In fact, he had that very morning done with troubling anybody. When Mr. Carnegie pulled up ten minutes later at the door of a forlorn hovel which was the present shelter of the once decent widow, he had no need to dismount. "Ride on, Bessie," he said softly, and Bessie rode on. Widow Burt came out to speak to the doctor, her lean face scorched to the color of a brick, her clothing ragged, her hair unkempt, her eyes wild as the eyes of a hunted animal.
"He's gone, sir," she said, pointing in-doors to where a long, motionless figure seated in a chair was covered with a ragged patchwork quilt. The doctor nodded gravely, paused, asked if she were alone.
"Mrs. Wallop sat up with us last night—she's very good, is Mrs. Wallop—but first thing this morning Bunny came along to fetch her to his wife, and she'd hardly got out o' sight when poor Tom stretched hisself like a bairn that's waked up and is going to drop off to sleep again, an' with one great sigh was dead. Miss Wort comes most mornings: here she is."
Yes, there was Miss Wort, plunging head foremost through the heather by way of making a short cut. She saw at a glance what had happened, and taking both the poor mother's hands in her own, she addressed the doctor with tears in her eyes and tremulous anger in her voice: "I shall always say that it is a bad and cruel thing to send boys to prison, or anybody whose temptation is hunger. How can we tell what we should do ourselves? We are not wiser than the Bible, and we are taught to pray God lest we be poor and steal. Tom would never have come to be what he was but for that dreadful month at Whitchester. Instead of shutting up village-boys and hurting their health if they have done anything wrong, why can't they be ordered to wear a fool's cap for a week, going about their ordinary work? Our eyes would be on them, and they would not have a chance of picking and stealing again; it would give us a little more trouble at first, but not in the long run, and save taxes for prisons. People would say, 'There goes a poor thief,' and they would be sorry for him, and wonder why he did it; and we ought to look after our own things. And then, if they turned out incorrigible, they might be shut up or sent out of the way of temptation. Oh, if those who have the power were only a little more considerate, and would learn to put themselves in their place!"
Mr. Carnegie said that Miss Wort's queer suggestion was capable of development, and there was too much sending of poor and young people to prison for light offences—offences of ignorance often, for which a reprimand and compensation would be enough. Bessie had never seen him more saddened.
Their next and last visit was to Littlemire. Mr. Moxon was in his garden, working without his coat. He came forward, putting the threadbare garment on, and begged Miss Fairfax to go up stairs and see his wife. This was one of her good days, as she called the days when the aching weariness of her perpetual confinement was a degree abated, and she welcomed her visitor with a cry of plaintive joy, kissed her, gazed at her fondly through glittering tears.
Bessie did not know that she had been loved so much. Girl-like, she had brought her tribute of flowers to the invalid's room, had wondered at this half-paralyzed life that was surrounded by such an atmosphere of peace; and when, during her last visit, she had realized what a compensation for all sorrow was this peace, she had not yet understood what an ardor of sympathy kept the poor sufferer's heart warm towards those whose brighter lot had nothing in common with her own.
"Oh, my love," she said in a sweet, thrilling voice, "dear Harry Musgrave has been to tell me of his happiness. I am so glad for you both—so very, very glad!" She did not pause to let Bessie respond, but ran on with her recollections of Harry since he was a boy and came first to read with her husband. "His thoughtfulness was really quite beautiful; he never forgot to be kind. Oh, my dear, you may thoroughly rely on his fine, affectionate temper. Rarely did he come to a lesson without bringing me some message from his mother and little present in his hand—a few flowers, a spring chicken, some nice fruit, a partridge. This queer rustic scaffold for my books and work, Harry constructed it himself, and I would not exchange it for the most elegant and ingenious of whatnots. I could do nothing for him but listen to his long thoughts and aspirations: that was when you were out of hearing, and he could neither talk nor write to his dear little Bessie."
"It was a great gap, but it did not make us strangers," said Bessie.
"When he went to Oxford he sent us word of his arrival, and how he liked his college and his tutor—matters that were as interesting to us as if he had been our own. And when he found how welcome his letters were, he wrote to Mr. Moxon often, and sent him any report or pamphlet that he thought might please him; and several times he gave himself the trouble both at the Bodleian and in London to search for and copy out extracts from works that Mr. Moxon wanted and had no means of procuring here. You can have no idea how helpful he has been to my husband in such things. Poor fellow! what a grief it was to us that term he had to stay away from Oxford on account of his health! Already we began to fear for the future, but his buoyant spirit would not anticipate any permanent hindrance to his progress; and that check did make him more prudent. But it is not to be; he sees himself cut short of the career where he planned to be famous; he gives way, however, to neither anger nor repining. Oh, my love! that I could win you to believe that if you clasp this cross to your heart, as the gift of Him who cannot err, you will never feel it a burden!"