EVE THE SECOND.

THE OPINION OF DAVID DIX, NIGHT WATCHMAN, ABOUT THAT BOY AND THAT GIRL.

By B. L. FARJEON.

It is many years ago, since I used to walk my beat of a night in the East-end of London, where I was born and worked my way steadily up the ladder of life, which, if you please,is no ladder at all, strictly speaking, but a double flight of steps. When you get to the top of one side of this flight, you begin to go down on the other side, till you reach the bottom, where a bed is made for you, and your life’s toils and struggles are over.

I am supposing that you reach man’s allotted span, and are not called upon to say farewell to the world, till your hair is white and all your vital forces spent.

This good fortune is mine, and I am waiting for the summons, with a firm belief in the Divine message of a better world beyond.

Not that I have anything to complain of; I have done my duty to the best of my ability, and if I fell short now and then, it was not from lack of willingness to do what was set down for me, but because I had gone to the extent of my powers and wasunable to go further; up to this point only can you, with any sense of justice, make a man responsible. And this, mind you, opens a wide question, into which I am not going to enter—the question of responsibility for committed acts.

Under what circumstances you are born, how you are brought up, by what influences your earlier years have been surrounded—these form a succession of lessons, which you are bound to accept, because you know no better, and are taught no better.

Judges and legislators should take this into account, and pass judgment according; though I have observed that a gentleman or lady, who has broken the law of the land, is, as a rule, let off more lightly than the poor wretch, who has not had the advantage of good teaching and a proper education. In my opinion, it should be the other way.

My grandfather was a night watchman, andmy father stepped into his shoes; and when he was too tired to walk in them any longer I put them on with a proud and cheerful heart, thinking it a fine thing to do, as my betters had done before me.

So that you see there were three generations of us, and as we were all steady men, confidence was placed in us. I often heard it said, “You may trust David Dix; he is like his father.”

In my father’s time, I have no doubt, they said the same of him. He was a good stamp of a man, and he gave me a home education, and taught me how to speak and write fair English, for which I say “God bless him.” By so doing, he took the locks off the caves of enchantment, we find in books. “Open, Sesame!” I cried, flourishing my spelling book—and I saw wonders.

I had both public and private duties to perform.

My public duties mainly were to see that the houses and shops were properly secured, to keep an eye on suspicious characters, and to take care that no place was broken into and robbed.

Poor as were the streets, I perambulated night after night, for seven nights in the week and three hundred and sixty-five nights in the year, very few burglaries took place in them. Thieves and cracksmen, when they got to know me, had a wholesome fear of my watchfulness, and fought shy of the premises I protected.

My private duties were chiefly to rouse people, who wanted to get up very early in the morning. A penny a week was my charge for this, and I sometimes had as many as thirty or forty people on my books.

I bring to mind two memorable nights in connection with Nick and Nan. The girl came first, the lad second.

I had for company at this time a white mastiff, I called Dummy, who trotted at my heels, from the moment I commenced my work of a night, till I got home in the morning and threw myself, regularly tired out, on my bed.

Dummy was not a nice-tempered dog, but he never interfered with anyone, who did not interfere with him, or unless he had, in his own opinion, a good reason for interfering.

He was a faithful creature, and would not make friends with strangers, and although I have always been sociably inclined myself, I did not find fault with him, for this disinclination for any society but mine. Every man likes something, that he can call really his own, and Dummy’s conservative ways made me all the more attached to him.

One night, about ten o’clock, there was a scrimmage in Chapel-street, and before I knew where I was, I found myself in the middle of it.

It was an ugly row between Lascar sailors and sugar-bakers, and I don’t know which looked most like devils, the Lascars with their dark faces and flashing eyes, or the sugar-bakers, who had trooped out of the factory, naked to their waists, and with their matted hair hanging in disorder about their perspiring foreheads. They had snatched some of their red-hot tools from the furnace, and the Lascars out with their knives. Dummy was in the middle of the fight, and I was a good deal knocked about.

When it was all over, I was some distance from the spot, upon which the row had commenced, and Dummy was not by my side. I went about the streets calling and looking for him, and after half an hour’s search, I saw him on the ground, with his leg badly gashed, and a girl kneeling by him and attending to the wound.

“Mind, my girl,” I cried, “or the dogwill bite you. He’s savage to strangers.”

I knelt down, and Dummy licked my hand.

“He won’t hurt me,” said Nan. “Poor doggie! His leg’s cut to the bone.”

And so it was, but Nan had done what she could for it, and the look of gratitude in Dummy’s eyes showed that he properly appreciated her kindness. From that night Dummy and Nan were friends, and there were occasions when he would even leave me to go to her.

For some time before this adventure I had noticed Nan and Nick walking together of an evening, when I was sitting at my window smoking my pipe, but I had not paid much attention to them.

Now, however, they had become objects of interest to me, and I wondered how it was, that I had been blind to little ways of theirs which were different from the ways of other boys and girls.

They would walk along the streets talking and smiling—Nick doing most of the talking and Nan most of the smiling—as earnestly as if they were the only people in the world. Sometimes he would have an open book or a paper in his hand, from which he would be reading to her, and she would be listening with all her might, and her eyes would shine as mine used to shine, when I was deep in a fascinating story.

I discovered afterwards that he was farther advanced than I was at his age, and that though they were both fond of Dickens and Bulwer and Ainsworth, they often read books of adventure (which were scarcer then, than they are now) and even dipped into poetry and imaginative stories of a superior kind. When we were better acquainted Nick introduced me to favorite books of his—“Undine,” “The Lady of the Lake,” and other of Sir Walter Scott’s poems, and “Marco Polo.”

It was a curious mixture, and how it was, he came to pick the best books out of the baskets on the second-hand bookstalls, is more than I can say; it was a kind of instinct that was born in him, I suppose, and it went towards the making, in the end, of a man out of the common run.

What brought me into closer connection with him, was his coming to me one night, and saying,

“You call people up early in the morning; I wish you would call me up.”

“I will, my lad,” I said. “What time?”

“Five o’clock,” he replied. “I can wake myself, as a rule, by fixing it well in my mind, the night before, and saying, ‘Five o’clock, five o’clock, five o’clock, I must get up, I must get up, I must get up at five o’clock,’ and keeping on saying it, till I fall asleep; but I might miss it now and then, and I don’t want to miss it once.”

“Because,” said I, “you have to get to work at a certain time?”

“Yes,” he answered, “because of that.”

“And it’s not in you to be a minute late,” I observed, “as much as one morning in a month.”

“I don’t want,” said he to this, “to be a minute late one morning in a year.”

I looked at him in admiration; there was purpose, there was earnestness in his face, and there was a glow in his eyes, that made me take to him more and more, and to feel almost like a father to him. “This is a boy,” said I to myself, “that is going to get on in the world.”

“I’ll call you,” I said. “Is it a new place you’ve got?”

“Yes,” he answered, “and I’m to get five shillings a week, and a shilling rise at the end of twelve months, if I give satisfaction. Then there’s a chance of overtime.”

I nodded. “What time are you due in the morning?”

“Half-past seven.”

“It must be a long way off from here?”

“Oh, no; I can get there in twenty minutes.”

“Then what on earth do you want to be called at five o’clock for?”

“I want an hour to myself, Mr. Dix; there is so much I’d like to know.”

“Very well, Nick; I’ll call you.”

“And if I don’t wake,” said he, “please pull me out of bed, will you?”

“I’ll get you up all right.”

“How much a week do you charge, Mr. Dix?” he asked.

“My charge to you,” I said, “will be nothing a week.”

“No,” said he in a tone of decision, “that will not be fair. If I work I want to be paid for it. Please tell me how much?”

“Won’t you let me do it out of a friendly feeling, Nick?”

“Not this, please, Mr. Dix. It will make me feel ever so much better, if you will let me pay what other people pay.”

I said to myself, “This boy is arguing out of a spirit of right and justice, and it will not be kind on my part to baulk him;” so I told him I would charge him a penny a week, and upon these terms we settled it.

He was never once late. Hail, rain, snow, or shine, there he was, trudging out every morning at seven o’clock, with a bright face and a willing heart singing softly to himself a favorite song of Nan’s as he went along. Often he was up and dressed before I went to wake him, and nineteen times out of the other twenty he would call,

“Thank you, Mr. Dix, I’m dressing myself. How glad you must be that the night’s over.”

And there he was at his books, every morning for an hour and a half at least, with a little bit of candle, if it was dark, as happy and hopeful as a prince—perhaps more so, because princes, having everything they want, must, in my opinion, have a precious dull time of it.

Why, a prince going to his private box at the opera can’t get a thousandth part of the pleasure, that Nick enjoyed as, with Nan with her sprightly step and pretty face at his side, he marched about once every three months to the sixpenny gallery at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, where Mr. Samuel Phelps was doing his best to amuse, in an intellectual way, the poor people in the north and east of London.

Mr. Phelps did a power of good in his day, and there are many well-to-do people living now, who have the best of all reasons to be grateful to him.

“She would go and meet him when his work was over.”

Often of a morning Nan would walk with Nick to the place he worked in and would leave him there, and more often she would go and meet him when his work was over. Being a bright, capable lad, Nick, you may depend, had many temptations from boys and girls of his age to join in pleasures which lead to no good; but he resisted them all with firmness and good temper, and as he never preached to them that it was wrong to do this or that—being, indeed, too busy to meddle with anyone’s business but hisown or Nan’s—he did himself no harm by refusing.

At the end of the year he got his shilling rise, and at the end of six months another shilling, and with seven shillings a week he considered himself quite rich. And all this time he went on reading and studying, and storing up for the future. It is surprising what a boy can do for himself in this way. All the schooling in the world is of small value in comparison with what an earnest youngster can teach himself out of school hours.

As time went on Nan’s walks with Nick to and from his workshop became less frequent. She was growing in years and beauty, and she felt that she ought to do something towards earning a living.

There was a little confectioner’s and cake shop in Whitechapel, opposite the butchers’ stalls, and she obtained a situation there. Idon’t know how much a week she got; it must have been very little, because the shop did a poor business, but Nan was happy in the knowledge that she was making herself useful. What struck me as being a very beautiful thing was the pride she and Nick took in each other, the thoughtful, loving way in which they would look at each other, the dependence and trust she placed in him, the tender and protecting air he showed towards her.

It did not occur to me that they were too much in each other’s company, and that Nan’s beauty was a dangerous possession; if it had, I don’t think it would have troubled me, so strong was my belief in Nick’s honesty and straightforwardness, and in Nan’s sense of what was right.

Once a week Nick had to work till nearly midnight, and Nan took it into her head to go and meet him on his way home.

I spoke to Nick about it, and said it was hardly safe, for a young and pretty girl like Nan, to be out by herself at such an hour. There were rough characters living round about, and when they had had too much to drink, it was as well to give them a wide berth. Nick, in his turn, spoke to Nan, and bade her not to venture out alone so late at night. He told her in my presence, but she pleaded so hard to be allowed to go and meet him that I saw he was wavering, and would give way, so I said,

“Well, you shall go, Nan; but not alone. Dummy shall go with you.”

They both thanked me gratefully, and Nick and I felt easier in our minds. As for Nan, she never had any fear.

The sense of that dog! On the nights he was told off to do duty and take care of Nan, there he was ready, and he trotted by her side, every nerve in his body alertwith watchfulness, and with a wicked look in his eyes which boded ill to the evilly inclined. When Nan and Nick met, he would leave them and come back to do duty and take care of me. Faithful old Dummy! Little did we think that we had pronounced his doom.

He was with Nan—on a Thursday night it was—and it was nearer twelve than eleven, when I heard screams for help ringing through the air and, immediately upon the screams, the howling of a man in pain.

I ran quick to the spot, and there was Nan, white and nearly fainting, and a man—a beast rather—and Dummy struggling together. At the same moment Nick came running round the corner, and flew to Nan and caught her in his arms.

The ruffian, it seemed, had suddenly darted forward and seized Nan, and Dummy, without so much as a growl, had leaped up andfixed his teeth in the brute’s throat. There they lay rolling on the ground, and as I did not wish the dog to kill the villain, I called him off. Dummy relaxed his hold, and as he did so, the brute pulled out a knife and plunged it into the dog’s body. Poor old Dummy! He gave a convulsed gasp, and rolled over.

“Oh, Dummy, poor Dummy!” cried Nan, throwing herself by his side, and raising his head to her lap. “Are you hurt much?”

The faithful creature lifted his eyes to her face, then turned them to me, and fell back dead!

How we all grieved, Nan most of all. She sobbed, as though her heart was breaking, and I kept my own feelings in check so as not to make her worse. I could not leave my duties, and they carried the devoted creature to my lodgings, and remained up with him all the night, till I came home.

“It is a brave death,” I said to Nan, and did my best to comfort her.

“She sobbed as though her heart was breaking.”

We buried Dummy the next night, and you may guess how I missed him. You may guess, too,how much closer this sad event drew us to each other. On every Sunday afternoon now, Nick and Nan would come to tea with me, and the hours we spent together were to me the happiest in the week. Nick read to us the books he loved best, and would talk of them in a way it would have surprised you to hear.

“Nick and Nan would come to tea with me.”

He was an ambitious lad and wanted, when he was grown quite to man’s estate, to be something better than the promise of his surroundings held out. He did not know exactly how to put in words his ideas of what he wished to be, for they were crude and unformed, but the yearning was in him.

“And whatever I become,” he said, “Nan is to be with me always, and to share my lot. It may be good, it may be bad, but we are to be always together.”

“Yes, Nick,” said Nan, softly, “I could not be happy without you.”

“Nor I without you, Nan,” he said, with serious tenderness.

They were approaching that wonderful change in life, when the boy realizes that he is a man, and the girl that she is a woman. Then the world takes a different colour.

There is a new light in the sky, a new meaning in the song of birds and the kissof the summer’s breeze. All that is brightest and most beautiful rises to the surface, and stirs with solemn significance the pulses of those whose hearts are attuned to what is highest and best in Nature. It is not all joy; touches of sadness come in when we begin to understand things aright; and it is out of those new experiences that the angel of Pity is born.

It was so with Nick and Nan. I bring to mind the last Christmas Eve we spent together. Before another Christmas came round, there was a woeful change in their fortunes, and dark clouds had settled upon their young lives.

I had called the hour—eleven o’clock—when Nick and Nan joined me unexpectedly.

“Christmas Eve, Mr. Dix,” said Nick.

“Yes, Nick,” said I, “Christmas Eve. What brings you out?”

“We thought we would like to pass anhour with you,” said Nick, “and walk about a bit.”

“I shall be glad of company,” I said, and so we walked on, talking of Christmas and what it meant.

Nan pressed something into my hand. It was a pipe; I have it now.

Nick pressed something into my hand. It was a packet of tobacco; that is smoked long years ago, but I can see, even at this distant day, what brought a touch of sacred tenderness into my feelings for them, as the curling wreaths of smoke from their Christmas gifts floated in the cold air.

A light snow was falling, but they did not mind that; nor did I. The stars were shining, and the moon came into the sky as the Christmas bells were ringing. We stopped and listened, and, cold as it was and poor as we were, something of the sweetness of the time entered our hearts, and we were gratefully happy.

A woman, in rags, passed us, shivering and muttering to herself. She stopped, as she saw us.

“Hullo, Mr. Dix,” she said, through her chattering teeth, and her voice sounded like a mixture of sobs and groans, “a Merry Christmas to yer! Itisa Merry Christmas, ain’t it? Oh,wota Merry Christmas it is!”

She stumbled past us, shuddering with cold, hugging misery to her breast in defiant despair.

I knew her. She was an unfortunate.

Nan looked after her, and a little sob came into her throat. Suddenly she ran from us towards the living emblem of human sorrow, shame, and woe. We followed slowly, divining the impulse that led her on.

We saw her take the woman’s hand, we saw the woman try to snatch it away, but Nan held it fast. Standing a little apart from them, we saw that Nan was speakingtenderly; the light shone upon her upturned face, and, as the woman’s eyes rested upon it, the hard, rebellious look softened; her lips quivered, and her limbs trembled so, that she could hardly keep herself from falling.

Nan took out her poor, common purse, and pressed a coin or two into the woman’s hand. God knows it could have been very little, perhaps sixpence or eightpence, but had it been wealth untold, it would not have enhanced the sweetness of the act.

“Thank yer, miss,” we heard the woman say. “I can pay for a bed now. God bless yer!”

There were tears on Nan’s face, when she joined us. We walked on in silence for many minutes. Then Nick put his arm round Nan’s neck and kissed her.

“Dear Nan!” he whispered.

“Dear Nick!” she murmured.

Well, that was very nearly the last I had to do with them as boy and girl. Before the New Year I was laid up in a hospital with rheumatic fever, and remained there a good many months. Some part of the time I was delirious, and the last Christmas Eve I had spent with Nick and Nan came back to my fevered mind in all sorts of ways, and I never saw Nan’s sweet phantom face, that it did not soothe me and ease my pain. When I got about, I heard news that cut me to the heart. What it was, I must leave to another to relate.

David Dix.

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