Mary Barton | Page 6

street-walker, Esther, and then,
don't you go to think I'll have you darken my door, though my wife is
your sister?' So says she, 'Don't trouble yourself, John, I'll pack up and
be off now, for I'll never stay to hear myself called as you call me.' She
flushed up like a turkey-cock, and I thought fire would come out of her
eyes; but when she saw Mary cry (for Mary can't abide words in a
house), she went and kissed her, and said she was not so bad as I
thought her. So we talked more friendly, for, as I said, I liked the lass
well enough, and her pretty looks, and her cheery ways. But she said
(and at that time I thought there was sense in what she said) we should
be much better friends if she went into lodgings, and only came to see
us now and then."
"Then you still were friendly. Folks said you'd cast her off, and said
you'd never speak to her again."
"Folks always make one a deal worse than one is," said John Barton
testily. "She came many a time to our house after she left off living
with us. Last Sunday se'nnight--no! it was this very last Sunday, she
came to drink a cup of tea with Mary; and that was the last time we set
eyes on her."
"Was she any ways different in her manner?" asked Wilson.
"Well, I don't know. I have thought several times since, that she was a
bit quieter, and more womanly-like; more gentle, and more blushing,
and not so riotous and noisy. She comes in towards four o'clock, when
afternoon church was loosing, and she goes and hangs her bonnet up on
the old nail we used to call hers, while she lived with us. I remember
thinking what a pretty lass she was, as she sat on a low stool by Mary,
who was rocking herself, and in rather a poor way. She laughed and
cried by turns, but all so softly and gently, like a child, that I couldn't
find in my heart to scold her, especially as Mary was fretting already.
One thing I do remember I did say, and pretty sharply too. She took our
little Mary by the waist and"--
"Thou must leave off calling her 'little' Mary, she's growing up into as
fine a lass as one can see on a summer's day; more of her mother's
stock than thine," interrupted Wilson.

"Well, well, I call her 'little' because her mother's name is Mary. But, as
I was saying, she takes Mary in a coaxing sort of way, and 'Mary,' says
she, 'what should you think if I sent for you some day and made a lady
of you?' So I could not stand such talk as that to my girl, and I said,
'Thou'd best not put that nonsense i' the girl's head I can tell thee; I'd
rather see her earning her bread by the sweat of brow, as the Bible tells
her she should do, ay, though she never got butter to her bread, than be
like a do-nothing lady, worrying shopmen all morning, and screeching
at her pianny all afternoon, and going to bed without having done a
good turn to any one of God's creatures but herself.'"
"Thou never could abide the gentlefolk," said Wilson, half amused at
his friend's vehemence.
"And what good have they ever done me that I should like them?"
asked Barton, the latent fire lighting up his eye: and bursting forth he
continued, "If I am sick do they come and nurse me? If my child lies
dying (as poor Tom lay, with his white wan lips quivering, for want of
better food than I could give him), does the rich man bring the wine or
broth that might save his life? If I am out of work for weeks in the bad
times, and winter comes, with black frost, and keen east wind, and
there is no coal for the grate, and no clothes for the bed, and the thin
bones are seen through the ragged clothes, does the rich man share his
plenty with me, as he ought to do, if his religion wasn't a humbug?
When I lie on my death-bed and Mary (bless her!) stands fretting, as I
know she will fret," and here his voice faltered a little, "will a rich lady
come and take her to her own home if need be, till she can look round,
and see what best to do? No, I tell you it's the poor, and the poor only,
as does such things for the poor. Don't think to come over me with th'
old tale, that the rich know nothing of the trials of the