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Title: Lost Gip
Author: Hesba Stretton
Release date: November 20, 2024 [eBook #74763]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Henry S. King and Co
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOST GIP ***
Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
LOST GIP has been reprinted from
THE DAY OF REST.
One Penny Weekly. Price Sixpence in Monthly
Parts, with an Informational Number.
[Illustration: FRONTISPIECE.]
_LOST GIP._
BY
HESBA STRETTON
AUTHOR OF
"JESSICA'S FIRST PRAYER," "LITTLE MEG,"
"THE DOCTOR'S DILEMMA," ETC., ETC.
———————
_SIX ILLUSTRATIONS._
———————
Eleventh Thousand.
LONDON:
HENRY S. KING AND CO.
65, CORNHILL, AND 12, PATERNOSTER ROW.
———
1873.
[All Rights reserved.]
CONTENTS.
———————
CHAPTER I. GIP'S FIRST BREATH
CHAPTER II. GIP'S HOME
CHAPTER III. LOST IN LONDON
CHAPTER IV. LOST IN JERUSALEM
CHAPTER V. A NEW FRIEND
CHAPTER VI. MRS. SHAFTO
CHAPTER VII. A SAD SIGHT
CHAPTER VIII. MR. SHAFTO
CHAPTER IX. SEEKING THE LOST
CHAPTER X. IS IT TRUE?
CHAPTER XI. AN AWAKENED CONSCIENCE
CHAPTER XII. TWO MOTHERS
CHAPTER XIII. JOHNNY'S SUNDAY SUIT
CHAPTER XIV. PASSING AWAY
CHAPTER XV. FOUND AT LAST
CHAPTER XVI. GONE
CHAPTER XVII. A VISION
CHAPTER XVIII. LEAVING THE OLD HOME
CHAPTER XIX. THE END
LOST GIP.
———————
CHAPTER I.
GIP'S FIRST BREATH.
GOING along one of the back streets of the East End of London on a
sultry summer day is by no means a pleasant or refreshing walk. The
middle of the street is narrow, and the kennels bordering the side
pavements are usually choked up with refuse thrown out from the
dwellings on either hand. Heaps of rotting fruit, potato-parings, and
decaying cabbage-leaves lie about the causeways, to be eagerly turned
over and over in search of a prize by half-famished children, whose
only anxiety, during the summer months, is to satisfy, if possible, the
hunger always gnawing at them.
There is no sweet scent in the air—no freshness; what scents there may
be, are the very reverse of sweet. The sun smites down upon the closely
built houses and dirty pavement and un-watered street, till fever seems
to follow in the trail of the sultry days. At each end of such streets
there generally stands a busy spirit-vault, which carries on a thriving
trade; for the dry air makes every one athirst, and the door swings to
and fro incessantly with the stream of men, women, and children passing
in and out.
But at the back of these thoroughfares, there lie close alleys and
courts, where the heat is still more unbearable. No current of air runs
through them; and they are so shut out of sight that those who live in
them feel no shame, and no fear of being seen by any one less wretched
than themselves. There is a dead level of misery and degradation. The
dirt becomes more loathsome, and the diseases bred by it more deadly.
Half the children born in them die before they have lived out their
twelve months of misery. Only those who are singularly strong, or
are specially cared for by their mothers, live into the second year.
Babies' funerals are so frequent they excite no notice, except that
of the children who have survived the common fate, and who follow the
little coffin to the end of their own alley, leaving it there, to be
carried away into some dim region, of which they know nothing. As
for the mothers, the greater portion of them seem to have lost their
natural love for their little ones, and are glad to be rid of a care
which would have made their lives a still heavier burden to them.
It was in one of these close, pent-up alleys that a boy was idling, one
hot summer noonday, about the door of a small dwelling in the corner
farthest from the street,—a poor house, like all the rest, with more
panes of brown paper in its windows than of glass. The four rooms of
it, two on each floor, were tenanted by as many families, with their
lodgers. There seemed to be a little excitement within, and several
women were bustling about, and could be seen through the open door
going up and down the staircase. At that time of the day there were but
few men about the yard; for most of them were costermongers, and were
away at work. But the alley was tolerably well filled with almost naked
children, playing noisily in the open gutter, or fighting with one
another with still louder noise.
The boy joined none of them, but looked on with an absent and anxious
face, from time to time peeping in through the open door, or listening
intently to every sound in the room at the top of the crazy staircase.
All at once he heard a feeble wailing cry; and the tears started
into his eyes, why he did not know, but he brushed them off his face
hastily, and kept his head turned away, lest anybody should see them.
"Sandy!" shouted a woman's voice from the stairhead. "Sandy, give us
your jacket to wrap the baby in."
If it had been the depth of winter, he would have stripped off his
ragged jacket willingly for the new baby. He had a passion for young
helpless creatures, and he had nursed and tended two other babies
before this one, and had seen them both fade away slowly, and die in
this unwholesome air.
He did not care much for his mother; how could he, when he seldom saw
her sober? But the babies were very precious to him; dearer even than
the mongrel cur he had contrived to keep in secret for a long time, but
which had been taken from him because he could not pay the duty. There
was no duty upon babies;—Sandy remembered that joyfully. The police
would take no inconvenient notice of this new little creature. He might
carry it about with him, and play with it, and teach it all sorts of
pretty tricks, with no danger of losing it.
"Is it a gel or a boy?" he asked eagerly from the woman, who hurried
downstairs for his jacket.
"A little gel!" she answered. "A reg'lar little gipsy, with black eyes,
and black hair all over its head."
"Let me have her as soon as you can," urged Sandy, rubbing his hands,
and dancing upon the doorstep, to let off a little of his pleasurable
excitement.
[Illustration: He stole round the costermonger's barrow, sat down on
one of the baskets, and then peeped at the new little face.]
"You can have her d'reckly," said the woman; "it's as hot as an oven
everywhere to-day."
"I'll come for her," replied Sandy, following her up to the door.
In a few minutes a small bundle was handed out to him, wrapped in his
old jacket; and he trod softly and cautiously downstairs, with it in
his arms.
He was at a loss for some secluded corner, where he could look at his
new treasure; for he did not wish to have all the brawling, shouting
children in the alley crowding about him, as he knew they would be in
an instant, if he sat down on the doorstep with that mysterious little
bundle on his lap. A rapid glance showed him a costermonger's barrow
reared on one end in a corner, with a basket or two on the ground.
He stole round it, and sat down on one of the baskets; then, slowly
opening the jacket, peeped at the new little face.
How was it that the tears dimmed his eyes again? The recollection of
Tom and little Vic, lying now in their tiny coffins deep down in the
ground, came back so vividly to him, that he could not see this baby
for crying. He knew it was a bad thing to do, and he was angry with
himself, and dreadfully afraid of any one finding it out, yet for a
minute or two, he could not conquer it. But after rubbing his eyes
diligently with the sleeve of the jacket, he found them clear enough to
look carefully at his prize.
A thorough gipsy, no doubt of that. Eyes as black as coal, and the
little head all covered with the blackest hair. She lay quite content
in his arms, looking seriously up into his face, as if she could really
see it, and wanted to make sure what sort of a brother he was going to
be to her. Sandy puckered up his features into a broad smile, whistled
to her softly, put his finger into her small mouth, and trotted her
very gently on his knee.
The baby was "as good as gold;" she did not cry, and so betray their
hiding-place. But her black solemn eyes never turned away from their
gaze at Sandy's face.
"Oh! I wish there were somebody as could keep it alive for me!" thought
Sandy, sorrowfully.
He had a vague notion that there was some one, somewhere, who could
save the new-born baby from dying, as Tom and little Vic had died. In
the streets he had seen numbers of rich babies, who did not want for
anything, and whose cheeks were fat and rosy, not at all like the puny,
wasted babies in the alley. But how it happened, whether it was simply
because they were rich, or because there was somebody who could keep
them alive, and cared more for them than for the poor, he could not
tell. He had often watched them with longing eyes, and knew how pretty
they looked in their blue or scarlet cloaks and white hoods, and he
wished now with all his heart that he could find some one who would
keep little Gipsy alive for him. He called the baby Gipsy to himself
and others, and no one in the alley took any trouble to give her
another name. What was the good of registering a baby that was sure to
be dead in a short time?
Sandy's mother was up and about her business again in a few days. She
earned her living, when she took the trouble to earn it, by going about
as a costermonger, as most of her neighbours did. When she had enough
strength of mind to save four or five shillings from the spirit-vault
at the corner of the street, she would hire a barrow for a week, and
lay in a stock of cheap fruit and vegetables, and Sandy would go with
her to push it. But that was very occasionally; it was seldom that her
strength of mind did not fail before the temptation of another and
another dram.
Then Sandy was thrown upon his own resources, and gained a very scanty
supply for his wants by selling fusees near the Mansion House, or any
other crowded spot, where one in a thousand of the passers-by might
see him, and by chance patronize him. Often, when there was no baby at
home, he did not go there for weeks, but slept wherever he could find a
shelter—in an empty cart, or under a tarpaulin; even without a shelter,
if this could not be had.
If his mother came across him during these spells of wandering, the
only proof of relationship she manifested was her demand for any and
all of the halfpence he might have in his possession, and her diligent
search among his rags for them. It was only when there was a baby that
Sandy went home as regularly as the night fell, carrying with him a
sticky finger of some cheap sweetmeat, which contained almost more of
poison than of sugar.
Gip was left to his care even more than the other babies. By this
time his mother had become too inveterate a drunkard to take much
interest in her. Now and then she would bear her off in her arms to
the spirit-vault, and come reeling back with her, to Sandy's great
alarm. But in general she took no notice of Gipsy, and left the boy to
tend her as well as he could. It was a good thing for the baby. Sandy
carried her out of the foul air into the broader and opener streets,
often lingering wistfully at a baker's window till he got a wholesome
crust for her to nibble at.
His jacket continued to be almost the only clothing she had, and as the
winter came on, he shivered with cold, till his benumbed arms could
scarcely hold her. But that he bore without a murmur, for who was there
to complain to? He had never known a friend to whom he could go and
say, "I am hungry, and cold, and almost naked."
He had never heard that it had once been said, "Verily I say unto you,
Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren,
ye have done it unto Me."
Was it possible that Sandy could be one of the least of these His
brethren?
There was, however, this great and last difficulty in Sandy's case. If
any one had clothed him, doing it in remembrance of their Lord, his
mother would have immediately pawned the clothes, and spent the money
in the spirit-vault.
———◆———
CHAPTER II.
GIP'S HOME.
WHETHER Gip was naturally stronger than Tom and little Vic, or whether
Sandy had learned by experience how to take better care of her, she
outlived the first fatal twelve months, and bid fair to struggle
through another year. It is true, she was pinched and stunted, her poor
little arms were thin, and her face was sallow, with great black eyes
in it, usually very solemn, but ready to twinkle merrily upon Sandy.
She had been fed with more gin than milk: Sandy could only recollect
twice or three times that she had had a draught of sky-blue milk given
to her by a kindly woman, who now and then spared them a bit of bread.
But her teeth were coming, which would be a help to her, if he could
find anything for them to eat; and he watched their growth with much
delight, often nursing her as she cried and moaned all night long upon
his knees, while the mother was unconscious in a drunken sleep. Gipsy
was growing cunning, too, and caught quickly at the pretty tricks which
the other babies had died too soon to learn.
Now that she held out a promise to live, he began to wonder how she
would grow up, and what he should do with her when she was a big girl.
Anything would be better than being like their mother! If he could only
find some way of getting on himself, that he might help Gip when she
was growing up!
Small chance was there for Sandy to get on. His cares and duties were
increasing fast; and with them, the urgent need for earning more money
in one way or another. Gip wanted more food; and before long, his old
jacket, which she wore, would be falling into shreds, to say nothing of
his own ragged and tattered condition. He made himself very troublesome
about the Mansion House, and other places, by pursuing gentlemen, and
beseeching them to buy a box of fusees. More than once he had been
handed over to the police, who had given him a not unfriendly cuff on
the ears, and bade him be off about his business.
What was his business but to provide for himself and Gip, and by
one means or another snatch up enough food to keep them alive?
Unfortunately, there was a second branch of business—to buy now and
then some old thing in Rag Fair, without which he would not be allowed
to wander about the streets, and would be compelled to remain at home
and starve. Sandy was sometimes on the very verge of despair; but
at the worst, times would mend a little. His mother, in her drunken
forgetfulness, would let fall a sixpence, or once even a shilling; and
Sandy's quick eyes would see it, and his quick fingers would seize it,
like a fortune. Or one of the neighbours would give him a day's work at
pushing a barrow, paying him sixpence for it, with some small potatoes
or frost-bitten turnips into the bargain, at the end of the long day.
Then Gip and he would make quite a feast.
"Where are I to go, Gip?" he asked one day, after the police had been
more than usually hard upon him. "Where are I to go, and what are I to
do? Go about your bis'ness, eh? Well! suppose I ain't got no bis'ness?
And I ain't likely to have no bis'ness anywheres, as I can see. I don't
know what you and me was born for. They'll begin to tell you to go
about your bis'ness as soon as ever you can run in the streets."
Gip looked shrewdly back at him with her bright black eyes, as if
she understood the difficulty, but could not help him out of it. She
could talk a little by this time, and could manage to get down to the
entrance of the alley, and watch for him coming home, till she saw him,
and then toddle to meet him, with such tottering steps—for her thin
little legs bent under her weight—that Sandy's heart would throb fast
with the fear lest she should fall. Sometimes she did fall; and with
a shout that made all who heard it turn to look at him, he would dash
forward, and pick her up in his arms before she had time to scream.
Gip could trot, too, beside her mother, holding on by her tattered
skirt, as the woman dragged her slipshod feet down to the nearest
spirit-vault. She swore at the child sometimes, but more often she took
her inside, and poured the last drop or two of her glass of gin down
Gip's throat, when her grimaces and antics made all around her laugh
loudly, as though the puny creature's excitement was a source of great
mirth. Gip was learning the road to the spirit-vault readily, and would
make her way there herself, when she was tired of playing in the gutter
with the other children, and wanted to find her mother; for she was too
heavy now for Sandy to carry her out with him, and she was too young to
run by his side as he tried to sell fusees along the streets.
Sandy returned home one evening very low and down-hearted. It had been
a rainy day, and nobody had stopped in their hurried tramp about their
business to look at his damp fusee boxes. They were completely soaked,
though he had done his best to keep them covered under his jacket. But
then he was quite wet through himself, and the water was dripping from
his thick, uncombed hair, and trickling coldly down his face and neck.
Night had set in; yet still the rain fell in torrents, driven along the
streets by a strong westerly wind. The light from the lamps glistened
in pools of water lodging on the pavement, through which he splashed
heedlessly with his bare feet. The pipes that drained the roofs leaked,
and poured down in waterfalls upon him, as he hurried along, keeping
close to the houses for as much shelter as they could give.
Gip could not be waiting and watching for him such a night as this;
and it was very well she could not, for he had brought nothing for
her—positively nothing—not even one of the stale buns which he begged
for her sometimes. It was harder than anything else, worse than
the rain, to think that perhaps she would be forced to go to sleep
hungry—crying for food, while he had none to give her.
No; Gip was not at the corner. He looked closely into the doorway,
where she often sat, as he passed, and felt his heart sink a little
lower, as if he were disappointed not to find her there.
For once the alley was quiet and deserted; not a creature who had a
home was out that night. Two or three of the windows twinkled dimly
with the light of a candle in the room within, and so helped him to
avoid the gutter, where the water was running as noisily as a brook.
But the room where his mother lived was all blank and dark—not a gleam
of light in it, either of fire or candle.
He lifted the latch, and went in, calling softly in the darkness, "Gip!
Little Gip!"
Not a sound answered him; Gip's dear shrill voice was silent. Perhaps
she was still with her mother in the spirit-vault. Or, perhaps, she
was only keeping quiet in fun; for it was one of her pretty tricks to
hide, and be as still as a mouse when he came in, while he pretended
to search for her everywhere: in their empty cupboard, and under their
mother's bed, and even up the chimney, as if Gip could be there! till
she would break out suddenly into a burst of laughter, and run at him
from her fancied hiding-place, where he had seen her all the time.
Sandy stole carefully across the dark room to the candle, which stood
in the neck of a bottle on the chimney-piece, and tried to strike a
light with some of his damp fusees. But they sputtered and glimmered
only for an instant, leaving him in the darkness of the quiet and
perhaps empty room.
But at length he succeeded in getting a match to burn long enough to
light the candle. He could see at a glance everything in the small bare
room. There was his mother's old flock bed on the floor; and there was
his mother herself lying upon it in a dead sleep, her face swollen
and red, and her ragged gown drawn over her; for long since the only
blanket and old counterpane had gone to the pawnbroker's shop, and
there was no chance of their being redeemed.
But was Gip there? Sandy could see plainly enough there was no little
Gip under his mother's gown, or beside her on the bed. She was not
there; she was not anywhere in the room. He stood motionless in his
bewilderment; his eyes wandering round the bare walls, and his heart
beating painfully. If little Gip was not at home, where could she be?
He could not bear his pain and dread long. He ran to his mother's side,
and shook her roughly by the shoulder, shouting as loudly as he could
in her ear.
But she was almost like one dead. It was hard work to awake her, and
still harder to bring her to her senses. She lifted herself up in bed,
and struck at him; but Sandy slipped out of her way.
Once again, at a safe distance, where he was quite out of reach, he
shouted his question at her.
"Where's Gip?" he cried. "Mother, what have you done with my little
Gip?"
"Gip?" repeated his mother, in her thick, drunken voice, "Gip? I lost
her; couldn't find her anywheres. She's somewhere."
That was all. Sandy's mother fell back again on the bed, and sank into
her deep sleep.
Little Gip was lost.
———◆———
CHAPTER III.
LOST IN LONDON.
FOR a minute or two Sandy stood still again, bewildered and motionless,
as at first, staring at the place where Gip ought to have been by her
mother's side, and hardly able to believe that he should not see her
white little face looking up suddenly from among the rags, and hear her
cry,—
"Here little Gip are, Dandy!"
The wind and rain beat against the window, and soaked through the paper
that covered most of the panes. Down in the alley there was an unusual
stillness. All at once he fancied he could hear Gip crying and wailing
in the storm, and could see her toddling with her naked feet on the
wet stones, with her damp hair hanging over her little face. What a
many streets there were in London, with so many turnings! and Gip was
lost among them, wandering about alone in the rain and the wind and the
darkness, trying to find Sandy, and crying for him to come and carry
her home again. He felt as though his heart would break at the mere
thought of it.
It was only for a minute or two that Sandy lingered, for there was
no time to lose. Then he crept very cautiously towards his sleeping
mother, and felt carefully in her pocket. No; she had not come home
till every penny was spent; neither had he a penny in the world.
But he carried away with him his stock of fusees; for he had made up
his mind during that minute or two, that as soon as he found little
Gip, he would bear her off to some distant part of London, and go home
no more to their drunken mother. He felt almost triumphant when this
plan crossed his mind, in spite of his deep distress. Gip would soon
be old enough now to run by his side, and when she was tired, he would
carry her; and they would live together in any hole or corner. He
knew several, where, if he put Gip next to the wall, and lay outside
himself, perhaps she would not feel the rain and cold so very much.
Some of the other fusee boys would help him when they were in luck, and
he would help them in his turn. One thing he was resolved upon—he would
never go back to his mother again, never!
He went slowly down into the quiet alley, still hoping he might hear
Gip cry from some dark corner.
He called to her, at first softly, then more and more loudly, until
some of the neighbours opened their doors or windows, and asked what
was the matter, and why he was making that row?
"Mother's been and lost Gip," he answered, catching at the hope that
perhaps she was safely lodged in one of their dwellings; "is there
anybody as has seen her? It is a awful night, fit to drown the cats as
are out of doors, and she's sich a little gel. Mother's dead drunk, and
doesn't know a word about her. Hasn't anybody seen little Gip?"
The women chattered to one another across the narrow alley about Nancy
Carroll and her drunkenness, but not one of them knew anything of Gip,
except that she had been seen with her mother going down into the
street a little before dark. One or two hinted that maybe she had been
made away with as a trouble, and Sandy's blood ran chill at the mere
thought of such a terrible thing.
"No, no!" he cried. "Nobody 'ud have the heart to do that; she's sich
a pretty little gel. No, no! Mother 'ud never do sich a thing as that;
she'd be good to her at times, she would, when she were herself; and
little Gip wasn't never a trouble."
"Drink 'ill make Nancy Carroll do anything!" said a sharp-voiced woman,
who prided herself upon not getting drunk oftener than once a week, and
then upon a Sunday, when business was slack.
Sandy did not linger to discuss the dreadful question with her; he
was only the more eager to be off, and prove the suspicion false, by
finding Gip somewhere. Tucking up his stock-in-trade, by which he was
to support Gip and himself, as securely as he could under his jacket,
he turned away, and ran down the dark archway into the street.
But once there, which way was he to turn—to the right hand or the left?
In the alley this perplexity had not troubled him, for there were
not two directions where Gip could wander. There were spirit-vaults
which his mother frequented at each end of the street. Every way
there stretched around him a tangled network of streets, with lanes
and alleys and courts crossing one another, extending for hundreds of
miles. True, little Gip could not have wandered very far off as yet,
for she was too small and weakly; but if Sandy chose one direction,
perhaps she would be paddling away just in the opposite one, and every
step he took would set them farther and farther apart.
First of all, he went to both of the spirit-vaults, which were
crowded this wet night, and searched in every corner, asking the busy
assistants behind the counters if they had seen a little girl all
alone. But she was not there, and there was nothing else to guide him
to her. Yet a choice had to be made, and trusting himself to his luck,
Sandy set off running as fast as he could through the now deserted
streets, peeping into every doorway with his quick, searching eyes, and
shouting "Gip! Gip!" up every archway and passage where she might have
found shelter, if she had had sense enough.
It was a miserable night, one that Sandy could never forget, if he
lived to be a hundred years old. The rain came down pitilessly, and the
gusts of wind tore past him, blowing open his tattered clothes, as to
force a way for the cold rain to beat against his bare skin. But his
dread for Gip made him almost unconscious of his own wretchedness and
weariness and hunger. She had no shoes, had little Gip, or a bonnet,
or a jacket; nothing but a worn-out cotton frock, which he had picked
up very cheaply in Rag Fair; so cheap and worn that his mother had not
found it worth while to sell it again.
To think of Gip out in this rain and wind was agony to him; and he
could very well bear the smaller misery of being wet and chilled to the
bone himself. Along the silent streets, over crossings, round corners,
Sandy pressed on at the top of his speed, resting now and then to take
breath on a doorstep for a short minute or so, until the eastern sky
grew grey and the clouds overhead were no longer black, and the morning
came, and all the great city woke up slowly; but yet he had not found
Gip. She was lost still.
As the streets filled, he knew his chance of seeing or hearing her
would be very small. But he could not give up the search. It seemed
as if he could not live without little Gip. Why to lose her in this
way would be a hundred times worse than to see her lying dead in her
small coffin, like the other babies, and watch the lid nailed over her
peaceful face, and follow her with quiet tears to the cemetery a long
way off; where the ground swallowed them up, and there was an end of
them! They would never be cold, or famished, or beaten any more. Why
had not Gip died rather than this dreadful misfortune happen to her? He
would never give up seeking for her until he found out whether she was
living or dead.
———◆———
CHAPTER IV.
LOST IN JERUSALEM.
FOUR days after this, Sandy was still seeking his lost Gip, but with a
forlorn and despairing heart. Never until now had London seemed so big
to him; never before had he felt how crowded it was with people, all
strangers to him; many of them, as it appeared, enemies to him. He did
not know a single friend among them. There were a few fusee boys who
were good to him when they were in luck, but they did not altogether
approve of Sandy's plan, that he should do nothing but search for Gip,
whilst they worked to feed him. There had been some hard words already
spoken to him about it; and Sandy could see close at hand that even
these old comrades would forsake him.
It was Sunday afternoon; but that did not make much difference to him,
except that the streets were clearer again, and there was a better
chance of seeing Gip. It was quieter, too, with less rattle of wheels,
and she could hear him if he shouted to her. The day was fine, and the
low autumn sun was shining behind the smoke and the mist. Sandy had
lost his eager step and searching look; and though to find Gip was
still all he lived for, he was sauntering along with languid feet and
an aching heart.
Sunday had had its pleasures, even for him, in former days. He had
carried Gip often on to London Bridge, where the fresh air from the
river had blown about them, and made her laugh many a time. He was on
his way thither now; but by-and-by he saw a cluster of people gathered
in an open space, and he quickened his footsteps, for always in a
little crowd like this there would be some small figure about the size
of Gip, which made him fancy for a moment that he had found her.
There was a chair in the centre of the knot set against a wall, and a
young man stood upon it, speaking in a clear and very earnest voice.
His face was pleasant, and his bright eyes seemed to single out every
face among those around him.
[Illustration: "The child was lost!" he said, just as Sandy came within
hearing, and the words drew him at once into the circle of listeners.]
"The child was lost!" he said, just as Sandy came within hearing, and
the words drew him at once into the circle of listeners. "The child was
lost; only think of that! He was with them when they left the city in
the morning; He had walked along the streets with them, talking to His
mother and father. Then they lost sight of Him; but they thought, 'He
is gone with some of our neighbours' children;' and they went on their
way without feeling any trouble.
"But when the night came, and they were going to have supper at the
inn, Mary would say to her husband, 'Have you seen Jesus?' She would
say it quite calmly, never thinking that He was lost. 'Have you seen
Jesus?'
"And most likely he would answer, 'No, but He is sure to be with the
other children; I will go and call Him.'
"But He was not with the other children. Then they became frightened,
and they went from one to another among their friends and relations,
asking, 'Do you know where our son Jesus is? We have lost Him!'
"Everybody answered them, 'No: He was with us this morning when we left
the city; but it is a long time since we saw Him.'
"It was night then, and they could not return to the city before the
morning came. Do you think Mary slept that night? Do you suppose she
could lie down peacefully, and close her eyes, and forget her great and
sudden trouble? Oh, no! She would be wondering where her lost child
was, where he was sleeping, and if he were hungry and homeless in the
great city they had left, or perhaps wandering about in the fields
and woods outside, with no place to lay His head. She watched for the
morning, and at the very first glimmer of light she was on her feet,
ready to run all the way back to the city.
"And all the way back they would ask every one they met, 'Have you seen
our son Jesus of Nazareth?'
"Those who did not know them would say, 'Tell us what your son is like.'
"Then Mary did her best to describe Him as exactly as she could; for
she knew every look upon His face, and every tone of His voice. But
very likely the clearest thing she could say, the thing most people
would know Him best by, would be, 'He wears a little coat which I made
myself, and it is all in one piece, without seam, woven from the top
throughout.'
"Most folks see clothes plainer than faces. But she did not get any
news of Jesus before they reached the city.
"They wandered up and down the streets, seeking everywhere for the
child Jesus. They sought Him sorrowing, sorrowing. Think what it would
be to lose your child, perhaps the only one you had, in this great city
of London; never to know where it had wandered, or whose hands it had
fallen into; by night not to know whether it was sleeping under any
shelter, and by day not to know whether any one was giving it bread to
eat."
"Why, that's like me and Gip!" cried Sandy, pushing through the circle
to get closer to the speaker, and listening with all his might, lest he
should miss a single word.
"At last," he continued, "Mary said suddenly, 'How foolish we are! When
we were here with our boy, we went scarcely anywhere but to the Temple,
and that was where Jesus always liked best to go. Let us look for Him
there.'
"So they went up to the Temple, where Jesus loved most to go; and there
they found Him! Try to think how all this sorrow was turned in a moment
into great joy; and how, as they were going home to Nazareth with their
child, their hearts would dance for very gladness, whenever their eyes
fell upon Him.
"And now Jesus, who was a lost child then, is seeking us, who are all
like lost children, wandering away from the house and home of God, our
Father. You know you are a long way off from God; you have lost your
way, and do not know how to get home to Him again. We are like foolish
little children, who follow some show along the streets till they lose
sight of the way back, and can only wander on and on, farther and
farther away, till in time, if they are not found, they will forget all
about their old home, or that they ever had one.
"Have you forgotten your home with God? Or do some of you wish and long
to get back to Him? Well, God has sent Jesus to seek for you, and to
show you the way back. He is seeking for you now, as Mary sought for
Him sorrowing; and if He find you, all His sorrow will be turned into
great joy. He will be satisfied for all the sore pain you have given
Him.
"You cannot see Him, you cannot hear His voice; but He is here amongst
us, close beside us. I am speaking for Him, because you can hear my
voice, and see my face. And I say to every one of you, Jesus Christ is
seeking you, is calling to you. Are you willing to be found? That is
the question. He cannot force you to go home. Do you wish to have a
home with God?
"Lost, are you? Yes, you are lost. Some of you in drunkenness, perhaps;
some of you in thieving: all of you are lost in sin and misery. But I
have this message for every one of you:
"'Jesus is come to seek and to save those who are lost.'
"You have only to speak to Him, to call to Him, as a lost child calls
to its mother, and He will save you."
Sandy did not miss a word; though he could not understand them all,
simple as they were. There was a hymn sung, and a short prayer uttered,
and then the small congregation melted away, and Sandy strolled on
to London Bridge. He turned aside then, into one of the abutments,
and stood leaning over the parapet, as if he were watching the river
beating and whirling against the great pillars below him. The water was
flecked with light from the setting sun, but he saw neither the river
nor the sky. His mind was full to bewilderment of new ideas. His brain
was pondering over this story of a Child who had been once lost like
Gip, but who was now seeking those who were lost. A person whom nobody
could see, but who went up and down the streets always to take people
home to God. Could not this Jesus help him to find little Gip?
"You was lost once yourself," he said, speaking half aloud without
knowing it; "and you was found again all right. When you're goin' about
lookin' for folks now, maybe you'll come across little Gip, and please
to take care of her for me."
"Who are you speaking to?" asked a voice as quiet as his own, close
beside him.
Sandy turned round quickly, and almost angrily, ashamed of having been
overheard.
Behind him stood a boy of his own height, supported upon crutches, with
a face as wan and pinched as little Gip's. But there was a pleasant
smile in his eyes as he gazed straight into Sandy's face. His clothes
were shabby, but warm, and he had a red woollen comforter round his
neck, and worsted gloves on his hands. He seemed almost a gentleman to
the ragged and barefoot boy, who was about to steal away, half shy and
half angry, when the stranger stretched out his hand to stop him, and,
in doing so, dropped one of his crutches. He would have fallen on the
hard stone pavement, if Sandy had not caught him in his arms.
———◆———
CHAPTER V.
A NEW FRIEND.
"WE are to be friends, you see," said the lame boy, cheerfully, as
Sandy set him to lean against the parapet, while he picked up the
crutch. "I thought I should never catch you, though I have been
following you as fast as ever I could all the way from the place where
Mr. Mason was preaching. You liked his sermon, didn't you? I saw you
listening as if you'd never heard anything like that before; and it's
every word true, and more. I thought I'd like to ask you how you liked
it; and when you turned in here, I caught up with you. Now would you
mind telling me who it was you were speaking to, half aloud?"
The lame boy's voice was frank, and his face was lighted up with a
friendly smile, such as Sandy had never met before. He could not shut
up his heart against him. Besides, he had been longing to speak to some
one about little Gip; somebody who would neither jeer at him nor be
angry with him, as the other fusee boys were. Yet he felt shy still,
and his brown face grew crimson, and his tongue stammered, as he once
more leaned over the parapet, and gazed down at the eddying of the
water under the arch, with his head turned away from the stranger.
"I were talkin' to Him as that gentleman spoke of," he said, in a very
low tone, "Him as were lost Himself when He were a little child; lost
in the streets, you know. The gentleman said now he were growed up. He
do always walk up and down the streets lookin' fur folks as were lost.
So I were arskin' Him to take care of my little Gip, if He come across
her."
"Who's little Gip?" asked the gentle cheery voice at his side.
"Oh! she's my little gel!" cried Sandy, laying his head down on the
stone coping, but doing his best to speak calmly. "Mother's little gel,
you know; and mother got drunk last Tuesday, that night it rained cats
and dogs, and lost Gip somewheres; and I've been lookin' for her ever
since everywhere, pokin' into every corner as I can think on; and I
begin to be afeard as Gip's dead!"
It had been hard work for Sandy to say all this; but when he came to
the word dead, his voice was choked, and the sobs he had kept down
broke out vehemently. He felt the strange boy's arm stealing round his
neck; and so astonished was he, that his sobbing ceased, and he held
his breath to listen to what he was saying.
"If little Gip is dead," he whispered, "she is gone to heaven, to be
with the Lord Jesus, and she can never, never be hungry, or cold, or
lost again. There are thousands and thousands of little children there,
all good, and happy, and safe; and He loves them so! Nothing can ever
hurt them again, because He is always taking care of them. If little
Gip is dead, she must be with the Lord Jesus."
"I didn't know that," murmured Sandy. "I don't know nothin'. I don't
know as my little Gip is dead. I'd rather have her than let Him have
her. She were so fond of me; and I could make her happy, I could; and
keep her safe. I never see Him as you speak of, or heard tell of Him
afore now. Gip didn't know Him any more than me, and she'd be a deal
happier with me; and wherever she is, she'll fret for Sandy, as used
to give her peppermint and candy, and carry her to look at the pretty
shops. If Lord Jesus finds her, He ought to give her up to me again;
for it isn't Him as has nursed her, and took care of her ever since she
were born."
Sandy's shyness had worn off whilst he spoke out his mind; and now he
faced the lame boy with an expression of indignation, almost of angry
defiance, at the thought that anybody had a greater claim to Gip, or
could make her happier than he.
The stranger looked somewhat saddened and perplexed; but he kept his
hand on Sandy's shoulder, to prevent him from running away from him.
"I wish you would come and talk to mother about it," he said, after a
pause. "She's had three children that are dead, and she says they are
happier than they could have been with her. If little Gip is not dead,
mother will know what to do, and how to set about finding her, for
she's the cleverest woman in all London; and I'll help you to search
for her. I'm not strong enough to work; but when it is a fine day like
this, I can get about on my crutches, and go farther than you'd think.
I call them my wings. Yes, I'll search for little Gip, as well as you,
if you'll come along with me, and tell mother."
Sandy hesitated a little. Compared with him, the lame boy was so
grand that he scarcely dared go home with him; but there was the hope
of getting advice and help in seeking Gip, and he could not lose
any chance. He watched the stranger getting himself balanced on his
crutches with a new and tender sense of pity, and the very feeling that
he could so easily run away from him kept him closer at his side. He
would have walked behind him, but the boy did not seem to understand
that.
"Keep close to me," he said; "I want to talk to you. My name is John
Shafto, and we live in the place I'm taking you to. Tell me what your
name is, and where you live, while we are going along. See! I can get
on with my wings as fast as you, unless you run."
He was keeping up with Sandy quite easily, his white face turned
towards him full of eager interest and friendliness. Sandy had never
seen a face or heard a voice like his.
"My name's Sandy Carroll, sir," he answered, pressing nearer to John
Shafto, for all his reserve had melted away like frost in the sunshine,
"and mother's called Nance Carroll. She's never anythink else but
drunk. If she's sober a bit of a mornin', it don't last longer than she
can get a few coppers. I was a-gettin' afeard little Gip 'ud take to
it, for mother 'ud give her drops of gin and such like; but now she's
lost, I don't know what 'll become of her. Maybe it 'ud be better for
her to die, and go to that place you spoke of, only I don't see how
she's to get in. If I'd known of it before, I'd have tried to get Tom
and little Vic took in, but it's too late now. They're buried and done
for, I s'pose."
He spoke very regretfully, for he had been fond of Tom and little Vic,
though they were nothing to Gip, who had lived to learn the pretty
tricks he could teach her. Yet he was grieved to think that perhaps he
could have managed to get these babies taken into a good place, where
they would never be hungry or cold again, if he had only known of it.
"If Tom and little Vic are dead," answered John Shafto, "they are gone
to heaven. Every little child goes there when it dies."
"I know nothin' about it!" said Sandy. "Tell me all you know."
"Mother knows more than I do," he replied; "let us make haste to her."
It was not long before they reached the house, which lay at the back
of a small chapel, and in a corner of a little square grave-yard,
where the grass grew rank and dark over the mounds, in spite of the
smoke and soot falling upon it from the chimneys around. There was no
other dwelling in the yard, but the blank high walls of some workshops
enclosed it. Nor was there any symptom of the turf having been dug up
for years, and the head-stones of the graves were black with smoke.
All was quiet, and dark, and gloomy the sun could hardly shine into it
at midday, and now it was evening. But it was very peaceful and still,
hushed away from the great turmoil and bustle of the city, though it
lay in the very heart of it.
Sandy lowered his voice when they turned into the grave-yard, and
crossed it by a path paved with flat stones, which bore the names of
persons long since dead and forgotten.
At the back of this grave-yard, in a corner where a sharp eye might by
chance see it from the street, stood a little low old-fashioned house
of two storeys, if the upper floor could be called a storey, when it
was not more than seven feet high in the pitch of the roof, with two
dormer windows in the front. On the ground-floor there was a large shop
window, with a very dingy hatchment in the centre, and above it a bunch
of funeral plumes, brown with age. On one side of the hatchment hung a
card, framed in black, with "Funerals performed!" on it. Whilst in the
opposite pane was another card, displaying the words, "Pinking done
here."
One of the three large panes had been broken, and a stiff placard was
pasted over it, to keep out the wind and rain. The old house looked as
if it were skulking in the corner of the grave-yard to hide its poverty
and decay; keeping out of sight as much as it could, yet forced to show
itself a little, that those who dwelt in it might have a chance of
earning a scanty living.
[Illustration: "This is mother," said John Shafto.]
John Shafto's crutches seemed to tap more loudly on these flat
gravestones than on the common flags in the streets; and before he and
Sandy reached the house, the shop door was opened from within. A rosy,
cheerful, motherly-looking woman, with blue ribbons in her cap, stood
in the doorway as they drew near to it. So strange and odd and out of
place she seemed beside the broken window and gloomy hatchment, that
even Sandy felt a strange sensation of surprise.
Her voice, too, when she said, "Johnny!" was cheerful, and as she
kissed the lame boy fondly, Sandy stood by, staring at her with
wide-open eyes.
"This is mother!" said John Shafto.
"And who have you brought home with you, Johnny?" she asked, holding
out her hand to Sandy, as if she did not see his poor rags and dirty
skin.
He did not know what to make of it; but she took his hand in hers, and
gave it a warm, hearty clasp.
"He's lost his little sister in the streets last Tuesday," said John
Shafto; "and I've brought him home to ask you what we must do, mother.
You'll be sure to think of something. Now then, Sandy, you come in and
sit down, and tell mother all about it."
He led the way into the house, and Mrs. Shafto gave Sandy a friendly
push to follow him before her.
Inside the shop, on the counter, lay a little coffin, about the size
that would fit Gip; and Sandy paused for an instant to look into it, as
if, perhaps, he might see Gip's dear face and tiny limbs lying for ever
at rest in it. But it was empty. And keeping down a sob which rose in
his throat, he passed on into a small kitchen behind the undertaker's
shop.
———◆———
CHAPTER VI.
MRS. SHAFTO.
IT was a very bright cosy little kitchen, with a clear fire burning in
the grate, and not a single pinch of ashes on the hearth. The grate was
an old-fashioned one, with well-brushed hobs, and two balls of steel
on each side the fire, which glistened and sparkled like silver in
the dancing flames. A polished brass warming pan hanging against the
wall was bright enough to see one's face in. The floor was quarried
with deep rich red tiles; and in a wide recess near the chimney stood
a large cupboard, looking almost half the size of the room, and as if
it promised plenty and to spare within it. In the warmest corner there
was an easy-chair, with arms and back well padded, and covered with
patchwork; and a pair of slippers lay on the warm hearth before it.
There was not much daylight; for the window opened upon a narrow
passage between two of the high buildings which overshadowed the small
grave-yard, and only a strip of sky could be seen beyond their tall
roofs. But one did not miss the daylight whilst the fire burned so
clearly, and Mrs. Shafto's beaming face smiled upon every one who came
within sight of her. Her face was better than the sun, at least in John
Shafto's eyes.
"Father's not come home?" he said, glancing at the empty easy-chair.
"No, Johnny, it's not time yet," she answered, placing a chair in the
very front of the fire for Sandy, and bidding him put his cold bare
feet on the shining fender. He dared not look her in the face yet; but
he could not help watching her when she was not looking at him.
"First of all," she said, "we must have something to eat. Eating before
talking is my rule, Johnny."
Sandy watched her with hungry eyes as she went to the cupboard, and cut
two slices from a loaf, one large, thick, and substantial, the other
thin and delicate, but both well spread with treacle. It took him quite
by surprise to have the large slice given to himself, and the little
one to John Shafto. This was treatment he could not understand, nor
could he speak about it. All he could do was to sit still in blissful
silence, feeling the glow of the pleasant fire through all his veins;
and discovering how hungry he had been by the delight of devouring his
substantial slice of bread.
"Now, then!" said Mrs. Shafto, when he had eaten the last crumb. She
had seated herself in a low wooden rocking-chair, opposite to the
easy-chair in the corner, and was looking at Sandy with kindly eyes, as
if she had known him a long while, and was an old friend of his.
He felt as if he could tell her anything, and could never wish to hide
a thing from her. With great eagerness, he told her all his story about
little Gip. While John Shafto listened, nodding from time to time, as
having heard most of it before.
Mrs. Shafto also shook her head now and then, and cried, "Well, well,
poor fellow! poor little Gipsy!"
Until Sandy's heart grew warm, and almost happy, with her sympathy,
before he ended all he had to say.
"Poor little Gip!" repeated Mrs. Shafto, wiping the tears from her
eyes. "Have you looked for her in every place that she'd be likely to
be, Sandy?"
"Ay!" said Johnny. "When Jesus was lost, you know, His mother began to
think where He'd most likely go to, and she found Him in the Temple.
Where do you think little Gip would go when she found herself lost?"
"She'd know of nowhere but the gin-shop," answered Sandy; "mother never
took her nowhere else. There were two gin-shops where mother gets
drunk, and I did go there."
Mrs. Shafto's face had a cloud upon it for a minute or two, and he
heard her say as if to herself—"Poor little baby!"
"Mother's quite lost when she's in drink," continued Sandy, sadly; "it
'ud be no good to ask her if she rec'lects anythink. All she'd know is
as she lost little Gip somewhere. I've not been nigh her again, for I
can't bear to see her now she's been as bad as that. I didn't think as
she could ever be as bad as that."
"But she's your own mother," said Mrs. Shafto, softly.
Sandy raised his eyes, which had been staring gloomily into the glowing
embers, to look at her. Johnny had drawn his chair close up to hers,
and laid his head down on her shoulder, and put his arm round her
waist. What made him feel so, he could not tell, but all at once, he
wished in the very bottom of his heart that he could love his mother
like that; he wondered how she could be so very different from Mrs.
Shafto.
"Perhaps," she went on, in the same soft, gentle tone, "little Gip
found her way home the very next morning; I think it is very likely
she did, and now she's watching for you, and fretting after you, and
wondering where you are. What are you going to do, Sandy?"
He had started to his feet, and sprung to the door; but he stopped for
a moment as she spoke to turn round, and answer, in breathless haste,—
"I'm goin' to run home," he said; "p'raps it's like what you say.
Little Gip's there, p'raps. Oh! why didn't I think of that afore?"
"Stay one minute, Sandy," cried Mrs. Shafto, "while I put on my bonnet,
and I'll go with you; and we'll bring Gip here, and all have tea
together, if father isn't at home. Johnny 'ud love to see little Gip,
wouldn't you Johnny?"
"I should love it dearly," he answered; "and I'll get tea ready whilst
you're away. Be sure you come back, Sandy; I'm so sorry for you, I
can't say how sorry. But perhaps some day your mother will become good,
and be like my mother."
Across Sandy's mind there glanced a happy thought of his mother, with
a bright, cheerful face, and wearing blue ribbons in her white cap,
like Mrs. Shafto; and of a kitchen like this, with its clean floor,
and comfortable chairs, and warm fire. But it all vanished away in an
instant; and he fancied he could see her instead, with her red and
swollen face, dressed in dirty rags, and lying in a drunken sleep upon
the floor. That was his mother, and little Gip's!
It was not long before he was walking away at a brisk pace beside Mrs.
Shafto, in the direction of the alley where little Gip had been born.
Mrs. Shafto had a good deal to say to him as they paced along about
himself and Gip. If they did not find her at home, she said, she would
speak to her husband about it. He was a very learned man, and could
give as good advice as anybody she knew; and perhaps, if he felt well
enough, he would go with him to the police-stations, and make inquiries
there about the missing child.
Sandy had never thought of going to the police, whom he looked upon as
his and Gip's natural enemies, with no interest in them, except to cuff
him and order him about his business when he was too pressing in trying
to sell his fusees. He was very doubtful whether they would not cuff
him if he went troubling them about little Gip; but Mrs. Shafto talked
in so hopeful a strain that he felt his spirits rise as if he were sure
of finding her when they reached the alley.
They did reach it at last: and Sandy rushed up the stairs, and tried
to lift the latch of their old room. But the door was fast locked, and
no shrill little voice answered him, when he called Gip through the
keyhole, in the hope that her mother had left her there for safety. His
spirits sank again. There was no key in the lock, so it must have been
fastened from the outside. They descended the dirty, creaking staircase
again, Mrs. Shafto keeping her skirts well from the wall; and Sandy
knocked at the door of the neighbour who lived in the front room on the
ground-floor.
The man who opened it greeted him with a low, jeering laugh.
"Come arskin' after your mother, eh?" he said. "Well! she's gone, and
a good riddance, I say. She was always a tearin' and a stormin' up and
down the alley, till there wasn't a moment's peace and quietness. All
women is averse to peace and quiet; but I never see one like Nance
Carroll for blusterousness. She were larfed at so about losin' her baby
as she couldn't bear it, and she made off on Friday. The key's here,
but there's nothink left in the room but the bed, and that goes to the
landlord. Have I seen little Gip? No, no. She's at the bottom of the
river long ago, I bet. Babies aren't lost like that, you know, if they
haven't been made quiet. It were high time for your mother to make off,
for the police were beginnin' to poke their noses up this alley; and
arskin' some very ill-convenient questions."
"Do you think the poor little creature has been made away with?"
enquired Mrs. Shafto, with a faltering voice.
The man winked, and nodded significantly; half smiling at her ignorance
of human nature, as he closed the door in their faces.
Sandy sat down on the lowest step of the staircase, and hid his face in
his hands, rocking, himself to and fro.
Mrs. Shafto stood by, in silence, for a minute or so; and then she laid
her hand gently on his rough head.
"Come home, Sandy," she said; "come home with me, and have tea with my
Johnny."
"She's my mother, you know," whispered Sandy, hoarsely, "just like
you're Johnny's mother; and I rec'lect her kissin' of me once when I
were a little chap. I don't want to think she could kill little Gip!"
"No, no," answered Mrs. Shafto; "she never could, I'm sure. It's not in
a mother's nature; and who should know how a mother feels better than
me, when I've had four, and lost them all, save Johnny? Come home with
me, Sandy; and we'll talk it over with Johnny and Mr. Shafto."
———◆———
CHAPTER VII.
A SAD SIGHT.
MRS. SHAFTO and Sandy were leaving the alley, disappointed and cast
down, when a policeman, who seemed to be lying in wait for them,
crossed the street, and laid his hand firmly on the lad's shoulder.
Sandy writhed and struggled, but he could not set himself free from
the strong grip. A knot of people, principally the inhabitants of the
alley, gathered round quickly, and Mrs. Shafto's rosy face grew pale
and frightened.
"What has the boy been doing?" she ventured to ask the policeman; for
she was hemmed in by the crowd, and could not escape and start away
home, as in the first moment of terror she wished to do.
"He's been doing nothing that I know of just now," answered the
policeman; "but we want him at the station for a few minutes; and I
must take care he doesn't give me the slip. Slippery as eels all this
sort are."
"Can I go with him?" she asked again. "I'm very sorry for the boy; and
my son Johnny will never rest till he knows what's become of him."
"Are you any relation of his?" enquired the man, looking inquisitively
at her decent dress and her face, so different from the women who were
crowding about them.
"No," she said: "I never saw him till about an hour ago, when Johnny
brought him home to our house. But I came here with him to look for his
mother and his little sister, who has been lost all the week; and now
his mother is gone away, and not left word where he could find her.
Poor boy!"
"Don't you know anything about your mother?" asked the policeman,
tightening his hold upon Sandy's arm.
"I've never set eyes on her since last Tuesday night," answered Sandy,
earnestly. "She'd been and lost my little Gip, and I swore I'd never go
nigh her again till I'd found out Where Gip was. It's my little Gip I
wants, not her."
"Should you know Gip if you saw her again?" asked the man.
"Know Gip!" repeated Sandy; but his voice failed him before he could
say any more. Know Gip! Why! he knew every little black tangled curl
on her head; every funny little look upon her face; every tone of her
voice, whether laughing or crying. Know Gip! There was not anything
else in the world he knew so well, not even hunger and cold; his own
little Gip, whom he had nursed and tended from the very hour she was
born!
"Come along with me, then," said the policeman, in a gruff, but not
unkindly tone: "it's not far to the station, and maybe I can show you
Gip."
There was no need to grasp Sandy firmly now; he would have followed the
policeman faithfully to any spot in London. Mrs. Shafto could scarcely
keep pace with them, so rapidly did they walk. She could not spare
breath to utter a single word; and neither of the other two spoke.
Sandy's heart was too full for speech; and the policeman closed his
lips tightly, as if no power on earth, except his superintendent, could
open them.
Mrs. Shafto was not quite sure she was doing what her husband would
like; but she could not bear the idea of Johnny's deep disappointment
if she lost sight of Sandy, and they never knew any more about him
and lost Gip. Breathless and panting, she reached the entrance of the
police station, just as Sandy was vanishing through an inner door.
"You can't go in there, ma'am," said a man, just within the entrance.
"It's a friend of the lad's," called back the policeman; "let her come
on."
She found Sandy already standing in front of a high desk, over
which appeared the head of an inspector, who was rapidly asking him
questions, as if eager to get through the business, about his mother:
where she lived, how she got her living, how often she was drunk, how
many children she had had, and what they had died from.
"Was she kind to you and Gip?" he enquired, with his sharp eyes
fastened on the boy.
"Not partic'ler," answered Sandy; "she'd knuckle me in the streets,
and search me for coppers if she thought I'd got any. She weren't
partic'ler kind, you know."
"Did you ever hear her threaten to get rid of her baby?"
"She'd swear at me and Gip when she were in drink," said Sandy, "and
wish we was all dead and buried, but she weren't a partic'ler bad
mother. I know them as has worse. If she hadn't lost little Gip, I'd
not say a word again' her, sir. It was all drink as did it. Nobody
couldn't be cruel to little Gip, such a good little thing she were, and
so pretty."
"Tell me what Gip was like," said the inspector.
Sandy hesitated and stammered. He could see Gip before his eyes now;
but how could he tell what she was like? He had not any words in which
he could describe her; and he had never thought of her in that way.
"She were pretty," he answered, pausing between each word, "very pretty
and good; and she'd such funny ways. She were like nobody but Gip, sir."
"Not like yourself, I suppose," said his examiner.
"I don't know what I are like," replied Sandy, looking down at his
rough big hands and feet; "I don't think Gip were a bit like me."
"How old was she?"
"She were three year old last summer," he said; "mother were sellin'
ripe cherries the day afore Gip were born; that I'm sure of, sir."
"Davis," said the inspector, "take the boy to see the body."
But Sandy did not move when the policeman came forward. He caught hold
of the edge of the desk, to save himself from falling, and looked
round the room with wild, terrified eyes; eyes that saw nothing which
was before them. Everything had faded from his sight, and he saw only
little Gip's pretty face mocking at him on every side. What was it the
inspector had said? Take him to see the body. He knew well enough what
that meant. He was not so ignorant as not to know that all the young
children who perished in the streets and alleys about his house did
not die simply from illness and bad air and unwholesome food. Often
he had heard whispers going about from mouth to mouth that such and
such a child had been made away with. But now those words seemed to
burn in his brain as if he had never known of such things. He had put
away angrily such a thought about his mother and little Gip, when the
neighbours had hinted at it. And now she was lying, somewhere close at
hand, dead! Not only dead, but murdered! No one touched him, no one
spoke to him. His terror-stricken face kept all around him silent for a
minute or two.
"Sandy! Sandy!" cried Mrs. Shafto, being the first to speak, and
putting her arm round him as she might have done to her own lame son,
"my poor dear boy! Perhaps it isn't Gip, after all. Nobody knows that
it's Gip. Come with me to look at her. And if it should be Gip, I'll
tell you where her soul is gone. It 'ill be nothing but her poor little
body here; but Gip 'ill be gone to heaven, where Jesus is. You know
nothing about it yet; but I can tell you. Come and see, and then I'll
tell you all about it."
"Ay! I'll go," said Sandy, catching her by the arm, and walking with
unsteady steps, for he felt sick and giddy. "Take us to see if it's my
little Gip."
They passed on without another word, following the policeman down a
long narrow passage, to a room, the door of which was locked. Sandy
heard the grating of the key as it turned in the wards, and the opening
of the door; but he did not dare to lift up his eyes. He held back for
a moment, turning away his head, and shrinking as if he could not cross
the door-sill. At last he looked in. The policeman had lit one jet of
gas just above a long, narrow table; and underneath the bright light
lay a small still figure, about the size of Gip, with a covering thrown
over it. The man quietly turned down the covering, and in a gentle tone
called Sandy to come in, and look at the dead little face.
Mrs. Shafto led him across the floor, whispering that she could tell
him where Gip was really gone to, and that she was happier than he
could think. Sandy's eyes had grown so dim again that he could see
nothing clearly. There was such a haze before them, that the tiny face
and little quiet form all seemed in a mist. Mrs. Shafto could see it
plainly,—the pinched, worn features, a child's face, with the suffering
look of a woman's; but it was at rest now, and at peace, with all the
trouble ended, and all the suffering ceased. Her tears fell fast; and
she bent over the dead child, and kissed it tenderly.
That awoke Sandy, who stood beside her and it as if in some dreadful
dream. He rubbed his bedimmed eyes, and looked closely, though
shudderingly, at the little child.
"Why, it's not my Gip at all!" he cried. "She'd black hair, and she
were like a gipsy, not a bit like this little gel. No; that isn't Gip!"
He could hardly keep himself from breaking out into laughter, and
dancing about the bare, empty room in this sudden deliverance from his
agony of dread. But a second glance at the dead face sobered him. What
this child was, his little Gip might be somewhere—a terrible thought,
which would haunt him all his life long, if he could not find her.
They returned to the inspector's office, for Sandy to declare that
the child found was not his lost sister; and after being warned that
the police would have an eye upon him, he was allowed to go away in
the care of Mrs. Shafto, who had voluntarily given her address, and
promised that she also would keep her eye upon the homeless lad.
———◆———
CHAPTER VIII.
MR. SHAFTO.
SANDY had no desire to slip away from the friendly guardianship of Mrs.
Shafto. Her words had strengthened the new hope in his heart, that the
grave was not the end of those children he had seen buried in it, and
he wished to learn more about this strange and good news. He kept close
beside her, though she seemed less inclined to talk to him than when
they were going to look for his mother. She could not trust herself to
speak, for her heart was full of the sad and terrible sight she had
just left.
Mrs. Shafto was also a little anxious about Sandy, who followed her so
closely, as closely as a stray and homeless dog might have done, and
for whom she had undertaken a kind of responsibility. Though they were
not as miserable and degraded as the people she had been seeing, they
were very poor, she and her husband; so poor that, but for her own
hard and incessant work as a needlewoman, they would often have to go
without sufficient bread to eat.
What was she to do with this great, growing lad out of the streets, as
wild and ignorant as a young savage; a thief very probably; with no
spark of good in him, except his love for his little sister? She knew
very well that her husband would grudge any help given to Sandy if it
deprived him of the least comfort, or demanded of him any self-denial.
But she could not endure the thought of thrusting him away, uncomforted
and unhelped, into the open street, with no sort of home to find refuge
in. She could not treat a dog so; and of how much more worth was this
boy than a dog! Besides, it was Johnny who had found him first, and
brought him home—her lame lad, who seemed to know so well what Christ
would have him do, and how to tread gladly in his Lord's steps. She
could not go back to the house, and tell him she had cast off Sandy,
and left him in the great wilderness of London.
On went Mrs. Shafto, still sadly and in silence, across the square
grave-yard, and through the gloomy shop, with its small coffin open
on the counter—a coffin that would have just fitted the dead baby she
had kissed. Sandy followed her, his bare feet making no sound upon
the floor; but he stopped at the door of the kitchen, for there was a
strange person there—not his new friend, Johnny Shafto.
This person was a tall lanky man, about forty-five years old, whose
thin long legs were stretched quite across the hearth, as though no
one else needed to sit by the fire. He was lolling in the comfortable
padded chair in the best corner, his hands hanging idly from his
wrists, and his arms from his shoulders, as if he never had done and
never could do one hearty task of work. His face was narrow and gloomy,
with straight hair falling over it; and his head drooped as if he found
it too much trouble to hold it upright. He looked up lazily as Mrs.
Shafto went in, and spoke to her with a fretful voice.
"What a time you've been," he said, "gadding about on a Sunday
evening on other people's business, and I've been wanting my tea this
half-hour. Nobody asked me to stay at the school; I suppose they think
nothing of me for being an undertaker, without any business either. If
I had a thriving trade, and kept a mourning coach or two, it would be a
different thing. They never seem to remember that I'm a Shafto, and my
grandfather was their minister in his time. If my father had done his
duty by me, they would have been ready enough, every one of them, to
invite me to tea. Where have you been to, Mary?"
She was hastily taking off her bonnet and shawl before getting the tea
ready, and now both her face and voice quivered as she answered.
"I've been seeing a sad sight," she said; "Johnny will have told you
about the poor boy that has lost his sister? Well, him and me have
been to a police station—a place I was never in before, and we've seen
a poor dear dead little creature, no bigger than my Mary when she was
taken from me; a poor murdered baby, and I cannot get the sight out of
my head."
"You've got such a poor head," said Mr. Shafto, "always running on
other folks. I dare say you never thought of mentioning that your
husband was an undertaker, and had a coffin he could sell cheaply, and
would bury it as reasonably as anybody in London; now did you?"
"I never thought of it," she answered.
"That's just what I say," he continued, triumphantly; "you never do
remember things useful, when we've a child's coffin in stock. Why don't
you shut that door?"
Mrs. Shafto stepped back to the doorway, and whispered to Sandy to sit
down in the dark shop for a few minutes, till tea was ready. Then she
shut him out of the bright little kitchen, and went softly up to her
husband, speaking in a voice lower and unsteadier than usual.
"Dear John," she said, coaxingly, "it was our Johnny that brought
yonder poor lad to our house. He's taken such a fancy to him, it would
grieve him sorely if we turned our backs upon him. Maybe Johnny won't
be spared to us much longer; and I could never forgive myself if I'd
hurt him about anything. Besides, don't you remember, John—you that
are such a scholar yourself, and your grandfather minister at the
chapel—how the King says, when the Last Day is come, that He counts all
we do for these poor creatures of His as if it were done to Him? It
looks as if God had brought this boy and Johnny together, and we must
not set ourselves against anything He does."
"Where is the boy?" enquired Mr. Shafto.
"He's in the shop, in the dark. I'd light the gas, and give him
something to eat there, if you think he's not fit company for us. But
it's not pleasant to eat among coffins and plumes. And, dear! dear! how
ever shall we be fit company for angels? Though my Johnny 'ill be fit
for them, I know; only I'm afraid I shall never be."
"I suppose you'll have your own way," grumbled Mr. Shafto.
"But I want it to be your way too, my dear, fully and freely," she
continued, patiently. "I want you to feel, when Sandy's eating our
morsel of bread, that he's here in the place of the Lord Jesus. I'm
sorry I never thought to say my husband was an undertaker, and would
bury the baby reasonably. I know I'd have made it a pretty shroud, poor
thing! But that's past and gone; and you must forgive me, John. Why,
that's rhyme I've made, you hear. Ah! you're a great scholar, and I
don't mind your laughing at me. I may call Sandy in, and put him in a
corner where you needn't see him, if you like, for Johnny's sake, you
know?"
"Well, he may come in," said Mr. Shafto, dropping his head down again,
and stretching out his legs still farther across the warm hearth.
Mrs. Shafto opened the door quietly, and called Sandy in a whisper,
placing a chair for him in a corner, as much as possible out of sight
of her husband, who did not appear to take any notice of the boy. But
he groaned aloud several times, causing Sandy to start nervously, for
his mind had been over-strained, and his body was faint with excitement
and fatigue. Mr. Shafto's groans seemed to betoken some new and
dreadful calamity, and Sandy could scarcely keep himself from bursting
into a vehement fit of crying.
But it was not long before tea was ready, and Mrs. Shafto went to the
foot of a staircase, which wound like a corkscrew up to the two low
rooms in the roof. She called "Johnny!"
And the next moment the tap, tap of a pair of crutches sounded on the
floor; and John Shafto came down the crooked staircase slowly and
laboriously, till he reached the last step, and his pale face and
dazzling eyes peered in at them from the darkness. It was a radiant
face, unlike any that Sandy had ever seen, with a happy smile upon it,
as though he had learned some great secret, and could never more be
overwhelmed by sorrow.
"Where is Sandy?" he asked, for his eyes could not see him in the
sudden light. "Have you found little Gip, mother?"
"Not yet, Johnny," she answered, cheerfully; "there's Sandy. Go and sit
by him, dear heart; and he'll tell you about what we've been doing."
John Shafto sat down by Sandy, with his hand through his arm, ready
to listen eagerly to all he could tell him, asking him questions, and
talking about little Gip in his low pleasant voice. Until Sandy felt
that, even if little Gip were lost, he would have another friend who
would love him, and whom he could love. They whispered together till
bed-time, forming plans for seeking and finding poor lost Gip.
That night, after Mr. Shafto had gone to bed, Mrs. Shafto made up a
place for Sandy to sleep on the kitchen hearth, with an old mattress
and a brown moth-eaten velvet pall out of the shop, which had not been
in use for years. It made so grand and magnificent a bed, that Sandy
was almost afraid to lie down upon it, and could scarcely believe it
was not all a dream.
Once when he awoke, before the fire had quite burned out, and saw the
polished warming pan twinkling, and the steel balls glittering in the
dim light, he sat up to rouse himself, and think where he could be.
Then the remembrance of the lame boy's tender face and pleasant voice
came back to him, and he went to sleep again with a strange sense of
peace at the thought of the new friend he had found.
———◆———
CHAPTER IX.
SEEKING THE LOST.
But when the morning came, and Mrs. Shafto went to rouse Sandy, and
kindle the kitchen fire, what was her surprise and disappointment to
find that he was gone! The mattress had been dragged into a corner, and
the pall roughly folded up, and laid upon it, but there was no other
trace of the guest who had been made so comfortable by her last night.
John looked exceedingly grave and troubled, though he did not put
his anxiety into words. Only Mr. Shafto, when he came down to a late
breakfast after the fire had burned up well, and the room was warm,
displayed some triumph; and declared, with more energy than was usual
to him, that the lad was a rogue and a thief, no doubt, and they
would find he had not gone off without carrying some plunder with
him. Nothing, however, was missing from the kitchen; and there was no
plunder in the shop, except a few rusty plumes, and the hatchment, with
its faded painting, in the window.
Yet it was a sad day for John Shafto and his mother, though Sandy was
not proved to be a thief. Their hearts had warmed so to the desolate
boy, and they had felt so keen a sympathy with him about little Gip
that this desertion pained them to the quick. John Shafto, as he
lay awake all the early part of the night, had pondered over every
possible means of tracing the lost child; and had prayed to God, with
intense earnestness, that she might be found. He had felt so comforted
by these prayers and ponderings, that he had made haste to get up in
the morning to talk to Sandy; and not only to talk, but to set off in
search himself upon his crutches, as soon as he could learn anything by
which he might know little Gip if he saw her. Now all this was over.
Sandy was gone, without a word to his new friend. A great blank fell
upon John Shafto, as though all his love had been thrown back upon him
carelessly and ungratefully.
Very slowly the hours of that autumn day passed by. John Shafto limped
along some of the back slums near his own home, gazing with fresh
interest and attention at the starved and puny children playing about
the doors and in the gutters. There had never seemed such swarms of
them before, nor so much sadness in their lives. He saw them fighting
with one another for a crust of mouldy bread or the rind of an orange:
the strongest always gaining the victory over those younger or weaker.
He heard little children, who could hardly speak, stammering out bad
words, which had no meaning for them, but which showed what the sin
was of those about them. Now and then a baby looked at him over the
shoulder of a drunken mother, who was entering or leaving a gin-palace.
Because his heart was full of little Gip, he saw all these things as he
had never seen them before. Two or three times he had called to a child
moping alone, as if it were an entire stranger to the other children
about it, but none of them had answered to the name of Gip. At length
he went home, heartsick and very sorrowful.
Mrs. Shafto had been sewing away busily whilst Johnny was absent,
fretted by her husband's persistent fears that Sandy had carried
something off with him, and by his slow, lazy search through all the
shelves and drawers which the boy might have rifled. Several times he
fancied something was missing, and would not let her rest until she
put down her work, and found what he was moaning over as gone. She was
in very low spirits herself. It was so odd of the boy, she thought;
he had seemed to cling so much to her last night. Could it be that he
was afraid of her promise at the police station, that she would keep
her eye upon him? Did he suppose she meant to make a sort of prisoner
of him? If Sandy tried to keep out of their way, there was very little
chance that either she or Johnny would come across him again. London
was too wide a place for that.
It was growing quite dusk in the quiet grave-yard, and the tall
head-stones looked taller and blacker than in the day-time; the gas was
lit, though it was turned very low, in the gloomy shop, not for the
chance of any customers coming to Mr. Shafto, but for the sake of the
persons who employed his wife to sew for them. John was lingering about
the grave-yard, hardly caring to carry his sad face into his mother's
presence, and feeling that his father's fretful speeches would be too
hard for him to bear, when a shrill, low whistle just behind him made
him start as if he were frightened. It was still light enough for him
to see Sandy, whose bare feet had made no sound at all upon the flagged
pathway.
"Oh! Sandy! Sandy!" he cried. "How could you run away from us? I'm so
glad you're come back."
"Why, I didn't run away," answered Sandy. "I crept away early this
mornin', because I don't want nothink of you, but to come and see you
at odd times. The master, he don't like me bein' here, he don't. So I
crept away quiet; and one of my pals lent me arf-a-dozen of fusees, and
I were in luck to-day, and sold 'em sharp, and bought some more; and
now I've got fourpence halfpenny, besides a meat pie I've bought. Oh! I
wish little Gip were here!"
He could not bear to think of little Gip's delight, if she could only
see the meat pie, and go with him to spend the money, which was safely
tied in a corner of his ragged pocket with a bit of string.
"Sandy," said John, "I've been searching for little Gip all day."
"Ah!" sighed Sandy. "But you'd never know her if you see her. I'd know
her miles and miles away. I s'pose Jesus 'ud know her, wouldn't He? Or
it's no use me arskin' Him to look out for her."
"To be sure He knows her," answered John, earnestly. "He knows us all
by our names, and He's sure to know all the little children when He's
so fond of them; every one of them, every one of them. Don't doubt
that, Sandy. He's sure to take care of Gip. Don't you know that once He
lived in heaven with His Father, but when He saw how lost and miserable
we were, and how we should never, never find the way to heaven
ourselves, He came down into the world, and lived like we do, and was
always seeking those that were lost?"
"It were very good of Him," said Sandy; "but I never heard tell of it
afore."
"Sandy," continued John Shafto, his voice growing more and more
earnest, "I don't think I could bear to live if I didn't know all that.
Sometimes when I'm in great pain at nights till I can hardly keep from
crying out—and I don't like to wake mother, she has to work so hard—I
feel as if I heard Him speak to me. Sometimes He says, 'John, lovest
thou me?' And I say, half aloud, 'Lord, Thou knowest all things, Thou
knowest that I love Thee.' Then He says, 'Bear this a little while,
for my sake.' And I remember what pain He bore for me; and all my pain
seems as nothing. Sandy, if you could hear Him say, 'I'm taking care of
little Gip and if you love me, some day you shall have her again,' that
would help you to bear it, wouldn't it?"
"Ay!" answered Sandy, with a deep sigh; "but how am I to know it?"
"I will tell you the very words Jesus said Himself," replied John;
"listen:
"'For the Son of man,' that's Himself, you know; 'the Son of man
is come to save that which is lost. How think ye? if a man have a
hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, does he not leave
the ninety-nine, and go into the mountains, and seek that which is
gone astray? And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he
rejoices more over that sheep than over the ninety and nine that went
not astray. Even so it is not the will of your Father in heaven that
one of these little ones should perish.'
"Not one of them, Sandy; not one of the hundreds and thousands of
little children in London. He is looking after them all, every one; and
He knows little Gip as well as you do. I thought of that when I saw
such lots and lots of them, and I was afraid one might be little Gip,
and me not know her.
"'Lord,' I said, 'Thou knowest her quite well. Take care of her for
Sandy, and bring her back some day.'
"I think He will, perhaps before I die.'"
[Illustration: "I will tell you the very words Jesus said Himself,"
replied John. "Listen!"]
"Mr. Johnny," said Sandy, in a frightened voice, "you're not goin' to
die, are you?"
"By-and-by, Sandy," he answered quietly; "the doctor says there's no
hope for me, and mother and me have talked about it; and we are going
to be as happy as we can till the time comes, and she's to wear her
blue ribbons in her cap, because I like it so. It's harder for poor
mother than me, because she'll have to wait, and now she has nobody but
me."
"But you'll be put into a coffin," said Sandy, "and buried deep down in
the ground."
"That's not much," replied John Shafto, "that's only my body; but I
shall go to the other children. Mother says all this world is like
one large room to God; and He is among us, like a mother is with her
children when she sits at work in the same room with them, seeing all
they do, and hearing all they say, but perhaps not seeming to take
much notice of them. And to die is only like going into the next room,
where we shall see Him and hear His voice, and be no longer like little
children at play, but be more like His grown-up sons and daughters;
and He will talk to us more, and teach us harder things than whilst
we are so little. I shall be glad to be called into the next room for
everything, save leaving mother."
"I don't know nothink about it," answered Sandy; "only we'd two babies
as died, and were nailed up in coffins, and buried. Are they gone into
that next room?"
"To be sure they are," said John Shafto.
"And if mother's killed little Gip—" began Sandy, but he could not
finish the sentence.
"She's there, too," said John, "safe and happy; God's little girl, you
know. Where else could little children go to, save to Him, straight to
Him? But, Sandy, you don't think she's been killed?"
"Not quite," whispered Sandy; "but ever since I see that dead baby I've
been scared."
There was no time to say any more, for Mrs. Shafto had opened the shop
door, and was looking out anxiously across the dark grave-yard.
"Sandy's come back, mother!" shouted John joyously. "Make him come in.
I want to talk to him about hundreds and hundreds of things he doesn't
know. Make him stay all night again, mother. I'll go in and coax father
to let him."
John disappeared; but he was not away long, and he returned to Sandy
to urge him to go in. Mr. Shafto looked at him through the corners
of his eyes, and muttered some words. But the other two made up for
his grudging reception, and Sandy was not in a mood to take offence
readily. It was too good fortune for him to sit in the clean cosy room,
with John Shafto to talk to him, that he should throw it away for a
trifle. He kept as far back as he could, and did not lift his voice
above a whisper; but he felt happier than he had ever done in his life,
except at a few rare times with little Gip.
———◆———
CHAPTER X.
IS IT TRUE?
SANDY was off again by daybreak, before Mrs. Shafto could get down. But
he had promised John the night before to return every evening until Gip
was found. He had done his utmost to describe her to him, though he had
not been very successful; except in giving him to understand that she
had black eyes and black hair, curling all over her head. But the vague
idea he had gained of another Person, who knew Gip as well as he did,
and who was looking for her, had lifted the heaviest part of the burden
from him. He had listened eagerly to all John Shafto and his mother
had been able to tell him about the Lord Jesus Christ, who had lived a
sorrowful life, and died a painful death for the sake of a lost world;
and though there was very much that he could not understand, he began
to feel that he was not left alone. The true and tender Friend, whom
John Shafto knew to be always near to him, would surely take a little
notice of the poor boy John Shafto was befriending!
It was rather earlier than it had been the night before when Sandy
turned out of the street into the quiet grave-yard that evening. It was
quite light enough for him to see at the first glance the tall lanky
figure of Mr. Shafto, loitering along the smooth path of gravestones,
in slipshod shoes trodden down at the heels. He called to Sandy, and
pointed out to him an old smoke-stained tablet fixed against the wall
of the chapel.
"Can you read, boy?" he enquired.
"No, sir, never a word," replied Sandy, putting his head on one side,
and staring at the blackened stone, as if he could by staring make out
the inscription upon it.
"That," said Mr. Shafto, "is my grandfather's tombstone, John Shafto,
minister of this chapel. He was a very learned man; and large numbers
of people flocked to hear him preach—rich people and grand people.
He ought to have been rich himself; but he left nothing more to his
children than yonder poor tumble-down hovel. He never thought that his
great-grandson would make a friend of a boy out of the streets."
"I'm very sorry, sir," remarked Sandy, as Mr. Shafto paused in his
speech. "I s'pose, sir, you took to buryin' folks because it were so
handy bein' near the buryin' ground?"
"There was nothing else to take to," said Mr. Shafto, in a slow, dreamy
manner, as if he forgot he was speaking to Sandy; "I had the hatchment
on hand, and every one told me I had such a solemn manner at a funeral.
But the city grave-yards were closed immediately after, and now the
family vaults even are not opened. Nothing has come of it. But boy,"
he continued, in a voice less languid, "I don't consider you a fit
companion for my son; and I can't allow it. You must not get into the
habit of coming here every night, as if it was your home."
Mr. Shafto had come to this conclusion during the day, and had resolved
to put a stop to the thing. A boy picked up out of the scum of the
street to be the chosen friend of Johnny Shafto! That could not be.
Sandy listened in dismay, but he had no idea of rebelling against Mr.
Shafto's orders. He knew himself to be quite unfit for such a place,
and such friends; and he was not in the least surprised to hear that he
must not think of it as his home. There were disappointment and regret
in his heart, but no bitterness, as he heard Mr. Shafto's speech. But
here was a chance of asking a question or two that had puzzled him
during the day, whenever he thought of what John and his mother had
tried to teach him. He drew a little nearer to Mr. Shafto, and spoke in
a low, mysterious voice.
"You don't b'lieve the same as them others?" he said, pointing over his
shoulder to the house.
"Believe what?" asked Mr. Shafto.
"As He's everywhere, hearkenin' to us, and watchin' of us," whispered
Sandy: "God, you know? I didn't think as it were true, only Mr. Johnny
were so sure of it."
"Of course it's true," answered Mr. Shafto; "I believe it as surely as
my son does."
"I didn't think as you did," pursued Sandy. "If I b'lieved of it, it
'ud make a difference to me, it would. I couldn't go on doin' as I'm
used to do. I don't see how folks can b'lieve in it; they goes on doin'
jest the same as if it weren't true. Does God know as you don't like me
to have a bite of bread, and sleepin' on your floor?"
Mr. Shafto was not ready with an answer. He looked at his grandfather's
tablet, and from that to Sandy's brown, weather-beaten face, alive with
earnest feeling; but neither of them helped him to any words.
"You don't think, do you," went on Sandy, "as Lord Jesus Christ 'ud do
all they say He'll do for a poor boy in the streets, without shoes to
his feet or a cap to his head? Or as He'll look for a ragged little gel
like Gip, and take care on her for me? Oh! no. You don't b'lieve that;
and maybe it's not true. You know lots more than they do; I heard Mr.
Johnny's mother say so."
Still Mr. Shafto was tongue-tied.
Sandy spoke earnestly and sadly, with no look or tone as if he
intended to give him any offence; he was only putting into words the
difficulties that had come to his mind during the day.
A strange, new sense of shame smote the conscience of Mr. Shafto. All
his life long he had professed to believe that God was everywhere,
taking note of all that was said and done by every human being. He had
professed also to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ had died for all,
making no difference between rich and poor, learned and ignorant. Yet
now, when this poor, untaught boy stood before his face, demanding of
him if he really believed these things, he dared not say that he did.
"If it ain't true," continued Sandy, very sorrowfully, "there's nobody
taking care of little Gip. I could get along somehow for myself, but I
don't see what's to become of her. I were beginnin' to be glad again,
I were; but now, if it's not true, Gip's lost, and mother's lost, and
there's nobody to care a straw about it. I wish I'd never heard tell of
such a thing!"
No answer yet from Mr. Shafto. If it was true that God was beside
him, what a miserable fool he had been all his life! If God had been
hearing, day after day, his fretful murmurings and his conceited
boasting about his grandfather; if He had been watching all his
idleness and selfishness, what a wretched, sinful man he had been! If
Jesus Christ, the Saviour, who had laid down His life for him, knew how
he had spent his own life, wasting it, and casting away all the golden
opportunities of being good and doing good, why, then he was as much
lost as poor little Gip or Sandy's drunken mother. There was as much
need for the Lord to come seeking him, in long-suffering patience, as
ever there had been for Him of old to seek and save the publican and
sinner.
As for Sandy, his heart was very heavy again. The strange good news
told to him by John and Mrs. Shafto had all turned out untrue. Nobody
else believed these things. Even Mr. Shafto, living in the same house,
and hearing all about it, did not believe it; that was very plain.
Yet to turn away from this new hope and this new love, just dawning
before him, would make the old life he must go back to a hundred-fold
darker and sadder than it had seemed before. There was no unseen Friend
seeking him and little Gip; no home for them to go to after death. The
grave was the end of all; and even those who were rich or learned had
nothing left to them when they died, but gravestones, growing black
with time and the smoke of the busy city.
Sandy stole away silently, and without speaking again to Mr. Shafto,
whose head had dropped down, and whose eyes had closed, not now in
sheer laziness, but in something like shame and repentance.
The boy was at no loss for a shelter to-night; for one of his comrades
had urged him to share an empty sugar-cask he knew of, where, lying
close together, they might keep one another tolerably warm. It was not
that he cared about; but it was the thought of little Gip, with no one
now to care for her, except himself, and the loss of his new friend,
John Shafto.
When Mr. Shafto roused himself from his reverie, and found that Sandy
had disappeared, his first feeling was one of relief. The boy's
questions had stung him too keenly for him not to be almost glad to be
rid of him. But as the evening passed away, and he did not return to
the house, and John Shafto wondered what had prevented his keeping his
promise, Mr. Shafto began to listen eagerly for a low tap at the door,
and was ready to fetch the boy in and make him welcome to his fireside.
But no Sandy came; and at a late hour the shop door was locked, and
John went upstairs to his little room, with a sad face and a sadder
heart.
———◆———
CHAPTER XI.
AN AWAKENED CONSCIENCE.
MR. SHAFTO could not sleep that night. Generally his sleep was sound
and long, lasting far into the morning, after his wife had been up for
an hour or two, and was busy with her sewing. But to-night he heard the
clock strike again and again; yet his brain would not rest. Neither
would his conscience, for it kept filling his brain with accusing
and tormenting thoughts. He saw himself as he had never done before,
worthless, indolent, and selfish; depending for the very bread that
kept him alive upon the woman whom he had once professed to love.
The memory of his children came back to him; how unloving he had been
to them; how peevish when they were noisy; how indifferent when they
were ill; and how he had been almost glad to know they would need no
more provision made for them, save a coffin and a grave. All Johnny's
life seemed to pass before him, so full of pain, and empty of all
boyish pleasures; but full also of love, and patience, and quiet trust
in God, and empty of selfishness and repining, as if he had been sent
into the world to be a complete contrast to his father.
Then the thought of Sandy came to reproach him; a lad picked out of the
gutter, who knew not a word about God and the love of Christ; yet this
boy had a love in him deeper than all his ignorance and wretchedness,
which proved him to be a truer child of the Heavenly Father than he
was with all his learning. How could he sleep When he did not know
where Sandy was sheltering; when a small still voice was saying to him,
"Inasmuch as ye did it not to him, ye did it not to Me"?
He could scarcely wait for the fire to be kindled the next morning, but
was downstairs before John and Mrs. Shafto had begun their breakfast.
He felt awkward, and his face grew red, as John made haste to quit his
easy-chair, in the warmest corner; the chair that had been kept for him
ever since John could remember.
"Sit still, Johnny, sit still," he said; "another chair will do for me."
He took a seat by the table, on a hard, straight-backed chair, such as
his wife was used to sit upon. There was an embarrassing silence among
them, which was broken by Mrs. Shafto, who spoke in a forced tone.
"Is there anything the matter with you, Mr. Shafto?" she enquired.
He liked her to call him Mr. Shafto; it sounded more respectful; but he
wished she had said John to him just then.
"No, my dear, no," he answered, "nothing that you can set right."
"Are you ready for your breakfast?" she asked. "Shall I do a little
rasher of bacon for you?"
"I'll have what you are having," he said.
He saw the next moment that it was dry bread she was eating, though
Johnny had a little butter upon his. He took a crust of bread, and
ate it; every morsel threatening to choke him. He had never troubled
himself to ask what sort of a meal his wife and boy had, an hour or two
before he took his own comfortable and tasty breakfast, at which he had
so often grumbled. He could not look much about him, for he was afraid
of meeting the eyes of either of them; and all the three were very
quiet, scarcely speaking a word to one another.
"Mary," he said, as soon as breakfast was over, "I think, as there is
nothing for me to do, I'll go and see if I can find Sandy, and look
about a bit for little Gip."
Mrs. Shafto could not believe she had heard him aright. It was so long
since he had cared to go out into the streets, except on a Sunday, when
he had his black suit on, and went to chapel, that she felt sure she
was mistaking what he said. She stood at the table, with his empty cup
in her hand, gazing at him in bewilderment; and as he happened to look
up, once more his face grew red.
"I have been thinking of Sandy all night," he said; "and as there's
nothing for me to do at home, I'll go and see if I can meet with the
boy about the Mansion House or one of the stations. Don't soil your
hands with my boots, Mary; I'll brush them myself."
Again Mrs. Shafto could not trust her own ears. She had cleaned her
husband's boots for him every day ever since they were married, even
when her work was very pressing; and he had never offered to brush them
before. Now she saw him carry them away into the little scullery behind
the kitchen, and presently he returned with them on his feet. He held
himself more upright than usual, and there was a light in his eyes, as
if they really saw what was lying before them.
"You're sure there's nothing amiss with you, Mr. Shafto?" she said
again, with more anxiety than before.
"Nothing that you can set right," he answered; "but, please God, it
will come right by-and-by. Good morning, my dear; don't expect me to
dinner. Good-bye, Johnny."
They followed him to the shop door, and watched him crossing the
grave-yard with a firmer and brisker step than John Shafto could ever
remember in his father. But Mr. Shafto felt almost dazed when he
turned into the bustling, working-day streets. He had remained so long
indolently at home, except on a Sunday, that it was altogether a new
thing to be pushed and jostled about as he threaded his way slowly
along the crowded pavement. More than once he felt that he must give up
his purpose, and go back to his quiet corner and his easy arm-chair,
where he could stretch his tired legs across the hearth, and be warm
and comfortable. The noise and hurry wearied him; and his head ached
with the constant rattle and roll of wheels along the streets. What he
was doing would be of no benefit to himself, or to any one belonging to
him. A strong temptation came over him to return. What was Sandy, or
what was little GIP to him, after all?
"What were you to Christ?" asked the still small voice that haunted
him. "What were you to Him, that He should seek after you? Was it any
benefit to Him that you should be found and brought back to God? Did He
leave nothing, give up nothing, to save you? Was all the world pleasant
and smooth to Him whilst He sought you? Go home to your own ease and
comfort, if you will; but do not think He will own you as one of His.
Remember what He said, 'Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord! Lord!
shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of
my Father which is in heaven.'"
Mr. Shafto plodded on through the noisy and dirty streets, in spite of
his weary limbs and aching head. He pursued his way resolutely amid
the throngs of people and conveyances, looking carefully through his
short-sighted, dim eyes at every boy who was selling fusees, and asking
one now and then if he knew anything of Sandy Carroll. None of them
knew Sandy Carroll, though, if he had enquired for "Carrots," many
could have given him the information he wanted. There seemed to him a
vast army of fusee boys and newspaper boys, who quickly caught his eye
turned upon them, and pursued him instantly as a possible customer. He
felt badgered and worried, but he would not give up his search.
He turned at last towards the neighbourhood where Sandy had lived, and
wound his way in and out among the back slums and alleys, asking many
a question of the terrible-looking women dawdling about them. There
was something in his solemn face and voice which impressed them, as if
they thought him some important personage going about in disguise, and
they were mostly eager to tell him all they knew and suspected of Nancy
Carroll. There was not very much doubt among them that she had made
away with Gipsy, perhaps in a drunken fit, scarcely knowing what she
was about. But she had quite disappeared from her old haunts, and Sandy
had not been seen since Sunday evening.
The policeman on that beat knew nothing more than the neighbours; for
since Sandy had positively sworn that the murdered child was not his
sister, the enquiry after his mother had ceased. "There was no chance,"
he said, "of finding the missing child now that more than a week had
passed by with no news of her. She was dead, without doubt, by this
time, whether she was murdered or no."
It was quite late in the afternoon when Mr. Shafto reached home again,
so worn-out with his unusual exertions that he could scarcely drag one
foot after the other. Heart sore, as well as foot sore, he was. He
had seen strange sights that day—women lying drunk upon the pavement,
unable to reach their own miserable homes, and hide there; children
shivering with cold, and starved almost to skeletons. Once when he had
sat down on a doorstep, too weary to go farther without resting a few
minutes, a child had called to him through a broken cellar window,
begging for a morsel of bread. He had made a pilgrimage through some
of the dreariest places in the great city; and he went home forgetting
himself in the thought of the sin and misery seething about him.
He was very quiet as he sat in his arm-chair, watching Mrs. Shafto get
ready the tea. Both she and John guessed he had no good news about
Sandy; and they did not venture to ask him where he had been looking
for him, lest he should answer in a vexed and angry manner. But he did
not stretch out his tired legs so as to take up all the hearth; and he
smiled faintly, as if it were a difficult thing to smile, at his wife's
attention to him.
"Johnny," he said, "don't you hear a little noise in the chapel yard?"
John Shafto had heard a slight, very slight sound about the shop
window, as if a dog were prowling round it. But, until his father
spoke, he had not liked to move, lest it should disturb him. Now he
drew his crutches to him with readiness, and started off to see what
this unusual noise might mean.
He returned in a few minutes, his face glowing with pleasure, but with
a little hesitation in his manner. Mr. Shafto had just begun his tea;
but he put down his knife and fork, as though he would not listen to
John's intelligence whilst he was eating. His wife could not understand
what this change might mean.
"It's Sandy, father," said John; "he won't come in."
"But he must come in!" exclaimed Mr. Shafto, eagerly. "Mary, my love,
do you go and make him come in. Perhaps he would give me the slip if I
went, and I could never catch him if he took to running. We must have
him in."
Mrs. Shafto had not waited to hear all he said, but was already at the
shop door, with her hand on Sandy's arm, urging him to come inside,
and not listening to any objection from the boy. Not that he wished
to make any objection, for he had been longing to have a look at John
Shafto and a word with him all day. He followed her with timid steps
and hanging head into the kitchen, where Mr. Shafto was sitting.
"Come up to the fire, my boy," said Mr. Shafto, cordially; "there's
plenty of room for us all. And, Mary, pour him out a cup of hot tea to
warm him. He's welcome to it. Johnny, sit down to the table, and let us
all be comfortable together."
Sandy hardly knew what to do; but at a quiet sign from Mrs. Shafto,
he sat down on a stool near the fire, and took a large cupful of tea
from her, without a word. All this was quite different from what he
had expected when he had stolen across the grave-yard, and scratched
against the window, and whined like a dog, in the hope that John Shafto
would come out; ready, if Mr. Shafto appeared, to hide behind one of
the tall head-stones. It was so different, too, from hanging about the
bakers' shop windows till they were closed, and then going to sleep in
a cask. So different! He wished it could only last.
"Sandy," said Mr. Shafto, when tea was over, "I've been searching for
you all day to tell you that it is all true what my Mary and Johnny
believe. It is true that God sees and hears all, and that He loves you
as much as He loves the Queen upon her throne. It is true that the
Lord Jesus Christ is seeking to save you, and your mother, and little
Gip, as much as if you were as rich and learned as anybody in London.
He's been seeking me many and many a long year, but I've been keeping
back from Him; I did not want Him to find me out in my selfishness and
idleness. But He has found me to-day, and shown me what I am; and I
believe He sent you here to help me to find myself out. It is not much
that we can do for you, at any rate, till I can get some work; but what
we have, we will give to you; and please God, Sandy, we'll help you to
find both Christ and little Gip."
Mrs. Shafto was wiping away her tears quietly; and John pressed close
to his father's side, and slipped his thin hand into his. It was one of
the happiest evenings they had ever known, whilst they discussed ways
and means of how Sandy could be clothed, and taught, and put into some
way of getting his living, less uncertain than selling fusees.
"Mary, my love," said Mr. Shafto, as bed-time drew near, "would it do
for Sandy's mattress to go into Johnny's room, beside his bed? For we
are not going to let him live in the streets again. I'll come upstairs
with you, and see what can be done."
That night Sandy slept in a corner between John's bed and the wall,
where the low roof slanted over him. If John lay awake in the night,
he would never again feel lonely; and if Sandy roused up out of his
sound slumbers, he would know that John was close beside him. Both the
boys were filled with delight at this arrangement; but it was John who,
during the sleepless and painful hours of the night, thanked God again
and again for having given him Sandy for a companion and friend.
———◆———
CHAPTER XII.
TWO MOTHERS.
BUT Mr. Shafto found it no easy task to shake off the chains of
idleness and selfishness which he had allowed himself to be bound by
so many years. One effort and one day's labour did not set him free;
the habits of his life were too strong for that. Besides, he had no
real business to turn to. He had taken up with the undertaker's trade
out of sheer idleness; and since the grave-yard had been closed, and
no funerals permitted in it, all his chance of employment in that way
had gone. This he had not cared about, so long as his wife's industry
had supplied him with his own comforts. The little house they lived in
belonged to turn having come to him from his grandfather, the minister,
whose smoky tablet still remained on the chapel wall. It was not much,
he had often said in his heart, for his wife to earn the mere food and
clothing.
So now there was positively no work he could do. He sauntered about
looking for Gip a little; but there was no hope of success to encourage
him. After he had been to a few police-stations and workhouses with
Sandy, it seemed nothing but a waste of time to go on strolling about
the streets enquiring after a child who had been lost so long. Even
Sandy began to feel this, though he could not bring himself to give up
the hope of finding her somewhere and somehow. Whenever he caught sight
of a tiny ragged girl, or heard the voice of a little child, he could
not help looking and listening if it were not his little Gip. But he
had not much more time for the search; for Mr. Shafto found regular
work for Sandy, though he could find none for himself.
This was in a wood-yard, where a number of poor friendless boys were
employed in chopping wood, and tying them into bundles of chips for
lighting fires. It belonged to Mr. Mason, the young gentleman whom
Sandy had heard preaching that Sunday he first met with John Shafto.
Fortunately for him, there was a vacant place which Mr. Mason could
put him into at once. So there he was, in regular work, with small but
regular wages; a night-school which he was expected to attend; and the
prospect of soon gaining enough to live upon in more comfort than he
had ever known.
"If it weren't for little Gip," said Sandy to John Shafto, "I'd be as
happy as a king. I can't b'lieve it's me at times. But there's little
Gip; she's never out of my head. I'm afeard she'll grow out of my
knowledge if I don't come across her soon. It come over me sometimes,
s'pose I never see her again for years and years, till she's growed up,
and then I don't know as it is Gip? That scares me so I'm ready to run
away from the wood-yard, and never leave off going about the streets
till I find her. She can't grow out of His knowledge, though, can she?"
"Whose?" asked John Shafto.
"Him! Lord Jesus, as is lookin' for her as well as we. He'll be sure to
know her, won't He? I only wish I could see Him just for once, to tell
Him all about her. I'd like so to see how He looks, when He hears me
tell of her. It's so drefful hard to shut my eyes, and speak to nothink
like, when I talk of little Gip. If I could only look in His face, and
hear Him say, 'Never you fear, Sandy, I'll find her, and keep her safe
for you,' just for once, you know, I'd be content."
"But He is doing that," answered John Shafto; "wherever little Gip
is, He's taking care of her for you, and will let you have her again
some day. We can never, never see His face here; but I shall see it
by-and-by, and perhaps tell Him about Gip myself."
"You'll have to die to do that," said Sandy, very gravely. To think
that John would tell the Lord Jesus Christ about little Gip was a great
comfort to him; but he could not bear to think he must lose him himself.
"Yes," said John; "but if it wasn't for mother, I shouldn't mind that.
I've always been used to think of it, ever since we used to play about
the graves, and learn our letters on the tombstones, me and the other
children who are dead. At nights when I sit up in bed, I can see the
graves through my window. I'm not afraid at all of those things, Sandy;
and now you're come, you must take my place, and grow up and be a good
son to poor mother."
"And when I find little Gip, she'll be her little gel," answered Sandy,
eagerly. "I don't believe as mother 'ill ever turn up again now, do
you? I couldn't be the son of two mothers."
That was Sandy's secret dread, which haunted him day by day as he went
to and fro about his work. He was always fearing lest his mother's hand
should seize him by the collar, and hold him fast whilst she searched
his pocket for halfpence; or that she would strip him of his decent
working jacket, and pawn it at the nearest shop. He was sure she would
dog him to his new home, and molest his friends there, till they would
be compelled to give him up to her, and he would be driven back into
the old wretchedness and degradation. It was a great terror, constantly
besetting him; and whenever he had to pass the swinging doors of the
gin-palace, which were not far between in the streets he had to walk
along, he would dart by quickly, as if it were the den of some ravenous
beast of prey, lying in wait to devour him.
"Lord," he said often in his prayers, "let mother be lost always, and
never be found again; but please find little Gip for me soon."
———◆———
CHAPTER XIII.
JOHNNY'S SUNDAY SUIT.
IT was strange how the thought of little Gip took possession of John
Shafto's mind. The winter days, dark and cold, had fairly set in,
and he could not creep along the streets with his crutches, looking
wistfully at the ragged children whom he found in numbers about them.
Yet if the summer warmth had filled the air, he could no longer have
gone in search of her, for the little strength remaining to him was
slowly ebbing away; and he was surely going down to the grave, the dark
passage through which he was to reach his Father's house beyond.
But he scarcely seemed to feel the painful steps of the journey he was
making, so full was his mind of little Gip. Perhaps it was because he
and Sandy talked of little else; or because there was always a faint
vague hope in his heart that when Sandy came in from his work in an
evening, he would bring the joyful news that Gip was found. With this
hope stirring in him, he never missed watching for Sandy's return;
and when the usual hour would come, he turned the gas in the shop
window higher, so that Sandy might see his face looking out beside the
hatchment as soon as he turned into the grave-yard.
A whistle would bring him to the door in time to open it as Sandy
reached it; and he always looked to see if there were not a little
tattered figure standing beside him in the darkness. But Gip was never
found; and the hearts of both boys grew hopeless and very sorrowful
about her.
Mrs. Shafto thought but little of Gip in comparison with her boy, who
was so soon to be lost to her. She kept her kitchen cheery and cosy,
and wore blue ribbons in her cap, and tried to wear a smile upon her
face for Johnny's sake; but no one knew how heavy and sad her heart
was at times. She must keep up, she said to herself, lest she should
make her boy miserable and low-spirited on her account; but it was very
hard work. Mr. Shafto could not master himself as she did, having had
no long practice in self-denial; and often he would sink down in his
easy-chair, hide his face in his hands, and groan aloud when he thought
how soon John would be gone away, and he should never more hear the tap
of his crutches about the house.
Sandy was the greatest comfort they had, coming in fresh from his
work, with all sorts of bits of news picked up in the street or at the
wood-yard, and with curious questions to ask, which diverted them all
from their own sorrow. The evenings, when he was sitting with them by
their fire, were far less sad than the dark days.
At last the time came when John Shafto had not strength to rise from
his bed and come downstairs to the cheery little kitchen, which had
been kept so bright for him. He could only lie still now in the low
room, with its shelving roof and the dormer window, from which he could
see the gravestones. The change frightened Sandy, though he could not
bring himself to believe that Johnny was going to die, while his face
was so happy and cheerful, and his weak voice so pleasant. When the
warm weather came again, he said, Johnny would be sure to feel better,
and get about once more. He could not bear to think of losing him as
well as little Gip.
"Mother," said John Shafto one Sunday morning, after he had lain in bed
some days, and knew that he would never more get up and walk about upon
his crutches, "mother, you'll take to Sandy, instead of me? I'm always
saying to myself, Sandy 'ill be like a son to her, and she'll be his
mother when I'm gone."
"You're not gone yet, dear heart!" she said, stroking the soft hair
from his forehead, and speaking as calmly as she could.
"No, but I'm going, mother," he answered; "and I like to think of you
having Sandy to take my place."
"He'll never take your place, Johnny," sobbed his mother.
"Not just at first, but by-and-by he'll be like your own son,"
continued John Shafto; "he'll be a good boy, I know, for he loves to
hear me tell him of Jesus Christ, and he's beginning to understand it
all better now. Mother," and John put his arm fondly round her neck,
"I want you to let Sandy have my Sunday clothes, and let me see him
go to chapel with father. I could watch them go across the grave-yard
together, if you'd only raise me up in your arms for a minute."
"Oh, Johnny, Johnny! I cannot!" she cried, falling on her knees, and
hiding her face on her boy's pillow.
He stroked her cheek tenderly with his wasted fingers, whispering,
"Poor mother, poor mother!"
It was a long while before she could recover herself, or finish a
sentence when she began to speak it, but at last she conquered her
tears and sobs.
"Do you wish it very much, dear heart?" she asked. "It would be hard to
see Sandy in your Sunday suit, but if you really wish it—"
"Oh, mother, I do," he said: "it's as if Sandy was my own brother, and
little Gip my sister. I think of them so when I lie awake of nights. I
feel as if I almost knew how Jesus longs to find those who are lost,
and have them with Him in heaven. I found Sandy, and now it seems as
if he belonged to me, and must share all I have. If we could only find
little Gip before I die!"
It was a very sore trial for Mrs. Shafto, but she went through it
bravely for Johnny's sake. She brought out his Sunday suit from the
drawer in her own room, where she kept it neatly brushed and folded up;
and she looked for a clean collar and a necktie, such as John Shafto
had been used to wear. It seemed almost as bad as stitching Johnny's
shroud—a sorrowful task that would fall upon her before the spring was
over. She laid them on his bed; and then went downstairs to find Sandy,
and bid him go and dress himself in her boy's best suit.
This was a very important and difficult business to Sandy, and John
Shafto lay watching him with quiet but very great delight. His old rags
had disappeared one by one, and he had learned to keep himself clean
and tidy; but he had never put on any clothes at all to be compared
with these, though they were rubbed a little at the elbows and knees,
and all the seams were somewhat frayed. He brushed his hair before the
small looking glass, and tried anxiously to part his rough, strong
curls as smoothly as John Shafto's fine and thin hair. Very carefully
and slowly he put on the clean white collar, and did his best to fasten
the blue necktie under his chin as neatly as John would have done. But,
after all his efforts, he felt sure he did not look like him, and he
was almost ready to cry with vexation and disappointment. His brown
healthy face and rough hands were very different from John's delicate
appearance.
"Come here, Sandy," said John Shafto, in his low, feeble voice: "come
here, and kiss me."
He had never asked him to kiss him before, and Sandy felt frightened.
But he bent over the pale, sunken face, and touched it as softly with
his lips as he had been used to kiss little Gip when she was asleep.
"Why, nobody 'ud know you now," said John, looking at him with critical
and admiring eyes. "I don't believe your mother 'ud think who it was if
she met you in the streets dressed like this."
"But little Gip 'ud never know me!" cried Sandy, dejectedly. He was
proud of his new clothes; but if they were to stand in the way of his
finding Gip, he would rather return to his old rags. He began to think
that perhaps he was out of the way of finding her, now that he had been
lifted out of their old life. What good would it be to him if he lived
well, and had a comfortable bed to sleep on, and wore fine clothes, if
his little Gip were starved, and cold, and almost naked? He would give
up all, even Mrs. Shafto and his friend Johnny, and go back and down to
the former degradation and misery, if he could only save Gip by doing
so.
"But you'll know little Gip," answered John Shafto: "you couldn't pass
by her, and not know her."
"Ay!" said Sandy: "I'd know her if there were thousands and thousands
of little gels; I'd pick her out among 'em all."
"That's how it is," murmured John Shafto; "we don't know Jesus Christ,
but He knows us. I see plainer how it is. He is seeking us just as you
are seeking Gip. All the world is like little Gip to Him, lost, and
miserable, and starving; and He couldn't be happy, even in heaven, till
He has found us. I think He must be troubled, like you are, about Gip;
but he will find us all some day, though we do not wish Him to find us."
"But can He find us when He likes?" asked Sandy, lifting up his
sorrowful face to look at John.
"Not when He likes," answered John, "or all the world would be safe and
happy now. It's like as if little Gip kept running away from you, and
hiding herself anywhere she could out of your sight. That would be very
hard for you, wouldn't it?"
"Ay!" said Sandy, with a heavy sigh. "But little Gip 'ud never do that
with Sandy."
"But that's what we do with the Lord Jesus Christ," continued John
Shafto, solemnly; "we run away from Him, and hide anywhere, anywhere so
that He should not find us. Oh! Sandy, if all the world would only be
found by Him!"
"I'll be found!" cried Sandy. "See, Lord Jesus! I'm lost from You like
little Gip from me. Find me, wherever You are: find me, and let me
never be lost again. And when You've found me, please let me find my
little Gip."
"Amen!" whispered John Shafto, his face smiling brightly. "He'll find
you, Sandy, never fear; and little Gip as well. Now go down, and I'll
watch you and father walk together across the yard to chapel."
Sandy stole slowly downstairs, half ashamed of his new costume; but
when he stepped into the kitchen, and saw Mrs. Shafto at the sight of
him fall into a chair, and cover her face with her apron, he forgot all
about it, and ran to her side.
"Has anythink hurt you?" he asked earnestly. "Isn't there nothink as I
can do for you? I'm very strong, and I'd do anythink in the world for
you and Johnny. Only you say the word. What are I to do?"
"Nothing!" she answered, still sobbing, and laying her head upon his
shoulder, upon Johnny's jacket.
Whilst Sandy, in utter amazement, ventured to touch her blue ribbons
gently with his finger.
"Nothing, my boy. Only I saw you come down in these clothes, and you
looked partly like Johnny, and yet so very, very different! It's not
all trouble, dear heart! that I'm crying for. I know where he's going
to, and I'm sure you'll be a good boy; but I can't help crying a
little. There, you must go now; Mr. Shafto's quite ready, and it's high
time you were off; and I'll run upstairs, and hold Johnny so as he can
see you."
So John Shafto, held up in his mother's arms, watched Sandy and his
father walk together side by side across the grave-yard. When they
reached the tablet on the chapel wall, Mr. Shafto paused a moment, and
Sandy, turning round, waved his cap for John to see him, though it was
impossible for him to catch a glimpse of John in the dark, low room.
"He'll be a good boy, I know," murmured John Shafto; "and now, if he
could only find little Gip!"
———◆———
CHAPTER XIV.
PASSING AWAY.
BUT all this time, while John Shafto was drawing nearer and nearer
to the grave, and what lay beyond it, Sandy had never realized the
fact. He had often seen people as ill, who lay on comfortless beds
in crowded rooms, with faces quite as worn and pale, but without the
pleasant smile that always shone in John Shafto's eyes whenever he
looked at him. More than this, though John sometimes spoke of dying, it
was always as of something so familiar to him, and so little dreaded
by him, that it never seemed as if he meant the same gloomy thing as
death was when it came into the dark homes Sandy had known, and carried
away one after another to nothing else but the pauper coffin and the
forgotten grave.
The truth broke upon Sandy at last, with the shock of a great surprise
and bitter sorrow. He had bid Johnny good-bye in the morning, and gone
away whistling merrily to his work, dreading no trouble during the day.
But when he reached home again in the evening, he found Mr. Shafto
weeping bitterly, with his face hidden upon his hands, and his head
resting on the little table, round which they had been used to sit
together. The fire had burned low, and the ashes were strewn about the
hearth—all the room looked as if some sudden calamity had fallen upon
the house. The only light came through the door into the shop which he
had left open, through which could be seen the child's coffin lying on
the counter, and the rusty plumes hanging heavy and dark against the
wall. Mr. Shafto was groaning heavy heart-breaking groans, which made
Sandy shrink and shiver with a feeling of dread.
"Is there anythink very bad the matter?" he ventured to ask, after
standing silent for a little while.
"Is that you, Sandy?" asked Mr. Shafto, in a broken voice.
"Ay, it's me!" he answered. "Can I do anythink?"
"Johnny's wanting you," said Mr. Shafto; "he's been asking all the
afternoon how long it would be before you came home."
Sandy scarcely heard the last words, for he was already mounting the
winding staircase with a swift though quiet footstep. The low room
where he and John slept was lighter than the kitchen below, though dim
enough with only the light of one candle. But he could see John's face,
white and shining, with a brightness in the eyes such as he had never
seen there before, and a look which seemed all at once as if it must
break Sandy's heart.
"Oh, Johnny!" he cried. "Little Gip's lost; and now you're goin' to die
and leave me!"
He fell down on his knees at the foot of the bed, and buried his face
in the clothes. Was it not too dreadful to be true? The love he had
felt for little Gip had been transferred to John Shafto. After losing
her, his heart, which had been hungry for something to love, had turned
to him and clung to him as it had done to her. Very gradually he had
been comforted for her loss, though he had never ceased to think of
her; and now he was going away too! He did not see how he himself could
continue to live in a world where there was neither little Gip nor John
Shafto.
"Sandy!" said a very feeble, very low voice. "Sandy!"
"I can't let you go!" cried Sandy, "don't you die, Johnny. Don't you
go away and leave me. What am I to do if you die, and I can't see you
again, never? Oh, Johnny! don't you die, and leave me."
"Sandy," said John's failing voice again, "I must die; and you'll have
mother, you know. She's promised me to be like your own mother, and I
want you to promise you'll be like me to her. You must take my place.
Oh, Sandy! I shall die happier if you promise always to love mother,
and be like a son to her."
"I can't be like you," answered Sandy; "I'm not good, like you. I don't
know hardly anythink yet about God, and Jesus, and heaven. If it hadn't
been for you, I shouldn't have known anythink about it; and I'm afeard
I shall forget it all if you die, and go away."
He could not bear the thought that he should forget God; yet it seemed
in this hour of darkness that if John Shafto died, he must fall back
into the old ignorance and wickedness, and know nothing more than the
sin and misery of this world. Who was to teach him as John had done?
Who would there be to tell him so plainly and so surely that the Lord
Jesus Christ, who was seeking him, was ready at every moment to take
care of him? He could not see Christ, nor hear Him; and if John were
gone, how could he feel certain that it was all true?
"Sandy," said John Shafto, "you love me?"
"Ay!" sobbed Sandy.
"You believe what I tell you?" he said again.
"Ay!" he answered.
"By-and-by," continued the faint, low voice, "You'll feel like that
towards Jesus Christ. It's just the same thing. You'll love me and
believe me after I'm gone, when you can't see me or hear me. And you
must love and believe in Him exactly the same, though you can't see
or hear Him. He loves you more than I do, a hundred times, a thousand
times more. I don't think it's a different kind of love, only it's a
thousand times more and better. He's done everything I've asked Him for
you, save one."
"What's that?" asked Sandy, lifting up his head to look with dimmed
eyes into John's face.
"I did so want you to find Gip before I died," he whispered; "poor
little Gip! I'd like to see her. And you'd have been so happy, it
wouldn't have been half the trouble to you for me to die. If she's in
heaven, I shall see her there; and perhaps Jesus Himself will show me
which one of the little children she is. I should tell her all about
you, Sandy. But if she's not dead, I did so want to see her just for
once."
"I've almost forgot what she's like," said Sandy, with some bitterness
in his tone; "I ought to have found her afore this, if I are to know
her again."
"Perhaps she's in heaven!" murmured John, and then his voice was
silent, and his languid eyes closed.
A shiver of dread ran through Sandy; but John had only fallen asleep
through weakness for a few minutes, and Mrs. Shafto, whom he had not
noticed before, leaned forward, and held up her hand to warn him not
to make any noise. He did not stir, and scarcely dared to breathe, but
knelt still, watching John with intent, eager eyes, as if he could not
bear to look away, and lose sight for one moment of that dear face,
which was so soon to be hidden from him.
"Sandy!" said John, waking and speaking again suddenly, as if he had
not been sleeping at all. "Do you see my mother?"
"Ay!" he answered, glancing towards her for a moment.
"You'll be a good son to her?" he said.
Sandy could not speak again, but he covered his face once more with his
hard brown hands.
John Shafto turned to his mother with a tender smile.
"I'll promise for him," he said; "he'll be a good son to you, and some
day you'll wear blue ribbons for him and be very happy again. Look at
him, mother. Why! isn't it something like what Jesus said upon the
cross to John? 'Behold thy mother!' And to His mother, 'Behold thy
son!' It is something like that. 'And from that hour that disciple took
her to his own home.' Sandy's sure to be a good son to you, mother."
"I'll take him in your place," said Mrs. Shafto; "but oh, Johnny,
Johnny! if the Lord had only spared you to me!"
They were silent again for a minute or two; and John Shafto, with his
feeble fingers, drew his mother's hand across his lips, and kissed it
tenderly.
"I'm not going just yet," he said soothingly; "we shall still have a
little while together. Mother, I wish I could see Mr. Mason again; but,
if I do, it must be soon. It will be too late to-morrow."
"I'll run and fetch him," cried Sandy; "he were askin' after you only
this mornin, and he'll be glad to come. Only don't you go while I'm
away."
He stopped for one moment to kiss John Shafto, with a sharp pang of
fear lest he should never see him alive again. Then he ran downstairs,
and rushed away through the dark street, at a swifter pace than he had
ever run before, crying to himself over and over again, half aloud,
"Johnny 'ill be dead afore I can get back again."
———◆———
CHAPTER XV.
FOUND AT LAST.
IT was nearly a mile to the street where Mr. Mason lived; but Sandy did
not pause to take breath in his rapid race. He tore along the pavement,
and dashed over the crossings, as he might have done if a policeman had
been in chase of him. When he reached Mr. Mason's house, he knocked at
the door with an earnestness that procured an immediate attention.
"I'm come for Mr. Mason!" he gasped. "John Shafto's dyin', and he wants
to see him."
"Master's not at home," said the servant; "he went out at six o'clock."
"Where's he gone to?" enquired Sandy, with a blank feeling of dismay.
"I'll go and ask," answered the servant, leaving him on the doorstep,
panting for breath, and sitting down to take rest for one minute.
It was very hard to find Mr. Mason gone out; for if he were not back
quickly, perhaps John Shafto would be dead, and he would never, never
hear him speak again. Would it not be best to return at once with the
news that Mr. Mason was not at home? But then John was so fond of him,
whom he had known and loved years before he had picked up Sandy in the
streets. And Mr. Mason would be deeply grieved if he found John dead,
without any good-bye between them. It would be a sore disappointment to
them both. Yet suppose neither he nor Mr. Mason could be in time, and
each of them lost the sad pleasure of seeing Johnny once more! Surely
it would not be wrong to go back at once, and make sure of it for
himself!
Sandy had not quite made up his mind, when the door was opened again by
the servant; and he sprang to his feet to hear what she had to tell him.
"Masters only gone to a farewell tea-meeting at Miss Murray's,"
she said. "She's going to start for Canada to-morrow with a lot of
children; and master's sending out two of the boys from his Refuge, so
he's gone to see them for the last time. It's about twenty minutes from
here, the place is."
"I know the place," interrupted Sandy; "we took a load of wood there
this mornin' for Miss Murray's boys to chop up."
"That's where master is at this moment," said the servant.
She shut the door again, leaving Sandy on the step, still uncertain
what to do.
It was a mile farther on, a long mile: and every step would increase
the distance between himself and John Shafto. He started back towards
home, and ran swiftly to the end of the street, feeling that he could
not go the other way. But he paused again there. How grieved John would
be! And Mr. Mason, what would he say when he heard John Shafto was
dead, without one word of good-bye? Would he suffer anything like the
sorrow he was feeling? Suddenly Sandy set off again in the opposite
direction, and did not waste another instant, or pause again, until he
reached the place where he would find Mr. Mason.
It was a large building—a home for destitute children, who found their
way to it from all parts of London. Every window was lighted up, and
there was a great stir about it, of people passing in and out busily.
To-morrow a number of orphan boys and girls, taken out of the very
gutters of the City, were about to start for a new home in Canada; and
many of their friends had met for the purpose of bidding them good-bye,
and giving them little keepsakes for them to remember the old country
by in after-life.
Sandy made his way to the entrance of the large room, where they were
assembled, but he could not push in at first, for the crowd in the
doorway. He could hear Mr. Mason's voice speaking; and he listened
impatiently. But he did not know that he might not be hustled out,
if he interrupted his speech, and perhaps be given in charge of the
policeman he had seen near the outer door.
By degrees Sandy pressed into the room, eager to catch Mr. Mason's
eye, and stop him in his long farewell speech to the boys and girls,
which was eating away the little time left to John Shafto and himself.
He could see the emigrants now; boys, like himself, who had known the
worst of the City life, and who had starved, and shivered in rags, and
slept out in the cold, and trodden the pavement barefoot never knowing
from day to day what they should eat, or where they should lay their
heads. And there were girls too, whose lives had been as bad; but who
were now sitting together in warm scarlet hoods and blue dresses,
making so bright a spot amid the dingy crowd that they drew Sandy's
eyes to them. He glanced at them for a moment, thinking how pretty
little Gip would look dressed so; and then he pushed still nearer to
Mr. Mason.
Now he could see Miss Murray herself, with a very little girl upon her
lap, the smallest and the youngest by far of the emigrants; a child in
a scarlet hood and blue frock like the others.
Sandy's eyes were fastened upon her; and he stood as still as if he had
been turned into stone, every other object vanishing quite out of his
sight. This little girl had her face towards him, a tiny face, but not
pinched like Gip's; a rosy face, with bright black eyes, and pretty
black hair curling under the scarlet hood. It could not be Gip! Was it
possible that it could be his little Gip? He dared not breathe or move.
But all at once she raised her little hands to her face, and peeped
through the open fingers at the people around her; just one of Gip's
pretty tricks, the very one he had taught her himself! No. It could not
be any other child than Gip!
"Gip!" he shouted suddenly, at the highest pitch of his voice, till the
roof rang again; "Gip! My little Gip!"
Mr. Mason stopped in his speech, and every eye was turned upon Sandy.
But he did not see a single face about him; no face but little Gip's,
with wide-open, searching, wondering eyes, gazing everywhere in search
of him. He heard no sound, except Gip's shrill little voice, calling,
"Here I are, Dandy! Here little Gip are. Where's Dandy?"
In another second, Sandy had forced his way to the front, and held out
his arms to Gip, who ran into them, with a shrill scream of delight.
[Illustration: In another second Sandy had forced his way to the front,
and held out his arms to Gip, who ran into them, with a shrill scream
of delight.]
He sat down on the floor, with her on his lap, and hid his face on the
little scarlet hood, scarcely knowing whether they had not both died,
and gone into that heaven of which he had only heard since he had lost
her.
"Oh! Dandy, Dandy!" cried little Gip, clinging to him with all her
strength. "Dandy's come back again to Gip!"
Sandy did not notice how quiet every one was around them. There was
no sound, except that of deep-drawn sobs; for many of the people who
had gathered round were in tears. Mr. Mason came down from the little
platform, where he had been standing, and laid his hand on Sandy's head.
"Is it your lost little Gip?" he asked.
"Ay!" answered Sandy, holding her tightly in his arms, and looking
anxiously about him to see if he could make his escape from the room
with her; "ay! it's my little Gip. Nobody mustn't take her away from me
again, you know. She belongs to me, and I'll take care of her now. She
mustn't be took off to Canada away from me."
"No, no," said Mr. Mason, "we will not take Gip from you, my boy. If
she goes, you shall go. But stand up, Sandy, and tell Miss Murray all
about her."
He rose to his feet very slowly and reluctantly, not loosening for an
instant his hold of Gip. All he could see was an indistinct ring of
faces of people closing him in, so that he could not get away; but he
spoke out in a loud, clear voice.
"Mother was always a-gettin' drunk," he said, "and one bitter night she
lost little Gip in the streets; and I've been searchin' for her up and
down, everywhere, ever since. If it hadn't been for Johnny Shafto, I'd
have died maybe. But I want you to let me take her, and keep her; and
I'll be very good to her. Gip 'ud never be happy without me; and Mrs.
Shafto and Johnny 'll be very good to her. Oh! if you please, Johnny's
dyin', and he sent me to ask you to come d'reckly."
"Wait one minute," said Miss Murray, as Mr. Mason was about to hurry
away. "I must tell my friends here how this little girl came under my
care. She was found crying in the streets one night by a girl who had a
sister in this Home; and she brought her direct to me. None of us could
learn from her either her name, or where she lived; and we kept her
with us, whilst I made every enquiry I could. I shall be sorry to go to
Canada without my little girl to-morrow; but Mr. Mason will take care
of them both, and perhaps they will come out with me next time."
Sandy heard very few of these words; for now his terror lest John
Shafto should be dead awoke again with greater force. If he were still
alive, he would see little Gip after all! He was all impatience to be
off; and in a few minutes he found himself, with Gip still in his arms,
sitting beside Mr. Mason in a cab, the driver of which had been ordered
to go as fast as he could to Mr. Shafto's house.
———◆———
CHAPTER XVI.
GONE.
THEY had to leave the cab in the street, and walk across the chapel
yard. A bright light shone through John Shafto's window, and fell upon
the gravestones and the almost level graves, covered with rank grass.
What a quiet place to live or die in, in the very heart of the City!
Mr. Mason trod softly, as if his step might already disturb the dying
boy; and Sandy tenderly hushed Gip, who was chattering merrily in his
arms. The kitchen was dark and empty, for Mr. Shafto was no longer in
the arm-chair in the warmest corner; and they passed through, and very
gently climbed up the old staircase. The door of John's room was open,
and they could see him before they entered, his head lying against his
mother's shoulder, and her arm about him, while the tears stole slowly
down her cheeks. John's white face still wore a smile lingering about
the mouth, though his eyes were closed. Mr. Shafto stood at the foot of
the bed watching him, as if he could not bear to lose one moment of the
few that were left in which he could see his boy's living face.
"John!" said Mr. Mason, very quietly, as he drew nearer to him, "John!"
"Sandy's found you!" murmured John, opening his heavy eyelids; "I
thought it would be too late. Where is Sandy?"
"I'm here, Johnny!" cried Sandy from the doorway. "Me and little Gip.
Little Gip's found at last, Johnny!"
"Little Gip!" he said, rousing himself. "Bring her to me for one
moment, Sandy."
"Gip must be very good," said Sandy, coaxingly, and pulling back the
scarlet hood from her small face, "Gip must love Johnny, and kiss him,
and say good-bye."
"Me be good," promised Gip, looking about her without any shyness; "me
kiss everybody, and say good-bye. Me go across the great sea to-morrow."
"No, no," cried Sandy, "little Gip's not going away; it's Johnny that's
goin'; and she must put her little arms round his neck, and kiss him;
there's a good little gel!"
He laid her down on the bed by Johnny, and the dying boy turned his
face towards her, while she put her arms round his neck, and kissed his
cheek gently, as if she knew how ill he was. He took her small, soft,
warm hand into his own chilly one, and held it fast, while Sandy stood
by, scarcely knowing whether joy or sorrow was nearest to him at that
moment.
"I'm so glad!" whispered John Shafto. "It's all true, every word of it."
"What is true, my boy?" asked Mr. Mason.
"That about Him leaving the rest, who are safe, and coming after that
which is lost," he said, compelled to pause often between the words to
gather strength to speak again; "and when He finds us, He is so glad!
He's more glad than I am! And He calls all the angels to Him, and
says, 'Rejoice with me.' All the world's like little Gip; but He'll be
gladder than we are some day when He finds us. It's all true."
"All true!" repeated Mr. Mason.
Sandy fell on his knees beside John Shafto, and stretched his arm over
him to feel little Gip.
Johnny's eyes rested on his face with a look of unutterable tenderness.
"He's taken care of little Gip for you," he said; "you must never
forget that, or leave off loving Him, though you cannot see Him. You'll
be like a son to mother; I'm leaving her to you."
"Oh! Johnny! Johnny!" said Mr. Shafto, in a lamentable voice, "I've
been a poor father to you, and a very poor husband to Mary; but say a
word to me, as if I'd been all I should have been. Can Christ save me
from my idleness and selfishness? If you could but live, and see what a
father I would be!"
"Have you been a poor father?" asked Johnny, smiling. "I never thought
that, never. But perhaps I've loved mother most; she's been so good to
me. She'll be good to Sandy and little Gip now."
There was so deep a stillness for some minutes after that, that all the
indistinct sounds from the busy streets seemed to grow and come nearer.
Gip lifted up her little head to look about her; but when Sandy held up
his hand, she laid it down quietly again on the pillow beside Johnny's
white, still face. His fingers dropped her tiny hand. Which of them
was Sandy to gaze at? Gip's rosy cheeks and glittering eyes, or John
Shafto's pale, cold face, with a film creeping over his sight, and the
smile dying away from his lips?
"Oh, Johnny!" he sobbed. "Couldn't you stay just a little bit longer?
Wouldn't you like to stay with little Gip just for one day? Don't die
to-day, Johnny, just when I've found my little Gip."
"I'm very glad she's found," he whispered, his lips so near to Sandy
that he could catch every word; "but I cannot stay. Lost and found!
Dead and alive again! Rejoice with me! He is saying that."
"Who says that?" asked Sandy; but there was no answer.
They were all looking at Johnny's face; even little Gip's black eyes
were fastened upon it, for it shone with a strange light. His lips
moved slowly, though Sandy himself could not hear what they were
speaking. His eyes shone with a steady beam of gladness. Then his head
fell lower upon his mother's breast; and she uttered a single cry of
great anguish, for she knew that he was dead.
———◆———
CHAPTER XVII.
A VISION.
LITTLE Gip's curly head was still resting very quietly on Johnny's
pillow, and Sandy's arm was stretched across his friend to touch Gip's
soft hand. But now Mr. Mason lifted the child from the bed, and told
him in a whisper to take her away.
He carried her downstairs into the dark and desolate kitchen below,
where the grey ashes of the dead fire held no spark of light or heat.
Could all that he had passed through that evening be really true? Was
this indeed lost Gip whom he held so closely to his heart? Little Gip,
for whom he had searched, with a heavy heart and a spirit bowed down by
dread, through so many long months, and in so many miserable places?
If it were true, why was he not leaping and shouting for joy? What was
it that made him sink down on the solitary hearth, with no other light
than the glimmer of the gas, burning amid the funeral plumes in the
shop beyond the kitchen, and hide his face on Gip's head, and break out
into deep sorrowful sobs? Oh, if John Shafto could only have lived one
day longer!
"Gip's goin' across the great sea to-morrow," muttered Gip, in a very
sleepy tone, as she nestled down comfortably on Sandy's lap.
He knew well that he was not about to lose her again in such a way, but
where was Johnny gone? What great sea had he crossed over? What strange
country had he gone to, where none could follow him at his own choice
and will? Sandy had learned by this time that the deep grave swallowed
up no portion of the real life, and that it was nothing more than the
poor shell of the body which was buried away out of sight. John Shafto
himself had already entered into some new, unknown dwelling-place; and
even whilst he was but stepping over the threshold of it, whilst he was
lingering for a moment longer with his mother and Sandy, he had caught
a glimpse of a face, and heard the first sound of a voice that he loved
more than he loved theirs.
Then, in the gloom and dusk, there came before Sandy a kind of vision
of what Johnny's friend must be—that Lord whom he had loved so deeply.
The face seemed to him to be something like John's face, with the
same tender, patient, even suffering look upon it, but with so divine
a smile lighting it up, that the suffering itself seemed to be a
gladness. He fancied, too, that he heard a very low and quiet voice,
saying, but whether in his ear or in his heart he could not tell,
"Sandy, I have taken care of little Gip for you, and given her back to
you; now I will take care of him until you see him again. Only love Me."
And Sandy whispered back into the gloom, "Lord, I will love You! Only
make me as good as Johnny."
Perhaps he was sleeping then, or he must have fallen asleep directly
afterwards on the hearth before the fireless grate, with Gip slumbering
soundly in his arms; for after a long while, he woke up suddenly, and
saw Mrs. Shafto coming quietly down the narrow staircase, with a light
in her hand. Her face was very white and sad, though there was no trace
of tears in her eyes. Sandy could hear the loud, heavy groans of Mr.
Shafto in the room overhead; but Johnny's mother did not sob: and but
for the whiteness of her cheeks, and the set sorrowful line of her
mouth, there was no sign to be seen of her grief. She came close to
him, and looked down pitifully upon little Gip. Then she stooped, and
lifted her gently into her arms.
"Poor little heart!" she said. "Poor dear little heart!" But there her
voice failed her, and her silent tearlessness passed away. She sat down
with Gip pressed closely to her, and rocked herself to and fro, and
cried out, with a passion of tears, "Oh! Johnny! Johnny! Oh! my last
child!"
Sandy did not know how to comfort her, or what to say to her. He stood
beside her, and put his arm about her neck, as he had often seen John
do, and drew her head to lean upon his shoulder. When her sobs grew
quieter, after a long spell of weeping, he ventured to speak at last.
"Mother," he said, thinking to himself that John Shafto would like him
to call her mother, "me and little Gip between us 'ill perhaps be as
good as Johnny to you. I'm going to try to be like him, I am; and I'll
teach little Gip everything as he's taught me. I promised him I'd work
for you, and take care of you, when you are too old to work any longer.
He used to say he were glad I were so strong; and not like him in that.
But I'm going to do all I can to be like him in everything else."
It was as much as Sandy's trembling lips could do to say all this.
And Mrs. Shafto, after another burst of tears, drew his face down
to hers, and kissed it silently. Then she undressed little Gip very
tenderly, not to wake her from her sound sleep, and Sandy carried a
light upstairs for her when she went to lay the child softly in her own
bed.
The door into the other room was half open, and he could see John
Shafto's head lying on his pillow, silent and still, yet with a smile
about his lips. And here was little Gip's round and rosy face, with the
eyelashes quivering as If she were just about to open her bright eyes,
resting peacefully on his mother's pillow!
It was a trying time for Sandy until the body of his friend was buried
out of his sight. To see little Gip playing about Mrs. Shafto, whilst
she was stitching John's shroud, was such a mingling of great pleasure
and great pain to him, that he could scarcely bear it. To hear Gip's
voice calling him from the dull grave-yard, and to find her watching
for him, and running to meet him, instead of John, with his pale face
and slow tread upon his crutches, made the coming home each evening a
moment of tangled trouble and delight.
But after the funeral was over, when the deaf and dumb and blind corpse
had vanished from the house, by little and little, he grew accustomed
to John's absence, and could take a pleasure in the merry presence of
Gip, with her pretty tricks and funny little ways, which often won a
smile into Mrs. Shafto's sad eyes. Mr. Shafto himself learned to play
with Gip, after his own grave and solemn fashion, and even taught her
to call him father. As for little Gip, she had altogether forgotten her
drunken mother, and knew of no other parents than these who had adopted
her.
But it was very disheartening to Mr. Shafto to be quite unable to find
any work for which he was fit. He had so long allowed younger men to
push him out of his place, that now he really wished to exert himself,
there seemed no room for him in the bustling city. He had grown rusty
through long indulgence in selfishness and indolence; and a hard fight
would it be to thrust his way into the crowded ranks of busy men. Sandy
could not yet gain more than his own living; and it seemed as if Mrs.
Shafto must continue to work hard, from early in the morning until late
into the night, to earn food for her husband and little Gip.
———◆———
CHAPTER XVIII.
LEAVING THE OLD HOME.
IT was a little sooner than usual one evening when Sandy returned from
the wood-yard, with a bundle of wood under his arm, which Mr. Mason had
sent for Mrs. Shafto. Gip was not yet waiting for him at the street
corner, ready to jump about him gleefully along the narrow pavement
which led across the grave-yard; and Sandy loitered for a minute to
give her time to see him.
The place had grown into a dear home for him. He knew every blackened
tombstone, and could read all the English words on the tablet in memory
of Mr. Shafto's grandfather. What a quiet spot it was! how little Gip's
laugh echoed round the high walls! And the fleeting beam of sunshine
that peeped round the angle of the tallest chimney, just about the time
when he reached the house, how bright it always seemed! He had ceased
to think that he had ever lived anywhere else. The small house, too,
looked more cheerful than it used to do; for the hatchment was gone,
and the plumes, and the child's coffin, which had so much distressed
little Gip that it had been disposed of immediately. The shop window
was quite empty now, except for the single announcement of "Pinking
done here."
Sandy was looking wistfully at this home of his, when Gip caught sight
of him, and ran to meet him with merry shouts and laughter.
But all that evening Mr. Shafto's face was more serious even than
ordinary. True, he nursed Gip on his knee, and at her urgent request
gave her one brief ride upon it; but it was evident that his thoughts
were elsewhere. Mrs. Shafto watched him anxiously, though it was a
long while before she ventured to speak; for she had not yet grown
accustomed to her husband's change of character.
"Is there anything the matter, Mr. Shafto?" she enquired at length.
"Mary, my love," he answered, hesitatingly, "what would you say to us
all four going across the sea to Canada next time Miss Murray goes?"
"Oh! no, John," she cried. She was thinking of her children's graves,
and of the old house where they had all been born, and had died. How
could she leave them?
"My love," he continued, "I wouldn't mention it if it could be helped.
But you must be told sooner or later; and perhaps it is better sooner
than later. I've been turning things over and over in my head, and I
don't see what we can do better than go to Canada, and buy a farm; and
all work upon it ourselves, you and me and Sandy."
"Buy a farm!" exclaimed Mrs. Shafto, while Sandy's face shone at the
mere mention of such a magnificent scheme.
"Dear me!" said Mr. Shafto. "After all I've begun to tell you at the
wrong end. Why, my dear, be brave now, and bear it like a woman! The
fact is, a railway is coming right through our grave-yard, and the
chapel, and our poor little house; so we are compelled to turn out and
leave it, you see. I'm to have £400 for my house and business; and with
that we could cross the sea, buy a small farm, and settle on it, all
four of us. You were born and bred on a farm, my love, and know how to
make excellent cheese and butter, and manage cows and poultry. Sandy
can chop timber famously, and he hasn't one idle bone in his body, nor
little Gip—I'll answer for her. And, please God, I'll turn my hand and
my head to doing anything that has to be done."
It was no wonder that both Mrs. Shafto and Sandy should be bewildered
at the sudden turn in their affairs. The house must be quitted; there
was no question about that, for they could not set a railway company
at defiance if they wished it. If, then, they were compelled to give
up the old home, why not make the change complete, and leave the noisy
streets of London for some quiet country home in the great new land
beyond the sea? The farm would be their own;—a place for Sandy and Gip
to grow up in, and live in perhaps for years after both Mr. and Mrs.
Shafto were dead.
When she came to think it over, Mrs. Shafto felt herself growing young
again at the prospect of having cows and poultry to look after, and
cheese and butter to make.
In three months' time, everything was arranged; their berths were taken
on board the ship that was to take out Miss Murray with another band
of destitute children. The goods they were carrying away with them
were all packed up—among them Johnny's crutches, which were to be kept
in some open place in their new home, where they would be always in
sight. The last day was come, and Sandy had been busy since very early
in the morning, journeying to and fro between their old home and the
Refuge, from which Miss Murray's emigrants were to start the next day.
It was evening now, and he was returning to sleep once more under the
roof that had given him shelter in the hour of his deepest sorrow and
despair.
The east wind was whistling shrilly down the narrow streets, and
meeting him with a biting chill in it round every corner; for it was
scarcely spring-time yet, and only the darkness of the winter was gone,
whilst the cold still lingered. Yet it could not make Sandy shiver, so
warmly wrapped up was he in the thick greatcoat Mr. Shafto had bought
for him in anticipation of the severe winters of the country they were
going to.
But the ill-clad people whom he met looked pinched and blue, and
slouched along close to the houses, as he could recollect doing in
the old times, which had almost passed away out of his mind. The
spirit-vaults were all full to the doors, as though every one who could
find a penny or two had crept into them for warmth; and Sandy felt a
vague sort of dread as he ran by, as he had done when he first went
to the wood-yard for work, before little Gip was found. But surely
his mother would never know him again for the ragged, barefoot, and
bare-headed fusee boy he was when she forsook him!
His vague fears quickened his pace, and he was running rapidly across
the grave-yard, when his quick eye caught sight of a figure sitting on
the ground under the chapel wall. His feet felt heavy as though they
would not move another step, and his heart seemed to stand still, for
a throb or two, and then beat painfully, till he could hardly breathe.
He felt that some great calamity to little Gip and himself was close at
hand. He did not turn quite round so as to face the figure, but he took
a stealthy sidelong look at it; and then stole softly onwards to the
shelter of the house, as he had been wont to creep cunningly away round
some street corner, whenever he saw his mother appear in sight.
There could be no mistake that the tattered and wretched woman, who was
half lying and half sitting on the rank grass, with her head resting
against the wall just below old Mr. Shafto's tablet, was his mother.
Sandy felt giddy and frightened. She had found out him and little Gip
at the last moment. Was she come to claim them both, and drag them back
to their old misery and degradation? She looked as though she were
asleep, for her head had fallen forward, and her thin bony arms hung
helplessly at her side. If she were drunk now, she would perhaps forget
what had brought her there, and crawl off to some of her old haunts as
soon as she was roused up again. The best thing he could do was to go
on noiselessly, so as not to disturb her, and close the door between
him and the hateful and dreaded sight. Then he must think how he could
save little Gip and himself.
Little Gip was nursing a doll on the warm hearth, where a bright fire
was burning for the last night; and Mrs. Shafto was busily packing
the bags they were to take on board with them for the voyage. It was
twelve months since Johnny had left them, and her face had grown happy
again, and her smile came almost as readily as it had done when he was
about the house. Sandy stood in the doorway, gazing at her with a great
sorrow and yearning of heart. Oh! if his mother had only been like John
Shafto's mother!
How he would have loved her, and worked for her!
But he could not get the sight of her as she was out of his head,
though he had shut the door and bolted it so carefully between her and
them. He could see her still, ragged and starved-looking, with her
withered face half hidden by the old black bonnet he recollected so
well. And the east wind was wailing through every crevice, and bringing
even a touch of chill to their pleasant fireside. His mother! He tried
to forget her as he played with little Gip; but he was on the alert all
the time; his eye upon the door, and his ear strained to catch every
sound. What ought he to do? What would John Shafto, what would the Lord
Jesus Christ, have him to do?
He went out into the shop after a while, and peeped through the window,
half hoping that she might be gone away. The night had set in by this
time, and it was quite dark; but a lamp at the corner of the chapel
had been lit, and he could see she was yet in the same place, and in
the same posture. Well, whatever must be done, little Gip must be
saved, even if he himself had to go away and dwell once more in the old
haunts. Gip must not be taken from Mrs. Shafto, though, maybe, he would
be compelled to remain behind in London to work for their drunken and
miserable mother.
But, by-and-by, as Sandy stood with his eyes fastened upon the
motionless figure, thinking bitter thoughts, another kind of fear crept
over him, which made him tremble so much that he could hardly walk
across the shop again and open the kitchen door.
"Mrs. Shafto," he called, in a husky voice. He had always said mother
to her since Johnny died, but he could not call her that now.
Mrs. Shafto came to him at once, with a look of great surprise on her
pleasant face.
"Hush!" he said. "Shut the door. Don't let little Gip know. Mother's
there, out in the yard, and I'm scared to death almost. What must I do?
She hasn't stirred since I came in more than an hour ago; and I'm more
scared now than when I first see her sitting agen the wall there."
"Are you sure it's your mother?" asked Mrs. Shafto, looking through the
window at the miserable creature.
"Ay, I'm sure and certain," he answered, bitterly. "She's found us
just at the last, and she's come to hinder little Gip and me going to
Canada. If she'd only leave Gip alone, I'd stay behind; but I could
never go without little Gip."
"No, no," said Mrs. Shafto, "she'll never hinder you from going with
us. I know how a mother feels; and the worst of mothers wouldn't do
such a thing as that. We'll go and talk to her; and we'll tell her
Mr. Mason will help her, and take care of her. And if she can give up
drink, we'll send money for her to come after us by-and-by; and, it may
be, some day you'll be proud of your own mother yet, Sandy."
She had opened the outer door, and was leading him across the
grave-yard to the corner where his mother lay asleep. Sandy almost
resisted the gentle force of her hand upon his arm; but when they were
quite close to the figure, and it did not move, though the wind ruffled
the ragged shawl a little, the vague fear that had taken possession of
him grew stronger, and began to have a definite meaning. Even a drunken
sleep was seldom as death-like as this.
"Mother!" he cried in a voice that trembled, "Mother!"
There was no answer. His mother did not lift up her fallen head.
Mrs. Shafto stooped, and laid her hand upon the thin shrivelled fingers
which hung down by the woman's side.
"Sandy! Why, Sandy!" she said quickly, "your mother's dead!"
Sandy's heart gave a great bound of relief. All his fear and dread were
gone in an instant. Little Gip was safe now for evermore. From this
time both she and himself would belong to Mrs. Shafto only, and could
call her mother, with no one else to have any claim upon them.
Yet the next minute he felt a sort of sorrow, very faint and fleeting,
as if, after all her wickedness, there was a little natural love for
his mother lingering in his heart. He knelt down by her, and drew the
old shawl more closely round her, as though she could even yet feel the
east wind blowing coldly about her.
"Don't let little Gip see her," he said, mournfully; "don't let little
Gip ever know. I'll run and fetch Mr. Mason, and he'll know what to do.
But I'd liked to have told her as she might come after us to Canada, if
she'd only give up the drink."
———◆———
CHAPTER XIX.
THE END.
NEXT day the Shaftos, with Sandy and little Gip, left London for
Liverpool, whence their ship was to sail. There were a hundred other
children, from the streets of our large cities going out to settle in
new homes in Canada. And Mrs. Shafto found so much to do among these
little ones, that she had not time to fret over the thought of Johnny's
grave, which she was leaving farther and farther behind her.
Mr. Shafto also had a good trial as to whether he was really conquering
his old besetting sin of selfishness and idleness, and he passed
through it triumphantly, to his own secret delight and the great
gladness of his wife.
Gip was the life of the party, growing prettier and merrier every day,
and Sandy's happiness was complete. A farm had been found and bought
for Mr. Shafto, by a friend of Miss Murray's; and before the autumn
came, they were settled in a log-house of their own, within sound of
the lapping of the waves of the Lake Huron.
The last time Sandy was seen by any of his English friends, he was
driving a yoke of oxen in a strong substantial waggon, with Mrs. Shafto
and little Gip seated comfortably in the back of it. He and Mr. Shafto
were taking it in turns to walk at the head of the oxen, and urge them
on over the rough roads. It was Mr. Shafto's turn to walk, and he was
striding along cheerfully, as though he had been used to hard work all
his life; his face was brown and sun-burnt, and the palms of his hands
were hard.
It was noticed that Mrs. Shafto had blue ribbons in her cap, and that
her cheeks were almost as rosy as little Gip's. Sandy had grown into a
strong, active boy, with a bright and happy expression on his face.
"Have you any message to send to Mr. Mason?" asked the friend from
England.
"Ay! tell him," said Sandy, "as I'm trying to be as good as John
Shafto. And tell him I'll never forget hearing him preach about the
Lord Jesus being lost, like little Gip. Father bought me the verse when
he went to Montreal, and it's printed in scarlet and blue and gold, and
hangs over our chimney-piece at home: 'The Son of man is come to seek
and to save that which is lost.'"
———————————————————————————————
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