The woman was not a professional thief—a glance at her somewhat pinched features told me that—yet her poverty was so apparent that I felt by no means certain that she would not have committed a robbery under such pressure. Poverty and a hungry bairn—where is the mother who could resist the pleadings of these? Then the shawl was the only fresh thing about the queer pair. The mother’s clothes were meagre and shabby in the extreme; her boots were mere apologies for foot coverings, and her bonnet only fit for a scarecrow, and the clothing of the child equally poor. They had also a worn and travel-stained look, and stood out prominently among the ordinary passengers as dusty tramps always do when they enter a city. They were strangers, they were poor, and the child wore a tartan shawl of the exact pattern I sought—it could do no harm to follow them, which I did with a sigh for the dinner I had hoped so soon to be consuming.
My interesting pair turned down Infirmary Street, and stopped at the gate of that institution—became, indeed, part of a crowd already gathering there—visitors waiting the hour of admittance to see friends. Five o’clock was the hour, and it lacked nearly ten minutes of the time. Most of these visitors were of the poorest, and they varied the monotony of the waiting by exchanging experiences and expressions of sympathy. My tramp joined in the conversation, and I soon learned from her tongue that she came from the West. The Glasgow brogue was strong in her tongue, but not strong enough, and I soon heard her say that she had come from Airdrie, which accounted for the slight difference in the accent. She was the wife of a pit labourer—an occupation considered far beneath that of a collier, who ranks as a skilled workman; and her husband in working among the hutches had got hurt in some way, and been laid up at home till their little house was almost stripped of furniture. Then the disabled man had gone to Glasgow for advice; and afterwards hearing of the great skill of the Edinburgh professors, he had scraped together enough to bring him through to this Infirmary, into which he was admitted as an indoor patient. He did not write very hopefully of recovery; and at length the wife, reduced to her last penny, had resolved to come through and see him with her own eyes.
“I’m feared that he’s waur than he says, and maybe winna get better,” she said, shedding tears freely as she spoke. “I’ve walkit every fit o’ the road, thinking I saw a coffin at the end o’ the way.”
Cheering words and homely sympathy were showered upon her without stint, most of those present seeming to find their own troubles light beside what that slight woman had endured.
“Is that your only bairn?” one asked, to which the mother replied—
“Yes, and I thocht we wad baith a’ been frozen to death on the road. It was awfu’ caul’ last nicht; I never thocht we’d see morning.”
“What? did ye sleep in the open air?” cried an old woman, holding up her hands.
“I hadna a penny to pay a lodging; and I was tired and dune, and didna like to gang to a poorhouse,” was the choking answer.
The old Irishwoman wiped her own eyes, and then I saw her slowly fumble in her own pocket and produce twopence, which she tried to slip into the hand of the baby.
“Oh, no, no! No, thank ye,” cried the mother, in strong protest, and flushing painfully at the proffered help so thinly disguised. “I’m no needing that now; I’ve got money since then. There’s some kind folk in the world yet, and I’ve as muckle as take me to my mither’s after I see how my man is.”