George Manville Fenn

“ Saddening, most saddening is that aspect of a hospital ward, and the most moving sight is that anxious face of the trembling, suffering patient, before in his extreme horror Nature is merciful to him and draws the veil of insensibility before his starting eyes. “What is it to be?” seems written upon every line of his haggard countenance. Life, to complete some darling scheme—life, to which we all so tenaciously cling; or the cold silent grave? Who will tell him, nurse or doctor? And even then does he not look them through and through doubtingly? ”

“ And now I was at Burt’s Buildings, for what had I come, but to see misery; and I saw her, gaunt, and foul, and wan, looking at me from every landing as I slowly ascended step by step the creaking old stairs, which threatened to give way once and for all beneath my weight, as they hung to the wall, while the balustrade seemed to have disappeared a bit at a time for firewood. I saw misery looking out at me from the dark eyes of a woman, who coughed painfully at intervals, as she told me of how she found bread for herself and three children. ”

“ It is a tale of early sorrow, but you shall hear, and you will bear with me when I tell you that the wound has never healed, and if I put my hand above it, the place still throbs, even as it will beat and ache till kindly nature says to me, “Sleep, poor weary one, and rest.” And then peacefully, trustingly, and with a simple hope of forgiveness, may I sleep that long sleep which they say so flippantly has no end; but which has a waking, as every lesson which we learn in life persists in teaching. ”

“ I pity you folks in London. There’s religion in gardens, and I think if you put beautiful flowers within reach of people, you do them more good than by showing them grand buildings and sights. There’s a something in flowers that makes its way to the heart—not only in the grandest blossoms, but in the simplest; and I ain’t going to set up for a prophetic person, but I mean to say that as long as this world lasts there will always be a tender love in every human heart for the little, gentle, sweet-scented violets. ”

“ It is questionable whether you would find in any part of England so respectable and religious a body of men as those of Cornwall. Whether fishers or miners it is the same, they are quiet, temperate, and God fearing, and certainly more intelligent than the men of many counties. I have often sat in the Ross’s garden of an evening listening to the singing of the fishermen upon the cliff, not the roaring of some sailors’ chorus, but the sweetly blended parts of some old hymn, or glee—for part singing lingers still amongst these Western folks. ”

“ Up Gower Street there’s a crowd, which in London is but another word for a magnet which draws to itself the sharp needles of the streets; ay, the blunt and broken ones, too—everything steely clings to it, while the softer material falls away.
Only a woman crying! Not much that. We may see that every day in our streets, and in most cases turn shuddering away, thinking of the dear ones at home—wife and daughters—sisters or betrothed, and saying to ourselves, “Can this be a woman!” But here we can stand with pitying feelings welling up from our hearts. Only a woman crying! ”

“ For that attraction that draws youth to youth in the bright spring-time of their lives, what is it but a heaven-implanted instinct that leads the stronger to take the weaker under his protection, and joins two hearts in a compact of love for life, giving to each a true counsellor, a tender companion, and a shield of strength to bear the troubles of this world? ”

“ Poor Madame, as we always called her, the French title as she laughingly used to tell me, bringing her ten times as many customers as would have fallen to her lot had she called herself Mrs Grainger, she tended me through my long illness as if she had been my mother, and I believe she loved me dearly. At times I had hinted at being sent away; at the expense and trouble I must be, but she used to lay her hand upon my lips and kiss my forehead.
“Don’t be silly, my child,” she said. “You know I make money fast, and how could I spend what little you cost better than in taking care of you. ”

“ Another month, and the three years would be up; and as I sat over some work one spring morning by the open window, with a bunch of violets that one of the girls had brought me in a glass, the soft breeze that came floating over the chimney-pots and sooty roofs, wafted to me the scent of the humble little blossoms, and my eyes became full of tears, for in an instant the busy work-room had passed away, and I was down home by the river-side, listening to dear Jack, as he asked me to be his wife. ”

“ To a casual observer there does not seem much the matter, for he smiles as he speaks cheerily to his companion; but somehow his lip seems to be quivering, and he stops at the last step to give one look round, and not at the dull brick and mortary street, but upwards at the bright sky flecked with fleecy clouds, and there is an agony of longing in that look, which tells of the panting of the soul for health, and of a shadow hovering above him which seems to hide the future from his hopeful gaze. ”

“ I had left London with a feeling that one great interest of my life would be for the time in abeyance, but I soon found upon mixing with the simple-hearted fishing and mining folks, that though the locality was changed, the pleasures and pains of people were just the same, and that care and suffering came to Cornwall hand-in-hand as often as elsewhere.
One of my great friends here was Old Pengelly, the Ross’s gardener, and often in a dreamy pleasant day have I sat in the old rugged garden, made in a niche of the great granite rocks with a view of the restless changing sea. ”

“ Complaining for so long of his poverty, he had been unaware that it had pleased heaven to make him rich—a wealth that in his blindness he could not see, until he had thrown himself sobbing upon his knees by his wife’s bedside to pray forgiveness for his murmurings, and that heaven would be merciful and not take away the spirit then flickering, hovering, as it were, between this world and that which is to come. ”

“ I saw him give a peculiar look at the conductor, and I smiled to myself as I nestled beneath the great tarpaulin apron, and watched the care with which he guided his two stout well-fed horses through the maze of conveyances, the crape bow like a strange black butterfly seeming to flit to and fro before my eyes.
Nothing to him is the task, as through narrow channels he steers his way, pouncing upon a passenger here, another there; rarely using his whip, never in collision, but stopping short now in obedience to a “ting” from the conductor’s bell ”

“ Dead, ma’am, dead, both of them: gone to where there’s rest and peace, and no more sorrow; ‘where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary—’ You know the rest. Know them! Of course. John Morris was in my troop—B troop, 20th Dragoon Guards; smart, fresh-coloured, honest Lincolnshire lad—a good lad; without any of the general rough ways of a soldier: for there’s good sort of fellows among us, as well as the sweepings of towns and villages; and I loved that lad as if he’d been my own son. Why? Because he was a thorough soldier, every inch of him. ”

“ Burnings and scaldings, domestic and from manufactories; falls, including sprains, bruises, dislocations, and simple and compound fractures; cuts, so fearful that one turns away shuddering, and wondering that life has not escaped through the awful gash; limbs crushed, torn or shattered by machinery; wounds from blows, enough to fill any hospital with horrors, without stopping to consider that cruel, insidious enemy disease, mining and burrowing its way through the human system, and battling step by step with the science brought to bear upon it. ”

“ I’m blest if he does,” he cried warmly; “for of all the pretty little flossy-haired tyrants that ever made a poor old fellow do as they like, they’re about the worst. I say, do come down, Miss Stoneleigh. I want you to hear little Cobweb sing ‘Buttercups and Daisies.’ It’s fine, ma’am—it’s fine!”
“I’ll come down, Mr Burrows,” I said, with a dreamy feeling of restfulness coming over me as I pictured myself again in the pretty rustic home amidst the sweet scenes and heaven-born sights of the country. How true, indeed, are those words, that man made the town, but God made the country! ”

“ But who can wonder that he should flinch and shrink back when the dread moment arrives? How many who enter the hospital feel that for them there is written above the portal, “Who enter here leave hope behind?” The great gloomy building has by them been considered as a forlorn hope to try when every other means has failed; and with shattered nerves, and mind and body worn by disease, they may well shudder and turn from the building, when the robust in health could hardly enter such an abode of pain and sorrow without a clutching at the heart. ”

“ Going about the streets of London on errands of mercy, naturally makes one observant of everything that seems in any way connected with trouble or sorrow. If I see a family moving, with all the discomforts of leaving one home for another, I immediately begin to wonder whether it is a voluntary affair or whether it is the result of misfortune. ”

“ Rocking herself to and fro, and moaning bitterly, till a friendly arm is offered, and she is led away, the crowd parting to let her pass, with many a rough, sympathising word uttered; and then with her burden of sorrow she slowly totters along the gloomy street, followed by a straggling crew of children, ragged boys, girls top-heavy with babies tied up in shawls, and wonderful above all other things for their vitality. ”

“ With returning health came greater intimacy, and by degrees I learned that Madame Grainger’s troubles had been greater, perhaps, than mine, for after a brief spell of married happiness her husband, a clergyman, had succumbed to poverty and overwork, leaving her almost penniless, to drift at last into the life she had led and become a busy thriving woman.
“Yes,” she said to me more than once, “I have often regretted the society in which I used to move, but it is better to depend upon oneself, Grace, than to be a burden upon one’s friends. ”

“ I suppose as God made them, He’s given them that power, and I’ve had your hard City men, who make money all the day long, stop in front of my basket with the lines softening out of their faces, and a brightness coming into their eyes that seems to stop for long enough; and if they buy, say, a bunch of violets or a few wallflowers, they’ll stop about them, not picking and choosing and beating you down, but pretending to, so that they may hang about the basket, and smell them, and look at their simple beauty. ”

“ We forget the quiet, gentlemanly men of iron nerve and determination—the heroes who might wear the palms borne by our warriors—the men who engage face to face with disease, and pluck full many a victim from the grim dragon’s jaws. We think not of these calm unassuming men walking quietly into houses plague-stricken, and shunned by all but the mercenary nurse; we forget that such a thing is unknown as a doctor shrinking from facing the worst fever, and leaving the sufferer unaided. ”

“ Again, a funeral always takes my attention and I find myself wondering whether the mourners could be helped or comforted by me, and I note whether the dead is young or old by the funeral trappings, and too often see that it is some tender child, though the grief is as great or greater when it is some dear wife or mother, or may be the father—the stay of some family. ”

“ A west country fisherman’s life is one which takes him a deal from home, for sometimes we go off for perhaps three months at a time to the north coast, or to Ireland when the herring season is on; and, like the rest, I used to be off in my boat, sorry enough to leave home—happy enough to return after a busy season, till one year, when I took it into my head to think it strange that Harry Penellyn, Mary’s old beau, should spin his illness out so long and stop ashore, time after time, when the boats went out, and him seeming to be well and strong as any of us. ”

“ I have never been one to hurry into a church to see a wedding, for I was never present at one in my life; but I have felt a kind of joy that I cannot express when I have seen some fine manly young fellow grow softened in his manner, and gradually become chivalrous and attentive to some sweet maiden, for it has revived old memories of the past, and set me dreaming of what might have been had it not been otherwise willed. ”

“ But it’s hard work at times to know what to do, for flowers fade and die, and after one has come down to the lavender, and cried that round the streets, it’s getting a hard matter to know what to sell. I’ve come home here o’ nights before now, and gone down on my knees by that bit of a bed and cried to be taught what to do next to get a bit of bread for the little ones, whom I’ve found huddled together fast asleep—after crying, perhaps, for long enough because mother did not come home. ”