"So I started; but when I reached the castle bridge my heart again failed me. I was weak through long confinement, ill-usage, and want of food, for the messes served to us in that jail were often worse than I would have given to my pig. The very thought of meeting a village neighbour terrified me. My limbs shook, and I crept through a gap in the fence, resolved to hide till night and steal home in the darkness. For a little while I sat behind a bush at the water's edge, feeling a coward, but wholly unable to scold myself for it. Then I crept along the bank of the Avon towards Grimscote, till I reached a clump of osiers, into which I plunged. The ground was very damp, and here and there almost swampy; but presently I found a dry mound, and there I lay down, buried from all eyes. How long I lay I cannot tell, for I paid no heed to time, though I gradually became calmer. Once again I was in contact with nature. The air was full of the music of birds, and the chirp of insects among the grass sounded almost like the movement of life in the very ground itself. A sweet smell of hawthorn blossom came to me from some old trees close by, and now and then I heard the plash of oars on the river, and voices came to me sweet and clear off the water. Gradually I became more hopeful. Life was all around me; the bushes themselves seemed moved by it as I lay beneath their shade. Behind me the traffic of the high road made a constant rattle, and beyond the river I heard the bleating of lambs. And life somehow came back to me also. I arose with new hopes in my breast. All could not yet be lost to me, I somehow felt; and, at any rate, I would go home, for I began to be very hungry.
"I often stopped on the way with weariness and faint-heartedness, but did not again turn back, and by two o'clock in the afternoon I reached my own cottage. My wife welcomed me with a burst of crying. I learnt from her that she had begun to dread that I had done something rash. She and the little ones had gone to meet me in the morning as far as the castle bridge, which they must have reached soon after I lay down among the willows. There they sat for a while hoping that I would come, but seeing nothing of me they crept back again with hearts sad enough, you may be sure. I was not long behind them, and my wife soon brightened enough to be able to eat some dinner with me; but my heart smote me for being so selfish and unkind as to go and hide as if no one had to be considered but myself."
Such in faint outline was Thomas's account of his release from prison. His meeting with his family was sad beyond description. In the short six months of his absence three of his little ones had been put under the sod. Out of a family of eight in all he had now but four left. A great mercy that it was so, some will say; and possibly they may be right. The world's goods are so ill distributed that death is for many the only blessing left. Nevertheless, I question if the sorrow of the labourer at the loss of his children was not keener than that of many who need not fear a want of bread for their offspring. He had toiled and suffered for all the eight, and the love that grows up in the heart through such discipline as his is akin to the deepest and holiest passion known to man. Thomas and his wife mourned for their dead to their own life's end, because the little ones had been part of their life. Is it so with you, pert censor of the miserable poor?
Though sorrowing, Thomas had yet no time to nurse his sorrow. The world had to be faced again, and work to be found. For sentimental griefs and morbid wailings in the world's ear the Wanlesses had no time. At first Thomas got some jobs from Mr. Hawthorn, but he soon saw that they were jobs mostly created on purpose for him, and he could not bear the thought of living on charity, no matter how disguised. Therefore, he began to hunt about for odd work in the neighbourhood, and found much difficulty in getting it. His recent imprisonment told against him everywhere, if not in keeping work from his hands, at all events in low pay for the work. The farmers had now got their feet on his neck, and took it out of him, as they alone knew how; for the brutalised slave is always the cruellest of slave-drivers. But Thomas fought on, and for the best part of a year contrived to exist with the help that young Tom's wages gave. He did no more; nay, not always so much; for he and his wife sometimes wanted their own dinners that their children might have enough. Still he existed; lived through the year somehow and was thankful, notwithstanding the fact that he had made no progress in paying off his debt to the old Captain. "He can take the cottage, Thomas," said his wife. "Someone will pay him rent enough for it, though we can't; but we can get a hovel somewhere."
He was spared this last sacrifice, for about this time old Hawthorn died, and a sealed packet addressed to Thomas Wanless was found among his papers. When the labourer came to open this, he found that it contained his bond with the signature torn off, a receipt in full for the money advanced, and a £20 note. On a slip of paper was written in the Captain's scraggy, trembling hand, "Don't mention this to a living soul, Tom Wanless, or by God I'll haunt you.—E.H." Thus the scorned infidel was soft-hearted and characteristic to the last. His estate passed to a cousin, who soon gave the tenants cause to remember how good the old Captain had been. And once more he had kept the labourer's heart from breaking. The deliverance from debt which this packet brought, and the prodigious wealth a £20 note appeared to be to Thomas, renewed his courage and made him resolve to strike further afield in search of better paid labour. Railway making was at its height all over the country, and he had often thought of becoming a navvy. Now he decided to be one if he could get work on the line down Worcester way. A bit of that line came within fifteen miles of Ashbrook, and he might therefore see his family now and then at least Young Tom was to stay at home, and the 5s. a-week, to which his wages was reduced after old Hawthorn's death, would help to keep house till work was found by his father. The £20 was not to be touched till the very last extremity, and in the meantime Thomas put it in as a deposit in a savings bank at Stratford-on-Avon. He would not deposit it in Warwick lest questions might be asked, and the Captain's dying command be in consequence disobeyed.
The new plans succeeded better almost than Thomas had hoped. He got work on the railway; it was very hard work, but the wages were good; at first he only got 18s. per week, and he began by stinting himself in order to send 10s. of this home; but he soon found that to be a mistake. His work demanded full vigour of body, and to be in full vigour he must be well fed. The other men had meat of some kind three times a day, and Thomas followed their example, with the best results. Not only did he stand by his work with the rest, but he displayed such energy and intelligence that within a few weeks he obtained charge of the work in a deep cutting at 28s. per week. Of this he saved from 12s. to 14s. a-week, after paying for clothes, lodgings, and food. It seemed very little, and he grudged much the cost of his own living; but there was no help for it. Besides, what he saved now was more than all he earned in Ashbrook, except for a few weeks during harvest. Much reason had he to thank the dairyman's wife for feeding him in his youth so as to fit him now for a navvy's toil.
Truly the life was rough, and little to Wanless' liking, yet he worked with a heart and hope rarely his before. Altogether this job lasted for two years, and regularly all that time Thomas went home once a month with his savings. Sometimes he had more than 20 miles to walk each way, but he had health, and never failed. Starting on Saturday evenings, in wet weather and dry, summer and winter, he would reach home early on Sunday morning, when after a good sleep, he passed a few happy hours, and then started on the Sunday afternoon for his work again.