candle-light.</p>

<p>"Glad to see you, sir, I'm sure," said Hawthorn to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>
vicar graciously; "and you, too, sir," turning to Mr.
Slocome. "Sorry I didn't hear your speech; Gad, you
have put new life into the boys; they've smashed the
farmers. 'Pon my soul, sir, I didn't think they had it in
them. You must be a powerful orator, and I wish I had
been here sooner."</p>

<p>"Pardon me, sir, I have not the advantage," stammered
Slocome. "I did not cause the fight, God forbid. I did
all I could to stop it; my mission is not to stir up sedition,
sir, but to preach peace." This last remark in a tone of
high offence.</p>

<p>"He, he, he!" laughed the cynical squire. "Well, well,
we shan't dispute the point. The boys did fight, and
well, too, as you must allow. Licked the farmers, by
Jove; and I tell you what, Mr. Vicar," turning again to
Codling, "I mean to show my appreciation of their pluck
by doing something for them. What do you propose it
should be?"</p>

<p>"I'm afraid, sir," answered the vicar, pompously, "I
can't abet you in your design, or lend it my countenance.
I am deeply grieved that my humbler parishioners should
have so far forgotten themselves as to create a disturbance
in the village to-night. It has been my wish to do them
good, and for that end I held this meeting, and brought
my esteemed brother here to imbue their minds with the
principles of forethought and thrift. But they interrupted
his address with an unseemly riot, led, I am sorry to say,
by a young man of whom I had hoped better things.
Bitterness between man and man, class and class, has
been created by the conduct of which you have been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>
guilty to-night, my friends, and you may be sure, though
I wish you well, it will be long before I again make the
mistake of seeking to increase your material comforts."
Turning again to Hawthorn, he added, "I must beg you
to excuse me, sir, but I cannot remain here to behold a
landed proprietor of this parish, the landlord, in fact, of
these villagers, acting as an inflamer of sedition," and
with lofty bow, and a wave of his hand, dimly visible to
his listeners, Codling turned to go.</p>

<p>"Stay a moment," roared Hawthorn, reaching forth his
stick as if to catch the vicar by the collar of his coat.
"Stop, sir; don't let him go, boys, I also have something
to say." The vicar stood still, looking rather foolish, and
Hawthorn continued&mdash;"You have made an accusation
against my tenants, and I, as their representative and
spokesman, must ask you to substantiate those charges.
I don't care a curse what you say about myself, but I'm
not going to stand by and see these men slandered. Tell
me, sir, who began the disturbance?"</p>

<p>"It was&mdash;I believe&mdash;I&mdash;fancy&mdash;some people on the
outskirts of the meeting&mdash;people from Warwick I should
imagine."</p>

<p>"Bah! can't you speak out like a man, instead of
beating about the bush like a fool? Who began the
disturbance?" The old Captain was clearly getting
excited.</p>

<p>"The&mdash;the farmers and&mdash;but&mdash;" blurted out Codling.</p>

<p>"Ah! the farmers was it?" interrupted Hawthorn,
"and would you have had these lads stand still like asses
to be thwacked? Do you mean to come out here and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>
deliberately blame my tenants for having spirit enough
left to resent insult and abuse? A nice parson you are&mdash;a
fine preacher of peace. Suppose it had been the other
way, and the farmers had been taunted and stoned by the
labourers until they turned and thrashed them. What
would you have said then? No doubt that these wretches
deserved their fate. I hate all this snivelling cant about
the obligation of the poor to submit to whatever is put
upon them."</p>

<p>Hawthorn spoke fast and bitterly, and, as he ended, his
audience broke into ringing cheers much prolonged.</p>

<p>Codling stood dumb, and looked so cowed and sheepish
that Slocome tried a diversion.</p>

<p>"Captain Hawthorn&mdash;I believe&mdash;and good people,"
he began, but his voice was drowned amid cries of
"Silence&mdash;hold your tongue; we want to hear the
Captain."</p>

<p>"I have a little more to say, my boys," Hawthorn
answered. "My chief object in coming here, and in asking
the Vicar to come here, was to tell you that I have
decided to assign to you, the men of my own village,
the twenty acre field just by on Warwick road, to be
made into allotment gardens. I admire"&mdash;but he got no
further. Shout upon shout, the men cheered, and the
women wept and laughed by turns, as if the speaker had
promised them all fortunes. The announcement was so
unexpected, and the way it was made went so about the
hearts of these poor villagers, that they could have
hugged the old Captain to death for joy had he let
himself within their reach. As it was, they crowded<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>
round the waggon to shake hands with him, hustling the
Vicar and his friend out of the way, and it was fully five
minutes before order could be restored. During the
hubbub the Vicar and Mr. Slocome managed to slink
away. What Codling may have thought about his own
conduct on that evening no one can say, but he evidently
resented Hawthorn's freedom of speech most bitterly.
He was disgusted also that the people should have got
their allotments so obviously without his help, and from
this time forth he may be said to have abjured
philanthropy. Henceforth he found it safer and much
more pleasant to confine his attention to Church ritual
and the worship of feudalism.</p>

<p>The labourers never missed the Vicar in their delight
over Hawthorn's announcement. They wanted to escort
him home in a body, but he would not hear of it. He
peremptorily ordered them to go home to bed, and
departed with his servant and his dog. A few of the
younger men followed him to the end of the village, then
sending a parting cheer after him quickly dispersed.
Thus ended the great Ashbrook allotment meeting. It
was a nine days' wonder in the neighbourhood, and the
oddities of Hawthorn were held to be dangerous by the
squires, while farmers cursed him for his liberality. But
these things did not prevent the labourers from obtaining
their allotments, and they were thereby rendered perhaps
a degree less hungry for a time.</p>



<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2>

<h3>DISCLOSES AN EXCELLENT, INFALLIBLE AND ARISTOCRATIC
PLAN FOR MANUFACTURING CRIMINALS.</h3>


<p>Nothing serious came directly of the Ashbrook fight.
There was a talk of bringing certain labourers before the
justices, and the Pembertons in particular uttered loud
threats against Tom Wanless, young Satchwell, the
blacksmith, and one or two others; but old Hawthorn
let it be widely known that if any steps were taken to
prosecute the labourers, he would not only provide means
for their defence, but enable them also to raise counter
actions, in support of which he would compel the Vicar
to enter the witness-box. That did not suit the farmers
or their abettors, still less Codling, so after a little noisy
squabbling the matter dropped.</p>

<p>Henceforth, however, the feud, if such it may be called,
between the Pembertons and Wanless was renewed,
and became on their part a sleepless desire for petty
vengeances. They never missed the smallest opportunity
of making him feel their ill-will. Thomas had in other
ways enough to bear with in those days, helped though he
was by his freehold cottage and allotment. His intelligence
told against him with most of the farmers, making them
regard him with hatred and suspicion. So he got no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>
opportunity of bettering himself, was, indeed, hardly able
to keep his head above water by the severest labour.
Many a time did he see other and less skilled workmen
preferred before him, and often in harvest had he to work
as one of a gang of reapers under another contractor,
instead of himself taking the lead. This, by and by,
caused him to try and find work at greater distances
from home, and he was occasionally away for months at
a time wood-cutting, ditch-cutting, toiling early and late
for what pittance he could pick up, while his wife
struggled at home to make ends meet in spite of her
increasing family. By the time Thomas was 35 years
old, she had borne him eight children, of whom seven
were alive, and it was almost more than mortal could do
to bring these up decently on 9s. or 10s. a-week. How
his neighbours, who had rent to pay, managed, was more
than Thomas could divine, unless they quietly stole what
was not given them; as, indeed, most of them did. Many
also were so demoralised as to look upon poor relief as a
perquisite which they thought it no shame to accept, and
even demand, on all occasions. Nearly all poached game,
when they had a chance, and boasted of it to each other.
In regard to game there was, in fact, no consciousness of
wrong-doing in the mind of any labourer, and Thomas
himself thought nothing of killing a rabbit or leveret when he
had the chance; the only anxiety was not to be caught
doing it. There was a clear distinction in his mind
between slaying wild animals protected by selfish and
abominable laws, and stealing vegetables, fowls, stray
eggs, or fruit, which many of his comrades made a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>
practice of doing, pleading in their defence that man
must live.</p>

<p>Thomas Wanless had a soul above petty thieving of this
kind. Not only was he naturally high-spirited and
jealous of a good conscience, but his mind had become
considerably expanded by diligent cultivation. He did
not again forget his reading, and though his books were
few, he still contrived to read enough on odd Sundays in
summer, and in the winter evenings, to stimulate his
naturally strong thinking powers. His friends, the blacksmith
and the parish clerk, were also often in his company,
and the three discussed matters of Church and State in
the freest possible style over their jugs of thin ale. Poor
Brown, the parish clerk and schoolmaster, had not
improved his prospects by settling in Ashbrook, for the
vicar had long ceased to interest himself in the
education of the poor, and the school emoluments had
become meagre enough. But Brown had married, and
so was, in a measure, rooted to the spot, not knowing
where to better himself.</p>

<p>He eked out his parish clerkship with odd accountant
jobs for surrounding farmers, and occasionally picked up
a crown or two by acting as clerk at country auctions,
and his greatest earthly blessing was a contested parliamentary
election. Yet life was hard for him withal,
and his Radicalism naturally was bitter, for adversity is
the best nursery of democratic ideas. It is only the
noblest natures that can enjoy prosperity, and yet be just
and considerate towards all men. Too often the man
who when poor was a blatant Radical becomes a hollow<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>
tin kettle sort of creature when he has struggled up from
the earth where his Radicalism took birth. I say not
that Brown was of this sort, but undeniably poverty and
disappointment put an edge on his wit when he dealt
with the inequalities of life, and under his leadership
Thomas Wanless stood in no danger of becoming an
unquestioning pauper. The three friends solved social
problems in a style that would have amazed their
superiors had they known; nay, that they would have
even startled some of the limp and dilettante friends of
the people who, in these days, haunt London clubs, and
dilate with wondrous volubility on social reform.
Thomas's Radicalism, however, never interfered with his
work, for his family was more to him than the ills of the
State. He viewed these wrongs, perhaps, from too narrow
a standpoint for him to be a great social reformer. He
felt for his little ones, and for his once blooming, patient
wife&mdash;now grown brown, gaunt, and hollow-eyed from
incessant care, toil, and privation&mdash;and the disjointed
order of society was to him a personal wrong. His life
was, indeed, cheerless; and after his father died and his
brother had been killed by a fall from a rick, he often felt
lonely and sullen at the heart, working against his fate as
a prisoner might in chains. For him this life had no
hope, no prospect of rest but the grave.</p>

<p>Struggling bravely, though bitter at the heart, Thomas
dragged his family through the terrible years that followed
the passing of the Reform Bill&mdash;years during which his
wife and children were almost as familiar with want as
with the light of the sun. How they survived he could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>
hardly tell. "My remembrance of that time," he one
day said to me, "is but a kind of confused dream. I
ceased to think or feel. I just worked where and when
I could; and I swallowed my crust like a dumb beast.
But now I thank God that I had health, though then to
commit murder would at times to me have seemed as
nothing."</p>

<p>In that time Thomas became a strong Chartist, and
was a leader among his fellows; and, feeling as he did, it
says much for his force of character that there were no
outbreaks by the Ashbrook villagers such as occurred in
many parts of Warwickshire at that time. His opinions,
however, were well known, and he was called a rogue
freely enough by his enemies the farmers. More than
once he might have suffered unjust imprisonment for his
freedom of speech at village gatherings and elsewhere,
had not old Squire Hawthorn stood his friend. Ever
since Ashbrook fight, that strange old man had taken
a special interest in Thomas. It only extended, however,
to occasional efforts to keep him out of the grip of
the justices, and could hardly perhaps have gone further,
for Thomas was proud; and, besides, he was a labourer,
and in that lowly lot he was predestined by the laws of
the landed oligarchy to remain. Over the great gulf
fixed by that mighty trades union of the Take-alls he
could never pass.</p>

<p>So passed the years of my friend's early manhood.
He was familiar with care; poverty was his abiding
portion. A young family gathered round his knee;
which he tried to bring up in less ignorance than had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>
been his early lot, but whom he could not always keep less
hungry. Thomas had many times difficulty in providing
his household with a sufficiency of coarse dry bread.
Insufficiently nourished his children were weakly and
stunted; little able to wrestle with disease. His two
eldest boys were sent to work for good at the age of ten;
and the younger of the two died through exposure and
hunger before he was twelve. The girls were kept longer
at home, hard though the fight for life was; but the
third boy (Thomas) was taken on at Squire Hawthorn's
own farm, at 2s. per week, when he was little over nine.
That same year, Thomas himself had had a fine spell of
harvesting; and his wife, having no new baby to provide
for, had saved a few shillings by selling vegetables from
the allotment garden, to people in Warwick town, so
that the winter was faced by the couple in better heart
than they had known almost since the day they were
married. A pound or two in hand after meeting the
bills that the harvest money had to pay! Surely greater
bliss no man could know. The thought of such riches
made Thomas declare that he might yet escape the
workhouse, as, thank God, his father had done.
Already, though not forty years old, the shadow of that
accursed refuge of the English poor had begun to loom
over Thomas's future, grim and horrible as the gate of
Hell. As he thought, in his hours of bitterness, of
whither his endless toil was carrying him, of the sole
"good" that the Take-alls left to him and such as him,
he set his teeth and cursed his country. Nor would he
believe that for this he had been born. His soul was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>
bitter within him, and, young as he yet was, hard work and
harder fare were telling on his stalwart frame.</p>

<p>But this autumn had brought him a gleam of hope;
and the stirring events of the time helped to strengthen
that hope. All things were changing. The great towns
had been roused into political activity by the Reform
Bill, and railways were fast revolutionising the habits of
the people the land through, as well as opening up new
fields of labour. At last, then, and even in sleepy, wealth
worshipping, hide-bound England, democracy might be
considered born. Thomas was sanguine that in the
coming struggles the people would win, and, like all
sanguine believers in the future good, his belief expected
instant fulfilment. The apostles themselves lived in the
belief that the end of the world was at hand. Might not
the way-worn and heart-weary agricultural labourer
therefore hope? Thomas Wanless, at least, did so. The
world was changing for others; for him and his also better
times might be at hand. Hitherto, alas, the changes had
been mostly to his hurt. Railway-making itself had done
his class harm rather than good, for the new iron roads
linked the country more and more closely to the great
centres of industry. Prices of all kinds of agricultural
produce went higher and higher, but without bringing a
corresponding increase in the labourer's pay. The landowner
grabbed all he could of the augmented gains, and
what he left the farmer took. For the hind was there
not still the workhouse? Yet the demand for labour was
increasing fast, and not all the hungry kerns of Ireland
seemed able to meet that demand. For once Thomas<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>
and his wife had enjoyed a good year. Was not
Leamington Priors growing a big town moreover, and
going to have a college of its own to outshine Rugby
itself? Surely Ashbrook would benefit from the nearness
of so much wealth as this implied. The grounds for
this hope were many and obvious. Thomas might yet
rent his own little farm, and be independent. His
ambition ran no higher, yet the indulgence of it proved
him to be a short-sighted fool.</p>

<p>At this time Thomas was an odd or day labourer, taking
contract jobs on his own account when he could get them,
and working for a daily wage when these failed. This
winter found him at work grubbing up old hedges, and
helping to lay out anew some land on a farm of Lord
Duckford's beyond Radbury. He had to walk about
four miles each way daily to and from his work, but as
the days were short he lost no time, and the company of
a fellow villager engaged with him at the same job made
the trudge lighter. And the hopes that lay around his
heart helped him more than aught else, as they always
help us poor will-o'-the-wisp-led mortals in this dark
world.</p>

<p>Alas for these hopes! Thomas Wanless had not been
a month at his new work when an epidemic of scarlet
fever broke out at Ashbrook, and amongst the first to
catch the disease was his youngest child, a girl of two
years. Ere ten days had elapsed five out of his seven
surviving children were down with the treacherous disease.
His eldest boy and girl had had it years before, but the
boy was sent home from the farm where he worked for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>
fear of spreading contagion, and the girl was little more
than nine years old, so that she could not do much to
help the overworked mother.</p>

<p>Crowded together in the long low-roofed attic of the
cottage, three of the five lay helpless and wailing for
many days. After the first week the other two whose
attack had been slight got out of bed, but were kept in the
same room to avoid cold. The food of all was poor, the
medical attendance miserable and infrequent. Thomas's
heart was nearly broken. All his hopes vanished, and the
old bitterness settled down on his spirit. The rage of
helplessness often swept over him as he looked at his
tired and harassed wife, or thought of her left alone, day
in and out, with those sick children. The little savings
would mostly be needed for the doctor's bill; there was
only the 10s. a-week that Thomas happily still earned to
stand between the whole family and want. Can anyone
wonder that Thomas grew moody, and glowered at the
world to which he owed so little?</p>

<p>One evening, in the middle of the third week of their
affliction, as he and neighbour Robins were trudging
home together through the perplexing obscurity of a grey
November fog, the latter said&mdash;</p>

<p>"Couldn't we get a rabbit or two, Tummas? They'd
make a nice pot for the young ones, poor things; better
nor barley gruel, any way."</p>

<p>"I don't mind," said Thomas, in an indifferent tone.
"But where can we come at 'em?"</p>

<p>"Oh, there's a warren up in Squire Greenaway's fir
coppice to the left here, just off the Banbury road. We<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>
can beat it in five minutes. Come on," he added, seizing
Thomas's arm.</p>

<p>"All right, let's have some o' the wermin," his friend
answered, and presently they turned off the road, making
for the coppice.</p>

<p>"You keep up by the fence here, and you'll strike the
edge of the wood in no time," said Robins. "The
burrows lie mostly along to the right. Crouch down by
the holes and be ready. I'll walk round the field and
drive the bunnies in. There's sure to be lots feedin' to-night
in old Claypole's turmuts."</p>

<p>Thomas obeyed, and the two at once lost sight of each
other. Robins, it is to be feared, had often helped himself
to a rabbit before now, here and elsewhere, but by some
chance Thomas had never yet been a regular poacher.
He could not say why, for certainly he had no respect for
the game laws. Such, however, was the fact, and he said
a queer kind of feeling came over him when he found
himself alone, and realised the errand he was upon. But
his mind was in tone to be tempted now, and he never
thought of turning back. There was, indeed, little time
to think of it, for he was among the rabbit-holes in a
minute, and choosing a handy bush where the holes were
thick he knelt down, grasped his stick and waited.
Presently he heard a low whistle from the field below, but
quite near, and almost as it reached his ears rabbits by
the dozen came hopping up cautiously, and with frequent
pauses of watchfulness. The foremost caught sight of
Thomas and scudded to the left, whither the whole troop
might have followed had not Robins at that instant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>
rushed up and sent a batch of the scared creatures right
amongst Thomas's feet. Ere they could get under ground
he managed to knock over three, and Robins himself
maimed but did not succeed in catching a fourth. Two
of the three knocked over were not quite dead, but Robins
at once finished them, and as he did so, said:&mdash;</p>

<p>"Look here Tummas, you takes the two big uns.
You're more in need o' 'em than me," and as he would
take no denial the spoil was so divided.</p>

<p>Thomas thanked his friend, and stowing the rabbits
inside their coats as best they could, the two carefully
made their way out of the coppice, and again took the
road for home.</p>

<p>By this time it was very dark, and the fog thicker than
ever, so that they had never a thought of danger. Yet
they had not been unobserved. Tom Pemberton, as ill-luck
would have it, had been passing the coppice while
the two labourers were after the rabbits, and had either
heard their voices or the whistling, made more audible
by the fog. Suspecting that poachers were at work, and
always eager to do his fellow man an ill turn, Pemberton
stopped his walk, and stole along the edge of the field till
he reached the gate, where he crouched for his prey. In
a few minutes the voices of the approaching labourers
reached his ears, and being a coward he crawled along the
ground, and lay down in the frozen ditch lest he should be
seen, but still kept well within earshot. To his intense satisfaction
he recognised one at least of the men by his voice,
as they passed him, unconscious of his presence. Robins
he could not be sure of, but he had only too good cause to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>
recollect the voice of Wanless. The two were talking of
the pleasure their families would have in eating stewed
rabbit, and doubtless Pemberton chuckled to himself as
he heard. But he had the prudence to keep quite still
until the labourers got well beyond hearing. Then he
arose and went on his mission of evil. The unsuspecting
labourers trudged home in peace. Thomas with even a
flicker of gladness at his heart, a flicker that deepened to
a glow of thankfulness, when he reached his cottage and
learned that the doctor had pronounced the child who had
suffered most out of danger. She was the youngest but
one, a little girl of four. Before her illness she had been
a fair-haired, delicate-looking, but healthy child, with
bright, engaging ways, and a sweet merry voice, a great
favourite of her father's. Now she was thin and worn,
and her lips had become dry and cracked with the fire that
had burned and burned in her little body, till all its flesh
was consumed. Night after night Thomas had come
home, and, changing his wet clothes, had, after a hasty
supper, gone up beside his little ones to watch and tend
them in the early night, while the mother tried to snatch
an hour or two's sleep. Through these weary weeks
nothing had wrung his heart so keenly as the sore battle
for life made by wee Sally. Hour after hour her little
transparent feverish hands would clutch his nervously, as
she lay panting in his arms, or wander pitifully about his
weather-worn face, her burning touch causing him to
shiver to the very marrow of his bones.</p>

<p>"I'se so ill, daddy; I'se so ill," she would keep moaning,
and sometimes she would start screaming from an uneasy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>
slumber that gave no rest. Then she grew too ill to speak,
and lay gasping and delirious in the close, ill-ventilated
attic beside her two sisters, who were themselves part of
the time too ill to raise their heads. Thomas thought
that death had come for his little girl the night before he
brought the rabbits home, and the nearer death seemed to
come the more agonising grew the pain at his heart. His
wife and he together had watched by Sally's cot till
towards morning, fearing that each moment she would
choke. But about half-past two the breath began to be
more free; she swallowed a little weak tea, and gradually
fell into the quietest sleep she had had for more than ten
days.</p>

<p>When Thomas left for his day's work she was asleep
still, and he had held the hope that she would yet get
better to his heart all day. So mixed are the motives
that sway men that this very hope made him the more
ready to go after the rabbits. The savoury broth might
help his little ones&mdash;and Sally.</p>

<p>So they were glad that night in the little Ashbrook
Cottage. Sally had slept till daylight, and woke quiet,
cooler-skinned and hungry. The doctor said she would
live yet. Thomas went up as usual beside his little ones,
and told them about the rabbits that Robins and he had
caught, making them laugh at the thought of to-morrow's
treat. He had not waited for supper, and his wife brought
it up stairs, spreading it out at the foot of the bed where
"baby" and "bludder" Jack lay, and then the whole
family enjoyed the luxury of a cup of tea in honour of
Sally's improvement. How little the labourer suspected<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>
then that the hand of vengeance was already stretched
forth to blast him and his joys, it might be, for ever. Yet
so it was, and thus does life ever mock us, especially if we
be poor. And had not Thomas sinned against the English
Baal. The sacred laws of property had been violated by
him; he had entered its holy of holies&mdash;a game preserve&mdash;and
must bear the penalty.</p>

<p>The thought did not quite thus shape itself in Tom
Pemberton's mind as he crept from his lair and made off
as fast as the thick gloom would permit him, to Squire
Greenaway's gamekeeper's cottage; but his heart exulted
at the thought of the vengeance it was now in his power
to wreak. That very night he hoped to see the hated
Wanless locked up. In this hope, however, he was
disappointed. The gamekeeper was not at home, nor
could his wife say exactly where he was. Probably she
knew well enough; and certain gamedealers in Leamington
also were likely to know, for, like most of his class,
this fellow was only a licensed poacher; but Pemberton
had to be content with his answer. He told the keeper's
wife that he wanted some poachers apprehended, and
that he would return to-morrow.</p>

<p>Sure enough he came, and came early, but the keeper
was again out, setting his gins probably, and had left
word that he would not be back till dinner-time.
Ultimately, Pemberton met his man, and the two decided
to go and seize Wanless at night in his own cottage.
Accordingly, that same evening as Thomas and his
family were enjoying their supper together in the attic,
they were disturbed by a rude thumping at the door<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>
and before Thomas himself could get down to see who
was there, the latch was lifted, and in walked Tom
Pemberton with the gamekeeper at his heels. The
latter was a squat, ill-favoured, heavy man, with small
piercing eyes that were never at rest. He sniffed noisily
as he entered, and gave vent to a gleeful chuckle as he
caught sight of Wanless. Dull Pemberton had grown
fat and bloated-looking since the days of the allotment
agitation, but his usually stolid, sodden-looking features,
were to-night almost animated by the leer of triumph
which had displaced the customary sullen vacuity. Yet
he was not at his ease; and when Thomas, divining the
men's purpose, drew himself up, and holding up his
rushlight the better to see the faces of his visitors,
flashed a look of scornful defiance at the farmer, that
worthy drew back involuntarily.</p>

<p>But the keeper had no feelings, and at once struck in
with&mdash;</p>

<p>"Sorry to hinterrup' yer feast, my man; but we want
ye, d'ye see. God! what a prime smell! Kerruberatin'
evidence, eh, farmer? Ye've been poachin', Wanless,
that's evident; an' the Squire'll be glad to speak wi' ye
about it. Ha! ha!"</p>

<p>For a moment Thomas felt disposed to fight. A thrill
of fury swept through him, and he wished he could tear
keeper and farmer in pieces with his hands. But that
soon passed, and he stood dumbfounded. Hearing the
strange voices, his wife stole down the stair, followed by
the three children who were able to be about the house,
and two of these latter, catching a vague fear of danger,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>
began to cry. Young Tom did not weep, but stole
softly up to his father's side. But a minute before all
had been happiness, such happiness as a family of
miserable groundlings might dare to feel, and now&mdash;&mdash;</p>

<p>Bah! Why give a thought to such wretches. They
can have no feelings like my lord and the squire, or his
scented and sanctified parsonship. And yet the cold
night wind made these sick children shiver as you or I
might; and the stricken wife, who had caught the
purport of the keeper's speech, was just as ready to faint
with grief and terror, as if she had had your feelings or
mine. Her first act was to protect the children from
harm by trying to shut the door; but Pemberton, with
a growl, pushed her back, and she then gathered them in
her arms, and sat down on an old box by the fire,
weeping silently.</p>

<p>Still Thomas stood, silent but not cowed, and the
keeper's wrath began to blaze up.</p>

<p>"Come along, man," he growled, "none of yer
hobstinincy, now. We don't want no scenes here; none
o' yer blubberin' wife and family kick-ups. Come along."</p>

<p>Then Pemberton plucked up heart to laugh. With a
mocking hee! hee! hee! he said&mdash;</p>

<p>"We've got you now, Wanless, and no mistake, you
d&mdash;&mdash;d old blackguard, an' we'll tame that devilish
spirit of yours afore we're done wi' ye. Roast me if we
don't."</p>

<p>His voice roused the spirit of Wanless once more.
Clenching his hands he stepped forward, moving the
keeper aside, and putting his fist in Pemberton's face,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>
said, in a voice that quivered with concentrated
passion&mdash;</p>

<p>"Hold your tongue, you black-hearted scoundrel, and
leave my house this instant, or I'll throw you out at the
door. What right have you to enter my door? Be off!"</p>

<p>Pemberton shrank back and looked as if he thought it
might be best for him to obey; but the keeper grasped
Thomas by the collar from behind and swung him round,
at the same time saying&mdash;</p>

<p>"Come, come, none o' this nonsense now, Wanless. I'll
have no fightin' here, or, by God, if you do I'll transport you,
sure's my name's Crabb. You must go with us quietly."</p>

<p>At the threat of transporting him, Thomas's wife uttered
a shrill cry of horror, and Thomas himself grew pale, but
he was now too much stirred to yield at once. Instead,
he shook off the keeper's hand; and demanded fiercely
what right he had to arrest him.</p>

<p>The keeper laughed mockingly.</p>

<p>"Well now, that is a good un'. Why, damme, you've
been poaching."</p>

<p>"How do you know that? And what is it to you if I
have?"</p>

<p>"How do I know? Why, bless my life, I can smell it,
you fool. But I beant here to hargify the p'int. I harrest
ye on a criminal charge, Wanless, that's all; and I've
brought the bracelets, my boy. Just the correct horneyments
for chaps like you, he, he," croaked the keeper, with
malign glee.</p>

<p>"But where's your warrant?" urged Thomas. "You
have no right to enter a man's own house in this way, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>
haul him wherever you like when it suits you to put out
your spites on him. Poachers, faith; who's a poacher,
I'd like to know, if you ain't? Leave my house, both of
you, or, by God, I'll rouse the village. Tom, Tom," he
added, turning to his son, who had again crept to his side,
"go and find Sutchwell, and Pease, and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"Hold hard there, you &mdash;&mdash; fool," roared the keeper.
"Curse you, d'ye suppose we came here to stand your
insolence."</p>

<p>Pemberton closed the door and put his back to it.</p>

<p>"Look ye here, my fine haristocrat," continued the
keeper in the boundless wrath of fear, "look ye here, if
you don't go quietly, devil take me if I don't get ye a trip
to Botany Bay for this job. I'm a sworn constable, and
I've got the justices' warrant, surely that's 'nuff for thieves
like you. Come, farmer Pemberton," he added more
quietly, "help me to hornament this gent," and in a very
brief space the two mastered and handcuffed the labourer.</p>

<p>He, indeed, made little resistance, for he began to see
that he was at the mercy of these scoundrels. His wife
clung to him, but they tore her roughly away. The
children wailed in chorus, and "bludder Jack" crept
downstairs in his thin nightgown to see what was causing
the hubbub, howling like the rest without knowing why.
But it was soon all over. Thomas barely got time to kiss
his wife, and to whisper to her to tell Hawthorn, ere he
was out of the cottage and away with his captors. All
down the little village street the shrieks of his family rung
in his ears, and his heart within him was like to burst with
grief, humiliation, and impotent wrath.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span></p>

<p>That night he was formally committed by Squire
Greenaway himself to be tried for poaching, before the
justices at Leamington Priors, on Tuesday next. This
was Friday.</p>

<p>In due course Thomas Wanless appeared before the
"Justices"&mdash;God save them! and, after a very brief trial,
was "let off," as one phrased it, with six months' hard
labour in Warwick Jail. The only evidence against him
was that of Tom Pemberton, but he made no attempt to
deny the charge, and as the squires already considered
him a "dangerous" fellow, they thought their sentence a
model of clemency. So did Pemberton and Keeper
Crabb. His judges were Wiseman, Greenaway, the man
whose vermin he had helped to thin by just three rabbits,
Parson Codling, of Ashbrook, and a bibulous old
creature who lived in Leamington Priors, a retired
Birmingham merchant, who had been made J.P. for his
subservience to the Tories. Greenaway was violent, and
rather disposed to give an "exemplary" sentence; Wiseman
was contemptuously indifferent, as became a big
acred man and the husband of a woman with a handle to
her name; and Parson Codling was unctuously severe.</p>

<p>An attempt was made to get Wanless to tell the name
of his co-offender, but that he refused, so he was told that
his obstinacy had prevented a more lenient sentence,
which was false. But something is due to appearances
at times, and even from such divine personages as justices
of the peace. So careful was the "bench" of proprieties
on this occasion, that Codling, on a hint from the chairman,
gave Wanless the benefit of a short exhortation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>
before consigning him to the salutary and eminently
Christian discipline of the jailer. In the course of this
homily, Codling took occasion to observe that he had
once hoped better things of the prisoner, but had long
ago been forced to give him up. "With grief and
sorrow," said the parson, "I have again and again
watched his obduracy, and his tendency to consort with
agitators, or worse. His fate will, I trust, be a warning
to others."</p>

<p>This Parson Codling you will perceive had become
tame. Once on a time he had been almost given over to
agitation himself; but that danger soon passed, and he
was now a proper ornament to and supporter of the
British hierarchy. Its morals were his morals. He knew
no god but the god of the landed gentry. In his youth
the functions of the priestly office had been misunderstood
by him; but he had married soon after we last
met him a gentlewoman of Worcestershire with £2,000 a
year, and that cured him of many weaknesses&mdash;amongst
others of the foolish craze he once had that the religion
of Christ was a religion to be practised. He now knew
that it was nothing of the kind. Certain tenets of it had
been made up into a creed "to be said or sung," and a
singularly complex institution called the Church had
been elaborated for the good of public morals, and the
support of the English aristocracy&mdash;that was all. Therefore
could he now wag his head pompously at poor Tom
Wanless standing dumb before him; therefore could he
now raise his fat soft hands, and thrust from his sight
with sanctimonious horror that criminal guilty of rabbit<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>
murder. A stranger, unfamiliar with the usages of rural
England&mdash;that country whose liberties, we are told, all
nations admire and envy&mdash;might have supposed that
Wanless was some foul manslayer, some midnight
assassin meeting his just doom. Unhappy stranger, woe
on thy ignorance. Know thou that in England no crime
is so heinous as the least approach to rebellion against
the sacred rights of the Have-alls? "Touch not the
land nor anything that is thereon," is to the English
landholder all the law and the prophets. So Codling
cursed Wanless for his crime, and the doom-stricken
labourer passed from his sight.</p>



<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2>

<h3>MAKES KNOWN THE EXCELLENT QUALITIES OF JAIL
LIFE.</h3>


<p>Captain Hawthorn had been duly apprised of Thomas's
misfortune, but was unable to do anything directly to
help him. Because of his obnoxious opinions Hawthorn
was not a justice of the peace; and he felt that any
attempt on his part to appear as the labourer's champion
might only end in making the poor fellow's sentence all
the heavier. Since the Reform Bill and the Chartist
agitations had alarmed the landholders, they had shown
less disposition than ever to admit such a nondescript
radical as Hawthorn into their society; and his interference
in local affairs was so prominently resented on
several occasions that he had almost ceased to attempt
any. He had even some difficulty in obtaining access to
Wanless in jail; but ultimately succeeded, by the help
of a little judicious bribery, and the friendly assistance
of a mountebank drunken parson, who was in jail for
debt during six days of the week, but got bailed out on
Sundays, so that he might edify his flock and keep
down expenses.</p>

<p>The old man's first greeting to Wanless was in his
customary rough form.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span></p>

<p>"Well, Tom, a nice ass you have made of yourself.
Why the devil hadn't you more sense, man? Eh?
D&mdash;n it, you might have taken some of my rabbits,
my boy, and never a keeper would have said you
nay."</p>

<p>This was true enough, for Hawthorn had now no
keeper, and, for that matter, little game. He allowed his
tenants to do as they pleased, and one of the deepest
grievances his neighbours had against him, was that
these tenants thinned their game wherever their lands
marched with his.</p>

<p>To this sally Thomas, however, made no answer
beyond a smothered groan. The man's spirit was too
much broken to bear rough comfort of this kind, as his
visitor instantly perceived. Changing his tone at once,
the Captain bent over the bench where the prisoner sat
hanging his head, and laying his hand on Thomas's
shoulder, added&mdash;</p>

<p>"Come, come, Tom, my boy; bless my life! don't lose
heart because you've been a fool. I'll see that the chicks
don't starve, and you'll soon be out of this, and a man
again."</p>

<p>The kind tones of Hawthorn's voice affected Tom
more even than the promise. He tried to speak, but his
voice broke in sobs.</p>

<p>"Tut, tut. 'Pon my life, don't, Tom, d&mdash;n it, man,
don't," spluttered the Captain; but, as Tom did not
stop, he grasped his hand suddenly and gave it a hearty
grip. Then he turned and fled, afraid probably of
himself betraying his feelings.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span></p>

<p>His visit did Thomas much good, and he bore his
trials more patiently henceforth, though the bitterness
of his heart at times nearly maddened him. I can never
forget the description which he gave me in after days of
the agonies suffered by him during those horrible six
months. We were seated together in his little garden
one September evening, the sun was far down in the west,
the ruddy glow of a calm, bright autumn evening fell
athwart Wanless's grey, worn face, lighting it with a sober
brilliance that fitted well the fixed look of sadness that sat
on it as he then told me of that dark time. His voice was
calm for the most part, although full of subdued passion;
and the impression his narrative made on me was so deep
that I can almost give you his very words.</p>

<p>"At first," said he, "I felt like a caged wild beast, and
could do nothing but chafe. The night in the keeper's
out-house, where the villain kept me to save himself trouble,
with both hands and feet cruelly tied, had been bad enough;
and the nights and days in Leamington lock-up were hard
to bear, but a kind of hope sustained me, and I did not
fully comprehend what loss of liberty was till I lay in
Warwick Jail. For three nights after I entered that hell
upon earth I did not sleep a wink. The very air I breathed
seemed to choke me. Sometimes I felt so mad that I
could hardly keep from dashing my head against the walls
of the cell. Had I been alone perhaps I might have done
it, but there were five beside myself cooped up in a den
not much bigger than my kitchen, and in the darkness I
was for a time horribly afraid lest one or other of these
men should do me an injury. Though in one sense<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>
eager for death, I did not like being killed; and when not
raging I was trembling with fear. It was nervousness, no
doubt, but you can hardly wonder when I tell you what
my neighbours were. One was a burglar from Birmingham,
sentenced to transportation for stealing a coat from
somebody's hall; two were miners from Dudley way,
"doing" sixty days for kicking a chum and breaking his
leg, another was a wild, brutish-like day labourer, who
had got six months at last Assizes for cutting his wife's
throat, not quite to the death, and the last was a poor,
hungry youth of a tailor's apprentice, who had got the
same sentence for stealing some cloth. We were a strange
lot, and I feared these men in the darkness. If one moved,
my heart leapt to my mouth; and the horrible language
in which some of them indulged, made my flesh creep.
That wild labourer especially terrified me. What if the
murderous frenzy was to come upon him, and he should
try to throttle me in the dark.</p>

<p>"After a few nights, exhausted nature asserted herself,
and I slept. Then other thoughts arose in my heart that
were still worse to bear&mdash;thoughts about my wife and
family. Sarah had been allowed to speak to me for a minute
or two before I was removed from the Leamington Courthouse
to jail, and she then told me that Jack and Fanny
caught cold <i>that</i> night, and threatened dropsy. Lucy, also,
had had a relapse of the fever. Poor woman, she looked
so broken-hearted and worn-out like, and I could say
nothing, still less do anything now. 'Oh, Tummas,
Tummas, that it should a' coom to this' she cried, and
wept bitterly behind her thin old shawl. It was the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>
shawl I married her in, sir; and I thought on the past and
the future till I, too, broke down and cried like a child.
But what good was that to her; to either of us? Well; I
couldn't help it.</p>

<p>"Then she picked up a bit, and tried to cheer me, as
women will when the worst comes. She told me that Mrs.
Robins was very kind, and had come to look after
the children for her that day, having none of her own, and
no fear of the infection, and she was sure that the neighbours
would never see her want. That was some comfort
at the time; but once I came to myself in jail the thought
that I was now helpless, that my family might be dying
and I unable to reach them, raised anew the agony in
my mind. I saw them gathered round our Sally's bed
weeping for their absent father. My wife's weary looks
and thin white face haunted me in the night seasons far
worse than the wife mutilator. What could neighbours do
for her in such a strait; what could I do now? The
thought of my helplessness came over me with waves
of agonising self-abasement and disgust, till my nerves
seemed to crack and my brain spin round. Often did I
stuff my sleeve into my mouth to stop myself from crying
out as I lay tossing on the floor of the den. I would beat
my head with my clenched hands till the sparks danced
in my eyes, and groan till my neighbours muttered curses
through their sleep. Oh, I thought, if I could but get an
hour with my little ones, to see wee Sally and the baby in
their bed, to watch poor Jack and Fan, and help the worn out
mother. An hour! nay, half an hour, only five minutes!
God, it was unbearable; it was hell to be caged like this!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span></p>

<p>"And what had I done to be thus torn from my wife
and children, and made to consort with brutal criminals?
What had I done? Killed three rabbits, vermin that
curse God's earth and devour the bread of the poor. They
belonged to nobody any more'n rats or mice or weasels,
and did nobody good in this world. Why, the man that
had nearly killed his wife was not harder treated than me.
What then was my crime? Was I indeed a criminal?
I asked myself again and again, and the answer came&mdash;'No,
Tom Wanless, but you were worse; you were a fool.
You knew the power of the landlords; you knew that to
them the rabbit was a sacred animal, and that they could
punish you if they caught you. You were a fool ever to put
yourself in their clutches.' Ah yes, there was the sting of
it. How could I hope to escape doom when all the world
except the labourers were on one side.</p>

<p>"But though I saw I had been a fool; that made me no
better in my mind; rather worse; for, as I tossed and
raved in my heart, I took to cursing squire and parson:
I cursed, too, the land of my birth, and ended by cursing
the God who made me. Ay, that did I. In the darkness
I mocked at Him, I swore at Him, and told Him that I
wouldn't believe there was a God at all. Why, if He
lived, did he suffer scoundrels to call themselves His
chosen people, and mock Him by their chattering prayers
and mumblings all the time that they lived only to
oppress the poor. Life was a curse if that was
right.</p>

<p>"Well," Thomas continued, after a short pause, during
which he leant back and watched the changing tints of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>
gold flitting across the western sky, "well, that mood also
passed, and after the old captain had been to see me I
got a little quieter. But the jailers did not make life easy
for me, I can tell you. Because I was silent, speaking
little, eating little, and hardly fit for the task they set me
upon that weary treadmill, they gave me a taste of the
whip many a time, and abused me for a sullen gallows
bird, but I paid no heed.</p>

<p>"Within a fortnight after my punishment began, little
Tom brought me word that two of my children, Jack and
Lucy, were dead, and that Fanny was not expected to
live. When I heard this news I laughed a bitter laugh,
and said, 'Thank God, some good has been done. The
squires won't imprison them, anyway!' My boy looked
terrified for a moment, and then fell a-weeping bitterly.
The sight of him crouching at my feet, and quivering in
passionate grief, brought me a bit to. A vision of my
dear little ones, of my dying wee Fan, swept over me;
my heart yearned for them, and I mingled my tears with
my son's. I charged him to be kind to mother, and tried
to comfort him. Poor lad, poor lad! He is in Australia
now, and has a farm of his own. The sorrow of that
time is past for him long ago."</p>

<p>Here my old friend paused, wiping the tears from his
eyes furtively, and sighing softly to himself. The dying
glow of the sunset was now on his face, gleaming in his
silvery hair, and making his sad but animated features
shine with a soft glory. I sat still and gazed at him with
feelings too strong for speech. After a little he turned to
me with a smile, and said:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>&mdash;</p>

<p>"Yes, my friend, that's all passed, and many sorrows
beside, nor do I now curse God as I look back upon them.
But I cannot tell you more to-night. I didn't think that
I should have been moved so much by recalling that old
story. Let us go indoors, the night is growing chilly."</p>

<p>Future conversations gave me most of the particulars
of that time, but I cannot harrow the reader's feelings
with a full recital of all that Thomas Wanless felt and
suffered in these six months of misery. Three of his
children died while he chafed and toiled in Warwick Jail.
The heart-stricken mother alone received their dying
words, heard their last farewell. Kind neighbours tried
to comfort her. The parson's wife even called, and said,
"Poor woman, I'm afraid you've had too many children
to bring up. I'll see if the vicar can spare you a few
shillings from the poor box;" but the shillings never
came, much to Thomas's satisfaction in after days.
Perhaps Codling thought the family altogether too reprobate
for his charity.</p>

<p>It would have gone hard indeed with Mrs. Wanless
and the little ones spared to her but for old Captain
Hawthorn. Though verging on seventy, and by no means
strong, no single week elapsed all that winter when his
cheery voice was not heard in the cottage. Often he
came twice a week, but never with any ostentation of
charity. On the contrary, he went so far the other way
as to pretend to take a bond over the cottage for money,
professedly lent to the family, and without which they
must have gone into the workhouse. He never, perhaps,
felt so like a hypocrite in his life as he did when he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>
took this bond to the jail for Thomas to sign. Young
Tom was put back to his work on the home farm,
and his wages raised on some pretence or other to
six shillings a week. The dry, old man, so hard and
repellant, had, after all, a human heart in him that my
Lord Bishop of Worcester might have envied had he
ever experienced any desire for such an organ. More
true sympathy with distress was shown by this hardened
old Voltarian since this family had attracted his notice
than by all the squires of the district and the parsons to
boot. It had not yet become fashionable for the latter
to rehearse deeds of philanthropy in pedantic garments.
Hawthorn's fault was not want of heart or of sympathy,
but a self-centredness which prevented him from seeing
his duty, except when, as in this instance, it was forced
upon him. Yet, after all, what could he have done to
help the poor around him that would not in some way
have redounded to their hurt? Charity doles would have
demoralised them more than their hard lot did; and any
opening of the door for them to help themselves would
have brought hatred, contumely, and perhaps real
injury to them and him. He could not raise wages by
his fiat, nor could he break up his land and distribute it
to the people. All the laws of the country, as well as
the prejudices of "society," were against him, if he had
ever thought of so wild a project; which I do not suppose
he ever did. He sat apart and mocked at a world with
which he had no sympathy; whose hollowness, self-seeking,
and cruelty, hid beneath infinite hypocrisies, he
thoroughly understood.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span></p>

<p>And this good, at least, has to be recorded of him,
that he saved the family of Thomas Wanless from want,
by consequence, also, in all probability, saving Thomas
himself from becoming an abandoned Ishmaelite. The
sight of his family beggared, homeless, and in the
workhouse, either would have driven him reckless or broken
his heart. From that sight, at least, he was saved; and
Thomas has often told me that the conduct of the old
squire during these six months did more to revive hope
in his heart and keep him from losing all faith in God or
man, than any other single event of his life. Yet had
his heart bitterness enough.</p>

<p>"I remember," he said, one night as we conversed
together; "I remember the morning I left jail. It was
a warm, May morning, and the air was so fresh and
sweet that the first breath of it made me feel quite giddy
with joy. 'Free! free! I am free!' I whispered softly
to myself, and with difficulty refrained from capering
about the road like a madman, as the joyous thought
surged through my heart. It lasted only for a few
moments. Pain took hold of the heels of my joy as
usual. I was a man disgraced. Why should I be glad
to get out of jail? Were not its forbidding, gloomy
walls the best shelter left for one like me? Why should
I be glad? The law of the land had branded me a
criminal; let the law makers enjoy paying for their work.</p>

<p>"Ah, no; disgraced as I was, filled with bitter
passionate hate of those above me as my heart might be,
I was not yet ready to stoop to deliberate crime as a
mode of revenge. The memory of my lost children and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>
my lonely, heart-broken wife stole into my heart and
brought the tears to my eyes. The four that were left
to me would be waiting on this May morning for my
home coming. I would go home.</p>

<p>"So I started; but when I reached the castle bridge
my heart again failed me. I was weak through long
confinement, ill-usage, and want of food, for the messes
served to us in that jail were often worse than I would
have given to my pig. The very thought of meeting a
village neighbour terrified me. My limbs shook, and I
crept through a gap in the fence, resolved to hide till
night and steal home in the darkness. For a little while
I sat behind a bush at the water's edge, feeling a coward,
but wholly unable to scold myself for it. Then I crept
along the bank of the Avon towards Grimscote, till I
reached a clump of osiers, into which I plunged. The
ground was very damp, and here and there almost swampy;
but presently I found a dry mound, and there I lay
down, buried from all eyes. How long I lay I cannot
tell, for I paid no heed to time, though I gradually
became calmer. Once again I was in contact with
nature. The air was full of the music of birds, and the
chirp of insects among the grass sounded almost like the
movement of life in the very ground itself. A sweet
smell of hawthorn blossom came to me from some old
trees close by, and now and then I heard the plash of
oars on the river, and voices came to me sweet and clear
off the water. Gradually I became more hopeful. Life
was all around me; the bushes themselves seemed moved
by it as I lay beneath their shade. Behind me the traffic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>
of the high road made a constant rattle, and beyond the
river I heard the bleating of lambs. And life somehow
came back to me also. I arose with new hopes in my
breast. All could not yet be lost to me, I somehow felt;
and, at any rate, I would go home, for I began to be very
hungry.</p>

<p>"I often stopped on the way with weariness and faint-heartedness,
but did not again turn back, and by two
o'clock in the afternoon I reached my own cottage. My
wife welcomed me with a burst of crying. I learnt from
her that she had begun to dread that I had done something
rash. She and the little ones had gone to meet me
in the morning as far as the castle bridge, which they
must have reached soon after I lay down among the
willows. There they sat for a while hoping that I would
come, but seeing nothing of me they crept back again
with hearts sad enough, you may be sure. I was not long
behind them, and my wife soon brightened enough to be
able to eat some dinner with me; but my heart smote me
for being so selfish and unkind as to go and hide as if no
one had to be considered but myself."</p>

<p>Such in faint outline was Thomas's account of his
release from prison. His meeting with his family was
sad beyond description. In the short six months of his
absence three of his little ones had been put under the
sod. Out of a family of eight in all he had now but four
left. A great mercy that it was so, some will say; and
possibly they may be right. The world's goods are so
ill distributed that death is for many the only blessing
left. Nevertheless, I question if the sorrow of the labourer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>
at the loss of his children was not keener than that of
many who need not fear a want of bread for their offspring.
He had toiled and suffered for all the eight, and
the love that grows up in the heart through such discipline
as his is akin to the deepest and holiest passion known to
man. Thomas and his wife mourned for their dead to
their own life's end, because the little ones had been part
of their life. Is it so with you, pert censor of the miserable
poor?</p>

<p>Though sorrowing, Thomas had yet no time to nurse
his sorrow. The world had to be faced again, and work
to be found. For sentimental griefs and morbid wailings
in the world's ear the Wanlesses had no time. At first
Thomas got some jobs from Mr. Hawthorn, but he soon
saw that they were jobs mostly created on purpose for
him, and he could not bear the thought of living on charity,
no matter how disguised. Therefore, he began to hunt
about for odd work in the neighbourhood, and found much
difficulty in getting it. His recent imprisonment told
against him everywhere, if not in keeping work from his
hands, at all events in low pay for the work. The farmers
had now got their feet on his neck, and took it out of him,
as they alone knew how; for the brutalised slave is always
the cruellest of slave-drivers. But Thomas fought on,
and for the best part of a year contrived to exist with the
help that young Tom's wages gave. He did no more; nay,
not always so much; for he and his wife sometimes wanted
their own dinners that their children might have enough.
Still he existed; lived through the year somehow and was
thankful, notwithstanding the fact that he had made no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>
progress in paying off his debt to the old Captain. "He
can take the cottage, Thomas," said his wife. "Someone
will pay him rent enough for it, though we can't; but we
can get a hovel somewhere."</p>

<p>He was spared this last sacrifice, for about this time
old Hawthorn died, and a sealed packet addressed to
Thomas Wanless was found among his papers. When
the labourer came to open this, he found that it contained
his bond with the signature torn off, a receipt in full for
the money advanced, and a £20 note. On a slip of paper
was written in the Captain's scraggy, trembling hand,
"Don't mention this to a living soul, Tom Wanless, or by
God I'll haunt you.&mdash;E.H." Thus the scorned infidel was
soft-hearted and characteristic to the last. His estate
passed to a cousin, who soon gave the tenants cause to
remember how good the old Captain had been. And
once more he had kept the labourer's heart from breaking.
The deliverance from debt which this packet brought, and
the prodigious wealth a £20 note appeared to be to
Thomas, renewed his courage and made him resolve to
strike further afield in search of better paid labour.
Railway making was at its height all over the country,
and he had often thought of becoming a navvy. Now
he decided to be one if he could get work on the line
down Worcester way. A bit of that line came within
fifteen miles of Ashbrook, and he might therefore see his
family now and then at least Young Tom was to stay
at home, and the 5s. a-week, to which his wages was
reduced after old Hawthorn's death, would help to keep
house till work was found by his father. The £20 was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>
not to be touched till the very last extremity, and in the
meantime Thomas put it in as a deposit in a savings
bank at Stratford-on-Avon. He would not deposit it in
Warwick lest questions might be asked, and the Captain's
dying command be in consequence disobeyed.</p>

<p>The new plans succeeded better almost than Thomas
had hoped. He got work on the railway; it was very
hard work, but the wages were good; at first he only got
18s. per week, and he began by stinting himself in order
to send 10s. of this home; but he soon found that to be a
mistake. His work demanded full vigour of body,
and to be in full vigour he must be well fed. The other
men had meat of some kind three times a day, and Thomas
followed their example, with the best results. Not only
did he stand by his work with the rest, but he displayed
such energy and intelligence that within a few weeks he
obtained charge of the work in a deep cutting at 28s. per
week. Of this he saved from 12s. to 14s. a-week, after
paying for clothes, lodgings, and food. It seemed very
little, and he grudged much the cost of his own living;
but there was no help for it. Besides, what he saved now
was more than all he earned in Ashbrook, except for a
few weeks during harvest. Much reason had he to thank
the dairyman's wife for feeding him in his youth so as to
fit him now for a navvy's toil.</p>

<p>Truly the life was rough, and little to Wanless' liking,
yet he worked with a heart and hope rarely his before.
Altogether this job lasted for two years, and regularly all
that time Thomas went home once a month with his
savings. Sometimes he had more than 20 miles to walk<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>
each way, but he had health, and never failed. Starting on
Saturday evenings, in wet weather and dry, summer and
winter, he would reach home early on Sunday morning,
when after a good sleep, he passed a few happy hours,
and then started on the Sunday afternoon for his work
again.</p>



<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2>

<h3>IS OF THE NATURE OF A SERMON.</h3>


<p>During these two years the attitude of Thomas's mind
changed much towards society and its institutions. He
may be said for the first time to have become a religious
man, and his religion was of the simpler and more unsophisticated
type which comes to a man who knows little
of dogma, but much of the contents of the Bible. That
book was studied by him as something fresh and altogether
new on the lonely Sundays he passed amongst the navvies.
He took to it at first more because he had no other book
to read, but it laid hold of his imagination after a time,
and he began to test the world around him by the lofty
morality of the New Testament. In due course the
thoughts that burned within him found utterance and
infected some of his fellow workmen. Almost before he
was aware a certain following gathered round him.
They drew together in the parlour of the inn, which most
of the navvies frequented, and discussed things political
and religious on the Saturday and Sunday nights.</p>

<p>The wilder spirits soon nicknamed Thomas and his
friends the Saints, and he himself went by the sobriquet of
Methody Tom; but, though jeered at and sometimes
cursed by the wilder sort, their influence spread, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>
radical views of society were canvassed among these
navvies with a freedom that would have made parson and
squire alike shiver with horror had they known. But
they did not know. How could they? Such creatures
as navvies were not, strictly speaking, human at all.
They lived beyond the pale, like the Irish ancestors of
many among them, and were essentially of the nature of
wild beasts, for whom the policeman's baton or the soldier's
musket was the only available moral force.</p>

<p>No parson ever looked near that community of busy
workers, whose strong backed labour was swiftly altering
the physical conditions of modern civilisation, and calling
a new world into being for squire and trader alike. Nay,
I am wrong. Thomas informed me that a parson did
go astray among the workmen in the cutting of which he
had charge. A poor, deluded young curate came round
once distributing tracts. The fervour of a yesterday's ordination
was upon him, and shone in the rigorous cut of his
garments. He thought he might do the navvies good by the
sight of him, and bless them with his tracts. But his visit
was a failure, and his reception rough. Thomas declared
that he felt sorry for the poor fellow, and yet
could not refrain from joining in the laugh at his expense.
One sturdy northerner, to whom he handed a tract, protested
loudly that he "hadn't done nothing to be
summonsed for," and when the curate blandly explained
that it was a tract, he blessed his stars, and swore that
he "took the chap for one of the new peelers." Another
was of an opinion that "the parson had a mighty easy
job of it," and suggested his taking a turn at the pick;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>
while one more blasphemous than the rest, declared that
he didn't know who the Lord Jesus might be, and didn't
care; but, in his opinion, it was d&mdash;&mdash;d impudent of him
to send any of his flunkeys down their way "a spyin'
and a pryin'." They chaffed the poor man about his
clothes; begged a yard or two of the tail of his coat to
mend their Sunday breeches with; explained how much
better he could walk in a short jacket; wanted to know
why he wore a white choker&mdash;and altogether made such
a fool of the poor wretch that he soon turned and fled,
amid their jeers and laughter.</p>

<p>That was the only time they ever saw a parson of
the Church during these two years; and no doubt this
poor curate felt that they were a reprobate crew whom
the Church did quite right to abandon to their fate. It
is so much pleasanter and easier to play at pietism
amongst well-bred, comfortable people "of good society"
than to save souls. The sweet order of a gorgeous
ritual, the vanities of richly-embroidered garments,
squabbles about archaic rites as worthless as an Egyptian
mummy&mdash;these things are more valuable to the modern
parson, and more pleasing in the sight of his God, than
the lives of such men as Wanless and his fellow-labourers.
For the parson's God is the God of the rich, to whom
gorgeous ritual and sensuous music are necessary as
foretastes of the blessedness of an æsthetic paradise.</p>

<p>So be it: far be it from me to question the taste of
parson or parson's following. They can go their own
way, only it may be permitted to one to point out that
outside their charmed circle there are forces at work, before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>
the power of which their fair fabric may yet crumble and
disappear like sand heaps before the rushing tide.
Thomas Wanless and his friends were rude and unlettered,
but they had definite ideas enough, and a wild sense of
justice. In their dim way they tried to fit together the
various parts of the human life that lay around them,
and failing to do so, as better than they have failed, they
came to the conclusion that they and their class were
cheated by the rest. Democracy, communism, subversive
ideas of all kinds, therefore, found currency among them,
as in ever-growing volume they find currency now.
Imagine if you can these men trying to evolve the
prototype of a modern Lord Bishop, in lawn sleeves and
pompous state, from the simple records of the New
Testament. Can you wonder at their failure in that
instance, or in many such like? Where could they find
church or chapel that was no respecter of persons? in
which the possession of money and power was not the
ultimate test of true godliness? Is it astonishing that in
placing the ideal and actual side by side, these men
should have come to the conclusion that the actual was
a fraud: that the whole basis of modern society was
corrupt?</p>

<p>Do not, I beseech you, pass lightly by the doings of
these men, most sublime Lord Bishops, most serene
peers of the realm, smug buyers of county votes. These
ideas are spreading all around you. Few possessed them
fifty years ago among the agricultural poor; but there,
as elsewhere, democracy is getting educated, is awaking
to the reality of things, and will make its feelings known<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>
to you in a manner you little dream of one of these days.
Your Olympus will prove but a molehill when the earth
shakes with the onset of the millions on whose necks
you have sat all these ages. Titles are a mockery,
hereditary dignities a contempt, in the eyes of men who
live face to face with the hard realities of existence. A
new life is abroad in the world. The image-breaker is
exalted above my Lord Bishop in all his glory of lawn
sleeves and piety in uniform by men like Wanless and his
friends. They want to know, not what part "my lord"
professes to act, what creed this or that snug Church dignitary
chants or drones; but what his life is worth? What
are you? in short, is the question, not what you give yourself
out to be; and, depend upon it, if the answer is
unsatisfactory, you and your hypocrisies will disappear
together.</p>

<p>Nothing struck me so forcibly in my intercourse with
Wanless as the extraordinary bitterness with which he
spoke of the English Church. To it he seemed in his
later life to have transferred the greater part of his
hatred of the landed gentry. He viewed it as an
organised blasphemy, and worse than that, as the jailor,
so to say, by whom the chains of a miserable captivity
had been rivetted for ages on the limbs of the toiling poor.
The ground for this attitude of mind on the part of the
labourer was easily discovered. He read his Bible much, and
endeavoured to fit its precepts and the example of its greatest
characters to the life around him, and of course he failed.
The more he tried to bring together the presentment of
Christianity afforded by the modern Church and teaching of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>
the New Testament, the more he saw their divergencies.
This set him pondering, and he soon came to the conclusion
that this modern institution was not Christian at all, but
Pagan. It was a department of State, paid by the State,
and employed by it for the purpose of deluding the people
into the belief that the existing order of life was divinely
appointed. How effectively it had done this work, he said,
let history show. The clergy had aided and abetted the
gentry in all their robberies of the people; it had been the
instrument of many flagrant thefts of endowments left for
the education of the poor; there never had been a reform
proposed calculated to benefit the people that had not been
ardently opposed by this organised band of hypocrites,
and no class of the community was so habitually, so
flagrantly selfish as preachers. Take them all in all,
Thomas Wanless declared, the people who preached for a
trade, be they dissenters or Anglican, gave him a lower
idea of human nature than any navvy he ever met. "Their
trade makes them bad," he often declared; "and I suppose
I ought to pity the miserable wretches, but they do so much
mischief that I really cannot."</p>

<p>Once I recollect urging the commonplace argument
that there were many good men among them, but he
caught me up short with&mdash;</p>

<p>"Yes, yes, I admit all that; but that proves nothing in
favour of either the Church or the parson's trade. These
men would have been good anywhere, as Papists,
Mohamedans, or Hindus, just as certainly as in church or
chapel. It is their nature to, and they cannot help it.
But their very goodness is a curse to people, sir&mdash;yes, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>
curse, for they prop up fabrics and institutions that but
for them would long ago have been too rotten to stand."</p>

<p>Thus it will be seen that Wanless, though in his way a
profoundly religious man, was in no sense a sectary. He
was in fact ranged among the iconoclasts. He sighed for
a living faith, not a dead creed; and were he living to-day
he would certainly give his hearty support to that band
of men who wage war on the shams of modern creeds,
who mock unceasingly at the disgusting spectacle of men
who call themselves disciples of Christ wrangling over the
cut and embroidery of garments, and trying to make themselves
martyrs for the sake of a candle or two. The tractarian
movement attracted Thomas's attention in a dim way,
and he was amused at the frightful din made by the conversions
to Romanism which accompanied that curious
upheaval of mediævalism. Not that he understood much
of the meaning of what was going on. It was not worth
discovering, he said; but he was amused over it, and
roundly declared that for this and all other ills of the
Church there was but one cure&mdash;to take away its money.
"Let these parsons try living by faith," he would often
exclaim. "If they believe in God as they say, why do they
not trust him for a living? Their proud stomachs would
come down a bit if they are just turned adrift in a body
and let shift for themselves. But Lord, what a howl they'll
make if the people get up and say we'll have no more of
your mummeries, we want our money for a better purpose.
They won't think much about God then, I can tell you.
It will be every man for himself, and who can grab the
most. I never have any patience with parsons, never. They<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>
are bad from the beginning, bad all through, self-deluders
and misleaders of others at the best, and at the worst&mdash;well,
not much more except in degree."</p>

<p>"These are the mere ravings of an ignorant peasant,"
most readers will exclaim. I do not deny that in a certain
sense they may seem only that. Yet look around and
consider the signs of the times before you dismiss these
things as of no significance. What means the spread of
secularism amongst the working classes of the present day,
the contempt for religion and parsons which most of them
display? Is it not a most ominous indication of future
trouble for serene lord bishops and their brood when events
bring them face to face with the people? I do not admire
Charles Bradlaugh's teaching on many points; but I cannot
deny the power that he and such as he wield on the
common people. It is a power that increases with the
spread of education; and what does it betoken? Only this;
that in time, for one man among the peasantry who now
thinks like Thomas Wanless there will be tens of thousands.
The churches and chapels themselves, with their exceedingly
worldly respectability, produce these men more
certainly than all the teachings of the Bradlaughs; nay,
Bradlaugh himself is directly the product of a corrupt,
time-serving and utterly blasphemous church organisation.
Therefore be not too contemptuous of sentiments like
those of this peasant. They are significant of many
things&mdash;of a coming democracy that will at least try to
burn up the rottenness of our modern ultra Pagan-civilization.</p>

<p>On other questions than those of Church and State the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>
opinions of Thomas Wanless were equally uncompromising,
and, perhaps, equally impracticable. His intelligence
was far deeper than his reading, and much of his political
economy, as well as of his code of social morals, was
taken from the Bible. To my thinking he could have
gone to no better book, but I am also free to admit that
his too exclusive study of it gave a quaint and sometimes
impracticable turn to his conceptions that may lead many
to have a poor opinion of his wisdom.</p>

<p>On the land question, for example, he grew to be a
kind of disciple of Moses. He would have had the whole
country parcelled out amongst the people&mdash;each family
enjoying the inalienable right to a certain bit of the soil.
The year of jubilee was also, in his eyes, a most merciful
and just provision for freeing the unfortunate, or the
children of the spendthrift, from the grasp of the usurer&mdash;always
the most relentless of men&mdash;and he often
exclaimed&mdash;"How much better my lot would have been
to-day had a jubilee year brought back to me and mine
the land my grandfathers sacrificed in the stress of hard
times." And not to land only would he have applied this
principle, but to all kinds of indebtedness. "A limit of
time should be fixed," he said, "beyond which the debtor
should be free from his debt, unless he had committed
a crime." The national debt itself he would have treated
on this principle; and few things excited his wrath more
quickly than any mention of the heavy burden which the
consolidated debt continued to be to the English people.
In national matters he would have had no debt remaining
beyond 30 years, on the principle that it was a crime to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>
cast the burdens of the present on posterity. Freedom
to borrow indefinitely was in his eyes, moreover, the cause
of much abominable robbery and crime. Next to the
Church, however, the object of his deepest hatred and
strongest contempt was modern kingship; and here again
his inspiration was drawn from the Bible. He told me
that he often read Samuel's description of the curse of
kingship to his children on Sunday evenings, with a view
to make them proper Republicans; and his greatest
interest in modern history consisted in tracing the working
of this curse in England for the last 200 years. To
this evil principle he declared that we owed most of our
social miseries, all our wars of aggression, our national
debt, our social corruptions, our bad land laws, our
standing army, and perhaps even our Established Church,
with all its crop of spiritual, moral, and social perversions.</p>

<p>It is easy to understand how a man holding opinions
like these should exercise a tremendous influence on the
better class of his fellow-workmen. To those who
gathered about him in the evenings he was never weary
of enlarging on topics like these; and had the nature of
the work in hand kept the men permanently together,
Thomas must in time have appeared as the leader of a
formidable school of democrats. But the navvy is here
to-day and gone to-morrow, and the seed which Thomas
sowed was scattered far and wide ere two years were
over. The good he did is therefore untraceable, yet
doubtless his work bore fruit in ways and places unseen,
and in after days may have increased the receptivity of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>
the labouring poor after a fashion that the modern
agitator thought due wholly to his own exertions.</p>

<p>Over the wild Irishmen who formed the majority of the
gangs on the line Thomas never obtained any influence;
and, in his opinion, they were either a race of men bad
from its very beginning, or whose nature had been warped
and debased by a long course of shameful tyranny and
deep-rooted habits of submission to degrading superstitions.
However produced, the Irish, in his esteem,
were wretched creatures. They lacked honesty and
independence, and would beg like pariahs one hour from
a man whom they would treacherously murder the next
in their drunken furies. More than once he had the
greatest difficulty in keeping clear of the devastating
fights with which these wild men of the west were in the
habit of finishing up their drunken revels, and once he,
and the more respectable men who followed him, had to
arm themselves and help to protect some villages in the
neighbourhood of the line from being stormed and sacked
by a squad of Irishmen out for a spree. Life surrounded
by such elements was dreary at the best, and, good though
the wages might be, Thomas was not sorry when the job
was finished, and the way open for him to return once
more to his own little cottage in Ashbrook.</p>



<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2>

<h3>MAY INDICATE TO THE READER, AMONGST OTHER
THINGS, SOME OF THE ADMIRABLE ARRANGEMENTS
WHEREBY ENGLAND OBTAINS MEN FOR A STANDING
ARMY.</h3>


<p>Had Thomas Wanless known what was in store for him
in the future he might have elected to leave Ashbrook
for ever, and continue the life of a railway navvy. As
such his pay was good, and by thrift he might save
enough money either to venture on small contracts for
himself, or start some kind of business in one of the
growing midland towns. But Thomas did not consider
these possibilities. The life he led grew more and more
repulsive to him as time went on; and he yearned unceasingly
for the quietude of his native village, and for
his own fireside peace. Besides, he hungered to get
back to work on the land. If he could not get fields of
his own to till, at least he might hope to again help to
till the fields of others, and to watch the corn bloom and
ripen as of yore.</p>

<p>So when the local bit of railway was made, Thomas
came home to Ashbrook, and once more went abroad
among his neighbours; once more he accepted the
labourer's lot, with its hard fare and starvation pay. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>
returned late in autumn when work was scarce; but his
wife and he had saved money in the past two years, and
he managed to live with the help of what odd jobs he
could get, and without much trenching on his store till
spring came round. Fortunately his son Thomas had
been able to cultivate the allotment patch in his father's
absence, and in spite of the fact that the new owner of
the soil had doubled their rent, it had paid for its cultivation
very well. The growing importance of Leamington
provided all surrounding villages with an improving
vegetable and fruit market, of which Thomas's wife and
family had taken full advantage in his absence. So
well indeed had they done, that he himself indulged
for a short time in dreams of becoming a market
gardener; but he soon found that there was no chance
for him in that direction. He might get work from the
farmers around, but no landlord would rent him the few
necessary acres. A broken man when he left Ashbrook
to become a navvy; his absence had not improved his
position. On the contrary, the parish magnates rather
looked upon him as a greater black sheep than ever.
The old ideas about the rights of landowners to the
labour of the hind, as well as to the lion's share of the
products of that labour, had by no means died out, and it
was still a moral crime in the eyes of the landlord
for a labourer to have enough daring and independence
of spirit, to enable him to seek work in another part of
the country. In some respects Wanless was therefore a
greater pariah when he came home than when he went away,
and the summit of offence was reached when the report<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>
got abroad that he had actually made some money, and
wanted to rent a little farm. Squire Wiseman had condescended
to mention this report to Parson Codling, and
they both agreed that this kind of thing must be discountenanced,
else the country would not be fit for
respectable persons to live in. "The idea," Wiseman
had exclaimed, "of this d&mdash;&mdash;d poacher-thief wanting to
become a farmer! why bless my life, we shall have our
butlers wanting to be members of parliament next."
And this seemed to be the general opinion, so that the
only practical outcome of Thomas's ambition was a
greater difficulty in procuring work, and a further advance
in the rent of his allotment. The successor of old Captain
Hawthorn took this mode of expressing his concurrence
in the general opinion, rather than that of a
summary ejectment, he being a practical man, and wise
in his generation. It was better policy to take the
profits of Thomas's labours than to turn him adrift, and
have to pay rates for the maintenance of him and his
family.</p>

<p>Against the odds and prejudices thus at work, Wanless
fought manfully for more than two years. When he
could get work he laboured at it early and late, and when,
as often happened, work was denied him, he tended his
little garden and his allotment patch with the closeness
of a Chinese farmer. His flowers were the pride of the
village, and his care coaxed the old trees in his garden
into a degree of fruit-bearing that almost put to shame
the vigour of their youth. Yet he could not always
make ends meet; and when he began to see his little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>
hoard melting away, his heart once more failed him.
If the farmers would not have him he must once
more try elsewhere, and again a local railway afforded him
a refuge. He became a "ganger" on the Stratford line at
14s. a-week, and for more than four years made his daily
journey backwards and forwards on his "beat," winter and
summer, in cold and heat, well or ill. In one sense, this
work was not so hard as a farm labourer's or a navvy's is,
but it told on the health as much. Exposure, thin
clothing, and poor food did their work rapidly enough,
and Thomas's limbs began to stiffen, and his back to grow
bent before his time. Like his fellows, he promised to
become an old man at 50, but he would have stuck to his
work had not a sharp attack of pleurisy laid him up in the
winter of 1855, and once more compelled him to seek
to live by farm labour. He could not face the bleak unsheltered
railway track again, and even if he could, there
was no room for him. His place had been filled up.
With a weary heart and a spirit well-nigh crushed,
Thomas once more looked for work on the farms around
Ashbrook. "Is there no hope for us, Sally, lass?" he
would often cry. "Must we go to the workhouse at last?"
"Ay, the workhouse, the workhouse!" he would exclaim.
"The parsons promise us a deal in the other world, but
that's the best they think we deserve here. Well, perhaps
they mean to give us a better relish for the other world
when it comes."</p>

<p>Thomas had one thing to cheer him, though, and no
doubt that gave him more courage to face the world again
than he otherwise would have had. His precious son,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>
young Tom, had emigrated to Australia about a year
before this terrible illness had enfeebled his father. He had
gone as an assisted emigrant, but the old man had given
him £10 of old Hawthorn's £20 to begin the New World
upon. The parting had cost the family much, and the
father most of all; but they felt it to be for the best.
There was no room to grow in the old land; in the new
there was a great freedom. The lad dreamt of gold
nuggets; but the wiser father bade him stick to the land
as soon as he could get a bit to stick to.</p>

<p>This departure was a loss to the family purse, for the
youth had obtained pretty steady work, and generously
gave all into the keeping of his mother. But Jane and
Jacob were now also out into the world, winning such
bread as they could get, and the family burden was therefore
lighter. Jane was general servant to a dissenting
draper in Leamington, and Jacob enjoyed the proud distinction
of being waggoner's boy at Whitbury farm, now
tenanted by a go-ahead Scotch ex-bailiff, who had succeeded
the Pembertons when they went to the dogs with
drink and horse-dealing. This hard-fisted, ferret-eyed
agriculturist worked his men and boys as they had never
been worked before, but he did not make the hours of
labour so long, and he paid them a trifle better than his
neighbours, whose jealousy and dislike he thereby increased.
Probably he rather liked to be contemned by his
fellows. It increased the self-sufficiency of his righteousness,
and made him the more proud of being a strict
Calvinistic Presbyterian, endowed with a conscience as
inelastic as his creed. Be that as it may, this man gave<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>
Jacob Wanless 10s. a week and made the lad work for it.
Jacob was not then 17, and at his previous place had only
obtained half that sum with a grudge. But then his work
had been a long day's drawl too often, while now his duty
as under waggoner was practically a good 10 to 12 hours'
toil as stable assistant, feeder of stalled cattle, and general
labourer about the farm.</p>

<p>From these causes Wanless had some ground for hope,
although work was difficult for him to get, and his power
to do it when got less than it had been. And when he
looked round him his causes for thankfulness multiplied.
Was not his neighbour Hewens, the under gardener at the
Grange, worse off than he, with a younger family of seven,
one of whom was an object, and a weekly income averaging
about 9s. a week all the year round. Thomas's old
and tried friend Satchwell, the blacksmith, too, with his
three children living and a wife dying in decline, had
surely a harder lot than he, for all the coldness of farmers
and contumely of parish deities.</p>

<p>As spring warmed into summer, indeed, Wanless's
strength and heart came back to him in a measure. His
hopes were chastened, but they were there still, and
asserted their life. Good news came from his far-away
son, too. Young Tom had taken his father's advice, and,
avoiding the charms of gold digging, had gone to work at
high pay on a sheep run. Already he spoke of buying a
farm of his own, and getting father and mother and all the
rest to join him in the colony. Surely any man's
heart would warm at prospects like these, and Thomas so
far entertained the project as to talk it over with his friends,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>
Brown, Satchwell, and Robins, who agreed in thinking it
"mighty fine," and in wishing that they could mount and go
along. "A vain wish, friends," Brown would say,
"vain so far as I am concerned, for I cannot herd sheep
or hold a plough, and they want neither parish clerks
nor schoolmasters in the bush." Robins felt that he was
too old and too poor to think of the change, and
Satchwell sighed often as he thought on what a sea
voyage might yet do for his wife. But as for Thomas,
of course he could go when his son sent him the money,
they said; and he, remembering that he had still a few
pounds of his hoard unspent, almost thought that he could.
His family should have the first chance, though. Jane
and Jacob might both be able in another year to get
away to the new country so full of hope; and it was best
that the old hulk should stay at home, perhaps. So ran
his thoughts for these two, but he always stopped when
he reached Sally, his youngest living child, and precious
to him as the apple of his eye. She was the fairest of
the family, and her father's darling above all the others.
Her, at all events, he felt he could not part with. If she
went away at all her mother and he must go too.</p>

<p>As yet "wee Sal," as she was called, though by this
time nigh fourteen years old, had not been suffered to go
out to service. She had got more schooling than the
others, thanks to the better means that her father had
during part of her childish years; thanks likewise to his
partiality for her. In this you will say he was weak; but
let him who is strong on such a point fling stones. I
cannot blame Thomas much for committing so common<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>
a sin as to love most yearningly his youngest child; but
I admit that his fondness was perhaps to her hurt. Not
that she was taught to love idleness or things above her
station. Far from that. Kept at home though she was,
she had to work. In the summer season she helped her
mother to tend the garden, and to carry flowers, vegetables,
and fruit to Leamington for sale. Under her
mother's eye she at other times learned something of
laundry work. But her schooling; what could she do
with that? Did it not tend to give her vain thoughts
above her lot; for her lot was fixed more even than that
of her brothers. The peasant maid could never hope to
advance to aught beyond some kind of upper service in
a rich man's family; a service often increasingly degrading
in proportion as it is nominally high. She
might become a ladies' maid, perhaps, and marry a
butler in time, or she might fill her head with vanities,
and in apeing those above her sink to the gutter. The
love of Thomas for his child exposed her to many risks,
when it took the form of getting old Brown to teach her all
he knew. If she could only get to the new country at the
other end of the world all that might be changed. She
might be happy and prosperous as an Australian
farmer's wife. Yes, that would be best; but they must
all go. Neither Thomas nor his wife, who shared his
partiality, could think of parting with Sally. Jacob
might go first to help Tom to gather means to take out
the rest; and Jane might even go with him could a way
be found; but not Sally: that sacrifice would be too
much.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span></p>

<p>In all probability the emigration plan might have been
carried out in this sense that very winter, if an emigration
agent could have been got to take Jacob and Jane, had
not misfortune once more found the labourer and smitten
his hopes. Jacob enlisted. He was by no means a bad
boy, but like all youths, enjoyed what is called a bit of
fun; and, in fun, he had betaken himself to a kind of
hiring fair held in Warwick, in November, and called the
"Mop." There was no need for him to go, as he was not
out of work, but the day was a kind of prescriptive
holiday, and others were going, so why not Jacob?
Idle, careless, and brisk as a lark, the lad followed where
others led; drank for the sake of good companionship
more than his unaccustomed head could carry; and when
in a wild, devil-may-care mood was picked up by a recruiting
sergeant, who soon joked and argued him into taking
the shilling. A neighbour saw the boy, half-tipsy, following
the sergeant and his party through the fair with recruit's
ribbons fluttering round his head, and rushed home to
tell Thomas as fast as his legs could carry him. The
old man was horror-struck; and the boy's mother
broke into bitter wailing. Thomas, however, wasted
no time in useless grief, but took the road for Warwick,
within three minutes of hearing the news, in the
hope of being in time to buy his boy off. He had an
idea that if he managed to pay the smart-money before
Jacob was sworn in, the lad might escape with little
difficulty. But he was too late. The sergeant was too
well up to his work to wait in Warwick all night, in order
that parents might come in the morning and beleaguer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>
him for their betrayed children. Long before Thomas
reached the town and began his search for his son the
sergeant had gone off with his entire netful to Birmingham.</p>

<p>As soon as Thomas found this to be the case he made
for the railway station, intending to follow his boy without
asking himself whether it would do any good. But there
again he was baulked. The cheap train to Birmingham
had passed long before, a porter told him, and there was
nothing that night but the late and dear express. For
this Thomas had not enough money in addition to what
would be required to buy off Jacob, so he had no help for
it but to go home. This he did with a heart heavy
enough. Well did he know that ere he could reach
Birmingham to-morrow he would be too late. Recruiting
sergeants do not linger at their work, especially after the
army had been reduced by war and disease as it then had
been in the Crimea. Before ten o'clock next morning
Jacob, still dazed with yesterday's unwonted debauch,
was sworn in before a Birmingham J.P., and not all the
money his father possessed could then release him.
Henceforth, till his years of service were out, he must go
and kill or be killed at the bidding of these "sovereigns
and statesmen," whose business it still, alas, is to make
strife in the world.</p>

<p>This untoward event was in many ways a knock-down
blow to the old labourer and his wife. She, however,
sorrowed mostly on personal grounds, and dwelt on
gloomy prospects of wounds and violent deaths as the
only lot now open for her son&mdash;bone of her bone, and
flesh of her flesh&mdash;whom she had nursed and tended from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>
the womb only for this. Like a good housewife, she
mourned also the loss of Jacob's wages, which not only
helped to keep the wolf from the door, but also served to
nourish the hope that one day all might yet see the new
land of promise. If any savings could be pointed to they
were always in the mother's eyes due to those wonderful
earnings of her boy's.</p>

<p>Thomas shared these feelings with his wife, but he had
others into which she did not enter. The emigration
scheme had, perforce, to be given up, and that was to him
a far more bitter thought than to his wife, who declared
that she did not mind if they all went, but hung back at
the thought of "putting one after another of her children
into a living tomb," as she phrased it. But the deepest
pain of all to Thomas probably lay in the humiliation he
felt in having a son a soldier. The trade of murder, as
he called it, was to his mind the most degrading to which
a man's hands could be set. He firmly believed that
standing armies were a mockery of the Almighty, and
that the nations which fostered them would sooner or
later sink to perdition beneath the blows of divine
vengeance. Armies led to wars, and wars were the curse
of the world, he averred, and when contradicted was
ready to prove to his antagonist that all the wars in which
England had been engaged since the revolution of 1688,
were dictated by the worst passions of mankind. Either,
he said, they were undertaken to consolidate the power
of a rapacious faction over the lives, liberties, and means
of the people at large, or they were actuated by mere
bestial greed, by inordinate vanity and love of power, or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>
by mulish obstinacy and hatred or fear of liberty, and it
was amazing to hear what arrays of facts he brought forth
in support of his thesis. As a general conclusion he, of
course, urged that, but for kings and priests, most of the
wars of the modern world would never have come about.
He did not know which cause was most effective, but
inclined to think it was the priests. Certainly the sight
of ministers of Christ so-called, unctuously blessing red-handed
and red-coated murderers by wholesale, and
training their children to go and do likewise, was in his
opinion one of the most revolting things under God's sky.</p>

<p>You can, therefore, well understand with what bitterness
of heart he thought of the fate of his boy. He brooded
over it; it became more terrible in his sight than an actual
crime. If Jacob had stolen and been transported for
breaking the law, Thomas could not have felt more shame
and humiliation than now haunted him. He almost
cursed his son, and he did unstintedly curse the system
under which the lad had been caught up by the agent of
the State and spirited away from his labour. How it was
done he knew but too well; and when afterwards Jacob
himself told the story, it only confirmed what he had
all along felt to be true. The boy had never intended
to enlist; but the drink, imprudently taken, had gone
to his head. The sergeant first cajoled him, and then,
when he had taken the fatal shilling, terrified him with
threats of what would befall if he broke faith with the
Queen. So he took the oaths and went away to practice
the goose step, and moralise on the oddness of things in
the world. An officer, he now learnt, could sell out at a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>
high price and retire; but the common soldier belonged
to the State, and had to be bought back therefrom if he
wished to be free. For Jacob there came no such redress.</p>

<p>Gloom settled on the heart of his father, and on the
little home in Ashbrook after this great blow, and, but
for the spur of hard necessity, Thomas thought he should
have laid down his burden altogether. Happily, duty
called him to work for others, if not for himself; and work
brought its usual blessing&mdash;a healing of the wounds and
a revival of life in the heart. All was not yet lost,
though the buffets of adversity were frequent and sore.</p>

<p>Indeed, in one sense Jacob's enlistment brought good
to the family, for it gave Thomas work at Whitbury
Farm. Once more, after so many vicissitudes, he came
back to the old place. A changed place it proved to be,
but, on the whole, the change was for the better. The
work was hard, but the farmer was not brutal like the
Pembertons, who had ruined themselves by wild living,
been sold up, and had disappeared none knew whither.</p>

<p>Jacob himself had plenty of time to rue his folly, and
he did rue it bitterly. At first in Chatham, and afterwards
in various Irish barracks, he spent seven dreary
years, wishing many a time he were dead, and regretting
that his fate did not lead him to India, where a mutineer's
bullet might have ended his career. Possessing much of his
father's energy of nature and many of his father's habits of
thought, the idle and seemingly purposeless life of a barrack
became at times almost more than the young man could
endure. Had he fallen into the loose ways of many
among his comrades, it is probable that he would have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>
capped the folly of enlisting by the military crime of
desertion. Fortunately he kept his soul clean, and
managed to utilise some portion of his time in improving
his mind. The mental wants of the soldier were not
cared for in his time, as they have begun to be since;
but there were a few books available in most barracks,
and in Ireland a kindly old adjutant, who had himself
risen from the ranks, discovered Jacob's thirst in time to
afford him some assistance. Save for "providences"
like these, and for the stout heart that grew within him
as he developed into full manhood, Jacob's life as a
soldier would have represented only wasted years.</p>

<p>Three more years in this way passed over Thomas
Wanless and his family&mdash;years marked by no incident of
great importance. The dull uniformity of their struggles
with the ills of life has no dramatic interest. Under it
characters may be shaped and twisted like trees by the
east wind; but the graduations of change are mostly
imperceptible to those that endure the daily buffetings,
and are beyond the scope of the chronicler. Some day
in the lapse of years, a man wakes up suddenly to find
himself changed, and looks back upon a former self with
wonder and astonishment, with thankfulness, it may be,
for the drastic cleansing he has endured, or with that
flash of horror at the sudden vision of the pit into which
he has all the time been slowly sinking. In these years,
while a father labours for his children's bread, and thanks
God that the bread comes to him for his labour, his
children grow up, develop characters, assume attitudes in
the world he never suspects, bringing him joy or sorrow<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>
as the fruit is bitter or sweet. All is changing ever; life
moves onward, and the one generation perceives not the
path that the next shall follow. Ah! the mystery of
life. What does it all mean? The wrong triumphs
often; the high hopes are dashed; weariness and pain
haunt us wherever we go; the fruit of the sweet blossom
is ashes and exceeding great bitterness; yet we hope on,
plod on, battle till the end comes&mdash;and the judgment:
then perhaps we shall know.</p>

<p>As yet, however, the unkindly blows of a hard fate had
not broken Thomas Wanless's spirit: far otherwise.
His heart might fail him beneath the greater of his misfortunes,
but when the storm had overpassed, his head
rose again, his eye yet brightened, and the laughter of
hope broke forth once more: so was it now. Steady work
soothed the pain of Jacob's disgrace, and in time the boy's
own cheerfulness and manifest improvement made his
father begin to think good might be brought forth out of
evil in this case also. His daughter Jane continued to do
well, and was looking towards promotion in her sphere&mdash;such
promotion as consists in being one among many
fellows, instead of the solitary drudge in the family of a
small retail merchant. With the higher wages that followed
elevation, Jane hoped also to be able to help her parents
more. That was Jane's ambition, so far as confessed, and
it did her credit. There might be something behind that,
which was her own; but for the present her father and
mother stood first.</p>

<p>Then the news from Tom was ever good. He prospered
with the colony of Victoria, where he had settled, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>
might in time be a rich man, though as yet his means
were, for the most part, hid in the land he had bought.</p>

<p>Life, therefore, was not at all dark in those years of quiet
toil, either for Thomas or his family; and yet a cloud was
gathering on the horizon; a little cloud that might grow
till all the life became wrapped in its darkness.</p>

<p>The enlistment of Jacob had compelled Sally to go to
service like her sister. Thomas yielded to this necessity
most reluctantly, and his friends, even his wife, said he
was foolishly fond of the girl. He would not admit that
it was over-fondness; it was solicitude, he said. An undefined
feeling of dread haunted him about the last and best
loved that was left. She was fairer than any girl of the
village, and without being exactly giddy, she was thoughtless
and merry-hearted; too easily led away; too guilelessly
trustful of others. How could he let this tender, unprotected
maiden go out into the world, and fight her life-battle
alone among strangers? Many a prayer had he
prayed in secret that this sacrifice might be spared; but
in this also the heavens were as brass. The time had
come when she must either go or starve, and with a heavy
heart he gave his consent. It was hardly given when his
wife in her turn woke up to the danger of the step. She
then sought to bring Thomas to revoke the decision, and
try one more year; but it was too late. Sally herself was
now eager to go. Her pride was touched. She would no
longer be a burden to her parents, and must take a place
like her sister.</p>

<p>"But in another year, Sally, we may all be able to go
to Australia," the mother pleaded.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span></p>

<p>"Well, I can work for money to help us to go there,"
was the answer; and the mother had to yield.</p>

<p>Sally found a place as drudge to a newly-married couple
in Warwick&mdash;a young surgeon and his wife. They had
imprudently married on his "prospects," and had to use
many shifts to hide their poverty, lest the world, which
can only measure men's worth by the length of their
purses, should pass him by. It was thus a poor place,
especially for one like Sally, who had been better educated
than probably any one else of her class in the whole shire;
and the wages were poor. At first they gave her 1s. 6d.
a-week with her food, but after six months they gave her
2s., partly to prevent neighbours from gossiping about
their want of means.</p>

<p>Here the girl remained for two years, not because she
liked the place, but because her parents told her that it was
good to be able to say that she had been so long in one
family. Then she removed to the household of a lawyer
as housemaid, where two servants were kept, and had been
in that place over a year when her father met with an
accident which laid him up for many weeks. It seems
that in building a rick he had somehow been knocked off
by a sheaf flung up at him thoughtlessly before he had adjusted
the previous one. He raised his one hand mechanically
to catch it, and his other slipped from under him.
Being near the edge, he rolled off heavily, striking the
wheel of the waggon as he fell. The rick was high, and
the fall so severe, that, when picked up and examined,
Thomas was found to have badly bruised his shoulder and
fractured two of his ribs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span></p>

<p>A long and tedious illness followed, during which
Thomas was unable to earn anything. Until young Tom
could know and send money the old folks were therefore
likely again to feel the pinch of want, and it would take
many months to bring help from Australia. Some of the
old hoard was still left, but doctors' bills and necessary
dainties soon made a hole in that. In nursing her husband,
too, Mrs. Wanless was prevented from earning anything
herself. There was no one to go to market with the
little garden produce that might be to spare. Neighbours
were helpful, but they could do little where all alike lived
in daily converse with want. Thomas's master was kindly,
and declared that he would not see them starve, but
Thomas liked to be independent, and took umbrage at the
tone in which the charity was offered.</p>

<p>Talking of these things, and of the difficulties of the
future, one Sunday evening, when Sally was down from
Warwick, the girl suddenly asked why she could not go
to a better place where her wages might be of more use.
She had only 3s. a week where she was, and felt sure she
could earn more.</p>

<p>Her parents were for letting well alone. "All the extra
money you can get, Sally, won't amount to much,"
her mother said, and her father urged her to wait for
Tom's letter. Who knew that Tom might not be sending
money to take them all away to the new country?
But Sally was positive, according to her impulsive nature.
She was now nearly 18, she said, and was sure she could
earn more. "Besides, mother," she added, "I want to
better myself. I am learning nothing where I am, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>
never will, and I hate messing about with so many
children. They ought to keep a nurse, but they can't
afford it, missis says; and I'm sure I'm nothing but a
slave. Why should you object?"</p>

<p>Why, indeed. There were no good grounds for it in
her eyes, and none tangible to her parents. The result,
therefore, was that Sally sought and found a new place.</p>



<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>

<h3>INTRODUCES THE READER TO VERY ARISTOCRATIC
COMPANY.</h3>


<p>It so happened that what servants call "a good place"
was not so difficult to find when Sally went to seek it, as
it had been some years before. The growing wealth of
a portion of the nation was telling every year with
increased force on the demand for domestic servants;
and at the same time manufacturers were everywhere
drawing more and more of the female population into employments
in the great industrial centres of the Midlands.
In any case, therefore, Sally Wanless would probably
soon have found a place of some kind in a gentleman's
family; but, unknown to herself, her good looks had
already been working in her behalf. She had attracted
the attention of the housekeeper at the Grange one day
that the two had chanced to meet in a grocer's shop in
Warwick. When Sally went out the housekeeper asked
after her, and told the grocer that she was just in want
of "a still-room maid," whatever that may be. The
grocer gave Sally a good character as far as he knew her,
and said further that he believed the girl wanted a new
place. What the housekeeper heard elsewhere also
pleased her; and in due time Sally was engaged at the,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>
to her, fabulous wages of £10 per annum. Perhaps, had
Lady Harriet Wiseman known that the pretty girl who
thus entered her house in the humble capacity of still-room
maid, was the daughter of "that seditious old
poaching scamp, Wanless," as the squires called Sally's
father, she might have vetoed her housekeeper's action.
But that finely-distilled aristocrat did not condescend to
notice such trivial matters as the coming and going of
menials. She barely knew the names of some of the
oldest servants about the place, and when she had
occasion to speak to any of them&mdash;a thing she avoided
as much as possible&mdash;gave all alike the name of Jane.
She viewed her domestic world from afar. She was of
the gods, and her menials were of the sons and daughters
of men. To her their lives were unknown; of their hopes
and feelings she knew less than she did of the varied dispositions
of her dogs. They were there to minister to her
every want and whim, to bend the knee, bate the breath,
and lower the eye before her when she crossed their path,
and if they did these things silently as machinery, it was
well. Her sole duty was to find them food and wages, and
she kept her contract. But if they failed in one iota they
were dismissed.</p>

<p>It would be unfair to suppose that Lady Harriet was
an exceptionally hard woman, because this was her
relationship with her household. She was indeed
nothing of the kind. On the contrary, in some respects
she was a kind-hearted person enough, and would for
example have turned away her housekeeper on the spot,
had she been made aware that the servants were badly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>
fed or uncomfortable in their bedrooms, or anything of
that sort. Sins of that kind affected the reputation of
her mansion, and jarred, moreover, on her sense of comfortableness.
To have life flow easily, to see and feel
none of the roughnesses of existence&mdash;this was Lady
Harriet's ideal. For the rest&mdash;how could she help it if
menials were low creatures? They were born so, and it
was for her comfort probably that Providence thus
ordered the gradations of society. She had been heard,
moreover, to plume herself upon the exceptionally good
treatment her servants got, and to declare that she knew
it to be much better than that of her sister, who was the
wife of a lord bishop of a neighbouring diocese, and a
woman of fashion.</p>

<p>Lady Harriet was, in short, an average sample of the
modern English aristocrat. Nay, in some respects she
was better than the average woman of her class, for she
was gifted with some touch of the shrewd brains that had
lifted her grandfather, the London clothier, to great
wealth and an Irish peerage. In another sphere, as the
parsons say, she might have distinguished herself as a
woman of affairs, but she loved ease, disliked trouble, and
wrapped her mind up in the refinements proper to high
birth and breeding. First amongst these she placed
exemption from all the cares and duties of maternity,
and from the worries of household management. Her
aim was not lofty, and even her ladyship had begun to
fear that somehow her life had been a failure. A weary
look was often seen on her face&mdash;visible to the meanest
domestic&mdash;telling all who saw it that luxury could not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>
insure any poor mortal from care any more than from
disease and death. But cannot one trace the hideous
grinning skull beneath the skin of the fairest and loftiest
in the land? Care comes to all, and sorrow, and pain,
and for years before Sally went to the Grange, the
mistress thereof had felt the worm gnawing at her heart.</p>

<p>For one thing, her husband, now a man beyond sixty,
was rapidly losing the little wits he had possessed. His
life was to all appearance most prosperous. To the
envy of many, he had made much money through the
railway speculations of the preceding decade; and by
material standard of the time should have been supremely
happy. But he drank and over-ate himself, and his
self-indulgences in these and other ways made him gouty
and diseasedly fat. His life had thus become a misery
to himself and to all around him, even before he had
become really old; and now his memory was failing him,
a sottish stupidity was stealing over his brain, so that it
was with much difficulty that his wife could rouse him to
attend to the most necessary affairs of his estates.
Peevish and ill-conditioned when in pain, stupified with
wine when well, and at all times of a dreary vacuity of
mind, this pillar of the State, wielder of men's votes,
arbiter of parish fates and men's fortunes, was not a
lovable man to live with. To outsiders he might be an
object of pity or scorn; but to his wife! Ah, well, the
servants said she looked worried. Let it pass.</p>

<p>And yet had this been all she might have been in a
fashion happy, for she could turn off much of the
ill-humour of her husband on his servants by simply<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>
avoiding him. Other troubles, however, were coming
thick upon her, and making her look as old as the Squire,
although she was nigh ten years younger. Three children
of the five she had borne were alive&mdash;two daughters and
a son. Of course the son, being also the heir, was made
much of, fawned on by mother and menial alike, and
equally, of course, he grew up a remarkable creature.
Who has not known such without longing for a whip of
scorpions, and a strong arm to wield it? One daughter
had married a soldier&mdash;a showy man of good family but
small fortune, who sold out, became stock-gambler, and
bankrupt in the brief space of eighteen months; and then
bolted to Australia to try sheep-farming with a few
hundreds given him by his friends to get rid of him.
He had left his wife and three children to the care of his
mother-in-law. The eldest daughter&mdash;eldest also of the
family&mdash;was slightly deformed, and had never left home,
though some poor curates had cast longing looks at her,
hoping perhaps, that the money and influence she would
have might be the means of bringing them preferment.
But they were not men of family, and Lady Harriet
would have none of them. The deformed daughter was left
otherwise to her own devices; and was probably the
happiest in the house, as she certainly was the gentlest.
These were small troubles too, and Lady Harriet could
not afford to make herself long unhappy over them; but
it was otherwise with those of her son.</p>

<p>This pampered darling of his mother, this remarkable
youth whose leading idea was that the world and all that
was therein had been created expressly for him&mdash;if, indeed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>
he had ever stopped in his career of selfish lust to form
an idea so definite&mdash;this youth of many privileges,
before whom the path of life was rolled smooth and
carpeted, on whom the sun dare not shine too freely nor
any wintry storm beat untempered, was now causing his
mother more agony than she ever imagined she could
bear and live. She felt she was wronged somehow in
having so much sorrow by one she so deeply loved. Had
she not done everything for him all his life, given him all
he asked, made the whole household his slaves, forbidden
his masters to task his brain with too many studies,
poured handfuls of pocket-money into his lap, and in all
ways treated him like a demi-god? Yes, yes; she knew
that no mother could have done more, felt it in her heart
as she reviewed the past, and yet had not this precious boy
been stabbing her to the heart every day of his life?
Lady Harriet felt that the world was out of joint.</p>

<p>Others, less blind, will say that this nurture would have
destroyed the noblest of natures. On a commonplace
mind like Cecil Wiseman's its effect was disastrous. The
young man was, about the time of Sally Wanless's entry
on service at the Grange, some twenty-four years of age,
and handsome enough to look upon. When he liked
his manners were engaging, and his conversation not
without shrewdness. But its range was limited to matters
of the stable. He had no acquaintance with literature
outside the sporting papers and some filthy English novels.
French he had never learned to read. He shone more in
the stable than in drawing-rooms, and understood the
philosophy of horse jockeys, or racing touts, better than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>
the difference between right and wrong. If he had a pet
ambition it was to "make a pot of money" on a horse,
and if he had not been the heir to a great estate he might
have distinguished himself as a horse-dealer, that is, had
he not come to the treadmill before he got the chance.</p>

<p>The social position to which he was born saved him the
trouble of choosing a profession, and from the grasp of the
law, but it did not prevent him from being a criminal
worse than many a poor wretch in the dock. A commission
had been bought for him some years before in a
regiment of dragoons, and by means of money he was now
a captain, but there was little about him of the soldier.
When not bawling on a race course he was lounging about
the clubs of Pall Mall, playing billiard matches for high
stakes, or losing money at cards with the freehandedness
of a gentleman of fashion. What leisure these high
occupations left him was devoted to the society of loose
women, by whom his purse was just as freely emptied.</p>

<p>Naturally a career of this kind cost much, and soon
Lady Harriet was driven to her wits' end to find her son
the means he demanded, and at the same time to hide his
extravagance from his father. The old man was growing
stupid, but not on the side of lavishness. On the contrary,
he clung to his money the more tenaciously, the more he
felt that, and all other earthly goods slipping from him,
and woke to snappish inquisitiveness when his name was
wanted at the bottom of a cheque.</p>

<p>For a time Cecil's mother smuggled considerable sums
for her boy through the household accounts, and by
pinching herself in the matter of new clothes and jewels,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>
managed to keep him afloat. But soon his wastefulness
went far beyond the range of such petty expedients. From
hundreds his losses grew to thousands, and she was in
despair. Again and again did she beseech her darling
to be careful, to restrain himself, to have pity on her grey
hairs. She might as well have prayed to the church
steeple. Cecil abused her, and told her that he would
have money, get it how he might; if she did not give it
him the Jews would, and it would be the worse for her.
Sometimes she thought she must tell his father, but the
courage and truth of heart were alike wanting for a course
so open. Once she threatened Cecil with this dreaded
alternative, and he wrote back that he did not see why
she could not put his father's name to a cheque, and be
done with it. And he spoke of the old man's grasping
tendencies in terms unfit for transcription.</p>

<p>Verily, Nemesis was overtaking this poor woman, and
bitter care had become her familiar friend, though she
knew hardly the fringe of her son's iniquity. He weltered
in a pool of corruption, caring for nobody, loving no one
but himself, despising natural affection, trampling it under
his feet with the unconsciousness of a demon, and crying
for money, money, as a horse leech seeks for blood. Such
are some of the characteristics of the family under whose
roof the daughter of Thomas Wanless now found herself,
a stranger, bewildered with the splendour around her,
and the signs of a wealth greater than her imagination had
ever conceived.</p>



<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2>

<h3>TELLS AN OLD, OLD STORY.</h3>


<p>Sarah Wanless did not quite suit the housekeeper, Mrs.
Weaver, as still-room maid. She was not sufficiently
acquainted with the work, and got flurried when the
deputy tyrant of the household scolded her, which, after
the first few days, was many times a-day. So, after a
month of this purgatory, she was transferred to the
nursery as under-nurse to the children of Lady Harriet's
daughter, Mrs. Morgan. There her position was in some
respects improved, though the head nurse was a woman
of vulgar instincts, and given to nagging, as women
verging on forty, face to face with old maidhood, often
are. Doubtless she had had her sorrows and disappointments,
and felt that the world had been unkind to her&mdash;a
feeling which justifies much unloveliness here below in
other folks than old maids.</p>

<p>However, Sally endured her lot in hope, and soon
began to find a certain pleasure in her work, for she liked
children. There were two boys and a girl, the girl being
youngest, and at this time two years old. The drudgery
was, therefore, less severe than if there had been babies
in arms, and, as the children were not naturally ill
disposed, though imperious as became their birth, they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>
and the new nurse soon got on very well together. Part
of every fine day was spent out of doors, and that also
helped to make petty troubles bearable. It is only bitter
care and sorrow that seem heavier under God's sky than
within four walls. At first the upper nurse always formed
one of the party, and was rather a nuisance in her persistent
endeavours to check what she called "ungenteel
beayvour." Her voice was a chorus ever intruding with
"Master Morgan, you mustn't do this," or, "Miss Ethel,
you shocking girl, don't beayve so," and the key did not
conduce to harmony, but, like every other discord in the
world, it deafened the ears that heard, and the young
ones enjoyed themselves in spite of it.</p>

<p>Nor did this drawback last long, for, some three months
after Sarah entered the nursery, fate, or the spirit of
mischief, ordered things so that the head nurse once
more fell in love. The object of her mature affection
was the new farm bailiff, a gigantic Welshman some few
years her junior, and the prosecution of their courtship
made the presence of Sarah inconvenient. As a stroke
of policy, therefore, she was often sent off with the two
elder children to wander through the park and gardens,
or into the woods, as the whims of the children or her
own might dictate, while the "baby," as the youngster
was still called, went with the other nurse in quest of Mr.
Peacock. Then Sarah was in bliss. She danced along
with the little ones, singing as she went, romped around
the old park trees or through thickets, and often brought
her charges home splashed and dirty, with their clothes
all torn, but in a state of delight not to be described.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>
And the scoldings that ensued did not somehow hurt
Sarah's feelings much. Life was strong within her, and
her heart was light.</p>

<p>All this time, in fact, Sally Wanless was developing into
a lovely woman. Her slim, rather lanky figure grew
rounder and increased in gracefulness. Her face, ah!
how many a lordly dame would have envied her, would
have thanked Heaven for a daughter with such a face!
It was impossible to look on it and not be struck with its
beauty. Her complexion was fair like her mother's, but
her features resembled her father's. The face was a fine
soft oval, the nose aquiline, the brow perhaps narrower
than strong intellect demanded, but high and open, and
the eyes of greyish blue were large and full of dancing
mirth. A certain sensuousness lay hid in the lines
of the mouth, but it betokened rather an unformed
character than a bent of disposition. Under the right
guidance, Sally's mouth might yet grow as firm in its
lines as her father's. Poor lass, would she get that
guidance?</p>

<p>Well, well, think not of evil now. Try rather to picture
this fair peasant maiden in your mind. Behold her all
innocent as she is, romping through the park with the
children, dressed in her clean, neat, print gown, with her
rich brown hair perhaps broken loose and tossing about
her shoulders as she runs hither and thither, chased by
the shouting little ones. And as you look, remember
that this fair lass was but a peasant's child, born to
serfdom at the best. Between her and those children
there was hardly a human bond.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span></p>

<p>Think not of evil, I have said; and yet at this very
time much evil was at hand for poor Sally. Just as I
have set her before you, all rosy and bright with exercise,
she ran full tilt one day almost into the arms of Captain
Cecil Wiseman. The captain was lounging along with
his gun under his arm, smoking a pipe of wonderful
device, and with a couple of setters at his heels, who
barked half in surprise at the sudden apparition. Sarah
came rushing from behind a clump of rhododendrons,
and almost fell at the Captain's feet, through the violent
wrench she gave herself to avoid a collision. Cecil
Wiseman opened his heavy eyes, stared in impudent
wonder for a moment, and then, as if moved to involuntary
respect by what he saw, doffed his hat, and
mumbled something or other, Sally did not wait
to hear what. Blushing all over her already flushed
face, she darted off to hide her confusion, followed by the
shouting children, from whom she had been fleeing.</p>

<p>After that meeting the captain suddenly found his
nephews and niece interesting. He condescended to
play with them so often, that his mother began to take
heart. Her son was going to turn out a fine fellow, after
all, and, poor boy, she had perhaps been too hard on him
for his wild oat sowing. It was part of the education of
gentlemen in his position, and, no doubt, contributed to
endow them with that contempt for the feelings of the
common people proper to aristocrats. So Lady Harriet
was happier. Her son found means to come home
oftener, and stayed longer when he did come. He even
took some interest in the affairs of the estate, went to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>
church occasionally, and asked some of the farmers'
names.</p>

<p>Never for a moment did Cecil's mother imagine that
he was merely engaged in stalking down the under nurse
of his sister's children, and that the greater the difficulty
he experienced in doing so, the more his passion incited
him to acts of apparent self-denial. He grew an adept
in hypocrisy in order to put the girl, his mother, everyone,
off the scent, and it became positively astonishing to
see how his habits changed, and his wits sharpened, under
the stimulus of this now exciting hunt. He displayed
cunning and ingenuity of device worthy of a better cause.</p>

<p>In early summer, for example, he spent whole
mornings teaching the two elder children to ride, walking
or trotting with them all round the park, and to all
appearance heedless of the nurse girl, who was left alone
with the youngest, when her superior chose to be elsewhere.
At other times, if he met her with the children,
which was often enough,&mdash;it seemed to be always by
chance,&mdash;he would be busy discussing horticulture with
the gardener, fishing, or going for a row on the pond, off
to the warren to shoot, always occupied, and always
ready to express noisy surprise at finding the "pups"
there, as he called the little ones. When he went on wet
days to play in the children's room, it was always in
company with his sister, who, however, was usually driven
off within a few minutes of her entrance, by the row that
"Uncle" systematically started.</p>

<p>All this and much more, Captain Cecil Wiseman, the
nobly born aristocrat, put himself to the trouble to do,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>
and suffer, in order that he might work the ruin of an
innocent, unsuspecting, country maiden. For long, he
had no apparent success, for Sally Wanless was shielded
by her very innocence, and she was also very shy, so that
it was most difficult to get near her. By degrees, however,
she became familiar with the Captain's face and
figure, and his presence ceased to be either repulsive to
her or to frighten her. Not very tall, heavy in make,
and, with fluffy, sodden features, and a skin already over
red from dissipation, Captain Cecil was by no means an
attractive person. His voice, too, was harsh, and his eye
evil. For all that, patience and cunning carried the day.
Labouring incessantly to throw the girl off her guard, he
succeeded, and as soon as he had done so, he knew the
game to be in his own hands. It is a terrible mystery
this power which evil-minded men gain over women.
They fascinate them, as snakes are said to fascinate birds,
till they become powerless, and fall helpless and abandoned
into the jaws of destruction.</p>

<p>By slow degrees then the captain drew Sally into his
power, and seduced her. He had stalked his game, with
more than a hunter's patience, but he triumphed. Bewildered,
surprised, horrified, the poor girl scarcely knew what
had befallen her, felt only a vague dread and consciousness
that somehow, for her, the world was all altered, that
where joy and hope had been, there was now the ashes of
a burnt-out fire. Ah, poor young lass, this squire's son,
this noble captain of Her Majesty's Dragoon Guards, had
done his best to destroy you, body and soul, and boasted
of the deed. In proportion, as the task was hard, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>
exulted at his success. To destroy the life of a virtuous
girl was almost a greater triumph to him than to be
first in at the death of a fox. To win this triumph he had
stooped to lies black as hell, and cared not. His end
gained, his interest in his victim at once sank, and soon
he hated the sight of her sad, tear-swollen face. Ah,
God! that these things should be, and men have no
shame for the shameless seducer, no horror of his blasting
career.</p>

<p>But had this maiden no guilt, then? Yes, she had
guilt of a kind. She was inclined to be vain of her
beauty, and her betrayer fastened on that weakness.
His flattery pleased her, till she grew, half unconsciously,
proud that so fine a gentleman as this captain creature
should notice her. This pride begat conceit and a foolish
confidence in herself that made her betrayal easy. After
what her parents had taught her, she ought to have
known better. True pride, a jealous care for her womanhood,
should have possessed her. Instead of that she
grew giddy, and so was allured to her destruction, like the
moth to the candle. Thus far she was guilty; but wilt
thou condemn her, O censor? And if so, what of the
man? Is it not strange that he, so much more guilty,
should go scatheless; that to "society," as the froth at
the top insolently calls itself, this base creature, this
loathsome seducer, should be as good as ever? For
him the lofty mothers of the aristocracy would have no
censure, in him their daughters, should whispers of his
deeds reach their ears, would have a livelier interest.
Amongst most people he would bear repute as a "man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>
of gallantry," a "dreadful lady-killer;" at worst, a
"rake" of the dirt-heroic kind that heightened rather
than otherwise his eligibility as a match for the fairest of
the daughters exhibited for sale in the markets of
Belgravia and Mayfair. A man that could ruin a
country maiden and then fling her from him, all heedless
of her broken heart, with no more thought of her than if
she had been a dead dog, must, in the view of society, be
a man of spirit. As for the ruined one&mdash;faugh! speak
not of a thing so repulsive. Let her die in the street.</p>



<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER X.</h2>

<h3>BRINGS THE READER BACK TO THE RESPECTABILITIES
OF THE PARSONAGE.</h3>


<p>After the high-born Captain Cecil Wiseman had accomplished
his purpose, Sarah Wanless lost her attraction
for him. With a fiendish guile he had tracked her
down, and now that the chase was over, the victory won,
why should he bother himself further? Sarah's beauty
was not less; nay, was rather enhanced by the new
sadness that shaded her face; but the Captain hardly
looked at her again. These confounded wenches were
so given to whimpering, and this serene aristocrat hated
"scenes." Had Sally been bold and of brazen iniquity,
like many of the stained ones he knew in the greenrooms
of London theatres, she might possibly have held
this lust-consumed reptile a little longer in her power,
but being only a simple village maiden slowly awakening
to the horror of the fate that had befallen her, the sight
of her tearful face made him avoid her. What had he
to do with the consequences of sin and folly? Was not
the world bound to make his vices pleasant to him?</p>

<p>This thoroughbred captain in Her Majesty's Dragoon
Guards left Sally then, and sought other attractions, his
appetite whetted by his success. Even as he snared<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>
Sarah Wanless his roving eye had sighted other
game.</p>

<p>The vicar's wife, Mrs. Codling, had several daughters
whom, like a judicious mother, she was anxious to
marry well. These the Captain had deigned to
notice somewhat in the course of his long visits at the
Grange while Sally's destruction was in progress. At
church more than once his greedy eye had rested on the
vicar's pew with a hard gaze of admiration, and on week
days his footsteps had begun to stray towards the vicarage
often enough to set Mrs. Codling's brain a-scheming.
It would be indeed a triumph, she felt, if the heir of
Squire Wiseman could be got to marry one of her
daughters. But that was a job which needed the most
delicate handling, for if Lady Harriet got wind of her
designs, the consequences would be more than Mrs.
Codling felt able to face. At the best the parson's
daughter would have been considered no fit match for so
great a personage as this ill-doing guardsman, but, as
things were, the very idea of such a marriage would
have been received at the Grange with unutterable scorn.</p>

<p>Times were in many ways changed with the vicar since
that day now long past, when his soft, fat hands were
uplifted in holy repulsion of the horrible rabbit-slaying
criminal who stood before him doomed. For one thing
he had gathered a family around him, and for another he
had been overtaken by poverty&mdash;a poverty that came of
greed. The living of Ashbrook was worth in money
about £250 a year, and there was a good vicarage with a
large garden and paddock, so that altogether Mr.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>
Codling was as well off in the country as he would have
been with £500 a year in town. To this income, itself
above starvation point many degrees, Mrs. Codling
had added an income of nearly £2,000, which made the
home more than comfortable. A contented man would
have been very happy with such a provision, judged even
by the standard of the <i>Spectator</i>, which admires
Christianity with a well filled purse, but Mr. Codling wanted
more, like most parsons. One would think from the
eagerness shown by such to possess themselves either
of rich wives or of large incomes made out of nothing,
that somehow Christianity and poverty are things that
cannot exist together. Luxury is certainly essential to
the true faith of the majority of modern parsons. Without
it they shrivel up, grow morose, full of evil thoughts,
such as envy and malice, and instead of an example are
a warning.</p>

<p>Parson Codling, then, took the common clerical fever.
During the railway mania he saw men spring suddenly
from poverty to great wealth, and very soon came to the
conclusion that nothing would be easier than for him to
do as they did. Entirely ignorant of the game of speculation,
Codling took to speculating with the fearlessness of
a master in the art, and following a common rut of fortune,
he for a time succeeded. One land speculation in which
he joined, and where the shareholders of a new line of
railway were fleeced of fabulous thousands, cleared him,
it was said, about £1800, and he did well with sundry
purchases of shares. Naturally, success made him bolder.
He bought anything and everything, became an expert<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>
user of stock exchange slang, and deeply versed in the
"rigs" and dodges of the share market. Some of the
squires around began to envy him, others cursed him for
a nuisance, but still he made money, and no doubt would
have gone on making it indefinitely had somebody always
been found ready to buy when he wanted to sell. Unluckily
for him, the day came when he could not sell at
any price, and as he had been lifted clean off his feet by
the elation of his early speculative successes, he only
came back to the hard earth to find himself ruined. The
crisis of 1847 did not break out without much foreshadowing
to prudent men, but to the Rev. Josiah Codling it came
like the trumpet of doom. Till the very last he clung to
the hope that a rise in the share markets would set him
free. That fatal October therefore passed like a whirlwind,
leaving Codling stripped of all he had previously made
and some £40,000 in debt. To save him from public
exposure and disgrace, his wife had to part with nearly
all her property in Worcester, and they were glad,
ultimately, to escape with as much as yielded about £200
a-year beyond the value of the living. Had all the
creditors been fairly paid they would not have retained a
penny, but Codling struggled and wheedled, and, it is said,
shed copious floods of tears over his hard fate, until
pitying people let him go.</p>

<p>Such an untoward end of the glorious visions in which
the vicar had indulged naturally embittered his home
circle. Mrs. Codling could not forgive her lord for ruining
her, and took to reviling the poor wretch early and
late. The miserable fellow would have borne his misfortunes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>
ill enough even if sympathised with. Being reviled,
he bore them not at all. He drowned them in drink.
At first he stupified himself with brandy; but that
proving too dear for his means, he relapsed to gin, and
led a sodden existence.</p>

<p>All too late his wife saw the blunder she had made,
and tried to wean him back to sobriety. Failing in that,
her pride and cunning came to the rescue. She smothered
her tears and veiled her sorrows before the world, hiding
at the same time her husband's infirmity as much as
possible from the public eye. The lot was hard, her
punishment severe, but she braced herself to it with a
woman's patient courage, and straightway opened her
heart to new hopes and dreams of better days to come.
Henceforth the aim of her life must be to get her four
daughters settled in life. Alas! the settlements would
need to be humbler now than those she had once dreamed
of. The tables of the great ones of the parish were not
now open to them as they had been before her money had
gone, and before Codling took to drink. There was not
even a barrack in the neighbourhood, with its successive
bevies of foolish young officers to prey upon&mdash;only
Leamington with its dawdling crowds of nobodies. Ah,
well, the most had to be made of the opportunities that
offered.</p>

<p>These being the circumstances of the family at the
vicarage, this the mental attitude of Mrs. Codling, who
could wonder that her soured spirit rose once more within
her with a feeling akin to gratitude towards a merciful
providence, when Captain Wiseman came in her way?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>
Despair had sometimes nearly marked her down for his
prey, and lo! here was the Prince of the fairy tale.
Dresses were forthwith obtained for the girls such as they
had not worn for years, for happily their mother had still
a few jewels left which she could pawn or sell. And
being handsome girls&mdash;two of them particularly so&mdash;they
soon attracted a good deal of the roving guardsman's
attention. At first a little flirtation with them gave a
pleasant variety to his existence, rendered just a little
monotonous by the labour of stalking down Sally Wanless.
The shrewd mother contrived that his opportunities should
be frequent. The old pony chaise was furbished up anew
and the girls took to driving the fat, wheezy, old pony
about the country in a manner new and far from agreeable
to it. In this way they managed to cross the Captain's
trail much after his own style with Sally. During that
winter he hunted a good deal, and the Codling girls
developed an enthusiasm for the sport which made them
haunt meets far and near. Months before the Captain
flung Sarah from him he had thus become familiar with
the sight of these girls, and no sooner was she well destroyed
than he began to develop a preference for the
youngest but one&mdash;Adelaide or Adela Codling. Miss
Adela was a buxom, roystering, kind of girl, of handsome
features, light brains, and abundant animal spirits.
Already, though but nineteen, she had a reputation
amongst her acquaintances of being what the pump-room
gossip of Leamington styled "fastish." She affected
<i>outré</i> fashion in dress, and was always ready to lead a
revolt against established proprieties. To play the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>
boisterous hoyden at a harvest home or farmer's Christmas
dance, where she could scandalise all the sober domestic
virtue of the parish and make every buxom farmer's lass
wild with jealousy by her extravagant flirtations with
the young men, delighted Miss Adelaide beyond measure.</p>

<p>This free young lady was most to the Captain's taste
of all the four, but her mother felt disappointed at the
preference. It not only left the eldest girl out in the cold,
but made Mrs. Codling's task more dangerous. Adela
had no prudence, and unripe plans might become known
to Lady Harriet through her folly. Besides, her ladyship
would probably be harder to persuade into accepting
Adela as a daughter-in-law than any of the other three.</p>

<p>So thought the prudent, anxious mother; but she was
too wise to interfere. A risk must be taken in any case,
and she resolved to let the captain have his way, bracing
herself to greater vigilance and higher flights of matrimonial
diplomacy than ever. And she found a much
more efficient ally in the Captain than she had expected.
Men, in her opinion, were never prudent in love matters,
but this man was as cautious as a diplomat on a secret
mission. It did not suit him any more than Mrs. Codling
that his mother should scent danger in his visits to the
vicarage. In such a place as Ashbrook and in ordinary
circumstances all their care would have gone for nothing;
but, happily for their plans, her ladyship did not go out
much now, and called seldom on any of her neighbours.
Her husband, the estate, her miserable son, any one of
them would have given her grief or work enough to keep
her well at home. When she went abroad, therefore,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>
it was generally for an hour's drive out and home, or to
Leamington or Warwick on business.</p>

<p>Just now she was struggling hard not to lose the dream
of hope that had for a short time gladdened her heart about
her boy, and was failing in the effort. Notwithstanding
his long visits to the Grange, his demands for money
continued to be insatiable. He always put his necessities
down to the bad conduct of the Jews. They had got him
fast, he said, and would give him no peace. But as bill
after bill got paid, only to be succeeded by a new crop,
Lady Harriet began to doubt the truth of this tale, and
in her unhappiness shut herself up more than ever. The
Captain had only to spend a little of the money wrung
from his mother in bribing her maid, and he was free to
destroy all the women of the parish if he chose.</p>



<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER XI.</h2>

<h3>REVEALS THE SORROWS OF A MERE PEASANT MAIDEN.</h3>


<p>Lady Harriet did not even hear of her son's ongoings
with Sally Wanless, though to the menials of her household
and the gossips of the village they had furnished for
months back one of the most delightful and engrossing
topics of conversation that the oldest among them had
ever been permitted to share in. It was better than the
most sensational romance of the <i>London Journal</i>; for was
not this drama being acted out before their very eyes?
They took the same delight in it, though keener and
deeper, that they would have taken in any sport involving
the death of the weaker creature, and few among them
cared in the least for the girl whose danger they failed not
to see. Among the young her beauty excited envy, and
they virtuously rejoiced that her pride would yet bring
her sorrow. All, young and old, loved an intrigue for
itself; and would not have spoiled their sport for the
world. The servants at the Grange carried their tales to
the village, and the village gossips drew together in the
fields, on the road, by the pump, at cottage doors, to roll
the sweet morsel of scandal under their tongues.</p>

<p>All this time Sarah's parents were kept in ignorance
of what was afoot. Neither dreamt of danger to their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>
daughter, because neither was aware of the fiend who
pursued her. As for Sarah herself, she behaved better
after she had begun to feel the spell of the Captain's
fascination upon her than before; was more demure and
obedient. This she was half unconsciously, half from a
wish to propitiate her father and mother in view of she
knew not what.</p>

<p>Pausing not to think, heedless of the smiles and
whispers, the nods and winks that greeted her wherever
she went, all of them signs full of warning to one disposed
to alarm, free, happy-hearted Sally Wanless plunged into
the abyss.</p>

<p>Ruined and forsaken, she came to herself only to find
that she had entered a new world. Sorrow and darkness
dwelt within where light had been; and around her all
was changed. The silent hints of her fellow servants
gave place to open taunts and scorn. None pity a fallen
woman so little as her fellow women, and Sally's
fellow servants were not long in making her life an
unrelieved agony. The bloom forsook her cheek, her
step became listless, her eyes dull and sunken. She
literally withered before her tormentors, and they pitied
her not.</p>

<p>A change so great soon attracted the attention of her
parents, especially as for a little time her manner in her
visits to them became suddenly dashed with recklessness.
The wretched girl, in trying to be her old self, was, like
a bad actor, overdoing her part. Her parents grew
uneasy, and the uneasiness gave place to alarm when
Sally grew pale and silent. Afraid to speak, hoping it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>
might be some cross in love matters, which most young
lasses experience, both her father and mother yearned
after their daughter. At length the accidental discovery
of some trumpery trinket of the Captain's, which Sally
wore round her neck, led to the revelation of all their
daughter's peril and loss, although the knowledge came
too late.</p>

<p>The ribbon by which the trinket hung had become
loose, and it fell on the floor. Before Sally could pick it
up, her mother's hand was on it. Holding it to the light,
she found that it was a gaudy looking locket, and
instantly demanded where Sally had got this. Taken
by surprise Sally answered at once,</p>

<p>"From Captain Wiseman."</p>

<p>"From Captain Wiseman! Oh, Sally!" That was
all she said; but the tone and the look went to the girl's
heart and tore it with a new misery. Her father turned
in his chair and looked at her for a minute or two without
speaking. She took his gaze to mean rebuke, and
mechanically tried to escape from the house. Then her
father spoke.</p>

<p>"Stay, Sarah," he said. "Go with your mother to the
boys' room. We must know what this means."</p>

<p>Equally mechanically she obeyed, suffering her mother
to lead her away.</p>

<p>Left alone, Thomas said that he did not think of anything
particular for some time. He just sat still as if
animation was suspended, a dull feeling of pain, a sense of
stunnedness possessing his whole being. The fate of his
pretty daughter was before his inward eye all the time.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>
He gazed at it and realized it, but it did not move him.
His emotions were frozen up.</p>

<p>It was some time before the mother and daughter came
back, and the girl would not face her father. He rose to
bid her good night. She hesitated a moment and then
muttering, "I shall be late," turned and fled from the
house.</p>

<p>Mrs. Wanless told her husband that she could make
nothing of the girl.</p>

<p>"I plead with her," she said; "I scolded her and tried
to work on her feelings, but she just hid her face in her
hands, and rolled and moaned like to break her heart."</p>

<p>Poor, lone lass, her tale needed no words to make it
plain. Already it was known to all the village, and this
Sunday night the hideous reality entered the minds of
her parents, breeding there a sorrow the keenest they
had ever known.</p>

<p>At the Grange, too, who was there knew not? That
Sunday night Sally was actually late as she had said,
and the scolding, seasoned with brutal taunts, which she
had to endure from her superior, might have stung the
girl to retaliation had not a deeper pain laid hold of her
spirit. She paid no heed to the taunts and broad
allusions of her neighbour, whose heart was perhaps the
bitterer from the recent failure of her own last effort at
husband-catching. A fire raged in Sally's heart that
seemed to be consuming her very life. Her one hope
now was to die. That would be best. As soon as
possible she crept silently away to bed. How blessed is
the darkness to the soul that is ashamed! Sally's grief,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>
deep and bitter though it might be, was little to the
sorrow and pain she had left that night in the home of
her childhood. The deathly calm in her father's mind
was succeeded by a storm before which Sally's sobs were
as the wailings of an infant. His spirit had been stirred
to its depths by many storms in the past, and needed
much to rouse it now, but what he had learned to-night
was surely enough. In the darkness of the night the
full horror of what had befallen his daughter and himself
was pressed in upon his thoughts till his heart rose
in bitterness unspeakable. Was it true, then, he asked
himself again and again, that his child, the darling of his
old age, had been ruined by this cub of the oppressor?
Had this blackest of all wrongs been added to all the
rest? There was but one answer, and as he brooded
over the shame and misery that would fall upon his
daughter and on all the family, as he thought of this
heartless seducer going through the world scathless,
passion swelled within him. An impulse to vengeance
swept over him. Had the Captain been within reach of
Thomas's hands then, the old man might have slain him.
Yes, he felt he could die cheerfully for his daughter's
sake, were her wrongs fully avenged. Ah, if he could
thus bring back her good name! But would not mere
vengeance be sweet? To take the scoundrel's life-blood!
He set his teeth, his frame shook under the gust of his
terrible agony of grief, hatred, and shame, and he longed
for the daylight that he might go and find the seducer
of his precious one. The desire for revenge was strong
upon him with the strength of a great temptation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span></p>

<p>Then his mood changed. The fierce fires burnt themselves
low. Weary and exhausted he lay still, and for
the first time became aware that his wife was silently
weeping by his side. He had thought she slept. A
softer mood stole into his heart, but he could not speak
of the grief that consumed them both. In the morning
he rose, weary and sad, to go about his day's work.
Days passed before he made up his mind what to do,
and during these days, his wife waited with anxious
patience, too wise to worry her husband. At last, he
resolved to bring her home. Anger and revenge were
conquered thus far, and love and pity for his child were
victorious.</p>

<p>"We must take Sally's shame to ourselves, mother,"
he said to his wife, when his mind was made up. "I
know it will be hard for you, harder than you think;
but she is our flesh and blood, and we must stand by
her. What say ye, wife?"</p>

<p>"An' what can I say, Thomas? I've been wishin' her
home ever since Sunday, for I'm sure she'll die where she
is. Oh! my poor darling; God pity her. The sin is
surely not hers;" and Mrs. Wanless wept, but her heart
was glad that the father was ready to shield and forgive.
Sometimes, as she watched the hard stern lines of his
face, or his fixed gaze of wrath, she had dreaded a
sterner decision. But now again Thomas's better nature
had triumphed, and his faith in the everlasting justice
inclined him to mercy.</p>

<p>As this talk took place on the Thursday evening, it was
thought best to wait for Sally's return on Sunday, rather<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>
than to excite comment by going at once in quest of her.
Her mother had stolen to the Grange on the previous
Monday morning, to find out whether Sally had gone
back, and had then seen and heard enough to make her
dread another visit.</p>

<p>But they waited in vain for Sally that Sunday. She
never came near her father's house, but spent her hours
of liberty alone in the woods, afraid to face her father,
and vaguely wishing she were dead. Her mother must
go and tell her what had been decided on, after all.</p>

<p>So on the Monday morning, Mrs. Wanless again set
out for the Grange. With sickening heart and trembling
steps, she crept along the sweeping avenue like a thief in
dread of being seen. The day was grey and cold, as the
latter days of April often are, and the leaden clouds
threatened rain. It was one of those days when spring
has, as it were, turned back to give a farewell hand-shake
to winter. A chilly blast swept along the ground in
gusts, and made one shiver; the world looked dreary
and forbidding; birds were silent; and as one looked
abroad on the cheerless world, and mournful sky, one
grew unconsciously to have a shut-in kind of feeling. If
only a rift would appear in that grey canopy, then one
might breathe and have hope. Who has not come under
the spell of such days? To whom have they not seemed
to increase the bitterness of sorrow, to add weight to the
burden of disappointment?</p>

<p>Mrs. Wanless was probably all the sadder this morning
that the day was sad, though her thoughts were too fixed
on Sally to be overborne by any idle impressions from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>
leaden aspect of the landscape. Or perhaps she felt that
the day and her feelings were in wonderful unison. A
beautiful spring morning might have jarred on her spirit.
Spring sunshine is so gladsome, so full of hope, and Mrs.
Wanless had no hope, only a longing to bring her
daughter home and hide her away out of the world's sight.</p>

<p>Intent on her errand, she approached the house&mdash;a
large, square building, with innumerable staring windows
and a bare lawn in front, where a poor woman could find
no hiding place&mdash;but as she neared the servants' door
round in the east end of the mansion she paused irresolute.
She remembered the reception of a week ago, the whispers
and nods and innuendos of the wenches who came and
went with a wonderful bustle of extemporized activity as
she stood speaking to her daughter just by the door. If
Sally would but come out, she thought, as once and again
she turned back unable to muster courage, and cowered
by the garden wall, which approached that end of the
house, wherein lay the servants' quarters, with her old
shepherd's plaid shawl gathered tightly round her. But
no one came save menials, out of whose sight the
poor bruised mother would fain have kept herself. The
children of the gentlefolks would not be out of doors that
day. It was too cold.</p>

<p>At last Mrs. Wanless nerved herself to a desperate
effort, left the shelter of the garden wall, and walked as
firmly as she could up to the kitchen door, and feebly
knocked. She waited a long time as it seemed to her
palpitating heart, but no answer came. Her knock had
not been heard, so she tried again, this time a little less<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>
feebly. It was no use&mdash;nobody minded her. Would she
go away? Nay, she dared not do that. She would wait,
somebody was sure to turn up presently. The resolution
was hardly formed when the door opened, and her daughter
and she stood face to face. A scared look came into the
girl's eyes as she exclaimed, "You here again, mother;"
the blood mantled to her forehead, and she half stepped
back. But her mother caught her by the arm feverishly,
and led her away from the house, saying&mdash;</p>

<p>"Oh, Sally, I do so want to see you, but I didn't like to
come in again. Why didn't you coom home last
night?"</p>

<p>Sally tried to frame some excuse, but her voice failed
her; she turned pale as death, and hung her head.</p>

<p>"Why didn't you, dear;" her mother repeated, in a
dull, mechanical sort of way. Sally's feelings overcame
her. She burst into tears, and through her sobs gasped
out&mdash;</p>

<p>"I thought you&mdash;father&mdash;wouldn't let me come back."</p>

<p>Her mother did not at once reply, she was too pained,
and also too keenly alive to the eyes that were at many a
window gloating over her daughter's misery. Almost
roughly she tightened her grasp on the girl's arm, and
hurried her round the corner of the garden wall, never
halting till safely behind a clump of evergreens. Then
she released her daughter, turned, and clasped her to her
breast. Both wept now, and, as she wept, the poor,
stricken mother cried&mdash;</p>

<p>"Ah, Sally, Sally, my pet, my pet, you mustn't think on
us like that," in tones that expressed reproach and love<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>
and pity and misery all in one. But no word of reproach
did she utter.</p>

<p>It was some time before the two were composed enough
to say much about anything. Sally roused herself
first, for she suddenly recollected that she had orders to
be quick back. She had been sent out for milk for the
nursery.</p>

<p>"I must run, mother," she said hurriedly, "or Mary
Crane will nag at me;" and she made as if to go.</p>

<p>"Wait a moment, Sally dear," her mother answered.
"I had nearly forgotten what I came for; A-dear!
a-dear! you mustn't stand no more of Mary Crane's
naggings, Sally; an' if she begins to-day, you're to give
up the place and coom home. Now, mind, Sally," she
added, eagerly, "that will be best, give up your place;"
for Sally seemed to shrink from the idea of coming home.</p>

<p>"But father&mdash;&mdash;he"&mdash;&mdash;</p>

<p>"It was father as said it, Sally dear. Father says you
must coom home. He can't a-bear to see you suffering
and abused in this big house as you've been so wronged
in; an' ye'll do what father wishes, won't you, my
pet?"</p>

<p>"Is it really true, mother. Are you sure that father
will let me coom home?"</p>

<p>"My dear, he sent me to tell ye. Oh, say ye'll coom
home, Sally?"</p>

<p>"But father'll be angry with me and scold me, mother,
and I can't abide that&mdash;oh, I can't, I can't," and Sally
shook her head despairingly, the gleam of hope vanishing
from her eyes.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span></p>

<p>"No, Sally, your father wonnot scold ye. Surely you
know him better nor that. He is too heart-broke about
ye a' ready to have any scoldings left, an' he was never
hard to ye. Coom, now; say you'll give up the place,
and it will be all right."</p>

<p>This and much more the mother said, pleading as for
her daughter's life, and she won her point. Once Sally's
dread of her father was somewhat removed, she caught
eagerly at the prospect of escape from the Grange. Any
change would be like going from Hell to Heaven that
would take her away from that place of torment. So
anxious was she to get away, once her mind became
fixed, that she never once thought of the burden she
would be to her parents. But for the inexorable month's
warning, she would have taken flight that night.</p>



<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER XII.</h2>

<h3>WHEREIN WE SEE BREEDING&mdash;HIGH AND LOW.</h3>


<p>Mother and daughter parted almost the moment that
the former was assured of Sally's readiness to come home,
and Sally, nearly half-an-hour late, sped on her errand.
It was with a glow on her face and a light in her eye
that had been absent for many a day, that she ultimately
reappeared in the nursery. Her bright looks seemed to
add fuel to the wrath of the upper nurse, who burst out
on Sally before she was well in at the door.</p>

<p>"I shan't stand this no longer, miss, depend on't," the
soured, elderly maiden wound up. "I'm a decent woman,
I ham, and don't mean to be disgraced by the likes o'
you, not if I knows it. I've stood a lot too much from
you a'ready, shameless gipsy that ye are. Your hongoin's
is just past bearin', and I mean to tell Mrs. Morgan
this very day as 'ow she must get another nurse an she
means to keep you."</p>

<p>Nearly if not quite as much as this had been said to
Sarah Wanless before now, and she had borne it silently
with a bitter heart, because she found herself alone in
the world. But to-day she was bolder from the consciousness
within her that she was not yet wholly forsaken.
Driven to bay by this woman's tongue, she turned upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>
her, and with flashing eyes, a voice trembling with
passion, cried&mdash;</p>

<p>"And I have stood too much from you, Mary Crane.
You have behaved to me worse than if I had been a dog,
and you're a hard-hearted, selfish woman. What right
have you to trample upon me, as if you was a saint and
more? You've a black enough mind any way, and
mebbe you've done worse nor me before now, for all
your spiteful pride and down-looking on a poor, heart-stricken
girl, as never did you no harm. Shame on you,
Mary Crane, I would not exchange my lot for yours yet,
if it was to give me a heart like yours. And you need
not trouble Mrs. Morgan with your tales. I've made up
my mind to stand your insolence no longer. I'll go to
Mrs. Morgan myself and give up my place, and tell her
how you've used me."</p>

<p>This unexpected outburst fairly took the nurse's breath
away. She stuttered with inarticulate passion, and
danced again in the agony of rage. A torrent of abuse
was on her tongue, but she only managed to hiss out an
opprobrious epithet at the girl, at the sound of which
Sally faced her like one transformed. Drawing her form
up to its full height, and holding her clenched hands close
by her sides, she marched straight at nurse Crane, and fairly
stood over her with her face a-flame and lips set, every
feature rigid with scorn and wrath. Crane's heart died
within her. She cowered and hid her face in her hands.</p>

<p>"Say that word again, Mary Crane," Sally demanded
in a low, passion-thrilled voice, but Mary Crane uttered
never a sound.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span></p>

<p>"Say it again, will you!" Sally repeated in low tones.
"Dare to call me that name again, and I'll&mdash;&mdash;" But
Sarah had no threat big enough for her wrath. She
caught her breath sharp, and came closer to her enemy,
suddenly bent down and laid hold of Mary Crane's head
with both her hands, forcing her to turn up her face.</p>

<p>But Crane would not look at her. With a half wail,
half shriek, her knees gave way under her, and she sank
on the floor wriggling as if about to take a fit.</p>

<p>Sarah looked at her for a moment contemptuously,
and then turned away, while the heroic mood was upon
her, to seek an interview with Mrs. Morgan.</p>

<p>That lady received the announcement of her under-nurse
with her usual high-bred indifference, merely
saying, "Oh, very well, you can go." But, as the girl
turned away, something in her manner made Mrs.
Morgan scrutinise her keenly. The girl seemed changed
even to the eyes of the aristocratic lady, and, perhaps,
she, too, began to suspect her, for Sally thought that
she saw an expression of mingled contempt and annoyance
on Mrs. Morgan's face, of which she caught a last
glimpse on turning to shut the door behind her. It
might have been only her own heated fancy, but, all the
same, Sally's brief spell of courage was over from that
moment. Happily Mary Crane vexed her no more
openly, but she took her revenge in secret.</p>

<p>Mrs. Morgan's suspicions had been in reality so far
excited as to cause her to make further inquiries. She
called Mary Crane into her room one day and questioned
her about "this girl, Sarah&mdash;What's her name?" Mary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>
Crane for a little time would tell nothing. She now both
hated and feared Sally Wanless, and until she could
discover exactly where the girl stood with her mistress,
she was not going to commit herself. Her remarks were
therefore cautiously shaped at first, with a view to draw
her mistress out. She prevaricated, dropped hints, and
tried to measure the extent of Mrs. Morgan's knowledge
before revealing her own. There was not only the girl
to consider, but also the Captain. It might be more than
her own place was worth to "blab on the Capting."</p>

<p>Either Mrs. Morgan was obtuse or ignorant, for she
gave no response for some time to Mary's stream of
words. "You see, 'm, as Sarah's a light sort of girl, 'm,
as is allus a-runnin' after the men, 'm. She mayn't be
bad, 'm, but she don't beayve proper for one in her station.
I'm sure, 'm, I've told her times enough as no good id
come of her upsittin' ways, and her ongoin' with the
gentlemens&mdash;<i>a</i> gentleman in particler&mdash;'as hoften shocked
me, 'm."</p>

<p>Thus she ran on, till Mrs. Morgan, quite bewildered,
exclaimed&mdash;</p>

<p>"But what has the girl done, then, Mary?"</p>

<p>"Laws, 'm, 'ow should I know, 'm. Hax herself,
'm, hax the&mdash;<i>a</i> gentleman as you knows, 'm, knows
hintimate, 'm."</p>

<p>"A gentleman I know intimately&mdash;what do you
mean? I know no gentleman. Surely you don't mean
Captain Wiseman?"</p>

<p>"Well, 'm, I don't know, 'm. You see, 'm, I thought
the family mightn't like it&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span></p>

<p>"That will do, Mary, that will do. I want no more
beating about the bush. Tell me, yea or nay, has
Captain Wiseman been noticing this girl?"</p>

<p>"Yes, 'm, he 'as, 'm; but I don't think&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"Never mind what you think, you are sure of that
fact?"</p>

<p>"Oh, yes, 'm, quite."</p>

<p>"Ah, thank you; then that'll do for the present," and
she motioned to Crane to leave the room.</p>

<p>That worthy departed not quite satisfied. She had
doubts as to whether her mistress liked to know the
truth, doubted also if she had done Sarah as much harm
as she wished to. But she showed none of these mental
clouds in the servants' hall. There, in Sally's absence,
she was triumphant, and the "said she's" and "said I's"
with which the tale was embellished, served to emphasise
the triumph which she indicated that the interview had
been to her diplomatic skill. She only confessed to one
regret. Mrs. Morgan had somehow cut the interview
short, "just when I was a-goin' to tell her all about
it."</p>

<p>Mrs. Morgan, however, did not need to be told all
about it. She knew the habits of her brother, and, her
interest once aroused, managed to put this and that
together so well as to arrive before many minutes at a
tolerably shrewd conclusion. "This, then," she said to
herself, "is the secret of Captain Cecil's wonderful reform."
That reflection at once brought her face to face with the
question&mdash;Shall I or shall I not tell my mother? It was
not a question so easily answered as it seemed. Mrs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>
Morgan was inclined to do it from her dislike of the
Captain, who had always absorbed too much of his
mother's attention&mdash;ought I to have said love?&mdash;for the
good feelings of the rest of the family. But, then, this
very preference made it difficult to decide. She might
enrage her mother, and there were family money matters
yet to settle, in the disposition of which a mother's
displeasure might cause permanent changes. For these
and other reasons, "too numerous to mention," Mrs.
Morgan hesitated. She would wait on events, on
her mother's moods and her own; so avoiding a
decision.</p>

<p>That seemed easiest, and yet it proved the hardest
course to Mrs. Morgan, who had quite a vulgar woman's
delight in retailing scandal. Before a week was out she
found it expedient to tell all. Her mother and she held
a long conference in secret on the Friday after Sally had
given up her place. What they said to each other will
never be known; but one decision came of it that was at
once acted upon. Sarah Wanless was dismissed that
night by the orders of Lady Harriet, who sent her own
maid with the message. "Jane," as she was called,
delivered it with curt insolence, and at the same time
flung a month's wages, which Lady Harriet had likewise
sent, on the table, with a significant gesture, as if to say,
"You are too unclean, Sally Wanless, to be touched by
a superior person like me."</p>

<p>When Sarah went home, which she did as soon as her
small box was packed up, and told her parents that she
was dismissed, her father was so indignant that he wanted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>
to send the extra weeks' wages back. His wife, however,
persuaded him that it was better to let things alone.
"The money," she said, "is her right, and can do us no
harm; and Sally is well out of <i>that</i> den anyway." And
Mrs. Wanless was right.</p>



<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>

<h3>THROWS A LITTLE LIGHT ON A SUBJECT SOMETIMES
UNCTUOUSLY CONDESCENDED UPON BY PREACHERS
OF "WORDS."</h3>


<p>I wonder where Christians find authority for our modern
treatment of illegitimacy? Preachers of all sects are
never tired of telling us that they preach peace and goodwill
among men. Their religion is to redeem all wrongs,
to make mankind better, to lift the fallen, and cheer the
broken-hearted. So at least they say, but when we look
for deeds, we do not find many in this lower world. The
fulfilment of the Christian ideal is prudently (?) adjourned
to the next, above or below. Wherever one turns in
contemplation of modern Christianity, one finds a ghastly
divergence between its professions and its practice, and at
no point is this more visible than in the behaviour of the
Churches towards women who have sinned. Taking their
tone from a corrupt society, which desires to enjoy its
vices, and to prey upon its women without taking upon
itself responsibilities which the poor besotted Turk even
never dreams of shirking, the dispensers of the gospel of
peace lead the chorus of reprobation which is heaped upon
the woman, who, like the virgin mother so many of them
profess to worship, bears the burden of maternity in shame<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>
and loneliness. No distinction is drawn between woman
and woman&mdash;rarely or ever is the guilt of the man
considered; the duties of fatherhood can be neglected by
the seducer with tacit, nay, often with the full approbation
of society and the Churches. But on the woman a
penalty falls that is worse than death. She has yielded
to the seducer, and henceforth she must be pressed down
and cast out, unless&mdash;and the distinction is important&mdash;she
be a sinner of the highest caste in society, when the
sin may be covered with lies as with an embroidered
garment; or, unless she belong to the lowest, where the
difference between morality and immorality is too often
nearly indistinguishable&mdash;thirteen centuries of more or less
well-paid-for priestly instruction notwithstanding. Speaking
broadly, however, the law of social life condemns the
"unattached" woman and her offspring to obloquy and
degradation, and it does this not merely without the protest
of the Churches, but by their full sanction. For ages priests
of all hues have arrogated to themselves the power of
regulating the union of the sexes; without their rites and
blessings no two human beings could become man and wife.
When two were thus united the universal cry was "What
God hath joined together let no man put asunder." The
priest, in fact, arrogated to himself the power of the Deity.
His "joining" was God's, and none but his held on Earth
or in Heaven. Greater blasphemy has hardly ever been
committed even by priests. By this abominable fraud&mdash;this
false assumption of authority&mdash;deeper social wrongs
have come upon the world than from any other priestly
assumption whatsoever. The priest has habituated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>
society to disregard all ties formed in what is called an
illegitimate manner. It has sanctioned the desertion of
women by their seducers, and what is even worse, the
desertion of children by their fathers and mothers, for, of
course, if the parents were not priest-joined, the offspring
must be of the devil. A man may, according to this
dogma, have lived the life of a fiend, ruining women,
bringing children into the world to live or die as the poor
law or hunger should order; but this is no hindrance to
his obtaining the blessing of "the Church" should he one
day take it into his head to submit to be married to one
woman&mdash;for gain, for any reason, or none.</p>

<p>Scoundrel and saint are alike welcome to the priest's
services and blessings if the marriage fees be paid; and
with the full concurrence and blessing of any sectary in
the world, a man may disjoin himself from a woman or
women he has lived with for years in order to take another,
if there was no marriage uniting him to these he deserted.
God, of course, could not be expected to "join" those who
never sought a priest's help. The whole basis of this
treatment of the sexes is grossly and blasphemously
immoral, and the fruits of it are visible on every side.
To it we owe the highly nourishing character of the "social
evil" quite as much as to man's inherent depravity, and
we shall never really begin to overcome that evil until the
whole of the teachings and assumptions of the sects, as
applied to marriage and divorce, are swept clean out of the
public mind.</p>

<p>Who is there to whom the history of some poor woman
betrayed and deserted is not known&mdash;a woman, it may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>
be, tender-hearted and true, as worthy of wifehood as any
of her sex? Did society pity that woman? Have you
pitied her? Perhaps, but would you not also gather up
your garments and pass by on the other side, if you met
her in public? Habit is so strong, you will say in excuse;
yes, yes, habit is strong, and the woman is weak. Why
should one heed her? She brought her fate on herself.
Leave her to perish. The man she loved has left her,
and the world treats her no worse than he. If her own
sex spits upon her and hisses at her, what can man do?
These be the thoughts of most men over broken lives,
and most readers may therefore feel impatient that I
should linger over the ruin and fall of a poor peasant
lass. Yet what can I do? my task is to write the history
of this family; its sorrows and failings, its burdens and
tears, are all that it has wherewith to claim the world's
attention. And to my thinking, they mean much.
Their lives were real to them, as yours, reader, is to you,
and they had a part in making up the pitiful social life
of this decrepit old England possibly just as high as
yours.</p>

<p>Therefore must I ask you to turn aside with me for a
moment to look again on Sally Wanless, when she
reappears from her seclusion&mdash;a shame mother, with a
babe born to sorrow and shame in her arms. I have
said reappears, but she has not yet ventured to meet the,
to her, scathing gaze of the people in the village street.
She steals into the little garden behind her father's
cottage, and there, in the soft September afternoons, you
would find her seated beneath the shade of an old apple<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>
tree, face to face with her doom, and looking at it as one
who has no hope.</p>

<p>In some people the soul wakes late; some, indeed,
appear to pass through the world without its ever
awakening. They may be bright-hearted people, full of
animal life and spirits, capable of much work and a few
sacrifices, yet they have never risen up to full consciousness
of the meaning of life, to its higher impulses, and
its terrible risks and obligations. No great inward
commotion has ever visited them; they vegetate tamely
on till they reach the grave. Others, like Thomas
Wanless, awake early to consciousness of the mystery
and burden of existence, and battle with hopes and fears
their lives long.</p>

<p>Would that his daughter had also found the realities
of living ere the curse of life had come upon her! But
she did not. Her awakening came too late. While it
was possible she hid from herself the meaning of her fall,
and refused to look at the awful questions which for the
first time surged in upon her soul. It was not possible
for long. When the wail of her infant first broke on
her ear she awoke and was stricken with the full
consciousness of what she had lost. Her past life stood
out before her as something apart; its hopes belonged to
another state of existence, to a life in which her future
could have no part. All lonely at the heart she had
borne the pains of motherhood, and a feeble infant lay
by her side bearing witness against her now and evermore.
No father welcomed it. The sound of its feeble
cry brought a forsakenness about the mother's heart<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>
nothing could remove. In vain her mother soothed her.
In vain her true-hearted father, bravely hiding away his
shame and grief, took the little one in his arms and
fondled it with a fatherhood that assumed all the sin and
all the responsibilities of his child. Sarah could not be
comforted. Blank despair took possession of her. Why
was she not dead? Why did the child live? Surely
they would be both better dead and buried out of sight
for ever? This was the under tone of her thoughts now,
save when at times, and as she grew strong again, gusts
of passion like her father's would sweep over her soul.
Then she felt for moments as if she could compel the world
to stop and witness her revenge. Should a fit like this
master her, what might one so desperate not do? Hers
was a soul awake and in prison, but if it burst its bonds?</p>

<p>Let the gay and frivolous, the light talkers, the young
and giddy, the tempter and the tempted, stop to look
upon this ruin. Is it a small thing, do you think, for a
man to have the undoing of this woman and child laid to
his charge. He passes in the world unharmed, nay,
admired, probably, the very women in secret whispering
admiringly of his prowess. But does that make his guilt
the less? Is there no retributive justice dogging his
heels, from which all the glories and adulations of earth
cannot shield him? Look at the history of such men,
and be they kings or carters, you will find that they
become degraded wretches, moral abortions, repulsive ruins
of humanity, as the result of their crimes against woman.
Yea, the woman is avenged, though only after death
comes the judgment.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span></p>

<p>But Sally Wanless thought not of revenge, that calm
September evening, on which my memory pictures her
through the mirror of other eyes, seated, half in shadow,
half in sunlight, beneath the old apple tree. Her baby
lies asleep on her lap, the sunlight glints through the
leaves on her hair, and flickers now and then across the
infant's face&mdash;but she heeds neither child nor light. A
far-away look is in her eyes&mdash;a look that tells of longing,
for what will never be hers again on earth. The evening
sun-glow throws into relief the pale, pinched face with
its unresigned hungry look, for in that face there is no
welcome to the sober autumn warmth. The dull fire of
Sally's eyes is the fire of an unquenchable pain. Where
is there room in her life for joy any more? Her eye
does not trace heaven's battlemented walls, in those
grand masses of white clouds&mdash;the blue expanse beyond
is not eloquent of the near world unseen. No; her
thoughts are self-centred; she never looks upward. Day
after day she sits here, still and silent, as one stunned.
Her spirit seems at such times as if beaten to the earth,
never to rise again. The child sometimes fails to interest
or rouse her. When its wails demand attention, she will
fondle and kiss it much, as if it were made of wood.</p>

<p>Alas; poor Sally, winsome lass. How many such as
you go aching through the world, broken-hearted, and
forsaken,&mdash;waiting for the judgment to come, when, as
they still, perhaps, lingeringly hope, the wrong shall be
righted for evermore.</p>

<p>Her parents yearned after their daughter, and yet feared
to break in rudely upon her brooding spirit. Neighbours<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>
came too, full of kindly promises and curiosity, ready to
speak volumes of comforting words; but Sally shrank
from contact with them,&mdash;preferred the garden seat, or
her own garret window.</p>

<p>Thomas became broken-hearted about his child. He
could not get her to so much as look at him. Often
times he laid his hands softly on her bent head, and
whispered&mdash;"Sally, my lass, cheer up a bit. Don't break
mother's heart and mine, by taking on so." But Sally
merely wept, and bent still lower over her babe. They
could not get her to go out during the day&mdash;only at night
would she creep along by the hedge-rows, in the most
unfrequented paths, accompanied by her mother, and
hiding the child as much as possible, beneath her shawl,
when it was not asleep at home. Her morbid fancy
made her think that everyone knew her shame. She
could not see people talking together without a rush of
blood to her face, as if she felt the talk must be of her.</p>

<p>And how fared it all this time with her seducer? As
the world elects, it shall always fare. From it he had
neither frown nor word of rebuke. Those that knew his
sin thought as little about it as he did, and that was
apparently never at all. He took no more notice of
Sarah Wanless and the infant girl she had borne to him,
than if they had been dogs. Nay, far less, for they were
hateful to his selfish, ease-loving nature, and therefore he
rigorously banished them from his sight and thoughts.
Just as before, he took his "pleasure" coming and going
to town, and living the life of sottish ease, as became a
man of fashion and a court soldier. At the Vicarage his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>
welcome was just as warm as ever, although every soul
within its walls was quite aware of the ruin he had
brought on the poor peasant's daughter. Mrs. Codling's
verdict naturally was, that it served the gipsy right, and
and her father too. He was always an insolent fellow,
who never showed proper respect for the Olympians, and
this would perhaps take down his pride a bit. This was
the view of the matter insinuated to Adelaide, who had
become "skittish" when the news first reached her ears,
thereby, however, increasing the ardour with which the
captain followed her. Mrs. Codling had quite made up
her mind, that through Adelaide she would succeed in
catching the Captain as a son-in-law, and therefore took
occasion to put "matters in their proper light."</p>

<p>"Of course, my dear," she would say, "we shall have to
get rid of the girl and her brat, for it might be unpleasant
to have them in the parish; but the Captain can manage
all that, never fear, and if the whole nest of them remove
to another part of the country, the parish will have a
good riddance. I daresay a few pounds will do it, for
all that old rascal's pride."</p>

<p>Adelaide was soon satisfied, and soon, also, her flippant
tongue had disseminated this view of the case all over the
parish; for Adelaide would talk to the housemaid when
no better listener was to be had.</p>



<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>

<h3>BRINGS THE DOUBTLESS RELUCTANT READER ONCE
MORE INTO CONTACT WITH A "GALLANT" WOOER,
AND GIVES FURTHER PROOF OF THE DIFFICULTY
WHICH BESETS ALL ATTEMPTS TO HARMONISE
TRUTH AND FASHIONABLE "CHRISTIAN" RESPECTABILITY.</h3>


<p>Thus was the Captain's way made smooth to him, and
the country side soon became as full of his ongoings with
"the parson's girl" as ever it had been about his intrigue
with Sally Wanless.</p>

<p>Thomas Wanless himself saw and heard much, for his
cottage was not very far from the Vicarage road, and the
Captain sometimes forgot himself, and passed his very door,
instead of taking up the back street. Doubtless it never
entered the Captain's head that any peasant would accost
him about such a trifle as the ruin of his daughter. He
ought rather to feel honoured thereat. What he did fear
was the girl herself&mdash;he having a fine gentlemanly dread
of "scenes."</p>

<p>Nevertheless, Thomas's wrath was awakened anew at
the sight of this "cool blackguard," as he most irreverently
styled the Captain, and soon the feeling extended to them
that "harboured him." It was borne in upon his spirit,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>
as the Methodists say, that he must denounce the
"ruffian." Yes, yes, he thought, this must be done; till
it was done there would be no relief in his mind. He had
borne too much in silence, but that this harbouring of
criminals should go on before his face was more than he
could stand.</p>

<p>"It will do no good," his wife said, as he declared his
purpose to her.</p>

<p>"Good!" he answered, "who wants or expects good
to come to them or us? I expect none, but I must and
shall tell the blackguard what I think of him."</p>

<p>Yet this was easier said than done. He could not well
stop the Captain in the street, for he nearly always drove
or rode, and never once passed Thomas's cottage door on
foot. It was utterly useless to call at the Grange, for no one
would see him. Obsequious menials might even set the
dogs at him, or trump up a charge against him and put
him in jail. Besides, Thomas had no time except on
Sundays to go in quest of his enemy, and on Sundays the
Captain was usually at the Vicarage. In the bitterness
of spirit which these thoughts brought him to, Thomas
might have, perhaps, done something rash, but happily
necessity prevented him. He had now to work, if possible,
harder than ever&mdash;early and late at the farm, on his
allotment, in the little garden at his cottage, he laboured
for the means of life&mdash;and did but poorly, though the
work kept him up and helped him to control the fire that
burned within him.</p>

<p>At last the chance he longed for came suddenly, and
without his seeking it. He was passing the Vicarage<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>
garden one beautiful Sunday afternoon in October, and
heard voices on the little lawn which lay between the
hedge and the house. Laughter and the chatter of merry
tongues fell on his ear, and one hard man's voice he
instantly guessed must be that of Captain Wiseman. To
reach that conclusion and the resolve to face his daughter's
seducer then and there may be said to have constituted
one mental effort. A rush of strong emotion swept over
him and made him feel, as he opened the Vicarage gate
and slipped within, as if God had laid a mission upon
him to lay bare the iniquity of this man and of those who
countenanced him. Under the influence of this feeling
he straightened himself and strode across the grass direct
to the place where he heard the voices.</p>

<p>The scene that burst upon his view if possible
heightened his courage, and I can well imagine that the
rough, toil-gnarled, weather-buffeted old man looked like
an avenging fate to those whose privacy he had thus
invaded. Always dignified and noble in aspect, the
anger at his heart now doubtless made him heroic.</p>

<p>Mrs. Codling and her four daughters were seated in a
group on chairs in front of a sort of arbour that stood at
the further end of the lawn, and a little behind the western
end of the house, not far from the churchyard, from which
it was hidden by a clump of evergreens and a wall.
Behind Adelaide Codling, leaning over her chair, and
apparently teasing her in a familiar <i>nonchalant</i> way, stood
Captain Wiseman. As he faced the gate he was the first
to catch sight of Thomas Wanless, and although he hardly
knew Sally's father by sight, he appeared to guess<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>
intuitively that a "scene" was at hand. His red face
grew redder still, his talk suddenly ceased, and an ugly
scowl gathered on his fleshly brow. Mrs. Codling's back
was towards the approaching peasant, but the Captain's
sudden silence and the look he gave made her turn round
just as Thomas came up. She also divined that trouble
was at hand, and, bridling up at the idea of that
"disgusting creature" parading his girl's shameless
conduct before her pure-minded daughters, prepared at
once for action.</p>

<p>"See if the Vicar can come out, my dear," she said to
the girl nearest to her, and then addressing Thomas,
cried in tones meant to be frigidly severe, but which only
succeeded in being savagely spiteful&mdash;</p>

<p>"If you want the Vicar, my good man, go to the house.
You have no right to enter this garden."</p>

<p>She might just as well have addressed the nearest tree.
Thomas paid no attention to her, but stalking up to the
Captain, glared at him till that wretched being shivered
with fear in spite of himself. Perhaps this "gallant"
soldier thought Wanless would knock him down, and
that may have been the peasant's first impulse. However,
he did not, but instead turned after a minute or so
to Mrs. Codling, and asked, with stern abruptness&mdash;</p>

<p>"Madam, do you know who this man is?"</p>

<p>For a brief space the woman seemed scared and cowed
by the tones and at the face she saw looming above her.
"Good gracious me!" she exclaimed, half to herself.
"What does the man mean?" Then, recovering courage,
added, "I do believe the creature is crazy. I'm very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>
sorry, Captain Wiseman, but really I fear you will have
to come to the rescue of us weak women. Do speak to
him and order him off."</p>

<p>At this two of the girls began to scream, but Adelaide
giggled.</p>

<p>"Since you give me no answer, madam," Thomas
struck in, "I shall tell you who this man is," and he
stepped round and backed a little, so as to be able
to look at both the Captain and the Vicar's wife.
"This man is the seducer of my daughter," he continued.
"He has committed a crime against her and against me
which is worse than murder in the sight of God. He is
the father of a helpless child that, for all he cares, might
be flung into a roadside ditch to die. For his cold-blooded
villainy that child and my child must suffer all
their days. This man, I tell you," and here his voice
rang all over the place, "this man has broken an innocent
girl's heart, and you know it, madam, and you harbour
him. Shame on you!"</p>

<p>Mrs. Codling grew pale with rage, and tried to speak;
but before she got a word out Thomas had turned
to the Captain, who took a step forward as if to collar
him.</p>

<p>"Captain Wiseman," he said; and at the sudden, sharp
address that wretch paused, grew mottled in the face,
and dropped the raised hand by his side. "What!"
cried the labourer, "would you dare to touch me, you
low, libertine scoundrel? Stand back, lest I have to
sully my hands by choking the life out of you, reptile
that you are!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span></p>

<p>How much further Thomas might have gone I know
not, but by this time Mrs. Codling had got her voice and
charged in turn. She ordered Thomas to leave the place,
and in shrill tones threatened him with the police, with
the Captain's vengeance, with the Vicar's wrath, called
him a hoary old sinner, and well-nigh swore at him for
polluting the ears of her precious daughters with the
story of his own girl's immorality. It was a fearful
torrent, Thomas afterwards confessed. Until then he
had never known the length of a woman's tongue. But
it came to an end at last, for Mrs. Codling lost her breath.
With a parting shot to the effect that Thomas had only
got what he deserved, and it was like father like child&mdash;low
wretches all&mdash;the ruffled woman relapsed into a
fuming silence. Somehow the tirade brought relief to
Thomas's overcharged heart. It had an amusing and
grotesque side that struck him forcibly in spite of himself,
and it was therefore with a certain sense as of
laughter welling up through his heart of sorrow&mdash;a feeling
for which he would fain have reproached himself&mdash;that
he answered in a voice that bore down all attempts at
interruption&mdash;</p>

<p>"Poor lady, I did not come here to quarrel with you,
far from it. God forgive you for having such ill feelings,
and you a parson's wife too. But what could one expect
when you harbour scamps like this fine military seducer
here? That's enough to make your heart the abode of
all that is wicked. I bear you no malice though, far
from it. I would warn you to mend your steps in time.
You call me names, and accuse me of bringing my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>
corrupt affairs before the pure ears of your daughters.
Take care, woman, take care. The serpent that destroyed
my precious lass has not lost his fangs, and your turn to
mourn as I mourn may be nearer than you think.
Because you have fine clothes and luxuries, and live in a
grand house, you think that the ills of the poor cannot
reach you. Take care, I say, or the day may come
when I can return your taunt, and tell you that if you
had set a better example to your children, if you had
guarded them against evil company, you might have been
spared much sorrow and humiliation." With this,
Thomas turned to go, but the cries of Mrs. Codling
arrested him.</p>

<p>"The wretch," she shrieked. "Josiah, do, for heaven's
sake, speak to this low fellow. His foul abuse is
positively sickening." And as the Vicar shuffled up in
obedience to the summons, his wife, turning to the
gallant rake, added, "I'm so sorry, Captain, that you
should have been insulted here. This must be very
disagreeable to you."</p>

<p>The Captain found voice to assure her that it did not
matter. He didn't "care a hang, you know," and gave it
as his opinion that a strategic movement towards the
house might be the best end of the affair.</p>

<p>"Yes, yes," cried Adelaide, "let us go indoors and
leave that fellow to speak to the trees. He'll soon tire of
that;" and she proceeded to gather up the stray
wraps.</p>

<p>But before this noble plan of out-man&oelig;uvring an enemy
could be carried out, the Vicar and Thomas had encountered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>
each other, and Mrs. Codling had to rush to the
defence of her husband.</p>

<p>"My good man," the Vicar had begun. "Eh, Thomas
Wanless is it? Dear me! You forget yourself, sir. You
mustn't behave in this way in my garden, and before
ladies, too. Go away, go away, and come to me to-morrow
if you have anything to complain of. I'll see
you in my study."</p>

<p>"Come to you!" answered the peasant in tones of
amazement and scorn. "Come to you! what could you
do, you whited sepulchre? You God-forsaken, poor,
tippling creature. Mind your own affairs," and he
laughed a bitter laugh, as once more he turned to go.</p>

<p>The Vicar also turned and slunk away with a scared
guilty look, but his wife's wrath found outlet anew.</p>

<p>"This is too bad," she screamed after Wanless, "the
low scoundrel. Oh, Captain Wiseman, I do wish you
would thrash the fellow to within an inch of his life. Oh
dear! oh dear! will nobody pity me," and she fairly wept
with rage.</p>

<p>The last that Thomas heard of them was the Captain
explaining in his most persuasive words that "By Jove,
you know, it would hardly be the thing for me to take to
fisticuffs with a low labourer-ruffian, else, by Gad, nothing
would have delighted me more than to beat him to a
pulp, you know."</p>

<p>Thomas turned and gazed in the direction of the
speaker as if to invite him to come and try, but the
Captain was busy hurrying the ladies into the house, and
though near enough to see well the look on Thomas's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>
face, he showed no sign of accepting the implied
challenge.</p>

<p>It was Mrs. Codling who, brave to the last, and
woman-like, gave the parting shot.</p>

<p>"Be off, you low blackguard," she screamed, and then
disappeared within the house. It afterwards transpired
that she caught sight of some of the servants watching
the encounter with Wanless from a window, and had
much comfort from the blowing up she gave them. Her
superfluous temper was thereby wholesomely expended.</p>

<p>Thomas Wanless went home that afternoon struggling
with a feeling of disappointment in which there mingled
a certain degree of shame. He had never entered the
Vicar's grounds with the intention of either wrangling
with the Vicar or his wife. A desire to expose a
scoundrel was his sole motive, and he had felt a sense of
the heroic as he proceeded to seek his daughter's betrayer.
Had that man abused him, or struck him, or in any way
given him the opportunity of letting loose his wrath, he
would have, perhaps, felt that a duty had been discharged.
Instead of that, Thomas had merely fallen out with a
sharp-tongued, not over-sensitive woman, and abused a
poor parson who, whatever his failings, had not at the
moment the least intention to act otherwise than as a
peace-maker. The heroics had all vanished, and in their
place was something grotesque and ludicrous. The more
Thomas thought of it the more he felt that he had that
day vindicated neither his own honour nor his daughter's,
and he resolved that henceforth he should bear his
sorrows in silence.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span></p>

<p>Perhaps this self-condemnation was not quite reasonable,
for Mrs. Codling provoked Wanless most unjustifiably.
She, at all events, got no more than she deserved. But
the labourer was sensitive and proud, and these feelings
made him prefer silent endurance to the loss of self-respect.
Could he have foreseen the consequences which seemed
at least to flow from his one effort at bringing home to
the sinner his sin, he might have had still greater doubts
about the wisdom of the course he pursued on that calm
October Sunday afternoon.</p>

<p>For one thing, the noise of the row between the
Captain and Thomas was soon heard all over Ashbrook.
The Vicarage servants retailed it with many embellishments
to their friends&mdash;as a secret, of course&mdash;and
Adelaide Codling herself let out some episodes to her
then bosom friend. Presently, and in due course, the
tale reached the Grange, where it took the circumstantial
and easily comprehended form of an account of a great
fight between the Captain and the labourer, in which the
latter had got two black eyes, a broken nose, cut lips, a
thumb out of joint, and some said three, some five teeth
knocked down his throat by the scientific handling of the
gallant guardsman. It was nothing to the purpose to
say that the labourer had been seen going about his work
as usual, for people of his sort thought nothing of
maulings that would have nearly been the death of
superior persons&mdash;like flunkeys and valets.</p>

<p>In some such guise, the story ultimately reached the
ears of Mrs. Morgan, who was so much shocked at the
idea of a fight between her brother and a low labouring<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>
fellow that she felt constrained to tell her mother,
especially as the fight was alleged to have taken place on
the Vicarage lawn, in presence of the Vicar's family.
Mrs. Morgan, keener sighted than her mother now was,
had for some time been aware of the ambitions of Mrs.
Codling, so far at any rate as to disapprove of the
constant intercourse which the Captain had with the
Vicarage. In telling her story, therefore, it was possible
for her also to lay emphasis upon the Captain's relationship
with the Codlings, which she took care to do, and
as she flattered herself much that she succeeded admirably.</p>

<p>At first it seemed as if she had done nothing of the
kind. The Juno of the parish, Lady Harriet Wiseman,
forgot everything for a time in her wrath at the abominable
presumption of a labourer in fighting with her
blue-blooded son, and was eager to have him arrested
and punished. In vain Mrs. Morgan pleaded the scandal
such a step would cause; her wrathful ladyship would
hear never a word. Nothing pacified her till she had
spoken to her son on the subject, and she had so set her
heart upon making an example of that vagabond fellow,
who had troubled the parish ever since she could remember,
that she was positively more angry than before when
her son told her that what she wished could not be done
for the best of all reasons&mdash;there had been no fight.
Then her wrath fell partly on her son, and they quarrelled.
She asked him what he was doing at the Vicarage. He
replied that it was none of her business, and left her
with the seeds of jealous suspicion in her heart.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span></p>

<p>Next time the Captain met his sister, he rounded upon
her, and, according to common report, called her "a
damned meddlesome fool" for interfering in his affairs.
Thus matters were likely to become ravelled at the
Grange. Perhaps it was to lull suspicion and allow the
heated atmosphere to cool that the Captain soon after
this betook himself to Newmarket, and thence to London.
Before he went he gave a private hint to the head gamekeeper
that he would not be inconsolable if that questionable
functionary could manage to make out a case of night-poaching
against Thomas Wanless. An underling heard
of the plot and warned Thomas to take care, and though
Thomas never poached, the warning was probably
needful enough.</p>

<p>The row at the Grange was the least significant of the
consequences that flowed from Thomas Wanless's visit
to the Vicarage Gardens. Mrs. Morgan had apparently
indicated to her mother the suspicions she entertained as
to the aims of Mrs. Codling, and Lady Harriet, afraid to
tackle her son about his amours, attacked Mrs. Codling
instead. It was plainly enough intimated to that scheming
woman that Lady Harriet disapproved of the constant
visits of the Captain to the Vicarage, and Mrs. Codling
was asked to discourage them.</p>

<p>A sensible person would have deferred to the wishes
of the greatest lady in the parish on a point so delicate,
but Mrs. Codling proved to be anything but sensible.
Afraid of exciting the wrath of Lady Harriet by open
hostility, she took refuge in underhand plots. The intercourse
between the Captain and her daughter, which had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>
hitherto been carried on, in a manner, openly, was now
changed, with the mother's connivance, into a secret
intrigue. By this change the whole moral attitude of the
family became debased. Captain Wiseman was astute
enough to see through the would-be mother-in-law's
motives, and cunning enough to egg her on in a course
of duplicity and folly. His mother need know nothing,
he represented, till all was over. No doubt she would at
first resent a secret marriage, but when she saw she could
no longer help it, her wrath would soon cool down.</p>

<p>With talks like these it may be supposed that Adelaide
Codling, apt pupil as she was, soon came to look upon a
secret marriage as just the one thing desirable and
necessary to secure her happiness; and, from this conclusion,
it was but a step to destruction. Probably
enough Captain Wiseman had never any intention of
marrying the girl, but whether or not, he certainly had
abandoned it, when, after a few weeks of secret meetings
and clandestine letter writing, he succeeded in persuading
her to join him in London. She left home just after
Christmas, in secret to all appearance, though the village
gossips would have it that her mother knew of her flight
beforehand, and nobody doubted that she had run away
after the Captain. In vain did Mrs. Codling give out
that her daughter had been called away suddenly to visit
a sick aunt. Nobody believed her. Secret intrigues cannot
be successfully carried out in a quiet country village,
and what was declared to be the true version of the flight
was current in all the country side within a week of
Adelaide's departure.</p>



<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER XV.</h2>

<h3>IS TOO BAD FOR DESCRIPTION.</h3>


<p>Unthinkingly, Mrs. Robins repeated this story to Mrs.
Wanless one day in Sally's hearing, and immediately
repented of her folly, for Sally uttered a low moan and
fainted. From that day the gloom of her life seemed
deeper. With unceasing tenderness and watchfulness her
parents had sought to bring back hope to their lost one's
heart, and until this ugly bit of gossip reached her they
had hopes of succeeding. Sally had began to talk a
little more freely, and, recognising the burden she was to
her parents, was becoming anxious to get a situation of
some kind&mdash;provided always that it might be far away,
where no one would know her. But from the time she
came back to consciousness on this unhappy day, darkness
again settled down on her spirit. She sat apart
brooding, as when first her babe lay on her lap. That
babe itself appeared to grow almost hateful in her sight,
and was left to the care of her mother, weary though the
old woman was with work and sorrow. With mouth
hard set and eyes looking wistfully sometimes, as if in
terror, into a world far away from the home nest, Sally
heeded no one. Her father again grew deeply concerned
about her, and tried casually to draw her out of the trance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>
that seemed to chain her soul. It was useless. She
answered him in monosyllables or never at all. At times
too, and when he spoke to her, a strange, resolute look
would gather on her face. It was not exactly obstinacy,
though she certainly was unyielding. Rather was it a
look as of one who had made up her mind to a great
sacrifice, and feared that she might be betrayed into
abandoning a duty. At that look her father always somehow
grew afraid. It was evident to him that his daughter
in some way connected Adelaide Codling's flight with her
own life, but how he could not guess.</p>

<p>But his fears were only too well grounded, for one day,
Sally, too, disappeared. Watching her opportunity when
the babe was asleep, her mother busy washing, and her
father away at the farm, she dressed herself as if for a walk,
went out, and did not return. All day her mother had
endured the keenest anxiety in the hope that Sally would
come back. She was unwilling to send for her husband,
and could only make one or two cautious inquiries through
her nearest neighbours. They knew nothing; Sally had
been seen, of course, but she looked and walked as usual,
with hasty steps and eyes bent on the ground. Though
startled at the news, Thomas was not surprised. The
flight only fulfilled his own forebodings. Swallowing a
morsel of food he started for Warwick, and soon learnt
there that a girl answering to Sally's description had left
by the slow London train at eleven o'clock. On his way
home he bitterly reproached himself that he had not
taken means to make such a step impossible. The two
or three pounds that Sally had brought home with her he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>
had scrupulously left untouched, and these she had taken
with her, as also the few trinkets given to her by the
Captain. Thomas had no doubt whatever that Sally had
fled to London.</p>

<p>For a time this blow positively dazed Thomas and his
wife. Once more their nights were nights of sorrow and
tears, and for them the mornings brought no joy. Only
the little one that lay sleeping in its wee cot was all
unconscious of trouble, or that its presence added
poignancy to the bitterness with which the labourer and
his wife mourned for their lost one.</p>

<p>Thomas Wanless, however, was not a man to abandon
himself long to useless grief. The more keen the pain
the more certain was his nature to rise and fight for
deliverance, and before long he had made up his mind
that, while he had life, his child should not be abandoned.
Cost what it would, he must follow her to that dreadful
city whose horrors darkened his imagination. The lost
one should be found, and, if God would but help him, saved.
So he resolved, although as yet he knew not how his
resolution could be carried out.</p>

<p>For a day or two he brooded over it, afraid almost to
tell his wife. The fear was weak. No sooner did Mrs.
Wanless know what her husband meant to do than she
became almost cheerful, and brought her ready wit to bear
on all possible plans for enabling him to go. Full of a
true woman's self-sacrificing spirit, she at first proposed
to go out charring, and so make a living, but the child
made that impossible. The utmost she could do was to
continue to take in washing, and even that would be a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>
severe strain upon her, with a babe to tend. At best, too,
it would afford her only a precarious living, and nothing
possible could be left to help her husband in London.</p>

<p>Unable to decide on ways and means, but yet
determined to carry out their one great plan, they ended
by casting their trust on Providence, leaving the future to
take care of itself. As a first step, Thomas went to
Stratford, and withdrew the few pounds left in the bank
there,&mdash;some £10 or £12. That done, he next went to
consult his daughter Jane, as to what help she could give.
Jane had little, and was saving that little to get married
and to emigrate; but when the whole matter was laid
before her, she, too, fell in with her father's plans, and
offered him her money.</p>

<p>"No, no, I cannot take that," he answered. "I hope to
get work in London, and cash enough to keep soul and
body together. I only ask you to help your mother with
it, should she be in need&mdash;to help her all you can, in
fact."</p>

<p>Jane promised all the more cheerfully, perhaps, that
her little all was not immediately to be taken from her
to help in this hunt after Sarah.</p>

<p>Mrs. Wanless also wanted her husband to write to Tom,
telling him the circumstances, and asking for help, but to
this he would in nowise consent.</p>

<p>"Tom," he said, "needs all his money just now, and
what he sends must come of his own goodwill. Besides
we shall get Sally back again, and then the best thing
will be to send her out to Tom. She wouldn't go if she
thought Tom knew what had befallen her. Jacob does<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>
not yet know, Jane will keep silence, and there is no need
for Tom to be enlightened."</p>

<p>This reasoning was unanswerable, and Mrs. Wanless
had to acquiesce with what heart she could. Nay, more
than that, sore against her will, she had to submit to see
her husband start for London with only £5 in his pocket.
The rest he insisted leaving with her, on the same
grounds as he had refused Jane's savings. "I shall get
work, my dear," he said; "never mind me," and she had
to yield.</p>

<p>Possibly Thomas would have been less confident had
he known what going to London, and work in London,
meant; but in spite of his dread of the great city, his
conceptions were so hazy, that in his heart, as he afterwards
confessed, he never contemplated needing to work
there at all. He hoped to find Sarah in a day or two, or
at most within a week, and once found, was sure that
she would come home. His wife, it turned out, formed
a truer conception of the task before him, although she
had never seen a bigger town than Leamington or
Warwick. But her fears did not abate her husband's
confidence. Without fixing dates, he told his master and
all whom it concerned, that he expected to be back soon.
Struck, perhaps, by the generous purpose of the man,
Thomas's master thrust a couple of sovereigns into his
hand as they parted, but Thomas would not accept them.
In spite of all the farmer could say, Thomas stoutly
maintained that he had enough. "My own means are
sufficient," he said.</p>

<p>"Your own means sufficient," laughed the shrewd<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>
Scot. "Well, I like that! Man, how much hae ye
got?"</p>

<p>"Five pounds," said Thomas.</p>

<p>"Five pounds! Five pounds to go to London, and look
for a runaway girl with! Good heavens, man, that'll no
keep ye a week. Ye'll starve, Wanless, lang afore you
find the lassie, if ye ever find her. God, man, if that's a'
you can scrape for the job, you'd better bide where ye
are?"</p>

<p>"That I cannot do," Thomas answered. "Starve or
not, I must go and seek my child."</p>

<p>The farmer looked at him for a moment, gave a grunt of
amazement, and turned on his heel, with the remark&mdash;</p>

<p>"Well, well, Wanless, a wilful man must hae his way,
they say, and you must have yours, I suppose, but, faith,
I doubt you'll rue your folly."</p>

<p>And with that consolatory observation, Thomas parted
from a master whom he had learnt to respect, for the
rough outside hid a not unkindly nature.</p>

<p>The liking was mutual, and was not on Robson's part
lessened by the refusal of his man to take the two
sovereigns. The sturdy independence of his hind was a
thing so uncommon, that it excited his admiration, and
stirred his somewhat dulled natural feelings of generosity.
Many a time during the absence of her husband, Mrs.
Wanless had cause to bless the "Missus o' Whitbury
Farm" for acts of unostentatious kindness which that
motherly Scotchwoman needed, it must be said, little
prompting to perform. On her husband's suggestion, she
called one day at the cottage, and at once took an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>
interest in the pale, sad woman, and the little child.
Thereafter, many little presents of milk, and of butter and
cheese, found their way to the cottage from Whitbury
Farm. And what Mrs. Wanless felt most grateful of all
for, was that these things were never sent to her by
servants, but were brought either by Mrs. Robson herself,
or by one of her daughters. The farmer's wife did not try
to make Mrs. Wanless feel that she was a miserable
dependent upon her bounty. She had not in that respect,
as yet, acquired English manners. In the Lowlands of
Scotland, I am told, there is no abject class like the
English agricultural labourer, and these hard Scotch
farmer folks had still to learn that their hinds were not
human beings of like passions and feelings with
themselves.</p>



<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>

<h3>TELLS OF A BETTER QUEST THAN THAT OF THE
HOLY GRAIL.</h3>


<p>Thomas Wanless set out for London, within a week
after his daughter's disappearance, on a dull, cold, January
morning. His farewells were cheerful, but his heart was
downcast enough, and the further the slow, crawling train
took him from home the heavier his heart became. It
was dark long before he reached Paddington, to be there
turned out upon the murky bewilderment of London
streets, knowing not where to turn his footsteps.</p>

<p>Mechanically he followed the string of people and cabs
flowing out of the station into Praed Street, the lamps of
which showed faintly through damp, smoke-charged air.
Then he paused irresolute. A sense of loneliness and
hopelessness stole over him, intensified probably by
hunger, for he had eaten nothing save a crust of bread
and cheese since early morning. He was as one lost, as
helpless in the crush of whirling humanity as a wind-driven
clot of foam on a storm-tossed sea. Amid all this
hurry and bustle of human life, where could he go? how
find lodgings? Fairly overwhelmed by the sense of
desolation, he leant against a wall to try and collect his
thoughts, and mentally prayed for courage and guidance.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span></p>

<p>For some minutes he stood thus self-absorbed, when a
rather kindly voice, speaking almost in his ear, roused
him with a</p>

<p>"Good evening, mate. Be you a stranger?"</p>

<p>"Yes," Thomas answered, looking up. "Yes, I came up
from Warwick to-day, and never was in London before."</p>

<p>"Be ye in want o' work then, or not?" the voice
demanded.</p>

<p>"Why, yes, if I can get work I'll be glad of it; but it
wasn't that exactly as brought me here. You see&mdash;&mdash;."
But Thomas checked himself, and turned a scrutinising
gaze on his interlocutor. He saw a rather grimy, ill-clad,
thick-set man, whose face seemed as kindly as his voice,
though its expression was barely discernible, except by
the eyes, which shone brightly in the dull, yellow light of
the neighbouring lamp. By the sack-like covering which
the man wore on his back, and by his be-smudged
appearance generally, Thomas judged that he must be a
labourer among coals. He was poor at any rate, and he
looked kindly; so after a brief inspection, to which the
stranger submitted in silence, and as a matter of course,
Thomas resumed&mdash;</p>

<p>"You see, I'm come up to look for a lass of mine as
has runned away."</p>

<p>"Ah!" ejaculated the stranger. "Ah!" and then he
stopt with his mouth open, as if embarrassed by this
sudden confidence. But he soon recovered himself, and
after relieving his feelings with a "Well, I never! Who'd
a thowt it?" came back to practical business, by asking
Thomas if he knew of a bed anywhere.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span></p>

<p>Thomas said "No."</p>

<p>"Well, then," answered the man, "you just come along
with me. You ain't likely to find the gal to-night, and
you can't stand there till mornin'! Perhaps my missus
can give you a shake-down in the corner somewhere."</p>

<p>Thomas was only too glad to accept the stranger's
offer, and, hoisting his bundle of clothes over his shoulder,
with his stick through the knot, he at once assented, and
followed wheresoever the other led. They trudged along
for a good half-hour, mostly in silence, for Thomas was
in no mood for talking, and his companion appeared to
have no gifts in that direction. At length they reached the
door of a dingy, tumble-down house in that now happily
abolished slum, Agar Town, and into this the coal-heaver
turned, saying&mdash;</p>

<p>"Mind the steps, friend. The stairs is rather out of
repair." In this rickety, filthy, old tenement the coal-heaver
rented two rooms on the third floor. He had a
wife and three poor sallow-looking children, who were
frightened when they saw a strange man enter with their
father. The man introduced his wife as Mrs. Godbehere,
and said his own name was William. They invited
Thomas, who in turn had given his name, to share their
supper, and he contributed to the feast the remainder
of his bread and cheese. Consulted about a bed, Mrs.
Godbehere declared that it was impossible for her to give
Thomas one, and he agreed with her. She knew, however,
a neighbour who had a lodging to let; 2s. 6d. a-week
she charged for a small room with a bed in it&mdash;the lodger
to find and cook his own food. In this room Thomas<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>
was ultimately installed, and right thankful he was to
find a roof above his head in that appalling city. The
walk along Marylebone and Euston Roads had impressed
him more profoundly than ever with a sense of the vastness
of London. It was like a first lesson in the meaning
of infinity, and it struck him with a feeling of dread.
Oft times did he ask himself that night whether he was
not, indeed, mad in attempting to trace Sarah in such a
sea of human beings. But mad or not, he resolved that
his task should not be lightly abandoned.</p>

<p>Thus occupied he passed a restless night, and got up
weary next morning. His bed, he found to his cost, was
not over clean, and it was with a depressing sense of
comfortlessness that he went to seek the Godbeheres.
The coal-heaver had already gone to his work, but Mrs.
Godbehere directed him to an eating-house near by,
where he went and had some breakfast. Refreshed a
little, he forthwith started on his quest. He would
wander the myriad streets of London till he found his
lost one, he had said to himself.</p>

<p>And day after day, night after night, he did wander
hither and thither through the most frequented thoroughfares
of London, returning late and worn-out to his
miserable lodging. A growing hopelessness lay at his
heart, and made him sometimes almost unable to drag
his limbs past each other, but he held on with a dogged
persistence that was almost sullen. Through Godbehere's
friendliness, and the pressure of his own heart agony, he
had scraped acquaintance with sundry policemen, but
they could give him no effective help. One would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>
suggest that he ought to keep a close watch about the
Strand, another mentioned Oxford Street and the Circus,
or the Haymarket. All agreed, in their callous sort of
way, that "if she had followed a man to London, she was
a'most sure to find her way to the streets before long."
Thomas did not doubt it. He knew the pride of his
daughter too well to doubt it. Rather than bear among
her kindred the brand which her unfallen sisterhood
would put upon her, she would face a life of open shame,
where none could cast stones at her. So Thomas held
on his way, but never got a glimpse of his lost one. His
means were nearly exhausted, for, pinch as he might, it
costs money to live in London. Yet he would not
surrender. No, he would work. But how could he get
work&mdash;he, a mere street loafer, and as lonely in London
as if it had been a desert. London with its hurrying
crowds, its rush of vehicles, its roar and bustle, and
flowing lights, fairly broke down his imagination. He
felt himself a helpless atom amid a mass of atoms that
knew nothing of his misery, and grew too weak-hearted
almost to seek for work. But for his quest, he felt&mdash;sometimes
even said to himself&mdash;that he could lie down
in the gutter and die. Possibly his wretched lodging
and the sleepless nights he had passed in his pain had
much to do with this utter collapse of mind. I cannot
decide, but he has told me that never till that time did
he realise the sustaining power of a fixed idea. "I came
to find Sally," he said, "and I held to that." For that
he braved not only hunger and cold, but the horrors of
the night in the most abandoned thoroughfares of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>
London. For that he mingled in the crowds of educated
and other roughs that frequented theatre doors, and the
doors of the coffee-houses and prostitute dens in the
Haymarket and Gardens. For that he endured cursing
and foul language inconceivable, stood to see men and
women hurrying themselves into worse than a fiend's
condition by their self-indulgence and sin. Into low
dancing rooms he penetrated, often to be bundled out
neck and crop as a spy, or at best to be horrified by
filthy jokes or still more filthy exhibitions of obscenity.
That very Agar Town, in which he lived, he again and
again explored, facing its stenches and miseries, its
wantonness and riot, and worst of all, its terrible crowds
of weary, sin-rotting, broken-hearted, down-beaten, and
unfortunate humanity. Often did he see women there
peering out of their dingy, rag-stuffed windows, that bore
traces of having once been as fair as rash Sally. Nay,
the very rag-pickers who lodged in its garrets, Godbehere
assured him, had many of them once been "flaunting
women of the town." Women of the town, indeed, and
was not the town doomed? Thomas thought that it
was. To him London was already hell. The fumes of
abominations choked his mental senses, and made him
long to escape.</p>

<p>Nevertheless, his mind was fixed. He could not go
without his child, and in order to carry out his purpose
he must work. By the friendly help of Godbehere he
ultimately obtained employment in the coal yard at
Paddington-wages 2s. 6d. per day. He felt rich and
strong for his task henceforth, and as soon as he could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>
he removed to a rather better lodging near his work. At
a waste, as he considered it, of several evenings' lodging-seeking,
he found a small clean room in the neighbourhood
of Lindengrove, for which, including a plain breakfast,
he paid 5s. 6d. a-week. His landlady was an elderly
widow who kept three lodgers, and she rather demurred to
Thomas's demand for a latch-key, so that he might go in
and out at nights as he pleased, but his sad, earnest face,
and his remark that he was looking for a lost daughter,
conquered her fears. Thomas had his key, and felt a
kind of thankfulness that if he did find Sally he could
now bring her to a better refuge than the vermin-filled
hole in Agar Town.</p>

<p>Five weeks had well-nigh passed, and Thomas was no
nearer his object, to all appearance, than the day he
arrived in London. But now that he had work he felt
more assured of his purpose, and therefore less sad. So
he sent home cheery letters to his wife, bidding her hope
yet for Sally, telling her he felt that God would not forsake
her or them. All his letters his wife got read to her by
the schoolmaster, and then passed them on to Jane.
Money he would have sent, but could not. All that was
left after paying his food and the clothes he needed for
his work he spent in his quest. For work did not cause
him to abate his vigilance, nor did it much reduce his
wanderings. As soon as the yard closed he hurried home,
changed his clothes, swallowed a cup of tea, and, sometimes
on foot, sometimes on the top of an omnibus, he made
his way to the usual haunts of vice. There he would
wander, haunting theatre doors, peering into refreshment<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>
bars, and sometimes spending sixpence to get inside a
low music hall. The sights he saw froze his very heart's
blood with horror, and he often asked himself&mdash;Is all this
vice, then, the product of our civilisation? Where is the
Christianity in the habits of a people who permit tens of
thousands of their fellow beings to rot and perish as a
matter of course, and prate about the social evil in their sleek
respectable way as if it was a dispensation of heaven? How
many of these poor girls, whose lives had been blasted,
who now brazenly mocked "society," and laid snares for
the destruction of its darlings, had mothers, perhaps, even
now weeping for them in secret? As he thought of these
things he felt as if he could wander, like Jonah, through
the streets, preaching the doom of this city of Sodom,
whose streets already savoured of the bottomless pit.</p>

<p>Thoughts of this kind were brought home to him with
terrible force one night that he saw Adelaide Codling.
He was standing watching the play-goers leaving Drury
Lane, when his eye suddenly caught the face of that girl
amid a group of women and "swells," amongst the latter
of whom was Captain Wiseman. She was showily dressed,
and had a profusion of glaring jewellery scattered about her
person, and she was talking fast, and laughing in a loud,
defiant sort of way. But Wanless could see that she was
not happy. As she drew near where he stood he could mark
the restlessness of her eye, and the nervous boldness of her
manner, and he pitied her. Is this what she has come
to already? he thought to himself, and involuntarily
shivered. Ah! if his own sweet lass was now like this,
could he reclaim her? Would it not be too late?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>
Adelaide Codling passed on, unconscious of the presence
of her fellow-villager, saw not the pleading look that
crossed his face, the eager step forward he took as if to
speak with her. She entered a cab with Wiseman and
two others, and disappeared from sight.</p>

<p>The eagerness of Thomas to find his lost one was
intensified after that night. Hardly a night-watchman in
all the district escaped his importunities, and from most
of them the old man met with a rough kindness that
soothed him even in his absorbing grief. One old sergeant
he met in the Strand, and who had more than once listened
to his descriptions and his queries, advised him to alter
his beat. "There are a great many haunts of streetwalkers,"
he said, "besides the Strand and the Haymarket.
Why not try the south side of the river, or up Islington
way? There is the East-end, too, and Oxford Street and
Holborn. Yes, none knew where a girl may get to, once
she cuts adrift in London. Such heaps of them takes to
the streets nowadays, that you can find some in every
thoroughfare in London."</p>

<p>Wanless felt the observation true, alas! too true, but
what could he do? His means would not allow him to
search the whole city. He took a wider range, however,
going by turns to one part of the town, now another, sometimes
as far as the Angel and Upper Street, Islington,
sometimes south to the Elephant and Castle, and the vice
haunts of Walworth and the Borough. Occasionally, too,
he searched the bridges across the river, but always with
a sort of dread that his doing so was a confession that
he believed his girl capable of drowning herself.</p>



<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>

<h3>HAS IN IT, ALAS! NOTHING THAT IS NEW.</h3>


<p>The winter was moving away thus, and Thomas Wanless
was rapidly losing his vigour. Hard work and constant
vigils, coupled with a sore heart, and a weak appetite,
pulled the man down, and by February he had to confess
that the long walks were too much for his strength.
Mercifully, the weather often made it impossible for him
to go out at night, and when it did clear up, he contented
himself with going somewhere to watch the stream of
people passing by. "I will wait," he said to himself, "for
my darling to come to me." He could not even stand
very long, but usually sought the rest of a friendly doorstep,
and at times a recess on a bridge, watching, with
tender wistfulness, the stream of life hurrying on around
him. Strange to say, he had more than once seen
Adelaide Codling since that night at the theatre, and
somehow that always gave him hope. Her face seemed
to say to him, "Your daughter cannot be far away."</p>

<p>Often the "unfortunates" came and talked to him, not
rudely in their wantonness&mdash;alas! poor, forsaken waifs&mdash;forsaken
by all save God&mdash;but soberly, as if moved to
speak to this still, sad-eyed, grey-faced old man, who
looked out on the world so keenly, and withal, with such<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>
tenderness in his look. They would tell him fragments
of their stories&mdash;sad enough all, and wonderfully alike&mdash;tales
of seduction, and heartless desertion, varied only
by the degree of turpitude usually exhibited in the man.
At one time it would be the tale of a light-headed girl,
seduced by her master&mdash;a married man&mdash;who huddled
her out of sight, to hide his shame. Many came from
garrison towns, the seduced of the officers there; quiet
country parsonages gave their quota of girls educated to
feel, and therefore hurrying the faster to their doom,
when once cut off from their families by the devices of
their betrayers. One woman excited Thomas's pity
deeply. Though wasted and fast dying, she still had
traces of great beauty when he first met her, leaning
wearily on the parapet of Waterloo Bridge, looking out
on the water below. She flashed defiance&mdash;the defiance
of a hunted being&mdash;at him when he first spoke to her,
but he soon won her heart, and got her story. A fair blonde,
oval-faced English girl, she had been comely to look
upon, and was wholesome at the heart even yet, for all her
misery. She was the victim of a parson, now high in
the counsels of the church. The villain was but a curate
when he seduced her&mdash;the only child of her mother, and
she a widow. He promised to marry her, of course, and
wiled his way to her heart. Then when he had got all
he wanted, and found that she was with child, he cast her
off, daring her to lay the babe to his paternity, and
spreading a story to the effect that he had found other
lovers at her heels. Broken hearted, she buried her head
and obeyed, but the shame killed her mother. "I could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>
not die," the daughter said to Wanless; "I have often
tried to kill myself, but fear keeps me back now, after all
that's past, and it kept me back then. My child died,
thank Heaven! I was alone in the world. I drifted to
London seeking work, and found it hard to get. When
I offered myself for a servant's place, people said I was
too well educated, and suspected that something must be
wrong. I could have taught in a school, perhaps, but
had no one to recommend me. I was hungry; I hated
mankind, and cursed them. I said I would betray and
destroy men for revenge! and the way was easy! oh, so
easy. It has led me here; and now if I could but jump
over and be done with it all!"</p>

<p>Involuntarily Thomas put forth his hand to hold her
back; but he needed not to do so. The poor woman sank
fainting at his feet. He tried to rouse her, but could not;
and finally put her in a cab and took her to the hospital.
Within a week she died there of brain fever. The
doctors said her strength had been too much reduced by
privation before the disease seized her for her to be able
to survive it. And she was only one among tens of
thousands all pressed down the same loathsome course
by our "Christian civilisation." Nay, forgive the epithet,
there is nothing Christian about it. It is only the civilisation
of a priest-born respectableness. The droning
hypocrites that we are!</p>

<p>At times Wanless stood by the doors of low music
halls and of theatres, but the door-keepers usually ordered
him off. He looked too like a detective for their taste.
Then he would watch the doors of confectioners' shops,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>
too&mdash;those shops which cloak brothels of the vilest type&mdash;staring
there in the face of day, unheeded by the
authorities, who must wink at some kind of outlet for
the suppressed brutal passions of polished society. More
than once Adelaide Codling had crossed his path at
such times, and still in the company of Wiseman; but
each succeeding time he saw her, Wanless thought the boldness
of her manner had an increased dash of despair in it.
The fate that she had come after was eating into even her
light, giddy heart. The last time he spied her was one
night when he stood close by the door of a café near
Regent Street. The light fell full on her face as the
Captain and she passed in from their cab, and her face
was painted. Already, then, the bloom of youth has
vanished, Thomas thought. Her hard but not unmusical
laugh had given place to a grating cackle, and a leer of
affected gaiety had replaced the merry eye. Poor, erring
wanderer, and had a few months brought you to this?
Already was the shadow of society's ruthless judgment
upon you; could you even now see the blight of your
life, the dreary street, the hard world's scorn, the early
grave? Ah! yes, and who shall describe the devouring
agony that gnawed at that girl's heart? Did she not
see day by day the ebbing away of Wiseman's love?
Love? God forgive me for defiling that sacred word.
It was only his brutish passion that was dying. He was
becoming tired of this toy his handling had smudged,
and she saw it all&mdash;prepared herself for the hour when he
would turn his back upon her and go to hunt down other
prey. And only six months ago! Ah, parson, parson,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>
has the iron not entered your soul? What is this that
your Christian civilisation has done to your daughter?
Has it made you ashamed even to look for her? Poor,
hide-bound, "respectable" sinner that you are, you shall
behold her again, though you sought her not&mdash;though her
mother bade you close your heart and home against her
for ever, because she had with that mother's help allowed
herself to be betrayed.</p>

<p>One cold March night Thomas Wanless had strayed
on to Waterloo Bridge in his coal-begrimed dress. Something,
he could not have said what, had impelled him to
go there that night. He had taken a hasty supper at a
coffee-house near the coal yard to save time. He felt he
was "superstitious," yet he went, whispering to his heart
"who knows but I may see my child to-night," and
trying to be cheerful.</p>

<p>Paying the toll at the north side, he wandered backwards
and forwards till the chill from the river began to
enter his bones. The one he looked for came not to
him&mdash;still he could not drag himself away. He sat
down in a recess and cowered below the parapet for
shelter, waiting for he knew not what. It might have
been ten o'clock. He had sat quite an hour, and was
nearly going to sleep with weariness, inaction, and cold,
when a rustle of a woman's dress near him spurred his
faculties into active watchfulness. Peering into the
darkness, made visible by the feeble shimmer of the
lamp on the parapet, he discovered a woman approach
him, crouching down in the recess on the other side of the
bridge, weeping bitterly, though almost in silence.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>
Raising himself on his elbow, he was about to speak to
her when she started up with a wild despairing gesture,
and, jumping on the seat, flung away her shawl.</p>

<p>"Yes," he heard her say to herself, with a wailing
resoluteness, "I'll do it; I'll die," and with one look of
farewell to the world, where no hope was left for her, a
look of despair and horror that gleamed through the darkness,
she clutched the parapet and drew herself on to it.</p>

<p>It was all the work of a moment, a flash of time, but
Wanless had sprung to his feet at the sound of her voice,
and was half across the bridge by the time the woman
got upon the parapet. Then he saw her last look, and the
gleam of a neighbouring lamp revealed her features. She
was Adelaide Codling, and the recognition so startled Wanless
that he staggered and for a moment stopped short. In
that moment she was lost. Even as the cry burst from his
lips, "Adelaide Codling, Adelaide, Adelaide," she threw
herself over, as if the sight of a man approaching her had
given the last spur to her despair. He reached the
parapet but in time to hear the dull splash of her body in
the dark tide rolling beneath. As she felt the water
close round her, a cry&mdash;weird, unearthly, terrible,&mdash;broke
from the girl's lips, and then all was silent, till the waves
threw her up again on the other side of the bridge, when
a hollow, dying wail wandered over the river&mdash;the last
farewell of this poor waif of humanity, sacrificed to the
pleasures of the scoundrels who "bear rule" among us,
and call themselves refined.</p>

<p>Wanless was already at the toll-house, panting and
hardly able to speak. But his look was enough, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>
presently there arose a shouting to lightermen and bargemen.
Boats were put off by those who had heard the
splash and the cry. A crowd gathered to see. In little
more than a quarter of an hour a shout rose from the
water far down towards Blackfriars, for the tide was
running out, and the girl had gone rapidly down stream.
"Saved! saved!" was the cry, and they had, indeed,
found the body of Adelaide Codling. She herself had
gone. The cold had killed her rather than the length of
time she had been in the water&mdash;the cold and the shock.</p>

<p>Thomas waited to hear the result of the doctor's efforts
at the police office, and then saw the body deposited in
a neighbouring deadhouse. No clue to her identification
was found upon the body, the poor girl had taken care of
that, more mindful of her friends in death than they of
her living. But Thomas felt bound to tell the police
sergeant what he knew. He gave his own address and
that of the Rev. Josiah Codling, but could not tell where
the girl lived, or what had been the immediate cause of
her suicide. The police, seeing that the upper classes
were in question, decided to keep names quiet for the
present&mdash;but communicated with the girl's father, and
arranged that the inquest should be delayed for two days
to permit him to attend. Thomas himself was told that
he would be summoned as a witness, and then went his
way.</p>

<p>He hardly knew how he got home to his lodgings that
night.</p>

<p>The inquest on the body of Adelaide Codling was held
in the upper room of a low-class public house in Upper<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>
Thames Street. Thomas Wanless obtained liberty to
absent himself from work that day, at his own charges, of
course, and punctually at three in the afternoon&mdash;the
appointed hour&mdash;he entered the parlour of the inn. He
was carefully dressed in the now threadbare and shiny
suit of black, which had been his Sunday costume for
many years.</p>

<p>A small knot of men had gathered in the room, and a
desultory kind of chat was going on when Thomas
entered. Two or three were grumbling at the nuisance
of these "coroner's 'quests," which took men away from
their business, the majority were "having something to
drink," and all were utterly indifferent to the business
that had brought them there.</p>

<p>Presently the coroner bustled into the room with his
clerk. The latter hurriedly called over some names,
which were answered, and then produced a greasy-looking
volume in leather which he called "the book." This
talisman he put into the hands of the man nearest him,
to whom he mumbled some cabalistic words, at the end
of which the book was passed along and kissed in a
foolish sort of way by the chosen twelve. Having in this
manner "constituted the jury," proceedings commenced
with a procession to "view the body," led by the coroner.
It lay in a rough wooden shell coffin, in a dark hole
attached to an old city church, and used as a mortuary.
Wanless followed the little crowd in a stunned sort of
way. To his simple, rustic mind it was a dreadful thing
that men should be able to go so carelessly about such a
solemn duty. At the mortuary he was surprised to see<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>
the Vicar. The old man stood by his child's head, gazing
at it in a helpless, dazed way, as if hardly conscious
of what it all meant. No emotion was visible on his face,
no tears broke from his eyes when a policeman, softened
by the sight, led him gently away to the inn parlour out of
the way of coroner and jury.</p>

<p>The "viewing" over, the Court returned to the inn to
take evidence. Of that there was very little, beyond the
personal testimony of the police, until Thomas Wanless
was called. When his name was mentioned, Thomas saw
the old Vicar start, and for the first time look up with
something like intelligence in his glance, then a scared,
shrinking sort of expression stole across his features, as if
he had suddenly thought of home and cruel village
tongues. But he listened quietly to all the old labourer
had to say. It was not much, for a proper-minded coroner
would not have suffered "family secrets" to be too freely
exposed, nor had Wanless himself any desire to tell more
than was absolutely needful.</p>

<p>"I saw the deceased," he said, "climb upon the parapet
of Waterloo Bridge opposite where I sat, and I ran
towards her, but before I could reach her she had gone
over. As she prepared to spring she gave one last look
behind her, and I knew her to be our Vicar's daughter.
I called her by name, but it was too late."</p>

<p>The sad cadence of Thomas's voice, and his obvious
superiority of mien, did not prevent one of the jury from
asking him in a brutal tone&mdash;</p>

<p>"And what were <i>you</i> doing there, my man?"</p>

<p>"I was looking for my own child," answered the old<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>
labourer. "At first I thought I had found her, till I saw
the face."</p>

<p>"Ah!" ejaculated the coroner. "Had you then&mdash;&mdash;?"
but his better impulse stopped him, and he did
not finish the question. Thomas, however, understood it,
and replied at once, almost under his breath&mdash;</p>

<p>"Yes, your Honour, I have lost a daughter, and Captain
Wiseman, the same ruffian destroyed her that enticed
away the Vicar's poor lass now lying yonder."</p>

<p>His words sent a shudder through the room, and
Thomas was vexed he had spoken them ere they were
well out of his mouth, for they seemed to goad the Vicar
into a state of active terror which gave him energetic
utterance. The more vulgar of the jury pricked up their
ears at the sound of scandal, and one of them said&mdash;"Can
you give us a clue then as to how this poor girl came to
drown herself?"</p>

<p>"Oh, for God's sake don't," the Vicar interposed, starting
to his feet, and stretching forth his hand beseechingly
towards the labourer; "for God's sake don't expose it,
Wanless." Then he collapsed again, and began to weep
violently, so that Wanless felt sorry for him, and was relieved
when the loud voice of the coroner was heard again
ruling that "it was quite unnecessary to rake up disagreeables."
He saw the "aristocracy in the business," in short,
and it pleased him to be strict. Thomas, therefore, was
asked a number of venture questions, whether he knew
where the deceased lived, or whether he was aware of her
circumstances, &amp;c., questions to which he had mostly to
answer "No." His examination was, therefore, soon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>
ended, and the coroner was beginning to tell the jury that
it was a common case, requiring the usual verdict,
"Suicide while in a state," merely, when, to everybody's
surprise, the Vicar intimated that he had a statement to
make.</p>

<p>He rose, trembling visibly, and looked round with a
vacant eye till he caught sight of Wanless, who had fallen
back, and was standing near the door. Then his look
changed, and, with something like energy, he exclaimed&mdash;"I
wish to ask you, gentlemen, not to believe what that man
says. He has a spite against my family, and against the
family at&mdash;&mdash;" Here he stopped suddenly, afraid to
mention the name of his child's destroyer, and the solemn
voice of the peasant was heard saying&mdash;"God forgive you,
Josiah Codling," softly, as if to himself. But the Vicar
heard, and his trembling increased so much that when a
blunt juryman interposed with&mdash;"How do you account
for your daughter's suicide then?" he could only stammer
a feeble&mdash;"I'm sure I cannot say."</p>

<p>"But surely you knew her whereabouts&mdash;what she was
doing?"</p>

<p>"N-n-no, I cannot say I did quite. My wife&mdash;that is
her mother&mdash;told me that she was visiting an aunt in
Kent, and I believed it was so."</p>

<p>"But were there no letters, then? Didn't your
daughter write to you at times?" persisted the juryman,
though the coroner began to fidget and look black.</p>

<p>"Letters!" repeated the Vicar, as if struck with a new
idea; "no, I believe not. Yes, I think she did write to
her mother&mdash;to my wife that is to say. At least I saw<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>
the envelope of one letter. I picked it out of the coal
scuttle in the breakfast room, but Adelaide&mdash;that is my
daughter&mdash;did not write to me&mdash;not that I recollect."</p>

<p>"Humph! I see, 'grey mare the better horse,'"
muttered the juryman&mdash;a bluff, not unkindly-looking man,
and then there fell a moment of deep silence on the
Court. The Vicar stood, bearing himself up with his
hands on the table before him, and seemed to have more
to say. But when after a brief pause, the impatient
Coroner ejaculated&mdash;"Well, sir! have you done?" the
Vicar answered&mdash;"Y-yes, I think so. I only wished you
not to judge my child hastily," and sat down.</p>

<p>A few moments more and the jury had given their
verdict&mdash;"the usual one" as the coroner described it&mdash;a
verdict permitting the corpse to have Christian burial,
and all was over. The majority of the jury adjourned to
the bar to refresh themselves, and interchange opinions
on, what one of them called, "this jolly queer case."
The bar-keeper himself joined in the conversation, and
Wanless heard him enlarging upon the corruptions of the
"Hupper classes," as he followed the Vicar down stairs.
But there was no danger that comments of this kind
would get into the newspapers. A paragraph about the
suicide did, indeed, appear in several morning journals,
but there was no mention of the seducer's name. Such
a thing as an adjournment to obtain Wiseman's evidence
was not even hinted. The coroner, jury, press, and all
might have been bought up by the Wiseman family, so
discreet was the silence&mdash;and, perhaps, some of them
were. The press, at all events, was well gagged by an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>
infamous law of libel; and as there had been no sensational
or melodramatic incidents connected with the
girl's end, it was easy to bury all the story in oblivion&mdash;for
<i>time</i>. The "gallant" Captain might roll serenely on
his way. Nothing could disturb him here except disease
and the moral leprosy bred of his crimes. "After death
comes the judgment."</p>

<p>When the little gathering had dispersed, the Vicar
and Thomas Wanless found themselves alone together.
Both had waited to let the unfamiliar faces disappear.
Neither had thought at the moment that this shyness
would bring them face to face. The peasant was the
first to realise the situation, and as he looked at the
broken-down old man before him, he was stirred with
pity. On the impulse of the moment he went to where
Codling stood, and laying his hand on his arm, said&mdash;</p>

<p>"Can I be of any use to you, sir?"</p>

<p>The Vicar started and turned hastily away, shaking
Thomas's hand from his arm, at the same time answering&mdash;"No,
no, Thomas Wanless, I have nothing to say
to you. You have done me enough mischief for one
day!"</p>

<p>"I have done you no mischief, sir. God forbid that I
should harm you. Had it been possible I would have
saved you this pain,&mdash;I would have rescued your
daughter."</p>

<p>"Rescued my daughter, would you?" and Codling
laughed a low, bitter laugh. "Rescued my daughter!
Why cannot you look after your own, Thomas Wanless?
I do not want your help."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span></p>

<p>"I watch for my child night and day," said the peasant
solemnly. "It was in seeking her that I met yours&mdash;too
late. There is ever a prayer in my heart that when I
find my Sally I may not be too late for her also. Ah!
poor Sally!" he sighed, and the Vicar, taking no more
notice of him, he presently added&mdash;"Come out of this
place, sir. It is not wise for you to stop here when there
is so much yet to be done."</p>

<p>The Vicar took Wanless's words as insinuating that he
wanted to drink, which was far enough from what Thomas
intended. But the guilty are ever prone to think themselves
in danger, and it was with more heat and energy
of manner than he had yet shown that the Vicar turned
and faced his fellow-villager.</p>

<p>"Go away, you loafing, good-for-nothing fellow," he
almost shouted, "surely you have gratified your revenge
sufficiently for one day, without standing there to mock
at my sorrow, as you have already done your best to
make my name a by-word." With that he moved
towards the door. But Thomas stood dumbfounded
between him and it, and the Vicar, too impatient now to
wait for the peasant's slow motions, actually gave him a
shove on one side, and hurried outside, muttering to
himself as he went.</p>



<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>

<h3>POINTS ONCE MORE TO THE MORAL OF THE POET'S
SAYING,&mdash;"SWEET ARE THE USES OF ADVERSITY."</h3>


<p>When Wanless crept out a minute or two later, still
feeling heart-sore at the Vicar's treatment, he caught
sight of that poor wretch through the adjoining door of
the private bar, which opened to let some one out as he
passed by. Codling was standing, and with trembling
hand stirring a large tumbler of hot brandy and
water.</p>

<p>Wanless stopped involuntarily, and then turning back
to the bar he had just left, asked for a glass of ale. It
would give him a pretext for waiting to see what became
of the poor parson. In a very short time he heard
Codling's voice beyond the partition ordering another
double glass, and the sound shocked him so much that
he put down his glass of ale half consumed, and, acting
on the impulse of the moment, burst in upon the Vicar
through the swing door of the compartment, crying, as
he did so&mdash;</p>

<p>"For God's sake, don't, Mr. Codling. Leave that, and
come away with me. It's a shame to see a minister of
the Gospel drowning his grief in liquor. Come away at
once." And he again laid hold of Codling's arm.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span></p>

<p>The drink he had already swallowed had raised the
Vicar's courage, and he turned on Wanless with a look of
scornful bitterness that boded a storm. But Wanless
was also wrought to a high pitch, and there was a
commanding sternness in his eye that served to cow the
drunkard, whose wrath seemed to die within him. He
looked hesitatingly around, and at sight of some
bystanders grinning, a flush of shame spread over his face.</p>

<p>"For shame, I say," Wanless continued in a low tone,
paying as little heed to the angry looks as he had done
to the former taunts. "Will you stand here besotting
yourself, and allow your child to be flung into a pauper's
grave?"</p>

<p>"What business is that of yours?" the Vicar replied
sullenly, but in a low voice. "Mind your own paupers,
and let me and my affairs alone."</p>

<p>"That I will not&mdash;cannot do&mdash;Mr. Codling," Wanless
answered. "Consider, sir, she was your child. You
fondled her on your knee but the other day, and were
proud to hear her lisp the name of father. Come away,
sir, for God's sake, the body may be gone if we waste
more time here;" and giving the Vicar no further chance
to remonstrate, Thomas seized his arm, and dragged
him out of the place away to the deadhouse.</p>

<p>They were indeed barely in time. Some men were
about to nail up the remains of Adelaide in the rough
shell where it lay, whether preparatory to burial, or in
order to convey it to some hospital dissecting room, I
would not venture to say. At any rate, a small bribe
made them desist, and one of them even directed the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>
Vicar to find an undertaker if he wished to give his child
Christian burial in other than a pauper's trench.</p>

<p>The sight of his daughter's body, when the lid of the
case was removed, and the Vicar saw it again, moved
him more than it had done at first. The men withdrew,
and Thomas and he were left alone with it. Adelaide's
features had settled down to the calm stillness of death,
and wore a faint semblance of a smile. Sweet and pure
she looked, in spite of the soiled garments and tangled
hair; but the figure indicated only too clearly what had
sent her to a watery grave. She had been about to
become a mother.</p>

<p>As he looked old memories rose in the Vicar's
imagination, and tears gathered in his dull, sodden eyes.
He stooped tremulously and kissed the cold brow. "Poor
Addy, poor Addy," he murmured, "to think that you
should have come to this," and he sobbed outright&mdash;weeping
like a child. Like a child too, when the passion
was over, he surrendered himself to the guidance of Wanless,
without further resistance, who hurried him off to the
undertaker. He would like, he said, to have <i>her</i> buried
that evening; but that the people said they could not
manage; so it was at last arranged to take her to
Highgate Cemetery next morning. Thomas had then
to find a place where the Vicar could pass the night, for
the old man had intended to go home that evening, and
ultimately he deposited him at the Tavistock Hotel.</p>

<p>"Will you have something to drink before you go?"
said the Vicar, when he had arranged for his bedroom,
evidently wanting a pretext for drinking himself, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>
Thomas said "No," and went away to eat a frugal
supper in a humble coffee-shop in Drury Lane.</p>

<p>They buried Adelaide next morning, Thomas again,
though with difficulty, obtaining leave of absence. As
soon as he saw Codling, Thomas knew that he had been
drinking hard the previous night. The poor man's
hands shook as with the palsy, his step was unsteady,
his eye dull and bloodshot. A low fever seemed to
consume him; yet he obviously felt keenly that morning
the errand he and the labourer were upon, and though
he hardly spoke a word all the way to the grave, he no
longer looked at his companion with sullen anger.
Rather he seemed to cling to Thomas as a woman clings
to her natural protector. And when the earth fell on the
coffin lid as the last words of the solemn burial service of
the Church of England were uttered&mdash;solemn even when
gabbled over by the unhappy creatures who have to
repeat it every day, and all day long&mdash;he broke down
again, sobbing and weeping like a child. They waited
till the last sod had been placed over the lost Adelaide,
and ere he went away the Vicar knelt on the damp
earth, praying and weeping bitterly. Then he rose and
stretched out his hand to Wanless, whose cheeks were
also wet with tears, as if seeking one to lead him.
Thomas grasped it, and pressed it, with "God bless and
have mercy on you, sir, and on her as lies here."</p>

<p>"Ah! Thomas"&mdash;it was the first time the Vicar had
called him kindly as of old by his Christian name&mdash;"ah!
Thomas, my friend, and may God bless you for
what you have done this day. But for you I would have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>
deserted my child in death, as I did in life. God forgive
me for it."</p>

<p>These words seemed to open his heart, so that he
talked to Wanless, all the way back to town, in an eager
way, like one who had a confession to make, and could
taste no peace till it was done. A sad history enough it
was of domestic bitterness, of an enfeebled will, knowing
what was right, and doing it not. His impulse was to
seek his daughter, just as Thomas's had been, but Mrs.
Codling would not hear of it. Her pride did not even
allow her to admit that the girl had gone away after her
betrayer. She talked of a visit to a relative at a distance,
who was her own step-sister, and of Adelaide herself being
ill in Kent, poor thing&mdash;not in any danger, but not strong
enough to return yet&mdash;with many lies of a like kind,
which the Vicar was weak enough to endorse by his
silence.</p>

<p>Wanless also spoke of his quest and his sorrow, and
the Vicar listened with sympathy; but when the peasant
ventured to urge that it was his duty to denounce, and
expose the ravenous wolf, who had destroyed the peace
of so many families, Codling shook his head and
answered&mdash;"No, no, Thomas, I cannot; I dare not. It
is too late."</p>

<p>"Why too late, sir? Are you not a minister of Christ,
and bound by the office you hold to denounce the sinner
and his sin?"</p>

<p>The Vicar shuddered, and sat still for more than a
minute without answering. Then he bent forward and
took Thomas's hand&mdash;they sat on opposite sides of the cab.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span></p>

<p>"Thomas," he said sadly, "you remember that day of
the row in my garden, between you and&mdash;and that fiend
in human shape. You called me a poor tippling creature
that day, and it was true."</p>

<p>"No, no, and I was very sorry," Wanless began&mdash;</p>

<p>"Yes, but it was," the Vicar interrupted, "I hated you
for exposing me thus; but I felt and knew it was true.
I am not a drunkard, Thomas, as the world measures
drunkenness, but I tipple. I keep myself alive by
stimulants, and bury thus my hopes and aspirations of
other days. And I feel that I can do nothing. Who
would listen to me or heed my words? Men would say
I spoke from spite, and perhaps some even might aver
that I was myself the cause of my daughter's ruin.
Which also," he added, in a reflective kind of way, "which
also might be true. No, no, Thomas, I must bear my
burden. My&mdash;oh, my daughter, my child, my pet, when
I think of you and the past, I have no hope&mdash;I can do
nothing but tipple."</p>

<p>"Heaven forbid!" exclaimed Wanless; but the Vicar
relapsed into silence. All the rest of the way to
Paddington, to which he had ordered himself to be driven,
he lay back in the corner of the cab, silent, with his eyes
closed; but Thomas could see him ever and anon
furtively wipe away the tears from his cheeks.</p>

<p>At Paddington, the two men, now friends again, after
so many years of divergent ways and worldly fortunes,
bade each other a sad farewell. Thomas went back to
his coals, and the Vicar went home to his wife and his
gin and water. Yet he was not quite as he had been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>
before. More than he himself thought the death of his
once loved child stirred the human soul in him, and he
was not able again to fall back into sottishness. Though
he bore his domestic woes silently, and still drank to dull
the gnawing at his heart, he became more tender towards
the poor among his flock, more attentive to their wants,
more accessible, and softer in manner towards all men.
He even preached with sad pathos that woke responsive
sympathy in the hearts of his flock, though he did not
denounce the ravisher.</p>

<p>But the best proof of all that he had changed much
for the better, is found in his conduct to Mrs. Wanless.
The memory of the help and sympathy he had received
from the old, despised labourer in London, lay warm in
his heart, and found frequent expression in visits to the
labourer's wife while she was alone, or to both husband
and wife, when Wanless came back. The very day after
he returned from London, he called and told Mrs.
Wanless that he had seen her husband, and that he was
well. He made no allusion to other matters, but he
patted the head of Sally's child, and sighed as he went
away. Perhaps the kindly warmth with which these
simple people always greeted him, helped to soothe
his later years. In giving he received more than he
gave.</p>

<p>In the village the end of his daughter was never
rightly known. Wiseman naturally never breathed a
word. Rarely was his face seen in Ashbrook, and never
in the church while the old Vicar lived. Mrs. Codling
gave out that the poor child had been suddenly cut off<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>
by fever, and went the length of donning mourning,
bemoaning the loss to her friends, braving the scorn of
all true hearts, and vainly imagining she was believed,
But the people guessed that Adelaide had not died so,
and they suspected that Wiseman was at the bottom of
her disappearance, though the story of her having
committed suicide never got general credence in the
village&mdash;was only a faint rumour there. So all pitied the
poor Vicar, despised his uppish, false-hearted wife, and
most hated the young squire. Riches and high station
cannot shut men out from the moral results of their deeds,
any more than they can ward off death. Nay, Mrs.
Codling herself, high as she held her head, well as she
acted the part of a sorrowing mother who had been heart-broken
by the unexpected news of her dear daughter's
sudden death, so prostrated as to be unable to go and see
her laid in her grave&mdash;even Mrs. Codling felt in some
sense that this was true. She grew harder in her ways,
and more and more haggard in her looks, like one even at
war with herself, and ever losing in the fight&mdash;till within
three years God took her, and she knew her folly.</p>



<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER XIX.</h2>

<h3>OPENS TO THE INWARD EYE THE CHASTENED JOY THAT
GLOWS, WHEN THE LOST ONE IS FOUND, IN THE
SOUL OF HIM "WHOSE GRIEF WAS CALM, WHOSE
HOPE WAS DEAD."</h3>


<p>A great additional strain had been put upon the spirit
of Thomas Wanless, by the death of Adelaide Codling,
and he was becoming too weak in body to hold to his
purpose. There were nights when he returned to his
lonely lodging wishing that he might die, so great was his
physical and mental exhaustion. At other times he felt
an impulse strong upon him to go home&mdash;to "abandon
his search for a time," as his inward tempter whispered.
But his will was strong, if strength of body or hope
might be weak, and he only prayed the more and clung
the more to his purpose, the more he felt tempted to turn
aside. "How could I face her mother again," he would
answer himself, "if I had not found her."</p>

<p>In this conflict of mind, though not of purpose, another
month rolled by, and Thomas was threatened with want
of work. Fewer men were required in the coal yards as
summer came on, and already several had been discharged.
It was a dreary prospect enough, but what made it more
so to Thomas, were the unbidden flashes of almost<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>
gladness that rose in his breast now and then, as the
voice of the tempter then said&mdash;"Thomas, you will
be forced to go home." He felt himself a traitor, and
inexpressibly wicked at such moments, and would clench
his hand and mutter&mdash;"Not yet anyhow, not yet," as he
strode mechanically through the streets.</p>

<p>At last he found her. "When hope was calm, and
grief was dead" almost, he lighted on his lost child
unexpectedly, in a place where he would never have
dreamed of looking for her, had it not been for the
friendly advice of the police.</p>

<p>All over London there are coffee-houses, tobacco-shops,
and confectioner-looking shops, whose real use is to be
haunts of vice. Thomas had learned to know this, and
his eye was always upon such as he wandered through
the streets. Perchance he might see his Sally in one of
them some night. He was crawling rather than walking
along one of the dingy lanes behind Leicester Square
one evening, about eleven o'clock, when, through the open
door of a low eating-house, he heard the voice of a woman
singing. His heart gave a leap within him. Surely that
was Sally's voice. She had been a great singer in her
girlhood, and the song he heard the notes of had once
been a great favourite with her. What was it, think you?
None other than that sweet sentimental ditty, "Be kind
to the loved ones at home." Strange melody to be heard
in such a place.</p>

<p>The leap of hope in Thomas's heart was followed by a
thrill of anguish as he drew near to listen, more assured
each moment that here, indeed, he had found his daughter.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>
And was she thinking of home then&mdash;here, at the gate of
hell. He would go and see. No one was in the outer
shop, and the door of the back room stood ajar, so
that Thomas walked straight through unchallenged. Pushing
open the half-closed inner door, he paused in amazement
at the scene disclosed to him. There might have been a
score of people in that low-roofed, dingy, smoke-filled
room&mdash;men and women seated at small tables, and on one
or two dilapidated benches against the wall, some were
busy eating, all had drink before them&mdash;ale, spirits, and
even wine&mdash;stuff labelled "champagne." Through the
haze of tobacco smoke, he saw several of the women with
cigarettes in their mouths. All had a reckless, more or
less debauched air, and the women in particular struck
Thomas&mdash;a transitory flash though his glance was&mdash;as
wearing a look of defiance towards all that the world
deemed propriety. Men had women on their knees, or
sat on the knees of women, and none seemed to heed the
song. One poor outcast woman lay huddled up on the
floor by the fire, too drunk to sit, but not too drunk to
blaspheme. No one heeded her either.</p>

<p>All these things Thomas saw in the first moment of
vision, but he hardly noted them then. His thoughts and
his eyes were for his lost child alone. The song did not
stop at his entrance, for the singer's face was not towards
the door. So the voice guided his eye and&mdash;yes, it was
she. There she sat in the middle of the room, nearer the
fire than a youthful debauchee who sat by her with his
arm round her waist. Thomas gazed a moment, and
then his whole soul went out in a cry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>&mdash;</p>

<p>"Sally, Sally, oh my pet, my child, I've found you at
last," and he advanced towards her, holding out his hands.</p>

<p>The song died instantly, but in its place rose a Babel
of tongues. Thomas's cry drew all eyes upon him.
Involuntarily some of the less hardened assumed airs of
propriety, but the majority of the men started in anger,
and a few of the women began to laugh and jeer.</p>

<p>"Damn your impudence, what do you want here?"
shouted a copper-faced little wretch, who had been lying
half asleep in a woman's lap near the door.</p>

<p>"Get out of this," roared another, and as Thomas
made no sign the abuse grew general. The wits of the
party cracked jokes over the "heavy father doing the
pathetic business," and so on, but amid the din the peasant
got close to the table, where his child sat. The instant
his call reached her ears, Sally turned a terror-struck gaze
upon him, and then buried her face in her hands. He
could see she wept, for the sobs shook her, but to his
further entreaty to come away she made no response, and
he was trying to pull the table aside so as to reach her,
when he was roughly seized by the brothel keeper, who
had rushed up from the kitchen to see what the noise
was about. With an oath he pulled Thomas back.</p>

<p>"What the devil do you want here?" he screeched.
"Clear out, or d&mdash;n you, I'll give you in custody."
The peasant's garb and appearance had enabled the
experienced scoundrel to guess at once what was up.</p>

<p>Thomas turned sharp on his assailant, who was a fat,
flabby-looking wretch, whose face indicated a vicious
career in every line and pimple. At the moment it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>
lit up by an expression of elfish rage. But when in his
turn the peasant seized him with a grip of iron and flung
him away as if he had been a street cur barking at his
heels, the man's face grew nearly pale with an expression
of mingled wrath and fear. The fear kept him near the
door, where he stood yelling for help, calling on "Jim"
to come and turn this intruder out, volleying oaths and
blasphemies, and finally beseeching the intruder not to
ruin him, but taking good care all the while not to summon
the police.</p>

<p>"Jim" came at last&mdash;the "waiter" or bully of the place.
He was of stronger build than his master, and at once
grabbed Thomas by the collar, purposing to turn him out.
But Thomas was endowed with heroic strength in that
hour, and three such men would not have driven him from
the place. Wrenching himself round, he took his new
assailant by the throat, and dashed him back against his
master with such force that they both rolled over in the
narrow doorway. This feat tickled the company
immensely, and they fell to clattering with pewter pots
and glasses, and to shouting in derision as encouragement.</p>

<p>Probably Thomas in the end might have been badly
beaten by the fiends among whom he had fallen, but from
that his daughter saved him. Roused, perhaps, at the
sight of the unholy hands laid upon her father, and
sickened by the foul jibes of men and women around her,
she sprang to her feet, and, pushing round the end of the table
where she sat, rushed between the combatants, and flung
herself on her father's bosom, in a passion of weeping.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span></p>

<p>"Do not get yourself hurt for me," she sobbed, "go
away and leave me. I'm not worth caring for any more."</p>

<p>Thomas answered by clasping her closer to his bosom,
and then putting his arm in hers, he led her from the
house, none daring to say him nay. Oaths, shrieks of
hysterical laughter, and obscenities followed them as they
went, but the look on the peasant's face, and the
remembrance of his strength of arm, were enough to
protect his daughter and him from further ill-usage.</p>

<p>"Thanks be to God I've found ye, my lass; found ye,
never to let ye out o' my sight again in this world,"
Thomas murmured when he found himself alone in the
street with his long-lost one, and there welled up in him
a holy joy which was unutterable.</p>

<p>His daughter hung her head, and answered not, but
she suffered him to lead her to his lodging. A 'bus took
them to the head of Portland Road, and thence they
walked. It was past midnight before they got home,
and all the house was silent; but Thomas gave his
daughter his bedroom, and groped his way to the parlour,
where he hoped to get a sleep in an easy chair&mdash;first
prudently turning the key in Sarah's door, to give her no
room for untimely repentance.</p>

<p>There was no sleep for his eyelids that night. The
cold alone might have kept him awake in any case; but
he was too excited to feel it as other than a stimulus to
his thoughts. Past and future rolled before him&mdash;his
daughter lost, joy at her discovery, pain at the life she
had led. The grey dawn found him fevered with his
thoughts, shivering in body, burning at the heart. Nevertheless,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>
he had resolved to go home that day by the
early train; and with that view he roused the landlady
to beg an early breakfast for himself and his child. "I have
found my lass," was all he ventured to explain, and the
woman answered she was glad to hear it. In his eagerness
to go home he forgot to tell the coal agent for whom
he worked, and forgot also to draw four days' wages due
to him&mdash;did not remember till the day after he and his
daughter reached Ashbrook.</p>

<p>When Sarah, in answer to her father's summons, came
down to breakfast in the front kitchen, it was easy to see
that she also had slept little. Her eyes were swollen
and red, and she could not eat anything. A cup of hot
tea she swallowed, and that was all. Her father spoke
to her in the old familiar Warwickshire dialect, and urged
her to "eat summat, as she had a long day's journey
afoore her," but Sally could not, and to all he spoke
answered only in monosyllables. Not until he began to
talk directly of going "home" did she wake to anything
like animation. The very sound of the word made her
weep, and her father led her away to his own room to
reason with her.</p>

<p>"Oh, don't ask me to go back," she cried; "I cannot,
I cannot; I'm fit only to die."</p>

<p>But her father soothed her, talked to her of her lonely
mother watching for her coming, praying to see her child's
face again before she died; and when that did not move
her, he bade her think of her little babe she had left last
year. "How could ye like her to grow up a-lookin' for a
mother, Sally, lass, an' not findin' one?" That seemed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>
to touch her more than all his assurances that no one
would ever reproach her or cry shame upon her in her own
father's house. Still she yielded not, but cried out that
she was lost to them all, to every good in this world.
"You might not blame me openly," she said, "but I
would have the feelin' in my heart all the time that I was
a shame an' disgrace to you, and that pity alone kept you
from telling me so. No, no, no, I will not go back to
Ashbrook."</p>

<p>"Look here, then, Sally," said her father at last, "if
you wonnot go back, I'll stay by you. My mind's made
up. I'll never lose sight of ye again, not while I'm alive;
and if you wonnot go home wi' me, I must bide wi' you.
There is no other way. It will kill your mother, and it will
kill me, an' leave your child an outcast orphan, but ye are
determined, an' it must e'en be so."</p>

<p>This staggered her, but still she yielded not, thinking,
doubtless, that her father meant not what he said, till at
last, in despair, he told her the story of Adelaide Codling.
He spoke of her despairing looks, her rapid descent from
wild gaiety to death, of her last farewell to this world,
of her lonely grave, and her poor, old, broken-hearted
father, and wound up by asking&mdash;"Will you face an end
like that, Sally? Dare you do it, my child? When I
saw her jump on the bridge I thought it was you," he
added, with a look that went straight to his daughter's
heart. The story had at first been listened to in dogged
silence. Then the girl's tears began to flow, at first
silently, at last with convulsive sobs. Her father held
out his hand as he ceased speaking, and she, moved so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>
deeply as to be lifted out of herself, laid both her hands in
his, and said&mdash;</p>

<p>"Father, I'll do as ye wish. I'll go home wi' ye."
He drew her down on her knees beside him, and prayed
fervently for mercy and forgiveness for them both. "But
my heart was too full to beg," he afterwards said to me.
"I could only give God thanks for his infinite mercy in
restoring my lost child."</p>

<p>They missed the morning train, and had to wait till the
evening. In the interval Sarah had stripped off the tawdry
ornaments she wore, and plucked a gaudy feather from
her hat&mdash;pleasant incidents which her father noted. In the
middle of the night almost they reached the old cottage
in Ashbrook, and both were glad that the darkness hid
them from every eye save God's.</p>



<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER XX.</h2>

<h3>MAINTAINS THAT FOR THE WRONG SIN-BURDENED
MORTAL NO SLEEP IS SO SWEET AS THE LAST
LONG SLEEP OF ALL.</h3>


<p>There was deep joy in Mrs. Thomas Wanless's cottage that
night&mdash;joy all the deeper for the pain that lay beneath it.
Mrs. Wanless was not a demonstrative woman at any
time, but that night she embraced her daughter again
and again, and held her to her heart with passionate
eagerness. Sarah was sad, and after the first momentary
flash of delight, shrank back within herself. She went
and looked at her child sleeping quietly in its grandmother's
bed, but did not kiss or caress it. The joy of
the parents was dimmed at sight of this indifference, but
when Sarah had retired to rest, Thomas did his best to
encourage his wife to hope. "It will soon be all right
between mother and child," he prophesied, and this no
doubt was their hope. It was long, however, ere they
saw any fulfilment of it. In truth, shame took so deep a
hold on Sarah's mind that she became a sort of terror to
herself. She was so crushed by the past, so utterly
incapable of rising out of the darkness that shrouded her
mind, that it is probable she would again have fled from
her father's roof had she not been prevented by illness.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>
The life of false excitement she had led in London had
sapped her constitution, and she had not long returned
when her health began to give way. Fits of shivering
seized her, then a hacking, dry cough, which could not be
dislodged. Her complexion grew transparent, her eye
preternaturally bright. She was, in a word, falling into
consumption, and in all probability would not live long
to endure her misery. This was doubtless the kindest
fate that could now befall her, but it was a new grief to
her parents when they awoke to consciousness of the
fact that this lost one, so lately found again, was slowly
vanishing from their sight for ever.</p>

<p>She herself grew happier in the prospect of early death,
and from being silent and cold became gentle, opener in
her manner, and more kindly to all around her, as if striving
by her tender care of her child and her grateful affection
for her parents to make the last days of her life on earth
a sweet memory. After a time, too, as she became
weaker, her heart moved her to talk of the past, and she
bit by bit told her mother the story of her flight and her
life in the great city. The sum of it all was misery, an
agony of soul unspeakable, from which she ultimately
found no escape save in drink. Her own motive in running
away after Adelaide Codling was not very clear even to
herself. Some vague idea of finding that other victim,
and of rescuing her from the doom that she herself was
stricken by, she had, but the governing motives were
shame and pride. Once in the gate of Hell, which
London is to tens of thousands every year, she tried to
get access to Captain Wiseman, and haunted the entrance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>
of his barracks for a week, but he came not. She did see
him at a distance two or three times afterwards, but
women such as she was now dared not approach so great
a person in the open streets by day. With more persistence
she sought for Adelaide Codling, but with no
better success. The only occasion when she got near
enough to speak to that poor girl was one day that they
met by a shop door in Regent Street. Adelaide came
forth gorgeously dressed, and carrying her head high just
as Sarah passed. They recognised each other, and
Sarah stopped to speak, but the other turned away her
head with a toss like her mother's, and hurried off.</p>

<p>Soon the peasant's daughter had to abandon all
thoughts of others, and face hunger for herself. Her
money and trinkets found her in food and lodgings but
for a few short days, and then she, having obtained no
situation, had to leave the servants' home where she had
at first found refuge, and&mdash;either starve or take to the
streets. Her sin had branded her; she had no "references,"
and no hope. Had courage only been given her she
would have died, but she dared not. It seemed easier to
go forth to the streets. The raging "social evil" that
mocks in every thoroughfare Christianity and the serene,
tithe-sustained worshipping machinery of the State,
offered her a refuge. There she could welter and rot if
she pleased, fulfilling the excellent economy of life
provided for us in these islands. The army composing
this evil only musters some 100,000 in London, and is
something altogether outside the pale of established and
other Christian institutions.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span></p>

<p>That summer and winter when the lost Sarah faded
away and died was a hard time for Thomas Wanless and
his wife. Work was precarious, and thus, added to the
pain of seeing their child fade away, was the bitter sense
of inability to do all that was possible to prolong her life.
Nearly all the labourer's savings had disappeared during
Thomas's long quest. But they struggled on, complaining
to none but God, nor did their trials break their trust in
His help. They felt that the kindness with which all
friends and neighbours treated them in their sorrow was
a proof that the Divine Father of all had not forgotten
them. And their daughter herself became a consolation
to their grief-worn spirits. A sweet resignation took
possession of her mind as she neared the end. The
passions of life died away, and the clouds that had hidden
her soul for the most part disappeared. Her parents
might dream for moments, when her cheeks looked
brighter than usual, that she would recover, but she herself
knew that death was near, and thanked God.</p>

<p>During this time the Vicar&mdash;poor old man&mdash;came
oftener than ever to the labourer's cottage. He could
not be said to assert himself against his wife in doing so,
for he came as if by a power stronger than his own
wrecked will. When he was seated by the labourer's
fireside, he seemed to be at peace. Often for an hour at
a time he hardly spoke, but just sat still and looked with
a sad kindliness, pathetic to behold, on the wasting form
before him, and either stroked her hand held in his own,
or gently patting the golden head of the little lass that
now began to toddle to his knee. And when the visit<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>
was over, the cloud settled down upon him again. He
went forth dejected, a hopeless-looking being, and crawled
helplessly back to the Vicarage. He called on the
morning of Sarah's death. She sank gently to rest on
a raw February morning nearly eight months after her
return, and within a week of her twenty-first birthday.
When Mr. Codling was told, he stood for a moment as if
dazed, and then asked to be led to Sarah's bedside.
There he stood, gazing long, with bent head, till the
tears rose and blinded him. With them the higher
emotions of his soul welled up within him, and he turned
and took the hand of Wanless, who stood by his side.</p>

<p>"Thomas, my friend," he said, "I envy your daughter
that rest. I, too, long to be as she is. Life has become
all a waste desert to me; oh, so dreary, dreary." Then,
after a pause, he went on&mdash;"And I envy you, Thomas,
for have you not cause to rejoice that Sarah has died in
her father's house forgiven? Had it been but so with my
Adelaide; oh, had it been but so, I think&mdash;I&mdash;hope
would not have been lost to me. But I wish I were
dead&mdash;yes, dead and forgotten," and, letting go the hand
he had held, he knelt down by the bedside, buried his
face, and wept as he had wept only by his daughter's
grave.</p>

<p>Unhappy old man. Who shall judge him; who say
that the All-pitying had not forgiven? Calming himself
presently, the aged Vicar rose to his feet, and looked
again on the dead face, so different in its white purity
and smile of peace from the one he had looked on in
London. He bent and kissed it, and then suffered the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span>
grief-worn but calm old labourer to lead him quietly
away. "God bless you and comfort you, sir, and give
you His peace," was all that Thomas trusted himself to
utter; but sorrow had made these men brothers indeed.</p>

<p>Although Thomas and his wife knew in their hearts
that Heaven had been merciful to their child and to
themselves in taking her away, their sorrow was nevertheless
keen. Nay, in some senses it was keener, because
the "might have been" rose before the mind. Here was
in truth a waif&mdash;a lost one&mdash;mercifully removed from
further sorrow, but had there been no wreck, how short
would her life have seemed, how sad its early close. In
Wanless's life, therefore, few days were darker than the
day on which he laid Sarah to rest beside the long-lost
little ones in the old churchyard. It was little consolation
to him that half the village gathered reverently to the
funeral, and yet as he thought of the other grave by which
he had stood not many months before, his spirit was
somehow soothed. The contrast must have struck the
Vicar likewise, but he made no sign. He insisted, however,
on reading the burial service himself, in spite of the
remonstrances of his young curate, who usually did this
work. Bareheaded and trembling, pale, and feeble looking,
with his white thin hair fluttering in the icy breeze, the
sight of their old pastor that day drew tears to many eyes.
His tremulous voice seemed more solemn to the listeners
that day than ever before, and they loved and pitied the
frail old man. More than one villager remarked to his
neighbour as they left the grave that he "did not think
Mr. Codling would be long in following Sally Wanless."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span></p>

<p>It was in truth to be so. The Vicar did not live long
after, but his was not the next burial. Before he went&mdash;months
before&mdash;old Squire Wiseman died and was buried
in the family vault, with the pomp and circumstance that
became his station. No one sorrowed at his death, but
the lack of grief was hidden by the abundance of display.
All the army of underlings were put in mourning at the
new squire's expense. Cecil was now lord of the Grange,
and one of his first steps was to make it too hot a place
for his mother, by filling it with debased men and women&mdash;titled
fledglings and their harpies, horsey men, and
sharpers. The wealthy marriage his mother had sought
for him never came off. An Irish peer, needy as Wiseman,
but with a more marketable commodity in the shape of
his title, had swooped down and carried off the prize.
The carpet or "turf" soldier consequently came to his
inheritance buried in debt, but that seemed to make him
only the more extravagant. His true place was the gutter,
but the land was entailed, tenants were squeezable, and
though hard up, the new squire floundered on, cursing and
a curse.</p>

<p>His debts should have ruined him, but they merely
ruined his tenants, impoverished the land, and made those
driven to depend on him as beggarly as their master. The
weight of this rottenness lay heaviest of all on the
labouring poor, who stood undermost in the social scale.
Poor farmers meant less labour, badly tilled soil, reduced
wages, and the hinds became a picture of misery. All
Ashbrook parish suffered for the sins of this sprig of the
aristocracy. What of that! Are the sacred, priest-sanctioned,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>
bishop-blessed rights of property to be
interfered with because the people want bread? That
would be contrary to all law and order, as established by
these delicate perverters of the Hebrew Scriptures.</p>

<p>No; better far let the people starve; let the mortgages
squeeze those who do not own; make the fair earth
bestowed on man&mdash;to be cultivated, tended, and rendered
fruitful&mdash;a waste howling desert, peopled by wild animals,
for whose shooting, wealthy pelf-rakers from the centres
of trade are ready to pay high rents. Next to our
heaven-bestowed Poor Law, the Law of Entail, which
binds the land to a name or a family, has been the greatest
factor for evil in the national life of England. It has
preserved our "institutions;" gives continuity to our
history, men assert. Perish the people then, but hold fast
to this sheet anchor. "It preserves scoundrels from
justice, and the fate they have earned," by reformers.
What of that? These men have the right to be
abominable&mdash;you and I, the workers and the sweaters,
the privilege only to bear their abominations.</p>

<p>It has always struck me, though, that the fetish
machinery of the English Establishment is imperfect in
one particular. While in actual fact all "lord" bishops,
and most preachers therein, determinedly oppose whatsoever
would emancipate the people from their bondage,
the best of them never daring to strike boldly at the root
of the evils that threaten England with extinction, that
fill the land with misery, that huddle the bulk of our
population into the fever dens of her cities&mdash;it has struck
me, I say, that their liturgy is incomplete, almost<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>
hypocritical. A prayer like this should be inserted among
the collects of the day, instead, say, of the collect for
peace, which comes so ill from the lips of men whose
ambition is usually to train some of their children as
licensed men-slayers. Let the lawn-sleeved "lord"
bishops look to it, then, and take this hint:&mdash;</p>

<p>"Sanctify might, O Lord, against right, and make it
stronger and stronger. Bless iniquities in high places,
and cause the hypocrisy of princes to be exalted in the
eyes of the people. Protect the nobility and gentry in
their harlotry, and let holiness be measured by the
fineness of the garments. Grind the poor in their poverty,
and cause them to pay that they owe not. And O Lord,
we beseech Thee, suffer not the oppressed to have justice,
lest they rise up against us and refuse to give us the tithes
we have filched from the indignant. These things do,
O Lord, and our lips shall praise Thee."</p>

<p>If you will honestly pray thus, serene "lord" bishops,
much-wrangling, gorgeously-embroidered deans, vicars,
and incumbents, you will earn the respect of honest men.
Whatever you do, I beseech you go not on as you do now,
lest the people should one day <i>act</i>. They think not a
little even now.</p>

<p>Fare ye well, then, Cecil Wiseman, sham soldier, horse
racer, blasphemer, drunkard, seducer, sot, farewell! The
upper world "society" protects you, the Church shields
you, nay, the priest must e'en bow when you abduct his
daughter, and the very Jews themselves, wholesome
scourge of your class though they be, cannot utterly ruin
you&mdash;here. Go your ways&mdash;I leave you to God. What<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>
witness, think you, will that diseased body, that bloated
face and hang-dog look of yours, bear against you in the
judgment? In that day your very victims may pity
you.</p>

<p>And has not the judgment already come on your
mother&mdash;cast out, despised, lonely, poor as she is?
Alone, she lives in her little jointure house at Kenilworth,
white-haired, feeble, full of bitterness of spirit. All the
glory of her life has gone. The meanest servant in
Warwickshire may look down on her with commiseration.
Your sins have torn what heart she had, and she begins
to awake to the fact that the law of compensation, the
dim foretaste of divine justice, can reach even such as she.
To her likewise let us bid adieu.</p>



<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span></p>
<h2>CHAPTER XXI.</h2>

<h3>BRINGS US ALL TO THE JOURNEY'S END.</h3>


<p>The closing years of Thomas Wanless's life were years
of peace. His strength never came back to him after his
daughter's death. Indeed, all the summer that followed
it he was beaten down by his old complaint rheumatism,
but there was no dread of the workhouse and the pauper's
grave upon him now. His boy, Thomas the younger,
was prospering in the New World, where landlordism
had not yet grown a curse, and insisted on sharing his
modest wealth with his parents. Had the old man been
well he would probably have sturdily refused this help,
but as things were he bowed his head and took what
God had given, thankful to his son, thankful to Heaven,
and rejoicing above all things that his boy&mdash;his three
children that remained&mdash;were delivered from the life that
he himself had led. But what would his end have been
save for this assistance? Assuredly a pauper's. Nothing
could have saved him from that fate. The doom of the
labourer is written. It is part of the recognised glory of
the English constitution that he shall die in misery as he
lives; that if he becomes disabled, his shall be the
pauper's dole.</p>

<p>The prosperity of young Thomas rendered Thomas<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span>
and his wife less reluctant to let their other children go
to Australia. They clung to them, of course, and would
have fain kept them, as it were, within sight.</p>

<p>Old Mrs. Wanless was heart-broken at the thought of
losing Jane, but she bore her sorrow and made no
complaint, when her husband, his own heart torn with
grief, said&mdash;"Let the lass go. There is hope for her and
her husband yonder. Here there is none." Jane therefore
married her young gardener in the autumn of the
year of Sarah's death, and went away to join young
Thomas in Victoria. And the soldier-boy, Jacob, went
with them. His time of soldiering was not ended, but his
brother Thomas bought him off, and assisted them all to go
to the new country. Jacob was the labourer's prodigal son,
and was loved accordingly. While he soldiered his
parents hardly ever saw him, but he spent a couple of
weeks at home before setting sail for Australia; and then
the strength of his nature, its likeness to that of his
father, and the trials he had endured, brought the old
man and him very near to each other. Thus the wrench
of parting was keenest for old Thomas in his case, because
the joy had been but a flash of light in a dark existence.</p>

<p>"I will never see your face again," the old man said to
his children the last Sunday evening they passed together.
"To your mother and me this parting will be bitterer than
death, because you will live, and we will never hear your
voices nor see you more in this world."</p>

<p>"Oh, father, do not say that," sobbed Jane; "you and
mother will come out to Australia to us, and we'll all live
together and be so happy."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span></p>

<p>"No, my dear, that will never be. Mother and me are
too old to move now. We will stay behind and pray for
you. The time will not be long, and we have hope. Be
brave, my children, and be God-fearing, and, I doubt not,
we shall meet in a better world than this."</p>

<p>In this spirit they parted, and henceforth old Thomas
Wanless and his wife were left alone with only the little
child that Sarah had bequeathed to them&mdash;alone, but not
miserable. As the keen edge of sorrow blunted, the old
people went about the daily avocations as before, serene
in appearance, if often sad in spirit. Thomas never
worked again as he had been doing before he went to
London, but he became strong enough to tend his garden
and his allotment carefully, and to do frequent light jobs
for the Scotch tenant of Whitbury farm, whose friend he
became. He was thus living almost up to the time when
I first made his acquaintance.</p>

<p>Then, as his strength of body failed, his mind, as it
seemed to me, grew keener, broader, and more penetrating.
He read much, and watched with close interest the ebb
and flow of home politics, looking ever for the dawn of a
better day for the tillers of the soil. When the Warwickshire
labourers broke out in assertion of their right to live,
he hailed the event as an omen of better times. Too
wise a man to be carried away by the notion that single-handed
the unlettered, miserable poor could turn the
world upside down, he nevertheless viewed these stirrings
among the dry bones as the beginning of great changes.
"I shall not live to see the land in the hands of those who
till it," he would say, "but I can die in hope now. England<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>
will after all be free, and the people will have their own
again. Thank God."</p>

<p>This belief cheered his last years, and added to the joy
of his death. He died in peace with all men, long indeed,
ere his hopes for his fellow-men had seen fruition, but to
the last he declared that it was coming, that blessed
revolution when State Churches should be no more, and
squires, and fox-hunters, and game preservers, and all the
social abominations that ground the poor to the dust
would be shaken off and left far behind in the progress of
the nation.</p>

<p>Three years have come and gone since I stood by the
side of Thomas Wanless's eldest son at his death-bed, and
by his grave. He almost died of the joy he felt at seeing
that son once more, when he had given him to God as
one gives the dead. A paralytic stroke seized him within
a few hours of young Thomas's arrival, and he never fully
recovered his faculties. Within a fortnight a second
stroke carried him off, and all the village mourned. His
son and I, surrounded by many mourners, laid him to
rest in the old churchyard beside his children, among his
forgotten forefathers. There now, to be equally forgotten,
lay squire, and parson, and parson's wife, all peacefully
sleeping, life's fever over, its jealousies and petty dignities
laid aside for evermore.</p>

<p>And Mrs. Wanless waits still, attended by her grandchild,
young Sarah, now a bright, intelligent, well-educated
young woman. When her grandmother joins Thomas in
the last rest of all, she will be taken across the ocean to
these warm-hearted friends far away, and then the old<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>
land will never more see aught of this sturdy peasant
stock. But our statesmen think it a blessing they
should go.</p>


<div class="center"><br /><br />THE END.<br /></div>

<hr style="width: 65%;" />

<div class="tnote">
<div class="center">Transcriber's Notes</div>

<p>Obvious punctuation errors repaired.</p>

<p>Hyphen added: "ditch[-]cutting" (p. 49), "broken[-]hearted" (p. 72), "well[-]nigh" (p. 171).</p>

<p>Hyphen removed: "house[-]wife" (p. 15),
"ear[-]shot" (p. 58), "dumb[-]founded" (p. 62), "common[-]place" (p. 120),
"now[-]a[-]days" (p. 194),
"man[-]kind" (p. 197), "dead[-]house" (p. 210),
"out[-]cast" (p. 219).</p>

<p>p. 2: "tatooed" changed to "tattooed" (our tattooed
ancestors)></p>

<p>p. 27: "enthusiam" changed to "enthusiasm" (the feverish enthusiasm of inexperience).</p>

<p>p. 27: "portentiously" changed to "portentously" (shook their heads portentously).</p>

<p>p. 34: "meeeting" changed to "meeting" (the meeting was to be held).</p>

<p>p. 35: "wizzened" changed to "wizened" (Grey
wizened faces).</p>

<p>p. 41: "diarymaid" changed to "dairymaid" (the dairymaid will marry).</p>

<p>p. 59: "famalies" changed to "families" (the pleasure their families would have).</p>

<p>p. 85: "of of" changed to "of" (sobriquet of Methody Tom).</p>

<p>p. 91: "upheavel" changed to "upheaval" (that curious
upheaval).</p>

<p>p. 96: "possibilites" changed to "possibilities" (did not consider
these possibilities).</p>

<p>p. 100: "Calvanistic" changed to "Calvinistic".</p>

<p>p. 136: "opportunites" changed to "opportunities" (contrived that his opportunities).</p>

<p>p. 139: "exited" changed to "excited" (her beauty excited envy).</p>

<p>p. 144: "Mrs. Wanlass" changed to "Mrs. Wanless".</p>

<p>p. 179: "thought" changed to "though" (weary though the
old woman was).</p>

<p>p. 181: "charing" changed to "charring" (to go out charring).</p>

<p>p. 188: "ricketty" changed to "rickety" (rickety, filthy, old tenement).</p>

<p>p. 193: "Dury Lane" changed to "Drury Lane".</p>

<p>p. 203: "Waterleo Bridge" changed to "Waterloo Bridge".</p>

<p>p. 203: "mein" changed to "mien" (his obvious
superiority of mien).</p>

<p>p. 220: "deil" changed to "devil" and
"screached" changed to "screeched" ("What the devil do you want here?" he screeched).</p>

<p>p. 224: "desparing" changed to "despairing" (her despairing looks).</p>

<p>p. 237: "Jone" changed to "Jane".</p>
</div>








<pre>





End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life of Thomas Wanless, Peasant, by 
Alexander Johnstone Wilson

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE OF THOMAS WANLESS ***

***** This file should be named 38136-h.htm or 38136-h.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
        http://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/1/3/38136/

Produced by Moti Ben-Ari and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was
produced from scanned images of public domain material
from the Google Print project.)


Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.



*** START: FULL LICENSE ***

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
http://gutenberg.org/license).


Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works

1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.  See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.

1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
States.

1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
1.E.9.

1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.

1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.

1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
that

- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."

- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
     License.  You must require such a user to return or
     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
     Project Gutenberg-tm works.

- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
     of receipt of the work.

- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.

1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
your equipment.

1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.


Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm

Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.


Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.

The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
page at http://pglaf.org

For additional contact information:
     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
     Chief Executive and Director
     gbnewby@pglaf.org


Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
particular state visit http://pglaf.org

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate


Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.

Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.


Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.


Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:

     http://www.gutenberg.org

This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.


</pre>

</body>
</html>
generated by cgit v1.2.3 (git 2.25.1) at 2026-02-26 21:37:11 +0000