Part 33 (2/2)

'I was one of them as shouted out this afternoon, ”Show us a miracle!” And I was down at Maida Vale this morning, almost on top of them poor creatures as was more dead than alive. He just came out of the house, said two or three words, though what they was I couldn't catch, and there they was as right as if there'd never been nothing the matter with 'em, running about like you and me. And yet when I asked him to do something for me, though it'd have only cost him a word to do it--not he! He just walked on. I'm broke to the wide. Tuppence I've had since yesterday--not two bob this week. What I wanted was something to eat--just enough to keep me going till I'd a chance of a job. But though he done that this morning--and some queer ones there was among the crowd, I tell you!--he wouldn't pay attention to me, wouldn't even listen. What I want to know is, Why not? And that's what I mean to know before I've done.'

The sentiment met with approval. There were sympathetic murmurs. He was not the only hungry man in that audience.

'I'm in trouble--had the influenza, or whatever they call it, and lost my job. Never had one since. Jobs ain't easy found by blokes what seems dotty on their pins. My wife's in gaol--as honest a woman as ever lived; she'd have wore herself to the bone for me. Landlord wanted his rent; we hadn't a brown; I was down on my back; she didn't want me turned out into the street while I was like that, so she went and p.a.w.ned some s.h.i.+rts what she'd got to iron. They gave her three months for it. She'd done two of 'em last Monday. Kid died last week and was buried by the parish. Gawd knows what she'll say when she hears of it when she comes out. Altogether I seem fairly off my level. So I say what the lady afore me says: Let's all go to him in the morning, and get him to understand how it is with us, and get him to say a word as'll do us good. And if he won't, why, as she says, we'll make him! That's all.'

There was no chance of choosing a successor from among the numerous volunteers. A man who seemed just insane enough to be dangerous chose himself. He broke into a vehement flood of objurgation, writhing and gesticulating as if desirous of working himself into a greater frenzy than he was in already. He had not been on his feet a minute before he had brought a large portion of his audience into a similar condition to himself.

'Make him, make him! That's the keynote. Share and share alike, that's our motto. No favouritism! The world stinks of favouritism; we'll have no more of it from him. We'll let him know it. What he does for one he must do for all. If he were to come into this room this minute, and were to help half of us, it would be the duty of all of us to go for him because he'd left the other half unhelped. He's been healing, has he? Who? Somebody. Not us. Why not us as well as them? He's got to give us what we want just as he gave them what they want, if we have to take him by the throat to take it out of him!'

'We will that!'

'Only got to say a word, has he, and the trick's done? Then he shall say that word for us, as he has for others, if we have to drag his tongue out by the roots to get at it!'

'That's it--that's the way to talk!'

'Work a miracle, can he, every time he opens his mouth? Then he shall work the miracles we want, or, by the living G.o.d, he shall never work another!'

The words were greeted with a chorus of approving shouts. The fellow screamed on. As his ravings grew worse, the excitement of his auditors waxed greater. Buffeted all their lives, as it seemed to them, by adverse winds, they were incapable of realising that they were in any way the victims of their own bad seamans.h.i.+p. For that incapacity, perhaps, they were not entirely to blame. They did not make themselves. That they should have been fas.h.i.+oned out of such poor materials was not the least of their misfortunes.

And their pains and griefs, humiliations and defeats, had been so various and so many that it was not strange that their wit had been abraded to the snapping-point; the more especially since it had been of such poor quality at first.

CHAPTER XXI

THE ASKING

In the morning the thoughts of England were turned towards that house in Islington: and no small number of its people were on their way to it. The newspapers besieged it with their representatives--on a useless quest, though their columns did not lack news on that account. Throughout the night the crowd increased in the street. The authorities began to be concerned. They acted as if the occasion of public interest was a fire. Placing a strong cordon of police at either end of the road, they made of it a private thoroughfare; only persons with what were empirically regarded as credentials were permitted to pa.s.s. Only after considerable hesitation was sickness allowed to be a pa.s.sport. When it was officially decided to admit the physically suffering an extraordinary scene began to be enacted. It almost seemed as if all the hospitals and sick-rooms of London had been emptied of their occupants. They came in an unceasing stream.

The police displayed their wonted skill in the management of the amazing crowd. Those who had been brought on beds were placed in the front ranks; those on chairs next; those who could stand, though only with the aid of crutches, at the back. The people had to be forced farther and farther away to make room for the sick that came; and yet before it was full day admission had to be refused to any more--every foot of available ground was occupied.

There were doctors present, some of whom were dissatisfied with the turn matters were taking. Perceiving, perhaps, that if it continued their occupation would be gone, they represented to the police that if certain of the sufferers did not receive immediate attention they might die. So that at an early hour their chief, Colonel Hardinge, who had just arrived, knocked at Mr. Kinloch's door. Ada opened.

'I understand that he whom these unfortunate people have come to see is at present in this house.'

'The Lord is in this house.'

'Quite so. We won't quarrel about description. The fact is, I'm told that if something isn't done for these poor creatures at once, they'll die. So, with your permission, I'll see the--er--person.'

'It is not with my permission, but with His. He is the Lord. When He wishes to see you, well. He does not wish to see you now.'

She shut the door in the Colonel's face.

'That's an abrupt young lady!'

This he said to the doctors and other persons who were standing at the gate. Among them was Sir William Braidwood, who replied:

'I don't know that she isn't right.'

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