Part 2

"No, it warn't for want of asking; fact is, I was put off marriage at a very early age. I 'ad a drunken beast of a father as spent his time a-drinking by day and a-beating mother by night--one night he overdid it and killed 'er; he got imprisonment for life, and we was put away in the workhouse schools; it would have been kinder of the parish to put us in the lethal chamber, as they do to cats and dogs as ain't wanted. But we grew up somehow, knowing as we weren't wanted, and then the parish found me a situation, under-housemaid in a big house; and then I found as the young master wanted me, the first time as any human soul had taken any interest in me, and, oh, Lord! I laughs now when I think what a 'appy time it was. Since then I've had four children, and I have twenty-five shillings a week coming in regular besides what I can make at the cooking. I lives clean and respectable--no drinking, no bad language; my children never see nor hear what I saw and heard, and they are mine--mine--mine. I always comes into the House for confinement, liking quiet and skilled medical attendance. I never gets refused--the law daren't refuse such as me. I always leaves the coming in till the last moment; then there are no awkward questions, and when they begin to inquire as to settlement, I'm off. All the women in our street are expecting next week, their husbands all out of work, and not a pair of sheets or the price of a pint of milk between them, all lying in one room, too, with children and husbands about, as I don't consider decent, but having the lines, it's precious hard for them to get in here, and half of them daren't come for fear he and some one else will sell up the 'ome whilst they're away. You remember Mrs. Hall, who died here last week? Well, she told me that her husband swore at her so fearful for having twins that the doctor sent her in here out of his way, and what with all the upset and the starvation whilst she was carrying the children, she took fever and snuffed out like a candle. No, the neighbours don't know as I'm a bad woman; I generally moves before a confinement, and I 'as a 'usband on the 'igh seas.

"Well, I'm going back to-morrow to my neat little home, that my lady-help has been minding for me, to my dear children and to my regular income, and I don't say as I envies you married ladies your rings or your slavery."

A WELSH SAILOR

I will go back to the great sweet mother, Mother and lover of men, the sea.

The Master of the Casual Ward rattled his keys pompously in the lock of the high workhouse gates, and the shivering tramps entered the yard, a battered and footsore procession of this world's failures, the outcast and down-trodden in the fierce struggle for existence. Some of them were young and strong, some old and feeble, all wan and white with hunger and the chill of the November fog which wrapped like a wet blanket round their ill-clothed bodies. Amongst them was an old man with ear-rings, and thick, curly white hair, with broad shoulders and rolling gait, and as he passed I seemed to feel the salt wind of the sea blowing in my face, and the plunge of the good ship in the billows of the bay. One by one the master shut them up in the dreary little cell where each man is locked for thirty-six hours on a dietary of porridge, cheese, and bread, and ten hours' work a day at stone-breaking or fibre-picking. And yet the men walk in with something approaching relief on their weary faces; the hot bath will restore circulation; and really to appreciate a bed one should wander the streets through a winter's night, or "lodge with Miss Green" as they term sleeping on the heath.

Half an hour later, as I sat in one of the sick-wards, I felt once again the salt freshness of the air above the iodoform and carbolic, and lying on the ambulance I saw the curly white head of the old sailor, his face blanched under its tan.

"Fainted in the bath, no food for three days; we get them in sometimes like that from the Casual Ward. Wait a moment till I put the pillow straight," said the nurse, as quickly and deftly she raised the hoary head, which has been called a crown of glory.

A few weeks later I passed through the ward, and saw the old man still lying in bed; his sleeves were rolled up, and his nightshirt loose at the throat, and I saw his arms and chest tattooed gorgeously with ships and anchors and flags, with hearts and hands and the red dragon of Wales.

"He's been very bad," said the nurse; "bronchitis and great weakness--been starving for weeks, the doctor thinks. Talks English all right when his temperature is down, but raves to himself in a sort of double-Dutch no one can understand, though we have French and Germans and Russians in the ward."

"Fy Nuw, fy Nuw, paham y'm gadewaist?" cried the old man, and I recognized the cry from the Cross, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"

"Oh! lady," he exclaimed as I sat down beside him--"oh! lady, get me out of this. My mates tell me as I'm in the workhouse, and if my old mother knew it would kill her--it would, indeed. Yes, lady, I follow the sea--went off with my old dad when I was eight year old; we sailed our old ship _Pollybach_ for wellnigh forty years; and then she foundered off Bushy Island Reef, Torres Straits, and we lost nearly all we had. After that I've sailed with Captain Jones, of the _Highflyer_, as first mate; but now he's dead I can't get a job nohow. I'm too old, and I've lost my left hand; some tackle got loose in a storm and fell upon it, and though the hook is wonderful handy, they won't enter me any more as an A.B.

"I'm a skipper of the ancient time--a Chantey-man and a fiddler. I can navigate, checking the chronometer by lunar observation. I can rig a ship from rail to truck; I can reef, hand-steer, and set and take in a top-mast studding sail; and I can show the young fools how to use a marlin-spike. Yes, indeed! But all this is no good now.

"I came up to London to find an old shipmate--Hugh Pugh. We sailed together fifty years ago, but he left the sea when he got married and started in the milk business in London. We was always good mates, and he said to me not long ago, down in Wales, that the Lord had prospered him, and that I was to turn to him in any trouble. So when my skipper died I remembered me of Hugh Pugh, and slung my bundle to come and find him. Folks was wonderful kind to me along the road, and I sailed along in fair weather till I got to London; and then I was fair frightened; navigation is very difficult along the streets--the craft's too crowded--and folks were shocking hard and unkind. I cruised about for a long time, but London's a bigger place than I thought, knowing only the docks; and David Evans doesn't seem to have got the address quite ship-shape, and I just drifted and lost faith. Somehow it's harder to trust the Lord in London than on the high seas. Then the mates tell me I fainted and was brought into the ship's hospital; and here I've lain, a-coughing, and a-burning, and a-shivering, with queer tunes a-playing in my head; couldn't remember the English, they say, and talked only Welsh; and they thought I was a Dutchman. This morning I felt a sight better, and though the nurse told me not to get up, I just tried to put on my clothes and go; but blowed if my legs didn't behave shocking--rolled to larboard, rolled to starboard, and then pitched me headlong, so that I thought I'd shivered all my timbers. So I suppose I must lie at anchor a bit longer; my legs will never stand the homeward voyage, they're that rotten and barnacled; but I'll never get better here; what I'm sickening for is the sea--the sight of her, and the smell of her, and the noise of the waves round the helm; she and me's never been parted before for more than two days, and I'm as sick for her as a man for his lass. Oh, dear! oh, dear! If I could only find Hugh Pugh----"

I suggested that there was a penny post. "Yes, lady; but, to tell the truth, I haven't got a stamp, nor yet a penny; and David Evans hasn't got the address ship-shape. The policeman laughed in my face when I asked him where Hugh Pugh lived, and said I must get it writ down better than that for London." Out of his locker he drew a Welsh Testament containing a piece of tobacco-stained paper, on which was written--

HUGH PUGH, Master Mariner, now Dairyman; In a big house in a South-Eastern Road, Off the North-road, out of London, Nor-East by Nor.

Fortunately, Hugh Pugh is not a common name--a visit to the library, a search in the trade directory, and a telephonic communication saved all further cruising.

A couple of days later I got a letter from Hugh Pugh--

DEAR MADAM,

I thank you for your communication with regard to my old friend and shipmate, Joshua Howell, of whom I had lost sight. I am glad to say I am in a position to find him some work at once, having given up my London business to my sons, and taken a house down by the sea. I am in want of a good waterman to manage a ferryboat over the river and to take charge of a small yacht, and I know that I can trust old Joshua with one hand better than most men with two. There is a cottage on the shore where he can live with his mother; and tell him we shall all be delighted to welcome an old friend and shipmate. My daughter is coming down here shortly with her children, and will be very glad for Joshua to travel with her; she will call and make arrangements for him to go to her house as soon as he is well enough to be moved. I enclose £5 for clothes or any immediate expenses, and am sorry that my old friend has been through such privations. As to any expenses for his keep at the infirmary, I will hold myself responsible.

Yours faithfully,

HUGH PUGH.

LLANRHYWMAWR, _December 6._

A Welsh letter was enclosed for the old sailor, over which he pored with tears of joy running down his cheeks.

A few days later Hugh Pugh's daughter's motor throbbed at the door of the workhouse, and the old tar rolled round shaking hands vigorously with the mates: "Good-bye; good-bye, maties; the Lord has brought me out of the stormy waters, and it's smooth sailing now. He'll do the same for you, mates, if you trust Him."

Then the door closed, and the fresh breeze dropped, and it seemed as if the ward grew dark and grey.

THE VOW

Better thou shouldest not vow than thou shouldest vow and not pay.

The heavy machines in the steam-laundry clanked and groaned, and the smell of soap and soda, cleansing the unspeakable foulness of the infirmary linen, rose up strong and pungent, as the women carried out the purified heaps to blow dry in the wind and sunshine.

The inmates worked hard and steadily under the keen eye of the matron; many of them knew by bitter experience that inattention or gossip might cost them the loss of fingers at the calenders and wringing machines. Most of the women were strong and able-bodied, and yet the briefest inquiry would reveal some moral flaw rendering them incapable of competing in the labour market--drink, dishonesty, immorality, feeble-mindedness. Amongst the heavy, uncomely figures I noticed a young woman, tall and well-grown, with a face modest and refined, framed in masses of dark hair under the pauper cap. She was folding sheets and table-cloths, working languidly as if in pain, and I drew the matron's attention to the fact.

"Yes, I don't think she'll finish the day's work. I told her to go over to the infirmary if she liked, but she said she would rather stay here as long as she could. Yes, usual thing, but she is a better class than we get here as a rule."

A few days later I saw her again in the lying-in ward, a black-haired babe in the cradle beside her, and her hair in two rope-like plaits hanging over the pillow nearly to the ground.

She looked so healthy, handsome, and honest amongst the disease and ugliness and vice around that one wondered how she came to the workhouse. "Yes," said the nurse, in answer to my thoughts, "she is not the sort we have here generally. No, I don't know anything about her; she is very silent, and they say she refused to answer the relieving officer." I sat down beside her and tried to talk about her future, but the girl answered in monosyllables, with tightly shut lips, as if she were afraid to speak.

"Won't the father of your child do anything for you?"

"I do not wish him to."

I had been a Guardian long enough to respect reticence, and I rose to go. The darkness of the December afternoon had fallen in the long, half-empty ward, the sufferers dozed, the wailing of babes was hushed, all was strangely quiet, and as I reached the door I heard a voice, "Please come back, ma'am; I should like to ask you something." Then, as I turned to her bedside again, "I have not told any one my story here; I don't think they would believe me; but it is true all the same. But please tell me first, do you hold with keeping a vow?"

"Yes, certainly I do."

"That is why I am here. I swore an oath to my dying mother, and I have kept it. I did not know how hard it would be to keep, but because I would not break it I have come to disgrace. When we were children we had a cruel, drunken father, and I seem to remember mother always crying, and at night we would be wakened with screams, and we used to rush in and try and stop father beating her to death, and the cruel blows used to half shatter our poor little bodies. One night we were too late, and we saw mother wrapped in a sheet of flame--and her shrieks! It is fifteen years ago now, but they still ring in my ears. The neighbours came and the police, and they put out the fire, and took mother to the hospital and father to the lock-up. Mother did not live long and she suffered cruel. The next day they took us children to see her. We hardly knew it was mother; she was bandaged up with white like a mummy, and only one black eye blazing like a live coal out of the rags--she had beautiful eyes--made us know her. The little boys cried, so that nurse took them out again, but they let me stay with her all night, holding a bit of rag where her hand had once been. Just as the grey dawn came in at the windows mother spoke, very low so that I had to stoop down to hear: 'Hester, my child, swear to me you will never marry, and I will die happy. The boys can look after themselves, but I cannot bear to think of you suffering as I have suffered.'

"'Yes, mother, I'll swear.' No girl of thirteen is keen on marriage, particularly with a father like ours, and I took up the book light-heartedly and swore 'So help me, God.'

"'Thank Heaven, my dear! Now kiss me.'

"I kissed a bit of rag where her mouth had been, and I saw that the black eye was dim and glazed, and the eyelid fell down as if she were sleeping. I sat on till the nurses changed watch, and then they told me she was dead.

"Father got a life sentence, the boys were sent to workhouse schools, and some ladies found me a situation in the country near Oxford. When I was about seventeen the under-gardener came courting me. He was a straight, well-set-up young chap, and I fell in love with him at once, but when he talked about marriage--having good wages--I remembered my oath. Jem said an oath like that wasn't binding; and when I said I'd live with him if he liked, he was very shocked, having honourable intentions, and he went and fetched the vicar to talk to me. He was a very holy man, with the peace of God shining through his eyes, and he talked so kind and clever, telling me that mother was dying and half-mad with pain and weakness, and that she would be the first to absolve me from such a vow. I couldn't argue with him, and so I forgot my manners, and ran out of the room for fear he'd master me. When Jem saw nothing would move me he went off one morning to America, leaving a letter to say as he had gone away for fear he should take me at my word and be my ruin.

"Things were very black after that; I had not known what he was to me till the sea was between us, and, worse than the sea, my oath to the dying. I left my good situation because I could not bear it any longer without him, and I came up to London and got into bad places and saw much wickedness, and got very lonely and very miserable, and learnt what temptation is to girls left alone. I used to go into the big Catholic cathedral by Victoria Station and kneel down by the image of the Virgin and just say, 'Please help me to keep my oath.'

"Then one day in spring, when all the flowers were out in the park, and all the lovers whispering under the trees, I remembered I was twenty-seven, and though I could never have a husband at least I might have a child. A great wave of longing came over me that I could not resist, and so I fell. And then later, when I knew what was coming to me, I was filled with terrible remorse--leastways one day I was full of joy because of my baby, and the next day I was fit to drown myself in shame. Then the Sunday before I was brought in here I went to service in St. Paul's. I had felt sick and queer all day, and I just sat down on one of the seats at the back and listened to the singing high and sweet above my head, like the chanting of the heavenly host. I was always fond of going to St. Paul's, and once on my Sunday out I even went to the Sacrament, and I says, 'O God, I've lost my character, but I've kept my oath. You made me so fond of children; please don't let me eat and drink my own damnation.'

"I sat and thought of this, puzzling and puzzling, and the hot air out of the gratings made me drowsy, and I fell asleep and dreamt it was the Judgment Day, and I stood with my baby before the Throne, and a great white light shone on me, bleak and terrible, so that I felt scorched with blinding cold. And the angel from his book read out: 'Hester French and her bastard child.'

"Then there came a little kind voice: 'She kept her oath to her dying mother, and remember, she was a woman and all alone'; and I knew it was the Virgin Mary pleading for me. And then a voice like thunder sounded: 'Blot out her sin!' and all the choirs of heaven sang together; and I awoke, but it was only the organ crashing out very loud, and the verger shaking me because he wanted to lock up. Oh, ma'am, do you think as my sin will be forgiven? At least I kept my vow."

BLIND AND DEAF

Oh, human soul! as long as thou canst so Set up a mark of everlasting light, Above the howling senses' ebb and flow, To cheer thee and to right thee if thou roam-- Not with lost toil thou labourest through the night! Thou mak'st the heaven thou hop'st indeed thy home.

Mary Grant, pauper, of Sick Ward 42, had been making charges of unkindness against Nurse Smith, and I had been appointed by the House Committee to inquire into the matter. I found a somewhat harassed-looking nurse filling up temperature-charts in a corner of the ward, and she began volubly to deny the charges.

"The woman's deaf, so it is no good shouting at her, and I believe she is angry because I can't talk on my fingers; but what with looking after both wards and washing and bathing them all, and taking their temperatures and feeding them, and giving them their medicine, I have not time to attend to the fads and fancies of each one. Granny Hunt, too, takes half my time seeing that she does not break her neck with her antics; and as to scraping the butter off Grant's bread I hope as the Committee did not attend to such a tale."

The last accusation, I assured her, had not even been brought before us, and I passed down the long clean ward where lay sufferers of all ages and conditions--the mighty head of the hydrocephalus child side by side with the few shrivelled bones of an aged paralytic. I passed the famous Mrs. Hunt--a "granny" of ninety-six, who "kept all her limbs very supple" and herself in excellent condition by a system of mattress gymnastics which she had evolved for herself. Two comparatively young people of seventy and eighty, who were unfortunate enough to lie next her, complained bitterly of Granny's restlessness; but the old lady was past discipline and "restraining influences," and, beyond putting a screen round her to check vanity and ensure decency, the authorities left her to her gymnastic displays. On the whole, though, the ward was very proud of Granny; she was the oldest inhabitant, not only in the House but also in the parish, and even female sick-wards take a certain pride in holding a record. The old lady cocked a bright eye, like a bird, upon me as I passed her bed, and, cheerfully murmuring "Oh, the agony!" executed a species of senile somersault with much agility.

Round the blazing fire at the end of the ward (for excellent fires commend me to those rate-supported) sat a group of "chronics" and convalescents--a poor girl, twisted and racked with St. Vitus's dance, white-haired "grannies" in every stage of rheumatic or senile decay, and a silent figure with bowed head, still in early middle life, who, they told me, was Mary Grant.

I shouted my inquiries down her ear _crescendo fortissimo_, without the smallest response--not even the flicker of an eyelid--whilst the grannies listened with apathetic indifference.

"Not a bit of good, ma'am," they said presently, when I paused, exhausted; "she's stone deaf."

Then I drew a piece of paper from my pocket and wrote my questions, big and clear.

"Not a bit of good, ma'am," shouted the grannies again; "she's stone blind."

I gazed helplessly at the silent figure, with the blood still flowing in her veins, and yet living, as it were, in the darkness and loneliness of the tomb.

"If she is blind and deaf and dumb, how does she manage to complain?"

"Oh! she manages that all right, ma'am," said a granny whose one eye twinkled humorously in its socket; "she's not dumb--not 'alf. The nuss that's left and Mrs. Green, the other blind lidy, talk on her fingers to her, and she grumbles away, when the fit takes 'er, a treat to 'ear; not as I blimes her, poor sowl; most of us who comes 'ere 'ave something to put up with; but she 'as more than 'er share of trouble. No, none of us know 'ow to do it--we aren't scholards; but you catches 'old on 'er 'and, and mauls it about in what they call the deaf-and-dumb halphabet, and she spells out loud like the children."

I remembered with joy that I also was "a scholard," for one of the few things we all learned properly at school was the art of talking to each other on our fingers under the desks during class. A good deal of water had flowed under London Bridge since then, but for once I felt the advantage of what educationists call "a thorough grounding."

"How are you?" spelt out a feeble, harsh voice as I made the signs--I had forgotten the "w" and was not sure of the "r," but she guessed them with ready wit--then in weird rasping tones, piping and whistling into shrill falsetto like the "cracking" voice of a youth, she burst into talk: "Oh! I am so thankful--so thankful. It seems years since any one came to talk to me--the dear nurse has left, and the other blind lady's gone to have her inside taken out, and the blind gentleman is taking a holiday, and I have been that low I have not known how to live. '_Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit; in a place of darkness and in the deep. Thine indignation lieth hard upon me; and Thou hast vexed me with all Thy storms._' David knew how I feel just exactly--might have been a deaf and blind woman himself, shut up in a work'us. I have been here nigh on two year now; I used to do fine sewing and lace-mending for the shops, and earned a tidy bit, being always very handy with my needle; then one day, as I was stitching by the window--finishing a job as had to go home that night--a flash of lightning seemed to come and hit me in the eye somehow--I remember how the fire shone bright zig-zag across the black sky, and then there was a crash, and nothing more.