'Why that,' said Mrs.Tugby, taking a seat near him, 'is not the least cruel part of her story, sir.You see they kept company, she and Richard, many years ago.When they were a young and beautiful couple, everything was settled, and they were to have been married on a New Year's Day.But, somehow, Richard got it into his head, through what the gentlemen told him, that he might do better, and that he'd soon repent it, and that she wasn't good enough for him, and that a young man of spirit had no business to be married.And the gentlemen frightened her, and made her melancholy, and timid of his deserting her, and of her children coming to the gallows, and of its being wicked to be man and wife, and a good deal more of it.
And in short, they lingered and lingered, and their trust in one another was broken, and so at last was the match.But the fault was his.She would have married him, sir, joyfully.I've seen her heart swell many times afterwards, when he passed her in a proud and careless way; and never did a woman grieve more truly for a man, than she for Richard when he first went wrong.'
'Oh! he went wrong, did he?' said the gentleman, pulling out the vent-peg of the table-beer, and trying to peep down into the barrel through the hole.
'Well, sir, I don't know that he rightly understood himself, you see.I think his mind was troubled by their having broke with one another; and that but for being ashamed before the gentlemen, and perhaps for being uncertain too, how she might take it, he'd have gone through any suffering or trial to have had Meg's promise and Meg's hand again.That's my belief.He never said so; more's the pity! He took to drinking, idling, bad companions: all the fine resources that were to be so much better for him than the Home he might have had.He lost his looks, his character, his health, his strength, his friends, his work: everything!'
'He didn't lose everything, Mrs.Tugby,' returned the gentleman, 'because he gained a wife; and I want to know how he gained her.'
'I'm coming to it, sir, in a moment.This went on for years and years; he sinking lower and lower; she enduring, poor thing, miseries enough to wear her life away.At last, he was so cast down, and cast out, that no one would employ or notice him; and doors were shut upon him, go where he would.Applying from place to place, and door to door; and coming for the hundredth time to one gentleman who had often and often tried him (he was a good workman to the very end); that gentleman, who knew his history, said, "I believe you are incorrigible; there is only one person in the world who has a chance of reclaiming you; ask me to trust you no more, until she tries to do it." Something like that, in his anger and vexation.'
'Ah!' said the gentleman.'Well?'
'Well, sir, he went to her, and kneeled to her; said it was so;said it ever had been so; and made a prayer to her to save him.'
'And she? - Don't distress yourself, Mrs.Tugby.'
'She came to me that night to ask me about living here."What he was once to me," she said, "is buried in a grave, side by side with what I was to him.But I have thought of this; and I will make the trial.In the hope of saving him; for the love of the light-hearted girl (you remember her) who was to have been married on a New Year's Day; and for the love of her Richard." And she said he had come to her from Lilian, and Lilian had trusted to him, and she never could forget that.So they were married; and when they came home here, and I saw them, I hoped that such prophecies as parted them when they were young, may not often fulfil themselves as they did in this case, or I wouldn't be the makers of them for a Mine of Gold.'
The gentleman got off the cask, and stretched himself, observing:
'I suppose he used her ill, as soon as they were married?'
'I don't think he ever did that,' said Mrs.Tugby, shaking her head, and wiping her eyes.'He went on better for a short time;but, his habits were too old and strong to be got rid of; he soon fell back a little; and was falling fast back, when his illness came so strong upon him.I think he has always felt for her.I am sure he has.I have seen him, in his crying fits and tremblings, try to kiss her hand; and I have heard him call her "Meg," and say it was her nineteenth birthday.There he has been lying, now, these weeks and months.Between him and her baby, she has not been able to do her old work; and by not being able to be regular, she has lost it, even if she could have done it.How they have lived, I hardly know!'
'I know,' muttered Mr.Tugby; looking at the till, and round the shop, and at his wife; and rolling his head with immense intelligence.'Like Fighting Cocks!'
He was interrupted by a cry - a sound of lamentation - from the upper story of the house.The gentleman moved hurriedly to the door.
'My friend,' he said, looking back, 'you needn't discuss whether he shall be removed or not.He has spared you that trouble, Ibelieve.'
Saying so, he ran up-stairs, followed by Mrs.Tugby; while Mr.
Tugby panted and grumbled after them at leisure: being rendered more than commonly short-winded by the weight of the till, in which there had been an inconvenient quantity of copper.Trotty, with the child beside him, floated up the staircase like mere air.
'Follow her! Follow her! Follow her!' He heard the ghostly voices in the Bells repeat their words as he ascended.'Learn it, from the creature dearest to your heart!'
It was over.It was over.And this was she, her father's pride and joy! This haggard, wretched woman, weeping by the bed, if it deserved that name, and pressing to her breast, and hanging down her head upon, an infant.Who can tell how spare, how sickly, and how poor an infant! Who can tell how dear!
'Thank God!' cried Trotty, holding up his folded hands.'O, God be thanked! She loves her child!'