“The lads who died in the Transvaal, and one was a lad I knew.”

Some sleep in the dust of the desert, far from their kith and kind.

And some went down in the waters and left but a name behind.

Yet tenderly as a woman hushes her babes to rest,

The great Cathedral takes them and holds them on her breast.

And not on the Leaders only does this light of Honour smile.

Here is the glory gilding the names of the rank and file.

The lads who fell in the Transvaal, and one was a lad I knew.

Soldiers. And therefore heroes. So be it. Give them their due.

Happy! to die for England. Happy! to yield your breath,

Knowing the flag of Honour will cover the shroud of death.

Yet—’tis a foolish sorrow to be whispered in the ear—

There are names I often think of which are never written here.

      Have seen them laid without headstone

        Where the poor mounds stretch in rows,

      And have laughed—for the Angels will find them

        When the Last Trumpet blows.

Yet to live in a grey Cathedral, on this earth where flesh is grass:

To live on a Roll of Honour, tho’ it be but a name on a brass—

      Is a wondrous thing and a worthy,

        And a thing to be desired.

      We may ponder the names of the Builders

        In the page of the God-inspired.

And never I see a Cathedral and mark its towers in air,

But I think of the men who built it, and wonder who they were.

      I think of the nameless workmen,

        Not one Master-brain alone—

      But the men who mounted the ladders,

        The men who laid stone on stone,

The men who dug the foundations, who built their best for God,

The carpenters, the masons, the lads who carried the hod.

      Humble, God knows! yet their toiling

        Was precious unto Him—

      Toil of the hand, brick-broadened,

        Toil of the rugged limb,

As the toil of these whose faces—warrior, statesman, sage,

Shine through the generations as the land’s heritage.

      Who shall declare the story

        Of the lowly lives and dumb?

      As I pace through a hundred echoes

        Their ghostly voices come

Faint, and far off, and muffled, and plead with my heart, and sigh

As a wind from the graves, beseeching that life shall not let them die.

      And as I dream, my spirit

        Passes and meets their moan.

      Here will I tell the story

        Of one of them I have known.

One who was less regarded than moss on the top-most walls,

Yet one who loved as I love this Church of God, St. Paul’s.

Not an Artist, not a Creator, not the Architect with his plan.

But just our average brother—the ordinary working-man.

Is the tale worth the telling? I doubt it. It’s but a case

Of what happens any week-day, the commonest commonplace.

Yet a Power within compels me, and will not let me be,

To tell the tale as I know it, in its dull simplicity.

You have heard of Lee the Lancer who was shot while on patrol?

A gentle chap was Johnny, owning a hero’s soul.

And he died the death of a hero. And was honoured in his fall.

But he had a brother called Peter, whom no one knows at all.

And Peter was this same mason. And up where the smut-cloud falls

He sat at work, repairing a pinnacle of St. Paul’s.

Dozens of men on the scaffolding laboured early and late,

For the work was pledged to be finished and cleared by a certain date.

Peter lodged with Lavinia Dacres, an Aunt of ours, and so

I knew as much about him as anyone could know.

He wasn’t much to look at. His hair stood stiff, like wire.

As Jim said—Poor old Peter wouldn’t set the Thames on fire!

He was awkward as a camel, and heavy as a clod,

And yet there was that in Peter which stamped him a man of God.

With a worldly lot about him he lived an unworldly life.

Where men were faithless husbands he was faithful to his wife.

Where others drank he was sober. Where the foulest talk was heard

His lips were never tarnished by one degrading word,

He neither bet nor gambled. He was always, always found

Lending a hand when trouble tumbled a mate to ground.

He was like a pearl in a soot-bag. And thank the Lord for this,

Among our labouring people there are thousands of lives like his.

Silent, obscure, unnoticed, low down in place and birth,

And yet our base and backbone, the very SALT of earth.

Peter Lee was a mason who built like the Masons of old:

More for love than for money: more for God than for gold.

And up with the smuts and the pigeons, doing his little part

In the work of Restoration—he worked with all his heart.

Wonderful thoughts, he told me, came as he chipped and chipped.

Far away down rolled the river where the Stores of the World were shipped.

Down and under and round him surged the Nation’s marvellous life.

He seemed to hear it thundering from Land’s End up to Fife,

A mighty Sea!—and its billows, breaking beyond his ken,

Were lands, and ships, and houses, and cattle, and souls of men.

The Surge of the mightiest Empire on which the sunlight falls—

And at its heart and centre, he—Peter—on St. Paul’s!—

’Twas a thought that turned him dizzy!

                And sometimes, when the tide

Of a resplendent sunset flowed from the Surrey side,

Changing the smoky city to city glorified—

He would think of another City of vaster splendour, where

Was no need of Sun or Temple for God Himself was there.

Mind you, I’m not repeating these thoughts of Peter Lee

Exactly in the language in which he told them me.

He was slow of speech, was Peter. His thoughts lay on his chest.

He dropped a word a fortnight—and I padded out the rest!

But this I know, that never—when the day’s work was done,

And the men came down the ladders, rapidly, one by one,

Did he leave without first slipping between the Cathedral doors,

Dropping his tool-bag softly upon the holy floors,

To kneel in some dim corner and let a prayer take wing

To Him to Whom a workman is dear as the greatest king—

To the patient Christ Who hears us, Who sees, Who understands,

Who dwells in the Spirit Temple not built by human hands.

And often he would wander, like me, around the place,

With awe and endless wonder upon his heavy face.

He would stand by Gordon’s marble: or spell out, man by man,

The names of many a soldier who fought the wild Afghan.

But oftenest, I gathered—tho’ he rarely gave it tongue—

He made his way to the transept where the Transvaal trophy hung.

The Cross—the wide-winged angel—to the brave Colonial band

Who in her hour of peril fought for the Mother-land.

In Africa. A Princess honoured the noble dead,

For ’twas Queen Victoria’s daughter who hung it there, he read.

And near it gleamed the tablet which told where his brother died.

And Peter would stare upon it thrilled by a speechless pride:

A stirring of his heart-strings: a joy: a strange distress,

That none would ever credit: a curious wistfulness:

A yearning to die worthy of this, the soldier’s fame—

The right to be remembered by a recorded name.

A blizzard blew through London worse than a winter’s gale.

And Peter, on the scaffolding, took just a common chill.

And went home sick and shivering, and blue, and downright ill.

His wife, she tried to nurse him—so Lavinia Dacres said.

And both the women pleaded that he should keep his bed.

But nothing they could think of would make him stop or stay.

The work was pledged to be finished and cleared by a certain day.

And work to Lee was duty. His part was almost done:

And he wouldn’t stay for his wife, or for me, or for anyone.

Not a soldier. Only a mason. Yet say what you like to say,

He went for God and Country when he went to work that day.

Sick he ascended the ladder: and sick he sat by the stone:

Sick he chipped and he hammered till the very last stroke was done:

          Mother of toil-worn children

            Who throng you and jostle you here!

          Is it a foolish fancy

            I whisper in your ear?

I would crave a leaf of laurel for these hidden humble ones

Who served the State as surely as the foremost of your sons.

          Write their names on your pillars,

            Low down, no matter how low.

          A memory of the Builders

            For a future Age to show.

Grant them a ray of that Honour for which our being calls—

Whose substance is in Heaven, whose shadow—in St. Paul’s.

’VE heard some talk of Atheists, but I never met but one.

And he was a poorish creature when all is said and done.

I pitied his wife and children, for he led them an awful life.

As I’ve often said to Jimmy—rather than be his wife,

I’d have died an old maid thankful!

                        And ’tis a curious thing,

But once, when I was single, he showed me a wedding ring,

And wanted me to keep it! And seeing he was smart,

And went to Church in those days, I might have lost my heart,

If Jimmy hadn’t passed me with his face as brown as tan;

And after I’d once seen Jimmy—there was never another man!

    This fellow—Smith his name was—he married a girl I knew

Who’d lived with me in service, called Alice Flowerdew;

As sweet as dew-washed flowers, and true gold through and through.

    We’d lost sight of one another for ever so many years.

And then we lived as neighbours. For odd as it appears,

They opened a shop in the Crescent that backs our little street.

And I saw how much he’d altered when first we chanced to meet.

    He’d dropped both Church and Chapel, and all that he’d been taught,

And attended a place on Sunday called “The Temple of Free Thought.”

And the rubbish he came home with! . . . There, it’s not for me to judge.

Maybe it was scientific. But I should have called it . . . Fudge!

I say, judge a man’s Religion by his domestic life.

Smith was Treacle to his customers, and Brimstone to his wife!

She worked like a horse or mule for her six young chicks and him:

And he’d never a word of kindness to put her in happy trim.

He was civil enough to me, mind. Oh, yes! he’d have played the Game,

As if he was still unmarried . . . if I had wished the same!

And are you surprised to hear it? I’m not. When a man lets go

His hold on God and the Bible, he’s a weed flung to and fro

On the tides of sin and folly! And Smith was in that state.

A weed! A bit of drift-wood! With nothing to keep him straight!

    And yet he’d talk! My Goodness! He’d talk to you by the yard!

I went to his place one morning, to buy a pound of lard.

His wife was busy serving (’twas she who ran the shop!)

And he was busy talking, to anyone who’d stop!

    We’d got no Father in Heaven! ’Twas no mortal use to pray!

A man was born no better than a—a—mushroom, you might say!

We sprang from the ground and went back there, mere creatures of a day.

No Heaven, and no Hereafter! No Love! No reward for the Just!

It was all a struggle for nothing, a wriggle of worms in the dust:

And life . . . he said, wasn’t worth living! . . .

                                  “Well, Mr. Smith,” says I,

“If it’s true Life isn’t worth living, why don’t you take and die?”

“What!” he says, “Blow my brains out?” “Yes,” I says, “if you choose.

’Twould be easy to blow your brains out, for you haven’t many to lose.”

He looked at me a bit staggered. “You put it very pat,

But there’s my Business to think of——” “Oh,” says I, “don’t think of that!

We’ve all got our work and our business, and when we’re lyin’ flat

It’s done by others easy. Don’t stay for the sake of the shop!”

“You forget I’ve a wife and children, for whom I ought to stop,”

Says he a-staring solemn, “Oh, your children are young and strong.

You haven’t been so pleasant that they’d miss you very long.

And there’s no such thing as love, mind—I’ve heard you say it plain.

So don’t stay for your wife,” I tells him . . . “Your wife would marry again.”

“Mrs. Hyde, you’re talking nonsense! You die yourself!” says he.

“No! There’s a world of difference,” said I, “ ’twixt you and me.

I say Life is worth living. I’m thankful every day

For the blessings I’ve been given. I CAN kneel down to pray.

I believe in a Heaven hereafter, and I want to get there, too.

Me and my husband live loving. But,” I says, “as for you,

With your crack-brain, Free Thought notions, you’re a grief to yourself and your wife.

And mark me, Mr. Smith,” I says; “you’ll make shipwreck of your life,

If you turn from God and the Bible.”

                        Then he said I was gabbling stuff.

And he called the Bible fiction! And I went. For I’d heard enough!

    And now for the rest of the story. He sat in the Hall of Free Thought

Till he got too Free to be honest! or to act as a wise man ought.

He didn’t drink, but he gambled; and his family went to the wall.

He played ducks-and-drakes with his money. He rolled down hill like a ball.

And at last he was made a bankrupt, and was sold up! Shop and all!

And then to add to the hours of sorrow his wife had spent

He went off with another woman and left her without a cent

    There she was with her six young children, not knowing where to turn.

And how she toiled and kept them is a lesson for us to learn

In the way of pluck and patience, and Faith and Mother’s love.

She was lent a little money, and she started up above

In a small house letting lodgings. And she made it answer, too.

But work . . . ! I couldn’t tell you what Alice didn’t do.

She carpentered! she painted! she whitewashed! like the men!

She scrubbed, she washed, she mended; she did the work of ten.

And cook . . . ! She’d cook a dinner with an onion, and some beans,

And a bit of pork or “trimmings,” that showed you what cooking means!

And the way she brought up them children! ’tis a miracle to tell.

She did it alone, unaided; and the whole six turned out well!

When twelve long years had passed her I said to her one day:

“You were well rid of your husband. It’s a mercy he ran away.”

She turned, her sweet face flushing. “Oh, Annie, you little know

How I think and think about him, or you wouldn’t be speaking so.

It’s the prayer of my life to reclaim him. And I feel he will come back soon.”

“Then I hope he NEVER may!” I says. But he did! That afternoon!

    It was Christmas Eve, I remember. I was tying a holly wreath.

Outside the snow was flying and driving in your teeth,

She ran in with a letter that had come by the mid-day post—

“Annie, Tom’s coming to see you!” And I jumped, as you’d jump at a ghost.

He’d addressed to the shop in the Crescent, and the folks there sent it on,

For they were friends to Alice and knew where she had gone.

He wrote on the chance, not certain if she was alive or dead,

But was coming to make inquiries, and should call on me, he said,

To hear what I could tell him. He wrote that he was ill.

For he owed for food and lodging, and couldn’t pay the bill,

For he hadn’t a single penny, nor a friend in all the earth.

’Twas a desperate sort of a letter. He hadn’t got a berth.

The woman he went with left him. And had died . . . in a small-pox tent!

“Poor soul!” said Alice softly. “I forgave her when they went.”

“Now, Alice Smith,” I tells her; “be careful what you do!

It may be lies he’s telling. He may be strong as you,

For all his tales of sickness——” “No, no,” she says, “it’s true.

For I’ve seen him . . . through the window . . . and oh! he did look poor.”

I saw her tears were falling—“Still, Alice, we can’t be sure

That he’s sorry for his falseness. I can see what’s in your mind!

But if you take him back again, as like as not you’ll find

He’ll start on his old bad habits, and sell you up again.”

“No!” she says, low and eager; “I haven’t prayed in vain.

I’ve clung to Christ’s own Promise, “Ask! and it SHALL be given!”

I know he comes back different. I’ve asked. I’ve sought. I’ve striven.

I’ve knocked, and God has opened! . . . Oh, Annie, I love him still”——

She clasped her hands so pretty—“I do. I always will.

He is my wedded husband. I can’t forget the days

When he and me were courting, and he’d got such tender ways.

And it’s Christmas Eve, remember, when nobody should roam.

Annie! . . . I hear his footstep! . . . Oh, tell him to come home!

And the Past shall be forgiven.”

                            I swept the leaves from my knee.

“My dear!” I says, and I kissed her, “you’re a better Christian than me.

There! hide yourself a minute, and let me see him first.”

I felt I must speak my mind out, or I should fairly burst.

I shut her in the cupboard where I kept the brooms and things,

And I’d scarcely got her hidden before our door bell rings,

And he walks in . . . Rather jaunty, but changed, as I could tell.

“Good evening, Mrs. Hyde,” he says; “I hope I find you well?”

“You find me very well,” I says; “and I hope that you’re the same.”

And I eyed him very steady. He coloured red with shame.

“I’m not. I’ve come to shipwreck, as you once said I should.”

“I see you have!” I stood there, like a woman made of wood,

“I thought, perhaps——,” he faltered, “you’d tell me . . . if you could . . .

About my wife and children . . . Do you know where—where Alice is?”

“I do!” I answers, cool-like. “And I can tell you this,

She’s happy. So are the children. What else might you care to know

That would give you satisfaction,” I says, “before you go?”

“Go! but I thought—I’d—see them——” he stammered hoarse and dry.

“Oh, you thought you’d see them, did you! And will you tell me why?”

He looked: he didn’t answer: “Will you tell me why,” I said.

“Can you give one single reason why you shouldn’t be as dead

To her and them for ever? You have forfeited your right

To the sacred name of Father! Alice has fought the fight

You should have fought for your young ones. You have forfeited your place

In the ranks of honest husbands! Dare you look her in the face?

The wife you swore to cherish? You’ve broken every vow

You took at God’s High Altar. And do you think that now,

Now, you’re to hold your head up?”

                            He bowed his head. He shook.

“No. You are right,” he muttered. “I don’t deserve to look.

Upon my wife and children. I reap what I have sown.

I must never see their faces—I must end my days alone.

It’s just,” he says. “God’s Justice. I’ll go . . . I’ll go away.”

He turned—so bent, so broken, so miserable and grey!

My heart went soft of a sudden.

                       “Stop!” I says, “Thomas Smith!

There’s something besides Justice you haven’t reckoned with.

That’s Love!—If you remember, you said there was no such thing!

And it’s waiting now, like an Angel, to enfold you in its wing.

You said, if you remember, ’twas no mortal use to pray.

But Alice, your wife, thought different, and she’s prayed for you every day.

If she hadn’t clung to God’s Promise in the Book you wouldn’t believe,

You’d crawl away an outcast! a tramp! this Christmas Eve!

But because she was always praying, wherever you might roam,

There shine for you in the darkness the blessed lights of Home.

She’s here! . . . herself . . . to tell you . . . she forgives . . . after all these years!

I called! . . . And there stood Alice” . . .

                                    He couldn’t stir for tears.

I saw them kiss each other. I heard words I mustn’t say.

And I closed the door upon them; and I quietly—slipped away!

          Mrs. Phipps, of Eden Terrace,

            Had a twelve-year crippled son,

          Lenny—who hobbled on crutches,

            With his legs less use than none.

How did the boy get crippled, you ask?—Well. What do you think?

What lies behind half these troubles? Just drink and—drink and—drink!

          He was lamed as a tiny toddle

            In a father’s drunken brawl.

          That father lay now in his coffin,

            And the mother toiled for them all,

There were several other children—and her face, as sweet as good,

Used to make me think when I saw it of the Angel of Motherhood!

            Once, when she caught me dancing

              My Dickie on my knee—

            He was but a year and a half,

              And the darlingest thing to see!

            Golden hair fluffed in a glory,

              Blue eyes a-shining at me!

For the first time since I’d known her I heard a sigh from her lips:

“Well to be you, Mrs. Hyde,” she says. “Why well to be me, Mrs. Phipps?”

            “Ah!” she says, “when I see your baby,

              Little legs as straight as a spike!

            Beautiful firm little body!

              It seems to come over me like

How my poor boy sits helpless, with his legs all twisted and curled,

And how I shall never see him of any use in the world.”

            It made me feel . . . I can’t tell you.

              It gave me an ache, up here!

            I popped Dick into his cradle—

              “Oh, Mrs. Phipps! My dear!

You must have a cup of tea,” I says, “and let me toast a bun!”

(When you don’t know what to say, you know, that comforts everyone!)

            And then we talked; and I said it;

              “Mrs. Phipps, I won’t preach this—

            ‘It’s the Lord’s Will Len’s a cripple,’

              For I don’t believe it is!

Drink, and sin, and disaster, and the Innocent suffering woe—

It’s not His Will, but the devil’s. And always has been so.

            “And it’s only so, most likely,

              Because our faith’s so weak.

            But Love over-rules the evil,

              And you’ll find, as sure as I speak,

Although your boy is crippled God will make his life worth while.”

And then we hugged each other. And she went home with a smile.

            And Mrs. Brace in our basement,

              When she met him in the road,

            She’d call him in his hearing—

              “An ugly little toad!”

And thank her stars her children had all their limbs and wits!

Though everyone knew her eldest was always having fits.

            And her other Imps of Darkness

              Never doing as they were told,

            Were a terror to the Peaceful,

          And the plague of young and old.

(We’d moved into Eden Terrace a couple of years before.

The Braces lodged below us, and the Phippses lived next door.)

            I don’t say Len was handsome.

              But if Dick lay, snug as a mouse,

            In his “pram,” with Lenny to watch him,

              I felt as safe as a house!

For though he was plain, and a cripple, the boy had a look in his eyes

I couldn’t describe if I tried to, ’twas so wonderful brave and wise.

            And give an eye to him, constant.

              So I went with an easy mind.

            The Cripple sat on their doorstep,

              And his mother, behind the blind,

Just waved me a hand as I passed them. ’Twas a sun-filled misty day

About the end of October—and I wasn’t two hours away.

            I remember I came back humming

              A nursery song for my lamb.

            Something foolish and funny—

              And as I stepped out of the tram

I was caught in a mob of people, all running and rushing by.

“What ever is up?” I asked them. And a runner called breathlessly——

            “There’s a Fire in Eden Terrace!”

              “A fire!” I said. “A fire!”

            I couldn’t take in his meaning.

            And then, like a flash along wire

Leapt a thought! And I clutched his elbow—“Which house is it? Man—do you know?”

“The middle one; burnin’ like tinder; an’ they say the whole Terrace ’ull go.”

            The Middle One! . . . God! . . . It was ours

              O friends, we read of such things,

            And straightway forget we have read them,

              I ran—and my feet were wings.

I was there in a flying minute. And never until I die

Will the sight fade out of my brain. Our house was a-blaze to the sky!

            Smoke poured out of every window!

              The flames shot across the street!

            And right in the press of the people,

              The glare and the flare and the heat,

The woman who promised she’d mind him—my baby—stood tearing her hair

And screaming for someone to save him . . . And then I knew

    Dickie . . . was . . . there!

            Behind that smoke . . . in his cradle.

              My baby!—I fought to get through

            And they held me back, and said, “Madness!

              It’s what nobody living can do,

But a Fireman. Wait for the Engines.” Wait!—Christ! I was going mad!

When a roar swept down the Terrace that Lenny, the crippled lad,

            Before a creature could stop him

              Had hobbled up—through the door!

            Gone! . . . Gone in! . . . on his crutches!

              To reach the second floor! . . .

Someone touched me. I turned. ’Twas his mother, by my side in the surging space.

Calm in the midst of the tumult, with the Angel look on her face.

            “Pray!” she says. “Pray!” We knelt there.

              In the roadway. God knows how we prayed . . .

            And then came the gallop of horses!

              And a cheer for the Fire Brigade!

And they reached us, and rushed into action. The ladders went up in a trice.

A Fireman climbed to our window. He was beaten back—once—and twice—

            By the smoke—but he smashed the framework,

              And sprang through—to the blazing room.

            God bless the brave heart of a Fireman!

              And a silence deep as the tomb

Fell on us all for a moment. And in the next moment he came,

Back down the shaking ladder, out of the smoke and flame,

            Bearing the senseless body

              Of the twelve-year crippled boy!

            Senseless, and burnt, and blackened,

              But O! the great wonder and joy!

In the boy’s young arms was a bundle, clasped close to his little scorched shirt,

And in that bundle—was Dickie—my baby!—alive and unhurt!

            Who set the house on fire

              A-playing with a lamp.

            And did Lenny die? No! Bless you!

              He’s as right as a postage stamp.

His burns were healed in the Hospital. And did you ever hear tell

Of Homes for Crippled Children? all over our country?—Well!

            It’s almost past believing,

              But Len’s been in one three years!

            And is learning a Trade; and happy;

              And oh! you must listen, my dears,

’Tis a fairy tale! But that Christmas, when the ice-wind stung like whips,

There came a Hamper labelled to Master Leonard Phipps!

            ’Twas sent by the Children’s Lord Mayor.

              Do you know what his hampers hold?

            I’ll tell you—and that cold evening

              There wasn’t a thought of the cold

In the minds of them little Phippses—There were Christmas cards. Holly—and snow—

And angels—and robins—and pussies! that the children love, you know.

            And sweets. Big bulls’ eyes—and toffee!

              And a dear little parcel of tea,

            That Len took straight to his mother.

              And packed most carefully

A glorious Christmas Pudding in a basin! A basin? Yes!

I say a basin’s worth having—they’re using it now, I guess.

            Rows of poor little houses

              Under the London sky.

            Rows of poor little gardens

              With clothes hanging out to dry.

You think, maybe, as you pass them, what a dreary life they share;

You little know the Happiness that’s often laughing there.

HE Carrs were working people, and Archer, their youngest son,

Had played with my boy, Harry, ever since the two could run.

I was sorry for the youngster. For when a child comes in

With his knickers kept from slipping by one old rusty pin,

And not a button showing! you may guess the time and care

His mother spends upon him! And when you see his hair

Without a comb put through it! And when you find he stops

At mid-day, on your doorstep, with a bag of lollipops,

And tells you that’s his dinner! . . . then I can tell you this—

You needn’t take two minutes to guess where that mother is,

And know what she is doing.

                        Inside some drinking bar,

On any working morning, you could look for Mrs. Carr,

And nearly always find her. She’d had a pretty face.

But the beer and whisky swelled it and bulged it out of place,

And ruined her complexion—until you’d never think

She’d been a pretty woman.

                          That’s how it is with drink.

And they fancy no one sees it! Poor silly, blinded souls!

Sitting and sucking poison until the death-bell tolls . . .

And they die . . . and no one’s sorry.

                        She died. And was seen no more.

And you couldn’t call her children worse off than they’d been before.

                   We mothered little Archie,

Me and the neighbours round.

And I loved him like a mother. For I have always found

It’s them with chicks already can make room for another chick!

He grew up smart and steady, intelligent and quick.

And as for looks! I told Jim, when his courting days began,

I knew he’d get a sweetheart as soon as another man!

And so he did!

              One evening, he comes in bashfully,

And falters there was something he would like to say to me.

Could I guess at all about it? Of course, I couldn’t guess!

Well . . . there was Nellie Rumsey . . . he’d known a year or less . . .

Did I think she’d care to have him?

                     “Have you asked her, boy?” says I.

Oh, no! He hadn’t asked her. He’d felt afraid to try!

Now, I knew Ellen Rumsey! And knew she’d sat just there,

On the chair where he was sitting—and had told me, shy and fair,

And sweet as lilac blossom, that she’d dreamt of Archie Carr—

Not once, but three times running! The girl was like a star

Among her young companions—as pure and true as gold.

“No girl can know you love her,” says I, “unless she’s told.”

“I think she knows,” says Bashful; “because of what I said

Walkin’ from church last Sunday——”

                      “Oh! you hinted you might wed?”

“Oh, no!” he says, “I didn’t. But I’d heard she’d had a cold,

And I—I—hoped that it was better.”

                      “Well,” I says, “that was bold!

But I don’t think she’ll keep waiting for many years for that.”

“But I think she knows I’m courtin’, for I said I—I liked her hat.”

“And that’s what you calls courting! Why it’s nothing but a chat!

And you’re nothing but a gaby—” I laughs out. “Bless my life!

Go down at once and tell her you want her for your wife!

And hurry up about it! And tell her what is true,

That you’re earning a good living. And have saved some money, too.

And if she’ll wait a little, you can take her to a home

To which no girl in England need be ashamed to come.”

“And you think she’ll really have me?”

“There!” I says. “Run and see!”

And he ran. And in an hour they both came blushingly,

Brimming with new-found gladness they couldn’t keep in check.

Kissing me both together, and hugging me round the neck.

And we all sat down to supper, so happy and full of joy,

Jim said I looked a girl again! And I said he looked a boy!

He was prosperous when they married. From starting as stable hand

He’d got to be fly proprietor. He’d three cabs on the stand,

And carts and traps for hiring: employed a lot of men

In one way and another, and paid them well. And then—

Before our eyes—we watched him . . . lose every thing he had,

And sink from being master back to be stable lad.

And why? Because a beer-shop stood by his stable gate,

And was always waiting for him—from early dawn till late.

Because in our drink-swamped Island where custom costs men dear,

You can’t sell a horse, or buy one, without the help of beer

Because—as doctors tells us, and ’tis a fearful truth—

Those born of drunken mothers inherit from their youth

A stronger taste for drinking than other people know,

And a weaker will to fight it. And Archer found it so.

And found—poor wretch—in England, in village or in town,

For one hand raised to help him a dozen to drag him down.

He struggled! God knows he struggled! He signed the pledge. He tried,

He tried to flee the tempting that dogged him on every side.

His wife was an angel to him. Whenever I passed their place,

I could tell how it was with Archer by a glance at Nellie’s face.

When he kept straight she looked twenty. When he went wrong she grew old.

A score o’ times she helped him, and saved him, I was told.

Never a drop of liquor passed the threshold of their door.

And to escape the publics that swarmed where they lived before,

She got him to take a lodging up a little quiet court

Without a beer-shop in it.

He was clear of the smell of spirits when he came home at night.

And thankful to be sober. And oh! the home grew bright!

And he, as a man delivered, walked free on the road of right!

And what happened next I’ll tell you. And try to tell you short . . .

One day a brewer’s agent walked up that quiet court,

And spied an empty shanty that had been a printer’s shed,

And bought it for next to nothing. “To extend our trade” he said.

Had it rebuilt, and painted, and turned it into a place

That’s the wickedest temptation our people have to face.

A plague-spot of our cities. A drink-den . . . hidden away

Behind the shops and houses from the light of honest day.

Secret, and vile, and deadly, a trap for the weakest feet.

For many will slink up an alley for drink, as a dog for meat,

Who wouldn’t enter a public out in the open street.

And the brewers know this, bless you!

                    They called this one—The City Vaults.

And put in a man as landlord who, whatever his other faults,

Knew how to push their business.

                          He marked down Archer quick.

And the wife in a mortal anguish—(dear heart! she had fallen sick,

Or she’d have flown the danger)—she managed to crawl across,

And tell him all they’d suffered of pain and shame and loss.

Through liquor.

            “And I beg you—I pray you,” said Ellen Carr,

“Don’t ask, don’t tempt my husband to step inside your bar.

He’s struggling to live sober. Oh! help me to keep him so.”

Some would have said they’d try to. But this man answered

“No!”

He left for stables early, just in his usual way,

And found on the ledge of his window, outside his very door,

A jug of beer—put handy, by the landlord, just before.

He took it up . . . he smelt it . . . he walked across to the bar.

He sat down with the others . . . And when poor Archer Carr

Took his cab from the yard and drove it, down Holborn— he was drunk,

Blind drunk! . . . And the people watched him—head bent and body sunk,

Swaying as far as Ludgate. And about there, so they said,

He drove into a waggon, and was pitched off on his head.

And within an hour they brought him, back to his own home—dead!

His wife looked down on his body . . . She rose, did Ellen Carr,

Rose from her sick bed, tearless; on her cheeks a scarlet scar.

She flung a cloak about her. She crossed to the publican’s bar—

“Stand out!” she says, “and show yourself, the Murderer you are!”

He shook and cowered before her. And the men and women there

Huddled together trembling, at the sight of her despair.

“These are The City Vaults,” she says. “And rightly named.

For vaults are full of dead men’s bones!” And her great eyes flamed.

“The Law will hold you guiltless. The Trade will go its way,

Tempting, for ever tempting, as it has done to-day.

But by the home it’s ruined, by the tears of a million wives,

By the woes of a million husbands, by a million shattered lives,

By my woe as a wife you’ve widowed, by the deed you dared to do—

The Curse of a dying woman rest on this house and you.”

And she fell to the ground before them. And was lifted lifeless clay.

And they buried her and her husband, in one grave, in one day.

Men! women! who sit and listen. These things are common crimes.

Such tragedies have happened, not once but ten thousand times.

“Woe unto him,” saith Scripture, “that giveth his neighbour drink

To make him drunken.” Surely, the hour has come to think,

To act, to stamp out in England the hidden drinking bar.

That not in vain, not idly, wherever true men are,

Shall be told in our ears this story, of the Tempting of Archer Carr.

          F you passed our house on Sunday

            As Jim is starting for Church—

          (’Tis a nice-ish house, I may tell you!

            No matter where you search

I doubt you’ll find a nicer.) You’d see a tabby cat:

And a big black dog, a Retriever, with his nose across the mat.

              The cat isn’t much to speak of.

                But the dog is another thing!

              His name is Nebuchadnezzar.

                He has the look of a King!

And brains!—when Jim comes ready, with his Sunday coat and stick,

And calls to the dog—“Neb! Nebbie! Come along, old chap! Come, quick!”

          Do you think he stirs? No! He lies there,

            And blinks to the left and right.

          “Get on,” he says, “with your foolin’!

            Do you think I was born last night?”

You see he knows it’s Sunday. But pass our door next day,

Early on Monday morning, and you’ll hear him streets away!

              Do I like dogs? Well. I didn’t.

                I don’t mind telling you

              When Jim came home with this one

                I made a fine to-do!

He gobbled up a pancake I was meaning to keep hot.

And some cutlets I was saving, he found—and ate the lot!

              “It’s training he wants,” says Jimmy.

                “He’s young, you see, my dear.”

              “Training!” I snaps in a passion.

                “He won’t get training here.

I told you we didn’t want him. Am I to run off my feet,

And work for everlasting to cook food for that dog to eat?

              And who’s to pay for it, either?

                A Thing with a heathen name!——”

              And Jim, says, so good-natured——

                “That can change, if the name’s to blame.

I’ve whacked him, an’ he’ll remember. And I’ll make the payin’ right.

I’ll plank down somethin’ extra on every Saturday night.”

              But no! That didn’t suit me.

                Whatever Jim might say,

              I’d made my mind up—Nasty!

                And I meant to have my way.

The beast should go . . . I grumbled. I called myself a slave.

I said the dog would end me and send me to my grave.

              An ugly brute! A monster!

                We’d no room for such a one . . .

              I made him the size of a pony,

                You know, before I’d done.

That’s the way of an angry woman! . . . till at last, for the sake of peace,

Jim gave him to his cousin in the Pentonville Police.

              He took the dog across London,

                And left him, Thursday night.

              And Friday Neb was back again!

                Barking with all his might,

Trying to wag his tail off, and ready for a meal!

“He’s a rare-bred one,” says Jimmy. “And game! and true as steel!

Don’t you think you could like him, Annie?”—“No!” I says stubbornly.

“I don’t care where you send him, but that dog goes—or ME!”

              In a sailing ship. And sadly,

                One wet November day,

              He took big Neb to Tilbury,

                And shipped him right away.

“That’s the end of Nebuchadnezzar,” he says on his return.

“The dog looked back so wistful as I left him—but he’ll learn

              To follow his new master.

                And the wife likes dogs, they say.

              And you! . . . You’re happy, Annie,

                Now you have got your way.”

Happy! Well, yes. I said so. I declared that I was glad.

Jim said no more about it. Not one word, good or bad.

              But I noticed in the evenings,

                From his chair against the wall,

              He’d stare into the fire,

                Dead silent—that was all.

And once or twice I saw him, look down beside his chair,

And sort of snap his fingers to something that wasn’t there.

              It made me feel embarrassed!

                I tried some coaxing ways.

              I cooked his favourite dinner,

                Which he always used to praise,

But he sat and didn’t eat it. I filled his pipe, in joke.

And he sighed and said that somehow, he didn’t care to smoke!

              Oh! I could see ’twas serious.

                I was fairly frightened then.

              And so the days went by us,

                Seven, eight, nine, and ten,

All through a solid fortnight, in a miserable upset:

Till there came a foggy evening that I shall never forget.

              “If I could get back, Nebbie,

                What is there I wouldn’t pay?

              And there he is at Liverpool

                Two hundred miles away!——”

And as the thoughts went through me, there came a little sound . . .

A tap . . . a feeble scratching . . . like something near the ground.

              Jim sprang! and flung the door wide!

                And out of the rain and fog

              There crawled across our threshold,

                A poor wet limping dog,

With his four pads cut and bleeding—a dog dead-lame, dead-beat,

Who dragged himself towards us and fell at his master’s feet! . . .

              What did I do? . . . I can’t tell you.

                I half went off my head.

              I kissed the dog! I kissed Jim!

                I fetched blankets and milk and bread,

I cried like a pair of babies! “Jim!” I says, “Sun or rain,

Soft times and hard together, that dog never leaves us again!”

              Villages, towns, and bridges,

                Banks where the river flowed,

              Commons, and lanes, and meadows—

                How did he know his road?

How did he know the turnings, and the crossways he would get?

Unless he read the sign-posts, and asked the dogs he met!

              Ah! there’s a Power beyond us.

                The wild beast knows his lair.

              The swallow knows her bearings

                Through the blue miles of air.

And the last word to be uttered of all that yet shall be

Revealed of God’s dumb creatures, won’t be said by you or me.

              So pass our house on Sunday,

                And you’ll see a tabby cat.

              And a big black dog, a Retriever,

                With his nose across the mat.

And there isn’t one amongst us, I’ll tell it Jim with pride—

Who’s more credit to the Family than Nebuchadnezzar Hyde!

“You’ve heard me speak of the Weedings. The wife was a friend of mine.

Well. She was left a widow before she was forty-nine.

And it’s of her youngest, Dorothy, and Dorothy’s husband, Gow,

John Gow, the Engine-driver, that I’m going to tell you now.”

                                    “And we sat and had our tea

As gay as larks that Sunday. And I seem still to see

Those young things as I left them—both radiant as the sky!

A-standing on their doorstep and waving me Good-bye!”

“An honest man has written—‘There was holiday in Hell’”

“Friends! we are told of Visions. I had a Vision then.”

“I needn’t pause to paint it.”

OU have heard me talk of the Weedings? The wife was a friend of mine.

Well. She was left a widow before she was forty-nine.

Weeding had been a drayman; and when he passed away,

He was just about the figure of the barrels on his dray.

He thought his constitution would have given Death the slip;

But the doctors said his liver was shrivelled to a chip,

By the alcohol he’d swallowed. So he was bound to go.

Mrs. Weeding; she was sober; and she did her best you know,

To make her children happy. But firmness she never learned,

And they did as they’d a mind to, as soon as her back was turned.

Molly, she went for a barmaid, in her independent way.

But that is a long, long story I’ll tell you another day.

    It’s of her sister, Dorothy, and her sister’s husband—Gow,

John Gow, the Engine-driver, that I’m going to tell you now.

    They were young folks when they married, and they started very grand.

He’d been left a bit of money by an Aunt, I understand.

She took me round, and showed me, the furniture they’d bought,

Their curtains, and their carpets—and really you’d have thought

He must be a Director! and not driver, on the Line!

Such chairs she had! And tables!—mahogany and pine!

Or they looked so—And two sofas! And chests-of-drawers, a-shine

With brass knobs and French polish!

Says I—“I feel ashamed-like to have come in an old stuff gown.

I ought to be wearing satin! Did you pay for this, money down?”

Says John Gow, gay and careless.

                          “Oh! John!” I says—“don’t wait!

You wouldn’t wait for sunshine; or for coals inside your grate.

The Book of God is sunshine: and the hold of a strong right arm.

’Tis more than coals in winter. Just read the nineteenth Psalm,

And see what’s said about it! God’s Law converts the soul.

’Twill make you a good husband.”

                          He laughed. He’d take the coal!

He didn’t want converting. He was good enough for her!

And so I left them, merry! her pretty face astir

With human love and gladness: both radiant as the sky,

A-standing on their doorstep and waving me Good-bye!

    How can I tell you quickly the rest of their history?

They didn’t get the Bible, but they got the family.

Twin girls within the twelvemonth, and then a little son.

At first their home was happy. And John Gow, he was one—

Oh! there’re so many like him!—one of the folk who run

Along a steel rail always, as level as can be,

But mightily self-righteous, like the old Pharisee.

He was always right, John Gow was! and if ever things went wrong

It was never his fault, mark you!

                              So two years sped along.

And then came early worry in the awkward shape of Debt.

’Twas the furniture that did it. They paid a lot, and yet

When the third year’s instalments gave out, up drove a van

And took off all they’d hired! (It’s a very risky plan,

That Three Years’ Hire System.) When her pretty things were gone,

The young wife fumed and fretted, and laid the blame on John

And then came spars and quarrels.

                              I think, if John had laid

His strong arms round her, tender, and kissed her, ’twould have made

Just the whole world of difference. But that’s the Christ-like way.

And till we get converted we think it doesn’t pay

To be patient and forgiving. John followed the usual rule,

And called his wife an idiot, and a silly little fool.

  And so, while he was absent, driving the Mails which swept

From Paddington to Plymouth—she stayed at home and wept,

And fed her frets, and brooded—till to her feet there crept

A Black Snake of Temptation. A Snake that’s hatched and bred

By the Liquor Trade.

          You’ll ask me—Did she stoop to show her head

In a drinking bar? No. Never. She wasn’t the common kind.

But there’re other ways as deadly in which this Snake will wind

And coil about its victims.

                                Along that quiet street

Of dainty little houses, three women used to meet

Behind lace blinds, and gossip—not over friendly tea,

But over gin and whisky, bought with their Grocery

Under the head of “Sundries,” if the husbands chanced to see—

Three mothers of young children . . . and one was Dorothy.

An honest man has written—“There was holiday in Hell

When Strong Drink was invented”—Aye! and I think as well

There is holiday and dancing amongst the devils to see

With what abundant licence, how universally,

That Drink is sold amongst us! Do we hedge about the way

Through which this Snake crawls daily? and make it narrow? Nay!

We make it broad and easy. And few of us will stay

His own small selfish pleasure, even for one who’s dear

And bound to us in wedlock. Ah listen! and you shall hear.

And told her, as you’d tell her, that we’d help her. She should go

Away from liquor-tempting, to a Temperance Home. And so

She went. And John Gow feeling, as her husband, so to speak,

It was what his friends expected, paid for her week by week.

    What followed? Well. This followed:—as it does in every case

Where the Patient’s truly willing to be cured. She lost all trace

Of alcoholic craving. The Christian atmosphere,

The treatment, and the cheering, cured her in one glad year.

    But when she left, the doctor, sent for me privately,

And asked me—Could I promise, that for a time, she’d be

Amongst teetotal people, in her home? And neither see

Nor smell, intoxicants? I promised. I promised joyfully.

    I ran and told her husband. “Oh, John,” I says, “see here!

You’re going to be so happy! The road’s so straight and clear!

You’ll save her—now and always! by giving up your beer!”

    He turned. I see his face now, in the window where he stood.

He give it up? He wouldn’t. ’Twasn’t reason that he should.

“To save her, John!” I pleaded. To save her! That was stuff.

If she wasn’t cured she should be, for he’d done and paid enough.

“But oh! you knew her father. She calls for double care.”

Yes. That was true. But hang it! I asked what wasn’t fair.

He was always strictly moderate. And tho’ ’twould make him glad

To see his wife abstaining, the little that he had,

He liked, and should continue.

                            My heart cried he was wrong,

For all he spoke so calm-like.

                        “John,” I said. “We who are strong

Should hear the infirmity of the weak and should not please

Ourselves.” That’s Scripture. “Listen——”

                              But he wouldn’t listen long.

He wouldn’t stay to hear me. He looked out at the trees,

And sky. And said ’twas cloudy. And ’twould rain before the night.

He’d change his engine jacket, and hoe ’taters, while he might.

    Friends! We are told of Visions. I had a Vision then.

If the Word of God is spoken in the ears of mortal men,

And they hear it . . . and reject it. They pay the penalty.

I tell you, I had a Vision. And I saw . . . TRAGEDY.

A sudden power possessed me.

                              “Listen you shall to me!”

I said to him—“This woman, is your wife, Dorothy.

She calls to you to help her. If you saw her in the sea,

Across a mile of water, you’d risk both life and limb

To rescue her from drowning. Yet you won’t check your whim—

Your fancy—for this . . . fluid . . . which is her enemy.

You. A strong man. Her husband. You won’t use self-control

Over one wretched pleasure, for the sake of your wife’s soul! . . .

You refuse, John, at your peril. Her blood be on your head.”

“Amen,” he says. “So be it. Let it be so!”—he said.

    I needn’t pause to paint it. We KNOW the Drink Disease,

Which blasts Love, Faith, Hope, Honour, and trifles such as these—

With Will, and Brain-power, added. And we think it not amiss.

We stamp out Small-pox, Cattle-plague: but we don’t stamp out this.

    Early one summer morning, as the dawn broke cool and grey,

She left her home and her children, and wandered and wandered away.

Her husband was on Night duty: and afterwards ’twas guessed

She’d a notion she would find him, for she set her face to the west.

All day she walked, out of London, past Ealing, on to Slough.

I have pictured it so often. I seem to see her now;

Wretched and ’wildered and witless—with the Snake coiled under her cloak!

Nothing to eat; only liquor; ever since the clear dawn broke!

    I see her leave the highway, and cross a field to the right.

And stand by a pool of water flushed red in the sunset light.

Is she thinking? . . . of WHAT is she thinking? . . . but she leaves it and wanders on.

And the twilight falls: and the silence: and the sunset light is gone:

And the night comes: and the midnight and a black mist shrouding the stars.

There’s a hedge; and a gate: She has reached it! She stumbles across the bars!

Three steps, and she stands—On the Railway! . . . All still. Not a sound. Not a sign.

She drinks what is under her cloak . . . and the steel rails glint and shine . . .

She reels!—Does she know?—Is she conscious? She has laid her head on the Line!

    Listen! Far off! Do you hear it? A sound on the wind! A roar!

Muffled. Then lost. Coming nearer. And louder again than before.

The roar of the Plymouth Express rushing on straight for Slough!

And the man with his hand on the lever is the Engine-driver Gow!

John Gow! Her husband! . . . God help them! . . . Will no power stop the Mail?

Is there no Voice to tell him his wife is across the rail?!

Nothing! . . . No light! . . . No signal! . . . Dear Lord! must this horror be?

They were sweethearts once, and he loved her—O John! O Dorothy!

The mother of his young children! Was that a shriek? a cry? . . .

It is coming. The ground is shaking. The smoke and the fire-sparks fly.

All heaven and earth is thunder

And the great Express has gone by!

And no one else could tell you, as me and Jimmy can—

Aye, tell you low and tender—of a broken-hearted man,

John Gow, the Engine-driver, who is one of our dearest friends.

Teetotal. So are his children. And what time he has, he spends

Doing his duty by them. He has never married again.

He never will. Once only, since he drove that midnight train,

Has he opened his heart and shown us the grief at its inmost core.

“It was not on the Line I killed her: I killed her long before:

When I might have helped her—and would not.”

                                  You, who are sitting there!

Lift up your voice, says the Prophet, whether they hear or forbear.

Lift up your voice as a Trumpet! In the ears of the people declare!

To the Trade, and the Nation, declare it! As a wind—as a whirlwind speak!

To those that are Strong—is the Message. At your peril ye tempt the Weak!

        HIS is a tale of the Blacketts,

          And Nora, the prettiest lass

        That ever wore red ribbons,

          And looked at herself in the glass!

The tale is a very sad one: and this is its grief to me—

It never need have been so: it was never meant to be.

        It’s not a tale of hardship:

          (The Blacketts were well-to-do)

        Nor of Accident, descending

          Like a bolt from out the blue,

Which cannot be averted, as far as man may see—

This never should have been so. It had no right to be.

        When she married and had children

          She took life very light.

        “Just trust to luck!” was her motto,

          “And things ’ull shake out right.”

“Well,” I’d say—“that sort of shaking won’t take you very far

In the bringing up of young ones.” “I don’t know what your young ones are,

        But ours,” she’d say—“are no trouble.

          No bother or trouble to us.

        I let them bring themselves up,

          And it saves me a lot of fuss.

You worry too much,” she’d say scornful. “I never worry at all.”

And I’d think—for ’twas no use talking, any more than to talk to the wall——

        I’d think—no mother living

          Knowing the world as it is,

        Knowing its traps and its pitfalls,

          Should ever speak like this!

If our children cost no trouble, no care, no prayer, no thought,

It’s because we’ve grown too callous to train them as we ought.

        Selina’s way of training

          Was to drop all kind of rule.

        And as for religious teaching

          She’d drive them to Sunday School,

And think her duty ended. But it’s poor gardening—so to speak—

If what is sown on Sunday is pulled up all the week.

        When the Home has no religion

          School can’t do much for the child.

        I was sorry for little Nora,

          Allowed to run wilful wild.

As pretty as a picture. Soft eyes, more brown than black:

Brown as a trail of sea-weed on the rocks when the tide goes back.

        And the shine of the sea within them.

          I’ve never seen such eyes!

        And ’twould all have been so different

          If her mother had acted wise.

“What shall I do with Nora?” Selina asked one day.

“I’d bring her up for Service,” I answered straight away.

        “Mrs. Hyde! Something better than Service!”

          Says she with the grandest air.

        “There isn’t anything better:”

          Says I—“look anywhere.”

“What!” she exclaims indignant. “My daughter to wear a cap!

And sit in an underground kitchen all day, like a rat in a trap!

        It’s a h’insult to suggest it!”

          That fairly fetched me out.

        “At least,” I says, “Selina,

          I know what I’m talking about.

We’ve both of us lived in Service. And if you ask me where

Our girls can find protection, good food, good clothes, good air

        A chance of earning money,

          And putting money by—

        I’ll say it’s in good Service.

          And bless my life!” says I—

“To talk of underground kitchens! I was kitchen-maid and cook!

And for quietness and comfort, and light—I’d rather look

        To a kitchen than a Factory,

          Though my husband works in one!”

        She lifts her eyebrows lofty.

          “Mrs. Hyde,” she says. “When you’ve done,

Perhaps you’ll kindly tell me.” “I haven’t done,” I said.

“Of course there are other callings where Nora could earn her bread,

        But none so safe and happy.

          For look—when Service ends,

        If the girl has done her duty

          She’s gained some life-long friends.

That’s true. For my old mistress she’s God-mother to Dick,

And remembers him each Christmas. And if I were sad or sick

        I should go to her in a minute.”

          She sneers most mightily.

        “Mrs. Hyde! I wish for Nora

          To have her liberty.”

“If liberty, Selina, is evenings free to go

Running about with Tommy, and Bob, and Jack, and Joe,

        She’d better by half not have it.”

          And then there was a scene!

        You might have thought to hear her

          That Selina was a Queen,

And all her girls Princesses. And there!—I walked away.

Folks ask you your opinion, but won’t hear what you’ve got to say.

        I’d see her pass our window,

          Decked out just ever so!

        A-picking up with people

          Not good for a girl to know.

And her mother never troubled—till at last it went the rounds,

That Nora and a soldier, a tall chap, Teddy Lowndes,

        Were seen about together

          In a way that wasn’t wise.

        And then Selina Blackett

          Was took with vast surprise!

“Mrs. Hyde, who would have thought it! Whoever would?” says she.

“Many,” I says, “would have thought it. And one of the many’s, me!”

        And I called to mind the boasting

          She’d often flung at us—

        “I let them bring themselves up,

          And it saves me a lot of fuss.”

“Well! there!” she says: “I’m sorry. But I won’t be put upon.

I wash my hands of Nora, and all her goings on.”

        And my heart it nearly choked me,

          So hot was the wrath I hid.

        Aye! We may wash with water

          As Pontius Pilate did.

But the washing of all the water that ever was in the sea,

Won’t wash away from our shoulders—Responsibility.

        A little one—a baby!

          Given to us to train,

        As innocent of evil

          As the lamb upon the plain.

When the feet we might have guided, slip on life’s trampled sod,

Is there a mother, a father, who shall dare to say to God,

At the Bar of the Day of Judgment—“I’m sorry they ended so.

But I washed my hands of my children, Oh ever so long ago”?

        She looks at me confiding,

          With those eyes more brown than black.

        “I don’t know why the neighbours

          Are making such a clack.

I’ve done no harm,” she says pouting. “Nothin’ I shouldn’t do.

Maybe some walks of an evenin’, and maybe a kiss or two.”

        “My dear,” I says. “I’ve been single.

          And fond of a bit of fun.

        But this free walking and kissing

          Ain’t good for anyone.

Nora, my child”—I tells her—“A kiss is a sacred thing

To be kept for that man only who gives you a wedding ring.

        That’s what my mother taught me.

          It’s a line cut straight and deep:

        And the lass who lives inside it

          Won’t go making herself too cheap.

This soldier fellow, Nora, has got no ring for you.

And he’s bound for India shortly, if what we hear is true—

        Though it’s little we know about him—

          Now listen to what I say.

        You stop indoors of an evening

          And let him go his way.

You’ll thank me some day, Nora.” She hung her pretty head,

And cried a bit, and promised she’d remember what I said.

        “But don’t think ill of Teddy.

          He NEVER could do no wrong.”

        She coaxes—as we parted.

          And thinks I, as I went along,

“That’s more than I can credit in a man or yet a mouse!”

And the very next day . . . I saw him . . . take her into a Public-house!

        And then I says to my husband—

          “I shall speak to that young man,

        No matter how he meets me.”

          And Jim says, “Well, you can!

But you’ll find that he won’t listen.” “At least,” I says, “I’ll try.”

And I asked him into our kitchen the next time he passed by.

        “Young man,” I says, “You’re a soldier.

          And I like you well for that.

        For my own boy is a soldier,

          And a better never sat

Inside his clothes, though I say it . . . Now see!—the world is wide.

You go about your business and let Nora Blackett bide!”

        “Are you,” he said, “her mother?”

          “No,” I replied. “I’m not.

        I wish I were. But I’ve known her

          From a little tiny tot,

And she’s dear to me as my daughter. She’s silly. That is true.

But she won’t grow any wiser by gadding round with you!

        You’re young. You’re not a Corporal.

          You’ve not got marrying leave.”

        “That’s right,” he says, “But I love her.”

          “My lad,” I says,—“don’t believe

You love her, or anything like it. ’Tis writ in the Holy Book

Love worketh no ill to his neighbour. Stand still!” I says, “and look,

        And judge yourself by that sentence . . .

          Is it working good or ill,

        To ‘treat’ a girl with liquor

          That robs her of her will,

And draws her nigh to danger? Is a Public-house a place

Where any decent woman, or girl, should show her face?

        You know, and I know, it isn’t.

          You’ve kept her out at night.

        Love worketh no ill to his neighbour!

          Was that wrong or was it right?

If you loved Nora Blackett you would care for her good name.”

He stood there, and he whistled. “Well,” he said, “it’s just a game.

        And I’m off on Foreign Service

          In another week or two.”

        “I know it,” I said, “and there’s danger

          In that very fact for you.

Many a man has been tempted to sin with an easy mind,

Because he can slip off, easy, and forget what he’s left behind.

        Sometimes a broken heart.

          And sometimes a broken life!

        A girl who was made a mother

          But was never made a wife.

He forgets. The Judge remembers. And a reckoning day will come.

My lad! I don’t say that you’re like it. God grant you are better than some.

But I say you are older than she is, and if true love is your guide,

You’ll go about your business, and let Nora Blackett bide!”

        We said no more to each other.

          But I can hear to-day

        The tune of his careless whistle,

          As he turned and went away.

I can hear along our passage the tramp of his strong young feet;

And see his red coat gleaming as I watched him down our street.

        The others were a woman,

          A bad one—Clara Rank—

        And another soldier, Stevens.

          They stayed there and they drank,

Over the hour of closing. And then—brain-stupefied—

They reached the canal bank, somehow, and got a boat untied . . .

        They drifted out through the shadows

          A wretched tipsy crew.

        And only drink and the devil

          Knew what they meant to do,

Or knew what they were doing—when the boat, with scarce a sound,

Turned over in bright still water . . . and one of that four was drowned!

        Lowndes was the quickest sobered.

          He could swim. He kept afloat,

        And tried to rescue Nora.

          But the child was under the boat—

Caught by her dress on a rowlock, and dead when he got her ashore . . .

He carried her dripping body in his arms, to our house, to our door,

        And laid it down . . . and called me

          Through the moonlit August air.

        And I ran . . . and my words died, frozen,

          At what I saw stretched out there—

Never to be forgotten though a hundred years should roll.

Poor little brown-eyed Nora! Poor little ill-trained soul!

I’d thought so much, so often, of what might go amiss.

I’d dreaded shame, desertion . . . I had never thought of this . . .

        She lay with her wet clothes clinging

          About each slender limb.

        O what a sight for her mother!

          O what a sight for him!

        He stood like a man dumfounded . . .

          He fell to the earth at her side—

        “Oh God!” he groaned, “have mercy.

          Oh God! where can I hide?

Though I sink a million fathoms from the light of Thy moon and sun,

This night’s work can never be altered . . . can never be undone.”

        She might be living this moment—

          A happy woman and wife.

        No need for that black horror

          To have ended her young life.

He might be living—guiltless! No need to have sailed away

With the millstone of such a sorrow round his neck to his dying day.

        No need for Selina Blackett

          To sob and shriek and rave,

        And try to fling herself frantic

          Into her own child’s grave,

As she did on the day of the funeral . . . No need, no need at all,

If she’d only trained her rightly as soon as she could crawl.

        We reap what we sow. And we know it.

          And yet we stand aghast!

        As the evil crop grows rankly,

          And the harvest follows fast.

Why should we stand stock-staring? Surely we’ve learnt it long!

There’s NO pleasure in Drink, or in Passion. There’s NO profit in doing wrong.

        The Law of Happy Living,

          Oh! it is writ so broad!

        Only to follow Goodness.

          Only to fear the Lord.

Only to heed the teaching traced on the Golden Page—

Love worketh NO ILL to his neighbour—is Truth from Age to Age.

        Ah! be not fools and blinded!

          Strive—wrestle—climb—fight—and pray!

        You were never born to be wretched.

          Turn sunwards and meet the day!

Sin is a mist and a smoke-cloud and a fog-cloud round me and round you.

Climb out of fog to God’s Sunlight, and the everlasting Blue!

Jack Smuts! And in his village he was known both near and far.

He lived in an Essex village where the Market Gardens are.

He worked on a Market Garden that had large Nurseries,

And raised supplies for London. Broccoli, spinach, peas,

And every green thing growing. And every flower that blows

In its season, from the snowdrop to the dear old cabbage-rose.

    It was pleasant to be working out of doors in sun and breeze;

But ’twas warm work in the summer, and as thirsty as you please.

And Smuts found when he started, let the day be cold or hot,

The men and lads he worked with were a dreadful drinking lot.

Two pushing low-class Publics, “The Bull,” and “The Gardener’s Pride,”

Stood near the Gardens, handy. And when you stepped inside,

There was Whiskey, Gin-and-bitters, draught Ale, and Beer, and Stout,

And Rum—and Three-star Brandy, if you’d pay for it, no doubt,

But a glass of Milk there wasn’t. No. Nor a single drink

A Temperance man could ask for. A cup of tea you’d think,

Could be brewed in half a minute. But they wouldn’t brew it there.

Nothing but rank intoxicants to scent the heavy air

And drug a poor man’s senses. ’Twas known that “Gardener’s Pride”

Was the Shame of many a gardener, and the wreck of his home beside.

Aye! and the shame of others. For the Building Lots were near,

And the bricklayers and masons were customers for beer.

So he swings along one morning, and walks into “The Bull,”

On a blazing day in summer when the bar was brimming full,

And he asks for Milk-and-soda, or a mug of Lemonade.

Of course they hadn’t got it. “Then,” says he, “the Liquor Trade

Is not the trade it should be! Here’s a public-house,” says he.

“And I am one of the Public. And yet you can’t serve Me!”

You should have seen them staring! The landlord weighed a ton.

He stood with his mouth wide open. “Can I get a Currant Bun!”

And turned the tap upon him, and soused him pretty hard.

While the other boys danced round him, because he was Band of Hope,

A-yelling— “Look at Smutty!” “Hi! Smutty! where’s your soap?”

And—“Where’s yer feedin’ bottle?” And “Smutty! where’s yer pap?”

And if you think he whimpered, or cared the smallest scrap,

You don’t know what Smuts was made of.

                                  He got up wet and gay.

“My turn will come to-morrow!”—he laughed as he ran away.

Never be turned by teasing. Never be scared by chaff.

Just toss it back, good-tempered, and you’ll always have the laugh

On your side at the finish. The Right is bound to win.

Wrong is a craven bully—he’ll grovel and give in,

If you stand and face him fearless. Did you ever hear this Word

From the Book of Books—the strongest, the wisest that can be heard—

BE NOT OVERCOME OF EVIL BUT OVERCOME EVIL WITH GOOD.

’Twas a Word that Jack Smuts’ mother perfectly understood,

I had forty-three relations. You took it with a wink,

Maybe, but it was earnest. I didn’t speak in fun.

I’ve had forty-three relations. And the mother of Smuts was one.

She was daughter of father’s brother by his first wife—No! That’s wrong.

She was mother’s cousin’s daughter, whose maiden name was Strong—

No! That’s not it exactly . . . She was daughter—Well—Never mind!

She was one of my relations, and as nice as you could find,

And she told me all that happened.

                            Smuts wasn’t sixteen, you know,

And small for his age, like a pullet that’s not made haste to grow.

But he set his brain a-working to see what might be tried

To overcome the evil of “The Bull” and “The Gardener’s Pride,”

With good. He sat and puzzled to think what he could do

To run a Temperance business. Start it. And push it through.

At home, from fresh-cut lemons, the primest lemonade

That you could taste. And iced it. And next day to the ground,

He took a jugful with him. The boys came gasping round,

For the fields were like a furnace—and begged for a drop or two.

“It’s twopence a glass,” Smuts tells them, “but I’ll sell at a penny to you.”

    That night he’d a profit of eightpence. Next day he took up more,

And sold it all—and his profit was larger than before.

Out of odds and ends—de-li-cious! and Smuts thought he would try

Its sale in the dinner hour. Bless you! It sold like steam!

He could have sold a shopful! And wild as it may seem,

He says—“I’ll sell a shopful! See if I don’t!” he said.

And he ups and asks the Master for the use of a potting shed.

“What for?” says Master, wondering. “For the sale of dinners and teas

That I’ll provide,” Smuts answers—as coolly as you please.

“That you’ll provide! you monkey!” “Yes, sir, that I’ll provide,”

Says Fifteen Year. And Master laughed till he held his side—

“You’re a bold young whipper-snapper! Blow me! But have your fling.

Here’s a shed to which you’re welcome. It’s a tumble-down old thing,

And near the dusty highroad—” “Thank’ee, sir, ’twill suit me grand!”

Says Smuts. The nearer the highroad the more custom he’d command!

’Tis wonderful past telling what he did with that Potting Shed!

He patched it up, and painted it, yellow, and green, and red,

And blue, and a dozen colours—“For we’ll have it smart!” he said.

He got a flag from somewhere that fluttered overhead:

He rigged up bench and tables: and the men found they could come

And get a meal in comfort, on the spot, for a moderate sum.

Ah! and a meal worth having. For I tell you, by degrees,

’Twas known miles round that nowhere could you get such stunning teas!

And such amazing dinners! as you got at the Potting Shed.

Cold pie and pickled onions. And hot pie! so they said.

Fried sausages, and lettuce, and cheese, and pickled fish—

His uncle had a fish shop, and would send them out a dish

From the Market town on Wednesdays. And then the drinks they sold!

All sorts that you could order, or wish for, I was told—

Except Intoxicants. And then the tea and cream!

And strawberries from the Gardens, Smuts planned out—’twas a dream!

Sally went down to help them, for folks came in a stream

All through that lovely summer, and sat beneath the trees.

The parents brought their children to share Smuts’ mother’s teas.

The home-made jam, and honey, and home-made penny buns,

Such buns! . . . not bran and bullets, but large, soft, plummy ones!

And eggs and country butter, and fresh pulled watercress

From a running brook— Well! truly! nothing succeeds like Success.

The venture was successful from the first day it was made.

Smuts ran his little Food-shop till the Drink-shops lost their trade.

He pushed his Temperance business till alcohol gave way.

“The Bull” put up its shutters. And “The Gardener’s Pride” one day

Found food and non-intoxicants the only things to pay,

And had to turn and sell them to keep itself afloat!

For the Country-side had settled to sail in the Temperance boat!

        E were living in Flower Alley,

          That swarming human hive,

        When the Blacketts came amongst us

          Settled at Number Five.

They were pleasant sort of people, but careless at the best.

And their way of keeping Sunday would have told you all the rest.

        Father and mother and children,

          They’d dress themselves up smart,

        And off they’d go a-pleasuring

          In Blackett’s herring cart.

He took round herrings, week-days, and sometimes salted fish;

And didn’t cheat more frequent than his family could wish.

        The bells might be a-ringing,

          But you’d never see them seek

        The door of a Place of Worship.

          “I works ’ard all the week,

And I wants a change o’ Sunday,” Blackett would say to Jim.

“I ain’t goin’ ter stew in a Mission, fer anybody’s whim;

        Nor yet in a Church, nor a Chapel.

          The Sabbath was made fer man.

        And I likes my slice o’ outing

          An’ I’ll take it when I can.”

And Jim would answer slow-like . . . “I’ve heard my father say,

A holy day is Sunday, and not a holiday.”

        And then he’d lay his pipe down.

          And you will always find,

        When a man has laid his pipe down

          He means to speak his mind!

“Blackett,” he’d say . . . “I’m no scholar. But I’ve read the Bible through.

And I’ve been taught to believe it. And so,” he’d say, “have you.”

        And ’tis written there, that Sunday

          Is a sign betwixt God and man.

        And the Promise says as plainly

          As mortal language can,

That those who honour Sunday, whatever their place or lot.

Shall be blessed in soul and body, and those who don’t . . . shall NOT!

        “Now . . .” he’d say, . . . “do you want a blessing

          For yourself and your boys and girls . . .”

        “Don’t pitch on me,” says Blackett,

          “You pitch on yer Dukes an’ H’earls.

Wi’ their coaches, an’ their motors, an’ their launches . . . river-way.

They ’as a bloomin’ picnic the ’ole of the blessed day!”

        And Jim says . . . “Don’t eat pickles

          From other people’s shelves.

        Never mind what Dukes are doing.

          We’ve got to judge ourselves.

And act for the good of our nation. Ben Blackett,” he’d say . . . “It’s true,

The defence of this Land is Sunday. If we dare to break it through,

        Not all the guns of Woolwich,

          Not all the ships of Clyde,

        Will save us from destruction . . .”

          But you might as well have tried

To teach Ben Blackett’s donkey, as say a word to Ben!

“Yah! Yer missin’ yer vocation!” he bawls at Jimmy, then.

        “You find a platform somewheres,

          An’ dress yerself in black!

        I’ll ’ave my fun o’ Sundays

          Fer all yer parson’s clack.

An’ risk the consequences. An’ ten years hence, we’ll see

If there’s a spec o’ diff’rance ’twixt you an’ yours, an’ we!”

        There only comes one answer,

          As the world rolls on and on.

        And that’s the answer spoken

          Ages since, by Solomon.

“Because sentence against folly is not given speedily

The hearts of men are fully set on doing foolishly.”

        Of business, with his pleasure,

          That paid better than selling fish . . .

        So he used to boast to Jimmy.

          Well! they sat down to a dish

Of roast meat every week-day. And what seemed rather hard . . .

They were eating the freshest butter, when my children were eating lard.

        For those were our days of struggle

          That none of us forget,

        When we had to fight with sickness,

          And lack of work, and debt.

When we should have gone right under, and been smothered, so to speak,

If faith in the God of Sunday hadn’t helped us through each week.

        And to see Ben sell his donkey,

          And buy a horse and trap,

        And get a coat for driving

          And a fancy sort of cap!

And to see Selina Blackett, and what she spent on dress!

And her feathers! and her fashions! . . . ’twas a trial, I confess.

        Ben promised Jim a fortune;

          A solid one, he said.

        If he’d come and join him, Sundays.

          But Jimmy shook his head.

“It takes two to make a bet,” he says. “And one wins . . . I agree.

But the other one’s the loser. And that one might be me!

        We’re poor,” he says, “God knows it.

          But I should never grow rich

        By taking up with betting.

          You’ll tumble in the ditch,

As safe as eggs . . . one Sunday. Mark me!” And Ben laughs gay.

“The better the day the better the deed,” he says, and strolls away.

        But you know, they had the tumble.

          As they were bound to do.

        You can’t laugh away the Scripture.

          It’s dead certain to come true.

There was first the death of Nora, their eldest, turned sixteen;

Who was drowned, poor pretty flower! as she never need have been

        Had her mother done her duty.

          And then their oldest son!—

        He got several situations,

          And never stayed in one

For more than half a minute, because he’d loaf, and shirk.

And he found that no employer wanted that kind of work.

        Then their horse and trap was missing . . .

          And Selina’s new silk gown . . .

        And ’twas noticed in Flower Alley

          Their blinds were always down.

And no one knew exactly what was going on inside.

Till late one night . . . ’twas Sunday . . . we heard a voice call . . . “Hyde!”

        Outside our door, so creepy!

          “Jim Hyde!” And once more . . . “Jim!”

        And there was Blackett standing!

          And Selina, ’longside him.

Ben with his coat in tatters . . . his driving coat, and cap . . .

And his face all mud and bruises . . . And he whispers . . . “Hi! old chap!

        Just ’ide me ’arf a twinkle

          Ter dodge the blank Perlice!”

        And Selina bursts out crying . . .

          “We haven’t a penny-piece.”

She says . . . “Who would have thought it? Mrs. Hyde, whoever would?”

Just as she said of Nora. And it wasn’t any good

        To say we’d all have thought it.

          So we took the poor things in,

        Without the neighbours hearing.

          And whether ’twas a sin,

Or whether we did rightly, it’s not for me to say.

But we scraped up seven shillings . . . and helped Ben get away!

“And just then—down the passage—rang a voice like a singing-bird!

The merriest, the gayest, the freshest, you ever heard!

And in comes Molly, singing, and laughing like a chime . . .”

But should twenty minutes be deemed more than the patience

of an audience can endure, it can be greatly shortened by omitting

the conversation between the mothers altogether. The

thread of narrative would then run as follows:—

When she was barely twenty, and just the handsomest girl

To be found in all St. Pancras—her hair a mass of curl,

Rich red and brown, like wall-flowers a-blowing on a wall—

She said she’d be a barmaid or nothing else at all.

I went across and kissed her. “Molly,” I says, “my dear!

Your mother sits a widow through nothing else but beer,

I’d have thought that you’d avoid it. Don’t think I rant or rave,

But I’d rather follow Sally, my daughter, to her grave,

Than I’d see her live a Barmaid. God grant you come through right.

But Molly” I says, “we knew you as a little toddling mite!

If ever you’re in trouble you come to me and Jim.”

And I hurried out that minute, for my eyes were all a-swim.

And now for the facts that followed,” etc.

When she was barely twenty, and just the handsomest girl

To be found in all St. Pancras, her hair a mass of curl,

Rich red and brown, like wall-flowers a-blowing on a wall—

She said she’d be a Barmaid or nothing else at all.

We were mortal fond of Molly. And Jim took on so sore

When he heard of her intention, he couldn’t have worried more

If ’twas Sally who was going. Jim’s a quiet man, you know.

It takes a lot to move him. But he says to me—“You go!

You go and stop it, mother! And say what fools they are!

That girl’s a deal too handsome to be serving in a bar.”

“I’ll do my best,” I tells him, “Mrs. Weeding being a friend.”

But knowing her as I did, I was fearful how ’twould end.

If you can’t control your young ones when they are two or three,

You won’t do it when they’re twenty. And though sorry to speak free,

Poor little Mrs. Weeding, without meaning to be bad,

Was a weak and washy mother as ever nine children had.

There she sat, a-sighing helpless, exactly as I thought!

“I’ve always wished for Molly to be doin’ as she ought.”

She says, “I’ve always wished it.” And thinks I—You may wish!

As I might wish for mince-meat to be put inside that dish!

But you won’t make pies by wishing, nor a girl’s character!

“Come!” I says, “Mrs. Weeding; have you talked it out with her?”

“Oh, yes, I’ve talked! but Molly, she pays no heed to me.

She wants to be a Barmaid, and a Barmaid she must be.

And after all, I’m thinkin’, she might do worse, you see.”

“No!” I says, “She might do better. But worse! not possibly!”

“Mrs. Hyde, she’ll get good money.” “Yes,” I says, “and poisoned air.”

“Well,” she says, “She’ll get good feedin’——” “And she’d get that anywhere

In good Service, Mrs. Weeding.” “But,” she says, “the life is free.”

“No, it’s not!” I says. “It’s bondage. She can’t count on liberty,

For the hours are something cruel!”

                              Then she smiles a little shy—

“Well. Molly wants a husband! It’s the truth I won’t deny.”

“Bless her heart!” I says, “that’s natural! So did you, and so did I!

But would you choose a husband, for Molly, from the crew

Who loaf in Public-houses? It’s the last thing I should do!”

Then she folds her hands together, as that kind of mother can—

“I’ve always wished for Molly to marry a steady man.”

She says, “I’ve always wished it.” “Quite right,” I says. “Just so.

Steady. God-fearing. Sober. And what I say is—Go!

Where there’s most chance to find him! That’s not in drinking bars.”

“Ah!” she sighs, “you’re talkin’ different to Mr. Richard Starrs.

He’s the landlord of the ‘Magnet’—where Molly is to serve.

He said a pretty Barmaid, if she’d got a little nerve,

And was civil and obligin’, and would do as she was bid—

Had a life a Queen might envy! He talked beautiful he did.

Just there—where you are standin’.”

                              “Listen!” I says, “my dear.

Listen!” I says, “Louisa! We’ve been friends for many a year.

You know I love your children almost as much as mine.

This Richard Starrs, the landlord, he’s in the liquor line.

He wants to push his business. He’s a ‘Magnet’ as his sign.

And he knows the biggest Magnet, for spirits, beer, and wine,

Is a Barmaid like your Molly . . . I’m not going to judge the man.

He means to make a profit in the surest way he can.

But judge the Money-lovers, who stand aside and wink,

While the Trade throws Youth and Beauty into the scale with Drink!

That scale’s heavy enough, full heavy, in country or in town,

Without Molly sitting on it,” I says, “to weigh it down!”

  And just then—down the passage—rang a voice like a singing-bird!

The merriest, the gayest, the freshest you ever heard!

And in comes Molly, singing, and laughing like a chime—

    “Now, Mrs. Hyde, don’t grizzle! I shall have a splendid time!

“Bless you!” she says, “they’re jumping, to give me double pay

The ‘Magnet’s’ crazy for me. And so is the “Load of Hay!”

    “Yes! my dear!” I says, “at twenty, you are worth your weight in gold,

But what’s the worth of a Barmaid when she is getting old?

The Trade won’t have the old ones. I could tell you where many go.”

    She shook her curls—“Don’t tell me! for I never want to know.

And old!—why, I’ll be married before I’m twenty-four.

The bar’s the place for sweethearts!—they come in by the score!”

With the rich red of wall-flowers in her sunny shining hair:

As I saw her in her beauty—I longed to take the girl,

And fold my arms about her, and guard her like a pearl

From every breath of danger. And my heart burned to think

It was legal to employ her for the trade and sale of Drink:

To plunge her in temptation, up to her pretty chin—

And shrug a careless shoulder at tragedy—or sin!

    I went across and kissed her. “Molly,” I says, “my dear

Your mother sits a widow through nothing else but beer.

I’d have thought that you’d avoid it. Don’t think I rant or rave,

But I’d rather follow Sally, my daughter, to her grave—

Than I’d see her live a Barmaid. God grant you come through right.

But Molly——” I says—“we knew you, as a little toddling mite—

If ever you’re in trouble you come to me and Jim——”

And I hurried out that minute, for my eyes were all a-swim.

That mother’s flabby wishing will be ringing in my ears.

    She stood at the sale of Liquor in the morning, and she saw

The working wives and mothers, unhindered by the Law,

Flock in and drink together—while their homes were left to reel,

And rock, like a cart that’s driven downhill on a single wheel

To wreck itself at the bottom and splinter the roadside grass.

    She stood at the sale of Liquor in the evening, when the mass

Of houses like the “Magnet,” blazing in gas and glass,

Jostle and fight for custom. You can see them as you pass.

When every man who enters, who gets within the clutch

Of their easy-swinging portals, gains little and loses much.

    In six months at the “Magnet,” what she had seen and heard

Would make you sick with sorrow, if I told you every word.

    One night a tipsy couple brought in a little child;

A blue-eyed lisping cherub, as ever stared and smiled.

It turned its head from tasting their brandy, as ’twas bid;

And they shook it, and said savage—they would smack it till it did.

    Molly sprang out and stopped them:—“You give that child to me!

How dared you bring it with you! It’s against the Law!” says she.

The Law! They turned and cursed her. They’d do as they liked with their own,

And Starrs, the landlord, called her—“to leave customers alone!”

He was flushed with beer, and angry, and he told her to keep her place,

And not think herself in Chapel.

                            The girl went white in the face.

She was not to be cowed. Not Molly.

                            “No!” she flung back in scorn.

“I don’t think myself in Chapel! And the biggest fool that’s born

Wouldn’t call THIS a place for praying! But if you think I’ll see

A little helpless baby poisoned—illegally—

You may get another Barmaid, for you will never get me!”

    She ran to our house from the “Magnet,” that night without hat or shawl.

And oh! we tried our hardest to get her to leave it all,

And earn her living different. And I think it was her mind;

If a better class of opening hadn’t been so hard to find

After she’d spoilt her chances by six months in the Trade.

    So the affair blew over: and back she went: and stayed . . .

Till other things had happened. I’ll call a spade a spade.

    She had her choice of sweethearts. Of course she was a “draw”

To keep men at the counter. It was what they engaged her for.

And the first who loafed there, drinking, for the sake of her sweet face,

Was a man she’d known from childhood, a chap called Ernest Mace.

Handsome, hard-working, sober: hard to find a better one:

A good lad to his mother. And as I’ve watched the Sun

Sink from a rosy heaven into an inky bank

Of storm-cloud—so I watched him, sinking, until he sank

Below self-respect and duty! Sink!—till he reached the grade

Of those from whom the profits of the Publicans are made.

    If you want to talk to Barmaids you must drink to the good of the House!

Which means to your own undoing.

                    He was trapped as you’d trap a mouse.

And Molly tried to stop it: and told him to go away.

But he’d lost his work! And he hung there, watching her day by day.

    And he watched another loafer who was always in the bar.

I’ll speak of him as Vincent—never mind what his real names are.

He called himself a gentleman. He was born one, anyway,

“Gentleman is as gentleman does,” I’ve heard my mother say.

He’d wealth. Dear yes! He’d dollars! You could see them round his hat!

He had everything but GOODNESS. And if you haven’t got that,

You are nothing but a bankrupt, ride as proudly as you may.

    He came there first for whiskey, on the way to catch a train.

And when he’d once seen Molly, he came back and back again.

Which was what the “Magnet” wanted.

                He brought flowers, and sweets, and stuff.

And the silly child was flattered. And said so, frank enough—

She didn’t hide it from us. But as Jim says to me—

“He’s spending time and money where he has no right to be.

He’s not there for his improvement! Nor yet for Molly’s good——”

    And as Jim spoke, our side-door—opened! And Molly stood

Before us, flushed and lovely—more lovely than I can say!

    She had come to us in a trouble that had worried her all the day.

The old black tale!—this Vincent! he had asked her to run away.

That very night . . . He was waiting—with a car by Regent’s Park.

He’d been trying to persuade her it was nothing but a lark!

He’d talked of love! . . . and money. And all that money buys.

Not a word of honest marriage. Mere dust tossed in her eyes!

And a veiled moon, I remember, showed in the cloudy height,

Like the holy soul of Pity watching the weeping earth.

Aye! There’s need of Heaven’s pity for the crimes which owe their birth

To the Trade that deals in liquor!

                            Through the mist we couldn’t see

That Ernest Mace tracked Molly, as well as Jim and me.

Mace, with his conscience clouded by drink-fed jealousy.

We didn’t know he’d haunted the “Magnet” all that day.

We didn’t know he’d sat there soaking his brains away

Till sense and manhood left him—till, when he saw her start,

He had come through the mist, behind her, with murder in his heart!

We threaded the Euston traffic. And out by Portland Place,

We saw the car—and Vincent. And crossing the open space

We saw the girl’s young figure in its frank and eager grace,

Thank God! I know she’d courage and truth upon her face—

And even as we two saw her—I can show the very spot—

There rang out on the night air the crack of a pistol shot . . .

And another . . . and she staggered . . . flung her hands to her pretty head,

And like a shot bird falling . . . fell to the ground . . . shot dead!

With thirty thousand Barmaids serving Strong Drink to-day?

With the grey sea through your lashes, and your sunny shining head!

Sent to your grave at twenty . . . And if you’d earned your bread

Free of the fatal fluid that lights the fires of Hell,

’Twould all have been so different! . . . such a different tale to tell!

    I look along the future and think what might have been.

You were as glad a creature as this sad earth has seen.

And I can see you, Molly, living a happy life,

As you were meant to live, dear—daughter and friend and wife.

And the steady lad who loved you, the lad who used to be

A good son to his mother ere he came to the gallows-tree—

I see you both together, with children at your knee . . .

And I can look no longer on the Promise of the years,

For the Vision of what Might have been is blotted out with tears.

        HAT do you think of this now? . . .

          One snowy winter day,

        Jim lent a man ten shillings,

          To help him on his way

From London down to Bristol where he said he’d got a berth.

’Twas just like Jim to do it. He’s the kindest heart on earth.

        And I thought ’twas quite in reason—

          For the man spoke very fair,

        And wrote his Firm’s Address down,

          And said when he’d settled there

A week or two—at latest—he’d send the money back.

That’s five years come next Christmas— And you may paint me black

        If Jim’s ever seen a penny! . . .

          And worse than that—we wrote

        To the Address in Bristol.

          And got, at last, a note.

Saying that no such people were living in the town,

And never had been either! I’ll own it cast us down.

        And Jim says—“We’ve been swindled.

          I’m hanged if I’ll lend agen!

        For the world is full of rascals

          And not of honest men.”

And I says—“Well. It seems so. Yet ’tis a happy thing

We can call to mind the story of the Gipsies and the Ring.”

    The Rector of the village where me and the rest were born,

Was a fine old English clergyman—the Reverend Amyas Thorne.

A large heart, and a generous: a handsome kindly face:

At peace with all his neighbours: and a father to the place.

    He lived alone at the Rectory, with neither child nor wife,

And the love he bore his mother was the great love of his life.

But he thought a deal of Marriage. And mother used to tell

How one night he preached upon it, as she remembered well.

    Now just above our village, where the open heath began—

There sometimes camped in passing, a Gipsy Caravan.

And every ragged gipsy as brown as a forest fawn,

Was sure of a word of greeting, and a smile, from Rector Thorne.

He liked to go amongst them and give the children treats:

His Bible in this pocket—and that—full of nuts and sweets!

    And the night he preached on Marriage, there were sitting near the door

A gipsy man and woman we hadn’t seen before.

They listened very earnest. And when the Church was out,

And the Rector sat at supper—it was eight o’clock about—

Twelve times, before our people will come this way again.”

Said the gipsy very sadly. And the Rector caught a sigh

From the woman’s heart—a whisper, that seemed almost a cry—

“If it isn’t now ’tis never!”

                            The good old man stood still.

“Wait!” he said, slow and thoughtful. “I can help you . . . and I will.”

He turned and left them wondering. He came back kind and calm.

And they saw that he was holding in the hollow of his palm,

A glittering hoop of diamonds . . . “This was my mother’s ring,”

He told them very quiet. “There is no other thing

I have of her more precious—except her memory.

My mother was a Christian: she loved truth and purity:

She lends this for your marriage . . . You may keep it for a year,

And the next time that your people and Caravan come here

I trust you to return it . . . Now the Service can go on.”

And he married them. And trembling, the gipsy placed upon

His gipsy bride’s brown finger that ring of priceless worth.

“Good-bye,” said the old man gently, to those wanderers of the earth—

“Be faithful to each other: true husband and true wife:

And the peace of the God of my mother rest on your wedded life.”

    Their bright eyes shone upon him with thanks no words could pay.

“Sir,” they said. “You can trust us.” And so they went away.

    A twelvemonth from that evening, when the summer days drew in,

And all along our river the mist rose white and thin:

When the moon at full was shining upon the open heath,

On the thatched roofs of our village that nestled underneath,

On the highroad and the hedges, and across the Rectory lawn—

He was called into the garden, once more, was Rector Thorne.

And there were the gipsies waiting! They had left the Camp to bring,

Wrapped in a score of wrappings—the precious diamond ring.

They gave it back uninjured. And the husband showed with pride

A plain gold band his earnings had purchased for his bride.

“And we feel, sir,” said the woman, “this should be put on by you.

If you’ll do it?” And he did it. And so tied the knot anew.

And gave them a handsome present, and a royal supper too!

“According to your faith be it unto you.”

“I couldn’t die, for I wanted to see my mother again.”

 SEE a crowd of faces gathered in front of me

Rows upon rows of people a-listening silently,

I can’t tell what the feeling of the hearts of them may be,

Each face tells a different story. But if there’s one here sad

Because a soul they care for is drifting to the bad,

That’s the one I’ve come to talk to. That’s the heart my words’ll strike.

I speak to such . . . And the others—will listen if they like!

Maybe it may surprise you: ’twasn’t known by everyone:

But we had a world of trouble with Dick—our youngest son.

Harry, he was a soldier, and Sally, she was a wife.

But Dick, he wouldn’t settle to any sort of life.

His father when he started had worked as a factory “hand,”

And had risen to be Foreman, but Dickie was far too grand

To follow his father’s calling! He wanted to ride, not walk!

He was restless and discontented, and given to Socialist talk.

Why, when he was quite a youngster he talked to his father and me,

One day—about Equalization and Division of Property!

He said we should all share equal. He said it was very wrong

For one to have more than another. And he said it amazing strong!

I noticed his father smiling, sort of quiet, to himself.

Dick had a concertina that hung on the dresser shelf.

And a pair of lop-eared rabbits he kept in a little hutch,

And fed with bran and lettuce and cabbage-leaves and such.

One day the boy comes running—his face as pale as lard—

“Mother! They’ve stolen my rabbits! The hutch is gone from the yard!”

And just then his father enters, and looks the boy through and through:

“Dickie!” he says—“Joe Pullin, who goes to school with you,

Is poorer a lot than you be. He hasn’t a Sunday hat,

Much less a concertina, and rabbits, and things like that;

And as we should all share equal—accordin’ to what you show—

I thought it must hurt your feelin’s to have so much more than Joe

So you are to keep the music. And he is to have the hutch.”

Oh! Dickie’s face! ’Twas a study! . . . He couldn’t say overmuch.

He was tarred with his own brush tidy. And he didn’t like it at all!

And when he got back his rabbits—they were hidden under my shawl—

We heard no more of Division, and the rubbish the Socialists taught.

Mind you, there’s Socialism of the right and proper sort,

That takes its stand on the Bible. But that wasn’t how Dickie thought.

He and the lot he took up with, they flung the Bible away;

They said they had “grown beyond it”! And the very bitterest day

I’d known since I was a mother, was when the son I bore

Pushed back the Bible I gave him, and said he’d read it no more.

“Oh, I reckon it’s true,” he says careless; “but it ties a man by the leg,

And binds him this way and that way, till he durstn’t stir a peg

On the road to independence. I’m a man!” he says, “not a kid!”

Then he stooped and kissed me loving. Oh, he loved me, Dickie did.

“Good-bye,” he says. “Good-bye, mother. I’m going to Liverpool.

I shall build up a handsome fortune, you’ll find; for I’m not a fool.”

And I watched him cross the roadway, as I’d watched him go to school

Many and many a morning . . . He turned where the sunlight shone . . .

“You can give my love to father!” he shouted back. And was gone.

That’s how our youngest left us. That’s how he went away,

Against the wish of his parents; confident, careless, gay,

Casting God’s Word behind him.

                      Did he build as he thought he should

Did you ever know such building that came to any good?

I never did. It is written, for the simplest to understand,

That the man who rejects Christ’s sayings is the man who builds upon the sand,

And his house must FALL when the floods come.

                                ’Twould take too long to tell

The ins and outs of Dick’s story. At first he seemed doing well.

At least, he wrote and said so. He wrote of the gold he’d got

To buy me silks and satins, and rings, and I don’t know what.

And we didn’t care to hear it—for as Jim says to me,

You can’t get gold so easy if you get it honestly.

And then he gave up writing . . . And then there came a day

When I picked up the paper in a casual kind of way,

And in the Police Court column I read—what made me fall

Across our kitchen table, crying, before them all.

And Sally snatched the paper, and read, and cried the same.

He’d gone with a gang of swindlers till he’d forged a rich man’s name.

Our Dick . . . And we that dreaded the dock and the prison shame

Worse than we dreaded his funeral!

                                 They put him into gaol.

And when he’d served his sentence—like a hull without mast or sail

He drifted beyond our reaching. Drifted across the sea

To America, never sending a line or a sign to me.

Drifted away and vanished—and became like one who’s dead

To all of us who had loved him.

                             To all of us, have I said?

No! There was scarcely an hour, there was never a single day,

Through eight—ten—years of darkness, that I didn’t yearn and pray

For the boy who had wandered from me; that I didn’t sit and mourn

On the floor of my heart for Dickie, my lad, my youngest-born!

I called them years of darkness. You would have called them bright.

We owned the house we lived in, and everything looked right.

Oh! judge no human creature by what appears in sight.

We can nod to each other cheerful, we can talk to each other brave,

And all the time can be weeping beside a fresh-dug grave.

We can walk on straight in the sunshine, and draw an even breath,

And all the time can be wounded, and bleeding, bleeding to death.

To death, unless Faith triumphs, and sets her heel on Grief.

As surely as you sit there I’d have faded like a leaf

In those ten years of sorrow, but that I’d faith to pray

And trust that God would never let Dick be a castaway.

“He’s dead,” said his father often, as no letter ever came.

“No, Jim,” I says; “the boy’s living, though maybe in sin and shame.

One day he’ll come to himself. One day I shall see him again.”

Jim shook his head. And a neighbour, he talked to me very plain

About my self-deceiving.

                         I know he meant it well.

But he was one of those people who think you are bound for Hell,

While they are bound for Heaven. When he spoke of the Heavenly Shore,

’Twas a place for himself, and his brother and cousin, and one or two more—

Not a place for me—or my children.

Who knew us, had seen him, he told us, in a Common Lodging-house

Down by the docks. And his father—got straight up out of his chair

And started to find the lodging. And did. And Dick wasn’t there

He had lodged for a bit, said the landlord, but had gone,

And they couldn’t tell where.

We thought he’d come home. But he didn’t. And one night I turned round quick—

And I said to my husband, “Jimmy! I’m going to look for Dick.

It’s no use for you to be searching—it’s come to me suddenly.

’Twill be given to one to find him—one only, and that one’s me!

You must let me go,” I says, “Jimmy.”

                          And bless him! he simply said:—

“Go, mother. And God go with you.”

                            I went. ’Twas fixed in my head

That he would be hiding somewhere in the blackest haunts of sin

Ashamed to meet honest people. And as soon as night set in

I used to have my supper, and put on my things, and go

Tramping the wickedest quarters that London has to show.

For weeks and weeks I did it. Searching the foulest dens

Where outcasts herd together like cattle in cattle-pens.

Searching the Common Lodgings. And houses of Ill-fame

And Gambling Hells. And places I shouldn’t care to name

Because of what I saw there.

                          And everywhere I stepped

Seeing the sin and sorrow—the heart within me wept

For those who sit in blindness. When if they’d only see

That the service of Christ is Gladness, and Health, and Prosperity,

They’d never serve the devil!

                                Yet sometimes I saw good,

And met with human kindness where you wouldn’t think I should.

Sometimes I reached an alley or street of the dangerous sort,

Where they warned me not to venture: where every thief uncaught

And every scamp was crouching. Yet when I passed inside

And asked for leave to look there, ’twas never once denied.

I never met an insult, or a scoff, from anyone—

For I told them I was a mother a-looking for her son.

Those windy nights of autumn, in my long wanderings.

I learnt that God Almighty didn’t put Memory

In a woman’s brain for nothing. ’Twas marvellous to me,

But I always seemed to see Dickie, not as he’d grown to be,

But as he was as a baby when I held him on my knee.

Strange! that through all my searching—from the first night I began,

’Twas always the child I followed, and not the sinful man.

The child I’d watched a-sleeping, safe in his little bed,

Soft dimpled arms flung upwards! and a little curly head!

Always I saw him playing, with his cart and wooden horse,

On our doorstep, good and happy! Always I felt the force

Of those strong cords of memory drawing me on and on,

Till there wasn’t a den of the world to which I wouldn’t have gone,

Searching, until I found him!

In the darkness, and heard whispers: two men a-talking there.

’Twas a place where tramps get lodging for twopence a night or so;

And one man said to the other—he was speaking very low,

But I heard the voice . . . and I knew it—he said: “I went to-day

Down to the brink of the river, to throw my life away,

And tried—and came back.”

            And the other said, jeering, “Wos it too cold?”

“No,” he says, oh! so sadly; “not colder than graveyard mould.

And I’ve tried for that.”

  And the other, still jeering, asks, “Wot stopped yer, then?”

And he answers, “Only a fancy! But fancies to wretched men

Like me, may mean something . . . God grant it!” And he seemed to bow his head.

“I’d a mother,” he says, “and I left her; and maybe she thinks me dead.

And I should be, except for this fancy, that if I took my life

Shot myself . . . jumped into the river . . . cut my throat with a knife . . .

I’d not see her for ever and ever!”

                        In the dark he paused . . . he sighed

And softly—very softly—as the crazy door stood wide,

I moved a step—a step—nearer! . . . And I heard him falter plain,

“I couldn’t die . . . for I wanted . . . to see my mother again.”

“Dick!” I says. “Dick!” He started . . . he turned . . . I forget the rest.

I only know I held him, while he sobbed upon my breast.

That’s how our youngest came back to us.

                                  Ah! there’s no need to say

That there never was, nor has been, such a blessed Christmas Day

As that one in our family! Such radiance never shone

On the Christmas snow and holly.

So it was. You may laugh if you’re willing. He took to the Bible, too.

And read it to me; and loved it; and loved us; and loved his wife.

This isn’t made-up nonsense. It’s the very truth of Life!

And Love!  And God!  And Heaven!

                                  Never, if mothers pray

In faith for their erring children, shall one be a castaway.

You who have sat and heard me . . . Anyone here who’s sad

Because a soul they care for has drifted to the bad,

Never grow tired of praying. Never lose hope and trust.

That soul will change for the better. It will; it shall; it MUST!

Though all the devils defy you, you shall learn God’s Word is true—

“According to your faith, your faith—it is, verily, unto you.”

“A miracle! Yes . . . and yet no miracle,

  But the working of a Law

Which brings God’s answer to Faith’s appealing.”

How did it happen? Who could fancy

  Flowers that opened fair,

Would lose their bloom and fade so quickly!

That a dreadful blight would drop so thickly,

                        Out of sunny air!

Birds are shy. I have seen the plover

  Rise from the new-ploughed lands,

All in a silver dazzle and shiver,

And sweep in a cloud right over the river,

                        If I clapped my hands!

Love is shyer than any plover.

  Lighter to fly away.

Where’s the magic that can enfold him,

Cage and keep and bind and hold him,

                        For aye and aye?

Youth cannot do it. Neither Beauty.

  I have seen much of life,

And I know only one Power able

To hold the weak hearts and unstable,

                        Of man and wife.

One Power alone that when Love’s jewel

  Drops from the marriage chain,

Can search for the precious thing and find it,

Can take the broken chain and bind it

                        Together again.

Charlie had fought through strain and trouble,

  Clouds that had rolled away!

Judged for a thief—but cleared with honour.

How Sally danced as the sun shone on her,

                        On her wedding day!

A bonnier bride did not rise that morning

  Under tile or thatch.

Sally was sweet as country clover.

A man might search our Islands over,

                        Nor find her match.

They might have sailed for South Australia!

  Strange as the fact appears.

For what with one thing and another

We and they didn’t see each other

                        For five whole years.

Sally was never a ready writer,

  As all the neighbours know.

But one day there came a letter, saying—

I must go at once, without delaying—

                        I was wanted so!

Heart alive! how I laughed and hurried!

  Though the railway made me quake!

But wasn’t I going to see my Sally.

And wouldn’t I cross mountain, river, and valley,

                        For her dear sake!

Sally’s house, and Sally’s garden!

  They took my breath away!

I never dreamed she owned such measure

Of flowers and lawn, and household treasure,

                        As I saw that day.

We’ve a big Arm-chair—But Sally had seven!

  And three large marble clocks!

We’ve a silver fork—that came from Jim’s cousin—

But Sally she showed me a shining dozen!

                        In a polished box!

She poured my tea from a Silver Tea-pot!

  I scarce know what I said,

My heart was in such a happy flutter.

The joy seemed more than I could utter.

  It turned my head,

To sit there praising her dairy butter

                        And home-made bread!

And then I looked in the face of my Sally,

  The sweetest face I knew—

I saw it pale—and her eyes were swimming,

Just like a lily-cup that’s brimming

                        With unshed dew.

“Sally!” I said—“You are not in trouble?

  Love, it can never be!”

She clung to my neck like a creature dying.

“Is it Charlie, child?” There was no replying.

  Then suddenly—

“Mother!” she said, with bitter crying—

                        “Mother! . . . Wait and see.”

Where was the fault? Was Charlie a drinker?

  No. He was as sober as she.

Did he care for some other woman? Never!

She had no cause, not then or ever,

                        For jealousy.

Lo! if I tell it, will you believe it?

  Yet tell it I may and must.

There’s a devil as deadly—to my thinking—

At wrecking homes, as the devil of Drinking,

                        Or the devil of Lust.

And he is the devil of Evil Temper.

  Temper! No more. No less.

He mocks at the love of Home and spurns it:

He takes the sweetness of Home and churns it

                        To bitterness.

And Charlie Dunn was in his clutches.

  Oh! ’tis a grievous day

When the young wife stops her merry humming,

And the children cower at father’s coming,

                        And hide away.

Thank the Lord! My man’s dear presence

  Is the presence of the Sun!

Jim may be tired, and worried, and ailing,

But his very step brings cheer unfailing

                        To every one!

In Charlie’s home his step was dreaded.

  Our simple chatter died,

The blue-eyed babes would cease their prattle,

Hearing his key in the door-lock rattle,

                        And his step outside.

Did he know his sin? Do such sinners know it?

  Knowledge might make them wise.

The truth is veiled from their believing

By a veil of the Temper-devil’s weaving,

    A veil of lies.

He drugs their souls with self-deceiving.

                        And seals their eyes.

Charlie was late, and Sally had waited

  Thinking to cheer his meal.

But he came like a mad dog, snarling and snapping—

“D’you think I want your petticoats flapping

                        Behind my heel!

“I shall eat”—he said, “when I’ve a mind to.

  Who’s Master in this house?”

“I thought——” says Sally—“A curse on your thinking!”

He swore in her face. She sat there shrinking,

                        Like a frightened mouse.

A bolder woman maybe had cowed him.

  But Sally was never bold.

A gentle creature, made for caressing.

We called her “Pet,” and “Pearl,” and “Blessing,”

                        And our “Heart o’ gold.”

And I sat and heard Black Temper call her

  A “Slut,” and “a wretched Tool.”

She burst into tears. “You’re a pretty flower!”

He jeered—“Now cry for half an hour!

  You weak-eyed Fool!”

I have often marvelled at the Power

                        That kept me cool.

In other days I’d have capped his passion,

  For if Sally’s meek I’m not!

He might have called himself the Master.

He would have found my words roll faster

                        Than all his lot!

But Anger will never cast out Anger.

  I wanted Peace, not War.

And mark!—when married skies are clearing,

’Tis not through the angry interfering

                        Of the mother-in-law!

I strove for peace: but the devil in him

  Lashed the man on and on.

He blared like a bull instead of speaking.

And then came a crash . . . and children shrieking . . .

                        And then he was gone!

I have forgiven and overlooked it . . .

  Sometimes he’s made amends . . .

But you’ve heard the shameful words he’s spoken.

My love is killed . . . and my heart is broken . . .

                        And now it ends.

Our marriage ends—! for I shall leave him.

  I’ve borne it five years . . .” she said.

“I shall go this day without stop or staying,

Go! . . . Oh! I know what you would be saying!

  What you’ve always said—

Pray! I have prayed. And it’s no use praying.

                        For my faith is dead.

I shall come home to you and father.

  Mother! you’ll let us come?

Me and my children. You’ll not forsake us?

Mother!” she cried—“O mother!—take us,

                        To the dear old home.”

Think! If they parted one from other.

  If Charlie would pay the cost

Of a Separation—would that draw them

Back to the sunlight? and restore them

                        The love they’d lost?

Never! The way of Separation

  Is the world’s way, cold and bleak.

Love flies that road nor looks behind him—

You may seek him there, but you’ll never find him—

                        Nor hear him speak.

Those of you who have walked with Trouble,

  Dumb, through a dreadful land:

Bogs, and pits, and black gulfs yawning:

You will know what I felt that Sunday morning,

                        You will understand.

Sally’s marriage had crashed in ruins.

  Joy had gone out of the day.

I sat there . . . beside the ruins . . . staring.

I heard her, above my head, preparing

  To go away.

And she said, poor child! in her despairing,

                        ’Twas no use to pray!

Yet One who spake as no man speaketh:

  Who knew what no man knows:

One Who came from the Spirit places,

Taught us to lift our tear-stained faces

                        To Heaven’s repose.

Taught us to call on a hidden Father:

  To cry—be we sinner or saint.

Came to this tired world and told us

We are “ALWAYS TO PRAY” when troubles hold us,

                        “And not to faint.”

And I, who have walked with Trouble, witness

  There is no other way

Of gaining light and help and healing,

But to kneel as little children kneeling,

                        And to pray.  And pray.

Stretch your hands to the silent spaces!

  Plead! through your dropping tears.

Though the height of Heaven seems void above you,

There is a Heart to aid and love you,

                        And an Ear that hears.

I asked for Light in that pitch-black darkness.

  And I knew God’s Light would pour,

Would flood, would stream some way or quarter,

  Through an open door.

And I watched for its gleam to guide my daughter,

As eyes that watch across the water

                        For the lights on shore.

There came, quick, quicker than sense could measure,

  Came in a wondrous way,

A guiding gleam. And came so simply!

  Oh, go to! ye that say—

To-day or to-morrow at our pleasure

  We go or stay!

’Tis God Who rules. My Sally couldn’t

Leave her home that night, and we saw she wouldn’t

                        For many a day.

As I heard her moving her heavy boxes

  There came silence overhead.

I ran upstairs . . . The scene is painted

Before me now. The child had fainted

                        Across the bed.

Heart? Aye, a heart that was nearly broken—

  As she said it was. We heard

From the doctor’s lips ’twas not sickness ailed her.

But nerve, and will, and strength, had failed her,

  She never stirred.

We watched till dawn and she had not spoken

                        A single word.

As the sun arose we heard her call him—

  It was four by the cuckoo-clock,

And the glory tore the dark asunder—

He came back, pale, with the fear and wonder

                        Of a sudden shock.

I can see his look—“Is she better, Charlie?”

  “Mother!”—his eyes were dry,

And he put out his hands as if to hold me—

“She doesn’t want to live . . . She told me

                        She wants to die!”

In the growing light I turned and faced him.

  “Are you surprised?” I said.

“If my home-life had come to such passes,

I shouldn’t care how soon the grasses

                        Waved over my head.”

God gave me calm to speak to him quiet,

  And yet to speak true and straight.

“What’s wrong with the life?” he said: “I support her!

  I work for her early and late!

Look at the home, and the things I’ve bought her!

Did you ever think to see your daughter

                        With Silver Plate?”

“Silver Plate! Man alive! you might heap it

  Till you touched the skies above.

A happy marriage isn’t bought with money.

A wife doesn’t live by butter and honey,

                        She lives by love.”

“And I do love her. And love none other.

  And always have loved her well.

And I love my home . . .” his voice was shaking—

“And yet,” I said—“your temper’s making

                        That home a hell.”

Lord! How we wrap our rags about us

  And cling to the flimsy fluff,

Of self-esteem and self-defending.

He said he wouldn’t be pretending

  He had not been rough.

’Twas his Yorkshire blood, that without intending

  Was a little gruff.

But Sally knew, when such bouts were ending,

                        He meant well enough.

“Meant well enough! It’s only, Charlie,

  Five years since your wedding bell.

And the laughing girl I gave to your keeping,

I come . . . I see her wounded and weeping.

                        Is that meaning well?”

No. He would own he’d a hasty temper.

  But temper wasn’t a sin.

“So heavy a sin, it weighs like seven.

If you took it,” I said, “to the Gates of Heaven,

                        You’d never get in.

It’s a sin against love and all things lovely.

  The lash of a bitter tongue,

Ever flicking and flashing from habit,

Murders love. You take it and stab it,

                        And tread it like dung.

And Sally’s love is stabbed and dying.

  She never was born for strife——”

“She’s her children’s love—that’s enough:” he said thickly.

“Enough for a widow,” I answered quickly.

                        “Not enough for a wife!

A wife knows her husband before her children.

  She loved him first of the two.

Sally is young . . . ’tis hard to credit

She is tired of living—yet she’s said it—

                        And it is true.

And why?—Because the man she trusted

  Would play a lover’s part,

Has, with a coward mouth, abused her:

With hideous words has hurt and bruised her

                        To the very heart.

Who is the man who has done it, Charlie?”—

  I turned to him pleadingly—

“Who is the man she loved first and early?”

“I don’t know:” he said short and surly.

                        “He isn’t me.”

My Bible lay upon the table.

And a swift thought leapt and flew—

There was the quiver with the arrows in it!

Who knew, if one were shot that minute,

                        What it might do!

“Charlie!” I said—“let the Bible help us.

  No creature ever came

To seek its aid, and sought it vainly.

  ’Tis a day of trouble and shame—

Things have come to a pass ’twixt you and Sally,

And should she die or should she rally,

                        Someone’s to blame.

You don’t know the man whose evil temper

  Has crushed the girl he wed.

Now let the Bible do the finding—

  Just open it as you’re led.

And take the first words for a token,

As if the Lord Himself had spoken.”

                        “I will:” he said.

I am telling fact. No tale. No fable.

  Let me tell it while I can.

He took the Book. A page fell open.

  And swift as sight could scan,

On the husband’s eyes there flashed God’s arrow!

Four words that pierced to core and marrow—

                        “Thou art the man.”

Thou art the man—of a thousand thousand!

  Those words were the first he saw.

A miracle! Yes. And yet no miracle,

  But the working of a law

That brings God’s Answer to Faith’s appealing.

I say this of Charlie—he had no feeling

                        But simple awe.

He never questioned. He never doubted.

  He stood for a minute or two,

In a silence so deep—I heard the sighing

Of leaves on the trees—I heard the flying

                        Of a bird in the blue.

And in that silence the eyes were opened

  Of a man soul-blind before.

And in that silence a Marriage was mended,

And the reign of the Temper-devil ended

                        For evermore!

Jim had come with me to the christening

  Of Sally’s youngest son.

There we stood in a group together,

And blithe and glad as the summer weather

                        Was everyone!

Charlie kissed Sally. And Sally kissed Charlie.

  And both kissed Jim and me.

And the Twins, grown tall and fair, as lilies,

Kissed the baby; and we, like sillies,

  We kissed and kissed all three—

Till the love within and the love around us,

Filled and swayed and well-nigh drowned us,

                        In a glorious sea!

HEY’VE caught me to tell a story. I don’t know a story to tell.

I lets my wife do the talking, and she does it uncommon well.

Maybe she talks too much!—though she’d say that I was wrong.

But we must have our laugh at each other or we never should get along!

If I’ve GOT to rake out something, I’ll tell you a word or two,

About a little matter that is known to a very few.

Only me, and one or two others, can swear to it as true.

    We’d a Parson in St. Pancras. I’ll christen him, Arthur Gray.

And then they can’t go squalling that I’ve given him away!

He came to us as a Curate. He was forty across the chest.

He had played for his University against the Australian best,

And his arm was a piece of iron. But that’s only by the way—

There were better things than muscle, and breadth, in Arthur Gray.

    He was one who read the Service as if he thought God heard;

Not one who raced with the clock, and gabbled every word.

    He christened the children solemn. When he stood by a poor man’s grave,

You felt he might be standing in a Cathedral Nave,

For he spoke as slow and reverent as they do over rich men’s dust.

    When he came to poor folks’ weddings—to marry them—’twas just

As he’d go to a Royal Wedding! And when he knew the pair

Was everything they should be, and things were straight and square,

He’d place his sweet-faced sister at the organ, under the arch,

And send out the couple happy! to the sound of the Wedding March!

You may think such things are trifles. All right!—However you feel

I know he roped our hearts by these trifles, to his, with a rope of steel.

Hid a sickly sorry story of beastliness and shame.

And Arthur Gray he guessed it.

                          I speak of the White Slave Trade.

I’m sorry: but I’m bound to. Some people are afraid

To meddle with its doings. Gray came from the Upper Shelf,

That never runs from danger and would face the devil himself.

    One night as I left the Factory, I saw a man slip in

To a house that I could mention. A chap with a cleft in his chin,

As ugly as a bull-dog. And Gray walks just behind.

    “Jim Hyde!” he says, when he saw me. “You’re the man I meant to find.

You saw that hulking fellow slouch into Twenty-three?

I’ve watched him round our parish, for a month, and I hold the key

To him, and his ways of living. He’s as bad as he can be.

But he’s young: his ways may alter: if I only catch him square.”

    That was Parson Gray all over! He never could despair

Of living man or woman. No matter how black they’d been,

“They’ll only be the whiter,” he’d say, “when they are clean.”

“Now, Hyde!” he says—“I’m waiting for one certain piece of proof,

And then,” he says. “I’ve got him! You had better keep aloof

At present. I shall want you, later, to work a plan . . .

Can I count on you to help me?”

                          “Yes, sir!” I says. “You can.”

    The very next day, Saturday—and lucky! I was free.

I went down to his lodgings—he had sent for me, hurriedly—

And there was the Proof before us. A girl with a golden head,

Hanging her poor pale face down and wishing she was dead.

    Her parents lived in Cardiff. She’d been lost above a year.

Stories like hers are common, and horrible to hear.

All I need say is this much:—Someone had led her astray

Before she was seventeen—a child, as you may say.

And her parents showed no mercy, but heaped up taunt and slight,

(They’d had the training of her, mark you! from a tiny mite.)

Till at last she couldn’t bear it, and took and ran away.

She thought she’d get work in London—and there, as she walked one day,

She met this very fellow who lodged at Twenty-three,

And took his lies for gospel till she learnt his cruelty.

    There she was! Proof in earnest of the shame of The White Slave Trade.

Trembling and sobbing she told us, he lived on what she made,

And beat her when her earnings were less than he’d planned to gain.

Sobbing and trembling she asked us—could we break the accursed chain

The brute had padlocked round her?

                          “You won’t see that man again,”

Gray told her very gently. “I shall see him myself, to-night.

We will find you a place of shelter.” And then, in the sunset light,

He turned to me sort of doubtful—“Hyde—for a day or two,

Do you think your wife would take her?”

                          Mates! I was skewered through

With worry, for a minute, debating what to do.

You never know for certain how a woman will think or act.

Annie, my wife, was a good one. I knew it for a fact.

But there was our daughter, Sally—a young thing, growing up,

Fresh as a meadow cowslip, and pure as a lily-cup,

Without a thought of evil. Would the mother think it fair

To bring . . . this girl . . . near Sally?

                          “Sir. It’s as much as I dare!”

I says—“but I’ll step and ask her,”

                          And I stepped. And I’ll be shot

If ever I had reckoned, or bargained for what I got!

Up to her very temples. And the words she spoke to me, rushed

Straight from her soul—“Who’s guilty of the crime of this Trade?” says she.

“This man who lives on her earnings—he’s vile, but there are viler than he.

We know these girls are fallen. But did they ‘fall’ alone?

Where are the MEN who fell with them?—sinned with them?—Are they marked and known

As a Curse and a Scorn? They should be . . . She’s hanging down her head,

With shame, this girl, you tell me—and wishing she was dead.

And the MEN who keep this Trade thriving—the MEN who paid for her bed—

Are they hanging down their faces, and wishing they were dead?

They should be . . . Where are they? You can’t answer, for you don’t know.

And I don’t know, though, maybe, one’s living in this Row.

Nobody knows them”; she says. “They enter a House of Ill-Fame;

East or West; a poor one, a rich one; that’s nothing! the act is the same;

Not to live, but for what they call—Pleasure! they slink to the Prostitute’s den,

By stealth, and in secret, and leave it—to walk as respectable men!

And because the Whore’s mark on their forehead doesn’t blaze as a burning brand,

They may dare to sit at my table, and touch my daughter’s hand!

That’s where the Insult stings”—she says—“through a pure woman’s veins.

The Fallen girl is an outcast. The Fallen man remains

In his place. We’re not ‘asked’ to receive him! He walks into decent homes,

Unblushing. And holds his head up. Polluted! and yet he comes

Where virtuous girls are gathered. And this is the Lie of the World.

And till it’s confessed, and mended, the thunder that Christ has hurled

On the Hypocrite, rests on men’s shoulders—not women’s!”—

And a picture I keep in my memory, and ever shall, is the sight

Of Annie, my wife, in our doorway, gold-framed in the sunset light—

With Sally’s young face beside her, like a bit of the sun and as bright—

Holding a mother’s arms open to meet the waif of sin,

And saying—“The tea’s just ready. Come in, my dear!— Come in!”

                           We found the Bully hid

In bed, sky-high, in an attic. He poked his big head out,

As we entered. And Gray told him, short, what we’d come about.

He muttered he’d “do” for the girl, and he swore and he curst.

He didn’t care a rat’s jacket! Gray could do his blank—blank—worst!

He was naught but a sniffin’ Parson! Let him call up the blank Perlice,

And shove him into prison! He didn’t care a brass piece

For all the prisons in England!

                            “I know you don’t,” Gray said.

“I’m not going to send you to prison. I’m going to flog you instead.

I could get you locked up, with Hard Labour, poor soul: but”—says he, “I am sure

For base and cowardly sins of the flesh, like yours, the cure

Is to smart in the flesh. It’s useless to think of your pistol or knife.

We’re two. And a whip. I shall thrash you, within an inch of your life.”

And he took his coat off coolly, and threw it on the floor.

“Now!” he says—“Out of that bed! . . . And Hyde,” he says—“go to that door

And lock it. And come back and hold him.”

                            The Coward began to roar

And yelp like a cur for mercy.

                            Gray didn’t heed his cries . . .

I’ve seen some sights, and some thrashings, but what passed before my eyes

That day in that top attic, I never shall see again.

It’s one thing to flog in a passion. It’s another to deal out the pain

And be sorry. Yet that is how Gray did. He spared neither stripe nor bruise.

The punishment was Awful: that’s the only word to use:

’Twas Awful—but ’twas Righteous. Somehow it made you feel

That though the arm was iron, and though the hand was steel,

The heart within was grieving for the foulness of the world.

When it was over, and Rivers—that was his name—lay curled

Back in his bed and past groaning—Gray told the woman downstairs

That he would be back in an hour. As we walked away through the Squares

I think he forgot I was with him. He might have been saying his prayers!

I don’t know. He kept on a-looking at a lingering light in the sky.

When we got to his gate he woke-up-like, and says he—“Thank you, Hyde. And good-bye.”

And he adds—and the words were a flash-light on the workings of his mind—

“Poor wretch! He is young. He will alter. He’ll change for the better, you’ll find.”

    Many a man has been thrashed, and it’s done him good no doubt.

But it takes something more than a thrashing to Cast a Devil out.

Three devils were in Rip Rivers—Cruelty, Idleness, Lust,

And NOTHING will cast out devils but absolute faith and trust

In Him who fought the devil, and beat him, face to face,

Down on this earth; and empowered all of the human race

Who believe His Word—to do likewise.

                                  And this I can truly say,

And the parish will bear witness—Our Parson, Arthur Gray

Whatever else he might be—was a Servant of Jesus Christ.

And counted his Master’s Service a Privilege Unpriced.

You couldn’t be with him five minutes without knowing this was so.

And when he went back to Rivers, he went with a heart a-glow

With Love, and astounding Pity.

                          The man kept his bed for a week.

And he sat with him once, all night, and nursed him.

                                         I ventured to speak,

And say what I thought about it.

                              “You’ll pardon me, sir,” says I,

“But you’re wastin’ your readin’ and prayin’. A pig will stick to its sty.

You’ll never do nothing with Rivers. You’ve punished him—now let him slide.”

Unturned for that brute’s salvation. His was a burning light

Of Faith before our faces. With all his strength and his might

He fought for the soul of that Bully—till the devils had to let go,

And give him the soul.

                    This happened, a goodish few years ago.

    To-day, in a certain quarter of an old Cathedral town,

Where Arthur Gray is working—cheery and broad and brown,

And not a Curate, neither!—Rip Rivers, sobered down,

Steady, and married decent, and turned pleasant in the face,

Is a stedfast Christian worker, and his right hand in the place!

Think of it, mates:—“Ye were . . . darkness—but now are ye light.” Light! Light!

“Who see their golden profits

Blackened with blood and tears.”

            RAVE men—I say it humble,

              Are common on English ground;

            Common as spires and chimneys

              Whenever you walk around;

But the man of whom I’m thinking was brave with a bravery rare—

Ah! a hundred times rarer than rubies—in England or anywhere.

            I am thinking of a Brewer.

              This may take you by surprise!

            But the tale has fact to rest on,

              And is not a pack of lies.

He was rolling rich, and generous—generous to everyone.

A Brewer and a gentleman, John Sidney Donaldson.

            He sent big cheques to Hospitals,

              And for Children’s Holidays,

            And to Unemployed Relief Funds,

              And Homes for Waifs and Strays.

He was kind to all poor people and meant to do ’em good.

Though he knew but precious little about the neighbourhood

In which the greatest number of his Licensed Houses stood!

            ’Twas the poorest part of London,

              Drink-riddled through and through;

            But his Agents worked the Business,

              And all John Donaldson knew

            Was how it looked on paper,

              And the dividends he drew.

He was Member for a County that was like a garden ground,

For blossom and for beauty and for orchards smiling round.

            And you always found him willing

              To open his Manor gates

            For Band of Hope rejoicings,

              And Sports, and Temperance Fêtes.

            When Parliament was sitting,

              It happened, one spring day,

            He visited his Brewery.

              And strolling up that way—

Alone, and sort of curious to see what he would meet—

As he passed a gorgeous Public, gilded and tiled complete,

He saw a tipsy woman flung out into the street.

            The man who flung her savage,

              Went back inside the place.

            She fell upon the curb-stone

              And cut her head and face.

And she wasn’t more than thirty. “I’ll give that man in charge!”

Says John Donaldson a-blazing, for his heart was big and large,

            Too large to hurt a woman—

              And then he went across

            To lift the tipsy creature,

              And I’ve heard him say—a Force

Like twenty batteries struck him, and made his eyes see fire!

For painted on the house-front was—Donaldson’s Entire!

            He looked up at the Sign-board.

              The house was his own tied House.

            A new one—not long opened—

              And called “The Running Grouse.”

He’d meant to call that man out. He’d meant to make a row.

And send for a policeman—but he couldn’t do it now.

Something rose up and held him. The crowd that ran to stare,

Said the woman’s home was handy, so he helped to take her there,

            And a wretched hole he found it! . . .

              A man was up the stairs,

            Trying to cook his dinner

              And give five children theirs.

            Just home from his work—poor devil!

              He looked up with a frown

            When he saw what they were bringing—

              “Ah!” he says, “Chuck ’er down.

            If you’d brought ’er in ’er coffing

              I’d ’ave tipped yer ’arf-a-crown.”

            “Your wife is hurt and bleeding,”

              John Sidney Donaldson said.

            “My wife!” groans the husband bitter,

              “I wish she wos yourn instead!”

            And he picks up his yelling baby,

              And crams its mouth with bread—

“ ’Tain’t the fust time she’s a-bleedin’. ’Ere’s a ’appy ’Ome!” says he.

“That’s the mother of my childring! an’ she don’t get drunk on tea!

            Bright an’ ’appy! ain’t we, guv’nor?

              I dunno who YOU are,

            But ‘The Runnin’ Grouse’ ’ave done it,

              With its dirty Private Bar!”—

He shook his fist out of the window—“We didn’t want it ’ere.

My wife was a sober woman, and it’s ruined ’er in a year!

            A curse on the ’ouse, an’ the landlord!

              An’ I’ll say it till I’m dead . . .”

            He haunted that part of London

              For three whole months and more.

            And he saw what Brewers seldom see,

              What he’d never faced before.

He saw the truth stark naked—not glossed or veiled or hid,

He saw with his own eyes open the harm that his own beer did.

            He saw for himself—John Sidney,

              Wherever his Houses stood,

            A Force that worked for evil,

              That did not work for good.

He saw—he was bound to see it, in the slums the drink-shops made

Christ’s flag torn down and trampled by the brute heel of the Trade.

            He saw, laid bare as murder

              Done in the broad daylight,

            The base and ceaseless Tempting

              That goes on day and night.

The tempting of men and women already weak in will,

And poor enough in pocket, to be poorer and weaker still.

            “We didn’t want it ’ere!” . . . No!

              And they didn’t want it there!

            Yet here it was, and there it was,

              For ever! Everywhere!

            The Tied House in the open,

              The Hidden Drinking lair,

The Spirit Vault, the Cellars, the Private Bar and seat,

Calling from every corner and tempting in every street!

            The cries, the blows, the curses,

              Entered into his ears.

            He saw his golden profits

              Blackened with blood and tears.

He saw—as angels see them—the facts of what has grown

The saddest money-making the world has ever known.

            And when he’d seen it, fairly,

              He didn’t turn and run!

            In a hurry to forget it!

              As many would have done.

            He wasn’t built in that way,

              John Sidney Donaldson.

He took and thought about it for over half a year.

And then he made his mind up—steady and firm and clear—

To sacrifice his fortune and say Good-bye to Beer!

            “You’re a fool!” said his brother Brewers.

              “And mad!” said the world outside.

            “I’ve seen . . . and I can’t unsee it,”

                        John Donaldson replied.

“There are other ways of business that are happier ways, and higher,

And I won’t make another shilling out of Donaldson’s Entire!”

            He is living now in London,

              Careless of blame or praise.

            Working to help the People

              In a hundred splendid ways.

            Pledged to the cause of Temperance

              To the ending of his days.

What he did may be forgotten, or labelled—a Mistake!

But the sacrifice of riches is a mighty one to make.

I’m proud of this little Island that gave John Donaldson birth!

And I place him right in the forefront of the bravest men on earth!

Came out of the English Bible. She loved it heart and soul.

’Twas her cure for every trouble, for every crime and sin.

“Just shovel in the Bible,” she’d say; “just shovel it in!”

When we read her from the papers—Divorces, Girls shot dead,

And Suicides, and such-like—she sighed, and only said—

“Poor souls! They want the Bible! They want it every one.

They want it by the cartload. They want it by the ton!”

    My father was a queer ’un. A gentleman said one day—

“Your children seem good children, Mr. Hyde, when they’re at play.”

“Well. They OUGHT to be good,” says father—“for I beats ’em black and brown.

And if they won’t kneel down to pray,” he says—“I knocks ’em down!”

    Yes! That was just my father! You couldn’t call him mild!

And I holds with the wise old Proverb—“Spare the rod, and spoil the child.”

But love must go along with it. And love—Mark never had.

So you couldn’t be astonished that he drifted to the bad.

Leastways he would have drifted—for he’d got a taste for drink,

And no taste for religion—if he hadn’t . . . what do you think? . . .

If he hadn’t joined the Navy, and sailed in a Training Ship,

And that was the making of him! For before drink got a grip

On his throat and on his pocket, the Totals got him in tow.

They say you find a Branch now wherever you may go

In the Navy or the Army. And time you did, says I!

Well—when he was six and twenty, Mark married on the sly.

When I say “sly,” ’twas this way:

                              The girl was Nancy Reeve,

That he’d thought of and been fond of, from boyhood, I believe.

And what must they do one morning—he home on a spell o’ leave—

But walk into old St. Pancras’ Church, and walk out man and wife!

And of course there was nothing for it but to wish them a happy life!

For we hadn’t been consulted!

                          We’d never have chosen Nance.

Naught but a pretty doll-face. And gay as them flies that dance

In the air on summer evenings. But one taste ain’t another.

A man isn’t going to marry just to oblige his brother,

Or his brother’s wife! Mark married to oblige himself you see!

He was everlasting singing and whistling, “Nancy Lee.”

You know the song—“A sailor’s wife a sailor’s Star shall be,”

And thinks I when I hears him, You may sing about a Star!

Give me a Wife in the kitchen where the pies and puddings are!

But there!—as mine would tell you—there’s no poetry in me!

And Nancy Reeve as we knew her, she wasn’t Nancy Lee!

And she didn’t do much fretting when Mark went back to sea.

To get her to live at Portsmouth. But she said No! She’d stay

Where she’d lived before, in London. And he let her have her way.

That was how the mischief started. It’s Annie’s and my belief

If she’d gone to live at Portsmouth, she’d never have come to grief,

She’d have settled, safe and friendly, with the sailors’ wives and all,

And been taken in hand by the Lady the sailors love to call

The mother of the navy. I’m just a rough working chap,

But when her name is mentioned—Miss Weston—I lift my cap

As I would to the Queen! God bless her! for the good that she has done.

So Nance stayed in St. Pancras where she guessed she’d get more fun,

And fluttered in the sunshine as light as a woman’s veil,

And Mark’s pay came like clockwork, and he wrote by every mail.

Or dreamed of. And what followed was a Bolt from out the Blue.

How shall I tell it short-like!

                          I was sitting at my tea—

Annie was in with a neighbour—when a letter came for me.

Mark’s fist. And this was written:—

                            “A brother’s thanks to-day

For the welcome you’ve prepared him. Nancy has run away

With another man. She’s left me a note with her ring inside.

O Jim . . . you might have told me. There’ll be murder done.

                                              Mark Hyde.”

Mates! I’m a heavy fellow, and slow to take things in.

I sat there—felled—for a minute. Then my head began to spin.

I wouldn’t frighten Annie and make her dear heart sick.

I’d tell her of it later. But I had to do something, quick!

And in my desperation I thought of Arthur Gray—

Our Parson chap—and the finest, that ever came our way.

I went to him straight. ’Twas winter; with the sky a growing dark.

And before you could strike a pipe-light we were both in the room with Mark!

I’d tell. But on my honour I know no more than you.”

“Lies!” he says. “Lies! to blind me! Is this a wronged man’s due?”

  Gray took a step and touched him: “Your brother is speaking True,”

He says. And Mark turned—raving!

                            Who was Gray to interfere!

Had he asked for a blank—blank—Parson? . . . Let him get his black tails clear

Of the room, or he’d do him damage.

                              I tell you I fairly shook,

For his hand was on the pistol. Gray didn’t budge. He took

His pipe out, filled and lit it. “That’s right,” he says. “That’s it!

You stand and blow the steam off, and then we’ll talk a bit.”

It stumped Mark for a moment. And then the poor chap burst

Into a blaze of cursing. He curst his wife. He curst

The day and hour he saw her. He curst her eyes. He swore

He hated her, soul and body. Gray gave him a look—no more—

“Why you love her with all your heart,” he says. And Mark turned blue,

And hid his face on the table—“God help me!” he sobbed, “I do.”

  Mates! it’s a sight for angels when the Power of Christ begins

To wrestle with human Passion: when it wrestles—and it wins.

The Power was there in the twilight.

                  “He will help you,” Gray says to Mark.

“Listen, my man! . . . Christ’s speaking! . . . He’s calling you through the dark . . .

You’ve got your job. You’re to find her, forgive her, and bring her home.”

Mark shook his head. “You’ll do it . . . You’ll find she’ll be glad to come.”

I never knew how tender one man can be to another

Till I saw Gray at the table bending down over my brother.

“Forgive . . . and you’ll be forgiven! . . . That’s Christ’s message to you to-day.

Divorce is a game for heathens, and pistols are idiots’ play.

Love is better than bloodshed . . . and Love is the only way.”

“I can’t forgive,” Mark muttered. “You can!” said Arthur Gray.

“You can! It’s Captain’s orders: and a Sailor will obey.”

Then he turned to me—“Look here, Jimmy! Bring your brother down to-night.

We’ll have a snack of supper: and a yarn: and he’ll get all right!”

If there is such a thing—and there isn’t!—Gray heard poor silly Nance

And the man she ran away with, a low-down skunk called Gantz,

Were lodging out at Wandsworth. And Gray and Mark together

Went tramping off to Wandsworth. ’Twas bitter winter weather

And the snow lay round in drift-heaps.

                          Mark couldn’t tell what he’d find.

Though one thing’s clear as daylight to those not passion-blind;

You CAN’T pluck figs from thistles. And ’twas easy enough to guess

Whatever Nance had gone to, she’d not gone to happiness.

    They found the house and entered. As they mounted up the stair—

I heard about it later, and I’m sorry I wasn’t there!—

A voice rang out above them. A woman’s voice, in pain.

(Gantz was half-drunk, I fancy, and had struck her.) It rang again—

“Oh! don’t! . . . Oh! don’t! . . .” ’Twas Nancy!

                            Mark passed Gray at a bound

And was in that room like thunder!

                              He gripped the tipsy hound,

And flung him . . . smash! . . . through the window!

                                He fell in a drift of snow

Breaking his leg in the falling. And I can’t but laugh when I know

The crowd that came a-running declared the man had tried

To kill himself! . . . ’Twas printed—“Attempted Suicide!”

    Gantz didn’t contradict it. He let it stay at that.

And when he was out of Hospital, he vanished like a rat,

And they never saw him after.

To Gray’s side for protection; for she thought when the framework crashed

Mark would throw her next through the window.

                            Mark didn’t move. He stood

With his blue eyes looking at her. She shook as a feather would,

And all that was best within her, came to the top, and cried—

“I don’t know why I did it. I wish that I had died

Before I left you that letter. It’s a wicked thing I’ve done.

I don’t know why I did it . . . I was dull . . . I wanted fun . . .

I was dull . . . and I was tempted . . . It’s no excuse, sir, none—none—none!”

With its wings in the dust, was lifted, and taken for ever and aye,

Back to her husband’s keeping. And Gray said—“Let us pray!”

They went on their knees together: all three: and the prayer that rose

Up from that Wandsworth lodging to the Healer of human woes,

Was one that cannot be written. For every husband and wife

That ever sinned and suffered in our God-forgetting life,

That ever failed each other, and loved each other less,

Pleaded with Christ for pardon in that prayer’s tenderness.

And all Life’s wedded gladness—deeper than tongue can show—

Loyalty, Love, Devotion, the Home and the Hearth a-glow,

Came surging into their bosoms in that prayer’s overflow.

    ’Twas the Power of the Spirit. Gray’s one of the Lord’s own men.

All Mark could say about it, and he’s said it agen and agen,

Was, “I think we’d never been married before . . . we were married then.”

    And bless you! Down at Portsmouth, they’re as happy as birds on a tree!

And Mark’s everlasting singing and whistling “Nancy Lee”!