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"How did you learn all this?" "From Mr. Crossthwaite, who found out that you most probably caught your fever from a house near Blackfriars, and in that house this very coat had been turned out, and had covered a body dead of typhus." Half unconscious, I stammered Lillian's name inquiringly. "She is much changed; sorrow and sickness for she, too, has had the fever have worn her down.
Let the history of every nation, of every revolution let your own sad experience speak have they been aught as yet but delusive phantoms angels that turned to fiends the moment you seemed about to clasp them? Remember the tenth of April, and the plots thereof, and answer your own hearts!" Crossthwaite buried his face in his hands. "What!"
I felt I must keep up my present excitement, or lose my heart, and my caste, for ever; and as the hour for the committee was at hand, I jumped up and set off thither with them, whether they would or not. I heard Sandy whisper to Crossthwaite, and turned quite fiercely on him. "If you want to speak about me, speak out. I announced my intention at the meeting.
Crossthwaite turned angrily to me. "Why, you are getting as reactionary as old Mackaye himself!" "I am not and he is not. I am ready to die on a barricade to-morrow, if it comes to that. I haven't six months' lease of life I am going into consumption; and a bullet is as easy a death as spitting up my lungs piecemeal.
I had no mind to keep it in such company; so I got the poor fellows' pawn-tickets, and Crossthwaite and I took the things out for them. When we returned, we found them in a group in the passage, holding the door open, in their fear lest we should be locked up, or entrapped in some way. Their spirits seemed utterly broken.
But the old man turned the conversation by asking me abruptly my name, and trade, and family. "Hum, hum, widow, eh? puir body! work at Smith's shop, eh? Ye'll ken John Crossthwaite, then? ay? hum, hum; an' ye're desirous o' reading books? vara weel let's see your cawpabilities."
Yes; I too, like Crossthwaite, took the upper classes at their word; bowed down to the idol of political institutions, and pinned my hopes of salvation on "the possession of one ten-thousandth part of a talker in the national palaver." But soon, with me, and I am afraid with many, many more, the means became, by the frailty of poor human nature, an end, an idol in itself.
"Surely, Crossthwaite, if matters were properly represented to the government, they would not, for their own existence' sake, to put conscience out of the question, allow such a system to continue growing." "Government government? You a tailor, and not know that government are the very authors of this system?
And, thank God, I have no children, and never intend to have, if I can keep true to myself, till the good times come." "Oh! Crossthwaite, are not children a blessing?" "Would they be a blessing to me now? No, my lad. Let those bring slaves into the world who will!
She ceased, and there was silence for a few moments, as if angels were waiting, hushed, to carry our repentance to the throne of Him we had forgotten. Crossthwaite had kept his face fast buried in his hands; now he looked up with brimming eyes "I see it I see it all now. Oh, my God! my God! what infidels we have been!"
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