should I know?” said Jabez, following her. He thought himself safe even in Blind Peter, having nothing of value about him, and having considerable faith in the protecting power of his strong right arm.
The old woman led the way into the little mountain gorge, choked up with rickety hovels lately erected, or crazy old houses which had once been goodly residences, in the days when the site of Blind Peter had been a pleasant country lane. The house she entered was of this latter class; and she led the way into a stone-paved room, which had once been a tolerably spacious entrance-hall.
It was lighted by one feeble little candle with a long drooping wick, stuck in an old ginger-beer bottle; and by this dim light Jabez saw, seated on a heap of rubbish by the desolate hearth, his own reflection—a man dressed, unlike him, in the rough garments of a labourer, but whose face gave back as faithfully as ever glass had done the shadow of his own.
Chapter II
Like and Unlike
The old woman stared aghast, first at one of the young men, then at the other.
“Why, then, he isn’t Jim!” she exclaimed.
“Who isn’t Jim, grandmother? What do you mean? Here I am, back again; a bundle of aching bones, old rags, and empty pockets. I’ve done no good where I’ve been; so you needn’t ask me for any money, for I haven’t earned a farthing either by fair means or foul.”
“But the other,” she said,—“this young gentleman. Look at him, Jim.”
The man took up the candle, snuffed it with his fingers, and walked straight to Jabez. He held the light before the face of the usher, and surveyed him with a leisurely stare. That individual’s blue eyes winked and blinked at the flame like an owl’s in the sunshine, and looked every way except straight into the eyes looking into his.
“Why, curse his impudence!” said the man, with a faint sickly laugh; “I’m blest if he hasn’t been and boned my mug. I hope it’ll do him more good than it’s done me,” he added, bitterly.
“I can’t make out the meaning of this,” mumbled the old woman. “It’s all dark to me. I saw where the other one was put myself. I saw it done, and safely done too. Oh, yes, of course—”
“What do you mean by ‘the other one’?” asked the man, while Jabez listened intently for the answer.
“Why, my deary, that’s a part of the secret you’re to know some of these days. Such a secret. Gold, gold, gold, as long as it’s kept; and gold when it’s told, if it’s told at the right time, deary.”
“If it’s to be told at the right time to do me any good, it had better be told soon, then,” said Jim, with a dreary shiver. “My bones ache, and my head’s on fire, and my feet are like lumps of ice. I’ve walked twenty miles to-day, and I haven’t had bite nor sup since last night. Where’s Sillikens?”
“At the factory, Jim deary. Somebody’s given her a piece of work—one of the regular hands; and she’s to bring home some money to-night. Poor girl, she’s been a fretting and a crying her eyes out since you’ve been gone, Jim.”
“Poor lass. I thought I might do some good for her and me both by going away where I did; but I haven’t; and so I’ve come back to eat her starvation wages, poor lass. It’s a cowardly thing to do, and if I’d had strength I should have gone on further, but I couldn’t.”
As he was saying these words a girl came in at the half-open door, and running up to him, threw her arms round his neck.
“O Jim, you’ve come back! I said you would; I knew you’d never stop away; I knew you couldn’t be so cruel.”
“It’s crueller to come back, lass,” he said; “it’s bad to be a burden on a girl like you.”
“A burden, Jim!” she said, in a low reproachful voice, and then dropped quietly down amongst the dust and rubbish at his feet, and laid her head caressingly against his knee.
She was not what is generally called a pretty girl. Hers had not been the delicate nurture which nourishes so frail an exotic as beauty. She had a pale sickly face; but it was lighted up by large dark eyes, and framed by a heavy mass of dark hair.
She took the man’s rough hand in hers, and kissed it tenderly. It is not likely that a duchess would have done such a thing; but if she had, she could scarcely have done it with better grace.
“A burden, Jim!” she said,—“a burden! Do you think if I worked for you day and night, and never rested, that I should be weary? Do you think, if I worked my fingers to the bone for you, that I should ever feel the pain? Do you think, if my death could make you a happy man, I should not be glad to die? Oh, you don’t know, you don’t know!”
She said this half-despairingly, as if she knew there was no power in his soul to fathom the depth of love in hers.
“Poor lass, poor lass,” he said, as he laid the other rough hand gently on her black hair. “If it’s as bad as this, I’m sorry for it—more than ever sorry to-night.”
“Why, Jim?” She looked up at him with a sudden glance of alarm. “Why, Jim? Is anything the matter?”
“Not much, lass; but I don’t think I’m quite the thing to-night.” His head drooped as he spoke. The girl put it on her shoulder, and it lay there as if he had scarcely power to lift it up again.
“Grandmother, he’s ill—he’s ill! why didn’t you tell me this before? Is that gentleman the doctor?” she asked, looking at Jabez, who still stood in the shadow of the doorway, watching the scene within.
“No; but I’ll fetch the doctor, if you like,” said that benevolent personage, who appeared to take a wonderful interest in this family group.
“Do, sir, if you will be so good,” said the girl imploringly; “he’s very ill, I’m sure. Jim, look up, and tell us what’s the matter?”
The man lifted his heavy eyelids with an effort, and looked up with bloodshot eyes into her face. No, no! Never could he fathom the depth of this love which looks down at him now with more than a mother’s tenderness, with more than a sister’s devotion, with more than a wife’s self-abnegation. This love, which knows no change, which would shelter him in those entwining arms a thief or a murderer, and which could hold him no dearer were he a king upon a throne.
Jabez North goes for a doctor, and returns presently with a gentleman, who, on seeing Jim the labourer, pronounces that he had better go to bed at once; “for,” as he whispers to the old woman, “he’s got rheumatic fever, and got it pretty sharp, too.”
The girl they call Sillikens bursts out crying on hearing this announcement, but soon chokes down her tears—(as tears are wont to be choked down in Blind Peter, whose inhabitants have little time for weeping)—and sets to work to get ready a poor apology for a bed—a worn-out mattress and a thin patch-work counterpane; and on this they lay the bundle of aching bones known to Blind Peter as Jim Lomax.
The girl receives the doctor’s directions, promises to fetch some medicine from his
