Mary Barton

Must he be told of Mary’s state? Jem felt he must not; and this for many reasons. He could not be informed of her illness without many other particulars being communicated at the same time, of which it were better he should be kept in ignorance; indeed, of which Mary herself could alone give the full explanation. No suspicion that he was the criminal seemed hitherto to have been excited in the mind of any one. Added to these reasons was Jem’s extreme unwillingness to face him, with the belief in his breast that he, and none other, had done the fearful deed.

It was true that he was Mary’s father, and as such had every right to be told of all concerning her; but supposing he were, and that he followed the impulse so natural to a father, and wished to go to her, what might be the consequences? Among the mingled feelings she had revealed in her delirium, ay, mingled even with the most tender expressions of love for her father, was a sort of horror of him; a dread of him as a blood-shedder, which seemed to separate him into two persons,—one, the father who had dandled her on his knee, and loved her all her life long; the other, the assassin, the cause of all her trouble and woe.

If he presented himself before her while this idea of his character was uppermost, who might tell the consequence?

Jem could not, and would not, expose her to any such fearful chance: and to tell the truth, I believe he looked upon her as more his own, to guard from all shadow of injury with most loving care, than as belonging to any one else in this world, though girt with the reverend name of Father, and guiltless of aught that might have lessened such reverence.

If you think this account of mine confused, of the half-feelings, half-reasons, which passed through Jem’s mind, as he stood gazing on the empty space, where that crushed form had so lately been seen,—if you are perplexed to disentangle the real motives, I do assure you it was from just such an involved set of thoughts that Jem drew the resolution to act as if he had not seen that phantom likeness of John Barton; himself, yet not himself.

XXXIV. THE RETURN HOME.

“DIXWELL. Forgiveness! Oh, forgiveness, and a grave! MARY. God knows thy heart, my father! and I shudder To think what thou perchance hast acted. DIXWELL. Oh! MARY. No common load of woe is thine, my father.” —ELLIOT’S Kerhonah.

Mary still hovered between life and death when Jem arrived at the house where she lay; and the doctors were as yet unwilling to compromise their wisdom by allowing too much hope to be entertained. But the state of things, if not less anxious, was less distressing than when Jem had quitted her. She lay now in a stupor, which was partly disease, and partly exhaustion after the previous excitement.

And now Jem found the difficulty which every one who has watched by a sick-bed knows full well; and which is perhaps more insurmountable to men than it is to women,—the difficulty of being patient, and trying not to expect any visible change for long, long hours of sad monotony.

But after a while the reward came. The laboured breathing became lower and softer, the heavy look of oppressive pain melted away from the face, and a languor that was almost peace took the place of suffering. She slept a natural sleep; and they stole about on tiptoe, and spoke low, and softly, and hardly dared to breathe, however much they longed to sigh out their thankful relief.

She opened her eyes. Her mind was in the tender state of a lately born infant’s. She was pleased with the gay but not dazzling colours of the paper; soothed by the subdued light; and quite sufficiently amused by looking at all the objects in the room—the drawing of the ships, the festoons of the curtain, the bright flowers on the painted backs of the chairs—to care for any stronger excitement. She wondered at the ball of glass, containing various coloured sands from the Isle of Wight, or some other place, which hung suspended from the middle of the little valance over the window. But she did not care to exert herself to ask any questions, although she saw Mrs. Sturgis standing at the bedside with some tea, ready to drop it into her mouth by spoonfuls.

She did not see the face of honest joy, of earnest thankfulness,—the clasped hands, the beaming eyes,—the trembling eagerness of gesture, of one who had long awaited her awakening, and who now stood behind the curtains watching through some little chink her every faint motion; or if she had caught a glimpse of that loving, peeping face, she was in too exhausted a state to have taken much notice, or have long retained the impression that he she loved so well was hanging about her, and blessing God for every conscious look which stole over her countenance.

She fell softly into slumber, without a word having been spoken by any one during that half-hour of inexpressible joy. And again the stillness was enforced by a sign and whispered word, but with eyes that beamed out their bright thoughts of hope. Jem sat by the side of the bed, holding back the little curtain, and gazing as if he could never gaze his fill at the pale, wasted face, so marbled and so chiselled in its wan outline.

She wakened once more; her soft eyes opened, and met his overbending look. She smiled gently, as a baby does when it sees its mother tending its little cot; and continued her innocent, infantine gaze into his face, as if the sight gave her much unconscious pleasure. But by-and-by a different expression came into her sweet eyes; a look of memory and intelligence; her white flesh flushed the brightest rosy red, and with feeble motion she tried to hide her head in the pillow.

It required all Jem’s self-control to do what he knew and felt to be necessary, to call Mrs. Sturgis, who was quietly dozing by the fireside; and that done, he felt almost obliged to leave the room to keep down the happy agitation which would gush out in every feature, every gesture, and every tone.

From that time forward Mary’s progress towards health was rapid.

There was every reason, but one, in favour of her speedy removal home. All Jem’s duties lay in Manchester. It was his mother’s dwelling-place, and there his plans for life had been to be worked out; plans which the suspicion and imprisonment he had fallen into, had thrown for a time into a chaos, which his presence was required to arrange into form. For he might find, in spite of a jury’s verdict, that too strong a taint was on his character for him ever to labour in Manchester again. He remembered the manner in which some one suspected of having been a convict was shunned by masters and men, when he had accidentally met with work in their foundry; the recollection smote him now, how he himself had thought it did not become an honest upright man to associate with one who had been a prisoner. He could not choose but think on that poor humble being, with his downcast conscious look; hunted out of the workshop, where he had sought to earn an honest livelihood, by the looks, and half-spoken words, and the black silence of repugnance (worse than words to bear), that met him on all sides.

Jem felt that his own character had been attainted; and that to many it might still appear suspicious. He knew that he could convince the world, by a future as blameless as his past had been, that he was innocent. But at the same time he saw that he must have patience, and nerve himself for some trials; and the sooner these were undergone, the sooner he was aware of the place he held in men’s estimation, the better. He longed to have presented himself once more at the foundry; and then the reality would drive away the pictures that would (unbidden) come of a shunned man, eyed askance by all, and driven forth to shape out some new career.

I said every reason “but one” inclined Jem to hasten Mary’s return as soon as she was sufficiently convalescent. That one was the meeting which awaited her at home.

Turn it over as Jem would, he could not decide what was the best course to pursue. He could compel himself to any line of conduct that his reason and his sense of right told him to be desirable; but they did not tell him it was desirable to speak to Mary, in her tender state of mind and body, of her father. How much would be implied by the mere mention of his name! Speak it as calmly, and as indifferently as he might, he could not avoid expressing some consciousness of the terrible knowledge she possessed.

She, for her part, was softer and gentler than she had even been in her gentlest mood; since her illness, her motions, her glances, her voice were all tender in their languor. It seemed almost a trouble to her to break the silence with the low sounds of her own sweet voice, and her words fell sparingly on Jem’s greedy, listening ear.

Her face was, however, so full of love and confidence, that Jem felt no uneasiness at the state of silent abstraction into which she often fell. If she did but love him, all would yet go right; and it was better not to press for confidence on that one subject which must be painful to both.

There came a fine, bright, balmy day. And Mary tottered once more out into the open air, leaning on Jem’s arm, and close to his beating heart. And Mrs. Sturgis watched them from her door, with a blessing on her lips, as they went slowly up the street.

They came in sight of the river. Mary shuddered.

“O Jem! take me home. Yon river seems all made of glittering, heaving, dazzling metal, just as it did when I began to be ill.”

Jem led her homewards. She dropped her head as searching for something on the ground.

“Jem!” He was all attention. She paused for an instant. “When may I go home? To Manchester, I mean. I am so weary of this place; and I would fain be at home.”

She spoke in a feeble voice; not at all impatiently, as the words themselves would seem to intimate, but in a mournful way, as if anticipating sorrow even in the very fulfilment of her wishes.

“Darling! we will go whenever you wish; whenever you feel strong enough. I asked Job to tell Margaret to get all in readiness for you to go there at first. She’ll tend you and nurse you. You must not go home. Job proffered for you to go there.”

“Ah! but I must go home, Jem. I’ll try and not fail now in what’s right. There are things we must not speak on” (lowering her voice), “but you’ll be really kind if you’ll not speak against my going home. Let us say no more about it, dear Jem. I must go home, and I must go alone.”

“Not alone, Mary!”

“Yes, alone! I cannot tell you why I ask it. And if you guess, I know you well enough to be sure you’ll understand why I ask you never to speak on that again to me, till I begin. Promise, dear Jem, promise!”

He promised; to gratify that beseeching face, he promised. And then he repented, and felt as if he had done ill. Then again he felt as if she were the best judge, and knowing all (perhaps more than even he did), might be forming plans which his interference would mar.

One thing was certain! it was a miserable thing to have this awful forbidden ground of discourse; to guess at each other’s thoughts, when eyes were averted, and cheeks blanched, and words stood still, arrested in their flow by some casual allusion.

At last a day, fine enough for Mary to travel on, arrived. She had wished to go, but now her courage failed her. How could she have said she was weary of that quiet house, where even Ben Sturgis’s grumblings only made a kind of harmonious bass in the concord between him and his wife, so thoroughly did they know each other with the knowledge of many years! How could she have longed to quit that little peaceful room where she had experienced such loving tendence! Even the very check bed-curtains became dear to her under the idea of seeing them no more. If it was so with inanimate objects, if they had such power of exciting regret, what were her feelings with regard to the kind old couple, who had taken the stranger in, and cared for her, and nursed her, as though she had been a daughter? Each wilful sentence spoken in the half-unconscious irritation of feebleness came now with avenging self-reproach to her memory, as she hung about Mrs. Sturgis, with many tears, which served instead of words to express her gratitude and love.

Ben bustled about with the square bottle of Goldenwasser in one of his hands, and a small tumbler in the other; he went to Mary, Jem, and his wife in succession, pouring out a glass for each, and bidding them drink it to keep their spirits up; but as each severally refused, he drank it himself; and passed on to offer the same hospitality to another, with the like refusal, and the like result.

When he had swallowed the last of the three draughts, he condescended to give his reasons for having done so.

“I cannot abide waste. What’s poured out mun be drunk. That’s my maxim.” So saying, he replaced the bottle in the cupboard.

It was he who, in a firm commanding voice, at last told Jem and Mary to be off, or they would be too late. Mrs. Sturgis had kept up till then; but as they left her house, she could no longer restrain her tears, and cried aloud in spite of her husband’s upbraiding.

“Perhaps they’ll be too late for the train!” exclaimed she, with a degree of hope, as the clock struck two.

“What! and come back again! No! no! that would never do. We’ve done our part, and cried our cry; it’s no use going over the same ground again. I should ha’ to give ‘em more out of yon bottle when next parting time came, and them three glasses they ha’ made a hole in the stuff, I can tell you. Time Jack was back from Hamburg with some more.”

When they reached Manchester, Mary looked very white, and the expression of her face was almost stern. She was in fact summoning up her resolution to meet her father if he were at home. Jem had never named his midnight glimpse of John Barton to human being: but Mary had a sort of presentiment, that wander where he would, he would seek his home at last. But in what mood she dreaded to think. For the knowledge of her father’s capability of guilt seemed to have opened a dark gulf in his character, into the depths of which she trembled to look. At one moment she would fain have claimed protection against the life she must lead, for some time at least, alone with a murderer! She thought of his gloom, before his mind was haunted by the memory of so terrible a crime; his moody, irritable ways. She imagined the evenings as of old; she, toiling at some work, long after houses were shut, and folks abed; he, more savage than he had ever been before with the inward gnawing of his remorse. At such times she could have cried aloud with terror, at the scenes her fancy conjured up.

But her filial duty, nay, her love and gratitude for many deeds of kindness done to her as a little child, conquered all fear. She would endure all imaginable terrors, although of daily occurrence. And she would patiently bear all wayward violence of temper; more than patiently would she bear it—pitifully, as one who knew of some awful curse awaiting the blood-shedder. She would watch over him tenderly, as the innocent should watch over the guilty; awaiting the gracious seasons, wherein to pour oil and balm into the bitter wounds.

With the untroubled peace which the resolve to endure to the end gives, she approached the house that from habit she still called home, but which possessed the holiness of home no longer. “Jem!” said she, as they stood at the entrance to the court, close by Job Legh’s door, “you must go in there and wait half-an-hour. Not less. If in that time I don’t come back, you go your ways to your mother. Give her my dear love. I will send by Margaret when I want to see you.”

She sighed heavily.

“Mary! Mary! I cannot leave you. You speak as coldly as if we were to be nought to each other. And my heart’s bound up in you. I know why you bid me keep away, but”—

She put her hand on his arm, as he spoke in a loud agitated tone; she looked into his face with upbraiding love in her eyes, and then she said, while her lips quivered, and he felt her whole frame trembling—

“Dear Jem! I often could have told you more of love, if I had not once spoken out so free. Remember that time, Jem, if ever you think me cold. Then, the love that’s in my heart would out in words; but now, though I’m silent on the pain I’m feeling in quitting you, the love is in my heart all the same. But this is not the time to speak on such things. If I do not do what I feel to be right now, I may blame myself all my life long! Jem, you promised”—

And so saying she left him. She went quicker than she would otherwise have passed over those few yards of ground, for fear he should still try to accompany her. Her hand was on the latch, and in a breath the door was opened.

There sat her father, still and motionless—not even turning his head to see who had entered; but perhaps he recognised the footstep- -the trick of action.

He sat by the fire; the grate, I should say, for fire there was none. Some dull grey ashes, negligently left, long days ago, coldly choked up the bars. He had taken the accustomed seat from mere force of habit, which ruled his automaton body. For all energy, both physical and mental, seemed to have retreated inwards to some of the great citadels of life, there to do battle against the Destroyer, Conscience.

His hands were crossed, his fingers interlaced; usually a position implying some degree of resolution, or strength; but in him it was so faintly maintained, that it appeared more the result of chance; an attitude requiring some application of outward force to alter- -and a blow with a straw seemed as though it would be sufficient.

And as for his face, it was sunk and worn—like a skull, with yet a suffering expression that skulls have not! Your heart would have ached to have seen the man, however hardly you might have judged his crime.

But crime and all was forgotten by his daughter, as she saw his abashed look, his smitten helplessness. All along she had felt it difficult (as I may have said before) to reconcile the two ideas, of her father and a blood-shedder. But now it was impossible. He was her father! her own dear father! and in his sufferings, whatever their cause, more dearly loved than ever before. His crime was a thing apart, never more to be considered by her.

And tenderly did she treat him, and fondly did she serve him in every way that heart could devise, or hand execute.

She had some money about her, the price of her strange services as a witness; and when the lingering dusk grew on she stole out to effect some purchases necessary for her father’s comfort.

For how body and soul had been kept together, even as much as they were, during the days he had dwelt alone, no one can say. The house was bare as when Mary had left it, of coal, or of candle, of food, or of blessing in any shape.

She came quickly home; but as she passed Job Legh’s door, she stopped. Doubtless Jem had long since gone; and doubtless, too, he had given Margaret some good reason for not intruding upon her friend for this night at least, otherwise Mary would have seen her before now.

But tomorrow,—would she not come in tomorrow? And who so quick as blind Margaret in noticing tones, and sighs, and even silence?

She did not give herself time for further thought, her desire to be once more with her father was too pressing; but she opened the door, before she well knew what to say.

“It’s Mary Barton! I know her by her breathing! Grandfather, it’s Mary Barton!”

Margaret’s joy at meeting her, the open demonstration of her love, affected Mary much; she could not keep from crying, and sat down weak and agitated on the first chair she could find.

“Ay, ay, Mary! thou’rt looking a bit different to when I saw thee last. Thou’lt give Jem and me good characters for sick nurses, I trust. If all trades fail, I’ll turn to that. Jem’s place is for life, I reckon. Nay, never redden so, lass. You and he know each other’s minds by this time!”

Margaret held her hand, and gently smiled into her face.

Job Legh took the candle up, and began a leisurely inspection.

“Thou hast gotten a bit of pink in thy cheeks,—not much; but when last I see thee, thy lips were as white as a sheet. Thy nose is sharpish at th’ end; thou’rt more like thy father than ever thou wert before. Lord! child, what’s the matter? Art thou going to faint?”

For Mary had sickened at the mention of that name; yet she felt that now or never was the time to speak.

“Father’s come home!” she said, “but he’s very poorly; I never saw him as he is now before. I asked Jem not to come near him for fear it might fidget him.”

She spoke hastily, and (to her own idea) in an unnatural manner. But they did not seem to notice it, nor to take the hint she had thrown out of company being unacceptable; for Job Legh directly put down some insect, which he was impaling on a corking-pin, and exclaimed—

“Thy father come home! Why, Jem never said a word of it! And ailing too! I’ll go in, and cheer him with a bit of talk. I never knew any good come of delegating it.”

“O Job! father cannot stand—father is too ill. Don’t come; not but that you’re very kind and good; but tonight—indeed,” said she at last, in despair, seeing Job still persevere in putting away his things; “you must not come till I send or come for you. Father’s in that strange way, I can’t answer for it if he sees strangers. Please don’t come. I’ll come and tell you every day how he goes on. I must be off now to see after him. Dear Job! kind Job! don’t be angry with me. If you knew all, you’d pity me.”

For Job was muttering away in high dudgeon, and even Margaret’s tone was altered as she wished Mary good-night. Just then she could ill brook coldness from any one, and least of all bear the idea of being considered ungrateful by so kind and zealous a friend as Job had been; so she turned round suddenly, even when her hand was on the latch of the door, and ran back, and threw her arms about his neck, and kissed him first, and then Margaret. And then, the tears fast falling down her cheeks, but no word spoken, she hastily left the house, and went back to her home.

There was no change in her father’s position, or in his spectral look. He had answered her questions (but few in number, for so many subjects were unapproachable) by monosyllables, and in a weak, high, childish voice; but he had not lifted his eyes; he could not meet his daughter’s look. And she, when she spoke, or as she moved about, avoided letting her eyes rest upon him. She wished to be her usual self; but while everything was done with a consciousness of purpose, she felt it was impossible.

In this manner things went on for some days. At night he feebly clambered upstairs to bed; and during those long dark hours Mary heard those groans of agony which never escaped his lips by day, when they were compressed in silence over his inward woe.

Many a time she sat up listening, and wondering if it would ease his miserable heart if she went to him, and told him she knew all, and loved and pitied him more than words could tell.

By day the monotonous hours wore on in the same heavy, hushed manner as on that first dreary afternoon. He ate,—but without that relish; and food seemed no longer to nourish him, for each morning his face had caught more of the ghastly foreshadowing of Death.

The neighbours kept strangely aloof. Of late years John Barton had had a repellent power about him, felt by all, except to the few who had either known him in his better and happier days, or those to whom he had given his sympathy and his confidence. People did not care to enter the doors of one whose very depth of thoughtfulness rendered him moody and stern. And now they contented themselves with a kind inquiry when they saw Mary in her goings-out or in her comings-in. With her oppressing knowledge, she imagined their reserved conduct stranger than it was in reality. She missed Job and Margaret too; who, in all former times of sorrow or anxiety since their acquaintance first began, had been ready with their sympathy.

But most of all she missed the delicious luxury she had lately enjoyed in having Jem’s tender love at hand every hour of the day, to ward off every wind of heaven, and every disturbing thought.

She knew he was often hovering about the house; though the knowledge seemed to come more by intuition, than by any positive sight or sound for the first day or two. On the third day she met him at Job Legh’s.

They received her with every effort of cordiality; but still there was a cobweb-veil of separation between them, to which Mary was morbidly acute; while in Jem’s voice, and eyes, and manner, there was every evidence of most passionate, most admiring, and most trusting love. The trust was shown by his respectful silence on that one point of reserve on which she had interdicted conversation.

He left Job Legh’s house when she did. They lingered on the step, he holding her hand between both of his, as loth to let her go; he questioned her as to when he should see her again.

“Mother does so want to see you,” whispered he. “Can you come to see her tomorrow; or when?”

“I cannot tell,” replied she softly. “Not yet. Wait awhile; perhaps only a little while. Dear Jem, I must go to him,—dearest Jem.”

The next day, the fourth from Mary’s return home, as she was sitting near the window, sadly dreaming over some work, she caught a glimpse of the last person she wished to see—of Sally Leadbitter!

She was evidently coming to their house; another moment, and she tapped at the door. John Barton gave an anxious, uneasy side-glance. Mary knew that if she delayed answering the knock, Sally would not scruple to enter; so as hastily as if the visit had been desired, she opened the door, and stood there with the latch in her hand, barring up all entrance, and as much as possible obstructing all curious glances into the interior.

“Well, Mary Barton! You’re home at last! I heard you’d getten home; so I thought I’d just step over and hear the news.”

She was bent on coming in, and saw Mary’s preventive design. So she stood on tiptoe, looking over Mary’s shoulders into the room where she suspected a lover to be lurking; but instead, she saw only the figure of the stern, gloomy father she had always been in the habit of avoiding; and she dropped down again, content to carry on the conversation where Mary chose, and as Mary chose, in whispers.

“So the old governor is back again, eh? And what does he say to all your fine doings at Liverpool, and before?—you and I know where. You can’t hide it now, Mary, for it’s all in print.”

Mary gave a low moan—and then implored Sally to change the subject; for unpleasant as it always was, it was doubly unpleasant in the manner in which she was treating it. If they had been alone Mary would have borne it patiently—or she thought, but now she felt almost certain, her father was listening; there was a subdued breathing, a slight bracing-up of the listless attitude. But there was no arresting Sally’s curiosity to hear all she could respecting the adventures Mary had experienced. She, in common with the rest of Miss Simmonds’ young ladies, was almost jealous of the fame that Mary had obtained; to herself, such miserable notoriety.

“Nay! there’s no use shunning talking it over. Why! it was in the Guardian—and the Courier—and some one told Jane Hodgson it was even copied into a London paper. You’ve set up heroine on your own account, Mary Barton. How did you like standing witness? Aren’t them lawyers impudent things? staring at one so. I’ll be bound you wished you’d taken my offer, and borrowed my black watered scarf! Now didn’t you, Mary? Speak truth!”

“To tell the truth, I never thought about it then, Sally. How could I?” asked she reproachfully.

“Oh—I forgot. You were all for that stupid James Wilson. Well! if I’ve ever the luck to go witness on a trial, see if I don’t pick up a better beau than the prisoner. I’ll aim at a lawyer’s clerk, but I’ll not take less than a turnkey.”

Cast down as Mary was, she could hardly keep from smiling at the idea, so wildly incongruous with the scene she had really undergone, of looking out for admirers during a trial for murder.

“I’d no thought to be looking out for beaux, I can assure you, Sally. But don’t let us talk any more about it; I can’t bear to think on it. How is Miss Simmonds? and everybody?”

“Oh, very well; and by the way, she gave me a bit of a message for you. You may come back to work if you’ll behave yourself, she says. I told you she’d be glad to have you back, after all this piece of business, by way of tempting people to come to her shop. They’d come from Salford to have a peep at you, for six months at least.”

“Don’t talk so; I cannot come, I can never face Miss Simmonds again. And even if I could”—she stopped, and blushed.

“Ay! I know what you are thinking on. But that will not be this some time, as he’s turned off from the foundry—you’d better think twice afore refusing Miss Simmonds’ offer.”

“Turned off from the foundry? Jem?” cried Mary.

“To be sure! didn’t you know it? Decent men were not going to work with a—no! I suppose I mustn’t say it, seeing you went to such trouble to get up an alibi; not that I should think much the worse of a spirited young fellow for falling foul of a rival—they always do at the theatre.”

But Mary’s thoughts were with Jem. How good he had been never to name his dismissal to her. How much he had had to endure for her sake!

“Tell me all about it,” she gasped out.

“Why, you see, they’ve always swords quite handy at them plays,” began Sally; but Mary, with an impatient shake of her head, interrupted—

“About Jem—about Jem, I want to know.”

“Oh! I don’t pretend to know more than is in every one’s mouth: he’s turned away from the foundry, because folk doesn’t think you’ve cleared him outright of the murder; though perhaps the jury were loth to hang him. Old Mr. Carson is savage against judge and jury, and lawyers and all, as I heard.”

“I must go to him, I must go to him,” repeated Mary, in a hurried manner.

“He’ll tell you all I’ve said is true, and not a word of lie,” replied Sally. “So I’ll not give your answer to Miss Simmonds, but leave you to think twice about it. Good afternoon!”

Mary shut the door, and turned into the house.

Her father sat in the same attitude; the old unchanging attitude. Only his head was more bowed towards the ground.

She put on her bonnet to go to Ancoats; for see, and question, and comfort, and worship Jem, she must.

As she hung about her father for an instant before leaving him, he spoke—voluntarily spoke for the first time since her return; but his head was drooping so low she could not hear what he said, so she stooped down; and after a moment’s pause, he repeated the words—

“Tell Jem Wilson to come here at eight o’clock tonight.”

Could he have overheard her conversation with Sally Leadbitter? They had whispered low, she thought. Pondering on this, and many other things, she reached Ancoats.

XXXV. “FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES.”

“Oh, had he lived, Replied Rusilla, never penitence Had equalled his! full well I knew his heart, Vehement in all things. He would on himself Have wreaked such penance as had reached the height Of fleshy suffering,—yea, which being told, With its portentous rigour should have made The memory of his fault o’erpowered and lost, In shuddering pity and astonishment, Fade like a feeble horror.” —SOUTHEY’S Roderick.

As Mary was turning into the street where the Wilsons lived, Jem overtook her. He came upon her suddenly, and she started. “You’re going to see mother?” he asked tenderly, placing her arm within his, and slackening his pace.

“Yes, and you too. O Jem, is it true? tell me.”

She felt rightly that he would guess the meaning of her only half-expressed inquiry. He hesitated a moment before he answered her.

“Darling, it is; it’s no use hiding it—if you mean that I’m no longer to work at Duncombe’s foundry. It’s no time (to my mind) to have secrets from each other, though I did not name it yesterday, thinking you might fret. I shall soon get work again, never fear.”

“But why did they turn you off, when the jury had said you were innocent?”

“It was not just to say turned off, though I don’t think I could have well stayed on. A good number of the men managed to let out they should not like to work under me again; there were some few who knew me well enough to feel I could not have done it, but more were doubtful; and one spoke to young Mr. Duncombe, hinting at what they thought.”

“O Jem! what a shame!” said Mary, with mournful indignation.

“Nay, darling! I’m not for blaming them. Poor fellows like them have nought to stand upon and be proud of but their character, and it’s fitting they should take care of that, and keep that free from soil and taint.”

“But you—what could they get but good from you? They might have known you by this time.”

“So some do; the overlooker, I’m sure, would know I’m innocent. Indeed, he said as much to-day; and he said he had had some talk with old Mr. Duncombe, and they thought it might be better if I left Manchester for a bit; they’d recommend me to some other place.”

But Mary could only shake her head in a mournful way, and repeat her words—

“They might have known thee better, Jem.”

Jem pressed the little hand he held between his own work-hardened ones. After a minute or two, he asked—

“Mary, art thou much bound to Manchester? Would it grieve thee sore to quit the old smoke-jack?”

“With thee?” she asked, in a quiet, glancing way.

“Ay, lass! Trust me, I’ll never ask thee to leave Manchester while I’m in it. Because I have heard fine things of Canada; and our overlooker has a cousin in the foundry line there. Thou knowest where Canada is, Mary?”

“Not rightly—not now, at any rate;—but with thee, Jem,” her voice sunk to a soft, low whisper, “anywhere”—

What was the use of a geographical description?

“But father!” said Mary, suddenly breaking that delicious silence with the one sharp discord in her present life.

She looked up at her lover’s grave face; and then the message her father had sent flashed across her memory.

“O Jem, did I tell you? Father sent word he wished to speak with you. I was to bid you come to him at eight tonight. What can he want, Jem?”

“I cannot tell,” replied he. “At any rate, I’ll go. It’s no use troubling ourselves to guess,” he continued, after a pause for a few minutes, during which they slowly and silently paced up and down the by-street, into which he had led her when their conversation began. “Come and see mother, and then I’ll take thee home, Mary. Thou wert all in a tremble when first I came up to thee; thou’rt not fit to be trusted home by thyself,” said he, with fond exaggeration of her helplessness.

Yet a little more lovers’ loitering! a few more words, in themselves nothing—to you nothing—but to those two, what tender passionate language can I use to express the feelings which thrilled through that young man and maiden, as they listened to the syllables made dear and lovely through life by that hour’s low-whispered talk.

It struck the half-hour past seven.

“Come and speak to mother; she knows you’re to be her daughter, Mary, darling.”

So they went in. Jane Wilson was rather chafed at her son’s delay in returning home, for as yet he had managed to keep her in ignorance of his dismissal from the foundry; and it was her way to prepare some little pleasure, some little comfort for those she loved; and if they, unwittingly, did not appear at the proper time to enjoy her preparation, she worked herself up into a state of fretfulness which found vent in upbraidings as soon as ever the objects of her care appeared, thereby marring the peace which should ever be the atmosphere of a home, however humble; and causing a feeling almost amounting to loathing to arise at the sight of the “stalled ox,” which, though an effect and proof of careful love, has been the cause of so much disturbance.

Mrs. Wilson at first sighed, and then grumbled to herself, over the increasing toughness of the potato-cakes she had made for her son’s tea.

The door opened, and he came in; his face brightening into proud smiles, Mary Barton hanging on his arm, blushing and dimpling, with eyelids veiling the happy light of her eyes—there was around the young couple a radiant atmosphere—a glory of happiness.

Could his mother mar it? Could she break into it with her Martha-like cares? Only for one moment did she remember her sense of injury,—her wasted trouble,—and then her whole woman’s heart heaving with motherly love and sympathy, she opened her arms, and received Mary into them, as shedding tears of agitated joy, she murmured in her ear—

“Bless thee, Mary, bless thee! Only make him happy, and God bless thee for ever!”

It took some of Jem’s self-command to separate those whom he so much loved, and who were beginning, for his sake, to love one another so dearly. But the time for his meeting John Barton drew on: and it was a long way to his house.

As they walked briskly thither they hardly spoke; though many thoughts were in their minds.

The sun had not long set, but the first faint shade of twilight was over all; and when they opened the door, Jem could hardly perceive the objects within by the waning light of day, and the flickering fire-blaze.

But Mary saw all at a glance.

Her eye, accustomed to what was usual in the aspect of the room, saw instantly what was unusual,—saw and understood it all.

Her father was standing behind his habitual chair; holding by the back of it as if for support. And opposite to him there stood Mr. Carson; the dark outline of his stern figure looming large against the light of the fire in that little room.

Behind her father sat Job Legh, his head in his hands, and resting his elbow on the little family table, listening evidently; but as evidently deeply affected by what he heard.

There seemed to be some pause in the conversation. Mary and Jem stood at the half-open door, not daring to stir; hardly to breathe.

“And have I heard you aright?” began Mr. Carson, with his deep quivering voice. “Man! have I heard you aright? Was it you, then, that killed my boy? my only son?”—(he said these last few words almost as if appealing for pity, and then he changed his tone to one more vehement and fierce). “Don’t dare to think that I shall be merciful, and spare you, because you have come forward to accuse yourself. I tell you I will not spare you the least pang the law can inflict,—you, who did not show pity on my boy, shall have none from me.”

“I did not ask for any,” said John Barton, in a low voice.

“Ask, or not ask, what care I? You shall be hanged—hanged—man!” said he, advancing his face, and repeating the word with slow, grinding emphasis, as if to infuse some of the bitterness of his soul into it.

John Barton gasped, but not with fear. It was only that he felt it terrible to have inspired such hatred, as was concentrated into every word, every gesture of Mr. Carson’s.

“As for being hanged, sir, I know it’s all right and proper. I dare say it’s bad enough; but I tell you what, sir,” speaking with an outburst, “if you’d hanged me the day after I’d done the deed, I would have gone down on my knees and blessed you. Death! Lord, what is it to Life? To such a life as I’ve been leading this fortnight past. Life at best is no great thing; but such a life as I have dragged through since that night,” he shuddered at the thought. “Why, sir, I’ve been on the point of killing myself this many a time to get away from my own thoughts. I didn’t! and I’ll tell you why. I didn’t know but that I should be more haunted than ever with the recollection of my sin. Oh! God above only can tell the agony with which I’ve repented me of it, and part perhaps because I feared He would think I were impatient of the misery He sent as punishment—far, far worse misery than any hanging, sir.”

He ceased from excess of emotion.

Then he began again.

“Sin’ that day (it may be very wicked, sir, but it’s the truth) I’ve kept thinking and thinking if I were but in that world where they say God is, He would, maybe, teach me right from wrong, even if it were with many stripes. I’ve been sore puzzled here. I would go through hell-fire if I could but get free from sin at last, it’s such an awful thing. As for hanging, that’s just nought at all.”

His exhaustion compelled him to sit down. Mary rushed to him. It seemed as if till then he had been unaware of her presence.

“Ay, ay, wench!” said he feebly, “is it thee? Where’s Jem Wilson?”

Jem came forward.

John Barton spoke again, with many a break and gasping pause—

“Lad! thou hast borne a deal for me. It’s the meanest thing I ever did to leave thee to bear the brunt. Thou, who wert as innocent of any knowledge of it as the babe unborn. I’ll not bless thee for it. Blessing from such as me would not bring thee any good. Thou’lt love Mary, though she is my child.”

He ceased, and there was a pause for a few seconds.

Then Mr. Carson turned to go.

When his hand was on the latch of the door, he hesitated for an instant.

“You can have no doubt for what purpose I go. Straight to the police-office, to send men to take care of you, wretched man, and your accomplice. Tomorrow morning your tale shall be repeated to those who can commit you to gaol, and before long you shall have the opportunity of trying how desirable hanging is.”

“O sir!” said Mary, springing forward, and catching hold of Mr. Carson’s arm, “my father is dying. Look at him, sir. If you want Death for Death you have it. Don’t take him away from me these last hours. He must go alone through Death, but let me be with him as long as I can. O sir! if you have any mercy in you, leave him here to die.”

John himself stood up, stiff and rigid, and replied—

“Mary, wench! I owe him summit. I will go die, where, and as he wishes me. Thou hast said true, I am standing side by side with Death; and it matters little where I spend the bit of time left of life. That time I must pass wrestling with my soul for a character to take into the other world. I’ll go where you see fit, sir. He’s innocent,” faintly indicating Jem, as he fell back in his chair.

“Never fear! They cannot touch him,” said Job Legh, in a low voice.

But as Mr. Carson was on the point of leaving the house with no sign of relenting about him, he was again stopped by John Barton, who had risen once more from his chair, and stood supporting himself on Jem, while he spoke.

“Sir, one word! My hairs are grey with suffering, and yours with years”—

“And have I had no suffering?” asked Mr. Carson, as if appealing for sympathy, even to the murderer of his child.

And the murderer of his child answered to the appeal, and groaned in spirit over the anguish he had caused.

“Have I had no inward suffering to blanch these hairs? Have not I toiled and struggled even to these years with hopes in my heart that all centred in my boy? I did not speak of them, but were they not there? I seemed hard and cold; and so I might be to others, but not to him!—who shall ever imagine the love I bore to him? Even he never dreamed how my heart leapt up at the sound of his footstep, and how precious he was to his poor old father. And he is gone– killed—out of the hearing of all loving words—out of my sight for ever. He was my sunshine, and now it is night! Oh, my God! comfort me, comfort me!” cried the old man aloud.

The eyes of John Barton grew dim with tears.

Rich and poor, masters and men, were then brothers in the deep suffering of the heart; for was not this the very anguish he had felt for little Tom, in years so long gone by, that they seemed like another life!

The mourner before him was no longer the employer; a being of another race, eternally placed in antagonistic attitude; going through the world glittering like gold, with a stony heart within, which knew no sorrow but through the accidents of Trade; no longer the enemy, the oppressor, but a very poor and desolate old man.

The sympathy for suffering, formerly so prevalent a feeling with him, again filled John Barton’s heart, and almost impelled him to speak (as best he could) some earnest, tender words to the stern man, shaking in his agony.

But who was he, that he should utter sympathy or consolation? The cause of all this woe.

Oh, blasting thought! Oh, miserable remembrance! He had forfeited all right to bind up his brother’s wounds.

Stunned by the thought, he sank upon the seat, almost crushed with the knowledge of the consequences of his own action; for he had no more imagined to himself the blighted home, and the miserable parents, than does the soldier, who discharges his musket, picture to himself the desolation of the wife, and the pitiful cries of the helpless little ones, who are in an instant to be made widowed and fatherless.

To intimidate a class of men, known only to those below them as desirous to obtain the greatest quantity of work for the lowest wages—at most to remove an overbearing partner from an obnoxious firm, who stood in the way of those who struggled as well as they were able to obtain their rights—this was the light in which John Barton had viewed his deed; and even so viewing it, after the excitement had passed away, the Avenger, the sure Avenger, had found him out.

But now he knew that he had killed a man, and a brother—now he knew that no good thing could come out of this evil, even to the sufferers whose cause he had so blindly espoused.

He lay across the table, broken-hearted. Every fresh quivering sob of Mr. Carson’s stabbed him to his soul.

He felt execrated by all; and as if he could never lay bare the perverted reasonings which had made the performance of undoubted sin appear a duty. The longing to plead some faint excuse grew stronger and stronger. He feebly raised his head, and looking at Job Legh, he whispered out—

“I did not know what I was doing, Job Legh; God knows I didn’t! O sir!” said he wildly, almost throwing himself at Mr. Carson’s feet, “say you forgive me the anguish I now see I have caused you. I care not for pain, or death, you know I don’t; but oh, man! forgive me the trespass I have done!”

“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us,” said Job, solemnly and low, as if in prayer: as if the words were suggested by those John Barton had used.

Mr. Carson took his hands away from his face. I would rather see death than the ghastly gloom which darkened that countenance.

“Let my trespasses be unforgiven, so that I may have vengeance for my son’s murder.”

There are blasphemous actions as well as blasphemous words: all unloving, cruel deeds, are acted blasphemy.

Mr. Carson left the house. And John Barton lay on the ground as one dead.

They lifted him up, and almost hoping that that deep trance might be to him the end of all earthly things, they bore him to his bed.

For a time they listened with divided attention to his faint breathings; for in each hasty hurried step that echoed in the street outside, they thought they heard the approach of the officers of justice.

When Mr. Carson left the house he was dizzy with agitation; the hot blood went careering through his frame. He could not see the deep blue of the night-heavens for the fierce pulses which throbbed in his head. And partly to steady and calm himself, he leaned against a railing, and looked up into those calm majestic depths with all their thousand stars.

And by-and-by his own voice returned upon him, as if the last words he had spoken were being uttered through all that infinite space; but in their echoes there was a tone of unutterable sorrow.

“Let my trespasses be unforgiven, so that I may have vengeance for my son’s murder.”

He tried to shake off the spiritual impression made by this imagination. He was feverish and ill,—and no wonder.

So he turned to go homewards; not, as he had threatened, to the police-office. After all (he told himself), that would do in the morning. No fear of the man’s escaping, unless he escaped to the grave.

So he tried to banish the phantom voices and shapes which came unbidden to his brain, and to recall his balance of mind by walking calmly and slowly, and noticing everything which struck his senses.

It was a warm soft evening in spring, and there were many persons in the streets. Among others a nurse with a little girl in her charge, conveying her home from some children’s gaiety; a dance most likely, for the lovely little creature was daintily decked out in soft, snowy muslin; and her fairy feet tripped along by her nurse’s side as if to the measure of some tune she had lately kept time to.

Suddenly up behind her there came a rough, rude errand-boy, nine or ten years of age; a giant he looked by the fairy-child, as she fluttered along. I don’t know how it was, but in some awkward way he knocked the poor little girl down upon the hard pavement as he brushed rudely past, not much caring whom he hurt, so that he got along.

The child arose, sobbing with pain; and not without cause, for blood was dropping down from the face, but a minute before so fair and bright—dropping down on the pretty frock, making those scarlet marks so terrible to little children.

The nurse, a powerful woman, had seized the boy, just as Mr. Carson (who had seen the whole transaction) came up.

“You naughty little rascal! I’ll give you to a policeman, that I will! Do you see how you’ve hurt the little girl? Do you?” accompanying every sentence with a violent jerk of passionate anger.

The lad looked hard and defying; but withal terrified at the threat of the policeman, those ogres of our streets to all unlucky urchins. The nurse saw it, and began to drag him along, with a view of making what she called “a wholesome impression.”

His terror increased and with it his irritation; when the little sweet face, choking away its sobs, pulled down nurse’s head and said—

“Please, dear nurse, I’m not much hurt; it was very silly to cry, you know. He did not mean to do it. HE DID NOT KNOW WHAT HE WAS DOING, did you, little boy? Nurse won’t call a policeman, so don’t be frightened.” And she put up her little mouth to be kissed by her injurer, just as she had been taught to do at home to “make peace.”

“That lad will mind, and be more gentle for the time to come, I’ll be bound, thanks to that little lady,” said a passer-by, half to himself, and half to Mr. Carson, whom he had observed to notice the scene.

The latter took no apparent heed of the remark, but passed on. But the child’s pleading reminded him of the low, broken voice he had so lately heard, penitently and humbly urging the same extenuation of his great guilt.

“I did not know what I was doing.”

He had some association with those words; he had heard, or read of that plea somewhere before. Where was it?

“Could it be?”—

He would look when he got home. So when he entered his house he went straight and silently upstairs to his library, and took down the great, large, handsome Bible, all grand and golden, with its leaves adhering together from the bookbinder’s press, so little had it been used.

On the first page (which fell open to Mr. Carson’s view) were written the names of his children, and his own.

“Henry John, son of the above John and Elizabeth Carson. Born Sept. 29th, 1815.”

To make the entry complete, his death should now be added. But the page became hidden by the gathering mist of tears.

Thought upon thought, and recollection upon recollection came crowding in, from the remembrance of the proud day when he had purchased the costly book, in order to write down the birth of the little babe of a day old.

He laid his head down on the open page, and let the tears fall slowly on the spotless leaves.

His son’s murderer was discovered; had confessed his guilt, and yet (strange to say) he could not hate him with the vehemence of hatred he had felt, when he had imagined him a young man, full of lusty life, defying all laws, human and divine. In spite of his desire to retain the revengeful feeling he considered as a duty to his dead son, something of pity would steal in for the poor, wasted skeleton of a man, the smitten creature, who had told him of his sin, and implored his pardon that night.

In the days of his childhood and youth, Mr. Carson had been accustomed to poverty; but it was honest, decent poverty; not the grinding squalid misery he had remarked in every part of John Barton’s house, and which contrasted strangely with the pompous sumptuousness of the room in which he now sat. Unaccustomed wonder filled his mind at the reflection of the different lots of the brethren of mankind.

Then he roused himself from his reverie, and turned to the object of his search—the Gospel, where he half expected to find the tender pleading: “They know not what they do.”

It was murk midnight by this time, and the house was still and quiet. There was nothing to interrupt the old man in his unwonted study.

Years ago, the Gospel had been his task-book in learning to read. So many years ago, that he had become familiar with the events before he could comprehend the Spirit that made the Life.

He fell to the narrative now afresh, with all the interest of a little child. He began at the beginning, and read on almost greedily, understanding for the first time the full meaning of the story. He came to the end; the awful End. And there were the haunting words of pleading.

He shut the book, and thought deeply.

All night long, the Archangel combated with the Demon.

All night long, others watched by the bed of Death. John Barton had revived to fitful intelligence. He spoke at times with even something of his former energy; and in the racy Lancashire dialect he had always used when speaking freely.

“You see I’ve so often been hankering after the right way; and it’s a hard one for a poor man to find. At least it’s been so to me. No one learned me, and no one telled me. When I was a little chap they taught me to read, and then they never gave no books; only I heard say the Bible was a good book. So when I grew thoughtful, and puzzled, I took to it. But you’d never believe black was black, or night was night, when you saw all about you acting as if black was white, and night was day. It’s not much I can say for myself in t’other world. God forgive me; but I can say this, I would fain have gone after the Bible rules if I’d seen folk credit it; they all spoke up for it, and went and did clean contrary. In those days I would ha’ gone about wi’ my Bible, like a little child, my finger in th’ place, and asking the meaning of this or that text, and no one told me. Then I took out two or three texts as clear as glass, and I tried to do what they bid me do. But I don’t know how it was, masters and men, all alike cared no more for minding those texts, than I did for th’ Lord Mayor of London; so I grew to think it must be a sham put upon poor ignorant folk, women, and such like.

“It was not long I tried to live Gospel-wise, but it was liker heaven than any other bit of earth has been. I’d old Alice to strengthen me; but every one else said, ‘Stand up for thy rights, or thou’lt never get ‘em’; and wife and children never spoke, but their helplessness cried aloud, and I was driven to do as others did—and then Tom died. You know all about that—I’m getting scant o’ breath, and blind-like.”

Then again he spoke, after some minutes of hushed silence.

“All along it came natural to love folk, though now I am what I am. I think one time I could e’en have loved the masters if they’d ha’ letten me; that was in my Gospel-days, afore my child died o’ hunger. I was tore in two oftentimes, between my sorrow for poor suffering folk, and my trying to love them as caused their sufferings (to my mind).

“At last I gave it up in despair, trying to make folks’ actions square wi’ th’ Bible; and I thought I’d no longer labour at following th’ Bible mysel. I’ve said all this afore, maybe. But from that time I’ve dropped down, down—down.”

After that he only spoke in broken sentences.

“I did not think he’d been such an old man,—oh! that he had but forgiven me,”—and then came earnest, passionate, broken words of prayer.

Job Legh had gone home like one struck down with the unexpected shock.

Mary and Jem together waited the approach of death; but as the final struggle drew on, and morning dawned, Jem suggested some alleviation to the gasping breath, to purchase which he left the house in search of a druggist’s shop, which should be open at that early hour.

During his absence, Barton grew worse; he had fallen across the bed, and his breathing seemed almost stopped; in vain did Mary strive to raise him, her sorrow and exhaustion had rendered her too weak.

So, on hearing some one enter the house-place below, she cried out for Jem to come to her assistance.

A step, which was not Jem’s, came up the stairs.

Mr. Carson stood in the doorway. In one instant he comprehended the case.

He raised up the powerless frame; and the departing soul looked out of the eyes with gratitude. He held the dying man propped in his arms.

John Barton folded his hands as if in prayer.

“Pray for us,” said Mary, sinking on her knees, and forgetting in that solemn hour all that had divided her father and Mr. Carson.

No other words would suggest themselves than some of those he had read only a few hours before—

“God be merciful to us sinners.—Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us!”

And when the words were said, John Barton lay a corpse in Mr. Carson’s arms.

So ended the tragedy of a poor man’s life.

Mary knew nothing more for many minutes. When she recovered consciousness, she found herself supported by Jem on the “settle” in the house-place. Job and Mr. Carson were there, talking together lowly and solemnly. Then Mr. Carson bade farewell and left the house; and Job said aloud, but as if speaking to himself—

“God has heard that man’s prayer. He has comforted him.”

XXXVI. JEM’S INTERVIEW WITH MR. DUNCOMBE.

“The first dark day of nothingness, The last of danger and distress.” —BYRON.

Although Mary had hardly been conscious of her thoughts, and it had been more like a secret instinct informing her soul, than the result of any process of reasoning, she had felt for some time (ever since her return from Liverpool, in fact), that for her father there was but one thing to be desired and anticipated, and that was death!

She had seen that Conscience had given the mortal wound to his earthly frame; she did not dare to question of the infinite mercy of God, what the Future Life would be to him.

Though at first desolate and stunned by the blow which had fallen on herself, she was resigned and submissive as soon as she recovered strength enough to ponder and consider a little; and you may be sure that no tenderness or love was wanting on Jem’s part, and no consideration and sympathy on that of Job and Margaret to soothe and comfort the girl who now stood alone in the world as far as blood relations were concerned.

She did not ask or care to know what arrangements they were making in whispered tones with regard to the funeral. She put herself into their hands with the trust of a little child; glad to be undisturbed in the reveries and remembrances which filled her eyes with tears, and caused them to fall quietly, down her pale cheeks.

It was the longest day she had ever known in her life; every change and every occupation was taken away from her: but perhaps the length of quiet time thus afforded was really good, although its duration weighed upon her; for by this means she contemplated her situation in every light, and fully understood that the morning’s event had left her an orphan; and thus she was spared the pangs caused to us by the occurrence of death in the evening, just before we should naturally, in the usual course of events, lie down to slumber. For in such case, worn out by anxiety, and it may be by much watching, our very excess of grief rocks itself to sleep, before we have had time to realise its cause; and we waken, with a start of agony like a fresh stab, to the consciousness of the one awful vacancy, which shall never, while the world endures, be filled again.

The day brought its burden of duty to Mrs. Wilson. She felt bound by regard, as well as by etiquette, to go and see her future daughter-in-law. And by an old association of ideas (perhaps of death with churchyards, and churches with Sunday) she thought it necessary to put on her best, and latterly unused clothes, the airing of which on a little clothes-horse before the fire seemed to give her a not unpleasing occupation.

When Jem returned home late in the evening succeeding John Barton’s death, weary and oppressed with the occurrences and excitements of the day, he found his mother busy about her mourning, and much inclined to talk. Although he longed for quiet, he could not avoid sitting down and answering her questions.

“Well, Jem, he’s gone at last, is he?”

“Yes. How did you hear, mother?”

“Oh, Job came over here, and telled me, on his way to the undertaker’s. Did he make a fine end?”

It struck Jem that she had not heard of the confession which had been made by John Barton on his deathbed; he remembered Job Legh’s discretion, and he determined that if it could be avoided his mother should never hear of it. Many of the difficulties to be anticipated in preserving the secret would be obviated, if he could induce his mother to fall into the plan he had named to Mary of emigrating to Canada. The reasons which rendered this secrecy desirable related to the domestic happiness he hoped for. With his mother’s irritable temper he could hardly expect that all allusion to the crime of John Barton would be for ever restrained from passing her lips, and he knew the deep trial which such references would be to Mary. Accordingly he resolved as soon as possible in the morning to go to Job and beseech his silence; he trusted that secrecy in that quarter, even if the knowledge had been extended to Margaret, might be easily secured.

But what would be Mr. Carson’s course?

Were there any means by which he might be persuaded to spare John Barton’s memory?

He was roused up from this train of thought by his mother’s more irritated tone of voice.

“Jem!” she was saying, “thou mightst just as well never be at a deathbed again, if thou cannot bring off more news about it; here have I been by mysel all day (except when oud Job came in), but thinks I when Jem comes he’ll be sure to be good company, seeing he was in the house at the very time of the death; and here thou art, without a word to throw at a dog, much less thy mother: it’s no use thy going to a deathbed if thou cannot carry away any of the sayings!”

“He did not make any, mother,” replied Jem.

“Well, to be sure! So fond as he used to be of holding forth, to miss such a fine opportunity that will never come again! Did he die easy?”

“He was very restless all night long,” said Jem, reluctantly returning to the thoughts of that time.

“And in course thou plucked the pillow away? Thou didst not! Well! with thy bringing up, and thy learning, thou mightst have known that were the only help in such a case. There were pigeons’ feathers in the pillow, depend on’t. To think of two grown-up folk like you and Mary, not knowing death could never come easy to a person lying on a pillow with pigeons’ feathers in!”

Jem was glad to escape from all this talking, to the solitude and quiet of his own room, where he could lie and think uninterruptedly of what had happened and remained to be done.

The first thing was to seek an interview with Mr. Duncombe, his former master. Accordingly, early the next morning Jem set off on his walk to the works, where for so many years his days had been spent; where for so long a time his thoughts had been thought, his hopes and fears experienced. It was not a cheering feeling to remember that henceforward he was to be severed from all these familiar places; nor were his spirits enlivened by the evident feelings of the majority of those who had been his fellow-workmen. As he stood in the entrance to the foundry, awaiting Mr. Duncombe’s leisure, many of those employed in the works passed him on their return from breakfast; and, with one or two exceptions, without any acknowledgment of former acquaintance beyond a distant nod at the utmost.

“It is hard,” said Jem to himself, with a bitter and indignant feeling rising in his throat, “that let a man’s life be what it may, folk are so ready to credit the first word against him. I could live it down if I stayed in England; but then what would not Mary have to bear? Sooner or later the truth would out; and then she would be a show to folk for many a day as John Barton’s daughter. Well! God does not judge as hardly as man, that’s one comfort for all of us!”

Mr. Duncombe did not believe in Jem’s guilt, in spite of the silence in which he again this day heard the imputation of it; but he agreed that under the circumstances it was better he should leave the country.

“We have been written to by Government, as I think I told you before, to recommend an intelligent man, well acquainted with mechanics, as instrument-maker to the Agricultural College they are establishing at Toronto, in Canada. It is a comfortable appointment,—house,—land,—and a good percentage on the instruments made. I will show you the particulars if I can lay my hand on the letter, which I believe I must have left at home.”

“Thank you, sir. No need for seeing the letter to say I’ll accept it. I must leave Manchester; and I’d as lief quit England at once when I’m about it.”

“Of course, Government will give you your passage; indeed, I believe an allowance would be made for a family if you had one; but you are not a married man, I believe?”

“No, sir, but”—Jem hung back from a confession with the awkwardness of a girl.

“But”—said Mr. Duncombe, smiling, “you would like to be a married man before you go, I suppose; eh, Wilson?”

“If you please, sir. And there’s my mother, too. I hope she’ll go with us. But I can pay her passage; no need to trouble Government.”

“Nay, nay! I’ll write to-day and recommend you; and say that you have a family of two. They’ll never ask if the family goes upwards or downwards. I shall see you again before you sail, I hope, Wilson; though I believe they’ll not allow you long to wait. Come to my house next time; you’ll find it pleasanter, I dare say. These men are so wrong-headed. Keep up your heart!”

Jem felt that it was a relief to have this point settled; and that he need no longer weigh reasons for and against his emigration.

And with his path growing clearer and clearer before him the longer he contemplated it, he went to see Mary, and if he judged it fit, to tell her what he had decided upon. Margaret was sitting with her.

“Grandfather wants to see you!” said she to Jem on his entrance.

“And I want to see him,” replied Jem, suddenly remembering his last night’s determination to enjoin secrecy on Job Legh.

So he hardly stayed to kiss poor Mary’s sweet woe-begone face, but tore himself away from his darling to go to the old man, who awaited him impatiently.

“I’ve getten a note from Mr. Carson,” exclaimed Job the moment he saw Jem; “and, man alive, he wants to see thee and me! For sure, there’s no more mischief up, is there?” said he, looking at Jem with an expression of wonder. But if any suspicion mingled for an instant with the thoughts that crossed Job’s mind, it was immediately dispelled by Jem’s honest, fearless, open countenance.

“I can’t guess what he’s wanting, poor old chap,” answered he. “Maybe there’s some point he’s not yet satisfied on; maybe—but it’s no use guessing; let’s be off.”

“It wouldn’t be better for thee to be scarce a bit, would it, and leave me to go and find out what’s up? He has, perhaps, getten some crotchet into his head thou’rt an accomplice, and is laying a trap for thee.”

“I’m not afeard!” said Jem; “I’ve done nought wrong, and know nought wrong, about yon poor dead lad; though I’ll own I had evil thoughts once on a time. Folk can’t mistake long if once they’ll search into the truth. I’ll go and give the old gentleman all the satisfaction in my power, now it can injure no one. I’d my reasons for wanting to see him besides, and it all falls in right enough for me.”

Job was a little reassured by Jem’s boldness; but still, if the truth must be told, he wished the young man would follow his advice, and leave him to sound Mr. Carson’s intentions.

Meanwhile Jane Wilson had donned her Sunday suit of black, and set off on her errand of condolence. She felt nervous and uneasy at the idea of the moral sayings and texts which she fancied were expected from visitors on occasions like the present; and prepared many a good set speech as she walked towards the house of mourning.

As she gently opened the door, Mary, sitting idly by the fire, caught a glimpse of her,—of Jem’s mother,—of the early friend of her dead parents,—of the kind minister to many a little want in days of childhood,—and rose and came and fell about her neck, with many a sob and moan, saying—

“Oh, he’s gone—he’s dead—all gone—all dead, and I am left alone!”

“Poor wench! poor, poor wench!” said Jane Wilson, tenderly kissing her. “Thou’rt not alone; so donnot take on so. I’ll say nought of Him who’s above, for thou knowest He is ever the orphan’s friend; but think on Jem! nay, Mary, dear, think on me! I’m but a frabbit woman at times, but I’ve a heart within me through all my temper, and thou shalt be as a daughter henceforward,—as mine own ewe-lamb. Jem shall not love thee better in his way, than I will in mine; and thou’lt bear with my turns, Mary, knowing that in my soul God sees the love that shall ever be thine, if thou’lt take me for thy mother, and speak no more of being alone.”

Mrs. Wilson was weeping herself long before she had ended this speech, which was so different to all she had planned to say, and from all the formal piety she had laid in store for the visit; for this was heart’s piety, and needed no garnish of texts to make it true religion, pure and undefiled.

They sat together on the same chair, their arms encircling each other; they wept for the same dead; they had the same hope, and trust, and overflowing love in the living.

From that time forward, hardly a passing cloud dimmed the happy confidence of their intercourse; even by Jem would his mother’s temper sooner be irritated than by Mary; before the latter she repressed her occasional nervous ill-humour till the habit of indulging it was perceptibly decreased.

Years afterwards, in conversation with Jem, he was startled by a chance expression which dropped from his mother’s lips; it implied a knowledge of John Barton’s crime. It was many a long day since they had seen any Manchester people who could have revealed the secret (if indeed it was known in Manchester, against which Jem had guarded in every possible way). And he was led to inquire first as to the extent, and then as to the source of her knowledge. It was Mary herself who had told all.

For on the morning to which this chapter principally relates, as Mary sat weeping, and as Mrs. Wilson comforted her by every tenderest word and caress, she revealed, to the dismayed and astonished Jane, the sting of her deep sorrow; the crime which stained her dead father’s memory.

She was quite unconscious that Jem had kept it secret from his mother; she had imagined it bruited abroad as the suspicion against her lover had been; so word after word (dropped from her lips in the supposition that Mrs. Wilson knew all) had told the tale and revealed the cause of her deep anguish; deeper than is ever caused by death alone.

On large occasions like the present, Mrs. Wilson’s innate generosity came out. Her weak and ailing frame imparted its irritation to her conduct in small things, and daily trifles; but she had deep and noble sympathy with great sorrows, and even at the time that Mary spoke she allowed no expression of surprise or horror to escape her lips. She gave way to no curiosity as to the untold details; she was as secret and trustworthy as her son himself; and if in years to come her anger was occasionally excited against Mary, and she, on rare occasions, yielded to ill-temper against her daughter-in-law, she would upbraid her for extravagance, or stinginess, or over-dressing, or under-dressing, or too much mirth or too much gloom, but never, never in her most uncontrolled moments did she allude to any one of the circumstances relating to Mary’s flirtation with Harry Carson, or his murderer; and always when she spoke of John Barton, named him with the respect due to his conduct before the last, miserable, guilty month of his life.

Therefore it came like a blow to Jem, when, after years had passed away, he gathered his mother’s knowledge of the whole affair. From the day when he learnt (not without remorse) what hidden depths of self-restraint she had in her soul, his manner to her, always tender and respectful, became reverential; and it was more than ever a loving strife between him and Mary which should most contribute towards the happiness of the declining years of their mother.

But I am speaking of the events which have occurred only lately, while I have yet many things to tell you that happened six or seven years ago.

XXXVII. DETAILS CONNECTED WITH THE MURDER.

“The rich man dines, while the poor man pines, And eats his heart away; ‘They teach us lies,’ he sternly cries, ‘Would BROTHERS do as they?’” —The Dream.

Mr. Carson stood at one of the breathing-moments of life. The object of the toils, the fears, and the wishes of his past years, was suddenly hidden from his sight,—vanished into the deep mystery which circumscribes existence. Nay, even the vengeance which he had cherished, taken away from before his eyes, as by the hand of God.

Events like these would have startled the most thoughtless into reflection, much more such a man as Mr. Carson, whose mind, if not enlarged, was energetic; indeed, whose very energy, having been hitherto the cause of the employment of his powers in only one direction, had prevented him from becoming largely and philosophically comprehensive in his views.

But now the foundations of his past life were razed to the ground, and the place they had once occupied was sown with salt, to be rebuilt no more for ever. It was like the change from this Life to that other hidden one, when so many of the motives which have actuated all our earthly existence, will have become more fleeting than the shadows of a dream. With a wrench of his soul from the past, so much of which was as nothing, and worse than nothing to him now, Mr. Carson took some hours, after he had witnessed the death of his son’s murderer, to consider his situation.

But suddenly, while he was deliberating, and searching for motives which should be effective to compel him to exertion and action once more; while he contemplated the desire after riches, social distinction, a name among the merchant-princes amidst whom he moved, and saw these false substances fade away into the shadows they truly are, and one by one disappear into the grave of his son,—suddenly, I say, the thought arose within him that more yet remained to be learned about the circumstances and feelings which had prompted John Barton’s crime; and when once this mournful curiosity was excited, it seemed to gather strength in every moment that its gratification was delayed. Accordingly he sent a message to summon Job Legh and Jem Wilson, from whom he promised himself some elucidation of what was as yet unexplained; while he himself set forth to call on Mr. Bridgnorth, whom he knew to have been Jem’s attorney, with a glimmering suspicion intruding on his mind, which he strove to repel, that Jem might have had some share in his son’s death.

He had returned before his summoned visitors arrived; and had time enough to recur to the evening on which John Barton had made his confession. He remembered with mortification how he had forgotten his proud reserve, and his habitual concealment of his feelings, and had laid bare his agony of grief in the presence of these two men who were coming to see him by his desire; and he entrenched himself behind stiff barriers of self-control, through which he hoped no appearance of emotion would force its way in the conversation he anticipated.

Nevertheless, when the servant announced that two men were there by appointment to speak to him, and he had desired that they might be shown into the library where he sat, any watcher might have perceived by the trembling hands, and shaking head, not only how much he was aged by the occurrences of the last few weeks, but also how much he was agitated at the thought of the impending interview.

But he so far succeeded in commanding himself at first, as to appear to Jem Wilson and Job Legh one of the hardest and most haughty men they had ever spoken to, and to forfeit all the interest which he had previously excited in their minds by his unreserved display of deep and genuine feeling.

When he had desired them to be seated, he shaded his face with his hand for an instant before speaking.

“I have been calling on Mr. Bridgnorth this morning,” said he, at last; “as I expected, he can give me but little satisfaction on some points respecting the occurrence on the 18th of last month which I desire to have cleared up. Perhaps you two can tell me what I want to know. As intimate friends of Barton’s you probably know, or can conjecture a good deal. Have no scruple as to speaking the truth. What you say in this room shall never be named again by me. Besides, you are aware that the law allows no one to be tried twice for the same offence.”

He stopped for a minute, for the mere act of speaking was fatiguing to him after the excitement of the last few days.

Job Legh took the opportunity of speaking.

“I’m not going to be affronted either for myself or Jem at what you’ve just now been saying about the truth. You don’t know us, and there’s an end on’t; only it’s as well for folk to think others good and true until they’re proved contrary. Ask what you like, sir, I’ll answer for it we’ll either tell truth or hold our tongues.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Mr. Carson, slightly bowing his head. “What I wish to know was,” referring to a slip of paper he held in his hand, and shaking so much he could hardly adjust his glasses to his eyes, “whether you, Wilson, can explain how Barton came possessed of your gun. I believe you refused this explanation to Mr. Bridgnorth?”

“I did, sir! If I had said what I knew then, I saw it would criminate Barton, and so I refused telling aught. To you, sir, now I will tell everything and anything; only it is but little. The gun was my father’s before it was mine, and long ago he and John Barton had a fancy for shooting at the gallery; and they used always to take this gun, and brag that though it was old-fashioned it was sure.”

Jem saw with self-upbraiding pain how Mr. Carson winced at these last words, but at each irrepressible and involuntary evidence of feeling, the hearts of the two men warmed towards him. Jem went on speaking.

“One day in the week—I think it was on the Wednesday,—yes, it was—it was on St. Patrick’s day, I met John just coming out of our house, as I were going to my dinner. Mother was out, and he’d found no one in. He said he’d come to borrow the old gun, and that he’d have made bold, and taken it, but it was not to be seen. Mother was afraid of it, so after father’s death (for while he were alive, she seemed to think he could manage it) I had carried it to my own room. I went up and fetched it for John, who stood outside the door all the time.”

“What did he say he wanted it for?” asked Mr. Carson hastily.

“I don’t think he spoke when I gave it him. At first he muttered something about the shooting gallery, and I never doubted but that it was for practice there, as I knew he had done years before.”

Mr. Carson had strung up his frame to an attitude of upright attention while Jem was speaking; now the tension relaxed, and he sank back in his chair, weak and powerless.

He rose up again, however, as Jem went on, anxious to give every particular which could satisfy the bereaved father.

“I never knew for what he wanted the gun till I was taken up,—I do not know yet why he wanted it. No one would have had me get out of the scrape by implicating an old friend,—my father’s old friend, and the father of the girl I loved. So I refused to tell Mr. Bridgnorth aught about it, and would not have named it now to any one but you.”

Jem’s face became very red at the allusion he made to Mary, but his honest, fearless eyes had met Mr. Carson’s penetrating gaze unflinchingly, and had carried conviction of his innocence and truthfulness. Mr. Carson felt certain that he had heard all that Jem could tell. Accordingly he turned to Job Legh.

“You were in the room the whole time while Barton was speaking to me, I think?”

“Yes, sir,” answered Job.

“You’ll excuse my asking plain and direct questions; the information I am gaining is really a relief to my mind, I don’t know how, but it is,—will you tell me if you had any idea of Barton’s guilt in this matter before?”

“None whatever, so help me God!” said Job solemnly. “To tell truth (and axing your forgiveness, Jem), I had never got quite shut of the notion that Jem here had done it. At times I was as clear of his innocence as I was of my own; and whenever I took to reasoning about it, I saw he could not have been the man that did it. Still I never thought of Barton.”

“And yet by his confession he must have been absent at the time,” said Mr. Carson, referring to his slip of paper.

“Ay, and for many a day after,—I can’t rightly say how long. But still, you see, one’s often blind to many a thing that lies right under one’s nose, till it’s pointed out. And till I heard what John Barton had to say yon night, I could not have seen what reason he had for doing it; while in the case of Jem, any one who looked at Mary Barton might have seen a cause for jealousy clear enough.”

“Then you believe that Barton had no knowledge of my son’s unfortunate”—he looked at Jem—”of his attentions to Mary Barton. This young man, Wilson, has heard of them, you see.”

“The person who told me said clearly she neither had, nor would tell Mary’s father,” interposed Jem. “I don’t believe he’d ever heard of it; he weren’t a man to keep still in such a matter, if he had.”

“Besides,” said Job, “the reason he gave on his deathbed, so to speak, was enough; ‘specially to those who knew him.”

“You mean his feelings regarding the treatment of the workmen by the masters; you think he acted from motives of revenge, in consequence of the part my son had taken in putting down the strike?”

“Well, sir,” replied Job, “it’s hard to say: John Barton was not a man to take counsel with people; nor did he make many words about his doings. So I can only judge from his way of thinking and talking in general, never having heard him breathe a syllable concerning this matter in particular. You see he were sadly put about to make great riches and great poverty square with Christ’s Gospel”—Job paused, in order to try and express what was clear enough in his own mind, as to the effect produced on John Barton by the great and mocking contrasts presented by the varieties of human condition. Before he could find suitable words to explain his meaning, Mr. Carson spoke. “You mean he was an Owenite; all for equality and community of goods, and that kind of absurdity.”

“No, no! John Barton was no fool. No need to tell him that were all men equal tonight, some would get the start by rising an hour earlier tomorrow. Nor yet did he care for goods, nor wealth—no man less, so that he could get daily bread for him and his; but what hurt him sore, and rankled in him as long as I knew him (and, sir, it rankles in many a poor man’s heart far more than the want of any creature-comforts, and puts a sting into starvation itself), was that those who wore finer clothes, and eat better food, and had more money in their pockets, kept him at arm’s length, and cared not whether his heart was sorry or glad; whether he lived or died,— whether he was bound for heaven or hell. It seemed hard to him that a heap of gold should part him and his brother so far asunder. For he was a loving man before he grew mad with seeing such as he was slighted, as if Christ Himself had not been poor. At one time, I’ve heard him say, he felt kindly towards every man, rich or poor, because he thought they were all men alike. But latterly he grew aggravated with the sorrows and suffering that he saw, and which he thought the masters might help if they would.”

“That’s the notion you’ve all of you got,” said Mr. Carson. “Now, how in the world can we help it? We cannot regulate the demand for labour. No man or set of men can do it. It depends on events which God alone can control. When there is no market for our goods, we suffer just as much as you can do.”

“Not as much, I’m sure, sir; though I’m not given to Political Economy, I know that much. I’m wanting in learning, I’m aware; but I can use my eyes. I never see the masters getting thin and haggard for want of food; I hardly ever see them making much change in their way of living, though I don’t doubt they’ve got to do it in bad times. But it’s in things for show they cut short; while for such as me, it’s in things for life we’ve to stint. For sure, sir, you’ll own it’s come to a hard pass when a man would give aught in the world for work to keep his children from starving, and can’t get a bit, if he’s ever so willing to labour. I’m not up to talking as John Barton would have done, but that’s clear to me at any rate.”

“My good man, just listen to me. Two men live in solitude; one produces loaves of bread, the other coats,—or what you will. Now, would it not be hard if the bread-producer were forced to give bread for the coats, whether he wanted them or not, in order to furnish employment to the other? That is the simple form of the case; you’ve only to multiply the numbers. There will come times of great changes in the occupation of thousands, when improvements in manufactures and machinery are made. It’s all nonsense talking,—it must be so!”

Job Legh pondered a few moments.

“It’s true it was a sore time for the hand-loom weavers when power-looms came in: them new-fangled things make a man’s life like a lottery; and yet I’ll never misdoubt that power-looms and railways, and all such-like inventions, are the gifts of God. I have lived long enough, too, to see that it is a part of His plan to send suffering to bring out a higher good; but surely it’s also a part of His plan that so much of the burden of the suffering as can be should be lightened by those whom it is His pleasure to make happy, and content in their own circumstances. Of course it would take a deal more thought and wisdom than me, or any other man has, to settle out of hand how this should be done. But I’m clear about this, when God gives a blessing to be enjoyed, He gives it with a duty to be done; and the duty of the happy is to help the suffering to bear their woe.”

“Still facts have proved, and are daily proving, how much better it is for every man to be independent of help, and self-reliant,” said Mr. Carson thoughtfully.

“You can never work facts as you would fixed quantities, and say, given two facts, and the product is so and so. God has given men feelings and passions which cannot be worked into the problem, because they are for ever changing and uncertain. God has also made some weak; not in any one way, but in all. One is weak in body, another in mind, another in steadiness of purpose, a fourth can’t tell right from wrong, and so on; or if he can tell the right, he wants strength to hold by it. Now, to my thinking, them that is strong in any of God’s gifts is meant to help the weak,—be hanged to the facts! I ask your pardon, sir; I can’t rightly explain the meaning that is in me. I’m like a tap as won’t run, but keeps letting it out drop by drop, so that you’ve no notion of the force of what’s within.”

Job looked and felt very sorrowful at the want of power in his words, while the feeling within him was so strong and clear.

“What you say is very true, no doubt,” replied Mr. Carson; “but how would you bring it to bear upon the masters’ conduct,—on my particular case?” added he gravely.

“I’m not learned enough to argue. Thoughts come into my head that I’m sure are as true as Gospel, though maybe they don’t follow each other like the Q.E.D. of a Proposition. The masters has it on their own conscience,—you have it on yours, sir, to answer for to God whether you’ve done, and are doing all in your power to lighten the evils that seem always to hang on the trades by which you make your fortunes. It’s no business of mine, thank God. John Barton took the question in hand, and his answer to it was NO! Then he grew bitter, and angry, and mad; and in his madness he did a great sin, and wrought a great woe; and repented him with tears of blood, and will go through his penance humbly and meekly in t’other place, I’ll be bound. I never seed such bitter repentance as his that last night.”

There was a silence of many minutes. Mr. Carson had covered his face, and seemed utterly forgetful of their presence; and yet they did not like to disturb him by rising to leave the room.

At last he said, without meeting their sympathetic eyes—

“Thank you both for coming,—and for speaking candidly to me. I fear, Legh, neither you nor I have convinced each other, as to the power, or want of power, in the masters to remedy the evils the men complain of.”

“I’m loth to vex you, sir, just now; but it was not the want of power I was talking on; what we all feel sharpest is the want of inclination to try and help the evils which come like blights at times over the manufacturing places, while we see the masters can stop work and not suffer. If we saw the masters try for our sakes to find a remedy,—even if they were long about it,—even if they could find no help, and at the end of all could only say, ‘Poor fellows, our hearts are sore for ye; we’ve done all we could, and can’t find a cure,’—we’d bear up like men through bad times. No one knows till they have tried, what power of bearing lies in them, if once they believe that men are caring for their sorrows and will help if they can. If fellow-creatures can give nought but tears and brave words, we take our trials straight from God, and we know enough of His love to put ourselves blind into His hands. You say our talk has done no good. I say it has. I see the view you take of things from the place where you stand. I can remember that, when the time comes for judging you; I shan’t think any longer, does he act right on my views of a thing, but does he act right on his own. It has done me good in that way. I’m an old man, and may never see you again; but I’ll pray for you, and think on you and your trials, both of your great wealth, and of your son’s cruel death, many and many a day to come; and I’ll ask God to bless both to you now and for evermore. Amen. Farewell!”

Jem had maintained a manly and dignified reserve ever since he had made his open statement of all he knew. Now both the men rose and bowed low, looking at Mr. Carson with the deep human interest they could not fail to take in one who had endured and forgiven a deep injury; and who struggled hard, as it was evident he did, to bear up like a man under his affliction.

He bowed low in return to them. Then he suddenly came forward and shook them by the hand; and thus, without a word more, they parted.

There are stages in the contemplation and endurance of great sorrow, which endow men with the same earnestness and clearness of thought that in some of old took the form of Prophecy. To those who have large capability of loving and suffering, united with great power of firm endurance, there comes a time in their woe, when they are lifted out of the contemplation of their individual case into a searching inquiry into the nature of their calamity, and the remedy (if remedy there be) which may prevent its recurrence to others as well as to themselves.

Hence the beautiful, noble efforts which are from time to time brought to light, as being continuously made by those who have once hung on the cross of agony, in order that others may not suffer as they have done; one of the grandest ends which sorrow can accomplish; the sufferer wrestling with God’s messenger until a blessing is left behind, not for one alone but for generations.

It took time before the stern nature of Mr. Carson was compelled to the recognition of this secret of comfort, and that same sternness prevented his reaping any benefit in public estimation from the actions he performed; for the character is more easily changed than the habits and manners originally formed by that character, and to his dying day Mr. Carson was considered hard and cold by those who only casually saw him or superficially knew him. But those who were admitted into his confidence were aware, that the wish that lay nearest to his heart was that none might suffer from the cause from which he had suffered; that a perfect understanding, and complete confidence and love, might exist between masters and men; that the truth might be recognised that the interests of one were the interests of all, and, as such, required the consideration and deliberation of all; that hence it was most desirable to have educated workers, capable of judging, not mere machines of ignorant men: and to have them bound to their employers by the ties of respect and affection, not by mere money bargains alone; in short, to acknowledge the Spirit of Christ as the regulating law between both parties.

Many of the improvements now in practice in the system of employment in Manchester, owe their origin to short, earnest sentences spoken by Mr. Carson. Many and many yet to be carried into execution, take their birth from that stern, thoughtful mind, which submitted to be taught by suffering.

XXXVIII. CONCLUSION.

“Touch us gently, gentle Time! We’ve not proud nor soaring wings, Our ambition, our content, Lies in simple things; Humble voyagers are we O’er life’s dim unsounded sea; Touch us gently, gentle Time !” —BARRY CORNWALL.

Not many days after John Barton’s funeral was over, all was arranged respecting Jem’s appointment at Toronto; and the time was fixed for his sailing. It was to take place almost immediately: yet much remained to be done; many domestic preparations were to be made; and one great obstacle, anticipated by both Jem and Mary, to be removed. This was the opposition they expected from Mrs. Wilson, to whom the plan had never yet been named.

They were most anxious that their home should continue ever to be hers, yet they feared that her dislike to a new country might be an insuperable objection to this. At last Jem took advantage of an evening of unusual placidity, as he sat alone with his mother just before going to bed, to broach the subject; and to his surprise she acceded willingly to his proposition of her accompanying himself and his wife.

“To be sure ‘Merica is a long way to flit to; beyond London a good bit I reckon; and quite in foreign parts; but I’ve never had no opinion of England, ever since they could be such fools as to take up a quiet chap like thee, and clap thee in prison. Where you go, I’ll go. Perhaps in them Indian countries they’ll know a well-behaved lad when they see him; ne’er speak a word more, lad, I’ll go.”

Their path became daily more smooth and easy; the present was clear and practicable, the future was hopeful; they had leisure of mind enough to turn to the past.

“Jem!” said Mary to him, one evening as they sat in the twilight, talking together in low happy voices till Margaret should come to keep Mary company through the night, “Jem! you’ve never yet told me how you came to know about my naughty ways with poor young Mr. Carson.” She blushed for shame at the remembrance of her folly, and hid her head on his shoulder while he made answer.

“Darling, I’m almost loth to tell you; your aunt Esther told me.”

“Ah, I remember! but how did she know? I was so put about that night I did not think of asking her. Where did you see her? I’ve forgotten where she lives.”

Mary said all this in so open and innocent a manner, that Jem felt sure she knew not the truth respecting Esther, and he half hesitated to tell her. At length he replied—

“Where did you see Esther lately? When? Tell me, love, for you’ve never named it before, and I can’t make it out.”

“Oh! it was that horrible night, which is like a dream.” And she told him of Esther’s midnight visit, concluding with, “We must go and see her before we leave, though I don’t rightly know where to find her.”

“Dearest Mary”—

“What, Jem?” exclaimed she, alarmed by his hesitation.

“Your poor aunt Esther has no home:—she’s one of them miserable creatures that walk the streets.” And he in his turn told of his encounter with Esther, with so many details that Mary was forced to be convinced, although her heart rebelled against the belief.

“Jem, lad!” said she vehemently, “we must find her out—we must hunt her up!” She rose as if she was going on the search there and then.

“What could we do, darling?” asked he, fondly restraining her.

“Do! Why! what could we NOT do, if we could but find her? She’s none so happy in her ways, think ye, but what she’d turn from them, if any one would lend her a helping hand. Don’t hold me, Jem; this is just the time for such as her to be out, and who knows but what I might find her close to hand.”

“Stay, Mary, for a minute; I’ll go out now and search for her if you wish, though it’s but a wild chase. You must not go. It would be better to ask the police tomorrow. But if I should find her, how can I make her come with me? Once before she refused, and said she could not break off her drinking ways, come what might?”

“You never will persuade her if you fear and doubt,” said Mary, in tears. “Hope yourself, and trust to the good that must be in her. Speak to that,—she has it in her yet,—oh, bring her home, and we will love her so, we’ll make her good.”

“Yes!” said Jem, catching Mary’s sanguine spirit; “she shall go to America with us: and we’ll help her to get rid of her sins. I’ll go now, my precious darling, and if I can’t find her, it’s but trying the police tomorrow. Take care of your own sweet self, Mary,” said he, fondly kissing her before he went out.

It was not to be. Jem wandered far and wide that night, but never met Esther. The next day he applied to the police; and at last they recognised under his description of her, a woman known to them under the name of the “Butterfly,” from the gaiety of her dress a year or two ago. By their help he traced out one of her haunts, a low lodging-house behind Peter-street. He and his companion, a kind-hearted policeman, were admitted, suspiciously enough, by the landlady, who ushered them into a large garret where twenty or thirty people of all ages and both sexes lay and dosed away the day, choosing the evening and night for their trades of beggary, thieving, or prostitution.

“I know the Butterfly was here,” said she, looking round. “She came in, the night before last, and said she had not a penny to get a place for shelter; and that if she was far away in the country she could steal aside and die in a copse, or a clough, like the wild animals; but here the police would let no one alone in the streets, and she wanted a spot to die in, in peace. It’s a queer sort of peace we have here, but that night the room was uncommon empty, and I’m not a hard-hearted woman (I wish I were, I could ha’ made a good thing out of it afore this if I were harder), so I sent her up—but she’s not here now, I think.”

“Was she very bad?” asked Jem.

“Ay! nought but skin and bone, with a cough to tear her in two.”

They made some inquiries, and found that in the restlessness of approaching death, she had longed to be once more in the open air, and had gone forth—where, no one seemed to be able to tell. Leaving many messages for her, and directions that he was to be sent for if either the policeman or the landlady obtained any clue to her whereabouts, Jem bent his steps towards Mary’s house; for he had not seen her all that long day of search. He told her of his proceedings and want of success; and both were saddened at the recital, and sat silent for some time.

After awhile they began talking over their plans. In a day or two, Mary was to give up house, and go and live for a week or so with Job Legh, until the time of her marriage, which would take place immediately before sailing; they talked themselves back into silence and delicious reverie. Mary sat by Jem, his arm around her waist, her head on his shoulder; and thought over the scenes which had passed in that home she was so soon to leave for ever.

Suddenly she felt Jem start, and started too without knowing why; she tried to see his countenance, but the shades of evening had deepened so much she could read no expression there. It was turned to the window; she looked and saw a white face pressed against the panes on the outside, gazing intently into the dusky chamber. While they watched, as if fascinated by the appearance, and unable to think or stir, a film came over the bright, feverish, glittering eyes outside, and the form sank down to the ground without a struggle of instinctive resistance.

“It is Esther!” exclaimed they, both at once. They rushed outside; and, fallen into what appeared simply a heap of white or light-coloured clothes, fainting or dead, lay the poor crushed Butterfly—the once innocent Esther. She had come (as a wounded deer drags its heavy limbs once more to the green coolness of the lair in which it was born, there to die) to see the place familiar to her innocence, yet once again before her death. Whether she was indeed alive or dead, they knew not now.

Job came in with Margaret, for it was bedtime. He said Esther’s pulse beat a little yet. They carried her upstairs and laid her on Mary’s bed, not daring to undress her, lest any motion should frighten the trembling life away; but it was all in vain.

Towards midnight, she opened wide her eyes and looked around on the once familiar room; Job Legh knelt by the bed praying aloud and fervently for her, but he stopped as he saw her roused look. She sat up in bed with a sudden convulsive motion.

“Has it been a dream, then?” asked she wildly. Then with a habit, which came like instinct even in that awful dying hour, her hand sought for a locket which hung concealed in her bosom, and, finding that, she knew all was true which had befallen her since last she lay an innocent girl on that bed.

She fell back, and spoke word never more. She held the locket containing her child’s hair still in her hand, and once or twice she kissed it with a long soft kiss. She cried feebly and sadly as long as she had any strength to cry, and then she died.

They laid her in one grave with John Barton. And there they lie without name, or initial, or date. Only this verse is inscribed upon the stone which covers the remains of these two wanderers.

Psalm ciii. v. 9.—”For He will not always chide, neither will He keep His anger for ever.”

I see a long, low, wooden house, with room enough and to spare. The old primeval trees are felled and gone for many a mile around; one alone remains to overshadow the gable-end of the cottage. There is a garden around the dwelling, and far beyond that stretches an orchard. The glory of an Indian summer is over all, making the heart leap at the sight of its gorgeous beauty.

At the door of the house, looking towards the town, stands Mary, watching the return of her husband from his daily work; and while she watches, she listens, smiling—

“Clap hands, daddy comes, With his pocket full of plums, And a cake for Johnnie.”

Then comes a crow of delight from Johnnie. Then his grandmother carries him to the door, and glories in seeing him resist his mother’s blandishments to cling to her.

“English letters! ‘Twas that made me so late!”

“O Jem, Jem! don’t hold them so tight! What do they say?”

“Why, some good news. Come, give a guess what it is.”

“Oh, tell me! I cannot guess,” said Mary.

“Then you give it up, do you? What do you say, mother?”

Jane Wilson thought a moment.

“Will and Margaret are married?” asked she.

“Not exactly,—but very near. The old woman has twice the spirit of the young one. Come, Mary, give a guess?”

He covered his little boy’s eyes with his hands for an instant, significantly, till the baby pushed them down, saying in his imperfect way—

“Tan’t see.”

“There now! Johnnie can see. Do you guess, Mary?”

“They’ve done something to Margaret to give her back her sight!” exclaimed she.

“They have. She has been couched, and can see as well as ever. She and Will are to be married on the twenty-fifth of this month, and he’s bringing her out next voyage; and Job Legh talks of coming too,—not to see you, Mary,—nor you, mother,—nor you, my little hero” (kissing him), “but to try and pick up a few specimens of Canadian insects, Will says. All the compliment is to the earwigs, you see, mother!”

“Dear Job Legh!” said Mary, softly and seriously.