WHO was this guardian angel who was making an attempt to save from threatening danger Jenny Salter’s boy and girl, who had risen from his bed upon a holiday to deliver a warning in the grey light of the dawn, this guardian angel in blue cap and corduroys, with lean, intelligent face, and eyes bright beneath a scar? Let us pause for an instant to listen to his story, which is not out of place in this tale of village life, although it is one that advancing civilisation may help to render impossible in time. Under no tender influences had poor Tim been reared, no motherly hand had made life smooth for him.
This was his story.
His father had been a workman in a distant village, and after his marriage had shared his brother’s home; his brother who, like himself, had a wife, and also children, and rented a two-roomed cottage in a narrow village street. These two rooms—they were both very small—made but a limited space for two families, especially at night; it is, therefore, not surprising, that after a little while the families began to quarrel. And since it is the lot of wives to remain at home all day, it is not wonderful that the disputes arose principally between the two ladies of the house.
The mother of Tim was a little, feeble creature, absorbed in her own ill-health, and the baby at her breast; her rival was a handsome, coarse, and loud-tongued woman, who acquired an unbounded authority over both the men in the house. Under her influence Tim’s father learned to despise his wife, and to that contempt ill-treatment soon followed; he complained that she did not work hard enough, and attempted to enforce more work by chastisement. These efforts being unsuccessful, he determined to get rid of her; and, after having beaten her into submission, he provided her with a little money with which to get back to her parents, and then turned her out of the house. But by a refinement of cruelty, (which was also due to her rival,) he would not allow her to take the baby too; but on that morning hid the little creature carefully, so that the poor mother could not discover its hiding-place. The neighbours all heard the wailing of the mother, but they knew the household, and were afraid to interfere; and after she had been turned out, and had gone away to ‘her people,’ they were relieved by the comparative quiet that ensued. It was supposed indeed that the baby would be claimed, but the poor mother soon died in her parents’ house; and as these had no particular wish to rear the infant, Tim was left to the mercies of his uncle’s home.
And what those mercies were it is not for me to say, for our ears are tender for such subjects; our eyes just glance at them in the daily papers, and we forget that the newspapers are describing facts. Tim remembered, for instance—it was but one remembrance—that when one of his little cousins wished to punish him, she thrust a spoon between the bars of the grate before forcing his baby-fingers to close upon it. Ragged, half-starved, alive only on sufferance, he had, however, the advantage of school, because the blessed provision of the Government does not now allow children to be uneducated. At first, indeed, his progress was not extraordinary, for starvation and learning do not walk hand in hand; and his father, uncle, and aunt began to realise that this want of progress would prolong the days of school. Impatient at this they applied the spur of beating, but this produced illness, and delayed his progress more; so that, moved by interested motives, they finally condescended to pay some amount of attention to his health. This kind consideration produced a due result, Tim proved intelligent, and passed his Standards well; and was eventually able to leave the Board School when he was not very much more than twelve years old. His father removed him as soon as possible, and hastened at once to put him out to work.
And now let us for a moment, think of Tim, a little, lean, bright-eyed creature, twelve years old, ill-clothed, ill-fed, not very much educated, treated always with harshness from his cradle. From that wretched household what else could be expected but the sort of beings that such brutality rears; such creatures—one scarcely dares to call them men—as we may find in our back streets if we go there to look. In this life, however, we often have to deal with that strange element we call the Improbable; and it is this want of absolute knowledge of the factors in our sums which makes us unable to calculate results with certainty. From out of that wretched, drunken, brutal home an irresistible force rose in the boy; there awoke in Tim, and grew in him with his years, the tendency that ‘makes for righteousness.’
How was this? I cannot tell; in such cases one often cannot tell. It may have been inherited by him from his mother, or it may have been induced from lessons learnt at school, or it may have risen as a reaction from the absolute hideousness of the evil that was round him in his home. I know that he could not remember any particular occasion which he could mention afterwards as that of his conversion, the tendency towards well-doing began in him at an earlier date than he could himself recall. At school he sought out the steadiest companions, on holidays he played with well-conducted boys; his nature, ill-taught as it was, possessed the power of assimilating to itself that which is good. ‘The wind bloweth,’ we read, ‘where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is everyone that is born of the Spirit.’
And now let us think again of Tim, twelve years old, sent out day after day to work, a member of a household to which it was a disgrace even to belong, and allowed by that household no smallest chance of improving his position or himself. His clothes were so ragged that respectable boys did not like to be seen with him; his food so limited that it barely provided him with strength enough to work; and every halfpenny of his wages was taken from him as regularly as Saturday night came round. Under such circumstances it is barely possible that a young nature should not be overwhelmed—it is not surprising therefore that Tim sank into despair, and for more than two years lived on in hopelessness. But the irresistible strength that was in the boy refused to be crushed even by such circumstances; a purpose grew in him like a revelation, and inspired him with hope to mend his lot. One Saturday evening Tim returned without his money, and announced that he intended to keep his wages for himself.
The scene that followed need not be described. Tim lay on his bed through the whole of Sunday to recover from it. On Monday morning he returned to his work, under strict orders, seasoned with many oaths, to bring back at night the money he had withheld. He returned without it. This time there was no Sunday rest for him—but bruised as he was, he rose with the dawn on Tuesday and went to his work again. To a similar scene he returned on every evening of that week, but the close of the week found him unconquered; and on Saturday he came back to his family without his wages, as before.
This was too much. On the following Monday the father of Tim went to his master, and desired that his son’s wages should be given into his own hands in future—he added that his son was ‘a wicked boy who spent his money bad.’ Tim’s master, who took an interest in his farm-boy, replied to this request with a flat denial—he declared that the boy deserved to have some money, and that, no doubt, on his side also there might be ‘tales to tell.’ This last observation was too true to be disputed, the father left him in a rage, and at once sought out his son, and informed him that he ‘would have no more of this fooling—he must bring the money that night, or he might look to be killed.’ In the nature of Tim there was not that instinct of running away which belongs to some natures in an eminent degree—with the fear of being murdered heavy on his heart, he returned, as usual, to his home that night. A terrible scuffle ensued, with regard to which I only know that a hot poker was the instrument employed; and that burnt, scarred for life, believing himself to be dying, poor Tim was just able to crawl to a neighbour’s door at last. The outbreak proved his salvation, his injuries excited sympathy, and the village rose in his defence—his father, uncle, and aunt, were driven from it, work was offered to the lad from all sides; and at the age of fourteen he found himself able to begin his life again. From that time forth he prospered; he advanced from one situation to another, he met with kindness and assistance; at the age of twenty he was a skilful workman, and able without difficulty to maintain himself. Of his past life, the life of his childhood, he never spoke; and indeed such stories are only useful when they remind us that our land has still dark corners into which we must carry candles when we can. It is true indeed that Tim had emerged from the darkness—but there are those whom the darkness overwhelms.
This then was the workman, lean, and lithe, and active, with an anxious brow, and ‘poor Annie’ on his lips, who parted from Nat in the grey light of the morning, and turned his footsteps towards the village streets. Some hours later, with a face that was still anxious, and yet with something like eagerness in his tread, he left the Farm where he had been breakfasting, and went down the hill towards Jenny Salter’s home.