The enlistment of Jacob had compelled Sally to go to service like her sister. Thomas yielded to this necessity most reluctantly, and his friends, even his wife, said he was foolishly fond of the girl. He would not admit that it was over-fondness; it was solicitude, he said. An undefined feeling of dread haunted him about the last and best loved that was left. She was fairer than any girl of the village, and without being exactly giddy, she was thoughtless and merry-hearted; too easily led away; too guilelessly trustful of others. How could he let this tender, unprotected maiden go out into the world, and fight her life-battle alone among strangers? Many a prayer had he prayed in secret that this sacrifice might be spared; but in this also the heavens were as brass. The time had come when she must either go or starve, and with a heavy heart he gave his consent. It was hardly given when his wife in her turn woke up to the danger of the step. She then sought to bring Thomas to revoke the decision, and try one more year; but it was too late. Sally herself was now eager to go. Her pride was touched. She would no longer be a burden to her parents, and must take a place like her sister.
"But in another year, Sally, we may all be able to go to Australia," the mother pleaded.
"Well, I can work for money to help us to go there," was the answer; and the mother had to yield.
Sally found a place as drudge to a newly-married couple in Warwick—a young surgeon and his wife. They had imprudently married on his "prospects," and had to use many shifts to hide their poverty, lest the world, which can only measure men's worth by the length of their purses, should pass him by. It was thus a poor place, especially for one like Sally, who had been better educated than probably any one else of her class in the whole shire; and the wages were poor. At first they gave her 1s. 6d. a-week with her food, but after six months they gave her 2s., partly to prevent neighbours from gossiping about their want of means.
Here the girl remained for two years, not because she liked the place, but because her parents told her that it was good to be able to say that she had been so long in one family. Then she removed to the household of a lawyer as housemaid, where two servants were kept, and had been in that place over a year when her father met with an accident which laid him up for many weeks. It seems that in building a rick he had somehow been knocked off by a sheaf flung up at him thoughtlessly before he had adjusted the previous one. He raised his one hand mechanically to catch it, and his other slipped from under him. Being near the edge, he rolled off heavily, striking the wheel of the waggon as he fell. The rick was high, and the fall so severe, that, when picked up and examined, Thomas was found to have badly bruised his shoulder and fractured two of his ribs.
A long and tedious illness followed, during which Thomas was unable to earn anything. Until young Tom could know and send money the old folks were therefore likely again to feel the pinch of want, and it would take many months to bring help from Australia. Some of the old hoard was still left, but doctors' bills and necessary dainties soon made a hole in that. In nursing her husband, too, Mrs. Wanless was prevented from earning anything herself. There was no one to go to market with the little garden produce that might be to spare. Neighbours were helpful, but they could do little where all alike lived in daily converse with want. Thomas's master was kindly, and declared that he would not see them starve, but Thomas liked to be independent, and took umbrage at the tone in which the charity was offered.
Talking of these things, and of the difficulties of the future, one Sunday evening, when Sally was down from Warwick, the girl suddenly asked why she could not go to a better place where her wages might be of more use. She had only 3s. a week where she was, and felt sure she could earn more.
Her parents were for letting well alone. "All the extra money you can get, Sally, won't amount to much," her mother said, and her father urged her to wait for Tom's letter. Who knew that Tom might not be sending money to take them all away to the new country? But Sally was positive, according to her impulsive nature. She was now nearly 18, she said, and was sure she could earn more. "Besides, mother," she added, "I want to better myself. I am learning nothing where I am, and never will, and I hate messing about with so many children. They ought to keep a nurse, but they can't afford it, missis says; and I'm sure I'm nothing but a slave. Why should you object?"
Why, indeed. There were no good grounds for it in her eyes, and none tangible to her parents. The result, therefore, was that Sally sought and found a new place.