A mystery—so far as I was concerned—I decided that it might remain. Of detective work and of theory building I had had more than enough, and so I betook myself that very afternoon to Shadwell, to renew the investigations which my meeting with the Dumpling had interrupted.
The first name on my list was that of a tailor's "hand," named Holmes, a widower who, I was told, had five young children, and was out of work. He was a consumptive-looking creature, hollow of cheek, eye, and chest, and with a hacking cough.
"Yes, sir," he said civilly, in reply to my inquiries. "It is quite true that I am out of work, and that I have children; but I can't take your help, asking your pardon all the same, sir, for seeming rude and ungrateful."
"On the contrary," I said, "it is I who have to apologise to you, Mr. Holmes, for what you might very well think my impertinence in coming here at all. But I happened to hear, quite by chance, how beautifully you keep your children; and how nice they always look; and learning that you were out of work, and being very, very fond of children (I haven't any myself: I wish I had), I thought there wouldn't be any harm, at least, in calling, just to see whether there were any little thing I could do for you, until you're in work again. I'm a working man, as you are, though I happen to work with a pen, while you happen to work with a needle. And I'm a poor man, too, for the matter of that; but just lately I chanced, by a stroke of luck, to make a pound or two more than usual, and when I have a stroke of luck I like to share it with someone who has been less lucky—just as I believe you'd be ready to share your good luck, when it comes, with me, if I happened to need it. But I respect your independence and pride, and I ask you again to forgive me for calling."
"It isn't pride, sir," he said; "and, if the children were in absolute want, I'd take your help and thank God for it. It's this way, sir. This week we have just enough money left out of my savings to last us—me and the children—in bread. It has only been bread, and dry bread, it's true; and if when Monday comes I haven't got work, there won't even be bread, for my money will be entirely gone. If you should be this way then, and would look in, and I haven't found work, I will take your help—putting it the way you do, sir—and thank God for it. But when I know of hundreds of little children who haven't had even a piece of bread for days, I can't take——But I thank you kindly. God bless you, sir. I must go now. I hear one of the children calling. Good afternoon."
He closed the door in my face—not rudely, but in haste, lest I should see how shaken he was by emotion; and bowing my head, and with my own heart rising strangely in my throat, I turned away.
Just for the moment, I did not feel like facing the eyes in the street; so, as a slight rain was falling, I took shelter in a dark passage leading to a court, and stood there out of sight of passers, to collect my thoughts.
It was not long before my attention was attracted by a curious sight. A gipsy-like, wolf-faced man was wheeling a child's perambulator, in which, to my astonishment, I saw curled up the figure of a full-grown woman. I recognised the couple at a glance. Walking once along the high road from Epping to London, I had seated myself upon a five-barred gate by the wayside for a quiet smoke. The gate stood between thick hedge-rows, and, as it was set back a little, the folk passing along the road could not see me until they were almost level with the gate. By and by I heard what struck me as a very pretty altercation between a man and a woman who were approaching me slowly, but whom as yet I could not see. The man, as I discovered when they came into sight, was wheeling a perambulator (the same perambulator, in fact) in which were a number of ferns and primrose roots that he was carrying to London to sell. This perambulator the woman was pleading to be allowed to take a turn at pushing, urging that as the man had been up since four in the morning to gather the ferns and primroses, and had had to wheel the perambulator five miles out and five miles back, he must consequently be very tired. He, protesting that he was not tired at all, point-blank refused, declaring that, as she had only just come out of hospital, she must be much more tired than he. And so the petty quarrel continued, until the pair came opposite to the gate, and I saw that she was a sickly, blear-eyed, unlovely woman, and he an unkempt, gipsy-like fellow with lean face and hungry, wolf's eyes.
Well, to cut a long story short, I had contrived to make their acquaintance, and had found that, underneath their rags and dirt, beat two honest and unselfish hearts. I had told them to come always to me if in need of assistance of any sort—an invitation of which they took advantage only once, and then when their straits were desperate. On every other occasion I had found them touchily independent, and though I sometimes bought flowers, bullrushes, mistletoe, or fern-roots from them for the decoration of my house or garden, they would not accept a farthing from me in the shape of charity. If I wished to buy the wares they had for sale, that was another matter; and even then I have reason to know that I got more flowers, bullrushes, or fern roots for sixpence than their usual customers got for a shilling.
For some twelvemonth we continued the best of friends. Then suddenly their visits ceased, and I set eyes on neither again until I saw the pair of them at Shadwell—the woman curled up in the perambulator, and the man pushing it.