describes a happy home and a happier meeting.
in a small wayside cottage in the outskirts of one of those picturesque villages which surround london, an old woman sat at the head of a small deal table, with a black teapot, a brown sugar-basin, a yellow milk jug, and a cracked tea-cup before her.
at the foot of the same table sat a young man, with a large knife in one hand, a huge loaf of bread in the other, and a mass of yellow butter in a blue plate in front of him.
the young man was james slagg; the old woman was his mother. jim had no brothers or sisters, and his father chanced to be absent at market, so he had the “old lady” all to himself.
“well, well, jim,” said mrs slagg, with a loving look at her son’s flushed face, “you’ve told me a heap o’ wonderful tales about telegrumphs, an’ tigers, an’ electricity an’ what not. if you was as great a liar as you was used to be, jim, i tell ’ee plain, lad, i wouldn’t believe one word on it. but you’re a better boy than you was, jim, an’ i do believe you—indeed i do, though i must confess that some on it is hard to swallow.”
“thank ’ee, mother,” said jim, with a pleasant nod, as he cut an enormous slice from the loaf, trowelled upon it a mass of the yellow butter, and pushed in his cup for more tea.
“it was good of ye, jim,” said the old woman, “to leave all yer fine friends and come straight away here to see your mother.”
“good o’ me!” ejaculated jim, with his mouth full—too full, we might say—“what goodness is there in a feller goin’ home, eh? who’s finer, i should like to know, than a feller’s mother?”
“well, you are a good boy, jim,” said the old woman, glancing at a superannuated clock, which told of the moments in loud, almost absurd solemnity; “but if you don’t stop talkin’ and go on wi’ your eatin’, you’ll lose the train.”
“true, mother. time and tide, they say, wait for no man; but trains is wuss than time or tide, they won’t even wait for a woman.”
“but why go at all to-day, jim; won’t to-morrow do?”
“no, mother, it won’t do. i didn’t mean to tell ’ee till i came back, for fear it should be a mistake; but i can’t keep nothin’ from you, old lady, so i may as well ease my mind before i go. the fact is, i’ve just heard of the whereabouts of john shanks—stumps, you know—my old mate, that i’ve told you bolted with all our treasure from bombay. ah! mother, if i’d only brought that treasure home wi’ me, it’s a lady you’d have bin to-day. i had all sorts o’ plans for you—a coach an’ six was—”
“never mind your plans, jim, but tell me about poor stumps.”
“well, mother, a tramp came past here, an’ had a bit of a talk wi’ me yesterday. you know i ginerally have a bit of a chat wi’ tramps now, ever since that city missionary—god bless him—pulled me up at the docks, an’ began talkin’ to me about my soul. well, that tramp came here early this mornin’, sayin’ he’d bin in a poor woman’s house in the city, where there was a man dyin’ in a corner. while he was talkin’ with some o’ the people there he chanced to mention my name, an’ observed that the dyin’ man got excited when he heard it, and called to the tramp and asked him about me, and then begged him, for love and for money, which he offered him, to come and fetch me to him as fast as he could, sayin’ that his name was stumps, and he knew me. so, you see, as the next train is the first that—you needn’t look at the clock so often, old lady; it’s full ten minutes yet, and i’ll back my legs to do it in three.”
“don’t forget to take your bible wi’ you, dear boy.”
jim slagg rose with a pleasant nod, slapped the breast of his coat, on which the oblong form of a small book in the pocket could be traced, said “good-day, mother,” and left the cottage.
it was not long before he stood in the dark passage which led to the room described to him by the tramp. the old woman who rented it gave him her unasked opinion of her lodger before admitting him.
“you’ve got no notion, sir, what a strange character that young man is.”
“o yes, i have; let me see him,” said slagg.
“but, sir,” continued the landlady, detaining him, “you must be careful, for he ain’t hisself quite. not that he’s ever done anythink wiolent to me, poor young man, but he’s strong in his fits, an’ he raves terribly.”
“has no doctor bin to see him?” asked slagg.
“no; he won’t let me send for one. he says it’s o’ no use, an’ he couldn’t afford to pay for one. an’ oh! you’ve no notion what a miser that poor young man is. he must have plenty of money, for the box as he takes it out on—an’ it’s at his head he keeps it, day and night, ginerally holdin’ it with one hand—seems full o’ money, for it’s wonderful heavy. i could see that when he brought it here, an’ there’s no clo’es in it, that i can see, when he opens it, to get at the few pence he wants now an’ again. an’ he starves hisself, an’ says he’s not fit to live, an’ calls hisself sitch awful names, an’—”
“well, well, show me his room,” said slagg, with as much decision in his tone as compelled immediate obedience.
in the corner of a small room, on a truckle-bed, with scant bedding, lay the emaciated form of john shanks, alias stumps, alias james gibson. he had raised himself on one elbow, and was gazing with great lustrous invalid eyes at the door, when his old comrade entered, for he had been watching, and heard the first sound of footsteps in the passage.
“oh! jim slagg,” he cried, extending a hand which bore strong resemblance to a claw, it was so thin. “come to me, jim, how i’ve wished an’ longed, an’—”
he stopped and burst into tears, for he was very weak, poor fellow, and even strong men weep when their strength is brought low.
“come now, stumps,” said slagg, in a serious voice, as he sat down on the bed, put an arm round his old comrade’s thin shoulders, and made him lie down, “if you go to excite yourself like that, i’ll—i’ll—quit the room, an’ i won’t come back for an hour or more.”
“no! o no!” exclaimed the sick man; clutching slagg’s arm with a trembling grip, “don’t leave me, jim—don’t, don’t! i shall die if you do! i’m dyin’ anyhow, but it will kill me quicker if you go.”
“well, i won’t go. there, keep quiet, my poor old stumps.”
“yes, that’s it—that’s it—i like to hear the old name,” murmured the sick man, closing his eyes. “say it again, jim—say it again.”
“stumps,” said slagg, getting down on his knees, the better to arrange and grasp his former comrade, “don’t be a fool now, but listen. i have come to look after you, so make your mind easy.”
“but i’ve been such a beast to you, jim; it was so awful shabby,” cried stumps, rousing himself again, “and i’ve been so sorry ever since. you can’t think how sorry. i have repented, jim, if ever a man did. an’ i’d have come back and confessed long ago, if i’d had the chance, but i can get no rest—no peace. i’ve never spent a rap of it, jim, except what i couldn’t help—for you know, jim, body an’ soul wouldn’t stick together without a little o’ suthin’ to eat an’ drink; an’ when i was ill i couldn’t work, you know. see, it’s all here—all here—except what little—”
he stopped abruptly, having raised himself to open the lid of the box at his elbow, but his strength failed, and he sank on the pillow with a groan.
“stumps,” said slagg, “come, old boy, you an’ me will have a bit of prayer together.”
the sick man opened his great eyes in astonishment. it was so unlike his old friend’s brusque rollicking character to propose prayer, that he fancied he must be dreaming, and the possibility of the visit turning out unreal, induced an expression of distress on his haggard countenance. on being ordered, however, in the peremptory and familiar tones of former days, to shut his eyes, he felt reassured and became calm, while his friend prayed for him.
it was not a set or formal prayer by any means. it sounded strangely like a man asking a friend, in commonplace terms, but very earnestly, to give him what he stood in great need of; and what jim asked for was the salvation of his friend’s soul and his restoration to health. the petition, therefore, was remarkably brief, yet full of reverence, for jim, though naturally blunt and straightforward, felt that he was addressing the great and blessed god and saviour, who had so recently rescued his own soul.
after saying “amen!” which the sick man echoed, slagg pulled out his bible and read through the fourteenth chapter of john’s gospel, commenting quietly as he went along, while his comrade listened with intense earnestness. at the first verse jim paused and said, “this wasn’t written to holy and sinless men. ‘let not your heart be troubled,’ was said to the disciples, one o’ them bein’ peter, the man who was to deny jesus three times with oaths and curses, and then forsake him. the lord came to save sinners. it would be a poor look-out for you, stumps, if you thought yourself a good man.”
“but i don’t—oh! i don’t, and you know i don’t!” exclaimed the sick man vehemently.
“then the lord says, ‘let not your heart be troubled,’ and tells you to believe in god and himself.”
at the second verse slagg remarked that it would be a sad, sad thing if the mansion prepared, among the many mansions, for his friend were to be left empty.
“but how am i to get to it, jim; how am i ever to find the way?”
“just what the disciple named thomas asked—an’ he was a very doubting follower of jesus, like too many of us. the master said to him what he says to you and me, ‘i am the way and the truth and the life; no one cometh unto the father but by me.’”
at the ninth verse the sailor-missionary said, “jesus is god, you see, so we’re safe to trust him,” and, at the thirteenth verse, “whatsoever ye shall ask in my name that will i do,” he said. “now, we have asked jesus to save you, and he will do it, by his holy spirit, as he has saved me—has saved millions in time past, and will save millions more in time to come. why, you see, in the sixteenth verse he tells you he will pray the father to send you a comforter, who will stay with you for ever. has he not reason then for beginnin’ with ‘let not your heart be troubled’? and that same comforter, the holy spirit, is to ‘teach us all things,’ so, you see, every difficulty is taken out of our way. ‘arise, let us go hence.’ now, my old messmate, i have arisen. will you not arise and go with me, both of us looking unto jesus?”
“i will—god helping me!” cried the sick man, literally arising from his couch and raising both arms to heaven.
“there, now—thank the lord; but you must lie down again and keep quiet,” said jim, gently and kindly forcing his friend backward.
stumps did not resist. he closed his eyes, and the restful feeling that had suddenly arisen in his heart when he said the momentous words, “i will,” coupled with exhaustion, resulted almost instantaneously in a quiet slumber.
“when did he eat last?” asked slagg of the old woman, in a low voice, for he had been taught, or had learned intuitively, that few things are more disheartening in a sick-room than a whisper.
“this morning he breakfasted at six, but it was on’y a hap’orth o’ bread and a drink o’ cold water.”
“and how dare you starve your lodger in that way?” demanded slagg, leading the astonished woman into the passage and closing the door. “don’t you know that starving a man is equal to murdering him, and that you’ll be liable to be hung if he dies? there, take this half-sov, and be off to the nearest shop, an’ buy—let me see—sassengers and steaks and—oh, you know better than me what a sick man wants. get along with you, and be back sharp. stay! where are your matches? ah! any coals? good, now away with you and fetch a doctor too, else i’ll fetch a policeman, you bolster of bones.”
thus ordered, threatened, and adjured, the landlady, half-amused, and more than half-frightened at the visitor’s gushing energy, hurried from the house, while slagg returned to the miserable room, and did his best to render it less miserable by kindling a splendid fire.
it is, perhaps, unnecessary to add, that a breakfast soon filled that room with delicious odour, such as had not been felt in that lowly neighbourhood for many years; that stumps, after a refreshing sleep, partook of the feast with relish; that jim slagg also partook of it—of most of it, indeed—and enjoyed it to the full; that the old landlady was invited to “fall to,” and did fall to with alacrity; that the domestic cat also managed to fall to, surreptitiously, without invitation, and not the less enjoyably on that account; that a miserable semi-featherless but unconquerable canary in a cage in the window took care that it was not forgotten; and that several street boys, smelling the viands from afar, came round the outer door, became clamorous, and were not sent empty away.
it may, however, be advisable to add, that stumps did not die; that joy of heart, good feeding, and—perhaps—the doctor, brought him round, and that he afterwards went to the country to spend the period of convalescence in the cottage by the roadside, with slagg’s mother.
