Mary Barton Part 13

"He's not a man of many words; and it took him by surprise like."

"I wonder at that; I've noticed it in your ways ever since you telled me."

"Ay, that's it! If I'd not telled you, and you'd seen me every day, you'd not ha' noticed the little mite o' difference fra' day to day."

"Well, but what did your grandfather say?"

"Why, Mary," said Margaret, half smiling, "I'm a bit loth to tell yo, for unless yo knew grandfather's ways like me, yo'd think it strange. He was taken by surprise, and he said: 'd.a.m.n yo!' Then he began looking at his book as it were, and were very quiet, while I telled him all about it; how I'd feared, and how downcast I'd been; and how I were now reconciled to it, if it were th' Lord's will; and how I hoped to earn money by singing; and while I were talking, I saw great big tears come dropping on th' book; but in course I never let on that I saw 'em. Dear grandfather! and all day long he's been quietly moving things out o' my way, as he thought might trip me up, and putting things in my way as he thought I might want; never knowing I saw and felt what he were doing; for, yo see, he thinks I'm out and out blind, I guess--as I shall be soon."

Margaret sighed in spite of her cheerful and relieved tone.

Though Mary caught the sigh, she felt it was better to let it pa.s.s without notice, and began, with the tact which true sympathy rarely fails to supply, to ask a variety of questions respecting her friend's musical debut, which tended to bring out more distinctly how successful it had been.

"Why, Margaret," at length she exclaimed, "thou'lt become as famous, maybe, as that grand lady fra' London as we see'd one night driving up to th' concert-room door in her carriage."

"It looks very like it," said Margaret, with a smile. "And be sure, Mary, I'll not forget to give thee a lift now and then when that comes about. Nay, who knows, if thou'rt a good girl, but may-happen I may make thee my lady's maid! Wouldn't that be nice? So I e'en sing to myself th' beginning o' one o' my songs--

'An' ye shall walk in silk attire, An' siller hae to spare.'"

"Nay, don't stop; or else give me something rather more new, for somehow I never quite liked that part about thinking o' Donald mair?"

"Well, though I'm a bit tired I don't care if I do. Before I come I were practising well-nigh upon two hours this one which I'm to sing o' Thursday. The lecturer said he were sure it would just suit me, and I should do justice to it; and I should be right sorry to disappoint him, he were so nice and encouraging like to me. Eh!

Mary, what a pity there isn't more o' that way, and less scolding and rating i' th' world! It would go a vast deal further. Beside, some o' th' singers said, they were a'most certain that it were a song o' his own, because he were so fidgety and particular about it, and so anxious I should give it th' proper expression. And that makes me care still more. Th' first verse, he said, were to be sung 'tenderly, but joyously!' I'm afraid I don't quite hit that, but I'll try.

'What a single word can do!

Thrilling all the heart-strings through, Calling forth fond memories, Raining round hope's melodies, Steeping all in one bright hue-- What a single word can do !'

"Now it falls into th' minor key, and must be very sad-like. I feel as if I could do that better than t'other.

'What a single word can do!

Making life seem all untrue, Driving joy and hope away, Leaving not one cheering ray, Blighting every flower that grew-- What a single word can do!'"

Margaret certainly made the most of this little song. As a factory worker, listening outside, observed, "She spun it reet* fine!" And if she only sang it at the Mechanics' with half the feeling she put into it that night, the lecturer must have been hard to please if he did not admit that his expectations were more than fulfilled.

When it was ended, Mary's looks told more than words could have done what she thought of it; and partly to keep in a tear which would fain have rolled out, she brightened into a laugh, and said, "For certain th' carriage is coming. So let us go and dream on it."

*Reet; right; often used for "very."

IX. BARTON'S LONDON EXPERIENCES.

"A life of self-indulgence is for us, A life of self-denial is for them; For us the streets, broad-built and populous, For them unhealthy corners, garrets dim, And cellars where the water-rat may swim!

For us green paths refreshed by frequent rain, For them dark alleys where the dust lies grim!

Not doomed by us to this appointed pain-- G.o.d made us rich and poor--of what do these complain?"

--MRS. NORTON'S Child of the Islands.

The next evening it was a warm, pattering, incessant rain--just the rain to waken up the flowers. But in Manchester, where, alas! there are no flowers, the rain had only a disheartening and gloomy effect; the streets were wet and dirty, the drippings from the houses were wet and dirty, and the people were wet and dirty. Indeed, most kept within doors; and there was an unusual silence of footsteps in the little paved courts.

Mary had to change her clothes after her walk home; and had hardly settled herself before she heard some one fumbling at the door. The noise continued long enough to allow her to get up, and go and open it. There stood--could it be? yes it was, her father!

Drenched and wayworn, there he stood! He came in with no word to Mary in return for her cheery and astonished greeting. He sat down by the fire in his wet things, unheeding. But Mary would not let him so rest. She ran up and brought down his working-day clothes, and went into the pantry to rummage up their little bit of provision while he changed by the fire, talking all the while as gaily as she could, though her father's depression hung like lead on her heart.

For Mary, in her seclusion at Miss Simmonds',--where the chief talk was of fas.h.i.+ons, and dress, and parties to be given, for which such and such gowns would be wanted, varied with a slight-whispered interlude occasionally about love and lovers--had not heard the political news of the day; that Parliament had refused to listen to the working-men, when they pet.i.tioned, with all the force of their rough, untutored words, to be heard concerning the distress which was riding, like the Conqueror on his Pale Horse, among the people; which was crus.h.i.+ng their lives out of them, and stamping woe-marks over the land.

When he had eaten and was refreshed, they sat for some time in silence; for Mary wished him to tell her what oppressed him so, yet durst not ask. In this she was wise; for when we are heavy-laden in our hearts it falls in better with our humour to reveal our case in our own way, and our own time.

Mary sat on a stool at her father's feet in old childish guise, and stole her hand into his, while his sadness infected her, and she "caught the trick of grief, and sighed," she knew not why.

"Mary, we mun speak to our G.o.d to hear us, for man will not hearken; no, not now, when we weep tears o' blood."

In an instant Mary understood the fact, if not the details, that so weighed down her father's heart. She pressed his hand with silent sympathy. She did not know what to say, and was so afraid of speaking wrongly, that she was silent. But when his att.i.tude had remained unchanged for more than half-an-hour, his eyes gazing vacantly and fixedly at the fire, no sound but now and then a deep- drawn sigh to break the weary ticking of the clock, and the drip-drop from the roof without, Mary could bear it no longer.

Anything to rouse her father. Even bad news.

"Father, do you know George Wilson's dead?" (Her hand was suddenly and almost violently compressed.) "He dropped down dead in Oxford Road yester morning. It's very sad, isn't it, father?"

Her tears were ready to flow as she looked up in her father's face for sympathy. Still the same fixed look of despair, not varied by grief for the dead.

"Best for him to die," he said, in a low voice.

This was unbearable. Mary got up under pretence of going to tell Margaret that she need not come to sleep with her to-night, but really to ask Job Legh to come and cheer her father.

She stopped outside the door. Margaret was practising her singing, and through the still night air her voice rang out, like that of an angel--

"Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your G.o.d."

The old Hebrew prophetic words fell like dew on Mary's heart. She could not interrupt. She stood listening and "comforted," till the little buzz of conversation again began, and then entered and told her errand.

Both grandfather and grand-daughter rose instantly to fulfil her request.

"He's just tired out, Mary," said old Job. "He'll be a different man to-morrow."

There is no describing the looks and tones that have power over an aching, heavy-laden heart; but in an hour or so John Barton was talking away as freely as ever, though all his talk ran, as was natural, on the disappointment of his fond hope, of the forlorn hope of many.

"Ay, London's a fine place," said he, "and finer folk live in it than I ever thought on, or ever heerd tell on except in th'

storybooks. They are having their good things now, that afterwards they may be tormented."

Still at the old parable of Dives and Lazarus! Does it haunt the minds of the rich as it does those of the poor?

"Do tell us all about London, dear father," asked Mary, who was sitting at her old post by her father's knee.

"How can I tell yo a' about it, when I never see'd one-tenth of it.

It's as big as six Manchesters, they telled me. One-sixth may be made up o' grand palaces, and three-sixths o' middling kind, and th'

rest o' holes o' iniquity and filth, such as Manchester knows nought on, I'm glad to say."

"Well, father, but did you see the Queen?"

"I believe I didn't, though one day I thought I'd seen her many a time. You see," said he, turning to Job Legh, "there were a day appointed for us to go to Parliament House. We were most on us biding at a public-house in Holborn, where they did very well for us. Th' morning of taking our pet.i.tion we had such a spread for breakfast as th' Queen hersel might ha' sitten down to. I suppose they thought we wanted putting in heart. There were mutton kidneys, and sausages, and broiled ham, and fried beef and onions; more like a dinner nor a breakfast. Many on our chaps though, I could see, could eat but little. Th' food stuck in their throats when they thought o' them at home, wives and little ones, as had, maybe at that very time, nought to eat. Well, after breakfast, we were all set to walk in procession, and a time it took to put us in order, two and two, and the pet.i.tion, as was yards long, carried by the foremost pairs. The men looked grave enough, yo may be sure and such a set of thin, wan, wretched-looking chaps as they were!"