第19章

"'My dear Mr. Brown,' replied the lady, 'I will be perfectly frank with you. I am becoming an old woman, and my past life has not, perhaps, been altogether too well spent. It is my desire to atone for the--er--follies of my youth by an old age of well-doing, and to that end it is essential that I should be surrounded by a certain number of deserving poor. I had hoped to find in this charming neighbourhood of yours the customary proportion of poverty and misery, in which case I should have taken the house without hesitation. As it is, I must seek elsewhere.'

"My cousin was perplexed, and sad. 'There are plenty of poor people in the town,' he said, 'many of them most interesting cases, and you could have the entire care of them all. There'd be no opposition whatever, I'm positive.'

"'Thank you,' replied the lady, 'but I really couldn't go as far as the town. They must be within easy driving distance or they are no good.'

"My cousin cudgelled his brains again. He did not intend to let a purchaser slip through his fingers if he could help it. At last a bright thought flashed into his mind. 'I'll tell you what we could do,' he said. 'There's a piece of waste land the other end of the village that we've never been able to do much with, in consequence of its being so swampy. If you liked, we could run you up a dozen cottages on that, cheap--it would be all the better their being a bit ramshackle and unhealthy--and get some poor people for you, and put into them.'

"The lady reflected upon the idea, and it struck her as a good one.

"'You see,' continued my cousin, pushing his advantage, 'by adopting this method you would be able to select your own poor. We would get you some nice, clean, grateful poor, and make the thing pleasant for you.'

"It ended in the lady's accepting my cousin's offer, and giving him a list of the poor people she would like to have. She selected one bedridden old woman (Church of England preferred); one paralytic old man; one blind girl who would want to be read aloud to; one poor atheist, willing to be converted; two cripples; one drunken father who would consent to be talked to seriously; one disagreeable old fellow, needing much patience; two large families, and four ordinary assorted couples.

"My cousin experienced some difficulty in securing the drunken father. Most of the drunken fathers he interviewed upon the subject had a rooted objection to being talked to at all. After a long search, however, he discovered a mild little man, who, upon the lady's requirements and charitable intentions being explained to him, undertook to qualify himself for the vacancy by getting intoxicated at least once a week. He said he could not promise more than once a week at first, he unfortunately possessing a strong natural distaste for all alcoholic liquors, which it would be necessary for him to overcome. As he got more used to them, he would do better.

"Over the disagreeable old man, my cousin also had trouble. It was hard to hit the right degree of disagreeableness. Some of them were so very unpleasant. He eventually made choice of a decayed cab-driver with advanced Radical opinions, who insisted on a three years' contract.

"The plan worked exceedingly well, and does so, my cousin tells me, to this day. The drunken father has completely conquered his dislike to strong drink. He has not been sober now for over three weeks, and has lately taken to knocking his wife about. The disagreeable fellow is most conscientious in fulfilling his part of the bargain, and makes himself a perfect curse to the whole village.

The others have dropped into their respective positions and are working well. The lady visits them all every afternoon, and is most charitable. They call her Lady Bountiful, and everybody blesses her."Brown rose as he finished speaking, and mixed himself a glass of whisky and water with the self-satisfied air of a benevolent man about to reward somebody for having done a good deed; and MacShaughnassy lifted up his voice and talked.

"I know a story bearing on the subject, too," he said. "It happened in a tiny Yorkshire village--a peaceful, respectable spot, where folks found life a bit slow. One day, however, a new curate arrived, and that woke things up considerably. He was a nice young man, and, having a large private income of his own, was altogether a most desirable catch. Every unmarried female in the place went for him with one accord.

"But ordinary feminine blandishments appeared to have no effect upon him. He was a seriously inclined young man, and once, in the course of a casual conversation upon the subject of love, he was heard to say that he himself should never be attracted by mere beauty and charm. What would appeal to him, he said, would be a woman's goodness--her charity and kindliness to the poor.

"Well, that set the petticoats all thinking. They saw that in studying fashion plates and practising expressions they had been going upon the wrong tack. The card for them to play was 'the poor.' But here a serious difficulty arose. There was only one poor person in the whole parish, a cantankerous old fellow who lived in a tumble-down cottage at the back of the church, and fifteen able-bodied women (eleven girls, three old maids, and a widow)wanted to be 'good' to him.

"Miss Simmonds, one of the old maids, got hold of him first, and commenced feeding him twice a day with beef-tea; and then the widow boarded him with port wine and oysters. Later in the week others of the party drifted in upon him, and wanted to cram him with jelly and chickens.

The old man couldn't understand it. He was accustomed to a small sack of coals now and then, accompanied by a long lecture on his sins, and an occasional bottle of dandelion tea. This sudden spurt on the part of Providence puzzled him. He said nothing, however, but continued to take in as much of everything as he could hold. At the end of a month he was too fat to get through his own back door.