by Ellen Wood
“Can you tell me whether a person named Daniel Low lives here?”
“Dan Low; yes. That’s where he hangs out,” pointing to one of the houses opposite. “Front room, first pair.”
Glisson looked at it in doubt: she knew her brother had not been prosperous of late years, by the many calls he had made, or tried to make, on Glisson’s purse, but she could not believe he was reduced to live in this sort of plight in a Cass Court. Just then a woman put her face to a broken pane of glass in the room indicated, and the man spoke.
“Here, misses; here’s a lady asking after your Dan.”
“After our Dan! What’s he been up to!”
“‘Taint that sort o’ thing. It’s a stranger.”
“He ain’t at home yet: he’s on his rounds.”
“Better go up, if you want ‘em,” concluded the man to Glisson.
She proceeded to the room indicated. It was nearly bare of furniture, save for a rude bed (or what served for one) down in a comer: a more miserable habitation it was almost impossible to conceive, and Glisson’s courage died out as she gazed at it. The woman was washing some things in a tub, which things would soon be hung in the room to dry: could it really be her brother’s wife? Glisson had seen her once, and then she was a pretty young woman; now all signs of prettiness were gone; her face was wrinkled, wearing a perpetual look of hard care, and her hair had turned gray — such hair! sticking out over her head, a tangled mass.
“Are you Emma Low?”
The woman fixed her eyes wonderingly on the intruder. “Why — it’s not — it’s never Mrs. Glisson!”
“Yes, it’s me,” said Glisson. “Have you a chair, or any thing I can sit down upon for a minute: I am quite overcome at finding you in this state.”
Emma Low brought forward a chair from which the rush seat was gone, but she clapped a piece of board across it, and Glisson sat down. “What a dreadful place to live in!” she uttered. “I wonder the close air doesn’t kill you!”
“Well, I thought it bad when we first came here,” returned the wife; “but we got used to it. So you be in London!”
“How’s Daniel? and how are the children?” asked Glisson.
“Middling. Dan’s on his rounds: he won’t be here for another hour yet. Saturdays is busy nights with ‘em. The young uns be out in the court and about.”
“What do you mean by Daniel’s rounds?” questioned Glisson, puzzled at the word.
“Dan’s a costermonger now; he hawks things about the streets in his hand-barrow, and we call it going his rounds. He has stuck to it ever since our business failed.”
“How did it come to fail?” asked Glisson.
“Ah! how do things come to fail? I’ll luck: and expenses was great.”
“Is Daniel steady?”
“He’s pretty well: better than some around us. He might be steadier if he would, and then we should have kept our shop on, and a good roof over our heads.”
“Do you manage to get a living?” continued Glisson.
“Of course we get a living, such as it is, or else we should be on the tramp, or in the workhouse. But it’s starving, half the time. I’m sorry I have got nothing in the place to ask you to have,” she added, “and till Dan comes home I don’t possess a single copper.”
“Oh,” said Glisson hastily, turning against the idea of eating in such an atmosphere, “I could not take anything, if you had your cupboard full. I went into a coffee-shop and got a cup of tea and some bread and butter, and I am tired to death, for I have been looking for you three parts of the day.”
“Have you come to London with the family?” asked Mrs. Low.
“No, I have left them.”
“Left them! “ was the echo. “After being there so long!”
“My mistress died,” said Glisson, “and there’s a second mistress now, and I did not take kindly to her, nor she to me.”
The children came in, one by one, three of them, the eldest about eleven, and they were severally put to bed — after the fashion of putting to bed prevailing in that locality. Their upper garment was taken off, their rags were kept on, and they lay down.
“They have not said their prayers,” cried Glisson.
“Prayers!” uttered Emma Low in an accent of much surprise, while the children stared vacantly. “Oh law! we don’t have time for those sort of things here.”
“Where do you and Daniel sleep?” next asked Glisson.
“There!”
“There! on that bed, with all the three children?” returned she.
“Where else are we to sleep? ’Twasn’t comfortable when we had first to do it; but it’s astonishing how you get used to a thing, when there’s no help against it.”
“And young Dan?” continued Glisson. “And Mary?” I suppose he’s out with his father.”
“Indeed he’s not. Young Dan has set up for himself. He has left us, and got a barrow, and goes round with winkles and herrings, and such like, or fruit when it’s in. He has took up with a girl, and she goes round with him. I b’lieve they get a living somehow.”
Glisson did not penetrate to the meaning of the phrase “took up,” in the sense it was spoken, or she would have wondered more than she did; but the rest of the information afforded her considerable amazement. “Why, Dan is only sixteen!” she replied; “he’s only a boy.”
“There’s hardly a boy of that age in our Court, but what thinks himself a man,” was Emma Low’s answer. “As to Polly, she’s out on her own account, too. It makes less months to feed at home, and folks, come to what we have, can’t afford to be nice, and to stick at trifles.”
She sighed deeply as she spoke. Glisson, full of strange doubt, but not venturing to ask questions which might solve it, sat in silence, and at that juncture a little boy came up the stairs.
“Can you lend mother a bit o’ candle please? and she’ll pay it back again when father’s home.”
“I haven’t got a morsel but this I’m using. Jemmy, or else, tell your mother, she might be welcome to it,” replied Mrs. Low.
The boy did not go away immediately. He stood looking down at the three faces in the bed.
“He is thinking there’s enough of ’em there for one bed,” spoke Glisson in her ignorance.
Emma Low could not forbear a faint laugh, though she and merriment seemed to have parted company long ago.
‘‘Here, Jemmy,” said she to the boy, “tell that lady how you sleep in your room.”
“We all sleeps in a big bed,” said he, turning up his wan face to Glisson, with a good-humoured smile; “it’s as big as that.”
That was about a third less large than the one Glisson had enjoyed to herself at Danesbury House.
“But tell who sleeps in it, Jemmy,” persisted Mrs. Low.
“Father, and mother, and Catherine, and the baby, at the top; and me and Neddy, and Sam, at the bottom,” was the ready answer.
“So that’s two more than our lot,” said Emma Low to Glisson, as the boy went out.
Daniel Low came in. He was dressed pretty tidily in fustian, and was excessively astonished to see his sister. He gave her a history of his downfall, ascribing it to every cause but the right one — drink. He had brought home money, and his first thought was hospitality; one of the children was roused from the bed, and sent to the palace at the comer of Cass Court, for a pint of “Old Tom,” and the three sat down and discussed the gin, Emma Low providing hot water and three cracked tea-cups. Then he put Glisson into an omnibus which would take her to the inn where she had arrived late the previous night, and where she had left her boxes.
As a child’s mind gradually awakens to the wonders of the world, so did Glisson’s senses awake, by degrees, to the wonders of Cass Court. She was alone in London, knowing nobody, and the first shock — the first distaste gone off, she naturally sought her relations often. Glisson’s heart was good; and she was deliberating whether she could not assist them to rise out of their fallen and most undesirable position. Hence s
he spent many an hour in Cass Court, and its evils were progressively unfolded to her. Cass Court was not the worst of its kind; others there were, not far from it, the very hot-beds of crime — shunned, even by the police, as being desperately dangerous and wicked. Take Cass Court as a whole, it was honest; and, taking it in comparison, it was respectable — in comparison, mind, with those other places hinted at. Also, it was hard working; but the great filing of Cass Court was its dreadful poverty; and that poverty was caused by the feet that one half of what was earned was spent in drink. The occupation followed by many of the men was the same as that of Glisson’s brother — they were costermongers in the London streets. Their social and moral state was mostly bad, and they did not care to rise from it. When the men were “off their rounds,” and when those pursuing other callings had left work in the evening, their abiding-place was the ale-house or the gin-shop, or some low place of amusement, where they could also get drink, or else take it with them. Too often their wives accompanied them: we say “wives,” as we are writing for polite ears — Glisson used to pay them the same compliment; but not one couple in ten were legally bound together, or had ever been inside a church in their lives. Glisson understood now what the “setting up” meant. As boys and girls grew, they left their parents, other boys and girls doing the same, and set up on their own account: in pairs, of course. Children of fourteen, sixteen, eighteen years. The parents winked at it; some went so far as to recommend it — in Mrs. Low’s sentence there was an emphatic meaning— “It’s less mouths to feed at home!” The only stock in trade necessary to set up with was a hand-barrow, and this they contrived to get, having a few shillings in reserve to purchase the first load, whether stale fish, stale fruit, or stale vegetables. Thus they started in life, and generally obtained enough to live
— or, it may be more correct to say, they obtained enough not to die. They also obtained drink; whether food was had or not, drink must be found. They also enjoyed their evenings’ amusements, and they would enjoy them — those amusements and the drink constituting the .paradise of their lives. Once Glisson was persuaded into going; it was to a theatrical entertainment — if her majesty’s chamberlain will not bring an action against us for calling it such. Glisson paid for the lot — that is, for her party, a penny each, which was the price of admission to the theatre. The audience was numerous; men and women, boys and girls; some had pewter pots of porter to regale themselves with, some had stone bottles of gin, and short pipes were plentiful. The representation began, and Glisson stopped for a whole quarter of an hour, and then struggled out of the place, her face red, and her mind indignant, for such language, such ideas, she had never dreamed of. While the rest of the company (such is use!) sat on, in an ecstasy of applause and admiration; and, when it was over, left, only to look forward with feverish impatience to the performance of the next night. And that way of living, of spending the days and the nights, was a very fair specimen of the pursuits of the ladies and gentlemen of Cass Court.
But how was it that they did not strive to lift themselves out of degradation so great? Need Glisson have asked? It was the daily indulgence in stimulating liquors that had perverted their minds and seared their hearts. They learned to love drink in their childhood; as soon as they could carry a pewter pot to their lips they relished the taste of beer; as soon as they could get gin they indulged in it: and philosophers tell us that use is second nature. The love of liquors, ere they became men, was confirmed and strong; it had grown with their growth; and if they could have overcome the inward craving for it, they could never battle with the temptations to indulge in it, which beset them all around.
Some few in Cass Court, a very few, had. once been in a superior class of life; they had been gentle-people. Reader, you do not believe it; but I am telling you nothing but truth. How could they have fallen from their pinnacle to shame and misery such as this? How indeed! Ask themselves. Its bare recollection, even now, causes them a shudder, a sickening shudder, as they glance back at the marked features of their downward progress. It was “the drink,” they will tell you. Yes, it is always the drink.
Glisson’s relations had neither been gentle-people nor first-class trades-people (speaking of their grade), but they had fallen from comfort and respectability, and Glisson felt it her duty to extricate them from the contamination and distress of Cass Court. Of course, they were not backward in seconding her wishes. Indulgence in drink had been the chief cause in her brother’s downfall, but they kept the fact from her. He had wasted both time and money in it, which had led to difficulties, and thence to ruin. He persuaded Glisson that if she would advance the means to set him up anew in his old trade, he should not fail to do well, perhaps realize an independence. Glisson acceded; and it was for that purpose she withdrew her money from the hands of Mr. Danesbury. A shop was taken in Hatton Garden (for in Glisson’s opinion the farther they got away from Cass Court the better), and opened in the coal and green-grocery line, and Glisson was to reside with them, the best room on the first floor being assigned to her. Such was the plan entered upon, and we shall see in a little time how it prospered.
CHAPTER VI.
TRAINING.
It was a fair scene. The golden gleam of summer shone upon the land, the luxuriant com already gave taken of a plentiful harvest, the grateful scent of the new-mown hay told that the grass was cut, and the cattle were lazily stretched beside the glittering pools. Especially peaceful seemed the still air, the calm landscape, as these fair country scenes do seem on the Day of East.
Walking home from morning service was a group, amid other groups. Mr. Danesbury, his daughter and her governess, and his four sons, Arthur, William, Robert, and Lionel: for the time has gone by, reader, and Robert Danesbury, the young infant, is now eight years old, and his brother Lionel is seven. Two children only had the second Mrs. Danesbury.
Mrs. Danesbury did not attend church that day: she had one of her nervous headaches and remained in bed: she often did have them; the servants declared they came on from her indulged fits of “temper;” but whatever may have been their cause, they did not tend to render the house more pleasant.
Arthur had returned from keeping his first term at Cambridge: though intended to be only what his father was before him, a commercial man, the very highest educational advantages were being afforded him. To say that Arthur was growing up good-looking, would not be saying enough: a more noble-looking youth, both in face and form, it was impossible to conceive: lofty in mind, lofty in person, lofty in countenance, was Arthur Danesbury.
Mrs. Danesbury had risen when they got home, and they sat down to dinner, which was always taken early on the Sunday. Arthur and Isabel drank water, as was customary, but beer was supplied to the three younger boys — and there, for those young children, lay the error; for the first Mrs. Danesbury’s theory was right. When the cloth was removed, a full glass of rich wine was poured out for them; it was the usual Sunday’s treat, the accompaniment to the fruit and cakes; they were all three fond of it; they had learned to be; and they somehow in their little minds connected the wine and Sunday together, and believed the wine must be a very good thing, as they always had it on that day.
Mrs. Danesbury, the present, had been positive on this point; it may be said, obstinate. She would not bring them up to drink water. She would not let them taste it at their meals; and, if they complained of thirst in the day, would order a glass of table-beer brought in for them. The fact that it had been the wish and maxim of the first Mrs. Danesbury no doubt influenced her in thus acting; for a jealous feeling toward that lady’s memory — ay, and toward her children — rankled in her heart. Mr. Danesbury did not interfere. Always a temperate man himself, sprung from a temperate family, and partaking, whether of wine or beer, only in strict moderation, he saw no harm in the children’s doing so, and never cast a thought as to its bringing harm for the future.
But there is other training required from a mother to a child, besides that desirable one of confining its
drink to water. Few are more deeply impressed with the responsibility resting on a mother, or more earnestly anxious for her children’s welfare than had been the first Mrs. Danesbury: few, let us hope, are more careless of it than was the second. I speak of welfare in the highest sense of the term — that they should be great and good here, and inheritors of eternal life hereafter. Isabel, Mrs. Danesbury, knew that this sort of welfare can best be attained (I had almost said, only be attained) by incessant care, and watchfulness, and training of a child, from its very earliest years. She never omitted to take her child, Arthur, from the time he was two years old, to herself, for ten minutes after breakfast. She would put him on her knee and read a little, and talk to him about God, and about his own childish duties — what he must do, what he must not do. She would speak in a low, persuasive, loving voice, which of itself was sufficient to draw the love of the child. Generally speaking, but not so invariably as in the morning, for engagements sometimes prevented her, she would take him so in the evening, and whisper pleasant words of angels loving him and watching over him in his sleep. She rarely failed to hear him his prayers herself, not trusting even to Glisson, for, as a general rule, servants do not care whether they are said reverently or irreverently. In the day-time, she had him with her a great deal, and was always striving to form his mind for good. One thing which she impressed fully upon him was, that this world was not his home; that, at the best, he would be in it but a short period; and she taught him to live so as not to dread death. Before she was taken from him, Arthur’s mind, naturally a tractable one, had been moulded well, and he had learned the fact that he had grave responsibilities upon him, momentous duties to fulfil, and that, as his conduct was, so would his prosperity and happiness be. These seeds never could have been eradicated from Arthur Danesbury’s heart. Even had he been consigned to the charge of his step-mother, his own sense of right, so efficiently imparted to him, and the exceeding reverence, the perfect love he had borne for his mother, would have kept him safe. But the clergyman with whom he was placed proved an admirable seconder of the principles of Mrs. Danesbury. Isabel had been taken by her mother in like manner, and her governess was a Christian gentlewoman, so that she was also fortunate. But the other children; how was it with them?