Page:Braddon--The Trail of the Serpent.djvu/73

Rh "Do you know how you came by that mark?" continued the old woman. "Shall I tell you? Why, you fell into the fire, deary, when you were only three weeks old. We'd been drinking a little bit, my dear, and we weren't used to drinking much then, nor to eating much either, and one of us let you tumble into the fireplace, and before we could get you out, your arm was burnt; but you got over it, my dear, and three days after that you had the misfortune to fall into the water."

"You threw me in, you old she-devil!" he exclaimed fiercely.

"Come, come," she said, "you are of the same stock, so I wouldn't call names if I were you. Perhaps I did throw you into the Sloshy. I don't want to contradict you. If you say so, I dare say I did. I suppose you think me a very unnatural old woman?"

"It wouldn't be so strange if I did."

"Do you know what choice we had, your mother and me, as to what we were to do with our youngest hope—you're younger by two hours than your brother in there? Why, there was the river on one side, and a life of misery, perhaps starvation, perhaps worse, on the other. At the very best, such a life as he in there has led—hard labour and bad food, long toilsome days and short nights, and bad words and black looks from all who ought to help him. So we thought one was enough for that, and we chose the river for the other. Yes, my precious boy, I took you down to the river-side one very dark night and dropped you in where I thought the water was deepest; but, you see, it wasn't deep enough for you. Oh, dear," she said, with an imbecile grin, "I suppose there's a fate in it, and you were never born to be drowned."

Her hopeful grandson looked at her with a savage frown.

"Drop that!" he said, "I don't want any of your cursed wit."

"Don't you, deary? Lor, I was quite a wit in my young, days. They used to call me Lively Betty; but that's a long time ago."

There was sufficient left, however, of the liveliness of a long time ago to give an air of ghastly mirth to the old woman's manner, which made that manner extremely repulsive. What can be more repulsive than old age, which, shorn of the beauties and graces, is yet not purified from the follies or the vices of departed youth?

"And so, my dear, the water wasn't deep enough, and you were saved. How did it all come about? Tell us, my precious boy?"

"Yes; I dare say you'd like to know," replied her "precious boy,"—"but you can keep your secret, and I can keep mine. Perhaps you'll tell me whether my mother is alive or dead?"