MY FARE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, Issue III, 13 October 1891, Page 4

MY FARE.

[by g. manvjlle fenn.] Don't you make a mistake now, and think I'm not a working-man, because I am. Don't ' you run away with the idea that because I ; go of a morning and find my horse and Gab | waiting ready cleaned for me, and I jumps up ; and drives off, as I don't work as hard as ; any mechanic, because I do ; and I used to j work harder, for it used to be Sunday and j weekdays, till the missus and me laid our j heads together, and said if we couldn't live ! on six days' work a week at cabbing, we'd try some-thing else ; so now I am only a six ' clays' man— Hansom cab, V.R., licensed to ; carry two persons.. j None o' your poor, broken-kneed knackers I for me. I take my money in to the governor regular, and told him fiat that if I couldn't have a decent horse I wouldn't drive ; and I } spoke a bit sharp, having worked for him ten years. . " Take your chice, Steve Wilkins," he says ; and I took it, and drove Kangaroo, the wallsyed horse with a rat tail. I had a call one day off the stand by the Foundling, and has to go into New Ormond Street, close by ; and I takes up an old widow lady and her daughter — as beautiful a girl of seventeen or eighteen as ever I set eyes on, but so weak that I had to go and help her down to the cab, when she thanked me so sweetly that I couldn't help looking again and again, for it was a thing I wasn't used to. " Drive out towards the country, cabman, the nearest way," says the old lady; "and when we want to turn back, I'll speak." "Poor gal!" I says, "She's an invalid. She's just such a one as my Fan would have been if she'd lived ;" and I says this to myself as I gets on to my box, feeling quite soft ; for though I knew my gal wouldn't have been handsome, what did that matter ? I didn't like to lose her. " Let's see," I says again, " she wants fresh air. We'll go up the hill, and through Hampstead ;" and I touches Kangaroo on the flank, and away we goes, and I picks out all the nicest bits I could, and when I comes across a pretty bit of view I pulls up and pretends as there's a strap wanted tightening, or a hoof picking, or a fresh knot at the end of the whip, and so on. Then I goes pretty quickly along the streety bits, and walks very s\owty atong the green lanes ; and so we goes on for a good hour, when the old lady pushes the lid open with her parasol, and tells me to turn back. " All right, mum," I says ; and takes 'em back another way, allers following the same plan, and at last pulls up at the house where I supposed they were lodgers, for that's a rare place for lodgings about there. I has the young lady leaning on my arm when she gets out, and when she was at the door she says, "Thank you" again, so sweetly and sadly that it almost upset me. But the old lady directly after asked me the fare, and I tells her, and she gives me sixpence too much, and though I wanted to pocket it, I wouldn't, but hands it back. " Thank you, cabman," she says ; " that's for being so land and attentive to my poor child." ; " God bless her, mum," I says, " I don't want paying for that." Then she smiles quite pleasant, and asks me if it would be worth my while to call again the next afternoon if it was fine, and I says it would ; and next day, just in the same way, I goes right off past Primrose Hill, and seeing as what they wanted was the fresh air, I makes the best o' my way right out; and then, when we was amongst the green trees, Kangaroo and me takes it easy, and just saunters along. Going up hill I walks by his head, and picks at the I hedges, while them two, seeing as I took no notice of 'em, took no notice o' me. I mean, you know, treated me as if we was old I iriends, and asked me questions about the different places we passed, and so on. Bimeby, I drives 'em back, and the old lady again wanted to give me something extra for what she called my kind consideration ; but "No, Stevey," I says to myself; "if you can't do a bit o kindness without being paid for it, you'd better put up the shutters, and take to some other trade." So I wouldn't have it, and the old lady thought I was offended ; but I laughed, and told her as the young lady had paid me ; and so she had with one of her sad smiles, and I said I'd be there again next day if it was fine. And so I was ; and so we went on day after day, and week after week ; and I could see that, though the sight of the country and the fresh air brightened the poor girl up a bit, yet she was getting weaker and weaker, so that at last I half carried her to the cab, and back again after the ride. One day while I was waiting, the servant tells me that they wouldn't stay in town, only on account of a great doctor, as they went to see at first, but who came to them now ; and last of all, when I went to the house I used always to be in a fidget for fear the poor gal should be too ill to come out. But no; month after month she kept on ; and when I helped her, used to smile so sweetly and talk so about the trouble she gave me, that one day, feeling a bit low, I turned quite silly : and happening to look at her poor mother a standing there with the tears in her eyes, I had to hurry her in, and get up on to my seat as quick as I could, to keep from breaking down myself. Poor gal ! always so loving and kind to all about her — always thanking one so sweetly, and looking all the while so much like what one would think an angel would 100k — it did seem so pitiful to feel her get lighter and lighter week by week— so feeble, that at last I used to go upstairs to fetch her, and always carried her down like a child. Then she used to laugh, and say, " Don't let me fall, Stephen" — for they got to call me by my name, and to know the missus, by her coming in to help a bit ; for the old lady asked me to recommend 'em an honest woman, and I knowed none honester than my wife. And so it was with everybody — it didn't matter who it was — they all loved the poor gal ; and I've had the wife come home and sit and talk about her, and about our Fanny as died, till she's been that upset she's cried terribly. Autumn came in werry wet and cold, and there was an end to my jobs there. Winter was werry severe, but I kept on hearing from the missus how the poor gal was — sometimes better, sometimes worse : and the missus allus shook her head werry sadly when she talked about her. Jennywerry and Feberwerry went by terribly cold, and then March came in quite warm and fine, so that things got so forrad, you could buy radishes wonderful cheap in April ; and one night the wife comes home and tells me that if it was as fine next day as it had been, I was to call and take theold lady and her daughter out. Next day was splendid. It was as fine a spring day as ever I did see, and I sticks a daffydowndilly in on each side of Kangaroo's head, arid then spends twopence in a couple o' bunches o 1 wilets, and pins 'em in on the side where the poor gal used to sit, puts clean straw in the boot, and then drives to the place with the top lid open, so as iv sweeten the inside, because swells had been ) smoking there that morning. " Jest run yer sponge and leather over the apron a bit, 13uddy," I says to our waterman, afore I left the stand. " Got a wedding on ?" he says, seeing how pertickler I was. "There, look alive!" I says, quite snappish, for I didn't feel in a humour- to joke : and then when I'd got all as I thought right, I dvivps up, keeping the lid open, as I said before. (To be Concluded).