Kitabı oku: «Scamp and I: A Story of City By-Ways», sayfa 6

Chapter Eleven
Maxey’s Young ’Un

As Flo walked down the street, the wonderful news she had heard for the first time completely absorbed her mind, so much so that she forgot that Dick was a thief, that Dick and Jenks were both suffering from the penalty of their crime, that she was returning to her cellar alone, without even Scamp to keep her company. The news she had heard was so great, so intensely interesting in its freshness and newness, that she could think of nothing else.

She walked down, as her wont was, several by-streets, and took several short cuts, and found herself more than once in parts of the town where no respectable person was ever seen.

The gutter children working at their several wretched trades called after her as she passed, one addressing her as “old bonnet,” another asking how much she wanted a-piece for the flowers that dangled so ludicrously on her forehead.

And being a timid child, and, London bred as she was, sensitive to ridicule, she walked on faster and faster, really anxious to find any quiet place where she could sit down and think. At last, as she was passing a more open piece of ground, where a group of boys were playing pitch-and-toss, they, noticing her quickened movements, and rather frightened face, made a rush at her, and Flo, losing all presence of mind, began to run.

Little chance would she have had against her tormentors, had not just then a tall policeman appeared in sight, whereupon they considered it more prudent to give up their chase, and return to their interrupted amusements.

Poor Flo, however, still believing them to be at her heels, ran faster than ever down a narrow lane to her right, turned sharp round a corner, when suddenly her foot tripped against a cellar grating, the grating, insecurely fastened, gave way, and the child, her fall partly broken by a ladder which stood against the grating, found herself bruised, stunned, almost unconscious, on the ground several feet below the street.

For some moments she lay quiet, not in pain, and not quite insensible, but too much frightened and shaken to be capable of movement.

Then a sound within a foot or two of her caused her heart to leap with fresh fear. She sat up and listened intently.

It was a stifled sound, it was the whine of a dog.

For Scamp’s sake Flo had learned to love all dogs. She made her way, though not without pain, to this one now, and put her hand on its head.

Instead of being angry and resenting this freedom, as a strange dog might, a quiver of joy went through the animal, its tail wagged violently, its brown eyes cast melting glances of love at Flo, its small rough tongue tried to lick her face and hands, and there, gagged and tied, but well fed, as yet unhurt, and a platter of broken meat by its side, was her own dog, her lost dog, Scamp.

Flo laid her head on the head of the dog, and burst into tears of joy.

The pain of her fall was forgotten, she was very glad she had knocked against that broken grating, that by this means she had stumbled into this cellar; her dog could accompany her home – she would not be so lonely now.

With her own hands she unfastened the gag, and loosened the chain from Scamp’s neck, and the dog, delighting in his recovered freedom, danced and scampered madly round her, uttering great, deep bays of joy.

Alas! for Scamp, his foolish and untimely mirth excited undue attention to him.

His loud and no longer muffled bark brought two men quickly into the cellar.

Flo had the prudence of mind to hide behind some old boards, and Scamp with equal prudence did not follow her.

“Down, you brute,” said the short thick-set man whom Jenks on a former occasion had addressed as Maxey. “Wot a noise, ’ee’s makin’; the perleece’ll get scent of the young dawg wid his noise,” and the cruel wretch shied a great blow at Scamp, which caused the poor animal to quiver and cry out with pain.

“’Ee’ll be quiet enough afore the night is hover,” said the man’s companion, with a loud laugh. “Lor! won’t it be fun to see the bull-dawg a tearin’ of ’im? I’m comin’ to shave and soap ’im presently; but see, Maxey, some one ’as been and tumbled inter the cellar, down by the gratin’, as I’m alive! See! them two bars is broke right acrost.”

“Run and put them together, then, the best way possible,” called out Maxey, “and I’ll look round the cellar to give it to any one as is in hidin’.”

How fast Flo’s heart beat at those words, but Maxey, though he imagined he had searched in every available nook, never thought of examining behind the three thin boards almost jammed against the wall, and behind which the child had crushed her slight frame.

He believed that whoever had fallen into the cellar had beaten a hasty retreat, and after tying up Scamp more firmly than ever, took his departure.

Now was Flo’s time. She had only a few moments to effect her escape and the dog’s escape. A dreadful meaning had Maxey’s words for her – her dog’s life was in peril.

Never heeding an acute agony which had set in by this time in her right foot, she made her way to Scamp’s side, and first putting her arms round his neck, entreated him in the most pathetic voice to be quiet and not to betray them by any more barking.

If dogs cannot understand words and their meanings, they are very clever at comprehending tones and their meanings.

Perfectly did this dog’s clear intelligence take in that Flo meant them both to escape, that any undue noise on his part would defeat their purpose. He confessed to himself that in his first joy at seeing her he had acted foolishly, he would do so no more.

When she unfastened him he bounded up the ladder, and butting with his great strong head against the broken grating, removed it again from its place, then springing to the ground, was a free dog once more. Half a moment later Flo was by his side.

There were plenty of people, and idle people too, in the streets, but, strange to say, no one noticed the child and dog, and they passed on their way in safety. A few moments’ walking brought them to Duncan Street, then to their own cellar, down the ladder of which Scamp trotted with a happy, confident air.

Flo followed him feebly, and tottering across the floor, threw herself on her straw bed. Not another step could she go. She was much hurt; she was in severe pain.

Was her foot broken? Hardly that, or she could not have walked at all, but her present agony was so great, that large drops stood on her brow, and two or three sharp cries came from her patient lips.

How she longed for Dick then, or Jenks then, or Janey then. Yes, she had Scamp, and that was something – Scamp, who was lying abject by her side, pouring out upon her a whole wealth of love, who, knowing what she had done for him, would evermore do all that dog could do for her sake. She raised her hand to his head and patted him, glad, very glad that she had rescued him from an unknown but dreadful fate.

But she wanted something else, something or some one to give her ease in her terrible agony, and God, her loving Father, looking down from heaven, saw His little child’s sore need, and though as yet He sent her no earthly succour, He gave to her the blessed present relief of unconsciousness. Flo fainted away.

When she recovered an hour or two later, the scanty light that ever penetrated into the cellar had departed, and at first, when the child opened her eyes in the darkness, pain and memory of all recent events had completely left her. She fancied she was lying again by her mother’s side on that very straw mattress, she stretched out her arms to embrace her, and to ask her the question with which she had greeted her for the last three months of her life.

“Be yer werry tired, mother?”

But then the empty place, the straw where the weary form was no longer lying, brought back remembrance; her mother was not there – her mother was gone. She was resting in her quiet grave, and could never help, or succour, or protect her more.

But then again her thoughts were broken. There were rude noises outside, a frightened cry from Scamp at the foot of the bed, the cellar door was violently opened, two men scrambled down the ladder, and with many oaths and curses began tossing about the wretched furniture, and calling loudly for the missing dog.

Where was he? Not on Flo’s bed, which they unmercifully raked about, unheeding her moans of pain; not anywhere apparently. Vowing vengeance on whoever had stolen the dawg, the men departed at last.

Then again all was silence, and in a few moments a cowed-looking and decidedly sooty animal might, had any light been there to see, have been observed descending from the chimney where he had lain perdu.

Of the life-preserving qualities Scamp possessed a large share, as doubtless before this his story proves.

Perhaps his cur mother had put him up to a wrinkle or two in his babyhood; at any rate, fully determined was he to meet no violent end, to live out his appointed time, and very clever were the expedients he used to promote this worthy object.

Now he shook himself as free as he could of the encumbrances he had met with in the smoky, sooty chimney, and again approached Flo’s side.

She laid her hand on his head, praised him a little for the talent he had shown in again escaping from Maxey, and the dreadful fate to which Maxey meant to consign him; then the two lay quiet and silent.

A child and a dog!

Could any one have looked in on them that night they would have said that in all the great city no two could be more utterly alone and forsaken.

That individual, whoever he might have been, would have gone away with a wrong impression – they were not so.

Any creature that retains hope, any creature that retains faith, which is better, than hope, cannot be really desolate.

The dog had all the large, though unconscious faith of his kind in his Creator. It had never occurred to him to murmur at his fate, to wish for himself the better and more silken lives that some dogs live. To live at all was a blessed thing, to love at all a more blessed thing – he lived and he loved – he was perfectly happy.

And the child – for the first time she knew of and had faith in a Divine Father, she had heard of some one who loved her, and who would make all things right for her. She thought of this love, she pondered over it, she was neither desolate nor unhappy. God and God’s Son loved her, and loved Dick – they knew all about her and Dick; and some day their Father would send for them both and give them a home in His House in Heaven.

Flo had at all times a vivid imagination, since her earliest days it had been her dear delight to have day dreams, to build castles in the air. No well-dressed or happy-looking child ever crossed her path that she did not suppose herself that child, that she did not go through in fancy that child’s delightful life. What wardrobes had Flo in imagination, what gay trinkets adorned her brow, her arms, her neck!

What a lovely house she lived in, what heaps of shillings and sovereigns she possessed! Now and then, in her moments of most daring flight, she had even a handle to her name, and people addressed her as “Lady Flo.” But all the time, while happy in these dreams, she had always known them to be but dreams. She was only Flo, working as a translator of old boots and shoes, down in a dark cellar – she had no fine dresses, no pretty ornaments, no money, she was hungry and cold, and generally miserable, and as far as she could possibly see there was never any chance of her being anything else.

She generally came down from her high imaginings to this stern reality, with a great burst of tears, only one sad thought comforting her, to be alive at all she could never be worse than she was, she could never sink any lower.

She was mistaken.

Last night, lying all alone and waiting for Dick’s trial, lying hour after hour hoping and longing for sleep to visit her, and hoping and longing in vain, she had proved that she was mistaken. Lower depths of sorrow and desolation could be reached, and she had reached them. Through no fault of hers, the stern hand of the law was stretched out to grasp her one treasure, to take her brother away.

Dick had broken a promise sealed on dying lips – Dick was a thief. Henceforth and for ever the brand of the prison would be on him.

When, their punishment over, he and Jenks were free once again, nothing now, no power, or art, or persuasion, on her part could keep those two apart. Together they would plunge into deeper and more daring crime, and come eventually to the bad and miserable end her mother had so often described to her. It was plain that she and Dick must separate.

When the boys were released from prison, it was plain that she and they could not live together as of old. The honest could not live with the dishonest. Her mother had often told her that, had often warned her to be sure, happen what might, to choose honest companions. So Flo knew that unless she too broke her word to mother, they must part – Dick and she must part. And yet how much she loved him – how much her mother had loved him!

He was not grave like her; he had never carried an old head on young shoulders; he was the merriest, brightest, funniest boy in the world – one of those throw-all-care-to-the-winds little fellows, who invariably give pleasure even in the darkest and most shady homes. His elastic spirits never flagged, his gay heart never despaired, he whistled over his driest crusts, he turned somersaults over his supperless hours – he had for many a day been the light of two pairs of eyes. True, he had often been idle, and lately had left the brunt of the daily labour, if not all of it, to Flo. But the mother heart of the little sister, who was in reality younger than himself, accepted all this as a necessity.

Was he not a boy? and was it not one of the first laws of nature that all girls should work and all boys should play?

But now Dick must work with the hard labour the law accords to its prisoners. That bright little face must look out behind a prisoner’s mask, he must be confined in the dark cell, he must be chained to the whipping-post, he must be half-starved on bread and water. Out of prison he was half his time without the former of these necessities of life, and at his age he would not be subjected to hard labour.

But Flo knew nothing of these distinctions, and all the terrible stories she had ever heard of prisoners she imagined as happening to Dick now. So the night before the trial had been one long misery to the sensitive, affectionate child.

Now the trial was over, now Dick was really consigned to prison, or to what seemed to Flo like prison. With their eyes they had said good-bye to each other, he from the prisoners’ dock, she from her place in the witnesses’ box. The parting was over, and she was lying alone in her dark cellar, on her straw pallet, bruised, hurt, faint, but strange to say no longer unhappy, strange to say happier than she had ever been in her life before.

She had often heard of bright things – she had often imagined bright things, but now for the first time she heard of a bright thing for her.

She was not always to be in pain, she had heard to-day of a place with no pain; she was not always to be hungry, poor, and in rags – she had heard to-day of food enough and to spare, of white dresses, of a home more beautiful than the Queen’s home, of a good time coming to her who had always, always, all her life had bad times.

And Dick, though he was a thief, might share in the good time, and so might Jenks.

Our Saviour gave of His good times to thieves, and sinners, and poor people, if only they wanted them, and of course they had only to hear of them to want them.

“May I come down, Flo?” called out Janey’s voice at this juncture, at the cellar door. “Father ’ave beat me hawful; may I come down and set by yer a bit?”

The lame girl was sobbing loudly, and without waiting for Flo’s reply she scrambled down the ladder and threw herself on the bed by the child’s side.

“There now,” she said, panting out her passionate words, “’ee ’ave me hall black and blue, and my lame leg ’urt worse nor hever; and I wish ’ee wor in prison, I do; and I wish I wor dead, I do.”

“Oh! Janey,” said Flo, with a great gasp of longing, “wouldn’t it be nice to be dead?”

This corroboration of her desire startled Janey into quiet, and into a subdued —

“What, Flo Darrell?”

“To be dead, Janey, and ’avin’ a good time?”

“Well,” said Janey, recovering herself with a laugh, “wen I’m down haltogether in the dumps, as I wor a minute ago, I wishes fur it, but most times I ’ates the bear thought o’ it – ugh!”

“That’s cause yer doesn’t know, Janey, no more nor I did till to-day. Plenty of wittles, plenty of clothes, plenty of pretty things, plenty of love, all in the good time as we poor folks have arter we are dead.”

Janey gave her companion an angry push.

“There now, ef yer ain’t more than hagriwating, a comin’ on me wid yer old game of s’posin’, and me fairly clemmed wid the ’unger. There’s no good time fur me, nor never will be, I reckon,” and she again lifted up her voice and wept.

“There’s Our – Father – chart – ’eaven,” began Flo, but Janey stopped her.

“I don’t want ’im – one father’s too much fur me.” Flo was silent – she would tell no more of her sweet message to unbelieving ears.

After a time she spoke in a different tone.

“Janey?”

“Well?”

“I’d like fur to ’ear the Glory song.”

Janey had a good voice, and desired nothing better than to listen to herself. She complied readily.

”‘I’m glad I hever saw the day, Sing glory, glory, glory, When first I larned to read and pray, Sing glory, glory, glory.’

“Why, Flo! my ’eart alive! Flo, ’ere’s Scamp.”

“Sing it again,” murmured Flo.

And Janey did sing it again, and again, and yet again, until the dark cellar seemed to grow full of it, and to be lit up and brightened by it, and to its music the sick and weary child went to sleep.

Chapter Twelve
I was An Hungered and Ye Gave Me Meat

All through the night Flo had visions of bright, and clean, and lovely things. She dreamt that she had left the cellar for ever, that all the musty, ragged boots and shoes were mended, and paid for, and gone, and that instead of earning her bread in that hard and wretched way, God had come and placed her in a beautiful room, looking out on green fields, such as mother had told her of, and given her pure white dresses to make for the angels.

And God looked so kind, and so like what she had imagined her own father to look like, that she had ventured to ask Him what had become of Dick, and God had told her that He Himself was taking care of Dick, and He Himself had placed him in a good school, and all would be well with him. And she thought she sat by the open window and made the angels dresses, and was, oh! so very, very happy; and Scamp lay at her feet, and was also happy; and Mrs Jenks was in the room, ready whenever she liked to tell her more about God, and she too was happy.

Yes, they all were happy, with a happiness Flo had never conceived possible hitherto, and she felt that it was not the nice room, nor the lovely view, nor the pleasant occupation that made her happy, but just because God was near. At last the morning came, and she awoke to find that it all was only a dream.

She was still in the cellar, she must get up as usual, she must work as usual at her old thankless work, the work that barely kept starvation from the door. She felt very faint and hungry, but she remembered that she had two shillings of the money she had earned on the Derby Day locked away in the box where she usually kept mother’s old bonnet. She would get up at once and buy some breakfast for herself and Scamp. She called the dog and told him what she was about to do, and, to judge from the way he wagged his tail and rubbed his head against her hands, he understood her, and was pleased with her intention. Nay, more, to hurry her movements, he placed himself under the ladder, mounted a few rungs, came down again, and finally darted from the ladder to her, and from her to the ladder, uttering short impatient barks.

What ailed Flo? She was hungry, very hungry, but how slowly she rose from her bed. She removed her head from the pillow, she steadied herself on her elbow – how strange, and weak, and giddy she felt. She lay down again, it was only a passing weakness; then once more she tried, back came that overpowering sense of sickness and giddiness. Well, it should not conquer her this time; happen what might, she must get up. She tried to put her right foot to the ground, but a great, sharp cry of agony brought Scamp to her side in consternation, and brought also beads of pain to her brow.

No, hungry as she was, she could not walk, by no possible means could she even stand.

She lay perfectly still for a moment or two, suffering so intensely that every breath was an agony. At last this passed, and she was able to realise her position a little. In truth it was not a pleasant one.

Even the night before, she had been in great need, she had longed much for a drink, her pain had brought on intense thirst, she had meant to ask Janey to put a cup, and a jug of cold water, by her side before she left, but the sweetness of Janey’s song had caused her to fall asleep before she had made known her request, and the lame girl had gone away unconscious that anything was the matter with her. It was highly probable that she might not pay Flo a visit for days; unless her father gave her another beating, or some quite unexpected event occurred, the chances were that she would not come.

And now Flo needed meat and drink, and nursing, as she had never needed them in all her life before. Though pale and delicate-looking, she had hitherto been possessed of a certain wiry strength, which those little withered city children, with every one of health’s necessaries apparently denied them, in some strange way seem to have.

She had never gone through severe pain before; and never, with all her privations, had she known the hunger and thirst which now tormented her.

Scamp, seeing that she had changed her mind about going out, fixed on her one or two reproachful glances, and then in a very discontented manner resigned himself to his fate, and to a few more hours’ sleep.

And Flo lay and wondered what was going to become of her. She was very ill, she knew. She was alternately hot and then cold, she was alternately tortured by pangs of the most acute hunger, and then deadly sickness seemed to make the bare thought of food insupportable.

She wondered what was to be her fate. Was she to lie there, a little more sick, a little more weak, a little more hungry and thirsty, in a little more pain, until at last she died, as mother had died? Well, what then?

Only last night she had thought dying a good thing, the best thing. It was bidding good-bye to all that now troubled her, it was beginning at once the good time God had put by so carefully for little outcast children like her. If only it would come at once, this kind, beautiful Death – if only she had not to walk the dark bit of road between now and then, between now and the blessed moment when God would take her in His arms to Heaven.

But Flo had been too long with the poor, with the very, very poor, had seen too many such die, not to know well that dying was often a very long business, a business so long, and so sad, that, though the dying were suffering just as much as she now suffered, yet many weary hours, sometimes many weary days, had to be passed before relief and succour came to them; before kind Death came and took away all their sorrows and gave them rest, and sleep, and a good time. And this long period of waiting, even though the end was such brightness, felt very terrible to the lonely child. Then, suddenly, words Mrs Jenks had said to her yesterday came into her head.

“When you want food, or anything else very bad, and you don’t know how to get it, then is the time to ask God for it. All you have to do is to say up your want, whatever it be, in as few, and small, and simple words as you like, and though you speaks down in your dark cellar, God will hear you up in Heaven, and if ’tis any way possible He’ll give you what you want.”

Flo remembered these words of Mrs Jenks’ now with great and sudden gladness. If ever a time of need and sore want had come to any one it had come to her now.

What a good thing to have a Father like God to tell it all to, what a wonderful thing that He could hear her, without her having to get up to go to Him.

Her ideas of God were misty, very misty, she had not the least conception where Heaven was, or what it was, she only knew there was a God, there was a Heaven – a God for her, a Heaven for her; and with all her ignorance, many of the gifted, and mighty, and learned of the earth do not know as much. Now for the first time she would pray. She thought of no difficulty in making her petition known to God.

No more hard to tell Him of a want than it was, when her mother lived, to tell her of a desire or longing that possessed her.

“Please, I wants fur Janey or somebody to come to the cellar afore long,” she said; “I wants a sup of water werry bad, and somethink to eat. And there is two shillings stored away in mother’s old bonnet-box. Janey’d buy lots of wittles wid it. She’d be glad to come, ’cause I’d pay ’er, and I’m werry faint like. You’d ’ave to fetch ’er, please, God, ’cause she’s not at ’ome, but away to the paper factory – but you that is real kind won’t mind that.”

Then Flo lay still and listened, and waited.

She had made her request, and now the answer would come any moment.

Any instant Janey’s quick step and the sound of her crutch might be heard outside, and she would look in with her surprised face, to say that notwithstanding her employer’s anger she had been fetched away by God Himself, and meant to wait on Flo all day.

And then Flo pictured how quickly she would send Janey out, and how eagerly and willingly, with a whole bright shilling in her greedy little hand, Janey would go; and how she would commission her to buy two large mutton bones for Scamp, and a jug of cold, cold water, and a hice – for Flo felt more thirsty than hungry now – for herself.

For half-an-hour she lay very patient, straining her ears to catch Janey’s expected footstep; but when that time, and more than that time passed, and every footfall still went by on the other side, she grew first fretful, then anxious, then doubtful. She had never prayed before, but Mrs Jenks had told her that assuredly when she did pray an answer would come.

Well, she had prayed, she had spoken to God very distinctly, and told Him exactly what she wanted, but no answer came. He was to fetch Janey to her, and no Janey arrived. She had not made a hard request of Him, – she had only begged that a little child, as poor as herself, should come and give her a cup of cold water, – but the child never appeared, and Flo’s parched lips were still unmoistened. How strange of Mrs Jenks to tell her God would hear and answer prayer – not a bit of it. At least He would not hear little prayers like hers. Very likely He was too busy listening to the Queen’s prayers, and to the great people’s prayers. The great, rich people always had the best of everything, why should they not have the best of God’s time too?

Or, perhaps – and this was a worse and darker thought – perhaps there was no God; perhaps all Mrs Jenks’ talk of yesterday had been just a pretty fable – perhaps wicked Mrs Jenks had been deceiving her all the time! The more Flo considered, the more did she believe this probable.

After all, it was very unlikely that she should have lived so long and never, until yesterday, have heard anything of God and heaven, very unlikely that her mother should have lived her much longer life without knowing of these things! If there was a good time coming, was it likely that her mother should have lived and died without ever hearing of it? Slowly and reluctantly Flo gave up the hope that had brightened and rendered endurable the last four-and-twenty hours. She had no Father in heaven, there was no God! Great sobs broke from the poor little thing, a great agony of grief seemed to rend her very life in two.

She cried her heart out, then again sank into uneasy slumber. All through the long hours of that burning summer day the child lay, now sleeping fitfully, now starting in feverish fright and expectancy. At last, as evening came on, and the air, cooler elsewhere, seemed to grow hotter and hotter in this wretched spot, she started upright, suffering more intense pangs of hunger than she had hitherto known. Be her agony what it might, she must crawl, though on her knees, to the cupboard, where she knew a very old and mouldy crust still was. She rolled herself round off the straw, and then managed to move about two or three feet on the damp floor. But further movement of any description was impossible; the agony of her injured foot was greater than the agony of her hunger; she must stay still – by no possible means could she even get back to her wretched bed. She was past all reasoning or any power of consecutive thought now; she was alive to nothing but her intense bodily suffering. Every nerve ached, every limb burned; her lips were black and parched, her tongue withered in her mouth; what words she uttered in her half-unconsciousness, could hardly be distinguished.

In a much milder degree, it is true, Scamp had also spent an uneasy day – Scamp too had tried to sleep off his great hunger. It was at its height now, as he crouched by Flo’s side on the floor. During the time of his captivity he had been well fed, he had left behind him a large platter of broken meat; since Flo had set him free neither bite nor sup had passed his lips. Hungry in the morning, without doubt he was ravenously hungry now, and being of the genus designated “knowing,” saw clearly that the time had come for him to set his wits to work. As a rule he partook of Flo’s spirit, and was, in truth, an honest dog; but he had a clause in his code of morals which taught him that when no man gave to him, then it would be right for him to help himself.