All But Lost: A Novel. Vol. 1 of 3

by G. A. Henty

“I have not been drinking, indeed I have not, policeman; but I have been knocked down by an omnibus, or at least I was nearly knocked down; at least—indeed I don’t quite clearly know how it did happen; but I know an omnibus had something to do with it.”

The policeman’s belief in the man’s state of inebriety was evidently unshaken; however, he took him by the arm and walked across the road with him, and then dismissed him, telling him that “he should advise him to go straight home, or he would find himself in the wrong box before long.” The man again attempted to expostulate, but the policeman cut him short by turning to go back to his former station, with a parting admonition: “There, don’t you talk, it won’t do you any good; you go home; take my advice, and don’t stop by the way.”

The man, shaking his head in feeble deprecation at the policeman’s opinion, pursued his way along the crowded pavement, past the bright shops, and the stalls with their noisy vendors—through which Evan Holl had passed a short half-hour before. He went along quite unconscious of the crowd and the bustle, getting frequently jostled and pushed against, and receiving angry expostulation and considerable abuse, to none of which he paid the slightest heed. At length he reached the end of the row where the next street ran across it into the main road. This, however, he had not to cross, as his way lay up the side street, but not far, only past three or four houses; then he stopped at the door of a small shop, opened it, and went in.

It was a small stationer’s shop, illuminated by a solitary tallow candle standing upon the counter, and whose long wick with its dull red cap testified plainly that it had not been attended to for some time. Round the shop were ranges of shelves filled with dingy volumes, with paper numbers pasted upon their backs. There were piles of penny periodicals upon the counter, and a glass case with partitions containing cigars. These, with the small pair of scales beside them, and sundry canisters upon the shelves, showed that its proprietor combined the tobacco and literary businesses. The little parlour behind was separated from the shop by a glass door, with a muslin curtain drawn across it, and through this the bright flickering light of a fire shone cheerfully. The man opened the door, and went in. It was a small room, but was very snug and comfortable. The furniture and curtains were neat and well chosen, and altogether much superior to what would have been expected from the shop and locality. The tea-things stood upon the table, and a copper kettle on the hob was singing merrily. On the hearth-rug a girl was sitting reading a novel by the light of the fire; a very pretty figure, light and graceful, as could be seen in the attitude in which she half sat, half reclined; a girl of some eighteen years old, with a bright happy face. Her hair was pushed back from her forehead, and fell in thick clustering curls behind her ears. Her face was very pretty, with an innocent child-like expression. About her mouth and chin there was some want of firmness and character, but by no means sufficiently so to mar the general effect of her face. She had large blue eyes, over which she had a little trick of drooping her eyelids, and she had a saucy way of tossing her head. Altogether, Carry was a belle, and was perfectly aware of it; and indeed, to say truth, her head was a little turned by all the nonsense and flattery that she was constantly receiving; but she was a good girl for all that, and devotedly attached to her father, the man who now entered.

Stephen Walker was perhaps fifty years old, about the middle height, but stooping a good deal; evidently, by his manner, a nervous, timid man. His address and way of speaking unmistakably showed that he had seen better days; but when he slipped down the rounds of the ladder, he had lost any little faith he might ever have had in himself, and was content to remain helplessly at its foot, with scarce an effort to try to regain his lost position. Stephen Walker’s father had been a well-to-do City tradesman, a very great man in his own eyes; an active bustling member of the Court of Common Council, respected but not much liked there for the harsh dictatorial way in which he enunciated his opinions; very great upon the inexpediency of pampering the poor, a strict reformer of abuses, and withal a harsh, vulgar, narrow-minded man.

Stephen was a weakly child, and his mother, a quiet timid woman, would fain have kept him at home, and herself attended to his education until he should be old enough to be sent to some school down in the country; but his father would not hear of it, and in his own house his will was law. Accordingly, at the earliest possible age, he was sent to St. Paul’s School, a timid, shrinking child, and among the rough spirits there he fared but badly. Cowed and kept down at home, bullied and laughed at at school, Stephen Walker grew up a nervous delicate boy. When he was fifteen his father said that he knew enough now, or if he did not he ought to, and that so he was to come into the shop. Into the shop he accordingly came, and when there his life was a burden to him. His mother, who would have softened things for him as far as she could, and would at all events have been kind to him, and have commiserated with and cheered him, had been dead some three years, and his life became one long blank of misery. He hated the shop, he hated business, he almost hated his father. Heartily did he envy his associates in the shop, who at least, when the day’s work was over, could take their departure and be their own masters until the shutters were taken down in the morning. His drudgery never ceased, for when the shop was closed, his father, a great part of whose daytime was occupied by City business, would sit down with him at his desk and go into the whole accounts of the day’s sales until half-past nine. Then upstairs, where the servants would be summoned, and his father take his place at the head of the table with a large Bible before him, which he would read and expound in a stern harsh manner, eminently calculated to make the Scriptures altogether hateful to those who heard him. This with prayer lasted for an hour. Then to bed; to begin over again in the morning. Such was Stephen Walker’s life for six years; and then, when he was twenty-one, his father died suddenly. It was just in time to save his son’s life; in another year it might have been too late, for his health was breaking fast; as it was, it was too late for him ever to become other than he was, a nervous timid man.

It was some time before Stephen Walker could come to understand that he was now a free agent, and that he could really do as he liked. It was so unnatural for him to be able to carry into execution any wish of his own, that, after his father’s funeral was over, he went back as regularly as ever to his duties in the shop. At the end of a month an old schoolfellow came in, told him he was not looking well, and asked him to go into the country with him for the day. Stephen was absolutely startled, even the possibility of such a thing as his leaving the shop had never entered his mind. In the six years such an event had never happened. He looked round frightened and aghast at the proposition. As, however, he had no reasons to adduce, beyond the fact that he never did go anywhere, which his friend insisted was the very reason why he should go now, he was finally persuaded. Never did man enjoy his first holiday less than Stephen Walker did. He felt like a guilty self-convicted truant; he had a constant impression upon his mind that he was doing something very wrong, and on his return entered the shop with a guilty air, and a conviction that the assistants behind the counter were eyeing him disapprovingly.

However, the ice was broken. He began, at first at long intervals, but afterwards, as he learnt really to enjoy the sweets of his newly found liberty more and more often, to absent himself from the shop, until by degrees he discovered that he really was his own master. The first time a friend remarked that he rather wondered he did not sell the business and retire altogether, it seemed to him almost a profane suggestion. Still in time it became familiar to his mind, and at length, finding that no obstacle except that of his own imagination stood in his way, he determined to carry it out. Accordingly in less than eighteen months from his father’s death he disposed of the lease and goodwill of the business, and found that he was master of £30,000. He then, acting upon the advice of his physician, started for a long tour upon the continent; not going alone,—he had not sufficient confidence in himself for that, but taking with him as companion a friend who had been on the continent before, and who spoke French, paying all his expenses, and a handsome sum in addition.

There he remained in all three years, and in this time his health became re-established; but although his manner greatly improved from his mixture with travelling society, he still remained a nervous timid man.

At the end of this three years he married a very pretty ladylike looking girl, who was governess in a family wintering in Rome. Her beauty was her only redeeming point, for she was a silly, vain, indolent woman.