Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles

by Mrs. Henry Wood

And Henry Ashley? As the weeks and the months went on, Henry began to rouse himself from his prostration; his apathy. William Halliburton made no secret of it to Henry that it was suspected he was suffering from some inward grief which he was concealing, and that he had been questioned on the point by Mr. Ashley. "You know," said William, "I shall have no resource but to tell, unless you show yourself a sensible man, and come out of this nonsense."

It alarmed Henry; rather than have his secret feelings betrayed for the family benefit, he could have died. In a grumbling and discontented sort of mood, he went about again, and resumed his idle occupations (such as they were) as usual. One evening William enticed him out for a walk, took possession of his arm, and pounced into Robert East's, before Henry well knew where he was. He sat down, apathetic and indifferent, after nodding carelessly to the respectful salutation of the men. "I must give just ten minutes to them, as I am here," observed William. "You can go to sleep the while."

The ten minutes lengthened into twenty, and Henry's attention was so far roused that he came to the table in his impulsive way, and began talking on his own account. When William was ready to go, he was not; and he actually told the men that he would come round again. It was a great point gained.

Small beginnings, it has been remarked, lead to great endings. The humble, confined way in which the class had begun at Robert East's; the vague ideas of William upon the subject; the doubtings of East and Crouch, were looked back upon with a smile. For the little venture had swollen itself into a great undertaking—an undertaking that was destined to effect a revolution throughout the whole of Honey Fair, and might probably even extend to Helstonleigh itself. The drawback now was want of room; numbers were being kept away by it. Henry Ashley did go again; and finding that books of the right kind ran short, he, the day after his second visit, wrote off an order for a whole cargo.

Mr. Ashley was in a state of inward delight. Anything to rouse him! "You think it will succeed, that movement, do you, Henry?" he carelessly observed.

"It's safe to succeed," was the answer. "William, with his palavering, has gained the ear of the fellows. I don't believe there's William Halliburton's equal in the whole world!" he added, with enthusiasm. "Fancy his sacrificing his time to such a thing, and for no benefit to himself! It will bear a rich crop of fruit too. If I have the gift—I'll give you a long word for once—of ratiocination, this reform of William's will be more extensive than we now foresee."

The chief thing in these evenings was to keep alive the interest of the men. Not to lead them to abstruse things, which they had a difficulty in understanding, and remained strange to at best; but rather to plunge them into familiar home topics—the philosophy, if you will, of everyday life. There is a right and a wrong way of doing most things, and it often happens that people, from ignorance, pursue the wrong. Of the plain sanitary laws, relating to physical health, Honey Fair was intensely ignorant: of the ventilation of rooms, of cleanliness, of the most simple rules by which the body can be kept in order, they knew no more than they did of the moon. When a man was, to use Honey Fair phraseology, "took bad," he generally neglected the symptoms altogether, thereby laying the foundation of worse illness: or else he went to a doctor, and ran himself into expense. A little familiarity with ordinary complaints and ordinary antidotes would have remedied this. An acquaintance with sanitary laws would have prevented it. When children were down with measles or scarlatina, the careless of the land allowed the maladies to take their own course, and the sufferers to air themselves in the gutters, as usual. The cautious ones smothered the patients in a hot room, keeping up a fire as large as the stock of coals would allow, and borrowing all the blankets from the houses on either side, to heap upon them. No wonder the supply of little coffins was great to Honey Fair.

All these things would be talked of and discussed, and a little enlightenment imparted to the men, as a guidance for the future. No one who did not witness it can imagine the delighted satisfaction with which these and similar practical topics were welcomed; for they bore for them a personal interest—they concerned themselves, their families, and their homes.

One evening the way in which Honey Fair rather liked to spend its Sundays was under discussion; namely, the men in smoking; the women slatternly and dirty; the children fighting and quarrelling in the dirt outside.

William Halliburton was asking them in a half-earnest, half-joking manner, what particular benefit they found in it, that it should not be remedied? Could they impart its pleasures to him? If so——