Chapter Fourteen.
Plotting.
When Betty’s cries of horror brought the neighbours round her, they found the poor girl lying insensible by the corpse of her mother, which was still suspended by the beam behind the door. They cut down the wretched creature, and tried everything to restore her to consciousness; but life was fled—the day of trial was over. Johnson returned from the pit, from whence he was summoned, to find his wife dead, destroyed by her own hand; and Betty utterly prostrate on her bed with the terrible and agonising shock.
Oh, drink, drink! most heartless of all fiendish destroyers, thou dost kill thy victims with a smile, plucking away from them every stay and support that keeps them from the pit of destruction; robbing them of every comfort, while hugging them in an embrace which promises delight, and yet crushes out the life-blood both of body and soul; making merriment in the eye and on the tongue, while home, love, character, and peace are melting and vanishing away. Wretched Alice! she might have been a happy mother, a happy wife, with her children loving, honouring, and blessing her; but she had sold herself for the drink, and a life of shame and a death of despair were her miserable reward.
Poor Johnson’s life was now a very weary one. He had hope indeed to cheer him—a better than any earthly hope, a hope full of immortality. Still he was but a beginner in the Christian life, and had hard work to struggle on through the gloom towards the guiding light through the deep shadows of earth that were thickening around him. Betty tried to cheer him; but, poor girl, she needed cheering herself. Her brother’s flight; the uncertainty as to what had really become of him; the hope deferred of hearing from him which made her heart sick; and now the dreadful death of her unhappy mother, and that, too, so immediately following on their last miserable conversation;—all these sorrows combined weighed down her spirit to the very dust. She longed to flee away and be at rest; but she could not escape into forgetfulness, and she would not fly from duty. So a dark cloud hung over that home, and it was soon to be darker still. Ned Brierley was appointed manager of a colliery in Wales, at a place a hundred miles or more from Langhurst, and a few months after Alice Johnson’s death he removed to his new situation, with all his family. A night or two before he left he called upon Johnson.
“Well, my lad,” he said, taking a seat near the fire, “I reckon you and I mayn’t meet again for many a long day. But if you’re coming our side at any time, we shall be right glad to see you, and Betty too, and give you a hearty total abstainer’s welcome.”
“I’m afraid,” said Betty, “that fayther nor me’s not like to be travelling your road. I’m sure I’m glad you’re a-going to better yourselves, for you desarve it; but it’ll be the worse for us.”
“Ay,” said Johnson despondingly; “first one prop’s taken away, and then another; and after a bit the roof’ll fall in, and make an end on us.”
“Nay, nay, man,” said his friend reprovingly, “it’s not come to that yet. You forget the best of all Friends, the Lord Jesus Christ. He ever liveth; and hasn’t he said, ‘I will never leave thee nor forsake thee?’”
“That’s true,” replied the other; “but I can’t always feel it. He’s helped me afore now, and I know as he’ll help me again—but I can’t always trust him as I should.”
“Ah, but you must trust him,” said Brierley earnestly; “you must stick firm to your Saviour. And you must stick firm to your pledge, Thomas—promise me that.”
“Yes; by God’s help, so I will,” was the reply; “only I see I shall have hard work. But it’s no odds, they can’t make me break if I’m resolved that I won’t.”
“No, fayther,” said his daughter; “and they can’t go the breadth of a thread further nor the Lord permits.”
“That’s true, Betty, my lass,” said Ned; “so cheer up, Thomas. I feel sure—I can’t tell you why, but I do feel sure—that the Lord’ll bring back your Sammul again. He’ll turn up some day, take my word for it. So don’t lose heart, Thomas; but remember how the blessed Book says, ‘Heaviness may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.’”
“God bless you,” said Johnson, squeezing Ned’s hand hard; “you’re a gradely comforter.”
And so they parted.
It was not long, however, before Thomas’s patience was tried to the uttermost. His enemies let him alone for a short time after his wife’s death—for there is a measure of rugged consideration even among profligates and drunkards. But a storm had been brewing, and it fell at last when Ned Brierley had been gone from Langhurst about a month. A desperate effort was made to get Johnson back to join his old companions at the “George,” and when this utterly failed, every spiteful thing that malice could suggest and ingenuity effect was practised on the unfortunate collier, and in a measure upon Betty also. But, like the wind in the fable, this storm only made Johnson wrap himself round more firmly in the folds of his own strong resolution, rendered doubly strong by prayer. Such a thought as yielding never crossed his mind. His only anxiety was how best to bear the cross laid on him. There were, of course, other abstainers in Langhurst besides the Brierleys, and these backed him up, so that by degrees his tormentors began to let him alone, and gave him a space for breathing, but they never ceased to have an eye towards him for mischief.
The month of October had now come, when one evening, as Johnson and Betty were sitting at tea after their day’s work, there was a knock at the door, and immediately afterwards a respectable-looking man entered, and asked,—
“Does not Thomas Johnson live here?”
“Yes; he does,” was Johnson’s reply.
“And I suppose, then, you’re Thomas Johnson yourself?” said the stranger.
“I reckon you’re not so far wrong,” was the answer.
“Ah, well; so it is for sure,” broke out Betty. “Why, you’re the teetottal chap as came a-lecturing when me and our poor Sammul signed the pledge.”
“Sit ye down, sit ye down,” cried her father; “you’re welcome to our house, though it is but a sorrowful one.”
“I think, my friend,” said the stranger, “that you are one of us now.”
“You may well say now,” replied the other, “for when you was here afore, you’d a gone out of the door a deal quicker nor you came in; but, I bless the Lord, things are changed now.”
“Yes, indeed,” said the other, “it is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes; though, indeed, he does work such wonderful things that we’ve daily cause to bless and praise him. Well, my friend—for we are friends, I see, in the best of bonds now—I have not long to stay now, but I just want to ask you one thing. I should like to have a total abstinence meeting next month in Langhurst. Will you say a word for us? We want some working man who has been rescued, through God’s mercy, from the chains of the drink, to stand up and tell, in a simple, straightforward way, what he once was, and what God has done for him as a pledged abstainer; and I judge, from what I hear, that you’re just the man we want.”
Johnson paused for a while.
“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head; “I don’t know. I’m not so sure it’ll do at all.”
“Oh, fayther,” cried Betty, “you must do what the gentleman axes you. It may do good to some poor creatures, and lead ’em to sign. It’s only a small candle-end as the Lord’s given such as we are, but we must light it, and let it shine.”
“Well,” said her father, slowly, “maybe I oughtn’t to say ‘No;’ and yet you may be sure, if it gets talked on in the village, it’s little peace as I shall have.”
“Well, my friend,” said the stranger, “of course I don’t wish to bring you into trouble. Still this is one of the ways in which you may take up a cross nobly for your Saviour, and he’ll give the strength to carry it.”
“Say no more,” replied Johnson; “if the Lord spares me, they shall hear a gradely tale from me.”
It was soon noised abroad in Langhurst that Thomas Johnson was to give an account of himself as a reformed man and a total abstainer, at a meeting to be held in the village in the following month of November.
His old companions were half mad with rage and vexation. What could be done? They were determined that he should be served out in some way, and that he should be prevented from appearing at the meeting. Come what would, he should not stand up and triumph in his teetotalism on the platform—that they were quite resolved on. Some scheme or plan must be devised to hinder it. And fortune seemed to favour them.
A short time after it became generally known that Johnson was to speak, a young lad might be seen hurrying home in his coal-pit-clothes to a low, dirty-looking cottage that stood on the outskirts of the village.
“Mother,” cried the boy, as soon as he reached the house and could recover his breath, “where’s fayther?”
“He’s not come home yet,” said the mother; “but what ails you, John?”
“Why, mother,” said the boy, with trembling voice, “fayther gave me a shilling to get change just as we was leaving the pit-bank, and I dropped it somewhere as I were coming down the lane. I’m almost sure Ben Taylor’s lad found it, and picked it up; but when I axed him if he hadn’t got it, he said ‘No,’ and told me he’d knock my head against the wall if I didn’t hold my noise. I see’d fayther go by at the lane end, but he didn’t see me. He’ll thrash the life out of me if he finds I’ve lost the shilling.—I’ve run for my life, but he’ll be here directly. You must make it right, mother—you must.”
“Ay, ay, lad; I’ll speak to your fayther. He shan’t beat you. Just keep out of the road till he’s cooled down a bit. Eh! here he comes for sure, and a lot of his mates with him. There—just creep under the couch-chair, lad. They’ll not tarry so long. Fayther’ll be off to the ‘George’ as soon as he’s had his tea.”
So the poor boy crept under the couch, the hanging drapery effectually hiding him from the view of any who might come in. Another moment, and Will Jones the father entered the house with half-a-dozen companions.
“Well, and what’s up now?” asked the wife, as the men seated themselves—some on chairs, and one or two on the couch.
“Never you heed, Martha,” said her husband; “but just clap to the door, and take yourself off to Molly Grundy’s, or anywhere else you’ve a mind.”
“I can tell you I shall do nothing of the sort,” was the reply. “A likely thing, indeed, as I’m to take myself off and leave my own hearth-stone while a parcel of chaps is turning the house out of the windows. If you’re up to that sort of game, or if you want to be talking anything as decent folk shouldn’t hear, you’d better be off to the ‘George.’ It’s the fittest place for such work.”
“Eh! don’t vex Martha,” said one of the men. “She’ll promise not to split, I’ll answer for it. Won’t you, Martha?”
“Eh, for sure,” said Martha, “if you’re bound to have your talk here, you needn’t be afraid of me; only I hope you’re not going to do anything as’ll bring us into trouble.”
“Never fear,” said her husband; “there, sit you down and mend your stockings, and the less you heed us the less you’ll have to afterthink.”
The men then began to talk together in a loudish whisper.
“Tommy Jacky’ll be making a fine tale about you and me,” said Jones. “Eh, what a sighing and groaning there will be; and then we shall see in the papers, ‘Mr Johnson finished his speech amidst loud applause.’”
“Eh, but we must put a stopper in his mouth,” said another.
“But how must we do it?” asked a third. “Thomas is not the chap to be scared out of what he’s made up his mind to.”
“No,” remarked another; “and there’s many a one as’d stand by him if we were to try anything strong.”
“Can’t we shame him at the meeting?” asked another.
“Nay,” said Jones, “he’s gradely. You couldn’t shame him by telling folks what he was; and all as knows him knows as he’s kept his teetottal strict enough.”
“I have it!” cried a man, the expression of whose face was a sad mixture of sensuality, shrewdness, and malice. “I’ll just tell you what we’ll do. You know how people keeps saying—‘What a changed man Johnson is! how respectable and clean he looks! how tidy he’s dressed when he goes to church on a Sunday!—you’ve only to look in his face to see he’s a changed man.’ Now, I’ll just tell you what we’ll do, if you’ve a mind to stand by me and give me a help. It’ll do him no harm in the end, and’ll just take a little of the conceit out on him. And won’t it just spoil their sport at the meeting!”
“Tell us what it is, man,” cried all the others eagerly.
“Well, you know the water-butt at the back of Thomas’s house. Well, you can reach the windows of the chamber by standing on the butt. The window’s not hard to open, for I’ve often seen Alice throw it up; and I’m sure it’s not fastened. Now, just suppose we waits till the night afore the meeting; that’ll be the twenty-second—there’ll be no moon then. Thomas won’t be in the night-shift that week. I know he sleeps sound, for I’ve heard their Betty say as it were the only thing as kept ’em up, that they slept both on ’em so well. Suppose, then, as we gets a goodish-sized furze bush or two, and goes round to the back about two o’clock in the morning. We must have a rope or two; then we must take off our clogs, and climb up by the water-butt. The one as goes up first must have a dark lantern. Well, then, we must creep quietly in, and just lap a rope loosely round the bed till we’re all ready. Then we’ll just tighten the rope so that he can’t move, and I’ll scratch his sweet face all over with the furze; and one of you chaps must have some gunpowder and lamp-black ready to rub it well into his face where it’s been scratched. You must stuff a clout into his mouth if he offers to holler. We can do it all in two minutes by the help of the lantern. The light’ll dazzle him so as he’ll not be able to make any on us out; and then we must slip out of the window and be off afore he’s had time to wriggle himself out of the ropes. Eh, won’t he be a lovely pictur next day!—his best friends, as they say, won’t know him. Won’t he just look purty at the meeting! There’s a model teetottaller for you! Do you think he’ll have the face to say then, ‘You’ve heard, ladies and gentlemen, what I once was; you see what I am now?’ Oh, what a rare game it’ll be!”
This proposition was received by the rest of the company with roars of laughter and the fullest approbation.
“It’ll be first-rate,” said Jones, “if we can only manage it.”
“Surely,” said another, “he’ll never dare show his face out of the door.”
“Ah, but,” suggested one, “what about Betty? She’s sure to wake and spoil it all. It’s too risky, with her sleeping close by.”
“No,” said another man, “it’ll just be all right. Betty’ll be off at Rochdale visiting her aunt. Our Mary heard Fanny Higson and Betty talking it over at the mill a day or two since. ‘So you’ll not be at the meeting?’ says Fanny. ‘Why not?’ says Betty. ‘’Cos you’ll be off at your aunt’s at Rochdale,’ says Fanny. ‘Ah, but I’m bound to be back for the meeting, and hear fayther tell his tale,’ says Betty. ‘I’ll be back some time in the forenoon, to see as fayther has his Sunday shirt and shoes, and his clothes all right, and time enough to dress myself for the meeting. Old Jenny’ll see to fayther while I’m off. It’ll be all right if I’m at home some time in the forenoon.’ So you see, mates, it couldn’t be better; as the parson says, it’s quite a providence.”
“Well, what say you?” cried Will Jones. “Shall we strike hands on it?”
All at once shook hands, vowing to serve out poor Johnson.
“Ay,” exclaimed one, “we must get the chap as takes photographs to come over on purpose. Eh, what a rare cart-der-wissit Tommy’ll make arter the scratching. You must lay in a lot on ’em, Will, and sell ’em for sixpence a piece. You’ll make your fortune by it, man.”
“Martha,” said Jones, turning to his wife, “mind, not a word to any living soul about what we’ve been saying.”
“I’ve said I won’t tell,” replied his wife; “and in course I won’t. But I’m sure you might find summat better to do nor scratching a poor fellow’s face as has done you no harm. I’m not fond of your teetottal chaps; but Tommy’s a quiet, decent sort of man, and their Betty’s as tidy a wench as you’ll meet with anywhere; and I think it’s a shame to bring ’em any more trouble, for they’ve had more nor their share as it is. It’d be a rare and good thing if some of you chaps’d follow Tommy’s example. There’d be more peace in the house, and more brass in the pocket at the week end.”
“Hold your noise, and mind your own business,” shouted her husband, fiercely. “You just blab a word of what we’ve been saying, and see how I’ll sarve you out.—Come, mates, let’s be off to the ‘George;’ we shall find better company there.”
So saying, he strode savagely out of the cottage, followed by his companions. When they were fairly gone, the poor boy slipped from his hiding-place.
“Johnny,” said his mother, “if you’ll do what your mother bids you, I’ll give your fayther the change for the shilling out of my own pocket, and he’ll never know as you lost it.”
“Well, mother, I’ll do it if I can.”
“You’ve heard what your fayther and t’other chaps were saying?”
“Yes, mother; every word on’t.”
“Well, John, I promised I wouldn’t let out a word of it myself; but I didn’t say that you shouldn’t.”
“Eh, mother, if I split, fayther’ll break every bone in my body.”
“But how’s your fayther to know anything about it? He knows nothing of your being under the couch-chair. I can swear as I haven’t opened my lips to any one out of the house, nor to any one as has come into it. You just slip down now to Thomas’s, and tell their Betty you wants to speak with her by herself. Tell her she mustn’t say a word to any one. She’s a good wench. She’s sharp enough, too; she’ll keep it all snug. She were very good to me when our Moses were down with the fever, and I mustn’t let her get into this trouble when I can lend her a helping hand to get her out.”
“But, mother,” said her son, “what am I to tell Betty?”
“Why, just tell her all you’ve heard, and how you were under the couch-chair, and how I promised myself as I wouldn’t split. Tell her she must make no din about it, but just keep her fayther out of the way. He may go off to his brother Dick’s, and come home in the morn, and who’s to say as he’s heard anything about the scratching.”
“Well, mother,” said John, “I’ll do as you say. Betty’s a good wench; she’s given me many a kind word, and many a butter cake too, and I’d not like to see her fretting if I could help it.”
“There’s a good lad,” said his mother; “be off at once. Fayther’s safe in the ‘George.’ It’ll be pretty dark in the lane. You can go in at the back, and you’re pretty sure to find Betty at home. Be sharp, and I’ll keep your tea for you till you come back again.”