"Cannot you speak, child?" I asked. "What is the matter? If you want me to help you, you must do more than sob and cry. Now come!"
"It's Ginty!" she stammered; "he's run away an' robbed his mother of every penny, an' brokken her heart an' mine. Oh, Ginty! Ginty! Whatever shall I do?" and the rocking and sobbing began again.
I got the sal-volatile this time and forced her to swallow it, taking no heed of her protests. Mother Hubbard came in, too, and added her entreaties to my commands; and after a while she became calmer, and then the whole story came out.
Ginty had been mixing in bad company for some months past. Somewhere in the hollow of the moors a couple of miles away he had stumbled one Sunday upon a gambling school, conducted, I imagine, by city rogues who come out here to avoid the police, and had been threatened with violence for his unwelcome intrusion. He had purchased immunity by joining the school, and, unknown to everybody except Sar'-Ann, he had visited it, Sunday by Sunday, with unfailing regularity, for the greed of gain soon got hold of him. Sometimes he had won small sums, but more often he had lost all his wages and even pledged his credit, until he had not known where to turn for money.
"I gave 'im all I had," said Sar'-Ann, "an' I begged him to drop it, but he said he couldn't, an' he'd only to go on long enough to be sure to get it all back an' more to it. An' now, oh dear! oh dear! he's robbed his poor mother an' made off; an' whatever I'm goin' to do I don't know. O God! I wish I was dead!"
I left Mother Hubbard to console the stricken girl, fearing in my heart that she had not revealed the extent of her trouble, and went straight to Ginty's cottage, where a half-dozen women were doing their best to comfort the poor mother, bereaved of her only support by what was worse than death. Children were there, too, their fingers in their mouths and their eyes wide with wonder, staring vacantly at the object of universal commiseration, and silent in the presence of a sorrow they could feel but not understand.
The little garden was gay from end to end with multi-coloured crocuses, and two or three men stood looking at them, not daring to venture within the house, but ready to offer help if required. One of them muttered: "Bad job, this, miss!" as I passed; and the rest moved their heads in affirmation.
Ginty's mother was seated at the little round table, her head in her hands, and her eyes fixed upon an old cash box in front of her. The lid was thrown back and the box was empty. The picture told its own story; and to complete it a framed photograph of Ginty, which I had given him only a few weeks previously, hung upon the wall opposite, so that the author and his work were closely associated.
The women turned as I entered, and began to explain and discuss the situation before the poor woman who was its victim, in that seemingly callous manner with which the poor cloak and yet express their sympathy.
"Them's best off as has no bairns," said the blacksmith's wife; "ye moil an' toil for 'em, an' bring 'em up through their teethin' an' all make o' ailments, an' lay down yer varry life for 'em, an' this is how they pay you back in t' end."