Hide and Seek

money out,' says Peggy; 'but she's dead beat to-night, and must have her rest and bit o' supper, before she begins to-morrow.' Jubber wanted to give less than ten shillings; but between threatening, and saying it should buy twenty shillings' worth of tailor's work, she got the better of him. And he gave the money, sulky enough.

''Now,' says Peggy, 'you take her away, and get her a lodging in the place where you're staying; and I'll come tomorrow with some of the things to make up.' But, ah dear me! sir, she was never to work as much as sixpence of that ten shillings out. She was took bad in the night, and got so much worse in the morning that we had to send for the doctor.

'As soon as he'd seen her, he takes me into the passage, and says he to me, 'Do you know who her friends are?' 'No, sir,' says I; 'I can't get her to tell me. I only met her by accident yesterday.' 'Try and find out again,' says he; 'for I'm afraid she won't live over the night. I'll come back in the evening and see if there is any change.'

'Peggy and me went into her room together; but we couldn't even get her to speak to us for ever so long a time. All at once she cries out, 'I can't see things as I ought. Where's the woman who suckled my baby when I was alone by the roadside?' 'Here,' says I—'here; I've got hold of your hand. Do tell us where we can write to about you.' 'Will you promise to take care of my baby, and not let it go into the workhouse?' says she. 'Yes, I promise,' says I; 'I do indeed promise with my whole heart.' 'We'll all take care of the baby,' says Peggy; 'only you try and cheer up, and you'll get well enough to see me on Garryowen's back, before we leave Bangbury—you will for certain, if you cheer up a bit.' 'I give my baby,' she says, clutching tight at my hand, 'to the woman who suckled it by the roadside; and I pray God to bless her and forgive me, for Jesus Christ's sake.' After that, she lay quiet for a minute or two. Then she says faintly, 'Its name's to be Mary. Put it into bed to me again; I should like to touch its cheek, and feel how soft and warm it is once more.' And I took the baby out of its crib, and lifted it, asleep as it was, into the bed by her side, and guided her hand up to its cheek. I saw her lips move a little, and bent down over her. 'Give me one kiss,' she whispered, 'before I die.' And I kissed her, and tried to stop crying as I did it. Then I says to Peggy, 'You wait here while I run and fetch the doctor back; for I'm afraid she's going fast.' He wasn't at home when I got to his house. I did'n't know what to do next, when I see a gentleman in the street who looked like a clergyman, and I asked him if he was one; and he said 'Yes;' and he went back with me. I heard a low wailing and crying in the room, and saw Peggy sitting on the bundle of dresses she'd brought in the morning, rocking herself backwards and forwards as Irish people always do when they're crying. I went to the bed, and looked through the curtains. The baby was still sleeping as pretty as ever, and its mother's hand was touching one of its arms. I was just going to speak to her again, when the clergyman said 'Hush,' and took a bit of looking-glass that was set up on the chimney-piece, and held it over her lips. She was gone. Her poor white wasted hand lay dead on the living baby's arm.

'I answered all the clergyman's questions quite straightforward, telling him everything I knew from beginning to end. When I'd done, Peggy starts up from the bundle and says, 'Mind, sir, whatever you do, the child's not to be took away from this person here, and sent to the workhouse. The mother give it to her on that very bed, and I'm a witness of it.' 'And I promised to be a mother to the baby, sir,' says I. He turns round to me, and praises me for what I done, and says nobody shall take it away from me, unless them as can show their right comes forward to claim it. 'But now,' says he, 'we must think of other things. We must try and find out something about this poor woman who has died in such a melancholy way.'

'It was easier to say that than to do it. The poor thing had nothing with her but a change of linen for herself and the child, and that gave us no clue. Then we searched her pocket. There was a cambric handkerchief in it, marked 'M. G.;' and some bits of rusks to sop for the child; and the sixpence and halfpence which she had when I met her; and beneath all, in a corner, as if it had been forgotten there, a small hair bracelet. It was made of two kinds of hair—very little of one kind, and a good deal of the other. And on the flat clasp of the bracelet there was cut in tiny letters, 'In memory of S. G.' I remember all this, sir, for I've often and often looked at the bracelet since that time.

'We found nothing more—no letters, or cards, or anything. The clergyman said that the 'M. G.' on the handkerchief must be the initials of her name; and the 'S. G.' on the bracelet must mean, he thought, some relation whose hair she wore as a sort of keepsake. I remember Peggy and me wondering which was S. G.'s hair; and who the other person might be, whose hair was wove into the bracelet. But the clergyman he soon cut us short by asking for pen, ink, and paper directly. 'I'm going to write out an advertisement,' says he, 'saying how you met with the young woman, and what she was like, and how she was dressed.' 'Do you mean to say anything about the baby, sir?' says I. 'Certainly,' says he; 'it's only right, if we get at her friends by advertising, to give them the chance of doing something for the child. And if they live anywhere in county, I believe we shall find them out; for the Bangbury Chronicle, into which I mean to put the advertisement, goes everywhere in our part of England.'

'So he sits down, and writes what he said he would, and takes it away to be printed in the next day's number of the newspaper. 'If nothing comes of this,' says he, 'I think I can manage about the burial with a charitable society here. I'll take care and inform you the moment the advertisement's answered.' I hardly know how it was, sir; but I almost hoped they wouldn't answer it. Having suckled the baby myself, and kissed its mother before she died, I couldn't make up my mind to the chance of its being took away from me just then. I ought to have thought how poor we were, and how hard it would be for us to bring the child up. But, somehow, I never did think of that—no more did Peggy—no more did Jemmy; not even when we put the baby to bed that night along with our own.

'Well, sir, sure enough, two days after the advertisement come out, it was answered in the cruelest letter I ever set eyes on. The clergyman he come to me with it. 'It was left this evening,' says he, 'by a strange messenger, who went away directly. I told my servant to follow him; but it was too late—he was out of sight.' The letter was very short, and we thought it was in a woman's handwriting—a feigned handwriting, the clergyman said. There was no name signed, and no date at top or bottom. Inside it there was a ten-pound bank-note; and the person as sent it wrote that it was enclosed to bury the young woman decently. 'She was better dead than alive'—the letter went on—'after having disgraced her father and her relations. As for the child, it was the child of sin, and had no claim on people who desired to preserve all that was left of their good name, and to set a moral example to others. The parish must support it if nobody else would. It would be useless to attempt to trace them, or to advertise again. The baby's father had disappeared, they didn't know where; and they could hold no communication now with such a monster of wickedness, even if he was found. She was dead in her shame and her sin; and her name should never be mentioned among them she belonged to henceforth for ever.'

'This was what I remember in the letter, sir. A shocking and unchristian letter I said; and the clergyman he said so too.

'She was buried in the poor corner of the churchyard. They marked out the place, in case anybody should ever want to see it, by cutting the two letters M. G., and the date of when she died, upon a board of wood at the head of the grave. The clergyman then give me the hair bracelet and the handkerchief, and said, 'You keep these as careful as you keep the child; for they may be of great importance one of these days. I shall seal up the letter (which is addressed to me) and put it in my strong box.' He'd asked me, before this, if I'd thought of what a responsibility it was for such as me to provide for the baby. And I told him I'd promised, and would keep my promise, and trust to God's providence for the rest. The clergyman was a very kind gentleman, and got up a subscription for the poor babe; and Peggy Burke, when she had her benefit before the circus left Bangbury, give half of what she got as her subscription. I never heard nothing about the child's friends from that time to this; and I know no more who its father is now than I did then. And glad I am that he's never come forward—though, perhaps, I oughtn't to say so. I keep the hair bracelet and the handkerchief as careful as the clergyman told me, for the mother's sake as well as the child's. I've known some sorrow with her since I took her as my own; but I love her only the dearer for it, and still think the day a happy day for both of us, when I first stopped and suckled her by the road-side.