Put Yourself in His Place Part 2

The gaping wound that let out that precious life, her eye never ceased to see it, nor her own heart to bleed with it, while she lived.

She was gently dragged away, and supported down to another room. Doctor Amboyne came and did what he could for her; and that was--nothing.

At this time she seemed stupefied. But when Guy came beaming into the room to tell her he had got her the money, a terrible scene occurred.

The bereaved wife uttered a miserable scream at sight of him, and swooned away directly.

The maids gathered round her, laid her down, and cut her stays, and told Guy the terrible tidings, in broken whispers, over her insensible body.

He rose to his feet horrified. He began to gasp and sob. And he yearned to say something to comfort her. At that moment his house, his heart, and all he had, were hers.

But, as soon as she came to herself, and caught sight of him, she screamed out, "Oh, the sight of him! the sight of him!" and swooned away again.

Then the women pushed him out of the room, and he went away with uneven steps, and sick at heart.

He shut himself up in Raby Hall, and felt very sad and remorseful.

He directed his solicitor to render Mrs. Little every a.s.sistance, and supply her with funds. But these good offices were respectfully declined by Mr. Joseph Little, the brother of the deceased, who had come from Birmingham to conduct the funeral and settle other matters.

Mr. Joseph Little was known to be a small master-cutler, who had risen from a workman, and even now put blades and handles together with his own hands, at odd times, though he had long ceased to forge or grind.

Mr. Raby drew in haughtily at this interference.

It soon transpired that Mr. James Little had died hopelessly insolvent, and the L1900 would really have been ingulfed.

Raby waited for this fact to sink into his sister's mind; and then one day nature tugged so at his heart-strings, that he dashed off a warm letter beginning--"My poor Edith, let bygones be bygones," and inviting her and her boy to live with him at Raby Hall.

The heart-broken widow sent back a reply, in a handwriting scarcely recognizable as hers. Instead of her usual precise and delicate hand, the letters were large, tremulous, and straggling, and the lines slanted downward.

"Write to me, speak to me, no more. For pity's sake let me forget there is a man in the world who is my brother and his murderer.

"EDITH."

Guy opened this letter with a hopeful face, and turned pale as ashes at the contents.

But his conscience was clear, and his spirit high. "Unjust idiot!" he muttered, and locked her letter up in his desk.

Next morning he received a letter from Joseph Little, in a clear, stiff, perpendicular writing:

"SIR,--I find my sister-in-law wrote you, yesterday, a harsh letter, which I do not approve; and have told her as much. Deceased's affairs were irretrievable, and I blame no other man for his rash act, which may G.o.d forgive! As to your kind and generous invitation, it deserves her grat.i.tude; but Mrs. Little and myself have mingled our tears together over my poor brother's grave, and now we do not care to part. Before your esteemed favor came to hand, it had been settled she should leave this sad neighborhood and keep my house at Birmingham, where she will meet with due respect. I am only a small tradesman; but I can pay my debts, and keep the pot boiling. Will teach the boy some good trade, and make him a useful member of society, if I am spared.

"I am, sir, yours respectfully,

"JOSEPH LITTLE."

"Sir,--I beg to acknowledge, with thanks, your respectable letter.

"As all direct communication between Mrs. James Little and myself is at an end, oblige me with your address in Birmingham, that I may remit to you, half-yearly, as her agent, the small sum that has escaped bricks and mortar.

"When her son comes of age, she will probably forgive me for declining to defraud him of his patrimony.

"But it will be too late; for I shall never forgive her, alive or dead.

"I am, sir, your obedient servant,

"GUY RABY."

When he had posted this letter he turned Edith's picture to the wall, and wrote on the canvas--

"GONE INTO TRADE."

He sent for his attorney, made a new will, and bequeathed his land, houses, goods, and chattels, to Dissolute d.i.c.k and his heirs forever.

CHAPTER III.

The sorrowful widow was so fond of her little Henry, and the uncertainty of life was so burnt into her now, that she could hardly bear him out of her sight. Yet her love was of the true maternal stamp; not childish and self-indulgent. She kept him from school, for fear he should be brought home dead to her; but she gave her own mind with zeal to educate him.

Nor was she unqualified. If she had less learning than school-masters, she knew better how to communicate what she did know to a budding mind.

She taught him to read fluently, and to write beautifully; and she coaxed him, as only a woman can, over the dry elements of music and arithmetic. She also taught him dancing and deportment, and to sew on a b.u.t.ton. He was a quick boy at nearly everything, but, when he was fourteen, his true genius went ahead of his mere talents; he showed a heaven-born gift for--carving in wood. This pleased Joseph Little hugely, and he fostered it judiciously.

The boy worked, and thought, and in time arrived at such delicacies of execution, he became discontented with the humdrum tools then current.

"Then learn to make your own, boy," cried Joseph Little, joyfully; and so initiated him into the whole mystery of hardening, forging, grinding, handle-making, and cutlery: and Henry, young and enthusiastic, took his turn at them all in right down earnest.

At twenty, he had sold many a piece of delicate carving, and could make graving-tools incomparably superior to any he could buy; and, for his age, was an accomplished mechanic.

Joseph Little went the way of all flesh.

They mourned and missed him; and, at Henry's earnest request, his mother disposed of the plant, and went with him to London.

Then the battle of life began. He was a long time out of employment, and they both lived on his mother's little fortune.

But Henry was never idle. He set up a little forge hard by, and worked at it by day, and at night he would often sit carving, while his mother read to him, and said he, "Mother, I'll never rest till I can carve the bloom upon a plum."

Not to dwell on the process, the final result was this. He rose at last to eminence as a carver: but as an inventor and forger of carving tools he had no rival in England.

Having with great labor, patience, and skill, completed a masterpiece of carving (there were plums with the bloom on, and other incredibles), and also a set of carving-tools equally exquisite in their way, he got a popular tradesman to exhibit both the work and the tools in his window, on a huge silver salver.

The thing made a good deal of noise in the trade, and drew many spectators to the shop window.

One day Mr. Cheetham, a master-cutler, stood in admiration before the tools, and saw his way to coin the workman.