Part 5 (1/2)

”Why, what put _them_, into your head?” inquired Tom laughing.

”Yonder iceberg! Look at it! There's the nose and chin exactly of the extraordinary hag you gave your silk pocket-handkerchief to at parting.

Now, I never saw such a miserable old woman as that before, did you?”

Tom Singleton's whole demeanour changed, and his dark eyes brightened as the strongly-marked brows frowned over them, while he replied, ”Yes, Fred, I have seen old women more miserable than that. I have seen women so old that their tottering limbs could scarcely support them, going about in the bitterest November winds, with clothing too scant to cover their wrinkled bodies, and so ragged and filthy that you would have shrunk from touching it--I have seen such groping about among heaps of filth that the very dogs looked at and turned away from as if in disgust.”

Fred was inclined to laugh at his friend's sudden change of manner; but there was something in the young surgeon's character--perhaps its deep earnestness--that rendered it impossible, at least for his friends, to be jocular when he was disposed to be serious. Fred became grave as he spoke.

”Where have you seen such poor wretches, Tom?” he asked, with a look of interest.

”In the cities, the civilized cities of our own Christian land. If you have ever walked about the streets of some of these cities before the rest of the world was astir, at gray dawn, you must have seen them s.h.i.+vering along and scratching among the refuse cast out by the tenants of the neighbouring houses. O Fred, Fred! in my professional career, short though it has been, I have seen much of these poor old women, and many others whom the world never sees on the streets at all, experiencing a slow, lingering death by starvation, and fatigue, and cold. It is the foulest blot on our country that there is no sufficient provision for the _aged poor_.”

”I have seen those old women too,” replied Fred, ”but I never thought very seriously about them before.”

”That's it--that's just it; people don't _think_, otherwise this dreadful state of things would not continue. Just listen _now_, for a moment, to what I have to say. But don't imagine that I'm standing up for the poor in general. I don't feel--perhaps I'm wrong,” continued Tom thoughtfully--”perhaps I'm wrong--I hope not--but it's a fact, I don't feel much for the young and the st.u.r.dy poor, and I make it a rule _never_ to give a farthing to _young_ beggars, not even to little children, for I know full well that they are sent out to beg by idle, good-for-nothing parents. I stand up only for the _aged_ poor, because, be they good or wicked, they _cannot_ help themselves. If a man fell down in the street, struck with some dire disease that shrunk his muscles, unstrung his nerves, made his heart tremble, and his skin shrivel up, would you look upon him and then pa.s.s him by _without thinking?_”

”No,” cried Fred in an emphatic tone, ”I would not! I would stop and help him.”

”Then, let me ask you,” resumed Tom earnestly, ”is there any difference between the weakness of muscle and the faintness of heart which is produced by disease, and that which is produced by old age, except that the latter is incurable? Have not these women feelings like other women?

Think you that there are not amongst them those who have 'known better times'? They think of sons and daughters dead and gone, perhaps, just as other old women in better circ.u.mstances do. But they must not indulge such depressing thoughts; they must reserve all the energy, the stamina they have, to drag round the city--barefoot, it may be, and in the cold--to beg for food, and scratch up what they can find among the cinder heaps. They groan over past comforts and past times, perhaps, and think of the days when their limbs were strong and their cheeks were smooth; for they were not always 'hags.' And remember that _once_ they had friends who loved them and cared for them, although they are old, unknown, and desolate now.”

Tom paused and pressed his hand upon his flushed forehead.

”You may think it strange,” he continued, ”that I speak to you in this way about poor old women, but I _feel_ deeply for their forlorn condition. The young can help themselves, more or less, and they have strength to stand their sorrows, with _hope_, blessed hope, to keep them up; but _poor_ old men and old women cannot help themselves, and cannot stand their sorrows, and, as far as this life is concerned, they have _no hope,_ except to die soon and easy, and, if possible, in summer time, when the wind is not so very cold and bitter.”

”But how can this be put right, Tom?” asked Fred in a tone of deep commiseration. ”Our being sorry for it and anxious about it (and you've made me sorry, I a.s.sure you) can do very little good, you know.”

”I don't know, Fred,” replied Tom, sinking into his usual quiet tone.

”If every city and town in Great Britain would start a society, whose first resolution should be that they would not leave one poor _old_ man or woman unprovided for, _that_ would do it. Or if the Government would take it in hand _honestly_, that would do it.”

”Call all hands, Mr. Bolton,” cried the captain in a sharp voice. ”Get out the ice-poles, and lower away the boats.”

”Hallo! what's wrong?” said Fred, starting up.

”Getting too near the bergs, I suspect,” remarked Tom. ”I say, Fred, before we go on deck, will you promise to do what I ask you?”

”Well--yes, I will.”

”Will you promise, then, all through your life, especially if you ever come to be rich or influential, to think _of_ and _for_ old men and women who are poor?”

”I will,” answered Fred; ”but I don't know that I'll ever be rich, or influential, or able to help them much.”

”Of course you don't. But when a thought about them strikes you, will you always _think it out_, and, if possible, _act it out_, as G.o.d shall enable you?”

”Yes, Tom, I promise to do that as well as I can.”

”That's right; thank you, my boy,” said the young surgeon, as they descended the shrouds and leaped on deck.