So parish overseers learned to let the Degs alone; and their children regularly brought up to receive the parish money for their parents, were impatient as they grew up to receive it for themselves. Marriages in the Deg family were consequently very early, and there were plenty of instances of married Degs claiming parish relief under the age of twenty, on the plea of being the parent of two children. One such precocious individual being asked by a rather verdant officer why he had married before he was able to maintain a family, replied, in much astonishment, that he had married in order to maintain himself by parish assistance. That he never had been able to maintain himself by his labor, nor ever expected to do it; his only hope, therefore, lay in marrying and becoming the father of two children, to which patriarchal rank he had now attained, and demanded his “pay.”
Thus had lived and flourished the Degs on their ancient patrimony, the parish, for upwards of two hundred years. Nay, we have no doubt whatever that, if it could have been traced, they had enjoyed an ancestry of paupers as long as the pedigree of Sir Roger Rockville himself. In the days of the most perfect villenage, they had, doubtless, eaten the bread of idleness, and claimed it as a right. They were numerous, improvident, ragged in dress, and fond of an ale-house and of gossip. Like the blood of Sir Roger, their blood had become peculiar through a long persistence of the same circumstances. It was become pure pauper blood. The Degs married, if not entirely among Degs, yet among the same class. None but a pauper would dream of marrying a Deg. The Degs, therefore, were in constitution, in mind, in habit, and in inclination, paupers. But a pure and unmixed class of this kind does not die out like an aristocratic stereotype. It increases and multiplies. The lower the grade, the more prolific, as is sometimes seen on a large and even national scale. The Degs threatened, therefore, to become a most formidable clan in the lower purlieus of Stockington, but luckily there is so much virtue even in evils, that one, not rarely cures another. War, the great evil, cleared the town of Degs.
Fond of idleness, of indulgence, of money easily got, and as easily spent, the Degs were rapidly drained off by recruiting parties during the last war. The young men enlisted, and were marched away; the young women married soldiers that were quartered in the town from time to time, and marched away with them. There were, eventually, none of the once numerous Degs left except a few old people, whom death was sure to draft off at no distant period with his regiment of the line which has no end. Parish overseers, magistrates, and master manufacturers, felicitated themselves at this unhoped-for deliverance from the ancient family of the Degs.
But one cold, clear winter evening, the east wind piping its sharp sibilant ditty in the bare-shorn hedges, and poking his sharp fingers into the sides of well broad-clothed men by way of passing jest, Mr. Spires, a great manufacturer of Stockington, driving in his gig some seven miles from the town, passed a poor woman with a stout child on her back. The large ruddy-looking man in the prime of life, and in the great-coat and thick-worsted gloves of a wealthy traveller, cast a glance at the wretched creature trudging heavily on, expecting a pitiful appeal to his sensibilities, and thinking it a bore to have to pull off a glove and dive into his pocket for a copper; but to his surprise there was no demand, only a low curtsey, and the glimpse of a face of singular honesty of expression, and of excessive weariness.
Spires was a man of warm feelings; he looked earnestly at the woman, and thought he had never seen such a picture of fatigue in his life. He pulled up and said,
“You seem very tired, my good woman.”
“Awfully tired, sir.”
“And are you going far to-night?”
“To Great Stockington, sir, if God give me strength.”
“To Stockington!” exclaimed Mr. Spires. “Why you seem ready to drop. You’ll never reach it. You’d better stop at the next village.”
“Ay, sir, it’s easy stopping for those that have money.”
“And you’ve none, eh?”
“As God lives, sir, I’ve a sixpence, and that’s all.”
Mr. Spires put his hand in his pocket, and held out to her the next instant half-a-crown.
“There stop, poor thing – make yourself comfortable – it’s quite out of the question to reach Stockington. But stay – are your friends living in Stockington – what are you?”
“A poor soldier’s widow, sir. And may God Almighty bless you!” said the poor woman, taking the money, the tears standing in her large brown eyes as she curtsied very low.
“A soldier’s widow,” said Mr. Spires. She had touched the softest place in the manufacturer’s heart, for he was a very loyal man, and vehement champion of his country’s honor in the war. “So young,” said he, “how did you lose your husband?”
“He fell, sir,” said the poor woman; but she could get no further; she suddenly caught up the corner of her gray cloak, covered her face with it, and burst into an excess of grief.
The manufacturer felt as if he had hit the woman a blow by his careless question; he sat watching her for a moment in silence, and then said, “Come, get into the gig, my poor woman; come, I must see you to Stockington.”
The poor woman dried her tears, and heavily climbed into the gig, expressing her gratitude in a very touching and modest manner. Spires buttoned the apron over her, and taking a look at the child, said in a cheerful tone to comfort her, “Bless me, but that is a fine thumping fellow, though. I don’t wonder you are tired, carrying such a load.”
The poor woman pressed the stout child, apparently two years old, to her breast, as if she felt it a great blessing and no load: the gig drove rapidly on.
Presently Mr. Spires resumed his conversation.
“So you are from Stockington?”
“No, sir; my husband was.”
“So: what was his name?”
“John Deg, sir.”
“Deg?” said Mr. Spires. “Deg, did you say?”
“Yes, sir.”
The manufacturer seemed to hitch himself off towards his own side of the gig, gave another look at her, and was silent. The poor woman was somewhat astonished at his look and movement, and was silent too.
After awhile Mr. Spires said again, “And do you hope to find friends in Stockington? Had you none where you came from?”
“None,