Kindness Rewarded

FROM "CAPTAIN BAYLEY'S HEIR."

A Tale of the Gold Fields of California.

(1889)

[The daughter of Captain Bayley, a wealthy old Indian officer, made a marriage much beneath her, and was disowned by her father. Her husband dies, and when in the extremity of poverty she meets with an accident in the streets of London. She is taken in and kindly cared for by John and Sarah Holl, the former being a dustman. The lady dies, and her infant is brought up by John Holl and his wife as their own. The child is one day run over by a passing cart and grows up a cripple.

An accident leads to the discovery of his parentage. Captain Bayley at once recognizes him as his heir, and by the advice of the doctors he calls in determines to take him to some foreign baths which might bring about a cure.]

Before starting abroad, Captain Bayley carried out his plan for rewarding John and Sarah Holl for the kindness they had shown to Harry. After consultation with his grandson, he had concluded that the best plan of doing so would be to help them in their own mode of life. He accordingly called upon the dust-contractor for whom John Holl worked, a man who owned twenty carts. An agreement was soon come to with him, by which Captain Bayley agreed to purchase his business at his own price, with the whole of the plant, carts, and horses. A fortnight after this John's master said to him one day�

"John, I have sold my business; you are going to have a new master."

"I am sorry for that," John said, "for we have got on very well together for the last fifteen years. Besides," he added thoughtfully, "it may be bad for me; I am not as young as I used to be, and he may bring new hands with him."

"I will speak to him about you, John," his master said; "he is a good sort of man, and I daresay I can manage it. The thing is going to be done well. Three or four new carts are to be put on instead of some of the old ones, and there are ten first-rate horses coming in place of some of those that are getting past work. The stables are all being done up, and the thing is going to be done first rate. Curiously enough his name is the same as yours, John Holl."

"Is it, now?" John said. "Well, it will be odd to see my own name on the carts, 'John Holl, Dust Contractor.' It doesn't sound bad, either. So you will speak to him?"

"Yes, I will speak to him," his employer answered.

Three days later John received a message from his master to the effect that the new owner would take possession next day, and that he was to call at the office at eleven o'clock. He added that his new employer said that he wished Mrs. Holl to go round with her husband.

John and Sarah were greatly puzzled with the latter part of this message, until they thought that probably their late employer had mentioned that Mrs. Holl went out charring and cleaning, and that he might intend to engage her to keep the office tidy.

KINDNESS REWARDED.�II.

Accordingly, at eleven o'clock on the following day, John and Sarah presented themselves at the office at Chelsea. As they entered the yard they were greatly amused at seeing all the carts ranged along, in the glory of new paint, with "John Holl, Dust Contractor," in large letters on their sides. A boy was in the office, who told them that they were to go to the house. The yard was situated near the river, and the house which adjoined it was a large old-fashioned building, standing in a pretty, walled garden. They went to the back-door, and knocked. It was opened by a bright-looking servant-girl.

"Is Mr. Holl in?" Sarah asked.

"You are to be shown in," the girl said, and ushered them into a large, old-fashioned parlour, comfortably furnished.

John and Sarah gave a cry of surprise, for, sitting by the fire, in his wheeled box, just as in the olden time, was Harry.

Scarce a day had passed since he had left them without his coming in for half-an-hour's chat with them, but his appearance here struck them with astonishment.

"What are you doing here, Harry?" Mrs. Holl asked. "Do you know our new master?"

"Yes, mother, I know him. Captain Bayley has had some business with him, and asked me to come down here to see him. You are to sit down until he comes."

"But that will never do, Harry. Why, what would he think of us if he comes in and finds us sitting down in his parlour just as if the place belonged to us?"

"It's all right, mother, I will make it right with him; he's a good fellow, is the new master�a first-rate fellow."

"Is he, now?" John asked, interested, as he and Sarah, seeing nothing else to do, sat down. "And his name is John Holl, just the same as mine?"

"Just the same, John, and he's not unlike you either. Now, when I tell you what a kind action he did once, you will see the sort of fellow he is. Once, a good many years ago, when he wasn't as well off as he is now, when he was just a hard-working man, earning his weekly pay, a poor woman with a child fell down dying at his door. Well, you know, other people would have sent for a policeman and had them taken off to the workhouse, but he and his wife took them into their house and tended the lady till she died."

"That was a right-down good thing," John said, quite unmindful of the fact that he too had done such an action.

KINDNESS REWARDED.�III.

Sarah did not speak, but gave a little gasping cry, and threw her apron, which she wore indoors and out, over her head; a sure sign with her that she was going to indulge in what she called "a good cry." John looked at her in astonishment.

"And more than that, John," Harry went on; "they kept the child, and brought him up as one of their own; and though afterwards they had a large family, they never made him feel that he was a burden to them, though he grew up a cripple, and was able to do nothing to repay them for all their goodness. Well, at last the boy's friends were found. They had lots of money, and the time came at last when they bought a business for John Holl; and when he came, there the cripple boy was, sitting at the fire, to welcome them, and say, 'Welcome, father! and welcome, mother!'" and Harry held out his hands to them both.

Even now John Holl did not understand. He was naturally dull of comprehension, and the loud sobbing of his wife so bewildered and confounded him that it divided his attention with Harry's narrative.

"Yes, Harry," he said, "it's all very nice. But what's come to you, Sarah? What are you making all this fuss about? We shall be having the new master coming in and finding you sobbing and rocking yourself like a mad woman. Cheer up, old woman. What is it?"

"Don't you see, John," Sarah sobbed out, "don't you see Harry has been telling you your own story? Don't you see that it is you he has been talking about, and that you are 'John Holl, Dust Contractor'?"

"Me?" John said, in utter bewilderment.

"Yes, father," Harry said, taking his hand, "you are the John Holl. This house, and the business, and the carts and horses are yours; Captain Bayley has bought them all for you. He would not come here himself, as I wished him, but he asked me to tell you and mother how glad he was to be able to repay, in a small way he said, your great kindness to me; and how he hoped that you would prosper here, and be as happy as you deserve to be.

"You will be better off than your last master, for he had to pay rent for this house and yard, but, as grandfather has bought the freehold of them all for you, you will have no rent to pay. Therefore I hope, even in bad times, you will be able to get along comfortably. There, father, there, mother, dry your eyes, and look sharp, for I can hear voices in the garden. Evan went to your house after you had gone to bring all the children round here in a cab.

"You will find everything in the house, mother, and you must get a grand tea as soon as possible. I have got a servant for you�for, you know, you must have a servant now."

The next minute the children came bounding in, wild with delight, and a happier party never assembled than those who sat round the table of "John Holl, Dust Contractor," on the evening of his first taking possession of his new property.