There was abundant place for gentler fancies too, in her untutored mind. Those gentlefolks and their children inside those fine houses, could they think, as they looked out at her, what it was to be really hungry, really cold? Did they feel any of the wonder about her, that she felt about them? Bless the dear laughing children! If they could have seen sick Johnny in her arms, would they have cried for pity? If they could have seen dead Johnny on that little bed, would they have understood it? Bless the dear children for his sake, anyhow! So with the humbler houses in the little street, the inner firelight shining on the panes as the outer twilight darkened. When the families gathered in-doors there, for the night, it was only a foolish fancy to feel as if it were a little hard in them to close the shutter and blacken the flame. So with the lighted shops, and speculations whether their masters and mistresses taking tea in a perspective of back-parlour--not so far within but that the flavour of tea and toast came out, mingled with the glow of light, into the street--ate or drank or wore what they sold, with the greater relish because they dealt in it. So with the churchyard on a branch of the solitary way to the night's sleeping-place. 'Ah me! The dead and I seem to have it pretty much to ourselves in the dark and in this weather! But so much the better for all who are warmly housed at home.' The poor soul envied no one in bitterness, and grudged no one anything.
But, the old abhorrence grew stronger on her as she grew weaker, and it found more sustaining food than she did in her wanderings.
Now, she would light upon the shameful spectacle of some desolate creature--or some wretched ragged groups of either sex, or of both sexes, with children among them, huddled together like the smaller vermin for a little warmth--lingering and lingering on a doorstep, while the appointed evader of the public trust did his dirty office of trying to weary them out and so get rid of them.
Now, she would light upon some poor decent person, like herself, going afoot on a pilgrimage of many weary miles to see some worn-out relative or friend who had been charitably clutched off to a great blank barren Union House, as far from old home as the County Jail (the remoteness of which is always its worst punishment for small rural offenders), and in its dietary, and in its lodging, and in its tending of the sick, a much more penal establishment. Sometimes she would hear a newspaper read out, and would learn how the Registrar General cast up the units that had within the last week died of want and of exposure to the weather: for which that Recording Angel seemed to have a regular fixed place in his sum, as if they were its halfpence. All such things she would hear discussed, as we, my lords and gentlemen and honourable boards, in our unapproachable magnificence never hear them, and from all such things she would fly with the wings of raging Despair.
This is not to be received as a figure of speech. Old Betty Higden however tired, however footsore, would start up and be driven away by her awakened horror of falling into the hands of Charity.
It is a remarkable Christian improvement, to have made a pursuing Fury of the Good Samaritan; but it was so in this case, and it is a type of many, many, many.
Two incidents united to intensify the old unreasoning abhorrence--granted in a previous place to be unreasoning, because the people always are unreasoning, and invaRiahly make a point of producing all their smoke without fire.
One day she was sitting in a market-place on a bench outside an inn, with her little wares for sale, when the deadness that she strove against came over her so heavily that the scene departed from before her eyes; when it returned, she found herself on the ground, her head supported by some good-natured market-women, and a little crowd about her.
'Are you better now, mother?' asked one of the women. 'Do you think you can do nicely now?'
'Have I been ill then?' asked old Betty.
'You have had a faint like,' was the answer, 'or a fit. It ain't that you've been a-struggling, mother, but you've been stiff and numbed.'
'Ah!' said Betty, recovering her memory. 'It's the numbness. Yes.
It comes over me at times.'
Was it gone? the women asked her.
'It's gone now,' said Betty. 'I shall be stronger than I was afore.
Many thanks to ye, my dears, and when you come to be as old as Iam, may others do as much for you!'
They assisted her to rise, but she could not stand yet, and they supported her when she sat down again upon the bench.
'My head's a bit light, and my feet are a bit heavy,' said old Betty, leaning her face drowsily on the breast of the woman who had spoken before. 'They'll both come nat'ral in a minute. There's nothing more the matter.'
'Ask her,' said some farmers standing by, who had come out from their market-dinner, 'who belongs to her.'
'Are there any folks belonging to you, mother?' said the woman.
'Yes sure,' answered Betty. 'I heerd the gentleman say it, but Icouldn't answer quick enough. There's plenty belonging to me.
Don't ye fear for me, my dear.'
'But are any of 'em near here? 'said the men's voices; the women's voices chiming in when it was said, and prolonging the strain.
'Quite near enough,' said Betty, rousing herself. 'Don't ye be afeard for me, neighbours.'
'But you are not fit to travel. Where are you going?' was the next compassionate chorus she heard.
'I'm a going to London when I've sold out all,' said Betty, rising with difficulty. 'I've right good friends in London. I want for nothing. I shall come to no harm. Thankye. Don't ye be afeard for me.'
A well-meaning bystander, yellow-legginged and purple-faced, said hoarsely over his red comforter, as she rose to her feet, that she 'oughtn't to be let to go'.
'For the Lord's love don't meddle with me!' cried old Betty, all her fears crowding on her. 'I am quite well now, and I must go this minute.'
