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Nancy, do you pack up the children's clothes, and any school-books or play-things you can find, and then come along to my house. The law can't touch them, I suppose." "What is that drunken old Swatridge talking about?" said one of the broker's men. Tom heard him.
"I fought hard, but there's no doubt that Mr Gull's client is the nephew of Tom Swatridge, who died intestate, consequently his nephew is his heir. Had the old man wisely come to me I would have drawn up a will for him, securing his property to you or any one he might have desired. I am very sorry for you, but law is law, and it can't be helped. I hope that you will find employment somewhere soon.
"Half a loaf is better than no bread, Peter, so it's as well not to lose the sixpence," said Jim, laughing. "But no gentleman would have offered less than a shilling. I wonder whether he really is old Tom's nephew?" We had just landed the gaily-dressed individual who had announced himself the nephew of old Tom Swatridge.
While she was waiting for old Tom Swatridge, who had been with grandmother and her for years to bring along her baskets of vegetables from the market, a gentleman came hurrying down the Hard, and seeing father getting the wherry ready, said: "I want you to put me aboard my ship, my man. She's lying out at Spithead; we must be off at once." "It's blowing uncommon fresh, sir," said father.
I should have said that a day or two before he had sent a clerk armed with due authority to accompany Nancy and Mary, who brought away our clothing and all the articles which we had purchased with our own money. Curiously enough, I did not again set eyes on Mr Eben Swatridge, who was, I understood, the son of a younger brother of old Tom, who had gone into business in London and made money.
I felt, indeed, that if my faithful friend really was lost, which I could scarcely yet believe, I would rather be alone; and I had no fear about managing the wherry single-handed. As may be supposed, my anxiety became intense as we approached the boat. "Is old Tom Swatridge saved?" I shouted out. No answer came. "Tom! Tell me, Tom, if you are there!" I again shouted.
I will not stop to speak of Mary's and my grief. At last Nancy, her eyes red with crying, sat down, with her hands pressed against her head, to consider what was to be done. "Why, I ought to have sent for him at once!" she suddenly exclaimed. "Peter, run and find Tom Swatridge, and tell him that poor missus has gone."
I remember saying that I was born with a wooden spoon in my mouth, but when I come to reflect what excellent parents I had, and what true friends I found in Tom Swatridge and Nancy, I may say that, after all, it must have been of silver, though perhaps not quite so polished as those found in the mouths of some infants. Another change in my life was about to occur.
I had gone half-a-dozen times when I caught sight, as I turned my eyes the other way thinking he might have passed by, of Tom Swatridge stumping slowly up the street. He stopped when he saw me, and beckoned. He looked very downcast. I observed that he had a straw hat in his hand, and I knew that it was father's. "How is mother?" he asked, when I got up to him.
"I'd a hard job to get them, and shouldn't at all, if Tom Swatridge and two other men hadn't come in and said they'd be answerable if everything wasn't all square. He and they were ordering all about the funeral, and I've got two women to stay with the missus till she's put all comfortable into her coffin. Alack! Alack! That I should have to talk about her coffin!" Nancy's feelings overcame her.
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