Johnny Ludlow First Series Part 70

"I know I am, sir. But there's no help for it."

"It is a pity."

"Why it should begin to tell upon me so early I don't know. There are numbers of other men, who work as long and as hard as I do, and are seemingly none the worse for it."

"The time will come though when they will be, I presume."

"As surely as that sun is shining in the sky."

"Possibly you have been more anxious than they, Marks."

"It may be so. My conscience has always been in my work, to do it efficiently. I fear, too, I am rather sensitively organized as to nerves and brain. Upon those who are so, I fancy work tells sooner than on others."

The Squire put his arm within Marks's. "You must have a bit of a struggle to get along, too, on your small salary."

"True: and it all helps. Work and struggle together are not the most desirable combination. But for being obliged to increase my means by some stratagem or other, I should not have taken on the additional evening's work."

"How long are you at it, now, of an evening?"

"Usually about two hours. On Sat.u.r.days and at Christmas-time longer."

"And I suppose you must continue this night-work?"

"Yes. I get fifty pounds a year for it. And I a.s.sure you I should not know how to spare one pound of the fifty. No one knows the expenses of children, except those who have to look at every shilling before it can be spent."

There was a pause. Mr. Marks stooped, plucked a cowslip and held it to his lips.

"Don't you think, Marks," resumed the Squire, in a confidential, friendly tone, "that you were just a little imprudent to marry?"

"No, I do not think I was," he replied slowly, as if considering the question. "I did not marry very early: I was eight-and-twenty; and I had got together the wherewithal to furnish a house, and something in hand besides. The question was mooted among us at Brown's the other day--whether it was wiser, or not, for young clerks to marry. There is a great deal to be urged both ways--against marrying and against remaining single."

"What can you urge against remaining single?"

"A very great deal, sir. I feel sure, Mr. Todhetley, that you can form no idea of the miserable temptations that beset a young fellow in London. Quite half the London clerks, perhaps more, have no home to go to when their day is over; I mean no parent's home. A solitary room and no one to bear them company in it; that's all they have; perhaps, in addition, a crabbed landlady. Can you blame them very much if they go out and escape this solitude?--they are at the age, you know, when enjoyment is most keen; the thirst for it well-nigh irrepressible----"

"And then they go off to those disreputable singing places!" exploded the Squire, not allowing him to finish.

"Singing places, yes; and other places. Theatres, concerts, supper-rooms--oh, I cannot tell you a t.i.the of the temptation that meets them at every turn and corner. Many and many a poor young fellow, well-intentioned in the main, has been ruined both in pocket and in health by these snares; led into them at first by dangerous companions."

"Surely all do not get led away."

"Not all. Some strive on manfully, remembering early precepts and taking G.o.d for their guide, and so escape. But it is not the greater portion who do this. Some marry early, and secure themselves a home. Which is best?--I put the question only in a worldly point of view. To commit the imprudence of marrying, and so bring on themselves and wives intolerable perplexity and care: or to waste their substance in riotous living!"

"I'll be shot if I know!" cried the Squire, taking off his hat to rub his puzzled head. "It's a sad thing for poor little children to be pinched, and for men like you to be obliged to work yourselves to shatters to keep them. But as to those others, I'd give 'em all a night at the treadmill. Johnny! Johnny Ludlow!"

"Yes, sir."

"You may be thankful that _you_ don't live in London."

I had been thinking to myself that I was thankful not to be one of those poor young clerks to have no home to go to when work was over. Some fellows would rather tramp up and down the streets, than sit alone in a solitary room; and the streets, according to Marks, teemed with temptations. He resumed.

"In my case I judged it the reverse of imprudence to marry, for my wife expected a fairly good fortune. She was an only child, and her father had realized enough to live quietly; say three or four hundred a year.

Mr. Stockleigh had been a member of the Stock Exchange, but his health failed and he retired. Neither I nor his daughter ever doubted--no, nor did he himself--that this money must come to us in time."

"And won't it?" cried the Squire.

Marks shook his head. "I fear not. A designing servant, that they had, got over him after his daughter left--he was weak in health and weak in mind--and he married her. Caroline--my wife--resented it naturally; there was some recrimination on either side, and since then they have closed the door against her and me. So you see, with no prospect before us, there's nothing for me but to work the harder," he concluded, with a kind of plucked-up cheerfulness.

"But, to do that, you should get up your health and strength, Marks. You must, you know. What would you do if you broke down?"

"Hush!" came the involuntary and almost affrighted answer. "Don't remind me of it, sir. Sometimes I dream of it, and cannot bear to awaken."

We had got to like Marks very much only in those few days. He was a gentleman in mind and manners and a pleasant one into the bargain, though he did pa.s.s his days adding up figures and was kept down by poverty. The Squire meant to keep him for a month: two months if he would stay.

On the following morning, Tuesday, during breakfast-time, a letter came for him by the post--the first he had had. He had told his wife she need not write to him, wanting to have all the time for idle enjoyment: not to spend it in answering letters.

"From home, James?" asked Mrs. Todhetley.

"No," said he, smiling. "It is only a reminder that I am due to-morrow at the house."

"What house?" cried the Squire.

"Our house, sir. Brown and Co.'s."

The Squire put down his b.u.t.tered roll--for Molly had graciously sent in hot rolls that morning--and stared at the speaker.

"What on earth are you talking of?" he cried. "You don't mean to say you are thinking of going back?"

"Indeed I am--unfortunately. I must get up to London to-night."

"Why, bless my heart," cried the Squire, getting up and standing a bit, "you've not been here a week!"

"It is all the leave I could get, Mr. Todhetley: a week. I thought you understood that."

"You can't go away till you are cured," roared the Squire. "Why didn't you go back the day you came? Don't talk nonsense, Marks."

"Indeed I should like to stay longer," he earnestly said. "I wish I could. Don't you see, Mr. Todhetley, that it does not lie with me?"

"Do you dare to look me in the face, Marks, and tell me this one week's rest has cured you? What on earth!--are you turning silly?"

"It has done me a great, great deal of good----"

"It has not, Marks. It can't have done it; not real good," came the Squire's interruption. "One would think you were a child."

"It was with difficulty I obtained this one week's leave," he explained.

"I am really required in the office; my absence I know causes trouble.

This holiday has done so much for me that I shall go back with a good heart."