In the Name of Liberty

Front matter

i BY THE SAME AUTHOR The Beautiful Soul Cheap Edition in Crown 8uo, cloth gilt, 300 pp., price 2/6. "An entertaining and animated story . . . one ofthe most lovable women to whom novel readers have been introduced." — World. "We read the book with real pleasure and interest. ... In Felicia Hetherington Miss Marryat has drawn a really fine character, and has given her what she claims for her in the title, a beautiful soul.'' — Guardian. "A very charming new story; touching, pathetic, pure, kindly, and full of interest and originality. . . . The characters are well drawn and clearly defined. The plot never flags." — Manchester Courier. "Is certain to secure a wide circle of readers. It is the story of a woman's love, pure and unselfish, pure through many trials, and finding at last a peace and happiness as truly deserved by one possessing indeed a ' Beautiful Soul.'1' — Belfast Northern Whig.

"A very pretty story." — Academy. "The plot is splendidly conceived, and worked out with those artistic touches which have made former works so deservedly popular." — Cork Constitution. A charming idyll." — Western Daily Mercury. "Miss Marryat's heroine is exceptionally interesting." — Book seller. " Illustrates a new phase in Miss Marryat's imagination." — Liverpool Courier. " We are pleased to welcome a new work by this favourite novelist. ... A story written in Miss Marryat's own charming style." — Lady. "The interest is well sustained. The author shows her special aptitude for dealing with the pathetic side of life." — Glasgow Herald. " Perfectly charming." — Glasgow Mail. " The character of Frances is well drawn and sustained through out." — Whitehall Review. "This charming story.1' — Aberdeen Daily Free Press.

"A story that will have many admirers." — Dundee Advertiser. 1 ' The characters of Felicia Hetherington and Archibald Nasmyth are well and delicately portrayed.'' — Court Circular. " Mabel Selwyn ... is one of the most vividly drawn characters that Miss Marryat has given her readers for a long time." — Leeds Mercury. Xonfcon DIGBY, LONG & CO. Publishers. BY FLORENCE MARRYAT AUTHOR OF UA FATAL SILENCE" "MISS HARRINGTON'S HUSBAND" "FIGHTING THE AIR" "HER FATHER'S NAME" "THE BEAUTIFUL SOUL " "THE TRANSFORMATION OF HANNAH STUBBS " ETC. etc. Xon&on DIGBY, LONG AND CO. PUBLISHERS 1 8 Bouverie Street, Fleet Street, E.C. CONTENTS PAGE

Chapter I The Unknown Benefactor

It was winter. The season had been long and inclement, and the poor felt it keenly. An un usual spell of frost, extending over many weeks, had had a dire effect upon all kinds of trade ; work was at a standstill, and the labourers were in sore distress. At intervals along the streets might be met bands of the unemployed, shivering under their scanty clothing, and with faces on which privation had already set its mark, beating a muffled drum as they went, and carrying a white banner before them, inscribed with the motto, "Help the Unemployed." The sound of the muffled drum and the sight of the white banner with its black letters, so like a pall, impressed the spectators with the weird idea that the men were attending their own funeral obsequies. Their appeal was not, how ever, without its response.

Many a wayfarer A stepped aside to drop a few coppers into the wooden box, which was kept rattling to attract attention; and the eyes of the band turned hungrily towards it, as the sound made them think of bed and supper. Especially were they helped by one man, who turned out of his way to add a substantial quota to the general con tribution, doing it in a hurried and half-scared manner, as if he were ashamed, or dreaded public observation. It was in the East End of London — a quarter chiefly dedicated to Jews and the lower class of Irish, and the stranger looked out of place amongst them ; not that he bore an aristocratic, or particularly wealthy appearance, for, on the contrary, he was a man of ordinary bearing and rather shabbily dressed. But he looked eminently respectable, a quality rarely seen in that locality.

He was stout and of middle age ; his shoulders and chest were broad, though he only reached the middle height of Englishmen. His clothes were well worn, and of plain material ; he had a common knitted muffler round his throat and woollen gloves upon his hands. But his face was one of rare benevolence ; his iron grey hair curled crisply round a well-formed head, his clear blue eyes were full of pity for and sympathy with the distress around him, his rather large nose and mouth with kindly curves attested an amiable and tender disposition. The street was thronged with men and women, though the hour was as late as ten o'clock. Some were loitering along, notwithstanding the bitter cold, preferring the glow of the shop lamps and public-house illuminations to the squalor and gloom of their tireless and unlighted homes, whilst others hastened by with buckets and pails where with to procure water from the taps which the Company had opened at the main for their con venience, all household pipes having been frozen for weeks past.

But they looked miserable alike, as they asked each other how long this state of things was to last, and if they had not better be in their graves and quit of Want once and for ever. The benevolent stranger searched the counten ance of each one he passed as though he were silently asking if he dared offer him relief, but the crowd stared back at him sullenly or savagely in return, having no power to read the expression of his sweet, sympathetic face. But he did not pass a single object of charity whose public appeal gave him the right of succour. Now it was a poor blind woman left out there to freeze so long as there was a chance of her extracting a copper from the passers-by, then a thin, white girl hawking flowers or fusees, or a ragged urchin pushing a paralytic before him in a basket chair.

To all and each of these the stranger tendered assistance, furtively and hastily ; not in halipence, but in good silver coin of the realm such as they had seldom handled before, stout half-crowns and heavy florins, which ensured them a good supper and a night's rest. Some of the recipients cried out to God to bless and reward the giver in their surprise, but he never tarried long enough to hear their ex pressions of gratitude, but was already speeding on another errand of mercy. As he beat a hasty retreat after one of these little episodes he ran straight up against the figure of a woman who was walking along the pavement, crying so bitterly, that she could not see where she was going. Crying loud and bitterly in a crowded street, in the heart of a great city, populated with human creatures Hke herself, and yet not a soul turned to look after her or stopped to inquire the cause of her distress.

She was quite a young woman — of two-and twenty. Her thin, pale face, which had two wildly-staring hazel eyes in it, was crowned with an unusual quantity of rust-coloured hair, twisted untidily into a huge knot at the back of her head, her clothing consisted of a worn cotton dress, with an old shawl thrown over her shoulders. When she ran up, thus unceremoniously, against the stranger, it seemed as if the ulti matum of her endurance was reached, for she swayed to one side, and casting herself down upon the nearest doorway, rocked backwards and forwards in her distress. One or two passers by threw a hasty glance in her direction, but no one stopped to speak to her, except himself. "I am afraid you are in trouble," he said gently ; " can I be of any use to you ? " The young woman shook her head without glancing at her interlocutor.

"Forgive my pertinacity," he continued. "I know there are griefs in which no one can help us except God, but if it is distress Hke that we see around us — that comes of this bitter season and the want of work — tell it me and let me try what I can do for you." She looked up at him then with those wonder ful hazel eyes of hers, and gained confidence from the tone of his voice and his kindly features. "You — you are very good, sir," she faltered. " My husband has been out of work a long time — but it is not that exactly. I have lost my — my — baby; and I was going to see if the Guardians would bury it. I have been twice to-day already, but they always teU me to caU again. We have been veiy unfortunate ; we cannot afford to bury it ourselves, and so — so Renewed sobs choked the remainder of her sentence.

"But it is too late to see the Workhouse Guardians to-night." "I know that, sir; but Mrs Reynolds — Mrs Reynolds — she has lost hers, and she knows. I was — was — going to ask her ! " "Where do you Hve ? " enquired the stranger. "No. 4 Littlehampton Street, sir." "Let me go home with you and see if we cannot arrange this matter without the aid of the Guardians. You would rather bury your little child yourself, I am sure." She opened her eyes at the suggestion. " Oh, yes ! if we could, of course ; but it costs so much money and — it has been a terrible trial, sir, but my poor husband has been very un fortunate. It is not his fault, indeed — but — we are starving ! " The admission seemed to have been wrang from her involuntarily, and as it escaped her, a faint flush tinged her pale cheek. "Then you have aU the more need of my assist ance," said the stranger.

"Look on me as a friend, who has more of this world's substance than he weU knows what to do with, and wishes to share it with you and all who are in need. Show me your home. Let me have the pleasure of assisting you in this sad duty. Will you ? " " You are very good," she repeated, " I don't know what to say about it. I don't know what Maurice will say." " Is Maurice your husband ? " "Yes! But if you could come and speak to liim yourself, sir — you may be an angel sent to save us in this sore perplexity ! " She dragged herself up as she spoke, but she was evidently so weak that she could hardly stand. Her body swayed to and fro, and she clutched at the railings for support. The stranger hailed a passing cab and put her in it. "You are not fit to walk," he said ; " you must let me take care of you till you reach your home."

She did not answer him. She was rocking backwards and forwards again in the bitterness of her grief, and sobbing as if her heart would break. The stranger gave the cabman the address which had been given him, and when they arrived at the wretched-looking and dirty row of houses, which caUed itself Littlehampton Street, the girl darted from the cab and rushed upstairs, leaving him to foUow her as he would. He tarried a moment to give her time to an nounce his advent to her husband, and then chmbed slowly up the ricketty uncarpeted staircase. At the open door of a room on the first landing, stood a young man to receive him. At the first glance, the stranger saw that he was of a superior class to his neighbours — also that, notwithstanding the disadvantages of being unshorn and clothed almost in rags, he was a singularly handsome young feUow of about five and-twenty.

He bowed as the stranger appeared, and said without any awkwardness : "My wife teUs me, sir, that you have been good enough to make us some offers of assistance. I can hardly understand it, since we have no possible claim upon your goodness, but if you will walk in, you can at least judge for yourself that whatever she may have told you of our need is true ! " " You have one claim upon me. Mr — Mr commenced the stranger. "My name is Maurice FarreU, journaHst and press writer at your sendee," rephed the other. "You have one great claim upon me, Mr FarreU," recommenced the stranger, gently, " and that is the fact that you are my feUow-creature, bom into the same world of trouble as myself, and subject to the same ups and downs of life. I have been very fortunate in money matters — more so a great deal than I deserve, or have any need of — and I should be ashamed of my humanity if I kept all my wealth to myself.

Come now ! tell me what you choose, and let us consult together as to the best means of reUeving your present difficulties." He passed into the squaHd room as he spoke — from which every article that could possibly be turned into money had been removed. From an inner apartment might be heard the weeping of the bereaved mother, kneeHng beside the lifeless form of her first-born. "Listen to that, sir," said Maurice FarreU, with his teeth set, "that sound wUl almost furnish you with the whole tale of our misery. There Ues my child, dead — staived to death — literaUy starved, sh-, as there is a God in heaven — for my wife and I have been without soUd food for days past, and existing on bread and tea for months, and whUst she was nursing her infant. What could he do but cUe at her breast ? Poor chUd !

He is well out of it aU ! " "But — excuse me, Mr Farrell — I can see you were not born to such surroundings, and you have told me you are a press writer. How have you contrived to come down to such a state of poverty ? " " By the over-population of the nation," repUed FarreU, excitedly. " I was brought up to work and support myseff, and when I first married I was able to give my wife a comfortable home. But it is this awful season, sir, which has affected aU professions and trades ahke, that has induced heads of offices and firms to do with as few men and as Uttle labour as they can. Clerks and writers and agents have been dispensed with everywhere tliis winter. It is not only thc labourers that are the Unemployed. The same cry has gone forth amongst aU classes — and hundreds of men who once made a decent UveU hood are now in the same position as myself — brought down to the very depths of poverty and starvation."

And as he concluded Maurice FarreU bent his head down upon his outstretched amis, that the stranger might not see the tears that had risen to his eyes. "Mr FarreU," said his companion, "I am not going to let you talk any more until you have taken some nourishment — after that you shall teU me as much about your past Use as you may think fit. But the first thing is to get food and wine for yourself and that poor girl there. What is it that you require most ? " The young man almost laughed at the question — an effort wliich brought his worn features and hollow cheeks prominently iuto view. " Food — blankets — fire ! " he murmured. " Are you capable of getting them for yourself whilst I remain here, or shaU I go on the errand?" " I am quite capable," rephed FarreU, wearily. The stranger placed a note for ten pounds in his hands.

He regarded it with surprise. " You must have made a mistake," he stammered ; "do you know what this is that you have given me ? — it is ten pounds ! " " It is all right, my friend. Go and order what you require to be sent home at once. And don't worry about the burial ofthe poor infant there. I will see that it is carried out as it should be." Maurice FarreU held out his hand — the stranger grasped it cordially. " I don't know how to thank you," said the young man ; " I never shaU — but you have saved both our lives. God bless you for it." He wrung his hand again and disappeared. The stranger sat where he had left him, thought ful and contented. "And yet people blame me," he said to him self, "because I choose to dispense my charities myself instead of handing the money over to a company of Governors or Guardians to spend on their public meetings and guzzle away at their pubhc dinners.

No ! no ! I prefer my own plan, and I will stick to it. I may make a mistake now and then, but I am sure that I reheve more distress than I should by the other plan. No one knows how many of these poor creatures die of want in their miserable homes, sooner than seek rehef at the hands of those who insult them through their pampered servants before they give it! "My Helen!" he went on thinking, "my poor deserted Helen ! Who sought her out, when she was sick and in want, and saved her life for her unworthy husband ? No one ! No one ! They let her die like a dog ; but nobody else shall do so whflst I can help it ! It is for her sake — for her sake." But here a prolonged wail from the inner room of " My baby ! Oh, my baby ! " pierced the stranger's heart. He rose, and knocking gently at the inteivening door, said — " Mrs Farrell !

Your husband has gone out to buy a few things, and I am alone ! Won't you take pity on my solitude, and come and bear me company? " She appeared at the door then, haggard, swoUen-eyed, and trembling. " I am sorry," she said, " I did not know that you were left alone. Forgive me, but I am so wretched. I seem to be incapable of thinking of anything." " I sympathise deeply with your trouble. You are young to have sustained such a loss. But you must try and take comfort in the thought that your little child is safe in heaven." "Do you beUeve in heaven?" she said, wist fully. " Most assuredly, as I hope you do, also." She did not answer, except by throwing open the door of partition between the two rooms, and disclosing a bedstead, without sheets or blankets, on which was stretched the wasted fonn of an infant of a few months old.

" How can I beUeve in God, or heaven, when I look at that ? " she cried, wildly. " He was born so healthy, so beautiful, and such a httle whdc ago. I loved him too, my darling Uttle son ; I would have laid down my Use for him. What does the heaven you speak of want with my baby, compared with me? I, who nursed him in my amis night and day, and kept him close to my heart, to keep the cold away? Yet he died — died, because I had no nourishment to give him, because my nnlk had aU been starved out of me ! But you are a man ; how can you understand what I feel about it ? Even Maurice cannot do that ! " " But indeed I do, better than you think ; and you have aU my sympathy in your trouble. I have suffered more, perhaps, than if I had stood by the corpse of my first-born. His mother and he both died whilst I was far away, I did not have even the poor consolation of weeping over their bodies.

And I had not always done my duty to them, either. I had the pangs of bitter remorse added to my natural grief. Thank God, Mrs FarreU, that you have no such feeling mingled with your sorrow, and be content to think of your little one in Paradise. It is better so. He is saved from so much misery by leaving this cold, cruel world." But her grief was too recent for her to derive any comfort from his conversation. She could only sob and mourn over the destruction of her maternal hopes. The stranger closed the door softly and drew her into the front room. Here there was actuaUy nothing to sit down upon, except two old packing cases propped against the bare waU. Jane FarreU sank down upon one, her Ups and face Uvid. The stranger feared she would faint before her husband returned with the nourishment necessary for her.

But in a few minutes more he re-entered the room, foUowed by a porter carrying coals and wood, and laden himself with divers small parcels. " My poor Jane, you must drink some of this at once," said Maurice FarreU, as he uncorked a bottle of wine. " I bought wine, sir," he con tinued to the stranger, as though he feared he might be thought extravagant, "because she is so much in need of stimulant ; and I am afraid malt liquor would be too heavy for her in her weakened condition. She has not tasted meat for weeks." " You acted very wisely, Mr Farrell," he repUed, "and the sooner you administer it to her the better. She is half fainting." " Poor girl ! " said the young man, as he knelt by his wife's side and tried to make her swallow a little wine, "our impoverished state and the loss of her httle one have been altogether too much for her.

Drink this, Jane, and try to eat, if only a few morsels. You will feel another woman after it. 'L'appetit vient de manger,' you know." The stranger could not help observing, even after so shght an acquaintance, how opposite were the temperaments of the husband and wife. Under the influence of renewed hope and expectation Maurice FarreU already appeared another creature from the depressed and shivering mortal who had welcomed his arrival there. His dark eyes sparkled with excitement, his wavy hair was thrown back from a singularly massive brow, a brow that denoted energy and talent, if not genius, and his lithe, muscular frame was quivering with a suppressed agitation which in a woman would have culminated in hysteria. But Jane could not reciprocate. What were food and drink to her. Her baby lay dead in the adjoining room.

The porter, who had carried the wood and coals, soon kindled a good fire in the empty grate, which did more to revive the fainting woman than anything else. Maurice rubbed his frozen hands at the warm blaze, and laughed nervously — a laugh which made his hollow cheeks and deep sunk eyes look more Uke those of a skull than before. The food he set upon the table was the worst possible wherewith to fiU their weakened stomachs, but it was the best procurable at that time of mght, from the larders of eating-houses. Bread and butter and cut ham and beef are luxuries for starving men, though not perhaps the most digest ible food they could assimilate. But Farrell seemed fuUy able to appreciate them, eating with the voracity of a hungry wolf, and hardly resting till he could eat no more. But Jane had only swallowed a few mouthfuls of bread soaked in wine, and would not have taken those had not the stranger forced them down her throat.

She lay back against the waU with closed eyes whUst her husband satisfied his cravings, but when another messenger arrived with a couple of blankets, Maurice wanted to persuade her to he down on the bed and go to sleep. But when he mentioned it she glanced towards the room with a shudder, so they laid her on the floor before the fire, with the blankets under her, and she remained there, silent but wakeful, whilst the men conversed together. " And now, sir, that I feel the strength to speak to you," commenced Maurice FarreU, as soon as his hunger was satisfied, " may I ask to whom I am indebted for this noble and most unexpected aid ? Surely, never was a man so generously treated by a total stranger before. I feel that I owe my life and my wife's life to your goodness. The services of the remainder of my existence could not be too great a return."

" I think the goodness of your own heart makes you over-rate the obligation, Mr FarreU," repUed the stranger. " I am veiy happy indeed to have been able to assist you to-night, and I am ready to do more if you wUl teU me in what direction I can be most useful to you." " But your name ? " persisted the young man. The stranger smiled. " Would it make any difference in the value of my assistance if you knew my name ? " he said. " It is a fancy of mine to withhold it. I find that I can better help those who are in real need by this means, instead of being beset by a crowd of idlers and good-for-nothings. Were it absolutely necessary, I should not refuse to satisfy your curiosity, but in the circumstances I would rather you thought of me only as your friend." " A friend whom, as I said before, we can never repay," murmured Farrell.

" Don't be too sure of that ! We never know what lies before us, nor in what way we may require the assistance of our feUow-creatures. But I do not intend my help to end with this night's work. TeU me frankly who you are, and what you have been doing, and I may be able to put you once more in the way of supporting yourself." " I am a journahst and press writer by profes sion, as I told you," replied the young man ; " but I lost my place on the paper for which I have worked for years, and have been unable to get an engagement since." " What was the name of the paper ? '"The Constitutional Press.' " "And why were you dismissed from the staff?" Maurice Farrell coloured. " Well, if you must know, sir, I worked for the ' Constitutional ' against my principles. I am not Conservative. And when the editor found out that I had contributed some articles to ' The Flag of Freedom,' he (very unfairly, as it seemed to me,) gave me my dismissal."

" ' The Flag of Freedom ? ' That is, of course, a Socialist organ ? " "Something of the sort, I believe," answered FarreU carelessly. " I trust you are not a SociaUst, Mr Farrell," said the stranger gravely. " It is not necessary to coincide with all the theories of the papers you write for," repUed the other evasively. " When one writes to Uve, it is sometimes convenient to pocket one's principles. But if you ask me if I am on the side of the poor E man, and against those who fill their coffers at his expense — who fatten on the starvation wages which send the labourer and Ids children to their graves — who would hound him to his death, whUst their carriage wheels pass over his beaten carcase — then I must say I am ! " " To be against the oppressors and on the side of the oppressed is the duty of every man and every Christian," said the stranger; "but to be against the rich, simply because they are rich, is the act of a coward, and the outcome of envy and mahce.

It is Heaven and not we who has appointed to men their several stations in life, and their amount of riches. All that is lest for them to do is to make sure that, when they pass over to another world, they wUl not be caUed to account for having kept their riches to themselves and taken no heed of the necessities of their brethren." " You are the last person with whom I could enter on such an argument, sir," said FarreU, "you who have proved in the most generous manner how you hold your wealth in trust for others. But though you are evidently a man of means, you are not of the so-caUed upper classes. I feel therefore that I can talk freely before you. Do you mean me to understand that you consider it fair that, whilst the nobles of this country and the wealthy landowners possess acres upon acres, which they do not need, and do not how what to do with, hundreds of men should drop and die for want of bread — thousands of lives be quenched out for lack of food, Hke the Use of my poor infant in the next room ?

" Here a low moan from the weary woman on the hearth proved she was not oblivious of the subject of their conversation. " Yes ! my poor girl," continued her husband moodily, "you are a proof of their despotism, when a few of the crusts and a little of the meat they cast to their dogs would have kept the soul in the body you loved so weU ! Look at the Irish landowners," he continued fiercely, " leaving their property to be looked after by agents, who care for no one and nothing, so long as they extract the rents from their unhappy tenants. They do their foul work, and deduct their commission, whUst the absentees live on English soU, spending their money on Englishmen ; fattening, as it were, on the blood and cries of their oppressed tenantry at home ! " The stranger looked thoughtful. " Yet, you are an Englishman !