Page:ONCE A WEEK JUL TO DEC 1860.pdf/146

138 ‘Look here, Jennings, do you think I can?’

‘Not to do anything, sir; but you might see him; perhaps it would be better.’

“I left them, and went back, saw the manager and told him; and though it was his benefit night, he said he would read both parts himself.

‘God bless you, Gowling, I am sorry for you, very sorry; if I can do anything for you, let me know.’

“I went to the dressing-room, and as I left the place, heard the applause that attended the apologies for our absence, and his announcement of his intention to read the parts. Managers are not all alike, and he was a good friend to me, was Charles Gordon.

“We buried the poor boy, and then went on as before. His mother never recovered the blow, and gradually sunk, and about six months after his death, could no longer take her parts; so Alice and I had to do our best. I noticed that a young fellow had been rather attentive to her, and was not surprised when he took me aside one night and told me he wanted to make her his wife. He was just such another as I had been myself when his age. I thought it better to see her the wife of a respectable actor than remain single behind the scenes, for she was a good girl was Alice. Well, they married, and remained in the company. I was getting old you see, then, and it was some comfort to see her with some one to take care of her. Soon after she married, her mother died, and I laid in the grave, beside her son, one of the best women that ever lived. I was alone now, and old, for the wear and tear of an active life, and the late hours, tell on the strongest constitution. It was something awful the change from the light, and glare, and noise of the theatre to the silence and quiet of my own poor room. Just then, too, the company was broken up; and at the age I was then, it was a serious thing for me. We all three tried to keep together, but it was no use. Those who wanted an old man did not want a second lady, or a third gentleman, and so we were divided. I went on circuit as an old man with very poor pay—as much as I was worth though, I dare say, for I was getting feeble, and ‘Speak up, old ’un!’ was the salute I had from the galleries, directly 1 opened my mouth.

“I heard from Alice every week, and saved her letter for Sundays, for the day was long and dull to me. I could not make new friends. The young pitied me, and I was proud then, and ‘loved not pity;’ so I was a lonely old man.

“Alice’s husband died. I don’t remember now how it was, but he died, and she told me it was just after this little one was born. I quite longed to see her, but she could not come, and I could not go, so we only wrote to each other. I have all her letters now, poor girl. She came to see me once afterwards, and was looking ill and fagged; and soon after that visit our company was broken up again.

“I tried hard for an engagement, travelled from place to place, spent all the little I had saved, and then was laid up at a place some fifty or sixty miles from here. They took me from the inn to the Union when the money was gone; and after a deal of waiting and grumbling they brought me here. I little thought when, as a boy, I used to get the nests out of this tree, that I should end my days here, an old worn-out pauper. You know where it says, ‘There’s a Providence that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we may.’ I’ve often said that on the stage. I feel it now.” And the old man mused in silence.

“And your daughter?”

“Alice? She died in this house not two years ago, poor child.”

“Here, do you mean?”

“Yes, there, in that room.” And he pointed to a window in the back part of the house. “That one, where the sun shines on it through the trees.”

“Of what did she die? She was young.”

“The same disease that carried off her brothers, consumption. She knew I was here, and spent her last money in coming; and the doctor, good fellow that he is, would have her in here. She lingered on for about a fortnight up there, and then died one evening at sunset, holding my hand, and the child lying on her breast. Poor girl! she looked so beautiful in her coffin. Ah! I’ve outlived them all but this little one.” And the old man looked fondly on the child, and stroked her head with his lean shrivelled hand. “It’s rather sad to see them all gone—all—wife, sons, and Alice all gone. Poor Alice!” And the old pauper’s eyes were full of the slow-coming tears of age.

I had a cough, and felt husky in the throat, and the wind blew the dust in my eyes as I watched him.

“You and my friend seem to agree well, Mr. Gowling,” said the voice of the master close by.

“Yes, sir, he says he likes to listen to an old man’s talk. It’s very kind of him—very kind.”

“I’ve been expressing my wonder to Mr. Gowling to find him here.”

“Want of proper economy, sir; nothing more. People of his profession are very reckless and improvident, very.”

“You’re right and you’re wrong at once,” said the old man. “We are not a saving people, I grant. The whole tendency of the profession is against it. We don’t earn much, I mean such as myself. Of course genius is always well rewarded, but mediocrity in this is subject to competition as in other trades or professions. Then the little we do earn is spent in ways to which other professions have nothing analogous. Look at our dresses—we find all, and when a man throws himself into his part, does his best to please the public and do his duty to the manager, he will not have much left to be extravagant with. Besides, the qualities of nature that make a good economist—a careful saving man—are not those which make a good actor. It is too much to ask that a man should, on the stage, have to affect the liberal notions of a spendthrift, and off the stage be a niggard. Then, too, we lean on one another. When do you see an appeal in the public papers from the widow of an actor in great distress? You may see dozens of such appeals from widows of other professional men. We help each other,