A. J. Wilson

“ But Sally merely wept, and bent still lower over her babe. They could not get her to go out during the day—only at night would she creep along by the hedge-rows, in the most unfrequented paths, accompanied by her mother, and hiding the child as much as possible, beneath her shawl, when it was not asleep at home. Her morbid fancy made her think that everyone knew her shame. She could not see people talking together without a rush of blood to her face, as if she felt the talk must be of her.
And how fared it all this time with her seducer? As the world elects, it shall always fare. ”

“ But I love a quiet village for its own sake above most things, and would rather spend my leisure amongst its simple cottage folk, take my rest on the bench at the village alehouse door, and walk amid the smock-frocked peasantry to the grey village church, than mingle with the fashionable, over-dressed, prurient, hollow-hearted, and artificial products of civilisation that [2] constitute themselves society—yea a thousand-fold rather. To me the restfulness of a little village, with its cots nestling among the drowsy trees in a warm summer day, is a foreshadowing of the rest of heaven. ”

“ All is changing ever; life moves onward, and the one generation perceives not the path that the next shall follow. Ah! the mystery of life. What does it all mean? The wrong triumphs often; the high hopes are dashed; weariness and pain haunt us wherever we go; the fruit of the sweet blossom is ashes and exceeding great bitterness; yet we hope on, plod on, battle till the end comes—and the judgment: then perhaps we shall know.
As yet, however, the unkindly blows of a hard fate had not broken Thomas Wanless's spirit: far otherwise. ”

“ Once more their nights were nights of sorrow and tears, and for them the mornings brought no joy. Only the little one that lay sleeping in its wee cot was all unconscious of trouble, or that its presence added poignancy to the bitterness with which the labourer and his wife mourned for their lost one.
Thomas Wanless, however, was not a man to abandon himself long to useless grief. The more keen the pain the more certain was his nature to rise and fight for deliverance, and before long he had made up his mind that, while he had life, his child should not be abandoned. ”

“ It was all the work of a moment, a flash of time, but Wanless had sprung to his feet at the sound of her voice, and was half across the bridge by the time the woman got upon the parapet. Then he saw her last look, and the gleam of a neighbouring lamp revealed her features. She was Adelaide Codling, and the recognition so startled Wanless that he staggered and for a moment stopped short. In that moment she was lost. Even as the cry burst from his lips, "Adelaide Codling, Adelaide, Adelaide," she threw herself over, as if the sight of a man approaching her had given the last spur to her despair. ”

“ It was a sharp-edged bit of flint which cut the cheek open, and made Thomas furious. Turning his bleeding face, now barely visible in the gathering dusk, to the crowd, and heedless of the vicar's shouts for silence, he exclaimed—"Lads, are you going to stand this stone-throwing any longer; are these slave-drivers to be allowed to bully us on our own village green?"
"No, no, no," shouted the labourers in a chorus.
"Let us thrash them, then," he replied, "and teach them that we have the right to live." ”

“ Take care, woman, take care. The serpent that destroyed my precious lass has not lost his fangs, and your turn to mourn as I mourn may be nearer than you think. Because you have fine clothes and luxuries, and live in a grand house, you think that the ills of the poor cannot reach you. Take care, I say, or the day may come when I can return your taunt, and tell you that if you had set a better example to your children, if you had guarded them against evil company, you might have been spared much sorrow and humiliation." With this, Thomas turned to go, but the cries of Mrs. Codling arrested him. ”

“ The enlistment of Jacob had compelled Sally to go to service like her sister. Thomas yielded to this necessity most reluctantly, and his friends, even his wife, said he was foolishly fond of the girl. He would not admit that it was over-fondness; it was solicitude, he said. An undefined feeling of dread haunted him about the last and best loved that was left. She was fairer than any girl of the village, and without being exactly giddy, she was thoughtless and merry-hearted; too easily led away; too guilelessly trustful of others. ”

“ Among the young her beauty excited envy, and they virtuously rejoiced that her pride would yet bring her sorrow. All, young and old, loved an intrigue for itself; and would not have spoiled their sport for the world. The servants at the Grange carried their tales to the village, and the village gossips drew together in the fields, on the road, by the pump, at cottage doors, to roll the sweet morsel of scandal under their tongues. ”

“ A desire to expose a scoundrel was his sole motive, and he had felt a sense of the heroic as he proceeded to seek his daughter's betrayer. Had that man abused him, or struck him, or in any way given him the opportunity of letting loose his wrath, he would have, perhaps, felt that a duty had been discharged. Instead of that, Thomas had merely fallen out with a sharp-tongued, not over-sensitive woman, and abused a poor parson who, whatever his failings, had not at the moment the least intention to act otherwise than as a peace-maker. ”

“ What is this that your Christian civilisation has done to your daughter? Has it made you ashamed even to look for her? Poor, hide-bound, "respectable" sinner that you are, you shall behold her again, though you sought her not—though her mother bade you close your heart and home against her for ever, because she had with that mother's help allowed herself to be betrayed.
One cold March night Thomas Wanless had strayed on to Waterloo Bridge in his coal-begrimed dress. Something, he could not have said what, had impelled him to go there that night. ”

“ A far-away look is in her eyes—a look that tells of longing, for what will never be hers again on earth. The evening sun-glow throws into relief the pale, pinched face with its unresigned hungry look, for in that face there is no welcome to the sober autumn warmth. The dull fire of Sally's eyes is the fire of an unquenchable pain. Where is there room in her life for joy any more? ”

“ Mother and me are too old to move now. We will stay behind and pray for you. The time will not be long, and we have hope. Be brave, my children, and be God-fearing, and, I doubt not, we shall meet in a better world than this."
In this spirit they parted, and henceforth old Thomas Wanless and his wife were left alone with only the little child that Sarah had bequeathed to them—alone, but not miserable. As the keen edge of sorrow blunted, the old people went about the daily avocations as before, serene in appearance, if often sad in spirit. ”

“ Dull Pemberton had grown fat and bloated-looking since the days of the allotment agitation, but his usually stolid, sodden-looking features, were to-night almost animated by the leer of triumph which had displaced the customary sullen vacuity. Yet he was not at his ease; and when Thomas, divining the men's purpose, drew himself up, and holding up his rushlight the better to see the faces of his visitors, flashed a look of scornful defiance at the farmer, that worthy drew back involuntarily. ”

“ Work was precarious, and thus, added to the pain of seeing their child fade away, was the bitter sense of inability to do all that was possible to prolong her life. Nearly all the labourer's savings had disappeared during Thomas's long quest. But they struggled on, complaining to none but God, nor did their trials break their trust in His help. They felt that the kindness with which all friends and neighbours treated them in their sorrow was a proof that the Divine Father of all had not forgotten them. And their daughter herself became a consolation to their grief-worn spirits. ”

“ So all pitied the poor Vicar, despised his uppish, false-hearted wife, and most hated the young squire. Riches and high station cannot shut men out from the moral results of their deeds, any more than they can ward off death. Nay, Mrs. Codling herself, high as she held her head, well as she acted the part of a sorrowing mother who had been heart-broken by the unexpected news of her dear daughter's sudden death, so prostrated as to be unable to go and see her laid in her grave—even Mrs. Codling felt in some sense that this was true. ”

“ So it came to pass that little Thomas Wanless was launched on the world at the early age of eight, at the age when the well-to-do begin to think of sending their children to school. Clad in a sort of blue smock and heavy clog boots; patched, not over-warm breeches and stockings, Thomas had to face the wintry blasts in the early morning, for it was a good mile walk to Whitbury Farm. There, all day long, he either trudged wearily by the sides of the horses at plough, often nearly frozen with cold, or did rough jobs about the cattle or pigs in the muck-littered farmyard. ”

“ Thus the wrench of parting was keenest for old Thomas in his case, because the joy had been but a flash of light in a dark existence.
"I will never see your face again," the old man said to his children the last Sunday evening they passed together. "To your mother and me this parting will be bitterer than death, because you will live, and we will never hear your voices nor see you more in this world."
"Oh, father, do not say that," sobbed Jane; "you and mother will come out to Australia to us, and we'll all live together and be so happy." ”

“ Thomas Wanless suffered no more hardships than millions that have gone before him, or that follow after to this day, bearing on their weary, patient shoulders the burden of our magnificent civilization. He and the others suspected not that this was their allotted mission in our immaculate order of society; but the concrete sufferings of his lot he could feel. For him the harsh words and cruel blows of the farmer were real enough, and, in the misery of his present sufferings, his young life lost its joy and hope. ”

“ Next to our heaven-bestowed Poor Law, the Law of Entail, which binds the land to a name or a family, has been the greatest factor for evil in the national life of England. It has preserved our "institutions;" gives continuity to our history, men assert. Perish the people then, but hold fast to this sheet anchor. "It preserves scoundrels from justice, and the fate they have earned," by reformers. What of that? These men have the right to be abominable—you and I, the workers and the sweaters, the privilege only to bear their abominations. ”

“ Gloom settled on the heart of his father, and on the little home in Ashbrook after this great blow, and, but for the spur of hard necessity, Thomas thought he should have laid down his burden altogether. Happily, duty called him to work for others, if not for himself; and work brought its usual blessing—a healing of the wounds and a revival of life in the heart. All was not yet lost, though the buffets of adversity were frequent and sore.
Indeed, in one sense Jacob's enlistment brought good to the family, for it gave Thomas work at Whitbury Farm. ”

“ The clergy had aided and abetted the gentry in all their robberies of the people; it had been the instrument of many flagrant thefts of endowments left for the education of the poor; there never had been a reform proposed calculated to benefit the people that had not been ardently opposed by this organised band of hypocrites, and no class of the community was so habitually, so flagrantly selfish as preachers. Take them all in all, Thomas Wanless declared, the people who preached for a trade, be they dissenters or Anglican, gave him a lower idea of human nature than any navvy he ever met. ”

“ Thomas Wanless and his friends were rude and unlettered, but they had definite ideas enough, and a wild sense of justice. In their dim way they tried to fit together the various parts of the human life that lay around them, and failing to do so, as better than they have failed, they came to the conclusion that they and their class were cheated by the rest. Democracy, communism, subversive ideas of all kinds, therefore, found currency among them, as in ever-growing volume they find currency now. ”

“ Then she felt for moments as if she could compel the world to stop and witness her revenge. Should a fit like this master her, what might one so desperate not do? Hers was a soul awake and in prison, but if it burst its bonds?
Let the gay and frivolous, the light talkers, the young and giddy, the tempter and the tempted, stop to look upon this ruin. Is it a small thing, do you think, for a man to have the undoing of this woman and child laid to his charge. He passes in the world unharmed, nay, admired, probably, the very women in secret whispering admiringly of his prowess. ”

“ A weary look was often seen on her face—visible to the meanest domestic—telling all who saw it that luxury could not [118] insure any poor mortal from care any more than from disease and death. But cannot one trace the hideous grinning skull beneath the skin of the fairest and loftiest in the land? Care comes to all, and sorrow, and pain, and for years before Sally went to the Grange, the mistress thereof had felt the worm gnawing at her heart. ”

“ Adelaide Codling passed on, unconscious of the presence of her fellow-villager, saw not the pleading look that crossed his face, the eager step forward he took as if to speak with her. She entered a cab with Wiseman and two others, and disappeared from sight.
The eagerness of Thomas to find his lost one was intensified after that night. Hardly a night-watchman in all the district escaped his importunities, and from most of them the old man met with a rough kindness that soothed him even in his absorbing grief. ”

“ They may be bright-hearted people, full of animal life and spirits, capable of much work and a few sacrifices, yet they have never risen up to full consciousness of the meaning of life, to its higher impulses, and its terrible risks and obligations. No great inward commotion has ever visited them; they vegetate tamely on till they reach the grave. Others, like Thomas Wanless, awake early to consciousness of the mystery and burden of existence, and battle with hopes and fears their lives long. ”

“ In the bitterness of spirit which these thoughts brought him to, Thomas might have, perhaps, done something rash, but happily necessity prevented him. He had now to work, if possible, harder than ever—early and late at the farm, on his allotment, in the little garden at his cottage, he laboured for the means of life—and did but poorly, though the work kept him up and helped him to control the fire that burned within him. ”

“ Bless iniquities in high places, and cause the hypocrisy of princes to be exalted in the eyes of the people. Protect the nobility and gentry in their harlotry, and let holiness be measured by the fineness of the garments. Grind the poor in their poverty, and cause them to pay that they owe not. And O Lord, we beseech Thee, suffer not the oppressed to have justice, lest they rise up against us and refuse to give us the tithes we have filched from the indignant. ”