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diff --git a/40881-0.txt b/40881-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cb6a267 --- /dev/null +++ b/40881-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3807 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40881 *** + +WORKHOUSE CHARACTERS + +[Illustration: Logo] + + + + +_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ + +IN THE WORKHOUSE + +A PLAY IN ONE ACT + +The International Suffrage Shop, John St., Strand, W.C.2 (6d.) + + +Press Notices + +"Dull talk none the less offensive because it may have been +life-like."--_Daily Mail._ + +"The piece though mere talk is strong talk."--_Morning Advertiser._ + +"The play is clean and cold and humorous. The main value of the piece is +that it is a superb genre picture. One or two of the flashes from this +strange, generally unknown world are positive sparks of +life."--_Sheffield Daily Telegraph._ + +"I found it interesting and convincing; but then I am prepared to +believe that our laws always will be rotten till lawyers are +disqualified from sitting in Parliament."--_Reynolds'._ + +"The masculine portion of the audience walked with heads abashed in the +_entr'acte_; such things had been said upon the stage that they were +suffused with blushes."--_Standard._ + +"Delicate matters were discussed with much knowledge and some +tact."--_Morning Post._ + +"'In the Workhouse' reminds us forcibly of certain works of M. Brieux, +which plead for reform by painting a terrible, and perhaps overcharged, +picture of things as they are.... The presence of the idiot girl helps +to point another moral in Mrs. Nevinson's arraignment, and is therefore +artistically justifiable; and the more terrible it appears the better +have the author and the actress done their work.... Such is the power of +the dramatic pamphlet, sincerely written and sincerely acted. There is +nothing to approach it in directness and force. It sweeps all mere +prettiness into oblivion."--_Pall Mall Gazette._ + +"It is one of the strongest indictments of our antiquated laws relating +to married women. A man seated behind the present writer called the play +immoral! and as Mrs. Nevinson says in her preface to the published +edition, the only apology she makes for its realism is that it is +true."--_Christian Commonwealth._ + +"The whole thing left an unpleasant taste."--_Academy._ + + +NOTE.--Two years after this piece was given by the _Pioneer Players_ the +law was altered. + + + + +WORKHOUSE CHARACTERS + +AND OTHER SKETCHES OF THE LIFE OF THE POOR + +BY + +MARGARET WYNNE NEVINSON + +L.L.A. + + + The depth and dream of my desire, + The bitter paths wherein I stray. + Thou knowest Who hast made the Fire, + Thou knowest Who hast made the Clay. + + One stone the more swings to her place + In that dread Temple of Thy Worth-- + It is enough that through Thy grace + I saw naught common on Thy earth. + + RUDYARD KIPLING. + + +LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD. RUSKIN HOUSE 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C.1 + + + Almost the whole of these sketches have appeared in the + _Westminster Gazette_; the last two were published in the _Daily + News_, and "Widows Indeed" and "The Runaway" in the _Herald_. It is + by the courtesy of the Editors of the above papers that they are + reproduced in book form. + + _First published in 1918_ + + _(All rights reserved.)_ + + +TO MY SON + +C. R. W. NEVINSON + + + + +PREFACE + + +These sketches have been published in various papers during the last +thirteen years. Many of the characters are life portraits, and the wit +and wisdom of the common people have been faithfully recorded in a true +Boswellian spirit; others are _Wahrheit und Dichtung_ (if one may still +quote Goethe), but all have been suggested by actual fact and +experience. + +During the last ten years great reforms have been taking place in the +country. In 1908 the Old Age Pensions Act came into force, and the +weekly miracle of 5s. a week (now 7s. 6d.) changed the world for the +aged, giving them the liberty and independence, which ought to be the +right of every decent citizen in the evening of life. + +The order by which a pauper husband had the right to detain his wife in +the workhouse by "his marital authority" is now repealed. A case some +years ago of this abominable breach of the law of Habeas Corpus startled +the country, especially the ratepayers, and even the House of Commons +were amazed at their own laws. The order was withdrawn in 1913 on the +precedent of the judgment given in the case of the Queen _v._ Jackson +(1891), when it was decided "that the husband has no right, where his +wife refuses to live with him, to take her person by force and restrain +her of her liberty" (60 L. J. Q. B. 346). + +Many humane reforms and regulations for the classification of inmates +were made in 1913, and the obnoxious words "pauper" and "workhouse" have +been abolished; but before the authorities rightly grasped the changes +the war was upon us, the workhouses were commandeered as military +hospitals, the inmates sent into other institutions, and all reforms +lapsed in overcrowded and understaffed buildings. + +Once again the Poor Law is in the melting-pot, and it seems as if now it +will pass into the limbo of the past with other old, unhappy far-off +things. + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE +EUNICE SMITH--DRUNK 13 + +DETAINED BY MARITAL AUTHORITY 21 + +A WELSH SAILOR 27 + +THE VOW 33 + +BLIND AND DEAF 39 + +"AND, BEHOLD, THE BABE WEPT" 47 + +"MARY, MARY, PITY WOMEN!" 53 + +THE SUICIDE 61 + +PUBLICANS AND HARLOTS 68 + +OLD INKY 75 + +A DAUGHTER OF THE STATE 80 + +IN THE PHTHISIS WARD 85 + +AN IRISH CATHOLIC 91 + +AN OBSCURE CONVERSATIONIST 97 + +MOTHERS 104 + +"YOUR SON'S YOUR SON" 110 + +"TOO OLD AT FORTY" 115 + +IN THE LUNATIC ASYLUM 118 + +THE SWEEP'S LEGACY 126 + +AN ALIEN 130 + +"WIDOWS INDEED!" 134 + +THE RUNAWAY 138 + +"A GIRL! GOD HELP HER!" 145 + +ON THE PERMANENT LIST 148 + +THE PAUPER AND THE OLD-AGE PENSION 153 + +THE EVACUATION OF THE WORKHOUSE 157 + + + + +WORKHOUSE CHARACTERS + + + + +EUNICE SMITH--DRUNK + + The Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes, + But Here and There as strikes the Player goes; + And He that toss'd you down into the Field, + _He_ knows about it all--He knows--_He_ knows. + + +"Eunice Smith, drunk, brought by the police." + +The quaint Scriptural name, not heard for years, woke me up from the +dull apathy to which even the most energetic Guardian is reduced at the +end of a long Board meeting, and I listened intently as the Master of +the workhouse went on to explain that the name Smith had been given by +the woman, but her clothes and a small book, which the doctor said was +Homer, in Greek, were marked Eunice Romaine. + +Eunice Romaine--the name took me back down long vistas of years to a +convent school at Oxford, to the clanging bells of Tom Tower, to the +vibrant note of boys' voices in college chapels, to the scent of flowers +and incense at early celebrations, to the high devotions and ideals of +youth, to its passionate griefs and joys. Eunice Romaine had been the +genius of our school--one of those gifted students in whom knowledge +seems innate; her name headed every examination list, and every prize in +the form fell to her; other poor plodders had no chance where she was. +From school she had gone with many a scholarship and exhibition to +Cambridge, where she had taken a high place in the Classical Tripos; +later I heard she had gone as Classical Mistress to one of the London +High Schools, then our paths had separated, and I heard no more. + +I went down to the Observation Ward after the meeting, where between a +maniacal case lying in a strait-waistcoat, alternately singing hymns and +blaspheming, and a tearful melancholic who begged me to dig up her +husband's body in the north-east corner of the garden, I saw my old +friend and classmate. + +She was lying very quiet with closed eyes; her hair had gone grey before +her time, and her face was pinched and scored with the deep +perpendicular lines of grief and disappointment; but I recognized the +school-girl Eunice by the broad, intellectual brow and by the delicate, +high-bred hands. + +"She is rather better," said the nurse in answer to my question, "but +she has had a very bad night, screaming the whole time at the rats and +mice she thought she saw, and the doctor fears collapse, as her heart is +weak; but if she can get some sleep she may recover." + +Sleep in the crowded Mental Ward, with maniacs shrieking and shouting +around! But exhausted Nature can do a great deal, and when I called some +days later I found my old friend discharged to the General Sick Ward, a +placard above her head setting forth her complaint as "chronic +alcoholism, cirrhosis of the liver, and cardiac disease." + +She recognized me at once, but with the apathy of weakness she expressed +neither surprise nor interest at our meeting, and only after some weeks +had passed I found her one evening brighter and better, and anxious to +go out. Over an impromptu banquet of grapes and cakes we fell into one +of those intimate conversations that come so spontaneously but are so +impossible to force, and I heard the short history of a soul's tragedy. + +"Just after I left Cambridge mother died. She told me on her death-bed +that I had the taint of drink in the blood, and urged me never to touch +alcohol. My father--a brilliant scholar and successful journalist--had +killed himself with drink whilst we were all quite young; mother had +kept us all away at school, so that we should not know, and had borne +her burden alone. I promised light-heartedly; I was young and strong, +and had not known temptation. After mother died I was very lonely: both +my brothers had gone to Canada. My father's classical and literary +abilities had come only to me: their talents were purely mechanical and +they had never been able to acquire book knowledge. I was not very happy +teaching. Classics had come to me so easily--hereditary question +again--that I never could understand the difficulties of the average +girl, and I had very little patience with dullness and stupidity. +However, very soon I became engaged to be married, and lived for some +time in a fool's paradise of love and joy. My _fiancé_ was a literary +man--I will not tell you his name, as he is one of those who have +arrived--but it is difficult to start, and we waited about two years +before he got an appointment sufficiently secure to make marriage +possible. I was very busy; we had taken a flat, and I was engaged in +choosing furniture and preparing my humble trousseau. I had given notice +at the school, and the wedding-day was within a fortnight, when one +morning I got a letter from my _fiancé_, couched in wild, allegorical +language, bemoaning his unworthiness, but asking me to release him from +his engagement, as he found his love for me had been a mirage now that +he had come across his twin-soul. I read the letter over and over again, +hardly grasping the meaning, when there fell from the envelope a little +newspaper cutting that I had overlooked--it was the announcement of his +marriage three days before to his twin-soul. + +"Still I was unable to realize what had happened. I kept saying over and +over to myself, 'Charlie is married,' but in my heart I did not believe +it. That afternoon the head-mistress came to see me; she was very kind, +and took me herself to a brain specialist, who said I had had a nervous +shock, that I ought to have a rest, and mountain air would be best for +me. The council of my school agreed to take me back again, and allow me +a term's holiday on full pay. One of my colleagues (it was holiday-time) +came with me to Switzerland, and there, amid the ice and snow of the +high latitudes, the full understanding of what had come to me dawned +upon my mind, and I realized the pangs of despised love, of jealousy, +and hate. A _Nachschein_ of Christianity suddenly made me rush back to +England in terror of what might happen; it is easy to commit suicide in +Switzerland, and a certain black precipice near the hotel drew me ever +towards it with baleful fascination. Some one dragged me again to Harley +Street, and this time the great specialist advised sea air and cheerful +society. The latter prescription is not available for lonely and jilted +high-school mistresses in London, but I tried sea air, and it did me +good. I don't think for a moment that the doctor realized that I was +practically off my head; the terribly obsession of love and jealousy had +me in its grip. It had taken me some time to fall in love, and I could +not fall out again to order, whilst the knowledge that the man who had +broken his promise to me now belonged to another woman was driving me to +madness. One day I went down to bathe, and suddenly determined to end my +woe. I swam out far to sea--so far that I judged it beyond my force ever +to get back; but though my will commanded my limbs to cease their work +they refused to obey. I was always a very strong swimmer, and I landed +again more humiliated than ever: I had not even the pluck to end my +sorrows. + +"After that I went back to work; mountains and sea had no message for +me. I was better sitting at my desk in the class-room, trying to drill +Latin and Greek into the unresponsive brains of girls. + +"I got through the days, but the nights were terrible; all the great +army of forsaken lovers know that the nights are the worst. I used to +lie awake hour after hour, sobbing and crying for mercy and strength to +endure, and I used to batter my head against the floor, not knowing any +one could hear. One night a fellow-lodger, who slept in the next room, +came in and begged me to be quiet; she had her work to do, and night +after night I kept her awake with my sobbing. 'I suppose it is all about +some wretched man,' she observed coolly; 'but, believe me, they are not +worth the love we give them. I left my husband some years ago, finding +that he had been carrying on with a woman who called herself my friend. +At first I cried and sobbed just as you do now; but I felt such a fool +making such a fuss about a man who had played it down so low, that I +made up my mind I would forget him; and in time you will get over this, +and give thanks that you have been delivered from a liar and a traitor.' + +"She gave me a glass of strong brandy and water; it was the first I had +ever tasted, and I remember how it ran warm through my veins, and how I +slept as I had not slept for months. + +"My fellow-lodger and I became great friends; she was quite an +uneducated woman, the matron of a laundry, but she braced me up like a +tonic with her keen humour and experience of life. + +"How strange it seems for a middle-aged drunkard in a pauper infirmary +to be telling this ancient love-tale, and posing as one of 'the +aristocracy of passionate souls,' But _tout passe tout casse_, and after +years of anguish and strife I woke up one bright spring morning and felt +that I was cured and for ever free of the wild passion of love. That day +always stands out as the happiest of my life. I shall never forget it. +It was Saturday, and a holiday; and I got on my bicycle and rode off for +miles far into the country singing the _Benedicite_ for pure joy. I +lunched at a little inn on the Thames, and ordered some champagne to +celebrate the recovery of my liberty. + +"But by strange irony of fate the very day I escaped from the toils of +love I fell under another tyranny--that of alcohol. Now, Peg"--I started +at the unfamiliar old nickname of my school days--"I believe you are +crying. Having shed more than my own share of tears, nothing irritates +me so much as to see other women cry, and if you don't stop I'll not say +another word." + +I drew my handkerchief across my eyes and admitted to a cold in the +head. + +"Shortly afterward I received notice to leave the High School. I did not +mind--I always hated teaching, and I found that I had the power of +writing; an article that I could flash off in a few hours would keep me +for a week, and I could create my own paradise for half a crown--now, +Peg, you are crying again. But of late life was not so bad. I enjoyed +writing, and shall always be thankful I can read Greek; besides, I was +not always drunk; the craving only takes me occasionally, and at its +worst alcohol is a kinder master than love. I shall be well enough to go +out in a few days; bring me some pens and paper, and my editor will +advance me some money. I am going to write an article on workhouse +infirmaries that will startle the public. What do you know of +workhouses? You are only a Guardian; 'tis we musicians (or rather +inmates) who know." + +The article never got written. The next day I found Eunice very ill; she +was unconscious and delirious till her death, reeling off sonorous +hexameters from Homer and Virgil and stately passages from the Greek +tragedians. + +We spared her a pauper funeral, and a few old school and college friends +gathered round the grave. A white-haired professor of world fame was +there also, and he shook hands with us as we parted at the cemetery +gates. "Poor Eunice!" he said, his aged face working painfully. "One of +the best Greek scholars of the day, and the daughter of my oldest +friend. Both of them geniuses, and both of them with the same taint in +the blood; but I feel I ought not to have let her come to this." + +I think we all felt the same as we walked sadly home. + + + + +DETAINED BY MARITAL AUTHORITY + + (By the law of England the mothers of illegitimate children are + often in a better position than their married sisters.) + + +An unusual sense of expectancy pervaded the young women's ward; Mrs. +Cleaver had gone down "to appear before the Committee," and though the +ways of committees are slow, and pauper-time worthless, it was felt that +her ordeal was being unduly protracted. + +"She's having a dose, she is," said a young woman walking up and down, +futilely patting the back of a shrieking infant. "I 'ate appearing afore +them committees; last time I was down I called the lady 'Sir' and the +gentleman 'Mum,' and my 'eart went pitter-patter in my breast so that +you might have knocked me down with a feather. 'Ere she is--well, my +dear, and you do look bad----" + +"Them committees allus turn me dead sick, and, being a stout woman, my +boots feel too tight for me, and I goes into a perspiration, and the +great drops go rolling off my forehead. Well, 'e's kept 'is word, and +got the law and right of England behind 'im." + +What reporters call a "sensation" made itself felt through the ward; the +inmates gathered closer round Mrs. Cleaver, and screaming infants were +rocked and patted and soothed with much vigour and little result. + +"Well," said Mrs. Cleaver, sinking on to the end of a bed, "I went afore +the Committee and I says, 'I want to take my discharge,' I says; I +applied last week to the Master, but mine got at 'im first, and Master +up and says-- + +"'No, Mrs. Cleaver, you can't go,' he says; 'your 'usband can't spare +you,' he says, 'wants you to keep 'im company in 'ere,' he says. + +"'Is that true, Master?' says the little man wot sits lost in the big +chair. + +"'That is so, sir,' says Master, and then 'e outs with a big book and +reads something very learned and brain-confusing that I did not rightly +understand, as to how a 'usband may detain his wife in the workhouse by +his marital authority. + +"'Good 'eavens!' says the little lady Guardian 'er wot's dressed so +shabby. 'Is that the law of England?' + +"Then they all began talking at once most excited, and the little man in +the big chair beat like a madman on the table with a 'ammer, and no one +took the slightest notice, but when some quiet was restored the little +man asked me to tell the Board the circumstances. So I says 'ow he lost +his work through being drunk on duty, which was the lying tongue of the +perlice, for 'is 'ed was clear, the drink allus taking him in the legs, +like most cabmen, and the old 'oss keeps sober. It was a thick fog, and +he'd just got off the box to lead the 'oss through the gates of the +mews, and the perliceman spotted 'is legs walking out in contrary +directions, though 'is 'ed was clear as daylight, and so the perlice ran +'im in and the beak took his licence from 'im, and 'ere we are. + +"Now I've got over my confinement, and the child safe in 'eaven, after +all the worrit and starvation, I thought I'd like to go out and earn my +own living--I'm a dressmaker by trade, and my sister will give me a +'ome; I 'ate being 'ere--living on the rates, and 'e not having done +better for us than this Bastille--though I allus says as it was the +lying tongue of a perliceman--it seems fair I should go free. The lady +wot comes round Sundays told me I ain't got no responsibility for my +children being a married lady with the lines. Then the little man flew +out most violent: 'Don't talk like that, my good woman; of course you +have responsibility to your children; you must not believe what ignorant +people tell you.' + +"Then I heard the tall, ginger-haired chap wot sits next to the little +man--'im as you unmarried girls go before to try and father your +children--I 'eard 'im say quite distinct: 'The woman is right, sir; +married women are not responsible for their children, but I believe the +husband is within his rights in refusing to allow her to leave the +workhouse without him.' + +"Then they asked me to retire, and the Master told me to come back +'ere, and I should know the result later. Oh, Lord! I'm that 'ot and +upset with the worry of it all, I feel I'll never cool again," and Mrs. +Cleaver wiped her brow and fanned herself with her apron. + +"Single life has its advantages," said a tall, handsome woman, who was +nursing a baby by the window. "You with the lines ain't been as perlite +as might be to us who ain't got 'em, but we 'as the laugh over you +really. I'm taking my discharge to-morrow morning, and not one of 'em +dare say me nay; I needn't appear afore Boards and be worried and upset +with 'usbands and Guardians and things afore I can take myself off the +parish and eat my bread independent." + +"But why weren't you married, Pennyloaf? Not for want of asking, I'll be +bound." + +"No, it warn't for want of asking; fact is, I was put off marriage at a +very early age. I 'ad a drunken beast of a father as spent his time +a-drinking by day and a-beating mother by night--one night he overdid it +and killed 'er; he got imprisonment for life, and we was put away in the +workhouse schools; it would have been kinder of the parish to put us in +the lethal chamber, as they do to cats and dogs as ain't wanted. But we +grew up somehow, knowing as we weren't wanted, and then the parish found +me a situation, under-housemaid in a big house; and then I found as the +young master wanted me, the first time as any human soul had taken any +interest in me, and, oh, Lord! I laughs now when I think what a 'appy +time it was. Since then I've had four children, and I have twenty-five +shillings a week coming in regular besides what I can make at the +cooking. I lives clean and respectable--no drinking, no bad language; my +children never see nor hear what I saw and heard, and they are +mine--mine--mine. I always comes into the House for confinement, liking +quiet and skilled medical attendance. I never gets refused--the law +daren't refuse such as me. I always leaves the coming in till the last +moment; then there are no awkward questions, and when they begin to +inquire as to settlement, I'm off. All the women in our street are +expecting next week, their husbands all out of work, and not a pair of +sheets or the price of a pint of milk between them, all lying in one +room, too, with children and husbands about, as I don't consider decent, +but having the lines, it's precious hard for them to get in here, and +half of them daren't come for fear he and some one else will sell up the +'ome whilst they're away. You remember Mrs. Hall, who died here last +week? Well, she told me that her husband swore at her so fearful for +having twins that the doctor sent her in here out of his way, and what +with all the upset and the starvation whilst she was carrying the +children, she took fever and snuffed out like a candle. No, the +neighbours don't know as I'm a bad woman; I generally moves before a +confinement, and I 'as a 'usband on the 'igh seas. + +"Well, I'm going back to-morrow to my neat little home, that my +lady-help has been minding for me, to my dear children and to my regular +income, and I don't say as I envies you married ladies your rings or +your slavery." + + + + +A WELSH SAILOR + + I will go back to the great sweet mother, + Mother and lover of men, the sea. + + +The Master of the Casual Ward rattled his keys pompously in the lock of +the high workhouse gates, and the shivering tramps entered the yard, a +battered and footsore procession of this world's failures, the outcast +and down-trodden in the fierce struggle for existence. Some of them were +young and strong, some old and feeble, all wan and white with hunger and +the chill of the November fog which wrapped like a wet blanket round +their ill-clothed bodies. Amongst them was an old man with ear-rings, +and thick, curly white hair, with broad shoulders and rolling gait, and +as he passed I seemed to feel the salt wind of the sea blowing in my +face, and the plunge of the good ship in the billows of the bay. One by +one the master shut them up in the dreary little cell where each man is +locked for thirty-six hours on a dietary of porridge, cheese, and bread, +and ten hours' work a day at stone-breaking or fibre-picking. And yet +the men walk in with something approaching relief on their weary faces; +the hot bath will restore circulation; and really to appreciate a bed +one should wander the streets through a winter's night, or "lodge with +Miss Green" as they term sleeping on the heath. + +Half an hour later, as I sat in one of the sick-wards, I felt once again +the salt freshness of the air above the iodoform and carbolic, and lying +on the ambulance I saw the curly white head of the old sailor, his face +blanched under its tan. + +"Fainted in the bath, no food for three days; we get them in sometimes +like that from the Casual Ward. Wait a moment till I put the pillow +straight," said the nurse, as quickly and deftly she raised the hoary +head, which has been called a crown of glory. + +A few weeks later I passed through the ward, and saw the old man still +lying in bed; his sleeves were rolled up, and his nightshirt loose at +the throat, and I saw his arms and chest tattooed gorgeously with ships +and anchors and flags, with hearts and hands and the red dragon of +Wales. + +"He's been very bad," said the nurse; "bronchitis and great +weakness--been starving for weeks, the doctor thinks. Talks English all +right when his temperature is down, but raves to himself in a sort of +double-Dutch no one can understand, though we have French and Germans +and Russians in the ward." + +"Fy Nuw, fy Nuw, paham y'm gadewaist?" cried the old man, and I +recognized the cry from the Cross, "My God, My God, why hast Thou +forsaken Me?" + +"Oh! lady," he exclaimed as I sat down beside him--"oh! lady, get me +out of this. My mates tell me as I'm in the workhouse, and if my old +mother knew it would kill her--it would, indeed. Yes, lady, I follow the +sea--went off with my old dad when I was eight year old; we sailed our +old ship _Pollybach_ for wellnigh forty years; and then she foundered +off Bushy Island Reef, Torres Straits, and we lost nearly all we had. +After that I've sailed with Captain Jones, of the _Highflyer_, as first +mate; but now he's dead I can't get a job nohow. I'm too old, and I've +lost my left hand; some tackle got loose in a storm and fell upon it, +and though the hook is wonderful handy, they won't enter me any more as +an A.B. + +"I'm a skipper of the ancient time--a Chantey-man and a fiddler. I can +navigate, checking the chronometer by lunar observation. I can rig a +ship from rail to truck; I can reef, hand-steer, and set and take in a +top-mast studding sail; and I can show the young fools how to use a +marlin-spike. Yes, indeed! But all this is no good now. + +"I came up to London to find an old shipmate--Hugh Pugh. We sailed +together fifty years ago, but he left the sea when he got married and +started in the milk business in London. We was always good mates, and he +said to me not long ago, down in Wales, that the Lord had prospered him, +and that I was to turn to him in any trouble. So when my skipper died I +remembered me of Hugh Pugh, and slung my bundle to come and find him. +Folks was wonderful kind to me along the road, and I sailed along in +fair weather till I got to London; and then I was fair frightened; +navigation is very difficult along the streets--the craft's too +crowded--and folks were shocking hard and unkind. I cruised about for a +long time, but London's a bigger place than I thought, knowing only the +docks; and David Evans doesn't seem to have got the address quite +ship-shape, and I just drifted and lost faith. Somehow it's harder to +trust the Lord in London than on the high seas. Then the mates tell me I +fainted and was brought into the ship's hospital; and here I've lain, +a-coughing, and a-burning, and a-shivering, with queer tunes a-playing +in my head; couldn't remember the English, they say, and talked only +Welsh; and they thought I was a Dutchman. This morning I felt a sight +better, and though the nurse told me not to get up, I just tried to put +on my clothes and go; but blowed if my legs didn't behave +shocking--rolled to larboard, rolled to starboard, and then pitched me +headlong, so that I thought I'd shivered all my timbers. So I suppose I +must lie at anchor a bit longer; my legs will never stand the homeward +voyage, they're that rotten and barnacled; but I'll never get better +here; what I'm sickening for is the sea--the sight of her, and the smell +of her, and the noise of the waves round the helm; she and me's never +been parted before for more than two days, and I'm as sick for her as a +man for his lass. Oh, dear! oh, dear! If I could only find Hugh +Pugh----" + +I suggested that there was a penny post. "Yes, lady; but, to tell the +truth, I haven't got a stamp, nor yet a penny; and David Evans hasn't +got the address ship-shape. The policeman laughed in my face when I +asked him where Hugh Pugh lived, and said I must get it writ down better +than that for London." Out of his locker he drew a Welsh Testament +containing a piece of tobacco-stained paper, on which was written-- + + + HUGH PUGH, Master Mariner, now Dairyman; + In a big house in a South-Eastern Road, + Off the North-road, out of London, Nor-East by Nor. + + +Fortunately, Hugh Pugh is not a common name--a visit to the library, a +search in the trade directory, and a telephonic communication saved all +further cruising. + +A couple of days later I got a letter from Hugh Pugh-- + + +DEAR MADAM, + +I thank you for your communication with regard to my old friend and +shipmate, Joshua Howell, of whom I had lost sight. I am glad to say I am +in a position to find him some work at once, having given up my London +business to my sons, and taken a house down by the sea. I am in want of +a good waterman to manage a ferryboat over the river and to take charge +of a small yacht, and I know that I can trust old Joshua with one hand +better than most men with two. There is a cottage on the shore where he +can live with his mother; and tell him we shall all be delighted to +welcome an old friend and shipmate. My daughter is coming down here +shortly with her children, and will be very glad for Joshua to travel +with her; she will call and make arrangements for him to go to her house +as soon as he is well enough to be moved. I enclose £5 for clothes or +any immediate expenses, and am sorry that my old friend has been through +such privations. As to any expenses for his keep at the infirmary, I +will hold myself responsible. + +Yours faithfully, + +HUGH PUGH. + +LLANRHYWMAWR, _December 6._ + + +A Welsh letter was enclosed for the old sailor, over which he pored with +tears of joy running down his cheeks. + +A few days later Hugh Pugh's daughter's motor throbbed at the door of +the workhouse, and the old tar rolled round shaking hands vigorously +with the mates: "Good-bye; good-bye, maties; the Lord has brought me out +of the stormy waters, and it's smooth sailing now. He'll do the same for +you, mates, if you trust Him." + +Then the door closed, and the fresh breeze dropped, and it seemed as if +the ward grew dark and grey. + + + + +THE VOW + + Better thou shouldest not vow than thou shouldest vow and not pay. + + +The heavy machines in the steam-laundry clanked and groaned, and the +smell of soap and soda, cleansing the unspeakable foulness of the +infirmary linen, rose up strong and pungent, as the women carried out +the purified heaps to blow dry in the wind and sunshine. + +The inmates worked hard and steadily under the keen eye of the matron; +many of them knew by bitter experience that inattention or gossip might +cost them the loss of fingers at the calenders and wringing machines. +Most of the women were strong and able-bodied, and yet the briefest +inquiry would reveal some moral flaw rendering them incapable of +competing in the labour market--drink, dishonesty, immorality, +feeble-mindedness. Amongst the heavy, uncomely figures I noticed a young +woman, tall and well-grown, with a face modest and refined, framed in +masses of dark hair under the pauper cap. She was folding sheets and +table-cloths, working languidly as if in pain, and I drew the matron's +attention to the fact. + +"Yes, I don't think she'll finish the day's work. I told her to go over +to the infirmary if she liked, but she said she would rather stay here +as long as she could. Yes, usual thing, but she is a better class than +we get here as a rule." + +A few days later I saw her again in the lying-in ward, a black-haired +babe in the cradle beside her, and her hair in two rope-like plaits +hanging over the pillow nearly to the ground. + +She looked so healthy, handsome, and honest amongst the disease and +ugliness and vice around that one wondered how she came to the +workhouse. "Yes," said the nurse, in answer to my thoughts, "she is not +the sort we have here generally. No, I don't know anything about her; +she is very silent, and they say she refused to answer the relieving +officer." I sat down beside her and tried to talk about her future, but +the girl answered in monosyllables, with tightly shut lips, as if she +were afraid to speak. + +"Won't the father of your child do anything for you?" + +"I do not wish him to." + +I had been a Guardian long enough to respect reticence, and I rose to +go. The darkness of the December afternoon had fallen in the long, +half-empty ward, the sufferers dozed, the wailing of babes was hushed, +all was strangely quiet, and as I reached the door I heard a voice, +"Please come back, ma'am; I should like to ask you something." Then, as +I turned to her bedside again, "I have not told any one my story here; +I don't think they would believe me; but it is true all the same. But +please tell me first, do you hold with keeping a vow?" + +"Yes, certainly I do." + +"That is why I am here. I swore an oath to my dying mother, and I have +kept it. I did not know how hard it would be to keep, but because I +would not break it I have come to disgrace. When we were children we had +a cruel, drunken father, and I seem to remember mother always crying, +and at night we would be wakened with screams, and we used to rush in +and try and stop father beating her to death, and the cruel blows used +to half shatter our poor little bodies. One night we were too late, and +we saw mother wrapped in a sheet of flame--and her shrieks! It is +fifteen years ago now, but they still ring in my ears. The neighbours +came and the police, and they put out the fire, and took mother to the +hospital and father to the lock-up. Mother did not live long and she +suffered cruel. The next day they took us children to see her. We hardly +knew it was mother; she was bandaged up with white like a mummy, and +only one black eye blazing like a live coal out of the rags--she had +beautiful eyes--made us know her. The little boys cried, so that nurse +took them out again, but they let me stay with her all night, holding a +bit of rag where her hand had once been. Just as the grey dawn came in +at the windows mother spoke, very low so that I had to stoop down to +hear: 'Hester, my child, swear to me you will never marry, and I will +die happy. The boys can look after themselves, but I cannot bear to +think of you suffering as I have suffered.' + +"'Yes, mother, I'll swear.' No girl of thirteen is keen on marriage, +particularly with a father like ours, and I took up the book +light-heartedly and swore 'So help me, God.' + +"'Thank Heaven, my dear! Now kiss me.' + +"I kissed a bit of rag where her mouth had been, and I saw that the +black eye was dim and glazed, and the eyelid fell down as if she were +sleeping. I sat on till the nurses changed watch, and then they told me +she was dead. + +"Father got a life sentence, the boys were sent to workhouse schools, +and some ladies found me a situation in the country near Oxford. When I +was about seventeen the under-gardener came courting me. He was a +straight, well-set-up young chap, and I fell in love with him at once, +but when he talked about marriage--having good wages--I remembered my +oath. Jem said an oath like that wasn't binding; and when I said I'd +live with him if he liked, he was very shocked, having honourable +intentions, and he went and fetched the vicar to talk to me. He was a +very holy man, with the peace of God shining through his eyes, and he +talked so kind and clever, telling me that mother was dying and half-mad +with pain and weakness, and that she would be the first to absolve me +from such a vow. I couldn't argue with him, and so I forgot my manners, +and ran out of the room for fear he'd master me. When Jem saw nothing +would move me he went off one morning to America, leaving a letter to +say as he had gone away for fear he should take me at my word and be my +ruin. + +"Things were very black after that; I had not known what he was to me +till the sea was between us, and, worse than the sea, my oath to the +dying. I left my good situation because I could not bear it any longer +without him, and I came up to London and got into bad places and saw +much wickedness, and got very lonely and very miserable, and learnt what +temptation is to girls left alone. I used to go into the big Catholic +cathedral by Victoria Station and kneel down by the image of the Virgin +and just say, 'Please help me to keep my oath.' + +"Then one day in spring, when all the flowers were out in the park, and +all the lovers whispering under the trees, I remembered I was +twenty-seven, and though I could never have a husband at least I might +have a child. A great wave of longing came over me that I could not +resist, and so I fell. And then later, when I knew what was coming to +me, I was filled with terrible remorse--leastways one day I was full of +joy because of my baby, and the next day I was fit to drown myself in +shame. Then the Sunday before I was brought in here I went to service in +St. Paul's. I had felt sick and queer all day, and I just sat down on +one of the seats at the back and listened to the singing high and sweet +above my head, like the chanting of the heavenly host. I was always fond +of going to St. Paul's, and once on my Sunday out I even went to the +Sacrament, and I says, 'O God, I've lost my character, but I've kept my +oath. You made me so fond of children; please don't let me eat and drink +my own damnation.' + +"I sat and thought of this, puzzling and puzzling, and the hot air out +of the gratings made me drowsy, and I fell asleep and dreamt it was the +Judgment Day, and I stood with my baby before the Throne, and a great +white light shone on me, bleak and terrible, so that I felt scorched +with blinding cold. And the angel from his book read out: 'Hester French +and her bastard child.' + +"Then there came a little kind voice: 'She kept her oath to her dying +mother, and remember, she was a woman and all alone'; and I knew it was +the Virgin Mary pleading for me. And then a voice like thunder sounded: +'Blot out her sin!' and all the choirs of heaven sang together; and I +awoke, but it was only the organ crashing out very loud, and the verger +shaking me because he wanted to lock up. Oh, ma'am, do you think as my +sin will be forgiven? At least I kept my vow." + + + + +BLIND AND DEAF + + Oh, human soul! as long as thou canst so + Set up a mark of everlasting light, + Above the howling senses' ebb and flow, + To cheer thee and to right thee if thou roam-- + Not with lost toil thou labourest through the night! + Thou mak'st the heaven thou hop'st indeed thy home. + + +Mary Grant, pauper, of Sick Ward 42, had been making charges of +unkindness against Nurse Smith, and I had been appointed by the House +Committee to inquire into the matter. I found a somewhat +harassed-looking nurse filling up temperature-charts in a corner of the +ward, and she began volubly to deny the charges. + +"The woman's deaf, so it is no good shouting at her, and I believe she +is angry because I can't talk on my fingers; but what with looking after +both wards and washing and bathing them all, and taking their +temperatures and feeding them, and giving them their medicine, I have +not time to attend to the fads and fancies of each one. Granny Hunt, +too, takes half my time seeing that she does not break her neck with her +antics; and as to scraping the butter off Grant's bread I hope as the +Committee did not attend to such a tale." + +The last accusation, I assured her, had not even been brought before +us, and I passed down the long clean ward where lay sufferers of all +ages and conditions--the mighty head of the hydrocephalus child side by +side with the few shrivelled bones of an aged paralytic. I passed the +famous Mrs. Hunt--a "granny" of ninety-six, who "kept all her limbs very +supple" and herself in excellent condition by a system of mattress +gymnastics which she had evolved for herself. Two comparatively young +people of seventy and eighty, who were unfortunate enough to lie next +her, complained bitterly of Granny's restlessness; but the old lady was +past discipline and "restraining influences," and, beyond putting a +screen round her to check vanity and ensure decency, the authorities +left her to her gymnastic displays. On the whole, though, the ward was +very proud of Granny; she was the oldest inhabitant, not only in the +House but also in the parish, and even female sick-wards take a certain +pride in holding a record. The old lady cocked a bright eye, like a +bird, upon me as I passed her bed, and, cheerfully murmuring "Oh, the +agony!" executed a species of senile somersault with much agility. + +Round the blazing fire at the end of the ward (for excellent fires +commend me to those rate-supported) sat a group of "chronics" and +convalescents--a poor girl, twisted and racked with St. Vitus's dance, +white-haired "grannies" in every stage of rheumatic or senile decay, and +a silent figure with bowed head, still in early middle life, who, they +told me, was Mary Grant. + +I shouted my inquiries down her ear _crescendo fortissimo_, without the +smallest response--not even the flicker of an eyelid--whilst the +grannies listened with apathetic indifference. + +"Not a bit of good, ma'am," they said presently, when I paused, +exhausted; "she's stone deaf." + +Then I drew a piece of paper from my pocket and wrote my questions, big +and clear. + +"Not a bit of good, ma'am," shouted the grannies again; "she's stone +blind." + +I gazed helplessly at the silent figure, with the blood still flowing in +her veins, and yet living, as it were, in the darkness and loneliness of +the tomb. + +"If she is blind and deaf and dumb, how does she manage to complain?" + +"Oh! she manages that all right, ma'am," said a granny whose one eye +twinkled humorously in its socket; "she's not dumb--not 'alf. The nuss +that's left and Mrs. Green, the other blind lidy, talk on her fingers to +her, and she grumbles away, when the fit takes 'er, a treat to 'ear; not +as I blimes her, poor sowl; most of us who comes 'ere 'ave something to +put up with; but she 'as more than 'er share of trouble. No, none of us +know 'ow to do it--we aren't scholards; but you catches 'old on 'er +'and, and mauls it about in what they call the deaf-and-dumb halphabet, +and she spells out loud like the children." + +I remembered with joy that I also was "a scholard," for one of the few +things we all learned properly at school was the art of talking to each +other on our fingers under the desks during class. A good deal of water +had flowed under London Bridge since then, but for once I felt the +advantage of what educationists call "a thorough grounding." + +"How are you?" spelt out a feeble, harsh voice as I made the signs--I +had forgotten the "w" and was not sure of the "r," but she guessed them +with ready wit--then in weird rasping tones, piping and whistling into +shrill falsetto like the "cracking" voice of a youth, she burst into +talk: "Oh! I am so thankful--so thankful. It seems years since any one +came to talk to me--the dear nurse has left, and the other blind lady's +gone to have her inside taken out, and the blind gentleman is taking a +holiday, and I have been that low I have not known how to live. '_Thou +hast laid me in the lowest pit; in a place of darkness and in the deep. +Thine indignation lieth hard upon me; and Thou hast vexed me with all +Thy storms._' David knew how I feel just exactly--might have been a deaf +and blind woman himself, shut up in a work'us. I have been here nigh on +two year now; I used to do fine sewing and lace-mending for the shops, +and earned a tidy bit, being always very handy with my needle; then one +day, as I was stitching by the window--finishing a job as had to go home +that night--a flash of lightning seemed to come and hit me in the eye +somehow--I remember how the fire shone bright zig-zag across the black +sky, and then there was a crash, and nothing more. + +"No, it was not a very nice thing to happen to anybody; two year ago +now, and there has been nothing but fierce, aching blackness round me +ever since, and great silence except for the rumblings in my ears like +trains in a tunnel; but I hear nothing, not even the thunder. At first I +fretted awful; I felt as if I must have done something very wicked for +God to rain down fire from heaven on me as if I had been Sodom and +Gomorrah; but I'd not done half so bad as many; I'd always kept myself +respectable, and done the lace-mending, and earned enough for mother, +too--fortunately, she died afore the thunder came and hit me, or she'd +have broken her heart for me. It was very strange. Mother was such a one +to be frightened at thunder, and when we lived in the country before +father died she always took a candle and the Book and went down to the +cellar out of the way of the lightning--seemed as if she knew what a +nasty trick the thunder was going to play me--she was always a very +understanding woman, was mother--she came from Wales, and had what she +called 'the sight.' + +"Yes; I went on fretting fearful about my sins until the blind gentleman +found me out--him as comes oh Saturdays and teaches us blind ladies to +read. Oh, he was a comfort! He learned me the deaf alphabet, and how to +read in the Braille book, and it's not so bad now. He knows all about +the heavenly Jerusalem, and the beautiful music and the flowers +blossoming round the Throne of God. I think he's what they calls a +Methody, and mother and I were Church. I used to go to the Sunday +School, and learnt the Catechism, and 'thus to think of the Trinity.' +However, he's a very good man all the same, and a great comfort--and he +found me a special text from God: 'Then the eyes of the blind shall be +opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.' That is the +promise to me and to him; being blind, he understands a bit himself, +though what the hullaballoo in my ears is no tongue can tell. + +"Mrs. Green, the other blind lady, is such a one to be talking about the +diamonds and pearls in the crowns of glory; but I don't understand +nothing about no jewels. What I seem to want to see again is the row of +scarlet geraniums that used to stand on our window-sill; the sun always +shone in on them about tea-time, and mother and I thought a world of the +light shining on them red Jacobys. But the blind gentleman says as I +shall see them again round the Throne." + +"She wanders a bit," said the one-eyed granny, touching her forehead +significantly; "she's such a one for this Methody talk." + +I have noticed that the tone of the workhouse, though perfectly tolerant +and liberal, is inclined to scepticism, in spite of the vast +preponderance of the Church of England (C. of E.) in the "Creed Book." + +"Let her wander, then," retorted another orthodox member; "she ain't +got much to comfort her 'ere below--the work'us ain't exactly a +paradise. For Gawd's sake leave 'er 'er 'eaven and 'er scarlet +geraniums." + +"One thing, ma'am, as pleased her was some dirty old lace one of the +lidies brought for her one afternoon. She was just as 'appy as most +females are with a babby, a-fingering of it and calling it all manner of +queer names. There isn't a sight of old lace knocking about 'ere," and +her one eye twinkled merrily; "I guess we lidies willed it all away to +our h'ancestry afore seeking retirement. Our gowns aren't hexactly +trimmed with priceless guipure, though there's some fine 'and embroidery +on my h'apern," and she thrust the coarsely darned linen between the +delicate fingers. + +"Garn!--they're always a-kiddin' of me. Yes, ma'am, I love to feel real +lace; I can still tell them all by the touch--Brussels and Chantilly and +Honiton and rose-point; it reminds me of the lovely things I used to +mend up for the ladies to go to see the Queen in." + +They showed me her needlework--handkerchiefs and dusters hemmed with +much accuracy, and knitting more even than that of many of us who can +see. + +As I rose to go she took my finger and laid it upon the cabalistic signs +of the "Book." + +"Don't you understand it? That's my own text, as I reads when things are +worse than general: 'Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, +worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.' Yes, +there'll be glory for me--glory for me--glory for me." + +I heard the shrill, hoarse voice piping out the old revival hymn, very +much out of tune, as I passed down the ward. + +I had a nasty lump in my throat when I got back to the Board Room, and I +can't exactly remember what I said to the Committee. I think I cleared +Nurse Smith from any definite charge of cruelty, something after the +fashion of the Irish jurymen: "Not guilty, but don't do it again," +adding the rider that Mary Grant was blind and deaf, and if she grumbled +it was not surprising. + +It is possible my report was incoherent and subversive of discipline, +and my feelings were not hurt because it was neither "received," nor +"adopted," nor "embodied," nor "filed for future reference," but, +metaphorically speaking, "lay on the table" to all eternity. + + + + +"AND, BEHOLD, THE BABE WEPT" + + And, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion upon him. + + +The night-porter sat in his lodge at 1 a.m., trying hard to keep off the +sleep that weighed his eyelids down--that heavy sleep that all +night-watchers know when nothing in the world seems worth a longer +vigil. + +But the man before him had been dismissed for sleeping on duty, and our +night-porter had had six months out of work, so, with resolute +determination, he dragged up his leaden limbs and began to pace the +corridors towards the Mental Ward, where he knew the screams of the +insane were generally to be relied upon to keep sleep away from any one +in the neighbourhood. To-night all was quiet, and it was with a brief +prayer of thanksgiving that he heard the insistent note of the electric +bell, and rushed to answer it, the lethargy leaving him under the +necessity of action. + +A policeman entered in a blast of wind and rain, drops off his cape, +making black runlets on the white stone floor. From under his arm he +drew a red bundle and laid it carefully down on a mat in front of the +fire. "Evening, porter, I've brought you a present from the cabbage-bed. +What do you think of that for a saucy girl? Hush, my dear! don't cry," +as the babe, unsettled from his warm arms, gave forth a shrill cry of +displeasure. "Pretty little thing, ain't she? and left out under a +laurel-bush this bitter night. Some women are worse than brutes." + +The porter, who was himself a married man, picked up the babe and +soothed it in practised arms. "And 'ow about the father? Something as +calls itself a man 'as 'ad an 'and in this business, and druv the gal to +it, may be. My old dad allus says, 'God cuss the scoundrel who leaves a +poor lass to bear her trouble alone!'" + +"And now," said the policeman, when the nurse, summoned by telephone, +had borne off the indignant babe to the Children's Ward, "I suppose you +must enter the case. I found the kid under a laurel-bush at 7, Daventry +Terrace. A lady blew a whistle out of the window and said she could not +sleep for a whining outside. I tried to put her off as it was cats, but +she stuck to it; so, just to quiet her, I cast round with my lantern, +and, sure enough, she was right. Mighty upset about it, poor woman, she +was, being a single lady. However, as I told her, such things may happen +in any garden, married or single." + +A name was chosen for her by an imaginative member of the House +Committee, remembering his classical education--Daphne Daventry--the +Christian name as an everlasting reminder of her foster parent the +laurel-bush. + +In due season the familiar notices were posted at the police-stations +offering "a reward for the discovery of person or persons unknown who +had abandoned a female infant in the garden of 7, Daventry Terrace, +whereby the aforesaid female infant had become chargeable to the +parish"; and, the Press giving publicity to the affair, offers of +adoption poured in to the Guardians--pathetic letters from young mothers +whose children had died, and business-like communications from +middle-aged couples, who had "weighed the matter" and were "prepared to +adopt the foundling." + +The Board discussed the question at their next meeting, and the Clerk +was directed to inquire into the character and circumstances of the most +likely applicants. + +"One thing to which I should like to draw the attention of the Board," +said a conscientious Guardian, "is the importance of bringing up a child +in the religion of its parents." + +"Seems to me, in this case," retorted a working-man member, who was also +a humorist, "that it might be a good thing to try a change." + +And then the Clerk, in his clear legal way, pointed out that the +religious question had better not be pressed, as there was small +evidence before him as to the theological tenets of the person or +persons unknown who had exposed the female infant. + +Meantime, the latest workhouse character slumbered in the nursery in +passive enjoyment of the excellent rate-supported fires, and was fed +with a scientific fluid, so Pasteurized and sterilized and generally +Bowdlerized that it seemed quite vulgar to call it milk. The nurses +adorned the cot with all the finery they could collect, and all the +women in the place managed to evade the rules of classification, and got +into the nursery, where they dandled the infant and said it was "a +shame." + +One of the most devoted worshippers at the shrine of Daphne Daventry was +a lady Guardian, a frail and tiny little woman, with a pair of wide-open +eyes, from which a look of horror was never wholly absent. She was +always very shabbily dressed--so shabbily, indeed, that a new official +had once taken her for a "case" and conducted her to the waiting-room of +applicants for relief. After such an object-lesson, any other woman +would have gone to do some shopping; but not so the little lady +Guardian--she did not even brighten her dowdiness with a new pair of +bonnet-strings. Though she wrote herself down in the nomination-papers +as a "married woman," no one had ever seen or heard of her husband, and +report said that he was either a lunatic or a convict. + +This mystery of her married life, combined with her "dreadful +appearance" and a certain reckless generosity towards the poor, made her +many enemies amongst scientific philanthropists. Her large-hearted +charity had been given to the just and the unjust, to the drunk as well +as the sober, and the Charity Organization Society complained that her +investigations were not thorough, and that the quality of her mercy was +neither strained nor trained. But the little lady Guardian opened her +old silk purse again and quoted the Scriptures: "Give to him that asketh +thee, and from him that would borrow turn not thou away." + +The C.O.S. replied, such precepts had proved to be out of date +economically, and nominated a more modern lady, who had missed a great +career as a private detective. + +But the little lady Guardian had a faithful majority, and her name was +always head of the poll. + +One afternoon, as the little lady Guardian sat by the fire with Daphne +Daventry on her shabby serge lap, a prospective parent, Mrs. Annie +Smith, was brought up to see if she "took to the child." + +"Oh, what a lovely baby!" she cried, falling on her knees to adore. +"What nice blue eyes, and what dear little hands! And her hair is +beginning to grow already! Both my children died five years ago; I have +never had another, and I just feel as if I could not live without a +baby. It is terrible to lose one's children." + +"It is worse to have none." + +"Oh, no, no!" + +"Yes, it is," said the little lady Guardian in a low voice, as if she +were talking to herself. "When I was a little girl I had six sailor-boy +dolls, and I always meant to have six sons; but directly after my +marriage I realized it could never be." + +Mrs. Smith had known sorrow, and, feeling by intuition that she was in +the presence of no ordinary tragedy, she held her peace. + +"Perhaps," she asked presently, "you are going to adopt this baby? You +seem very fond of her." + +"I love all babies, but I don't think I could adopt one; these workhouse +children don't start fair, and I should be too frightened. If the child +went wrong later, I don't think I could bear it." + +Mrs. Smith had been a pupil-teacher, and in the last five years of +leisure she had read widely, if confusedly, at the free library. "But +people now no longer believe in heredity. Weissman's theory is that +environment is stronger then heredity." + +"Oh!" said the little lady Guardian. + +"Do read him," said Mrs. Smith excitedly, "and then you won't feel so +low-spirited, and perhaps the Guardians will let you adopt the next +foundling. But please let me have this one. I have taken to her more +than I thought. Oh! please, please----" + +"I will vote for you at the next Board meeting," said the little lady +Guardian, "and may she make up to you for the children you have lost." + +A few days later Mrs. Annie Smith, her honest face beaming with joy, +arrived again at the workhouse, followed by a small servant with a big +bundle. The attiring of the infant was long and careful, and many came +to help, and then Daphne Daventry was whirled away in a flutter of +purple and fine linen, and the burden of the rates was lightened. + + + + +"MARY, MARY, PITY WOMEN!" + + +A woman sat alone with folded hands in a dark fireless room. There was +little or no furniture to hold the dust, and one could see that the +pitiful process known as "putting away" had been going on, for the +cleanly scrubbed boards and polished grate showed the good housewife's +struggle after decency. On a small table in the centre of the room stood +half a loaf of bread, a jug of water, and a cup of milk. The woman bore +traces of good looks, but her face was grey and pinched with hunger, and +in her eyes was a smouldering fire of resentment and despair. + +Presently the silence and gloom was broken by the entrance of a troop of +children returning noisily from school. Their faces fell when they saw +the scanty meal, and the youngest, a child of four or five, threw +himself sobbing into his mother's arms: "Oh, mother, I'se so hungry; we +only had that bit of bread for dinner." + +"Hush, dear! There is a little milk for you and Gladys; you can drink as +far as the blue pattern, and the rest is for her." + +The mother kissed him and tried to dry his tears; but it is hard to hear +one's children crying for food; and presently her fortitude gave way, +and she began to sob too. The older children, frightened at her +breakdown, clung round her, weeping; and the room echoed like a +torture-chamber with sobs and wails. + +Presently a knock sounded at the door, and a stout, motherly woman +entered. "Good evening, Mrs. Blake; I've just looked in to know if you'd +bring the children to have a cup of tea with me. I'm all alone, and I +like a bit of company. H'albert is always the boy for my money. I just +opened a pot of my home-made plum jam on purpose for him. There, my +dear, have your cry out, and never mind me! Things have gone badly with +you, I know, and nothing clears the system so well as a good cry; you +feel a sight better after, and able to face the world fair and square. +Now, kiddies, leave mother to herself for a bit and come and help me set +the tea things. Let's see, we shall be seven all told; so, Lily, will +you run upstairs to Mrs. Johnson--my compliments, and will she oblige +with a cup and saucer, as we are such a big party." + +The landlady's kitchen was warmed with a big fire, and hermetically +sealed against draughts; a big bed took up the greater part of the room, +and this formed a luxurious divan for the four children, to whom the hot +tea and toast, the tinned lobster, and the home-made jam were nectar and +ambrosia. Mrs. Blake had the place of honour by the fire, and when the +meal was over the children were advised to run out for a game in the +street, and Mrs. Wells, turning her chair round to the cheerful blaze, +said soothingly-- + +"Now, my dear, you look a bit better. Tell us all about it." + +"Yes, you were quite right; we have to go into the workhouse. I went +round to the Rev. Walker, and he advised me to go to the police-station, +and they told me there as I and the children had better become a burden +to the rates as we are destitute, and they can start looking for Blake, +to make him pay the eighteen shillings a week separation order. To think +of me and my children having to go into the House, and me first-class in +the scholarship examination! It breaks my heart to think of it." + +"Yes; you've 'ad a rough time, my dear--worse than the rest of us, and +we all have our troubles. I remember when you came a twelvemonth ago to +engage the room, and you said you was a widow. I passed the remark to +Wells that evening: 'The lidy in the top-floor back ain't no widow; mark +my words, there's a 'usband knocking about somewhere!' On the faces of +them as are widows I have noticed a great peace, as if they were giving +of thanks that they are for ever free from the worritings of men, and +that look ain't on your face, my dear--not by a long chalk!" + +"Yes, he's alive all right; I got a separation order from him a couple +of years ago. He went off with a woman in the next street, and though he +soon tired of her and came back again, I felt I could not live with him +any longer; the very sight of him filled me with repulsion and loathing. +Father and mother always warned me against him; father told me he saw he +wasn't any good; but then, I was only nineteen, and obstinate as girls +in love always are, and I wouldn't be said. Poor father! I often wish as +I'd listened to him, but I didn't, and I always think it was the death +of him when I went home and told him what my married life was. He had +been so proud of me doing so well at school and in all the examinations. +Just at first we were very happy after our marriage. He earned good +money as a commercial traveller in the drapery business; we had a little +house in Willesden, and a piano, and an india-rubber plant between the +curtains in the parlour, and a girl to help with the housework, and I, +like a fool, worshipped the very ground he walked on. Then, after a +time, he seemed to change; he came home less and took to going after +women as if he were a boy of eighteen instead of a married man getting +on for forty. He gave me less and less money for the house, and spent +his week-ends at the sea for the good of his health. One very hot summer +the children were pale and fretting, and I was just sick for a sight of +the sea, but he said he could not afford to take us, not even for a +day-trip; afterwards I heard as Mrs. Bates was always with him, there +was plenty of money for that. That summer it seemed as if it never would +get cool again, and one evening in late September my Martin was taken +very queer. I begged my husband not to go away, I felt frightened +somehow, but he said as some sea-air was necessary for his health, and +that there was nothing the matter with the boy, only my fussing. That +night Martin got worse and worse; towards morning a neighbour went for +the doctor, but the child throttled and died in my arms before he came. +I was all alone. I didn't even know my husband's address, and when I +went with the little coffin all alone to the cemetery it seemed as if I +left my heart there in the grave with the boy. He was my eldest, and +none of the others have been to me what he was. Later on all the girls +caught the diphtheria, but they got well again, only Martin was taken. +Blake seemed a bit ashamed when he got back; but he left Willesden, some +of the neighbours speaking out plain to him about Mrs. Bates, and he not +to be found to follow his child's funeral. He tried to make it up with +me; but I told him I was going to get a separation order, as I'd taken a +sort of repulsion against looking at him since Martin had died alone +with me, and the magistrate made an order upon him for eighteen +shillings a week--little enough out of the five or six pounds a week he +could earn before he took to wine and women and Mrs. Bates. My little +home and the piano were sold up, and I soon found eighteen shillings a +week did not go far with four hungry children to clothe and feed, and +rent beside. I tried to get back in my old profession, but I had been +out of it too long, no one would look at me, and I could only get +cooking and charing to do--very exhausting work when you haven't been +brought up to it. At first I got the money pretty regular, but lately it +has been more and more uncertain, some weeks only eight or ten +shillings, and sometimes missing altogether. He owes me now a matter of +twenty pound or more, and last week I braced myself up and determined to +do what I could to recover it. If it was only myself, I'd manage, but, +work hard as I can, I can't keep the five of us, and it has about broke +my heart lately to hear the children crying with hunger and cold. Mrs. +Robins, where I used to work, died a fortnight ago, and I shan't find +any one like her again. When one of the ladies goes, it is a job to get +another, so many poor creatures are after the charing and cleaning. The +Rev. Walker has been a good friend to me, but he says I ought to go into +the House. 'A man ought to support his wife and children,' he says, 'and +I hope as they'll catch him,' he says." + +"'Yes,' I says, but it is awful to go into the House when we haven't +done anything wrong, and my father an organist.' + +"'Very cruel, Mrs. Blake,' he says, 'but I see no other way. I will +write to the Guardians to ask if they will allow you out-relief, but I +fear they will say you are too destitute!' + +"And now, Mrs. Wells, we had better be starting. I hope if they find him +I shall be able to pay up the back rent; the table and chairs left I +hope you will keep towards the payment of the debt. Thank you for all +your kindness." + +"All right, Mrs. Blake, don't you worry about that, my dear. Wells is in +good work, thank God, and I don't miss a few 'apence. I'm such a one for +children, and your H'albert is a beauty, he is; I've been right glad to +give them a bite and sup now and again. I know children sent out with +empty stomachs aren't in a fit state to absorb learning; it leads to +words and rows with the teachers and canings afore the day's over. I +can't abear to see people cross with children, and I'd do anything to +save them the cane. Well, I hope, my dear, as they'll soon nail that +beauty of yours, and that we shall see you back again. Perhaps I ought +to tell you that a chap calling 'isself a sanitary inspector called this +morning to say as five people mustn't sleep in the top-back floor. I +told 'im as the room was let to a widow lady in poor circumstances, and +was he prepared to guarantee the rent of two rooms. That made him huffy. +It wasn't his business, he said, but overcrowding was agen his Council's +rules." + +And the old lady held up the document upside down and then consigned it +to the flames. + +"There will be no overcrowding to night," said Mrs. Blake bitterly. + +The children were collected and scrubbed till their faces shone with +friction and yellow soap, and then the little procession started to the +workhouse. Mr. Wells, returned from work, announced his intention of +giving his arm up the hill to Mrs. Blake, and the young man of the +second floor volunteered his services to help carry "H'albert," who was +heavy and sleepy, and his contribution of a packet of peppermints +cheered the journey greatly. When the cruel gates of the House closed on +the weeping children the two men walked home silently. Once Wells swore +quietly but forcibly under his breath. + +"You're right, mate," said the young man. "This job has put me off my +tea. I'll just turn into the 'King of Bohemia,' and drink till I forget +them children's sobs." + + +_Note._--I understand that under a separation order the police have +authority to search for the husband without forcing the family into the +House. I called at the police-station to inquire why this was not done, +and was informed that the woman's destitution was so great that they +feared the children might die of starvation before the man was brought +to book. + + + + +THE SUICIDE + + In she plunged boldly, + No matter how coldly + The rough river ran; + Over the brink of it-- + Picture it--think of it, + Dissolute man. + + +She lay in bed, in the long, clean Sick Ward--a fine-grown and +well-favoured young woman with masses of black hair tossed over the +whiteness of the ratepayers' sheets. Such a sight is rare in a workhouse +infirmary, where one needs the infinite compassion of Christian charity +or the hardness of habit to bear the pitiful sights of disease and +imbecility. + +"She looks as if she ought not to be here?" I observed interrogatively +to the nurse. + +"Attempted suicide. Brought last night by the police, wrapped in a +blanket and plastered in mud from head to foot. Magnificent hair?--yes, +and a magnificent job I had washing of it, and my corridor and bathroom +like a ploughed field. Usual thing--might have killed her?--oh, no; +these bad girls take a deal of killing." + +I sat down beside the bed, and heard the usual story--too common to +excite either interest or compassion in an official mind. + +She had been a nursemaid, but had left service for the bar; and there +one of the gentlemen customers had been very kind to her and had walked +out with her on Sundays and taken her to restaurants and the theatre. +Then followed the usual promise of marriage and the long delay, till her +work had become impossible, "and the governor had spoken his mind and +given her the sack." + +"I wrote to the gentleman, but the letter came back through the Returned +Letter Office. He must have given me a false name, because when I called +at the house no one had heard of him. I had no money, and had to pawn my +clothes and the jewellery he had given me to pay for food and the rent +of my room. I dared not go home; they are very strict Chapel people, and +they told me I never was to come near them after I became a barmaid. +Then one day the gentleman wrote, giving no address, and saying that his +wife had found out about me, and our friendship must come to an end. He +enclosed two pounds, which was all he could afford, and asked me to +forgive him the wrong he had done me. I seemed to go clean mad after +that letter. I did not know he was married, and I had kept hoping it +would be all right, and that he would make an honest woman of me. I +thought I should have died in the night. I was taken with dreadful +pains, so that I could not move from my bed, and though I shouted for +help no one heard till the next morning, when my landlady came to me, +and she went for the doctor. The two pounds lasted me about a month, and +then I had nothing left again--nothing to eat and nothing to pawn, and +the rent always mounting up against me. My landlady was very kind to me, +but her husband had gone off with another woman and left her with three +children. She was often in want herself, and I couldn't take anything +from her. There seemed nothing but the pond; and after the gentleman had +played it down so low the whole world looked black and inky before my +eyes. I just seemed to long for death and peace before every one knew my +disgrace. I came up twice to chuck myself into the pond, and twice I +hadn't the pluck. Then last night I had been so sick and dizzy all day +with hunger I did not feel a bit of a coward any longer, so I waited +about till it was dark and then I climbed up on the railings and threw +myself backwards. The water was bitterly cold, and like a fool I +hollered; then I sank again, and the water came strangling and choking +down my throat, and I remember nothing more till I felt something +raising my head and a dark-lantern shining in my face. The nurse came +about half an hour ago to tell me that I must go before the magistrates +to-morrow; it seems rather hard, when one cannot live, that the police +will not even let you die. No, I did not know that girls like me might +come to the workhouse. I thought it was only for the very old and the +very poor; perhaps if I had known that I need not have made a hole in +the water. But must I go with the police to the court all alone amongst +a lot of men? Oh, ma'am, I can't; I should be so shamed. And think of +the questions they will ask me! And I was a good girl till such a short +time ago. Won't one of the nurses come with me, or will you?" + +It is one thing to promise to chaperone a beautiful, forlorn young woman +lying in bed, a type of injured youth and innocence, and another to meet +her in the cold light of 9 a.m. arrayed in the cheap finery of her +class. Her flimsy skirt was shrunk and warped after its adventure in the +pond, and with the best will in the world the nurses had been unable to +brush away the still damp mud which stuck to the gauged flounces and the +interstices of the "peek-a-boo" blouse. A damp and shapeless mass of +pink roses and chiffon adorned the beautiful hair, which had been +tortured and puffed into vulgarity, and to complete the scarecrow +appearance, her own boots being quite unwearable, she had been provided +with a pair of felt slippers very much _en evidence_ owing to the +shrinkage of draperies. + +I am afraid I longed for a telegram or sudden indisposition--anything +for an excuse decently to break faith. There are not even cabs near our +workhouse, and so, under the escort of a mighty policeman, the forlorn +little procession set forth to brave the humorous glances of the +heartless street-boys until the walls of the police-court hid us, along +with other human wreckage, from mocking eyes. + +Presently a boy of seventeen or eighteen, small and slight, in the +dress of a clerk, came up to my companion and hoped in a very hoarse +voice that she had not taken cold. + +"This is the gentleman," said the girl, "who saved my life the other +night in the pond." + +"I don't know how I managed it," said the boy, "but I was passing along +the Heath when I heard you screaming so dreadfully that I rushed down to +the pond and into the water before I really knew what I was doing, for I +can't swim a stroke. I just managed to catch your dress before you sank, +but the mud was so slippery I could hardly keep my footing, and your +weight was dragging me down into deep water. Fortunately I managed to +catch hold of the sunk fence, and that steadied me so that I could lift +your head out, and you came round. Yes, I have had a very bad cold. I +had to walk a long way in my wet clothes, and the night air was sharp. +But never mind that--what I did want to say to you is that you must buck +up, you know, and not do this sort of thing. We are here now, and we've +got to make the best of it." And, all unconscious of the tragedy of +womanhood, the boy read her a simple, straightforward lesson on the duty +of fortitude and trust in God. + +Whilst he talked my eye wandered round the court and the motley +collection of plaintiffs, defendants, and witnesses. The preponderance +of the male sex bore witness to the law-abiding qualities of women, for, +with the exception of the girl and myself, the only other woman was a +thin, grey-haired person very primly dressed. + +"Yes, that is mother," said the girl, "but she won't speak to me. She +has taken no notice of me for more than a year. I've been such a bad +example to the younger girls, and they're all strict Chapel folks." + +"Lily Weston!" cried a stentorian voice, and our "case" was bundled into +the inner court, mother and daughter walking next to each other in +silent hostility. The poor girl was placed in the prisoner's dock +between iron bars as if she were some dangerous wild beast, whilst "the +gentleman" who was the real offender ranged free and unmolested. +Constable X 172 told the story of attempted suicide, and then the boy +followed. Then the mother spoke shortly and bitterly as to the girl's +troubles being of her own making. + +"Anything to say?" asked the magistrate; but the girl hung her head low +in shame and confusion, whilst the magistrate congratulated the boy on +his pluck and presence of mind. + +The clerk came round and whispered in the ear of his chief, who looked +at the prisoner with grave kindliness under his bushy white eyebrows; he +had more sympathy than the laws he administered. + +"Call Miss Sperling," he said to the policeman, and then to the +prisoner: "If I discharge you now, will you go away with this lady, who +will find a home for you?" + +"Oh, yes, sir," cried the prisoner with a burst of hysterical weeping +as the bolts rattled from the dock and the kindly hand of the lady +missionary clasped hers. + +A distinguished Nonconformist once told me that our Anglican Prayer Book +was a mass of ungranted petitions, which, after careful thought, I had +to admit was true; but at least on the whole I think our prayers for +this particular magistrate have been answered. + + + + +PUBLICANS AND HARLOTS + + Verily I say unto you, that the publicans and harlots go into the + kingdom of God before you. + + +It was 7.30 p.m., and in the Young Women's Ward of the workhouse the +inmates were going to bed by the crimson light of the July sunset. Most +of the women had babies, and now and then a fretful cry would interrupt +a story that was being listened to with much interest and laughter and +loud exclamations: "Oh, Daisy, you are a caution!" + +Had a literary critic been present, he would have classed the tale as +belonging to the French realistic school of Zola and Maupassant. The +_raconteuse_, Daisy Crabtree, who might have sat as a model for +Rossetti's Madonna of the Annunciation, was a slight, golden-haired +girl, known to philanthropists as a "daughter of the State," and an +object-lesson against such stepmothering. Picked up as an infant under a +crab-tree by the police, and christened later in commemoration of the +discovery, she had been brought up in a "barrack-school," and a "place" +found for her at fifteen, from which she had "run" the following day; +the streets had called to their daughter, and she had obeyed. Since then +she had been "rescued" twenty-seven times--by Catholics, Anglicans, +Wesleyans, Methodists, Baptists, and Salvationists--but not even the +great influence of "Our Lady of the Snows" or "The Home of the Guardian +Angels" could save this child of vice, and most Homes in London being +closed against her, she perpetually sought shelter in the various +workhouses of the Metropolis, always being "passed" back to the parish +of the patronymic crab-tree where she was "chargeable." Here she resided +at the expense of the rates, till some lady visitor, struck by her +beauty and seeming innocence, provided her with an outfit and a +situation. + +"Shut up, Daisy!" said one girl, quiet and demure as her namesake +Priscilla. "You're only fit for a pigsty." + +"'The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth His +handiwork,'" sang Musical Meg, a half-witted girl, who had given two +idiots to the guardianship of the ratepayers. She was possessed of a +soprano voice, very clear and true, and, having been brought up in a +High Church Home, she punctiliously chanted the offices of _Prime_ and +_Compline_, slightly muddling them as her memory was bad. + +"Hold your noise, Meg; we want to hear the tale." + +"'Brethren, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil as a +roaring lion walketh about, seeking whom he may devour, whom resist, +steadfast in the faith,'" chanted Musical Meg again. + +The door opened and the white-capped attendant entered, leading by the +hand two little girls of about twelve and fourteen, who were sobbing +pitifully. + +"Less noise here, if you please. Meg, you know you have been forbidden +to sing at bedtime. Now, my dears, don't cry any more; get undressed and +into bed at once; you'll see your mother in the morning." + +"Why are you here, duckies? Father run away and left you all starving?" +asked an older woman who had been walking about the room administering +medicine, opening windows, and generally doing the work of wardswoman. + +"Yes," sobbed the children; "they've put mother in another room, and we +are so frightened." + +"There, stop crying, my dears," said Priscilla; "come and look at my +baby." + +"What a lot of babies!" said the elder girl. "Have all your husbands run +away and left you?" + +"Oh, Lor'! child, don't ask questions; get into bed, quick." The +children donned their pink flannelette nightgowns and then knelt down +beside their beds, making the sign of the Cross. There was deep silence, +some of the girls began to cry, "Irish Biddy" threw herself on her knees +and recited the Rosary with sobs and gasps. + + + "Oh, wash me and I shall be whiter than snow, + Whiter than snow, whiter than snow," + + +sang a blear-eyed girl in a raucous, tuneless chant. + +Musical Meg put her fingers to her ears. "You've got the wrong tune, +Rosie; listen, I'll hum it to you," but finding her attempts after +musical correctness were unheeded, she started herself the _Qui habitat_ +of the _Compline_ office. + +"Good Lord, girls!" came the shrill voice of Daisy Crabtree; "what's up +now? It gives me the hump to hear you sniffing and sobbing over your +psalm tunes; let's have something cheerful with a chorus: ''Allo! 'allo! +'allo! it's a different girl again----'" + +"Oh! do be quiet, Daisy; wait until the poor little things has said +their prayers," came the gentle voice of Priscilla. + +"'Different eyes and a different nose----'" + +"Stow that, Daisy, or I'll drive those teeth you're so proud of down +your throat," said the tall wardswoman. + +Temperance Hunt (known to her associates as "Tipsy Tempie," all +unconscious of the classical dignity of the oxymoron) was a clear +starcher and ironer, so skilled in the trade that it was said she could +command her own terms in West End laundries, but like many "shirt and +collar hands," she was given to bouts of terrible drunkenness, during +which she would pawn her furniture and her last rag for gin. Then she +would retire to the workhouse for a time, get some clothes out of the +charitable, sign another pledge, and come forth again, to the comfort +and peace of many households--for the wearers of Tempie's shirts +dressed for dinner without a murmur, and "never said a single 'damn.'" + +Tipsy Tempie was a very powerful woman, and the song died on Daisy's +lips as she came towards her, a threatening light in her eyes. "All +right, keep your 'air on; if I mayn't sing I'll tell you another tale. +When I was in the Haymarket last Boat-race night----" + +"Now, duckies, you go and get washed; your poor faces are all swelled +with crying--can't go to bed like that, you know; we lidies in this ward +are most particular." + +"Please, teacher," said the elder child, "governess downstairs said as +we were to go straight to bed; we had a bath yesterday directly we came +in." + +"Do what I tell you. A little drop of water'll stop the smarting of all +your tears, and you'll get to sleep quicker." + +"Now, then, Daisy," she exclaimed, as the two children obediently +departed, "if you tell any more of your beastly stories before them two +innocent dears, I'll throttle you." + +"Then you will be hung," said Daisy airily. + +"Do you think I'd care? Good riddance of bad rubbish, as can't help +making a beast of itself. But one thing I insists on--don't let us +corrupt these 'ere little girls; we're a bad lot in here; most of you +are--well, I won't say what, for it ain't polite, and I don't 'old with +the pot calling the kettle black, and I know as I'm a drunkard. My +father took me to church hisself and had me christened 'Temperance,' +hoping as that might counterrack the family failing; but drink is in the +blood too deep down for the font-water to get at. Poor father! he +struggled hard hisself; but he kicked my blessed mother wellnigh to +death, and then 'anged hisself in the morning when he found what he +done; so I ain't got no manner of chance, and though I take the pledge +when the lidies ask me, I know it ain't no good. Well, as I said before, +we're a rotten lot, but not so bad that we can't respect little kiddies, +and any one can see that these little girls aren't our sort. I ask you +all--all you who are mothers, even though your children ain't any +fathers in particular--to back me in this." ("'Ear, 'ear!" said +Priscilla.) "I ain't had the advantage some of you have; I ain't been in +twenty-seven religious homes like Daisy, and I don't know psalms and +hymns like Meg; but I've got as strong a pair of fists as ever grasped +irons, and those shall feel 'em who says a word as wouldn't be fit for +the lady Guardian's ears." + +The frightened Daisy had crept meekly into bed; the two little children +came back, and Tempie tucked them up with motherly hands, kissing the +little swollen faces; Musical Meg started a hymn. + +The assistant matron came up from supper, and her brows knitted angrily +as she heard the singing. But at the door of the ward she paused, handle +in hand, for, from the lips of the fallen and the outcast, of the wanton +and the drunkard, led by the strangely beautiful voice of the +half-witted girl, rose the hymn of high Heaven-- + + + Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty! + All Thy works shall praise Thy Name, in earth, and sky, and sea; + Holy, Holy, Holy! Merciful and Mighty; + God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity. + + + + +OLD INKY + + There be two things that grieve my heart; and the third maketh + me angry: + A man of war that suffereth poverty. + + +A cab stood at the door of the workhouse, and a crowd of children and +idlers collected at once. A cab there often contained a lunatic or a +"d.t." case, or some person maimed or unconscious--generally something +sensational. The cabman slashed his whip several times across the window +to apprise the fares of his arrival, but there was no movement from +within, and an enterprising boy, peering in through the closed windows, +announced gleefully: "Why, it's old Inky and his wife, drunk as lords!" + +A volunteer rang the bell, and an aged inmate at once opened the door, +and finding that matters were beyond him, fetched a liveried officer, +who gazed contemptuously at the cabman and asked satirically what he had +got there. + +"I have just driven back the Dook and Duchess of Hinkerman to the quiet +of their suburban residence after the h'arduous festivities of the +season. Her Grace was a little overcome by the 'eat at the crowded +reception of the King of Bohemia, and was compelled to withdraw. I sent +the footman round to the town 'ouse to say as their Graces would not +dine at 'ome this evening, so I must ask you kindly to assist her Grace +to alight." + +The crowd roared loudly at this sally, and the porter, opening the cab +door, drew out an aged and infirm man, whom he dragged off roughly +through the whitewashed lobby. Then he returned for the wife, a shrunken +little body in a state of stupefaction, whom he flung over his shoulder +like a baby, and then the hall door shut with a bang. + +The cabman looked rather crestfallen, and requested that the bell might +be rung again, and again the aged inmate blinked forth helplessly. + +"I am waiting," said the cabman, "for a little gratuity from his Grace; +his own brougham not being in sight, I volunteered my services." + +The liveried officer again appeared, and a heated altercation ensued, in +the midst of which the Master of the workhouse arrived and endeavoured +to cut short the dispute, observing that his workhouse not being Poplar, +he had no power to pay cab fares for drunken paupers out of the rates. +The cabman gulped, and, dropping his Society manner, appealed to the +Master as man to man, asking what there was about his appearance that +caused him to be taken for "such a ---- fool as to have driven a ---- +pair of ---- paupers to a ---- workhouse unless he had seen the colour +of a florin a kind-'earted lady had put into the old man's hand afore +the perlice ran them both in." + +He appealed to the public to decide "whether he looked a greater fool +than he was, or whether they took him for a greater fool than he +looked." In either case, he "scorned the himputation," and if the Master +thought cabmen were so easy to be had he (the Master) had better +withdraw to a wing of his own work'us, where, he understood, a ward was +set apart for the "h'observation of h'alleged lunatics." + +The crowd roared approval, and orders were sent that the old couple +should be searched, and after a breathless ten minutes, spent by the +cabman with his pink newspaper, a florin was brought out by the aged +inmate, reported to have been found in the heel of the old lady's +stocking. The crowd roared and cheered, and the cabman drove off +triumphant, master of the situation. + +I found old "Inky" a few days later sitting in a corner, surly and +sullen and pipeless, having been cut off tobacco and leave of absence +for four weeks. I suppose discipline must be maintained, but there is +something profoundly pathetic in the sight of hoary-headed men and +women, who have borne life's heavy load for seventy and eighty years, +cut off their little comforts and punished like school-children. + +He stood up and saluted at my approach; his manners to what he called +"his betters" were always irreproachable. I brought him a message from a +teetotal friend urging him to take the pledge, but he sniffed +contemptuously; like many a hard drinker, he never would admit the +offence. + +"I warn't drunk, not I; never been drunk in my life. 'Cos why? I've got +a strong 'ed; can take my liquor like a man. Small wonder, though, +ma'am, if we old soldiers do get drunk now and then. Our friends are +good to us and stand us a drop; and we need it now and then when we get +low-spirited, and this work'us and them clothes"--and he glanced +contemptuously at his fustians--"do take the pluck out of a man. We +ain't got nothing to live for and nothing to be proud on; and it takes +our self-respeck--that's what it does--the self-respeck oozes out of our +finger-tips. Old Blowy, at St. Pancras Work'us, 'e says just the same. +Don't you know Old Blowy, ma'am--'im as had the good luck to ride at +Balaclava? I'm told some gentleman's got 'im out of there and boards 'im +out independent for the rest of his life. Can't you get me out, ma'am? I +ain't done nothin' wrong, and 'ere I am in prison. If it weren't for the +missis I'd starve outside. I can play a little mouth-organ and pick up a +few pence, and my pals at the 'King of Bohemia' are very good to me. I +can rough it, but my missis can't--females are different--and so we was +druv in 'ere. The Guardians wouldn't give me the little bit of +out-relief I asked for--four shillings would have done us nicely. They +listened to some foolish women's cackle--teetotal cant, I call it--and +refused me anything. 'Offered the 'Ouse,' as they say; and, though me +and the missis half-clemmed afore we accepted the kind invitation, a +man can't see 'is wife starve; and so 'ere we are--paupers. Yes, I +fought for the Queen"--and he saluted--"Gawd bless 'er! all through the +Crimean War; got shot in the arm at Inkermann and half-frozen before +Sebastopol, and I didn't think as I should come to the work'us in my old +age; but one never knows. The world ain't been right to us old soldiers +since the Queen went. I can't get used to a King nohow, and it's no good +pretending; and Old Blowy at St. Pancras says just the same. I suppose +we're too old. I can't think why the Almighty leaves us all a-mouldering +in the work'uses when she's gone. However, I'm a-going out; I shall take +my discharge, if it's only to spite 'im and show my independent spirit," +and he shook an impotent fist at the Master, who passed through the +hall. "It's warm weather now, and we can sleep about on the 'eath a bit. +We shan't want much to eat--we're too old." + + * * * * * + +A week or so later I heard of the death of old "Inky." He had been found +in a half-dying condition on one of the benches on the heath, and had +been brought by the police into the infirmary, where he passed away +without recovering consciousness. As we "rattled his bones over the +stones" to his pauper grave I said a sincere _Laus Deo_ that another man +of war had been delivered from poverty and the hated workhouse. + + + + +A DAUGHTER OF THE STATE + + Quis est homo, qui non fleret? + + +"No, ma'am, I've never had no misfortune; I'm a respectable girl, I am. +Why am I in the workhouse, then? Well, you see, it was like this: I had +a very wicked temper, and I can't control it somehow when the mistresses +are aggravating, and I runned from my place. I always do run away. No, +there was nothing agen the last mistress--it was just my nasty temper. +Then I got wandering about the streets, and a policeman spoke to me and +took me to a kind lady, and she put me here to prove me, and left me to +learn my lesson. She takes great interest in my case. Yes, Matron says +it is a disgrace for a strong girl to be on the rates, but what am I to +do? I ain't got no clothes and no character, so I suppose I shall always +be here now. No, it ain't nice; we never go out nor see +nothing--leastways, the young women don't. There's no sweet puddings and +no jam. Some of the girls say jail's far better. Yes, I am an orphan--at +least, father died when I was very little, and the Board gentlemen put +me and my brothers into the schools. No, I never heard any more of +them. Mother came to see me at first, but she ain't been nor wrote for +five years; perhaps she is dead or married again. No, I don't know how +old I am; Matron says she expects about eighteen. Oh, yes, I have been +in places. The Board ladies got me my first place at a butcher's, only +he was always coming after me trying to kiss me, and the missis did not +seem to like it somehow and she cut up nasty to me, and there was words +and I went off in a temper. No gentleman! I should think not. A damned +low scoundrel I call him. I beg your pardon, ma'am, I know 'damned' +isn't a word for ladies. I ain't an ignorant girl, but there's worse +said in the Young Women's Room sometimes. Then after that the Salvation +Army took me in and found me a place in a boarding-house. Heaps to do I +had, and such a lot of glasses and plates and things for every meal. I +always got muddled laying the table, and the missis had an awful nasty +temper, quite as bad as mine, and one day she blew me up cruel, and I +ran away. Then this time some nuns took me to their Home, and there I +made a great mistake; I thought it was a Church of England Home, but +they was Cartholics. Oh, yes, the nuns were very kind to me--real good +ladies--but the lady who takes an interest in my case said as I had made +a great mistake; I don't know why except that I always was a Church of +England girl. No, ma'am, I hope I may never make a worse mistake--for +they was good, and they sang beautiful in the chapel. Then the nuns +found a place for me with two old homespun people; they was very dull +and often ill, and I was always getting muddled over the spoons and +forks, an that made them _urri_table, and one day I felt so low-spirited +and nasty-tempered that I ran away again. The worst of places for me is, +no porters sit at the front doors and I run away before I think, and +then I get no character. But this time I have been proved, and I have +learnt my lesson. I won't do it any more. No, ma'am, I never knew I +could be taken to the police-courts just for running away--none of the +ladies never told me; I thought you were only copped for murders and +stealing. Daisy White--she pinched her missis's silk petticoat to go out +in on Sunday, and now she's out of jail no one won't have her any more. +But it's mostly misfortunes that brings girls here, and fits of course. +Blanche, that big girl with the squint eye, went off in a fit yesterday +as we were scrubbing the wards. No, I don't have no fits, and I'm honest +as the day. Would I be a good girl and not run away if you get me a +place? Oh, ma'am, only try me. The kind ladies quote textesses to me, +but they never get me a job. No, I don't mind missing my dinner. Matron +will keep it hot for me, but it's only suet pudding to-day with very +little sugar. In situations they give you beautiful sweet puddings +nearly every day, and Juliet Brown--she that's in with her third +misfortune--she says she's lived with lords and ladies near the King's +Palace at Buckingham--at least, she pretends she has--well, she says in +her places the servants had jam with their tea every day. + +"No, I haven't got no clothes but these workhouse things, but Matron +keeps a hat and jacket to lend to girls who ain't got none. Oh! it is +beautiful to see the sun shining, and the shops, and the horses, and the +ladies walking about, and the dear little children. I love children. +Often when the Labour Mistress wasn't about I ran up to the nursery to +kiss the babies. Juliet's third misfortune is a lovely boy with curls. I +haven't been out of doors for three months--the young women mayn't go +out in the workhouse, only the old people--so you can guess I like it: +but the air makes me hungry. We had our gruel at seven this morning. We +don't have no tea for breakfast, but girls do in situations, I know, and +as much sugar as they like--at least, in most places. Thank you, ma'am, +I should love a bun. I love cakes. Yes; I have a cold in my head, and I +ain't got no pocket-handkerchief. I've lost it, and it wasn't very +grand. An old bit of rag I call it. It would be so kind of you to buy me +one, ma'am. I know it looks bad to go to see ladies without one. I ain't +an ignorant girl; the kind lady who takes an interest in my case always +said so. Isn't that barrel-organ playing beautiful! It makes me want to +dance, only I don't know how. Daisy White--she that pinched the silk +petticoat--can dance beautiful; some of us sing tunes in the Young +Women's Room, and she'd dance. I love music--that's why I liked the +Cartholic Home best; the nuns sang lovely in the chapel. + +"Is this the house? Ain't it lovely! I never saw such a beautiful +droring-room in all my life. Just look at the carpet and the flowers and +the pictures! Ain't that a beautiful one, ma'am, with the trees and the +water running down the rocks, and the old castle at the back! The nuns +at the Cartholic Home once took us an excursion by train to a place just +like that, and whilst we were having our tea the old castle turned +sudden all yellow in the sun--just like Jerusalem the Golden. + +"Do you think the lady will have me, ma'am? I shan't never want to run +away here. I will be a good girl, ma'am; I promise I will be good." + + + + +IN THE PHTHISIS WARD + + Why, O my God, hast Thou forsaken Me? + Not so My mother; for behold and see, + She steadfast stands! O Father, shall it be + That she abides when Thou forsakest Me? + + +Three days of frost had brought the customary London fog--dense, yellow, +and choking. Londoners groped their way about with set, patient faces, +breaking out, however, into wild jubilation in the bowels of the earth, +where the comparative purity and brightness of the atmosphere of the +Tube railway seemed to rush to their heads like cheap champagne. + +In the Open-air Ward of the workhouse infirmary the sufferers coughed +and choked away their last strength in the poisonous atmosphere; the +cold was very great, but the fever in their veins kept the patients +warm, though the nurses went about blue and shivering, and on the side +of the ward open to the elements the snow had drifted in, melted, and +frozen again, making a perilous slide for the unwary. The sky was black +as at midnight, but according to the clock the long night had ended, the +long day had begun, the patients were washed, the breakfast was served, +and a few, who were well enough, got up, dressed themselves, and +occupied themselves with a book or paper. One man worked furiously at +rug-making, his knotted fingers dragging the hanks of wool through the +canvas as if his life depended on speed. By the side of the ward open to +the fog lay a young man so wasted and shrunken that he looked almost +like a child. When the nurse brought him his breakfast he raised his +head eagerly: "Has mother come?" + +"Why, Teddy, you're dreaming! Your mother has only just gone; it's +morning, my dear, and she had to get back to the factory; but she'll be +here again this evening, never fear. You have a mother in ten thousand, +lucky boy! Now get your breakfast." + +Teddy's head fell back again in apathetic indifference, and he listened +forlornly to a dispute between two men who had been playing dominoes. +One had accused the other of cheating, and an angry wrangle had arisen, +till at length the nurse had stepped in and stopped the game. + +Later on the same men began to dispute about horse-racing, and the +world-renowned names of Ladas and Persimmon and Minoru, etc., figured +largely. + +"I tell you Persimmon was the King's 'oss, and he won the Derby in 1898. +I know I'm right, because it was the year I got the Scripture Prize at +Netherwood Street." + +"No, that warn't till 1900, and I'll tell you why--" + +"I tell you it war!" + +"I tell you it warn't!" + +Again the nurse intervened, and tried to distract the disputants with a +copy of a newspaper, but the warfare was renewed after her back was +turned, to the amusement or irritation of the sufferers. + +In the farther corner of the ward a man in delirium raved and +blasphemed, occasionally giving rapid character-sketches of some +woman--not complimentary either to her taste or morals; then he would +relapse into semi-unconsciousness and wake with a loud, agonized cry for +his mother. + +In the afternoon a visitor came to see Teddy Wilson. Teddy had sung in +the choir and his vicar called often to visit him. Teddy had been a +prize-scholar of the L.C.C. schools; from scholarship to scholarship he +had passed to a lawyer's office in the City; and then one day he had +begun to cough and to shiver, and the hospital to which he had been +taken had seen that phthisis was galloping him to the grave. They did +not keep incurable cases, and Teddy had been passed on to die in the +workhouse infirmary. When Teddy found himself a pauper he had raged +furiously and futilely, and the gallop to the grave went at double pace. +He lifted his head eagerly when the nurse brought the clergyman to his +bedside. "Has mother come?" he asked, and then fell back apathetically. +Yes, he was getting better; it was only the remains of pleurisy. Would +he like prayers read? Oh, yes, he didn't mind. Teddy was always docile. + +Screens were fetched, and the clergyman knelt down by his bedside. The +two men noisily resumed their quarrel about horse-racing in order to +show their contempt for the Church, till the nurse stuck thermometers +into their mouths to secure some silence. + +The man in delirium raved on, cursing in picturesque variety the woman +of his love and hate. All around the sick and dying coughed and choked +in their agonized struggle for breath. + +"Consider his contrition, accept his tears, assuage his pain.... We +humbly commend the soul of this Thy servant, our dear brother, into Thy +hands.... Wash it, we pray Thee, in the blood of the immaculate Lamb ... +that whatsoever defilements it may have contracted in the midst of this +miserable and naughty world ... it may be presented pure and without +spot before Thee." + +As the vicar read on silence fell upon the ward; the question of +Persimmon was dropped, and even the delirious man ceased to blaspheme +and lay quiet for a time. It seemed to the young priest as if the peace +of God for which he had prayed had fallen upon this place of pain and +terror. + +Before he went he stopped for a word or a hand-shake with the patients, +and settled the vexed question of Persimmon's victory. + +"Fancy his knowing that!" said the first disputant. "Not so bad for a +devil-dodger." + +"They aren't all quite fools. There was a bloke down at Bethnal Green, a +real good cricketer and sportsman; they've made him a bishop now, and +as I allus says, there's bigger liars knocking about London than that +there bishop." + +After tea visitors began to arrive; most of the patients in the Open-air +Ward were on the danger list and could see their friends at any time, +and now at the close of the day fathers and mothers and wives and +sweethearts were coming straight from factory and workshop to comfort +their sick. Teddy Wilson, propped up with pillows, watched the door, and +presently, when a frail little woman entered, the faces of both mother +and son lit up with the light of joy and love ineffable. + +"At last!" said Teddy. "Oh, mother, you have been long!" + +"I came straight from the factory, dear. I did not even wait for a cup +of tea or to get washed. Here are some grapes for you." + +The grapes were best hot-house--the poor always give recklessly--and +Mrs. Wilson and a bright-eyed little girl who was sweeping up +scholarships and qualifying as a typist and _tisica_ would go short of +food for a week. + +Ten years ago Mr. Wilson had grown weary of monogamy and had +disappeared. His wife, scorning charity and the parish, had starved and +fought her own way. Latterly she had found employment at the tooth +factory, but food was not abundant on a weekly wage varying from seven +to fifteen shillings, and the L.C.C. had worked the brains of the +growing children on a diet chiefly of dry bread and tea. + +Through the long night she sat by her son--the long night of agony and +suffering which she was powerless to relieve--and the nurse, who was +reputed a hard woman, looked at her with tearful eyes, and muttered to +herself: "Thank God, I never bore a child!" + +In the early hours of morning Teddy began to sing, in strange, raucous +fashion, fragments of oratorios. "'My God, my God,'" sang Teddy in the +recitative of Bach's Passion music, "'why hast Thou forsaken Me?' Oh, +mother, don't leave me!" + +The next time the nurse came round Teddy lay quiet, and his mother +looked up with eyes tearless and distraught. "He has stopped coughing," +she said; "I think I am glad." + + + + +AN IRISH CATHOLIC + + Godliness is great riches if a man be content with that which he + hath. + + +"God bless all the kind ratepayers for my good dinner and a good cup o' +tay to wash it down with, and a nice bit of fire this cold day. You +paupers never give thanks unto the Lord, a nasty Protestant lot without +a ha'porth of manners between you, a-cursing and swearing, and +blaspheming; they have not the grace of God. Say 'Good afternoon' to the +lady, Betsy Brown, and don't be so rude; they never do have a word of +thanks to the kind ladies and gentlemen who come a-visiting them, and we +don't get many visitors just now; all the dear ladies are away +a-paddling in the ocean. The gentleman Guardians come sometimes, but +they are not so chatty as the ladies, don't seem to know what to say to +us old women. You don't happen to have a bit of snuff about you, my +lady?--excuse me asking you, but some of the ladies carries a bit for +me. I ain't allowed my pipe in here, and I misses it cruel; at first I +had gripes a-seizing my vitals through missing the comfort of a bit of +'baccy, and the doctor he seemed much gratified with the symtims of my +sufferings, and says I was attacked by the pensis, I think he termed +it, the royal disease of the King, and he was all for cutting me up at +once. But I up and says, 'Young man, don't talk to your elders. It's +nothing but my poor hinnards a-craving for a pipe and a drop o' Irish, +and you'll kindly keep your knives and hatchets off me. The King can be +cut up if he likes, but I'll go before my Judge on the Resurrection +morning with my poor old body undisfigured by gaping holes and wounds!' +Yes, I frets cruel in the work'us, lady. If I could only get away back +to Kensington, where I belong, I'd be all right. I have no friends +here--only you and the Almighty God. I'm a poor old blind Irishwoman, +lady; and my sons is out in Ameriky and seems to have forgotten the +mother that bore them, and my husband's been dead these forty years, and +he was not exakly one to thank God for on bare knees--God rest his poor +black sowl! Yes, I've been blind now these thirty years (I was ninety on +the Feast of the Blessed Lady of Mount Carmel), and one day in the +winter we'd just been saying Mass for the sowl of the Cardinal Newman, +and when I got back home I put up a bit of gunpowder to clane the +chimbly, which smoked cruel (I always was a decent, clane body) and the +wicked stuff turned round on me very vindictious, and blew down into the +room, burning red-hot into my poor, innocent eyes. They cut one out at +St. Bartholomew's 'Orspital, and they hoped to save the other, but it +took to weeping itself away voluntarious, and a-throbbing like +steam-engines, and the young chaps fetched it out a few weeks later. +But I'm a very happy blind woman. Yes, lady, it was dreadful at first, +and I'll not deny that the cross seemed too heavy for my poor back--as +if God Himself had forsaken me--great, black, thundering darkness all +round as I couldn't cut a peep-show in nohow. All night I'd be a raging +and a-fighting to get one little ray of light, and then I'd howl and +shriek to the Blessed Virgin and all the saints, and then I'd curse and +blaspheme and call to all the devils in hell; but no one heard, and the +darkness continued dark. But, glory be to the saints! it's astonishing +how used you get to things. At the end of a couple of months you seems +to forget as there was ever anything else but darkness around, and by +the grace of God and the favour of the angels I gets about most +nimblous. No, I don't belong to this parish at all; that's why I hopes +one day to get sixpence and get back to Kensington. But, you see, lady, +it was like this--I came up to call on my poor sister at the top of the +hill, and when I got there they told me she was dead and buried (God +rest her sowl!), and the shock was so great I fell down overcome, as you +may say, by emotion, and a kind gentleman picked me up and brought me in +here, and there I lay stretched out on a bed of pain with a great bruise +all down my poor side, and my poor hinnards a-struggling amongst +theirselves for a bit of comfort, which they've never got since I've +been here, and the young chap of a doctor a-talking in long and +indecent words to the nusses. (I hear you inmates a-smiling again!) But +I was not in liquor lady--s'help me it's God's truth! (May your lips +stiffen for ever, sitting there a-grinning and a-mocking at God's +truth!) I've allus been a sober woman, and I've always conducted myself. +(God blast you all, and your children and children's children!) Yes, my +lady, I know it's not a prison and I can take my discharge; but, you +see, I don't know the way to the 'bus as'll take me to Kensington, and I +ain't got sixpence--a most distressful and unpleasant circumstance not +to have sixpence. May the Holy Mother preserve you in wealth and +prosperity so that you may never know! If I had sixpence of my own do +you think I'd stay in this wicked Bastille, ordered about by the ladies +of the bar? I calls them ladies of the bar, not as they ever give you a +drop to cheer you, but because as they is puffed up with vanity and +three-ha'porth of starched linen. Yes, my lady, I know as they calls +theirselves nusses, but when you're ninety you won't like to be ordered +about by a parcel of girls. Oh, my lady, if you would only put me in the +'bus that goes to Kensington and give me a sixpence here in my poor old +hand, then may the Blessed Mother keep you for ever, you and your good +children, and may the crown of glory that is waiting for you before the +Great White Throne be studded with di'monds and rubies brighter than the +stars! How could I get on? I'd be all right if I only got to Kensington; +there's the praists!--God love 'em!--they knows me and helps me, and +kind ladies who give me the tickets for meat and groceries; and there's +the landlord of the 'Fish and Quart'--he'll be near you, lady, before +the Great White Throne--and on wet days, when the quality don't come +out, I go round to him and there's always a bite and a sup for old +Bridget. I hear you paupers smiling again, but believe me, lady, it is +the black wickedness of their iniquitous hearts. Ask the perlice, +lady--God bless the bhoys for leading the old pauper over many a +tumultuous street!--they will tell you my excellent character for +temperance and sobriety and cleanliness. They give me a paper from +Scotland Yard, which lets me walk in the High Street. I sells nothing +and I asks nothing, but I just stands, and the ladies and gentlemen +rains pennies in my hand thick as hail in May-time. And do I get enough +to live on? I should think I did, and enough to fill the belly of +another woman who clanes my room and cooks my food and leads me about. +No, I shan't get run over by no motor-car. The Lord may have taken the +sight of my eyes, but He has left me an uncommon sharp pair of ears and +a nose like a ferret, and by this special mercy I can hear the things +stinking and rampaging long afore they're near me. You needn't be afeard +for me, lady--old Bridget can take care of herself, being always a sober +and temperate woman. Any one who tells you different in this wicked +Bastille is a liar and a slanderer, a child of the Devil and Satan, who +shall have their portion in hell-fire. Matron says I've no clothes, +does she?--and after the beautiful dress as I came up to see my poor +sister with? Yes, I know as I must have a decent gown on in a +fashionable neighbourhood. I like to be in the fashion, even if I am +blind; but you'll find me an old one of yours, lady, and I shall look so +beautiful in it the bhoys will be all for eloping with me as I stand. + +"Most peculiar joyful feeling there is about a sixpence if you've not +felt one these fower months. The other night I'd been worriting my poor +old head shocking all day how to get sixpence in this den of paupers, +and when I fell asleep I had a vision of our Blessed Lady a-smiling most +gracious like and a-stretching out a silver sixpence bright as the glory +round her most blessed head. I cried cruel when I woke, sixpence seemed +so far off; but now, thanks be to God and to all His howly angels, my +dream is true!" + + + + +AN OBSCURE CONVERSATIONIST + + Out of the night that covers me, + Black as the Pit from pole to pole, + I thank whatever gods may be + For my unconquerable soul. + + * * * * * + + It matters not how strait the gate, + How charged with punishments the scroll, + I am the master of my fate; + I am the captain of my soul. + + +"Aye, lass, but you ain't been to see me for a long time, and me been +that queer and quite a fixture in bed all along of catching cold at that +funeral. Been abroad, have you? Oh, well, you're welcome, for I've been +a bit upset about not seeing you and because of a dream I 'ad. I dreamt +I was up in 'eaven all along of the Great White Throne and the golden +gates, with 'oly angels all around a-singing most vigorous. Mrs. Curtis +was there, and my blessed mother and my niece Nellie and the Reverent +Walker--you know the Reverent Walker, ma'am, 'im as I sits under?--yes, +I like little Walker, what there is of him to like, for I wish he was +bigger; but he was all right in my dream, larger than life, with a crown +on 'im; but I missed some of you, and I says to myself: 'Mrs. Nevinson +ain't 'ere,' so I'm glad, lass, as you're safe like. + +"Yes, I've been that queer I couldn't know myself, and though I'm better +I'm that bone-lazy I can't move, but I'll be all right again soon and +I'll get those petticoats of yourn finished which I am ashamed of having +cluttering about still. I've 'ad what's called brownchitis. Mrs. Curtis +fetched the doctor when I was took bad, and they built me up a sort of +tent with a sheet, and a kettle a-spitting steam at me through a roll of +brown paper they fixed on the spout, and I 'alf-killed myself with +laughing at such goings-on. I was that hot and smothered I had to get up +in the middle of the night and get to the open window to take a breath +of fog, for you can't call it air; I felt just like a boiled lobster. I +ain't had nothing to do with doctors before and I don't understand their +ways. This young chap 'e got 'old on a piece of wood and planked it down +on my chest with 'is ear clapped to the other end. 'Say ninety-nine,' 'e +says as grave as a judge. 'Sir,' I says, 'I'm not an imbecile, and not +having much breath to spare I'll keep it to talk sense.' + +"He burst hisself with laughing, and then 'e catches 'old on my 'and as +men do when they go a-courting. 'Sir,' I says, 'a fine young chap like +you 'ad better 'ang on with some young wench.' + +"He guffawed again fit to split 'isself. 'It's a treat to come and see +you,' 'e says, 'but you're really ill this time, you know, and you ought +to go into the infirmary and get properly nursed up.' 'Never,' I says, +'never!' and 'e went away cowed like. + +"No, lass, I ain't a-going to no work'us with poor critturs a-gasping +and a-groaning all round. I've kept myself to myself free and +independent all my life, and free and independent I'll die. Little +Walker catched it 'ot the other day sending a sort of visiting lady +'ere--the Organization lady she calls 'erself, so Mrs. Curtis said. +Well, she asked so many questions and wanted to know why I had not had +thrift, as she called it, that I turned on 'er and I says: 'I think +you've made a little mistake in the number. I ain't got no 'idden crime +on my conscience, but I'm a lady of independent means, and must ask for +the peace and quiet which is due to wealth.' + +"I was that angry with the Reverend Walker!--did it for the best, he +said, thought as I might have got a little 'elp from the Organization if +I hadn't been so rude. The very idea! I 'ate help. I've hung by mine own +'ed like every proper herring and human ought to, and when I can't 'ang +no longer I'll drop quiet and decent into my grave. + +"No, I never got married--what I saw of men in service did not exactly +set me coveting my neighbours' husbands, a set of big babies as must +have the moon if they want it--to say nothing of the wine, and the +women, and the trotting horses, and the betting on them silly cards. +Besides, to tell the truth, lass, no man of decent stature ever asked me +to wed; being a big woman, all the little scrubs came a-following me, +but I would not go with any of them, always liking Grenadier Guards, six +foot at least. Perhaps it was as well; I should never have had patience +to put up with a man about the place, being so masterful myself; +besides, ain't I been sort of father and 'usband to my sister Cordelia? +Mother died when Cordelia was born, and she says to me: 'Ruth, take care +of this 'elpless babby,' and, God help me! I done my best, though the +poor girl made a poor bargain with life, 'er husband getting queerer and +more cantankerous, wandering the country up and down as fast as they +brought 'im 'ome and having to be shut up in Colney Hatch at the end. I +was not going to satisfy that Organization lady's curiosity and boast +how I helped to bring up that family, and a deal of 'thrift' that lady +would have managed on the two shillings a week I kept of my wages, the +missus often passing the remark that, considering the good money she +paid, she liked her servants better dressed. Cordelia was left with +three little ones, and I couldn't abide the thought of 'er coming to the +parish and having them nice little kids took from 'er and brought up in +them work'us schools, so I agreed to give 'er eight shillings week out +of my wages, and that with the twelve shillings she got cooking at the +'Pig and Whistle' kept the 'ome together. Poor lass! she's had no luck +with her boys either, poor Tim going off weak in his head and having to +be put away, and Jonathan killed straight off at Elandslaagter with a +bullet through his brain. Yes, there's Ambrose--no, I don't ask Ambrose +to help me; 'e's got his mother to 'elp and a heavy family besides. No, +I don't take food out of the stomachs of little children, a-stunting of +their growth, as nothing can be done for them later, and a-starving of +their brains--I pulls my belt a bit tighter, thank you. Yes, I know what +I am talking about--didn't I spend nearly every Sunday afternoon for +nigh on twenty years at Colney Hatch? Well, the will of the Lord be +done--but why if He be Almighty He lets folks be mad when He might +strike 'em dead has always puzzled and tried my faith. + +"Yes, I lives on my five-shilling pension and what my last master left +me; half a crown rent doesn't leave me much for food. I allus had a good +appetite, I'm sorry to say, and I often dream of grilled steaks--not +since the brownchitis, though; I'm all for lemons and fizzy drinks. The +folks 'ere are very kind and often bring me some of their dinner, but +Lord! they are poor cooks, and if their 'usbands drink I for one ain't +surprised. I can grill a steak with any one, and I attribute my +independent income to my steaks; at my last place the master thought the +world of them, and when there was rumpuses in the kitchen I used to hear +'im say: 'Sack the whole blooming lot, but remember Brooks stays,' and +stay I did till the old gentleman died and remembered his steaks in his +will. + +"Well, I was going to tell you how I caught this cold, only you will +keep on interrupting of me. I saw as how there was going to be a funeral +at St. Paul's, and I thought I'd go. I allus was one for looking at men, +and having been kitchen-maid at York Palace, I took on a taste for +cathedrals and stained windows and music and such-like, as a sort of +respite from the troubles and trials of life. + +"It was just beautiful to hear the organ play and to see the gold cross +carried in front of the dear little chorister-boys, and I says to +myself: 'Their mas are proud of them this day.' Then came the young +chaps who sing tenor and bass--fine upstanding young men--and then the +curates with their holy faces, but at the end were the bishops and deans +and such-like, and they were that h'old and h'ugly I was quite ashamed. + +"Well, I thought I'd treat myself to a motor-bus after my long walk. The +young chap says: 'Don't go up top, mother, you'll catch cold.' 'Thank +you kindly,' I says, 'but I ain't a 'ot-house plant, being born on the +moors,' and up I went, but Lor'! I hadn't reckoned how the wind cut +going the galloping pace we went; it petrified to the negrigi, as poor +mother used to say--no, I don't know where the negrigi is--but take off +your fur-coat top of a motor-bus in a vehement east wind and perhaps +you'll feel. + +"Yes, that's little Walker's bell a-going--it ain't a wedding and it +ain't a funeral; it's a kind of prayers that he says, chiefly to +'isself, at five o'clock--'e's 'Igh Church. + +"Must you be going? Well, come again soon; being country yourself, you +understands fresh air as folk brought up among chimbleys can't be +expected to--but don't worry me about no infirmaries, for I ain't +a-going, so there! + +"Mrs. Curtis has her orders, and when I'm took worse she's to put me in +the long train that whistles and goes to York--yes, I've saved up the +railway fare, and from there I can get 'ome and die comfortable on the +moor with plenty of air and the peace of God all around." + + * * * * * + +The landlady came to open the door for me as I went down the +well-scrubbed staircase. "Yes, ma'am, Miss Brooks is better, but she's +very frail; the doctor thinks as she can't last much longer, but her +conversation continues as good as ever. My old man or one of my sons +goes up to sit with her every evening; she's such good company she saves +them the money for the 'alls, and makes them laugh as much as Little +Tich. We'll take care of her, ma'am; the Reverent Walker told me to get +whatever she wanted, and 'e'd pay, and all the folks are real fond of +her in the house, she's that quick with her tongue. + +"No, ma'am, she'll never get to York, she's too weak, but the doctor +told me to humour her." + + + + +MOTHERS + + For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt; ... + astonishment hath taken hold on me. Is there no balm in Gilead; is + there no physician there? why then is not the health of the + daughter of my people recovered? + + +Every first Monday of the month a trainload of shabby, half-starved +women moves southwards from London to one of our great Poor Law schools; +and perhaps in the whole world, spite of poverty, hunger, and rags, +there is no more joyous band. For two blessed hours they meet their +children again, and though later they return weary, hungry, and +heart-sore, nothing is allowed to mar the joy of the present, for the +poor are great philosophers, and hold in practice as well as in theory +that "an ounce of pleasure is worth a peck of pain." + +Humour exudes from every pore; triumphs are related on all +sides--triumphs over civil authorities, triumphs over Boards of +Guardians, triumphs over "Organization ladies" and "cruelty men"; and +methods are discussed as to the best way of triumphing over the school +authorities and conveying sweets and cakes to the children. + +"Yes, 'e kept 'is word and had me up, but I said as I was a widder, and +had to keep the girl at 'ome to mind the sick children, and the beak +dismissed the summons, and I came out and danced a jig under 'is nose. +'Done you again, old chap,' I says, and 'e looked fit to eat me. + +"'E's a good sort, our chairman, with a terrible soft spot in his heart +for widows. We allus says you have only got to put on a widow's crape +and you can get what you like out of him; so Mrs. James upstairs--she's +been a milliner, you know--she rigged me out with a little bonnet, and a +long crape fall, and a white muslin collar, and she pulled my 'air out +loose round my ears, and gave me a 'andkerchief with an inch border of +black, and she says, 'There, Mrs. Evans, there ain't a bloke on the +Board as won't say you are a deserving case,' and sure enough they went +and did just as I told them as good as gold. If I'd my time over again +I'd come into the world a widder born." + +"Just what I says. When Spriggs was alive we were half-clemmed, but +nothing could we get from the parish, 'cos they said 'e was an +able-bodied man. Spriggs wasn't a lazy man, and 'e did try for work, and +he wasn't a drunkard though 'e did fall down under the motor-bus, one of +his mates standing 'im a drink on a empty stomach, which we all knows +flies quicker to the 'ead. It don't seem right as married ladies +a-carrying the kiddies should always go 'ungry, but it's the fact. Since +Spriggs was took and the inquest sat on 'im we've had enough, but it's +too late to save the little 'un, who was born silly, and Ernest was put +away in Darenth, and I always says it was being starved, and the teacher +always a-caning of 'im because 'e couldn't learn on an empty stomach." + +"Best not to marry, I says, and then if 'e falls out of work we can go +to the parish and get took in on our own, and you don't 'ave to keep 'im +later on. Did you 'ear about Mrs. Moore? Mrs. Moore was our landlady, +and 'er 'usband went off about three year ago with the barmaid at 'The +Bell'; the perlice tells 'er as she must come in the 'Ouse whilst they +looked for 'im, but she said she wouldn't, not if it was ever so, and +she was glad to be rid of bad rubbish. So she went to 'er old missis, +who lent her money to set up a lodging-house, and, being a good cook, +she soon had a 'ouseful, and brings up the three little ones clean and +well-behaved like ladies' children. Then the Guardians sent the other +day to say as Moore had been taken off to Colney Hatch, mad with drink +and wickedness, and she'd got to pay for 'im in there. Well, Mrs. Moore +went to appear afore the Board. Lord! we 'alf split ourselves with +laughing when she was a-telling us about it; she's got a tongue in 'er +head, as cooks have, I notice; the heat affects their tempers; and she +went off in one of 'er tantrums and fair frighted them. + +"'I'm sure you'd like to pay for your 'usband, Mrs. Moore,' says the +little man wot sits in the big chair. + +"'I'm quite sure I shouldn't,' says Mrs. Moore; ''e's never been a +'usband to me, pawning the 'ome and drinking and carrying-on with other +women shocking. 'E promised to support me, 'e did: "with all my worldly +goods I thee endow," and lies of that sort, but I made no such promise, +and I won't do it. Working 'ard as I can I just keep a roof and get food +for the four of us, and if you takes a penny out of me I don't pay it, +and I drops the job, and comes into the 'Ouse with Claude and Ruby and +Esmeralda, and lives on the ratepayers, same as other women, which I 'as +a right to, being a deserted woman for three years, while 'e kep 'is +barmaids--or they kep 'im, which is probable if I knows Moore. And my +young Claude being a cripple for life, 'is father kicking 'im when he +was a crawler in one of 'is drunken fits. You may fine me and imprison +me, and 'ang me by the neck till I am dead, but not a 'apenny shall you +get out of me.' + +"They told her to be quiet, but she wouldn't, and they pushed 'er out of +the room and into the street, still talking, and quite a crowd came +round and listened to 'er, and they all says, 'Quite right; don't you +pay it, my gal,' and she didn't, and no one ain't asked 'er any more +about it. She fair frighted that Board of Guardians, she says. She's a +fine talker, is Mrs. Moore, and nothing stops 'er when she's once +started." + +"I'm another who's done better since mine died," said a frail little +woman on crutches, with a red gash across her throat from ear to ear, +"and 'e was a real good 'usband, as came 'ome regular and did 'is duty +to us all till he lost his work through the firm bankrupting, and not a +job could 'e get again. And somehow, walking about all day with nothing +in 'is inside, and 'earing the kids always crying for bread, seemed to +turn 'im savage and queer in 'is head. 'E took to sleeping with a +carving-knife under the pillow, and hitting me about cruel. I knew it +was only trouble, and didn't think wrong of the man, but I went to ask +the magistrate for advice just what to do, as I thought 'is brain was +queer, and yet didn't want 'im put away. And the beak said 'e didn't +think much of a black eye, and I'd better go 'ome and make the best of +'im. Just what I did, but 'e got worse, and the Organization lady said +as we must go to the 'Ouse, or she'd have the cruelty man on us. And +Jack got wild and said 'e wasn't so cruel as to have bred paupers, and +they should go with 'im to a better land, far, far away. That night 'e +blazed out shocking, as you know, for it was all in _Lloyd's News_, and +cut little Daisy's throat, and rushed at H'albert, killing them dead. +I'd an awful struggle with 'im, but I jumped out of the window just in +time, though my throat was bleeding fearful, and I broke both legs with +the fall. The perlice came then, but it was too late; 'e'd done for +'imself and the two children, though I always give thanks to Mrs. Dore, +who came in whilst 'e was wrestling with me, and took off the little +ones and locked them up in the top-floor back. I done better since +then--the Board's took Amy and Leonard, and I manage nicely on my twelve +shillings a week, with only Cholmondeley and the baby to look after. But +it don't seem right somehow." + +"No, it ain't right; married ladies ought not to go short, but we always +do. Boards and Organization ladies think as men keeps us. Granny says +they most always did in her day, and rich people does still, I suppose, +but it ain't the fashion down our street, and it falls 'eavy on the +woman what with earning short money and being most always confined. My +son says as it's the laws as is old, and ought to be swept somewhere +into limbo, not as I understands it, being no scholard." + +"Here we are at last! Ain't it a joyful sight to see the 'eavens and the +earth, and no 'ouses in between; it always feels like Sunday in the +country." + + + + +"YOUR SON'S YOUR SON" + + My little son is my true lover-- + It seems no time ago since he was born. + I know he will be quick and happy to discover + The world of other women and leave me forlorn! + Sometimes I think that I'll be scarcely human + If I can brook his chosen woman! + + _Anna Wickham._ + + +"Oh, dear! oh, dear!" wailed the old lady, burying her face in her +pocket-handkerchief; "to think as I've lived to see the day! I've always +lived with 'Orace, and I've always prayed that the Lord would take me +unto Himself before I was left alone with my grey hairs. A poor, pretty +thing she is, too, with a pair of blue eyes and frizzled yellow curls, +dressed out beyond her station in cheap indecencies of lace showing her +neck and arms, as no proper-minded girl should. And she won't have me to +live with them--I who have never been parted from 'Orace not one day +since he was born thirty year ago come Sunday. Yes, I've got Esther; +she's away in service: she's Johnson's child; I've buried two husbands, +both of them railway men and both of them dying violent deaths. Johnson +was an engine-driver on the Great Northern, and he smashed 'isself to a +jelly in that accident near York nigh on forty year ago now. I said I'd +never marry on the line again, hating accidents and blood about the +place; however, it's a bit lonesome being a widow when you're young, and +Thompson courted me so faithful at last I gave in. He was 'Orace's +father, a guard on the Midland, and he went to step on his van after the +train was off, as is the habit of guards--none of them ever getting +killed as I ever heard of except Thompson, who must needs miss his +footing and fall on the line, a-smashing of his skull fearful. Yes; I +drew two prizes in the matrimonial market--good, steady men, as always +came 'ome punctual and looked after the jennies in the window-boxes, and +played with the children; but, as Mrs. Wells says, them is the sort as +gets killed. If a woman gets 'old on a brute she may be quite sure he'll +come safe through all perils both on land and water, and live to torture +several unfortunate women into their graves. 'Orace was a toddling babe +then, and Esther just ten years older. Fortunately, I was a good hand at +the waistcoat-making, and so I managed to keep the 'ome going; 'Orace +was always very clever, and he got a scholarship and worked 'isself up +as an electrical engineer. One of the ladies got Esther a place at Copt +Hall, Northamptonshire, when she was only thirteen, and she's done well +ever since, being cook now to Lady Mannering at thirty-six pounds a +year. No, she's never got married, Esther--a chap she walked out with +wasn't as faithful as he should have been, a-carrying on with another at +the same time; and Esther took on awful, I believe, though she's one as +holds her tongue, is Esther--at all events, she's never had naught to do +with chaps since. She's a good girl, is Esther; but 'Orace and me were +always together, and he always was such a one to sit at home with me +working at his wires and currents and a-taking me to see all the +exhibitions, and explaining to me about the positives and negatives and +the volts and ampts; he never went after girls, and I always hoped as he +would never fall in love with mortal woman, only with a current; so it +knocked all the heart out of me when he took to staying out in the +evenings, and then brought the girl in one night as his future wife. +'Orace was the prettiest baby you ever see'd, and when he used to sit on +my knee, with his head all over golden curls, like a picture-book, I +used to hate to think that somewhere a girl-child was growing up to take +him from me--and to think it's come now, just when I thought I was safe +and he no more likely to marry than the Pope of Rome, being close on +thirty, and falling in love for the first time! And she won't have me to +live with them! + +"Mrs. Wells has been telling me I mustn't stand in the young people's +way. Of course I don't want to stand in their way; but I'm wondering how +I'll shift without 'Orace; he always made the fire and brought me a cup +of tea before he went to his work; and when the rheumatics took me bad +he'd help me dress and be as handy as a woman. I can't get the work I +used to; my eyesight isn't what it was, and my fingers are stiff. No, I +ain't what I was, and I suppose I mustn't expect it, being turned +sixty-seven, and I ain't old enough either for them pensions. + +"Well, if it ain't Esther. You're early, lass; and it's not your evening +out, neither. I've just been telling this lady how Ruby won't have me to +live with them; it's upset me shocking the thought of leaving 'Orace +after all these years. I'm trying not to complain, and I know 'Orace has +been a son in ten thousand; but I'm afeard of the lonesomeness, and I +don't know how I'll live. Mrs. Wells says if the Guardians see my hands +they won't give me no outdoor relief, but they'll force me into the +House, and I'd sooner be in my bury-hole." And again the poor old lady +sobbed into her pocket-handkerchief. + +"Don't cry, mother; it's all right; you shan't go on the parish, never +fear, neither for outdoor relief nor indoor relief. I've left my place, +and I'm coming to live with you and take care of you to the end of your +days. I'm not 'Orace, I know, but I'm your daughter, and after the +courting's over 'Orace will be your son again." + +"Left your place, Esther! What do you mean, lass?" + +"What I say, mother. 'Orace wrote and told me what Ruby said, and I was +that sorry I went and gave notice. 'Orace is awful upset, too, but +there, it is no good talking to a man in love, and perhaps Ruby will get +nicer; she's a young thing yet. So when I told my lady all about it she +let me come away at once. The family is going to the Riviera next week, +and the housekeeper can manage quite well." + +"You've left your good place, Esther, all for me?" + +"Yes; all right, old dear. I've got a fourteen-year character from my +lady, and I'll soon find something to do; I'm not the sort as starves." +And Esther rolled up her sleeves, made up the fire, and poured the +contents of the indignant kettle into the little black teapot. + +"Oh, dear!" wailed the old lady, "you must not do this for me, lass; +you're heaping coals of fire on my 'ead, for, as Mrs. Wells often said +to me, 'Don't be so set on 'Orace; remember, you have a girl too.' I was +always set on the boys, and not on the girls; women's life is a poor +game, and when I heard of them 'eathen 'Indus who kill the girl babies, +I thought it a very sensible thing too--better than letting them grow up +to slave for a pittance. But it is you now who are the faithful one," +and she drew Esther's face down to hers and kissed her fondly. + +Tears rose in the daughter's eyes; she seemed to remember with a sense +of loss that her mother had never kissed her like that since she was a +little child, before Horace was born. + + + + +"TOO OLD AT FORTY" + + I had no place to flee unto; and no man careth for my soul. + + +Miss Allison sat at her desk in the class-room, where she had sat for +over twenty years, and gazed dreamily out of the window into the +courtyard below, where the girls of the ---- High School were at play. +In her hand she held a letter, which had brought the white, rigid look +to her face, like that of a soldier who has received his death-wound. +Perhaps she ought to have been prepared for the shock; the system of +"too old at forty" has long been in working order in girls' schools, +possibilities had been freely discussed in the mistresses' room; but, +nevertheless, the blow had struck her dumb and senseless. The note was +very polite--"owing to changes on the staff her valuable services would +be no longer required after the summer vacation"--but Miss Allison had +seen enough of the inner workings of High Schools to know that changes +on the staff meant that the old and incompetent were to be crushed out +to make room for the young and fresh. Miss Allison was not +incompetent--her worst enemy could not accuse her of that--but she was +getting just a little tired, just a little irritable; above all, her +forty-second birthday had come and gone. Teaching is well known to +affect the nerves, and in Miss Allison's case nervous exhaustion caused +her tongue to run away with her; her sharp speeches to the idlers of her +form were reported at home--losing nothing in the telling--and duly +retailed by captious parents to the head mistress; the constant +complaints were becoming a nuisance. Moreover, a young mistress, who +would take interest in the sports and could bowl round-arm, was badly +wanted on the staff. Miss Allison belonged to an older generation, when +athletics were not a _sine qua non_; she had never been a cricketer, at +hockey her pupils easily outran her, and she had lost her nerve for +high-diving--altogether, she had lived past her age. The queer part was, +it had all taken such a little time; it seemed only yesterday that she +had come to the school, the youngest on the staff, and now she was the +oldest there, far older than the young girl from Girton who reigned as +head. And yet life was not nearly over yet; Miss Allison remembered with +dismay that women went on living for fifty, sixty, seventy, and even +eighty and ninety years--it might be that half the journey still lay +before her. + +She made a rapid calculation in her brain of her little capital in the +savings-bank, which yielded her (after the income-tax had been +recovered) an annual sum of £10 13s. 9d. Though too old to teach, she +was too young to buy much of an annuity with the capital, and she knew +the state of the labour market too well to cherish any illusions as to +the possibility of obtaining work. Perhaps she ought to have saved more, +but for some years she had her invalid mother mainly dependent upon her, +and illness runs away with money; she grudged nothing to the dead, but +she remembered almost with shame the amount she had spent in holiday +tours. + +Her eyes rested with a sense of coming loss on the crowd in the +playground, a kaleidoscopic scene of flying legs and whirling draperies, +the sun shining on bright frocks and on the loose locks of gold and +auburn till the dreary courtyard seemed to blossom like a flower-garden. +How she had loved all these girls, toiled and slaved for them, rejoiced +in their success and mourned for their disappointments; but the children +of the Higher Education, unlike Saturn, devour the mothers of the +movement, and suddenly these fair young girls had turned into rivals and +enemies, beating her down in the dust with cricket bats and hockey +sticks. An hour of bitter atheism fell upon Miss Allison; all her life +had been spent in serving "the cause," the Higher Education of Women had +been her creed, but now in middle life it had failed and she was left +helpless and superfluous as the poor women of an earlier generation, who +hung so forlornly round the neck of their nearest male relation. + +A dry sob half choked her, as she rose mechanically in obedience to the +bell to take her class in geometry. + + + + +IN THE LUNATIC ASYLUM + + O Father, we beseech Thee, sustain and comfort Thy servants who + have lost the powers of reason and self-control, suffer not the + Evil One to vex them, and in Thy mercy deliver them from the + darkness of this world....--_Prayer for Lunatics._ + + +I passed through the spacious grounds of A---- Asylum on my way to visit +the patients chargeable to our parish. A group of men were playing Rugby +football, but even to the eye of the tyro there was something wrong with +the game--there was no unity, no enthusiasm; some lurking sinister +presence--grotesque, hideous, that made one shudder--worse than +strait-waistcoat and padded-room. In conversation the lunatics struck me +as no worse mentally than the rest of us outside. Most of them +complained of unlawful detention, and begged pathetically for freedom. +"It is a dreadful place; why should I be kept here? We have just had a +harvest festival, but I'm not thankful. What have we to do with harvest +festivals?" + +"I am quite well," said a tall, powerful-looking man; "I assure you +there is nothing the matter with me," and as I was chronicling the fact +in my notebook a fiendish light blazed in his eyes--the hate of hates, +red-gleaming with fury and malice, as if all the devils in hell were +mocking behind his eyes. For a moment that seemed an eternity I watched, +paralysed, and then two stout warders pinioned him from behind and led +him away, swearing. "Homicidal mania," said the doctor shortly; "we have +to be always on the watch." + +I interviewed the man who would be King, and heard his theory as to the +illegal usurpation of the Throne by the Guelph family. I saw a new +Redeemer of the world, and the woman who had conducted one of the great +lawsuits of last century. + +The women were more talkative, and complained volubly of captivity. A +few were sullen and suspicious, and would not come to the roll-call and +I visited them on the stairs and corridors, or wherever they threw +themselves down. + +The doctor saw to it that my inspection was thorough. I was conducted to +the padded-rooms, where maniacs laughed and shouted and sang and +blasphemed, some of them throwing themselves frantically against the +cushioned walls, others lying silently on the floor, plucking futilely +at their sacking clothing. One poor woman lay in bed wasted to a shadow, +her bones nearly sticking through her skin. "Pray for him," she cried; +"oh, pray for him! His soul is burning in hell; night and day he cries +to me for a drop of cold water, but I may not take it to him. Look at +his poor throat where the rope cut; look at his poor starting eyes. Is +there no mercy in heaven?" + +"Poor woman!" said the doctor. "Her only son was hanged, and it has +turned her brain. She is sinking fast. I don't think she can live the +day out, and we shall all say 'Thank God!' It is a most pitiful case." + +In the general ward I saw a magnificent growth of golden hair plaited +round and round the head of a young girl who sat in a corner, her face +buried in her hands. Beside her sat a visitor, pressing some hot-house +grapes upon her. "Just try one, Mabel darling; don't you know me, dear?" +The hands were not withdrawn, but as I passed with the doctor she +suddenly sprang to her feet. "Has he come?" The doctor paused, and +nodded cheerfully at the visitor. "Very good sign, Mrs. Foster; I will +see you later about your daughter." At last it was over; my report-sheet +was filled, and with great thankfulness I passed into the outer air. I +gazed at the men and women outside with a sense of comradeship and +security; whatever their private troubles, at least they were +"uncertified," free men, not possessed of devils, grievously tormented. +One gets used to everything; but that first visit to A---- Asylum stands +out in letters of flame in my memory, and as I waited on the platform +for my train, I shivered as if with ague and a sense of deadly nausea +overpowered me. + +I entered an empty compartment, but just as the train was starting the +woman whom I had seen visiting at the asylum got in after me, and we +were alone together. She glanced at me shyly several times, as if she +wished to say something; and then, suddenly clutching my hand, she burst +into tears: "Oh! I am so thankful--so thankful! Did you see my poor girl +to-day? Yes, I know you did, for I saw you look at her beautiful golden +hair--whenever I see the sun shining on cornfields I think of my Mabel's +hair. Well, for nigh three years Mabel has sat in that awful place; she +has never taken her hands away from her face, nor looked up, nor spoken +a word, till this afternoon; and then, whether it was the doctor, or +your blue cloak--but, as you saw, she stood up and spoke, and after that +she ate some grapes, and knew me again, and grumbled at the way they had +done her hair--the nurse says that is the best sign of all, and so does +the doctor. Oh! thank God! thank God!" and the poor woman sobbed in +choking spasms of joy. + +I felt that I and my blue cloak were such unconscious agents in the +restoration of reason that her gratitude was quite embarrassing. + +"Yes, she has been in there just on three years; acute melancholia, they +call it, brought on by nervous shock. Our doctor at home always gave me +some hope, but not the people in there. I suppose they see such a lot of +misery, they get into the habit of despair. Mabel is my only child; my +husband died just after she was born, so you can guess what she has +been to me. Fortunately, I understood the greengrocery business; so when +I lost my husband I went on with the shop just the same, and was able to +give her a good education. She took to her books wonderful, and got a +scholarship on to the High School; she learnt French and German, and +went on to Pitman's College for shorthand and typewriting; and at +eighteen she got an engagement as typist and secretary to a City firm. +She was a wonderful pretty girl, my Mabel; just like a lily, with her +slight figure and golden head; and the men came about her like flies; +but she would never go with any of them; she was such a one to come home +and spend her evenings quietly with me, reading or sewing. Then suddenly +I saw a change had come over my girl; one of the gentlemen in the office +had been after her, and she had fallen in love with him, head over +heels, as girls will. I wasn't glad; perhaps it was a mother's jealousy, +perhaps it was second-sight a-warning of me; but I couldn't be pleased +nohow. He came up to tea on Sunday afternoon, and I hated him at once; +if ever liar and scoundrel was written on a man's face, it was there +plain for all to read, except my poor child, and she was blind as folks +in love always are. Then, though he wasn't a gentleman as I count +gentlemen, he was above her in station, and I could see as he looked +down on me and the shop; and, as I told my poor girl, them unequal +marriages don't lead to no good. But there, I saw it was no use +a-talking; we only fell out over the wretch--the only time she ever +spoke nasty to me was over him--I saw she would only marry him on the +sly if I said 'No'--we must let our children go to their doom when they +are in love--and so I took my savings out of the bank and gave her a +trousseau of the best; and all the time my heart was heavy as lead. +Folks used to laugh at me and tell me I looked as if I were getting +ready for a funeral instead of a wedding. There's many a true word +spoken in jest; and that was how I felt all the time--a great, black +cloud of horror over everything. + +"You should have seen my Mabel on her wedding-day. She looked just +beautiful in her plain white dress and long veil. The two bridesmaids +wore white muslin, with blue sashes; and Mrs. Allen--my first-floor +lodger--said as they might have been three angels of heaven. I drove in +the cab to give my girl away. God only knows how I felt. Folks have told +me since that I was white and rigid like a corpse, and that I sat in +church with my hand held up before Mabel as if to ward off a blow. We +sat, and waited, and waited, and waited. It was summer-time; and, being +in the trade, I had not spared the flowers; and the church was heavy +with the scent of roses and sweet-peas--I have sickened every summer +since at the smell of them. The organist played all the wedding tunes +through, and then began them over again--I have hated the sound of them +ever since--and still we waited. The best man went out to telephone for +the bridegroom; and my eldest nephew took a motor to drive round to +fetch him. The clock struck three, and the vicar, looking very troubled +for Mabel, came out in his surplice to say the ceremony could not take +place that day; so we all drove home again. Mabel never spoke; but she +sat up in her bedroom cold as a stone, with her face buried in her +hands, just as you saw her this afternoon, leaning her arms on the +little writing-table where she used to sit to do her lessons. She would +not speak, nor eat, nor move; and by sheer force we tore off her wedding +finery and got her into bed. The doctor came and said she was suffering +from nervous shock, and if she could cry she might recover. We pitied +her and called him, and the bridesmaids swelled up their eyes with +crying, hoping to infect her; but not a tear could we get out of her; +not even when my nephew came back with a note the scoundrel had left. He +was a married man all the time; and the crime of bigamy was too much for +him at the end. My sister and I sat up all night, but we could do +nothing with her; and at the end of the week the doctor said she must be +put away, as it was not safe for her to be at home. Ah, well! we live +through terrible things; and when I left my pretty, clever girl at the +lunatic asylum I did not think I could bear it; but I went on living. +That is three years ago now and never once has Mabel looked up or spoken +till to-day, I think it was your blue cloak; her going-away dress was +just that colour, and it seemed to rouse her somehow." + +The train drew up at the terminus, and she held out her hand in +farewell. "Good-bye. Please think of my Mabel sometimes. I don't know +what religion you are, but if you would sometimes say this prayer for +her, perhaps God might hear." She held out a little bit of paper, soiled +and smudged as if with many tears; and then the crowds surged between +us, and we parted. + + + + +THE SWEEP'S LEGACY + + (1900) + + +Most visitors among the poor have come across the person who believes +that he has a large fortune kept back from him by the Queen, aided and +abetted by the gentlemen of Somerset House and other public offices. + +I once knew a sweep in Whitechapel who was firmly persuaded that he had +a legacy of five hundred pounds in the Bank of England. "Yes, lady, if I +had my rights, I should not be so poor. My aunt, Lady Cable Knight--she +married a tip-top nobleman, she did--left me on her dying bed five +hundred pounds in gold. The money's in the Bank of England. I seed it +there myself on a shelf, labelled A. A.--Anthony Adams--but I ain't no +scholard, and the gentleman behind the counter said I must have a +scholard to speak for me. The money is there right enough, and I've got +my aunt's marriage lines, so that proves it clear." + +At first I paid little heed to his story, but after a time I got fond of +the old sweep, and began to wonder if I could not help him to obtain +this legacy. He was a good old man--always serene, always "trustful in +the Lord," though he well knew the pangs of hunger and cold, for +younger and stronger men were crushing him out of his profession. A +poor deformed creature lived with him--one of those terrible abortions +found in the homes of the poor--epileptic, crippled, hydrocephalous, +whom I took for the son of the house but on inquiry I found he was no +relation. + +"We were neighbours up George Yard, lady; no, he ain't no son of mine, +H'albert ain't. He's very afflicted, poor chap, and 'is own family would +have nothing to do with 'im, so I gave 'im a 'ome. The lad don't eat +much, and the Lord will reward me some day. If I only had that money, +though, we might live comfortable!" Of course it was strictly against +the rules of the Buildings for "H'albert" to share the room, but even +women rent-collectors have hearts. + +"If you only had some proof of your claim to the money, I would try to +help you," I said one day when the rent had been missed. I had noticed +the little room getting barer and shabbier week by week, and to-day the +old man, his wife, and "H'albert" looked pinched and blue with cold and +hunger. Already I had secretly paid a visit to Somerset House to inspect +the will of Lady Cable Knight. + +"Well, I've got my aunt's marriage lines; doesn't that prove it? But the +Queen she gets 'old of us poor people's money. We've no chance against +the rich; we're no scholards--they never larnt us nothing when I was a +boy. The man in a paper 'at, that sells whelks in Whitechapel, knows all +about it, but he's no scholard neither." + +Touched by the want of scholarship amongst his friends, I put my +attainments at his service, and we went together to claim five hundred +pounds in gold, labelled "A. A." on a shelf in the Bank of England. + +I half hoped that, after the habit of his class, the old man would not +"turn up." But when I got out of the train at Broad Street, our place of +rendezvous, I saw him waiting at the corner, "cleaned" for the occasion, +in a strange old swallow-tail coat that might have figured at stately +Court dances when George III was king. On his arm he carried a coarse +bag of sacking, not quite cleansed from soot. We attracted no small +attention as we passed through the City, and it was quite a relief when +the classic walls of the Bank hid us from the vulgar gaze, though it was +no small ordeal to face the clerks and explain our errand. But I suppose +those gentlemen are used to monetary claims of this kind, and to their +eternal honour be it said that they never smiled, not even at the +production of the sooty marriage certificate by way of establishing our +claim. + +When at last we passed out again into the roar and glare of the street, +the bag provided for the spoil empty as before, I saw the old man draw +his sleeve across his eyes, leaving a long sooty trail. "It's no good, +ma'am; the poor have no chance against the rich. I didn't even see the +bag marked A. A. this time. Most likely the Queen and those gentlemen +have spent it all long ago. But I thank you, lady, all the same, and +will you allow me to pay your fare for coming down to speak for me?" + +When his offer was refused, he wrung my hand in silence, and then turned +eastwards towards his home. + +I watched him till he disappeared in the crowd, a forlorn and pathetic +figure, not without dignity in his strange old-world garb. + + + + +AN ALIEN[1] + + +"No, I ain't got it, ma'am; he says I'm a foreigner. I filled up the +papers same as you told me, and then the gentleman called and asked for +the birth-certificate, same as you said he would. 'I ain't got it,' I +says. 'I suppose when I was born children were too common and folks too +busy to go twenty miles down the hillside to crow over a baby at +Carlisle Town Hall. There were fifteen of us all told, and my father +only a farm labourer; if he went abroad the work stayed at 'ome, and +'e'd no time for gallivanting with seventeen mouths to fill. But I've +got my baptism here all right; my mother was a pious body, and as soon +as she could stand up she went to be churched and take the new stranger +to be washed free of original sin in font-water; 'ere's the date written +on it, 1837--year Queen Victoria began her most happy reign--you'll +believe that, I suppose, in a parson's 'andwriting? Stands to reason I +was born afore I was christened; they couldn't put the cross on my +forehead, now could they, till my face was out in the world? Silly +talk, I calls it, so now don't say no more, but pay me that five +shillings and give me the book with the tickets--same as other ladies!' + +"'You've lost your domicile,' he says. + +"'Don't know what that is,' I says. + +"'Married a foreigner,' he says. + +"'Well, and if I did, that ain't no business of yours, my lad; you +weren't born nor thought of and he died afore you come near this wicked +world. He's been dead wellnigh on fifty year, so 'e didn't cross your +path to worry you. Couldn't talk English? I says as 'e talked a deal +better than you. I understood what 'e says, and I can't make 'ead nor +tail of your silly talk, my lad, so there. Coverture? No--I ain't 'eard +of that--no, nor naturalization either; you go down and fetch up Mrs. +Nash--she's a rare scholard, she is--such a one for her books and +poetry. Perhaps she'll make sense of your long words, for I can't. I +lived afore the school-boards, and all the schooling I got I found out +for myself sitting up in bed at night a-teaching myself to read and +write. Not as I think much of all the larning myself; the girls can't +keep a 'ome together as we used, and though the boys sit at the school +desks a-cyphering till they are grown young men, they seem allus out of +work at the end of it,' I says. + +"'Yes, yes, you needn't olloa, my lad; I'm not deaf, though I am old and +grey-headed. So I can't have the pension because fifty years ago I fell +in love and married a steady young man, who worked hard, and knew how to +treat his wife (which 'alf you Englishmen don't), though 'e was a +Frenchman? I tell you marriage don't matter; 'usbands are come-by-chance +sort of people--you go a walk in the moonlight, and you kisses each +other, and then, afore you're clear in your mind, you're standing at the +altar, and the "better for worse" curse a-thundering over you. Ah! well, +poor Alphonse didn't live long enough to get worse, and his death made +me a widow indeed, and though I was only twenty-two, and plenty of men +came after me, I never took none of 'em. I didn't want no nasty bigamous +troubles on the Resurrection morning. Why should five years out of my +seventy-two change me into a Frenchy? What counts is my father and +mother, and my childhood by Helvellyn,' I says. 'I'm British-born, of +British parents, on British soil. I've never stirred from my land, and I +can't speak a word of nowt but English, so stop your silly talk, my lad. +And then,' I says, 'if my husband made me a Frenchy, ain't I English +again by my sons? (it says in the Book a woman shall be saved by +child-bearing)--two of 'em in the Navy and one of 'em killed and buried +at Tel-el-Kebir, and a dozen grandsons or more a-serving of Her Majesty +in furrin parts--yes, I allus say "Her Majesty"; I've been used to the +Queen all my life, and Kings don't seem right in England somehow. + +"What stumps me is that you gone and paid a pension to that woman +opposite; now, she's an alien and a foreigner if you like--can't speak a +word of English as a body can understand, and she hates England--allus +a-boasting about Germany and the Emperor and their army, and how they'll +come and smash us to pieces--she married an Englishman, so that makes +her English--'eavens, what rubbish! Why, 'e died a few years after the +wedding, and she's only been here a couple of years at the most; I +remember them coming quite well. So she's English, with her German +tongue and her German ways, just because she belonged for a couple of +years to an English corpse in the cemetery; and I, with my English birth +and life and sons, am French because of my poor Alphonse rotted to dust +fifty years ago. Well, England's a nice land for women, a cruel +step-dame to her daughters; seems as if English girls 'ad better get +theirselves born in another planet, where people can behave decent-like +to them, and not make it a crime and a sin at seventy for marrying nice +young men who court them at eighteen. I pray as God will send a plague +of boys in the land and never a girl amongst them, so that the English +people shall die out by their own wickedness, or have to mate only with +furriners." + +FOOTNOTE: + +[1] Since this monologue was spoken the old lady has received her +pension. By the order of September 1911 twenty years of widowhood +cleanse from alien pollution. + + + + +"WIDOWS INDEED" + + +Mrs. Woods had just returned from her search after work, worn and weary +after a day of walking and waiting about on an empty stomach; the +Educational Committee of Whitelime had informed her that they had +decided to take no deserted wives as school-scrubbers, only widows need +apply. Outside she heard the voices of her children at play in the fog +and mist, and remembered with dull misery that she had neither food nor +firing for them, and she shuddered as she heard the language on their +youthful lips; she had been brought up in the godly ways of the +North-country farmhouse and the struggle against evil seemed too hard +for her. + +She fitted the key into the lock of her little bare room and lit the +evil-smelling lamp, then she sank into a chair overpowered by deadly +nausea; strange whirligigs of light flashed before her eyes, and then +she collapsed on the floor in a dead faint. + +When she came to herself she was sitting by a bright little fire in the +next room and friendly neighbours were chafing her hands and pouring a +potent spirit down her throat. + +"That's right, my dear, you're coming round nicely; have another sip of +gin and then a good cup of tea will put you right; faint you were, my +dear, I know, and I suppose you had no luck at them Board Schools?" + +Mrs. Woods raised a weary hand to her dazed head and thought dully +before she answered-- + +"They asked me if I was a widow, and when I said my husband had deserted +me over a month ago they said as they were sorry they could not give me +any work, they were keeping it for the widows of the Borough." + +"Yes, I 'eard that from Mrs. James, but why didn't you have the sense to +say as you were a widow?" + +"I never thought on that. I am a truthful woman, I am." + +"Can't afford to be truthful if you are a deserted woman; men on boards +and committees don't like the breed, thinks you did something to drive +the old man away, but widows moves the 'ardest 'earts. What you wants is +a crape fall and Mrs. Lee's black-bordered 'ankerchief." + +"You'll have to get work, my dear. All the pack will be loose on you +soon--school-board visitors and sanitaries, and cruelty-men to say as +your children have not enough food----" + +"There, there, don't upset her again; we'll fix you up all right, my +dear, only you must remember, Mrs. Woods, that you are young and +ignorant and must be guided by them as knows the world," said Mrs. Lee, +a shrewd-eyed old dame of great wisdom and experience, who, like some of +the curés in Brittany, was consulted by all her friends and neighbours +in all problems spiritual and temporal. + +"First of all, my dear, you must get out of this, you're getting too +well known in this locality. Go into London Street right across the 'igh +road. I 'ave a daughter as can give you a room, and there you become a +widow, Mrs. Spence--just buried 'im in Sheffield. You're from Yorkshire, +I reckon?" + +Mrs. Woods nodded. + +"You talk queer just like my old man did, so that'll sound true. You +takes your children from Nightingale Lane, and you sends them to that +big Board School by the docks--my Muriel knows the name--and you enters +them as Spence, not Woods--mind you tells them they are Spence. Then you +starts a new life. There are cleaners wanted in that idiot school just +built by Whitelime Church, and I'll be your reference if you want one. +I'll lend you my crape fall, and I'll wash my black-bordered +'ankerchief, which has mourned afore boards and committees for the last +ten years or more; mind you use it right and sniff into it when they +asks too many questions, and be sure and rub it in as 'ow you've buried +'im in Sheffield. I've 'eard all the women talking at the laundry as 'ow +they're refusing work to deserted wives, says as the Council don't want +to make it easy for 'usbands to dump families on the rates--good Gawd! +as if a man eat up body and soul with a fancy for another woman stops +to think of his family and where they will get dumped. Well, I mustn't +grumble. Lee was a good man to me and I miss 'im sad, but there is my +Gladys, the prettiest of the bunch, the flower of the flock as 'er dad +used to call 'er, left within three year of 'er wedding by 'er 'usband, +who was the maddest and silliest lover I ever seed till she said 'Yes' +to 'im, though dad and I always told 'er 'e was no good. No, my dear, +I'm afraid as it isn't the truth, but if folks play us such dirty tricks +we must be even with them. Think of your little 'ome and your little +kiddies and rouse yourself for their sakes. You are a strong and 'earty +woman when you stop crying for 'im and get some victuals into you, and +you don't want the Board to get at 'em and take 'em away, protecting +them against you and sending them to that great Bastille. Don't give +way, dearie. I'll come with you to-morrow. And I'd better be your +mother-in-law; folks know me round 'ere, and 'ow me and the old dad 'ad +fifteen of 'em, and a daughter-in-law more or less won't matter. Don't +give way, I tell you. Give us another cup of tea, Mrs. Hayes." + +The next morning a deep-crape-veiled Mrs. Spence, propped up by an +equally funereal Mrs. Lee, the black-bordered handkerchief much in +evidence, sought and obtained work at the new L.C.C. School for the +Mentally Defective, and the terrors of the workhouse, the Poor Law +Schools, or even prison were temporarily averted. + + + + +THE RUNAWAY + + +He sat alone, in a corner of the playing field, a white-faced child of +the slums, in a dumb agony of loneliness and despair. + +He was frightened and appalled at the wide stretches of green woodland +around and the great dome of the blue sky above. It made him feel +smaller and more deserted than ever, and his head was sore with +home-sickness for his mother and Mabel, the sister next him, and the +baby, his especial charge, for whose warm weight his little arms ached +with longing. + +He had always been his mother's special help. He had minded the younger +ones when she got a job at washing or charing, and helped her to sew +sacks with little fingers quickly grown deft with practice. They had +been very happy, even though food was often short, and spent many +pleasant hours amongst the graves of their churchyard playgrounds, or +sitting on the Tower Wharf watching the river and the big ships. + +The nightmare of his short life had been a man called Daddy, who came +back when they were all asleep, smelling strong and queer, and then +there would be furious words and the dull thuds of blows falling on his +mother's slender body, and he would throw himself screaming to protect +his beloved against the wild beast that was attacking her. Once in the +fray his arm had got broken, and he had seen, as in an evil dream, a +dreaded "cop" enter the room, and Daddy had been hailed to prison, after +which there was long peace and joy in the little home. + +Then the man came out, and the quarrels were worse than ever, till a +kindly neighbour took Percy to sleep on the rag bed with her other +children, out of the way of Daddy, who had conceived a violent hatred +against his firstborn. + +Then one day Daddy was brought home, straight and stiff, on a stretcher. +There had been a drunken row at the "Pig and Whistle," and Daddy had +fallen backwards on the pavement, and died of a fractured skull. An +inquest was held, and much more interest was shown in Daddy's dead body +than any one had evinced in his living one. A coroner and a doctor and +twelve jurymen "sat" gravely on the corpse, and decided he had died "an +accidental death." + +Then there was a funeral and a long drive in a carriage with much crape +and black about, and Daddy was left in a deep yellow hole with muddy +water at the bottom. And peace came again to the widow and orphans. + +Peace, but starvation, for the mother's wage did not suffice to buy +bread for them all. The rent got behind, and finally, with many tears +and much pressure from various black-coated men, who seemed always +worrying at the door, he and Mabel had been taken to a big, terrible +place called a workhouse. And, after some preliminary misery at another +place, called a "Receiving Home," wretchedness had culminated in this +strange vastness of loneliness and greenery. Only two days had passed, +but they seemed like years, and he trembled lest his sentence here +should be a life-one, and he would never see his mother again. He had +not killed nor robbed nor hurt any one, and he wondered with the +bewilderment of seven years why men and women could be so cruel to him. +Then he determined to run away. It had not taken long in the train. If +he started soon, he would be home by bedtime. + +"Where's London?" he asked a boy who was hitting a smaller one to pass +the time. + +"Dunno. You go in a train." + +"I know. But which way?" + +"Dunno, I tell you." + +Near him stood one of the teachers, but as a natural enemy the boy felt +he was not to be trusted, and did not ask him. + +Then the bell rang for dinner, and they took their seats round the long, +bare tables, in front of a steaming plate of stewed meat and vegetables. +His pulses were beating with excitement at his secret plot, and the food +was like sawdust in his mouth. Afternoon school began, and he sat with +the resigned boredom of his kind, chanting in shrill chorus the eternal +truths of the multiplication table. + +Then some other subject, equally dull, was started, when suddenly his +heart leaped to his mouth, and he nearly fell off the bench with the +unexpected joy of it, for the teacher had brought up the intimate +question of his soul: "Which is the way to London?" + +The blood throbbed so loud in his ears that he could scarcely hear the +answer. "London lies south of this schoolroom. If you walked out of that +window, and followed your nose up the white road yonder, it would take +you to London." + +Other strange instruction followed--how to find north and south, and all +about the sun and moon--but he purposely refrained from attending. By +the act of God the position of London had been miraculously revealed to +him, and he clung fast to that knowledge, so that his brain was burning +with the effort of concentration. + +At last the bell rang, and they flocked out again into the playing +field. He stood alone with his great knowledge and reconnoitred the +situation like an experienced general; a high fence with barbed wire ran +round the field (clearly boys had run away before), but on the left of +the square school-house he could see the shrubbery and the big locked +gates by which he had been brought in with fellow-prisoners two days +before. + +Clearly, there was no escape but by going back to the house and facing +perils unspeakable. So, humming softly to himself, he walked back +through the long corridors to the entrance-hall, and out at the front +door, which was standing open, for the day was hot. He sneaked along +like a cat under the laurel bushes. + +The big gates were locked, but farther down, hidden in the ivy of the +wall, was a small door which yielded to his push, and then, by the +favour of the angels, he stood free, and ran for his life up the white +road which led to London. At the top of the hill he paused and panted +for breath. The windows of the great school-house glared at him like the +eyes of some evil beast, and, small as he was, he was painfully +conscious of his conspicuousness on the white highway. A farmer's cart +passed him, and the man turned round and gazed after him curiously. A +motor-bus thundered past in a cloud of white, and again it seemed as if +every head turned to watch him. + +Hot and faint and thirsty, he still plodded on. London, with its beloved +chimneys and friendly crowds, would soon burst into view, and his +mother, with her cheery "What-ho, Percy!" would be welcoming him. The +new shoes of the school were pinching badly. He longed to take them off, +but funked the knots, which some female person had tied that morning +with damnable efficiency. The sun had suddenly tumbled into a +dangerous-looking pool of red fire, and the shadows which ran beside him +had grown so gigantic he felt alarmed. Such terrifying phenomena were +unknown in the blessed streets of London. The queer night noises of the +countryside had begun around him: strange chirrups and cries from +unseen beasts, which seemed to follow and run beside him; and every now +and then a horned monster stuck its head over the gate and roared +hungrily for its prey. + +At length, wearied and hungry, and terrified by the sinister darkness +stealing over the landscape, he threw himself down by the wayside. He +heard the sound of footsteps behind, and braced himself to meet the +knife of the murderer, when a cheerful voice greeted him: "What-ho, +sonnie! You are out late. Time for little boys to be in bed." + +"Please, sir," said the child, "I am going home to mother." + +"Where does your mother live?" + +"In London." + +"London, eh! But you've a long way to go." + +A sob rose and tore at his throat. Still a long way to go, and darkness +was coming on--black, inky darkness, uncut by familiar street-lamps. + +"Come home with me, Tommy, and my missis will sleep you for the night." + +With a feeling of perfect confidence, the child slipped his small +fingers into the horny hand of the farm labourer, and half an hour +later, washed and fed, he was sleeping in a big bed amongst a +heterogeneous collection of curly heads. + +"Look 'ere, Bill," said the labourer's wife as she folded up the neat +little garments provided by unwilling ratepayers, "'e's runned away from +that there barrack school." + +"I knowed that," said Bill, knocking the ashes out from his clay pipe. +"It ain't the first time as I've met youngsters on the road, and, mebbe, +it won't be the last, as folks in the village have been before the beak +for harbouring them, poor little devils!" + + + + +"A GIRL! GOD HELP HER!" + + +The Lady Catherine Castleton lay dying in the stately bed-chamber of +Castleton Hall. Night and day they had sought for my lord in clubs and +gambling dens and well-known haunts of vice and pleasure, but they did +not know of the rose-grown cottage on the Thames which he had taken for +his latest inamorata. + +When they told my lady the child was a girl she had given a low cry, +"God help her!" and had turned her face to the wall. Great obstetricians +summoned by telephone had sped in flying motors from town, but they +stood baffled and helpless by the bedside of the young woman, who lay so +still and indifferent, making no effort to live. + +In the library the family lawyer and the white-haired admiral, her +father, sat signing cheques for the great specialists, who had done so +little and charged so much. + +When they had gone the admiral, who loved his daughter, swore long and +vigorously with the gorgeous powers of the seafaring man, and the lawyer +listened with fascinated approval. + +"I told her what her life would be with a loose-living scoundrel like +Castleton, but she would not listen--madly in love with him and his +handsome face, and now he has killed her at twenty-two!" + +"I had a very distressing interview with Lady Catherine a few weeks ago. +She went away in disgust and despair when I had to tell her that I did +not think she had sufficient evidence for a divorce, and that she must +prove cruelty or desertion as well as adultery." + +"D---d shameful law, sir; can't think how the country puts up with it. +But she shall be safe from him if she lives, my poor little girl!" + +Then they were silent, for the shadow of death crept nearer. + + * * * * * + +Outside the park gates at the end of the village, in Castleton Union, +another girl lay dying. The local practitioner had been called in on his +way back from consultation with the great gynæcologists, and as at the +hall, so in the workhouse, he found his patient sinking. "She came in +late last night, sir," said the nurse, "and the child was born almost +immediately. Her pulse is very weak, and I can't rouse her; she won't +even look at the child." + +"I hear it is Jennie Appleton, the carpenter's daughter at +Kingsford--very respectable people. How did she get here?" + +"Usual thing. Got into trouble at her situation in London; the man +promised to marry her, but he kept putting it off, and then one day he +disappeared, and wrote to her from Glasgow saying that he was a married +man. She came back home, but her father drove her out with blows and +curses, and she walked here from Kingsford--goodness knows how. It is a +sad case, and the relieving officer tells me she will probably not be +able to get any affiliation order enforced, as the man has evaded +liability by going to Scotland." + +"Abominable!" said the doctor; then he went towards the bedside of his +patient, felt her pulse, glanced at the temperature chart, and his face +grew grave. + +Taking the babe from the cradle, he laid it beside the mother: "You have +a pretty little girl." + +The eyelids flickered, and, as the Countess had spoken, so spoke the +pauper: "God help her!" + +"He will," said the doctor, who was a religious man. + +"He didn't help me. He let me come to this, and I was born respectable. +She is only a little come-by-chance maid." + +"Cheer up, my lass! My wife will help you: she knows it has not been +your fault." + +The doctor gave a few directions, and then left, looking puzzled and +worried. He was a good _accoucheur_, and hated to lose a case. What was +the matter with the women that they seemed to have lost the will to +live? + + * * * * * + +Three days later, in the glory of the May sunshine, there was a double +funeral in Castleton churchyard. + + + + +ON THE PERMANENT LIST + + (1905) + + Now also when I am old and grey-headed, + O God, forsake me not. + + +"Spend but a few days in the police-court," says Juvenal, "and then call +yourself an unhappy man if you dare." Had he sat on a Board of +Guardians, he would doubtless have included that also as a school of +personal contentment. + +All sorts of griefs and tragedies are brought up before us, some of them +abnormal and Theban in horror, some of them so common that we seem to +hear them unmoved: an honest man who cannot find employment, women with +unborn babes kicked, starved, and deserted, children neglected or +tortured, poor human beings marred in the making, the crippled, the +diseased, the defective physically and mentally, too often the pitiful +scapegoats for the sins of the race. + +All these things seem too terrible for words or tears; it is the +cheeriness and humour of the poor, their pluck and endurance, their +kindness and generosity one to another, that bring a lump to the throat +and a dimness to the eyes. + +We are a very careful Board, and pride ourselves on the strict way in +which we administer our small amount of out-relief; to get it at all +one must be, as an applicant observed, "a little 'igher than an angel," +and so it is the very aristocracy of labour that files past us this +morning, men and women against whom even the Charity Organization +Society could find no fault, a brave old army, seventy and eighty odd +years of age, some of them bent and crippled with rheumatism and weight +of years, short of breath, asthmatic, hard of hearing, dim in vision, +but plucky to the last, always in terror of looking too ill or too old, +and being forced into the workhouse. + +A few, like Moses, do not suffer the usual stigmata of age. "Their eye +is not dim, nor their natural force abated." + +"How do you keep so young?" said our chairman, half-enviously, to an +applicant eighty years of age, but upright still, with hair thick and +untinged with grey. + +"'Igh living does it, sir," replied the old man, as he took his food +tickets for the week, amounting to 3s. 1¾d. One old lady of eighty-two +runs a private school, and, in spite of the competition of free +education and palatial school buildings, she has six pupils, whose +parents value individual attention and "manners" at sixpence per head a +week. She is fully qualified and certificated, and is a person of strong +views and much force of character, and not only holds Solomon's opinions +upon corporal punishment in theory, but still puts them into practice. I +wonder which of us will have the conviction and energy to cane boys at +eighty-two? + +We are a very clean Board, and every half-year the relieving officer +brings a report as to the condition of the homes; but some of the old +people are so withered and shrunken, and their span of remaining life is +so short, that there seems little left both of time and space in which +dirt can collect, and I always hope death will free them before they are +brought into the bleak cleanliness of the House. + +Lately in the workhouse one old man took such an affectionate leave of +me that I asked him if he felt ill. "Not yet, ma'am, but I have got to +have a bath to-night, and the last one I took turned me so queer I was +laid up ten weeks in the infirmary. It does you no 'arm, ma'am, very +likely--I've 'eard say as the gentry is born and bred to it--but when +they starts a-bathing of us poor people for the first time at eighty in +them great long coffins full of water, no wonder our rheumatics comes on +worse than ever. And then, ma'am, you forget as you ladies and gentlemen +'ave a drop of something hot to keep the cold out afterwards, and I +don't blame you for it, but that we never gets." + +On the whole, the old ladies keep themselves wonderfully clean and +smart, and the cheap drapery stores in the vicinity of the workhouse do +a great trade twice a year in violets and rosebuds at 1¾d. a dozen for +the adornment of bonnets; feminine instinct is not atrophied by age, and +the applicants know the value of a good appearance before "the +gentlemen." The old men are not so clever, and when deprived of the +ministrations of a wife they seem to have no idea of "mackling" for +themselves, and too often lapse into a fatal condition of dirt and +hugger-mugger. Sometimes the reports are brought by daughters, nieces, +or neighbours, or sometimes "only the landlady"--that abused class +showing often much Christian charity and generosity. + +Some of the old people have led such blameless lives that members of the +C.O.S. offer to take them up and save them from the Poor Law, a +privilege they do not always fully appreciate. + +"No, thank you, sir, I don't want to go there. I've 'eard of the Charity +Organization, and the questions as they ask--Mrs. Smith told me they +sifted and sifted her case and give her nothing in the end. I'd rather +have a few ha'pence from you, sir." + +"But you will be a pauper!" said one of the Guardians, in a sepulchral +voice of horror. + +"Oh! I don't mind that a bit, sir. My mother was left a widow and on the +parish at forty. I'm sixty-seven, and I'd work if I could, but they +turned me off at the laundry because the rheumatics has stiffened up my +fingers, and I can't wash any more, and I don't see why I shouldn't come +on the parish now." + +Having no vote, and being accustomed to be classed in the category of +"lunatics, criminals, and idiots," no wonder the term "pauper" conveys +little opprobrium to women. + +"Bother the House!" says another spirited old laundress, who complains +that "a parcel of girls" are preferred before her. "I'm too young to +come in there. I'm only seventy, and I'll wait till I'm eighty." + +One poor old man has his relief stopped because his wife is reported as +"a drinking woman," though he is told he may still draw the money if his +wife enters the House. "Thank you, sir, my wife does not come into the +workhouse. She has a glass sometimes, but she is never the worse for +liquor, and she's been a good wife to me. Spiteful gossip, sir. Good +morning!" and he walks out, an honourable and loyal gentleman fallen on +evil days. + +Sometimes cold and starvation is worse than they thought, and they do +come in; sometimes they die. The body of an old man was lately fished +out of the pond, and at the inquest it was stated that he had lost his +employment after thirty years at one place. The firm had changed hands, +and the new manager had told him, brutally, "he wanted no old iron +about." At seventy-five one is a drag in the labour market, and the poor +old fellow, feeling acutely that he would only be a burden on his sons +and his daughters, asked neither for out-relief nor indoor-relief, but +stood his mates a drink with his last shilling, and took the old Roman +method. + +However, light seems dawning through the darkness, and I think many Poor +Law Guardians will rest better in their beds knowing that old-age +pensions seem to have come into the sphere of practical politics. + + + + +THE PAUPER AND THE OLD-AGE PENSION[2] + + +On January 1st the receipt of Poor Law relief ceases to be a +disqualification for old-age pensions, and some interesting statistics +have been compiled by the _Daily Mail_ which show that only about 17 per +cent. of old people in the workhouses are applying for their 5s. per +week. These are the figures for England and Wales. In the Metropolitan +area, where rents are high, and the smallest room cannot be had under +two shillings or half a crown a week, the proportion will be lower +still. + +At first sight these figures are very disappointing, and it seems to +some of us who have counted so much on this reform as if we cannot +escape from the evils of the workhouse system. But a little thought will +show how impossible it is for this generation of old folk to take +advantage of the change; the wished-for has come too late; they have +burnt their ships, or rather their beds, sold up "the little 'ome"; they +have neither bag nor baggage, bed nor clothing. They are like snails +with broken shells. There is no protection against the rude world, and +once having made the sacrifice, few people over seventy have the pluck +to start life afresh. It is hardly worth while; for them the bitterness +of death is past. + +A committee of our Board has held three special sessions for the purpose +of interviewing these old people, and the answer has come with wearying +monotony, "No, thank you, five shillings would be no good to me. I have +nowhere to go." Some have sons and daughters, but "heavy families" and +crowded rooms dry up filial piety. There is no place for the aged father +or mother in our rack-rented city, and the old people accept their fate +with the quiet philosophy of the poor. The long string of human wreckage +files past us, some bowed and bent with the weight of years, others +upright and active, some with the hoary heads of the traditional +prophets, others black-haired and keen-eyed still, for the "high living" +of the workhouse, as is often remarked, preserves youth in a miraculous +way. Some are crippled and half-blind, others suffer with deafness--an +ailment of poverty, which very naturally grows worse under inquisitive +questioning--and nearly all have rheumatism. A curate once told me that +he was summoned to a sick parishioner who was "troubled in mind," and +wanted to make his peace with Heaven, but the only sin he could remember +was "the rheumatics." The disease seems to be a national sin. + +One hears the country accents of the United Kingdom--the burr of +Northumbria, the correct English of East Anglia, the rough homeliness +of Yorkshire and the Midlands, the soft accents of Devonshire and the +West, the precision of the foreign English of the Welsh mountains, the +pleasant ring of the Scottish tongue, the brogue of old Ireland. Few +seem Londoners. Take any group of people, and see how few of her +children London seems to bring to maturity. + +It is our last meeting to-day, and we go to visit those who cannot +attend, the sick and bed-ridden in the infirmary--a mere form, for these +are vessels which will sail no more, sea-battered, half-derelict, +nearing port, and for them the dawn will break in the New Jerusalem. +Some are palsied and paralysed and half-senile, but now and again keen +old eyes look at us from the whiteness of the ratepayers' sheets and +regret they are "too old to apply." + +Very ancient folk live in these wards, and their birthdays go back to +the tens and twenties of last century, one old lady being born in the +historic year of 1815. An old man, jealous of her greater glory, says he +is 109, but our register of age gives the comparatively recent date of +1830. Few of them seem to have any friends or visitors. Children are +dead, grandchildren and great-grandchildren have forgotten them; but +they do not complain, age mercifully deadens the faculties, though their +terrible loneliness was once graphically written on my brain by the +speech of an old Irishwoman: "I am quite alone, lady; I have no friends +but you and the Almighty God." + +We have interviewed 103, and only eleven have applied for the pension. +The wished-for, as I have said, has come too late; but another +generation will be saved from "the House" and will be able "to die +outside," so often the last wish of the aged. + +The merciful alteration in the law will save this generation of "outdoor +poor." Old people in the late sixties have no longer been dying of +starvation in the terror of losing the pension through accepting poor +relief, and the greater independence of the State pensioner is +heartening many. "On the Imperial taxes," said an old gentleman with a +somewhat low standard of cleanliness, "I can be as dirty as ever I +like." + +FOOTNOTE: + +[2] Act amended 1911. + + + + +THE EVACUATION OF THE WORKHOUSE + + (1915) + + +The workhouse is being evacuated; the whole premises, infirmary and +House, have been taken over by the War Office as a military hospital; +after weeks of waiting final orders have come, and to-day +motor-omnibuses and ambulances are carrying off the inmates to a +neighbouring parish. + +One feels how widespread and far-reaching are the sufferings caused by +war, and spite of this bright May sunshine one realizes that the whole +earth is full of darkness and cruel habitations, the white blossoms of +the spring seem like funeral flowers, and the red tulips glow like a +field of blood. + +It never occurred to me before that any one could have any feeling, +except repugnance, towards a workhouse, but some one--I think it was the +prisoner of Chillon--grew attached to his prison, and evidently it is +the same with these old folk. Old faces work painfully, tears stand in +bright old eyes, knotted old fingers clutch ours in farewell, and some +of the old women break down utterly and sob bitterly. On the journey +some of them lose all sense of control, take off their bonnets, and let +down their hair, obeying a human instinct of despair which scholars +will remember dates back to the siege of Troy. "It's all the home I've +known for twenty years, and I be right sorry to go," says an aged man, +as he shakes my hand. + +Folks live long in the workhouse, and seventy and eighty years are +regarded as comparative youth by the older people of ninety and upwards; +to the aged any change is upheaval; they have got used to their bed, +their particular chair, their daily routine, and to have to leave the +accustomed looms in the light of a perilous adventure. Perhaps heaviest +of all is the sense of exile; it is a long walk to the adjoining parish, +and bus fares will be hard to spare with bread at ninepence a quartern. +"I've been on the danger list and my son came every day to see me," says +one old lady, "but he won't be able to get so far now." + +Alarming rumours are being spread by a pessimist much travelled in +vagrant wards, but they are speedily contradicted by an optimist, also +an expert in Poor Law both in theory and practice. + +We try to cheer them, but our comfort is not whole-hearted; we can guess +how the chafing of the unaccustomed, the new discipline, the crowds of +unfamiliar faces will jar upon the aged. We try to impress upon them the +joy of self-sacrifice, the needs of our wounded soldiers, the patriotic +pride in giving up something for them. Oh, yes, they know all that, the +Guardians had been and talked to them "just like a meeting," they +understand about the soldiers, they want to do their best for them; but +it is hard. The workhouse is nothing if not military in its traditions; +heroes of South Africa, of Balaclava, and the Crimea have found asylum +in the whitewashed wards; many of the present inmates have been +soldiers, and there are few who have not some relatives--grandsons and +great-grandsons--fighting in the trenches. One of the oldest of the +"grannies," aged ninety-three, went off smiling, proud, as she said, "to +do her bit." + +The sick are being brought down now into the ambulances--the phthisical, +the paralytic, the bed-ridden--blinking in the sunlight from their +mattress-tomb, one poor woman stricken with blindness and deafness, who +in spite of nervousness looks forward to her first motor-drive. These +are less troubled; they are younger, and the sick hope ever for a quick +cure, and the majority are only in for temporary illness. Then come the +babies, astonishingly smart and well-dressed, including the youngest +inmate, aged but eight days. + +The costumes are odd and eccentric, and in spite of misery a good deal +of good-tempered chaff flies round. All inmates are to leave in their +own clothes, and strange garments have been brought to the light of day, +whilst much concern is expressed about excellent coats and skirts +moth-eaten or mislaid in the course of twenty-five years. The storage of +the workhouse often suffers strain, and the wholesome practice of +"stoving" all clothes does not improve the colours nor contribute to the +preservation of what _modistes_ call _la ligne_. Fortunately, all +fashions come round again, and we try to assure the women that the +voluminous skirts and high collars of last century are _le dernier cri_ +in Bond Street, but it is difficult for one woman to deceive another +over the question of fashion. + +For twelve hours the 'buses and ambulances have plied backwards and +forwards, and now the last load home has started, and tired nurses and +harassed officials wave their last good-bye, thankful the long day has +come at length to an end. In a few days other loads will arrive, all +young these and all soldiers, many of them, perhaps, as the +advertisements say, belonging to the nobility and gentry. The workhouse +has ceased to be. From to-day it will be no longer rate-supported; the +nurses and the whole staff draw rations and are in the pay and service +of the War Office. As soon as possible gilt letters will announce it as +a "Military Hospital." + +On the table before me lies a copy of the local paper, and I read with +surprise the thanks of a public body for our "offer to give up the +workhouse as a military hospital, and expressing appreciation of the +patriotic action of the Guardians in the matter." + +In my opinion we made no offer; we merely obeyed a command, and the +people who did a patriotic action were those who turned out of their +home, such as it was; but in this world credit is given where it is not +due, and thanks are bestowed on the wrong people. We reap where we have +not sown and gather where we have not strawed. + + +_Printed in Great Britain by_ +UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Workhouse Characters, by Margaret Wynne Nevinson + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40881 *** |