Robert Michael Ballantyne
Post Haste
Of course she added her persuasions to those of her landlord, and Miss Lillycrop, being induced to stay to tea, was taken into May’s private boudoir to put off her bonnet.
While there the good lady inquired eagerly about her cousin’s health and work and companions; asked for her mother and brother, and chatted pleasantly about her own work among the poor in the immediate neighbourhood of her dwelling.
“By the way,” said she, “that reminds me that I chanced to meet with that tall, handsome friend of your brother’s in very strange circumstances. Do you know that he has become a shopman in the bird-shop of my dear old friend Mr Blurt, who is very ill—has been ill, I should have said,—were you aware of that?”
“No,” answered May, in a low tone.
“I thought he came to England by the invitation of Sir Somebody Something, who had good prospects for him. Did not you?”
“So I thought,” said May, turning her face away from the light.
“It is very strange,” continued Miss Lillycrop, giving a few hasty touches to her cap and hair; “and do you know, I could not help thinking that there was something queer about his appearance? I can scarce tell what it was. It seemed to me like—like—but it is disagreeable even to think about such things in connection with one who is such a fine, clever, gentlemanly fellow—but—”
Fortunately for poor May, her friend was suddenly stopped by a shout from the outer room.
“Hallo, ladies! how long are you goin’ to be titivatin’ yourselves? There ain’t no company comin’. The sausages are on the table, and the old ’ooman’s gittin’ so impatient that she’s beginnin’ to abuse the cat.”
This last remark was too true and sad to be passed over in silence. Old Mrs Flint’s age had induced a spirit of temporary oblivion as to surroundings, which made her act, especially to her favourite cat, in a manner that seemed unaccountable. It was impossible to conceive that cruelty could actuate one who all her life long had been a very pattern of tenderness to every living creature. When therefore she suddenly changed from stroking and fondling her cat to pulling its tail, tweaking its nose, slapping its face, and tossing it off her lap, it is only fair to suppose that her mind had ceased to be capable of two simultaneous thoughts, and that when it was powerfully fixed on sausages she was not aware of what her hands were doing to the cat.
“You’ll excuse our homely arrangements, Miss Lillycrop,” said Mr Flint, as he helped his guest to the good things on the table. “I never could get over a tendency to a rough-and-ready sort o’ feedin’. But you’ll find the victuals good.”
“Thank you, Mr Flint. I am sure you must be very tired after the long walks you take. I can’t think how postmen escape catching colds when they have such constant walking in all sorts of weather.”
“It’s the constancy as saves us, ma’am, but we don’t escape altogether,” said Flint, heaping large supplies on his grandmother’s plate. “We often kitch colds, but they don’t often do us damage.”
This remark led Miss Lillycrop, who had a very inquiring mind, to induce Solomon Flint to speak about the Post-Office, and as that worthy man was enthusiastic in regard to everything connected with his profession, he willingly gratified his visitor.
“Now, I want to know,” said Miss Lillycrop, after the conversation had run on for some time, and appetites began to abate,—“when you go about the poorer parts of the city in dark nights, if you are ever attacked, or have your letters stolen from you.”
“Well, no, ma’am—never. I can’t, in all my long experience, call to mind sitch a thing happenin’—either to me or to any other letter-carrier. The worst of people receives us kindly, ’cause, you see, we go among ’em to do ’em service. I did indeed once hear of a letter being stolen, but the thief was not a man—he was a tame raven!”
“Oh, Solomon!” said May, with a laugh. “Remember that Grannie hears you.”
“No, she don’t, but it’s all the same if she did. Whatever I say about the Post-Office I can give chapter and verse for. The way of it was this. The letter-carrier was a friend o’ mine. He was goin’ his rounds at Kelvedon, in Essex, when a tame raven seized a money letter he had in his hand and flew away with it. After circlin’ round the town he alighted, and, before he could be prevented, tore the letter to pieces. On puttin’ the bits together the contents o’ the letter was found to be a cheque for thirty pounds, and of course, when the particulars o’ the strange case were made known the cheque was renewed!—There now,” concluded Solomon, “if you don’t believe that story, you’ve only got to turn up the Postmaster-General’s Report for 1862, and you’ll find it there on page 24.”
“How curious!” said Miss Lillycrop. “There’s another thing I want to know,” she added, looking with deep interest into the countenance of her host, while that stalwart man continued to stow incredible quantities of sausages and crumpets into his capacious mouth. “Is it really true that people post letters without addresses?”
“True, ma’am? why, of course it’s true. Thousands of people do. The average number of letters posted without addresses is about eighty a day.”
“How strange! I wonder what causes this?”
Miss Lillycrop gazed contemplatively into her teacup, and Solomon became suddenly aware that Grannie’s plate was empty. Having replenished it, he ordered Dollops to bring more crumpets, and then turned to his guest.
“I’ll tell you what it is, ma’am, that causes this—it’s forgetfulness, or rather, what we call absence of mind. It’s my solemn belief, ma’am, that if our heads warn’t screwed on pretty tight you’d see some hundreds of people walkin’ about London of a mornin’ with nothin’ whatever on their shoulders. Why, there was one man actually posted a cheque for 9 pounds, 15 shillings loose, in a pillar letter-box in Liverpool, without even an envelope on it. The owner was easily traced through the bank, but was unable to explain how the cheque got out of his possession or into the pillar.—Just listen to this, ma’am,” he added, rising and taking down a pamphlet from a bookshelf, “this is last year’s Report. Hear what it says:—
“‘Nearly 28,500 letters were posted this year without addresses. 757 of these letters were found to contain, in the aggregate, about 214 pounds in cash and bank-notes, and about 9088 pounds in bills of exchange, cheques, etcetera.’—Of course,” said the letter-carrier, refreshing himself with a mouthful of tea, “the money and bills were returned to the senders, but it warn’t possible to do the same with 52,856 postage-stamps which were found knocking about loose in the bottom of the mail-bags.”
“How many?” cried Miss Lillycrop, in amazement.
“Fifty-two thousand eight hundred and fifty-six,” repeated Solomon with deliberation. “No doubt,” he continued, “some of these stamps had bin carelessly stuck on the envelopes, and some of ’em p’r’aps had come out of busted letters which contained stamps sent in payment of small accounts. You’ve no idea, ma’am, what a lot o’ queer things get mixed up in the mail-bags out of bust letters and packages—all along of people puttin’ things into flimsy covers not fit to hold ’em. Last year no fewer than 12,525 miscellaneous articles reached the Returned Letter Office (we used to call it the Dead Letter Office) without covers or addresses, and the number of inquiries dealt with in regard to these things and missing letters by that Office was over 91,000.
“We’re very partickler, Miss Lillycrop, in regard to these things,” continued Solomon, with a touch of pride. “We keep books in which every stray article, unaddressed, is entered and described minutely, so that when people come howlin’ at us for our carelessness in non-delivery, we ask ’em to describe their missing property, and in hundreds of cases prove to them their own carelessness in makin’ up parcels by handin’ the wrecks over to ’em!”
“But what sort of things are they that break loose?” asked Miss Lillycrop.
“Oh, many sorts. Anything may break loose if it’s ill packed, and, as almost every sort of thing passes through the post, it would be difficult to describe ’em all. Here is a list, however, that may give you an idea of what kind of things the public sent through our mail-bags last year. A packet of pudding, a steam-gauge, a tin of cream, a bird’s wing, a musical box, packet of snowdrops, fruit sweets, shrimps, and sample potatoes; a dormouse, four white mice, two goldfinches, a lizard and a blind-worm, all alive; besides cutlery, medicines, varnish, ointments, perfumery, articles of dress; a stoat, a squirrel, fish, leeches, frogs, beetles, caterpillars, and vegetables. Of course, many of these, such as live animals, being prohibited articles, were stopped and sent to the Returned Letter Office, but were restored, on application, to the senders.”
Observing Miss Lillycrop’s surprised expression of face, the old woman’s curiosity was roused. “What’s he haverin’ aboot, my dear?” she asked of May.
“About the many strange things that are sent through the post, Grannie.”
“Ay, ay, likely enough,” returned the old creature, shaking her head and administering an unintentional cuff to the poor cat; “folk write a heap o’ lees noo-a-days, nae doot.”
“You’d hardly believe it now,” continued Solomon, turning the leaves of the Report, “but it’s a fact that live snakes have frequently been sent through the post. No later than last year a snake about a yard long managed to get out of his box in one of the night mail sorting carriages on the London and North-Western Railway. After a good deal of confusion and interruption to the work, it was killed. Again, a small box was sent to the Returned Letter Office in Liverpool, which, when opened, was found to contain eight living snakes.”
“Come now, Mr Flint,” said May, “you mustn’t bore my cousin with the Post-Office. You know that when you once begin on that theme there is no stopping you.”
“Very well, Miss May,” returned the letter-carrier, with a modest smile, “let’s draw round the fire and talk of something else.—Hallo, Dollops! clear away the dishes.”
“But he doesn’t bore me,” protested Miss Lillycrop, who had the happy knack of being intensely interested in whatever happened to interest her friends. “I like, of all things, to hear about the Post-Office. I had no idea it was such a wonderful institution.—Do tell me more about it, Mr Flint, and never mind May’s saucy remarks.”
Much gratified by this appeal, Solomon wheeled the old woman to her own corner of the fire, placed a stool under her feet, the cat on her knees, and patted her shoulder, all of which attentions she received with a kindly smile, and said that “Sol was a good laddie.”
Meanwhile the rotund maid-of-all-work having, as it were, hurled the crockery into her den, and the circle round the fire having been completed, as well as augmented, by the sudden entrance of Phil Maylands, the “good laddie” re-opened fire.
“Yes, ma’am, as you well observe, it is a wonderful institution. More than that, it’s a gigantic one, and it takes a big staff to do the duty too. In London alone the staff is 10,665. The entire staff of the kingdom is 13,763 postmasters, 10,000 clerks, and 21,000 letter-carriers, sorters, and messengers,—sum total, a trifle over 45,500. Then, the total number of Post-offices and receptacles for receiving letters throughout the kingdom is 25,000 odd. Before the introduction of the penny postage—in the year 1840—there were only 4500! Then, again—”
“O Mr Flint! pray stop!” cried Miss Lillycrop, pressing her hands to her eyes; “I never could take in figures. At least I never could keep them in. They just go in here, and come out there (pointing to her two ears), and leave no impression whatever.”
“You’re not the only one that’s troubled with that weakness, ma’am,” said the gallant Solomon, “but if a few thousands puzzle you so much what will you make of this?—The total number of letters, post-cards, newspapers, etcetera, that passed through the Post-Offices of the kingdom last year was fourteen hundred and seventy-seven million eight hundred and twenty-eight thousand two hundred! What d’ye make o’ that, ma’am?”
“Mr Flint, I just make nothing of it at all,” returned Miss Lillycrop, with a placid smile.
“Come, Phil,” said May, laughing, “can you make nothing of it? You used to be good at arithmetic.”
“Well, now,” said Phil, “it don’t take much knowledge of arithmetic to make something of that. George Aspel happened to be talking to me about that very sum not long ago. He said he had been told by a man at the Post-Office that it would take a man about a hundred and seventy years to count it. I tried the calculation, and found he was right. Then I made another calculation:—
“I put down the average length of an envelope at four inches, and I found that if you were to lay fourteen hundred and seventy-seven million letters out in a straight line, end to end, the lot would extend to above 93,244 miles, which is more than three times the circumference of the world. Moreover, this number is considerably more than the population of the whole world, which, at the present time, is about 1444 millions, so that if the British Post-Office were to distribute the 1477 millions of letters that pass through it in the year impartially, every man, woman, and child on the globe would receive one letter, post-card, newspaper, or book-packet, and leave thirty-three millions to spare!”
“Now, really, you must stop this,” said May; “I see that my cousin’s colour is going with her efforts to understand you. Can’t you give her something more amusing to think of?”
“Oh, cer’nly,” said Solomon, again turning with alacrity to the Report. “Would you like to hear what some people think it’s our dooty to attend to? I’ll give you a letter or two received by our various departments.”
Here the letter-carrier began to read the following letters, which we give from the same Report, some being addressed to the “Chief of the Dead Office,” others to the Postmaster-General, etcetera.
“May 18—.
“Dear Sir,—I write to ask you for some information about finding out persons who are missing—I want to find out my mother and sisters who are in Melbourne in Australia i believe—if you would find out for me please let me know by return of post, and also your charge at the lowest, yours,” etcetera.
“Nov. 8, 18—.
“Sir,—Not having received the live bullfinch mentioned by you as having arrived at the Returned Letter Office two days ago, having been posted as a letter contrary to the regulations of the Postal system, I now write to ask you to have the bird fed and forwarded at once to —, and to apply for all fines and expenses to —. If this is not done, and I do not receive the bird before the end of the week, I shall write to the Postmaster-General, who is a very intimate friend of my father’s, and ask him to see that measures are taken against you for neglect.
“This is not an idle threat, so you will oblige by following the above instructions.”
“Wales, Nov. 12, 18—.
“Dear Sir,—I am taking the liberty of writeing you those few lines as I am given to understand that you do want men in New South Wales, and I am a Smith by Trade; a single man. My age is 24 next birthday. I shood be verry thankful if you would be so kind and send all the particulars by return.”
“London, Nov. 5, 18—.
“Sir,—i right to you and request of you sinsearly for to help me to find out my husband. I ham quite a stranger in London, only two months left Ireland—i can find know trace of my husband—your the only gentleman that I know that can help me to find him. Thears is letters goes to him to – in his name and thears is letters comes to him to the – Post-Office for him.—Sir you may be sure that i ham low in spirit in a strange contry without a friend. I hope you will be so kind as not to forget me. Sir, I would never find – for I would go astray, besides i have no money.”
“So you see, ma’am,” continued Solomon, closing the Report, “much though we do, more is expected of us. But although we can’t exactly comply with such requests as these, we do a pretty stroke of business in other ways besides letter-distributin’. For instance, we are bankers on a considerable scale. Through our money-order agency the sum we transmitted last year was a trifle over 27,870,000 pounds, while the deposits in our Savings-Banks amounted to over 9,166,000 pounds. Then as to telegraphs: there were— But I forgot,” said Solomon, checking himself, “Miss May is the proper authority on that subject.—How many words was it you sent last year?”
“I won’t tell you,” said May, with a toss of her little head. “You have already driven my cousin distracted. She won’t be able to walk home.”
“My dear, I don’t intend to walk home; I shall take a cab,” said the mild little woman. “Do tell me something about your department.”
“No, cousin, I won’t.”
“Sure, if ye don’t, I will,” said Phil.
“Well then, I will tell you a very little just to save you from Phil, who, if he once begins, will kill you with his calculations. But you can’t appreciate what I say. Let me see. The total number of telegraphic messages forwarded by our offices in the United Kingdom during the last twelve months amounted to a little more than twenty-two millions.”
“Dear me!” said Miss Lillycrop, with that look and tone which showed that if May had said twenty-two quintillions it would have had no greater effect.
“There, that’s enough,” said May, laughing. “I knew it was useless to tell you.”
“Ah, May!” said Phil, “that’s because you don’t know how to tell her.—See here now, cousin Sarah. The average length of a message is thirty words. Well, that gives 660 millions of words. Now, a good average story-book of 400 pages contains about ninety-six thousand words. Divide the one by the other, and that gives you a magnificent library of 6875 volumes as the work done by the Postal Telegraphs every year. All these telegrams are kept for a certain period in case of inquiry, and then destroyed.”
“Phil, I must put on my things and go,” exclaimed Miss Lillycrop, rising. “I’ve had quite as much as I can stand.”
“Just cap it all with this, ma’am, to keep you steady,” interposed Solomon Flint;—“the total revenue of the Post-Office for the year was six millions and forty-seven thousand pounds; and the expenditure three millions nine hundred and ninety-one thousand. Now, you may consider yourself pretty well up in the affairs of the Post-Office.”
The old ’ooman, awaking at this point with a start, hurled the cat under the grate, and May laughingly led Miss Lillycrop into her little boudoir.
Chapter Twelve.
In Which a Bosom Friend is Introduced, Rural Felicity is Enlarged on, and Deep Plans are Laid
A bosom friend is a pleasant possession. Miss Lillycrop had one. She was a strong-minded woman. We do not say this to her disparagement. A strong mind is as admirable in woman as in man. It is only when woman indicates the strength of her mind by unfeminine self-assertion that we shrink from her in alarm. Miss Lillycrop’s bosom friend was a warm-hearted, charitable, generous, hard-featured, square-shouldered, deep-chested, large-boned lady of middle age and quick temper. She was also in what is styled comfortable circumstances, and dwelt in a pretty suburban cottage. Her name was Maria Stivergill.
“Come with me, child,” said Miss Stivergill to Miss Lillycrop one day, “and spend a week at The Rosebud.”
It must not be supposed that the good lady had given this romantic name to her cottage. No, when Miss Stivergill bought it, she found the name on the two gate-posts; found that all the tradespeople in the vicinity had imbibed it, and therefore quietly accepted it, as she did all the ordinary affairs of life.
“Impossible, dear Maria,” said her friend, with a perplexed look, “I have so many engagements, at least so many duties, that—”
“Pooh!” interrupted Miss Stivergill. “Put ’em off. Fulfil ’em when you come back. At all events,” she continued, seeing that Miss Lillycrop still hesitated, “come for a night or two.”
“But—”
“Come now, Lilly”—thus she styled her friend—“but give me no buts. You know that you’ve no good reason for refusing.”
“Indeed I have,” pleaded Miss Lillycrop; “my little servant—”
“What, the infant who opened the door to me?”
“Yes, Tottie Bones; she is obliged to stay at nights with me just now, owing to her mother, poor thing, being under the necessity of shutting up her house while she goes to look after a drunken husband, who has forsaken her.”
“Hah!” exclaimed Miss Stivergill, giving a nervous pull at her left glove, which produced a wide rent between the wrist and the thumb. “I wonder why women marry!”
“Don’t you think it’s a sort of—of—unavoidable necessity?” suggested Miss Lillycrop, with a faint smile.
“Not at all, my dear, not at all. I have avoided it. So have you. If I had my way, I’d put a stop to marriage altogether, and bring this miserable world to an abrupt close.—But little Bones is no difficulty: we’ll take her along with us.”
“But, dear Maria—”
“Well, what further objections, Lilly?”
“Tottie has charge of a baby, and—”
“What! one baby in charge of another?”
“Indeed it is too true; and, you know, you couldn’t stand a baby.”
“Couldn’t I?” said Miss Stivergill sharply. “How d’you know that? Let me see it.”
Tottie being summoned with the baby, entered the room staggering with the rotund mountain of good-natured self-will entirely concealing her person, with exception of her feet and the pretty little coal-dusted arms with which she clasped it to her heaving breast.
“Ha! I suppose little Bones is behind it,” said Miss Stivergill.—“Set the baby down, child, and let me see you.”
Tottie obeyed. The baby, true to his principles, refused to stand. He sat down and stared at those around him in jovial defiance.
“What is your age, little Bones?”
“Just turned six, m’m,” replied Tottie, with a courtesy, which Miss Lillycrop had taught her with great pains.
“You’re sixty-six, at the least, compared with male creatures of the same age,” observed her interrogator.
“Thank you, m’m,” replied Tottie, with another dip.
“Have you a bonnet and shawl, little Bones?”
Tottie, in a state of considerable surprise, replied that she had.
“Go and put ’em on then, and get that thing also ready to go out.”
Miss Stivergill pointed to the baby contemptuously, as it were, with her nose.
“He’s a very good bybie”—so the child pronounced it—“on’y rather self-willed at times, m’m,” said Tottie, going through the athletic feat of lifting her charge.
“Just so. True to your woman’s nature. Always ready to apologise for the male monster that tyrannises over you. I suppose, now, you’d say that your drunken father was a good man?”
Miss Stivergill repented of the speech instantly on seeing the tears start into Tottie’s large eyes as she replied quickly—“Indeed I would, m’m. Oh! you’ve no notion ’ow kind father is w’en ’e’s not in liquor.”
“There, there. Of course he is. I didn’t mean to say he wasn’t, little Bones. It’s a curious fact that many drun—, I mean people given to drink, are kind and amiable. It’s a disease. Go now, and get your things on, and do you likewise, Lilly. My cab is at the door. Be quick.”
In a few minutes the whole party descended to the street. Miss Stivergill locked the door with her own hand, and put the key in her pocket. As she turned round, Tottie’s tawdry bonnet had fallen off in her efforts to raise the baby towards the outstretched hands of her mistress, while the cabman stood looking on with amiable interest.
Catching up the bonnet, Miss Stivergill placed it on the child’s head, back to the front, twisted the strings round her head and face—anyhow—lifted her and her charge into the cab, and followed them.
“Where to, ma’am?” said the amiable cabman.
“Charing Cross,—you idiot.”
“Yes, ma’am,” replied the man, with a broad grin, touching his hat and bestowing a wink on a passing policeman as he mounted the box.
On their way to the station the good lady put out her head and shouted “Stop!”
The maligned man obeyed.
“Stay here, Lilly, with the baby.—Jump out, little Bones. Come with me.”
She took the child’s bonnet off and flung it under the cab, then grasped Tottie’s hand and led her into a shop.
“A hat,” demanded the lady of the shopwoman.
“What kind of hat, ma’am?”
“Any kind,” replied Miss Stivergill, “suitable for this child—only see that it’s not a doll’s hat. Let it fit her.”
The shopwoman produced a head-dress, which Tottie afterwards described as a billycock ’at with a feather in it. The purchaser paid for it, thrust it firmly on the child’s head, and returned to the cab.
A few minutes by rail conveyed them to a charmingly country-like suburb, with neat villas dotting the landscape, and a few picturesque old red brick cottages scattered about here and there.
Such a drive to such a scene, reader, may seem very commonplace to you, but what tongue can tell, or pen describe, what it was to Tottie Bones? That pretty little human flower had been born in the heart of London—in one of the dirtiest and most unsavoury parts of that heart. Being the child of a dissolute man and a hard-working woman, who could not afford to go out excursioning, she had never seen a green field in her life. She had never seen the Thames, or the Parks. There are many such unfortunates in the vast city. Of flowers—with the exception of cauliflowers—she knew nothing, save from what little she saw of them in broken pots in the dirty windows of her poor neighbourhood, and on the barrows and baskets of the people who hawked them about the city. There was a legend among the neighbours of Archangel Court that once upon a time—in some remote period of antiquity—a sunbeam had been in the habit of overtopping the forest of chimneys and penetrating the court below in the middle of each summer, but a large brick warehouse had been erected somewhere to the southward, and had effectually cut off the supply, so that sunshine was known to the very juvenile population only through the reflecting power of roofs and chimney-cans and gable windows. In regard to scents, it need scarcely be said that Tottie had had considerable experience of that class which it is impossible to term sweet.
Judge then, if you can, what must have been the feelings of this little town-sparrow when she suddenly rushed, at the rate of forty miles an hour, into the heavenly influences of fields and flowers, hedgerows, and trees, farm-yards and village spires, horse-ponds, country inns, sheep, cattle, hay-carts, piggeries, and poultry.
Her eyes, always large and liquid, became great crystal globes of astonishment, as, forgetful of herself, and almost of baby, she sat with parted lips and heaving breast, gazing in rapt ecstasy from the carriage window.
Miss Stivergill and Miss Lillycrop, being sympathetic souls, gazed with almost equal interest on the child’s animated face.
“She only wants wings and washing to make her an angel,” whispered the former to the latter.
But if the sights she saw on the journey inflated Tottie’s soul with joy, the glories of Rosebud Cottage almost exploded her. It was a marvellous cottage. Rosebushes surrounded it, ivy smothered it, leaving just enough of room for the windows to peep out, and a few of the old red bricks to show in harmony with the green. Creepers in great variety embraced it, and a picturesque clump of trees on a knoll behind sheltered it from the east wind. There was a farm-yard, which did not belong to itself, but was so close to it that a stranger could scarcely have told whether it formed part of the Rosebud domain or that of the neighbouring cottage. The day, too, was exceptionally fine. It was one of those still, calm, sunny, cloudless days, which induce healthy people sometimes to wish that earth might be their permanent home.
“Oh, bybie!” exclaimed Tottie Bones, when, having clambered to the top of the knoll, she sat down on a tree-root and gazed on the cottage and the farm-yard, where hens were scratching in the interest of active chickens, and cows were standing in blank felicity, and pigs were revelling in dirt and sunshine—“Oh, bybie! it’s ’eaven upon earth, ain’t it, darling?”
The darling evidently agreed with her for once, for, lying on his back in the long grass, he seized two handfuls of wild-flowers, kicked up his fat legs, and laughed aloud.
“That’s right, darling. Ain’t it fun? And such flowers too—oh! all for nothing, only got to pull ’em. Yes, roll away, darling, you can’t dirty yourself ’ere. Come, I shall ’ave a roll too.” With which remark Tottie plunged into the grass, seized the baby and tumbled him and herself about to such an extent that the billycock hat was much deteriorated and the feather damaged beyond recovery.
Inside The Rosebud the other two members of the party were also enjoying themselves, though not exactly in like manner. They revelled in tea and in the feast of reason.
“Where, and when, and why did you find that child?” asked Miss Stivergill.
Her friend related what she knew of Tottie’s history.
“Strange!” remarked Miss Stivergill, but beyond that remark she gave no indication of the state of her mind.
“It is indeed strange,” returned her friend, “but it is just another instance of the power of God’s Word to rescue and preserve souls, even in the most unfavourable circumstances. Tottie’s mother is Christian, and all the energies of her vigorous nature are concentrated on two points—the training of her child in the fear of God, and the saving of her husband from drink. She is a woman of strong faith, and is quite convinced that her prayers will be answered, because, she says, ‘He who has promised is faithful,’ but I fear much that she will not live to see it.”
“Why so?” demanded the other sharply.
“Because she has a bad affection of the lungs. If she were under more favourable circumstances she might recover.”
“Pooh! nonsense. People constantly recover from what is called bad affection of the lungs. Can nothing be done for her?”
“Nothing,” replied Miss Lillycrop; “she will not leave her husband or her home. If she dies—”
