The Seed She Sowed: A Tale of the Great Dock Strike

Author of "Arthur's Inheritance," "Gytha's Message,"
"A Gypsy Against Her Will," &c.

"FATHER won't be long now, and as he didn't get any work yesterday, he's sure to to-day. He allus does, I've noticed," and the speaker, a pretty little girl of ten, carefully dropped a few cinders on the fire as she spoke, that the room might look bright and cheerful for her father when he came in from his work at the docks.

The girl sitting in the glow of the firelight turned towards the shadowed corner where her sister lay on a home-made couch of boxes and asked: "Will you want some more medicine, do you think?"

"I'm afraid so; I haven't had any for a week, and my back is getting bad again. But we won't say anything about it till we see how much father gets to-day. Mother is sure to get eighteen pence for her washing at Mrs. Rutter's, so she might be able to spare sixpence for a bottle of medicine if father got a day's work too."

"He wouldn't get a whole day—why, he hasn't had a whole day's work for a long time! But he might get a shilling or perhaps a little more, and then I should think you might have the medicine. I'll go and have a look up the street and see if he is coming, for I know you want your tea badly by this time. I had my dinner at the mission-hall, so I'm not so hungry as you are." And as she spoke she opened the door, letting out a glow of ruddy firelight that drew another girl to the doorway.

"How are you to-day, Winny?" she said thrusting her head in and looking round the room. "How jolly you always look in here!" she added surveying the little room, that did have an air of comfort about it in spite of its shabby furniture, which looked quite rich and luxurious in the glow of the firelight.

There was a carpet on the floor that still retained patches of crimson here and there. Winny's box couch, too, was covered with a patchwork of cretonne which looked bright and pretty; and there was an arm-chair covered in the same fashion on the other side of the fireplace, and a little round table in the middle of the room covered with a white cloth, on which was set out the tea-cups and a plate or two, but not an atom of food, because the last morsel was eaten at breakfast time, and until father or mother came home with the day's earnings, no tea could be had by the sisters.

Most eagerly did Letty peer into the darkness of the dreary little street. The wind blew cuttingly cold off the river, and although it was not much after five o'clock, it had been so dull and foggy all day that now in the March wind everybody had been glad to get indoors, and no one was to be seen moving about. Here and there lights twinkled in the windows of the houses; but many, like this home window of Letty's, only showed the red glow of a little cinder fire made ready for the festival of the day—tea, when the children were at least sure of half a meal if the father's earnings would not get them a whole one.

After looking up and down the street for either father or mother to appear, Letty went indoors and upstairs, for she was shivering, and the little stool by the fireside was more comfortable than the door-step.

"Was that Annie Brown went out just now?" she asked rather sharply as she came in.

"I wonder you talk to her, Winny, when you know they are all such a bad lot," said her sister shutting the door with a bang.

"Oh, Annie is not so bad when you come to know her. Her father works at the docks; gets more work, I think, than father does, and—"

"That may be, but still I know mother don't want me to go to play with her," said Letty speaking somewhat severely.

But her sister only smiled to herself in the shadow. Letty was like her mother, and prided herself on holding herself aloof from a good many—nay, most of their neighbours, for they had not always been so poor as they now were.

Chaplin had been a carpenter, but ill-health and bad times had thrown him out of work, and he had drifted from one thing to the other until at last he had been glad to get an occasional day's work at the docks as a day labourer, while his wife got a little charing at some of the larger houses close at hand.

In this way, a year or two had passed, during which, if they had sunk no lower, they had made no headway towards recovering their position. And during this time, the eldest girl, Winny, had gradually sunk into a state of ill-health that at first seemed likely to add to her father's despondency. But the girl herself developed a cheerfulness that made her a very fountain of hope and good cheer for others, although she seemed to have given up all thought of being any better herself.

No one seeing that pale patient face on the pillow of her couch would ever have dreamt what she was, not only to her own mother, father, and sister, but to all who lived in the house. When people came as new tenants, they would hear from one and the other of "little Winny Chaplin" before they had been in the house a week, and if anybody was in trouble, Winny was sure to know all about it. The little back room they occupied was in point of fact the heart of that house with its cluster of households, and so it was no uncommon thing for one and the other to open the door and exchange a word or two with the invalid, especially when her mother was out all day.

In this way she learned to know her neighbours as her mother never would; for there was something so winning about the girl, that people talking to her forgot sometimes that she was only a girl, and told her of troubles that they would have shrunk from imparting to older and wiser friends. Then, too, Winny always had time to listen to their stories, and the very telling them to such a sympathetic listener often lifted the load a little; and if Winny could do no more, she would whisper tenderly to her visitor: "God knows all about it, you know. I will ask him to help you."

Sometimes a curious smile would part the lips of the complainer when she said this, for however heavy the trouble under discussion might be, it rarely happened that it was so great as that affliction she herself was called upon to endure, and perhaps the visitor would add: "Do you think God knows about your own trouble?"

"Oh yes, I'm sure he does," Winny would reply with a bright look. "He is so good to me that—that—I hardly know how to be thankful enough. I wasn't just at first, you know," she would hasten to add. "I used to think that God ought to make me well quick, and let me go to Sunday-school again; and when he did not seem to hear, and I got weaker and weaker, I began to cry, until one day it all at once came over me like a great light that God had some work for me to do lying still on this couch. Then I thought how the Lord Jesus had been willing to come and live here—and it must have been a very horrid place for him to live in; but he came to do his Father's work and to save us, and so he did not mind. And when I thought of this, I felt so glad that I forgot the pain in my back for a long time. So, you see, God is helping me all the time, for he is always pouring just as much gladness into my heart as I can bear."

"But, Winny," the friends had said, "if God helps you as you say, why does not he make you well? Don't you think he could?"

"Oh, yes, of course; and I daresay it would be quite as easy for him to make me well as to give me so much gladness. But then it might not be so good for me, or for the people about here. Don't you see I'm doing God's work here? Only a little bit of course; but it is enough to make anyone feel glad to be able to do even a little bit for the dear Lord who gave all his life for us."

So it was not strange that Annie Brown should sometimes look in upon the invalid, although she did have the character of being a wild, bold girl.

Mrs. Chaplin, however, did not like her or her father, who often spent his money in drink when he earned a little more than usual. And so Letty was quite right in what she said; and her sister did not contradict her, but just smiled to herself in the shadow while Letty carefully dropped a few more cinders on the fire.

Before she had finished, the street door opened, and the next minute Winny exclaimed joyfully, "There's father at last, open the door quick!"

Letty needed no second bidding; she dropped the shovel she had in her hand and ran to the door of the room.

"You're late, father," she said by way of greeting, looking at him keenly to see by his face how much money his pocket was likely to contain.

The signs were not very favourable. Chaplin was looking sad and dispirited, and as he dropped into the arm-chair which Letty had drawn round to the fire, he said, "Only an hour's work—only fi'pence, my lasses."

Winny felt disappointed. She had made so sure her father would at least get two hours work and bring home tenpence to-night. She heaved a little sigh as she thought of the medicine that could not be bought now, and then conquering her own personal share of the disappointment, she said, "Get a loaf and a bit of dripping if you can, Letty; father is hungry I can see. We can make the old tea leaves do once more, and there is some sugar in the cupboard, I think."

Letty soon put on her hat, and taking up the little pile of halfpence which her father laid down on the table, she ran downstairs and out of the house.

Winny watched her father as he sat with his head drooped on his hand, looking too weary to talk. The girl knew the signs too well to speak to him just now. By and by, when he had had his tea, he would tell them about his day's work, and how many men were standing about outside the dock gates to-day—waiting for a chance to be called in.

Presently Letty came back with a rare treasure in her hand. As she came up the street from the chandler's shop, the wind brought a newspaper rustling and fluttering down from the main road at the other end. Letty picked it up and stood with it in her hand, thinking someone would come out of the darkness and claim it; but after standing for a minute or two peering into the gloom, and neither seeing or hearing anyone, she decided that she might take it home to her father.

"Ah! That'll be a treat," he said holding out his hand to take it. "Can we have a light, Winny?" he said rather wistfully, half fearing that even now, he might be balked of his reading.

Letty set the loaf and dripping down on the table, and went to a shelf in the corner and brought a lamp to the table.

"Oh, yes, there is some oil in it," said her sister as she held it up to look at it. "Mother told me last night when she put it out that there was a nice drop left in it."

Ninny was always the family remembrancer in these small household economies, for a lamp could not be burned wastefully, and so a careful record was kept as to how long a lamp had been burning. After a little discussion, it was decided that it would be best to have tea by firelight only, and light the lamp for father as soon as he had washed himself.

This was done down in the little back yard, and when it was over, the lamp was lighted, and he sat down to the perusal of his paper.

It was a rare treat for him to have a whole newspaper for his own reading, and he was soon deeply interested in what he read.

When his wife came in from her day's work, he could hardly wait for her to sit down before he began to talk about the things which had taken his attention in the paper.

"I say, mother, the House of Lords is having an inquiry into the sweating system," he said, speaking quite eagerly.

The poor woman was very tired, and did not feel much interest in what her husband was talking about, but she said with a little show of interest, "What do you mean, Tom?"

"Mean! Well, you'd know if you worked in the docks, where the foreman does nothing for his money but hunt us along, yelling, 'Shove up there, shove up!' And make twenty of us do the work of sixty, of course getting the other forty men's money for himself besides his own wages."

While Mrs. Chaplin forgot her weariness as she said, "Tell us what you mean, Tom,—what this sweating is."

"Well, look here, this is how we men get served—for we have it at the docks as bad as anywhere. We'll say a ship comes in to-morrow morning, a tea ship perhaps. The labour-master goes and looks at her, and says to the foreman, 'You'll want sixty for that job.'

"'All right,' says Mr. Foreman, and at eight o'clock, he comes to the dock gates and picks out the strongest-looking chaps he can find among us-forty or fifty, perhaps. He takes 'em to the ship, and sets them to work till half-past ten. And then if they are fagged, and he don't think they'll be able to keep up the pace he wants them to work at, he pays them off for two hours' work, and then goes to the gates for another batch—sixty this time, most likely, because at eleven o'clock the labour-master will be round to see how they are getting on, and to see that the number of workers are all right.

"The foreman don't do much in the way of hard work himself; he has enough to do to look after his gang of labourers, for they'd shirk their work if they could—if they wasn't looked after. Treat a man like a dog and you'll only get dog's work out of him. The chap that knows he's just hired for a couple of hours, and will be put off the job then, ain't going to take the interest in his work that he ought. Mind, I ain't saying he ought not, for I know well enough that if a man puts heart into his work, it's a deal better than just brute strength only; and that's why so many of us grumble at the way things are managed at the docks. I tell you it's bad for foremen and labourers too, though the foremen don't mind so much, as they make money by it. See how Rutter has got on since he's been foreman," added Chaplin with some bitterness.

"But how is it they can manage it? I don't understand," interrupted Winny in an eager tone.

"Well, my girl, it's this way. The foreman is paid by contract. The ship comes in, and they find out how much cargo there is in the hold to be got out, and the labour-master can tell to an hour or so how long it will take sixty or twenty men to get it out, and he says this job will be so much, five or ten pounds as the case may be, and the foreman has to pay the labourers out of this contract price. Well, if he can make forty or fifty men do the work of fifty or sixty by keeping them at a breakneck pace all the time, and working men only for about an hour, or two hours while they are fresh, he makes so much more for himself, for, of course, the contract price is calculated as though he had to pay the sixty men, instead of the twenty he has made do the work. Now do you understand, my little woman?" added her father.

The words were not much in themselves, but the tone in which they were spoken made his wife look at him in a little surprise and alarm; for he was usually a silent man, at least about his work.

"You never told me this before," she said. "How is it you are so hot about it now?"

"It was hard work to keep from being hot before, but, don't you see, I might have said something about it and spoiled my chance of a job; but now everybody is talking the thing over, for we've had some chaps down at the dock gates, and they've found out that over and above what I've told you, the merchants and shippers pay eightpence an hour for our work, but we only get fivepence, and we've borne this sort of thing long enough."

His wife looked still more alarmed, for there was a ring of determination in her husband's tone, and she knew by past experience that the knitted brow and fierce look with which he banged the table indicated something unusual, and she was half afraid of what he might do next. But after looking at his wife for a minute, he turned to his paper again.

"They say here that it is a shame for poor tailors and nailmakers to be sweated. So if it is a shame for them, isn't it a shame for us?" he demanded.

"But look here, Tom. I've heard you say that dockers were just the poorest of all labourers; that you'd never stop at it if you could get back to your own trade." Mrs. Chaplin spoke in some perplexity, for she did not understand her husband being so moved about the low wages, for he had often said that there were so many more labourers than could find work, that they must expect wages to be low.

"That's true enough, but still I say that we could do with fewer foremen, or with an over-looker who should share our work and only have his fair share of the wages. Then, don't you see, I could earn sixpence where I only get fivepence now, and when the job was over, and things came to be totted up, I might get a penny or two more that goes into a man's pocket now who don't do the work. Don't you see this too, Martha, we should have the men steadier, and taking more pains with the work, for they would have an interest in it which they can't have now they are hunted like dogs. I begin to see from reading here about what has been going on in the House of Lords, that we ought to have things altered a bit as well as the tailors and chain-makers. The chap that comes round sometimes to the gates when we are waiting for a job has been telling us the same thing, but I only laughed at him, and so did the rest before. I shall tell 'em to-morrow, though, he's worth listening to; and it might be he could give us a hint how to get things altered."

"Things seem to get worse and worse," said his wife with a sigh. "I had a good bit extra washing to-day, and I thought for sure Mrs. Rutter would give me a penny or two more; but no, she just give me the bare eighteen pence, and I was afraid to say a word for fear she should tell me she could get somebody else to do the work for less money."

"That's just how it is with us poor dockers, and so there seems no help for us at all."

"Don't say that, Daddy," put in Winny quickly. "Who can tell but somebody may inquire into the docker's wages as well as the tailor's."

"If my head don't ache till that happens, it won't trouble me as it has done," said her father.

"It's the rent I'm thinking about," said Mrs. Chaplin, taking the two silver coins out of the corner of the handkerchief where they were tied and looking at them.

One shilling and sixpence was all they possessed in the world, and this was Thursday night. As sure as Monday came, the landlord would arrive at ten o'clock for the rent, and if the three shillings was not ready, they would be served with a notice to quit; and to be turned from this room would mean that they must sink a stage lower in the social scale. They would have to go where rents were less, and their comfort and respectability would be seriously impaired, and no one knew how much this was to Mrs. Chaplin.

That she had seen better days gave her a certain standing with her neighbours that was as precious as a patent of nobility to the wealthy, and to go to a street where this would count for little or nothing in the eyes of its rougher inhabitants, was more than the poor woman could contemplate calmly. She had buoyed herself up with the hope all day that her husband would make something like two shillings, then they could lay this aside and yet have sufficient to get what was necessary for the replenishing of the cupboard.

To her over-anxious mind, it seemed unfeeling that her husband could be interested in anything he might read in the newspaper, and forget the rent that must be provided somehow before next Monday.

That there could be any connection between the two, she quite failed to see in her narrower vision, and thinking over this as she looked at the shilling and sixpence on the table, she at length burst into tears, to Letty's great consternation.

"Mother, mother, don't cry!" exclaimed Winny, trying to stretch out her arms so as to be able to reach her. "Mother dear, you forget that God knows all about how bad things are just now, and can send us the rent ready for next Monday, though it is Thursday night and we haven't got much towards it."

"We haven't anything," sobbed the poor woman. "We shall want all this money for bread and tea and a bit of dinner to-morrow."

Winny was silent for a minute or two, but at last she said: "Letty might get some soup at the mission-hall for a penny a pint, and that would be cheaper than anything else for dinner."

"And I can get my dinner what I want at the food truck outside the dock gates for a penny," remarked her husband.

Poor Mrs. Chaplin winced. She had been thinking a good deal to-day of their past comfort and respectability, and to her it seemed like charity to take advantage of these cheap food depots, and her tears flowed afresh at the thought. Still, if the shilling was to be put away for the rent, it was the only thing they could do with the sixpence, for upon no other plan could they hope to get sufficient for them all to have two meals within twenty-four hours.

It was some comfort to her to think that there was something dropped into the rent-box that stood in the corner drawer, and so she wiped away her tears and began to prepare for going to bed.

This was an elaborate process, for the bed had to be let down out of what looked like a wardrobe cupboard during the day, but now disclosed bed-clothes, beds, and pillows, to say nothing of a long curtain that was rolled together at the top, and when let down formed a partition between the two beds, the girls' being made up at the other end of the room.

There was not much room to move about when the two beds were got into working order for the night, but then nobody wanted to do more than creep into bed.

When they were ready, Chaplin lifted Winny from her couch to the opposite side of the room and Letty helped her take off her clothes, and very soon three out of the four were sound asleep.

But for Winny there was very little rest that night. Her father had set her thinking in a fashion that was not pleasant. How could it be that poor men like her father should not be able to put, as he said, his heart into his work, and do it, as she knew God would have all work done, intelligently and heartily. This was certainly the way he would have all men work, and for things to be managed so that men could not or would not do this, was to degrade them to the level of beasts of burden, and certainly ought to be altered somehow.

Surely if these men who could earn so much more money than her poor father only knew how hard things were for them sometimes, they would be willing to make some change. For such ways of dealing with men as those which her father had spoken of were harsh and unrighteous, and God hated all unrighteousness, and had sent his Son to redeem men from it. Therefore it was only right that those who were committing the wrong should be told of it for love's sake, and not merely for the sake of the poor labourers.

It gave her something to think about and something to pray over. And very earnestly did the girl pray that night, that somehow God would show men what to do, so that this might be altered for the sake of the workers, and also for the sake of those who were so anxious that they might heap up riches and comforts for themselves at all costs.

How her prayer was to be answered Winny did not think, or even try to conjecture. God would show them that he could find out the way, and lead all his servants to judge righteously in this matter.

With this thought in her mind, she at last went to sleep, and did not wake until her father had gone out to look for work as usual.

CHAPTER II.

THE bell was ringing for school, and Letty hurrying down the last mouthful of bread and dripping before starting, when Winny opened her eyes the next morning.

"Just in time to say good-bye!" exclaimed Letty, running over to kiss her before starting for school.

"Is it so late as that, mother?" said the invalid, looking round the room as she raised herself on her elbow.

"Yes, deary; you did not sleep well in the night, I suppose? See what Annie Brown brought for you a little while ago." And as she spoke, Mrs. Chaplin held up a slice of toast. "Buttered toast," she explained; "and I've got a nice drop of tea for you in the pot. You shall have your breakfast before I dress you."

Buttered toast was a luxury that did not often find its way to the Chaplin's room, unless brought by a neighbour, and it was an unwritten law in the house that if one of them did have a little delicacy of any kind, Winny was to share it. But where every one was so poor and had such a hard struggle for daily bread, it was not often that such chances occurred, and Winny wondered as she munched her toast where Annie could have got it from.

Before the room was made tidy for the day, there came a knock at the door, and a tall slatternly girl put her head in the next moment.

"Can you sew some sacks for mother and get 'em done to-night?" asked a gruff voice, but the towsled head was nodded in a pleasant manner towards Winny, and she said, "I've heard about you though you don't know me."

"No, I don't think I do," said Mrs. Chaplin. "But I shall be glad to do the sacks," she added quickly, for this chance of earning a few pence was most providential.

"I told mother you'd do 'em. I'll bring 'em over directly." And with another nod towards Winny, the girl shut the door and ran downstairs.

"I wonder who she can be," said Winny. "She seemed to think she knew me, but I have never seen her before."

"No, I suppose not; but I have seen her going up and down the street with a pile of sacks on her head, so I suppose they do a lot of that work and they're pretty busy now."

Winny did all she could towards her own dressing in the thick long frock that her mother had made for her to wear in the day-time, and then she was settled on her little couch, where she could see to read or look out at the children playing in the back yard, while her mother put the bed away and was in readiness to begin upon the sacks when the girl brought them.

"You'll be sure to let us have them all done by ten o'clock to-night," she said when she dropped her bundle on the floor.

Mrs. Chaplin looked at the pile of coarse sacking, and wondered whether she could get through so much in the time. She had sewed sacks before, and knew that it was hard work, and could not be got through very quickly, and so she said: "What time have these got to go in?"

"Eight o'clock to-morrow morning," replied the girl, with her eyes still fixed upon Winny.

"Well, I'll promise this: all the sacks I can get done by eight o'clock to-night my husband shall bring over, and I will sit up and do the rest so that you shall have them by seven to-morrow. Will that do?" asked Mrs. Chaplin rather anxiously.

"From you it will," said the girl with a grin. And with another nod to Winny, she shut the door and ran downstairs.

A needle and string for sewing were sent with the sacks, and so Mrs. Chaplin sat down at once to her task.

"We shall get the rent now, mother, sha'n't we?" said Winny eagerly. "I was sure God would help us somehow," she added in a tone of glad triumph when her mother, after a careful calculation, thought she might put away another shilling towards it out of the sack sewing.

But she had not been at this long, when there came another tap at the door. But it was not pushed open until Mrs. Chaplin had called out "Come in!"

Then a sad, weary-looking girl about Winny's age, but well and comfortably dressed, timidly opened the door and stood for a minute looking round the room.

"It's Miss Rutter, Winny," said her mother by way of breaking the silence and introducing the girls.

"Mother wants you to come and clean up a bit for her," said the visitor with a wistful look at Winny.

"Dear me, now, isn't that tiresome!" exclaimed Mrs. Chaplin. "I never had a stroke of work all the week till yesterday, and didn't expect none to-day, so was glad enough of these sacks. What am I to do? It would pay me a deal better to come and do a day's work for your mother, but you see I have promised to get these sacks done."

"Oh, leave them," said the girl lightly. "I'll tell mother about it and she shall make it up to you."

"But the sacks are promised for to-night or to-morrow morning," interposed Winny. "Mother could not break her word about them. Could you, mother?" she added appealing to her.

Mrs. Chaplin looked dubious. The temptation to send the sacks back now this other work had come was a strong one, but glancing at Winny's anxious face, the mother felt half ashamed of the thought that had come to her, and with a sigh, she said: "Tell your mother I'm very sorry can't come to-day. If I'd only known it last night or an hour ago I'd have come, and been glad of it. But, you see, having promised these sacks, I can't disappoint the person or she may lose the work."

"But mother's so poorly, Mrs. Chaplin. Father's been going on again about the money we spend, and the rent people owe him, that—that—" and here the girl burst into tears. "Mother can't clean up the place, and father whitewashed the parlour last night, so that it's all in a dreadful mess."

Mrs. Chaplin looked at the girl pityingly. She knew what a hard man her father was, and that her mother, weak and delicate, was unable to do the rough work of the household and attend to the lodgers, so she said: "Couldn't you shut up the parlour for to-day, and I will be round first thing in the morning—be there as soon as your father has gone to the docks, and I'll have it all straight and get away before he comes home at dinner-time?"

"I'll go and ask mother if that will do and come back and let you know," said the girl, somewhat relieved by this suggestion.

"Yes; he's got a rare good place there," replied her mother with something like a sigh of envy. "He was made foreman five or six years ago, and they've a nice home and bought a lot of houses since."

"But it don't seem to have made Miss Rutter very happy," remarked Winny, recalling what her father had said, and her own thoughts during the night, upon the matter of dock foremen and how they grew rich.

"Well, I don't know that any of them have been much the happier for their money now I come to think of it. They used to live next door to us years ago, and Rutter wasn't a bad sort of man in his way then, but since he's begun to get on a bit, he seems to think of nothing but how he can make more money. When he ain't at work in the docks he's worrying over his books at home, and they say the men under him hate him, and if they can do him an ill turn, they never lose the chance of letting him see what they think about him."

"Why, mother, it's better to be poor than to be rich like that," said Winny quickly. "I'd rather be as we are than have everybody hating father, and—"

"Well, but Mr. Rutter ain't obliged to be so hard and disagreeable," interrupted her mother; "he wasn't always so."

"No; but, don't you see, he's got to love money better than anything else now. He used to think about neighbours and friends once in a friendly way, but he's got to think so much of his contracts and how much money he can make by them that he forgets everything else, and God won't let the man be happy or comfortable who thinks of nothing else but making money."

But Mrs. Chaplin shook her head dissentingly. "I don't know so much about that," she said. "It's a shame that the Rutters don't make themselves more comfortable, for they've got everything to do it with; and yet my heart aches sometimes for the poor thing, she seems to have got so afraid of her husband lately."

"And that poor girl, too—Lizzie isn't it? I had almost forgotten her, mother; she looks more like an old woman than a girl."

"Yes, she does. But I don't wonder you have forgotten her. The Rutters always did hold their heads very high, and when they moved into a bigger house, Mr. Rutter forbid them having anything to do with old friends. He wanted everybody to forget what he had been, and to set up for something better than a dock hand."

While she was talking, the needle was driven in and out of the stubborn sacking, for if the sacks were all to be finished in time, she must sit closely to her task.

When Letty came in, she went to get two pints of soup at the mission-hall in the neighbourhood, and by this means, Mrs. Chaplin and the girls could have a warm nourishing meal without loss of time, for this was a consideration to-day.

When dinner was over and the table cleared, Letty sat down to sew at one of the sacks. Winny would have liked to do the same, but it was impossible for her to attempt such heavy work. But if ever she was tempted to repine at her helpless condition, it was under such circumstances as these, when every stitch made some difference in the task, and yet she could do nothing to help.

"Mother, I could read to you this afternoon," she suddenly said, her face brightening at the thought. "I've got a book here Miss Lavender brought me last week."

"Oh! I couldn't read a book over again that I had just finished," said Letty. "I should hate doing that."

Letty shrugged her shoulders. "I like to read to myself best," she said; "and if you like, I'll take that book to be changed when I come home from school. Miss Lavender said she would change it for us to-day if you liked."

"Oh, but I sha'n't be done with it. I couldn't read it all to mother this afternoon," replied Winny.

"And I shall want you to get the tea, and do a bit more sewing at the sacks when you come home from school, Letty," said her mother.

"It hurts my fingers. I don't think I can do any more," replied Letty with a pout.

"It hurts mine too, but I am too glad to get the work to grumble about it, and you will have to learn to do the same, my girl."

Letty sighed. "Don't you wish we had a lot of money, Winny?" she said. "If father was a foreman, now."

"No! No! I don't want father to be a foreman," hastily interrupted her sister. "What we've got to wish and pray for is that things may be altered, that the men may be able to do their work as father says they ought—taking an interest in it, so as to do it carefully and well. And that the foremen may not merely think of making them work as hard as possible for as little as possible, just as though they were horses and not men at all. The foremen might not make so much money then, but they will be happier and better with a little."

"I hope it will be a little more than father has, then," interrupted Letty with a shrug of the shoulders. For the idea of people not being happy when they have plenty to eat, warm clothes to wear, and no rent to worry about, was something too wonderful for her to comprehend. "Do you think we should be better as we are, mother?" she asked incredulously.

"But, don't you see, Letty, that if things were altered the way father was talking about last night, it would be better for us, and we should be a little better off, and father would be able to do his work better too. It would be fairer altogether, for now as it is, the foremen complain of the labourers and they complain of the foremen, and nobody is satisfied. Of course God could not let people be happy and content if they got their money unfairly, as it seems to me some do now, and I am sure He will have it altered somehow, now that men have begun to think how wrong it is. Nobody thought much about it till lately, but now He has begun to speak to men's hearts about it, He will soon teach them how to make things better. Of course if this could be done, I should be glad enough for father to be made a foreman, for then he would have regular wages, and then we might have a front room to live in, and I could look out of the window sometimes."

Mrs. Chaplin sighed. "We would have a front room if father could only earn a shilling or two more a week," she said looking at the white face before her, and thinking what a long time it was since she had seen anything beyond those four walls. Little wonder was it that she longed for their removal to a front room, where a peep into the street might be had sometimes to break the monotony of her life.

If Winny had any such longing herself, she carefully put it aside, lest it should be a source of trouble to her mother. And for that afternoon at least, they were as happy as though they possessed as good an income as the Rutters. For Winny read the story-book lent her by her teacher, and in this second perusal, enjoyed it almost more than the first time, for she had her mother's sympathy in her pleasure, and the afternoon passed all too quickly for both of them.

If only the sacks were nearer completion, Mrs. Chaplin would have felt almost merry, so much had her heart been lightened by the reading and talk she had had with Winny.

But the exertion had been almost too much for the poor girl; her strength was not equal to such a long spell of reading, although she had been almost unaware of her weakness until Letty came in, and it grew too dark for her to read any longer. Then she fell back on her pillow, feeling as though she would like to slip out of the body that was so full of aches and pains, and leave it there like a worn-out garment for which she had no further use.

But when her father came in, and she saw his sad eyes turned eagerly towards her corner, she knew that for him it would be very bitter to miss meeting her smile when he came home from work, and so she put away the wish as something not to be thought of just now.

By and by, perhaps, when somebody had found out a way of helping dockers and foremen both, she could better be spared, but not just now. So, conquering her faintness, she said in a cheerful tone: "See how busy mother is; we shall have the rent ready now, father."

"Sacks!" remarked Chaplin in a little surprise, looking down at the heap he had almost stumbled over.

"It's hard work, but I was glad enough to get it this morning," said his wife, looking up inquiringly at her husband. She was afraid to ask what he had earned that day, for she could see by the despairing look in his eyes that he had very little, and to-morrow was Saturday too, when there would be less chance of getting a job.

So she put aside her own fears and anxieties, and said in a cheerful tone, "I must get these in by seven o'clock to-morrow, and then go to Mrs. Rutter's for half a day's work."

The man looked at the work in his wife's hand. "Couldn't I do a bit of that for you so as to give you a rest?" he said a little wistfully.

"I've been wishing I could help mother," said Winny, smiling at the thought of her father using a needle, while Letty burst out laughing at the suggestion.

"Oh! You may laugh," he said, feeling greatly relieved to hear of this influx of work. "I mean to let you see what I can do after tea. Put it down, mother, and give us some tea, and then Letty and I will try sack sewing. Never fear but what we will got them done between us."

During tea, he told of his day's experience, which did not vary much from that of the day before, except that the hour's work he had got had prevented him from reaching another place in time to get a longer spell of work, as he might have done if he had gone there first. This was another grievance that the men had to complain of, and one that a little forethought and management might prevent.

"Perhaps these things may all be set right one day, father," said Winny. "And when they are, mother says we shall have a front room, so that I can look out into the street sometimes."

"We'll have two rooms," announced Chaplin; "and I'm not so sure but what we may try to get things put right a bit. The chap that comes talking to us at the gates of a morning says it could be done easy enough if we'd only just make up our minds to hold together. Two days I've been tramping and working for just tenpence!" And as he spoke, he took the halfpence he had earned out of his pocket, and laid it on the table as though he was half ashamed of it.

"Father, don't you think that, now God has put it into people's hearts to think about this, and to say it ought to be altered, it will be somehow?" asked Winny earnestly.

Chaplin scratched his head. He believed in God, of course; he went to the mission services sometimes with his wife, but he never thought of God as being close at hand and directing the affairs of men as Winny did, and so he looked rather uncomfortably into the fire now he was asked to give an answer to such a direct question.

"I don't think they consider those things much down at the docks," he said slowly.

"Perhaps not, but that would not hinder God from working. Don't you see, somebody might be praying about it, and thoughts might be put into different people's minds about the same thing; and then, if a great many people said it must be altered—well, if they don't think about such things down at the docks, they would still have to do as God was telling them, because the people would make them."

"Bravo, Winny!" said her father. "That's just it, my lass. So you have been praying to God about this thing, have you? Well, well, keep on, and who knows what may come of it? The chap that comes to talk to us about standing shoulder to shoulder don't say nothing about God putting the idea into his heart, but that ain't to say that it isn't so, for God works in more hearts maybe than we think for; but about all of us thinking alike about this, why, that's just what he says must be done before we can make any stir in matter."

"Aye! That there will, my lass, and a mighty stir too before we get all we want. But, as our Winny says, the first thing is to get the men to think alike about what they want."

"But there won't be a strike?" said poor Mrs. Chaplin with a shiver. She knew by bitter experience what a strike meant, what hunger and cold, what a giving up of treasured household goods, and the desolate homes that it left behind.

"We won't have no strike if we can help it. What we must do is to make up our minds to stand shoulder to shoulder, and when the dock companies see that, why, of course, they will hear our complaints, and make some alterations."

Chaplin could see the dread in her face, and hastened to allay her fears. "We won't strike till we're compelled," he said. "Our Winny won't forget to tell God all about it; and, look here, mother, if the worst comes to the worst, why, don't you see that God will know we're just doing it for bare life, and he'll take care of us?"

"Yes! Yes! Father, that he will," said Winny. "And then we shall be able to get a front room and live happy ever afterwards."

Such a prospect as a front room, or better still, two rooms to live in, was worth any struggle, and looking at his Winny as he awkwardly pushed the needle in and out, Chaplin determined to give his name in the next day as one who would join in the demand that was to be made for better terms for the labourers.

CHAPTER III.

"LOOK here, Maria, we shall have to move out of this place, I can see; I don't mean to put up with the fellows grumbling any longer. Last night one of them threatened to break my windows if I didn't give up my work at the docks, as if it was my fault that the men had to work on contract. They've been at it for a month now."

Mrs. Rutter sighed. "I wish you had never been made a foreman," she said in a tone of desperation. "We was ever so much happier when you was just a workman with about half the wages."

"Why, that money don't always bring happiness," replied his wife evasively, looking half afraid of what she had said.

"What have you got to complain of?" he said. "Don't you have plenty to eat and drink? Ain't you got the best furnished house in the street? Ain't we better off than anybody in the neighbourhood? I've just bought another house, one where there's some good steady tenants, and where the rents ain't so high but they'll bear raising a bit."

"There, go into the kitchen and cry there," commanded her husband. "Only don't keep the fire burning in waste."

The poor woman went out sobbing. In spite of the house being the best furnished in the street, she was constantly being told that to have a fire these chilly evenings was waste, although it had been the custom to have one until her husband had begun to grow rich, when he had declared that such indulgence was a wilful waste.

She sat down by the few embers of the dying fire and shivered. Presently her husband went out, and she heard angry voices outside. Doubtless it was some of the tenants come to beg for further time to pay the rent, for these were constantly coming on such errands.

Just now, however, it, seemed as though they were rather noisy over it, and stones rattled against the window shutters. To her relief, the latch key was heard turning in the lock the next minute, and her husband came in. He was not a coward, but he looked white and frightened as he came into the kitchen.

"Oh, some of the men out there are about as foolish as you are," he said uneasily. "They actually want me to try and alter the plan upon which the work is done in the docks, as if I could do anything in it."

"But suppose it isn't, can I alter it do you think?" he demanded, turning angrily upon her.

It was always so now. Whatever put him out of temper, he always visited it upon her, and so now, as he could not go out because of the angry crowd in the street, he vented his anger upon her, while she sat and bore it meekly but tearfully, silently wishing they were as poor now as when her husband worked in the docks, and never dreamed of being the possessor of more than a pound a week in the way of income. They had been happy and content then, and her husband could afford time to go with her to the mission service sometimes.

But all this had altered when he was made a foreman and began to buy houses of his own. Then the mission service was not good enough for them, he said, they ought to go to a church where they knew nobody, but might be thought people of importance—not that he went himself, for Sunday had to be given up to looking over accounts, and calculations about rents and repairs, and how a shilling could be put on here and there to make his houses more profitable.

The poor woman sighed as she thought of it all, while her husband grumbled on and the crowd outside seemed to grow more violent. It became plain at last that Rutter would not be able to go out again that night, and so he took off his boots and sat down in the dreary little kitchen to eat his supper of bread and cheese.

The crowd outside waited and raged on against the foreman, but finding at last that he did not mean to come out again that night they at length dispersed.

"We must get away from here to-morrow," said Rutter when they went upstairs. "I've bought a house a little way out, and we'll get into it at once. I shall send to say I am ill and can't go to work in the morning, and we'll be away before those fellows get back at night."

"But the woman's coming to wash in the morning," said Mrs. Rutter in some dismay, for she did not like being taken from all her friends.

"If the woman's coming, she can help you pack up. But you need not let her know where we are going, for these rough fellows are not easy to manage when they are in a rage, and I don't want them to find out where I am going."

So when Mrs. Chaplin came the next morning, she heard to her dismay that her work for the future would be lessened, for it was scarcely likely that she would be able to get another day's washing in the neighbourhood.

Another thing, she had known Mrs. Rutter a long time. They used to be friends when they first came to the neighbourhood. She had felt inclined to envy her friend's good fortune when the improvement in their circumstances first took place, but she soon began to see that somehow riches did not bring happiness or content to the Rutters, and she often pitied the poor woman more now than when they were both struggling to make ends meet, as they did sometimes in those old days.

Since then they had been getting steadily poorer and the Rutters richer, but the more anxious and unhappy as it seemed to Mrs. Chaplin. She helped with the packing all day and saw the furniture put into the van, but as Mrs. Rutter was not allowed to know where they were going, she could not tell her friend, much as she might wish to do so.

Annie Brown, who insisted upon coming in to see Winny sometimes, burst into the room just after she got back, exclaiming: "I say Mrs. Chaplin, Rutter has bought this house and is going to raise all the rents!"

"Nonsense!" replied Mrs. Chaplin. "I should have heard about that, if it had been true, for I have been working there to-day."

She would not say a word about the moving, for fear Annie should find out which way they had gone and follow them. She would be quite capable of doing this, and telling those who had made the disturbance last night that they might repeat it.

"You'll find out that what I say is true enough; and what we shall do, I don't know, for father's foot is bad, and there's nobody but me to earn a penny now."

The girl worked at a match factory near, and though the work was regular, the wages were small, and only sufficient for her own maintenance, so that it was impossible for them to make up the rent until her father was able to go to work again. This matter was discussed by the Chaplins after she had gone, for they felt very sorry for her.

"I wish she went to Sunday-school," said Winny, "for I can't help liking her though she is rough and rude sometimes."

"She never did go to Sunday-school," put in Letty with her mouth full of bread and treacle, for they were late with the tea again, and she was very hungry.

"I believe if I could only go again, I could get Annie to go with me. I was telling her the other day how kind my teacher was in bringing me books to read and coming to see me nearly every week, and I could see she wished somebody cared for her like that. But, you see, she lost her mother when she was a little girl, and her father never troubled about sending her to Sunday-school, for they used to clean the place up on a Sunday, and so she has never learned any better, poor girl."

"You'll miss the Rutters, mother," remarked Chaplin rousing himself after a long silence.

"Yes, that I shall," she replied with a sigh "I've known them so long—ever since we first came to live here. Why, the children used to go together to the Sunday-school, before they got on in the world and took to going so far away to church."

"No, I suppose not, and they don't want it remembered, I daresay. For it has changed them getting on in the world, and I don't believe Mrs. Rutter cared to have me think that she used to live next door to me at one time, and that I've helped her to the price of a loaf to get tea before Rutter came home. Ah! They were happier days for both of us, I believe, in spite of the houses they own and the good wages he makes."

Chaplin did not seem inclined to talk to-night, and so he took no notice of what was said, but sat with his head in his hand and his elbow on the table, evidently pondering deeply over some matter that engaged his attention.

"I don't know that the chaps are quite fair to Rutter," he said after a long silence, during which Mrs. Chaplin had been putting the tea things away.

"What do you mean?" asked his wife, looking round from the cupboard in her surprise.

"Well, about the way he makes his money. The fellows grumble and carry on, and threaten this and that, but what wants altering is the method on which we are paid. Labourers and foremen alike."

Mrs. Chaplin frowned. "I wish you'd leave all that sort of thing alone," she said.

Poor woman! She had such a horror of strikes, and for underpaid labourers to think of doing anything beyond a little occasional grumbling filled her with dismay.

But Winny always had a word ready for any little family hitch of the kind. "Don't you think we might leave the matter in God's hands, mother?" she said.

"Yes, yes, my dear, that is what I want your father to do," said Mrs. Chaplin a little impatiently.

And then there came a tap at the door, and Annie Brown put her head in again. "Father's foot seems worse to-night," she said in an anxious tone. "I wish you would come and look at it, Mrs. Chaplin."

"You'd better go, mother," said Chaplin glancing at his wife. He knew that she did not care much about the Browns. They were not nice people to know, certainly, but Annie had taken a great liking for his poor Winny, and that fact went far to reconcile Chaplin to being neighbourly and civil to them, and that was why he urged his wife to go and see the man's injured foot.

Being thus urged, she had no excuse for holding back, and so determined to make the best of matters. She found her neighbour's room much more clean and tidy than she expected, considering how Annie had been brought up. Brown himself was a rough blustering fellow, much given to swearing in an ordinary way; but he looked as sheepish as a schoolboy now, for he had a vague notion that the Chaplins were "stuck up" though they were so poor. But he was ruled by his daughter Annie, much as Chaplin was by his Winny, and as she said Mrs. Chaplin must see his foot, he had submitted.

"It's very good of you to come and look at a cove like me," he said when Mrs. Chaplin wished him "good-evening." And the meek way he spoke almost made his visitor laugh, and dispelled all her fear of the man.

"You hurt your foot in the docks, I suppose?" she said, not knowing what else she ought to say.

It was perhaps about the worst question she could have put, for he broke into a torrent of oaths, blaming the foreman for being in such a hurry and so causing the accident. It was not Rutter, but another man something like him, and Brown was very bitter about the whole matter.

"Hush, father, hush!" interposed Annie. "I told you to mind how you behaved, didn't I? Don't mind him, Mrs. Chaplin, his bark is a deal worse than his bite," she added turning to her visitor.

Mrs. Chaplin half wished she had not come, but Annie was so anxious for her to see the injured foot, that she could not go back without looking at it.

"Dear me! What have you been doing to it?" she said when the rag was removed and she saw the inflamed state it was in.

"I don't think it can suit it, then," said Mrs. Chaplin. "Go down and tell Letty to give you all the warm water there is in the kettle. It must be well washed and bathed before we can do anything else to it. What a pity you did not go to the hospital and have it dressed," said Mrs. Chaplin when Annie had gone down for the water. "It would have been almost well by this time if you had done that."

"And what was to become of the little un while I was there?" he demanded almost angrily.

"Aye, my Annie I mean. What would become of her if I wasn't here to take care of her?"

Annie had used the same words in reference to her father when she had been asked to go to Sunday-school on Sunday afternoons.

"Who would take care of daddy if I went away and left him by himself?" she had asked when Winny had suggested that there was a class for big girls at the mission Sunday-school.

Mrs. Chaplin smiled at the idea of the rough noisy Annie not being able to take care of herself, but as it seemed to be the rooted idea that neither could do without the other, she did not try to disturb it.

"I'll know what to do next time," she said, when the foot being thoroughly cleansed, Mrs. Chaplin bound up the wounds in clean wet rags, telling Annie to take care that they were kept wet, and then in a day or two, he would be able to put his shoe on again.

"Take that," she said. "Have you forgotten what I told you about little Winny downstairs, the prettiest girl in the street, and she ain't been out of that back room for nearly a year now; has she, Mrs. Chaplin?"

"It's a year come June since my Winny went outside the door," said her mother with a touch of pride and tenderness in her tone. "But she hopes to go out again and see the green fields and the country this summer. Miss Lavender, her teacher, has promised to get her a ticket for some home, that she may go for a fortnight."

"Oh! I say, that will be fine for her, wont it?" exclaimed the match girl. "I went to Greenwich Park one Easter Monday, and the trees and the grass was fine, I tell you. Yes, Winny will like that."

As Mrs. Chaplin left the room, Annie followed her, and went a little way across the landing. "I want to ask you just one other thing. They've brought you a lot more sacks to sew, or they will bring 'em presently, and I want you to let my daddy come in when Winny reads to you while you're sewing 'em."

"How do you know I shall have sacks to sew to-morrow?" Mrs. Chaplin asked in some surprise.

She had wondered how it was she had got so much of this work lately, and that Annie knew she was likely to get more, was still more surprising.

"Perhaps I dreamt it," laughed the girl; "but if my dream comes true, and you have some sacks to sew to-morrow, you'll let daddy come and listen to Winny reading, won't you?"

"Yes, he may come," said Mrs. Chaplin a little dubiously, for it was against all her rules of life to be on friendly terms with people like the Browns, and she wondered what was to come of such an innovation.

Soon after she got back to her own room, a bundle of sacks was brought for her to make, and she felt sure then that Annie Brown had some hand in getting this work for her, for the girl said as she put the bundle down, "Annie told mother she was pretty sure you could do them, and that we might take your word that you would if you promised."

"Well, I shall be very glad of the work, as it happens, for some people have moved away to-day that I used to wash for, and so I am thankful for anything that comes in my way."

"All right! You shall have all we can spare," said the girl as she shut the door.

Sack-making was hard work, and ill paid too, as most women's work is, but still Mrs. Chaplin was very glad of it, more especially as it was work she could do at home, and so be able to keep Winny company, for it was very dull for her when her mother had to go out to work, for then she was left alone for the greater part of the day.

Once a week, her Sunday-school teacher came to spend an hour with her, and she generally contrived that it should be when Winny was likely to be alone. But even with this break, if the girl felt unusually ill, as she often did on these days, the time passed very slowly, although she always contrived to meet every one who came in with a cheerful smile of welcome.

Miss Lavender, who knew the girl most intimately, was anxious that she should go into the hospital, but mother and father and Winny herself opposed the plan, and the doctor who came to see her sometimes did not recommend it very strongly. The little home was a happy one in spite of its poverty, and he doubted whether more could be done for her in one of the great London hospitals than was being done here. If she could go away with her mother and father to some country cottage home, it would be a different thing; then she might have a chance of getting over her weakness. But as this seemed quite out of the question, Miss Lavender had set her heart upon trying the next best thing—sending her to a country cottage home for a fortnight.

Not that either she or her teacher would ever admit that she was hardly used in being shut out of so many of the pleasures of life.

"God is fair and just to all," the lady would say when some of her class, who had known Winny when she was able to run about, bemoaned her fate as being a very cruel one. "It may seem cruel to us, I admit," said the lady, "but you know things are not always what they seem. If God has taken Winny from the enjoyment of some things we think it impossible to live without, you must remember we are not called to do without them. We know what these are to us; but we cannot know the secret pleasures God gives to Winny, nor the opportunities of usefulness that comes in her way. I happen to know that, by her patience and her firm belief in what I have just said to you, Winny is exercising an influence on her friends and neighbours that makes her life one of the most useful as well as the most happy, for she is quite sure that she is doing God's will as she lies there on her couch, and what higher life can anyone desire? Our Winny is one of the happiest girls I know," concluded the lady.

"Oh! It isn't seeming; her happiness is real and true and deep in spite of the pain she often suffers, and that she never goes outside that one room. I want you to believe this, and so does she."

It is not easy, perhaps, for girls who had all the vivacity of girlhood in them to believe that one, wholly shut out from the pleasures they could enjoy, could yet be happy. But Miss Lavender, while telling them that they ought to show every kindness in their power to their afflicted schoolfellow, said they might yet believe that in her case at least, there were such compensations—that she could yet be happy, though she knew nothing now of the fun and frolic that interested them.

"These things are good for you, dear," she said to a little girl who spoke of giving up play; "that would not be natural, and therefore not good for you. If God was to lay you aside for quiet work for him, he would give you pleasures you knew nothing of now; but not if you willfully set aside the natural order of things, and refuse what he sees to be good for you."

"Yes, dear, it must have been. He had some work for Winny to do that nobody could do so well, and this being so, he gives her pleasures that we know nothing of. It is always so, if people would only believe it and in God's fairness to all his children. But instead of this, we worry and fume, and think if we were only in other circumstances, we should be happier and more useful."

By such talks as these, Winny became the best known girl in the class, although she had not left the little back room for more than a year.

CHAPTER IV.

BROWN came to the Chaplin's room the next day in obedience to his daughter's commands, but looking as sheepish as a schoolboy as he came in.

Winny, however, only thought of amusing and interesting her strange guest, and the book she had to read was just the one she thought would be likely to please him. And so with a pleasant nod, she said: "I am glad you have come, Mr. Brown, for I have got a book of travels this week, and you will be sure to like that."

Mrs. Chaplin asked after his foot, and heard that Annie had faithfully carried out her directions and that it was much easier to-day.

The big burly fellow looked in a half shy fashion at the frail little invalid as he took his seat in the arm-chair. But there was no more talking for the next hour, for Winny began reading, and Brown sat and listened in open-eyed wonder at the marvels told of in the book. Never had an afternoon passed so quickly, and when Letty pushed the door open and put her head inside, no one could believe that school was really over, but thought she must have come home before the proper time.

Brown went to his own room then, thanking Winny so gratefully for her reading, that she invited him to come again the next day if he liked.

Annie came in soon after tea to thank her as well; she had her hat on and was just going out. "What a worry rent is!" she whispered as she passed Mrs. Chaplin.

They did not ask where she was going, and thought no more of the matter at that time, and a fortnight passed without anything occurring out of the usual way.

Mrs. Chaplin got more sack-making, and Brown came occasionally to listen to Winny reading. For although his foot was better, he was not able to go to work, and the neighbours knew that Annie had been compelled to carry a good many things to the pawnshop to get bread, and that the rent had not been paid, for they heard Rutter's agent threaten at last to turn them out, if the rent was not taken to him in the course of the evening.

Brown told Annie of this when she came home from work, suggesting that they had better look out for another place at once.

"What! When we are so comfortable here, and you can go and hear Winny read! No, I'll go and tell Rutter that you'll be at work again next week, and if he'll wait for the rent, we'll pay him all up in a month."

She swallowed her tea as fast as she could, and as they could not afford to burn a lamp now, she told her father to go and see the Chaplins if it got dark before she came back.

She had found out where the Rutters had gone to live, and was not long walking the two miles that lay between, so that she got to her destination early in the evening, and was shown into the little back parlour where Rutter sat smoking.

He did not recognize her, and thought she might have come about a house of his that was empty.

"I've come about the rent, Mr. Rutter," said Annie speaking very mildly. "If you will wait—"

"Wait!" roared Rutter. "Who told you to come to me and ask such a thing as that? What do you suppose I can do? If you can't pay, you must go."

"But we can pay, and we will pay," said Annie, not the least daunted by his loud talking. "I've only come to ask you to give us a little time. Father has hurt his foot, and I can't earn—"

"That's none of my business what you can earn or what you can't. Pay your rent and pay it at once, or out you go to-morrow morning."

Most girls in Annie's place would have burst into tears and again pleaded with the hard landlord for longer time, but something in Rutter's manner roused the girl's anger to such a pitch, that taking up the glass of beer that stood close by she dashed it in his face and then threw the glass at the chimney ornaments, sweeping them from the mantel-piece with a crash, and bringing Mrs. Rutter into the room to see what had happened.

By that time, her husband had seized Annie, and as his wife came in, he ordered her to go and fetch a policeman at once. This roused the girl to greater fury, and she screamed and fought to escape from his detaining hold. But she was in the grasp of a man not likely to release her, and in a few minutes, she was handed over to a policeman, charged with committing an unprovoked assault upon Rutter.

Her behaviour after she was handed over to the policeman was not likely to improve the impression already taken up against her, for her passion was by no means exhausted, and she fought at the man in her ungoverned rage much as a wild cat might have done.

She was eventually taken to the police station and locked up for the night, while her father waited hour after hour thinking she would surely return, and supposing she had met with some of her fellow-workers and had gone for a walk with them, for the evenings were fine and pleasant now, and it was a relief to get away from the close stuffy streets. If he could have walked, he would have gone to make some inquiries about her, but as it was, he had to content himself with hobbling down to the Chaplins to tell them how concerned he was about Annie being out so long.

"She told me she would be back soon," he said as he stood in the doorway looking at Winny, and then glancing down the stairs in the hope of seeing Annie.

But no Annie came, and Brown grew more anxious and alarmed, until at last a policeman came and told them that the girl was locked up on a charge of assault.

Brown was almost beside himself with anger when he heard it. He swore he would be the death of Rutter for locking up his girl, his Annie, who was the best girl in London, and would not hurt a fly unless she was angry.

"That's it, Brown," said his neighbour Chaplin, who had undertaken to bring him to reason over the matter, "she must have lost her temper, as you say, and that always makes matters worse."

Fortunately for Brown, the policeman who came to bring him the bad news was a reasonable man, and his new friends the Chaplins were quite ready to say a good word for the girl, so that he was at length persuaded to go to bed without going to Rutter's or fighting the policeman. This in itself was a new experience; for Brown to control himself under such provocation was something he had never dreamed of doing before, and it was not easy to get him to do it now.

It was for the "little un who was ill," he declared, that he did not knock the policeman down when he came to tell him of it. But Annie would not have her frightened, he knew, and so for her sake, he was quiet, and promised not to go out until he went to the police court to hear the charge.

To keep him under due control, Chaplin agreed to lose his chance of getting a job in the morning and go with him, and it was well he did. For in spite of his lameness, he would certainly have struck at the man who by his evidence had got his girl committed to prison for a month. Chaplin had spoken to him before they went in to the magistrate, asking him to do what he could for her, but instead of saying a word to get a mitigation of the sentence, he did all he could to prejudice the magistrate's mind against her, saying he would make an example of her that it might be a warning to others.

So poor Annie was sent to prison for a month, and Rutter went off to work at the docks vexed that the sentence was not more severe, and that he would lose a part of his day's pay over the matter.

"If I could only get to work," muttered Brown between his set teeth. "He shall pay for it yet. My poor girl sha'n't suffer for nothing."

"Ask Winny to read to him sometimes," she said with the tears rolling down her cheeks, for to be parted from her father was the hardest part of this going to prison.

Everybody cried shame on Rutter as he left. And Chaplin felt glad that Brown was still much too lame to go to work, for in his present mood, he would most likely have got himself into fresh trouble over the matter.

They went home together, and Brown spent the afternoon talking to Winny and Mrs. Chaplin about his girl, his Annie, whom he still spoke of as his "little un."

How much cause for thankfulness they would all have by and by that the afternoon was so spent, they did not know ab the time, but Mrs. Chaplin was glad when she heard him say that he should not go out again that night. He shared the tea with his new friends, and so did not leave the house or go near the docks, as more than one person besides Winny and her mother could prove.

They had no idea how important this would be then. But the next morning, a policeman came and arrested Brown on the charge of pushing Rutter into the dock. He had been heard to threaten his landlord at the court in the morning, and he was also known to work at the docks, and so, when Rutter was found drowned in one of the dock basins, suspicion at once pointed to Brown as the man who had done it, if it was not the result of accident.

The news of Rutter's death soon spread through the neighbourhood, and though Brown was looked upon as a rough sort of man, who would not be particular what he did in the way of giving a blow, still, in this case, it was clearly impossible that he could have pushed the man in, and they readily went with Mrs. Chaplin to give their evidence on Brown's behalf.

On hearing how he had spent the day, and that he could not possibly have been near the spot where the accident happened, Brown was discharged, and the police turned their attention in another direction. But although they could hear that Rutter had been cordially hated by those who worked under him, it was plain they could not all have had a hand in his death, and so at last it was concluded that he must have slipped in as he was hurrying to his work, having gone by the water-side in order to save a little time as he was already late.

This was the most reasonable conclusion that could be arrived at under the circumstances. But it would have been very different if Brown had not gone back with his neighbour Chaplin, for he had been heard by so many people to threaten to do for Rutter the first chance he had, and he would certainly have followed him to his work if he could.

But no one seemed to think of poor Mrs. Rutter left alone in her grief, until Mrs. Chaplin got back from the court with Brown, when Winny met her with the question, "Have you been to see how poor Mrs. Rutter is?"

The popular indignation was so strong against the harsh landlord, that as yet no one seemed to think of the widow and lonely girl until Winny asked the question.

"I wonder whether she would like me to go and see her?" said Mrs. Chaplin, pausing in the act of taking off her bonnet. "She may not have made friends with her new neighbours, for she wasn't one to do that sort of thing, and she ain't got no relations near her, I know."

"I have thought of poor Miss Rutter over since that day she came to fetch you; she looked so frightened and unhappy. Do go and see them, mother; I'm sure they'll be glad," urged Winny.

"Very well, my dear, I'll go, then; and if I'm not back soon, tell father to go on sewing at the sacks for me, and Letty too might do a bit when she comes in from school."

She gave Winny a slice of bread and dripping for her dinner, and then set off to Mrs. Rutter's, a little doubtful as to whether she might be welcomed, or whether her visit might be looked upon as an intrusion. But as soon as the door was opened, she knew that she was wanted.

"I am so glad you've come, Mrs. Chaplin!" exclaimed Lizzie. "Poor mother does nothing but cry, and the people about here are proud, and don't know us, and we don't know what to do."

Without another word, Mrs. Chaplin took off her bonnet and shawl as though she had come to a day's washing, and followed Lizzie into the kitchen, where the widow sat rocking herself backwards and forwards in her grief.

At the sight of her old neighbour, she got up and threw herself into her arms sobbing out, "I wish I'd never come here; I have had nothing but trouble ever since I left the old house. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! What shall I do?"

Mrs. Chaplin soothed her as well as she could. But she soon saw she was not fit to be left alone, and a neighbour who came in to see how things were going on, begged her not to go away again until some of her relatives came to be with her.

But the poor woman only had one sister, and she did not know where she was living, for Rutter had forbidden her visits the last year or two; for she was poor, and he did not feel disposed to keep her, he said. Whether he had brothers and sisters or not, his wife did not know, certainly there was no one she could appeal to in her time of trouble, and Mrs. Chaplin found herself to be the only support and friend the widow could look to just now.

Neither mother nor daughter were strong or capable women, and so the visitor found plenty to do, for the house had a forlorn, neglected look about it that troubled Mrs. Chaplin until she could set to work to make things comfortable.

Finding that Lizzie was rather worse than her mother in the matter of fretting, Mrs. Chaplin said during the afternoon: "If I stay here, Lizzie must go and tell them at home that I shall not be home to-night. Winny will get anxious, and I am not sure that there is enough for their tea."

"Oh, mother, shall I take that cold meat to her?" said Lizzie, and as she spoke, the thought that no one would scold because it was given away came to her as a relief. But the next moment, she was angry with herself for thinking thus, for it seemed like rejoicing at her father's death, and the poor girl could not endure this.

But she took the cold meat in a basket and some bread, as well as a message to Brown from her mother, telling him she was very sorry for Annie, and when she came home again, she would help her if she could.

Winny was alone when Lizzie's knock came, and to her eager "Come in," the basket was pushed forward first, and then Lizzie's white wistful face peered round the room.

"I am all alone," said Winny in answer to the look. "Is mother going to stay all the evening with you?" she asked, for she guessed the girl's errand.

"She's going to stay all night with mother," said Lizzie in her cowed frightened voice. "I hope you won't mind," she added, seeing Winny looked disappointed.

"No, we won't mind for once; I thought you might be glad to see her, as you had not been long in your new house. Do you like it?" asked Winny, trying to make conversation.

"Not much; you see we don't know the people about, and father—" but there the girl stopped.

Her father's memory was not a blessing, but she was too loyal to say one word that would betray all it had become to her, and so she turned to the basket she had brought, and lifted out the remains of the leg of mutton it contained.

"Mother sent this for your tea," she said, "for we shall never be able to eat it while it is good," and then she set a loaf upon the table and a pot of jam and some butter, for her mother had filled the basket, taking a melancholy pleasure in doing it, even while she sighed to think that there was no one to scold her now for wasting these things, as Rutter would have thought it.

Lizzie saw the eager look in Winny's eyes as she set the things on the table, and she said, "Would you like me to cut you a piece of meat and bread now? I can if you like."

"Would you mind doing it? I am very hungry, for the dinner mother left for me, I had to give to Letty, and so I have had nothing since breakfast time."

Nothing could have been better to set Lizzie at ease, and very soon the girls were chatting away about the school they used to attend together, trying to revive old memories of that time when they were neighbours and friends. Rutter had done his utmost to break off all this, and succeeded to a great extent. But the memory of what his wife and daughter regarded as their happier days still clung to them. And now that he was torn from them, it was to these old friends they turned for comfort and cheer.

Almost before they knew it, the girls were mingling their tears for the man who had been the best hated in the neighbourhood. Winny because of this held Lizzie close in her arms, while the girl sobbed and cried, for to her the saddest thing was this, that she had never had a kind father, and the manner of his death made it all the more painful.

All she could whisper by way of comfort was: "God knows all about it, dear." And there she stopped, and they mingled their tears and kissed each other, promising that they would be friends for the future.

Lizzie was comforted by the sympathy that could understand such grief as hers, for though no further word was said about the cause of her trouble, she felt that Winny's heart was full of pity for her.

Lizzie stayed until Letty came home and then cut some meat and bread for her tea. But Winny could not rest content with such luxuries being kept to themselves, and so when Letty had finished her tea she said: "I should like you to take Mr. Brown a piece of that meat, Letty. You will not mind his having it, will you?" she asked, turning to her new friend.

She would have done anything that Winny suggested, for she already loved the girl "who was at leisure from herself" to take up the cares or pleasures of her friends and neighbours, and in them forget her own pain and weakness.

Lizzie was in no hurry to go home. The evenings were light, and so when the tea things were washed up, she sat down to talk to Winny again, for in this home she could feel she was wrapped round in the atmosphere of homeliness, and this had long since departed from her own more comfortably furnished abode. They had front rooms and back rooms each crowded with more furniture than was needed, for it had been one of her father's whims to buy furniture when he saw it to be sold cheap whether it was needed or not; but Lizzie had learned by sad experience that a well filled cupboard and a handsomely furnished house does not make a home, and that here in this one room, where there was seldom a full meal for all, they had greater wealth than money could buy.

She went home pondering over these things, and resolving to ask her mother to move back to the old house where they would be among friends, and where they might be able to help them sometimes.

CHAPTER V.

RUTTER'S sudden death was pretty freely discussed among the neighbours, and very little pity was expressed for his untimely fate by anybody but Winny Chaplin, and she drew nearer to Lizzie, to shield her as it were from the hard criticism of the neighbourhood. They moved back to their old house as soon after the funeral as they could, and the week after this, Annie came home from prison.

Her coming, so eagerly looked forward to by her father, was a pain to everybody who knew her. Winny had planned with Brown how the home-coming should be managed. He was to meet her at the prison gates and bring her straight home to Winny first, for the stigma of having been in prison would be sure to cling to her and make some of her old friends avoid her for a time. So Winny was determined to help the girl if she could. But no one was prepared for the fierce, proud bearing of the girl, who felt herself wronged and yet degraded by being sent to prison. She would not see anyone, she declared, she would not come near the place to be stared at, she would even have left her father if she could, and it was not until dusk that he could coax her back to her home with him.

Winny had been on the watch for her all day, for she had a piece of news to impart to Annie, something they had talked of together very often. Her teacher, Miss Lavender, had at last been able to get a ticket for her to go away into the country for a fortnight, and she wanted to tell Annie about it. They could talk about this and forget all about the dreadful prison, she thought. For Annie had not certainly deserved such a severe sentence, she was sure, and the sooner it was all forgotten, like a bad dream, the better for everybody.

But Annie did not come home until it was so late that Winny began to fear she would not come at all, and that something must have happened to her or her father. She was determined to see her, however, and so she had the door set wide open that she might not be able to pass the landing without being seen.

At last weary, dragging footsteps were heard ascending the stairs, and then Winny called out: "Come in and see me, Annie, I have been looking out for you all day."

"Yes, to be sure, you must go and see Winny," said Brown in a coaxing tone. And then the footsteps paused, and a wild white face peeped into the room to see if there was anybody else to be seen.

But Mrs. Chaplin and Letty had gone to a meeting at the mission room, and as Chaplin was often out until nine or ten o'clock now, Winny was all alone.

Finding this was the case, Annie stole in, and Winny, looking at her, was almost frightened at the change she saw. The girl looked almost savage in her wildness.

"Oh, Annie, wouldn't you like to go into the country for a bit, just to see the green fields?" said Winny hardly knowing what she said.

"What's the good of asking me that?" said the girl fiercely. "I'm more likely to go to prison again, for I hate everybody and everything now."

"No, no, Annie, you must not do that, for see, people have thought about you, and I have got a ticket for you to go into the country next week, and you can stay for a fortnight too."

To have a ticket for this country holiday would be to rehabilitate her in public opinion, to wipe out the disgrace of her imprisonment, and she clutched Winny's hand and looked into her eyes as if she would read her very soul.

"Look here, Winny," she said, "if that could be true, I think I could believe in God, though he does let men like Rutter get rich and people like you be poor. I could believe he cared for me a little bit, if he'd let me go away for a bit like that, for I could come back then and go to my work again."

And then Annie dropped her head upon the fragile shoulder and burst into such a passionate flood of tears that Winny was fairly frightened. And Brown, who had stood near the door scratching his head in perplexity, now came forward to comfort his "little un," but hardly knew what to say, for both girls were sobbing together, Winny dimly understanding how her companion felt, and grieving for the uncontrolled passion that could drive a girl into the commission of a crime that brought such a punishment.

The same ungoverned nature that made her throw the glass of beer at Rutter, now made her give herself up to such emotion that at last Winny had to beg her to be still.

And the piteous entreaty in the invalid's voice made itself heard through all the tumult of the storm that was raging in Annie's mind. With a mighty effort, she stayed her tears a little, and then fell to kissing Winny until she was almost calm again. Then she whispered: "God bless you, God bless you, Winny. I know it's you who have given me this chance to get back my character. I never thought I should have such a chance a little while ago."

"You must thank God for it, Annie, and believe he does love you as well as me," said Winny quickly.

She wanted to get rid of her now, for fear she should ask inconvenient questions which Winny could not answer truthfully just at present. She was glad her mother and sister were not at home just now, or they would certainly have spoiled the whole by asking some question impossible to answer. As it was, her task would be difficult enough, she knew, but she was determined to carry out the self-sacrificing plan that had suggested itself to her mind, let it cost what it might.

Of course the holiday ticket she had promised to Annie was what had been given to herself, but she did not doubt that the sudden self-sacrificing plan which had suggested itself to her mind had come by the inspiration of the Spirit of God, and as such must be obeyed. Not that she had any desire to rebel in her cooler moments, but she did not hide from herself the fact, that to give up this long-desired holiday would be a bitter disappointment to her, and it might be that her mother would not see that it was a duty at all.

This was the most difficult part of her plan. She must not only stifle her own heart's longings, but argue against herself. Then there would be Miss Lavender to convince as well as her mother and father; but she had more hope of doing this, for the lady's whole life was given up to the work of helping and comforting her poorer neighbours.

Not a man or woman in the place for miles round but had heard of Miss Lavender. "Sweet Lavender" some of the rougher boys called her, though there was not one of them, rough as they were, but would stop into the road that their friend might walk on the footpath in comfort. Scarcely a home existed but had to be thankful for some timely help from this lady.

She and a few of her friends round this poverty-stricken neighbourhood had provided a place where men, and boys, and girls could spend a quiet hour, or a merry hour of an evening if their homes were too small or too miserable, as so many of them were, for them to get a chance of this under their own roofs. Then when the pinch of poverty had been extra keen during the winter, she and they had managed to feed men, women, and children, not only with penny dinners, but free breakfasts and often festival teas, when, after a good meal, they could, for an hour or two at least, forget hunger and cold and all the misery of their lives.

Yes, Winny thought Miss Lavender would be able to understand and sympathize in her desire to help Annie, for she would know that she was only reducing to practice what the lady had so often taught her, as being the Christ-life which all his followers were bound to copy.

She was sure, though, that the lady would feel disappointed, for it was not easy to get these fortnightly tickets, for there were so many who needed them, and for each ticket available, there were sure to be half a dozen deserving claimants. So she resolved to send Letty round to Miss Lavender when she came in, and ask her to come and see her the first thing in the morning.

Her mother was going to clean up at Mrs. Rutter's, and so she would see the lady first while her mother was out, and thus have the matter settled beyond dispute, and by this means, it would be more easily got over.

But Winny found the lady more hard to convince than she had expected. She had not known much more of Winny than of the rest of her class until she was laid up; but the girl's quiet patience, which touched the heart of every one who knew her, had made her doubly dear to her teacher, and one of the first tickets issued she had secured for her favourite, that she might start for this summer holiday early in the season. So that her request that Annie Brown, a girl she did not know, and one who had just come out of prison too, might have this one chance to go away, did not please her at all at first.

"But, teacher, Jesus came to seek and to save those who were lost," said Winny. "This poor Annie looked so lost and hopeless when she came home last night, that I could not help telling her that she should go away into the country."

"Did she know it was your ticket she was to have?" asked the lady a little severely.

Winny opened her eyes at the question. "No, indeed, and she must not know it either, or she would not go. People don't know Annie; she is rough, and don't mind much what she says or does when she is angry, but she would not let me do this if she thought she was taking my chance, I can tell you."

The lady was a little more reconciled to the plan when she heard this. "I hope she is worth the sacrifice, Winny," she said, "for I shall not be able to get another ticket for you."

"Of course not; I am giving up my chance to Annie, and so, of course, I can't give her the ticket and go away myself."

"That is just it, Winny, and so I think you ought to consider the matter very carefully before you finally decide."

"I did, teacher. In the night I often lie awake with the pain in my back, and it's then my best thoughts come. God seems to speak to me then, and he made it quite clear to me last night, that what I thought of doing for Annie Brown was just what he would have me do, and so you see—"

"Yes, yes, dear child, I do see, and I will not say one word more against your wish," interrupted the lady. "It is not as I would have had it, but you are bound to follow God's bidding as much as I am, and if he has said 'Do this,' doubtless he has his reasons, and will make it plain to us by and by. I will take the ticket I brought for you yesterday, and if you will send Letty round when she comes home from school, I will give her one made out in the name of Annie Brown. She must go next Monday, you know," she added as she rose from her seat to take her departure.

Letty was sent at twelve o'clock to Miss Lavender's, and the lady sent not only the holiday ticket, but a dinner ticket for both girls; for Letty was not so reticent as her sister, and told the lady, in answer to her questions, that they seldom had but two meals a day, for the work at the docks seemed to be getting worse and worse.

Letty was too full of delight at the prospect of having an extra meal and bringing one home for Winny to inquire what the envelope contained, but she would have been bitterly disappointed if she had known it, for she had told most of her schoolfellows that her sister Winny was going away to the country, and she might be able to walk when she came home. She told Winny just before she went to her dinner that all the girls were very glad she was going, and some of them were coming to see her, and wish her good-bye.

"I wish you hadn't said anything about it," said Winny, and her sister stared at the tone in which the words were spoken, for it was very rarely that Winny spoke so crossly.

"Why shouldn't I tell them? You was going to tell Annie Brown about it," retorted Letty.

"Well, don't say any more about it, especially to Annie Brown if she should happen to come in."

"As if I should talk to a girl who has been to prison," said Letty, tossing her head and looking very disdainful.

"How dare you talk like that?" exclaimed Winny angrily. "You know nothing about such things, and it is not fair to Annie—"

"To say she has been to prison?" interrupted Letty. "Why, everybody knows it, and knows she must be a bad girl, or else she would not be sent there; all the girls have been talking about it, and of course they know. They say she used to get into awful passions when she went to school, and this is what comes of it."

"Then mind you never get into a passion," said Winny, but she spoke so angrily that she might fairly be accused of committing the fault she was warning her sister against.

Letty never remembered Winny speaking to her in this way before, and although she would not own it, either to herself or her sister, she really felt greatly concerned about it. And before she went to school in the afternoon, she said in a more gentle tone, "Don't you feel well, Winny dear?"

"Yes, I think I feel better than I do sometimes," said the invalid; "perhaps I shall get well without going away," she added, looking at Letty, and wondering whether she had better tell her what she had done about this holiday.

This was the worst part of the whole business to Winny, the telling people she was not going away after all, more especially as she was anxious that Annie should know nothing about this just now. She would hear about it by and by, that was inevitable, but if she could only keep her secret from being talked of for the next few days Annie would hear nothing about it until she came back.

As soon as Letty had gone to school, Annie ventured downstairs. "You've had a lot of people to see you this morning," she said as she came in; "I wanted to come in before, but I could hear people talking every time I came and listened."

"Oh, Mrs. Price came in, and little Jimmy Rowe, and my teacher, Miss Lavender. I wish you had come in while she was here, Annie; you could not help loving her."

"Oh, I've heard about her," said the girl; "but I don't love people as quick as you do. Of course, we know she got the boys their gymnasium, and gives the little uns the breakfasts and dinners in the winter, and I don't wonder that people say she's good; but me and father ain't the sort of people Miss Lavender likes, and so I can't be expected to like her."

"But it was she who gave me the ticket for you to go into the country," said Winny.

"Did she, now? Well, I wonder at that. Did you tell her about me? Have you got the ticket?" she asked eagerly.

"Yes, you shall have it. See, your name is written on it, so you see there can be no mistake," and she took the card from its envelope as she spoke, and gave it to Annie to read.

There was her name sure enough, and the girl's face changed, and a softened look came into her eyes as she gazed. It was more to her than a mere holiday ticket, great as this treat must be to her. It held all sorts of possibilities for her in the future, and not least the power of hope that even now began to dawn in her heart.

Hearing her father's footstep on the stairs, she ran to the door and pulled him in to see her treasure. "I've got it! I've got it!" she said holding up the card triumphantly. "I must buy some soap to-night and wash and mend all my clothes ready to go away on Monday."

Brown was scarcely less delighted than Annie herself. He read his daughter's name written there with as much pride as though it had been her patent of nobility, and Winny hoped no one would tell either of them how the card had been obtained.

"Letty shall fetch the soap for you when she comes in," she said, for she did not want them to go talking about this at the shop just now, for as Letty had been telling the girls at school that she was going away, it might cause awkward questions to be asked.

The offer of Letty's help to run errands was very gladly accepted, for Annie was by no means anxious to meet any of her old friends so soon after her release from prison.

By the time she came back from the country, her former absence might be forgotten, or at all events that she was deemed worthy to receive one of these holiday tickets would go far to redeem her character, and so she had no wish to see anybody if she could avoid doing so.

By this means, she heard nothing of the talk about Winny Chaplin going into the country, and few heard that the plan had been given up beyond Mrs. Chaplin, and, of course, she had to be told.

It was the hardest part of Winny's task to have to tell her mother. Mrs. Chaplin could not or would not see that there was any need for such a sacrifice as this. Annie Brown was nothing to them. A rude rough girl at the best, who had got herself into trouble through her uncontrolled temper; why should Winny give up her chance of health for a girl like this? If she had been a gentle, respectable girl, who went to Sunday-school, and behaved herself in a proper manner, there might be some reason in Winny giving up to her if she had happened to need it more than herself, but as it was, the notion was altogether most foolish.

This was the way Mrs. Chaplin argued, and Letty followed in her mother's lead, and actually cried over it, she felt so disappointed. It was just what Winny had expected, and for a time her mother could not be persuaded to see the matter in any other light.

Fortunately for everybody, Annie was too busy washing and mending her clothes to come downstairs much, and Brown was either out looking for work or sitting with Annie, as she was to leave him so soon again, and so to Winny's relief, the time went and Monday morning came without a word being said to Annie about her journey to the country.

CHAPTER VI.

ANNIE went to wander in cool green country lanes or pleasant sunny meadows, while Winny was left to pant and stifle in the heat of those June days, sometimes too tired and languid to eat the bread and dripping, which was all her mother could afford to get for her dinner five days out of the seven. But she never regretted the sacrifice she had made.

After the first week in July, the weather changed and was much cooler. Rain fell nearly every day, and work at the docks seemed to grow slacker, and the struggle for bare existence more keen among the workers.

But there was something more than this going on among the men, Mrs. Chaplin felt sure. She forgot her vexation about Annie Brown having Winny's holiday ticket in the uneasiness she felt about her husband.

He gradually became more alert, and carried himself less slouchingly as he walked. He stood upright and gazed round him as though he had the right to look up at the sky, and he was not the only one either that put on a brisker air. Brown began to talk in a louder and more aggressive tone, and often spoke of what they heard at the dock gates, with sundry hints and whispers that "people would hear something by and by."

"It's neither more nor less than a strike that they're thinking of, I do believe," said poor Mrs. Chaplin with a groan when she was talking to her friend Mrs. Rutter about these varied signs of some stir being on foot among the men.

"Strike? Dock labourers strike? Why, I have heard my poor dear husband say they fought like wild beasts against each other to get the chance of being taken on for an hour."

"Yes, and I have heard that the foremen don't care to have too many regular hands, but prefer to have a hundred or two waiting round the gate that they can pick from whenever they want a fresh batch of hands." Mrs. Chaplin spoke resentfully, for she did not like the insinuation about her husband fighting for work like a "wild beast." "If everything was done fair and square at the docks, some would get a little more and others a good deal less," she added.

"I don't know anything about that," said Mrs. Rutter a little tartly. "But you ought to tell Chaplin not to be talked into any foolish scheme of striking for higher wages, for I can tell you this, they could get men at them gates to work for twopence an hour if they wanted 'em. I've heard my poor dear say so many a time."

Mrs. Rutter always spoke of her husband as her "poor dear" now. She had plucked up a little more spirit and did not look quite so miserable as she used to do, but still she was far from being a happy woman.

Her husband had left her comfortably provided for so far as money went, but she was haunted with a fear that her money would all be spent and she would be left in want if she was not very careful.

Every day saw her grow more miserly, and she was constantly reminding Lizzie that she had no father to work for her now, and so they ought not to spend a penny more than they could possibly help for fear they should come to want by and by.

This mention of something like a strike being likely to take place among those who were her tenants made Mrs. Rutter very anxious, and the worst of it was, she could get no definite information about what was going on.

It is doubtful whether at that time anybody knew definitely what was likely to be done. Everybody know there was a mighty stir of thought beneath the surface, but what it portended none could tell.

When the time came for Annie to return, her father had a letter from her asking if she might stay to pick fruit. She had been offered work at a fruit-grower's close to where she had been staying, and if her father would agree to it, she thought she would like to stay till the end of the season.

Brown brought the letter for Winny to read, for he had heard by this time to whom he was indebted for the opportunity his daughter had of retrieving her character, and he could not do enough for the girl who had thus sacrificed her only means of regaining health and strength that his "little un" might have another chance in life.

So it was with a sort of tender reverence that he always came in to ask how Winny was, and he regarded it as her right to see the letter that had come from Annie and give her opinion upon it.

"Oh! I think it will be first-rate for her," she said when she could make out what the badly spelled words really meant. "Why, she will be earning more money in the country than she could here, and I heard to-day that work was slack at the factory."

"So you think she'd better stay?" said Brown scratching his head as was usual with him when he was in doubt about anything.

"Well, if we do make up our minds to stand shoulder to shoulder like men and not act like wild beasts, why, the fewer mouths there are to fill the better," said Brown with a sigh, for he had been looking forward to this time, and he could not help feeling disappointed to find that Annie was not in such a hurry to return as he had expected. The days had passed more slowly with him than they seemed to have passed with Annie.

"If there should be a strike, as you and father seem to think may have to be before things can be altered at the docks, why, Annie could send you some of her money to help you," said Winny.

"So she could, my lass. But we won't tell her what we think of doing or else she'll want to come home and look after me, for I'm a rum customer when I'm put out, and Annie knows it too."

"Ah! But you will surely remember how poor Annie suffered through getting into a temper. Father says that is the greatest danger of all, for if the men get wild and riotous if they can't get what they want at once, then it will all be spoiled. You will tell the men this, won't you? Father says you are a sort of a leader among the roughest of the men, and what you do, they will do. I pray to God about it every night, Mr. Brown, ever since father first told me about it. I have asked God to help the men somehow, and I feel sure he will if they will help too, but they must all be steady and sober."

"My lass, I haven't touched a drop since I joined the temperance people down at the mission room. I don't say I fancied it much at first, but after I knowed what you'd give up for my 'little un,' why, how could I go agin anything you asked me to do? If you said, 'Go and get me the top brick off the chimbley,' why, I should feel bound to have a shy at it for you."

It was quite a long speech for Brown to make, and Winny laughed aloud at his offer. There was no time to say more about what was going on among the men at the dock gates, for her mother came in, and Winny was eager to tell her the news about Annie.

But Mrs. Chaplin was very cool about the matter; she could not forget that Winny herself might have had this chance, and Brown saw it.

"There ain't another gal in London as could ha' done such a thing as Winny has done for my gal," he said fervently. "I don't wonder as you feels bad about it sometimes; it's nat'ral like, being as you are her mother," he said excusingly.

"I'm glad to find you see it in that way, Mr. Brown," said Mrs. Chaplin icily, "and if ever you have the chance of doing her a good turn, you won't forget it, I hope," she added.

"Do you know what the men are going to do?" asked Mrs. Chaplin, for she had made up her mind how he ought to help Winny and all of them, and meant to tell him so.

"No; I don't think anybody knows," replied Brown twirling his cap and wishing himself well out of the room.

But Mrs. Chaplin had heard that this man, unlikely as it seemed to her, was regarded as a sort of leader, and so she determined to get him to promise her his help. "Now, I want you to help us this way, Mr. Brown. Just tell the men to give up all foolish notions about being able to get up a strike. I know what strikes are, and I know this, if these foolish men strike, we shall all be starved to death in a week."

"Never while Jack Brown has got two arms on his body, and can remember what this lass here has done for his 'little un.' No, no, I'll never see you or yours starve while I've got a hand to help you."

"What's all this about?" asked a voice from the doorway, and the next minute Chaplin walked into the room looking very weary, and laying down his day's earnings of fivepence. He seldom got hired for more than an hour now, for by that time his strength was exhausted, he was so weak from insufficient food.

Brown knew the signs of slow starvation, and saw the money that his neighbour put down on the table, and recalled the time when Winny had sent him the cold mutton for tea. Although he, too, had a hard fight to make ends meet sometimes, still he was better off than most, for he had only himself to think of, and he had earned four times as much as Chaplin, just because he had been able to get better food, and was therefore stronger and able to stand four hours' work.

So laying a shilling on the table he said, "I want you to let me have my bit of tea with you. I ain't got no kettle boiling, and if you don't mind me taking it along of you, I could pay that for it."

But Mrs. Chaplin looked dubious, and glanced at her husband for a moment. Brown was not the sort of person she cared to associate with, unless she herself was the bestower of the favour. But her pride melted before the look in her husband's face, and she eagerly took up the shilling.

"Yes, you shall have tea with us, and I'm much obliged for the help; I'll go myself and get something for you," she added.

It was one of the hardships of this way of living that no provision in the way of a cheap nourishing meal could be prepared beforehand, or at least very rarely, and so now that Mrs. Chaplin had got a shilling to spend, her first thought was to go to the butcher and get a pound of steak. This was what most housewives did when they could indulge in the luxury of a piece of meat.

But Mrs. Chaplin reflected that a pound of steak would swallow up nearly all her money, and that if she got some bread and dripping for the tea, she might get a more nourishing and tasty meal for supper. So instead of the steak to fry, she bought some pieces of meat to stew, and some oatmeal to boil with it. This with a pennyworth of vegetables would make a savoury dish that all might enjoy.

It must be confessed that Chaplin looked a little disappointed when he found that they were not going to have the expected treat. But tea and dripping toast reconciled him to the change, and Brown was invited to have hot supper with them as well as tea for his shilling.

While Letty made the toast, her mother put the stew on, for it would require two or three hours' cooking, and then they sat down to tea. There was a meeting for the men to attend at the mission-hall, and the supper was to be ready by the time they came home.

The night had turned out cold and wet, so that Winny enjoyed the unwonted luxury of a bit of fire, for they rarely lighted one now except to boil the kettle. Soon after nine, the men came in to their supper, both eager and excited over the news they had heard since they had left the mission room. A ship would reach the docks about one o'clock in the morning, and so the few who were in the secret of a telegram being sent might hope for a few hours' work at least.

"Things couldn't have happened better, Mrs. Chaplin," said Brown rubbing his hands as he smelt the savoury stew that was just ready to turn out. It was a hotch-potch of meat, vegetables and oatmeal, warm and nourishing, and easy of digestion, and the two men looked as eager and pleased over the unusual luxury of a hot supper and a chance of work to follow as though a fortune had been left to them.

"The best day's work I ever did was to come and live near you, Chaplin," said his companion as Mrs. Chaplin helped them to a plate of stew.

She took care that they should have the lion's share of the meal. Winny would have declined having any at all, so eager was she that her father should have enough to do a few hours' work upon, but her mother assured her there was enough for her and Letty to have some as well as her father.

When supper was over, it was agreed that the men should go and lie down in Brown's room for an hour or two and try to sleep, while Mrs. Chaplin cleared away and got their own beds ready. Then at half-past twelve, she was to call them, that they might be at the dock gate in good time.

It was raining fast now, and the wind was almost as cold as in January, as it blew up from the river. Chaplin went down to look out at the weather the last thing before he went to lie down, and it rather pleased him than otherwise, for the wet would drive the chance loafers indoors, and so there would be the fewer at the dock gates to scramble for this job.

But there was one fact that the poor fellow had altogether overlooked, and that was that a man seldom got employed at the same dock two days running, and he had been at work at this place a few hours before.

Brown remembered it, however, and was afraid his companion would be rejected, and so as he went along battling against the cutting wind and rain in the darkness of the early morning, he said, "Look here, mate, we'll make a bargain for this job. Share and share alike it shall be, mind, between us for this. If you gets four hours and I gets two, three it shall be for both of us; and if I gets four and you gets two, why then it shall be the same. It was your mates, as I may call 'em, at that mission room as told us of this, and so we'll share and share alike over it."

"All right, I shall get took on, I fancy; that supper has just set me up, and I could do a day's work with anybody now," said Chaplin confidently.

He forgot that although he might feel better, he did not show it much in his looks yet, and, moreover, had begun to be known as broken-winded—a man who would break down after a couple of hours' driving.

When they reached the dock gates, they saw that their secret was shared by at least two hundred. The foreman had taken care of this, for he wanted a good number to pick from. There in the cold rain and the darkness, the usual struggle for an hour's work took place, and Chaplin was among the number not chosen. Brown got a labour-ticket, and the eagerness with which these were struggled for, would have made one think it was for a party of pleasure rather than work of the most laborious kind that they were being given. The foreman was besieged as soon as he appeared at the top of the wall with the coveted tickets in his hand, and men prayed him to give them a chance of earning fivepence, as though it was the greatest favour that he could bestow upon them.

The twenty tickets that were given out were soon distributed. With the practised eye of one well versed in appraising the working capabilities of the crowd before him, the foreman selected his party. He recognized Chaplin by the light of the lantern he held, as one who had scarcely been able to keep up for an hour the previous day, and so a ticket was handed over his head to a man who had only just come up.

With a sickening feeling of despair, Chaplin turned away as the gates closed. Brown had been selected, and for a minute, he felt as though he almost hated him for his "luck."

Although the gates had shut, and there would not be another call for an hour at least, the crowd showed no intention of moving from their post. Silent and subdued they ranged themselves against the dock wall for such shelter as it would afford them from the pelting rain, and presently the new day broke, cold and misty, and yet it made one or two of the men raise their heads, and perhaps there was a flutter of something like hope stealing through their minds as one and another looked out towards the east, and then towards the dock gates in the hope that they would be opened again soon now that daylight had come. Patient and quiet they stood until about three o'clock, and then another call for hands came, and there was the same fighting and struggling for the chance of an hour's work.

Some of those who had gone in with the first lot came out now, thoroughly exhausted with their two hours' labour; but Brown was not among them. Chaplin did not get taken on, and the foreman told him plainly there would be no work for him that day. So with a sigh he turned homewards, wet through now with the drenching rain.

Brown would want a good breakfast when he came out at five o'clock, and recalling the bargain they had made, he thought the least he could do was to have something ready for him when he came home. So without disturbing his wife, he lighted a fire in Brown's room, and by the time he came back from the docks between five and six, he had got some coffee ready, as well as some bacon and eggs cooked.

"That's it, mate," said Brown heartily when he came in and saw the preparations that had been made for his home-coming; "when I get that into me, and have had an hour or two to rest, I shall be ready for another shift. Mate, you and I must just go shares for a bit longer, and—"

"No, no," interrupted Chaplin, "we've had enough of that, or I should think you had. Here you've been at work four hours, and according to our bargain, if you mean to hold to it, I shall have half your money for doing nothing."

"You call it doing nothing to eat your heart out leaning up against the dock wall. Well, I'd rather do the hardest shift they could put me to than have to do that," said Brown with his mouth full of bread. Chaplin was hungry too, after being out in the keen morning air, but he did not like to eat anything, for his journey had brought no profit, and so he grudged eating until Brown insisted that he should have some bread and coffee at least.

When the meal was over, Chaplin trudged out to another and more distant dock, and Brown laid himself on the bed for an hour's sleep, that he too might go and look for another job before the day was over.

His good luck this morning had quite heartened him, and he chuckled to himself over the idea of going partners with the man who was almost worn-out.

"Do what I may, though, I can never do half as much for them as that little lass has done for my Annie," was his last thought before he went to sleep.

CHAPTER VII.

THINGS went on outwardly the same for the next week or two, and then one morning about the middle of August, news flew from dock to dock that at one, three hundred labourers had come out refusing to work unless some other plan was adopted than that at present in vogue. What the men asked was, that they should have the money they earned by their labour, and the contract system abolished.

To the men themselves it seemed a very reasonable demand, and one that would surely soon be granted. It was not all they asked, for they also wanted sixpence an hour to be paid to them out of the eightpence paid for their labour by the merchants and shippers.

There was likewise another thing, and that was that when they were called into the docks, they should be employed at least four hours, and not be discharged after two hours' labour, which often prevented them getting a longer job at another place because they were too late.

These were the reforms that were demanded, but the dock officials did not see their way clear to making any alteration in the system upon which they had worked so long, and declined to do anything.

But the gentlemen who spoke in this way, found that the men had begun to think for themselves to some purpose at last. The next day, the men came out of the other docks, or refused to go in, and the stevedores—the skilled packers who alone knew how to stow a ship's cargo properly—followed the labourers, declaring they would not work until the poor dockers' demands were granted.

"We shall win now, mother, in less than a week," said Chaplin running home to his wife with the news of this piece of self-denial on the part of men who were well able to help themselves.

Winny clasped her hands and tears of joy stood in her eyes as she said, "We shall win, I know we shall, daddy; only we must be patient."

"Yes, we're likely to need plenty of that before this strike comes to an end," said Mrs. Chaplin with a sob.

She had just taken her best shawl to the pawnshop, and in all her straits, she had managed to hold to that as the one respectable garment she had to go to the mission room in on Sunday. But the trim, tidy, threadbare shawl had to go at last, and the pawnbroker could only give her a shilling on it, so that when that was gone, they must part with some of the furniture, and what they could spare it was not easy to determine. So it was not to be wondered at that the poor woman lost heart when she heard that the struggle was likely to be prolonged.

She had been to ask if her neighbour had any more sacks to sew, but the last had been taken in and no more had been given out again.

"It's this strike, I believe," said the sack-maker. "Did you ever hear of such foolishness as dockers to strike? They'll starve fast enough, there's no fear of that."

"Ah! That they will," said poor Mrs. Chaplin dolefully; "and my poor Winny! It will kill her I am afraid," she added with a gasp.

It was of her children she was thinking, and especially of Winny, when she grumbled so about the strike. For to hear her sometimes, one would have thought that Chaplin was alone responsible for it.

He certainly had not been slow in taking up the idea when once it had entered his head. And the leaders, finding he was a steady man and one whose character could be relied upon, often consulted him, for it was to such men as he that they looked to keep out all disturbing influences, and keep the men steady in the time of excitement that was certain to follow.

Winny did not grumble. She always contrived to meet her father with a smile whenever he came in. Letty did not fare so badly as those at home, for very soon after the strike commenced, the friends who always took care that poor school children should be fed in the winter time, decided to have the same provision made for them now.

Appeals were made for funds to carry on free breakfasts and dinners too for the poor dockers' children, and the money came in as it was needed and was spent as fast as it came.

When a week went past, and all the efforts made by the men and their leaders failed to gain a settlement of the dispute, some of the rougher and wilder of the men proposed that, as they could not get what they wanted by fair means, they should adopt other measures.

Brown from his former character was taken into the confidence of one or two desperate men who had formed a plan for doing a good deal of mischief in London while there was so much confusion.

Brown heard all they had to say, and then asked if they knew that anyone had actually starved through this strike. "If you do, tell me where he is, and I'll see he gets something," he added.

"Well, if we ain't actually starving, we're often hungry," grumbled the other in a sullen tone.

"Ah! Hunger and dockers have been close acquaintance for years. But look you, the money that feeds the young uns every day comes out of the pockets of people you would ruin. How would that help us, do you think? No, no, I tell you while we get a meal a day, that will keep us from starving, we ought to behave ourselves like men and not like wild beasts."

This from the father of the girl who had thrown a glass at their landlord, and swept all his treasured ornaments from the mantel-piece, was something so astonishing that the men could scarcely believe they had heard aright. Brown had been their leader in many a desperate venture, so that to hear him talk like this was beyond their power of belief at first, and when at last they were convinced that he was in earnest in what he said, they were half disposed to wreak their vengeance upon him, for they knew that henceforth he would watch them so as to frustrate any plan of theirs for creating a riot among the thousands of unemployed hungry workmen.

Each day as it dawned, the anxious hungry families of the men hoped that before night some settlement would be made and the dispute terminate. Each day, too, saw the men better organized and more prepared to act from a feeling of common brotherhood instead of individual gain. Each day, crowds of men gathered round the dock gates, and there the leaders would tell them what had been done the day before, and exhort them to restrain their impatience, no matter what the provocation might be, to use no violence in word or deed.

Subscriptions came in faster as the days went on, and every heart among those of their neighbours who were able to help them seemed touched with a divine spirit of generosity. For pawnbrokers who took their chairs, blankets, and other portable property, declared they would charge no interest on the pledges taken during the strike, while shopkeepers gave credit until shelves and drawers were empty, and tills too.

Even Mrs. Rutter was moved to show her tenants the greatest kindness in her power. Mrs. Chaplin went to work for her one day, and not being able to take the balance of the rent in her hand as she generally did, burst into tears almost before the street door was closed.

"I don't know whatever is to become of us, Mrs. Rutter," she said with a gasp. "I haven't been able to bring you any rent this morning, for the strike ain't over yet, and I don't know when it's likely to be."

"No, I suppose not," replied Mrs. Rutter in a tone rather less complaining than usual. "I've been wondering how your poor Winny was getting along."

"Well, ma'am, that girl is more than I can understand. If you'll believe me, she just upholds her father in all he does about it, and I can tell you he's one of the busiest of the lot keeping the men together. I told him only yesterday the dock people were sure to hear of it, and if they take the others in by and by, they'll have nothing to do with him, mark my words;" and poor Mrs. Chaplin buried her face in her apron at the thought of the dismal picture she had conjured up the strike over, but her husband wholly unable to get a day's work.

"Bless you, ma'am, I believe she spends half her time praying to God for the dockers. It ain't herself she's thinking of, I know, for the little bit of food she lives on is something wonderful. Not a word of complaint have I heard about her back either, although she has not had a drop of medicine for nearly a month now."

"Well, you need not let the rent worry you, Mrs. Chaplin, for I have made up my mind that I'll wait for it till the strike is over, and then I'll take what's owing a shilling a week till it's cleared off."

To hear such news as this seemed almost too good to be true, and the poor woman with the thought of taking home her day's earnings was almost overwhelmed with joy.

When she got back at night, Winny had some more good news in store for her. A letter had come from Annie Brown, who had heard about the strike away there in the country, and so for the future she was going to send every penny she could spare out of her wages for fruit-picking to help her father and Winny. She did not know yet that Winny had given up her own chance of a country visit for her to go instead. But she did know that it was Winny's doings that she got the ticket, and so she said that whatever she could send was to be divided with Winny, and the letter had brought ten shillings, so that Winny was able to lay five in her mother's hand when she had read the letter, for Brown had already changed the postal order, and brought her share of the money home that she might have the pleasure of giving it to her mother as soon as she came in.

With five shillings in hand, and Letty sure of one meal a day, Mrs. Chaplin felt herself quite rich, and reproached herself for complaining so much.

When Chaplin came in and heard the news, he declared that they were safe from starvation now, for the strike must end before this week was over. "We are going in procession to-morrow to the west end; we must let the rich see what hunger means, and I am pretty sure more help will come in. We shall have a good allowance of bread and cheese served out to us before we start, and so we sha'n't hurt."

Such a luxury as breakfast had not been known since the strike began, and Chaplin decided that if they could afford this, he need not be a burden on the strike fund even to the extent of the bread and cheese.

It had been decided to have collecting boxes taken round with the procession of starving dockers, and Chaplin was one of those chosen for this duty, so that it was well he had had a good meal before he started, for he had to be on his feet all day, and could not return home even if he had felt tired until the march was over.

When they got back late in the afternoon, he had a ticket for a shilling given to him, and each man had the same who could prove he was out of work through the strike. It was more than some of them earned even when the dock gates were open. But there was this to be considered, that wives and daughters who could often earn a little in ordinary times, were unable to earn a farthing now, for every branch of industry in this quarter of the town was almost at a stand-still, and people usually well provided with everyday comforts stood on the verge of ruin.

It was sad to see the silent deserted streets, for men and women seemed to have no heart for anything, they were all so hungry.

Subscriptions came pouring in faster than ever as the days went on; but to give even a shilling a day needed some thousands of pounds should be sent daily, but happily there was sufficient to keep men and women too from actual starvation, near as it might come to a good many.

Mrs. Rutter thought more of Winny than she did of anybody else during this time, for Winny had spoken kindly and pityingly of her husband, when everybody else had nothing but hard words for all of them. So Lizzie was sent to see her very often, and always took something in her little basket for Winny's dinner or tea. Sometimes she carried the remains of a joint they had had the day before, for Mrs. Rutter seemed to grow less and less miserly as time went on, and more rent had to be remitted.

"I do believe it is doing mother good, if it don't anybody else," said Lizzie one day as she took the remnants of a meat pie from her basket and set it on the table. "I began to be afraid mother would get to be a regular old miser, for she was so afraid to touch a penny of the money in the bank; but now that she is obliged to draw some out every week, she seems to be more cheerful and happy than she has been since father died. It is funny; I can't understand it at all," concluded Lizzie with a little laugh.

"Perhaps it is God making her happy because she is helping the poor people about the rent," suggested Winny; "I heard mother say it was a great thing to have the rent settled like this, for so many people worry more about that than they do about food, that as your mother is helping them in this way, it was a blessing to so many."

"Yes, and a blessing to herself as well, I am sure; for you know, Winny, father did make it a little unfairly, I'm afraid. I never understood about it till the other day, when I heard a man speaking about it, and I am sure it is not a fair plan the way they work now. I wish somebody had made a stir about it before. People did hate poor father, and it was not so much his fault after all. I don't say that your friend Brown pushed him into the basin, because he was here all the time, and so he couldn't. But there were lots of others who would, and I can't be sure that somebody didn't push him in that day."

It was the first time Lizzie had mentioned her father lately, and the tears stood in her eyes now as she spoke of him. "I shall never be able to think of my father as you can of yours, for he was always too busy with his money to have time to be kind to me. If somebody had only thought of altering things before, he might be alive now. That is what I am always thinking of, Winny, and why I hope the men will get what they want."

"Poor Lizzie!" said Winny, tenderly stroking the hand she held in hers. What could she say to comfort such a grief as this? She pitied poor Lizzie from the bottom of her heart, and yet no word beyond this: "God knows all about it, dear," could she say. Nothing to comfort the sorrowing girl.

She thought of her own father, and what he was to her, and then of Annie Brown—rough and thoughtless and uncontrolled—Annie who yet loved her father so dearly, while he could think of nothing but in its relation to his "little un."

Surely a man like poor Rutter was to be pitied that he had learned to love money so much that he had no room in his heart for anything else, and the system that encouraged this was greatly to be blamed for the result. And therefore if it could be amended, the foremen ought to be as grateful as the poor dockers in whose behalf the work had been undertaken.

Something of this she could tell to Lizzie, and the girls sat and talked until her mother came in to get tea ready.

She had been out in the vain hope of being able to find a little work for herself, for although they were better off than many of the neighbours, it was hard work to provide for all their wants even with the help they got from the strike fund.

That things had so far gone on quietly was a great cause for thankfulness to all true friends of the men on strike. But as days passed into weeks, and nearly a month went by, those who had refused to consent to make any alteration at first began to see that they would have to give way on some points at least, and so at last they consented to do away with the contract system; but they would not pay the men more than fivepence an hour, and the men determined to hold out until the sixpence was granted.

Some few among them had been taken up for assaulting men who wanted to go to work in the empty docks, for all who went in while the strike lasted were looked upon as traitors by the rest. It was for interfering with these that two or three men got sent to prison; but for the most part they acted in as orderly and becoming a manner as any company of men could do, and the example of brotherly kindness and helpfulness that Chaplin and Brown learned to practise towards each other beforehand, they and their companions learned to extend to those beyond their immediate circle, so that each man restrained his own selfish impulses and greed for revenge for the sake of others, and in memory of help so freely given to them in their hour of need.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE closing of the dock gates put a stop to every other industry as well as that of the dock labourers, for all the smaller trades and occupations were dependent, more or less, upon the shipping of the port of London, and with that practically closed, these came to an end.

It was a sore trial to those usually so busy to have to sit at home with folded hands and look at their denuded homes, or wander aimlessly about the dull streets, for after the procession of men had gone by on their usual perambulations, there was nothing to break the monotony of their lives, and it was a hard test of their patience to sit dumb and idle. And yet, the women felt that if they broke out into loud-voiced complaints, there was danger that the men might be goaded into some act of violence, and if once this was done there was no telling what the end might be.

So every woman did her best to bear uncomplainingly the hardship of her lot, and when father, brother, or husband came home, to make the place as bright and cheery as they could. In this way, women like Mrs. Chaplin and weak girls like Winny, saved London from riot and bloodshed, and gained for themselves a name of imperishable honour, setting the whole world an example of patient endurance and the divine might of doing the duty that lay nearest to them.

Every mission room was busy from morning till night, for meals, free or a farthing each, for the starving women and children, were going on all day and half the night too. These cheap meals made the Chaplins better off than most of their neighbours, and practically independent of the strike fund, for although Mrs. Chaplin only got one day's work a fortnight with Mrs. Rutter now, still, with the money sent every week by Annie Brown to help them through the trouble, they were able to get along fairly well. And when Mrs. Chaplin got a little to do in helping Miss Lavender with the meals and entertainments at the mission room, she was a good deal more content.

The coming of Annie Brown's letter every week came to be looked forward to as the red-letter day of the seven, for besides the words of cheerful hope the girl always sent herself, it often contained a kindly message and a few pence from some of her fellow-workers.

But one day there came a letter with news that set the little household in a quiver of excitement.

"My master wants a carpenter," she wrote, "a man who can turn his hand to anything—make boxes, put up shelves, or build a shed. I told him about Winny's father, and about Winny too, and he says if he would not mind living in the country, and could do the work, there would be steady wages for him all the year round."

"Mother, mother, what does it mean?" asked Letty when she heard the letter read, while Winny lay with clasped hands and shining eyes, too deeply moved to utter her thoughts to anyone but God, in the swift uprising of thanksgiving for this fresh proof of his love.

"Letty, we must go and find father!" exclaimed Mrs. Chaplin, as soon as she could find her tongue. "Mr. Brown, do you know where he is?" she exclaimed turning to him, for he had brought the letter and still stood looking from one to the other, for he knew that to get work in the country had long been his friend's wish for the sake of poor Winny.

He shook his head to Mrs. Chaplin's question, and turning to the invalid on the couch, he said: "Well, what do you think of it, my dear?"

"Oh, I am so glad!" she replied. "It was kind of Annie to think of father and send to tell him."

"I wouldn't own her for my 'little un' again if she didn't do all she could for you, Winny," he replied. "But we shall miss you, my dear; we shall all miss you. But look here, if you hadn't give my gal the chance you did, why she couldn't have done this for you, so you see after all, it's just your own kindness coming back to you again. The seed you sowed is just bearing the right kind of fruit. That's what it is, my lass, you may depend upon that. We heard something like it down at the mission-hall the other day, when Miss Lavender give us that tea. She stood up afterwards and warned us against losing our patience or our temper, telling us in good plain words that the seed we sowed would bring the same kind of fruit to us."

"I wish I could have heard Miss Lavender speak like that," said Winny with glowing cheeks.

The girl almost worshipped her teacher, and now, as the thought crossed her mind that if her father got this work in the country, it would separate her from this dear friend, the tears rose to her eyes tears of regret this time, not of thankfulness and she wondered how she could have forgotten for a moment what going to live in the country would mean to her.

Meanwhile Letty had gone one way and her mother another in search of Chaplin, to tell him the good news. But they both came back in the course of a quarter of an hour to see if he had returned, as neither of them had been able to find him.

Brown had gone upstairs to perform the laborious task of answering Annie's letter, for she always insisted that he should do this, as she could not read any writing but his; and he said that Chaplin would come and see the master at once, and that Winny was very glad.

There was no more to tell according to the way Brown looked at things, and even this was a difficult task to him, and took him a long time to perform, so that he knew very little of what was going on downstairs.

Mrs. Chaplin, having failed to find her husband close at hand, put on her bonnet to go to the mission room, for she thought he might be doing something for Miss Lavender, as there was always so much going on. But as she hurried down the street, tying her bonnet strings as she went along, a neighbour asked: "Are you looking for your husband, Mrs. Chaplin?"

"You'll find him down by the dock gates, I think," replied her friend; "he was there a few minutes ago."

"Thank you," called Mrs. Chaplin, and she hurried along the street as fast as she could, for fear her husband should be gone before she should find him.

But as soon as she came within sight of the gates, she saw him talking to a man on the opposite side of the road. Her business was of too much importance, she thought, to brook any delay, and so she went up to him and tapped him on the shoulder.

"Wait a minute, mother," he said, turning to the stranger again and resuming his talk in an undertone.

She waited a minute, but not more, and then she went to her husband again. "You must come home at once," she said a little sharply, for she did not like to be put off for a stranger like this.

"No, no, it isn't that; but we've had a letter from Annie Brown, and she says there is constant work for you in the country if you like to go and see about it."

This would make him give up his talk with the stranger and go home with her, she thought. She had not meant to tell him so quickly, but she wanted to get him away, and thought that this would do it, if everything else failed.

But to her surprise, he only said in a low tone, "Thank God for his goodness," and then went to the stranger again and resumed his talk once more.

Mrs. Chaplin thought he must be mad not to hurry back with her, and stood there impatiently enough until the stranger went away, and then she went to her husband again.

"Picket nonsense!" exclaimed Mrs. Chaplin, losing all patience with her husband now. "Come along home and let us arrange how you are to go down to the country. You ought to go this afternoon or to-morrow morning early."

"To-morrow morning will do, I should think," said Chaplin anxiously. "You see, I can't get away from here until someone comes to take my place."

"Well, there are plenty to do that, I should think," replied his wife, who was anxious that her husband should go and secure this good fortune for himself.

"Yes, yes, there are plenty of men about as you say; but look here, we want to keep strangers from going to take our work, and to do that somebody must be at hand to talk to any stranger who would go in, just to tell them what we are holding out for and persuade them to go home again. But, don't you see, we have to be very careful how we do this, for if we got in a passion over it, there might be fighting, and then we should get into the hands of the police. They know what we are doing well enough, but so long as we are peaceable, they don't interfere; but if we gave them any trouble, we should get three months, and that might be the beginning of a row all round. The committee know the men pretty well by this time, and as they have appointed me to this duty till four o'clock this afternoon, here I must stay."

"Brown won't come, and I shouldn't leave if he did," replied the man with something like a smile parting his thin lips.

She could not see that just lounging about the dock gates, walking up and down, speaking occasionally to the policeman, taking with a smile some ugly epithet thrown at them by the dock foreman who might be passing, was by any means so important as her husband seemed to think, and she was more angry with him than ever she had been in her life before.

Tears of vexation stood in her eyes as she turned to go home again, and as she went by the mission room she thought she would go in and see if Miss Lavender was there, to tell her what had happened, and how her husband was neglecting this opportunity of benefiting all of them.

The lady heard the poor woman's story, and could well sympathize with her impatience at what seemed like her husband's apathy. But having done so, she said, "He could not have left his post without leave from those who placed him there. You see it is not every man who could be trusted to do such duty, for these pickets must be careful, steady men. No, no, Mrs. Chaplin, he could not leave such a post as that for anything," added the lady.

"And yet he may lose a good chance of work through it," said the poor woman with a gasp.

"We must take care he does not do that," said the lady. "I will write a telegram and give you the money to send it to the country." And as she spoke, the lady took a pencil from her pocket, and wrote on the leaf of her pocket-book:

"There, that will be enough, if the gentleman is a reasonable man," she said. "Now go and get the address, and send it off." And she gave her the message and a shilling as she spoke.

Mrs. Chaplin was not long performing her errand, and felt greatly relieved when it was done.

How he was to go into the country decently attired had been thought of by their friend Miss Lavender. And soon after Chaplin got home, Letty ran in with a large bundle in her arms.

"It's new clothes for daddy," she announced, setting her burden down on the table and beginning to untie the handkerchief.

But Mrs. Chaplin soon took it from her, for she was all eagerness to see whether her husband had a chance of making a decent appearance at the place he was going to. To see him once more clad like a decent carpenter was the highest ambition of her life. Her friend knew this, and felt that the man would stand a much better chance of success in his new venture, if he could go down in trim, tidy clothes instead of the poor rags he wore as a dock labourer. So she had managed to get a decent gray suit about his size, and a clean white shirt, and a pair of boots, so that nothing was wanting to complete his attire.

To see them all when these were laid out for inspection can better be imagined than described. Letty danced round the table, bumping her head against the bedstead in the process, while Winny clapped her hands, and insisted that her father should dress himself in them at once that they might have time to admire him in them before he went away the next day.

Then Brown must be fetched to see them, and he must walk with Letty to the mission room for the loaf of bread that was to be given out at six o'clock.

Never was a family so elated, for, to crown their joy, instead of having to tramp to this new place of work as he had made up his mind to do, one of the men brought him the price of the railway fare from the strike committee, and a promise to look after his family until he could send up money to take them down to him, if he was likely to stay.

When her mother went out with Letty to get something for breakfast in the morning, Winny contrived to have a word or two with her father.

"Do you remember the talk we had a long time ago, daddy?" she said. "Don't you know, when we talked about it first, I said God would help us somehow, that he would help people put things right if they were wrong?"

"Ah! My girl, I do remember something about it; but it seems a long time ago, as you say, for so much has happened since then."

"Yes, God has been busy in a good many people's hearts. I asked him that very night about it, and I have prayed to him every night since, for the old way seemed wrong for everybody. Men like Rutter could not help getting hard and cross, it seemed. But now that will be done away at least, and the men may get a penny an hour more, and the four hours' work a day, for they won't be able to make twenty or thirty men do the work of sixty."

"I hope that's over, my lass, though it won't make the difference to us I thought it would, if I get this work at my old trade."

"Why, we might have had a front room as well as this one, and you might have been able to look out into the street sometimes and see the children at play when they came home from school. That's what Brown and I used to talk about, and when he found out that you had given up your holiday ticket for Annie, he set himself to give up the drink, and be as steady and sober as he could, so that he might be able to keep the rest steady too, when the strike came, that nothing might spoil it, and prevent you from having a front window to look out of."

"How kind of him!" exclaimed Winny smiling through her tears. "But God is kinder, father, for he is going to let us live in the country, which is ever so much better than having a front window even."

"Yes, dear, I hope we may be able to live in the country for your sake. We owe this good fortune to you, my girl, for if Annie Brown had not gone to work at this jam factory, we should not have heard of this."

"You will take it, father? Though I am sure Mr. Brown will be very sorry if we go away."

"But more sorry if we stayed, my lass, after having such a chance as this. Don't you see every one who leaves this overcrowded London for work in the country gives those who stay a better chance, and so I hope I shall be able to do this work, though what I am going to do without tools is rather a puzzle, for of course they will expect me to take them with me."

"Oh, daddy! We never thought of that," said Winny in a tone of dismay. "I thought when you had got those nice clothes you had got all you wanted."

But before they went to bed, this want was supplied. Brown knew a man who wanted to sell a basket of carpenter's tools, and went to see him about them. Money was scarce enough just now with everybody, but he had found a friend who was willing to lend the price of these to be repaid in small instalments, if somebody would be responsible for the debt, and this Brown promised to do himself.

So before they were in bed, Brown brought the basket of tools ready for him to take in the morning. But the pleasure of handling the old familiar things was too keen for Chaplin to be content with just looking at them. They were a little rusty in places, and this was enough for an excuse. He must sit up for an hour to clean them, and never did a duchess handle her diamonds more tenderly and lovingly, than Chaplin did the planes and gimlets, screw-drivers and hammers. They must all be rubbed and cleaned before he could go to bed, and Winny lay in her little bed watching her father and thanking God for his great goodness to them.

Early the next morning, Chaplin started on his journey, bearing all sorts of kind messages to Annie Brown, for everybody was willing to forget and forgive her offence now.

A day or two afterwards came the eagerly expected letter from the traveller. Chaplin could write better than Annie or her father, and so the letter was quite a long one, or seemed so to the little family who gathered round to hear it read.

First he told them he had begun work, and thought he should get on very well. His master was satisfied with him, and to get back to his old trade with regular work and regular wages more than satisfied himself. He never felt so thankful for anything in his life as to get back to the country again, and he hoped to get a place ready for them to come into in the course of a day or two. Annie Brown was looking so well, so rosy and happy at her work of fruit-picking, that he hardly knew her, and she quite failed to recognize him in his smart new suit and the carpenter's basket over his shoulder. It was plain enough that he was proud of being regarded as a carpenter again, and his wife shared his feeling, and told her neighbours how well her husband was getting on down in the country.

No one grudged the Chaplins their good fortune, for among the men he had proved himself steady and reliable, and was therefore chosen for the most difficult and delicate work picketing which no man coveted, but which Chaplin was always ready to do, and never known to forsake a post when once he had taken it.

Among their more immediate neighbours there was genuine rejoicing, for now Winny would get the chance of growing strong which she had given up to Annie Brown. This action of hers had not met with the unqualified approval of her friends and neighbours. They could not understand the high standard Winny set before her—even that of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, who came to give up his life for those who were ignorant and out of the way, that they might be brought to a knowledge of the love of the Father, thus leaving all who would call themselves his disciples an example that they should follow in his steps.

They had thought such a sacrifice as Winny had made was altogether too much for a girl like Annie Brown. If she had been respectable now, they could have understood it, but for a girl who had been to prison, and who felt ashamed to meet her neighbours when she came back, well, it was altogether too much.

Now, however, everything had turned out so well for everybody, and Annie had proved to be worthy of the help given to her, why, it was just what might be expected to happen.

Some said Annie Brown would stop in the country now she liked it so well, and Letty came and told Brown what had been said.

He did not seem to be at all pleased at the suggestion. "I hope my 'little un' won't leave her old dad," he said. "The country is all very well for some people, but I was bred and born in London, and I could never do without its noise and bustle. No, no, my gal must come home to me when the strike is over; I can't do without her much longer."

"I can't do without you much longer, daddy. I should like to come home at once, but of course I must wait till the strike is over. The rooms that the Chaplins are to have are almost ready, and Winny will be coming here next week I expect, so I shall wait and see her and help Mrs. Chaplin get things straight, and then I can tell you all how she is when I come home."

This plan of Annie's was adopted as being the best that could be devised, and the very Monday that the men went back to work in the docks again, Mrs. Chaplin, Winny, and Letty set out on their journey to their country home.

All sorts of little comforts had been provided by Miss Lavender to lighten the invalid's journey, and give her strength to endure what she feared would be a very painful experience to the girl.

It certainly did try her very much, and, in spite of all her mother's care and her teacher's forethought, she fainted two or three times before she got to her journey's end. But when at last the station was reached, her troubles were over, for there was her father, looking so stout and strong, ready to lift her out of the carriage to a little swing-bed he had contrived for her between some boxes in the wagon his master had lent him to fetch them home in.

The furniture had been sent on from London the week before, and Annie had been all day getting things comfortable for the travellers.

Letty fairly screamed with delight when she saw her new home, but Winny was too tired to do more than look round at the sunny fields and up at the window which her father told her was to be her own, and then with a feeble smile at Annie she said: "God is very good to everybody. I shall have a front window after all."

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The seed she sowed

The Seed She Sowed

CHAPTER I.