“Ah,” interrupted Jacob, “it were the drink, of course. That’s at the bottom of almost all the crime and wickedness.”
“You’re right, my lad,” continued the other, with a deep sigh. “Ruth Canters drank, but it were very slily—so slily that her own son Jim wouldn’t believe it at first; but he were obliged to at last. Oh, what a cheating thing is the drink! She were never so pious in her talk as when she’d been having a little too much; and nothing would convince her but that she were safe for heaven. But I mustn’t go grinding on, or I shall grind all your patience away. Rachel had a little babe—a bonny little wench. Oh, how she loved it—how we both loved it! Poor Rachel!”
The old man paused to wipe away his tears.
“Well, it were about six months old, when Rachel had to go off for some hours to see an aunt as were sick. She wouldn’t take the babe with her, ’cos there were a fever in the court where her aunt lived, and she were feart on it for the child. Old Ruth promised to mind the babe gradely; and our Rachel got back as quick as she could, but it were later nor she intended. Jim were not coming home till late, and I were off myself for a day or two. When our Rachel came to the house door, she tried to open it, but couldn’t; it were fast somehow. She knocked, but no one answered. Again she tried the door; it were not locked, but summat heavy lay agen it. She pushed hard, and got it a bit open. She just saw summat as looked like a woman’s dress. Then she shrieked out, and fell down in a faint. The neighbours came running up. They went in by the wash-house door, and found Ruth Canters lying dead agen the house door inside, and the baby smothered under her. Both on ’em were stone dead. She’d taken advantage of our Rachel being off to drink more nor usual, and she’d missed her footing with the baby in her arms, and fallen down the stairs right across the house door. Our Rachel never looked up arter that; she died of a broken heart. And Jim couldn’t bear to tarry in the neighbourhood; nor I neither. Ah, the misery, the misery as springs from the cursed drink! Thank the Lord, Jacob, over and over again a thousand times, as he’s given you grace to be a total abstainer.”
There was a long pause, during which the old man wept silent but not bitter tears.
“Them as is gone is safe in glory,” he said at last; “our Rachel and her babe, I mean; and I’ve done fretting now. I shall go to them; but they will not return to me. And now, Jacob, my lad, what do ye say to learning my trade, and taking shares with me? I shan’t be good for much again this many a day, and I’ve taken a fancy to you. You’ve done me a good turn, and I know you’re gradely. I’m not a queer chap, though I looks like one. My clothes is only a whim of mine. They’ve been in the family so long, that I cannot part with ’em. They’ll serve out my time, though we’ve patched and patched the old coat till there’s scarce a yard of the old stuff left in him, and he looks for all the world like a map of England, with the different counties marked on it.”
“Well, Mayster Crow,” began Jacob in reply; but the other stopped him by putting up his hand.
“Eh, lad, you mustn’t call me Mayster Crow; leastwise, if you do afore other folks, they’ll scream all the wits out of you with laughing. I’m ‘Old Crow’ now, and nothing else. My real name’s Jenkins; but if you or any one else were to ask for Isaac Jenkins, there’s not a soul in these parts as’d know as such a man ever lived. No; they call me ‘Old Crow.’ Maybe ’cos I look summat like a scarecrow. But I cannot rightly tell. It’s my name, howsever, and you must call me nothing else.”
“Well, then, Old Crow,” said Jacob, “I cannot tell just what I’m going to do. You see I’ve no friends, and yet I should have some if I could only find ’em.”
“Have you neither fayther nor mother living then?” asked the old man.