Chapter XXII: Friends in Need

"HE goes over the ground at a good rate," said Sarah Evans, as she glanced for a moment at the retreating figure of her uncle. "He's sixty-eight, but his step is firm and his hand as steady as a young man's."

"Steadier than many a young man's," replied Margaret. "Some of them get the trembles in their wrists many a year before age has aught to do with them, more's the pity. My poor Adam's hand was all right before this trouble, but I reckon he'll never be the same man again. No more striking for him. An arm that's been broke in two places will not be fit to lift the big hammer for many a month to come, if ever. I should think it will never be strong again."

"Don't you go looking at the dark side, Mrs. Livesey. There's real trouble enough without going off in a hurry to see if we can't find a worse. An hour ago it would have seemed good news just to know that your husband was living, without anything else."

"Aye, that's true. When I thought Adam was killed, there wasn't a bright spot anywhere. If it hadn't been for the children, I could have just lain down and died myself. And worst of all, I hadn't been very good-tempered in the morning, and I let him go without answering, when he spoke to me as kind as could be. He never said a cross word, as many a man would have done; and though I never looked the side he was, I know as well as can be that he kept turning round to see if I gave him as much as a nod from the doorway, before he got out of sight."

"I daresay something had put you out, or maybe you didn't feel quite yourself this morning," said Sarah, willing to find an excuse for the troubled heart.

"If I were put out, I had no right to be," replied Margaret. "As to being myself, I was too much myself, for it's just me to say a sharp word when I ought to have spoken kindly or to hold my tongue, and seem sulky when Adam was waiting for a word. Eh, dear, dear! My old mother used to say civility cost nothing and went a long way, and I've mostly thought of this, and been pretty mannerly towards my neighbours. But I've got a fresh lesson to-day, and I find that good manners, like charity, should begin at home. Many and many a time I've acted and spoke to Adam as if any sort was good enough for the best husband that ever lived."

The streaming tears stopped Margaret from further speech, but Sarah's kind heart was full of sympathy for her, and she showed this by looks, words, and acts, whilst busying herself with household duties.

At first Margaret tried to assist, but Sarah could not help noticing that she stopped from time to time, as if unequal to any exertion, so she begged her to rest.

"I can do everything easily," she said; "you must rest to get up strength and spirits for Adam's sake."

Margaret agreed, more willingly than might have been expected, and Sarah could not help thinking that the shock had affected her more than she had at first realized.

The children were fed and sent off to school again, the least of all having been carried off and cared for by a neighbour. Margaret had forced herself to swallow a few morsels of food, and was anxiously waiting for Richard to return, when Mr. Drummond made his appearance instead.

"I am thankful to bring as good news as possible under the circumstances," he said. "Your husband's arm is well set, and his other hurts are not serious. He must, however, stay where he is at present, and you may depend on his being well attended to. For myself, Mrs. Livesey, I owe him a lifelong debt of gratitude. But for his bravery and presence of mind, my wife would now be a widow and my little ones fatherless. Probably more lives would have been lost, but certainly mine would. My one sorrow is that your brave, good husband is suffering for what he did to save me."

Margaret felt proud to hear such words from a man who stood in such high esteem as Mr. Drummond, and she was, in a sense, glad that he stood there alive and well, the messenger of good tidings. But it would be too much to suppose that she did not consider his safety too dearly bought.

Thought is rapid, and as Margaret had rested on the couch whilst Sarah worked on her behalf, many vision had passed through her mind.

Adam, not being a skilled mechanic, only a sort of labourer, was not in a club. There would be no allowance during his illness. When he was well again, what would he be able to do? Just jobbing work, most likely, with uncertain wages, and these poor at the best.

When an accident or death took place amongst the hands at Rutherford's, and it was known that the wife and children would be in almost immediate need of help, a collection was sure to be made, in order to tide over the first money difficulties. Comrades gave almost beyond their means, without fear of reproof from wives who were waiting for wages, in order that their mate's widow might not at once feel the pinch of poverty along with the wound of bereavement.

But Margaret had already calculated that two causes would prevent her from receiving aid of this kind.

First, there was poor Jim's widow and children to care for, and their case was sadder, their need greater than her own. Secondly, everybody knew that Margaret's "fortune" had not been encroached upon, for had she not been proud to say as much? A woman who had hundreds of pounds "out at use," or interest, was not likely to need help from those who owned no reserve of the kind, or to receive it.

Jim's wages had been much higher than Adam Livesey's, but owing to his own habits he had always been in debt, and the family generally in low water, poorly fed and worse clad.

Adam's small earnings had been turned to the best account, and apart from Margaret's fortune, the family were regarded as "comfortable."

"There will be nobody to stretch out a hand for me nor mine," thought Margaret. "Drink and shiftlessness pay best when trouble comes. I did think that bit of money from mother would be there to make things easy for us in our old days, but some of it will have to be spent now. However, if it's for Adam, I'll not grudge it, if the last penny goes. It's all I can do for him, poor fellow. In a year or two, the lads will begin to bring a trifle in; but, however hard parents are put to it, the children must have their time at school."

Margaret sighed at this last thought, for, like many other uneducated parents, she was inclined to put little value on learning, and to regard it rather as a hindrance to early bread-winning. "If not this," she said, and perhaps with some truth, "that when working men's lads had got much schooling, they began to be ashamed of fathers and mothers that had little or none."

"Aye," Margaret would say, "they all want to dress in broadcloth, and work with their coats on in an office or such-like place. They go by hundreds after everything that means being stuck at a desk with a pen in their hands, and think they're gentlemen on fifteen shillings a week. Why, if there's a place for a clerk at ever such a trifle to begin with, they're after it like a swarm of flies round a dab of treacle. They go on trying to live genteel on less wage than my Adam gets, and that's little enough. Any way, working folks that don't pretend to be anything else, have no need to dress up like them that have ten times as much to spend."

Margaret's ambition for her boys was that each should learn a trade of some kind. Observation had convinced her that the steady, skilled mechanic, with a good knowledge of his craft, seldom had idle time on his hands, or needed to be one of a swarm of applicants for a vacant place at a desk.

Adam, too, had confirmed her views from an experience at Rutherford's.

The firm had advertised for a youth to assist in the office, and for skilled mechanics in the works. For the former post more than a hundred applications were made; for the latter, three. Yet the office employé would have begun at ten shillings a week with no prospect of rising beyond a guinea. The mechanics could each have made from two to three pounds, according to their skill and industry.

Adam had grieved at the disappointment of so many would-be clerks, and said to Margaret, "Didn't it seem a pity there was only one place and such a lot of likely lads after it? Think, Margaret, a hundred and eleven went away disappointed while one got a start!"

"Whose fault was that?" retorted Margaret, with some sharpness. "Doesn't it come of teaching lads too much, and making 'em all want to be gentlemen, instead of good workmen, like their fathers were content to be?"

"I shouldn't be sorry if I had a bit more learning," Adam had replied. "It helps a man on, whatever station of life he may be in. If he's poor, he can get more pleasure and satisfaction out of a spare hour with a good book to read and enjoy."

"I had no learning to speak of, and a good job too," returned Margaret. "I've no spare hours, if the house is to be cleaned, clothes are to be mended, children looked after, and meals ready in time. When my stirring work is done, if it ever is, I have to sew or knit to keep myself awake; I should only go to sleep over a book. Not that I'm against reading, writing, and doing sums. They're useful, though as to writing, you get out of practice if you seldom do it. The summing I want comes pretty regular, for I have to buy and pay for things, and reckon how far the week's money will go. I get fast now and again, when I want two shillings to buy half a crown's worth;" and she laughed heartily.

"You do make two shillings reach further than most women's half-crowns," said Adam, ever ready to praise Margaret's good management. "But you wouldn't like our lads to be behind other folks, and to lose a chance of getting on for want of a bit more learning. A lad is often stuck fast because of the want."

"And more of 'em are stuck up because they have it. No, no, Adam. Let our lads have enough for every-day use—we're bound to keep 'em at school till they're past standards enough, then get 'em in at Rutherford's, or some such place. They'll soon earn a bit, and make things easier for you. As to a working man that gets a book in his hand as soon as he comes in! He sits like a stone, and hasn't a word for anybody, or a bit o' news to cheer up the wife who has no time to go out and hear for herself."

Margaret, somehow, always silenced Adam when learning and books were in question. He had thought, poor fellow, that if he read aloud sometimes whilst she worked, after the children were in bed, she would share his innocent pleasure. After the first fruitless attempts to interest Margaret in that "Book" which had become most precious of all to himself and others of a decidedly religious tendency, he had made another effort. Mr. Drummond had lent him books of travel and adventure, and stories in which instruction and amusement were well united. But all in vain. Margaret would none of them, and even objected to the father and elder children sharing them together.

"Tales take them off their lessons, which are hard enough in all conscience for such young heads. But they've got to be done, and tale books must wait till they haven't so much learning to take up their time."

These scenes and arguments had wearied Adam, and for peace and quietness sake, he had for some time past ceased to press upon Margaret what was evidently so distasteful to her. He tried to carry home whatever news was likely to interest her, though he abstained from telling anything in the shape of mere gossip or scandal.

Now that Adam was lying at the hospital, injured and helpless, many memories crowded through his wife's mind. The most abiding pictures were those which told of his patience towards herself, and of her want of sympathy in return, mingled with anxiety about the future of her husband and children.

"If," she thought, "Mr. Drummond has any real gratitude, he'll show it as well as talk about it. We shall soon know what his words are worth a week to us, now wages are stopped. And after Adam is better? If he ever does get well—" and Margaret's heart sank within her as she thought of the possible darker side. "Surely there will be some place found for my poor man at the old shop."

Margaret was so business-like, so prompt both to act and plan, that during the earliest hours of her new trouble, her mind had been occupied with many things. Regrets for the past, anxieties for the future, speculations as to what the firm, as represented by Mr. Drummond, and Mr. Drummond on his own account, might do for her husband—plans and resolutions for the greater comfort of her good, kind Adam and the children, each chased each other through her mind.

One thought added to the mental weight which oppressed her from the first moment she heard that Adam was hurt. There were six children already. A few weeks hence, the mother would need tending, and there would be another little mouth to feed. With the sense of work to be done, it was a trial to Margaret to take the needful rest which would enable her to visit her husband at the hospital. But when Mr. Drummond came with his cheering news, he showed his forethought for Margaret in more ways than one.

"I have asked Richard Evans to arrange for his wife to go with you to the hospital," he said. "She will be here in a cab directly, and in the meanwhile, if you feel equal to going, you will put on your bonnet, will you not? Mrs. Evans will take good care of you I am sure."

Margaret tried to utter words of thanks, but broke down in the effort. Quivering lips and tearful eyes told their story without speech.

"You must be brave, Mrs. Livesey, for Adam's sake. He has told me what a good wife he has. One who would take the last bit from her own lips to give to him or her children. And now you must do what is harder even than that to a loving heart, when one dearer to it than all the world beside is suffering. You must drive tears away, and give Adam a smile and hopeful, cheery words, which will be far-away better than medicine. Say nothing about wages or money matters. I hope his mind has already been eased on those points. On each pay day, Richard Evans shall bring you the full amount, until Adam is able to work for you all again."

No better remedy for Margaret's tears could have been suggested, as her brightened face promptly testified.

"I can't thank you, sir," she began—

"No thanks are needed," said Mr. Drummond. "I think I hear wheels. Now, mind, you are to be Adam's best doctor, and if you are inclined to be down-hearted, just think of poor Jim's wife, and what might have been your case and mine. You and I and my wife may well thank God with full hearts, for spared lives. I most of all, for I have no hurt, whilst I have the sorrow of knowing that a faithful friend has been injured through his efforts to save me."

There was much in Mr. Drummond's words that gave Margaret ease of mind, comfort, and pleasure. No fear of want in the home, or that Adam would not be well cared for and eventually recover.

Then this gentleman, head over all at Rutherford's, was not ashamed to call her Adam his faithful friend. Adam, that had reckoned himself of no account from his boyish days upwards! It seemed too wonderful to think of. Of all that Mr. Drummond had said, nothing had so helped to restore Margaret's courage as those two words, "faithful friend."

Well might Margaret feel glad and proud on Adam's behalf, and confident too, that, whatever might be the weakening effect of the injuries he had received, the man who had called him "friend," and who had confessed that his life had been saved at the cost of those very injuries, would not be likely to forget his interests in the future. Nay, on the way to the hospital, she began to build castles on the foundation of Mr. Drummond's words, and in fancy saw her husband in a post of trust with lightened labour suited to his diminished strength, and her lads going in turn to learn their trade at Rutherford's.