'It'll be spring before we're clear, mother,' said Jim; 'we've got to pay this and that, you know.'
Mrs. Naldret knew it well enough, and she began to pinch and save; this little family fought the battle of life well.
Old Ben Sparrow, of course, suffered with the rest. Trade grew duller and duller, and he drifted steadily, got from bad to worse, and from worse to worse than that. Autumn came, and passed, and winter began to make the poor people shiver; for coals were at a wicked price. Down, down, went old Ben Sparrow; sadder and sadder grew his face; and one day, within a fortnight of Christmas--alas! it was just a year from the time when George was nearly going away--Bessie heard a loud and angry voice in the shop. She hurried in, and saw her grandfather trembling behind the counter. The man who had uttered the angry words was quitting the shop. Bessie asked for an explanation.
'It's the landlord, my dear,' he sobbed upon her shoulder, 'it's the landlord. I've been behindhand with the rent ever so long, and I've promised him and promised him, hoping that trade would improve, until he's quite furious, and swears that he'll put a man in possession to-morrow morning.'
'And you can't pay him, grandfather?'
'Bessie, my darling,' sobbed old Ben; 'there isn't eighteenpence in the house, and I owe other money as well. I'm a ruined man, Bessie, I'm a ruined man! And you, my dear!--O, dear! O, dear! what is to become of us?'
And the poor old fellow pleaded to her, and asked her forgiveness a hundred times, as if he were the cause of their misfortunes. No need to say how Bessie consoled and tried to cheer him. She drew him into the parlour, and coaxed and fondled him, and rumpled the little hair he had on his head, and so forgot her own sorrow out of sympathy for his, that he almost forgot it too. But once during the night, while she was sitting on a stool at his feet, he said softly and sadly, 'Ah, Bess! I wouldn't mind this trouble--I'd laugh at it really--if--if----'
'If what, dear?'
'If you and George were together, my darling.'
She did not reply, but rested her head on his knee, and looked sadly into the scanty fire. She saw no happy pictures in it.