Chapter II

_NO ONE CAN SAY THE "DOLPHIN" WAS NOT DOING
ITS WORK WELL._

The father of all this family, and the widower of this dead woman, came in about ten o'clock, a good deal the worse for drink; but this being Timbs' normal condition, at least his condition whenever his children held intercourse with him, caused them now no surprise.

The children knew that he would come home drunk, and also knew that, either drunk or sober, he would express no sorrow for mother; he had, as they roughly worded it, given her far more kicks than halfpence of late. Never did any of them, except Patty and Molly, remember father to have addressed a kind word to mother; for just about the time that the other children could begin to exercise their memories, Timbs had begun another practice,--a practice which took from mother all chance of loving words, and from them all hope of the comforts of life.

Just then he had taken up visiting the Dolphin, and the Dolphin had exercised the influence it might be expected to exercise over him.

Many a church has failed in its duty, but places like the Dolphin never fall short in this particular!

Not they; they have their own master to serve, and they serve him well. They go warily but surely to work, beginning with the bodies of men and women, and ending with their souls.

Can it be possible that if the Church, too, began with the bodies of men, it would have more success? This may be so; there is such a thing as learning even of an enemy.

The Dolphin having got Timbs within its clutches, quietly, but surely, effected his ruin. He was a very fine man when he entered those doors; he had great physical power; he stood six feet high.

Those were the days, when, in full work, strong in body, vigorous and shrewd in intellect, Timbs had owned a small house of his own in not too poor a street; a house where geraniums flourished in the windows, and white muslin curtains graced the best sitting-room.

Those were the palmy days remembered so well by Patty and Molly, when mother possessed a nice bonnet and shawl, and father and she went for a walk in the Park on Sunday evenings.

In those days mother's face was smiling and her cheeks rosy, and she had a pleasant word for every one; in those days, too, father used to kiss them, and bring home for their edification that wonderful book of birds in penny parts.

If there was anything that Molly and Patty still loved, it was that bird book, carefully stitched together, and bound in a brown linen cover. That book they never would allow to go to the pawnshop; it was the only thing left to them of their halcyon days.

But these days were now all over; from the time the Dolphin had received father into its deadly embrace, this pleasant state of things had passed away. Ruin had come,--gradually, of course, but none the less surely. Down, step after step, had the family descended; each fresh child at its birth opening its eyes in a poorer room, on poorer surroundings.

Mrs. Timbs had worked harder and harder, and gone out in more and more shabby clothes, and one by one taken the little comforts away to the pawnshop, never to bring them back again. She turned her hand patiently to any means by which an honest penny might be earned, for hers was a brave nature: she went out charing, she took in needlework, she took in washing; but however willing the spirit, the poor human body was weak. The face of Mrs. Timbs grew thin and hollow, the frame of Mrs. Timbs became skin and bone. Of her heart no one spoke, no one thought; but there was a pathos about her eyes, and a few lines about her mouth, which showed that her heart was not at rest. Neither Timbs nor his wife were religious people. In their palmy days they had never gone to church; they had spent Sundays in the Park or resting at home. Very innocent Sundays they had passed in those days, but in no sense of the word religious ones. In her happy days Mrs. Timbs had never sought after God. She knew of God, of course; she knew also something of the Bible, and had even once gone so far as to tell to Patty and Molly the story of Moses being drawn out of the water; but with religion in a practical way she did not trouble her head. Her idea was that religion was a very dull thing; that there was a great deal of moonshine and false sentiment about religious people, but that, of course, it was useful for consumptive and dying folks to think about it.

Neither in her dark days did she turn to religion; but a verse from the old Book she had neglected and cast aside, floated now and then before her mind, rang now and then in her ears.

"Come unto Me, and I will give you rest," was the verse.

At night, when she lay down with every limb aching, she thought of this verse; in the morning, when she rose to her unthankful toil, it returned to her. All the last few months before Robin was born, this verse went about with Mrs. Timbs, and became the echo of her every wish.

The ruin, however, that the Dolphin effected indirectly on Mrs. Timbs, was nothing nothing at all to the ruin it directly effected on her husband.

In the first place, it undermined his health--his eyes grew dim, his frame weak and stooping, his powerful arm nerveless. He was a mason by trade, and, before he went to the Dolphin, could ascend any height without dizziness; but he had to give all this up now; he suffered from burning thirst, he loathed all wholesome food; in short, the health of the man was gone, and he had already passed through two attacks of _delirium tremens_.

In the next place, the Dolphin attacked his mind.

Timbs was a clever fellow; plenty of thought had he, and plenty of ingenuity: he could reason out a point with any one, and win the day for his own opinions too, which opinions were honest and right enough. He had a turn for mechanics, he liked to read, he liked to digest what he had read. What works of a useful and educational tendency he could afford, he took in, in weekly parts; but, with the exception of the book of birds, they had long since disappeared into that great caldron for dissolving all home comforts, the pawn-shop.

And the man never missed what had once been his pride, never regretted for an instant what once he could hardly live without, for his brain was dull and clouded, his thinking powers gone. No, Timbs never troubled himself to think now; the Dolphin had done this for him.

To complete his ruin, this mistress of iniquity attacked his soul.

There were many good points in the man once, he had been a loving husband and a kind father; his little children used to cling about his neck and kiss him; his wife's face used to brighten at his approach. He was liked too by the neighbours, for he was good-natured and obliging.

But now he beat his wife, he cursed his children--they fled at his approach, they shrank in terror from his glance; no pity moved him, no tears softened him.

In short, the Dolphin had made not a brute, but a devil of what had once been created in the likeness of God.

The children of this couple grew up as such children would be likely to grow up, stunted in body, undeveloped in mind.

The poor mother could hardly feed them, much less attempt to educate them: the father endeavoured to injure, but not to improve them.

Molly and Patty were the best of the group. Molly and Patty had as babies been properly fed. As little children they had enjoyed some of the good things of life; they also could remember kind words and tones with a ring of love in them. Consequently they were the strongest in body, and the best in soul.

They were by no means either good or amiable, but they were less bad and less unamiable than the seven who came beneath them. These little girls were employed at a factory where they managed to support themselves, and so lighten their mother's burden; and though they told lies, and though in every possible way they cheated their employers and quarrelled with their neighbours, yet they loved their mother; they loved each, the other. There was quite a tender attachment between this rough little pair. I think either would have died for the other. As for the seven below them--the seven who had always been starved and used roughly, on whom the world had always frowned, and never, even in infancy, smiled--these little miseries, who drew in starvation, cruelty, hunger, with their first breath--why, they grew up something like Cain. If every man's hand was against them, so would their hands be against every man.

Of the men and women who grow out of such children, the prisons are full; and for such children, though no man takes pity on them, I think the angels weep.

Sally, Phil, and Dick were thieves, practised and clever little thieves, already. Joe, Tom, Janey, and Bill were following in their steps.

All this, the ruin of this whole family, was owing to the Dolphin. No one can say that it was not doing its work well.

It was not with any strong hope of father's return that Molly had put down the kettle for tea. But though she had not done it with a hope, she had certainly done it with a longing. It was very important, indeed, now that mother was dead and a new baby come that father should, if possible, be brought in sober.

Having put down the kettle, she went into the neighbour's room, the same poor woman who had been kind to them that morning.

"Mrs. Jenkins," she said, "I'm mortal feared 'bout the new baby."

"Why so, my dear? he's a nice 'ardy little chap; he won't die, Molly."

"Oh! it ain't that," said Molly; "but yer knows wot dad is in 'is cups, and he did sware dreadful wen Bill was born."

"The unnat'ral brute!" ejaculated Mrs. Jenkins. "Well, but, Molly, you can hide the little 'un, sure-_ly_."

"'Ee'd be positive to ax fur 'im, ma'am; besides, the baby must be fed. No, but ef we could catch father sober. I've bin thinkin'--I remember"----

"Set down, gal. Yer all of a tremble."

"I remember, Mrs. Jenkins, ma'am, wen father--I remember wen father was real kind, and he kissed Patty and me, and he was fond o' mother. 'Tis ages back now, but Patty and me, we remembers of it. And wot I'm thinkin' is, ef we could catch 'im sober, why, I'd tell 'im 'bout mother, and mebbe 'ee'd get soft-'arted to the little 'un!"

Molly expressed her thoughts very badly, in broken and poor words and with indistinct utterance; but the heart of the child was shining in her eyes, and Mrs. Jenkins understood her.

"Ef _an'think_ 'ill move 'im, 'tis the sight as he'll clap 'is h'eyes upon in yer room to-night. You run back, Molly, gal; and I'll make fur the Dolphin, and ef he's not too long there h'already, I'll bring 'm in home, by hook or crook. Oh! and stop; 'ere's a drop o' milk fur the baby."

But Mrs. Jenkins was unsuccessful. Timbs had been at the Dolphin for an hour and more. Even there, into that abode of horrors did the brave woman follow him; but the message she tried to deliver, and the very awful news she tried to break to the miserable drunkard, were drowned in jeers and laughter. If Mrs. Jenkins was not kicked out, it was only because she fled in terror.