The trail of the serpent
class; and she led the way into a stone-paved room, which had once been
a tolerably spacious entrance-hall.
It was lighted by one feeble little candle with a long drooping wick,
stuck in an old ginger-beer bottle; and by this dim light Jabez saw,
seated on heap of rubbish by the desolate hearth, his own reflection--a
man dressed, unlike him, in the rough garments of a labourer, but whose
face gave back as faithfully as ever glass had done the shadow of his
own.
CHAPTER II.
LIKE AND UNLIKE.
THE old woman stared aghast, first at one of the young men, then at the
other.
“Why, then, he isn’t Jim!” she exclaimed.
“Who isn’t Jim, grandmother? What do you mean? Here I am, back again; a
bundle of aching bones, old rags, and empty pockets. I’ve done no good
where I’ve been; so you needn’t ask me for any money, for I haven’t
earned a farthing either by fair means or foul.”
“But the other,” she said,--“this young gentleman. Look at him, Jim.”
The man took up the candle, snuffed it with his fingers, and walked
straight to Jabez. He held the light before the face of the usher, and
surveyed him with a leisurely stare. That individual’s blue eyes winked
and blinked at the flame like an owl’s in the sunshine, and looked
every way except straight into the eyes looking into his.
“Why, curse his impudence!” said the man, with a faint sickly laugh;
“I’m blest if he hasn’t been and boned my mug. I hope it’ll do him more
good than it’s done me,” he added, bitterly.
“I can’t make out the meaning of this,” mumbled the old woman. “It’s
all dark to me. I saw where the other one was put myself. I saw it
done, and safely done too. Oh, yes of course----”
“What do you mean by ‘the other one’?” asked the man, while Jabez
listened intently for the answer.
“Why, my deary, that’s a part of the secret you’re to know some of
these days. Such a secret. Gold, gold, gold, as long as it’s kept; and
gold when it’s told, if it’s told at the right time, deary.”
“If it’s to be told at the right time to do me any good, it had better
be told soon, then,” said Jim, with a dreary shiver. “My bones ache,
and my head’s on fire, and my feet are like lumps of ice. I’ve walked
twenty miles to-day, and I haven’t had bite nor sup since last night.
Where’s Sillikens?”
“At the factory, Jim deary. Somebody’s given her a piece of work--one
of the regular hands; and she’s to bring home some money to-night. Poor
girl, she’s been a fretting and a crying her eyes out since you’ve been
gone, Jim.”
“Poor lass. I thought I might do some good for her and me both by going
away where I did; but I haven’t; and so I’ve come back to eat her
starvation wages, poor lass. It’s a cowardly thing to do, and if I’d
had strength I should have gone on further, but I couldn’t.”
As he was saying these words a girl came in at the half-open door, and
running up to him, threw her arms round his neck.
“O Jim, you’ve come back! I said you would; I knew you’d never stop
away; I knew you couldn’t be so cruel.”
“It’s crueller to come back, lass,” he said; “it’s bad to be a burden
on a girl like you.”
“A burden, Jim!” she said, in a low reproachful voice, and then dropped
quietly down amongst the dust and rubbish at his feet, and laid her
head caressingly against his knee.
She was not what is generally called a pretty girl. Hers had not been
the delicate nurture which nourishes so frail an exotic as beauty. She
had a pale sickly face; but it was lighted up by large dark eyes, and
framed by a heavy mass of dark hair.
She took the man’s rough hand in hers, and kissed it tenderly. It is
not likely that a duchess would have done such a thing; but if she had,
she could scarcely have done it with better grace.
“A burden, Jim!” she said,--“a burden! Do you think if I worked for you
day and night, and never rested, that I should be weary? Do you think,
if I worked my fingers to the bone for you, that I should ever feel the
pain? Do you think, if my death could make you a happy man, I should
not be glad to die? Oh, you don’t know, you don’t know!”
She said this half-despairingly, as if she knew there was no power in
his soul to fathom the depth of love in hers.
“Poor lass, poor lass,” he said, as he laid the other rough hand
gently on her black hair. “If it’s as bad as this. I’m sorry for
it--more than ever sorry to-night.”
“Why, Jim?” She looked up at him with a sudden glance of alarm. “Why,
Jim? Is anything the matter?”
“Not much, lass; but I don’t think I’m quite the thing to-night.” His
head drooped as he spoke. The girl put it on her shoulder, and it lay
there as if he had scarcely power to lift it up again.
“Grandmother, he’s ill--he’s ill! why didn’t you tell me this before?
Is that gentleman the doctor?” she asked, looking at Jabez, who still
stood in the shadow of the doorway, watching the scene within.
“No; but I’ll fetch the doctor, if you like,” said that benevolent
personage, who appeared to take a wonderful interest in this family
group.
“Do, sir, if you will be so good,” said the girl imploringly; “he’s
very ill, I’m sure. Jim, look up, and tell us what’s the matter?”
The man lifted his heavy eyelids with an effort, and looked up with
bloodshot eyes into her face. No, no! Never could he fathom the depth
of this love which looks down at him now with more than a mother’s
tenderness, with more than a sister’s devotion, with more than a wife’s
self-abnegation. This love, which knows no change, which would shelter
him in those entwining arms a thief or a murderer, and which could hold
him no dearer were he a king upon a throne.
Jabez North goes for a doctor, and returns presently with a gentleman,
who, on seeing Jim the labourer, pronounces that he had better go
to bed at once; “for,” as he whispers to the old woman, “he’s got
rheumatic fever, and got it pretty sharp, too.”
The girl they call Sillikens bursts out crying on hearing this
announcement, but soon chokes down her tears--(as tears are wont to
be choked down in Blind Peter, whose inhabitants have little time for
weeping)--and sets to work to get ready a poor apology for a bed--a
worn-out mattress and a thin patch-work counterpane; and on this they
lay the bundle of aching bones known to Blind Peter as Jim Lomax.
The girl receives the doctor’s directions, promises to fetch some
medicine from his surgery in a few minutes, and then kneels down by the
sick man.
“O Jim, dear Jim,” she says, “keep a good heart, for the sake of those
who love you.”
She might have said for the sake of her who loves you, for it never
surely was the lot of any man, from my lord the marquis to Jim the
labourer, to be twice in his life loved as this man was loved by her.
Jabez North on his way home must go the same way as the doctor; so they
walk side by side.
“Do you think he will recover?” asks Jabez.
“I doubt it. He has evidently been exposed to great hardship, wet, and
fatigue. The fever is very strong upon him; and I’m afraid there’s not
much chance of his getting over it. I should think something might
be done for him, to make him a little more comfortable. You are his
brother, I presume, in spite of the apparent difference between you in
station?”
Jabez laughed a scornful laugh. “His brother! Why, I never saw the man
till ten minutes before you did.”
“Bless me!” said the old doctor, “you amaze me. I should have taken you
for twin brothers. The likeness between you is something wonderful; in
spite, too, of the great difference in your clothes. Dressed alike, it
would be impossible to tell one from the other.”
“You really think so?”
“The fact must strike any one.”
Jabez North was silent for a little time after this. Presently, as he
parted from the doctor at a street-corner, he said--
“And you really think there’s very little chance of this poor man’s
recovery?”
“I’m afraid there is positively none. Unless a wonderful change takes
place for the better, in three days he will be a dead man. Good night.”
“Good night,” says Jabez, thoughtfully. And he walked slowly home.
It would seem about this time that he was turning his attention to his
personal appearance, and in some danger of becoming a fop; for the next
morning he bought a bottle of hair-dye, and tried some experiments with
it on one or two of his own light ringlets, which he cut off for that
purpose.
It would seem a very trivial employment for so superior and
intellectual a man as Jabez North, but it may be that every action of
this man’s life, however apparently trivial, bore towards one deep and
settled purpose.
CHAPTER III.
A GOLDEN SECRET.
MR. JABEZ NORTH, being of such a truly benevolent character, came the
next day to Blind Peter, full of kind and sympathetic inquiries for the
sick man. For once in a way he offered something more than sympathy,
and administered what little help he could afford from his very slender
purse. Truly a good young man, this Jabez.
The dilapidated house in Blind Peter looked still more dreary and
dilapidated in the daylight, or in such light as was called daylight
by the denizens of that wretched alley. By this light, too, Jim Lomax
looked none the better, with hungry pinched features, bloodshot eyes,
and two burning crimson spots on his hollow cheeks. He was asleep when
Jabez entered. The girl was still seated by his side, never looking
up, or taking her large dark eyes from his face--never stirring,
except to rearrange the poor bundle of rags which served as a pillow
for the man’s weary head, or to pour out his medicine, or moisten his
hot forehead with wet linen. The old woman sat by the great gaunt
fireplace, where she had lighted a few sticks, and made the best fire
she could, by the doctor’s orders; for the place was damp and draughty,
even in this warm June weather. She was rocking herself to and fro on a
low three-legged stool, and muttering some disconnected jargon.
When Jabez had spoken a few words to the sick man, and made his offer
of assistance, he did not leave the place, but stood on the hearth,
looking with a thoughtful face at the old woman.
She was not quite right in her mind, according to general opinion in
Blind Peter; and if a Commission of Lunacy had been called upon to give
a return of her state of intellect on that day, I think that return
would have agreed with the opinion openly expressed in a friendly
manner by her neighbours.
She kept muttering to herself, “And so, my deary, this is the other
one. The water couldn’t have been deep enough. But it’s not my fault,
Lucy dear, for I saw it safely put away.”
“What did you see so safely put away?” asked Jabez, in so low a voice
as to be heard neither by the sick man nor the girl.
“Wouldn’t you like to know, deary?” mumbled the old hag, looking up at
him with a malicious grin. “Don’t you very much want to know, my dear?
But you never will; or if you ever do, you must be a rich man first;
for it’s part of the secret, and the secret’s gold--as long as it is
kept, my dear, and it’s been kept a many years, and kept faithful.”
“Does _he_ know it?” Jabez asked, pointing to the sick man.
“No, my dear; he’d want to tell it. I mean to sell it some day, for
it’s worth a mint of money! A mint of money! He doesn’t know it--nor
she--not that it matters to her; but it does matter to him.”
“Then you had best let him know before three days are over or he’ll
never know it!” said the schoolmaster.
“Why not, deary?”
“Never you mind! I want to speak to you; and I don’t want those two to
hear what I say. Can we go anywhere hereabouts where I can talk to you
without the chance of being overheard?”