Mary Barton Page #20

Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life is the first novel by English author Elizabeth Gaskell, published in 1848. The story is set in the English city of Manchester between 1839 and 1842, and deals with the difficulties faced by the Victorian working class.

• Novel

								

literally nothing but some loose bricks. However, those he got; and
taking off his coat he covered them with it as well as he could. He
pulled her feet to the fire, which now began to emit some faint heat.
He looked round for water, but the poor woman had been too weak to
drag herself out to the distant pump, and water there was none. He
snatched the child, and ran up the area-steps to the room above, and
borrowed their only saucepan with some water in it. Then he began,
with the useful skill of a working-man, to make some gruel; and when
it was hastily made he seized a battered iron table-spoon (kept when
many other little things had been sold in a lot), in order to feed
baby, and with it he forced one or two drops between her clenched
teeth. The mouth opened mechanically to receive more, and gradually
she revived. She sat up and looked round; and recollecting all, fell
down again in weak and passive despair. Her little child crawled to
her, and wiped with its fingers the thick-coming tears which she
now had strength to weep. It was now high time to attend to the man.
He lay on straw, so damp and mouldy no dog would have chosen it in
preference to flags; over it was a piece of sacking, coming next to
his worn skeleton of a body; above him was mustered every article
of clothing that could be spared by mother or children this bitter
weather; and in addition to his own, these might have given as much
warmth as one blanket, could they have been kept on him; but as he
restlessly tossed to and fro, they fell off and left him shivering in
spite of the burning heat of his skin. Every now and then he started
up in his naked madness, looking like the prophet of woe in the
fearful plague-picture; but he soon fell again in exhaustion, and
Barton found he must be closely watched, lest in these falls he
should injure himself against the hard brick floor. He was thankful
when Wilson re-appeared, carrying in both hands a jug of steaming
tea, intended for the poor wife; but when the delirious husband saw
drink, he snatched at it with animal instinct, with a selfishness he
had never shown in health.

Then the two men consulted together. It seemed decided, without a
word being spoken on the subject, that both should spend the night
with the forlorn couple; that was settled. But could no doctor be
had? In all probability, no; the next day an infirmary order might be
begged, but meanwhile the only medical advice they could have must be
from a druggist's. So Barton (being the moneyed man) set out to find
a shop in London Road.

It is a pretty sight to walk through a street with lighted shops; the
gas is so brilliant, the display of goods so much more vividly shown
than by day, and of all shops a druggist's looks the most like the
tales of our childhood, from Aladdin's garden of enchanted fruits
to the charming Rosamond with her purple jar. No such associations
had Barton; yet he felt the contrast between the well-filled,
well-lighted shops and the dim gloomy cellar, and it made him moody
that such contrasts should exist. They are the mysterious problem of
life to more than him. He wondered if any in all the hurrying crowd
had come from such a house of mourning. He thought they all looked
joyous, and he was angry with them. But he could not, you cannot,
read the lot of those who daily pass you by in the street. How do you
know the wild romances of their lives; the trials, the temptations
they are even now enduring, resisting, sinking under? You may be
elbowed one instant by the girl desperate in her abandonment,
laughing in mad merriment with her outward gesture, while her soul
is longing for the rest of the dead, and bringing itself to think
of the cold-flowing river as the only mercy of God remaining to her
here. You may pass the criminal, meditating crimes at which you will
to-morrow shudder with horror as you read them. You may push against
one, humble and unnoticed, the last upon earth, who in Heaven will
for ever be in the immediate light of God's countenance. Errands of
mercy--errands of sin--did you ever think where all the thousands of
people you daily meet are bound? Barton's was an errand of mercy; but
the thoughts of his heart were touched by sin, by bitter hatred of
the happy, whom he, for the time, confounded with the selfish.

He reached a druggist's shop, and entered. The druggist (whose smooth
manners seemed to have been salved over with his own spermaceti)
listened attentively to Barton's description of Davenport's illness;
concluded it was typhus fever, very prevalent in that neighbourhood;
and proceeded to make up a bottle of medicine, sweet spirits of
nitre, or some such innocent potion, very good for slight colds, but
utterly powerless to stop, for an instant, the raging fever of the
poor man it was intended to relieve. He recommended the same course
they had previously determined to adopt, applying the next morning
for an infirmary order; and Barton left the shop with comfortable
faith in the physic given him; for men of his class, if they
believe in physic at all, believe that every description is equally
efficacious.

Meanwhile, Wilson had done what he could at Davenport's home. He
had soothed, and covered the man many a time; he had fed and hushed
the little child, and spoken tenderly to the woman, who lay still
in her weakness and her weariness. He had opened a door, but only
for an instant; it led into a back cellar, with a grating instead
of a window, down which dropped the moisture from pigsties, and
worse abominations. It was not paved; the floor was one mass of bad
smelling mud. It had never been used, for there was not an article of
furniture in it; nor could a human being, much less a pig, have lived
there many days. Yet the "back apartment" made a difference in the
rent. The Davenports paid threepence more for having two rooms. When
he turned round again, he saw the woman suckling the child from her
dry, withered breast.

"Surely the lad is weaned!" exclaimed he, in surprise. "Why, how old
is he?"

"Going on two year," she faintly answered. "But, oh! it keeps him
quiet when I've nought else to gi' him, and he'll get a bit of sleep
lying there, if he's getten [14] nought beside. We han done our best
to gi' the childer [15] food, howe'er we pinched ourselves."


   [Footnote 14: "For he had geten him yet no benefice."--Prologue
                 to Canterbury Tales.]

   [Footnote 15: Wicklife uses "childre" in his Apology, page 26.]


"Han [16] ye had no money fra th' town?"


   [Footnote 16: "What concord han light and dark."--Spenser.]


"No; my master is Buckinghamshire born; and he's feared the town
would send him back to his parish, if he went to th' board; so we've
just borne on in hope o' better times. But I think they'll never come
in my day;" and the poor woman began her weak high-pitched cry again.

"Here, sup [17] this drop o' gruel, and then try and get a bit o'
sleep. John and I'll watch by your master to-night."
								Rate this book:0.0 / 0 votes