“Ben Shuttleworth,” was the unanimous answer, and Ben stepped forward. He was a noble-looking old man just a little crippled by long usage of the hand loom. “Squire Annis,” he said, “I’ll gladly take the gift God hes sent us by thy hands and I’ll divide it equally, penny for penny, and may God bless thee and prosper thy journey! We’re none of us men used to saying ‘thank’ee’ to any man but we say it to thee. Yes, we say it to thee.”
Kindred scenes occurred in every village and they did not reach Leeds in time for the mail coach they intended to take. The squire was not troubled at the delay. He said, “he hed a bit of his awn business to look after, and he was sure Katherine hed forgotten one or two varry necessary things, that she could buy in Leeds.”
Katherine acknowledged that she had forgotten her thimble and her hand glass, and said she had “been worrying about her back hair, which she could not dress without one.”
Madam was tired and glad to rest. “But Antony,” she said, “Dick will meet this coach and when we do not come by it, he will have wonders and worries about us.”
“Not he! Dick knows something about women, and also, I told him we might sleep a night or two at some town on the way, if you were tired.”
The next day they began the journey again, half-purposing to stop and rest at some half-way town. The squire said Dick understood them. He would be on hand if they loitered a week. And Madam was satisfied; she thought it likely Dick had instructions fitting his father’s uncertainty.
Yet though the coach prevented actual contact with the miserable famine sufferers, it could not prevent them witnessing the silent misery sitting on every door step, and looking with such longing eyes for help from God or man. Upon the whole it was a journey to break a pitiful heart, and the squire and his family were glad when the coach drew up with the rattle of wheels and the blowing of the guard’s horn at its old stand of Charing Cross.
The magic of London was already around them, and the first face they saw was the handsome beaming face of Dick Annis. He nodded and smiled to his father, who was sitting—where he had sat most of the journey—at the side of the driver. Dick would have liked to help him to the street, but he knew that his father needed no help and would likely be vexed at any offer of it, but Dick’s mother and sister came out of the coach in his arms, and the lad kissed them and called them all the fond names he could think of. Noticing at the same time his father’s clever descent, he put out his left hand to him, for he had his mother guarded with his right arm. “You did that jump, dad, better than I could have done it. Are you tired?”
“We are all tired to death, Dick. Hev you a cab here?”
“To be sure, I have! Your rooms at the Clarendon are in order, and there will be a good dinner waiting when you are ready for it.”