Chapter X: A Terrible Blow

"NOW we've got a ticklish job, missus, and I wish Collins had gone straight home this afternoon with his money, instead of going off up the town as he seems to have done, for he is an ugly customer, I have heard, when he has had a drop too much."

"Well, I should try and find out before I spoke whether he had been drinking, and if he had—well, it would be better to walk on and take no notice of him," prudently advised Mrs. Brown.

Her husband shook his head. "The thing is, what ought I to do? Jack says it is getting a common thing with him now, and we all know the manager won't stand a man drinking at our works; and so, as I know this, if I can say a word to make him pull up short, it is my duty to do it at all costs."

Mrs. Brown almost wished her husband had stayed at home, for she knew the quiet determination of his character where he thought anything was a matter of duty. When they reached the outskirts of the market, she gave him her basket to hold while she went into a shop, and almost at the same moment Collins came reeling along the road, and seeing Brown with the large market-basket in his hand, made some jeering remark about him being a "tame cat." Mrs. Brown was in the crowded shop, and neither saw nor heard Collins, and Brown only heard part of what was said, but he laid his hand on the shoulder of the half-drunken man, and whispered—

"Look here, Collins, old man. I want—"

But Collins did not give him time to say more. With an oath he struck out at him, exclaiming, "You'll get more than you want this time;" and with a second blow in the face knocked him down in the roadway, and would have kicked him in his fury if one of the men near had not dragged him back.

A crowd quickly gathered round, and when Mrs. Brown came out of the shop, she found her husband lying insensible in the centre of this crowd, and she guessed at once that Collins had been the aggressor. She pushed her way through to his side, and one of the men ran for a doctor; but by the time he arrived Brown had so far recovered that he could sit up on a chair that had been fetched for him from a neighbouring shop, and look round in a dazed fashion.

"Take him home as quickly as you can," said the doctor.

Brown had not spoken, and Collins was not to be seen, and Mrs. Brown would not ask a question as to how it happened while the crowd were within hearing; but as they walked slowly back, Mrs. Brown said—

"How did it begin?"

"Oh, just after you left me he came up and said something about a tame cat, and I put my hand on his shoulder and began to speak, when he struck out all round, and at the second blow I went down, and don't remember any more. My head is badly bruised, though, I can feel," he added.

Before he reached home, the poor fellow seemed so ill that his wife became alarmed; and as soon as he was safe indoors, she went for the doctor, telling him what had happened, but not mentioning his assailant's name, merely mentioning him as one of his mates.

The doctor ordered his patient to bed at once, and said he would probably be obliged to stay there for a day or two at least.

"Oh, I hope not," said Brown anxiously. "I hope you will pull me round so that I can go to work on Monday morning as usual," he continued feebly, for he felt very ill.

"Now, you must just keep him as quiet as possible, and don't let him worry himself about Monday morning," said the doctor, when he was leaving. "If you keep his head wet with the lotion I will send, and he takes the medicine, he may get all right quickly; but mind! he must keep in bed to-morrow, and must not talk to anybody. Quiet and rest is the only thing that will save him from a long turn in bed," added the doctor.

Jack came home while the doctor was there, and went back with him to get the lotion and medicine.

"You must do your share, my lad, towards keeping the house quiet all day to-morrow," said the doctor, as he handed Jack the bottles.

"I wonder who could have done it? Did my father tell you, sir?"

"No, he didn't; and you must not ask him just now. Don't ask any questions; wait till he is well enough to tell you all about it."

The doctor's manner impressed Jack, and he feared that his father must be very ill. What a misfortune that would be for them just now, for the outside work on which he was engaged could not wait, and so another man would have to be found who could do it.

The lad went home in a very subdued frame of mind, willing to do anything that would help his mother that she might devote all her time and care to nursing his father.

He said something of this when his mother came down for the medicine, and to ask whether the doctor had sent any further message.

"Only this, that you must look after him well and keep him quiet," said Jack; and then he added, "Is there anything I can do to help?"

His mother looked at him for a minute, and then said—

"I had hardly began my marketing when this happened, and I want two lots of meat to-night, for I promised I would bring Jessie's from the market."

Now, if there was anything Jack disliked it was being sent on what he called "tame cat business" in other words, the Saturday marketing for the home. But one look at his mother's anxious face decided him, and he said quickly—

"All right, I'll go. Tell me what to get and where to go, and I'll be back in a jiffy."

The marketing question thus being settled, Mrs. Brown could devote all her thought and attention to her husband, and was careful to follow the doctor's direction to the very letter, and kept his head constantly bathed as he lay in bed.

Jack was as good as his word, and brought back the various articles he was sent for with an account of the money he had spent, and delivered all to his sister Minnie as if she had been his mother. Then when his mother came downstairs to have her supper, he took the meat he had bought for Jessie, with a message that his mother would not be able to go there again that night.

This message, however, was not delivered, for just as Jack reached the door it was flung open, and Collins staggered out, and the next minute Jessie appeared at the other end of the passage.

"Oh, Jack, why didn't you stop my father?" she said, in a reproachful tone. "He only came in about ten minutes ago, and you can see he has been drinking. Polly is out, too, and I am afraid mother is worse to-night."

A sudden twinge of pain in her injured foot was more than Jessie could bear, and with a groan she burst into tears.

"There, don't cry," said Jack, wishing his mother or Minnie had come. "Don't cry, Jess," he repeated. "See, I have brought you some meat, and I'll go and look for Polly if you like. I dare say your father will soon be back. The chaps at the factory know your mother is ill, and they will look after him and see that he comes home all right presently," added Jack, by way of comforting Jessie. He could not deliver his mother's message just now, he thought.

"Polly won't be home yet awhile. We've always been used to a Saturday night run, and she thought father would be at home, and she won't come back for another hour, I know," said Jessie, speaking through her tears. Just then a deep moan was heard from the bedroom above, and Jessie started forward and tried to crawl to the stairs.

"Oh dear, it's mother, and I know she is worse. Help me upstairs, Jack. I must go to her."

Jessie's foot and ankle were so tightly bandaged that it was very difficult for her to get upstairs, but with Jack's help she managed to reach her mother's room. "I couldn't come before, mother," she panted.

"Your father, Jess; I want him," said the invalid, in an eager whisper.

"He'll be in soon," said Jessie, feeling vaguely alarmed at the change in her mother.

"You must take care of your father when I am gone," went on Mrs. Collins. "I have never been the wife to him I ought, but he was always good to me, and you, too, and never till lately did he touch the drink. He got tired of waiting for things to be better, I suppose. Just as they were coming too," she added, with a sigh, "for I know you have been trying to straighten things out and keep the house clean, which I never could do. Don't, don't give up trying, Jess. I never could begin, but you have, and so you can keep on after I am gone."

"Oh, mother, mother, don't talk like that! Try and get better, and help us all to make home comfortable."

But the invalid closed her eyes, and murmured faintly—

"Too late, too late. My life is gone—wasted, wasted," she murmured, more and more feebly.

Jack was awestruck, and crept away as gently as he could to fetch some help for Jessie. As he went out he met Polly coming in with her arms full of parcels of various sorts and sizes.

"Jessie is upstairs," he whispered. "I think your mother is worse, and I am going to fetch somebody."

"Oh, fetch your mother, Jack! She knows just what we want, and we don't mind her seeing things, because she won't go and talk about it to other people. Oh, do fetch her!" added Polly, imploringly.

"I'll go and see if she can come," answered Jack. "But you had better go and tell the doctor that your mother is worse, and ask him to come at once;" And then he ran off towards home, and reached the gate in time to see his mother open the door.

"Where have you been, my boy?" she asked as he came up the steps.

"Over at Jessie's. Can you go now, mother? I think Mrs. Collins is dying. She spoke so solemn a little while ago."

"Dying!" repeated his mother, in a startled tone, "I never thought it would be so soon as this."

"I wish you could have heard what she said about wasting her life," said Jack. "Couldn't you go to Jessie, and let me sit beside father's bed and bathe his head? That's all there is to do, isn't it?"

"Yes, that is all; and he seems so much better now I think I might leave you to keep the rags on his head moistened. He is in a good sleep, and I don't want him disturbed, so you must be very quiet when you change the rags on his head, for the sleep will do him quite as much good as the lotion. You'll try to keep awake?" she added.

"Yes, mother, I'll do anything, so that you can go to poor Jessie," said Jack.

The two went up to the dimly lighted bedroom, and Jack watched his mother change the wet rags on his father's head, and felt sure he could do the same if he could only keep awake. This would be the most difficult part of his task, but he was determined that his father should not suffer through his neglect; and so he sat down with a resolute determination that however sleepy he might feel, he would resist the inclination to go to sleep.

He heard his mother close the street door as she went out, and listened to her quick footsteps as she went up the street, and then the silence seemed to descend and wrap the whole house in its folds, so that Jack could hear every breath his father drew, and noticed the regularity with which every breath came and went. Then he began thinking of all that had happened that night, and what he had heard from the dying woman about her life being wasted.

He knew it was true, for had not she and Jessie been the byword of the neighbourhood? Every decent mother had warned her girls to keep away from Jessie Collins; and now it seemed that it was the fault of the way in which Jessie had been brought up rather than her own, for his mother said Jessie had very good points in her character, and had made the most of what she had learned at school.

Thinking of this kept him from going to sleep, and his thoughts travelled from Jessie to his sister Fanny, and he could not help wondering what sort of girl she would have been if she had had the same chances as Jessie, and no more.

"The way people are taught and brought up has a great deal to do with what they are afterwards, but it isn't everything," was the conclusion Jack arrived at after a good deal of pondering; and then he noticed that his father was not sleeping so peacefully, and he remembered that he had not yet put fresh cool rags on his head, and at once squeezed those that were in the basin of lotion, and took off the hot almost dry ones, to be replaced by those that were cool and moist.

In a few minutes he noticed that this change had restored his father's peaceful breathing, and he felt repaid for all the trouble it had cost him to keep awake. He did not wait so long before changing the damp rags the next time; and soon after daylight he heard his mother put the key in the street door, and then he crept down to meet her.

"How is father now?" she asked anxiously, as he went down the stairs.

"All right. Just as you left him. He has not woke once."

"Then you have not been to sleep, my boy, but have kept his head bathed as I should have done."

"How is Mrs. Collins now?" asked Jack.

Mrs. Brown shook her head. "It is all over, Jack. A wasted life has come to an end; and bitterly as she repented of it at the last, there was no time left to undo even a little bit of the mischief it has caused to others as well as herself. Now you go to bed, Jack, and I will go to father. Mrs. Tate is with Polly and Jess now, and no one can do any more for them just at present."