It is evening at the Holls’. The children are in bed, the place is, as Mrs. Holl says, “tidied up,” and John is smoking his pipe with several visitors who have dropped in. There is policeman A 56, and Perkins; William Holl, and his wife too, have come over, for this does not happen to be one of his nights at the meeting. Lastly, there is Mr. Barton. That person, however, was certainly a less welcome guest than the others, for John Holl did not like the man; why he could hardly say, but he knew he did not, and was at no particular pains to conceal his aversion. Mr. Barton never seemed to notice John’s rebuffs, but periodically, perhaps once in six months, would come in and smoke a pipe with him. John Holl had very often asked his wife, on whose good sense he much relied, What that chap Barton meant by coming to see them? 245He seemed comfortably off, and why he should come in twice a year to smoke a pipe was a thing he could not understand. But for once, Sarah was quite unable to enlighten her husband. The matter had fairly puzzled both John and his wife. Many years had passed since John Holl first made Mr. Barton’s acquaintance. It happened thus: John had no children then, and was much younger and not quite so steady as he had since become. John’s temptations, too, were many; for in the discharge of his occupation as dustman, he had sundry mugs of beer offered to him in the course of the day. So it chanced that one particularly warm summer afternoon, being oppressed by the heat, John accepted several of these offerings, and had felt his thirst noways abated thereby. After his work was done, therefore, he went into a public-house, to endeavour still further to wash the dust from his throat. Here, somehow or other—he never could exactly recall the cause—he became involved in a fierce dispute with a man who was also engaged in quenching a devouring thirst. To settle this difference of opinion, they adjourned into the back-yard. The end of this 246was, that John Holl, who had drunk more than his opponent, got considerably the worst of it. The first thing he remembered afterwards was, that he was sitting on the ground, supported by Mr. Barton. This good Samaritan had entered the public-house just after John himself, had espoused his side in the argument with great zeal, and now sprinkled water in his face, and endeavoured to pour brandy down his throat. When he had partially recovered, Mr. Barton, in the kindest manner sent for a cab, drove John to his house, and there delivered him over to the tender care and pity, mingled with upbraidings, of his wife. After this he came in several times to see how John was getting on, but, when he had as it were got a footing in the house, his visits gradually became less frequent, and at last months passed by without their seeing him. Then, greatly to their astonishment, he had dropped in again; and from that time, every six months or so, Mr. Barton would pay them a visit; greet John and Sarah as if he had seen them only the day before; reach a long pipe down from the mantelpiece, seat himself in his usual place next to James, and begin 247to smoke tranquilly. Husband and wife had often wondered and discussed much what could be his possible motive in thus, for seventeen years, continuing his periodical visits. They did not like the man; still they had no reason for telling him so, more especially as he tried to make his visits as acceptable as possible, never failing to produce a small bottle of spirits, remarking—with an immovable face, which it was impossible to question—that he had in his pocket by accident, and to insist that it should be drunk then and there. For the children, too, he always brought a bag of cakes or lollipops, so that to them his visits were noteworthy affairs. Indeed they served Mrs. Holl as a species of calendar, and she reckoned the date of all her household events for years past by them. Baby had been born about a month before Barton’s fourth visit back. James had the measles just about the time of his sixth visit, and so on; and, indeed, Sarah would sometimes greatly mystify her neighbours by this method of reckoning. It was not till many years after the commencement of this disjointed intimacy that John Holl had found out who his visitor really 248was. He had always supposed him to be something in the city—for Barton occasionally mentioned his office—but he did not even know in what part of London he lived, and put him down as being a close man, not given to talking about his affairs. Four years ago, he had made the discovery in this wise. A 56 happened to be spending his evening with John when Mr. Barton had come in. A 56 had said rather respectfully, “Good evening, Mr. Barton,” and Mr. Barton had looked for a moment decidedly taken aback, but recovering himself had said, “We are both off duty together to-night, Brown;” Brown being the name by which A 56 was known in private life. After this Mr. Barton had sat smoking and talking for a time as usual, and when he was gone, A 56 told them that Mr. Barton was a sort of private detective, at which John and Sarah had been astonished, and indignant.
“What,” John said, “a detective! and what does he mean by coming spying here? I hain’t nothing to be ashamed of, Mr. Brown; he may spy as much as he likes in my house, but he won’t find nothing but what is honestly paid for. I ain’t 249no thief, Mr. Brown. If I find anything in the bins—and many a silver spoon and fork, and all sorts have I found there in my time—when I finds them I gives them up. Why, Lor, what good would it be if I didn’t? Sairey would not so much as look at them. Next time Mr. Barton comes here he’ll see what he’ll get for his peeping and spying. Just to think of it, Sairey, to think that while I thought everyone knew John Holl was an honest man, that all this time I have had a policeman—no offence, Mr. Brown—but a private policeman a spying into my doings.”
“I don’t think—do you know, John,” A 56 said, after smoking meditatively for some time, “I don’t think you need trouble yourself about Barton’s suspicions of your honesty. If there had been any great robbery of plate, and they could not make out how the stuff had gone, and you had taken away the dust, say early in the morning, I don’t know that they might not suspect you, and keep you under their eye; but Lor bless you, it would not have lasted more than a few weeks at most. It ain’t nothing of that sort, you may take your solemn Davey. It 250is a rum start surely. I have often heard you talk about a Mr. Barton, who came in twice a year, but it never entered my head as how it were Barton the private detective.”
“Well, but what does he come here for, Mr. Brown? Just tell me that,” John Holl said, bringing his heavy hand down upon the table. “I’ll find out next time he comes, or my name’s not John Holl. I will punch his head for him, Mr. Brown, detective or no detective; there’s no law against that I expect, if he comes into my house without even saying by your leave.”
A 56 smoked thoughtfully, not paying much attention to what John Holl said; then he remarked, “It is certainly strange, John. Barton is a deep one, there’s no doubt of that, and not a bit the sort of chap to waste a minute of his time without some good reason for it, but I can’t see what his game is here.”
“What was this Mr. Barton?” Mr. Holl asked.
“He was a Bow Street runner,” A 56 said, “but he was turned out of the force some twelve years back. He calls himself a private detective 251now, and does all sorts of things in that way. They say he is as sharp as a needle. He’s got to the bottom of several jobs which have beaten our people, but I have heard, though I should not say so to every one, that he plays double sometime. But there, that mayn’t be true, and you see our people are rather jealous of him.”
“That’s right enough, Mr. Brown, but still I can’t see what he has been spying about here so long for—twelve years—no, more—nigh upon thirteen, it were just about the time when James and his poor mother came here.”
“Was it though?” the policeman said; “then you may take my word for it, John, he comes to keep his eye on the boy. I’d bet a gallon to a pint he knows who the boy is, and is paid by his friends to let him know if he’s alive, and how he is getting on; yes, you may depend upon it, that’s about the mark.”
John Holl and his wife looked at each other in astonishment. Sarah was the first to speak.
“That’s it, John, sure enough. Like enough he’ll turn out some rich man’s son, and get all his money yet.”
“I would not think that, Mrs. Holl; no, not if 252I was you,” policeman Brown said; “I should say his chance now is worse than it was before. Then some day, I don’t say it was likely, still there it was, it might have been found out by some accident who he was, but now it seems as if they must know where he is, and all about him, but don’t want to acknowledge or do anything for him.”
“Then they’re a bad, unnatural lot, whoever they are,” Mrs. Holl said, indignantly, “and the poor lad a cripple too. But any ways, John, if he comes to look after James, we must speak him fair, for who knows, perhaps some day when they are dying they may be sorry for what they have done all these years, and turn round and send for him.”
“That is so,” the policeman said; “let him come and go just as if you thought nothing more of him than before; if any good come of it, so much the better. If not, his visits won’t have done you any harm.”
And so it was settled. Since that conversation Mr. Barton had paid his seven visits with his usual punctuality—this was his eighth. No hint was ever given by John and Sarah that they 253suspected the cause of his coming, and to James they had never spoken of what had passed, for he had gone to bed at the time when their discovery of Mr. Barton’s occupation was made, and they agreed that it was much better to say nothing to him on the subject.
For some time the little party talked on indifferent matters, and then the cripple boy, who was rather fond of attacking William Holl, brought up the question of politics. James had read much, and variously. All these years that he had been crippled, he had had no other occupation, and he had thought as well as read; at ordinary times his diction, although better, still resembled that of those around him, but when he warmed into a subject he dropped this altogether, and spoke in the language of those in the world, of which he had seen so little and read so much. “Well, Uncle William, and how go on the Chartists?”
“The great cause goes on well, James, as well or better than we could hope. The working classes are everywhere moving, and a deep feeling of discontent at their condition is fast gaining ground among them.”
254“And a great pity too, William,” Sarah Holl said; “we have always done very well before we got these Chartist notions into our heads, and for my part I can’t see what we want with them, or what go............