“Killed, mebbe!” was the fearful suggestion of her own heart, and she was silent for some time afterwards.
But the feast proceeded merrily for all that, and no wonder, where Charity was president. And there was quite as happy a party under that humble roof in Skinners’ Yard as that assembled in the grand house at Ardwick, where Master Laurence Aspinall was handed about in his embroidered robes for the inspection of guests who cared very little about him, although they did present him with silver mugs, and spoons, and corals, and protest to his pale and exhausted mamma that he was the finest infant in Manchester.
CHAPTER THE FOURTH.
MISCHIEF.
IT was a time of distress at home and war abroad. Glory’s scarlet fever was as rife an epidemic in Manchester as elsewhere. The town bristled with bayonets; corps of volunteers in showy uniforms, on parade or exercise, with banners flying, dotted it like spots on a peacock’s tail; the music of drum and fife drowned the murmurs of discontented men, the groans of poverty-stricken women, and the cries of famishing children. All nostrums were prescribed for the evils of famine except a stoppage of the war. The rich made sacrifices for the poor; pastry was banished by common consent from the tables of the wealthy in order to cheapen flour; soup-kitchens were established for the poor, and in the midst of the general dearth the nineteenth century struggled into existence.
It was this war-fever which had carried off Bessy Clegg’s sweetheart, Thomas Hulme, to Ireland, in Lord Wilton’s Regiment of Lancashire Volunteers, three years before. The honest, true-hearted fellow could not write for himself, postage was expensive and uncertain, and in all those three years only two letters, written by a comrade, had reached the girl. To her simple, uninformed mind, Ireland was as foreign and distant a country as Australia is to us in these days. And to be stationed there with his regiment amongst those “wild Irishmen,” conveyed only the idea of battles and bloodshed. Yet she kept a brave heart on the matter, and hid her anxieties from her father as well as she was able. In some respects little Jabez was a Godsend to her. The frequent attention he required combined with her labours at the batting-frame, and her household duties, tended to distract her mind from the dark picture over which she was so much inclined to brood, and to make her, if anything, more cheerful. Once more the voice which had been silent tuned up in song, for the gratification of the youngster, and in amusing him she insensibly cheered and refreshed herself.
Yet as she trilled her quaint ballads, or Sabbath-school hymns, she little thought her vocalization was to furnish an envious mind with a shaft to wound herself, and the one of all others dearer than herself.
Soon after the memorable christening feast, Matthew Cooper and his family had removed—or “flitted,” as they called it—from Barlow’s Yards to Skinners’ Yard; and Sally, that peaceable man’s termagant wife, was not the most desirable of neighbours. The tea, and the currant-cake, and the beef, on that unusually well-spread board, had filled her with pleasure for the time, but turned to gall and bitterness ere they were digested. Why should the Cleggs be so high in the favour of Mr. and Madam Clough, and her Mat get nothing better than half-a-crown-piece? He’d quite as much to do in saving the brat’s life as Simon had, and with such a family, wanted it a fine sight more. So she argued and argued with herself, quite ignoring, or blind to the fact that it was not the mere impulse which saved, but the humanity which kept the babe, that Mr. Clough recognized, and never lost sight of.
As Simon grew in favour at the tannery, the more excited grew Sally Cooper, until nothing would do but a removal to the opposite yard, where she could see for herself the “gooin’s on o’ them Cleggs;” and once there, she contrived to harass Bess by numberless little spiteful acts, as well as by her vituperative tongue.
Nor did little Jabez himself escape. Parson Brookes, grumbling loudly at every downward step, found his way to Bess o’ Sims, guided by the quick-swishing, regular beat of the batting-wands.