"i really feel for the tinker-mother," whispered mrs. hedgehog.
"i feel for her myself," was my reply. "the cares of a family are heavy enough when they only last for the season, and one sleeps them off in a winter's nap. when—as in the case of men—they last for a lifetime, and you never get more than one night's rest at a time, they must be almost unendurable. as to prolonging one's anxieties from one's own families to the families of each of one's children—no parent in his senses—"
"what is the gipsy girl saying now?" asked mrs. hedgehog, who had been paying more attention to the women than to my observations—an annoyance to which, as head of the family, i have been subjected oftener than is becoming.
sybil had been kneeling at the old woman's feet, soothing her and chafing her hands. at last she said,
"but you did get him, mother. how was it?"
"not for five more years, my daughter. and never in all that time could i get a sight of his face. the very first house i calls at next morning, i sees a chalk mark on the gate-post, placed there by some travelling tinker or pedler or what not, by which i knows that the neighbourhood is being made too hot for tramps and vagrants, as they call us. and go back in what disguisement i might, there was no selling a bootlace, nor begging a crust of bread there—there, where he lived.
"i makes up the ten pounds, and ties it in a bag; but i gets worse and worse in health and spirits and in confusion of mind, my daughter; and when i comes accidentally across my son in a bedfordshire lane, and his wife is drinking, and he is in much bewilderment with the children, i takes up again with them, and i was with them when christian comes to me the second time."
"he came back to you?"
"learning and the confinement of stone walls, my daughter, than which no two things could be more contrary to the nature of those who dwells in the woods and lanes. i will not deny that the clergyman—and especially the young clergywoman—had been very good to him; but for which he would probably have run away long before. but what is bred in the bone comes out in the flesh. he does pretty well with the learning, and he bears with the confinement of school, though it is worse than that of the clergy-house. but when a rumour has crept out that he is not the son of the clergyman nor of the clergywoman, and he is taunted with being a gipsy and a vagrant, he lays his bare hands on those nearest to him, my daughter, and comes away on his bare feet."
"how did he find you, mother?"
"he has no fixed intentions beyond running away, my daughter; but as he is sitting in a hedge to bandage one of his feet with his handkerchief, he sees our patteran, and he goes on, keeping it by the left, and sees it again, and so follows it, and comes home."
"you mean that he came to you?"
"i do, my dear. for home is not a house that never moves from one place, built of stone or brick, and with a front door for the genteel and a back door for the common people. if it was so, prisons would be homes. but home, my daughter, is where persons is whom you belongs to, and it may be under a hedge to-day and in a fair to-morrow."
"mother," said sybil, "what did you do about the ten pounds?"
"i will tell you, my daughter. i was obliged to wait longer than was agreeable to me before proceeding to that neighbourhood, for the police was searching everywhere, and it would be wearisome to relate to you with what difficulty christian was concealed. my plans had been long made, as you know.
"clergyfolk, my daughter, with a tediousness of jaw which makes them as oppressive to listen long to as houses is to rest long in, has their good points like other persons; they shows kindness to those who are in trouble, and they spends their money very freely on the poor. this is well known, even by those who has no liking for parsons, and i have more than once observed that persons who goes straight to the public-house when they has money in their pockets, goes straight to the parson when their pockets is empty.
"it is also well known, my daughter, that when the clergyman collects money after speaking in his church, he doesn't take it for his own use, as is the custom with other people, such as punch and judy men, or singers, or fortune tellers; at the same time he is as pleased with a good collection as if it were for his own use; and if some rich person contributes a sovereign for the sick and poor, it is to him as it would be to you, my daughter, if your hand was crossed with gold by some noble gentleman who had been crossed in love.
"i explain this, my dear, that you may understand how it was that i had planned to pay back the clergy people's ten pounds in church, which would be as good as paying it into their hands, with the advantage of secrecy for myself. on the saturday i drives into the little market in a donkey-cart with greens, and on sunday morning i goes to church in a very respectable disguisement, and the sexton puts me in a pew with some women of infirm mind in workhouse dresses, for which, my daughter, i had much to do to restrain myself from knocking him down. but i does; and i behaves myself through the service with the utmost care, following the movements of the genteeler portion of the company, those in the pew with me having no manners at all; one of them standing most of the time and giggling over the pew-back, and another sitting in the corner and weeping into her lap.
"but with the exception of getting up and sitting down, and holding a book open as near to the middle as i could guess, i pays little attention, my daughter, for all my thoughts is taken up with waiting for the collection to begin, and with trying to keep my eyes from the clergywoman's face, which i can see quite clearly, though she is at some distance from me."
"did she look very wild, mother, as if she felt beside herself?"
"she looked very bad, my daughter, and grey, which was not with age. i tells you that i tried not to look at her; and by and by the collection begins.
"it seems hours to me, my daughter, whilst the money is chinking and the clergyman is speaking, and the ten pieces of gold is getting so hot in my hands, i fancies they burns me, and still not one of the collecting-men comes near our pew.
"at last, one by one, they begins to go past me and go up to the clergyman who is waiting for them at the upper end, and then i perceives that they regards us as too poor to pay our way like the rest, and that the plates will never be put into our pew at all. so when the last but one is going past me, i puts out my hand to beckon him, and the woman that is standing by me bursts out laughing, and the other cries worse than ever, and the collecting-man says, 'hush! hush!' and goes past and takes the plate with him.
"'a black curse on your insolence!' says i; and then i grips the laughing woman by the arm and whispers, 'if you make that noise again, i'll break your head,' and she sits down and begins to cry like the other.
"there is one more collecting-man, who comes last, and he is the duke, who lives at the big house.
"the nobility and gentry, my daughter, when they are the real thing, has, like the real romans, a quickness to catch your meaning, and a politeness of manner which you doesn't meet with among such people as the keeper of a small shop or the master of a workhouse. the duke was a very old man, with bent shoulders and the slow step of age, and i thinks he did not see or hear very quickly; and when i beckons to him he goes past. but when he is some way past he looks back. and when he sees my hand out, he turns and comes slowly down again, and hands me the plate with as much politeness as if i had been in his own pew, and he says in a low voice, 'i beg your pardon.'
"but when i sees him stumbling back, and knows that in his politeness he will bring me the plate, there comes a fear on me, my daughter, that he may see the ten pieces of gold and think i has stolen them. and then i knows not what i shall do, for the nobility and gentry, though quick and polite in a matter of obliging the poor, such as this one,—when they sits as poknees[c] to administer justice, loses both their good sense and their good manners as completely as any of the police.
"but it comes to me also that being such a real one—such an out-and-outer—his politeness may be so great that he may look another way, rather than peep and pry to see what the poor workhouse-company woman puts into the plate. and i am right, my daughter, for he looks away, and i lays the ten golden sovereigns in the plate, and he gives a little smile and a little bow, and goes slowly and stumblingly to the upper end, where the clergyman is still speaking verses.
"and then, my daughter, my hands, which made the gold sovereigns so hot, turns very hot, and i gets up and goes out of the church with as much respectfulness and quiet as i am able.
"and i tries not to look at her face as i turns to shut the door, but i was unable to keep myself from doing so, and as it looked then i can see it now, my dear, and i know i shall remember it till i die. i thinks somehow that she was praying, though it was not a praying part of the service, and when i looks to the upper end i sees that the eyes of the young clergyman her husband is fixed on her, as mine is.
"and of all the words which he preached that day and the verses he spoke with so much readiness, i could not repeat one to you, my daughter, to save my life, except the words he was saying just then, and they remains in my ears as her face remains before my eyes,—
"'god is not unrighteous, that he will forget your work, and labour which proceedeth of love.'"
