CHAPTER III.

AILIE'S CELLAR-HOME.

DOWN flight after flight went Esther Forsyth and little Ailie Carter. One or two rough men, returning from the public-house, staggered past them, and Ailie crept closer to her protector's side. One or two "women, dressed in unwomanly rags," came up the stairs, and exchanged a word of greeting with Esther.

Still they went on—past the second story, past the first story, past the ground-floor; past open doors, showing sleeping children huddled in rags; past closed doors, from which came the wailing of hungry infants; past other doors, whence issued sadder sounds of raised voices and angry discord. Past all these, and down stone stairs, leading to underground regions, where the air weighed heavy and dank. And then they stopped at a door.

Esther Forsyth pushed it open and went in, the child creeping after.

A bare cellar lay before them. Furniture had been parted with, piece by piece, in the long struggle for subsistence. Nothing of it was left, save the thin flock-bed in one corner, and the single broken chair in the middle. A tallow candle, in a candlestick, stood upon the chair, casting a glow upon the damp walls, the small window, and the sallow face of the sick man on his wretched couch. Nothing of sheet or blanket was visible—only an old piece of dirty carpet drawn over the sufferer. An old pipe and a tin saucepan stood side by side upon the mantel-shelf; and that was all.

Jem Carter was not alone. An aged woman stood beside him, and she turned her withered face towards the door when Esther entered.

"Be that Ailie Carter?" she demanded, in a hoarse whisper. "He be axin' after her sore, an' no one could tell nought of where she was. An' she a leavin' of her father to die alone, like a rat in a hole."

A cry broke from Ailie's lips.

"No, no—I didn't mean—" she gasped, with half-sobs of excitement and fear. "O, father, I wouldn't ha' left you—if—if—"

"Poor Ailie!" he strove to say, and his helpless hand tried to reach out towards her. "Who'll take care o' ye now, I wonder?"

"Father, don't go an' die," sobbed Ailie. "Mother's gone, too, and I'll have nobody—"

Jem Carter gave a heavy groan.

"Ah! Me—I little thought ever wife o' mine 'ud be a thief,—locked up in jail!" And a sob burst from the very heart of the dying man. "I'll never see her again. Ailie, mind ye tell her from me—"

The labouring voice ceased, and they listened in vain. The old woman had retired a few paces, but Esther Forsyth stood close beside the flock-bed, for Ailie was there, and her grasp on Esther's tattered gown was that of a vice.

"Tell her what?" asked Esther, after a minute of silence.

No reply came, and Ailie spoke timidly—

"Father, won't ye take a bit o' bread?"

"He's past eatin', child," said the old woman. "Let him die in peace, an' don't ye go to disturb him, if he'll do it quiet."

Some echo of the words seemed to reach the failing ear. He opened his eyes, and fixing them full on Esther, he muttered slowly—

"Die in peace! Die in peace! I'll never see Mary again. I'll be gone afore she's free. An' where will I be gone?"

It was an awful question, dropping from the ashen lips of that dying man, tottering upon the verge of a dark eternity. No answer came from his hearers—from the old woman, or from Esther Forsyth, or from poor little Ailie. What answer could they give? They hoped he would sink again into stupor, and "die quiet." But the hollow eyes looked from one to another in appeal.

"Where will I be gone?" repeated Jem. "I've nought to do with dyin' in peace—not I. What's them lines I once learned, or somebody telled me?—

"'There is a dreadful hell, With darkness, fire, an' chains.'

"What's the rest, Ailie?"

"Oh, father, don't ye—don't ye," sobbed Ailie, in distress.

"Come, don't ye be in a taking, Carter," said Esther, trying to cheer him. "You've been a steady man enough, off an' on, and it's little o' drink that's passed your lips o' late."

"Drink!" repeated Jem; and then a strange look passed over the face looking up into hers. "Maybe I've not drunk as much as some. Maybe I've wanted to live respectable, and couldn't manage it neither. Will that take me to heaven, woman?"

The question came almost fiercely from between his parted lips, through which the labouring breath passed to and fro.

"'Tis little we poor folks has to do with heaven," she said.

"It's little you know," responded Jem Carter. "Wasn't it the poor, an' not the rich—somebody said. But I minds nothin' now. It's all gone. An' there's no one to say a word—an' I'm dyin'."

"Can't ye tell him what he wants?" sobbed Ailie.

"Can't nobody tell?"

"Can't nobody tell?" echoed the dry failing lips. "Mrs. Forsyth, can ye mind nothin' o' what I once heard?"

"I didn't know ye then," she said, with an effort to rack her memory for some dim recollection of the "sweet story of old," with which in childhood she had not been wholly unfamiliar. But it would not come. "There's nobody here as knows nothin'."

Nobody! Not one to bring a ray of light into the deep darkness of that poor benighted soul. Not one to hold the cup of life to those dying lips.

Awhile they kept silence, broken only by the deep breathing from the flock-bed. The old woman fidgeted about, and muttered to herself. Esther stood still, with the child clinging to her dress.

"He'll die easy now," she whispered encouragingly, and she hoped it might be so. But the closed eyes opened again, and wandered to and fro distressfully; and the word "Parson" was whispered more than once.

"An' where be we to find a parson?" the old woman demanded in her ignorance. "Likely a parson 'ud come to this hole, at this time o' night. Tell ye what, Mrs. Forsyth, if ye'll stay here a bit, I'll go an' settle off my old man, an' then come back an' stay, so as ye can go. 'Tain't fair to leave him alone like this, and ye'll have enough to do wi' your own six brats."

The proposition, though rough, was kindly. Esther made no objection, but only stood, after the old woman's departure, looking down fixedly as before upon the occupant of the flock-bed. There was a stirring of old memories in her mind. They had not answered to the call when she sought for them, but somehow they were working now. She hardly knew what impulse made her say bluntly, as she marked the knitted brows—

"Why don't ye pray, if ye're so fearsome?"

"Who be I to pray to?" demanded Jem. "I tell you I knows nought of such things."

"There was a thief as didn't know more," said Esther, uncertainly.

"I'm not a thief. I'm an honest man. I've prided myself all my life on bein' an honest man." Jem broke off there, with a sigh, at the thought of his wife. "'Tain't honesty as 'll take me to heaven, though; I knows that plain enough. Tell about the thief; I'd like to hear."

"I've forgotten nigh all. 'Twas old granny as used to tell me, when I was a slip of a child, an' she'd show me the pictures in her big Bible, but it's 'most gone from me now. I only knows it was a thief, an' he was a-dyin', an' he prayed—leastways he says a few words—'Lord, remember me when Thou comest'—I don't remember no more. 'Comest' somewhere; I've forgot."

"An' you can't remember it?" asked Jem despondingly. "Maybe I might say the words, if I knowed 'em. But I ain't a thief; I never was. Who was it he said the words to?"

"Why, Him as died same time, somehow," said Esther, with reluctance. "I tell you I've forgot; only I know he said them words to Him—to Jesus, as was nailed upon a Cross, wasn't He?"

Very doubtfully, and somewhat shamefacedly, too, she spoke; but like a strain of sweet music fell the sound of that holy Name upon the ears of the dying man. "Why," he said, with sudden energy, "'twas He, sure, as said that about the poor an' not the rich, somebody once telled me. Go on quick, woman."

Esther fidgeted with the edges of her tattered gown. "It's pretty nigh all gone from me," she said; "only I know He somehow telled the thief as he was to go straight to heaven that day."

"The thief was to?"

"Yes, the thief," repeated Esther. "And he hadn't done more than that bit of a prayer, neither."

"Maybe I wouldn't be heard if I was to ask too," muttered Jem.

Esther looked round involuntarily round at the dark abode of misery. This dreary cellar—was it possible that a dying prayer, uttered in such a place, could by any possibility ascend upwards—could escape through all the damp, and dirt, and oppression which weighed upon the very air—could pass onwards, higher and higher, to the pure blue sky far above the great city's wretchedness—could rise yet farther upwards till it reached the throne of God Himself? Esther did not put the question in words, but she felt something like it, and shook her head.

"Maybe not. We haven't much to do with prayin' hereabouts," she said bitterly. "I've nigh forgotten the meanin' o' the word."

Seemingly passing into stupor, Jem Carter lay, his hand flung out on the torn carpet which formed his covering. Presently the old woman came back, and, seeing that there was nothing more to be done, Esther took her departure. The old woman settled herself down on a little heap of rags in one corner, and was soon nodding and rocking drowsily. Ailie crept to her habitual resting-place at the foot of the flock-bed, and there, wearied out, she dropped asleep.

Was it night when she awoke? She sat up, and rubbed her eyes. Yes, darkness still, except for the fitful flashes of the half-expiring candle, with its unsnuffed wick. The broken back of the chair, on which it stood, was reflected in huge bars of shadow against the walls. Ailie watched them as they moved to and fro, and then she glanced at her father's face. How ghastly it looked, lying back on the bundle of rags which served for a pillow, while one bony hand was folded over the other. Ailie sat more upright.

"Father, father," she whispered. Was he living still?

She did not venture to speak aloud. The midnight silence was broken sharply by the step and voice of a drunken man, reeling along outside the window. Ailie shivered at the sound. She could see the old woman across the cellar, not nodding now, but fast asleep, her gray head leaning against the damp wall. Ailie dared not rouse her, but watched her father's face in aching fear; and all at once, he opened his eyes.

Dull eyes they were, yet they recognized his little girl, and she whispered "Father!"

"I ain't a thief, Ailie, but maybe He'd hear me," said Jem.

"I'd try," said Ailie.

Jem Carter looked up, glanced round, gazed at the bare floor, the bare walls, the bare ceiling. "There's nobody to speak to," he said. "Ailie, can't ye do it for me?"

Ailie did not need to ask his meaning; she understood it as well as he did himself. She had never been taught to kneel and clasp her hands in prayer, like so many happier little ones; but, after a moment's hesitation, she folded her arms together, looked into the darkest corner of the cellar, and said in a frightened undertone:

"Please remember father, like the thief. He wants it ever so much. Please don't forget father. Please do remember him.

"Will that do, father?" asked Ailie.

"Please, Lord, remember me when Thou comest," muttered Jem Carter after her. "There's nobody else to help. Please have mercy, Jesus, that was nailed up on a Cross. I don't know nothin' more about it."

And once more Ailie chimed in earnestly, "Oh, please do remember father.

"Don't you think He will now, father? 'Cause the thief didn't only ask Him once, an' we've done it three times. Don't you think He won't forget you now, father?"

Was there a smile on the dying face? Ailie thought so. But nothing more was said, and he seemed to fall asleep. Ailie, too, sank off again, and did not wake a second time till daylight was creeping in through the window.

The old woman was the first to rouse herself. She shook her limbs, grumbled at her hard couch, rose with difficulty, and walked across the cellar.

There on the flock-bed lay Jem Carter—silent, motionless, with closed eyes, and powerless hands. And there across his feet lay little Ailie, with one arm thrown under her head, and a troubled look in her childish face. Poor little fatherless Ailie!

Yes, he was dead! Untended and unwatched, he had passed away from his cellar-home. But the one faint cry to the Saviour of the world, out of the depths of his darkness, was surely not unheard, and poor Jem Carter, in his last extremity, was surely not "forgotten."

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