"I'll tell you a true story, if you like," said Jeffreys: "for I don't mind about smoking any more. In fact, I'll give you my own history—and a precious curious one it is, too."
"Do," said Josh Pedler. "But mind and don't introduce no lies into it—that's all."
"Every word is as true as gospel," observed Jeffreys.
The glasses were replenished—Old Death snuffed the candles with his withered, trembling hand—and Jeffreys then commenced his narrative, which, as in former instances, we have modelled into a readable shape.
[37]. Changed the notes.
CHAPTER LXXXV.
THE HISTORY OF A LIVERY-SERVANT.
"My parents were very poor, but very honest; and I was their only child. My father was a light porter in a warehouse, earning fifteen shillings a week; and my mother took in washing to obtain a few shillings more. We lived in a court leading out of High Holborn, and occupied one room, which was very decently furnished for people in my parents' condition of life, the things moreover being all their own. My father had a good suit of clothes, and my mother a nice gown, bonnet, and shawl, for Sundays and holidays; and they also took care to keep me neat and decent in my dress. Neither of them ever went to the public-house except just to fetch the beer for dinner and supper; and they were always regular in their attendance at church. In addition to all these proofs of good conduct and respectability, they put by two or three shillings a-week as a provision against a rainy day; and you may be sure that to be able to do this, they lived very economically indeed. In fact a more industrious couple did not exist than my father and mother; and you will admit that they deserved to succeed in the world. This much I have heard from people who knew them; for they died when I was too young to be able to understand their ways or judge of their merits.
"It seems that my mother was a very pretty young woman. She had been a servant in the family of the merchant in whose warehouse my father was; and, an attachment, springing up between them, they married. The merchant, whose name was Shawe, had a son—a dissipated young man, addicted to gaming and bad company, and consequently a source of great uneasiness to his parents, who were highly respectable people. During the time that my mother was in service at the merchant's, Frederick Shawe was on the Continent, his father having sent him to a commercial establishment at Rotterdam, in the hope that he would amend his ways when under the care of comparative strangers. But this hope, it appears, was completely disappointed; and the young man was after all sent back to his father's house as irreclaimable. At this time my parents had been married three years, and I was two years old. My mother was in the habit of taking my father's dinner to him at the warehouse, whenever his duties prevented him from running home to get it; and on one of these occasions, Frederick Shawe saw her as she was going out of the establishment. He followed her, made insulting proposals, and behaved most grossly. She had me with her; and this circumstance rendered his conduct the more abominable, if any thing was wanting to aggravate it. Indeed, his persecution was carried to such an excess, that she was obliged to take refuge in a shop, where she went into hysterics through fright and indignation. Shawe sneaked away the moment he found that the master of the shop was disposed to take my mother's part against him; and when she was a little recovered, she was sent home in a hackney-coach. On the return of my father in the evening, she told him all that had occurred; and it seems that she had scarcely made an end of her narrative, when Frederick Shawe entered the room. He declared that he had come to express his sincere penitence for what he had done, and to implore that his father might not be made acquainted with his behaviour. He seemed so earnest, and so excessively sorry for his infamous conduct, that my parents consented to look over it. He thanked them over and over again, and took his departure. My father, however, desired his wife never to come to the warehouse to him any more, as he was unwilling to expose her to even the chance of a repetition of the insult.
"A few weeks after this occurrence Frederick Shawe one evening, when under the influence of liquor, called at our lodgings, my father being absent, and renewed his outrageous conduct towards my mother. An alarm was created in the dwelling—a constable was sent for—and the young gentleman was taken off to the watch-house. Of course the matter was now too serious to be hushed up; and the elder Mr. Shawe necessarily learnt all the particulars. His son was fined and held to bail to keep the peace towards Mrs. Jeffreys; and my father obtained another situation—for though the old merchant knew that his son was alone to blame, yet my father thought that he could not prudently remain in a place where he must daily meet a person who, he felt convinced, was now his sworn enemy. And such indeed did Frederick Shawe prove to be; for by misrepresentations and heaven only knows what other underhand means, he so successfully avenged himself that my poor father soon lost his new situation, and was totally unable to find another. The most infamous reports were circulated concerning him; and he took the cruel treatment he had received so much to heart, that his spirit was completely broken—he fell ill, and died in a few weeks.