Theodore Winthrop

“ There came one day a weakly man, who hadn’t been used to work hard, into the shaft, and they put him at drawing out the coals I dug. Hugh was the name he gave, and he hadn’t been long enough under-ground to get his face black, before we’d baptized him Gentleman Hugh. I had never seen a gentleman to know him, but I had a feeling of what one ought to be, and so had my mates in the pit. Gentleman Hugh seemed to us to suit the nick-name we gave him. We’re roughs down in the coal-pits, and some of us are brutes enough ”

“ But he has come to himself, and sees things clearer at last. He lies there contented and patient, waiting for his end. He sees his daughter, who has gone with him though thick and thin, by his side, and knows she will love him closer every day. ”

“ Ellen chose the upper room, where they could look over the house-tops and of clear days see the Surrey Hills. I’ve got some skill in my fingers for mending broken men, but Hugh Clitheroe can’t be mended. It’s as well for him that he can’t. He’s been off track too long ever to run steady in this world. ”

“ I owed the class my luck, and when I got on and had money to spend, having no one of my own to spend it for, I looked up people as badly off as Gentleman Hugh was when I first knew him, and helped them. They are a hard class to help — proud as Lucifer sometimes, with their own kind. ”

“ The poor gentle-folks that I take care of generally know something of ornamental work that they learnt to do, for play, when they were better off. I set them at doing what they can do best, and sell it for them. ”

“ I couldn’t stay a dolt, though I had to drudge for many a day after I first saw little Ellen, and she gave me the daisy and named God to me. Whenever I could get away, and that was only once a quarter or a half-year, I went up to see her. She made a friend of me, and told me to take care of her father. He was very much down, quite broken and helpless, with just enough strength to do half his appointed work. ”

“ There is always some one among my family can draw. What of their drawings I can’t dispose of at the print-shops I buy myself, and scatter ’em round among mechanics to light up their benches. You were right when you said a man cannot be a good artisan unless he has a bit of the artist in him. ”