CHAPTER III.
THE SHELTER OF THE STREETS.
That night Robin slept under a haycock. He slept very soundly, and far more comfortably than he would have done had he remained in London. Nevertheless, he awoke the next morning with a sore feeling at his heart. His plan of yesterday had failed utterly. No one was kind enough to him to take him to prison. He had tried to go to the Lock-up, but no one would take him there.
It never occurred to him that by committing an open theft he might attain his object; at least, he might so far attain it as to see the inside of a prison.
Robin had been too carefully trained by his thief companions to make open pilfering possible to him. The glory of stealing, was to steal unseen—so thought this ill-taught child.
That night, after losing his way many times, and asking many persons to direct him, he found his way back to London; and so ended his first real adventure without Helen.
He was now truly alone in London, and between his previous life and the life that lay before him there was a great and unhappy difference.
With Helen, who was clever, strong, hard-working, even though the greater part of her work was thieving, he was seldom without food, never without love. The eyes of Helen would look lovingly into his, the lips of Helen would press his lips, and the faithful breast of Helen would often be a shelter for his weary little head. Now all this was over, and the child at the age of eight years found himself utterly alone. Things had never from his birth fared very well with him, but from this time life indeed looked dark. And yet God had gifted this child with much, if only man had done his part. He was strong as a little lion; his face was fair and sweet; the expression in his lovely eyes was sometimes almost angelic. Naturally he was intensely affectionate, and he was brave to foolhardiness. Out of these materials much could have been made, but now the little heart was left to feed on itself, and to drink in evil at every pore.
He loved Helen passionately—just as passionately as she had loved him; as vehemently then did he hate the law which had shut her away from him. For a moment the thought of returning to her had comforted him, but when he found that he could not accomplish his desire, the last straw that bound him to good seemed broken. He chuckled over the philanthropist's pocket handkerchief, and threw away his card, and plunged with all his young soul into sin. Still things went very hard with him, and, as a thief, he scarcely kept starvation at bay. As he sank lower, and his untrained and uncultivated mind ceased to work, his desires were simplified to almost those of a mere animal. He had to provide against certain gnawing pains. He had, on all possible occasions, to escape the "bobbies." Once or twice, for some small acts of petty pilfering, he was had up before the magistrates; but on these occasions, when his small head scarcely reached the bar of the dock, his tender years and innocent face got him off very easily. Thus he began to grow up into a criminal career, with no means of knowing what was wrong, and no power to help himself. Never, in all his life, had the right way been pointed out to this child, and the only kindness and love he could remember came from poor Helen, who had first taught him to be a thief.
On one or two occasions, attracted by his innocent face, the regular thief-trainer had got hold of him. In all low criminal neighbourhoods there are several such characters, who make it a practice to lay hands on young children and skilfully train them in the ways of this terrible calling.
By these people Robin would have been clothed and fed, and would probably, whatever his future fate, not have fallen a prey to starvation and want; but the child had too high a spirit to bear their petty cruelties, and, one by one, he ran away from them all.
So by stealing a turnip off a stall, or a loaf out of a baker's barrow, he managed to keep the "hungry staggers," the disease he most dreaded, at bay.
For the next year and a half this little half-starved waif and stray used to wander about the streets. Now singing a ballad in a full sweet voice, that might have drawn forth admiration in many a fashionable church choir; now selling fusees; now sweeping a crossing; now hiding behind a doorway to devour a stolen prize; passing his nights when he chanced to have a few pence, and could give himself the luxury of a bed, in a miserable low lodging-house, where he was largely instructed in vice; or when he could not, lying down under arches, at the waterside, near the market-places, behind street hoardings, in the open hall-passages of the poor-houses, or in walking the streets throughout the night.
His life in the open air and the variety of his food kept him more or less in health; he was hardy, and thought little of hardships. A true Arab child was he, independent, untamed; and, all things considered, his young heart was most times light as a feather, his laugh gay as a bird's song. He was full of fun and mischief, and would venture in his recklessness to hurl saucy answers at his natural enemies, the police; for he had quickly lost his desire to follow Helen to prison. He would sometimes even dare these worthies to catch him, and then, when the exasperated dignitary of the law advanced one foot for the purpose, he would dart away swift as a bird, cunning as a little fox. He had plenty of companions, and was a favourite with the boys and girls of his own standing and circumstances; his plunder he freely shared with them, but he refused point blank to become "pardiner" with any. Many a boy and girl longed for this post, but Robin was firm, he would secure his own "wittles," he said, and be beholden to none.
Thus time passed, and Helen had worked out a year and a half of her sentence, and Robin was between nine and ten years of age. It was winter then; and winter was, as it ever is to all such children, his hard time. The cold, and rain, and snow of winter, are awful to the little homeless street Arabs. The need for food is much greater than in summer, and the chance of food much less. A thousand ways of earning a penny, by selling flowers or fruit; a thousand ways of pilfering, are all closed at this time of year. Then, too, the nights are so long and so dark. In summer it makes very little difference to a healthy boy where he sleeps, but in winter the case is very different; then the little limbs shiver and freeze, the insufficiently nourished body succumbs, and the young life goes out. Robin began this second winter of Helen's captivity badly. Finding himself rather a marked character with the police, and knowing that if he tried his pilfering practices much longer in his present quarters he would assuredly spend a much longer time than he had ever done before in prison, he had started off with one or two companions into the country, to secure a supply of winter roots, such as groundsel, plantain, &c., for sale. Some children, and even some men and women, did a fair business in this way, but Robin and his companions were unfortunate; in the place they went to, they found very few of the roots they desired, and on their way back to London they were overtaken by an early and violent snow-storm. Chilled, hungry, their miserable rags wet through, they found themselves on their return at night obliged to take what shelter they could obtain under an archway. In the morning Robin got up with a sharp pain in his chest, and a bad cough. In a few days the pain got better, but the cough remained; it was a miserable beginning for a severe London winter. Hitherto he had been bright and gay enough, had laughed off his hunger, had whistled away his loneliness, but now, what with starvation, cold, almost nakedness (for his rags would scarcely keep together), and a cough that seemed to take away all his small remaining strength, the brave little heart began to give way.
The hard battle was becoming too much for this poor child. He used to wander about the streets, thin, pale, shivering, and into many a face did his wistful brown eyes gaze longingly, yearningly; the weaker he grew the more he craved for kindness, the more intensely he longed for Helen. Any one could have saved him then, any hand could have drawn him from the mire.
Well, SOME ONE did.
CHAPTER IV.
HONESTY WAS NOT THE BEST POLICY.
One day in the bitter month of January, after lying under an archway all night, he got up, feeling very stiff, sore, and hungry—oh! he was awfully hungry. The night before he had spent the only penny he possessed in buying a few of those celebrated "Cough-no-more" lozenges, and now, here he was without his breakfast, and no means of buying any. It was by no means a pleasant day for a thinly-clad boy with a racking cough to step out breakfastless; there had been snow the night before, and now the snow was half-melted under foot, and overhead the air was very keen and frosty. Robin started off at a brisk run for Covent Garden; he had no money to lay in any little stock there, but he might be fortunate enough to "nab" a few oranges or nuts.
When he arrived, the place was full of eager buyers and sellers, and Robin recognised several little brother thieves. Never did it seem to him that the owners of the fruit and vegetables were more on the alert, and never had he been more starvingly anxious to steal. While he was standing about, watching his chance, a large burly-faced man called out to him:
"Look here, my lad; you seems like an honest chap; will you help me to carry these 'ere big baskets of wegetables to my stall? I'll give yer sixpence for the job."
"Yes, zir; yes, zir," said Robin joyfully. Pleasanter words had never fallen on his ears; he had never liked any man so much in his life.
Not for worlds, not to save his existence, would he have stolen so much as a farthing's worth from that man's stall. Why? no one had ever told him it was wrong to steal. Why? he never had a better chance, for the burly-faced man hardly watched him at all. Ah! but he said he looked like an honest fellow, and no sweeter words had ever fallen on the little thief's ears. He worked happily for an hour, then walked away with his well-earned sixpence, and a glow he had never experienced before in his breast.
He, Robin, looked like an honest fellow; he had learned ere this what the word "honest" meant; and though he had laughed at the word, and pretended to deride it, yet in his heart of hearts he had admired honest fellows, he had envied honest fellows. Those boys and girls who could look every man fearlessly in the face, who earned their bread, instead of stealing their bread, in his heart of hearts he had more than once longed to resemble them. This was an instinct, more than an active feeling, with him; the instinctive longing of every one of God's creation after the right. Out of twopence he bought a hunch of bread and basin of coffee. Never had he enjoyed a more delicious breakfast. With his remaining fourpence he laid in a stock of morning papers. He had not dealt in this style of merchandise before, but the newspaper vendors seemed to him to do a very thriving business, and he had a kind of dim desire to spend this day, at least, as an honest fellow. He went down to the Bank, and began to advertise his property.
"Daily News—Tele—graph—Morning pay—par-s—pay—pars" sang Robin, imitating the cries of the other boys. He had a sweet voice, and notwithstanding his troublesome cough, which the celebrated "Cough-no-more" lozenges had quite failed to take away, he cried his goods right lustily.
But though he cried himself hoarse and almost sick, he did not cry away a single one of his store of papers; no one seemed to care for politics that morning. In vain great public questions, which were then exciting attention, filled the columns; in vain fresh accounts of foreign wars, and fresh demands to help our starving countrymen abroad, stared from the pages; the City men wanted none of these things to-day, at least they wanted none of them from Robin. The streets were too dirty, the cold too intense, for these individuals, already rather late for business, to put their hands into their pockets for the purpose of drawing out pence, to supply themselves with foreign news. They neither wanted foreign nor home news just then. The cold was making them selfish, even more selfish than most of them were every day. They neither cared for the foreigners' joys or sorrows, nor for the neighbour's wants. No one stopped to listen to Robin's cough, nor allowed his heart to look out of his eyes into Robin's thin, eager face.
So it happened that Robin sold none of his papers; the more fortunate boys pushed him aside, and jeered at him, and he had no heart to knock them down, as under other circumstances he would have done. "Sneak" some of these fellows called him, for they knew, by his way even of handling his papers, that newspaper vending was not his usual employment. "Serve him right," cried others, "as if he could call papers proper!"
So passed by, by those whom he had hoped would have been his customers, and unkindly treated by his companions, at twelve o'clock, he tucked his rejected goods under his arm and trudged slowly westward. As he walked he saw a crowd of eager little children all pushing against a shut door. The children were dressed very little, if at all, better than himself. He stopped and demanded what they were doing there.
"Oh! this 'ere's h'our school," said one little girl. "This 'ere's the ragged school, and we're goin' to 'ave a feast—buns and oranges, and tea and coffee—ain't it prime?"
"Don't yo wish yo were comin'?" laughed a big boy, to Robin.
Robin suddenly remembered the card the gentleman had given him a year and a half ago, and his accompanying remark that the ragged school was made for little boys like him. His face brightened; he did not know that school possessed tea, and coffee, and cake, and oranges. Long ago, had he been aware of this fact, would it have had the benefit of his society. Squaring his shoulders, and pushing his way to right and left, he planted himself firmly, one of the nearest to the door. He had a right to go in there, and he would go.
"What's that for?" said the lad who had spoken before.
"Nothink," said Robin, "on'y that I'm a goin' in."
"Well, that's a good un," laughed all the children in a breath.
"My stars!" continued Robin, unheeding them, "I never knowed as this 'ere wor the fashion of ragged schools—buns and h'oranges. I say, young uns, ain't we in luck?"
"But you ain't a schollard," said a little girl; "the school feast is on'y fur the reg'lar schollards, yer know."
"No, I don't," said Robin; "this 'ere's a ragged school, and I'm a ragged chap. A gent wot understands, telled me h'all about it, and I'm agoin' in; see ef I ain't."
Here the big boy gave Robin a blow in the face, which Robin returned with interest; but just then the doors were opened, and Robin, with about ninety other children, found himself inside the building. How warm, and pleasant, and beautiful it all looked to the tired and hungry child; that ceaseless tickle in his throat and chest, which the Cough-no-more lozenges had failed to relieve, became soothed, and almost ceased to trouble him.
Yes, his lucky star was decidedly in the ascendant to-day. What a feed he promised himself by-and-by from those vast piles of cakes, and what a quantity of tea and coffee he would consume! He was making up his mind to this, and also to another thing—as honesty was the best policy, or at least had proved so to-day—he would abstain from stealing a single crumb from the ragged-school feast; the sense of honour among thieves prevented his taking from the stores provided for children as ragged as himself. In the midst of these meditations, a hand was laid on his shoulder. On his entrance into the school he had been so much occupied looking round him that he had never noticed how, one by one, the children, answering to their names, had filed off into seats; he was the only ragged child now standing up in the school. The superintendent, a good man, but a strict disciplinarian, noticed the strange little face, and shook the lad out of his reverie somewhat roughly.
"Come, come, my boy, you can't stay here; rules must be obeyed; you are not belonging to the school."
"Yes, I be," said Robin stoutly. "This 'ere's a ragged school, and I be h'all rags and tatters—see yere," and he held up a thin leg, naked from the knee down, for inspection.
A titter ran through the ranks of the children; the superintendent did not know whether the mirth was directed against himself or Robin. He began to grow angry.
"None of your impertinence, lad—turn out! I have no objection to your applying for admission to-morrow, as a pupil; but you can't come to the school feast;" and taking Robin by the shoulders, he pushed him towards the door. The big boy who had twitted Robin here laughed aloud. At this the angry blood of the little street Arab flew into his face, and breaking away from the superintendent's grasp, he flew at this lad, and had the satisfaction of giving him at least a black eye, before he was himself expelled from the school.
No one here can blame the superintendent; it would have been impossible for him to break through the rule which prevented all but regular and diligent scholars attending the school feast; nevertheless the little heap of rags and tatters, seated on the doorstep, felt very bitter, and very sore at heart. Honesty was not the best policy; he would never be honest again.
He regretted bitterly, standing as he had done so close to those well-filled tables, that he had not helped himself to some of their stores.
After a time, with his ceaseless cough, empty stomach, and unsold papers, he moved listlessly on farther west. Once again he raised his cry—
"Mornin' pay—par-s—pay—par-s," but his voice was tired and feeble, and he soon ceased to trouble himself to do anything but watch his opportunity for theft.
It had been fine and bright in the morning, but now the sky was overcast, and fresh snow began to fall. This added much to Robin's discomfort; it lay white on his jacket, and melted into his ragged trousers. He crept slowly and painfully down the Strand, pressing his face against the window-pane of each restaurant as he passed. How delicious looked the hot and fragrant food! How exasperating the smell that came out to greet his hungry nostrils! He eagerly watched the groups of fur-clad women and top-coated men partaking of rich soups and luscious wines. So hungry was he, that he would have gone down on his knees for the crumbs they left behind them. He felt very bitter against these well-dressed people, who were all too busy, too happy, too rich, to give him a thought; but his bitterest and sorest feelings were directed against the children, ragged like himself, who at the school feast were having enough and to spare. The very fact of their being dressed as badly as himself, and yet be shut out from their privileges, raised the sorest feelings in his little breast. He did not know what a "schollard" meant, but he did know what rags meant, and he and they were alike in rags and tatters.
After a time he left the restaurants, feeling that if he viewed what was going on within much longer, he should certainly be tempted to do some desperate deed.
He left the restaurants, and wandered through Trafalgar Square into Piccadilly. From the Circus he walked on until he found himself in that part where his path lay between the Park at one side, and the houses of the great and wealthy on the other. The winter night, the long, long winter night, was falling now, and so also was the snow. His neighbours, his brothers, were in those houses, adding comfort to comfort, luxury to luxury; but adding also in their neglect of him, and such as him, sin to sin. He was so hungry by this time that he was almost in despair. Should he run up one of those great flights of steps, and ring boldly at one of those ponderous bells, and demand food, just even a piece, a morsel of bread, to keep soul and body together? No, he could not venture; he was too weak to stand the angry repulse from the liveried footman who would answer his summons. He wandered on. Suddenly a cry, a baby cry, smote on his ear, and peering through the darkness—the street lamps were not lit yet—he saw a little girl dressed in a white fur jacket and fur cap standing and sobbing on the pavement.
"Ma-ma—Ma-ma!" sobbed the baby.
Robin bent over her.
"Wot's h'up, little 'un?" he said in his gentlest tone.
The child stopped crying, surveyed her questioner gravely from head to foot, hesitated, but finally, after a long gaze into his face, stretched up her arms, saying coaxingly—
"Take me 'ome, wagged boy."
PART V.
HIS FATHER AND OURS TO THE RESCUE.
"Of the hearts that daily break,
Of the tears that hourly fall,
Of the many, many troubles of life
That grieve this earthly ball—
Disease and Hunger and Pain and Want,
Now I dreamt of them all!
"Alas! I have walked through life
Too heedless where I trod;
Nay, helping to trample my fellow-man,
And fill the burial sod;
Forgetting that even the sparrow falls
Not unmarked of God."
—HOOD.
"Do not deceive yourselves about the little offensive children in the street. If they be offensive to you, they are not to Him who made them. 'Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones, for I say unto you, Their angels do always behold the face of your Father in Heaven. It is not the will of your Father in Heaven that one of these little ones should perish.'"—CHARLES KINGSLEY.
CHAPTER I.
A LITTLE CHILD SHALL LEAD THEM.
Forgetting in an instant both his hunger and his weakness, Robin lifted the little child into his arms. She was very pretty; she had golden curls peeping out under her fur cap, and her eyes were as blue as the July sky. Robin had never seen anything so lovely as her little face appeared to him in his life. The feel of her fur clad arms round his neck comforted and warmed him; he was by no means anxious to get rid of her. He hurried down the first side street he could find, and then leant against the wall that was most in shadow, to take breath and think. He did this because he feared that in the open street the police would see him, and remove the pretty child from his care. The moment he took her up she stopped crying, nor did she speak until Robin paused to rest.
"Are we going 'ome, boy?" she said then.
"Yes, yes, little missy, ef little missy'll tell me where."
"Go on, then," she said, beating his shoulder impatiently.
"But I doesn't know the way. Where'll I take you, pretty little dear?"
"What 'ou say?" demanded the child.
"Where does missy live? and I'll take 'er 'ome this blessed minit."
"Tupid boy!" repeated the little thing impatiently. "Where I live? Course I live wid my ma-ma; dere! Go on."
Robin moved forward a few paces, a good deal puzzled now, for he saw the child could not direct him. What should he do with her? Of course the police would take her off his hands at once; but somehow he liked to have her with him; he was not nearly so lonely nor hungry since she was in his arms. Surely he might keep her for one night, and give her up to the police in the morning; the touch of her clinging arms was so pleasant to him, and then she was so lovely! He had seen flowers in shop-windows, he had seen beautiful children, but never before had so fair a little face been brought close to his own. In the midst of his meditations the child called out Imperiously,—
"Go on quicker, wagged boy! I hungly, and I want my ma-ma."
This remark came upon Robin with a kind of shock; for the last few minutes he had really, in his excitement and pleasure, forgotten his own exceeding hunger; but these few words brought it painfully back to him. He was hungry, and had no means to buy food; that now was a small thing; but the little child in his arms was also hungry, and he had nothing to give her; measuring her hunger by his own, he felt almost agony at the thought of what she must be suffering. He did not know that the well-fed child had never experienced the true meaning of that terrible word hunger. But her healthy appetite being awake, she went on moaning fretfully,—
"I so hungly, so hungly. Dolly do want her supper, and ma-ma."
In despair at these cries, which he could not satisfy, Robin was about really to deliver up the child to the first policeman he could find, when suddenly out of a shop came a gentleman, with a small end of a pocket handkerchief hanging out of his coat-tail. This was the chance Robin had been looking in vain for all day. Quick as thought, he whispered to the child to be good for an instant, placed her on the pavement, and darting after his unsuspecting victim, secured the prize. He came back in high spirits, laughing and pleased now. The handkerchief was a silk one, and he knew that when disposed of, it would bring him in enough of money to buy supper both for himself and the child.
"Missy shall not wait for her mamma," he said. "I'll buy dear, pretty little miss a cake in no time."
"Cake with gleat plums in it, boy? That's what Dolly likes."
"Werry well, deary; h'any sort yer'll 'ave, as yer wishes for."
Turning into a low street, he sold the handkerchief for eightpence, purchased two buns stuck over with plums for the child, and a great hunch of bread and a red herring for himself. The little girl munched her cake quietly, and Robin thrust a large piece of bread into his mouth. Now that both their hunger was likely to be satisfied, his mind was quite made up. He would keep the little child for one night, though he felt he must resign her in the morning. Though he knew in the morning he must give her up, yet for one night he would keep her; for a few hours longer he would feel her dear little arms about his neck. As he found her, as he had rescued her from being quite lost in the street, he, felt that he might give himself this great pleasure. Yes for one night he would keep the baby.
Where, then, should they pass it, the ragged boy and the dainty and delicate child? The winter snow was still silently and softly dropping from the sky; the winter wind sounded melancholy, funereal; he could not keep the baby in the streets all night; even if he was strong enough to carry her, he could not dare to expose so delicate and lovely a little creature to the winter's cold.
Robin had enough, just enough money left after their supper, to provide the worst and lowest lodging for them both. But some instinct told the boy that there were words spoken there, and deeds done, which the little child, even in her babyhood, must never witness. Passing by an archway, he peered in. Was there?—yes, there was a cart there, a cart nearly half filled, too, with straw. With a glad cry the boy darted forward, stumbled into the cart, and nearly buried himself and the child in the fragrant hay.
"Now, then, missy—poor boy werry tired—we'll rest yere fur a bit."
"And then go on?" said Dolly.
"Yes, missy, that we will."
"Is it far to my mamma now, boy?"
"No, no; werry close now, pretty pet."
"Well, I'se seepy; I'll just sut my eyes while you is resting."
She laid her little head against Robin's shoulder, while he piled the warm, clean straw thicker about her. Suddenly, when he thought she was really asleep, she started up.
"Bad, tupid boy! you was lettin' me dop off to seep wifout saying my py-airs."
"Wot h'ever's them?" said Robin.
Unheeding him, the child scrambled to a kneeling posture, folded her hands, looked up devoutly.
"'Our Father,'" said Dolly. Then she paused, gazed hard at Robin, said "Our Father" again, then demanded, "What nex, boy, what the odder words? Dolly forgets."
"Dunno, missy; dunno nothink 'bout it."
"Tupid! Well 'Our Father' must do for py-air until I get to my mamma. Now, my verse, my littlest verse, for I so seepy. 'God is love.' What I say, tupid boy?"
"'God is love,' missy."
"Yes, God love Dolly, and poor, wagged, tupid boy. Good-night, wagged boy; you may go on when you is rested."
The lips of the beautiful, high-born child were raised to the lips of the street Arab and the thief; a moment later and two pair of eyes were closed, and two little hearts were for the present at rest. Perhaps their guardian angels watched over the children—doubtless their Father did.
CHAPTER II.
HOW THE STREET CHILDREN LIVE.
Early, very early in the morning, the full blaze of a policeman's lantern was turned upon Robin and Dolly, and constable 21Y called out in his harshest tones—
"Now, then, young warmint, what h'ever is your little game? Why, I never!"—as his eye fell on Dolly—"ef this ain't Colonel L'Estrange's child, and the whole place in a hue and cry after her. So you wanted to steal her, you little thief. You'll soon know the right of this 'ere job."
With one hand he raised Dolly, who, frightened at her strange waking, was now sobbing bitterly, with the other he tried to detain Robin, but quick as thought the wiry boy escaped from his hands; he rushed out of the archway, down a back court, where he stood, in the bitter winter morning, trembling and shivering as much with anger as with cold. All night long he had been dreaming of Dolly; never, even for a moment did he lose the consciousness that she was by his side, and now, all in an instant, she had been torn away. He had been called a thief—the thief of the pretty little dear; now she was gone, and he should never, never see her again. It had been a short-lived and vivid pleasure; but now that it was over he felt very miserable—more miserable than he had ever felt in his dark little life before. Yesterday morning had been bad enough, with his racking cough and his empty pockets; but yesterday had been nothing to this day, for between this day and yesterday he had found and lost Dolly. He did not know until he had lost it what a difference a little love could make in his life. Why, with that pretty child in his arms, he had forgotten, actually and completely forgotten, his savage hunger. Well, he knew he must give her up; she was too sweet and too nice to share his miserable existence. He knew well, as he dropped off to sleep last night, that in the morning he must resign her. But he never meant to have her torn from him like this; he had pictured to himself at least one short walk with her warm arms clasped round his neck, a word or two more from the imperious baby-lips, and perhaps, best and most precious of all, another kiss from Dolly. Tears don't often come from poor little boys like Robin; but now a few did trickle down his pale cheeks, and his heart felt very sore.
Why should he not weep? Standing there under that winter sky, the boy was neighbourless, friendless, homeless! No one owned him, no one cared for him; had not he cause for his tears? He wandered on until he came to Oxford Circus, where he was greeted by one of his companion thieves and pals.
The lad whispered in his ear, "Does yer see that ere sharp-lookin' man a spyin' of yer?"
"Yes," answered Robin listlessly; "wot of 'im?"
"Wot of 'im?" mimicked his companion; "why, there's a deal of 'im to my way of thinkin'. He wants to prison yer hup in a school, lad, that's about it."
At the word "school" Robin's face began to darken with anger and pain.
"School!" he repeated; "I'm a goin' to no school—not I—my, but yesterday"——
"Yere's the 'spectre, as I'm alive!" interrupted the sharp boy, quickly vanishing from view; and in truth, before Robin had time to stir, the man who had watched him came up and laid a firm hand on his shoulder.
"Where do you go to school, my lad?" he asked, in by no means an unkindly voice.
"No where's," answered Robin.
"Well, this must be seen to," taking out his note-book. "What's your name?"
"Joe Williams," answered the little thief readily, glancing up with his brown eyes full into the inspector's face.
"Your address?"
"First door to the left, three pairs hup, Peter's Court, Seven Dials," as quickly replied the homeless boy.
The inspector replaced his note-book, assured "Williams" that he would make inquiries about him, and walked off, while the little thief was quickly surrounded by admiring street pals who praised his cleverness, clapped him on the back, and laughed loudly over the joke of the school inspector being outdone, and looking in vain for "Williams" in the room three pair up, Seven Dials.
For a time Robin was cheered by the applause of his companions, but fresh thoughts of Dolly brought fresh tears to his eyes, and he walked slowly and sadly away. Passing by a coffee-stall, it had the effect of partly arousing his hunger. He felt in his pocket for three halfpence which were still left out of his eightpence. A penny would buy him a basin of hot coffee, a halfpenny would secure to him a morsel of bread. He was not so hungry as yesterday, but he was colder, and his cough was worse. He got some breakfast at this coffee-stall, and then walked on, feeling better. As usual, his bright eyes roved to right and left for any chance of pilfering that might occur. He connected no wrong with this; he knew neither right nor wrong. The law, he understood well, was against thieves; the police were against thieves; the law and the police were his natural enemies, they had torn from him Helen, his only friend. He took, when well and bright, a decided pleasure in outwitting these his enemies. To-day, however, he was too ill and miserable to take pleasure in anything. The sky was leaden tinted, and foretold either more rain or more snow; the short dull winter's day broke gloomily. Yesterday, when suffering the keenest and sharpest pangs of hunger, Robin had looked round him in vain for the faintest chance of stealing. He had looked until night in vain. All the stalls were well guarded; all the men wore overcoats tightly buttoned up, no chance of anything sticking out of their pockets; all the ladies held their purses firmly inside their muffs. To-day, however, when less hungry and less anxious, a chance, and a golden chance, soon presented itself.
A lady, stepping into a cab, dropped from her arm a silver bracelet. She never missed it, and Robin, under the pretence of shutting the cab door for her, had it quickly in his pocket. As he secured this valuable prize, he looked into the lady's face and recognised the person whose little girl's purse he had returned more than a year ago. Well did he remember how, deaf to her child's pleadings, she had refused to give him, a ragged starving boy, even a few pence. It added to his pleasure to reflect that it was her bracelet he had stolen. Never had so rich a prize fallen in his way; he darted down an alley to examine it at his leisure; he did not half know its value, but he was quite clever enough to guess that it would, when sold, bring him in a sum of money which would keep him above want for several days. Pocket handkerchiefs and such things he generally disposed of at the pawn-shops, but the silver bracelet he would take to a certain old Jew, to whom once or twice before he had brought a small prize. The Jew in question lived in a place called Frying-pan Alley.
Entering the shop, Robin pulled out the bracelet and handed it across the counter.
The Jew, a villanous old fellow, spectacles on nose, took up the bracelet, turned it round, threw it contemptuously on the counter.
"Tinsel—tinsel," he said, "vorth ver litel. How much ashk for this von vorthless litel bracelet, boy?"
Robin having made up his mind to demand five shillings, gasped forth that tremendous sum in a shaky voice.
The Jew took up the bracelet again, fingered it lightly, then, apparently in a fit of abstraction, dropped it into a box by the side of the counter.
"Poor, bad, litel boy, I give you no five shilling; I not give you von shingle shikshpensh. You shtole this litel vorthless bracelet I return it to the polish, and you, I take you too."
And stretching out his long lean hand, he clutched at Robin with a vice he could not shake off.
"No, no, no," screamed the boy in terror. "Give me the bracelet—let me go, let me go!"
"No, I'll not give you up the tinsel bracelet, it is vorth nothing; but you shtole it, you can't deny. I will return it to the polish, who may find somebody who loosh the poor tinsel thing. Get you gone, litel bad thief boy, get you gone!"
And with a violent whirl, which nearly sent Robin on his face and hands, he was turned from the shop.
Still terrified, for the Jew's manner had been more violent even than his words, he ran, until, finding himself in other quarters, he sat down on a doorstep to rest.
Attracted by his ceaseless cough, a respectably-dressed young woman who was passing by, turned round to look at him.
"Poor little boy! how very ill you look," she said kindly: "here," taking out her purse, "is a penny for you; I wish it was more."
She dropped the coin into Robin's lap and hurried on.
The young woman was his own sister Molly, who, steady and industrious, had managed to prosper in life.
CHAPTER III.
SOMEBODY RESCUED NOBODY'S NEIGHBOUR.
Robin put the penny into his mouth for safety. Then he sat for a long time listlessly on the doorstep. Something between snow and drizzle was falling steadily from the sky, but the street Arab hardly noticed it: he could not well be colder than he was, and he wanted to rest, and to ponder an idea.
Never had the life within him ebbed so low; he wanted sorely a little comfort, and a little love. He had heard, for his companion thieves had told him so, that prisoners were sometimes allowed to see their friends. More than anything in the world, he now longed to see Helen. With his weakness and pain, the desire once more to behold the face that had always looked at him with kindness, became so strong as to be almost unbearable. He knew now, for he was older and wiser, that going to prison for punishment would get him no sight of Helen; but surely if he found his way to the prison doors, and asked to see his old friend, the prison authorities would grant his request This he thought; this he hoped; and if he really saw Helen once more, life might again become bearable to him. She might show him how to get strong; she might tell him some way of getting rid of that terrible cough, of earning at least money enough to keep him from starving. He had never in the least forgotten how loving, how tender, how true Helen had been to him; how she had soothed his baby ailments, and kissed away his small troubles. Yes, he would go to Helen now; he had heard that she was somewhere in the country; he would set off at once to the country to find Helen. He did not know the name of the prison where she was serving out her time; still he would start off, for some one could be found who would show him the way, and when once in the country he must surely find Helen.
Rising from his cold seat, rather brightened and comforted by this thought, he set off, fortifying himself for his journey by buying a piece of bread out of Molly's penny. He was wonderfully little hungry to-day; indeed he rather disliked food; but he might need it by-and-by, and people had told him that there were very few shops in the country.
Down Piccadilly, past the place where he had seen Dolly last night, he wandered. He asked several people the way to the country, for his last expedition in the waggon, when he had slept all the way, had given him no clue: one and all stared when the ragged child made this request, smiled, pointed westward. So westward, with the setting sun, went Robin.
After what seemed to him hours and hours of walking,—for he was so weak, and his cough so painful, he could only creep along,—he found himself in West Brompton. Houses were still to the right and left of him; houses seemed to surround him everywhere. Should he ever get rid of these houses, and find the country? He paused to eat a piece of his bread, for his strength was going; but he disliked it—it almost made him sick. Well, he must soon come to the country. Suddenly he uttered a joyful cry; he had reached a gateway—a gateway with the gate thrown back. Through the gateway he saw trees and grass. Yes, this must lead to the country, if this was not the country itself.
He went in through the gateway; he had entered the West Brompton Cemetery.
Cold, nearly as white as the snow, gleamed the marble of the many monuments.
Robin had not an idea what place he was in. He wandered on until he came to the part set aside for the very poor: here he threw himself down on a low grave to rest. He did not know it was a grave he was lying upon. There was no inscription or writing of any sort on the grave, nothing but the raised mound of grass. After a time, worn out with weakness, fatigue, and cold, he fell asleep. It was late when he awoke: the winter's sun had set, and the winter's night had come on. His limbs felt strangely numb and stiff; he tottered to his feet, and began feebly to grope his way forward. In half an hour he came to a gate; he recognised it as the gate he had come in by: it was fastened, locked. He wandered on and on; after what seemed to him an age of walking, he came to another gate: it also was locked. He perceived then that he could not get out of this place for the night.
He had still not the faintest idea what place it really was, but the monuments in the white light, and the cold gleam of the snow on the grass, frightened him in spite of himself. Wandering round and round, he came back in time to the same grave on whose mound he had already slept; he sat down on it again, regarding it, in this strange and awful place, as something like an old friend.
The sleet and snow had for the last couple of hours ceased to fall, the clouds had cleared away, the stars dotted the dark blue of the sky, and the moon, in grand, cold, calm majesty, shed an awful white light on the graves.
The rich, in their warm luxurious houses, noticed what a severe frost there was that night; the poor were less saving than usual with their handfuls of coal. What then must have been the sensations of this poor little lost child seated alone upon a grave?
He felt the cold terribly, intensely: he was too weary to walk, he was simply incapable of moving another step; and for a time the freezing process going on in his poor little body gave him such agony he could with difficulty keep himself from screaming aloud.
The dead in the graves under his feet could hardly be colder than he was fast becoming. After a time, however, he grew more comfortable, the pain became less, until it ceased. He stretched himself on the grave, closed his eyes, and tried to go to sleep. He hoped he might soon drop off to sleep, and then, when the gates were open in the morning, he might continue his journey in search of Helen. But strange as it may seem, he could not sleep; his body was numb, half dead, but his mind was active. He thought of Helen, his loving, faithful friend: he thought of his life with her; of the attic with the dirty prints. He felt Helen's arms about him, as they had so often, so often been; he thought of the little girl whose purse he had returned, and who had clasped his dirty hand in hers; he thought of the kind-looking woman who to-day had dropped a penny into his lap; most of all, he thought of the beautiful child, who last night had laid her golden head on his ragged breast, and who had kissed him. Many, many had been unkind to Robin, but these four had been good to him: all the unkind faces faded from his memory, but these four remained; and of the four, the brightest, sweetest, best, was the little child's face.
What did she mean when she said "Our Father" last night? He remembered perfectly how she knelt, how she looked, then how quietly and peacefully she went to sleep.
"Our Father"—well, he had no father: he had never known anything about a father; but the words, whatever, whatever they meant, must be good, or Dolly would not have looked so peaceful after saying them.
The look on Dolly's face, after saying these two words, was simply the look one wears after speaking to the best and most loving friend.
Well! he too would say the words; they might mean nothing, or they might mean much. They might bring him, too, the peace they brought to Dolly, and afterwards he might go quietly to sleep.
He struggled painfully on to his half-frozen knees, clasped his hands as Dolly had clasped hers, looked earnestly up at the clear frosty sky, and whispered, in a strange stifled tone of supplication, agony, longing, "Our Father." Nothing more, after these two words he lay down, and closed his eyes. Once he opened them again, those beautiful eyes that were surely meant to reflect God's image; he opened them and smiled. Yes, the words were good words; he felt peaceful, painless, happy. He was going to sleep really now. Never since Helen left him had he gone to sleep so restfully.
The four faces seemed to surround him, to shut him in, to soothe him with loving care; then they faded into the faces of Helen and Dolly, then into Dolly's face alone, then that too vanished into air, and I think the little ragged child was left with Our Father.
* * * * * *
Yes, with Our Father! for by the look seen half an hour later on his pale and death-like face it was very plain that the Great Succourer, shocked with man's neglect, was coming Himself to the rescue of His little one. Christ, who had died for just such neglected, sinful, sorrowful creatures, was touched with the feeling of his infirmities, and the child who was nobody's neighbour, was to be saved by God Himself.
Schools, reformatories, charitable institutions, had all failed to reach this one little waif and stray. Without any man being directly to blame, every man had passed him by. God saw that the time had come when He Himself must save. He Himself must do the work that men and women had failed to do. God Himself saved the child: this He did by putting a thought into the head of one of His humblest children. By this thought, put into the mind of one young girl, God had pity on us also, saving us from the guilt which must ever have rested on our souls had Robin died. For had our brother passed away, while we, with our riches, our comforts, our blessings, sat by and held out no hand of succour, for ever and ever it would have been to us one of those things which we had left undone, which we ought to have done: and this one sin of omission would have cried loudly to Heaven for vengeance.
God saw this, and had compassion on us as well as Robin, when He put a thought into a heart that night.
For just at the moment when Robin was looking up to the sky, and crying in pitiful supplications to One whom he knew not of, a girl was kneeling in a poorly furnished room, and earnestly praying.
This was the subject of her prayer—
"My Father in Heaven, help me this year to forget my own sorrow in helping others."
This, clothed in many words, but with intense feeling and earnest desire, was her prayer.
When she had risen from her knees, and had wiped away some tears, she went downstairs. She was the daughter of the porter who kept the gate by which Robin had entered the cemetery.
Smoking a long pipe, and gazing into the blaze of a cheerful fire, sat the porter himself.
"Come and make yourself warm, Nell; the night is most bitter," he said to his daughter.
"Are the cemetery gates locked, father?" she asked of him.
"Yes, yes, child; the best part of an hour ago."
"And it is not snowing; the night is fine."
"There is no snow, but the night is enough to freeze any one who ventured out into it."
To this remark the daughter made no answer. She stood close to the ruddy flames, and they, leaping up, revealed a mourning dress and sad face.
"Well, Nell, what are you thinking of?" asked the old porter, not unkindly.
"To-morrow will be Sunday, father."
"Ay, ay, child, of course. Sunday follows Saturday as sure as fate."
"And it will be a year to-morrow since mother died."
"Yes, my poor child. I have not forgotten."
"Father, I want to put a wreath of Christmas roses round mother's grave. You know how she loved them. I have saved three-and-sixpence, and the florist round the corner has promised me a nice bunch for that."
"Very well, my dear."
"But I want to measure the grave to-night, so that the wreath may be just the right size."
Grumbling, expostulating, at last yielding, the old porter accompanied his daughter. On the grave where the Christmas roses were meant to hang, they found Robin.
"Not dead yet," said the old porter as he placed his hand on the boy's cold breast.
"An answer to my prayer," thought Nell.
And as they carried him back to their comfortable home, the music of a grand old saying was ringing in both their hearts—
"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me."
And so closed the sorrow of want. The hunger of the body and the hunger of the heart at length found their needed food—bread and love.
There were no Christmas roses placed that year on the humble grave of the porter's wife; but Robin was saved.
* * * * * *
This is my brother's story; it has to do with his pain more than his joy. The dark clouds now having dispersed, and the sun shining on his path, there is little more to tell of him. He stayed with the kind porter and his daughter until his health was nearly restored, and was finally admitted into the Westminster Memorial Refuge at Streatham. Into this Home, but too little known to the general public, he, the supposed son of a criminal, had a right to enter. Here, kind hands were stretched out for such as him; and here he was rescued, morally as well as physically.
* * * * * *
Last January—yes, it was last January—a young man, earnest, noble-looking, might have been seen bending over a grave, a very humble grave, in the West Brompton Cemetery. Placed at the head and foot of this grave now, were two plain marble slabs: on the head slab was carved a wreath of Christmas roses.
"Here I lost myself, to find myself," thought Robin, as he turned away.
THE END.