Chapter IV: Part 4

"Look you here, Mr. Andrew, I know perfectly well what is the matter with you. You don't think that I haven't got a nose, do you? You are my nephew, but just for that very reason you shan't be with me. I'm not agoing to have it said that I've got a relative in my business who drinks. I won't turn you out into the street, as I might have done, with nothing but what was due to you. There's two months' pay, and now we're quits. You take my advice, and let this be a lesson to you, or you'll go from bad to worse."

Mr. Dabb produced the money, and handed it to Andrew. He was confounded, and almost dumb with terror. At last he found words, and implored his uncle to forgive him.

"Forgive you? Yes, I forgive you, if that will do you any good; but business is business, and what I've settled to do that I do. Now, then, you'd better go; I can't stand here any longer. I don't bear any ill-will to you, but it's of no use your talking."

He opened the door, and in another minute Andrew was in the street.

Miriam heard his story. She had anticipated it, and for the moment she said nothing. Her first care was to prevent her uncle or aunt from communicating with Cowfold. She foresaw that her father, if he knew her brother's disgrace, might possibly stop the allowance. She at once put on her bonnet and called at the shop. She made no appeal for reconsideration of the sentence--all she asked was that there should be silence. To this Uncle Dabb assented willingly, for Miriam was half a favourite with him, and he even went so far as somewhat to apologise for what he had done.

"But you know," said he, "this is a shop. As I have told him over and over again, business is business. I couldn't help it, and it's just as well as he should have a sharpish lesson at first--nothing like that for curing a man."

Mr. Dabb unfortunately did not know how much it takes to cure a man of anything.

Miriam felt it would be graceless not to see her aunt, although she had no particular desire for an interview just then.

"My dear Miriam," began that lady, without waiting for a word, "I do regret so what has happened. I am so sorry I could not prevent it, but I never interfere in your uncle's commercial transactions, and reciprocally he never intrudes into my sphere. It is most unfortunate--what do you think we can do to arrest this propensity in your brother?"

Miriam was silent.

"It is astonishing how much may be done by cultivating the finer emotions. Your brother has always seemed to me not sufficiently susceptible. Supposing I were to lend you a book of my favourite poetry, and you were to read to him, and endeavour to excite an interest in him for higher and better things--who knows?"

Miriam had no special professional acquaintance with the theory of salvation, but she instinctively felt that a love of drink was not to be put down by the "Keepsake" in red silk.

She was still silent. At last she said--"I am much obliged to you, aunt; I will take anything you may like to lend. You have a good deal of influence, doubtless, over uncle. If you can persuade him to say what he can in case application is made to him for a character, I shall think it very kind of you."

"My dear Miriam, I have no influence over your uncle. His is not a nature upon which I can exert myself. I think some pieces in this would be suitable;" and Mrs. Dabb offered Miriam a volume of Mrs. Hemans' works.

Miriam took it, and bade her aunt good-bye.

She was now face to face with a great trouble, and she had to encounter it alone, and with no weapons and with no armour save those which Nature provides. She was not specially an exile from civilisation; churches and philosophers had striven and demonstrated for thousands of years, and yet she was no better protected than if Socrates, Epictetus, and all ecclesiastical establishments from the time of Moses had never existed.

She did not lecture her brother, for she had no materials for a sermon. She called him a fool when she came home; and having said this, she had nothing more to say, except to ask him bitterly what he meant to do. What could he do?--a poor, helpless, weak creature, half a stranger in London; and without expostulating with her for her roughness with him, he sat still and cried. It was useless to think of obtaining a situation like the one he had lost. He could prove no experience, he dared not refer to his uncle, and consequently there was nothing before him but a return to clockmaking, or rather clock repairing. Here again, however, he was foiled, for his apprenticeship was barely concluded, and he had never taken to the business with sufficient seriousness to become proficient. After one or two inquiries, therefore, he found that in this department also he was useless.

The affection of Miriam for her brother, never very strong, was not increased by his ill-luck. She began, in fact, to dislike him because he was unfortunate. She imagined that her dislike was due to his faults, and every now and then she abused him for them; but his faults would have been forgotten if he had been prosperous. She hated misery, and not only misery in the abstract, but miserable weak creatures. She was ready enough, as we have seen, to right a wrong, especially if the wrong was championed by those whom she despised; but for simple infirmity, at least in human beings, she had no more mercy than the wild animals which destroy any one of their tribe whom they find disabled. There was more than a chance, too, that Andrew would interfere with her own happiness. If he could not get anything to do, they must leave London, for living on the allowance from Cowfold was impossible. Reproof, when it is mixed with personal hostility, although the person reproving and the person reproved may be unconscious of it, is never persuasive; and as a tendency to whisky and water requires a very powerful antidote, it is not surprising that Andrew grew rather worse than better.

One evening Montgomery called. He had come to ask them both to the hall. He was in a very quiet, rational humour, for he had not as yet had his threepennyworth. Andrew had been out all day, had come home none the better for his excursion, and had gone to bed.

"Your brother not at home?"

"Yes; but he is not very well, and is upstairs."

"I've brought you a couple of tickets for next week. I hope you will be able to go; that is to say, if you were not disgusted when you were last there."

"Disgusted! I am afraid, Mr. Montgomery, you have a very poor opinion of my 'gusts' and disgusts."

It was unfortunate for Miriam that she had no work before her, such as sewing or knitting. She abominated it; but in conversation, especially between a man and a woman who find themselves alone, it is useful. It not only relieves awkwardness, but it prevents too much edge and directness during the interview.

"Well, you might reasonably have been offended with both the songs and the company."

"Neither. As to the company, I did not see much of it, thanks to your kindness in getting us such a good place; and as to the songs, to say nothing of the way in which they were sung, there was a straight-forwardness about them that I liked.

"I don't quite know what you mean."

"Well," said Miriam, with a little laugh, which was not exactly the light effervescence of gaiety, "your people, if they love one another, say so outright, without any roundaboutness."

Mr. Montgomery was puzzled. He did not quite know what to make out of this girl. There was something in her way of speaking and in her frankness which offered itself to him, and yet again there was something which stopped him from attempting any liberties. She did not classify herself in any of the species with which he was familiar.

At last he said--"You object, then, to all roundaboutness in such matters."

"Well, yes; but perhaps I might be misunderstood. I should like people to be plain both ways, about their dislikes as well as their likes."

"Good gracious me, Miss Tacchi, what a pretty world you would live in. There would be no fun in it. Half the amusement of life consists in trying to find out what we really think of one another underneath all our fine speeches."

"I would rather amuse myself in some other way. I have often dreamt of an island in which everybody should say exactly what was in his mind. Of course it would be very shocking, but I do really believe that in the end we should be happier. It would be delightful to me if my cousins were to tell me, 'We hate you--you are dirty, disagreeable, and ugly; and we do not intend to call upon you any more.' For mind, people would then believe in expressions of affection. They do not believe in them now."

"Yes; your island would be all very well for attractive young women, but what would it be for poor devils such as I am. I _know_ that nobody can care twopence for me, but the illusion of politeness is pleasant. It is a wonderful thing how we enjoy being cheated, though we know we are cheated. A man will give a cabman sixpence more than his fare for the humbug of a compliment, and I confess that if people were to say to my face what I am certain they say behind my back, I should hang myself. Illusion, delusion--delusion, illusion," he hummed it as if it were the refrain of a ballad; "it is nothing but that from the day we are born till the day we die, and the older we become the more preposterously are we deluded, until at last--but the Lord--to think of preaching," and he laughed--"you must have made me do it;" and he rose and played with his favourite toys, the wax apples, pitching them up to the ceiling alternately and catching them in one hand. "I must be off."

Miriam did not appear to take any notice,

"Pray," said he, "if you lived in this island of which you dream, would you tell me you hated me? I am beginning to be rather nervous."

"We are not living in it just yet."

"But in one just as disagreeable, for it is pouring with rain."

Miriam gave a sudden start. She unconsciously looked that the conversation would prolong itself in the same interior strain. Reference to the outside world was impossible to her just then, and that Mr. Montgomery was capable of it was a shock like that of cold water. She came to herself, and went to the window.

"Must you go out in this storm?"

"Must; and what is more, I haven't got a minute to spare. I may take it for granted, then, you and Andrew will come."

"Yes, certainly."

He hastily put on his coat; shook hands--nothing more--and was off.

Miriam ran upstairs into her bedroom, went to the little box in which she kept her treasures, unlocked it, took out the little note--the only note she had ever had from him--read it again and again, and then tore it into twenty pieces, each one of which she picked up and tried to put together. She then threw herself on the bed, and for the first time in her life was overcome with hysterical tears. She dared not confess to herself what she wanted. She would have liked to cast herself at his feet; but notwithstanding her disbelief in form and ceremony, she could not do it. She cursed the check which had held her so straitly while she was talking with him, and cursed him that he dealt with her so lightly. The continued sobbing at last took the heat out of her, and she rose from her bed, collected the pieces of the note, went downstairs, and put them one by one deliberately in the fire.

It was time now that they should seriously consider how they stood. Andrew had nothing to do, and the wages paid him in advance were nearly exhausted. They decided that they would move into cheaper lodgings. They had some difficulty in finding any that were decent but they obtained three miserable rooms at the top of a house occupied by a man who sold firewood and potatoes in one of the streets running out of the Blackfriars Road. They left Miss Tippit without bidding her good-bye, for she was still unwell, and in bed. They actually began to know what poverty was, but Miriam as yet did not feel its approach. There were thoughts and hopes in her which protected her against all apprehension of the future, although the cloud into which they must almost inevitably enter was so immediately in front of her.

The evening came on which she and Andrew were to go to the hall, but Andrew had gone out early to look for some employment, and had not returned. Miriam's hatred rose again, and again assumed an outward garb of the purest virtue. She sat for some time in rapid debate with herself as to what she dare do. Even she recoiled a little from going to a music hall without her brother, but passion prevailed. She did not simply determine to go knowing it to be wrong, but with great earnestness demonstrated to herself that she was right; and then, as a kind of sop to any lingering suspicions, left a note on the mantelpiece for Andrew, upbraiding him for delay, and directing him to follow. No Andrew appeared. She now began to feel how strange her position was. She might easily before she started have conjectured that Andrew might fail, and might have pictured to herself how difficult and awkward it would be to sit there throughout the evening alone and return alone; but she did not possess the faculty of picturing uncertainties any distance ahead, although the present was generally so vivid. She could never say to herself: "Probably this arrangement now proposed will break down, and if it does; I shall stand in such and such a situation; what, in that situation, ought I to do?" She had, in fact, no strategical faculty--certainly none when temptation was strong. She dreaded turning out into the street with the rough crowd, and she wondered if Montgomery would come to her assistance. The audience gradually departed; she was nearly the last, and she determined that she would walk round to the door by which she knew Montgomery usually left, and try to encounter him casually. She paced up and down a few moments, and he met her. He was much surprised, and she, with some excitement, explained to him that she had left home a little before Andrew, expecting him to overtake her, but that she had seen nothing of him.

"Of course you will let me accompany you to your lodgings?"

"Thank you; it is very kind of you."

She took the arm he offered her. She thought she detected he was a little unsteady, and after a word or two he became silent.

She was not particularly well acquainted with the district round the hall, but she soon perceived that they were not on the straight road for her house.

"Is this our nearest way?" she asked.

"No, I can't say it is; but I thought you would not object to just a turn round. It's a lovely night--a lovely night!"

Presently they came into a very shabby street, and he stopped. The cold air had begun to upset him a little.

"These are my quarters," he stammered. "I'm rather tired, and I should think you must be tired too. Just come in for a moment and have something, and then we will go on."

"Oh no, thank you," said Miriam, who was becoming alarmed. "I must go back at once."

"Won't you come? Do come; just a moment."

But Miriam steadfastly refused.

"Nonsense, come in just for a second till I----" and he used some little force to compel her. She looked round, and without any mental process of which she was conscious determining her to action, instantly slipped from him, and ran with furious haste. She inquired her way of a policeman, but otherwise she saw nothing, thought nothing, and heard nothing till she was at her own door. She opened it softly--it was late; she went into their little parlour, and there lay Andrew on the floor. He had fallen against the fender, his head was cut open, and he was senseless. A half empty whisky bottle told the rest of the story. There was nobody stirring--her landlord and landlady were strangers; if she called them, and they saw what was the matter, she might have summary notice to quit. What was she to do? She took some cold water, washed his face, unfastened his neckcloth, and sat down. She imagined it was nothing but intoxication, and that in a few hours at most he would recover. So she remained through the dreadful night hearing every quarter strike, hearing chance noises in the general quietude, a drunken man, a belated cart, and worse than anything, the slow awakening between four and five, the whistle of some early workman who has to light the engine fire or get the factory ready for starting at six--sounds which remind the sleepless watcher that happiness after rest is abroad.

She hid the whisky bottle and glass; and as her brother showed no signs of recovery, she went to seek advice and help as soon as she heard somebody stirring. The woman of the house, not a bad kind of woman, although Miriam had feared her so much, came upstairs instantly. Andrew was lifted on the bed, and a messenger was despatched for the doctor. Miriam recognised him at once: he was the doctor who had asked her to stay with Miss Tippit. He said there was concussion of the brain--that the patient must be kept quiet, and watched night and day. To her surprise, her landlady instantly offered to share the duty with her. A rude, stout, hard person she was, who stood in the shop all day long, winter and summer, amidst the potatoes and firewood, with a woollen shawl round her neck and over her shoulders. A rude, stout, hard person, we say, was Mrs. Joll, fond of her beer, rather grimy, given to quarrel a little with her husband, could use strong language at times, had the defects which might be supposed to arise from constant traffic with the inhabitants of the Borough, and was utterly unintelligent so far as book learning went. Nevertheless she was well read in departments more important perhaps than books in the conduct of human life, and in her there was the one thing needful--the one thing which, if ever there is to be a Judgment Day, will put her on the right hand; when all sorts of scientific people, religious people, students of poetry, people with exquisite emotions, will go on the left and be damned everlastingly. Miriam was at once sent to bed, and it was arranged that she should take charge during the following night. Afterwards the night duty was to fall equally between them. She was so shut up in herself that she did not recognise the full value of Mrs. Joll's self-sacrifice, but she did manage to express her thanks, and ask how Mrs. Joll could leave the business.

"That's nothing to you, Miss; my gal Maud has a head on her shoulders, and can keep an eye on the place downstairs. Besides, I've allus found that at a pinch things will bear a lot of squeezing. I remember when my good man were laid up with the low fever for six weeks, and I had a baby a month old, I thought to myself as I should be beaten; but Lord, I was young then, and didn't know how much squeezing things will take, and I just squeezed through somehow."

"He ain't very strong, is he?" continued Mrs. Joll. "I don't mean in his constitution, but here," and she tapped her head. "Likes a drop or two now and then?"

Miriam was silent.

"Ah! well, as I said about Joll's brother when I was a-nussing of him--he was rather a bad lot--it's nothing to me when people are ill what they are. Besides; there ain't so much difference 'twixt any of us."

The night came. Miriam rose and went down to her brother's room. She tried to read, but she could not, and her thoughts were incessantly occupied with her own troubles. Andrew lay stretched before her--he might be dying for aught she knew; and yet the prospect of his death disturbed her only so far as it interfered with herself. Montgomery was for ever in her mind. What was he that he should set the soul of this girl alight! He was nothing, but she was something, and he had by some curious and altogether unaccountable quality managed to wake her slumbering forces.

She was in love with him, but it was not desire alone which had tired her, and made her pace up and down Andrew's sick chamber. Thousands of men with the blackest hair, the most piercing eyes, might have passed before her, and she would have remained unmoved. Neither was it love as some select souls understand it. She did not know what it was which stirred her; she was hungry, mad, she could not tell why. Nobody could have predicted beforehand that Montgomery was the man to act upon this girl so miraculously--nobody could tell, seeing the two together, what it was in him which specially excited her--nobody who has made men and women, his study would have wasted much time in the inquiry, knowing that the affinities, attractions, and repulsions of men and women are beyond all our science.

Brutally selfish is love, although so heroically self-sacrificing. Miriam thought that if Andrew had not been such an idiot, the relationship with Montgomery might have remained undisturbed. He might still have continued to call, but how could she see him now? The sufferer lay there unconscious, pleading for pity, as everything lifeless or unconscious seems to plead--no dead dog in a kennel fails to be tragic; but Miriam actually hated her brother, and cursed him in her heart as a stone over which she had stumbled in the pursuit; of something madly coveted but flying before her.

It was midnight. She went to the window and looked out. The public-houses were being closed, and intoxicated or half-intoxicated persons were groping their way homewards. Suddenly she caught sight of one man whom she thought she recognised. He was with a woman, and his arm was round her waist. Softly she opened the window, and as it was only one story high, she caught a full view of him as he came under the gaslight. It was Montgomery beyond a doubt. He reeled just a trifle, and slowly disappeared in the gloom. The moment he had passed she was not quite sure it was he. She went downstairs in the dark, having taken off her shoes to prevent any noise. She put on her shoes again, drew back the bolts softly, left the door upon the latch, and crept out into the street. Swiftly she walked, and in a few moments she was within half-a-dozen yards of those whom she followed. She could not help being sure now. She continued on their track, her whole existence absorbed in one single burning point, until she saw the pair disappear into a house which she did not know. She stood stock still, till a policeman was close upon her, and roused her from her reverie; and then hardly knowing what she was doing, she went home, and returned to her room. Every interest which she had in life had been allowed to die under the shadow of this one. Every thought had taken one direction--everything had been bitter or sweet by reference to one object alone; and this gone, there followed utter collapse. She had no friends, and probably if she had known any they would have been of little use to her, for hers was a nature requiring comfort of a stronger kind than that which most friends can supply. It was unfortunate, and yet she was spared that aggravation of torture which is inflicted by people who offer vague commonplaces, or what they call "hopes;" she was spared also that savage disappointment to which many are doomed who in their trouble find that all philosophy fails them, and the books on their shelves look so impotent, so beside the mark, that they narrowly escape being pitched into the fire.

Andrew began to recover slowly, but he could do no work, and Miriam had to think about some employment for herself in order to prevent deeper immersion in debt. It was very difficult to find anything for a girl who had been brought up to no trade; but at last, through the kindness of her landlady, she obtained second-hand an introduction to the manager of an immense drapery firm which did a large business through circulars sent all over the country. Miriam was employed in addressing the circulars. It was work which she could do at home, and by writing incessantly for about seven hours a day she could earn twelve shillings a week. The occupation was detestable, and it was with the greatest difficulty that she could persevere with it; but after some time it ceased to be quite so repulsive.

Her relief, however, was the relief of stupefaction and not of reconciliation. Sorrow took the form of revolt. It had always been so with her whenever anything was the matter with her: it was the sense of wrong which made it so intolerable. What had she done, she said to herself a hundred times a day, that she should have been betrayed into wretched poverty, that she should have been deserted, and that her fortunes should have been linked with those of an imbecile brother.

Andrew was still very weak--he could hardly speak; and as he lay there impassive, Miriam's hatred of his silent white face increased. She had too much self-control to express herself; but at times she was almost on the point of breaking out, of storming at him, and asking him whether he had no pity for her. One night, as she sat brooding at the window, and her trouble seemed almost too much for her, and she thought she must give way under it, a barrel organ stopped and began playing a melody from an opera by Verdi. The lovely air wound its way into Miriam's heart; but it did not console her. It only increased her self-sympathy. She listened till she could listen no longer, and putting her hands over her ears she rested her head upon the table, and was overcome with unconquerable emotion. Poor Andrew stared at her, utterly incapable of comprehending the scene. When she had recovered, he quietly asked her what was the matter.

"Matter!" she cried. "I don't believe you understand or care any more than the bedstead on which you lie," and she rose and flung herself out of the house. In those days there was, perhaps there is now, a path--it could not be called a road--from the southern end of London Bridge to Bankside. It went past St. Saviour's Church, and then trending towards the river, dived, scarcely four feet wide, underneath some mill or mill offices, skirting a little dock which, ran up between the mill walls. Barges sometimes lay moored in this dock, and discharged into the warehouses which towered above it. The path then emerged into a dark trench between lofty buildings connected overhead with bridges, and finally appeared in Bankside amidst heaps of old iron and broken glass, the two principal articles of merchandise in those parts. A dismal, most depressing region, one on which the sun never shone, gloomy on the brightest day. It was impossible to enter it without feeling an instantaneous check to all lightness of heart. The spirits were smitten as if with paralysis directly St. Saviour's was passed. Thither went Miriam aimlessly that night; and when she reached the dock, the temptation presented itself to her with fearful force to throw herself in it and be at rest. Usually in our troubles there is a prospect of an untried resource which may afford relief, or a glimmer of a distance which we may possibly reach, and where we may find peace, but for Miriam there was no distance, no reserve: this was her first acquaintance with an experience not rare, alas! but below it humanity cannot go, when all life ebbs from us, when we stretch out our arms in vain, when there is no God--nothing but a brazen Moloch, worse than the Satan of theology ten thousand times, because it is dead. A Satan we might conquer, or at least we should feel the delight of combat in resisting him; but what can we do against this leaden "order of things" which makes our nerves ministers of madness? Miriam did not know that her misery was partly a London misery, due to the change from fresh air and wholesome living to foul air and unnatural living. If she had known it, it would not have helped her. She could not have believed it, for it is the peculiarity of certain physical disorders that their physical character does not appear, and that they disguise themselves under purely mental shapes. Montgomery, her brother, the desperate outlook in the future, it is true, were real; but her lack of health was the lens which magnified her suffering into hideous dimensions. The desire to get rid of it by one sudden plunge was strong upon her, and the friendly hand which at the nick of time intervenes in romances did not rescue her. Nevertheless, she held back and passed on. Afterwards the thought that she had been close to suicide was for months a new terror. She was unaware that the distance between us and dreadful crimes is much greater often than it appears to be. The man who looks on a woman with adulterous desire has already committed adultery in his heart if he be restrained only by force or fear of detection; but if the restraint, although he may not be conscious of it, is self-imposed, he is not guilty. Nay, even the dread of consequences is a motive of sufficient respectability to make a large difference between the sinfulness of mere lust and that of its fulfilment. No friendly hand, we say, interrupted her purpose, but she went on her way. Hardly had she reached the open quay, when there came a peal of thunder. In London the gradual approach of a thunderstorm working up from a long distance is not perceived, and the suddenness of the roar for a moment startled her. But from her childhood she had always shown a strange liking to watch a thunderstorm, and, if possible, to be in it. It was her habit, when others were alarmed and covered their eyes, to go close to the window in order to see the lightning, and once she had been caught actually outside the door peering round the corner, because the strength of the tempest lay in that direction. The rain in an instant came down in torrents, the flashes were incessant, and flamed round the golden cross of St. Paul's nearly opposite to her. She took off her bonnet and prayed that she might be struck, and so released with no sin and no pain. She was not heard; a bolt descended within a few feet of her, blinding her, but it fell upon a crane, passed harmlessly down the chain into a lot of rusty old scrap, and so spent itself. She remained standing there alone and unnoticed, for the street was swept clear as if by grapeshot of the very few persons who might otherwise have been in it at that hour. Gradually the tumult ceased, and was succeeded by a steady, dull downpour; Miriam then put on her bonnet and walked home.

The next day she was ill, unaccountably feverish and in great pain. Hers was one of those natures--happy natures, it may perhaps be said--which hasten always to a crisis. She had nothing of that miserable temperament which is never either better or worse, and remains clouded with slow disease for months or years. She managed to do her work, but on the following morning she was delirious. She remembered nothing more till one afternoon when she seemed to wake. She looked up, and whose face was that which bent over her? It was Miss Tippit's. Miss Tippit had learned through the doctor what was the state of affairs, and had managed, notwithstanding the demand which the lodgings made upon her, to take her share in watching over the sufferer. Her stepmother had been summoned from Cowfold, and these two, with the landlady, had tended her and had brought her back to life. In an instant the scene in Miss Tippit's room when she was sick passed through Miriam's brain, and she sobbed piteously, lifted up her arms as if to clasp her heroic benefactor, but the thought was too great for her, and she fainted. Nevertheless she was recovering, and when she came to herself again, Miss Tippit was ready with the intervention of some trifle to distract her attention. As her strength returned she was able to talk a little, and her first question was--

"Miss Tippit, why did you come here? Oh, if you but knew! What claim have I on you?"

"Hush, my dear; those days are past. You did not love me then perhaps; but what of that? I am sure, you will not mind my saying it: 'If ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?' But I know you did love me really."

"Where is Andrew?"

"Quite well, at home in Cowfold."

That was as much as Miriam could stand then. For weeks to come she was well-nigh drained of all vitality, and it flowed into her gradually and with many relapses. The doctor thought she ought to be moved into the country. Mrs. Tacchi had some friends in one of the villages lying by the side of the Avon in Wiltshire, just where that part of Salisbury Plain on which stands Stonehenge slopes down to the river. Miriam knew nothing of the history of the Amesbury valley, but she was sensible--as who must not be?--to its exquisite beauty and the delicacy of the contrasts between the downs and the richly-foliaged fields through which the Avon winds. It is a chalk river, clear as a chalk river always is if unpolluted; the downs are chalk, and though they are wide-sweeping and treeless, save for clusters of beech here and there on the heights, the dale with its water, meadows, cattle, and dense woods, so different from the uplands above them, is in peculiar and lovely harmony with them.

One day she contrived to reach Stonehenge. She was driven there by the farmer with whom she was staying, and she asked to be left there while he went forward. He was to fetch her when he returned. It was a clear but grey day, and she sat outside the outer circle on the turf looking northwards over the almost illimitable expanse. She had been told as much as is known about that mysterious monument,--that it had been built ages before any record, and that not only were the names of the builders forgotten, but their purpose in building it was forgotten too. She was oppressed with a sense of her own, nothingness and the nothingness of man. If those who raised that temple had so utterly passed away, for how long would the memory of her existence last? Stonehenge itself too would pass. The wind and the rain had already worn perhaps half of it; and the place that now knows it will know it no more save by vague tradition, which also will be extinguished.

Suddenly, and without any apparent connection with what had gone before, and indeed in contrast with it, it came into Miriam's mind that she must do something for her fellow-creatures. How came it there? Who can tell? Anyhow, there was this idea in the soul of Miriam Tacchi that morning.

The next question was, What could she do? There was one thing she could do, and she could not go astray in doing it. Whatever may be wrong or mistaken, it cannot be wrong or a mistake to wait upon the sick and ease their misery. She knew, however, that she could not take up the task without training, and she belonged to no church or association which could assist her. Perhaps one of the best recommendations of the Catholic Church was that it held out a hand to men who, having for some reason or other, learned to hold their lives lightly, were candidates for the service of humanity--men for whom death had no terrors--by whom it was even courted, and who were willing therefore to wait upon the plague-smitten, or to carry the Cross amongst wild and savage tribes. Those who are skilled in quibbling may say that neither in the case of the Catholic missionary nor in that of the Sister of Mercy is there any particular merit. What they do is done not from any pure desire for man's welfare, but because there is no healthy passion for enjoyment. Nothing is idler than disputes about the motives to virtuous deeds, or the proportion of praise to be assigned to the doers of them. It is a common criticism that a sweet temper deserves no commendation, because the blessed possessor of it is naturally sweet-tempered, and undergoes no terrible struggle in order to say the sweet word which he who is cursed with spite only just manages to force himself to utter. What we are bound to praise or blame, however, is the result, and the result only--just as we praise or blame perfect or imperfect flowers. If it comes to a remorseless probing of motives, there are none of us who can escape a charge of selfishness; and, in fact, a perfectly _abstract_ disinterestedness is a mere logical and impossible figment.

To revert to what was said a moment ago, it may be urged that no sufficient cause is shown for Miriam's determination. What had she undergone? A little poverty, a little love affair, a little sickness. But what brought Paul to the disciples at Damascus? A light in the sky and a vision. What intensity of light, what brilliancy of vision, would be sufficient to change the belief and the character of a modern man of the world or a professional politician? Paul had that in him which could be altered by the pathetic words of the Crucified One, "I am He whom thou persecutest." The man of the world or the politician would evade an appeal from the heaven of heavens, backed by the glory of seraphim and archangel. Miriam had a vitality, a susceptibility or fluidity of character--call it what you will--which did not need great provocation. There are some mortals on this earth to whom nothing more than a certain, summer morning very early, or a certain chance idea in a lane ages ago, or a certain glance from a fellow-creature dead for years, has been the Incarnation, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, or the Descent of the Holy Ghost.

A man now old and nearing his end is known to Miriam's biographer, who one Sunday November afternoon, when he was but twenty years old, met a woman in a London street and looked in her face. Neither he nor she stopped for an instant; he looked in her face, passed on, and never saw her again. He married, had children, who now have children, but that woman's face has never left him, and the colours of the portrait which hangs in his soul's oratory are as vivid as ever. A thousand times has he appealed to it; a thousand times has it sat in judgment; and a thousand times has its sacred beauty redeemed him.

Miriam wrote to Miss Tippit expressing her newly-formed wish. Miss Tippit, with some doubts as to her friend's fitness for the duty, promised to do what she could; and at last, after complete recovery, Miriam was allowed to begin a kind of apprenticeship to the art of nursing in a small hospital, recommended by Miss Tippit's friend, the doctor. One morning, a bright day in June, she was taken there. When the door opened, there was disclosed a long white room with beds on either side, and a broad passage down the middle. The walls were relieved by a few illuminated sentences, scriptural and secular; women dressed in a blue uniform were moving about noiselessly, and one of the physicians on the staff, with some students or assistants, was standing beside a patient happily unconscious, and demonstrating that he could not live. Round one of the beds a screen was drawn; Miriam did not quite know what it meant, but she guessed and shuddered. She passed on to a little room at the end, and here she was introduced to her new mistress, the lady-superintendent. She was a small, well-formed woman of about thirty, with a pale thin face, lightish brown hair, grey eyes, and thinnish lips. She also was dressed in uniform, but with a precision and grace which showed that though the material might be the same as that used by her underlings, it was made up at the West End. She was evidently born to command, as little women often are. It was impossible to be five minutes in her company without being affected by her domination. Her very clothes felt it, for not a rebellious wrinkle or crease dared to show itself. The nurses came to her almost every moment for directions, which were given with brevity and clearness, and obeyed with the utmost deference. The furniture was like that of a yacht, very compact, scrupulously clean, and very handy. There was a complete apparatus for instantaneously making tea, a luxurious little armchair specially made for its owner, a minute writing-case, and, for decorations, there were dainty and delicate water-colours. Half-a-dozen books lay about, a novel or two of the best kind, and two or three volumes of poems.

"You wish to become a nurse?" said Miss Dashwood.

"Yes."

"I am afraid you hardly know what it is, and that when you do know you will find it very disagreeable. So many young women come here with entirely false notions as to their duties."

Miriam was silent; Miss Dashwood's manner depressed her.

"However, you can try. You will have to begin at the very bottom. I always insist on this with my probationers. It teaches them how the work ought to be done, and, in addition, proper habits of subordination. For three months you will have to scrub the floors and assist in keeping the wards in order."

Miriam had imagined that she would at once be asked to watch over grateful patients, to give them medicine, and read to them. However, she was determined to go through with her project, and she assented. The next morning saw her in coarse clothes, busy with a pail and soap and water. It was very hard. She was not a Catholic novice; she was not penetrated with the great religious idea that, done in the service of the Master, all work is alike in dignity; she had, in fact, no religion whatever, and she was confronted with a trial severe even to an enthusiast received into a nunnery with all the pomp of a gorgeous ritual and sustained by the faith of ages.

Specially troublesome was her new employment to Miriam, because she was by nature so unmethodical and careless. Perhaps there are no habits so hard to overcome as those of general looseness and want of system. They are often associated with abundance of energy. The corners are not shirked through fatigue, but there is an unaccountable persistency in avoiding them, which resolution and preaching are alike unable to conquer. The root of the inconsistency is a desire speedily to achieve results. To keep this desire in subjection, to shut the eyes to results, but patiently to remove the dust to the last atom of it lying in the dark angle, is a good part of self-culture.

In a hospital Miriam's defect was one of the deadly sins, and many were the admonitions which she received from Miss Dashwood. One evening, after a day in which they had been more frequent than usual, she went to bed, but lay awake. She was obliged to confess to herself that the light of three months ago, which had then shone round her great design, had faded. To conceive such a design is one thing, to go down on the knees and scour floors week after week is something different.

She did not intend, however, to give up. When she rose in the morning she looked out over the London tiles and through the smoke with a miserable sinking of heart, hoping, if she hoped for anything, for the end of the day, and still more for the end of life; but still she persevered, and determined to persevere.

One day a new case came into the ward. It was evidently serious. A man returning home late at night, drunk or nearly so, had fallen under a cart in crossing a road and had been terribly crushed. He had received some injury to the head and was unconscious. Miriam, to whom such events were now tolerably familiar, took no particular notice until her work brought her near the bed, and then she saw to her amazement and horror that the poor wretch was Montgomery. Instantly all that had slumbered in her, as fire slumbers in grey ashes, broke out into flame. She continually crept as well as she could towards him, and listened for any remark which might be dropped by nurse or doctor upon his condition. Three days afterwards he died, without having once regained his reason save just one hour before death. He then opened his eyes--they fell upon Miriam; he knew her, and with a faint kind of astonishment muttered her name. Before she could come close to him he had gone.

Another month passed, and as Miriam's constitutional failings showed no sign of mitigation, Miss Dashwood found herself obliged to take serious notice of them. The experienced, professional superintendent knew perfectly well that the smart, neat, methodical girl, with no motive in her but the desire of succeeding and earning a good living, was worth a dozen who were self-sacrificing but not soldierly. One morning, after Miss Dashwood's patience had been more than usually tried, she sent for Miriam, and kindly but firmly told her that she was unsuitable for a hospital and must prepare to leave. She was not taken by surprise; she had said the same thing to herself a dozen times before; but when it was made certain to her by another person, it sounded differently.

She sought her friend Miss Tippit. To Miss Tippit the experience was not new. She had herself in her humble way imagined schemes of usefulness, which were broken through personal unfitness; she knew how at last the man who thinks he will conquer a continent has to be content with the conquest of his own kitchen-garden, fifty feet by twenty. She knew this in her own humble way, although her ambition, so far from being continental, had never extended even to a parish. She, however, could do Miriam no good. She had learned how to vanquish her own trouble, but she was powerless against the very same trouble in another person. She had the sense, too, for she was no bigot, to see her helplessness, and she gave Miriam the best of all advice--to go home to Cowfold. Alpine air, Italian cities, would perhaps have been better, bat as these were impossible, Cowfold was the next best. Perhaps the worst effect of great cities, at any rate of English cities, is not the poverty they create and the misery which it brings, but the mental mischief which is wrought, often unconsciously, by their dreariness and darkness. In Pimlico or Bethnal Green a man might have a fortune given him, and it would not stir him to so much gratitude as an orange if he were living on the South Downs, and the peculiar sourness of modern democracy is due perhaps to deficiency of oxygen and sunlight. Miriam had no objection to return. She was beaten and indifferent; her father and mother wrote to welcome her, and she recollected her mother's devotion to her when she was ill. She had not the heart to travel by the road on which she and Andrew came to London, and she chose a longer route by which she was brought to a point about ten miles from Cowfold. She found affection and peace, and Andrew, who had lost his taste for whisky, was quietly at work in his father's shop at his old trade. There was at the same time no vacant space for her in the household. There was nothing particular for her to do, and after a while, when the novelty of return had worn off, she grew weary, and longed unconsciously for something on which fully to exercise her useless strength.

In Cowfold at that time dwelt a basketmaker named Didymus Farrow. Why he was called Didymus is a very simple story.

His mother had once heard a sermon preached by a bishop from the text, "Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, unto his fellow-disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with Him." The preacher enlarged on the blessed privilege offered by our Lord, and observed how happy he should have been--how happy all his dear brethren in Christ would have been, if the same privilege had been extended to them. But, alas! God had not so decreed. When the day arrived on which they would see their Master in glory, they could then assure Him, and He would believe them, how willingly they would have borne His cross--aye, and even have hung with Him on the fatal tree.

Some weeks before Didymus Farrow was born, Mrs. Farrow remembered the bishop and part of his discourse, but what she remembered most distinctly was, "Thomas, which is called Didymus." These words were borne in upon her, she said, and accordingly the son was baptized Didymus. When he grew up, he entered upon his father's trade, which was that of making the willow hampers for fruit-growers, of whom there were a good many round Cowfold, and who sent their fruit to London, stacked high on huge broad-wheeled waggons. Didymus also manufactured hand-baskets, all kinds of willow ware and white wood goods. He had a peculiar aptitude for the lathe, and some of his bread-plates were really as neatly executed as any that could be seen in London. He had even turned in poplar some vases, which found their way to a drawing-master, and were used as models. He was now about thirty, had yellow hair, blue eyes, a smiling face, widish mouth, always a little open, nose a little turned up, whistled a good deal, and walked with a peculiar dance-like lilt. He was a gay, innocent creature, honest in all his dealings, and fairly prosperous. He had been married early, but had lost his wife when he was about twenty-six, and had been left with one daughter, whom his sister had in charge. The sister was about to be married, and when her brother knew that the day for her departure was fixed, it came into his head that he ought to be married again. Otherwise, who could manage his house and his family?

He was not a man to seek any recondite reasons for doing or not doing anything. He was not in the habit of pausing before he acted, and demanding the production of every conceivable argument, yea or nay, and then with toil adjusting the balance between them. If a lot of withies looked cheap, he bought them straightway, and did not defer the bargain for weeks till he could ascertain if he could get them cheaper elsewhere.