Charity in a Cottage
Jean Ingelow
The charity of the rich is much to be commended; but how beautiful is the charity of the poor!
Call to mind the coldest day you ever experienced. Think of the bitter wind and driving snow; think how you shook and shivered—how the sharp white particles were driven up against your face—how, within doors, the carpets were lifted like billows along the floors, the wind howled and moaned in the chimneys, windows cracked, doors rattled, and every now and then heavy lumps of snow came thundering down with a dull weight from the roof.
Now hear my story.
In one of the broad, open plains of Lincolnshire, there is a long reedy sheet of water, a favourite resort of wild ducks. At its northern extremity stand two mud cottages, old, and out of repair.
One bitter, bitter night, when the snow lay three feet deep on the ground, and a cutting east wind was driving it about, and whistling in the dry frozen reeds by the water’s edge, and swinging the bare willow trees till their branches swept the ice, an old woman sat spinning in one of these cottages before a moderately cheerful fire. Her kettle was singing on the coals, she had a reed candle, or home-made rushlight, on her table, but the full moon shone in, and was the brighter light of the two. These two cottages were far from any road, or any other habitation; the old woman was, therefore, surprised, in an old northern song, by a sudden knock at the door.
It was loud and impatient, not like the knock of her neighbours in the other cottage; but the door was bolted, and the old woman rose, and shuffling to the window, looked out and saw a shivering figure, apparently that of a youth.
“Trampers!” said the old woman, sententiously, “tramping folks be not wanted here.” So saying she went back to the fire without deigning to answer the door.
The youth upon this tried the door, and called to her to beg admittance. She heard him rap the snow from his shoes against her lintel, and again knock as if he thought she was deaf, and he should surely gain admittance if he could make her hear.
The old woman, surprised at his audacity, went to the casement and with all the pride of possession, opened it and inquired his business.
“Good woman,” the stranger began, “I only want a seat at your fire.”
“Nay,” said the old woman, giving effect to her words by her uncouth dialect, “thou’ll get no shelter here; I’ve nought to give to beggars—a dirty, wet critter,” she continued wrathfully, slamming to the window. “It’s a wonder where he found any water, too, seeing it freeze so hard a body can get none for the kettle, saving what’s broken up with a hatchet.”
The stranger turned very hastily from her door and waded through the deep snow towards the other cottage. The bitter wind helped to drive him towards it. It looked no less poor than the first; and when he had tried the door and found it bolted and fast, his heart sank within him. His hand was so numbed with cold that he had made scarcely any noise; he tried again.
A rush candle was burning within and a matronly looking woman sat before the fire. She held an infant in her arms and had dropped asleep; but his third knock aroused her, and wrapping her apron round the child, she opened the door a very little way, and demanded what he wanted.
“Good woman,” the youth began, “I have had the misfortune to fall in the water this bitter night, and I am so numbed I can scarcely walk.”
The woman gave him a sudden earnest look and then sighed.
“Come in,” she said; “thou art so nigh the size of my Jem, I thought at first it was him come home from sea.”
The youth stepped across the threshold, trembling with cold and wet; and no wonder, for his clothes were completely encased in wet mud, and the water dripped from them with every step he took on the sanded floor.
“Thou art in a sorry plight,” said the woman, “and it be two miles to the nighest house; come and kneel down afore the fire; thy teeth chatter so pitifully I can scarce bear to hear them.”
She looked at him more attentively and saw that he was a mere boy, not more than sixteen years of age. Her motherly heart was touched for him. “Art hungry?” she asked, turning to the table. “Thou art wet to the skin. What hast been doing?”
“Shooting wild ducks,” said the boy.
“Oh,” said the hostess, “thou art one of the keeper’s boys, then, I reckon?”
He followed the direction of her eyes, and saw two portions of bread set upon the table, with a small piece of bacon on each.
“My master be very late,” she observed, for charity did not make her use elegant language, and by her master she meant her husband; “but thou art welcome to my bit and sup, for I was waiting for him. Maybe it will put a little warmth in thee to eat and drink.” So saying, she placed before him her own share of the supper.
“Thank you,” said the boy; “but I am so wet I am making quite a pool before your fire with the drippings from my clothes.”
“Aye, they are wet indeed,” said the woman, and rising again she went to an old box, in which she began to search, and presently came to the fire with a perfectly clean check shirt in her hand and a tolerably good suit of clothes.
“There,” said she, showing them with no small pride, “these be my master’s Sunday clothes, and if thou wilt be very careful of them I’ll let thee wear them till thine be dry.” She then explained that she was going to put her “bairn” to bed, and proceeded up a ladder into the room above, leaving the boy to array himself in these respectable garments.
When she had come down her guest had dressed himself in the labourer’s clothes; he had had time to warm himself, and he was eating and drinking with hungry relish. He had thrown his muddy clothes in a heap upon the floor. As she looked at him she said:
“Ah, lad, lad, I doubt that head been under water: thy poor mother would have been sorely frightened if she could have seen thee a while ago.”
“Yes,” said the boy; and in imagination the cottage dame saw this same mother, a careworn, hard-working creature like herself; while the youthful guest saw in imagination a beautiful and courtly lady; and both saw the same love, the same anxiety, the same terror, at sight of a lonely boy struggling in the moonlight through breaking ice, with no one to help him, catching at the frozen reeds, and then creeping up, shivering and benumbed, to a cottage door.
But, even as she stooped, the woman forgot her imagination, for she had taken a waistcoat into her hands, such as had never passed between them before; a gold pencil-case dropped from the pocket; and on the floor amidst a heap of mud that covered the outer garments, lay a white shirt sleeve, so white, indeed, and so fine, that she thought it could hardly be worn by a squire!
She glanced from the clothes to the owner. He had thrown down his cap, and his fair curly hair and broad forehead convinced her that he was of gentle birth; but while she hesitated to sit down, he placed a chair for her, and said with boyish frankness:
“I say, what a lonely place this is! If you had not let me in, the water would have frozen me before I reached home. Catch me duck-shooting again by myself!”
“It’s very cold sport that, sir,” said the woman.
The young gentleman assented most readily, and asked if he might stir the fire.
“And welcome, sir,” said the woman.
She felt a curiosity to know who he was, and he partly satisfied her by remarking that he was staying at Deen Hall, a house about five miles off, adding that in the morning he had broken a hole in the ice very near the decoy, but it iced over so fast, that in the dusk he had missed it, and fallen in, for it would not bear him. He had made some landmarks, and taken every proper precaution, but he supposed the sport had excited him so much that in the moonlight he had passed them by.
He then told her of his attempt to get shelter in the other cottage.
“Sir,” said the woman, “if you had said you were a gentleman——”
The boy laughed. “I don’t think I knew it, my good woman,” he replied, “my senses were so benumbed; for I was some time struggling at the water’s edge among the broken ice, and then I believe I was nearly an hour creeping up to your cottage door. I remember it all rather indistinctly, but as soon as I had felt the fire and eaten something I was a different creature.”
As they still talked, the husband came in; and while he was eating his supper it was agreed that he should walk to Deen Hall, and let its inmates know of the gentleman’s safety. When he was gone the woman made up the fire with all the coal that remained to the poor household, and crept up to bed, leaving her guest to lie down and rest before it.
In the grey dawn the labourer returned, with a servant leading a horse, and bringing a fresh suit of clothes.
The young man took his leave with many thanks, slipping three half-crowns into the woman’s hand, probably all the money he had about him. And I must not forget to mention that he kissed the baby; for when she tells the story, the mother always adverts to that circumstance with great pride, adding that her child, being as “clean as wax, was quite fit to be kissed by anybody.”
“Misses,” said her husband, as they stood in the doorway looking after their guest, “who dost think that be?”
“I don’t know,” answered the misses.
“Then I’ll just tell thee; that be young Lord W——; so thou mayest be a proud woman; thou sits and talks with lords, and then asks them to supper—ha, ha!”
So saying, her master shouldered his spade and went his way, leaving her clinking the three half-crowns in her hand, and considering what she should do with them.
Her neighbour from the other cottage presently stepped in, and when she heard the tale and saw the money her heart was ready to break with envy and jealousy.
“Oh, to think that good luck should have come to her door, and she should have been so foolish as to turn it away! Seven shillings and sixpence for a morsel of food and a night’s shelter—why it was nearly a week’s wages!”
So there, as they both supposed, the matter ended, and the next week the frost was sharper than ever. Sheep were frozen in the fenny field and poultry on their perches, but the good woman had walked to the nearest town and bought a blanket. It was a welcome addition to their bed covering, and it was many a long year since they had been so comfortable.
But it chanced one day at noon that, looking out at her casement she spied three young gentlemen skating along the ice towards her cottage. They sprang on to the bank, took off their skates, and made for her door. The young nobleman, for he was one of the three, informed her that he had had such a severe cold he could not come to see her before. “He spoke as free and pleasantly,” she said, in telling the story, “as if I had been a lady, and no less, and then he brought a parcel out of his pocket, saying, ‘I have been over to B—— and brought you a book for a keepsake, and I hope you will accept it;’ and then they all talked as pretty as could be for a matter of ten minutes, and went away. So I waited till my master came home, and we opened the parcel, and there was a fine Bible inside, all over gold and red morocco, and my name and his name written inside; and, bless him, a ten-pound note doubled down over the names. I’m sure, when I thought he was a poor forlorn creature, he was kindly welcome. So my master laid out part of the money in tools, and we rented a garden; and he goes over on market days to sell what we grow, so now, thank God, we want for nothing.”
This is how she generally concludes the little history, never failing to add that the young lord kissed her baby.
But I have not yet told you what I thought the best part of the story. When this poor Christian woman was asked what had induced her to take in a perfect stranger and trust him with the best clothing her home afforded, she answered simply, “Well, I saw him shivering and shaking, so I thought, thou shalt come in here, for the sake of Him that had not where to lay His head.”
The old woman in the other cottage may open her door every night of her future life to some forlorn beggar, but it is all but certain that she will never open it to a nobleman in disguise!
Let us do good, not to receive more good in return, but as evidence of gratitude for what has been already bestowed. In a few words, let it be “all for love and nothing for reward.”
“The most excellent gift is charity.”