George Fenn - Christmas Penny Readings - Original Sketches for the Season

The candle burned down, quivered in the socket, and then went out; the fire sank together again and again with a musical tinkle, and then ceased to give forth its warmth; but through the two round holes in the shutters the bright moonbeams shone, bathing the couple with their light, as slowly they knelt down, and Shadrach repeated some words, stopping long upon that impressive clause – “As we forgive them that trespass against us.”

“And you’ll leave the back door unfastened, Mary?” whispered Shadrach.

Mrs Pratt nodded.

“And forget the past if she should come?”

“Ah, me! ah, me! my poor girl!” cried the mother, thoroughly heart-broken, and for the first time since her child forsook her home showing any emotion; “what have we done that we should be her judges?”

The moonbeams shone brightly in as the couple rose, and after listening for a moment at the stair foot, Shadrach walked to the back door, opened it, uttered a cry, and then fell upon his knees; for there, upon the cold snow, with her cheek resting upon the threshold, lay the lost one of the flock – cold, pale, and motionless, but with her hands outstretched, and clasped together, as if praying for forgiveness. Stretched upon the cold snow by the door she had stolen from two years before; lying where she had crept, with trembling hands, and quivering, fevered lips, whispering to herself that she would die there, for she dared ask no entrance.

Need the story be told of that Christmas-day, and of the joy in that poor man’s home – of the sick one weeping in her mother’s arms – of the welcome given to one the world called lost! I trow not; but let us skip another year, and then stand in the same room, in the same place, and at the same hour, as with a bright light in his humble, ordinary face, Shadrach Pratt, a man not addicted to quoting Scripture, takes his homely wife’s hand, and whispers —

“More than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance.”

And I’ve found that out that it isn’t money, nor a well-furnished house, nor clothes that make a man happy, but the possession of a good wife; and it took me ten years to find it out. It took me ten selfish years – years that I had been spending thinking more about myself than anybody else, you know. And all that while I’d got so used to it that I never took any notice of the patience and forbearance and tenderness that was always being shown to me. It’s all right, thinks I, and it’s me that’s master, and I’ve a right to be served. And that’s the case with too many of us: we get married, and are precious proud taking the wife out for a bit; but then come the domestic duties, and mostly a few children, when it’s hard work to make both ends meet, and so the poor wife gets lower and lower and lower, till she’s a regular slave, while the husband looks on, and never stretches out a hand to save her a bit of trouble.

Well, that’s measuring other people’s corn by your own bushel, and that’s right – that’s just what it is: that’s my bushel, and allowing for it being a bit battered and knocked about, it’s surprising what a correct measure it is, and if ever I use that old measure to try any other man’s corn, and I find as it don’t do for it, I always feel as if I should like to shake that fellow’s hand off, for I know he’s a trump and a man worth knowing.

Now, I’m going to tell you how I found it all out, and in finding it all out as I call it, let me tell you I mean principally what a fool I had been for ten long years. I needn’t tell you when it was, and Jane there don’t care to be too nice about the day – very well, we’ll say you do, but never mind now – only it was Christmas-eve, and I come home from work with my hands in my pockets, and a week’s wage there too, and when I mounted the stairs and went into our shabby room, there was the wife down in the low rocking-chair, with two of the little ones in her lap, and though her head was partly turned away I could see she was crying, and another time I should have flown at her about it, for I don’t mind saying as I was a regular brute to her – not hitting or anything of that sort, you know, but sending hard words such as she’s told me since hit harder than blows. But I couldn’t fly at her then on account of a strange chap as was there. Shabby, snuffy-looking little fellow, with flue in his hair and pits in his chin, where he couldn’t shave into, so that, what with his face not being over well washed, and his old black clothes looking greasy, he didn’t seem the sort of visitor as you’d care about having in your place, because, though I came home dirty with my trade, I always set that down as clean dirt, and don’t mind it.

“Well, what’s for you?” I says, precious gruff.

“Two pun fifteen and ninepence, with costs,” he says, bringing out a paper; and then you might have knocked me down with it, for I knew it was for rent. There’d been a bother about it several times, and no wonder, and as I’d promised again and again, and never kept my word, as I should have done, why this was come on me, and there was a man in possession.

There was only one thing to be done, and of course that I does at once; goes over the way to the landlord, and when I got into his room I began to bluster a bit.

“It’s a deal too bad,” I says.

“Have you brought the money, my man?” he says.

“No, I ain’t,” I says, “and I thinks – ”

“Now, look here, Roberts,” he says, quite quietly, and holding up his finger, “You’re not the sort of tenant I want. You’re no credit to the place. If you had been a decent fellow, struggling against the world, and you owed me twice as much, and I saw you meant to pay, why I’d never have put in the bailiffs; but when I see a man going on as you do, why I say if you’ve money to waste you can pay your rent. Sorry for your wife, but if you can’t pay the money now, there’s the door. I’m not going to be annoyed in my own place.”

He wasn’t a big man, but he took me down twenty pegs in a minute in his cool, easy way, and before I knew where I was I’d backed out, and was going across the street, when I recollects the man sitting there at home, and of a Christmas-eve too, and I slowly went back and sent in a message to landlord, and directly after I stood before him again, and after no end of a hard fight he consented to let a pound stop on, and send the man off if I’d pay down one pound fifteen and ninepence.

Well, I thought a minute, and hesitated, and thought again, and then recollected the dirty, snuffy fellow there, and that settled me, so that I paid down the money, took my receipt, and a note to the man, and directly after I was standing in my own place, with that chap gone, and only threepence left of my six-and-thirty shillings for a Christmas dinner; and now it came upon me hot and strong why it was that I stood there like that, and as I saw it all so plain I set my teeth and brought my fist down upon the table in a way as made the candlestick jump, and sent the children trembling up to their mother.

“It’s because nobody ever said to me, ‘Sam Roberts, what’ll you take to eat?’” And then I banged my fist on the table again, and began walking up and down the room.

Nobody spoke to me, but the wife got the children off quietly to bed, and at last, when I was still striding up and down, I felt her hand on my shoulder, and she whispered quite low like —

“Don’t mind it, dear.”

“But I do,” I said, quite fierce and loud, and the poor thing stole away from me again, and though I didn’t look at her, I knew she wasn’t able to keep the tears back, and that I’d been the cause again.

I took no notice then though, for something was working in me, and at last I told her to go to bed, and she did, while I sat before the bit of fire in the room and thought it over.