and, at length, several men came forward. Nobody asked who had done this; but one offered to go for the doctor, and another for her uncle Jerom, and a third for Susan. Her father himself settled what should be done. His brother and the surgeon were to be summoned, and he would not be removed till they came; only propped up with hay, so as to breathe a little more easily. He asked if any one knew who had done this?
“It is more like you can tell than I,” observed the man he seemed particularly to address. “Perhaps you may recollect having offended somebody.”
Alice sprang to the child on the haycock, and asked where he had seen a man just now. The child pointed to the other side of the haycock.
Somebody had been crouching there; and he must have entered and departed through a hole in the hedge, which seemed to have been made for the purpose.
Half a dozen of the haymakers passed through this hole; but they all came back with the same story,—that no trace of any person was to be found in the next field. Alice believed, in her impatience, that she could have found the murderer if she had been the pursuer; but who but she would chafe her father’s clammy hands, and pass an arm beneath his head, and fan him as his faintness increased? While listening, in hope that he would speak, a distant sound smote her heart,—the tolling of the church-bell. Her father felt the throb of her heart, and smiled as he said, “It is not so, dear child. They are not tolling for me before I am dead.
It is the lawsuit—I was aware—I expected a letter to-day, you know.”
“O yes; and I brought you out. I made you come here when you wished to stay at home,” cried she in agony.
“My dear child, it would have happened to-morrow if not to-day. It would have happened in my pulpit if not in this hay-field, Alice. Times and seasons are not in our hands, my child.”
The surgeon soon came, and pronounced that his patient had judged rightly in refusing to be removed. There were several hours of daylight left.—Every one felt that this was the same as saying that the vicar could not live till sunset.
Half the parish were in the field before Jerom appeared. Every one looked grave, and some changed countenance on witnessing Alice’s despair; but there was no expression or semblance of grief for the approaching departure of their pastor. Everything was done that could be done; but more as an office of humanity than of affection. This was not lost on the dying man, and must have caused him the keenest pang of all.—He eagerly welcomed Jerom; for he had much to say to him.
“This is a sad ending of my ministry,” said he; “but it is by no means a new thing for Christ’s ministers to die in upholding the rights of his church. God knows I have always been willing; but I grieve, (may he pardon me!) that he has seen fit to make crime the instrument.”
“Can we forgive the criminal?”
“I do from my heart, and have long done so. Yes. I thought it would end in this way, and prepared for it, as you will see when you come to undertake the charge of Alice. You will go home with her, Jerom, and stay till she has to leave the vicarage. See that she has her full right,—that she stays till she has fulfilled the month’s warning of my successor, after his induction. Do not let her remove a day earlier than the law obliges her. I am urgent about this, because I believe the people will run riot against the church as soon as I am gone; and I am anxious that all decencies and proprieties should be observed.”
Jerom promised.
“I have left enough, I trust, for her support; and I bequeath to you the corn and other crops in the ground. If my successor should be inducted before the severance of any crops in which he has an interest, you will, of course, aid him in recovering his dues, as you would aid me. If not inducted till after severance, he may be spared the battle till next year. But, Jerom, be mindful that the clergy must fight, side by side, like brothers, in the present fearful state of the church, when its rights are evaded, and its claims mocked at, and its ministers murdered in the scene of God’s bounties!”
Jerom checked his vehemence; and the dying man presently declared himself willing to leave the care of the church in the hands of Him who founded it. He died without one suspicion that the church for which he had sacrificed himself was not indeed the church of Christ in all its parts, as much as in the name which it has dared to assume. Not a doubt entered his mind that his devotion to his office and its claims was not of the true apostolical character. It never occurred to him, that he or his church might be answerable for the degradation of Christianity and the deterioration of morals in his parish.
He died,—just as the sun was declining over the scene of God’s bounties, as the vicar had truly described this place. There was a joyous twittering of birds in the hedges, and the light breeze which fanned the hair of the dead man brought sweet scents to those who surrounded him.
The cattle in the meadows rose from their grassy couch, and moved homewards as the shadows of the willows lengthened. The sheep that had been shorn stood bleating on the slope, or beside the pool, as if wondering why the shearers had left them alone after stripping them of the fleeces that lay strewed upon the grass. The old church looked beautiful, dressed in ivy, and brightened with the latter sunshine, and overshadowing the tombs around it. Yet this fair scene was one of misery. The very church-bell was tolled in malice. The hedge concealed a murderer. The milk-maids and the shearers were gone to gaze with more awe than love on the passing away of him who should have taught them a better evening thanksgiving than this. If there was any acknowledgment of God and his bounties, it was in one or two who made it in humiliation rather than in joy. What kind of Christianity could have been here taught, producing such a result as this?—a Christianity mixed up and defiled with superstition and worldliness; and which could therefore no more bring forth the peaceable fruits of righteousness than a sun in eclipse can shed broad day.
As the body was carried home, all the people who had not been in the field came out of their houses. Mr. Mackintosh was seen standing at his gate, looking grave, but unmoved. He had something to say on the occasion, though there was less of triumph in his tone than some who knew him would have expected.
“This comes of making a clergyman a revenue officer,” he muttered. “Poor Hellyer might have made a very good clergyman, or a very good revenue officer; but it is beyond any man’s power to be both, without betraying the one trust or the other.”
His housekeeper appeared,—tearful,—to ask leave to bring Miss Alice into the house. She ought not to be in such a crowd as that, in all her grief, and none of her friends with her.—Leave was eagerly given: but the housekeeper hesitated.
“Why don’t you go? Do not lose a moment.”
“If I was sure, sir——if you would promise not to be very ready to tell Miss Alice that there is no chance of her meeting her father any more——” “Certainly not. Certainly not. I am not clear on the point myself, and never professed to be so. It is only when they build up upon their Alice was brought in, and was not long without a friend by her side.
Mrs. Lambert, who had been too far off to hear the news, had observed from the high summerhouse the crowd just leaving the field, and moving along the road. She had hastily descended, and had joined the people just as they were passing the church,—just in time to hear the remarks upon the tolling of the bell.
“Ay; that’s for the gaining of his lawsuit,—and’ much good it will do him now! They say he was loth to come abroad this morning, because he expected good news of his lawsuit.”
“He did worse in beginning that lawsuit than in coming abroad this morning. “’Tis my opinion that it was that lawsuit that killed him.”
“Did ye hear his order about the wool-tithe, as he went by the pool this morning? So proud! He desired it might be set out for him against he came back.”
“I hope, friend,” Mrs. Lambert had observed, “that thou art observing these things rather as a lesson on the frailness of life, than as taunting the departed.”
The man thought that if the vicar had been paid like the dissenting ministers of the next town, and had given himself up to his office, without extorting tithes, his life would have been no more uncertain than any other man’s. He should not say this the less now that the vicar was being carried dead before him, than he had always said it when the vicar was standing up in the pulpit on Sundays, or handling fleeces on Mondays.
Where were all Alice’s friends?—Uncle Jerom was following the body. Mrs.
Byrne was nowhere to be seen. It was many days before she visited Alice; and when she came, she could do nothing but weep. Mrs. Byrne was remarked by every one to be an altered woman from that day.
Byrne was in the crowd; but Alice was afraid of him, and always kept out of his way. Charles and Joseph were in pursuit of the murderer,—whom, however, they could not find. It is believed to this day, that he was harboured by some one in the neighbourhood; or he could not have evaded the strict search instituted by the magistrates, as soon as the event became known to them.
“I am glad you are come, Mrs. Lambert,” said Mr. Mackintosh, when she made her appearance, after delaying a moment to recover an appearance of calmness. “I am glad you are come. We do not know what to do with this poor child.”
“Thou hast not the heart to attack her faith at such a moment; and thou dost not know how to speak on matters of faith, but in the way of attack. Is that it, friend Mackintosh?—I agree with thee, that there is no worldly comfort which will to-day soothe this poor child.”
“All you say about my fondness for attack may be very true; but see whether it has half the effect in this parish of the superstition of its pastor,—or of the system which made him its pastor:—I care not which may claim the honour of doing most mischief.”
“I grant that thy principles have led to no murder here, and that the vicar would have been wise to ask himself, while censuring thee, whether he was not playing thy game for thee better than thou couldst do it for thyself. But, friend, that is no excuse for thy being as intolerant to others as the church has been to thee. Between you, religion (or, as thou wouldst say, morals) has had so little chance, that I would not advise either of you to boast of the other’s delinquencies, lest the argument should end in the display of thine own.—I will only just mention the name of Byrne, as a sanction to my charge.”
“You do not think he is the——” And Mr. Mackintosh’s countenance now showed some emotion.
“I have heard no one named as the murderer,” Mrs. Lambert quietly replied.
Mr. Mackintosh presently repented having allowed Alice to be brought in.
It made him completely wretched. Whether her grief was ungovernable, as at first, or mild and reasonable, as it was when Mrs. Lambert had been with her awhile, it was equally painful to him. He could do nothing with minds but question and taunt them; and here, where the mind was too childish to be questioned to any purpose, and too much harassed to allow of taunting, there was no inducement to him to bear to witness the suffering. When he was tired of being first ashamed of his own helplessness, and then of being cross with his housekeeper, (who would not quarrel with him, because she saw he was trying to carry off some troublesome tenderness) he seized his hat, and walked out.—Mrs. Lambert observed, that he went in the direction of Byrne’s cottage.
CHAPTER VIII.
BENEFIT OF CLERGY.
Sir William Hood (who was travelling abroad) supposed, like everybody else, that the vicar was alone to blame for what had happened. Nobody but those on the spot,—none but the sufferers,—dreamed of finding fault with the system under which precisely the same grievances might recur.
They saw but too well that the virtues of the clergyman must, under such a system, injure himself or them. If his virtues were like those of the late vicar, centring in zeal for the church, he would oppress the parish as the late vicar had done. If they consisted of disinterestedness and mercy, they must injure himself in his worldly interests. The same temptations must also again beset the parishioners;—temptation to withhold the extreme dues of a moderate pastor, and to defraud a strict one. The sufferers agreed, in short, with him who said of the tithe system, “It has made the clergyman’s income to fall with his virtues, and to rise with his bad qualities; just as it has made the parishioner to lose by being ingenuous, and to save by dishonesty.”—They mourned over their liability to a repetition of their grievances; and their only comfort was in the hope that Peterson would not be again appointed to rule over them.
In this hope they were not disappointed. It was thought fitting by the ordinary and impropriator, that the circumstances of the scene should be changed as much as possible, in order that future irritation might be avoided; and Peterson received notice that his services would not be required by the future incumbent. He quarrelled with the vicar’s executor, before going out of office, respecting the amount of rent due for tithes received up to the day of the owner’s death, which unfortunately left room for a dispute of this kind, from not having happened on a quarter-day. The vicar’s tithes were collected in kind by the churchwardens, for the benefit of the future incumbent, the services of the curate being meantime paid out of the fund. Sir William Hood appointed another agent to collect his tithes.
During Jerom’s residence at the vicarage,—that is, during the few weeks which Alice’s friends thought long enough for the assertion of that dignity on which her father had bestowed some of his last thoughts,—it occurred to many people that Jerom would like very much to be the future incumbent of this vicarage.—Jerom did indeed wish it. The allotment of new land, in which he had invested his share of the bounty, did not answer. The tenant did not, he thought, cultivate it properly; and he had no influence over the tenant, whom he had allowed to build on the ground, and from whom he had no means of purchasing the new erections.
He was almost as poor as before he obtained the bounty; and could not well have got through the year but for his brother’s legacy of the little crops that were in the vicarage-ground.—He must get on, however, on this little wealth, as well as he could; for the parishioners had no intention of allowing anybody connected with the late vicar to be their pastor. They gave Jerom to understand this very plainly.
That wealth of his was indeed but small. The season turned out even worse than was expected; and so generally, that its effects were felt by every class in society. Wages had been rising all the year, and this occasioned a further rise in the price of produce; and these things all together proved to such as had eyes to see, the essential vices of the tithe-tax. Never had there been a greater outlay with a smaller per centage of gain to the cultivator than this season: never had tithe been so expensive to him as this year, when he could least afford it: never had the labourers, whose increased wages would not suffice to buy them a sufficiency of bread, so enviously regarded the increase in the revenue of the church;—an increase which arose from the same cause as their privations. Many were now convinced who had not been convinced before, that the bread-eaters of Britain pay a capitation tax to the church. The average consumption of grain being commonly allowed to be equivalent to a quarter of wheat a head, wheat pays a shilling a bushel as tithe, when wheat sells at 80_s._; so that, at that price, the church exacts a capitation-tax of 8_s._; it being clear that 72_s._ would be a remunerating price to the grower, if he had no tithe to pay. Many now allowed, who had not been fond of the subject before, that it is unjust that the religion of little more than half the nation should absorb a larger portion of the national resources, in proportion as these resources fail. Many now hinted, that if the preachers of the gospel had no power to feed the hungry with loaves in the wilderness, they ought not to be entitled to exact larger tribute from their hearers, the more their hearers hungered.
There were many dreary days this autumn; but it was on one of the very dreariest that Joseph ran out of the farm-house to invite his landlord to shelter till the storm should be over. “Indeed,” he added, “we wish particularly to speak to thee on a matter of some importance.” Mr.
Mackintosh was not so fond of a pouring rain as to be unwilling to let his horse be led to a stable, and himself to a crackling wood fire, from which orderly children moved away to make room for him.
“I hope you have not heard of another suspected murderer,” said he. “I am quite tired of receiving intimations on that head, convinced as I am that we shall never be any wiser.”
“We have nothing to say to thee of any new suspicion: but why shall we never be any wiser?”
“Because we all have a pretty clear notion that there are many who could tell if they would: and if they have not told yet, notwithstanding the fair opportunity that has been given them, and the high reward offered, it is scarcely likely that they will change their minds now. Every new information is meant to put us on a false scent, depend upon it. I hope the people will leave off playing such a farce. We have all our own guesses, I dare say, as to which was the fellow, and where he might have been found the next night, and why a stranger should have been the one to deal the blow. He considered himself perhaps, as others have done before him, as filling an office like the hangman’s,—putting the finish to a criminal.”
“I call this unprofitable talk,” observed the plain Mrs. Lambert. “Wilt thou hear the favour my sons have to ask of thee?”
Mr. Mackintosh was not fond of being asked favours; but he could not refuse to listen, in return for shelter, warmth, and good ale. The young men were very urgent to be released from their agreement about the Quarry Wood farm. Three years only of their lease had run; but their losses had been so great that they earnestly desired to give it up.
Mr. Mackintosh thought he had great reason to complain;—so much reason that he did not feel himself bound to consider the interests of the Lamberts in any such way as this. Was it not a subject of complaint that the land was ill-managed? Might not any one see at a glance how far inferior its condition was to that of the Abbey Farm?
“And whose fault was that?” Charles asked. “Did it not arise from the one being titheable, and the other, tithe-free?”
“Which was known to thee when thou gavest thy money for it, I suppose,” added the mother.
“I would really advise thee,” interposed Joseph, “to find another tenant who does not labour under our scruples regarding the tithe, and who has therefore a better chance of making the undertaking answer.”
“You seriously advise me. I really am much obliged to you, Mr. Joseph.”
“I seriously advise thee,—for this reason: that if we do contrive to pay thee rent, it can only be by cropping and exhausting the best land on the farm in a manner which will not please thee, but to which we shall be driven. Therefore, if thou canst find a capitalist who will diligently set himself to contend about the tithe in a way which we, for conscience sake, cannot do, it may be equally for thy interest and ours.”
“If you choose to find such an one, perhaps I may listen to what you “Why? does it give thee pleasure to hold us to a bad bargain?”
“Or to have my sons for tenants, perhaps,” said Mrs. Lambert, who sometimes accused herself of being a partial mother.—Mr. Mackintosh nodded at her, and said he had so little to complain of with respect to the Abbey Farm, that he would offer this much;—to let the young men have the Quarry Wood Farm rent-free for the remainder of the lease, they bearing the charges on the land.
They were obliged by this offer of compromise, but as far from hopeful as ever. They had much rather give up the undertaking altogether: but Mr. Mackintosh would go no further. He had every reason to believe that the farm would not let rent-free, on condition of the tenant paying the taxes, civil and ecclesiastical.
The lease must run out before it changed hands, even at the risk of its being left in bad condition,—half neglected and half exhausted.
“Come, cheer up, sons!” said their mother. “Gloomy faces are not becoming in us who profess to be more free of the world than some others. You know I never encouraged high notions in you when we thought we were growing rich; and I will not praise you for being low-spirited while you are doing your best——” “For these children, as well as yourselves,” observed Mr. Mackintosh.
“These children will grow up to take care of themselves, and help us in turn, if we want help. And before that time, let us hope, other Christians will find, as we do, that they can worship without taking the bread out of one another’s mouths. There will be more people willing to worship then, I fancy. My sons may live to see the gospel esteemed as able to support itself as when Christ preached it.”
“And you may live to see it, ma’am. It is an experiment which cannot be very long delayed in this country,—as I believe a large majority of thinkers agree in deciding, however they may differ as to what is superstition and what is not.”
“Thou wilt not find many who will agree with thee, friend, that there must be superstition in believing in things unseen;—no, not if thou shouldst live a thousand years. But thou art pretty secure of good company in declaring some things to be superstition which were so a thousand years ago,—such as asking in God’s name for gifts that are not gifts, and setting up a priesthood in Christ’s name, when, if Christ said one thing more plainly than another, it was that there should be no more priesthoods.”
“And to suppose that men will care for any matters of faith, be they what they may, when the bread of these men is taken to uphold that faith—it is folly!”
“Worse folly than any faith can be, I agree with thee in thinking. This is what we call shutting up the kingdom of heaven against men. It occurs to me, friend, that though thou hast a taste for being singular, thou art of the same mind with some who took these matters to heart very long ago. I ask thy pardon for observing (I know thou dost not like to agree with any thing in Scripture,)—that some one said before thy time and mine, that the Lord is not pleased with offerings, such as thousands of rams and calves of a year old. He had rather have justice and mercy. I wish the church could be persuaded to go back to this old Scripture.”
London: Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES, Duke-street, Lambeth.
ILLUSTRATIONS OF _TAXATION._ No. III.
THE JERSEYMEN MEETING.
=A Tale.= BY HARRIET MARTINEAU.
LONDON: CHARLES FOX, 67, PATERNOSTER-ROW.
--- 834.
LONDON: Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES, Duke Street, Lambeth.
THE JERSEYMEN MEETING.
=A Tale.= BY HARRIET MARTINEAU.
LONDON: CHARLES FOX, 67, PATERNOSTER-ROW.
--- 834.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE 1. A Phenomenon 1 2. A Legacy 18 3. Life in Lambeth 40 4. The Phenomenon again 61 5. An Economical Project 76 6. Lessons in Loyalty 93 7. Harder Lessons in Loyalty 109 THE JERSEYMEN MEETING.
CHAPTER I.
A PHENOMENON.
The moral sense of some people is shocked by the sentiment that it is pleasant to stand in safety on the shore to watch the effects of a storm at sea; but perhaps none were ever found to dispute the pleasantness of standing idle on the heights above a shore to watch the proceedings of busy people at sea. There are parts of the coast of Jersey where this luxury may be enjoyed in absolute perfection; where not only the features of nature are full of beauty, but where the spectator is unmolested by the presence of any less happy than himself, and where the industry which he witnesses is sure of its due reward.
Such a station is the height of Anne Ville, which overlooks the thriving village of Gorey in Jersey. It is luxury to sit on the remains of the Druidical temple there, and think of nothing less animating than the congregation of objects near; the bay of St. Catherine behind, where green lanes lead from the very brink of the tide, each to its own snug farm-house and blossoming orchard on the hill-side, and the solitary tower of Archirondel, surrounded on its rocky station by the blue waters of the bay: close at hand, Geoffry’s rock, from which, instead of criminals being cast into the sea, as it is said they once were, white sea-birds take their flight, scared by the laughter of children near their haunts: the noble castle of Mont Orgueil overhanging the waters, and casting upon them the shadow of its ruined battlements, while its mantle of ivy waves in the evening breeze:—the fishing village below, sending out and receiving back the oyster boats which throng about the pier in the season;—the villages on the distant coast of France, when the western sun lights them up into brilliant contrast with the intervening expanse of dark blue; and far beyond these, on the extreme horizon, the dim cathedral of Coutances. To spend a May evening in the centre of this scene is a luxury to a stranger whose heart is not, like that of a native, in one of the farmhouses in the interior, or among the oysters on the beach below. A stranger is pretty secure, however, of having this Druidical seat to himself on a May evening. So many repairs are wanted for the boats, so much sail-cloth and cordage is called for, and so large a portion of supplies is required for the little market of Gorey, towards the close of the oyster season, that the men are more likely to be guiding their creaking carts through the bowery lanes, and the maidens carrying down the hills the produce of their far-famed cows, than to be looking abroad from the heights of Anne Ville.
On such an evening, however, a few seasons ago, some one might be seen keeping a look-out from the poquelaye, (as the Jersey people call a Druidical remain like that at Anne Ville,) whom no one could doubt to be a native. He was a young man of about twenty, whose sallow face bore testimony to his diet being that of a Jersey farmhouse, while his knitted garments pointed him out as the son of one of the thrifty dames of the island who look suspiciously on all manufactures which threaten to supersede the work of their own hands. Aaron le Brocq looked indolent enough as he leaned with his elbows upon the great stone, and his dull eye wandered over the ocean, never once lighting up when a sail caught the yellow ray which slanted from the west: but Aaron came hither on business. Never was cordage so much wanted as now; and Aaron’s stock of hemp was exhausted; and day by day he came hither to watch for the arrival of some one of the friendly vessels which must be on the way to supply his need. There were barks innumerable within sight; but even Aaron’s dull eye could perceive, almost at a glance, that none of those near were what he wanted. Besides the native-built boats, there were many English vessels sailing hither and thither. Several which had been accustomed to navigate the broad, smooth Medway, were now tossing and turning in the currents and eddies caused by the ridges of low rocks which nearly surround the island, and have proved its surest defence during the wars of the two countries between whose grasp it seems to lie. French homeward-bound vessels were gliding between the shores; and a few of other countries, bringing supplies as much needed as hemp, were crossing Grouville Bay on their way to St. Heliers. Aaron would go to St. Heliers too, in the morning, if he saw no vessel before dark which might be supposed to come from the Baltic. He would go and learn what other people thought of this scarcity of hemp.
It is to be supposed that Aaron fell into a reverie about this projected trip to the port, and that he was thinking more of the market-place or custom-house of St. Heliers than of anything within ken on sea or land; for he started as if at the touch of the conjuring rod that he was taught to fear in his childhood, when his friend, Charles Malet, laid one hand on his shoulder, while with the other he pointed southwest, saying, “There will be no time for growing drowsy at the poquelaye after sunset to-morrow, if yonder vessel be from Riga, as they say she is. She will be in port as soon as we can get there, and perhaps we may find her cargo all gone in the scramble.”
Aaron was on his feet in a moment, wondering how his thoughts could have wandered away so far from the Baltic as to let a sail from that quarter cross the wide bay, and almost disappear behind La Roque Point unperceived by him. But there were many things besides hemp which this ship might be bringing to Jersey; tallow for the candles, or oil for the soap which some of the islanders were enabled to manufacture for a far larger market than their own; or corn for home consumption, while they sent their own to England. This may seem to some an ingenious project, designed to benefit the shipping interest. To permit ships from Russia to sail by the coasts of England, and land their corn in Jersey and Guernsey, from whence an equal supply has at last to be brought to England, seems like a benevolent scheme to give employment to some who would otherwise be paupers. It looks like an approach towards the fulfilment of the aspirations of the ship-owner, that every merchant-vessel should be permitted to sail three times round the island of Great Britain before landing its cargo. But, for whomsoever the plan was first devised,—whether for the ship or land owners of Britain,—its effect is to enrich the inhabitants of Jersey and Guernsey at the expense of the bread-eaters of England. These islands are exempt from the bread-tax, as from all the bad taxes of Great Britain, except tithes. Their inhabitants, being allowed to buy wheat, without restriction, wherever they please, can purchase it at 45_s._ per quarter, while that which their fields produce is bought by the English labourer at some price between 60_s._ and 70_s._ The benefit which accrues to the Jerseyman is the difference between the price he pays, and that which he receives when the amount of duty is deducted;—a benefit marked enough to induce him to call for supplies from a distant shore, and to retain the merchants of his own port in his service. No wonder that any foreign vessel which passed within sight of the heights above Gorey might be supposed to be bringing corn to the port of St.
Heliers. No wonder that Aaron was bewildered in a manner which would have stamped him a half-idiot in England, when a perfectly new incident presently occurred.
As soon as the sea became dusky in the twilight, the two friends turned their backs upon it, in order to pursue their way to the dwelling of Aaron’s father,—a small farmhouse in the valley on the other side the first ridge of hills which stretched north and south. They had not proceeded far over the down when they were accosted by a person whose appearance excited their wonder, while his business surprised them yet more. Scarcely half-dressed, and unattended, though he was blind, he was a mystery to Aaron.
“What sort of charity do you wish me to show you?” he asked, in answer to the beggar’s petition.
“What you please, sir,” replied the beggar: “but I have not had a morsel to-day, and I have no place to lay my head in to-night.”
“How happens that? I’m afraid you have displeased Mr. De la Mare?”
“Mr. who, please, sir?”
“Mr. De la Mare, the hospital governor. You don’t know who he is? How came you here, then?”
Malet had seen more of the world than Aaron. He suggested that the beggar might have come over in some of the oyster vessels from Kent,— perhaps even from London; and that he might never have set foot in St.
Heliers.
Would he get into the hospital among the blind? Aaron would take him to St. Heliers the next morning, and try to procure him admission. Stephen did not exactly wish this. He could find his way about, and did not like being shut up. If the gentleman would only bestow a little charity, that was all he asked;—by charity, he meant a little money for present use.
“But what will you do when it is gone?” asked Aaron. “You cannot work, I suppose, without the use of your sight.”
Stephen (for so the beggar called himself) had not been able to do a stroke of work these ten years. He trusted to the charitable and humane to take care of him.
“But you will not take their charity. You refuse the hospital! I don’t see what you would have.”
“He would live by begging, I dare say,” observed Malet, by way of elucidation.
“What! by asking every day for bread! I never heard of such a thing.”
Charles Malet had once been told that this was a very common thing in England. Besides the number of poor who were admitted into charitable houses, like those at St. Heliers, there were many who did not know, any morning of the year, where they should rest at night. Aaron thought this a miserable lot; but Stephen the beggar seemed wonderfully cheerful under it. He did not look ashamed, as a native would have done, of his