“Well, sir, it was a very simple matter; but if so be as you care to hear it, I will tell you just how it happened;” and leaning against the mantelpiece, with the red light of the fire thrown up into her face, Mrs. Holl went on, very slowly, and speaking as though she almost saw what she was relating. “Well, sir, it were an evening in April—a cold, bitter day—I was sitting here between light and dark, drinking my tea with John, who had just come home from work—John is my husband, you see, sir—when we heard a noise outside in the street. We went out to see what was the matter, and we found a poor young creature, with a baby in her arms, had fallen down in a faint like. She was a pretty young thing, sir; and though her dress was poor and torn, she looked as if she had not been always so. Some one says, ‘Take them to the workhouse;’ ‘no,’ says I—for my heart yearned towards the poor young thing—‘bring her in here; mayn’t we, John?’ says I. Well, sir, John did not say nothing, but he took the baby out of her arms, and gived it to me, and then he upped and took the poor young creature—she were no great weight, sir—and carried her into the house, and laid her on the bed, as it might be by the window there. Well, gentlemen, that bed she never left; she came round a little, and lived some days, but her mind were never rightly itself again. She would lay there, with her baby beside her, and sing songs to herself, I don’t know what about, for it were some foreigner language. She were very gentle and quiet like, but I don’t think she ever knew where she was, or anything about it. She were very fond of baby, and would take it in her arms, and hush it and talk to it. She faded and faded away, and the doctor said nothing could be done for her. It made my heart ache, sir; and if you will believe me, I would go upstairs and cry by the hour. The thought of the little baby troubled me too. I had just lost my first little one, sir, and I could not abear the thought of the little thing going to a workhouse, so one day I says to John, ‘John, when that poor mother dies, for God’s sake, dont’ee send the little baby to the workhouse; He has taken away our own little one, and maybe He has sent this one for us to love in his place. Let us take him as our own.’ John, he did not say nothing, but he up and gived me a great kiss, and said, ‘Sairey, you’re a good woman;’ which of course, gentlemen,” Mrs. Holl put in apologetically, “is neither here nor there, for any mother would have done the same; but it’s John’s way when he’s pleased. That very same night the baby’s mother died.”
The young men listened in silence as Mrs. Holl told her story; standing, with her rough honest face lit up in the bright fire-glow, she related it simply, and as a matter of course, all unconscious of the good part she had taken in it, assuming no credit to herself, or seeing that she deserved any. When she had finished, there was a little silence; Frank passed his hand furtively across his eyes, and then Arthur sprang up and shook Mrs. Holl warmly by the hand, saying, “Your husband was right, Mrs. Holl; you are a good woman.”
Mrs. Holl looked completely amazed, and stammered out, “Lor bless you, sir, there weren’t nothing out of the way in what I did, and there’s scores and scores would do the like. Having just lost my own little one, my heart went out to the poor little thing, and it seemed sent natural like to fill the place of the little angel who was gone from us. Bless your heart, sir, there weren’t nothing out of the way in that; nothing at all; and we have never had cause to regret it. The boy’s a good boy, and a clever boy; and he is a comfort and a help to us. A better boy never lived; but we have always grieved sorely over his accident.”
“Then he was not originally lame, Mrs. Holl?” Prescott asked.
“Dear me, no sir, not till he were six year old. It happened this a way: I were laid up at the time; I was just confined of Mary—she’s my eldest girl—and somehow, James he were out in the streets playing; I don’t rightly know how it happened, but never shall I forget when they brought him in, and said that a cart had run over him. John, he was in, which was lucky, for I think I lost my head like, and went clean out of my mind for a bit, for I loved him just like my own. They did not think he would have lived at first, for the cart had gone over the lower part of his body, and broke one of his thigh bones, and the other leg up high. It was a light cart, I have heard tell, or it must have killed him. He were in bed for months; and if you will believe me, if ever there was a patient little angel on earth, it was surely James. He never complained; and his chief trouble was for my sake. At last he got well, but the doctors said that he would never walk again, for they thought there were some damage done to his spine; and sure enough he never has walked. He is always cheerful, only he never likes going out; and never would go at all, if we did not almost make him; he thinks folks look at him. Then he took to the climbing work, and that did him good; and the last three years he has taken to making them wax flowers; and it has been a wonderful thing for him, that has. He has always been given to reading. John made a shift to teach him his letters; and then the children of the neighbours, they lent him their school books, and taught him what they knew; and in a short time, bless you, sir, he knew more than them all. He would sit and read for hours together. He is wonderful clever, James is.”
“Well, Mrs. Holl,” Frank said, rising, “we are very much obliged to you for your story, but we must not keep you any longer. We will call again and arrange matters with you when Evan lets me know whether he accepts my offer.”
“And I will be sure to forward the books to you to-morrow. Good bye.”
And greatly to Mrs. Holl’s astonishment, the two young men shook hands warmly with her, as they took their leave.
CHAPTER VIII.
A SHATTERED HOME.
“Bill, dear Bill, I do wish you would give up these Chartist goings on. No good will come of it.”