LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1259, 20 March 1878, Page 3

LITERATURE.

LEE, THE LETTER MAN. By Johnny Ludlow. Continued. Lee told his tale confessing the sin of the morning. Mr liymer nodded his head aig nificantly several times as he heard it, and pushed his red hair from his capacious forehead.

' They'll not look over it this time, Lee,' 'lf I could but g*st some one to be my friend with the rector, and ask him to forgive mc,'said Lee. ' Had your father been alive Mr Rymer, I think he would have done it for me.'

' Very likely, No good to ask me -if ihat's what you are hinting at. The rector looks upon me as a black sheep and turns on me the cold shoulder But I don't think he is oce to listen, Lee, though the King came to ask him.' * What I shall do I don't know,' bewailed Lee. 'lf the place is stopped the pay stops, and I've not another shilling in the world or the means of earning one. My wife's ailing; and Mamie gets worse day by day; and there are the two little ones. They are all upon me.' ' Some people here Bay, Lee, that you should have sent Mamie and her young one to the workhouse, and not have charged yourself with them.' ' True, sir, several have told me that. But people don't know what a father's feelings are till they experience them. Mamie was my own child that I had dandled on my knee, and watched grow up in her pretty ways, and I was fonder of her than any earthly thing. The workhouse might not have taken her in.'

'She had forfeited all claim on you. And come home only to break your heart.' ''iYuo,' meekly assented Lee. 'But the Lord has told us we are to forgive, not seten times, but seventy times seven. If I had turned her adrift from my door and heart, sir, who knows but I might have been driven adrift myself at the Last Day.' Evidently it was of no use talking to one so unreasonable as Lee. And Mr Ben Ryrner turned back to his shop. A customer was entering it with a prescription and a medicine bottle.

One day in the Christmas week, Mrs Todhetley despatched me to Tiinberdalo through the snow for a box of these delectable 'Household Pills' which have been mentioned before : an invention of the late Mr Ryraer's, and continued to be made up by Ben. Ben was behind the counter as usual, when I entered, and shook the snow off iny boots on the door mat.

' Anything else ?' he asked me, wrapping up the box. ' Not to-day. There goes old Lee! How thin he looks !'

4 Starvation,' said Ben, craning his long neck to look between the coloured globes at Lee on the other side of the way. ' Lee has nothing coming in now.' 'What do they all live upon?' 'Goodness knows. Upon things that he pledges, and the vegetables in the garden. I was in there last night, and I can tell you it was a picture, Mr Johnny Ludlow.' ' A picture of what 1 ' Misery: distress: helplessness. It is several weeks now since Lee earned anything, and they have been all that while upon short commons. Some days on no commons at all, I expect.' ' But what took you there 1 ' ' I heard such an account of the girl— Mamie--yesterday afternoon; of her cough and her weakness ; that I thought I'd see if a"y of my drugs would do her good. But it's food they all want.' ' Is Mamie very ill 1 ' ( Very ill, indeed. I'm not sure but she's dying.' ' It's a dreadful thing.' ' One can't ask too many professional questions—people are down upon you for that before you have passed,' resumed Ben, alluding to his not being qualified. 'But I sent her in a cordial or two, and I sr>oke to Dat byshire ; so perhaps he'll look in upon her to-day.' Ben Rymer might have been a black sheep once upon a time, but he had not a bad heart. I began wondering whether Mrs Todhetley could help them. ' Is Mamie Lee still able to do any sewing ? * 'About as much as I could do it, I shall hear what Darbyshbe's report is. They would certainly be better off in the workhouse.'

' I wish they could be helped !' 'Not much chance of that,'|said Ben. ' She is a sinner, and he is a sinner: Timberdale says ?o, you know. People in these enlightened days are so very selfrighteo'.is !' ' How is Lee a sinner ?'

'How! Why, has he not burnt up the public's letters ? Mr Tanteron leads the van in banning him, and Timberdale follows.'

I went home, questioning whether our folks would do anything to help the Lees. Nobody called out against ill-doings worse than the Squire; and nobody was more ready than he to lend a helping hand when the ill doers were fainting for lack of it. It chanced that, ijust about the-time I was talking to Ben Kymer, Mr Darbyskire, the doctor at Timberdale, called at Lee's. He was a little, dark man, with an irritable temper and a turned-up nose, but good as gold at heart, Mamie Lee lay back in a chair, her head on a pillow, weak and wan and weary, the tears slowly rolling down her cheeks. Darbyshire was feeling her pulse, and o'd Mrs Lee pottered about, bringing sticks from the garden to feed the handful of lire. The two children sat on the brick floor.

' If it were not for leaving my poor little one, I should be glad to dip, sir,' she was saying. ' I shall be glad to go : I hope it is not wrong to say it. She and I have been a dreadful charge upon them here.' Barbyshire looked round the kitchen. It was nearly bare ; the things had gone to the pawnbroker's. Then he locked at her. ' There's no need for you to die yet. Don't get that fallacy in your head. You'll come round fast enough with a little care.' ' No, sir, I'm afraid not; I think lam past it. It has all come of the <rouble, sir ; and perhaps when I'm gone, the neigbours will judge me more charitably. I believed with all my heart it was a true marriage—and I hope you'll believe me when I say it, sir ; it never c«me into my mind to imagine otherwise. And I'd have thought the whole world would have deceived me, sooner than James.'

'Ah,' says Darbysbire, ' most girla think that. Well, I'll send you in some physic to soothe tho pain in the chest. But what you most want, you see, is kitchen physic' ' Mr Uymer has been very good in sending mo cordials and cough mixture, sir. Mother's cough is bad, and he sent some to htr as well.'

'Ah ; yes Mrs Lee, Tam telling your daughter that what she most wants ia kitchen physic. Good kitchen physic, you understand. You'd be none the worse yourself for some of it.'

Dame Lee. coming in just then in her pattens, tried to put her poor bent back as upright as. she could, and shook her head before answering. ' Kitchen physic don't come in our way now, Mr Darbyshire We just manage not to starve quite, and that's all. Perhaps, sir, things may take a turn. The Lord is over all, and He sees our need.'

' He dave me some peppermint d'ops,' said the little one, who had been waiting to put in her word. ' Andy, too.' ' Who did ?' asked the doctor. 'Mr Truer.'

Darbyshire patted the little straw colored head, and went out. An additional offence in the eyes of Timberdale was that the child's fair curls frire just the pattrrn of those on the head of James the, deceiver.

' Well, have you seen Mamie Lee?' asked Ben Bymer, who ehc<n,cod to be standing at his shop door after his'd'nner, when,Daubyshire was passing by from paying Jss roupd of vjbits, ■ • * - -

' Yes, I have seen her. There's no radical disease.'

' Don't you think her uncommonly ill ?' Darbyshire nodded. « But she's not too far gone to be cured. She'd g..t well fast enough under favorable circumstances.' ' Meaning good fcod?' ' Meaning food and other things. Peace of mind, for instance. Soe is just fretting herself to death. Shame, remorse, and aU that, have got hold of her : besides grieving her heart out after the fellow.'

' Her voice is so hollow ! Did you notice

' Follow from weakness only. As to her being too far gone, she is not at present: at least, that's my opinion; but how soon she toay become so I can't say. With good kitchen physic, as I've just told them, and ease, of mind to help me, I'll answer for it that I'd have her well in a month ; but the girl has neither the one nor the other. She seems to look upon coming death in the light of a relief, rather than otherwise ; a relief to her own mental trouble, and a relief to the household, in the shape of saving it what she eats and drinks. Jn such a condi tion as this, you must be aware that the mind does not help the body by striving for existence, it makes no effort to struggle back to health; and there's where Mamie Lee will fai'. Circumstances are killing her, not the disease.'

' Did you try her lungs ?' ' Partially. ' I'm sure I am right. The fi ,; rl will probably die, but she need not of necessity ; though I suppose there will be no help for it. Good day.' Mr Darbyshire walked away in the direction of his house, where his dinner was waiting; and Ben Eymer disappeared within doors and began to pound some rhubarb (or what looked like it) in a mortar. He was pounding away like mad, with all the strength of his strong hands, when who should, come in but Lee. Lee had never been much better than a shadow of late years, but you should have seen him now, with his grey hair straggling about his meek, wan face. You'should have seen his clothes, too, and the old shoes out at the toes and sides. Burning peopVs letters was of course an unpardonable offence, not; to be condoned.

'Mamie said, sir, that your were good enough to tell her I was to call in for some of the cough lozenges that did her so much good. But-™-' ' Ay,' interrupted Ben, getting down a box of the lozenges. ' Don't let her spare them. They 11 not interfere with anything Mr Darbyshire may send. I hear he has been.'

But that thoue were not the days when beef tea was sold in tins and gallipots, Ben Eymer might have added some to the lozenges. As he was handing the box to Lee, something in the man's wan and worn and gentle face put him in mind of- his late father's, whose heart Mr Bon had helped to break. A great pity took the chemist ' Tou would like to be reinstated in your place, Lee ?' he said, sudde&ly. Lee could not answer at once, for the pain at his throat and the moisture in his eyes that the notion called up. His voice, when he did speak, was as hollow and mild aa Mamie's.

' There's no hope of that, sir. For a week after it was taken from me, I thought of nothing else, night or day, but that Mr •"anerton might perhaps forgive me and get Salmon to put me on again. But the time for hoping that went by : as you know Mr Eymer, they put young Jelf in my place. I shall never forget the blow it was to me when I heard it. Th ■• other morning I saw Jelf crossing the bit of waste ground yonder with my old bag slung on his shoulder, and for a moment I thought the pain would have killed me.'

'lt is hard l'nes,' said Ben. ' 1 have striven and struggled all my life long ; enly myself knows how sorely, save God ; and only He can tell, for I am sure I can't, how I have contrived to keep my head any way above water. And now it's under it.'

Taking the box, which Ben TCymer handed to him, Lee spoke a word of thanks, and went ont. He could not say much ; heart and spirit were alike broken. Hen called to his boy to mind the shop, and went over to Salmon's. That self-sufficient man and prosperous tradesman was sitting down at his desk in the shop corner, complacently digesting his dinner—which had been a good one, to judge by his red face. ' Can't you manage to do something for Lee?' began Ben, after looking to see i.hat they were alone. 'Heis at a rare low ebb.'

'Do something for Lee 1 ' repeated Salmon. 'What could I do fo- him?'

'Put him on his place agai v n.' ' I daresay !' Salmon laughed, and then demanded whether Ben was a fool.

' You might do it if you would,' said Ben. ' As to Lee, he won't last long if thiuga continue to be as they are. Better give him a chance to live a little longer.' 'Now what do you mean?' demanded Salmon. ' Why don't you ask me to put a weathercock on yonder malt-house of Pashley's ? Jelf has got Leo's place and you know it.'

1 But Jelf does not intend to keep it.' ' Who says he does not ?' *Be does. He told me yesterday that he was sick and tired of the tramping, and meant to resign. He only took it as a temporary convenience, while be waited for a clerkship he was trying for at a brewery at Worcester. And he is to get that with the new year.' ' Then what does Jelf mean by talking about it to others before he lias spoken to me?' cried Salmon, going into a temper. ' He thought t > leave me and the letters at a pinch, I suppose ! I'll teach him better.' ' You may teach hiui what you like, if you'll put Lee on again. I'll go bail thirt he won't get smoking again on his rounds I think it is ju*t a to&s-up of life or death to him. Come! do a good turn for once, Salmon.'

Salmon paused. He was not bad-hearted, only self-imp rtant. ' What would Mr Tanerton say to it?'

Ben did not answer. He knew that there, after Salmon himself, was where the difficulty would lie. ' All that you have been urging goes for nonsense, Hymer. Unless the rector came to me and said, ' You may put old Lee on again,' I should not, and could not, attempt to stir in the matter ; and you must know that as well as I do '

' Can't somebody see Tanerton, and talk to him ? One would think that the sight of Lee's face would bo enough to soften him, without anything else.' 'I don't know who'd like to do it,'returned Salmon. And there the conference ended, for the apprentice came in from his dinner.

Very nrnch to our surprise, Mr Ben Rymer walked in that same eveuiog to Orabb Cot, and was admitted to the t quire. In spite of Mr Ben's former ill-doings, which we had got to know of, the J-qaire treated Ben civily, in remembrance ot his grandfather, the clergyman. Beu's errand was to ask the Squire to intercede for Lee with Herbert Tanerton. And the Pater, after talking laigely about the iniquity of Lee, as connected with burnt letters, came round to Ben's way of thinking, and agreed to go to the rectory. 'Herbert Tanerton's harder than nails, and you'll do no good,' remarked Tod, watching us away on the following morning; for the Pater took me with bim to break the loneliness of the walk. ' He'll turn as cold to you as a stone the moment you bring up the subject, f-ir. Tell me I'm a story-teller when you come back if he does not, Johnny.'

[Tt> bo concluded)