"It's better than ten years ago, sir," began the clown's wife, speaking first to Doctor Joyce, "since my little Tommy was born; he being now, if you please, at school and costing nothing, through a presentation, as they call it I think, which was given us by a kind patron to my husband. Some time after I had got well over my confinement, I was out one afternoon taking a walk with baby and Jemmy; which last is my husband, ma'am. We were at Bangbury, then, just putting up the circus: it was a fine large neighborhood, and we hoped to do good business there. Jemmy and me and the baby went out into the fields, and enjoyed ourselves very much; it being such nice warm spring weather, though it was March at the time. We came back to Bangbury by the road; and just as we got near the town, we see a young woman sitting on the bank, and holding her baby in her arms, just as I had got my baby in mine.
"'How dreadful ill and weak she do look, don't she?' says Emmy. Before I could say as much as 'Yes,' she stares up at us, and asks in a wild voice, though it wasn't very loud either, if we can tell her the way to Bangbury workhouse. Having pretty sharp eyes of our own, we both of us knew that a workhouse was no fit place for her. Her gown was very dusty, and one of her boots was burst, and her hair was draggled all over her face, and her eyes was sunk in her head, like; but we saw somehow that she was a lady—or, if she wasn't exactly a lady, that no workhouse was proper for her, at any rate. I stooped down to speak to her; but her baby was crying so dreadful she could hardly hear me. 'Is the poor thing ill?' says I. 'Starving,' says she, in such a desperate, fierce way, that it gave me a turn. 'Is that your child?' says I, a bit frightened about how she'd answer me. 'Yes,' she says in quite a new voice, very soft and sorrowful, and bending her face away from me over the child. 'Then why don't you suckle it?' says I. She looks up at me, and then at Jenny and shakes her head, and says nothing. I give my baby to Jemmy to hold, and went and sat down by her. He walked away a little; and I whispered to her again, 'Why don't you suckle it?' and she whispered to me, 'My milk's all dried up. I couldn't wait to hear no more till I'd got her baby at my own breast.
"That was the first time I suckled little Mary, ma'am. She wasn't a month old then, and oh, so weak and small! such a mite of a baby compared to mine!
"You may be sure, sir, that I asked the young woman lots of questions, while I was sitting side by side with her. She stared at me with a dazed look in her face, seemingly quite stupefied by weariness or grief, or both together. Sometimes she give me an answer and sometimes she wouldn't. She was very secret. She wouldn't say where she come from, or who her friends were, or what her name was. She said she should never have name or home or friends again. I just quietly stole a look down at her left hand, and saw that there was no wedding-ring on her finger, and guessed what she meant. 'Does the father know you are wandering about in this way?' says I. She flushes up directly; 'No;' says she, 'he doesn't know where I am. He never had any love for me, and he has no pity for me now. God's curse on him wherever he goes!'—'Oh, hush! hush!' says I, 'don't talk like that!' 'Why do you ask me questions?' says she more fiercely than ever. 'What business have you to ask me questions that make me mad?' 'I've only got one more to bother you with,' says I, quite cool; 'and that is, haven't you got any money at all with you?' You see, ma'am, now I'd got her child at my own bosom, I didn't care for what she said, or fear for what she might do to me. The poor mite of a baby was sure to be a peacemaker between us, sooner or later.
"It turned out she'd got sixpence and a few half-pence—not a farthing more, and too proud to ask help from any one of her friends. I managed to worm out of her that she had run away from home before her confinement, and had gone to some strange place to be confined, where they'd ill-treated and robbed her. She hadn't long got away from the wretches who'd done it. By the time I'd found out all this, her baby was quite quiet, and ready to go to sleep. I gave it her back. She said nothing, but took and kissed my hand, her lips feeling like burning coals on my flesh. 'You're kindly welcome,' says I, a little flustered at such a queer way of thanking me. 'Just wait a bit while I speak to my husband.' Though she'd been and done wrong, I couldn't for the life of me help pitying her, for her fierce ways. She was so young, and so forlorn and ill, and had such a beautiful face (little Mary's is the image of it, 'specially about the eyes), and seemed so like a lady, that it was almost a sin, as I thought, to send her to such a place as a workhouse.
"Welclass="underline" I went and told Jemmy all I had got out of her—my own baby kicking and crowing in my arms again, as happy as a king, all the time I was speaking. 'It seems shocking,' says I, 'to let such as her go into a workhouse. What had we better do?'—Says Jemmy, 'Let's take her with us to the circus and ask Peggy Burke.'
"Peggy Burke, if you please, sir, was the finest rider that ever stepped on a horse's back. We've had nothing in our circus to come near her, since she went to Astley's. She was the wildest devil of an Irish girl—oh! I humbly beg your pardon, sir, for saying such a word; but she really was so wild, I hope you'll excuse it. She'd go through fire and water, as they say, to serve people she liked; but as for them she didn't, she'd often use her riding-whip among 'em as free as her tongue. That cowardly brute Jubber would never have beaten my little Mary, if Peggy had been with us still! He was so frightened of her that she could twist him round her finger; and she did, for he dursn't quarrel with the best rider in England, and let other circuses get hold of her. Peggy was a wonderful sharp girl besides, and was always fond of me, and took my part; so when Jemmy said he thought it best to ask her what we had better do, you may be sure that I thought it best too. We took the young woman and the baby with us to the circus at once. She never asked any questions; she didn't seem to care where she went, or what she did; she was dazed and desperate—a sight, Ma'am, to make your heart ache.
"They were just getting tea in the circus, which was nearly finished. We mostly have tea and dinner there, sir; finding it come cheaper in the end to mess together when we can. Peggy Burke, I remember, was walking about on the grass outside, whistling (that was one of her queer ways) 'The girl I left behind me.' 'Ah! Peck,' says she, 'what have you been after now? Who's the company lady ye've brought to tea with us?' I told her, sir, all I have told you; while Jemmy set the young woman down on one of our trunks, and got her a cup of tea. 'It seems dreadful,' says I when I'd done, 'to send such as her to the workhouse, don't it?' 'Workhouse!' says Peggy, firing up directly; 'I only wish we could catch the man who's got her in that scrape, and put him in there on water-gruel for the rest of his life. I'd give a shillin' a wheal out of my own pocket for the blessed privilege of scoring the thief's face with my whip, till his own mother wouldn't know him!' And then she went on, sir, abusing all the men in her Irish way, which I can't repeat. At last she stops, and claps me on the back. 'You're a darlin' old girl, Peck!' says she, 'and your friends are my friends. Stop where you are, and let me speak a word to the young woman on the trunk.'
"After a little while she comes back, and says, 'I've done it, Peck! She's mighty close, and as proud as Lucifer; but she's only a dressmaker, for all that.' 'A dressmaker!' says I; 'how did you find out she was a dressmaker?' 'Why, I looked at her forefinger, in course,' says Peggy, 'and saw the pricks of the needle on it, and soon made her talk a bit after that. She knows fancy-work and cuttin' out—would ye ever have thought it? And I'll show her how to give the workhouse the go-by to-morrow, if she only holds out, and keeps in her senses. Stop where you are, Peck! I'm going to make Jubber put his dirty hand into his pocket and pull out some money; and that's a sight worth stoppin' to see any day in the week.'