'When did I get my sleep, do you ask? I'll tell you. I always went to bed at nine o'clock every night, except Saturday night; and having a tired body and a contented mind, I was not long in dropping asleep. And I was up again at half-past two to the minute; for my first customer lived a good twenty minutes' walk from my house, and you know he had to be awakened at three o'clock. Well, for some time I had no one else to arouse until four o'clock, so I generally came home. Before I went out in winter I got a cup of tea, so I kept the fire in; but in summer I let it go out, and did not care to light it again until I came back from the early customer. Then I always made my poor husband a cup of tea, after which he slept better than in the fore-part of the night. You see he had to awaken me; for being young and very active during the day, I slept soundly. But what between him and the alarum, I never over-slept myself; no, not even once. But after I had been about six or seven years at the job, I got to awaken quite naturally like. It was well I did; for when my husband died, I had no longer him to depend on.
'Yes; the worst weather for a knocker-up is wet weather. Oh, it was trying to one's patience, to say nothing of one's health, to be pelted with rain and wind. Then when the streets were filled with snow-broth it was anything but pleasant. But I always tried to think of the good I was doing. What a wonderful help it was to think that way! Why, I found out that even a chimney-sweep or a sweeper of our streets would be happy in his calling if he only took such a view of his work, instead of comparing it with such as a clergyman's. Why, sir, we are all helping one another as well as earning our livings when we follow our lawful callings. But it was extra nice on a fine spring or summer morning; I used to be happy all over on such mornings.
'You would like me to say something about my son. To tell the truth, sir, I seldom feel willing to talk about him; for when I've been led out to talk about him, my dear lad, it has taken many a day to get his image out of my mind.'
I here besought Mrs Waters not to go on with the story, but she did. It was interesting and touching in some of its details; but as it would not be relevant to the leading subject of this paper, I refrain from relating it. I heard her tell, both then and afterwards, several incidents of great interest; but as my paper is quite long enough already, I must omit them.
Note.—Since the writer of the above article had his conversations with Mrs Waters, he had a long talk with a civil but illiterate man whom he fell in with during a journey by rail. It came out that he got his living chiefly by knocking-up, having over eighty regular customers, from whom he obtained on an average twenty-eight shillings a week. This was in a town six miles from the scene of Mrs Waters' toils. But like most other money-making avocations, this one has become over-run with competitors, as is evident from the fact that the writer meets in his short early morning walk into the town at least half a dozen knockers-up of both sexes; so that few are now, he believes, so fortunate as either the man above named, or Mrs Waters.
[THE ADMIRAL'S SECOND WIFE.]
CHAPTER XIV.—THROUGH THE GRIM GATES.
Five wretched days pass, and Katie hardly knows how they go, for she counts time only by the arrival of the mail-bag. Yet no letter has come from Sir Herbert, and she is almost distracted. Has he really set her free? cast her off? And will he never again come, or send, or speak?
The great house is growing silent and gloomy beyond measure. Though the daily routine of work and attendance goes on as usual, there is a change, and Katie sees it. Servants are beginning to talk; a rumour spreads among them that the Admiral is to be superseded, and that the establishment in Government House will soon be broken up. Perhaps they have gleaned this from the newspapers, which are making very free with Sir Herbert's name just now. They jest at his clumsiness, his mismanagement, and his blunder; they wonder whether he has fallen into dotage. They marvel how a man in his sober senses could send such a miserable craft as the Leoni to sea in a storm. Indeed she would have become a total wreck had not the Leo while making for the Short Reefs discovered her far out of her course, tossing about on a cross sea, her rudder broken, her decks flooded with water, and her crew in a rampant state of disorder. The old ship was fast going to her doom, like a great blundering unmanageable sea-monster; when the Leo took her in tow and brought her into harbour.