Hope and Have Part 12

"That's what's the matter! Now go 'way wid your blarney, and don't be talking to me. It's Mike O'Shane that has a soft spot in his heart, but he can't do no more for ye. That's the truth, and ye must move to-day."

The landlord went into the house again, for more of the furniture. As he had represented, it was, doubtless, a hard case for him; but it was infinitely harder for the poor woman, and f.a.n.n.y was too deeply interested now to leave the spot. What she had known of human misery was as nothing compared with the suffering of this poor mother.

"What's the matter, ma'am?" asked f.a.n.n.y of her, when the harsh landlord had gone into the house.

"This man is my landlord, and he is turning me out of the house because I cannot pay him the rent," sobbed the woman. "I wouldn't care, if it wasn't for poor Jenny."

"Who is Jenny?"

"She is my daughter. She has been sick, very sick, for nearly a year, and she cannot live much longer. The doctor gave her up six months ago."

"How old is Jenny?"

"She is fourteen; and she is such a patient child! She never complains of anything, though I am not able to do much for her," replied the afflicted mother, as her tears broke forth afresh at the thought of the sufferer.

"Haven't you any place to go if this man turns you out of the house?"

asked f.a.n.n.y.

"No, no!" groaned the woman, bursting out into a terrible paroxysm of grief.

"I know it's hard for you, Mrs. Kent, but it's harder for me to do it than it is for you to have it done," continued Mr. O'Shane, as he came out of the house with a rocking chair in his hands.

"O mercy! that is poor Jenny's chair!" almost screamed Mrs. Kent. "What have you done with her?"

The mother, in her agony, rushed into the house to ascertain if any harm had come to her suffering daughter, who had been deprived of the easy chair in which she was accustomed to sit. f.a.n.n.y was moved to the depths of her nature--moved as she had never been moved before. She couldn't have believed that such scenes were real. She had read of them in romances, and even in the newspapers; but she had never realized that a man could be so hard as Mr. O'Shane, or that a woman could suffer so much as Mrs. Kent. Between her grief and indignation she was almost overwhelmed.

"You are a cruel man," said she, with something like fierceness in her tones.

"That's very foine for the likes of you to say to the likes of me; but it don't pay me rint," replied Mr. O'Shane, not as angry as might have been expected at this interference.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself to do such a mean thing!" added f.a.n.n.y, her black eyes snapping with the living fire of her indignation.

"Shall I let me own childer starve for another man's childer?" answered the landlord, who, we must do him the justice to say, was ashamed of himself.

"How much does the woman owe you?" demanded f.a.n.n.y.

"A matther of a hundred dollars--for a whole year's rint. Sure, miss, it isn't many min that would wait a twelvemonth for the rint, and not get it thin."

"And her daughter is sick?"

"Troth she is; there's no lie in that; she's got the consoomption, and she's not long for this world," replied the landlord, moving towards the door of the house, again to complete the work of desolation he had begun.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CRUEL LANDLORD. Page 103.]

"Stop, sir!" said f.a.n.n.y, in tones so imperative that the man could not help obeying her.

"What would I stop for?" asked Mr. O'Shane, rather vacantly.

"You shall not do this cruel thing."

"The saints know how it breaks me heart to do it, but I can't help it."

"Now you put all these things back into the house just as you found them."

"Faix, I'd like to do it, miss," said the man, taking off his hat and rubbing his tangled hair.

"You must do it."

"And not git me rint?"

"You shall have your money--every cent of it. Put the furniture back, and you shall have your due just as soon as you have done it," said f.a.n.n.y, as haughtily as though she had been a millionaire.

Mr. O'Shane looked at her, and seemed to be petrified with astonishment. The deed he was doing, harsh and cruel as it was, he regarded as a work of necessity. Though he owned the house occupied by Mrs. Kent, and another in which he lived himself with two other families, both of them were mortgaged for half their value, and he was obliged to pay interest on the money he owed for them. He certainly could not afford to lose his rent, to which he was justly ent.i.tled. He had indulged his tenant for a year, and nothing but the apparent hopelessness of obtaining what was due had tempted him to this cruel proceeding. Nothing but starvation in his own family could justify a landlord in turning a mother with a dying child out of the house. He looked at f.a.n.n.y with astonishment when she promised to pay him, but he was sceptical.

"Why don't you put back the furniture?" demanded f.a.n.n.y, impatiently.

"It's meself that would be glad to do that same," replied he. "Would you let me see the color of your money, miss?"

"Put the things back, and you shall have your money as soon as you have done it," added f.a.n.n.y, moving down the street. "I will be back in a few moments."

The landlord looked at her, as she walked away. He was in doubt, but there was something about the girl so different from what he had been accustomed to see in young ladies of her age, that he was strongly impressed by her words. f.a.n.n.y sat down on a rock in the shade of a lone tree. Mr. O'Shane looked at her for a moment, and then decided to obey the haughty command he had received. He went to work with more energy than he had before displayed, and began to move the furniture back into the house, greatly to the surprise and delight, no doubt, of the grief-stricken mother.

f.a.n.n.y counted out a hundred dollars from the stolen bills in her pocket, and returned to the house. Mr. O'Shane had by this time completed his work, and was awaiting the result.

"They be all put back, miss," said he, doubtfully.

"There is your money," replied f.a.n.n.y, proudly.

Mr. O'Shane's eyes opened, and he fixed them with a gloating stare upon the bills. He counted them; there was a hundred dollars.

"G.o.d bless you, miss, for a saint as ye are!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed he, as he put the money in his pocket. "Ye saved me from doing the worst thing I ever did in me life. I'll send the receipt to Mrs. Kent to-day;" and he walked away towards his own house.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SICK GIRL.

The last part of the interview between f.a.n.n.y and Mr. O'Shane had been witnessed by Mrs. Kent, who came out of the house when she had attended to the wants of her sick child. The dark cloud which menaced her a few moments before had rolled away, and, if the suns.h.i.+ne did not beam upon her, she was comparatively happy in having one trouble less to weigh her down. She was calm now, but the tears--they were tears of relief--still rolled down her wan and furrowed cheek.

"I have prayed for help, and help has come," said she to her deliverer, as the harsh landlord walked away.

f.a.n.n.y could not make any reply to a statement of this kind. She was a fugitive and a wanderer; she was a thief, shunning the gaze of men, and she could not conceive of such a thing as that she had been sent as an angel of relief to the poor woman in answer to her prayers. As she thought what she was and what she had been doing, a blush of shame suffused her cheek. She was silent; there was nothing which she could say at such a moment.

"Heaven will bless you for your good, kind heart. You are an angel,"

continued Mrs. Kent.