PAGE 12
The Pupil of Aurelius
by
CHAPTER VI.
THE END OF THE EPISODE.
So with courage and patience, and with a final gulp about that searching business, he returned to his work at the docks, and very soon got engaged as a permanent hand. He was a favourite with the foremen, for he was industrious and minded his own business; but he was greatly disliked by his companions. They would not believe, and he was at no pains to convince them, that he had not kept the found money; and they had expected him, if ever he returned to the docks, to stand treat liberally. They were angry at Scottie’s stinginess, and took to taunting him. These casual jeers he heeded no more than the idle wind; they could not hurt.
His savings slowly increased, his only serious expenditure being his weekly rent. When, each morning at twelve o’clock, the great bell rang in the docks, and the men and women came in with their baskets and barrows, his dinner consisted of a couple of penny sausage-rolls (‘bags of mystery,’ his mates called them), and these were really quite fresh and clean and wholesome-looking. In the afternoon or evening he generally went round to the house where the girl, Mary Ann Ellis, was now so far recovered that she could sit propped up in bed for an hour or so; and he would have a chat with her and her landlady, and a cup of tea, with bread and butter–for which he privately paid. He found this girl interesting, simple, and intensely grateful, but ignorant to a degree that he had not thought possible in a human being capable of reading. In one respect this was lucky, for she believed any nonsense he told her; and the quite imaginary associations of ladies and gentlemen for the dispensing of needful charity received her most earnest thanks for those little sums that were sent to her mother, or that enabled her to pay off her doctor’s weekly bill.
One day John Douglas was leaving the docks as usual, when he was overtaken by a tall and handsome young fellow, whom he knew to be connected with the Customs department.
‘I say, aren’t you the man that found a lot of money?’
Douglas had grown sulky, or rather suspicious of foolery, and was inclined to keep his own counsel. But the accent of this stranger went straight to his heart; he had not heard the Scotch way of speaking for many a day. So he turned and regarded the young man, and frankly told him what he had done with the money. This led to further questions, for the younger man’s curiosity was aroused. It was the City of Glasgow Bank, then? But why take to such work as this? Couldn’t he get into some office? Did he know a little of book-keeping?
The upshot of all this was that, about a week after, John Douglas found himself installed as clerk at a tall desk in the back-room of a co-operative store connected with the docks, at a salary of two pounds a week; and the first and immediate result of this was that the mysterious charitable associations of which he was apparently the agent, commissioned him to inform Mary Ann Ellis that she need not try to get any situation for at least two months’ time, because fourteen shillings a week would be paid to her during that period, to enable her to get thoroughly well again.
John Douglas grew to be a proud man. He was proud of having paid off that five pounds, and standing free of all the world; he was proud of his gradually-increasing account at the Government Savings Bank as a guarantee against future ill; but he was proudest of all of his patient, whose convalescence he in a measure attributed to himself. The days were longer now, and the weather fine; on the clear evenings, or Saturday afternoons, these two would get into an omnibus, and go away out to Camberwell Green, or Kennington Park, or Clapham Common, and sit on a bench, and watch the young folks enjoying their sports and diversions. He was better dressed now, and she had got into the way of calling him ‘Sir.’ He told her a great deal about Scotland, and the mountains, and the glens with the birch-trees and waterfalls; but he always got into a difficulty when he came to the sea, which she had never seen. She could not understand that.