One of Lifes Slaves | Page 5

the fulfilment of her duty. Tall, thin and neat in her person, even her small, liver-coloured face, with the pale blue expressionless eyes, told you at once that she was not the woman to allow herself to be carried away by rash impetuosity.
And on the few occasions in the year that Barbara visited the boy--it was not so easy for her to come now that the Veyergangs lived in their country house all the year round--she could see for herself how well-cared-for and clean he was, and how strictly he was kept. From the time she got there to the time she left, she heard nothing except how difficult it was to straighten out all the tinsmith's dents, all that had been wrongly and improperly dealt with from the very first, especially his obstinate temper! Now he really could walk quite a good way, but he would do nothing but crawl, and so quickly, that no sooner had she, Mrs. Holman, taken her eyes off him than he might be anywhere, either at the saucepans and pots, or in the water-bucket, or else at the plummets on the bell. And he upset things, and got himself in a mess, wherever he went; yesterday the cat's food lay all over the floor! So now she had hung the birch-rod low down on the wall, so that it might be before his eyes; for it was necessary to frighten him, and vigilance and punishment must positively be used. And Barbara must know herself, that it wasn't so easy to manage other people's children, and especially such a stray creature, come into the world in such a manner!
It was all just, as Barbara was obliged to acknowledge to herself, from beginning to end, however much it might sting her, and therefore she was always in a hurry to get away again.
It cannot be denied that she learnt something from it too, namely, what she, on her side, might have reason and right to say to Mrs. Veyergang about all the toil she had had with her two, if they ever had a difference.
But the same spirit of disobedience remained in the boy as he grew older. It was impossible to cure him of it, for all that Mrs. Holman could do, and Holman had to help too sometimes. This did not happen, however, until his wife had duly impressed on him the moral necessity of taking upon himself his share of the duties of the house.
Holman was a silent man with a pair of quiet, shining eyes. He went and came, morning and evening, rubbed and dried his shoes, and stood hesitating at the door with some tool or other, or the tail of a block in his hand, before he went in. What he might think of his married life there was little opportunity of seeing in his face. One thing was certain--a wife like Mrs. Holman was a treasure, which could not be sufficiently prized; and if there was not quite so much left of Holman, if, in fact, he had become--with all reverence be it said--something of a fool, yet every one was sensible that in that union it must be so, if the balance was to be kept. Any one who had only seen or spoken to Mrs. Holman once, understood it immediately, but what was not so easy to understand was that, after all, it was Holman who made the blocks down in the workshop, by which the household lived.
It was still more remarkable that he had sometimes been met in the gateway in an irresponsible condition, such as no one would have expected in a man so happily married as he was.
After the miracle of Mrs. Holman's having a little girl herself had happened--after that great and important change in the household, it was deliberated whether it would not be better to rid the room of other people's progeny. But then it was good regular money to have, and in time the boy could be made use of at the cradle.
It was the lightest work in the world--just made for a little boy, sitting and rocking the cradle with his foot--nothing but a little practice for him.
But here, too, she was to have sad experience. She left him by the cradle went she went out, but when she came home, he would be standing gazing out of the window or from the top of the cellar stairs at the children playing in the square. She had even caught him right outside with the door open behind him--it was all the same to him, as long as he could get out of the cellar and away from his duty.
Well, the young rogue would have to pay for it, as much as his mortal back could bear!
And she assured