But it
was too late for the man; his privations had destroyed his sleight of
hand, though he knew it not; the fine workman was gone. He took
painters' paralysis, and very often when work was offered his hand
would drop before he could begin it; then the long years of tramping
about had made him restless; from time to time he was fain to borrow a
few shillings and to go on the tramp again, pretending that he was in
search of work; he would stay away for a fortnight, marching about
from place to place, heartily enjoying the change and the social
evening at the public-houses where he put up. For, though no drunkard,
he loved to sit in a warm bar and to talk over the splendours of the
past. Then he died. No one, now looking at the neat old lady in the
clean white cap and apron who sits all day in the nursery crooning
over her work, would believe that she has gone through this ordeal by
famine, and served her fifteen years' term of starvation for the sins
of others.
The Parish of St. James's, Ratcliff, is the least known of Riverside
London. There is nothing about this parish in the Guide-books; nobody
goes to see it. Why should they? There is nothing to see. Yet it is
not without its romantic touches. Once there was here a cross--the
Ratcliff Cross--but nobody knows what it was, when it was erected, why
it was erected, or when it was pulled down.
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