CHAPTER XLVII

Jo’s Will

As Allan Woodcourt and Jo proceed along the streets where the high

church spires and the distances are so near and clear in the morning

light that the city itself seems renewed by rest, Allan revolves in

his mind how and where he shall bestow his companion. “It surely is a

strange fact,” he considers, “that in the heart of a civilized world

this creature in human form should be more difficult to dispose of

than an unowned dog.” But it is none the less a fact because of its

strangeness, and the difficulty remains.

At first he looks behind him often to assure himself that Jo is still

really following. But look where he will, he still beholds him close

to the opposite houses, making his way with his wary hand from brick

to brick and from door to door, and often, as he creeps along,

glancing over at him watchfully. Soon satisfied that the last thing

in his thoughts is to give him the slip, Allan goes on, considering

with a less divided attention what he shall do.

A breakfast-stall at a street-corner suggests the first thing to be

done. He stops there, looks round, and beckons Jo. Jo crosses and

comes halting and shuffling up, slowly scooping the knuckles of his

right hand round and round in the hollowed palm of his left, kneading

dirt with a natural pestle and mortar. What is a dainty repast to Jo

is then set before him, and he begins to gulp the coffee and to gnaw

the bread and butter, looking anxiously about him in all directions

as he eats and drinks, like a scared animal.

But he is so sick and miserable that even hunger has abandoned him.

“I thought I was amost a-starvin, sir,” says Jo, soon putting down

his food, “but I don’t know nothink—not even that. I don’t care for

eating wittles nor yet for drinking on ’em.” And Jo stands shivering

and looking at the breakfast wonderingly.

Allan Woodcourt lays his hand upon his pulse and on his chest. “Draw

breath, Jo!” “It draws,” says Jo, “as heavy as a cart.” He might add,

“And rattles like it,” but he only mutters, “I’m a-moving on, sir.”

Allan looks about for an apothecary’s shop. There is none at hand,

but a tavern does as well or better. He obtains a little measure of

wine and gives the lad a portion of it very carefully. He begins to

revive almost as soon as it passes his lips. “We may repeat that

dose, Jo,” observes Allan after watching him with his attentive face.

“So! Now we will take five minutes’ rest, and then go on again.”

Leaving the boy sitting on the bench of the breakfast-stall, with his

back against an iron railing, Allan Woodcourt paces up and down in

the early sunshine, casting an occasional look towards him without

appearing to watch him. It requires no discernment to perceive that

he is warmed and refreshed. If a face so shaded can brighten, his

face brightens somewhat; and by little and little he eats the slice

of bread he had so hopelessly laid down. Observant of these signs of

improvement, Allan engages him in conversation and elicits to his no

small wonder the adventure of the lady in the veil, with all its

consequences. Jo slowly munches as he slowly tells it. When he has

finished his story and his bread, they go on again.

Intending to refer his difficulty in finding a temporary place of

refuge for the boy to his old patient, zealous little Miss Flite,

Allan leads the way to the court where he and Jo first foregathered.

But all is changed at the rag and bottle shop; Miss Flite no longer

lodges there; it is shut up; and a hard-featured female, much

obscured by dust, whose age is a problem, but who is indeed no other

than the interesting Judy, is tart and spare in her replies. These

sufficing, however, to inform the visitor that Miss Flite and her

birds are domiciled with a Mrs. Blinder, in Bell Yard, he repairs to

that neighbouring place, where Miss Flite (who rises early that she

may be punctual at the divan of justice held by her excellent friend

the Chancellor) comes running downstairs with tears of welcome and

with open arms.

“My dear physician!” cries Miss Flite. “My meritorious,

distinguished, honourable officer!” She uses some odd expressions,

but is as cordial and full of heart as sanity itself can be—more so

than it often is. Allan, very patient with her, waits until she has

no more raptures to express, then points out Jo, trembling in a

doorway, and tells her how he comes there.

“Where can I lodge him hereabouts for the present? Now, you have a

fund of knowledge and good sense and can advise me.”

Miss Flite, mighty proud of the compliment, sets herself to consider;

but it is long before a bright thought occurs to her. Mrs. Blinder is

entirely let, and she herself occupies poor Gridley’s room.

“Gridley!” exclaims Miss Flite, clapping her hands after a twentieth

repetition of this remark. “Gridley! To be sure! Of course! My dear

physician! General George will help us out.”

It is hopeless to ask for any information about General George, and

would be, though Miss Flite had not already run upstairs to put on

her pinched bonnet and her poor little shawl and to arm herself with

her reticule of documents. But as she informs her physician in her

disjointed manner on coming down in full array that General George,

whom she often calls upon, knows her dear Fitz Jarndyce and takes a

great interest in all connected with her, Allan is induced to think

that they may be in the right way. So he tells Jo, for his

encouragement, that this walking about will soon be over now; and

they repair to the general’s. Fortunately it is not far.

From the exterior of George’s Shooting Gallery, and the long entry,

and the bare perspective beyond it, Allan Woodcourt augurs well. He

also descries promise in the figure of Mr. George himself, striding

towards them in his morning exercise with his pipe in his mouth, no

stock on, and his muscular arms, developed by broadsword and

dumbbell, weightily asserting themselves through his light

shirt-sleeves.

“Your servant, sir,” says Mr. George with a military salute.

Good-humouredly smiling all over his broad forehead up into his crisp

hair, he then defers to Miss Flite, as, with great stateliness, and

at some length, she performs the courtly ceremony of presentation. He

winds it up with another “Your servant, sir!” and another salute.

“Excuse me, sir. A sailor, I believe?” says Mr. George.

“I am proud to find I have the air of one,” returns Allan; “but I am

only a sea-going doctor.”

“Indeed, sir! I should have thought you was a regular blue-jacket

myself.”

Allan hopes Mr. George will forgive his intrusion the more readily on

that account, and particularly that he will not lay aside his pipe,

which, in his politeness, he has testified some intention of doing.

“You are very good, sir,” returns the trooper. “As I know by

experience that it’s not disagreeable to Miss Flite, and since it’s

equally agreeable to yourself—” and finishes the sentence by putting

it between his lips again. Allan proceeds to tell him all he knows

about Jo, unto which the trooper listens with a grave face.

“And that’s the lad, sir, is it?” he inquires, looking along the

entry to where Jo stands staring up at the great letters on the

whitewashed front, which have no meaning in his eyes.

“That’s he,” says Allan. “And, Mr. George, I am in this difficulty

about him. I am unwilling to place him in a hospital, even if I could

procure him immediate admission, because I foresee that he would not

stay there many hours if he could be so much as got there. The same

objection applies to a workhouse, supposing I had the patience to be

evaded and shirked, and handed about from post to pillar in trying to

get him into one, which is a system that I don’t take kindly to.”

“No man does, sir,” returns Mr. George.

“I am convinced that he would not remain in either place, because he

is possessed by an extraordinary terror of this person who ordered

him to keep out of the way; in his ignorance, he believes this person

to be everywhere, and cognizant of everything.”

“I ask your pardon, sir,” says Mr. George. “But you have not

mentioned that party’s name. Is it a secret, sir?”

“The boy makes it one. But his name is Bucket.”

“Bucket the detective, sir?”

“The same man.”

“The man is known to me, sir,” returns the trooper after blowing out

a cloud of smoke and squaring his chest, “and the boy is so far

correct that he undoubtedly is a—rum customer.” Mr. George smokes

with a profound meaning after this and surveys Miss Flite in silence.

“Now, I wish Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson at least to know that

this Jo, who tells so strange a story, has reappeared, and to have it

in their power to speak with him if they should desire to do so.

Therefore I want to get him, for the present moment, into any poor

lodging kept by decent people where he would be admitted. Decent

people and Jo, Mr. George,” says Allan, following the direction of

the trooper’s eyes along the entry, “have not been much acquainted,

as you see. Hence the difficulty. Do you happen to know any one in

this neighbourhood who would receive him for a while on my paying for

him beforehand?”

As he puts the question, he becomes aware of a dirty-faced little man

standing at the trooper’s elbow and looking up, with an oddly twisted

figure and countenance, into the trooper’s face. After a few more

puffs at his pipe, the trooper looks down askant at the little man,

and the little man winks up at the trooper.

“Well, sir,” says Mr. George, “I can assure you that I would

willingly be knocked on the head at any time if it would be at all

agreeable to Miss Summerson, and consequently I esteem it a privilege

to do that young lady any service, however small. We are naturally in

the vagabond way here, sir, both myself and Phil. You see what the

place is. You are welcome to a quiet corner of it for the boy if the

same would meet your views. No charge made, except for rations. We

are not in a flourishing state of circumstances here, sir. We are

liable to be tumbled out neck and crop at a moment’s notice. However,

sir, such as the place is, and so long as it lasts, here it is at

your service.”

With a comprehensive wave of his pipe, Mr. George places the whole

building at his visitor’s disposal.

“I take it for granted, sir,” he adds, “you being one of the medical

staff, that there is no present infection about this unfortunate

subject?”

Allan is quite sure of it.

“Because, sir,” says Mr. George, shaking his head sorrowfully, “we

have had enough of that.”

His tone is no less sorrowfully echoed by his new acquaintance.

“Still I am bound to tell you,” observes Allan after repeating his

former assurance, “that the boy is deplorably low and reduced and

that he may be—I do not say that he is—too far gone to recover.”

“Do you consider him in present danger, sir?” inquires the trooper.

“Yes, I fear so.”

“Then, sir,” returns the trooper in a decisive manner, “it appears to

me—being naturally in the vagabond way myself—that the sooner he

comes out of the street, the better. You, Phil! Bring him in!”

Mr. Squod tacks out, all on one side, to execute the word of command;

and the trooper, having smoked his pipe, lays it by. Jo is brought

in. He is not one of Mrs. Pardiggle’s Tockahoopo Indians; he is not

one of Mrs. Jellyby’s lambs, being wholly unconnected with

Borrioboola-Gha; he is not softened by distance and unfamiliarity; he

is not a genuine foreign-grown savage; he is the ordinary home-made

article. Dirty, ugly, disagreeable to all the senses, in body a

common creature of the common streets, only in soul a heathen. Homely

filth begrimes him, homely parasites devour him, homely sores are in

him, homely rags are on him; native ignorance, the growth of English

soil and climate, sinks his immortal nature lower than the beasts

that perish. Stand forth, Jo, in uncompromising colours! From the

sole of thy foot to the crown of thy head, there is nothing

interesting about thee.

He shuffles slowly into Mr. George’s gallery and stands huddled

together in a bundle, looking all about the floor. He seems to know

that they have an inclination to shrink from him, partly for what he

is and partly for what he has caused. He, too, shrinks from them. He

is not of the same order of things, not of the same place in

creation. He is of no order and no place, neither of the beasts nor

of humanity.

“Look here, Jo!” says Allan. “This is Mr. George.”

Jo searches the floor for some time longer, then looks up for a

moment, and then down again.

“He is a kind friend to you, for he is going to give you lodging room

here.”

Jo makes a scoop with one hand, which is supposed to be a bow. After

a little more consideration and some backing and changing of the foot

on which he rests, he mutters that he is “wery thankful.”

“You are quite safe here. All you have to do at present is to be

obedient and to get strong. And mind you tell us the truth here,

whatever you do, Jo.”

“Wishermaydie if I don’t, sir,” says Jo, reverting to his favourite

declaration. “I never done nothink yit, but wot you knows on, to get

myself into no trouble. I never was in no other trouble at all, sir,

’sept not knowin’ nothink and starwation.”

“I believe it, now attend to Mr. George. I see he is going to speak

to you.”

“My intention merely was, sir,” observes Mr. George, amazingly broad

and upright, “to point out to him where he can lie down and get a

thorough good dose of sleep. Now, look here.” As the trooper speaks,

he conducts them to the other end of the gallery and opens one of the

little cabins. “There you are, you see! Here is a mattress, and here

you may rest, on good behaviour, as long as Mr., I ask your pardon,

sir”—he refers apologetically to the card Allan has given him—“Mr.

Woodcourt pleases. Don’t you be alarmed if you hear shots; they’ll be

aimed at the target, and not you. Now, there’s another thing I would

recommend, sir,” says the trooper, turning to his visitor. “Phil,

come here!”

Phil bears down upon them according to his usual tactics. “Here is a

man, sir, who was found, when a baby, in the gutter. Consequently, it

is to be expected that he takes a natural interest in this poor

creature. You do, don’t you, Phil?”

“Certainly and surely I do, guv’ner,” is Phil’s reply.

“Now I was thinking, sir,” says Mr. George in a martial sort of

confidence, as if he were giving his opinion in a council of war at a

drum-head, “that if this man was to take him to a bath and was to lay

out a few shillings in getting him one or two coarse articles—”

“Mr. George, my considerate friend,” returns Allan, taking out his

purse, “it is the very favour I would have asked.”

Phil Squod and Jo are sent out immediately on this work of

improvement. Miss Flite, quite enraptured by her success, makes the

best of her way to court, having great fears that otherwise her

friend the Chancellor may be uneasy about her or may give the

judgment she has so long expected in her absence, and observing

“which you know, my dear physician, and general, after so many years,

would be too absurdly unfortunate!” Allan takes the opportunity of

going out to procure some restorative medicines, and obtaining them

near at hand, soon returns to find the trooper walking up and down

the gallery, and to fall into step and walk with him.

“I take it, sir,” says Mr. George, “that you know Miss Summerson

pretty well?”

Yes, it appears.

“Not related to her, sir?”

No, it appears.

“Excuse the apparent curiosity,” says Mr. George. “It seemed to me

probable that you might take more than a common interest in this poor

creature because Miss Summerson had taken that unfortunate interest

in him. ’Tis MY case, sir, I assure you.”

“And mine, Mr. George.”

The trooper looks sideways at Allan’s sunburnt cheek and bright dark

eye, rapidly measures his height and build, and seems to approve of

him.

“Since you have been out, sir, I have been thinking that I

unquestionably know the rooms in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where Bucket

took the lad, according to his account. Though he is not acquainted

with the name, I can help you to it. It’s Tulkinghorn. That’s what it

is.”

Allan looks at him inquiringly, repeating the name.

“Tulkinghorn. That’s the name, sir. I know the man, and know him to

have been in communication with Bucket before, respecting a deceased

person who had given him offence. I know the man, sir. To my sorrow.”

Allan naturally asks what kind of man he is.

“What kind of man! Do you mean to look at?”

“I think I know that much of him. I mean to deal with. Generally,

what kind of man?”

“Why, then I’ll tell you, sir,” returns the trooper, stopping short

and folding his arms on his square chest so angrily that his face

fires and flushes all over; “he is a confoundedly bad kind of man. He

is a slow-torturing kind of man. He is no more like flesh and blood

than a rusty old carbine is. He is a kind of man—by George!—that

has caused me more restlessness, and more uneasiness, and more

dissatisfaction with myself than all other men put together. That’s

the kind of man Mr. Tulkinghorn is!”

“I am sorry,” says Allan, “to have touched so sore a place.”

“Sore?” The trooper plants his legs wider apart, wets the palm of his

broad right hand, and lays it on the imaginary moustache. “It’s no

fault of yours, sir; but you shall judge. He has got a power over me.

He is the man I spoke of just now as being able to tumble me out of

this place neck and crop. He keeps me on a constant see-saw. He won’t

hold off, and he won’t come on. If I have a payment to make him, or

time to ask him for, or anything to go to him about, he don’t see me,

don’t hear me—passes me on to Melchisedech’s in Clifford’s Inn,

Melchisedech’s in Clifford’s Inn passes me back again to him—he

keeps me prowling and dangling about him as if I was made of the same

stone as himself. Why, I spend half my life now, pretty well,

loitering and dodging about his door. What does he care? Nothing.

Just as much as the rusty old carbine I have compared him to. He

chafes and goads me till—Bah! Nonsense! I am forgetting myself. Mr.

Woodcourt,” the trooper resumes his march, “all I say is, he is an

old man; but I am glad I shall never have the chance of setting spurs

to my horse and riding at him in a fair field. For if I had that

chance, in one of the humours he drives me into—he’d go down, sir!”

Mr. George has been so excited that he finds it necessary to wipe his

forehead on his shirt-sleeve. Even while he whistles his impetuosity

away with the national anthem, some involuntary shakings of his head

and heavings of his chest still linger behind, not to mention an

occasional hasty adjustment with both hands of his open shirt-collar,

as if it were scarcely open enough to prevent his being troubled by a

choking sensation. In short, Allan Woodcourt has not much doubt about

the going down of Mr. Tulkinghorn on the field referred to.

Jo and his conductor presently return, and Jo is assisted to his

mattress by the careful Phil, to whom, after due administration of

medicine by his own hands, Allan confides all needful means and

instructions. The morning is by this time getting on apace. He

repairs to his lodgings to dress and breakfast, and then, without

seeking rest, goes away to Mr. Jarndyce to communicate his discovery.

With him Mr. Jarndyce returns alone, confidentially telling him that

there are reasons for keeping this matter very quiet indeed and

showing a serious interest in it. To Mr. Jarndyce, Jo repeats in

substance what he said in the morning, without any material

variation. Only that cart of his is heavier to draw, and draws with a

hollower sound.

“Let me lay here quiet and not be chivied no more,” falters Jo, “and

be so kind any person as is a-passin nigh where I used fur to sleep,

as jist to say to Mr. Sangsby that Jo, wot he known once, is a-moving

on right forards with his duty, and I’ll be wery thankful. I’d be

more thankful than I am aready if it wos any ways possible for an

unfortnet to be it.”

He makes so many of these references to the law-stationer in the

course of a day or two that Allan, after conferring with Mr.

Jarndyce, good-naturedly resolves to call in Cook’s Court, the

rather, as the cart seems to be breaking down.

To Cook’s Court, therefore, he repairs. Mr. Snagsby is behind his

counter in his grey coat and sleeves, inspecting an indenture of

several skins which has just come in from the engrosser’s, an immense

desert of law-hand and parchment, with here and there a resting-place

of a few large letters to break the awful monotony and save the

traveller from despair. Mr Snagsby puts up at one of these inky wells

and greets the stranger with his cough of general preparation for

business.

“You don’t remember me, Mr. Snagsby?”

The stationer’s heart begins to thump heavily, for his old

apprehensions have never abated. It is as much as he can do to

answer, “No, sir, I can’t say I do. I should have considered—not to

put too fine a point upon it—that I never saw you before, sir.”

“Twice before,” says Allan Woodcourt. “Once at a poor bedside, and

once—”

“It’s come at last!” thinks the afflicted stationer, as recollection

breaks upon him. “It’s got to a head now and is going to burst!” But

he has sufficient presence of mind to conduct his visitor into the

little counting-house and to shut the door.

“Are you a married man, sir?”

“No, I am not.”

“Would you make the attempt, though single,” says Mr. Snagsby in a

melancholy whisper, “to speak as low as you can? For my little woman

is a-listening somewheres, or I’ll forfeit the business and five

hundred pound!”

In deep dejection Mr. Snagsby sits down on his stool, with his back

against his desk, protesting, “I never had a secret of my own, sir. I

can’t charge my memory with ever having once attempted to deceive my

little woman on my own account since she named the day. I wouldn’t

have done it, sir. Not to put too fine a point upon it, I couldn’t

have done it, I dursn’t have done it. Whereas, and nevertheless, I

find myself wrapped round with secrecy and mystery, till my life is a

burden to me.”

His visitor professes his regret to hear it and asks him does he

remember Jo. Mr. Snagsby answers with a suppressed groan, oh, don’t

he!

“You couldn’t name an individual human being—except myself—that my

little woman is more set and determined against than Jo,” says Mr.

Snagsby.

Allan asks why.

“Why?” repeats Mr. Snagsby, in his desperation clutching at the clump

of hair at the back of his bald head. “How should I know why? But you

are a single person, sir, and may you long be spared to ask a married

person such a question!”

With this beneficent wish, Mr. Snagsby coughs a cough of dismal

resignation and submits himself to hear what the visitor has to

communicate.

“There again!” says Mr. Snagsby, who, between the earnestness of his

feelings and the suppressed tones of his voice is discoloured in the

face. “At it again, in a new direction! A certain person charges me,

in the solemnest way, not to talk of Jo to any one, even my little

woman. Then comes another certain person, in the person of yourself,

and charges me, in an equally solemn way, not to mention Jo to that

other certain person above all other persons. Why, this is a private

asylum! Why, not to put too fine a point upon it, this is Bedlam,

sir!” says Mr. Snagsby.

But it is better than he expected after all, being no explosion of

the mine below him or deepening of the pit into which he has fallen.

And being tender-hearted and affected by the account he hears of Jo’s

condition, he readily engages to “look round” as early in the evening

as he can manage it quietly. He looks round very quietly when the

evening comes, but it may turn out that Mrs. Snagsby is as quiet a

manager as he.

Jo is very glad to see his old friend and says, when they are left

alone, that he takes it uncommon kind as Mr. Sangsby should come so

far out of his way on accounts of sich as him. Mr. Snagsby, touched

by the spectacle before him, immediately lays upon the table half a

crown, that magic balsam of his for all kinds of wounds.

“And how do you find yourself, my poor lad?” inquires the stationer

with his cough of sympathy.

“I am in luck, Mr. Sangsby, I am,” returns Jo, “and don’t want for

nothink. I’m more cumfbler nor you can’t think. Mr. Sangsby! I’m wery

sorry that I done it, but I didn’t go fur to do it, sir.”

The stationer softly lays down another half-crown and asks him what

it is that he is sorry for having done.

“Mr. Sangsby,” says Jo, “I went and giv a illness to the lady as wos

and yit as warn’t the t’other lady, and none of ’em never says

nothink to me for having done it, on accounts of their being ser good

and my having been s’unfortnet. The lady come herself and see me

yesday, and she ses, ‘Ah, Jo!’ she ses. ‘We thought we’d lost you,

Jo!’ she ses. And she sits down a-smilin so quiet, and don’t pass a

word nor yit a look upon me for having done it, she don’t, and I

turns agin the wall, I doos, Mr. Sangsby. And Mr. Jarnders, I see him

a-forced to turn away his own self. And Mr. Woodcot, he come fur to

giv me somethink fur to ease me, wot he’s allus a-doin’ on day and

night, and wen he come a-bending over me and a-speakin up so bold, I

see his tears a-fallin, Mr. Sangsby.”

The softened stationer deposits another half-crown on the table.

Nothing less than a repetition of that infallible remedy will relieve

his feelings.

“Wot I was a-thinkin on, Mr. Sangsby,” proceeds Jo, “wos, as you wos

able to write wery large, p’raps?”

“Yes, Jo, please God,” returns the stationer.

“Uncommon precious large, p’raps?” says Jo with eagerness.

“Yes, my poor boy.”

Jo laughs with pleasure. “Wot I wos a-thinking on then, Mr. Sangsby,

wos, that when I wos moved on as fur as ever I could go and couldn’t

be moved no furder, whether you might be so good p’raps as to write

out, wery large so that any one could see it anywheres, as that I wos

wery truly hearty sorry that I done it and that I never went fur to

do it, and that though I didn’t know nothink at all, I knowd as Mr.

Woodcot once cried over it and wos allus grieved over it, and that I

hoped as he’d be able to forgive me in his mind. If the writin could

be made to say it wery large, he might.”

“It shall say it, Jo. Very large.”

Jo laughs again. “Thankee, Mr. Sangsby. It’s wery kind of you, sir,

and it makes me more cumfbler nor I was afore.”

The meek little stationer, with a broken and unfinished cough, slips

down his fourth half-crown—he has never been so close to a case

requiring so many—and is fain to depart. And Jo and he, upon this

little earth, shall meet no more. No more.

For the cart so hard to draw is near its journey’s end and drags over

stony ground. All round the clock it labours up the broken steps,

shattered and worn. Not many times can the sun rise and behold it

still upon its weary road.

Phil Squod, with his smoky gunpowder visage, at once acts as nurse

and works as armourer at his little table in a corner, often looking

round and saying with a nod of his green-baize cap and an encouraging

elevation of his one eyebrow, “Hold up, my boy! Hold up!” There, too,

is Mr. Jarndyce many a time, and Allan Woodcourt almost always, both

thinking, much, how strangely fate has entangled this rough outcast

in the web of very different lives. There, too, the trooper is a

frequent visitor, filling the doorway with his athletic figure and,

from his superfluity of life and strength, seeming to shed down

temporary vigour upon Jo, who never fails to speak more robustly in

answer to his cheerful words.

Jo is in a sleep or in a stupor to-day, and Allan Woodcourt, newly

arrived, stands by him, looking down upon his wasted form. After a

while he softly seats himself upon the bedside with his face towards

him—just as he sat in the law-writer’s room—and touches his chest

and heart. The cart had very nearly given up, but labours on a little

more.

The trooper stands in the doorway, still and silent. Phil has stopped

in a low clinking noise, with his little hammer in his hand. Mr.

Woodcourt looks round with that grave professional interest and

attention on his face, and glancing significantly at the trooper,

signs to Phil to carry his table out. When the little hammer is next

used, there will be a speck of rust upon it.

“Well, Jo! What is the matter? Don’t be frightened.”

“I thought,” says Jo, who has started and is looking round, “I

thought I was in Tom-all-Alone’s agin. Ain’t there nobody here but

you, Mr. Woodcot?”

“Nobody.”

“And I ain’t took back to Tom-all-Alone’s. Am I, sir?”

“No.” Jo closes his eyes, muttering, “I’m wery thankful.”

After watching him closely a little while, Allan puts his mouth very

near his ear and says to him in a low, distinct voice, “Jo! Did you

ever know a prayer?”

“Never knowd nothink, sir.”

“Not so much as one short prayer?”

“No, sir. Nothink at all. Mr. Chadbands he wos a-prayin wunst at Mr.

Sangsby’s and I heerd him, but he sounded as if he wos a-speakin’ to

hisself, and not to me. He prayed a lot, but I couldn’t make out

nothink on it. Different times there was other genlmen come down

Tom-all-Alone’s a-prayin, but they all mostly sed as the t’other

’wuns prayed wrong, and all mostly sounded to be a-talking to

theirselves, or a-passing blame on the t’others, and not a-talkin to

us. WE never knowd nothink. I never knowd what it wos all about.”

It takes him a long time to say this, and few but an experienced and

attentive listener could hear, or, hearing, understand him. After a

short relapse into sleep or stupor, he makes, of a sudden, a strong

effort to get out of bed.

“Stay, Jo! What now?”

“It’s time for me to go to that there berryin ground, sir,” he

returns with a wild look.

“Lie down, and tell me. What burying ground, Jo?”

“Where they laid him as wos wery good to me, wery good to me indeed,

he wos. It’s time fur me to go down to that there berryin ground,

sir, and ask to be put along with him. I wants to go there and be

berried. He used fur to say to me, ‘I am as poor as you to-day, Jo,’

he ses. I wants to tell him that I am as poor as him now and have

come there to be laid along with him.”

“By and by, Jo. By and by.”

“Ah! P’raps they wouldn’t do it if I wos to go myself. But will you

promise to have me took there, sir, and laid along with him?”

“I will, indeed.”

“Thankee, sir. Thankee, sir. They’ll have to get the key of the gate

afore they can take me in, for it’s allus locked. And there’s a step

there, as I used for to clean with my broom. It’s turned wery dark,

sir. Is there any light a-comin?”

“It is coming fast, Jo.”

Fast. The cart is shaken all to pieces, and the rugged road is very

near its end.

“Jo, my poor fellow!”

“I hear you, sir, in the dark, but I’m a-gropin—a-gropin—let me

catch hold of your hand.”

“Jo, can you say what I say?”

“I’ll say anythink as you say, sir, for I knows it’s good.”

“Our Father.”

“Our Father! Yes, that’s wery good, sir.”

“Which art in heaven.”

“Art in heaven—is the light a-comin, sir?”

“It is close at hand. Hallowed be thy name!”

“Hallowed be—thy—”

The light is come upon the dark benighted way. Dead!

Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, right

reverends and wrong reverends of every order. Dead, men and women,

born with heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around

us every day.