Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles Part 97

Mrs. Buffle stood in what she called her "back'us," practically superintending a periodical wash. The day was hot, and the steam was hot, and, as Mrs. Buffle rubbed away, she began to think she should never be cool again.

"Missis," shrieked out a young voice from the precincts of the shop, "Ben Tyrrett's wife says will you let her have a gill o' vinegar? Be I to serve it?"

The words came from the small damsel who was had in to help on cleaning and washing days. Mrs. Buffle kept her hands still in the soapsuds, and projected her hot face over the tub to answer.

"Matty, tell Mary Ann Tyrrett as she promised faithful to bring me something off her score this week, but I've not seen the colour of it yet."

"She says as it's to put to his head," called back Matty, alluding to the present demand. "He's bad a-bed, and have fainted right off."

"Serve him right," responded Mrs. Buffle. "You may give her the vinegar, Matty. Tell her as it's a penny farthing. I heered he had been drinking again," she added to herself and the washing tub, "and laid hisself down in the wet road the night afore last, and was found there in the morning."

Later in the day, it happened that William Halliburton was pa.s.sing through Honey Fair, and met Charlotte East. She stopped him. "Have you heard, sir, that Tyrrett is dying?" she asked.

"Tyrrett dying!" repeated William in amazement. "Who says he is?"

"The doctor says it, I believe, sir. I must say he looks like it. Mary Ann sent for me, and I have been down to see him."

"Why, what can be the matter with him?" asked William. "He was at work the day before yesterday!"

"He was at work, sir, but he could not speak, they tell me, for that illness that has been hanging about him so long, and had settled on his chest. That night, after leaving work, instead of going home and getting a basin of gruel, or something of that sort, he went to the Horned Ram, and drank there till he couldn't keep upright."

"With his chest in that state!"

"And that was not the worst," resumed Charlotte. "It had been a wet day, if you remember, sir, and he somehow strayed into Oxlip Lane, and fell down, and lay there till morning. What with drink, and what with exposure to the wet, his chest grew dangerously inflamed, and now the doctor says he has not many hours to live."

"I am sorry to hear it," cried William. "Is he sensible?"

"Too sensible, sir, in one sense," replied Charlotte. "His remorse is dreadful. He is saying that if he had not misspent his life, he might have died a good man, instead of a bad one."

William pa.s.sed on, much concerned at the news. His way led him past Ben Tyrrett's lodgings, and he turned in. Mary Ann was sobbing and wailing, in the midst of as many curious and condoling neighbours as the kitchen would contain. All were in full gossip--as might be expected. Mrs. Cross had taken home the three little children, by way of keeping the place quiet; and the sick man was lying in the room above, surrounded by several of his fellow-workmen, who had heard of his critical state.

Some of the women sidled off when William entered, rather ashamed of being caught chattering vehemently. It was remarkable the deference that was paid him, and from no a.s.sumption of his own--indeed, the absence of a.s.sumption may have partially accounted for it. But, though ever courteous and pleasant with them all, he was a thorough gentleman: and the working cla.s.ses are keen to distinguish this.

"Why, Mrs. Tyrrett, this is sad news!" he said. "Is your husband so ill?"

"Oh, he must die, he must die, sir!" she answered in a frantic tone.

Uncomfortably as they had lived together, the man was still her husband, and there is no doubt she was feeling the present crisis; was shrinking with dread from the future. A widow with three young children, and the workhouse for an asylum! It was the only prospect before her.

"He must die, anyways; but he might have lasted a few hours longer, if I could have got what the doctor ordered."

William did not understand.

"It was a blister and some physic, sir," explained one of the women.

"The doctor wrote it on a paper, and said it was to be took to the nearest druggist's. But when they got it there, Darwin said he couldn't trust the Tyrretts, and they must send the money if they wanted the things."

"It was not Mr. Parry, then, who was called in?"

"It were a strange doctor, sir, as was fetched. There was Tyrrett's last bout of illness owing for to Parry, and so they didn't like to send for him. As to them druggists, they be some of 'em a cross-grained set, unless you goes with the money in your hand."

William asked to see the prescription. It was produced, and he read its contents--he was as capable of doing so and of understanding it as the best doctor in Helstonleigh. He tore a leaf from his pocket-book, wrote a few words in pencil, folded it with the prescription, and desired one of the women to take it to the chemist's again. He then went up to the sick room.

Tyrrett was lying on a flock mattress, on an ugly brown bedstead, the four posts upright and undraped. A blanket and a checked blue cotton quilt covered him. His breathing was terribly laboured, his face painfully anxious. William approached him, bending his head, to avoid contact with the ceiling.

"I'm a-going, sir," cried the man, in tones as anxious as his face. "I'm a-going at last."

"I hope not," said William. "I hope you will get better. You are to have a blister on your chest, and----"

"No he ain't, sir," interrupted one of the men. "Darwin won't send it."

"Oh yes, he will, if he is properly asked. They have gone again to him.

Are you in much pain, Tyrrett?"

"I'm in an agony of pain here, sir," pointing to his chest. "But that ain't nothing to my pain of mind. Oh, Mr. Halliburton, you're good, sir; you haven't nothing to reproach yourself with; can't you do nothing for me? I'm going into the sight of my Maker, and He's angry with me!"

In truth, William knew not what to answer. Tyrrett's voice was as a wail of anguish; his hands were stretched out beseechingly.

"Charlotte East were here just now, and she told me to go to Christ--that He was merciful and forgiving. But how am I to go to Him?

If I try, sir, I can't, for there's my past life rising up before me. I have been a bad man: I have never once in all my life tried to please G.o.d."

The words echoed through the stillness of the room; echoed with a sound that was terribly awful. _Never once to have tried to please G.o.d!_ Throughout a whole life, and throughout all its blessings!

"I have never thought of G.o.d," he continued to reiterate. "I have never cared for Him, or tried to please Him, or done the least thing for Him.

And now I'm going to face His wrath, and I can't help myself!"

"You may be spared yet," said William; "you may indeed. And your future life must atone for the past."

"I shan't be spared, sir; I feel that the world's all up with me," was the rejoinder. "I'm going fast, and there's n.o.body to give me a word of comfort! Can't _you_, sir? I'm going away, and G.o.d's angry with me!"

William leaned over him. "I can only say as Charlotte East did," he whispered. "Try and find your Saviour. There is mercy with Him at the eleventh hour."

"I have not the time to find Him," breathed forth Tyrrett, in agony. "I might find Him if I had time given me; but I have not got it."

William, shrinking in his youth and inexperience from arguing upon topics so momentous, was not equal to the emergency. Who was? He did what he could; and that was to despatch a message for a clergyman, who answered the summons with speed.

The blister also came, and the medicine that had been prescribed.

William went home, hoping all might prove as a healing balm to the sick man.

A fallacious hope. Tyrrett died the following morning. When William went round early on his mission of inquiry, he found him dead. Some of the men, whom he had seen with Tyrrett the previous night, were a.s.sembled in the kitchen.

"He is but just gone, sir," they said, "The women be up with him now.

They have took his wife round screeching to her mother's. He died with that there blister on his chest."

"Did he die peacefully?" was William's question.

"Awful hard, sir, toward the last; moaning, and calling, and clenching his hands in mortal pain. His sister, she come round--she's a hard one, is that Liza Tyrrett--and she set on at the wife, saying it was her fault that he'd took to go out drinking. That there parson couldn't do nothing with him," concluded the speaker, lowering his voice.

William's breath stood still. "No!"

The man shook his head. "Tyrrett weren't in a frame o' mind for it, sir.

He kep' crying out as he had led a bad life, and never thought of G.o.d--and them was his last words. It ain't happy, sir, to die like that. It have quite cowed down us as was with him: one gets thinking, sir, what sort of a place it may be, t'other side, where he's gone to."