"HE DELIVERED HIMSELF WITH EFFECT."
"Quite so," said his host. "I ought to say that, though I am the chairman, I have at present no authority to speak for any but myself and my family. But we have heard a good report of you, Mr. Murray, and I know that many of our people have been much impressed by you this morning." Then, unconsciously, he went on to dash somewhat the minister's lively hopes. "There is a young man—Mr. Lloyd: you may know him. No? Well—some of our people are very much taken with him. He is a brilliant, popular sort of young fellow; but he is young—he has only been some two years or so a minister—and he is unmarried, and—and well, I don't want to say anything against him—but he is just alittleflighty, and we older folk doubt how we should get on with him. I am glad, however, to have your assurance that you would come if you were asked."
He put his arm within the minister's, and thus they returned into the house. And—as if that had been a sign of consent agreed upon—all the company (and there were now a good many guests assembled) beamed upon them as they entered the drawing-room.
"I amsoglad," said the eldest daughter of the house, bringing Mr. Murray a cup of tea and sitting down by him, "to know that you are willing to be our minister!"
"How do you know I am?" he asked, with a smile.
"Oh," she answered with a blush and a light laugh, "we arranged for a sign from my father, so that we should all know at once. You are willing, are you not?"
"I am," he answered, "quite."
"And I hope—Idohope—you will be asked."
Presently there came to him an unknown young man, and said: "I don't often go to chapel or church, but if you often preach sermons like this morning's, I should always go to hear you, I think."
That was a flattering tribute, and the minister showed his appreciation of it.
"Well, I confess," he said, "it is at least pleasant to hear you say so."
Thus the time passed till the hour came for evening service. The gas was lit, and floor and galleries were crowded with people. The minister had chosen a simple and pathetic theme for his evening discourse: "He took little children in His arms and blessed them;" and he spoke out of the fulness of experience and with the tender feeling of the father of a sick child, insomuch that all were moved, many even to sobs and tears. There was no doubt that he carried his audience with him; and, as inthe morning, he had to shake many hands and receive many thanks.
Last of all, his host of the day came and asked him to take also the services of the next Sunday; and then he hastened home by train to his wife with hopeful, grateful heart.
"ISN'T HE A JOLLY FELLOW?"
"There, Mary, my dear," said he, giving her the £5 note in an envelope as it had been slipped into his hand; "that's for you and Jim. I'll take you both down to Margate to-morrow—the air of Margate is the most bracing in England—and you can stay for two or three weeks at least, and the boy will begin to grow strong."
For answer Mary threw herself into her husband's arms, and sobbed upon his breast.
"Oh, how good God is, James! Let us be thankful, my dear! Oh, let us be thankful!"
Next day the minister took his wife and child to Margate, and placed them in lodgings on the breezy cliff-top. On Tuesday he returned to town; for he had much to do to prepare for his second Sunday at Upton and to fill the vacancy at the old, deserted chapel. In spite of his occupation he began, before the week was out, to feel lonely and depressed; for he and his wife had not separated before, save for a day or two, since the hour of their marriage. In the solitude of his close and dingy lodging he restlessly and morbidly meditated on his desire to go to Upton, and his chances of going. Had he any right to go, with such mercenary motives as moved him? But was the health of wife and child a mercenary motive? Was the desire to see them free from a narrow and blighting poverty a mercenary motive? And had he not other motives also—motives of truth and duty? If it was wrong to seek to go to Upton for these reasons, then God forgive him! for he could not help longing to go!
It was in something of that depressed and troubled mood that he went to fulfil his second Sunday. The congregation was larger than on the previous Sunday morning, and the minister felt that many must have come expressly to hear him; and, therefore, he had less brightness and freedom of delivery than on the Sunday before. He felt, when the service was over, that he had not acquitted himself well, and he began anew to torture himself with the thoughts of what would become of Mary and Jim if he should miss his chance of Upton.
To add discomfort to discomfort, and constraint to constraint, he was introduced in the vestry to the Reverend Mr. Lloyd—his rival, as he felt bound to consider him; and to his host for the day—a stout, loud-spoken, rather vulgar-looking man, who dropped his h's.
When they reached the home of his host (who clearly was a wealthy man, for the house was large and furnished with substantial splendour), he discovered that his rival also was to be a guest. That did not serve to put him more at his ease, the less that he perceived host and rival seemed on very friendly, if not familiar, terms. They called one another "Lloyd" and "Brown," and slapped each other on the back. "Brown" said something, and "Lloyd" flatly and boisterously contradicted and corrected him, and then "Brown" laughed loudly, and seemed to like it. Thus dinner wore away, while Mr. Murray said little save to his hostess—a pale, thin, and somewhat depressed woman, grievously overburdened, it was clear, with a "jolly" husband, and a loud and healthy young family. After dinner "Lloyd" romped and rollicked in and out of the house with the troop of noisy children, while Mr. Murray kept his hostess and her very youngest company, and the attention of his host was divided between duty and inclination—the duty of sitting by his wife and guest, and the inclination of "larking with 'Lloyd.'"
"Look at him!" he exclaimed once. "Isn't he a jolly fellow? I do think he's acapital fellow! Oh, yes; and he has a nice mind."
It was all very depressing and saddening to Mr. Murray, though he appeared only to be very quiet. For he thought: "A large congregation like this of Upton must necessarily have more people like these Browns than like my friends of last Sunday; and it must, therefore, needs be that this Mr. Lloyd—who has no harm in him, I daresay, but who is little more than a rough, noisy, presumptuous boy not long from school—it must be that he should be preferred by the majority to me. I may as well, then, give up all hope of coming here. But what then of Mary and the boy—the boy?"
He was scarcely more satisfied with himself after the evening service (though he held the attention again of a crowded congregation), and he went back to his lonely lodging with a sore and doubting heart. He wrote, however, cheerfully (he thought) to his wife; but next day she replied to his letter and showed that his assumed cheerfulness had not deceived the watchful sense of love.
"You are not in good spirits, my dear," she wrote; "don't pretend you are. If you are not better to-day I shall come home to you, though little Jim is beginning to show the benefit of the change."
"Poor little chap!" the father thought. "He is beginning to improve. They must not come back, and I must not go down to them. My glum face would frighten Mary, and I should have to tell her all my fears. Besides, I cannot afford it. Oh, that it might be settled I'm to go to Upton!"
That was the refrain of his thoughts all that day. "Oh, that I might go to Upton!" It was a kind of prayer, and surely as worthy a prayer, and springing from as pure and loving a desire as any prayer that is uttered. He could do nothing more, however, to attain the desired end; he could only wait. Monday passed, and Tuesday, and still no word from Upton. On Wednesday came a letter from his first host—the Chairman of Committee. It contained little, but that little was charged with meaning and anxiety for the minister. Nothing, it declared, was yet absolutely decided; but on Thursday evening there was to be held a certain debate in the Lecture-room, in which it had been resolved that both Mr. Murray and Mr. Lloyd should be asked to take part.
"I am not officially instructed," continued the writer, "to say this to you, but I think I ought to tell you that there is a disposition among a good many to form their final choice for you or for Mr. Lloyd, on the conclusion of the debate."
It was put gently and carefully, but the meaning of the communication to the minister plainly was that it had come to a contest between him and the young Mr. Lloyd, and that whichever should acquit himself in this debate most to the satisfaction and admiration of the audience would straightway be chosen as minister.
It was a terrible situation for the minister—how terrible none but himself knew, and none, not even the wife of his bosom, could ever sufficiently understand. He was a bad debater, and, worse than that, he was the most nervous, hesitating, and involved extempore speaker in the world. His sermons and discourses were always written, but he delivered them so well that very few would have guessed that he had manuscript before him. With his writing in his hand he was easy, vigorous, and self-possessed; but when he had to speak extempore a panic of fear shook him; he had neither ideas nor words, and he was completely lost.
It was simply a question of nerves with him, and whenever he knew beforehand that he was expected to speak extempore the strain upon him was crueller than man can tell. The strain imposed now upon a body weakened by the past year's privations and anxiety could not have been crueller if he had been under sentence of death; and, indeed, life or death seemed to his overwrought nerves to hang upon the issue. If he failed, and he feared he would fail, fail signally, for he did not doubt but that the young and boisterous Mr. Lloyd was without nerves, and was a glib and self-confident talker—then Upton was lost, and his wife was condemned for Heaven alone knew how long to grievous poverty, and his child to a lingering death. If he succeeded—but he had no reason to hope he would—then Upton was won, and with it life and health and happiness for those he loved.
It was Wednesday morning when he got the letter, and all that day he considered, with a frequent feeling of panic at the heart, and a constant fluttering of the nerves, what he could possibly do to ensure success. He thought he would write down something on the subject of the debate, and commit it to memory. He had satdown and written a little, when he bethought him that he did not know when he would be called upon to speak, nor whether he might not have to expressly answer someone. He threw down the pen, and groaned in despair; there was nothing to be done; he must trust to the inspiration and self-possession of the moment.
When he went to bed his sleep was a succession of ghastly nightmares. He dreamt his wife and child were struggling and choking in a dark and slimy sea, that Mr. Lloyd stood aloof unconcernedly looking on, and that he, the husband and father, lay unable to stir hand or foot or tongue! Then he awoke with a sharp cry, trembling with dread and bathed in perspiration, and found, lo! it was but a dream!
So the night passed and the day came with its constant wearing fear and anxiety. He could not eat, he could not drink, he could not rest; and thus the day passed and the hour came when he must set out for the fatal meeting. As he passed along the street people paused to glance at him: he appeared so pale and scared.
When he entered the Lecture-room at Upton he was met by his friend, the Chairman of Committee, who looked at him and said:—
"Don't you feel well, Mr. Murray? You look very faint and pale. Let me get you a glass of wine."
"No, thank you," said the minister. "I am really quite well."
"We shall have a good debate, I think," said his friend, then leading the way forward.
"I hope so," said the minister, "though I am afraid I can do little; I am the worst extempore speaker you can imagine."
"Is that so?" The friend turned quickly and considered him. "I should not have thought so. Ah, well, never mind."
But the minister felt that his friend's hope of his success was considerably shaken.
The chief persons of the assembly were gathered about a table at the upper end of the room. The chairman introduced the matter for debate; one man rose and spoke on the affirmative side, and another rose and spoke on the negative. The minister listened, but he scarce knew what was said; he drank great gulps of water to moisten his parched mouth (which, for all the water, remained obstinately dry) and he felt his hour was come. He glanced round him, but saw only shadows of men. One only he saw—the man opposite him, the very young and boisterous Mr. Lloyd, who clapped his hands and lustily said "Hear, hear!" when anything was said of which he approved or which he wished to deride. The minister's eyes burned upon him till he seemed to assume threatening, demoniac proportions as the boastful and blatant Apollyon whom Christian fought in the Valley.
THE DEBATE.
At length young Mr. Lloyd rose, large and hairy, and then the minister listened with all his ears. He missed nothing the young man uttered—none of the foolish and ignorant opinions, none of the coarse and awkward phrases—and as he listened amazement seized him, and then anger, and he said to himself: "This is the man, this is the conceited and ignorant smatterer, who would supplantme, and rob my wife and child of health and happiness!" He rose at once in his anger to answer him, to smash and pulverise him. What he said in his angerhe did not know; but when he had finished he sat down and buried his face in his hands and was sure he had made an egregious ass of himself. He felt very faint and drank more water, and it was all over. In a dazed and hurried fashion he said his adieux and went away to the train, convinced he should never see Upton more.
He had entered a carriage and sunk back with body exhausted, but with brain on fire; the train was starting, when the door was flung open, and Mr. Lloyd burst in and sat down opposite him.
"THE DOOR SWUNG OPEN."
"Halloa!" he cried. "I didnotthink to find you here. What a splendid debate it was, wasn't it?" He did not wait for an answer, but hurried on in his loquacity, "I think I woke them up. They need waking up, and I'll do it when I'm their minister."
It clearly did not occur to him that hisvis-à-vismight be minister instead; and Mr. Murray, in his exaggerated dread and humility, thought that the question who was to be minister must really have been settled before the young man left. Mr. Murray said nothing, but that did not embarrass Mr. Lloyd.
"I shall soon settle," he continued, "the hash of some of those frightened old fogies who want things to go on in the old, humdrum way. It's a fine place, and a magnificent chapel, and can be made a popular cause: and I'll make it, too, when I'm among them. Good, rousing, popular stuff—that's the thing to make a success; don't you think so, Murray?"
"No doubt," said Murray, scarce knowing or caring what he said in his bitterness and despair; "only make noise enough."
Young Mr. Lloyd merely laughed boisterously, and Mr. Murray only kept saying to himself: "This is the man who has robbed me of my chance, and my wife and child of health and happiness! But for this ignorant, conceited, and incompetent braggart I should be minister!"
And incontrollable dislike—and in his nervous, over-strained condition, hatred even—rose in him against the young man.
As Lloyd went on with his ding-dong, maddening talk, Mr. Murray, who could have cried aloud in his pain and despair of the loss he believed he had endured, observed absently that the inner handle of the door showed that the catch was open. The train slowed down, for some reason, in the middle of a tunnel, and Lloyd rose in his lusty, boisterous way, banged down the window, and looked out.
"These trains," quoth he, "are confoundedly slow."
Mr. Murray kept his eye on the brass handle of the door. It was a dangerous position for Mr. Lloyd; if he leaned too heavily, or if the train went on with a jerk, he was likely to be thrown out. Should he warn him? Should he say, "Take care: you may fall in your rashness." Yet why did not the foolish, unobservant young man see for himself the condition of the door?
Still, the handle of the door fascinated the minister's eye, and he kept silence. At that moment the train started off again with a jerk and a screech; the door swung open, and Lloyd fell, and as the minister put out his hands and head to catch him, with a horrified "Oh!" he saw the fiery eye of a train rushing down upon him from the opposite direction. It came on with thunderous roar and passed, and the minister sank back in the carriagealone, and fainted!
He came to himself only outside the London terminus at which he had to arrive, when the train drew up, and a man came along for the collection of tickets. In a half-dazedcondition (which the ticket-collector probably considered intoxication), he surrendered his ticket without a word, and then the train went on, and presently he was on the platform, stumbling out of the station on his way home, but no more in touch with the people and things he passed among than a man in a dream.
What had he done? What had he done? To what a depth of misery and infamy had he cast himself? It was impossible to sound the black bottom of it.
"I have slain a man to my wounding; a young man to my hurt."
The old words rose in his mind unbidden—rose and sank, rose and sank again. He felt that the young man must be lying crushed across those rails. And it was his doing: he had not warned the young man of his danger; he had consented to his death, and, therefore, he had killed him! Oh, the horror! Oh, the pity of it!
When he reached his lonely lodging it was late, and he was dull and tired. He was conscious of having walked a long way round, and to and fro, but where he did not know. The strain was now off his nerves, and dull, dead misery was upon him. He mechanically undressed, and went to bed and sank to sleep at once; but his sleep was unrefreshing: it was troubled all the night through with alarms and terrors, with screeching and roaring trains, and falling bodies; and when in the morning he was fully awake, his misery settled upon him like a dense fog of death.
The morning postman brought a letter from his wife. She was in good spirits, and the boy was improving rapidly. Then tears—bitter, bitter tears!—came to his relief, and he sobbed in agony. What had possessed him? What fiend of anger and hate had entered into him to make him commit that deed? He was aghast at the atrocious possibilities of his own nature. He felt as if he could not look in the face of his wife again, or again venture to take her in his arms. Would she not shrink from him with horror when she knew? And would not his boy—his little Jim!—when he grew up (if he ever grew up) be ashamed of the father who had so dishonoured his name?
"Oh, my God!" he cried in his misery and grief. "Let me bear the utmost punishment of my sin, but spare them! Punish not the innocent with the guilty! Let my dear wife and child live in peace and honour before Thee!"
He could not eat a morsel of breakfast—he had scarcely tasted food or drink for two whole days—and he could not rest in the lodgings. He wandered out with his load of misery upon him. He was a man who seldom read the newspapers, and he did not think of buying one now, nor did it even occur to him to scan the contents-bills set outside the newsvendors' shops. He merely wandered on and round, revolving the horrible business that had brought him so low, and then he wandered back in the afternoon faint with exhaustion.
When he entered the sitting-room he saw a letter set for him on the mantelpiece. It was from his friend at Upton, and it declared with delight that, after the stirring debate on Thursday evening, he (Murray) had been "unanimously elected" minister. That was the most unlooked-for stroke of retribution! To think that he had committed his sin—nay, his crime!—in headlong wantonness! To think that at the very moment when he had committed it he was being elected to the place which he had believed the young man had been chosen to fill! Bitter, bitter was his punishment beginning to be; for, of course, he could not, with the stain of crime on his soul if not on his hands, accept the place—not even to save his wife and child from want!
The writer further said that it was desired he (Murray) should occupy next Sunday the pulpit which was henceforward to be his. What was to be done? Clearly but one thing: at all costs to occupy the pulpit on Sunday morning, to lay bare his soul to the people who had "unanimously" invited him, and to tell them he could never more be minister either there or elsewhere.
He sat thus with the letter in his hand, when the door opened and his wife came in with the boy asleep in her arms: he had omitted to write to her since Wednesday. He rose to his feet, and stood back against the fire-place.
"Oh, my poor dear!" she cried, when she saw him. "How terribly ill you look! Why didn't you tell me? I felt there was something wrong with you when I had no word." She carefully laid the sleeping child on the couch and returned to embrace her husband.
"Don't, Mary!" said he, keeping her back.
"Oh, James dear!" she said, clasping her hands. "What has gone wrong? You look worn to death!"
"Everything's gone wrong, Mary!" he answered. "My whole life's gone wrong!"
"What do you mean?" she asked in breathless terror. "What have you in your hand?"
He held out to her the letter, and sat down and covered his face.
"Oh, but this is good news, James!" she exclaimed. "You are elected minister at Upton!"
"I can't go, Mary! I can no longer be minister there or anywhere!"
"James, my darling!" She knelt beside him, and put her arms about him. "Something has happened to you! Tell me what it is!" But he held his peace. "Remember, my dear, that we are all the world to each other; remember that when we were married we said we should never have any secret from each other! Tell me your trouble, my dear!"
He could not resist her appeal: he told her the whole story.
"My poor, dear love!" she cried. "How terribly tried you have been! And I did not know it!"
"DON'T, MARY!"
"And you don't shrink from me, Mary?" said he.
"Shrink from you, my dear husband?" she demanded. "How can you ask me? Oh, my darling!"
She kissed his hands and his face, and covered him with her love and wept over him.
They sat in silence for a while, and then he told her what he proposed to do. She agreed with him that that was the proper thing.
"We must do the first thing that is right, whatever may happen to ourselves. Write and say that you do not feel you can take more than the morning service. I'll go with you, and you shall do as you say—and the rest is with God."
Thus it was arranged. And on Sunday morning they set off together for Upton, leaving the boy in the care of the landlady. They had no word to say to each other in the train, but they held close each other's hand. They avoided greetings, and introductions, and felicitations save from one or two by keeping close in the vestry till the hour struck, and the attendant came to usher the minister to the pulpit. He went out and up the pulpit stairs with a firm step, but his face was very pale, his lips were parched, and his heart was thumping hard, till he felt as if it would burst. The first part of the service was gone through, and the minister rose to deliver his sermon. He gave out his text, "And Cain said unto the Lord, 'My punishment is greater than I can bear!'" and glanced round upon the congregation, who sat up wondering what was to come of that. He repeated it, and happening to look down, saw seated immediately below the pulpit, looking as well and self-satisfied as usual, the young man whom he had imagined crushed in the tunnel! The revulsion of feeling was too great; the minister put up his hand to his head, with a cry something between sob and sigh, tottered, and fell back!
There was a flutter and a rustle of dismaythroughout the congregation. The minister's wife was up the pulpit stairs in an instant, and she was followed by the chairman and the young Mr. Lloyd. Between them they carried the minister down into the vestry, where a few others presently assembled.
"Will you run for a doctor, Mr. Lloyd?" said the chairman.
Hearing the name "Lloyd," and seeing a man in minister's attire, Mrs. Murray guessed the truth at once.
"I think," said she, "there is no need for a doctor, my husband has only fainted. He has been terribly worried all the year, and the last week or two especially has told on him."
"I thought the other night," said the chairman, "that he looked ill."
"He has not been well since," said she; and she continued, turning to Mr. Lloyd, "I believe he was the more upset that he thought an accident had happened to you in the train, Mr. Lloyd."
"Oh," said the young man, "it was nothing. It really served me right for leaning against a door that was unlatched. I picked myself up all right."
The chairman and the others stared; they clearly had heard nothing of that.
"He is coming round," said the wife. "If someone will kindly get me a cab, I'll take him home."
That is the story of the unconfessed crime of the minister of Upton Chapel, who is to-day known as a gentle, sweet, and somewhat shy man, good to all, and especially tender and patient with all wrong-doers.
CONVALESCENT HOME, HIGHGATE.
"
W
E want to move Johnny to a place where there are none but children; a place set up on purpose for sick children; where the good doctors and nurses pass their lives with children, talk to none but children, touch none but children, comfort and cure none but children."
Who does not remember that chapter in "Our Mutual Friend" in which Charles Dickens described Johnny's removal—with his Noah's Ark and his noble wooden steed—from the care of poor old Betty to that of the Hospital for Sick Children in Great Ormond-street? Johnny is dead—he died after bequeathing all his dear possessions, the Noah's Ark, the gallant horse, and the yellow bird, to his little sick neighbour—and his large-hearted creator is dead too; but the Hospital in Great Ormond-street still exists—in a finer form than Dickens knew it—and still receives sick children to be comforted and cured by its gentle nurses and good doctors.
And this is how the very first Hospital for Children came to be founded. Some fifty years ago, Dr. Charles West, a physician extremely interested in children and their ailments, was walking with a companion along Great Ormond-street. He stopped opposite the stately old mansion known as No. 49, which was then "to let," and said, "There! That is the future Children's Hospital. It can be had cheap, I believe, and it is in the midst of a district teeming with poor." The house was known to the Doctor as one with a history. It had been the residence of a great and kindly man—the famous Dr. Richard Mead, Court Physician to Queen Anne and George the First, and it is described by a chronicler of the time as a "splendidly-fitted mansion, with spacious gardens looking out into the fields" of St. Pancras. Another notable tenant of the mansion was the Rev. Zachary Macaulay, father of Lord Macaulay, and a co-worker with Clarkson and Wilberforce for the abolition of slavery.
Dr. Charles West pushed his project forturning the house into a hospital for sick children with such effect that a Provisional Committee was formed, which held its first recorded meeting on January 30, 1850, under the presidency of the philanthropic banker Joseph Hoare. As a practical outcome of these and other meetings, the mansion and grounds were bought, and the necessary alterations were made to adapt them for their purpose. A "constitution" also was drawn up—which obtains to this day—and in that it was set down that the object of the Hospital was threefold:—"(1) The Medical and Surgical Treatment of Poor Children; (2) The Attainment and Diffusion of Knowledge regarding the Diseases of Children; and (3) The Training of Nurses for Children." So, in the February of 1852—exactly nine-and-thirty years ago—the Hospital for Sick Children was opened, and visitors had displayed to them the curious sight of ailing children lying contentedly in little cots in the splendid apartments still decorated with flowing figures and scrolls of beautiful blue on the ceiling, and bright shepherds and shepherdesses in the panels of the walls—rooms where the beaux and belles of Queen Anne and King George, in wigs and buckle-shoes, in frills and furbelows, had been wont to assemble; where the kindly Dr. Mead had learnedly discussed with his brethren, and where Zachary Macaulay had presided at many an anti-slavery meeting. It was, indeed, a haunted house that the poor sick children had been carried into—haunted, however, not by hideous spirits of darkness and crime, but by gentle memories of Christian charity and loving-kindness.
For some time poor people were shy of the new hospital. In the first month only eight cots were occupied out of the ten provided, and only twenty-four out-patients were treated. The treatment of these, however, soon told upon the people, and by and by more little patients were brought to the door of the Hospital than could be received. The place steadily grew in usefulness and popularity, so that in five years 1,483 little people occupied its cots, and 39,300 passed through its out-patient department. But by 1858 the hearts of the founders and managers misgave them; for funds had fallen so low that it was feared the doors of the Hospital must be closed. No doubt the anxious and terrible events of the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny had done much to divert public attention from the claims of the little folk in 49, Great Ormond-street, but the general tendency of even kindly people to run after new things and then to neglect them had done more. It was then that Charles Dickens stood the true and practical friend of the Hospital. He was appealed to for the magic help of his pen and his voice. He wrote about the sick children, and he spoke for them at the annual dinner of 1858 in a speech so potent to move the heart and to untie the purse-strings that the Hospital managers smiled again; the number of cots was increased to 44, two additional physicians were appointed, and No. 48 was added to No. 49, Great Ormond-street.
From that date the institution prospered and grew, till, in 1869, Cromwell House, at the top of Highgate-hill (of which more anon) was opened as a Convalescent Branch of the Hospital, and in 1872 the first stone of the present building was laid by the Princess of Wales, in the spacious garden of Number Forty-Nine. The funds, however, were insufficient for the completion of the whole place, and until 1889 the Hospital stood with but one wing. Extraordinary efforts were made to collect money, with the result that last year the new wing was begun on the site of the two "stately mansions" which had been for years the home of the Hospital. With all this increase, and the temptation sometimes to borrow rather than slacken in a good work, the managers have never borrowed nor run into debt. They have steadily believed in the excellent advice which Mr. Micawber made a present of to his young friend Copperfield, "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six: result, happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six: result, misery"; and, as a consequence, they are annually dependent on the voluntary contributions of kind-hearted people who are willing to aid them to rescue ailing little children from "the two grim nurses, Poverty and Sickness."
But, in order to be interested in the work of the Hospital and its little charges, there is nothing like a personal visit. One bitterly cold afternoon a little while before Christmas, we kept an appointment with the courteous Secretary, and were by him led past the uniformed porter at the great door, and up the great staircase to the little snuggery of Miss Hicks, the Lady Superintendent. On our way we had glimpses through glass doors into clean, brightwards, which gave a first impression at once cheerful and soothing, heightened by contrast with the heavy black cold that oppressed all life out of doors. By the Secretary we were transferred to the guidance of Miss Hicks, who has done more than can here be told for the prosperity of the Hospital and the completion of the building. She led us again downstairs, to begin our tour of inspection at the very beginning—at the door of the out-patients' department. That is opened at half-past eight every week-day morning, and in troop crowds of poor mothers with children of all ages up to twelve—babies in arms and toddlekins led by the hand. They pass through a kind of turnstile and take their seats in the order of their arrival on rows of benches in a large waiting-room, provided with a stove, a lavatory, and a drinking-fountain, with an attendant nurse and a woman to sell cheap, wholesome buns baked in the Hospital; for they may have to wait all the morning before their turn arrives to go in to the doctor, who sits from nine to twelve seeing and prescribing for child after child; and, if the matter is very serious, sending the poor thing on into the Hospital to occupy one of the cosy cots. All the morning this stream of sad and ailing mothers and children trickles on out of the waiting-room into the presence of the keen-eyed, kindly doctor, out to the window of the great dispensary (which stretches the whole length of the building) to take up the medicine ordered, on past a little box on the wall, which requests the mothers to "please spare a penny," and so out into the street again. There are two such out-patient departments—one at either end of the great building—and there pass through them in a year between eighteen and nineteen thousand cases, which leave grateful casual pennies in the little wall-box to the respectable amount of £100 a year. It does not need much arithmetic to reckon that that means no less than 24,000 pence.
DAISY.
Leaving that lower region (which is, of course, deserted when we view it in the afternoon) we re-ascend to look at the little in-patients. From the first ward we seek to enter we are admonished by our own senses to turn back. We have barely looked in when the faint, sweet odour of chloroform hanging in the air, the hiss of the antiseptic-spray machine, and the screens placed round a cot inform us that one of the surgeons is conducting an operation. The ward is all hushed in silence, for the children are quick to learn that, when the big, kind-eyed doctor is putting a little comrade to sleep in order to do some clever thing to him to make him well, all must be as quiet as mice. There is no more touching evidence of the trust and faith of childhood than the readiness with which these children yield themselves to the influence of chloroform, and surrender themselves without a pang of fear into the careful hands of the doctor. Sometimes, when an examination or an operation is over, there is a little flash of resentment, as in the case of the poor boy who, after having submitted patiently to have his lungs examined, exclaimed to the doctor, "I'll tell my mother you've been a-squeezing of me!"
We cross to the other side and enter the ward called after Queen Victoria. The ward is quiet, for it is one of those set apart for medical cases. Here the poor mites of patients are almost all lying weak and ill. On the left, not far from the door, we comeupon a pretty and piteous sight. In a cot roofed and curtained with white, save on one side, lies a little flaxen-haired girl—a mere baby of between two and three—named "Daisy." Her eyes are open, but she does not move when we look at her; she only continues to cuddle to her bosom her brush and comb, from which, the nurse tells us, she resolutely refuses to be parted. She is ill of some kind of growths in the throat, and on the other side of her cot stands a bronchial kettle over a spirit-lamp, thrusting its long nozzle through the white curtain of the cot to moisten and mollify the atmosphere breathed by the little patient. While our artist prepares to make a sketch, we note that the baby's eyes are fixed on the vapours from the kettle, which are curling and writhing, and hovering and melting over her. What does she think of them? Do they suggest to her at all, child though she is, the dimness and evanescence of that human life which she is thus painfully beginning? Does she wonder what it all means—her illness, the curling vapour, and the people near her bed? Poor Daisy! There are scores of children like her here, and tens of thousands out of doors, who suffer thus for the sins of society and the sins of their parents. It is possible to pity her and them without reserve, for they have done nothing to bring these sufferings on themselves. Surely, then, their parents and society owe it to them that all things possible should be done to set them in the way of health.
And much is certainly done in this Hospital for Sick Children. We look round the ward—and what we say of this ward may be understood to apply to all—and note how architectural art and sanitary and medical skill have done their utmost to make this as perfect a place as can be contrived for the recovery of health. The ward is large and lofty, and contains twenty-one cots, half of which are for boys and half for girls. The walls have been built double, with an air space in the midst, for the sake of warming and ventilation. The inner face of the walls is made of glazed bricks of various colours, a pleasant shade of green being the chief. That not only has an agreeable effect, but also ensures that no infection or taint can be retained—and, to make that surety doubly sure, the walls are once a month washed down with disinfectants. Every ward has attached to it, but completely outside and isolated, a small kitchen, a clothes-room, a bath-room, &c. These are against the several corners of the ward, and combine to form the towers which run up in the front and back of the building. Every ward also has a stove with double open fireplace, which serves, not only to warm the room in the ordinary way, but also to burn, so to say, and carry away the vitiated air, and, moreover, to send off warm through the open iron-work surrounding it fresh air which comes through openings in the floor from ventilating shafts communicating with the outer atmosphere. That is what architectural and sanitary art has done for children. And what does not medical and nursing skill do for them? And tender human kindness, which is as nourishing to the ailing little ones as mother's milk? It is small reproach against poor parents to say that seldom do their children know real childish happiness, and cleanliness, and comfort, till they are brought into one of these wards. It is in itself an invigoration to be gently waited upon and fed by sweet, comely young nurses, none of whom is allowed to enter fully upon her duties till she has proved herself fond of children and deft to manage them. And what a delight it must be to have constantly on your bed wonderful picture-books, and on the tray that slides along the top rails of your cot the whole animal creation trooping out of Noah's Ark, armies of tin soldiers, and wonderful woolly dogs with amazing barks concealed in their bowels, or—if you happen to be a girl—dolls, dressed and undressed, of all sorts and sizes! And, lastly, what a contrast is all this space, and light, and pure air—which is never hot and never cold—to the low ceilings and narrow walls, the stuffiness, and the impurity of the poor little homes from which the children come. There, if they are unwell only, they cannot but toss and cry and suffer on their bed, exasperate their hard-worked mother, and drive their home-coming father forth to drown his sorrows in the flowing bowl: here they are wrapped softly in a heavenly calm, ministered to by skilful, tender hands, and spoken to by soft and kindly voices: so that they wonder, and insensibly are soothed and cease to suffer. Until he has been in a children's hospital, no one would guess how thoughtful, and good-tempered, and contented a sick child can be amid his strange surroundings.
But we linger too long in this ward.With a glance at the chubby, convalescent boy, "Martin," asleep in his arm-chair before the fire—whom we leave our artist companion to sketch—we pass upstairs to another medical ward, which promises to be the liveliest of all; for, as soon as we are ushered through the door, a cheery voice rings out from somewhere near the stove:—
"Halloa, man! Ha, ha, ha!"
MARTIN.
We are instantly led with a laugh to the owner of the voice, who occupies a cot over against the fire. He is called "Freddy," and he is a merry little chap, with dark hair, and bright twinkling eyes—so young and yet so active that he is tethered by the waist to one of the bars at the head of his bed lest he should fling himself out upon the floor—so young, and yet afflicted with so old a couple of ailments. He is being treated for "chronic asthma and bronchitis." He is a child of the slums; he is by nature strong and merry, and—poor little chap!—he has been brought to this pass merely by a cold steadily and ignorantly neglected. Let us hope that "Freddy" will be cured, and that he will become a sturdy and useful citizen, and keep ever bright the memory of his childish experience of hospital care and tenderness.
Next to "Freddy" is another kind of boy altogether. He has evidently been the pet of his mother at home, as he is the pet of the nurses here. He is sitting up in his cot, playing in a serious, melancholy way with a set of tea-things. He is very pretty. He has large eyes and a mass of fair curls, and he looks up in a pensive way that makes the nurses call him "Bubbles," after Sir John Millais' well-known picture-poster. He has a knack of saying droll things with an unconscious seriousness which makes them doubly amusing. He is shy, however, and it is difficult to engage him in conversation. We try to wake his friendliness by presenting him with a specimen of a common coin of the realm, but for some time without effect. For several seconds he will bend his powerful mind to nothing but the important matter of finding a receptacle for the coin that will be safe, and that will at the same time constantly exhibit it to his delighted eye. These conditions being at length fulfilled, he condescends to listen to our questions.
Does he like being in the Hospital?
"Yes. But I'm goin' 'ome on Kismas Day. My mother's comin' for me."
We express our pleasure at the news. He looks at us with his large, pensive eyes, and continues in the same low, slow, pensive tone:—
"Will the doctor let me? Eh? Will he let me? I've nearly finished my medicine. Will I have to finish it all?"
We reluctantly utter the opinion that very likely he will have to "finish it all" in order to get well enough to go home. And then after another remark or two we turn away to look at other little patients; but from afar we can see that the child is still deeply pondering the question. Presently we hear the slow, pensive voice call:—
"I say!"
We go to him, and he inquires: "Is Kismas in the shops? Eh? Is there toys and fings?"
We answer that the shops are simply overflowing with Christmas delights, and again we retire; but by and by the slow, pensive voice again calls:—
"I say!"
Again we return, and he says: "Will the doctor come to me on Kismas morningand say, 'Cheer up, Tommy; you're goin' 'ome to-day?' Will he? Eh?"
Poor little boy! Though the nurses love him, and though he loves his nurses, he longs for his mother and the "Kismas" joys of home. And though he looks so healthy, and has only turned three years, he has incipient consumption, and his "Kismas" must be spent either here or in the Convalescent Home on the top of Highgate-hill.