Читать книгу Charles Peace, or The Adventures of a Notorious Burglar - Anonymous - Страница 55

Very soon after the events had taken place which have been described in our last chapter, Peace, much to his astonishment, had a rencontre with a person who was perhaps the very last in the world he would have expected to meet.

Our hero had to take some work home to a customer who resided at about a mile-and-a-half’s distance from his workshop. One fine bright sunshiny afternoon he bent his steps in the direction of the habitation in question.

As he was proceeding along a bye road he discovered in the distance a miserably-clad, cadaverous-looking man, whose features he remembered to have seen before, although they were, to say the truth, strangely and sadly altered.

At first he was in some doubt as to the identity of the traveller, but as he approached nearer he was surprised in no small degree to find that the miserable-looking man was none other than John Bristow, whom the reader will remember as Peace’s fellow-lodger in the town of Bradford.

Peace was fairly taken back when he recognised Bristow; he would if it had been possible have avoided a meeting, but as this could not very well be compassed, he determined to put the best face on the matter.

What could have brought Bristow to this part of the country was his first thought?

“Was he in search of anybody? Had he any communication to make?”

These were questions he could not answer satisfactorily.

Bristow was in a most miserable plight; his clothes were ragged and torn, and hung upon his attenuated frame like those of a scarecrow; he looked the very personification of squalid misery. Peace never remembered to have seen such a sudden alteration in anyone.

“Is this the right road to Saltwich?” said Bristow, addressing Peace, whom he evidently did not at first recognise.

“You’ll have to turn round to the right when you reach the finger-post at the end,” returned Peace.

The man started.

“Good luck to you, mate!” he ejaculated. “Why hang it all, if it isn’t Charles Peace.”

“You are right, and pray, in the name of all that’s wonderful, what brings you to this part of the world, John Bristow?” enquired our hero.

“One place is the same as another to me now,” returned his companion. “It matters little where I go or what I do. Everything goes wrong with me—​has been going wrong ever since I last saw you. It appears likely to go wrong for the remainder of my life.”

“Why, mercy on me! you are so strangely altered,” said Peace, “that positively I hardly knew you. What has brought you to this? You look twenty years older.”

“Do I?” he exclaimed, with one of the jerks or nods which were habitual to him. “Do I? Well, I suppose I do. Anyway, I feel more than twenty years older. I’ve had a bad time of it—​have been in the infirmary—​and am next door to starving, that’s how I am.”

“And have you left the old shop?”

“Left it? Lord, love ye, long—​long ago! Haven’t had any regular employment for ever so long. They gave me the sack soon after you left Bradford. I get a job when I can, and that’s not very often. I’m on the tramp now to see and find something to do, and haven’t a blessed mag about me.”

“All this is very sad. And your wife?”

“My wife? She took her hook without giving me an hour’s warning.”

“Where is she?”

“Umph! I should like to know, but I never shall now, I suppose. Oh, she’s turned me up. You see, we had a bit of a quarrel, and——”

“You were always having quarrels when I knew you, but whose fault was it—​not hers?”

“That’s true enough—​it was mine. Well, I bear her no ill will. I hope she’s happier now. But look here, Charlie, we had some words. I’m sorry for what I said. You don’t bear malice, I suppose—​there’s my hand.”

“Let bygoes be bygones,” said Peace. “You’ve been your own enemy more than anyone else’s. I’m sorry to see you so down, but——”

“I know what you are going to say—​it is my own fault. Well, if it is I am the sufferer; but, I say, do you happen to have a trifle you can spare an old chum? Something to help me on my road. I hope to get a job at Saltwich, and if I do I will return you what you may be able to lend—​upon my soul I will, and no gammon.”

“I am a struggling man myself, but still I’ll do something—​here’s ten shillings. When you have the means to pay it me back do so.”

“You’re a right down good fellow, Charlie,” exclaimed Bristow, in evident delight, “and I am sorry I said what I did, but you know well enough that I didn’t mean it.”

“That will do—​enough upon that head. Pull yourself together, and keep away from that cursed drink; it is that alone which has made you the wreck you are.”

“Ah, I am a wreck—​you are right enough! I am a wreck, that is true enough. I’m not the Jack Bristow you knew some three or four years ago.”

“And what about Bessie?” said Peace. “What of her? She left her old quarters about——”

“About the same time as the missus. Ah, they both took their hook at the same time. I don’t think the old woman would have had the heart to go by herself. I’ll never be brought to believe that. She wouldn’t ha’ gone had it not a’ been for Bessie.”

“And have you no idea where they went?”

“Said they were going abroad, that’s all I know. Gone to America, Australia, or some such place. But, lord, I’ve given over thinking about ’em. What’s the use?”

“I don’t know that it is of much use, but I cannot understand the reason for so sudden a flight.”

“Oh, there’s good reason for the matter of that, leastways as far as my old woman is concerned. I don’t believe she ever cared a great deal about me, and that’s the honest truth. Well, latterly you see, she got fairly sick of me.”

“You have nobody but yourself to blame for that.”

“So you always told me. Well, one thing is quite clear, I can’t afford to keep a wife now—​can’t keep myself.”

“You ought to be able to do so with common prudence. You are a skilful workman, and, with ordinary care and attention, might earn a respectable livelihood.”

“At it again,” exclaimed Bristow with a coarse laugh. “The same old game—​moralising. What man was ever made sober by preaching I should like to know?”

“And do you never intend to reform?”

“Me? Ha, ha! I’m afraid I’m too far gone for that.”

“Then I should be ashamed to acknowledge it, if I were you—​that’s all I have to say about the matter, Bristow; you are positively incorrigible.”

“You’re a good fellow, Charlie, but curse your preaching. I never could stand that; but there, I don’t mean to offend you.”

“Oh, you don’t offend me. What I say is for your own good. It is no business of mine, you may answer. Perhaps not, but nevertheless it is my duty to offer you some advice, however unpalatable it may be.”

“You ought to have been a parson, Charlie, upon my word you ought. You’d ha’ made your fortune in the preaching line.”

“Well, say no more upon the subject. I have business to attend to, and so we must part.”

“Where am I to send to you? Where do you hang out now?”

“I am constantly on the move, am travelling, but if you want to communicate with me, address a letter to the post-office, Sheffield, and it will be sure to reach me.”

“You’re a good fellow. There’s no house near where we can have a parting glass? Just one, you know, to show there’s no animosity.”

“There is no house near, and so think of what I have said, and farewell till we meet again.”

“Good bye, Peace, and good luck attend you,” said Bristow, shaking his companion by the hand, and so the two parted.

Peace proceeded with his picture frames towards the house of his customer, and John Bristow went in the opposite direction.

“Strange, remarkably strange, my meeting with that man,” he murmured, as he walked along. “And so he knows no more about Bessie and his wife than I do myself. It is altogether most mysterious and incomprehensible, but there’s something in the background which has not yet come to light.”

After delivering his frames he returned to his workshop, where he was occupied for an hour or two. He then sought the hospitable parlour of the “Carved Lion.”

On the following morning, while he was at breakfast in the club-room, Brickett came in and said with much concern—

“This is a sad business at Saltwich.”

“What is that?” inquired Peace, looking up from his smoking and fragrant cup of coffee.

“Ah, of course—​I forgot you haven’t heard.

“No. What is it?”

“A poor fellow has been found in the road in a dying condition.”

“Who is he?”

“No one seems to know. He is a stranger to these parts and is supposed to be a tramp.”

“Indeed!—​is he in any way injured?”

“Most seriously, they say—​skull’s fractured. They have taken him to the workhouse.”

“Is nothing known about him?”

“Well, it appears that he had been drinking heavily for some hours, and the last house he called at the landlord refused to serve him. He became so violent that he had to be ejected. After that he offered to fight everybody; at length he was persuaded to go away. The last time he was seen alive was in Bedhall’s-lane; and at the end of this, near the high road, he was found in a dying condition.”

“Dear me, how very terrible! Has he been subjected to violence? Has anyone attacked him?”

“They seem to say not. When last seen he was running like mad. The supposition is that he stumbled and fell, his head striking against a heap of stones near to where he was found.”

Peace began to be seriously concerned.

“What sort of a man was he?” he enquired.

“I don’t know, but there’s a carter outside who saw him.”

Peace rose at once, and proceeded to the front entrance of the house.

A man was giving his horses some hay and water in front of the hostelry.

“Here, Jem,” said Brickett, “tell the gentleman what kind of man it was who was found on the Saltwich-road in a dying condition.”

The carter scratched his head and remarked—

“What sort o’ man? Well, un seemed a tallish chap, looked like a tramp.”

“Pale or dark?”

“Dunno. Ye see his face were smothured in blood, so un couldn’t say.”

“Had he dark bushy whiskers?”

“Yes, sticking out on the side on his cheeks.”

“Had he on a ragged fustian coat and moleskin trousers, much the worse for wear?”

“Yes, un ’ad.”

“And short cropped dark hair?”

“His hair was a bit short.”

“Ah, thank you. Will you have a mug of ale?”

“Aye, thank ’ee, zur, I will.”

The ale was drawn and drunk with evident relish by the carter, who was apparently not much discomposed by the sight he had witnessed some hour or two before.

Peace returned to the club-room. He was followed by Brickett.

“Well,” said the latter, “how about the description? Do ’ee know aught about the stranger?”

“I am afraid I do,” returned Peace, who then proceeded to make his companion acquainted with his rencontre with Bristow.

“And it is just possible,” he said, in conclusion, “that the miserable besotted wretch spent the money I gave him in drink. I say it is possible—​nay, more, it is most probable.”

“If I were you I’d just run over to Saltwich and see if it be he—​that is, if you can spare the time.”

In less than half an hour after this Charles Peace rang the porter’s bell at the workhouse.

He was conducted by the master into a small apartment. An iron bedstead was in this, on the mattrass of which was stretched the dead body of a man.

One glance sufficed.

It was the last mortal remains of John Bristow.

The whole affair had been so sudden, the denouement to the tragedy so swift, or it might be said electric, that Peace stood appalled.

“You know him, then?” said the master of the workhouse.

“I did know him years ago, but never dreamed it would end thus.”

“There will be an inquest,” said the workhouse official.

Peace nodded.

“If my attendance is required you know where to find me—​at the ‘Carved Lion.’”

And, with these words, he left the chamber of death.

An inquest was held on the body, and the conclusion arrived at was that the unfortunate man had stumbled, and fallen head foremost on a heap of granite. Blood was found on one of the pieces of granite.

He had evidently afterwards crawled to the end of the lane, where it was assumed that he had sunk from exhaustion and loss of blood. He must have remained in a helpless and senseless condition for some hours.

Death resulted from injuries to the head and exposure, joined to a shattered constitution, the effects of drinking to excess.

The jury returned a verdict of “Accidental death.”

Unhappily for society, John Bristow’s is not a solitary case of the but too frequent indulgence in this fatal propensity.

Within the last week or so the papers have recorded a fatality at the Alexandra Palace which, in most of its features, resembles the wretched end of John Bristow.

The increase of intemperance in this country in the present day is an inexhaustible theme for moralists, economists, and philanthropists.

Drunkenness is the parent of crime, of pauperism, and of misery and degeneracy. It is not possible to calculate the evils that ensue from the pernicious and demoralising effects of a maddening propensity for drink.

The wretched and careworn doubtless fly to it as their only solace. For a time their spirits are raised, but a reaction soon takes place, and at any cost they must procure more stimulants. The end of this may be readily imagined.

How to deal with this gigantic national vice, on which, as yet, no impression has been made, is a question not so easily answered.

If there is one thing more certain than another, it is that, as wealth outstrips culture, sensuality outstrips refinement.

The illiterate millionaire who feasts his guests on turtle and champagne is about the counterpart of the ignorant artisan, who, out of his week’s earnings, treats a less fortunate comrade to a bottle of whiskey or gin.

England for many a day has been brought up in the worship of Mammon and Bacchus, and we are afraid, despite the efforts of the Legislature, intemperance is a vice which we must lay to our account for many years to come.

This, it must be admitted, is very sad to reflect upon.

A return, which was moved for by Mr. Henley last session, has recently been issued, showing the population and number of persons taken into custody for drunkenness and disorderly conduct in each city and town in the United Kingdom, for the years 1851, 1861, 1871, and 1876.

The number of arrests in each of the three countries shows a steady increase in the years named.

In England, in the year 1851, 70,097 persons were taken into custody, of whom 44,520 were males and 25,597 females; and each successive period shows a marked increase, until 1876 the total was 104,174—​67,294 males and 36,880 females.

The returns for Scotland and Ireland showed an increase in a still greater proportion.

Education, we are told, is to effect a change; it will convert intemperate, improvident, and demoralised millions into sober, frugal, and independent citizens. It has not done so as yet, that is very certain, but we must wait till it does.