In Homespun

'I think, perhaps,' says I afterwards, 'you ought to 'ave let 'im make an honest woman of you.'

'I'm as honest as I want to be,' says she, 'and the child is all my own now.' So no more was said.

And things went on the same old sleepy way, like they always do on the river, and we forgot the shame almost, in the pleasure of having the little thing about us. And so the time went on, till one day at Maidstone a Sister of Charity with one of those white caps and a big cross round her neck, come down to the water's side inquiring for Tom Allbutt.

'That's me,' says my old man.

'There's a young man ill in hospital,' says she. 'He's dying, I'm afraid, and he wants to see you before he goes. It's typhoid fever, but that's over now; he's dying of weakness, they say.'

And when we asked the young man's name, of course it was Bill Jarvis. So we left my Pretty in charge of the barge, and my old man and me, we went up to the hospital.

Bill was so changed you wouldn't 'ardly 'ave known 'im. From being a fleshy, red-cheeked young fellow, he'd come to be as thin as a skeleton, and 'is eyes seemed to fill half 'is face.

'I want to marry Mary,' says 'e. 'I'm dying, I can't do her and the kid no 'arm now, and I should die easier if she'd marry me here; the chaplain would do it—he said so.'

My old man didn't say nothin', but says I, 'I would dearly like her to be made an honest woman of.'

'It's me that wants to be made an honest man of,' says Bill. And with that my old man, he took his hand and shook it. Then says Bill with the tears runnin' down his cheeks,—partly from weakness, I suppose, for 'e wasn't the crying sort—'So help me God, I never knew what a beast I was till that day I come to you in your barge and you showed me what a man was, Tom Allbutt; you did, so, and I've been trying to be a man ever since, and I've given up the drink, and I've lived steady, and I've never so much as looked at another girl since that night. Oh, get her to be my wife,' says 'e, 'and let me die easy.'

And I went and fetched 'er, and she came along with me with the child in her arms; and the chaplain married them then and there. I don't know how it was the banns didn't have to be put up, but it was managed somehow.

'And you'll stay with me till I die,' says 'e, 'won't you, Mary, you and the kid?'

But he didn't die, he got better, and there isn't a couple happier than him and Mary, for all they've gone through.

And the doctor says it was Mary saved his life, for it was after he had had a little talk with her that he took a turn for the better.

'Mary,' says 'e, 'I've been a bad lot, and you was in the right when you called me a coward and a beast; but your father showed me what a man was, and I've tried to be a man. You was fond of me once, Mary; you'll love me a little when I'm gone, and don't let the kid think unkind of her daddy.'

'Love you when you're gone?' says she, cryin' all over 'er face, and kissin' 'im as if it was for a wager; 'you ain't a-goin' to die, you're goin' to live along of me and baby. Love you when you're gone?' says she, 'why, I've loved you all the time!' she says.