Chapter X: Part 10

I'm sure she was like sunshine in the room, and read to us out of the Bible just as Harry Vale's fine old grandmother might have done. The first day that Sanker took a drive in a fly, he was tired afterwards, and went to bed and to sleep at tea-time. Towards sunset, before I walked with her to the Farm, Mary took the Book as usual; and then hesitated, as if in doubt whether to presume to read or not, Sanker being away.

"Oh yes; yes, if you please," said Mr. Blair.

She began the tenth chapter of St. John. It is a passably long one, as every one knows; and when she laid the Book down again, Blair had his eyes shut and his head resting on the back of the easy chair where he generally sat. His face never looked more still and white. I glanced at Mary and she at me; we thought he was worse, and she went up to him.

"I ought not to have read so long a chapter," she gently said. "I fear you are feeling worse."

"No; I was only thinking. Thinking what an angel you are," he added in low, impassioned, yet reverent tones, as he bent forward to look up in her face, and took both her hands for a moment in his.

She drew them away at once, saying, as she passed me, that she was going to put on her bonnet, and should be ready in a minute. Of course it might have been the reflection of the red sun-clouds, but I never saw any face so glowing in all my life.

The next move old Featherston made, was to decide that the fever was _not_ of a typhoid character; and visitors came about us again. It was something like opening a public-house after a spell of closing; all the Whitneys flocked in together, except Sir John, who was in town for Parliament. Mrs. Hall was uncommonly short with every one. She had said from the first there was nothing infectious in the fever, told Featherston so to his face, and resented people's having stayed away. I wrote home to tell them there. On the Saturday Dr. Frost arrived, and we were glad to see him. Blair was getting rather better then.

"Well, that Sunday night's plunge in the water has had its revenge!" remarked Dr. Frost. "It only wants Todhetley and Vale to follow suit."

But neither of them had the least intention of following suit. On the Monday Tod arrived to surprise us, strong as ever. The Squire had trusted him to drive the horses: you should have seen them spanking in at the gate of Worcester House, pawing the gravel, as Tod in the high carriage, the ribbons in his hands, and the groom beside him, brought them up beautifully to the door. Some people called Tod ugly, saying his features were strong; but I know he promised to be the finest man in our two counties.

He brought an invitation for the sick and the well. When the two invalids were able to get to Dyke Manor, Mr. and Mrs. Todhetley expected to see them, for change of air. Mary Sanker and I were to go as soon as we liked. Which we did in a few days, and were followed by Sanker and Mr. Blair: both able to help themselves then, and getting well all one way.

It did not surprise people very much to hear that the mathematical master and Mary Sanker had fallen in love with one another. He (as Bill Whitney's mother had put in) was gentleman-like; a good-looking fellow to boot: and you have heard what _she_ was. The next week but one after arriving at Dyke Manor, Blair took Mrs. Todhetley into his confidence, though he had said nothing to Mary. They would be sure to marry in the end, she privately told the Squire, for their likeness to each other had struck her at first sight.

"Mary will not have a shilling, Mr. Blair; she will go to her husband (whenever she shall marry) with even a very poor outfit," Mrs. Todhetley explained, wishing Blair to fully understand things. "Her father, Philip Sanker, was a gentleman bred and born, but his patrimony was small. He was persuaded to embark it in a Welsh mine, and lost all. Report said some roguery was at work, but I don't know that it was. It ended in his becoming overlooker on the very same mine, at a salary so small that they could hardly have reared their family anywhere but in Wales. Mary does not play, or draw, you see; she has no accomplishments."

"She has what is a great deal better; she does not want them," answered Blair, his pale face lighting up.

"In point of fact, the Sankers--as I fancy--have sacrificed the girls' interests to the boys; they of course must have a thorough education," remarked Mrs. Todhetley. "They are good people, both; you could not fail to like them. I sometimes think, Mr. Blair, that the children of these refined men and women (and Philip Sanker and his wife are that), compelled to live closely and to look at every sixpence before it is spent, turn out all the better for it."

"I am sure they do," answered Blair, earnestly. "It was my own case."

Taking Mrs. Todhetley into confidence meant as to his means as well as his love. He had saved a little money during the eight years he had been at work for himself--about two hundred pounds. It might be possible, he thought, to take a school with this, and set up a tent at once: he and Mary. Mrs. Todhetley shook her head; she could make as much of small sums as any one, but fancied this would scarcely be enough for what he wished.

"There would be the furniture," she ventured to say with some hesitation, not liking to damp him.

"I think that is often included in the purchase-money for the good-will," said Blair.

He had been acting on this notion before speaking to Mrs. Todhetley, and a friend of his in London, the Reverend Mr. Lockett, was already looking out for any schools that might be in the market. In a few days news came down of one to be disposed of in the neighbourhood of London. Mr. Lockett thought it was as good an investment as Blair was likely to find, he wrote word: only, the purchase-money, inclusive of furniture, was four hundred pounds instead of two.

"It is of no use to think of it," said Mr. Blair, pushing his curly hair (they used to say he was vain of it at Frost's) from his perplexed brow. "My two hundred pounds will not go far towards that."

"It seems to me that the first step will be to go up and see the place," remarked Mrs. Todhetley. "If what Mr. Lockett says of the school be true; that is, if the people who have the disposal of it are not deceiving him; it must be a very good thing."

"I suppose you mean that half the purchase-money should remain on it as a mortgage, to be paid off later," cried Blair, seizing the idea and brightening up.

"No; not exactly," said Mrs. Todhetley, getting as red as a rose, for she did not like to tell him what she did mean; it looked rather like a conspiracy.

"Look here, Blair," cried the Squire, taking him in the garden by the button-hole, "_I_ will see about the other two hundred. You go up and make inquiries on the spot; and perhaps I'll go too; I should like a run up; and if the affair is worth your while, we'll pay the money down on the nail, and so have done with it."

It was Blair's turn to grow red now. "Do you mean, sir, that you--that you--would advance the half of the money? But it would be too generous. I have no claim on you----"

"No claim on me!" burst forth the Squire, in a passion, pinning him against the wall of the pigeon-house. "No claim on me! When you saved my son from drowning only a few weeks ago! And had an ague through it! No claim on me! What next will you say?"

"But that was nothing, sir. Any man, with the commonest feelings of humanity, would jump into the water if he saw a fellow-creature sinking."

"Commonest fiddlestick!" roared the Squire. "If this school is one likely to answer your purpose, you put down your two hundred pounds, and I will see to the rest. There! We'll go up to-day."

"Oh, sir, I never expected this. Perhaps in a year or two I shall be able to pay the money back again: but the goodness I can never repay."

"Don't you trouble your head about paying me back till you're asked to do it," retorted the Squire, mortally offended at the notion. "If you are too proud to take it and say nothing about it, I'll give it to Mary Sanker instead of you. I will, too. Mind, sir! that half shall be your wife's, not yours."

If you'll believe me, there were tears in old Blair's eyes. He was soft at times. The Squire gave him another thrust, which nearly sent Blair into the pigeon-house, and then walked off with his head up and his nankeen coat-skirts held out behind, to watch Drew give the green meat to the pigs. Blair got over his push, and went to find Miss Mary, his thin cheeks alight with a spot as red as Sanker's had worn when his illness was coming on.

They went up to London that day. The Squire had plenty of sense when he chose to exercise it; and instead of trusting to his own investigation and Blair's (which would have been the likeliest thing for him to do in general) he took a lawyer to the spot.

It proved to be all right. The gentleman giving up the school had made some money at it, and was going abroad to his friends, who had settled in Queensland. Any efficient man, he said to the Squire, able to _keep_ pupils when once he had secured them, could not fail to do well at it. The clergyman, Mr. Lockett, had called on one or two of the parents, who confirmed what was asserted. Altogether it was a straightforward thing, but they wouldn't abate a shilling of the four hundred pounds.

The Squire concluded the bargain on the spot, for other applicants were after it, and there was danger in delay. He came back to Dyke Manor; and the next thing he did was to accompany Mary Sanker home, and tell the news there.

Mr. Blair stayed in London to take possession, and get things in order. He had only time for a few days' flying visit to Mr. and Mrs. Sanker in Wales before opening his new school. There was no opposition there: people are apt to judge prospects according to their own circumstances; and they seemed to think it a good offer for Mary.

There was no opposition anywhere. Dr. Frost found a new mathematical master without trouble, and sent Blair his best wishes and a full set of plated spoons and forks and things, engraved with the initials P. M. B. He was wise enough to lay out the sum he wished to give in useful things, instead of a silver tea-pot or any other grand article of that kind, which would not be brought to light once a year.

Blair cribbed a week's holiday at Michaelmas, and went down to be married. We saw them at the week's end as they passed through Worcester station. Mary looked the same sweet girl as ever, in the same quiet grey dress (or another that was related to it); and Blair was jolly. He clasped the Squire's hands as if he wanted to take them with him. We handed in a big basket of grapes and nectarines from Mrs. Todhetley; and Mary's nice face smiled and nodded her thanks to the last, as the train puffed on.

"Good luck to them!" said Tod.

Good luck to them. You will hear what luck they had.

For this is _not_ the end of that Sunday night's work, or it would have hardly been worth relating, seeing that people get married every day, and no one thinks cheese of it but themselves. The end has to come.

XII.

"JERRY'S GAZETTE."

The school, taken to by Mr. Blair, was in one of the suburbs of London. It may be as well not to mention which of them; but some of the families yet living there cannot fail to remember the circumstances when they read this. For what I am going to tell you of is true. It did not happen last year; nor the year before. When it did happen, is of no consequence to any one.

When Pyefinch Blair got into the house, he found that it had some dilapidations, which had escaped his notice, and would have to be repaired. Not an uncommon case by any means. Mr. Blair paid the four hundred pounds for the school, including the furniture and good-will, and that drained him of his money. It was not a bad bargain, as bargains go. He then had the house put into fair order, and bought a little more furniture that seemed necessary to him, intending that his boys should be comfortable, as well as the young wife he was soon to bring home.

The school did not profess to be one of those higher-class schools that charge a hundred a year and extras. It was moderate in terms and moderate in size; the pupils being chiefly sons of well-to-do tradesmen, some of them living on the spot. At first, Blair (bringing with him his Cambridge notions) entertained thoughts of raising the school to a higher price and standard. But it would have been a risk; almost like beginning a fresh venture. And when he found that the school paid well, and masters and boys got on comfortably, he dropped the wish.

More than two years went by. One evening, early in February, Mrs. Blair was sitting by the parlour fire after tea, with a great boy on her lap, who was forward with his tongue, and had just begun to walk with a totter. I don't think you could have seen much difference in _her_ from what she was as Mary Sanker. She had the same neat sort of dress and quiet manner, the fresh gentle face and sweet eyes, and the pretty, smooth brown hair. Her husband told her sometimes that she would spoil the boys with kindness. If any one fell into disgrace, she was sure to beg him off; it was wonderful what a good mother she was to them, and only twenty-four years old yet.

Mr. Blair was striding the carpet with his head down, as one in perplexed thought, a scowl upon his brow. It was something unusual, for he was always bright. He was as slender and good-looking a fellow as he used to be. Mrs. Blair noticed him and spoke.

"Have you a headache, Pyefinch?" She had long ago got over the odd sound of his Christian name. Habit familiarizes most things.

"No."

"What is it, then?"

He did not make any answer; seemed not to hear her. Mrs. Blair put the boy down on the hearthrug. The child was baptized Joseph, after Squire Todhetley, whom they persisted in calling their best friend.

"Run to papa, Joe. Ask him what the matter is."

The young gentleman went swaying across the carpet, with some unintelligible language of his own. Mr. Blair had no resource but to pick him up: and he carried him back to his mother.

"What is the matter, Pyefinch?" she asked again, taking his hand. "I am sure you are not well."

"I am quite well," he said; "but I have got into a little bother lately. What ails me this evening is, that I find I must tell you of it, and I don't like to do so. There, Mary, send the child away."

She knew the nursemaid was busy; would not ring, but carried him out herself. Mr. Blair was sitting down when she returned, staring into the fire.

"I had hoped you would never know it, Mary; I had not intended that you should. The fact is----"

Mr. Blair stopped. His wife glanced at him; a serene calm in her eyes, a firm reliance in her loving tone.

"Do not hesitate, Pyefinch. The greater the calamity, the more need that I should hear it."

"Nay, it is no such great mischief as to be called a calamity. When I took to this house and school, I incurred a debt, and I am suddenly called upon to pay it."

"Do you mean Mr. Todhetley's?"

A smile at the question crossed the schoolmaster's face. "Mr. Todhetley's was a present; I thought you understood that, Mary. When I would have spoken of returning it, you may remember that he went into a passion."

"What debt is it, then?"

"I paid four hundred pounds, you know, for the school; half of it I had saved; the other half was given by Mr. Todhetley. Well and good, so far. But I had not thought of one thing--the money that would be wanted for current expenses, and for the hundred and one odd things that stare you in the face upon taking to a new concern. Repairs had to be done, furniture to be bought in; and not a penny coming in until the end of the quarter: not much then, for most of the boys pay half-yearly. Lockett, who was down here most days, saw that if I could not get some money to go on with, there would be no resource but to re-sell the school. He bestirred himself, and got me the loan of a hundred and fifty pounds from a friend, at only five per cent. interest. This money I am suddenly called upon to repay."

"But why?"

"Because he from whom I had it is dead, and the executors have called it in. It was Mr Wells."

She recognized the name as that of a gentleman with whom they had been slightly acquainted; he had died suddenly, in the prime of life.

"Has any of it been paid off?"

"None. I could have repaid a portion every half-year as it came round, but Mr. Wells would not let me. 'You had a great deal better use it in improving the school and getting things comfortable about you; I am in no hurry,' was his invariable rejoinder. Lockett thought he meant eventually to make me a present of the money, being a wealthy man without near relatives. Of course I never looked for anything of the sort; but I was as easy as to the debt as though I had not contracted it."

"Will the executors not let you have the use of the money still?"

"You should see their curt note, ordering its immediate repayment! Lockett seems more vexed at the turn affairs have taken than even I am. He was here to-day."

Mrs. Blair sat in silent reflection, wishing she had known of this. Many an odd shilling that she had thought justified in spending, she would willingly have recalled now. Not that they could have amounted to much in the aggregate. Presently she looked at her husband.

"Pyefinch, it seems to me that there's only one thing to do. You must borrow the sum from some one else, which of course will make us only as much in debt as we are now; and we must pay it off by instalments as quickly as we possibly can."

"It is what Lockett and I have decided on already as the only course. Why, Mary, this worry has been on our minds for a fortnight past," he added, turning quickly. "But now that it has come to borrowing again, and not from a friend, I felt that I ought to tell you. Besides, there's another thing."

"Go on," she said.

"We have found a man to advance the money. Lockett and I picked him out from the _Times_ advertisements. These fellows are awful rogues, for the most part; but this is not one of the worst. Lockett made inquiries of a parishioner of his who understands these things, and finds Gavity (that's his name) is tolerably fair for a professional money-lender. I shall have to pay him higher interest. And he wants me to give him a bill of sale on the furniture."

"A bill of sale on the furniture! What is that?"

"That is what I meant when I said there was another thing," replied Mr. Blair. "Wells was content with my note of hand; this man requires security on my goods. It is a mere matter of form in my case, he says. As I am doing well, and there's no fear of my not keeping the interest paid up, I suppose it is. In two or three years from this, all being well, the debt itself will be wiped off."

"Oh yes; I hope so. The school is prosperous."

Her tone was anxious, and Mr. Blair detected it. But for considering that she ought to know it, he would rather have kept this trouble to himself. And he was not sure upon another point: whether, in giving this bill of sale upon the furniture, Mr. Gavity might deem it essential to come in and take a list, article by article, bed by bed, table by table. If so, it would not have been possible to conceal it from her. He mentioned this. She, with himself, could not understand the necessity of their furniture being brought into the transaction at all, seeing that there could be no doubt as to their ability to repay. The one knew just as much about bills of sale and the rights they gave, as the other: and, that, was nothing.

And now that the communication to his wife was off his mind--for in that had lain the chief weight--Mr. Blair was more at ease. As they sat talking together, discussing the future in all its aspects, the shadow lifted itself, and things looked brighter. It did not seem to either of them so formidable a matter after all. It was only changing one creditor for another, and paying a little higher interest.

The transaction was accomplished. Gavity advanced the money, and took the bill of sale upon the furniture. He shot up the expenses--as money-lenders of his stamp generally do--and brought up the loan to a hundred and eighty, instead of a hundred and fifty. Still, taking things for all in all, the position was perhaps as fair and hopeful a one as can be experienced under debt. It was but a temporary clog; Mr. and Mrs. Blair both knew that. The school was flourishing; their prospects were good; they were young, and healthy, and hopeful. And though Mr. Gavity would of course exact his rights to the uttermost farthing, he had no intention of playing the rogue. In all candour let it be avowed, the gentleman money-lender did not see that it was a case affording scope for it.

* * * * *

I had to tell that much as well as I could, seeing that it only came to me by hearsay in the future.

And now to go back a little while, and to ourselves at Dyke Manor.

After their marriage the Squire did not lose sight of Mr. and Mrs. Blair. A basket of things went up now and then, and the second Christmas they were invited to come down; but Mary wrote to decline, on account of Joe, the baby. "Let them leave Joe at home," cried Tod; but Mrs. Todhetley, shaking her head, said the dear little infant would come to sad grief without its mother. Soon after that, when the Squire was in London, he took the omnibus and went to see them, and told us how comfortably they were getting on.

Years went round to another Christmas, when the exacting Joe would be some months over two years old. In the passing of time you are apt to lose sight of interests, unless they are close ones; and for some months we had heard nothing of the Blairs. Mrs. Todhetley spoke of it one evening.

"Send them a Christmas hamper," said the Squire.

The Christmas hamper went. With a turkey and ham, and a brace of pheasants in it; some bacon and apples to fill up, and sweet herbs and onions. Lena put in her favourite doll, dressed as a little mother, for young Joe. It had a false arm; and no legs, so to say: Hugh cut the feet off one day, and Hannah had to sew the stumps up. We hoped they would enjoy it all, including the doll, and drank good luck to them on Christmas Day.

A week and a half went on, and no news came. Mrs. Todhetley grew uneasy about the hamper, feeling sure it had been confiscated by the railway. Mary Blair had always written so promptly to acknowledge everything sent to them.

One January day the letter came in by the afternoon post. We knew Mary's handwriting. The Squire and Madam were at the Sterlings', and it was nine o'clock at night when they drove in. Mrs. Todhetley's face ached, which was quite usual she had a white handkerchief tied round it. When they were seated round the fire, I remembered the letter, and gave it to her.

"Now to hear the fate of the hamper!" she exclaimed, carrying it to the lamp. But, what with the face-ache, and what with her eyes, which were not so good by candle-light as they used to be, Mrs. Todhetley could not read the contents readily. She looked at the writing, page after page, and then gave a short scream of dismay. Something was wrong.

"Those thieves have grabbed the hamper!" cried the Squire.

"No; I think the Blairs have had the hamper. I fear it is something worse," she said faintly. "Perhaps you will read it aloud."

The Squire put his spectacles on as he took the letter. We gathered round the table, waiting. Mrs. Todhetley sat with her head aside, nursing her cheek; and Tod, who had been reading, put his book down. The Squire hammered a good deal over the writing, which was not so legible as Mary's was in general. She appeared to have meant it for Mrs. Todhetley and the Squire jointly.

"'MY VERY DEAR FRIENDS,

"'If I have delayed writing to you it was not for want of in-ingredients'"----

"Ingredients!" cried one of us.

"It must be gratitude," corrected the Squire. "Don't interrupt."

"'Gratitude for your most welcome and liberal present, but because my heart and hands have alike shrunk from the ex--ex--explanation it must entail. Alas! a series of very terrible misfortunes have overwormed--overwhelmed us. We have had to give up our school and our prospects together, and to turn out of our once happy dome.'"

"Dome!" put in Tod.

"I suppose it's home," said the Squire. "This confounded lamp is as dim as it can be to-night!" And he went on fractiously.

"'Through no fault of my husband's he had to borrow a hundred and fifty pounds nearly twelve months ago. The man he had it from was a money-lender, a Mr. Gavity; he charged a high rate of interest, and brought the cost up to about thirty pounds; but we have no reason to think he wished to act un--unfar--unfairly by us. He required security--which I suppose was only reasonable. The Reverend Mr. Lockett offered himself; but Gavity said parsons were slippers.'"

"Good gracious!" said Mrs. Todhetley.

"The word's slippery, I expect," cried the Squire with a frown. "One would think she had emptied the water-bottle into the inkpot."

"'Gavity said parsons were slippery; meaning that they were often worth no more than their word. He took, as security, a bill of sale on the furnace. Stay,--furniture. Our school was quite prosperous; there was not the slightest doubt that in a short time the whole of the debt could be cleared off; so we had no hesitation in letting him have the bill of sale. And no harm would have come of it, but for one dreadful misfortune, which (as it seems) was a necessary part of the attendant proceedings. My husband got put into _Jer--Jer--Jerry's Gazelle_.'"

"_Jerry's Gazelle?_"

"_Jerry's Gazette_," corrected the Squire.

"_Jerry's Gazette?_"

We all spoke at once. He stared at the letters and then at us. We stared back again.

"It _is_ _Jerry's Gazette_--as I think. Come and see, Joe."

Tod looked over the Squire's shoulder. It certainly looked like "_Jerry's Gazette_," he said; but the ink was pale.

"'_Jerry's Gazette._' Go on, father. Perhaps you'll find an explanation further on."

"'This _Jerry's Gazette_, it appears, is circulated chiefly (and I think privately) amongst comical men--commercial men; merchants, and tradespeople. When they read its list of names, they know at once who is in difficulties. Of course they saw my husband's name there, Pyefinch Blair; unfortunately a name so peculiar as not to admit of any doubt. I did not see the _Gazette_, but I believe the amount of the debt was stated, and that Gavity (but I don't know whether he was mentioned by name) had a bill of sale on our household furniture.'"

"What the dickens is _Jerry's Gazette_?" burst forth the Squire, giving the letter a passionate flick. "I know but of one _Gazette_, into which men of all conditions go, whether they are made lords or bankrupts. What's this other thing?"

He put up his spectacles, and stared at us all again, as if expecting an answer. But he might as well have asked it of the moon. Mrs. Todhetley sat with the most hopeless look you ever saw on her face. So he went on reading again.

"'We knew nothing about _Jerry's Gazette_ ourselves, or that there was such a pub--pub--publication, or that the transaction had appeared in it; and could not imagine why the school began to fall off. Some of the pupils were taken away, _at once_, some at Lady-day; and by Midsummer nearly every one had left. We used to lie awake night after night, grieving and wondering what could be the matter, searching in vain for any cause of offence, given unwittingly to the boys or their parents. Often and often we got up in the morning to go about our day's work, never having closed our eyes. At last, a gentleman, whose son had been one of the first renewed--removed, told Pyefinch the truth: that he had appeared in _Jerry's Gazette_. The fathers who subscribed to _Jerry's Gazette_ had seen it for themselves; and they informed the others.'"

"The devil take _Jerry's Gazette_," interrupted Tod, deliberately. "This reads like an episode of the Secret Inquisition, sir, in the days of the French Revolution."

"It reads like a thing that an honest Englishman's ears ought to redden to hear of," answered the Squire, as he put the lamp nearer, for his outstretched arms were getting cramped.

"'Pyefinch went round to every one of the boy's fathers. Some would not see him, some not hear him; but to those who did, he imported--imparted--the whole circumstances; showing how it was that he had had to borrow the money (or rather to re-borrow it, but I have not time in this letter to go so far into detail), and that it could not by any possibility injure the boys or touch their interests. Most of them, he said, were very kind and sympathizing, so far as words went, saying that in this case _Jerry's Gazette_ appeared to have been the means of inflicting a cruel wrong; but they would not agree to replace their sons with us. They either declined point-blank, or said they'd consider of it; but you see the greater portion of the boys were already placed at other schools. All of them told Pyefinch one thing--that they were thoroughly satisfied with his treatment in every respect, and but for this interruption would probably have left their sons with him as long as they wanted intrusion--instruction. The long and short of it was this, my dear friends: they did not choose to have their sons educated by a man who was looked upon in the commercial world as next door to a bankrupt. One of them delicately hinted as much, and said Mr. Blair must be aware that he was liable to have his house topped--stripped--at any moment under the bill of sale. We said to ourselves that evening, as Pyefinch and I talked together, that we might have removed boys of our own from a school under the same circumstances.'"

"That's true enough," murmured Mrs. Todhetley.

"'My letter has grown very long and I must hasten to conclude it. Just before the rent was due at Michaelmas (we paid it half-yearly, by agreement) Gavity put the bill of sale into force. One morning several men came in and swept off the furniture. We were turned out next: though indeed to have attempted to remain in that large house were folly. The landlord came in a passion, and told Pyefinch that he would put him in prison if he were worth it; as he was not, he had better go out of the pitch--place--forthwith, as another tenant was ready to take possession. Since then we have been staying here, Pyefinch vainly seeking to get some employment. What we hoped was, that he would obtain an under-mastership to some public fool----"

"Fool, sir!"

"'School. But it seems difficult. He sends his best regards to you, and bids me say that the reason you have not heard from us so long is, that we could not bear to tell you the ill news after your former kindness to us. The arrival of the hamper leaves us no resource.

"'Thank you for that. Thank you very truly. The people at the old house have our address, and re-directed it here. We received it early on Christmas Eve. How good the things were, you do not need to be told. I stuffed the turkey--I shall make a famous cook in time--and sent it to the backhouse--bakehouse. You should have seen the pill--picture--it was when it came home. Believe me, my dear friends, we are both of us grateful for all your kindness to us, past and present. Little Joe is so delighted with the doll, he scarcely puts it out of his arms. Our best love to all, including Hugh and Lena. Thank Johnny for the beautiful new book he put in. I must apologize in conclusion for my writing; the ink we get in these penny bottles is pale; and baby has been on my lap all the time, never easy a minute. Do not say anything of all this, please, should you be writing to Wales.

"'Ever most truly yours,
"'MARY BLAIR.
"'_13, Difford's Buildings, Paddington._'"

The Squire put the letter down and his spectacles on it, quite solemnly. You might have heard a pin drop in that room.

"This is a thing that must be inquired into. I shall go up to-morrow."

"And I'd go too, sir, but for my engagement to the Whitneys," said Tod.

"She must mean, in speaking of a baby, that there's another," spoke Mrs. Todhetley, in a frightened sort of whisper. "Besides little Joe. Dear me!"

"I don't understand it," stamped the Squire, getting red. "Turned out of house and home through _Jerry's Gazette_! Do we live in England, I'd like to ask?--under English laws?--enjoying English rights and freedom? _Jerry's Gazette?_ What the deuce _is_ _Jerry's Gazette_? Where does it come from? What issues it? The Lord Chamberlain's Office?--or Scotland Yard?--or some Patent society that we've not heard of, down here? The girl must have been imposed upon: her statement won't hold water."

"It looks as though she had been, sir."

"_Looks_ like it, Johnny! It must be so," said the Squire, growing warmer. "I have temporary need of a sum of money, and I borrow it straightforwardly, honestly purposing and undertaking to pay it back with good interest, but not exactly wanting my neighbours to know about it; and you'd like me to believe that there's some association, or publication, or whatever else it may be, that won't allow this to be done privately, but must pounce upon the transaction, and take it down in print, and send it round to the public, just as if it were a wedding or a burying!"

The Squire had grown redder than a roost-cock. He always did when tremendously put out, and the matter would not admit of calling in old Jones the constable.

"Folly! Moonshine! Blair, poor fellow, has been slipping into some disaster, had his furniture seized, and so invents this fable to appease his wife, not liking to tell her the truth. _Jerry's Gazette!_ When I was a youngster, my father took me to see an exhibition in Worcester called 'Jerry's Dogs.' The worst damage you could get there was a cold, from the holes in the canvas roof, or a pitch over the front into the sawdust. But in _Jerry's Gazette_, according to this tale, you may be damaged for life. Don't tell me! Do we live in Austria, or France, or any of those places, where--as it's said--a man can't so much as put on a pair of clean stockings in a morning, but its laid before high quarters in black and white at mid-day by the secret police! No, you need not tell me that."

"I never heard of _Jerry's Gazette_ in all my life; I don't know whether it is a stage performance or something to eat; but I feel convinced Mary Blair would not write this without having good grounds for it," said Tod, bold as usual.

And do you know--though you may be slow to believe it--the Squire had taken latterly to listen to him. He turned his red old face on him now, and some of its fierceness went out of it.

"Then, Joe, all I can say is this--that English honour and English notions have changed uncommonly from what they used to be. 'Live and let live' was one of our mottoes; and most of us tried to act up to it. I know no more of this," striking his hand on the letter, "than you know, boys; and I cannot think but that she must have been under some unaccountable mistake in writing it. Any way, I'll go up to London to-morrow: and if you like, Johnny, you can go with me."

We went up. I did not feel sure of it until the train was off, for Tod seemed three-parts inclined to give up the shooting at the Whitneys', and start for London instead; in which case the Squire might not have taken me. Tod and some more young fellows were invited to Whitney Hall for three days, to a shooting-match.

It was dusk when we reached London, and as cold as charity. The Squire turned into the railway hotel and had some chops served, but did not wait for a regular dinner. When once he was in for impatience, he _was_ in for it.

"Difford's Buildings, Paddington," had been the address, so we thought it would not be far to go. The Squire held on in his way along the crowded streets, as if he were about to set things to rights, elbowing the people, and asking the road at every turn. Some did not know Difford's Buildings, and some directed us wrongly; but we got there at last. It was in a narrow, quiet street; a row of what Londoners call eight-roomed houses, with little gates opening to the square patches of smoky garden, and "Difford's Buildings" written up as large as life at the corner.

"Let's see," said the Squire, looking sideways at the windows. "Number thirteen, was it not, Johnny?"

"Yes, sir."

Difford's Buildings were not well lighted, and there was no seeing the numbers. The Squire stopped before the one he thought must be thirteen; when some one came out at the house-door, shutting it behind him, and met us at the gate. A youngish clergyman in a white necktie. He and the Squire stood looking at each other in the gathering darkness.

"Can you tell me if Mr. Blair lives here?"

"Yes, he does," was the answer. "I think--I think I have the pleasure of speaking to Mr. Todhetley."

The Squire knew him then--the Reverend Mr. Lockett. They had met when Blair first took to the school.

"What _is_ all this extraordinary history?" burst forth the Squire, seizing him by the button of his great-coat, and taking him a few yards further on. "Mrs. Blair has been writing us a strange rigmarole, which nobody can make head or tail of; about ruin, and sales, and something she calls _Jerry's Gazette_."

"Ay," quietly answered the clergyman in a tone of pain, as he put his arm inside the Squire's, and they paced slowly up and down. "It is one of the saddest histories my experience has ever had to do with."

The Squire was near coming to an explosion in the open street. "Will you be pleased to tell me, sir, whether there exists such a thing as _Jerry's Gazette_, or whether it is a fable? I have heard of Jerry's Performing Dogs; went to see 'em once: but I don't know what this other invention can be."

"Certainly there is such a thing," said Mr. Lockett. "It is, I fancy, a list of people who unfortunately get into difficulties; at least, people who fall into difficulties seem to get shown up in it. I am told it is meant chiefly for private circulation: which may imply, as I imagine (but here I may be wrong) what may be called secret circulation. Blair had occasion to borrow a little money, and _his_ name appeared in it. From that moment he was a marked man, and his school fell off."

"Goodness bless my soul!" cried the Squire solemnly, completely taken aback at hearing Mary's letter confirmed. "Who gives _Jerry's Gazette_ the right to do this?"

"I don't know about the right. It seems it has the power."

"It is a power I never heard of before, sir. We have a parson, down our way, who tells us every Sunday the world's coming to an end. I think it must be. I know it's getting too clever for me to understand. If a man has the misfortune (perhaps after years of struggling that nobody knows anything about but himself) to break up at last, he goes into the country's _Gazette_ in a straightforward manner, and the public read it over their breakfast-tables, and there's nothing underhand about it. But as to this other thing--if I comprehend the matter rightly--Blair did not as much as know of its existence, or that his name was going into it."

"I am sure he did not; or I, either," said Mr. Lockett.

"I should like its meaning explained, then," cried the Squire, getting hotter and angrier. "Is it a fair, upright, honest thing; or is it a sort of Spanish Inquisition?"

"I cannot tell you," answered the parson, as they both stood still. "Mr. Blair was informed by the father of one of his pupils that he believed the sheet was first of all set up as a speculation, and was found to answer so well that it became quite an institution. I do not know whether this is true."

"I have heard of an institution for idiots, but I never heard of one for selling up men's chairs and tables," stormed the Squire. "No, sir, and I don't believe it now. I might take up my standing to-morrow on the top of the Monument, and say to the public, 'Here I am, and I'll ferret out what I can about you, and whisper it to one another of you;' and so bring a serpent's trail on the unsuspecting heads, and altogether play Old Gooseberry with the crowds below me. Do you suppose, sir, the Lord Chancellor would wink his eye at me, stuck aloft there at my work, and would tolerate such a spectacle?"

"I fear the Lord Chancellor has not much to do with it," said Mr. Lockett, smiling at the Squire's random logic.

"Then suppose we say good men--public opinion--commercial justice and honour? Come!"

He shook the frail railings, on which his hand was resting, until they nearly came to grief. Mr. Lockett related the particulars of the transaction from the beginning; the original debt, which Blair was suddenly called upon to pay off, and the contraction of the one to Gavity. He said that he himself had had as much to do with it as Blair, in the capacity of friend and adviser, and felt almost as though he were responsible for the turn affairs had taken; which had caused him scarcely to enjoy an easy moment since. The Squire began to abuse Gavity, but Mr. Lockett said the man did not appear to have had any ill intention. As to his having sold off the goods--if he had not sold them, the landlord would have done so.

"And what's Blair doing now?" asked Mr. Todhetley.

"Battling with illness for his life," said the clergyman. "I have just been praying with him."

The Squire retreated towards the lamp-post, as if some one had given him a blow. Mr. Lockett explained further.

It was in September that they had left their home. His own lodging and the church of which he was curate were in Paddington, and he found rooms for Blair and his wife in the same neighbourhood--two parlours in Difford's Buildings. Blair (who had lost heart so terribly as to be good for little) spared no time or exertion in seeking for something to do. He tried to get into King's College; they liked his appearance and testimonials, but at present had no vacancy: he tried private schools for an ushership, but did did not get one: nothing seemed to be vacant just then. Then he tried for a clerk's place. Day after day, ill or well, rain or fine, feasting or fasting, he went tramping about London streets. At last, one of those who had had sons at his school, gave him some out-door employment--that of making known a new invention and soliciting customers for it from shop to shop: Blair to be paid on commission. Naturally, he did not let weather hinder him, and would come home to Difford's Buildings at night, wet through. There had been a great deal of rain in November and December. But he got wet once too often, and was attacked with rheumatic fever. The fever was better now; but the weakness it had left was dangerous.

"She did not say anything about this in her letter," interrupted the Squire resentfully, when Mr. Lockett had explained so far.

"Blair told her not to do so. He thought if their position were revealed to the friends who had once shown themselves so kind, it might look almost like begging for help again."

"Blair's a fool!" roared the Squire.

"Mrs. Blair has not made the worst of it to her family in Wales. It would only distress them, she says, for they could not help her. Mr. Sanker has been ill again for some time past, has not been allowed, I believe, to draw his full salary, and there's no doubt they want every penny of their means for themselves; and more too."

"How have they lived here?" asked the Squire, as we went slowly back to the gate.

"Blair earned a little while he could get about; and his wife has been enabled to procure some kind of wool-work from a warehouse in the city, which pays her very well," said the clergyman, dropping his voice to a whisper, as if he feared to be overheard. "Unfortunately there's the baby to take up much of her time. It was born in October, soon after they came there."

"And I should like to know what business there has to be a baby?" cried the Squire, who was like a man off his head. "Couldn't the baby have waited for a more convenient season?"

"It might have been better; it is certainly a troublesome, crying little thing," said the parson. "Yes, you can go straight in: the parlour door is on the right. I have a service this evening at seven, and shall be late for it. This is your son, I presume, sir?"

"My son! law bless you! My son is a strapping young fellow, six feet two in his stockings. This is Johnny Ludlow."

He shook hands pleasantly, and was good enough to say he had heard of me. The Squire went on, and I with him. There was no lamp in the passage, and we had to feel on the right for the parlour door.

"Come in," called out Mary, in answer to the knock. I knew her voice again.

We can't help our thoughts. Things come into the mind without leave or licence; and it is no use saying they ought not to, or asking why they do. Nearly opposite the door in the small room was the fireplace. Mary Blair sat on a low stool before it, doing some work with coloured wools with a big hooked needle, a baby in white lying flat on her lap, and the little chap, Joe, sitting at her feet. All in a moment it put me in mind of Mrs. Lease, sitting on her stool before the fire that day long ago (though in point of fact, as I discovered afterwards, hers had been a bucket turned upside down) with the sick child on her lap, and the other little ones round her. Why this, to-night, should have reminded me of that other, I cannot say, but it did; and in the light of an omen. You must ridicule me if you choose: it is not my fault; and I am telling nothing but the truth. Lease had died. Would Pyefinch Blair die?

The Squire went in gingerly, as if he had been treading on ploughshares. The candle stood on the mantel-piece, a table was pushed back under the window. Altogether the room was poor, and a small saucepan simmered on the hob. Mary turned her head, and rose up with a flushed face, letting the work fall on the baby's white nightgown, as she held out her hand. Little Joe, a sturdy fellow in a scarlet frock, with big brown eyes, backed against the wall by the fireplace and stood staring, Lena's doll held safely under his pinafore.

She lost her presence of mind. The Squire was the veriest old stupid, when he wanted to make-believe, that you'd see in a winter's day. He began saying something about "happening to be in town, and so called." But he broke down, and blurted out the truth. "We've come to see after you, my dear; and to learn what all this trouble means."

And then _she_ broke down. Perhaps it was the sight of us, recalling the old time at Dyke Manor, when the future looked so fair and happy; perhaps it was the mention of the trouble. She put her hands before her face, and the tears rained through her fingers.

"Shut the door, will you, Johnny," she whispered. "Very softly."

It was the other door she pointed to, one at the end of the room, and I closed it without noise. Except for a sob now and again, that she kept down as well as she could, the grief passed away. Young Joe, frightened at matters, suddenly went at her, full butt, and hid his eyes in her petticoats with a roar. I took him on my knee and got him round again. Somehow children are never afraid of me. The Squire rubbed his old red nose, and said he had a cold.

But, was she not altered! Now that the flush had faded, and emotion passed, the once sweet, fresh, blooming face stood out in its reality. Sweet, indeed, it was still; but the bloom and freshness had given place to a haggard look, and to dark circles round the soft brown eyes, weary now.

She had no more to tell of the past calamities than her letter and Mr. Lockett had told. _Jerry's Gazette_ was the sore point with the Squire, but she did not seem to understand it better than we did.

"I want to know one thing," said he, quite fiercely. "How did _Jerry's Gazette_ get at the transaction between your husband and Gavity? Did Gavity go to it, open-mouthed, with the news?"

Mary did not know. She had heard something about a register--that the bill of sale had to be registered somewhere, and thought _Jerry's Gazette_ might have obtained the information from that source.

"Heaven bless us all!" cried the Squire. "Can't a man borrow a bit of money but it must become known to his enemies, if he has any, bringing them down upon him like a pack of hounds in full cry? This used to be the freest land on earth."