The rumour
that something was wrong, that the secretary M'Cosh could not be
found, began to create a disturbance; presently the nigger
entertainment came to an end, and the Burial Club was the sole topic
of conversation.
On the morrow it was an ascertained fact that one of the
catastrophes which occasionally befall the provident among
wage-earners had come to pass. Investigation showed that for a long
time there had been carelessness and mismanagement of funds, and
that fraud had completed the disaster. M'Cosh was wanted by the
police.
To John Hewett the blow was a terrible one. In spite of his poverty,
he had never fallen behind with those weekly payments. The thing he
dreaded supremely was, that his wife or one of the children should
die and he be unable to provide a decent burial. At the death of the
last child born to him the club had of course paid, and the
confidence he felt in it for the future was a sensible support under
the many miseries of his life, a support of which no idea can be
formed by one who has never foreseen the possibility of those dear
to him being carried to a pauper's grave. It was a touching fact
that he still kept up the payment for Clara; who could say but his
daughter might yet come back to him to die? To know that he had lost
that one stronghold against fate was a stroke that left him scarcely
strength to go about his daily work.
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