THE mayor stood at the open window. He looked smart, for
his shirt-frill, in which he had stuck a breast-pin, and his
ruffles, were very fine. He had shaved his chin uncommonly
smooth, although he had cut himself slightly, and had stuck a
piece of newspaper over the place. "Hark 'ee, youngster!"
cried he.
The boy to whom he spoke was no other than the son of a
poor washer-woman, who was just going past the house. He
stopped, and respectfully took off his cap. The peak of this
cap was broken in the middle, so that he could easily roll it
up and put it in his pocket. He stood before the mayor in his
poor but clean and well-mended clothes, with heavy wooden
shoes on his feet, looking as humble as if it had been the
king himself.
"You are a good and civil boy," said the mayor. "I suppose
your mother is busy washing the clothes down by the river, and
you are going to carry that thing to her that you have in your
pocket. It is very bad for your mother. How much have you got
in it?"
"Only half a quartern," stammered the boy in a frightened
voice.
"And she has had just as much this morning already?"
"No, it was yesterday," replied the boy.
"Two halves make a whole," said the mayor. "She's good for
nothing. What a sad thing it is with these people. Tell your
mother she ought to be ashamed of herself. Don't you become a
drunkard, but I expect you will though. Poor child! there, go
now."
The boy went on his way with his cap in his hand, while
the wind fluttered his golden hair till the locks stood up
straight. He turned round the corner of the street into the
little lane that led to the river, where his mother stood in
the water by her washing bench, beating the linen with a heavy
wooden bar. The floodgates at the mill had been drawn up, and
as the water rolled rapidly on, the sheets were dragged along
by the stream, and nearly overturned the bench, so that the
washer-woman was obliged to lean against it to keep it steady.
"I have been very nearly carried away," she said; "it is a
good thing that you are come, for I want something to
strengthen me. It is cold in the water, and I have stood here
six hours. Have you brought anything for me?"
The boy drew the bottle from his pocket, and the mother
put it to her lips, and drank a little.
"Ah, how much good that does, and how it warms me," she
said; "it is as good as a hot meal, and not so dear. Drink a
little, my boy; you look quite pale; you are shivering in your
thin clothes, and autumn has really come. Oh, how cold the
water is! I hope I shall not be ill. But no, I must not be
afraid of that. Give me a little more, and you may have a sip
too, but only a sip; you must not get used to it, my poor,
dear child." She stepped up to the bridge on which the boy
stood as she spoke, and came on shore. The water dripped from
the straw mat which she had bound round her body, and from her
gown. "I work hard and suffer pain with my poor hands," said
she, "but I do it willingly, that I may be able to bring you
up honestly and truthfully, my dear boy."
At the same moment, a woman, rather older than herself,
came towards them. She was a miserable-looking object, lame of
one leg, and with a large false curl hanging down over one of
her eyes, which was blind. This curl was intended to conceal
the blind eye, but it made the defect only more visible. She
was a friend of the laundress, and was called, among the
neighbors, "Lame Martha, with the curl." "Oh, you poor thing;
how you do work, standing there in the water!" she exclaimed.
"You really do need something to give you a little warmth, and
yet spiteful people cry out about the few drops you take." And
then Martha repeated to the laundress, in a very few minutes,
all that the mayor had said to her boy, which she had
overheard; and she felt very angry that any man could speak,
as he had done, of a mother to her own child, about the few
drops she had taken; and she was still more angry because, on
that very day, the mayor was going to have a dinner-party, at
which there would be wine, strong, rich wine, drunk by the
bottle. "Many will take more than they ought, but they don't
call that drinking! They are all right, you are good for
nothing indeed!" cried Martha indignantly.
"And so he spoke to you in that way, did he, my child?"
said the washer-woman, and her lips trembled as she spoke. "He
says you have a mother who is good for nothing. Well, perhaps
he is right, but he should not have said it to my child. How
much has happened to me from that house!"
"Yes," said Martha; "I remember you were in service there,
and lived in the house when the mayor's parents were alive;
how many years ago that is. Bushels of salt have been eaten
since then, and people may well be thirsty," and Martha
smiled. "The mayor's great dinner-party to-day ought to have
been put off, but the news came too late. The footman told me
the dinner was already cooked, when a letter came to say that
the mayor's you