"And why didn't you come to work then, Paul? You shall not have the watering-pot till you tell me: don't look so grave about it; you know you must smile when I please, Paul."
"I can't smile, just now, master," said old Paul; but he smiled, and then told Oliver, that "the reason he could not smile was, that he was a little sick at heart, with just coming from the sight of a poor soul who had been sadly bruised by a fall from the top of the stage, which was overturned last night. She was left all night at the _pike_, and as she had no other friends, she sent for me by a return chay-boy, and I went for her, and brought her home in my covered cart, to my good woman, which she liked, with good reason, better ten to one than the stage. And she's terribly black and blue, and does not seem quite right in her head, to my fancy."
"I wish we could do something for her," said Howard. "As soon as Mr. Russell is up, I'll ask him to go with us to see her. We will call as we go by to school this morning."
"But, master," said the gardener, "I should warn ye beforehand, that mayhap you mayn't pity her so much, for she's rather past her best days; and bad must have been her best, for she's swarthy, and not like one of this country: she comes from over the seas, and they call her a--a--not quite a negro."
"A mulatto!--I like her the better," cried Oliver; "for my nurse was a mulatto. I'll go and waken Mr. Russell this instant, for I'm sure he'll not be angry." He ran away to Mr. Russell, who was not angry at being awakened, but dressed himself _almost_ as expeditiously as Oliver wished, and set out immediately with his pupils, delighted to be the companion of their benevolent schemes, instead of being the object of their fear and hatred. Tutors may inspire affection, even though they have the misfortune to be obliged to teach Greek and Latin.{ 5}
{ Footnote 5: Vide Dr. Johnson's assertions to the contrary, in Mrs. Piozzi's Anecdotes.}
When the boys arrived at the gardener's, they found the poor mulatto woman lying upon a bed, in a small close room, which was so full of smoke, when they came in, that they could hardly breathe: the little window, that let in but a glimmering light, could not, without difficulty, be opened. The poor woman made but few complaints; she appeared to be most concerned at the thoughts of being a burden to the good old gardener and his wife. She said that she had not been long in England; that she came to London in hopes of finding a family who had been very kind to her in her youth; but that, after inquiry at the house where they formerly lived, she could hear nothing of them. After a great deal of trouble, she discovered that a West India gentleman, who had known her abroad, was now at Bath; but she had spent the last farthing of her money, and she was, therefore, unable to undertake the journey. She had brought over with her, she said, some foreign seeds of flowers, which her young mistress used to be fond of when she was a child, which she had kept till hunger obliged her to offer them to a gardener for a loaf of bread. The gardener to whom she offered them was old Paul, who took compassion upon her distress, lodged her for a week, and at last paid for an outside place for her upon the Bath coach. There was such an air of truth and simplicity in this woman, that Mr. Russell, more experienced than his pupils, believed her story, at once, as implicitly as they did. "Oh," exclaimed little Oliver, "I have but this half-crown for her: I wish Holloway had but paid me my half-guinea; I'll ask him for it again to-day; and will you come with us here again, this evening, Mr. Russell, that I may bring it then?"