CHAPTER XXVIII.
TELL IT NOT IN OATH.
As they sat silent in that little sitting-room after supper, a double
knock at the door suddenly announced the arrival of a telegram
for Ernest. He opened it with trembling lingers. It was from
Lancaster:--'Come down to the office at once. Schurz has been
sentenced to a year's imprisonment, and we want a leader about
him for to-morrow.' The telegram roused Ernest at once from his
stupefied lethargy. Here was a chance at last of doing something
for Max Schurz and for the cause of freedom! Here was a chance
of waking up all England to a sense of the horrible crime it had
just committed through the voice of its duly accredited judicial
mouthpiece! The country was trembling on the brink of an abyss, and
he, Ernest Le Breton, might just be in time to save it. The Home
Secretary must be compelled by the unanimous clamour of thirty
millions of free working people to redress the gross injustice of
the law in sending Max Sohurz, the greatest, noblest, and purest-minded
of mankind, to a common felon's prison! Nothing else on earth could
have moved Ernest, jaded and dispirited as he was at that moment,
to the painful exertion of writing a newspaper leader after the
day's fatigues and excitements, except the thought that by doing so
he might not only blot out this national disgrace, as he considered
it, but might also help to release the martyr of the people's rights
from his incredible, unspeakable punishment. Flushed and feverish
though he was, he rose straight up from the table, handed the
telegram to Edie without a word, and started off alone to hail a
hansom cab and drive down immediately to the office. Arthur Berkeley,
fearful of what might happen to him in his present excited state,
stole out after him quietly, and followed him unperceived in another
hansom at a little distance.
When Ernest got to the 'Morning Intelligence' buildings, he was
shown up at once into the editorial room. He expected to find Mr.
Lancaster at the same white heat of indignation as himself; but
to his immense surprise he actually found him in the usual sleepy
languid condition of apathetic impartiality. 'I wired for you, Le
Breton,' the impassive editor said calmly, 'because I understand
you know all about this man Schurz, who has just got his twelve
months' imprisonment this evening. I suppose, of course, you've
heard already all about it.'
'I've been at the trial all day,' Ernest answered, 'and myself
heard the verdict and sentence.'
'Good,' Mr. Lancaster said, with a dreamy touch of approval in his
tone. 'That's good journalism, certainly, and very smart of you.
Helps you to give local colour and realistic touches to the matter.
But you ought to have called in here to see me immediately. We
shall have a regular reporter's report of the trial, of course;
but reporters' reports are fearfully and wonderfully lifeless. If
you like, besides the leader, you might work up a striking headed
article on the Scene in Court. This is an important case, and we
want something more about it than mere writing, you know; a little
about the man himself and his personal history, which Berkeley tells
me you're well acquainted with. He's written something called "Gold
and the Proletariate," or whatever it is; just tell our readers
all about it. As to the leader, say what you like in it--of course
I shall look over the proof, and tone it down a bit to suit the
taste of our public--we appeal mainly to the mercantile middle class,
I need hardly say; but you know the general policy of the paper,
and you can just write what you think best, subject to subsequent
editorial revision. Get to work at once, please, as the articles
are wanted immediately, and send down slips as fast as they're
written to the printers.'
Ernest could hardly contain his surprise at Mr. Lancaster's calmness
under such unheard-of circumstances, when the whole laborious
fabric of British liberties was tottering visibly to its base--but
he wisely concluded to himself that the editor had to see articles
written about every possible subject every evening--from a European
convulsion to a fire at a theatre,--and that use must have made
it in him a property of easiness. When a man's obliged to work
himself up perpetually into a state of artificial excitement about
every railway accident, explosion, shipwreck, earthquake, or volcanic
eruption, in Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and the islands of the
Pacific Ocean, why then, Ernest charitably said to himself, his
sympathies must naturally end by getting a trifle callous, especially
when he's such a very apathetic person to start with as this laconic
editorial Lancaster. So he turned into the little bare box devoted
to his temporary use, and began writing with perfectly unexampled
and extraordinary rapidity at his leader and his article about the
injured and martyred apostle of the slighted communistic religion.
It was only a few months since Ernest had, with vast toil and
forethought, spun slowly out his maiden newspaper article on the
Italian organ-boy, and now he found himself, to his own immense
surprise, covering sheet after sheet of paper in feverish haste
with a long account of Max Schurz's splendid life and labours, and
with a really fervid and eloquent appeal to the English people not
to suffer such a man as he to go helplessly and hopelessly to an
English prison, at the bare bidding of a foreign despot. He never
stopped for one moment to take thought, or to correct what he had
written; in the excitement of the moment his pen travelled along
over the paper as if inspired, and he found the words and thoughts
thronging his brain almost faster than his lagging hand could
suffice to give them visible embodiment. As each page was thrown
off hurriedly, he sent it down, still pale and wet, to the printers
in the office; and before two o'clock in the morning, he had full
proofs of all he had written sent up to him for final correction. It
was a stirring and vigorous leader, he felt quite certain himself
as he read it over; and he thought with a swelling breast that
it would appear next day, with all the impersonal authority of
the 'Morning Intelligence' stamped upon its face, at ten thousand
English breakfast tables, where it might rouse the people in their
millions to protest sternly before it was too late against this
horrid violation of our cherished and boasted national hospitality.
Meanwhile, Arthur Berkeley had stopped at the office, and run in
hastily for five minutes' talk with the terrible editor. 'Don't
say anything to shock Le Breton, I beg of you, Lancaster,' he said,
'about this poor man Schurz who has just been sent for a year to
prison. It's a very hard case, and I'm awfully sorry for the man
myself, though that's neither here nor there. I can see from your
face that you, for your part, don't sympathise with him; but at
any rate, don't say anything about it to hurt Le Breton's feelings.
He's in a dreadfully feverish and excited condition this evening;
Max Schurz has always been to him almost like a father, and he
naturally takes his sentence very bitterly to heart. To tell you
the truth, I regret it a great deal myself, I know a little of
Schurz, through Le Breton, and I know what a well-meaning, ardent,
enthusiastic person he really is, and how much good actually
underlies all his chaotic socialistic notions. But at any rate, I
do beg of you, don't say anything to further excite and hurt poor
Le Breton.'
'Certainly not,' the editor answered, smoothing his large hands
softly one over the other. 'Certainly not; though I confess, as a
practical man, I don't sympathise in the least with this preposterous
German refugee fellow. So far as I can learn, he's been at the
bottom of half the revolutionary and insurrectionary movements of
the last twenty years--a regular out-and-out professional socialistic
incendiary.'
'You wouldn't say so,' Berkeley replied quietly, 'if you'd seen
more of him, Lancaster.' But being a man of the world, and having
come mainly on Ernest's account, he didn't care to press the abstract
question of Herr Max's political sincerity any further.
'Well,' the editor went on, a little testily, 'be that as it may, I
won't discuss the subject with your friend Le Breton, who's really
a nice, enthusiastic young fellow, I think, as far as I've seen
him. I'll simply let him write to-night whatever he pleases, and
make the necessary alterations in proof afterwards, without talking
it over with him personally at all. That'll avoid any needless
discussion and ruffling of his supersensitive communistic feelings.
Poor fellow, he looks very ill indeed to-night. I'm really extremely
sorry for him.'
'When will he be finished?' asked Arthur.
'At two,' the editor answered.
'I'll send a cab for him,' Arthur said; 'there'll be none about
at that hour, probably. Will you kindly tell him it's waiting for
him?'
At two o'clock or a little after, Ernest drove home with his heart
on fire, full of eagerness and swelling hope for to-morrow morning.
He found Edie waiting for him, late as it was, with a little bottle
of wine--an unknown luxury at Mrs. Halliss's lodgings--and such
light supper as she thought he could manage to swallow in his
excitement. Ernest drank a glass of the wine, but left the supper
untasted. Then he went to bed, and tossed about uneasily till
morning. He couldn't sleep through his anxiety to see his great
leader appear in all the added dignity of printer's ink and rouse
the slumbering world of England up to a due sense of Max Schurz's
wrongs and the law's incomprehensible iniquity.
Before seven, he rose very quietly, dressed himself without
saying a word, and stole out to buy an early copy of the 'Morning
Intelligence.' He got one at the small tobacconist's shop round the
corner, where he had taken his first hint for the Italian organ-boy
leader. It was with difficulty that he could contain himself till
he was back in Mrs. Halliss's little front parlour; and there
he tore open the paper eagerly, and turned to the well-remembered
words at the beginning of his desperate appealing article. He could
recollect the very run of every clause and word he had written: 'No
Englishman can read without a thrill of righteous indignation,' it
began,'the sentence passed last night upon Max Schurz, the author
of that remarkable economical work, "Gold and the Proletariate."
Herr Schurz is one of those numerous refugees from German despotism
who have taken advantage of the hospitable welcome usually afforded
by England to the oppressed of all creeds or nations'--and so forth,
and so forth. Where was it now? Yes, that was it, in the place of
honour, of course--the first leader under the clock in the 'Morning
Intelligence.' His eye caught at once the opening key-words, 'No
Englishman.' Sinking down into the easy-chair by the flowers in the
window he prepared to run it through at his leisure with breathless
anxiety.
'No Englishman can read without a feeling of the highest approval
the sentence passed last night upon Max Schurz, the author of that
misguided economical work, "Gold and the Proletariate." Herr Schurz
is one of those numerous refugees from German authority, who have
taken advantage of the hospitable welcome usually afforded by England
to the oppressed of all creeds or nations, in order to hatch plots
in security against the peace of sovereigns or governments with
which we desire always to maintain the most amicable and cordial
relations.' Ernest's eyes seemed to fail him. The type on the paper
swam wildly before his bewildered vision. What on earth could
this mean? It was his own leader, indeed, with the very rhythm and
cadence of the sentences accurately preserved, but with all the
adjectives and epithets so ingeniously altered that it was turned
into a crushing condemnation of Max Schurz, his principles,
his conduct, and his ethical theories. From beginning to end, the
article appealed to the common-sense of intelligent Englishmen to
admire the dignity of the law in thus vindicating itself against
the atrocious schemes of a dangerous and ungrateful political exile
who had abused the hospitality of a great fres country to concoct
vile plots against the persons of friendly sovereigns and innocent
ministers on the European continent.
Ernest laid down the paper dreamily, and leant back for a moment
in his chair, to let his brain recover a little from the reeling
dizziness of that crushing disappointment. Then he turned in a
giddy mechanical fashion to the headed article on the fourth page.
There the self-same style of treatment met once more his astonished
gaze. All the minute facts as to Max Schurz's history and personality
were carefully preserved; the description of his simple artisan
life, his modest household, his Sunday evening receptions, his great
following of earnest and enthusiastic refugees--every word of all
this, which hardly anyone else could have equally well supplied,
was retained intact in the published copy; yet the whole spirit
of the thing had utterly evaporated, or rather had been perverted
into the exact opposite unsympathetic channel. Where Ernest had
written 'enthusiasm,' Lancaster had simply altered the word to
'fanaticism;' where Ernest had spoken of Herr Max's 'single-hearted
devotion,' Lancaster had merely changed the phrase into 'undisguised
revolutionary ardour.' The whole paper was one long sermon against
Max Schurz's Utopian schemes, imputing to him not only folly but
even positive criminality as well. We all know how we all in England
look upon the foreign political refugee--a man to be hit again with
impunity, because he has no friends; but to Ernest, who had lived
so long in his own little socialistic set, the discovery that people
could openly say such things against his chosen apostle at the very
moment of his martyrdom, was a hideous and blinding disillusionment.
He put the paper down upon the table once more, and buried his face
helplessly between his burning hands.
The worst of it all was this: if Herr Max ever saw those articles
he would naturally conclude that Ernest had been guilty of the
basest treachery, and that too on the very day when he most needed
the aid and sympathy of all his followers. With a thrill of horror
he thought in his own soul that the great leader might suspect him
for an hour of being the venal Judas of the little sect.
How Ernest ever got through that weary day he did not know himself;
nothing kept him up through it except his burning indignation
against Lancaster's abominable conduct. About eleven o'clock,
Arthur Berkeley called in to see him. 'I'm afraid you've been a
little disappointed,' he said, 'about the turn Lancaster has given
to your two articles. He told me he meant to alter the tone so
as to suit the policy of the paper, and I see he's done so very
thoroughly. You can't look for much sympathy from commonplace,
cold, calculating Englishmen for enthusiastic natures like Herr
Max's.'
Ernest turned to him in blank amazement. He had expected Berkeley
to be as angry as himself at Lancaster's shameful mutilation of his
appealing leader; and he found now that even Berkeley accepted it
as an ordinary incident in the course of journalistic business. His
heart sank within him as he thought how little hope there could be
of Herr Max's liberation, when even his own familiar friend Berkeley
looked upon the matter in such a casual careless fashion.
'I shall never write another word for the "Morning Intelligence,"'
he cried vehemently, after a moment's pause. 'If we starve for
it, I shall never write another word in that wicked, abominable,
dishonourable paper. I can die easily enough, heaven knows, without
a murmur: but I can't be disloyal to dear Herr Max, and to all my
innate ingrained principles.'
'Don't say that, Ernest,' Berkeley answered gently. 'Think of
Mrs. Le Breton and the baby. The luxury of starvation for the sake
of a cause is one you might venture to allow yourself if you were
alone in the world as I am, but not one which you ought to force
unwillingly upon your wife and children. You've been getting a
trifle more practical of late under the spur of necessity; don't go
and turn impossible again at the supreme moment. Whatever happens,
it's your plain duty to go on writing for the "Morning Intelligence."
You say with your own hand only what you think and believe yourself:
the editor alone is responsible for the final policy of the paper.'
Ernest only muttered slowly to himself,--'Never, never, never!'
Still, though the first attempt had failed, Ernest did not wholly
give up his hopes of doing something towards the release of Herr Max
from that unutterable imprisonment. He drew up a form of petition
to the Home Secretary, in which he pointed out the reasons for
setting aside the course of the law in the case of this particular
political prisoner. With feverish anxiety he ran about London
for the next two days, trying to get influential signatures to his
petition, and to rouse the people in their millions to demand the
release of the popular martyr. Alas for the stolid indifference of
the British public! The people in their millions sat down to eat
and drink, and rose up to play, exactly as if nothing unusual in
any way had happened. Most of them had never heard at all of Herr
Max, or of 'Gold and the Proletariate,' and those who had heard
understood for the most part that he was a bad lot who was imprisoned
for trying nefariously to blow up the Emperor of Rooshia. Crowds
of people nightly besieged the doors of the Ambiguities and the
Marlborough, to hear the fate of 'The Primate of Fiji' and 'The Duke
of Bermondsey;' but very few among the millions took the trouble to
sign their names to Ernest Le Breton's despairing petition. Even
the advanced radicals of the market-place, the men who figured
largely at Trafalgar Square meetings and Agricultural Labourers'
Unions, feared to damage their reputation for moderation and sobriety
by getting themselves mixed up with a continental agitator like
this man Schurz that people were talking about. The Irish members
expressed a pious horror of the very word dynamite: the working-man
leaders hemmed and hawed, and regretted their inability, in their
very delicate position, to do anything which might seem like
countenancing Russian nihilism. In the end, Ernest sent, in his
petition with only half a dozen unknown signatures; and the Home
Secretary's private prompter threw it into the waste-paper basket
entire, without even taking the trouble to mention its existence
to his harassed and overburdened chief. Just a Marylebone communist
refugee in prison! How could a statesman with half the bores and
faddists of England on his troubled hands, find time to look at
uninfluential petitions about an insignificant worthless nobody
like that?
So gentle, noble-natured, learned Herr Max went to prison and served
his year there uncomplainingly, like any other social malefactor;
and Society talked about his case with languid interest for nearly
a fortnight, and then straightway found a new sensation, and forgot
all about him. But there are three hundred and sixty-five days of
twenty-four hours each in every year; and for every one of those days
Herr Max and Herr Max's friends never forgot for an hour together
that he was in prison.
And at the end of the week Ernest got a letter from Lancaster,
enclosing a cheque for eight guineas. That is a vast sum of money,
eight guineas: just think of all the bread, and meat, and tea,
and clothing one can buy with it for a small family! 'My dear Le
Breton,' the editor wrote--in his own hand, too; a rare honour;
for he was a kindly man, and he had learned, much to his surprise,
from Arthur Berkeley, that Ernest was angry at his treatment of the
Schurzian leader: 'My dear Le Breton, I enclose cheque for eight
guineas, for your two articles. I hope you didn't mind the way
I was obliged to cut them up in some unessential details, so as
to suit the policy of the paper. I kept whatever was really most
distinctive as embodying special information in them. You know
we are above all things strictly moderate. Please send us another
social shortly.'
It was a kind letter, undoubtedly a kind and kindly-meant letter:
but Ernest flung it from him as though he had been stung by a
serpent or a scorpion. Then he handed the cheque to Edie in solemn
silence, to see what she would do with it. He merely wanted to try
her constancy. For himself, he would have felt like a Judas indeed
if he had taken and used their thirty pieces of silver.
Edie looked at the cheque intently and sighed a deep sigh of regret.
How could she do otherwise? They were so very poor, and it was
such an immense sum of money! Then she rose quietly without saying
a word, and lighted a match from the box on the mantelpiece. She
held the cheque firmly between her finger and thumb till it was
nearly burnt, end let it drop slowly at last into the empty fireplace.
Ernest rose up and kissed her tenderly. The leaden weight of the
thirty pieces of silver was fairly off their united conscience. They
had made what reparation they could for the evil of that unhappy,
undesigned leader. After all Ernest had wasted the last remnant of
his energy on one eventful evening, all for nothing.
As Edie sat looking wistfully at the smouldering fragments of the
burnt cheque, Ernest roused her again by saying quietly, 'To-day's
Saturday. Have we got anything for to-morrow's dinner, Edie?'
'Nothing,' Edie answered, simply. 'How much money have you left,
Ernest?'
'Sixpence,' Ernest said, without needing to consult his empty
purse for confirmation--he had counted the pence, as they went, too
carefully for that already. 'Edie, I'm afraid we must go at last
to the poor man's banker till I can get some more money.'
'Oh, Ernest--not--not--not the pawnbroker!'
'Yes, Edie, the pawnbroker.'
The tears came quickly into Edie's eyes, but she answered nothing.
They must have food, and there was no other way open before them.
They rose together and went quietly into the bedroom. There they
gathered together the few little trinkets and other things that might
be of use to them, and Ernest took down his hat from the stand to
go out with them to the pawnbroker's.
As he turned out he was met energetically on the landing by a
stout barricade from good Mrs. Halliss. 'No, sir, not you, sir,'
the landlady said firmly, trying to take the parcel from him as he
went towards the door. 'I beg your pardon, sir, for 'avin' over'eard
what wasn't meant for me to 'ear, no doubt, but I couldn't 'elp it,
sir, and John an' me can't allow nothink of this sort, we can't.
We're used to this sort o' things, sir, John and me is; but you
and the dear lady isn't used to 'em, sir, and didn't nought to be
neither, and John an' me can't allow it, not anyhow.'
Ernest turned scarlet with shame, but could say nothing. Edie only
whispered softly, 'Dear, dear Mrs. Halliss, we're so sorry, but we
can't help it.'
''Elp it, ma'am,' said Mrs. Halliss, herself almost crying, 'nor
there ain't no reason why you should try to 'elp it neither. As I
says to John, "John," says I, "there ain't no 'arm in it, noways,"
says I, "but I can't stand by," says I, "and see them two poor dear
young creechurs," meanin' no offence, ma'am, "a-pawning of their
own jewelry and things to go and pay for their Sunday's dinner."
And John, 'e says, says 'e, "Quite right, Martha," says 'e; "don't
let 'em, my dear," says 'e. "The Lord has prospered us a bit in our
'umble way, Martha," says 'e, "and we ain't got no cause to want,
we ain't; and if the dear lady and the good gentleman wouldn't
take it as a liberty," says 'e, "it 'ud be better they should just
borrer a pound or two for a week from us," says 'e, beggin' your
pardon, ma'am, for 'intin' of it, "than that there Mr. Le Breting,
as ain't accustomed to such places nohow, should go a-makin'
acquaintance, for the fust time of his life, as you may say, with
the inside of a pawnbroker's shop," says 'e. "John," says I, "it's
my belief the lady and gentleman 'ud be insulted," says I, "though
they ARE the sweetest unassoomin'est young gentlefolk I ever did
see," says I, "if we were to go as tin' them to accept the loan
of money from the likes of you and me, John, as is no better, by
the side of them, nor old servants, in the manner o' speakin'."
"Insulted," says 'e; "not a bit of it, they needn't, Martha,"
says 'e, "for I knows the ways of the aristocracy," says 'e, "and
I knows as there's many a gentleman as owns 'is own 'osses and
'is own 'ounds as isn't afraid to borrer a pound or so from 'is own
coachman, or even from 'is own groom--not but what to borrer from
a groom is lowerin'," says 'e, "in a tempory emergency. Mind you,
Martha," says 'e, "a tempory emergency is a thing as may 'appen
to landed gentlefolks any day," says 'e. "It's like a 'ole in your
coat made by a tear," says 'e; "a haccident as may 'appen to-morrer
to the Prince of Wales 'isself upon the 'untin' field," 'e says.
"Well, then, John," says I, "I'll just go an' speak to 'em about
it, this very minnit," says I, and if I might make so bold, ma'am,
without seemin' too presumptious, I should be very glad if you'd
kindly allow me, ma'am, to lend Mr. Le Breting a few suvverins till
'e gets 'is next remittances, ma'am.'
Edie looked at Ernest, and Ernest looked at Edie and the landlady;
and then they all three burst out crying together without further
apology. Perhaps it was the old Adam left in Ernest a little;
but though he could stand kindness from Dr. Greatrex or from Mr.
Lancaster stoically enough, he couldn't watch the humble devotion
of those two honest-hearted simple old servants without a mingled
thrill of shame and tenderness. 'Mrs. Halliss,' he said, catching
up the landlady's hard red hand gratefully in his own, 'you are too
good and too kind, and too considerate for us altogether. I feel
we have done nothing to deserve such great kindness from you. But
I really don't think it would be right of us to borrow from you when
we don't even know how long it may be before we're able to return
your money or whether we shall ever be able to return it at all.
We're so much obliged to you, so very very much obliged to you,
dear Mrs. Halliss, but I think we ought as a matter of duty to pawn
these few little things rather than run into debt which we've no
fair prospect at present of ever redeeming.'
'HAS you please, sir,' Mrs. Halliss said gently, wiping her eyes
with her snow-white apron, for she saw at once that Ernest really
meant what he said. 'Not that John an' me would think of it for a
minnit, sir, so long as you wouldn't mind our takin' the liberty;
but any'ow, sir, we can't allow you to go out yourself and go to
the pawnbroker's. It ain't no fit place for the likes of you, sir,
a pawnbroker's ain't, in all that low company; and I don't suppose
you'd rightly know 'ow much to hask on the articles, neither.
John, 'e ain't afeard of goin'; an' 'e says, 'e insists upon it as
'e's to go, for 'e don't think, sir, for the honour of the 'ouse,
'e says, sir, as a lodger of ours ought to be seen a-goin' to the
pawnbroker's. Just you give them things right over to John, sir,
and 'e'll get you a better price on 'em by a long way nor they'd
ever think of giving a gentleman like you, sir.'
Ernest fought off the question in a half-hearted fashion for a
little while, but Mrs. Halliss insisted upon it, and after a short
time Ernest gave way, for to say the truth he had very vague ideas
himself as to how he ought to proceed in a pawnbroking expedition.
Mrs. Halliss ran down the kitchen stairs quickly, for fear he
should change his mind as soon as her back was turned, and called
out gaily to her husband in the first delight of her unexpected
triumph.
'John,' she cried, '--drat that man, where is 'e? John, dear, you
just putt your 'at on, and purtend to run round the corner a bit
to Aston's the pawnbroker's. The Lord have mercy upon me for the
stories I've been a-tellin' of 'em, but I couldn't bear to see them
two pore things a-pawnin' their little bits of jewelry and sich,
and Mr. Le Breting, too, 'im as ain't fit to go knockin' together
with underbred folks like pawnbrokers. So I told 'im as you'd take
'em round and pawn 'em for 'im yourself; not as I don't suppose
you've never pawned nothink in your 'ole life, John, leastways not
since ever you an' me kep' company, for afore that I suppose you
was purty much like other young men is, John, for all you shakes
your 'ead at it now so innocent like. But you just run round,
there's a dear, and make as if you was goin' to the pawnbroker's,
and then you come straight 'ome again unbeknown to 'em. I ain't
a goin' to let them two pore dears go pawnin' their things for a
dinner nohow. You take them two suvverins out of your box, John,
and putt away these 'ere little things for the present time till
the pore souls is able to pay us, and if they never don't, small
matter neither. Now you go fast, John, there's a dear, and come
back, and mind you give them two suvverins to Mr. Le Breting as
natural like as ever you're able.'
'Pawn 'em,' John said in a pitying voice, 'no indeed, it ain't
come to that yet, I should 'ope, that they need go a-pawnin' their
effects while we've got a suvverin or two laid by in our box,
Martha. Not as anybody need be ashamed of pawnin' on occasions, for
that matter,--I don't say as a reg'lar thing, but now an' then on
occasions, as you may call it; for even in the best dookal families,
I've 'eard tell they DO sometimes 'ave to pawn the dimonds, so
that pawnin' ain't in the runnin' noways, bless you, as respects
gentility. Not as I'd like to go into a pawnshop myself, Martha,
as I've always been brought up respectable; but when you send for
Mr. Hattenborough to your own ressydence and say quite commandin'
like, "'Er Grace 'ud be obleeged if you'd wait upon 'er in Belgrave
Square to hinspeck 'er dimonds as I want to raise the wind on 'em,"
why, that's quite another matter nat'rally.'
When honest John came back in a few minutes and handed the
two sovereigns over to Ernest, he did it with such an unblushing
face as might have won him applause on any stage for its perfect
naturalness. 'Lor' bless your 'eart, sir,' he said in answer to
Ernest's shamefaced thanks, touching the place where his hat ought
to be mechanically, 'it ain't nothing, sir, that ain't. If it
weren't for the dookal families of England, sir, it's my belief the
pawnbrokin' business wouldn't be worth mentioning in the manner o'
speakin'.'
That evening, Ernest paced up and down the little parlour rather
moodily for half an hour with three words ringing perpetually in his
dizzy ears-the 'Never, never, never,' he had used so short a tune
since about the 'Morning Intelligence.' He must get money somehow
for Dot and Edie! he must get money somehow to pay good Mrs. Halliss
for their board and lodging! There was only one way possible.
Fight against it as he would, in the end he must come back to that
inevitable conclusion. At last he sat down with a gloomy face at
the centre table, and pulled out a sheet of blank foolscap.
'What are you going to do, Ernest?' Edie asked him.
Ernest groaned. 'I'm writing a social for the "Morning Intelligence,"
Edie,' he answered bitterly.
'Oh, Ernest!' Edie said with a face of horror and surprise. 'Not
after the shameful way they've treated poor Max Schurz!'
Ernest groaned again. 'There's nothing else to be done, Edie,' he
said, looking up at her despondently. 'I must earn money somehow
to keep the house going.'
It is the business of the truthful historian to narrate facts, not
to palliate or extenuate the conduct of the various actors. Whether
Ernest did right or wrong, at least he did it; he wrote a playful
social for Monday's 'Morning Intelligence,' and carried it into
the office on Sunday afternoon himself, beause there was no postal
delivery in the London district.
That night, he lay awake once more for hours together, tossing
and turning, and reflecting bitterly on his own baseness and his
final moral downfall. Herbert was right, after all. The environment
was beginning to conquer. He could hold out no longer. Herr Max
was in prison; the world was profoundly indifferent; he himself
had fallen away like Peter; and there was nothing left for him now
but to look about and find himself a dishonourable grave.
And Dot? And Edie? What was to become of them after? Ah me, for
the pity of it when a man cannot even crawl quietly into a corner
and die in peace like a dog, without being tortured by fears
and terrors beforehand as to what will come to those he loves far
better than life when he himself is quietly dead and buried out of
the turmoil!
