Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles

Now, if there was one earthly thing that the college boys would not brook, it was being interfered with by a stranger. William suffered. Frank's treatment had been nothing to what he had to submit to. He was knocked down, trampled on, kicked, buffeted, abused; Cyril Dare being the chief and primary aggressor. At that moment the under-master came in view, and the boys made off—all except Cyril Dare.

Reined in against the wall, at a few yards' distance, was a lad on a pony. He had delicately expressive features, large soft brown eyes, a complexion too bright for health, and wavy dark hair. The face was beautiful; but two upright lines were indented in the white forehead, as if worn there by pain, and the one ungloved hand was white and thin. He was as old as William within a year; but, slight and fragile, would be taken to be much younger. Seeing and hearing—though not very clearly—what had passed, he touched his pony, and rode up to Cyril Dare. The latter was beginning to walk away leisurely, in the wake of his companions; the upper boys were rather fond of ignoring the presence of the under-master. Cyril turned at hearing himself called.

"What! Is it you, Henry Ashley? Where did you spring from?"

"Cyril Dare," was the answer, "you are a wretched coward."

Cyril Dare was feeling anger yet, and the words did not lessen it. "Of course you can say so!" he cried. "You know that you can say what you like with impunity. One can't chastise a cripple like you."

The brilliant, painful colour flushed into the face of Henry Ashley. To allude openly to infirmity such as this is as iron entering into the soul. Upon a sensitive, timid, refined nature (and those suffering from this sort of affliction are nearly sure to possess that nature), it falls with a bitterness that can neither be conceived by others nor spoken of by themselves. Henry Ashley braved it out.

"A coward, and a double coward!" he repeated, looking Cyril Dare full in the face, whilst the transparent flush grew hotter on his own. "You struck a young boy down, and then kicked him; and for nothing but that he stood up like a trump at your abuse of his brother."

"You couldn't hear," returned Cyril Dare roughly.

"I heard enough. I say that you are a coward."

"Chut! They are snobs out-and-out."

"I don't care if they are chimney-sweeps. It does not make you less a coward. And you'll be one as long as you live. If I had my strength, I'd serve you out as you served them out."

"Ah, but you have not your strength, you know!" mocked Cyril. "And as you seem to be going into one of your heroic fits, I shall make a start, for I have no time to waste on them."

He tore away. Henry Ashley turned his pony and addressed William. Both boys had spoken rapidly, so that scarcely a minute had passed, and William had only just risen from the ground. He leaned against the wall, giddy, as he wiped the blood from his face. "Are you much hurt?" asked Henry, kindly, his large dark eyes full of sympathy.

"No, thank you; it is nothing," replied William. "He is a great coward, though, whoever he is."

"It is Cyril Dare," called out Frank.

"Yes, it is Cyril Dare," continued Henry Ashley. "I have been telling him what a coward he is. I am ashamed of him: he is my cousin, in a remote degree. I am glad you are not hurt."

Henry Ashley rode away towards his home. Frank followed in the same direction; as did Gar, who now came in view. William proceeded up the town. He was a little hurt, although he had disowned it to Henry Ashley. His head felt light, his arms ached; perhaps the sensation of giddiness was as much from the want of food as anything. He purchased what was required for his mother; and then made the best of his way home again. Mr. Ashley's letter had gone clean out of his head.

Frank, in the manner usual with boys, carried home so exaggerated a story of William's damages, that Jane expected to see him arrive half-killed. Samuel Lynn heard of it, and said William might stop at home that evening. It has never been mentioned that his hours were from six till eight in the morning, from nine till one, from two till five, and from six till eight. These were Mr. Lynn's hours, and William was allowed to keep the same; the men had half-an-hour less allowed for breakfast and tea.

William was glad of the rest, after his battle, and the evening passed on. It was growing late, almost bedtime, when suddenly there flashed into his memory Mr. Ashley's letter. He put his hand into his jacket-pocket. There it lay, snug and safe. With a few words of explanation to his mother, so hasty and incoherent that she did not understand a syllable, he snatched his cap, and flew away in the direction of the town.

Boys have good legs and lungs; and William scarcely slackened speed until he gained the post-office, not far short of a mile. Dropping the letter into the box, he stood against the wall to recover breath. A clerk was standing at the door whistling; and at that moment a gentleman, apparently a stranger, came out of a neighbouring hotel, a letter in hand.

"This is the head post-office, I believe?" said he to the clerk.

"Yes."

"Am I in time to post a letter for Bristol?"

"No, sir. The bags for the Bristol mail are made up. It will be through the town directly."

William heard this with consternation. If it was too late for this gentleman's letter, it was too late for Mr. Ashley's.

He said nothing to any one that night; but he lay awake thinking over what might be the consequences of his forgetfulness. The letter might be one of importance; Mr. Ashley might discharge him for his neglect—and the weekly four shillings had grown into an absolute necessity. William possessed a large share of conscientiousness, and the fault disturbed him much.

When he came down at six, he found his mother up and at work. He gave her the history of what had happened. "What can be done?" he asked.

"Nay, William, put that question to yourself. What ought you to do? Reflect a moment."

"I suppose I ought to tell Mr. Ashley."

"Do not say 'I suppose,' my dear. You must tell him."

"Yes, I know I must," he acknowledged. "I have been thinking about it all night. But I don't like to."

"Ah, child! we have many things to do that we 'don't like.' But the first trouble is always the worst. Look it fully in the face, and it will melt away. There is no help for it in this matter, William; your duty is plain. There's Mr. Lynn looking out for you."

William went out, heavy with the thought of the task he should have to accomplish after breakfast. He knew that he must do it. It was a duty, as his mother had said; and she had fully impressed upon them all, from their infancy, the necessity of looking out for their duty and doing it, whether in great things or in small.

Mr. Ashley entered the manufactory that morning at his usual hour, half-past nine. He opened and read his letters, and then was engaged for some time with Samuel Lynn. By ten o'clock the counting-house was clear. Mr. Ashley was alone in it, and William knew that his time was come. He went in, and approached Mr. Ashley's desk.

Mr. Ashley, who was writing, looked up. "What is it?"

William's face grew red and white by turns. He was of a remarkably sensitive nature; and these sensitive natures cannot help betraying their inward emotion. Try as he would, he could not get a word out. Mr. Ashley was surprised. "What is the matter?" he wonderingly asked.

"If you please, sir—I am very sorry—it is about the letter," he stammered, and was unable to get any further.

"The letter!" repeated Mr. Ashley. "What letter? Not the letter I gave you to post?"

"I forgot it, sir,"—and William's own voice sounded to his ear painfully clear.

"Forgot to post it! That was unpardonably careless. Where is the letter?"

"I forgot it, sir, until night, and then I ran to the post-office and put it in. Afterwards I heard the clerk say that the Bristol bags were made up, so of course it would not go. I am very sorry, sir," he repeated, after a pause.

"How came you to forget it? You ought to have gone direct from here, and posted it."

"So I did go, sir. That is I was going, but–"

"But what?" returned Mr. Ashley, for William had made a dead standstill.

"The college boys set on me, sir. They were ill-using my brother, and I interfered; and then they turned upon me. It made me forget the letter."

"It was you who got into an affray with the college boys, was it?" cried Mr. Ashley. He had heard his son's version of the affair, without suspecting that it related to William.

William waited by the desk. "If you please, sir, was it of great consequence?"

"It might have been. Do not be guilty of such carelessness again."

"I will try not, sir."

Mr. Ashley looked down at his writing. William waited. He did not suppose it was over, and he wanted to know the worst. "Why do you stay?" asked Mr. Ashley.

"I hope you will not turn me away for it, sir," he said, his colour changing again.

"Well—not this time," replied Mr. Ashley, smiling to himself. "But I'll tell you what I should have felt inclined to turn you away for," he added—"concealing the fact from me. Whatever fault, omission, or accident you may commit, always acknowledge it at once; it is the best plan, and the easiest. You may go back to your work now."

William left the room with a lighter step. Mr. Ashley looked after him. "That's an honest lad," thought he. "He might just as well have kept it from me; calculating on the chances of its not coming out: many boys would have done so. He has been brought up in a good school."

Before the day was over, William came again into contact with Mr. Ashley. That gentleman sometimes made his appearance in the manufactory in an evening—not always. He did not on this one. When Samuel Lynn and William entered it on their return from tea, a gentleman was waiting in the counting-house on business. Samuel Lynn, who was, on such occasions, Mr. Ashley's alter ego, came out of the counting-house presently, with a note in his hand.

"Thee put on thy cap, and take this to the master's house. Ask to see him, and say that I wait for an answer."

William ran off with the note: no fear of his forgetting this time. It was addressed in the plain form used by the Quakers, "Thomas Ashley;" and could William have looked inside, he would have seen, instead of the complimentary "Sir," that the commencement was, "Respected Friend." He observed his mother sitting close at her window, to catch what remained of the declining light, and nodded to her as he passed.

"Can I see Mr. Ashley?" he inquired, when he reached the house.

The servant replied that he could. He left William in the hall, and opened the door of the dining-room; a handsome room, of lofty proportions. Mr. Ashley was slowly pacing it to and fro, whilst Henry sat at a table, preparing his Latin exercise for his tutor. It was Mr. Ashley's custom to help Henry with his Latin, easing difficulties to him by explanation. Henry was very backward with his classics; he had not yet begun Greek: his own private hope was, that he never should begin it. His sufferings rendered learning always irksome, sometimes unbearable. The same cause frequently made him irritable—an irritation that could not be checked, as it would have been in a more healthy boy. The servant told his master he was wanted, and Mr. Ashley looked into the hall.

"Oh, is it you, William?" he said. "Come in."

William advanced. "Mr. Lynn said I was to see yourself, sir, and to say that he waited for an answer."

Mr. Ashley opened the note, and read it by the lamp on Henry's table. It was not dark outside, and the chandelier was not lighted, but Henry's lamp was. "Sit down," said Mr. Ashley to William, and left the room, note in hand.

William felt it was something, Mr. Ashley's recognizing a difference between him and those black boys in the manufactory: they would scarcely have been told to sit in the hall. William sat down on the first chair at hand. Henry Ashley looked at him, and he recognized him as the boy who had been maltreated by the college boys on the previous day; but Henry was in no mood to be sociable, or even condescending—he never was, when over his lessons. His hip was giving him pain, and his exercise was making him fractious.

"There! it's always the case! Another five minutes, and I should have finished this horrid exercise. Papa is sure to go away, or be called away, when he's helping me! It's a shame."

Mrs. Ashley opened the door at this juncture, and looked into the room. "I thought your papa was here, Henry."

"No, he is not here. He has gone to his study, and I am stuck fast. Some blessed note has come, which he has to attend to: and I don't know whether this word should be put in the ablative or the dative! I'll run the pen through it!"

"Oh, Henry, Henry! Do not be so impatient."

Mrs. Ashley shut the door again; and Henry continued to worry himself, making no progress, except in fretfulness. At length William approached him. "Will you let me help you?"

Surprise brought Henry's grumbling to a standstill. "You!" he exclaimed. "Do you know anything of Latin?"

"I am very much farther in it than what you are doing. My brother Gar is as far as that. Shall I help you? You have put that wrong; it ought to be in the accusative."

"Well, if you can help me, you may, for I want to get it over," said Henry, with a doubting stress upon the "can." "You can sit down, if you wish to," he patronizingly added.

"Thank you, I don't care about sitting down," replied William, beginning at once upon his task.

The two boys were soon deep in the exercise, William not doing it, but rendering it easy to Henry; in the same manner that Mr. Halliburton, when he was at that stage, used to make it clear to him.

"I say," cried Henry, "who taught you?"

"Papa. He gave a great deal of time to me, and that got me on. I can see a wrong word there," added William, casting his eyes to the top of the page. "It ought to be in the vocative, and you have put it in the dative."

"You are mistaken, then. Papa told me that: and he is not likely to be wrong. Papa is one of the best classical scholars of the day—although he is a manufacturer," added Henry, who, through his relatives, the Dares, had been infected with a contempt for business.

"It should be in the vocative," repeated William.

"I shan't alter it. The idea of your finding fault with Mr. Ashley's Latin! Let us get on. What case is this?"

The last word of the exercise was being written, when Mr. Ashley opened the door and called to William. He gave him a note for Mr. Lynn, and William departed. Mr. Ashley returned to complete the interrupted exercise.

"I say, papa, that fellow knows Latin," began Henry.

"What fellow?" returned Mr. Ashley.

"Why, that chap of yours who has been here. He has helped me through my exercise. Not doing it for me: you need not be afraid; but explaining to me how to do it. He made it easier to me than you do, papa."

Mr. Ashley took the book in his hand, and saw that it was correct. He knew Henry could not, or would not, have made it so himself. Henry continued:

"He said his papa used to explain it to him. Fancy one of your manufactory errand-boys saying 'papa.'"

"You must not class him with the ordinary errand-boys, Henry. The boy has been as well brought up as you have."

"I thought so; for he has impudence about him," was Master Henry's retort.

"Was he impudent to you?"

"To me? Oh no. He is as civil a fellow as ever I spoke to. Indeed, but for remembering who he was, I should call him a gentlemanly fellow. Whilst he was telling me, I forgot who he was, and talked to him as an equal, and he talked to me as one. I call him impudent, because he found fault with your Latin."

"Indeed!" returned Mr. Ashley, an amused smile parting his lips.

"He says this word's wrong. That it ought to be in the vocative case."

"So it ought to be," assented Mr. Ashley, casting his eyes on the word to which Henry pointed.

"You told me the dative, papa."

"That I certainly did not, Henry. The mistake must have been your own."

"He persisted that it was wrong, although I told him it was your Latin. Papa, it is the same boy who had the row yesterday with Cyril Dare. What a pity it is, though, that a fellow so well up in his Latin should be shut up in a manufactory!"

"The only 'pity' is, that he is in it too early," was the response of Mr. Ashley. "His Latin would not be any detriment to his being in a manufactory, or the manufactory to his Latin. I am a manufacturer myself, Henry. You appear to ignore that sometimes."

"The Dares go on so. They din it into my ears that a manufacturer cannot be a gentleman."

"I shall cause you to drop the acquaintance of the Dares, if you allow yourself to listen to all the false and foolish notions they may give utterance to. Cyril Dare will probably go into a manufactory himself."

Henry looked up curiously. "I don't think so, papa."

"I do," returned Mr. Ashley, in a significant tone. Henry was surprised at the news. He knew his father never advanced a decided opinion unless he had good grounds for it. He burst into a laugh. The notion of Cyril Dare's going into a manufactory tickled his fancy amazingly.

PART THE SECOND

CHAPTER I.

A SUGGESTED FEAR

One morning, towards the middle of April, Mrs. Halliburton went up to Mr. Ashley's. She had brought him the quarter's rent.

"Will you allow me to pay it to yourself, sir—now, and in future?" she asked. "I feel an unconquerable aversion to having further dealings with Mr. Dare."

"I can understand that you should have," said Mr. Ashley. "Yes, you can pay it to me, Mrs. Halliburton. Always remembering you know, that I am in no hurry for it," he added with a smile.

"Thank you. You are very kind. But I must pay as I go on."

He wrote the receipt, and handed it to her. "I hope you are satisfied with William?" she said, as she folded it up.

"Quite so. I believe he gives satisfaction to Mr. Lynn. I have little to do with him myself. Mr. Lynn tells me that he finds him a remarkably truthful, open-natured boy."

"You will always find him that," said Jane. "He is getting more reconciled to the manufactory than he was at first."

"Did he not like it at first?"

"No, he did not. He was disappointed altogether. He had hoped to find some employment more suited to the way in which he had been brought up. He cannot divest himself of the idea that he is looked upon as on a level with the poor errand-boys of your establishment, and therefore has lost caste. He had wished also to be in some office—a lawyer's, for instance—where the hours for leaving are early, so that he might have had the evening for his studies. But he is growing more reconciled to the inevitable."

"I suppose he wished to continue his studies?"

"He did so naturally. The foundation of an advanced education has been laid, and he expected it was to go on to completion. His brothers are now in the college school, occupied all day long with their studies, and of course William feels the difference. He gets to his books for an hour when he returns home in an evening; but he is weary, and does not do much good."

"He appears to be a more persevering, thoughtful boy than are some," remarked Mr. Ashley.

"Very thoughtful—very persevering. It has been the labour of my life, Mr. Ashley, to foster good seed in my children; to reason with them, to make them my companions. They have been endowed, I am thankful to say, with admirable qualities of head and heart, and I have striven unweariedly to nourish the good in them. It is not often that boys are brought into contact with sorrow so early as they. Their father's death and my adverse circumstances have been real trials."

"They must have been," rejoined Mr. Ashley.

"While others of their age think only of play," she continued, "my boys have been obliged to learn the sad experiences of life; and it has given them a thought, a care, beyond their years. There is no necessity to make Frank and Edgar apply to their lessons unremittingly; they do it of their own accord, with their whole abilities, knowing that education is the only advantage they can possess—the one chance of their getting on in the world. Had William been a boy of a different disposition, less tractable, less reflective, less conscientious, I might have found some difficulty in inducing him to work as he is doing."

"Does he complain?" inquired Mr. Ashley.

"Oh no, sir! He feels that it is his duty to work, to assist as far as he can, and he does it without complaining. I see that he cannot help feeling it. He would like to be in the college with his brothers; but I cheer him up, and tell him it may all turn out for the best. Perhaps it will."

She rose as she spoke. Mr. Ashley shook hands with her, and attended her through the hall. "Your sons deserve to get on, Mrs. Halliburton, and I hope they will do so. It is an admirable promise for the future man when a boy displays thought and self-reliance."

"Mamma!" suddenly exclaimed Janey, as they sat at breakfast the morning after this, "do you remember what to-day is? It is my birthday."

Jane had remembered it. She had been almost in hopes that the child would not remember it. One year ago that day the first glimpse of the shadow so soon to fall upon them had shown itself. What a change! The contrast between last year and this was almost incredible. Then they had been in possession of a good home, were living in prosperity, in apparent security. Now—Jane's heart turned sick at the thought. Only one short year!

"Yes, Janey dear," she replied in sadly subdued tones. "I did not forget it. I–"

A double knock at the door interrupted what she would have further said. They heard Dobbs answer it: visitors were chiefly for Mrs. Reece.

Who should be standing there but Samuel Lynn! He did not choose the familiar back way, as Patience did, had he occasion to call, but knocked at the front.

"Is Jane Halliburton within?"

"You can go and see," said crusty, disappointed Dobbs, flourishing her hand towards the study door. "It's not often that she's out."

Jane rose at his entrance; but he declined to sit, standing while he delivered the message with which he had been charged.

"Friend, thee need not send thy son to the manufactory again in an evening, except on Saturdays. On the other evenings he may remain at home from tea-time and pursue his studies. His wages will not be lessened."

And Jane knew that the considerate kindness emanated from Thomas Ashley.

She managed better with her work as the months went on. By summer she could do it quickly; the days were long then, and, by dint of sitting closely to it, she could earn twelve shillings a week. With William's earnings, and the six shillings taken from Mrs. Reece's payments, that made twenty-two. It was quite a fortune compared with what had been. But like most good fortunes it had its drawbacks. In the first place, she could not always earn it; she was compelled to steal unwilling time to mend her own and the children's clothes. In the second place, a large portion of it had to be devoted to buying their clothes, besides other incidental expenses; so that in the matter of housekeeping they were not much better off than before. Still, Jane did begin to think that she should see her way clearer. But there was sorrow of a different nature looming in the distance.

One afternoon, which Jane was obliged to devote to plain sewing, she was sitting alone in the study when there came a hard short thump at it, which was Dobbs's way of making known her presence there.

"Come in!"

Dobbs came in and sat herself down opposite Jane. It was summer weather, and the August dust blew in at the open window. "I want to know what's the matter with Janey," began she, without circumlocution.

"With Janey?" repeated Mrs. Halliburton. "What should be the matter with her? I know of nothing."

"Of course not," sarcastically answered Dobbs. "Eyes appear to be given to some folks only to blind 'em—more's the pity! You can't see it; my missis can't see it; but I say that the child is ill."

"Oh, Dobbs! I think you must be mistaken."

"Now I'd thank you to be civil, if you please, Mrs. Halliburton," retorted Dobbs. "You don't take me for a common servant, I hope. Who's 'Dobbs'?"