Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles Part 57

"It is none of mine, to my knowledge," remarked Mr. Ashley.

"What shilling is that on the master's desk?" repeated Samuel Lynn to William when he returned into his own room, where William was.

"I put a shilling on the desk this morning," replied William. "I found it in the waste-paper basket."

"Thee go in, then, and tell the master."

William did so. "The shilling rolled out of the waste-paper basket, sir," said he, entering the counting-house and approaching Mr. Ashley.

Mr. Ashley was remarkably exact in his accounts. He had missed no shilling, and he did not think it was his. "What should bring a shilling in the waste-paper basket?" he asked. "It may have rolled out of your own pocket."

William could have smiled at the remark. A shilling out of _his_ pocket!

"Oh, no, sir, it did not."

Mr. Ashley sat looking earnestly at William--as the latter fancied. In reality he was buried deep in his own thoughts. But William felt uncomfortable under the survey, and his face flushed to a glow. Why should he feel uncomfortable? What should cause the flush?

This. Since Janey's death, some months ago now, their circ.u.mstances had been more straitened than ever; of course, there had been expenses attending it, and Mrs. Halliburton was paying them off weekly. Bread and potatoes, and a little milk, would often be their food. On the previous night Jane had a sick headache. Some tea would have been acceptable, but she had neither tea nor money in the house; and she was firm in her resolution not to purchase on trust. On this morning early, when William rose, he found his mother down before him, at her work as usual. Her head felt better, she said; it might get quite well if she had only some tea; but she had not, and--there was an end of it. William went out, ardently wishing (in the vague profitless manner that he might have wished for Aladdin's lamp) that he had only a shilling to procure some for her. When, half an hour after, this shilling rolled out of the waste-paper basket, as he was shaking it in Mr. Ashley's counting-house, a strong temptation--not to take it, but to wish that he might take it, that it was not wrong to take it--rushed over him. He put it down on the desk and turned from it--turned from the temptation, for the shilling seemed to scorch his fingers. The remembrance of this wish--it sounded to him like a dishonest one--had brought the vivid colour to his face, under what he thought was Mr. Ashley's scrutiny. That gentleman observed it.

"What are you turning red for?"

This crowned all. William's face changed to scarlet.

Mr. Ashley was surprised. He came to the conclusion that some mystery must be connected with the shilling--something wrong. He determined to fathom it. "Why do you look confused?" he resumed.

"It was only at my own thoughts, sir."

"What are they? Let me hear them."

William hesitated. "I would rather not tell them, sir."

"But I would rather you did." Mr. Ashley spoke quietly, as usual; but there lay command in the quietest tone of Mr. Ashley's.

Implicit obedience had been enjoined upon the Halliburtons from their earliest childhood. In that manufactory Mr. Ashley was William's _master_, and he believed he had no resource but to comply with his desire. William was of a remarkably ingenuous nature; and if he had to impart a thing, he did not do it by halves, although it might tell against himself.

"When I found that shilling this morning, sir, the thought came over me to wish it was mine--to wish that I might take it without doing ill. The thought did not come over me _to take it_," he added, raising his truthful eyes to Mr. Ashley's, "only to wish that it was not wrong to do so. When you looked at me so earnestly, sir, I fancied you could see what my thoughts had been. And they were not honourable thoughts."

"Did you ever take money that was not yours?" asked Mr. Ashley, after a pause.

William looked surprised. "No, sir, never."

Mr. Ashley paused again. "I have known children help themselves to halfpence and pence, and think it little crime."

The boy shook his head. "We have been taught better than that, sir. And, besides the crime, money taken in that way would bring us no good, only trouble. It could not prosper."

"Tell me why you think that."

"My mother has always taught us that a bad action can never prosper in the end."

"I suppose you coveted the shilling for marbles; or for sweetmeats?"

"Oh no, sir. It was not for myself that I wished it."

"Then for whom? For what?"

This caused William's face to flush again. Mr. Ashley questioned till he drew from him the particulars--how that he had wished to buy some tea, and why he had wished it.

"I have heard," remarked Mr. Ashley, after listening, "that you have many privations to put up with."

"It is true, sir. But we don't so much care for them if we only _can_ put up with them. My mother says she knows better days will be in store for us, if we only bear on patiently. I am sure we boys ought to do so, if she can. It is worse for her than for us."

There ensued another searching question from Mr. Ashley. "Have you ever, when alone in the egg-house, amidst its thousands of eggs, been tempted to pocket a few to carry home?"

For one moment William suffered a flash of resentment to cross his countenance. The next his eyes filled with tears. He felt deeply hurt.

"No, sir, I have not. I hope you do not fear that I am capable of it?"

"No, I do not," said Mr. Ashley. "Your father was a clergyman, I think I have heard?"

"He was intended for a clergyman, sir, but he did not get to the University. His father was a clergyman--a rector in Devonshire, and my mother's father was a clergyman in London. My uncle Francis is also a clergyman, but only a curate. We are gentlepeople, though we are poor.

We would not take eggs or anything else."

Mr. Ashley suppressed a smile. "I conclude that you and your brothers live in hope some time of regaining your position in life?"

"Yes, sir. I think it is that hope that makes us put up with hard things so well."

"What do you think of being?"

William's countenance fell. "There is not so much chance of my getting on, sir, as there is for my brothers. Frank and Gar are hopeful enough; but I don't look forward to anything good for me. My mother says if I only help her I shall be doing my duty."

"Your sister died in a decline," remarked Mr. Ashley. "These home privations must have told upon her."

William's face brightened. "She had everything she wanted, sir; everything, even to port wine. Mrs. Reece and Dobbs took a liking to her when they first came, and they never let her want for anything. Mamma says that Jane's wants having been supplied in so extraordinary a manner, ought to teach us how certainly G.o.d is looking over us and taking care of us--that all things, when they come to be absolutely needed, will no doubt be supplied to us, as they were to her."

"What a perfect trust in G.o.d that boy seems to have!" mused Mr. Ashley, when he dismissed William. "Mrs. Halliburton must be a mother in a thousand. And he will make a man in a thousand, unless I am mistaken.

Truthful, open, candid--_I_ don't know a boy like him!"

About five minutes before the great bell was rung at one o'clock, William was called into the counting-house. "I have been casting up my cash and find I am a shilling short," observed Mr. Ashley, "therefore the shilling that you found is no doubt the missing one. I shall give it to you," he continued: "a reward for telling me the straightforward truth when I questioned you."

William took the shilling--as he supposed. "Here are two!" he exclaimed, in his surprise.

"You cannot buy much tea with one; and that is what you were thinking of. Would you like to be apprenticed to me?" Mr. Ashley resumed, drowning the boy's thanks.

The question took William by storm: he was at a loss what to answer. He would have been equally at a loss had he been accorded a whole week to deliberate upon it. He looked foolish, and said he could not tell.

"Would you like the business?" pursued Mr. Ashley.

"I like the business very well, sir, now I'm used to it. But I could not hope ever to get on to be a master."

"There's no knowing what you may get on to be, if you are steady and persevering. Masters don't begin at the top of the tree; they begin at the bottom and work up to it. At least, that is the case with a great many. In becoming an apprentice you would occupy a better position in the manufactory than you do now."