Part 11 (2/2)
It was possible, therefore, that a despatch might reach the city before she did, and an officer be waiting for her at the railroad station.
She was too cunning to be entrapped by any such expedients; and when the train stopped at Harlem, she got out, with the intention of walking into the city. Deeming it imprudent to follow the princ.i.p.al street, in which some of the terrible policemen might be lying in wait for her, she made her way to one of the less travelled thoroughfares, in which she pursued her way towards the city. The street she had chosen led her through the localities inhabited by the poorer portions of the population. The territory through which she was pa.s.sing was in a transition state: broad streets and large squares had been laid out, in antic.i.p.ation of vast improvements, but only a little had been accomplished in carrying them out. There were many tasty little houses, and many long blocks of buildings occupied by mechanics and laborers, and occasionally a more pretentious mansion.
In some of the most ineligible places for building, there were houses, or rather hovels, constructed in the roughest and rudest manner, apparently for temporary use until the march of improvement should drive their tenants into still more obscure locations. f.a.n.n.y pa.s.sed near one of these rude abodes, which was situated on a cross street, a short distance from the avenue on which she was journeying to the city.
In front of this house was a scene which attracted the attention of the wanderer, and caused her to forget, for the time, the great wrong she had committed, and the consequences which would follow in its train.
In front of the house lay several articles of the coa.r.s.est furniture, and a man was engaged in removing more of the same kind from the hovel.
He had paused for a moment in his occupation, and before him stood a woman who was wringing her hands in the agonies of despair. f.a.n.n.y could hear the profane and abusive language the man used, and she could hear the piteous pleadings of the woman, at whose side stood a little boy, half clothed in tattered garments, weeping as though his heart would break.
f.a.n.n.y was interested in the scene. The woman's woe and despair touched her feelings, and perhaps more from curiosity than any other motive, she walked down the cross-street towards the cottage. Being resolute and courageous by nature, she had no fear of personal consequences. She did not comprehend the nature of the difficulty, having never seen a tenant forcibly ejected from a house for the non-payment of rent.
”You'll kill my child! You'll kill my child!” cried the poor woman, in such an agony of bitterness that f.a.n.n.y was thrilled by her tones.
”Isn't it a whole year I've been waiting for my rint?” replied the man, coa.r.s.ely. ”Didn't ye keep promisin' to pay me for a twelvemonth, and niver a cint I got yet?”
”I would pay you if I could, Mr. O'Shane.”
”If ye could! What call have I to wait any longer for me money?”
”My husband has gone to the war, and I haven't heard a word from him for a year; but I'm sure he will send me some money soon--I know he will.”
”What call had he to go to the war? Why didn't he stay at home and take care of his childer? Go 'way wid ye! Give me up me house!”
Mr. O'Shane broke away from her, and, rus.h.i.+ng into the house, presently returned bearing a dilapidated table in his hands.
”Have mercy, Mr. O'Shane. Pity me!” pleaded the woman, when he appeared.
”I do pity ye; 'pon me sowl, I do, thin; but what can a poor man like me do?” replied the landlord. ”I live in a worse house nor this, and work like a mule, and I can't make enough, for the high prices, to take care of me family. Didn't I wait month after month for me rint, and sorra a cint I iver got? Sure it isn't Mike O'Shane that would do the likes of this if he could help it.”
”But I will pay you all I owe, Mr. O'Shane.”
”That's what ye been sayin' this twelvemonth; and I can't wait any longer. Why don't ye stir yoursilf, and go among the rich folks?”
”I can't beg, Mr. O'Shane.”
”But ye better beg than chate me out of me honest dues. Go 'way wid ye!
Pay me the rint, or give me the house; and sorra one of me cares which you do.”
”I would move if I could. You know that my poor child is very sick. For her sake don't turn me out of the house to-day,” added the woman, in the most beseeching tones.
”Didn't I wait six months for the child to die, and she didn't die? She won't die. Sure, don't she sit in the chair all day? and what harm would it do to move her?”
”I have no place to move her to.”
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