Chapter XIV: The Letter and Its Answer

THE next morning's post brought a letter from Mrs. Livesey, with news of her safe arrival. Adam was delighted to receive it, but it took a long time to make out its meaning. His wife had a style both of writing and spelling peculiar to herself, the natural result of having had little practice in either for many years past, and fingers stiffened by rough work.

By dint of much painstaking, Adam gathered that she had been met at the station by Ann's husband, sent by her mother for that purpose. That Mrs. Allison had rallied, and might live for weeks, though she could not get better, and that she begged her daughter to remain with her to the last.

The thought of being so long absent from Adam and the children troubled Mrs. Livesey, but what could she do? Adam must let her know, somehow, what he thought about it, and if he said she must come home sooner, she would come.

Adam gathered other particulars from the queer scrawl.

Mrs. Allison, lying on her death-bed, owned that she had not done the right thing by her youngest daughter.

"She says she will make it up to me. I don't know what she is going to do," wrote Mrs. Livesey, or at least she wrote what may be thus translated. "I'm glad I did not buy a black bonnet. Mother looked at mine and said, 'Is it new?' and when I told her 'yes,' she was pleased, and said, 'Then you are not looking for me to die, so as you may get my shoes.'"

Mrs. Allison had also praised the baby's beauty, her daughter's thrift in having taken such care of the clothes sent her from time to time, and she sent her love to Adam and the children. "You must have been a good husband," she says, "or I should not stand up for you as I do, and after all, that is one of the things that can't be got for money."

There were messages for the children, and kisses for all round, which were to be mutually delivered on behalf of the writer. And inasmuch as she did not lavish such caresses on any of them, except the two youngest for the time being, Mrs. Livesey's deputy kisses caused some surprise to those who received them.

In a postscript, Mrs. Livesey told Adam that he must use that sovereign as occasion required, to pay Sarah Evans for her services. Even if the money were made to go as far as usual, which could hardly be expected in hands less experienced than those of the mother, the wages were extra, and Mrs. Allison would gladly pay them and more, in order to keep her daughter with her while she lived. Money would be sent in due course.

Altogether the letter was very satisfactory to Adam. He could picture his wife by her mother's bedside and looking, years considered, hardly less changed than the invalid herself, yet stoutly standing up for her man at home, all of whose virtues would be magnified in her eyes by absence. The letter said no word of the mother's feelings on seeing the change, but doubtless, the sight of her Margaret's pale face and thin, aged features would touch her heart, and add to her feelings of regret for years of neglect.

Of course Maggie should be spared. Adam was not the one, at any time, to stand selfishly in the way of giving pleasure or comfort to another, and now he did not allow Mrs. Allison's desertion of them and after neglect to influence his reply. He resolved that Maggie should stay just as long as her mother wanted her.

The letter had been brought to him with breakfast by his eldest boy, and he was pondering as to the answer, when Mr. Drummond passed through the smithy.

The manager was always early at the works, having great faith in the value of the master's eye for keeping the men at their posts, and for enhancing the quality of the work turned out.

Adam was just folding up his letter, which he had taken into a quiet spot to read. In five minutes the pulses of the great engines would begin to throb again, and the human as well as the other machinery would be all in motion.

Mr. Drummond stopped not to shake hands here. At Rutherford's, he was manager, Adam a mere labourer. Outside they were man to man; nevertheless, he brought a bit of his outside humanity to bear, for he paused to ask the striker if he had received good news from his wife.

Adam in few words gave him the substance of his news, and thanked him for the inquiry.

A little sigh, which escaped the striker as he pushed the letter back into his pocket, reached Mr. Drummond's ear. He was a man of quick sympathies, and as he glanced at Adam's horny, toil-stiffened hands, he guessed the reason. Probably he dreaded the labour which the writing of an answer would involve, more than a week of ordinary work. Even if he could write, practice must have rendered it easier for him to wield that huge hammer than to guide a pen.

"You have an hour for dinner," said the manager; "can you make half the time do, and come to my office for the remainder?"

"To be sure, sir. I have my dinner here, and less than half an hour will do to eat it in."

"Look in at half past twelve, then."

Adam had only time to assent, for it was needful to resume work, and the men were thronging into the various departments.

Richard Evans was employed in another part of the works, or probably Adam would have spoken to him about replying to his wife's letter, and bespoken the services of one of his sons. He went home to dinner, so there was no chance at that time.

Exactly at the half-hour, Adam entered Mr. Drummond's office, and found him alone.

"Now, Livesey," said he, "I have about twenty-five minutes at your service. Would you like to employ me as your clerk? You trusted me a good deal when we met in the park, and if you like to do so now, I will write whatever you wish in answer to your wife's letter. Then you can put in the private messages at the end."

Adam's astonishment may be better imagined than described. "That was so bothering me," he answered. "I never write letters, and though I once could manage pretty well, I've got clean out of it."

He was going on to thank Mr. Drummond, but the latter, with good-humoured firmness, said the thanks must wait until he had earned them, and bade Adam tell him what to write, as time was precious.

The manager had already dated a sheet of paper, and written, "My dear Maggie," and showed the same to the gratified eyes of the striker, who, after a little pause, went on to dictate to his volunteer secretary.

"I was very glad to get your letter this morning, and to know that you got safe to your mother's, and that she was pleased to see you. We are all very well, and the children take to Sarah Evans very nicely. She is very clean, and keeps them and the house nice and tidy, as you would say, if you could look in now. You must stop with your mother while she wants you. You would be sorry after, if you left her, and I should be sorry to send for you back, if we only all keep well, as this leaves us at present.

"I've not been home since your letter came, for Tom brought it with my breakfast; but they will all be pleased when I tell them I've heard from mother. I'll give them the kisses.

"Mr. Drummond is writing for me in half the dinner-hour. I should be
slow with a pen now, but I'll try and put a bit in at the last.

"I haven't changed that sovereign yet, but I expect I shall have to do, for you know what. I have it locked up in the little tea-caddy till I want some of it.

"I'm glad, too, you didn't buy the black bonnet." (Adam explained this allusion.) "It would have looked bad if you had. Tell mother I'm much obliged for promising to pay the young woman, but maybe the sovereign will last. I was going to say I hope it will, only I bethought me that would be like saying I hope mother won't last long. So I hope it won't, unless it be that she takes a good turn, and gets better after all; which it would please me to hear of.

"The little uns will want to send their love and kisses back again,
but I'll put them in after I get home. So no more at present from—

"Your loving husband,

"ADAM LIVESEY."

The signature was executed by Adam himself, and he seemed rather proud of it when it was done. Mr. Drummond had hard work to hide the kindly smile that came to his face as he watched him labouring over it, thinking the while that he would, if possible, devise some means for the improvement of the man's writing. The manager addressed the letter, and put on the stamp, leaving the envelope open for additions. He was touched when Adam, after vainly searching in every pocket for a coin, said he would bring the pay for the stamp and paper next morning.

"I have a threepenny bit at home," he said, with perfect simplicity, "but I left it in my other waistcoat pocket. I don't hardly keep any myself, because my missis wants it all to pay her way with."

"You are welcome to the paper and the writing, Adam. You can pay for the stamp afterwards, if you like."

Very warm were Adam's thanks, though his face said as much as his words. Mr. Drummond would have gladly given him a dozen stamps, had his correspondence required. But he rightly judged that this man, so unlike many of those around him, would shrink from coming to him a second time, if he were not allowed to pay his penny, even though the manager had offered to write for him as often as might be necessary during Mrs. Livesey's absence.

That very afternoon, when the men left work, Adam lingered for some time outside the great gates, in the hope of seeing Mr. Drummond. His face lighted up with pleasure when at length he came towards them, and taking off his old cap, he said, "May I speak, sir, just a minute?"

"Certainly, Livesey; what is it?"

"When you were writing for me, you put something about a sovereign in the letter. I wanted to tell you how I came by it. It's hardly mine, like, now;" and in a few words, Adam explained why such an unwonted sum was in his keeping.

For a moment, Mr. Drummond was puzzled to understand why Adam had deemed such an explanation necessary. Then it flashed upon him that he had hunted for the threepenny piece, and spoken of it as if it were all the money he possessed, though he had alluded in his letter to the unbroken sovereign. He was afraid that Mr. Drummond might think him wanting in straightforwardness, and could not rest till the matter was cleared up.

The manager was pleased, but frankly owned that he had noticed that which had troubled Adam. Then he added, "I was glad to see you at the Mission Room on Monday. I hoped you would like the service well enough to come again."

"I want to do, sir, and now the letter to Maggie is mostly off my mind, I'm hoping I shall be in time to-night. I should ha' gone last night, only there's a young woman doing for us all while Margaret's away, and she's fond o' preachin's and such-like, so I thought she ought to have her turn. I might ha' left that little lass of mine to look after the lesser ones, but she has her bits o' lessons to learn, and it's no good loadin' 'em too heavy, poor things! They can only be young once."

Adam was astonished at himself that he could talk "so free like" to the manager, and Mr. Drummond was pleased to see that the ice between them, once broken, was not likely to close over again.

"You were quite right, Adam. The little ones often have too much to bear, and are made to grow old too soon. I am glad that you want to save yours as far as you can. I respect you more for staying away than I should have done for coming last night. But I shall look for you again this evening."

With a kindly nod, the manager went homewards, and Adam, watching him till he was out of sight, said to himself, "Here now is something else to thank God for. He must ha' made Mr. Drummond so kind to me, for I've done nothing myself."

Truly, many a mere man of the world may feel inclined to scoff at this simple account of the manager's intercourse with Adam Livesey, and say, "How unlikely that a person in such a position of authority would trouble himself about one filling so low a place as that of the striker! To a gentleman acting as the head and manager of a great concern employing many hundreds of hands, what would one humble labourer be but an item in the mass of human machines moving like clockwork around him?"

Probably in many such places, the humbler toilers are never noticed, could not even be known by name or sight to those so far above them.

They are too many, too much alike, as they pour in and out of the business hive. Many a manager, especially one who had risen from the ranks, would have been afraid to risk his dignity by such free interchange of thought with a man who was never likely to get beyond the lowest rung of the social ladder.

Others would have thought themselves in danger of losing the respect of their inferiors in station, or have been too proud to stoop.

But Mr. Drummond was not merely the head man at Rutherford's, next to the partners themselves, he was a Christian whom the Holy Spirit had taught the value of his own soul, and the love of God for sinners. Could he be stooping or lessening himself by striving to do good to those for whom Jesus died? Had not the Master made Himself of no reputation, and come as man amongst men?

Ought he then to let pride of place hinder him from doing what he could on behalf of those amongst whom the good providence of God had brought him, and by most unlooked-for means?

Every feeling of gratitude and thankfulness to God forbade this. The constraining love of Christ within his heart forbade it. And so, while as yet he could do but little, Mr. Drummond resolved to make a beginning. If he could not get hold of the great mass of toiling humanity around him, he would devote the best powers he had to one at first. Circumstances turned his attention to Adam Livesey, and for this man's conversion to God he was striving on earth, and pleading, for Jesus' sake, to heaven.

Worldlings may smile, infidels may scoff at such a picture. But, God be thanked, there are yet many men, and women, too, on earth who are moved by a like spirit to that which impelled the new manager at Rutherford's.