The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
doing, but the situation was desperate, and feeling utterly crushed and degraded, he swallowed all that remained of his pride and went like a beaten dog to see the relieving officer. He was taken before the Board, with the result that his case was not considered suitable for out-relief; and after some preliminaries it was finally arranged that Linden and his wife were to go into the workhouse, and Mary was to be allowed three shillings a week to help her to support herself and the two children.
Mary accompanied the old people to the gates of their future dwelling place, and on her return home found a letter addressed to J. Linden. It was from the house agent, and contained a notice to leave the house before the end of the ensuing week. Nothing was said about the five weeks' rent that was due. Perhaps Mr Sweater thought that as he had already received nearly six hundred pounds in rent from Linden he could afford to be generous about the amount that was still owing, or he thought there was no possibility of getting the money. However that may have been, there was no reference to it in the letter; it was simply a notice to clear out, addressed to Linden, but meant for Mary.
She was faint with fatigue and hunger, for she had had nothing but a cup of tea and a slice of bread that day, her usual fare for many weeks past. The children were at school, and the house, now almost destitute of furniture and without carpets or oilcloth on the floors, was deserted and cold and silent as a tomb. On the kitchen table were a few cracked cups and saucers, a broken knife, some lead tea spoons, a part of a loaf, a small basin containing some dripping, and a brown earthenware teapot with a broken spout. Near the table were two broken kitchen chairs. The bareness of the walls was relieved only by a coloured almanac and some paper pictures which the children had tacked upon them, and there by the side of the fire-place was the empty wicker chair where the old woman used to sit. There was no fire in the grate, and the cold hearth was untidy with an accumulation of ashes, for during the trouble of these last few days Mary had not had time or heart to do any housework. The floor was unswept and littered with scraps of paper and dust. In one corner was a heap of twigs and small branches of trees that Charley had found somewhere and brought home for the fire.
The same disorder prevailed all through the house. All the
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