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A Rolling Stone, Vol. I

Chapter XIX

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Chapter XIX.

‘Traveller, in the stranger's land,
Far from thine own household band;
Mourner, haunted by the tone
Of a voice from this earth gone;
Captive, in whose narrow cell
Sunshine hath not leave to dwell;
Sailor, on the darkening sea,—
Lift the heart and bend the knee.’

She went on her way through the crowded streets. To and fro along her path rushed the ceaseless traffic of the busy town. The tramp of feet on the pavement, the sound of wheels, the confusion of many voices, were unheeded, if not unheard by her. She was listening yet, over and over again to Mr. Trevet's harsh words, and in response but one cry went up from her heart, ‘Lost!—my brother, oh, my brother!’

She did not think her search was ended. Oh, no; he could not have fallen so low as to be out of her reach. But he had fallen, fallen! it was the agony of that thought which made her cheek grow paler still, and dried the tears within her burning eyes. Where was he now?—in some place where no woman, not even his own sister, could follow him. No, no; that was impossible. There was no place, not in all the dark haunts of the lost and forsaken, page 260 into which she would not go if he were there—from which she would not lead him away. Her imagination terrified her; she shuddered at each degraded and repulsive waif of humanity that met her eye; he might be such a one, But even then, in his rags, and misery, and sin, he would be her brother yet. When he saw her, when he heard her voice, not accusing, but beseeching, pleading, entreating—he would surely turn and follow her. It was not—it should not be too late: she would save him yet.

But at the same time with the passionate energy of these thoughts came upon her the chilling conviction of her weakness. She was feeble and unwell—she felt herself crawling rather than walking through the hurrying crowd. This was to be struggled against; she must not be ill now. Her work must be done, whatever it might cost. And what would become of her child if she were to fall ill, to die perhaps amongst strangers? The thought forced itself upon her that she knew not a soul in this strange city; that she had put thousands of miles between herself and friends and kinsfolk. People passed her by, jostled against her, stared in her face; they had all cold, strange faces. No one knew her trouble, no one cared for her, she was desolate, she was alone.

In course of time—how long it was she could not have told—she found herself again at the lodging-house. She knew that Mrs. Sherlock eyed her carefully and read the ill-success of her errand page 261 in her face. The landlady, however, asked no questions, and had nothing but sympathy for her tired and feeble lodger. Her daughter Rosa was ordered to amuse the little boy that he might not prevent his mother from resting, and Mrs. Sherlock herself prepared some refreshment and took in the tray. She had intended to ask the name of her new lodger, but she fell into such an interesting conversation, principally sustained by herself, about the best food for young children—the subject being suggested by the sight of little Harry enjoying his bread and milk—that the important question was once more forgotten.

‘I hope we shan't put you about, ma'am,’ she said at length. ‘We're expecting some friends—a large party, in fact—to-night, and of course you'll like to be quiet. But they'll all be in the room on the other side of the house, so the noise won't be heard much here. I always say, though, that a party without noise is a failure; for where there's plenty of noise you may depend on it people are enjoying themselves. It's my wedding-day—thirty years since—and my son James's twenty-first birth day we're keeping. They both fall in the same week, so we thought we must get something up for the occasion.’

‘And you have been married thirty years,’ said the lady, with some appearance of interest.

‘Yes, ma'am, and on the whole they've been happy years. We've had troubles, of course, but page 262 we didn't expect to find life all rose-water. Then it's not every woman who gets such a good husband as Sherlock—the best of husbands, I may say.’

‘I wonder whether I shall care to keep the thirtieth anniversary of my wedding-day, if I live so long,’ said the lady reflectively.

‘Well, it won't be just yet,’ observed Mrs. Sherlock. ‘Why, if I may make the remark, you can't have been married more than three or four years.’

‘More than six years.’

‘Six years! You must have been very young,’ Mrs. Sherlock could not help exclaiming.

‘Yes, too young. I suppose I am young yet, but I do not feel so. I feel old and tired already.’

‘Ah, perhaps it's natural. When one has had a great loss like yours,’ said Mrs. Sherlock, feeling certain the lady was a widow, though she bore no signs of widowhood, ‘one's often tempted to think there's nothing more to live for. I know if I were to lose Sherlock it would be the death of me nearly, and at your age I should have felt it more.’

‘I think you are mistaken in something,’ said her lodger, flushing a little. ‘My husband is alive and well.’

‘Oh,’ said Mrs. Sherlock, rather confusedly. ‘Well, I'm glad of it, and I hope, when it comes to your thirtieth wedding-day, you may keep it together as happily as Sherlock and I are keeping ours.

The lady smiled sarcastically, Mrs. Sherlock page 263 thought. She evidently resented the familiarity of the speech, and did not encourage further conversation. Mrs. Sherlock withdrew to confer with another lodger, Mr. Borage. ‘I'll ask him to join our party,’ she said, ‘it will liven him up, poor man!’

Mr. Borage either was, or fancied himself to be, a confirmed invalid. He was a young gentleman from Victoria, who for some thirteen or fourteen years of his existence had afflicted his parents by being remarkably short and stout. All at once he began to grow, and grew with a rapidity that frightened his anxious family. He grew and grew until he had passed the much-admired height of six feet, and his father and mother were filled with dread lest he should become a giant. They besought the family physician, almost with tears in their eyes, to stop him from growing. Dr. Magruder could not promise to do that, but he advised change of air for the young gentleman. Mr. and Mrs. Borage were afraid that the increased vigour produced by the change might result in a fresh growth of five or six inches, but as their son and heir was without doubt very ill they determined to do as advised. They sent him to New Zealand, and charged him to return at once should he find his rate of growth accelerated. ‘We shall have him seven feet high—I know we shall,’ sobbed Mrs. Borage; ‘and he will be pointed at as the Victorian giant.’

But she was comforted by receiving intelligence page 264 from her son to the effect that he was ‘not going to grow any more,’ to quote his own words. Either his great growth had exhausted him or he was constitutionally weak, for Mr. Borage had not regained his health, although he had been living for more than three years in a climate which, by many respectable people, is proclaimed to be the healthiest in the world. He almost supported a doctor, and was of great benefit to the chemist who kept the nearest pharmacy to Mrs. Sherlock's. His chief ailment was want of sleep. He never slept, so he protested, and he looked white and feeble enough to bear out this testimony. Viewing him from a distance, one might have taken him to be about fifty, and his conversation was elderly, if one may apply such a term to a man's words. His real age was twenty-two.

‘Well, Mr. Borage,’ said Mrs. Sherlock, bursting in upon his privacy, ‘I've come to ask you to make one of us to-night, and I shan't take No for an answer. Come! I shall have some young people about your own age.’

‘Thank you, Mrs. Sherlock,’ mournfully responded her lodger, raising his hollow eyes to look upon her. ‘If I feel pretty well I may look in. It is very kind of you.’

‘Oh, you must rouse yourself,’ said Mrs. Sherlock, briskly. ‘If I was you, Mr. Borage, I'd shake off this depression. Get up early, and walk or ride out before breakfast. I'd join a football club, if I was page 265 you, and engage in all the athletic sports with other young men.’

‘Get up early! Mrs. Sherlock. Oh, if I could sleep as others do, I might rise early; but when you've been lying awake for seven or eight hours, how can you have the strength to rise early? And I couldn't play at football. Imagine me amongst the rough fellows who like that game! If I were hustled about, or knocked down, or—kicked, Mrs. Sherlock, there'd be an end of me.’

‘You're coming, then?’ said Mrs. Sherlock. ‘You'd better say so at once.’

‘Thanks, I'll try to manage it,’ said Mr. Borage, rising to close the door after his landlady. ‘Draughts, draughts!’ he muttered to himself; ‘this house is full of them.’

He felt well enough about eight o'clock to join the party. Mrs. Sherlock acted up to her theory that successful parties are always noisy. Every one was noisy, and all enjoyed themselves. Oh, how loudly some of the young ladies laughed, and no one thought it vulgar. The young gentlemen were particularly boisterous while playing a game called post, and some of the furniture was damaged. Mrs. Sherlock settled the matter of forfeits for the games, and her awards were received with uproarious merriment Mr. Borage actually found himself laughing once or twice, and reflected whether he was not incautious so to exert himself, considering the delicate equipoise of his health. Sherlock and page 266 three of his oldest friends played a rubber of whist. It was well they were such old friends, for any new and ill-consolidated attachment might have been broken up by Sherlock's play. He never could understand whist, and for that reason probably he loved to play at it.

‘Now that's right, Mr. Borage,’ said Mrs. Sherlock, when she caught sight of her lodger, sitting alone in a peaceful corner of the room. ‘But don't mope there; we want you to make up the number.’

‘Thanks; I'm very well here,’ said the unfortunate Borage, who hated all noisy round games.

‘Oh, nonsense, that won't do at all,’ said Mrs. Sherlock, and on Mr. Borage making other faint objections he was dragged into the circle by main force, two young ladies displaying such vigorous strength in his capture that he felt the uselessness of resistance. During the course of that game he was always being caught; indeed, it seemed as if every one would rather catch him than any other person, and it was with great difficulty he could catch any one, although surrounded by his tormentors. He reckoned that he was caught some thirty times from first to last during the evening. He was chased from end to end of the room; his necktie came off in the hands of one determined young lady, and his wrist was nealy sprained by the vice-like grasp of another. When he was blindfolded he fell over everything in his way, ending his calamitous career by falling on James, who muttered something not complimentary page 267 as he assisted him to rise. He trod on the flounces and hems of dresses, tearing off long jagged strips, and he afflicted the gentlemen of the company by treading on their toes. Then it was unkind of James, who properly was caught, to crawl under the sofa where he could not be followed, and it was yet more unkind of that disagreeable young man to raise the alarm and cut off his retreat just as he was escaping, with the intention of going directly to his own room, and also going to bed at once, as the only place where he would be safe.

‘Well, really we must have you with us again,’ said Mrs. Sherlock; ‘you're a capital hand at games, and you said you didn't know any.’

‘And I don't,’ said Mr. Borage, panting for breath. ‘I haven't the—strength for them.’

He was not allowed a long rest, for some one having proposed singing, James was wicked enough to remark that Mr. Borage sang a good song.

‘I'm sure I can't!’ he exclaimed, in a great fright. ‘I never could—not even “God Save the Queen.”’

‘Pooh! I've heard you,’ said James. ‘I've heard you sing “Gentle Annie.”’

‘I never did,’ protested Mr. Borage, ‘and I wouldn't if I could. I detest that kind of song.’

‘Just listen to him,’ said James, in affected surprise. ‘Why, last night he was singing away in his room till after eleven.’

‘If I was, I was out of my mind,’ said Borage firmly.

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‘Well, if you really do sing you might oblige us,’ said Mrs. Sherlock. ‘I'm sure you needn't be bashful before us.’

‘Oh, Mr. Borage, do,’ cried four young ladies at once.

‘Yes, let's have it,’ said Sherlock and his three cronies in a breath.

‘Come, come, Borage, it's too bad of you’—this from James, and ‘Come, do,’ from Mrs. Sherlock.

Mr. Borage was undecided; he had half a mind to do it; anything would be better than this hue and cry after him. In this moment of hesitation he was seized upon, and amidst the plaudits of the company dragged to the piano.

And he sang, although even to himself his voice sounded like a hollow moan, and his accompanist broke down twice, unnerved by some violent emotion. When he finished, one or two who had been making curious choking noises had tears in their eyes, though they did not look sorrowful. Sherlock said it was ‘first-rate;’ Mrs. Sherlock said she was sure Mr. Borage had done his best; and James, whose remarks were never pleasing, said it was the best thing he had heard for a long time.

After this half a dozen people sang, one after another, and then they all sang together. The young ladies had voices as loud and clear as clarions, and the young gentlemen made the best use of such voices as Nature had given them by exerting them to their fullest power and compass.

page 269

There never. had been such a pealing forth of popular songs and ballads in that house, perhaps never in that neighbourhood. When ‘Rule Britannia’ was performed by the whole strength of the company, even Mrs. Sherlock thought there was too much noise, and advised them to bring the musical part of the entertainment to a close, as their voices seemed to grow stronger by exercise. James said it would be disloyal to omit ‘God Save the Queen.’ Mrs. Sherlock guessed Her Majesty would never hear of the omission; but being overruled, the National Anthem was given, and in this the vocal powers of the company reached their climax.

That they should all feel quite ready for supper after this will surprise no person of sense. There was, indeed, a vigorous onslaught on the great store of comestibles provided by the far-seeing Mrs. Sherlock. We all know or have heard of the excellent appetites of ploughmen, farmers' boys, and other industrious countryfolk. That such individuals are on all convenient occasions healthily hungry, and are able to dispose of much solid and substantial food in Benjamin-like portions, is indisputable. But country people are much overrated in this matter. There is much talk of their appetites, but who takes note of the ravenings and cravings of those who live in towns? Believe me, as one who knows, they are not more abstemious than their country cousins. In colonial towns especially, where wages are high and food is cheap, the tradespeople, finding no reason page 270 why they should stint themselves, and being of energetic habits, have appetites which would well match, if not surpass, that attributed to the proverbially ravenous youth who follows the plough.

This explains how it was that very soon nothing was left of Mrs. Sherlock's supper. Perhaps it was the good cheer which made Sherlock eloquent, for before the end of the banquet he rose, and in a flow of words unusual for him, proposed the health of James, which was drunk in something which had been sold to Mrs. Sherlock for port wine.

‘I'm proud of him!’ said Sherlock. ‘I've not done much in my time—no, Martha, I haven't; you needn't say anything in compliment. I've been a most sing'lar, unlucky, and unfortunate man. Seemed as if Nature itself was again me sometimes. Why, I've been on the pint of making a fortune time after time, and something awkward has always shunted it off my line. When the Thames goldfield broke out, wasn't I offered half a claim for ten pounds? and of course I refused it, just because I'm a careful man with money. I needn't tell you that in six weeks' time that claim was worth hundreds of thousands. It was bound to go ahead when I'd declined to have anything to do with it. I believe, sure as I'm here, that if I'd jined they'd never have turned out an ounce. I never was in any company yet but it burst up, and I never had any shares but somehow I didn't buy when they were high and sell when they dropped. So you page 271 see things have been again me. But I've struggled through these misfortunes, and though I've not made money, I've brought up a family. To provide for eight children and set ‘em up in the world, is no joke. And now, on this affecting occasion, when our youngest son's come of age, we ought to rejoice that we've got through the wood, as one may say, and see our way clear to an old age of joy and peace and felicity in the midst of our children, who, if I'm not saying more than's becoming to say of ourselves, will, if they know their duty, rise up and call us blessed.’

This peroration was received with a storm of applause. After a pause, allowed for mutual gratulations, Sherlock showed signs of wishing to uplift his voice again.

‘Hasn't enough been said?’ whispered Mrs. Sherlock.

‘Martha, my heart's full; I must speak out,’ said her husband. ‘We've forgotten the absent—our sons who are fighting their way through the world—I hope it won't get the better of them Here's to them!—to Josiah in Queensland, and William in Fiji, and Ben somewhere on the mighty deep; I hope it's calm wherever he may be. Prosperity to them, and may they be an honour to their father, who toiled for their sustenance, and remember their mother, who inculcated the first principles of virtue. Martha, I'm going right on; I must, or something will give way here,’ and Sherlock indicated page 272 the place where he supposed his heart to be. ‘You see, my friends, a man's often consoled for his bad luck in the success of his sons. I've often thought, when something I've hung my hopes on has collapsed, “Never mind, my sons 'll do it some day.” Nature designed me for a great deal; I've not been able to carry out her intentions. I've all along been devoted to my family, or I might have been an orator—a public man, and helped in the Government, I'd thoughts of getting into the Provincial Council, or serving my country in the House of Representatives; but I gave all that up for the sake of my children. However, here's James; he can go in for that; he's had advantages I never had. Martha, I'm at the end now; let me alone. I'll just say, success to our sons, and may they go on improving, right clear up to the mark.’

Mr. Sherlock sat down with a beaming face, feeling that he had distinguished himself. Mrs. Sherlock also was happy in the belief that her party had been a success.

‘But these things tire one,’ she said, when, at a quarter to twelve, she was thinking of taking some rest, ‘I don't know how fashionable people bear up with having them every night. I shan't turn my house upside down again for some time.’

‘These social opportunities should not be neglected, Martha,’ said Mr. Sherlock. ‘They bind neighbours together in enduring bands of friendship.’

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‘Dear me, Sherlock, how you talk! you've been reading some silly novel again. I'm afraid we've been more noisy than would be pleasant for that poor lady. I didn't like her looks when she came back this afternoon. If she isn't going to be ill I'm much mistaken.’

‘Why, I never saw any one look so well,’ said Sherlock.

‘You've no discrimination, Sherlock. I feel anxious. I wish I'd gone in again to see how she was.’

Mrs. Sherlock was anxious. She had a sense of having neglected some duty, or of having forgotten something that ought to have been done, and this kept her awake to an hour she was wont to pass in soundest slumber. ‘I wish I'd seen her again, and asked her name,’ she thought. ‘I don't know why it troubles me, but I wish I'd not forgotten that.’