The Pupil of Aurelius

________________________________________________
Title:     The Pupil of Aurelius
Author: William Black [More Titles by Black]

CHAPTER I.

A BLOW FACED.

On a Sunday morning in the early part of November 1878 a stranger arrived at Euston Square, and passed from the gloom of the station into the brighter air of the London streets, there pausing for a second or two to look around him. He was a man of about fifty, short, thin, wiry, square-shouldered; his features firm even to sternness, and hardened by exposure to wind and weather; his hair gray; his beard also gray and clipped short. The harshness of his face, however, was in a measure tempered by the look of his eyes; these were calm and contemplative, perhaps even with a shade of melancholy in them. For the rest, he was well and warmly clad in home-spun cloth; and he carried with him a small hand-bag, which appeared to be his only luggage.

He hesitated only for a moment. As he turned off to the left he met two labourers coming along.

'This is the way to London Bridge, is it not?' he asked, slowly, and with a strong northern accent.

'Yes, sir,' said one of them; and then, as he looked after the departing stranger, he took the pipe from his mouth and grinned, and said to his companion,

'Scottie means to walk it.'

The new-comer's next encounter was less satisfactory. A drunken-faced woman jumped up from a door-step and begged for alms. He had not seen her. Instinctively his hand went to his pocket. Then he glanced at her.

'No!' he said, with unnecessary severity, and passed on.

But instantly the woman was transformed into a cursing and swearing virago. She followed him, making the little thoroughfare resound with her shrill abuse. Most people would, in such circumstances, have looked out for a policeman, or tried to get away somewhere, but this man turned round and stood still and regarded the woman. There was neither anger nor surprise nor scorn in his look, but a calm observation. He listened to her foul language, as if wishing to understand it; and he regarded the bloated face and bleared eyes. The woman was not prepared for this examination. With another parting volley she slunk off. Then the new-comer continued on his way, saying only to himself:

'It is strange. I do not think that God could have meant any of His creatures to be like that.'

Now let us see what manner of man this was who was passing into the larger space and wan sunlight of Euston Road, making for London Bridge, with but little hurry, and always with his eyes regarding the withered trees, or the closed shops, or the early omnibuses, with an observation that had no curiosity in it, rather as if these were mere passing phenomena that left no permanent impression on a mind too busily occupied with its own speculations.

His name was John Douglas. His father had been a small shipowner in Greenock, and, dying, had left this, his eldest son, a fortune of about 10,000 pounds. John Douglas, after patient judgment of the matter, arrived at the conclusion that it was far from just and fitting that he should have the exclusive use of this money, so he lent 7000 pounds, or thereabouts, to his two younger brothers, who forthwith took it, and, unhappily, themselves also, to the bottom of the sea, in a vessel which, recklessly, they had not insured. Thereupon John Douglas, having still over 3000 pounds, invested it in what was then considered a safe concern, and finding his wants very few and very simple, repaired to the Renfrewshire coast, and found there a small cottage overlooking the Firth of Clyde and the sea, where he could live cheaply and comfortably. And he did live there very comfortably and contentedly, though not quite to the satisfaction of his neighbours, who resented the intrusion amongst them of a man who minded his own business, who would not listen to any tittle-tattle, who was absolutely indifferent as to what opinion, good or ill, they might have of him, and who took long and solitary walks among the hills on Sundays as on other days.

It ought to be said here at the outset that this man's character is not set up as in any way an exemplar. If mankind at large were so many John Douglases the world would not get on at all. We should have no iron bridges built, or Atlantic cables laid, or financial companies started, and we certainly should not have any man-killing machines a million or half-a-million strong; whereas every well-conducted person knows that such things are now-a-days absolutely necessary. The truth is, that John Douglas, or Captain Douglas, as the neighbours called him with a kind of grudging respect, was a skulker from the battle of humanity. What he wanted was a beach of white sand, a hot day, a blue sea, a book, a pipe, and the absence of his fellow-creatures. He was kind to such people as he was forced to meet; and he was a favourite amongst the children in that part, for he bought them toys and sweetmeats when he went to Greenock; but he preferred the society of his books to that of his neighbours, and he was impatient of idle talk. Indeed, what was the use of their conversing with a man who was far more interested in the first blossoming of the furze in spring than in a Cabinet crisis, and who would go away and search for birds' nests in the woods, for the mere pleasure of looking at them, when the whole civilised world, from the Cloch Lighthouse all the way to Largs, was convulsed with the news that minister in a parish adjacent had been heard to say something disrespectful about Calvin?

The three books, one or other of which John Douglas usually carried with him on his rambles by sea-shore or through some country lanes, were the New Testament, Marcus Aurelius, and Tannahill's Poems; but perhaps it was the wise Emperor with whom he most closely communed as the waves rippled along the sand, and the shifting lights crossed the clear blue of the Arran hills. He had so entered into the spirit of that proud and patient stoicism, that he considered himself proof against anything that might happen to him in life or in death. It was a voice from far away, it is true--muffled, as if from the tomb; but it was human, sympathetic, kindly in the main.

'Every moment think steadily as a Roman and a man to do what thou hast in hand with perfect and simple dignity, and feeling of affection, and freedom, and justice; and to give thyself relief from all other thoughts. And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last, laying aside all carelessness and passionate aversion from the commands of reason, and all hypocrisy, and self-love, and discontent with the portion which has been given to thee. Thou seest how few the things are, the which if a man lays hold of, he is able to live a life which flows in quiet, and is like the existence of the gods; for the gods, on their part, will require nothing more from him who observes these things.'

And again:

'If thou workest at that which is before thee, following right reason seriously, vigorously, calmly, without allowing anything else to distract thee, but keeping thy divine part pure, as if thou shouldst be bound to give it back immediately; if thou holdest to this, expecting nothing, fearing nothing, but satisfied with thy present activity according to nature, and with heroic truth in every word and sound which thou utterest, thou wilt live happy. And there is no man who is able to prevent this.'

Or if one should not find any great work in the world to tackle?--

'Always bear this in mind, that very little indeed is necessary for living a happy life. And because thou hast despaired of becoming a dialectician, and skilled in the knowledge of nature, do not for this reason renounce the hope of being both free and modest and social and obedient to God.'

Or has one been injured?--

'The best way of avenging thyself is not to become like the wrongdoer.'

Why should one desire praise or fear blame?--

'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 masses 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 anticipated, 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 shores 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 title 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 embarrassment. '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-class 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 passing 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 passing along the thoroughfares--mostly groups of young men of about two-and-twenty, tallow-faced, round-shouldered, wearing over-coats and billycock 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 butter.

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 butter 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 butter--though not butter 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 shores 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--passed, 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 prone--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 lass, 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 lass?' 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 lass. 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 passage. 'They'll turn me off. They said so the last time. I shall be all right. But my head--is so bad.'

They got her into the dingy little parlour, and laid her down on the horse-hair covered couch. Her hand was clasped to her head, and her whole frame was shivering violently, as if with cold.

John Douglas, living that recluse life up there in the north, had never before had to deal directly with sickness, and he was terribly anxious and alarmed. What was he to do? His first wild notion, observing the violent shivering, was to order hot whisky-and-water; then he thought it would be better to send for a doctor. But the tall, dark woman did not seem inclined to go or send for any doctor. She stood regarding the girl quite apathetically.

'Poor Mary Anne!' she said, watching her, as if she were a dog in a fit. 'She wasn't took as bad as this before. She's been starving herself, she has, to keep her mother and her young sisters; and she can't stand all day in the shop as she used to. I've seen it a-coming on.'

'God bless me, woman,' said Douglas, angrily, 'we must do something instead of standing and looking at the poor lass. Cannot you tell me where the nearest doctor is? Has one been attending her?'

'Poor Mary Ann,' the woman said, composedly; 'she'll come out of it; but it's worse this time. A doctor? She couldn't afford to have a doctor, she couldn't. A doctor would be bringing physic; she can't pay for physic, she can't. She owes me three weeks' rent, and I ain't ast for it once, not once. Thirteen hours a day standing behind a counter is too much for a slip of a girl like that. Poor Mary Anne! Is your head bad, my dear?'

Douglas made use of a phrase which is not to be found anywhere in the writings of Marcus Aurelius, and hurriedly left the house. He made for the nearest chemist's shop, and asked the youth there where he should find a doctor. The youth glanced towards the back room, and said Dr. Sweeney was at hand. Dr. Sweeney was summoned, and appeared: a hard-headed-looking youngish man, whom Douglas immediately bore away with him.

The young Irish doctor did not seem much concerned when he saw his patient. He seemed to be familiar with such cases. He said the girl must be put to bed at once. She was merely suffering from a feverish attack, on a system weakened by exhaustion and fatigue. Then he began to question the landlady.

The usual story. Girl in a draper's shop; mother and sisters in the country; sends them most of her earnings; probably does not take enough food; long hours; constant standing; drinking tea to stave off hunger; and so forth. Douglas listened in silence.

'And when she recovers from this attack, slight or severe,' he said at length, 'what would restore that young lass to a proper state of health?--can ye say that, doctor?'

'I can say it easily,' said the young Irishman, with a sarcastic smile. 'I can prescribe the remedies; and there are plenty of such cases; unfortunately the patients are not in a position to follow my prescriptions. I should prescribe good food, and fewer hours of work, and an occasional week in the country air. It is easy to talk of such things.'

'Ay, that is so,' said Douglas, absently.

He went home. He took from his pocket the biscuit, wrapped in a bit of newspaper, that he had meant for his supper; but he put it on the top of a little chest of drawers, thinking it would do for his breakfast in the morning, and he would save so much. Then he went to the little stock of money in his locked-up bag, and found there eight shillings and sixpence. He took seven shillings of it, and went out again into the cold night, and walked along to the house where the sick girl was.

'Mistress,' he said to the landlady, in his slow, staid way, 'I have brought ye a little money that ye may buy any small things the lass may want; it is all I can spare the now; I will call in the morning and see how she is.'

'You needn't do that,' said the tall woman. 'Poor Mary Anne--she'll be at the shop.'

'She shall not be at the shop!' he said, with a frown. 'Are ye a mad woman? The girl is ill.'

'She'll have to be at the shop, or lose her place,' said the landlady, with composure. 'There's too many young girls after situations now-a-days, and they won't be bothered with weakly ones.'

 

CHAPTER IV.

A RESOLVE.

However, as it turned out, there was to be no shop for Mary Anne the next day or for many a day to come. When John Douglas called in the morning, he was informed that she was 'delirious-like.' She was imploring the doctor--who had been there an hour before--not to let her lose her situation. She was talking about her mother and sisters in an incoherent way; also about one Pete, who appeared to have gone away to Australia and never written since. Douglas looked at the girl, lying there with her flushed face, closed eyes, and troubled breathing, unconscious of his presence, only twisting the bed-clothes about with her hot hands.

'Poor Mary Ann,' the landlady said contemplatively. 'If she dies, she'll 'ave to be buried by the work'us. And if she lives, she'll be worse off than ever; for they won't take a girl with cropped hair into a shop, and the fear of infection besides. She ain't got a friend in the world, she ain't; except her own people, and they're only a drain on the poor thing. Poor Mary Ann! she have had a bad time of it. Perhaps it would be kinder in Providence if He took her; for who's to pay for her keep if she gets through the fever? Not that I would ask to be paid for her lodging; I ain't one like that; there's her room, and welcome; that's what I says to my husband when he come home last night; and neither him nor me's afraid of fever, nor would turn out a poor thing as have been took. But law! it would be months afore she'd get another place; and she ain't got nobody to look after her.'

'What have you done with the money I gave you last night?' he asked.

'There it lies, sir--on the mantel-shelf. It ain't for me to touch; it is for the doctor to give his orders about that money.'

'Just put this eighteenpence to it, mistress, and ask the doctor what the poor lass may want. It is all I happen to have with me the now.'

Then he left; and walked away with an unusual air of determination He was not downcast because he had parted with his last sixpence.

'It is even better thus,' this stern-faced man was saying to himself, 'for now we must face facts, and get rid of speculation. Let us begin at the beginning--with one's ten fingers! Poor lass! It is a dreadful place, a great city like this; it has no compassion. Surely, in the country, she would not be so utterly thrown down in the race. Surely, some one would say, "_At meal-time come thou hither and eat of the bread, and dip thy morsel in the vinegar;_" and would command the young men and say to them, "_Let her glean even among the sheaves, and reproach her not. And let fall also some of the handfuls of purpose for her, and leave them, that she may glean them, and rebuke her not._" Poor lass! poor lass! Even that cadaverous-jawed, Tennants'-stalk of a woman thinks it would be better for her to die.'

He walked quickly, his lips firm. It was a miserable morning; the noisy thoroughfares full of mist and wet and mud; drifts of sleet swooping round corners; the air raw and cold. The river was scarcely visible when he crossed London Bridge; the steamers and ships were like ghosts in the fog. He made his way as quickly as he could through the crowded streets, until he reached Tower Hill; then he passed up into the Minories; there he paused in front of one or two shops, in the windows of which were the most miscellaneous objects--old clothes, waterproof leggings, tin cans, and what not. At last he entered one of these places, and after a great deal of haggling and argument, he exchanged his coat of gray home-spun for a much shabbier looking dingy blue over-coat, that appeared the kind of thing a pilot would wear. To this was added a woollen comforter; there was no money in the transaction. Douglas wrapped the comforter round his neck there and then, and put on the coat; when he stepped out again into the mud and snow and murky atmosphere, his appearance was much more reconcilable with the neighbourhood.

Still walking quickly, he went down to the London and St. Katherine Docks, passing under the shadow of the gaunt walls; and then along that dismal thoroughfare, Nightingale Lane, that looks like a passage between two great prisons; until at last, with moderate pace, and with a certain anxious, nervous look, as if he did not wish himself to be seen, he arrived at the entrance to a space at the corner of the London Dock, which was enclosed with some rusted iron railings, and partially roofed over.

In this shed, shivering in the cold, and occasionally moving so as to avoid the whirling of the sleet, stood a number of most miserable looking wretches, men and lads. John Douglas knew very well who these were, and what they were there for. Here, so far as he had learned, was the only place in London where a starving creature could get work, without a character or qualification of any kind. Hither came those who, through drink, or idleness, or sheer misfortune, had got right down to the foot of the social ladder; waiting patiently in the dim hope that some extra pressure of work inside would occur to give them an hour or two's employment. Well, he did not hesitate long. He seized a moment when the attention of these poor devils had been attracted by some sound to the other side of the grating (where the foreman was expected to appear), and glided in among the group, hoping to be unperceived.

But what sharp eyes hunger makes! They had no sooner turned hopelessly away again, than every man and lad of them caught sight of the stranger. They did not resent his intrusion. They regarded him with curiosity, and with apathy. He looked well-to-do for that kind of work. Perhaps if he were one of the lucky ones, he would stand a pot of beer on coming out in the afternoon.

But to their great astonishment, they were all to be lucky ones that morning. The foreman appeared, ran his eye over the group, and engaged the whole of them for the day,--all, except one dazed, drunken-looking tatterdemalion of sixty or so, whom he warned off by name. Almost before he knew where he was, John Douglas found himself at work in the docks, at fivepence an hour.

 

CHAPTER V.

TREASURE TROVE.

The work was very easy, it seemed to him. What it might be in the warehouses he knew not; but here his business was simply to haul a small and light truck, carrying two boxes of oranges, from the unloading steamer along the side of the basin to the barge which was receiving them. The work was light, and there were pauses; moreover, the snow had ceased, and the surroundings--the ships and barges and what not--were picturesque enough; the scent of the oranges was pleasant. And his companions, these poor wrecks of humanity who had drifted into this curious, quiet little pool, were in the main good-humoured, though most of them seemed too depressed to speak much. Of course they instantly called him 'Scottie.' Scottie got through his short day's work with satisfaction; and when at four o'clock the great bell began to toll, and when his wages, two shillings and a penny, were paid him, and when he set out for the gate, he was much contented, and was considering that, if he did his work diligently and respectfully and in silence, it was not at all unlikely that the foreman would take him on as a regular hand, at four-and-twenty shillings a week.

He was thus thinking, and he had got almost to the gate, when something ahead of him occurred that made him shrink back with a look of dismay in his face. He saw that each man as he passed through the portal held up his arms while one of the gatekeepers passed his hands over his clothes. They were being searched. Douglas stood still; his whole spirit in angry revolt. He would rather give up his day's wage, the coat off his back, the cap from his head--anything than have to go through this shameful ordeal. He looked back: could he not get out by the wicket at which he entered, at the other end of the docks?

'Come on, Scottie; you ain't been prigging oranges, eh?' said one of his mates, laughing at him.

Now it was quite clear that this searching of the outgoing labourers was in most cases merely formal; but when the gatekeepers saw this man hanging back, they naturally concluded he had been stealing. They called to him to come along. He hesitated no longer. With a grim air he advanced and held up his arms in the usual way. He would betray no shame. Doubtless it was a necessary precaution. And as he had stolen nothing, they could not hurt him by merely suspecting him.

But this gatekeeper's inspection was minute; and when he came to some slight protuberance on the breast of the coat, which, indeed, Douglas himself had not noticed, he demanded to know what it was. Nay, he had the coat taken off. On examination, a part of the lining of the coat was found to have been cut open and carefully sewn together again.

'Took all that trouble?' said the gatekeeper, glancing at him.

'I did not know there was any pocket there,' said Douglas, hurriedly; 'I got the coat only this morning.'

'Oh, indeed,' said the other, with a slight derisive laugh. 'I shouldn't wonder if we found some tobacco all the same.'

The lining was ripped open, in the presence of the little crowd of labourers, carmen, stevedores, and so forth, who, seeing something unusual going on, had collected. Douglas certainly looked very guilty. His face was burning red; and the natural sternness of his features made him look as if he were angry at being detected. But, on the other hand, the expression on the face of the big yellow-bearded gate-keeper changed very suddenly, when he took from inside the lining a little oblong parchment bag, flat and dirty, and opened it, and drew out a thin packet of what turned out to be Bank of England notes. Not many, it is true; but a marvel all the same. The gatekeeper glanced at the culprit again, and said good-humouredly,

'Bought that coat this morning? Then you're in luck's way, my man, that's all I can say. We don't keep them kind o' goods in our warehouses. There ye are.'

He once more examined the dirty little parchment bag all over; there was no scrap of writing on it, or on any of the notes.

'There ye are,' he said, giving him back both the coat and the valuable package. 'There's some as would advertise in the papers about that money; and there's some as would go to Scotland Yard, and expect to get something; and there's some, seein' as there's no writin', as would stick to it, and set up a shop. Where did you buy the coat, my man?'

'At an outfitter's in the Minories--it was an exchange for my own,' said Douglas hastily; he was anxious above all things, money or no money, to get away from this crowd of curious faces.

'An outfitter! yes, it's a fine name. Anyhow, the money don't belong to _him_. Most likely, now, that coat belonged to some seafaring man as got drownded, and the poor chap's things sold. Pass on there, my lads!'

Douglas escaped from the crowd, and got away. He was greatly bewildered and excited; not often in his life had he come through so much in so short a time. He walked hard, and did not stop until he sat down in his own little room, in the cold and dark.

Hour after hour he sat there, himself fighting with himself; or rather his consciousness of what was right fighting with his great desire to do something to help that luckless child, lying there a few streets farther off, friendless, poverty-stricken, fever-stricken, with the most hopeless of futures before her. He argued with himself that no doubt the gatekeeper's guess was correct; the money had belonged to some sailor or pilot, who had been drowned, and his personal effects, whether found on his dead body, or perhaps in the hold of a derelict, sold. Certainly these notes did not belong to the old-clothes' man in the Minories. It almost seemed as if a special act of Providence had placed this money at his disposal to succour this helpless one in her sickness, and support and strengthen her in her convalescence. As for himself, he never dreamed of touching it for his own uses. He had found out at last one way of earning his own living. But even if he were to be permanently employed, at twenty-four shillings a week, how could he save enough out of that to give this girl generous nourishment, and a little wine, and country air, when she should get well enough again? In the meantime, were her mother and sisters to starve? And it never occurred to him to ask why he should take this sudden interest in this stranger girl or in her family. The fact was, he had never before been confronted with so clear a case of hardship and distress. The solitariness, the helplessness of the child appealed to him: it was as if he had seen a wren threatened by a hawk, or a rabbit seized by a weasel. He could not help interfering, and doing his utmost.

And how could this money of a dead and unknown man be put to a better use? Was he to go and bury it in Scotland Yard? Was he to advertise for a crowd of impostors to claim it? He lit the gas and examined the notes. There were seven--35 pounds--a fortune! He saw the girl in a little cottage, the window open to let the first of the spring air into the room, she lying well wrapped up on a couch, a few wild-flowers on the table, daffodils and primroses from the woods, pink-tipped daisies from the banks, the red dead-nettle from the hedge-rows, and perhaps herself, to please him, and out of gratitude as it were, reading some of Tannahill's songs, 'Loudon's bonnie woods and braes,' 'Langsyne, beside the woodland burn,' 'Keen blows the wind o'er the Braes o' Gleniffer,' 'We'll meet beside the dusky glen on yon burn side.' Poor child! she had probably seen but little of the country during her hard life. Would she be surprised when all the hawthorn came out, and the lanes were scented? Perhaps he would be able to teach her a little of the beauty of simple things, and remove from her mind the poor ideas about what is great and admirable and desirable begotten in a large city. 'Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.' No doubt her notion of what was most beautiful and desirable in the world was to be dressed in satin, and driving in a coach, with powdered footmen behind, to a Royal Drawing-room.

All this was so specious and plausible. The money lying there seemed to belong to him more than to any other. And what good might be done with it! Even if the real owner were alive, surely he would assent. Thirty-five pounds: ten pounds to be put into a savings bank in her name; the rest to clear off the doctor's bill, give a weekly allowance to her people, and enable her to get a couple of months, or even more, with strict economy, in the country, before returning to the hard, dull work of London.

'I did not know,' he said aloud, in his slow, deliberate Scotch way, 'that money could have such value.'

By-and-by he rose, put the notes into the bag again, and that in his pocket; then he turned off the gas and went out, thinking he would walk round and see how the girl was getting on. That is to say, he tried to make himself believe that that was all there was in his mind; but he knew very well that there was something else. There was a haunting, uneasy consciousness. Suddenly, at the corner of the street, instead of turning eastward as he should have done, he abruptly turned in the other direction, and began to walk quickly. 'The money is not mine; I will have none of it,' was his ultimate and fixed decision. 'No dreams, man; no temptation. The first step to perdition is no doubt smooth enough. If I can do the lass a good turn, it must be with my own money.'

He walked to Scotland Yard, finding it without difficulty, for he knew all the familiar features of London on the map; and there he told his story, and delivered up the money, and left his address. He departed with a light heart. Nay, when he had crossed Westminster Bridge again, he looked out for a poor-looking coffee-house, and went in and had some coffee and a roll, and thought he never had enjoyed any dinner more. He looked at the evening paper, too, and then went out again into the wet streets, and continued his way. He was further cheered by hearing that the sick girl, though still feverish and perfectly weak and prostrate, had not, in the doctor's opinion, caught any serious malady, and only wanted time and care, and afterwards some better nourishment, to bring her round.

 

CHAPTER VI.

THE END OF THE EPISODE.

So with courage and patience, and with a final gulp about that searching business, he returned to his work at the docks, and very soon got engaged as a permanent hand. He was a favourite with the foremen, for he was industrious and minded his own business; but he was greatly disliked by his companions. They would not believe, and he was at no pains to convince them, that he had not kept the found money; and they had expected him, if ever he returned to the docks, to stand treat liberally. They were angry at Scottie's stinginess, and took to taunting him. These casual jeers he heeded no more than the idle wind; they could not hurt.

His savings slowly increased, his only serious expenditure being his weekly rent. When, each morning at twelve o'clock, the great bell rang in the docks, and the men and women came in with their baskets and barrows, his dinner consisted of a couple of penny sausage-rolls ('bags of mystery,' his mates called them), and these were really quite fresh and clean and wholesome-looking. In the afternoon or evening he generally went round to the house where the girl, Mary Ann Ellis, was now so far recovered that she could sit propped up in bed for an hour or so; and he would have a chat with her and her landlady, and a cup of tea, with bread and butter--for which he privately paid. He found this girl interesting, simple, and intensely grateful, but ignorant to a degree that he had not thought possible in a human being capable of reading. In one respect this was lucky, for she believed any nonsense he told her; and the quite imaginary associations of ladies and gentlemen for the dispensing of needful charity received her most earnest thanks for those little sums that were sent to her mother, or that enabled her to pay off her doctor's weekly bill.

One day John Douglas was leaving the docks as usual, when he was overtaken by a tall and handsome young fellow, whom he knew to be connected with the Customs department.

'I say, aren't you the man that found a lot of money?'

Douglas had grown sulky, or rather suspicious of foolery, and was inclined to keep his own counsel. But the accent of this stranger went straight to his heart; he had not heard the Scotch way of speaking for many a day. So he turned and regarded the young man, and frankly told him what he had done with the money. This led to further questions, for the younger man's curiosity was aroused. It was the City of Glasgow Bank, then? But why take to such work as this? Couldn't he get into some office? Did he know a little of book-keeping?

The upshot of all this was that, about a week after, John Douglas found himself installed as clerk at a tall desk in the back-room of a co-operative store connected with the docks, at a salary of two pounds a week; and the first and immediate result of this was that the mysterious charitable associations of which he was apparently the agent, commissioned him to inform Mary Ann Ellis that she need not try to get any situation for at least two months' time, because fourteen shillings a week would be paid to her during that period, to enable her to get thoroughly well again.

John Douglas grew to be a proud man. He was proud of having paid off that five pounds, and standing free of all the world; he was proud of his gradually-increasing account at the Government Savings Bank as a guarantee against future ill; but he was proudest of all of his patient, whose convalescence he in a measure attributed to himself. The days were longer now, and the weather fine; on the clear evenings, or Saturday afternoons, these two would get into an omnibus, and go away out to Camberwell Green, or Kennington Park, or Clapham Common, and sit on a bench, and watch the young folks enjoying their sports and diversions. He was better dressed now, and she had got into the way of calling him 'Sir.' He told her a great deal about Scotland, and the mountains, and the glens with the birch-trees and waterfalls; but he always got into a difficulty when he came to the sea, which she had never seen. She could not understand that.

'Now, lassie, look at that piece of water there,' he would say to her, at the pond on Clapham Common. 'Cannot you imagine its going out and out until it gets far beyond the trees and houses yonder, until it gets beyond everything, and meets the sky?'

'I see what you mean, sir,' she would say; 'but I can't understand it: for I can't help thinking, if there was nothing on the other side to hold it up, it must tumble down. How can water hold itself up in the air?'

'Dear, dear me, lass!' he would say impatiently, 'have I not explained to ye how everything in the world, land and hills and everything, is held together?'

'Yes, sir; but water shifts so,' she would say; and he would take to something else.

The two months went by, and she got stronger and stronger, though sometimes she grew a little anxious about her chances of getting another situation. During this constant companionship, he had become much attached--in a compassionate sort of fashion--to this child whom chance had thrown in his way. He could see her good points, and her weak ones. She was of a kindly disposition; truthful, he thought; with no very distinct religion, but she had a general desire to be good; simple and frugal in her ways of living,--though this was a necessity, and she had no idea of frugality being in itself a virtue. On the other hand, her views as to what was most to be desired in life were simply the result of the atmosphere in which she had lived; and she confessed to him that the most beautiful thing she had ever seen was the arrivals at a Mansion House ball--the coloured stair-cloth, the beautiful ladies, the brilliant uniforms. Her knowledge of politics was entirely derived from the cartoons of the comic journals in the shop windows; and she had any quantity of vague and vulgar prejudices about Catholics, Radicals, and Jews. But this patient listener, who seemed interested in her foolish little opinions, was a largely tolerant man. Such things were; let us make the best of them,--that was what he seemed to say. And as all the phenomena of the universe appeared to him to be worthy of respectful attention--even if one did not go the length of vexing one's self about any one of them--he was willing to learn that, in the opinion of this profound observer, the Catholic priests were bad men, who would let you do anything that was wrong if only you paid them enough money for absolution.

One evening, when he went round as usual, he found Mary Ann in great excitement; she had evidently been crying, and now she was laughing in a half-crying way.

'What is the matter, lassie?' said he severely, for he did not like 'scenes.'

'Oh, sir, Pete has written--at last--at last!' she said, crying all the more, but in a glad sort of way, and looking again at the letter she held in her two hands.

'But who is Pete?'

'My sweetheart, sir; I never said anything about him--I thought he had forgotten us--but now he says he wouldn't write until he had good news, and now there is good news enough,--oh yes, there is! there is! For he has got a good place, and good prospects--and here is money to take me out, and my mother and sisters, too--all except fifteen pounds, Pete says, and that he'll send in three months' time. Oh, sir! you don't know what a good fellow Pete is!'

John Douglas sat down. His heart felt a little heavy; he scarcely knew why. But he began to ask a few questions, in a slow matter-of-fact way; and he did not remain long. He saw that the girl wanted to read and re-read the good news to herself, and draw pictures of all that was coming.

The next afternoon Mary Ann got a note from him, with an enclosure. Thus it ran:--

'DEAR CHILD--You need not wait through three months of uncertainty. I enclose for you what will make up the passage-money, and also pay the expenses of your mother and sisters' coming to London. Accept this quietly and sensibly, and do not make any fuss about it, nor when I see you. I shall be busy this evening, and may not call.

'Your friend,
'JOHN DOUGLAS.'

 

But all the same Mary Ann came round quickly, and with her the tall, gaunt, dark, composed landlady; and there was a great scene, Mary Ann crying and accusing herself of unheard-of stupidity for not having guessed that he all along had been her benefactor; and he, on the other hand, sternly bidding her hold her peace and not talk foolishness.

'Ye did me a great service, ye foolish lass,' he said; 'ye made me take to actual work when I was merely idling and loitering about. Ye gave me an object to work for, and pleasant companionship for a space, and now, if I must find something else, that is as it has been ordered; and I maun bide my time.'

A few days afterwards he saw the mother when she arrived--a poor, limp sort of creature--and the two bewildered little girls. He could not, because of office work, go with them, as he had wished, to Southampton; but he accompanied them to the railway station, early in the morning, and bade them farewell. And as he turned away, he said to himself,

'These poor creatures I shall doubtless see no more in this world; but they will have a little regard for me, perhaps, while they live, and that is something. And now I will consider myself free to spend a trifle of money on myself, when I get it saved again; and I will use it during the holidays they speak of to take a trip back home again, and see the old place, and that the graves of my people are taken care of. And I may be able to make dispositions, too, so that when I'm taken I may be placed there also; for it is but natural that one should wish to rest among one's own.'

[The end]
William Black's short story: Pupil of Aurelius

________________________________________________



GO TO TOP OF SCREEN