The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
impression on the shopkeepers, who usually treated him with about as much courtesy as they would have extended to any other sort of beggar. Generally, after a day's canvassing, he returned home unsuccessful and faint with hunger and fatigue.
One night, when a bitterly cold east wind was blowing, after he had been out on one of these canvassing expeditions, his chest became so bad that he found it almost impossible to speak, because the effort to do so often brought on a violent fit of coughing. A firm of drapers, for whom he had done some show-cards, sent him an order for one which they wanted in a hurry and which must be delivered the next morning, so he stayed up by himself till nearly midnight to do it. As he worked he felt a strange sensation in his chest: it was not exactly a pain, and he would have found it difficult to describe it in words.
He did not attach much importance to the symptom, thinking it was caused by the cold he had taken, but he could not help feeling conscious of the strange sensation all the time.
Frankie had been put to bed that evening at the customary hour, but did not seem to be sleeping as well as usual. Owen could hear him twisting and turning about and uttering little cries in his sleep. He left his work several times to go into the boy's room and cover him with the bed-clothes, which his restless movements had disordered. As the time wore on, the child became more tranquil, and about eleven o'clock, when Owen went in to look at him, he found him in a deep sleep, lying on his side with his head thrown back on the pillow, breathing so softly through his slightly parted lips that the sound was almost imperceptible. The fair hair that clustered round his forehead was damp with perspiration, and he was so still and pale and silent that one might have thought he was sleeping the sleep that knows no awakening.
About an hour later, when he had finished writing the showcard, Owen went out into the scullery to wash his hands before going to bed; and whilst he was drying them on the towel, the strange sensation he had been conscious of all the evening became more intense, and a few seconds afterwards he was terrified to find his mouth suddenly filled with blood.
For what seemed an eternity he fought for breath against the suffocating torrent, and when at length it stopped, he sank trembling into a chair by the side of the table, holding the towel to his mouth and scarcely daring to breathe, whilst
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