The idea that they would come to him proved to be a mistaken
one. He did indeed visit a few tame pets whom his rector desired him
to look after. There was an old man and his wife who lived next door
but one to Ernest himself; then there was a plumber of the name of
Chesterfield; an aged lady of the name of Gover, blind and bed-ridden,
who munched and munched her feeble old toothless jaws as Ernest
spoke or read to her, but who could do little more; a Mr. Brookes, a
rag and bottle merchant in Birdsey's Rents, in the last stage of
dropsy, and perhaps half-a-dozen or so others. What did it all come
to, when he did go to see them? The plumber wanted to be flattered,
and liked fooling a gentleman into wasting his time by scratching
his ears for him. Mrs. Gover, poor old woman, wanted money; she was
very good and meek, and when Ernest got her a shilling from Lady
Anne Jones's bequest, she said it was "small but seasonable," and
munched and munched in gratitude. Ernest sometimes gave her a little
money himself, but not, as he says now, half what he ought to have
given.
What could he do else that would have been of the smallest use to
her? Nothing indeed; but giving occasional half-crowns to Mrs.
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