A Life's Secret Part 36

CHAPTER IV.

SOMEBODY 'PITCHED INTO.'

How do the poor manage to pull through illness? Through distress, through hunger, through cold, through nakedness; above all, through the close, unwholesome atmosphere in which too many of them are obliged to live, they struggle on from sickness back to health. Look at the children of Robert Darby. The low fever which attacked them had in some inexplicable way been subdued, without its going on to the dreaded typhus. If typhus had appeared at that untoward time in Daffodil's Delight, why, then, no earthly power could have kept many from the grave. Little pale, pinched forms, but with the disease gone, there sat Darby's children. Colder weather had come, and they had gathered round the bit of fire in their close room: fire it could scarcely be called, for it was only a few decaying embers. All sat on the floor, save w.i.l.l.y; he was in a chair, leaning his head back on a pillow. The boy had probably never been fitted by const.i.tution for a prolonged life, though he might have lasted some years more under favourable surroundings; as it was, fever and privation had done their work with him, and the little spirit was nearly worn out. Mrs. Darby had taken him round to Mr.

Rice. 'He does not want me, he wants good nourishment, and plenty of it,' was the apothecary's announcement! And Mrs. Darby took him home again. 'Mother, the fire's nearly out.'

'I can't help it, w.i.l.l.y. There's no coal, and nothing to buy it with.'--'Take something, mother.'

You may or may not, as you are acquainted or not with the habits of the poor, be aware that this sentence referred to the p.a.w.nbroker: spoken out fully it would have been, 'Take something and pledge it, mother.' In cases of long-continued general distress, the children of a family know just as much about its ways and means as the heads do. Mrs. Darby cast her eyes round the kitchen. There was nothing to take, nothing that would raise them help, to speak of. As she stood over w.i.l.l.y, parting the hair with her gentle finger upon his little pale brow, her tears dropped upon his face. The pillow on which his head leaned? Ay; she had thought of that with longing; but how would his poor aching head do without it?

The last things put in pledge had been Darby's tools. The latch of the door opened, and Grace entered. She appeared to be in some deep distress. Flinging herself on a chair, she clasped hold of her mother, sobbing wildly, clinging to her as if for protection. 'Oh, mother, they have accused me of theft; the police have been had to me!' were the confused words that broke from her lips. Grace had taken a service in a baker's family, where there was an excessively cross mistress. She was a well-conducted, honest girl, and, since the distress had commenced at home, had brought her wages straight to her mother, whenever they were paid her. For the last week or two, the girl had brought something more.

On the days when she believed she could get a minute to run home in the evening, she had put by her allowance of meat at dinner--they lived well at the baker's--and made it upon bread and potatoes. Had Grace for a moment suspected there was anything wrong or dishonest in this, she would not have done it: she deemed the meat was hers, and she took it to w.i.l.l.y. On this day, two good slices of mutton were cut for her; she put them by, ate her potatoes and bread, and after dinner, upon being sent on an errand past Daffodil's Delight, was taking them out with her. The mistress pounced upon her. She abused her, she reproached her with theft, she called her husband to join in the accusation; and finally, a policeman was brought in from the street, probably more to frighten the girl than to give her in charge. It did frighten her in no measured degree. She protested, as well as she could do it for her sobs, that she had no dishonest thought; that she had believed the meat to be hers to eat it or not as she pleased, and that she was going to take it to her little brother, who was dying. The policeman decided that it was not a case for charge at the police-court, and the baker's wife ended the matter by turning her out. All this, with sobs and moans, she by degrees explained now.

Robert Darby, who had entered during the scene, placed his hand, more in sorrow than in anger, upon Grace's shoulder, in his stern honesty.

'Daughter, I'd far rather we all dropped down here upon the floor and died out with starvation, than that you should have brought home what was not yours to bring.'

'There's no need for _you_ to scold her, Robert,' spoke Mrs. Darby, with more temper than she, meek woman that she was, often betrayed: and her conscience told her that she had purposely kept these little episodes from her husband. 'It is the bits of meat she has fed him with twice or thrice a week that has just kept life in him; that's my firm belief.'

'She shouldn't have done it; it was not hers to bring,' returned Robert Darby.

'What else has he had to feed him?' proceeded the wife, determined to defend the girl. 'What do any of us have? _You_ are getting nothing.'

The tone was a reproachful one. With her starving children before her, and one of them dying, the poor mother's wrung heart could but speak out.

'I know I am getting nothing. Is it my fault? I wish I could get something. I'd work my fingers to the bone to keep my children.'

'Robert, let me speak to you,' she said in an imploring tone, the tears gushing from her eyes. 'I have sat here this week and asked myself, every hour of it, what we shall do. All our things, that money can be made on, are gone; the pittance we get allowed by the society does not keep body and soul together; and this state of affairs gets worse, and will get worse. What is to become of us? What are we to do?' Robert Darby leaned in his old jacket--one considerably the worse for wear--against the kitchen wall, his countenance gloomy, his att.i.tude bespeaking misery. He knew not what they were to do, therefore he did not attempt to say. Grace had laid down her inflamed face upon the edge of w.i.l.l.y's pillow and was sobbing silently. The others sat on the floor: very quiet; as semi-starved little ones are apt to be. 'You have just said you would work your fingers to the bone to keep your children,'

resumed Mrs. Darby to her husband.

'I'd work for them till the flesh dropped off me. I'd ask no better than to do it,' he vehemently said. 'But where am I to get work to do now?'

'Baxendale has got it,' she rejoined in a low tone.

Grace started from her leaning posture.

'Oh, father, do as Baxendale has done! don't let the children quite starve. If you had been in work, this dreadful thing would not have happened. It will be a slur upon me for life.'

'So I would work, girl, but for the Trades' Unions.'

'Father, the Trades' Unions seem to bring you no good; nothing but harm.

Don't trust them any longer; trust the masters now.'

Never was there a better meaning man than Robert Darby; but he was too easily swayed by others. Latterly it had appeared to him that the Trades' Unions did bring him harm, and his trust in them was shaken. He stood for a few moments, revolving the question in his own mind. 'They'd cast me off, you see, the Trades' Unions would,' he observed to his wife, in an irresolute tone.

'What if they did? The masters would take you on. Stand right with the masters----'

Mrs. Darby was interrupted by a shriek from Grace. Little w.i.l.l.y, whom n.o.body had been giving attention to, was lying back with a white face, senseless. Whether from the weakness of his condition, or from the unusual excitement of the scene going on around him, certain it was that the child had fainted. There was some little bustle in bringing him to, and Mrs. Darby sat down, the boy upon her lap.

'What ailed you, deary?' said Robert Darby, bending down to him.

'I don't know, father,' returned the child. And his voice was fainter than ever.

Mrs. Darby pulled her husband's ear close to her lips. 'When the boy's dead, you'll wish you had cared for him more than for the Trades'

Unions; and worked for him.'

The words told upon the man. Perhaps for the first time he had fully realized to his imagination the moment when he should see his boy lying dead before him. 'I will work,' he exclaimed. 'w.i.l.l.y, boy, father will go and get work; and he'll soon bring you home something good to eat, as he used to.' w.i.l.l.y's hot lips parted with a pleasant smile of response; his blue eyes glistened brightly. Robert Darby bent his rough, unshaven face, and took a kiss from the child's smooth one. 'Yes, my boy; father _will_ work.'

He went out, bending his steps towards Slippery Sam's--who, by the way, had latterly tried to exact the t.i.tle of 'Mr. Shuck.' There was a code of honour--as they regarded it--amidst these operatives of the Hunters, to do nothing underhanded. That is, not to resume work without first speaking to the Unions' man, Sam Shuck--as was mentioned in the case of Baxendale. It happened that Mr. Shuck was standing in the strip of garden before his house, carrying on a wordy war over the palings with Mrs. Quale, when Darby came up. Peter Quale had of course been locked out with the rest, but with the first hour that Mr. Hunter's yard was opened, Peter returned to his work. He did not belong to the Trades'

Unions--he never had belonged to them and never would; therefore, he was a free man. Strange to say, he was left to do as he liked in peace; somehow the Union did not care to interfere with Peter Quale--for one thing, he occupied a better position in the yard than most of the men.

Peter pursued his own course quietly--going to his work and returning from it, saying little to the malcontents of Daffodil's Delight. Not so Mrs. Quale; she exercised her tongue upon them whenever she got the chance. Her motive was a good one: she was at heart sorry for the privation at present existing in Daffodil's Delight, and would have liked to shame the men into going to work again.

'Now, Robert Darby! how are them children of your'n?' began she.

'Starved out yet?'

'Next door to it,' was Darby's answer.

'And whose is the fault?' she went on. 'If I had children, and my husband wouldn't work to keep 'em out of their graves, through getting some nasty mistaken crotchet in his head, and holding out when the work was going a-begging, I'd go before a magistrate and see if I couldn't have the law of him.'

'You'd do a good many things if you wore the breeches,' interposed Sam Shuck, with a sneer; 'but you don't, you know.'

'You be wearing whole breeches now, which you get out of the blood and marrow of the poor misguided men,' retorted Mrs. Quale. 'They won't last out whole for ever, Slippery Sam.'

'They'll last out as long as I want 'em to, I dare say,' said Sam. 'Have you come up for anything particular, Darby?'

'I have come to talk a bit, Shuck,' answered Darby, inwardly shrinking from his task, and so deferring for a minute the announcement. 'There seems no chance of this state of things coming to an end.'

'No, that there doesn't. You men are preventing that.'--'Us men!'

exclaimed Robert Darby in surprise. 'What do you mean?'

'I don't mean you; I don't mean the st.u.r.dy, honest fellows who hold out for their rights like men--I mean the other lot. If every operative in the kingdom had held out, to a man, the masters would have given in long ago--they must have done it; and you would all be back, working in triumph the nine hours per day. I spoke of those rats who sneak in, and take the work, to the detriment of the honest man.'

'At any rate, the rats are getting the best of it just now,' said Robert Darby.

'That they are,' said Mrs. Quale, exultingly, who would not lose an opportunity of putting in her word. She stood facing the men, her arms resting on the palings that divided the gardens. 'It isn't _their_ children that are dropping into their winding-sheets through want of food.'

'If I had my way, I'd hang every man who in this crisis is putting his hand to a stroke of work,' exclaimed Sam Shuck. 'Traitors! to turn and work for the masters after they had resorted to a lock-out! It was that lock-out floored us.'

'Of course it was,' a.s.sented Mrs. Quale, with marked complaisance. 'If the Union only had money coming in from the men, they'd hold out for ever. But the general lock-out stopped that.'

'Ugh!' growled Sam, with the addition of an ugly word.

'Well, Shuck, as things seem to be getting worse instead of better, and prospects look altogether so gloomy, I shall go back to work myself,'

resumed Darby, plucking up courage to say it.

'Chut,' said Shuck.

'Will you tell me what I _am_ to do? I'd rather turn a thousand miles the other way than I'd put my foot indoors at home, and see things as they are there. If a man can clam himself, he can't watch those belonging to him clam. Every farthing of allowance I had from the society last week was----'

'You had your share,' interrupted Sam, who never cared to contend about the amount received. 'Think of the thousands there is to divide it among. The subscriptions have come in very well as yet, but they be falling off now.'