Chapter Twenty Two.The Darkest Hour before the Dawn.If the worshipful magistrate flattered himself that the reprimand he had addressed to Reginald that afternoon would move his hearer to self-abasement or penitence, he had sadly miscalculated the power of his own language.Every word of that “caution” had entered like iron into the boy’s soul, and had roused in him every evil passion of which his nature was capable. A single word of sympathy or kindly advice might have won him heart and soul. But those stinging, brutal sentences goaded him almost to madness, and left him desperate.What was the use of honesty, of principle, of conscientiousness, if they were all with one accord to rise against him and degrade him?What was the use of trying to be better than others when the result was an infamy which, had he been a little more greedy or a little less upright, he might have avoided?What was the use of conscious innocence and unstained honour, when they could not save him from a sense of shame of which no convicted felon could know the bitterness?It would go out to all the world that Reginald Cruden, the suspected swindler, had been “let off” for lack of evidence after three days’ imprisonment. The victims of the Corporation would read it, and regret the failure of justice to overtake the man who had robbed them. His father’s old county friends would read it, and shake their heads over poor Cruden’s prodigal. The Wilderham fellows would read it, and set him down as one more who had gone to the bad. Young Gedge would read it, and scorn him for a hypocrite and a humbug. Durfy would read it, and chuckle. His mother and Horace would read it. Yes, and what would they think? Nothing he could say would convince them or anybody. They might forgive him, but—The thought made his blood boil within him. He would take forgiveness from no man or woman. If they chose to believe him guilty, let them; but let them keep their forgiveness to themselves. Rather let them give the dog a bad name and hang him. He did not care! Would that they could!Such was the rush of thought that passed through his mind as he stood that bleak winter afternoon in the street, a free man.Free! he laughed at the word, and envied the burglar with his six months. What spirit of malignity had hindered Mr Sniff from letting him lose himself in a felon’s cell rather than turn him out “free” into a world every creature of which was an enemy?Are you disgusted with him, reader? With his poor spirit, his weak purpose, his blind folly? Do you say that you, in his shoes, would have done better? that you would never have lost courage? that you would have held up your head still, and braved the storm? Alas, alas, that the Reginalds are so many and the heroes of your sort so few!Alas for the sensitive natures whom injustice can crush and make cowards of! You are not sensitive, thank God, and you do not know what crushing is. Pray that you never may; but till you have felt it deal leniently with poor Reginald, as he goes recklessly out into the winter gloom without a friend—not even himself.It mattered little to him where he went or what became of him. It made no odds how and when he should spend his last shilling. He was hungry now. Since early that morning nothing had passed his lips. Why not spend it now and have done with it?So he turned into a coffee-shop, and ordered coffee and a plate of beef.“My last meal,” said he to himself, with a bitter smile.His appetite failed him when the food appeared, but he ate and drank out of sheer bravado. His enemies—Durfy, and the magistrate, and the victims of the Corporation—would rejoice to see him turn with a shudder from his food. He would devour it to spite them.“How much?” said he, when it was done.“Ninepence, please,” said the rosy-cheeked girl who waited.Reginald tossed her the shilling.“Keep the change for yourself,” said he, and walked out of the shop.He was free now with a vengeance! He might do what he liked, go where he liked, starve where he liked.He wandered up and down the streets that winter evening recklessly indifferent to what became of him. The shops were gaily lighted and adorned with Christmas decorations. Boys and girls, men and women, thronged them, eager in their purchases and radiant in the prospect of the coming festival. There went a grave father, parading the pavement with a football under his arm for the boy at home; and here a lad, with his mother’s arm in his, stood halted before an array of fur cloaks, and bade her choose the best among them. Bright-eyed school-girls brushed past him with their brothers, smiling and talking in holiday glee; and here a trio of school-chums, arm-in-arm, bore down upon him, laughing over some last-term joke. He watched them all.Times were when his heart would warm and soften within him at the memories sights like these inspired; but they were nothing to him now; or if they were anything, they were part of a universal conspiracy to mock him. Let them mock him; what cared he?The night drew on. One by one the gay lights in the shops went out, and the shutters hid the crowded windows. One by one the passengers dispersed, some to besiege the railway-stations, some to invade the trams, others to walk in cheery parties by the frosty roads; all to go home.Even the weary shopmen and shop-girls, released from the day’s labours, hurried past him homeward, and the sleepy cabman whipped up his horse for his last fare before going home, and the tramps and beggars vanished down their alleys, and sought every man his home.Home! The word had no meaning to-night for Reginald as he watched the streets empty, and found himself a solitary wayfarer in the deserted thoroughfares.The hum of traffic ceased. One by one the bedroom lights went out, the clocks chimed midnight clearly in the frosty air, and still he wandered on.He passed a newspaper-office, where the thunder of machinery and the glare of the case-room reminded him of his own bitter apprenticeship at theRocket. They might find him a job here if he applied. Faugh! who would take a gaol-bird, a “let-off” swindler, into their employ?He strolled down to the docks. The great river lay asleep. The docks were, deserted; the dockyards silent. Only here and there a darting light, or the distant throb of an engine, broke the slumber of the scene.A man came up to him as he stood on the jetty.“Now then, sheer off; do you hear?” he said. “What do you want here?”“Mayn’t I watch the river?” said Reginald.“Not here. We’ve had enough of your sort watching the river. Off you go,” and he laid his hand on the boy’s collar and marched him off the pier.Of course! Who had not had enough of his sort? Who would not suspect him wherever he went? Cain went about with a mark on his forehead for every one to know him by. In what respect was he better off, when men seemed to know by instinct and in the dark that he was a character to mistrust and suspect?The hours wore on. Even the printing-office when he passed it again was going to rest. The compositors one by one were flitting home, and the engine was dropping asleep. He stood and watched the men come out, and wondered if any of them were like himself—whether among them was a young Gedge or a Durfy?Then he wandered off back into the heart of the town. A wretched outcast woman, with a child in her arms, stood at the street corner and accosted him.“Do, kind gentleman, give me a penny. The child’s starving, and we’re so cold and hungry.”“I’d give you one if I had one,” said Reginald; “but I’m as poor as you are.”The woman sighed, and drew her rags round the infant.Reginald watched her for a moment, and then, taking off his overcoat, said,—“You’d better put this round you.”And he dropped it at her feet, and hurried away before she could pick up the gift, or bless the giver.He gave himself no credit for the deed, and he wanted none. What did he care about a coat? he who had been frozen to the heart already. Would a coat revive his good name, or cover the disgrace of that magisterial caution?The clocks struck four, and the long winter night grew bleaker and darker. It was eleven hours since he had taken that last defiant meal, and Nature began slowly to assert her own with the poor outcast. He was faint and tired out, and the breeze cut him through. Still the rebel spirit within him denied that he was in distress. No food or rest or shelter for him! All he craved was leave to lose himself and forget his own name.Is it any use bidding him, as we bade him once before, turn round and face the evil genius that is pursuing him? or is there nothing for him now but to run? He has run all night, but he is no farther ahead than when he stood at the police-court door. On the contrary, it is running him down fast, and as he staggers forward into the darkest hour of that cruel night, it treads on his heels and begins to drag him back.Is there no home? no voice of a friend? no helping hand to save him from that worst of all enemies—his evil self?It was nearly five o’clock when, without knowing how he got there, he found himself on the familiar ground of Shy Street. In the dim lamplight he scarcely recognised it at first, but when he did it seemed like a final stroke of irony to bring him there, at such a time, in such a mood. What else could it be meant for but to remind him there was no escape, no hope of losing himself, no chance of forgetting?That gaunt, empty window of Number 13, with the reflected glare of the lamp opposite upon it, seemed to leer down on him like a mocking ghost, claiming him as its own. What was the use of keeping up the struggle any longer? After all, was there not one way of escape?What was it crouching at the door of Number 13, half hidden in the shade? A dog? a woman? a child?He stood still a moment, with beating heart, straining his eyes through the gloom. Then he crossed. As he did so the figure sprang to its feet and rushed to meet him.“I knowed it, gov’nor; I knowed you was a-comin’,” cried a familiar boy’s voice. “It’s all right now. It’s all right, gov’nor!”Never did sweeter music fall on mortal ears than these broken, breathless words on the spirit of Reginald. It was the voice he had been waiting for to save him in his extremity—the voice of love to remind him he was not forsaken; the voice of trust to remind him some one believed in him still; the voice of hope to remind him all was not lost yet. It called him back to himself; it thawed the chill at his heart, and sent new life into his soul. It was like a key to liberate him from the dungeon of Giant Despair.“Why, Love, is that you, my boy?” he cried, seizing the lad’s hand.“It is so, gov’nor,” whimpered the boy, trembling with excitement, and clinging to his protector’s hand. “I knowed you was a-comin’, but I was a’most feared I wouldn’t see you too.”“What made you think I would come?” said Reginald, looking down with tears in his eyes on the poor wizened upturned face.“I knowed you was a-comin’,” repeated the boy, as if he could not say it too often; “and I waited and waited, and there you are. It’s all right, gov’nor.”“Itisall right, old fellow,” said Reginald. “You don’t know what you’ve saved me from.”“Go on,” said the boy, recovering his composure in the great content of his discovery. “I ain’t saved you from nothink. Leastways unless you was a-goin’ to commit soosanside. If you was, you was a flat to come this way. That there railway-cutting’s where I’d go, and then at the inkwidge they don’t know if you did it a-purpose or was topped over by the train, and they gives you the benefit of the doubt, and says, ‘Found dead.’”“We won’t talk about it,” said Reginald, smiling, the first smile that had crossed his lips for a week. “Do you know, young ’un, I’m hungry; are you?”“Got any browns?” said Love.“Not a farthing.”“More ain’t I, but I’ll—” He paused, and a shade of doubt crossed his face as he went on. “Say, gov’nor, think they’d give us a brown for this ’ereRobinson?”And he pulled out hisRobinson Crusoebravely and held it up.“I’m afraid not. It only cost threepence.”Another inward debate took place; then drawing out his belovedPilgrim’s Progress, he put the two books together, and said,—“Suppose they’d give us one for them two?”“Don’t let’s part with them if we can help,” said Reginald. “Suppose we try to earn something?”The boy said nothing, but trudged on beside his protector till they emerged from Shy Street and stood in one of the broad empty main streets of the city.Here Reginald, worn out with hunger and fatigue, and borne up no longer by the energy of desperation, sank half fainting into a doorstep.“I’m—so tired,” he said; “let’s rest a bit. I’ll be all right—in a minute.”Love looked at him anxiously for a moment, and then saying, “Stay you there, gov’nor, till I come back,” started off to run.How long Reginald remained half-unconscious where the boy left him he could not exactly tell; but when he came to himself an early streak of dawn was lighting the sky, and Love was kneeling beside him.“It’s all right, gov’nor,” said he, holding up a can of hot coffee and a slice of bread in his hands. “Chuck these here inside yer; do you ’ear?”Reginald put his lips eagerly to the can. It was nearly sixteen hours since he had touched food. He drained it half empty; then stopping suddenly, he said,—“Have you had any yourself?”“Me? In corse! Do you suppose I ain’t ’ad a pull at it?”“You haven’t,” said Reginald, eyeing him sharply, and detecting the well-meant fraud in his looks. “Unless you take what’s left there, I’ll throw it all into the road.”In vain Love protested, vowed he loathed coffee, that it made him sick, that he preferred prussic acid; Reginald was inexorable, and the boy was obliged to submit. In like manner, no wile or device could save him from having to share the slice of bread; nor, when he did put it to his lips, could any grimace or protest hide the almost ravenous eagerness with which at last he devoured it.“Now you wait till I take back the can,” said Love. “I’ll not be a minute,” and he darted off, leaving Reginald strengthened in mind and body by the frugal repast.It was not till the boy returned that he noticed he wore no coat.“What have you done with it?” he demanded sternly.“Me? What are you talking about?” said the boy, looking guiltily uneasy.“Don’t deceive me!” said Reginald. “Where’s your coat?”“What do I want with coats? Do you—”“Have you sold it for our breakfast?”“Go on! Do you think—”“Have you?” repeated Reginald, this time almost angrily.“Maybe I ’ave,” said the boy; “ain’t I got a right to?”“No, you haven’t; and you’ll have to wear mine now.”And he proceeded to take it off, when the boy said,—“All right. If you take that off, gov’nor, I slides—I mean it—so I do.”There was a look of such wild determination in his pinched face that Reginald gave up the struggle for the present.“We’ll share it between us, at any rate,” said he. “Whatever induced you to do such a foolish thing, Love?”“Bless you, I ain’t got no sense,” replied the boy cheerily.Day broke at last, and Liverpool once more became alive with bustle and traffic. No one noticed the two shivering boys as they wended their way through the streets, trying here and there, but in vain, for work, and wondering where and when they should find their next meal. But for Reginald that walk, faint and footsore as he was, was a pleasure-trip compared with the night’s wanderings.Towards afternoon Love had the rare good fortune to see a gentleman drop a purse on the pavement. There was no chance of appropriating it, had he been so minded, which, to do him justice, he was not, for the purse fell in a most public manner in the sight of several onlookers. But Love was the first to reach it and hand it back to its owner.Now Love’s old story-books had told him that honesty of this sort is a very paying sort of business; and though he hardly expected the wonderful consequences to follow his own act which always befall the superfluously honest boys in the “penny dreadfuls,” he was yet low-souled enough to linger sufficiently long in the neighbourhood of the owner of the purse to give him an opportunity of proving the truth of the story-book moral.Nor was he disappointed; for the good gentleman, happening to have no less than fifty pounds in gold and notes stored up in this particular purse, was magnanimous enough to award Love a shilling for his lucky piece of honesty, a result which made that young gentleman’s countenance glow with a grin of the profoundest satisfaction.“My eye, gov’nor,” said he, returning radiant with his treasure to Reginald, and thrusting it into his hand; “’ere, lay ’old. ’Ere’s a slice o’ luck. Somethink like that there daily bread you was a-tellin’ me of t’other day. No fear, I ain’t forgot it. Now, I say sassages. What do you say?”Reginald said “sausages” too; and the two friends, armed with their magic shilling, marched boldly into a cosy coffee-shop where there was a blazing fire and a snug corner, and called for sausages for two. And they never enjoyed such a meal in all their lives. How they did make those sausages last! And what life and comfort they got out of that fire, and what rest out of those cane-bottomed chairs!At the end of it all they had fourpence left, which, after serious consultation, it was decided to expend in a bed for the night.“If we can get a good sleep,” said Reginald, “and pull ourselves together, we’re bound to get a job of some sort to-morrow. Do you know any lodging-house?”“Me? don’t I? That there time you jacked me up I was a night in a place down by the river. It ain’t a dainty place, gov’nor, but it’s on’y twopence a piece or threepence a couple on us, and that’ll leave a brown for the morning.”“All right. Let’s go there soon, and get a long night.”Love led the way through several low streets beside the wharves until he came to a court in which stood a tumble-down tenement with the legend “Lodgings” scrawled on a board above the door. Here they entered, and Love in a few words bargained with the sour landlady for a night’s lodging. She protested at first at their coming so early, but finally yielded, on condition they would make the threepence into fourpence. They had nothing for it but to yield.“Up you go, then,” said the woman, pointing to a rickety ladder which served the house for a staircase. “There’s one there already. Never mind him; you take the next.”Reginald turned almost sick as he entered the big, stifling, filthy loft which was to serve him for a night’s lodging. About a dozen beds were ranged along the walls on either side, one of which, that in the far corner of the room, was, as the woman had said, occupied. The atmosphere of the place was awful already. What would it be when a dozen or possibly two dozen persons slept there?Reginald’s first impulse was to retreat and rather spend another night in the streets than in such a place. But his weary limbs and aching bones forbade it. He must stay where he was now.Already Love was curled up and asleep on the bed next to that where the other lodger lay; and Reginald, stifling every feeling but his weariness, flung himself by his side and soon forgot both place and surroundings in a heavy sleep.Heavy but fitful. He had scarcely lain an hour when he found himself suddenly wide awake. Love still lay breathing heavily beside him. The other lodger turned restlessly from side to side, muttering to himself, and sometimes moaning like a person in pain. It must have been these latter sounds which awoke Reginald. He lay for some minutes listening and watching in the dim candle-light the restless tossing of the bed-clothes.Presently the sick man—for it was evident sickness was the cause of his uneasiness—lifted himself on his elbow with a groan, and said,—“For God’s sake—help me!”In a moment Reginald had sprung to his feet, and was beside the sufferer.“Are you ill,” he said. “What is the matter?”But the man, instead of replying, groaned and fell heavily back on the bed. And as the dim light of the candle fell upon his upturned face, Reginald, with a cry of horror, recognised the features of Mr Durfy, already released by death from the agonies of smallpox.
If the worshipful magistrate flattered himself that the reprimand he had addressed to Reginald that afternoon would move his hearer to self-abasement or penitence, he had sadly miscalculated the power of his own language.
Every word of that “caution” had entered like iron into the boy’s soul, and had roused in him every evil passion of which his nature was capable. A single word of sympathy or kindly advice might have won him heart and soul. But those stinging, brutal sentences goaded him almost to madness, and left him desperate.
What was the use of honesty, of principle, of conscientiousness, if they were all with one accord to rise against him and degrade him?
What was the use of trying to be better than others when the result was an infamy which, had he been a little more greedy or a little less upright, he might have avoided?
What was the use of conscious innocence and unstained honour, when they could not save him from a sense of shame of which no convicted felon could know the bitterness?
It would go out to all the world that Reginald Cruden, the suspected swindler, had been “let off” for lack of evidence after three days’ imprisonment. The victims of the Corporation would read it, and regret the failure of justice to overtake the man who had robbed them. His father’s old county friends would read it, and shake their heads over poor Cruden’s prodigal. The Wilderham fellows would read it, and set him down as one more who had gone to the bad. Young Gedge would read it, and scorn him for a hypocrite and a humbug. Durfy would read it, and chuckle. His mother and Horace would read it. Yes, and what would they think? Nothing he could say would convince them or anybody. They might forgive him, but—
The thought made his blood boil within him. He would take forgiveness from no man or woman. If they chose to believe him guilty, let them; but let them keep their forgiveness to themselves. Rather let them give the dog a bad name and hang him. He did not care! Would that they could!
Such was the rush of thought that passed through his mind as he stood that bleak winter afternoon in the street, a free man.
Free! he laughed at the word, and envied the burglar with his six months. What spirit of malignity had hindered Mr Sniff from letting him lose himself in a felon’s cell rather than turn him out “free” into a world every creature of which was an enemy?
Are you disgusted with him, reader? With his poor spirit, his weak purpose, his blind folly? Do you say that you, in his shoes, would have done better? that you would never have lost courage? that you would have held up your head still, and braved the storm? Alas, alas, that the Reginalds are so many and the heroes of your sort so few!
Alas for the sensitive natures whom injustice can crush and make cowards of! You are not sensitive, thank God, and you do not know what crushing is. Pray that you never may; but till you have felt it deal leniently with poor Reginald, as he goes recklessly out into the winter gloom without a friend—not even himself.
It mattered little to him where he went or what became of him. It made no odds how and when he should spend his last shilling. He was hungry now. Since early that morning nothing had passed his lips. Why not spend it now and have done with it?
So he turned into a coffee-shop, and ordered coffee and a plate of beef.
“My last meal,” said he to himself, with a bitter smile.
His appetite failed him when the food appeared, but he ate and drank out of sheer bravado. His enemies—Durfy, and the magistrate, and the victims of the Corporation—would rejoice to see him turn with a shudder from his food. He would devour it to spite them.
“How much?” said he, when it was done.
“Ninepence, please,” said the rosy-cheeked girl who waited.
Reginald tossed her the shilling.
“Keep the change for yourself,” said he, and walked out of the shop.
He was free now with a vengeance! He might do what he liked, go where he liked, starve where he liked.
He wandered up and down the streets that winter evening recklessly indifferent to what became of him. The shops were gaily lighted and adorned with Christmas decorations. Boys and girls, men and women, thronged them, eager in their purchases and radiant in the prospect of the coming festival. There went a grave father, parading the pavement with a football under his arm for the boy at home; and here a lad, with his mother’s arm in his, stood halted before an array of fur cloaks, and bade her choose the best among them. Bright-eyed school-girls brushed past him with their brothers, smiling and talking in holiday glee; and here a trio of school-chums, arm-in-arm, bore down upon him, laughing over some last-term joke. He watched them all.
Times were when his heart would warm and soften within him at the memories sights like these inspired; but they were nothing to him now; or if they were anything, they were part of a universal conspiracy to mock him. Let them mock him; what cared he?
The night drew on. One by one the gay lights in the shops went out, and the shutters hid the crowded windows. One by one the passengers dispersed, some to besiege the railway-stations, some to invade the trams, others to walk in cheery parties by the frosty roads; all to go home.
Even the weary shopmen and shop-girls, released from the day’s labours, hurried past him homeward, and the sleepy cabman whipped up his horse for his last fare before going home, and the tramps and beggars vanished down their alleys, and sought every man his home.
Home! The word had no meaning to-night for Reginald as he watched the streets empty, and found himself a solitary wayfarer in the deserted thoroughfares.
The hum of traffic ceased. One by one the bedroom lights went out, the clocks chimed midnight clearly in the frosty air, and still he wandered on.
He passed a newspaper-office, where the thunder of machinery and the glare of the case-room reminded him of his own bitter apprenticeship at theRocket. They might find him a job here if he applied. Faugh! who would take a gaol-bird, a “let-off” swindler, into their employ?
He strolled down to the docks. The great river lay asleep. The docks were, deserted; the dockyards silent. Only here and there a darting light, or the distant throb of an engine, broke the slumber of the scene.
A man came up to him as he stood on the jetty.
“Now then, sheer off; do you hear?” he said. “What do you want here?”
“Mayn’t I watch the river?” said Reginald.
“Not here. We’ve had enough of your sort watching the river. Off you go,” and he laid his hand on the boy’s collar and marched him off the pier.
Of course! Who had not had enough of his sort? Who would not suspect him wherever he went? Cain went about with a mark on his forehead for every one to know him by. In what respect was he better off, when men seemed to know by instinct and in the dark that he was a character to mistrust and suspect?
The hours wore on. Even the printing-office when he passed it again was going to rest. The compositors one by one were flitting home, and the engine was dropping asleep. He stood and watched the men come out, and wondered if any of them were like himself—whether among them was a young Gedge or a Durfy?
Then he wandered off back into the heart of the town. A wretched outcast woman, with a child in her arms, stood at the street corner and accosted him.
“Do, kind gentleman, give me a penny. The child’s starving, and we’re so cold and hungry.”
“I’d give you one if I had one,” said Reginald; “but I’m as poor as you are.”
The woman sighed, and drew her rags round the infant.
Reginald watched her for a moment, and then, taking off his overcoat, said,—
“You’d better put this round you.”
And he dropped it at her feet, and hurried away before she could pick up the gift, or bless the giver.
He gave himself no credit for the deed, and he wanted none. What did he care about a coat? he who had been frozen to the heart already. Would a coat revive his good name, or cover the disgrace of that magisterial caution?
The clocks struck four, and the long winter night grew bleaker and darker. It was eleven hours since he had taken that last defiant meal, and Nature began slowly to assert her own with the poor outcast. He was faint and tired out, and the breeze cut him through. Still the rebel spirit within him denied that he was in distress. No food or rest or shelter for him! All he craved was leave to lose himself and forget his own name.
Is it any use bidding him, as we bade him once before, turn round and face the evil genius that is pursuing him? or is there nothing for him now but to run? He has run all night, but he is no farther ahead than when he stood at the police-court door. On the contrary, it is running him down fast, and as he staggers forward into the darkest hour of that cruel night, it treads on his heels and begins to drag him back.
Is there no home? no voice of a friend? no helping hand to save him from that worst of all enemies—his evil self?
It was nearly five o’clock when, without knowing how he got there, he found himself on the familiar ground of Shy Street. In the dim lamplight he scarcely recognised it at first, but when he did it seemed like a final stroke of irony to bring him there, at such a time, in such a mood. What else could it be meant for but to remind him there was no escape, no hope of losing himself, no chance of forgetting?
That gaunt, empty window of Number 13, with the reflected glare of the lamp opposite upon it, seemed to leer down on him like a mocking ghost, claiming him as its own. What was the use of keeping up the struggle any longer? After all, was there not one way of escape?
What was it crouching at the door of Number 13, half hidden in the shade? A dog? a woman? a child?
He stood still a moment, with beating heart, straining his eyes through the gloom. Then he crossed. As he did so the figure sprang to its feet and rushed to meet him.
“I knowed it, gov’nor; I knowed you was a-comin’,” cried a familiar boy’s voice. “It’s all right now. It’s all right, gov’nor!”
Never did sweeter music fall on mortal ears than these broken, breathless words on the spirit of Reginald. It was the voice he had been waiting for to save him in his extremity—the voice of love to remind him he was not forsaken; the voice of trust to remind him some one believed in him still; the voice of hope to remind him all was not lost yet. It called him back to himself; it thawed the chill at his heart, and sent new life into his soul. It was like a key to liberate him from the dungeon of Giant Despair.
“Why, Love, is that you, my boy?” he cried, seizing the lad’s hand.
“It is so, gov’nor,” whimpered the boy, trembling with excitement, and clinging to his protector’s hand. “I knowed you was a-comin’, but I was a’most feared I wouldn’t see you too.”
“What made you think I would come?” said Reginald, looking down with tears in his eyes on the poor wizened upturned face.
“I knowed you was a-comin’,” repeated the boy, as if he could not say it too often; “and I waited and waited, and there you are. It’s all right, gov’nor.”
“Itisall right, old fellow,” said Reginald. “You don’t know what you’ve saved me from.”
“Go on,” said the boy, recovering his composure in the great content of his discovery. “I ain’t saved you from nothink. Leastways unless you was a-goin’ to commit soosanside. If you was, you was a flat to come this way. That there railway-cutting’s where I’d go, and then at the inkwidge they don’t know if you did it a-purpose or was topped over by the train, and they gives you the benefit of the doubt, and says, ‘Found dead.’”
“We won’t talk about it,” said Reginald, smiling, the first smile that had crossed his lips for a week. “Do you know, young ’un, I’m hungry; are you?”
“Got any browns?” said Love.
“Not a farthing.”
“More ain’t I, but I’ll—” He paused, and a shade of doubt crossed his face as he went on. “Say, gov’nor, think they’d give us a brown for this ’ereRobinson?”
And he pulled out hisRobinson Crusoebravely and held it up.
“I’m afraid not. It only cost threepence.”
Another inward debate took place; then drawing out his belovedPilgrim’s Progress, he put the two books together, and said,—
“Suppose they’d give us one for them two?”
“Don’t let’s part with them if we can help,” said Reginald. “Suppose we try to earn something?”
The boy said nothing, but trudged on beside his protector till they emerged from Shy Street and stood in one of the broad empty main streets of the city.
Here Reginald, worn out with hunger and fatigue, and borne up no longer by the energy of desperation, sank half fainting into a doorstep.
“I’m—so tired,” he said; “let’s rest a bit. I’ll be all right—in a minute.”
Love looked at him anxiously for a moment, and then saying, “Stay you there, gov’nor, till I come back,” started off to run.
How long Reginald remained half-unconscious where the boy left him he could not exactly tell; but when he came to himself an early streak of dawn was lighting the sky, and Love was kneeling beside him.
“It’s all right, gov’nor,” said he, holding up a can of hot coffee and a slice of bread in his hands. “Chuck these here inside yer; do you ’ear?”
Reginald put his lips eagerly to the can. It was nearly sixteen hours since he had touched food. He drained it half empty; then stopping suddenly, he said,—
“Have you had any yourself?”
“Me? In corse! Do you suppose I ain’t ’ad a pull at it?”
“You haven’t,” said Reginald, eyeing him sharply, and detecting the well-meant fraud in his looks. “Unless you take what’s left there, I’ll throw it all into the road.”
In vain Love protested, vowed he loathed coffee, that it made him sick, that he preferred prussic acid; Reginald was inexorable, and the boy was obliged to submit. In like manner, no wile or device could save him from having to share the slice of bread; nor, when he did put it to his lips, could any grimace or protest hide the almost ravenous eagerness with which at last he devoured it.
“Now you wait till I take back the can,” said Love. “I’ll not be a minute,” and he darted off, leaving Reginald strengthened in mind and body by the frugal repast.
It was not till the boy returned that he noticed he wore no coat.
“What have you done with it?” he demanded sternly.
“Me? What are you talking about?” said the boy, looking guiltily uneasy.
“Don’t deceive me!” said Reginald. “Where’s your coat?”
“What do I want with coats? Do you—”
“Have you sold it for our breakfast?”
“Go on! Do you think—”
“Have you?” repeated Reginald, this time almost angrily.
“Maybe I ’ave,” said the boy; “ain’t I got a right to?”
“No, you haven’t; and you’ll have to wear mine now.”
And he proceeded to take it off, when the boy said,—
“All right. If you take that off, gov’nor, I slides—I mean it—so I do.”
There was a look of such wild determination in his pinched face that Reginald gave up the struggle for the present.
“We’ll share it between us, at any rate,” said he. “Whatever induced you to do such a foolish thing, Love?”
“Bless you, I ain’t got no sense,” replied the boy cheerily.
Day broke at last, and Liverpool once more became alive with bustle and traffic. No one noticed the two shivering boys as they wended their way through the streets, trying here and there, but in vain, for work, and wondering where and when they should find their next meal. But for Reginald that walk, faint and footsore as he was, was a pleasure-trip compared with the night’s wanderings.
Towards afternoon Love had the rare good fortune to see a gentleman drop a purse on the pavement. There was no chance of appropriating it, had he been so minded, which, to do him justice, he was not, for the purse fell in a most public manner in the sight of several onlookers. But Love was the first to reach it and hand it back to its owner.
Now Love’s old story-books had told him that honesty of this sort is a very paying sort of business; and though he hardly expected the wonderful consequences to follow his own act which always befall the superfluously honest boys in the “penny dreadfuls,” he was yet low-souled enough to linger sufficiently long in the neighbourhood of the owner of the purse to give him an opportunity of proving the truth of the story-book moral.
Nor was he disappointed; for the good gentleman, happening to have no less than fifty pounds in gold and notes stored up in this particular purse, was magnanimous enough to award Love a shilling for his lucky piece of honesty, a result which made that young gentleman’s countenance glow with a grin of the profoundest satisfaction.
“My eye, gov’nor,” said he, returning radiant with his treasure to Reginald, and thrusting it into his hand; “’ere, lay ’old. ’Ere’s a slice o’ luck. Somethink like that there daily bread you was a-tellin’ me of t’other day. No fear, I ain’t forgot it. Now, I say sassages. What do you say?”
Reginald said “sausages” too; and the two friends, armed with their magic shilling, marched boldly into a cosy coffee-shop where there was a blazing fire and a snug corner, and called for sausages for two. And they never enjoyed such a meal in all their lives. How they did make those sausages last! And what life and comfort they got out of that fire, and what rest out of those cane-bottomed chairs!
At the end of it all they had fourpence left, which, after serious consultation, it was decided to expend in a bed for the night.
“If we can get a good sleep,” said Reginald, “and pull ourselves together, we’re bound to get a job of some sort to-morrow. Do you know any lodging-house?”
“Me? don’t I? That there time you jacked me up I was a night in a place down by the river. It ain’t a dainty place, gov’nor, but it’s on’y twopence a piece or threepence a couple on us, and that’ll leave a brown for the morning.”
“All right. Let’s go there soon, and get a long night.”
Love led the way through several low streets beside the wharves until he came to a court in which stood a tumble-down tenement with the legend “Lodgings” scrawled on a board above the door. Here they entered, and Love in a few words bargained with the sour landlady for a night’s lodging. She protested at first at their coming so early, but finally yielded, on condition they would make the threepence into fourpence. They had nothing for it but to yield.
“Up you go, then,” said the woman, pointing to a rickety ladder which served the house for a staircase. “There’s one there already. Never mind him; you take the next.”
Reginald turned almost sick as he entered the big, stifling, filthy loft which was to serve him for a night’s lodging. About a dozen beds were ranged along the walls on either side, one of which, that in the far corner of the room, was, as the woman had said, occupied. The atmosphere of the place was awful already. What would it be when a dozen or possibly two dozen persons slept there?
Reginald’s first impulse was to retreat and rather spend another night in the streets than in such a place. But his weary limbs and aching bones forbade it. He must stay where he was now.
Already Love was curled up and asleep on the bed next to that where the other lodger lay; and Reginald, stifling every feeling but his weariness, flung himself by his side and soon forgot both place and surroundings in a heavy sleep.
Heavy but fitful. He had scarcely lain an hour when he found himself suddenly wide awake. Love still lay breathing heavily beside him. The other lodger turned restlessly from side to side, muttering to himself, and sometimes moaning like a person in pain. It must have been these latter sounds which awoke Reginald. He lay for some minutes listening and watching in the dim candle-light the restless tossing of the bed-clothes.
Presently the sick man—for it was evident sickness was the cause of his uneasiness—lifted himself on his elbow with a groan, and said,—
“For God’s sake—help me!”
In a moment Reginald had sprung to his feet, and was beside the sufferer.
“Are you ill,” he said. “What is the matter?”
But the man, instead of replying, groaned and fell heavily back on the bed. And as the dim light of the candle fell upon his upturned face, Reginald, with a cry of horror, recognised the features of Mr Durfy, already released by death from the agonies of smallpox.
Chapter Twenty Three.Lost And Found.Booms was not exactly the sort of man to be elated by the mission which Miss Shuckleford had thrust upon him. He passed a restless night in turning the matter over in his mind and wondering how he could break the news gently to his friend.For he was fond of Horace, and in his saturnine way felt deeply for him in his trouble. And on this account he wished Jemima had chosen any other confidant to discharge the unpleasant task.He hung about outside Mrs Cruden’s house for an hour early that morning, in the hope of being able to entrap Miss Crisp and get her to take the duty off his hands. But Miss Crisp had been sitting up all night with the patient and did not appear.He knocked at the door and asked the servant-girl how Mrs Cruden was. She was a little better, but very weak and not able to speak to anybody.“Any news from Liverpool?” inquired Booms. This had become a daily question among those who inquired at Number 6, Dull Street.“No, no news,” said the girl, with a guilty blush. She knew the reason why. Reginald’s last letter, written just before his arrest, was at that moment in her pocket.“Has Mr Horace started to the office?”“No; he’s a-going to wait and see the doctor, and he says I was to ask you to tell the gentleman so.”“Can I see him?”“No; he’s asleep just now,” said the girl.So Booms had to go down alone to theRocket, as far as ever from getting the burden of Jemima’s secret off his mind.He had a good mind to pass it on to Waterford, and might have done so, had not that young gentleman been engaged all the morning on special duty, which kept him in Mr Granville’s room.Booms grew more and more dispirited and nervous. Every footstep that came to the door made him tremble, for fear it should be the signal for the unhappy disclosure. He tried hard to persuade himself it would be kinder after all to say nothing about it. What good could it do now?Booms, as the reader knows, had not a very large mind. But what there was of it was honest, and it told him, try how he would, there was no getting out of a promise. So he busied himself with concocting imaginary phrases and letters, by way of experiment as to the neatest way of breaking his bad news.Still he dreaded his friend’s arrival more and more; and when at last a brisk footstep halted at the door, he started and turned pale like a guilty thing, and wished Jemima at the bottom of the sea!But the footstep was not Horace’s. Whoever the arrival was, he tapped at the door before entering, and then, without waiting for a reply, walked in.It was a youth of about seventeen or eighteen, with a bright honest face and cheery smile.“Is Horace Cruden here?” he inquired eagerly.“Oh no,” said Booms, in his most doleful accents.“Isn’t this where he works?”“It is indeed.”“Well, then, is anything wrong? Is he ill?”“No.Heis not ill,” said Booms, emphasising the pronoun.“Is Reginald ill, then, or their mother?”A ray of hope crossed Booms’s mind. This stranger was evidently a friend of the family. He called the boys by their Christian names, and knew their mother. Would he take charge of the dismal secret?“His mother is ill,” said he. “Do you know them?”“Rather. I was Horace’s chum at Wilderham, you know, and used to spend my holidays regularly at Garden Vale. Is she very ill?”“Very,” said Booms; “and the worst of it is, Reginald is not at home.”“Where is he. Horrors told me he had gone to the country.”Boomswouldtell him. For the visitor called his friend Horrors, a pet name none but his own family were ever known to use.“They don’t know where he is. But I do,” said Booms, with a tragic gesture.“Where? where? What’s wrong, I say? Tell me, there’s a good fellow.”“He’s in prison,” said Booms, throwing himself back in his chair, and panting with the effort the disclosure had cost him.“In prison! and Horace doesn’t know it! Whatdoyou mean? Tell me all you know.”Booms did tell him, and very little it was. All he knew was from Jemima’s secondhand report, and the magnitude of the news had quite prevented him from inquiring as to particulars.“When did you hear this?” said Harker; for the reader will have guessed by this time that the visitor was no other than Horace’s old Wilderham ally.“Yesterday.”“And he doesn’t know yet?”“How could I tell him? Of course I’m to get all the blame. I expected it.”“Who’s blaming you?” said Harker, whom the news had suddenly brought on terms of familiarity with his friend’s friend. “When will he be here?”“Very soon, I suppose.”“And then you’ll tell him?”“You will, please,” said Booms, quite eagerly for him.“Somebody must, poor fellow!” said Harker. “We don’t know what we may be losing by the delay.”“Of course it’s my fault for not waking him up in the middle of the night and telling him,” said Booms dismally.“Is there anything about it in the papers?” said Harker, taking up aTimes.“I’ve seen nothing.”“You say it was a day or two ago. Have you got theTimesfor the last few days?”“Yes; it’s there.”Harker hastily turned over the file, and eagerly searched the police and country intelligence. In a minute or two he looked up and said,—“Had Cruden senior changed his name?”“HowdoI know?” said Booms, with a bewildered look.“I mean, had he dropped his surname? Look here.”And he showed Booms the paragraph which appeared in the London papers the morning after Reginald’s arrest.“That looks very much as if it was meant for Cruden,” said Harker—“all except the name. If it is, that was Tuesday he was remanded, and to-day is the day he is to be brought up again. Oh, why didn’t we know this before?”“Yes. I knew I was to blame. I knew it all along,” said Booms, taking every expression of regret as a personal castigation.“It will be all over before any one can do a thing,” said Harker, getting up and pacing the room in his agitation. “Whydoesn’tHorace come?”As if in answer to the appeal, Horace at that moment opened the door.“Why, Harker, old man!” he exclaimed with delight in his face and voice as he sprang towards his friend.“Horrors, my poor dear boy,” said Harker, “don’t be glad to see me. I’ve bad news, and there’s no time to break it gently. It’s about Reginald. He’s in trouble—in prison. I’ll come with you to Liverpool this morning; there is a train in twenty minutes.”Horace said nothing. He turned deadly pale and gazed for a moment half scared, half appealing, at his friend. Booms remembered something he had to do in another room, and went to the door.“Do you mind getting a hansom?” said Harker.The words roused Horace from his stupor.“Mother,” he gasped, “she’s ill.”“We shall be home again to-night most likely,” said Harker.“I must tell Granville,” said Horace.“Your chief. Well, be quick, the cab will be here directly.”Horace went to the inner room and in a minute returned, his face still white but with a burning spot on either cheek.“All right?” inquired Harker.Horace nodded, and followed him to the door.In a quarter of an hour they were at Euston in the booking office.“I have no money,” said Horace.“I have, plenty for us both. Go and get some papers, especially Liverpool ones, at the book-stall while I get the tickets.”It was a long memorable journey. The papers were soon exhausted. They contained little or no additional news respecting the obscure suspect in Liverpool, and beyond that they had no interest for either traveller.“We shall get down at three,” said Harker; “there’s a chance of being in time.”“In time for what? what can we do?”“Try and get another remand, if only for a couple of days. I can’t believe it of Reg. There must be some mistake.”“Of course there must,” said Horace, with a touch of scorn in his voice, “but how are we to prove it?”“It’s no use trying just now. All we can do is to get a remand.”The train seemed to drag forward with cruel slowness, and the precious moments sped by with no less cruel haste. It was five minutes past three when they found themselves on the platform of Liverpool station.“It’s touch and go if we’re in time, old boy,” said Harker, as they took their seats in a hansom and ordered the man to drive hard for the police-court; “but you mustn’t give up hope even if we’re late. We’ll pull poor old Reg through somehow.”His cheery words and the brotherly grip on his arm were like life and hope to Horace.“Oh, yes,” he replied. “What would I have done if you hadn’t turned up like an angel of help, Harker, old man?”As they neared the police-court the cabman pulled up to allow a police van to turn in the road. The two friends shuddered. It was like an evil omen to daunt them.Washein that van—so near them, yet so hopelessly beyond their reach?“For goodness’ sake drive on!” shouted Harker to the cabman.It seemed ages before the lumbering obstruction had completed its revolution and drawn to one side sufficiently to allow them to pass.In another minute the cab dashed to the door of the court.It was open, and the knot of idlers on the pavement showed them that some case of interest was at that moment going on.They made their way to the policeman who stood on duty.“Court’s full—stand back, please. Can’t go in,” said that official.“What case is it?”“Stand back, please—can’t go in,” repeated the stolid functionary.“Please tell us—”“Stand back there!” once more shouted the sentinel, growing rather more peremptory.It was clearly no use mincing matters. At this very moment Reginald might be standing defenceless within, with his last chance of liberty slipping from under his feet.Harker drew a shilling from his pocket and slipped it into the hand of the law.“Tell us the name of the case, there’s a good fellow,” said he coaxingly.“Bilcher—wife murder. Stand back, please—court’s full.”Bilcher! Wife murder! It was for this the crowd had gathered, it was for the result of this that that knot of idlers were waiting so patiently outside.Bilcher was the hero of this day’s gathering. Who was likely to care a rush about such a lesser light as a secretary charged with a commonplace fraud.“Has the case of Cruden come on yet?” asked Horace anxiously.The policeman answered him with a vacant stare.“No,” said Harker, “the name would be Reginald, you know. I say,” added he to the policeman, “when does Reginald’s case come on?”“Stand back there—Reginald—he was the last but one before this—don’t crowd, please.”“We’re too late, then. What was—what did he get?”Now the policeman considered he had answered quite enough for his shilling. If he went on, people would think he was an easy fish to catch. So he affected deafness, and looking straight past his eager questioners again repeated his stentorian request to the public generally.“Oh, pray tell us what he got,” said Harker, in tones of genuine entreaty; “this is his brother, and we’ve only just heard of it.”The policeman for a moment turned a curious eye on Horace, as if to convince himself of the truth of the story. Then, apparently satisfied, and weary of the whole business, he said,—“Let off.Will youkeep back, please? Stand back. Court’s full.”Let off. Horace’s heart gave a bound of triumph as he heard the words. Of course he was! Who could even suspect him of such a thing as fraud? Unjustly accused he might be, but Reg’s character was proof against that any day.Harker shared his friend’s feelings of relief and thankfulness at the good news, but his face was still not without anxiety.“We had better try to find him,” said he.“Oh, of course. He’ll probably be back at Shy Street.”But no one was at Shy Street. The dingy office was deserted and locked, and a little street urchin on the doorstep glowered at them as they peered up the staircase and read the name on the plate.“Had we better ask in the shop? they may know,” said Horace.But the chemist looked black when Reginald’s name was mentioned, and hoped he should never see him again. He’d got into trouble and loss enough with him as it was—a hypocritical young—“Look here,” said Horace, “you’re speaking of my brother, and you’d better be careful. He’s no more a hypocrite than you. He’s an honest man, and he’s been acquitted of the charge brought against him.”“I didn’t know you were his brother,” said the chemist, rather sheepishly, “but for all that I don’t want to see him again, and I don’t expect I shall either. He won’t come near here in a hurry, unless I’m mistaken.”“The fellow’s right, I’m afraid,” said Harker, as they left the shop. “He’s had enough of this place, from what you tell me. It strikes me the best thing is to go and inquire at the police-station. They may know something there.”To the police-station accordingly they went, and chanced to light on one no less important than Mr Sniff himself.“We are interested in Reginald Cruden, who was before the magistrate to-day,” said Harker. “In fact, this is his brother, and I am an old schoolfellow. We hear the charge against him was dismissed, and we should be much obliged if you could tell us where to find him.”Mr Sniff regarded the two boys with interest, and not without a slight trace of uneasiness. He had never really suspected Reginald, but it had appeared necessary to arrest him on suspicion, not only to satisfy the victims of the Corporation, but on the off chance of his knowing rather more than he seemed to know about the doings of that virtuous association. It had been a relief to Mr Sniff to find his first impressions as to the lad’s innocence confirmed, and to be able to withdraw the charge against him. But the manner in which the magistrate had dismissed the case had roused even his phlegmatic mind to indignation, and had set his conscience troubling him a little as to his own conduct of the affair. This was why he now felt and looked not quite happy in the presence of Reginald’s brother and friend.“Afraid I can’t tell you,” said he. “He left the court as soon as the case was over, and of course we’ve no more to do with him.”“He is not back at his old office,” said Horace, “and I don’t know of any other place in Liverpool he would be likely to go to.”“It struck me, from the looks of him,” said Mr Sniff, quite despising himself for being so unprofessionally communicative—“it struck me he didn’t very much care where he went. Very down in the mouth he was.”“Why, but he was acquitted; his character was cleared. Whatever should he be down in the mouth about?” said Horace.Mr Sniff smiled pityingly.“He was let off with a caution,” he said; “that’s rather a different thing from having your character cleared, especially when our friend Fogey’s on the bench. I was sorry for the lad, so I was.”This was a great deal to come from the lips of a cast-iron individual like Mr Sniff, and it explained the state of the case forcibly enough to his two hearers. Horace knew his brother’s nature well enough to imagine the effect upon him of such a reprimand, and his spirits sank within him.“Who can tell us now where we are to look for him?” said he to Harker. “Anything like injustice drives him desperate. He may have gone off, as the detective says, not caring where. And then Liverpool is a fearfully big place.”“We won’t give it up till we have found him,” said Harker; “and if you can’t stay, old man, I will.”“I can’t go,” said Horace, with a groan. “Poor Reg!”“Well, let us call round at the post-office and see if Waterford has remembered to telegraph about your mother.”They went to the post-office and found a telegram from Miss Crisp: “Good day. Better, decidedly. Knows you are in Liverpool, but nothing more. Any news? Do not telegraph unless all right.”“It’s pretty evident,” said Horace, handing the message to his friend, “we can’t telegraph to-day. I’ll write to Waterford and get him to tell the others. But what is the next thing to be done?”“We can only be patient,” said Harker. “We are bound to come across him or hear of him in time.”“He’s not likely to have gone home?” suggested Horace.“How could he with no money?”“Or to try to get on an American ship? We might try that.”“Oh yes, we shall have to try all that sort of thing.”“Well, let’s begin at once,” said Horace impatiently, “every minute may be of consequence.”But for a week they sought in vain—among the busy streets by day and in the empty courts by night, among the shipping, in the railway-stations, in the workhouses, at the printing-offices.Mr Sniff did them more than one friendly turn, and armed them with the talisman of his name to get them admittance where no other key would pass them. They inquired at public-houses, coffee-houses, lodging-houses, but all in vain. No one had seen a youth answering their description, or if they had it was only for a moment, and he had passed from their sight and memory.False scents there were in plenty—some which seemed to lead up hopefully to the very last, and then end in nothing, others too vague even to attempt to follow.Once they heard that the body of a youth had been found floating in the Mersey—and with terrible forebodings they rushed to the place and demanded to see it. But he was not there. The dead upturned face they looked on was not his, and they turned away, feeling more than ever discouraged in their quest.At length at the end of a week a man who kept an early coffee-stall in one of the main streets told them that a week ago a ragged little urchin had come to him with a pitiful tale about a gentleman who was starving, and had begged for a can of coffee and a slice of bread to take to him, offering in proof of his good faith his own coat as payment. It was a bitterly cold morning, and the man trusted him. He had never seen the gentleman, but the boy brought back the empty can in a few minutes. The coffee man had kept the jacket, as it was about the size of a little chap of his own. But he had noticed the boy before parting with it take two ragged little books out of its pockets and transfer them to the bosom of his shirt. That was all he remembered, and the gentleman might take it for what it was worth.It was worth something, for it pointed to the possibility of Reginald not being alone in his wanderings. And putting one thing and another together they somehow connected this little urchin with the boy they saw crouching on the doorstep of Number 13, Shy Street the day of their arrival, and with the office-boy whom Mr Sniff described as having been Reginald’s companion during his last days at the office.They would neither of them believe Reginald was not still in Liverpool, and cheered by the very feeble light of this discovery they resumed their search with unabated vigour and even greater thoroughness.Happily the news from home continued favourable, and, equally important, the officials at theRocketmade no demur to Horace’s prolonged stay. As for Harker, his hopefulness and pocket-money vied with one another in sustaining the seekers and keeping alive within them the certainty of a reward, sooner or later, for their patience.Ten days had passed, and no fresh clue. Once or twice they had heard of the pale young gentleman and the little boy, but always vaguely, as a fleeting vision which had been seen about a fortnight ago.On this day they called in while passing to see Mr Sniff, and were met by that gentleman with a smile which told them he had some news of consequence to impart.“I heard to-day,” said he, “that a patient—a young man—was removed very ill from a low lodging-house near the river—to the smallpox hospital yesterday. His name is supposed to be Cruden (a common name in this country), but he was too ill to give any account of himself. It may be worth your while following it up.”In less than half an hour they were at the hospital, and Horace was kneeling at the bedside of his long-lost brother.
Booms was not exactly the sort of man to be elated by the mission which Miss Shuckleford had thrust upon him. He passed a restless night in turning the matter over in his mind and wondering how he could break the news gently to his friend.
For he was fond of Horace, and in his saturnine way felt deeply for him in his trouble. And on this account he wished Jemima had chosen any other confidant to discharge the unpleasant task.
He hung about outside Mrs Cruden’s house for an hour early that morning, in the hope of being able to entrap Miss Crisp and get her to take the duty off his hands. But Miss Crisp had been sitting up all night with the patient and did not appear.
He knocked at the door and asked the servant-girl how Mrs Cruden was. She was a little better, but very weak and not able to speak to anybody.
“Any news from Liverpool?” inquired Booms. This had become a daily question among those who inquired at Number 6, Dull Street.
“No, no news,” said the girl, with a guilty blush. She knew the reason why. Reginald’s last letter, written just before his arrest, was at that moment in her pocket.
“Has Mr Horace started to the office?”
“No; he’s a-going to wait and see the doctor, and he says I was to ask you to tell the gentleman so.”
“Can I see him?”
“No; he’s asleep just now,” said the girl.
So Booms had to go down alone to theRocket, as far as ever from getting the burden of Jemima’s secret off his mind.
He had a good mind to pass it on to Waterford, and might have done so, had not that young gentleman been engaged all the morning on special duty, which kept him in Mr Granville’s room.
Booms grew more and more dispirited and nervous. Every footstep that came to the door made him tremble, for fear it should be the signal for the unhappy disclosure. He tried hard to persuade himself it would be kinder after all to say nothing about it. What good could it do now?
Booms, as the reader knows, had not a very large mind. But what there was of it was honest, and it told him, try how he would, there was no getting out of a promise. So he busied himself with concocting imaginary phrases and letters, by way of experiment as to the neatest way of breaking his bad news.
Still he dreaded his friend’s arrival more and more; and when at last a brisk footstep halted at the door, he started and turned pale like a guilty thing, and wished Jemima at the bottom of the sea!
But the footstep was not Horace’s. Whoever the arrival was, he tapped at the door before entering, and then, without waiting for a reply, walked in.
It was a youth of about seventeen or eighteen, with a bright honest face and cheery smile.
“Is Horace Cruden here?” he inquired eagerly.
“Oh no,” said Booms, in his most doleful accents.
“Isn’t this where he works?”
“It is indeed.”
“Well, then, is anything wrong? Is he ill?”
“No.Heis not ill,” said Booms, emphasising the pronoun.
“Is Reginald ill, then, or their mother?”
A ray of hope crossed Booms’s mind. This stranger was evidently a friend of the family. He called the boys by their Christian names, and knew their mother. Would he take charge of the dismal secret?
“His mother is ill,” said he. “Do you know them?”
“Rather. I was Horace’s chum at Wilderham, you know, and used to spend my holidays regularly at Garden Vale. Is she very ill?”
“Very,” said Booms; “and the worst of it is, Reginald is not at home.”
“Where is he. Horrors told me he had gone to the country.”
Boomswouldtell him. For the visitor called his friend Horrors, a pet name none but his own family were ever known to use.
“They don’t know where he is. But I do,” said Booms, with a tragic gesture.
“Where? where? What’s wrong, I say? Tell me, there’s a good fellow.”
“He’s in prison,” said Booms, throwing himself back in his chair, and panting with the effort the disclosure had cost him.
“In prison! and Horace doesn’t know it! Whatdoyou mean? Tell me all you know.”
Booms did tell him, and very little it was. All he knew was from Jemima’s secondhand report, and the magnitude of the news had quite prevented him from inquiring as to particulars.
“When did you hear this?” said Harker; for the reader will have guessed by this time that the visitor was no other than Horace’s old Wilderham ally.
“Yesterday.”
“And he doesn’t know yet?”
“How could I tell him? Of course I’m to get all the blame. I expected it.”
“Who’s blaming you?” said Harker, whom the news had suddenly brought on terms of familiarity with his friend’s friend. “When will he be here?”
“Very soon, I suppose.”
“And then you’ll tell him?”
“You will, please,” said Booms, quite eagerly for him.
“Somebody must, poor fellow!” said Harker. “We don’t know what we may be losing by the delay.”
“Of course it’s my fault for not waking him up in the middle of the night and telling him,” said Booms dismally.
“Is there anything about it in the papers?” said Harker, taking up aTimes.
“I’ve seen nothing.”
“You say it was a day or two ago. Have you got theTimesfor the last few days?”
“Yes; it’s there.”
Harker hastily turned over the file, and eagerly searched the police and country intelligence. In a minute or two he looked up and said,—
“Had Cruden senior changed his name?”
“HowdoI know?” said Booms, with a bewildered look.
“I mean, had he dropped his surname? Look here.”
And he showed Booms the paragraph which appeared in the London papers the morning after Reginald’s arrest.
“That looks very much as if it was meant for Cruden,” said Harker—“all except the name. If it is, that was Tuesday he was remanded, and to-day is the day he is to be brought up again. Oh, why didn’t we know this before?”
“Yes. I knew I was to blame. I knew it all along,” said Booms, taking every expression of regret as a personal castigation.
“It will be all over before any one can do a thing,” said Harker, getting up and pacing the room in his agitation. “Whydoesn’tHorace come?”
As if in answer to the appeal, Horace at that moment opened the door.
“Why, Harker, old man!” he exclaimed with delight in his face and voice as he sprang towards his friend.
“Horrors, my poor dear boy,” said Harker, “don’t be glad to see me. I’ve bad news, and there’s no time to break it gently. It’s about Reginald. He’s in trouble—in prison. I’ll come with you to Liverpool this morning; there is a train in twenty minutes.”
Horace said nothing. He turned deadly pale and gazed for a moment half scared, half appealing, at his friend. Booms remembered something he had to do in another room, and went to the door.
“Do you mind getting a hansom?” said Harker.
The words roused Horace from his stupor.
“Mother,” he gasped, “she’s ill.”
“We shall be home again to-night most likely,” said Harker.
“I must tell Granville,” said Horace.
“Your chief. Well, be quick, the cab will be here directly.”
Horace went to the inner room and in a minute returned, his face still white but with a burning spot on either cheek.
“All right?” inquired Harker.
Horace nodded, and followed him to the door.
In a quarter of an hour they were at Euston in the booking office.
“I have no money,” said Horace.
“I have, plenty for us both. Go and get some papers, especially Liverpool ones, at the book-stall while I get the tickets.”
It was a long memorable journey. The papers were soon exhausted. They contained little or no additional news respecting the obscure suspect in Liverpool, and beyond that they had no interest for either traveller.
“We shall get down at three,” said Harker; “there’s a chance of being in time.”
“In time for what? what can we do?”
“Try and get another remand, if only for a couple of days. I can’t believe it of Reg. There must be some mistake.”
“Of course there must,” said Horace, with a touch of scorn in his voice, “but how are we to prove it?”
“It’s no use trying just now. All we can do is to get a remand.”
The train seemed to drag forward with cruel slowness, and the precious moments sped by with no less cruel haste. It was five minutes past three when they found themselves on the platform of Liverpool station.
“It’s touch and go if we’re in time, old boy,” said Harker, as they took their seats in a hansom and ordered the man to drive hard for the police-court; “but you mustn’t give up hope even if we’re late. We’ll pull poor old Reg through somehow.”
His cheery words and the brotherly grip on his arm were like life and hope to Horace.
“Oh, yes,” he replied. “What would I have done if you hadn’t turned up like an angel of help, Harker, old man?”
As they neared the police-court the cabman pulled up to allow a police van to turn in the road. The two friends shuddered. It was like an evil omen to daunt them.
Washein that van—so near them, yet so hopelessly beyond their reach?
“For goodness’ sake drive on!” shouted Harker to the cabman.
It seemed ages before the lumbering obstruction had completed its revolution and drawn to one side sufficiently to allow them to pass.
In another minute the cab dashed to the door of the court.
It was open, and the knot of idlers on the pavement showed them that some case of interest was at that moment going on.
They made their way to the policeman who stood on duty.
“Court’s full—stand back, please. Can’t go in,” said that official.
“What case is it?”
“Stand back, please—can’t go in,” repeated the stolid functionary.
“Please tell us—”
“Stand back there!” once more shouted the sentinel, growing rather more peremptory.
It was clearly no use mincing matters. At this very moment Reginald might be standing defenceless within, with his last chance of liberty slipping from under his feet.
Harker drew a shilling from his pocket and slipped it into the hand of the law.
“Tell us the name of the case, there’s a good fellow,” said he coaxingly.
“Bilcher—wife murder. Stand back, please—court’s full.”
Bilcher! Wife murder! It was for this the crowd had gathered, it was for the result of this that that knot of idlers were waiting so patiently outside.
Bilcher was the hero of this day’s gathering. Who was likely to care a rush about such a lesser light as a secretary charged with a commonplace fraud.
“Has the case of Cruden come on yet?” asked Horace anxiously.
The policeman answered him with a vacant stare.
“No,” said Harker, “the name would be Reginald, you know. I say,” added he to the policeman, “when does Reginald’s case come on?”
“Stand back there—Reginald—he was the last but one before this—don’t crowd, please.”
“We’re too late, then. What was—what did he get?”
Now the policeman considered he had answered quite enough for his shilling. If he went on, people would think he was an easy fish to catch. So he affected deafness, and looking straight past his eager questioners again repeated his stentorian request to the public generally.
“Oh, pray tell us what he got,” said Harker, in tones of genuine entreaty; “this is his brother, and we’ve only just heard of it.”
The policeman for a moment turned a curious eye on Horace, as if to convince himself of the truth of the story. Then, apparently satisfied, and weary of the whole business, he said,—
“Let off.Will youkeep back, please? Stand back. Court’s full.”
Let off. Horace’s heart gave a bound of triumph as he heard the words. Of course he was! Who could even suspect him of such a thing as fraud? Unjustly accused he might be, but Reg’s character was proof against that any day.
Harker shared his friend’s feelings of relief and thankfulness at the good news, but his face was still not without anxiety.
“We had better try to find him,” said he.
“Oh, of course. He’ll probably be back at Shy Street.”
But no one was at Shy Street. The dingy office was deserted and locked, and a little street urchin on the doorstep glowered at them as they peered up the staircase and read the name on the plate.
“Had we better ask in the shop? they may know,” said Horace.
But the chemist looked black when Reginald’s name was mentioned, and hoped he should never see him again. He’d got into trouble and loss enough with him as it was—a hypocritical young—
“Look here,” said Horace, “you’re speaking of my brother, and you’d better be careful. He’s no more a hypocrite than you. He’s an honest man, and he’s been acquitted of the charge brought against him.”
“I didn’t know you were his brother,” said the chemist, rather sheepishly, “but for all that I don’t want to see him again, and I don’t expect I shall either. He won’t come near here in a hurry, unless I’m mistaken.”
“The fellow’s right, I’m afraid,” said Harker, as they left the shop. “He’s had enough of this place, from what you tell me. It strikes me the best thing is to go and inquire at the police-station. They may know something there.”
To the police-station accordingly they went, and chanced to light on one no less important than Mr Sniff himself.
“We are interested in Reginald Cruden, who was before the magistrate to-day,” said Harker. “In fact, this is his brother, and I am an old schoolfellow. We hear the charge against him was dismissed, and we should be much obliged if you could tell us where to find him.”
Mr Sniff regarded the two boys with interest, and not without a slight trace of uneasiness. He had never really suspected Reginald, but it had appeared necessary to arrest him on suspicion, not only to satisfy the victims of the Corporation, but on the off chance of his knowing rather more than he seemed to know about the doings of that virtuous association. It had been a relief to Mr Sniff to find his first impressions as to the lad’s innocence confirmed, and to be able to withdraw the charge against him. But the manner in which the magistrate had dismissed the case had roused even his phlegmatic mind to indignation, and had set his conscience troubling him a little as to his own conduct of the affair. This was why he now felt and looked not quite happy in the presence of Reginald’s brother and friend.
“Afraid I can’t tell you,” said he. “He left the court as soon as the case was over, and of course we’ve no more to do with him.”
“He is not back at his old office,” said Horace, “and I don’t know of any other place in Liverpool he would be likely to go to.”
“It struck me, from the looks of him,” said Mr Sniff, quite despising himself for being so unprofessionally communicative—“it struck me he didn’t very much care where he went. Very down in the mouth he was.”
“Why, but he was acquitted; his character was cleared. Whatever should he be down in the mouth about?” said Horace.
Mr Sniff smiled pityingly.
“He was let off with a caution,” he said; “that’s rather a different thing from having your character cleared, especially when our friend Fogey’s on the bench. I was sorry for the lad, so I was.”
This was a great deal to come from the lips of a cast-iron individual like Mr Sniff, and it explained the state of the case forcibly enough to his two hearers. Horace knew his brother’s nature well enough to imagine the effect upon him of such a reprimand, and his spirits sank within him.
“Who can tell us now where we are to look for him?” said he to Harker. “Anything like injustice drives him desperate. He may have gone off, as the detective says, not caring where. And then Liverpool is a fearfully big place.”
“We won’t give it up till we have found him,” said Harker; “and if you can’t stay, old man, I will.”
“I can’t go,” said Horace, with a groan. “Poor Reg!”
“Well, let us call round at the post-office and see if Waterford has remembered to telegraph about your mother.”
They went to the post-office and found a telegram from Miss Crisp: “Good day. Better, decidedly. Knows you are in Liverpool, but nothing more. Any news? Do not telegraph unless all right.”
“It’s pretty evident,” said Horace, handing the message to his friend, “we can’t telegraph to-day. I’ll write to Waterford and get him to tell the others. But what is the next thing to be done?”
“We can only be patient,” said Harker. “We are bound to come across him or hear of him in time.”
“He’s not likely to have gone home?” suggested Horace.
“How could he with no money?”
“Or to try to get on an American ship? We might try that.”
“Oh yes, we shall have to try all that sort of thing.”
“Well, let’s begin at once,” said Horace impatiently, “every minute may be of consequence.”
But for a week they sought in vain—among the busy streets by day and in the empty courts by night, among the shipping, in the railway-stations, in the workhouses, at the printing-offices.
Mr Sniff did them more than one friendly turn, and armed them with the talisman of his name to get them admittance where no other key would pass them. They inquired at public-houses, coffee-houses, lodging-houses, but all in vain. No one had seen a youth answering their description, or if they had it was only for a moment, and he had passed from their sight and memory.
False scents there were in plenty—some which seemed to lead up hopefully to the very last, and then end in nothing, others too vague even to attempt to follow.
Once they heard that the body of a youth had been found floating in the Mersey—and with terrible forebodings they rushed to the place and demanded to see it. But he was not there. The dead upturned face they looked on was not his, and they turned away, feeling more than ever discouraged in their quest.
At length at the end of a week a man who kept an early coffee-stall in one of the main streets told them that a week ago a ragged little urchin had come to him with a pitiful tale about a gentleman who was starving, and had begged for a can of coffee and a slice of bread to take to him, offering in proof of his good faith his own coat as payment. It was a bitterly cold morning, and the man trusted him. He had never seen the gentleman, but the boy brought back the empty can in a few minutes. The coffee man had kept the jacket, as it was about the size of a little chap of his own. But he had noticed the boy before parting with it take two ragged little books out of its pockets and transfer them to the bosom of his shirt. That was all he remembered, and the gentleman might take it for what it was worth.
It was worth something, for it pointed to the possibility of Reginald not being alone in his wanderings. And putting one thing and another together they somehow connected this little urchin with the boy they saw crouching on the doorstep of Number 13, Shy Street the day of their arrival, and with the office-boy whom Mr Sniff described as having been Reginald’s companion during his last days at the office.
They would neither of them believe Reginald was not still in Liverpool, and cheered by the very feeble light of this discovery they resumed their search with unabated vigour and even greater thoroughness.
Happily the news from home continued favourable, and, equally important, the officials at theRocketmade no demur to Horace’s prolonged stay. As for Harker, his hopefulness and pocket-money vied with one another in sustaining the seekers and keeping alive within them the certainty of a reward, sooner or later, for their patience.
Ten days had passed, and no fresh clue. Once or twice they had heard of the pale young gentleman and the little boy, but always vaguely, as a fleeting vision which had been seen about a fortnight ago.
On this day they called in while passing to see Mr Sniff, and were met by that gentleman with a smile which told them he had some news of consequence to impart.
“I heard to-day,” said he, “that a patient—a young man—was removed very ill from a low lodging-house near the river—to the smallpox hospital yesterday. His name is supposed to be Cruden (a common name in this country), but he was too ill to give any account of himself. It may be worth your while following it up.”
In less than half an hour they were at the hospital, and Horace was kneeling at the bedside of his long-lost brother.
Chapter Twenty Four.Love fights his Way into the beautiful Palace.Reginald recollected little of what happened on that terrible night when he found himself suddenly face to face with his dead enemy.He had a vague impression of calling the landlady and of seeing the body carried from the pestiferous room. But whether he helped to carry it himself or not he could not remember.When he next was conscious of anything the sun was struggling through the rafters over his head, as he lay in the bed beside Love, who slept still, heavily but uneasily.The other lodgers had all risen and left the place; and when with a shudder he glanced towards the corner where the sick man last night had died, that bed was empty too.He rose silently, without disturbing his companion, and made his way unsteadily down the ladder in search of the woman.She met him with a scowl. She had found two five-pound notes in the dead man’s pocket, and consequently wanted to hear no more about him.“Took to the mortuary, of course,” said she, in answer to Reginald’s question. “Where else do you expect?”“Can you tell me his name, or anything about him? I knew him once.”She looked blacker than ever at this. It seemed to her guilty conscience like a covert claim to the dead man’s belongings, and she bridled up accordingly.“I know nothing about him—no more than I know about you.”“Don’t you know his name?” said Reginald.“No. Do I knowyourname? No! And I don’t want to!”“Don’t be angry,” he said. “No one means any harm to you. How long has he been here?”“I don’t know. A week. And he was bad when he came. He never caught it here.”“Did any doctor see him?”“Doctor! no,” snarled the woman. “Isn’t it bad enough to have a man bring smallpox into a place without calling in doctors, to give the place a bad name and take a body’s living from them? I suppose you’ll go and give me a character now. I wish I’d never took you in. I hated the sight of you from the first.”She spoke so bitterly, and at the same time so anxiously, that Reginald felt half sorry for her.“I’ll do you no harm,” said he, gently. “Goodness knows I’ve done harm enough in my time.”The last words, though muttered to himself, did not escape the quick ear of the woman, and they pleased her. She was used to strange characters in her place, seeking a night’s shelter before escaping to America, or while hiding from justice. It was neither her habit nor her business to answer questions. All she asked was to be let alone and paid for her lodgings. She knew Reginald had her in a sense at his mercy, for he knew the disease the man had died of, and a word from him out of doors would bring her own pestiferous house about her ears and ruin her.But when he muttered those words to himself she concluded he was a criminal of some sort in hiding, and criminals in hiding, as she knew, were not the people to go and report the sanitary arrangements of their lodgings to the police.So she mollified towards him somewhat, and told him she would look after her affairs if he looked after his, and as he had not had a good night last night, well, if no one else wanted the bed to-night he could have it at half-price; and after that she hoped she would have done with him.Reginald returned to the foul garret, and found Love still asleep, but tossing restlessly, and muttering to himself the while.He sat down beside him and waited till he opened his eyes.At first the boy looked round in a bewildered way as though he were hardly yet awake, but presently his eyes fell on Reginald and his face lit up.“Gov’nor,” he said, with a smile, sitting up.“Well, old boy,” said Reginald, “what a long sleep you’ve had. Are you rested?”“I ’ave ’ad sich dreams, gov’nor, and—my, ain’t it cold!” And he shivered.The room was stifling. Scarcely a breath of fresh air penetrated through its battered roof, still less through the tiny unopened window at the other end.“We’ll get some breakfast to make you warm,” said Reginald. “This horrible place is enough to make any one feel sick.”The boy got slowly out of bed.“We ’ave got to earn some browns,” he said, “afore we can get any breakfast.”He shivered still, and sat down on the edge of the bed for a moment. Then he gathered himself together with an effort and walked to the ladder. Reginald’s heart sank within him. The boy was not well. His face was flushed, his walk was uncertain, and his teeth chattered incessantly. It might be only the foul atmosphere of the room, or it might be something worse. And as he thought of it he too shivered, but not on account of the cold.They descended the ladder, and for a little while the boy seemed revived by the fresh morning air. Reginald insisted on his taking their one coat, and the boy seemed to lack the energy to contest the matter. For an hour they wandered about the wharves, till at last Love stopped short and said,—“Gov’nor, I don’t want no breakfast. I’ll just go back and—”The sentence ended in a whimper, and but for Reginald’s arm round him he would have fallen.Reginald knew now that his worst fears were realised. Love was ill, and it was only too easy to surmise what his illness was, especially when he called to mind the boy’s statement that he had been taking shelter in the infected lodging-house ten days ago, during his temporary exile from Shy Street.He helped him back tenderly to the place—for other shelter they had none—and laid him in his bed. The boy protested that he was only tired, that his back and legs ached, and would soon be well. Reginald, inexperienced as he was, knew better, or rather worse.He had a battle royal, as he expected, with the landlady on the subject of his little patient. At first she would listen to nothing, and threatened to turn both out by force. But Reginald, with an eloquence which only extremities can inspire, reasoned with her, coaxed her, flattered her, bribed her with promises, and finally got far enough on the right side of her to obtain leave for the boy to occupy Durfy’s bed until some other lodger should want it. But she must have a shilling down, or off they must go.It was a desperate alternative,—to quit his little charge in his distress, or to see him turned out to die in the street. Reginald, however, had little difficulty in making his choice.“Are you comfortable?” said he to the boy, leaning over him and soothing the coarse pillow.“Yes, gov’nor—all right—that there ache will be gone soon, and see if I don’t pick up some browns afore evening.”“Do you think you can get on if I leave you a bit? I think I know where I can earn a little, and I’ll be back before night, never fear.”“Maybe you’ll find me up and about when you comes,” said the boy; “mayhap the old gal would give me a job sweeping or somethink.”“You must not think of it,” said Reginald, almost sternly. “Mind, I trust you to be quiet till I come. How I wish I had some food!”With heavy heart he departed, appealing to the woman, for pity’s sake, not to let harm come to the boy in his absence.Where should he go? what should he do? Half a crown would make him feel the richest man in Liverpool, and yet how hard, how cruelly hard, it is to find a half-crown when you most want it!He forgot all his pride, all his sensitiveness, all his own weariness—everything but the sick boy, and left no stone unturned to procure even a copper. He even begged, when nothing else succeeded.Nobody seemed to want anything done. There were scores of hungry applicants at the riverside and dozens outside the printing-office. There were no horses that wanted holding, no boxes or bags that wanted carrying, no messages or errands that wanted running. No shop or factory window that he saw had a notice of “Boys Wanted” posted in it; no junior clerk was advertised for in any paper he caught sight of; not even a scavenger boy was wanted to clean the road.At last he was giving it up in despair, and coming to the conclusion he might just as well hasten back to his little charge and share his fate with him, when he caught sight of a stout elderly lady standing in a state of flurry and trepidation on the kerb of one of the most crowded crossings in the city.With the instinct of desperation he rushed towards her, and, lifting his hat, said,—“Can I help you across, ma’am?”The lady started to hear words so polite and in so well-bred a tone, coming from a boy of Reginald’s poor appearance, for he was still without his coat.But she jumped at his offer, and allowed him to pilot her and her parcels over the dangerous crossing.“It may be worth twopence to me,” said Reginald to himself as he landed her safe on the other side.How circumstances change us! At another time Reginald would have flushed crimson at the bare idea of being paid for an act of politeness. Now his heart beat high with hope as he saw the lady’s hand feel for her pocket.“You’re a very civil young man,” said she, “and—dear me, how ill you look.”“I’m not ill,” said Reginald, with a boldness he himself marvelled at, “but a little boy I love is—very ill—and I have no money to get him either food or lodging. I know you’ll think I’m an impostor, ma’am, but could you, for pity’s sake, give me a shilling? I couldn’t pay you back, but I’d bless you always.”“Dear, dear!” said the lady, “it’s very sad—just at Christmas-time, too. Poor little fellow! Here’s something for him. I think you look honest, young man; I hope you are, and trust in God.”And to Reginald’s unbounded delight she slipped two half-crowns into his hand and walked away.He could only say, “God bless you for it.” It seemed like an angel’s gift in his hour of direst need, and with a heart full of comfort he hastened back to the lodgings, calling on his way at a cookshop and spending sixpence of his treasure on some bread and meat for his patient.He was horror-struck to notice the change even a few hours had wrought on the sufferer. There was no mistaking his ailment now. Though not delirious, he was in a high state of fever, and apparently of pain, for he tossed incessantly and moaned to himself.The sight of Reginald revived him.“I knowed you was comin’,” said he; “but I don’t want nothing to eat, gov’nor. On’y some water; I do want some water.”Reginald flew to get it, and the boy swallowed it with avidity. Then, somewhat revived, he lay back and said, “I ’ave got ’em, then?”“Yes, I’m afraid it’s smallpox,” said Reginald; “but you’ll soon be better.”“Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. Say, gov’nor, you don’t ought to stop here; you’ll be cotchin’ ’em too!”“No fear of that,” said Reginald, “I’ve been vaccinated. Besides, who’d look after you?”“My! you’re a good ’un to me!” said the boy. “Think of that there Medlock—”“Don’t let’s think of anything so unpleasant,” said Reginald, seeing that even this short talk had excited his patient unduly. “Let me see if I can make the bed more comfortable, and then, if you like, I can read to you. How would you like that?”The boy beamed his gratitude, and Reginald, after doing his best to smooth the wretched bed and make him comfortable, produced thePilgrim’s Progressand settled down to read.“That thereRobinsonain’t a bad ’un,” said Love, before the reading began; “I read ’im while I was a-waitin’ for you. But ’e ain’t so good as the Christian. Read about that there pallis ag’in, gov’nor.”And Reginald read it—more than once.The evening closed in, the room grew dark, and he shut the book. The boy was already asleep, tossing and moaning to himself, sometimes seeming to wake for a moment, but dropping off again before he could tell what he wanted or what was wrong with him.Once or twice Reginald moistened his parched mouth with water, but as the evening wore on the boy became so much worse that he felt, at all hazards, he must seek help.“Imustbring a doctor to see him,” said he to the landlady; “he’s so ill.”“You’ll bring no doctor—unless you want to see the boy chucked out in the road!” said she. “The idea! just when my lodgers will be coming home to bed too!”“It’s only eight o’clock; no one will come till ten. There’ll be plenty of time.”“What’s the use? You know as well as I do the child won’t last above a day or two in his state. What’s the use of making a disturbance for nothing?” said the woman.“He won’t die—he shall not die!” said Reginald, feeling in his heart how foolish the words were. “At any rate, I must fetch a doctor. I might have fetched one without saying a word to you, but I promised I wouldn’t, and now I want you to let me off the promise.”The woman fretted and fumed, and wished ill to the day when she had ever seen either Reginald or Love. He bore her vituperation patiently, as it was his only chance of getting his way.Presently she said, “If you’re bent on it, go to Mr Pilch, round the corner; he’s the only doctor I’ll let come in my house. You can have him or nobody, that’s flat!”In two minutes Reginald was battering wildly at Mr Pilch’s door. That gentleman—a small dealer in herbs, who eked out his livelihood by occasional unauthorised medical practice—happened to be in, and offered, for two shillings, to come and see the sick boy. Reginald tossed down the coin with eager thankfulness, and almost dragged him to the bedside of his little charge.Mr Pilch may have known very little of medicine, but he knew enough to make him shake his head as he saw the boy.“Regular bad case that. Smallpox and half a dozen things on the top of it. I can’t do anything.”“Can you give me no medicine for him, or tell me what food he ought to take or what? Surely there’s achanceof his getting better?”Mr Pilch laughed quietly.“About as much chance of his pulling through that as of jumping over the moon. The kindest thing you can do is to let him die as soon as he can. He may last a day or two. If you want to feed him, give him anything he will take, and that won’t be much, you’ll find. It’s a bad case, young fellow, and it won’t do you any good to stop too near him. No use my coming again. Good-night.”And the brusque but not unkindly little quack trotted away, leaving Reginald in the dark without a gleam of hope to comfort him.“Gov’nor,” said the weak little voice from the bed, “that there doctor says I are a-goin’ to die, don’t he?”“He says you’re very ill, old boy, but let’s hope you’ll soon be better.”“Me—no fear. On’y I wish it would come soon. I’m afeared of gettin’ frightened.”And the voice trembled away into a little sob.They lay there side by side that long restless night. The other lodgers, rough degraded men and women, crowded into the room, but no one heeded the little bed in the dark corner, where the big boy lay with his arm round the little uneasy sufferer. There was little sleep either for patient or nurse. Every few minutes the boy begged for water, which Reginald held to his lips, and when after a time the thirst ceased and only the pain remained, nothing soothed and tranquillised him so much as the repetition time after time of his favourite stories from the wonderful book, which, happily, Reginald now knew almost by heart.So the night passed. Before daylight the lodgers one by one rose and left the place, and when about half-past seven light struggled once more in between the rafters these two were alone.The boy seemed a little revived, and sipped some milk which Reginald had darted out to procure.But the pain and the fever returned twofold as the day wore on, and even to Reginald’s unpractised eye it was evident the boy’s release was not far distant.“Gov’nor,” said the boy once, with his mind apparently wandering back over old days, “what’s the meaning of ‘Jesus Christ’s sake, Amen,’ what comes at the end of that there prayer you taught me at the office—is He the same one that’s in thePilgrimbook?”“Yes, old boy; would you like to hear about Him?”“I would so,” said the boy, eagerly.And that afternoon, as the shadows darkened and the fleeting ray of the sun crossed the floor of their room, Love lay and heard the old, old story told in simple broken words. He had heard of it before, but till now he had never heeded it. Yet it seemed to him more wonderful even thanRobinson Crusoeor thePilgrim’s Progress. Now and then he broke in with some comment or criticism, or even one of his old familiar tirades against the enemies of his new hero. The room grew darker, and still Reginald went on. When at last the light had all gone, the boy’s hand stole outside the blanket and sought that of his protector, and held it till the story came to an end.Then he seemed to drop into a fitful sleep, and Reginald, with the hand still on his, sat motionless, listening to the hard breathing, and living over in thought the days since Heaven in mercy joined his life to that of his little friend.How long he sat thus he knew not. He heard the voices and tread of the other lodgers in the room; he heard the harsh groan of the bolt on the outer door downstairs; and he saw the candle die down in its socket. But he never moved or let go the boy’s hand.Presently—about one or two in the morning, he thought—the hard breathing ceased, and a turn of the head on the pillow told him the sleeper was awake.“Gov’nor, you there?” whispered the boy.“Yes, old fellow.”“It’s dark; I’m most afeared.”Reginald lay on the bed beside him, and put an arm round him.The boy became more easy after this, and seemed to settle himself once more to sleep. But the breathing was shorter and more laboured, and the little brow that rested against the watcher’s cheek grew cold and damp.For half an hour more the feeble flame of life flickered on, every breath seeming to Reginald as he lay there motionless, scarcely daring to breathe himself, like the last.Then the boy seemed suddenly to rouse himself and lifted his head.“Gov’nor—that pallis!—I’m gettin’ in—I hear them calling—come there too, gov’nor!”And the head sank back on the pillow, and Reginald, as he turned his lips to the forehead, knew that the little valiant soul had fought his way into the beautiful palace at last, and was already hearing the music of those voices within as they welcomed him to his hero’s reward.
Reginald recollected little of what happened on that terrible night when he found himself suddenly face to face with his dead enemy.
He had a vague impression of calling the landlady and of seeing the body carried from the pestiferous room. But whether he helped to carry it himself or not he could not remember.
When he next was conscious of anything the sun was struggling through the rafters over his head, as he lay in the bed beside Love, who slept still, heavily but uneasily.
The other lodgers had all risen and left the place; and when with a shudder he glanced towards the corner where the sick man last night had died, that bed was empty too.
He rose silently, without disturbing his companion, and made his way unsteadily down the ladder in search of the woman.
She met him with a scowl. She had found two five-pound notes in the dead man’s pocket, and consequently wanted to hear no more about him.
“Took to the mortuary, of course,” said she, in answer to Reginald’s question. “Where else do you expect?”
“Can you tell me his name, or anything about him? I knew him once.”
She looked blacker than ever at this. It seemed to her guilty conscience like a covert claim to the dead man’s belongings, and she bridled up accordingly.
“I know nothing about him—no more than I know about you.”
“Don’t you know his name?” said Reginald.
“No. Do I knowyourname? No! And I don’t want to!”
“Don’t be angry,” he said. “No one means any harm to you. How long has he been here?”
“I don’t know. A week. And he was bad when he came. He never caught it here.”
“Did any doctor see him?”
“Doctor! no,” snarled the woman. “Isn’t it bad enough to have a man bring smallpox into a place without calling in doctors, to give the place a bad name and take a body’s living from them? I suppose you’ll go and give me a character now. I wish I’d never took you in. I hated the sight of you from the first.”
She spoke so bitterly, and at the same time so anxiously, that Reginald felt half sorry for her.
“I’ll do you no harm,” said he, gently. “Goodness knows I’ve done harm enough in my time.”
The last words, though muttered to himself, did not escape the quick ear of the woman, and they pleased her. She was used to strange characters in her place, seeking a night’s shelter before escaping to America, or while hiding from justice. It was neither her habit nor her business to answer questions. All she asked was to be let alone and paid for her lodgings. She knew Reginald had her in a sense at his mercy, for he knew the disease the man had died of, and a word from him out of doors would bring her own pestiferous house about her ears and ruin her.
But when he muttered those words to himself she concluded he was a criminal of some sort in hiding, and criminals in hiding, as she knew, were not the people to go and report the sanitary arrangements of their lodgings to the police.
So she mollified towards him somewhat, and told him she would look after her affairs if he looked after his, and as he had not had a good night last night, well, if no one else wanted the bed to-night he could have it at half-price; and after that she hoped she would have done with him.
Reginald returned to the foul garret, and found Love still asleep, but tossing restlessly, and muttering to himself the while.
He sat down beside him and waited till he opened his eyes.
At first the boy looked round in a bewildered way as though he were hardly yet awake, but presently his eyes fell on Reginald and his face lit up.
“Gov’nor,” he said, with a smile, sitting up.
“Well, old boy,” said Reginald, “what a long sleep you’ve had. Are you rested?”
“I ’ave ’ad sich dreams, gov’nor, and—my, ain’t it cold!” And he shivered.
The room was stifling. Scarcely a breath of fresh air penetrated through its battered roof, still less through the tiny unopened window at the other end.
“We’ll get some breakfast to make you warm,” said Reginald. “This horrible place is enough to make any one feel sick.”
The boy got slowly out of bed.
“We ’ave got to earn some browns,” he said, “afore we can get any breakfast.”
He shivered still, and sat down on the edge of the bed for a moment. Then he gathered himself together with an effort and walked to the ladder. Reginald’s heart sank within him. The boy was not well. His face was flushed, his walk was uncertain, and his teeth chattered incessantly. It might be only the foul atmosphere of the room, or it might be something worse. And as he thought of it he too shivered, but not on account of the cold.
They descended the ladder, and for a little while the boy seemed revived by the fresh morning air. Reginald insisted on his taking their one coat, and the boy seemed to lack the energy to contest the matter. For an hour they wandered about the wharves, till at last Love stopped short and said,—
“Gov’nor, I don’t want no breakfast. I’ll just go back and—”
The sentence ended in a whimper, and but for Reginald’s arm round him he would have fallen.
Reginald knew now that his worst fears were realised. Love was ill, and it was only too easy to surmise what his illness was, especially when he called to mind the boy’s statement that he had been taking shelter in the infected lodging-house ten days ago, during his temporary exile from Shy Street.
He helped him back tenderly to the place—for other shelter they had none—and laid him in his bed. The boy protested that he was only tired, that his back and legs ached, and would soon be well. Reginald, inexperienced as he was, knew better, or rather worse.
He had a battle royal, as he expected, with the landlady on the subject of his little patient. At first she would listen to nothing, and threatened to turn both out by force. But Reginald, with an eloquence which only extremities can inspire, reasoned with her, coaxed her, flattered her, bribed her with promises, and finally got far enough on the right side of her to obtain leave for the boy to occupy Durfy’s bed until some other lodger should want it. But she must have a shilling down, or off they must go.
It was a desperate alternative,—to quit his little charge in his distress, or to see him turned out to die in the street. Reginald, however, had little difficulty in making his choice.
“Are you comfortable?” said he to the boy, leaning over him and soothing the coarse pillow.
“Yes, gov’nor—all right—that there ache will be gone soon, and see if I don’t pick up some browns afore evening.”
“Do you think you can get on if I leave you a bit? I think I know where I can earn a little, and I’ll be back before night, never fear.”
“Maybe you’ll find me up and about when you comes,” said the boy; “mayhap the old gal would give me a job sweeping or somethink.”
“You must not think of it,” said Reginald, almost sternly. “Mind, I trust you to be quiet till I come. How I wish I had some food!”
With heavy heart he departed, appealing to the woman, for pity’s sake, not to let harm come to the boy in his absence.
Where should he go? what should he do? Half a crown would make him feel the richest man in Liverpool, and yet how hard, how cruelly hard, it is to find a half-crown when you most want it!
He forgot all his pride, all his sensitiveness, all his own weariness—everything but the sick boy, and left no stone unturned to procure even a copper. He even begged, when nothing else succeeded.
Nobody seemed to want anything done. There were scores of hungry applicants at the riverside and dozens outside the printing-office. There were no horses that wanted holding, no boxes or bags that wanted carrying, no messages or errands that wanted running. No shop or factory window that he saw had a notice of “Boys Wanted” posted in it; no junior clerk was advertised for in any paper he caught sight of; not even a scavenger boy was wanted to clean the road.
At last he was giving it up in despair, and coming to the conclusion he might just as well hasten back to his little charge and share his fate with him, when he caught sight of a stout elderly lady standing in a state of flurry and trepidation on the kerb of one of the most crowded crossings in the city.
With the instinct of desperation he rushed towards her, and, lifting his hat, said,—
“Can I help you across, ma’am?”
The lady started to hear words so polite and in so well-bred a tone, coming from a boy of Reginald’s poor appearance, for he was still without his coat.
But she jumped at his offer, and allowed him to pilot her and her parcels over the dangerous crossing.
“It may be worth twopence to me,” said Reginald to himself as he landed her safe on the other side.
How circumstances change us! At another time Reginald would have flushed crimson at the bare idea of being paid for an act of politeness. Now his heart beat high with hope as he saw the lady’s hand feel for her pocket.
“You’re a very civil young man,” said she, “and—dear me, how ill you look.”
“I’m not ill,” said Reginald, with a boldness he himself marvelled at, “but a little boy I love is—very ill—and I have no money to get him either food or lodging. I know you’ll think I’m an impostor, ma’am, but could you, for pity’s sake, give me a shilling? I couldn’t pay you back, but I’d bless you always.”
“Dear, dear!” said the lady, “it’s very sad—just at Christmas-time, too. Poor little fellow! Here’s something for him. I think you look honest, young man; I hope you are, and trust in God.”
And to Reginald’s unbounded delight she slipped two half-crowns into his hand and walked away.
He could only say, “God bless you for it.” It seemed like an angel’s gift in his hour of direst need, and with a heart full of comfort he hastened back to the lodgings, calling on his way at a cookshop and spending sixpence of his treasure on some bread and meat for his patient.
He was horror-struck to notice the change even a few hours had wrought on the sufferer. There was no mistaking his ailment now. Though not delirious, he was in a high state of fever, and apparently of pain, for he tossed incessantly and moaned to himself.
The sight of Reginald revived him.
“I knowed you was comin’,” said he; “but I don’t want nothing to eat, gov’nor. On’y some water; I do want some water.”
Reginald flew to get it, and the boy swallowed it with avidity. Then, somewhat revived, he lay back and said, “I ’ave got ’em, then?”
“Yes, I’m afraid it’s smallpox,” said Reginald; “but you’ll soon be better.”
“Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. Say, gov’nor, you don’t ought to stop here; you’ll be cotchin’ ’em too!”
“No fear of that,” said Reginald, “I’ve been vaccinated. Besides, who’d look after you?”
“My! you’re a good ’un to me!” said the boy. “Think of that there Medlock—”
“Don’t let’s think of anything so unpleasant,” said Reginald, seeing that even this short talk had excited his patient unduly. “Let me see if I can make the bed more comfortable, and then, if you like, I can read to you. How would you like that?”
The boy beamed his gratitude, and Reginald, after doing his best to smooth the wretched bed and make him comfortable, produced thePilgrim’s Progressand settled down to read.
“That thereRobinsonain’t a bad ’un,” said Love, before the reading began; “I read ’im while I was a-waitin’ for you. But ’e ain’t so good as the Christian. Read about that there pallis ag’in, gov’nor.”
And Reginald read it—more than once.
The evening closed in, the room grew dark, and he shut the book. The boy was already asleep, tossing and moaning to himself, sometimes seeming to wake for a moment, but dropping off again before he could tell what he wanted or what was wrong with him.
Once or twice Reginald moistened his parched mouth with water, but as the evening wore on the boy became so much worse that he felt, at all hazards, he must seek help.
“Imustbring a doctor to see him,” said he to the landlady; “he’s so ill.”
“You’ll bring no doctor—unless you want to see the boy chucked out in the road!” said she. “The idea! just when my lodgers will be coming home to bed too!”
“It’s only eight o’clock; no one will come till ten. There’ll be plenty of time.”
“What’s the use? You know as well as I do the child won’t last above a day or two in his state. What’s the use of making a disturbance for nothing?” said the woman.
“He won’t die—he shall not die!” said Reginald, feeling in his heart how foolish the words were. “At any rate, I must fetch a doctor. I might have fetched one without saying a word to you, but I promised I wouldn’t, and now I want you to let me off the promise.”
The woman fretted and fumed, and wished ill to the day when she had ever seen either Reginald or Love. He bore her vituperation patiently, as it was his only chance of getting his way.
Presently she said, “If you’re bent on it, go to Mr Pilch, round the corner; he’s the only doctor I’ll let come in my house. You can have him or nobody, that’s flat!”
In two minutes Reginald was battering wildly at Mr Pilch’s door. That gentleman—a small dealer in herbs, who eked out his livelihood by occasional unauthorised medical practice—happened to be in, and offered, for two shillings, to come and see the sick boy. Reginald tossed down the coin with eager thankfulness, and almost dragged him to the bedside of his little charge.
Mr Pilch may have known very little of medicine, but he knew enough to make him shake his head as he saw the boy.
“Regular bad case that. Smallpox and half a dozen things on the top of it. I can’t do anything.”
“Can you give me no medicine for him, or tell me what food he ought to take or what? Surely there’s achanceof his getting better?”
Mr Pilch laughed quietly.
“About as much chance of his pulling through that as of jumping over the moon. The kindest thing you can do is to let him die as soon as he can. He may last a day or two. If you want to feed him, give him anything he will take, and that won’t be much, you’ll find. It’s a bad case, young fellow, and it won’t do you any good to stop too near him. No use my coming again. Good-night.”
And the brusque but not unkindly little quack trotted away, leaving Reginald in the dark without a gleam of hope to comfort him.
“Gov’nor,” said the weak little voice from the bed, “that there doctor says I are a-goin’ to die, don’t he?”
“He says you’re very ill, old boy, but let’s hope you’ll soon be better.”
“Me—no fear. On’y I wish it would come soon. I’m afeared of gettin’ frightened.”
And the voice trembled away into a little sob.
They lay there side by side that long restless night. The other lodgers, rough degraded men and women, crowded into the room, but no one heeded the little bed in the dark corner, where the big boy lay with his arm round the little uneasy sufferer. There was little sleep either for patient or nurse. Every few minutes the boy begged for water, which Reginald held to his lips, and when after a time the thirst ceased and only the pain remained, nothing soothed and tranquillised him so much as the repetition time after time of his favourite stories from the wonderful book, which, happily, Reginald now knew almost by heart.
So the night passed. Before daylight the lodgers one by one rose and left the place, and when about half-past seven light struggled once more in between the rafters these two were alone.
The boy seemed a little revived, and sipped some milk which Reginald had darted out to procure.
But the pain and the fever returned twofold as the day wore on, and even to Reginald’s unpractised eye it was evident the boy’s release was not far distant.
“Gov’nor,” said the boy once, with his mind apparently wandering back over old days, “what’s the meaning of ‘Jesus Christ’s sake, Amen,’ what comes at the end of that there prayer you taught me at the office—is He the same one that’s in thePilgrimbook?”
“Yes, old boy; would you like to hear about Him?”
“I would so,” said the boy, eagerly.
And that afternoon, as the shadows darkened and the fleeting ray of the sun crossed the floor of their room, Love lay and heard the old, old story told in simple broken words. He had heard of it before, but till now he had never heeded it. Yet it seemed to him more wonderful even thanRobinson Crusoeor thePilgrim’s Progress. Now and then he broke in with some comment or criticism, or even one of his old familiar tirades against the enemies of his new hero. The room grew darker, and still Reginald went on. When at last the light had all gone, the boy’s hand stole outside the blanket and sought that of his protector, and held it till the story came to an end.
Then he seemed to drop into a fitful sleep, and Reginald, with the hand still on his, sat motionless, listening to the hard breathing, and living over in thought the days since Heaven in mercy joined his life to that of his little friend.
How long he sat thus he knew not. He heard the voices and tread of the other lodgers in the room; he heard the harsh groan of the bolt on the outer door downstairs; and he saw the candle die down in its socket. But he never moved or let go the boy’s hand.
Presently—about one or two in the morning, he thought—the hard breathing ceased, and a turn of the head on the pillow told him the sleeper was awake.
“Gov’nor, you there?” whispered the boy.
“Yes, old fellow.”
“It’s dark; I’m most afeared.”
Reginald lay on the bed beside him, and put an arm round him.
The boy became more easy after this, and seemed to settle himself once more to sleep. But the breathing was shorter and more laboured, and the little brow that rested against the watcher’s cheek grew cold and damp.
For half an hour more the feeble flame of life flickered on, every breath seeming to Reginald as he lay there motionless, scarcely daring to breathe himself, like the last.
Then the boy seemed suddenly to rouse himself and lifted his head.
“Gov’nor—that pallis!—I’m gettin’ in—I hear them calling—come there too, gov’nor!”
And the head sank back on the pillow, and Reginald, as he turned his lips to the forehead, knew that the little valiant soul had fought his way into the beautiful palace at last, and was already hearing the music of those voices within as they welcomed him to his hero’s reward.