The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols Part 33

'Which of these things is beautiful because it is praised, or spoiled by being blamed? Is such a thing as an emerald made worse than it was if it is not praised? or gold, ivory, purple, a lyre, a little knife, a flower, a shrub?'

John Douglas knew nothing of the opinion in which he was held by his neighbours; and, if he had known, he would not have heeded one jot.

Now it was in the waning of the year, when the great fuchsia-tree covering the front of Braeside Cottage had dropped all its dark-red bells, and when the rowan-trees along the road were yellowing, though ma.s.ses of the scarlet berries still remained to delight the eye, that the news of the breaking of the City of Glasgow Bank came to these parts. There were those who knew that the residue of Captain Douglas's small fortune was invested in that flourishing concern, which had been paying dividends of 10 and 11 per cent; and they also suspected that he would know nothing of the terrible crash, for he seldom read newspapers. But not one of them would go and take the bad news to him.

If he had not been a very sociable man, it was not through pride. He had done many generous actions. The children were fond of him. They waited for himself to find out the misfortune that had overtaken him.

Douglas's first intimation was contained in a letter sent him by a solicitor in Greenock. The vague reference to what had happened he did not understand at first; but he called his old housekeeper and bade her to bring him the newspapers of the last few days; and then he sat down, quietly and composedly, and read the story of his ruin.

First came rumours about a certain bank. Then the definite statement that the City of Glasgow Bank had suspended payment. Then guesses at the deficit, beginning with 3,000,000 pounds, along with indignant comments about the manner in which the business of the bank had been conducted, and commiseration for the shareholders, the large majority of whom, it was antic.i.p.ated, would have to surrender every farthing of which they were possessed.

Douglas read on and read through; and was neither shocked nor bewildered. He even remembered something about an official communication which he had opened a day or two before, and hastily dropped in order to fling a book at a strange cat that had come into the garden, and was cowering in wait for a chaffinch. He scarcely knew enough of business to understand who the creditors were; but he could perceive that if they had even 2,000,000 pounds owing to them, the first calls would far more than sweep away his little property and leave him a beggar. Very well. He looked at the newspapers again; there was nothing in these crumpled sheets that could hurt him. A branch of a tree blown down by the wind on the top of his head could hurt him; or a chimney-pot falling from a roof; or a horse lifting its leg and kicking him; but a newspaper report he could thrust into the fire. He looked out of the window; the broad waters of the Firth were all ruffled into a dark blue by the morning breeze, and the sunlight shone along the yellow sh.o.r.es of Innellan; and far in the south Arran's jagged peaks were a clear blue among the silvery clouds: these things could not be altered by anything happening in Glasgow. He looked at his hands; there were ten fingers there that had not done much work in the world; surely it was time they should try? And surely they could win for him bread and milk, or at the worst bread and water? In the meantime the thought of the cat had recalled to him that he had not as yet scattered crumbs for the birds that morning. That was the first thing to be done; and so he went and did it.

There can be no doubt that this contemptuous indifference was largely the result of the teachings of Marcus Aurelius, which this solitary man had drank in until they seemed to have got absorbed into his very blood. But there was something more; there was a vein of personal pride of a very distinct kind. He would not admit to himself that any number of bank-directors in Glasgow or elsewhere had the power to harm him. Moreover, when, after waiting a considerable time to see how things would go, he went to Greenock to consult the solicitor who had written to him, and to whom he was known, this stubborn pride and independence came out more strongly than ever.

'The question is,' said he, in his slow, emphatic way, 'do I owe the money, or do I not owe the money?'

'No doubt of it, Captain Douglas,' the other remonstrated; 'you are morally as well as legally bound. But the liquidators are human beings; they do not wish to press for the uttermost farthing; and well they know that this first call of 500 pounds on every 100 pounds of stock will ruin many and many a poor creature, and turn him or her out into the world. There is even a talk of a Relief Fund; I believe the Lord Provost of Glasgow and other gentlemen----'

John Douglas's face flushed quickly.

'I wish not to hear of such things,' he said, with a touch of resentment. Then he added more slowly, 'I will take money from no man.

I will earn my own living; if I cannot do that, what t.i.tle have I to live at all? But I will take this obligation from you yourself, Mr.

Campbell; if you will lend me five pounds, which I will repay to you.

And I would like to take with me a few portraits, of my family and forbears, that can be of no use to any one; and one or two books likewise; then the rest can go to the liquidators, to roup or scatter to the winds as they see fit. I am a man of few words; I will repay you the money, if my health remains to me; and it will be enough to carry me to London and start me there.'

'To London!' said the tall fair man in spectacles.

'It is the great labour market of the world; it is natural I should go there. Besides, there is another thing,' he added, with a trifle of embarra.s.sment. 'Our family were well known in these parts in former years, and respected. I know not what I may have to turn my hand to.

I will begin where I can be alone.'

He was a wilful man, and he had his way. He got the five pounds and the few pictures, and the three books named above; and when he entered the third-cla.s.s carriage that was to bear him through the night to London, it was without fear. He had ten fingers, and he could live on a crust of bread and a drink of clear water. What was the hardship?

Had not the great Emperor himself counted it among the blessings of his life--one of the things for which he was ever to be grateful--that he had been taught to work with his own hands?

CHAPTER II.

ALONE IN LONDON.

This, then, was the man who now found himself in the sickly daylight of the great city, walking along the wide thoroughfare on this Sunday morning. The grim and grizzled face was somewhat tired looking after the long and wakeful journey, and the dark eyes were fatigued and melancholy; but his step was light and firm. And it was well that it was so. He had been in other large towns before, but not in this one; and as he had determined to make for London Bridge, to get lodgings near there,--seeing that that looked on the map to be about the centre of the commercial district,--he had traced out the safest route, by Pentonville Road and City Road down to the Bank. As he trudged and trudged, however, and no Bank made its appearance, he gradually woke himself out of that dreamy and contemplative mood. He began to make inquiries about distance and so forth. The driver of a four-wheeled cab, his purple bemuddled face lighting up with a dull sort of humour, gave him a facetious invitation to get inside the tumble-down old vehicle. The conductors of one or two pa.s.sing omnibuses hailed him; and he gathered from their 'Benk! Benk!' that at least he was in the right direction. But he was not going to spend money causelessly; so he trudged on.

At length, when he got to the wide square fronting the Royal Exchange, the solitariness of the place struck him with a strange chill. All the great buildings closed and deserted; not a habitable-looking house anywhere. But there were numbers of people pa.s.sing along the thoroughfares--mostly groups of young men of about two-and-twenty, tallow-faced, round-shouldered, wearing over-coats and billyc.o.c.k hats, and smoking short pipes; and there were crowded omnibuses coming rolling along (what a difference was this roar and rabble from the quiet of the Sabbath morning far away there on the northern coast!), and these people must live somewhere. So again he contentedly trudged on; down King William Street; over the bridge spanning the misty river; along the Borough Road; until he arrived at Union Street. He had so far failed in his quest for lodgings; but in Union Street he espied a coffee-house; and as he had become both tired and hungry, he entered the dingy little place, sat down, and ordered a cup of coffee and a roll and b.u.t.ter.

It was a kind of shelter, after all; though everything was dreadfully dirty, and there was a heavy odour in the place. The waiter brought him a greasy newspaper; but he put it aside. Then came his breakfast.

The b.u.t.ter was not touchable; but he reflected that it was a luxury which he, living on another man's money, had had no right to order.

When he had paid back the 5 pounds, he would consider the question of b.u.t.ter--though not b.u.t.ter such as this. He ate the dry roll, and managed to swallow the strangely-tasting coffee; then he fell asleep; and was eventually wakened by the ringing of church bells.

So, having paid his shot, he wandered out again into the pale and misty sunlight; and as he had been struck by the appearance of St. Saviour's in crossing the bridge, he strolled back thither, and entered the church, and sat down in a pew. He remained through the earlier part of the service; but when the sermon began, he left. The streets were now quite busy, though the shops were closed. It was not like Sunday on the sh.o.r.es of the Firth of Clyde.

'In any case,' he was thinking, 'it can be no great breaking of the Sabbath that a man should provide himself with a lodging to cover his head.'

Eventually, after much patient wandering and inquiring, he found a house in the Southwark-bridge Road--he was attracted to it by the presence of one or two flower-boxes on the window-sills--where he was offered a small, fairly neat and clean bedroom for the sum of three-and-sixpence per week. Thereupon the bargain was closed; and John Douglas found himself established at least with headquarters, from whence he could issue to fight his battle with the great forces of London.

Well, day after day--nay, week after week--pa.s.sed, and all his efforts to obtain employment, had resulted in nothing. It was not through any shame-facedness or fastidiousness or false pride. He was ready to do anything. Many people thought this man a maniac, who calmly walked in and offered, in his slow, methodic Scotch speech, to copy letters for them, or do anything that could be pointed out to him, confessing, on interrogation, that he had been in no employment before, and could therefore produce no testimonials as to character or fitness. On his own showing, there was nothing special he could do; though he had bought a little treatise on book-keeping, and occasionally studied it in the evenings. As he walked about the streets and observed how all the people around him seemed to be fully occupied, and busy and contented, it occurred to him as strange that they should all have fallen into these grooves so naturally. He looked at the clerk giving out tickets at a railway station, and thought, he could do that also.

Perhaps the business of the young men who every morning were to be seen inside the big windows of the drapers' shops in the Borough Road, decorating the place with ribbons and gowns, demanded a special knowledge that he had not acquired; but it could not be difficult, for example, to be a policeman? They seemed happy enough; good-natured; sometimes even with a word of chaff for the costermonger whom they ordered to move on, him and his barrow.

These not very anxious experiments, and quite idle speculations about the uses of various forms of labour, might have gone on indefinitely but for the very certain fact that Douglas's small stock of money was being slowly but surely exhausted. Slowly, it is true; for he had wholly given up tobacco; his dinner was a roll or a biscuit eaten in the street; and as his landlady charged him sixpence for each scuttleful of coals, he preferred to keep himself warm on these now bitterly cold evenings by tramping about outside and looking at the shops. That good woman, by the way, was sorely disappointed in this new lodger, out of whom she could make no indirect profit; and she had a waspish tongue. John Douglas regarded her taunts--almost amounting to open insult--with a patient and mild curiosity. It was a little bit of psychological study, and more interesting than book-keeping by double entry. Meantime, things were becoming very serious; with all his penuriousness, he had arrived at his last half-sovereign.

CHAPTER III.

A FELLOW-SUFFERER.

One night, a few minutes after nine, Douglas was returning home along one of the badly-lit little thoroughfares in the Borough, when he saw the figure of a woman slowly subside on to the pavement in front of him. She did not fall; she trembled on to her knees as it were, and then lay p.r.o.ne--near a doorstep. Well, he had grown familiar with the sights of London streets; but even if the woman were drunk, as he imagined, he would lift her up, until some policeman came along.

He went forward. It was not a woman, but a young girl of about seventeen or so, who did not seem a drunken person.

'My la.s.s, what is the matter with ye?' he said, kneeling down to get hold of her.

'Oh, I am so ill--I am so ill!' the girl moaned, apparently to herself.

He tried to raise her. She was quite white, and almost insensible.

Then she seemed to come to; she struggled up a bit, and sought to support herself by the handle of the door.

'I shall be all right,' she gasped. 'I am quite well. Don't tell them. I am quite well--it was my knees that gave way----'

'Where do ye live, my la.s.s?' said he, taking hold of her arm to support her; for he thought she was going to sink to the ground again.

'Number twelve.'

'In this street?'

She did not answer,

'Come, I will help ye home, then.'

'No, no!' she said, in the same gasping way; 'I will sit down here a few minutes. I shall be all right. I--I am quite well----'

'Ye are not going to sit down on a doorstep on a night like this,' he said, severely. 'Come, pull yourself together, my la.s.s. If it is number twelve, you have only a few yards.'

He half-dragged and half-carried her along. He knocked loudly at the door. There came to it a tall, black-a-vised woman, who, the moment she saw the girl, cried out--

'Oh, Mary Ann, are you took bad again?'

'No--don't tell them,' the girl said, as she staggered into the narrow pa.s.sage. 'They'll turn me off. They said so the last time. I shall be all right. But my head--is so bad.'