Eglanton Thorne

“ He had known that ancient piece of furniture as long as he had known anything. His mother, as her health grew feeble, had sat in it constantly, and now, as Michael glanced at it in the uncertain light, it suddenly appeared to him that he saw her form seated again in the old armchair. Most vividly, he seemed to see her sitting there with her white muslin cap resting on the dark hair which had been untouched by silver when she died, her little grey shawl upon her shoulders, and her hands busied with the socks she was perpetually knitting for her sons. ”

“ He never asked himself what good the money was to do, or for whom he was saving it. He forgot that he was growing old, and that a time must soon come when he would have to leave all that he possessed. He loved to think that he was growing rich; never suspecting how miserably poor he was in all that makes the true wealth of human life.
It was rarely now that Michael gave a thought to his unhappy brother; but on the evening of the day which had surprised him by bringing such a quaint little customer to his shop, he found his mind strangely disposed to revert to his own early days. ”

“ It was hard work getting downstairs. He felt faint and sick with pain, when at length he reached the lower regions. It was impossible to stoop to kindle a fire. He sank into the old armchair and sat there bolt upright, afraid to move an inch, for fear of exciting fresh pain, till he heard Mrs. Wiggins' knock. Then he compelled himself to rise, and painfully dragged himself forth to the shop door, where he presented to the eyes of the charwoman such a spectacle of pain and helplessness as moved her to the utmost compassion of which she was capable. ”

“ It may be that they have a passion for collecting the old and rare, and love to turn over the well-thumbed, dusty volumes, in the hope of lighting upon a treasure in the form of a first edition, or a work long out of print. Or they may be drawn merely by a desire to acquire cheaply the coveted book which their poverty will not permit them to purchase fresh from the publisher. Whatever the nature of the attraction, the shop of Michael Betts, which stood a few years ago at the corner of a narrow, quiet street in Bloomsbury, had for such individuals, an irresistible fascination. ”

“ Michael could only listen in wonder. He had never had such a friend; he had never felt such warm, passionate love as the girl's words expressed.
"Have you no one belonging to you?" he asked. "No mother or father?"
"Ay, I've a father," she said; "but he's a poor creature, my father, always weak and ailing. It's me has to take care of him, and not he, of me. I've took care of him ever since my mother died, eight years ago. It seems sometimes almost as if I were the parent, and he the child. Men are helpless creatures, you know. But here we are in the square. Now, which is the doctor's house?" ”

“ He was confined to his bed for weeks, and the little book-shop remained closed the while, for Michael was far too ill to give any directions as to what should be done about the business. After the fever left him, he was as weak as a baby: too weak to care about anything, so weak that every effort was painful, and he felt as if he had not the heart to struggle back to life again. Yet he shrank from the thought of death, and one of the first questions he asked his nurse, when he was able to think and speak connectedly, was if she thought he would recover. ”

“ Margery stood looking at him, her blue eyes opened to their widest extent, expressing the utmost wonder.
"Oh, Mr. Betts! Never in all your life! And you have lived so many years! What a very, very good man you must be! Why, I am always doing naughty things, though I do try to be good. And I thought everybody did wrong things sometimes. But never in all your life—"
"Well, here's the book, little missy, if you like to take it," said Michael, finding her remarks embarrassing, and wishing to put an end to them. "The price is one shilling and fourpence." ”

“ When his nurse brought him the Bible, Michael opened it and sat for some time studying its pages. It was years since he had read the Bible, and though he professed to "know all about it," the old, almost forgotten words impressed him now with strange freshness and vividness. But though he read passage after passage, what he read gave him little comfort. The Book seemed to speak only to condemn him. "He that loveth not his brother whom he has seen: how can he love God whom he hath not seen?" Here were words that set him thinking.
Michael knew that he did not love his poor outcast brother. ”

“ Meanwhile each day Margery was reported to be a little better. Her throat grew clearer, her voice more distinct, and signs of returning strength gladdened the heart of her anxious mother, till at length the little one's recovery no longer seemed doubtful.
How thankful Michael was, no words can tell. He felt that if the little one had died, he could never have forgiven himself for what he had done. As it was, the burden of his past weighed heavily on his mind. He fell into the habit of walking round to Mrs. Lavers' house every evening when his shop was closed. ”

“ Here is a book, I see, by Professor Lavers. It is very sad about him, is it not?"
"What about him, sir?" asked Michael, in surprise.
"What? You have not heard? How strange! And he, a neighbour of yours!"
"He lives in Gower Street, certainly, if that makes him a neighbour of mine," said Betts grimly; "but what is the matter with him, sir?"
"He is very ill indeed; the doctors think he cannot recover. It is a sad pity. A scientific man of such ability can ill be spared."
Michael made no reply. He stood dismayed. A curious sensation of pain smote him. He was not thinking of the loss to science. ”

“ Then the sick man leaned forward and laid his wasted hand on his brother's.
"Oh, I am so sorry for you, Michael," he whispered. "I know what you must have suffered with that burden on your heart. We are fellow-sinners."
"But I am the worse," said Michael. "'The first shall be last,' the Bible says. In the pride of my heart I thought myself far above you; but you would never have done a thing like that. No, you have been a better man than I all along. It's bad to be profligate; but I do believe it is worse to have a hard, unloving, pharisaical heart." ”

“ He had not thought so before; but to-day, as he looked round on the dingy old shop, so closely packed with books, and later, as he sat eating alone with little appetite the ill-cooked, unsavoury meal which his charwoman had prepared for him, he had a vague sense that his life was empty, and dull, and unlovely, and that he wanted something more for happiness than his trade could give him, even though he was making a good thing of it.
Almost the first thing Michael Betts saw when he unfolded his newspaper the next morning was the announcement of the death of Professor Lavers. ”

“ Customers were surprised to find now in the shop a bright, quick, dark-eyed damsel, who passed lightly to and fro, fetching and carrying books as her uncle directed her. She learned his ways more quickly than any youth would have done, and was careful to observe them. She found her new work infinitely preferable to making matches, and had a sense of responsibility in connection with it, which heightened her self-respect, and made life seem well worth living.
As for Michael, he was only now conscious of living a life that is life indeed. ”

“ She would have read a chapter of the Bible to you, perhaps, and that would have done you good."
"I can read one to myself," said Michael.
"You're hardly strong enough for that yet. Have you a Bible?"
"Of course I've got a Bible," replied Michael indignantly. "What do you take me for? There is one somewhere that belonged to my mother, and there are plenty of them in the shop. Pretty old some of them are, too. The older they are, the more precious they are, you know."
"The Bible is precious anyhow," said the nurse. "It is a grand comfort, especially when one is weak and low. ”

“ A lump rose in Michael's throat as he watched the girl's look, and heard her words. No one had ever loved him like that.
"Frank," he said slowly, "folks reckon me a well-to-do man; but you're richer than I am. I've no one to love me, or to care whether I live or die."
His brother turned his eyes on him and understood.
"She'll love you, Michael; she'll love you too, if you're good to her. She is a good girl, is Kate, though she has had a rough bringing up. ”

“ Her sweet, rosy face, shaded by drooping curls, rose again and again before his mental vision, and her childish voice repeated itself in his ears as he sat patching and mending some of the shabbier of his books.
And somehow those sweet accents carried his memory back to the days of his own childhood. He remembered a little sister who had died; he recalled the bitterness of the tears he had shed as he looked on her still, marble face, lying in the little coffin; he saw his mother weeping as though her heart would break ”

“ Every hour that Michael could spare, he spent by his brother's bedside. He even engaged a young man to help him with his business, that he might have more time at his disposal. But the new interest he had found did not make him forgetful of little Margery. Every day he sent to the house to enquire how she was doing. He knew that Kate, when she saw him, would be sure to question him eagerly as to the report he had received. She was not so absorbed by anxiety for her father as to be forgetful of the dear little maiden who was ill, or of her mother, the kind friend to whom she owed so much. ”

“ Michael took the weeping girl to his own home, and did his best to comfort her. Mrs. Wiggins predicted that Kate would not long live with her uncle. It seemed to her impossible that so ill-assorted a pair could get on together, or a girl accustomed to a free, independent life, put up with an old man's fidgets. But the result proved her prediction false. Kate was of a warm, affectionate nature, and pity constrained her to be patient with the poor, lonely old man, whilst he was disposed to cling at any cost to the only being who belonged to him. ”

“ It was some time since this gentleman had been there, and Michael was pleased to see him again.
"Just in time, sir," he said; "in another ten minutes my shutters would have been up."
"Ah, well, I am very glad to find you here," replied the gentleman; "though I do not come as a purchaser. But what is the matter with you, Betts? You are not looking at all well."
"I have not been well, sir; but I'm better now. I've had a sharp attack of rheumatic fever, and it has left me as you see. I shall never be again the man I was." ”

“ It's bad enough to be lonesome when you're well, but it's sad indeed when you're ill to have no one to do a thing for you."
"Do be quiet," he cried; but Mrs. Wiggins, excited by the sight of his suffering, was not disposed to hold her tongue till she had fully relieved her mind. She began to suggest one patent remedy after another, and showed a remarkable acquaintance with all the quack medicines of the day. But Michael refused to try any of them. He had hardly ever been ill in his life, and he did not in the least know what to do with himself, or how to bear his pain. ”

“ Wiggins to understand how her words had for Michael the force of an accusation. She did not know of the secret consciousness which they awakened.
"So, then, it was a poor woman whom he had defrauded," said the voice of Michael's conscience.
"Defrauded! What an absurd idea!" the voice of his other self responded. "There was no fraud in the matter; the money had never been Mrs. Lavers'. A man had a right to keep what he found, unless he knew it to belong to some one else."
But reason as he might with himself, the information imparted by Mrs. Wiggins had disturbed Michael's mind. ”

“ Michael said. "Drink and gambling and bad company bring a man to this."
"I've given up the drink, and gambling too, thank God!" said his brother. "I've been a teetotaler for more than a year, Michael."
"I'm glad to hear it," replied Michael, his tone implying that he doubted the statement. "But if that is so, how do you come to be in such low water? How do you live?"
"I can scarcely tell you how I live," returned the other. "I shouldn't live at all, if it were not for my little girl."
"Your little girl!" exclaimed Michael. "You don't mean to say that you've been so foolish as to marry?" ”

“ But oh! It made such a difference to me having to find those fifty pounds in my poverty and widowhood. But for that, I might have afforded to settle in a nicer neighbourhood, and then, perhaps, my child would never have taken this terrible disease."
Michael gave a groan. "If she dies, I shall have caused her death!" he said.
"God forbid!" cried the mother, turning paler, and shivering.
"Oh, ma'am, won't you have another doctor?" said Michael.
"Yes, I will—I can, now I have this money," she said eagerly. "There is a physician who is said to have great skill in treating diphtheria. ”

“ He was not a scholarly man, having received, indeed, but the most ordinary education; but in his leisure hours, he had managed to acquaint himself with most of the classics of our mother tongue. For the rest, by virtue of close observation, and, where possible, a little judicious skimming or dipping, he contrived to discover the nature of most books that came into his hands, and to pretty accurately determine their worth.
Michael Betts struck most persons as being an elderly man, though he was not so old as he appeared. ”

“ One evening Michael Betts, goaded by these irritating suggestions, started to walk up Gower Street, with the half-formed intention of calling at Mrs. Lavers' house and asking to see her, that he might tell her what he had found in the old encyclopædia. The struggle within him was still so strong, the love of gain contending so fiercely with the love of integrity, that it is probable he would in any case have turned back when he reached Mrs. Lavers' house. ”