CHAPTER XXVI.
“HIS OWN WAY.”
The reason why Mr. Samuel Smart spent that short holiday in Darentdale became apparent a few weeks afterward when Margaret Miller received a letter. The letter was as follows:—
“Dear Miss Miller,—Pardon the presumption of an old man, who is a stranger to you. I knew Captain Dallington, and I once saw you when you were a little child of three, and since then I have heard of you, and of the great host of Young Crusaders who, in all parts of the country, are learning to be good citizens because they are trying to be good Christians.
“I am sorry that I have come to the end of my life, because life was never so well worth living as now, when it is quite the fashion for a man to give what he has got for the good of his fellows. I have something which I also wish to give; but every man gives in his own way, and I know—for I have dreamed of it by day and night—exactly how I wish my gift to be administered. And I write to you because I have a great hope that you will help me.
“Let me tell you a little of myself. I was born in a narrow street in Bristol, and my childhood’s home was a house of four small rooms. My father was a bricklayer’s labourer, who earned eighteen shillings a week. He married early, and there were seven children. My father was a decent man, who did the best he could, and gave all his earnings to his wife; but my mother was a poor, incapable creature, who had been a factory girl from the time when she was ten years old until she was married, and who had not the least idea how to make the best of the small means she had. I can remember her as a young woman, with dirty face and ragged dress and untidy hair, sitting for the most part of the day on the doorstep or by the fire, gossiping with the neighbours or reading cheap papers while the breakfast-things were still on the table, and no dinner was ready for my father when he came home. We lived on bread bought at the baker’s; we were all dirty and ragged; there was always a baby, and my mother never seemed anything but miserable and cross. She used to beat us savagely at times, and though I have often tried, I do not remember any time when she took me into her arms, or taught me a useful lesson. And yet she was not what is generally called a bad woman; she was ignorant and incapable; she had been vain and uncontrolled, she had married without serious thoughts, and had not the energy to meet the circumstances of her life, or fulfil its tasks.
“Our father was kind to us, and I do not think that he quarrelled with my mother oftener than he could help; he never spent much money in the public-house; he made his small wages go as far as they could without his wife’s help, but she never seconded his endeavours, and our home was as miserable as thousands of other working men’s homes are, and which are made a thousand times more so by the hopelessness and idleness and incapacity of the conscienceless women who are in them.
“We children went very irregularly to school, but began to earn a few coppers, or to pick up odds and ends of food for ourselves in any way that offered. I liked the quay better than any place, and used to spend whole days there, and at last a captain who was going to sea offered to take me. I ran home to ask my father and mother if I might go. ‘I don’t care where you go,’ said my mother; ‘go where you like, only don’t bother me.’ My father went back with me to the captain, and talked with him, telling him I had no clothes excepting those I wore, and that my mother was not very strong and could not see to me, and asking the man to treat me well; then he patted my head and told me to be a good boy, and gave me a penny.
“That was the last I saw of them for several years. Then I came back with the ship, and went to see my people. Two of my brothers and a sister had died, and my mother looked more miserable and dirty than ever. I gave her some money but was sorry afterward, for the money was worse than wasted, and my father was angry, and bade me, when I came home again, give the money to him and not to my mother. I stayed a few days at home, but there was no room for me, and after the first day I felt that no one wanted me; and when the ship sailed again my heart was hard and bitter, and I had resolved never to trouble my people with my presence again.
“That is more than fifty years ago. I am not going to inflict upon you a detailed biography, nor to tell you how it has come about that the son of a Bristol bricklayer’s labourer has become a rich man, and is alone in the world without a single living relative. But so it is. I have been in England five years; but though I have spared no pains or endeavours, I can find no trace of my brothers or sisters other than the registers of their deaths. They seem to have left no children behind them.
“I am, therefore, free to do as I will with my money; and, naturally, I should like it to benefit my native land. I have looked at the different methods of doing good which others have adopted; but I do not quite like any of them. I could leave a large legacy to a hospital; but it seems to me better to nurse the poor in their own homes than in big places where all are strangers. I could buy a people’s park, and present it to some town which has none: but I have a hope that the future will bring the people back to the villages. I could give my money to some grand scheme for providing employment for the unemployed; but the worst of the unemployed do not want work, and would not do it if they might. So many benevolences commence at the wrong end of life. It is with the children that Hope dwells. Your own Young Crusaders are the great makers of the future, such as we wish it to be. But they are—most of them—working lads. In a few years they will be falling in love with pretty faces, and marrying them. And what then? Many girls are still in factories, as vain and frivolous as girls ever were. What sort of wives will they make for your Tri-colour Crusaders? How many years will it take for thriftless, soulless women to undo what you are trying to do?